Note: There is one funny phrase in here that you won't really understand unless you listen to the following song. Hehe.
'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen.
So whip that song out and play it when you see it being referenced.
I also have a reference from Wreck-it-Ralph in here. Whoever finds it gets a cookie. :P
Chapter 5 - All for Nothing
"Honey, we're here. The money is here. The Key is here. Let's just do it." Sasha gently urges him from his side as he walks away.
"No, I've made up my mind. I'll put in a call to Vasquz, and we'll do this right."
This cannot be happening. This… CANNOT be happening! It's all falling apart!
Admittedly, my first instinct when I lose control and panic is not my brightest. However, tackling the guy may have been the stupidest thing I ever did. I blame it on the pent-up frustration of having been at the bad ending to perhaps the worst day of my life.
It was like one of those slow-motion replays you see in sports. We all were stunned and watching the moment in a mixture of horror, confusion, and shock.
The safe fell from his hands and clattered across the ground. The lid flew open. The Vault Key flew out.
And it shattered on the ground.
Mordecai gaped openly, Brick jumped up and yelled, "What?! It broke! It isn't allowed to break! I'll smash it before it breaks!", Lilith's eyes widened but she otherwise showed nothing as Rhys described the event, Vaughn gasped, Sasha muttered, "Oh shit…", August stared with eyes wide and jaw slack, and me… well… for me.
I watch my whole life go up in smoke.
See, here's the thing. Pandora was a backwater colony world. It was rich in minerals and was good farmland, but so were thousands of other worlds. But some travelers came across ruins of an ancient culture behind a series of gates that teleported you to another galaxy or dimension, and this ancient culture was found to be vastly more advanced than the modern United Systems Alliance. This is when Pandora was noticed. Pandora was on the front page of every newspaper for years. Pandora was the one thing people wanted to know about, to talk about, to gossip about. Heck, you couldn't sit on the toilet without guys in opposing stalls wanting to talk about it. Pandora became the galactic focus. The biggest names of the biggest names supported various efforts to colonize, take over, and otherwise do something about the gate dubbed a Vault.
Hyperion was one of many corporations to take a direct focus on Pandora. Dahl and Atlas were two others, and they both went bankrupt in the process. Bounty Hunters soon reversed themselves into Vault Hunters. Criminals were freed from every jail in the Systems Alliance with the idea to help with the Pandoran efforts. (It was dubbed as The Aragonian Community Service Act.) Everyone threw what they had at this planet.
The most important detail was that a Vault could not be opened without a Vault Key. There are a few of them found on Pandora, and anyone who digs one up can bring their chosen corporation-slash-sponsor to the top of the galactic market. Any system or nation would instantly have the technological advantage to become a galactic super-power. A Vault Key is worth enough money to buy yourself a vacation planet, fill it with strip models, and buy yourself an expensive battleship with enough money left over to let two generations of kids and grandkids do the same thing a dozen times over all while getting drunk enough to last the rest of your life with red eyes.
One key feature about the technology is that it is virtually indestructible by anything modern man can throw at it, short of a nuke, and then it only scratches the paint. So a Vault Key cannot be destroyed.
This Vault Key broke into a couple of pieces after falling two feet from an accidentally opened safe onto soft dirt.
This is not a real Vault Key.
Someone lied.
And I fell for it.
This day now has permission to be the worst day of my life.
Now, considering the fact that I still had August's waist wrapped in my arms after we both fell on the ground, I would think he would be angry at me for tackling him. He's not. The gravity of the situation (namely the Vault Key breaking into bite-size pieces) was a more pressing matter than the fact that I momentarily lost my mind. He slowly crawled out of my numb grip, clambered over to the Vault Key, and pick up pieces of it with such tender horror, confusion, and pain as if it was his dead puppy.
"Its… broken." He whispers.
I'm too shocked to say a word. I just lay there. All I see is the Vault Key.
