People were talking by her bunk, and it was annoying.
"I got to go to bed now. You'll give her the message?"
"Yes, and we'll deliver your letter."
"Thanks. Watch your six out there."
Footsteps retreated from the bed, a door closed in the distance, and the bunkhouse was relatively quiet again. Megan was fully awake now, but kept her eyes tightly closed. She felt…very vulnerable today, and wanted to stay wrapped up in her bedroll forever, or at least until it was too late in the day to set out toward Nipton.
"I know you're awake. Are we leaving today, or what? It's almost 10 o'clock, Miss Early Riser."
Eyes still closed, she nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. We should go." She made no move to get up. "Who was that talking just now?"
"That was Ranger Ghost. She asked us to deliver a letter to her friend, Craig Boone, in Novac. She's worried about him. She also wanted to tell you 'nolite te bastardes carborundorum,' which she said means 'don't let the bastards grind you down.' It's her family's motto, apparently from some long-forgotten book."
"Didn't think she was the type to study Latin," she said absently, trying to catch hold of her dream again – it had been beautiful, cool, and green...a garden like she'd never seen…
"It's not real Latin. Two of the words are made up. I don't even understand where the 'carborundorum' part comes from."
"Weird."
"Uh-huh. Do you want to come eat with me and we can talk about this trip? I don't usually eat breakfast, but I'll make an exception for brunch."
"Okay." She gave up on her dream and finally opened her eyes to look at him. "Arcade?"
"Yes?"
"I'm scared of the wasteland now. I wasn't really before. I don't know if I can do this anymore."
"A certain amount of fear is healthy. It keeps you alert and alive. And if by 'this' you mean almost dying every day, you don't have to do that at all. Just be more careful."
"It's not the prospect of dying that bothers me. That's inevitable, and I think I'm okay with that. I just can't stand the thought of being helpless again." Her voice got shrill and fast, stuttering a little, "Wh-when V-vulpes was h-hitting and t-touching me, I-I c-couldn't do anything to stop him. H-he was stronger, he was in c-control. I was a t-toy he wanted to pl-play with." She felt drained and exhausted despite her long rest. "If that happens again, I think I'll lose my mind…"
"Are…are you sure he didn't…" he began, sounding out of his depth.
"No, he didn't, but I still feel violated. Ashamed for letting him hurt me, even though there wasn't another choice." She rolled over and stared at the wall. "I need a few more minutes. We'll eat and go soon."
Arcade retreated to the bar and ordered soup, corn bread, and fruit for them both, wishing they were back in Freeside. He just wasn't that good at this sort of thing, but Dr. Usanagi had a particular gift for counseling women who'd experienced trauma. Between the lawlessness and poverty rampant in the Mojave, there were a lot of them, unfortunately.
A dry-eyed courier appeared 15 minutes later, belongings already neatly stored in her pack, fancy new rifle on her back. Leaving her stuff by a stool, she stepped outside without a word and returned a quarter of an hour later wearing an impressive set of armor with dark brown plates on black ballistic webbing. She attacked the food with gusto and was done before Arcade, despite his head start. Pushing the dishes aside, she studied the map on her Pip-Boy. "Okay, so, the question of the hour is: have the Legion left Nipton, and even if they have, can we handle spending the night there?"
"Some of the houses were in good shape, and might not be full of bodies. We could try one of those. That unspeakable smell will be everywhere, though."
"It will. I'm honestly not sure I can sleep there at all, but we don't want to be stuck in the open at night. Looking at this map, I can tell that second day's going to be tough. It looks like about 12 miles as the crow flies, with some pretty rough terrain to get through. We should leave early and expect to arrive pretty late. H'm, it looks we'll pass a ranger station around midday – that makes me feel a little better about that stretch of road. Do you have anything to add?"
"No, I've never approached Novac from the south…oh, we should try to look non-threatening as we approach the town – there's a couple of snipers who take it in turns to guard the town from the mouth of the T-Rex." Seeing her mystified expression, he added: "It's a giant statue of a prehistoric lizard. Novac used to be a tourist trap back in the good old days."
"Oh. We should take all the water we can carry, as well as some sturdy, light-weight food. Not much, though. I'll bet anything we can kill a mole-rat or something on the road."
"Mole-rat: the other, other white meat," he quipped. "Alright. That all sounds suspiciously like a plan by your standards. Here, put this in one of those fancy pockets on your armor. Somewhere readily accessible." He handed her a small, plastic box.
"What is it?"
