Chapter 1- Good Luck, Bad Luck
"I ain't the son of the seventh son, black cats won't cross my path
Good luck comes I just watch it run and it sure does run out fast.
I wasn't born under no bad sign, but it was Friday the 13th.
East, west, no, yes , Hot, cold, tell you this,
Ain't nothin' in between.
Its either good luck - I'm the last to get it.
Bad luck - I'm the first.
When it's good, ain't nothin' better,
When it's bad, ain't nothin' worse." -Lynard Skynard, Good Luck, Bad Luck
When the courier roused, the first thing she took in was the blurry lights blaring against the night sky in the distance between the legs of her captors. Fuck you, Vegas, she thought bitterly as her head pulsed and body ached, slowly becoming aware of the pain that coursed from her joints and muscles. The second thing she noticed was that her mouth tasted like sand and dirt, which she had difficulty relieving due to a rough burlap gag tied around her head. The third and most important realization came when the courier attempted to rise and couldn't as she was bound tightly at her wrists, knees and ankles. As she shifted, the courier could hear voices talking, but paid them no mind as the panic set in. After a couple agonizing moments of struggling, one of her handlers noticed her movement.
"Guess who's waking up over here," a gruff voice spoke above her head. Instead of attempting to free herself, the courier simply rolled back a bit, twisting at the waist to look up at her present company. The voice belongs to an equally gruff looking man sporting a mohawk and brandishing a shovel, face twisted with a blend of anxiety and excitement. The courier immediately decided she didn't like this man, as her eyes rolled back under her lids with a groan.
"Time to cash out," came a much calmer, pleasant sounding voice. But the courier had already decided she'd seen enough looking at Shovel Boy.
"Would you get it over with?" another voice came from near her feet, just as rough and tough as the first. Another groan escaped her throat. Night's just getting better and better.
"Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' them in the face, but I ain't a fink. Dig?" Whoever he was, voice number two was definitely sounding a bit more promising than numbers one and three. This was enough to convince the courier to pry her eyes open again. Mr. Smooth turned out to look just like he sounded; clean cut, dark and handsome, and sporting a rather expensive looking checkered suit. Easy on the eyes, pretty boy, thought the courier idly as she observed him take the last drag of his cigarette and promptly drop it on the ground, scuffing the butt slightly with his shoe while blowing out a thin line of smoke. Turning towards her again, he met her eyes with the slightest of smirks while reaching inside his jacket to pull out her delivery; a single platinum poker chip. "You've made your last delivery, doll," he continued, tucking the chip away, "Sorry you got twisted up in this scene." She was so lulled by his seemingly cool exterior that it caught the courier entirely by surprise when he withdrew his hand again, wrapped around a beautifully detailed handgun.
"From where you're kneeling, must seem like an eighteen karat run of bad luck," he continued, the swagger in his voice still rather melodic. The courier wasn't focused on him anymore, as she watched the gun drift up from the suited man's side; coming to rest right at her eye level. "Truth is," he said, drawing her attention back to his face, "The game was rigged from the start."
For a tense second, then two, nothing happened. Time just seemed to freeze. She saw his right eye twitch slightly, followed by his right hand holding the gun. She heard the bang, saw the flash, but could not process the scene. Everything simply went black.
The next time the courier regained consciousness, there was a different kind of pain. As her eyes opened, hazy motions sharpened into a slowly rotating fan, caked with dust attached to an aged ceiling covered in peeling paint. The fact that she was alive and unsure where she was or even if she was safe was not at the forefront of her thoughts. She felt...empty. Nothing was there inside her mind. No daydreams, no memories; it was like picking up an old book that looked like it'd been read over and over but finding the pages blank and faded. It did not take the courier long to panic. As quickly as her foggy mind and sore body could manage, the courier began to sit up. A gentle warmth pressed against her shoulder, pushing her back into place.
"Woah there, take it easy. Nice and slow. It's good to see you awake, but we need to take some baby steps here," said a raspy voice outside of the courier's current range of vision. Feeling weak, she let the pressure lead her back down. Once on her back, the courier let her head loll to the side, recognizing the presence on her shoulder as an old, calloused hand. Said hand belonged to a rather gentle looking elderly man, bald head and ashy mustache coming second to the look of kindness and concern in his eyes. A soft pat from the hand still on her shoulder and the smile he offered seemed to convince the courier into complacency, as she relaxed without further struggle. The old man seemed to move slowly for her benefit as he began to check her over, touching her upper left temple gingerly for a bit, then moving on to roll her head back and forth. He seemed to finish his check up after helping her move her arms and legs, checking for any type of paralysis or muscle atrophy. All the while, the courier's eyes wandered around the room, eying the desks where papers had been strewn about, doctors tables with residual stains, and the bubbling chemistry set in the corner. Still not recognizing any of her surroundings, she became increasingly confused as to how she ended up in here. Seeing her brow furrow, the old man put his hand on her shoulder again, and gained her attention.
"Let's see about getting you up. Ready?" he asked, smile coming back. Uneasily, the courier nodded. The man gripped her shoulder and his other free hand grasping her elbow of her opposite arm firmly. As he started to pull her upward, the courier flexed her abs, trying to help the process, but the sudden feeling of vertigo limited her in assisting. After a moment, she managed to sit up on her own, hands pressed firmly into the mattress she'd been occupying. After he was certain she wouldn't fall over, the elderly man hooked his hands under the couriers knees, and slowly shifted them off the bed so that she now sat on the edge. There was a brief thundering sound in the couriers ears as her heart worked harder to pump the blood vertically up her body. Seeing the courier go rigid and still, the man backed away and sat on a nearby stool a small distance from her.
"Very good. Now that we got you upright, let's try something else. I'm Doc Mitchell, and this here town is Goodsprings. I'd say welcome, but you seemed to get quite an exciting welcome as it is already," the doctor chuckled and continued, "How about your name. Do you remember your name, little missy?"
The courier threw a concentrated stare at the man as she dug through the dark fog of her mind, trying so hard to to grasp at something, anything, but it just wouldn't come. Not a name, or a face; just...nothingness. Her eyes dropped to the floor and stared at her bare knees and feet. She heard the doctor clear his throat.
"It's alright if you can't remember. Things can take time to get back to normal after getting shot in the head and buried alive," Mitchell said with a chuckle. The courier groaned, her lowered stare boring holes into the floorboards. She felt so...helpless...and it frustrated her. She couldn't say why, but she hated this feeling of being lost, being miles behind and not knowing what had happened. Her gaze drifted from the floor to the side, where a pile of papers had scattered beside her bed. Colors, small print, pictures...then one advertisement caught her attention. A pretty blonde woman decorated the front of it, dressed in white dawning a regal smile. In big bold letters next to her, the advertisement read:
"Open all night...Rita's Cafe...Our pies are outta' this world!"
The phrase made the corners of the courier's mouth quirk a bit, and she mulled it around in her head a bit. As it stood, it seemed she wouldn't remember anything anytime soon, and the catchphrase stuck when everything else seemed so cloudy. Breaking into a small smile, she looked up at the old doctor and quietly spoke her first words since waking from into this new reality from a terrible nightmare.
"Rita. My name is Rita."