by John Shirley
Moxxi. Mordecai groaned inwardly at the name. Was there no refuge from angry women on this planet? Even dead women tormented him—if Elenora was really dead. The very name Moxxi infuriated Daphne—and Moxxi herself was furious at Mordecai. Anyway, she had been, last he’d known.
He’d gotten involved with Moxxi back in the Underdome days. She was sexy and tough—a combination in a woman he found hard to resist. But this time . . .
A shell screamed past the outrunner and exploded near his right front wheel, almost overturning them and making Bloodwing squawk in alarm. He struggled to control the vehicle and managed to keep it from overturning—and then Brick was returning fire. The turret went thud thud thud and glancing over his shoulder Mordecai saw two rounds impacting the nearest outrider—the first one weakened its shield and the second took it down in a ball of fire; pieces of men and vehicle flew in sundry directions.
“Good shooting!” Mordecai yelled, turning back toward the front in time to veer around a low boulder sticking out of the tundra.
“That’s all I do when I shoot!” Brick yelled back gleefully. “Good shooting! Die you bastards!”
He fired another tight group of turret rounds and Mordecai heard the blasts—and the distinct crack-boom sound of a vehicle exploding.
But more bullets were whipping past from behind and another shell exploded just behind them, making the outrunner jig and fishtail. Mordecai compensated and then drove around a deep gash, a rift in the ground, hoping one of the outriders would crash into it.
Bullets struck Brick’s shield—Mordecai could hear the keening sound it made—and the big Vault Hunter returned fire from the turret, five thuds this time. And that crack-boom came again—
“There, thirty degrees to starboard!” yelled the robot. “Moxxi’s prefabricated arena!”
Starboard? Whatever. Mordecai angled toward the arena, a middling-small coliseum shape rising from the otherwise barren ground near a road. A few outrunners and four outriders were parked out front. It was made of prefab sections of plastic, metal, and synthawood, not quite three stories high.
The gate, in front of him, was closed.
He got on the ECHO. “Moxxi? This is Mordecai.”
The arena was closer now.
“Moxxi? Hey Moxxi, this is Mordecai, your old pal, coming up to the gate and I got a lot of, uh, nasty Reamers and some mutants on my tail and I wonder if you’d do me the favor of opening the gate and letting me in and then closing it behind me?”
Static. Then, “Mordecai? That you?”
“Yeah it’s me, Moxxi. Listen, um, we’re pretty badly outnumbered out here and I can’t have this outrunner shot out from under me and . . . uh . . . I know we didn’t part on the best of terms but I think of you all the time . . .”
“You do?”
He did, really, just not the way he was implying. Though sometimes he thought about the physical side of Moxxi. Any man with a pulse thought about that, once they’d seen her in the flesh.
“How many Reamers after you?” she asked.
“About—I don’t know, more than a hundred. I don’t mind getting killed, but, you know, uh . . . it’d be really inconvenient right now.”
“Lots of people find it inconvenient. And that’s a lot of Psychos, Bandits, and mercs. Which is all the Reamers are, dressed up in uniforms. What can you do for me?” she asked.
“Um . . . I could, uh, do . . . anything you—”
“I mean, in terms of helping out around the arena. As entertainment.”
“Hey, I’m there—but if you don’t open that gate I got to shoot through it and I really don’t want to piss you off and anyway . . .”
Brick was firing at the pursuers. More bullets cracked by.
“Anyway,” Moxxi said, “it has a powerful shield—so you can’t shoot through it.”
There was no such thing as an impenetrable shield. But some shields could stand heavy punishment, for a long time.
The gate—and its glowing shield—were looming up ahead. He’d collide with it head-on, in seconds.
“Whatever you want, Moxxi!” Mordecai yelled.
The gate opened with a split second to spare. And they flashed through it, roaring past a side entrance to the bleachers, and out onto the arena’s open field.
Contestants shouted in alarm and leapt out of their way as the outrunner screeched to a halt, the vehicle spinning around twice before skidding to a stop.
“Should I shoot all these guys in here?” Brick asked—not unreasonably since the five men in the arena were looking toward them with sheer threat in their eyes.
