You're listening to Hollow Point Underground. If you've been living under a rock figuratively as well as literally, we're here to tell you all the rumors you're hearing are true: Helios has crashed on Pandora! Details are still unclear, but celebration is in full swing all over the planet, and Hollow Point is definitely no exception. This is truly the end of an era for Hyperion, and I think I speak for all of us saying it couldn't have come soon enough. Local band The Sexy Bullymongs has just announced they're working on a hot new single inspired by this great event. So, if you all jammed to their last two hits, "Ugly Jack" and "They'll Never Get Us All," you won't want to miss this one.
Just a reminder, be sure to tip your bartender while you're out partying, and be careful out there firing those Torgue rockets. We've already had reports of one cave-in and at least three dismembered limbs.
If I can just make a more serious note for a minute, listeners, and then I promise we'll get back to the revelry. We have someone you may remember with us—fellow Hollow Pointer and former DJ of this station. She has asked to borrow our airtime to send out a quick message to find a friend of hers, who has been missing since Helios' impact.
Go ahead, Sasha. You're on the air.
-Broadcasting by Hollow Point Underground, 12 hours after Helios' destruction
—
Rhys' everything hurt. The parts he was missing, ironically, hurt most of all. The central nervous system was funny like that. Hilarious, really.
Every so often, a gust of wind stirred up some sand. It stung his bruised throat, his gaping temple wound, his eye, and his empty socket. He tried to rub at his face with both hands, only to be reminded he only had the one now. Obstinately, he switched between rubbing his eye and his socket with the heel of his left hand.
One gust was just strong enough to blow off his Hyperion vest, leaving it hanging at his left side. It didn't seem worth the effort to keep it on with one of the armholes unfilled, so he shook it loose and let it fall in the sand.
It was still early morning, but he figured he could soon expect to add 'scorching thirst' to his catalogue of problems.
The closest thing to a plan he'd strung together was to follow a set of tire tracks he'd found. Every now and again he made out a serial number from a tire imprinted in the tracks. Instinctively he squinted, trying to scan it and see if it was Hyperion brand. The futility was like being a kid with a missing front tooth; it's definitely gone, but the tongue's urge to poke it persists.
The ruin of Helios was still close enough behind that he could make out the pillars of smoke over the sand dunes, if he looked back. Every now and then, since he'd left Jack's office and just started walking, he had to remind himself not to look back. If he did, the hopes that followed were way too high.
Like, the hope that Vaughn would come sprinting over that last dune, following a pair of skag skin boot tracks, flailing those surprisingly sculpted arms and calling out to him. Or the hope that Loader Bot's cold, but always welcome voice would hail through the Echo-Comm in his ear to assure him that another robo-rescue was on its way.
Or the craziest of all, the hope that it had been some other ramshackle flying caravan he saw leaving him to his fate up there in the cold void of space…and any second now Fiona and Sasha would land right in front of him, open the door, and demand he get his ass inside before the skags catch his scent.
Stoically he cast all those fantasies from his head like he had his implants. Fiona and Sasha got what they were after, and they were not coming back for him. Loader Bot was gone, as he saw for himself. And Vaughn…he figured there was a chance his best friend was still out there somewhere. But even if he was, well…if it hadn't been for Rhys' aversion to pushing a broom, Vaughn would be pedaling away on that exercise bike at his desk, throwing back a protein smoothie and obsessively tweaking the page margins on some account report. To ask forgiveness for literally reducing Vaughn's life to rubble seemed like the great-grandfather of tall orders.
So onward he pressed, keeping his already-impaired gaze on those tire tracks, wherever they led. From time to time he encountered a piece of debris that had made good distance from the crash site before embedding itself in a sandy final resting place. So, not looking back wasn't really an option, when "back" was still turning up in chunks front of him.
Finally the tire tracks came to an abrupt end. He found the truck, and it had crashed.
The first thing he noticed was the color. It wasn't Hyperion yellow…or any color at all but a mashup of rusty metallic hues.
The second thing that stood out was the zigzag direction the tire tracks had taken in the final stretch of their trip, barely skirting chunks of twisted metal. The truck had been swerving to dodge Helios' falling debris, until it collided with something and went no further.
