Borderlands: Gunsight Read Free

took a swig of Zed’s Cornfed and grimaced, angrily tossed the bottle over theledge, watched it fall spinning hundreds of meters till it smashed into the rocks. “Zed should never have branched off into booze. Tastes like medicine.” And in fact it was stupid to be drinking in the morning. Not a good habit. Wait till at least midafternoon. Or okay, maybe noon. Or . . .
    It was time, he decided, past time, for a paying mission. He needed to blow off steam with a really vicious, bad odds, near-suicide assignment. He was antsy and drinking too much and not getting along with Daphne. But he didn’t want the mission that Daphne had in mind—her own long-term plan to carve a small kingdom out of this corner of Pandora. The scheme wouldn’t even pay a profit for a while—if ever. She wanted him to take control of the surrounding territory, within a klick of Sanctuary. There was a lot of traffic in and out of Sanctuary—they could ship goods there, too. They could hire some men, make this a kind of fiefdom; charge a toll for caravans traveling through, levy fees for mining, hire yet more men, really build the place up. That was her vision. “We’ll be rich and safe.” A local king and queen . . . or maybe they’d be no better than a couple of annoying, heavily armed toll takers.
    It all sounded like a big pain in the ass to him. Who wanted to be in charge of a bunch of hired guns who might snap a shot into you the moment your back was turned? It’s not like they were trustworthy like Roland. And Roland was busy organizing his Crimson Raiders in Sanctuary—planning to stand up to Handsome Jack and Hyperion.
    “Women,” Mordecai muttered to Bloodwing, “are nesters.”
    Bloodwing cocked her head and gave him a “what else?” kind of look.
    Mordecai scowled up at the place in the sky where themoon should’ve been—the moon was there, but it was almost stamped out, half hidden by the big metal H-shape of Handsome Jack’s orbiting base, a gigantic artificial complex of control and weaponry and surveillance. It looked like a humungous branding iron descending on the world, as if Handsome Jack were going to sear his H . . . for Handsome and Hyperion . . . into the living hide of Pandora.
    Mordecai didn’t like the damn thing being up there. It was always watching, watching, endlessly watching . . . unblinkingly staring down at everyone. He’d come out here to get some privacy and peace and quiet. After that gigantic killing spree alongside Roland, taking out Gynella and her hordes, Mordecai needed to retrench, rethink, get a new angle on things—without being watched all the time. And if it wasn’t Handsome Jack eyeballing him it was—
    “Morrrrrrdecaiiiiiiii!” Daphne called, from the bedroom, her voice uncharacteristically honeyed. “I want my Loveygun to come back in here and relax with me!”
    Loveygun . . . Relax .
    He knew what that meant. If he went into that room, she’d be waiting in bed, looking insanely sexy; he wouldn’t be able to resist, and they’d make love till he was exhausted and more or less in a passive “anything you want, baby” state. And then she’d start in on the Big Plan again.
    And then? Then he’d hem and haw and say, Sure baby, tomorrow, we’ll start tomorrow, or the next day, but maybe we should have a simple little mission first and raise money to pay for some of this stuff you wanta do and then . . .
    And then she’d say, You’re putting me off again . . . Loveygun . With a little venom of sarcasm added to the “loveygun.”
    Mordecai sighed. Months earlier, he and Daphne’d hadto kill a dozen or so Marauders and a Bruiser to get control of this tower. Once upon a time, it had belonged to the Dahl Corporation, some kind of transmission station. Right now what it offered was good defensibility; a clear vantage of the craggy land spread out below. And it offered a large, comfortable bedroom. But she wasn’t going to get around him that way, not