CHAPTER SEVEN

04:19PM, WEDNESDAY MAY 14TH, 2282, MOJAVE WASTELAND

Weird is what it would feel like to others. But to Brendan Sawyer, cutting around a dead rabid dog's neck was almost a regular occurrence. Usually the Legion would do this to a fox but he was settling for the next best thing. Brendan had a liking for the Vexillarius helmets the Legionaries would often wear, but he had never had one since he abandoned them, now he would just create his own. Sounds nobody close wanted to hear came from the bloody hunting knife as he cut it all around the dogs head. Kirkbride and Morse could only listen. Morse was curious to know what he was doing, therefore kept his eyes on the former Legionaries actions, whilst the former medic kept his back turned but eyes still shut, wanting the noises of flesh and bone crackling to stop.

"Everyone's gonna think you're with the Legion if you wear one of those." Connor told Brendan.

Brendan just kept sawing his way through the dead dog's spine.

"But I'm with you two, so it really doesn't fucking matter." Brendan replied.

Shaun kept watching, eyes moving from Brendan's face and back to the knife which was now deep in the neck of the dead rabid beast.

"I think I've seen one of these things before, like a wolf head thing." The Brother of steel muttered.

"Yeah… But usually they're fox's heads but you know… same difference." Brendan replied.

His face was now shining with sweat, the job he was doing becoming increasingly difficult the further he got into the neck. Connor was a former medic who had seen a lot worse but watching and listening to someone purposely cut and slice into a dead animals body made him a tad queasier than seeing someone with a bullet wound. It started to become a bit too much.

"For fuck sake, you have a machete, why can't you just take the damn things head off?" Connor asked, angrily.

"It's blunt, I'm trying to expose the spine so the bluntness of the blade won't matter." Sawyer replied.

Connor's head fell into his right palm before he turned around.

"You left the fucking Legion, why do you want this fucking hat thing so bad?" Connor had to ask.

"Well it's not a hat, more of a helmet, and I like them, its maybe the one thing I take from my time in the Legion with a little sentimental value." Sawyer told him.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Brendan took out the knife, wiped the blood off on the dusty and sandy ground.

"You understand that right? Coming from the NCR? Gotta be something you took from it before you were kicked to the curb." Brendan asked.

Connor listened, eyebrows went from low to high as he thought about the question. The former Medic reached into his pocket and pulled out his NCR dog tags.

"Ah, you do." Brendan smiled.

He then turned to Morse.

"And you, still wearing the funny outfit the Brotherhood wear underneath the power armour." He pointed out.

Shaun listened, but didn't reply, still looking at the dead dog with a now fully exposed spine, which looked like a large gap between the head and the body. Brendan handed Shaun his hunting knife back and then got out his blunt-ish machete. It took only one swing up and down and the sound of bones breaking before the dogs head was no longer attached to the body.

Hours later, all three men sat around a campfire, it wasn't far from Camp Golf they set up this little camp for the night, so danger was low, nothing they couldn't handle with all they had. It had been over a day since they inspected Chief Hanlon's dead body and concluded that he had spoken to an Omerta before his death. Brendan being the one to deduce the fact he was visited by the runners of Gomorrah, he had not been the same since. This former legionary never was short of words, but now, almost as silent as Shaun. Connor knew it was time to think ahead now that they had a lead. Now was the best time, when it was just the three in silence, at night. Shaun lay on his back, body spread out gazing up at the night sky, Connor sat, one knee bent, the other leg spread, watching Brendan as he had now finished his Vexillarius helmet. Now skinned and now finished on the fire he held it. It would be on his head by morning.

"So, you think it was an Omerta that talked to Hanlon?" Connor asked.

Brendan snapped out of his trance.

"I know it. They wear suits like that girl described. The fedora, sunglasses, everything, it makes sense. They're dangerous people too, kill for anything fucking reason." He told Connor.

"How do you know that?" asked Kirkbride.

"I know them, I had deals with them while I was in the Legion. We can get to the guy who spoke to Hanlon." Brendan said, almost eagerly, but more regretful.

"How do you mean?" Shaun creeped in on the conversation, still awake and listening.

His voice in the corner was unexpected by his two 'partners'.

"I left the Legion a year ago, but I stopped dealing with the Omerta six months before that. They don't know I've left the Legion, so I could still get deep in that casino, talk to them." Brendan said.

Connor sat and thought about this idea, whether it would work or not.

"After almost two years, and the battle at the Dam, you sure the Omerta's would just allow you into the casino and to talk with the big guys?" Connor asked, the scenarios sounding unrealistic to him.

"I know it sounds pretty impossible, but I can talk the talk, I know how they work, but I know how dangerous they can be. I've seen it." Brendan revealed.

Shaun then sat up from the ground and turned to face Brendan.

"What do you mean… 'Seen it'?" Shaun asked.

Brendan looked at both Shaun and Connor, who both wanted him to talk to them about the Omerta's, what he had seen and just what they were dealing with.

"This one time, I was in the casino with them. Must've been maybe the fourth or fifth time I was in a deal with them, more weapons to help us fight, or more Psycho to help us in battles. But this time there was someone else there. This other guy, wanting deals too. I don't know who he was working for or where he came from. He talked a little too much. I can talk too much, but I know what I am talking about, he didn't. This guy was asking too many questions, wanting to know too much, he wasn't undercover or anything, I guess he was just naively excited to be in with the Omerta's. Eventually they wouldn't answer his dumb and continuous questions, and they kept talking to me more, since they'd dealt with me before. Jealous this guy got, demanding they offer him a bigger deal than me because he could 'beat my cap amount by a fucking mile'."