"Your own emergency first-aid kit. It contains a small bottle of antiseptic, needle-and-suture, gauze, a stimpak, and a syringe of antivenom. Also one Mentat, but only take that if you're having trouble staying conscious – it's a powerful stimulant and an addictive drug, and I do not endorse using it except in an emergency."
"Thank you. This will come in handy sooner or later." She slid it into the large pocket on her right thigh.
"You're welcome. I would have made you one weeks ago, but there weren't a lot of extra supplies to be had in Goodsprings. That's some high-quality armor, by the way. How much does it weigh?"
"Knight said about 25 pounds. I'm not going to lie – it's going to take some getting used to. And I'm already sweating."
"Yeah, you'll basically need to double your water intake, and swallow a salt tablet every few hours. I'll carry the lion's share of the gear for a few days. It'd be very inconvenient if you had a heat stroke."
Laden with the necessities of life, the two travelers descended the long hill down from the Outpost for the last time. Megan had picked up a patchy radio signal on her Pip-Boy, and was humming happily to whatever corny twentieth century songs they were playing today. Her mood had taken a strong uptick since she woke, and Arcade suspected she was unconsciously repressing the bad memories instead of dealing with them in a way that could help. Whatever had happened yesterday, it had stolen some of her naiveté and shaken her already-precarious stability. He was concerned.
The music turned to static as they reached the flat road, and she switched off the radio, interrupting his thoughts with a question: "Can you teach me hand-to-hand combat?"
"I'm going to give you a hard 'no' on that one. I have never been one for anything resembling a fistfight or even melee combat. Part of it's from wearing glasses for most of my life – I can't afford to risk getting them broken. I also need my hands intact for surgical work."
She looked disappointed. "I've realized lately how much trouble I'm in when I'm in close quarters with someone stronger than me – which includes almost every man – especially if I drop my machete. I'd like to have some better options in a pinch."
Arcade thought for a moment, trying to say something helpful without being discouraging. "A biological fact is that most men are stronger than most women without trying too hard. Testosterone gives us a huge advantage when it comes to building muscle. That said, I can show you some exercises to build upper-body strength, and there are techniques you can learn from other people to take down a bigger, stronger opponent. Some of the NCR soldiers stationed at Camp McCarran outside of Vegas offer a free self-defense class on Saturday mornings to train people how to get out of a bad situation – escaping holds, hurting an attacker enough to get away, that sort of thing. We often refer domestic abuse victims and prostitutes tired of clients taking advantage, but they'll teach anybody."
"Cool. I'll check it out when we get there. Thanks." She picked up a pebble and tossed it from hand to hand a few times before dropping it. "Back when I first woke up, Doc had me doing a bunch of exercises to work on hand-eye coordination and fine motor control, as well as some basic strength-building stuff. This was months before I met you, but I couldn't even walk or grip a fork on my left side. The exercises helped. Once I got to a functional place, though, I stopped doing them, and my body still feels a little uneven. It's weird, though, since I got shot on the right side of my head. I don't get it, and Doc didn't explain it very well. I believe his exact words were, 'brains are crazy things and yours is crazier than most.'"
"The right side of the brain actually controls the left side of the body. Yes, it's counter-intuitive. You're lucky for a lot of reasons, but especially that you're so young – a youthful brain can compensate extremely well for damage that would permanently impair an older person. A healthy left hemisphere can take over for a damaged right, and do most of the things the right used to do. Back when brain surgery wasn't a prohibitively dangerous thing to do, doctors could even remove half of a person's brain as a last-ditch move to treat serious seizure disorders, and the patient would do reasonably well more often than not."
"That's amazing!"
"It is. In any case, you should go back to doing those exercises. The first 24 months after a traumatic brain injury are the most important for recovery. Improvement plateaus after that."
They walked along some more, the courier juggling pebbles, badly, but enthusiastically. She tried out her new gun out on a lone soldier ant they passed, and seemed pleased with its power and rate-of-fire. She deliberated out loud over harvesting some ant meat for dinner later, but decided they could probably do better, which was a relief to Arcade. He didn't like eating bugs. They passed the turn-off to the former Viper camp, and she shuddered a little at the memory. "I really needed this armor, but I feel a little bad for misleading Ranger Jackson to get the bounty. In my defense, he did only ask me to bring him proof of the leader's death…and it's not like the Legion was going to do it, right?"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he said lightly. Noticing that she really did look guilty, he added, "It was disingenuous, but you're exactly the kind of civilian ally the NCR needs in the field right now, and you'll be more effective with that gear than without. Just…do some nice things for the rangers, and don't tell them why. Then you'll be fair and square, if that matters to you."
