Numbers Make Me Nervous
"You're a coward Theresa."
This was not the answer Theresa Miller had been expecting, and she squirmed on her barstool just under the shade of a tin roof. She had gone to Russel for help, for she needed all the help she could get. And now she wanted to rip him limb from limb for his insolence. He didn't even look at her to say that. She took a breath, and remembered when she had been under the influence of 'the Beast,' and in a moment of paranoia she thought the Beast had come back. It was all out of proportion was her thought, the rage. But never would she let it enter her mind that Russel, curt as he was, was right.
As Theresa struggle with her self-control, Russel took another sip of what smelled like a lemon julep. For a man in the bounty hunter business, he drank it delicately, his rough, dirty hands grasped the cheap plastic cup by the tips of the fingers, and not even all the fingers.
Theresa's head hurt mightily under the dirty and sweat covered bandage. She convinced herself the rage was brain damage and not guilt. Being shot in the head does lead itself to many problems; Headaches, epileptic fits, loss of impulse control….
Finally the moment passed, the pain lessened to dullnesss and Theresa said as evenly as she could, "I don't think that's quite fair…"
"Yeah!" cried the girl behind Theresa.
"Oh crap!" thought Theresa. She hadn't known Willow long, they'd met just yesterday. And here Willow was,about to pick a fight with a former Desert Ranger. Who was now a bounty hunter. And even though he was wearing the old uniform of the Desert Rangers, khaki rodeo pants and a long matte green duster, the poor girl from Klamath had no idea.
Theresa tried to grab the hem of Willow's light brown Gecko leather jacket, but in her rush to defend Theresa's honor, the jacket slipped through Theresa's fingers.
Willow continued on and got right in Russel's face. "You don't know anything about Ms. Miller, sir. I just saw her walk-"
As she had started her indignant defense, Russel, calm as anything, and showing way too much limbering for civil conversation, put the drink down and stood up and faced Willow. He did not look amused. Willow took a long look in that face, one side long and lean, the other warped with burn scars and a hideous mark that Russel's eye patch could not completely cover.
"I….I…."
"Something wrong, kid?" he said evenly.
Willow saved herself, saying, "No….not at all. But it just so happened that I saw Ms. Miller here walk right into a tense standoff between the NCR and the Great Khans. And this is days, DAYS after being shot twice in the head! Went right in and-"
"Charmed the pants off of them I imagine," Russel finished for her, "And I bet she worked out a solution where both sides could save face. Am I right?"
"You….you heard already?" asked Willow.
"Kid, how long have you known Theresa?"
"I, I met her just yesterday, and in that time she's-"
"Well, child, I've known this courier a lot longer than you. And let me tell you something about couriers: they can be plenty brave, they go lots of places even tribals fear to tread, but at the end of the day, they're mailmen. No fight is ever their own. They're a neutral party. They aren't willing to make hard decisions, they aren't willing stand up for the weak and vulnerable, and they will ALWAYS kowtow to those in power."
Theresa had been upset at being called a coward, and now she was apoplectic. She threw herself of the wooden barstool so fast that she nearly fell over. The barstool did however and hit the broken asphalt with an echoing thud. This caught the attention of the few noon-day patrons of this roadside stand, and even the bartender looked at her warily as he cleaned a pitcher with a dirty rag.
"I saved Silverwood with you! It was my sentry bots that decimated the Centuria," she pronounced the word with a hard K sound, as it appropriate in Latin, "I helped you, I was the one that put Titus Volcanus down for the count so you could finish him off!"
"Who's Titus Volcanus?!" asked Willow, although neither arguer paid her any mind nor in fact Theresa did not hear her.
Russel looked at Theresa, and towered over her to the point that what he chiefly saw were the metal rings in the band of her hat. Russel did his level best not to scream at Theresa. "Oh really? So why don't you tell your friend about what you did afterwards? Cause I offered to go with you, shoot up the Legion, constrict their supply lines, free every slave within 50 miles of the Colorado. But you didn't want to do that….so like the gutless, amoral coward you are, you went groveling to Caesar, begging for forgiveness on your knees, paying him in gold so he would stop hunting you down like a dog."