Then August grits his teeth, and a fury starts in his shoulders and ripples up his shaking body up to his eyes. Whether that's information or his own sanity, something clicks in his mind. He looks up at his girlfriend. He speaks with a coldness that sends chills down my spine. His voice promises pain. "Where is she?"
As if to answer his question, we hear a 'clink' sound behind us, and we all spin around to find cow-girl holding the briefcase and inching away from the table. The only reason we heard her was because she backed into an empty soda can. We were so shocked that Vaughn had left the money exposed.
Cow-girl stares at us like a deer in head-lights, wide-eyed and frozen in fear.
August stands to his feet and whips out his pistol, cow-girl makes a mad-dash for it, Sasha runs the other direction, August's goons stand there confused as to which girl to go after because Sasha suddenly running looks suspicious or whether to stay and guard the two of us, and August just yells furiously while giving chase to cow-girl. A few guards make up their minds and split up to go after both girls while another one points his gun at Vaughn and myself.
"I'm confused… what's going on now?" Brick asked.
Rhys shrugged. "I felt the same way."
I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. All I know is I'm going to die. I grab Vaughn's arm and run in a random direction away from the lunatics. "Rhys! The money!"
"Forget the Jack-damned money! Just run!" I yell over my shoulder. I hear renewed gunfire nearby. With no idea whether stray bullets are going to suddenly hit us in the back, I cower and hide behind everything I can while at the same time just running with all the full-blown adrenaline-spiked uncoordinated terror of a rabbit being chased by a dog.
I'm going to die here.
The one goon that stayed to watch over Vaughn and I chases after us and fires off a shot before a bullet hits him in the neck from the side with enough impact to knock him over. Vaughn yells and stops. I skid to a stop and grab him by the arm to haul him up. A brief glance shows his leg is bleeding. He was fortunate the goon hadn't been aiming to kill, only to stop him.
I'm going to die here.
What would Jack do?
Jack wouldn't be running away. He would be running towards something to use to take revenge on the people he is making a strategic retreat from.
Right now, I couldn't be any more like Jack if I tried. I'm just running because I'm scared and I've gone into auto-pilot because if I take the effort to stop for a moment to realize the mess that is now my life… I would shatter just as much as the Vault Key. I can afford to have a break down later. Maybe with crackers and a cup of tea.
Vaughn cries out in pain with every step he takes as we run-slash-scramble away. He leaves a trail of blood behind, but there is not really anything we can do about that. He limps his way around the corner after me and stops momentarily to catch his breathe while leaning against a wall. His glasses are skewed, broken, and sideways hanging off one ear and his eyes are that of a wild-man, filled with mind-numbing terror.
I give him five seconds before we keep running.
Towards the town is a bad idea. We are wounded, literally and figuratively. We have nothing of value. We are defenseless since I told Loader Bot to go away while I take care of the deal. The townsmen will pick us apart and spit out our bones…
So we run in the opposite direction out towards the wilderness. Whether it be divine intervention, luck, or karma there is a vehicle sitting there nestled in a hiding spot. The door is wide open. "Come on, Vaughn!" I urge him harder.
I glance inside briefly, find no one inside, and jump in without hesitation. It's a one-room kind of camper equipped with a table, wrap around couch, stove and oven, a few single-beds in the back, a really small bathroom, and a driving seat. I hop in the driving seat and find the gas-meter is at full.
It couldn't have been more glorious and perfect if Jack had opened up the heavens and his Jack-angels had been playing 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen.
Vaughn climbs in on his hands and knees, panting from losing his breathe and pain. He shuts the door. I look over the switches and buttons. I find the on-button, smack it, and… nothing. The car needs a key.
"Jack-damnit." I hiss. "Vaughn, look for a key!"
"On it." He responds. I hear him fall on something and scramble around in the clutter looking for the key. In the meantime, I crawl under the panel. I don't want to just sit and wait for the chance Vaughn will find the key.
Odds are the owner has them in his pocket. No owner here, no pocket, no key. Sometimes I might be willing to play the odds and wait long enough to look, but not today!
