Borderlands 2: Ascension
If a bird had been in a cage for most its life, could it fly?
Embracing death was easy. If one had nothing left, no loved ones, no friends and most important, no hope, then death isn't such a bad fate. It was nice irony, her first act of freedom was to end it.
Angel's vision was blurry. The screaming of the man who called himself father was fading. The solemn face of Roland and the slight tremble of Lilith's lip was surprising. Would they... cry for her? After everything she did to them. The death, the misery, she had caused them.
It was unforgivable but here they were. No smiling at her passing, but frowning. The new vault hunters, there were a few of them. Why did Jack need so many of them? It was going to shoot him in the ass now that she thought about it. Catching glimpses of Axton, uncharacteristically stoic. Zer0 was stoic as ever. Salvador, the smaller man was shifting uncomfortably, he looked pinched. Gaige, the robot mistress was openly crying, wiping her eyes, her metal arm clenched. Krieg shaking his head, muttering fast.
Maya was shaking, the poor girl. Angel knew she had come to Pandora to learn about her powers and the Sirens, this couldn't be easy.
Maya shouldn't be here. Thinking in panic, Angel's mind tried to jolt words out of her month, even as her body slumped forward. Everything was going numbly dark. But she had to warn them, her sisters in name. Maya and Lilith were in terrible danger. Jack had a direct way station transporter here. He could snatch either one of them and make them take her place. No, please no.
Angel's fading sight was replaced by memories of this very room, never changing, never bright, never warm and never home. The feeling of having the life sucked out of you every second. Unable to end it all. A prisoner in mind, body but not soul. It was hell Angel had yet to find an equal to.
Jack would take Lilith. Maya was good but Lilith was the senior Siren and had been fighting far longer then Maya plus Lilith's recent dips into using Eridium as a power boost made her more receptive to the charging process. Jack was insane. But insane did not mean he was idiotic. Mostly. In the end it didn't matter who he took. Jack... John was going to take her death badly. It was sad how much he thought was love was just misguided duty and obsession.
The vault hunters of old and new gathered around Angel. Soft gasps of air made it past her lips. It was too late. She couldn't feel anything. Angel knew deaths embrace was catching her. One last glimpse into the faces she tried to guide to this very moment and she felt happy. She wasn't going to die alone. How selfish of her.
Then Angel, daughter of John, youngest Siren to be known, a hybrid of computer AI and scared girl closed her eyes and died.
Death was bumpy. Angel was hurtling sideways, downwards, forwards at intense speeds. Colours that she had never seen before flew past her. There was no air here but her hair was shot backwards as there was air resistance here regardless. Angel had never moved more than 50 feet in her life. Taking over computers and echo communicators aside, she never actually left her chamber to do that. It was more like closing her eyes and "seeing" the machines.
This was motion, pure and simple, she was going to vomit soon, wonderful. Suddenly the journey stopped, the tunnel exploded into light. The she had legs, a body, arms and lips, air rushed around her, light burned her eyes. Angel took a gasp of air, she was floating then suddenly she was not. Not prepared Angel dropped from her suspended hovering and landed on her ass hard. A sharp ache settled in her backside. Angel groaned.
"Dam- I mean darn." She said under her breath. Her hands braced her off the ground, hard packed dirt shifted under her fingers. Dirt. Angel slowly opened her tightly shut eyes. The sun was glaring at her with no mercy, the heat of its touch spread across her face. She was outside. The barren land and its ragged hills, the bare branches of bushes swayed in the hot gushes of wind. Angel mouth was open. She leaned forward and sat on her knees ignoring the pain coming from the awkward position.
It was beautiful. Fresh air brushed past her. She took large amount of it into her lungs. She started to cough as the dusty air scratched her throat. She choked but started to laugh. Angel had never been outside, as far as she remembered. That room was all she had known, early blurry images of a home before the room were there but they were so long ago, unimportant now. Security cameras and satellite images could not compare to tasting freedom. Her laughter choked and her hiccuping laugh turned into loud sobs. She was free. Her life was hers. Angel looked at the sky, it was so blue it hurt her eyes but she stared anyway.
A voice behind her chirped up.
"Thank you for using Hyperion's New-U station. A whole new you, for just a small pric-c-c-ee. Pleas... come agi... so-" The machine spluttered and went quiet. Angel knew what the machine was without being told. It had two wing protrusions, a single antenna and a single round eye piece sat in the centre. It golden yellow colour was old and rusted to a dark brown.
The Hyperion company made money in several ways. Weapons development, urban development, scientific experiment and the new U-station. It was a marvel wonder that prevented early death by transferring memories and physical data via a chip in a persons brain. When a person died the chip sent a huge amount of data in violent out pour of energy it melted the body as it did it. The new U-station would receive the information and digitally reconstruct a persons body, clothes and possessions.
It was major debate in every government and education building in the universe if they were morally right or wrong. That the person coming out the machine wasn't the actual person that died. But the counter argument asked what made a person if not the memories or experiences? The other reason why not everyone used them was because it was one of most expensive services the Hyperion company offered. It took a pretty penny to get access. Jac- John actually developed the machine based of her own Siren powers. It scared Angel that her powers could be used to cheat death for money.
