Borderlands_Gunsight

by John Shirley

  He pointed the device at the floor and pressed a button. The floor, till now opaque gray-black, instantly became a thick transparent pane of glass. Through it, they could see another chamber down below.

  In the chamber was a monster. About the monster’s bare, deformed feet was a litter of bones and offal, feces and much-gnawed skulls.

  Daphne gulped, looking at it, but she quickly regained her composure. “Ah! Right! That must be Bigjaws! Volto . . . the late Volto . . . mentioned him to me.”

  “Oh yes, that’s dear, dear Bigjaws!” said Jasper proudly. “That’s my little pet!”

  Mordecai stared at the creature. Nude except for a filthy loincloth, the mutant was humanoid but about three meters tall—far taller than Mordecai—and proportionately beefy. Symmetry ended at the giant head. Bigjaws’ skull was small—but his jaws were almost as big as his chest. The mutant’s head was, in point of fact, almost entirely made up of its mouth. Mordecai could make out two tiny eyes on the front of the little hump of its skull back of the huge jaws, and slitlike nostrils. Its neck was thick as a tree trunk and heavily veined.

  Bigjaws saw them, then—and reached upward, huge hands grasping, opening and closing, claws not quite reaching the transparent ceiling that was also the floor of the circular room. The mutant opened his mouth wide, his maw looking big enough to swallow a small man whole. He had two rows of crooked, spiky yellow teeth on gigantic lipless mandibles, like some ancient saurian’s, and a white, slithery tongue lashed about with a life of its own, licking up at them and splashing drool onto the ceiling; the spit dripped languidly back on the mutant’s head. The creature roared with frustration and the huge jaws snapped; the floor vibrated with its sound.

  Bigjaws jumped up, then, on his big legs, snapping at them—and even Jasper stepped back. “Heh! He’s a caution, ain’t he? Started out more or less human. Once he was one o’ them Tunnel Rat humanoids—already a cannibal! I captured him for sport, had him mutated special to put the fear of God into my men—I make sure they all get to see him gobble up somebody who ticked me off! It’s highly instructive.”

  “So, right now he can see us up here,” Mordecai remarked. “But, uh—can he get up here?”

  “Oh no, not at all!” Jasper chuckled. “Instead—what’s up here goes down to him. I simply push a combination of three buttons on this controller . . . and the floor will open up. Slides right outta the way! Everything up here, wherever you are, will be dumped down there! Normally it’s not so nicely set up here, in this room, with the bed and all. But seeing as we were having the lady here as our guest, and she may be here for some time . . .”

  Mordecai looked at Jasper. “You had this figured the whole time?”

  Jasper rubbed his hands together in pleasure. “You bet your skinny ass I did, Mordecai! I needed to know how good you were . . . and I needed to see how motivated you were to get the lady out. I figured you’d go for the Buzzard as the quickest escape. All my Buzzards are subject to remote control, when I need ’em to be. So . . . I sent you to see her, under guard . . . not quite by my best men . . . and you didn’t disappoint me! You rid me of some dead weight—and showed me a little sample of what you were capable of.” His whimsical air departed; Jasper became dead serious. “Then I showed you what I was capable of . . . and how there’s really no escape from me. Not unless I choose to let you go.”

  Jasper turned to Ripper. “Go ahead, feed the baby.”

  Ripper nodded, then spoke into a wrist comm and a steel chute opened in the wall of the room down below. Several still-warm bodies fell out of the chute, flopping limply into Bigjaws’ chamber. Mordecai recognized them as the bodies of men he and Daphne had killed—including Volto.

  Bigjaws trumpeted and rushed toward the heap of corpses. The monster fell to his knees and began to feed, ripping into them like a starving dog tearing into scraps of meat. Mordecai watched as Bigjaws crunched skulls and backbones, the mutant whipping his head back and forth to rip the bodies apart. Blood splashed, some of it reaching the ceiling.

  Mordecai’s stomach lurched.

  “I can tell he’s a little disappointed,” Jasper said, sighing. “Since they’re already dead. He really enjoys killin’ ’em himself. But if I open up this floor under the lady here . . . why . . . he’ll take his time and really enjoy her—”

  It was Mordecai who roared now, rushing madly toward Jasper, head lowered for butting because his hands were chained behind him.

