A/N: This is the final chapter of this short story.

The Escape

Jenkins hummed softly to himself as he stared out the window of the transport shuttle he was on. At the age of forty-three, he was rather comfortable with the state of his life. Over the last two decades, he had graduated school, gotten his PhD, and started his own lab. After a few lucky findings regarding old Med Kits, he had gone on to improve the technology to the now more commonly used Health Vials, which were more efficient and generally less taxing on the body. This had also gained the attention of Hyperion and he was quickly brought under their wing. Through that chance finding, his lab had grown as it also gained funds from the patent rights to the Health Vial's formula. Now boasting over thirty researchers and technicians, he had finally caved in to the pressures of managing so many people and hired a person to assist in keeping the lab organized and his employees on track. With a lighter workload, he had finally gotten the chance to take a break and visit some old friends. While many of his closest friends had remained on Eden-6, one of his dearest friends and mentors had left the planet.

Heather Samuels.

It had been almost two years since Jenkins last heard from his old friend. She had been promoted within the medical research and development department and then moved off-planet to Pandora, likely to have quicker access to that mysterious substance the company had been harvesting from the desolate world. Ever since then, he had only occasionally spoken with the older doctor and it was always through a grainy screen due to a poor signal from the distant planet. She had been missing his calls for a few months now and he figured that she was probably overworking herself as she was known to do. He hoped she would be receptive to his sudden appearance, but in the event that she could not or did not want to speak with him, he had contingencies.

In planning for his trip, he had also brought along with him notes and a prototype of a new combat formula he had been working on as a side project. It was a highly specialized combat medicine that involved highly immature, artificially-created bacteria that would imprint itself on the user's DNA after being injected and then utilize the user's energy reserves to provide a massive boost of adrenaline for upwards to two hours. And while the food intake for utilizing this drug was immense, initial sub-maximal dose experiments had indicated that there was little 'crash' afterwards, making it much more efficient to use in a critical situation. He hoped to collaborate with some of the experts on Eridium and potentially improve the formula further, so even if Heather did not have time for him, he would still be able to work on his side project.

"Please be seated, we will be commencing reentry into the Pandoran atmosphere in thirty minutes."

Jenkins looked up at the announcement and put away the book he had stopped reading. Glancing out the window again, he could see the dull brown planet growing closer with every passing minute. The closer they got, the more unimpressive the desolate rock appeared. From space, it certainly did not look like a place where life could thrive. But then again, based on what he had heard about the border world, life was fairly vicious for anyone not associated with Hyperion. Despite the planet's appearance, Jenkins could feel his heart rate increase in anticipation. A few minutes later, they passed the Hyperion Moon Base and plunged down towards the planet's surface. He got his first glimpse of large expanses of sand and jagged mountains scattered across the planet's surface. Environments and habitats that should never appear anywhere near each other clashed along abrupt transition zones. Jenkins could do little else but stare in wonder as they soared through the sky. Soon he would be down on the ground, experiencing the new world for himself.

Soon he would see his old friend again.

"Doctor Samuels? Doctor Samuels can you hear me?"

A medic stood in front of an older woman with messy blond hair. That hair was currently covered in the blood and viscera of the soldiers and coworkers who had been particularly unlucky during the stalker attack near the end of the outbreak. It had partially dried, leaving her hair a clumpy mess. The smell of voided bowels and congealing blood that permeated the hallway was enough to turn even the hardest of stomachs, but the former physician turned Hyperion researcher merely sat on the bench and stared at a point on the floor several feet away with red-rimmed eyes. When the medic turned to see what she was staring at, he could only see other workers cleaning up the mess that coated the once pristine halls of the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve.

"Mrs. Samuels!"

The woman blinked slowly and turned her head towards the medic. He winced unconsciously when he caught sight of those dead-looking eyes. It was a drastic change from the distraught woman he had been dealing with up until a few minutes ago. Heaving a sigh, he reached out and took the woman's wrist in his hand. She made no indication she even knew he existed. Working as quickly as he could, he took her vitals and did a cursory check for superficial injuries.

"Well, doc," the medic said nervously. "You'll be okay. You were lucky to get out of this mess without any injuries. Just… just let someone know if anything changes… alright?"

