Claptrap Chapter 27 - A New Path

Doctor Zed grimaced as he clamped off the vein that had splashed blood across his smock. The boy he was working on, for better or worse, was going to live. Unfortunately, the leg below the knee had to be amputated. There was too much tissue damage for any possible regeneration surgery, and exposure to various factors had caused the leg to get an infection. Cutting the limb apart was the easy part, but the trauma from the tear had extended upwards as well, stretching muscle fibers and veins beyond what they could handle, making all sorts of new holes that shouldn’t be there.

Zed let out a sigh as he finished. All of the bleeding had been stopped, but now he had to regenerate tissue so the holes could close and heal without further surgery. His medicine will do the job, but it would require monitoring to make sure it was done right.

His eyes caught the form of Gates watching from the window in his office. Gates had watched the procedure with no indication of what he had been thinking or feeling, and Zed he felt himself frown. The Claptrap line was meant to be fairly expressive and vocal, even when they were trying not to, and Gate had proven the line could resist that programming if they really tried.

The entire situation was raising all kinds of flags for him. Not that the little robot was dangerous, but it’s clear now that little hit it got before was making it act far differently than it had before. It’s actions, questions, and the way it spoke and handled things were easily waved off as just the machine being quirky. Even saving lives can be chalked up to being it going beyond its self-preservation routines. What made that all moot was its uncharacteristic seriousness, silence, and most importantly, the fact its eye was glowing red from time to time. If that wasn’t an alarming sign something beyond quirkiness was up, he didn’t know what was. These few things brought all of its previous actions into focus, and it was adding up to a puzzle.

The machine stared at the boy for a moment before finally turning and leaving his shack. Zed felt his eyes following it even as it went out of sight. He didn’t know what was up with the green robot, but he might have to make a few calls to Hyperion soon. Just in case.

---

I rolled out into the Pandoran night air, staring up at Elpis, with its glowing scar being evidence of the Crackening. Yet another reminder of how screwed up this world is, and a reminder that despite everything I have been doing, there was a time limit. I hated it to acknowledge it, but while I was aiming towards a goal of something better, it was an aimless endeavor. Sure, fix up Fyrestone. Make it a place people would want to live, make it economically viable, etc. Rebuild your civilization and so on.

Maybe I was wrong, but after what happened in the Arid Hills, I’m beginning to think I was being too passive and manipulative about it. Letting things happen while I did my part to reach the goal, and merely reacting to outside forces while keeping what I was doing secret. I had a good reason for doing it though.

Jack is watching, even if by proxy through Angel. I couldn’t afford to catch his notice just yet, as he would add me to his plans. Sure, he wasn’t necessarily the “bad guy” just yet, but he’s not a “good guy” either. So, I kept what I did mostly to myself, even from Clappy, though not entirely successfully. In fact, at this point, it’s likely Angel knows something is up. How much she is aware of, hell if I know. If she knows what I’m doing, then it’s logical that Jack will know too. Whether he cares or not is a different question.

Either way, I’m conflicted. On one hand, I have to keep things as they are lest it all goes to shit because people decide to jump on and wreck it. On the other, as it was with the people in that cellar, and the kids, standing outside will not stop things from going to shit. In fact, it’s likely it will. Although, a part of me knows it’s not my responsibility, looking back at it, I should have done something. I should have stopped those people from leaving.

I lied to people, usually by stretching the truth, in order to move things in the direction I wanted them to go. It works to an extent, as I am now learning form T.K., have the Vault Hunters going in the right direction, keep Bruce and his to stick around, and managed to get the Claptraps to go and do things beyond where they were stuck.

The flaw is that I didn’t do it for everything. I chose what to and not to take a hand in. Choices had consequences.

I held my “face” with my hands. I was conflicted. The human part of me, and Claptrap part of me, were bashing their heads together loudly. Help everyone. Stay hidden. Tell everyone. Do it yourself. Be a hero. Stay in the shadows. Opposite methods clashed in my head. Time sped up as my focus increased the speed of my thoughts, I hadn’t realized I even used my analysis mode until I came to an answer. There was only one answer, and my eye flashed bright violet.

“FiX iT.”

Without pausing, I turned and rolled towards Clappy who had been talking to Cooler. The yellow robot turned, noticing my approach and waved his arms excitedly.

“Gatey! How’s the little guy?” he asked loudly, before finishing more quietly, placing his clamp hands in a praying gesture.

