boring prologue is boring and introductory original characters are...characters.
John didn't even bother flinching when the heavy paperweight smashed into the wall beside him, denting the soft rubber-steel hybrid they'd fashioned for the inside of the president's office. Dr. Sphinx had just got off her communications with Handsome Jack who'd cited that he would like to purchase more shields, vehicles and modifications and in the same breath told her to totally screw off with any questions regarding Pandora, Sirens, and Eridium.
He also called the good doctor 'sugar puff'. John was entirely certain that had Handsome Jack been in the same room with Dr. Sphinx, she would have torn his face off.
Or mask. Mask-face. Whatever.
Dr. Sphinx was facing the window now, knee length black cloak sweeping out behind her dramatically and flapping due to her standing conveniently under an air conditioning vent. Her long curved nails, painted an attractive eggshell gold this week tapped against the metal pane of her window looking out over Preserve Zeta where her herbivore experiments were housed.
John waited, never saying a word until Dr. Sphinx wanted him to speak.
She turned to him slowly, a plain white surgical mask covering her mouth and nose. Her dark gold eyes glittered, as she spoke to him: "Handsome Jack is an asshat. An asshat, who unfortunately for me, invested in this company and now has me by the balls so I have no clue what's going on but he's been asking for vague notes on human experimentations, modifications and what-if scenarios that he says are for shits and giggles but you and I know, that the only thing that comes out of Handsome Jack's mouth besides chocolate covered shit is a lie."
She spread her arms out, gesturing to her Preserve cameras that recorded everything from Alpha to Zeta, "He is really, really pissing me off. He gives me the creepy feeling that he's trying to corner my market – making shields that his company never made before, this bullshit about modifications and now our inside guy says that they're looking at designing vehicle bodies, which are looking like our WarMachines and LiteMachines."
John waited, head cocked and ears canted. He barely held back a sympathetic whine. "What…course of action would you like to take?" he asked carefully.
Dr. Sphinx's mask wrinkled, showing distaste and irritation, "I'd like to tell him to go piss off and tell you to tear his throat out with your teeth, BUT. He has amassed a robot army seemingly overnight. Also that crazy-ass computer system that he has that keeps trying to hack our networks. Which it has done. Nine times so far in the last month but the techs were able to track it and lead it out with some sort of false crappy codes that had some real bits in it or something." Her shoulders slumped.
Her gaze became distant and far away. She was thinking or planning something.
Possibly about to sneeze. John wasn't entirely certain.
"Be a good dog and start getting a Class 2 ship ready for departure." She said mildly after a moment, nails tapping on the glass topping of her desk before she sat down slowly, as if enjoying the cushion. She shrugged her cloak off, baring her white knit sweater and black knee length pencil skirt.
John perked forward. She sounded better, if a tad more vicious, conniving. "Destination?" although he knew, he had to be sure. It was going to be the start of something amazing. A revolution. A new age empire with Dr. Sphinx at the forefront.
"Destination Pandora. Let's see that jack-off screw with my Spartans with his tin-cans." Beneath the mask, John saw the imprint of her lips turn into a large smile. He smiled back, showing long canines.
"Doctor?" he asked, excited. Dr. Sphinx regarded him coolly, if indulgently, with a raised brow. "Would you like me to lead an expedition?" he tried to contain his enthusiasm. There were some things that genetic modification couldn't contain and this was one of them, a rather unfortunate over-eagerness to please.
Dr. Sphinx tapped a nail against the desk before shaking her head, "Not now. If things start looking like full-scale war between Hyperion and Theia, then I'll send you and your team down, but for now, you stay here. I need someone to mindlessly listen to me bitch."
John accepted this. Any way that made the doctor happy made him happy. He was disappointed that he wouldn't be let out of the proverbial cage, remaining in glass and steel and rubber enforced walls with sterile environments and screaming instead of untouched wilderness, but Dr. Sphinx needed him here and that was what mattered.
"Tell them that their orders are to find out more about this Eridium hype, the Sirens, the slag and what rumors are going around about Jack. We don't need a full confrontation yet." Her nails clacked on the desk. "We'll need to plan for that. But for now, I want information. Set a team up: I want Spartans manning it, scientists, techs, you know the drill. Brawn and brains. More brawn than brains though. From Jack's bragging, it sounds like everything on Pandora wants to either eat you or kill you." She dismissed him with a slight flick of her fingers, regarding the light display on her desk, playing with something on it.
John bowed out to start the ships and round up teams and set up a station nearby Pandora, in case more troops would need to be sent out at a later time.
She'd reward his patience later.