"Zer0? ...Zer0?! Oh man, um… Are you okay?!"
Odd. That voice seemed familiar.
Where were they? They didn't remember falling asleep…
It was too warm here. Their mouth was dry, their ears ringing.
Their head hurt.
Everything hurt.
Oh, right. They were dying, weren't they?
"Come on, please wake up." The voice was louder now.
Wake up? Why?
They were in the middle of the Dead Sands, the only people here would be bandits. Bandits would at best put them out of their misery before looting their body. Most likely they'd save the bullet and just go straight to the looting. Why try to wake them? For torture? That would be a sorely disappointed bandit- there wasn't much torture left to do. Zer0 doubted they had the energy to scream or struggle or do any of the things one would want from their victim.
Maybe it was just an auditory hallucination?
That seemed right. It would make sense for that sort of thing to be triggered as their brain shut down. In a few minutes or so, they probably wouldn't even be cognizant enough to question it.
"Crap, you're not dead, are you? Crap crap crap crap..." The man's voice had a panicked lilt to it.
They couldn't remember whose voice it was, but it was familiar. Strangely comforting to hear.
Not a bandit, then.
Something softly nudged them. Then they were being gently shaken, gripped by their shoulder. Or was this another delusion?
There was more nudging, less gentle.
Okay, that was a really annoying amount of nudging, and it was soon accompanied by a panicked stream of profanity.
Dying this way was supposed to be peaceful, wasn't it?
They cracked open their eyes just enough to make out the blurred silhouette of the man ruining their already pretty crappy death. A real person, then.
Though, it was possible they were hallucinating this, too.
A scrolling column of Decepti0n notifications appeared down the side of their vision, the red text bright and perfectly clear, even with their eyes just barely open.
-DECEPTI0N SYSTEM REBOOTING...
-REBOOT SUCCESSFUL
-WARNING: Malfunction of right arm cybernetics
-WARNING: Severe hemorrhaging
-WARNING: Hyperthermic conditions
-WARNING: Unidentified toxin in bloodstream
-WARNING: Death imminent in ?
-ERROR #334899A
-ERROR #45822C2
After a few seconds, another line popped up at the bottom:
-PROJECTING/X_X
Their tormentor's surprised yelp confirmed that Decepti0n's emote projection was still completely functional. Thank god for that.
"Shit...O-Okay, I honestly have no idea if that means you're alive or dead, but...I'm going to act on the assumption you're alive and uh..." Zer0 felt a pair of arms worm their way under their body, painfully rubbing against their wounds. "Sorry but...I think I gotta...move you…?" The words were punctuated by grunts, the man struggling to stand while lifting them. "Oh, you're really light." He chuckled, unconvincingly.
Zer0 could feel him shaking under their weight.
...Weird. They were quite cognizant of these details for someone who was supposedly almost dead.
Forcing themself to open their eyes beyond a squint, they were able to clearly make out the face above them.
A familiar pair of mismatched eyes stared back.
...Handsome Jack?
No, Jack was long dead. These colors were wrong. And this man's face was softer than Jack's, kinder.
"Oh, hello, Rhys," they said.
"Augh!" Rhys cried out and they lurched perilously in his arms. "Zer0! You're alive!"
"Am I? Surprising. / I am unsure it will last. / ...Please, do not drop me." They almost didn't recognize their own voice. It was soft and rasping, the mechanical sound more pronounced than usual.
"S-sorry! But...What...How...Erm, are you okay?" Rhys stammered.
A new notification appeared in the side of their vision: "-PROJECTING/ಠ_ಠ"
"Blood spills from my wounds. / You...find me collapsed, near death, / And you ask if I'm okay?" Zer0 started to laugh, but a sharp pain in their chest turned it into a groan.
"Okay, yeah, dumb question," Rhys admitted, "Um, please don't die on me."
"I will try not to."
"Shit. I should have opened...Before..."
Zer0 felt their weight shift awkwardly as Rhys stopped walking, and stood on one leg, leaning his raised knee against something to keep balance. He stumbled. "Nope, that's-that's not going to work."
They opened their eyes again, finding themself facing their reflection in dirty black metal.
"Hold on. I...I didn't think this through." Rhys seemed to nearly drop them a second time, but managed to lay them back on the ground.
