Lets Share
pandorastruehero:
Normally when you stepped out of a quick travel on your own station the first thing you didn’t want to see were confused looks and several employees double taking. Triple taking, in fact. Jack was used to the fearful glances and people respectfully getting out of his way. Now they seemed to freeze up and when a pair of employees stay huddled in front of a door he was trying to pass through his temper started to show. “You want jobs tomorrow? Move.” The low tone promised more than just a pink slip and the engineers scuttled off.
Jack scoffed before he stuck a cut of liquorice between his teeth. He’d left for a few hours to visit Nisha and steal some of the black treat from import bay and everyone acted like he’d been gone for a century. “Can’t leave you people alone for five minutes—Jimmy is the board ready?” The CEO was chewing idly on his bitter treat as he flashed his ID chip for the access panel to open the door.
The response he received was hurried and reflected a hint of that confusion. “Sir the board has been ready, but the call has started—”
“Excuse me? They can’t just start without me I’m the boss.”
Though when the door opened to admit him Jack saw just what the problem might be. Another him…the flare of irritation flickered out as he bit through his liquorice. He probably should have been more confused by the sight of another Jack standing there in his board room like he owned the place. Not a double, he knew the doubles, and they couldn’t get in here without his credentials. All down the long table were the holograms of his heads of departments all projected as if they were seated in their own chairs.
“Okay—no. Meeting’s cancelled.” There was a red button on the wall next to the door that he took advantage of. When he pressed it the door slammed shut behind him and the feed from the board was cut off as the digital environment lifted. He wanted this to be private.
“So, door’s locked, the board’s probably going to be pissed. But who cares?” Jack grinned as he stepped up to the long table to stand opposite of this other self. He lifted the half eaten black candy in a toast. “Not sure how this happened, but with this kind of view how can I complain. Want some?” He was clutching another half dozen liquorice sticks in his other hand, wrapped oh so nicely and being offered. It was a lure of sorts…Jack wanted this other self closer without having to close that distance himself.
The day had started off well enough, the usual paperwork and then a full schedule of meetings, meeting, meetings to put the damper on his mood, but whatever, he could live with ‘em. Except maybe the one he was currently in, because he was really close to tearing out his own hair with how friggin’ boring it was. And that’d just be a tragedy for everyone; his hair was a gift to the goddamned universe.
Jack clicked the metal of his heel on the table, beyond bored of listening to the slew of old fart board members and their giant hologram heads try and talk down to him; like he wasn’t already a hundred steps ahead of them; like he wasn’t the goddamned savior of this sinking company, what with his brilliant plans for Pandora’s Eridium and all it’s magnificent applications. He was this close to running this entire damn operation; how could they not see that? If only they’d stop trying to hold him back.
He lifted his head up from where it’d been lolling off the back of his chair, groaning, and swung his legs back to the floor. If he was going to suffer death by dull board meeting he might as well do it like a man. He was just about to interrupt the Right Branch Head’s droning when his watch made a shrill and quick beeping sound. The room went quiet as he stared at device on his wrist, wondering what the hell could have possibly gone wrong on his station this time.
One of the board members cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence that’d fallen over the room. "Is something the matter, John?“ It sounded like Tassiter. He swore to god, if it was Tasstier–
Jack clenched his jaw. "How many times do I have to tell you it’s– y'know what, nevermind.” He rolled his eyes before standing, and ignored the little light that was trying to get his attention. For now.
He figured now was his chance, and before they could recover, he took the opportunity to showcase one of his latest weapon designs, a shotgun-laser that fired all the elemental damage types at once. Seriously though, how cool would that be? Sure, it’d be highly unstable, but still, hella cool. The collective bewildered looks on their pixelated faces would have been funny if he wasn’t already irritated beyond belief. It was just making it worse, really.
He wondered what level of Helios he could convert to a personal swimming pool without any of the board members noticing. It’d become his favorite pastime; seeing how much of the space station he could fuck around with under their big, fat noses. So far it’d been very lucrative for him. That whole black and red color scheme was super cliche, anyway.
His watch beeped again, and he was about ready to throw something out of a window. Whatever jackass employee was trying to contact him while he was in the middle of a very important meeting, despite his memos about how such an offense was punishable by death unless, like, the entire station was about to blow up or something stupid like that, was going to receive a personal visit from good ol’ uncle Jack. It was like he had to babysit every single one of his shithead underlings, constantly. It was annoying, even on a good day.
He listened to the squabble of floating Hyperion heads for a minute before walking back to the end of the table and sighing. God, he could really go for some chips right about now. Maybe popcorn. He took another big breath before diving back into the fray.
When the should be very locked blast door to the meeting room opened, cutting off his great pitch for weaponized threshers with laser beams attached to their heads, which first of all, was really rude, okay, you could say that at this point Jack was a wee bit miffed.
“OK, who the hell–”, He whipped around to face the entrance but stopped in his tracks when he saw himself standing there, like some sort of fun house mirror, but a helluv’ a lot more attractive. Okay that wasn’t weird or anything. Especially since DNA encoding made it so only he could get that door open while it was on 'busy’ protocol. Huh. Either this was a really wild dream, (and if that was the case it was missing an awful lot of half-naked super models), or that was him standing in the doorway looking angry. God, he was hot when he was angry. Was that a weird thing to think? Whatever. More important things to attend to. Like who, what, and why.
He watched the board members’ confused heads flicker out of existence as the other him slammed the shut down button, but he was too distracted by the situation to be even remotely mad about it. Good thing he already owned at least half the company, (which reminds him, he’s got a couple more visits to make). The sudden quiet was like a breath of fresh air, honestly. Now it was just him and, well, him. Whatever him was. Still, he was way too smart to take any chances, and he leaned against the table, his drumming fingers well within reach of the lucky pistol strapped to his thigh. Just in case.
“Certainly one hell of a pickle, huh?” He put on his best 'I’m a winner, and you’re not’ smile.
Jack’d have to tear R&D apart later, just in case this was their fault. If it was that weird ass Nagajika guy again he was going to spend the next twenty-four hours pulling out his eyeballs. And then maybe give him cool new robot ones, 'cause he was startin’ to get all kinds of fun ideas as he watched the other him walk closer. He could smell the liquorice before he figured out that that’s what was in his other’s hands. He idly wondered what it would taste like on his own tongue.
Hm. Might as well have a little fun, right? He totally deserved some.
He eyed the candy in his double’s hand before shrugging. “Don’t mind if I do.” Jack caught the wrist of the hand holding the treat and stole it from his grip with his teeth. He wasn’t about to back down from a challenge, least of all one from himself. He raised an eyebrow as he backed off to chew the thick candy, double-colored eyes never breaking contact with his mirrored set.
Yeah, that was definitely him. He’d had some pretty good fakes so far, but he’d know his own body anywhere. It was something he was intimately familiar with. God, he looked good. Especially this close up. How the hell did anyone not jump him every chance they got? It was a goddamned mystery.
But seriously, what was to be done about all this? Though it certainly beat a boring-ass board meeting, that’s for damn sure. And with company like this, who was he to complain?
