The lens reflects the light of the lamp hanging overhead, causing a sheen to glitter in his eye. With a hiss Jack lowers it and closes his left eye, the one he had been using to stare through it. After blinking a few times his vision returns to normal. This time he is a bit more careful when he looks into it. The lens is a very soft shade of red, a glow that becomes a light pink when Jack grabs one of the other lenses and holds it beneath the red one.
What he sees through it is magnified, and he sees its true power when he raises his gaze and allows the lenses to fall on a painting of himself on the far wall. He is staring straight up his left nostril. The image is so big he can count the hairs in his nose.
Jack lowers his arms and sits back in his chair, eyes still fixed on the painting. 'I can see why you are good at what you do.' Though this is an understatement of inconceivable proportions.. The trillionaire spins around in his chair, looking through the lenses again. After a few circles in which he silently contemplates for a while he stops, now facing towards another table on which four weapons are displayed.
One of them is a shotgun. Just an ordinary close combat weapon with a relatively strong recoil and a medium spray of bullets. It is perfect for when you are driven in a corner and need to blast your way through someone. Quite literally. The other three weapons are, very befitting of the hunter's class, sniper rifles. And they are not the cute,easy to use by everyday psychos type of rifles. Each of them has a rather small magazine, one of them holding only six bullets, the second one seven and the last one holding ten. He's had them tested, and it takes a very strong shoulder to withstand the recoil of either of them. One of his workers is now nursing a dislocated shoulder, even though the man is a veteran sniper. And the tests of the bullets just came back. The first one has armor piercing bullets, the second one tears through shield and flesh like a blade through butter and the third doesn't seem that great on first sight, but it can deal massive, massive damage on anything it hits.
And these rifles have zeroed in on more targets, and have probably hit home too more often then Jack cares to count.
With a swift kick the trillionaire moves his chair down a table, to where the original owner of the guns lies. One machine is beeping constantly, indicating the calm, regular heartbeat of the man on the table. It is accompanied by a larger machine that keeps track of the man's breathing, all the while adding a small amount of gas to the fresh air it is providing. It keeps the man fast asleep. A calm, dreamless sleep.
Jack clacks his tongue and lets his eyes hover over the uncovered body. Over bruises and cuts, some a day old and others nearly healed. Over many different scars, some of burn marks, others of knife and bullet wounds. Some lines are jagged, others neatly cut. Over patches of skin that are extremely white, almost sickly pale.
Over a fiber glass cage sewn into the chest, enforced with metal casing and embedded into the body. The flesh that is supposed to be there has been cut away, and Jack can stare straight through at a lung and a beating heart. A heart that, instead of filling two jugular veins is only filling one vein and a green, sturdy looking tube that acts like one.
Jack stares in complete silence at tubing and patches of metal. Muscles that are enforced with thick wires, blood vessels that have been replaced by colorful tubes. Bones that must be replaces by metal or fiberglass. He isn't very sure what the material is, but he can wait for the upcoming results of all of the tests they have done. The inventor stares at a patch of skin that is supposed to sport black hair, but instead watches as a sensory net is processing data. It is conveniently placed, probably embedded in the skull and enforced where possible. Jack is staring at an open eye socket, the right socket, which is riddled with shattered glass, confusing wiring and oozing blood.
Jack is staring at a Vault Hunter that has been a thorn in his eye since the day the inventor blew up that train, supposedly killing this man. Jack is staring at an android. More man then machine, but mechanical none the less.
'I really wonder who named you Zero. Someone who made you?' Jack wonders out loud, raising the lens that he has been holding this whole time. Just a few seconds pass when he blinks a few times and lowers it in his lap to hold gently. A smile crawls over his face, stretching the patched on skin in all the right places. It is a vindictive, cruel and creepy smile. Foreboding towards all of his enemies. All of Pandora knows who this Assassin in. This man belongs to the sniper elite. His skills rival, if not surpass those of that idiot drunk, Hawkeye. Bandit leaders piss their pants when a bounty worth collecting is placed on their head. Jack has heard tales of targets killing themselves before the Assassin could come for them. And the Crimson Raiders adore this guy.
This uber Assassin.
This elite sniper.
This reprogrammable cyborg.
If it could, Jack's smile would have grown even wider. Jack will crack this Zer0's firewalls and bring them down. He will tear through data and hack into his memory banks. The inventor is going to reboot systems and reroute wiring in all the right places. 'Oh Zero my Zero. We... ' Jack pauses and looks through the lens once more. After a moment of silence his eyes fall on the sleeping man on the table again. 'You and me Zero, we are gonna be best friends forever.'
On the table, Zer0 sleeps.