Chapter 8

Jaka 4

Gaige

Gaige ran across the catwalk the opposite direction from last time, trying to minimize the sound of her boots on the metal. Luckily it seemed that all of the goons had gone with to round them up, so no one noticed her as she made her way to the ladder and scampered down.

The ladder deposited her level with the tops of the machines, and other foundry equipment. With no way of knowing where they would be holding the workers and no idea about where she was in relation to them, she had no choice but to forge ahead, so she set off when the sound of a siren started up. The party that had been sent to round them up must have sent someone back and alerted everyone else. Things were about to get harder.

Gaige unslung her rifle as she turned and without slowing, stepped onto the rail and leaped onto the machinery ducking down just as the door that Brion the boss had been in was thrown open and about ten goons came running out. Even someone as confident as Gaige didn't open fire on them, knowing a bad fight when she saw one. Instead she waited as they ran to the main door, where they were met by another man. After a short conversation punctuated by much gesticulation, they spread out searching.

Luckily for Gaige the men didn't have any real order to them, so the search was disorganized at best. Most of them had figured they would try and make a run for It, so they ran out to try and find them, but a few of them stayed in and started sweeping the building.

Looking down at the rifle in her hands, Gaige realized that despite the good times they'd had together, it might not be the best weapon for the job, since it's shots would echo terribly inside the cavernous building. Thinking about it, she did lack a backup weapon, especially a quiet one, other than her hammer. And while she had no doubt that Artemis would have no problem in this situation, probably pull a Mordecai and find a nest to snipe from, Gaige didn't have the weapons, nor the patients to pull that off, especially since she had been feeling off for a while now, a fact that she felt had been driven home by her lack of use in the last few fights. But the truth was she had been feeling a half step off for a while now and felt a burning need to prove herself to be as good as she remembered.

She would have loved to wait for the goons to make it to her level and pick them off, but the longer she waited the more of them would make their way inside, having figured out that they weren't outside any longer. So she did what she told herself she did best.

She improvised.

After a double check of her rifle she took off in a sprint across the top of the machine and leaped off the edge. Soaring through the gap, the wind pulled at her pigtails as she fell, landing lightly on the edge of the smelting crucible, though she had no idea of what it was called. Without breaking stride, she continued running along the rim before leaping again at the goon who was just coming up the stairs.

He noticed her just before her foot slammed into his head throwing him over the rail. Gaige sprung off him as he went, landing on the metal stairs while still spinning, tracking the second goon. She opened fire just as the first hit the ground with a crunch, and all hell broke loose.

Her bullets found their mark, taking out the second goon, but the others now knew where she was, so she couldn't stop moving. Instead she leaped off the stairs onto the top of a control box on the side of one of the machines, took a step and sprung off, hitting the ground with a roll. She ran at a third goon who had raised his weapon, a shotgun and fired. Gaige hit the ground in a slide under the blast while unloading a short burst, downing him immediately. Rising from the slide into a crouch, she spun and with two short bursts, took down the last two before springing back up and running, reloading as she went.

Figuring that the door that the boss and his goons had been going through would probably be near where they were keeping the workers, she made a dash for it. As she drew closer she realized that if she was right, she would likely become trapped between the men guarding the prisoners and those that were chasing her, and without Deathtrap and Wainwright knowing where she was, she would not have any backup, so meeting up with them took priority, so she changed the angle of her run and headed across the factory floor towards the rear doors.

Dashing through them she spotted motion to her left and threw herself the opposite direction, just as the grenade that had been sailing towards her went off, shredding her shield and throwing her violently into a pile of detritus.

Even through the concussion and the ringing in her ears, a searing pain exploded through her right side. Completely unaware of the blood trickling down her brow, she blinked slowly and tried shaking her head to clear her focus, though the pain helped more than anything else. Looking down she saw
a jagged shard of metal sticking out of her bicep. She tried to raise her arm only to have her side
scream in pain bad enough to have the edges of her vision blacken. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed
the shard and pulled straight out, only to her horror to find that it was over four inches long and had pierced not only her arm, but into her side as well. Without realizing it she threw up the burning remnants of her breakfast as she focused everything on her left hand, which was fumbling to draw
out and use a Insta-Health vial.

Only once the cooling burn of the healing medicine was surging toward the wounds did her mind come back enough to realize how bad a position she was in. Raising her eyes from the ball she was in on the ground she saw that three of the goons were closing in on her, picking their way through the collapsed wreckage that had been piled near the doorway, and worst of all at their lead was Stander.

