- QUEEN OF DIAMONDS -
Click-click-clack. Clack-click-clack. Clack-click.
I sat alone, in silence, toying with the instrument in my hands. How it folded and twirled... it was fascinating. Calming, almost.
I needed calm and patience, for I had lost them.
A butterfly knife, it was called. An apt name. It was rather gracious, despite having been crafted by a race as feral and base as humanity. And yet I enjoyed its sounds, its movements, the way the morning sun glittered on the blade.
A blade stained by the blood of a dirty little chimp, drawn by forty-two vicious stabs to the head, neck, chest, abdomen and groin, seventeen of which lethal and more than necessary inflicted after his death. Any other day I would have limited myself to snapping his spine and throwing his lifeless body away, but earlier I had been feeling rather... upset. He and his friends had been a good distraction, a way to blow off steam.
Now I admired my handiwork, cooled down in the shade, and pondered.
Click-clack-click. Clack-clack-click.
There were five corpses arrayed before me. They had made the mistake of threatening me with their grunts and hoots at a very unwise moment, one where my rationality had taken a leave and I was liable to go berserk if provoked.
Which was exactly what had happened.
All humans, all part of the same gang, all dead. Two females and three males, their names and faces so very unimportant and yet burned into my skull as though the memories were mine.
Kali and Gorgeous Sally, the two I had scorched to death, still smoking and fouling the air with the stench of roasted meat. They had screamed for a while, and quite loudly. Kali had been tall, dark-skinned and disturbingly promiscuous, whereas Sally had been known solely for her pretty face and blonde hair. Charred as they were now, their fat and skin melting and their insides sizzling, I could hardly tell them apart.
Mad-Eye and Bobby, the ones I had executed with lightning, their bones shattered by their own spasms and red patterns etched across their skin. At one point their hair had caught fire. Amusing. Mad-Eye had been a brawny beast without a real name and with a single, violet eye, while Bobby had been entirely and utterly unremarkable in anything except his skill with picking locks. The sharp edges of their bones had torn the flesh in a dozen places, most noticeably their arms and legs.
Click-clack.
Then right in front of me was none other than Bennett 'Razor' Wilson. A bald, dwarfish, scabby, ugly, ignorant, petty, vile wretch whom I had singled out as the unlikely leader and, out of the five raiders, the best source of knowledge to tap into. First I had disabled his stumpy legs with a pair of ice shivs as long and thick as my forearms, to make sure he would go nowhere. Then I had plucked anything that could be of use from his small and primitive mind: languages, nations, names, territories, paths, histories, people, points of interest, recipes, skills, events... all the useful pieces of information his malformed skull had contained.
Clack.
I had not reacted well to the news.
I believe it showed in those forty-two stabs and in the wide pool of crimson sand Razor now rested in.
Click-clack.
In hindsight, the underground complex should have been a dead giveaway. I had immediately realized that I was not standing in Nchuand-Zel. The architecture, the doors, the symbols, the sheer amount of steel in that structure told me that the Dwemer had nothing to do with any of this. A Plane of Oblivion, most likely. Whose, I had no idea, but I had been certain I would learn in due time.
The crystal... so there had been a reason for its perfection. A gateway, a portal, an entrance into another world. The presence of such a thing left a trace, for lack of a better word. It had been so in Nchuand-Zel, where I had not fully understood what we were dealing with until it was too late. I had felt nothing similar down there. Either I had been moved, or the other side of the passage was somewhere else. Where, I had yet to find out.
For now, Razor had answered my most urgent question.
The Mojave Wasteland.
So that was the name of this dead desert. The Mojave Wasteland, in the ravaged lands of America, Earth. Not a Plane of Oblivion, no. A whole new world, dominated by humans and their hideous offshoot, rotten ghouls and brutish mutants, where no Elves or Beastfolk had ever existed. A world where life was a twisted parody of Tamriel's, where weapons and technology were far more advanced than what the Dwemer had ever achieved, where no mage had ever been born and yet the Magicka in the air was as abundant as on Nirn. A world that had fallen so low as to use bottle caps and paper as coin, where society had reverted to a tribal stage, where few were strong enough to enforce any law other than the survival of the fittest. A world that refused to die, after its mad inhabitants had immolated themselves in the fires of war centuries ago.
At least, that was what Razor had gathered throughout his miserable life.
Clack-click-click. Click.
I would not spend one second more than was required of me on this ridiculous world. As of now, however, there was little I could do besides waiting. The nearest and most populous city was New Vegas, a den of sin, gambling and crime some sixty or seventy miles North of 'here', an abandoned Poseidon gas station along the side of the US-95.
This Vegas, beating heart of the region, was ruled by an elusive individual older than the Great War itself, one who might hold the answers to the my greatest questions, if he truly possessed the resources Razor imagined to be at his disposal.
A certain Mr. House, a man who must have mastered every field of human knowledge, given his age and intelligence. A man many thought to be a myth, a legend. A man everyone feared, whether they believed in his existence or not.
A man nobody had ever met in person.
Come hell or high water, I would be the first.
Click-clack.
Instead of wasting two days of my precious time marching under the desert sun in my black robes of office and sweating my skin off, however, I chose the easier route. I waited for the same thing Razor and his pack of animals did.
A convoy from the city of Dayglow, far to the South, which should pass by this gas station within the hour. A pair of self-moving behemoths called trucks and an escort on three smaller vehicles, delivering ammunition and supplies to the troops of the New California Republic stationed in the Vegas area – the army of an invading nation built on the ruins of a land to the West. The five fools had somehow believed they could take over a platoon of heavily armed and trained professionals with a pair of rifles and a handful of landmines.
