Hooked on a Feeling

by Quatermass

A young expert on Sirens working for Hyperion receives a message from a childhood friend he hasn't seen for ages. Unfortunately, it also means he earns the wrath of Handsome Jack. Stuck in the wilderness of Pandora with the Vault Hunters, Dr Snyder is no hero. He's a coward, and perpetually on the brink of madness. But fight he must, if only to save his oldest friend, Angel...

2. Chapter 1: Jacket Potato

CHAPTER 1:

JACKET POTATO

Hooga chaka hooga hooga,

Hooga chaka hooga hooga,

Hooga chaka hooga hooga,

Hooga chaka hooga hooga…

I wasn't sure what I was feeling as I tried to listen to the song on my music player. Fear? Anxiety? Anticipation? Excitement? Avarice, albeit of knowledge rather than money? All of the above? I mean, after all, here I was, heading to an unknown situation, on a planet generally acknowledged as the shithole of the universe (well, and it still be somewhat habitable, anyway). And I had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Still, I had a job to do, and I hoped it would grant me some things that I deeply desired.

Some people come to Pandora for riches. Some come for fame. Some come to track down the legendary Vaults. And some come for knowledge. I considered myself to be in the latter category.

I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me,

Girl, you just don't realise what you do to me.

When you hold me in your arms so tight,

You let me know things are alright.

I had some time to kill before the rendezvous. I was the Official Hyperion Vault Hunter Attaché Associate, a term filled with redundancy and doublespeak. I was told that I had to be the face of Hyperion for these assorted mercenaries, criminals, and weirdos. I had to shave off my beard and wear a suit (and considering that this train had little air conditioning and was currently travelling through a desert, I wondered if this was a punishment Handsome Jack thought up, being a jacket potato baking in the hot train). I thought this was a job normally meant for one of Jack's management suits, but then again, he had given me a major incentive. You know that whole shtick about an offer you can't refuse? Well, at the time, I couldn't refuse because it had what I thought to be the best incentive ever.

Ahhhh, ah-ahhhhh, ah-ahhhhh!

Hooked on a feeling!

I'm high on believing

That you're in love with me…

Of course, there was that nagging feeling that something was wrong. And I thought I knew what it was. That message…could it really have been her? The girl who reminded me so much of this old song?

No. That was paranoia talking. Handsome Jack was a dick, true, but he wasn't that much of one, was he?

But you did hear the rumours. Whispers in the corridors of Hyperion, even if I isolated myself to my lab and the library.

And more than rumours. That the official stories weren't quite the real story.

But I kept my head down. Better to focus on my work. The Siren song of research and discovery.

Lips as sweet as candy,

Its taste is on my mind,

Girl, you got me thirsty

For another cup of wine…

The train came to a stop. It was a pimple of a station on the arse-end of the world. But apparently, here, the Vault Hunters invited by Jack had gathered. And I had to go meet and greet.

Sighing, I paused the music player and took the earphones out. I hoped Jack's intel was good. I needed some major incentive to be here, as a PR lackey, to a group of mercenaries and bandits. Hopefully, she just stepped onto the train.

I looked at myself in the mirror, nearly falling into it as the train began to move again. A lean, pointed face, with a usually untidy mop of red hair tamed only through the heavy application of hair gel. I look like a ginger scarecrow in a suit. And why oh why did my parents call me Richard? Handsome Jack already had a field day making cheap jokes about me being a soulless ginger (I sometimes wonder if he dyes his dark hair), but thanks to my parents, he loves calling me 'Dick'. One of the top graduates from Hyperion College, and he delights in calling me 'Dick'. Saying stuff like, "Uh, don't mind me, I'm playing with my Dick."

I also checked my main weapon, a fairly expensive Maliwan custom job. A pistol, able to rotate through elemental properties. I'd designed it myself, and had commissioned Maliwan to make it. It had decent power, and I could cycle through the various elements to suit my foe, but firing speed was a bitch. Of course, I'd only had shot this baby on a firing range. I'd never shot a person before. And I hoped not to. But I wasn't stupid enough to come to Pandora without a weapon. Or several, but those were in my pockets.

