1.

BOUNTY BOARD.

It kills. That's what it does. That's what it's for, y'understand. That's the whole danged reason it exists.

Now, don't you look at me as if I'm nothin' but a stoned cold killer, 'cause Mr. D.P Benet-glad to make your acquaintance-he's got hidden depths. I got my medicinal blunt hanging from my yapper here. I got a mind that, well, some say it wanders, but I'm quicker on the trigger finger than they are. Yes sir, this finger's gotten me outta more hot shit than I care to remember. That's why I feed it with Tediore.

"Tediore?", you ask. Sure, they're cheap. Got themselves a reputation as bein' a lower class sort of gun.

But Tediore got that reload locked down. Never mind that this sucker's corrosive, (which she is) or that she's got a zoom so powerful I can count the nose boogers in my mark's head 'fore he's had a chance to eat 'em. No, the thang I like best 'bout Tediore is I can pop heads like snap. Smooth 'n' quick release. Body on the floor. Fresh new bullet in the chamber whilst my next kill's still blinking. "Where'd my best buddy Shane go?" he says. Guess you'll find out fer yerself soon enough.

I call my gun Betsy. Betsy's kind of pretty.

And the spray-that's the acid spray rather than arterial-is just as cute. When I pull Betsy's trigger and ventilate your head your brain melts like ice cream in a Fire Skag's fart. Imagine a row of 'em, all bursting like flowers, pop pop pop-and as if that ain't enough, y'gots your grenade effect reload to clear away the stragglers, that je ne c'est quois you only get with a Tediore. That fresh new bullet aimed for your head? That barrel, that scope? Teleported in, no expense spared. Sure, you gots to wonder, this new gun, is she really Betsy? She looks enough like her, I guess, though you can never be sure. Same with the New-U's that gets u back on ur feet once ur dead. Is this the real me? Is this my real gun?

Who the fuck knows, you know?

I guess questions like this is why they calls me D.P. Like, 'D.P., your thoughts is so deep, your thoughts is so deep and your you-know-what is so long.'

An' me and Betsy is like, thank you kind lady, now shift your keister to the right if you please, you're blocking my damn shot.

Matters like this is what I'm thinking 'bout when out on the job. We all got jobs need doin', checklists long as your you-know-what. Making money off the man-or takin' it out his pocket once he's dead. Hey, a killer's gotta earn a living. Where else can a guy like me make his scratch, know wh'u'm saying? Not all of us gets to be fancy-ass mechanics in fancy-ass floatin' cities; some's of us gots to, you know, do the grunt work.

Now, I sure as hell ain't a vault hunter. Ask me, you can piss on that shit out a two-foot pee-pee. Oh, I don't begrudge those that does, though I can't help but wonder: do them's like that Roland dude or that chick with the magic rack think of themselves as he-roes? I mean, do they think they're doin' us all a favour, bringing the wrath of Handsome Jack down on our heads? Lissen: I hate that fella as much as I hate them tease-girls that looks of age but ain't, but I got more sense than to catch his ire. I ain't even fond of hailstones, let alone them robots of his raining down from the goddang moon.

Naw, think I'll leave that bull-hockey to professional idjits, a.k.a. yer bona fide vault huntin' types. Good luck tryin' to find your lost Pandoran treasures; I'll leave ya ta get on with it, and make my livin' settlin' scores more down-to-earth than yours. Like I said, I'm a killer. I ain't no he-ro.

So this morning the bounty board has the usual mess of hunter-gatherin' for the newbs, and a few high-end seek 'n' destroys for them as has less sense than old D.P. here. Don't want to disappoint any o' you would-be wives and sidekicks, but D.P.'s a loner. Tried settling down once. Cramped my style, threw off my aim. Said she was pregnant, too. "You ain't with child," I says, "You're just fat," but she ups and responds with "Nuh-uh D.P, I'm pregnant as hell, and my daddy an' his shotgun have something to propose to you, you dirty sumbitch." Ever tried to outrun a bandit technical with your underdrawers round your ankles? Ain't no picnic, I can tell you. Got friction burns all over my you-know-what, on account of it draggin' in the dirt.

But one assignment catches my eye. "Escaped convict," it says, "Seeks professional killer for vengeance-related purposes." And then there was, like, a bounty came after it with almost too many zeros.

Ever wonder what comes after a billion credits' reward? Like I said, I'm a thoughtful man.

So I suit up and get Betsy good 'n' loaded 'fore we hit the highway. We follow the address, meet our liaison at this outhouse way out west that for some reason's got shields stored in it. He's just dropped a deuce when I get there; I find him bucklin' his pants, though whatever he's hiding down there can't be any uglier than his mouth. If assholes had teeth-and who's to say, Pandora's a big-ass place, maybe far down south they got critters with fangs in their rectums and eyes in their armpits-he'd be in bad need of a dentist. I mean, sure, I execute folks for cold hard cash, but I floss just like every decent human being.