"I thought you said she was good lookin." one of them snapped at him.

"Compared to the rest of the hags on this mudball she is." he laughed back.

"True that, but I ain't big on the bloody look, ain't no psycho ya know."

"So throw a bucket of water on her."

As they laughed and surrounded her Gaige was frantically trying to locate her rifle, only to see that the goons had already stepped over it, and it was too late to go for her to pull out another weapon from her backpack.

'I screwed up' she thought 'has my combat senses dulled that much? Have I become that reliant on Deathtrap that I couldn't even handle a few morons on my own? Is this how it ends?' As she lay there, Deathtrap, her dad, Artemis's faces all flashed through her mind 'I was gonna go home' she thought 'I'd made a friend, someone I really liked. Man, she is gonna be furious. Wait, what would she do? Give up? I don't think so. Find a way. Survive. No matter how painful or nasty. Take out the first. Worry about the second then.'

She grit her teeth, her hand tightening on the first thing it found, and as Stander stepped right up to her she drove the shard of metal through his boot, foot and all. As he screamed in surprised agony she sprung up, drawing her hammer from its holster and delivered an uppercut to his jaw that silenced him with a bone shattering crunch. Taking advantage of the shock of the other two, she smashed a second in the face as she tore past him, dropping into a slide to snatch up her rifle and unload on them.

The gun clicked as the clip went dry, her breathing ragged, when a shotgun blast exploded behind her. Spinning she saw the bloody chunks of a goon fall through the ruined doorway and Wainwright step through casually reloading.

"Thought that ruckus would lead us to you." he drawled as Deathtrap floated out after him, rushing to her side.

"I'll be fine." She told him, patting his metal arm before turning to Wainwright "Took you long enough."

He just stared at her while snapping his gun closed "Seems like you found yourself in a worse spot than a hen at a fox convention."

"T-that's a new one." She replied as dryly as she could trying to reload only to find her hands shaking too hard to manage. "I-I really thought I was a goner there for a minute." she finally choked out.

Wainwright looked uncomfortable, but stepped in and gave the shaking girl a clap on the shoulder "There there, you did good. But we have a long way to go and I need you to keep it together for me."

"Yeah, thanks, I'm, well not good, but I'll manage."

"As soon as we are done here, you are goin to go see a doctor, no argument, on Jakobs tab. Now where in the tarnation are they hidin those workers." he said looking around.

"I think I know *cough* where they are" Gaige said with a wince, tucking her cyber hand against her still tender side which had thankfully stopped bleeding "Follow me, quick before everyone comes to *cough* to investigate,"

'That's it' She thought 'Keep talking, distract yourself from the pain, and failure, you can stew on them later, for now keep pressing forward.'

She moved back to the ruined doorway and after peeking around to make sure the coast was clear, headed inside at a jog. As they approached the door that Gaige believed would lead to the main offices she asked "So how many of these *cough* these, whatever you wanna call ums have you two got?"

"I myself have only taken out three, but your friend here has six. Why?"

"Just trying to get a rough count of how many are down, so I can guess how many are left. I got, what, five inside and three out, making eight, plus three and six is seventeen, and from what I saw there are probably thirty to forty, so high ball it at forty-five, and we still have a shit load left." She sighed "We need more guns, by which I mean bodies with guns. Quiet, we're here."

She pressed herself against the wall next to the door and prepped for entry. Wainwright stood a little off to one side, shotgun at the ready and nodded to her. Gaige breathed in deep, trying to resurrect that old Vault Hunter in her. Where had it gone, she wondered and when? Had her edge been slipping gradually? It's not like she hadn't been in fights for her life many times in the last few years. So why was this different? Why was she feeling off now? Was it as simple as not having Deathtrap with her? No, that wasn't it, at least not all. Was it that she had nearly lost him? Again that wasn't all of it, that had happened months ago. And why had she thought about her father when she thought she might die? Well she had been thinking about reuniting with him the last few days. But then what about Artemis. Yes they had been together more than either had been with another person in years, but somehow that wasn't it. Was it what Wainwright had said on the way in? Had that affected her? Again no, she didn't feel like that was it. This was getting her nowhere, shelf it and come back to it, like any one of her problems, mechanical or work. Usually when you spent time away from it and came back, the solution was more readily there. No, time to shake off the cobwebs. And nothing like kicking some ass to knock the rust off the old killer instinct.