Rhys didn't need an ECHO-Eye, or Fiona's brisk witticism, or Handsome Jack's sardonic barbs to tell him what this meant. Whoever drove this truck wasn't a Hyperion survivor fleeing after Helios crashed, bound for some company shelter or comms tower. That had just been another of those too-high hopes.
This truck's driver was a Pandora native, trying to escape while Helios crashed.
And why should the dead be only Hyperion? For all Rhys knew, the station crushed a mining settlement, full rough-around-the-edges folks just surviving day to day.
"What do you think of that kill count, Jack?" he uttered miserably. "I hope I made you proud."
Jack was, for all intents and purposes, gone. But if he still existed in some form beyond oblivion—his soul, his source code, whatever—Rhys didn't doubt he was laughing now. He could almost hear it echoing through those hollowed out spots in his brain where Jack once took up residence.
The truck's driver seat was empty, the windshield shattered. A huddle that had most likely been the driver lay motionless several feet in front of the wreck. There was a passenger riding shotgun—a leathery old woman, decked out in all the usual "don't mess with me" Pandoran duds. There was a hunting knife strapped to her belt. Her head drooped against the dashboard. She wasn't moving.
Gingerly, Rhys pushed on her shoulder to recline her against the seat. He skittered back just in case she came to and decided to use that knife. But she just slumped there, head sagging towards her lap. Whoever she was, she must have lived a long life on one of the most inhospitable planets in the universe. She had survived skags and rakks, Atlas, psychos, and Hyperion.
But not Rhys Strongfork. He was the end of her.
There was a pained groan from several feet in front of the wreck. Rhys started and looked over at it. The huddle that had been the driver was stirring. "Gran?" it choked. It was a young male voice. "A-Are ye tha', Gran?"
Rhys stumbled towards the first living person he'd encountered on the ground. Maybe here was a small chance to right one of his new thousands of wrongs.
The driver had on a helmet, with goggles pushed up onto his forehead. His face, though bruised, marked him in his late teens or early twenties. Thanks to the helmet, his head had fared best in the collision.
The rest of him fared less so, and Rhys' stomach roiled at the sight of the angles his limbs had assumed. The blood had dried, but still reeked.
"Wh-who a' ye?" the kid croaked weakly.
"I'm…" Nobody? Hyperion's downfall? The reason you look like a marionette? "…Rhys."
"…Kaiser," the kid supplied, and coughed. "G-Gran. Where's…Gran?"
"In the truck, but…she didn't make it," Rhys said. "I'm sorry." He knelt down beside Kaiser. If he never got to say it to anyone else, at least he'd say it this one time. "I'm sorry, Kaiser."
Now closer to the kid's face, Rhys could see the flush in his cheeks and the sweat on his brow. The pain he was in was clearly intense.
Kaiser grimaced. "Hy…perion…bastards," he cursed. Rhys was thankful to be rid of his vest. Kaiser looked him over with effort. "Got ye good too…didn't they?"
"I'm not gonna be able to lift you," Rhys said. "Can you…I dunno…try to hold on to me? Maybe I can…" he wasn't sure what he could do. "…drag you to the truck?"
"The truck…" Kaiser repeated. "A' we still…going t'…Tundra Express?"
Why not? Rhys couldn't name anyplace better to go. "Where is it?" he asked.
"Gran's Echo thing…" Kaiser tried feebly to point to the truck, but couldn't even lift his hand.
"Welp, looks like I'm driving. Don't worry, Kai; I'll treat your ride like she was my own." Rhys tapped into his old, managerial habit of salving a bad situation with humor. "Come on, let's—" He tried to usher Kaiser's less injured-looking arm around his shoulders.
Kaiser screamed, and Rhys reflexively dropped him. The young Pandoran plopped back onto the sand, and his body wracked with sobs.
New plan, new plan, new plan, Rhys thought frantically. His lone eye darted, then fixed on Kaiser's pant leg. There was a flash in his memory of Fiona attempting something similar, only to end up borrowing his boot. He clutched the hem of Kaiser's pant leg, scrambled up, and heaved back.
He might as well have been trying to pull a tree out of the ground at the Biodome. That is, if trees hollered in pain for the hemisphere to hear.
He put Kaiser's leg back down with a swear, spun towards the truck, and sprang for the driver's seat. If he couldn't bring Kaiser to the truck, maybe he could bring the truck to Kaiser.
