This story was at first a warm up for writing, but then I got too caught up in the moment.
I also had a lucid dream a few weeks ago where I had managed to summon Jack for two whole seconds. Amazing.
The best part about owning a station in space is that you are alone.
Alone, with a few thousand people on board. Alone, with the power to eject those people into the deadly universe at any given moment. Alone, with nobody to judge you if you did.
Should they see any floating bodies being dragged towards Elpis, no sane inhabitant would dare to question the president of Hyperion about it. In any case, from such a distance they would probably believe that they're witnessing a few scraps and pieces of garbage slowly making their way around the moon.
This power gave Jack every ounce of comfort he would ever need. If things became too hectic, or perhaps even too boring, he could kill them all and start again with a new set of loyal, hardworking group of employees.
Hell, with this kind of system, he wouldn't have to pay his current workers at the end of each month. Filling up a vacuumed room with oxygen costs far less than keeping a worker paid for a few weeks, after all.
Accept their application; tell them that they'll be a great asset to the Hyperion workplace without ever having read their resume, and hint that they may even become the president of the company one day if they work hard enough. Then terminate them before they ever reach that point.
Rinse and repeat.
It could work. It would save Helios and the whole of the Hyperion corporation millions, and let Jack express his financial flexibility by rebuilding Pandora into a better place to be. And to upgrade their contemporary loaders into futuristic-looking soldiers of peace and order would be a good start. Pandora would become Helios 2.0.
The hero they so desperately need. The system they so evidently have to have. Jack could save an entire planet at the expense of a few thousand would-be Jacks. They would understand that their sacrifices are for the greater good, even if it was done purely for entertainment purposes. Their lives would profit the living, no matter why they died.
They would have to understand, of course; because as Jack had learned, with power comes compromise, and no true employee of Hyperion could disagree with such a fact.
Jack pondered on this system as his eyes amused themselves by watching the twenty-something year old woman lean over him from every angle to trim and rearrange his hair. She made a vain attempt to disguise whatever nervous feeling took over her as their eyes made contact.
"Is it too short?" She blurted out at last.
"Oh, you're doing just fine, I'm sure." He replied without looking in the mirror in front of them.
The hairdresser went back to doing what she did best, this time a little more cautiously. She was well aware of the fact that her boss had stabbed the previous hairstylist to death with his own pair of scissors in this very room, because according to Jack, his hair was "too short" and that those two extra centimetres of hair was going to stick out in his photo shoot like a sore thumb.
Handsome Jack had rescheduled their meeting with the photographer over the phone that day, while he was disfiguring the still living face of the hairdresser. He had then infamously picked up a No Fuzz Pro, a top quality Hyperion issued electric shaver, and as Jack had pressed the moving razors onto the man's left eyeball while holding him down by his throat, he was forced to raise his voice over the noise that had erupted from the dying man's mouth, and shrieked at the phone in anger and utter hysteria, "and if you fine me for rebooking ten minutes before the shoot, you're dead! You're dead!"
As soon as the girl had found out that she had been assigned as Jack's new hairdresser, she had a breakdown so terrible that she had to close her shop for two whole days. That was about as much time that Hyperion could spare her before she ran the chance of losing her business at Helios. The way they see it, the money they earn from tourists and the eventual income tax they collect from the owner will drop rapidly to the point where they'll leave a threatening message to let the owner know that if there's no change, they will remove her from Helios for disrupting the workforce. Simple as that.
And there she was, a month after the haircut incident. Right beside the notorious, handsome man himself.
At the recollection of this event, her hands trembled as she cut ever so slightly at the ends of Jack's hair. Trembling more as she realised how much she was shaking. Trembling so much that she accidentally poked herself with the ends of the keen scissors and drew out a speck of blood from her fingertips.
She profusely apologised to her boss between gasps as she padded her fingers against her clothes, leaving a small red stain on the side of her yellow uniform.
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "Aw, come on. What do I pay you for?"
"I'm so sorry, it won't hap—"
"How long have you been such a shitty hairdresser?" He snarled, and then bit his knuckles to control his temper. His new photo shoot was just half an hour away, and this was not the time to get blood all over his hair. Or clothes, again. He checked himself in the mirror for any hints of scarlet on his head while internally drowning out the stressed voice babbling from beside him. "Right, right, you know what? Cupcake? I don't care. Do your job, and do it better this time."
"..yes, sir."
And with that, they carried on in complete silence. Jack passed the time by thinking of catchy titles for his latest poster that would be attracting fresh workers. They were practically swimming in resumes from all over the galaxy, but it never hurt to have a few tens of thousands more, should the rinse and repeat method ever be implemented. It's always good to have too much of something, Jack agreed to himself while studying his face in the mirror.
He imagined himself standing tall and looking devilishly handsome in front of a title, and browsed through some premade headlines in his mind.
Want to work with me? Join Hyperion today!
Hard worker? You're already in.
Hots for Helios? Join now!
He exhaled deeply. None of them were good. Maybe his body alone would make up for the crappy titles. Or maybe..
"Pumpkin?" He asked to the mirror, brushing his hands softly against the mask of his face. "Pumpkin, what would you like to see on a brand spanking new poster that would bring in more workers?"