They made good time, stopping only twice to cool down in the shade, and it was only about 4:30 when they arrived in Nipton, which appeared to be empty. They hadn't spotted any more wildlife, but had brought enough dry food to get through the night. Megan suggested they check the general store for supplies and shelter, and Arcade agreed.
She stepped into the building first and immediately screamed. Alarmed, he drew his gun and followed her in. A Powder Ganger was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, glaring at them both. Even in the dim light, Arcade could see that his legs had been shattered with extreme force and that infection had taken hold in the midst of the blood and bone-splinters. His face was sallow with pain and fever, and his lack of perspiration spoke to extreme dehydration.
"Shut up, bitch. Ain't I got enough fucking problems without you screeching and goggling at me?" His voice was raspy, and almost inaudible.
Getting over her fright, she responded stiffly, "Sorry. We didn't know you were in here. Why didn't the Legion kill you, anyway?"
"Prize for second place was I got to live, but they beat my fucking legs with hammers. I'm fucking crippled, get it?"
"Second prize in what?"
"The Legion's fucking lottery. I wish the runner-up had just gotten a fucking bullet to the fucking head. That lucky motherfucker Swanwick waltzed outta here with his ticket, and I'm left rotting here." He coughed and groaned. "Cantcha just shoot me, girlie? You look like the sort who'd want to kill me anyway."
Megan froze, looking to at Arcade uncertainly. He stepped forward to examine the man more closely. "I'm a doctor, but there's nothing I can do for you now, I'm afraid. I don't even have enough painkillers on me to administer a fatal overdose. Would you like some water and enough pills to fall asleep? I could either stay and talk to you or give you some privacy, then shoot you when you're unconscious."
The man looked at the doctor with fear and hope in his eyes, "Yeah…if you would…I'll take that over dying slow. And I would like to talk while it's kicking in. But not with that girl in the room. She makes me fucking uncomfortable."
Arcade turned to the nervous courier and said heavily, not looking forward to this duty, "Wait outside. Don't go far and come inside immediately if you see anything or anybody."
Left in the near-dark, he gave "Boxcars" three of his dwindling supply of pain-pills and helped him wash them down with half a bottle of their precious water. He had become so weak that it didn't take long at all for him to slip into unconsciousness. Until then, Arcade listened to a half-delirious stream of confessions, boasts, and regrets, saying little in response, but encouraging him to go on when he stopped. When there were no more words and the former convict was unresponsive to stimuli, he shot Boxcars at close range, obliterating his head, and left the building.
Megan was uncharacteristically sensitive to his desire not to talk and led him to an unoccupied house on the outskirts of town, which turned out to have a functioning deadlock on the door and two clean twin beds. They spoke little as they unpacked for the night and ate a cold dinner together. He demonstrated some callisthenic exercises, and left her attempting push-ups in the living room while he read poetry in bed.
An hour later, she came in and lay down on her bed, looking at him like she wanted to say something. He put down his book and spoke preemptively, "You want to know why I wasted time and resources on a criminal, right? After all, we could have just shot him on the spot."
"I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah. You did it, so I know it was the right thing to do, but I'm confused about why. I'm also a little shocked that you went straight to killing him, but I guess I can understand why that was better than just leaving him there."
"My vocation is to alleviate human suffering to the best of my ability. As a person, I obviously prefer friends to strangers, and allies to enemies, but when there is someone sick or hurt whom I have the power to help, I have an obligation to them as a doctor, regardless of my personal feelings on what they've done. It cost me little to give that Powder Ganger a humane end to his life. I didn't like giving him medicine that other people might need, or water that we're probably going to be wanting by late afternoon tomorrow, but as a doctor, even one working within an economy of extreme scarcity, I don't feel like I can make those kinds of judgments and withhold care that's needed.
"As for killing him? Yes, sometimes assisted suicide is kinder than any other option, especially as we lacked the resources to provide palliative care until he died on his own. Barring a lot of antibiotics and other things we don't have with us, nothing would have saved his life.
"Um…" He wasn't sure how to address the other thing she'd said. "You know, a thing isn't automatically 'right' just because I do it. I am wholly capable of being a selfish human being who does the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. I need my friends to be people who will at least sometimes challenge and question the things that I do. Otherwise, I could go mad with unchecked sophistry and become just as misdirected as Caesar…well, probably not that bad, but you get the idea. You need to start making your own decisions about what's right, and pushing back if you disagree with me."
