Borderlands: Unconquered

by John Shirley

  And he clapped his fists together—with Brick’s head in between. The double impact was an ugly sound to hear.

  Brick yelled in pain and fury and quivered.

  Daphne knew what was coming. Brick was going into his berserk state. She’d seen it when they were defending the mine by Jawbone Ridge.

  Brick’s muscles seemed to flex to twice their previous size, the veins standing out, his face going mottled, his teeth clenching, his eyes crazy wild.

  “Rauugh!” Brick thundered. “BLOOD!”

  And he hit the Goliath with a rushing shoulder slam, powering into the big mutant’s belly with such force the Goliath backpedaled five times and went over backward.

  “BLOOOOOD!” Brick howled, and rushed toward the fallen Goliath, who proved surprisingly agile. The Goliath rolled, got to his feet, turned—

  And was met by the still-berserker Brick leaping up to smash a fist into that helmet, just under the chin.

  The helmet cracked down the middle and flew off the Goliath’s head, spinning away in two halves.

  The giant’s exposed face was blanched, emaciated, flattened by the helmet—and as Daphne watched, aghast, the Goliath’s head began to quiver within itself, like an egg with an infant reptile breaking out of it. Brick was hauling back for another powerful punch, but the Goliath planted those big hands on Brick’s shoulders, held him at arm’s length, as the mutant transformation was completed.

  Daphne had heard of the phenomenon—the most perverse aspect of the Goliath’s mutation. The Goliath’s entire body swelled up; it grew—as if the giant were trying to show that its “berserk” was more berserk than Brick’s—increasing in size, more than doubling its heft, somehow expanding its physical mass, and rapidly changing color, turning bright glossy red, head to toe, the veins standing out on its scarlet body.

  Brick took an unsteady step back, unsure of what was happening. He watched in puzzled fascination.

  But the head changed even more drastically.

  Its mouth opened wide, wider, wider . . . impossibly wide. And something wriggled within it, the skull itself trying to break free from the sheath of skin and tissue. Some of the crowd gasped, some cheered, others fell gapingly silent, as the impossible elasticity of the Goliath’s mouth allowed it to vomit forth the Goliath’s skull.

  That’s how it looked to Daphne, as if the Goliath was vomiting out its own skull.

  The skull, complete with eyes and tongue, came squirming out of the mouth like a profane birth, blood dripping from it, blood spurting from the nose—and the nose was now on the back of the head, as if the skin of the face and scalp and neck was part of a hoodie that had been pushed back.

  The skull popped completely free and swayed like a cobra on the spine, which seemed to have a life of its own.

  All the time the bright red body was still swelling, veins distending till they seemed about to explode from interior pressure, most of its clothing ripped away from it, torn apart from within.

  The skull waved this way and that on the flexible, bloody spine, and it looked at Brick with its lidless eyes. The mouth opened, and the bloody skull tried to speak. But all that emerged from its clacking jaws was a burbling sound.

  Then this doubled and doubly hideous Goliath charged Brick, swinging massive bright red arms—they were even more massive now, after this metamorphosis—and although Brick made a powerful defensive move with his forearms to block, the Goliath’s blows smashed him off his feet, flipped him to the side. Brick rolled over onto his back, stunned, blood bubbling from his mouth.

  Daphne groaned.

  The Goliath’s skull, like a sick joke on a jack-in-the-box children’s toy, bobbled on its neck as it tried to speak. “Gubble . . . blooble . . .”

  The enormous red mutant turned and stalked toward Daphne, and she thought, This is it, it’s going to rip my legs off and dance in what’s left of me.

  She set herself to make a move, thinking she’d try to reach through a rent in the Goliath’s torn pants, tear one of the monster’s testicles off. Something, anything, to go down fighting.

  But the Goliath stopped before reaching her. It was after something else. The giant red hands clamped on the wooden post and pushed at it, pulled at it, finally cracking the wood, tearing the pole loose. It left a short snag sticking out of the ground, and the post, in the Goliath’s hands, was now a crude spear, its lower end splintered to a rough point.

  The Goliath started back toward the still-supine Brick, who was just then trying to get up. And Daphne was dragged along by the chain, which was still fixed in the post. She yelled and dragged her feet, trying to hold it back, although she knew the metal collar on her neck might pop her head right off her shoulders.

