Disclaimer: Borderlands and all of Pandora's residents are the intellectual property of Gearbox Software. No copyright infringement intended.
Chapter 3
Angel imagines what it would be like to build a new empire.
Her own empire.
Gaige is such a fucking badass. Sometimes, Gaige drapes herself across Deathtrap's shoulder like one of those buxom models painted on the sides of antiquated ships from olden times. Sometimes, Gaige stands with her hands on her hips, Deathtrap looming in the background, claws out and electricity crackling. Once, Gaige popped a cigar in her mouth, and just strutted about while Deathtrap slashed and hacked and burned bandits to death as they cowered in their portaloos.
Actually, that last one didn't end quite so well. Much retching and gagging. "How do you smoke those things?" she screamed at Salvador.
Angel wonders what it would be like to have her own Deathtrap.
No! Ten Deathtraps. An entire battalion of lethal wardroids hulking in formation behind her. A whole bombardment of bullets and missiles and slag and fire, all ready to be loosed upon her enemies the moment the order left her lips.
Oooh, oooh! And above their heads, a squadron of drones. Black, sleek, bristling with weaponry. A grim host of airborne destroyers, and all that was needed for a storm of laser-guided death and destruction to be unleashed upon their adversaries was for Angel to say one word: "Fire."
And a Badassasaurus!
Angel launches from her seat, screeching, and then staggers around the room, her hands flapping at the wrists. Imagine having her own Badassasaurus! Ohmygawd ohmygawd. She could command it to eat bandits while they were hiding in their Technicals! She could order it to immolate bandit strongholds with the massive-ass flamethrower in its mouth! She could stand on its head while it rumbled about the battlefield, crushing her opponents beneath its enormous wheels! She could stand high, high above, and watch as her legions conquered the lands of Pandora, as her robotic armies crushed her enemies, as fleets of her ships soared over her in the skies!
Eyes wide, Angel gazes into the distance. Guess I'd be able to call myself a Vault Hunter, then, she thinks.
Phase-shift.
That's the unique gift that Angel's Siren heritage has given her. Angel can inveigle her way into the circuits and digital conduits of any piece of machinery she encounters. She can insert her consciousness into a machine, inhabit silicon and fibre-wires and conductive pathways. She can mentally hack into a computer, or a vehicle, or an appliance, or a device, and compel it to do whatever she wishes.
Trouble is, she needs to practice.
Angel spent her entire life surrounded by Hyperion technology. Hyperion ships and Hyperion guns and Hyperion droids and Hyperion engines. Hyperion motherboards and Hyperion drivers and Hyperion firewalls and Hyperion operating systems.
Angel has spent a decade honing her skills on Hyperion products. She is intimately familiar with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies that the company incorporates into its technologies. She has amassed an absolutely enormous amount of knowledge about Hyperion manufacturing processes, and has developed an utterly unmatched intuition for its machines' internal workings. In a matter of microseconds, Angel can not only bring any Hyperion technology completely under her control, but she can raise them to unrivalled levels of optimization.
Hyperion technology.
Angel doesn't know a fucking thing about Torgue.
Well, she knows a few things. She knows that Torgue silencers are completely useless given that every single Torgue bullet explodes. She knows that Torgue weapons tend to jam at inopportune moments.
Angel knows that the Torgue Badassasaurus can do a 1440 while breathing corrosive fire, and every time it does, she jumps to her feet and shrieks like everyone else in the arena.
But the composition and engineering of Torgue technology?
Dahl technology?
Jakobs?
Tediore?
Pangolin?
Vladof?
I dunno.
The Eridium Injector weighs five hundred and eighty pounds.
Angel's father transfixed her upon the metal throne of Hyperion, but he never succeeded in trapping her completely. She broke free. Eventually.
The Vault Hunters have trapped her, however. Maya, Lilith, Gaige, all the others; they made it look easy. Angel's father could not imprison her with all the technology of his empire, but the Vault Hunters have taken away her freedom with nothing more than sympathy, and pity, and infuriating, humiliating charity.