When the blonde did not respond, the medic shook his head hopelessly before leaving to help someone else. Gradually, the survivors that could move were escorted to the medical ward and those that suffered more severe lacerations from the stalkers were carried away. As the cleanup crew continued in their thankless tasks, the woman did not move a single inch. Soon the blood splatters had been mopped up and the last of the remains had been taken to the local morgue. Even the smells had been replaced by that of chemical cleaners and air fresheners. The only evidence left that any sort of conflict had happened in that area were the bullet holes in the walls and the claw marks in the floor. The workers talked amongst themselves for a while, planning out how the remainder of the damage would be fixed, before they too left the hallway to deal with other attack sites.

And still, Heather Samuels did not move.

Rather, she could not move. She continued to stare blankly at the spot where she had seen that distinctive bracelet, her anniversary present to Sera from many years ago. It had been the only thing she could identify on that mutilated corpse. Her mind hiccupped at the word and she felt another panic attack rising only to be squashed by a suffocating sense of emptiness. She felt numb all over, her body felt lifeless and her mind was stuck replaying the final minutes of the stalker attack. She had not recognized it at the time but the woman who had been chased by The Boss, that mutated, Slag-covered stalker, had been Sera.

What had she been doing at the Preserve?

She normally worked during these hours.

Why…

"Mrs. Samuels?"

Heather turned her head again to find the medic that had cleared her staring down at her again in concern.

"What…?" She croaked out in a voice raw from screaming.

The medic fidgeted nervously before pushing forward.

"I think you should go home," he suggested. "You've suffered some heavy trauma from the attack. Many of your co-workers are dead, after all. Try to get some rest so your brain can process it all."

A small voice inside scoffed at the notion. There was only one person she cared about. There was only one person she would throw away her morality to keep safe.

She never even got a chance to confide in her.

Sera never knew the truth.

"Please?" The man tried again.

Slowly, Heather nodded and got up off the bench. Putting on a slow shuffle, she began to make her way back to her lab. She passed through the newly cleaned halls on autopilot and soon reached her office. The doors slid open allowing her to walk back into the viewing room attached to the operation room. Mindlessly, she strode over to the door leading into the other room and simply stared out into the work space. She took in the state-of-the-art equipment Hyperion had provided her with and felt nothing but disgust and hatred. Heather knew that just down the hall, a general lab area where her employees worked was outfitted in a similar manner.

"What's going on?"

Heather blinked and stared at the three test subjects she had completely forgotten about. They were still bound to their respective operating tables with the machines poised to begin their injections. It struck her then that she must look like a mess to the family. Her clothes were still splattered with blood from the attack, her hair was partially bloodied, and her face was dirty. She did not respond for a long time. Instead she continued to stare without really seeing anything.

"Are… are you alright?" The mother asked awkwardly.

Heather blinked again and turned to face the woman, a look of pure incredulousness on her face. After all the scientist had done, and all that she was about to do, why did a stranger – her victim, no less – even care about her captor's well-being? The blonde looked over the small family with tortured eyes and once again found herself staring at the tiny blonde girl still cowering near her parents.

She could not take any more.

The former doctor whirled suddenly and fled the viewing room. Using purely muscle memory, her legs carried her to the bathroom down the hall. She barely made it into a stall before she fell to her knees and vomited violently into the toilet. She heaved as the reality of her situation hit her.

Sera was dead.

She was still Hyperion's executioner.

There were still three subjects awaiting their fate in her lab.

Three more bodies to add to the count.

A fresh wave of nausea caused her to double over again. As she heaved, she felt something break inside. There was a sort of cruel irony in her purging her stomach like a sinner would purge his sins to a priest. Both took place in a tiny space, both involved a recognition of self-hate and disgust at what one had become. Except in that tiny space, there was no one to hear Heather, no one to forgive her transgressions except herself.

And she knew she would never forgive herself for what she had done.

Heather did not know how long she was in that bathroom, but eventually she flushed the toilet one last time and stood back up on shaking legs. Exiting the stall, she cleaned herself up as best as she could. She steeled herself as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. When had she gotten so many gray hairs? The person that stared back in the mirror was almost unrecognizable. As she stared at her wretched self, one singular thought came to mind.

