Zer0 is cooperating now, so Rhys can safely go back to having a terrible time on purpose.
(Chapter also posted under cut)
“Hey, do you think ‘Atlas: We’re Not Evil Anymore’ would play on Pandora? I kept the name for brand recognition, but my marketing guy is telling me that our ads are going to start scaring the locals if we don’t add a tagline like that? I think it’s kind of on the nose, and most of Pandora is illiterate, so…”
Zer0 gave no response. They’d been quiet for a while, Rhys realized.
He swiveled his desk chair around to find Zer0 stretched out like a big, sleek cat on his couch. They were fast asleep.
“Ah, right,” he sighed. That was nothing new, and every time he half-seriously considered tucking them in–he doubted they’d appreciate that, but they looked so…Cute. Those first few times they’d fallen asleep in front of him, he’d gotten worried–they barely moved. Now he knew that if he watched long enough, they’d twitch or flash a random emoticon in their sleep, sometimes making some incomprehensible grumble. Zer0 might be a cool, enigmatic badass, but they were cute. He was seeing a lot more of that after the “Vaughn incident” a week ago.
Zer0 had been true to their word. In the past week they were around. Visibly around. Regularly. They popped into his suite or workshop at random times throughout the day, hung out for a few hours, and left again. Their presence was as unobtrusive as Zer0 could be–meaning that Rhys was constantly aware of them even when they were silent. But they didn’t bother him, and they slept a lot. Sometimes they woke suddenly, jolting up like the time they’d broken his nose. Rhys pretended not to notice that. Maybe no one on this planet slept peacefully.
When they were awake they had a stack of shitty old magazines, Atlas propaganda books, and an ECHOdevice to keep them occupied. Rhys wished he had something better to offer. He hoped they were still making use of the shooting range, one of these days he’d have to bring it up, make it clear they were welcome to it whenever; maybe the two of them could go down there together again. If they were up to it. It was hard to tell how sick they actually were, and he didn’t want to make things awkward, force them to admit that they were too sick—or worse, there was the possibility that they wouldn’t admit to it, again.
…Admittedly, maybe he’d started thinking about things like those “kid befriends a feral diamond pony” ECHOflicks from when he was a kid. As if Zer0 would bolt suddenly if he made the wrong move or they’d get very sick and almost (Almost. This was not one of those old ECHOflicks that traumatized small children) die without warning if he…let them outside in the rain? Whatever the Zer0 equivalent of that was. That was probably not how Zer0 would want to be thought of, but they’d established a pretty undeniable pattern.
Regardless, things were going well with them. After Helios fell, he’d gotten accustomed to being alone here. It was hard at first, but when he threw himself into work he barely even noticed how goddamn lonely he’d gotten until now. Vaughn was right, this was good for him. It was nice having someone around to talk to. By most standards, Zer0 was a terrible conversationalist: when they lost interest in a topic, they’d either abruptly change it or stop responding. But he was getting used to that, along with their other peculiarities. Like the way their vocabulary included everything from “toodles” to “dickhead” to “efficacious” (all words they’d place side by side in a haiku.) Or the way they used his name to pad out syllables–“Rhys, your trash robot / Sounds more broken than before. / You should fix it, Rhys,” and “You’re out of salt, Rhys. / You should see to getting some. / Oh, and eggs too…Rhys.” (He wondered if talking in so much haiku had made them lazy about it.) Even their lack of consideration for things like private property had grown on him.
Maybe it was a little messed up that this only came about because Zer0 was in this weakened state, hiding out in the safest place they could think of. He tried not to think too hard on that. Once this was all over…Well, he’d figure that out when it came to it.
There was another, more pragmatic benefit to Zer0’s post-Vaughn incident presence. Now that he knew their location and sleeping habits, he could sneak off for an hour, safe in the knowledge they’d probably sleep right through it. No worries about them following him invisibly, or him running into them at the worst possible time. They’d be here, never knowing he was gone.
He scrawled a quick “Gotta run to the next building over, be back in like an hour,” on his notepad and sat it on the coffee table next to Zer0. Half a lie–if Zer0 did wake up he didn’t want them finding him.
