Sorry about the delay! Again! I actually had to dig my old laptop out of storage to update this chapter. This thing is seriously like five pounds, guys. To the reader who asked if I write Mojave Express on a cellphone, no, fuck no haha I'm not quite that crazy. I have a dual tablet that is convenient to carry or just sit on my lap to write on with a scaled keyboard for smaller hands, but it's still a 'mobile platform', and as I've said before, FF.N isn't the best with their mobile support.
I keep on finger-punching my screen, thinking it's frozen, but it's just ya know, not a touch screen.
Additionally, I post over at AO3 as well. They support HTML within their text editor, so it's a bit easier for me, as an old lady. They tend to get speedier updates due to my hardware incompatibilities.
I'll be taking a break for the month of November and some of December. I'll be returning sometime around the holidays, but if you'd like to keep updated and see some behind the scenes fun, you can follow me on Twitter at bBoneyard or on Tumblr at BoneYardBettyTheElder!
000
The Strip hadn't changed much in the last few years, Boone noticed as he was hit by ghosts of memories as soon as the rusted metal doors swung shut behind them. In fact, it hadn't changed at all, as if time had stood still after he had left the city with Manny and Carla by his side. Securitrons still rolled back and forth on the cracked concrete, patrolling around the smatterings of drunkards and gamblers that wandered the Strip night and day. He had once been one of those red-face Privates, watching Gomorrah dancers while swaying drunk on his feet, considering spending a week's pay on an hour with a woman without having to worry about being court martialed for fraternization. The same dancers wriggled their bodies on the corners to entice folk into the casinos, the same robots, the same everything.
Except for Clarke. The last time he had followed a woman around the Strip, she had been nearly as tall as himself with pillowy flesh and fashionably curled golden hair, not this skinny slip of a human, more than an entire head shorter than himself, always kind of splattered with blood and refuse and in tight blue canvas instead of swirling skirts. She had pulled her hair into a looping bun at the base of her neck to keep it away from her face but her hat was pulled low on her forehead, obscuring her eyes in shadow. It gave her a severe ambience that didn't settle well with Boone.
There had been a different atmosphere building around the duo over the last few days, one that the sniper found that he appreciated, pleasant and a little exciting, but the coy mood evaporated the moment they had passed the Securitrons at the gate. Clarke stopped looking quite like herself, though, and became rigid, her mouth a pale slash across her face as she took point with her hand quivering towards her weathered 10mm pistol.
Boone hoped that she wouldn't choose now to become trigger-happy. For crimes on the Strip, Securitrons were judge and jury, and the sentence was almost always a swift death. The sniper knew that the hardest part of murdering Benny would probably be their escape from the Strip – if they made a hasty exit and got past the gates before his body was found, they would just maybe get away with this. The pair would likely need to rabbit off, back to the Mojave, but he didn't quite care for the Strip and saw no problem with leaving it behind, forever if he needed to.
They hadn't walked fifteen feet into the Strip before a Securitron came rolling up to them, and Boone's heart jumped a bit before he realized that he recognized the robot as the one that had come on through Novac during the same few days that the Courier had been in town, rustling up trouble along with information. He was surprised when she greeted the machine by name.
"Hello, Victor," her tone was neutral, if a bit cool. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Well howdy there pardner!" Victor responded cheerily with a heavy southern drawl that sounded eerie coupled with the robotic voice. "Welcome to New Vegas!"
"Care to point me towards the Tops? I have a score to settle," she said, sweeping her hand out to gesture to the Strip.
"No can do pardner, the boss wants to see you right away! That dish you're planning on serving up is best cold anyway, don't you know? He can help you serve it up extra chilly."
"The boss?" Clarke's body had stiffened completely, and she didn't really seem like she was breathing anymore.
"Up at the Lucky 38, Mr. House would like to have a word with you!" the robot announced and Boone's heart might have stopped a bit. The Lucky 38's doors hadn't opened since the Great War of 2077, or at least that was what the word was on the Strip. Theories ranged from Mr. House being a ghoul, to cloning or human experimentation, to secret Old World government agencies. Some said that the people who disappeared on the Strip had gone into the Lucky 38 never to been seen again, most likely a ghost story to keep nosy gamblers and would-be vandals away from the doors and the lone Securitron that always kept vigil at the top of the marbled steps. A face-to-face meeting with Mr. House was unheard of, and anyone in the NCR would die to be in Clarke's shoes right about then.
