OPENING THE CAGE
CHAPTER 1:
ONCE UPON A TIME ON PANDORA…
"So, you wanna hear a story, huh?"
The man who said this was rotund, with an apparently jovial demeanour and a goatee. He spoke with a Slavic accent. His manner of dress was well-worn, and compared to his guests, rather slovenly.
"Actually, we wanted to tell one," said one of his guests, a woman. She and the man were dressed rather oddly for the place. Immaculate tan suits (very conspicuous on Pandora), with the woman having a long skirt instead of trousers. They both had red hair, and the same mildly attractive but somewhat bland features. They could have been twins. In a way, that was both what they were, and what they weren't.
"Perhaps we could tell one together," the male twin said.
"Preferably without elaboration. After all, it is already a fantastic tale," the woman said.
"No elaboration required," the male twin concluded.
The rotund man frowned. His name was Marcus Kincaid, a man of many professions, like bus driver, story teller, and arms dealer. He was currently sitting in a back room in his store at New Haven. He had been asked by these two, who had appeared, to come with them out the back. They mentioned the story of the Vault Hunters, of the downfall of Atlas and part of Hyperion…
Of the five Vault Hunters, and the two Girls of Destiny.
Marcus frowned. "But what would be the point of the three of us telling a story if we all know about it?"
"The thing is, we know things about the story that you don't," the man said.
"About how it truly begins, and what things they may not have told you," the woman said.
"After all, you know what they say."
"The onlooker sees most of the game."
Marcus peered at the two. They were far from the strangest people on Pandora. Even in New Haven, you had Scooter, who was brilliant at anything mechanical, but little more than a braying redneck at anything else. And Marcus still considered him a son, as he had helped Moxxi raise him and his sister after they fled the Hodunk clan and Moxxi married him. Then there was Dr Zed, a rather ethically questionable doctor rumoured to do various dubious experiments. And, of course, there were the Vault Hunters.
Still, there was something about these two that set Marcus' instincts screaming. These two weren't dangerous per se, but there was something highly disturbing about them.
"Well," Marcus began, "before we continue any further, how about we introduce ourselves? I'm Marcus Kincaid, venture merchant."
MARCUS KINCAID
As Jovial As He Is Tightfisted
"Robert Lutece," the male twin said.
"Rosalind Lutece," the woman said.
"We are physicists," Robert said.
"And we are ghosts," Rosalind said.
"Schrödinger's twin children."
"Neither dead nor alive, technically speaking."
"Everywhere…"
"And nowhere."
ROSALIND AND ROBERT LUTECE
Never Metaphysicist I Liked
Marcus blinked at the double act that they performed. Eventually, he said, "Well, would you like a drink as we tell our tale?"
"We would love one, thank you," Robert said.
"Preferably good drink," Rosalind cautioned. "I'd prefer to treasure my brain cells, even if they are in a quantum indeterminate state."
Marcus wasn't sure what to make of it. Normally, he would have palmed off some of Scooter's latest batch of moonshine onto these two, but he decided to break out the good stuff, pouring out into his finest glasses…with only one or two chips on them. "I am curious, though. How do you know how the story begins?"
"Because we began it ourselves," Robert said.
"And we have tried to finish it. I guess being here is a happy ending, of a sort," Rosalind said.
"Even being here on a hellhole planet?" Robert asked.
"Better than Columbia."
"Since when were you the optimist, sister?" Robert asked.
"I don't know. But it is better than ending in the river, or in Rapture."
"Come, come, friends, let's not waste any more time," Marcus said, smiling. "If you know how the story begins, then let's begin it, eh?"
Hmm, where to begin?
I supposed that it began with me, with my research into quantum physics. Into means that could make a city float in the clouds.
I see your astonishment, Mr Kincaid. Keep in mind that Columbia, the city in question, was established in 1893.
…You've dropped your drink. Shame. That wasn't a bad glass. And the alcohol is pretty good too. I could probably use it to sterilise laboratory instruments. I'm glad I don't see any smoke or bubbling rising from that spilled drink.
