Borderlands: Unnatural selection

Clay jogged through the undergrowth with an ease that told me he was quite familiar with moving through untamed lands. I followed behind and even reloaded my gun just in case we ran into something less than friendly. As for why I was willing to trust Clay so easy it was a sort of feeling you get when dealing with the darker side of society. You either become a REALLY good judge of character or you eventually fall apart from paranoia. Contrary to what it may seem not everyone on that side of things was necessarily evil or bad after all.-

I can't give any examples on account of those memories being gone but I do know that I had encountered plenty of people in my time as an underground arena fighter who were either there for the same reason I was or just had some bad times that drove them to that place. While the majority of that side of things were without a doubt terrible or twisted folk there were plenty who were, other than their occupation of choice, good trustworthy folks. I simply learned to figure out which was which over time.-

Clay struck me as a pretty straight forward guy, absolutely ruthless if he needed to be but simple to understand none the less. Plus he did give me back my gun on good faith so I was willing to at the very least give him the curtesy to do right by me. If it came back to bite me in the ass that was on me but I didn't think it would. 

"Hold up a moment, Woemp ahead." I said after a few minute of travel.

"How do you know?" he asked surprised.

I pointed at my nose "I can smell it, gotta be at least half a mile away but theres definitely one up ahead." I said honestly.

"No shit, you are turning out to be quite the catch kid. At this rate even if old Monty doesn't give you a job I might myself, Rogues always need talented new blood." He said and took his gun out before we continued jogging.

About two minutes later he seemed to spot the Woemp.

"Well I'll be, you actually could smell this thing. Nose like a bloodhound on you. Not the most useful thing but in the right circumstances might prove vital to a mission." he said impressed.

I nodded before taking aim and shooting the ape creature in the head. I then moved to cut the thing open while he was watching but used that to secretly take the 1140 units of lifeforce. Most of my tattoos were covered so he didn't see them light up as I did.

"Whatcha after there kid?" he asked curiously.

"The heart, if cooked right it's supposedly pretty good." I lied smoothly.

"Learn somethin new everyday, might even give it a try myself if you'll share. Up to you though, I know better than to just assume when foods involved. Seen a man pluck out the eyes of another over a Grog steak, nasty business that." Clay said accepting what I said easy enough.

I did actually take the heart though to keep my story up though I shook it a bit to get all the blood off before putting it in my bag. Besides if it was anything like any other animal heart I have eaten in the past it will taste fine. They tend to taste like prime cuts of the same animal but with a bit more of an iron flavor though not nearly as intense as kidneys.-

We didn't run into anymore animals before we finally reached our destination, a plant covered building. It was almost perfectly camouflaged with the greenery growing on it but judging from what Clay said next that was probably intentional.

"Welcome to the Baal three hideout. It's a smuggling base for when I need to get something through the regulation in this part of the galaxy, also got a fast travel station with a connection to my ship cloaked in orbit. That'll be our ticket to Eden six, homeworld of the Jakobs family." he said with a smile.

"Fast travel?" I asked confused.

"Ah right slipped my mind that you don't know nothin. Well a good long time ago, before my time mind you. These eggheads figured out how to digitally breakdown objects, people, knowledge, virtually anything right. And while in that state those things can be sent vast distances in almost an instant at little cost, reconstituted at their destination. That there's how the fast travel units work, new you stations too from what I understand." He explained.

"That's incredible and also highly questionable. Like if you get broken down into pure data then how do you know it's actually YOU that gets rebuilt and not a totally new person who has all your memories?" I asked rather worried.

"Well I'm no egghead or philosopher but far as I can tell those that use the stuff are the same that come out. At least as far as important stuff is concerned that is." he said with a shrug.

"Not really good at reassuring people are you?" I joked.

"Just telling it how it is." he said with a chuckle.

He opened up the base and I couldn't help but sigh in relief as cool dry air blew over me, the place had A/C. The inside of the place was damn near spotless and also empty. Like besides the yellow and white device over in the corner that was taller than he was the entire place was pretty much a barren metal room.

