For the Winn
Here's a few tips for wannabe criminals: Don't. Beyond that when two armed assailants come and sneak up on you during dinner, don't say anything stupid. Witness this:
I said, "I know who stole the memorabilia from Vikki and Vance."
And the idiot replies thus: "So? That's just one of our crimes! We're depraved, stone-cold degenerates, you know? You don't want to mess with us!"
And now, this long and boring crime story I've been involved in comes to its denouement: I grabbed this idiot by his shirt collar and threw him down like a blowing ball, outside of his pissant little shack. His hat went rolling off, but I couldn't concern myself with that just yet. Instantly, my side arm was at aiming at his chest.
"Degenerate?! I will cast the heathens on a burning pyre as an offering to Lord!"
"Holy shit!" he cried, which was instantly matched by a shriek from his woman. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Judah move into the doorway and order the woman out. I more felt her move behind me, and come up into line of sight. I grabbed her by the cheek and threw her to the ground. She fell with a thud onto the sand and whimpered as her knees scrapped.
They continued to shake and shriek, and I hoped that good natured folk weren't coming to their rescue. I know I would. I had to make this fast. I fired a shot into the air to get their attention.
"Shut up!" I bellowed. They looked at me, prey looking into the eyes of the feasting one. "Now, Sammy? Pauline? I want that memorabilia, and I want it now. The gun, the hats, the clothes, all of it."
The man, Sammy pointed a pale white hand out towards the hat. He was trying to speak but no words were coming. But from the shaking of his outstretched hand, I knew what he meant.
"Judah? Would you be so kind as to get his hat? I think it might belong to the good people of Primm."
Judah nodded and walked over to the hat, which was starting to blow in the wind.
"Now that I have your attention, what the heck were you doing to do with your haul?"
The woman, Pauline spoke. "We was gonna rob a casino on the Strip, maybe all of them."
"Um, excuse me?"
"Yeah, Vance's gun is powerful, it's our shot at the big time. But we could cut you in on the action. Even split three ways?"
Now I know very well you should never roll your eyes when holding a gun at people, even when you make sure they're out of lunging distance. But this was unacceptably moronic, even by Vegas standards. Judah returned his the hat, and when he'd taken up position again, I lowered my eyes to check on the label inside the hat. Sure enough it had the same label of some little hat shop from the 1930s I'd never heard of and probably went out of business before my dad was born.
I nodded at Judah. "It's Vance's hat."
"Well that's good," said Judah evenly.
"As for you two, are you on drugs?"
"Uh, no ma'am," said Sammy, "We just stick to alcohol. I like to keep a straight head."
"Have either of you numbskulls ever been to the Strip? Cased the joint?"
"We ain't never been on the Strip. We could never afford the credit check until just recently," said Pauline.
"And I bet you haven't been to the north gate either."
"The what now?" asked Sammy.
"God! My God," I facepalmed, I was so ashamed for these two. "You're as dumb as supermutants aren't you? Have you ever seen a Securitron? It's one of those police robots House has patrolling the Strip."
"We heard," spat Pauline, "but we ain't scared, I hacked that cowboy robot in the Casino and I can do it again."
"Yeah, good job missy, but then you forgot about THE FAMILIES. I hope you dumbshits aren't thinking that the Families have changed since House made them all respectable. They will fucking kill you for messing with their tellers. The Boot Riders will scalp you for giggles, the damn Sawney's will eat you alive and no, that's not a metaphor, and the Slither Kin? The fucking Slither Kin will have you both sucking dick until semen is your breakfast, lunch and dinner. Actually I should probably sell you to the Slither Kin, they like idiots like you. You make good slaves."
"Theresa, stop trying to intimidate the kids, you've made you point," said Judah.
"Judah?! Fine…I want the goods you stole. And all your weed."
"We don't have any weed," said Sammy.
"Any peyote?"
"No."
"Turbo?"
"No."
"Psycho?"
"Do we look like Fiends to you?!" asked Pauline.
"Fine, where's the goods?"
