Of all the things, the TITLE was the thing I really struggled with the most, but any excuse for a Labyrinth reference. I could not get this idea out of my head and the preview pic for episode 5 also kind of inspired it 'cause it looked like Rhys and Fiona were at serious odds and INTRIGUING. I started writing this nearly three months ago with no pairing intentions and then I read some really excellent Rhyiona fics and I've become quite attached to that pairing. So I guess some of that has influenced this a little. I just love these two together, shippy or not, so that's why it can be read either way. Heh, this fic is longer than my degree dissertation. I know which one I'd rather write all over again.
Fiona goes back to Helios.
There are a wealth of other things she should do instead. Help Sasha patch up August, who looks paler by the minute, in the rear of the caravan. Drive them back to Hollow Point, to a doctor, and then maybe to the safe house to figure out what to do next. Rest. They've barely stopped for the last twenty-four hours, which is a stressful enough situation before factoring in fleeing from a crumbling space station in an escape pod or hastily-built caravan space ship, summoning a vault and trying to fend off the monster that emerges from it. But she can't yet bring herself to leave, not yet. If they leave now, that's it. The chapter is closed. And Fiona can't bring herself to close the chapter for good until one remaining, burning question is answered.
Did he make it?
Sasha is angry. Fiona can't blame her, emotions are raw and the events of the last day haven't quite sunk in yet. It had always been a risky plan and at the back of her mind, she thinks it's quite remarkable that they survived even the early parts of that plan. To have come out alive even after all of the unexpected, unplanned for events that had actually occurred is a miracle. Well, she thinks bitterly, if being back on Pandora, injured and without a penny to their name could be considered a "miracle", anyway.
That's the excuse that Fiona opts to use to go back. It's no secret that the only thing she and Sasha have left is the caravan and... that's about it. They could sell it, she reasons. Scooter did a remarkable job restoring it after the back half of it ended up scattered across the desert. The thought of Scooter brings a fresh pang of pain and suddenly the thought of returning to Hollow Point fills her with dread. Janey hasn't been told about what happened to him yet and Fiona feels sick at the thought of breaking the news. That's another thing to have come out of these awful events that she'll just have to face when it comes to it. But no, selling the caravan would be silly. At least they have a mode of transport, can leave Hollow Point and go somewhere their faces won't be recognised, con again and again until they hit the big money again.
Because it had gone so well the last time they hit the jackpot.
Helios was Hyperion. Fiona hadn't spent a great deal of time on the space station, but she remembers how much wealth it had held before its fall. Even in ruins, it's probably filled to the brim with high-tech weaponry, shields, stun batons. Hell, even furniture from the set-piece offices on board could bring in a small chunk of money, if any of it survived burning up in the atmosphere at least. Sasha knows her guns and Fiona knows the black markets, if they can find even a handful of weapons to sell it will be worth the trip. She doesn't tell Sasha her real reason for wanting to go back, but Sasha knows anyway.
"This is his fault, Fiona."
Sasha can't understand it. She's tending to August, firmly holding a towel to the gunshot wound in his abdomen. It's unpleasant, but shouldn't be fatal. Fiona looks to her own wound, the blossoming blood on the bandage she managed to wrap it with just before her pod crashed into Pandora. The physical injuries will heal, but she can't speak for the rest of it. Sasha sees the worst of it in her anger. She sees Rhys somehow causing the release of the maniacal AI in Helios' systems and setting off the catastrophic events that followed. Even on Helios, Sasha seemed to have written him off, had wanted to hurry them away from the trap door before they even knew if Rhys was ok. Fiona can't say she blames her. The stinging wound left by Felix's betrayal had never fully healed, for either of them, she admits, and Sasha had taken it particularly badly. For someone she had considered a friend to apparently stab them in the back, too, and especially so soon after their father figure… it's too much.
Fiona sees it differently. She remembers anguished shrieks from the office and his haunted expression after emerging hastily through the trap door. There had been no time to ask what had happened. She remembers the panic as he fell behind, as Helios began to lock down and their escape route in the caravan was cut off. And his immediate determination to get them the hell out of there, to get the hangar doors open despite the very obvious risk to his own life. She should be angry that he had put them in that position in the first place, that he had been the catalyst in the reason why an entire space station had been trying to kill them. How that had even happened in the first place, she has no idea. Something terrible had gone down in Jack's office and she doesn't truthfully know how much of that Rhys is to blame for. But Fiona has a good sense of people and she can't help but feel that Rhys had had no choice in that particular event. Even despite his words of assurance.
All good. Just getting into position.
And then everything had gone to shit.
It's decided. She drives them toward their destination. Sasha has gone quiet, perhaps concentrating on mending August, more likely that she's run out of energy to argue against this plan. It's completely dark now, which makes the fires from Helios easier to spot in the distance. The Hyperion space station has definitely seen better days, the chunks of it that managed to escape burning up in the atmosphere now scattered widely across the desert. How many people perished? Hyperion was full of assholes, but they were still people. Fiona wonders how many on Pandora had been caught up in the fall, how many had died as a result of the station crashing into the ground. The desert is sparsely populated and mainly made up of bandits. But still. People. She doesn't know why she feels a stab of guilt, she'd had no hand in bringing the station to its knees.
Fiona parks as close as safely possible to the most intact-looking piece of Helios she finds. A handful of escape pods litter the landscape close by and she tries to stop herself thinking about who may be inside one of them. Focus. They need things to sell, this isn't a rescue mission. Liar. She eyes the wreckage ahead and is once again reminded about how silly this whole thing is. The station could go up in flames at any moment, there's debris everywhere and she could easily be killed by falling pieces of space station if she ventures inside. She tries not to consider that as she heads to the back of the caravan to change her clothes – the Hyperion get-up isn't particularly suitable attire for sifting through wreckage. She tucks the Roshambo up her sleeve, just in case. A backpack, for carrying anything she can salvage. Sasha finally looks up and eyes Fiona's backpack with an unreadable expression.
"I'm not coming with you."
"I didn't ask you to."
She leaves.
Rhys wakes up in Helios.
Or, what's left of it now, anyway. The escape pod did its job, he's somehow managed to survive the climax of the insanity of the last day. Or longer? He has no idea how long he was out, but the faint light beginning to appear over the horizon suggests a while. He can already tell he's not in the best shape, unsurprising given the circumstances, but his leg has taken a knock and feels sore before he's even tried to move. Bad bruising, most likely. He's been lucky.
Lucky. Hah. He can see the destruction outside of the pod window as he hauls himself toward the exit door. Lucky would have been not being caught up in this whole thing to start with. But, he's alive... and that's more than can be said for probably the majority of people who had been on Helios. Shit.
Shit.
He hesitates with his hand on the window, suddenly feeling like he doesn't want to leave the pod at all. Leaving the pod means acknowledging what's happened, that thousands of his colleagues have died. Thousands of (mostly) innocent people who started their work day all those hours ago, grabbed coffee on their way to their offices and went about their business without even the faintest clue about what their day would turn into. Several had escaped in the pods but even some of those likely perished on the way down to Pandora. It's enough to make him want to curl into a ball and shut out the world. Leaving the pod means facing the weight of his very sizeable role in everything that has happened. He's not sure he can.
What next? He gets out of the pod and then... what? This is the first time in his life that he literally has no clue, plan or otherwise about what to do. Even when he and Vaughn had landed on Pandora, completely unfamiliar territory full of dangerous people and a landscape that promised they'd die of dehydration before anything else, they'd been able to wing it. They'd teamed up with Pandoran natives successfully, escaped other Pandoran natives out for their blood, for a time at least, turned a caravan into a space ship and still at least had some semblance of a plan.
Now Rhys is alone. And Vaughn, what has happened to him? He'd heard very briefly from Vaughn just before everything had kicked off on Helios, mainly incoherent talk about fruit, but he was with Cassius, who had managed to survive alone in an old Atlas facility for goodness knows how long. The thought brings Rhys a sliver of comfort. If Vaughn is still with Cassius, maybe Rhys can find them. Somehow. It's a start. And it's better than dying of thirst in a pod.