No.

No, she would not continue playing Jack's game.

No, she would no longer complacently murder under the false pretense of Science.

No, she would no longer remain in this depraved company.

Shaking her messy hair, she turned and left the bathroom, once again walking back towards her lab. Her mind was made up. In one singular act of defiance, she would let her most recent victims go. The small family would escape and she would be the one to help them do it. It would be a small, nearly insignificant act of kindness, but at the very least it would be a start. Then she would resign and leave Hyperion forever. After all, what did she have left for her at this monstrous company but further pain and anguish? She would write up her resignation and simply leave. Where she would go, she had no idea but there were various settlements nearby and a Hyperion vehicle could take her even further. At long last she would be free.

She stepped through the automated doors into the viewing room of her operating room.

Jenkins stepped off the Hyperion transport that had just arrived at the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve. His head was on a constant swivel, taking in all the different regions the bus had passed through on their way here. However, he was quickly interrupted from his sightseeing when an armed guard approached him.

"Hold it right there," the man commanded. "I'm going to need to see some identification."

A curious look on his face, Jenkins passed over his Hyperion badge. The guard scanned it with a handheld device and checked the readout.

"What is the nature of your business here?" was the next question.

The mousy haired man fidgeted uncomfortably, unaccustomed to this level of scrutiny from his own company.

"I'm here to visit a friend and potentially collaborate on a project involving soldier combat serums."

The guard nodded absentmindedly as he input the information for record keeping.

"Apologies, Doc," he finally said handing the badge back. "We recently had a troublemaker get in somehow. He ended up letting the stalkers loose, vicious beasts attacked everyone they saw. It was a complete mess."

Jenkins winced at the description. From the sound of it, many people had just died. It was hardly surprising that the guards were being extra jumpy. Inwardly he hoped Heather was alright, but did not know if the guard even knew his mentor by name.

"Is everyone alright?" He asked instead.

The guard shook his head sadly.

"We lost some good men fighting those creatures," he sighed. "But we managed to get everything under control."

Jenkins frowned at the brief description.

"And the researchers?" He asked in a worried tone.

The man thought about it for a while before shrugging.

"The man in charge of the wildlife research was close to the breakout so he died quickly. The others that died were mainly soldiers since they were guarding the researchers during the evacuation."

The researcher sighed and nodded. He was likely not going to get much else from the soldier.

"Can I go see my friend then?" He asked.

The guard glanced at Jenkins' before he grunted.

"Yeah, just try not to get in the way of the clean-up crew or the troops. Many of us are still pretty jumpy at the moment. Otherwise, have a good day, sir."

Jenkins nodded and headed into the depths of the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve with a distinct sense of unease building in his stomach.

Immediately the smell of burning flesh hit Heather's nose, causing her to gag. Eyes widened, she quickly stepped into her viewing room to find the two adults hanging limply in the upright operating tables. As she watched, the machines nearby warmed up with a hum before the crackle of electricity filled the air along with the tortured screams of two of her latest test subjects.

"Wha…" she gaped as her plans crumbled almost as quickly as they had been made.

She looked over to the command console in the viewing room and found someone sitting there with their back facing her. Feeling indignant anger swelling up inside her, Heather marched over to the person.

"What's going – "

She froze as the chair turned to reveal a familiar smiling mask. Immediately, Heather choked on her words. She recovered quickly and hoped she did not seem too suspicious.

"W-What are you doing here, sir?" She asked while projecting a cold and indifferent front.

The man's grin seemed to widen as he recognized who it was.

"Oh, hey Sammy!" Handsome Jack greeted cheerfully. "I saw this experiment lined up and went ahead and started it for you. Nasty business with the stalker breakout, wasn't it?

Heather nodded mutely.

"You look like a right mess though, you should really get yourself cleaned up," the man said as he gave her a scrutinizing stare. "Chin up, though. You'll be fine. I'll get someone to take over and you can go get yourself cleaned up. You're starting to smell."

