The eridium extraction plant in the Highlands had been abandoned by everything except the loaders. The machinery left behind by Hyperion continued to churn the robots out, despite their lack of purpose. They milled about, guarding against nothing or repairing other useless machines.
They were completely unprepared for several people to come hurtling out of the air and smash into their compound.
"Kill 'em all!" Axton roared, hurling his turrets onto the field. "Wreck these mechanical bastards!"
Krieg ripped his axe through a loader, and leapt on to the next, laughing. "I am a buzzsaw on the wind! Watch me carve!"
"Now I know what a moonshot feels like!" Salvador bellowed, shredding a cluster of robots with his gunfire. "And I like it!" He grinned deliriously at Lilith. "When can we do that again?!"
Lilith fired and blasted another loader into pieces. "Tell you what, Sal! Next time the fast travel station gets crashed, I'll just throw you off Sanctuary! You can fall the whole distance instead of me teleporting us halfway!"
"What happened up there, Lil?" Mordecai shouted, sniping a line of units. "Thought you were gonna get us the whole way down, not drop us partway!"
"I'm distracted!" Lilith yelled back, still firing. "Might have something to do with our friend lying back in Sanctuary, hanging between life and death!"
"Then let's finish this fast!" Axton's fire scattered another loader's mechanical guts across the ground. "Chew 'em up, people! The sooner we get the salvage, the sooner Scooter gets power running again, and the better Zed and Maya's chances of saving Brick's life!"
The night air resounded with gunfire as the Vault Hunters annihilated the loaders. Faced with a kidnapper they couldn't pursue and a friend they couldn't heal, unrestrained violence in pursuit of an objective was all they had.
We're not losing him, Lilith told herself, raking a trio of loaders with bullets. He is not going to die. She tossed a grenade and blew another robot into shrapnel. It's not like Roland. I can do something this time. The air around her flashed, and she plunged into the strange space between realities, lunging at her next target-
The strength rushed out of Lilith's legs like water through a sieve. She collapsed to the ground, fully back in the normal world, weakened and confused. The loader advanced and took aim, its energy weapon charging up-
A blue edged blade erupted from the loader's chest, cutting off its killing shot. "What's wrong, Firehawk?!" The blade turned sideways and whipped around, severing the top half of the loader from the bottom. "Falling to a mere loader?" A gloved hand grabbed Liliths's arm and pulled her up, then hurled a kunai and exploded a robot twenty feet away. "You're better than that!"
Lilith stared at the masked face, trying to force away her dizziness and confusion. "Zero? Where..."
"Unwise to banter," Zero admonished. He stabbed backwards, impaling a loader without looking at it. "Focus your mind on the fight, Lest it be your last!"
Lilith caught sight of a movement behind Zero's head and yanked his shoulder, pulling him down. "Worry about yourself!" A blast from her pistol shattered a Surveyor that had been about to make a strafing run on him. "Where were you?!"
"Looking for answers!" Zero rolled free of her grip and carved a trio of loaders into scrap. "But I found them much too late." Zero straightened up out of his combat stance and slipped his sword back into his belt. "He has attacked us."
Lilith looked around and realized they were out of targets. "Yes," she confirmed, holstering her gun. "Whoever this guy is, he took Gaige, almost killed Brick, and blew out Sanctuary's noncritical power control circuits. We came down here to scavenge some new ones." She stared at him as her mind started to catch up with what Zero was implying. "You know who this guy is, don't you?"
Zero nodded.
"I knew it."
Lilith looked towards the source of the voice and saw Axton approaching, closely tailed by the others. "Any luck finding the stuff?"
"Sal's got it," Axton said, staring hard at Zero. "What's going on here, Z? Who's this guy that looks and fights almost exactly like you?"
"An old enemy," Zero said grimly, "One I had thought long since dead.
"He is my brother."
There was a heavy silence. Finally, Salvador coughed. "Uh, you mean like brother brother, or guild of assassins type brother?"
