A/N: Hey, y'all. I'm still loving this story- -you lurkers (my one reviewer!) are much appreciated. LOL. Enjoy.

Chapter 2: Meds N Kills

"I can't believe we're back here." Axton turned a full circle in the familiar Overlook square. "Look at that…I think that's where Sal almost died!"

He toed a scarlet stain on the ground, which Sal considered for a moment. "Si. Definitely where I almost died."

"It's lucky you two haven't been wiped from the New-U system," said Maya, "with the way you both soak up bullets."

"I know you didn't put me in the same category as Mr. Bullet Sponge over there. I happen to be skilled at avoiding excessive damage."

"You make a good point/Sal attracts all the bullets/You run for cover." Zer0 displayed a laughing emoticon.

Everyone, except Axton, burst into laughter. Sal said, "Hey, amigo! Let's see if you've got a bullet wound in your ass from that running away!"

"My ass is perfect the way it is," Axton replied acerbically. "You wanna be a fist with hair stapled to it, be my guest. I, for one, like being attractive."

"You didn't notice how hard Sir Hammerlock flirted with you last night," said Maya. She arched a thin eyebrow. "I thought for sure your trusted flirtometer would detect it."

"C'mon, guys. Time's a-wasting," Axton said, changing topics. He nodded toward the tallish building next to the clock tower. "That's where this Karima chick lives. Zed said she'd be able to give us a status report."

They approached the door, and Axton, being Axton, was the one who knocked. A holographic image of a woman wearing a surgical mask was projected against the door. She had a wreath of flowers settled like a crown on her head.

"Hello!" she said. "Given the skill with which you dispatched those r-r-robots, we of the town of Overlook thought you might give us a hand. So to speak." Her voice was clear, and her words were articulated except for the stutter. Zed had mentioned the stutter as an effect of skull-shivers. "So, first item on the agenda. We are all dying of a brain disease. If you c-c-could get us three shipments of medication, we would live, which would allow me to keep paying you. Our m-medicine machine needs a new battery. Please climb the clock tower ladder and remove the clock's b-b-battery."

The group didn't immediately move after the image switched off. Maya was the first to speak their thoughts. "She said please. I haven't heard that word since I left Athenas."

"I forget there are decent people on this shit planet…in this shit universe," said Axton. There was no sarcasm to his remark. "Really decent people."

"Politeness is rare/Few who show it live longer/A good quality."

Sal said nothing. The manners kicked him back to his childhood with Abuela. Papery, brown skin. Sharp eyes folded in wrinkles under white hair. Power and strength in her forearms and conviction of heart. She had told him and told him that manners cost nothing. He'd been a stubborn, willful child after his parents' abandonment, until she'd had enough of his sass. His cheek stung; he touched there as if the smack she'd given him was fresh. No, it was no good. He couldn't think.

"The job, amigos. I wanna get paid sometime today," he told them.

In the end, Zer0 was the one who scaled the clock tower. He disappeared into a large Hyperion crate, and a moment later, the clock ground to a stop with a final, mournful tock. Then a man opened a channel on the ECHO net.

"Goddamnit, some jackhole broke the clock tower!" Irate was mildly putting it. "How the hell am I supposed to know what time it is, now?"

As Zer0 descended with the battery, Karima told them what they needed to do with it. Sal grinned at her last comment- -that whoever thought the town needed a running clock tower more than their medicine would be "thoroughly reprimanded". She didn't look like she could harm a fly, he thought. She couldn't even answer her own door. But he knew better to say anything aloud. They hooked it up to the correct machine and purchased the required shipment.

"Thank you, but we need two more medicine shipments," Karima said. "The next is being carried by a travelling Hyperion r-r-requisition officer wandering the Highlands. Get the medicine from him, please. Without his guards, I'm sure the salesman will give you a good price for his medicine. I'd s-s-suggest killing them. Politely, if possible."

When she signed off, Axton rubbed his face. "She kills me with the please and thank you. I wish she'd stop. I have a sudden urge to do domestic chores."

"She has not allowed the harshness and violence of this planet to harden her heart," Zer0 said, for once not using haiku. He placed a placating hand on Axton's shoulder. "We must be the hardened ones. Do not compare us to her."

