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“Hey, Handsome,” Rhys murmurs, resting his forehead against Jack’s.
It lands more softly than Jack might’ve expected, had he known what was coming. The sound of Rhys’s voice – smooth as satin, soft as velvet – cushions the words, dulls their edges from slicing along the well-worn grooves inside his mind. Not sharp enough to open a vein, not hard enough to steal his breath.
Enough to flinch, though.
Jack’s fingers tighten on Rhys’s shoulders. He relaxes his grip a moment later, watches Rhys’s face. Has he noticed?
The soft look in the brown eyes flecked with gold. The trademark, signature, patent-pending blush. The dazed half-smile, lips still flushed from the kissing.
It doesn’t look like he noticed.
Jack grins with half his mouth and pulls Rhys back into the kiss, while inside his head, an old echo whispers in the corners, tugs at the edges of the scar under his mask, fills the world in front of his closed eyes with a violent purple glow.
heya, handsome
“You need medical attention, yes? Who first? Lady with hat, handsome man, or man with fucked-up face?”
“Oh, y’think you’re funny, huh? How's this for a punchline, sweetheart?”
“You point things at Nina, you and Nina will have problem.”
“Easy, Jack.”
“Leggo of me, Nish, I’m gonn’ shoot those stupid cinnabuns right off her st’pid head…Wait, where’d my guns go?..”
“Took them off you after you nearly gave me a new ass piercing, cowboy. Save your shooting till you can see straight again. Or give me five to clear the area.”
“No way. You and I were gonn’ get a drink, ‘member?”
“I told you, I’m good to skip the drink altogether. But you gotta stop oozing first, I’m not into that.”
“‘s mostly cauterized by now, ‘nyway… Hang on, new ass piercing?”
“If you two not wanting treatment, go get room.”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go do that.”
“Hands to your fucking self, Jack, and sit your ass down. You, nurse, get over here.”
“Hold horses, Nina finish with handsome man first.”
“‘mkay, Nina, is it? Lemme put it in a way you understand. Nina call that guy ‘handsome man’ again, Nina eat Nina’s entrails off floor. Nina follow?”
“Nina not like your tone, scarred man.”
“Hey, I’m with Jack on this one. Check your attitude, lady, or the next time you wanna high-five someone, you’re gonna need both hands.”
“Nina like you even less, rude girl.”
“Oh GOD, can everyone stop pointing guns and threatening each other for one freaking second? Ms. Nina, I’ll be fine, if you just leave me with the hypo and go see to Jack next?”
“You really care if that asshole live or die, handso–”
“Timothy! Please just call me Timothy, okay? And I do care if he lives, actually. He owes me a lot of money.”
The drugs they managed to score off the nurse before getting kicked out of the Concordia medbay are barely enough to dial the pain down from HOLY FUCK to holy freaking nutballs. Then again, it might just be the booze Wilhelm managed to grab from Moxxi’s storeroom before getting escorted out at two dozen gunpoints.
Then again, it might be neither. Just the weird alien crap doing its weird alien thing. Jack still doesn’t know if the thing in his face is a wound or a burn or whatever, but it’s not behaving like either anymore. Sure, it’s no longer oozing (you’re welcome, Nisha), but despite what Jack had said earlier, it hasn’t cauterized, either. Neither does it scab, or even do that thing where a fresh wound glosses over with dried blood and plasma and whatever else makes it look like an abstract freaking painting.
The burn, the wound, the brand, it just… sits there. It feels like a hole in Jack’s face, Jack’s brain, Jack’s mind. No, scratch that. A hole in the universe that Jack’s face just happens to be sharing physical space with.
Jack can’t shake the feeling that if he moves just right, shifts his head to the side ju-u-st so, he’ll manage to slip out of that space somehow, and leave the hole in the universe behind, so it’ll be separate from him again. Maybe even floating like it was before, all purple and shiny.
Just get out of my face. Literally. Come on, you weird-ass thing. Get out of my face, and I’ll do as Zarpedon said. Leave this stupid Vault, leave this stupid moon. Leave well enough alone.
The weird-ass thing does nothing of the sort. Maybe ‘cause, what with being inside Jack’s head and all, the weird-ass thing knows he’s lying.
‘Cause if the weird-ass alien thing suddenly decides to oblige him and, indeed, gets out of his face, like hell will Jack leave anything well enough alone. Jack’s gonna go right back to the Vault and grab the thing again – but he’s not gonna be stupid this time. He’s gonna bring some equipment, and a fuckload more security–
heya, handsome
–with orders to shoot intruders on sight. How’d that saying go? Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again? Well, any psychotic fucking sirens will still be getting shot long after they’re done with the trespassers and the survivors.