I was nowhere near as stupid as them. I did not even waste my time counting the faults in that... sketch.
Clack-clack-clack.
No, I had something else in mind. If those things were as fast as Razor thought them to be, I would be exactly where I wanted to be in less than two hours. Then, after I reached New Vegas, I would seek a way to return to Tamriel and be done with the Mojave Wasteland.
Something I presumed to be what remained of my conscience piped up, an annoying little voice I had not heeded in well over eighty years. 'What of the idiotic cat, the impertinent monkey and the mute boar, Roswen,' it asked.
Well, they could rot here for the rest of eternity, for all I cared. They had done nothing for me, they had proven to be useless, and they had constantly objected to following my lead. If these were the results, let them reap what they had sowed.
Click-clack. Clack-click-click-clack.
Right now, however, I could only wait. Wait and, through masterful use of this blade, look the part.
Once I was done with my maquillage, I relaxed my jaw and sucked air in through my teeth. This new mask of mine hurt, yes, but if everything went according to plan I would have to endure the pain for a mere hour and a half. Two at worst.
Starting now, if the plume of dust rising above the horizon was any indicator.
I rapped my knuckles on the counter of the gas station, which I had been careful enough to stain with Razor's blood and my own. I had moved the bodies to strategic positions both inside and outside. The loathsome dwarf and the bloodstain he lay in would have been too much of a nuisance to cover, so I had incinerated him and glassed the sand beneath his ashes. To give the setting a more battle-scarred look, I had seared pockmarks and cracks on the façade of the building, detonated the landmines from afar, and blasted a few craters all around.
The final touches I had applied with the butterfly knife and a heavy enough stone. I had not grunted once as I worked. I had suffered worse torments across almost a century of life, this was nothing I could not heal. The payoff would be well worth it.
I peered through the broken windows and spotted small dots at the head of the dust cloud. Perfect timing.
I limped to the main entrance, halting beneath the empty doorframe. This was it, one step ahead the stage waited: the collapsed canopy and buried wrecks before me, the roasted corpse of Kali behind me, keeled over a shelf of dried oil cans and tools.
I had to enter the character.
I closed my eyes, drew in a lungful of dust and burned flesh, and counted to ten.
At three, I felt the vibrations tickle the soles of my feet. The speed and weight of those machines was enough to make the ground shake. Still, nowhere near as strong as a cavalry charge.
At seven, the tips of my ears twitched with the soldiers' shouted banter over the buzzing engines. The words were a mess of harsh syllables and obscenities I could barely comprehend, even with Razor's posthumous help. Still, nothing so foul as Orcs.
At ten, I opened my eyes and leered.
The curtains parted.
I screamed.
"HELP ME!"
When the apish call left my lips, I ran, ran as fast as my limp allowed me. Sweat salted my wounds and washed over the crimson and the dirt. Tears welled in my eyes. I bit down on the inside of my cheek and elbowed a gash on my side, and the tears fell.
Were it not for the exertion, my heart would not have rushed. Under the current circumstances, however, it had to cope with the act. It pumped and hammered in my chest as my breath quickened like a scared doe's.
"GOD, PLEASE, HELP!"
I stumbled on a piece of concrete I had not seen and tumbled to the sand. Razor-sharp grains stuck to my flesh, to my mask, to my robes. Worst of all, I stubbed my toe.
Any other time, I would have cursed so loud as to make Mara blush. This time I grabbed hold of the occasion with both of my hands and wailed, let the convoy know, let them see me and hear me and pity me.
"HELP!"
I crawled back on my feet, clutching at my right arm for pathos, and trotted past the service area, onto the sun-cracked asphalt in the middle of the road.
I dropped to my knees and faced forwards, into the open-topped jeep's ugly, square grille as it drew ever closer with blinding speed.
Now, in any half-decent playwright's work, they would become aware of me and stop or swerve to avoid me.
And if they did not, I would gladly stop them myself.
Luckily, there was no need for that. With a horrid squeal of rubber the jeep slipped, swayed and finally skidded to a halt, so close to my nose that the play turned a bit too tacky and fortuitous for my liking. The rest of the convoy slowed down and stopped behind it, amid the cries of protest and the questions of the troops.
Other than being ungainly as little else in the world and producing a grating noise halfway between a buzz and a whine, my rescue stank. It stank of hot metal, of mite-infested canvas, of rancid sweat, of humanity... and of other things I had never smelled if not through Razor's memories, such as the acrid reek of gunpowder and the metallic tang of overheated batteries. I was feeling nauseous, yet I would not let that ruin my performance.
"Goddammit Alvarez, brake sooner next time!" A male's hoarse voice shouted in the rough speech of this world. "A'ight, let's deal with this shit... Charlie team, about-turn, watch our backs with that fifty cal! Bear team, cover us! Able team, with me – Johnson, Ramirez, that means you!"
He could not have been issuing orders to the back of the convoy with his voice only, powerful though it may be. They must have had radios.
These NCR soldiers were more organized than Razor had given them credit for.
Three pairs of boots slammed down on the ground, dashed, and stopped all around me.
Metal clacked, and clacked, and clacked again.
They had cocked their rifles ready. They had me in their sights.
One false move, and I was dead.
Now the charade truly began.
I shivered and buried my face in my hands. I burst into sobs that wracked my shoulders and, were these troops Thalmor, would give me away as a terrible liar. Since humans do not pay attention to the finer details of intonation and body language, however, I was free to act as terribly as I wished and get a kick out of it as well. So I folded lower and lower until my knuckles scraped the boiling asphalt and muttered the same mantra over and over again.