He was betraying the trust they’d given him, and he knew it, but did it matter? This wouldn’t hurt them one way or another, it was just easier that they didn’t know about it. He set a timer on his ECHOeye, carefully stepped over his malfunctioning pet cleaning bot, and left the room.
One of the smaller old Atlas drones intercepted him in the hallway, beeping and buzzing around his head. Rhys didn’t know if the drones were as similar to dogs as he’d told Vaughn, and he’d never learned to tell them apart, but he gave it a little pat as he walked by. “Good boy. Or, whatever…” It followed him into the elevator, whether out of affection or some residual memory that he was an intruder, he couldn’t say. It was nice to think they had the same loyalty as Dumpy, though.
He took the elevator to the basement, past the control center, and through a small office area. Lights flickered on automatically as he entered each new room. There were more bloodstains down here than the higher levels of the facility–both Atlas employees and Val’s goons had died on this level. He’d cleaned what he could, with help from his cleaning bots, but to truly hide it would need professional–it wasn’t exactly a priority.
The bot followed him the entire time, beeping incessantly. Recently, his bots had all been acting clingy toward him. He wondered if they were jealous; they ignored him when Zer0 was around, only to follow closely when he was alone. Maybe they’d all had bad experiences with Vault hunters. Or Zer0 intimidated even simple robots. “You can wait outside,” he said as he stepped up to a faintly bloodstained spot on the wall. He still remembered the Atlas cyborg he’d found slumped awkwardly against this spot, chest against the wall. His implants had been bulky and crude, some early Atlas version of an ECHOeye. Rhys let himself feel a little bad for that guy. A little.
Above that spot he found the bloodstained seams in the concrete that revealed a hidden panel. He pressed the right spot to reveal a keypad and entered the code. A door, disguised in the wall, slid open beside it.
Inside was a small office–more a glorified closet than anything–housing a fancy E-tech computer, a terminal, and a desk chair. Rhys stepped in, pressing a button to close the door behind him. The bot darted in after him at the last moment. “Fine, just…Don’t ram into me or I’m throwing you out,” he said. Its response of rapid beeps almost sounded insolent.
The room had been intended as a panic room, previously stocked with enough non-perishables to last a few days. And the E-tech computer was once a crucial part of programming and testing Gortys. It and its accompanying console had been big, clunky pains in the ass to drag into here, but it seemed like the safest place for his purposes. He would have never found it if he hadn’t been cleaning up blood; Vault hunters, bandits, corporate spies, his friends? Any one of them would walk right by, none the wiser.
Once, an Atlas cyborg would have spent twelve hour days plugged into the computer along with Gortys, running her through simulations, chatting with her, rifling through her memory banks, making minor adjustments, and otherwise ensuring that she was the perfect, cute, compliant Vault-monster-killer that would put Atlas back on top. Now in place of Gortys was his old ECHOeye, connected via a jury rigged adapter.
The drone made short circles around the room, beeping frantically.
During the Corporate Wars, corporations would kidnap AI personalities from each other and use complex total-reality simulations to trick confidential intel out of them. Rhys didn’t have a complex total-reality simulation, those were far out of his budget. Instead he had some simple testing simulations and a handful of programming tools. Still, he’d developed a pretty sound strategy. He took a moment to remind himself that if Jack hadn’t taken over his body yet, it had to be impossible. He hit record on the monitor and picked up the ECHOport connector. Before he could plug himself in the drone’s beeping had grown even more frantic. It began ramming itself into his face.
“Geez, stop! Ow!” He caught the drone in midair. It buzzed and struggled to escape his grasp as he opened to door and tossed it. It safely righted itself before hitting the floor but it was too slow to get back inside. “Stupid defective…thing…” He could still hear it beeping outside the door for a few seconds, but it gave up when he didn’t let it back in. He sat back down, plugged himself in, and entered the simulation.
It was just empty, flat desert, Atlas’s ideal site for opening the Vault of the Traveler. A vague sourceless light illuminated the place, greyed out as if through thick clouds. It seemed a decent hell for Jack.
