Note: I'm reviving this stupid thing because I know I can make it work. ...Also she won't leave me alone. Go away, McCrae! Reimagined tale of Courier 6/Boone
McCrae still had problems remembering things―anything, really. The shot that buried her was responsible for that, and she wasn't sure what to make of the current situation. Part of her wanted revenge, but other parts were crying out that she should just get the hell out of the desert. Since she couldn't remember much about herself or how she would have acted in this sort of situation, she pressed onward.
It took a good deal of booze for her to get up her gumption and track down the asshole that shot her. But that was okay. She found out she was real bad at holding her liquor, which was something she hadn't known.
Goodsprings gave way to Primm, Primm stepped to the Mojave Outpost, and eventually she reached Nipton. The town had been destroyed. Some of it was still on fire. Caesar's Legion flags hung in prominent places. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief and moved onto what appeared to be the main street of the town.
Crosses, and men crucified upon them lined the street, and ahead of her was a cavalcade of Legion soldiers, who promptly lined themselves up in a dramatic fashion. The one in the center, who appeared to be the leader, moved forward from the rest of them.
She adjusted the strap on her shoulder, shifting her haversack from one shoulder to the other. She stepped forward to match him.
"Greetings, Profligate."
"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. She didn't remove the handkerchief from her mouth.
"I am Vulpes Inculta, of Caesar's Legion. I serve my master as the greatest of his Frumentarii."
She looked around at the carnage. "What exactly happened here?"
"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself―the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores." His expression was indecipherable, but she gathered he was proud of the testament to the power of the Legion.
She wanted to spit in his face for reveling in this. "Alright, so what do you want with me?"
He grinned, his mouth curving up into his face viciously. "Tell everyone you meet of what you saw here. The Legion can handle the rest."
She glanced at the mongrels, patiently waiting by their masters' sides. Saliva dripped from their jaws, and dried blood matted their fur. A shiver went down her back, even in the heat. "I'll do as you say."
Why was she so damn scared of dogs? It wasn't like she'd never had to kill mongrels running about the wastes―or maybe that was why. She sighed to herself, frustration.
The Legion left, and she watched them go, walking calmly off into the desert. It wasn't until they were out of sight that she even moved, turning to look up at the men on the crucifixes. She sighed, then continued on her way, eastward.
She passed by Searchlight, holding the handkerchief as close to her nose and mouth as possible. The place stunk badly of decaying flesh and fire. A brown fog hung in the air. She kept going. Much further up the road, she spotted an enormous statue of a green creature. She checked her Pip-Boy. Novac. That would be the "dinosaur" she'd heard about.
"I need to work on my aim," she muttered to herself. Very low on ammo now.
McCrae got a room at the motel and walked into the room, flopping onto the bed. It was just the right thing for a long, tiring day. She slept.
In the morning, she located Vargas and spoke with him about the man who had shot her, but he refused to give it up until she helped him with the ghoul issue the town has been having. She declined.
I ain't about to chase feral ghouls down rickety hallways in an old rocket testing site, she told herself. Not even if I am brain-damaged.
She did make an important choice, though―with her ammo dwindling, her shitty aim, and that facial nerve that kept going off like her skin wanted to jump off of her skull, she needed help, and she had enlisted a local sniper for that purpose. He wanted to kill Legion. Well, that was alright.
She surveyed him, in the motel. He wasn't much to look at. The beret he wore made him look very smart, though. Reddish-blond hair―not much of it, either; puddle-colored eyes; flat nose, likely broken more than once; a heavy, ugly jaw.
But damn, the man could shoot!
It didn't help either one of them that she felt sorry for him. That bill of sale... She shuddered.
She leaned on the tail of the dinosaur, outside, looking up at the cloudless sky. She could do this. She would go to New Vegas and find that bastard that shot her, find out why he'd shot her, get back this platinum chip that she'd been delivering. Maybe then her head would clear of this uncertainty she was feeling, the helplessness that came from knowing she'd died.
And that weird robot that was following her... She shot a look at the entrance to the motel. Victor stood there, facing away. It made her nervous to know that he was following her with a clear intent to escort her to New Vegas.
She stubbed out her cigarette and looked up at the dinosaur. In the morning, they would head to New Vegas. Until then... might as well get some sleep.
Weird things happened to her, walking along the highway to New Vegas. People looked at her with more respect, having a First Recon soldier trailing after her. She would have been amused, if she hadn't had so much on her mind. ...At least, so much to try to remember. She growled to herself.
Camping wasn't pleasant in the desert. Half the time, you woke up freezing, the other half being assaulted by critters. Boone wasn't much of a talker, and she wasn't inclined to start a conversation either. The sound of the wind scraping the sand was the only comfort she had.
