4/6/12 - MAJOR re-edit. Enjoy! (:
She's glad to have a simple initiative for once. Recently, things have been too complicated; have required too much thought up until this point. She prefers this slow, steady past – she finds it much easier to work with. She's always been a hardworking, steadfast young woman, but the call of the Mojave, and the call of adventure there, finally got to her. Because of her steadfast, determined nature, passing up offers (or demands) was almost impossible.
She was always up for a challenge, and maybe that's one of the reasons she became a courier. It's certainly one of the reasons she helped out Goodsprings, that's for sure. That and the caps.
The low-life dynamite junkies hadn't seen what hit them. The overwhelming retaliation from the town, led by the Courier herself, had been too much. At first, Goodsprings must have seemed like a run-down oasis in the desolate landscape that was the Mojave. For the Powder Gangers, it was probably a simple mission. The wells beneath the town were filled to the brim with almost un-irradiated water, and the saloon was packed with booze. It could have been an easy target. However, they quickly realized how wrong they were...just a little too late.
The Courier had managed to strike up a few pacts with the settlers of Goodsprings. Trudy, the gun-slinging owner of the saloon, the pretty redhead "sheriff", and the crazy old man who packed his pockets with explosives had proven to be invaluable allies. The general store's owner had given her a bit of trouble, sure, but had quickly come around when a 9mm pistol was pointed at his face - she'd only succeeded in that prospect because of her amazing luck. She had never been too good at bluffs, and the pistol hadn't even been loaded, she remembers with a smirk.
As she walks along the dusty road, the Courier pushes loose hair from her face and smirks. Chet's head had been as empty as the water tower above the cemetery…as empty as the shallow grave that had been dug below it.
With the caps from the spare leather armor sets she had received from Trudy in thanks for helping protect the town, she had bought a half-decent revolver. Using the bench out back, she made a few dozen rounds of ammo, and fixed the pistol up a little. Sunny had given her all the supplies the town could manage, but Ringo refused to hand over the stockpiles he had saved up in the gas station. He explained that he worked for the Crimson Caravan, a name that was brought up repeatedly, even as she was walking out of the town.
She grits her teeth a bit, aims her revolver at the tall foothills on either side of the road. A memory, blurry from her injury, tries to surface. There's a splitting pain as she tries to bring it forward, and block of sorts forces her to let go of her attempts. She growls, almost out loud, and kicks away an empty soda bottle from the road.
At least she knows where the caravan surface is located. Ringo had been kind enough to enter a few coordinates into her Pip-Boy's map, just in case she wanted to "stop in" while she was in Vegas. Her attempts to explain that New Vegas was miles away, that she wouldn't be there overnight, and that it definitely wasn't going to be her first stop had fallen on his deaf ears. He'd said he'd see her "in a few days".
The Courier snorts, laughs while meandering down the road towards her next destination. A few days, her ass. Ringo is cute, but he's not cute enough for her to trek a straight line to New Vegas.
The southern road is quiet and she can hear the occasional rustle that she knows belongs to the geckos around the area. The small, knee-high pests aren't a huge threat to her, but she does worry about bigger, more dangerous enemies. Sunny had warned her right away that the roads directly to the north were troublesome and trying to take that road was trying even her luck. The Courier had ignored her warnings, of course, and had thrown caution to the wind. Coincidentally, Victor had come to her aid a second time.
Picking up a hunk of metal from the road, the Courier throws it towards the nearest road sign. The green paint on it seems like a beacon in the darkness of the night, almost fluorescent.
She thinks back to Victor's heroic rescue, how he popped out from behind a boulder, gears whirring and built-in guns slinging. While she wasn't able to remember if she was a judgmental person, there was something that rubbed her the wrong way about Victor. He was eerie, even intimidating – fucked up like an overbearing mother. There was something threatening behind the listless, cheery tone of voice he spoke to her with, and it was unsettling.
If she was going to be completely honest with herself, it was one of the main reasons she wanted to leave Goodsprings so quickly. Other than the brooding, deranged robotic deputy, Goodsprings was a lonely place. For the two weeks she had stayed in the town, the prospect of throwing herself from the cemetery's hill into the nearest den of Radscorpions had been an interesting topic of her daydreams.
She wasn't sure how everyone could just live there, day in and out. Hunting geckos and drinking until you were completely sloshed was all fun and games, but she couldn't see herself doing it daily.
It was a boring lifestyle, to be sure, and she was glad she could at least spice it up with excitement. However, soon after the adrenaline-pumping confrontation with the Powder Gangers, life in the small settlement had slumped back into the same, expected boring routine. She was sure that being a courier involved adventure, drama, and exciting shootouts. She figured that she had never been one for that slice-of-life style of living, and out of boredom, high-tailed it away without a lasting goodbye.
She marches down the maimed road, cracks veining through the ages-old concrete, she can't help but to notice the uncaring, ebbing interest of the Powder Gangers. She isn't sure how quickly news spread in the Mojave – or at least, she can't remember – but all of the ex-cons she runs into seem to enjoy drinking a little too much. While she had obliterated one of their main leaders, the Gangers just didn't seem to care. Or maybe they just didn't know.
As she walks south towards her next destination, Primm, Powder Gangers along the road, sitting in old folding chairs, stop to whistle. She smiles a bit, glad for the attention. Hell, she thinks, let 'em enjoy themselves. She's a lone female out on the road, and who knows how long they'd been locked up, blue-balled, in whatever NCR all-male prison? They were entitled to some cheering, flirting, and ill-intentioned stares.