The leader of Hyperion gave a careless wave and sauntered out of the room, leaving Heather to stare blankly at the scene before here. Every thirty seconds, the two adults would be hit by a three second shock accompanied by a small injection of Slag. The small girl continued to watcher her parents' agonizing execution with wide, terrified eyes. Heather's brain had chosen instead to shut down completely. As the two adults in the operation room screamed in pain, the former doctor walked away into her office with a dead look in her eyes. The doors slid open and shut with a pneumatic hiss and she found herself standing before her desk, staring at the years of work that littered the surface.

Then, something snapped.

She slammed her fists down onto the metal surface of her desk and screamed, her broken voice drowning out the noise of the screams from the other room. In a fit of rage and anguish she swept her arms across her desk, sending electronics, pens, and papers alike clattering noisily to the floor. Still screaming incoherently, she snatched that meticulously kept notebook – the one thing that still marked her as a woman of science – and tore the pages out messily. Then she upended her desk, sending what was left of her workspace crashing to the floor. She stomped on the remains repeatedly before falling to her knees and weeping bitterly. Tears fell unchecked from unfocused eyes. Her one lifeline gone, she felt the full weight of everything she had done come crashing down upon her.

"I'm… so sorry… Sera," she choked out in the small room. "I couldn't do a single thing…"

Through blurred vision, she caught sight of a simple, six-shot revolver that she had bought on the off chance that she had to defend herself from an unhappy bandit or psycho. It had fallen out of her drawer in during her rampage. Now it glinted dully in the clean fluorescent lights of her office. She picked it up, and stared uncomprehendingly at it for the longest time. Even the sudden explosion from the other room failed to elicit any sort of response out of the broken researcher.

The only thing that existed for her in that moment was the revolver.

It was a surprisingly simple choice. One single bullet and everything would end. All the soul-crushing experiments, all the guilt-ridden nightmares, and the numb, unfeeling existence she had forced herself into. If God existed, she was certainly going to Hell to be forever separated from her wife. It was pathetic how the act of suicide could seem insignificant in the eyes of some hypothetical being when considering her many crimes against humanity. But at the very least she would be released from the fate of working for the Hyperion Corporation. And if God did not exist, then she could rest in peace with Sera for eternity in the nothingness beyond death.

'Either way,' Heather thought bitterly, 'I win.'

There was no hesitation in her movements now. She raised the revolver, pressed the cold barrel to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

Jenkins stumbled as an explosion sounded nearby. Steadying himself against the wall, he turned his head left and right in an attempt to figure out what was going on. His eyes widened as he realized the explosion had come from the direction of Heather's office. Worried for his friend, Jenkins broke into a run and soon came across a door that was leaking a bit of smoke. As he approached, the door slid open, letting a fresh cloud of dust and debris to spill out. The man coughed as he tried to wave the particulates away. Blinking away tears, he squinted into the room and immediately froze.

Two people, a man and a woman, were chained to operating tables and hooked up to a machine that was electrocuting them. Attached to their arms were IVs filled with a dull purple liquid that looked to have the consistency of tar. Every time the machine shocked them, a tiny bit of the material would be pushed into their bodies, causing them to trash against their bonds and foam at the mouth. All the while, machines automatically recorded a plethora of information.

His briefcase of notes and prototypes fell noisily to the floor.

His mind was numb. Everything he knew about the Eridium Project was shattered right then and there. As the two adults were slowly killed, he found himself staring in surprise at a young girl groaning next to a massive hole in the wall. He blinked, mouth slightly open, trying to process just how a young girl could end up a death row inmate in line for the experiments. Her terrified, tear-filled eyes told the tale. There was no ethics in this process, just a perverse sense of curiosity. The girl's shaking parents looked to be under nothing less than torture, and at a glance, they were both already dead. Yet the experiment continued. The girl was frozen in place, eyes darting between the hole in the wall and the bodies of her parents. Jenkins noticed with some horror that the blast seemed to have damaged one of her eyes. He made his decision.

"RUN!" He roared. "Get out of here! GO!"

He waved his arms. This seemed to snap the girl out of shock as she ran full tilt out of the facility. Even as she disappeared off into the distance, his mind was racing furiously.

'Was this what you meant by inconclusive data?!' He thought to himself. 'This isn't like you! The doctor I knew would never have stood for this! Just what happened to you, Heather!'

