-Rhys-
-Past-
"We're there." Felix announces. I look out the window to see we parked next to a mountain.
Felix parks the caravan, and we climb out of the car for some fresh air and to feel solid ground under our feet again. We had been driving nonstop. I pop a kink in my back as I stretch. Everyone else seems grateful for the stop as well.
"You should be able to get everything you need here, Hyperion." Felix says. "I am taking you and four-eyes with me and we're going to have a look around, see what we can find. Sasha, Fiona, stay with the caravan. Make sure you are both armed."
I nod confirmation, but Fiona protests. "Uh, yeah. No. I'm not touching a gun."
"Fiona. We have talked about this."
"Yeah, and you know I would rather talk my way through things than shoot my way through. I won't have people's blood on my hands." She stands her ground.
Lilith raises an eyebrow. "In all my life, I have never heard a Pandoran utter such words."
"BLASPHEMAY!" Brick yells. He leans back as far as he can and has his fingers out in a cross-symbol as if to ward off evil demons. "PUNCH THE INFIDEL!"
"We can afford the luxury of niavity here." Felix reprimands her. "This place is held by the Hand of Jack nuts."
For some reason that means something to them and their eyes widen slightly. For me, though, I try to restrain my laughter but it erupts from my mouth anyway. "Hand of Jack? What kind of cheesy name is that?"
"They are Pandorans that worship Jack." Felix says with a shrug.
"You should fit riiiight in." Sasha smiles sarcastically. Even her smile is sarcastic!
I reply, "Uh-yeah. No. Don't think I will. Can we just pass on some insane natives and go through the route that will take us to… I don't know… more civilized territory?"
"This is Mount Trash, and its Pandora. By your definition there is no civlized area." Felix replies.
He has a point. "Why Mount Trash?" I ask.
"You'll see. Let's get going." Felix motions for the girls to get back into the car, and he takes a rifle himself in his arms while nudging Vaughn and I forward toward the mountain. Felix keeps his eyes peeled and his gun ready at all times as we march. It's a silent trip filled with us struggling to work our way up to the mountain through… believe it or not… trash. Why is there so much trash on this side of the mountain? It is like trying to climb over a garbage hill.
Can't say I'm really surprised there is so much trash here. Pandora is a filthy, disease-infested planet. Helios is very clean and that is what I'm used to. The moment there is the slightest filth, there is an alert sent out from a scanner to the janitors and it is cleaned within minutes.
This place… its like they just dump it and leave it to rot.
One pile of trash goes over my head and I can't help but laugh. "Hey! Vaughn! Take a picture of me!" I lean up against it, but wait, there is an even bigger pile of trash over there! "Oh, no! Wait! How about this pile of trash! Haha! I have never seen so much junk in one place. What is all this?!"
Felix grows aggravated and nudges me forward with the butt-end of his rifle. His eye twitches slightly and he has a faint snarl. I defend myself, still feeling jovial from the laugh I had, "Hey, dude. You have to admit, this is bad. I have never seen so much trash in my life! We shouldn't have the slightest problem finding what we need here!"
Felix shoves me forward even harder than before. "Shut up and get moving. We want to reach the base of the mountain before nightfall without getting caught."
"Alright, alright." I sigh.
"So… uh… what kind of Jack-worshippers are these?" Vaughn asks after a few minute's walk. "Is it true we might be able to fit in?"
"Doubt it." I reply. "I don't recall there being a contract for any Hyperion bases in this area. No cities, no forts, no factories, no mines. Nothing. If anything, there shouldn't be a Hyperion territory for miles." I scoff. "Not hard to see why. This place has no value except for scavengers."
"The Hyperion is right. They are not Hyperion." Felix smiles evilly. "And yes, you would fit right in. Everyone does. You see, they are lead by one of the last remaining claptrap units in existance." Hearing that makes my eyes widen in shock. There are still claptrap units? Those things were shut down! "And they are jovial, happy-go lucky. They'll feed you, bathe you, house you, even give you to their woman for the night."
"So evil." I say sarcastically. "Next they'll be having us confess to ours sins by fluffing up our pillows, sitting us in the comfy chair until lunch time, and giving us a pot of tea."
"That doesn't sound so bad." Vaughn says, unsure.
Felix doesn't commit to the conversation further. "Yeah well… Keep your eyes peeled. If anything moves, let me know."
We continue the long march towards the base of the mountain and as we do so, we pass by piles of trash in increasingly large size. I feel eyes are on us, but I can't see them, and Felix is unfazed. Eventually the trash itself becomes walls around us, then small clifs and high hills until… I can't believe it. I stop and stare up at what I am seeing. Vaughn openly gapes.
