Veronica realized that he was back when she caught the white of his eyes, as bright as the lucky old sun in the darkened lock-up that he held her in. It wasn't the first time she'd caught him here, over her without a breath, silent as a spectre.
"Your hero is on his way." Ulysses always spoke in that smoldering baritone, she remembered how he calmly stated Boone's death - "Your republic friend tumbled into the abyss."
"Then your dead." She never did manage the same icy tones as the Courier could emit, the big soft oaf held a venom that could stop a cazador.
"More than likely." Ulysses was a cold killer, she knew that much at least.
"Why did you do this? You're going to get yourself killed, and for what? So that you can take a shot at Alex?" You would have that chance anywhere in the Mojave she knew, a man with Ulysses's cunning, the legion had nearly succeeded even at the heart of House's little fiefdom.
"The Courier owes this place a debt, owes us all a debt. He'll pay here, in the deadlands of his creation." Didn't this guy just love to hear himself ramble, he was too cryptic!
"What are you talking about?" Ulysses sighed, almost unperceived.
"The new world died here, a victim of Courier Six's nature. Everywhere he walks - death follows." Veronica shook her head even in the darkness.
"You don't know him, he wouldn't do anything like this; couldn't cause this, all this killing isn't his doing, he wasn't even here!" This place; the Divide, it was hateful, the only place she imagined to ever hold an emotion across every mind that caught sight of it's tortured land. Alex wasn't able to create this, it was the old world.
"Does a president have to sit atop every massacre his soldiers carry out? Or a Kaisar over ever lesson taught? A thing, something of a mans making can be felt across the eons."
"I don't believe you." Veronica wouldn't become part of this mans deranged fantasies, he'd already killed Boone, hurt Cass.
"He's a murderer!" Ulysses snarled! It made her jump, her mind went to the wicked knife she'd seen on his belt.
"So are you!" She was more shrill than snarl, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of cowering.
Ulysses grunted, breathed a deep cleansing breath, he must suffer from so much exposure here she realized.
"A murderer I am, as all men are in their hearts." He was remorseless, utterly without mercy. "But mines is a slaughter driven by purpose; for the rebirth of us all. Your beloved - Courier Six? He is without cause, a bloodletter who serves no man, no cause, a man of utter irresponsibility."
"Says the legionary." Veronica accused, it should have been a curse to him, to anyone with a heart, "You want to talk about Alex? Fine - Why don't you illuminate what your ideas are on slavery? How many slaves have you freed, he's taken whole families right under the legions nose."
Ulysses was anything but abashed, she could tell his face under the shades.
"The atrocities of the legion are but the realities of the world. The cover that is Kaisar's malevolence will give way to a perfect order if allowed."
Veronica knew all about the legion, had witnessed it at the foot of Kaiser's camp herself; the atrocity was the legion itself.
"Maybe your sick world, not ours."
"And yet our world suffocates yours." Ulysses drawled lazily, perhaps he'd kill her, but if Alex came or not? "The bull will overcome the bear, the ideals of the legion will strangle your slothful republic, and New Vegas will shine with Kaisar's dreadful purpose." Control the coinage and you control the world, Arcade had told her that before. The legion hanging over Vegas, the Dam; Helios one, it was a perverted fantasy that sent a shiver down her spine.
"Your republic mongrel will fall before the shadow of this old flag." Ulysses had left her then, leaving a dusted pack of pre-war nutrition packs, some water; keeping her alive then for his grand display.
Alex had to stop this maniac. He was the only one who could.
Those burned men though...every one of them was a nightmare.
What did Alex say about nightmares? You become their nightmares; you don't allow them to become yours.
Alex remembered saying it, but it was the Courier who meant those words.
"You're a dangerous man when the mask comes on." Cassidy had said that, Arcade had agreed. Veronica had lent over and gave her big sweetie a sloppy kiss on the cheek that she regretted once he turned and lapped her own like a dog, Boone had stayed quiet but Alex imagined the quiet man knew all about it. The mask.