He was jolted from his thoughts as a gunshot rang out from the nearby office.

"What?" Jenkins rushed over, nearly colliding with the automated door in his haste.

There, amidst a mess of papers and broken electronics, was his dearest friend. She lay in a growing pool of blood, her sightless eyes staring dully at the far wall.

"Shit!" The researcher cursed as he knelt by her body. "Shit!"

He tried in vain to stem the flow of blood oozing out from her temple first by putting pressure on the wound and then by ripping off his tie and binding it around her head. Then he futilely performed CPR as he tried to keep the rapidly expiring woman alive. What seemed to be an eternity later, he realized he was trying to resuscitate a corpse. Collapsing backwards he sat there in that office, wondering just what was happening here at Hyperion. He lost all sense of time as he continued to stare at the body of his longtime friend and mentor.

"Well, well… this is rather unexpected."

Jenkins looked up in surprise and found Handsome Jack staring at the scene with a speculative look on his face.

"Sir!" The researcher exclaimed as he stood. "I… I don't know what happened. I tried to save her but…"

The CEO of Hyperion merely shrugged.

"These things happen," he said casually. "Didn't you see the hole in the other room? It's clear she was helping criminals on the down low. Guess she couldn't handle the guilt anymore."

Jenkins gaped at the man.

"W-What?" He stammered. "That was an innocent girl that escaped! What do you mean, Heather was helping criminals!"

That artificially masked face stared at Jenkins as if it was looking right into his soul. He shuddered at the feeling he got when the man began to chuckle.

"Of course they were criminals," he drawled. "They were interfering with Hyperion's projects on Pandora."

"But…" Jenkins started

Handsome Jack cut him off before he could continue.

"You know, the cameras caught something rather interesting in the last few minutes," he said with a strange tone in his voice. "Why did you help that girl escape?"

"H-Huh?!" The mousy haired researcher was shocked at the sudden accusation.

But before he could defend himself, Jack continued.

"In fact, what is a researcher from Eden-6 doing all the way out here?"

There was an unnerving grin on the man's face now.

"I was here to visit a friend and work on a new serum! It would've helped the troops!" Jenkins protested. "Sir! I've been with this company for years now! I would never do anything to jeopardize it!"

Jack made a gesture with his hand.

"I likely story. Arrest him," he directed.

Before Jenkins could even move, armed guards poured into the room and charged. The researcher had the wind knocked out of him by the butt of a rifle and promptly collapsed to his knees. The soldiers dragged him to his feet, preventing him from any attempts to escape. Jack led the group out of Heather's office.

"Have someone clean that up," he said dismissively.

One soldier saluted and rushed out of the room. Jack sauntered over to the briefcase Jenkins had dropped earlier.

"New serum, huh?" Jack said contemplatively. "If you're so loyal to the company, I'm sure you wouldn't mind being a test subject then?"

Disoriented, Jenkins could only moan in response.

"In fact," the cruel man continued. "We've got an opening in our Eridium experiments. Don't worry, if you're precious serum is really that great, I'm sure you'll do just fine…"

Jenkins was dragged over to the third and final operating table in the other room. He glanced around in a daze, eyes dancing over the corpses of the young girl's parents. Feeling a pinprick, he looked down to see that Jack had injected the entirety of his prototype into his arm.

"T-Too… much…" the man slurred.

Handsome Jack ignored him as he set up the third slag drip. Then he looked back at Jenkins with a nasty grin on his face.

"Let's get some more data, shall we?"

Before Jenkins could even process those words, every nerve in his body was set ablaze with electricity. He let out a broken scream as he felt something wrong start to enter his right arm, chasing his prototype serum through his veins. The next twenty seconds of electrocution felt like an eternity as he screamed his throat raw.

Mercifully, he blacked out and knew no more.

The ECHO recording crackled heavily before a female voice broke out through the damaged speaker.

"Sweetheart . . . remember that heavy, red rock I told you to hide in your dress? Pull the pin at the top, then throw it at the wall!"

Then, a child's voice sounded.

"Mommy?" It was hauntingly familiar.

"Just run, Tina! RuuuuAGHHHHHH!"

