Layla fired the signal pulse from her laser detonator at the warhead blocking the path. A moment later, a gigantic boom echoed through the area as the device exploded.

A few large chunks of wreckage came flying their way, and Layla ducked down. She opened her mouth to yell to ED-E just as the hood of a car knocked the robot out of the air.

"ED-E!" she cried, crawling over to him. The damage seemed to be minimal; he'd probably been just knocked offline. She reinitialized him, and the eyebot sputtered back to life.

"Are you oka- " she started, but got cut off as his speakers crackled to life.

"I can't believe it! Grant actually went to Colonel Autumn and got approval for her damned 'efficiency guidelines.' All experiments will be carried out with the test subject fully active to reduce iteration time. It's barbaric. I'd explained this to the colonel: just because the eyebots don't have true AI doesn't mean they're just machines. I guess results are all that matter around here. Forget things like ethical procedures or humane treatment. I'm starting to have serious misgivings about the leadership around here.

At least I've got you to talk to, huh, ED-E?"

The message ended, and Layla looked at the robot. "Whitely seems like a decent guy… but I guess the Enclave didn't care much about your well-being, huh?"

ED-E whistled sadly.

She shook her head. "The Enclave was pretty messed up, even if some good eggs came out of it," she said with a smile, patting the eyebot. "Are you okay?"

ED-E whistled an affirmative.

"Well, let's not waste the daylight," she continued, and ED-E beeped in agreement.

They came up upon a collapsed overpass, marked with a white old world flag symbol. Layla had determined that the white ones marked the path Ulysses intended them to travel. As she started climbing through the huge chunks of broken walls and road, she wondered if it was a good idea to keep following the path the man had set for her.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, she saw something scurry past her line of vision, disappearing around a truck. ED-E let out a scared beep.

"It's okay…" Layla lied; whatever that thing had been, it wasn't human. "We'll be okay."

ED-E started warbling in agreement, but he was drowned out by a loud roar. Layla dropped into a crouch and pressed against the side of the truck. She'd never heard anything like that roar before.

She couldn't help but think of Irish, the old ghoul who used to live just up the road from her when the Divide had been her home. He'd been a soldier before the War, and loved to tease Layla. He used to tell her there were monsters that lived in the Divide who only came out at night. That was back when she could barely fire a pistol. She'd also been a lot more timid in general.

Once it had gotten out that Layla was having nightmares and wouldn't go out alone when it got dark, the ghoul had eased off. He'd even taken her aside one day and told her if anything real threatened her or the others at the Divide, he'd take care of it.

Irish had proven true to his word when raiders had come to the Divide, looking for an easy score. It probably would have been, if it hadn't been for the ghoul. Not that Irish didn't keep teasing her, but he usually limited it to her inability to shoot straight or how forgetful she'd been back then.

The thought of the old ghoul bolstered her courage as she brought herself back to the present, and peeked around the truck. There was more destroyed road ahead; it was amazing that there was still a path through it. Just as she was about to tell ED-E the area was clear, she caught sight of a body.

It was an NCR trooper, but this one wasn't a marked man. Layla rushed up to check the man's pulse. He was dead; she hadn't really expected otherwise, but had hoped. She could use a friendly face.

Sighing, she pulled off his dog tags and put them around her neck. She found a piece of paper in one of his pockets and opened it:

'At 0600 hours, Bravo Team will conduct sweep-and-clear operations in advance of the main force. Early intelligence suggests the tunnels are only sparsely populated by small, subterranean semi-humanoids, which are easily cowed by bright light and loud noises. Bravo Team has been issued flashbang grenades for this purpose, and is expected to meet minimal resistance.'

This mission statement was dated earlier this NCR must have tried to take the Divide back. Something twisted in Layla's stomach at the thought of it. Ulysses hadn't mentioned any normal troops in the area. She had to believe the mission had failed.

She wanted to take to heart the part about 'minimal resistance,' but she had a bad feeling things hadn't been that easy. ED-E whistled, and she looked up to see what he was talking about.

"Woah!"

