Chapter 23

Hunter's Moon

After making it back, the girls spent a good amount of time thawing out before changing their cybernetics back to normal.

Once they were comfortable, they sat down to get something to eat and do some research on their next destination, but when they opened up the ECHOnet, they found two messages waiting for them. The first was for Gaige, from her dad and the second was from A.I. ngel.

After checking local times, they decided to let Gaige contact her dad first, so she went off to the bedroom to do that. She checked to make sure she was alone for some reason, she told the voice in her head that questioned why, that it was just a force of habit, but she knew that the truth was that she might be able to ask him about some of the things that had been bothering her and didn't want Artemis overhearing them.

Sitting down, she punched in the familiar number and after a few rings, her dad picked up.

"Hi honey, how's it going?"

"Hi dad. Things are...well...they're fine, I guess. I mean, nothing too exciting or anything, just the usual."

"Still having issues with Artemis?"

"Um, kinda sorta, look, we can talk about that later, but first, you called about something? Everything OK there, nothing weird, like bots around town or anything?" Gaige couldn't conceal her worry as well as she wanted, after all, if there was nothing, she didn't want to alarm her dad, but if there wasn't anything, then why was he contacting her right then?

"No, why? Something up?"

"No, nah, why would you say that? Hee hee." She ended with a nervous laugh that spoke volumes to her dad, but he knew better than to press, at least right then, so he let it go, though he wore an expression that told her he knew she was hiding something.

"Well, the reason I called was to let you know that I think I've got it."

"Got what? A promotion? A work around to the Erithiburg principle? A new kid on the way?"

"Wait, what? No, why would you even think that?"

"Oh, are you and mom...you know what, I really don't want to know. Ew, aw man, now I've got that in my head, gross. Why?"

"It's your own fault and it's not that bad, your mother is an attractive woman in the prime of her beauty."

"DAD!"

"Are you still too young for that?"

"Try putting yourself in my shoes."

"Alright." He paused for a moment, tilting his head to the side before nodding "OK, that is unpleasant, but that's because your grandparents aren't around anymore, so the thought of two skeletons doing that is kinda weird."

"Daaaaad!"

He laughed at her misfortune for a second before getting more serious. "Putting that aside, what I wanted to talk to you about was that I think I've got you another refund from your fines."

"Really? That's great."

"I know right, but don't get too excited, it hasn't gone through yet, so don't spend it yet. Also, this will be the last bit I can get back from them, they are kinda reluctant to part with it."

"Anything would be great. Thanks dad, you're the best."

"I know, and since you're not asking, but I can see it written all over your face, it's about a quarter of what you gave them."

"Really? That's great." Gaige smiled, but then her face soured and she gave him a hard look "But this is really a refund, right? This isn't you and mom tapping into your retirement funds or anything like that? Cause if it is, forget it. I don't want it and if I find out that's what it is, I'm gonna be pissed."

Her dad looked a bit crestfallen "If it was, why would that be so bad? It's our money, so if we wanted to give it to you, shouldn't that be our prerogative? Besides, you've still got that college fund that we set up, you could at least take that."

"DAD! No!" Gaige snapped "I want you guys to enjoy your lives, just like you want me to. This is my mess and you've helped me enough, so if it's not an actual refund, then forget it."

"It is, but it's not as much as I said then."

"Like I said, anything would be great."

"Then let us give you some money."

"No. My mess, my debt. You know that I'm gonna be giving it to Artemis, right? So, I don't want to give her your money, that would just be transferring the debt from one person to another, so forget it."

"Alright, alright, I get it, though I still don't get why you're so adamant about it."

"Because I don't want you to feel that I'm that helpless."

"I don't think that." Her dad said, but thought about it for a moment and sighed "But if you really feel that way, then I guess I have no choice. Besides, it's not like you're in debt anymore, not to anyone that really feels that way at least, you know, someone that would charge interest, that stuff will kill you."

"I know, remember?"

