Borderlands: Gunsight (17 page)

Marcus pondered. “Flesh-stick. Think I heard something about him. Psycho who kidnaps people—sells ’em to that guy Reamus, right? That Flesh-stick?”

“How many other guys go by Flesh-stick?” Skeros asked, thoughtfully.

Reasonable question. Also an irritating one. Marcus ignored it. “Why’d Flesh-stick send you here?”

“Because . . . was . . . tracking kids . . . for experiments . . . Reamus wanted some kids . . . No one watching these . . .”

“Experiments? What kind?”

“Reamus—his slag experiments. For Hyperion.
Mutants . . .
Please
help me! Take the spear out . . . I’ll hardly kill you at all if you take it out!”

“It’s a skewer. Aren’t you Psychos the ones always threatening to skewer us and roast us alive and stuff? I’d think you’d be right at home with it. But okay. I’ll take it out.”

Marcus took firm hold of the skewer, squeezing hard to get a grip through the film of blood, and yanked it out of the Psycho. The intruder screamed and went to his knees, clutching the hole in his belly.

“Got it right out,” Marcus said. “Now you can have it back.”

He swung the skewer and knocked the Psycho square in the head. The body sagged and Marcus tossed the skewer onto a junk pile. Then he bent down and picked up the Eridian pistol.

He looked at Skeros. “What were you
doing
back here?”

“Heard a sound. From the noise—I thought it was something coming over the back fence.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Skeros shrugged. “Always deal with things myself.”

Marcus grunted. “Not a bad way to be. But you shoulda told me.”

He looked at the pistol. It was worth some money. “You can search the Psycho’s body. Any money on it, you can have. As for this weapon . . . maybe you earned it. Could be you saved my life. But I’m gonna have to think about if I want to give it to you. Now get back to the fire. We’ll toss this hunk of rancid Psycho flesh over the back fence later. Right now, I’m gonna finish my damned story.”

H
is fists soaked in blood from the other four guards he’d killed, Brick stomped around to the back of the truck. Mordecai noticed he had a couple of bullet holes in him. One in his right shoulder, the other . . .

“Brick—you got shot right in
the heart
?”

“Naw.
Over
the heart. Didn’t get through the muscle.”

But blood was running down from both wounds. “Doesn’t that
hurt
?”

Brick shrugged. “Sure.”

“Yeah, well, damn, Brick.” Mordecai shook his head. “I’ve got some Zed meds in the outrunner. I’ll get ’em for you.”

“More people to kill in there?” Brick pointed into the back of the truck.

“No, not them, Brick,” Mordecai said hastily. “They’re friends of Feena’s. Prisoners.”

Brick looked in at the prisoners—who shrank back from him. They were all handcuffed to metal rings built into the truck bed. “Feena’s friends? Why they still chained up?”

“I was just looking for the keys . . .” Mordecai checked the bodies, found the sonic key for the cuffs in the pants pocket of the dead Bruiser.

He brought the key to the back of the truck, pointed it at the prisoners, and activated it; the key warbled, then the handcuffs opened automatically and fell clattering to the metal floor. The prisoners groaned collectively in relief.

“Come on out,” Mordecai said. “You’re free to go. Take one of these trucks to go home.”

“There’s more, in the other two trucks,” said a young man, climbing out of the truck and blinking in the morning light. It was the one who’d spoken up earlier, Tyno Ripper. The wind picked up his long hair and draped it over his face, so that he had to swipe it away from his dark eyes. Haphazardly bearded, wearing a skag-leather fighting suit, he was lean but otherwise shaped like his father; like a Pandoran Nomad.

The other prisoners climbed after him and looked around. Men and women, a couple of children, of every sort. One of the released prisoners, a lanky, gaunt man in a ragtag fighting suit, took the sonic key from Mordecai and trotted over to the overturned truck, to see how the prisoners in it had fared. Most of the others wandered off to find a place to relieve themselves. A few stood by: ragged, thin-faced, grimy men, women, and children staring at Brick and Mordecai wonderingly, hands shading their eyes against sunlight bouncing off the tundra’s patches of thin snow.

