A Ghost in the Machine

by likikoari

Some say Helios is haunted, and others will say that it’s true. They say it’s the ghost of a young man, pale and flickering blue. He wanders at night, just out of your sight. Don’t go looking or he’ll be looking for you.

Original Description: Just a little bit of "fun" I decided to have on a whim and it's kinda too long to be a one shot but not made with chapters in mind? Which isn't fair because god damn look how long it is :O probably won't go under a read more, sorry folks XD

poster note: Hey Likikoari here, So I DID NOT write this. I found this gem on Tumblr written by user Helioste.

If the user is uncomfortable with me reposting it here let me know and I'll gladly delete it for you

let's just make the totally clear: Likikoari NO

Helioste YES

thanks~

Word count: 3296

Some say Helios is haunted, and others will say that it's true.

They say it's the ghost of a young man, pale and flickering blue.

He wanders at night, just out of your sight.

Don't go looking or he'll be looking for you.

Jack was laughing as Rhys had agreed, joyful and ecstatic at finally getting what he wanted. He wanted more though, but he couldn't give that little surprise away just yet – he wanted Rhys to have his fun for at least a little while longer. The kid was laughing and happy, perhaps for the first time in years, as he lounged in the yellow leather chair with the jack in his port still and Jack didn't want to ruin it. The kid had said yes to ruling Hyperion and there was nothing that could have made Jack happier in that moment – he was finally home and he could put his last part of the plan into action.

'How is it?' Jack smiled, Rhys giving a lazy grin as the dopamine injectors in the chair worked their sinful magic on his body, making him pliant and so easy to work with.

'It's good, Jack, it feels… right.' Rhys purred out lazily before feeling an unexpected jolt in his subsystems. 'Hm?'

'Oh, sorry there pumpkin, I'm just, ah, excited 'bout what's gonna happen, y'know?'

'What do you mean?' An almost malicious grin spread across his face on the digital display.

'Jus' a li'l something I've got planned for ya, Rhysie.' Jack laughed, it echoing around the mansion-like office endlessly and sending chills down Rhys' spine. It wasn't like any of his other laughs, it sounded like danger incarnate. Another jolt shocked Rhys' body and subsystems, appearing to mostly paralyse his body or at least slow him down, as the jack almost clamped itself to his port in a particularly vicious motion.

'What are you doing? Jack?' Rhys mumbled, eyes slowly going wide as he watched Jack's image flicker and glitch out. He felt so tired and exhausted, drained almost, as he couldn't even raise a hand, either hand, to yank the jack out.

'Rhysie, you belong to Hyperion, remember? You belong to me so, y'know, I'm just taking what is mine. You.' Panic started up in Rhys and now he was paralysed by fear on top of the total subsystem failure. He couldn't fight back, he couldn't call Fiona for help and he couldn't stop Jack. He was helpless, Rhys realised as he felt heavier and drowsier and almost felt himself drain away with the colour bleaching from his face.

'See kid?' Jack gloated, 'I'm just pulling you out of your body. You're gonna be mine.'

No, no he can't do that! Rhys couldn't die! He'd left Vaughn behind, he'd left Fiona and Sasha alone in the mess of hallways of Helios and he'd led them all into a trap. Rhys could feel himself draining away, being pulled from his own body, but where would he go? Jack answered that, but not before inviting Fiona up to the office.

'C'mon, sweet-cheeks, get yourself up here and I might be inclined to let you live!' Jack almost cooed as he opened up the doors to let her in. 'I want you to witness him in his last moments because, honey, he's going down.' He laughed as Fiona had raced up there in seconds, the guards letting her go from the prison level as Jack practically lit the way for her and soon enough she'd run in and straight to the desk and had tried to pull Rhys out, giving up as Jack clamped his hands to the chair. She cupped his pale cheeks, fear evident in her expression – something rarely seen on the grifter's face for Rhys' safety.