“Mordecai!” It was Moxxi on the ECHO. “Don’t shoot anyone till I give you the okay! We’ve got contestant rules around here!”
“Sure, sure . . .” He backed the outrunner up toward the nearest exit from the arena. Which, unfortunately, was closed. “But keep your contestants off us or I’m gonna have to defend myself!”
The gate to the arena had slid shut—shells impacted on it. And so far it held . . .
He heard an announcement on the PA. “This is Moxxi! Everyone hold your fire or you get no payments! I repeat, hold your fire!”
The Psychos and mercs who faced him were heavily armed, shielded, and hostile—but they heard the announcement and held back, though one of them mewled: “The disappointment, the slowness, the sadness. When I can’t pop out someone’s eyes, the lonely sadness!”
“Mordecai?” Moxxi called, on the ECHO. “That Brick with you?”
“Yeah!”
“He’ll be a good draw. How long can you stay?”
“Not long enough to be a good draw.”
“Then we’ll set you up with a fight right away.”
“What about the Reamers?”
“I’ll deal with them. I’ve got some bodies I could maybe pass off as you and Brick . . . Get out of the outrunner, take one weapon each . . . and get ready.”
Mordecai sighed. “Fine. Let’s . . . do this.”
Hard to accept being stuck in this arena, in a pointless fight, minutes after setting out to get to Gunsight. The sight of the land-based battleship was still looming over his mind. It was hard to put aside.
And Daphne was waiting for him to come and rescue her. She might be sliding into the bloody maw of Bigjaws right now.
Concentrate on right now, he told himself. If you want to live.
• • •
Daphne had made up her mind to make her way out of Gunsight. There was only one problem.
There were five men with large guns and nasty grins blocking her in front—and four more behind her. She was trapped in this dank, narrow Gunsight alley.
She’d left the basement that morning, wearing the outfit of the janitor she’d had to kill, carrying a weapon—but everyone did here—and hoping she’d pass for a local. Her theory was that during the day everyone would have too much to do to pay much attention to her. This turned out to be wrong.
“Hi, fellas,” she said. “I’m on a mission for the boss. You mind if I pass through?”
“Like he’s going to use you for a janitor,” said a toothy, squint-eyed thug in Jasper’s livery. “Naw, I think you’re that girl they’re lookin’ for. I think we’ll get a reward, we give you to him. After we’re done with you. So you can take this easy or . . .”
“Or like this?” She rushed toward him, firing the shotgun as she came. Rush and fire was a trick she’d learned on an assignment—startle them and it could give you the time to take your target down.
Down he went, with barely a flicker from his cheap shield, his face splashing over his friends.
But then someone fired close to her head—missing, except for the graze that knocked her against the alley wall. Seeing whirling points of light, she fired the shotgun again. Someone yelled in pain.
“Don’t kill her, he wants her alive!”
She fell through a blurry vortex, imagining that she was falling through a galaxy, toward a black hole at the center. Then she crashed in
to the black hole . . . it was a hard stone street. She opened her eyes and saw men leering down at her—then heard someone yell, “Look! What is that?!”
Then men looked away from her—several of them gasped and ran. One of them tried to drag her away by the arm. She kicked hard, up into his groin, and he yelped, fell backward.
Head spinning, she got to her feet and kicked the man again, grabbed her shotgun from the ground, shot the man through the bottom of his chin—looked for the others . . .
They were gone. Run away. Where—and why?
The ground shook. It shuddered, and cracked. A ragged chorus of screams arose from the front gates of the settlement. A cloud of dust rose over the town, parted. And it looked like the prow of a ship, coming into the town. Which was impossible, wasn’t it?
Guns fired from the back of the prow—and large chunks of Gunsight flew into the air, spinning, shedding bodies and debris.
Daphne got one clear look at the thing crushing the town—it was unthinkably huge, and it was moving in her direction.