In an open trailer just to her side was a dead deathclaw, head blown clear off. She looked down at the assault carbine the trooper had been holding and gave a weak smile; the soldier must have gotten him before he died.

Looking around, Layla thought she saw more bodies ahead. Her stomach started twisting as she found more human corpses; two troopers and a ranger this time. She looked them over for injuries; it looked like they'd been clawed by animals.

That could be explained by the deathclaw, except the marks were too small. Could be babies, she supposed. Either way, it was a painful, horrible way to go. She collected more dog tags and tried not to dwell on the fact that whatever had killed these men had bested a ranger. That didn't make her odds look good.

She hadn't taken the shovel with her, but there had to be a way to dispose of the bodies a little better than just letting them rot. Layla looked around for something to burn. A pyre was better than nothing.

She was crawling up a particularly broad chunk of ruined road when she heard another roar. Layla hunkered against the concrete, only sparing a moment to glare at the spray painted message against it: 'You can go home, Courier.'

Glancing back to make sure ED-E was still with her, she saw the robot shaking as it hovered. She was about to ask if he was malfunctioning, but after a burst of fearful whistling, she looked back the way she'd been going.

There was a mound of broken concrete and earth up ahead. Another roar echoed through the area, then the mound shifted as a creature crawled out of it.

It was humanoid, but crawled on all fours. It was covered in dark, scaly skin with clawed hands and a spiked mantle on its head. Luminescent streaks ran along its head and arms. The thing roared again, and Layla caught sight of nasty-looking teeth.

"Stay down," she whispered to ED-E as she pulled her shotgun off her back and crawled up closer. Once she got as near as she dared, she fired the gun.

The creature didn't have a chance to roar again before its head was blown off. Layla grinned at her handiwork.

"I guess they're not so tough," she whispered. "Come on ED-E, I want to get a look at this thing." The eyebot whistled nervously and hurried to catch up to the girl as she examined the creature.

It definitely looked amphibian, but Layla couldn't shake the thought that its general shape reminded her of those spore carriers from Vault 22. The thought was troubling, but she had no evidence as to what they were exactly.

Drawing the bowie knife she'd found earlier, she planned to make a few cuts into the skin to see if she could get any clue to its nature, but she was interrupted by another roar. Make that several coming from other concrete mounds in the area that she hadn't noticed before.

Straightening back up, she readied her shotgun. ED-E hovered around her, beeping warily. A creature sprung from the ground, then another and another until she was surrounded.

Layla didn't giver herself time to think, she just kept firing her shotgun as the monsters kept coming. By now, she'd counted ten of them. ED-E filled in as she reloaded. The blasts from her gun blew them back, so none were able to get too close.

She missed a big, hulking one, and it flung itself at her, knocking her down. She managed to get the barrel of the shotgun against its stomach and fire before it could get its claws on her. ED-E covered her as she stood, blasting the group with electricity as they tried to come near.

Layla ducked down to reload, and it took her a moment to realize everything had gone quiet. The creatures were all dead. ED-E whistled worriedly.

"I know… Let's keep moving before more show up." Layla looked back to where she'd left the troopers: she didn't like leaving them behind. She did a double-take; the bodies were gone. All of them, even the deathclaw.

ED-E whistled lowly.

"I don't know…" Layla answered, troubled. It couldn't have been marked men reclaiming their dead this time.

*.*.*

A soldier clad in riot gear leaned out of a window in the crow's nest and started shooting at a group of marked men storming the building. He didn't seem to notice there was another person coming up behind him. The sniper rifle in the soldier's hands cracked a slow but steady beat.

Without much more thought, Ulysses moved in, stabbing the man in the back. The bowie knife slid easily through the riot gear and into his flesh.

The man dropped his gun with a gurgling cry. He'd caused so much trouble for Ulysses in the past, this had almost been too easy. Things must have gotten more difficult for him since the Tunnelers had shown up. He'd slipped.

The soldier had been causing him trouble since he'd returned to the Divide. At first, he'd thought him another marked man, but he'd been leaving traps and taking careful shots at Ulysses. Almost got him a few times.