"We did do that!" protested. "Remember Canyon Cove? How we took out reinforced cohort? Rescued a hundred slaves? And what did it change? Nothing, they put a whole a whole Legion on the banks of the river and crucified the slaves that tried to get away. You, me, Doc Friday, we hit Dry Wells like a freight truck, and it didn't even slow the Legion down. And" Theresa put up a pale, lanky finger to make a point, "I would like to add, to be fair, just to be fair, I used all the money I got from looting his assassins to buy his pardon."
That didn't impress him and he sneered at me. "You make me sick, Theresa. You've seen what the Legion does: you've seen the slavery, the rape, the crucifixions, what they do to any town that stands in their way. Hell you even had me convinced at one point putting up with NCR's bullshit was the only way to keep the Legion at bay. So finally, when you were corned, you had to stand up and do the right thing, you did. Good for you. Kept the townsfolk from going up on crosses, that was great. Then you turned your back on the right thing to go back to delivering mail!"
Russel took his hand, and titled her head up to make sure when he stared into her bright green eyes it would bore into her soul. And it did. "People are going to suffer, and continue to suffer, because of you. People are going to die."
"So how do you manage?" Theresa asked peevishly, "Really, Legion breathing down your back, assassins on your trail?"
"Frankly, I don't give a shit. They haven't come after me in a while. I think Caesar learned his lesson. I'm just not worth it."
Theresa felt another ache, a pressure behind her eyes from the anger. "I….They shot up my house, I couldn't go anywhere without a sentry bot watching my back, I was asked not to come back to work until I got rid of the thing, it was scaring customers. We're supposed to be discrete, you know…I have the armor of three Centurions in my possession. We killed THREE Centurions together, that's more than most Rangers can say."
"NCR Rangers maybe," muttered Russel in derision. Despite his contempt for the NCR, he didn't dare say it too loud lest a Ranger over hear him and kick his ass for it.
Theresa felt a bitter wave of rejection sweep through her. "So, you're not going to help me? I got robbed, shot in the head, barely survived, and when I need all the help I can get, you're going to stand there?"
Russel didn't answer me right away. He walked back to his barstool and took drink of his julep. "You're not worth getting worked up over. You've proven that. Come and see me sometime when you want to actually make a difference." Russel tried to remain calm but inwardly pleaded with Theresa to prove him wrong. Make it okay.
"OK, then," said Theresa quietly, hollowly. She put the barstool upright and said "Come'on Willow," and waved her hand away from Russel. "We're done here."
Russel did not look back, but he was crushed.
Theresa for her part felt hopeless and lost. She'd had many companions over many decades of Courier service, but Russel had been an especially capable friend. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, things she couldn't talk about in public. If only he would have come with her to her home in Boulder City, where they could be alone in the basement…
And amidst her disappointment, her feelings of alienation, she missed the beautiful day all around her. It was October in the Las Vegas valley, warm, but not hot, with very little humidity. Unlike the Vegas of her youth, genetically engineered pines grew from the barren dust of the desert like cactuses, with just browning grass growing right up and through the broken asphalt of the 188 trade post. Off a short ways these genetically engineered pines grew to nearly the density of light woods, with taller, more luxuriant grasses and flowers growing in their shade. It was too late to smell their scents on the breeze, and besides, the smell of sweat and dirty clothes would have drowned it all out anyways. This world of the post apocalypse was very different from the world she knew, the world as it was. If she had looked out and saw all this, she would have remembered she did not belong, not anymore. And she did not notice to keep her heart from aching in ways deeper than mere acrimony can inflict.
Theresa heard the quickening steps of Willow behind her, and wished that like Niner, she had gone off her own way. Theresa unconsciously quickened her pace to clear the worn and cracked picnic tables where patrons would gather at the bar for food in the evening. As she climbed down the onramp hill down to highway 93, Willow caught up with her and tugged as her thick, black leather jacket sleeve.
"OK, that was interesting. Can you tell me what the hell that was about?"
Theresa sighed. This happened every time she traveled with companions. "I've got a long history Willow. And that was…less fortunate than I expected."