'Rhys, Rhys look at me. You can't let him do this, you have to stop him!' She snapped, eyes wide as Jack laughed. It was hopeless, she realised, as Rhys' eyes closed for the last time and the clamps were released, a haunting laugh from the AI echoing around Helios itself as he vanished. Silence fell and Fiona stared in growing distress as she stumbled away in horror. No… it couldn't be… what was she going to tell Vaughn? They'd just left him there with Vallory and now they had no way of getting back to him, not to mention the fact she'd broken her promise to keep Rhys safe!

Amidst her mourning a hand shot up and closed around her throat, Fiona's eyes switching back to focus on the reanimating body before her. His eyes had opened and his mouth had split into a grin worthy of the devil himself, metal hand strangling her with a sudden newfound strength and cutting off any and all air she desperately needed. Rhys was standing again and for a moment Fiona thought it was actually Rhys, just under Jack's influence. Never did it cross her oxygen-starved mind that this was Jack puppeteering Rhys' otherwise-lifeless body.

'Rhys…' Fiona wheezed out, struggling to push him off as what was once her friend was now the embodiment of evil itself and had gained sudden strength she was unable to fight against. 'Rhys…!'

'Rhys isn't here anymore, sweet heart. It's all Jack, baby!' He laughed, eyes burning with hatred in such a way it was unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. Fiona's vision was going dark as he pinned her against the cold surface of the desk, both hands wrapped around her throat and knee pinning her down by her stomach as Jack activated the ECHO-eye and flooded all camera feeds around Helios with what he was doing. Laughter rang throughout the halls of Helios station as Fiona was asphyxiated, her lungs spasming desperately as she coughed and wheezed and scrabbled at his firm hands to make him stop but it was no use. Jack had her in a vice and he wasn't letting go as he locked the cybernetic arm. Huh, he could get used to having one arm stronger than the rest of his body, he thought as he gave another surprisingly Jack-like laugh with Rhys' voice, watching the life drip from Fiona's eyes in the form of tears. Her eyes rolled up as he finished the job, crushing her neck just enough for it to spell her own end. Once done, he let her go and watched her body drop to the floor at his feet like a lifeless doll before looking up and smirking as he had himself projected onto every screen again, ECHO-eye glowing a deceptive yellow and an almost insane grin plastered to his new face in such a manner it was foreign to both himself and the terrified onlookers around Helios.

'And that, children, is why you don't try and take Hyperion from Handsome god damned Jack.' He grinned, eyes lustful and pleased with what he'd done as he ordered Sasha to be shot on sight and Gortys sent to RD, Yvette also being punished and submitted for subject testing in RD for such a low-down act of betrayal that had resonated deep within Jack's own programming. Jack laughed again and turned off the feeds, stretching his new body back and groaning in relief. It felt so good to be walking around again and by God he'd missed it dearly. His frame was so much lankier and leaner now with barely any muscle to it, he realised, and was quick to have that sorted out. Rhys had been erased from existence, Jack thought, as he'd had the body reconstructed in his own good-looking image and any traces of Rhys further removed from it. He was finally rid of that snot-nosed brat and it felt soooo good. No more pathetic thoughts, no more being bounced around back and forth in his stupid little head, no more having to listen to his thoughts about how much he adored Jack and how much he adored Vaughn and how much he hated Pandora and how much he wanted to go back to Helios. Jack was free at last and it felt amazing.

When Jack had gotten himself remodelled the first thing he'd done as the resurrected CEO of Hyperion was space a whole lot of people. The people who had dared try and take his position, the people who were close to the people taking his position. It felt great to space a couple hundred of people in the name of revenge and to put across the statement to all other companies and even his enemies of "I'm back baby!" Jack was hungry for blood as if he'd been starved of the act of murder. But if there was one thing he couldn't shake it was the feeling of being watched. Of being judged. He was certain it was nothing but there was a lingering doubt in him that not even a murderous rampage of the accounting department couldn't shake. Jack had been walking back into his office from his most recent kill-spree and he'd looked up at his desk when he could have sworn he saw a familiar flicker of blue standing beside it. He stopped, rubbed his eyes and frowned, walking right up to the desk in an almost hesitant manner and yet there was nothing there. Maybe it was just the light reflecting off of the many magnificent statues of himself? Yeah, that had to have been it, he'd just had them polished again so it had to have been that. There was no way it was-