I felt the familiar twinge in my head. No, not now. Not in front of these people. They WILL take it the wrong way. The twinge subsided, almost as quickly as it had come.

I sighed, before I left my compartment, walked down the corridors of the train, and found myself confronted by a sextet of assorted Vault Hunters. Including her. The Siren.

"A pleasure to meet you," I lied with a forced smile (that probably made me look like I wanted to go for their neck). "I am Doctor Richard Snyder, Official Hyperion Vault Hunter Attaché Associate."

DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER

Knows a Lot About Sirens, and Dick About People

My proclamation didn't go down well enough. They looked at me in varying degrees of bemusement, contempt, and hilarity.

Eventually, it was the commando (Axton, wasn't it?) who broke the silence. Ruggedly handsome, muscled, and with the features of Dan Dare and the smile of a bastard(1). "Nice suit. You about cooked yet?"

AXTON AS

THE COMMANDO

Soldier. Sentry-lover. Smartarse.

I couldn't speak for a moment. "Umm, guys, is he suffering heatstroke?" asked the girl in her late teens, with the cute pigtails, the goggles, and the rather rough and ready look to her. Oh yes. Gaige, a robotic prodigy.

GAIGE AS

THE MECHROMANCER

I Like Big Bots and I Cannot Lie

"No, no! I'm fine. Just a little bit hot, that's all," I said hastily. "Anyway, on behalf of the Hyperion Corporation, I wish to welcome you to Pandora…"

"I already live here, you pendejo," said the squat, muscled man with the pointed beard, pointed hair, and deep-set eyes.

SALVADOR AS

THE GUNZERKER

Less Talk, Moar Dakka

"…Okay," I said after an appropriate pause to marshal my flagging wit. Unfortunately, it died a slow, painful death. And my train of thought was interrupted when the train rocked briefly. I then heard a thud on the roof. I activated my ECHO and connected to the train's AI. Apparently it was the result of the train and a bandit vehicle having a disagreement. And the train won the dispute.

It would have been amusing, but it didn't help my situation though. Dammit, I hate public speaking at the best of times. And I couldn't meet her eyes. The one who I had come for.

I looked around for something, anything, to help. I came across a sign hanging from the ceiling, and smiled. Salvation! Or so I thought. It was a sign showing a smiling Handsome Jack, and the words WELCOME VAULT HUNTERS. I grinned, probably showing too many teeth (and given that I was sure that was a Psycho standing with the Vault Hunters, that might not have been a good idea), and I gestured with my hands to the sign. But when I heard something from the sign, and saw their eyes narrowing, I turned to face it, just in time to see the first sign, already dangling by a single point, drop off to reveal a second sign.

Said sign had Handsome Jack grinning rather demonically against a burning background, while the words TO YOUR DOOM. (NOTHING PERSONAL) were on it. And advancing towards us, weapons at the ready, were a group of Hyperion Loaders.

"Stand down!" I yelled.

"AUTHORISATION NOT RECOGNISED," a Loader grated.

I gaped. What the hell was going on?

"Treachery abounds,

Jack's true colours are shown,

This he will regret.(2)"

The electronically distorted voice came from the figure (a man? But why did he have three fingers and a thumb?) in the figure-hugging combat suit and blank, streamlined black helmet. Ah, yes. The enigma. Zer0.

ZER0 AS

A NUMBER

He can do haiku at the drop of a head.

Now, nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of dying. So, I began to run, deciding to put the Vault Hunters between me and the Loaders. I did have a personal shield, but I didn't know how long it would protect my precious, precious flesh from being aerated. Having some people more competent at combat than I between the Loaders and myself should help.

DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER AS

A COWARD

"Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum!(3)"

However, I noticed that the Vault Hunters were scattering. Not because of my charge, as I knew, even in my panicked state, I wasn't that intimidating. Zer0 was disappearing to the ceiling, clambering out, while Salvador was diving out of the train proper, presumably to cling to the side. As the others scattered and pulled out weapons, I found myself in a head-on collision with the Psycho, who was far more tall and muscular than most Psychos I had seen in pictures.

It was like hitting a brick wall, only slightly less painful. I found myself looking up into the one exposed eye staring out at me from the mask he wore. It was a dark, dark abyss. I stared into that abyss, and it stared back at me.

Well, shit.

KRIEG AS

THE PSYCHO

Sanity isn't his department. Slaughter is.

"MOVE ASIDE, JAUNDICE-SACK!" the…creature bellows, shoving me aside and hefting a buzz-axe as it advanced on the Loaders. "THESE METAL BOXES NEED UNPACKING, AND I'M A KID AT CHRISTMAS!"

"Wow," Gaige said as she fired a shotgun blast past the Psycho and at the Loaders. "I wonder why Krieg didn't cut you down?"

"I'm wondering that myself," I whimpered. "Wait, IT has a NAME?"

"Now, now," chided Axton, who was summoning a digistructed sentry gun while whipping out a rocket launcher to use on the Loaders. "That's rather rude, Mr Hyperion."

"Doctor Richard Snyder!" I corrected.

"Oh, wow! Nice to meet you, Dick!"

Oh, great. Another one.

He let loose with a rocket launcher round, sending a rocket spiralling into the Loaders, where it exploded, nearly throwing shrapnel into the face of a slender young woman in a figure-hugging yellow combat suit. She had blue hair and yellow eyes, pale skin on which blue markings stood out. Beautiful and elegant, she seemed somewhat out of place in this battlefield.

Until she raised a hand and enveloped one of the surviving Loaders in a sphere of energy and smirked, the tattoo-like markings on her arm glowing.

MAYA AS

THE SIREN

Phaselock and roll.

She hurled the Loader that had been enveloped by her powers, and hurled it out through the door of the train. "Hey, watch it!" bellowed the voice of Salvador, who leapt back in, equipped a couple of machine guns, and began shooting the Loaders with a berserk roar. He was enjoying himself immensely.

I, however, was not.

Eventually, they ran out of things to shoot and kill, and rather tentatively, I got to my feet. Before I could say anything, however, I found myself lifted high into the air, enveloped in a field of energy. Had I been less terrified, I would have been a bit more excited at the chance to experience a Siren's abilities firsthand. Unfortunately, I also knew that she was very angry. As they all were. "Talk! Did you know about that?" she snarled.

"God, no, I swear! Jack just told me to come down here and act as your liaison! I wanted to meet an actual Siren in the flesh, that's why!"

"Fear burns lies away,

Hyperion's dog speaks truth.

Let him down, Maya."

Zer0's distorted voice got through to Maya, and I was dropped from the energy field, and left to sprawl on the floor. My dignity got bruised along with the rest of me. I was then hauled roughly to my feet. "So, what do we do with him?" Axton asked.

"Bring him. He may have access codes we need," Maya said. She looked at me, and sighed. "Did you want to worship me, or experiment on me?"

Caught unawares by the strange question, I eventually said, "Umm…does research and field observation count as either of those?"

She raised an eyebrow, and her mouth quirked in a slight smile, before she gently shoved me forward. Well, any response where she doesn't kill me with her mind was a good response.

---

We went through car to car, until finally we got to the last one, at the front of the train. They seemed to think Handsome Jack was here, despite my protests to the contrary. But for a moment, when the door opened and a familiar silhouette was revealed, seated, I wondered if they were right.

As it turned out, I was right. I got bored of being right, and others being wrong(4).

The chair swivelled to reveal a bomb strapped to a crude dummy of Handsome Jack. And behind that dummy were stacks of explosives. "Y'know, it's cute that you think you're the heroes of this story. But you're not. Welcome to Pandora, kiddoes. Oh, and Dick? Consider this your termination. I'd have said 'cutting my Dick off', but I'm not crazy."