He punches through the door, finally utilising the strength of his metal arm. Loader Bot did a good job sealing him in and Rhys feels a wave of sadness at the thought of his friend. That Loader Bot's last act had been to save his life, again, and for the last time... it hurts. There's anger when he remembers Kroger shooting at Loader Bot as Rhys' pod ejected from the base and a small but vindictive part of Rhys' mind hopes that Kroger perished along with Helios. Most likely. It's a shitty way to think, but he goes with it. It helps cushion some of the guilt, if only a little. He places his hands onto the frame of the pod exit and takes a deep breath. No going back now. He has to face this.
It's even worse than he could have imagined and he doesn't even know what to try and take in first. The overwhelmingly large pieces of Helios wreckage that dwarf even him, some of which are on fire. Some parts of the base have survived surprisingly intact and he briefly marvels at the sheer feat of engineering that went into designing and building it. Then there are the numerous escape pods that are scattered within view. Many of them landed near where Helios would end up crashing, it seems. Some of the Hyperion employees probably survived the landing in their escape pods, only to be crushed by space station debris.
He can't think like this. It's done. It's happened and drowning in guilt is going to help nobody. He needs to leave, maybe go find help. He can comb the wreckage once he finds someone, once he's rested briefly and in slightly better shape. What he'll comb it for is another question. Survivors? How will he able to help anyone in this state? With no money, no transport, no means to help patch up anyone who has lived through this nightmare? Maybe he should just leave, a clean break. Find some tech, try to get in touch with Vaughn. Maybe Vaughn will have a better idea about what the hell to do next.
It will take a while on foot. Rhys looks across the horizon as the sunrise begins to take hold, looking for any sign of human life beyond the vast, rocky desert. Now is a bad time to try to travel on foot: once the sun rises, the temperature will shoot up and if he's not careful, he'll die of dehydration or exposure. Turning slightly, he wonders whether scouting through what's left of Helios might be a better idea first, staying sheltered until the sun sets. Helios had been full of supplies, food and water, and surely some of it must have survived. And maybe some of the tech survived, too? That's much more within his comfort zone, he can use tech, especially when it comes from Hyperion.
With a jolt, he realises he hasn't tried to scan anything with his ECHO-Eye since what occurred in the office. Jack's office. When Jack forcibly took over and uploaded himself into Helios. Rhys feels sick at the memory, particularly the part where he completely lost control of his own body and literally couldn't do a thing to stop Jack. Now he's hesitant to try to use any of his in-built tech, to try to connect to anything Hyperion nearby.
Helios fell, but did it take its leader with it?
There's nothing quite like the sensation of being present within your own mind, but not in control of the body hosting it. Rhys had only been a passenger as his own arm reached across to plug the override in. Worse still had been his complete inability to shout out to Fiona for help, or warn her about what was going on. Despite his mind screaming out, trying to rail against the sensation of being walled in by a foreign presence, the words that had come out were not his. Worse even still was that that hadn't been the first time it had happened. Allowing Jack into his sub-systems in Old Haven had easily been the worst decision he'd made during the whole journey, and Rhys feels like he'll be regretting that one the most for the foreseeable future.
He has to try, at least. Scanning pieces of wreckage would be the fastest way of determining whether anything could be of use. With an anxious twist in his stomach, he activates the Eye and tries to scan the closest piece of Helios debris.
... Offline. Rhys doesn't know whether to be deflated or relieved. Ever since Jack had accessed his sub-systems, all of the information Rhys had received when he scanned had come directly from Jack. Complete with his somewhat twisted sense of humour, in most cases. That it's offline now can only be a good thing, right? Does it mean that Jack's finally gone? It will mean manually sifting through pieces of wreckage, but that's a small price to pay if the ghost of Hyperion's past has finally been laid to rest for good.
He aimlessly wanders around the pieces of Helios, not quite daring to climb inside just yet. The sky begins to grow brighter as he walks slowly, gingerly avoiding putting too much strain on his injured leg. He ignores the escape pods as much as he can, though he does see that some of the exit doors have been opened, so there are at least some confirmed survivors. He doesn't see a single one as he wanders and idly wonders where survivors have gone. There are certainly plenty of unmoving bodies in and amongst the wreckage and he swallows the nausea every time his eyes happen upon one, or several. He reaches a part of the station that largely survived the crash into Pandora and, acknowledging that the temperature outside is beginning to get uncomfortably warm, finally ventures inside.
The station is a ghost of its former self. Though the opening into the ruins that Rhys steps through is a gaping hole, it quickly narrows thanks to various pieces of debris. He's nervous immediately, any one of these pieces could fall at any moment and crush him. He's in a former corridor, littered with broken glass and jagged pieces of rebar. Rhys makes his way through carefully, holding his breath while squeezing through some of the uncomfortably tight spaces. His pulse races and he's questioning whether to just abandon this insane mission, when the corridor finally opens up again and with a horrible jolt, he realises he recognises this particular part of Helios.
The looming marble statue of his former hero is a dead giveaway.
It's definitely seen better days, but it seems to have been mostly spared in the crash. Rhys looks up at his profile, or rather, glares up at it. He finally sees what the rest of Pandora did and does, the arrogance in the expression. Having several statues of yourself commissioned and placed into your office, of all places, is incredibly narcissistic as it is and Rhys doesn't quite know how he didn't see it for so long. For how long had he wanted to be the one sitting in that office, running the place, following in Jack's footsteps? Would Rhys have gone so far to have had statues of himself put all over the place? He had seen the posters advertising the city of Opportunity, which was essentially a giant shrine to Hyperion's leader. An old him had craved the chance to go there. The present Rhys is disgusted at the idea. Pandora has changed him, and he finds he's actually grateful for that.
Distorted, computerised noise further ahead pulls him from his thoughts. Immediately he feels an unsettled weight form in his stomach, suspecting the noise came from where the office itself probably landed. Which can mean only one thing. Rhys finds himself frozen in place, completely torn between carrying on, or fleeing. He knows which he'd rather do and there's nothing stopping him from turning around and leaving all of this behind, desert sun be damned. He can't, though. If Jack is indeed still within the system, damaged as it is, it's too dangerous to leave him there. Sure, the back-up power will eventually run out and he'll be shut down and unable to cause havoc. But if anyone on Pandora were to happen across him before that happens, the consequences would be dire. Jack can be very persuasive, Rhys knows that better than most, and it wouldn't take much other than the promise of riches to convince some poor Pandoran schmuck to hook Jack up to some system somewhere. Even with everything Jack had done to the planet, who here wouldn't take the opportunity to get rich quick?
Besides. Rhys is responsible for bringing the monster back from the dead. Now it is his responsibility to rid Pandora and the universe of him for good.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he takes a total of two steps toward the general vicinity of the office when he hears the sound of footsteps crunching on glass behind him. A survivor? A bandit, come to pick the site clean? Rhys unconsciously reaches for his stun baton before remembering the last time he saw it was when it was wedged in Helios' power core, so can only whip round to face the potential threat equipped with wide eyes and a racing heartbeat.
Matching wide eyes meet his and his own face opens in shock as he recognises the eyes, and person they belong to.
"Fiona...?"
Fiona has to admit, what must be at least a couple of hours later, that her venture into the fallen space station has been largely unsuccessful. Not a single weapon to be found anywhere amongst the ruins, though the place is huge and she's not even begun to scratch the surface. She has, however, found a stun baton. Her heart had skipped more than a couple of beats when she'd found it innocently lying on the ground near a crumpled metal cabinet. Mouth dry, she'd carefully picked it up, her mind going into overdrive as she'd imagined the mangled body of the man it had belonged to somewhere under the cabinet. But once she'd managed to calm herself down a bit, she'd realised it wasn't his. Same model, but this one was too new, fresh out of the packaging and missing the wear and tear that Rhys had knocked into his during their journey. She'd pocketed it with a sweaty palm.