Then she turned and ran, back the way she’d come. The ground shook under her, quivering so that she fell three times before she got to Jasper’s stronghold, just forty meters back. The door she’d left slightly ajar was swinging open and shut, open and shut, over and over in its warping frame with the rippling energy passing through from the shuddering ground. She thought she should find some other place to hide—not the basement again. It was under Jasper’s stronghold and that thing must be attacking Jasper. The stronghold would be destroyed. But a blast of energy shrieked past her and the street exploded into flame up ahead. No place to go but down . . .
Into the basement.
“We can’t use the turret?” Brick asked, as the arena fighters started toward them.
“Not if we want her to keep that gate closed,” Mordecai said. He had the assault rifle; Brick had the Eridian weapon.
“And no shields.”
“No shields in this fight. Her rules in this one. You don’t need a turret or a shield for these scum, do you?”
“No. I kill them with my bare—”
He didn’t get the rest of it out—one of the men fired a shotgun, Brick catching part of the blast on his left shoulder. His blood splashed and Brick roared with pain and fury.
Mordecai muttered a command to Bloodwing and she jumped into the air, screeching as she flapped at their adversaries, diving at their eyes, keeping them distracted . . .
Mordecai was aiming the assault rifle with a precision borne of way too much adrenaline, way too little time, and a whole lot of cold rage. He did not want to be here.
Daphne.
He squeezed off a short burst, blasting a groove through the middle of the man’s forehead. The man crumpled. As if hiding behind, up loomed a one-armed Bruiser coming at him with a large axe, mouth open to howl in glee, eyes alight with kill-madness, yowling: “Kill and cook or cook and kill, swallow eyes like gooey pills!”
Suddenly Brick was there. He stepped in front of Mordecai, grabbed the axe from the startled Psycho Bruiser’s grip, and smashed the man’s skull with it. The Psycho’s eyes crossed and he went down.
Brick was shaking, swelling up, changing. He’d gone into his berserker rage.
Bloodwing flew back to Mordecai—she had the good sense to keep out of Brick’s way.
Blood was dripping down Brick’s arm. It spurted from the wound, for a moment, as the berserker rage spiked his blood pressure. His face became a rigid mask, teeth bared, eyes burning red. His arms swelled up, his chest expanded, and the men facing them stopped in their tracks, staring, aghast at the transformation.
Mordecai chuckled. “I’ll just wait here while you . . .”
Before he could say any more Brick had charged and killed the first of the remaining arena fighters, tearing his head off his shoulders. As the body sagged he threw the torn-off head at another fighter, knocking him over even as the man shot Brick in the neck with a machine pistol. Tearing into the remaining fighters, Brick hardly reacted though a deep gash gouted blood from his throat.
“That wound doesn’t look good, Brick . . .”
The man screamed as Brick jumped on him . . . and jumped on him once more. The second jump wasn’t necessary.
Another moment passed, perhaps two—and there was no one left alive on the arena fighting ground, except for Brick and Mordecai.
“It’s raining body parts!” came Moxxi’s voice over the PA system. “Come on, guys—who do you love?”
A roar of approval went up from the bleachers overlooking the fighting ground—and Brick roared up at them. “You want some of this? Come on and get it! Come on down and get it!”
Extra chirped up from the back of the outrunner. “I really don’t think you should provoke anyone else, if you don’t mind a little strategic advice. Or at least let me take my leave first . . . I was nearly hit by a stray bullet. Hardware as fine as mine cannot be impacted by missiles . . .”
Mordecai looked up at the bleachers in surprise. He hadn’t taken any notice of the audience till this moment. There weren’t that many—a few dozen. But he saw drifting drone cameras taking it all in. Moxxi would syndicate the fight, no doubt. He noticed, too, there were digital ads blinking on the walls around the fighting ground: MARCUS GUNS: THE MOST LETHAL ON THE PLANET . . . DAHL SHIELDS: KILL IN SAFETY . . . DR. ZED NOW MAKES FINE LIQUORS TO GO WITH THOSE FINE MEDS—TRY ’EM SOON!
Brick was swaying, turning back to him, the color draining out of his face—the tension going out of it, too. His berserker state was fading.
Mordecai hurried back to the outrunner and called Moxxi. “Hey uh—we won, okay? Brick here needs Zed meds, fast. We’re out of it. I think his jugular got shot away.”
