Aeris wiped the tears from her eyes and raised her head when she heard Hojo and Zephiroth returning. Both were pushing carts loaded with food and supplies. Hojo placed everything from one cart on the table and sent Zephiroth for more. It was plain the silver haired man didn't want to leave the room again. He stole a glance at Aeris as he went out the door. Hojo waited until he left then removed some items from the table and set them in front of Aeris' cell. He punched numbers on the keypad then stood back and removed a nasty looking weapon from his pocket. He pointed it at Aeris.

"I don't want to shoot you but I will if I have to. This setting won't kill you but it will knock you out and you'll be very disoriented when you wake up a few hours from now." He grinned at Aeris. "I'm going to turn you over to Zephiroth when I'm finished with you. If you're groggy, you won't be able to put up much of a struggle."

Aeris sat up. "Keep him away from me."

Hojo laughed. "Fat chance of that. You saw him. He can hardly wait to get his hands on you."

Aeris blanched. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Sephiroth was the greatest Shinra experiment of all time," said Hojo. "I planned to make more just like him, but none of them turned out as well as he did. I was frustrated by all the failures. It wasn't until I heard two of my female assistants talking that I realized Sephiroth might be the answer to my problem."

"I'm not sure I'm following you," said Aeris.

Hojo shook his head. "How could you be a descendant from the oldest race known to man and be so innocent? I wanted Sephiroth to father children with as many women as possible. Cloning wasn't working the way I planned. I thought if Sephiroth fathered children naturally, I could use them to produce more like him. Unfortunately, Sephiroth wouldn't cooperate."

"He didn't like your idea, did he?" Aeris she wrapped her arms around herself.

"He never knew what I had in mind," replied Hojo. "I was having enough trouble dealing with his arrogant attitude as it was. He would never have taken a suggestion like that from me."

"Maybe that had something to do with the way you raised him," said Aeris.

Hojo snorted. "I never tried to keep him away from women. I put women on the Shinra payroll for the express purpose of approaching and seducing Sephiroth. I thought with so many beautiful women throwing themselves at his feet, his male hormones would kick into overdrive. I just knew I'd be hip deep in babies for my work."

"What happened?" asked Aeris.

"He didn't want anything to do with them," said Hojo. "They couldn't even get a smile out of him let alone an interest in sex. He even killed one I thought would be especially successful. What a waste! In the end, I had to fire the women and drop that idea."

"That's why you thought he liked men?" Aeris couldn't believe this man. "Just because he wouldn't do what you wanted?"

"It appears I may have gone about this all wrong," Hojo gave Aeris a shrewd look. "Sephiroth seems to be very interested in you. Do you have a physical relationship with him?"

Aeris ignored his question. "It's bad enough you used your own son in your experiments. You want to use your grandchildren too. You are a monster."

"Thank you." Hojo grinned at her. "You'd better come and get your food before Zephiroth gets back. I may not be fast enough to lock the door if he returns and finds it open."

Forgetting her soreness, Aeris hurried to the door and opened it. She scooped up the prepackaged food and dashed back inside. Hojo kept his weapon trained on her until he entered the codes to relock the door.

Setting the food on her bunk Aeris turned to back to Hojo. "If your experiments were all failures, how do you explain Zephiroth?"

Hojo looked proud. "Before Sephiroth disappeared, he was required to report to me every day for tests and injections. He hated it. Sometimes he had to be forced to come to the lab. During his last test, I took samples of his cells added some experimental material to it. It worked! Zephiroth is my second greatest achievement!"

"You call a sex crazed cold-blooded killer a great achievement?"

Hojo raised an eyebrow, then laughed. "Oh that."

"What?" Aeris inquired.

"I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have any problems getting Zephiroth to breed." Hojo laughed. "Zephiroth's body is designed to produce a generous supply of male hormones. Judging from his reaction to you, he seems to have quite an appetite doesn't he?"

Aeris didn't want to comment on that.