He put it on so often it rarely came off, it had been on tight ever since he'd entered the wastelands - the true wastelands. Not the faltering form found the Mojave where the two great beasts wrangled with each other, stubborn mules fighting over the shattered husk of civilization.
Alex had all he needed here, in this place were the greatest species of this planet had shown their truest hearts. This was what kept him at House's feet, begrudgingly but determinedly, Robert Edwin House was disbelieved and feared, all the filthy whispers surrounded him for his seeming immortality, but he knew what drove men to their madness.
He'd led Boone to the laughable safety of a blown out warehouse somewhere in the debris of Ashton, struck always by the tainted tang corona that threatened the eyes of all men here. It was pure wasteland, arid and without remorse.
Boone was braced up beside him as he peered out through the storm fires.
"This storm is cutting through this place." Boone said, grim faced.
"This place is cutting through this place." The Courier corrected him.
They had fought their way through the Divide - the deadly surface and nightmarish depths. The little beasts of the underground had nearly had them more than once, his stealth suit appeared to leverage no safety from their amazing senses; Boone was a one hundred and ninety pound liability, their long rifles had been scrubbed in favor of makeshift nail guns.
"How's the arm?" Boone had asked after Alex appeared unbalanced if only for a moment, the blocker for foreign agents he'd had installed in the sink had faltered at the sheer potency of the venom nascent inside him. It'd be a long jagged scar that ran from his shoulder through to his wrist, the little bugger hadn't budged even with a knife buried through it's sternum.
I committed this.
It was a harkening thought, the idea that this entire madness had been his doing; these burned men had been seared through to their flesh for the benefit of his pocket, all their victims had fallen under his actions.
A strange feeling.
"We'll need to move soon." Boone reminded him.
"Aye, we've cut a bloody swath through that highway for the burned men to follow." So they had, a magnificent detonation that had caused a highway causeway to shatter rather than crumble, eviscerating a host of deathclaws that blocked their path.
"This big boy rifle will help matters." Boone appreciated their small accumulation of useful gear from the scrapings of the military bunkers, they'd found a vehicle killer with enough armor piercing rounds to slow him down with their weight.
Craig felt as if he was running on an empty tank, the cocktail of drugs Alex had delivered to him had given him all the staying power they required to finish themselves here, but it felt as if his skin was no longer his own.
"We need to kill that legion son-of-a-bitch." They needed to save their friends as well, Alex had to save the girl; to save himself from Craig's own torment.
"There's more to this than putting a bullet in his face." The Courier wondered if Boone ever felt upset at using his LSAR rifle, did it feel queer in his hands, the stink of the burned man was there upon it always.
It would have been a nice thing for Joshua to be here, the man was a determined killer. The Courier had learnt lessons on hatred from the malpius legate - chilling and unsettling lessons.
Ulysses taunted him as they finished their toil through the Divide, stole his machine friend and set the watchers of this place upon him.
They were dripping in places and bleeding in others as they reached his desecrated temple, Boone's wounds had reopened and he stepped everyday forward with heavy feet.
Alex had a sickeningly flapping skin intrusion; a knife that had sheared off a great deal of the flesh from his previously un-wounded arm. A bullet had imbedded itself into his shoulder, the descent of their final entry payment towards Ulysses' and the conclusion of this place.
It had been a shock when they descended into his dwelling hole, a battery of nuclear weapons; enough to level Mojave or cut the bears throat.
His implants bore him on however, he was teetering on the brink of engineering, House's machinations for him, subtle.
"No shooting Boone. Not yet." They approached the heart of his temple, passing primed missiles that sat waiting for his signal, woke the little bot that had became an ally. "He's smart enough to have put a failsafe towards these things, these dirty remnants." He wondered if Craig would have been able to summon up the strength even to lift his rifle, the man dragged himself along now.
Perhaps that was for the best, no republic men could last long in the wolf den, and Boone was the very best of them.
