Story Two : Orange Colored Sky
Disclaimer : I don't own Fallout: New Vegas, nor do I intend to monetize this story now or ever.
Somewhere on his trek along the El Dorado Highway, the Courier had gotten lost. Getting lost, for the Courier, was a common experience, but almost never a pleasant one.
"Where the fuck am I?" The Courier wondered aloud. He squinted, glaring up at the sun. It beat down on him, the harsh rays penetrating the limited sun-cover his beret (he'd stolen one from Boone while he was in Novac) provided. The sun seemed to be the brightest here that the Courier had ever experienced.
The Courier stopped walking. He was tired, not to mention frustrated. He'd d hoped his Pip-Boy 3000 would have gotten the directions right for once, but, like it seemed so often to be, he was held back by his own directional shortcomings. He had followed his compass (the marker indicated to him to head southeast) and it had lead him to… the middle of fucking nowhere.
The Courier looked up, finally seeing what was in front of him.
"Woah! What is that, some sort of…?"
It was an odd cluster of structures. Many panels were layered, back and forth in rows, facing away from him. They seemed to stretch on for miles around the centermost structure. In the center of the half-ellipse was a ginormous browned concrete structure. It had all manners of pipes and exhaust stacks coming out of it; both the top, as well as the side facing the Courier. In front of the center building was a large control tower of sorts, with a disk at the top. To the left of the control tower and the center building was a smaller enclosed set of electrical contraptions. All around the complex, NCR soldiers were present; walking, talking amongst themselves, practicing at a pseudo-firing range, and sleeping.
The Courier was instantly intrigued.
Running towards the complex, he was stopped from going through only by the fencing that surrounded it. He pressed his face up to the fence, his nose poking through the wiring in the chainlinks.
"Hey man, what's up? What is this place?" He rasped, his comment directed towards one of two NCR soldiers patrolling inside the complex.
The NCR soldier stumbled, surprised to see the haggard man with a dust-beaten leather jacket and a red beret talking to him. The soldier squinted, making out the insignia on his beret: 'The Last Thing You Never See'. The soldier was floored; it wasn't every day one got to talk to a First Recon sharpshooter!
"Well, sir, it's… it's classified, but I'll let you in on a little secret."
The Courier leaned in a little closer, turning his head so that his ear stuck through the fence. The soldier was momentarily taken aback by the combination of dust, phlegm, and blood that matted his sideburns, but nevertheless leaned forwards to whisper in his ear.
"It's some sort of power plant, sir, only we're having some trouble getting it to work. We have a scientist in the lab working on it right now!"
The Courier said thanks and began walking to the left. As he was walking, he pondered the reasoning the soldier had for giving away such a important secret. He took his beret off, waving it on his face as perspiration dripped off his brow. The insignia caught his eye.
Chortling, the Courier kept walking, now with a bit of a skip in his step. What a day it was to be a thief! Not, of course, that the Courier was a thief; he was a good person, wasn't he?
The information about the power plant though, now this was interesting news! Prior misgivings and mistakes forgotten, he trundled onwards along the fence line, moving ever so steadily towards the entrance of the plant.
Now several hundred feet behind him, the two soldiers turned to each other.
"You think he's going to go ask the Lieutenant if he can help out?"
"Nah, he's probably some nobody with no experience whatsoever"
The two soldiers looked at eachother and burst out laughing. Of course a First Recon sharpshooter would know what he was doing.
"What do you mean, 'No Civilians Inside'? Don't you believe I have a brother stationed here?"
"I'm sorry sir, I just find it hard to believe," The NCR Lieutenant sighed in exasperation. "Why don't you ask some of the boys stationed out here? I just can't let you in to wander freely around the plant."
The Courier turned, fuming. Given his luck he shouldn't have been surprised that the hat trick didn't work twice. This had been his big chance, but alas, it seemed it was not to be. He started to walk away, but remembered just in time that he had walked past a rusty metal sliding door on his way around the plant to the front. He began his walk back around the plant, now walking with a purpose.
"Odd guy," one of the NCR soldiers standing behind a sandbag entrenchment quipped, after the man with the beat-up leather jacket and red beret had disappeared from view.
"That he is," the Lieutenant replied. "That he is."
His tongue sticking out, the Courier finally heard a click. It was a nice click, a beautiful click, the sound of the bobby pins FINALLY doing their job. The metal sliding door slid open with an audible 'shoom', sending the broken bobby pins that sat in a pile next to the Courier askew.
It wasn't the Courier's fault that his Pip-Boy 3000 called the lock 'Very Easy' and as a result he got cocky and wasted - he counted - 37 bobby pins on it. It was just a misfortune of his, he decided. One of many.
The Courier slowly crept inside the open hatch, watching his surroundings carefully, his eyes traveling over the metallic grey floor illuminated by the light spilling inside. Dust curled in the air lazily, stirred up by the abrupt change in the immediate environment.
He stopped, waiting for a second. Pressing his ear to the wall, and then to the ground, the Courier listened for footsteps, or chatter; any sign that the NCR soldiers present within the power plant were aware of his presence. Detecting none, he turned to the sliding door and inn one swift motion slammed it shut.