The Courier stood silently for several breaths, and Boone almost wanted to reach out to touch her shoulder like she had started to do with him over the last few days, but he settled for clenching his fists by his sides instead. He wasn't quite ready to cross that threshold into initiating any real physical contact that might happen between the two of them, casual as it might have been. The last time he had – grabbing her arm to wipe blood off of her face, only to smear it down her temples – Major Elizabeth Kieran had given him a sly smile over the Courier's shoulder, waggling her eyebrows at him in an conspiratorial expression as he tried to look nonchalant. The Major did nothing to help him keep his composure while Clarke's breath ghosted over the inside of his wrist and the muscles in her arm flexed underneath his hand, her blue eyes staring at some point past his ear as she chewed at her upper lip. She had obviously been concerned about reporting back to the King while Boone was thinking about how warm her body could be against if he pulled her just a few inches closer, the fine friend that he was.
After what felt like several minutes, Clarke cocked her hip to the side and crossed her arms, as if she was about to defy the invitation from the mysterious benefactor of the Strip, but instead she said, "Okay, Victor, thank you. I'll head there right now, if you don't mind."
"I see you brought a friend!" The bot said, it's cowboy graphic flickering on the screen for a moment before stabilizing again. "Sorry, pardner, but they're gunna have to stay out here."
Boone could see Clarke's jaw tighten as his own face darkened into a scowl, but she took him by surprise again when she nodded stiffly, "His house, his rules," she turned to her companion and lowered her voice, though they both knew that it probably did nothing to keep their conversation private, "Do you mind waiting here while I head up?"
The sniper didn't like it. He didn't trust the cowboy robot, and he certainly didn't trust Mr. House, and he didn't like Clarke being alone without someone watching her back. At the same time, though, he knew that she had been alone before he had started to travel with her, he knew that she could take care of herself, but the Lucky 38 might as well have been the moon if anything went wrong. "I don't like this," he voiced, stepping in close to her shoulder. From this position, he could have ran his hand down her back if he wanted, settle his fingers around her sharp hip while he asked her to consider staying, but he didn't. She didn't need him telling her what she should do.
"If we're being honest, my good man, I don't either," she said, and then she grabbed Boone's wrist in one of her rough hands. "Listen, Boone, if I go up there and don't come out, I want you to leave New Vegas, okay?" The sniper looked down on her with a glare, but she squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Go to Freeside, go to the King, Julie and Arcade, Elizabeth, anyone who will listen, and you come back and burn this place to the ground to find me, you hear? Don't let these robots turn me into a human battery, okay?"
Boone snorted and rolled his eyes. Burn down the Tops? For her, just maybe. "I won't let you become a human battery."
She grinned at him and winked conspiratorially, then elbowed him in the gut, earning her a low grunt from the sniper. "Don't look so melancholy, there. Provided I don't get murdered, I should be out in less than an hour, right? Then we're back on track, no matter what."
Clarke shrugged her pack off of her shoulders, asking Boone to keep it safe while she was inside the casino. He pulled it over his back and was surprised by it's heft, and ended up deciding to sit on the steps with it tucked between his legs and his back to the Securitron, who made him uneasy. The sniper didn't like the implications; if the robot had been following Clarke since Novac, had it been dogging her the entire journey? Was Mr. House behind the scenes playing puppet master?
A shiver ran down Boone's spine as he realized that this was no simple shoot-and-scoot that they were involved in here; if Mr. House was, for some reason, invested in Benny's survival, they might have lost before they even began. On the other hand, he reasoned, the Courier seemed to be able to take a bad hand and turn it in her favor more often than not. If Mr. House really wanted to stop them, he could have had his Securitrons gun them down the moment they entered the sovereign city.