"Irrelevant now," Zero said quickly, turning to Lilith. "Take me to Sanctuary. I can help treat Brick."
"You?" Axton demanded. "Since when are you a doctor?"
"I know his style," Zero pointed out. "I know where the damage is." He stared at Lilith, his voice pleading. "I can save Brick's life."
Lilith stared at him for a handful of seconds, then nodded. "Salvador, give me the components."
"What for?" Mordecai asked as Salvador handed over the bag of computer parts. "Aren't we all going back up?"
Lilith shook her head. "Something's... wrong with my powers," she said hesitantly. "I'm not sure what, but right now, I think it's best if I take the lightest possible load back to Sanctuary. That means Zero and me." She grabbed his arm. "The rest of you head for Overlook. I'll get Scooter started on the repairs."
"Lil-"
Lilith jumped away before anyone could protest. For a second, she wasn't certain they would make it to Sanctuary, even with the reduced load. The teleport seemed oddly sluggish, drawing far more strength from her than usual-
"Ugh!"
Lilith staggered as Sanctuary's town center flashed into existence around them. She was dizzy and felt like she'd been running for days, but they had made it. "Ohhh... that was bad..."
Zero eased her to the ground. "Your strength is quite low, Your heart rate elevated. You need to rest now."
"No time," Lilith said stubbornly, pushing herself back up. "Even with whatever help you can give, Zed still needs power back, to say nothing of the rest of the city. I need to get these to Scooter." She glanced at him, her curiosity getting the better of her. "How'd you know about my heart rate, anyway?"
Zero tapped his helmet. "Medical scanner," he explained. "I don't use it very much, But-" He broke off and stared at her. "Huh."
Lilith looked at him, confused. "Oh, forget it. Brick needs you." She shoved him towards the clinic. "Go."
Zero nodded slowly and headed for the hospital. "Yes." Right before he entered the clinic, he called back, "Don't drink." Then he opened Zed's door and disappeared inside.
Lilith just shook her head and headed for the control spire. She could see Scooter's legs sticking out from under a piece of gear."Here, Scooter. Five circuit boards, like you asked for."
"All right, Lily!" Scooter grabbed the bag enthusiastically. "Jus' what ah needed! Ah'll have power runnin' again faster 'n a skag kin eat a gun!" He dove back into the spire, parts flying everywhere. "Hey, we got any ahdea 'bout Gaige? Ah'm awful werried about 'er!"
"Get the power running," Lilith said, staring out at the sky. "Sooner you do that, the sooner we can go after her."
"You got it!"
Hang on, Gaige...
Gaige heard beeping, and groaned. Five more minutes, she promised herself. I'll get up in five more minutes. She went to slap the snooze button on the alarm clock.
Pain lanced through her right wrist. She gasped and sat up, eyes flying open. She looked down to see what had hurt her.
Her wrists were missing all their usual ornamentation. In their place was something more like ancient style shackles, one solid piece of metal clapped around both wrists and locked shut. There was even a chain attached in the center, trailing off onto the floor.
They were also very asymmetrical. The cuff encasing her left wrist was thick, immobile, and unbreakable. The cuff on the right was made of sturdy, but thinner metal. It also had a razor's edge the whole way around its interior, nearly in direct contact with her skin. A thin line of blood was welling up were she had unwittingly pressed against it reaching for the alarm clock.
Alarm clo- "Where am I?" she blurted. It certainly wasn't her room in Sanctuary. The walls were definitely metal, but it was too clean, too new looking, to be her home. And she hadn't been sleeping in a bed, either. It looked like some kind of tube with a retractable coffin lid.
Gaige took a closer look at the tube. The interior was padded and lined with screens. The lid was arched and transparent, with controls mounted on its outside. "What the..."
"Gaige, I'm so glad we could meet,
For getting you here was a feat.
