The first couple of weeks of Hojo's return was something that no one, and I mean no one, expected. First of all, while Hojo was in the hospital, an obsessive-compulsive nurse had taken the liberty of washing Hojo's hair while he was immobile. Of course, she was banned from stepping foot in the intensive care unit for a week afterwards for fear of contamination, but she felt she had done her part in making the world a better, not to mention a cleaner, place.
Shinra Inc. had only lost two employees to fainting spells over Hojo's clean hair when he returned. The other seven incidences were directly related to the change in Hojo's personality. As far as anyone could tell, the doctor in charge of Hojo's medication must have somehow slipped the scientist some sort of anti-madman drug, for the Professor had never been more pleasant to be around. One secretary passed out after Hojo commented on what a good job she had done handling his paperwork while he was gone. Two interns, and three lab assistants were lost by similar comments of praise. The last casualty was a 2nd class solider who passed out not from the mako treatment he was receiving, but from Hojo's attempt to comfort him. Tseng himself felt a little pale, and was forced to sit by Rude, when Hojo smiled and greeted the Turks as he walked past on his way to his lab. In truth, Rude himself was feeling a bit faint and was glad to be able to sit down as well.
Things soon went back to normal, because Hojo noticed that his life had taken an abnormal turn and decided to ditch his medication. He soon returned to his mad scientist self.
During his absence, Jania decided to check the competency of the new guard, which was remarkably high for a guard at Shinra. During one of her breaks, she had brought him a sandwich and drink (great sleeping powder delivery method) to "thank him for his hard work," which he had in turn thanked her for, but politely refused since he was on duty.
With more observation, she was frustrated to see that he was annoyingly one of those "the rules are my life," kind of guys.
Apparently, Tseng wasn't wanting to deal with a ranting Hojo when he got out of the hospital. He had placed what seemed to be the only man in the ShinRa guard force that actually cared about his job, in front of Hojo's lab.
Looks like door is not longer an option. Alright, bring it on guard man! Bring it on.
Jania waited a few days after Hojo had returned to being the Hojo we all know and (enter level of personal loathing/confusion/hate/caring! here) before she decided Phase 3 was ready for implementation. The work-around for the guard had arrived, complements once again, of Mark. He had designed a lovely little machine, which looked like a dull black box on wheels. All she had to do was download Phase 3 into its hard drive and use the remote to direct it to Hojo's computer, where she could upload her fun once she could get Mark's toy to Hojo's computer.
Jania had only a brief window of time since Hojo was known for only taking a half hour lunch break, at random times of the day. For a spindly old geezer, the man was always working. Jania did not know or care to know how he did it for that would begin to put her into the "too much information" category. If it didn't help her scheming, then it wasn't important, especially when it came to Hojo's personal life.
After a week and a half of failed attempts to catch Hojo on his lunch break, Jania finally had a lucky break. Hojo finally decided to take his lunch at a reasonable time, such 12:00PM sharp instead of 2 minutes before the beginning of Jania's 6:00PM evening shift. The reason behind his lunchtime being normal was due ShinRa's lunch menu for the day. Jania later learned that no one got between Hojo and the Lima Bean casserole that was the special every 3rd Thursday in the cafeteria on the 24th floor. Hojo had been first in line for that casserole for 8 years straight ever since the cook had accidentally flash-burned the casserole when the new ovens were installed. Out of fear of mutation, the cook had made sure the first casserole was always just the way Hojo liked: Crispy on the outside, soggy on the inside. She would then have to set it aside until Hojo came for seconds, as no one else would touch the stuff.
As soon as Hojo locked his office's door, and shuffled quickly out of his lab, Jania turned on Mark's latest toy. It turned out to have several useful attachments, such as: a screwdriver, pliers, scissors, a 2 inch knife, a plug for a USB drive for direct download, and of course a camera so she could see where the robot was going. The one attachment that Jania thought was redundant was the Swiss Army Knife. The machine already had a most of the tools the Swiss Army Knife did, so why install it? She had called Mark for an explanation and he informed her that a Swiss Army Knife can your best friend in a bind. He then began regaling stories from his childhood about all the times his Swiss Army Knife had come in handy. As soon as she could get a word in, an hour later, Jania hung up the phone with a quick, "Gotcha,haveagoodevening."
