Note: Ty Klangthamniem co-wrote most of this in an RP setting. I'm archiving it here for posterity.
Includes Nobody Exists, Nobody Follows, Nobody Watches, Nobody Speaks. What if Nemo made it to New Vegas? Among other things (synths and such).
(Nobody Exists)
This place he'd found was dissatisfying. Poor choice of direction, he mused. Or maybe it was simply his curiosity that got to him, in the end.
There was something quite tantalizing about this Mojave desert, no matter the satisfaction. He'd met his own kind before. There were more here. They were not satisfying, to him.
Through the wastes he'd walked and he'd felt the sand under his feet, watched his claws sinking into the ground. He'd known the searing pain of the day, the welcoming embrace of the night.
The pain alone was worth the experience. It was something to savor.
Nemo had been hidden in the mountains, during the daylight. When the rays had finally slipped over the edge of the world, he removed himself from the hole in the rocks and slowly made his way to the nearest inhabited place.
Cynthia stood alone. The vipers who attempted to rape and then kill her had failed, their ravaged bodies strewn across the ground. Cynthia retracted the tanto back into her arms when she heard something. Something big. Picking up a battered shotgun, Cynthia hid in a house and waited.
He smelled the fire, the blood and iron smells of war that wafted so temptingly into his nostrils. This was where he wanted to be. Where he would find...
What he sought, he did not know. There was a taste in the air. Electric, burning plastic. It was new to him.
Nemo moved through the burned out shell of a town, sniffing cautiously. Smelled of dead. He was hungry. Did not want to eat humans; they were tasteless compared to those delectable purple reptiles that roamed about, but it would be stupid to ignore his stomach's cry of need.
He knelt and examined a corpse, tilting his head to the side.
A blast of buckshot came to his right twice as Cynthia jumped from cover, both her tanto and silenced 10mm pistol protracted from her forearms. Firing quickly at his face, Cynthia ran back into cover. She did not know what the beast was, only that she had never seen something like this before and to kill it quick.
Nemo registered the pain, turning a massive head to the attack without moving his body. After seeing where the source of the shots had moved to, he simply walks off to the other side of the town, disappearing into the darkness.
Cynthia crouched and stealthed quietly in that direction, dropping the shotgun. Once she was about 5 feet away, she stepped on broken glass, crunching under her fake skin. Cynthia looked down, back up then quickly retreated, looking around to make sure she was not heard. It was too late.
His claws rake the thing's back. Deep enough to bring to the surface the smell of the electricity, the raw taste of plasma and sprites across his tongue.
Nemo is pleased by this. It is more satisfying than the dusty smells of the agave and ungulate shit.
She looks like a human but she is not. This is very interesting and he would like to examine more, but she is wily and he is distracted long enough to allow her to regain some composure.
She spins and drives her tanto deep into his shoulder blade and goes to yank it out, then realizes... she is stuck. She pulled and pulled but the blade hit a snag and she was helpless.
Human or not, the creature proved his curiosity would bear waiting. Nemo's shoulder, being pierced with her blade, bleeds furiously. His arm is weakened and his hand grasps at her ineffectively.
But he has two. Nemo moves his other arm to hers, snapping it in two with a quick flick of claws and muscle. She drops to the ground.
He enjoyed the sharpness of the air on the blood she'd spilled. "Do you like games?" he asks, a deep and unsettling voice coming over the crackling of distant flames.
Cynthia laid there, not grasping the issue at hand. Her left arm lay broken and the thing talked. Spinning, she brought the 10mm pistol to bear and fired several times on his chest before running as fast as she could back in the direction of Goodsprings. She had to make it, she had to make it, she had to mak―
"I do not think you play at all very fairly," the deep voice says, so close on her heels she can feel the hot breath curling around her in the cool desert air.
She is knocked to the ground, a heavy foot landing on her stomach. The weight pins her to the dirt. Nemo's talons dig into her. But...
Life is fleeting.
Nemo applies the pressure of his entire weight onto her midsection, crushing her internally and bisecting her body. He stares down at the creature once more, curiously.
Cynthia does not know pain. Her programming never simulated it. But it knew when the system was failing. Cynthia kn3\/\/ 1T w45 Tl-l3 3nd 4l\lD 5h3 C0u1DnT d0 4 th1ng 4b0ut 1t...
Cynthia died, her lifeless body bare and unmoving, ravaged by the merciless wasteland and its inhabitants.
He could not eat this thing. The smell was the same, but death always brought a new element to the meal. He could not eat this thing because it was not food. If she were human, perhaps...
He studies the remains for few minutes, then moves away. Back to the town and to food.
Perhaps it was his curiosity, after all.