Sal understood Axton's discomfort. A feeling pecked at the stone shell of his heart as well. He didn't want to think about it; he didn't want to know any more decent people. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to finish this mission and get back to Sanctuary where he fit in. No one required him to be polite there. No one stirred up…feelings.

Maya stood at the edge of a rocky bluff. "We should search on the Hyperion Highway. It's likely he'd keep to the road for easy traveling."

"Good thinking."

The team accessed a bandit truck from the Catch-a-Ride station. Salvador sat in the gunner seat. Maya and Zer0 held on in the back as Axton drove. They decided to search up near the base first and crossed a bridge over a deep chasm. In the distance, Salvador saw a small cluster of bots.

"I see them, el jefe. You want I shoot?" he asked over the ECHO.

"Not just yet. I wanna try something awesome first."

Maya sighed. "Oh, for the love of…"

The vehicle increased in speed remarkably- -Axton must've floored the pedal. The truck launched forward across the smooth pavement, in a direct line to the heart of the squad. Salvador knew Axton's mindset. He grinned and gripped the turret with unparalleled gleefulness.

The collision resulted in a massive explosion that swallowed the truck, singeing off paint. Several of the bots were flung to the roadside in a heap of burning scrap. Sal swung the turret and kept the trigger glued down, aiming at a couple WAR Loaders that survived the initial onslaught. Maya and Zer0 kept on crowd control, even as Axton drifted the truck and rammed a few more robots. More shot down from the moonbase; more exploded under Sal's fire. When all was said and done, only the requisition officer was left.

He crouched on the road, legs apart, knees bent. He wore a special exoskeleton suit to augment his strength. The vending machine had been strapped to his back. Axton swerved around and stopped, then revved the engine. The group and the officer exchanged stare-downs. They knew he had a shield that would absorb a ton of bullets and that suit would be dangerous in close quarters.

"Sal?" Axton said.

"Si, amigo."

"Don't let up on that trigger."

"Si."

"Maya, Zer0? You ready?"

Maya responded. "Yes. On your mark."

"Let's do this."

Even in the gunner's seat, Sal slammed back as the truck lurched forward. The movement didn't deter him. He targeted the officer and held down the trigger. Zer0 and Maya didn't let up on their guns' triggers either. On the HUD, the officer's shield inched lower. He stood in the middle of the road, legs braced, comfortable in his strange contraption. Axton neither swerved nor slowed. As the nose of the truck came within reach, the officer crashed a hydraulic fist into the hood.

Sal remembered flying. Then a violent tumble and sudden fall. When he could string two thoughts together (more than enough in his opinion), he was face first in a muddy brook. Cool water soaked his clothes. He had aches, but he shook them off. What he'd miss?

Well, he was no longer on the highway. He stood up, bones creaking, and surveyed. Two steep rocky walls surrounded him. There, above him, he heard Maya yell in exhalation, the spew of an SMG, the clang and slam of metal against the ground. Somehow he'd been thrown into a crevasse. Dios mio, he would miss the killing blow! That was unacceptable.

He was never an agile sort, but he didn't want to wait. As he put his hands on the sharp, slick rock, he dug his toes in for a hold. He scrambled up a couple feet, but the rock was too moist, and he lost his grip. He tried again, but the rock crumbled under his weight. After several failed attempts to climb the sides, he considered suicide. He would be reconstructed at a New-U station, no worse for wear. As he pulled out a pistol, he noticed a silence had descended on the area.

Then Karima said, "G-great! You're very efficient. I respect that. The last medicine shipment was being delivered by boat, but we lost contact. Find it, p-please."

Maldita sea! He had missed the action!

"Sal? Salvador?" Maya called over the ECHO. There was a panicked waver in her voice. "You there? Where are you?"

"Down here, senorita. At the bottom of this ass crack."

A moment later, her lovely face appeared over the top lip of the crevasse, distant, perturbed. "Are you okay? How'd you get down there?" She turned away before he could respond. "Axton, Zer0, he's down there."

Zer0 and Axton's heads appeared. Axton laughed. "So that's where you got to. Hang on a sec."

"Be patient, my friend/We will get you out of there," said Zer0. "That was a long fall."

"It was nothing."

"Okay," Maya said. "Axton's pulling up the truck. We're throwing down a rope. Hang on while he backs up."

Salvador nodded. "Si."

