Ascending in the elevator to the 59th floor, Alex unhurriedly took another sip of coffee from the mug so carefully brought to him by Elena and slightly danced in time to the rhythmic music playing in his earphones. Carelessly spinning Tseng's trophy fountain pen between his fingers, Alex took a short step aside so as not to accidentally stain his black sneakers.
For who could have thought that the elevator he intended to ride up to the 59th floor would turn out to be packed to the brim with uninvited guests thirsting to kill him. Ceasing to twirl the pen, Alex cast a short glance over his shoulder and surveyed the eight corpses of Deepground assault troopers on whose necks distinct traces of multiple deep punctures were visible.
Quietly chuckling, Alex turned away from the idiots who had simply been unlucky enough to find themselves in the same cabin with him, mentally noting to himself that Tseng's fountain pen had turned out to be incredibly sturdy if it had painlessly withstood such a severe crash test. Quietly whistling in surprise, Alex carefully slipped the pen into the breast pocket of his black shirt, thinking that very soon he would again have to make use of this useful item.
Again taking a careful step aside so that the spreading blood would not touch the soles of his sneakers, Alex for a moment pondered the idea of descending right now into the underground city of Deepground built directly beneath Sector 0 and settling accounts once and for all with all these brainwashed cutthroats.
For, as far as he remembered, the numbers of these bio-idiots exceeded three thousand people. However, this tempting thought flashed through Alex's head only for a brief moment — he clearly should not be distracted from the original route. He firmly intended to visit Reeve Tuesti before the emergency meeting of Shinra's top management began.
And this was only one of the points of his extensive plan — he still had to personally plan and prepare the evacuation of the kidnapped orphan children from Hojo's horrific laboratory, as well as supervise other important events that required his direct participation.
Reflecting on how to pull everything off and at the same time manage to do it all, Alex broke into a satisfied smile: an ideal plan had formed in his head — part of the current work could quite well be dumped on the others. Pulling his smartphone from his back pocket, Alex unhurriedly ran his finger across the screen in search of one particular chat.
"I hope you're not particularly busy right now, V. Your favourite brother urgently needs a small favour," Alex said aloud while typing a short message to his younger sister Valerie and simultaneously taking another sip of hot coffee.
Typing the message to Valerie, Alex was not entirely certain whether his younger sister was free at the moment. As far as he knew, Valerie disappeared far too often at work, immersing herself headlong in the fulfilment of various contracts not only in their native land but also in the Guild.
She regularly travelled through the most diverse worlds in the company of Angel, Malka, Göll, Alice and Nobukatsu as a self-proclaimed "envoy of the power of youth." Still sincerely failing to understand how the Maito Gai-obsessed Nobukatsu had wormed his way into an all-girl company, Alex sent the message to his sister.
To his great joy, the reply from Valerie arrived almost instantly — in the form of a single emoji with a thumbs-up. Having received clear confirmation that Valerie was not currently occupied with yet another random side job somewhere in the gallery of the multiverse, Alex sent the next message, detailing the essence of the required help.
Having waited literally a couple of seconds, Alex received a new laconic message from Valerie: she wrote that she was gathering the girls, taking all the necessary equipment and would arrive exactly at the appointed time. Not hiding a satisfied smile, Alex sent the precise coordinates of the meeting place, not forgetting to add separately that they should definitely bring a capacious truck for the evacuation of the children.
Not wishing to poke Fate in indecent places ahead of time, Alex calculated on temporarily leaving Jessie, Biggs and Wedge in the safe office of Mayor Domino. It was they who were to be directly responsible for the evacuation of the rescued children from the laboratory and then leave the Shinra building without unnecessary noise.
Alex perfectly remembered that the stubborn idiots from the main cell of AVALANCHE would also not sit idle and were about to arrange a full-scale assault on the headquarters as a bloody revenge for the destroyed Sector 7 Slums. And in the course of such a chaotic assault a whole heap of unforeseen things would guaranteed to occur which the Gray and Black Whisperers would gladly use against Jessie, Biggs and Wedge.
While Alex was entirely absorbed in these reflections, Valerie sent another thumbs-up, making it clear that the task was accepted and everything was perfectly clear. Smiling slightly, Alex hid the phone back in his pocket, and at that same moment the elevator emitted a ringing signal announcing arrival at the floor.