Willow tried very hard not to roll her eyes, but at 19 her self-control failed. That response was cryptic and interesting, but didn't answer any of her questions. Locking eyes with Theresa she pleaded, "OK, then, tell me!"
Theresa's brain flooded with lust. Willow was by her estimation an Aryan Beauty, with cornsilk blonde hair and deep blue eyes, flushed with youth and not yet displaying any ugliness of personality or temperament. Theresa felt like a dirty old woman, because despite the lack of wrinkles and a full head of auburn hair she was older than this girl's grandfather. Thoughts of sucking, parts of Willow, almost any parts gave Theresa a visceral thrill. Of course, trying to think of any specific part left Theresa feeling deprived.
Theresa forced herself to calm down and think, so to Willow there was a long pause. Theresa blamed this outburst of lust on the head wound. Even by 22nd century standards, being up and about ten days after being shot in the head was nothing short of a medical miracle. It also gave Theresa the excuse that her impulse control was out of sorts. And it could actually be true.
But even though Theresa wanted quite desperately to deflower all that sweet, sweet innocence. She knew she never would. Willow was too young, almost certainly too ready to form attachments, and Theresa was already committed. Theresa put away her lust and tried to look at Willow with a mother's eyes.
Maybe taking her along was a mistake, but the girl's from Klamath. Nevada will eat her alive if someone doesn't watch out for her, thought Theresa.
She sighed and took to walking down the hillside again. As she made pains to not trip over the clumps of wilting grass, she said, "I got into bounty hunting a few years ago, a quick way to make some cash. Well, that was fun, and eventually I hooked up with Russel. We were tracking down tribal killing dirtbag name of Glanton. We tracked him to a little town called Silverwood, an NCR settlement in the Arizona foothills…."
"But you had sentry-bots with you?" said Willow.
"Yeah, he had a gang, a big one, it was just two of us otherwise. Plus it's the frontier and you can't be too careful. Mojave's pretty dangerous if you aren't careful but the frontier is where all kinds of degenerates hang out."
Willow didn't understand completely, but nodded.
"Anyway, the town had hired him to wipe out the local tribe, the Sand Wolves, I believe. We were going to track him down and stop the massacre when we got word the tribe had contacted Caesar's Legion. We think, I'm not sure, but it seems likely the tribe accepted assimilation in the Legion in exchange for destroying Silverwood. I can't much blame them."
"So they both wanted to kill each other? Completely?"
Theresa stopped and looked at Willow and smiled a sad rueful smile. "Willow, tribes have rules, civilized people have rules. The explorers and adventurers that bridge the gap between them…often times they don't. And first contact quickly becomes horrific."
Willow felt a pang of remorse for something she had never done."So…it was us civilized folks that caused everything to go bad?"
I nodded. "Yeah, in Silverwood's case, it was. They killed a lot of Sand Wolves before the Sand Wolves fought back, and by the time the settlers came to the valley, the Sand Wolves would kill a civilized person on sight. I saw some of their handiwork….it was pretty horrible….anyway the Legion sent a whole Centuria after the village. The Legion understands there's no kill like overkill."
"So, you saved them?"
Theresa sighed. "Wiped out an entire Centuria. All 100 men. Me, Russel, some town folks manning the wall and three sentry bots just outside. Don't let anyone ever tell you Legion uses mostly blades: I killed at least three of them with Heavy Incinerators….think flamethrower, but launches little napalm balls across the Colorado River."
Willow didn't get it. She bit her lip and her eyebrows bent down. "I haven't seen the Colorado yet, remember? I just got here in in the Mojave Wasteland two days ago."
"Oh yeah…." said Theresa. For her the small meandering of the Colorado was second nature to her. "when things calm down….I'll have to show you. Anyway, we kill the Centuria, we kill its Centurion, that was Titus Volcanus, and for a hot minute, we were heroes of the NCR."
"I didn't hear about it," said Willow.
"Egh, my pride. Come," and they walked down to the road.