She tries not to think once again about the crashed escape pods that she'd passed on her way into this particular chunk of ruin. The horizon had begun to grow lighter as she'd picked her way through the outer layer of Helios, and had highlighted the outlines of the pods. She'd not been able to resist looking into some of the more intact ones, ones which were still sealed shut, feeling sick every time she did. She'd seen Hyperion employees dressed in their finest office wear, now splattered with blood and who knows what else. They were Hyperion, but they hadn't deserved this. Rhys had been Hyperion, once. A lot of these people were likely as surprisingly normal, charming, and perfectly likeable as he had been.
Is, she corrects herself angrily, dragging her thoughts back to the present. After all, some of the pods are empty. People survived this thing. Maybe the power core room had been particularly well-built and robust. The last she'd known of him, he'd been racing back to the power core to override the hangar door controls. She should head there. Wherever the hell that had ended up.
She crunches through more ruins, now in some sort of mangled corridor. Most of Helios' corridors had looked identical to each other, but she's reminded of the one she walked with Gortys on their way to Jack's office during the tour. Fiona feels a fresh stab of pain. Gortys, ever-cheerful, sweet Gortys had been with them only hours ago, her wonderfully innocent words comforting them even as they'd been desperately trying to leave the space station alive. And then Vallory had opened the damn vault and Gortys was gone. Fiona stops for a moment, chest heavy. They'd had no choice, Gortys had been shouting that they had to destroy her. But it still hurt. Fiona presses on. I'm so sorry, Gortys. She'd deserved better.
Lost in thought, she almost misses the hideous marble statue of the man who had terrorised her home. Almost misses the human man walking away from it, in his mismatched clothing and terrible skag skin shoes that hide even more hideous socks. Her breath catches in her throat as he clocks her presence and spins, eyes wide.
"Fiona...?"
He did survive.
Fiona lets out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. He's alive. Relief crashes through her and her limbs feel wobbly. She thinks she sees a similar wave pass through Rhys and opens her mouth to say something, anything, but his expression changes before she can and it's closed-off and almost angry.
"What are you doing here, Fiona?"
Uhh, what?
His tone is almost accusatory as he looks at her through narrowed, tired eyes. Fiona blinks, thoroughly confused. Of all the things she'd imagined them saying if, when, they were reunited, that isn't one of them.
"Hey," she begins, trying to gather some sense of what's wrong together. "You made it."
Well, that was the wrong thing to say, she thinks as his expression hardens. He's hunched over and looks terrible, favouring one leg and covered in scrapes. At least she's been able to clean up somewhat in the caravan, Rhys looks as though he crawled out of the ruins only moments ago which, to be fair, is completely plausible.
"No thanks to you," he says quietly, beginning to turn away from her.
She feels a flash of anger in amongst the confusion. The hell is this? "Hey!" she says sharply. He stops, but doesn't look at her. "Yeah, well, it's great to see you survived the absolute hell that just happened, nice to know the feeling's mutual!"
"What are you after here?" He turns to glare at her again. "Yeah, great, congratulations, you can go back to your life now and carry on conning corporate saps for a living."
She's stung. Is that how he still sees her, after everything they've all been through? The hurt gives way to anger. "And you can go back to being a corporate sap, just like you always wanted. Leave Pandora and the mess you made behind, leaving us to pick up the pieces."
He stares at her and she sees the hurt crack through his hardened features. An eye for an eye, though all Fiona feels is miserable. "Alright, then," he says with a tone of finality in his voice, "I guess that's that."
He turns and begins to walk away and she doesn't want to leave it like this. "Rhys!" She sees his shoulders slump as he stops and sighs, his back to her. "Seriously, the hell is this? If anyone has the right to be pissed off here, it's me-"
"Oh, I don't know," Rhys says loudly as he rounds on her, "maybe being abandoned on a murderous space station has caused my feelings to sour on this... friendship, partnership, temporary alliance, whatever the hell this was-"
"Abandoned?! What-"
"-and I should have seen this coming!" He's gesturing wildly with both arms and the light from a small fire nearby reflects off his metal one. "Hell, more fool me for actually trusting Pandoran con artists when literally anyone could tell me how much of a bad idea that was-"
"This from the corporate cog? A man who only came here to stab someone in the back, so he could stab more people in the back on his trip up the management ladder?" Fiona crosses her arms and it's her turn to glare at him. She's beginning to understand Sasha's anger.
"Welcome to Hyperion," he says with venom. "That's how it is – was – up there. Cutthroat as hell, everyone out for themselves and one wrong move and you die. Like, actually die. I was surviving."
Fiona makes a noise of disgust. "You wouldn't know the meaning of the word. Surviving is what me and Sasha have been doing since we were kids. What you were doing was whatever was necessary to be able to take after your beloved hero." She should stop there, can already see in his face that this is a particularly painful point for him. "Who apparently wasn't quite as gone as everyone had hoped."
"That's not my fault," he's quick to say, deflating slightly under Fiona's accusatory stare.
"Oh? How the hell did he end up trying to kill us on Helios, Rhys? We were there, everything was going... as well as it could have gone in a space station full of assholes. You went to Jack's office. And then..." Fiona gestures around the ruins.
Rhys just looks at her for a moment. Then, all of the anger seems to melt out of him as he sighs heavily. "Alright. Yeah. Guess that was coming." He can't meet her eyes and she feels some of her own anger die down as she takes in just how exhausted he looks. "In the office, after I picked up the Gortys beacon, Jack... took over."
She remembers his words just after Rhys had half-descended, half-fallen down the trap door exit. Jack is loose in the system, whatever that meant. It had quickly become apparent. "Took over, how?"
"He tried to persuade me to take over Hyperion. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Everything I ever wanted, right? Except, there was a catch. It wouldn't just be me, it would be both of us." He shifts uncomfortably under her burning gaze.
"You... and Jack?" She's still not entirely sure how that would have worked, but suddenly feels sick. "That prick back in charge?! Rhys, what the hell-"
"I know, I know! I know. I've been on Pandora long enough to see how bad of an idea that would've been. That's-" another heavy sigh, "that's why I said no."
Well, that surprises her. For a second, she's speechless and just stares at him, his corporate attire and expensive shoes. The cybernetics that Vaughn had quietly filled her in about once, that Rhys had voluntarily had installed to give him an advantage in the Hyperion world. Either he's an outstanding actor, or Pandora really has changed him. Or, maybe they have.
"Anyway," Rhys continues quietly. "He did not take it well. Guess his goal the whole time had been to get back into Helios' systems and when I didn't go along with it, I became an obstacle. So, he kinda, just, took over and uploaded himself into the systems using an override."
Fiona still doesn't quite know what that means, but something he said triggers alarm bells and he still doesn't seem to be able to look at her. "Uploaded himself... from where, exactly?" 'The whole time?' I'm not going to like this, am I?
"From, uhh," and his voice is betraying just how anxious he is at this moment, high-pitched and cracking. Oh, shit. His left hand rubs the back of his neck as he stares at a spot on the floor, something she's seen him do before and almost finds endearing most of the time. Not right now. He clears his throat. "From... my head."
There's a thick silence, in which Fiona is completely lost for any words and Rhys chances a glance at her before quickly averting his gaze. He's the first to break it.
"It wasn't intentional. The Nakayama drive – you remember the ID drive I shoved into my brain when you and Sasha were threatening to kill- yeah, not important any more, but, uhh, yeah. Nakayama had apparently stored some AI version of Jack in there. When I plugged it in, everything automatically got downloaded to my own systems. Nothing I could do to stop it," he shrugs regretfully, "I was out cold, so it kinda, just, did what it did."
Fiona stays silent, waves of shock rolling over her. That had been weeks ago. Months ago, even. They'd been travelling together, forming plans together, hanging out together. Living in close confines, sharing memories and even personal stories as their friendships had quickly grown. Fiona hadn't sugar-coated her hatred for Hyperion in that time, letting Rhys and Vaughn know exactly what she thought, still thinks, about that company and its former leader. Shit, had he been there the whole time?
"I should have said something," Rhys says quietly, finally looking at her as she pales horribly.
"When you say he was 'in your head'," she says slowly, trying to digest this unwelcome piece of information, "exactly what does that mean? He was just... living in there?"