The sound of arcing electricity soon blended into the static from the speaker. Moments later, the screaming of Tina's mother cut off as the final ECHO recording stopped. A squat, muscular man with a blue Mohawk and beard let out a heavy sigh.

"Dios…Is that it then?" Salvador asked with a grim look on his face.

The person he was talking to, a man dressed in an old military uniform and combat fatigues heaved a similar sigh as he put the ECHO recording into his backpack.

"Yeah," Axton shrugged. "The rest of the security files are too corrupted to access. Tannis will have to make do with these."

He double checked that he still had all the recordings the group had been tasked to find on their way to find Bloodwing, the trusted companion of a veteran Vault Hunter. Nearby, a blue haired woman with intricate tattoos on her arm fidgeted uncomfortably as she shouldered her SMG in preparation to start moving again.

"Poor Tina…" Maya said sadly. "You think that explosion was where…"

She trailed off, but the others knew what she was talking about. The young explosives expert's left eye was a bit of a sore point and they never really brought it up to her directly.

"All these ruined lives, / Jack towers above them all. / Disgusting creature," the lanky assassin known as Zer0 spat out, showing a rare display of anger.

Axton sighed. The more they found out about Hyperion, the more he was determined to put a bullet in the sneering face of Handsome Jack.

"Well, come on then, I think we're close to where Bloodwing is. Krieg ran off ages ago, who knows where he's at now."

A/N: In the end, I had always planned on this short story being a tiny side story to New-U. It was set during a completely different time than New-U except for that last tiny blurb. Hell, Krieg wasn't even out when I first started writing this. But in the end, I think things worked out pretty well.

Originally I had planned on ending it here, but then I thought of this final scene. It let me mention Gaige, too!

Epilogue:

When the Vault Hunters had stopped by Tina's workshop for help stopping a Hyperion train, it had been a daunting experience for the teenage girl. Her new friend Gaige had been off clearing out a nearby bandit cell so Tina was left manning the workshop alone. They had certainly been the strangest collection of people she had ever seen. But while four of them were Vault Hunters, the fifth stood out like a sore thumb. Almost seven feet tall and covered in sinewy muscle, the textbook definition of a Psycho was accompanying the comparatively more normal members of the group.

And he was currently standing less than two feet away from her, even after the other Vault Hunters had left to retrieve the explosives she would use to stop the train.

"What do you want?" Tina groused with a bit of heat.

She had never liked Psychos ever since she and her parents had been captured by Flesh-Stick. They plagued her nightmares and she had dedicated her tiny, insignificant life to exterminating as many of them as she could. For whatever reason, the Vault Hunters were running around with a particularly large one. He had the same characteristics as all the rest of them, however. She had watched him fight and noted the similarities: the viciousness, the bloodlust, the insanity. The big Psycho's current presence before her, breathing heavily through his mouth, did not really do anything to appease for her engrained hatred.

"What?" She challenged when there was no response. "You wanna go? Bitch, I will make you bleed if you try and touch me!"

Then the giant moved, one hand reaching out. Tina instinctually tensed, preparing for the attack she knew was coming. Thoughts raced through her mind in that fraction of a second. Should she call the other Vault Hunters back for help? Should she drop a few grenades and dive through the window? But before she could make any move, the hand descended…

And slowly patted her twice on the head.

Tina found herself staring at the awkward display of humanity in the giant. Looking into his eyes, she confirmed that, yes, the Psycho was still insane. There was a light that simply did not disappear in them. But at the same time, there was something almost… human… about the way the Psycho was staring at her.

"Wha…" she started before the Psycho suddenly cut her off.

"Safe…" it forced out in an almost pained voice. "Good…"

And something in that voice struck a chord in the small girl. Her eyes widened as a memory played and the voice found a place. She stared sightlessly into the distance as she recalled where she had once heard that voice before.

She blinked suddenly.

"You…" she began as she refocused her attention to the real world.

But the big Psycho had already run off, laughing and screaming out something about a meat bicycle as he chased after the retreating Vault Hunters. Tina watched him go, a strange feeling in her stomach. Then she rubbed her eyes hard and turned back to her workshop. If one had been looking closely, one might have caught a glimpse of a genuine smile as it flittered across her lips.

Perhaps her life on Pandora was not so terrible after all.