Jack feels his eyelids drooping, heavy and sticky, lead dipped in rancid molasses. But there’s no darkness behind them, only purple fire and searing pain and a scream that he knows is his, and hates all of the more for it.
Yeah, no, that’s not working. Jack drags his eyes open again.
He’s alone in his tent; Nisha’s gone to hers. (Not big on cuddling: no surprises there.) Sleep’s out of the question, and there’s literally nothing to do here except stare at the underside of the canvas roof (boring) or keep silently bargaining with the thing in his face to go away (pointless).
Outside the tent, he finds Wilhelm sitting by a fire barrel, cleaning one of the guns taken off the bandits he’d mowed down before their party of four took over this oxygen dome. (After that bullshit in the medbay and the hostilities at Moxxi’s, Jack wasn’t gonna stay in Concordia any longer than necessary. Better a tent under an oxygen dome than a hotel room easily accessible by the siren, the backstabbing ex, or anyone else from the mile-long laundry list of fuckers with bones to pick and axes to grind.)
Wilhelm greets him with a nod. Jack sits on a crate the other side of the fire barrel and watches him. Wilhelm finishes with one gun, starts on another, changes his mind halfway, pulls the piece apart. A couple of parts get saved, the rest is tossed over an armored shoulder.
An hour in or so, Wilhelm tells Jack, with zero lead-up, about the time he got his cybernetic eye. Hurt like a bitch, apparently, but now he hits with at least ninety-nine point nine percent of the shots he fires.
Jack’s left eye is still inside its socket where it belongs (kind of a shocker, that: in the first few hours after the Vault, he would’ve given it fifty-fifty chances of either dribbling out or popping out wholesale). The vision in it is just red static, though. Cybernetics might be a good call somewhere down the line.
Still. Swapping wound stories by the fire? How pathetic does Jack look right now, if a stone-cold badass like Wilhelm figures he’s due a pep talk?
Jack mumbles something non-committal, grabs one of the bottles sitting by Wilhelm’s feet, slaps on an Oz kit and goes for a walk outside the oxygen dome. The pretext, not that Wilhelm asks, is that he’s gotta make a call.
A few minutes into the walk, Jack realizes that actually, there is a call he needs to make.
“Dad?”
“Hey, baby.”
“Are you okay? You sound weird.”
“Ran into a bit of trouble. Gonna be fine. I need your help, sweetheart.”
“What kind of trouble? I know you got fired, but–”
“Are you gonna help me or not, Angel?”
“Of– of course. What do you need?”
“First of all, I need you to broadcast Lilith’s location to my ECHO comm. Continuous updates, and an alarm if she’s ever less than five hundred feet away from me. Loud one.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Language, Dad.”
“Angel. I’m not in the mood. Why can’t you track Lilith anymore?”
“It’s her powers. It’s like… she can shield herself now, or something. I can’t see her.”
“Is that so? Well, can you see her boyfriend Roland?”
“No, because she’s shielding him as–”
“DON’T FUCKING LIE TO ME, ANGEL!”
“Dad–”
“The last time I checked you were a freaking tech siren, sweetheart. You can get a bead on anyone who uses a Fast Travel station, an ECHO comm, a freaking vending machine… Anyone who’s connected to the ECHOnet. Anyone. You can see me right now, can’t you?”
“Sort of… Not as well as before. Your energy signature is all… screwed up. Has... something happened to your face?”
“That’s not the– Ugh. Look, Angel, just– Just get me Lilith, okay? Just find her, let me know where she is, I know you can find her, Angel, I know you can help me, why won’t you freaking help me, Angel, why? Come on!”
“Dad, you’re scaring me… Something’s… something’s really wrong with you. You’re… all over the map, it’s–”
“A whole lotta people are about to be all over the map!”
“...Bye, Dad.”
“No, no, Angel, baby, wait, wait, don’t hang up, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, okay? Forget about Lilith, it’s fine, it’s fine. We’ll... talk about this later. But… I need you, Angel, I still need your help. Please, baby. Please, will you help me?”
“What do you want, Jack?”
“I’m sending you a list of names. They’re all Hyperion, and they’re all a bunch of bastards. Get me every bit of dirt on each and every one of them. Can you do that for me, Angel?”
“Are those the people that are going to be all over the map?”
“Not if they know what’s good for them.”
“Okay. You’ll have everything in a few hours.”
