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The adrenaline rush of being freed was short.
After exiting through the entrance doors to the casino that became his tomb, Timothy walks towards the fast travel station, and realizes that he could go anywhere in the universe, and is suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty.
Being trapped on a space station for almost nine years severely limits your imagination, he thinks. There are a few places he could go, but the one place he wants to be is wherever she is, in her arms. His memory of her is all he can go by, and unfortunately, the last place he knew her to be literally fell out of orbit.
A notification flickers across his Echo-device, and behind the cracked screen, he sees it’s Moxxi. An extended invitation to visit Sanctuary 3, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and a drink, if he so desires. He smiles, plugging the location into the fast travel machine, and sighs at the familiar sensation of being transported through space.
He blinks as he materializes in the new location, and the first sounds he hears in his newfound freedom… are the screams of Claptrap, as the little robot throws his arms in the air and zooms away with fear.
“HE’S NOT DEAD! I FREAKING TOLD YOU GUYS HE’D COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU!!!!” The voice becomes quieter as he ‘runs’ away, and Timothy sighs, pulling down his hood. He hoped for a more stealthy approach, but of course, Claptrap has no tact, and he can’t blame the little robot. If someone who is the mirror image of your former enemy, minus the cracked mask, were to appear, how would anyone react?
He follows the path taken by Claptrap, and finds him being consoled by Amara and Moze. He waves at Claptrap. “See? It’s not Jack, it’s Tim,” Amara says, standing from her knees, “He’s our friend."
“He’s your friend, not mine!” Claptrap turns away from them all, and slowly leaves, muttering to himself about needing a drink.
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Is Moxxi around?” Timothy turns to Moze, who pops her bubblegum and points to the bar. He thanks her, and slowly walks into the bar, to be greeted by the woman in the flesh, arms spread as she sees him.
“Tim! Come, sit down. I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.” She grabs a glass from behind her, and pours him a drink, and when he takes it, he’s surprised to see it’s just water.
“I was expecting liquor.” Tim takes a nearby stool, and scoots it to the bar, taking a seat. “I didn’t really know where else to go, to be honest. My last home fell out of the atmosphere, and the only place I want to be is… well, I have no idea where she is.”
“She?” Moxxi raises an eyebrow, sitting on the counter of the bar behind her.
“I know you won’t know her, but… there’s this girl. We met just before Jack sent me to the Jackpot, and I was forced to leave her. She lived on Helios, and was one of Jack’s exploited women, you know, the ones he keeps in that suite?”
“Unfortunately, I do. Did you know her well?”
“That’s the thing - I only knew her for a week before Jack sent me to the Jackpot. And, I know it’s dumb, but she didn’t see me as just Jack or a body double. She tried to get to know me, you know? We got to know each other as she was literally trapped in Jack’s office, and I figured out why Jack didn’t keep me away from her, after we were separated.” He clears his throat, taking a sip of the cold water, before looking at his reflection in the glass. “Jack wanted to show me he was in control, and could do whatever he wanted, as if that wasn’t clear enough by then. He wanted me to get my hopes up and crush them.”
“I know. Jack did that to everyone, it was his way of showing his power over other people. Hell, that casino was one of my dreams, and he took the idea from me and built the damn thing to taunt me.” Moxxi picks at her fingernails, before looking up to Timothy’s eyes.
“It’s stupid, but I kept telling myself I’d get to see her again, if I just kept going. Years of pining over a woman who probably moved on a long time ago.”
“And what if she didn’t?” Moxxi smiles. “Timothy Lawrence, you are not an easy man to forget. You two liked each other when you left, right? So what makes you think she doesn’t remember you, or at least still think fondly of you?"
“The fact that it’s been almost a decade since we’ve seen each other, for one. But don’t give me hope, if she was on Helios when it crashed, then she’s a ghost from my past… literally.” Tim puts his head in his hands, and when he wipes his face, he sees Moxxi tapping at her Echo-device. “What’re you doing?”
“Messaging Zer0.” She looks up at his confused face. “They’re a mercenary for hire, I’m willing to bet they’d help you find her, for a price.”
“Where is Zer0 nowadays, anyway?” Tim takes a sip from his water, as she continues her message.
“They’re on Promethea, last I knew. Strongfork hired them to be his personal bodyguard.”
“Strong-fork?” He says the word slowly, confused. “I’ve been trapped on a space station with no contact to the outside world, you’ll have to remind me who that is.”
