Chapter 11

Pandora

"What do places like this even produce?" Artemis asked in a quiet voice, looking around at the thick pipes that surrounded them.

"Steam." Gaige replied "I think they produce steam, you see these places all the time in the movies."

They'd made their way into the base through a side door that Gaige had persuaded to open for them and found themselves in a factory, or at least something that looked like a factory if it had been combined with a power plant and an accident in a pipe warehouse.

Dripping pipes went everywhere, sometimes in clusters, sometimes alone. Big pipes, little pipes, painted ones and rusted ones, about the only thing they had in common was the fact that they were all covered in condensation. And periodically between them, bursts of steam shot out, hiding everything in a cloud of white.

They made their way through the massive area on a narrow pathway of metal grating, having to be cautious not to touch any of the pipes because most of them were scalding hot to the touch, a mistake they only made once.

Behind the low noise of the pressure in the pipes moving and the sharp blasts of steam whistling and hissing, there was a steady low thumping noise that Gaige associated with every factory she'd ever been in. And behind it all, she could hear the sounds of gunfire.

She desperately wanted to distract herself from the predicament they were in, but didn't want to let the loaders know that they were there, so she kept her questions to herself.

She hated this. Hated having to rely on Artemis for what felt like everything, saving her, getting them whatever they needed, planning, and just about everything else aside from driving, which left her feeling like a glorified chauffeur. But worse than being a chauffeur, she was the one dragging them into the problem in the first place. In addition to that, she wanted a drink, badly and she'd missed her last two meetings due to timing problems.

As she stewed in her negative thoughts, she nearly missed Artemis slowing down. Cocking her head to ask the other girl 'what?' she was met with a hand pointing to a door set into the wall ahead. Catching the look from the other girl, Gaige thought about it for a second and nodded, she was alright with going that way. Nodding back, Artemis dashed over to it and after checking to make sure it wasn't hot, placed her ear against it. A moment later, she stepped back and tried the handle. Finding it unlocked, she swung it open and swept through, pistol out. Gaige hurried to follow, with Deathtrap bringing up the rear.

They found themselves in a much smaller and cooler area, one that looked like it had been for the maintenance crews, since the walls were lined with lockers and there were still a few pairs of overalls hanging against one wall. The wall opposite them cut off half way and they could see a shower room off to the side through it.

Stepping in, they closed the door and cut most of the sound off with it. Cautiously moving around, they made sure no one was there. As they went, they each mentally took inventory of what they found. Around the opposite way from the showers was an office, which had undoubtedly belonged to some kind of foreman, though the door was covered in a layer of dirt and grime showing the years since anyone had used it. The showers were gross, with mold building up on the tile and the plumbing rusting out. Tiles had fallen off the walls and scattered across the floor, giving the place a dismal air. On the wall next to the office was another door that they guessed would lead into the rest of the complex, holding off on that, they stepped into the office to collect their thoughts.

"This is a fine mess you've gotten us into." Gaige said with a bit more venom than she'd intended.

"Oh, so this is my fault?"

"Well, this was your idea."

"You're the one that said we should come here."

"I never suggested that, you were the one who said they had an idea."

"No, I said we needed to deal with the EMPs, you're the one that said we should come to Pandora."

"Pan...Oh, I thought you were meaning this place, as in the base we're in now."

"Why would I say this was your idea, I just led us here?"

"That's what I was wondering."

They fell into silence for a few moments before Gaige cleared her throat and spoke up "Look, I'm sorry, no wait for me to finish, I started this out a bit harsher then I'd meant to, so we went wrong from the get go, I...well..."

"You want a drink."

"Yeah."

Artemis nodded and waved her hand "Then forget about it. But we still need to talk about what we do from here."

"I'm assuming that you mean about this base and not everything else that we need to talk about."

"Wait, what else do we need to talk about?"

"Nothing at the moment." Gaige said before realizing that the other girl would no doubt be starting to freak out, thinking about all kinds of dark things and quickly clarified "Nothing bad, just what to do next, after we get the bombs from Tina, as well as where we're going between us and all that kind of thing."

"Oh." Gaige could hear the relief in Artemis's voice and noticed Deathtrap giving her a subtle thumbs up, telling her that she'd done good.

"Well, putting all of that off for later, what do we do now?"

"I donno."

"Wait, what do you mean, you donno? This was your plan wasn't it?"

"Yeah, well, my plan ended with us losing the bandits."

"That's all the farther you got?"

"What? I told you I'm not that much of a planner."

"And then you routinely prove that you are."

"Well, this time I was telling the truth."