“Thanks, baby. I lo–”
click
Seventy-two hours post-Vault, post-punch, post–
heya handso–
SHUT UP
–in another ransacked bandit camp, Jack sits down onto an uncomfortable metal bed. The team is now unanimous in their refusal to move out until he’s spent at least five hours being unconscious.
The doppelganger’s whining Jack could have, and has, successfully ignored. Nisha’s threats to tie him down, and not in a fun way this time, he managed to laugh off. But when a six-foot-eight half-mechanical dude with an arsenal informs you that you’ve now officially become a liability, there’s just no ignoring the survival instinct that’s telling you you’d best sit up and listen. Or, as the case may be, lie down and try to get some fucking sleep.
Jack downs a cocktail of pills and booze that’s guaranteed to knock out several guys his size. (The team is under strict orders to check that he’s still breathing, every half hour or so.)
Then he lies down on the metal bedframe. (There was never a pillow, and the thin blanket Jack had set on fire and tossed outside, to join the subhuman trash that was its previous owner.)
Then he folds his arm behind his head and closes his eyes.
Come on. It’s been days now. It can’t be as bad as be–
heya, handsome
The violet fire pours into Jack’s face from every corner of the darkness behind his closed eyes, fills his body with every breath, hitches a ride through his veins with every blood cell, until it burns and consumes and replaces him, cell by howling cell, until Jack is made of nothing but the fire, the brand, the Vault: bones of eridium, muscles like the mantle under the cracked crust of his skin, and at the center of it all, his brain, his mind, wrapped around the Vault brand, heated and forged and hammered into the shape of the Vault brand, and everything is fire, and everything burns.
With the disgusting blanket gone, Jack only has his hand to stuff into his mouth to stop any sound escaping.
Once the need to scream abates, Jack stares ahead of himself with his one-and-one-tenth good eyes. A strong majority of him is strongly in favor of sticking his fingers down his throat before the improvised sedative kicks in.
‘Cause no, it wasn’t as bad as before. It was a few fucking thousand times worse this time. And if that’s what closing his eyes for a second was like, a few hours of this… Yeah, he’s just not gonna wake up from that. And if he’s dead either way, he’s really better off taking any one of Wilhelm’s guns to the head.
No. NO.
He’s not giving up now.
He just needs to make it through this… night? day? the upcoming unconsciousness. And then it will get better. It will get better, thinks Jack, as the metal edges of the bed cut into his clenched palms.
Five hours later, Jack wakes up to find Wilhelm’s foot on his chest. Before he gets to ask what the fuck is going on, he notices what’s-his-face with Jack’s face hovering in the background. Said face is now sporting a black eye. That explains a few things.
With Wilhelm convinced that his employer’s not about to go on a sleep-murder rampage, Jack sits up, slowly. Judging from the whole new texture of throbbing in his face, skull and, somehow, eardrums, the healing powers of sleep don’t necessarily extend to the side effects of eridium artifacts embedded in the face.
But he’s still here. Five hours of watching Pandora erupt in fire and drown in the Warrior’s roar and his own screams and laughter, and burning and disintegrating and reintegrating into something more, more, more, something vast and powerful, body the size of a universe, Vaults opening and closing like heart valves, streams of eridium for blood, starry void for air, and it shouldn’t be possible to breathe vacuum, but neither should it be possible to hold a galaxy in the palm of his hand, and it still hurts so much, but this time, it’s worth it, worth it, worth–
Jack shakes his head, shedding the shreds of the vision, forcing his brain to remember that this is reality, this is his real body, he’s physical and human and here.
Yeah. That was the point. He’s still here. And it’s time to put baby girl’s intel to good use.
“Is there NOBODY in this godDAMN lab that can tell me anything USEFUL?”
“There are a few guys who might have, if you hadn’t, you know, shot them…”
“Wilhelm, buddy, do me a favor and shut that guy up, will you? But don’t hurt the face.”
“Can do.”
“Mhh-mm!”
“That’s better. Now, do I need to repeat myself, or do I start shooting people again?”
“JACK! Oh my GOD! It’s really you! You’re here! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”
“Ah, shit…”
“What do you need, sir? How can I help? Anything you want! Would you like me to call some more of my colleagues here so you can shoot them? I never liked them anyway!”
“Heh. This guy is just as crazy as the last time I saw him, but he’s still just as into you.”
“Yeah. I can see that. Awesome. Okay, doc… I wanna say… Nakatomi?”
“It’s Nakayama, sir, but really, call me anything you like! It’s such an honor to have you here–”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it is. I need you to fix my face. Can you do that?”
“What seems to be the pro– nghhh– ghhh–”
“You fucking with me, pal?”