"Well, yeah. Kind of like... a parasite."
"And could he... see stuff? Hear stuff?"
Rhys grows visibly uncomfortable. "... Yeah."
Fiona looks at him, really looks at him and she's afraid to ask her next question because she thinks she already knows the answer. Better to get the worst of it out now, like ripping a plaster from a wound. One that may never heal.
"Was he able to... could he... do stuff?"
She knows even before the pained expression on his face deepens. He really can't look at her. He fixes his gaze somewhere off to her left side.
"... My arm. The right one. The Hyperion one," and he forces that out with a venom that surprises even her, glaring down at the metal limb. "Before we caught up to you guys in Hollow Point, when Vasquez found us. And nearly killed us. The only reason we didn't die was because Jack somehow upgraded my ECHO-Eye, which gave me sub-system access. It saved us... but a side-effect of that meant he could control my arm. Which, uhh, yeah, you'll have probably seen me do some weird stuff with it sometimes. That... wasn't me."
Puzzle pieces are beginning to click together in Fiona's mind, weird oddities that they'd passed off as just something Rhys did every now and then. "You allowed him to do that?"
"No! Not... not, uhh, th-that time, anyway," and he's wincing and running a hand through his hair and Fiona really doesn't like this at all.
She closes her eyes as a sudden realisation hits her. "Old Haven."
"Old Haven."
"Your eye went yellow," she snaps open her own eyes as she remembers suddenly, looking at his blue eye as he tries and fails to make eye contact with her. "In the Gortys chamber, just before everything went to hell," and she's growing angry again.
"... Yeah, not... not me. Yeah, alright, but what was the alternative? We were trapped in there while our friends, your sister-"
"Oh, shit!" Fiona exclaims loudly, the mention of Sasha bringing back another unpleasant memory. "Oh god, it was bad enough when I thought it was you, please tell me it wasn't him, oh hell no-"
"Are you talking about the dome? I, uhh, yeah, obviously," Rhys shrinks under her furious glare and doesn't miss the fact her hands have balled into tight fists.
"Rhys!"
"So... apparently it wasn't just my arm that Jack could use. I'm... sorry. I was super pissed when he- when that- I'd never do anything like that and especially not to her and believe me, I feel so shitty about what happened."
Fiona's angry, she's so angry and she does register some relief at the fact it wasn't Rhys who had gotten a little too close and personal with her sister, but it's drowned out by the horror of knowing who was actually responsible for it. Of all the fucking people. She hopes Sasha never finds out.
"Is that why you ditched me?" Rhys asks in a tiny, quiet voice full of hurt. He's finally able to look at her.
"What are you talking about?" Fiona asks, trying to keep some bite out of her tone as she sees just how broken he looks.
"I know Helios was trying to kill us, but you said you wouldn't leave me behind. You promised."
She remembers. Sasha had run ahead, Gortys in tow, focusing on just getting the hell off Helios alive. Fiona had slowed slightly to wait for Rhys to catch up, but the station lockdown had forced a heavy door between them, walling Rhys and Yvette off. He had promised to find a way to get the hangar bay door open and even in the catastrophic circumstances they'd found themselves in, they'd managed to have a light-hearted, if not fraught, exchange. Fiona had worried even then that she wouldn't see him again. Sasha had hovered anxiously nearby, silently urging Fiona to hurry up so they could get to the relative safety of the caravan. And then Rhys had begged Fiona not to leave him behind. He'd sounded the most scared she'd ever heard him. So, she'd promised.
"Rhys, I honestly don't know what you're talking about. We didn't ditch you-"
"I saw the caravan leave," he says more firmly, the memory of it haunting him, "when I was hanging onto the power core, trying not to die. I saw the hangar door open and you guys leaving. I know I've done some shit things, but..."
"Oh hell... no, Rhys, I wasn't even on the caravan." She rubs her temples to try and shift the unwelcome headache that is settling in. "We got to the hangar bay and Finch and Kroger tried to kill us. Finch took Gortys and took off with the caravan, Sasha and August were inside but only because Sasha was trying to protect Gortys." She sighs heavily. "None of us wanted to leave you behind. Even Sasha wouldn't have done that, as angry as she was."
"How do I know that that's true?" He narrows his eyes at her, clearly not believing her. "You lie for a living-"
"Ask Loader Bot," she says sharply, stung. Fiona silently concedes that Rhys has a point, but still. They're friends. Aren't they? Maybe there are too many fractures now. "If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe him. He helped me escape in one of the pods."
"... Oh." He looks to the floor, rubbing his flesh arm with his metal hand in what looks like an unconscious move to comfort himself. Fiona catches the raw pain on his face. Rhys sighs with a weight she feels. "Loader Bot... he... He's gone. He... died. On Helios."
More pain, for another friend now lost. How ridiculous, a voice at the back of her head says quietly, to have become so attached to a piece of manufactured metal. From Hyperion, no less. She silences it swiftly. Loader Bot and Gortys had been some of the closest friends she'd ever had on this rock. They had been more human than some people Fiona had encountered in her lifetime.
This is gonna hurt, to say it out loud. He deserves to know.
"Gortys is gone too," Fiona exhales out quietly, closing her eyes because for some strange reason, she's now the one that can't look at him. "Vallory opened the vault. The... thing that came out of it was too much." She feels him staring at her. Too much hurt for one day.
"It destroyed her?"
Of all the questions he could ask. The guilt burns within her and her voice sticks in her throat.
"No. It couldn't. Gortys was the only thing keeping it and the vault anchored to Pandora." She swallows audibly. She still isn't looking at him but feels him staring at her. "It killed Vallory. It... would have killed everyone. We- I... had to destroy her."
They both just stand, useless. So much hurt. How can a person physically hold so much hurt? Fiona want to fold over until she's lying on the floor. On the jagged floor of the burning space station. It's no less than she deserves. Thank hell Sasha's ok. Her baby sister, her beautiful, fierce sister. Fiona remembers Sasha's words in the dome, when Athena had challenged them. What would you do, if that happened to you? Sasha hadn't even hesitated. I'd burn everything to the ground. Fiona feels the same way. She has to carry on, for her. If Vallory or any of her goons, or the vault monster, had taken Sasha away... she doesn't even want to consider what she would have done. What destruction she would have inflicted on this stupid planet.
"I'm sorry."
Rhys breaks the long silence with words she least expects. She finally looks at him, and he meets her eyes. There's an unspoken understanding. They've both been through absolute hell and there may not be a full recovery from this. Fiona's suddenly scared that too much has changed. That they may not be able to even look at each other without being reminded about the horrors that have occurred. She already mourns for the life they'll never get back, carefree days in the caravan, teasing each other about driving duty. Staying awake until the early hours of the morning over a hilariously heated game of cards. Sharing stories of each others' lives, growing as friends. No-one is as surprised as she is, to have become as close as she has to someone she'd once written off as a cold, corporate cog. She takes him in, long limbs stuffed into an asymmetrical office get-up, gelled hair that has stayed remarkably in shape. Open and honest, and raw.
She feels like she's lost him, and it terrifies her.
She exhales, long and slow and weighty. "What a fucking day, huh?"
That earns a bark of a humourless laugh from him. "I could use a strong drink right now."
"You and me both." She manages the smallest smile. "The caravan isn't far from here. We should go there. Both of us," she emphasizes, "so we can rest and figure out what the hell we do now."
"Not sure I'd be very welcome right now," Rhys says bitterly. "Guessing Sasha is pissed? Not that I could blame her."
"Well... yeah. I'm pissed too," Fiona reminds him, but gently. "But we can worry about that once we've stopped bleeding." Once they've had some time to process the utterly bizarre events of the last day.
"Can't blame you, either," Rhys says miserably. "That... I'd actually like that. I want to try and find Vaughn, too. I think he's still with Cassius."
"We can do that," Fiona offers, "though we need to get August some kind of medical attention. He got shot. ... And his mom got killed by a vault monster."