"I guess so. Well, I guess we just need to figure something out." Gaige said, giving an exasperated sigh.

"Well, you're the expert on this Hyperion stuff, so if there was, idonno, another way out, or something we could use, where would it be?"

"How would I know? I mean, the last time I dealt with this stuff was something like eight years ago and at the time, I was more concerned with smashing it than learning, which in retrospect might have been a mistake. Always learn where you can."

"True, but you're wrong, the last time you dealt with Hyperion stuff was at the Project Odysseus site."

"Fine, but that doesn't really count, now does it, since that was a completely different setup."

"OK, fine, you're right, but you're still the best we've got, so anything would be better than nothing."

"Well I don't remember." Gaige snapped back.

"Urguggr"

Gaige froze and turned to the robot. After a second she hung her head and said "Sorry, it's just that I don't remember much of the bases and that each one was different."

"That's fine." Came the meek reply, causing a wave of irritation to surge through Gaige.

"Urgurr" Deathtrap snapped at Artemis, causing her head to pop up in surprise, it wasn't often that he chastised her, so she took a moment to think about it and nodded.

"I mean, I guess what I was hoping for was that with your, uh, background? Experience? Whatever, that you might know a bit more about how to find your way through this place. Oh, and I wasn't just meaning your time as a Vault Hunter, but the fact that you know more about factories and machines and stuff, so I was hoping that you might, you know, have a clue about it, or something."

"Oh. Sorry." Gaige said, finally getting it. She made a mental note to thank Deathtrap later for butting in and calling the other girl out. She needed to stand up for herself, to express herself better, but Gaige couldn't seem to get that through to her, so having the steady presence of Deathtrap call her out seemed to have done the trick, at least for now. That said, she understood where Artemis was coming from in asking if she knew anything of use, this was more of Gaige's area of expertise, so she sat back and wracked her brain, trying to think of anything that might be useful. She had a lot of experience to draw from, so it took a while, but eventually she started to speak.

"So, first off, understand that I have no idea about how this place is laid out, or even what it was originally for, so everything I'm about to say is pure speculation. That said, with the number of loaders around, plus the amount of pipes, but the lack of refinery equipment, I'd say that this isn't a Slag processing plant, but probably some kind of power plant. Well, at least the area that we're in right now is. What it feeds, that I don't know. There's no way to tell until we get a bit further in, but, like I said, there seems to be a lot of loaders here, which could mean one of a few things. This could be a loader factory. It could also be a repair site. They could be doing something hazardous here. They could've just arrived when everything fell apart. Or someone could've brought them here afterwards, either to make up for a lack of personnel or for protection."

Gaige fell silent and back into thought for a second before adding "Well, there is one other possibility."

"And what's that?"

Gaige exchanged a look with Deathtrap and after a second, he seemed to get it and nod.

"There could be a Constructor here."

"What's that?"

"It's like a giant loader, well, it doesn't look like a loader, more like a Surveyor without the wings only like ten feet high or so, but that part's not important, what is, is that it Digi-structs loaders. So, one of them could theoretically have supplied the entire base worth of loaders, given enough time.

"Well, I think it could've, I really have no idea about their capacity or any of that stuff, we tended to try and take them down as fast as possible, so I've never seen what they can fully do, or what their limits are."

"Alright, so how does any of these affect us?"

"Well, really they don't." Gaige admitted guiltily "I just wanted to lay out some ideas, get them out of my head and all that."

"Oh, alright, that's fine. But what do we do from here?"

"Well, simplistically, we've got two choices, forward or back."

"Well since back leads us into a fight between loaders and bandits, I guess forward."

"Yeah. Only problem with that is we have no idea what we'll find."

"Do we ever?"

"No. So do you want point, or should I?"

"I'll take it, but stay closer, I'm gonna need advice on which way to go."

"Weren't you the one who told me that when you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there?"

"Yeah, but that was different."

"Sure."

Sticking her tongue out, Artemis turned and led the way back out. While they'd been talking, Gaige had casually been checking papers in the office, but nothing had meant anything to her, so she fell in behind the other girl, with Deathtrap once again bringing up the rear.

After checking the door, Artemis turned the handle and gave it a push, silently hoping that it wouldn't squeak too bad.

It did. It let out a protracted squeal of protest, before coming to a halt halfway open. It wasn't that it'd hit anything, it was just that the hinges were in bad shape and she hadn't given it a hard shove.

