He stands across from a beautiful Asari with a gentle face and ungentle hands. Hands that are coiled around his own in a vice as he finds himself plunged first in her world; what he sees of it is her eating her lunch yesterday. Before long he his plunged wholly into his; he sees trees of green; red roses, too; and, last, the mangled leg of the second man he'd ever eaten.
When he is finally pulled back into reality, however, the woman holding his hands isn't looking at him in horror. She turns around to the strangers who had been imprisoning him for the past week and says, "He isn't lying. And I think he'd be a great fit for your team."
Jack wanted his dog.
Murphy was the cutest thing. Far cuter than his first dog. Jack had found him fighting off two other starving dogs from an arm that had once belonged to somebody, Jack was sure, but now it was Murphy's. To eat, to defend. Jack saw the dog's limp, and the blood dripping from its mangy fur. The other two mutts bore their yellow teeth widely as any raider Jack had seen, too, so he shot them and in two days, he'd found himself another best friend. But that, like everything else, was before the whatever nonsense he'd inevitably find himself wrapped up in.
Case in point: whatever and wherever the fuck this padded room was.
Of the places Jack had found himself trapped in, this one was posh: a bed built into the wall with feather pillows and a sinfully soft white blanket. Attached to it was an honest-to-God bathroom with clean running water, a shower, toilet paper that wasn't ancient pre-war twenty-dollar bills. He had a sleek glass desk that came with a manifesto, pencils and paper, and even a white board and colored markers and erasers. Jack hates it. He'd seen all he wanted and far, far more than he would've liked of clinical, monotone rooms and the sort of people who love them.
He had been doodling on it for a few days when the cute redhead who was trying to manipulate him said, "You're drawing! That's wonderful. We we're getting kind of worried. You hadn't really done much for a long time."
Jack had heard her coming, and had his back turned firmly away from where she could stab, but at her words, he blinked. Then, furious, he went to the board and wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
The redhead, who claimed her name was Kelly, recognized the quote too fast for Jack's liking.
"You've read Orwell?" she asked. "Did they teach that to you in an English class?"
Jack turned and glared at her. "Let me out."
"I'm sorry," Kelly said. "But we can't do that yet."
"And the security guards with laser rifles are supposed to protect me," Jack said flatly. "Sure."
Kelly cocked her head. "'Laser rifle'?"
Jack went over to her slowly, punctuating each step with another word. "Let. Me. Out."
He came to tower over her, but Kelly just smiled. "In a few more days."
Jack had had enough. They had been telling him the wrong date for days; they brought in that blue… woman… thing… who did something, that he knew was invasive somehow; when he demanded to see Murphy, they told him that there wasn't a dog named Murphy anywhere on the premises.
Well, Jack had been in this padded room for too long, and he had been slowly rolling paper from the journal they gave him into shivs for nothing, so he took it out from under his sleeve and aimed right for Kelly's jugular vein. But instead of getting hit and finally getting her out of his way, Kelly knocked the wind out of him and sent him straight to the floor almost faster than he could think.
Fire lit up all the way down his back, but Jack had another shiv up his sleeve, of course, and threw himself at Kelly with an animal scream. This time he gets the upper hand, and she doesn't stop him. The paper shiv makes a small incision, but Jack twists it, and adds torque, making the cut larger and larger until he hears jackboots behind him and finds more of those strange rifles in his face.
"On your knees, now!" the guard yells. "Hands behind your head!"
Jack isn't stupid, so he does as he's bid, but the soldiers are also smart, surrounding him and keeping their distance. Kelly is making the worst sounds behind him, struggling to her feet, but they're sounds Jack has been hearing for the past year and a half.
"Medic!" another guard shouts. There are more jackboots, more guards, until Jack is outnumbered twelve to one. He spits at them anyways.
One of them hits him with a stun gun, and not a minute after that, Jack's world goes dark.
Nobody comes for what he can only assume to be three or four days. He never had a clock and out of spite, they've been turning the lights on and off whenever they pleased. He knows what they're trying to do, and while it starts to get to him earlier than he thought it would, he's determined that eventually, someone is going to come back in and if they aren't armed, they're dying, and if they are, then he's getting one of their stupid rifles and shooting his way out. He'd done it before, and he would absolutely do it again.
One day the lights turn on right as he's beginning to fall asleep, and in front of him is the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. While his eyes wander up and down her, and he likes what he sees, he dismisses it all out of hand. He didn't get this far by thinking with what he had down south. Not that he thought any woman anywhere would ever want him.