We went for a trip,
You are deep in my grip,
And you have much work to complete."
Gaige looked around in confusion. The male voice seemed to have come from nowhere, and it sounded oddly familiar. "Who are you? What do you want?!" Then she blinked. "Was that a limerick?"
She heard the soft whir of motors, and a door opened in the wall. A tall, lanky figure stepped out and stood in front of her, wearing a suit and helmet extremely similar to Zero's. Gaige's eyes narrowed. "You're the one who attacked me in Sanctuary," she realized, the events starting to reform in her mind.
The figure nodded.
"Mind explaining why I'm in a medical chamber?" she asked tautly. "I saw something like this in the hospitals back home, but they weren't this advanced. I remember reading this model was mostly for life-threatening injuries."
"An accurate term, I'm afraid; I hit you quite hard in my raid. You gained a concussion In the course of abduction, So a visit to my chamber you paid."
Gaige felt the back of her head as best she could with her hands shackled. There was no pain, even when she pressed hard. "You patched me up? Why? Why heal someone you kidnapped?"
"I have a great need for your talents In things with mechanical balance." He leaned closer, voice growing harsh. "And you will comply, Or your friends will each die And their bodies will rot on this planet."
For a second, Gaige was tempted to headbutt the blank faceplate out of sheer spite. Instead, she forced herself to stay calm. "You even threaten me in rhyme, huh? Is that an assassin thing? You guys aren't allowed to talk like normal people?"
The figure straightened up, and Gaige had the sense he was amused. "No." He picked up the chain attached to her cuffs and gave it a tug. "Come."
Gaige slipped out of the chamber, then frowned as she noticed something unsettling. Her weapons, grenade mod, combat module, shield, and ECHO unit were all gone. "Hey! Where's all my stuff?!"
"As long as I have you in here, You will not be needing your gear," he told her. "You'll do as I say Without any delay Or your life will be ending, I fear." He yanked the chain a little more sharply. "Move."
Gaige followed after him, making sure to keep the chain slack. The right cuff had dug warningly at her wrist when he had pulled it; if he had pulled any harder, Gaige would have had another cut. She did, however, take careful note of the chain itself. That may be a weakness...
"Where are we?" she demanded aloud. "What do you want me for?"
The figure pressed a keypad, opening the door he'd entered. He walked through without answering.
Gaige followed him into a short hallway, then into another, larger room. As the door slid closed behind her, she halted and stared in amazement. "Oh, my god. You did kill me. I'm in heaven."
It was the most beautifully compact machine shop Gaige had ever seen. It made the one she'd had back on Eden V pale in comparison, to say nothing of what she'd been trying to use since reaching Pandora.
The centerpiece was a collapsible workbench, mounted on the wall. Every kind of tool required for mechanical and electronic work was laid out in perfect order around it, and seemed to glisten as she looked. Her fingers actually itched in anticipation of using some of the more esoteric devices. For a few seconds, Gaige nearly forgot that she was a prisoner.
Then he spoke. "I'm glad to see you approve, But it's time to get on the move. There's work to be done, You're not here for fun. Resist and your head you will lose."
She glared at him. "Are you going to threaten me every time you talk?" She didn't wait for answer, just walked over to the wall and started examining the equipment. "This is really high-grade stuff... lightweight, sturdy... and rigged for storage during space travel." She glanced at him over her shoulder. "This is from a starship's machine shop. Are we in your ship right now?"
The figure didn't answer. Instead, he clipped the end of Gaige's chain to the wall, limiting her motion to about ten feet. Then he stepped to the other side of the room, well out of her reach, and started tapping at some controls on his arm.
Gaige took the opportunity to glance quickly around the room. Like she'd noted, it was definitely a machine shop, very likely an emergency repair bay for a starship. On a second look, she also caught sight of a thick, heavy door. Red lettering stretched across the top that read CAUTION: INNER DOOR. At the side, Gaige could just make out smaller lettering that ran Do not open if red light illuminated.