“–gghh…”
“Jack. I think he was being serious. He’s a weirdo, remember? For all you know, he thinks you look even better than the last time he saw you.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Kh-hah… I’m SO sorry, Jack, sir… Where were we?”
“Look, Glasses, Jack wants to know if you can zap that scar off his face with some science-y stuff you’ve got here. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? You guys gave that one over there a whole new face and body.”
“Hmm, if I may take a closer look at the face…”
“Look with your eyes, creepy-guy.”
“Hmm. Hmm. We do still have the equipment from the body double program, so… Hmmmmmm.”
“Less humming, more answers.”
“Yes! YES, we can do it, sir! In two short weeks–”
“WEEKS?”
“Well, there’s accelerating the healing process that’s going on right now, then, hmm, it’s a bit technical, but we’d need to basically wipe your face to a blank slate and then give your genes a kind of a nudge to make them grow your handsome looks back and–”
“Yeah, no, I’m not doing ANY of that. New plan: can I just swap bodies with that guy over there?”
“MMMH??”
“I suppose a brain transplant–”
“Yea-a-ah, I heard the problem as soon as I said it. Hard pass.”
“Wait, wait! We could just transfer your consciousness, sir! I have been working on an AI, remember? If you give me just a little time to tune it up to perfection–”
“I AM HANDSOME AND YOU WILL DIE.”
“Get AWAY from those controls, miss, that’s sensitive equipment!!”
“Just checking how ready your AI is, professor. Sounds pretty much good to go, doesn’t it, Jack?”
“Okay. Okay. New plan, for real this time. Nisha, find the highest beam in this lab and hang Nakawhatsit from it, will you?”
“My pleasure.”
“Wilhelm, drag the whinier me back to the Quick Change. Maybe this time we can get his face flat enough against the scanner.”
“If he bites me again–”
“I don’t give a fuck what he does, one mark on that face and you’re not getting paid, got it? Let’s go.”
“Wait! Wait! JACK! Ja-a-ack! Please! I may have– another– ghh– solu... shnn...”
“Oh for– Shove that box under his feet, Nish. You’ve got five seconds, professor. This is gonna be your last idea, so make it a good one.”
It is not a good idea. And Jack is still unconvinced that interrupting Nisha’s attempted hanging of the creepy dude wasn’t a mistake. And Jack is even less convinced that he trusts said creepy dude to even breathe the same air as him without somehow low-key violating his life and sanity, let alone perform surgery on him.
(And Jack really, really doesn’t wanna know why a full-face mask with his fairly accurate features is available at an incredibly short notice.)
Yeah. None of this is a good idea.
He doesn’t have to do this. He could just… accept that this is what his face looks like now. And having to look at its unblemished version as worn by the doppelganger… well, that of all things is real easy to fix.
Yeah. Be sensible, Jack. Get out of this house of horrors where masks of your face are all too easily procured. Let Nisha hang Nakaweirdo the rest of the way. Get a cybernetic implant for your left eye. Then finish what you started with Hyperion. Especially since there’s only one person left to deal with.
Yeah, Jack. Go and have it out with Tassiter looking like you’ve been clocked in the face with some kinda Eridian knuckleduster, half-blind and reeling and unable to get a sentence out without the edges of your skin cracking around the brand. Won’t he be happy to see you like this, see exactly what kinda wreck you ended up as, after he’d fucked you over, and fired you and left you to die again and again?
Won’t they all be happy to see you like this? A man punished for his hubris. Who bit off more than he could chew, and choked on it. Whose grasp matched his reach just for a moment, before burning his hands clean off. A hero, struck down. A visionary, blinded.
Blinded, burned, branded, broken.
Won’t they all be happy to see you like this?
you’re fired, John
kill yourself, darling
man with fucked-up face
behind that smile, there’s something wrong with you
something’s really wrong with you, Dad
heya, handsome
“No sedative. Just local. I wanna be awake the whole time, got it?”
“Is… is that really a good idea, sir?”
“I’m not here for good ideas. I’m here for results.”
“Hey, professor, can you give me a moment with my man here?”
“Dammit, Nish, save your teasing of the creep till after he’s done with my surgery, will ya?”
“Yeah, about that. Just wanna make sure you know what you’re doing, Jack.”
“No. I don’t. But I ain’t got no time for doubts right now, or for people who doubt me. So if you don’t have my back, babe, get your ass on the next shuttle off this station.”
“I got your back, hero. And just so you know, if I even suspect that four-eyed weirdo of any kinda foul play, I’m gonna hang him the rest of the way, and make it slow.”
“That’s my girl. Now how about a kiss for good luck?”