"Well, this is my stop, guys. Don't lie on the cold floor here too long or you'll catch a cold. Bye!" Alex said goodbye with a venomous grin, casting a short glance over his shoulder at the mountain of Deepground assault trooper corpses lying behind him.
Exiting the elevator, Alex did not forget carefully to press the door-close button and calmly took a step forward onto the glossy floor. Finding himself outside, Alex took another unhurried sip of coffee, patiently waiting for the automatic panels to close completely. And the moment the doors tightly met, a deafening metallic screech and crash rang out behind him — the supporting cable of the elevator snapped, and the cabin with the corpses inside whistled downward into the deep abyss of the shaft.
Heaving a satisfied sigh from the hot invigorating drink, Alex lowered his gaze and noticed with annoyance that the mug was already empty. Considering that one portion of coffee was clearly not enough for him, Alex with a light motion flicked his finger against the ceramic rim — and the cup in his hands at that same instant filled to the brim again with fresh, steaming coffee.
Taking another sip, Alex unhurriedly walked forward, deciding first to stroll to the panoramic observation deck and only then continue on his way. Arriving at the observation deck with the steaming mug in his hands, Alex immediately noticed the company employees clustered there. The people were sitting with frankly worried faces, discussing in low voices and with anxiety the events taking place below.
They were especially frightened by the garrison of Grunts who had arranged a real military parade at the main entrance: they had pulled up heavy armoured vehicles and completely blocked the entire square in front of the Shinra high-rise. Listening to these quiet panicked conversations in the background, Alex slid his gaze over the streets of Midgar spread out below. His gaze froze on the place where a massive Mako reactor had recently towered. In its place there remained absolutely nothing except a huge through-hole left after the explosion of the vacuum bomb.
Taking another deep sip of coffee, Alex turned away from the panorama of Midgar and headed toward the escalators to climb higher. Reaching the locked glass doors, he pulled Tseng's keycard from the breast pocket of his shirt and pressed it to the reading scanner, easily opening the passage.
Ascending, Alex mentally worked through the details of the forthcoming actions. In addition to subduing the main villains of this drawn-out story in the persons of Sephira and Jenova, as well as solving a heap of other problems directly connected with the survival of the Lifestream, he still had to close one more crucial question.
Stepping onto the escalator leading directly to the 63rd floor, Alex clearly understood: in the end the main threat to the planet would still remain the greedy people methodically pumping Mako from its depths. And that meant he would need to hold an extremely clear conversation with Rufus and literally on his fingers explain to him why pumping Mako was a very bad idea.
"Well, since he so passionately yearns for power — I will give it to him when the time comes. And then we'll see whether you can become the one who unites this fractured world and leads it into a new era. Or whether you turn out to be yet another arrogant idiot with an inflated ego, Rufus… In any case, it will be quite interesting to watch," Alex muttered with a barely noticeable smirk on his lips, bringing the coffee mug to his lips and taking the first step onto the 63rd floor.
Alex did not doubt that Rufus would certainly agree to such a deal — even if in his habitual cynical, cold and arrogant manner. But even despite this arrogant disposition, Alex believed that the future President of Shinra was capable of changing.
He remembered perfectly how in the future, already after the inevitable collapse of the corporate empire, Rufus would direct absolutely all remaining resources toward restoring the destroyed world. That was precisely why Alex was sincerely ready to make a serious bet on this still arrogant young man.
Pressing the trophy keycard to yet another reading scanner, Alex confidently stepped into the spacious office premises of the City Administration, which was permanently headed by Reeve Tuesti. Passing the open glass departments, Alex out of the corner of his eye observed the boiling work of the rank-and-file clerks who without interruption were taking anxious calls on the landline telephones and nervously bustling about, continuously typing something on their terminals. Moving toward the director's office, Alex hoped only that because of his recent delay he would still manage to catch Reeve before the latter left for the emergency meeting.
Reaching the required doors, Alex mischievously waved his fingers right in front of the face of the startled female secretary and calmly seeped through the solid wall. However, the moment Alex found himself inside the premises, a long sigh of sincere annoyance escaped from his chest. Reeve's office turned out to be completely empty — its owner had already managed to leave.