"Help me, please... you've gotta help me, please..."
A decent performance, considering how lowly English was and how reluctant a proud Altmer like me could be in employing it. Grammar was not a problem, the lack of subtle movements to complement the tone made it all so disgustingly primitive. Still, the accent needed some work.
Not that they would realize the difference, of course. I may have come from a far away settlement for all they knew. The figure I presented helped draw their eyes away from the obvious flaws and painted me as a poor, wretched soul whose life had taken a turn for the worst.
My precious robes of office were reduced to tatters, marked by long gashes, stained with blood and bereft of the gold thread lining them. Beneath them it was easy to see the bruises, scratches and cuts I had inflicted on myself, like a superstitious penitent or a perverse freak.
I heard someone shift their feet behind me. He cleared his throat twice before he spoke up. "Sarge, I... I don't think she's dangerous."
I had to keep from laughing. Already? Had I been graced with one so gullible? A human male... he sounded young and hesitant, prone to grave mistakes only because he heeded his heart more than he did his brain. Better than I had hoped for.
"Already melted your heart, Johnson?" The first voice barked back. Older, rougher, mocking. Their officer, I presumed. Sarge... sergeant, low rank in the NCR military. He would be harder to convince. "Shouldn't be fallin' for that. We don't know who the fuck she is. Could be harmless, could be dangerous – hell, could be raider bait for all I know. It's probably for the best if we..."
Now was the moment.
I let my hands slide away from my face and reveal the deep, fresh wounds scored across my cheeks, chin and forehead. Those had been hard the hardest to engrave, even with the help of a piece of glass as a mirror. In the end, the more erratic they were, the better. The audience must have appreciated my efforts, I was sure.
I sniffled shakily, sat up with my back to the jeep and looked up to my left, where the sergeant stood, his rifle aimed squarely at my temple. He was a dirty middle-aged male in a dirty tan uniform and a dirty bowl-shaped helmet, identical to the one the other two troopers on the ground and the rest of the platoon on the convoy wore. Standard NCR-issue uniform, standard wood-and-metal semi-automatic rifle, standard five magazines on his belt. Nothing about him implied special training, according to Razor.
His dark eyes were harsh, but the sight of mine was enough to soften them up a little.
Now that we had made eye contact was the most delicate moment. It would take one wrong word to sell me out as suspicious, even to a human. I had to stop fooling around and act well.
So I spoke no word.
I made a show of opening my mouth and shut it closed again with a wince, as though the very act of remembering were too painful. I hugged my knees, hid myself behind them, wept softly. With red eyes I gazed at the gas station, sank my fingers into the gash on my calf and carried on crying in silence. I stared at the rusty 'Poseidon' sign as though it were the most important thing in this world, pretending to be reliving a nightmare.
In truth, the pain was twisting half of my thoughts into vicious oaths and curses.
By Peryite's festering gums, surely they would notice there was a meaning behind all this and I could relieve some of the pressure while they turned their stupid heads there?
I was on the verge of snapping and outright telling them when their sergeant finally took the hint. He scowled and faced to the right, towards the Poseidon station. I counted three seconds before his scowl deepened. Perhaps he had seen Sally's arm poking out of the yellow van.
"Something's wrong." The male grumbled as he lowered his rifle, raised a hand and pointed it towards the battleground I had crafted. "Alvarez, Ramirez, on me. Think I saw something down there. Johnson, you stay here and keep an eye on her." He gripped his weapon in both hands once again and addressed the others with a shout. "Bear team, watch our asses, we're goin' in!"
The driver dismounted, cocked his rifle, and spat on the ground. He and Ramirez followed their non-commissioned officer like the good little soldiers they were, guns at the ready and trigger fingers itching. It would not take them long to find what was left of the raiders.
Which meant I had all the time in the world to win this Johnson over.
One glance was enough to tell me I only needed a 'thank you' to domesticate this lanky ape. He was younger than I had thought, no older than twenty. Perhaps even younger, with those pimples and that wispy beard. It was plain to see how uncomfortable he was in my presence. It showed in his nervous green eyes darting left and right, in the large droplets of sweat trickling down his neck, in the awkward way he held his rifle across his chest...
Johnson knelt down next to me, nearly dropped his gun, and placed a greasy palm on my shoulder. I met his gaze with genuine surprise, which had the result of nearly throwing him in a panic. He did well to be nervous, I was barely repressing the urge to rip his arm out of its socket and beat him to death with it. How dare he touch me? "H-hey, it's all right, so... so don't worry and it's... it's gonna be all right. We'll get ya somewhere safe, okay?"
Syrabane give me strength, where do I begin? Aside from the fact that he could not comfort a healthy dog, he was holding my shoulder way too tight for any of it to be tolerable – and that without addressing the root of the problem: he was touching me. I hoped the sergeant was quick in securing that place, this boy's fingers trembled, they felt like crawling insects. Moreover, this child's breath smelled of... whatever variant of garlic they had here. The bloody gums he flashed in what he must have thought a reassuring smile confirmed my fears.
Since I could not shove him off and kick his rotting teeth out, however, I went for an uncertain twitch of my lips and a nod.
He let go of me and nodded to himself with an even broader grin. "Yeah, that's better... that's better, yeah." He focused very hard on the thin clouds over our heads before he nodded again and made vague gestures with his hands. "Look, we're just... making sure we can trust ya, it won't take the sarge long. We're going somewhere safe, once he's sure you're good we'll get ya there. So stay calm, it's... it's fine."