The didn't enter Freeside right away. A passing trader had informed her of the credit check one had to pass to get onto the Strip. Even if that creepy robot and his employer were waiting, she still had to gather 2000 caps to even get there.
They went around to Camp McCarran and asked if there was any work available. Major Dhatri offered up some bounty on the heads of a few Fiends. Apparently, there were drug-addled psychopaths roaming the wilds of Vegas. McCrae just shook her head and took the job.
More so, she wanted to help another woman at the base, who had been violently assaulted by one of the Fiends. Corporal Betsy seemed like she had all her ducks in a row, at first. She flirted mercilessly with McCrae. But after hearing the story of what had happened to her, McCrae was more than willing to put a bullet in the head of that bastard.
She and Boone went round and took out Cook-Cook without much issue, sniping from a distance. McCrae was not good at shooting. She felt embarrassed by Boone's obvious superiority, but reminded herself that he had been in the military. She was fairly sure she'd never been good at shooting, though she couldn't remember. It certainly seemed true enough.
That evening, she discussed with Boone her plans on the Strip. Until that point, she hadn't bothered him with information about her job or what she'd planned once they got to Vegas. He mentioned offhand about the rules of the casinos, and how weapons were not permitted inside them.
She swore. "What the hell, man!" Blowing smoke through her nose, she tossed her cigarette into the campfire. "He's in there, hiding like some little pig, and I am the big bad wolf." She looked up at the El Rey Motel, then up past the wall at the buildings of New Vegas, lit up like nothing else in the world.
Boone walked off, probably to use a bush or something. She pulled her guns out and examined them, then began systematically dismantling them. But the time he returned, she was muttering a litany of curses under her breath that would make a Fiend blush.
He watched in silence, while she took weapon components and assembled them into a new gun. A firing pin here, mainspring there, she pieced it together carefully and methodically. She pinched herself with the firing pin, and swore. Finally, she held it and aimed down the sights at a yucca in the distance.
"Are you ex-military?" he asked, quietly. She jerked in surprise, dry firing the weapon unintentionally.
Sheepishly, she shook her head. "Don't know." A hand brushed her hair back from the side of her head, revealing the bullet wound that went up her cheek into the side of her head. She examined the pistol a bit more, then put it away.
"Got shot in the head," she said, unnecessarily. "I can't remember much. I don't know how I got caught, or what happened, or even who it was that shot me. I've been told he was wearing a checkered suit."
A cold wind blew through the parking lot. She shivered, and for a moment, she wished she was inside the motel, if it was even inhabitable. But the very thought made her nervous, being stuck inside some room, potentially backing herself into a corner. She wasn't good enough to shoot her way out of that scenario. She lit another cigarette nervously.
The moon began to rise. "I'll sleep first," Boone said.
She nodded, and curled up her knees on a rock next to the campfire, bouncing thoughts colliding in her head. If she could get onto the Strip―the caps weren't as forthcoming as she had hoped―and if she could find the man in the checkered suit, what then? Other than trying to convince him to give her the reason why he'd shot her.
Get him to tell her the names of the Great Khans who had helped him? She wasn't running him down just to take revenge. And beyond that, the Great Khans had an unfavorable reputation for brevity in business deals. She didn't need any more holes in her head.
She would certainly kill the man in the checkered suit. Maybe screw with him a little first. But he would definitely be dead when she was done.
After, that robot, Victor... He might have information for her, or could get her help with the delivery she was supposed to make. She'd never had a problem with deliveries before. The statement in the contracts were frightening enough to keep anyone on the beaten track.
She chain-smoked cigarettes for a few hours, watching the distance and thinking furiously. Then, all of a sudden, it was daylight. She panicked, because that meant she must have fallen asleep and oh, for fuck's sake―
Boone was sitting up, watching out for them, when she bolted upright and went for her gun.
"Everything's secure," was all he said, tossing a can of beans at her feet.
It was ten minutes before she could calm down long enough to eat. What if kept running through her head.
"Is that a habit of yours?" he asked.
"What?" She was still shaky, and dropped her spoon. "No. Not at all. Just―a lot on my mind."
After eating, she scrolled through her Pip-Boy and looked at the area surrounding them for money-making ideas. Quite obviously she would salvage what she could to sell, but that only went so far. She didn't mind taking jobs from the NCR―having Boone with her made that much easier, since everyone automatically assumed she was "one of them". There wasn't much money in hunting ants and scorpions, and she'd heard some rumors of Deathclaws north of Goodsprings, so she wasn't in a hurry to try to get back there.
After a few minutes thought and trying to keep 200-year-old beans in her stomach, she shut down the Pip-Boy. "Let's go hunt Fiends," she said, with a sigh. "Maybe we'll break even. Besides, there's supposed to be a Vault in there somewhere. I'll bet it has a lot of good stuff."
Later, she would wish she wasn't so bold.