Heaving a dejected groan, Alex swaggeringly glided up to the desk, rounded it and sat down in the soft leather director's chair. Shifting his gaze to the glowing terminal monitor, Alex discovered with annoyance that Reeve had left his office literally a couple of minutes ago, heading to the board of directors. Occupying the owner's place, Alex leaned deeper into the chair back and out of resentment began cheerfully spinning on it in every direction.
"Well damn, that sucks!.. And I so sincerely wanted to chat with that very genius who created the cat Cait Sith! Damn! I soooo wanted to discuss with him the nuances of constructing such little ones and even show him my own!" Alex moaned offendedly, almost crying from annoyance at having missed Reeve by some miserable couple of minutes.
Continuing to rotate in the leather chair, Alex simply could not help emitting yet another sad sigh. In reality he was sincerely interested in Reeve not only as the genius creator of the talkative robot-cat sitting astride a plump Moogle. The main reason lay in the fact that Reeve was, perhaps, the only adequate and truly honest person in the entire top of Shinra.
One could without the slightest apprehension allocate him enormous resources for the restoration of the destroyed Slums and not worry that he would grab half of the allocated funds into his own pocket. Heaving yet another dejected sigh of disappointment, Alex stopped spinning in the chair and turned to Reeve's desk.
Pulling Tseng's trophy fountain pen from the breast pocket of his black shirt, Alex decided to leave the director a short message with an insistent request to contact him. He understood perfectly: as soon as Rufus finally occupied the President's chair, all gazes and resources of the top would be fixed wherever the new leader pointed.
And that would open unique opportunities before Reeve for large-scale restoration of the Spums. Leaving on a clean sheet of paper his personal PHS number and a brief essence of the matter, Alex carefully attached the note right to the centre of the terminal screen so that Reeve would guaranteed notice it upon his return. Alex was one hundred percent certain: Reeve would definitely call back if the question concerned the well-being of the Spums and the rescue of the people living there.
Having finished with all affairs in the office, Alex rose from the chair and unhurriedly approached the wardrobe. Pulling out a strict black jacket from there, he whistled a simple melody under his breath while putting it on, raked his hair back and perched neat thin-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. Sufficiently disguised as an ordinary office clerk, he was fully ready to ascend to the 64th floor where the board of directors meeting was about to begin.
"The others should be right now on this same floor, carrying out Mayor Domino's assignment to update the keycard… I sincerely hope we will cross paths with them," Alex quietly muttered, adjusting the sleeves of the borrowed jacket and heading for the exit.
Knowing that the others were right now on this same floor in the section of the wellness complex, Alex emitted a quiet chuckle: he was absolutely certain that Dean at that very moment was wildly irritated and going ballistic, forcedly playing the stifling mini-game called "How to update the keycard to go further."
Adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose, Alex confidently stepped forward and passed clean through the solid wall, not forgetting on farewell to wave his fingers mischievously again in front of the face of the completely stunned secretary — just in case, so that she would have no desire to blab to anyone about people walking through walls.
Unhurriedly moving along the corridor, Alex deftly snatched some folder with documents from a random table and businesslike tucked the papers under his arm in order to finally pass for one of their own. Counting on crossing paths with the others at the escalators, Alex pressed Tseng's keycard to the scanner, opened the glass doors and walked further.
Passing clerks hurrying about their business, Alex with a friendly smile politely nodded his head, greeting absolutely everyone with whom his gaze crossed even for a second. Stopping at a corridor fork, Alex for a moment pondered the idea of immediately dropping in on the others and meeting them right in the wellness centre.
However a second later a far more tempting idea came into his head — to playfully prank his friends. Mischievously chuckling to himself, Alex changed his mind and headed straight for the escalators in order to climb higher.
Passing the last office blocks, Alex frankly looked out for President Shinra who by all timings should have been about to pass here or have already passed this floor. Not noticing the old man, Alex only lazily shrugged his shoulders, stepped onto the escalator and rode upward.
Having risen to the 64th floor, Alex had only managed to step off the escalator steps when to his right there rang out the quiet hissing sound of automatically opening mechanical doors. Turning his head toward the noise, Alex instantly narrowed his eyes: from the opening unhurriedly emerged precisely the one who in his time had thrown the very first and massive portion of shit onto the fan of this story. And this person was none other than Professor Hojo.
