chapter one: gray matter
"Blood and ashes--time burning
On the skyline dark against the stars
A solitary horseman--waiting...
Lashed to the wheel
Whipping into the storm
Get up... it's your time to be born..."
--Bruce Cockburn
This, thought Ellis decisively, is extraordinarily disgusting.
He shoved his glasses up his nose with the heel of one hand so he could scrub at his eyes, casting a glance at the wall clock as he did. Pushing 3 a.m., and still nowhere near finishing this singularly horrible assignment. But it would certainly make a fascinating subtopic of his doctoral thesis...
If I live through it, that is.
With an irritable little sigh, he snapped on fresh latex gloves, scooped back up his now rather gooey scalpel, and stared dismally down at the subject laid out on the metal gurney before him. Thick, jellylike gray fluid continued to march stalwartly from his apparently perfect abdominal incision, for absolutely no reason and from absolutely no source he could determine, as if solely to spite him. He glowered at it, and then, with a tiny wince as he braced his fingertips against the cold, too-soft purplish flesh, slid his scalpel into the cut and lengthened it downward by several inches. More fluid spilled out.
Certainly leak a great deal for something that's been dead a few thousand years, don't you? Ellis grimaced and blotted vainly at the goo with one of a fast-diminishing box of sterile wipes, then picked up the small tape recorder resting at the edge of the gurney and clicked it on as he spread the sticky crevasse with the fingers of one gloved hand.
"February 12..." a pause for another glance at the clock, "...2:51 a.m. Subject is--still--organism known as Jenova." He paused again briefly as he peered inside the large grayish creature's abdomen. "Abdominal cavity filled with a translucent, gelatinous gray matter; composition and origin unknown. Possibly decayed tissue from internal organs." Ugh. "Subject appears on precursory examination to have humanoid physiology; fragments of a rib-cage, what appears to be a six-chambered heart..." What in the world does it need six chambers for? "...digestive tract, small and large intestines, apparently rudimentary endocrine and excretory systems. Most noticeable features are unusually extensive abdominal cardiovascular system, heavy striation of muscle tissue, highly malleable skeletal structure, and lack of reproductive organs. Subject possesses only excretory apertures, no genitalia or genital slit, though female external characteristics are in evidence, including breast tissue but excluding mammary glands, ducts, et cetera." Ellis prodded his enclosed fingertips gingerly against the creature's flesh, wrinkling his nose unconsciously. He'd never been the type to turn green in surgery or faint at the more gruesome half of medicine--unlike some unfortunate pre-meds he had known--but human subjects were not generally quite so... mushy.
"Epidermal structure seems to be a sort of fluid, permeable mucous membrane," he continued into the tape recorder, frowning down at the body. "Pressure on its surface results in a 'sweat' of a blood-like bodily fluid, indicating low equilibrial and protective capacity." Well, obviously. "Epidermal tissue also possesses a distinctive, alkaline odor." He clicked off the tape player, set it absently down again, then turned on the pen-light raised from the gurney on a narrow metal arm and aimed it into the abdominal cavity, bending over it to set to work with the scalpel again.
It was still rather difficult to believe he was doing this. When Professor Gast's assistant Hojo had instructed him to perform a dissection and present a full report on the central specimen of the infant Jenova Project, and then sent him into the lab with this thing, Ellis's first suspicion was of a colossal prank. As the youngest member, at nineteen, of his medical school's soon-to-be-graduating class, he had grown more or less accustomed to being the butt of every practical joke and hazing of his peers, and he had seen enough of Hojo to tell that the only slightly older student had a wicked streak of humor in him that showed up now and then. And thus he had first picked up the scalpel with an odd species of amused, contemptuous irritation, preparing himself to run right into the punchline. Hey, there's a big purple gluey thing with wings in there that needs dissecting. Oh, and by the way, better take this towel and dry off behind those ears, son; something's dripping back there.
But that had all been before he'd opened the cranium.