Mount Trash is a good name. It is literally a mountain of trash. Thousands of feet high, hundreds of feet wide, and surrounded in cliffs and a steep incline at the base. I'm already hundreds of feet high and I can barely see the top of the mountain, and its more than just one mountain. It's a mountain range. This is the largest mountain, but all around it is a series of other mountains where the entirety of them is made up of trash, the valleys are a plains of junk, and right now I am standing on a used pizza box. The smell is revolting to a degree I have never encountered in my life and with each gust of wind there is a bit of dirt, grime, grease, and loose clumps of trash blown off the side and into my face. Even as I watch there is a small avalanche of trash.
"Welcome to Mount Trash." Felix says simply. "Now get digging."
"With what?" I ask.
Felix considers my question, takes five steps to his right, and picks up two items out of the mountain. He throws a shovel with blood stains to Vaughn, who drops it like a hot potato at the sight of blood, and another item to me. I complain, "I can't use this! It's a pooper-scooper!"
"Better than using your hands, ain't it?"
"Well… yeah, but-"
"Then get digging." Felix flicks his gun at me to emphasis his point.
"You know you really don't need to threaten me every few minutes… Or hit me. Or any of that."
"And yet you STILL aren't digging." He replies in disbelief.
Openly glaring at the man who is now at the top of my shit-list for today, I pick up the pooper-scooper, present it like a soldier, and begin digging. "Much better. Keep at it." He orders. Vaughn does the same, with a wince at having to touch stained blood. Who knows how many years this crap has had germs growing on it.
I can't say how long Vaughn and I are at it. It gets hot and I feel sweat pouring down my back. Vaughn, amazingly, is doing much better. He doesn't seem remotely exhausted and he is pulling off a higher pace than me. Felix does a little digging here and there, scavenging around, but mostly he keeps an eye on our surroundings like a hawk. I feel my temper go both down and up. On one hand, he doesn't keep up with the whip-mentality, letting us go without harsh words or threats, and on the other hand it is hot! The smell only gets worse as it gets hotter! The shit (literally) that I am both holding in my hands and digging through has this horrible tendency to increase in nostril intensity as the heat grows and as the sun goes by!
"You know you will fare better if you didn't wear so many layers." Felix says to us.
Vaughn is too hot to be shy about it and takes off his jacket and shirt until he remains in his sweat-soaked undershirt. I take off my jacket, but I refuse to go any further. "I'm not stripping." I say immediately. That is not happening.
"You will face heat exhaustion if you keep it up." Felix replies. "Take off the shirt."
Stupid as it may be, I ignore him. "Shoot me if you want, I'm not stripping."
Vaughn looks at me worriedly and Felix is just dumbfounded. "Are you stupid?"
"Rhys… not like it matters. They already saw everything." Vaughn argues. I wince at the thought and my composure falls into despair. He's right… they did.
"Saw what?" Felix asks.
We turn to him. "You know. When you took care of Rhys's wounds…"
"Rhys had no wounds so there was nothing to take care of." Felix raises an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
I sputter, "B-but Sasha said!"
"She was screwing with you, Hyperion." Of course she was… Felix sighs and he lowers his gun. "Hyperion, here is how this works. Either you take off layers, or you will have heat exhaustion. If you do that, I will have little choice but to leave you. I can't take the journey back to the caravan quickly with you dragging me down because you were stupid enough to get sick."
I glare at him a long time. He makes sense. The problem is that, despite how much of a logical person I consider myself, but fears and trepidation are strong as well and wage war with the sense his statement makes.
"Rhys..." Vaughn says in concern. He is the only one who knows my secret… and it looks like I have no choice but to let Felix know as well. Slowly, I take off my shirt. What Felix see's makes his eyes widen in amazement. He is stunned silent.
Starting from my collar down the middle of my chest, stomach, and into my pants, is a scar-line. On one side is flesh. On the other is robotic metal. Even after all these years the scar is still ugly.
"I know you were a cyborg…" He whispers. "But this much…" He looks me in the eyes as if seeing me anew. "How did you live through the surgery?"
"I don't know myself." I mutter in humilation.
This is my darkest secret. Its ugly. The only people who have ever seen it are either revolted, sickened, or think differently of me. They think me different or weird or not-human. I've lost jobs because they want a human and not a robot. I've had paychecks kept back because robots don't get paid. Am I human? Am I a robot? This is a question I have asked myself years ago. Vaughn threw up when he saw it the first time and he still can barely stand the sight of it, but for his part it is because he shares my pain.