He was clad in his invariable white laboratory coat under which a strictly ironed shirt with a blue tie showed, and on his nose perched thin-rimmed glasses with dark lenses. However even these dark glasses were powerless to hide the mad, fanatical gleam of his eyes. Heading toward the conference hall, Hojo held his arms crossed on his chest and rhythmically tapped his index finger on his chin, muttering to himself in a quiet ominous whisper.
"Yeees… This will definitely work. She will certainly come and will certainly bring this anomaly with her… Oh, how interesting your gaze will be, my dear Aerith, when you see with your own eyes how something infinitely precious to you once again disappears irrevocably! How incredibly interesting… Simply wonderful. Fly to me then, like naive moths to an open flame! Heh-heh-heh…" Hojo muttered with frankly mad relish, passing a few centimetres from Alex and not even deigning the standing "clerk" with a single glance.
Listening to Hojo's mad, sadistic muttering, Alex with the last of his strength tried to suppress inside himself the wild, all-consuming desire to approach and thoroughly thrash this mad bastard with full force. When yet another fit of Hojo's mad laughter rolled along the corridor, Alex jerked his neck, and his teeth clenched with a grind from the flare of rage.
For he had known perfectly from the very beginning: this psycho planned to use the unfortunate children not only as a banal bait to lure Aerith into his laboratory, but also in order to completely break her mind. For a fraction of a second Alex completely forgot about his own knowledge of the future — about the fact that all the kidnapped children would in the end survive and safely live to a ripe old age. In his head remained only one single bloody thought: to turn Hojo inside out right here and now.
Cracking his fingers, Alex took a sharp step forward and threw his hand toward Hojo's neck, who had just stopped in place, convulsing in another fit of mad laughter. But at the exact moment when his fingers had already almost closed on Hojo's Adam's apple, Alex felt dense long black hair instantly wrap around his arm and torso, forcefully pulling him back.
And simultaneously with this, dense clouds of Gray Whisperers began crawling out of the solid walls and the cast floor, ready at any cost to protect Hojo from a too early and unplanned death. Narrowing his eyes, Alex irritably gritted his teeth and was forced to turn away, allowing Zhang Ya to drag him back. The moment he lowered his hand, the Gray Whisperers quietly swirled in a dense swarm around Hojo's figure, after which they finally dispersed into the air.
Irritably clicking his tongue because this complete bastard Hojo was still critically important for the Fate of this world, Alex averted his gaze — solely so that the irresistible desire to tear out the professor's spine would not flare up inside him again. Hojo himself, finally having finished laughing, did not even understand what had happened. He felt only a strange gust of wind that slightly stirred the flaps of his white laboratory coat.
Slightly rubbing his dry fingers on his palm, Hojo glanced over his shoulder and briefly cast a look at Alex in the guise of an unremarkable clerk. Noticing absolutely nothing suspicious, Hojo as if nothing had happened headed into the conference hall for the forthcoming top meeting — an event at which he sincerely did not wish to be solely for one reason: it uselessly delayed his horrific research.
"Damn Gaia… What the hell are you even protecting this bastard for?! He's not nearly as important as you've hammered into your head!" Alex spat irritably, with angry annoyance cursing the living Planet that blindly protected its own Canon service, completely disregarding the sufferings of living beings.
Irritably cursing Gaia for her blind and stupid following of the original canon in absolutely all timelines, Alex clearly felt a swollen vein pulsing on his temple. Rubbing his boiling head, he accompanied the departing Hojo's back with a heavy gaze while long black hair of Zhang Ya was still tightly wrapped around his own body, preventing him from taking a single step forward.
Alex understood perfectly why Zhang Ya was holding him and not allowing him to carry out what he had planned in the form of an artistic tearing out of Hojo's spine. Taking a deep breath, Alex with all his strength tried to suppress the wild inner desire to erase Hojo's very existence from reality — together with the entire cause-and-effect chain that made this bastard important for the plot.
But if he took such a step, Lucifer would immediately jump out in front of him with furious shouts that the entire grand spectacle for which he had paid was hopelessly ruined, and would begin demanding compensation for "damage to a wounded black heart." Quietly grumbling under his breath that the conditions of the concluded deal must not be violated under any circumstances, Alex took a step forward, literally sensing in his gut how the second hell-steel karambit was slipping right from under his nose.
