Chapter Ten: Comin' Around The Mountain
A promise is a comfort to a fool. -Proverb
"How'd you know it would work?" Boone asks, looking at Lola across the campfire. She's carefully cooking the meat she cut off of a couple of geckos Boone had shot. Her hands fumble with it as she turns it, like she's doing it for the first time. The lieutenant at Boulder City told them he had orders to take out the Great Khans when they got out. She'd answered if he'd had any sort of integrity, he would honor the deal she'd brokered. He had.
"Didn't," she answers, flipping the meat over gingerly. "Just went in hopin' it would work." He shakes his head, looking toward the horizon. She finishes cooking, and offers him some. He declines, and she gives him a worried look, but doesn't press him. She fiddles with her Pip-Boy radio to break the silence.
"Hey, here's a station I haven't heard before," she says excitedly, turning it up. The radio jingles out a song about a ranger with a big iron on his hip, and Lola mouths along, tripping over the words every so often. The song ends abruptly, and a loud, screeching voice comes over the radio.
"You're listening to Radio Free Utobitha, bringing truth to Utobithians twenty-four hours a day! Welcome!"
"Interesting," Lola says.
"Sounds like a super mutant," Boone grunts. She tilts her head, and continues listening.
"Also joining us from his locked cell is Raul Tejada, master mechanic, who can be executed at any time! Hello, Raul, or should that be Hola?"
"She said hola wrong. Didn't she?" Lola mutters. Boone shrugs. The broadcast continues to play, and they listen to the tired voice of the man named Raul. "Sounds like he's been there a while." Boone grunts in response. She looks over at him. "You mind making a detour?"
"I'll follow your lead," he says.
Following her lead ends up with them turning away from Vegas. Boone keeps an eye out for trouble, and Lola consults her Pip-Boy map every once in a while to make sure they're going the right way. They come across a group of Viper gang members, but Boone takes most of them out before Lola even notices them. One of them sneaks up behind Boone, and he swears. Lola yells for him to get down, so he drops to the ground, and watches as she fills his attacker full of holes. She grimly lowers her gun, and holds her hand out for him to take. He takes her hand, and she pulls him up.
"You're a damn good shoot-shot," she says. He doesn't say anything, pausing only to watch her scavenge the bodies, and they continue onward. He handles the enemies that are far away, and she takes care of any enemies that get too close. She leads them into a place called Scorpion Gulch, and he eyes her warily, but doesn't complain. She pulls herself up on a large boulder, and holds a hand out for him to take. He doesn't take it, instead pulling himself up. He follows her to the top of a particularly high cliff, and watches as she begins to set up camp. He eyes the scorpions milling around below them.
"You sure this is a good idea?" he asks, watching a bark scorpion try to make its way up to them. She nonchalantly shoots it with her pistol, and continues to make the campfire.
"According to the map on this thing," she says, tapping her Pip-Boy. "This puts us directly behind the making. Mountain. There should be a path over," she pauses, as she can't quite decide which direction she means. She motions behind her. "Yonder." She hands him a pair of binoculars, and he looks through them at the direction she pointed to. He can see a worn, jagged path that leads to a leaning chain-link fence. He follows the grey line of the fence to see nightkin milling around in front of a couple of buildings. He inhales sharply as he sees one on a guard tower patrolling with a rocket launcher on its shoulder.
"How're we going to get past that?" he asks, handing her the binoculars and guiding her eyes to the guard post.
"Hell," she says, shooting a look at him. "I have a couple of stealth boys. You willin' to take a chance on Lady Luck?" He takes one final look over at the mountain, and nods curtly. She grins.
"We'll raze some troublesome legion camp to the ground soon. Promise," she says, and he almost cracks a smile.
"I'll hold you to that," he replies gruffly, pulling out his rifle to snipe a distant giant radscorpion.
They head out at dawn, when the sunrise barely begins to crawl across the sky. He takes the stealth boy she offers him, and turns it on. A pleasant tickling sensation runs through his body as the device cloaks him. He can see Lola's silhouette shimmering in front of him. They stalk across the cliffs up to the gate. He sees it shake a little, and hears the tell-tale signs of lock picking. A night-kin rounds the corner, a glazed look in its eyes. It makes its way toward the gate, and both of them freeze. Boone raises his rifle to take it out, looking at its face through his sights. It doesn't make any violent movements. All it does is mutter to itself as it walks away. He hears Lola let out a breath, and continue to pick the lock. The gate slides open with an almost deafening screech, and he feels a hand on his arm.
