Borderlands: Unconquered (6 page)

Mordecai was sitting up, groaning. “She hit me from behind . . . really
is
sneaky . . .”

Roland decided not to disabuse Mordecai of the notion that Broomy
had knocked him out. “Sure, sure, let’s get outta here before she comes back. We gotta find Brick.”

Mordecai got to his feet and picked up his rifle, then turned to Daphne. “You coming with us? I don’t know how you are in a fight yet, but I’m guessing you can hold your own, if your skill comes anywhere near matching your nerve.”

She smiled thinly. “No thanks. Got something else waiting.”

If
she had something else waiting, then why, Roland wondered, had she tried to sign on with General Goddess?

She turned and hurried off, ducking between two buildings, and Roland tugged Mordecai in the other direction. “Come on, goggle eyes, she’s not into it. Let’s see if we can find Brick.”

T
he outrunner was jouncing through the badlands, with only the moonlight to fend off the deepening night. Roland was driving, Mordecai riding shotgun. Bloodwing was perched on the back of Mordecai’s seat, hunched down against the wind of their passage.

Luckily the terrain was smooth around there, not too risky in the dark. But you never knew, Roland reflected. It was always possible to fall into
a tunnel rat trap or blunder into an unexpected ravine.

Thinking about that, he slowed down, peering east, trying to make out anything like a mining camp against the gloomy horizon.

“I saw you swipe something from Broomy’s pocket,” Mordecai said, drinking another vial of Dr. Zed’s best. “Anything I should know about?”

“I dunno yet,” Roland said. “Just figured she might have some intel we could
use.”

“Yeah, about that—use doing what, now?”

“Hunting Eridium crystals—on the hoof.”

“On the hoof! Oh, you mean crystalisks? I’m up for anything but what I’ve been getting, which is hammered on the noggin. Man, my head’s killing me. First they smash bottles over it, and then she cracks me on the brainpan with her gun.”

“Yeah, uh, you think that mining camp’s around here?”

“We’re there! Don’t
drive into that pit!”

Roland just managed to veer around a mining pit, the outrunner careening along the upper edge to the trestle-like structures of the mining camp.

“I don’t see anybody around,” Mordecai pointed out. “Could be bandits took the place down. You gotta shield on?”

“Yeah, but it’s not switched on. You?”

“Nah, I’m short on gear. That’s why I need work. I gotta replenish—whoa,
look out!”

Brick was suddenly there in front of them, scowling—an enormous, muscle-bound, brick shithouse of a man, standing in the cone of light from an electric lantern hanging from a mining trestle. Roland hit the brakes; the outrunner skidded, but it ran into Brick—that is, into Brick’s outstretched hands. The big berserker skidded back a little, then dug in his heels and stopped the outrunner
cold. Then he dusted his hands and shook
his head disapprovingly. “Roland, you’re a, whatta they call it, a reckless driver.”

Roland looked at the front of his outrunner. “You dent my vehicle up there? You
did
, didn’t you!”

“I’ll dent your fool head!” Brick said, his voice a volcanic rumble. “I nearly took you out with a rocket launcher. We’ve been under siege by the second division of that
crazy goddess woman for two days.”

“I didn’t see any troops around here.”

Brick rubbed his massive jaw thoughtfully. “Could be they got the word to go after easier pickings. I must’ve killed thirty of the bastards.”

Roland shut off the outrunner and got out, Mordecai following. Bloodwing yawned and tucked its beak under a leathery wing for a snooze.

Brick looked the same as ever, with a face
that seemed carved from stone, all heavy angles, just a crew-cut fuzz of hair on his close-shaven head, powerful bare arms. He wore an armored vest and fingerless gloves decked out with spikes and bolts—the same kind of bolts on his heavy boots. Around his neck was a chain, and the pendant on it was the mummified paw of a dog, Brick’s beloved hound Priscilla, now gone to its maker. He had a length
of pipe tucked through his belt; it seemed as if he’d been carrying that chunk of pipe around for years. How many heads had been
stove in by it? Slanted across his broad back was a strapped-on rocket launcher. Brick loved explosives. And he could be an explosive himself, in a way—he had a berserker state of mind he went into, seemed to make him something both more and less than human. Roland had
never faced it and never wanted to.