“Rhys Strongfork, the CEO of Atlas.” She explains, before realizing he probably also has no clue that Atlas is even a thing. “Okay, so… Rhys doesn’t want people knowing this, but he’s the reason Helios fell. He took the deed to Atlas from Jack’s office, and built the company back from the ground up. And If you ask him, he’ll tell you the whole story, but he’s been screwed over by Jack too, so maybe he’ll get Zer0 to help you.”
“That’s… actually a good idea. Anyone else you can think of that would be able to help me?” Timothy plays with the straw in his glass, and Moxxi taps her fingers.
“You said she was a Hyperion employee, right?”
“Yep - somewhere in accounting, from what I remember.”
“Perfect. I know someone on Pandora who used to work at Hyperion, his name’s Vaughn. He’s actually friends with Rhys, they go way back apparently. But he might have an idea of where to look, last I knew, he had access to Hyperion’s computer systems. Used to work in accounting too, might even know the girl you’re looking for!” Moxxi smiles, clasping her hands together. “It’s up to you, but you shouldn’t be so sad, you’ve got plenty of allies, and… if things don’t work out, well, we’re still friends.” Moxxi winks, and Tim blushes under the mask, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Thanks, Mox. I - I think I’m going to go to Pandora first. Zer0 kind of scares me, and if…” He pauses, stuttering over his thoughts as they pour out of his mouth, “if she was on Helios when it crashed, then I guess…I can say goodbye.” He waves, walking out the doorway, missing the torn expression Moxxi wears as he walks away, and her little turn to compose herself before being the personality she normally keeps.
Approaching the waypoint Moxxi gave him, Timothy’s glad for a moment that Catch-A-Ride is still a thing, over a decade since he last used the service. He silently thanks Scooter, before realizing that he doesn’t know where Scooter is anymore. He shakes the thought from his mind, turning from the dirt path to the little shack. When he parks, he doesn’t know whether to approach with his hood up or not, but decides that it doesn’t matter, because he’s going to be in the sights either way.
He climbs out of the outrunner, which is difficult to do with one hand, he remarks. Why these things don’t have doors, he’ll never understand.
The dirt crunches beneath his boots as he approaches the small building, and decides he should just knock on the door, because if Vaughn is friends with Moxxi, then he’s a friend of Timothy.
His fist meets the door, gently, before he realizes Vaughn has a security system. He waves at the nearby camera, and hears Vaughn scream like a child inside the building, before muttering to himself, and then using the security system to respond. “Who are you, and why are you walking around Pandora with Jack’s face?! That gets people shot!”
“My name’s Tim,” he explains, “and I’m a friend of Moxxi’s. She told me you had access to Hyperion’s computer system, and I need a favor. I can call her to prove it, if you need me to.”
Vaughn goes quiet, before unlocking the door, and peering outside it before letting Tim into his home. “She sent me a message already, told me a friend of hers was coming to visit.”
Tim peers down at the short man, and laughs in his face, before collecting himself, apologizing. To his surprise, Vaughn is covered in blood, smeared from his cheeks, to his neck down to his chest, in combat boots and his once-whitey-tightys, with a tattered cape tied around his neck, looking like a mix of a downtrodden superhero, and a homeless man abandoned on an island, as well as the homeless man’s fruit best friend. His hair is longer than the picture Moxxi showed him, in a small bun on the top of his head, and his beard is more filled out than before, but still unkempt.
“Sorry. I, uh… have Jack’s DNA in me, so that’s why I thought it was appropriate to laugh in your face.” Vaughn gives him a strange look, before laughing in response.
“Somehow, that’s not the strangest thing about you.” Vaughn smiles, taking a seat at his stack of televisions and monitors. “I’m guessing you’re the famous Jimothy Shlawrence I’ve heard about, right?”
“I… couldn’t legally say my real name without worrying about a bomb in my face exploding.” Tim realizes he shouldn’t have said that, but reassures Vaughn, “-I’m guessing it was an empty threat, because watch,” he steps away, throwing his hands out dramatically, “I’m Timothy Lawrence and my mom thinks I’m dead. See?”
“My mom also thinks I’m dead, or maybe she’s pretending I am, since I haven’t spoken to her since after Helios fell,” Vaughn says, brushing off the strange statement, “so I’m glad to know I’m not alone in the ‘mom doesn’t know slash care that I’m alive’ club.” Tim sits in a nearby chair, and Vaughn turns his back to him to check his security cameras briefly, before turning back. “So, what can I do for you, Tim?”