"The Subject, I presume?" the woman asked.
"Let me out," Jack growled.
"Dean," she said, as if she's speaking to a child, "You murdered one of our staff."
"You're keeping me here against my will." Jack glared.
"They told me you were a difficult personality," Miranda said. "I also must inform your situation isn't so rare that we can't lose you as a subject."
Jack glared harder.
"Who are you people?" he demanded for the umpteenth time. "No, I don't want your stupid codenames. What are you? Slavers?"
"We are Cerberus." Miranda said.
"Oh, I get it," Jack said. He turned and said to the wall, "Okay, Braun! Was there another failsafe? Another program? Have you been having fun, you sadistic piece of shit? Do you really think I won't find the emergency console for this one too?"
When he turned back to Miranda, she was studying him intently.
"What year is it?" she asked.
Jack snorted. "2279. Like I've been telling you."
"I see." She said. She pulled up some hologram(?) on her wrist, typed some, and left. Soon enough more guards showed up, but instead of going in, gas came down in a hiss from the ceiling vents, and once again, Jack's world went dark.
When he woke up, he found himself in another room, this one pitch black. For a few minutes, another hologram came on, of a handsome man with a patrician air and a cigarette, naturally.
"So," the man leaned back in his chair. "I'm assuming your real name isn't Dean Domino."
"For the last time," Jack said. "Who are you people?"
"I've told you both our name and purpose," the man said. " and provided a copy of our manifesto that you refused to read."
"I don't need to read it to see you're assholes," Jack said.
"Yet," the man held onto the word with a slight drawl, "I still think you could be useful."
Jack glowered. "Useful for what? Your 'team'? I'm not interested."
"You would rather die then?" the man said. "I can respect that. I could have you shot tomorrow, if you'd like. Or gassed. Or stabbed. Some of my are certainly eager." The man took a drag from his cigarette. "But I also trust the specialist who, ah, provided you a check-up. We have also analyzed your DNA, and it is mutated. Your green eye isn't supposed to be there."
"You want me to kill somebody for you?" Jack asked. "If I knock this person, will you let me go?"
"A particular person? No." the man said. He gestured with his free hand and Jack saw what he assumed to be footage from science-fiction holovid. "That is the problem of our time. Not yours, I've gathered, but of ours."
"Those are some good special effects," Jack said. "But you're gonna have to do better than that."
The man said nothing as he showed Jack more videos, each one more graphic than the last, until Jack at last turned up his nose in disgust. "Seriously, what kind of freak are you?"
"I am your only ticket to freedom, young man," he said. "If you haven't already gathered, we aren't letting you go anytime soon. Not unless you agree to our terms."
"Your terms, then," Jack rolled his eyes.
"What you just saw was the greatest naval battle of the past fifty years," the man said. "But I also understand that you don't care. So," the man took another, longer drag of his cigarette, "My terms are simple. Human colonies are going missing. The powers that be don't care; a few hundred people here, a couple thousand there, and all of them outside of officially approved space. Not to mention, most other species in the galaxy don't particularly care about human beings."
Jack nodded slowly. "Okay?"
"I need a team to stop whoever—or whatever—is causing these colonies to vanish. We think you would be a good fit."
"I killed one of your people," Jack said.
"You were acting in self-defense," the man said. "Arguably, anyway. My point is that your… skills are of interest to our cause."
"You seem to have plenty of guys," Jack said.
"Security personnel? Yes." The man said. "But I need more than that. Engineers, mercenaries, technicians, what have you. Although you have refused to show me respect," the man took a third drag of his cigarette. "I will be frank. I don't just need soldiers. I need people who will get things done."
"I'm not a pyscho," Jack said defensively.
"No," the man said. "You're far more useful. You seem to have the countenance I need for my team."
"If I say no?" Jack asked.
"Then we leave you in your cell for further study," the man replied. "Accept, and you will officially be in our employ, and given all the benefits thereof. After you complete your assignment, we'll let you go for good."
The last part was bullshit, Jack could smell it, but the cell… trying to sleep under the threat of gas, vengeful guards… being alone, alone, alone, with nowhere to go…
"Fine," Jack said.
"Good," the man said. He waved a hand and a hologram appeared at Jack's side. "Now, what is your name?
"Jack. Just Jack."
"I see." The man took a fourth drag of his cigarette. He smiled. "Welcome aboard."
Jack shivered, but he refused to admit to himself why.