Pike crawled into the cubby hole he had fashioned from an old Radscorpion egg laying den and got situated, breathing deeply and relaxing before blindfolding himself, heightening every other sense while numbing one. Placing his Acolyte across his lap, he sprayed incense, an old glass case of female perfume, and then sat in silence, broadening his emotions, he talked aloud about his feelings about the week, about Tai, Dante, Uta, Mirai, taking hold of the Warlords, and doing what he had to do. Finally, when he was spent, he ate a Datura root, a unique plant brought back from Zion, which sent him on the spirit trips he reveled in. It was like a high but he found meaning in the world and even sometimes, other things, real or not, would come seeking meaning too... Pike felt like tonight would be a momentous event as he slowly sank into the Datura...
Feeling a presence approach, Pike asked aloud calmly, "What is the meaning of life to you?"
This one, he smelled the cloying scent before he realized the source. Sweet, sickly. Fruit. Fruit and the older faint traces of animal placenta, dripping smells of poison and insects. Small creatures scuttling through the desert floor, crushed under his feet as he'd made his way through this Mojave.
He found the den, and considered it for a time. Listened to the talking, within the hole, and when the voice asked him the question...
"Examining the ephemeral nature of one's existence is only propitiating an endless void," he replied, slowly. "There are too many answers, and all are inaccurate."
Pike listened to the voice, a voice of wisdom and a voice of insanity. But its words held truth, so he continued. "What does life hold if one has lost so much after bearing the great fruits of labor? Is there no end to the suffering? I ask ye, might voice of the land."
"You ask if your actions have brought forth value for yourself?" Nemo thinks for a moment, listening to the scraping of the wind across the desert. "Do you doubt that what you've done is worthwhile, merely because you've seemingly failed?"
"Yes. Those closest to me are gone, torn to oblivion by Hell's fire. The other, one bearing two children one inside her, and one outside have gone North to flee. And myself, I have forced thyself to watch over the world my mentor had made. In the end, is it worth everything I have lost?" Pike sat there, tears danpening the cloth as depression smothered him, threatening to take his life.
"Are you truly alive?" Nemo settles himself onto the rocks, laid out like a lizard under the pale of the moon. He traces the patterns in the bulbous orb for a time, contemplating. "Fire cleanses. It has burned away everything indiscriminately, yes. But it promotes new growth, new life. The meaning of existence for a tree is to grow, is it not?"
Nemo makes a grating noise in his throat. "Birth... is a pesky business. Trees drop their young wherever they please. Mothers..." He stares at the moon, dark eyes unblinking. "Mothers carry the young. Bring to their lives meaning. The value of life surely exists somewhere between the afterbirth of thought and the conception of souls."
Pike sat still then... it was some time before he asked the last question. "Will you, O Mighty Spirit of the Land, take heed of this one request from a forgotten soul, such as I?" When no answer presented itself, Pike continued "Please. Watch over her and her son. For he is the only one who can bring life back to the Mojave." Pike then kneeled and pressed his hands out to touch the Spirit, whichever it might be.
Nemo watched the man's hands. Human. He sniffed the air deeply, taking in the faint aroma. He smelled of salt and grime, layers of the wasteland on him. Sweat and the desperate acrid taste of chemicals.
Such fools, these humans. Never were meant for existing as long as they had. Humans were the ones who had brought him into existence. Nemo marveled at their stupidity.
"If you wish me to provide a service, know that I will require return," he says. He lifted his tail and brushed it against the man's hands, swiftly removing it. "You will not enjoy the payment that must be made."
"Anything for the boy." He said shivering as an unknown texture brushed over his palms
Nemo pulled himself up and moved away from the hole, sniffing the air, feeling the coolness.
It would be interesting. To... understand, maybe. This idea of his providing protection to an immature creature. Protect the brood, protect the mother.
Protect the Alpha.
When Pike awoke 3 hours later: Stretching, he picked up his weapon and crawled out, observing the day. He went to turn back to the Quarry then stopped. There were Deathclaw tracks all around his cubby hole. What sickened him the most though was the depression where it would have laid by him for some time, and the tracks leading North. Towards Janis. 'What have I done?!' He screamed in his head, but this time, nothing replied back.
(Nobody Follows)
He followed the scent of the Mother. North. Through the desert and across the mountains. There was prey to be had, and when he walked into the smaller settlements he reveled in the scurrying of the humans as they fled him. The smell of the chemicals and desert earth tempted him further into the wastes, dry and acrid on his shriveled tongue.
It was irrelevant what he might have wanted. He was not bound to the promise he'd made to the stupid man, poisoning himself in the cold womb of the earth and begging of him protection. The curiousness of the situation called forth to his mind something he'd been musing on for the last year, however.