His boots banging loudly against the grated floor, the Courier made his way down the hallway. Coming to the end of the hall, he peeked out from behind the wall, first to the left.
No NCR soldiers.
Then to the right.
No NCR soldiers.
The Courier turned right, whistling a jaunty tune. He stuck his hands in his twin back pockets, and sauntered down the next hallway. In front of him were a set of stairs, which he happily clambered up. At the top he was treated with a wonderful view of - the Courier looked out the windows of the strange tin box he had found himself in - metal, pipes, turbines, and more metal! The Courier was more overjoyed than the time he had broken into Doc Mitchell's chem stash.
He sat and pondered for a second his sudden and unexplainable happiness. The Courier came to a start as he realized he had ingested a couple of his own personal Party Time Mentats stores before walking into the plant.
Oh well, he thought to himself. Might as well make the most of it.
Continuing along the raised metal canister, the Courier found himself at the set of another metal stairs, this time going back down. Had he gone up these to begin with? Briefly confused, he glanced back, checking, and to his surprise there were stairs leading down behind him as well. Deciding to just 'go with the flow', the Courier made his way down the stairs.
The Courier stumbled into a room past yet another pair of cots. The room was filled with panels, computer boards, and other technological junk.
A man approached the Courier. He was wearing a white stained lab coat with a suit on underneath. The man lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head, where they were held in place by his brown locks of hair, neatly pulled back in a ponytail. His unkempt facial hair complimented the slightly manic glint in his eye.
"Yo."
The Courier paused, caught flat-footed by the man's unprofessional greeting, but the Party Time Mentats in him replied for him.
"Hey man, what sort of job are you here for?"
"What else? I'm in charge. This whole operation depends on me. No Fantastic, no power. Got the whole NCR suckling my teats, and it feels so good."
Put off slightly by the man's change of speech from the third to first person, and the high pitched whine he projected, the Courier pondered the information he had received. On one hand, the man was not displaying intelligence through his word choices, but on the other hand, he was quite obviously the man in charge. It might be best for him to get more information out of the man, before he spoke more.
"So, what exactly do you do?"
Fuck man, everything. I push buttons. I turn dials. I read numbers. Sometimes I make up little stories in my head about what the numbers mean."
Fantastic continued on, oblivious to the Courier's increasingly exasperated face.
"Like one time I imagined they were a code to get into a vault full of naked women. Man, how cool would that be?"
"So you have absolutely no idea what you're doing," the Courier interjected.
"No, man. I know exactly what I'm doing. I just don't know what effect it's going to have. Over there controls power in this building. That station has readouts on the computer network. That big knob there makes a crazy noise. Sparks come out of that slot if you put stuff in it. And I'm learning more every day."
The Courier thought about this for a moment. He still didn't know what the obviously mentally handicapped man was doing, but it had to be something important.
"So uh, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"
"Well, see, we're getting power, because the guy running this place is Fantastic. But the mirrors outside aren't aimed right, so we're running at one percent efficiency. And I guess that just isn't good enough for some assholes. Trouble is, most of the controls for this place aren't here - they're in the tower. And that place has some crazy Pre-War security system that the dumbshit NCR set off when they took over. Killed two guys. Now they won't go near it. They want me to make an omelet, but I can't break any of their eggs, know what I'm saying?"
Taken aback by the rather unconventional response, the Courier picked up on a few key facts. Firstly, there was trouble - killer security. Secondly, there was something to do - a menial task like resetting mirrors? How hard could that be?
And thirdly, he smelled caps, and an idiot dumb enough to part with them.
"Well, it sounds as though you have quite the job on your hands. Perhaps I could help you out? " He sardonically grinned at Fantastic. "A… mutual agreement of sorts could be beneficial to the two of us."
Fantastic, oblivious to the danger that accompanied a deal with the devil, nodded his head energetically.
"Like, if you could just fiddle with the controls for the mirrors for me, they gotta be redirected to the tower so that they work properly. If you do that, I would be so stoked!"
The Courier looked at him expectantly.
"I'll put in a good word with the NCR man!" Fantastic hastily added.
The Courier continued to gaze at the man.
"And 100 caps for your troubles!"
That was decidedly enough for the Courier, who turned to exit.
"Oh, one more thing!" Fantastic shouted after him.
"Make sure you reroute the power to the strip and McCarran! If it goes somewhere else the NCR will have your head and Fantastic will be down one premium special helper!"
Shaking his head, the Courier walked off, only to be slammed into the wall by another man wearing a white lab coat.
As the man stepped back, the Courier noticed a few minute details: The freshly cleaned lab coat, a generally stern composure, the man's softer composition and stature, and his freshly groomed hair.
"It's unusual to see a new face around here. Are you a soldier, or a scientist?"
The Courier was floored. The man, despite his violent handling of the Courier, had spoken with a voice completely devoid of emotion.
"More of a drifter, I suppose?" He uttered after a moment of hesitation.
The man's stern facial features softened, briefly.
"I see. Then you must have some special business here, for them to have let you through."
"Well, it isn't really like that. You see, I'm more of a… I was curious."