Timothy bites his lip, before blurting out the name of the woman he hasn’t seen in years. Vaughn raises an eyebrow, before typing into the keyboard. “She… she’s someone I’ve been looking for. I needed to know if she’s… in the rubble of Helios.”
“I know her, or at least, I knew her. Back when I was still a Hyperion employee, and not a ‘former employee presumed dead.’ She was nice, until she got caught siphoning funds into her own bank account. Then she disappeared for a week, and everyone was saying Jack killed her.”
“He might as well have, but then I wouldn’t have met her.” Tim watches as Vaughn searches through the employee files, clicking on a profile photo, her official employee photo.
“This is her, right?”
Tim steps behind Vaughn, looking closely at the profile, and he smiles, because she looks happy in the photo, a face he never really got to see. “Yeah, that’s her. Do you have any information on where she was when Helios fell?” Vaughn clicks through the profile, scrolling, and sets the parameters of the history to most recent entries, scrolling again until the date of Helios’ crash.
“The night of the crash, she was logged using a fast travel, fifteen minutes before Helios fell. That’s either one hell of a coincidence, or she knew something everyone else didn’t… was she close to Jack, by chance?”
“Would you say being his sex slave is considered close, or…?” Tim frowns, looking over his shoulder. “Not to air her dirty laundry, but now that I know she didn’t die in the crash, yeah, they knew each other intimately.”
“Jack warned her. I wonder when he had time to do that.” Timothy pauses, waiting for Vaughn to explain. “Did Moxxi tell you about why Helios fell? About Rhys, the AI he had stuck in his head?”
Tim shakes his head. “Said it wasn’t her story to tell, basically.”
Vaughn scrolls past the files, reaching the next entry. “It says here she terminated her employment a few days later, citing that she’d chosen to be with her family.”
“Her… family?”
Vaughn clicks the attached file, scrolling. “Her parents, apparently.”
Tim sighs, pressing his thumb into his forehead as he thinks. “I’m guessing from your lack of details there’s no address, right?”
“You’re correct. But Hyperion does have one thing I haven’t checked - might give us a clue or two.” Vaughn clicks through the file again, to another folder. “Hyperion has surveillance cameras on Eden Seven. Let’s see if there’s any hits from facial recognition.”
It takes a moment for the program to load, but Vaughn smiles, dragging the photo over to the wall-mounted monitor, letting Timothy see for himself.
“The camera has matches as recent as last week. She goes past that camera frequently, like it’s on her route to work.” He pulls the camera footage, and it’s angled from a streetlight, and Tim watches her walk across the street, and into a building.
“Can you… pull the location of that camera?”
“Eden Seven… says it’s on Eleanor Way, what does the building say?”
Tim leans into the display, squinting his eyes as he realizes it’s an address, displayed above the door. “I can’t read what it says, can you enhance the image?”
Vaughn sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can zoom into the footage, but I can’t make it any clearer… camera footage doesn’t work like that.” He zooms in, and Tim can vaguely make out the numbers.
“2431 Eleanor Way.” Vaughn types that into his Echo-net browser, and smiles.
“Aha! Gotcha, bitch!”
Tim scowls, and Vaughn mutters an apology under his breath. “She’s not a bitch, sorry.”
“What’s at that address?”
“It’s a corporate location for some medium sized electronics company, but…. Haha! It says right here that it’s owned by none other than Atlas.” Vaughn beams a winning smile at Tim, and he sighs.
“So she works for Atlas,” Tim says, thinking out loud, “and… Rhys, he might know where she is!”
“Bingo. So, I guess we’re going to Promethea?”
Timothy nods, before catching up to what Vaughn just said. “We?”
Vaughn stands up, heading to his closet. “You’ll have to hang out while I shower and put on appropriate clothes, but yeah, we… Rhys was my roommate in college, then we applied to Hyperion together, and lived together on Helios.” He throws a pair of red cargo pants over his shoulder, and then a simple black shirt that’s surprisingly clean for Pandoran standards. “Rhys said he doesn’t care if I wear skivvies on Pandora, but that he wouldn’t be caught dead with me dressed like I usually do. He’s got a whole, uh…”
“Reputation?”
“Yeah, that.” Vaughn finds a pair of cleaner underwear and socks, and a pair of boots that Timothy recognizes as part of Hyperion’s fashion catalog from back when he was on Helios. The shoes are still in decent condition, despite being at least ten years old.
“Do you barely wear those boots?” Tim asks, slouched forward in the chair with his leg crossed. “They’re from the Hyperion employee catalog from before I went to the Handsome Jackpot, right?”