“Oh, hey, sport, been awhile. I started to think you–” Jack started as soon as Rhys finished loading in.
“Where’s the dig site in the Eridium Blight?” Rhys asked, all in one breath, then immediately exited the simulation, unplugged himself, and started up a full virus scan on his implants, just in case. As it ran he pulled up the readings on the monitor. The computer had converted some of Jack’s thoughts into images and videos, but those were risky; Rhys only bothered with them when Jack offered nothing else. Instead he opened the text transcription of Jack’s internal monologue.
Oh yeah, you mean that big dig site, with the finds that were gonna completely change the face of interplanetary commerce? The intergalactic fast travel, the cure for turbocancer, time travel, et cetera? Right, we halted that right before I died, moved all those guys to dig up the Vault, or something. Where was that… Oh, I remember, have you tried looking up your ass?
Okay. Seriously, kiddo? I told you this stupid “don’t think of a white bear” thing wasn’t gonna keep working. I’m a goddamn computer demigod, and you left me in here for how long? It’s gotta have been like, a month, right? And I’ve had nothing to do other than become a complete master of my own mind, so yeah, no more popping in here for half a second. Maybe if you stopped being such a wuss and–
Rhys began to skim, hoping that eventually Jack would lose focus and let something slip. No such luck. There were several more paragraphs of rambling about how sooner or later Jack would put himself back into Rhys’s head, speculation on exactly how he’d kill and/or torture Rhys when he did that, and how pathetic and cowardly it was that Rhys kept doing this, before slipping into complaints of how goddamn boring the simulation was. Even as he read it more text was being entered. He had assumed that leaving the simulation running for a few weeks would make Jack more pliable, not less. Maybe the AI was just too much computer for that…
In the early days of this, Rhys would stay in the simulation and talk to Jack, alternating between bribes and threats. Jack never cooperated, but the computer’s thought transcriptions still were filled with Hyperion company secrets. The problem was the “talking to Jack” part. Last time he’d tried, Jack ignored his attempts to discuss Hyperion E-tech, found a list of Rhys’s former Security Propaganda coworkers, and described the security footage of their last moments as Helios broke apart and went hurdling into Pandora. Everything Jack had said might have been lies, but those coworkers were dead one way or another, Rhys had killed them, they’d probably died horribly, and it was better not to dwell on it.
He got less intel from his new method, but at least he didn’t have to listen to Jack. Text, he could skim.
Giving up on the transcription, Rhys took a deep breath and opened up the media viewer. The files within were a garbled mess, none of them had thumbnails, just strings of numbers labeling them; Gortys’ mind was innocent enough that this likely wasn’t an issue for the Atlas cyborg before him. Jack’s wasn’t. Rhys had seen a lot in his life, especially since coming to Pandora, but Jack’s imagination was on another level.
The unpleasantness was worth it, though. While Hyperion was still reeling from the loss of Helios, Rhys was getting the edge on them. Atlas was due to come out with an ultra-accurate ricochet shield and a self-stabilizing assault rifle within months, Hyperion had yet to get theirs out of the preliminary phases. And all that they’d left on Pandora, every secret facility and unethical laboratory, every uncovered Eridian ruin? That was his to claim. He’d already sent out groups of Helios survivors to secure the safest of them. Some good could come out of all the evil Hyperion had done here.
The first file Rhys clicked on was an obscene scene that Jack had undoubtedly thought of specifically for his benefit. This was followed by a brief video of a shovel, digging (Word association! That may be something!) then a vivid video of Jack, in the flesh, beating Rhys to death with it (Nope). He clicked out of that fast, and into one of Jack strangling him. Another obscene image. Security footage of Helios’s destruction taken from the inside, people screaming. Rhys being stabbed to death. An unusually shaped Eridian artifact (Okay, that was something). A white bear. A photo of a dig site in the Eridium Blight, taken aerially (And that). A diamond pony. Rhys’s tortured corpse. Outright pornography. A diamond pony. A diamond pony. A hamburger.
