Huge thank you to anyone who read the first part and is still with me!
Book 2: Kingdom of Man
The streets of New Haven were silent, smothered under a curtain of smoke and ash. Only the occasional rattle of gunfire and scream split the silence, or the thunk thunk thunk of a loaders moving in the haze, sometimes close, sometimes distant. Brick tried not to wonder who the screams belonged to. Instead, he focused on the tiny hand in his. He took a few steps down the street but was tugged gently back.
"We gotta go, Teeny," he said.
"Where's Dusty?" Tina asked.
Brick didn't know the answer. He couldn't stop to look for Dusty, couldn't risk the life of a human girl for a dog, not even a dog he loved, not even the the most adorable, wriggling, yapping brown scrap of a pup he'd ever known. He squeezed Tina's hand tighter, feeling the half moons of her nails bite into his palm.
"He's okay. He got out," Brick said. "He's waitin outside for us."
"Yeah?" She sounded hopeful.
"If we get separated, go to the shipping crate. You know the one? Where I used to put Frank?" That had been almost a year ago, outside of some other New Haven- a town where the buildings had not been transformed into pyres.
Tina shook her head violently, hair flopping. "No! I wont! I wont go this time!"
"Teeny, I swear, it wont be like last time," he lied, even as the metallic song of loaders clanged through the streets.
One of the loaders crashed by and Brick hugged the young girl into an alley, shielding her with his body. It didn't spot them.
"No, no, NO!" Tina shrieked.
"Knock it off," Brick hissed.
The girl ignored him. She was ten years old, apparently not too old to throw a tantrum. A shadow uncoiled from the alley and struck Tina across the face faster than Brick could react. The shadow turned out to be Kindle, her eyes blazing.
"Shut up," she demanded.
Tina grinned. "Hey gurl," she said. "What up?"
Kindle looked like she might lash out again, but she closed her eyes instead. When she opened them, they had become dark, placid pools. "I been playing a new game. It's for big kids only, though. You're too little."
"Whaaaaaat? Tell me tell me tell me! You better tell me, or...or I'll pee! That's a poem, betch," Tina said.
Another loader crossed the mouth of the alley. The fire's light threw its long shadow across the three of them, and for a moment Kindle didn't reply, only waited for it to move out of earshot. Then she whispered.
"Okay, but you can't tell anyone else. You gotta go straight where I tell you. Don't stop, or I'll think you told someone about the game, and I wont be your friend anymore. Okay?" Kindle said.
"Kay!" Tina said.
"It's too secret to tell you here. I'll meet you at the shipping crate, and then we'll play."
Brick almost interrupted to say that they didn't have time for this, but Tina tugged his hand.
"You heard the lady! Let's go, Big," she said.
When Tina turned away from her, Kindle frowned and shot Brick a pointed look. Your turn.
"You comin with?" He asked. She shook her head.
"I'm gonna take the long way around. I'll meet you," Kindle said. She disappeared back into the shadows, leaving Brick and Tina alone.
Brick went to the mouth of the alley and peered around the corner, one way, then the other. Nobody stirred. Smoke as thick as drapes hung in the air, making it impossible to see further than a dozen yards in any direction, but it seemed safe to emerge. He turned back to Tina.
The girl was gone. He looked around and spotted her skipping in the opposite direction down the road.
"Teeny!" he called.
She looked back and flashed him a grin. "Move your buns, hon!"
The ground shook. A loader loomed through the veil of smoke ahead of Tina, parting the smog like a knife. It glared down at them with one baleful red eye. The muzzles of its shoulder mounted cannons glowed, emitting a high pitched whine as they powered up.
"Behind you!" Brick yelled.
Tina whipped around and yelped. She leaped out of the loader's warpath like a dancer, skiping, whirling, while rockets shattered the ground where she'd stood. She hurried to Brick's side. She reached out, and he thought she was trying to hold his hand again, but instead she snatched a grenade off his belt.
"Hey, don-"
"Yoink!" she said, and swiped his revolver out of its holster as well. She ducked around Brick's clumsy attempts to stop her. "Roland's been teaching me."
