Hyperion was not all that it was cut out to be. Before I had applied I had no idea what I was getting into. All was hope, and hope was a difficult conviction at the time. As a girl barely out of her 20's who's lived on the shitty-ass planet of Pandora her whole life, the great company of Hyperion seemed like a Godsend. One application and boom: local apartments, a stable job, food, and hell, even people who weren't psychotic bandits always chasing after you with fire guns and grenades. It was perfect.

Well, that was before I knew how "perfect" Hyperion was.

Now don't get me wrong, the company itself was better than I make it out to be. It gives jobs to people in need, it produces tech to maintain order on the chaos of Pandora, and it even provides special care to death-deserving native creatures roaming their respected regions. Despite a certain psychotic CEO, yup, Hyperion was great.

That was until, my application was accepted.

Here's the down low: Pandora is filled with tech. Old, new, current, and a whole lot of scrap that almost anybody can get their hands on. And if you've lived on Pandora long enough, then you know the dire need one has on collecting the tech and scrap to protect yourself from the said shitty-ass creatures from before. Also bandits, don't forget the shitty-ass bandits. There was no escaping it. Either you were an engineer who knew their way around an unstable power core or a broken down buggy or you were dead. Seriously, no tech knowledge, no life.

Which brings it back to me. Hello, my name is Ellis, and at that point in my life I was a 25 year old resident of the shitty planet of Pandora, with the skills to jack up a pistol and rewire a berserk EXP loader to pick flowers instead of explode. After a very long time of running around Pandora looking for a place to rest my head for one full fucking night, I had finally found asylum at Hyperion. With what you may ask? What job had I applied for that had been pulled through and now had me with my own safe apartment near the station?

Well it should be obvious, I was the head engineer. What shouldn't be obvious, however, was the part of my job that required me to receive orders directly from the man above. That's right, my boss was Hyperion CEO Heterochromic Handsome-fucking-Jack.

Why am I so angry? Because that was not what I freaking asked for. I had already spent the last 25 years of my life running away from psychos, I didn't settle down there to start working for one. Let alone their freaking king. And no, I am not overreacting. Handsome Jack was quite literally the worst of them all.

For example, it is on record that every single head engineer that had worked directly under him had died under the pretense of "mysterious circumstances." And any fool working in or out of Hyperion knew that Jack fucking killed them. The life-span of their jobs? Two. Weeks. I was so a dead woman.

That was definitely not what I signed up for. No, I signed up for novice engineer working in the tech labs as the lowest possible part of the company. I wanted to work but I wanted to stay hidden. Any job would have given me the benefits I needed but I needed to keep the attention away from myself because I knew that the smaller I was, the less attention Jack or anybody else at the company would give me. Unfortunately, I was deemed too good to be given novice and instead was given the highest authority in engineering. Right. Under. Fucking. Handsome. Jack.

But in retrospect I probably shouldn't have put my early tech miracles of the girl surviving chaotic Pandora onto my application. It could've made due without a few triple-element-packed weapons, but hey, what's a girl without a few brags?

But there I was, dressed in my finest scrapped cargo pants, charcoaled white tank shirt, ruined leather gloves and metal-lined boots, making my way down a corridor to some advanced elevator that lead up to Handsome Jack's office at the top of the station for my evaluation. As my head scrambled for things to say that wouldn't tick him off and have him pointing his gun at my face, it was also writing a eulogy in preparation that he did pull the trigger.

I stepped into the elevator, facing several pale-faced, paper-clutching cubical workers pressed against the back who'd already recognized my face and were sending prayers in my direction. I chose to ignore them. I had already lived a life of pity for way too long to really give a damn about anybody else's mental mercy anymore. Pressing a metal finger against the top button I stepped back into the space they had created for me and stared in indignation at the doors that closed, encasing me with the silent weirdos. Oh, and did I mention I had a metal arm? Long story.

By the time I reach the top of the station, I was alone in the elevator. And thankfully too. I had already received way too many bleary eyes and puckered lips to have to deal with them right before I stepped into my demise known as the lasted engineer shot in the head by notorious Handsome Jack. As I made my way down I came face to face with his secretary, some petite blonde girl who looked too terrified to be working such a close-call job with Jack. If I wasn't already fearing for my own life I would have felt bad for her.