“You know, this is the second time I made out with a guy whose head was bolted to a chair.”
“No kidding? I hope the first one’s dead.”
“Funny story, actually–”
“That you can tell Jack AFTER THE SURGERY, okay, Ms. Kadam?”
“Ugh, he might have a point, Nish. Okay, doc, are we doing this?”
“Just waiting for the anesthetic to work, sir. In the meantime, let me demonstrate–”
“Holy SHIT, that’s a lot of metal. Are you saying all of that’s going in my face?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, and I know this may seem like a lot, but it’s actually all very efficient. Would you like to hear about it? I’m more than happy to show you how every piece works.”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. Hit me.”
“This T-shaped hinge, that one goes on your chin like so. Now these two, those will be sitting on your forehead here and he-e-ere. And this pair here, that’s for at the corner of your jaw, either side, if you’ll just allow me to–”
“Yeah, okay, I get the idea, get your hands off me. What ‘bout those teeny circle bits?”
“Ahh, those are quite ingenious, if I say so myself. Those press clips go at the corners of your eyes, but you see, all tissue there is pretty soft, so securing them is a bit of a struggle, so this metal bar here–”
“Fucking hell, where are you gonna jam THAT?”
“Right through the bridge of your nose, sir, just like–”
“What did I say about touching my face more than necessary?”
“Sorry, sir. But you see how all the pieces work together, and–”
“Actually, no, I don’t. So far, all you’ve shown me is basically heavy-duty stationery or light-duty rivets. I mean, okay, yeah, I did ask if you could just staple that other guy’s face onto mine, but you got that it was a joke, right?”
“Of course, of course. And what a hilarious joke it was, sir! But no need to worry, sir, once all the clasps are implanted, it’s time for these.”
“Hm?”
“Now, you see, these panels here go at the side of your face here and here, to help the mask align in place and then – whoosh – oxygen seal! And once that sets in, the mask will settle in just like a second skin, sir, you won’t even know it’s there. It’ll follow every contour of your handsome face, and replicate your stunning good looks from before the, uh, incident– not that I would ever dare imply that the incident in question was in any way detrimental–”
“Gh. Mhh? MhhMM??”
“Gah! Jack, sir, no, everything is–”
“Goddammit, I knew that creep was up to no good. Grab him, Wil.”
“I think Jack’s already got him.”
“Sirs! Ma’am! Wait!”
“You’ve got five seconds before your brain is on that there wall, professor. What’d you do to Jack?”
“Nothing wrong! This is just part of the anesthesia process! It’s local, just as Jack had asked, and it also comes with a, uh, paralytic– ghh, Jack, sir, please, it’s also strictly local– you can see that you can move your hands, sir, but if– if you let me breathe, that’d be– ghh, kheh, thank you. As I was saying, it’s a local paralytic, but it’s temporary, strictly temporary! And absolutely instrumental for the surgery!”
“Mhh-mh.”
“What do you think, Nisha?”
“You know what, I take it all back – the guy’s clearly a genius. I didn’t think there was anything in the universe capable of shutting Jack up.”
“MHH. MH.”
“God, you’re attractive right now.”
“I’m sure she is just joking, sir, it’s always such a delight to hear you talk! And I’m so, so sorry about this, I know it’s such an inconvenience. But we want to be sure everything goes right, don’t we, sir? We want to be absolutely sure that no harm comes to your beautiful face. Now, I think that’s it for the prep work…”
The anesthetic-slash-paralytic works well enough. So well, in fact, that the localized paralysis seems to have spread as far as Jack’s vocal cords, and soon enough, he can’t make any sound at all. Which is good, ‘cause the thing about local anesthetic is that for the most part, you don’t feel pain where you’ve been numbed up, but–
You still… feel. (The quick vertical incisions at the corners of Jack’s jaw, and the resistance and the slow give of the flesh under his chin in the way of the curved metal hook, and the resistance and the fast give of the cartilage of his nose in the way of the metal bar: once, twice.)
And hear. (The squeaking of the metal screw burrowing into his chin bone, the whirring of the drill bit slicing through the skin and then bone of his forehead (once, twice), the sound of the forehead hinge screws being set into place: less of a squeak, more of a grind, low and heavy and echoing in Jack’s back teeth, somehow.)
And smell. (The blood, mostly. But also, disinfectant. And underneath it all, a hint of burning organic matter: scorched flesh, overheated bone, bitter and acrid and sickening.)
And taste. (That one’s not so bad at first. But then the trace of Nisha’s lipstick on his lips vanishes, and the only thing Jack can taste is the blood dripping down the back of his throat.)
