I can't decide

Whether you should live or die

It felt like a hundred years, sitting in the damn Mojave waiting for them.

Nobody talked. One of the Great Khans, Jessup, opened his mouth to say something, but one look from Benny shut him up, and he went back to digging. The Chairman was not the mood for idle talk or pointless words, not when the key to winning the whole Strip lock and barrel was going to walk up that pavement and into his pocket. McMurphy was furiously pushing out a shallow grave, barley big enough to hold a body, but hell to it. Nobody was going to launch a search party for a courier with a worthless fancy poker chip.

The three other Khans sat dully, sharpening a sharp knife or fiddling with a gun. It was waiting game, and the Khans were never good at those sort of things.

Benny fingered Maria and adjusted his collar. The sun, even though it was hanging by a thread in the sky, seemed to be a tad more merciless than custom, as if the Mojave'd turned its big stage light in their direction before the curtains closed. Which it damned should. What was about to happen was going to change the whole desert forever and call it close on an old era of New Vegas. Of the Mojave itself.

Deciding that the courier wasn't going to miss him in two seconds, he turned to the Khans. The silence had made his mind whirl, planning weeks ahead, trying to get everything ready for the moment when they set off for the Strip. Things were gonna move fast. "Let me do the talking," he told the five Khans, making clear eye contact with all of them. "When they come, I'll walk down and give 'em a story. You take another route and get behind quietly, and give him a quick kick in the head. Don't work, then do whatever the hell you can to get him down."

He held his finger in the air threatingly. "But I don't want nobody putting a damn finger on them after that."

Brief silence. They nodded and went back to work.

He turned. No courier. Overcome with a sudden thirst, he bent down and dug through the small duffle bag that held all their food. Feeling a plastic bottle, he pocketed Maria and screwed the cap open. The water, though dirty, was gold down his throat. It was rare inside the Strip for him to ever get a thirsty as he was now, rare compared to how he was back in tribal days. Almost nostalgic. And he was going to make sure once he had the Chip he'd never go thirsty again.

Speak of the damned devil. When Benny lowered the now-empty bottle, he saw the courier suddenly break the orange horizon and continue down the road at a steady pace, a streak of black against a dark orange backdrop.

He tossed it, fished out Maria, and put it in his inner coat pocket. Here we go pussycat. "Hey, come on. Game's starting."

Walking down the hill wasn't difficult, but he hurried regardless. The plan relied on him getting on the road before the approaching courier saw him, or the sweet words he had cooked up were gonna be significantly less sweeter.

It seemed he couldn't move his damned feet faster. He felt a bit of weight lift as he felt shoe hit pavement, and looking up, he didn't think the figure saw him. Damn. Okay.

He examined himself with a mental eye. Checkered coat gave him the air of rich fink. He'd ruffled his hair on the way down and'd built up a good sweat. Maria was safely hidden in his coat. Potentially rich and ragged fink. Easier to trust. He scanned for the Khans, and his heart beat a bit better when he couldn't find them. The damn plan might actually work. It all was banked on the courier now whether it went smooth or rough, and Benny preferred the smooth option, if only it would make getting the Chip that easier. He started walking forward, making sure his step was tired. Tribal instincts stirred, and he let them. Everything was teetering on a razor's edge. His suit was a problem in itself. If they thought he was new, or didn't look like he was wandering enough, or his story didn't match, they'd get too suspicious, and he couldn't invest the whole pot in the Khans. Most likely, the courier would go down no matter what happened, but there was that chance he'd be bleeding on the hot road and his Chip would be running the other way.

Calm your damn head. Shit like this is what's gonna ruin the game.

What he wouldn't give for a smoke right now.

The courier was clear in his sights. He breathed deep. No going back. He heard a high whistle and he thought it was the wind but he was still hot and he felt nothing. No, it was the courier. The courier was whistling.

Starting a hurried step, the figure became gradually more and more clear, and his fears of perception were becoming less and less real. Firstly, they were a she. A lone broad, who was slowing down now and cutting off the whistling as they saw him coming. As he came closer, he saw more. She was wearing a pale cowboy hat, overalls with a simple blue longsleeve, pre-War boots, and goddamn gardening gloves. Her duffel bag hung limp around her shoulders, barley full from the looks of it. Everything about her seemed patched together, as if she'd found it on the road after a rip in the jeans.

