A clearly out of shape Arcade Gannon huff and puffs to the top of another hill. "And why exactly...am I the one...you're dragging all over the canyon?" He leans forward, resting his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.
Boone marches past him, neither out of breath nor showing any signs of stopping.
"Because," she happily explains already at the top of the hill, looking through her binoculars. "You're the doctor and you do doctor things." She frowns at the endless rock and sparse green foliage, now sure she's lost. "Dang it."
"You're lost, aren't you," the sniper wonders, looking through his own scope.
"Kinda."
"What does your...watch say." He doesn't know exactly what that over-sized bracelet of her is called, but calling it a "watch" seems appropriate for the moment.
She checks the map screen briefly, confirming what she already knew. "We've never been here before."
"That doesn't help," he tells her re-slinging his rifle onto his back.
"Then you look." The Courier shoves her Pipboy in his face, demanding he draw another conclusion from the same map.
Arcade stops at Boone's side, grabbing her wrist to have a closer look at the map. "This would be easier if it were accurately topographical," He points out, cocking his head to one side.
"There's that." She points with her pinkey to the negative outlines of mountains.
"Vague mountain ranges at the edges of the map don't help when you're already lost."
She sticks her tongue out at him as he argues with the other traveler about the map. Finding their loud conversation uninteresting, she goes about spying through her binoculars at the surroundings.
From between high parallel cliff faces, two figures saunter about the open plateau, carrying their own weapons in hand.
There's a small scratching at the back of her mind. "They're familiar," she murmurs to herself, squinting through the eyelets. "From where?" It hits her like a freight train as the one on the right laughs. "Them...it's them." The eye under her bullet wound twitches. Wrenching her hand from Arcade's grasp, she checks the gun at her hip, marching down toward the two men.
"Where are you going," he demands to know, following her a few steps. "Are you really going to ask directions of armed strangers because-"
Finding strength she thought she never had, the young woman grabs his collar with one hand, shoving him against the nearest rock face. "Get in my way, and I'll fucking kill you." She throws him back against the rock, hard.
The shift in mood is nearly tangible. At this moment, the Courier isn't the Courier anymore. The happy-go-lucky "little girl" disappears behind a cloud of menace and evil intentions.
Maybe this was who she was before her accident, the two men surmise, watching her unflinchingly head to them. Or maybe she's finally snapped from the stress of running all over the desert getting shot at constantly.
"Who's there," the left one with the mohawk shouts pointing his rifle.
"This canyon belongs to the Great Khans," the man on the right yells. "Get lost!"
The Courier pokes her head out from around a boulder. "Oh, hello," she responds as happily as she can. "I think I'm lost."
"Really?" The taller one to the left looks her up and down with a smirk on his face. "Well, why don't you follow us baby?"
The orange mohawk on the right snickers at her naivete, turning toward their canyon village. "Yeah, we're real friendly."
With both their backs turned, her absentee smile quickly twists into a frown. She takes the pistol from her belt and fires off a shot to each of their knees.
They topple to the ground, crying out in pain.
The Courier approaches them holstering her weapon, kicking the men repeatedly in the sides until they turn over to face her. She squats down between them, slapping her hands over their shocked faces, holding them still. "Remember me?"
Between the heavy breathing and groans of agony, they realize exactly who she is.
"You two left me in a shallow grave to die."
Watching through the discarded binoculars, Arcade flinches, seeing the internal damage to their kneecaps clearly in his medically trained mind. He stops watching, reaching under his spectacles to pinch the bridge of his nose. "How does this not bother you, Boone? Considering she doesn't randomly go around shooting people who don't shoot first, there's clearly something wrong."
"It does," he answers, still watching through his scope.
"You could have fooled me," he snaps at his colleague, cleaning off his dusty glasses on his equally dusty shirt more as a distraction rather than a necessity.
"Would you rather have her shoot you instead?"
He keeps silent, already seeing fault in his complains.
A third Khan sneaks up from behind and swings a lead pipe at her back.
Metal clangs against metal, with her deteriorating armor taking the brunt of the blow. The Courier shrugs it off, reaching for her pistol once more.
He sees whom he just struck, as if he were looking at a ghost. "You're the-" the young woman puts a bullet into his offending hand. The pipe clatters to the ground and so does he; clutching at his appendage, yelling curses at her. "You bitch! It wasn't personal! He said-"
She shoots his right knee, watching dispassionately as he rolls around the ground, crying and bleeding inches away from his scared comrades. Seeing her work done, she slides her gun into its hip holster, walking back up the sloping canyon hills.
At the crest of the hill, her two companions, unsure of what to make of their strange situation, ready themselves to leave post haste.
"Aren't we going to leave before more of them come?" The man in the white coat insists, expecting to see her run away.
The Courier plops on the dusty ground, getting comfortable. "No."
"If you haven't figured it out already, I don't like being shot at."
"Then go." Her eyes fixate on the hills and plateaus just far enough away to make out three figures crawling away.
He frowns. "You're the only one with a map-"
The girl unstraps her Pipboy from her wrist and throws it at his feet.
"She's serious this time, Arcade," Boone warns. "Either you stay or leave, but she's not moving."
He sighs, giving up. "I can see that." Arcade picks up her wrist-bound monstrosity, deciding on where he should sit.
As the moon rises over the Mojave, long shadows reach across their small campsite, hugging the rocks in cool shadows where their small fire can't reach. "What happened to her," Arcade wonders out loud, poking at the burning twigs with another. "I've never seen her so...cold-blooded."
"Because you've never seen that kind of rage before." Boone stares into the campfire, his tinted sunglasses reflecting the dancing flames. "I have."
He pitches the stick into the fire, deciding to go through her only cherished technologic belonging tucked away in his jacket pocket.
"Are you sure that's wise," the sniper wonders, stealing a glace in his direction.
"I don't see her stopping me." The researcher adjusts his glasses, doing what he does best; researching until he figures out what the buttons and dials do. "Interesting. She records every single item she has, down to the number of bottle caps she's carrying. There's notes from everywhere, records of looping radio signals, and books from-just a minute." Scanning through one particular text, he makes a sound of disgust. "No wonder she went crazy, she's been self-treating her amnesia." He scrolls down to the bottom of the screen upset over the date of the material. "Using outdated techniques." He he cradles his forehead out of shame. "What if this ham-fisted attempt makes her snap again? What are we going to do the next time?"
"There won't be a next time," Boone says without the slightest hint of hesitation hearing three distinct gun shots echo across the canyon walls. "They're gone now."
The girl stoically sitting in the corner bursts out laughing, clutching at her sides as her face turns red. She falls over, gulping down breaths in between her laughing fits. The young lady laughs and laughs until her cheeks hurt and her ribs can't take the strain any longer. The Courier finally catches her breath for the last time, leaping to her feet. "Let's go." She charges off between the rocks where they came from, not looking back.