'Rhys?!' Jack wheezed as there was another flicker of a figure, this time sat in his chair in the all-too-familiar manner Rhys had been when Jack had killed him. It was absolutely Rhys, it had his stupid little face and his stupid little haircut and his ridiculous shirt. It was Rhys and it was staring at him. Dead eyes bore into Jack's glowing yellow ones (an option he'd gone for out of what might have been a sense of nostalgia of the time in the Atlas facility), the young man staring up at him and barely making a sound as Jack felt chills race down his spine. It wasn't possible and yet just as quickly as the boy appeared, his image flickered before he vanished in a wisp of what looked like pixels.

Jack was spooked, to say the least, as he looked around for a hologram projector that wasn't one of his. He hunted around in his office for a while with a frown plastered to his newly-masked face and yet turned up nothing that could have caused that little glitch. Jack shrugged it off and sat himself in his chair again only for the flicker to appear once more – Rhys stood above Jack, hands reaching for his neck before he glitched and disappeared again just as Jack used to in Rhys' vision. The Hyperion leader cried out in fright and pushed the chair back so fast it toppled over, sending him crashing to the floor in fright with wide eyes and maybe a small piss-stain on his jeans. This couldn't be happening. No, it was im-frickin-possible for Rhys to be back like this. Jack closed his eyes and took a moment to steady himself and to calm his racing heart as it wasn't' doing him an ounce of good before risking opening them again to see… nothing. There was nothing there.

'Oh son of a taint… I gotta be screwin' up my sleeping… I'm seeing things… or maybe it's just the excitement of being back in control again, who the hell knows.' Jack wheezed a little, giving a nervous laugh as he shook his head and righted his chair before slumping back down into it lazily and looked over all the security feeds he'd taken to playing with to be able to see everything that was going on in Helios. A snort left him as he watched yet another finger-gun fight take place in the Hub of Heroism. Idiots, he should have them all spaced he thought as he tried hard to chill out, taking to dicking with some people for the evening.

The next time Rhys appeared was days later in one of the corridors on Jack's camera feeds. He appeared for longer than usual, Jack noted as he kept his eyes glued to the screen, and he was definitely the same blue Jack had been if not a shade paler as he just stood there. He didn't do anything, he didn't move whatsoever as employees all stopped around him and stared. All of them were mumbling as Jack turned on the audio and watched with wide eyes, hearing them all mumble Rhys' name in disbelief as he flickered again before appearing at the screen directly to Jack with lifeless eyes that looked like mere holes in his head. Jack reared back with a cry of alarm, falling off his chair with a groan before daring to poke his head up and stare at the screen that was now empty and showing the corridor again where the people there were just talking in fear to one another. It wasn't even like he'd looked pretty grotesque with blood dripping out of his eyes or anything. Rhys was just… empty. There was no life about him like how Jack had noticed whenever he talked to Vaughn, there wasn't even the small sparkle in his eye that occurred when he spoke. There was just nothing and that scared Jack more than anything. It shouldn't have scared him, after all he had murdered the kid and he never got spooked over anyone he killed, but for some reason this really struck a chord with Jack and he didn't like it one bit.

Later, in the evening or maybe even nearing midnight (Jack couldn't tell anymore), he did a complete system purge of Helios' database. If Rhys was stuck as a crappy AI in the system, this purge would fix that. After all there was no possible way anything like that could survive the purge.