Every ounce of his biological form called out for the necessity of progenation. He was infected in his embryonic state with a virus that had made him sterile. He could not act on the screaming in his mind, demanding that he continue his species.
Nemo understood. He had been educated in what he appeared to be, taught that the Wilder Wastes were not to be feared. His departure from the compound he'd been birthed from was accompanied with additional knowledge. Hateful things, these humans. Hateful and ignorant, making him into what he was.
How stupid they were.
He approached the Great Khan encampment just southeast of a much larger settlement. Cloaked in the darkness, he skulked around the camp. The delicious wails of children. Smoke in the sky, a blackness outlined in the purple of night. Chemicals and dust and the blood of the fallen.
He settled into the rocks, biding his time.
"Reed," she said, turning her head to face the man. He moved his empty gaze onto her, slowly. "Get the kid out of here."
The shell of a man stood, turning to Kai and catching him as he wobbled about on unsteady legs. Kai protested, but was hauled out of the tent without ceremony. Jan―Kaihua was not going to have an easy time, tonight. None of the older women had survived the assault on Red Rock. Her path now would set the tone for the whole of the Khans, in the hollow under the mountain.
He took the boy to the edge of the camp, settling himself nearby. Kai was quiet. Reed didn't remember ever knowing a kid so unwilling to speak. He stared at Kai, who stared back at him and jammed his hand in his mouth. The entire camp was hushed in the dimming light of sunset, as they stared at each other.
Well, they had it in common. Reed didn't have much to say for himself, anymore.
After a time, Kai picked up a rock, staring at it. He wobbled over to Reed, pushing the rock into his face and grunting. Reed felt his shoulders start to slump downward, like his mood.
A pained yell broke the hush, Kai's eyes growing wide and his hand loosening on the rock so that it fell onto Reed's feet. The boy jerked his head in the direction of the noise, then started crying. The panicky kind when he was scared, didn't understand.
Reed closed his eyes and sighed. The boy didn't know true fear. If he was lucky, he never would.
"Be quiet," a voice came from behind them, startling the both of them. "How annoying."
The voice was deep, but not gravelly. Every syllable oozed a threat. Reed turned his head sharply to see who was there. Something large came out of the darkness, covering his face and pushing him onto the ground. He felt the prickling of claws around his head. His voice was muffled in the dark―couldn't yell for help―he would be killed―Kai would be killed―
Reed went still, breathing shallowly under the enormous hand. He deserved death. Kai had cheated death once already. Neither one of them should have been alive, anyway.
"You do not fight?" the voice came, again. "How... curious."
Kai had stopped making noise. Reed hoped that it was over with, quickly, for the boy. The hand grasped his head, lifting him up into the air. He could see nothing, only feel the hot breath that came from―whatever it was that had a hold of him.
"This child," the thing said, slowly, "...not the Mother's? Also curious." It chuckled, and Reed remembered the smile that brought death―he pissed himself, just as he had then, and felt his throat closing up, the panic and fear of that suddenly relived in his mind―
Kaihua yelled again, from the other side of the camp. The thing chuckled, and Kai whimpered. "Tell me," it rumbled, moving Reed closer to the hot breath. "the Mother is giving birth, yes?"
"P-please," Reed managed, his arms and legs starting to shiver in the warmth of the night. "P-pl―"
"I desire an answer," it said, shaking him back and forth gently. "Has the Mother begun labor?"
"Y―" he stuttered, as white spots began to flash in front of his eyes, and his chest grew so tight that he couldn't breathe.
"Excellent," the voice said, sounding pleased with itself. The thing lifted him into the air again. "No need for worry. The wait hasn't yet begun."
Reed didn't remember, afterward. He only remembered waking in the pre-dawn, feeling the blood dried onto his scalp, and the fear in his chest that he had always felt.
"Somethin's out there," the Khan was saying. Kaihua looked up from where she was sitting, adjusting the child in her lap and eyeing the man wearily. "I've heard somethin' walkin' around in the rocks, at night. We need to move again, or we need to―"
"And risk it following us again?" she asked, sharply. "I'm not afraid of whatever it is. It's been following us for nearly two years."
"Then let us hunt the goddamn thing down!" the Khan was agitated, raising his voice. "Got enough fuckin' problems without bein' stalked by a damn―"
"A damn what, Job," she asked, narrowing her eyes. "What is it, huh? You don't know. I don't know. Nobody fucking knows, man."
"Listen, Janis―"
"Other things ain't following us. Whatever's out there is watching our asses for us, Job." Kaihua looked down at the child in her lap. "Beggars can't be so fucking choosy."