The girl exchanged no words with me, just a weary finger pointing to Handsome Jack's doors before she disappeared into the closing doors of the elevator. Jealously was far too mild to call me at that moment.

Before I stepped into certain doom, I stopped myself short in front of the office doors. I did remember what Handsome Jack looked like, right? Searching my head told me maybe. Sure, Jack had his face on plenty of advertisements scattered and scrapped throughout Pandora, but I had never actually paid any mind to them. I had far too much to deal with than to remember some dude's face, but there had to be something in my memory banks that could help. With careful reconstruction, all I could piece together was a long nose, intense eyebrows and large, heterochromic eyes. Did he actually live up to his given namesake? Was he really Handsome or was that just some title he gave to himself as a first impression before people actually met him?

Only one way to find out.

Lifting my metal army, heavy with the weight of my fears, my fingers curled into a fist and I planted three, short knocks onto the door. There was a silent pregnant air that followed and I began to mildly sweat under my shirt. I never assumed to know the guy but why the fuck was he making it difficult to wonder what was going to happen next.

I stood in front of the door for what seemed like freaking forever. God it sucked.

"So, pumpkin, you gonna walk in or are you just gonna stand there like an idiot?"

I nearly flipped my shit as the muffled voice came from the other side of the doors. What a guy to make a person wait in silence for forever before deciding to scare them half to death. A deep breath followed the terrified jump in my heart and I finally grabbed the door to open it. A single swing and I was standing at the threshold of the office of one, Handsome Jack, languidly stretched in his chair, feet propped up against his desk and a gun in the process of being cleaned with a napkin held loosely in his hands. He was whistling now, paying almost no mind to my presence as I very carefully made my way to the front of the room. Behind him was an enormous glass window that overlooked the planet. It was almost like some fancy-ass painting. He was practically glowing with the moon behind him.

But boy, I had to admit, he sure was Handsome. Well, as handsome as any manipulating, psychotic, egotistical guy can be.

I stood awkwardly in front of Jack's desk, my metal arm rubbing my fingers together to create a small grinding noise, a habit I had in times of my unstable nerves, while my human arm stayed clenched at my side. The silence was absolutely unbearable, even more so that it seemed Jack was purposefully trying to make me uncomfortable. What a hairy ass.

"You're Ellis, right?" Jack finally spoke, still not lifting his eyes as he inspected his gun. I stared at him, hoping my terror wasn't showing so obviously on my face.

"Mhm."

A moment passed before Jack's eyes snapped up to meet mine and he slid his legs off the table. "Holy shit, you're a girl?" He exclaimed suddenly.

I took a step back at his outburst, my shoulders scrunching together in surprise. Jack just stared at me, a half-open smile curling to his face as if it were some delightful surprise that his new head engineer was a woman.

"Did—Did, uh, you think I was a guy?" I asked carefully, my face making some strange half-concerned, half-grimaced look.

Jack barked a laughed, one hand sheathing his gun while the other loudly slapped his desk once. "With a name like Ellis I sure as hell did. But damn, I wasn't expecting a chick at all. You don't find a lot of girls working in the engineering business."

I licked my dry lips, watching Jack's eyes flicker down momentarily as I did so. By now the stately man had stood up straight, his arms crossed, his face tilted upwards, hips jutted slightly forward. How old was he anyways? His upright position hinted 20 but his face said 40.

"That's good to, uh, hear, I guess." I finally said, trying hard not to bite the inside of my cheek. He stared me down with his discolored eyes, a hand releasing from the cross of his arms to curve around his jaw, probing me with his mind. A slight tip at the corner of his mouth said that he liked what he saw, but somehow that didn't make me feel better.

"Sure is, cupcake. Means that it'll be a whole lot more pleasant around here than when the last ugly bastard who had to work for me was around. Seriously, did you ever meet the guy? Bald and fat as all hell." The tall man said with a comical shudder. He let his arms uncross and one hooked its thumb on his belt. He took a couple of strides to step around his desk before he stood in front of me, towering above me.

I liked to consider myself a regal form, tall, broad and strong. Compared to Jack, however, I looked like the psychotic midgets of the bandits back on Pandora. He stood at least a head taller than I, his shoulders broad, his muscles actually bulging slightly through his clothing. For a second I had to fight a mental image about what his body looked under all that clothing. A mental shudder crossed my mind. That had to violate some sort of code, didn't it?