The Vault Hunters have made a prisoner of a Siren Techo-Goddess simply by feeling sorry for her.
Gaige is such a fucking badass, but she's also really, really fucking annoying. I mean, does she really think – does Gaige really, seriously think – that Angel appreciates it when she treats her like a whimpering little poodle who needs a new leg? Does Gaige honestly believe that Angel is grateful when she treats her like a clotheshorse, like some sort of living doll that she gets to dress up?
When Gaige is all alone, and she pushes flick knives and box cutters into her thigh, does she even realize that Angel is watching? Does she realize that just the smallest part of Angel – just the teeeeensiest part – thinks to herself: you deserve it.
Angel imagines what it would be like to build a new empire.
She knows that Pandora is littered with machines. Disused vehicles abandoned in the dunes. Rusting droids standing still as statues, not doing anything because their masters were killed and their killers were too stupid to operate them. Broken robots lying in the dust – shattered and ravaged, but they could be repaired.
One day, Angel will get her strength back.
Cut her lungs out, and her kidneys, and as many inches of her intestines as Doctor feels necessary. Chop her feet off, so the infection doesn't reach her legs. Angel doesn't care. When you've been impaled by three massive eridium injectors, body horror somewhat loses its effectiveness.
Someday, Angel will walk out of Sanctuary. Crazy Earl will shrink that eridium injector to the size of a darn thermal flask, and then Angel will digistruct an Outrunner and race off into the plains.
She'll look for machines. Robots. Tediore, Dahl, Maliwan, Atlas; it doesn't matter. She'll repair them, and then she'll figure a way into their positronic brains. She'll bend them to her will. She'll bring them into her kingdom.
Droids, drones, turrets, tanks. And a Badassasaurus, of course. Somehow. Mr. Torgue probably throws them out in the trash, from time to time. Eventually, Angel will get lucky.
Angel will build her own robot warband. They'll advance across the deserts and tundras of Pandora, a massive cloud of smoke and dust rising behind them. Get a load of that, bandits.
There will be no Hyperion technology. Not a single trace. Her entire life, Angel spent in Hyperion, and one moment she's proud of. Not Hew Haven. Not the opening of the Vault. Angel is done with Hyperion.
Angel casts a baleful glance at the massive shape floating in the corner. Mr. Jones will not be extended an invitation, either.
Angel will become a Vault Hunter. She'll become one of the best. But she won't be known as The Siren, no. They'll call her...hmmm, what will they call her? The Technomage! No. The Junk Queen! No...
Eventually, Angel will get her health back. In the meantime, she'll get ready. She'll study all these strange technologies. Vladof. Maliwan. Anshin. Dahl. Torgue. Especially Torgue. She'll make sense of them all.
Angel can hear Gaige as she approaches. "Angeeeeel!"
She comes to a halt somewhere in the kitchen.
"Ooh!" She must have noticed the tray of brownies Brick left on the counter.
"Mmmf mmf mmfh." Somehow, Gaige's chomping and chewing carries through solid walls.
"Angel?" She's on the move again.
A door opens, and Gaige swishes in. "Perks of being awesome!" she chirrups, whipping out a trio of tickets. Angel can make out the Torgue logo. "No self-respecting Vault Hunter would be seen dead in the nosebleed section. This evening, Ms. Guardian Angel, Ms. Mechromancer and Ms. Tiny Tina will be spectating in style in the Torgue VIP box! Maya versus the Ruptured Verucas, Live Toniiiiight!"
Angel's face lights up. "Cool," she says.
()()()()()()()()()
It breaks Mordecai's heart, the knowledge that Sanctuary will be left behind.
"No, Mordi, we can't bring the town with us to Arius," Gaige told him, earlier that day.
"Can't you just..." Mordecai threw up his shoulders. "I dunno. Strap thrusters onto it, or something?"
