I finally caught up to Claptrap and Evalina. The clever engineer had the cursed robot propped open with a broken stick; she was re-wiring his personality circuit. I looked around for a tree in which she could have possibly obtained that broken stick…there was nothing. For miles all you could see was ice, snow, rocks, and more ice.
“Where the hecked did you find this piece of wood out here?” I asked curiously.
‘’I don’t know who built these circuits,‘’ she said as if she didn’t even hear my question. ‘’But they must have been bat-junk crazy. They’re all jumbled together like an endless strand of spaghetti! There is really nothing I could do with his personality without altering his other circuits. I’d hate to try and alter his personality to suddenly find I’ve reset his memory circuit. He’s already junked up as it is. The last thing we need is to have this busted up toaster actually become as useful as a toaster. We need his memory to find this city Guardian Angel is talking about.’’
With that she threw the wrench she was using into ClapTrap’s access panel door. CLANK! The stick fell to the ground along with the wrench.
“I give up!”
“Woah, easy Trigger; its okay,” I tried to soften her apparent fall. “Is he still gonna cause us problems when we get to the Soaring Dragon?”
“Well, not exactly. I did manage to put a remote shutoff switch inside his core processor. It’s linked to Little Helper. So if he is ever acting out of hand—POP!—I’ll be able to shut him down.”
“Good work, Evalina!”
“Thanks. I thought about installing an internal shocking device to fry his circuits, and really make him feel it. But, I could seem to find a large enough capacitor that wasn’t attached to the infernal Personality Circuit!”
“You know, I could always thunk him with a mongosapien fist-to-the-head…I got four to spare. It worked for this guy.” I flung the bandit, Skagbeeter, that I had been carrying, along with Mr. Trapperskins whom I was also carrying, onto the snow bank.
After a nice little a chuckle, we got back moving towards the Soaring Dragon. Several hours trekking through the snow, we soon could see the massive tanker-city as if it were drifting on an erie stark white cloud of dearth. Several hundred yards outside the derelict city limits we first came to a check point outpost.
It was at this time that we devised a plan. We needed to get ClapTrap’s boat somehow out of the harbor, which was on the farside of the city. We could get to it by swimming, but even during the day these waters were frigid death traps. The night water temperature would freeze the nipples off even my four-nippled furry chest. Water was out of the question.
Our best bet would be to approach by air…but if we had some means of servicible air travel, like the spacecraft we crashed out of, we probably wouldn’t need ClapTrap’s rickety old boat. Heck, we probably wouldn’t even need ClapTrap. So, we decided to go right through the front door…literally.
As I used a barrel of gasoline and extra ammo from the bandit to create a very large Molotov Cocktail, Evalina used Little Helper to get closer to the city. With my heightened strength I chucked the fiery barrel at the outpost. The small communications shack exploded into a thousand splinters and flames. No sooner did it explode then the gates of The Soaring Dragon opened with alarm. Evalina peered into the crack of the opening gate just long enough to see a place to jump to. BAMF!
I made sure to make myself scarce once I threw the barrel, but I couldn’t help taking a moment to turn around just to see the little hut burn and the ice around it melt into bubbling slush. Then before the oncoming task force could get to the fire I beelined it toward the rendevouz point where I had left the tied up Skagbeeter, ClapTrap, and the knocked out Mr. Trapperskins. I glided quickly over the snow running on all six limbs in a voracious gallup. As I was running I caught a glimpse of a figure in a flying contraption above me. Not sure of its importance but I found it sort of out of place on a night in a land of icy tundra.
Once at the rendevouz point well away from the patrols and near the sea, I started a fire. Skagbeeter started to stir. It had been nearly three hours since he was knocked out. I guess I hit him harder than I supposed…which is more than I can say about Mr. Trapperskins, who STILL was out cold from a tranquilizer dart. I felt bad for the bandit. Yes, Scag and his gang did jump us. And, yes, they did take a shot at Evalina. But hey! The dude had no friends, and was now all alone in a cold wasteland. And I had lied to Skag about buying him a drink. The least I could do was untie him, and offer him a warm cup of joe.
As we waited for Evalina, I got to know that Skagbeeter was from New Fragged City on the Southern Shelf Bay. He came from a family of 11 kids, where he was one of the many ignored middle children in the family. His father was a boring accountant, and his mother loved booze more than his father…and most of the other men in their neighborhood. Skag wasn’t sure if his siblings were full siblings, or all from different fathers. Then, the dude started to tell me all the terrible things in his life…starting with some dark things from kindergarten. After 10 minutes of hearing all the dumb and terrible things he had got pulled into, I was about to pull my own hairs out…I couldn’t stand it anymore! Fortunately, Evalina pulled up ship at that very moment. Hallelujah!