"Yes, I do, that's why I'm reminding you. Well, that was my good news, what did you want to talk about? You had something else, didn't you?"

"Yeah, it's just, well, hard to talk about."

"Artemis again?"

"Isn't it always?"

"You and her need to have a long talk."

"I've tried. Trust me, I've tried, but getting through to her is like beating my head against a wall. "

"Reminds me of you when you were younger."

"Dad! Seriously?"

"Yeah, the number of times I tried to warn you against doing something, only for you to do it anyway was astounding, but it all worked out in the end."

"Uh, sorry. But this is completely different. I'm tired of her saying things like 'I'm a monster' or 'We can't talk about that because it'll bring about disaster', I mean, how'm I supposed to figure out what kind of future we have together if I can't even talk to her about her?"

"And what kind of future do you want with her?"

"I don't know, if I knew that, it would be so much easier."

"Would it?"

"For me it would, cause then I'd at least know what I want her to accept."

"That sounds a bit self-centered."

Gaige bit back her reply, she knew he was right, but it didn't make it any easier to hear, nor did it change how she felt, so she had to at least acknowledge that he was right "Yeah, it is. But I just want her to be happy and how can I do that if she won't let herself?"

"You've already figured out what's causing the problem, the hard part is always getting the other person to see it, isn't that what your meetings say? Think back to all the people, yourself included, that had a problem, let's just use your Uncle Marlon as an example. We both know he can't cook and that whenever he tries, everyone else just suffers, but until he accepts that, telling him just pisses him off, he thinks that you're mocking him, or you're jealous of his skill, or that no one appreciates him, that he slaves over that grill for hours and this is the thanks he gets? Until he realizes that he has a problem, he's never going to stop cooking. And Artemis is the same way. You can tell her that she's alright, you can tell her that you like the way she is, but until she accepts that there's nothing wrong with her, she can't accept that she can change."

"So how do I get her to accept that?"

"By showing her that you accept her, warts and all."

"She doesn't have warts."

"It's a dad-ism. You know what I meant. You just have to be patient with her, the way she was with you. The way Deathtrap has been for all these years. Where is he by the way? Wanted to say hi as long as we were on."

"He's out keeping Artemis entertained. I could go get them if you wanted."

"It's alright, just tell them I said hi and to continue watching over you."

"Daaad."

"What? I keep telling you, no matter how old you get, you'll always be my little girl."

"And when you start getting this sappy, it's time to end the call."

"Wait!" He all but shouted, holding his hand up to stop her. She smiled and leaned back away from the keyboard, indicating she wasn't going to disconnect him so he continued "I don't want to end this on a sour note, I never know when I'm going to get to see you again, so please don't end the call when we are in a disagreement."

Gaige realized how worried he was, how it must feel to have her out in the universe somewhere, doing who knows what, never knowing if she was alright and resolved to call him more often. "Aw come on dad, you know I'd never be mad at you. Frustrated, sure, but never mad."

He smiled at that, but something about his eyes told her he had another question for her and it was one that he was a bit reluctant to broach, so she sighed and asked him "What? You've got that look, like you wanna talk about something but don't know how to ask, like that time mom made you give me the birds and the bees talk."

"Oh god, don't remind me of that, I don't think I've ever been that embarrassed in my life."

"You? Think about how it felt for me."

"Why she thought I should be the one to talk to our daughter about that, I'll never know."

"Yeah, but I can't think of her givin that speech either. But I don't want that thought in my head, so what was it you were wanting to ask?"

"It was, well, I was just wondering how your, um..."

"My what? My mulling on what kind of relationship I wanted with Artemis was going?"

"What? No. I mean, since you brought it up..."

"It hasn't, and I really don't wanna discuss that with you right now."

"Oh, um, well, if you ever need someone to listen, I'll be here. But that wasn't what I wanted to ask you about, what I was trying to say was, how is your, um, alcohol issue going?"

"Oh that." Gaige sighed "About as well as my mulling to be honest."

"The meeting helping?"