Gaige blinked. A teenager now had to explain something really, really simple to a man as old as her father. "Sanctuary was built on an interplanetary mining ship," she said, employing that distinctive questioning intonation of which youngsters are oh-so-fond and the middle-aged oh-so-hate. "Interplanetary. Not interstellar. This baby's not going anywhere."
You know the Vault Hunters have a problem when their chief engineer is an eighteen-year-old girl.
"It's just a freakin' ship," Lilith tells him, when evening comes. "We'll find another vessel."
Mordecai grunts in response.
"And besides," Lilith continues, leaning back in her seat, "someone's gotta take care of this world when we're gone. Are we gonna leave the Crimson Raiders without their base?"
Mordecai's expression shifts a touch. Cant argue with that. "I guess not," he says.
Thirty minutes ago, Lilith barged her way into headquarters, pointedly ignored Tannis, and shambled into the ladies' bathroom. Her feet were unsteady, and she needed to grab tables and pillars to keep herself upright. Her skin was gleaming with sweat.
When she re-emerged, ten minutes later, she'd spruced herself up.
They're sitting together, now, on the balcony overlooking the city. All the rooftops and antenna masts have almost been seared into their eyeballs by now. The Hyperion Moonbase is still looming far above.
Lilith pushes forward, planting her elbows on her knees. She peers intently at the town. "Gotta say," she says. "If we leave in...six weeks...I think I might miss this place. If we leave in six months, I'm gonna be so sick of it, I'll be happy to leave it behind."
Mordecai glances at her.
At the moment, Maya is the Vault Hunters' biggest source of revenue. Mordecai isn't particularly thrilled about the fact that Moxxi takes fifteen percent...not that it's any of his business, in any way, shape or form...
Maya brings in about two hundred thousand dollars a month.
The others, combined, bring in about two hundred and fifty-thousand a month.
Trouble is, Vault Hunters have a whole lot of overheads.
Lilith knows that if ten Vault Hunters – herself, Mordecai, Brick, Maya, Axton, Salvador, Gaige, Zero, Krieg, Tina – are to set up base on a distant planet, they'll need to raise about four million dollars.
Lilith knows that they're not leaving in six weeks.
A bunch of beer bottles are accumulating on the table between them. Mordecai gives one of them a little shake, and the liquid sloshes within.
Mordecai gives a nervous laugh. "I gotta say," he says, his voice rising with ill-fitting joviality, "I've been knocking the booze back like hell, lately. Heh heh! Kinda forget to watch myself, you know?"
Lilith cocks her head, and gives Mordecai her best out with it, asshole look.
He doesn't do a very good job of hiding his discomfort. "Everyone's real worried, Lil," he says. "How bad is this eridium problem? I mean, really?"
"I've got a handle on it," she states. Now, she's giving him her best change the topic look. But Mordecai's not buying it. Thirty minutes ago, he saw her shoulder her way into the bathroom.
"We don't want anything bad to happen, that's all." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the house where their guest is staying. "I mean, look at Angel. See what the eridium's done to her. Goddamn it, we got Claptrap racing around, annoying everybody, and now she's trudging around with that big-ass machine, and everyone who sees her gets depressed. She's puking blood, she's getting headaches. Zed says some of her organs might not be viable. You know what it would do to Brick, if that happened to you? You know what it would do to freakin' Tina, if she had to see that?"
The evening mood is being spoiled. "Oh, please, Mordecai," Lilith says, "you're the one who clearly gives the least amounts of crap about Angel..."
"I'm serious, Lilith!" Mordecai says, rocking forward in his chair. "You gonna spend the rest of your life hooked up to an Injector, like Angel? How far's it gonna go?"
"I said I've got a handle on it."
Down below, there's an astonished gasp. "Daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy!"
Lilith and Mordecai forget their argument, and look out onto the square below. Gaige is sprinting across the ground. She collides with a man of about forty years' age, spinning around him like a carousel seat.
"Who the hell is that?" Lilith says.
"Huh," Mordecai says. "It's Gaige's Pops."
