Chapter 32

Erinyes

The planet of Erinyes turned out to be an uninhabited rock covered in tall, craggy mountains that jutted up in broken shards, with narrow paths of shale-like rocks that slid and twisted underfoot making climbing a treacherous ordeal.

"Just once, I'd like to go somewhere nice." Gaige growled, catching herself as the loose footing slid out from under her, forcing her to plant her hands to stop herself from sliding "Why couldn't they have set up their blacksite somewhere pleasant, like a beach planet? The sun, the waves, a nice breeze."

Before she could get lost in thought, Artemis pulled her back "Because those planets would be exorb...exhorbo..."

"Exorbitantly expensive? Yeah, I know, I know, I was just havin a bit of wishful thinkin, that's all."

"If you really want, we can go after we finish here." Artemis said, not sounding too thrilled about it.

"Really? Now that's something to look forward to."

"Why are you so excited about that thought?"

"We've never really relaxed together, have we? In fact, we haven't really relaxed since we met, it would be good to take it easy for a while."

"Didn't we relax on Wilina?"

"That was like, one evening, I'm meaning takin a whole week off, nothing but surf and sand."

"Ugh."

"What's wrong with surf and sand?"

"It's boring."

"Boring? That's the point, you don't have anything else to do, just relax and soak up the sun."

"Said like someone that doesn't burn easily."

"Of course I burn easily, hello, redhead, but that's what they invented sunscreen for. Besides, I really wanna find out if you're a bikini type."

"Ugh."

They fell back into silence as they continued trudging up the mountain. They'd chose to drop a ways away from the actual site of the facility, mostly to try and avoid detection, though they all suspected that they'd been picked up the moment they entered orbit, so they weren't too sure about that.

Still, they figured there was no reason to announce themselves if they didn't have to, so they were hiking. To make matters worse, Artemis hadn't been able to find out anything about what kind of life was on the planet and since neither of them thought it was barren, that meant they had no idea what might attack them.

Gaige paused to catch her breath and looked around, almost everything was grey, the rocks, the sky, even the scraggly trees down in the valley where they'd landed had seemed grey and faded, like a shirt that had been washed too many times. It gave the place a hopeless quality that seemed to sap her ambition. It made her wonder what working there would've been like. Had the employees felt the same, or had they not ventured out of the base? Was the inside of the facility warmly colored to try and counteract the drabness of the environment?

She'd learned a bit about colors and emotions in her time as a wedding planner. More than just the fact that some planets had different thoughts on what was an appropriate color for a wedding. She'd been surprised by that, on one planet, the bride had to wear mourning colors on her way in, which had turned out to be purple and then as the wedding ceremony proceeded, she stripped out of the purple clothes layer by layer, each one getting brighter till she was dressed in brilliant yellow.

But that wasn't what she'd been trying to think about, rather, she'd learned that she shouldn't use dull colors unless they were specifically needed for the planet. She also learned that some colors, like certain shades of blue were calming, where others, like yellow cheered the place up and usually led to an increase in dancing. She hadn't really got it before, but staring at the dull vista, she felt that she finally did.

Next to her Artemis was taking a swig from her canteen. Spotting her looking, she reflexively offered it, which Gaige was grateful for. They weren't in disguises this time, instead, they'd been kitted out for a fight. They'd figured that if this was where the Holloway's were, then they'd need to give it their all and since trying to fight in a way that disguised who they were would only weaken them, they felt that they shouldn't give themselves a handicap.

She handed the canteen back and as Artemis was storing it, they heard the sound of rocks sliding. Gaige casually glanced in the direction the sound had come from, but Artemis spun, bringing her gun up.

Gaige nearly scoffed at her for being paranoid, but something in the back of her mind reminded her that they were in Artemis's territory, so she might be better served by following her example.

She unslung the shotgun off her back and looked around, but spotted nothing out of place, or at least not that she could see. Taking her eyes off the terrain, she glanced over at Artemis, trying to trace her line of sight to figure out what was going on.

Searching the area that she seemed to be watching, Gaige finally saw something move, a slight disturbance in the loose shale covering the mountain. She started to bring her shotgun up, but was stopped by a small motion from Artemis.

"What?" She hissed.

"Don't shoot."

"What? Why not?"

"Cause the sound will echo something terrible, alerting everyone that we're here."

"Then how'm I supposed to fight?"

Artemis didn't answer, instead she slowly reached up over her shoulder and pulled out her crowbar.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Gaige hissed at her, but drew her own hammer, still holding her shotgun in her hand. There was no way she was putting it away until she knew what was moving around, something she noted that Artemis was also doing.