They'd spoken briefly, once, and while Ulysses had been careful not to reveal too much of his plan, the soldier had seemed to guess some of it anyway. Since then, they'd been trying to kill each other.

The soldier had stayed at the Divide. Something had tethered him here. He'd lost something. It had been important, enough to keep him in this lifeless wreckage.

Ulysses knew about loss, but that didn't stay his hand.

"Disappointing," he said out loud, even though the man was already dead as he withdrew the knife from his heart. Looking out to the road below, it seems he'd finished with this sniper just in time; someone was emerging from the collapsed overpass onto the road.

Ulysses brought his binoculars to his eyes. It had to be her; the eyebot hovered around her as she slowly made her way.

She wasn't what he'd been expecting, but he hadn't really known what to expect. It changed nothing, either way. He pulled the radio transmitter from his pocket and flicked it on.

*.*.*

"There you are."

Layla started as she heard the voice from ED-E's speakers.

"Hard to kill the Bear; you and your machine survived."

The Courier wondered if he knew about the creatures that had attacked them in the collapsed overpass, but he continued before she could ask.

"There's a lesson here, about paving and intentions. Republic should learn it, if they listened. Trying to do right, never quite getting there."

"You've got a better plan, I take it?" Layla challenged. Here we go with the crazy take-over-the-world schemes.

"Yes. The Bear's too busy carving the Mojave with knives, roads and borders. Stretched thin. They think paper is power, and radio, control. It's all useless.

"You and your machine are all that's left of NCR here. The rest fell to radiation, fire… and what burrows below."

That caught her attention. "What were those things?"

"Tunnelers. Predators. They make their own roads below. The Divide broke their sky, showed them new prey. The Mojave may die a slower death than fire; they will come for its people."

"What do you mean? They're moving?" Layla did not like the thought of those things spreading out.

"Radiation made them, explosions brought them up. Long before the marked men or the Divide's destruction. The Mojave will be easy prey; they breed fast, hunt in groups. Seen them take down a grown deathclaw."

That was very troubling. She'd have to make preparations back in the Mojave once this was all done. An idea started forming, but Ulysses continued, interrupting her thoughts.

"The road you're on, Highroad. At the end is Ashton, and its silo. That machine with you can wake it up, open it, like it did the one in Hopeville."

He'd said the last part with a sneer in his voice. That wasn't the first time he'd spoken about ED-E with disdain.

"Why do you hate my robot?" she asked, curious of what riddle she'd get as an answer.

"Hate?" He sounded somewhat surprised. "No, there's nothing to hate in steel, gold or platinum. Your machine is just a tool. Be more answers the closer you get to home, you and that machine."

"You know I'm not from the Divide… right?" Layla couldn't help but ask. The Divide had only been a community for a few years.

"Home isn't where you're born, you taught me that. Wouldn't have known the Divide if it hadn't been for you. You were the first who was willing to make the trip, a hard road.

"Can't have been just a job, was more than that for you," Ulysses continued. "It grew from what you did. Chance for a new nation, new beginning. Could have breathed new life into the Mojave, bridging east and west, like the dam.

"But NCR saw the worth, staked a claim. And where the Bear clings, the Bull comes, bringing messages, some by blade… others by Courier."

"So you've been here," Layla said, sounding unsurprised. "Caesar sent you with the ground force that attacked?"

"No, I came here during my travels. Walked the road after setting Caesar down his. May have been different if I never told him about the Dam."

"Wait, are you trying to tell me-?"

"Now you walk west until the sun dies," he cut her off, "and I'll be waiting."

The sound cut out with a buzz, and Layla sighed. ED-E warbled, sounding annoyed.

"Of course not. You're much more than a 'tool,'" She soothed, then let out a breath. Ulysses had a talent for making more questions than answering them. "I guess we're heading on to Ashton…"

The robot beeped, and Layla started down the road. They were traveling a destroyed highway; the path they stood on was very far off the ground. Peeking over the rail had revealed a dizzying drop.