This idiot was contagious, seeing how I found myself nodding along. I would rather be talking to a corpse than to him. He had to be the single clumsiest and most unsure human being on the face of this war-torn Earth, not to mention stupid. How in Oblivion had he joined the army? He must have been a conscript, there was no other possible explanation for his presence here.
How much longer would I have to put up with him?
"Uh... look, I'm Steven – Steven Johnson, might'a guessed the surname." The private chuckled. Now I had a full name I had never asked him for, apparently. "You... got one?"
This went to show my immense self-restraint. Even though I was dying to slam his head into the jeep's bumper, have him shut up and stop trying to be my friend, even though his question made me suspect he had to be suffering from slight mental retardation, I had no choice but to answer. I had to. I needed him as an ally for the time being.
So I averted my eyes, tugged at my hair like the most classic of damsels in distress, and shrugged a shoulder. "I-I'm Roswen..."
No still-bleeding victim of heinous psychological and physical torture would ever behave like this, but the way he carried himself, I may have sprouted a second head and he would have nodded it off as normal. I might as well lead him on and have him on my side for as long as he could be of use to me, irritating though the ordeal may be.
"It's, eh... nice to meet ya, Roz-when." He stammered, butchering the gentle pronunciation with his coarse accent. "It's a... well, a beautiful name, if... y'know, if I say so."
I smirked for the sole reason that the thought of strangling him did cross my mind. Of course it was a beautiful name, it was Altmeri, unlike the cacophonous bundle of syllables that his simian parents had thrown together and cursed him with.
One more question and I would kill him on the spot, him and all of his companions, and to Oblivion with the consequences.
Lucky for him, the sergeant and his two mooks chose that exact moment to march out of the gas station, weapons lowered and mouths pulled into grimaces.
Johnson stood to attention and let me breathe the slightly less noxious air in peace, thank Auri-El.
The sergeant made a broad, dismissive motion as he went straight for his jeep, most certainly for the radio. I tuned out the mutters of the troops and pricked my ears to listen in.
"Charlie and Bear, the gas station is clear, everyone inside is dead." He stated flatly. "They were done in by heavy weapons. Hostiles may still be in the area, so keep your eyes peeled. Over and out."
Once that was dealt with, he jumped down from the vehicle, waved his hands around in odd gestures to address his three soldiers on the ground (a code of sorts?), and squatted near me.
I did my best not to challenge him with a smug snort, so once again low eyes, a few sniffles, dejected attitude. He had to think I was intimidated, shaken, not prone to exchanging information with him in particular.
"Lady, I've got one question for you." He said, his voice as flat as when he had spoken into the radio. I still averted my eyes, not trusting myself not to sneer. "What the fuck happened in there?"
I could not hold back any longer, I chortled.
How could a race so chaotic and unpredictable as humanity always fall into the same patterns? Come on, this was too easy. Always the same questions, they asked, always in the same order and always to the first person they met. Change an expletive or two, maybe the order of the constituents depending on the area and the dialect, but the core remained the same.
Before I gave myself away, however, I injected a vein of hysteria into it, spurred the tears, let my hands shake.
"Wh-what... what happened?" I rasped, my throat dry. I had no need to fake that, I had not drunk a drop of water in hours and I had been sweating and bleeding on top of that. I looked up, expecting him to be taken aback at least a bit, yet he was rooted in place. A tough one. "Sir, I-I... I can't, it's just... it's too much..."
The sergeant sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. I suspected he did not like dealing with civilians, and emotional ones at that. I could understand him, they tend to be either too eager or too unwilling to cooperate, but unhelpful all the same. "A'ight, let's start over. Gimme a name – you gotta have a name, right?"
I nodded with the same energy as private Johnson. "R-Roswen. My name... my name's Roswen."
"A'ight, Roz-when." He grunted, maiming my name in the same way as his underling had. He flicked his wrist to accompany his next words, jabbing a thumb towards the gas station. "Let's keep this nice and simple. Why were you in there?"
This time, I swallowed. I had to appear shaken, in shock. Basically, not like the one who had slaughtered those five without the vaguest hint of remorse. "I-I was... I was going North, wanted to see New Vegas, but... b-but then they took me and..." I put a hand to my mouth and closed my eyes as though I were suppressing a sob. "The things they said, the... God, th-the things they did..."
"So you're sayin' these gangers jumped you on the way to Vegas..." The sergeant commented, dry as sand. "Well, you can count yourself lucky it wasn't Legion."
Had it been the nation of bandit scum and animals collectively known as Caesar's Legion to find me, I would have wiped them out all the same. In fact, it might have been more satisfying, given their attitude when it came to the females of their species and their resemblance to the Imperial Legion. They were not too dissimilar, after all. A brutish mass of monkeys hell-bent on spreading out and conquering and...
The sergeant's not-so-polite cough interrupted my reverie. "Lady, let's cut to the chase. What killed those raiders?"
I refrained from giggling again. I shook my head with feigned terror and shrugged, desolate in my ignorance. "I... I don't know. I didn't see them well, I... I was hiding. Th-they were... big, s-scary, with gray armor and la-lasers... and he-helmets... didn't even talk, just... gu-gunned them down..."
It is hard to describe how much I enjoyed the alarmed expression on his face and that of the other soldiers. Razor had little knowledge of this 'Brotherhood of Steel', a quasi-religious, mysterious organization hell-bent on gathering and hoarding ancient technology. The bit I had found most interesting was the fact the NCR had waged a bloody war on them in the past that had cost them thousands of lives. The mention of an old enemy would shake the soldiers up a bit, help me get out of this damn heat and reach New Vegas quicker.