Sammy said, "You have the hat, the bonnet's in the house, and the clothes and the gun's in the safe. The combination's 05-23-34. Take it far away from here, just go."
"05-23-34? All right then, Judah, keep watch while I get the goods."
Much like Sammy and Pauline, their shack wasn't anything worth describing. It was tiny, it had a dirt floor and nothing but a table, a bed and a lamp. That and the large black safe in the corner. The combination made it easy to get the goods. There wasn't anything in the safe other than the gun and the clothes, so the clothes went in my bag, as did the gun, although the end of the barrel stuck way out. I put the pack back on and could feel the gun barrel at my neck. Again I had to fidget to get my recharger rifle to stick, but at last it clipped on my back, and almost forgetting, I got the bonnet too. The bonnet was way, way too large for the pack, and crumpling it up to fit might have ruined it, because despite being over 200 years old, it was crisp to the touch. I was going to have have Veronica wear it all the way back to Crimson Caravan. Not wanting to ruin the bonnet, I took my hat, a ringed Stetson slouch, in my left hand and put the bonnet on my head.
My traveling clothes make me look like a cross between a biker and a merc with a fashion sense: thick blue denim pants and leather everywhere else up to the collar bone. I knew I looked fucking ridiculous with a floral bonnet on, but I thought fuck it, I'm getting paid.
"Now listen here you inbred motherfuckers," said, as sternly and low as I could muster without coughing, "You ain't desperados, you're morons. Because if you were real criminals, I would have killed the both of you. I'm a fucking bounty hunter, and there's loads of people like me out in the wastes. I'm tempted to kill ya'll anyway, but I have wildcat rounds in my 45. Every shot I take at you is eight bucks I could be using to buy a nice dinner. SO KNOCK THIS SHIT OFF!"
They seemed properly impressed by what I said, "By the way, there's good money in robots. Real good money. So find something useful to do. It's not hard. Emm….good night." I started to walk off and Judah walked behind me.
For about two minutes it was silent, when Judah asked nervously, "Hey, why aren't you looking over your shoulder. You just robbed them, and don't think they might want payback."
"Like you said Judah, they're not criminals, they're idiots. Besides, I got a ground radar feature built into PipBoy. I can tell if anyone's closing in on us or not. And they aren't."
Judah looked over his shoulder, "Well I'm glad you can be so sure. Me, I don't take chances, not even for the Winns."
I laughed, "I got Dermal Impact Armor on my skeleton. I'm wearing body armor all the time. It's why the bullets didn't kill me. That and the second bullet got stopped by my Probability Calculator. Destroyed the implant entirely, but at least it didn't fragment into a 100,000 pieces inside my brain."
"A what?"
"A Probability Calculator, helps me figure out odds a bit better. Supposedly. I didn't notice much of a difference. I'm probably going to get it replaced here soon anyway."
"Now hold up here, Theresa!" Judah was already behind me so I had to stop and turn around towards the Winn place, "Are you telling me you have cybernetic implants?"
I laughed, "No, Judah, I don't have cybernetic implants. I have ALL the implants. I ah, recently got hired to do a gig by the NCR and they paid me implants. It was a hoot."
"You're, you're joking."
"Nope, let's get a move on, and I'll tell you all about the implants."
I was under contract not to talk about where I'd been (I'll give you a hint: its synonyms are Massive and Vacant) and once I was there, I instantly wished I had tried to get there before the NCR. But I could talk about the nifty implants I got.
"…So in short, I can drink seawater now!" I finished.
By this time, and it wasn't long, we were safety at the Westside Gate and behind the metal barricades and watchtowers of the outer parameter.
"You have to be kidding me!" said Judah.
"Aren't Autodocs fantastic?!" I smiled big. "They make me pretty, they me powerful, they keep old age from sucking."
Judah looked at me, somewhat in horror as I'd described all the implants I'd gotten at the Massive-Vacant-Place. "That was…disturbing. Theresa. You had your spine cut out."