Yes, I know it sounds impossible to you. But we come from another timeline, and well before humanity ever turned its eye to colonising Pandora. I am sure that most people of my time would be astonished at other things, though I daresay citizens of Columbia would be more concerned with the filth around this place than robots and weapons technology.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Columbia was led by a man. He had once been named Booker DeWitt, but after the infamous Massacre at Wounded Knee, he took a baptism, and took a new name: Zachary Hale Comstock. He saw the potential in my work, but there was something about him that festered and grew, a desire for power, and to cleanse the world of what he considered to be sin. Columbia was his own personal kingdom of inequality and injustice.
He collaborated with me, along with my brother once I brought him through into our reality, on creating Columbia. But he was obsessed with his legacy, and our technology, able to open Tears, rips in space and time, left him sterile. He opted to take his daughter from an alternate self, one who hadn't accepted the baptism, who remained Booker DeWitt.
DeWitt had gotten into debt and drink, and eventually sold his daughter, Anna, to us. But in a fit of remorse, he tried to back out of the deal. It was too late, and all that was left of Anna in his reality was her severed little finger. Such an innocuous thing, and yet, it granted her, by happenstance, the ability to rip open holes in space and time. This made her, in Comstock's eyes, the perfect heir. He isolated her from the world, and killed anyone who knew the truth, even us, though we survived. That's a very long story, and we have a lot to tell otherwise. We are now…quantum ghosts, for want of a better term. Everywhere and nowhere. By that time, we were already intending to try and do penance for what we had done. In our new state, we could begin to do so.
Anna was renamed Elizabeth. Booker, in his reality, wallowed in misery, even branding his hand with his daughter's initials as a penance, until the time was right. We opened a Tear, and brought him through. Because of the trauma of being brought through, his mind made up a mission from his prior selling of Anna. He was to bring us the girl, so that he could wipe away the debt. He had no idea that his debt was more of a moral one, as was our own.
He made it to Columbia, but Comstock cannily knew enough about his coming, thanks to our machines. The brand on Booker's hand was claimed to be the identifying feature of the False Shepherd. Booker, however, made it to the girl's prison, and managed to free her. By subterfuge, he persuaded her to accompany her, but when they finally made it to an airship, she realised that they were going to New York, rather than the Paris she had been promised. Understandably upset, she knocked him out and fled. After a brief encounter with a certain Miss Daisy Fitzroy, leader of the Vox Populi, Booker pursued Elizabeth. She opened Tear after Tear in order to evade Booker…and that is where things went wrong.
In her determination to evade him, she opened a Tear much further in space and time than she had ever done before. How she was able to overcome the effects of the Siphon, a device that limited her powers, eludes me. But she managed it regardless, creating two Tears to the same time, and mostly the same place: namely this planet. Booker ended up on one part of Pandora, and Elizabeth another.
And that, Marcus Kincaid, is where the story truly begins…
It wasn't much of a road, even though it was one of the few in the desert. One of the more noteworthy landmarks was an ancient billboard, falling apart, proclaiming Pandora to be the final destination of any readers. Unfortunately, the creators of the billboard didn't have much of a sense of irony. After all, Pandora was the final destination of many an unfortunate who perished there, from the conditions, or from the wildlife, or from the bandits and malcontents that roamed its surface. Since the Dahl Corporation ceased its mining operations, one of the few reasons anyone came here anymore was because of the rumours of the Vault.
Scrambling through a hole in the billboard was a dog-like reptilian creature called a Skag. It opened its vertical, somewhat yonic mouth, and screeched briefly, before trotting over to the road to sun itself. It realised its mistake a second too late, when the decrepit bus hit it at speed, sending blood spraying everywhere, and turning the skag into an impromptu hood ornament.
The bus was being driven by one Marcus Kincaid, who, as they approached Fyrestone, called back jovially to the passengers, "Okay back there, wake up! It's a fine day, full of opportunity!"
They were an eclectic bunch, these passengers. The first was a thin man who wore a hood on his head with goggles. He had a distinctive goatee, and a strange, bird-like creature perched on his shoulder. A sniper rifle was mounted on his back. His name was Mordecai.
MORDECAI AS
THE HUNTER
Loves Shooting, Falconry, and Heavy Drinking
The second, a woman, was tall, slender and extremely pale, with blue tattoo-like markings on her skin. Her hair was fiery red, and her eyes golden, like a hawk's. Despite her petite frame and beautiful looks, there was the sense of a hidden danger, especially to any who knew that the markings on her skin were the mark of a Siren, human women born with extraordinary powers. And Lilith was not someone you wanted to mess with.