It's an airlock door, she realized. It is his ship. But does that mean we're flying right now? Or did he land somewhere?
She didn't have time to ponder. Her captor had finished whatever he was doing with his arm. "Watch."
A hologram flashed into the air between them, playing a video. Gaige looked carefully at the black and white footage, and realized what it was. "That's the Terminus cargo hold."
He nodded, pressed a button, and the image skipped.
Gaige found herself looking on as she and her friends appeared on the screen, dropping into the water and wading across the room. There was no sound, but she didn't need it. "You were there? You were watching us?"
Another nod, another time skip. Crosshairs appeared on the screen, and focused in tightly on Gaige's head. She was typing furiously on her ECHO, oblivious to the sniper scope trained on her.
A sense of unreality filled her mind. "You could have killed me," she said in disbelief. "You had me cold. None of us knew you were there, not even Zero." She looked through the image to the blank faceplate. "So why didn't you?"
He pointed to the screen again. Deathtrap blazed into life, Axton's turrets mounted on his arms. As Gaige watched, they turned the tide against Mongzilla, thanks to the modifications she'd made on the fly.
But this time, she was seeing from someone else's perspective. The crosshairs swerved away from Deathtrap and focused on Gaige's cybernetic limb. The forearm was just visible, and the image jerked upward with recoil. A second later, the image retargeted on her arm, now with a perfect bullet hole behind the wrist.
The playback stopped, and the hologram faded. Gaige was left staring at the figure again, her sense of unreality growing stronger every second. "It wasn't a ricochet. You were the cause. You shot my arm to disable Deathtrap." Her eyes narrowed. "You were planning to kidnap me the instant you saw him, weren't you?"
"You're actually both wrong and right. I decided partway through the fight. Re-coding your bot Right there on the spot Did spare you from my gunsight." He tapped a few more keys on his wrist, and a compartment in the center of the floor slid open. A large, rectangular black metal box slid up out of the floor. "Look close and now you will see The reason I brought you with me. Zero was first, But when you are coerced The brothers will number at three."
"Brothers?" Gaige looked at him sharply. "What's in there? Who are you?"
The figure laid a hand on the box. "He was Zero. I am One.
"This will be Two."
The sides of the box folded down, turning it into a large table. The 'lid' rotated up and around, turning into a display screen. But it was the object lying on the table portion that seized Gaige's attention.
It was a metal humanoid. She wasn't sure of the height since it was laying flat, but it had to be at least six feet tall. It didn't have skin, but it didn't look exactly skeletal, either. Much of the body was covered in metal plating that made her think of pictures she'd seen of the muscles under a person's skin. Even the head seemed to have metal flesh attached, instead of being merely a skull.
Gaige knew robots very well. She had built Deathtrap, helped out Claptrap, and destroyed more Hyperion loaders than she could count. Eden V even had a few personal assistant bots in select areas. This creation lying on the slab in front of her, though... it put everything she knew about mechanical creations to shame. Even twenty feet away, she could tell it was a work of art.
She looked up at the figure that called itself One. "This is what you are? What Zero is? A true, honest to god android?"
One nodded. "Surp-"
"I KNEW IT!" Gaige actually jumped and shouted in triumph, glee on her face. "I knew he had to be an android! Well, actually, I thought he was robot," Gaige admitted, getting as close to the prone figure as her chains allowed, "but I was closest! Salvador owes me twenty bucks!"
For the first time, One's faceplate wasn't blank. He was staring at his captive with '? ? ? ? ? ? ?' stretched across his helmet. "Uh..."
"This one's not finished, though, is it?" Gaige motioned at a section of the android's body and winced as the sharp cuff dug into her wrist. "Ouch. I can see the left arm needs work, and there's a lot of plating left off the chest cavity..." she trailed off and looked at One. "You want me to finish this one."
"Two."