"Yeah, I mean, as much as they can, it's just so hard, you know, being thirsty all the time. And knowing that it's gonna be this way for a while, if not the rest of my life."

"Sounds rough."

"It is, but nowhere near as bad as the alternative."

She looked down, causing her dad to ask "What happened? You can talk to me about it if you want, I won't judge."

"I know, neither does Artemis and that might be the problem, sometimes I just wish she would yell at me, call me out and all that, instead I just feel like I'm disappointing her. Like this one time, about a week ago, little less actually, more like what? Geez, was that only four days ago? Anyway, I screw up, we're lookin though this place and I find this ancient bottle, well it wasn't really that old, nine, ten years, but it's kinda nasty lookin, but I stuff it into my pack cause I'm thirsty and I want it. Thankfully she caught me, but I failed her, I failed you, and I failed me."

"You made a mistake and thankfully you didn't go too far, so it's alright. Those meetings tell you that you're going to slip, that it won't be easy, but that you have to keep trying. It also sounds like she stopped you, but did she judge you?"

"Yes. No. I don't really know how to describe it, it was like she gave up on me, made me fight to get her to accept me back, which might have been the best thing for me in that moment, though I don't think she did it on purpose."

"Sometimes, people just know what to do."

"Yeah, I guess everyone's got their moments." Gaige trailed off and looked around "Well, unless you've got anything else, I should get going."

"Oh, um, when do you think you'll be around next? Your mother's worried about you."

"Just her?"

"I know you can handle yourself, but of course I'm worried, it's a father thing."

"I know. And I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You know, makin you two worry and all that."

"I'd be worried if you were staying home and doing nothing."

"Oh god, that sounds awful." Gaige gagged at the thought, but turned serious "But I know my lifestyle leads you to worry about me."

"It does, but if you gave it up, you wouldn't be my daughter anymore."

"Then who'd I be?"

"Well, you'd still be my daughter, but you wouldn't be you."

Gaige gave a snort of laughter as her father fumbled to try and explain himself out of the hole he'd dug. "Well, I should get going soon. I'll be back to see you guys as soon as I can, I'll at least try to be there for Mercenary Day. Say hi to mom for me."

"I will. Love you."

"Love you too."

She cut the connection and sat back. Every time she talked to him, she wondered why she didn't do it more often. For the longest time, she hadn't contacted him due to the pain it caused her, knowing that she wouldn't ever be able to see him in person again. She realized later that she'd been punishing not only herself, but him as well, something that she still felt bad about.

Lately though, she hadn't been talking to him mostly due to circumstances, either she wasn't able to talk to him, like in the Garden of Minos, or she didn't want to worry him with what she was doing, like right then. She suddenly realized that she'd successfully managed to end the call without telling him what was going on, which she knew would only worry him more. Sure, he might be able to do something to help, but she couldn't think of what, so this was better.

She promised herself that she'd tell him everything once it was over.

Standing up, she made her way out to find Artemis losing spectacularly at chess.

"You're still playing that?"

"I'm not sure you could call it playing, more like getting demolished." Came the reply "How was your dad? Everything good? What'd he want?"

"One thing at a time." She replied with an over-the-top eye-roll, but sat down next to the other girl and answered her anyway "He's fine, he hasn't seen any weird bots or anything suspicious, at least not that he realized, or told me about. He wanted to let me know that he's almost got some more money back from the fines we paid, so you might be paid back in full before long."

"I've told you I don't"

"And I've told you that I need to do this. End of discussion. Look, it's for the best if we both get to the point where we don't feel we owe each other anything, we talked about that, remember? Once we're there, we can figure out where we want to go moving forward."

"You've said that before, but"

"No buts. Just accept it. Please."

Artemis shrugged like she didn't believe it, but was willing to play along for the peace of the ship, which Gaige supposed was as good as she'd get.

"So anyway, guess it's time to find out what A.I. ngel wanted." Gaige said, feeling the uncomfortable grating sensation in her chest. "I can handle it if you wanna finish your game."