DR LILITH CASHLIN(1) AS
THE SIREN
Beautiful. Brainy. Bellicose.
The third occupant was a soldier, in what looked like a modified version of the Crimson Lance, the PMC wing of the Atlas Corporation. His dark skin and muscled body contrasted with his thoughtful eyes. He went by the name of Roland.
ROLAND AS
THE SOLDIER
Doesn't Like to Sound His Own Horn(2)
The fourth was a big, massive, brutal and scarred lump of a man, nothing less than a hulking mass of muscle. Appropriately enough, his name was Brick.
BRICK AS
THE BERSERKER
Likes Pounding People and Petting Puppies
The last man on the bus was a grim-looking man of indeterminate age, brown-haired and handsome, but with a scowl perpetually marring his features. His clothes looked out of place here, seemingly coming from another time. The gun he wielded was ancient technology by this time, and yet, he seemed almost at home amongst these people. His name was Booker DeWitt.
BOOKER DEWITT AS
THE PINKERTON
A Man Out Of Time, But Not Out Of Place
With the exception of Booker, they were all Vault Hunters. Fortune seekers. Mercenaries looking for a big haul.
But Booker had another aim in mind. Survival would be better with these people than away from it. But he still had Elizabeth to find. He didn't know if it was possible to bring her back to New York now. Hell, if his debtors couldn't find him, then it may be a moot point.
But this was a harsh place, and he didn't know where she was. And he'd be damned if he left her in the lurch.
Sirens wailed as the two girls ran through the rough and rocky landscape of Thousand Cuts, trying to evade their pursuers. Both of them were in their late teens, both of them dark-haired, and both of them beautiful. One of them was thin, perhaps too thin, her exposed skin showing blue tattoo-like markings. Her hair was short, almost shaved on one side, with metallic implants showing, while the other side was long. Her eyes were a pale icy blue that glowed faintly with an inner light. Her name was Angel Clarke(3), and she had just escaped her father's imprisonment.
ANGEL CLARKE AS
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL SIREN
Only Now Spreading Her Wings
The other was dressed in a vaguely Victorian style, with a white blouse and a long blue skirt. Her hourglass figure was the result of both her petite body and a corset that was now proving to be something of a hindrance. Like her comrade, she had black hair and blue eyes, though her blue eyes were darker blue. Her name was Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COMSTOCK AS
THE TEAR-MAKER
She Rips Space And Time A New Orifice!
They took shelter behind a rock, panting from the exertions of the last hour or so, given the escape and all it entailed. Elizabeth's own jailbreak had been exhausting enough, but breaking Angel out of her own prison was even more so. And they had been running almost non-stop. Elizabeth had supported Angel for much of the way, as Angel's muscles had deteriorated during her imprisonment.
"Do you think we've gone far enough?" Elizabeth asked as she got her breath back.
Angel shook her head. "Nowhere on this planet is far enough…but we can at least put some distance between us and this place. We need to get to a Fast-Travel Station." She looked at her saviour, astonished. "What were those abilities? Why did you help me?"
"I don't know about my abilities," Elizabeth said quietly. "But I know about cages. I don't like seeing people in cages. Where do we head to?"
"I have a few ideas. Maybe Fyrestone, or New Haven. Probably the former. I have to warn the Vault Hunters that have arrived. About Atlas's interest in the Vault…and my father's interest in it."
"Lead the way, then," Elizabeth said, and she followed her fellow fugitive as they scrambled across the rocks of Thousand Cuts, fleeing from cages…
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
A good start, don't you think? Hopefully, it can continue from that.
As I mentioned in my foreword, this is a more experimental fic, which will be updated relatively infrequently. By experimental, I mean that I am doing a story that has a concept that intrigues me, but will be put on the backburner. I will update this story later. Don't worry about that.
1. Dr Lilith Cashlin was, apparently, meant to be Lilith's full name, according to the Borderlands Wiki.
2. Roland is also the name of the protagonist of The Song of Roland, a medieval epic poem about a knight who dies in glorious battle. He refuses to sound a horn to call in reinforcements until he is dying. Given how attention-shy Roland is in the opening of the original Borderlands, I thought I'd make a reference to that as well.
3. In my Ballad of Ricky and Angel series of Borderlands stories, I decided to give Angel and Jack the last name of Clarke, after Handsome Jack's voice actor, Dameon Clarke.