Chapter 7: Assets

"Well, if guess we can wait for that story", Lilith said. "Any news from Zero?"

"Listen to it yourself", Jessup said and activated his ECHO.

"Twenty-three sandworms", Zero's even and serene voice recited, with just a hint of static. "The tally of mere two hours / This is getting dull. We're not quite ready yet / The men need to accustom / Still, we're moving south."

"I always feel uneasy after these reports", the Lieutenant remarked. "By the way, about Zero, did you ever find out...?"

"No", Maya interrupted. "None of my business. And none of yours either. Okay, they're coming back. By the time they reach Ellie's, they should have accustomed themselves properly."

"I hope so. Their mission is growing more necessary every day", Lilith said, massaging her forehead. "Alright, we've had Hyperion, Vault Hunters, Torgue... next point of order?"

"All our little enclaves and outposts", Maya prompted.

"We'll talk it through region by region, agreed?" Jessup bent forward over the holographic map in the middle of the room. Apart from the marker indicating Control Core Angel, where a hundred Hyperion men had holed up, the red H-symbols had vanished from the map and a considerable number of markers indicating Raider activity had popped up everywhere. However, there were also the markers of the Smoking Grenade and the Pit Babe in places that were controlled by a strong presence of bandits.

"Right, Frozen Wastes. The guys at the Ferry Port complain a lot about the cold and they didn't spot any ships either. We have some reports of Varkids escaping the Caustic Caverns, but the majority of these bugs prefers to stay underground. Probably warmer down there. For now, mind you, as Three Horns is slowly thawing. In fact, our guys at Southpaw had their first little harvest of bladeflowers. We've got ourselves some self supporters. Speaking of Southpaw, they're done with their, ah, spring-clean and got the first chargers ready. Slow but steady, as predicted."

"Great, send them every drained energy core we've got in town", Lilith interrupted. "And make sure to spread the word to all the other outposts."

"The latter is already done", Jessup confirmed.

"What about the Shelf?", Maya asked innocently.

"What about it? There are still some Rippers holed up in Blackburn Cove, but they don't pose a threat..."

"And what about the Soaring Dragon?"

"Why do I hear Scooter talking, all of a sudden?", Lilith sighed.

"Because he has a point. It's a matter of less than a day. Go there, secure the big guns to the shoreline and leave them until a proper salvage crew comes along..."

"You really want to go out and do stuff, don't you?", Lilith said with a faint smirk. "Fine, fine. Just stay till the end of this report, will you?"

Maya grinned. "Great! Mind if I take some Eridium? That would enable me to move these canons with Phaselock..."

Jessup coughed into his hand. "Next topic in the Wastes, Bloodshot Dam. Another Hodunk-patrol tried to force its way into the Valley past the fortress, but as far as I'm informed, they got cleaved."

"Sounds like Krieg is having fun", Maya remarked with a smile.

"Yeah. He is, the rest of the crew is... a bit nervous with a seven feet psycho around. And I would prefer if he stopped meddling with the ECHO-reports. I wanted my flank steak blue rare! Not well done!", he said in a surprisingly good impression of Krieg's voice. "What's that supposed to mean anyhow?"

"He discovered Flanksteak's corpse and was sad that Hyperion charred that asshole before he himself had the chance to do it", Maya translated. She had spent enough time with the psycho to understand the general meaning beneath his rants, maniacal cries and bloody metaphors. Mostly.

"Well, thanks for interpreting. Inside the Dam, our men have discovered quite an armory. Nothing fancy, really, you know Bandit guns, but there's lots of spare parts that might come in handy. Maybe we could give Torgue something useful to do."

"Sounds like a plan", Lilith agreed. "Any estimates on when we'll be able to use the dam as a power plant?"

"Ages, and I'm quoting. Again. The turbines are completely broken, the supply pipes are blocked by corpses, debris and a lot of silt, the wiring is a joke, cooling systems are in shambles, everything below the waterline is rusted to the point of material failure, structural integrity..."

Lilith covered her ears. "I get it! It's a dead end, right?"