It was another irony in her mind that John had saved her inadvertently. But why was he swooping down to claim her? He had complete control over the system, turning ones access to the machine off and letting them die permanently. Such as the situation was with Roland and the others. They were given free access when John was using them to open the vault. He turned off their rights in a hope they would die thinking the new U-station would help them but the vault hunters found out and went in to hiding but it was for naught when they lived and set up the resistance. Still he could monitor all rebirths and uses of the machine.
Why did the new U-station look so destroyed? Questions she couldn't answer. She felt overwhelmed. How can she be alive? Did John give her a chip? Angel never considered that he might try to prevent her death. Suddenly she reached over her shoulders and scrambled her fingers over her back.
Holes where the Eridium injectors pulsed into her were gone. That couldn't be. Angel needed Eridium to live. Her body shut down without the stuff coursing through her veins. John had been pumping the purple stuff into her since it emerged from the ground 5 years ago after the original vault had been opened by Roland, Lilith, Brick and Mordecai. The purple energy had empowered her to such an extent she could actually start to affect the physical word. Open doors connected to her network. Create simple machinery from energy alone. But it came at a crippling cost as she needed the stuff more than blood. Not that John cared. She was never coming off the Eridium so Angel never needed to worry about it. He was a warped man in many ways. Angel blamed her great grandmother.
Angel was so absorbed by the world, the machine, her existence in general that she didn't notice the man come up to her until his revolver clicked into place at her temple.
"Little ladies popping out of that machine can't be anything good. So I should shoot you now and go back to bed." The man had a rasp to his voice, like it was used a little too often, a little too much. Angel turned and crawled backwards, hitting the new U-station. Her hands came up in a sign of surrender and peace. The man was worn by time. His hair was gun grey, his face shaped by harsh winds into a frown, scars littered his hands and face, his large hooked nose turned down at her. His brown eyes were clear and focused. He wore a simple cotton pants, white shirt with a brown over coat, his black boots contrasted with the brown dust and dirt.
Angel's mouth was dry. She licked her dry, cracked, lips and said with a tremble.
"Please don't shoot me. My name is Angel. I'll... leave, right now." Angel nodded to the wide expanse of hill lands with no end in sight. The heat simmered over brown tops and shadows flickered at the bottom. Angel decided if it was better to get killed nice and fast here or die slowly out there. The man stared at her, he was thinking fast, his lips moved quickly but no words came out, his eyes flicked left and right. Angel remained very still. She felt like a rabbit trapped by fear alone. The gun was lowered and he pointed it at the ground. He spoke softer now.
"I don't make it business to kill polite people, or the sane" He added in after thought. Angel felt her body relax and she felt her hand become shaky. * The man continued to speak and offered Angel his hand at the same time.
"Sorry miss, I had to be sure you weren't going to try and eat me or something along those lines. Its sadly common to meet people far more interested in your money than your kindness." he grumbled aloud pulling Angel to her feet, eyeing her tattoos ad metallic features. Angel felt... shy. The only person to actually talk to her in person was John. She crossed her arms over her body and fidgeted.
Her companion snorted, misreading her actions.
"Sweetheart, don't worry. I'm 47 years old and married to my work. You're something special but I can honestly say I like my women less complicated. Come on, you thirsty?" He prompted her with a smile that looked grizzly on his face. Angel remembered the feeling. Huger and thirst. People felt them all the time, unless they had a third of a planets Eridium pumped into their veins. Angel hadn't felt hungry in a long time. But for the sake of simply not being alone she nodded to him. He nodded back and set of on a dusty path that was a shade lighter than the area around it.
"The name is Holland. I live just around the corner, near the gorges entrance." He explained. Angel snatched the name and repeated it several times in her head. Angel was smart and that was before you added the world wide computer system to her intelligence. Holland, as far she could remember, didn't ring any alarm bells.
"Its good to meet you Holland. Thank you for the offer. I don't mean to be rude but where are we? Are we near Sanctuary or the old town of Fyrestone?" She asked in a curious tone, wanting to know how far her resurrection had taking her. The man stalled in his walk. He turned to her with a serious look again.
"Angel, I'm not going to lie to you. Those places you're talking about? I heard of them but you're talking about a thirty thousand mile journey by train. I won't covert that into walking distance. But you get the picture." He said quietly. Angel's mouth fell open. She was on the other side of the planet.
"What about the fast travel systems? They could get me there in a short while?" Holland rubbed his clean shaven face.
"We never got many of them, this is west coat of Pandora by the way, the Hermes continent to be exact. Those machines are in short supply" Angel knew where she was. It was a small piece of land near the bottom of the planet. Quite isolated. No company saw the benefits of occupying the land.
"Why is there a new U-station here then? Hyperion never expanded this far down." Angel asked with a frown. Holland for the first time seemed to look abashed. He coughed into his hands and looked at her.
"I may have, uh tried to build one myself off a wrecked one that floated in on the tide." He explained with a soft grin. Angel blinked in surprise, that was no beginners luck or skill.
"Who are you?" Angel asked again but for a different reason. Holland kept walking.
"We are who we want to be Miss Angel, now hurry along it's going to be dark soon. I like to see the skags when they try to eat me."
Angel stared after him, her body slightly tired from their meeting. She picked up her pace and hurried after him. Nervously looking for sights of the four legged beasts of Pandora.
Angel was getting a grasp on her life. She would handle it carefully.
Chapter 1 end