"You'll excuse the stench,' he says, buttonin' his fly. Only got the one good hand, th'other's like a lobster claw. Don't stare though-ain't ya'll gots no manners? "I ate some roadkill that disagreed with me. Right before I runned it over, now I think about it. Shoulda' took my warning then; varmint's takin' vengeance from the grave."

"You wanted somethin' killing?"

"Yassir, I did. Someone, as a matter of."

He clues me in.

I won't bore you with the details. It's an epic, tragic tale of love and loss, th' kind ya might find on an old timey movie reel 'fore they all got full of tittays an', like, who can jam the most random shit up his or her butthole. I always did like the style they had in old movies. You can't buy class like that, though lord knows I've tried. Marcus, that no good gun-runnin' sumbitch, gave me all manner o' funny looks when I asked him to source me some old costume befittin' my guns. He gets back to me like a week later. "Top het." he says. "3,500 dollar."

"You ticket-scalpin' no good fer-3,500? I could get me another Betsy with cash like that!"

"3,500 dollar. High demand for top hets nowadays. Popularity soars."

"On account of what?"

"On account of you enlisting my services to find you a top het. 3,500 dollar."

It's crumpled and dirty, and I think Marcus sat on it by accident nine or ten times, but dang if it don't look sharp on me. Clothes maketh the man, I'll tell you what.

"Now let me level with you-uhh, insert yer name here."

"D.P."

"Let me level, D.P. You 'n' me are men of the world. We are men that gets shit done, you dig?"

I've done some digging in my time. There's some as plants flowers; I plants bodies. They don't grow none once they're in the ground, but that's fine by me. I heard rumours o' some that does, on an island out in the bumfucks. I get a choice, I'd prefer the dead to stay dead.

"Yassir, I dig."

"Good," says the dude. "Truth of it is, I wish this weren't the case. I don't want this poor girl dead anymore'n I want spiderant babies nesting up in my ballsack." That lobsterhand scratches his crotch, sends something scurrying into his pubic region. "But nature don't say no pleases nor thank-yous. Some things just has to be, you dig?"

I dig.

The shit-toothed asshole smiles cheek to cheek. "Moment I saw you with my pants round my ankles I knew folks like us could do business," he says. "Now, if you please, mosey on over to these coordinates and headshot the bitch."

So here I stand with my dick in the wind, and ain't it a pretty sight? Betsy's got her dander up, I got a bead on the window o' the homestead of my quarry, and my trigger-finger's got one helluva hard-on.

Something you oughtta know 'bout being a sniper: everything I just said, every detail from A to Z, that's all important as shit.

By which I mean, if things is off, if it don't feel right, if you mess up your order, if you skip so much as a step, it can all backfire right in your goddamned face. You ever eat a bad taco and have your colon spurting out yer behind, and your head was 'tween your legs like you was trying to suck your own pecker, and poop went fizzin' all over your eyeballs and right up your nose, an' it was like shakin' a bottle of Faygo Ultra with your thumb over the neck 'cept there's chunks of poblano queso in your eyelashes, an' . . .

Well, it ain't never happened to me personally, but it did happen to a friend of mine or somesuch, and he says it's pretty much the worst thing that ever happened up in his face.

Now where was I? Right, the check list.

Wind. That's pretty much the first thing you check 'fore pulling the trigger. I mean, first you need a target, but if you don't have a target why would you be firing a sniper rifle in the first place? And you need a good place to hole up, somewhere with enough cover that when Mister Christopher down there starts spouting brains from his nose his buddies don't immediately pick you out of your surroundings and return the goddamned favour.

But wind's important, too. Like, what direction's it blowin' in, how fast's it goin', are you upwind, downwind-some of these mutated sumbitches have a sharp sense of smell, and when you don't bathe too often on account of bad memories of Momma making you soap out your pee-hole for calling Mrs. McKenzie a c-word, the way the wind's blowin' matters.

It, uh, also blows your bullets about 'n' stuff.

What I do is drop a little dirt or snow, see where the wind takes it. Or look for clues, like is my you-know-what being blown north, 'cause that's a crazy strong wind if it is, like, a tornado or some shit.

Then you hunker down, get your eye good and flush 'gainst the sight an' draw your goddamned bead. You gotta see it in your mind, like, use the force and all that shit. You need to be on target, so when your target starts moving-and he will-you know 'zactly where he's gonna be. Ain't nobody just stands at a window with a bullseye on their pecker. They'll be bobbing and weaving, dancin' the goddamned hokey pokey and being everywhere your sight ain't. If you find a mark who stands still as a stogie waiting for you to pop his guts out, there's a strong chance he's already dead and gravity just ain't heard about it.

