Chapter Four: Primm and Proper
My "partner" was asleep before his head hit the mattress. I quietly got up and began looking through my bag. My Pip-boy was still on my wrist and I held down a small button on the side to turn on the flashlight. It was bright, and reflected off the metal of the vehicle, but the guy on the mattress was still asleep. From inside my bag, I pulled the 9mm from my bag and aimed it at his head.
With a soft popping noise, the man was dead. I know if I didn't get around to it first, he would've done the same to me. I applied a line of his blood across my cheek and checked through his pockets. I found 5.56 bullets, along with a meager 12 caps, and this one strange blue cap with a white star on it. He had some pills labeled "Rad-X" in a small blue bottle. I threw those and the caps in my bag and got dressed.
I dragged the body out of the vehicle and laid him in front of it. I took the bloody mattress and set it up against the door. It was a little bigger than the door frame, so I shoved it in as good as I could and laid the empty Nuka-Cola bottles on top. If the mattress fell over, the bottles would smash and (hopefully) wake me up.
I checked my Pip-boy, and it was almost midnight. I laid back down and drifted into a fitful sleep, Romulus always at my fingertips.
I woke up when the sun was violently filtering through the broken glass that used to be a window. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, they were still fuzzy and my head still careened. I grabbed my duffle bag and double checked for anything I might be forgetting. I remembered that he was trying to get me to go up the hill on the other side of the source, and I was much too curious to not check it out now that it was daylight.
On the way out, I glanced over at the body and noticed there were large chunks of flesh missing, and his arm was almost ripped off. There was something around that was hungry. Since we were so close to the source, my guess was that more geckos were moving in.
My guess had turned out to be correct. As I approached the hill, Romulus in hand, I noticed three geckos before they noticed me. I aimed down the sights and was able to take two out before reloading. The third one turned towards me and began running. For having such short, stubby legs, it ran pretty fast. I aimed, but couldn't keep a steady sight on him. I fired two shots and after the second, I noticed he slowed down. I took advantage of that time to reload and pop off another two shots. It was dead before it hit the ground.
There wasn't much up on the cliff. A dead man, with a few caps on him. Had to tip-toe around a few bear traps. There was a fridge, why the hell it was on the cliff, I have no idea. It obviously wasn't keeping anything cold, but there were a couple of Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles sitting in the door, and some rotten looking meat on the shelf. I took the bottles and put them in my bag. The footlocker nearby had a few rounds that I couldn't even use, and a couple more caps. So much for his "treasure." I sighed and headed back down the ridge and towards Primm.
I followed the road most of the way there and didn't bother to do much sightseeing – not that there was that much to even see – the Mojave is a flat, boring, irradiated desert. In the distance I saw the roller coaster Sunny told me about. The town was mostly fenced off, but there was a road in, blocked by troopers carrying guns. I sighed, I knew this was going to take some convincing. Mama always said I had a silver tongue, though, so hopefully I can get these army boys to listen to me. He was wearing brown armor with NCR written across his left breast plate, and an armor bandolier strapped across the middle of his chest. In his hands, he held a service rifle, and the butt of the gun was held together with duct tape.
Sure enough, I was stopped by the first one standing watch, "You have business in Primm?"
"I'm a courier, and I heard the nearest Mojave Express was in Primm," I replied.
"Well, not to put you in bad spirits, kid, but the place has been overrun with Powder Gangers. Apparently, the NCRCF up north was taken over by the prisoners."
"I can handle myself if anything happens. I just need to get in and get right back out."
"Well, I warned you. It's your ass if anything happens."
I mock-saluted to him and headed into Primm. The road was dotted with tents decked out with metal doors and troopers walking around with their service rifles at the ready. Most of them nodded towards me, a couple addressed me as "ma'am." The bridge that connected this road to Primm had a look out in a shack made of discarded metal, and a few mines placed here and there. My small frame made me agile enough to skip around the mines. I looked at my Pip-boy and all of the ticks appeared blue. So far, no enemies. I headed into town and the town was completely empty. There were a few bodies in the street, but living people? Not a blip on my Pip-boy.
To my left there was the Mojave Express and another dead body outside. The closer I came, the more apparent it had been that the body was a courier like myself. He was wearing a long sleeve brown shirt, a bandana around his neck, jeans and he had a bag that said "Mojave Express" slung over his chest, exactly like the ones we were all issued to carry. Which I just remembered I didn't have anymore.
I got down on one knee and searched through his pockets. Nothing. He was slumped over, and there was a gunshot wound right between his eyes. They were still open and stared vacantly at me. I looked away and started going through his bag. The only thing in there was a letter labeled "Courier Four." The contents of his note were exactly the same as mine, except he was issued to carry two oversized fuzzy dice. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to figure out what it all meant. There were six of us hired altogether. I was carrying an oversized platinum chip, and he was carrying oversized fuzzy die. Someone tried to kill me, and someone obviously succeeded with him. The lack of caps on him made me question whether or not someone stole his package, too.
I shook my head and made my way into the Mojave Express. It was completely empty. There was still food on plates at the table, though it looked moldy now. On the counter, there was an old-world comic book and a broken robot. I took a look at it, but I didn't know much about robots or repairing them, so I just shrugged. I called out a hello, even though I knew I was the only person in there. I exited the building and decided to check out the Vicki and Vance across the street. My entrance was most welcome, with a barrel of a gun pointed right between my eyes.
I held my hands up in the air, "whoa, I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm a courier and I was looking for whoever ran the Mojave Express. There's no one there."
"That would be me," the man behind the gun said. Just like Easy Pete, his skin looked like leather. He was a dark brown color, and his skin was wrinkled to hell and back. He had a buzzed head, and bags under his eyes the size of my duffle bag, "the town's gone to hell. What do you need here, youngster?" He brought a cigarette to his lips.
"What can you tell me about these deliveries?" I asked, handing him both mine and Courier Four's orders while waving smoke away from my face.
"Oh, these," he rubbed his forehead, "these deliveries has 'strange' written all over them, but we just couldn't turn down the caps."
"Strange?"
"Yeah. There were six of you and you each had to carry something similar. An oversized chess piece, fuzzy die, your chip..."
"I was shot in the head for that platinum chip," I pointed towards the stitches that were starting to fall out on their own, "and I heard the men that took it from me came through here. Do you know anything?"
"Not much. I saw a feller in a fancy daisy-suit come through here with some Great Khan misfits a couple of days ago talking about a platinum chip. Our Deputy might know more about those men. But there's one catch."
"Of course there is," I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"He was captured by a group of escaped convicts and is being kept in the Bison Steve hotel. If you want any information, you'll need to get it from him."
"Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay. I'll go get your deputy."