Nothing happened for a number of agonizing seconds and when it finally seemed like they'd been jumping at nothing, Artemis suddenly threw herself sideways as the ground directly in front of her vanished and something burst forth.

Gaige managed to repress the scream that tore its way up her throat, choking it off to a strangled whimper as the creature emerged. It looked like some kind of insect, made up of rocks each the size of her head, strung together to form a long body that stood out of the ground half again taller than she was. Out of the gap between each rock, four limbs grew, evenly spaced around it, wriggling in the air as it crashed down onto them. Its head was about twice the size of any of the other segments of its body, but only slightly bigger around, being elongated and eyeless, with a cracked open face. The mandibles that were covering its mouth pulled aside revealing strange teeth that must have been able to chew through rock and were now looking for something softer to try out.

As it crashed back down, the back half of it emerged from the loose rocks and arched upward, hanging over the creature's back. The tip of the tail split into two, forming giant pincers that snapped at the air.

"Nope." Gaige said, trying to back away. She didn't have a problem with insects until they got bigger than her finger, after that, she wanted to kill them on sight. Well, actually even before that she wanted to kill them on sight, it was just that some primal instinct was triggered once they were bigger than that.

Artemis on the other hand cocked her head and examined the creature, studying it as it scuttled forward. She casually danced back as the tail whipped forward, snapping at the air where she'd just been. She darted forward and brought her crowbar down on the creatures' head with a resounding crack that seemed to daze the thing, but little else.

"Hmm, seems harder than I thought." She mused as she darted back. "You wanna give it a go?"

"Nope."

"Too bad, cause it seems to have taken an interest in you."

It seemed that the creature had decided that the one hitting it wasn't going to go down easy, so it went for the other one, much to Gaige's horror.

She backed off slowly, feeling the loose ground shifting beneath her as the creature scuttled towards her with remarkable speed and just before it struck at her, its tail froze in midair.

Deathtrap had seen enough, he knew that Gaige didn't like insects of this size, so he decided to step in and lend a hand, grabbing hold of the things tail before it could strike. He turned to Gaige and let out a "Urggr" To wake her up and it seemed to work. Shaking off the shock, she stepped forward and brought her hammer down on the creatures' head. Whether it was because the tool was designed for hitting or that she was using it in her cybernetic hand, but the impact cracked the skull of the creature, sending chips of rock flying and nearly splitting it into three pieces.

The creature immediately went limp, flopping out in a small puff of dust as it collapsed. Gaige didn't trust it and scuttled away from it, watching in horror as Artemis moved in to examine it.

She wanted to say something, to ask if she really needed to do that, to ask if now was really the best time, something, anything, but she knew that she wouldn't be satisfied with the answer and that if Artemis could figure something out about it, they might be able to avoid them in the future, so she stayed silent, looking away so she didn't have to look at the creature any more than necessary.

After a minute of having to listen to the sound of rocks grinding and the wet noise as the shell was pulled apart, she couldn't take it anymore and asked "Are you about done? Cause I'd kinda like to move on."

"Yeah, just about. This thing's fascinating, wish I could take one back to get Sir Hammerlock's opinion on it."

"Well, I ain't carrying it and we're not hunting another on the way back."

"Huh? You don't like it then?"

"Nope. Too many legs. Blargh."

"I kinda get that. Oh well, guess we're gonna have to leave it."

"You find out anything? Useful I mean. To avoiding them?"

"Maybe, well, at least enough to try anyway. So, let's get going."

Gaige was so grateful to hear those words that she nearly skipped up the mountain. Thankfully for her, they didn't run into anything else on their climb and after a number of hours finally came to the crest of the correct mountain pass.

Looking down, they got their first real look at the Holloway blacksite. The compound was considerably smaller than the base on Apate, but they figured it must go back into the mountains and a ways underground to make up for it. Most of what they could see was a landing pad next to a couple of concrete buildings that looked super reinforced. Behind them was a fence, on the other side was a valley.

"Not much there." Artemis observed "Least not that can be seen."

"Yeah, I'm bettin most of it's underground. But I think that valley's probably where they do most of their testing."

"That would explain the doors and the observation window."

"Wait, what now?"

"There." She pointed them out as Gaige tried to get a better look through her scope. It took a bit, but eventually she was able to spot what the other girl had been talking about.

On the side that they could see, there was a massive metal door under an overhang. It was painted the same color as the rocks and seemed to have been given a slight texture to help it blend in as protection from satellites. The observation room was much the same, being tucked away in the shadows of the cliff wall above. It had been built into and mostly under a rock jut to help camouflage it from prying eyes, though why they'd go to those lengths to hide it if they were going to have to do outside tests, she didn't know. Probably so that they could be hidden the rest of the time, and they'd have to do some kind of sensor sweep before approving testing, she guessed.