"Okay. Note to self: stop Arcade from becoming the next evil genius." She had scrunched up her eyes in thought. "What if…those Legion guys had gotten you all the way to the Legion Fort? What if they had wanted you to give Caesar himself medical care, even save his life? Would you have done it?"
"Ah…I was afraid you were going to ask me that. I don't know. Some legionary in a prison camp hospital? Sure, I would treat him on principle. But as captive myself, in a position to end Caesar's life with a turn of a scalpel? I think my decision there, no matter what I did, would keep me awake nights for the rest of my life. I have heard that his second-in-command, Legate Lanius, is much more brutal, so that would be one point in the 'save Caesar' column. On the other hand, Caesar deserves to be punished for what he's made possible in the Southwest and the murders and miseries that his armies have inflicted. I'd like to kill him for that, and to prevent anything he might do in the future, but I don't feel like I can if he's come to me as a patient. Or, rather, ordered me dragged for days across the desert to force me to treat him...I've argued this one in my head a lot, and have mostly just come down to hoping that I'm never in that position, which is kind of a cowardly moral retreat."
"No, that's a hard one. Well, for you. I'd just shoot him, but that's different." She stood up restlessly and tried to look outside the boarded-up windows into the greying dusk. "I guess I'll try to sleep tonight. Didn't think I could, with all the dead people here, but it's easy to forget they're out there." She checked the time on her Pip-Boy and remembered something else, "Oh, do you have any radaway to spare? I've been ignoring it lately and hit 150 this morning."
"Yes." He hung the IV bag on an empty picture hook behind the bed, and set the needle in the large vein in her inner arm. "Do you want me to read you more Dune while that drains? It picks up after the first few chapters."
"Sounds good, thanks."
Nipton made her nervous and the radaway made her arm burn, but Arcade's voice eventually lulled her to sleep. She had a fitful dream in which Caesar – a faceless brute with a fox hat in her imagination – handed her a scalpel and told her to remove the bad half of his brain. She was trying to explain to him that, as a courier, she had a moral obligation to kill him, when Vulpes Inculta grabbed her from behind and she woke up in a sweat, head pounding feverishly.
Fucking radaway always makes me sick. Her Pip-Boy said that it was just before five, and she figured she'd let him sleep another hour before waking him. Instead, she went to the other room and ran through the strengthening exercises again, surprised at just how sore she was from the unaccustomed exercise and heavier gear. Quickly growing weary of that, she practicing stripping and assembling her weapon until that too was boring. It was then 5:45, and she was getting tired of waiting. Heading back into the bedroom, she pulled on her armor as noisily as possible, and, when that didn't work, accidentally-on-purpose knocked a dusty alarm clock off her beside table with a satisfying crash.
Jerking awake, Arcade yelled out, "Thursday! Wait...ugh. Dammit."
"Sorry buddy," she said laughing, "but we need to get an early start today. Long road ahead. I'll let you sleep in at Novac tomorrow morning."
It was no good trying to engage the doctor before he'd properly woken up, and this normally took an hour or so. She took point and led the way through a man-made canyon, the road snaking its way back and forth uphill. It was probably best not to talk in an unfamiliar place like this – they would be vulnerable to an ambush from the rocky walls on either side. Spotting something suspicious on the road ahead, she stopped suddenly, and he, not paying attention, blundered into her, almost knocking her down.
She hissed, "Careful!" Pointing ahead, she whispered, "Look, there's a line of mines ahead. Some of them are under trash, but they're there. Should we tiptoe around, or set them off to spare the next traveler? They're probably functioning both as a trap and as an alarm system for someone, so we will have company if we blow them."
Arcade blinked, thinking, "Um…if we do set them off, we need a plan first. Some place to hide so we can ambush them when they come to see what their trap got."
"There's an empty coyote den over there.. They would have to be close to ground level to see inside that. It's not big enough for both of us, but you can sit inside and I'll crouch by the entrance since I'm camouflaged and armored. If they're still alive after the initial volleys, I'll charge them and you can provide covering fire while still taking shelter. This will work best if we do it now, while it's still kind of dark."
He consented reluctantly to this, squeezing his six-foot-two frame into the little recess, while she stationed herself in front, pulling her hat low to keep her pale face from betraying them in the dim light. Taking aim at the nearest mine, she threw a medium-size stone at it, lighting up a chain-reaction of explosions. This had the desired effect. Shouts rang out from around the bend in the road.