"Rhys, wait!" a broken voice cried out. "Gran's knife…I need…bring…"
He blinked confusedly, but did as Kaiser asked. He swallowed his revulsion as he leaned across to the dead old woman in the passenger seat. He gripped the knife at her hip and drew it free, then walked it over to the agonized kid. He let himself hope the knife would be used for cutting bandages, or making a splint. It only took one look at Kaiser's face to tell him it wasn't that.
"Tell me you're not thinking what it looks like you're thinking," Rhys entreated.
"I ain't goin' nowhere…mate…" Kaiser quavered. "We both know…"
Rhys swallowed hard. Kaiser was a stranger to him. A Pandoran. He had never clapped him on the back and welcomed him to the Hyperion family at orientation. They'd never griped about cafeteria food together, or exchanged a round of finger gun shots in the hallway like so many others now dead because of him. But he now faced doing the one thing for Kaiser he hadn't done for the rest: actually seeing him die.
He said the most stupid, obvious, regrettable thing possible. "You can't even hold the knife."
He got exactly the response he might have expected. "You can."
"No way, man, I'm not…" he trailed off. What? 'Not killing you'? he thought. Here's the kicker to that: I already did.
"Why not?" Kaiser coughed again. "We live on Pandora, mate… There's worse ways t' go… 'n these parts… eh?"
Rhys tightened his grip on the knife's hilt to stop it from shaking. "No, there's another way: your Gran's Echo Device. We'll just call someone to help."
"Who? …Vault Hunters? Nothin' to…pay 'em…"
"Maybe…maybe I'll—"
"Too late for 'maybe,' Rhys." Kaiser's body spasmed. "Do it. Please."
Acceptance of the truth crept over Rhys like a storm cloud. He couldn't lift Kaiser, or load him into the truck. There was nobody to call for help…and if he just left Kaiser behind, the kid would just go in one of those 'worse ways.'
The only help he had to offer was in his sole fist. He knelt down again and looked the blade over. It was sharp and pristine. Kaiser's Gran must have taken good care of it.
It would be easiest to say nothing at all and get this over with quickly. Or he could try to lurch up onto the high road. Your Gran is waiting for you, he could tell Kaiser. This is all my fault, he could say.
He poised the edge of the knife at Kaiser's throat, and decided on "Do you, uh…have any last words?"
Kaiser looked at him with a surreal clarity in his eyes, and barely above a whisper he said, "They'll never get us all."
Rhys made himself nod sagely to that. Then he looked away and gave a quick yank.
—
A few moments later, Rhys' back slouched against the heavy object that had sailed from Helios to land in the truck's path. He held he knife wanly in his lap, though he had wiped it somewhat clean on Kaiser's pant leg once the kid was well beyond caring.
He stared ahead blankly. Twice in less than twenty-four hours, someone had begged him for mercy: Jack to be spared from the nothingness that waited beyond, Kaiser to be released into it. One he had denied, the other he had granted. Either one on its own could have haunted his dreams as long as he lived.
And how long would that be, at this rate?
They'll never get us all. Kaiser wasn't wrong about that, Rhys considered. Armed with only a few lines of code and a stun baton, he had conducted the most definitive act of downsizing in Hyperion history. Armed with only a jagged rebar and a shard of glass, he had brought about a second end to Handsome Jack.
And somehow, he was still here. It was anyone's guess as to why. He let the knife fall to his lap for a moment and felt for the folded up piece of paper in his pocket. The Atlas stock certificate was nestled safely there, giving him as much of a "why" as he could muster.
The sun was brighter now, the shadows across the land diminished. He heard the screech of rakks overhead, bringing his attention back to where he was.
This is Pandora. There are worse ways to go around these parts.
He didn't recall consciously deciding to stand up and climb into the driver's seat, but there he found himself next, with the hunting knife in his belt and Kaiser's Gran's Echo Device balanced precariously on his lap. Just like Kaiser had said, it marked the route to Tundra Express.
He wondered if that was far from the Atlas Biodome, or if this truck would even get him there. He had to shift around awkwardly in the seat to operate the steering one-handed, but miraculously the truck began to back away from the debris that had stalled it.
A few feet back, and he could now make out exactly what the truck had collided with: a vending machine. The glass had been smashed in by the bumper, leaving the machine's contents ripe for the taking.