Glancing through, she found herself facing a short hallway, lined on either side with a pair of doors. Glancing in as they passed, they found a cheap, dirty break room with vending machines that had long ago been broken into and an assortment of other break room things, like stained mugs and coffee pots. Across from that was a pair of bathrooms that neither of them felt like looking in and the last door led to the most basic medical center either of them had ever seen, just a bed and a Dr. Zed vending machine that had long since broken down.

"Well, that's just depressing." Gaige muttered.

Artemis nodded, before heading to the far door. Opening it slowly, she found herself facing a courtyard. Off to one side, she could make out the front gate, opposite it, was what she took to be the main building and straight across from where she was, she could just make out what appeared to have once been a place for vehicles to park and maybe get some maintenance done, though she couldn't be sure, not just cause the place looked like it had been striped long ago, but because of the crates that had been stacked in her line of sight.

Slipping back a bit, she let Gaige have a look, before they moved back to try and figure out what to do next.

"Well, I think it's obvious, we need to get into the main building." Gaige started.

"Yeah, it's not like we've got many other choices. The main problem is how do we get there."

"On our feet." Feeling the cold look on her, Gaige snapped "Well I don't have another way to get there, unless you were meaning something else."

"Sorry for being obtees." Came the sad reply.

"What?"

"Urgrur"

"Huh, oh, obtuse." Gaige said, smacking her fist into her palm "Look, maybe you were being obtuse, maybe I just wasn't getting it, so let's start again. What were you trying to say?"

"I was just meaning that we needed to figure out how to get there from here without the loaders killing us."

"Oh, you were meaning how are we gonna cross without being spotted. That kind of how are we gonna get there?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm, good point." Gaige fell into thought, before shrugging "I guess we're just gonna have to make a break for it at the right time."

"And if we get there and the door's locked?"

"Then you two are gonna have to cover me while I work."

"In that case, should we look for something to use as cover, in case we get stuck out there?"

"Might not be the worst idea, though I've seen that used against someone. This one time, Axton had his girlfriend, by which I mean his turret, set up and was cowering behind it, when one of those loaders, which kind was it..."

"Uurgrur"

"It was? Well, I'll take your word for it, anyway, the Hyperion goon throws a grenade, arcing it perfectly to land on his side, Axton's side, of the barrier, so when it goes off, almost all the force slams into him. If the rest of us hadn't been there, he probably woulda died, though considering how much he whined about it, for a while we regretted that he hadn't. Anyway, point is, you're a bitch, wait, that's not it, point is, cover sometimes works against you, and you're a bitch."

"Why am I a bitch now?"

"Nothing, it was a reference to something that happened a long time ago, so you wouldn't get it. Inside joke, that's what it's called. Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just pointing out that sometimes, barriers work against you."

She paused and added "Like you used those Nomad's shields against them last time we were here, remember, when you were rescuing me?"

"Yeah, I get it, so should we take something or not?"

"No, but we should try and spot something to use out there in case."

"Alright, why don't you and Deathtrap do that, since you'd know what would be best for him."

It didn't take long for them to decide on a chunk of metal to use in case of emergency as well as charting a course through the courtyard, though they did put a lot of faith in Artemis's opinion for that, since out of them, she was the best at sneaking and after a quick check to make sure the area was clear and that the loaders were looking elsewhere, Artemis slipped out of the door and dashed for the nearest bit of cover.

Gaige followed close behind her, trying not to get in the way, while also trying to not make much sound. She followed as the girl ghosted from one piece of cover to the next, trying to stay one behind so they didn't run into each other and soon were as close to the door as they could get without being exposed, so she made the last dash up and joined Artemis.

Deathtrap floated over to them as stealthily as he could and the instant he was in place, Artemis glanced out, making sure that all of the loaders were looking elsewhere and found that they were, just as they'd expected, it seemed that they never considered anyone getting behind them. Either that, or they had something else waiting.

Gaige took a breath and dashed out, keeping low till she got to the door panel and tapped the button, only for nothing to happen. Cursing internally, she crouched down and got to work on persuading it to comply, leaving her back open, trusting that her friends would protect it.

Deathtrap nearly went for his portable cover, only to be stopped by Artemis, who signaled for him to wait while keeping an eye on the loaders. Immediately he understood what she was going for and agreed with her, lamenting the fact that he'd let his concern for Gaige get the better of his intelligence. If he went for the cover, he'd draw attention the instant he moved it, if not earlier. But if Gaige could get the door open, they might be able to slip through without alerting anyone. And if someone did spot her, from where he was, it wouldn't take long to dash over and grab his cover, so it was best to leave it until needed, though he wished it was taller, so he could get over to it and wait, so he would be ready to move it if needed, but he couldn't have everything.

