Boone had seen a lot of shit before.
Standing up in the lonesome maw of Little Dinky night in and night out made him feel a lot like a piece of prospector stuck between the incisors of a deathclaw. If deathclaws were fifty one feet tall and made of polymorph plastic.
He shakes himself out a little to get rid of the mental image.
Being out at night was all right with Boone. The Mojave was made of hellfire in the day and hellice in the night. Never lukewarm. Never gave you the chance to lull into a sense of complacency with a comfortable temperature. Novac wasn't comfortable either – Legions in the east and NCR pressures in the west kept it on its toes. The Powder Gangers were the icing on the cake, but they were icing Boone could take the scalps off very easy. Drinking beer on top of a rock was their idea of stealth.
Boone wasn't complaining, though. A night without blood wasn't really a night at all. A night without blood gave him insomnia in the day, and he'd lay awake in his bed staring at the ceiling and sweltering alone.
Sometimes not alone. A certain Novac settler had a taste for his company. She was pretty – red hair, pale eyes. The company was a way to dull the voices. The shouts of the Legionnaires bidding and then the single, raucous gunshot.
Boone glares at the white-gold crescent moon in the sky.
The movement pulls him from his scabbing memories.
He shoulders his rifle and crouches when he spots it in the distance. Through the green-lens scope he thinks it's definitely a coyote – ears bobbing, tail twitching. It's so far out that it's hard to tell if it's a cub or mother, but it seems too big to be both. An alpha male? No, too pale. He'd heard of albino coyotes, but never saw one of his own. Before he pulls the trigger he briefly wonders if the pelt will make a decent blanket.
A miss. He cusses and repositions. This animal moved fast, and as he aims again he realizes that the creature is running from something else. The black-blue sands of the Mojave at night are kicked up as it runs, the predator hot on its heels. The coyote bobs and weaves around rock outcroppings to evade it, coming ever closer toward the broken fences of Novac.
The flutter of wings gives the pursuer away. Cazadore. One swift bullet to the right wing – a miracle shot in anyone's hands besides his – and the bug is flat on the ground, twitching. The coyote takes the opportunity and turns back to face the bug.
The coyote takes out a shotgun.
Boone blinks once, twice, and cleans the lens of his scope before peering back into it just in time to see the 'coyote' shoot the cazadore cleanly in the head. Green, toxic blood splashes up and stains the sand.
The beast straightens, standing on two legs. It carves open the cazadore carefully and takes out the rotund poison gland, stowing it away in the pack on its hip. On its hip.
Boone hasn't drank a drop of booze since Carla disappeared a month ago, but he starts to doubt himself when the creature moves closer to Novac, illuminated in the moonlight. He zooms in with the scope as close as it can go.
Pale skin, too pale. The sickly pale of never seeing the sun. A dirty white wifebeater shirt and baggy cargo pants with combat boots. A true wastelander's outfit. Two legs, two arms, a head. He travels over the body – breasts, waist, hips. Dark brown hair in a ponytail that is quickly covered by a headscarf. He spots them again – the two ears perched on her head like a dog's – just before they're hidden under the folds of the scarf.
Boone watches her as she walks into Novac, glances up at Dinky, and moves to get a room at the motel. When she turns her back, the hole cut into her pants is obvious, and the long, bushy tail that sprouts even more so.
Yeah, Boone thinks to himself. Too much to drink. Too much misery. Not enough goddamn sleep.
Her eyes are gold.
He asks Ranger Andy about it as the man settles in to a plate of Brahmin. Boone didn't prefer company, but Andy kept him the loop about NCR happenings. Visiting the lonely ex-Ranger for the latest radio news sometimes turned into Andy giving him meals.
Boone didn't understand the people of Novac and their need to pity him. It gave them something to do besides worry, he supposed. Jennie Mae gave him the occasional mole-rate meat pie. Cliff gave him a ridiculous discount. Even the merchants who passed through gave him free repairs or ammo.
It was also probably because he kept them safe while they slept.
Andy nods offhandedly and pans a flank of seasoned brahimin onto Boone's plate. Andy's dinner, Boone's breakfast.
"She's a strange one alright."
"Did you talk to her?"
Andy nods and straightens his bum leg into a comfortable position as he sits.
"Came in to chat a bit. Caught me off guard, with the creepy yellow eyes and all. Slit pupils. Looked like a goddamn cat. She apologized; told me she usually wears sunglasses."
"Why is she here?"
"Didn't say. Said she was just passing through. Talked a lot to that creepy cowboy robot out front, though."
"Is she Legion?" Boone stabs the steak.
"Don't think so." Andy shrugs, his combat armor squeaking. "Too young to have an agenda, you know? Had a shotgun and a pack of supplies, but not much else."
"You didn't see the...thing on her back?"
"The what?"
"The...tail."
Andy freezes, and the two men stare at each other for a moment.
"Boone, you sleepin' all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." The sniper snaps. "Forget I said anything."
"Look, if you 'wanna assess the threat', so to speak, chat up the robot. He seemed to know a whole helluva lot about her."