And yeah, none of it hurts. But Jack still wants to spit and gag and scream, and bolt out of that fucking chair and never look back.
Jack does none of it. No matter how much his creaking knuckles and burning lungs and trigger-taut muscles demand it. He doesn’t spit, or gag, or scream, or bolt. He stays exactly where he is.
‘Cause he’s not giving up now. He’s decided he’s gonna go through with it. So he’s gonna. ‘Cause that’s the kind of thing that heroes do, right? Or leaders. Or… something. More importantly, that’s the kind of thing that he, Jack, does, and will do, and is fucking doing right now. He’s gonna go through with it, he’s gonna go through with it, he’s gonna go through with it, he’s not gonna freak out and bolt, he’s gonna stay here for as long as it takes, as long as it takes, as long as it fucking takes, but god, how long is it gonna take, why is it taking so fucking long, why, why, why isn’t it over yet, he’s ready for it to be over soon, very soon, like, now, actually, can it be over, can it be over now, please can it just be fucking over?
So, all things considered, the facial paralysis is a good thing. (All things really, really fucking thoroughly considered.) But Jack still hates the bit where he has to close his eyes.
Or, more specifically, the bit where someone else has to close his eyes for him, and he has to keep them closed, for as long as it takes to drive the metal bar through his nose and install the miniature clasps, and he can’t open them till someone else opens them for him again, or till the drug wears off, whichever happens first.
Then again, after the initial eurgh of having someone’s fingers drag his eyelids down (like he’s fucking dead, or something), the lack of the bright surgery lights soon becomes a relief. The darkness, as always, is only momentary, but for the first time ever, Jack welcomes the visions painted on the inside of his eyelids. The purple fire, for the first time ever, isn’t something to run from, but something to douse, drown, dissolve himself in.
Just this once, just today, the Vault on Elpis isn’t the stuff of nightmares, but a welcomed, appreciated, craved alternative to the medbay on Helios. The stone throne, a much superior substitute to the chair fitted with surgical restraints. The burn of the eridium brand scorching into his face, faster and cleaner and, inexplicably, simpler than the assault of yet another scalpel or needle or hook or drill bit.
And even the siren’s voice, still echoing everywhere–
heya, handsome
–is just about less grating than Nakayama’s droning and the sound of metal tools and the grinding of Jack’s own teeth.
Jack never does black out (why would he? it’s not like he’s in pain, or anything, and he’s not gonna black out from a bunch of gross sounds and smells, like some kinda loser). But for a handful of moments, he’s distracted by the visions, the purple fire, the stone throne, the Vault and the Vault symbol. Distracted enough that he misses the moment when the mask is fitted over his face, and only vaguely catches the minute hiss of the oxygen seal panels before the second skin slips into alignment with the first.
The drug, it seems, has worn off earlier than Jack might’ve expected. ‘Cause the next thing he knows, he’s told he can open his eyes again.
He does. His eyelids feel… heavier, somehow. (That kinda makes sense.)
The world around him looks different than he remembers. Jack turns his head side to side, gauging the difference. Then it finally hits: depth perception. As in, he’s got it. As in, he can see out of both his eyes again.
Jack grabs the armrests of the chair and pulls himself to his feet. (Nakayama scutters out of his way, showering garbled assurances and diabetes-inducing compliments.)
Seeing out of both his eyes again, standing on his own two feet again, Jack walks over to the nearest reflective surface. The darkened glass with the void of space behind it. The man in the reflection tilts his head this way and that as he studies Jack while Jack studies him.
Okay, Jack concludes after a few moments. This… will do.
The man in the reflection smiles in agreement.
“Get the hell out of my office, John. Out of my office and off my space station.”
“Oh, Mr. Tassiter. You’re wrong on just about all counts there. One, it’s Jack. Two, this isn’t your space station. Never has been. Three–”
“Not another word, you imbecile. Do you really think I don’t know what’s going on in my own house? I know all about your wheeling and dealing, and I know that as of today, you own the majority stake in Hyperion. See how much good it will do you when I block your every move. I’m still the CEO, I have the veto rights, and–”
“Is this where you say that I’ll only get your voting shares over your dead body? ‘Cause I can work with that.”
“Oh, go to hell, John. You may have scared the rest of the board into giving up their shares, but I know you. I know that beneath that ridiculous mask, you're still a hideous, pathetic little nobody. I know–”
“You sure know a lot of things, Mr. Tassiter. Maybe you can settle up this one for me: what exactly is the difference between choking and strangulation?”
