Borderlands_Gunsight

by John Shirley

  “All yours, Brick. And you can have that leftover outrider, if it still runs. If it doesn’t, you can ride with me. But see . . .”

  Mordecai hesitated. Should he tell Brick what he was up to here? Brick had come to the Staggering Steppes to sign on with the man that Mordecai was supposed to kill.

  When Brick took a job, he killed for whoever was paying him. He was businesslike about killing on a mission. Had he already made up his mind to work for Reamus? Was Mordecai going to have to take Brick on?

  Not only was Brick an old friend . . . to the extent Brick had friends . . . he was also one of the most dangerous men on Pandora.

  So it was important to find out . . .

  Whose side was Brick on?

  The bodies of the dead had already gone cold. The wind of the tundra was dropping from a mournful shriek to a disappointed sigh. The sun was low; the outcropping threw a long shadow. Flames crackled from the wrecked Bandit technical.

  Mordecai and Brick were standing by the outrunner, and Brick was staring at the Claptrap, which was just now emerging from the crevice.

  Brick was big. Though not much taller than Mordecai, he probably was at least four times Mordecai’s weight; he was thickly muscled, truly big boned. Brick wore a flak vest, revealing his enormous muscular arms—he didn’t seem to feel the cold out here—and his gloved fingers were made gauntletlike by the attachment of screws and bolts. Most of the screws sticking out from his gloves still had little dried brown bits of old flesh and blood stuck in their threads.

  In all the time he’d known Brick, Mordecai had only observed a handful of expressions on the brawny Vault Hunter’s chiseled face. One was a look of grim implacability. That was Brick’s default expression. Now and then, he could look puzzled, too. He had an expression that went with musing. And he had a couple of angry looks, either of which always were preliminary to bloodletting. One of them was an expression of standard rage; the other was sheer berserk rage, a look accompanying a state of kill-fury that appeared to manifest some form of mutation.

  Once or twice, though, Mordecai had seen one other expression on Brick’s face: wistful. At such times, Brick fingered the mummified paw of a dog he wore around his neck . . . the paw of a beloved pet who’d died . . .

  “That Claptrap there,” Brick said, with his puzzled expression. “What you got that thing here for? You gonna sell it for parts?”

  “And a ‘how-do-you-do’ to you too, sir,” said the Claptrap, rather snarkily. “Hmph!”

  “That’s Extra,” Mordecai said.

  “Extra? I didn’t offer to buy nothin’,” Brick said.

  “I mean, the robot calls itself ‘Extra.’ That’s its name. I think those mercenaries were after it.”

  Brick didn’t ask Mordecai why he didn’t just turn the Claptrap over to the mercenaries. Simply giving them the robot would’ve been the wise thing for Mordecai to do, of course, since the Claptrap was just a robot, a pain in the ass, and of dubious value. But from Brick’s point of view, anytime somebody threatened you in any way, you were supposed to simply kill them. Negotiating with an adversary seemed completely foreign to his nature.

  “The robot there,” Mordecai said, gesturing at Extra, “just kind of attached itself to me. Kind of like a parasitic insect.”

  “I can hear you talking about me, you know,” Extra said reproachfully. “I’m standing right here.”

  “I’m tolerating the Claptrap,” Mordecai went on, “because there’s a chance the silly thing might turn out to have some useful tech in it somewhere. Its chip designer was crazy talented. Crazy—but talented.”

  “You want to go with me?” Brick asked, pointing toward Tumessa. “Maybe they’ll hire you, too.”

  “I heard they have some guys, there, who used to work for Gynella. Pretty loyal to her. And . . . well, we didn’t kill her ourselves, exactly, but . . . We caused her death, anyway. And everybody knows it. If we join up with that outfit, some of ’em might be tempted to shoot us in the back.”

  “We did kill a lot of those guys,” Brick said, his voice almost nostalgic. “So, if some of them guys working for Reamus don’t like us, we’ll kill them, too! No problem!”

  Mordecai sighed. He decided he had to come clean about all this. “Look—Brick . . . I’ve taken a mission that probably involves me killing Reamus. Or maybe getting Boss Jasper to kill him—or, ideally, arranging for them to kill each other. And there’s a lot of money in this—I think I have an angle figured to make it even bigger than what Jasper offered me. Anyway—Jasper’s got Daphne. He snatched her away when I wasn’t around and he’s got her in a special jail cell and if I try to break in he’ll feed her to Bigjaws . . .”