“Bleed out like a bubbly fountain of pretty red, ya big ugly bastid!” yelled one of the Psychos who’d been watching the fight. “Bleed out bubble and be a shiny puddle and die!”
Brick staggered over to the outrunner and leaned against it. “Don’t need nothing. Going to kill some more bastards. Climbing up to those seats. Find that loudmouth.”
Suddenly a door slid open in the curved arena wall behind the outrunner, and Moxxi was there, smiling crookedly at Mordecai, hands on her hips. Fearless blue-green eyes, kissable full lips, seductive mole, all in a girlishly pretty face. She wore a one-piece skintight red leather outfit, very low cut, and an odd little brimmed hat, her auburn hair cut into a flip. She also wore the quasi clown makeup she wore for public occasions. “Did I promise you a show, or didn’t I? Who loves you, and who do you love?” she asked, as she often did when he saw her. He managed not to stare at her half-exposed pale, full breasts—bosoms so perky they seemed to have a life of their own.
She tossed Mordecai a med hypo and he didn’t stand on ceremony—he slammed it into Brick’s shoulder, and fast. The gunshot wounds healed up, pretty quick, but Brick would need food after losing so much blood—there was a large puddle of scarlet on the ground, spread out by boot prints.
“Bloodwing, wait out here,” Mordecai said. “You can feed on a couple of these dead cretins here, and then take a nap on the robot.”
“I don’t like it when she roosts on me,” Extra complained. “I keep having to clean off my outer parts.”
Mordecai ignored the Claptrap. “Moxxi, Brick’s gonna have to get something to eat,” Mordecai said, as he and Brick followed her into the passage. He could see there was some wobble in Brick’s walk. “He’s lost a lot of blood. There’s only so much Dr. Zed can do.”
“Wait!” the Claptrap called, from the outrunner. “What about me? Where should I go? What if someone else comes out here and starts shooting? You’re all too eager to abandon me . . .”
“Oh yes,” came Elenora’s voice. “He loves to abandon people!”
Mordecai winced. “Just wait there, Extra, we’ll be back!”
The door slid shut behind them. “Oh sure, ask me to rescue you,” Moxxi said, leading the way up the curved hall. “Then ask for f
ood. After you ran out on me.”
“I didn’t run out. I had a mission.”
“And you never came back. You coulda been my fourth husband. Or was it fifth?”
“Tell you the truth, Moxxi, considering what happened to your other husbands, I wasn’t really eager for, you know, making it official.”
“Yeah, yeah. Wimps. Come on, up the steps, there’s some food in my dressing room.”
“Ain’t she a peach, Brick?” Mordecai asked, as they climbed the steps after Moxxi.
“What’s a peach?” Brick asked, rubbing his neck.
“It’s a fruit back on the homeworld—”
“She’s not a fruit, Mordecai,” Brick said, seeming genuinely puzzled. “She’s a girl.”
“Never mind . . .”
• • •
She was squatting on the floor in a small, musty space, her back against the wall.
Daphne thought she was probably trapped here. She couldn’t tell for sure, yet. She was afraid to try to escape. But it seemed like debris had covered the doors.
She figured she’d die here, starving slowly to death. How could Mordecai find her—if he even looked for her—with all this wreckage around?
At least she wasn’t burning to death. There were fires all around Jasper’s stronghold, but when the big machine crushed the building it had done it so thoroughly it didn’t seem to bother with explosives and energy blasts, hence the stronghold was as yet unfried.
Some of the basement had survived. She was in a broom closet, which literally had one broom in it, and several other devices she didn’t recognize. The door was blocked by debris. There was no way out in that direction. A little light came in through the cracked ceiling, because, several floors above, it had been sheared off in the attack—and she was thinking maybe she could get out that way, if she could widen the crack.
But was it safe to get out of here?
A juddering went through the wall at her back and plaster pattered down from above. The cracked ceiling opened a bit wider.
Seemed like she had to take a chance on getting out of here, or she was going to die in this place. Crushed under debris—or worse, the fires could spread . . .