We continue working and despite the humiliation, the work is easier. Felix is amazingly silent. What he saw shook him. Even after all these years, guess some things can still surprise him.
Something about what I am seeing has me on edge. I can't put my finger on it, but its… odd. I just feel like something is very off. However, my growing trepidation disappears as we come across some parts of what I need. The sight of the hardware lights up my day. I bring what I find to Felix. He raises an eyebrow at it, still avoiding the sight of my scar, and I return to my work. I doubt he understands what it is I've found.
-Vaughn-
Unbeknownst to Rhys, Vaughn figured out what Rhys' problem was on his own. He climbed his way up to where Felix sat. A part of him was scared. The man was simply scary. Vaughn saw him as a man hardened by death, pain, and contained hatred for people like him, but there were rare moments when Vaughn didn't care. He didn't consider himself a brave person at all. He was scared by everything. But Vaughn did have a sense of justice that was rare among Hyperions, and right now, he had a question he needed answered or he felt he wouldn't be able to rest.
Vaughn walked up to Felix and looked him square in the eye. Felix raised an eyebrow at the sight of him, and were Rhys to look up, he might be proud of how Vaughn wasn't shaking or looking scared in the least of the man. Felix, on his part, was interested in the complete personality change in the usually skittish man.
"This is Hyperion trash isn't it?" Vaughn asked. "It… all of it… it comes from Helios, doesn't it? We dump it here." Vaughn looked out over the mountains of trash with new understanding. "Helios has always been a clean place… I'm good with numbers. I'm good with tracking things. One of the few things I've always been curious about is where the trash went. I never looked because it was insignificant. But… we did this… and continue to do this… don't we?"
Felix was silent a long moment. "What told you this?"
"Two things… First, almost everything here is Hyperion in nature. Second, there was a drop from Helios a few minutes ago in that direction." Vaughn pointed.
Felix was still silent. Vaughn nodded in understanding. "You didn't leave the girls back because of safety, did you? There was a different reason."
Felix scoffed. "You have your moments when you are more bright than your friend, Hyperion."
Vaughn turned skittish. He wasn't use to praise of any kind, even backhanded ones. "No, no. Not at all. Rhys is much smarter."
Felix argued, "Don't sell yourself short. You're right… I didn't." Felix looked in the distance in silent thought a long moment. "We're Pandoran… Four-Eyes. I have seen so much, I can't forget. I hate you people… I hate you so much. If you had the slightest inkling of an idea of the depth of my hatred…!" He left it unspoken.
Vaughn stepped back fearfully at the amount of anger and hate in the man's face, then Felix composed himself. "But Sasha, Fiona… They have grown in a world that tells them to hate as well. If I could spare them a bit of what I have seen… I would. I would have them fear nothing and hate nobody. It's too late for me to do that, but…" He shrugged. "If they knew of this mountain more than they already do, it would just be another reason for them to hate. Even justified as it might be towards you people." He added offhandedly.
A moment passed between them, and Vaughn found himself saying, "I think you did well."
Felix looked at him in surprise, and Vaughn was equally surprised the words came out of his own mouth. "S-sorry. I-"
"Get back to it." Felix ordered him.
"R-right!" Vaughn scurried down the mountain, but stopped and asked, "Do you think that new drop from Helios will have what we need?"
"Yeah, but the nut-cases will be all over the new trash like fleas. We should hurry back soon. We have already pushed it with being out here as long as we have been."
-Rhys-
Felix announces we are done for the day, and we should return to the caravan. We got a good load of junk I can use to build what we need. Still missing the antenna itself, but at least I have stuff I can put into the antenna and possibly a tracker to guide us to the briefcase. We walk back towards the caravan, and along our journey, my holo-eye flickers and locks on to an object half-buried in rubble to our right.
An antenna! I glance to the others as they continue on. The caravan is in sight. I can grab the antenna and catch up before they ever notice I'm gone. That'll show them. This trip will prove to be quite fruitful if I can knock out the first part on the first day!
-Sasha-
Sasha didn't know what to feel or think. There was simply too much.
Left to do nothing more than sit and muse and wait and clean the caravan for the twentieth time, she did a lot of thinking. She was a good thinker, if one was to ask her, but she knew she was thinking too much. Yet with the inability to do anything else, there was little else she could do.
Memories of her time with August rose up and made her feel disgusted. Disgusted at him for having murdered people, a line her family refused to cross (outside of self-defense); and disgusted with herself for too many reasons to count. She had slept with him, she had pulled him in to care and listen to her more than his own family, and in the end of it all… she might have… actually… maybe… fallen for him a tiny bit.
It was all a con. She reminded herself of that for the millionth time, and while she had believed herself to be detached at one time… the mantra offered little solace now.