Not ceasing in his soul to curse Lucifer, Alex pulled out Tseng's keycard and pressed it to the scanner, opening the passage into the conference-hall lobby. Looking around, he spotted a convenient soft sofa with a glass side table hidden right behind a massive column not far from the entrance to the main conference hall.
Carelessly tossing the folder with the stolen documents onto the table, Alex leaned deeply into the sofa back, continuing to complain to himself that he could not off one single scoundrel because of a contract with his older brother who thirsted for spectacles.
"What a complete bastard you are after all, Lucifer… And I know one hundred percent that you're watching me right now. And clearly laughing like the last swine," Alex muttered with annoyance, gloomily examining the ceiling, and at that same moment his phone emitted a short ringing notification signal.
"Of course I'm watching, little brother! Don't you dare kill this mad scientist. For now," came an incoming message from Lucifer, from the reading of which Alex's right eyelid twitched even more strongly.
"What the hell is this 'for now'?! What the fuck?!" Alex hissed through his teeth, squeezing the phone body with such terrible force that it would have guaranteed shattered into tiny crumbs if it had not been originally forged for survival in extreme conditions.
"Exactly what it means! A deal is a deal, little brother. Fulfil it properly. Save this world with brilliance — get your prize!" an instant reply from Lucifer immediately arrived, at the end of which a cheeky emoji with a thumbs-up flaunted.
Looking at the mocking emoji with the raised finger sent by Lucifer, Alex at that moment again felt an irresistible desire to punch his older brother in his arrogant devilish mug. He was one hundred percent certain that this petty dirty trick was direct revenge for their previous brawl in the bar, even though he had honestly paid for all the damage caused to the establishment out of his own pocket.
Mentally putting a fat mark to himself at the first convenient meeting to thoroughly smash Lucifer across his insolent devilish face, Alex hid the phone deep in his pocket so as not to irritate his eyes with this message any longer. Leaning a little forward, he propped his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers under his chin, not taking his intent gaze off the heavy doors leading into the hall.
After a minute of agonising waiting the doors again automatically slid apart, and Scarlet appeared on the threshold. She was wearing the same habitual bright-red dress with a revealing décolleté, and on her face a contemptuous expression had frozen — as though exclusively scum and trash were around her. Narrowing his eyes, Alex with mild surprise noted that her habitual lapdog in the form of a Grunt who forever crawled and groveled after her on all fours was nowhere to be seen.
But right behind Scarlet's back Palmer was mincing along — with the contorted and pale face of a man who had just seen a real visitor from the next world with his own eyes. Surveying Scarlet with an evaluating gaze from such close distance, Alex simply could not help thinking how far she was from Integra, who was many times more beautiful and managed her own organisation far more effectively.
Scarlet herself cast a fleeting arrogant glance at Alex in the guise of an ordinary clerk, instantly considering him yet another grey and unremarkable plankton completely unworthy of her precious attention. Barely restraining himself from demonstratively rolling his eyes at such pomposity, Alex shifted his gaze to Palmer who was walking a few steps behind and nervously glancing over his shoulder.
"So he crossed paths with her not long ago… with Sephira. Interesting… I almost forgot that she too has begun making her first moves to change her own fate," Alex muttered in a quiet whisper, with interest observing the pale and twitchy Palmer.
Observing this colourful duo of Shinra directors, Alex slightly narrowed his eyes, and a small cunning plan instantly matured in his head. Since they had so shamelessly spoiled his mood, why not spoil someone else's? Slightly moving his fingers in the air, Alex did not even attempt to hide a sarcastic smile in anticipation of what was about to happen next.
At that same moment Palmer mincing behind Scarlet unexpectedly stumbled over his own feet when he once again panic-stricken glanced over his shoulder. Trying somehow to keep his balance, Palmer fussily shifted from foot to foot in a comical manner, but by inertia continued to rush rapidly forward.
Scarlet walking ahead heard Palmer's panicked yelps behind her back, and on her beautiful face deep contempt briefly slipped. She had already been unlucky enough to encounter him in the elevator and listen to nonsensical rubbish about the "resurrection of the dead Sephira," any memory of whom in the company had long been forgotten and thrown onto the rubbish heap.
Turning her head back in order once again to sharply rein in the abnormal colleague, Scarlet suddenly felt something forcefully nudge right into her buttocks, and her evening red dress stretched to the limit. Scarlet's face instantly became icy. Lowering her gaze downward, she saw how Palmer had smashed his shiny bald head precisely into the centre of her buttocks, and with his disgusting thick fingers had seized the fabric of her dress in a death grip.