Hojo rubbed his chin. "Given his increased hormone level, I wonder why he didn't behave this way toward the first two women we met."

"What did he do?" Aeris wasn't sure if she really wanted to know.

"He killed them." Hojo looked at Aeris with wonder. "Zephiroth and Sephiroth seem to have the same taste in women. They are both attracted to you. If I could figure out why you succeed when other women fail, Zephiroth could father all the children I need."

"If he doesn't kill them first." Aeris felt sick again.

"Oh I don't doubt he'll kill a few of my specimens," said Hojo rubbing his chin. "But that won't be a major problem. There's more than enough women on this planet to use for my purposes."

Aeris put her face in her hands.

Hojo smiled. "You think Sephiroth will save you? Don't be so sure. I intend to bring him back into the family again."

"You're wasting your time Hojo," said Aeris raising her face again. "Sephiroth will never join you."

"If he doesn't, you'd better get used to being Zephiroth's little playmate," sneered Hojo. "I was willing to let you change partners once in a while." He stood up as Zephiroth appeared with another cart of supplies. He slapped him on the back. "Well done, my son. Let's go locate my predecessor's notebooks on his cloning projects."

"What do you mean your predecessor?" asked Aeris. "Was someone else in Shinra doing cloning experiments too?"

"Oh. Didn't I tell you? I'm a clone too." Hojo laughed at Aeris' shocked expression and walked out the door.

Zephiroth paused at the door to give Aeris a meaningful look. He checked to see where Hojo was, then hurried to her cell. He punched numbers on the keypad. The pad beeped but the door didn't open. Scowling, he tried another combination. He was rewarded with another beep. After the third try, he slammed his fist against the wall. Aeris retreated to the back of her cell.

"Zephiroth!" came Hojo's faint voice, "Leave the Cetra alone!"

Zephiroth turned at his fathers voice. He gave Aeris another look, then mouthed the words, "later." He hurried out of the room.

Aeris sat on her cot. She studied her surroundings. She was in a large room in one of two cells. There were ten man-sized pods against the wall on her right. There was an empty tank attached to each pod. On the opposite wall was a bank of computers, and a table. Under bright lights in the center of the room was a white examining table, and a row of low cabinets. A rolling tray stood nearby. There were various silver instruments on the tray which was covered with a clear dome. To her left was the door to the lab, a sink and cabinet, a waste receptacle and a desk with one chair pushed under it and another beside it.

Aeris looked at her cell. She couldn't tell if the walls and door were made of thick plastic or glass. She had a bunk, a pillow and one blanket. There was a heavily grilled vent blowing fresh air into the cell above her bed and a smaller grilled vent pulling air out above a toilet bowl positioned behind a two-sided partition against the solid wall on her right.

She examined the food Hojo had given her. There were three eight-ounce aluminum containers of water, two soft containers of soup and a package of crackers. Aeris didn't want to eat cold soup but she didn't think Hojo would heat it for her. She would have to drink it as it was.

All the comforts of home she thought unhappily. Aeris didn't really feel like eating, but she forced herself to drink the soup, eat the crackers and drink one container of water. She didn't know if she would ever get another chance to escape. If she did, she didn't want to be weak from hunger. When Zephiroth and Hojo returned, they both carried an arm load of books.

"Put them on the table," Hojo said to his son. Hojo waved at one of the carts. "Find something you want."

Zephiroth looked at Aeris.

Hojo frowned. "I meant food."

Zephiroth gave Hojo a weak smile and went to a cart to find something edible. Aeris shivered. Hojo sat at the desk, opened a book and began to read. Zephiroth pulled the other chair away from the desk and turned it toward Aeris. He ate his meal as he watched her. Aeris wished Hojo would make him leave the room, but Hojo was engrossed in his reading. Aeris lay down and turned her back to them. She could feel Zephiroth's eyes burning into her back. She closed her eyes and tried to think of a happier time in her life.