Gunfire continues to go off nearby as I detach the bottom of the panel. Wiring and hardware and gunk fills the compartment. A dead roach falls on my face and I wipe it off, too focused on survival to be disgusted more than a millisecond. I reach in and get to work. My mind goes into overdrive in computer engineering and maintenance. There are problems all over the place. The speed processors are not aligned right, there are multiple modules in the wrong sockets, and there are chips all over the place as if someone was just punching them in with no clue what the actual problem was.
You don't put a DDR71-6400 in the same channel as a DDR72A-12800 and a LPZ! They aren't the same speeds or even the same technology! You keep out the LPZ and have the DDR72A in the head-socket with the DDR71 in the fourth channel! Amateurs! I want to face-palm, but I only have two hands, and if I don't fix this crap then we won't be getting very far very fast.
"Uh, Rhys. I think it's getting closer!" Vaughn exclaims in growing panic.
"Of course…" I mutter as I pull chips out, "There has to be a Jack-damned dark cloud in every single lining!"
I toss a chips and modules and cords out from under the panel. They were just getting in my way and they are completely useless. Half of the problem here is that there are so many cables and chips and modules taking up space that there is no wind-flow. There are also no fans that I can see, so the motherboards are going to overheat within seconds if I can't give this hunk of junk some proper ventilation. Oh wait, there's the motherboard fan. Its tucked under no less than six cords!
There is the sound of Vaughn falling and some clatter. The gunshots are getting closer. "Uh… Rhys." Vaughn says slowly, cautiously.
"I know!" I yell.
I briefly check where the cords in question are going, find them to be completely useless, and pull them out. The fan immediately kicks into gear now that it's not clogged up with junk and it blows hot air in my face.
Now that I can finally see properly under here and the system won't overheat or be under-clocked by bad maintenance, I look for which cord would run to the keyhole. If I can find it and plug it into my arm, then I can go into the driver program and kick-start it.
"Uh… Rhys!" Vaughn says more urgently.
"Shut up, Vaughn! I almost- There it is!" I reach in, grab the cord, and I feel a pair of hands on my legs just before I am yanked out from under the panel and the end of a pistol is pointed between my eyes and the cord is still in my hand… No longer plugged in.
There is a grandpa with a monicle on one eye looking down at me in controlled anger having a pistol at my forehead. I put my hands up in a defensive gesture, the cord still tucked away in my fist.
"Uh, hi?" I try. The grandpa-guy sniffs in derision, pulls me up, and shoves me. "Okay, okay, look, this isn't what it looks like."
"Oh? So it doesn't look like a couple of… Hyperion's are trying to steal my caravan?" He shoves his pistol in my back and I stumble forwards. Vaughn is sitting on the couch with his hands tied behind his back.
Yeah… great job warning me.
"No, no that's not it at all. You see what ha-AAAUGGGH-pened" I reply. I momentarily cry out in pain as he twists my hands behind my back and slaps a cuff on. "Is that-" The guy kicks me onto the couch face-first and I huff into its leather exterior. "What happened is what we were being shot at, we found a car, we want to get out of here. That's all!"
"MHmm…" The guy hums.
His eyes land on my hands and finds the cord tucked away between my fingers and he glares at me angrily. "What did you do?!"
"I can explain! I was fixing it!"
He looks at me in disbelief. "How stupid do you think I am?!"
Right. I would find it hard to believe as well. What kind of random stranger, running away from gunfire and looking to steal a ride out of there, would stop and take the time to do maintenance and fix his car.
Well, if you consider the fact that his ride looked like it would break down at any time, then it is explainable. But I think he isn't considering that. I peg him as the idiot who screwed up on the hardware I just unraveled.
Gunfire goes off just outside the camper. A few bullets punch the side of the vehicle just as the door is flung open. Sasha and cow-girl jump in and cow-girl spins, shoves the door closed again and throws herself against it to keep everyone out. Someone very angry shoves back to try to get the door open. I hear August yelling obsenities and manages to get a small crack open wide enough to stick the barrel of his pistol in and get off a few shots that bounce around the camper.