This was the 188 Trading Post, the interchange between Highways 93 and 95. Unlike I-15, the Long 15 to locals, the NCR hadn't repaved these roads. Instead, supplies and men to Hoover Dam were transported along rail lines to the depot in Boulder City. As it was, the interchange was blocked off with traders and stalls and parked large trucks, meaning that the vehicles of the Las Vegas Valley had to either go through the interchange at less than 5 miles an hour (in practice less so because here pedestrians walked in front of the intermittent Brahmin cart, horse, or auto rickshaw without the slightest notice or fear). Most vehicles, including the heavy military trucks of the NCR, simply drove through the dust around the 188 entirely. Theresa was sure if the NCR won, and consolidated its hold in the Valley, they would close down the post and return the interchange to road traffic exclusively.
There were no vehicles on the horizon, but out of old, pre-war habits, Theresa moved very quickly to the median strip, a lifeless stretch of dirt under the two lanes of overhead traffic. In between the two bridges overhead, a corridor of light shown through to the underpass and past the north-south roads by the concrete retaining wall was a was an Asian boy of no more than 12, Theresa had never been able to guess his age, with a large red metal trap on his head. He was surrounded by bits of junk, burned books, and worn suitcases, all flanked from behind by a battered, faded and burnt American flag hung on the retaining wall. Theresa liked to consider herself a fool for no government, but even after all she had been through she felt a surge of pride at seeing that flag. Then remembered how many terrible things and terrible people that flag had given cover too.
"What's this?" asked Willow.
"This is the Forecaster's place. See that kid over there? Why don't you go talk to him?"
"Why?"
"Well, you wanted to see the Mojave, right? Here's your first sight to see."
"You are going to take me back to see Dinky the Dinosaur, right?" Theresa was kind of annoyed at this. Everyone knew about the tourist trap giant dinosaur in Novac, it was obvious. This kid, however, was more of a hidden gem.
"First I gotta see Benny, then we're coming around to help Novac." Willow shuddered a little. Benny was the man who had shot Theresa, robbed her of the package she was supposed to deliver, and as they had just discovered this morning, betrayed his bodyguards at the first opportunity. This was a bad man, and considering he ran one of the casinos in Vegas, a very powerful and connected bad man. This made Willow scared, but not scared enough to back out of helping Theresa. It sounded dangerous, but also fun to a 19 year old.
Theresa mistook this shudder, and thought it was about what SHE was going to do to Benny. Benny was a snake. Benny could have simply robbed simply robbed her and left, and Theresa would have laughed it off, after she got the upper hand at least. But if the shooting her in the head bit hadn't convinced her that she was well within her rights to kill the sonavbitch and his tacky checkerboard suit jacket, the fact he left his guides to be shot to pieces by the NCR left no doubt. She was going to enjoy killing Benny.
Like a lot of urchins in the Mohave, the Forecaster actually had clothes, even right fitting shoes, but they were very dirty and worn, wrinkled and beige looking to the point where neither Willow nor Theresa could tell where the original colors ended and the Mohave dust began. He was sitting on the ground, so Willow had to bend at the hips to get to roughly eye level with him.
"Well hi fellow!" said Willow. "I'm Willow, who are you?"
"Well hello, ma'am," replied the boy, "My name is Brian, but people around here call me the Forecaster. I hope you're doing fine today." This was a practiced speech and a bit too formulaic for Theresa's taste, although she conceded it was a bit of demand that a boy who should be in elementary school should know showmanship.
"Hmm," said Willow, "Well, can I ask where your parents are?"
"I don't have a mama and a papa anymore, I see them sometimes when I take off my medicine, but they can't stay. So I'm pretty used to being alone."
"Oh," said Willow, "that's so sad...um, can I ask what your medicine is? Is that red...metal thing...you're wearing?"
"Oh yes ma'am," the Forecaster replied politely.
"And you sell this junk around here?" she asked, looking this way and that. Theresa was disappointed in her. A kid is called the Forecaster, claims to see the dead and Willow stammers out that she thinks he sells burned books and some worn out cameras and piles of old currency.
But whether I was this dense at 19 is an open question, thought Theresa. And she looked on passively, interested in how this exchange would pan out. It was always interesting taking people to see the Forecaster.
"It's not junk," he said evenly, "they're thoughts."
"Thoughts?" Willow sounded confused.
"Yes, it took thoughts to make them, and the thoughts got stuck inside. I need other people's thoughts to fill my head when I'm not thinking...otherwise it gets kinda lonely."