"Whatever," Gaige said impatiently. "The point is, you think I can finish building this android and write its operating system. Bring it to life."
One nodded.
Gaige exhaled slowly and leaned back against the wall. "That's not going to be easy. I don't know anything about its designs, or how your code is written..." She trailed off, then looked down at her wrists as the reality of the situation came crashing back down around her. "Besides, you kidnapped me! I'm not gonna help..." Her voice died out again. "'Or their bodies will rot on this planet', huh?"
One nodded again, arms crossed in what looked like smug satisfaction.
Gaige hesitated, considering. In a straight up fight, she'd bet on any combination of her teammates against a single assassin. But she'd seen that One could get the drop on them; he'd already done it twice. Zero was alerted to One's presence now, but he couldn't cover everyone all the time. And she was pretty sure her friends would try to find her, coming out of the relative safety of Sanctuary and exposing themselves to One.
Then there was the other fact. She wanted to work on this android. Heaven help her, she wanted to see if her skills were up to the task. "Just one condition," she finally said. "Let me ECHO my friends. It doesn't even have to be real time; I'll just leave them a voice message. I'll tell them I'm alive, and not to look for me. Then I'll work on your brother, and you don't have to worry about them coming after you."
One pulled the sword off his belt. "No."
"It's the smarter move," Gaige insisted. "We've all faced death countless times; do you really think any of us are scared of it anymore? That you can threaten me with anything I haven't faced down already? I went up against Handsome Jack, for crying out loud! That was a guy that wanted to do every evil thing he could think of before killing me!" She pointed to the android. "But that... I've never done anything close to that. I'll work on it willingly and wholeheartedly, and all I ask is the chance to let my friends know I'm ok."
One didn't move or say anything for what felt like ten years. Finally, he put his sword away and started tapping on his wrist controls. A holographic number '5' appeared on his faceplate. "Talk."
"Talk? What do you mean?"
The '5' changed to '4'.
"Oh!" Gaige scrambled to think of her message. "Guys, I'm alive. He wants me to work on something I can't explain now. Just take care, and don't look for me."
The countdown finished, and One lowered his arm.
"Guess that means my phone call's over," Gaige said. She held up her shackles. "Can you remove these now? I can't exactly work with them on."
One walked over and grabbed the restraints. "You're just being freed to work. Don't-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Gaige interrupted. "Just stop rhyming at me all the time."
One didn't say anything else. He keyed a sequence on his wrist controls, and the shackles opened.
Gaige rubbed at her cut wrist. "Ouch. Can I have a band-aid before I start? I'm all sliced up over here."
Her captor merely pointed at the wall of tools.
"Okay, okay, I'll get started." She turned away, doing her best to look abashed and afraid. "Just give me a minute to go through the stuff," she said, pulling open a drawer. "I don't even know what all I have to work wi- oh. This is handy."
The drawer was full of loop clamps, similar to the ones she used to keep her hair up. "Let's see if I've still got my dexterity," she muttered.
She did. Even without a mirror, she had her hair back to its normal, pig-tailed state in a few seconds.
After a little more examination, Gaige had a rough idea of all the parts she had to work with. All the ones she might need to work on the android... and most of the ones to finish her arm's digistruct repairs.
The circuitry in her arm was nearly functional. If she could complete a few minor tweaks, she could summon Deathtrap and just might have a shot getting out of this mess.
That was going to be tricky, though. A professional killer with razor sharp eyesight was watching her every move; she was going to have to be extremely sneaky. Still, Gaige was good at sneaky. Well, Zero was good at sneaky, but she had watched him enough to pick up a few tricks. In the meantime...
Gaige took a few screwdrivers of assorted sizes down and headed over to the workbench. Between finishing the most advanced machine she'd ever seen and surreptitiously fixing her own killer robot so she could escape an android assassin, she had her work cut out for her.
It was time to get started.
[Okay, so I lied. Hope you enjoyed the story anyway!]