She let out her breath and twisted the knob, throwing the door open. When no blast followed from within, she spun around the frame and threw herself into a roll. Coming up in a crouch on one side of the room she pivoted, sweeping the room. Finding it empty she let Wainwright know it was clear and surveyed the room properly.

In stark contrast to the rest of the factory the room was the usual Jakobs slightly decayed opulence. It appeared to be some kind of reception area, with large wooden desks organized in rows. The inkwells, papers and computers that had sat on them had been brushed onto the thick carpeted floor, leaving stains that would never come out, not that the filth covered boots of the goons hadn't done worse than that already. The paintings were astray or knocked off the walls, and the filing cabinets had been ransacked.

Moving through the wreck, they came to another door and after a check, found it opened to a hall lined with heavy wooden doors.

A few nerve-wracking minutes of sweeping the rooms, which turned out to be similarly wrecked offices, they came to a T juncture. Running low on time, they split up, leaving Deathtrap to guard the intersection so he could be ready to come to their aid if needed.

The first room Gaige opened on was a large board room. The once opulent table was now piled with guns, ammo, and anything of value that could be looted. Suppressing the old desire to sift through the piles for anything exceptional or rare she moved on. As she came to the next door, the one at the end of the hall swung open and two goons emerged, holding an ECHO. Without missing a beat, Gaige spun and fired two short bursts, downing both. Without waiting to see if more emerged, she grabbed the knob on the door in front of her and rolled in while opening it, which turned out to be the right call as a shotgun blast tore through the air above her. Rolling up, she spotted the goon who must have been hiding in the room, crouching behind the desk. Springing forward she vaulted the desk, slamming her spiked shin guard into his head. Grabbing his gun with her cyber hand she twisted it aside and jammed her gun barrel under his chin.

"Hi," She said while smiling, "If you don't want your few brains to end up as modern art all over this wall, where are you keeping the Jakobs workers?"

"Screw you bitch, when I get" his threats were cut off as Gaige pulled the trigger.

"Try to be nice and this is what I get." She muttered to herself while dashing back to the door.

After a brief hand signal to Deathtrap letting him know she was good, she quietly checked the rest
of the rooms, finding them empty, though the last office was decidedly more opulent then the rest,
and judging by the stuffed fish on the wall, she assumed was the bosses office, but he wasn't in at
the moment.

Hoping Wainwright had better luck, she started back down the hall just as Deathtrap started firing lasers down the hall they had entered. Swearing she took off running to help.

Sliding up to the corner, Deathtrap having moved to the other side, using the wall for the best cover he could with his bulky frame, she swung her gun around and started firing.

"Wainwright, hurry up and find something." she shouted.

"I am doing my best." came the reply. "Aha, stairs."

"Go, get your employees." She yelled back "But beware, the guards will be ready. We'll hold them off, so be quick about it."

"Ururgu"

"You sure babe?"

"Uru"

"You're probably right, but I don't like it. You stay safe and don't be afraid to fall back if things start to go bad, K?"

"Urur"

Gaige nodded and backed away from the hall, before sprinting and at the last second dropping into a slide, crossing under the wave of fire that responded to her silence. Dashing down the hall she waved to get Wainwright's attention.

Sliding up to the door frame she rattled off "Deathtrap says he can hold them off, so I should back you up, but let's hurry."

"All right. It seems to be this way."

"I'll go first, follow me." and without waiting for a reply, she descended the stairs at a sprint,
leaping the last half to land in a crouch, gun sweeping the short corridor. The wood paneling
continued down the hall, but the carpets were replaced with hardwood floors, making it seem
like the inside of a barrel.

Finding no one, she signaled for Wainwright to join her, and they continued down the hall to the three doors at the end. Starting on the left they threw open the thick wood door to find a second door made of solid metal. With no lock on it, Gaige pushed it open and swept the room, finding shelves of paper records neatly organized on them. With no one inside, they went across the hall.

This door likewise opened to a second door, this one with a dial lock, but with a simple push they found it also opened. Inside they found empty shelves and torn open boxes. Likely where important works and finished high end guns were stored. Leaving the last door, which they approached with rising tension, cause if they were wrong, they would be in trouble.

Like the last two, they found a double door, this one with a three-key lock, and like the last one it was open. Holding her breath for a second, Gaige calmed herself, time was of the essence, she could hear the gunfire from upstairs, but she could not screw up again. Letting her breath out she dove through the door. The guards that had been lying in wait opened fire, again proving that they were not professionals by both shooting at where she should have been standing, missing her. She rolled up and unleashed two short bursts downing them. Standing with a sigh she turned to the door, only to feel a round slam into her shield knocking her forward.

