++++++++++++++++++I had some lovely responses to 'The Thing About Grunt' so I thought I'd have another go- this time with Jack. If I do more I'll try to pick a vaguely sensible order.
I'm a little worried about the conversational tone (again!) in case it doesn't read the same way in a reader's head as it does in mine... Hope it's okay.
If you'd like to read my Grunt story it's here:
s/11041948/1/The-thing-about-Grunt +++++++++++++++++++
Jack... How do I even begin to describe Jack?
Well all I really got from Cerberus' dossier was that a powerful biotic by the name of Jack— just 'Jack'— was a er... 'Resident' on the prison ship Purgatory. The warden— Kuril or something— sold inmates to anyone with the credits to pay. He seemed like an ass from the get go, but I underestimated him— should've known he was trouble when he tried to take our weapons. We didn't give them up— obviously. Grunt would have killed everyone in the room before giving up that Claymore. Not that Garrus would have given up his Widow either.
Anyway, it turned out that this fuckwit of a warden planned on selling me to the highest bidder. "More valuable as a prisoner than a customer" apparently.
That plan didn't work out too well for him. We tore through guards and mechs to get to the control room— y'know, to get Jack released from the cryo—chamber. Even these days, I was still expecting a guy...She made a hell of an entrance. I knew she was a powerful biotic but I had no idea that she was possibly THE most powerful human biotic in the galaxy.
We finished off the warden and his forces pretty quickly— the heavy mechs were a pain in the ass though. If anything, persuading Jack to leave with us was more of a challenge. Thank Christ I didn't bring Miranda along.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention, the reason Jack was such a…. freaking badass, was she spent her childhood as a Cerberus guinea pig. 'Subject Zero' they called her. The shit they did to her... So "Hey! Wanna come with us on this ship plastered with the logo of the organisation that tortured and abused you?" didn't really fly with her. But it was that or go down with the ship so...
Jack asked— or rather, demanded— access to Cerberus files. I agreed just to get her on the ship, but I didn't really intend to do it. In the end though, I let her have them— which pissed Miranda off immensely. She and Jack were ... Not the best of friends. Miranda had seemed to be warming up a little—very very slowly. But Miranda's faith in Cerberus and Jack's history with them were just never going to mix. I was damn glad they had a deck between them.
Jack dug up the details of the facility Cerberus kept her at. She wanted to blow the place to hell. Everyone told me it was an unnecessary distraction— even Garrus and Tali— but after Akuze... And with the shit The Illusive Man pulled on Horizon? I wanted to to do it.
The facility was on a backwater planet named Pragia. Fucking horrible place. It would have been nauseating even without Jack's commentary. I took Thane with us, which was a dumb idea. Taking the guy with the father/son crisis to the place where it was impossible not to think about frightened, miserable children? Smart move Shep. Could've been worse; I could have brought Miranda.
God, I can't explain that place. I don't think I've ever felt so ill. Cerberus set the kids up to fight in an arena; hurt them when they hesitated, got them hooked on narcotics and injected them when they attacked. Extreme reinforcement training. There was evidence to suggest that the facility had gone rogue, but by that stage it didn't seem to make much difference— not to Jack anyway. The mercs we found were actually a welcome distraction from the horrors.
But of course that wasn't the end of it— it's never that simple. Once we got to Jack's cell we found a guy named Aresh there— one of the kids who'd survived when the facility crumbled in the aftermath of Jack's escape. This guy was seriously fucked up. Maybe even more than Jack... I don't know. Anyway, he wanted to start the place up again! Do to new kids what Cerberus did to him. Talk about vicious cycles and history repeating itself. It was impossible not to pity the guy. This was all he knew. I expected Jack to shoot him then and there, but she hesitated—and then I knew I could talk her into letting him go. It felt like a big step for her, but then I suppose we blew the place sky high as we left and he could well have died in the blast. But that Asari scientist I let go on Virmire survived a much bigger explosion so who knows? The point is, Jack let him go.
She seemed less… prickly after the mission. Certainly to me at least. Not so much Jacob or the Cerberus crew— and obviously not Miranda. On one occasion I had to physically intervene to stop them killing each other. She hung out with Zaeed a lot. They had similar temperaments. When we got around to hunting down Zaeed's 'old friend', Jack volunteered for the ground team— but that's another story entirely.
I'd definitely say that I considered Jack a friend by the time we hit the Collector base. Took awhile to get her on my side but it was worth it.
I have no idea where she is now... She kept telling me to steal the ship and go pirate. Said we could live like Queens... It was tempting. Maybe she's doing that now. Better than falling back into the gangs and drugs. But if there's one certain thing about Jack, it's that she can handle herself. She'd punch me in the gut for worrying about her at all.
++++++++++++++++++++My chronic overuse of italics continues.
Constructive criticism is always cool.++++++++++++++++++++++++