Rhys sighs. Neither of them had any love for Vallory, but both can't help but feel for August. "Yeah. Fair. But... I can't. Not yet." He heaves out another sigh and looks at her with an expression full of dread. "I... I think Jack isn't gone yet."
Immediately she's on edge and she takes a step back, suddenly wary. "Wh- you mean-"
"No! Not, he's not- he's out. He's gone. Not ins- not- he's gone." His palms are facing her in an unconscious act of reassurance and honesty, and she relaxes very slightly. "I heard something weird coming from what I'm sure is his old office. I think he's still in the system."
Fiona feels sick. "So..."
"I have to destroy him," he says quietly, clearly feeling very ill at the prospect. "If the wrong people get hold of him..."
Shit. Yeah, that. She nods at him. "Alright. Destroy the homicidal prick. Then we rest."
A ghost of a smile forms on his face and her heart skips the smallest beat. Maybe they can be ok after all this. "Deal."
Rhys steps into the office of his former hero. Fiona had stopped at the gaping opening to the ruined office, refusing to go any further. "I'm here," she had said gently, "but this isn't my fight, Rhys." She's right. This is his doing and as nauseous as he feels about the prospect of facing Jack one last time, he has to finish this. Glass crunches underfoot and small fires speckle his vision.
He's right, he thinks, heart sinking as the blue-tinged artificial form of Hyperion's former CEO flickers on and off the shattered pieces of glass that once made up the huge window in Jack's office. Jack's still alive. If 'alive' is the right word for it.
The AI glitches, disappears then reappears, but Rhys can't miss the furiously disappointed expression that overwhelms Jack's artificial features as he finds Rhys amongst the wreckage.
"Hah! I'll give you s-something, kid, you've got balls to come b-b-back here."
He doesn't have to listen to this, Rhys thinks to himself. He can just get on with finding the source and destroying it for good. He exhales through his nose as he stares up at the broken face looming over him and wonders why he's so anxious at this point. Jack can't touch him, now. He's out of Rhys' head, he can't take over any more. Maybe it's the prospect of what Jack might say that has him so on edge. The man - AI - certainly has a way with words that had made it easy for him to get under Rhys' skin during their journey across Pandora. Rhys hasn't forgotten all the tactics Jack had tried to use to butter him up, and it scares him when he thinks how frighteningly close Jack had actually got to reaching his goal of completely winning Rhys over.
Before Old Haven, Rhys had been happy enough to lend the AI an ear. Sure, he hadn't intended to accidentally unleash Jack into his own head for goodness sake but, once Rhys had gotten over the shock of suddenly finding his idol was living rent-free in his brain, and once Jack had stopped trying to strangle him, Rhys had actually considered that maybe it wasn't a bad thing at all to have Jack there. He knew Pandora and, more crucially, he knew Hyperion. If anyone could ensure Rhys got back to Helios and reached the top, it was Handsome Jack. Maybe, Rhys had thought, this could actually be used to his advantage. He helps Jack, Jack helps him.
What a bloody delusional idiot he'd been before he'd ended up on Pandora.
Sure, Jack had been charming, friendly, almost. Rhys sees now that Jack had immediately known what he had to say, to promise, to get Rhys to play along. The only reason he hadn't tried to kill Rhys once he figured out he could control Rhys' mechanical arm, was because he knew it would be the end of him for good if he did. Rhys should have been more critical of the situation, should have questioned exactly what Jack's motivations and end goals were but, stuck on a planet that was trying to kill him at every turn, with people he hadn't yet grown to trust, it had been much easier to go along with the voice inside his head.
And then Old Haven had happened.
That had been the turning point for Rhys. Being a passenger in his own body had been too much. He'd watched as the Atlas drones fell under his, or rather, Jack's control. As they'd turned and fired at the glass separating him and Fiona from the others. And then as they'd began to fire indiscriminately as Jack completely took over - hell, Rhys had quickly begun to suspect Jack was intentionally firing at his friends at one point. And there hadn't been a damn thing Rhys could do about it. That terrified him more than anything else had up until that point and Rhys had silently decided to stop trusting Jack after that.
Jack had sensed the shift in Rhys' thinking because of course he had. The threats started. Jack had stopped being so buttery and the tide had turned. Rhys had begun to grow scared, not for himself, as he knew Jack couldn't touch him if he wanted to get back into the hands of Hyperion. But his friends, because by that point they'd all bonded rather well and actually enjoyed each others' company rather than putting up with each other, they were fair game. Jack had told him as much. Rhys had very firmly told the AI in no uncertain terms that if anything happened to his friends, Rhys would abandon any and all intentions of getting Jack back to Helios. Jack had countered with his own proposal: if Rhys got some sort of plan together for getting Jack back to Hyperion, Jack wouldn't start killing his friends... using Rhys' body to do so. After all, the AI had gleefully informed him, Rhys had to sleep sometime, right?
Rhys hadn't fully realised just how serious Jack had been about that until he lost consciousness after falling from the lift in the Atlas dome and Jack had taken over literally everything. Mind, body and voice, and he'd done such a terrible job being Rhys that he'd almost successfully driven Rhys' friends away in the space of five minutes. That was deliberate, Jack had kindly informed Rhys later on - a warning of sorts. Terrified, and knowing Jack had the upper hand, Rhys had played along again.
Look where that had got them both.
Rhys tears his eyes from the shattered screen and broken AI occupying it. Cut the power feeding the screen. Destroy the server housing Jack. Leave and never come back.
"Gonna end this, huh, kid?" Jack laughs humourlessly and gestures around the crumpled office. "What-t-t makes you think you c-can take me out? You crashed a whole frickin' sp-pace station to get rid of me and even that couldn't finish me off."
Rhys remains silent as he picks through the wreckage to try to find the source of the power feeding the screen.
"Actually, that's hilarious. Y-y-you killed like, tens of thousands of people in one go and you didn't-t even get the job done! Should'a seen tha-a-at coming, not enough brain cells to smash together in that empty head of yours."
Don't pay attention. Power source. Where the hell is the power source?
"Well, let's pretend for a sec that you're not a useless little prick and you do actually destroy me. You're t-t-the one that has to live with this, kiddo."
Don't listen. Fiona had told him as much before he stepped into the office, not that Rhys needed reminding. She and millions of other Pandoran citizens had been subject to Jack's rantings across the Echo-Net back when he'd been alive and mining the hell out of the planet. She knew how unsettlingly charming and persuasive he could be, usually right before he killed a bunch of people - which he also broadcast across the 'Net. He'll get under your skin and if he does, he wins.
"Hell, you... you killed m-more people in one go than I ever did."
Rhys does try not to listen, but it's too difficult. Surrounded by the destruction, the flaming wreckage filled with the bodies of the employees who didn't manage to escape, it's easy to agree with the AI on this one. Which makes him feel worse. Oh yeah, Jack knows exactly what he's doing. Rhys clenches his left fist until he feels the nails dig into his palm, refusing to give Jack the satisfaction of a response.
The small remnants of Jack's desk are only a few feet away and Rhys is convinced that the power source to what's left of the office is somewhere near there. Jack's obsession with control had rivalled only that of his obsession for vaults and Rhys suspects he'd have wanted easy access to everything that could be controlled in his own office. Rhys walks towards the where the desk used to sit, eyeing up the chair lying on its side nearby with unease. How that of all things has survived the journey through Pandora's atmosphere is a mystery to him. It's harmless enough, now, though the bad memories attached to it will take a long time to fade.
"I'm not really one to be plagued by nightmares of people I killed, probably since they deserved it, b-but since you seem so set on being such a 'good person', gotta admit-t-t I'm curious. What's it gonna be, huh? Bodies burning up i-in the atmosphere?"
Don't listen.
"How about all those poor saps ejected into space, huh, sport? C-c-can't breathe, just floating there, suffocating slowly..."
Focus. The Eye might not be able to connect to the network but maybe he can use it to trace where the power to the screen is coming from?
"You must have known some of 'em. Got coffee with 'em. Oh, hey, what about y-your friend with the orange shirt? The back-stabby one. Some friend, huh? Really did try to hero your way outta this, didn't'cha? Did she even make it? Maybe her pod was one of the ones that made it. More likely she was crushed by something. I dunno. Something to t-t-think about."