“Yeah, they were the shoes I was wearing when I came down to Pandora for the first time.” Vaughn closes the closet door, setting his clothes on a table and shoes nearby on the floor. “If I didn’t start dressing the part to fit in on Pandora, I’d wear them more. But they’re sentimental.” He shrugs, heading off to the bathroom, and closing the door behind himself, before yelling through the door as Timothy can audibly hear him using the toilet. “Make yourself at home, I’ll be a little bit!”
“Don’t talk to me while you’re pissing, please!” Tim chuckles, sitting in the chair at Vaughn’s computer, looking at the picture of the woman he’s been thinking of for almost a decade now.
Her hair was shorter in the photo than when he knew her, and she wore a standard vested uniform for accountants on Helios. Her eyes had a glimmer of hope that she didn’t have when he knew her.
He thinks of the last time he’d seen her face, standing in the doorway of the apartment they spent three days together in. He’d spent all morning making a nice breakfast as a way to soften the blow of him leaving. He thought it’d only be for a while, a few months or a year at most, so he did what he knew she’d like - he made pancakes, and did the dishes.
What he would give to have a morning as blissful as that one with her again. Maybe minus the whole ‘saying goodbye, not knowing it’d be nearly a decade before you might see each other again’ thing.
His hand trails down the monitor, warm under his touch, and he whispers to himself. “I’ll find you, if I have to go to the ends of the galaxy just to see you again.”
His breath hitches, knowing the odds of him getting to see her again are so much higher than before, but anxiety riddles his thoughts. What if she’d moved on? What if she’d forgotten him? He couldn’t imagine his whole life plan changing again, not again. He wanted to find her, hold her hand again, and get to know the person she’s become since they last saw each other. Maybe, if she’d never met another, they’d get a shot at life together, the way they could’ve before Jack ever interfered with their lives.
He sits there, staring at the now old photo, thinking of the look on her face when he said goodbye.
It’s a somber moment, but he can feel the spark that’s kept him going alight in his chest. He didn’t think it was possible to still have hope after all these years, but when he saw the vault hunters in the casino, he swore he felt an invisible tether holding him together snap under the weight of the hope filling him.
He dreamt of her face for so long, as she was the only one who ever asked about him.
When Vaughn steps out of the bathroom in a towel, he finds Timothy staring at his monitor with a hand beside the picture of the girl he knew, and realizes why Timothy was so desperate to find her.
He clears his throat, and Tim jumps, apologizing. “Sorry, I just…”
“You loved her,” he shrugs, “I guess we’re more alike than I knew. When I watched Helios fall from the sky, I didn’t know for months whether Rhys was alive or not. I didn’t have a clue - until I hired LB to find him and Fiona.” He grabs his clothes off the table, and takes it to the bathroom. “I’ll be back. Try not to… cry all over my monitor, it’s vintage.”
Tim sniffles, laughing, as he sits back and wipes the tears on his cheeks.
Vaughn disappears in the bathroom again, and returns with his hair freshly brushed, his beard neatly trimmed, and fully dressed, minus his boots. He ties them, before grabbing a jacket from his closet, and waiting for Timothy to lead the way.
"You look nice,” Timothy remarks, as they climb into the dirty outrunner, and Vaughn smiles.
“Thanks. This is the first time I’ve seen Rhys since… well, since after Troy and Tyreen died. Which I’m now realizing you probably don’t have a clue who the hell I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a lot to learn. So, tell me, why dress up so nice to see Rhys, anyways?”
Vaughn goes quiet, crossing his arms as Timothy starts the outrunner and speeds off. “It’s a long story, but I’ve finally had enough of being a Pandoran local. And if I’m going to surprise him, why not dress up a bit for the occasion?"
Tim bites his lip, wanting to ask an inappropriate question, but decides he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to upset his new friend, especially when Vaughn doesn’t seem like talking. But he can tell that Vaughn’s been waiting to go back to Promethea for a reason, and he’ll find out sooner rather than later whether his hunch is true. Maybe this was a good idea, for both of them.
The walk into Atlas HQ is smooth, until the guards make Tim walk through a scanner and it immediately sets off an alarm. The guard behind him pulls his hood down, and pushes him to the ground, attempting to put handcuffs on him, and Tim sighs as he realizes handcuffs would’ve only worked had Timothy had two hands.
“Sir, we have a doppelganger here, came in with your friend Vaughn.” Another guard speaks to someone Tim can’t hear, but Vaughn puts his hands on the guard holding Tim down with his knee to his back.