To demonstrate, she ripped out the grenade's pin and threw it at the loader. The grenade clunked off its shell and exploded when it hit the ground, stripping the paint from the loader's legs but not halting its approach. Brick had already retrieved his Double Anarchy SMG and began firing into the loader's hull. It ate the bullets and still didn't slow, didn't stop- only raised its miniguns.
"Get outta here, go to the crate," Brick shouted as the loader opened fire. His energy shield wobbled under the onslaught. Instead of retreating, he lurched forward.
"Nag, nag, nag," Tina replied. She fired the revolver at the loader's optic sensor, but missed.
Brick darted through the loader's legs as his shield depleted. The energy net bleeped, quivered, and collapsed into a neon green nova burst. Tina oohed and ahhed as the corrosive spray coated the loader and began to eat away the metal. One of the its legs buckled. Brick sprang away as it collapsed.
Tina skipped over to the incapacitated robot, raised the revolver, and delivered a bullet into its optic sensor. A wavering SOS hologram projected from its dead eye and reflected across her face. Another shot made the hologram flicker out.
Brick could hear other loaders grinding somewhere in the smoke. Tina grinned up at him, and he couldn't help but smile back. The girl looked like a murderous doll.
"You're crazy," he said.
"You pretty cray-cray yourself, Big."
"Let's go. But if we see another big motha like this one..." Brick raised his arm, his thumb up and forefinger stuck out in the shape of a gun. "You blow 'em away. Got it?"
Tina jumped up and down with excitement. "A'ight!"
She held his hand as they hurried through the decimated town. Occasionally they passed familiar bodies, people they'd known, and Brick hoped the girl wouldn't look. She hummed a song, seemingly oblivious to the carnage around her.
Something tiny streaked out of the haze; a brown ball of fluff with a flapping pink tongue, and Brick laughed out loud with relief. He let go of Tina's hand and held his arms out, low, so Dusty could leap into his embrace. The pup licked his face and Brick's heart felt suddenly too big for his chest. To find his dog in this mess...!
Dusty wriggled free and bounded a short way down the street. Tina skipped after him, laughing.
Someone staggered out of the smoke a dozen yards away, in the direction the pup had come from. It was Andy. Roland lagged behind him, clutching his midsection. Brick saw blood through the man's fingers. The shield emitter on his hip was dark, its radial face shattered.
"Oh good," Andy wheezed. "Brick, sir, I think we should go. I saw-"
A loader slammed into the ground between them. It made a staccato, mechanical clacking. After a moment, Brick realized that it wasn't clacking at all, but laughing. Wilhelm.
The cyborg commander grabbed Andy by the neck and hoisted him off the ground. Tina picked up Dusty, then dissolved into an alleyway. Wilhelm didn't notice her. Brick and Roland surged forward, but something in the smoke caught Roland from behind and pulled him back.
The figure stepped out of the smog, their silhouette resolving into a female form. Startled, Brick hesitated when he saw who it was. Nisha the Lawbringer caught Roland off-guard and clamped energy shackles around his wrists.
Wilhelm turned his mechanical eye on Brick. It flashed, hellfire bright in the gloom. A blue and gray drone swept down between them, bleeped, and unfurled an energy shield across the road. The fractals glowed like dragonfly wings before turning invisible.
Brick slammed into the shield and was sent staggering back. His skin crackled with discharged energy. He and Roland helplessly watched as the the Hyperion commander held Andy above the ground.
"Roland, help!" Andy squealed.
Wilhelm clucked. "Help yourself."
He let go of the struggling Raider. Andy stumbled, nearly fell, and tried to run to Roland, but before he could reach him, Wilhelm kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling face first onto the ground. Wilhelm's robotic laugh echoed through the street. He picked the young Raider back up by the hem of his shirt, scruffing him like a dog.
Brick heard the boy's sobs, but his view was obscured by the shield rippling as he slammed into it again and again, throwing his whole weight against the barrier.