"Ma'am – Roz-when, listen to me." The sergeant demanded, inching closer to my face. His tone implied both anger and a modicum of fear. "The folks who attacked, the ones in armor... where'd they go?"
At that point, I could only shake my head again. After all, I had been hiding the whole time, so how should I know where this imaginary squad of Brotherhood soldiers had wandered off to? I threw in a shrug and stared into his eyes for good measure, looking like a beaten, abused dog.
I was tempted to whine while I was at it, but I preferred not to cross the line between pitiful and outright pathetic.
That succeeded in making them all more uneasy than they already were. The sergeant abruptly stood up, strapped his rifle to his back, and cocked his head towards me. "A'ight boys, you heard her. Since I ain't got no intention of lettin' a bunch of Knights and Paladins packin' God knows what use us as target practice, we're gettin' the fuck outta here."
Alvarez and Ramirez glanced at each other, focused back on their sergeant, and gave a grunt of assent as one.
"What about her, sir?" Johnson asked as the other two hopped back onto the jeep. "We... we can't just leave her!"
The sergeant ran his index and thumb over his eyebrows and hissed a curse to himself. He remained in that position for a couple of seconds, contemplating me and his idiotic underling in turns – me in a mix of pity and mistrust, him with unconcealed annoyance.
As for me, I waited.
I waited, calm and collected as I could be while clad in black clothes under the desert sun, sweating like a pig and bleeding like one, albeit from measly flesh wounds. No matter what he said, now that we had reached this point, I would come with them. End of story.
If he agreed, that saved me thirty seconds and a risky move.
If he did not, a sneaky Charm spell was all that I needed.
Either way, I had already won.
The older male conceded defeat and spared the private a tired glance. "A'ight, fine, help her up. She'll fit in the back with you and Ramirez." He then addressed me, halfway between peeved and sorry. "Miss Roz-when, a word of warnin': we got no first aid kit to spare, and the farthest we can take you's Tradin' Post One-Eighty-Eight. You'll have all the time in the world find yourself a doctor to patch you up and a caravan to get you to Vegas."
A minor setback, but I smiled nonetheless. Not quite the knowing, triumphant smile I would have donned, of course. I went for a more 'eternal gratitude' sort of smile. I did not thank him out loud, but I suppose my oh-so-fake expression and my half bow were enough to convince him.
Besides, if one considered the time I would have to waste in order to find a caravan and cover the remaining twenty miles between that ragtag mix of wrecks and stands and the New Vegas Strip, I could hardly thank him.
I let Johnson wrap an arm around my shoulders and lift me up. His hand did brush against my breasts and I came the closest I had been all day to caving his skull in, yes. Since following through with that action was bound to meet resistance I did not feel like annihilating, I preferred to avoid that. I would have time to punish him later on.
As it turned out, I was a couple of inches taller than both that idiot and his superior. Probably taller than anyone on the supply run.
I let him help me limp over to the side of the jeep and clamber onto the back. I sat down on the hard, uncomfortable, cramped backseat, stuck between the quiet, broad-shouldered Ramirez and the scrawny, ever-talking Johnson. I stopped paying attention to what he said and nodded at the end of his every sentence. He appeared to be content with it. In front of me were the driver, Alvarez, to the left, and the nameless sergeant to the right.
Their leader picked up a palm-sized black brick from the dashboard, brought it to his mouth and pressed a button on its side. "All vehicles, this is Able team, we are good to go! Double time it, ladies, I wanna reach the One-Eighty-Eight within the hour!" He put the radio back and glowered over his shoulder. "And Johnson, I ain't got no intention of hearin' you run your mouth the whole way to the Tradin' Post, understood?"
With that, the jeep beneath me lurched, the private fell quiet with a last 'yes sir', and I drew in a deep breath.
It was not pleasant, not in the slightest, but I had earned a moment to sit back and relax as best as my current conditions allowed me to.
That garrulous boy's silence was a marked improvement, at least.
"A'ight, ma'am, this is it. Far as we can get you."
The sergeant's announcement rocked me back to reality. I masked my appalled grimace for one of pain by clutching at my side, rose to my feet and descended onto the boiling asphalt. Accompanied by Johnson, of course, whose help I could not be brought to mind right now.
So this was the notorious Trading Post 188.
A hollowed-out armored vehicle repurposed into a checkpoint, a chain-link fence reinforced with sheet metal and sandbags, a pair of unsteady watchtowers, all manned by sweaty troopers... those marked one of the three entrances to my destination, the southern gate. I could hear the shouts of the merchants and the counter-offers of the customers, I could smell the deadly mix of meats, drinks, garbage, animals, humans and waste, I could see the small crowd of people flocking to and fro with their horrendous creatures and the gaggles of soldiers standing watch by the stalls crafted from the wreckage on the interstate.
All from here.
This was no Trading Post, this was a shantytown. By Oblivion, this place made Riften's market square look as dignified as Alinor's by comparison. Did I seriously have to set foot in there when the sergeant may have taken me to their Camp McCarran just as easily? I was still in time, after all. I could cast a Charm, appear shaken, spin a plausible lie and avoid taking this thoroughly and utterly unpleasant step in my trip.
And yet I had to set foot in there. If the sergeant brought a non-affiliated civilian to their military complex on a crucial supply run without specific instructions from his superiors, he would be interrogated, demoted or even court-martialed – which would lead his commanding officers to interrogate me in turn, and that would be quite the inconvenience for me to either escape from or go through. From where I stood, I had little choice.