"It's back in! Just with enhancements. I can deadlift 650 pounds now! Judah if I wanted to, I could have my Hypertrophy Accelerator recalibrated and really hulk out and probably deadlift half a ton! Maybe a whole ton!...Not that I want to do that. But I could."
He looked at me, started shaking his head. And then he started laughing. First his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth opened up exposing the teeth, and within a few seconds, his face was facing the ground as he grabbed his thighs, bellowing with laughter, his shotgun across his knees.
"Yes, Judah, yes! It's the future! Let's enjoy it! We're living in the future! Way more tailfins than how I imagined it, but we're in the future!"
Judah laughed some more and then popped his head back up so fast I thought he's get the bends. Then he laughed some more. ""Theresa," he gasped, "You're too much!"
"Ah, I do what I can. So…was this evening entertaining enough for you?"
He smiled at me, shaking his head, "Yes. Yes it has."
"Let's get inside, old man."
"Old man?! Aren't you older than me?"
"Yeah, but I have less winkles and no grey."
We continued to make small talk at the Westside Co-op. We bought each other Sunset Sarsaparilla. Frankly, I miss good old A&W root beer, but all the still working vending machines are either Sunset Sarsaparilla. And vending machines…that word meaning, a machine that vending things. The technological monstrosities I'm talking about restock themselves with water and polymer assemblers, so there's still drink to be had 100 years after the bombs fell.
"We had it all, and we threw it away," I said wistfully to Judah as we both nursed the not-quite root beer.
"Cheng didn't have it all," said Judah, "He was the one who launched the nukes first. We were in Beijing. We'd already won."
"Not what the Enclave thought. I mean the Old Enclave, the pre-war Enclave. If House could disarm 77 out of the 80 bombs headed for Nevada, imagine what the government could have done if the Enclave had let it? It might not have saved everyone, but there would have been no civilization crash. No, the Enclave wanted the people nuked."
Judah looked at me, looking like he was astonished I'd say such a thing. "Why? Why would the Enclave want to nuke its own powerbase?"
"To rule over the ashes Judah. Don't you know for people like that that power is the only thing that matters? Why do you think the New Enclave tried to kill us all with Curing FEV?"
"That's a lie!" Judah looked at me sternly. "That's all self-serving propaganda from the folks at Arroyo. Sure, the Enclave was pretty ruthless, and they did some questionable things, but don't we all? It's called the Wasteland for a reason."
"I never kidnapped all the people from Vault 13, I'll tell you that."
This seemed to get Judah angrier. "Yeah, I'm not denying that. I just don't think it makes sense for people thinking they are the last Americans to want to kill everyone on the mainland, who are by definition Americans."
"We're mutants, Judah. All of us. Tainted by radiation. True humanity has to endure. Or so they thought."
"That's all NCR bullshit. Just an excuse to overpower and imprison people they don't understand."
"I didn't know you were anti-NCR Judah."
At this, the firmness in his eyes dissipated, "I'm not against the NCR. But I don't like it when people mistreat each other because of hearsay."
"Do you believe the Enclave is America?"
He shot back, "Do you believe NCR is America?"
I thought about how to say this as I took a shallow drink. "I think NCR is trying to be America. Now that they got that alliance going with FUSA on the East Coast, they just might have a chance."
"What's FUSA?"
"Don't remember what it stands for, but it's what's left of civilian government in DC."
"You have something to do with that?"
"Oh no. I saw there was Enclave in DC and high tailed it back to Boulder City. This is before the NCR convinced the Enclave to surrender."
"It's amazing what you can do with a refitted aircraft carrier."
"Not really. They sailed around South America, did some survey work, and only managed to ally with the weakest local government on the east coast. The Virginians ignored them, Boston wouldn't give em the time of day. And now they have a claim on DC but they royally pissed off the local Brotherhood chapter. Like the only chapter not headed by a total technocultist asshole. Owen Lyons tried to help the people of DC and they chose to work with NCR because they were afraid of being Brotherhood serfs."
Judah took another gulp. "Honestly, Theresa, I can't blame them. Isn't it how they run in Midwestern Chapter?"