And now it was three in the morning and he was still burning that fabled candle at both its proverbial ends; here he was poking around inside the gut of a larger-than-life, troll-faced winged woman with no reproductive organs when he should be--
Wait. What was that?
Ellis stared dumbly into Jenova's chest cavity for a long moment, scalpel still poised in one upraised hand.
Did that heart just beat?
He shook his head, quickly, almost violently. Of course not. Obviously not. You are simply up far too late and under far too much pressure. There's never been a forensic examiner who hasn't tried to do an autopsy alone in the middle of the night and thought he saw the corpse move. A perfectly normal case of the late-night creeping horrors.
He shook himself a bit more and poked open his cut in the stomach--or whatever--lining, picking up the tape recorder. "Stomach contents decayed and partially digested, but appear to be meat of some animal. Last meal most likely was considerably before time of death. Inner stomach lining--"
There. It moved again.
No it didn't. Stop it.
I saw it.
Ellis cleared his throat and started over. "Inner stomach lining seems corroded; surface is rough and pitted."
He continued with the internal organs, noting the findings on tape. Once done the abdominal examination, he could go back to his room... Ellis never particularly relished the walk up from the mansion's basement to the main house--the spiral staircase was hazardous enough in the dark without creaks and looming shadows--but even the narrow cot of his tiny, intern-allotted room was now more than enough to lure him past it. He rubbed his eyes again, suppressed a yawn, and moved to spread his incision one more time--
That arm is not where I left it.
His forehead wrinkled in a dull, uncertain frown; he could hear his heart pumping a little faster as he studied the arm--more like a tentacle, really, its shape was so indefinite--that hung loose over the edge of the gurney, almost brushing the floor.
It was up on the tray. I'm absolutely positive of that. Both its--
(her)
--her arms were up on the tray at the beginning. I would have noticed if one was hanging off. This thing is moving.
A quick mental slap. For God's sake, man, get a hold of yourself! She is dead, she has been for thousands of years; her abdominal cavity is opened and her cranium examined; she is no going anywhere. This is just an old, dead organism which I'm dissecting, not a haunt, not one of the living dead. The arm just fell off, that's all. I must have bumped it...
But I didn't. I was pushing that arm in if anything.
Ellis stared at the dangling appendage for a long moment--and then hurriedly, almost wildly shoved it back on the tray.
He finished the examination at lightning speed, weariness utterly dispelled, recording observations in a taut voice with perhaps a fine edge of panic on it. Pushed back from the table, pulled the long plastic sheet back over the specimen Jenova, fairly threw his instruments in the cleansing chemical bath and stripped off his gloves into the biohazard bag, and headed briskly out of the basement laboratory, clicking the lights sharply off as he went. He would have a good laugh about all of this in the morning, he was sure; but right now, it wouldn't hurt anything to just get the hell out of there.
And if anything in that darkness happened to move in what remained of the night... well, who was to know?
*
"Hey Sawbones, shift's over. Shake a leg."
Ellis looked up at this somewhat ineloquent hail, with a rueful little smile, to see junior lab technician Ruthwena Chase (Ruth to her friends and Ruthie to anyone with a death wish) leaning in the doorway of the Jenova Project laboratory's back library. She had her leather jacket on over her pale green uniform, and cocked her head when he looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "You coming?" she inquired.
"For you, always," Ellis shot back absently, casting a final glance down at the related-case research reports he was transcribing notes from, jotting down a few last lines of shorthand. Ruth snorted, stepping into the room with her usual easy grin.
"Yeah, yeah. Eat me."
"I hardly thought the line was that good." He stood up, smiling a little to himself, pushed the chair back in, and snapped closed his notebook and the report, bumping his glasses up on his nose. "Shall we?"
"Finally."
They walked out through the lab. Lucrecia waved with a wan, absent smile from the electron microscope as they passed, and Ellis returned it, though she was already too absorbed again to see. Ruth stuffed her hands in her pockets, weaving lightly through the doorway when he waved her ahead. "Thought you'd never be done in there," she continued with another grin, turning halfway back toward him. "Whatcha workin on, anyway?"