Turning on the robot with the remote, she booted up her laptop. Seeing as she had already had over a week to work with the remote, she was able to quickly maneuver the robot's screwdriver and open the ventilation shaft's cover. With dexterity that comes from playing many video games (too many according to her parents) Jania had the robot quickly plugged into the Hojo's computer's USB port and started the upload. As she waited, she munched on the cookies that the janitor had so kindly left her. Fortunately for Jania, the janitor of level 59th was superstitious. She had been able to continue to use his closet because instead of becoming suspicious, the janitor had decided that his closet was haunted. In order to appease the ghost of closet 59th, he had built a little shrine behind the toilet paper. Due to a message (written in foaming cleaning spray on the floor) he was convinced that in order to appease the "ghost" he should leave offerings of sugary goodness. Thus far it had worked as nothing else had appeared or disappeared from his closet.
Jania had to wait only a few minutes for the upload to be complete. No computer to this date had ever been able to stand up to Victoria's hacking skills. The only way the benevolent leader of there group could protect his computer from Victoria's wrath was if he hid it.
Now that the deed was done, Jania worked the robot back into the ventilation shaft, screwed back on the cover, and wheeled her toy of mischief through depths of the ventilation system. Once it she had it back, she stuffed it into her bag and was on her merry way.
One lima bean casserole later…
Hojo returned to his office well fed and ready to get back to his beloved science. First on his mental agenda was to finish his transcription of his dictation from his latest experiment. He logged back into his computer and was shocked when the screen went black. He bent down to look at the power button to see if he had lost power, but the dull red glow assured him his computer was indeed on. Frustrated, he click the mouse several times, each click getting more rapid and forceful. Cursing under his breath he pulled out his phone to release his frustration on the ShinRa techs when his eye was caught by movement on the computer screen. A joyful little monkey began swinging across the black space on green vines. He was shortly joined by another monkey. No, two monkeys…Three! Soon, at least 50 monkeys were swings all across the screen. Hojo cursed loudly this time and dialed the techs, his lima-bean high completely ruined.
"ShinRa IT Support, this is Kevan. How may I help you?"
"You can help me by getting your *%$ up to my office and getting these monkeys off my screen!"
"Monkeys sir? I'm sorry, but our office doesn't handle monkeys… we only work with technology. I recommend…"
"No, you imbecile! The monkeys are on my computer screen! They are swinging around and when I click nothing happens…Now they are dancing! Get someone up here right now."
"Yes sir. We will be right up to work on the getting dancing monkeys off your computer screen, sir!" *Click*
Ten minutes later, Kevan appeared and to his amazement, Hojo was not exaggerating. Hojo's screen was filled with monkeys prancing about to the Electric Chocobo. Without taking his eyes of the bizarre scene in front of him, Kevan removed his cell phone from his belt and dialed his fellow techs. "Sky, get Nathan and get up here. You've got to come and see this."
Soon, three techs were huddled around Hojo's computer. Hojo was in the corner, having been pushed away from his desk to make room for the goggling morons. Several veins began to pulse on his forehead as he glared at the techs.
"Either do your jobs or GET OUT!"
With the wrath of Hojo descending on their heads, the techs began getting to work.
First they tried the all time favorite "Ctrl" "Alt" Delete". The monkeys disappeared, only to be replaced by a Menu listing.
"May I take your order?" garbled out of the speakers in a female voice.
"What the %$&*" exclaimed Kevan.
After several attempts to enter in system commands all the techs had managed to do was order two double-cheese burgers, a large milkshake, three orders of medium curly fries, and a super-sized soft drink.
Saying that Hojo was less than pleased was such an understatement that it was like calling the Midgar Zolom a cute, little, garden snake.
"We're going to need to take this computer in to be repaired," stated Nathan. With Sky quickly contributing that they would have a replacement computer up ASAP.
With that they were quickly out of the room with Hojo's computer, cords trailing behind.
Thus ended another miserable day in the life of Professor Hojo.