The door to the motel room bursts open at that moment. In a whirl of twilight air and stray sand, a figure rushes over to Andy at the table.
"Andy! You...Y-You," The girl looks breathlessly down at a magazine in her hands, as if referencing it. "You can't let the injury get to your...um...'head'. Your 'f-fighting spirit' is not injured at all!"
In the dead silent next few seconds, the door behind her flaps against a wall with a dull thunk sound. The peach and lavender streaked sky outside highlights her clothes – white wifebeater and large pack on her back. Boone stands up immediately and leaves.
Andy calls after him. "See ya!"
The girl looks at Andy and her face crumples.
"Did I...I just found this, and it helped me to...to know what to say to encourage you. Did it...offend him?"
She looks at the plates on the table and flinches.
"I interrupted feeding time! I'm sorry Andy."
"S'all right, kid. Thanks for the encouragement. Feels good to know I'm not as useless as I think I am." The ranger chuckles and bites into his last piece of steak before wiping his hands on his pants and standing. "Why don't I teach you a fighting move, huh? Do you do much fighting with your fists?"
"My father did." She nods, head scarf shifting. "I was trained to handle the explosives, mostly, but father said we were perfect for fighting without weapons all the same."
Andy furrows his eyebrows, smiling nonetheless. "Right, well, if that's a yes, come over here where there's room. I'll teach ya a throw."
The cooling air of dusk floods Boone's lungs as he strides away from the motel room. It wasn't that the girl was particularly scary, but her sudden appearance had thrown him off guard, and if there was one thing Boone hated, it was being caught off guard. He did what he always did when surprised – retreat and watch from afar. He pauses on the steps of Dinky, watching the open doorway of Andy's room. They're talking, and sparring? No, Andy was teaching her something.
The way she moves is lithe, limber, exactly like he'd seen...whatever that thing was run last night. Her natural fighting stance is very low – unnaturally low, like she tottered on the brink of falling on to all fours, like a coyo-
He stops himself.
He'd seen a lot of shit, but it just wasn't possible.
"Vault 63, pardner!"
"What."
"You don't know what a Vault is? Geez, you musta been livin' under a rock!"
"No, I know what a goddamn Vault is." Boone seethes.
"You do? That's good for you!" The cowboy face flickers as the robot chirps. Boone hates robots.
"You know pardner, my coding doesn't say I can't say anythin' bout Courier 6, but it does say to be careful who I tell it to. My recordin' says you're the one who keeps this rootin' tootin' place safe from critters and what not, so you must be a good guy. I'll tell ya a bit if ya really want to know."
"I don't need to know her damn history," Boone growls. "I just asked you if she was with the Le-"
"Mojave Express Courier #6, Full Name: Replicated Mammal dash Four Two Seven. Age: 19. Date of Birth: May 23rd, 2263. Origin of Birth: Vault 63. Specialties; Explosives, computer hacking, stealth."
He got her history anyway.
He barely hears her before she taps him on the shoulder. He startles – something he isn't proud of – and turns to face her with a paralyzed sort of slowness.
"We have not been properly introduced as of yet." She smiles. He notes dully that she has sunglasses on that hide her disturbing eyes. "My name is RM-427."
"Boone." He tries not to stare at the head scarf and the telltale peaks he looks for underneath it.
And for some reason, he finds himself talking. Asking for help.
He doesn't know if she's Legion, or if she's NCR or some other strange tribal group. He really doesn't give a shit. She's the perfect agent for what he's been looking for – an independent, someone who has no ties or connections to the place at all. A fair adjudicator. Though her presence makes him uncomfortable and wary all at the same time, he offers compensation. Caps. Behind her thick shades, he can see the golden amber color dull when he mentions his wife.
"Do I...the beret, is that the only way I can signal you?"
He nods. She brings Jennie Mae out front.
He watches RM through the scope. Revenge clouds his mind – hot and thick. Jennie Mae has to explode in blood for him to ever be satisfied. If it was that conniving old woman, if this was really the one who put Carla up for sale –
Could he really trust the courier's word?
Boone watches. She takes the beret out of her pack, and for a second he wonders if she'll take the head scarf off to put the hat on and show him, once and for all, that what he saw on her head that night was a lie.
She puts the red cap on over the scarf.
A second of disappointment, but the revenge floods in and fills him. He focuses on Jennie Mae's pale eyes as RM makes small conversation with her.
Bone.
Blood.
It splatters on the courier's pale face.
The bill of sale is proof. She hands the hat back, wiping the flecked blood off her cheekbone.
"This is h-highly unconventional." She starts. "I do not know if you wish to travel together, but I am finding myself in need of a reliable sniper such as yourself. I do very little damage from afar. When you saved me from that cazadore –"
"I'll come with you."
Her sunglasses nearly slip off her nose with surprise. "Really?"
"You're going after someone, right? The robot told me."
Her nod is small.
"Then we're both out for revenge."
"I travel only at nighttime."
"That's fine."
"I'm a very light sleeper."
"So am I."
"The path to my revenge may take many detours."
"It always does."