"My thesis. I'm hoping to have it in by April." He snagged his coat from the hook outside the door, tossing it on over his own--white--set of scrubs.
Ruth and he were both interns, doing work-study with the Project for their own respective purposes. Ellis was studying the anatomy of Dr. Gast's Jenova and its medical implications, trying to pull off a dazzling independent conclusion to his path through med school; what Ruth was trying to accomplish he had no idea--she kept it mostly to herself--but she was working as one of two lab techs, complaining good-naturedly about the messes left by the research team and cheerfully endangering delicate equipment.
There were twelve of them on Shinra's prized new Jenova Project: Dr. Gast, head of the team; Hojo, his assistant and apprentice; six elite research scientists and four interns. And a partridge in a pear tree, Ellis thought with a rueful little smile. He could recite the scientists' names and titles by rote. Anias Luz, Hojo's partner in molecular biology. Dr. Kalvored Darmin, biochemistry. Beckett Nevro, environmental biology. Wilhem Sammer and Frederick Dunstable, partners on genetics and evolution. Lucrecia Zephyr, pathology--mostly left out of the inner circle, as both a woman and a "bug-doctor". Anias was much like Hojo, somewhat removed from the others and highly intelligent, with enthusiasm only for the lab. Kal was nice enough, the eldest of the group, a lively and thoughtful sort who was friendly with Gast; Beckett was dryly sarcastic and possessed of an unfailingly devastating wit. Wil and Fred were the best; the partners (rumored to be a couple as well, though Ellis considered it little of his business and didn't see why it should matter one way or the other) had taken all four of the interns firmly under their collective wing, and had established themselves as almost surrogate parental figures to the younger group. And Lucrecia, in addition to being almost startlingly lovely, was also very pleasant, and admirably dedicated to her work.
They were a good group, despite Ellis's almost absent dislike of Hojo and his crew; and the interns were generally just as amiable. Ruth's cheerful, companionable vulgarity had thrown him at first, but once he'd become accustomed to her he had grown to like her the best of anyone on the team, and the other two were fair enough youths as well. Beyond the research team, there were a few others living here in the little town of Nibelheim's Shinra mansion: a handful of the company's executives, including the vice-president Jonathan Shinra, who were checking up carefully on the project's progress; and a small unit of Turks--only three, actually--serving as a loose bodyguard force. These weren't quite as pleasant company; the executives Ellis could have done without--bureaucrats weren't his usual choice of companion, to say the least--and the Turks made him a bit nervous... well, that was, save for--
"Vincent." The interns paused for a moment to greet the dark-suited young man entering the hallway from the stairs. Ellis gave him a smile, and Vincent returned it with a small one of his one, brushing black hair out of his eyes with a gloved hand. "'Afternoon."
"Nice to see you, Ellis. Ruth." She nodded amicably at him. "Is Lucrecia in the lab?"
"Yes--but she's a bit busy--" Too late. Vincent seemed to be down the hall and gone even before Ellis could finish his affirmative. Ruth chuckled, shaking her head as they started up the narrow spiral of the staircase.
"Forget it, Sawbones. She could nail the door shut and Don'd just climb in the window."