  “Huh.” Brick scratched his head. Puzzled expression. “I heard about Bigjaws. I kinda liked Daphne. She killed people real good. Made me some dinner a couple times, too. It tasted good. Don’t think I want Bigjaws to eat her.” He looked wistful now, fingering his mummified dog’s paw. “Not nice to lose somebody you like being around.”

  “Yeah. Especially when they’re gonna be eaten alive by a huge hungry mutated Tunnel Rat. You already signed on with Reamus?”

  “I never sign anything. But I’m not workin’ for him yet. That what you mean?”

  “Yeah. So . . . I’ll give you half of my take, whatever it is, if you’ll come in with me on this job. Should be more than you’d be making, working for him. And figure it this way—if we play Reamus and Jasper against each other, chances are we’ll have two sets of enemies to kill—plenty of action.”

  Brick nodded. “That does sound good. Lotta guys to kill.”

  “And other things to kill, too. And stuff to smash.”

  “True, true that. Okay.” Brick clapped Mordecai on the shoulder. And it hurt. “You got a deal.”

  Brick’s expression right then was his default look, grim implacability. It was as close as he came to looking pleased.

  “That crevice,” Extra said, “opens up into a little natural chamber, under those big rocks. If you fellas can squeeze in there, might be a good place to camp and make plans.”

  “His plan should involve regret, misery, remorse, and self-loathing,” said the female voice—the voice of Elenora Dufty—from within the little robot.

  Brick blinked in puzzlement. “There some female hiding behind that robot?”

  “Naw, that voice comes from inside it. It’s got another personality chip in there that pipes up sometimes. It’s the woman who modified him. She’s dead now. I think. Hey, Extra, I thought you were going to turn down the volume on that skaggy bitch!”

  “I do—but she turns it back up again.”

  • • •

  Mordecai was able to slip into the crevice easily; Brick couldn’t quite fit, but he smashed the rock edges a bit, to open it up wider, and at last he got in, and they made camp inside.

  The little chamber was a purely fortuitous space caused by a chance arrangement of the rock slabs. It had been occupied before—the bones of some Vault Hunter were tumbled in a corner, near the ashes of his campfire. The skeleton’s skull looked burned . . . and there was a rusted-out Eridian energy rifle next to it. Mordecai suspected the dead man had committed suicide. He’d probably been a victim of Pandoran Stress Disorder. It gripped a good many visitors to the planet, and some old-timers as well.

  The two men sat cross-legged with a small fire fluttering between them. Its flames rose from fire-start chemicals Mordecai had ignited, near the crevice, which drew the smoke like a chimney. There was just enough room left over for a rocket launcher and an Eridian rifle.

  They’d eaten some of Mordecai’s canned food—Brick ate his way through seven cans of Zed’s Mystery Meat Stew, to Mordecai’s one.

  Mordecai glanced at Extra—the robot was in sleep mode against the roughly curved back wall. Bloodwing was perched on Extra, asleep herself. She had pooped thickly on his chassis.

  Mordecai wondered if he could trust the Claptrap—if he could even talk freely in front of it.
Was that sleep mode complete? Could it be that Elenora was still alive, somewhere, and listening in through some transmitter? Either way, something of her was hidden in that robot—that personality chip. What was her agenda?

  “How come that woman was talking to you like that, from inside that machine?” Brick asked.

  “Long story. Boils down to, I had a relationship with her. Then I left. She didn’t want me to.”

  Brick got that barely visible look of musing on his face. “Sometimes women get mad when a man leaves. Sometimes they’re glad. How we going to kill Reamus? Can I do it?” He ran the remark in seamlessly with the questions.

  “Um—It’d be fine with me if you killed him. But I was sort of hoping to set him and Jasper against one another . . . and then swipe their loot when they’re out fighting. Once I’ve gotten Daphne out safe, I mean. There’ll be plenty of his ‘Reamers’ to kill when we’re getting that set up.”

