The Courier: Uprising: Chapter One

"How long has it been?", The Courier said to Boone with an outstretched hand.

"Ten years", replied Boone in a grim tone, making no move to shake his hand.

"Too long," The Courier said, lowering his arm.

"If you say so."

"Things have changed quite a bit, since I've been gone," The Courier said as he looked around Novac.

"Yeah. There are a lot more dead people. Or wounded refugees running from your Securitrons," Boone replied with more than a hint of malice.

"They aren't mine. They're Yesman's," The Courier retorted with just as much malice. Whether it was towards Boone, or towards his own guilt, he could not say.

"Either way, people are dying more than they've ever been. Yesman is the one doing it. You put him in the position to do it. The way I see it, you're no better than Caesar," Boone said angrily, thumbing the safety off his rifle,"You remember what happened to him?"

"I remember him being killed by me," The Courier said sternly, drawing his Ranger Sequoia, "I didn't come here to fight you."

"I don't care why you came here. You shouldn't have. You deserve to die for what you've done."

"We all make mistakes Boone. I'm sure you could agree," The Courier said with an edge to his voice, causing a light to flicker behind Boone's hate filled eyes. He holstered the massive revolver, saying, "I can't go back and change what I've done. But I can at least try to make it right."

"How are you gonna make all this," Boone said, gesturing to the dangling, rotting corpse of an old man named No-Bark, "right again?"

"With this," The Courier replied, grimly, pulling a holotape from a pouch on his belt, offering it to Boone.

Boone took the holotape and began rotating it slowly, "What is this?"

"A computer virus. It was designed by the U.S. military's Cypercorps before the Great War. You want Yesman gone? That will make him gone."

Boone stopped with his inspection of the holotape and looked The Courier dead in the eye, "Where'd you get this?"

"An old military base out in Colorado. Raiders like you wouldn't believe."

"How does it work?," Boone said, handing the holotape back to The Courier.

"It was designed for agents under extreme stress," he said placing it back on his belt, "Once it's put into a terminal, it infects the whole network. No button pushing, no loading screens, no password entering, just insert, and it's done. Yesman would be gone overnight."

Boone paused for so long that The Courier wasn't sure if he'd heard him. But finally he spoke, "Even if this is what you say it is, how can you be sure it'll work?"

"I'm not. But it's the only way I have to bring that bastard down," The Courier couldn't bare to look Boone in the eyes as he said the last part, "You're right, Boone. I put him charge. He's done all of this because I let him. And I have end it."

"You came here, knowing how I'd be after everything. But you came anyway. You want my help, don't you?," Boone said after a long pause, his voice softer, not as angry or full of hate, but still full of his normal grimness.

"Need, is more accurate," The Courier said looking his old friend in the eye, "I'm not asking you to forgive me for all the shit I've done. I'm asking you to help me end this madness."

Boone slung his old rifle over his shoulder, pulling his sunglasses off. He preceded to clean them as he spoke, "Besides inserting the virus into one of Yesman's terminals, do you have a plan?"

"Other than walking into the Lucky 38, no."

Boone replaced his sunglasses and, with the faintest sign of a grin, said, "The Legion couldn't kill us. Maybe the Securitrons can. Is it time?"

"Yes, it's time," The Courier said with a relieved smile.

"Then lets go end that motherfucker."