"What are you doing?" They recognized the sound of a car door clicking open. They hissed in pain as Rhys clumsily lifted them again, this time putting pressure on the deep gash in their back.
"Sorry! I-I'm getting you to a doctor." Rhys leaned forward with a soft "umph!", awkwardly laying Zer0's body in what they could safely assume was the backseat of his car. He adjusted them so that they lay across the row, their knees bent to fit. "I don't really know how I'm supposed to do this, sorry."
"A doctor... That would be unwise," They warned.
"But..." Rhys hesitated. "You are literally full of-of holes! I know you're a badass but...Can you even move?"
They considered this for a long moment.
Their left hand was able to open and close, albeit painfully. Their cybernetic right arm had broken, its hand stuck in a fist. The rest of them…Too tiring to even think about. "Not able to move...much."
"Then you need to see a doctor," Rhys said, voice firm as he leaned over Zer0. A seatbelt clicked, and then a second one, so that both their legs and torso were buckled in.
The back door shut loudly, and another was opened, as Rhys entered the driver's seat.
"Not safe...Surveillance. / Might be rediscovered. / Death...Death a certainty." Zer0 argued. Okay, haikus were getting difficult.
"What?" Rhys' voice was starting to sound far away again.
Zer0 struggled with a response for what felt like a long time.
The car was moving now. They almost lost their train of thought to the rumbling of it.
Rhys was saying something again. Faint and incomprehensible.
Zer0 closed their eyes, drifting off.
Their name was being frantically called.
"Zer0?! Zer0?! Stay with me! Shit, please say something!"
"...Med vendor?" They suggested as they slipped out of consciousness.
"I'll patch you up whenever you need it!" the electronic voice of a man, presumably the so-called "Doctor" Zed announced.
Just how delirious was Zer0? Everything about the machine, from its location in the absolute middle of nowhere, to its blood-spattered exterior, screamed: "shady as hell". Surely this wasn't a replacement for an actual doctor?
There wasn't time to waste worrying about tetanus. He didn't have a lot of experience with people slowly dying, but he was pretty sure what he was seeing was Zer0 slowly dying. Either the suspicious Anshin brand "Insta-health" would save them, or they were screwed.
Rhys made his purchase on the holographic keypad, hoping the product would come with instructions. Or at least some sort of explanation.
A single, unpackaged syringe was digistructed in the bottom compartment.
"Of course..." He sighed as he retrieved the syringe, trotting back to the car.
"Uh, Zer0, it would really help if you could tell me how to do this," he tried.
They were unresponsive, as they had been for the half hour it took to find a med vendor. There had been a few times where he thought he'd lost them, but then they'd stir, just a little.
Rhys kicked himself for skipping out on those annual first-aid conferences Hyperion employees were encouraged to attend. He had no clue how to handle any of this, and he would never forgive himself if he accidentally killed Zer0.
He'd always assumed the ECHOnet would have any first-aid info he needed, but the region's service had been knocked out by the previous night's storm.
But okay. Fine. He'd seen medical dramas before. He could figure it out. This insta-health stuff probably worked more or less like the injected healing accelerator drugs that got used on planets that had actual hospitals. So, it would be injected into a muscle, the deltoid being a common one. Like a flu shot.
It would probably be easier, or at least more sanitary, if he could actually see Zer0's skin...or whatever it was they had under their suit. The flesh revealed by torn fabric was too bloody for him to get much of a gauge on what was actually going on, epidermis-wise.
But, Zer0 was, as far as Rhys could tell, all about that whole "mysterious assassin" thing. Which possibly meant they'd kill them if he saw what was under there. But Zer0 couldn't blame him, right? He was trying to save their life. You didn't just go around injecting mystery drugs into random parts of someone's probably-not-human body.
Rhys steeled himself. "Okay, okay, please don't kill me for this."
Shutting his eyes, he gripped the zipper.
A hand suddenly clasped around his wrist, in a surprisingly strong grip.
He yanked away with a yell, steadying himself on the doorframe.
"Take the cap off, and I can handle it." Zer0's voice was soft, wavering.
He obeyed, cursing himself for being embarrassingly jumpy again.
Zer0 shakily took the syringe, plunging it into their thigh.