I shrugged, "Yeah. It does. I didn't stick around that part of the country too long. Too many killbots for my taste. That and mutants are hunted down and put in gulags."
He smiled at me, "I, I can't blame them, not totally. At least with Supermutants. They're crazy or stupid or both."
I looked at him askance. I was trying to eyeball him, because while I can't say that's not true, it's not true nearly all the time.
"Don't look at me like that Theresa. You may have a hoverbike, and can come and go as you please, but merchants having to walk the 15 get harassed and robbed going by Black Mountain. And that's been going on for years."
"Yeah, someone otta do something about Black Mountain." I could see the way he was looking at me like I should. "Not me though. Nuhuh, I don't want to fight hundreds of mutants going uphill all the way. Besides, how many people they kill? Huh? None. They take the cargo and its back up the mountain plus or minus a few bullet holes."
"Have you heard though? Black Mountain Radio's come back on the air."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Mr. New Vegas says it's less for outcasts, more for wierdos."
"Huh," I took another swig, this time, nearly draining my bottle.
"It's run by someone named Tabitha. She's got a cohost named Rhoda, and more importantly, a hostage."
"That's interesting."
"A hostage she threatens to kill every day."
"Also interesting."
"His name's Raul, and the only thing keeping him alive is he's supposed to fix some kind of 'special robot.'"
"I'm not going Judah. Someone's going to have to pay me in a lot more than gratitude to go up against hostile settlement of Supermutants."
He shook his head, which seemed amplified somehow by the red bill of his ballcap. He shot me the dirtiest look: not the 'I wish you were dead look' but the even worse 'I think you can do better and I'm disappointed in you' look. Man I hate that look. "You never answered my question, Theresa. Do you think NCR is America?"
"Yeah I did."
"No, you said they're trying to be."
"Um, I don't think any group has an exclusive claim on being America. I think when the time comes, a lot of governments are going to have to come together and hash out a federation, and I think NCR will be a part of that. How much of it, remains to be seen. So, answer my question: do you think the Enclave is America?"
Judah didn't look happy to answer this question. The way his eyes fluttered between me and the little round table we were sitting at made me think he'd never thought about it. "I'd say, no."
"Why?"
"Because they couldn't defend their claim."
I shook my head slowly. "No Judah. The Enclave isn't America because they left the mainlanders to die. They voided their mandate. Left people like me to suffer and die."
"Oh come'on, Theresa, there was no saving everyone."
Then pounded my fist on the table. "THEN WE SHOULDA MADE PEACE WITH CHENG!" I didn't say anything for a second after that. I could feel the little table vibrate under the force. I could also feel every eye in the room turn on me. Luckily there wasn't any more than four or five people in the co-op, Judah and myself included. Judah seemed shock, so I said, "Don't look surprised I feel that way. As far as I know, I lost my whole family when the bombs fell. 95 percent of the country died in six months. I was lucky I didn't see it happen cause I was in a coma, but when I woke up there wasn't fuck nothing. I had kids, Judah, and they died. I had lots of friends, and they all died. So it's just been me the last hundred years, alone."
This wasn't quite true. My children, well the two that made it to 2077, had all died in the apocalypse, but I had several grandkids who survived, some in Vaults, some on the outside. But near as I could figure, they were all dead too by now. At least Arthur, my sweet, sweet Arthur, didn't live to see the end. Arthur was my husband, is my husband. It would have broken his heart. The end of everything he fought so hard to protect, to go up like that…
Judah sighed, "I, I never thought about that. I didn't think Cheng would make peace at any price. And we certainly weren't going to let him go after he ravaged Asia like that. I mean, would you make peace with the man who killed everyone in the Saigon Uprising? Systematically killed everyone in city proper, then the suburbs for good measure and taped it as a warning to others? Would you make peace with the man who exterminated the Tibetans and almost all the Mongolians? I mean Theresa, you saw all of it. Cheng was worse than Hitler."
I swallowed, even though I had nothing to swallow. The nothing was bitter on my tongue. "He was leagues worse. Different planets worse."