  The Goliath made a burbling grunt of irritation and turned, seeing that the woman was still snagged to its chain.

  The crowd was howling, cheering, laughing—Gynella was shouting something at the Goliath, but she couldn’t be heard over the tumultuous crowd hubbub.

  The Goliath set the post on the ground, yanked at the chain attaching Daphne to it, pulling the connecting pin out of the wood. The mutant dropped the chain and pointed at her, the skull’s exposed jaws moved, and it managed to say something like “You die next!” Only, the words came out more like “Yoofdy nescht.”

  Then the red behemoth, carrying the post, stalked to Brick, who was just then sitting up, shaking his head to clear it—but still on the ground. The Goliath lifted the post over its head, prepared to slam its rough point down like a giant spear, aiming it to stab through Brick’s belly.

  Daphne was gathering up the chain in her hands, hoping to use it to trip up the Goliath—

  Then there was a zing sound. Twice. High enough to penetrate the crowd noise.

  And the Goliath’s cranium exploded, shot through with two rounds right through the brain. It swayed.

  Daphne turned toward the source of the sound, a clifftop overlooking the coliseum, saw a glint along what might be the barrel of a sniper rifle. And was that a sniper lying on the edge of the bluff? Hard to tell—it was just a silhouette against the darkening sky.

  She turned toward the Goliath; the mutant still hadn’t fallen. The Goliath seemed to wobble, and still it just stood there, not quite completely dead, holding that post tremblingly over Brick.

  Brick stood up, stared a moment, then walked around behind the Goliath. “Who did this?” Brick demanded, scowling. “Someone shot him! Dammit! I was going to kill him myself with nobody’s help!”

  He grabbed the post, jerked it from the Goliath’s grip. The Goliath dropped his big red arms down to his sides, twitching. Brick shifted the broken-off post in his hands and swung it like a bat, cracking into what was left of the Goliath’s head. The mutant’s skull snapped off the waving spine and went spinning like a home run into the bleachers.

  The Psychos in the bleachers yelled in mad glee and began to bounce the skull back and forth among them, as if it were a balloon at a concert.

  And the Goliath’s dying body fell forward, crashing to the ground in a gush of spurting blood.

  Daphne heard Gynella shouting orders and turned to see Runch firing the rocket launcher.

  Brick ran to Daphne and threw her onto the ground, shielded her with his body, as the rocket shell exploded just a half-dozen paces away. Shrapnel screamed over them, and dirt pattered down.

  And Daphne thought, Now we die. She’ll send her whole army down onto the field to tear us apart. At least we’ll die fast.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing, Roland?” Mordecai shouted over the noise of the outrunner’s engine, as Roland drove them down the bluff. They were headed south, toward the only place that looked like a close entry to the unnamed valley where Gynella’s coliseum had been built.

  Roland turned his head partway to shout over his shoulder at Mordecai, who stood at the machine-gun turret with Bloodwing clinging to his shoulder. “No, of course I’m not sure! If I was sure, it’d be boring, and if I was into stuff like
being sure, what would I be doing on Pandora anyway?”

  Mordecai started to reply but cut it short as he grabbed for a better hold on the turret as Roland jerked the outrunner into a hard right, down an old erosion cut into the shallow valley. They bumped jarringly down, Roland risking the axles, and both of them felt their teeth clack as the outrunner hit the valley floor.

  Then Roland jerked the wheel again, bringing the outrunner around to the north, heading for the coliseum.

  “Yeah, Roland, I like action, you know I do, but there must be two hundred of those fuckers in that coliseum!”

  “You like action, and I like to give you what you want, Mordecai! Now hammer that gate up there with the machine gun!” He slowed the outrunner so he could pull a couple of grenades from an ordnance box and have time to chuck them ahead of the outrunner.

  • • •

  “Brick!” Daphne yelled as bullets cut the air nearby. “Gynella wants to kill me more than she wants to kill you! Maybe you could join her and live, or maybe—”

  “Woman, shut up and prepare to kill the enemy or be killed!” Brick growled. “We’re going to take the fight to them, and we’re gonna kick some Psycho ass!”