Mordecai got a med hypo from his outrunner and brought it to Brick, who took it the indifferent way someone else would’ve accepted a drink at a party. The wounds sparkled, as the medicine dissolved the bullets into energy, and used
the energy to begin cell repair. Within moments, Brick was healed.

“There was a little girl, who slipped off, not much more than an hour ago,” Tyno said. “You see her?”

Brick pointed at the outcropping. “She’s there. She’s okay. She kinda sent us here.”

“You her uncle?” Mordecai asked.

Tyno shook his head. “No, that’s him.”

He pointed at a beefy, red-faced man running hands through his thinning hair. The man looked up at Mordecai. “Hey. You got anything to drink?”

“You can have the guards’ water,” Mordecai said.

“I mean liquor. You got anything
to drink
?”

Mordecai shook his head. So that was Feena’s uncle. He winced, looking at the man. He’d been drinking too much, himself, before Jasper snatched Daphne.

Am I going to turn into that bloated wreck someday?

•  •  •

The prisoners now had access to the dead guards’ water, food, weapons, medicine, fuel, and one truck. But they didn’t have much time. Brick had smashed several of the slavers’ weapons, and one he’d shoved up into a Reamer from below, probably without any irony, and that gun wasn’t wanted by anyone. But there were several others.

“Chances are this fight was observed from Tumessa,” Mordecai said, talking to Tyno and the gaunt man who’d set the other prisoners free. He glanced at the sky, where he’d sent Bloodwing to watch for trouble. So far she was flying in lazy circles, meaning no indication of danger. He looked at the gaunt man. “You people need to get in this truck; just pile everyone in back with your supplies and head back to your
settlement fast as you can get there. Put some people with guns close to the rear in back; a couple more up front. With any luck, you should get there alive.”

“What about the other truck?” the man asked.

“I need that for something.”

Brick drove up in the outrider, with the robot and the little girl sitting beside him. Feena was frowning, sulking.

Feena’s uncle Weeble scowled as he picked her up out of the outrider and set her on the ground. “We’re going back to the settlement,” he said. “Go on, get in the truck.”

“Are they all dead? The bad guys?” she asked, looking around. “Did Brick kill ’em all?”

“They’re dead,” Brick said, nodding. “I killed ’em. Mordecai helped a little.”

Mordecai snorted but said nothing.

“Come on, kid,” Weeble said, half dragging Feena to the truck.

“I don’t wanta go with you,” she said.

“Stop arguing. You wanta be left out here with the skags and the rakks? Maybe get eaten by Tunnel Rats?”

“No. But . . .”

“Those Vault Hunters got no time to take care of you.”

That, at least, was true, Mordecai thought. But he saw that wistful look on Brick’s face as Weeble lifted her into the truck, the red-faced man climbing in after her.

Mordecai turned to Tyno. “But you—you can take my outrunner. I’ll take some weapons from it, some other stuff, but it’s armed. You can use it to get to your father.”

“My father?!” Tyno looked genuinely surprised.

“Your father is Commander Ripper, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s all right? I haven’t heard from him in ages!”

Mordecai grunted. “I’m not surprised. Jasper’s been keeping the two of you separated. He probably intercepted any attempt by you to contact your dad. And your dad doesn’t know where you were sent. Just that you were with one of the raiding parties. He told me you’re the only reason he stays working for Jasper—to protect you. He’s got the impression from the boss that if he quits, Jasper issues an order to have you shot.”

“What?!”

“That’s the way it sounded to me. You can get the details with your old man. I’ve got his frequency on my ECHO. You call him, take the outrunner—and head out. You can meet, and head for the high southern country where the Nomads roam. That is—if you’re done working for Jasper . . .”

“Oh, I’m done. You’ve got a deal.”

