A New Leader

Part Ninteen : Rencarnation

I brought up my large ECHO pad and watched as the death tolls went up and up, Helios had stopped burning about two days ago and now they were going in to retrieve people that could still be alive. I set out rewards to find my personal belongings, my clothing, one of my larger ECHO pads, and Handsome Jacks frozen grave.

They didn't have much luck yet, but I wanted them to find the death toll before anything else. The hotel phone started to ring, I picked it up and watched the numbers increase very slowly.

"Yes?" I asked.

"We found a body and he's alive." The man stated through the phone.

"Wonderful, bring him to the city and get him cleaned up, do the rest with the other survivors." I replied still watching the numbers as they finally reached over one hundred.

"Would you like us to retrieve his broken cybernetic arm? It looks like expensive Atlas technology?"

"The what?"

"His cybernetic arm? We can't seem to find his ECHO eye or brain modular but his arm is jammed into a broken piece of metal over here."

"Yes," I spoke nervously, "yes bring it to me."

"Will do."

He hung up, I pulled my pad closer to the bed and tapped on the death toll tab so it closed. I looked up Atlas issued products, a cybernetic arm had to be classified as personal. I was shocked to realize that I never heard of this before, but to my surprise they were there. They were used to help further your career through technological advancements, my eyes scanned over the black and silver arm but never seeing this before made me even more curious. I looked up Hyperion technology, we had a line of cybernetic arms as well, we even had ECHO eyes and some kind of brain enhancing modular. Ours are more recent due to the fact that Atlas isn't as great as it used to be after the first vault opening.

I pulled up another tab and looked at my employee list, I looked up who had cybernetic advancements and excluded the others. A short list popped up, I guess we didn't dabble in the technological human mixing.

I looked through the list as most of them were deceased now, others had question marks next to their names. I rolled over the people and saw a man around my age with slicked back brown hair and mismatched eyes, he was the only one who seemed to have an ECHO eye. I tapped on his profile and watched as the screen lit up.

"Current Hyperion employee, issued cybernetic arm, brain modular, and ECHO eye. Demoted to vice janitor by SR. Vasquez but left Hyperion soon after, stole a large sum of money and is suspected to be the downfall of Hyperion as he set wide panic through the ship, bringing an AI system of Handsome Jack to life through the technology."

This had to be a joke, this was absurd. How come I had never heard of this what so ever, if it involved Handsome Jack then I should've been the first person to know. The phone began to ring again as I picked it up furiously, scrolling through his information.

"The survivor got away." The same man from earlier spoke, I felt my blood boil.

"God damnit!" I yelled. "Find him, figure out a way to contact him, do whatever you have to do to bring him to me."

"I thought he-"

"Just do as I say." I slammed the phone down and scrolled through his profile as it seemed never ending.

There was pictures of him with a group of people, pictures with a shorter man with green glasses, and a picture that seemed to be playing with my mind. A blue holographic man smiling on a monitor on someone's desk, it was Jack. I zoomed in on the picture and looked over his face, his soul was still active... through this man.

I sat back on my bed and gazed at the face of my late lover, a charming smile planted on his blue, holographic face. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I realized that he is still active, he's still out there is some mix of Hyperion code. My hand moved up my robe and groped the pocket watch that I had taken from him, there was still hope.

I always thought that there would come a way to bring him back to life through some scientific breakthrough, but little did I know he was walking the halls of my business. I needed to contact this man, I needed to find him and retrieve his cybernetics.

I brought my pad back towards me and watched as the page refreshed. Two new photos have been added, more information, and an announcement. I caught his name quickly before I began scrolling through the page once again, Rhys.

"This man is wanted by the Hyperion president in status; Alive."

There was pictures of his body collapsed on the ground, an arm missing from his right side with his vest matted in blood spatter. What the hell happened to him? The other picture was of his unconscious face, I studied him and tried to see if could remember him what so ever. But I spent most of my presidency taking short trips to Pandora, for months I hardly stepped foot in the common areas.

I crossed over the pictures of his face and the information on his profile, people talking about him and how he sort of stayed in the shadows. Very nerdy, wanted to be promoted but was basically screwed over by Vasquez, ironically enough he's dead now. I always regretted letting him stay at Hyperion, guess I won't have to worry about him now.

I turned on my ECHO device and flicked on the microphone, sending a message out to the mass public in the city and other Hyperion officials.

"This is the president of Hyperion, I'm looking for a man named Rhys who was a former employee on Helios, bring him to me alive."

I turned it off quickly and laid down on my bed, my head seeming to spin as I thought of Jack coming back.