  A powerful impact knocked his legs out from under him and he fell facedown, skidded to a stop at Jasper’s feet.

  Jasper put his boot on Mordecai’s neck. “We kind of expected that, too—which is why I had Ripper there ready to use a stunner on your legs . . . you see how well I have things thought out? And what do you think you were going to accomplish anyway?”

  The red mist was clearing from Mordecai’s eyes—sanity slowly returned—as, facedown, he stared down through the blood-splashed glass at the mutant ripping Volto’s body in half with giant jaws.

  “So you see, Mordecai—you’re going to do just exactly what I want,” Jasper went on. “You’re going to infiltrate Tumessa. You’re going to penetrate that scumbag’s secrets. You’re going to figure out how to kill Reamus. And if you can’t get the assassination done right then and there, then report to me for further orders. You do what I tell you, and your lady friend’ll be safe . . . and I’ll fill a room as big as this one with money, just for you. Money you can take with you, along with your Daphne here, when you succeed. Because I don’t only punish! I reward, Mordecai! I reward those who do the job I asked them to do. Isn’t that right, Commander Ripper?”

  “Oh yeah,” Ripper said casually, helping Mordecai to his feet. “Like I said—the boss pays well. If you follow orders.”

  Mordecai was staring at Daphne—she was sitting on the edge of the bed, as if reconciling herself to this room.

  Jasper pointed his controller at the floor, and it went dark. Bigjaws vanished from sight. “You can’t see Bigjaws now. It’s well soundproofed, so most of the time you won’t even hear him. But he’s still down there. Never doubt it. Oh, your Daphne will be safe up here . . . unless you fail me, Mordecai. And if your allegiance to the woman isn’t all I think it is, well, then think of the money! And if that isn’t good enough . . . think of this simple fact: You can run from me . . . but no matter where you go, I’ll find you. And I’ll bring you back here. Where your bones’ll mingle, down there in the reek and the stench, with the bones of your woman . . .” Jasper waited, staring at Mordecai. After a moment, getting no response, he added, “You understand me?”

  Mordecai chuckled dryly. His legs throbbed from the stunner. His pride ached like it had been stabbed. “No one understands a man like you, Jasper. But I hear you. And I will do what you’re asking me to do. And a lot more besides.”

  It had just occurred to Mordecai that, in time, he might be able to play Reamus and Jasper against one another . . . and profit from it.

  The chains automatically fell away from Daphne’s wrists the moment the door closed behind her captors. The armored door clashed shut, and locked. They had taken Mordecai with them and now she was alone in the circular room.

  She stretched her arms, wincing, and glanced at the floor. She was glad it was no longer transparent. She didn’t want to watch that thing eat any longer. After seeing that, it’d be a while before she had any appetite, herself.

  She stood up, went to the pitcher, and poured herself some wine. As best as she could figure it, the wine wasn’t likely to be drugged. And anyway—she needed a drink.

  “Bigjaws,” she snorted, shaking her head as she lifted the glass. She glanced at the floor. “Here’s to you, big guy.”

  She had a tentative plan of her own, already—if Mordecai didn’t come through. But since her plan involved dropping down into the room with Bigjaws, she was actually hoping not to have to implement it.

  What did Mordecai have in mind, anyway? She knew him—she knew he’d never
play Jasper’s game, not all the way to the end. Mordecai was going to play along—and then play things his own way.

  But until then . . .

  She took a long drink of wine. It wasn’t half bad.

  • • •

  Dusk under a gray cloudy sky. The H of Hyperion and Handsome Jack was hidden behind the shrouding mist.

  The Buzzard was flying low over the Staggering Steppes, just forty meters up. Commander Ripper was piloting; Mordecai was strapped in beside him, grim and simmering with resentment in the small chopper. It was cold in the Buzzard, but Mordecai wore a full auto-camo suit, insulated for cold weather, and he didn’t feel the chill much except on his face. Every so often, he scanned the sky for Bloodwing. Hadn’t seen her yet. Maybe she’d gotten shot down over Gunsight somewhere. Maybe she’d flown away, feeling he’d abandoned her. Like he’d abandoned Daphne, just driving off that way in the outrunner. Leaving her to be taken by Jasper’s scum. Maybe . . .

