The incident with the bandit's buggy has really tickled my nerves. I'm too vulnerable on that bicycle... With that noisy trailer. Even though it was unexpectedly useful.

  Anyway, I'll have to get a wheelbarrow and armour it well at the first opportunity.

  For a couple of seconds I dreamily pictured my future armored car before the bicycle almost hit a rock.

  Well, I should not yawn such, else a fly might get in, or bullet might get in. I should move from shelter to shelter, and if I hear an engine, I should hide....

  I should also think about my future plans. So far I've just been guided by the idea of "I need to get out to the people and then we'll see", but that may be unwise. I need an idea of how to be... i need a plan. I'd need money, equipment, a place to live, information... yeah, a lot of things. I got experience for killing skags; I didn't check if it was for the late mayor's assignment. Perhaps the new settlement could contract out a similar job? With a turret, it's not that dangerous. I need money and experience if I want to survive... That's the bare minimum, I guess.

  At least, in terms of my own skills, I do have a certain minimum that allows me to survive on Pandora, and with the leveling I can open quite good prospects.

  Not bad, but very dim. Good, but lame.

  Approximate estimates of the plan of action, in the end, looked as follows: get to the settlement, find a job - construction, defense, shooting animals - save money and equip. The Vault? What Vault?

  More seriously, there was no point in rushing to the Vault. There was nothing in the message from the Almighty Nonshitting Unknown Superbeing (in short, I wish for kick someone in ANUS) that I had to be at the Vault first, because I didn't need the loot, I needed the portal. Besides, in my current state... Even ignoring the fact that I simply have no idea what to look for and where to look, competing with a bunch of adventurers, among whom there are obviously many better prepared and equipped than me, is simply suicidal. I need thorough training, especially with the "leveling system" I have in place. So - work, hunting, gear... It's clear even to an dumb bear.

  Perhaps, if there was one thing that didn't bother me... no, not so - didn't annoy me in my situation, it was the ECHO. The device, connected, it seems, directly to the nervous system or brain, could not stress me, but its usefulness and value are indisputable. That's something I'd like to take with me to Earth. There's a lot of money to be made from the ability to store things in digitized form, and I'm not talking about the ability to digitally build things, even with limited licenses.

  Hmmm. And this one... Does anyone want alien technological treasure from the Vault? To me, the treasure is human licenses. Some of them can be bought from corporations, some of them can probably be obtained through less legal means under Pandora's conditions. Some, if I can make some headway, can be extorted from Vladoff. That's another goal for me: to collect useful licenses. They'll be useful on Pandora, and if I can return to Earth with ECHO, I'll use them at all.

  It turns out that Claptrap is able to adjust his microphone to be able to hear the sound of the engine in the steppe of Pandora for a good few kilometers. Given the paucity of good cover and good visibility, that margin of distance was very valuable. Plus, although it was impossible to shut it up for more than a few seconds - you can't even physically unscrew the speaker, it self-destructs if you try to disassemble it, Hyperion's reverse-engineering protection - but I managed to get it to reduce the volume to a minimum.

  So we drove along the map provided by the ECHO, looking for cover and twitching at any noise. Not too heroic, but when you have almost no ammo, I guess even a tough action hero would prefer to avoid unnecessary gunfights.

  ...Or rob bandits for their guns and ammo. Yeah.

  Dusty, hot. The only consolation is no mosquitoes or any such nastiness. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere on Pandora, there are giant, acid-spitting mutant mosquitoes. Or even able to transform. There are giant armored spider ants here for sure, I've seen them on ECHOnet, but they're to east of here.

  I called the area around me a steppe, but that was wrong; a steppe should be straight and flat, and more lively. Around me it was more like a hilly desert. Not "sand, all around is sand," but stone, dust, and scanty vegetation. There were some earthy areas, some sand, but mostly the terrain was rocky.

  A couple of times there were remnants of buildings of some kind, and I saw some huge skeletons, dried by the sun and weathered by wind and dust. They were not white, more like dirty gray, and their size, including the fangs in their skulls, made me tense.

  One would hope that such creatures are extinct - or at least not encountered where I will be encountered.

  I don't want to meet monsters like that.

  I prefer girls.

  When Claptrap heard the sounds of the engine again, another ruin was just ahead - a small house leaning over and half sunk into the sand. Except there was no sand. I need an idea of how it to became such...

  Well, whatever caused this phenomenon, it was a hiding place, and bandits are dangerous, so I hurried to point my bicycle in its direction.

  On the other side of the ramshackle building was a metal booth with a door that looked like a electro transformer. Unlike the building, it looked intact, except that the red paint was a little peeling and someone had scrawled some obscenities on it.

  The engine rumbled past, and I decided to give in to curiosity. The stall door was closed but not locked, so I opened it cautiously.

  ...It turned out to be a toilet. Symbolically, it had survived what the dwelling had not.

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  There was also a gun in the drain. Rusty and useless, but the fact of the matter is...

  Maybe someone had a toilet-trained skag.

  The Claptrap managed to find five bucks in the ruins, and he was very happy about it. He mumbled something about the first step to taking over the world, but I tried not to listen. "At the end of this road lies madness," I don't remember the exact quote. Though it was threatening as it was, but why give in to it?