"For fuck's sake, there's a goddamn monster out there!"
"Get the fuck out," she snapped, staring him down. "Go hunt it, tell me how fucking easy it is."
He left. Kaihua stared at her lap again, the child looking back at her. "Zeke," she said, watching his eyes move back up to hers. One blue. One brown.
She bit the inside her mouth and drew blood. Fucking Legion couldn't scare her off. Some monster in the hills wasn't gonna shake her fucking boots, either.
No matter what it was.
The Khans were returning to the Mojave. Nemo watched them packing, saw the people scurrying about like insects. So productive, their society. It brought nothing but the flames of war and the fear of other humans.
He'd watched from the darkness for so long. Saw the children scattered through the camp. The one he watched the most was the Mother's, of course. The boy was unique even among the Khans. Those eyes that burned. One through the light, one through the dark.
A Nemo, in his own right. Cast out by all but the boy with the burn scar and the Mother, herself. She cared for them both, but her strength faded. She carried the children, but her arms shook.
He watched with such patience. His eyes burned in the light of the sun, as he dared to watch during the day. The smell of the sun cooking the world was enthralling. His own skin felt the pain, the searing sensation that dug into his bones.
The return to the Mojave was unprecedented. He had heard the Khans speaking about it. Not all had faith in the Mother.
He disposed of those who did not.
The man in the earth had, after all, begged of him to protect the boy.
Protect the brood, protect the mother.
Protect the Alpha.
He was the Alpha.
(Nobody Watches)
"Nemo," the boy said, staring up at him with curious eyes.
"That is what I am called," Nemo replied, bending his head down to stare back at the boy. "You have left your mother. Why?"
The boy blinked. "Home," he said, turning and pointing to the west. He started walking away from Nemo, down through the rocks.
Nemo followed him. It was curious, this. The boy had left the Mother behind, set out on his own journey. Nemo had done the same; he tilted his head and breathed hotly onto the boy's neck as he walked slowly behind him. The boy laughed, dashing away from him into the rocks.
Where the boy was returning―home, he'd said. Nemo knew that the Quarry that smelled of Deathclaws and perfume was where he was walking, even though the boy clearly didn't know the way other than a direction. He was very young for a human. Too young to be away from the Mother.
Nemo stamped his feet on the ground and moved to scoop up the boy, lifting his head to the sky. He sniffed, cautiously, then tightened his grip on the boy and leaped into the rocks, moving across the ground toward the west.
He smelled her. The dust and chemicals of the Mother. The perfume of the one who sat in the cold womb of the earth, begging him to protect the boy. A smell of electricity and death, hot oil bubbling on a manifold under the kiss of the sun.
Nemo's lips curled back from blackened teeth as he bounded into the sunlight, purposefully. It burned. The sting of the ultraviolet rays burned his eyes and he shut them against the sun, inhaling deeply and following the smell. The boy had started to cry, his small body writhing in the grip of Nemo's hands.
He didn't stop. He must return the boy to the Mother.
Protect the Alpha.
The Alpha moved along the rocks above the Quarry, carrying the boy with a clawed digit placed firmly over the boy's mouth. Nemo could feel the boy's labored breathing, his chest expanding and constricting against his palm. He was fighting, still. Nothing could be done about that.
He tilted his head so that his body provided shade to his eyes, staring down into the Quarry with reddened eyes. "This is home," he told the boy. "This is where the Mother has gone."
The boy stopped his writhing and stared up at Nemo, tears down his cheek glistening in the sun. The finger over his mouth shifted slightly, to allow him to speak. The moment he was able to move, his teeth sank into the skin, ineffectively trying to harm him.
Nemo shook the boy slightly, scraping his claws against the pathetic cloth he wore and drawing a thin line of blood. It stank, as it oozed from his skin, the same smell of electricity and oil wafting to Nemo's nostrils.
For a moment, he was confused. This feeling was not a feeling he had experienced. The tingling feeling started in his fingers, then slowly moved up his shoulder and across his chest. His muscles spasmed violently, the smell growing so strong it filled his nose and eyes with a numbing sensation. The boy was nearly glowing with energy, arcs of electricity lifting from his skin and breaking in half.
The same smell of the Quarry was on the boy. He smelled of electricity and death, mixed with the dusty smell of the Mother. The boy had―
Nemo lifted him into the air, glaring hatefully at him. "Alpha!" he roared, squeezing the boy around his chest and stomach. The boy shrieked loudly, doubling his efforts to escape the grasp.
"You have an Alpha!" he howled, turning, his arm above his head and arcing downward toward the houses in the Quarry. "I have been deceived!"