"Let's go," she murmurs, and they take off running as the nightkin roar and try to find them. He sees a building close to them, and reaches for her. He grabs what he hopes is her, and pulls her toward the door, hoping it's unlocked. It is, and the duo falls in, a jumbled mass of tangled limbs. Lola pushes herself off of him, and flies to the door. She shuts it, and the clicking of the lock echoes throughout the room.
"Boone?" she says quietly. He swallows past his pounding heartbeat.
"Yeah?" She breathes out a sigh of relief, and shuts the Stealth Boy off. He fumbles with his, and it shuts off. He picks himself up off the ground, and Lola moves to one of the terminals in the room.
"This controls the locks on the door," she says, gesturing to the door at the back of the room. "I can't make head or tops of it. I'm willing to bet this is where Tejada is. You any good with computers?" He shakes his head, and she swears quietly. She moves to see if she can force the door open. He checks the other computer terminal in the room, and finds journal entries. He skims them for anything that could be of use, and finds the terminal passcode on the very last entry. He snorts, and Lola looks over at him questioningly.
"Password's 12345678. Guy has a sense of humor," he says. She grins, and types it into the terminal controlling the door. It swings open, and a ghoul in a blue jumpsuit looks up from his workbench.
"Took you long enough," he says gruffly, setting down his tools.
"We're," she pauses, a finger to her lips. "Fashionably late?" He snorts.
"Can I go now?" he says, deadpan. She nods. "Oh well. Guess I'll just walk back to my shack. Alone." Boone raises an eyebrow.
"Si. Adios, tu amigo," she says, grinning.
"You should've said mi, not tu. Also, your accent is terrible." Before Boone can say anything, Lola asks gently,
"Do you want to come with us?" The ghoul looks between them, surprised, before nodding in relief.
"Anything's better than here."
They manage to make it back to camp, and Raul sits down, muttering about his rotting knees.
"So, boss," he says, and Lola raises an eyebrow. "Who'd you kill to get all of the stealth boys?" Boone notices the way Lola barely tenses, but he notices it all the same.
"Found them while scavenging," she answers.
"You must have some crazy luck," he says easily. "Like that courier I heard about on the radio."
"Something like that. You any good with a gun, Tejada?" The ghoul snorts, his hand patting the revolver on his hip.
"I like to think I still have some skill for an old man," he says, nodding to himself.
"Good."
"So, what's a pretty thing like you doing out in the wasteland with a bullet scar on your head?" Raul asks nonchalantly as Lola starts a fire. She pauses before answering.
"I was making a delivery, and got shot while doing so. Your turn," she answers. The ghoul raises what is left of a ruined eyebrow.
"My turn?"
"What's an old man doing getting captured by Nightkin?" He chuckles, lighting a cigarette. He offers Boone one, and he takes it.
"Old man, huh? I love that respect you have for your elders, boss. It's refreshing. I've been with Tabitha awhile. She conned me into trying to fix her robot, and kept me prisoner when I couldn't. She'd always wish me good night the same way. 'Good night, Raul. Good days work. Sleep well, I'll kill you tomorrow." He shakes his head. "I think she did it just to keep me on my toes. But she can't help the way she is. All nightkin are that way." He shoots a look at her. "It was damned good of you not to kill her." She nods, stroking the fire.
This isn't what I signed up for, Boone thinks. I should just go back to Novac. But he finds the prospect of waiting the days out in his room with only empty whiskey bottles and a blood-stained carpet for company sufficiently depressing, and it is that prospect that keeps him seated.
"So, what's next, boss?" Raul asks. She begins cooking dinner, scavenged from the wasteland critters that attack every so often.
"REPCONN testing facility," she says finally, turning the meat over in the skillet.
"Thought you'd head straight to Vegas," Boone comments, keeping an eye out toward the dark horizon. He is secretly relieved they won't be heading to Vegas. He doesn't know if his heart could stand to go to the city where he met Carla.
"I promised Manny I'd clear out the feral ghouls at REPCONN," she says after a moment's deliberation. Boone no longer feels a burning rage at the mention of Manny, only a sad and empty feeling of regret. "It was to be in exchange for information about the Khans." He raises an eyebrow, and she says sheepishly, "While I was hoping-helping-you, I found what I was looking for too."
"Why go back at all?" he asks.
"I promised," she says simply, and he moves his eyes from the horizon to stare at her.
"You don't look like a woman who keeps promises," comes out of his mouth before he can tink better of it, and she winces.
"Maybe I wasn't," she murmurs. "Maybe I decided to change."
Princess Bride reference FTW!
I want to apologize to everyone who has been following this story. This has been sitting on my hard-drive for the past forever, and I'd been so busy with school (and Keep Your Composure and Where the Sun is Always Shining) that I forgot it even existed. DX Thanks for your patience, and I'll try not to take so long next time. As always, thanks for reading!