Borderlands: Unconquered Read Free Page A

amateurs.”
    Marcus sighed. “Dumb kid! Well, anyhow, we know where some of ’em are.”
    “Dammit, I should’ve taken his rifle,” the woman grumbled, shaking her head in disgust. “How about giving me that shotgun? I’ll trade you the pistol.Give you the Vladof back later.”
    So she knew her weapons. Who the hell was she? “And if you get killed? The Psychos gonna give it back to me later? I don’t think so, lady. Not a chance.”
    “Okay, fine. But if we just sit around in here, they’re gonna blow this bus up with us in it.” She started for the door. “I’m not waiting to be friedin this hunk of junk. While you’re enjoying your break, I’mgonna see if I can take a couple out, discourage the scum from getting too close.”
    “Wait a minute, dammit! We’ll go together and stick close to the bus. Come on.”
    Hefting the shotgun, Marcus went out the door first; she followed behind, pistol ready.
    “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things in the bus!” the Claptrap called after them. “Ah-ha, yes. This seat needs cleaning, by the way. I’llmake a note of it.”
    Marcus looked around, but the Psychos were keeping their heads down. He pointed to a spot where she could hunker behind a low boulder, on the right side of the hummock, and she nodded, moved quickly to station herself there.
    He climbed over the still-steaming front bumper of the truck to get to the other, stepped onto the ground, and saw a Psycho bandit coming around thehummock, bent from the waist and surprised to see him waiting there.
    He fired the shotgun almost point-blank and exploded the bandit’s head from his shoulders.
    “A head for a head,” Marcus muttered as the bandit flopped dead at his feet.
    He heard a noise and looked up to see another bandit, this one with a scar slashed across his bare chest in an X shape.
    The bandit fired spasmodically, theround goingover Marcus’s shoulder, and jumped back as Marcus fired. Marcus’s shot missed him, but then he heard the crack-crack of the woman’s pistol. Just as he’d hoped, the bandit had backed into her firing line.
    Marcus didn’t bother to check. That woman knew what she was doing.
    He grabbed the first bandit’s weapon, then turned to look at the bus—and swore. The shot that missed him had smashedinto the severed head on the bus’s hood, blasted it to pieces, scattered them all over what was left of the windshield and inside.
    “Gonna be cleaning up messes till sunrise,” he said. He climbed back over the bumper and went to look for the woman.
    On the other side of the hummock, he glimpsed a flash of light, a blinking outline of a woman that was there and gone—and a Psycho staggering back,lightly wounded. The Psycho dived behind an outcropping of blue stone.
    Where was the woman? It’d looked as if she’d gone invisible for a moment . . .
    No, he must’ve been wrong. It was dusk, starting to get dim and shadowy. He must have been seeing things.
    Then she was there, behind, tapping him on the shoulder. “We’d better get in the bus.”
    He opened his mouth to ask her about what he’d seen,but she turned away from him in a waythat suggested she didn’t want any questions. He mutely followed her back to the bus.
    What was going on? Had he really seen her vanish? How had she reappeared behind him?
    They climbed into the bus and closed the door.
    “Am I . . . am I safe now?” the Claptrap asked.
    Marcus ignored the robot. He checked the ECHO—no new messages had come through. But Scooterhad been clear that he was sending help, and despite his eccentricities, Scooter was usually dependable.
    He carried his shotgun to a seat a few rows back and settled in where he had the best cover. Keeping his head low, he peered through the louvered windows, seeing no movement. “I don’t see anybody. If you wounded that Bruiser, as you figured earlier . . . and wounded that Psycho . . .”
    Thewoman nodded as she sat across the aisle from him. “Yeah—I