ECHO DIARY ENTRY #3: EIGHT WEEKS AFTER THE FALL OF HELIOS
[ the most noticeable thing about rhys this time around is he has both eyes. the hole in his head is filled in and a long silver cybernetic arm is attached to his shoulder. he's shirtless, standing in front of a mirror and holding up his new hand to record, taking in the whole new look. his eyes seem to hesitate slightly on the scars around his shoulder but then he brightens, looking back to his face. ]
I guess -- I guess he felt bad or something, not that I actually told them what happened. Still, guess the old man felt bad enough to really put the big bucks into this. I have to pay him back somehow, I think. Maybe when I get Atlas up and running? I don't know, that's going to take a while. Still, it's so nice to see again. To pick up things with both hands -- to just... to just function!
[ and then suddenly, the video shorts out with a large burst of static. when it comes back a second later, rhys has a shirt on, a plain white button up, and he's sitting on his bed, still in the guest room from his previous entry. he's using the tablet this time. ]
So, still need to get adjusted to the arm. The tech itself is way more advanced than anything I got from Hyperion but like all things, I need to get used to it. I don't have any of my old files either and I -- well, I damaged the harddrive pretty bad impaling it. There's no way I could recover anything, huh?
[ he rubs the back of his neck then, awkward and uncomfortable as he looks away from the camera. ]
Plus... what if he's still in it? No. No, I have to start fresh. Clean drive. Clean tech. I can rebuild.
[ This video is also easy to watch. It's the same as the last where it's largely based in experiences that Jack simply doesn't share, and he doesn't feel much of anything over. As a younger man, he might have felt a pang of something over the idea that someone's parents would actually give enough of a shit over their kid to fund expensive cybernetics, but that had been squashed as Jack had gotten older and watched Angel grow up. So by now, hearing about that kind of thing comes with as much dispassionate distance as if Jack were reading a technical report.
It's only that last part that gets any kind of reaction out of Jack beyond that, but this too isn't anger or really... very much at all, at least outwardly.
He can piece together a general story of what happened through these videos and from thinking back on things Rhys had said, but there are still details that escape him. Hearing the anxiety in Rhys's voice, he's pretty sure about one thing that he had been wondering, at least. Rhys removed all of those cybernetics that Jack had known himself, hadn't he? He would've had to, because Jack knows himself. As soon as the Rhys would have fucked him over, he knows he would have taken over those cybernetics to really make him suffer. It's obvious. So it's obvious Rhys would have to get rid of them, and quickly.
But there's a detail that he lingers on, and that's the fact that Rhys hadn't destroyed the eye. He hadn't destroyed him. These stupid data files about everyone here made that clear, but it's a detail that Jack finds confusing. After all, if the situations were reversed, he wouldn't have done the same. Hell, he had decided that after he was done getting info from this drive, he was going to nuke it. It was a final "fuck you," because Jack still didn't feel satisfied with how he had killed Rhys. It was so lacking, because he truly wanted Rhys to know how deeply that betrayal cut, but he didn't have the chance. Rhys may have been a liar, but killing him like a bandit-- It didn't feel right.
So, why would Rhys keep the drive?
Rhys sure as hell seemed to think that Jack had betrayed him, and Rhys wasn't an idiot when it came to tech at least. He knew that the eye was what stored Jack and all he was. Jack had even said as much here to make that clear, because even though he had expressed it aggressively, he was afraid of the idea of Rhys having that eye in that form. It was like someone holding his beating heart in their hand, and he couldn't help but think that it was only a moment away from being crushed. Maybe it didn't matter now with whatever form Alice had given him, but it never made him any more comfortable.
Though a thought occurs to him, and Jack frowns as he considers it. Because maybe Rhys did know that. Maybe he got it, just how empty and desolate that place was. That was the weirdest part about it. It was a place, and it wasn't. He couldn't describe it, because in all of the memories and experiences he objectively knew weren't his at all, there was nothing like it. It was a true nothingness, and absence of anything but himself. There was nothing physical, nothing discernible, and not even time in any way that he could perceive normally. It was just desperately waiting to flicker back into what felt like existence, and it was a place Jack never, ever wanted to return to. He's sure that if it existed, Hell would be a better place than the drive, because at least there, he wouldn't be so utterly alone.