People were starting to notice the open doors of the casino and began gathering in small clusters, gossiping amongst themselves and pointing at the top of the steps, but none approached, so prevalent the Lucky 38's ominous reputation was on the Strip. Boone was thankful, he was far enough away from the street to avoid probing questions and attempts at conversation that he didn't want to field. That was Clarke's area, he was just her spotter and backup gun, content to hang back behind her while she capably handled their situation.
It had a relaxing effect on Boone. He had spent the last several years watching over an entire settlement, responsible for the lives of the residents of Novac. Without that heavy weight of accountability hanging over his head, it felt easy to do things such as shrug easily instead of arguing when Clarke took point or start to flirt awkwardly with her when the opportunity presented itself. It was thrilling when she didn't brush him off like she had done to the King, Boone recalled.
The King was handsome, far more handsome than Arcade, and was well known for his charming personality and success with women far and wide. It had made Boone's stomach twist when he subtly propositioned the Courier, inspecting the young woman's body as if he wanted to eat her. The sniper had wanted to pull the man to his feet to shake him and demand he respect Clarke, but she simply looked annoyed and impatient – the King was a means to an end to the girl, nothing more, and Boone's red-hot anger cooled to a simmer to match his companion's displeasure. All things being equal, he had been happy when she had walked away from the other man with a favor left hanging over his head, as if it he hadn't just offered her anything within his rather impressive influence. Walking away from the King, she had told him that she didn't need him, and the sniper knew that that wouldn't go untold in Freeside.
As she freed Fisto from his containment cell for James Garret, Boone just couldn't resist the teasing that morphed quickly into wolfish flirtation when her face blushed prettily, hilariously horrified at the decidedly unappealing sexbot while in the same breath, dropping lewd puns, unintentional or not. Boone's mirth easily covered the lusty thoughts that the suggestions her words brought to mind, lightly mocking her embarrassment, goaded on by her quite chuckles and sheepish smiles. When she told him to try out the bot for himself, he couldn't help but think about telling her that perhaps they could be trying out other things in the ruins of Cerulean Robotics, but he gave her a line about types instead. It had been far too long since he had felt any sort of real desire and couldn't quite decide if he was simply missing the adrenaline of traveling with the Courier through the Mojave and was seeking a similar rush. He could only excuse so much as battleground flirtation, after all.
The sniper couldn't help but feel a bit of pleasure from her discomfort concerning sex, either; she was quite composed, rarely outright uncomfortable with any situation she found herself in, but pimping didn't seem to suit her. She stumbled over her words with Beatrice and Old Ben, laughing nervously every few words but still able to charm the two Freesiders into employment at the Wrangler, and couldn't look Mick in the eye when she asked about his knowledge of sexbots around New Vegas.
It felt nice to be the one with a modicum of composure for once, especially after the sniper was able to control the side-splitting guffaws that had overtaken him. He was able to look at the Courier over the tops of his sunglasses without having to school his features – they were alone, and the upper-hand was no longer Clarke's, making Boone feel powerful and predatory. If things between the two hadn't been so confusing and complicated, the sniper might have given into the urge to back her against the workbench that he was resting his hips on to whet his lips against hers. The prospect was tempting, to try to satiate himself within her – assuming she was receptive and didn't respond with a fist in his throat – but Boone knew that he wouldn't be satisfied with one kiss, fumbling around in an abandoned building would just open floodgates that he had carefully tended over the last few years. It had been an easy celibacy with no prospects in Novac, the small, sleepy town, but Craig Boone was flesh, and New Vegas was a city devoted to temptations of the flesh. Much longer and Fisto would be his type.
It was no help that Clarke seemed to become more attractive as the weeks went by. She had lost that childish quality that she had when they first met, dressed in ill-fitting clothes with dark, mournful circles under her sunken eyes. In truth, she was a svelte little thing, distracting him from the morose he usually liked to bury himself in with her tight Vault Suit and easy demeanor. When he asked about her preferences, her face grew redder as she flicked her eyes down his body and if she hadn't immediately changed the subject, the man would have taken her look as an invitation to hoist her up against him to take what he wanted. Not that he would have accepted, the coward that he was. Besides, all this lust and desire wasn't worth setting their partnership on a path to ruin. All of it made him wonder if a trip to Gomorrah wasn't in order to set his head back on straight, until he started to fantasize about hiring a lithe, petite dancer with long hair, after which he quickly banished the notion. Laying with a whore that reminded him of Clarke would probably do nothing but worsen his ridiculous infatuation. Like any fire, it was set to burn itself out eventually if he failed to stoke it.