"It's no wonder you cant take care of yourself, kid. Look at that baby face!" Wilhelm boomed. "You look fresh out of your momma's cunt. You got no scars, no weight. Look at me, kid. Stop crying." He slapped Andy across the face.
Roland kicked back against Nisha. She was distracted, listening to Wilhelm with a contemptuous sneer, and he managed to catch her a hard kick to the shin. She dropped him. Roland scrambled forward, arms still cuffed behind his back. Wilhelm snapped his fingers without looking up. A large red and gray drone loomed out the sky.
"Wolf, fass," he commanded. The drone sent out a beam that hit Roland and exploded into a blue starbust. His mouth dropped open, full of blue light, and he uttered a strangled scream. Wolf held the beam on the Raider commander, fixing him to the spot.
Tina darted out of the darkness with Brick's pistol raised. She shot at the drone, her narrow arm jerked by the force of the recoil. The beam ceased and Roland collapsed to the ground. Wolf turned its eye toward the new opponent.
"Come and get me, you-" Tina said, followed by a slew of words that a ten year old no business knowing.
Nisha chuckled and made no effort to intervene.
"Damnit, Teeny!" Brick yelled. Wilhelm gave a barely perceptible barely nod; It was all the permission Wolf needed.
The drone fired a beam, but Tina jinked out of the way. She ducked and dodged, leading Wolf down the street. They vanished into the smog.
Brick waited for her scream, but it didn't come.
He'd been pounding on the smaller drone's energy shield with his fists. His knuckles were bloody, his shoulders bruised from ramming against it. Now he drew his Double Anarchy, and SMG capable of belching a metric fuckton of bullets in a brief burst. He emptied its entire clip into the shield. Nothing. No low-charge alert, no crackle of dissipation. Brick threw the gun down in frustration.
Across the barrier, Wilhelm dragged Andy over to where Roland lay in a crumpled heap and kicked the commander. Roland coughed up blood, tried to raise himself to his elbows, but Wilhelm stepped on his back and forced him down. Andy wailed.
"Dry up," Nisha snapped. She stood nearby, arms folded across her chest. "You're an unlikable little shit, you know that?"
Wilhelm chuckled. He dug his foot under Roland's chest and flipped him onto his back, then pinned him again, resting an elbow on his bent knee. He adjusted his grip on Andy- grabbed him around the back of the head with one huge robotic hand- and held him out to Roland.
"What about you? You like him?" Roland tried to answer, but Wilhelm stomped his stomach, driving the air out of him. "I didn't think so."
He squeezed. Andy's skull imploded in a rosebud of gore, and his body went slack. Wilhelm dropped the corpse onto Roland. Roland tried to wriggle away, but he was trapped. Andy's ruined head lolled to one side, bent out any identifiable shape.
"Heavy?" Wilhelm taunted. "It'll make you stronger, if you live. But I don't think-"
A brown ball of fur streaked toward the cyborg commander and lunged at his foot, yapping and biting.
Brick went ballistic. He didn't know why the sight of his dog would wake his animal now, after it slept through the cyborg crushing the life out of a human being, a human being who'd considered him a friend, but it didn't matter. His animal snapped awake, at last, and surged through him with a sick, winding heat.
Nisha strolled forward and reached down to the pup.
Brick's animal coiled around him, filling his vision with its endless piebald side. It pinched out his consciousness like fingers extinguishing a flame.
When awareness flooded back, it was over. The pup's lifeless body lay in the street. Dusty had been a runt, just a skinny little scrap of mutt, and looked even smaller dead.
Brick sobbed. He'd been screaming a moment ago, raging at the Hyperion commanders, had been for awhile. His throat ached. Searing pain cut ribbons across his forearms and chest where blazing bands of energy tethered him in place. He strained against them, blistering his flesh. Nisha kicked Dusty's body aside.
Brick wept openly as she strolled up to him. A smirk played across her lips, and he imagined tearing her throat out with his teeth. If she would take just one more step forward...but she stopped just short, and studied him.