He was scum. He was the exact example of what made Pandora a pain in the ass when they met. But then, perhaps the thing that made her so disgusted with herself was the fact that he was changing in the end. She held no illusions. He was still scum, but he was taking steps away from the man handcrafted by his mother to become the kind of man he thought Sasha would be proud of, because of Sasha.
What now? How would he react? Would he become full of pain and loathing from the betrayel, to become the exact monster Vallery wanted as heir to lead their gang? Would he go after Sasha wanting to have an answer to the simple question: Why?
Sasha yelled in aggravation and self-inflicted guilt. Having no other outlet, she took the object closest to her and threw it. Fiona jumped at the sudden noise, but wisely gave her space. Fiona knew her better than Sasha realized.
Seeking another object to vent her frustration on, she grasped a metal cylinder. The touch made her stop and her thoughts violently shifted from one confusing matter to another.
She hated Hyperions. They were at war before and after Jack, but it was hard to grasp the idea of Hyperion without the face and taunting of Jack. You couldn't picture Hyperion without him. Was it because he was the ideal of Hyperion incarnate or because he crafted Hyperion in his image? Sasha decided it was both.
Why then did she have trouble hating the Hyperions they were around? It had only been a few days and despite her reminding herself of what they were, she lacked the sense of disgust towards the two of them she held toward the others of their kind. There was no contempt, no open hatred, no hostility outside of what she forced herself to do and be, because it was natural. They lacked the traits she hated most of Hyperion. If anything, they were only guilty of having been born on the other side of the war.
Such an idea confused her and she hated it. It was a confusing thought that made her wonder where she stood on anything anymore. The world was much simpler a few days ago. She was in a con. Hyperion was evil. Pandoran were scum. Hate Hyperion. Watch for both. Get money. Simple.
Now she had seen moments of friendship, caring, even perhaps tenderness and concern from the very demons that plagued her. She had been given a peace-offering. Admittedly, she could have taken it better, but it shocked her and she just wished things were simple again.
Now she couldn't think of Hyperion without having the conflicting images of Jack's voice taunting them, of death all around her, against the protectiveness and concern and friendship the Hyperions held for each other.
She sighed. The sooner they got rid of the Hyperions and moved on, the better. Then she could return to seeing the world in black and white again without having to question everything she knew up to this point.
Fiona suddenly stood just before a yell came from Felix, "Sasha! Fiona! We're back."
Sasha didn't hesitate to run out and give him a hug. Anything to get her mind out of the gutter. The old man smiled and laughed. "Miss me?"
"No, bored! There's been NOTHING to do!" Sasha replied with a groan.
"She's cleaned at least a dozen times." Fiona smirked and hugged Felix as well. She patted the four-eyed Hyperion on the shoulder in a neutral greeting. He visibly lightened up as though he wasn't expecting any at all. Sasha looked between them expecting some goodies they could tinker with. She considered herself decent with tools, despite the high-and-mighty all-knowing cyborg's assertion.
Felix placed some things on the ground gently. "Okay, Hyperions. Let's have a look."
Vaughn did as he saw Felix do and place what he carried in the pile before patting his hands off.
Sasha waited for Rhys to drop his off… but… where was Rhys? Where was the cyborg? He hadn't walked around the corner with them. Suddenly realizing something was off, Felix spun around counting heads. Vaughn counted much faster and paled. Felix snarled.
"Uh… where's the cyborg?" Fiona wondered.
-Rhys-
I groan and blink in the darkness. Was it day? Was it night? What happened?
The last thing I remembered was tugging on something vitally important and… I jolt up and hit my head on iron bars. I rub my bruised skull and look around.
I was captured. Hands had grabbed me from behind far more silently than I would have expected from anything on Pandora. Pandora is deadly, but it is deadly in a loud sense. What doesn't shoot, yell, run around like a lunatic, or explode is NOT Pandoran in nature.
The cell I am in is designed for a dog. There's a blanket under me. The door to the dog-cage is wide open. So… am I a prisoner or not? Odd that the cage would be wide open.
Slowly I climb out on all fours. My ECHO-eye flares to life and I see in the darkness. I'm inside a cavern. That's the first thing I realize. Second, it is rather homey. There is no bed but there are other things you would associate with a home: furnace, old couch, some furnishings and rugs, a kitchen area, a table covered in tools and hardware.
"Oh, good! You're awake!" A cheerful robotic voice says from the side.
I flinch and jump away at the sound. There is a droid standing there. A claptrap unit.
"A claptrap? I thought they were all destroyed." Lilith says in wonder. Mordecai whistles. Brick is off getting more popcorn.