Frozen in such an ambiguous pose, Palmer slowly raised his head and met a gaze from Scarlet so extremely cold that a wave of primordial fear ran down his spine which did not compare even to the meeting with the revived Sephira in the corridor of the 69th floor.
Looking at this repulsive physiognomy and the short fingers still squeezing her evening attire, Scarlet felt an indescribable wave of disgust and rage rising inside her. Not giving Palmer even a second for realisation, Scarlet seized the sparse tuft on the top of his head in a death grip and with disgust flung him onto the floor.
Painfully smashing his face against the polished marble, Palmer tried to wail and ask for forgiveness, insistently calling what had happened an unfortunate accident — for he really physically felt as though something unknown had pushed him in the back, as if for a second his body had ceased to belong to him. But Scarlet wished to listen to absolutely no excuses from one whom she sincerely considered a worthless worm.
With a disgusted grimace Scarlet drove her high sharp heel precisely into Palmer's nape, not forgetting to press harder with all her weight, from which he squealed from the flare of pain. Demonstratively stepping over the wailing Palmer, Scarlet with undisguised disgust on her face loudly reminded that this time his space department would lose an even greater part of its already cut budget. Hearing this sentence, Palmer only emitted a desperate groan of dull sorrow.
Snorting at the dwarf lying on the floor for the last time, Scarlet proudly entered the conference hall. Having lain a little longer on the cold marble, Palmer with a painful groan began scraping himself off the floor, with tears in his eyes rubbing the swollen red mark from the heel on his nape.
Feeling terrible pain in the region of the stolen budget, Palmer furtively glanced around, sincerely hoping that no one had witnessed his grandiose disgrace. And the moment he turned back, his gaze rested on Alex in the guise of an ordinary clerk who was swaggeringly sitting on the little sofa, propping his cheek with his palm and breaking into a satisfied smile.
"What department are you from?! Answer immediately! Although you know what?! I don't care! You're fired!" Palmer squealed, jabbing a trembling finger in Alex's direction and trying somehow to wash away his disgrace by taking it out on the first person who came to hand.
"No, not fired. But you can freely go fuck yourself, dwarf without a budget," Alex answered with the broadest smile, smoothly raising his middle finger toward Palmer.
Staring at this frank and unambiguous gesture, Palmer began squealing even louder, emitting ear-splitting sounds as though a pig being slaughtered. Looking at Palmer going into hysterics who continued furiously jabbing a trembling finger in his direction, Alex with the last of his strength restrained himself so as not to burst into deafening laughter throughout the entire lobby.
Disgustedly waving his hand and shooing the squealing dwarf away from himself like an annoying fly, Alex for the last time sarcastically spat that he could freely come straight to the Turks' office if he burned with such a strong desire to fire him. From such extreme insolence Palmer convulsed in a new fit of squealing, and his face instantly flushed crimson, becoming similar to an overripe tomato.
But before he managed to switch to the second stage of his ultrasonic hysterics, the heavy doors of the conference hall again instantly slid apart. From the opening a well-groomed female hand with impeccable red manicure lightning-fast shot out, seized the sparse thin tuft on the top of Palmer's head in a death grip and with a crack dragged his carcass inside the premises. Having managed to notice how the squealing director of the Space Department was unceremoniously being dragged by the hair into the conference hall, Alex could no longer restrain himself.
Burying his face in his palms, he shook with silent but unrestrained laughter. For in the very near future poor Tseng would have to deal with this hysterical squealing pig who would come running into his office with foam at the mouth and mad demands to immediately fire an employee who had never been on the Turks' staff at all.
Imagining what an epic headache awaited Tseng because of this misunderstanding, Alex with all his strength tried to suppress the furious fit of laughter that refused to stop. Trying not to attract unnecessary attention from clerks who might be passing through the lobby, Alex took several deep breaths, simultaneously wiping the tears that had appeared in his eyes.
With difficulty regaining his self-control, Alex managed to assume a serious expression at the exact moment when the massive hall doors opened once more, and President Shinra himself appeared on the threshold accompanied by Heidegger and a suite of elite bodyguards.