To Ruth, of course, none of the mansion's occupants had names or titles, save those she gave them. In her language Ellis became Sawbones, which for some reason rarely failed to amuse him; Vincent, in his pursuit whose amorous motive was clearly obvious to all but a somewhat bewildered Lucrecia, became Don Juan. Dark, intense Emerson Bruin, Ruth's senior technician, was Lurk, and Mike Nechan, the mildly eccentric young intern who gleefully tended the lab animals, was Rats; Gast was Dr. Frank and Hojo Igor. Jon Shinra she named simply The Boss. Ellis smiled a little as he cast a quick, not unfond glance at his peer, who was currently taking the steps by twos, whistling something shrill and inane that had been popular on the local radio for the last few weeks. She was a small, spare but tough-looking young woman; scrappy would probably be the most apt term to describe her, if a somewhat unflattering one. Thick chestnut hair--only a few shades darker than her olive complexion--hung in a straight shag just past her ears; it flounced against her shoulders as she bounded impatiently up the staircase, the brown flag forming a moving frame for her pronounced, blunted features and mischievous dark eyes. Ruth was quite an attractive young woman in addition to her other qualities, Ellis had to admit, and he had entertained more than once the notion of pursuing her in a more serious manner than their usual banter... but he was also no little aware that she was several years his senior and he a thin, somewhat gangly medical student, and had always thought better of the idea before he could take action.
"Hey, you got any plans for tonight?" He looked up to see Ruth a few steps further above, turned back to face him with her trademark grin and hands in her pockets.
"Yes, actually," he replied brightly, with a sardonic edge. "I'm scheduled to give the vice-president his weekly ass-tightening."
Ruth laughed cheerfully, turning to Ellis as he ascended to match her position and offering her arm. "Oh. Well, will he mind if you cancel so I can take you out for a beer?"
He smiled, and linked his own arm through hers. "I'm sure he'll get over it."
*
"What's this?"
"That," Lucrecia replied, gently taking the object in question from Vincent, "is a plate of highly volatile phage-infected E. coli bacteria."
"Oh." He fidgeted. Lucrecia replaced the bacteria carefully on its shelf by the counter where Vincent perched, then turned pointedly back to the microscope. Silence for a moment; he tried to keep his mouth shut, just watching Lucrecia work... watching her delicate feline features focused in concentration, the glitter of green eyes revealed every time her glasses slipped down her nose.
The door clicked lightly shut, and Vincent looked up to see Hojo sweep into the lab with a businesslike air, gathering longish dark hair back from his face. "Good afternoon, Lucrecia. Mr. Valentine." His voice cooled noticeably on the second name. Vincent responded with an ironic little nod, and Lucrecia smiled vaguely, not turning around. Greetings disposed of, the scientist made his way through the clutter of equipment to the covered metal gurney, humming tunelessly as he lifted off the sheet--and frowned. "Hmm."
"What is it?" Lucrecia asked absently over her shoulder, clicking a few knobs to adjust the viewer.
"The specimen." Hojo uncovered the rest of Jenova's body, folding his arms pensively. "I thought the intern--the medical student, can't recall his name--was going to leave the abdominal cavity open."
"Is that safe?" Vincent interjected skeptically, as Lucrecia turned toward them both with mild interest. Hojo shot him what was almost a glare.
"Yes," he responded shortly, more than a little testily. "It wouldn't be normally, but the body is more or less petrified. It won't start decomposing now."
"I didn't mean for the specimen," the older man retorted gamely. Hojo ignored this, looking instead back at Jenova, and Vincent stood and turned away again in bitter amusement.
He doesn't like me. What an injury. I shall never recover.
With his back turned, however, he missed Hojo raise an inquiring and almost accusing eyebrow at Lucrecia--Why is he here again?--and her answering shrug and helplessly spread hands, as if embarrassed. What can I do?
"Didn't he leave it open?" she asked at last. Hojo glanced back down at the body, attention temporarily diverted from the tension collecting in the room's atmosphere.
"Apparently not. The incision is closed." He shrugged briskly, drawing a clean hypodermic from a bristling rack of gleaming instruments. "Perhaps he just forgot. Are you going to be needing the microscope much longer?"
Lucrecia shook her head. "Just a few more minutes. I--" A slightly troubled expression crossed her face. "I just need to figure out what I'm seeing before I head out."
"May I walk you out when you've finished?" Vincent put in immediately, turning abruptly back to the conversation. She stifled a sigh, and smiled at him instead.
"Of course."
She returned to the microscope, pushing the magnification up a step as Hojo drew off a fresh sample from Jenova. Vincent paced a little, accidentally knocking over an empty beaker and earning himself another glare from Hojo.