"Oh, um, well.." The hairdresser froze. Years of training to multitask cutting hair while keeping a client engaged in conversation proved to be ineffectual at this point. Her body refused to move. "How about, uh.."
Jack's fingers traced the outline of his jaw, bringing them together every now and again to stroke an imaginary goatee.
"I don't know, sir. I'm sorry." She placed the pointy tools down onto the desk, as far away from Jack as she could without being too obvious about it. She picked up a tiny, hard comb and began to separate the strands of his hair.
"Answer me like your life depended on it," he replied with a lack of interest, making pouty faces in the mirror at different angles. He frowned suddenly, and without looking at her, he added, "Which side shows my jawline best?"
To her horror, she didn't know if it would be acceptable enough to answer Jack's second question first. Since she had no idea how to answer the first one regardless, she decided to play it safe with her level of expertise in beauty and fashion.
"May I touch your face?" She asked sheepishly, putting the comb down. He grunted and nodded hastily, too deep in his own narcissistic thoughts to care enough about forming a sentence. In turn, she placed her fingers strategically around his facial structure as lightly as she could, and moved his face gently to one side with both hands, then pointed it upwards. "With the right lighting, your jaw will look even more defined. You look so.. powerful. You have such a lovely bone structure, if you don't mind me saying, sir. I mean, I hope it's not weird to say so.. sir."
Jack made small circles with his head from the current position, testing how the shadows formed around his neck. "Doll, you are absolutely right. Just look how sharp those shadows are! Jesus!"
He chuckled while rubbing his neck and jaw some more. "I flatter myself. I really do. It's a friggin' miracle."
After a few moments, the hairdresser breathed in silent relief. Jack had gotten so caught up with himself that he had seemingly forgotten the earlier question. However, her fingertips faintly tingled to remind her that she had just been in physical contact with the mask of Handsome Jack. The mask that was frightfully lifelike, still disgustingly realistic to the touch. Squidgy, even.
She allowed the thoughts to send a shiver down her body before she continued to work with the comb.
"Your hair is looking great, sir. Nearly done. What shampoo do you normally use?" She asked to fuel the distraction, for both him and her.
"Oh, it's just, you know, my hair. I wash it and it's ready to go." He lied. Finally, he put the mirror down and groaned in annoyance. "I still don't know what to have on my poster."
The woman tensed up again. A knot formed in her abdomen, and she carried on stroking the comb against his head to avoid making her anxiety apparent.
"I'll have to ask the photographer. He's bound to know these things, right?"
"Y-Yes, yes, of course." She breathed shakily, thankful that he didn't direct the question at her a second time. The cramping sensation in her stomach refused to diminish on its own, so she quietly took a few large inhales through her nose and out through her mouth and hoped for the best.
It worked.
To finish up, she used some Hyperion HOTTTness mousse, the extra volume kind. She scooped Jack's hair in handfuls and split them through her slender fingers. She then massaged against his scalp to bring the hair up further. It was hard to tell the true age of a man like Handsome Jack, and as she rubbed against his head, she found that he had a few undeniable balding spots. A fact that would spread fast, no doubt.
Handsome Jack is a human being! He has flaws just like us! He might even have feelings!
On the inside, she was almost disappointed. Almost.
"All done! You can touch your hair in a few minutes, after the mousse has set." She smiled at his pleased reaction, and began to pack up her things in a black and silver dotted Hyperion bag. Jack stood up from his chair, stretched, and then ushered her out of the door, giving words of praise that had likely been repeated to most workers on Helios by now, and by the touch of a button, the shutter door to Jack's office closed in between them.
Sometimes, all Jack wanted was an old fashioned door to slam every once in a while. Not that he was angry with this woman in particular- not anymore, anyway- though he secretly wanted to introduce it to his office, and then make sure that the door punched into the wall on their way out so much so that it would generate a loud enough sound to remind people that he's not getting soft. He's not any friendlier just because he thanked his employees. He could kill them with this door if he really wanted to.
Nobody remembers a softie.
He walked back towards the substantial window showcasing the outer space, planets, especially the sight of Pandora, and with a minority of flying objects, dead people, and possibly abandoned ships scattered around in the empty nowhere.
Amongst all of the motivational posters he could find, even the ones he had personally created, nothing came close to beating the rush of inspiration he recieved from this fantastic view alone. It showed so many possibilities. The ships he could shoot until they exploded, just because he had the right to. The planets he could take control of, just because he had the ability to do so.
Pandora. Oh, Pandora.
Jack gazed over the unthinkable amount of stars spread out in the background. The stars that were long gone but could still be seen by a mortal eye.
That's who Jack wanted to be. An immortal hero in the galaxy, still burning fiercely to remind people that he's never truly gone.
He sucked air through his teeth as he grinned, looking dangerously happy in the reflection of his recently polished self.
He decided then and there that the rinse and repeat process would take place immediately after the photos and posters appealing to the unemployed had been released to the public. He would just about double his savings by merely making sure that they had enough supply of oxygen tanks within the architecture of Helios. Then he would go on to purchase a few ships, or planets, and show them what a real leader looked like.
Disregarding the help of the Warrior, he would show people what power and money could achieve if they were willing to work hard enough to earn it.
He wanted to prove to himself what he could do, all at the push of a few buttons.
He wanted to, after all, be a hero.