Nah, Benny didn't pin her as that. That hat, maybe, but he noted the overalls had "Express Courier" stitched to the side. For the barest of a second he glanced for pockets, and found one on her chest and two at her side. Which one had the Chip, he figure out soon.

Sure enough, she had a gun, a .99, strapped to her side. She pulled it out when he approached and he stopped, maybe ten feet from her. Benny couldn't get an exact tell from her face, but he imagine it was mostly confusion and suspicion running through her. Which was what he had planned for.

He raised his hands innocently. "Hold on there, cat, I ain't the bad guy. You don't need to waste a bullet on me."

She stared at him, glancing at his jacket and his hair. Hers, he saw, was a cornsilk color, tied in a long ponytail under the hat. It was messy, but it matched her white complexion. Gave her an air of cute.

As expected, she must've checked him okay, because she holstered her gun even though her expression was that of caution. "Who're you?" she asked, her voice wary.

Waving his hands and looking at her apologetically, as if saying Yeah, lookie me. Whatcanya do?, he said, "Just a rich man suddenly finding himself with a lotta bad luck and a tail between his legs."

"How'd that happen?"

"Had a good game goin' at the town up the road-"

"It's a gambling town?" she asked incredulously, and he could've kissed her feet for her naïve. If she didn't know Goodsprings, she didn't know anything. Which meant she was new to the Mojave. Which meant, thank Lady Luck, she was just as frisky as he was. Or, at least, just as unprepared. "Someone told me it was just a little home town."

He smiled, a real charmer he pulled when he wanted a cheap and pretty doll up in his suite. "Bingo, doll. Nice little home town maybe, but real big in the cards. I had my finger on its sweet spot 'til I tried to do the do with the Strip. Ended up with a gun to my head and a hand on my caps. Now I'm shuffling to Vegas empty with nothin' but hope."

Silence. She watched him. He smiled innocently and a bit guilty at her. The cogs in her head turned, and behind her, he saw a Khan, and then another, creep from behind a set of rocks and slowly step their way down the road. They were maybe thirty feet away. He maybe had twenty seconds.

Then she did something that he'd never expected, not even from a doll like her. With a sigh, she twisted her duffel bag to her front and zipped it open. Behind her the Khans kept coming. He heard other guns and boxes and tin cans clack against each other as her hand dug through the bag and he was wondering what the hell she was doing when she grasped something and threw it at him.

But Benny was a quick man and he caught it. It was a water bottle, maybe a quarter full, with clear, clean water, unlike what he and the Khans had. The shock flit through him and he couldn't hold his face down quick enough. He looked up. She briefly smiled at him. Which, he supposed, wasn't a sin, because the Khans were fifteen seconds away and she deserved a good laugh. Didn't look like the type who did it a lot.

Damn it doll.

"I-I don't know what to say pussycat." He smiled, "This is too much."

She waved it off, zipping up her bag. "No problem. I have more, and it looks like you have a long walk." She jerked her thumb back. Those gloves looked ridiculous. "There's a little caravan camp up ahead. And don't call me "pussycat". Ain't my name."

He grinned. "Note taken. But then, you gotta give me one to go by."

A pause. A quirk of the brow. "Name's Sally."

And now the Khans were silently upon her, one standing up and raising his gun. Guilt streaked though his heart. She wasn't a bad girl, from what he got in the brief seconds he'd got. Didn't deserve what she was about to get. But, well, it was a courier, or the Mojave.

"Well, Sally. I'd thank you for this bit of kindness," he shook the bottle and looked past her to the butt of the rifle posed above her head, "but it looks like that's about to be 'null."

For a moment, her face fell from attention to confusion. Then the rifle snapped down and struck her square on the head. Eyes rolled up, knees buckled, and Benny fancied a hand may have moved to the .99, and the courier was down.

It didn't take forever to haul her limp and bounded body up the hill and put it by the grave, but by the time Benny had ordered the Khans to start digging deeper because there was no way in hell it'd cover her whole body the sun was down and night had come to the Mojave.

