Red light, cool black metal, piping bent into twisted arcane shapes that took monstrous form in the ever-present shadows. Jack grinned, kicking against one of the thick bars. Dark. Creepy. She liked it.
She flopped down on the little cot, testing it. Hard. Scratchy. Still a luxury compared to cryo. The red light bathed her, dying her skin as surely as her ink. Red had always been her favorite color.
She laughed, remembering the warmth of scarlet blood washing over her. So pretty when it was fresh and gleaming—black in the moonlight, steaming in the snow. She'd spilled turian blue, salarian green, asari indigo, but she always preferred the red blood of humans.
Aliens hadn't tortured her as a girl—she didn't go out of her way to kill those who hadn't wronged her. It was Cerberus. Those goddamn supremacist terrorists.
She sat up in her cot, eyes narrowed, mind calculating. This Shepard wore a Cerberus uniform, had a Cerberus crew, and flew a Cerberus ship. Looks like a dog, smells like a dog…but doesn't bark like one. Shepard had said she'd only keep the logo until the Collectors were charcoal and she'd made a point of embracing the recruited aliens into the ship's social atmosphere.
Jack shook her head briskly. No, you can't trust anyone.
She lay back, thinking about the layout of the ship. If she needed to—if she wanted to—she could always stage a one-woman coup. The thought comforted her. It was nice to have something you could count on, if only it was your ability to make the floors run slick with blood.
Subject Zero drifted off to a dreamless sleep in her dark new home, the red light reflecting dully on her eyelids.