Eventually tearing her gaze away from the amazing, if not scary view, she looked at the path before her; there were tall buildings along the roads, some completely gutted, some mostly intact. One partially fell over on the road ahead.

As she looked in that direction, she caught sight of another warhead. Fishing out her binoculars, she confirmed the sight, and a few marked men milling around it.

Taking cover behind an overturned truck, she leveled the laser detonator at the warhead. At least it would be quick for them. After a few seconds of bathing the warhead with signal pulses, the device exploded.

Looking again, she found the warhead was gone, as were the marked men. She chewed her lip as she looked at her Geiger counter, continuing past the burning wreckage.

There was an arrow painted on the side of the building leaning over the road, pointing up. Layla looked along the path the arrow indicated, and saw a series of handholds on the wall leading up to a clear area above.

There was a fire going up there; she could see the smoke from where she stood. If she could get up there without killing herself, it would be a good spot to take a rest. Assuming no one was up there already.

Considering a warhead had just gone off not very far away, she assumed anyone up there would have been startled into action already. Ignoring that this was a bit reckless, she started climbing.

ED-E whistled worriedly as he hovered upward with her.

"I know. Just zoom up and take a peek to make sure, would you?" The robot did as she asked and whistled back the all-clear a moment later.

"Good," she replied as she reached the top of the handholds. Picking her way carefully, Layla crawled over the wrecked walls to the flat, intact section of floor. It was clear someone had set up shop here; there were a few old sniper rifles in one corner as well as ammo boxes and a pile of old army rations.

She started as she noticed a body hanging out of a window. Moving without thinking, she grabbed the person under the arms and pulled them back in. Losing her footing, she fell over, and the body landed on top of her.

"I'm okay," she said to ED-E as he zoomed over. She still had her arms around the person, and the front of her armor was now covered in blood. The person had been stabbed in the back. It had to have been recent if the blood was still wet. Layla pulled the helmet off; there was a chance they were still alive.

The Courier let out a ragged gasp, it was Irish. She'd recognize that bright shock of orange hair anywhere. She checked his pulse, but he was already gone. She'd missed him by less than an hour. He'd been alive this whole time.

ED-E beeped worriedly as she began crying.

"H-he was alive," Layla whimpered, wrapping her arms around the old ghoul. "If only I'd known."

This destruction had been hard to look at, but it all had been so twisted and alien, it hadn't hit home. Irish was the first recognizable thing she'd seen destroyed. And she'd just missed him.

She didn't know how long it took her to pull herself back together. Eventually she was able to stop the parade of faces she'd known from the Divide marching through her mind and crawl out from under the ghoul.

His armor looked like vet ranger armor, but the markings weren't NCR. Picking up the helmet, she found a shield with a horse painted on it. Old World; it must have been his old military gear. She'd never seen it when she'd known him. He probably kept it for an emergency.

The thought made tears well up in her eyes again, but she was able to keep them down. Taking a step toward the medical supplies Irish had gathered, her legs gave out on her, and she fell over.

ED-E beeped frantically as Layla's head spun. She felt him nudging her as she closed her eyes, willing the spinning to stop.

"I-I'm okay," she whispered a moment later as the spinning stopped. "I… oh crap." She looked down at her Pip-Boy, bringing the menu to her vital sign readout.

"Ahhhh fuck, too many rads," she grumbled. "At least we're somewhere safe for a…" Her gaze lingered on Irish, and she started weeping again.

Poor ED-E zoomed around, beeping worriedly. Sniffling, Layla dug a bag of RadAway out of her pack and hung it from a piece of rebar sticking out of the wall.

"I just need to… I need some RadAway," she managed to get out for the robot's sake. "And we'll burn him." She nodded at Irish. "I don't want him disappearing too."

The Courier stood on shaking feet and dragged Irish's body to the center of the cleared area. She went through his pockets for anything she could use, then put his helmet back on and gathered all the wood from the boxes scattered around.

With the help of the garbage can fire that was already going, she soon had the ghoul's pyre lit. She sunk down against the far wall and grabbed the IV of RadAway. With shaking hands and several misses, she managed to get it into a vein, then she leaned her head against the wall and cried.