Hanging on didn't require much effort. The others had finished off the requisitions officer and had purchased the meds. Their vehicle was dented, a bit crumbled, but drivable. Soon he was back with the group, driving towards the diamond indicator on their HUDs. They turned off the highway onto the beach of Lake Shining Horizons- -the lake where the capital city, Opportunity, was located. As they rolled to a stop, the ground rumbled underneath them.

Threshers.

The fight was hairy. Sal, pissed he hadn't finished the prior fight, leapt from the back and charged, guns blazing. Several smaller threshers were shredded in seconds. Then a strange thresher evoked an implosive force field that sucked him forward into its spiky ruff. Sal turned both his guns up to pump lead into the thing's eyes. He didn't run out of bullets, but nearly did before the thresher released its grip on him.

His shield shattered. He ignored it, took aim at the nearest brown worm wiggling from the ground, and didn't stop until it was a meaty smear in the dirt. He heard the others behind him, explosions, the strange noise of the threshers, and beneath his feet, the constant rumble of earth.

Then Axton called over the ECHO. "Sal, you're closest. We'll cover you. Get to that supply crate!"

Sal turned on his heel. He sprinted and dodged between thresher bodies and writhing tentacles. A hail of barbs peppered his shield. So many threshers had risen. Orange, fiery sawblades cut a swath in front of him to a sandbar, where two Hyperion crates had washed up. He punched the green button to open the first container, found Zed's machine, and purchased the skull-shivers medicine.

"I've got it!" he told the others.

"Great. Now get your short ass into the truck!" Axton said. "I'm coming- -shit, behind you!"

"Wha-"

Sal wheeled around, his energy waning, and came face to face with a gigantic thresher. It pulsed purple, much like the earlier thresher, but more powerful, and Sal realized he was in a bad spot. The spiked head vibrated. A purple glow expanded, sucked him off his feet into the thresher's stinking hide. He didn't have but a second's worth of time to preserve his life. He reached to his belt, freed a couple grenades, and flicked the tops.

Spines pierced his flesh and organs, and even though the pain blinded him, he didn't lose consciousness. His arm was long enough, strong enough. He swung his fist back then used the momentum to punch a hole into the thresher's soft underbelly. There he planted the grenades. Darkness shrouded his vision. A sudden impact caused a lapse in time.

He felt floaty. Calmly, he accepted that he was dying. A crest of spines shivered on his chest with each difficult breath. The first couple times he died, he had struggled against it, fought it, forgetting the New-U, cursing the bandits who had killed him, swearing retribution in the afterlife. He was seasoned now to relax into the loss of consciousness, welcomed it even, because it gave him relief from pain.

When he came around, he didn't recognize the ceiling. He knew Zed's like the back of his hairy hand. He wasn't there. He wasn't at a New-U station either. He stirred, but cringed back when the pain nauseated him. Though the New-U system brought the dead (or dying) back to life, sometimes a glitch in the system would result in injuries remaining. It was Sal's luck that this was the case now.

He'd been placed on a cot against a wall in an alcove. Hanging lights shed a dim glow across a floor decorated with a brightly woven Armidian rug. A bulletin board was nailed to the wall above a desk with several panels spread out. On the opposite wall from the desk were shelves with potted plants- -flowers, vines, some weedy-looking herbs. The shelves were inset with bright, UV lighting.

What struck him most was the neatness. Papers stacked and organized; blueprints aligned and stapled to the board in straight lines. No unnecessary clutter on the desk. And for being underground, the place smelled like lemon cleaning solution. Just like Abuela's.

He didn't even notice the slip of a woman standing, frozen to be more accurate, in a doorway on the opposite side of the room. She had on a grey and blue regulation Hyperion uniform, a thigh-length skirt, and brown boots that let her knees peek out. Her mouth and nose were covered with a surgical mask. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

He stared back. Neither said anything. More staring occurred. Finally, to break the silence and the staring, he said, "Hola, senorita."

"Hello," she replied, voice soft. Then she seemed to gather herself. "I see you have recovered sufficiently from your wounds," she said as she approached him. "I'm Karima. I am pleased to meet you in person. When you arrived, your friends r-r-requested a place to lay low while you regained consciousness. They had to use several R-rejuvenator vials to r-revive you, but they apparently did not have enough to fully heal you. I would like to thank you again for the service you and your friends have performed for Overlook. We are very grateful."

Sal had to take a moment to absorb her long thanks. "Uh, de nada?"