Rhys digs his nails in further as he scans the area.
Gotcha.
Even better than he could have hoped. He's found the server.
It's over.
Of course it's hidden in the office. What a stupid place to put it, when Jack had been so possessive over the office and who had been allowed access to it. Many who had ever gone in had never come out again.
"You think you're gonna just kill me and get outta he-ere and ride off with your con artist chick into the sunset. Yeah, don't think I don't see her lurking over there."
Leave her out of this.
"She's gotta be pretty pi-i-issed, right? She almost died up there. 'Cause of you. 'Makes you think she won't ditch you the second you step f-foot outta here?"
Rhys can't see her from where he now crouches near the foot of where the desk used to be. Frustratingly, the floor is so well-built that it not only survived the crash, but is now blocking access to the server, which had apparently been housed underneath the floor. Who the hell installs a server underneath a floor?! Anyway. He's sure Jack's wrong. After everything they've been through, Fiona wouldn't just walk out on him now. She's the one who suggested going back to the caravan.
... Right?
"You're just a reminder of everything that went wrong. Only yourself to blame here, k-kid. She'll leave you in the dust and you'll be left with nothing-g but your misplaced heroism and bad dreams."
He casts his eyes around, trying to pretend he doesn't feel himself start to shake in anger. Something to rip the floor up, there must be something lying around the waste...
"I mean, she's Pandoran, could've seen that coming a mile off. Not known for their loyalty, eh? Should'a listened, kid. This w-wouldn't have happened if you'd shelved your damn pride and actually listened to me. Could'a told you what-t-t happened to the last people that didn't listen."
They wound up dead, Rhys can only imagine.
"I could've made you something good." Now Jack's sounding thoroughly pissed off. His voice is still low, but deadly. "All that crap you spouted-d about wanting to run Hyperion and I gifted it to you on a plate. Everything you ever wanted at your fingertips. And you threw it all in my face, after everything I did for you."
It's bullshit and Rhys knows it, now knowing Jack's true motives for getting to Helios. He's still shaking.
He sees a small gap in the floor.
"Too busy trusting those bandits you call 'friends'. Hah! That's hilarious. Think they wouldn't have left you once you got the beacon to Pandora? They were after the money all along. Remember? W-w-whole reason they even bothered with you and your naïve little brain cells to start with. Suppose you had your uses as a walking computer, I'll give you that, kid."
Can he reach the server? It looks like he can reach it, with something long and sharp, maybe. Plenty of long and sharp pieces of debris in this office.
"You made a bad choice, Rhys. You let some nobody Pandorans make you think you had friends. Maybe part of that's o-o-on me for letting 'em." Jack's voice is dangerously quiet and the hairs on the back of Rhys' neck prickle uncomfortably. "How easy it would have been to finish 'em off."
He doesn't need reminding.
"Maybe t-then you'd have listened. If I'd made you just... push 'em off a cliff. Or shot them in that old Atlas facility. C-could blame that on drones, yeah, but it would all be you. Well, me. But mainly you."
If only he still had his stun baton. Could have jammed it through to the server and fried it to nothing in seconds.
"Could have strangled them in their sleep."
Blood pounds in Rhys' ears.
"Though it would be more fun if they're awake. Especially the cute one with the hat. She would've had no idea, hah!"
He had to bring her into it, didn't he?
"Imagine her waking up to find you strangling her and she wouldn't h-h-have a clue why! Oh, that's gold. Damn. Now I'm really wishing I'd done that. Imagine the look on her face as she'd struggle for her life-"
"You're wrong." Rhys can't take another word. He stands abruptly and turns to face the source of everything that has destroyed his life. The AI is smirking down at him, knowing he's winning. "You don't know them. You don't know people. Every single person you ever met that didn't die by your hand wanted you dead."
Jack laughs harshly, the sound glitching out halfway through. "Well that's not t-true, is it, kiddo? Everyone on Helios revered me. You most of all."
"You're mistaking 'reverence' for 'fear'," and Rhys isn't afraid to admit that now. "How does it feel knowing that the only people who bothered to remain in your life were scared of you? That the only way you could even keep people in your life was through them being scared you'd kill them, and they only stayed because they didn't want to die?"
"That's why they stuck around worshipping me even-n-n after I died, huh? You wouldn't know loyalty if it hit you in your dense head."
"Yeah, great, your bunch of brainwashed employees stayed because they'd never known anything else," Rhys counters harshly. "Doesn't change the fact that everyone was relieved when you died. Alone. How you can... float there and talk about friends when you don't even know what friends are. People who have your back. Family."
"While this cliché movie speech about 'friends and family being everything' is moving, I had them more than you'll ever have again. Unlike y-you, kid, I didn't ditch my family on the worst of the Edens to go run a company and forget they even exist."
"No," Rhys says quietly, knowing he's about to step into dangerous territory, "it only took locking them up and using them as a power cell to keep them around in your case."
Even after Jack's anger and threats throughout the journey, Rhys can say he's never seen him with such a raw expression of shock and fury on his face, until now.
"Amazing what you can find in the Hyperion database when you're forcibly hooked up to it," Rhys continues with a sudden calm but powerful energy.
"You really are something else." Jack doesn't pretend to hide his rage. "You don't know anything. You don't have a goddamn clue. I should have bashed your head against a rock the minute I got in there."
"Who's making the bad decisions now?" Rhys glares up at the face on the shattered screen. "You're done. This is done. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
"Yeah, keep thinking that. You think you've won this little thing?" Jack glares right back down at him. "I always find a way, Rhys. Wipe out that server, go ahead. Think I'll be gone for good? God, you r-really are a naïve little shit."
Rhys finds a long piece of rebar lying next to the office chair. He picks it up, stands and turns back to face Jack. He finally sees Fiona still standing in the ruins of the corridor, keeping watch. Has she heard any of this?
She's still here. She hasn't abandoned him and could easily have done so while he's been in the office.
"You'll let your guard down. She'll be the f-first to go and you'll watch her die and then I'll end your miserable little life."
Jack's reaching, desperate. He's out of Rhys' head and there's absolutely nothing he can do now. Rhys almost feels a sliver of pity for him. Almost.
Fiona sees him and though it's clear she's anxious to get out of this place, she sends him a small smile of encouragement.
Fuck this shit.
Rhys meets his former hero's eyes. "It's over, Jack." He turns back toward the server. Stab the rebar through it and end this. He takes a step.
He doesn't see it.
Fiona does.
She's sprinting toward him and trying to shout out a warning but the override input has jammed its way into Rhys' head before the first word even leaves her mouth. His yell of alarm is drowned out by Jack's laughter and god how she'd hoped she'd never hear that again and it's so loud.
She reaches Rhys as he drops the rebar and struggles to pull the cable out, and grabs it and yanks as hard as she can, not worrying in this moment about any potential pain it might cause. Not again, no no no but Jack's laughter ends so abruptly and in her peripheral vision she sees the blue image vanish from the screen.
There's a split second in which she registers that Rhys' left eye has turned yellow.
A metallic hand closes around her throat.
Laughter again but this time it's coming from Rhys. Except that it isn't Rhys and his expression is twisted in a way that Fiona has seen only once before, in the Atlas dome.
"Oh, this was so worth the wait," says not-Rhys and there's a horribly delighted expression on his face that's so unlike the Rhys she knows.
She pries uselessly at the metal fingers pressing into her throat.
"He's in there somewhere, sweetheart. He can see this. Which makes it even better! Not a damn thing he can do about it. Except panic which, uhh, yeah, he's doing a lotta that right now."
She tries to kick out at him, which only results in him lifting her off the floor slightly, putting more pressure onto her neck. The edges of her vision start darkening.
"Hah! Nice try, cupcake, but it's only him you'll be hurting. Won't make any difference to this thing going on right now." He smirks and Rhys has smirked before but the difference in expressions is staggering. "You seeing this, Rhysie? God, I missed this. Don't even remember who I last strangled. Guns are good and all, but there's just something about getting up close and personal. Especially when it's a friend of the meat-host you've been stuck with for months."