"Evaluation." I croaked, clearing my throat before I spoke.

Jack cocked an eye at me, his head tilting slightly. "What?"

"Evaluation, um, sir." I repeated, trying a more formal tone to establish that I was being respectful. "That's why I'm up here. You're supposed to evaluate me before I start working for you."

Handsome Jack's eyes lit up with a wide smile. "No shit, I forgot!" He said with another laugh, his hands swinging and clamping onto my arms. Again I had that estranged look on my face as I stared up at him, his grip on my arms scrunching my shoulder and chest together. He squeezed a little, before pulling outwards, my arms lifting to form my body into a large T. He stepped back, admiring his work, his hand again encasing the edge of his jaw and chin, taking a few strides around me to probe me with his eyes.

"Mhm, I like what I see, yes." He said after about a minute of visual analyzing. "Nice muscles, long legs, small waist, cute butt, and that rack! Damn girl."

"Um, sir, I don't think that's what an evaluation means." I said, mentally smacking myself after. This was Handsome fucking Jack. He could do what he wanted, however he wanted, regardless if he was wrong or not. And for some reason, in that moment I had forgot that and probably just lost the lease to my life in ten fucking words.

"What—what was that?" Jack said, suddenly by my face, a hand cupping his ear in a mock representation of a man hard of hearing. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you there. But it sounded something like you were telling me that I was doing something wrong."

His voice had reached a threatening level of passive-aggressiveness, and I had to shut my eyes to hide from it. As soon as I did, however, his hand reached out to snatch my chin, forcing my face towards his. "Look at me." He seethed between his teeth, forcing me to open my eyes and stare into the angry green and blue orbs on his face. "I am Handsome fucking Jack, I can do very well what I please. I don't need some lowlife like you telling me that I'm doing something wrong."

A part of me felt like tearing up but another part defied my pressing emotions. Sure this guy terrified me but I was sure as hell not going to let him get to me. Not like this.

"Now, I am going to let go of your face and continue my evaluation, and when I'm done, you are going to say 'Thank you sir, I look forward to working with you as your head engineer' with that sexy little voice of yours and step out of this office eager to have your job, am I clear?"

A hairy fucking ass indeed.

"Yes."

"Yes, what."

"Yes, sir."

"There we go." With a yank, his hands fell from my face. His voice returned to its normal flirty pitch, and he stood up to adjust his vest. "Now was that so hard princess?" He asked rhetorically, continuing his analyzation.

I stood as still as I could, closing my eyes to imagine that I wasn't being ogled at by the notorious Handsome Jack. It felt like a long time that I stayed still, reeling back from Jack's earlier outburst, waiting for him to finish so I could finally leave and go home and drink it off. I had been saving some alcohol I had snatched from a camp of bandits a few weeks ago and this seemed like the perfect time to crack it open and consume all of it.

"You know, pumpkin, as much as I like seeing you standing there, baring yourself to me like some sort of sacrifice, I gotta get back to work. So, do yourself a favor and go home to pleasure yourself while imagining getting it on with me, would you?"

I could feel a fire rising behind the skin of my face, and opened my eyes to see Jack's smug smile as he sat in his chair, arms propped up on his desk. I let my arms snap back to my sides, turning away to hurry quickly out of the office. I just couldn't understand why I let the bastard get to me so much.

"Oh, but Ellis, aren't you forgetting something?"

His voice made me stop in my tracks, just short of the door, and my head dropped to stare at the ground. God I hated him. "Thank you sir—"I began, but choked on my words.

"Go on, finish your sentence."

Deep breath. "Thank you sir, I look forward to working with you as your head engineer." And killing you whatever chance I get.

"Good. Now get out, I have more important shit to deal with."

I was gone before he even finished his sentence. To hell if it was rude of me, I just had to get out of there. Who the fuck did he think he was, being such an ass back there? So profane and disgusting, it made me sick.

I guess I shouldn't have expected any less from Handsome Jack. This was the card the universe dealt me, so I had to work with it. Even if it meant that I was going to put my life on the line every day until I had no life to deal anymore.

I was so a dead woman.