He fingered the Chip, which gleamed against the single lamp they had. Which, honestly, was useless. Stars glittered and beyond him and the Chip New Vegas shined right up there with the full moon. He flipped the Chip. After laying down the courier he'd carefully dug through her pocket, knowing that it would've been bad on him to search like a hound, and after one try in the pant pocket he'd found it tucked in her chest pocket. It was smooth platinum, and held inside it the key to everything Benny wanted. The entire operation had gone smooth, uninterrupted. He had yet to pull out Maria. The night was good, the grave was being dug. The sweat was gone with the cool night and his hair was slicked back again. Digging in his pocket he pulled out his lighter and a cig and stuck it in his mouth. He couldn't take his eyes off the soon-to-be-his Vegas, but there was something behind him he had to tie up.

As he turned in a smooth motion he lit his cig and took a breath, pocketing his lighter. He was in a good mood, despite the traces of guilt in his chest at seeing her-Sally, that was her name- curled in fetal position on the ground before him. Jessup kept digging, while the others gazed at her, or look around, bored. Their patience had left them hours ago, he knew, but he also knew the caps would keep them standing right where they were. But, along with the good feeling and the guilt, Benny knew shared their desire for it to be over too. The clock was ticking now, and he needed to scram if he wanted to get the show on the road.

But she had to wake up first.

They milled. One of the Khans standing next to him, a Great from the looks of it, apparently was fed up, and snapped, "We got what you were after, so pay up."

His gruff order broke the silence, and the other Khans, with nothing to do, looked to Benny. But Benny simply sucked smoke, calm as a frozen lake. "You're crying in the rain, pally," he replied, casting the man a look, and his demeanor knocked the Khan down a notch.

"Guess who waking up over here," another sneered.

Benny turned, pocketing the Chip. The courier'd been pulling at her bound hands in vain, and froze when she heard the Khan. Slowly, she looked up. Her face ran from dazed, the confused, to scared, pure, primal fear. Dirt peppered her face. There was a blod distinction from the courier he'd sweetalked and the one kneeling before him. Benny took another drag and then lost his taste, dropping the cig and crushed it with his foot.

"Time to cash out," he said, as despite his mood, he held a tone of duty.

Oh you'll probably go to Heaven,

Please don't hang you head and cry

He started for the girl when the previously mentioned Khan muttered, "Would you get it over with?"

Benny raised his hand, finger in the air. He closed his eyes for a second and collected himself. "Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' 'em in the eyes, but I ain't a fink." He turned his eyes in the Khans direction and the man finally got the message and stepped back. "Dig?"

With that out of the way, he turned to the courier. Expecting anger, or betrayal, instead Benny saw confusion and fear. She still didn't get it, the poor doll. He reached into his checkered coat and pulled out the Chip. She briefly glanced at it, and he saw no correlation. They really hadn't told her a damn thing.

"You've made your last delivery, kid," he told her, looking her in the eyes. Blue, he noted. Big, blue, and scared. He let his pity press into his words. A real shame. A real damn shame, but, he reminded himself, a necessary one. And he hoped she got at least a hint of that. "Sorry you got twisted up in this scene," he continued, and as he said that he reached into his coat and exchanged the Chip for Maria.

No wonder why

My heart feels dead inside

The courier couldn't take her eyes off the gun. Which didn't surprise him: whatever hope she had that she'd get out alive was smothered when Maria came out. When she finally realized that the Khan was digging a grave, for it seemed Maria had trailed her eyes to it, Benny swore her skin went a shade paler.

It's cold and hard and petrified

But even if she wasn't looking at him, he was gonna keep looking at her. There wasn't a lot of honor in the Mojave, and in such a game changing night he'd let some be present. "From where your kneeling must seem like an .18 karat run of bad luck," he offered, giving her a little grin. Of course, it did nothing. Didn't expect it to.

He frowned, and aimed the gun. Held eyes with her, and hers were wide, and a little bit of a tear was blooming at the corner. Benny remembered her whistling. Damn, kittycat, should've never given me that water.

"The truth is," he confessed as his finger slipped around the trigger, "the game was rigged from the start."

Lock the doors and close the blinds,

We're going for a ride