Hey hey! Silly drawing request, but how about Elevator Thing? I have this whole elaborate headcanon where he was a normal guy like Sam but ended up never becoming the hero. Abandoned in the elevator after seeing the visitor show up in the news, awake mere minutes earlier than Sam and thus destined to be cursed. Alone, abandoned, but never promised that friendship it so desired. Heck I RP the guy in the RP server I’m in
Anyway I love my boy Elevator Thing hugging it and giving it a nice blanket, letting it live
Damn, I mean, it works, too, its design even has some parallels to Perfect Ritual Sam (fractal tendrils).
This is one of those enemies where I wish there was more context than "oh, there's something in here, you can't use the elevator until you kill it." Like I'd almost consider it plot-significant (since it's gating what's effectively fast-travel) but it's just... there.
sorry for taking forever but real life and school exist and get in the way of my writing time. I hope you enjoy!
Rhys woke up on the couch tucked under a blanket. He sat up blearily and looked around, taking in the sight of his own apartment soaked in the blue night light. He couldn’t remember how he got home or really how. His cybernetic arm was still attached. Shaking his head, he clambered off the couch and retreated to his room where his bed waited. And what a sweet, comfortable bed it was. So warm, so inviting, so nothing like an elevator.
Rhys woke up for the second time with Vaughn pounding on the door and his alarm blaring from where his arm was charging. He rolled out of bed and hooked his arm in, silencing the alarm. For the other interruption to his sleep, he yelled through the door, “Jesus Vaughn, what do you want?” He opened the door to give his friend the properly disapproving look needed for the situation.
Vaughn was panting and flushed. “Dude, you won’t believe what happened.” He hadn’t been so excited since the newest computer slash calculator slash prescription glasses came out.
“So tell me,” Rhys asked. “But first let me get coffee.” He pushed past Vaughn and bee-lined for the kitchen where a pot was already brewed and waiting. Once his coffee had been successfully made, Rhys gestured for Vaughn to tell him the news.
“Handsome Jack,” Vaughn said. “He announced that he wanted a PA. Anyone interested has to show up at his office this morning where he will hand-pick his new assistant. And I was thinking that you Rhys, should totally go.” Vaughn handed him a folder with Rhys’ own resume in it.
“Don’t you want to try for this job?” Rhys asked.
Vaughn shook his head. “I am happy as an accountant. You, on the other hand, have big dreams and qualms about killing people. This is the break you need. I’m doing this as your number one forever bro.”
Rhys didn’t have time to answer before his palm-computer beeped. A new message popped up on his screen. There was no indication of who sent it nor was there a subject line. Rhys opened it with only slight hesitation.
“Take the job,” the message said. “It’s meant for you.” Rhys showed it to Vaughn.
“Funny,” he said. “You’re really dedicated to this whole job thing aren’t you.”
Vaughn shook his head. “I’m an accountant not a programmer. Whoever sent you that message is totally right and also totally not me.”
The two were walking to work when Rhys remembers a fragment of what happened the night before. “I think I had a dream about meeting Handsome Jack in an elevator.”
“Just another sign that this is a great idea,” Vaughn replied, only half-listening.
“I don’t know man, it was a really weird dream. I think it ended with Jack telling me to come to his office the next morning,” Rhys explained.
Vaughn laughed. “You should probably not tell Handsome Jack that you’ve been dreaming about him. He might take that as weird and throw you out the airlock.”
“That’s the real goal. Not getting thrown out of an airlock,” Rhys said. Now on top of the uneasiness left behind by his dream, Rhys was afraid of being thrown out the airlock.
Handsome Jack’s office door was closed but a huge crowd was milling around outside his door. Rhys recognized a few people from his department and a few people from every other department on Helios. Obviously Vaughn hadn’t been the only one who had seen Handsome Jack’s announcement about the PA job.