“Hey! He’s with me, call Rhys, he’ll let him in!” Vaughn pushes the larger man of Tim, and Tim struggles to stand, before handing his bag to the guard, and pulling his only gun on his person out and handing it over.
“Look, I’m not here to harm anyone, you can have my shit and my gun, if it proves that.” Tim tilts his head at the guard, who reluctantly takes the things and sets them aside in a bin.
“Yes, sir.” The guard with his hand to his earpiece says, before grabbing Tim by the arm. “You’re coming with me,” he says, hauling Tim to a security office.
Tim sits there for what feels like hours, before someone in red armor approaches him, and sits at the desk.
“I’ve never seen one of you in person, so today’s gonna be interesting, I’ll bet.” The voice says, taking off his helmet, revealing an asymmetrical cut of green hair. “I’m Lor - and Rhys wants me to ask you a couple of questions to make sure you and Vaughn walked in here voluntarily.”
“Ask away,” Tim says, tapping his foot as he tries to wake up the fuzzy-feeling limb, “I have all the time in the world right now.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m trying to find someone, Hyperion databases say she works for an Atlas-acquired company, so I figured I’d just try to go to the source.” Tim sits back, relaxing under Lor’s gaze.
“Why not just go there?” He asks, crossing his arms and throwing his shoes onto the desk, leaning the chair back.
“That’s… a good idea, actually. But Vaughn insisted we come see Rhys for some reason. I think he has feelings for the big man up there.”
Lor smiles, shaking his head. “Yeah, we all kind of think the same thing about Rhys for Vaughn. There’s an office betting pool. My money is on the annual gala, Rhys wants to invite people who helped save Atlas from being overtaken by Maliwan, and Vaughn has to get all dressed up, though I bet this is the cleanest I’ve ever seen him so maybe that’s a stretch.”
Tim matches the other man’s expression, smiling while shaking his head. “You should’ve seen him when I met up with him earlier. Blood smeared all down his chest, on his cheeks, looked…”
“Like a right bandit?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, so Vaughn brought you here on his own, you didn’t make him lead you here?” Lor puts a finger to the desk, kicking his feet back down to the floor. “You’re not… holding him hostage or some shit?”
“I’m friends with Moxxi, who told me to have Vaughn check that database, it was his idea to come here instead. I wouldn’t hold a friend of my friend hostage.”
“Unless Jack told you to.” Tim’s happy expression fades, and he wrings his hands together, trying to come up with a dignified response.
“I haven’t taken orders from Jack in over eight years. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Lor shakes his head. “The thing is, Rhys thought Jack was dead too. But even in death, Jack manipulated Rhys. Vaughn told us you were trapped in that casino for near a decade, so I’m guessing you haven’t heard the story.”
“I’ve heard bits, but nobody’s given me the full story. Vaughn said it was Rhys’ tale to tell.”
Lor sits back again, reaching for his echo and shooting off a message. He waits for the response, and stands up. “Well, Rhys is curious why you’re here, how he can help you. So you’re gonna have to tell him yourself. C’mon.”
Lor leads Tim to the elevator again, swiping a security clearance card at every door, and when the elevator lifts from the floor, he feels a familiar sense of worry overcome him. He closes his eyes, tapping on his leg with his hand, and when the doors open, he can almost see himself walking into Jack’s office on Helios, but when he opens his eyes, he’s shocked to see that Rhys’ office wasn’t quite the same.
It was lavish, but instead of statues of his own face and perfectly swooped hair, Rhys opted for something he wouldn’t have guessed - fish. Aquariums line the walls, full of what Timothy assumes is rare species of fish. Something resembling a stingray swoops in front of him as he follows Lor down the hallway, except it’s three times the size of any stingray he’d ever seen.
Lor looks back at Timothy, and any sign of reliving trauma has faded from his face. Lor turns back, smiling softly, knowing that Rhys’ grandiose plans for a giant aquarium worked for Timothy, for the same reason he filled his office with millions of gallons of saltwater.
“Ah, there he is,” says a voice, as they near the end of the hallway, and Timothy looks up to see that Rhys has met them by the entrance to his actual office, “and I see you’re enjoying the fish.”
“It’s hard not to,” Tim says, turning to face Rhys directly, “after entering an office like Jack’s for so many years, it’s refreshing to see someone use the space for something other than their ego.”
Rhys takes a step back, towards his desk, before catching sight of Tim’s stump on his right hand, and immediately steps back to grab Tim’s arm. “When did you lose your hand?”