He looked over the man that he could only caught the barest glimpse off, the face behind the great terror. He was described in his cloth, that old world flag that had affected the Courier across his adventures.
Everywhere he went he faced those ill favored stars. Black pants, a coarse ratty shirt, thick boots slick with grime; he'd been mobile only recently, a breather protected his lungs from the ill effects of this deranged place just as it did for Alex and Craig.
There was no signs of comfort here at the very base of his spine, a featureless cold old war place that would have suited him fine.
"Even in this place, NCR's shadow falls." There was that deep recess of emotion, raw. "Or is it just, you, Courier Six, without the Bear's corpse to weigh you down?" He didn't even glance at Boone, who struggled to steady himself; blood leaking through his battered armour. Ulysses would have been smiling under his mask Alex imagined, here was his proof, the weeping republic solider that the Courier had dragged through their lands.
"It matters little, if you still attempt your naive vanities. Either way, the Divide giants are awakening. The missiles here, on their way home." The statement was final, cold.
"There is no way to stop them." Alex held up a hand that stalled Boone's action, he was predictable like so many others, but this man was not.
That unpredictability bled from his restlessness, he stank of it, that curse of man that cost them so much.
It could be fashioned towards another's ends however, hadn't his place at House's side shown that?
"All that death and destruction, the breath of humanity stolen...for what? A mistake." Alex knew the defender he hand strapped to his shoulder was meaningless now, he could kill Ulysses with it easily and still doom them all.
"No...a purpose was here...a mistake? Yes. The Divide...the chip...the machine you brought here..." Ulysses still had to make sense of it, he'd said he held only answers - No. He wanted them. "Many messages can be taken from your...carelessness. What I do here lies in convictions."
"You're burning away the new world for mans careless nature." Alex took a step forward, Ulysses's eyes betrayed his lack of care, his fingers twitched. This one wanted the blood and sweat.
"Don't doom the world for my sins - Come and see if you can punish me for them."
"Blame you, doom them? No, I learned from you. Both the weapon to kill a nation, and the strength to destroy it." Something deep inside the Courier, every sense of him said strike now, kill the beast! Hope for chance in the depths for salvation.
"You showed me a road, a way to carry a message. You've already answered for what you done. Now the flag you follow will answer for it." Alex laughed suddenly and abruptly, not forced.
"How could you think I follow the bear, what would make you miss the core of the beast you hope to slay?" Now Alex played his deceptions, who did he follow? Not even the people who he fought with knew completely.
"I've seen all you've suffered for the west, all the pain you've inflicted on the east." Ulysses's began yet fell short off, the Courier's derision lent him towards anger. "You think this amusing? The death keel of your nation?"
"Tell me, which nation is that?" The innocence of the question offended Ulysses.
"The bear of course. You reek of it's trappings." Suddenly he realized what he found in this man, his own perfect frustrations! Boone mimicked that nation, folded under the pressures of his wounds. "You've walked the west, realized that the bear is a nation of children. Growing without structure, following a symbol without knowing its history."
"Knowing you believe in it's sickness, have given it strength...then that gives more reason to lay waste to your homeland." Alex broke the moment by turning to Boone, lent over him as Arcade had before, "After this, only one flag will remain over the Mojave-" Alex took the stimpak he concealed under the cleft of his Pip-Boy, jabbed it into the split in his friends armor so that his blood would slow it's dispersion. "Let that one flag fly, or destroy itself." Alex rose, dusted off his knees.
"There's your republic: On it's back, labored, valiant but troubled." The Courier didn't have the reserve to pull punches for the sake of Boone's consumption. "A great man, an honest man, but not a man to drag us savages from our the lowly stamp of our base origins." Alex pulled free his defender, aimed towards Boone's chest.
"I could kill him now, and it would be easy. The same could be done for the republic even without these monstrosities" Alex returned his weapon.
"If he were my enemy, my true enemy. But the reality is that Craig Boone; the New Californian Republic, they are not my enemy, they are merely a lesson."