"You can hear thoughts?" she bent down to pick up a book, an old, badly degraded copy of something. I doubt I would have been able to read the spine even if were in my hand "From a book?"
"Well, not right now miss. When I have my medicine on, I can't think, really think." He touched the red metal bond around his head.
"Why do you call it your medicine?"
"It's headache medicine ma'am My head hurts real bad without it. But I can't think with it on, I mean really think."
"So, let me get this straight, if you take off your medicine, you can hear thoughts coming out of the book?" She wobbled the book for good measure.
"Well, yeah, I can hear lots of things. Most people around here find it mighty interesting. Some call it a gift, other say it's something anyone could do if they just listened more than they talk. I dunno either way."
"Well, let's test that," Theresa said, wanting to show off this Mojave wonder.
Willow looked at Theresa, as though she'd forgotten she was there. And to be fair, it was a trippy, confusing conversation. Theresa reached into her wallet, thumbed through the bills and brought out two bills. "I'll give you 200 brownbacks to think about me."
He refused with a wave of his hand, "Oh no, ma'am, NCR dollars are worth 40% on the cap. I want caps or pre-war money."
Ugh, thought Theresa. So he was going to be particular. Theresa opened up her wallet, replaced the bownback with green. In this case, a much worn 10,000 dollar bill, with a very well aged portrait of Salmon P. Chase in the center. Hyperinflation being what it was a century ago, 10,000 dollars was only about 100 caps in goods and services. Theresa hoped he wasn't so particular that he'd refuse this bill and insist on the much rarer 100 dollar bill, which had the same value. Even in the post-apocalypse, bad money chased out good. But Theresa didn't need to worry and the Forecaster took the 10,000 note into his pocket.
Theresa side stepped to get closer to Willow, and nudged her with the elbow. "Watch."
The Forecaster detached the chin strip and pulled the metal thing over his head. Theresa stared directly into his blank eyes so he'd get a good read on her.
Almost in a trance he spoke, "You're face does the thinking- two to the skull and yet one gets up."
Willow nudged Theresa but she ignored her. Theresa knew from experience you only get one chance with the Forecaster, and then it was gone forever.
"Odds are against you...but they're just numbers after the two to one. You're playing the hand you've been dealt, you don't let it rest, you shuffle and stack and a gamble..." His eyes seemed to gloss over and he shook his head violently, "A gamble that may pay off, but how? Forecast: rapidly changing conditions."
He put on the metal thing again. He looked at Theresa and said, "A lot of thinking. Most of it in your face, it's almost shouting at me" He took a deep breath.
Theresa was near panicking. You see, Benny hadn't simply ambushed her and shot her. No, he'd had an entire conversation with her, apologizing that he had to do what he was about to do. Now there was doubt, if there had been any, that package she'd been hired to carry to Strip gate in Freeside, it was the real deal. It would decide the fate of Nevada. This confirmation made Theresa's blood run cold. Theresa became lost in her own thoughts for several mintues as the weight of everything crushed down on her soul. Everything she'd ever tried to avoid since waking up in this new world
Willow looked at her with shock, and then at the kid. "How do you know all that?"
The boy looked at her, almost confused, although this was a question he was asked a lot in his line of work. "I don't know anything ma'am, I think it, then I don't. Sorry if I said anything weird."
"He doesn't remember," said Theresa at last. "You only get one chance with the Forecaster, so you have to pay attention. Now, little man, I will give you another 10,000 note to tell me about the Mojave, in general."
"You sound nervous miss."
Theresa gulped. "Yeah, oh yeah, you got me really concerned. Now you want the money or not?"
He took in a deep breath, put his hands on his thighs as if to brace himself for the challenge, and accepted. So another 10,000 bank note, this one in much worse repair found its way into his pocket.
Again, he took off his 'medicine' again his eyes went blank, but this time instead of facing Theresa, he looked out to the west, along the open road of highway 93. "Bull and bear over the dam, at each other's throats...but a light from Vegas? Ball spinning on the wheel, more than two at the table. Placing bets."