Gaige was about to start down the slope when she spotted Artemis pulling back, unslinging her pack.

"What're you doing?" She asked as the other girl started digging through her pack. If she'd just been reequipping, Gaige could've understood it, but she seemed to be pulling out a picnic.

"Getting something to eat, don't wanna fight on an empty stomach."

"And if you cram yourself too full, what then? Weren't you the one that warned me about that?"

"Well, yeah, but that's why I'm getting something light. Want half a sandwich?" She said, tearing her meal in half and holding one part out.

Gaige sighed, but plopped down near her, taking the proffered food. She understood, going into battle hungry could spell ruin, but so could cramping up from overeating, still, she didn't know when it would be time for her last meal, so she dug in.

As she did, she started snickering, catching the glance from Artemis, she waved her hand and swallowed her food.

"Sorry, I was just remembering the time I learned not to eat too much before a battle.

"This was back when I'd just become a Vault Hunter and the lot of us were traveling across some plain or other and Sal's in the back of the Technical eating the grossest, smelliest thing ever. I mean, I was in the front and I was still gagging at the stench. I mean this thing was so bad that Zero was trying to figure out how to get upwind of Sal, and I'm not sure he can even smell. Anyway, we get to the bandit camp where we were going and start attacking when suddenly Sal starts walkin funny, like this shuffling hop, and at first, we think he's been hit and trying not to show it, but we quickly realize he's got to go, like real bad, especially when he starts plowing forward doing the gotta go shuffle.

"So we push forward a bit faster than we should, searching for one of those bandit outhouses and after a minute, just when we're worried that Sal's gonna explode or have an accident or something, he spots one.

"He takes off in that running hop of someone trying not to let it out and blitzes past a slew of bandits as they emerge from their buildings, makin a beeline for that toilet. And he gets there and throws the door open, only for a Tink to be in it.

"Now this Tink starts like it's gonna attack Sal, but he doesn't care, he just slams his back into the Tink, pinning it to the back of the outhouse and the doors barely closes when the most disgusting sounds start coming out of the place and that Tinks threats and shouts change and we start hearing him beg for mercy.

"Knowing what's coming, me and Maya back off, puttin some distance between us and the place, but Axton's like, 'We gotta protect him' and 'No man left behind' or something like that, so he starts fighting near the place to keep the bandits off, but then the wind shifts slightly and he's all like 'You're on your own pal' and books it out of there, coughing and gagging the entire way."

Gaige ended with a laugh at the memory and shook her head "And that's how I learned to be careful of what you eat before a fight. Well, that and never join Sal for a meal. And also, always stand upwind of him."

Artemis smiled and shook her head, but deep down she was jealous, but she didn't know if it was of Gaige, for having stories like that to tell, or of the other Vault Hunters, for having an inside joke with her. She wondered if Gaige would ever be sitting with anyone else, laughing and telling them stories of their time together.

After they finished eating, they reequipped, strapping all the weapons that they thought they might need to the outside of their packs, including Tina's bunny bombs.

"All set? Let's go." Gaige said, making sure everyone was on the same page before setting out. "Now, we can assume that they know we're coming, but that doesn't mean that we need to announce ourselves, so proceed like they haven't and assume they have."

"So, normal?"

"Yeah."

They moved down the side of the slope, picking their way carefully down till they were in the same valley as the base. During the descent they'd been waiting for an alarm to be raised or bots to attack or really anything, but nothing had happened, it was like the base was deserted, which left them feeling a bit unsettled. They were both sure they were at the right place, instinct told them so and they'd both learned to listen, so the fact that there wasn't a welcoming committee worried them and made them feel like they were walking into another trap.

Adding to that feeling was the fact that the main gate stood open as if to usher them in.

"Well, that's not right." Gaige muttered, some part of her expecting thunder to rumble in the distance to complete the ambiance.

"Which part of it?"

"Yeah, point. Well, let's not keep them waiting."

She led them in, gun up and ready but the entrance area was empty. The room was as grey as the outside, with exposed girders across the ceiling and sealed doors on the sides. They went to the doors first, choosing to ignore the open one at the other end of the room, feeling like the obvious trap could wait, but they found that the doors didn't want to open, at least not without a good amount of persuasion from Gaige.

"So, what d'ya think?"

"Other than it's a trap?"

"Well duh, of course that's what I'm meanin."

"I was just askin."

