She hadn't been resurrected for long. The courier from the Mojave Express mail company had only been wandering the wastelands surrounding New Vegas for a few weeks.
The doc who saved her wouldn't tell her a thing. Only that she was his property now. She remembered bits of pieces of information about who she was before….. before. …. Before what? She thought to herself as she wandered down the long, cracked road of highway 95. Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore who I was, I know who I am now she declared within her own mind. Speaking out loud to yourself could be dangerous in the Mojave.
Just as that thought left her distracted mind, she walked under a dismayed pre-war power line structure. She was so deep in thought she didn't realize the mistake she was making. Before she even had time to start a new thought, a rope had tripped and was now wrapped around her leg, pulling her upside down into the frame of the tower.
Weeeeell shit, she thought to herself. Then 5 men came out from behind a nearby billboard and boulder that was close enough to see the action from. They all had weapons of various sizes. Well SHIT, she thought again.
"What do we have here boys? Looks to me like fresh meat!" the closest one said to the rest. He was a man who stood over the rest by a foot.
"She looks nice and soft" another one said with a seductive tone that could have matched a cat's purr. This one was a female that was so strung out on chems that her hair was falling out and she couldn't hold her shotgun without shaking. The courier didn't even realize this was a woman until she spoke.
The courier had been in captive situations before. She knew that they had the advantage over her with numbers and firepower. Maybe she could talk her way out of it?
"I call dibs on seconds, only after Bossman has his turn of course" one of the captors said excitedly.
"No, I get seconds! I spotted her first!" shouted another.
"I'm gettin' seconds and that's that" proudly said the last one.
"You got seconds last time!" hissed one at that remark.
"Wanna fight me for it?" he casually replied back with a smug look on his face.
"Maybe I do" said the man, and he turned his rifle onto the other. He pulled the trigger and shot the man in the shoulder, and he dropped to the ground. All of the other men and the one woman had taken their guns off of the courier and aimed them at each other. Yells drowned out other yells.
Oh god, the courier thought. Images of what these kind of men would do to her if they would kill each other for it sickened her to her stomach. It probably didn't help that she was upside down either.
At this point the yells between the men had become even more violent, as if that was even possible. Then they all opened fire on each other. 10mm bullets streaked across the air missing and hitting targets alike. Shotgun shells flew from their chambers onto the ground around the struggle.
It was over almost as quickly as it had begun. All the Raiders were dead except for the one who had been shot in the shoulder first and had fallen to the ground. He still rolled around holding his wound that was pouring a steady stream of blood.
Mid roll, his head exploded. The bullet came from the smoking barrel of the 9mm handgun held by the courier. She hadn't expected a shootout between the villains who had trapped her, but she wasn't complaining about the outcome. Now she just had to get down.
The rope that held her was just a simple snare that held her 8 feet off the ground. She looked around herself. There was the ground underneath her and the structure of the electrical system around her. The only way to get down would be to cut the rope, but the courier didn't like the idea of falling on her back or worse, her head. She tried to reach the iron bars of the surrounding tower, yet it was one too many inches past her fingertips. To reach the bars she would have to sway back and forth. So that's what she did.
The courier shifted her weight back and forth to gain enough momentum to get to the bars. Just as she was at the apex of her swing, the rope knot holding her weight on the other side of the snare gave way throwing the girl into the bars. She smashed her forehead into one bar and fell to the ground on her back.
Damn Raiders, she thought, can't even be trusted to tie a simple knot correctly. Her vision was blurred and darkening with every breathe. She knew she was going to blackout, yet she still prayed to whoever was listening that she would remain conscious. Nevertheless she slipped away into the darkness.
She woke but didn't open her eyes. Her head felt like someone had opened it up and dropped a grenade inside, but the pain wasn't what woke her up. She felt something else too….. movement. Someone or something was carrying her. Since she had a history with waking up with people who were dangerous she remained still. It was better to have whatever was taking her think that she was still unconscious.
Her hand slid down to her side until it reached her sidearm, the 9mm submachine gun she had stolen from the doc. Her fingers embraced the cold metal with a friendly caress. This was good, she thought to herself. If she had her gun still, then that means the whatever had her right now probably wasn't a danger to her. Probably.
The courier wasn't scared. She had never been scared in situations where she wasn't in control. She learned a long time ago that fear only got you hurt more, at least it felt like a long time ago. Daring a peek with one of her eyes the courier only saw blue and fluffy whiteness. Skies? That meant she was on her back where ever she was. going past the gun she felt what she was laying on. There was wood underneath her. Am I in a trailer? She asked herself.
"You're safe with us" a child's voice said calmly. The courier's spine shivered as though the wasteland's temperature lowered 40 degrees instantly. Was the child speaking to her? She stayed silent. "It's okay. I know that you're awake. You don't have to fake it." The child continued.
"And how did you know that?" the courier asked.
"I… I've been watching you. Daddy told me not to… but you're really weird." Daddy? The courier thought for a moment. There was so many questions that were unanswered that she itched.
She opened her eyes to see that she was indeed in a wagon. There were boxes and blankets surrounding her. On one box closest to her she saw the boy who had spoken. He looked to be around 10 years old. "Can you sit up? Daddy said he found you hurt so we brought you along." He flashed a toothy grin.
The courier tried to lift herself up, but her head throbbed like a shotgun going off to the beat of her heart. She propped up herself up with her arm and felt her forehead. There was a baseball sized lump on the center of her forehead. As she touched it she remembered the trap she fell into, and how she had hit her head on the bars.
"How long have I been out?" She asked the boy.
"Only a couple hours" He replied, "Daddy will wanna know that you're awake" And the boy got up and jumped over the wall of the wagon and ran away somewhere.
The courier sat up further and could see over the wagon. She was in the middle wagon of a three brahmin convoy. There were several metal armour clad men and women carrying guns around the animals walking alongside them. She made eye contact with a woman who was wearing a cowboy hat and holding a revolver. The guard smiled at the courier, and she was unsure if she should return the gesture. You can't just trust everyone with a friendly face.
Suddenly a whistle cut through the air, and everyone and everything came to a halt. The brahmin started looking for grass below their hooves, but they didn't dare step out of formation. All of the guards raised their weapons, ready to spot any sort of trouble in the wasteland.
The courier looked around at the surroundings. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary that she noticed, so she figured this must be the doing of the little boy's father. She looked in the direction that the whistle came from. Coming towards her was the boy she had seen followed by a man in a dirty business suit. That must be 'Daddy', she thought.