Chapter 1: Silver Linings

Before being imprisoned, I was part of a gang of mercenaries. Sometimes we would take jobs as escorts for travelling merchants who need protection, other times we would accept contracts from small organizations as armed security. Every job we took involved a fight one way or the other, whether it was a good old bare knuckle boxing match or a straight shoot out.

Our leader, Raze, always met alone with the contractor for instructions, debriefing and payments. This way, we couldn't ask too many questions. We had our instructions and that was it. Simple.

On this particular night, I was waiting for Raze down at my usual watering hole, The Atomic Wrangler. I sat at the bar, guzzling beers and bantering with Francine, the older of the Garrett twins. Up on stage, the new comedy show was getting underway. Hadrian, the ghoul, was insulting the audience as part of his act.

The air was smoky and filled with the sound of laughter, slot machines and music. Conversations overlapped each other in the packed club. Francine busied herself with washing the counter top as she feigned interest in my story.

"Look, Suckerpunch, all I'm saying is if you really need a job-" she began to interrupt my troubled thoughts. For the hundredth time, she was about to offer me the same damn job recruiting sex workers.

"For God's sake Frank," my nick name for her always makes her smile "no one wants to fuck a robot or a ghoul! I'm not going on your weird scavenger hunt for sex objects. Find someone else to do it."

"It'll be a long time before anyone walks in here and volunteers to recruit for the fetishist. But you know my brother, he IS persistent. He won't be giving up that search any time soon."

"Anyone who would know where to look would have to travel a lot and seen a lot of places. You know, like merchants, salvagers or even couriers? You could try asking one of them folks?" We laughed about her brother James' obsession with this sex-bot for a while before Raze finally arrived.

"Guess who just opened up a line of credit down at the Silver Rush?" Raze was overjoyed. He spread his arms, as if to show off his good fortune, smiling from ear to ear. "I'm talking lasers, plasmas, tri-beam rifles with laser sightings! And I got it all for free!"

"What are you talking about?" I sat in disbelief. I could see Francine's jaw drop at the corner of my eye.

"Let's go 'Punch! We got an armory to unload." He patted my shoulder briskly and made a beeline for the exit. I glanced at Frank once, shrugged my shoulders and followed the leader.

He wasn't waiting by the door when I stepped outside onto Fremont Street. I scanned the street and spotted him speed walking to the entrance of the Silver Rush. The evening air was still hot and humid from the day under the burning sun. The streets were still brimming with life, drunks shouting, and gunshots in the distance and street criers announcing the latest sales pitches from local shops. Typical Freeside aesthetic.

It was already after hours, I knew the shop was closed but the guard, Simon, let us through anyway. We didn't even have to have our weapon's checked even though Raze wore his revolver's openly around his waist. Inside, the shop lights were dimmed and most guards had retired for the night. Only the light in the back office was lit.

Raze led me through the shop and up into the office area where Gloria Van Graff and her half-brother, Jean Baptiste-Cutting, waited with two Silver Rush employees. They were gathered around a small cache of energy weapons laid out on the desks before them.

"Ah, Raze. You're just in time." Gloria turned to greet us with a stern look of disapproval. Her dark skin made her even more mysterious in the low light of the office. Jean Baptiste stood behind her silent and motionless as a statue. "The armory is prepared for your approval. We'll pack up right away, but if you need to inspect the hardware…"

"No, thanks. We'll just take it from here." Raze replied.

"Good," Gloria snapped her fingers and the two lackeys quickly began packing the weapons into duffle bags. The Van Graff woman never turned her attention away from us and continued to speak while the men worked on the packing. "Time is of the essence, you understand. You must be precise with your encounters. These three caravans are all transporting stolen hardware that was meant to be delivered to this shop last week. They must all pay for stealing from the Silver Rush."

I listened intently making sure it was all a legitimate opportunity here. I didn't trust the Van Graffs and I hated the way Jean Baptiste and his two cronies kept glancing at me. It sounded like Gloria was sending us on a revenge hit against whoever was messing with her business. I just didn't get why she couldn't send her own soldiers out.

"You must use the access pass below the storage room to leave." Gloria commanded as we each grabbed two duffle bags. Each bag must have weighed a hundred pounds. "You can't transport that much hardware through the streets. Everyone from Freeside to North Vegas and the Thorn will be attracted to that and you don't want to meet any Vipers and Feinds with just the two of you travelling at night."

"That's a really good point." I could tell Raze hadn't really thought about it like that. He had no plan to get this much weaponry delivered through all of North Vegas territory.

"The access room connects to the sewers below Freeside and North Vegas. You can travel safely and quicker there." Gloria led us to the storage room in the back of the shop as she explained. The floor hatch was hidden to the naked eye but once she found the unlock button, the floor popped open to reveal the ladder leading to the underground tunnels.

Raze and I were back at our base of operations in the tunnels below North Vegas Square. We met with the rest of the group in the main corridor where most of the tunnels meet. I passed out weapons to everyone as Raze explained the mission in detail. He outlined the same basic instructions as Gloria had before, which didn't quench my curiosity about the finer points of the objective.

It was plain and simple, Raze had explained as we began to armor up. It's a straight forward hit and run marathon. Three caravans in one night. Everyone had enough weapons and armor to assault the Hoover
Dam together.

That night, we headed north on the highway that led up the mountain. There we waited in hiding for the Griffin Wares caravan as it made its way down from Jacobstown. As they passed by the Horowitz Farmstead, we ambushed them with our energy weapons and turned most to dust. We raided the coach wagon and stock but we didn't find any Silver Rush goods.

"Whatever doesn't belong to the Van Graff's we can take!" Raze announced to the crew. We picked the bodies and the boxes clean.