"Sorry, place has me on edge, I keep expecting something to happen, an army of bots to pop out from behind the doors, Holloway to start talking to us over the speakers, something."

"Yeah, after last time, that does seem like something he'd do."

"Yep, but back to the point, what d'ya think?"

"I think we can either spend a long time trying to pry these doors open, letting our host set up a method of dissuading us or we can walk into the obvious trap now, rather than later."

"True, about the only benefit for puttin it off would be to build up some Anarchy."

"I'm game if you are."

"Yeah, let's not, I get the feeling we're gonna need all the ammo we can for what's ahead."

"In that case, wouldn't we need the damage boost?"

"Maybe, but we're also as fresh as we're gonna be. Plus I somehow feel like they're gonna avoid us if we go into the base, like they don't want me to get any Anarchy if they can help it."

"Makes sense, but you just wanna see what they've got waiting for us, don't you?"

"No, of course not, but if they went to all this trouble, we shouldn't keep them waiting."

"Fine, whatever. Let's go."

Gaige nodded and looked around the room, from near her a soft "Urru" came, letting her know that Deathtrap was onboard as well. Without any more hesitation, she strode off across the room and through the open door on the other side, which led to a hallway painted in a soft beige color that while a nice change of pace from the monotonous grey, did nothing for her nerves.

Every door on the sides of the hall was locked, tempting them to try and force them, but they were worried that if they stopped, they wouldn't get started again so they pressed on.

Eventually they came to another room that seemed to be some kind of observation area, with seats around the windows that covered the wall straight ahead of them. Through them, they could see the testing area, a wide-open area cleared of all debris, as if someone had wanted to eliminate any chance of someone fighting there from having any cover.

The girls looked at it and a certainty rose in them that that was where they were being led, which meant that they needed to find something to take with them. After their fight at the core of the Garden of Minos, they'd learned that they needed to have cover whenever they could and if they were going into a fight where there might not be any, they'd need to find some before they went, so they started looking around, but it seemed that their host had the same idea and had stripped their path of anything that might be used.

"We could always take part of the floor." Artemis said, looking down.

"I guess, I mean, that would definitely say screw you to them, especially if we took it from right in front of the observation windows."

So, they had Deathtrap cut up a few chunks and started lugging them with.

Despite the fact that they weighed almost as much as the girls, they didn't struggle too much, mostly because Deathtrap was actually lifting them slightly.

Moving through the only open door, they found an elevator filling one side of the room.

"Welp, guess we're goin down." Gaige said, trying to put as much faux cheer as she could into her voice.

They loaded onto the lift and punched the button, idly wondering if the bottom was about to fall out to drop them to their deaths, but the elevator worked fine, if a bit slowly, grinding slightly as it took them back outside and all the way down.

Stepping off of it, they walked forward, guard up against the inevitable trap.

They made it to the center of the testing area when the trap was sprung. A voice echoed across the area, amplified and distorted slightly by the speakers.

"How nice of you to invite yourselves in, though I must say, the impertinence of trespassing suits you well."

They turned at the sound of the rather haughty woman's voice, looking up at the control booth they'd seen from the mountain pass. Behind the glass they could make out a woman staring down at them with a hawkish expression on her imperious face.

"Mrs. Holloway." Artemis muttered.

"Aw great." Gaige grumbled "Well, at least we know we're in the right spot."

She looked up and yelled back "We aren't trespassing any more than you are. Besides, didn't you invite us?"

"This place belongs to the Holloway Robotics Corporation, therefore I am not trespassing."

"But all of its assets were seized, so, yeah, you are. But enough pleasantries, why don't you just get on with it. Where's that jackass of a husband of yours? Call him out and let's get this over with."

"My ex-husband is dead, as you well know. He was killed by you and his own arrogance, with a bit of help from one of the corporations."

"Wait, he's dead?" Gaige said, feeling a bit gut-punched. "But what about the coroner?"

"What about him?"

"He died right after he finished the autopsy."

"Did you meet him? He was as ancient as he was unpleasant, if he passed away, then I'd have to say that he was much past his time."

"I guess that makes sense." Artemis muttered "He was old enough to retire and I guess we never found out how old that was there."

"But what about the body? It was picked up way too quick."

"We had been on our way to bail him out, for his own safety mind, when he passed."

"So...all this time...it wasn't...then who was it?"

"It was her."

"But why?" Gaige finally got it and looked up at the woman looking down on her, both literally and figuratively and finally got it, Marcie did have two parents after all and just because her father was more vocal about it, didn't mean that her mother hadn't suffered as well.

