Ch.1: Business
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I hear my heart pounding in my ears. There is no other sound besides that of my steady breathing.
"Have you seen Rick? He was here a second ago." One thug to another.
"He went off to take a leak a while back." Turning, to look at his friend who stands across a fire from him.
I can't hear their voices – I can't hear anything, actually – but I'm so far away it wouldn't matter anyway. I breathe in, and very slowly exhale, bringing my scope to bear on the left target's head. I feel the wind buffeting my face from the right side, and very gingerly reach my hand up and adjust one of the rusty knobs mounted on the aperture. After doing so I turn the second knob two clicks, feeling the resistance of the worn piece of equipment, bits of sand wedged underneath the knob, pulling and scratching as I turn it. I inhale again, and gently squeeze the trigger as I release my breath.
A resounding crack fills the air around me. I'm at such a distance that they don't even hear the rifle go off.
The man on the left of the campfire is in mid-sentence when the bullet strikes his right temple, literally causing his head to explode in a gorgeous plume of red, chunks of brain, flesh, and eyeballs flying in all directions. The severed stump of his neck shoots blood into the air in pressurized streams, a strange substance oozing out of his esophagus. I watch this display with a morbid sense of satisfaction, and pull back the bolt on the rifle, a large, empty casing popping out and bouncing off the rock I lay upon, falling down fifteen feet into the sand. The second thug watches his friend's head pop like a melon in shock, his mouth hanging open, and blood spraying across his face.
I pull my eye away from the scope and my hand off the trigger, reaching down to my right and bringing up a pair of binoculars, which I use to scout the rest of the area quickly. The camp is set in an enclosure surrounded by rocks, with a fire and several bedrolls set about. Panning to the left, I can see the corpse of a third thug, around the corner and out of sight of the camp, his pants still unzipped from the activity he was performing when his life ended. The top of his head is gone, and I can see bits of gray matter oozing out onto the ground where he lay.
Panning back to the camp I see the other man, with his 9 millimeter drawn, searching the camp for any indication of where the shot came from. I carefully line up my scope on the moving target, who is now leaving the camp, his eyes frantically searching back and forth as he jumps at every shadow, his pistol brought to bear. The wind calms a bit and I manually adjust without using the knobs, placing the crosshairs just a tad behind him as he walks away, anxious and paranoid.
I fire, feeling the kick of the rifle against my shoulder, and seeing dust kick up off the rock in both directions. It takes a second for the bullet to hit, but my aim is true and the shot pierces his jugular, his throat, and then exits the opposite side of his neck into the rock behind him, leaving a fairly large chunk missing. The shot doesn't decapitate him but he now has a baseball sized hole in the center of his windpipe, and blood is pouring out of the wound as he raises his hands to try to cover the holes, his eyes wide with terror. It takes him a while to bleed out and I almost feel bad, because his buddies were lucky enough to die instantly, but I maintain a cool facade as I sit up from the prone position on the rock and place my elbows on my knees, simply sitting and watching him die from a distance. The wind starts to pick up again.
After packing my belongings into a beat up brahmin-skin backpack and slinging my rifle over my shoulder I walk three-quarters of a mile across empty desert to search the camp. Dark goggles cover my eyes, shielding them from the blistering sand that whips through the air, and a bandana covers my mouth and nose. I am dressed in a long trenchcoat with riot armor underneath, painted with a '08' on the collar piece. This gear is most frequently seen on veteran Rangers in the New California Republic but I've managed to procure a piece of my own, however morbid the circumstances. At least the President is safe.
It's almost night by the time I reach the camp, and I pause to look up at the setting sun before pulling my mask off and my goggles up and investigating the corpse of the urinating Powder Ganger. In the final throw of death he had pissed all over himself, and I can't help but laugh at the sight. I retrieve a combat knife from a sheath on my hip and reach down, slicing through the flesh and bone of the man's finger, throwing it in my pocket and moving on to the camp itself.
I repeat this process with the other two Gangers and also collect their weapons and ammunition, the final corpse containing a pristine 9 millimeter pistol still in hand and a good stock of ammo. I strip him of his belt holster – he won't be needing it anymore – and tie it around my waist, sliding the pistol into the holster with a full clip and the safety off. Pulling my mask back up over my face and my goggles back down onto my eyes I turn and look out into the desert, where a brewing sandstorm has just reached its climax. Gloves on my hands protect my skin from the flesh-tearing sands that are now swirling about in huge vortexes, and I begin the journey back to the Mojave Outpost.
Three fingers would net me a good little sum of caps, and that would probably afford me a meal and a bit more ammunition for my rifle, and at the expense of three mens' lives that would more than suffice. The thought makes the trip back slightly less arduous, and I finally arrive at the outpost where I am greeted by several NCR Troopers, all of them showing me considerable respect for the services I have done for them. They remember me as the hero who saved President Kimball by disarming a bomb, killing a Legion agent before anyone even knew he was part of the conspiracy, and popping the head off a sniper after he took a potshot at the President – and missed. Bad move on his part; if I had been in his place, the President would most definitely be dead. This makes me wonder how much Caesar would pay me to switch sides.
I shake off this consideration, and recall how eager the NCR is to pay me for doing their dirty work. Besides, I don't want to work for Caesar and end up in some slave camp in the middle of bum-fuck Egypt.
Ranger Jackson is inside the outpost, talking to a trooper at a desk, leaned against a wall and completely unaware of my entering the building. I tap him on the shoulder and he greets me warmly.
"Rico! Good to see you, I hope you have some good news for me." He says, and I nod, reaching into my pack and retrieving the fingers. He grimaces at the sight but also thanks me, and produces a small bag of caps which he hands over. "Those were some of the escapees from NCRCF, if I remember correctly. World's a better place without the slimy bastards."
I nod my head silently in agreement, and pocket my bounty. "Any other work for me around here?" I ask.
"No, I think you've finally killed the last few of those fucks who got out." He tells me, handing off the fingers to a female trooper who walks by. I watch her walk away. "I hear Major Dhatri over at McCarran is looking for a bounty hunter."
My interest is piqued, and, thanking Jackson for the information I depart, heading down the road towards the huge monument at the crest of the hill leading into the outpost. I stop just before passing it and turn around, locking eyes with a female Ranger sitting on top of the nearest building, holding a rifle in hand. We nod at one another in understanding and I throw my shoulder to adjust the sling of my hunting rifle, then slide my goggles on and begin the long trek back to New Vegas. Oh, City of Lights, it certainly has been far too long.