  Brick yawned. “Tired.” He lay down, curled on his right side, pillowing his head on one massive arm, and was snoring within seconds, his left hand clutching that mummified dog’s paw. Some of his snores were so loud they shook loose rock-grit off the stone ceiling

  Snore . . . snore . . . SNORRRRRE—and sand pattered down from the chamber’s ceiling.

  Mordecai shook his head and lay down, trying to block out the sound with his arms.

  • • •

  He woke jarringly just at dawn. Extra was tapping his shoulder with one of its limb extensions. “Hey, Boss. Someone coming. Three vehicles, all of them trucks, judging by the sounds.”

  Mordecai sat up, picking up the rifle. “I don’t hear anything . . . except Brick snoring.”

  “Whuh? You callin’ me?” Brick asked, sitting up groggily. He stretched. “Ground is comfortable here.” He scratched his head. “Any food left?”

  “Not much. Extra says vehicles coming this way . . .” He looked around. “Where’s Bloodwing?”

  Extra pointed toward the crevice. “She went out to look the trucks over, or so I conjecture.” The robot used its extension to scrape yellow muck off its upper parts. “Could you ask your bird to not defecate upon me?”

  “She’s not a bird,” Mordecai said, sidling out through the crevice. It was a cold dawn, but he was grateful for the clean air. An easygoing breeze swept thin strands of snow across the tundra. In the gray morning light he could see three freight trucks against the horizon, one after the other, heading toward Tumessa, not seeming in any great hurry.

  Hearing a familiar squawk, Mordecai looked up to see a sight that would have frozen another man’s blood—a vulpine, leather-winged predator coming down at him, wings spread and talons extended. But that’s how it always looked when Bloodwing landed on his shoulder, never hurting him in the process. She landed, folded her wings, and he asked, “What’d you see? Bandits?”

  Bloodwing squawked in the negative and nodded her naked white head toward Tumessa.

  “Reamus’s men?” He turned to look at the trucks. “Looks like they’re angling this way, Brick. Let’s take cover up in the rocks and see what they’re up to . . . Extra, you go on back into the camp.”

  “What about your outrunner?” Brick asked.

  “There’s three wrecked vehicles around here now—they might figure it’s just another one.”

  Muttering, Extra trundled into the crevice, and Brick led the way up onto the outcropping. Mordecai and Brick ducked behind a heavy slab of stone. Keeping in shadow, heads barely showing above the rock, they watched the approach of the small caravan of trucks. It seemed they were planning to pass close by the outcropping on their way to Tumessa. It was one of the few local landmarks on the all but featureless steppes.

  “Don’t seem like they’re coming here,” Mordecai said. “Seems like . . . what’s that?” He took his scope from his coat pocket, trained it on the figure jumping down from the back of the truck. Someone small was running away from the third truck, so far unnoticed by its driver.

  The figure ran toward the outcropping—the nearest place to hide—and in moments she was climbing up onto it.

  It was a little girl.

  Daphne was lounging in the chair, watching a series of wall screen images showing inhabited planets from outer space. One of them was the planet Pandora. On the screen image of Pandora was a warning designation:

  Warning. High Risk.

  Under that, in smaller letters, it read,

  “The planet Pandora. Interstellar Tourist Board strongly urges all travelers to stay away from this planet.”

  Daphne chuckled. “That should include an additional warning. You may be forced into a room over a hungry giant-jawed mutant.”

  Jasper’s face appeared on the screen, in place of Pandora—he’d been monitoring Daphne, and now he was transmitting to her by vidphone. He gave Daphne a wintry smile. “No doubt there should be extra user warnings on Pandora. But you don’t have to be forced to stay in there, my dear. You can leave that room—and leave the proximity of Bigjaws! Have you given any thought to a change in the nature of our relationship?”

  “I try not to think about it. Gives me bad dreams.”

  “There’s that jeering tone again. Oh, I know what it is! You think that skinny little gunman you’ve attached yourself to is going to come back for you! Of course”—Jasper shook his head firmly—“he isn’t. In fact—”

  Daphne interrupted. “Even if you told me he was dead I wouldn’t believe you. I wouldn’t believe anything you said.”

  Boss Jasper scowled. She suspected he had been about to say exactly that.