"So that's what this is all about." She yelled back up "Marcie? I mean seriously? Haven't you learned anything? I'm sorry she died, alright, I am, but all this chasing me around, hounding me to the corners of the galaxy and for what? A dead girl who had to cheat to win? Who you spoiled rotten? I know I shouldn't be antagonizing you about this, but I don't care. I'm just so tired of it. It was years ago, it consumed your husband and now you too. I get that you might not have anything else to live for beyond revenge, but this has gone on long enough, it's time to let go. Or do I have to put you in the ground as well?"

Gaige stood glaring upward, taking in deep heaving breaths, finally getting that off her chest. But to her surprise, the woman didn't seem upset, in fact she was just slowly shaking her head.

"Is that what you think this is about? Something as minor as my daughter. Yes, I was heartbroken when she died, but it is like you said, she was spoiled, but not by us, by her father. He lost some part of him that day, seeing her die and he never recovered. He became obsessed with you, with making you pay. I warned him about it, but the fool didn't listen, so I left him.

"But then that damned fool lost his cool, he didn't let you go when that stupid law had to go through, he panicked and chased after you like the single-minded idiot he was. The imbecile doesn't even wait until the proper tools were ready, even if he had to wait past his legal window. He always could have chalked it up to an accident or just paid off the locals to let him kill you, he could have even followed my advice and had you go to one of our planets to officiate the wedding between two of our workers and kill you then, but instead he had to panic and go after you with prototype tech. And if that wasn't bad enough, not only did he fail, but he spilled corporate secrets to you and let you record them. Of all the imbecilic things he could have done, that was beyond my wildest imaginations. So of course someone would take him out.

"But that isn't what this is about. Yes, it hurts in a way you cannot imagine to see your baby die, to stand in front of her coffin knowing that it doesn't contain a body, to see her put into the ground. It hurts in a way that cannot be described. So yes, I did want revenge. But then I got over it. I moved on. I knew that I couldn't touch you, so why waste resources trying. I tried to get him to realize that as well, but he couldn't, that was what eventually drove us apart. But I had my work, so I didn't care. But then you go and release that ECHO. I don't blame you, not really, I mean, it was my idiot ex who told you that stuff, but as a result I lost everything. All of my stocks, worthless in an instant."

"Wait" Gaige said, genuinely confused "That's what this is about? Some money?"

"Some money? Some money?!" She nearly shrieked "Do you have any idea how much I lost? I had one third of the shares of Holloway Robotics. One third! Do you have any idea of how much money you cost me? Hundreds of trillions of dollars of money, gone in an instant. All because of a few words. Why couldn't you have just killed him and left us alone?"

The girls froze. It wasn't that they didn't understand what was being said, nor the anger behind it, but all of this for some, all right, a lot of money, just seemed pathetic. Not that they didn't understand the pain of losing a pile of money for no fault of their own, but still.

"As if that wasn't enough" She continued "We all lost our jobs, and who's going to hire someone that worked for a thief? Even if we could get a job, which we can't due to the ongoing legal mess, we can't even do anything till they figure out who gets to do what. Can we be sued? Can we be held responsible for the actions of the CEO? Can we even have a job in the field again? It's all tied up in a legal limbo until they sort this out, so I did what I had to, I rounded up all of the employees that I could, the ones that wanted to make you suffer for this indignity and we got to work, but then the observation team screwed up. They thought they had a shot at you, so they took it and let you know that someone was after you, so of course you started chasing that thread.

"That's not to say you weren't supposed to, that was more or less the plan all along, only the team wasn't supposed to be put in danger. So, we had to make do. We had to move up the plans. But you managed to survive the first factory, and then you didn't show up at the second or at least you didn't have your robot with you, so we couldn't leak the footage to the authorities. But the really galling thing was that instead of going to Dolus, you show up here of all places."

"What was supposed to happen at Dolus?" Artemis yelled up.

"Well, since you're already here, I suppose I could tell you, the authorities were going to find that place as soon as you'd made it inside, through an anonymous tip, and once they'd caught you trespassing, well, you'd go to jail. If that was the end of it, so be it, we might have even been able to spin something to help our legal team, if not, well, accidents happen all the time in jail, don't they?

"I must ask, how did you find out about this place?"

"Get used to disappointment." Gaige shouted back "And don't you think you've stalled long enough?"

"My, how perceptive of you, very well." She pressed a button and the door underneath her window started to grind open, revealing a massive mech inside, but before they could get a good look at it, she continued "Unlike my late husband, ex-husband I mean."

"Wouldn't that be ex-ex-husband?"

"Quite, unlike him, I don't believe in half measures." She said and behind them they heard the door there start opening, revealing another two mechs within.