Dark Victory

Part One, Chapter Two

Anything For An Old Friend

A day later. Elaine's destination was a small, tatty storefront out in Freeside, one of the formerly derelict shops that were now rapidly being refurbished with the population on the rise. The sign squeaking in the breeze read Domino Investigation - Private Eye. The windows were still boarded up, but there was new paint on the boards and an old poster advertising a show by Dean in his former life.

Typical, Elaine thought to herself. He's turned nosy into a career. But why? Had he already spent, or lost, his stash from the Sierra Madre? Or was it just some sort of hobby?

She pushed open the door, not bothering to knock. Dean had his back to the entrance, shuffling through papers in a filing cabinet. He spun around, startled.

Studiously ignoring his gaze, Elaine found the best chair in the room and sat down, silently. She made a point of checking under the seat cushion first. Settling down, she put her feet up on the desk, and only then addressed Dean.

"So what are you doing here? A little bird told me that you have some toys from the Madre to sell. Nice stuff. What is it then? A dispenser?"

Dean frowned briefly before managing to resume his professional face, bland, cordial, and meaningless. Hah, Elaine thought. I'm not supposed to know that. She continued, "I've got a buyer for you, and I'm not even charging a commission. Consider yourself blessed."

"You can't take the dispensers out," Dean said, as he sat down behind his desk. "Lord knows, I've tried. Even before our little adventure began. Would have loved to have had one up on an upper floor, away from the bustle of the crowd, but they won't budge. All sorts of pipes and wires and whatever, and on top of that, start to fiddle with one and the locals get upset. Very upset. Just like my first days there, it was. Hostile audience."

He shook his head. "No idea how Father Elijah got that one running in his hideout. Maybe it was there all along, outpost of the Madre, so to speak. But I really..."

Elaine cut in. "What do you mean, your first days there? Was there a difference? In my experience, the Ghost People were never what you would call friendly. Something changed after I left?"

Dean coughed. He seemed a bit embarrassed.

"Well, they'd pretty much had it their own way before Father Elijah showed up. After I'd killed a few of them to make my point, they didn't give me all that much trouble. If they'd kept after me, I wouldn't have lasted two years, let alone two hundred. I didn't press them, and they gave me my space in return. There was only one of me, after all; I wasn't taking up that much room. More trouble than it would have been worth to them to take me out. I laid traps, of course, but more as a formality than as a necessity."

He chuckled grimly.

"You might say they depended on the tourist trade, the prospectors who made it to the Madre one way or another, and never left. A moveable feast. But...then came that Elijah, and the whole neat setup went downhill fast. He had a very quick trigger finger, that one, and his damned Dog not only monopolized the tourist trade but turned the Ghost People into its personal buffet as well. On top of that, the teams he put together to crack open the Madre would usually hack up Ghost People right and left before they started in on each other. Wasn't going well at all for them, even before we got to work and killed an even bigger number. So after our little stunt was over, they pulled right back, non-aggression pact back in place. Unless of course you do something unusual, like try to make off with a dispenser. They're touchy about that, no idea why."

"And you know about Christine, of course," Dean added.

"Only that she was alive when I left," Elaine said, in a chilly tone. "And that she has a score to settle with you. Something about a cut throat, I understand."

Dean shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, thank goodness, she's not quite as vengeful as you seem to be. I did leave her a note apologizing..."

"You're all heart."

"She's become something of a minor deity to the locals. They shadow her when she's outside the Madre, now, not in a hostile way...almost like an honour guard. I saw them bring her a prospector once before I left, messing himself with terror of course. She pointed him in the direction of the gate and gave him a shove. I didn't see what happened after that, but I think he departed in one piece. I suppose that's what she does now, caretaker of the Madre." Dean coughed. "That was one reason I high-tailed it out of there, as a matter of fact. She seemed forgiving, but I couldn't be sure that it would last. Not something I cared to gamble on, either. Time to begin again."

"Which brings us back to business," Elaine responded. "You did bring something quite advanced out with you. 'Fess up - what is it?"

Dean flashed her his most charming stage smile. "How can you possibly be interested in buying something when you don't know what it is?"

Elaine shrugged. "I do know that whatever it is, it has potential military applications, which brings it under the New Vegas Charter, section 7, paragraph 5a. Any tech with military application in the City becomes City property, with or without compensation to the owner." She smiled back, a smile that made Dean shift uneasily in his seat. "We're doing the with part now. Let's settle things before I have to move on to without."

