Borderlands_Gunsight

by John Shirley

  The brave little robot drove them full speed, off across the tundra, toward the Frostbite Highlands, and Gunsight.

  Early evening in Gunsight and Daphne was crouching in the seared shell of a building, looking over the ragged edge of an old tavern. There were bodies lying about behind her, rank with decay. Smoke rose from the wreckage of the town; somewhere a man sobbed.

  She kept low, hoping to avoid being seen by the men in the approaching trucks.

  Daphne saw Jasper before he saw her. That wasn’t much comfort, since he had a lot of armed men with him. And she didn’t have much cover here. If they caught her . . .

  They were coming into Gunsight in a ragtag convoy of five trucks, Jasper in the lead one, sitting to the right of his driver. The soldiers in Jasper’s livery, in the back of the trucks, looked half charred, bleary-eyed, some of them wounded. Jasper must’ve run out of med hypos.

  The convoy had the look of a small force that had barely escaped some great catastrophe. The dented, scorched trucks bumped along over the debris in the streets, now and then crushing a body as they came.

  Daphne had picked up scraps of news as she’d skulked stealthily from shadow to shadow, in the ruins of Gunsight. She’d heard the stragglers talking, coming back from the battlefield, telling the few survivors of the battleship attack on the town what had happened.

  Jasper had gone to Corpse Crevice, expecting to catch Reamus there, unawares—and had been caught himself, ambushed by Reamus’s men and a dozen SlagSlugs. Most of Jasper’s army had been killed—and about a third of Reamus’s men, and he’d pulled back, trying to retrench.

  Then word had gotten to him through frantic ECHO communications that Gunsight was under attack by some kind of juggernaut, an armored vehicle big as a small town—which had blasted and crushed his stronghold, crushed every defensive emplacement he had in town, and then had moved on, looking for fresh targets.

  He’d come back to assess the damage, and Daphne could see by the blank, stunned look on his face that he was almost in despair.

  “Good, you fat son of a hive,” she muttered. She still had the machine pistol and the shotgun, a couple of grenades, but there was no way she could take out all those men. She’d have to let them slide by.

  Only, she hadn’t reckoned on Jasper’s scouts.

  He’d sent men out on foot, ahead, to furtively check out the town, and they were coming back to meet the slow-moving convoy. One of them came through the building she was crouching in.

  “Yo! Got a sniper in here!” the man yelled, coming up behind Daphne. “Boss! We got a—”

  He didn’t get any more out—she’d jumped up, spun on her heel, and shot him in the face before he said any more.

  But it was too late—Jasper and his men had seen her.

  The trucks screeched to a sudden halt and Jasper jumped out, pointing at her. “Get her! Get her and drag her here to . . . Oh no, no, keep it away from me!”

  She turned to see what he was so scared of, and saw Bigjaws, bruised, one of the mutant’s arms broken, wounded, blackened, but the giant teeth were intact as he charged Jasper.

  He shrieked and turned to climb into the truck but the creature was already upon him, the mutant’s head snapping forward in a snake-striking movement, his jaws closing shut over Jasper’s head—crunching it like an egg in a clenching fist.

  Blood and gray matter spurted from between its teeth as it turned and dragged Jasper’s spasming body toward the ruins.

  Multiple points of gunfire erupted from the convoy, centering on Bigjaws. The convergent fire tore the mutant apart . . . but it was too late to save Jasper.

  His men walked over to inspect what was left of Jasper’s body. One of them laughed. Two others knelt and went through the dead boss’s pockets. There was an argument about something they found there. She caught the words “Divide it up later.” The men turned away from him and went back to their convoy. She supposed they were discussing fresh career options.

  Daphne waited till the convoy drove away, and then picked her way through the ruins to Jasper’s body. She stared down at it. “What a mess. Wish it’d been me instead of Bigjaws, cracking your head open, you fat bag of skag diarrhea.”

  The half-crushed head was a bag of broken bones with a face on it now. She bent over and tore the last shreds of flesh that tethered it to the body.

  Then she dropkicked Jasper’s head into the muddy ditch.