Anyone with a brain knows that, thoughtTheresa. The only difference is with me I know there's four people at the table, not three…and maybe I'm the fifth? My God…
"All lose in different ways. A Dam of corpses, towns of corpses, scattered across the sand. But who's and in what shares? Even the dealer doesn't know. Forecast: a rain of blood with flood the desert, and not purify it."
The words 'towns of corpses' hit her like a speeding train. She froze very unheroically for a moment. Dully, she asked. "Which towns?"
He went to put that metal thing on.
"Which towns?!" Theresa hollered. She began to rush the kid, but Willow pulled her back. Theresa threw her off of and planted her hands on the kid, "WHICH TOWNS?!"
The Forecaster looked at her in utter horror, a glassy eyed horror of one awking from a nightmare but not yet fully restored to the land of the waking. Theresa let go of his shirt, a dirty cloth stiff with sweat and dust, something Theresa would have found disgusting to touch if she weren't wearing leather gloves. She was ashamed of herself for treating a child like that. She might have left in in self disgust, but she needed answers; leaving towns to die was not something she could live with.
The Forecaster, even as he regained his senses, remained utterly still in his terror, a survival instinct that had no place in human interaction. He didn't speak, he barely breathed, his hand still gripping his 'medicine' frozen at his side where it had gone limp when Theresa had grabbed him.
Theresa looked back to Willow, who was understandably shocked. Theresa took the conscious measure of taking another step back so as to get out of the Forecaster's personal space. Then she commanded the Forecaster, "Put on your helme….your medicine. Put it on."
He did as he was asked. His eyes returned to a fuller understanding. Then they rolled back into his head, which fell down slightly. He was steadying himself although the heaving sound made it clear he was feeling something like motion sickness.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Willow.
It was the boy who answered, "Blech, thinking about everywhere always makes me feel a little sick."
Theresa hated asking, but she felt she had no choice. Which of course, she definitely had a choice. "Now…do you want to make another 100 caps?"
He appeared hesitant, "I don't know ma'am. I think you're a real dangerous lady and I don't know how you're going to handle what I think."
"I apologize." She opened my wallet and took out three brownbacks: two hundreds and a fifty "But my money's good. Can you tell me about here? Specifically, I need help from a friend, and I don't know what to say."
The boy took the money nervously. He took it much like a dog who takes a treat and is half expecting to be hit. "I can't make any promises. OK, here goes." He took off the helmet, and this time he said, "Local, local, the here and now…little of interest. Things to buy, false hopes and regrets washed down with dirty glasses. With regret comes a girl…smiling sad, brown robe, name Veronica, half here. Wraps her and her heart up like a pack, a key some say. Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of friendship."
On the one hand, Theresa was naturally curious about this girl; she had a package for one Veronica Santangelo, someone she never expected to find. On the other, Theresa felt she'd wasted her money; she needed Russel's help.
But she thought Then again, if I was short on cash, I could kill a Fiend (of the gang of that name or any other), salvage their gun and drugs and make it back in a day. So blowing a hundred, or three hundred isn't that big of a deal. Still, getting Russel to help me was at the top of my things to do this afternoon. As is I'm going to have to go into a man's casino with a sweet tempered 19 year old, and….my other companion. Speaking of which, I thought to myself, where the hell is Niner? I hope he hadn't gotten himself in trouble. Wait, no, this place is small enough I'd hear something.
"That was way less dramatic than the last two," Willow offered.
Theresa couldn't help agreeing with her, nodded, and waited for the Forecaster to replace his 'Medicine.'
"Ow!" he snapped, "Thinking about one place only causes a little pain, but it's a sharp one." Theresa thought this one hurt annoyed him more than the last forecast had made him feel sick.
"Can you tell me about me? It won't hurt right?" asked Willow.
He looked at her with the softly rounded eyes of a boy who may not have been wholly of Asian decent. "Oh no ma'am, I don't think I'll be thinking for a long time."
"How bout a week?" Theresa asked. "I ah, need you to think about towns, specific towns."
Now the negotiations began. For the Forecaster did experience discomfort in his forecasting, but if there was extra money to be had, he might be willing to suffer a little more. Theresa suspected this, but wasn't in a position to drive a hard bargain.
"In a week? I dunno, maybe two weeks."
