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It was late, (or very early, Jack wasn’t really thinking about the time; it had been at least a handful of hours since Rhys had gone home and the night custodial team had long since wrapped up,) but Jack made it a point of pride to keep updated on what R&D was doing, and that meant reading their reports as well as surprise inspections.
It was just good business, really, staying appraised on what the psychopathic developers were doing. He had more incidents in R&D than the next four departments combined, and staying on top of things tended to keep those numbers down. (That and a cutthroat, high stakes game of early termination/high turnover vs. the very generous Senior Researcher packages Hyperion offered.)
He was halfway through the report when he began to get a sinking feeling; a foreign twisting in his stomach as his suspicions grew. Regret was not an emotion that came easily to Jack, but as he read the latest reports, it grew and spread. He had left this bit of work for last; it was his own fault for not catching it sooner.
He left the report on his desk as he headed down to R&D, bouncing on his toes as he waited for the elevator’s long descent. He could fix this. He was Handsome Jack. He’d died and that had barely slowed him down. There was no way something like this would stop him.
---
It was odd that Rhys received the reception that Jack did, possibly because he tended to be a more consistent presence in the different departments. He found it easier to control Jack’s violent solutions to problems if he had forewarning on the issues. The weekly R&D briefings were almost top of Rhys’ priority list and while he didn’t expect the groveling that Jack accepted as his due, he was a little surprised when no one was waiting for him as he stepped off the executive elevator.
In fact, there was no one there at all. Rhys leaned over the reception desk to check, then roamed the empty halls, looking for signs of life. There were few that showed a dramatic interruption; a phone left off the hook, a copier happily copying the same page over and over, even, gross, a trail of toilet paper dragged out of a bathroom. But there wasn’t a single body around, from what Rhys could see.
He had his Echo out, ready to call for security, when he saw the blood.
It took him a minute to register what he was seeing. There were bodies; more than a few, more than a dozen; it looked like everyone who’d worked in the department, from the security guard, to the receptionists, to the senior researchers, were laid out in orderly rows, face down, missing most of their skulls.
Rhys studied the bodies, wondering what the hell had happened and if it was an in-house attack or not. It took him five minutes to realize he should have been calling for help, and that the most disturbing thing was probably not that they would have to pay out early termination benefits to all the families and that was definitely going to impact their quarterly budget.
He left security investigating, figuring he should be the one to brief Jack on the latest developments. Dianna wasn’t at her desk, (Rhys was beginning to understand why it was so hard for Jack to keep an assistant. He barely ever saw the woman at her desk and shouldn’t an assistant be… at least… present?)
He knocked once on Jack’s door before letting himself in. “We had an incident,” he started, without preamble, and stopped when Jack held up one long finger. He was on the phone, obviously absorbed in whatever the call was.
Rhys gestured to the door in question, but Jack shook his head, indicating Rhys should stay.
“Look, I don’t care how much they’re asking, get the damn towers with the premium upgrades. Relocate the engineering team on the expansion project; they’re just building dorms for workers. This is priority one. Did you talk to the biologists about-- good. Good. Keep me updated.” Jack hung up the phone with a flourish, turning to Rhys, but the other man was distracted.
Jack followed Rhys’ gaze over his shoulder and they both watched in silence.
“Did… something happen?” Rhys asked after a moment, eyes slightly narrowed in consideration.
“I’ll say,” Jack said, rising. “Ignore her. She’s a bitch. I named her Lilith,” Jack added, catching the kitten that was stalking across a shelf after a bit of dust. He held the tiny cat with surprising ease, setting her down behind his desk. “Like the siren. Who is also a bitch.”
Rhys came around the desk and stared at the mass of feline chaos currently doing its best to escape several copy boxes. He lost count around fifteen. “And these?” he asked.
“What, you want to be introduced to all of them? Look, I’ll get Debra to type up the proposal. You can read about them.” Jack absently picked up a ginger cat with glowing eyes that was attempting to climb up his leg. “We’re redesigning R&D 7. They’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Jack,” Rhys said, slowly, “why are there cats here?”
“I couldn’t just leave them in their cages,” Jack said, aghast. “I’m not a monster. Look, R&D decided to test the effects of radiation on cats. What was I supposed to do? Give them raises?”
Rhys tried to process what he was hearing. “Did you… R&D 7… was that you?” he asked. “There were like, forty bodies!”
Jack’s expression went sharp; eyes glittering with vicious intensity, his smile like a razor. “They were testing. On cats.” He said it slowly, biting off each word.
“You just authorized a new trial on human subjects!” Rhys said.
“So?” Jack looked at him with confusion. “What does that have to do with anything? Look, I’ve got a team on it. We’re going to redesign R&D 7 to house these guys, give them some grass and little things to hunt, a laser dot room, Bio is testing out some new catnip strains. They’ll be out of our hair by next week; it’s no big deal.”
He set the ginger cat on his desk, then breathed out an amused breath when the glowing-eyed feline attacked his pen.
Rhys watched him a minute longer, then shoved a hand through his hair. “Is this something I should worry about?” he asked, finally.
“Rhys,” Jack said, waving his pen for the cat to attack. “They’re just cats.”