"Uh, hi." I say.
"Hello! How was your sleep! I hope it was to your liking! You know, it is so hard to get the lice out after you burn the dog… And wouldn't you know it. Duct-tape doesn't fix EVERYTING! Doesn't fix your dog, doesn't get your in-laws to shut up (actually makes them angrier!), and doesn't stop keep you from getting thirsty! I am so parched! Would you like a drink?" The droid finishes rambling long enough to offer a glass of oil. I eye the black liquid.
This droid is a few circuits short of a processor. I'm not sure if that is a sign that Pandora's insanity effects even droids, or if it's a bad thing that I'm not really surprised anymore. I've had a crash course in Pandora people. Best not to incur its wrath. I smile and take the glass from its hands.
"I… uh. I don't take it you get visitors… often." I try an attempt at conversation.
"Nah, I get people all the time! But your way of greeting is so much nicer! Most of the time it is with 'AAAAAAAAHH!' or 'OH MY GAWD DON'T SHOOT ME!', 'Welcome to Wall'mart!', and then there's my favorite 'SPIT ON ME!'. It is certainly refreshing to meet a cyborg with manners." The droid shoves its own glass of oil in its face as if it has a mouth, only it doesn't. So the liquid pours down its front onto the floor. It makes smacking noises as if it has lips. "Speaking of manners, I am so sorry, I have humiliated myself!"
"Well, if you are referring to the…" I try not to stare at the streak of black liquid pouring down the claptrap's front.
"My identification is STFU-69! That's short for-"
"I know what its short for." I say quickly. "I think… it is a very fitting name."
"REALLY!?" It yells excitedly. "So nice to meet a brother that understands the conventional importance of proper identification! After all, words are nothing more than standard combinations of letters to identify an object! It is only fitting the proper word be used to most accurately describe said object!"
"I'm Rhys." I offer in return for the name, completely ignoring the rambling.
"Reese!" It repeats.
"Rhys." I reply.
"That's what I said!"
"…" I don't know what to do with it.
"Anyway, Reese!" The droid moves over next to me, climbs up onto a bench besides where I stand, and sits next to me. "Have you considered our lord and savior?"
"… What?" Is about as far as my ability to keep up can go. How did we go from 'hi, how as your sleep' to ''ducttape' to 'want a drink' to 'manners' to 'names' to 'would you like to talk about God'? This is an English teacher's nightmare. There is no flow whatsoever.
"It's okay, not everyone does. But I am fully qualified to have this conversation! I'm a priest!"
"Right." I answer, failing to keep the disbelief out of my voice. "Priest of who? Cthulu?"
"No, silly! Jack!"
Of course, why am I not surprised. I hail him as a hero, but I wouldn't go quite as far as God. I'm not THAT insane. I only have his collectibles, some of his spit in a jar, and motivational posters. I don't have his bible, I tried, but someone else outbid me by two cents! (The bible was autographed and everything!) so no, I'm not that nuts.
"Ah, Jack." I nod. "I know Jack. Nice guy. Yeah…"
The droid stares at me a long, loooong time. I can see its 'eye' widen and focus on me in wonder. "You are the second coming of Jack…"
"Wha-"
Before I have time to wonder what the actual hell has gotten into my insane friend, it is grabbing me by the hand and dragging me out of the hut into the bright outdoors. Instantly I see we are in the middle of a bustling village of trash, and there is a very thick population of psychos.
The psychos part like water before us as this claptrap seems to have their respect. All the time I hear things like "WELCOME TO WAL'MART!" and "SPIT ON ME!" and "AAAAAHHHH!" and "OH MY GAWD DON'T KILL ME!"
STFU-69 drags me through the village. I try to resist, but its grip is iron tight around my wrist. I don't think it even notices I am trying to pull back against its grip. It just carries on and hums happily until we reach a podium… with a throne on it.
"Wha? A throne?" I murmur. I continue trying to resist, but STFU-69 is having none of that. He shoves me into the throne's seat, places a six-inch hell stripper's shoe in my left hand, a hammer in my right hand, and a baseball cap on my head. He raises my right hand into the air. Everyone in the crowd cheers.
"EVERYONE! EVERYONE! LOOK UNTO ME! HE POSSESSES THE HAMMER OF TRUTH! AND THE SHOE OF REALITY!" STFU-69 yells.
"It's more beautiful than I ever imagined!" One random Psycho yells.
"I HAVE SEEN THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN! AND YOU WILL WORSHIP HIM AS THOUGH HE WERE A GOD!"
And… that is the story of how I became a god.
I wanted to go home.