"Go!" One of the girls yell.
The grandpa is already on the move. He jumps in the driver seat, pulls a key out of thin air- Oh… shit. That won't work. He sticks it in and just as I thought… the car does nothing.
"Oh… Jack…" I close my eyes and mutter.
"Felix!" Cow-girl yells. She opens the door long enough to surprise August, kick him in the face, and slam it closed again. "Get it going!"
"I'm trying! I-" He stops, straightens up in realization, and spins around to me. The fury and anger is a living thing on his face. "What did you DO!"
And now everyone's attention is momentarily on me.
If this is the universe's idea of karma… I don't know what I did in my life to deserve this many death-defying moments in a single day. And if this is one giant joke where Jack comes back from the dead and goes 'Prank'd ya!' then… well. I'm not laughing.
"Like I said! I was trying to fix it!" I explain hurriedly.
"HOW IS THIS FIXING IT?!"
"I didn't have the key! So I fixed the ventilation, plugged the chips and memory in the right channels, I cleaned the gunk out and straightened out the-" August bashes into the door hard enough to knock cow-girl over and Sasha takes up position in holding him back. "I HOTWIRED IT!" I finish.
"Well un-'hotwire it' now!" Grandpa Felix (I think Felix is his name as he was addressed by it.) points his pistol at my face. "Or I will shoot you right here! That crazed lunatic may kill me and my girls, but I will go down knowing I took the bastard down with me who caused it."
I stare momentarily at him and the gun. Its not that I don't believe him, its that the reality of where we all stand hits me yet again and naturally my body decides it's a good time to hesitate.
Their life is literally in my hands, and… I don't know them. I don't like them. Hell, they have been at the main guests at the banquet we all would like to call 'worst day of my life'! But just… the idea that their life is in my hands… Just earlier today that meant less when I called down Loader Bot. But after seeing what Loader Bot did… I don't want to see anything like that again.
Never again…
"NOW, Hyperion!" Felix yells angrily.
"Right! Untie me!" I jump up as best I can over the junk. This place is really a mess…
Grandpa Felix grabs me, spins me around, protrudes a knife out of nowhere, and cuts at the strap around my wrists. He does it hurriedly and not so gently. He scratches my robot arm badly in the process, and I'm just thankful it's not flesh… He would have seriously cut into my arm. With my hands freed, he keeps a vice-like grip on my shoulder and throws me onto the floor where I was before.
"Fix it," Felix says. Is it sad that Felix is still the most reasonable guy I have met today?
Without further prompting, I crawl under the panel, stick one end of the cord back in the motherboard and the second back into the keyhole. (Taking the time to find the driver on my cybernetics would take much longer than using the key, and the guy would most likely shoot me for it at this point.)
"It's in!" I let him know.
He doesn't bother pulling me back out, just lands back in the seat, punches in the key, and hits a button. We back-pedal out of the rock encropping, turn, and speed off into the wilderness away from the gunshots and angry guys with guns.
Rhys stopped to catch his breathe and collect his thoughts. He had been describing his tale for a good bit already. It was a very… elaborate and complicated day, and it wasn't even over yet. "That's how it started." Rhys said.
"I'll be fair. That was a bad day. You started off saying 'Nothing can ruin this day' and then…" Mordecai shook his head in disbelief. "It's almost like you challenged the gods to prove you wrong."
Brick snored. He had his head back on the chair, his hands were together on his chest, and the gentle rising of his chest showed he was asleep. Rhys was unsure if he fell asleep from exhaustion, some kind of sleeping schedule, or boredom.
Lilith didn't have her 'I'm-a-pissed-off-little-B****' face on, but looked contemplative. "I don't see how your story has anything to do with what you did…" She remarked. Her dangerous eyes flickered towards him from the side. "How long do you intend to drag this out?"
"It all leads up to it, I'll get there." Rhys replied defensively.