"I'll pay you 200 per town."
"I already have all the money I need."
Theresa smelled a lie but decided to grease the wheels anyway. "300."
He looked at her, astonished, "What did I tell you?"
"Towns of corpses," Theresa reported with all due seriousness. "So it's really, REALLY important you tell me which towns. Lives depend on it."
He looked at her as though she were slow and spoke calmly to her "You know what what's going to kill them, and you know why they're going to kill them."
Little Bastard, thought Theresa. She said, "Kid, I'm a Courier, I can't fight the Legion on my own!"
"But you think you can stop them?"
"Um…no. Not on my own. But I can help. I need to know where to go. I'll adopt you if you'll give me the names of the towns in danger."
He thought about this, saying, "All right. Come see me in a week, 300 per town. And no adoption, I like it here. No school."
Theresa snorted at this. And a second later, when it hit her, so did Willow.
"Fine by me." So Theresa walked away, with Willow in tow.
"That, that was incredible," said Willow.
"Yeah, a real Mojave sight."
"No, Theresa, I mean that was really incredible." She stopped and made a motion with both hands "Can that little kid really tell the future?"
Theresa pointed to the middle of the roadway "Out of the roadway." And once they were in the median again, Theresa continued "Oh yeah, you tell me? He got the two the head right, what does that tell you?"
"Anyone can see your bandage," Willow said it, but wasn't quite convinced herself.
"Most people would think it a headband. And besides, two the skull? Not one?"
Willow nodded her head to process the thought, then felt a flash of inspiration and said, "Well, I have to be honest with you, a lot of caravaneers talk about putting two in the skull when you fight bandits. 'Gotta make sure'" she said with a false baritone. "But still…"
"I think…I think after I get you to Vegas, we should part ways. Come," Theresa stopped speaking as she quickly darted across the road to the hill of the overpass, as though expecting any moment to be carried on the grill of a semi-tractor trailer. As they climbed up the hill, she said to Willow without looking back, "It's going to get real, real dangerous."
"I'm up for danger!" quipped Willow.
Theresa turned around and gave her a look of contempt, a look that enraged Willow because it was the 'I'm an adult and you are a child, and you had best do as I say,' look.
Willow had been on her own for two years traveling through the NCR, and in that time had survived a deathclaw packs of Golden Geckos and more traveling companions than she could readily remember. So she barely heard Theresa say "Kid you have a flower in a straw hat. You're a tourist, and you're as ill-suited to fighting the Legion as the conscripts NCR keeps sending to the dam. You don't deserve to die at nineteen."
"Hey, I managed to fight that thug that stole Beauty!" And she reached for her rifle secured to her back.
Theresa hadn't been with Willow when she'd recovered her rifle; the group had split with Niner and Willow chasing down her robbers on bike and Theresa taking care of business at the Mojave Outpost Checkpoint. Nonetheless, Niner, being an artist with a submachine gun, had told Theresa everything she needed to know about the 'recovery'
"Yeah, and the fact that you're firing a 45-70 rifle is impressive in and of itself, but you haven't killed anyone. You may have shot AT those thugs, but you didn't actually shoot them. Niner shot them. If you had killed one of them, you'd be a wreck right now."
She bristled at this. "I'm not scared of the Legion!"
Halfway up the hill, Theresa turned and pointed a single finger at her. "You should be! Their frumenatarii can be anyone, they can infiltrate anywhere, and slit your throat in your sleep."
"I'm not stupid Theresa! I don't want to fight the Legion, but if they're going to make 'towns of corpses' and I have a chance to stop that, well I can't sit by. I can shoot plenty straight when I have to."
In Theresa's estimation, that was a lie, although Willow didn't know it to be a lie. Killing people is a hell of a thing, and you need to be prepared mentally and spiritually to not be destroyed by it.
"We'll talk about it when we get to Vegas," said Theresa.
"But I can fight!" protested Willow, feeling she was about to be ejected from Theresa's entourage. "I feel safer with you and Niner."
Theresa considered what was fair for Willow, and said, "I'm not saying I'm going to make you leave. We'll discuss it later. First let's find Niner, and see if this Veronica exists."