  She laughed softly to herself, then turned and hurried through the ruins, through the shadows, through the wreckage of Gunsight—heading for the edge of town.

  • • •

  “You really think we lost them?” Mordecai asked as he climbed up close beside Brick on the high boulder projecting from the plains. The morning sun was behind them and their shadows projected starkly across the tundra in the dawn light.

  “Looks like,” Brick said. He was healed up, thanks to the Zed meds in the outrunner, and had managed to scrape most of the gore off himself. “But they’re gonna be lookin’ for us. We shoulda stayed and killed ’em all.”

  “We killed a lot of the bastards, though, Brick. A whole lot of ’em. And a couple of those nasty SlagSlugs.”

  “Smell bad, those things. Ugly, too.”

  “Yeah. Good move, shoving that guy down the thing’s throat.”

  “Choked the nasty thing.” Brick chuckled with pleasure at the memory. “Choked it dead.”

  Mordecai waved at Bloodwing, who came circling down to him, squawking a message. “She didn’t spot them anywhere near,” Mordecai said. “Come on—let’s get down from here before they turn up . . .”

  They jumped down and returned to the outrunner. “You see?” Extra said as they came back, Bloodwing perching on the back of a seat. “Didn’t I drive the vehicle efficiently for you?”

  “Maybe better than I could’ve,” Mordecai admitted. “Your scanning equipment and so on, I suppose.”

  And then the taunting voice of Elenora Dufty came from the robot. “You will find our true purpose in good time, Mordecai!”

  “Sorry,” Extra said. “She just slipped out.”

  “I don’t like that woman’s voice,” Brick said, frowning. “Can I smash this robot?”

  “No!” said the robot in question. “I recommend against that course!”

  “She had unusual electronics talents,” Mordecai said, getting into the outrunner beside the robot. “And I’ve got reason to believe she put some of them in this ordinary-looking little robot.”

  “I’m not ordinary-looking!” Extra protested. “First of all, I have a fine burnish that—”

  “This Claptrap,” Mordecai interrupted, “despite all the annoyance it gives me, is probably worth something . . . How about you get up on the turret, Brick, in case we run into those Reamer bastards again?”

  “I’ll get up there and kill all of ’em, if you drive back at ’em.”

  “I’ve got something else in mind. Gunsight . . .”

  The two Vault Hunters set off, heading across the Staggering Steppes to the Frostbite Highlands, keeping off the main track to Gunsight as much as possible, but bumping along as fast as the Claptrap could drive. As the day wore on, the sky locked into leaden clouds and a razor-edged wind hissed past from the north, making Mordecai’s nose and ears sting.

  Midday, they encountered a Drifter, moving like a marionette across the tundra on its long, long legs; like a dinosaur-sized daddy longlegs, it towered over them and spewed acid—as the Claptrap skillfully drove under it, between its legs, the acid sizzling the ground behind them. Brick fired at it with the turret, to little noticeable effect.

  They quickly left the Drifter behind, and entered the Frostbite Highlands. But within a kilometer, two kamikaze rakks came diving viciously down at them. Mordecai brought the submachine gun up, worried the rakks were pretty damned close already. They were living bombs, capable of exploding themselves to destroy an enemy—they would blow themselves up if they got right up in his face and blow his face up
with them. Brick fired a burst at them but missed, and Mordecai was just picking the nearest as his target when Bloodwing took matters into her own talons.

  Without waiting for a command, acting on an instinctive hatred, Bloodwing leapt into the air and flew fast as she was able to intercept the nearest rakk, going right for its head and tearing at its sensory membranes with her claws, so that, in pain and confusion, the kamikaze went the wrong way—and crashed into the other rakk. Bloodwing got out of the way just in time as both rakks exploded, destroying one another.

  Bloodwing veered back down to the outrunner. “Good girl!” Mordecai said, as she resumed her perch.

  And they drove on, through the boulder-strewn, frozen hills.

  “It’s curious that we’re not seeing protective patrols around Gunsight, as we approach,” the robot said when they got within a few klicks of the town. “But I think I see a possible cause—observe the tracks up ahead . . .”