I gaped as the timer ran down towards zero. The others were running out of the compartment, but there was no time. Eventually, I fumbled in my coat, extracting an item, turning around and tackling Gaige and Axton, who were bringing up the rear, to the ground. Because the Vault Hunters were so closely packed, once those two went down, the others fell down in the rugby scrum from Hell.

"Hey!" Gaige screamed. "What are you doing?!"

"Saving our lives!" I yelled, pulling the pin from the item in my hands.

"But that's a GRENADE!" Axton yelled, his eyes comically wide. "Are you insane?"

Just before the world got consumed in flame and fire, and everything went black, I thought, Buddy, you have no fucking idea.

It wasn't my last conscious thought, though. My last thought as the blackness ate at my mind was of the girl I had lost. The one whom, it seemed, Jack may have tried to kill me over.

Angel…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

Well, I hope that was a good opening chapter. Now, in case you're wondering, Snyder is a coward because, frankly, he's been pretty isolated all his life (partly because of his own choice), and hasn't actually set foot on Pandora until this point. And his boss has just tried to kill him. He's going to be lucky to keep breathing, even with the Vault Hunters for company. He will get better. He's also certain that he's not part of the New-U respawn system.

Oh, and 'coward' isn't his class. He will get a third character splash later in the game…um, I mean story. I just couldn't resist making multiple character splashes about him for humour's sake. I found the character splashes similar to the captions used in Burn Notice, and they sometimes do it over the same person multiple times in the same episode. Don't worry, he'll get his chance to be badass, outside of his actions at the end of the chapter, which were born mostly out of panic. Yes, he did save their lives. Impulsively.

You'll also notice that I'm using British and Australian terms. Besides the fact that I am an Aussie and a major Anglophile, I've noticed a lack of British and Aussie people on Pandora (the only examples I can think of offhand are Sir Hammerlock and, I'm pretty sure, Captain Scarlett). I refuse to believe that Pandora is populated almost exclusively by Americans. So Doctor Snyder is Anglo-Australian, yet another thing Handsome Jack finds funny and mocks Snyder for.

I hope you like the modified character splashes for the main characters. They didn't get a motto in their character splashes in the game, so I decided to make some up.

1. This was based on a description Steven Moffat used for Captain Jack Harkness in his debut in the script of Doctor Who: The Empty Child. Dan Dare was the daring space pilot star of a famous (at the time) science fiction comic series in the UK. That Snyder has even heard of Dan Dare this far in the future speaks for his nerdiness and enjoyment of obscure and ancient pop-culture. Incidentally, I love the Doctor Who references in Borderlands 2. I'm surprised at how many Krieg spouts…

2. I'm sorry if this is a crap haiku, along with Zer0's other haikus. I have NEVER written haikus before (though in my youth, I have written bad poetry), so if the quality is crap, well, that's why. I also decided to change it from the usual formatting of Zer0's haikus (that I've seen so far), so instead of using a slash to denote the next line, I just put the line on another line. If that makes sense. Even so, it helps sharpen the mind and helps get me into Zer0's mindset.

3. Snyder isn't a complete self-insert. A good chunk of him was inspired by other characters, and one of them was one whose motto was this Dog Latin phrase, which means, roughly, "Shit, shit, shit, I'm about to die!" If that's not enough of a clue for you, I'll state it outright: it's Rincewind from the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Funnily enough, a pseudo-alternate version of Rincewind on Earth (thanks to a series of weird events in The Colour of Magic) is a scientist, namely a specialist in the breakaway oxidative phenomena in nuclear reactors. Or, if you want the translation, what happens when said reactors catch on fire. Snyder's field is more in eridium and the Sirens, though.

4. A variation on a quote from the Blake's 7 episode Rescue. After being saved by the acerbic and arrogant Avon from a vicious beast, Dayna asks him, "Do you get tired of being right?" Avon snarks back, "Only with the rest of you being wrong."