Seconds ticked by as they waited, nerves on edge, until they heard the sound of the door lock giving. The instant they started to relax a mechanical voice boomed out "UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. ALERT. ALERT."

Swearing Gaige threw open the door and dove through, hoping that nothing was waiting on the other side, even as Deathtrap grabbed Artemis around the waist and shot across the narrow space between where they were hiding and the door, making it through before the sentry loaders had stood up.

He set Artemis down and flung the door shut, glancing around for anything to barricade it with, but nothing was close by. He took in the area and realized they were in another security checkpoint, a narrow hall sided with clear bulletproof glass. On one side, he could see where the larger door that had been off to the side had led into a large offloading and inspection area. On the other, was a security desk and a number of computers that were powered down at the moment. The door at the far end was closed and Gaige was frantically working on it and everything was illuminated by the strobing orangish-yellow light.

Artemis flattened herself on the floor and signaled for him to go help at the other end. Grateful, he moved as high as he could, angling himself to fit over her and down the narrow hall till he was just behind Gaige.

"No one say anything." Gaige growled in clear frustration "I've almost got this, Babe, give me a hand."

He reached over her and looked at the door, trying to figure out how to get his hands in it, when a narrow bar of metal slid into his field of view. Glancing down, he recognized Artemis's crowbar and let out a burble of thanks before taking it and wedging it into the narrow crack running down the middle of the door and heaving it to the side.

Gaige grabbed the bar so he could get his fingers in and with a mighty heave, and a whole lot of screeching metal protesting, he got it open.

Gaige dashed through, gun up as she swept the area. She found nothing but a dingy room with a desk on one side with a door behind it and another door straight across from where they'd entered. As much as she wanted to inspect everything, she could feel the pressure of time on her being driven home by the continued strobing light.

As she dashed over to the door, the other two entered the room behind her and Deathtrap immediately went to back her up, but Artemis causally hopped the desk, taking a look behind it.

Gaige rolled her eyes at the other girl's lack of urgency, especially since she was always the one making a fuss about it, but thought that she might be trying to examine the other door, so she turned her attention back to the door in front of her, choosing not to say anything right then.

The door was much like the last one, lacking a panel or any other way to open it, so she turned to Artemis to ask for the crowbar again, when the door swooshed open, startling her and causing her to spin at it.

"Yes." Came a soft voice from behind her. Turning slightly, she spotted Artemis hopping back over the desk with a look of triumph on her face. Catching the look she was being given, she whispered "What?"

"Would you be quiet when there's enemies about."

"Sorry, but I don't hear anyone around."

"Well then who opened the door?" Gaige hissed back.

"Me." As the look of confusion crossed Gaige's face, she continued "What? It's one of those, what do'ya call ems? Log in? Check in? Something like that, but judging by the other Hyperion place we were at, I figured this would be where you get processed, so the door would only be able to be opened by the person behind the desk."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Cause I figured you knew that and were just waiting for me to open the door so that you could be prepared."

"Well I wasn't." Gaige hissed back, immediately realizing that she was admitting to being stupider than the other girl thought "Anyway, let's get outta here."

Artemis shrugged, much to Gaige's annoyance and let her take the lead.

Sweeping through the door, she found herself in a massive room that must have taken up most of the building they were in. Trucks and other heavy machinery were parked in rows, each one tucked into a berth. Around them were a few pieces of maintenance equipment and a large crane was against the far wall, the once bright yellow of its caution stripes long since faded into a dull shade of greyish muck that could hardly be identified as a color.

But most pressing was the sheer number of loaders swarming the area.

There were all kinds, not just GUN loaders and BUL loaders, but she could see a HOT loader and a pair of PWR loaders. It was enough for her to consider trying to fall back, but right as the thought entered her mind, the large doors to outside started to grind open, revealing the WAR loader on the other side.

Glancing around in desperation, she felt a light tap on her shoulder and glancing that way, spotted Artemis pointing back down the side of the small building they'd just come out of at an opening.

Losing no time, Gaige followed the other girl as she sprinted towards it, both of them figuring that even if there was something hostile on the other side, it would be better than the WAR loader and its friends out there.

Gaige all but dove through the door as one of the nearest loaders walked out to where she'd been standing and looked at the door, as if it was trying to figure out how it had opened. She threw herself against the wall, ducking out of sight as the loader did a sweep of the area and she heard the distinct whine of a pair of Surveyors flying by.

Taking a second to look around and make sure that no enemies were standing there, waiting for them, she realized they were in a workers break-room, with long cheap tables lined up and cupboards on the walls over an industrial counter covered in stains and gross looking coffee pots which had long since surrendered to the mold growing in them, which itself had long since died.