The rakks overhead seemed to think Kaiser would make the best appetizer, since they were descending where he lay. That gave Rhys time to cash out his uncommonly generous Hyperion severance package. He slid out of the driver's seat and rummaged inside the vending machine. He ignored the sting of broken glass; that was getting familiar enough lately. He dragged out a few dehydrated protein bars. Without even a glance to see what flavor they alleged to be, he stuffed them into his pants pockets. He'd just lick the wrappers clean if they got squished in transit. Right now he was about as picky as that swarm of rakks.
He turned up some juice pouches, too. They weren't real juice, he knew— just water recycled within arguably tolerable limits and stuck with a straw coated in some vaguely fruity flavor. All the same his mouth watered, and he planted the edge of one pouch between his teeth, resolving to drink it just as soon as he got underway.
He'd have scavenged more if he could, but his pockets were full and he couldn't carry any more in just one arm. He returned with his loot to the driver's seat.
He turned to Kaiser's Gran. It felt like the right thing to do to let her stay here with her grandson. Hesitantly, he leaned his weight against her stony flesh and tried to push her out the passenger side.
He grunted, strained, and occasionally gagged. A woman of her age ought to give way like a lawn bag, but met with his little strength, she remained firmly welded to the seat. He gave up, exhausted, and resigned that his drive to the tundra would be just a little less solitary than he thought.
"So what else is new?" he muttered.
—
The static on the radio was getting irritating. Rhys only made out the odd word or phrase, like "GIANT F^#%ING LETTER 'T'!" The truck listed to the right and rattled ominously from time to time. He had to hold tight to the steering to keep it on track, meaning he couldn't turn the radio off or change the station. Then later, he heard "celebration is in full swing," and "The Sexy Bullymongs." Finally he gave a sigh, and leaned over to push the off switch with his nose.
The silence was only nominally better. Gran wasn't much for conversation. Not for the first time, he fought the urge to look over at her.
The what-ifs crept unbidden back into his mind. Instead of a dead Pandoran granny, what he wouldn't give for it to be Vaughn in the passenger seat beside him, clapping his back and saying "You did all you could, man. I doubt I could have done that."
Or for Loader Bot to ride in the back, pivoting an arm and hand to clasp his shoulder with a calculated, "Since the deceased humans cannot forgive you, I will do it instead."
Or for Sasha to seize the wheel, shove him over, and slap that canteen from her leg pouch into his chest. "Go ahead—it's Felix's whiskey," she'd say with a daring grin. "I lifted some more while Fiona's back was turned. You look like you could use it right now."
How long until he forgot the pitch of her voice? The way it darted from sharp to cheery to dangerous, as chaotic as her changing moods?
He shook his head. She got him good, and so did Fiona. Who ever thought the best con that two grifters could pull would be just as themselves?
Then again, it wasn't like he hadn't been warned.
—
Rhys hadn't talked about the Price family in years. The last person he'd mentioned his mom, his stepfather, or his half-siblings to was Vaughn, and even that had been well before the pair started at Hyperion. Yvette was never big on origin stories. (He could see the sense now in her not wanting to get too familiar.)
But there he was, taking a shot from a whiskey bottle and passing it around the campfire to Fiona while kebobs smoldered. And there was Sasha, reclining across the fire from him barefooted, asking about family. There was something about the ease of their newfound fellowship—and the warmth of that spirit in his throat—that made him feel like he could open up. And Sasha looked…sympathetic?
Any personal connection he might have been forging literally went up in smoke when his dinner caught fire. And then not long after that, the whiskey he had drunk signaled its readiness to get off at the nearest exit. The "exit" ended up being the skull of some gigantic Pandoran creature a few paces away from the caravan…but at least it was tall enough to offer him a measure of privacy.
Relatively speaking.
"Haaaaaaaw!" there was a long, exaggerated yawn coming from the skull, startling Rhys and interrupting his progress. The skull's hollow eye sockets shimmered blue as Handsome Jack appeared on the other side.
"For the record, Rhysie, I don't usually endorse this on the clock to anyone who isn't me," the apparition said. "But you have just got to get the rest of that whiskey down your gullet, pronto. If you can get blackout drunk, I think I might have a chance of getting a good buzz going. It's worth a try, right? So, c'mon, chug-chug. Do it for Jack. No 'I' in 'team'. And no 'me' in 'Holy jalapeño hotdog, if I have to be sober one more second of this trip, I'll kill the nearest living thing.'"