This was the quickest route back to Tamriel.
Unfortunately.
I turned to the soldiers on the jeep and went for an uncertain, moved smile. I threw in a tear as well, as if they had done me a great service in dropping me at the door of this cesspit. "Thank you so much, all of you, I... I don't know how to..."
The sergeant, upright and propped against the windshield, waved me off. "No need to, ma'am. As Johnson said, couldn't just leave you there." He tipped his helmet. "Take care, Roz-when."
"And once ya get to Vegas, swing by McCarran sometime, ask of me an' the others!" Johnson added after he had climbed back on board, beaming and baring his yellowish teeth. "That's where we're stationed!"
I injected a measure of sincere amusement into my smile. There was not a chance in Oblivion I would ever enter that base for them, let alone for him in particular. I had no idea what the boy thought existed between the two of us other than unilateral disgust and loathing. I would sooner throw myself under their jeep's wheels than meet him again. If anything, I hoped they were ambushed on the way there. Razor remembered that a fierce band of drug-crazed raiders, the Fiends, had this nasty habit of mining entire streets in the ruins of the so-called Old Vegas.
Still, I supposed their survival might be beneficial. A visit would justify my presence there and make for a good ticket inside the heart of NCR operations in the area, in case things did not go well with House. In any case, I had better maintain an amiable façade.
I waved at them as Alvarez put the jeep into gear and they trundled past me, followed by the two trucks and the rest of the escort, through the parting crowds of the Trading Post and back on the way to Vegas.
Well, no point in delaying this any further.
I drew in a lungful of pestilent air, if only to breathe as little as possible once in there, and trudged inside, past the three guards and the filthy farmer arguing over his herd of tumor-ridden, two-headed cows flicking their tails and mooing by the entrance. Brahmins, they were called. What horrid abominations, affronts to nature itself... and so many of them, too.
I held my breath as I entered. Praise the Gods, I did not smell any more of the cursed cattle, of the humans milling about in their ragged clothing, of the ghouls so putrid and haunting, of the scaleless reptiles and skinned dogs hanging from rusty hooks at the butcher's shop to my right, of the occasional piece of... human waste on the side of the main road.
These savages were loud. They yelled, they laughed, they clapped their hands, they banged their fists on the metal counters, they ate and drank like beasts. The squalor was as tangible as the broken road beneath my feet. I was glad my nose would be spared of this torture, for the time being.
I disregarded the chimps gawking at me, be it for my wounds or for my beauty, and advanced as quickly as I could. Some were audacious enough to call me out or whistle, even injured as I was. Sickening, depraved things, but this was not the time nor the place to teach them a lesson.
An alley, I needed an alley between the stalls carved from ancient trailers, boxcars or vans, somewhere no male or female would shadow me and I could heal in peace. This world did not know any magic, its decadent inhabitants would go insane, flee or shoot me down if they saw me cast any spell. Worse yet, they may report me to what passed for authorities around here, and I had no intention of being hounded for the rest of my hopefully brief permanence.
As the decades had taught me, humans do not appreciate new or different things, especially new or different things that challenge their pathetic convictions and mindsets. No, I would rather find somewhere secluded, recover, and head straight for New Vegas.
While I grew more desperate for clean air, I found the perfect place. It was set between a weapons store fashioned from a broken-down flatbed trailer and a bar comprised of two caravans welded together. It seemed to be an alley curving to the left, barely as wide as my shoulders. I glanced to my left and right, made sure nobody paid me any mind, and slunk into the passageway.
I did not cover two yards in that cramped hell that I stepped on something. I had no doubt as to what it was, the wet squelch gave it away, but I preferred not to think about it. My skin was crawling enough as it was.
I went on, reached a spot that may or may not have been halfway through to the other side, and covered my mouth and nose with what was left of my gorget.
I inhaled, and gagged almost at once. The reek was fouler than any battlefield I had ever fought on, a miasma of rot and decay so powerful that my eyes began to water. Gods, the nausea... I pulled down my gorget, in case I vomited. I had to brace myself against the rust walls on either side of me, I did not trust my stomach to hold. How could anyone suffer any of this?
By Magnus, the grime, the smell... if I did not use Restoration now, I would surely poison my blood. I leaned against the wall to my left, raised my right hand and spread my fingers, palm up. I closed my eyes, steadied my breaths, grew accustomed to the irrespirable air. Each and every one of my scratches, bruises, cuts, wounds flared brighter, made me aware of the extent of the damage I had inflicted upon myself. Yes, nothing too deep, most of them would heal by themselves and not even leave a scar.
Still, there is no such thing as too much caution. I willed the Magicka in my veins and all around me to flow, to bond, to seal, to repair, to ease every little pain and ache.
A white gold glow shrouded me, warm, comforting, clean. Skin and muscle were knitted together where they had been cut, deflated where they had swollen, washed where they had been marred by blood.
In but a few moments I was whole once more, unscathed and beautiful as I had been before enacting my plan.
Alas, my robes and boots were ruined. I knew of no spell to mend anything inanimate. Ah, no matter. I would request a new set once I was back in Skyrim and I could report to my superiors.
I straightened my back, dusted my torn epaulets, and marched forth, through the rubbish, the sand, the crumpled metal and every other septic horror in this tiny alley. Now it was only a matter of getting out of here, ignoring what I had the misfortune to step on, and putting this cesspool behind me at once.
I emerged back onto another road, just as crowded as the last, with cheap truck-taverns on either side of me. I could not decide which one was worse, they were both equally dingy, with equally unseemly clients and equally revolting cooks and dishes.