Eventually, Layla fell into a light doze. Her half-remembered dreams of Irish teaching her how to properly hold a pistol were interrupted as ED-E beeped at her.

"Hn?" she murmured, then noticed the bag of RadAway was about to run out, "Oh, thanks." She yanked the needle out with a grimace, then sighed. Irish's pyre would take a while longer, and frankly, she needed to rest for a little bit. This had been a lot to take in.

"ED-E," she called, "do you want me to install that other circuit board I found?"

The robot warbled an affirmative and hovered over. It didn't take long for her to install the part and switch the little robot back on. ED-E rose in the air again.

"What's this one do?" she asked. ED-E started to respond, but his speakers crackled.

"Sir, with all due respect, I think this is a mistake. We're close to a breakthrough with the Duraframe eyebots, I can feel it! Yes, sir."

"Yes sir, I understand we need the Duraframe assests for the Hellfire armor, but- No sir. Yes sir, I understand, sir. I'll tell the team to start disassembling the Duraframe eyebots."

There was a rustling noise and the sounds of beeping before the man continued speaking. "…ED-E? You little rascal, were you listening in again? I think those videos you watch are a bad influence on you. How much did you hear?"

Now there were sad beeps.

"Hmm… Didn't Dr. Grant say she upgraded your navigational systems? I think I have an idea. How would you like to be just like RALPHIE?"

The recording stopped, and ED-E let out an embarrassed beep.

"RALPHIE? Huh?" Layla asked, and the robot made a dismissive warble.

"Do you record everything?" the Courier continued.

ED-E beeped slyly.

"Really?" Layla gaped. "Well, I'd better be careful what I say to you, huh?

The robot warbled reassuringly, then beeped a question.

"No, ED-E, I don't want to hear your recordings of 'human mating calls.' That's just… wrong."

He beeped coyly at that.

"Edward, you haven't been recording any of the times Boone and I have been… intimate… have you?"

The robot beeped a negative quickly, and Layla leveled a finger at him.

"If I find out otherwise, you're getting put in the creepy old storage room at the 38."

ED-E let out a nervous beep.

"Anyway, what did the circuit board do?" Layla asked. The eyebot bleeped an answer.

"Well that's handy. Wanna look over my pistol?"

ED-E beeped again, and Layla drew her .45 from her hip and set it down. "Be careful with that. It was a gift."

The robot blew a raspberry at her, and she frowned.

"You wouldn't have liked Utah; it was all nature. You're not a fan of nature."

The eyebot's manipulation tools popped out, and he started working on maintaining the weapon. He buzzed at Layla.

"Fine, next time I go, you can come too. Okay?"

The eyebot warbled as he worked, then announced a few minutes later the gun was finished.

Layla shook her head, taking her gun back. It looked pristine; Joshua would be pleased.

"Thanks," she said, then looked over at Irish's pyre. The fire was burning low. She sniffled as she realized he was gone for good now.

"Let's go," she whispered, and ED-E bumped into her shoulder. She gathered her things, climbed down the handholds and continued on the road again.

Layla's heart felt like it was filled with lead. She'd already mourned the people of the Divide when she'd first heard of its destruction. But being here, seeing what had happened re-opened all of her wounds. Never mind finding out that Irish had been alive.

Something else was troubling her as well: from the way he'd been talking, it sounded like Ulysses hadn't brought her here to gloat over destroying the Divide. That bothered Layla; she'd been so sure he'd done this. Why else have her come back?

Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw something moving up ahead. Layla gasped and dove behind a chunk of upheaved road. ED-E started whistling, but Layla slapped a hand over his speaker and pulled him down with her.

"Okay, now I regret coming here," she whispered to the robot. She peeked out again and confirmed what she saw: two full-grown deathclaws were meandering along the road. Ducking back behind cover, she closed her eyes and breathed a moment and decided she wasn't going to freak out.