But know where your target is, even when your eyeball can't see him, and a whole world of possibility opens up to you. They got bullets now that'll punch through dirt. Guy goes into his cellar for a bottle o' rosé and bam, you punch him a new sunroof. Mosta these idiots make their houses outta iron so rusty you could piss through it. If you know where you're gonna urinate there ain't nowhere a guy can hide.

Lastly but not leastly, if you're gonna snipe, you need to get it up.

Some folks like to 'ccuse me of exaggerating the length of my you-know-what. Ask me, some folks got a case of the jealous-Es.

But my gun, ain't nobody disagreein' 'bout her length or girth. I might be a human tripod, more or less, but she's on a tripod. See what I'm sayin'?

I'm talkin' bout fucking, y'all. I mean, jeez, c'n I make it anymore obvious?

I stroke the trigger here, stuff shoots out over here. There's, like, body juices splatterin' all over the carpet. Don't none of it work 'less you got a hardon long as the Tundra express. You gotta need this kill, man. Boy, girl, bot, skag-don't make a turd of a difference. You get up on Betsy with yer you-know-what swingin' and you ride that piece of tail 'til everyone in the room's deader'n a pecker at an old folks home.

Sometimes I like to put on some romance. Dash o' cologne, vase o' flowers, put down a blanket like we was havin' a picnic. Betsy, she responds real good to shit like that, 'specially when I'm looking fine in my top hat-which I surely do now I've knocked Marcus's assprints out of it; swear to god I'm gonna kill that sumbitch.

I'm dressed all fancy for today's kill. The whereabouts are in my ECHO, 'long with some smooth jams and indecent imagery for the long and lonely nights. This is the spot, this hovel with the window box, so I'm up a mountain of scrap picking the best nest with the clearest view. It's almost nightfall by the time I get here. Some o' those buzzard thangs is up by the stars, pilots wasted, gunnin' down Rakk. Elsewise it's real peaceful. Scent o' flowers in the wind, like daffodils, or some shit. Beautiful red sundown, nearing purple by the horizon. Even the wind's real gentle. Ain't gonna put much of a spin on Betsy's bullets. Ain't gonna be seen. Ain't gonna get caught.

Dick's hard. Chest to the ground. Betsy racked up and ready to roll. It's a little warm in my killing clothes, but I need my knee pads, kevlar and whatnot. Places like this, tetanus'll finish you off.

Like Pandora's best artist-an' if killin' ain't an art I don't know what is-I draw my bead.

It's a shame. She's pretty, this one, almost as pretty as Betsy here. Looks kind of in a daze, like she just woke up, 'cept this tired smile keeps crossin' her face like she just remembered it was a holiday. Grillin' outdoors. Beers with friends. I remember how that used to be.

Got a nice clean line past her mailbox. Real cabin in the woods shit, like something out of a fairytale. Way my boss described it, this lady down here ain't nothing but hate, spit and bitch-craft, but you'd never know it to look at her, appearing an' disappearing 'tween the windows, collecting shit and droppin' it off-tidyin', I guess. She looks like a sleepwalker having the dream of her life.

But dreams and dollars'll pay my wages. Dreams alone? Well, we all gotta wake up sometime.

Nice and tight on her head now. Place is a mess. Clothes all over despite her comin's and goin's. I ain't no neat freak but a dude's gotta have standards: you don't shit where you eat an' so far as I can see, there's a fair amount of stains in them clothes. Orange and brown, the united colours doody.

An' it's like I can hear an alarm clock tryin' to wake me up, but I'm raging for this anonymous poor girl and Betsy's green with envy. A job's what it is. I'm stoned; I'm cold; I'm a killin' machine.

"Now now, baby." Two pound eight on a three pound trigger. Crazy rich bastard, here I come. "You know I only have eyes for you."

And that's when things turn to shit.

She bends, but I can follow. She dips, but I can shoot. And I'm stroking Betsy til' she yips like a pup, and just as I does I sees it: him, her, whatever.

The baby the girl's carryin'. The baby in her arms.

Got enough sense to lean on the butt while my dumb finger pulls. The shot goes, well, not so sure I should admit to this, or that it even counts seeing as it was deliberately mis-aimed an' all, but the shot goes awry, over the window, holing the lintel, shatterin' some bottle on a shelf on the far wall, exitin' through the far wall and it's adios amigo, I'm out of there.

The mother sees the exit-hole, sees the lintel, sees me, and she dives to the floor.

A second later, the baby starts bawlin'.