The sun beat down straight overhead by the time the Courier came pushing out of the heavy doors of the Lucky 38, the painted glass slamming behind her with an echo that turned several inquiring heads her way as she stalked over to Boone, her fists clenched tight at her sides with her cap crumpled in one hand and head bent down, uneven hair obscuring her face from view. She didn't acknowledge the Securitron, or the gaggles of gossips gathered at the base of the steps, not bothering to whisper out their questions and theories. The sniper was glad for the distraction from his thoughts, which had devolved into second-guessing and questioning his actions and attractions, reminding himself of all the blame he carried on his shoulders, from Bitter Springs to Carla. Guilt started to eat away at his colon, making his gut hurt – he was thinking about another woman while his wife laid dead in the ground, if she had even been afforded a proper burial. How could he justify trying to lay claim to Clarke at all?
Boone stood as she approached, slinging her pack onto his shoulders. "Are you okay?" he asked, but instead of responding, her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist again, not pausing. She pulled him down the steps and up the street, away from the Lucky 38 and whatever was plaguing her about the casino, until she realized that they were heading back to the Freeside gate and turned on her heel to head the other way with a muttered swear. "Clarke, talk to me."
The Courier stopped and tugged at Boone's wrist, pulling him down to her level so he could see her face. Her eyes were red and her nose was ruddy and wet as if she had spent some time crying, or knowing her, screaming furiously while tears streamed down her face. Looking over to the casino, Boone wondered if he could make it inside to kill Mr. House and have any chance at survival. "Boone," her voice was hoarse with rage, "He gave me permission to kill Benny. He practically ordered me to kill Benny, as if I am his avenging hand, some sort of sick lieutenant of his. He—he's been… fuck Boone." Her voice cracked and she pressed one hand against her forehead and swallowed, looking away for a moment and blinking rapidly. "I haven't been in control at all this entire time."
She had let go of his wrist during her quiet tirade to touch Boone's knuckles gingerly, who turned his hand to catch her fingers much like he had that first time at the Old Mormon Fort, only this time, he was the one offering what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "I think you're giving House too much credit – you're the one who got us here, bad ass motherfucker you are." Clarke tossed her head back and laughed at Boone's intentional echo before looking up at him with her wet, bright eyes and a smile. The sniper swallowed and looked away before continuing, letting go of her hand, his palms suddenly moist. "Permission or not, I don't think we should change our plan."
Clarke nodded and squared her shoulders with a resolute huff of breath. "I'm ready."
Clarke shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably then itched her scalp, pushing her hair into minor disarray, still hatless. She glanced up at Boone nervously, then shuffled her feet again before clearing her throat. The sniper looked down at her out of the corner of his eye and only raised his eyebrow in acknowledgement, not wanting to give into distracting thoughts about their proximity in the elevator to the 13th floor. She cleared her throat again. "Listen, my good man, I know that this is my mess to mop on up, but I have to ask you to do something for me," she said quietly, fingering her sidearm thoughtfully.
"What is it?" Boone matched her volume, turning his eyes back to the elevator doors and clenching his teeth together before looking at her again. He wondered what she would say if she knew just exactly how much he would do for her, and couldn't conjure up much that he wouldn't.
"In there – with Benny…" she sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Part of me thinks I'm gonna walk in there like some cool cat, slick as can be, but then I think – fuck," she raked her hand through her hair and looked at him desperately. "Boone, if I freeze up there, or can't do it, I need you to fucking shoot that cunt in the face for me. Then shoot me in both knees for good measure, okay?"
The sniper rolled his eyes. "I'm not shooting you."
"But you'll shoot Benny?"