'Shit' she thought 'Again?'

Wainwright stepped through the door and unleashed both barrels on the goon who had been hiding in a side door, killing him in a spray of blood. Quickly reloading he scanned the room before turning to Gaige. "You alright?"

"Gah took that one right in the ego." She cursed. "I'm fine. No I'm not, been half a step off all day. And it's PISSING ME OFF!"

"Well if you've got that much piss and vinegar left, you must be fine, now let's find my workers."

They went through the door the third guard had come through and found a room with bars crossing it holding a group of men. A group of rather ugly, unkempt men.

"Would you be the workers of this fine factory?"

"O wasta ow?" one of them managed through a mouth of broken teeth.

"Wainwright?" a voice echoed from the back "You're Wainwright Jakobs aren't you. It's me Brandibarry. Reginald Brandibarry. We met a few years ago on Eden 6."

The man who stepped forward had the look of someone who had been used to a good life, but had not eaten in a few days. His once magnificent suit was torn and grubby, the skin on his stubbly jowls hung loose and his eyes had a sunken look to them.

"Brandibarry! What the devil happened to you?"

"It's those bandits, they just showed up one day demanding we start making guns for them. We refused of course, we are all Jakobs family after all, so they rounded us up and well you can see that we haven't broken." he said with some pride.

"And I assume that you would all like some payback on them?"

"Damn straight." came the reply from the cage.

"Then let's get you out of there."

"On it." Gaige called, having already spent the last few moments searching the bodies for the key.

"We'll need our weapons, they should be next door."

"Unfortunately that room is empty."

Gaige held up the key in triumph before tossing it to Wainwright.

As he opened the cell she informed them "Your guns and stuff are on a table in some conference room, but they are on the other side of a firefight."

"Well, you heard her, those of you who can still fight and are willing to risk life and limb follow me."

To no one's surprise the entire mob of workers surged forward, following them upstairs, though most stopped at the sight of a massive floating robot firing lasers. Gaige ran up to him and slid across the hall, taking her position and opening fire. The men moved up uneasily to Deathtrap eying him.

Wainwright moved to the head of the line and called to Gaige to let him know when it was clear as she ducked back to reload.

"Go!" She shouted as she resumed fire and the first few ran across the gap, not stopping til they got to the boardroom, where a few seconds later she heard the lamenting cries of the men sobbing over the treatment of their 'babies'. Even though she understood completely, Gaige still let out a sigh, wishing they would get their 'babies' and come help, even as she sent a second group after them.

Eventually they started showing up to fight, which allowed them all to push forward down the hall, moving from door to door till they got to the first room.

Skillfully leaping over the pile of dead bodies that Deathtrap had made, with a little help from her, Gaige hurried up to the main door, only to be surprised by what she found.

Standing in front of a line of the rest of the bandits, who were standing with their hands up a few paces back from their guns, was the evil looking bandit, with a gun pointed at the back of a man who was dressed in what had once been nice clothes.

"We wish to surrender." the evil looking man said flatly "Except for the boss, who would've liked us to all fight to the death, which is why I have a gun pointed at him."

"You traitorous Skag excrement." the well-dressed man was swearing at him. "You'll all go to prison for what you've done you know."

"Shut it. I can survive prison. They've freed the prisoners and taken the weapons, they've won. Only a fool dies when he doesn't have to. So I go to prison, I stay alive. I fight, I'll die. Simple as that." he turned to the door that Gaige and Wainwright were at "Now if you could train your guns on him, I can set this one down, then we can call the authorities and get this over with. And before you think that we have snipers or anything out here, we all know that if one of you gets shot, the rest of you will mow us down, and like I said, I want to live."

Gaige looked to Wainwright and Brandibarry "It's your call."

"Very well" Wainwright called out "We will send out some of the men to tie you up, if that is an acceptable solution."

When the man nodded, Brandibarry motioned to a few of the workers who cautiously moved out and covered the now prisoners. After a moment Deathtrap emerged followed by the rest and took custody of the lot of them.

A few of the workers went and found some cording and set about tying them up when one of the workers, with a split lip and swollen eye walked up to one of them.

"'Member me?" he asked as he pulled back and drove the butt of his gun at the mans head, only to be stopped by Wainwright.