However, the second they get too close, the Courier proudly displays her happy trigger finger by shooting the ground at their feet. Even if her slate has been wiped clean, there's one thing she remembers. Being a prim, proper lady in the Wasteland will only get her locked up in a slave camp, or raped until she doesn't have the will to continue. Most of the convicts don't ignore her warnings, and as she thinks about the stomach-turning image of being taken advantage of, she hopes to God they won't refuse her hints to steer clear.
She's pretty sure that most of the men don't want a kneecap bashed in with her trusty baseball bat, or a bullet lodged in their most "vital" organ.
Further along the road, she notices their numbers become scare. She begins to settle into a safe, slow meandering speed along the road without having to fire off any rounds, wondering why they refuse to show themselves out this far. As she leaps across a pit of irradiated, junky water the answer to her silent musings comes in the form of a shadow at her feet, waving in the light winds of the night.
An obnoxiously large flag sits above the destroyed ruins of a small sector of what she can only gather is Primm, her destination. With the boisterous, flippant design on the flag proclaiming the group, and the size of the banner, the Courier figures they're compensating. From the history lesson that Trudy had briefed her on, she guesses these are the most block-headed of all of the Mojave's groups.
While she's been taught about the Legion's ranks of sadistic rapists, slavers, and closet homosexuals, she knows the NCR isn't the angels of the wastes that they try to come off as. They, as Trudy often implied, were a handful of overconfident, selfish military men who would stop at nothing to spread their power over the West.
Doc Mitchell had even loaned her a few handbooks, holotapes, and Pre-War militia brochures that he had lying around his house. She had spent the most boring days of recovery skimming through the propaganda and criticism of the former. While she had to reform opinions that were lost due to motherfucking Benny, she was sure the NCR were easily comparable to what used to be the United States army before the War.
Whether they were a good-intentioned group of buzz-cut idiots, or power hungry men carrying big guns to feel important remained to be seen. The Courier, considering herself a fairly intelligent woman, wants to take her time and think about her future alliances, preferring to sit back and watch rather than make a move immediately when it comes to forming pacts with powerful groups.
It was obvious the Mojave had taken pity upon her, throwing the NCR dogs at her rather than the Legion, and she was insanely greatful. With her good fortune, someone in the ranks of the soldiers might recognize her – might even provide her a glimpse of a memory from her distant, forgotten life...if she was lucky as she had been.
"Hey, miss! Where the hell do you think you're going? Primm is off-limits."
The Courier turns, eyebrows raising as a grunt trooper runs up the road towards her, in all probability wary of her proximity to the perimeter of the ruins – obviously a base of the NCR. Despite wanting to attempt to punch a hole clear through the man's face for sneaking up on her, she gives him a grim smile and holsters her revolver.
"Can handle myself. Why, what's goin' on around here?"
He's confused by the heavy twang that accompanies her question, but recovers quickly.
"Some convicts…some convicts up the road have taken over the town," he relays. "Everyone inside is either dead or in hiding."
He looks her over suddenly, and taking in the simple revolver at her side accompanied by a dull butcher knife, questions her ability with both his smarmy grin and words.
"Think you'd be safer heading towards Goodsprings,"
The Courier, arrogant and proud, finds herself wanting to just lay into this man – she wants to tell him exactly where he could shove it. The Mojave was too unforgiving, too perfectly cruel to turn back now. It wasn't as if she couldn't handle what it threw at her - God knew that she could, her experience with Benny proved that. She can't turn back, no. It might get her head blown off a second time.
At least Primm was getting some action; there was no way she was going back to boring Goodsprings. She shakes her head, tape-wrapped fists clenching on her forearms as she continues speaking with the soldier.
"Look, no offense, but if you're so worried about Primm, shouldn't you be protectin' it or something?"
The trooper seems to have had enough of her attitude, because he crosses his arms and scoffs at her. "It just doesn't fall under our jurisdiction, as much as we'd like it too. It's a good trading post, so we watch over it."
She grimaces, shaking her head at this display of political nonsense. The world has ended, has gone to hell, and these people still want to throw paper work and military matters around.
"Let me get this straight. You don't protect the people, but you control their trade?"
He nods, proudly looking up at the flag waving above them. "The NCR is in great need of supplies, and the people will be happy once we're able to provide stability for them."
"Once you're able? You can't do that now?"
He opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off by the Courier's flaring temper.
"Fucking stability, for one thing. Didn't you just say it's overrun with convicts, and you're havin' trouble clearing it?" she snaps, stepping forward, getting into the man's face. "You think y'all can protect it from worse threats if you can't do somethin' as simple as control your prisoners?"
He might've flinched, but the red blazing in her eyes makes her miss it. He pushes roughly at her shoulders, enough to move her back, but discrete enough that he can get away with assaulting her.
"I'd like to see you try and protect Primm, little bitch," he spits, glaring down his pointy bird-beak of a nose, into the dirty face of the Courier. Underneath the red-brown Mojave dust settling into her pores, something flashes with determination.
She quickly unstraps the thigh holster from her khaki shorts, and shoves her attached .44 at him.
"Sure as hell, soldier," she says, hopping from foot to foot and trying to remove the extra casings she keeps in the bottom of her boot.
"And you can bet I'll do it with just my fists and this switchblade."