“He’ll live, but he’ll be without the leg for the rest of his life. Zed will likely figure something out, if not give him a prosthetic.”

“Whew! That was close.” Clappy said in a relieved tone, while wiping his brow.

“Better than being with the bandits for sure.” Cooler added as he crossed his arms and gave an eye-nod.

“Those guys are seriously a big problem. If I could, I would teach them a lesson.” Clappy boasted.

“Really?” Cooler asked flatly as his eye starred dully at the heroically posing bot.

After a few moments, Clappy slumped. “Okay. Probably not. But I can think it really hard!”

I activate my Analysis mode, and quickly began to pour over the data regarding Clappy, and Cooler. I considered their personalities, their programming, and their general demeanor to me, and their situation.

Clappy might help me, but I would have to give a damned good reason, and having to actively push back on his programming to actually be of help. Cooler, same thing, but with his PTSD on top of it. I came to a decision. I had to go alone.

Time sped up as I turned to Clappy.

“I’m gonna check the gates to make them extra secure. Keep an eye on things for me here?”

“Huh? Oh! Good idea! We need to make sure none of them nasty bandits come in here afterall. I’ll go with you!”

“Actually, I need to you tell the Vault Hunters that the boy will be alright, and check on the girl. She was pretty catatonic, and might need some cheering up from a cool robot like you.”

His eye brightened in realization. “You’re right! No girl can resist the charm of good ol’ Claptrap! Alright Gatey. You handle the gates, and I’ll do that thing you said.” He said with a bounce his roll as he took off to the pre-fab that said hunters are meeting in. He suddenly stopped and then rolled back to grab Cooler and drag him with.

“Hey! What are you- “Cooler yelped.

“They will want to celebrate with drinks!” he shouted a reply as he dragged the hapless blue bot off.

Without another word, I left past the graveyard and closed the gate as I went outside of it. Rolling faster, I pulled out one weapon at a time and made sure each was loaded and ready to go before making my way to Arid hills.

---

Roland looks down in thought as Molly cared for the little girl, Angela. It was fortunate for them that Molly was friends with Angela’s mother, and decided to take her into her care. Bruce was nearby handing beers to the others. Bruce’s eyes were mixed with anger and sorrow, but mostly anger, and sat down with a grunt.

“Are you going back there?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, but we need more prep. More explosives and ammunition. Those Skags drained most of it, and you don’t get that many people killed without a large force behind it.”

Bruce nodded. “The Arid Hills have been a pit ever since Sledge was put in charge of the Bandits here. The depot is one of their main bases of operations too, so it will have a lot of bad guys to deal with.”

Lilith flexed her hands, the beer disappearing before reappearing. “We can handle whatever comes at us.” She replied with confidence, her eyes filled with a promise of pain. Brick added to it with a slam of a fist into his hand, creating a loud thump.

“We’ll put em on a slab when we’re done.” He said with his usual enthusiasm, but with an edge to his tone.

Angela flinched at the sound despite still being quiet and just staring at nothing. Brick winced, looking apologetically at a glaring Molly.

A knocking on the door caught everyone’s attention before a familiar voice irritated everyone.

“Greetings Citizens! I have good news!”

Mordecai, who sat closest to the door, opened it and let the yellow robot in. A blue, and glum looking bot followed behind and stayed by the door. It crossed its arms looking a bit miffed, but not leaving.

“What’s the news?” Roland asked.

“The news is-oh! Angela!” he started before noticing the girl and immediately rolled over to the girl.

“Hey!” Molly started, about to push the robot back when Claptrap stopped, looking the girl in the eye.

“Great news! Your brother is Ooooo-kay! Doc Zed managed to save him! Huzzah!” he cheered, waving his arms.

To everyone’s surprise, that got a reaction from the girl, as she want from staring at nothing to looking at Claptrap. A light in her eyes before speaking.

“Really?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“Yes! He’s A-Oh-Kay!” clappy replied with a pantomime of a “thumbs up”.

Angela blinked before giving a small smile, and then fell asleep in molly’s arms on the spot. The woman reacted, catching the little girl, while the corner of her lips curled a little.

Bruce sighed, as a weight came off him, and the rest of the group felt uplifted. Even Cooler looked pleased as he placed his hands on his hips in a heroic pose.

Roland grinned, genuinely pleased for once with the robot. “Good work Claptrap.”

The robot jerked in place, frozen before spinning around to the soldier, and then pantomiming excited expression. “I did something good!” it squeed quietly towards Cooler.