Now, I know my protocol. Y'ever see some snipin' hero name of Mordecai? Was he drunk as an sorority when you seen him? Thought so. Only time y'ever see Mordecai is when he's three jugs down an' the planet keeps spinnin'. If he weren't so drunk, he'd be a ghost. Like, people'd lose their heads and you'd put it down to bad Chinese. The very best snipers, you don't even know they're there 'til you're up in heaven getting a God's eye view of the playing field.

That's usually how I am: silent and deadly, but for the clangin' of my big brass gonads. But there's something about a baby's cryin' that gets under your skin. Some folks, it just makes 'em want to hurt the kid all the more.

But shit, despite of the size of my pecker I'm still a human being. Killing machine I may be, but with the exit hole smoking and the window pane starting to dissolve, all I want to do is get down there and apologise.

And when you're in the middle of making a hit that, mi compadres, is a real dumb idea.

For a start, turns out mama's got a gun of her own. Ugly thing, 'nother Tediore, 'cept where Betsy's a princess this one's a serf.

Thing about serfs: they revolt.

Skid down the last few feet of the junkpile as the first round just misses. Blows tin cans, rusty old car doors 'n' whatnot into shrapnel, disrupting the whole equilibrium of the pile. All of a sudden there's an' avalanche lookin' to bury me, and still she's reloading, one round per mag, and pointin' and shootin' and fuck, close enough for kisses.

"Wait a minute!" I yell. Hot metal in my sock, burning my ankle. Pick it off, fling it down. Rumbling close behind

"'Hey wait' my asshole." The gun butt's against her shoulder; she squints down the sight and bam, shot three throws Betsy into the dirt.

"My baby!"

"My baby!" She hurls her Tediore gun to one side where it spins off in the brush. Dry brush. Dry brush likely to catch fire brush.

The empty gun explodes and a newer model-or is the same one? Guy could go crazy thinkin' 'bout such-appearsl just a whirl of light then the shotgun's in her hands. Those're some hard-looking hands at the ends of her wrists. Raggid nails, powder burns, cuticles like you wouldn't believe. "One more step," she says. "An' I blow your worm of a dick to smithereens."

Barrel pointing at my nethers. Shitload of fast-talkin' to do.

"Ma'am, if you'd please just lower the weapon, I kin explain."

"Like hell I will. What you doin' here? Who sent you? An' what's up with your voice?"

"I've just got a deliberate way of speakin' is all. Saves me stumbling over my words."

"Yeah? Well it makes you sound like a retard." High colour up in her cheeks, and she's kind of pantin', an angry angry woman. The junkslide's slowed to a trickle-it's precarious as hell but it's stopped for now-but the brush has caught an' there's smoke in the air. Her gun barrel wavers; wavers even more when from behind her baby starts cryin'.

"I hear that a lot, ma'am. Figure I more than make up for it in other areas. Now, s'far as I can tell you're under a lot of stress. Would that be correct?"

She licks her lip, feverish, like. "What's it to you?" Then her head shakes. "An' where'd you get off, asking questions? See this shooting stick?" She jabs it t'wards my special area. If there was a bayonet on its front I'd be gelded by now. "This is my conch shell. Means I ask the questions."

"Yes ma'am, I apologise. An' if you don't mind me takin' liberties with the direction of this tete-a-tete, I'd like to gift you with my moniker and current purpose. My name's D.P. I got paid to off you, by a man by the name of-"

She laughs as I tell her.

"Oh, course you was. That sumbitch." There's even a little fondness in that laugh, a little roll-of-the-eye, like it's all a dumb game an' no one told me the rules.

Then she squares up for the headshot.

"Well, Mr. D.P. When you see him in hell, be sure to tell him Maggie May sends her regards."

'Less you have the cat-like reflexes of yours truly, there ain't no protests quick enough to stop a pulled trigger. Guess I coulda jumped to the side, grabbed that wobbling gun-barrel, played the old "Holy shit, is that Crawermax?!" card. But I was feelin' a certain serenity, like I deserved a gunshot to the face. I even see the cartridge split in slow motion, into halves sharp and rusty as the dirt at my feet. Lots of places here grow a scrubby kind of plantlife, mean stuff, prickly as that crazy old Eridium dude up in Sanctuary. Most've the bushes 'round Maggie May's place are good and flamey by now. If I had more time I coulda told her get your baby, take it somewhere that ain't on fire. I coulda said a lotta things, I guess.

But the dirt at my feet at the base of the junk mountain, the dirt now drenched in my brains, is rust, simple as. Just a shit heap of metal gone bad, I guess, eaten like acid by old, old rain.

I mean, I'd cuss her out about it, but at this point I don't have jaw enough left to swear with.