"I wouldn't have requested this job if I'd known you guys were going to be such big babies. But I wanted to see my big, beautiful idealist again." She tried to pat his cheek, but he snapped at her. She laughed.
"I like a boy with teeth. God," she breathed, looking him up and down with an appreciative leer. "I wish I could keep you. But I don't think my Jackie would like that. He doesn't play well with others."
She grabbed his crotch. He was helpless to stop her with his arms bound behind his back, tethered to something he couldn't see. His stomach rolled.
"Fuck...off..." he rasped.
"What's that? Fuck you? I'd be obliged." Her thumb made small circles over his groin.
"I'll k-kill you," he stuttered. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He hated those tears, hated her, hated himself for letting her live. If he'd only killed her when he had the chance... "I'll gouge your eyes out. I'll..."
"Nisha, what the fuck are you doing? Get off that bandit's dick," Wilhelm said, as he came around the corner. He smoked a cigar, and his arms were red to the elbow with blood.
The Lawbringer rolled her eyes but stepped away, leaving Brick to slouch against the loader's electric bonds.
Dusty was dead; Brick had basically killed the pup himself by letting Nisha escape in that pit. Tina and Roland might be dead too. He hadn't seen either of them after his animal departed. This seemed like a different street, but Brick couldn't remember how they'd gotten there. He wondered what Dusty had gone through before Nisha killed him. He banished the thought. He didn't really want to know. His animal, deep in refractory slumber, had saved him from that knowledge.
He tried to remember if Mordecai had been in town when Hyperion attacked. They hadn't been close for nearly a year, since Brick found out about Mordecai and Roland plotting to take down the Lawbringer behind his back. They'd become tentatively friendly again, but then Mordecai started dating Moxxi, and Brick had hated it. He couldn't stand to be around them.
So Brick didn't know where Mordecai was that morning, but he prayed that he'd been out of town.
"Boss says to load this one up too," Wilhelm said, gesturing toward Brick. "He's going to the Fathoms."
Nisha frowned. "Why so far?"
"Dunno. You're fucking your way to the top, why don't you ask?" Wilhelm said, strolling up beside Nisha.
She turned on a heel and slapped him, sending ripples across his energy shield. He laughed.
"I can't stand you," she seethed.
The cyborg commander plucked the cigar out of his mouth and ground it against Brick's shoulder. That hurt like a sonofabitch, even more than the energy tethers. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the rest of the smoldering town.
Brick hissed. His animal's abrupt withdrawal had shocked him, turned him inward, but now he looked around with renewed clarity. He glared up at the Hyperion commanders.
"You...You poor fucks. You sons of bitches. Do you even know what you stepped in?" Brick snarled. His rumbling tone, usually so much like his dad's, sounded different to his own ears- his consonants more clipped, his vowels pregnant- full of his momma's drawl.
"You fuckin' stepped in it. The Raiders'll find you, they'll kill you. They wanted to do it before. I shoulda let 'em, shoulda done it myself, with my bare hands. Crushed the life outta you, squeezed your throat til-"
"Oh yeah, baby? Tell me about it," Nisha purred. Her fingers grazed his chest.
"Get your Goddamn hands off me, bitch," he spat. He could only make it worse, but was unable to stop. "When Mordecai finds me, he'll-"
"Mmm, you gonna sic your boyfriend on me? I'd like that. Both of you..."
Wilhelm grumbled. "I can't take any more of this."
Brick saw the cyborg look at something over his shoulder, presumably the loader which held him. His cybernetic eye flashed.
Pain bellowed through Brick's body. His eyes snapped shut, and he could see the veins in his eyelids, the blood boiling inside them. It was like the electricity when his animal took over, but instead of invigorating, it was agonizing. Darkness swamped him.
In the blackness, twin witch-fires danced. Mordecai stood with his hands on his hip, impatience creasing the lines around his mouth and eyes. Brick reached for him, but he flew apart at his touch.
Distant pain thundered through his veins.
A million miles away, he heard Nisha's voice. Wow. He's still conscious, I think. That's amazing. I wonder if-
He passed out.