“Uh,” he thinks, realizing he’s only been a free man for six hours or so, “yesterday, I think?”
“Perfect.” Rhys scurries over to his desk, calling a number and calmly waiting for the answer. “Hey, Strongfork here. Can you send up the head prosthetist to my office when they have a moment?” The line goes dead, and Rhys’ echo eye lights up, scanning Timothy for a moment, and Timothy is confused, before Rhys lifts his own robotic limb, displaying a 3D scan of Timothy’s arm. “This should help them. So, Timothy, tell me. What did I do to deserve a visit from the first ever body double Jack ever hired?”
“You… how do you know I was the first?” Timothy asks, sitting down across the table from Rhys.
Rhys smiles, sitting in his own seat, and pulling up his files on his holographic monitor. “I scraped everything that Hyperion had on you, that I could access using my old backdoor access, anyways. Not a lot on you, Jack must’ve had them destroy all your files.”
“I don’t exist, at least on paper,” Tim admits, wondering what must’ve remained from his employee file, “but if you look up Doppelganger 21-C, you might find more.” Rhys types into his keyboard, finding that to be true.
“Interesting. So, back to topic, what’re you doing here, Tim?” Rhys asks, turning to face him and giving his undivided attention.
“I initially was going to come here and ask Zer0 for help, but after doing some serious research with your friend Vaughn, I figured I could ask you for help instead. I’m looking for someone, an old friend of mine, who apparently works for a small electronics company you acquired. On Eden Seven?”
“Ah, the one on Eleanor Avenue?” Rhys asks, and Tim is surprised he remembers that so quickly.
“Yeah, her name is-”
Vaughn cuts him off, speaking to Rhys. “I’ve sent you her data file from Hyperion already.”
“Oh, that’s what that was?” Rhys looks to Vaughn, who’s sitting on a nearby couch. “Let me pull it up.” He opens the file, and reads over the basic information. “I can look her up, but under two conditions.”
“And what would those be?” Timothy asks, and the sound of footsteps and a squeaking cart serve as an answer.
“Perfect timing, Dr. Miller,” Rhys reaches up to shake their hand, and motions to Timothy, “this is my new friend Timothy, and as you can see, he doesn’t have a right hand. I want him fitted for our newest prosthetic.”
Timothy turns to shake hands with the doctor, who is androgynous in appearance. They have a shaved head, and wear thin glasses, with a tattoo behind the ear he can see from their stance. “Dr. Erryn Miller,” they introduce themself to Timothy, “I’m the head prosthetist for Atlas, and I can see why Rhys wanted me to come up here. May I take a look at your wound?”
“Sure,” Timothy lifts the bandage off the stump, and presents it to Dr. Miller, who grabs a pair of gloves and slips them on their hands.
“It’s a clean cut, cauterized… how did you manage that?”
“A laser cage, holding me hostage in the Handsome Jackpot casino. Had no other choice, so I cut it off.” The fingers gently turn Timothy’s arm, and the doctor grabs some materials from their cart.
“Okay, this is going to really hurt, so… Here's an anesthetic.” They pull out a syringe, and carefully stab it into the meaty part of his thigh, through his pants. Timothy cringes, taking a shaky breath, before they pull it out. “Should kick in shortly. This is why I gave you the hypo,” they pull out a bottle of alcohol, and point it at Tim’s stump, “how do you feel?”
“Better, why?”
The doctor sprays the alcohol on the exposed skin there, and Tim prepares to cringe even harder, but finds that his pain receptors are entirely numbed. Erryn then pulls a container from the cart, making a mold of the impression, before closing the lid and setting it on the cart. “Okay, let me take this to my lab, and I’ll call up when we’re ready. I’ll have to do a small surgery to connect the prosthetic to your nervous system, so you can move it as though it was your own hand, but it takes less than fifteen minutes, so when you leave here today, you’ll have another hand. Quick question, do you have a favorite color?”
“I don’t really mind - black is fine,” he says, watching Erryn push the cart down the hall.
“You got it.” They wink at Timothy, and wave goodbye to everyone as they leave.
“Black does go with everything,” Rhys admits, “and as much as I like mine, it’s a good second choice.” Rhys continues typing at the computer, and looks up to meet Timothy’s eyes. “I have her address, and her employee files, is this her?”