"What lesson?"
"The lesson of failure in the face of our own dark nature. They've taught both of us lessons, but they aren't finished in that." Alex's own mind told that Ulysses was one of his kind, the restless warriors, wishing to bend the world to the perfect form.
"History proves your words perhaps. You've caused mischief in their lines at times for the roboticists."
"I would turn the republic towards mankind's salvation, towards its breath! But to think that I would have them as the bearers of our future? Ha!" Ulysses fought within himself - that supposed battle they were to have under the old stars was beyond fists and bullets now.
He was not to be believed! The skulking Courier Six, the dirty faced eastern who'd fooled a god, ran with the bear.
"You wish to build beyond what the republic could only fathom in their fantasies?" Ulysses still fought, he wanted Alex to gut him - just to prove that hatred right. "This is not the senate floor Courier, the missiles cannot be prevented from launching. Convincing me will leave you with nothing."
"Convincing me leaves us as two men together, focused together towards a new world, a true new world!" Alex forced the zealotry into his voice, inflected every little nuance. His mind was already calculating, he was the human computer; he could still save Veronica, all of them, and if the west died? Vegas remained unbroken.
"There is a shadow of a nation behind you, the hope of a people... yet it may not matter; the Divide still stands against us." There it was, his compliance to the ideals that had infected Alex's own debilitating hopelessness. "Our enemies gather outside...shadows of the Bear and Bull. They will have found their way in, just as you did. It was always my intention - in case I could not kill you - that the Marked Men would flood this place, cut off your escape. If we cannot prevent what comes, then let us make our stand here. Two Couriers, together, at the Divide."
"My friends can help." So where are they Ulysses? The moment teetered on a knife-edge, his skin rolled with the idea of hope coating his senses.
"They cannot." The moment held for too long, "They are underfed, weak, and without with our honed edge. You can secure your other friend in those cages you see there, on the far right flank." Alex took Boone up, slung him over his shoulder like he had before with corpses, he recalled tossing one of those burned legionary's he ambushed a precipice into the crater below which teemed with the raw flesh, an act of anger.
The door receded as Ulysses' busied himself with the proposed defense, inside he found them; all of them alive but unwell.
They'd been separated in maintenance rooms that had their locks disabled from the inside, Cassidy first, sleeping with a busted jaw - Arcade next, more fear than bruising - the rotted old ghoul who was cut but unfazed - and then their respite, the outlook of all their warring that made them look foolish, evil.
"Okay, I'd give you a hug, but I'm afraid of stubbing my toe." Alex could imagine the grin, cheek-to-cheek, irrepressible, "Give a girl a hand?"
"Only because I kept you waiting." Alex probed in the dark, stubbed his own toe before he found her smooth digits, he pulled her up with enough zeal to make her squeal.
"Asshole." She placed a hand on his chest to steady herself, Alex could smell her through the days, "Where you washing in here? While the madman plots your doom?" She chuckled,. "A girl always has to feel her best, and I managed to get rid of my unmentionable needs with some craftsmanship."
"Thanks for the vital information...hole dweller." Alex relaxed like he always did with her, felt her lips briefly graze his rough jaw in a peck, her breath danced across his neck. "I'm a regular honest to god genius with that stuff and I like you to know it." Alex shook - attempted to shake off the sudden heat, "Well come on then, you can help us bump a few dozen cannibalistic bad asses."
"Hmmm...I wonder if they'll answer to a polite but firm telling off?"
Playful, in the face of all the masses strength of the Divide. He imagined she'd infuriated Ulysses's with her easy attitude.
"Death, I need to hide Boone, hide you all in-fact."
"Those creeps coming back?" Raul was rolling his hand across the pink skin over his neck, pained it looked like, they had no breathers.
"Why hide us? Boone's out, but they'll kill us all if we don't fight." That was Cass and her bruised ego speaking, through that swollen jaw.
"If we kill them all, you'll all be alive."