Next, Raze explained to the crew, we head east of the city and hit the Durable Dunn's Caravan while they make camp during their trade route. By the time we got there, the camp fires had burnt out and the night watch guards had fallen asleep on duty. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Again, we looted the entire caravan when they were all executed. Still, there was no sign of any Silver Rush supplies.

"Who cares about their supplies?" Raze snarled with disappointment at my curiosity. "They hired us as hitmen and that's it. We're not retrievers."

The last target was supposed to be camped out for the night as well, but we discovered they had kept on travelling for the night. I brought up the question again with Raze as we walked but he seemed far off in his own thoughts somehow. At last we caught up with Cassidy Caravan's just south of the city, near the old Allied Technologies Office.

We snuck ahead of them and planted a few plasma mines in the road. When the bombs went off we rained down plasma and laser beams. When the dust settled, Raze ran a body count and discovered there was one missing. Everyone scanned the horizons but we couldn't see through the darkness. For a moment, I thought I spotted something in the distance. Maybe it was just a coyote kicking up dust.

Raze instructed us to loot the remains. We took pistols, rifles and lots of whiskey but still no energy weapons or Silver Rush supplies. Raze got a little angry when I pressed the matter.

"None of these caravans stole from the Silver Rush, Raze. You know that" I argued. "And why didn't Gloria just send her own goons to do this. Why at night?"

"This is the only time that all three caravans would be in close proximity to each other," Raze reassured me. "It had to be done quickly so they wouldn't be able to warn each other."

And just like that, Raze had explained how we ended the night after successfully raiding three travelling caravans. Everyone agreed it was a plain and simple straight forward mission. And it went off without a hitch. Almost. We just had to go get paid.

As soon as we returned to the base below North Vegas Square, everyone unloaded the loot they collected and began to show off and compare newfound weapons and other swag. Raze took me by the arm and invited me to tag along with him to get the payment from the Van Graffs at the Silver Rush.

One of the twins shouted that they were going to start the celebrations without us. I could already hear beers opening as the door closed behind me. We travelled by sewer as we drank our beers. Finally we arrived at the correct ladder that led up to the Access Room below the Silver Rush gun shop.

I climbed up first with Raze following close. The top hatch was heavier than expected but I managed to get it open. The storage room was dark but I quickly found the light switch. Raze stood halfway through the hatch, with his feet still on the ladder. The look on his face was betrayal.

"I'm sorry about this Suckerpunch," Raze tried to justify himself "but I need you to meet them alone. This is goodbye my friend."

With that, he ducked below the lid and pulled it closed. I heard the locking mechanism clank home. I tried in vain to get the lid open. I kicked the locking pin and punched the lid but nothing budged. With no options left, I slowly made my way to the storage room door that led to the hall.

No one was in the hallway, or in the bathroom next door. That meant that everyone was waiting in the main shop. I took one last deep breath and opened the door and stepped through to meet with fate.

"Idiot!" Gloria shrieked as I took the butt of a gun to my stomach. My guts turned to mush instantly. Jean Baptiste towered over with his rifle pointed at my face. I could see pulsing green energy as his plasma rifle gathered the energy to fire a bolt through my skull. "You were specifically told not to leave any survivors."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I moaned as I tried to answer back through bursts of pain. Her half-brother continued to pummel my ribs with his gun as she shouted obscenities in an exotic language.

"The fucking owner of the third company, Cassidy Caravans, survived the assault and made her way to Sloan." An image flashed in my mind, like a coyote at the corner of my eye. It was just a shadow at the edge of the night, but now I was convinced maybe I did see somebody out in that desert that night. Rose of Sharon Cassidy.

"Should I kill him now?" Jean Baptiste asked as he raised the muzzle again.

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Cutting." A mysterious voice rang from the shadows behind the office door. Someone kicked the back of my legs and I fell to my knees in the main shop. I looked to my left, and an older woman stepped out of the darkness. She wore a well-kept Crimson Caravan skirt and blouse and her hair was neatly combed. She appeared to be scanning the room, looking for something or someone and coming up empty. "You're all by yourself? You're friend, Mr. Raze, must be a very smart man. He knew he was being set up and so he sent you instead. Clever boy."

I knew something was wrong with this mission from the moment I saw the Silver Rush that night. Even the way Raze was acting while we tracked down Cassidy Caravans was weird.

"You were never really going to be paid," the mystery woman explained. "But you did get the job done, and for that, I am impressed. You eliminated most of the competition in the small arms trades; that means more business for the Crimson Caravan and Silver Rush. I think that's cause for a celebration."

She turned to the counter and revealed a bottle of vodka behind Jean Baptiste, along with four shooter glasses. As she proceeded to fill the glasses she spoke in a final tone. "Phase one is complete Van Graffs, and all it's all thanks to you and your crew Mr. Suckerpunch. Soon, we can continue with phase two, by taking down those wretched Gunrunners and their worthless empire."

"What happens with me?" I asked in fear of the answer.

"You'll be going to prison for mass murder." The woman in Crimson gear answers bluntly.

"And my friends?" I am more afraid for them than myself.

"All dead." She replies plainly. "They're being terminated as we speak. An elite team of Rangers are raiding your base where they will find all the Silver Rush weapons that were reported stolen last week, plus whatever loot that ties your group to the caravan massacres. There'll be enough evidence there to send you away indefinitely. No matter how you claim it, no one will listen."

It makes sense. This was a complete setup. I took the shot of vodka and drained it in one swift movement.

"There is a silver lining here: you could be dead along with the rest of your entire crew." She winks at me as if to reassure me "Cheers!"

I hear Jean Baptiste-Cutting make a move behind me and suddenly my head aches. The world fades to black and I hear the woman's voice echo as I drift into oblivion.

"Alice McLafferty: at your service."