Sephiroth stood on the dock staring across the ocean. Aeris was out there with a madman. He could sense the levels of her fear and he knew she had been crying. He didn't understand this tie to her emotions. There was a cold sensation around his heart. "I'll come and get you Aeris," he said to the night sky. "I promise."

He turned his back on the ocean and went back to the house. He didn't want to sleep, but he needed his strength for whatever happened tomorrow. He was surprised at first to find to find Cloud asleep on the sofa but when he thought about it, everything made sense. Cloud wasn't with Tifa because his heart was with Aeris. Sephiroth could hear deep breathing all over the house. He found another sofa in the den and lay down. He wondered if Aeris would choose Cloud after she was rescued. He forced that thought out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it if she did. Once the danger was over, he would go to the Cetra and die. He'd never have to hurt like this again. Trained in military discipline, Sephiroth made himself go to sleep.

Aeris lay under her blanket watching Hojo read. Zephiroth was gone. His absence made her feel a lot better. She shivered. She'd tried to ignore him, but after a while, she had to roll over to get more comfortable. When she did, she found Zephiroth had moved from his place across the room and was standing right outside her cell. He grinned at her. Aeris hadn't even heard him move. Startled, she let out a little scream. Angry at being disturbed, Hojo sent Zephiroth to bed. He frowned at Aeris and turned back to his books. Whatever he was reading was making him very excited.

He put down one book, marked a place and went to another. The more excited Hojo became, the more Aeris' terror grew. He mumbled to himself and wrote something on a pad. Once he turned to look at her over his glasses and smiled. His smile made her skin crawl. Now she knew how Sephiroth felt. Hojo was treating her as if she were nothing more than a lab animal. Aeris looked at the door. Even if she knew the number sequence, there was no way she could get at the lock from the inside. When she thought about what could have happened out in the hallway she was glad Hojo hadn't shared the code with Zephiroth.

At last Hojo stopped and reading, marked his place and closed the book he was reading. He stood up, yawned and stretched. He saw Aeris watching and walked over to her cell grinning broadly. "You should get some sleep. We'll start first thing in the morning."

Aeris fought back a new round of tears. "Please let me go Hojo."

"Now you know I'm not about to do that." He waggled his finger at her and laughed.

"What are you going to do?" she asked fearfully.

"I plan to remove egg cells from your body, Miss Cetra and start them growing in a culture medium. I don't need to tell you who will donate the sperm. When the eggs begin to divide, I will put them in the cloning pods you see against the wall. The first Hojo left me excellent notes on the process. He originally planned to have me work along beside him. We could have developed our work in half the time it took him to do it alone. He was to have met me here at this time you see. Since he is not here, I have to assume he is dead. He vanished before Meteor destroyed Midgar."

"When did you come out of your pod?" asked Aeris.

"Only a few days ago, but Hojo the first was smart. He set up a device that broadcast local news to me and Zephiroth. That way, we would be kept up to date on current events. I even know you and Sephiroth were reported to be dead but both of you are back. How did the two of you manage that?"

Aeris wasn't about to tell him about the Lifestream or Sephiroth's promise. She looked away.

"You're not going anywhere. You'll tell me what I want to know soon enough." Hojo chuckled. "If both of you have the ability to regenerate after death, you're even more useful than I thought."

Aeris shivered. "Do you know about the first Hojo plans for me?"

"I learned about it from sleep learning tapes in my pod," said Hojo. "I know even more from his notes. He was going to mate you with a red beast."

"We both escaped," Aeris said.

"I know. What a pity. That would have been an interesting combination." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "In any case Hojo went beyond his initial his cloning process. Originally, he designed the cloning pods to grow clones in, but he never forgot the idea of using Sephiroth's children to produce more like him. At first thought, that's a good idea but in reality, it isn't. It takes too long for an embryo to become a baby and it takes too long for a baby to reach adulthood. Like me, the first Hojo was an impatient man."