"Not soon enough…" She muttered with a horrifying calmness. "Perhaps you might get the point if I remove the other eye."
Rhys gulped. He only had one eye. He also had lost his cybernetic arm as well. He didn't like the idea of losing the other ones. Mordecai yawned and stretched. "Well, its getting kinda late. Let's continue tomorrow."
"Earlier this time… If we do this at Cyborg-man's pace, then this will take a couple weeks."
Rhys shrunk in on himself with an innocent smile at her pointed look. Her pointed look turned to disbelief, "Seriously? It will take that long?!"
"No!" Rhys said quickly. "It-it won't take that long. Just… you know. A few days."
The red-headed Siren glared daggers at him, but didn't comment. She ordered the guards to take Rhys away. Before long, Rhys was back where he started every day for the last… who knows how long. With a prison bed and a metal door slammed behind him.
Rhys sighed and rubbed his head. Just where were Sasha and Fiora and Vau- no! Don't think about him. The memory of 'him' was still too painful. The pain was too fresh. Rhys knew if he let his mind drift in that direction, he would crumble in on himself and break. He needed to focus.
He sat on his bed and banged his head into the wall at how useless he felt, and at the mercy of the most cutthroat bandits he could have fallen into. Sure, he could have landed in a worse gang. Pandora was ruled by gangs and mobs and corportations. It was their version of nations and kingdoms across the territory. But Rhys knew the Crimson Raiders were special. Most gangs were honest. They hated you, you knew it, and they wanted to kill you. The Crimson Raiders were more likely to buddy up to him and backstab him if what he knew was accurate, and that made them a special kind of evil.
In terms of military presence, and perhaps 'nation' in any form, there were two types. Clans and Corporations. Rhys knew long ago how the Corporation politics worked, but he didn't understand the Clan part until he came down.
The major factions were the Atlas-hired Crimson Lance, Dahl-hired Lost Legion, and Hyperion, in terms of corporation.
The Crimson Lance were destroyed long ago from the efforts of Handsome Jack and various Vault Hunters, but then the Vault Hunters turned around and 'helped' the Crimson Lance. They became the Crimson Raiders and were given a home in Sanctuary. It was these people who Lilith ruled.
Rhys didn't understand how Lilith and Athena could possibly be on the same side then, as Athena was the main one to wipe out the Crimson with a vengeance, but he felt he didn't know the details.
But it was all very simple. Three armies hired by a corporation with the simple objective of ruling Pandora and being the one to claim a Vault. Not exactly complicated.
Then came the Pandoran politics… It was much more chaotic. The land was covered in gangs, mobs, clans, tribes, cults, and whatever else you could imagine. The men and woman to make up these groups were the original colonies, plus the addition of the criminals dumped on Pandora under the The Aragonian Community Service Act. The combination of villagers and insane, bloodthirsty, deranged criminals on death row was not a pretty one.
In the end, Pandora was ruled by a number of clans that held control of different areas. There was the Crimson Raiders, the Zaford, the Slabs, the Sawtooth, the Hodunk, the Bloodshots, the NailCoffin, and the Fleshrippers.
Just where were Sasha, Fiora, Skittles, Loader Bot, and Athena? Surely they had looked for him… But then, did they even know where he was? Did they assume he had died with everyone else?
A pang went through his heart at the thought that they might think him dead. Not just at the idea that he would receive a funeral and not be looked for further, but the pain they would go through. It would hurt them a lot. They had been through a lot, and Rhys didn't want to be the cause of more suffering. He hated seeing them cry.
"Of course… our 'relationship' hadn't exactly started off well." Rhys reflected. "Because the-"
-next thing I knew, I was being pulled back out from under the panel and was shoved up against the side of the camper by a very angry Sasha. "What kind of idiot are you?! How could you ruin EVERYTHING!" She yelled.
"Owowowow!" I yelped. She had my hand behind my back shoved up pretty far up. She was to break my elbow at the rate she was going. "Get off me you crazy b-"
"Sasha, what happened?" Grandpa Felix inserted himself.