"Yes, ma'am", Jessup replied glibly. "I would however advise not to abandon the Dam but to use it as a strongpoint. In that way, it is truly invaluable. An excellent blocking position against the Hodunks, to start with."

"Soldiers and sarcasm don't mix", Maya remarked.

"Neither do Sirens and engineering", Jessup retorted. "Look at the damn dam! Getting it back in working order was never on the table and yet..."

"... I kept asking", Lilith finished, hanging her head. "It would have been a major convenience if we could, though."

"And it would have required to flood the better part of Three Horns Valley, in order to make it work with an energy conversion efficiency bigger than zero, if you get my drift", Jessup added. "Never mind. This isn't the planet for conveniences. I personally never thought I'd ever eat anything than bladeflower-salad to keep my teeth from rotting and falling out, until the smugglers flew in real apples. Speaking of food, the farmland north of the Express lines is doing fine, so fine they thought it noteworthy that seventy-nine out of five hundred wheat seeds have actually taken root in Pandoran soil. And then there's this matter about the Ranch..."

"Listen, I understand that it's unnerving to work around huge, pink mines", Lilith sighed, "but Tina is adamant about leaving them where they are."

Jessup blinked in surprise. "Yes... that's true. But that's not the topic: One of the smugglers asked for permission to set up a medical lab directly at the Varkid Ranch. He and his colleagues would bring their own equipment, pay rent and of course pay for the material we provide through the Ranch."

"Oh. And would it be safe to presume he could pay in kind, namely his finished products?"

"You'd have to bargain, ma'am, but it's definitely a possibility."

"Hang on a second", Maya interrupted. "The Varkid Ranch? You never mentioned you reopened it!"

"Well, it was an easy thing to do at the time." Jessup shrugged. "After the trains stopped coming through, the bandits moved on, Tina and Mordecai knew the ins and outs of the region and the facility was in pretty good shape to begin with. Reconnect the wires, torch all the hives around Skittering Mound and just like that we had a second lucrative leg to stand on, apart from the Eridium."

"I don't get it. Who would want to have anything to do with these bugs?"

"Just about every health professional in the six galaxies", Lilith replied.

"And... why exactly is that?"

Jessup unstrapped a plastic container from his belt and tossed it over to Maya. The Siren caught the container reflexively and peered inside. It was a med-kit, holding three injectors with bright red liquid. "Do you know something about cellular biology?"

Maya cocked her head. "Not much, really. I know that there are stem-cells in these injectors, I know they speed up the body's own regeneration and I know they take fifteen seconds to fall victim to white blood corpuscles, which is the reason they can't heal wounds above a certain size or severity."

"Exactly. Stem-cells that can adapt to any given DNA within milliseconds. That can spur regeneration to grow such complicated things as muscles or nerves. And to top it all off, these stem-cells don't leach you, they don't suck you dry of all the energy that would normally be necessary to heal any wound over time. These beauties are the Holy Grail of modern cellular biology. Anshin spent billions to develop them. It took more than a lifetime. And just when they were finished and happily padded each other on the back, Atlas decided to colonize Pandora and stumbled upon the Varkids which, as you probably know, have the ability to change their complete physiology within mere seconds without needing to stop and rest for the remainder of the day."

Very slowly, Maya lowered the med-kit. "I'm not sure I want to hear the end of it."

"Too late now, killer", Lilith smirked. "Don't worry: My face looked exactly like yours when Zed first told me."

"Now", Jessup continued, fighting back a laugh, "it is relatively easy to isolate the genes that cause Varkids to morph, which is already half the battle: Growth, speed and no serious side effects. After that the genome needs to be generalized, scrubbed clean of precise orders what to grow exactly and spliced with the necessary commands to grow human tissue instead of chitin, but stuff like that's been done since the 34. century. And just like that, you have the stem-cells you need. Well, it still requires skill and knowledge and a lot of technology to do it and I'm guessing Dr. Zed refrained from explaining a lot of details, but that's not the point. The point is, Varkid-genome is easy to harvest, it's there in abundance and it's far, far cheaper than painstakingly cooking up a whole genome in your lab. Of course, Atlas kept this as silent as possible, fearing a corporation war with Anshin. Why risk it? They started farming Varkids for their own ends, cutting amazing costs in the medical department. Dahl followed suit, of course. Eventually the rumor started to spread and the black marketeers and back alley doctors were knocking politely on the door, while Anshin and Atlas fought it out. In a courtroom, but it was still pretty vicious."