  She was running along beside Brick as machine-gun bullets slashed the air and thunked into the ground near them. Broomy and Presta were toying with her, laughing as they fired the submachine guns. But Brick was running at the enemy—right at Runch.

  A rocket shell whooshed past, missing Brick’s left shoulder by a whisker, and then he was upon Runch. He slammed him hard in the chest, straight-arming him, and Runch crashed backward into the thin metal wall. He gasped for breath and went to his knees, looking more like a fish than ever, with his mouth open, sucking for air.

  Daphne ran up to Runch—she’d seen the remote control for the shackles on his belt. She snatched it off, held it to her neck, pressed the button, and her steel collar fell off. For a moment she and Brick were beneath the shooting angle of Gynella and Presta, and no one dared shoot at them from behind—they were too close to Gynella.

  Daphne tossed the remote aside as Gynella screamed furious orders. Brick was about to finish Runch off, but Daphne said, “Brick—pick me up, throw me at ’em! That’ll distract ’em, and you can—”

  Brick scratched his head. “Throw you?”

  She didn’t get the rest of it out, because several things happened just then. First there were two quick explosions behind them, from the gate. Gynella and her retinue were distracted by the blasts, looking toward the gate. Runch was getting up, and, responding to a shout from Gynella, he aimed the launcher at the gate. He fired, as Brick grabbed Daphne, in a way she thought was a bit indelicate—crotch and chest—and threw her underhand, up toward Gynella’s coliseum box.

  Daphne felt herself catapulted through the air by Brick’s powerful arms, rocketed over Runch and over the wall, straight at Gynella, who jumped aside, swinging a sword of some kind. The sword missed as Daphne flew past.

  Suddenly Broomy’s astounded, gape-mouthed face loomed up, and Daphne laughed and thrust out her hands in an assassin’s move she’d learned in her training on the Black Asteroid. Her hands were fanned to either side of Broomy’s face as she flew at her, her thumbs stabbing toward two targets, Broom’s eyes.

  And Daphne struck, her thumbs driving deeply into Broomy’s eye sockets, her palms striking the bone on either side of Broomy’s head, knocking her backward, even as she dug her thumbs in deeply, through the eyes, through the thin layer of bone behind them, into the brain—all while catapulting through the air.

  Then there was a crash. Broomy had fallen over onto her back, on the wooden floor of the back of Gynella’s coliseum box, and Daphne was skidding over her, yanking her hands free of the gouting sockets, rolling to take up the impact.

  She’d turned enough so that she took the impact on her right shoulder and slammed into the back wall, grunting, hearing a crunch and hoping it was wood and not bone. She lay a moment, gasping for breath, stunned.

  She looked up to see Gynella standing over her with a blade—but then Gynella dived flat as machine-gun bullets peppered the coliseum box above Daphne.

  Daphne was tempted to take Gynella on, then and there, but she didn’t want to waste an opportunity for escape when there were hundreds of Psychos about to charge down and tear her to pieces if she gave them a chance. She forced herself to jump up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and leapt over the slashing blade from the prostrate Gynella. Daphne saw that Presta was shot dead, lying cozily beside Broomy. A glance at Broomy made it clear—she was stone dead.

  “Told you so, slime-bag!” Daphne said, jumping over the bodies and then vaulting the wall.

  Brick was slamming his fists into Runch’s rib cage, when Daphne came down beside him. Runch’s rocket launcher lay on the ground broken; there was blood on it, and Runch’s head had been cracked open—it appeared that Brick had torn the launcher from Runch’s grasp and smashed it over his head.

  Two berserk punches, and Runch’s ribs cracked like thin slats under a steel mallet, stabbing into his lungs. Runch fell, choking on blood, dying.

  Gynella was shouting orders, up above, and Psychos were beginning to pour down onto the field to “eliminate these disrespectful scum!” as Gynella put it.

  Again Daphne thought she was done for—then she saw the outrunner racing up to them, Roland driving and Mordecai in the back firing machine-gun rounds at the Psychos. There was a shield on the outrunner, taking gunshots from the soldiers, but it wouldn’t last long.