To my right was the eastern gate, which would lead me further away from my objective, into Boulder City and then eventually to Hoover Dam. To my left were the underside of the still-standing overpass and, a few hundred yards ahead, the western gate.
I did not even try to mingle with the crowd, for some reason nobody dared to come within three feet of me. Not that I could rant, of course. I was grateful for not having to touch any of these scum. Again, they just stared and whistled and called as I passed, many of the males and some of the females as well.
I paid no heed to the words they spoke, meaningless, obscene, futile. I doubted they worked on the females of their own species, never mind on me, a respectable Altmer woman of my age. Go figure why they acted like this.
Caught up in my disdain as I was, I did not notice I had ended up in a pocket of free space under the overpass. There were shops both to the left and right, yes, but none in the middle, where the eroded pillars held the overpass aloft.
Everyone seemed to avoid the spot where a human child sat, dressed in the ragged remains of a uniform, surrounded by litter of all sorts. On his head was a... thing. It reminded me of a torture device, a crown of reddish brass and bolts strapped tight to his chin. His eyes stared forward, into nothingness, his face betraying no emotion.
Something about him sent chills down my spine. I could not tell what, exactly, but this street urchin gave me a sense of... wrongness. It made me uneasy, almost nervous. No ordinary child, especially not a human one, would ever behave this way. They ran and screamed and laughed and cried, they were lively and loud, this one... he was not. He may have been dead for how still he sat. No, I would do well to keep my distance, I...
I bumped into someone.
I had been so focused on that eerie little figure that I had taken my surroundings for granted. Still, I was not the only one to blame here. This human shared culpability for not noticing me and not getting out of my way.
In the time it took this beggar to grunt and put on a face, I narrowed my eyes. Its clothes were loose and worn, brown as mud, a jute sack and canvas boots confusing the silhouette, but it was plain to see the one hiding underneath was a female. She was two or three inches shorter than me, as most humans are, somewhat gracious in her blunt, apish features, and quite a bit cleaner than the other travelers around here.
Strange, her level of hygiene and her apparel did not match.
Then again, neither did mine.
"Hey, watch where you're going!" She snorted, blowing a short tuft of brown hair out of her dark eyes. She tried to scowl, but her annoyance seemed to melt away the moment she saw my face. "Or, uh, don't. Fine by me. I mean..."
"Out of my way." I hissed, uncaring of her reaction, and went around her. I refrained from placing a hand on her forehead and pushing her away. That would have been too aggressive a move for someone not to intervene.
"Hey, wait a minute!" The beggar insisted. When she realized I was not going to stop, I heard her pick up the pace and pop up by my side. "I'm sorry for the whole bumping-into-each-other thing, guess it was kind of my fault, but I didn't really notice..."
I glared down at her. She went quiet and swallowed. What did she want from me? What reason could she possibly have to dog a random stranger in a place like this? "Why are you following me?"
She took a moment to consider the answer. In the end, she shrugged a shoulder and smiled. "Because you look interesting, and you're the first interesting-looking person I've met here in a while."
I could not help but frown at her explanation. Of all the people that I may have stumbled upon, it had to be a madwoman. I shook my head, sighed and, since I could not blast her away, ignored her.
The beggar in the jute sack did not give up. "Where'd you come from? No offense, but you-"
"None of your business." I cut her off, growling. She was persistent, I had to give her that. Why was she not going away? "Now-"
"That's why I asked, my business is boring." She interrupted me. She was beginning to unnerve me. Would anyone react if I punched her? No, not a chance, I could not do that here without starting a brawl. Not a good idea with the soldiers, either. They may arrest me. "You try trading and scavenging for a living and see if you don't start nosing into other people's affairs."
I rolled my eyes at the answer she gave me. Of course, just because this human led a boring and miserable life, she had to pester me. Only a human could come up with such a cheeky answer... or maybe a Khajiit. Yes, she was quite similar to the cat foisted on me in Markarth, except for the fact she was friendly and sticky as tar, whereas that other one had radiated hostility from the get-go.
Hard to say which was worse.
"But really, you do look interesting." This beggar went on, unfazed. "I mean, you're too pale for the desert, your skin's pretty much glowing and yet you're going around in bloody tatters, and you've got pointy ears, like an elf."
The first two statements painted her as an assertive, if nosy, type. The third one simply puzzled me. Despite the modest size of his vocabulary, Razor had never heard that final word. Short, composed of but three sounds, new. Smooth at the edges, for a human term.
I had to know what she meant. If she had just insulted me, I would not let it stand.
I made a noise at the back of my throat, trying to make it pass for curiosity. "What's an... elf?"
"You know, an elf – elves, plural." She began, the same smirk plastered across her face. Had she been smirking the whole time? I had no idea, this was only the second or third time I had glanced back at her. "They've got a lot of things going their way, if you think about it. Tall, beautiful, wise, ancient, long-haired, pointy-eared, live for centuries, good with magic... well, they're also self-entitled dicks, think they're the best around."
I stopped dead in my tracks. We had walked for a while, we were almost to the gates, but I could not care less about that right now.
How had she figured it out? How in Oblivion did she know? Neither Razor nor I had ever heard that word in English, but it was plain to see she was referring to the Altmer. It was not possible, she should have known nothing of my race, none of us had never existed here – and yet she knew, she had traced the perfect portrait of an Altmer.
How?
No, calm, I had to stay calm. It was impossible, she could not possibly... and yet there was no denying it. What if she had heard of, seen or, better yet, met an Altmer? How had she done that? So many possibilities... I could not play it safe, not with what she may know. I had to press for answers.