Making the decision to keep a cool head isn't also going to grant you the ability to snipe the things from this distance, her mind snapped at her. Chewing her lip, she drew her .45 and hoped Joshua Graham was thinking of her; she'd need all the help she could get.

Just as she started to draw a line on the closest deathclaw, she ducked back down. ED-E whistled quietly at her sudden movement.

"Just hedging my bets," she whispered, digging her 1st Recon beret out of her armor and put it on. Now she was as prepared as she was going to get.

Jushua and all of 1st Recon must have been thinking good thoughts at her; she blew the deathclaw's head off with her first shot.

She didn't give herself time to think about it, instead firing at the other one. She scored two good hits before it figured out what was happening and started charging for her.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" she cried, vaguely hearing the panic in her voice as the monster came closer. "ED-E!" The eyebot started blasting the creature with electricity as she reloaded and kept firing.

The deathclaw wasn't far from her now, and it coiled to pounce. Just as it sprang from its crouch, Layla shot it in the face. The Courier was just barely able to dodge the creature's body as it crashed to the ground, dead.

Panting, Layla stared at the thing. She'd just taken out two deathclaws, alone. Well, almost alone.

"Thanks, ED-E," she whispered. The robot knocked into her shoulder again. Layla grinned a little as he warbled.

"Yes, I'll tell everyone you saved me from a bunch of deathclaws," she answered. Moving away from the bodies, she saw an intact trailer on the road.

"Let's just peek in here a sec. I think need a breather," she announced. ED-E beeped an agreement.

The trailer had a few useful looking items in it, including more of those army rations. Layla felt her stomach growl as she looked at one.

"Boneless pork chop…" she read out loud. Opening it, she found a whole bunch of stuff inside. Before she knew it, she was working the 'Flameless Ration Heater' while she ate the crackers that had been in the package as well.

Soon she had a warm meal and a piece of cake. Pocketing the candy-coated chocolate things, she grinned at ED-E.

"We are picking up every one of these things we can find, okay?"

The robot beeped as the Courier started stuffing the remaining packages into her bag. As she picked up the last one, she found something below it.

"Huh…"

It was a snowglobe. It was cracked, emptied of its water and little floating sparkles and looked like it'd been scorched. It read 'Lonesome Road.'

Layla put it in her pack, feeling her lunch grumble in her gut. She'd never look at a snowglobe without feeling guilty again. Mr. House-

Something impacted on the top of the trailer, interrupting her thoughts. Whatever it was, it was heavy. A moment later, she heard growling. Deathclaw growling.

She froze, thinking for a moment that the creature might move on if she stayed still.

It can probably smell your 'lunch' a mile away, said her brain. That was probably very true. She was fucked.

She caught sight of another warhead as she looked out the trailer's window. Biting her lip, she drew her detonator and lit the device up.

The explosion sent out a heat wave, and the trailer suddenly got a lot hotter. Once everything was quiet again, Layla peeked out of the trailer and found the monster was gone. Apparently all it took to scare away a deathclaw was a nuclear explosion.

Sighing with relief, she motioned for ED-E and ran for the end of the road. The path that led off the highway twisted up to what had to be the silo.

This one hadn't fared as well as Hopeville; most of the building was exposed. A control station similar to the one that had opened the other silo was standing next to the door.

ED-E hovered over and activated the controls. The robot beeped at her that the station was ready.

"All right, here goes," she said, then threw the lever. Warning klaxons started blaring, and a loud rumble echoed through the area.

Hearing a noise from further away, Layla saw a panel open in the ground. Then a missile, complete with a nuclear warhead, shot out of the hole. It flew into the air, then arced back toward the ground, landing further ahead in the Divide and sending a gigantic mushroom cloud into the sky.

Layla watched in complete horror.


I hope you enjoyed the chapter. This story is proving to be complicated to throw together, but we're doing it! Now, I have a birthday party to prepare for... mine (and my editor got me the Ultimate Edition of New Vegas :3).

Update: 4/6/12 - The next update won't be until April 18th. There has been a death in my family. Everyone have a good and safe Easter; always cherish what you have while you can.