  He cleared his throat. “If he’s not dead now—he soon will be. I’ve given him an impossible task, really. Originally I hoped he’d succeed . . . But lately I’m more interested in”—he leered wolfishly at her—“a different kind of conquest.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Forget it. Just . . . forget it.”

  His leer became a snarl. “I will give you forty-eight hours from this minute to change your mind. After that, you can ‘make love’ to your new roommate. The one presently living downstairs . . .”

  He cut the connection and the image became, once again, a shot of the planet Pandora from outer space.

  “Warning,” she muttered. “ ‘Jackasses on Pandora will try to force you to have sex with them.’ ”

  She shook her head. Jasper could go to hell.

  But . . .

  Forty-eight hours . . .

  • • •

  “Little girl, what the rakk droppings are you doing out here?” Mordecai demanded, his flashlight illuminating the girl in a small pool of light.

  She’d clambered over the top boulder on the outcropping and practically fallen into Mordecai’s lap from there. A small girl in bloodstained coveralls, she had mussed dull brown hair and large brown eyes. She cowered now, against the rock, looking at the two men with terror.

  Brick surprised Mordecai by leaning forward and showing the girl his mummified dog paw. Brick had that wistful expression on his face as he said, “I had a dog. This is all that’s left. Died. I was pretty sad. You looking for ya dog out here?”

  Mordecai’s mouth dropped open, at this instinctive paternality on Brick’s part. “Never would’ve thought . . . ,” he murmured.

  The little girl was gaping at Brick, too. But then her mouth quivered into a tentative smile. “Not chasing a dog, silly. I’m running from those men on the trucks.”

  Mordecai turned the flashlight on her wrists—he saw they were both contused, slightly bleeding. “Looks like they had you handcuffed to something. I guess they didn’t make the cuffs tight enough and you pulled out of ’em. Am I right?”

  She nodded mutely at him.

  “And you ran to the nearest thing you saw—this big chunk of rock. What’s your name?”

  “Feena.”

  “Feena, I’m Mordecai, this is Brick.”

  “Who’s that?” She pointed at Bloodwing, who perched sleepily on his shoulder.

  “That’s B
loodwing. She’s my . . . pet.”

  “What does she eat?”

  “She eats . . . well she doesn’t eat little girls.”

  “Do you?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Tyno told me that it could be more dangerous out here than in the truck. He said watch out for Tunnel Rat people. He said they eat anybody. Are you . . . ?”

  “He was right, those people are dangerous. We’re not Tunnel Rats. We’re Vault Hunters. On a mission.”

  “You’re Vault Hunters? Are you going to find a Vault?”

  “Not that kind of vault. I’d like to find somebody’s vault though, and get it open.”

  Brick said, “You hungry, kid?”

  Once more Mordecai was astonished.

  The little girl once more nodded mutely.

  “I’ll get her some food,” Brick rumbled, leaving the top of the outcropping.

  “Yeah, you do that,” Mordecai murmured, looking at the little girl.

  “Is he coming back?” Feena asked

  Mordecai could tell by the way she was talking that she was hoping that Brick would come back. Weirdly, Feena seemed to trust Brick more than she did Mordecai.

  “Yes he is, Feena. What are we going to do with you? We can’t give you back to slavers . . . That what they are?”

  She shrugged. “First we were taken away by people who had a lot of those things that fly overhead, those Buzzard things.”

  “Huh. Boss Jasper’s men?”

  “I heard someone say that name ‘Jasper.’ Then those guys working for that Jasper, they got killed by these men. And these other men are taking us to Reamus. They said they’re Reamus Reamers and we better do what they say.”

  “Reamers, huh? They say anything else?”

  “They said, stop crying or I’ll cut out your tongue.”

  “Oh.”

  Brick rejoined them, huffing a little, carrying a package of self-heating food. He set it up for the little girl and she ate the food hungrily with her fingers, not caring that it was too hot.

  “Brick—that bunch that had Feena here . . . They work for Reamus. They hijacked a convoy belonging to Jasper. First Jasper’s people robbed her town, then they got robbed by Reamus. He took their prisoners and whatever else they got. That’s the kind of thing that got Jasper worked up about taking Reamus down.”