"I will likely need two more," they requested.
"Oh! Um, Sure!" Rhys rushed back to the vendor.
Zer0 was still conscious when he returned, but they didn't seem much better off.
One at a time, Rhys removed the syringe caps and handed the insta-healths to them.
To Rhys' (probably naive, now that he thought about it) disappointment, the assassin wasn't leaping to their feet, miraculously recovered. The wounds visibly shrunk, and too Rhys' eyes, they looked less deadly, at least for the immediate future.
Zer0 didn't look great, but they did seem better.
Zer0 managed to sit up, with a grunt of pain. "That...should have done more," They said. "...Do you have water?"
"Oh! Yeah!" Water really should have been the first thing he offered upon finding Zer0 in the desert. That was like, wasteland-101 or something. He leaned into the front seat to grab his half-empty water bottle from the front cup holder, offering it to them. "It's uh, warm. Sorry."
"Thank you, Rhys." They took the bottle, but made no move to drink, only staring at Rhys. After a moment, a "..." appeared on their visor.
"R-Right!" Rhys took the hint, turning away to give them privacy.
There was a click as Zer0 removed their helmet. Rhys forced all curiosity out of his mind until the emptied bottle was thrust in his face. When he looked back at where they'd been sitting a moment before, Zer0 was gone. The back door slammed shut.
They were limping away.
"Woah woah woah! Woah! Zer0?! What the hell are you doing?!" Rhys scampered after them, almost grabbing their arm before thinking better of it.
"I cannot stay here. / They may still be after me. / I am well enough." They kept walking, not bothering to look at him as they spoke.
"Okay, I get that you're like, super badass- and I really, completely mean that- but we're in the middle of nowhere, and you just almost died!" he protested, following.
"I fail to see why / This would have any bearing / On what I do now."
"Are...Are you joking? I mean, look at you!" Stepping in their path, Rhys dramatically gestured at their whole body. Their right arm was bent at an awkward angle, the hand stuck clenched in a fist, and hastily bandaged wounds were scattered from the neck-down, at least one of which had begun to seep fresh blood, probably as a result of them standing. "You...You're bleeding! And...And do you even have any guns?! Can you even shoot right now?!"
The last question seemed to give Zer0 pause. They glanced down with a question mark projected from their visor. "...It seems they are gone. / Must have lost them as I ran . / Can always find more." They started to walk again.
Rhys was about to grab them, potential threat of stabbing be damned, when Zer0's wounded leg gave out from under them, sending them sprawled out on the ground.
"Crap," They said.
Rhys was crouched beside them in an instant. His hands hovered a few inches away from Zer0's shoulders, his momentary confidence lost.
"Perhaps I do need your assistance."
"Great! I..I mean it's definitely not great that you're hurt, but, well…" Rhys stood up, offering a hand to aid them. They took it, and he helped them to their feet.
"The whole...Not running off to die thing…." He trailed off when he realized that Zer0 wasn't listening, already limping their way back to the car.
"I will need medical attention," they announced when Rhys caught up.
"I thought you said-"
"Yes, but I may die, / If I am left untreated. / Discretion is key." Their faceplate projected a ":\".
"Right..." Rhys frowned. "So, what do we do?"
"First, we get somewhere safe." They slid into the car, again taking the backseat.
"Any suggestions?"
"You own Atlas now," They said, matter-of-factly.
"Yeah...Why?"
"Deep in Old Haven / There is a top-secret base / You live there, correct?"
"No...I mean yeah, I've been sleeping there for awhile. But I wouldn't call it..." Rhys rubbed his neck, embarrassed to be admitting to his current living situation. "I cleared out the corpses and got things fixed, kinda. I'm just staying there while I work on rebuil- wait. How do you even know about that?"
"I find it wise / To research likely targets / For future conquest."
Rhys gaped in the rearview mirror. "You researched me?! Have you been following me? Future conquest? Does that mean assassination?!" The prospect was absolutely terrifying, but also almost kind of flattering, in a weird, "You're important enough that I might be hired to kill you, and also I actually do pay attention to your life" kind of way.
"Do not worry, Rhys / I will refuse any jobs / You have earned a pass." A "3" was projected.
Rhys diverted his eyes to focus on the road, blushing.