The last few videos were all accompanied by some horrible half-remembered earworm, sung in Jack’s voice. He stopped recording. The last video Rhys found that could be vaguely said to be related to the Eridium Blight was the inside of a slag testing facility–not a place he wanted to see. Near the end the text transcript of Jack’s thoughts had ventured off into aimless complaining, and the videos became completely random. Jack had completely diverted his mind in the way only a computer intelligence could.
He recorded the two promising bits of footage to his ECHOeye and began to psyche himself up for a second go, ignoring the urge to slump in his chair and just…stop, for a little while. That was a bad instinct, that only led to dwelling, which led to some grim places. Worse, it meant unproductivity.
Already there was a slight throbbing in the front of his head, the beginnings of a tension headache. Usually this didn’t get to him so fast, maybe he was out of practice.
That, and he kept remembering Zer0, wondering what they would think of this. There was no lying to himself, they wouldn’t understand. The AI was a risk to the entire planet if it fell into the wrong hands. A risk that only really benefitted him and Atlas. But if Atlas failed, what was everything even for?
Whoops, that was getting close to dwelling. He looked at his timer. Another half hour. Plenty of time. Maybe in this next attempt he’d change his approach. He could plug in and promise Jack some kind of reward if he cooperated… That simulation from the shooting range was probably compatible. Would that be enough to motivate Jack? Would Jack get anything out of a hollow simulation? Well, if nothing else, it might keep him busy. With endless bandits to kill, Jack might not have time to devote so much thought to Helios and various ways to kill Rhys.
His arm’s ECHOcomm rang, pulling him out of his planning. It was Maya. That had to be important. He took a deep breath, brushed his hair back, and forced a smile. “Hey, what’s up?” he answered, managing not to sound as drained as he felt.
“I need you to get to Sanctuary. We need to talk,” she said. Her holoprojected face was unusually stern.
“Wait, like, right now?” Rhys would have preferred to have a nice sit down, maybe a coffee, distract himself for a little while with dumb ECHOvids before going out and being around people.
“As soon as you can get over here. You’ll need to get the fast travel code.”
“You can’t just…? Oh. Okay, right. Yeah. I-I’ll get it.” A city like Sanctuary couldn’t just let whoever in, especially not hovering precariously in the air the way it did. Its fast travel code was a carefully protected secret, not to be shared over unsecure lines. “This…This isn’t bad, is it?” “Honestly? I don’t know, I’m hoping you can explain.” The way she said it reminded him of a middle school teacher. One who’d found a virus on the school computer after he’d used it and was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but wasn’t deluding herself; Rhys had been the kid who other kids paid to change their report cards.
“Alright, I’ll be there.” It didn’t seem that he could refuse.
She hung up, and he was left baffled. Was she mad at him? Why would she be mad at him? There were a lot of potential reasons, but none that she should be aware of, and fewer that required an immediate meeting in Sanctuary.
The drone met him as he exited the small room, beeping angrily again. He ignored it and it gave up when he reached the elevator. In his suite, Zer0 was still asleep. Rhys discarded his note and woke them with a tentative “Hey, Zer0?” from more than an arm’s length away.
They lifted their head slowly, giving the sense of blinking in tired confusion through their dark, empty visor. “What is it?” They asked, sitting up and stretching.
“Maya wants me to meet with her in Sanctuary. You have the fast travel code, right?”
“Did she say what for?” They found the notepad and pen and began to write.
“She didn’t. Which, that could be a good sign, right? She might have found something out about your attackers, and doesn’t want to bring it up over the ECHO?” Or, Fiona had told her something about him that was better kept secret. But why would Fiona do that? No, this had to be some sort of misunderstanding. “Are you gonna be alright on your own for a few hours?”
A “›(“ flashed quickly over Zer0’s visor, and Rhys realized that may have been the wrong question. “I’ll behave myself,” they said, ripping out the paper and offering it to him. “Memorize and destroy this.”
Rhys looked at the long string of numbers and opted to snap an ECHOeye picture of it. There was no way he’d memorize that anytime soon.
“Oh. And one thing, Rhys. / Stop by Moxxi’s, if you can. / Pick up some pizza.”