"Trap's sprung, everybody move!"
"If that's another coyote, I'm stringing you up by your eyelids, Marky!"
Keeping perfectly still, Megan checked her Pip-Boy's proximity displays. Five red dots were moving toward them, one reading a higher elevation the others, apparently on the ridge above and behind their hiding place. She showed Arcade, pointing upward, and he nodded.
A powerfully-built Viper member with decent armor approached the debris cautiously, kicking at scraps of the material that now littered the pavement. The others looked around anxiously, but relaxed when they didn't see anybody.
"Nothing," the leader growled. "Five mines gone, and for what? Marky, what happened here?"
"Prob'ly a rock rolling off the mountain, boss," Marky said glumly. "Sorry."
The leader lit into the other Viper, shouting and spitting into his face, while the other two lowered their weapon, looking disgusted at the false alarm. The one above hadn't moved, but Megan figured this was the best chance they were going to get. She flashed Arcade a silent count of three and opened fire, aiming her first and most accurate shot at the leader's head. It only skimmed his scalp, but downed him at once, leaving him screaming on the ground. Marky got the first blast from the plasma defender, which left a smoldering hole in his unarmored chest. The other two didn't get to fire a shot either, as Megan's semi-automatic chewed them down before they had a chance. Arcade finished off the leader, and the screaming stopped.
"Goddammit, who's down there?" The dot representing the surviving gang member was moving, trying to get to a vantage point from which he could shoot them. Megan decided not to give him the chance, and ran out into the middle of the road to shoot him first. Distance and accuracy were not her forte, however, and she missed him clean. He was apparently a pretty good shot, however, because the next thing she knew she was lying on the ground feeling like someone had slammed her in the chest with a sledgehammer and driven all the air from her lungs. Her field of vision was filled with the gold of sunrise and the glowing green of plasma bursts; she tried to get up to help, but couldn't do anything but gasp for breath. Something heavy plummeted to the earth ten feet away from her, and she just managed to turn her head to see that it was the half-melted remains of a Viper gang-member.
She tried to say, "Nice shot," but only a hoarse whisper came out.
"So, how does it feel to get shot while wearing body armor?" Arcade was leaning over, checking her vitals, but didn't seem overly worried.
Probably better than when not wearing it, she thought, but just gave him a thumbs-up, waiting for the black specks on her vision to clear. The sky was so pretty in the early morning. She tried again and this time got out the words, "Good work, team."
"Mm-hm. I especially liked the part where you ran out into the open to blindly shoot at a waiting sniper. That stuff doesn't let you ignore bullets, you know, and a bigger caliber could actually punch through. Plus, you have a head, at least for now."
"That was just...er…a diversion to draw his fire. It worked perfectly." She sat up and rubbed her chest, finding a shallow dimple on the tough ceramic plate above her heart. "Aw, my new armor got dinged. Anything good on the bodies?"
Shaking his head, he laid out the spoils. "Some ammo. 5.56mm and .308s. Two of their weapons – an assault rifle and a hunting rifle – are in decent shape and would be good for trade if you can take the weight. I can't carry anymore. The guy up there had a sniper rifle, but my plasma defender destroyed it. The unfortunate Marky had a nice combat knife, if you want to try it on for size."
"Great!" She secured the guns inside her sleeping roll, and attached the heavy bundle to her pack. The knife she tucked into a built-in sheath on her armor. "Let's go look at their campsite. I want some more breakfast."
Having finished the Vipers' squirrel – no, rat-on-a-stick, she tried roasted banana yucca for the first time and found it starchy, but pretty good. She'd been at least a little hungry most of the time since they'd left Goodsprings, and it was nice to be full for once. Even Arcade partook of some of the food that couldn't be stored in the heat. While the bandits' water was free of parasites, it was still slightly irradiated; Megan drank it anyway, figuring that there was probably still some radaway in her system, and poured the remaining half-gallon into the camel-pack on her armor.
"My Pip-Boy says that this road should go past the ranger station in seven or eight miles. It's hard to tell, as it's kind of a circumventuous route. It straightens out into a highway after that." She stood up and staggered a little under the extra weight of the weapons and water. "I might have to slow it down a little."
"We're not in any hurry. Drop the assault rifle if you have to. It's not worth that much."
Arcade waited for the usual chatter and questions, but for once the courier was totally focused on walking. He took over the lead and set a gentle pace, keeping a wary eye out for danger. They surprised two young cazadores which he handled easily, but otherwise the way was clear.