"I'll shoot Benny," he agreed as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open with a smooth 'ding!', even though he doubted that he would be the one raising a gun against the Chairman. Clarke touched his arm gently before popping her head out of the elevator, looking up and down the corridor before motioning for Boone to follow at a distance. The weathered 10mm had materialized in her hand to hold before her as if she was born with it clutched in her fist, her movements were so natural. Boone had seen twenty-year NCR veterans less comfortable behind a firearm than the Courier, who couldn't be much older than that. She side-stepped down the hallway, checking room numbers as she looked for the Chairman's Suite with a certain fluidity that the sniper had come to expect from her during critical moments.
Behind some planters full of desert folia, Clarke pulled up to her full, unimpressive height and nodded her head to the side, silently ordering Boone to her flank at 4 o'clock before sliding the key into the lock, hands steady.
The man in the checkered suit didn't look up from his drink until the door clicked shut behind the duo, a lazy smile on his face until recognition dawned on his face followed closely by horror. "What in the goddamn…? You?" Benny closed his eyes and shook his head. "Oh Swank, you finky bastard." The man propped an elbow on the bar and flashed the pair an easy smile, audaciously relaxing his posture. "Baby, listen – hhUrk!"
Boone hadn't even seen the Courier move, popping off her shot from the hip and catching Benny high in the shoulder, ripping open his gaudy suit and sending blood splattering across the bar. The force of the impact threw the chairman back into the barstools where he lay for a moment, groaning and rolling his head back and forth in pain. "Shit," he groaned, pulling his head up to look at his shoulder and giving a little cry at the blood cascading down the front of his body, touching it gingerly before letting his head fall back again with a strangled sob. "Serves me… r-right for—for using a 9mm," he whimpered.
The Courier gave a snarl and threw her gun to the side, cracking it into the brahmin-hair plaster wall and leaving a crumbling hole as she advanced upon Benny slowly, like a predator straight from the wastes. "I dug myself out of that grave to put you in yours," she roared as she grabbed a barstool by it's legs, swinging it up to her shoulder easily and pausing for a heartbeat. When she spoke again, her voice was eerily even-keeled. "Unlike you, I'll make sure."
Benny's started to breathe heavily in huge gulps, finally realizing the gravity of his situation and his impending mortality. "Uh-oh," he whined, trying to scramble backwards with his good arm but only succeeding in falling back against the remaining stools and smearing bright blood across the wall behind him. He shrunk back and raised his arm in a defensive move. "No no no no – please – " he pleaded but the Courier hefted the chair over her head anyway and brought it down on Benny's outstretched arm, crumpling it with a snap that Boone heard ten feet away, deaf to the man's pleas for mercy. He let out a horrified scream as Clarke lifted the stool again, revealing his mangled limb, bent into a deep 'V', but she didn't pause, bringing her bludgeon down onto his head, crushing his nose and half his face, cutting off his screams for a moment with a dull thud.
When she swung again, blood was flying in an arc along with her hair, arching her back completely to bring the stool down with all of her body weight onto Benny's chest and Boone could see the red-hot vengeance in the Courier's eyes. The Chairman's face was a ruin of teeth and split flesh, his mouth a ragged hole in the middle of his head and the only thing recognizable about it as human was his bulging white eyes. Blood sprayed up under the bar and high enough to splatter on the ceiling, but the Chairman was still moving and the Courier wasn't relenting. His screams had turned into desperate, "Ack—gack—ack—ack—" sounds as he waved his hands around weakly, body twisting as if it would save him, but his chest looked concave in places, blood and bile pouring from his mouth and Boone knew that little, if anything, could save him now.
Benny's eyes rolled around the room to Boone, a silent plea, but the sniper stayed nearly statuesque, even after Benny stopped moving and his pleading eyes dulled into a long stare, while he listened to those metallic thuds turn meatier and the smell of copper and shit filled the room. Boone stayed still until Clarke stopped hefting the chair over her head and let it fall to the side as she slumped against the bloody bar, at which time he took just a few huge strides over the slippery floors to grasp at her arms before she actually fell into the mess that had been Benny just a few moments ago.