He turns the monitor, and there she is - older than when he last saw her, but he supposes that’s the nature of having a face that isn’t a mask, but still beautiful. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Rhys sees the look in his face and nearly frowns, but takes a deep breath, looking away and at his aquarium for a moment, shaking his head. “On that note, then I’ll give you her file, but… the other thing, you have to work here. It’s considered confidential information, but if you work for Atlas in some capacity, then it’s not a privacy breach.”
“What do you want me to do?” Timothy sits back in the chair, legs spread, with his hand resting on his chest. “I don’t want to be your body double, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No,” Rhys laughs softly, sitting down and pulling out a tablet and pen he must’ve prepared earlier, “I’ve been screwed over by the man whose face you wear, too. And I want to hear your story. So you’ll be a temporary informant, so the legal stuff is taken care of.”
“Oh,” Tim smiles, “well, if that’s all you need, then I’ll be back to tell you the entire story, all the bloody, gory details and all.”
Rhys hands him the paper, and Tim goes to sign, before hesitating. “Under where I’m supposed to sign, it says ‘Doppelganger 21-C’, not ‘Timothy Lawrence.”
Rhys animatedly explains, “Your legal citizenship as Timothy was erased, but that’s your legal name within Hyperion’s systems, so when we transferred your file over to Atlas’ ownership, it carried your name. When you come back, I can get you citizenship on Eden Seven, it just might take a minute to see if there’s any birth certificate hidden in those files. It’s hard to erase a person’s existence, even when they’re dead on paper. Or in real life.”
Tim takes the pen, signing his ‘legal’ designation, and hands it over to Rhys, where the device powers off, and gets slipped into his desk. “Perfect, then congratulations, Timothy, you’re now an employee of Atlas Incorporated.”
Just then - the phone rings, and Dr. Miller tells Rhys that they’re ready for Timothy downstairs, and that they’ll build the cybernetic while he recovers from the surgery to attach the nerve grafts.
Timothy is led downstairs to the medical wing, and signs a few more forms, before being laid on a table.
“So, the surgery cost is being handled by Mister Strongfork himself, you must be really important.” The assistant laying drapes over his arm says, smiling. “As if your mask didn’t make that clear. What’d you do to get so lucky to have a prosthetic limb paid for by a CEO?”
“A lot.” He admits, as the anesthesiologist places a mask over his face, and he counts back from ten.
When he opens his eyes again, he feels tingly sensations run down his legs, probably from lying so still. He looks down groggily, and sees his arm is bandaged. He looks up at the clock, and sees that it’s six hours later, and when he goes to clear his throat, it aches.
“Did it fail?” He speaks to the fuzzy figures of people in the room beside him.
The assistant from earlier comes over, and touches his arm softly, “No, it worked… we just haven’t finished the prosthetic yet.”
He looks up to their face, a round faced brunette in scrubs looks down to him. “You’re sure it worked?”
“Absolutely. Dr. Miller should be in shortly to explain the implant we placed on the back of your skull soon. Just try not to move too much, you’re still groggy from the anesthesia.” She’s smiling, and gently pushes on his shoulder to help him lay back on the reclined stretcher, and Tim looks up to her eyes. She looks vaguely familiar to him, like she resembles someone from his past, but his brain can’t place who or where. His head relaxes against the pillow, and the assistant hands him a cup of water with a straw. “Take a drink, I’ll bring you some snacks once we know you can handle the water.”
Once Dr. Miller powered on the hand, he felt a strange buzz behind his head, and suddenly gained the ability to move his new hand. He was shocked, assuming that he’d need to be placed in physical therapy, but according to Dr. Miller, “we’ve all but eliminated the need for physical therapy with our neural integration devices. Back when someone like Mr. Strongfork received his limb, he had to undergo extensive therapy and adjustments, but based on his input and our technological advancements as of the last few years, we’ve practically made prosthetic limbs plug-and-play devices.”
Timothy thanks Rhys for what feels like an hour, telling him how much he owes Rhys, and Rhys simply smiles. Throughout their discussion, Rhys frequently glances over Tim’s shoulder, before quickly glancing back at Tim, and when he stands to leave, Tim realizes there’s nothing where Rhys’ eyes kept looking, other than an old grandfather clock. Somehow, Vaughn didn’t notice, or wasn’t alarmed at his glances, and that left a sour feeling settled in Tim’s abdomen. Tim takes the file and leaves, burying the feeling and instead feeling a different kind of sourness - the nerves of knowing where she is.
As the door shuts, Rhys sighs, and Vaughn approaches him.