"Was actually on my way back from a dead drop pick up when I heard your gun go off and went to investigate. Don't actually have any goods comin through this area at the moment so the place is empty. Fast travel's over there as you likely guessed already." he said before pointing at the yellow and white device in the corner.

He walked over to the device and fiddled with a thing on it's side and the whole thing lit up with a projection of a sphere that had the words [Fast travel] circling it. The yellow and white sides also opened up letting me see the internal mechanisms that included what looked like scanners and a keyboard, no doubt used to choose your destination.

'Looks like it does something similar to my homes teleporter room though it goes about it in a different way.' I thought highly impressed.

"Alright I got the coordinates locked in so all we gotta do is stand here and press this button, see you on the other side kid." Clay said with a grin and hit the button.

His body got covered in a blue glow and I watched in shock as he broke down into blue grains of light that got sucked into the machine followed by a small burst of light from the antennae at the top of the device. It certainly didn't seem so bad and with a nervous heart I pressed the button and everything went dark for a moment before I suddenly found myself standing in a totally different location.-

I instinctively swung when Clay moved though he avoided the blow hurriedly.

"Woah there! Easy kid easy, I probably should have mentioned it was a bit disorienting so I won't hold that against you but try to keep that under control from now on." He said with a laugh as I blushed in embarrassment.

"Sorry about that, it was a reflex." I said scratching the back of my head.

"Damn good one too! I could feel the air on that haymaker, might've laid me out if it hit. You just find a spot to squat and I'll get us to Eden six in no time at all. Not the most luxurious of ships but she does her job." Clay said proudly before walking off.

I looked around for the first time after that whole fast travel thing and I had to admit that I was way out of my element here. The ship wasn't all that large on the inside, maybe about fifty yards or so long and fifteen or so wide. There was a some stained cots to the side and the rest of the space was filled with boxes of various sizes and all marked with different tags.-

The walls, floor and ceiling was covered in loose wires, pipes and bits of tech that I blanked out on to the purpose of. In the direction Clay was walking I saw a rather complicated looking console with a projection of a galaxy and various markers and complex equations being shown.

'Well I think it's safe to say that the genre of whatever universe this is is sci-fi. Way too much future tech type shit to be otherwise. Can't judge to much though as I haven't really seen enough to make any other conclusions.' I thought as I found a relatively clean looking cot to sit on.

"Clay here, got an interesting kid that you'll want to meet. I'll let him explain so you can make your own conclusions but you'll see soon enough what I mean be there in a flash. Oh and Monty try to be nice, kids got some form of amnesia and don't react well to surprises." I heard Clay say to a projection of a gray haired man with a thick well kept beard that had a stern face. -

The projection ended after that and I felt the ship shake for a moment before the view outside the windshield drastically changed. Stars stretched and blurred for a good few minutes which was trippy as hell before the ship seemed to lurch forward awkwardly as it came to an end.

'Faster than light travel? And not by a small amount either if we just went between habitable planets in mere minutes. Can't remember any details but I think from earth the closest habitable planet would take light four or five years to reach and to cover that in mere minutes is insane not to mention if the distance was even further. With tech like this couldn't it be possible to strip whole planets of resources in a short period of time?' I thought amazed by the tech I was seeing.

This was the stuff of dreams or nightmares based on your perspective back on earth. For me it was dreams because it meant so many new possible ways to chase that adrenaline high. Other species to fight, new drugs and maybe even foods. I had already seen proof that aliens existed but I wondered if they lived alongside humanity or were enemies?-

If they were enemies what did the battles look like? I couldn't help but imagine a vast star filled void full of spaceships loaded with weapons of planetary destruction and lasers capable of detonating suns fighting it out. I shuddered at the mental image, it would be a type of hell for me. Euphoria and terror in equal parts as my life was but an insignificant nothing able to be snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Just thinking of it got my blood pumping and a grin on my face that seemed to bother Clay a good bit as he walked up.-

"Last person I saw with a grin like that for no reason tried to eat my face, you're not gonna turn feral right?" he asked seriously.

"Nothing like that, I was just thinking that the tech to travel so far in so short a time meant theres got to be planet destroying weapons right? Got my blood pumping with adrenaline." I said honestly.