"Nah, he's totally got this. Besides, I wanna say hi too." She stood up and followed Gaige over to the terminal. She pulled up a seat and keyed in the number.

After a few rings, it was picked up, but to their surprise, it was Timothy staring back at them.

He looked about as surprised as they felt, but he quickly recovered and smiled falsely at them "Hey there punkin, to what do I owe this honor?"

'Uggh' Gaige thought, even though she knew that he couldn't always help it, she hated it when Timothy sounded that much like Handsome Jack. She grit her teeth and smiled "We were trying to reach A.I. ngel, is she there?"

"Nope, sorry, she can't come to talk right now, but if you want to leave a message, I'll be sure to ignore it. Sorry, stupid Jack DNA. I meant I'll be sure to pass it along." He actually looked a bit contrite as he finished, making Gaige suspect that it had in fact been an accidental slip and not him being a dick.

"We were just trying to call her back, she'd left a message while we were out."

"Sorry, don't know anything about that, but I'll be sure to"

"Who is that?" A voice called from behind him. A brief flicker of disappointment crossed his face and before he could turn and shout back, A.I. ngel walked into the room, face brightening to near blinding levels when she spotted who was on the screen.

For a second, Gaige felt pissed at Timothy for lying to them, but she spotted the girl wiping her hands on a dirty rag, not to mention a few smudges on her face and clothes, indicating that she had, in fact been working on something and judging by the tools she had on her belt, it was probably something in the computer core.

"You two! You are alright? I was worried about you. You did not call me for days and when I tried to call you, I got no answer."

"Sorry 'bout that, we were kinda in the middle of something." Gaige said, feeling a bit bad for making the girl worry.

"What were you doing, if I might ask?"

"Well, we were following up on some leads. I don't wanna say too much in case we're being listened to."

"Is there much chance of that?"

"Well, probably not, but you never know."

"I agree that the chance is low. Still, I understand why you are reluctant to speak too freely. I have learned much about how simple things can be turned into complex ones."

Seeing the looks the girls were giving, Timothy chimed in "She talked to Moxxi, I tried to stop them, but, well, it's Moxxi."

Gaige nodded sympathetically, she got it, once Moxxi set her mind to something, it was hard for most people to stand against her. Still, she had to wonder what had happened.

"Well, that makes sense, I think." Artemis said, given her limited interaction with Moxxi, she wasn't entirely sure what might have happened, but she'd encountered enough people who made it seem like the older woman was dangerous to believe it.

"So, what did you wanna talk about?" Gaige asked, trying to steer the conversation back to something productive. "Was it just that we hadn't talked to you in a few days or was there something else."

Artemis nudged her from the side, making Gaige realize how nasty what she'd said could sound and how easily it would be to interpret it that way, especially if Artemis had picked up on it, so she quickly added "I said that wrong, sorry. There's nothing wrong with being worried about us, or feeling a bit frustrated that you're left behind, I get that, I'm just a bit tired is all."

"It is fine. But you just addressed it a bit, I am feeling frustrated that I cannot help, so I wanted to know if there was something that I could do to assist."

Gaige nodded, but couldn't think of anything. To her surprise it was Artemis who spoke up.

"How good are you at computers and things?"

"I am fair."

"She's being modest." Timothy cut in "My baby's a bona fide genius. Sorry, Jack again, I meant that she's a genius, how many people could rewrite an entire mainframe their first time seeing it?"

"No idea." Artemis honestly answered "Well, you're at least better than me, that's for sure. So, I was wondering if you could look into Holloway Robotics for us. Something about all this hasn't been sitting right with me since the beginning, but I can't put my finger on it. But my instincts are saying we're missing something, so if you wanna help, see what you can dig up."

To her surprise, Timothy nodded "Trust your instincts, it can save your life."

"Never expected you to say that."

He looked a bit offended "Hey, if you've got instincts worth listening to, then listen. Plus I think you're right, from what I've gleaned from talking to A.I. ngel and you, something about this doesn't sound right, that might just be the Jack in me speaking, he was paranoid if nothing else, but sometimes it pays to look at things from all angles before jumping in, especially with people like this Holloway character."