"Interesting. Forgive me for prying, but I'm a little curious as well. Are you with a particular group?"
Deciding not to humour him with a straight answer, the Courier simply responded, "I try not to get involved."
"Ah, but there's no avoiding it. You can only outrun the choice for so long. Take now, for instance. You are inside a facility with lost technology, some of it very dangerous. Unless you turn and leave right now, you'll be very much involved in the lives of people you've never seen or met."
The Courier sighed. So, he was one of those types. The preachers, the 'Do-Gooders', everything the Courier despised. Everything the Courier was not.
"Well yes, of course it is dangerous here. Why wouldn't it be? Where do we live, after all?"
The man, ignorant to the Courier's exasperation, pressed onwards.
"Hey, I heard you talking to that bumbling fool about activating the power grid. It could get difficult if he ever got past fiddling with the intercom system, but thankfully, he's convinced that the largest panel simply must be the most important panel. I have a very important job that only you can do."
Nodding, the Courier motioned for the man to proceed.
"The Followers of the Apocalypse have reason to believe that this plant could be used to fuel a superweapon. I do not know how, nor do I wish to know how, but it is our utmost duty to prevent this possibility. Do you understand? Should you find your way to the motherboard, you simply must direct the power away from the plant. The entire region would be preferable, just so long as you do not give the plant potential as a superweapon."
"I will," the Courier promised. He began, once again, to walk away. The man had no reason to believe the Courier; but then, he has no reason to believe otherwise.
Hopped up on his Party Time Mentats, the Courier skipped out the door, and into the browned-and-blackened courtyard.
An explosion rang out as a bullet, one of the Courier's precious hollow-points, found itself firmly lodged in the final dog's skull. There had been three dogs guarding the final terminal designated with redirecting the solar-panel-mirror things. The Courier couldn't decide exactly what they were, other than just plain annoying. He had already almost blown himself up redirecting them(the first terminal had had mines surrounding it in hidden places) and was not keen on challenging more of the defenses.
Making his way back towards the main complex, he noticed that his Pip-Boy 3000 had marked an area farther away from the entrance to the first chamber, one directly underneath the tower that held the large satellite dish.
He made his way over to it, and opened the door, slowly walking inside. The cold air was a welcome change from the sweltering heat of the wasteland.
A whirring noise rang out, and out of the corner of his eye he saw twin ceiling-mounted turrets focus on him. With the abrupt click that, to his horror, he recognized as the first round feeding into the firing chamber, the Courier leapt out of the way of the incoming bursts of fire, rolling his way into a room across from the entrance. As he came out of his roll, he recognized many objects in his immediate area - mines!. He quickly grabbed all the mines closest to him as they began to beep, slowly, but picking up speed. Stepping out, he had a wonderful view of a sentry bot triplet making their way up the grated slopes of the metal scaffolding. Yelping, the Courier began chucking the activated mines like frisbees, catching the bewildered sentry bots on the chest.
With a quick explosion, the sentry bots were downed. The Courier began to make his way out of the room, but hearing the telltale sign of turrets ducked back in. Thinking fast, he went to the nearby terminal and quickly logged in with a keycode he found helpfully written on the side of the monitor. Noticing the entry 'Turret Controls', he selected it and deactivated the turrets.
The Courier collapsed on the ground, exhausted. He didn't know how or even if he could get through this gauntlet of death. He had almost died in the recent conflict - only out of pure luck had he survived. He closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Opening his eyes, the Courier checked his Pip-Boy 3000. A couple hours had passed since he had fallen asleep - it was now about 18:00. As he sat up, he saw a hidden treasure - grenades!
Swiping and pocketing them, the Courier made his way down the steel scaffolding. The rest of this job would be a breeze.
"Bzzt."
"Bzzzzzzt."
The Courier was mouthing to himself as he pushed two wire ends together, trying desperately to make ends meet. The mainframe terminal was displaying a constant 'Error' message, and he desperately wanted to finish things up.
Finally, electricity sparked through the wire ends, and the terminal lit up. Making his way over to the terminal, the Courier amiably hummed to himself as he scrolled through the power output options.
" McCarran and the Strip… that would help Fantastic. Fremont and Westside… aren't those the slums? Full Region… that sounds like something that scientist guy would like… ARCHIMEDES II?"
The Courier paused, reading more into it.
"...A planetary defense system."
As thoughts of Fantastic and the other strange man in a lab coat left the Courier's head, he pressed down on the select option.
Another option popped up, replacing the initial options.
'Arm ARCHIMEDES Plant Defense System'
Without a pause, the Courier selected the option, before making his way up to the top floor of the complex. As he exited the door to the tower, the Courier felt excitement ripple over him.
It was showtime.
At 21:00, the ground around the plant shook, burning bright red. Around the plant, all things susceptible to heat had disintegrated; all that were left were the solar panels, made to withstand the beating sun. Any evidence of NCR involvement on the plant had all but disappeared, swallowed by the sudden beam of sunlight.
The Courier walked, and with him walked the power of the gods. As he made his way, once again, into the treacherous wastes, he was reminded of the power that the old world had held. He learned to be wary once again. He learned to be wary of an Orange Colored Sky.