"I'll tell you what happened, this Hyperion attacked August!" She hissed. "The Vault Key fell out of the safe and crumbled like a giant clod of dirt."
Felix looked at us long and hard, and I felt everyone tense. Vaughn and I were at the mercy of b****-one and b****-two and grandpa cranky-pants, while the girls looked like they were under him.
Wait…
Vehicle owned by grandpa crazy.
Grandpa crazy looked up to by b1 and b2. (b short for b****.)
B1 and b2 were in this together.
B2 having been the one to procure the Vault Key and bring it to August for him to sell to Hyperion.
The Vault Key that was fake, and it looks like August didn't know that, and for that matter… neither did Hyperion.
My professional sniffer smells a scam. I kick myself. 'Damnit, nose! Why didn't you smell it earlier!' I should have been more skeptical! I knew something was up the moment b1 and b2 were acting funny, but noooo! Ten Million dollars in my pocket and Vasquez on the verge of killing me next had me too blind-sighted.
"Tie him up." I barely hear Felix say. Horror takes me like I'm being dumped in cold numbing water, an d is then replaced by blood boiling fury because… they made a con, and it ruined my life. They are to blame. They started it all.
I may have yelled and ranted about how they ruined my life and tried to kick them, but I couldn't do much while being pinned to the wall. I barely remember the next hour.
As if that still wasn't enough, Vaughn came to a realization. We were shoved in the back corner tied up. I had my mouth gagged by Fiora (whose name I finally found out, after I called her a Pandoran b**** enough times), and my legs and hands were tied up. For extra measure they stapled my vest to the wall. Every glance I share with any of the three Pandoran's is one of outright hatred, and I glare at them with all of my pent-up frustration every time I get so much as a glimpse of their eyes.
Vaughn wasn't tied up at all. He was as quiet as a church mouse on Sunday, and just as meek and gentle and cooperative. Traitor.
Anyway, his demeaner became slowly more and more down as time went on, until at last, he just pulled his knees up to his chest and cried. Seeing my best friend cry broke me out of my temper, and after realizing a bit of how much of a total ass I was being I nudged him.
Just to be clear, I felt guilty about him, not the other three. I couldn't have given any less of a damn about the other three. I wanted them dead.
"We lost…" Vaughn muttered.
I couldn't say anything with the gag in my mouth, so I looked at him curiously.
"I mean… we could have won, so easily. But now we are on Pandora, and we have almost died several times already… Think about it, Rhys. It was just a scam they were playing, but we weren't the ones who originally bought into it."
I still look at him curiously. He looks at me and I see total defeat in him. "You don't get it… Hyperion bought it. They promoted Vasquez because of it."
'No, duh. Your point?' I try to convey as much to him with my expression. He furrows his brow at me and comments, "That just makes you look constipated." Right. Thanks, bro.
"Try and follow me on this." Vaughn whispers depressingly. "Imagine… we had done nothing. You had gone back to sleep and we went on with our day having simply… been hurt by what fate had handed to us. You didn't get the promotion… big deal."
I briefly am amazed. Just this morning Vaughn would have never thought losing a promotion was NOT a big deal. But then… morning-Vaughn hadn't been shot at, hit in the leg, taken hostage twice, had his wrist twisted-slash-broken, and having been scammed into losing his company a Vault Key and ten million dollars.
"Then what would have happened?" Vaughn continued. "Vasquez would have come down. He would have picked up the Vault Key-" my eyes widen as I begin to follow what he is saying. "and he would have been the one scammed. He would return with just a hunk of metal. Vasquez had bet everything on it, and he would have lost. He would have been hung for it. He would have been made out to be a gigantic failure."
I begin to hyperventilate. My skin feels tingly, damp, and cold.
"Vasquez would have lost…" Vaughn whispers. "Without Henderson, without Vasquez, you would have a free ticket straight to management. You would be the one standing in the chair tomorrow morning." The world spins.
"If we had just waited… just one day."
I promptly pass out.