Calling for yet another break only a mile or so from the station, she flopped down on the ground, panting from the heat. "I…don't…suppose Novac has showers, does it? Cold showers, not hot."
"No. It's back to bucket-and-sponge baths. Drink more water. You're very red. Any chills or dizziness?"
"I'm good. Just exhausted and hot. The whole world's not a desert, is it? Like, there are places that aren't like this?"
"The bombs royally messed up our climate even more than humans already had done before, but yes, some places in the east and north are temperate or cold during the daytime for at least part of the year."
"I wanna go to one of those places someday."
"You should get work as a caravan guard heading to New Canaan, in Utah, someday. Utah's still very much a desert and has been since before the war, but the weather patterns are more normal. It actually rains there, or so I'm told. Ready to go? We can take a long break at the station, and it should be safe enough to take that stuff off for an hour."
"Yeah. Help me up, please. I feel like a turtle stuck on my back."
Megan didn't jump for joy when they spotted the rangers' station in the distance, but she did pick up her feet a little. Arcade, however, sensed something that something was amiss as they drew nearer to the compound. "Hold on. Something's wrong. Where is the flag? The guards? Why is the gate open? Keep your weapon out."
They spotted the first dead ranger just inside the walls, A cursory look around revealed a half-dozen more bodies sprawled in the outbuildings and the guard tower. The courier shrugged off her pack and sat down on the ground, face in her hands. Arcade felt like he needed to take charge before she totally fell apart, "Don't despair. I'm going to check to see if they're actually all dead. While I'm doing that, you go look inside that office to see if there are any survivors. Be very careful."
He dutifully checked the dead men and women, knowing the task was futile before he began it, and noticed that the blood was not completely dry where it had splattered on the walls. Whoever had done this (three guesses who, he thought), they had been here not long before. If they hadn't been going so slowly, they would have walked straight into a hot situation. Even as he was thinking this, he heard a series of explosions coming from inside the closed trailer. He ran in, fearing the worst, but found only the courier standing with her back to the door, listening to a tape player:
"This is a message to the NCR from the Legion. We are coming for you. Run, and we will catch you. Hide, and we will find you. No matter what you do, you are all going to die. We took one of the women alive."
She popped the tape out and stuffed it into one of her armor pockets, and turned, face grim with anger and disgust, voice unrecognizable with rage. "Watch out, Arcade. This whole place is rigged with traps – under the bodies, behind the doors, you name it. I set off most of them on purpose, but there could be more. The time-stamp on this tape is from 45 minutes ago. We can catch them. We have to. We'll leave everything except our water, ammo, and medical supplies here and rescue that woman. We can come back for it later today or tomorrow."
"Okay." Arcade knew better than to argue with the courier when she was set on doing something, but he still thought it was worth pointing out: "Two can move faster than a group if they're fresh, but you're about spent and I'm…" His voice broke off as she pulled out a small white pill bottle and shook out two on her hand, crunching and swallowing them with a long drink of water. "What the hell was that?"
"Buffout. Knight gave them to me. You can lecture me later, after we've saved her. Follow me, stay here, or go to Novac without me, but I'm going after that woman."
Without another word, she strode from the building, out of the compound, and struck out confidently to the east, between two peaks, where the grass had been beaten down by many heavy feet. As the Buffout hit, she began to run, a pace which he struggled to match, getting a stitch in his side after five minutes. They ran out of the hills, across a crumbling highway, and into a treeless grassland beyond. They had covered about two miles in 15 minutes when she stopped abruptly, sucking impatiently at the camel pack straw and checking the proximity alerts on her Pip-Boy while he caught up.
Breathing quickly in short, hard gasps, she snapped out the plan (such as it was) in painful bursts. "Eight I think. 200 yards ahead. Going to lead with my gun. Shoot if hostage is clear. Close with melee. You cover me."
"Understood. First, though, take a second to slow down your breathing and breathe deeper. You're going to hyperventilate and pass out." Or have a stroke, he thought. Buffout put tremendous stress on the heart and lungs, which effect was exacerbated by overheating and thirst. Arcade had seen more than one soldier pay the price for using it to push their body beyond its endurance.