Maya's hands were slightly shaking, when she returned the med-kit to Jessup. She had taken countless stem-cell injections. Her arm would have looked like a junkie's if the effects of the injection didn't effectively close every pinprick. And most of the time she had been using the refined genome of giant, disgusting bugs that had tried to kill her on numerous occasions.

"Knowledge is not always beneficial", Lilith observed, grinning broadly now. "As of today, we have simply extracted genetic material and sold it to the smugglers. But with a med-lab that exceeds Dr. Zed's little clinic..."

"We could cook our own Instant-Health", Maya concluded and felt the sudden urge to retch.

"Well, technically Dr. Zed already spends most of his spare time distilling stem-cells, but he's just one man and his methods aren't exactly quick", Jessup added. "That's why he's selling them for such high prices."

"Let's change the subject", Lilith suggested quickly. Maya gave her fellow siren a grateful look. Varkid-DNA processed by notorious, though effective, Dr. Zed, that was definitely a combination she didn't want to linger on any longer. It would probably return at night to haunt her in her sleep in any case.

"Alright. Highlands." Jessup straightened up. "Heavy Stalker attacks on Overlook, the Mill and even on Slab-Town. They're getting cockier, as the summer grows warmer, nothing unexpected. A couple of Threshers managed to dig under the foundation of Opportunity and surfaced in a flower bed. Scared the hell out of our salvage crews, but two were shot and a third one tried to jump and fabulously missed the next patch of soft ground. Ran headfirst into a steel wall. I'll send you the link for the video, if you like. Twenty three refugees arrived in Opportunity, five in Overlook."

"Nothing out of the ordinary", Maya said impatiently. The Highlands were the stronghold of the Crimson Raiders, with Sanctuary floating overhead and the allied settlements of Slab-Town and Overlook close by. Hyperion had abandoned every outpost in the region after Handsome Jack's death. No shareholder held any interest in Jack's narcissistic project called Opportunity, Control Core Angel had lost all importance (that was, until people needed a bunker) and with these two main assets out of the picture, the power plant in the Outwash became a liability, suffering under constant Thresher attacks. From a very early point onwards, the Raiders had had control of the region, apart from the wildlife. Word had spread via the ECHOnet and people started to leave their hovels and small, rickety fortresses in order to resettle in a place were neither Hyperion nor bandits seemed to be a problem.

"Okay, the Blight", Jessup moved on. "No eruption of Mount Hellsfont in the last twenty four hours, apart from a couple of geysers, the wind is up, blowing in from the sea. There's so much ash in the air, Brick's copters won't move in to get the shipload ready at the Eridium Extraction Plant until at least five hours from now. Already told the smugglers, they don't seem to mind. There's another shipment of salvaged material ready at Hero's Pass, too, but that takes a backseat to Eridium. Waffles sent me an inventory list." The Lieutenant took out his ECHO and scrolled across the screen. "Wiring, electrical parts, generators, couple of turrets... that should make Scooter's day, whenever the stuff arrives. Oh, and the salvage crew found the corpses of two Fire-Cultists close to the Vault. Waffles thought you might want to know."

"I really, really, hope they were the last of them", Lilith sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"That's exactly what he predicted you would say. The Slag Scar has seen a three way battle between the Sawteeth, the Hodunks and the Bullymongs. Nasty business, but it's really not our problem at the moment. And the only exciting thing in the Nexus was Marks' catch earlier today, so that's it for the Blight. Which brings us to the most pressing matter: Dead Sands."

"Hodunks", Lilith added and made a face.