Rhys bit his lip, both annoyed and embarrassed. "We had a deal about when you could and couldn't talk to me. …This was one of the 'couldn'ts,' remember?" he said.
"Yeah, yeah, we had a deal. I've made lots of deals in my time, but I definitely don't remember shaking on this one," Jack retorted. "Maybe because, you know, I can't shake and all. Incorporeal as all get out. Also, will you just relax? I'm not even looking." He flickered out of existence, and reappeared seated on top of the skull, looking out at the desert. "See? Facing the other way. Your secrets are safe, Squirt."
There was no way his choices of the words "shake" and "squirt" weren't intentional. Rhys refastened, wiped his hands on his trousers, and started to head back. Jack, however, didn't seem to think this had been bonding experience enough. He flashed down to Rhys' side.
"So. Raised by nannies, huh?" he quipped. "Some chuckleberries have all the luck. If that had been me, I'd have been giving the spankings as good as I got by puberty. Ha! Y'know what I'm saying?" He always made it a point to laugh at his own jokes.
"Helga didn't raise me, exactly," Rhys said. "And, not sure why this is so fascinating to you, but I was out of the Price house before junior high. Moved in with my dad when he got out."
"Right, Jailbird Strongfork, Sr. What a stand-up guy he must be," said Jack. "…Or, must have been?"
"I changed my mind. We're not having this conversation."
"Yeah that's okay, kiddo, you don't have to tell me; just let me guess." Jack chewed a hangnail he couldn't possibly really have, while his hand glitched away from his jaw and back again. "After watching your irretrievable young years pass by through padded glass, your old man swore to make up for lost time, even if he had to go toe-to-toe with his ex and double-crossing former partner to do it. And, cue custody battle royale of the century! …That ring of truth?"
Rhys raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"
"Trust me, as backstories go, it's not that original." Jack turned weirdly solemn. "Kids have a way of making a guy…do things. Bonus points when they're out-of-reach kids."
Not sure how to respond to that, Rhys waited for further elaboration that didn't come.
Jack blipped over to the animal skull and leaned against it. "Anyway, figure I'll hear all about those father-son fishing trips soon enough, if you keep singing your life story in E Major to freaking con artists," he said. "Smart move, by the way. Except for the part where it's completely stupid. You've seen what Miss Edgy Orange Highlight keeps up one sleeve, but what about the other? And do you really think BoHo Chick doesn't look at every Joe Shmoe she meets that same way while casing them?"
"Relax, I haven't forgotten who I'm dealing with," Rhys said. "That was all just small talk, back there at the fire. Nothing incriminating, no password hints, nothing like that."
"Oh, you gave them a hint, alright," Jack retorted. "You hinted at how much of a sucker you can be with the right persuasion."
Rhys chuckled flippantly. "Don't you think you may be reading too much into it?"
"No, uh-uh, I'm reading exactly the right amount into it! You know how I know?' Jack jabbed his pointer finger into his own chest. "Because I wrote the freaking book on getting shafted!" Another blip, and Jack was now walking alongside his cerebral host. "Go ahead, do yourself a favor and add this to your collection of Handsome Jack's motivational quotes: Count on everyone disappointing you, and you'll never be disappointed."
"Whatever you say, Jack."
Jack stopped walking, though Rhys was still aware of the AI program watching his retreating back as he returned to the caravan.
"Just tread carefully," Jack called in parting. "Because it's not just your ass on the line here."
—
Rhys began to recognize landmarks as he followed Gran's Echo-Device's charted course. There was the Hyperion billboard riddled with bullet holes. The towering cliff face where some flying creature made its nest. And the animal skull that had served as both his outhouse and Jack's center for unsolicited advice. …Which had turned out to be right all along.
It wouldn't be long now before the cold started setting in.
He made up his mind that he would find the Atlas Biodome. His thoughts drifted to the stock certificate in his pocket. That technically made the facility his now; he could hunker down there awhile. Rebuild himself. Rebuild the company.
They'll never get us all.
"They didn't, Kaiser," he mouthed. "I didn't."
He could tell himself he needed to live for this all to be worth it. He knew that wasn't true. The very idea of his intentions being that noble was a joke, even to him.
He just didn't want to die.
Because either Jack was right and there was nothing there, or else he was. Along with Kaiser, Gran, and a fleet of finger guns.