She tried, but ended up with a coughing fit instead, resting a gloved hand on his shoulder to stay upright. "I'm good. Just...have to do this. Rest later. Let's go." She double-checked her weapon and sprinted toward the group and he, of course, followed. The legionaries had stopped for a break and were talking and laughing, with someone or something lying in a heap off to the side. Three fell at once to the strafe of Megan's service rifle, and Arcade winged one on the left, though his other two shots went wide. Then she was in among them, machete in her right, knife in her left, slicing and stabbing with effective fury, if not with any finesse. Hesitating for fear of hitting her, Arcade finished the one he'd wounded, and turned to see what other targets were left, but it was already over, Megan down on one knee gasping with her machete stuck in a dying Legion officer's chest.
A cold weight settled into his chest as he turned to the woman, who was naked except for a the remains of a t-shirt and chains on her wrists, half-reaching for medical supplies that he already knew were useless. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, probably less than ten minutes before. She was still warm, but very much dead.
His friend staggered over, dropping to her knees and trying to close the wound on the ranger's throat with her hands and smearing blood all over. "Oh no, oh no…help her, Arcade. Please help her. We saved her."
"No, I'm sorry. We were too late. She's gone." He felt like crying himself. They'd been so close.
Arcade expected screaming, sobbing, and denial, but her actual response worried him more. She said "Okay," stood up, legs shaking, and walked slowly back toward the ranger station and their belongings without a backwards glance.
He unclasped the woman's NCR dogtags and stuffed them in his pocket to give to the next ranger they saw, picked up the weapons Megan had left behind (which was all of them), and jogged after her. She accepted them with thanks, but said nothing else. When they reached the station, she let him wash her hands and examine her for injury without complaint, and drank an electrolyte drink when ordered, but was otherwise unresponsive.
It took another two hours before the town's classic dinosaur came into view, and she'd been very quiet, giving one-word answers to most questions and flatly ignoring any mention of the dead woman. A large mole-rat got within six feet of her at one point, but she'd barely drawn her rifle before he had killed it. Fortunately, there was nothing else to attack them on the highway.
They passed under a glaring sniper and entered the gated courtyard of the old motel as the sun was setting. He dropped his bags at the foot of the staircase and told her to wait while he rented them a room. Sitting down on the bottom step, she seemed to wake up a little and looked around dreamily, "This is a nice place."
"Sure. Kind of. I'll be right back." He first went to the office, which was locked, and then toward the door in the side of the dinosaur, hoping that someone there had keys to rent.
It was difficult to describe exactly what was going on in Megan's mind at that moment. There was something painful bouncing around in her soul with sharp, hurtful spikes, but a fluffy cloud of amnesia was protecting her from the memory for a moment. She remembered arriving at the ranger camp and remembered leaving, but for the moment was missing the interim. It hadn't been a nice visit, she hypothesized. And there was something else…something small and square, in her side pocket…a tape. Frowning, she picked it up and was about to play it on her Pip-Boy, when a door opened on the floor above and a woman came out.
She was as old as anybody you expect to see in the wasteland, with white hair and a brown, wrinkly face under a canvas hat. She was looking down at the young woman curiously. "Hi there! The name's Daisy Whitman. You just roll into town?"
"Yeah. Megan Martin. My friend's getting us a room. I think. I sort of dozed off when he was talking."
"Long day, huh? You do look a little peaky."
"It was. We walked all the way from Nipton. I'm just tired. What do you do around here, Daisy?"
"A little of this and a little of that. Mostly I scavenge parts from old tech sites like the REPCONN test site up the road. Used to be a be a pilot when I was your age…God, I miss it some days."
"Oh, you flew for the NCR?"
Daisy seemed to find this question funny. "'For?' No, not exactly. It was a long time ago. Things are a lot different these days, and those days are way behind me."
Something clicked in the courier's sluggish brain, and she asked slyly, "You don't know Arcade Gannon, do you?"
"Sure I do. He's like the son I never had. I see him every now and then, when he makes the trek down from Vegas. How do you know him?"
"He's actually travelling with me right now. That's him coming out of the dinosaur right now." She pointed and waved him over, smiling a little bit at his too-serious expression.
"Arcade! Good to see you. You and your friend should join me for dinner and drinks after you get settled in. I've got plenty just now – the McBrides have practically been giving their steaks away lately, what with all the attacks on their stock."
"Um…" He stood looking between Daisy and Megan, apparently at an impasse.
"Of course we'll have dinner with you," Megan said impatiently. "C'mon, Arcade, you don't have to stay in and read every night. And we never had lunch today, so you're probably as hungry as I am."
Still looking concerned about something, he relented, "Yes…okay. Thanks, Daisy. Just give us a few minutes and we'll come over. Are you back in your old room now? I'd thought you were living with…"
"Yeah, it didn't work out with Sandra Gibson. We broke up six months ago. You should visit more often. I'll go put the steaks on. See you in a little bit."