Brick looked Mordecai over. “You! I remember
you
.” He said it as if remembering the time someone slipped skag droppings into his beer.

Roland smiled. “Mordecai’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but he can shoot, Brick. He can take out the left nut of a Primal at thirty yards.”

“Why’d anyone want to shoot off a nut when they can blow off a head?” Brick asked.
“Makes no sense.”

As was often the case, Roland wasn’t sure if Brick was kidding. “He’s also a good hunter. That’s something I’m going to need. So Brick, I was thinking that—”

“You want me to shoot ’em, Brick?” came a familiar female voice behind him.

Roland turned his head very slowly, not wanting to startle anyone into shooting, and looked over his shoulder. Daphne was standing behind him,
with a pistol in each hand, one pointed at the back of Roland’s head, the other at Mordecai’s.

“I knew she couldn’t stay away from me,” Mordecai said dryly.

“Why shoot us?” Roland asked.

“Because,” she said, her arms unwavering as she pointed the pistols, “I don’t trust you. Why take a chance?”

“I don’t trust you either—you were gonna get a job with Gynella.”

She chuckled. “Nah. I just wanted
to hang around ’em, see what their plans were. I heard Cess say that General Goddess’s Second Division would be pulling out of the area. So I came to tell Brick the good news. And what do I find . . .”

“You find the guy who tried to save your ass from Broomy,” Mordecai said.

“I didn’t need saving.”

Roland could believe that. “Your arms are eventually gonna get tired. And my neck’s already getting
a crimp.” He turned to Brick. “You’ve been working with her?”

“My partner in protecting the mine.” Brick gestured for Daphne to lower the guns. “Mining engineers pulled out this morning. I don’t think the bastards are gonna pay us our ‘kill fee.’”

“We got a pretty good deposit,” Daphne said, holstering the pistols.

Mordecai turned to look at her. “You and . . .
Brick
?”

“We both got hired the
same time is all,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Roland didn’t feel right about bringing Brick
into the mission if that meant bringing Daphne along. If she was who he thought she was, she was wanted by a lot of real sons of bitches, who wouldn’t quit till they found her. He didn’t want any distractions from the mission. And he had a feeling that if Brick went along, so would
she.

“So what was it you wanted to talk tuh me for?” Brick asked.

Roland cleared his throat. “Oh, just wondering if you needed any more help here. I could use the work. But it looks like it’s over with. We’ll be moving on, then.”

Brick shrugged. It looked like a mountainside in an earthquake. “Bah, I’m gonna go into town and drink a keg or two. Hey—what’s that thing sittin’ in the outrunner?”

“That’s Bloodwing,” said Mordecai.

“That stinky buzzard bat of yours? You call that thing a pet?” He put his hand to the mummified dog’s paw. “That thing ain’t no fitting pet for nobody. Not like Priscilla.” Brick sniffled a couple of times and rubbed at his nose. He pointed off to the right, and Roland saw something stacked over there, almost like a lumpy log cabin, hard to make out in the darkness
beyond their small cone of light. “What I found out is, if you lay out dead fellas real nice and straight and let ’em go stiff, why, you can stack ’em just like toy blocks. I was makin’ a fort outta that bunch, the ones I killed
outta Gynella’s outfit. And Priscilla, when I was a kid, she used to watch me with my blocks, and then she’d smell ’em and knock ’em over, and we’d have a good laugh.
Priscilla . . .”

Roland glanced at Daphne—she was rolling her eyes. He hoped Brick didn’t notice that. He didn’t countenance any disrespect to Priscilla’s memory.

“Where exactly are you two going?” Daphne asked, quite casually, as Roland and Mordecai climbed back into the outrunner.

Roland frowned. On this planet, it wasn’t done to be too inquisitive about where a man was going. Especially
with the demanding tone she was using.

Mordecai glanced questioningly at Roland, and at last he said, “Ohhhh . . . out westerly. Check out that army. See if we can get Brick some more building blocks.”