"I was always taught he had to be stopped, no matter the cost."
I bowed my head and clenched my teeth, "It wasn't worth ending all civilization over. You don't win unless you survive."
"You think all the Red Scare stuff was nonsense? After what he did?"
I lifted my head up and all but growled, "No, Judah, I think the only good Communist is a dead Communist. But, that said, we used their fuckery as an excuse to be just as bad. At the end, there was no difference between us and the Chinese Communist Party. That's why the Enclave didn't defend us when the nukes went flying. They would have had a civil war on their hands if Cheng just surrendered. The Enclave was always about burning the fucker down and ruling over the ashes."
"Well, they're gone now," said Judah.
"They showed up in DC. I saw them first hand. As long as they have their long term bunkers, they're a threat."
Judah leaned back in his chair and looked towards the ceiling "Maybe they'll change. Maybe they'll have to. They've been handed three big defeats in 20 years. The Hawaiians don't want them back that's for goddamned sure."
"Can you blame them?"
Judah shook his head back and forth, "The way I hear it, they don't want anyone back who was in the Enclave. But the thing is, Enclave used to conscript youngsters from Hawaii. And when the oil rig blew up, no one in the Enclave control was allowed back in. Only the sailors, and then only because they lead the revolt on the islands. I just think that's mighty awful to do that to family, especially kids just wanting to serve their country."
"Yeah, I know…I know a guy. Ex-Enclave. Hates them as much you hate NCR."
"I never said I hated NCR."
"You're angry at them. Really angry."
"Let's be honest Theresa, they can be utterly imperialistic bullies."
At this point, I would have been happy to continue the conversation, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Tom Anderson. Veronica was snickering because of the bonnet. Strangely enough she seemed excited when I told her she was going to have to wear it back to Crimson Caravan. We said our goodbyes, and as we walked to the bike, I explained to Veronica what I had been doing while she was away.
"Ah, why do you get to have all the fun?"
We walked through the tiny, one person door of the first gate, into outer Vegas. I lead, Veronica followed, although we were walking side by side soon after the space allowed.
"You get to wear the bonnet."
"That's true."
"So….what did you learn with Tom? Anything you didn't already know?"
Veronica thought about it, "Well, he's got no resources but a decent cause. We've got plenty of resources and a totally lost cause. You know, I've been thinking. The real problem with the Brotherhood is that we isolate ourselves. Our training is top-notch, our technology gives us an advantage, but when it all comes down to it, we're losing because we shun the outside world. We always make enemies, never allies. We refuse to recruit outsiders, or see the value in their simpler technologies. Mr. Anderson made a lot of progress without any electronics gear or high technology, and yet he's making real progress. If we helped people feed themselves like this, we'd have no end of potential recruits."
I shrugged, "It's been tried."
She looked at me and stopped dead in her tracks, "And it didn't work?"
"Veronica, it works when the Brotherhood stay OUT of the political structure. People, more or less, want liberal democracy. They don't want to be serfs, and they don't want to take orders all their lives. Whenever people are given a choice, they choose democracy. Sometimes they vote for shitty candidates who abolish democracy, but they want democracy. And one thing the Brotherhood is not is a democracy. And it has no intention of ever being a democracy. The most you could ever hope for is the old regime with the NCR. Would you, you personally go back to the old regime with NCR? Brotherhood gets autonomy and in returns leaves everyone outside the Brotherhood alone?"
Veronica seemed unfazed, "Yeah, yeah I could work with that. And I'm not the only one, I'm sure of it."
"Then why do you want these new technologies, when what the Brotherhood needs to do is acquiesce to new political realities?"
"I don't understand."
"Veronica, I mean this. The Brotherhood wasn't wiped out by the Vault Dweller because it stayed out of the power structure. For a long time the Brotherhood had no interest in ruling outsiders. Everyone was fine with that. Then the Brotherhood suddenly wanted to rule outsiders, and the outsiders told them in no uncertain terms to go fuck themselves. Come on."