()()()()()()()()()()()
"You know what be cool?" Tina says. "Siren tag team. Maya and Lilith, two imposing-ass Siren maidinz wreckin' shit."
Gaige shakes her head. "Everyone knows that Torgue Sports requires its athletes to submit to unscheduled drug testing WHENEVER," she says, shouting to be heard above the din of the crowd. "If we walked in on Lilith right now, and demanded a urine sample? Girlfriend's pissing purple."
It takes Gaige a moment to remember that she and Angel are sitting in the exact same booth. "Oh, Angel!" she shrieks, stretching across to put a hand on Angel's arm. "I am so, so sorry, I totally forgot you were there. I didn't mean..."
Angel gives that particular nervous-but-warm smile which has proven so useful for defusing foot-in-mouth-related situations. "It's alright," she says.
In the arena below, two bandit clans are kicking the absolute snot out of each other. Grenades are exploding. Blades are swinging. Limbs are flying. Bullets are shooting through the air and impacting upon the massive shields that mostly protect the bellowing, baying crowd.
Gaige's father is watching the whole thing with pale skin and a ghastly, disbelieving smile. This is what his daughter has been up to these past few months. This is how his daughter is spending the end of her adolescence. This is the world to which he helped his little girl escape.
Father looks as though, at any moment, his mind is about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
Ugh, Gaige thinks to herself. If your head is going to explode, Dad, at least wait until Badassasaurus comes out.
Gaige has a container filled with popcorn. Angel has a pot of ice-cream. Tina has fries, nachos, peanuts, chips, hot dogs, cookies and soda and yet, throughout the night, her hand will continue to reach over and plunder her friends' food.
()()()()()()()()()()()
"Sooooooooo," Lilith saaaaaaaays, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. "Has, uh, has..."
"No, Maya and I have not talked about Moxxi," Mordecai says.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
Maya crosses her arms. "I am a Vault Hunter," she declares. "I am not a model."
"Honey, they're offering you four hundred thousand dollars just to wear some swimsuits," Moxxi says. The they she is referring to is a galaxy-wide publishing company whose range of ECHOcasts reach something in the region of fifty billion eyeballs a day. "You will win an entire legion of new fans, fans who will tune into your next fight, pushing up your fee. It's basic business." Moxxi flutters her eyelashes. "Four hundred thousand dollars – minus my commission, of course – would go a long way towards getting the Vault Hunters to Arius. Don't you wanna help your friends?"
"If my friends find out you're trying to guilt me into taking off my clothes, they'll burn your fricking bar down."
Moxxi's bottom teeth show. "One of your friends has been working her ass off making sure you get every dollar you deserve," she says. "One of your friends has been dealing with the scumbags and slimeballs of the fight industry so that you can focus on the fighting!"
Maya sags. "I'm sorry, Moxxi..."
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Moxxi yelps. She lunges forward and seizes Maya by the arms, shaking her vigorously. "Good lord, you have a match in ten minutes! Don't be sorry, be angry. AN-GREEE!"
"Okay, okay!" Maya says, hands raised. "I'm angry. I'm angry."
Now it's Moxxi's turn to deflate. "Sorry, sugar. Just a manager trying to do right by her girl." Then she realizes that there's an opening for an innuendo. Quick as a flash, Moxxi switches from tired and sombre to knowing and naughty. "I suppose I should be happy that you're for my eyes only."
This cheers Maya up. She loops an arm around Moxxi's neck, and then cannibal blood crunches against mime black.
Ten minutes later, Maya walks down the ramp. The Verucas get stomped. The crowd goes nuclear. Gaige, Angel and Tina whoop and punch the air. Gaige's father enters catatonia.
Moxxi watches proceedings from backstage. So Maya wasn't interested in the swimsuit shoot. No biggie. Moxxi respects her girl's wishes. That's four hundred thousand dollars that Maya won't be earning, but no reason to fret. That's a fifteen percent commission down the drain, but Moxxi isn't angry.
When Torgue Corporation is hers, four hundred thousand will be nothing at all.