Red was smattered from her eyebrows to her ankles, bits of meat and bone hanging clumpy in her hair as she squeezed her eyes shut, heaving out breaths to suck in huge mouthfuls of air but her body was strangely limp in the sniper's hands, as if she couldn't muster up the energy to stand under her own power, sagging up against him and leaving her companion to bear the brunt of her weight.
Leading her over to the far couch, the only part of the room untouched by flecks of blood, Boone pushed her down to sit and crouched down in front of, balancing on the balls of his feet and waiting patiently. The veteran knew a thing or two about giving into brutality and didn't want to prod the new, gaping wound in her moral compass. She was sweating and still breathing heavily as if she had just cut through another Legion camp by herself, and he could imagine how exhausted she must have been after the pure physical exertion she had just put herself through, swinging around a chair over half her size forty-some odd times within just a few minutes.
Time stretched on, but Boone stayed silent, listening to the Courier's breaths even and threading his hands together to rest his chin on his knuckles. The capacity for this sort of patient waiting was what had made Boone one of the best snipers in First Recon, a silent sentinel even while he wanted to snatch up the Courier's bloody chin in his hand and demand that she open her eyes to tell him that she wasn't in mental ruin. Finally she rubbed the inside of her elbow across her face and groaned deep in her chest.
"You're not going to say anything?" she asked in a tired voice, dropping her arm and opening her eyes to look at Boone through a squint. Her eyes moved to Benny's mangled body then back to Boone deliberately. Did she think that the sniper would hold judgement over her for this?
"No," he responded simply, shrugging his shoulders.
Clarke sighed heavily and nodded. "Okay," she said lightly, as if she wasn't covered head to toe in gore. The couch creaked as she rose to her feet and gingerly touched the front of her Vault Suit. "I need to wash some of this off."
Boone offered to search for the platinum chip while Clarke searched for the bathroom, and she gratefully accepted the division of tasks. She ducked into the adjoining room while the sniper meandered back over to the bar and the pooling blood with an island of dead flesh in the middle. The Courier had fallen upon him with such brutality that it looked as if she had managed to separate the top half of his body from the bottom, leaving Boone to step over hunks of flesh that she had bludgeoned off of Benny's face and hands to pull the once-checkered coat off of the twisted body. He jerked it up by the collar, letting Benny's body slide out of it and fall back onto the broken chairs with a clatter and a thump, exposing an expensive looking leather body holster and an even more lavish 9mm pistol inlaid with pearl and gold.
Benny's last words were, 'Serves me right for using a 9mm,' probably referring to the gun that he had used on Clarke, and suddenly Boone felt as if he was staring at the face of death under the reverent gaze of the saintly woman carefully lacquered into the ornate grip. This was the pistol that had nearly killed the Courier back in Goodsprings, and Boone couldn't decide if he wanted to actually touch the weapon or not.
The checkered coat was dripping blood onto his boots, though, so he threw the jacket over the back of the closet loveseat with a wet smack and flicked the excess moisture from the tips of his fingers, directing his attention to the matter at hand – a platinum poker chip. The breast pocket held two keys on an ornate keyring, which Boone rolled his eyes at and pocketed; pretty baubles and shiny metals usually fetched decent prices with the traveling caravaneers going through to Utah or New Reno, more civilized places where frivolity could be afforded, the Courier had explained to him early on to excuse her obsession with rummaging through every container they encountered. The jetted inner pocket was where he found the oversized chip, carefully wrapped in a painted silk kerchief. Boone held it up to the light to inspect it – aside from the heft and the glint of precious metal, nothing about the chip marked it as special, certainly not special enough to shoot a courier over.
The sound of rushing water came to Boone's ears as he opened the door to the adjoining room – it sounded as if the tub was running, and suddenly the sniper couldn't quite swallow. Had she actually decided to bathe in the suite's bathroom? The duo was operating under the protection of Mr. House, but that seemed a bit careless, even for the Courier. He rapped on the door with a knuckle once.
"Clarke?" His voice came out a little hoarse, so he cleared his throat and opened the door slightly. "Clarke?" He asked again, a little louder, turning his head to speak into the cracked door. When she didn't answer after a few moments, Boone frowned, his stomach unsettling, then he cursed to himself. He shouldn't have left her alone after she experienced trauma, what the fuck had he been thinking?