Yeah, he decides. That has to be it.
The idea that Rhys wanted Jack to suffer was all that made sense to him.
Jack leans forward to bring up the next video without ever really visisbly responding to this one. ]
> vid_003
[ the most noticeable thing about rhys this time around is he has both eyes. the hole in his head is filled in and a long silver cybernetic arm is attached to his shoulder. he's shirtless, standing in front of a mirror and holding up his new hand to record, taking in the whole new look. his eyes seem to hesitate slightly on the scars around his shoulder but then he brightens, looking back to his face. ]
I guess -- I guess he felt bad or something, not that I actually told them what happened. Still, guess the old man felt bad enough to really put the big bucks into this. I have to pay him back somehow, I think. Maybe when I get Atlas up and running? I don't know, that's going to take a while. Still, it's so nice to see again. To pick up things with both hands -- to just... to just function!
[ and then suddenly, the video shorts out with a large burst of static. when it comes back a second later, rhys has a shirt on, a plain white button up, and he's sitting on his bed, still in the guest room from his previous entry. he's using the tablet this time. ]
So, still need to get adjusted to the arm. The tech itself is way more advanced than anything I got from Hyperion but like all things, I need to get used to it. I don't have any of my old files either and I -- well, I damaged the harddrive pretty bad impaling it. There's no way I could recover anything, huh?
[ he rubs the back of his neck then, awkward and uncomfortable as he looks away from the camera. ]
Plus... what if he's still in it? No. No, I have to start fresh. Clean drive. Clean tech. I can rebuild.
[ a nod and he ends the video. ]
no subject
It's only that last part that gets any kind of reaction out of Jack beyond that, but this too isn't anger or really... very much at all, at least outwardly.
He can piece together a general story of what happened through these videos and from thinking back on things Rhys had said, but there are still details that escape him. Hearing the anxiety in Rhys's voice, he's pretty sure about one thing that he had been wondering, at least. Rhys removed all of those cybernetics that Jack had known himself, hadn't he? He would've had to, because Jack knows himself. As soon as the Rhys would have fucked him over, he knows he would have taken over those cybernetics to really make him suffer. It's obvious. So it's obvious Rhys would have to get rid of them, and quickly.
But there's a detail that he lingers on, and that's the fact that Rhys hadn't destroyed the eye. He hadn't destroyed him. These stupid data files about everyone here made that clear, but it's a detail that Jack finds confusing. After all, if the situations were reversed, he wouldn't have done the same. Hell, he had decided that after he was done getting info from this drive, he was going to nuke it. It was a final "fuck you," because Jack still didn't feel satisfied with how he had killed Rhys. It was so lacking, because he truly wanted Rhys to know how deeply that betrayal cut, but he didn't have the chance. Rhys may have been a liar, but killing him like a bandit-- It didn't feel right.
So, why would Rhys keep the drive?
Rhys sure as hell seemed to think that Jack had betrayed him, and Rhys wasn't an idiot when it came to tech at least. He knew that the eye was what stored Jack and all he was. Jack had even said as much here to make that clear, because even though he had expressed it aggressively, he was afraid of the idea of Rhys having that eye in that form. It was like someone holding his beating heart in their hand, and he couldn't help but think that it was only a moment away from being crushed. Maybe it didn't matter now with whatever form Alice had given him, but it never made him any more comfortable.
Though a thought occurs to him, and Jack frowns as he considers it. Because maybe Rhys did know that. Maybe he got it, just how empty and desolate that place was. That was the weirdest part about it. It was a place, and it wasn't. He couldn't describe it, because in all of the memories and experiences he objectively knew weren't his at all, there was nothing like it. It was a true nothingness, and absence of anything but himself. There was nothing physical, nothing discernible, and not even time in any way that he could perceive normally. It was just desperately waiting to flicker back into what felt like existence, and it was a place Jack never, ever wanted to return to. He's sure that if it existed, Hell would be a better place than the drive, because at least there, he wouldn't be so utterly alone.
Yeah, he decides. That has to be it.
The idea that Rhys wanted Jack to suffer was all that made sense to him.
Jack leans forward to bring up the next video without ever really visisbly responding to this one. ]