The girls nodded to this, both of them understood it well, they were just surprised that it was coming from Timothy of all people, though considering what he'd been through, it might not have been all that surprising.

"Was there anything else we can do to help?" A. piped in.

"If you could do that, it would be more than enough, might even save our lives." Artemis said, electing a determined look from the girl on the screen.

Gaige felt a little off-put by everything, so she decided to spin the conversation and asked "Speaking of saving your life, how's your target practice going?"

Her face brightened again "I am still mastering the technique that I was shown on Jaka 4, but I am now able to hit the target more than ninety percent of the time and hit the center over twenty percent. I know I still have a long way to go, but I have been improving."

Gaige tried to hide how impressed she was, when they'd started, she couldn't hit the target once out of ten times, more like one in fifteen, so to improve that much in a short time was telling of either her skill, or the amount of effort she was putting in.

"That's really good, but make sure you're not skipping sleep." Artemis chided her. It looked like she'd hit her secret, judging by the way she grimaced slightly. "Once you're feeling comfortable shooting, I guess the next thing would be to take you back out, let you experience some live combat again."

"Now hold on one minute." Timothy butted in "I wasn't happy with you taking her hunting, but it sounds like you want to put her into an actual fight."

"How else is she gonna learn?" Artemis sounded genuinely confused "What happens if she actually does get attacked someday? If she's never experienced a real fight, she might freeze up, she might forget something. No, the only way to know how to react in a fight, is to experience one."

"Well, I'm against it. She should start out simple, or better yet, never get exposed to that kind of danger."

"Careful." Gaige warned "Don't forget her past, or Jacks."

Timothy paled slightly "I didn't mean...I just want her to be safe."

"We all do, which is why she needs to see the rest of what's out there, the good and the bad for herself, then she'll get to decide what she wants to do from the perspective of someone who actually knows what they're deciding."

"I know. I just don't like it."

A.I. ngel patted the moping Timothy on the back, clearly trying to comfort him.

"Well, I suppose we should be going." Gaige awkwardly said, and after everyone said their goodbyes, they cut the connection.

"Well, that's it for me, I need sleep." Gaige said around a yawn so wide that Artemis heard her jaw pop. "You coming?"

"Not yet, I still need to look up anything I can on, what was it? Apate 3?"

"Yeah, sounds right. Why not just lay in a course and look it up in the morning?"

"Cause if it turns out that we need something for the trip, we might need to go a different direction."

"I really hate it when you make sense, especially when it's somethin I shoulda thought of."

"Well, you are tired."

"And you aren't? Come on, let's get this over with, then bed."

"Nah."

"No to bed?"

"No. Yes to bed, but hot cocoa first."

"If you're makin, I'll stay up and help." Gaige said, perking up noticeably.

So, they got to work and after a minute they had up all the information they could find on Apate 3, which wasn't much.

It was the third moon around Pseudea and the only one with an atmosphere, though it was too thin to sustain human life. It had low gravity and no natural resources that were worth the effort of mining.

"So, I guess we'll need to get some Oz kits." Gaige sighed, rubbing her face.

"Nah, I've got some in the back."

"What? Why?"

"In case I need to do some emergency external repairs. Or if I go hunting on a low breathability planet, though they aren't really all that useful in that case, they never hold enough oxygen, I mean, why can't they make a proper breathing apparatus, one that can scrub the air and let you breathe longer."

"They've got those." Gaige countered "The only problem is that by the time you get it all together, you need a power source for it and then you need something to carry that and by the time you're finished, you're in a mech-suit, like one of the Bears or an Arbalist, something like that."

"Ah, well, one of them would be nice too."

"Yeah, but if you were in one of them, you couldn't really get around inside a building, could you?"

"No." She let out a sigh "It's always something isn't it."

"Yep, and right now, that something is a warm mug of cocoa and a bed."