"This just can't be right," Lucrecia muttered to herself, sweeping a hand back over her head to smooth down escaped fragments of her disheveled auburn ponytail. Hojo glanced up at her mildly, spreading the extracted cells over a dish of agar.
"What is it?"
"These Jenova cells. Maybe the sample's contaminated, or I'm not seeing it right..." She frowned into the eyepiece, her glasses clicking slightly against the lens. "They look like--viral cells. I think I can even see capsids and something that looks like genomes, and no organelles... it's like the entire organism is made up of viruses."
Vincent frowned, coming up behind her shoulder. "Is that possible?"
"No." Lucrecia shook her head slowly, drawing back. "It's most definitely not."
She scrubbed a hand roughly under her glasses and across her eyes, removing the specimen she'd been viewing. "Well, I can't figure it out now. I might just be seeing things." Hojo moved over to deposit his culture in the microscope as she moved away, distractedly, as though no longer aware of the other two in the room. Lucrecia picked up her coat, beginning to pull it on. "Vincent, could I meet you outside?"
Vincent nodded, already heading for the door. "I'll wait," he agreed, and left, the door sighing shut behind him.
As soon as he had gone, Lucrecia walked back over to crouch beside where Hojo sat. He turned, casting a last glance at the microscope, to kiss her mouth once, familiarly.
"How did the test come out?" he asked quietly, with a suspicious look at the closed door. She bit her lip.
"Negative," she admitted. "I don't know why I'm having so much trouble."
"It's sure to happen eventually," he asserted, holding her shoulders like a priest consoling a lost soul. "Though I do wish it could be a bit sooner."
She nodded, resting her hand on his knee. "I'll let you know. We can talk about it more later on. Don't work too hard, love."
He smiled ironically, pressing another kiss into her forehead, now a priest giving a blessing. "I? Never." A brisk pat on both her shoulders. "Now go join your little shadow."
Lucrecia laughed a little, somewhat embarrassed. "I apologize for him. He just--"
"Nonsense," Hojo cut her off. "No need." He should be apologizing for himself. "I'll see you this evening?"
"Of course." She squeezed his hand once, then stood; and, with a smile and a wave, was gone. Hojo turned back to the microscope, absently straightening the crease in his pants where her hand had fallen.
*
Morning found the lab buzzing with activity, as Ellis entered for the day. He blinked around at the gathered group, frowning curiously. Fred and Wil looked up and waved absently at his entrance from their seats in a heated discussion over one lab table; the rest of the team (all of whom were present, Ellis noticed, but Hojo and Lucrecia) continued arguing and bustling, gathering and distributing instruments, taking turns at the microscope.
"Something new?" he guessed. Professor Gast glanced up from the head of the table, and smiled.
"Good to see you; we could use a medical opinion. Have a seat." Ellis obediently deposited himself on the stool to which the older man gestured. "You missed the breakthrough; we all did, in point of fact. Lucrecia noted yesterday afternoon that the Jenova cultures resemble viral cells; Hojo was able to confirm that, last night. What we're looking at is what appears to be a multicellular viral organism--something we didn't think could exist, needless to say. And Hojo's put them in a bacterial culture, with some fascinating results..."
Ellis shook his head a little, dazedly, halting the professor's excited litany. "Wait--a viral organism? How is that possible? Are the cells cohesive? How can a virus function as part of an whole?"
"Well, that's what we're not sure of," Anias put in from where he sat by the microscope, with a tight-lipped smile on his narrow, vulpine face. "Simon and Lucrecia have started working on deciphering the infrastructure; we've been trying to figure out just how the cells work by themselves. Like viruses, they seem to activate only in the presence of other life forms."
Ellis gaped, feeling--to his bemusement--an undefined sense of sourceless horror beginning to build in his chest. "Jenova is--alive?"
"As much as a virus can be said to be alive," Beckett affirmed mildly.