  Extra slowed down and they all stared at the stunningly deep vehicle tracks cutting across the road. The axle length between the parallel tracks was football-field wide.

  “It’s the battleship’s tracks,” Mordecai said. “It’s gotten here ahead of us. I was hoping it’d be a lot slower . . .”

  “We lost a lotta time dodging those Reamers after we left the arena,” Brick said, scratching his head.

  Mordecai’s throat was dry. “Just . . . drive, Extra. Let’s go.”

  They clattered over the deeply rutted tracks and continued on through the Highlands, winding between the hills, until they came to the flatlands outside Gunsight. There the Claptrap stopped to assess the situation . . . and Mordecai stared at the wreckage of the settlement. There was no sign of the land battleship—but there was no sign of any life at all.

  “Oh no,” he muttered. “Daphne . . .”

  The stronghold where she’d been held was completely destroyed. Nothing but rubble remained.

  He felt icy cold inside; colder than the Frostbite Highlands had ever been.

  “Just—go, robot,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “Not sure we’re going to run into much resistance . . .”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Extra asked, accelerating toward the still-smoldering ruins.

  “It means she might be dead, I think,” Brick said, with all the sensitivity he was known for.

  Mordecai sighed. The robot accelerated and within a few minutes they were rolling slowly past the barriers—now just crushed gravel—that had once protected the settlement. They drove past flattened armored vehicles, flattened technicals, flattened trucks, flattened buildings. Red puddles of mush, vaguely people-shaped, lay close beside the road.

  “Wow, that’s some impressive smashing,” Brick said. “Wish I could do that.”

  Mordecai wanted to tell him to shut up. But he said nothing. They drove on as Bloodwing shifted uneasily on his shoulder.

  The road was crisscrossed with the giant tread tracks, so rutted they were jarringly hard to drive over. It looked as if the land battleship had gone over the town several times, like someone madly jumping on a train set, smashing every bit of it.

  The acrid smoke rose in greasy, twisty pillars to either side; here and there small flakes still flickered in ruined buildings.

  “Those bodies look fresh,” Brick noted.

  They’d driven up to a wider spot between buildings where recent truck tracks etched the dirt road. Here two bodies lay—both of them badly torn up, but recognizable.

  “Whoa,” Mordecai murmured. “That’s Boss Jasper! Or what’s left of him. Looks like his men didn’t even bury him. No love lost there.”

  “I infer,” Extra said, “that the specialized jaws on the other corpse were at work on him, before the mutated creature was put to death.”

  “Yeah—looks like he was killed by Bigjaws. Who got out when they crushed the stronghold. Glad those two are dead—”

  He looked toward the ruins of the stronghold. “If he could get out alive, maybe she could, too.”

  You’re kidding yourself, Mordecai, he thought.

  Would he find the crushed remains of Daphne in the wreckage? Would he be able to identify her, even if he could find what was left? Mordecai shuddered. “Come on, Extra, let’s go see . . .”

  They continued to move slowly through the town, Mordecai coughing at times when the foul smoke drifted across their path.

  At last they reached the stronghold—or what was left of it. There remained only a crust of wall, around it, low enough for a man to easily climb over, the warped remnants of the gate, flattened trucks, crashed wrecks of Buzzards, corpses, flesh-flecked blood puddles . . . and a great pile of smoking rubble.

  A man sat on a big stone, near the main pile of rubble. His clothes were shredded and bloodied beyond recognition. He was missing his nose. Blood ran from the raw wound where it had been.

  “Pull up,” Mordecai said. The robot obeyed, and Mordecai reached in back, got some med hypos from a crate, climbed out, and approached the man. Bloodwing fluttered from his shoulder and found a roost on the outrunner.

  “You used to work for Jasper?” Mordecai asked as he walked up to the noseless man.

  The man didn’t look at him when he replied. He continued to stare at his booted feet, his mouth open. His reply was scarcely audible. “Yes. Jasper.” His voice was odd, probably because of the missing nose.

  “Jasper’s dead, you know. Here.” He held out a med hypo. The man didn’t look at his hand. Mordecai put the meds in the man’s lap. “For later. Make you feel better. You’ll have to get that nose replaced at a specialist—maybe in Sanctuary.”