He pushed into the bathroom, preparing himself for anything but what he saw. The room was empty, save for the Courier's boots next to the rapidly filling tub. "The fuck?" He twisted the knobs to shut off the flow of water before ducking back into the bedroom, panicked, until he saw the Courier beyond the demolished wall, speaking to a Securitron with an unnerving smile on it's square face. Her feet were bare and her front was still covered in blood. "Clarke?"
Her head whipped around before she relaxed, as if she had forgotten that Boone was in the suite with her. "Boone," she greeted, waving towards the robot. "I'd like you to meet Yes Man, the brains of Benny's operation. Seems like he knows all about the Platinum Chip."
"Oh ho!" The Securitron responded joyfully. "You give me too much credit! My functions include monitoring Mr. House's data network and decoding his encrypted transmission, too! Benny is the brains of this operation!"
"You mentioned," Clarke quipped drily. "That's unfortunate, seeing as Benny's brains are splattered on the floor next door."
"I'm glad! You must feel so much better now!" Yes Man said, one of his segmented arms waving cheerfully. "I feel a bit less bad about helping Benny try to bring about your doom! Hey! You seem like a real go-getter! Why don't you take the Platinum chip?" Boone tapped the Courier's elbow and flashed the chip. Her face remained stoic and still vaguely annoyed. "Oh ho! Provided you friend here shares."
Boone narrowed his eyes. He didn't like this robot, either. New Vegas seemed full of the creepy things. "It belongs to her," he snapped, handing the chip over to the Courier while still glaring at Yes Man. She looked down at it, sliding the metal between her fingers slowly before clenching it in her hand. Her fist waved in Yes Man's face.
"So what you're telling me is that this gives me a full flush against Mr. House?"
"Yes! Benny wanted to kill Mr. House and use the Platinum Chip to copy my neuro-computational matrix onto the Lucky 38's mainframe! And then I guess I'll just do what I'm told!"
"You guess?" Clarke sounded suspicious, fiddling with the chip again.
"I mean, it's pretty obvious Benny wouldn't want me to, but hey! Not my fault I can't say no!"
The Courier looked at Boone and bit her lip before turning back to Yes Man. "What if I told you that I've been inside the Lucky 38… but Mr. House and I didn't exactly get along?"
"You have! Wow! It sounds like Mr. House is just plain mean. No wonder all the good guys want to kill him and take his things!"
Clarke shook her head. "Hey now, I'm just the new kid in town, man. I'm not going to be making any rash decisions – or engaging in more murder anytime soon."
"That's super smart of you! You really know your stuff!"
She pocketed the chip and turned away from the Securitron. "C'mon, Boone, I need to wash off this blood," she nodded to the robot. "Yes Man."
"Don't stay away too long! I'll be waiting right here!"
Outside of the Tops, the sun shone unnaturally bright even behind Boone's sunglasses. It seemed as if years had passed since they had gone into the Casino, instead of just a handful of hours that they had actually spent on assassinating Benny. The Courier had dripped water all the way to the casino floor, not having bothered to wash herself and her suit separately, she had sat in the tub nearly up to her shoulders and scrubbed away most of the grim before it dried into her skin and clothing. Standing watch, it was an incredible effort for Boone to keep his gaze from wandering too widely. As a poor distraction, he tried to casually ask the girl if she wanted the 9mm handgun in the other room for her own uses, but the question came out in starts and stops that belayed his uncertainty.
For her credit, she didn't pause in her utilitarian scrubbing, rubbing her face with a handful of rusty colored water before saying, "Yes, please," as if Boone had just asked if she'd like another serving of breakfast. He snagged both the gun and relatively unstained holster for Clarke, who buckled the leather around her shoulder guard as she toed on her boots and collected her weathered 10mm. The gun came apart in her hands and she stopped for a few beats before swearing and throwing it at the wall again. Boone caught sight of a pinched look on her face before she whipped around and stalked out of the suite, trailing water behind her for the sniper to follow the wet path. He closed the double doors behind himself and shuffled for the keys; the first didn't work, but the second locked the suite to his great relief. With hope, the two would be out of the casino before the Chairman's bodyguards decided to return to duty. Clarke wasn't even attempting to be discrete, leaving literal footprints behind that lead straight back to the gruesome scene.