Roland started the outrunner, put it in reverse, backed it up, changed gears, and drove carefully but quickly out of the mining camp.

“You decide against recruiting Brick?” Mordecai asked when
they’d gone out of earshot.

“We don’t need the distraction of that woman along, not in any damn way, and I figured she’d horn her way into our mission. She seems attached to Brick. If she’s who I think she is, she’s dangerous—dangerous as all hell. And I mean dangerous to the wrong people. You feel?”

Mordecai said nothing. Bloodwing shifted on
its perch and made a soft squawking sound, then
settled back to sleep.

•  •  •

“He’s got something going,” Daphne said. “Something he’s keeping quiet. He was going to tell you about it. Then I showed up.” Staring after the outrunner, she shook her head. “I don’t like being aced out of anything. I don’t know when we’re gonna be able to collect the rest of our money from these Dahl bastards. They’ll say we didn’t do the job, just because the
miners got scared and bugged out like a lotta pussies.”

Brick grunted and scratched his head. “I dunno. Roland’s okay. So what if he’s got a mission. None of my business. I can always find something to smash. Or someone.”

“Sure. But he’s being secretive. Must be something big! Anyway, I haven’t got anything else. I’d like to know what he’s up to.”

Brick grunted. “We could ask him.”

“How we
gonna do that?”

“I dunno. Find him.”

She smiled. He seemed willing to tag along with her. She liked having him along—he was like a one-man army. Like having artillery. Only it was Brick.

“Okay. Let’s grab our stuff and get in my outrunner. We’re gonna follow and see what he’s up to.”

Brick looked at her with his head cocked, a sort
of craftiness flickering in his eyes. “I wonder if I should
ask what
you’re
up to. I don’t know much about you.”

She gave him a friendly shot with her fist to the arm—it hurt her knuckles. “I’m up to finding us a fortune. I’ve got an intuition Roland’s gonna lead us to it.”

He gave another one of his seismic shrugs. “Sure. Out westerly—plenty of heads to bash. I’m in. But first, I’m hungry. I could eat two or three skags. In fact, I think I will. Then
we go.”

“But we’ll lose them!”

“Naw. Not a lotta traffic out here. We got the moon, we got headlights. Out here, easy to follow tire tracks. We can be right up on Roland’s ass in no time.”

•  •  •

“Broomy and Cess should’ve reported back by now,” Smartun said, looking at the schedule. “We gave ’em two days, after the recall for the Second Division.”

Gynella glanced up from the computer scan
she was frowning over.

They were in her headquarters, a bunker with maps of Pandora all over the cement walls, tables with computers and communications equipment, glaring bulbs overhead, a chaise longue with a refreshment cabinet next to it for when she wanted to relax.

Smartun sometimes fantasized about stretching out on that chaise longue with her . . .

“What concerns me more,” said Gynella,
“is all those men we lost.”

Smartun blinked and looked more closely at her. Was she really expressing compassion for lost soldiers?

“I mean,” she went on, “it’s a waste of resources. But . . .”

Ah, that made more sense.

“But, Smartun, it also demonstrates one thing. The man who killed most of them is a potentially valuable tool. He is a tool I wish to grip in my hand and use. A weapon I can
take to war.”

Smartun sniffed. “Oh, you mean Brick.”

“Yes. I had a choice of losing another twenty troopers taking him down or pulling them back and finding a way to recruit him. With him and Roland leading the First and Second Divisions, we can rule this planet.”

Smartun quivered inwardly. He liked it when she said
we.
“He had some help. That little woman with the tattoos.”

“Yes. That woman.
I know exactly who she is. She does not know me, but I know her.”

“You reviewed the drone footage?”

“Yes.” She rewarded him with a smile. “You’re really quite clever with electronics. Your surveillance drones are . . . very responsive. And subtle. Daphne Kuller is alert, but she never spotted them.”

He chuckled. “They’re well camouflaged.”

“I recognized her the second I saw the vid. She
once
killed someone I was very close to. Of course, she was only doing her job, but I will punish her for it.”