"We have to see just what the cells can do before we draw any conclusions about the organism," Kal put in decisively, poking at a sample in the corner. "But it looks at this point as though they're behaving just like a batch of viruses... only together, as though they're communicating somehow."
"So--in cultures, her cells actually show signs of activity?" Ellis asked again, incredulously.
Silence. He was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that all eyes in the room had shifted to him.
"Her cells?" Gast repeated slowly.
Ellis started, only just realizing what he'd said. When did I start thinking of it as her? I can't remember...
"Its cells," he corrected himself hurriedly. "They're active?"
Anias stood from the microscope, joining the group at the table. "Well, that depends on how you define active..."
"And we're going to have to test them out on actual organisms, of course," Gast asserted. "Speaking of which--Michael?"
Mike's head poked inquisitively out of the experimental animals' room. "Who summons the Keeper of the Critters?" he intoned.
"The Signer of the Paychecks," Gast replied dryly. "Could we have a few rats in here, please?"
"But of course." He disappeared back into the small, closet-like room, a mutter of "Come to papa, little ones," issuing from the doorway in his wake. A moment later he emerged, carrying three cages.
"Professor--" Ellis spoke up, uncertainly, eyes doubtfully on the somewhat panicky rodents. Gast glanced at him curiously. "Are you sure that's wise? Isn't it a bit hasty, to be testing on live subjects so soon?"
The older man frowned. "Well, it's a little bit of a jump, yes, but this is an important development. And we can't get all our information from cultures." He leaned forward on the table, seeming to size Ellis up. "Is everything all right? You seem a bit anxious about this advance; is there something we should know?"
Once again all eyes fell on him. "Well--I--" Ellis floundered. "I just--"
I just don't like it. I just don't like any of it, and I don't know why.
"No." He shook his head. "It's fine."
The rats were inoculated (not without noisy squeaks of protest), and the tests and discussion continued long into the day, though with few noticeable achievements. Finally, late in the afternoon, Ellis finished his recording of the rats' current health and simply gave up in exhaustion, and began preparing to leave... but Gast's voice stopped him at the door.
"Oh--Ellis." The intern turned in the doorway, sighing just a little as he faced his superior. "Simon wanted me to ask you--did you close the incision, after you dissected Jenova's abdominal cavity?"
Ellis frowned. He couldn't remember much about that night--mostly just a bit of a quick panic attack that had gotten the better of him--but that much he certainly hadn't forgotten. "No. I left it open, like he asked. Why?"
He thought Gast looked a bit strange at that reply... but the older scientist only smiled, shaking his head. "No reason. Go get some rest; we'll be needing a lot of help from you in the next few days."
Ellis nodded, returned the smile, and left... but all the way up the stairs, he couldn't help wondering if Gast hadn't looked just a little too pale when Ellis had answered him.
Nor could he help wondering just how lively Jenova was, and might become.
*
He wakes in the center of the bed. Not the narrow, creaking bed of his own chambers, but some large white double monstrosity he has never seen before, though it is clearly somewhere in the mansion. Flat gray light sliding through the curtains. Dim, dingy spiderwebs climbing over the plaster walls. Voices clamor around him; alien laughter clangs quietly in his mind.
His hands are strangely, unpleasantly warm. He can't see them, but knows--knows--they are soaked in blood. Crimson rivers over his fingers. Puddles, rivulets. Drying, congealing blood. And as horror mounts inside him like gathering storm-clouds, he realizes his whole body, his bare skin, the sheets, the entirety of the room--all of it, all of him, is coated in a thin, smooth slime of that gelatinous gray matter, the sickly-warm fluid from that ancient creature's gut.
It is all far, far too much. He tries to scream... and finds his mouth is full of the gray fluid; and the muscles that would move his jaw do not respond, because he is already dead.
All the while, in his mind, something horrible is laughing. Laughing.
And for a long moment even after Ellis woke in reality, sweating and gasping for air, he could still hear that jagged alien laughter, receding slowly into silence.