"Are we all suddenly damsels in distress like this little drip?" Cassidy bumped Veronica with her hip, hands on the hips, angry gaze fixed on him. These people were ridiculous at times.
"Craig's out for the night at any rate." Arcade told him, unhappily, "You people and your guns -"
"Are the only thing that's gonna save you now." Alex finished, calculating again.
"Arcade and Veronica stay with Boone." He ordered, he told himself at least half of it was for their benefit and not his, Arcade wasn't quite as adorable as Veronica, "If you two want to show me why I keep you along, you can pick up some guns."
"What about the lunatic?" Arcade asked.
"He's with us now." Even the girl gave him a look at that, really? "You're going to trust him?"
"I'm going to let him help us not be slaughtered...We can't afford to be picky here."
"Fine, but I'm billing him for my good hood." Veronica stuck her tongue out, began to pester Arcade like a bloatfly. It drove point the home for Alex; these people were his humanity, all he could think about was not letting this be taken from him, not when he'd fought so hard for it.
"Try not to die." Arcade offered before they began to work out how to seal themselves in again.
"He's an ingrate boss." Raul said, now they were back to the stained tomb of Ulysses' construction, when they died - civilization died.
The four of them against a horde.
Ulysses approached them, silently save for the hiss of his breather. "This way for the weapons." He led them to the middle point of their old-world Alamo, where a weapon cache of considerable size remained.
"I think we might just be alright." Raul mentioned as he began to run his way through the differing weapons, here came the adrenaline.
"We need to settle these missiles Ulysses." Alex mentioned it as if it was an afterthought.
"You're bot can reprogram the launch, but what is you're target?" Alex immediately dismissed the temptation of punishing Colorado, he was better than the stupidity of man.
"Disable them. Bury this place." The bot chirped, breezed its way for the command console.
"Load up all the explosive munitions, wait for the detonators to do their work." Ulysses blended into their ranks seamlessly, cared for nothing like Cassidy's irate glare.
They did as they were told, everything was loaded: pistols laid out in the tight gully's, machine guns and assault rifles were held on both sides of their positions that branched over two wings of their defensible shielding, nothing more than two long pieces of sheet metal, they had auto loading grenade launchers and Boone's LSAR rifle, the bozar, a few grenades and charges, the traps were already set.
The doors of the tomb were ripped open suddenly, torn through with an explosion that cast the sickness of throaty residue around them. Cassidy and Raul were affect automatically, the Courier's were held by their breathers.
"For Kaisar!" Alex hollered, he caught the looks of them all, startled. The best time for a joke he found, just before the first of the burned men invaded their last stand.
Through the doors they came; catching their horrors with their faceless Lanius' masks, shapeless cloaks that were charged with aggression that channeled their inner hatreds. All of them were shaped in light drinking black, scarlet reds, of both cloth and stripe. The weapons were there also, muzzle flashes clear in the yawning space, slapping around them with the fear of death in every round.
Ulysses' detonated his charge, half the room disappeared in a moment of shock inducing concussive force.
They all came to survey the gore that followed the charge. "That's gonna be a mess to clean up." Cass guessed.
"Death still hangs over us." Ulysses replied.
"If he serious?" Raul asked. A moment before his fears were answered by those howls.
Straight from the hatred of an anguished soul, on came the burned men; on they came bursting their automatic weapons, throwing their grenades, rushing at them in slants just for that chance to launch a perfect savage thrust that would separate a spinal column, perhaps a limb for a slow death.
Alex and Ulysses immediately relished the challenge, and where Raul and Cassidy kept themselves safe; the couriers became the forces that they were remembered for.
Bullets and bombs; Alex relished the brutal beauty of it all, his VATS system and his prey over eye accuracy system, his natural and now augmented neuro-motor system allowed him to move beyond his enemies own. Bullets caught him across his shoulder again, perhaps he moved that shade slower? The blast shards dug into his thighs, a knife glimpsed his cheek, Cassidy riddled the republican burned man that slashed him and showed no signs of reproach.