“Good. But there’s something I’ll want your dad to do for me in return.” He turned to the prisoners who were still loading the truck. “Hurry up, you people!” Mordecai called. “Go! Reamus is liable to send out an expedition to find you. He was expecting you. You need to get home fast as you can. And when you get there this time, put up some good defenses!”

Within minutes, the truck was on its way. Mordecai went to search the bodies, till he found one with an outfit that was reasonably intact, not too bloody—just the right size to fit over his outer clothes. It was sometimes useful to be as skimpily built as Mordecai was. He settled on the Bruiser’s mask and goggles, for Brick. He had to clean blood off them, though.

Brick and Tyno were going over the bodies of Reamers, looking for anything useful. They didn’t find much. The prisoners had been there first. It seemed to Mordecai that Brick
was stalling, taking his time and hanging around here, looking unusually grim. Which wasn’t like Brick . . .

Extra watched Mordecai put the uniform on over his clothes. “I hypothesize that you are either feeling cold, so you wish an extra layer of warmth, or you are putting on a disguise.”

“Now you’re getting warmer, robot.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I mean with the disguise idea. That’s what it is.”

“Can you disguise me, too?”

“Your disguise will be to keep your mouth shut. And don’t say you don’t have a mouth; you know what I mean.”

“
I will speak as I please, little man,”
said the voice of Elenora Dufty, issuing from the robot.
“Let the robot stay silent. That would be good. But you’ll have an earful of me, whenever I choose.”

Mordecai had been avoiding engaging the Dufty mind tucked into the Claptrap. But this time he turned toward it and said, “Elenora. Or whatever you are. Can you hear me?”

“Certainly.”

“You oughta remember that I don’t need you, ‘Elenora.’ I can grenade that Claptrap into itsy-bitsy pieces and I’d do it without a second thought. It’s just a machine. If you want me to keep your annoying presence here, so you can torment me—then make yourself useful. Or show me how the Claptrap is useful.”

“I’ll consider the matter. I will tell you that the Claptrap is a powerful weapon.”

“A weapon? How?”

“I am not willing to reveal that. And I will prevent the robot from revealing it. But I will reveal the weapon in my own good
time. It is very useful, and powerful. You’ll want to have it around.”

“Actually,” said Extra, “I don’t think I do know what kind it is anyway so really there’s no need to prevent—”

“Silence!”
Elenora’s voice interrupted jarringly. She went on with a toxic silkiness.
“You will find, Mordecai, that an extra powerful weapon will be necessary. I am that weapon. But I will only reveal it when the time comes . . . after you’ve paid for deserting me!”

Tyno, hearing this as he walked up to Mordecai and the robot, said, “Not sure what’s going on here—but if I was you, I’d blow that robot up, maybe use a rocket launcher. I wouldn’t trust any two-voiced robot that turns into an angry female.”

“I was actually thinking of using a grenade,” Mordecai said. “Cheaper than a rocket shell.”

“Now wait!” Extra protested. “I’m sure I’ll be useful! Positive!”

“You haven’t been yet,” Mordecai pointed out. “You almost got me killed. Maybe Hyperion is sending more interstellar assassins after you right now.”

“Ohhh . . .” The robot made a sound fairly close to a dismissive chuckle and waved its extender in an imitation of a human’s
don’t worry about that
gesture. “I’m sure it’ll be
weeks
before they get around to that! Probably. And I
can
be useful . . . I’ll show you! And don’t forget—secret
weaaaaa
-pon! I’m a secret
weaaaaa
-pon! Look out, everybody!” The Claptrap spun around. “I’m a secret weapon!”

“I told you not to do that jittery Claptrap stuff,” Mordecai said.

“Oh. Sorry.” Extra froze so still it might’ve been switched off.

“Oh look!” squealed a girlish voice—Feena’s voice. “He’s so cute when he kneels down like that!”

Mordecai turned to see Feena running toward them, out of breath. Her face was scarlet as she puffed past, running up to Brick, who was kneeling by a corpse.

“Hi, Brick!” she shouted. “I’m back!”