“Wha– Joh– ghh– GHHH!”
beep
beep
beep
“Mr. Tassiter? Mr. Tassiter, are you there?”
“Ghhh!”
“Mr. Tassiter’s been replaced, sweetcheeks. Starting today, you’re working for me.”
“Who– John? Is that you?”
“Call me Jack, darlin’.”
crack
“Handsome Jack.”
“I– what’s going on–”
“Oh, for the love of… Ms. Bailey, is it? Do me a favor and look up, will ya, sweetie? You see that turret up there? Now be a dear and give it a wave for me. See how it follows your every move, left, right, left, right? Yea-a-ah. Now, do you have any more questions, or ...?”
“N-no, no questions, sir.”
“Hmm?”
“Handsome Jack, sir.”
“Good girl. Now, grab a pen and take this down. We’re gonna do a press release.”
The gunshot rings out, still echoing through Jack’s skull when the body hits the floor. He watches blood starting to pool from under the dead man’s back, seeping into the seams of the expensive suit. Watches the wisp of smoke from the barrel of the gun.
The gun that’s still in Jack’s hand. The gun that Jack doesn’t remember drawing.
(Three seconds. You’ve got three seconds to get on top of this, Jack.)
Jack counts backwards in his head: three, two, one.
Then he barks out a laugh, holsters the Vision with a flourish, grabs his drink from the bar he’s been leaning to, and upends it over the dead body of the latest pathetic failure of an assassin who had the audacity to try and poison him, Handsome Jack, at his own gala. That’s the story he tells as he flings the glass over his shoulder.
(Are they buying it?)
The glass shatters, somewhere behind him. The story is received with appropriate gasps. The body is promptly taken away. The bartender is quietly replaced. The gala continues, with Jack, improbably, even more at the center of attention than before, and while his shirt bears the marks of the failed assassionation attempt, his demeanor is perfectly untarnished.
(Most seem to be buying it. Except Blake, but Blake knows better than to question Jack’s decision to kill someone. So it’s all good. For exactly as long as Blake doesn’t suspect the real reason. ‘Cause the last thing you want is a smart lieutenant doubting you.)
After a few more hours of charming and dazzling, cracking jokes and shaking hands, Jack retreats to his office. He spends an hour blankly staring at some screens, before making his way to the penthouse. A few well-timed checks of the security systems help him chart a route to his private elevator without running into a single human being.
Inside the penthouse, Jack pours himself his second drink of the night, a triple of the good bourbon. He alternates between sipping it and examining the way the light plays at the intersection of the amber liquid and the ice cubes.
heya, handsome
He got lucky today.
heya, handsome
Some other day, he might not be so lucky. Some other day, he might not think on his feet fast enough.
heya, handsome
Some other day, when he shoots a guy for nothing more than offering him a drink and calling him by the moniker that Jack himself had fucking insisted people call him by, he might not have a plausible story to tell–
heya, handsome
–and that day will be the beginning of the end. ‘Cause on that day, people will see that Handsome Jack, Hyperion CEO, isn’t the man that they’ve come to know and love and fear and worship. Not a genius with a dash of madness and a sprinkle of homicide, but–
heya, handsome
–actually fucking insane.
Jack hurls the half-empty tumbler into the full-length window. The glass shards mix with shattered ice, painting a new translucent nebula against the blackness of space outside.
heya, handsome
No, thinks Jack as he watches the thin rivulets of melted ice and bourbon make their way to the floor. He’s not giving up now. He didn't come this far just to stumble at the finish line.
He's already gotten back most of the things that were taken from him. His space station. His company. His face.
It's time he got his name back, too.
Good morning, Handsome. The time is 5:30 am, Helios time.
Hello, Handsome. You have twenty-five new messages.
“Handsome Jack, sir, I have the Maliwan representative on line two.”
Welcome back, Handsome. This is your regularly scheduled reminder that Harold Tassiter sucks. Also, he is dead. And a loser. In summary, Harold Tassiter is a dead loser, and he sucks.
“...and on behalf of the Hyperion Corporation, joining us directly from the Helios space station, a man who truly needs no introduction. Please welcome the one and only Handsome Jack!”
Welcome on board, Handsome. The shuttle will depart in two minutes.
“Ah, Mr. Handsome Jack, welcome. The VIP lounge is right this way, sir.”
Welcome home, Handsome. There was one attempt of unauthorized access to your penthouse during your absence. The perpetrator is deceased.
“Good night, Handsome. Your alarm–”
“Hey, voice lady?”
“How can I help, Handsome?”
“Change my preferred form of address to ‘Jack’, okay? Just for tomorrow.”