  At first I didn't realize what had caught my attention, but my mind caught on to something and I looked closer. Hmm... Something sticking out of the ground. A person?!

  More to the point, alive. He's was buried up to his waist, his arms fixed with some kind of iron in a strange pose - one bent upward, the other downward - but he's alive.

  He also had a sign sticking out from behind his back that read "KoActu(s)a(ll)y Jim".

  The fact that he was alive was revealed very simple: when I got closer - having first checked the immediate surroundings for ambushes - he opened one eye. Then he noticed Claptrap, and opened the other.

  - Shoo, - he said hoarsely, his lips drying out. - At least stay out of my delusions, Claptrap.

  - Oh, it's boss number four! - exclaimed the robot. - What a reunion! Let me introduce you. Boss number four, this is boss number twelve. Boss number twelve, this is boss number four.

  I shook my head. Whatever he did, he'd probably suffered enough already.

  ...I mean, I'm not just talking about possessing Claptrap.

  As one would expect from a homo recens, i.e. a modern man, it took a few minutes and a couple of liters of water for our new acquaintance, whom my ECHO designated, according to the sign, as "Cactuar Jim", to come to his senses. I had a stock of the water in my ECHO, plus a license that slowly synthesizes it from the air, so I wasn't greedy.

  However, before digging this guy up, I set up a turret. All the more reason to be safer with it in general.

  - A benefactor - exhaled "Jim", a thin, dark-haired, dark-skinned man with a small mustache, emptying a large metal mug that ECHO had been digitally building with water. - I don't know how much longer I'd have to hang around like this if it weren't for you. New to Pandora?

  - Why would you think that? - I asked.

  - Other than politeness and demeanor? There's a sure sign. You still do not get rid of Claptrap.

  I nodded. A reasonable argument.

  - Hey! - Claptrap was outraged. - The boss just didn't have a convenient opportunity.

  - I didn't introduce myself, however - continued the rescued man, ignoring him with honed skill. - Slippery Jim. Former Maliwan agent, former Hyperion mercenary, and now adventurer extraordinaire.

  I raised an eyebrow. This self-description... Questionable. Especially considering the condition I found him in.

  Jim - the sign above his head blinked appraisingly, then reluctantly changed to "Slippery Jim" - looked at me expectantly. Well, in principle, I have no reason to withhold this information.

  - Pyotr Dyatlov - I informed. - Officially - Vladoff's combat engineer, scouting the market.

  - Well, the demand for guns on Pandora is good, - Jim agreed. - And speaking of guns. I've noticed that your armament is... far from perfect.

  I cringed.

  - Bandits.

  He nodded understandingly.

  - Well, I have a proposition for you. I wish I could thank you, but my options are somewhat limited, - he turned out the pockets of his light gray sleeveless jacket. - The bandits who put me in this cactus-infested place thought I knew where to find a stash of quality weapons. But they were wrong.

  - So you don't know.

  - So they couldn't find out the location from me, - Jim grinned. - But as a thank you, I'm willing to share its contents with you.

  - Hmm... - I said. That's an interesting offer, and I could really use a good weapon, but it sounds like a trick, if not an obvious trap. I frowned, opened my mouth...

  - Yyyyagrrr!

  "Badass psycho, threat level: 6."

  Right through a nearby wall, the remnant of some building, a big guy was rushing at us. He was over two meters tall, bald, wearing ragged pants, his left hand shrunken, while his right hand, clutching some sort of mix between axe and circular saw, was noticeably enlarged. Where did he come from? Even Claptrap didn't notice...

  This thoughts still not stop me from acting same time.

  The turret opened fire a little before I did. A streak of red dots crossed the chest of the "Badass Psycho", but it was as if he didn't even notice the bullets of the gun.

  The pistol fire, however, made him flinch and slow down a bit.

  The problem was that I only had one cartridge block left.

  However...

  A mental command, and the pistol disappeared and a shotgun appeared in its place. But that was enough time for the psycho to get next to me.

  The impact of the sawaxe blew away my shield and threw me back, but the shotgun was still in my hands. A shot... half of buckshot missed him. Another shot at the psycho next to me... I could have sworn the pellets were bouncing off his skull.

  The eyes, however, were not so durable. I took one out, the other was covered in blood (how did he survive with a pellet through his eye?!), and the psycho blindly swung the sawaxe. I rolled over - losing my armor plate in the glancing blow - and fired another volley. And another, emptying the magazine.

  ...The psycho fell, face down between my legs. I immediately slammed the butt of my gun into the base of his skull, but he didn't even flinch - dead.

  Leaning on the back of his head, I hurried to get up and turn toward the sounds of fighting on the other side, but by that time Jim had just finished: when I turned around, he was sitting on the shoulders of another big guy, not as big as the psycho I'd killed, but quite muscular and armed with a shotgun ("Brawler, threat level: 4", the augmented reality told me), and slammed his fist into the back of his head. He immediately went down face-first, but Jim jumped away, and I could see the sharp pin sticking out his hand.

  And not far away was another corpse, this time half the size of a normal man. But also armed, with an submachine gun.

  - Not bad, - Jim said, picking up the captured shotgun. - So what about my offer?