"He kept working on the growth problem. Shinra never knew about his experiments. He kept them documented in secret notebooks. Now I have his notes and I can take over where he left off. Using his outline, I intend to grow ten adults from ten embryos in less than thirty days. Everything they will need to know is already recorded on speed sleep learning tapes. Zephiroth will be their commanding officer. In the meantime, I will start the next batch immediately. In sixty days, I will have twenty full-grown adults. When those are ready, I'll start on the third batch of embryos but I'll only need to remove nine eggs from you because I'm going to put your unborn baby in the tenth pod. In ninety days, I'll have thirty adults!"

Aeris went pale. "You're going to put WHAT in WHERE?"

"I'm going to put your unborn baby in the tenth pod," Hojo explained patiently. "You're sure to be pregnant by then."

Aeris felt sick to her stomach. This can't be happening to me, she thought. Please let this be a nightmare so I that can wake up. She pinched herself, but when she looked up, Hojo was still there.

Hojo went on talking, oblivious to her discomfort. "All it takes is adding a few ingredients to the solution and making a few modifications in the program for the cloning pods. I won't have to have to wait for your naturally conceived child or the other embryos to go through the normal growing stage. I can accelerate the growth of all the children. They will come out of the pods the same age Zephiroth is now. They'll all have the power and abilities of Zephiroth, Jenova and the Cetra. The solution that will accelerate your baby's growth is a variation of the same solution that created Zephiroth and me over a course of five years. It's too bad the first Hojo will never see the fruits of his labor. It will be interesting to see which baby is the best. A baby conceived naturally or those created through artificial means."

"When I have my thirty adults, we'll settle down to some heavy experimenting. I'm going to gather cell samples from your body to produce more female Cetras. I'll find donors from the locals to provide the egg cells. After that, I'm going to use one of your egg cells to clone myself. I'll allow you to carry him for a month before he goes into the clonning chamber. He's going to listen to all my learning tapes, and I may slow his growth just a little. Say, an extra month or so. I want him born with as much knowledge as possible. Think of it Aeris. One of your sons will be a brilliant scientist!"

"That means thirty-one of your children will be born through artificial means. I'm going to allow you to carry number thirty-two to full term. I want to inject both of you with Jenova cells. That's two experiments in one. I want to see how full strength Jenova cells will influence a Cetra-Zephiroth-Jenova baby and I want to find out what Jenova cells do to you. All in all, you're going to be the youngest mother with the most children on this planet. Won't that be an honor Aeris? Aeris? Aeris, are you awake? Do you hear me? Oh well, it was a long trip. You must be exhausted. Sleep tight dear girl. We have a lot of work to do in the morning."

Hojo walked to the door of the lab feeling proud of himself. It was good the girl was sleeping now. He yawned and stretched again. He'd have to mix the solution that would keep the eggs alive in the cloning pod before he was ready for Aeris. He had equipment that could harvest her egg cells with just the prick of a needle. Once he had his sperm samples from Zephiroth, he would open the door to her enclosure. It would keep Zephiroth out of his way while he worked. He looked back at Aeris once more. She was going to need her sleep for tomorrow. Hojo turned off the light. He never realized Aeris had fainted.

Aeries woke up only once during the night. There was a beeping noise outside her cell door. She opened her eyes. Shielding the light and trying to be quiet, a man was punching numbers into the keypad. She caught a glimpse of silver hair. Her heart was suddenly light.

"Sephiroth?"

The man at the door froze. She felt him watching her in the dark. Then he put the flashlight under his chin and aimed it up at his face so that she could see him. At that angle the shadows and light gave his features a hellish expression. Aeris saw his evil smile and his cold dark eyes. She fainted again.

Zephiroth tried several combinations on the keypad. When those didn't work, he tried to break open the door. All he got for his efforts was a sore shoulder. The door held firm. He stared at the unconscious girl in frustration. At last he gave up and went to the door. "Tomorrow," he whispered and was gone.