IC Contact - Snowblind

[phaseshifter]

This is Angel. Leave a message.

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[phaseshifter]

Oh! Er - his face was horribly scarred a few years ago. He's very sensitive about it. Think, like - a giant brand across his face. Very deep. Instead of dealing with it or risking surgery to minimise it, he had a mask clamped to his face instead.

A. Mask of his old face. A really advanced one - it moved with him and even restored the appearance of his burnt-out eye. If the AI uses video again, take a close look - he has the mask, it's just harder to notice with him being a freaking hologram.

[devoutish]

[You people and your metal body parts, he swears to god.]

He got worse in increments, then. Getting himself used to it by degrees. Telling himself it was all right each step of the way.

That's fucking dangerous, that is.

[phaseshifter]

Yeah, well, so was he. Fu-- freaking dangerous, I mean. The terrible thing he was trying to do? Wake up a huge effing monster and use it to eradicate the entire bandit population of Pandora.

And, you know, everybody else. Pandorans and bandits were basically the same thing to him.

[devoutish]

I've heard.

[He talks to Fiona about this.]

[phaseshifter]

Oh. From Fiona? Or Rhys? Fiona, right.

[devoutish]

Fiona, yeah. Mostly Fiona. But I'm sure he would have told me himself, eventually.

[phaseshifter]

I'm not so sure. The thing is, Rhys lived on Helios. Big space station, up in the sky. As far as I know, he never saw any of the destruction on Pandora firsthand? You hear about how Handsome Jack is civilising the borderlands and mining for eridium. It all sounds very clean and reasonable, right? And you hear about how he's clearing out the bandits, and that sounds fine too.

Then down on Pandora it's a little more obvious that the planet is being ravaged by earthquakes caused by the mining process. That Jack is shooting unarmed civilians, children included. That he's taking people and experimenting on them with slag to further Hyperion's weapons technology. And even if you learn the truth later, it's hard to grasp. Something that large and that different to your own knowledge of a situation - it doesn't sink in without considerable time and effort, you know?

Sorry, I'm rambling again. I'm just saying that I don't think Rhys would talk about it because it's not his story, I guess? I'm probably just making him sound like an uncaring jerk, but he's not.

[devoutish]

No, no - I meant Jack. He'd have seen me as a bandit, yeah? I'm guessing he wouldn't have hidden his hatred of them, once he found that out.

[But he goes quiet as he listens to the rest of her story, only letting out a mumbled Mm at the end of it.]

[phaseshifter]

Oh, I - mmm.

[ And now she's embarrassed again. NoOOoOooooooooo. ]

Yes. I don't doubt for a moment that he'd be open about his contempt. I expect the AI makes dumb pouty faces every time Rhys speaks to you, on that note. I'm sure you're devastated.

[devoutish]

I did try contacting him, when I was new. He was on the list of criminals, and I was curious.

[phaseshifter]

Oh. Oh geez. Um, did... you say anything, uh. Banditesque?

[devoutish]

Honestly, I can't remember. I introduced myself. He seemed confused about why I would contact him at all.

[phaseshifter]

Yyyyeah, that makes sense. He's no used to being contacted by bandits unless they want to turn in a bounty or something. Pllllus he was kinda in denial about the whole criminal thing.

[devoutish]

It's just as well. If we had made an alliance, it wouldn't have lasted long.

[phaseshifter]

[ Okay no even feeling as gross as she does SHE HAS TO LAUGH ]

I - yeah, I can't really imagine the two of you getting along enough to work together. Even for five minutes. It's... actually kinda hard to think of a worse combo.

That's a compliment.

[devoutish]

Yeah, why is that?

[He knows why he doesn't think they'd work well together. He's curious about why she thinks they wouldn't.]

[phaseshifter]

Well. On the most basic level, you're both used to leading. And not only do you approach that very differently, I doubt that either of you would ever even approach having enough respect for the other to take direction. Or even compromise!

 

 

Plus, you know. He was an asshole.

[devoutish]

[Angel, Alfie is an asshole, too. But he's... not going to point that out.]

Mm, yeah.

The examples you gave, about what he does - experimenting on people with whatever slag is. How did you find out about it? How did Rhys?

[phaseshifter]

[ o.....h. ]

I'm not sure if Rhys does know. Jack may have mentioned it. The AI, I mean. It - it wasn't exactly covered upinternally at Hyperion, but it wasn't common knowledge either? Not unless you were involved in organic R&D, and Rhys wasn't. So I doubt he ever had cause to stumble across the information even though it was technically available.

[ Just gonna. Skirt on by the question of how she knew herself. Al casual-like. Yeah. ]

[devoutish]

He didn't know because he didn't bother to know. All right.

And what about you?

[Sorry Angel, he notices stuff like this.]

[phaseshifter]

Saying he didn't bother to know is pretty uncharitable. He was involved in the business side of things! There was no reason for him to go poking around in all the sciencey... stuff.

Whereas I - erm. Ihad access to everything on Hyperion's network, a lot of time, and a personal interest in eridium. That's what slag is - a byproduct of the eridium process. Plus I was involved in many of Jack's pet projects by default.

[devoutish]

Yeah, you've said. He used you for them too, didn't he?

[phaseshifter]

[ ... ]

No. Not exactly. I was never a test subject or anything. Not like that.

[devoutish]

You were a collaborator? And then you rebelled.

[phaseshifter]

Pretty much. I didn't actively collaborate in slag experimentation, but if it weren't for me then Jack wouldn't have been mining and refining eridium in the first place.

[ Which sure makes it awkward when Fiona's talking about Pandora getting ravaged for it, fyi ]