Dryly coughing for credibility, Alex made the most businesslike face possible and pretended to be deeply immersed in studying the documents from the stolen folder, simultaneously carefully listening in on the conversation of the top. The entire essence of their brief conversation boiled down to an ugly plan: to hang the absolute entire blame for the catastrophic collapse of the Plate in Sector 7 personally on Alex and the rebels from AVALANCHE.
"Yeah, so you all believed it at once… Only complete retards will believe your nonsense," Alex muttered in a quiet whisper, casting an empty, contemptuous glance at President Shinra and Heidegger majestically passing by.
Following with his gaze President Shinra and Heidegger entering the conference hall, Alex slightly grimaced. He did not even need to eavesdrop at the door — he knew in advance everything that would be discussed within these walls. The entire conversation of the top traditionally boiled down to the capture of Aerith so that she would show them the way to the so-called Promised Land where Mako energy gushed in unlimited pure springs straight from under the ground.
However, Alex clearly understood: in this specific timeline the corporate bosses would certainly raise the question about him and Dean as well. And most likely everything would boil down to capturing them both at any cost and using them as living weapons, and all thanks to the power they had managed to demonstrate earlier, which had been more than convincing for Shinra to develop the desire to seize them.
Shaking his head at the absurdity of these plans, Alex once again heard the hiss of opening doors. Turning his head toward the entrance, he saw Claudia, next to whom Tifa was walking. Following behind dragged Barrett and Dean — and on the face of the latter such enduring melancholy had frozen as though he had been dragged against his will through an endless museum tour while forgetting to give him even a snack.
Closing the procession were Aerith and Yuffie who were animatedly whispering about something. Narrowing his eyes, Alex immediately noticed that Jessie, Biggs and Wedge were not among them, although this trio should also have come together with everyone. The first thought that matured in Alex's head became the suspicion: it was Aerith who had somehow cunningly convinced the guys to remain in the safety of Mayor Domino's office.
Slightly shaking his head, Alex continued to observe the approaching friends who still had not paid any attention to the simple "clerk" sprawled on the leather sofa. Alex was sincerely interested in how many seconds it would take them finally to realise that before them was their comrade and not random office plankton with a folder of papers.
"Do you think Professor Hojo is already there?" Tifa asked quietly, walking shoulder to shoulder with Claudia who did not take her tense gaze off the heavy doors of the conference hall.
"Yep, he's there. Went in literally a couple of minutes ago," Alex interjected into the conversation so that they would finally pay attention to him.
"Um… Alex?! Is that you?" Tifa asked in a embarrassed tone, turning her head toward the voice and only now making out his specific outfit.
"Yep, it's me. Who else would be sitting here with such a solid folder of stolen documents?" Alex answered in an exaggeratedly important tone, demonstratively tapping a finger on the papers.
"Dude, what the hell did you change into office plankton again for?!" Dean inquired in a dry tone, surveying his image from head to toe with a disbelieving gaze.
"Exclusively for the sake of conspiracy! Well, and my previous clothes got a little stained after a series of not the most pleasant events," Alex answered with a light snap of his fingers, unhurriedly rising from the leather sofa and approaching the group.
"Yeah, we've already appreciated it! Now you can't be distinguished at all from the rest of Shinra's corporate slaves," Barrett issued with undisguised sarcasm, pointing a finger at the clerks hurrying along the corridor.
"Stop standing in full view of everyone. We can talk in a more suitable place while we do what we climbed up here for in the first place," Claudia intervened harshly, cutting short the developing verbal skirmish.
To be continued...
(Man, my back has been hurting all day—it really sucks. Anyway, luckily I managed to pack enough events into this chapter, though unfortunately, one of the characters Alex wanted to meet turned out to be pretty busy. And Hojo—unbeknownst to him—dodged a gruesome death, at least for now. Fortunately, I can easily skip the meeting scene and move straight to Hojo's lab and other matters: saving the orphans, V appearing on screen, and introducing the new member of her group—someone Alex doesn't know about yet. I really need to pick up the pace to get it all done. But first, I need to eat. And you guys should think about what world comes next. I've even got a suggestion: a world where girls pilot giant robots, and guys capable of doing it are so rare that they're treated like absolute treasures. That's actually my favorite anime. Peace, love, and some bad luck for someone—but hey, that's just how it goes.)
Early access to chapters on my patreon: p*treon.com/GreedHunter