Connor and Shaun kept listening.

"Anyways, I was from the Legion, but not wearing my Legion armour, and this guy was so stupid he didn't realise it already, my cap offer was always gonna beat his, so he gets mad. He pulls out a big 44. Magnum, looked bigger than him, probably never fired a bullet. Needless to say, Big Sal didn't take too kindly to being aimed at, so his men seized this stupid asshole. Took the magnum away and then knocked him out with it. Sal told the guys to take him 'downstairs'. I never saw the guy alive again, but I did see what they did to him. A few hours later, I was being taken to the bottom floor to see the stash of drugs and weapons I was getting with the deal, when on my way to that room, I got a glimpse in another room, door being slowly shut."

Brendan stopped his story. Connor and Shaun patiently waiting for him to continue. The former legionary took a deep breath.

"I saw the same guy, but only his head and neck, the rest of him was just… bits and pieces, blood and guts, bones all over a big fucking table. They'd mutilated the guy alive, for pointing a gun in their direction." Brendan had then finished.

Connor and Shaun were left quiet, they had seen some shit. Connor on the battlefield had seen things gruesome, that nobody wants to witness, and Shaun came from the Capital wasteland in DC, where things happen that are hoped to be only stories. But they both didn't like what they heard, even though in the Mojave, such a story was no surprise. Brendan's face was blank, staring at nothing but the air in front of him. He was clearly still disturbed by that sight. Even the Legion never did such things, they would leave a person on a cross to die slowly, but to dismember a person while they watch you do it was something even they never did.

"Now, the wasteland is full of evil bastards, but I don't know, I guess I just expected them to shoot the guy dead with his own magnum, not that." Brendan whispered.

He then snapped out of this second trance and turned to both Kirkbride and Morse.

"So, as you can tell, these people aren't the kind you wanna piss off. If I go in undercover pretending to still be a legionary and my cover gets blown, I might just get to watch myself get sliced to pieces in a mirror." Brendan told them with a sarcastic smile.

"We got nothing else." Connor told him calmly.

Brendan's eyebrows raised and he gently nodded, he knew Connor was right.

"I gotta do it. I just gotta find myself a normal suit. Can't be hard, and we can head to New Vegas in the morning." Brendan decided.

The former legionary was clearly unready for this, almost frightened, like a man having to walk through a street filled with his own worst fears. Brendan was a very tough man, but after what he had been through and what he had done in the past year, he knew that maintaining his cover with the Omerta's would be a hard job, but he had no other choice if they were going to find the truth about Hanlon.

Shaun felt the fear in Brendan.

"You go in, we'll be outside, or even inside to get you out if things go bad." Shaun said, trying to make it seem easier for the ex-Legionary.

"I'd appreciate that, but understand anyways, if things do go bad, we're fucked." Brendan said bluntly.

More hours went by and now it was the early hours, the wasteland was pitch black around this fire, but the sounds of New Vegas could still be heard, that sound was now killing Brendan, knowing what he was heading into soon. Shaun was now fast asleep, Connor seemed it, but Brendan sat looking at the fire. He looked at his Vexillarius helmet, ready to be worn. It kept him reminded of the life he left behind, the life he grew up in, the life he chose to abandon. Brendan did not hate the Legion, he almost still loved them, he couldn't even understand why he felt he had to leave, but he did. This helmet could keep him attached to them even if it meant looking like one of them even slightly.

"Can I ask you something?" a voice asked.

Brendan was broken out of focus a third time and turned to see Connor with his eyes open.

"Sure." Brendan replied.

Connor then sat himself up, his white dirty t-shirt now even dirtier and dustier on the back. He was struggling to find the words. He and Brendan had not spoken about it yet, even after being together for days now on this mission. Connor scratched his head, through his thick black hair that went beyond his ears.

"That day, on the road, when we had you and the other legionaries in cuffs, why'd you do it? Why'd you save my ass?" Connor finally asked, after an entire year of confusion and wonder, he got to ask.

Brendan took a moment in silence and looked away to the ground beneath him and to the rabid dog helmet.

"I saved your life, because you saved mine." Brendan told him.

Connor didn't know certain reasons, but finally was getting them.

"That day, you didn't take three legionaries into custody, you took two legionaries and the man they wanted dead into custody." Brendan revealed.

Connor knew instantly.

"They were gonna kill you, because you'd already broken from them." Connor nodded, his eyes looking away.

"You and your two trooper friends had stopped them from killing me, and when those raiders attacked, I saw the chance to return the favour you didn't know you'd made. And I'm no liar, I'll admit, I also did it hoping you would let me go in return, which you did." Brendan chuckled a little.

Connor's eyes moved back to Brendan.

"Well, all I can say is thank you. I never got to say that, and I never thought we'd cross paths again."

Brendan once again nodded in agreement.

"But then here we are" Connor then laughed.

Brendan was still silent and staring into nothing, Connor could see the fear in his eyes.

"Hey." Connor muttered.

Brendan then looked at him.

"This Omerta thing, being undercover. You sure you wanna do it?" Connor asked.

Brendan then finally, put on the Vexillarius helmet he had created himself. It fit almost perfectly, he felt warmer and ready to sleep with it on. Connor almost admired this act.

"Not exactly." Brendan whispered back.

Not another word, Brendan finally lay down, turned his back and went to sleep. Connor was left in wonder. He wondered if Brendan could go through with it, and if the results at the end would be worth the trouble and danger he would be putting himself in.

He guessed they would find out.