"There will be none of that. That is not the Jakobs way. This man is bound and our captive. Treat him with the dignity that entails, even if you did not receive it."

"Sorry" came the sullen reply.

"Don't worry. I'll deal with him." Brandibarry said.

"Nonsense, after what you all have been through, if a few of the men didn't have their dander up, they wouldn't be Jakobs men, but they do need to remember their etiquette. Take this man and get him a good stiff drink and let him cool his head before he returns."

"Yes sir."

"Now then, you lead these ruffians?" He said turning to the well-dressed man.

Getting a better look at him Gaige saw that he was probably in his late thirties, with dark hair that had been shaved on the sides, though it had since grown out, and was longer on top, that had probably once been greased back, but was now just naturally oily. A dark beard, moving into unkempt territory, covered his lower face. His suit was of a nice cut, a few years out of date, and looking like it had been worn since then. The scuffed shoes on his feet were the same ones she had seen talking to the evil looking bandit and Stander earlier.

"Does it look like I'm leading anyone?" The man spat.

"Well then, I do believe we will need to have a sit-down chat, see if we can't fix that attitude of yours."

They left the goons under the care of the workers and led the man to one of the offices. After seating him, they got down to it.

"Now then, who are you and why are you trying to steal from me."

The man glared at them before sighing "I'll take a whiskey, then I'll tell you what you want to know."

Once everyone had a drink the man started.

"My name is Brion Petterson, and I once worked for Hyperion, before those bastards fired me. You see, after the death of Handsome Jack, the company needed to restructure and rebrand, so they hired a bunch of us to oversee it. And we did. My department was especially successful, not only did we come up with the 'We didn't know Jack' campaign, we were the ones who came up with the idea to install shields into our guns. We brought the company back from the brink and what did those bastards do?
They 'cut back in redundant areas' which is their way of saying 'thanks for saving us, now piss off'. Didn't even give us severance pay, no we got stock, stock we couldn't sell for twenty-five years. Even worse, we couldn't work for a competitor due to a clause in the contract, so we couldn't even get a job. Which is how I ended up with these traitorous dogs."

"Their boss actually kidnapped me to try and ransom me, but well, didn't work out. Not many people willing to pay for an out of work executive. So I had to get creative to survive. Wound up taking over the gang, you know, a little bit of smooth words here, a few rumors there, a couple ideas for jobs that worked out, and bam, new chief. Only to get back at Hyperion I needed more. More gangs, more bodies, and for that I needed the one commodity that speaks to these reprobates, guns. Of course I would have loved to use Hyperion guns to take my revenge, but those places, shit, the one good thing that they kept from the Jack times was his sense of paranoia, so they were out. So we needed guns and you had the worst security, I mean look at this place, it's like you were inviting us in, no wonder you almost lost your company to an outsider. Well I suppose we could have went after Tedior, but seriously I wanted a gun that works. And that brings us to here. And I've finished my drink."

"So, if it was our security or lack thereof that brought you here, what made you think you could hold it?"

"Ah that, well, we figured that we would take the place, take the guns that were here, make your workers produce as many as they could in about a week, and then be gone."

"Even if someone showed up to investigate we should be able to take them, right? It's not like you're DAHL or Vladof or those psychos who work for Maliwan, I mean those guys give me the creeps. Anyway, that's where I went wrong, I didn't think those bandits were such pansies. Or that those workers would hold out like that, shit, I could use an army of them. Or that you'd show up with a damn death robot, I mean seriously who the hell made that monster."

"That would be me."

"And you sold it to Jakobs? If I could sell that to Hyperion, I could get back in. Let me have it. Just the plans, that's all I need. What'da you say? Deal right."

"He's not for sale. Not to Jakobs and not to you and definitely not to Hyperion. I was there when Jack died you know, and let me tell you, he got what was coming."

"Oh shit, you, I recognize you. You're that chick, the one with the price on her head, Ginger or Gauge or something. Hey, hey buddy, what do yah say, we turn her in and collect that hefty bounty, I'll split it with you, even give you forty no wait forty five percent, it's a great deal right. Come on, how bout it?"

"I think we are done here, Brandibarry if you wouldn't mind gagging our guest, it would be
much appreciated."

"It would truly be my pleasure." He said with a cold smile.

"And Gaige, first off just so you know, I would never dream of selling you out. And second, time for you to go see the doctor."

"Just as long as it's not Zed."