Vaughn’s arms are crossed as he walks up to Rhys, but he drops them and reaches up with his left, grabbing ahold of Rhys’ tie and pulling him down to his level. “I came here for one reason,” he says, before Rhys’ hands meet Vaughn’s shirt, and pull him closer. Their lips hesitate for a moment, before Vaughn realizes that Rhys initiated this, not himself.
Then he smiles, briefly, against Rhys’ lips. When his eyes look up to meet Rhys’, he sees what he knew he would. In the reflection of his Echo-Eye is a blue figure, and when he squints, he sees that Rhys truly learned nothing.
Vaughn lets go of Rhys, and leaves without another word.
“I don’t know what to do,” Tim says, taking a sip from his drink that he convinced Moxxi to give him with gritted teeth, “I’m too scared to just show up at her house or her work, what if she reacts? What if she’s married, and has kids, and I’m seven years too late?”
Moxxi thumbs through the file, skimming over the information. Her eyebrows go up as she reads the ‘family’ section, but luckily Tim doesn’t see it on her face, too absorbed in his glass. “Well, I don’t think you have to worry about her being married, as of the last records she filled out, her tax filings say single. That doesn’t mean she’s not in a relationship, but still. That’s good news, you should be excited!”
Tim nearly presses his face against the bar, but realizes that it’s sticky, and crosses his arms instead, tucking his head in between his elbows with a sigh. “I’m too nervous to be excited.”
Moxxi blows a strand of hair out of her face, resting against the back cabinet of the bar. She taps her fingers against her thigh, before pulling her Echo device off the shelf. “She probably can’t wait to see you, but…” she scrolls, and smiles, “I bet she can wait another night. It’s kind of late on Eden Seven. Go get some sleep, and in the morning, go see her. Or so help me god,” she reaches over to her cutting board and casually picks up the knife she was slicing fruit with, “I’ll cut off your other hand.”
Tim’s eyes go wide, and he retreats to the vault hunter’s rooms, trying to find a place to rest. Moxxi smiles, pouring his last bit of ice down the drain, and setting the glass into the dishwasher, talking softly to herself. “God, I’d pay good money to see his face when he finds out he might have a kid.” She smirks, wiping down the spot he sat at with a washcloth.
Tim takes a deep breath as his feet touch the ground on Eden Seven, thankful to find the fast travel station a few blocks away from her house, and when he fully materializes, he realizes it’s slowly drizzling rain down onto his hair. It seems like the end of the storm, as the sky is slowly becoming brighter as the sun rises, but it’s barely peeking over the horizon when he starts walking aimlessly to kill time, as it’s only 5AM.
“Too early to bother her.” He steps over a puddle, observing the planet around him. He’s never been to a neighborhood like this in Eden Seven, usually his actions while pretending to be Jack took him to shopping and industrial districts, not suburbs. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, every driveway has a nice car, and as he walks past the houses, he notices that there’s swings hanging from trees in front yards, lots of dog houses and painted mailboxes, alongside white picket fences as far as the eye can see.
Crossing the street, he turns the next corner and finds himself standing in front of a row of small businesses, and as he passes the second building, the painted window catches his eye, and he looks through the glass to find a flower shop. The lights are on, so when he impulsively decides to try and open the door, he expects it to open with the soft push, only to find it closed and locked. “Duh,” he says, checking his Echo-device, “who opens their flower store at 5:20 in the morning?”
He passes the next building, following the map on his Echo, and nearly runs into a couple walking their dog down the street, carrying an umbrella. He sees the looks on their faces, and realizes he is horribly out of place, dressed like a vault hunter in suburbia, his hood up to hide his face from prying eyes. He catches his reflection in the window of the next shop and lowers his hood, looking at his reflection as though it’s a mirror.
“She lives two blocks away from here, and you’re going to go to her front door, and simply say ‘hi’ because you don’t have any idea what else to say. God,” he kicks the brick wall gently, “I should’ve thought this through more.”
He sees his own eyes staring back at him as he looks up from his feet, and runs his fingers through his hair. It’s longer than Jack would’ve ever let him have it be, but he thinks it looks nice longer. He looks over his shoulder and notices that it’s stopped raining, and smiles, thinking it’s a good sign.
He takes the long way around the block, to prepare himself. Men and women dressed in business clothes prepare their kids in the cars, let their dogs outside, or drink coffee on their front steps. He stops at the address on his Echo, and hesitates outside the gate.
The sun is shining now, and the grass still smells of petrichor, and the gate squeaks as he opens it, and hesitantly walks up the steps of her porch.
He takes another deep breath, and with his hand shaking, rings the doorbell.