Megan felt like she was forgetting something. In a flash, it came to her: "Daisy, which room belongs to Craig Boone? We have a letter for him from someone at the Outpost."
"Second from the right down there, honey. Don't knock, though, just slide it under the door. The kid works all night and needs his sleep."
Their second-floor room was dark and dirty, even when Arcade lit his little lantern and set it on the table. There was only one bed – a king-sized – and he said apologetically, "Sorry. He didn't have any doubles left. I'll take the couch tonight if you want."
"Don't be silly. I don't mind if you don't." Sitting down on one side and pulling off her sticky armor, Megan was intrigued to find powdery white salt crystals all over her arms and legs. "Wow, I guess you really do sweat out a lot of salt. I never saw that before." Partly undressing and choosing her shorts instead, she pulled the mysterious tape out of her pocket, looked at it for a moment like it was a snake about to bite her, and then set it on the nightstand, puzzled about why it scared her.
Glancing up, she caught Arcade watching her with a frown. Laughing, she said, "Yes, I know I'm filthy. I'll take a bath tomorrow." More seriously, she added, "It's probably nothing, but I feel a little odd. Like my body can't decide whether it wants to go run a marathon or melt into a boneless puddle on the floor. I think maybe I should've worked up to a long hike wearing that get-up rather than just doing it, yeah? Oh well. Ready?"
Arcade loved Daisy, but wasn't used to talking with her in the company of other people, especially not a friend who was possibly in the middle of a mental breakdown and coming down from a drug she didn't remember taking. But Megan, amazingly, used every bit of charisma she had to make the conversation flow. She asked Daisy about her days as a pilot, listening raptly to her descriptions of the landscape and the thrill of flight; she encouraged Arcade to share about some of the advances he'd made in his research; and she explained about the amnesia and rescuing Arcade and her various objectives for the future in a way that made their strange partnership make sense. As the evening progressed, Arcade even found himself laughing over a glass of terrible wine while Daisy told a funny story about the time Johnson had painted an innocuous pink heart onto the back of Moreno's power armor (it hadn't been funny at the time – Moreno had almost killed Johnson for the prank). Two hours and a couple of drinks in, though, he realized that the courier, who'd been quiet for a few minutes, had fallen asleep sitting up. He gently moved her to the couch without waking her and, after hesitating a little, told Daisy what had happened at the ranger station and afterwards, as well what Vulpes Inculta had done at Nipton.
"…and I don't know if I should explicitly remind her, or wait for it to come back naturally. I'm not a neurologist, but I'm beginning to suspect that her automatic response to moments of extreme stress might be related to the physical injury she suffered, or some other trauma that happened before then. I don't know what would help."
"You should tell her, Arcade. Something's going to trigger that memory sooner or later, and it's better that should come from you in a safe place rather than the next legionary she meets in the field. As for the other stuff – at times when she's calm and happy, talk about healthy ways to cope with trauma. You know at least a little bit about treating PTSD, or you wouldn't have been able to get Johnson through his dark time; hold her hand through the hard stuff until you can take her to see one of the head-doctors you know." She smiled at him. "You've always been a good boy, Arcade, and kind in a universal sort of way. It's nice to see you thinking so much about another, specific human being rather than stewing in your own thoughts."
He thought about what she'd said as he carried the sleeping girl back to their room and wrapped her in her bed roll on top of the questionably-clean motel blanket, and decided that she was right. His association with the courier had brought him back into a sense of purpose and engagement with the world that he hadn't felt for a long time, and a lot of it came down to having a real friend he could trust. Putting a bottle of water in easy reach if she woke up thirsty, he went to sleep himself.
Several hours later, the light of the moon spilling into their room through the dirty window, Megan woke up shaking all over, stomach knotted with nausea. She'd dreamt that she'd been naked, wrapped in chains, and forced by men with swords to dig her own grave. When she finished, they made her kneel in it and one of them bent down to kill her. As she lay dying, she realized with horror that her killer was Arcade dressed in Legion red, and she tried to scream, except her throat was cut. She woke up feeling her throat for a wound that wasn't there. Swallowing the urge to vomit, she found a water bottle on the table beside her, and drank it dry. Then she noticed the tape again. Acting on a whim, she grabbed it, put on her boots, and went outside, into the chilly night air.
Leaning on the balcony and admiring the full moon, she slid the tape into her Pip-Boy and pressed "play."