He released the boy a the highest part of the arc, tossing him into the air. The delightful noise that the boy gave as he was flung into the Quarry was not to be enjoyed, however. A pain blossomed in Nemo's chest, the impact of a high-powered round splattering blood into the brightness of the sun.
Nemo lowered his arms and roared loudly then vanished over the rocks, back into the desert.
He had been deceived! The Mother had protection! The brood was safe!
...His role in the social structure of such a thing was redundant. He was without purpose, once more―
Abraham had heard the shrieking and roar, the followup of a shot and another roar. When he'd attended to the direction, he saw the boy flying through the air and took a chance.
His shoulder hit the dirt as the boy hit him, cradling the small frame and absorbing as much of the impact as he could. Zeke began to flail about in his arms, panicked and in pain.
He was aware the boy was bleeding and had a few broken bones. Some old memory rose to the surface, and Abraham found himself singing to the boy, attempting to calm him.
The cries subsided into whimpers and Abraham held him gently as he carried the boy back to the garage, looking for Pike.
(Nobody Speaks)
The voice whispered to him.
He woke to a new feeling, a strange fluttery feeling. He remembered small creatures on the forest floor, little heartbeats stammering in the dark. The flesh smell came to him, then.
Nemo lifted his head from the dry earth of the cavern and tilted his head, hearing the call of a vengeful spirit. It spoke of hatred and glory, the inevitability of death. Fire burned through the wind, warmth and bile coming to his nostrils.
He inhaled. Under the other smells he could taste the sweat, the fleshy smell of the panicked. A sweet smell. He wasn't hungry, but this was an aroma that was tantalizing.
He stirred. Lifted himself to taste the breeze, let the foulness settle in his lungs and brain and heart. His mouth curled, his hands opened and closed. More blood and iron than he'd ever smelled before, clogging up his nostrils.
Fire burned in his eyes, in the time for sleep, his veins filled with vitriol, his heart filled with carnage.
He felt it. The Purpose.
Nemo let loose an earth-shaking roar, his hands out and claws displayed, whipping his tail back and forth. With a powerful motion he leapt into the wastes, listening to the whisper that called him. Cajoling, the taint of the wastes called to him to move, to find The Purpose.
He was a shadow, and The Purpose, that potential he had, was what made him frightening. He was the mind that played in the night-time, the tapping at the window, the hush of the darkness that ate at the imagination.
He was Nemo. He was Nobody.
He sprang into the night.
The wasteland was unforgiving. Nemo enjoyed the fiery feeling on his skin, keeping his eyes closed and smelling the charred air as it raked his lungs. The voice was close.
After a time of wandering among the yucca, his feet slipping on the cracks running through the baked earth, he stopped. The voice screamed in the madness of his mind, a dialogue of never-ceasing profanities and acid.
"What is your name, voice of the desert?" he said, breathing in deeply.
"My name is tied to my flesh, which no longer feels connection to the sand. Reveal me so that I may tell you my gilded words."
Nemo dropped to the ground, digging furiously.
He felt the heat, the flames that coiled around the heart as he withdrew it from the ground. The burning sank into his fingers, wrapping his arms and blackening his skin immediately. He held the heart up into the sky, supplicating himself onto the ground.
"You bring me to Purpose," he prayed. "Tell me what I may do to prove my Purpose?" Nemo's mouth twisted into a smile, pulling back from sharp teeth, glinting in the sun as he spoke.
"The dead man's right hand. It pointed to salvation and lead you to damnation. You should sever the hand and ensure it never points again. Never to lead the chosen astray."
Nemo chuckled. "Damnation," he parroted. "I have been damned since the moment I was conceived. You speak truth, however. I will do as you ask, voice."
He stood, and opened his eyes. Looked into the Hell that he held, his arms weakening from the contact with the heart that beat slowly in his hands. Each reverberation echoed through his mind, the faint halo of fire strengthening with the beat of the organ.
Nemo's smile widened, held the heart to his mouth, and kissed it. The pain was irrelevant. He would suffer no end of ache to achieve the Purpose. His eyes blistered, the reddened orbs bubbling with pus and boils, shriveling in their sockets as they cooked inside of his skull.
No matter. He did not need to see. Nemo held the heart to his breast, turning and moving away from the sepulture of the voice, back toward the Mojave.
He had work yet, to do. The deception would be righted. His pride would no longer be wounded. He would set it to rights, and appease the voice.
He had found his Purpose.
Nemo grinned to himself, his eyes melting from his face, hands burnt and blackened by the hellish heat of the heart he held.
He would find the man. And he would eat him alive.
(Nemo never did get to eat Pike. Such a shame.)