  No reply. “Well . . . anyway . . . look—anyone survive in there?” He pointed at the smoking rubble of the stronghold.

  The man didn’t respond. He didn’t look up from his boots.

  Mordecai grabbed the man’s shoulder and gave him a quick, harsh shaking. The man looked at him, blinking, trying to focus his glazed eyes. “What?”

  “I said”—he pointed at the wreckage—“did anyone survive?”

  “In there? No. No one.”

  “Are you sure? Have you heard anyone call for help?”

  “No. Not even ghosts call out. All are dead. Quite dead. Thoroughly dead. Even their souls are crushed, you see.”

  “Have you seen anyone else alive?”

  “No. Oh, no. Alive? Certainly not. No.”

  “A woman—have you seen a little dark-haired woman? Pretty, but dangerous-looking? Her name’s Daphne—you might’ve heard something about her . . .”

  “Oh, dead. All dead.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Oh yes! Dead. Dead. Dead . . . Dead.”

  “Hold up a moment,” Brick said. “Look.”

  The outrunner was already just creeping along on the rutted, rubbled street. The robot stopped it and they looked at the strip of surviving buildings a block away.

  One small part of Gunsight, on the northern edge of town, was more or less intact. This narrow strip of standing buildings was under the cliff that overlooked the settlement—could be that the land battleship hadn’t been able to get its treads up close to the great stone overhang, Mordecai guessed. It might’ve risked getting stuck, if it went in that close to the knobby cliff, and hadn’t bothered to waste ammo on the buildings after so completely destroying the rest of Jasper’s dominion.

  “Let’s check those buildings,” Mordecai said, his voice dull in his own ears. “But approach slowly.”

  “I am only able to move the vehicle slowly, anyway,” the robot pointed out, edging forward.

  “He is rather stupid at times, isn’t he?” said the voice of Elenora Dufty.

  Mordecai looked at the robot in irritation. “Turn her down.”

  “I can’t seem to keep her turned down.”

  “I know. We’re going to stop and see what we can do about that . . . I see a shop . . .” The nearest building had a sign on it: KRIGG’S KOMPUTERS. There might be AI-analysis gear in there. “Br
ick, if we have to blow anything up—try not to blow up that nearest building.”

  “Oh, okay,” Brick said, sounding disappointed. “It’s just that I was looking at it and thinking it’d blow up so good . . .”

  “I know. But please.”

  They’d gotten to within a few meters of the side of the building, and now the robot swung out onto the side street Krigg’s was facing—and they were immediately fired on. A burst of flame-modded gunfire streaked overhead, maybe a warning shot.

  Mordecai wasn’t surprised. “Hold your fire—just pull back a ways . . .”

  “How about if we pull back about a half kilometer?” Extra suggested nervously.

  “No. Twenty meters.”

  The outrunner rolled back and Mordecai assessed the gunmen lined up facing them. They were seven heavily armed men, your basic Marauders. All of them were bundled up against the cold, their hands gloved, faces covered with Marauder masks. The big one in the middle sported a quadruple Mohawk and a gas mask.

  “What do ya want here?” called the big man, pulling down the gas mask so he could be heard.

  “Passing through!” Mordecai shouted. “Looking for someone! A woman named Daphne Kuller! Prisoner of Jasper!”

  “Hold your fire!” The man lowered his rifle, but not so far he couldn’t bring it quickly into play, and walked slowly toward them. The others hung back. When he got close enough that he didn’t have to shout, the Marauder called out, “I know her! I was with Jasper when he went to see her one time! She got out of the stronghold—and then went back in during the attack! Everybody that went back in—they’re dead. Squashed like a scythid under a wheel! Ain’t nobody got outta there alive!”

  “I . . .” Mordecai found he had nothing else to say. His mouth didn’t seem to be working right, anyhow.

  “Who you workin’ for?” Brick asked the man.

  “Worked for Jasper. Saw Bigjaws kill him. We’re on our own now. Tell you what—you’re Brick, right?”