  The outrunner slowed, and Mordecai yelled, “Jump on! Any place you can!”

  She and Brick both jumped on, Daphne close to Roland, Brick clinging at the back, and the outrunner gunned toward the gates—which were broken, wisping smoke, blasted from outside by machine-gun rounds and Roland’s grenades.

  Bullets zinged into their shields, and a line of four beefy, vault-masked Psychos ran to block their way out of the coliseum, all of them armed with combat rifles.

  Daphne heard a screech, looked up to see Bloodwing flying above the outrunner, darting down at the Psycho soldiers, clawing at their eyes, distracting them, then flapping up out of the firing line as Mordecai unloosed a whole belt of machine-gun slugs, hitting the middle two soldiers squarely, killing one, knocking down another. A third was hit glancingly by the outrunner, sent spinning bloodily as Roland accelerated through their broken ranks and out the gate, onto the barren valley floor. Bullets slashed the air above them and hissed into their failing shield. Then Roland cut left, and right, and left again, around a curve in the valley and out of range.

  • • •

  “Roland,” Brick said, his voice grating, “I’m feeling kind of sad.”

  “Why, Brick?”

  “Because I think I have to kill you.”

  “Yeah? Why you got to kill me, Brick?” They were seated on flat rocks around a fire, far out in the wastelands, southwest of the coliseum, in an old nomad’s camp atop a hill.

  “Because,” Brick explained, “you shot that Goliath with that sniper gun.” He shook his head in hurt disbelief. “But I could’ve killed that idiot Goliath easy!”

  “Really? Even though you were stunned and still suffering from a concussion and lying on the ground, and he was about to spear you with a big sharp post?”

  “That stuff? That’s nothing! I was just about to jump up and grab that thing and shove it up his ass!”

  Roland nodded gravely. “You know, I should’ve realized that. I was thinking about the girl, see. Mordecai’s kind of sweet on her. I had to slow that guy down, give you a chance to protect Daphne till we could get in there. I’m sorry I messed up your action, Brick.”

  Brick scratched his head. “Well. I guess you were trying to help. But . . . I think I’m still gonna have to kill you. Sometime.”

  “Can it wait till later? Right now we should probably stick together, you know?”

  Brick jabbed an accusing finger at him. “You didn’t say stick
together when you ran out on us! And sabotaged my outrunner!”

  “Oh, that. Well. That was ill-advised. Another bad decision. Dumb. I shouldn’t’ve done it.”

  “See, that’s another reason. Got to kill you.”

  “Okay, but, like I say . . . a little later on?”

  Brick scratched his chin this time. “I guess so. I’m tired now anyhow. Gonna take a nap.”

  Brick turned away, yawned and stretched, then lay down by the fire, head pillowed on an arm, and was snoring before his eyes had quite closed. His snores made the flames in the fire flap back and forth.

  Roland turned to look for Mordecai, who was supposed to be standing watch. There he was, on the edge of the camp, standing between two monolithic boulders with Daphne. The two of them were gazing out at the rugged land spread below, talking in low voices.

  Roland smiled and shook his head. He hoped that woman didn’t get Mordecai killed—or maybe lose her temper and kill him herself. She’d killed enough people in her time.

  But she probably wouldn’t kill Mordecai—unless someone paid her a whole lot of money to do it.

  “Mordecai!” Roland called. “You keeping your eyes peeled?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re watching. Nothing down there but some skags crapping out somebody’s bones.”

  It was a good spot for a camp—the fire was under a lean-to of scavenged metal scraps and surrounded by a tall ring of boulders. It’d be hard to see from below.

  They’d driven for five hours to get there, changing course, cutting across stony areas where they left no tracks, stopping from time to time to take turns driving, clinging to the outrunner. A hard ride. With any luck they were safe for now. But they couldn’t count on luck—especially with Gynella after them.

  Think about it in the morning. And think hard if you want to live.

  Roland lay down near the fire, opposite Brick. Pretty soon their snores were wrestling for the flames.

  • • •

  Smartun knew Gynella was in a bad mood that morning, before she even looked up at him. It was the hunch of her shoulders, the tension in her hands as she clicked her long, polished, perfectly manicured nails on the desk beside her monitor.