She was close enough that he discerned the color of her hair- -it was sandy, cut with precision above her shoulders. The color was that of the rolling sands surrounding Ovejas. In the back of his head, he heard Abuela saying, "One day, hijo, one day you'll meet a nice girl. Then you'll see Abuela was right." He didn't know what do with the thought.

"Would you now like to speak with your friends? I have directed them to our local pub, Holy Spirits. Mr. Mick Zaford and his family own and r-run it, plus the distillery. His brand of whiskey is very popular among the locals." Her slim, white fingers checked the meters of gauze wrapped around his ribs and chest. They were quick, efficient, painless. "I can call them back. It is no trouble whatsoever."

Si. Do that. Save him from the sudden onslaught of heat her fingers caused, from the lust fluttering in his belly whenever she spoke. Instead he heard himself say, "No."

"Very well. I am happy to say that because of your team's excellent work, I have another job to offer you. Your leader, Mr. Axton, said that when you are back in fighting condition, the job will…be…com…ple…oh, no," she said.

Out of the blue, her eyes rolled back, and she sagged forward. She landed across Sal's chest, her flower crown crumpled to one side. He shook her gently. "Senorita? Senorita? Dios mio," he said, when she proved unresponsive and limp.

Clearly, she was dead. He didn't know what to do. When her body didn't dematerialize, he realized she wasn't in the New-U system. Eh. He'd been in worse situations. On a chair beside the bed was an open bin. It proved to contain his digistruct holsters, his shirts, and his utility belt that had his ECHO. He switched on the ECHO to open a group chat.

"Eh, amigos? Un poco problema."

Axton was first to respond over the din of music, people talking, and clinking glass. "Did you say there's a problema? How can there be a problema? We left not five minutes ago! What did you do in five minutes?"

"Easy there, fearless leader," said Maya. "Sal, what's wrong?"

"The lady. She dead."

A long pause. "Excuse me?"

"The lady! She talked some and now…she dead!"

"Sal," Maya said with over careful enunciation, "you didn't shoot her, did you?"

"I tell you. I wake up, she talk some. Then fall over! No bullets, no blades, nada," he said. "And that other time was an accident."

Axton started to laugh. "You're telling me you killed her with your ugliness? That's…" He couldn't finish from the onset of hysterical laughing.

"Axton! Don't be an idiot. She didn't die from Salvador being ugly," Maya said, crossly. "I'm coming over. Don't…just stay put, okay?"

As he waited, he felt sorry that Karima had died. He kind of liked her a little…how she made him feel important and respected without trying. Not many people had that in them. Her face was lax, soft, in repose. Eyelashes that were thick, her form feminine in every right place. He shifted some, winced from the stings, and shuffled around to lay her out on the cot. Her skirt had ridden up her white thighs. He had a bad moment where he wanted to stroke up under that skirt, to cup a hand on her hip, but he redirected the urge. Abuela would be disappointed.

He was buckling on his gear over the layer of bandages when Maya entered the room from a door beside the desk. She glanced around as if expecting to see something, and then went to place her fingers on Karima's white throat. After a few seconds, she sighed and relaxed.

Sal hoped he understood. "Not dead?"

"No, not dead. Thankfully," Maya said. "She must've overexerted herself. She's still weak from the skull-shivers. I'm gonna contact Zed and see what he says. I'll stay with her. You go on over to Holy Spirits. You look like you could use a drink."

"Si. Lots of them."

The corner of Maya's mouth lifted. "Axton's got a head start on you. If you hurry, you can catch up."

"Gracias."

Sal hurried down the stairs into the main living area. Kitchen and table with chairs were arranged on one side of the place, and a couch and sitting area near a radio in another. There were no windows, he noticed, but the area was lit well and decorated with photos and cloth tapestries. Regardless, he felt cooped up, suffocated. He needed out. A door on the other side of the living room opened to the front porch and open night air.

The quiet outside was broken only with the continued announcements and the distant hiss and scream of stalkers. The Hyperion moonbase hovered overhead, its evil ubiquitous, omniscient. Sal rolled back his tense shoulders and sauntered to Holy Spirits, the entire time thinking of Karima's thighs.

A/N: In keeping with my perception of Sal, he's not entirely a good human being, so there will be some instances of that in upcoming chapters. I promise nothing too out of character. PM if you have questions, etc. See you next time!