On one side was a door that she thought led to what had once been the bathrooms, but the signs were so covered in dust that she couldn't tell. On the other side was another door, which must have led to somewhere behind the checkpoint desk. With no other option she pointed to the door and mouthed 'That way.'

She got a look back that expressed exactly what the other girl thought about pointing out the obvious, but afterwards, she cocked her head for a moment, then glanced out and waved Gaige over.

Gaige darted across the opening and over to the door, which wasn't locked and after giving the hinges a stern look, trying to tell them not to dare give off any noise, she slowly pulled the door open.

Inside was a better kept room, but only by a little. But there were no loaders in it, so she slipped inside, holding the door for the other two.

As soon as everyone was inside, she let the door shut and let Artemis take point. She wove through the room, avoiding the door that would've led to the checkpoint and glanced through where the next door had once been and found herself looking at the security checkpoint, only this time she was on the other side of the glass.

Choosing to ignore it, she went to the last door and went through and into another hall which T'd after a short ways. Since neither way had any disturbance in the dust, she figured that no one had been in this part of the complex in quite some time, so she slowed down and scanned the walls, trying to find some kind of directory and failing that, something to help her choose a direction.

Finding nothing, she glanced back at the other two and pointed a finger in both directions while wearing as much of a 'which way' expression as she could. It must have been good enough because Gaige shrugged and pointed, probably choosing the direction at random, but it was still a way to go.

They headed down the hall, trying to spot anything of note, but didn't have much luck until they'd turned another corner and found themselves in a larger space.

Unlike the previous large area, this one had an average height ceiling from which lights hung, though most of them had long since burned out, prompting Artemis to dig out her lantern to illuminate their way.

Gaige walked over to one of the tables that were scattered around the area and carefully blew the dust off of what had been being worked on when the staff had left and after a minute waved the other two over.

In a quiet voice she said "So I think I've figured out where we are."

Artemis opened her mouth, no doubt to say something stupid, so Gaige continued "This place must've been a hub for Hyperion's road construction department. See these maps and all this surveyor data? That's a good sign, but if you look, the roads marked aren't there outside, plus a lot of this stuff is things I've seen before dealing with construction, especially of large-scale projects."

"Alright, so there's probably nothing we can use here is what you're saying."

"Well, no. But we still need to finish exploring the place, cause we need to find another way out. Unless you wanna face those WAR loaders."

"Pass."

"Yeah, hard pass for me as well." Gaige said straightening out "But, this is a Hyperion facility, so there's likely to be something hidden here. It was a common thing Jack did, build a second base inside the first, I think he musta figured, why waste a perfectly good building by using it only for one thing? Or some crap like that."

"So, all we gotta do is find something that's, what? Hidden?"

"No, no. You need to. I mean, let's be honest, I might have more experience at this then you, but every time we find a hidden door, it's you doing the finding."

"I mean, I suppose, but where do we start?"

"I guess we could start here."

"But wouldn't whomever got all those loaders set to their defense have found it themselves?"

"Maybe, but if that's the case, then we'd have to fight our way through the loaders to get there."

"Maybe, but on the other hand, we're leaving a pretty clear trail back here." She pointed to the floor, where the dust had been disturbed by their boots.

"Yeah well, nothing we can do about that now, is there? Other than maybe making enough of a disturbance that they can't track us."

"Let's just do a quick once over back here and worry about the loaders when they start looking." Artemis sighed.

Gaige shrugged and headed for the large door at the other end of the room. Finding themselves in what was probably a work area with offices on one side, they split up, quickly searching to try and find anything that might lead them to an exit.

Gaige found herself in what had to have been one of the supervisor's offices, which she figured out by the fact that it had carpeting and didn't ooze depression. She had checked the walls and the small filing cabinet against the wall, but having turned up nothing, had in desperation tried the desk and that's where she found it, buried beneath a stack of papers.

A single bottle of alcohol.

She licked her lips at the sight of it, at the gentle sloshing of the liquid inside.

She picked it up, but didn't open it. Instead, she shoved it into her pack, telling herself that it was just to get it out of sight, and besides, it wasn't like she was going to drink it, she could use it as disinfectant or as a Molotov cocktail. There was no way she'd crack open a bottle she found in an old Hyperion desk, not after the number of years it had been there.

As all of the thoughts ran through her head, trying to convince herself that she wasn't doing anything wrong, she looked up and her eyes met the cold, flat expression on Artemis's face.