"Hodunks", Maya repeated somewhat irritated. "I hear more of those guys than I expected. Lynchwood, the fighting around Bloodshot Dam... Weren't they hit by the last Clan War?"

"Yes, but look at the bigger picture", Lilith explained grimly, pointing to various locations on the map. "The Rippers - restricted to Southern Shelf and most probably being devoured by Bullymongs right now. The Bloodshots - virtually extinct. The Zafords - if any of them are alive, they won't show their mugs for quite a while. The Sawteeth - well, they have their strongholds over in the Blight, but they're still quite shaken by the loss of Mortar. The Rockerboys - Bossanova was the only thing that held them together to begin with and he's dead. No one knows what has happened to the Queenpin. Which leaves the Hodunks as the biggest, intact bandit clan out there. And they've proven their strength by winning their latest Clan War, irrespective of their own losses. So they can liberally refill their ranks with all the drifting bandits and sand pirates in the Sands, the Wastes and from the Northern Coast."

"Is there any way that we may recruit these drifters via the Slabs?", Maya suggested.

"Oh, you're an initiated member of the gang. Can you think of any reason why people would possibly try to avoid the welcoming party?"

"Can't you talk some sense into Brick? To lower the standards?"

"Talk some sense into Brick", Lilith repeated, staring at Maya as if she had stated that the sky was green. "Talk some... Okay, you don't know him half as long as I do, but still, you should know him well enough. Brick is stubborn beyond the understanding of mankind. This guy can't be reasoned with. It's like talking to a sack of..." She paused.

"I see what you did there", Jessup said and chuckled. "But Brick is definitely not the problem. The problem are sporting rednecks. They try to occupy territory in the Blight, in Three Horns, they succeeded in Lynchwood and they made permanent camp in Oasis which I personally find quite amusing. However, they have the common sense to skirt the Crater. The Hodunks may be dim, but they understand that everyone on Pandora will be after their asses, if they mess up Moxxi's entertainment business."

Maya nodded. Although the clan seemed to pose a serious problem, she felt excitement rather than concern. This promised to be action-packed. "So, what are we going to do about them? Open warfare?"

"Not if we can help it", Lilith replied and grinned maliciously. "Why obliterate someone you can scare into submission?"

Maya quickly joined the dots. "Okay... so we're just waiting for Zero to get back from Wurmwater..."

"And we'll strike", Jessup concluded. "Yes. Now, just to wrap up the daily report, last friendly outpost in the desert: Ellie's Garage. The guys, believe it or not, are having a blast. Can't say I don't understand them. Most of what they're doing is waiting around and they don't need to fear for their lives for once. Scouts have two opportune targets for a small scale raid in their sights, it's up to you if they should attack. Concerning targets for the big raid, there seems to be something appropriate on the way, but it would require Zero to be back at Ellie's in three days."

"I'll properly light a fire under him", Lilith promised.

Jessup clapped his hands. "Well, that was it for today. Thank you, you welcome, fall out!"

"I'm off to the Shelf", Maya announced, heading for the door.

Lilith nodded approval. "Jessup, before you're allowed to 'fall out', you bring me Marcus and the smugglers who wanted to move in at the Varkid Ranch."

"Consider it done, ma'am."

A/N: As we're already in a chapter featuring almost exclusively dialogue and exposition here, I wanted to finally insert my official disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Borderlands Franchise, I won't ever try to monetize this Story in any sense of the word and my deepest respect for those creative heads that came up with all those incredible colourful, crazy and yet likeable characters.

Also, I'd like to thank you all for reading! I've been writing for years now, but I hardly ever got the chance to publish it in any way. Which makes it all the greater to have people that read and apparently like what I've cooked up in my head. Big thanks to all of you, you're awesome! Even bigger thanks to the trusty followers amongst you and the reviewers! You truly made my day whenever you signed up! :-D

And, finally, to compensate for the lack of action in this chapter (and the fact we didn't leave Raider's HQ), the next chapter should be up in a matter of minutes...