A screen on the ceiling flickered to life. Handsome Jack’s grinning face looked down on the employees. “Good morning mindless ambition slaves! Today you’re here to win. Well, one of you is here to win. The rest of you are just going to go home the losers you truly are.” The crowd murmured, excited. “You will be called in by name in no particular order, starting with anyone with a cybernetic arm or ECHOeye.”
That was, weirdly specific.
But hey, if Rhys had the chance to go first and get ahead of the competition, he was going to take that chance. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and to the door to Jack’s office.
Rhys was suitably impressed by the office but wasn’t that the point of the office, to impress any schmuck with the misfortune of getting invited to an audience with the CEO himself.
“I was hoping you would show up,” Handsome Jack said.
Startled, Rhys asked, “We’ve met?”
Jack laughed. “Of course we’ve met. We met last night in the elevator. The one that broke down. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
Rhys scratched the back of his head and looked as embarrassed as possible. “I really don’t remember anything past about midnight last night. Maybe you’re thinking of someone else?”
“Maybe this will jog your memory,” Jack said. He turned his computer monitor to face Rhys. Video feed was playing, from an elevator. Someone who looked very much like Rhys was underneath someone who looked very much like Handsome Jack.
“We didn’t,” Rhys hesitated. “We, um.”
Jack sighed forlornly. “No, we did not have sex if that’s what you’re wondering. Why do you think I sponsored this horse and pony show. I really had to cross my fingers and hope that you would show up. You know how embarrassing it would be for me if you didn’t show up?”
“So you don’t want a PA?” Rhys asked.
“Only idiots need PAs. I’ve already got a perfectly terrifying secretary. Why would I need a PA too?” responded Jack. “But onto more interesting things. Let’s pause the shoptalk for a minute.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Rhys asked. “My name is Rhys, by the way.”
“Okay Rhys. What are your feelings about me and your neural port getting to know each other?” Jack asked.
Rhys blanched. “What kind of personal are we talking about? I’m don’t really think that I’m supposed to put things in it. Its for like, updates for my eye and stuff.”
Handsome Jack stood up. “Here,” he said, gesturing to the chair, not his chair, but the one for guests. “Take a seat.” Rhys sat down. There was only so far he was willing to go when it came to refusing the Handsome Jack in Handsome Jack’s office. “Would you believe me if I told you I made this program just for you?” He held out one of those nasty file drives that fit so perfectly and painfully in Rhys’ neural port.
“Not really?” he ventured.
Handsome Jack nodded his approval. “You’re smart kid, I like that.” His hand shot out to grab Rhys’ jaw. Rhys could no longer flinch away from the file drive as Jack shoved it into his neural port. Everything went black as the program run. The last thing Rhys remember was the sound of Handsome Jack’s laughter reverberating around the room.
Yvette was the one to wake him up. Rhys blinked up at her, both eyes stubbornly blurry. He can tell it’s her by her voice. Rhys was pretty sure that the only body part functioning at the moment was his ears. “Why the hell’d you miss lunch? I had to pay! Me!” she ranted. He would have paid attention to her complaints but his head was killing him.
“My head’s super foggy right now,” he said before passing back out.
The next time time Rhys woke up, both Vaughn and Yvette were standing over him wearing varying expressions of concern.
“Bro, are you okay?” Vaughn asked. “You’ve slept for like, fifteen hours. I didn’t think you could do that.” For years Rhys had been an incurable insomniac, a napper more than a sleeper. He could only wonder what happened with Handsome Jack.
But Rhys was going to leave it as that, a wonder, something to spend some silent morning pondering. Not matter what, he wasn’t going to let thoughts Handsome Jack consume him.
In the back of his mind, a vague concern about his health in relation to Hyperion’s CEO but Yvette was handing him a drink and Vaughn was making jokes. Rhys made the executive decision that any worry could wait. He was fine. He would be fine.
Rhys, too busy pretending not to worry, did not notice the blinking light in his periphery that signaled a new message.