Employees were starting to talk about this mysterious figure that kept appearing at random, all of them recognising it to be Rhys. Everyone knew him now if they didn't before and everyone was afraid of what it meant. They all knew Jack had murdered him, took his body and made it his own to take back Hyperion but no one could have ever imagined this to have happened. Rhys would randomly appear in any given corridor, at any time, any place, to anyone. It didn't matter who was walking down there, he'd sometimes just appear. Interns thought it was bad luck, while some idiots also thought it was good luck or believed it to be a sign of change, rebellion almost. Either way, there was a ghost in the machine and Jack wasn't the least bit impressed about it. He'd scrutinised the systems and subsystems of Helios ten times over, spending hours and even two days without rest looking it over. He'd had the computing department analyse every last bit of data possible, he'd had everyone in Helios stop using their devices so he could be absolutely certain no one was dicking with him on purpose and yet nothing had been turned up again.

'God damn it! The hell is this?!' Jack snapped finally, nearing the point of tearing his own gorgeously gelled hair out in frustration before he heard the tell-tale static noise that often occurred right before Rhys would appear. It was right behind him and he whipped around only to find nothing there. Great, now he was jumping at his own shadow and that only meant paranoia was setting in. Jack glared at the nothingness and at Elpis' glow, even that wonderful sight sickening him as he faced his office again. If there was one thing he could never bring himself to admit, it was that he was beginning to be rather afraid of turning around to see Rhys standing before him. He was being tormented by this "ghost" and it wasn't fair. If he couldn't work out what was causing Rhys, he couldn't be fearless of him. Rhys had appeared multiple times when Jack was in bed trying to sleep, either at the foot of the bed, in the corner of the room or right above his face. Jack had shouted in fear more times than he cared to mention, and he'd been under increasing amounts of pressure in critically important meetings whenever Rhys decided to appear beside important board members – making Jack start to sweat more often than not much to the bemusement of his board. It looked like he was losing his mind bit by bit and that wasn't good for gossip. But he still didn't even know what was causing these occurrences.

Jack didn't like not knowing what he was up against nor did he like not being on control – and he certainly wasn't in control of Rhys as he watched him appear at the opposite end of his office.

'Oh shit, no!' Jack gasped a little, eyes wide as he watched the young man standing there silently. His mouth moved wordlessly as normal and no one had yet been able to work out what he was saying as he stared at Jack with almost unseeing eyes, slowly moving forwards toward him. 'No, don't you dare come any closer!' Of course, Rhys didn't listen as he kept moving at a particularly slow and unthreatening pace, yet it wasn't his pace that terrified Jack it was the fact he kept on coming towards him. He didn't stop, he didn't do as Jack told him to and Rhys got to the desk before vanishing again with a small burst of pixels.

Jack felt his breath finally leave his lungs, having been holding it in in terror as he stared at the little wisp of pixels left on the other side of the desk. The ghost of that young man had never yet quite reached him, always vanishing before it could reach its hand out and 'touch', and it still didn't calm Jack's agitated nerves. He almost could have sworn a little bit of pee came out as he sank down in the fine leathered chair, breathing hard somewhat as he gave a groan. This thing was starting to scare him now and that wasn't good for his image, God only knew what his employees would do if this got out. There'd undoubtedly be yet more dissent among the ranks and Jack wasn't having that. They'd try to overrule him, run him out regardless of how terrifying he was. Jack would be a laughing stock.

He had to fix that.

Some said Helios was haunted, but no one can tell you that now. Its halls are barren and bare, and no one walks them anymore. Its labyrinthine corridors are empty for good and Jack had seen to that personally. He'd spaced every last one of his workers, room by room and floor by floor until none were left. They'd gathered around the station, blocking all shuttles to and from its bays until every last person was out there, dead, in the expanse of space. Some could tell you he'd become obsessed with this ghost of a character, but no one could confirm that for sure. Shuttles to Helios were banned, forever, and so the stories went of a man that roamed its corridors, screaming and shouting in madness. There are rumours Jack wandered there, still, to this day, howling and looking for someone, something, he'd tried to kill, but no one can be sure. None dare venture on that hallowed ground, not since 'the great Hyperion purge', and none dare question why. All they need know is of the man that walks its halls, looking for the ghost, and the ghost that looks for him.