The beggar took a couple of steps before she noticed I was no longer beside her. She faced about, raised a brow, and clacked her tongue. "Uh, did I say something I shouldn't have?"
"Who are you?" I asked her, slowly, curiosity gnawing away at my soul. I drew myself closer, not so close as to scare her, but close enough that I could stare into her eyes and see if she told the truth. "Where'd you come from? How'd you learn all this?"
"Wow, that got you talking." She remarked, smacking her lips, both of her brows raised. That smirk never quite left her. "Let's see... I'm Veronica, I come from a hole in the ground, and I read books in my free time. Well, I also do other things, I don't just read books." She took on a pensive air and pouted. "When I have free time, that is..."
Her name told me nothing, I had no idea what she meant with 'a hole in the ground', and I could be brought to care about what she did in her free time or how much thereof she had on her hands. She had access to sources that confirmed the existence of other Altmer in this plain of existence. And if my people had come here in the past, then there was a link, a way to come and go to Nirn - perhaps at will.
I tried to keep myself as aloof as possible and failed. I bent forwards, put my eyes on the same level as hers, held my breath in check. "There's books about elves? How many? Where?"
"Of course there are, I can't read books that don't exist." Veronica chuckled. She stepped back from me, probably because I was standing too close to her, and tilted her head. "I mean, they are hard to come by... but how'd that one word get you all worked up, anyway? Just because I said you looked like an elf? I mean, it's true. It's all there. The face, the ears, the height, the skin, you're basically... you're... you...
Veronica trailed off. Her jaw hung lower and lower. Her lips moved soundlessly. Her eyes went wide and darted across my features, too fast for me too track. Her smirk vanished, replaced by a huge, dumbfounded grin.
Gods damn it. Gods damn it all to Oblivion.
It mattered not that I had realized the extent of my stupidity and incompetence, it was already too late. I had gone too far.
For the first time in decades I, Roswen Daervalaris, formerly Captain and currently Inquisitor of the Aldmeri Dominion, had blown my cover. After so many investigations, missions and secret tasks carried out successfully, from high-value military targets to underground operations, I had slipped with a beggar from another world.
I had made every single mistake I had painstakingly avoided with the NCR, with the Imperial Legion, with any form of political opposition. I had been careless, stupid, I had taken the lead on a conversation and I had turned it into an interrogation. I had given away too much information by acting like a thrilled child.
Divines, I had been so... obvious.
Idiot.
"Finish the sentence and you're dead." I deadpanned, painfully aware that I was under constant watch by these depraved humans. If one realized I was not one of them, things might get... rough. I may have adopted another tone, had the situation been different, yet shame, anger, irritation, self-loathing and an imperceptible pinch of disquiet did not allow me to express myself in any other way. "Yes, you got that right, congratulations. Not another word on it. Now listen, I-"
"Can I come with you?" Veronica blurted out, eyes sparkling. She joined her arms on her chest, fingers intertwined in prayer. "Can I? Please? Pretty please with a crunchy mutfruit on top?"
I was about to pick the absolute worst Razor's plethora of curses had to offer and send her on her way with that and a well-placed kick, accompanying it all with Altmeri and Tamrielic insults, but I held back. It would be fitting, extremely so, but I could not afford to lose such an opportunity. She would not mind such a response, given her initial reaction, but I preferred not to risk it.
She had mentioned books. Knowledge, tangible knowledge. Proof of members of my race having been here. Perhaps they were chronicles, detailing how other Altmer had come to be here, or perhaps they contained instructions for me to follow, a way to come to Earth or return to Nirn. Perhaps they were mere stories, tales, but tales with a grain of truth nonetheless.
I presumed these works were not widely known. She had said so herself. None of the NCR soldiers had recognized me as an Altmer, not one of them. They had not even made a joking remark like she had at first. Then again, it did not surprise me. Human soldiers tend to be rather single-minded and ignorant, drones with just enough free will to interpret their orders and turn the tide on the field of battle.
This meant that only few people were aware of our existence here. Scholars, most likely. And yet the girl in front of me looked nothing like a scholar. Although... yes, she was too clean to be wrapped up in what could only be called a sack of potatoes. The two elements clashed. She had to be hiding something – like me, after all. Perhaps something connected to these works. She must have let that detail slip because she had believed no one in the wasteland would take her seriously. A perfect secret, one she may reveal in broad daylight with no effect.
"On one condition." I snarled. The thought of teaming up with a human was just as nightmarish as it sounded, but I had much to gain from it. Knowledge, power, a way home, an alternative to Mr. House and the NCR. "You come with me, I get to read those books."
"Deal!" Veronica exclaimed, perhaps a bit too quickly. She was... excited. Very much so. She may have started bouncing up and down if she did not calm down. "Oh, man, I can't believe it! I get to travel with an-"
A fuming glare was enough to silence her on the spot.
Good, this meant she understood the importance of keeping this a secret.
"Right, sorry, sorry." Veronica murmured, flushed. "Uh... so, where are we going?"
"New Vegas." I growled, crushing the squeak she made with another glower. "You'd better stop acting like a kid – and answering. Just shut up."
Auri-El give me strength, I had a feeling I was going to regret this. Still, if it hastened my quest for a portal to Tamriel, I would endure this and worse. I just hoped her enthusiasm abated in the meantime. Maybe I could demean her so harshly that she would get depressed on the way to New Vegas. One may dream.
Either way, we had a long way to go.
If push came to shove, I may still do what I had done with Razor and spare myself the trouble.