“My instructions specify that if you make this request, your preferred form of address is to be changed to ‘John’. You have five seconds to withdraw the request before the new settings are locked in for the next forty-eight hours. Would you like to proceed with the name change, John?”
“Fuck! No! Cancel!”
“Request withdrawn. I will now play the pre-recorded message set for this instance. There’s not gonna be a warning next time, Jack. Got that?”
“Yeah, yeah. Fucking smartass.”
Your alarm is set for 5:30 am.
Good night, Handsome.
The digital mind that thinks of himself as Handsome Jack doesn’t remember everything about the first few months of his former human self at the helm of Hyperion. Some memories might’ve gotten lost during the many transfers of his AI between multiple platforms and hosts; but the more likely scenario is that Handsome Jack the human had only retained bits and pieces of those days powered by a cocktail of drugs, spite, and sheer audacity, days when ambition was synonymous with survival.
But even from that shattered kaleidoscope of Hyperion gold, deep-space black and eridium purple, enough pieces can be salvaged to spot a precarious pattern, to glean some lopsided logic, to follow a tentative train of thought before it plunges off a cliff.
Over half a decade and one-and-a-half deaths later, today’s Jack – Jack the AI, who exists in the simulated here and digitally-perceived now – knows that Handsome Jack’s name was a lie from the start.
The ‘handsome’ part of Handsome Jack’s name wasn’t a description, or a compliment, or even a claim.
It was a ‘fuck you’, the biggest one he could think of. To the siren, to Tassiter, to everyone and anyone who had wanted to see Jack broken and defeated. A ‘fuck you’ and a promise that if they wanna see him fall, they’ve got a long wait coming.
With this in mind, it almost came as a surprise to Jack when people began taking his new name at (hah) face value. But he sure wasn’t gonna try and persuade them otherwise. ‘Cause, well…
‘Cause John was handsome, and later, so was Jack: one in a cuter kinda way, the other, sharper around the edges, but undeniably good-looking, both of them. Both were lost now; both had their lives shattered by a siren in the length of a heartbeat.
And next to all the other things that got taken from him, it seemed beyond shallow to mourn something as simple as looks, but… In the rare moments of being honest with himself, Handsome Jack had to admit that in a life all but defined by the H initial, in a world where the capital H stared at him wherever he went, there was one instance where he’d rather see that letter in lowercase.
Whether through a twist of technology, personal growth, or both, the digital mind that thinks of himself as Handsome Jack is better at being honest with himself.
He, too, misses being handsome.
“Jack?”
Rhys’s eyes are in front of him, too close to focus. For a moment, Jack’s tempted to forgo his simulated sight and perceive Rhys digitally, without the pretend restrictions of the pretend-human eyes. He doesn’t. Just leans back enough so he can meet Rhys’s gaze: molten gold and warm brown, soft haze with crystals of concern.
“Where’d you go, Jack?”
“Far away.” Jack runs his hand up the back of Rhys’s neck, fingers curling into Rhys’s hair.
“Tell me.”
“Nah. It’s not anywhere you wanna go, babe. Trust me on that one.”
“Fine. I’ll let you off this once.” Rhys leans down, teeth grazing the side of Jack’s jaw. “But the next time you zone out while I’m right in your lap, I’m going to take it personally.”
“Deal,” Jack breathes, fingers squeezing Rhys’s hip. “Where were we, anyway?”
“Well…” Rhys mutters against his skin.
“Wait,” Jack says before Rhys can continue. “I remember.”
He does remember. Jack remembers the exact words Rhys said to him, and exactly what they did to him. He remembers every reason why he just spent however many seconds, if not minutes, in faraway places that he’d never want Rhys to see.
He remembers all of it, and yet…
“Say it again.” Jack brings his lips to Rhys’s ear, close enough for his breath to make Rhys shiver. “What you said to me, just before.”
He wants to hear it again. He wants Rhys to say it again. He wants Rhys to say it again.
“Seriously?” Rhys chuckles. “I swear you’re the vainest person I’ve ever met.”
“You have no idea, cupcake.” Jack catches Rhys’s earlobe between his teeth. “Go on. I’m waiting.”
Another chuckle, soft and ticklish against his skin.
“Okay.”
A quiet intake of breath. A half-heartbeat’s pause that’s long enough for Jack to reconsider, and regret, and wish this request also came with a five-second window for cancellation, and force himself to relax his fingers enough so he’s not pressing digital bruises into Rhys’s skin, and hold his own breath, and oh, this was a really bad idea, and–
“Hey, Handsome.”
Somehow, improbably, it lands even more softly this time.