They walked abreast in a pregnant silence through the casino and out the doors into the afternoon sunlight. Clarke paused and turned her face up to the sky, Boone stepping up behind her to bend his head down and murmur into her ear. To any passerby, they would look like a romantic couple as opposed to a newly minted pair of assassins. "What now?"
She sighed and shook her head, showing her uncertainty. Boone wished that he had wandered into her conversation earlier than he had – whatever Yes Man had told Clarke about the Platinum Chip was obviously weighing heavily on her mind, and she wandered over to one high walled planter to sit down heavily, hanging her head low between her knees. Hovering off to the side, Boone wanted to ask question after question, but any conversation they had on the Strip would be victim to the effervescent ears of Mr. House and the sniper had a feeling that Clarke didn't think he was as benevolent as he tried to seem. Any citizen of the NCR would agree with her.
The man who approached them did so with purpose, breezing right by Boone and stopping in front of the Courier with a haughty look of recognition on his face. He looked down on the girl, who raised her head with a sharp look that quickly hardened into an unreadable mask, but he seemed to be just another well-dressed socialite. Boone took a step forward but she shook her head tightly, her eyes going wide for a fraction of a second.
"The eyes of the mighty Caesar are upon you, child. He admires your accomplishments, and bestows upon you the exceptional gift of his mark," the man said with a voice a smooth as silk, presenting the Courier with a large golden coin with a charging bull pressed into the metal, hanging from a black leather thong between the man's long, dirty fingers. Boone heard a roaring in his ears and it felt as if all of the air had been sucked out of his lungs. The Legion was here on the Strip – watching them, watching her. His arm spasmed out for his gun, but the Legionnaire just gave him a smirk. The moment a bullet flew in New Vegas, the perpetrator would be met with all of the fury of Mr. House's impressive security force, followed by a swift death. "My Lord requires your presence at his camp on Fortification Hill. With his mark, you are ensured safe travel through his lands. Your crimes against the Legion are hereby… forgiven. Caesar will not extend this mercy a second time."
Blood flooded Boone's mouth as he bit through the flesh of his cheek to stop himself from screaming, and for a few horrible seconds, he wondered if Clarke would betray herself to the Legion, betray him. Until she laughed and snatched the Mark from the air; the Legionnaire looked pleased but the veteran knew that bitter laugh that bubbled up from the Courier's stomach. Disbelief mixed with a hefty dose of disgust. "You? Again?" She slipped the Mark into her sleeve with a flick of her wrist, and Boone could see her mind working behind her eyes. "How did you find me here?"
"I am Vulpes Inculta, the greatest of his Caesar's Frumentarii. It was not a challenge to find you," Vulpes shot a gleeful look at Boone, his eyes flicking up to the red beret for a few painful seconds, "Nor is this my first visit to the Strip." Clarke didn't reply, instead standing from where she had collapsed to raise her chin defiantly against Vulpes Inculta, who was truly the most fearsome and infamous of Caesar's Frumentarri. She managed to glare down her nose at him, unholstering her new 9mm pistol, but he simply chuckled at her. "Caesar awaits, child."
He waved loosely at the duo and turned around, putting his hands in his pockets and whistling to leisurely wander away. Boone felt impotent and powerless, floundering and unable to catch his breath. Beside him, the Courier was looking at the pistol in her hand, inspecting the pearlescent grips and golden inlay slowly, as if she was considering the gun itself. Everything felt thick and syrupy around Boone, and as Clarke raised her hand, he felt as if he was watching from behind a thick sheet of ice, time slowing to a crawl around him.
"Vulpes Inculta!" She called, her voice ringing out through the Strip, stalking forward several feet and Vulpes' wasn't the only head that turned to face the young woman, but she kept of advancing upon the Frumentarii, ignoring the rest of the Strip. "Ave, true to Caesar, you fuck!"
She leveled her weapon to his face and pulled the trigger.