Shit, shit, shit and there's a strange sensation of her hearing fading as her eyes water. Sasha's gonna come and look for her and she'll find not-Rhys, if he doesn't find her first and the thought of her sister sends a very brief shock of clarity through her mind, but it's enough.
She fumbles for the stun baton she found earlier, left hand clinging onto Rhys' metal arm.
Luckily for her, not-Rhys seems to be enjoying strangling her too much, catching onto her plan a split second too late.
She presses the button and jams the baton into his armpit where flesh meets metal and thank every god on Pandora, it works. Not-Rhys, and probably Rhys, shrieks in agony and Fiona also gets a shock as the crackling electricity travels down the arm into her neck but it works, the fingers loosen in a mechanical jerk and she falls and stumbles backwards, clinging onto the baton for dear life and gasping for air.
The yellow flickers to blue for the briefest moment before it changes back.
"Rhys!" Fiona tries to shout but her throat is burning and it comes out in a broken cry.
"Full of surprises, aren't ya?" Not-Rhys glares at her but there's still some amusement in the expression. His mechanical arm is twitching much like it had at the vault key deal all those months ago and not-Rhys holds the wrist of it with his other hand while it resets itself.
"Always did underestimate us Pandorans," Fiona says furiously, voice still breaking but not failing to get her anger across.
"Nah, Pandorans as a collective are only good for moonshot target practise and eridium experiments. I could almost respect you, hat lady, if only 'cause you somehow kept this meatsack from dying on this rock. Almost a shame I have to kill you."
"Good luck with that," she counters harshly. "Couldn't kill us on your own fucking space station!"
"Language!" But he's amused, knowing he has the upper hand. Fiona defensively holds the stun baton in front of her like a sword. How the hell does she get out of this?
Get them both out of this?
The real Rhys had very briefly emerged when she'd shocked him. Fiona doesn't want to hurt him but she can't see any other option right now. Jack's part of Rhys' systems somehow, right? Maybe she can short-circuit them, or something. Reset the part Jack's hiding in.
She's never been great with technology. She finds herself wishing Vaughn were here.
"So what now, sweetheart?" He's grinning maniacally. "Kinda stuck here, aren't we? I mean, yeah, you could shock the hell out of me. 'Cept it isn't really me, is it?"
Aim for the arm. Maybe it can be disabled. Then... she doesn't know. But it's a start.
Maybe the shock will bring Rhys back.
"'Course, this could all be over in a few minutes. Alright, yeah, you'll be dead, but hey! You won't have to worry about what happens next-"
He lunges at her, clearly hoping to catch her off guard but he's underestimated her once again as she leaps deftly to her left and sends the stun baton into his stomach.
Missed the arm, dammit.
But it's enough, as not-Rhys jerks backwards and doubles over in pain. The noise of agony that comes out sounds very much like the Rhys she knows. His eye flickers rapidly between blue and yellow.
"Rhys, wake up!" She's yelling with everything she has, willing him to regain control.
It's blue. "F-Fiona...!"
"Come on! You have to help me here!" She's torn up seeing him in so much pain and viciously hopes Jack somehow feels it too.
"G-get out-"
He's losing. Fiona takes several steps backwards, almost stumbling over the horrific gold chair that had once been a feature of the office.
The override cable is coiled into the back of the chair and she suddenly knows what she has to do. It might not even work. It's the only thing she's got.
"Damn, he's putting up a fight!" Fuck. The eye is yellow again. "Thought I'd walled him in good. Where the hell was this fight when he actually needed it? Damn useless excuse for a man." Not-Rhys is clearly enjoying himself regardless, grinning horribly. "Ehh. He'll be gone for good soon anyway. And since he won't be needing this body any more, figured I might as well get some use outta it."
"And do what?" He's out of reach, she needs him closer. This is a risky as hell plan. No different to her other plans, she supposes. "Your company is literally burned to the ground. And with how much you used to rely on other poor saps doing all your dirty work for you, you wouldn't survive a day on Pandora."
"Heh, you think Hyperion is gone? Sorry, sweetheart, this station was only part of it. Much bigger than you could even imagine. Getting back will be easy. Especially with this body." He smiles menacingly and she feels sick. "No-one's gonna know it isn't him. And I'm good at pretending. Ehh, good enough, anyway."
He's not approaching her at all. He's unarmed and sure, he could grab a piece of rebar or something, but Fiona's got the stun baton and he knows she's at an advantage with it. She feels the texture of the handle against her fingertips and a very risky and truly terrible idea begins to form.
"Fooled you guys, anyway, hah! Should'a seen the looks on your faces. Oh, hey, reminds me, that sister of yours is probably around here somewhere, right?"
She feels her pulse race through her.
"Yeah, she's pissed at Rhysie I'd imagine, but she's another soft-hearted Pandoran sap, right? Seeing him all beaten up and injured like this..." and the grin on his face is the most terrifying thing she's seen throughout this whole thing, "she wouldn't be able to resist helping him out."
She's done. He's going, now. Even if it kills her.
It probably will.
Sasha is worth it. Worth everything.
Fiona deactivates the stun baton and drops it to the floor. She sees not-Rhys' eyes widen slightly in an unusually open expression of confusion before his eyes narrow in suspicion, wondering what the hell her game is.
She draws the Roshambo and aims it directly at his chest.
There's a whole beat of silence before the laughter starts, heavy and rich but with an edge that the actual Rhys doesn't possess. "Oh, oh, this is absolute gold! Didn't take much to piss you off, huh?"
She said nothing, there's nothing she can say that would change anything and it's pointless exerting the energy.
"Go ahead. I know you've got some skill with that thing and enjoy the hell out of that compliment, 'cause it's the only one you'll ever get." Not-Rhys is laughing again. "You forget how all this works, sweetheart?" He takes a step towards her, somewhat gently, as though trying to coax a trapped animal. Fiona feels like one right now. "I'm clearly the brains of this whole thing, but the meatsack ain't mine." Another step.
"I know," she says firmly, holding her aim steady.
"You really just gonna kill him? After all that bonding and crap you guys did?"
"I'm gonna kill you, you absolute piece of shit."
Another hearty laugh full of malice. Another step toward her. Almost there. "No, you won't. 'Cause if you kill me, you kill him. You forget how long I was stuck with you saps for? I saw everything, pumpkin. And you and my gangly host got very friendly pretty quick."
She takes the safety off with a click and he hesitates for the briefest moment before taking the final step that brings him into reach. Her heart pounds uncomfortably. She hates that he's using Rhys like this. She knows this isn't Rhys, but seeing such arrogant and hateful expressions on his face, so out of place, hurts her.
She carefully hides her left hand behind the chair.
"Your lanky friend here reckons I don't know people, but I know you." A horrible shiver makes its way down her spine as it sinks in just exactly how much of her life Jack has probably seen, and feels truly vulnerable for the first time in a long time. "Enough to know there's no way in hell you're gonna shoot him."
She should.
She stills, frozen. He's right. She can't.
His left hand curls around the wrist attached to her gun. There's a horribly satisfied smile on his face.
Her left hand finds the override cable and she yanks it forward and thank hell he turns his head to see what the hell she's doing because it makes it much easier to aim, and she jams the cable into his head as he tries to push her away.
Another shriek of agony and she really can't tell who it's from this time. She's shoved to the floor in the confusion and begins to claw and scramble her way across the floor to get away because she doesn't even know if this will work, oh god please let this work-
A hand finds its way around her ankle and she's pulled backwards, shouting out as she tries to kick free but the discarded stun baton is within reach and through some miracle, she manages to grab it and presses the button, twisting herself onto her back while doing so. She sees not-Rhys, the angry yellow glow from the eye as she swings the baton aimlessly and it connects with his left arm as he lets go of her ankle and brings it up to block her. He gets a shock and there's the brief flash of blue again before it's immediately back to yellow. Not enough. She swings again and this time he actually grabs the business end of it with the metal arm and it's clearly an incredibly painful process, but it's only for a second because he's too strong when using that arm and he manages to pull the baton from her grasp and throw it aside, far out of reach.