We were at the bike, and the sky had turned an ever darkening purple. I was sure there was still orange and red in the sky but the metal barricades where two stories high, so the horizon was blocked to me.
"Do you see what I mean?"
"They don't want the Brotherhood."
"And the Brotherhood doesn't want them. Not really."
"So how does Caesar's Legion work? Sure they're jerkwads but on the other hand, I've heard a lot of people talk about how much better they make things. Heck I just heard it from you!"
"Caesar's Legion is temporary. As the Four Stat4es recover technologically and materially, they'll get a middle class, and that middle class will start demanding rights and the Legion will either have to crack down on the townies or cave. Now there's exactly two ways this can go. It can go French Revolution where the middle classes violently overthrow the old order or it can go like in China, where the CCP ultimately enslaved and destroyed the largest middle class in history just to maintain an iron grip on power. And that lead to Cheng, which lead to the nukes. Or maybe the Brotherhood could be the grey eminence of a technical democracy. Like the Old Enclave. Do you want to rebuild the Enclave, Veronica? You want to be the next Enclave?"
"Democracy inevitably leads to the Enclave."
"No Veronica, jackass authoritarians lead to the Enclave." I went a step further, "A culture that creates authoritarians, nurtures authoritarians and tolerates authoritarians leads to the Enclave. That's why I won't put my hat in with NCR. Even well-meaning authoritarians are a threat to liberty. Because they are authoritarians. Why don't you get along with, I mean, in the Brotherhood, why are you out 'grocery shopping?'" I put up my arms to do air quotes. "Because they're authoritarians, and you're not."
I handed her the bonnet which she took, and then I replaced my hat, mking sure to adjust the bands so it wouldn't come off on the drive back to Crimson Caravans.
"I'm not a rebel Theresa. I know sometimes I sound like I don't like being a member. I know. But there's something that still rings true to me about our code. There's an honor to it. We're protecting people. Even if it's from themselves, it's a good cause. We just lose sight of the big picture sometimes. Treat all our practices with the same sacredness."
"Veronica, do you protect people from raiders?"
"Uh, no. no. We only protect people from (ahem) themselves, and only in the sense that we don't let them have the really good Pre-War toys."
"What does the Codex say?"
Veronica got pissed about this. "A bunch of closed minded bullshit."
"I know what the Codex says. You want me to say it?"
Veronica huffed, "We do not help them, or let them in."
"Exactly. And I know very well you're no rebel. You're open minded but not the type to make waves for the sake of making waves, at least not as far as I can tell. But you are wasting your life in the Brotherhood."
"I, I can see why an outsider would think that. But I'm going to have to agree to disagree. And I don't want to talk about this anymore. Not tonight."
"Deal…although, there are some things I wanted to show you in Freeside."
"Sure, although it's getting late."
I looked at my Pipboy. "It's only 5:45. I'll have you asleep by midnight."
"Just midnight?"
"Well, I gotta get going tomorrow. I need to go up into the mountains and look for a guy. I promised Judah I would."
"Oh boy, the mountains! Are they pretty."
I smiled, "Best part of Nevada. But they can be dangerous too."
"I want to come with. It sounds like fun."
"Didn't you say you were going to the Strip?"
I huffed, "Yeah, I did. Plan's changed though. Uh, delayed, not denied."
"Gotcha."
And then we were off. Veronica was handling having to use one hand to keep the bonnet on, and it was an excuse for me to see her without that wretched hood on. I needed to get the girl some new clothes. No woman feels sexy in burlap. The nice thing about the sunset is that New Vegas in general looks a lot less like a shitheap under a fading light. The sunset was pretty though, especially as I wasn't riding into it. Despite what you've seen in the movies, walking into the sun really, really hurts the eyes. To be safe we rode mostly through North Las Vegas, which is not Las Vegas incidently, so it's the main source of the NCR occupation. For the first time ever the city of North Las Vegas was safer, better maintained and more prosperous than Las Vegas itself, Strip excluded, but technically the Strip is in Paradise Nevada. Where there was no town for local taxes in the old days. This was a city built mostly by the mob after all.