“Gotta thank doc later.” Mordecai said as he drained his beer. Cooler pulled out a fresh one for the man, who grinned as he took it.

“And Gatey too.” Claptrap added. “He’s the one who told me! Plus, the whole saving these two in the first place.”

That made the whole group pause in thought.

“He saved them?” Bruce glanced at Roland. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

Roland looked back at the man with a quirked eyebrow. “He did, but that wasn’t exactly important compared to what was found…though technically he found the people too.” The soldier finished thoughtfully.

Bruce snorted. “That bot. He’s either lucky, or he’s got a savior program in him.”

“Why’s that?” Lilith asked.

“Well, he more or less saved my ass too. I got caught outside Fyrestone when the road gate was closed, and for a little while I had to make it without just my own wits.”

“More like a cracked vendor.” Molly added in.

“That too.” Bruce admitted with a light glare at Molly who just smirked.

“Anyways, I was, more or less fucked because I sold some bag cigars to the bandits. It killed some of them, and they took exception to that. I was about to have a last stand when Gate appears looking for a power cell for the Grinder. One thing led to another, and he pulled me out just as the bandits were about to reach my place. Then we got in a car chase, rammed a bandit, followed by a large Skag, and then blew up one of Scooter’s buggies by slamming it into a rockface. Then we came back to town.”

The Vault Hunter’s eyes were wide with incredulity, and Clappy nodded in confirmation.

“Yup! He did that for Cooler too!”

The group looked at Clappy before turning towards Cooler. The blue bot’s eye went around the room uncomfortably before dramatically sighing.

“Yeah…I was in the crystal cave, having been shot up by bandits and stuck underground for who knows how long. Until he, and this guy, came and literally dragged me out.” He said as he pointed at Claptrap.

The Vault Hunters look about at each other as the realization filled them. The Angel said something had been up with the robot, that something was different. They hadn’t really seen much beyond it being really helpful and unusually informative, but now, it’s evidently driven to save people. Claptraps…don’t normally do that.

“Where is Gates? We’d like to speak with him.” Roland asked.

“Uhh…he said something about checking the gates, and making sure they’re secure.”

“Hmm…Alright then.” Roland nodded as he stood up. “I’ll go and ask him a few things.”

The three others nodded but didn’t move to follow as they got caught up with speaking to Clappy and Bruce about their experiences. Roland closed the door to the cold night and began to move to the gate, but stopped as he saw Zed’s place. The garage door was now open. He saw the boy laying on a gurney in a blanket as Zed cleaned up.

Changing his path, he walked over to the boy, and giving him a look over.

“How is he doc?”

The man looked at the Soldier for a moment before returning to his cleaning.

“Well, he’ll pull through. I had to do a lot of regen-work on his internals though, so he’s gonna have to live without a leg. I can find him a Prosthetic, but that’s about all I can do for him.”

“Better than nothing.” Roland nodded.

“Better than being dead.” Zed added.

Giving one last check, Roland moved on and looked at the gate. It was closed, with no green robot in sight. He frowned, and narrowed his eyes, checking about.

“…Where is he?”

---

Angel looked down from the satellite upon the green Claptrap that had travelled into the Arid Hills. She wasn’t surprised by the machine’s actions at this point, but it was clear that the events of the last few hours had caused some kind of effect upon the machine. She tried to access it, to see it’s thought process, but she couldn’t at all. There was something blocking her, like a physical wall not allowing her to even penetrate it. She had put all her considerable ability into it as the machine passed out of the town, but it didn’t budge, much to her shock. That wasn’t say the wireless access wasn’t there, it was simply inaccessible in a way that was unlike anything she ever ran into.

So, she found herself being nothing more than a watcher, as she couldn’t read into the robot, nor hear or speak to it if she wanted to. She found herself tempted to call on the Vault Hunters, to tell him the little robot was about to go into the lion’s den on its own, but that part of her that found herself interested in this conundrum of a machine stayed her hand. This machine was doing things beyond what it was supposed to be capable of, and then went beyond that to do things it wasn’t capable of doing at all, and now it was about to go even further by taking on forces that it would have run from under normal circumstances.

So, she watched, and recorded the little robot, ready to see what it could really do.

---

I stopped by the guard shack where the bodies still rotted. I steeled myself, readying my sniper rifle for what would be a slow grind into the place I sought to fix.

I turned, my eye was glowing a red given how the ground was lit up, which was good.

Shouldering my rifle, I rolled forward towards the pathway.

“Showtime.”