He found himself pushed back beyond their regional lines, shouting useless commands for the others to pull back. All the while Ulysses' was pushing his bots forward with high explosives clutched by their tool attachments. More explosions, Alex held his defender ready, playing dead then snapping up to drill more burned men that had attempted to overwhelm his position.
He heard the wheel of sentry bots at a distance, missiles and gatling lasers, screams and blood.
"We need to get out of here." How could he still sound so calm? Ulysses's was near him, covered himself with a riot shotgun held in hand, handy as always. "The deed is done. This place will bury itself."
"We need to get the girls!" Cass was close by, priming a grenade and tossing it across the room into the bloodzone.
"Fight west, use everything you have!" Alex led the charge, bozar in hand until it was dry, then it was time for his 45.
Every footstep with Veronica and Arcade exposed was something he could never repeat, drowned out by his excitable glands; Ulysses's held Boone over the shoulder with incredible strength.
The burned men had resorted to melee weapons, perhaps they wished for the sweeter more visceral kills? Alex felt the blade pass into his chest just as they burst through the emergency access elevator.
"Done." Ulysses did not sag, but Alex heard the finality in his throat.
"Ah...oh god..." Arcade was the first to notice the blade protruding from the Courier's chest, just up around where his lung would have been pierced; through his left pectoral muscle.
"That's going to be a bit of a problem." He had his back to the back of the elevator, all the implants that he'd collected like a hobby failing him now, save to hold him aloft.
"Alex..." Veronica held him to one side as they ascended, Cassidy looked to him with sudden forlornness.
"You need to sit down." Alex shook it off, "We're nearly at the top." "Sit down or you'll fall down." The Courier passed Arcade an annoyed glance.
"Let's just wait until we get to the top and then I'll fall over."
They reached the ascent just as the world shattered below them, rolling with flames and fires, casting up towards them that drove them out onto the arid faceless rock face that greeted them.
It was the remaining poison of the Divide, a vast emptiness that held only the burned men.
A lot less burned men Alex reminded him with amusement.
"Bloody beautiful in it's madness, what do you say Ulysses?" The two men sat on a crestfallen rock, Alex with his knife; Ulysses with three bullet wounds that had struck across his back as they retreated.
Veronica and Cassidy scrambled through the storerooms that were adjacent to the temple yet shut off, Arcade looked over Craig as he realized there was little he could do for the two men until he received additional supplies, their blood was effectively frozen.
"You find beauty in bloody sands Courier?" The Courier responded, not Alex.
"I'm not a coward, and I am a man." the Courier shrugged. "That makes me an animal. All I can hope for is that in ten generations times men like me will be extinct, maybe then our race can be happy." Veronica and Cass appeared again with medical gear in hand.
A deep feeling of shock seemed to cross over the little zealot of House's description as she came close again to the pair.
"You better not die." She was at her innocent best, face dropped, the basic sweetness of her nature betrayed by the way her eyes welled up. He appreciated her oval features; her pert chin, the little nose she wiggled when she was trying to be daring.
He couldn't help his smile, now this was madness. Here he was stilted up beside his so thought mortal enemy, watching Arcade and Cass argue over how to stop the knife bulging out of his chest from killing him at the removal.
"I tend not to die." She came forward and gently cradled him, infecting his now staggering lungs, the balances of his mind thrown off by her pheromones-again.
"If you don't you're coming with me." She tugged his shoulder fiercer, why mention the bullets?
"Where too?"
"The Tops, and then the Gammorah, and maybe the Ultra-Luxe if we get really desperate." She stepped back as Arcade was due to begin.
"We're going to get you a lot of chips, a lot of laid and then a lot of weird meat." Alex winked at her.
"After this Courier we'll talk about this new world of yours." Ulysses determined it with the slight command in his voice, he was unstoppable; un-repressible-just what Alex needed in a dangerous ally.
It's going to be a long walk home.