  Maybe Daphne was going to end up in that pile of bones and filth around Bigjaws.

  “Any questions?” Ripper asked, his voice raised over the engine noise as they approached the drop-off point.

  “ ‘Why me?’ pops into my mind a lot,” Mordecai said as they settled to the frozen turf, near the waiting outrunner. “He’s gone to a lot of trouble to force me into this mission.”

  “All I can tell you is, the Boss made a lot of inquiries.” Ripper put the engine on idle. “Roland turned him down—and he’s protected by the ‘Crimson Whatever They Are.’ Brick’s got no finesse, no sneaking skills. Couldn’t find anybody else in the area who had the chops. Seems like you got some special talent for sniping. Jasper didn’t think you’d do this one without him using some leverage . . . And of course—the Boss likes to have leverage over a guy.”

  Ripper said that last part with some bitterness. Mordecai looked at him, waiting. But the Nomad didn’t elaborate.

  Still—it seemed Jasper had some kind of hold over Ripper, too. Mordecai filed that away for future reference.

  He unhooked the seat belt, climbed out of the Buzzard, and strode over to the outrunner. It was a standard Scooter-designed vehicle. But in back, along with a food supply, was all his equipment—everything he’d requested except a Scorpio turret. Two of the best rifles on the market were ready and waiting. A shitload of ammunition. A rocket launcher. Rockets. Autopistols. Throwing knives. Grenades. One Eridian blaster for good measure. A few cutting tools. A stout Pearlescent shield.

  He thought about grabbing an autopistol, turning quickly on Ripper, blowing his brains out, taking the Buzzard, flying back, busting into that tower, and getting Daphne out of there—maybe an explosive on the roof of that tower? But suppose Jasper was monitoring the Buzzard somehow? Suppose there was a code phrase or something Ripper had to give to Jasper—“the package is delivered” or some crap? Jasper could take over the Buzzard again . . .

  And even if that didn’t happen, what were the chances that Jasper hadn’t gone to the trouble to rig the tower room so that the floor dumped Daphne if someone tried to break in? Bigjaws would tear her head off before he could get in to protect her.

  Mordecai sighed, and muttered, “Son of a skag mama.”

  “You got a wrist comm as well as the outrunner’s ECHO,” Ripper called to him. “Report when you can. Make it as snappy as you can. But don’t be stupid out there. Use your skills . . . all of ’em.”

  Mordecai turned to the Buzzard, wanting to tell Ripper he didn’t need his damned advice.

  But the Buzzard was already lifting off. And Daphne was back in that room with the movable floor.

  Mordecai watched the Buzzard fly away, then he looked around. The place was barren, empty, with low hills a short distance behind, misty rocky ground up ahead. Small whirlwinds spun snow, seeming to dance with one another. No threats. No Bloodwing, either.

  He paced back and forth a few times, beside the outrunner, swearing to himself, using profanities from seven different planets. When he’d calmed down a little, Mordecai climbed resignedly into the outrunner and turned it around. Before heading for Tumessa, there was one thing he wanted to do.

  He drove up to the top of the nearest hill, stopped the vehicle, and got out to have another look around. Nothing much to see from up here . . . though that might be a rising column of smoke off to the southeast, where Tumessa would be. Probably various campfires, chimneys, giving off smoke, all of it swirling together, the stinking exudation of the great manure pile he was going to have to climb just to please that bastard Boss Jasper.

  He shut off the engine, grabbed the Eridian blaster, climbed up onto the back of the outrunner, and fired the weapon four times into the sky, the alien energy rocketing upward. He waited a moment, then fired it three times quickly. It was like sending up a flare.

  He waited, and time passed. The wind scoured Mordecai’s face. The whirlwinds danced on the plains below. Nothing else happened.

  He growled to himself, then repeated the signal. And repeated it again a little later.

  He waited some more . . . the sun was getting low, burning the mist red . . . the moon was peering through a gap in the clouds . . . Handsome Jack might be staring down at him . . .