The metal arm is malfunctioning again. The eye is blue again and he's shouting out in pain, doubled over on his knees. The override is still plugged into his head even after all that.
She hesitates for a split second and that is her biggest mistake.
He's a blur as he lunges for her and there's yellow again and the metal hand is around her throat again. A knee presses heavily into her stomach, pinning her in place and he pulls the override out with his other hand as he presses the metal one into her windpipe. The stun baton is gone and she realises through the panic that her Roshambo is no longer attached to her wrist. Even if she wanted to shoot him, she can't now.
"Not how it works, sweetheart, nice try though, I'll give you that, hah, you nearly had me there," and he sounds tired from the effort and that's something, even if she's gonna die. "You, you should hear him panicking in here, it's really something, goddamn. Nearly had me! You and your bleeding heart, hah."
Her vision's fading and she's got nothing.
She fucked up.
Sorry, Sasha.
"-iona, oh my god please-"
Is this the afterlife? Should the afterlife hurt so damn much? There's a light but her throat hurts so much, this can't be it.
"Oh my god, are you waking up? Please be waking up, oh god, what the hell-"
She knows that voice, that's Sasha's voice. Is Sasha in the afterlife too?
She finally manages to pry her eyes open and tries to make a noise but it hurts too much right now.
"Fiona! Oh shit, thank god-"
They're moving, quite quickly by the feel of it and Fiona realises she's in the caravan. Sasha is at the wheel and driving at full speed, throwing glances over at Fiona with a horrible mix of terror and relief on her face. The sun is setting - how long had she been out for?
"Are you ok? Oh my god, I thought that son-of-a-bitch had killed you, oh god!"
Fiona pulls herself up to a sitting position and so much just hurts but she pushes past it. August is either asleep or unconscious across from her. She looks around while massaging her throat and a feeling of dread settles in immediately.
He's not here.
She should be relieved. She isn't.
"Sasha," and her name barely comes out in a scratchy whisper, but Sasha hears her somehow, "where's Rhys?"
Sasha swerves the caravan as she whips around to gape at her. "Where's- are you shitting me right now?!"
"Sash-"
"I go into that wrecked hellhole to find my sister almost strangled to death and you're asking me that?"
Sasha doesn't know and Fiona needs her to understand. So they can turn back before it's too late.
She should want to run a thousand miles in the opposite direction and she doesn't know why that's not the case.
Shitting hell.
"You left hi-"
"Yeah! I left him! Fiona, what the hell? He nearly killed you! Like hell I was gonna drag his ass out of there! He can bleed out surrounded by Hyperion and it's the least he deserves, if I hadn't been so worried about getting you out I'd have finished him off myself!"
"I know what it looks like, but it's complicated," Fiona says quickly, desperately, voice cracking heavily. "I promise I can explain, he can too, we can't just leave him out there-"
"Watch me," Sasha says dangerously, burning a hole through the windscreen with her eyes as she sets her jaw.
"Sasha!"
"No, Fiona!" Sasha slams her foot onto the brake, jolting Fiona painfully, and brings the caravan to a stop and it's barely stopped before she's down the stairs and rounding on Fiona. Fiona's never seen her like this before, wild and agitated like this. "You know what I saw when I went in there? You, just lying there barely breathing and hell, I didn't even think you were breathing at first, and I saw him nearby and I don't know how the hell you managed to fight him off but you can't tell me that wasn't his Hyperion manufactured arm that did that to you!"
Fiona can't argue with the facts. "Please, just let me explain-"
"August needs a doctor," Sasha half-snaps, "you need a doctor, you nearly died Fiona-"
"I know and I'm pissed too, but-"
"No," and Fiona is stunned into silence - Sasha's crying. Sasha doesn't cry. She gets angry, she shouts and wants to shoot things and sometimes she does just that. But this... "I don't care, I don't want to hear any of it! You have no idea what it felt like to go in and see you like that, thinking you were- were-"
Fiona can't think of a single thing to say.
What would you do, if that happened to you?
I'd burn everything to the ground.
"Sasha..."
"We're leaving," Sasha says firmly, scrubbing away the tears angrily. "I'm not losing you. And especially not to a Hyperion prick who lied to us and I don't care about any explanation because there's no justifying what he did. I don't want to hear it, Fiona. There's nothing you can say."
She turns immediately and walks quickly to the driver's seat, posture tense, like a coiled spring. Fiona sits, feeling waves of conflict crash within her.
She doesn't know if Rhys is ok.
She doesn't know if Jack's still there. Still within him. Waiting to strike again.
She stares at the back of Sasha's head and feels a heavy guilt set into her stomach. If the roles had been reversed...
She closes her eyes, leaning uselessly against the cushions, for once at a complete loss. Maybe they just need a bit of time. Get some help for August, and herself, she concedes. They can talk once everyone has calmed down.
It will be too late to go back.
The caravan kicks up dust as it speeds away.
Rhys wakes up in Helios, again.
Only, this time, missing an eye, an arm and a worrying amount of blood.
It takes him a few moments to remember how he got to this point. The wreckage of Helios burns around him - the wreckage of Jack's office. Jack's office where... something had gone down. Clearly, judging from the state Rhys is in now. His head swims as he blinks several times at the 'ceiling', if it can even be called that any more. He remembers a confrontation, the overwhelming amount of blue as his former CEO had loomed over him on the screen, hurling insults at him. He remembers searching for something-
Someone else had been here. His stomach drops.
The face of a woman he'd grown to trust, someone he could truly call a friend. An encouraging smile in his direction.
Then pain and terror as his arm had tried to squeeze the life out of her.
He sits up too quickly and sways, head spinning. He's lost far too much blood and his balance is off thanks to the lack of a whole arm. His leg still hurts. He pushes past it all to scan the room - not with his ECHO-Eye, that's gone. Somehow. He can't remember how, yet.
She's gone.
No sign of her anywhere nearby. Which doesn't make sense, doesn't connect to any of his recent memories. Deeply horrifying memories of being trapped, once again, in his own head while someone else operated the controls.
Screaming out, pushing desperately against the walls caging him in as he could only watch the parasite try to end her life.
He's remembering, that he'd thought she'd died. By his hand, technically, but not really his. He'd regained control briefly for that moment, Jack had retreated, laughing inside his head as he'd stared at the unmoving body of one of the closest friends he'd ever had. He'd yanked his arm back immediately, away from her but it had been too late.
But, she isn't here. Hope flares in his chest, briefly pushing out the dizziness. If she isn't here... she must have survived.
Right?
She woke up and got herself out.
... And left him behind.
He can't blame her, he really can't. But he's crushed. It rolls over him in a suffocating wave.
He just sits, slumped, memories coming back. Jack had allowed Rhys just enough time to absorb what had happened, what he'd done. Then he'd immediately re-taken control of his mechanical arm and tried to kill Rhys with it.
Rhys had torn the arm off. How he hadn't passed out at that point...
Jack was still in his head.
The port came out next. That had hurt.
Not as much as the Eye.
The crushed remnants of it lie a couple of feet away.
It's over.
Rhys is alone. Truly alone. Vaughn's whereabouts are unknown. Yvette may have survived, she may have died. Sasha hates him, never wants to see him again, he imagines.
Fiona's gone. He desperately hopes that he's right, that she lives now and just escaped from here the minute she could. It hurts like hell.
It's growing dark outside again. Rhys has forgotten what silence is - sure, the fires still burning in Helios crackle and pop, and the creaking sound of metal can't be ignored. But this is the first time in months that he's had his head completely to himself. It's... strange.
He needs to leave now. It will be cool enough to travel now and he's in desperate need of medical attention.
He'll be lucky to survive the night.
He finds and takes the rights to Atlas. The first bit of luck he's had. It will be useless if he doesn't live to take advantage of it.
Could've sworn there had been a gun in the cabinet but it's nowhere to be found. Not that he would've known how to use it, anyway. Maybe Fiona took it when she survived. There is a stun baton on the floor. He takes it.
He leaves.