"Well, if you put it that way..." Dean paused momentarily. "Hologram projectors. Storekeepers, casino staff...and security or military. Sample hardware and full schematics. Everything you need to roll your own, all standard components, no unique devices or exotic ingredients needed. Good stuff, if I say so myself."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Elaine grunted, poker-faced. But she realized at once it was huge. During her brief tenure as chief executive, she had learned that the New Vegas Protectron army was not as mighty as it seemed. To begin with, there were only a certain number of Protectrons, and manufacturing more was out of the question, at least in the near future. A small, persistent hostile force could chip away at the ranks of the Protectrons by sniping the ones patrolling the perimeter, for instance, and even after the upgrade they remained vulnerable to pulse grenades and projectiles. Several had already been damaged, and it was only the ignorance of most Raiders and their blind faith that their low-quality energy weapons were always superior to conventional guns that had kept the toll this low so far. It would have been much grimmer if they'd thought to use anti-materiel rifles. But with holograms, energy bolts and bullets alike would pass straight through, and since most Raiders were stupid to begin with and drugged out of their minds into the bargain, it would probably take them a very long time to realize that they had to find and disable the emitters to eliminate the threat.

"Would you like to take a look at the stuff?" Dean asked. "Might be easier to impress you of its value if you saw it up close. It's all right here, wouldn't let it out of my sight." He waved at a stack of medium-sized wooden boxes in the far corner of the room. "Didn't even dare to take the boards off the windows with these here."

"Well, that's that, then," Elaine said briskly. She raised a small object - communicator of some kind, Dean guessed - and spoke a few words into it. "Deal done. Stand down. Eight or so boxes to receive. Five bags in return. You can open the front window and load them from there; the owner won't mind. He's been meaning to do it himself anyway."

The response was instant. With an enormous tearing noise and a shower of dust, the boards came ripping off the front windows and the light streamed in. Dean sat gaping and blinking as two brisk city workers marched through the door and began levering the boxes out of the window, where the Protectrons who had torn the boards off the window loaded them onto a cargo wagon drawn by a long-suffering Brahmin. Finally, one of the Protectrons tossed five sacks through the window in quick succession, each of which landed with a small puff of dust and a metallic clunk.

Elaine looked at the bags.

"Fifty thousand caps. Take it or leave it. We do have other uses for the money."

Dean made a weak attempt to bargain, but Elaine shut him down at once.

"It's generous enough for something I could have just taken, Dean. With or without, remember? Don't argue. In fact," she said, rolling her eyes, "it escapes me for a moment why I am being so generous to you."

"Good name of the city, a reputation as a place where the deserving prospector will be richly rewarded, a general aura of open-handedness perhaps?" Dean was smiling again.

Resilient old bastard, that I have to grant him, Elaine thought. She smiled back and shrugged. "For the sake of the city's reputation, there'll be a Protectron or two standing guard outside until you decide what to do with your new-found wealth," she said. "It would look very bad if you were robbed right after dealing with us. And don't go too far from home until we check this shit out and make sure it all works. We'll be back for a refund if it doesn't."

"I'm overwhelmed by your thoughtfulness. Until we meet again, then." Dean rose to his feet and extended his hand for a farewell handshake.

Elaine rose as well, a good deal more slowly, and took Dean's hand: "Till tomorrow, then." Dean raised an eyebrow, or what passed for an eyebrow for a ghoul. Elaine smiled one last time before she released her grip. "We're nowhere near finished yet, Dean. There's quite a bit I'd still like to find out. Will find out. Tomorrow morning, 9 am sharp. I'll be back."

Then she was off, walking down the sidewalk back to the Strip, leaving Dean gazing after her as she turned and disappeared at the street corner. He examined the front wall of his office, now open to the street. The Protectron that had ripped the boards off had been unexpectedly gentle with the piece of plywood his old theater poster had been mounted on, propping it carefully to the side. I suppose because she told it to, Dean thought. Sentimental. She's not as ruthless as she likes to put on.

A thought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then he began to walk down the street himself, in the opposite direction to that which Elaine had taken. As he expected, one Protectron remained in front of his office, and the other began to trail him. He walked back and addressed the one that was following, "I have to go and see a man about a dog, so you needn't be so worried. I'll be right back, OK?"

The Protectron answered in its distinctive, tinny voice, "I regret, citizen, that you cannot travel alone for the time being. This is a measure taken by City Security for your own safety. Please cooperate to avoid potential delays and injuries to yourself and to possibly uninsured third parties."

Dean shrugged, not that this TV on a wheel was going to understand his body language. "Have it your own way, then. Just try not to shoot anything unnecessarily, all right?"

"We are not in combat mode, citizen. Responses are limited to the reactive."

"Well, that's certainly a relief to hear," Dean muttered, more to himself than to anyone or anything else. Then he turned on his heel and marched swiftly off, trailed by the Protectron at a discreet distance.