  Mordecai swore again, got into the outrunner, started it up and drove off, to the southeast, wondering how to approach this.

  It was simple. All he had to do was work out how to invade an entire fortress packed with gunmen, monsters, and defense systems, and overseen by a notoriously vicious, multi-limbed, extra-large mass murderer—and do it all alone.

  No problem.

  • • •

  Daphne was sitting in the chair, staring at the wall screens, when the door opened.

  “And . . . how are you getting along, young lady?” asked Boss Jasper, coming through the door with the scar-faced Nomad and three Marauders fully masked. Jasper smiled; the other men stared at Daphne impassively.

  She stood up and stepped briskly behind the chair, thinking about what she might use for weapons. There was the lamp, the pitcher, the table. But Jasper’s protectors had some of the biggest shotguns she’d ever seen pointed right at her.

  It didn’t seem like a good moment to make a move.

  “No need for apprehension, my dear,” Jasper said fruitily. “I am just . . . inquiring after you. No one’s going to hurt you. Not unless you make a move that we decide is a little too quick—anything dangerous-looking, don’t you know. I don’t advise it.”

  She shrugged. “You going to show me how you feed the baby again? I don’t need to watch it. I’ve seen it. You made your point.”

  “No, no, not feeding time yet. We do have to hose him off though, I think, from the looks of his cell. He doesn’t much like that. But that’s not why I’m here—I wanted to say, well, perhaps we might come to some sort of understanding, you and I. I mean—you’re very attractive and you’d be an asset. I could use a bodyguard with such an attractive body, eh? Ha-ha.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, yes, anyway—”

  “What kind of ‘understanding’?” Daphne asked.

  “Ah. Well, just suppose your little murderous Mordecai doesn’t get back alive? I gave him a hard assignment. I do hope he does come back—but if he doesn’t . . . I wonder if it’s really necessary to feed you to Bigjaws. If . . . and I mean if . . . you were fully . . . fully cooperative, fully willing . . .”

  “Willing to do what?”

  “Willing to give and receive pleasure, of course.”

  “You mean—with you?” She pointed at him. “Specifically—you? In bed. With you. That what you mean?”

  “To put it baldly—why yes. If you were to associate yourself with me in that way, why, I’d be reluctant to feed you to . . . my dear little pet downstairs. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But I don’t really want any delays consummating this relationship.” He gave her a look of insincere apology. “I don’t wish to be put off
.”

  So much for the one ploy that had occurred to her, a moment before: Pretend that she’d think about it, stall him. Wait for a chance to kill him . . .

  But that suggested another move. Get a guy alone in a bed and he was pretty vulnerable. That’s how it had been with Creel.

  She pursed her lips, looked at the ceiling as if thinking it over. “So it’d be just . . . you and me? In here? No one else? Because I don’t think I would want other people to be, you know . . . I don’t like voyeurs.” She nodded toward his guards.

  “Ah, I regret, my dear, that I myself don’t give a damn if anyone watches—and someone would be watching. Should you make a move toward me . . . I mean, heh, the wrong sort of move, something violent . . . Why, my most trusted man will be watching on camera. Never mind where the camera is hidden. And . . .”

  “And we both get dumped down to play with Bigjaws?”

  “Naturally not. A group of very angry and well-armed men will be right outside the door. They’ll come in, escort me out . . . and then you will play with Bigjaws.”

  “And this little encounter has to happen right away. Me being completely voluntary about it. Like—tonight?”

  “Precisely. And tomorrow morning perhaps. And then again tomorrow night.”

  “After you’ve been hosed off, you mean—like your pet down there?”

  He glared at her. “Do I take that insulting tone to mean . . . you’re saying no? To . . . me?”

  She made a tsk sound and shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid I’m fully booked up, and just won’t be able to find an opening in my calendar for, say, forty or fifty years, Jasper.”

  She noticed a slight smile crease the scarred Nomad’s face.

  Jasper looked at her stonily. “If you think you’re going to . . . to stall me, play hard to get . . .”

  “I don’t think you’re going to play with me, hard or soft, here or anywhere else, Jasper. Now kill me—or fuck off.”

  “I see!” He laughed without humor. “Very well.” His tone was frigid. He wasn’t used to being told no.