Greetings from Big MT
Chapter Twelve: The Cuckoo's Nest
The Lobotomites spoke more gibberish to each other as the man was slowly spit-roasted over the fire, and soon his screams stopped. As horrific as it was to watch this whole process, Tonya was glad that she and Gleeson hadn't been chosen for this meal, giving her time to free herself. First the Courier tried to grab onto the hook and pull herself up, but the ropes were keeping her from getting a grip… then she tried lunging upward, but couldn't get high enough since her feet weren't actually reaching the ground.
"I can't move my arms anymore." The brunette Trooper explained, trying to keep from looking at the fire. "Please tell me you can get us out of here… I'm scared, Tonya."
"Working on it." Tonya replied, again trying to get the rope over the hook. "Just be brave, and don't do anything to attract their attention, okay?"
Suddenly one of the masked Lobotomites broke away from the group, yelling incoherently as he ran over to the two captives, and drooling out his mask as he got right in Gleeson's face. This young woman didn't look any more than eighteen, maybe, with no business being a Trooper in the NCR, and the brunette was so scared as the Lobotomite began groping all around her body, that she let out a yelp of fight.
"No!" Gleeson shrieked when he started undoing her belt. "No, don't touch me! Let go of me!"
There didn't seem to be any way to reason with the masked people, probably since they had all gotten at least a large portion of their brains removed by Dr. Klein, and the Courier wasn't exactly in a position to help her against him. So the Lobotomite backhanded her when she started flailing her legs around, and then he removed the rope around her ankles in order to roughly pull the brunette Trooper's pants off… and then try to put them on, himself?
With an obvious size difference between Gleeson, who was built similarly to Tonya, and the Lobotomite, who was quite muscular, her pants didn't get up past his thighs, but this didn't deter him. Instead, the masked man shouted while raising his arms in victory, before waddling back over to the others at the fire and showing off the pants as if they were some hard won battle prize. Wearing Gleeson's pants like that limited his speed and made him almost fall over a few times, but for some reason one of the others was looking pretty jealous.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." The Courier said to herself as he ran toward her. "Don't touch me, you freak, I said keep your God damn hands off!"
Again there wasn't really anything that she could do to stop him besides kick at him once the rope was removed from her ankles, which she did a lot more effectively than Gleeson had managed to. Landing a solid kick that broke off a piece of the Lobotomite's mask, and knocked him down, Tonya expected him to get angry, but instead he put her pants on just as excitedly as the one had done with Gleeson.
So there they were, hanging by a rope around their wrists, and no longer wearing pants, but… at least the fire made the temperature a little more bearable… if she didn't think too much about the man being barbequed on it. Not too long after that the Lobotomites began cutting off pieces of him, which they shoved into their mouths, regardless of how undercooked or bloody it was… making Gleeson wretch as if she were about to vomit. The brunette Trooper froze, however, when the Chief ran over to her after finishing his meal.
With more gibberish and drool coming from his mouth, the cone-wearing Lobotomite played a note on his accordion, as if trying to frighten the poor girl, and it was working, causing him to become even more excited. He then reached down and grabbed one of Gleeson's ankles, making her cry out as he brought her foot up to his mouth in order to… start licking it? Oh, God, gross, Tonya thought as the Chief's stuck his tongue out through the mask so that he could drag it across the bottom of her foot and in between her toes.
"I wanna go home!" The brunette Trooper yelled, tears now streaming down her cheeks. "Help! Someone help me! Help!"
As much as the Courier wanted to save the poor girl, there was still nothing she could do to help her, aside from a few attempts to get the Chief's attention, which didn't work. Just then a new sound entered the cavern, that of a new Lobotomite stomping aggressively into the cave, yelling gibberish like the others, but also wearing a small traffic cone on his head like the Chief. He yelled and stomped, beating his chest before pointing at the Chief as if trying to challenge him. This got the attention of the others, who cleared out of the way so that their leader could step up to the intruder.
Without hesitation, the Chief began to play a series of jumbled, incoherent notes on his accordion while yelling gibberish, and doing a kind of awkward dance around the challenger, but while the other masked people were terrified by this display, the challenger was unimpressed. In response, he opened his hand to reveal that he was holding an old pre-war flip-lighter, and after opening the lid, he struck the flint, making all of them, including the Chief, jump backwards at this display of fire-making.
A couple of the Lobotomites screamed and ran from the cave, but the others started to regain what passed for their composure once the Chief walked over to a kind of haphazardly put together shrine or maybe alter that seemed to be made up of more random junk. From this junk the Chief produced an old bell-hammer alarm clock, causing the watching Lobotomites to back away nervously as he turned a dial on the back before pushing a button.
Whatever composure the Lobotomites now had was lost when the alarm clock went off, filling the chamber with the worst, ear-splitting sound that could be made by such a device, but while the masked observers freaked out, and the two captive women cringed from the sound, the challenger was once again unimpressed. The Chief seemed sure of his victory, stopping the noise by tossing the clock onto the floor so hard that it shattered, and then raising his arms up while yelling more gibberish.
Eventually the noise and commotion stopped when the Chief grabbed everyone's attention by playing more notes on his accordion, and he looked ready to gloat about his success… if these people even could gloat… but then the challenger walked up to him. Holding up his hands so that everyone could see that there was nothing in them, the challenger slowly reached over behind the Chief's ear… and came back holding a coin.
Now even the Chief screamed, tossing away his accordion while running toward the cave entrance, and even discarding the traffic cone on his head while he, and all of the other frightened Lobotomites ran out across the crater, flailing their arms and screaming gibberish until they got too far away to be heard any longer. The challenger, however, remained where he was; dropping the coin and the lighter, before removing the traffic cone and his mask to reveal…
"Julius?!" Tonya and Gleeson exclaimed at the same time.
Yes, it was their very own Legionary, wearing the hospital gown of the Lobotomites, and not much else as he walked over to the two captive women. He must have taken the clothes and mask from one of the Lobotomites that he had been fighting with, the Courier thought as he put his arms around the brunette Trooper's hips, lifting her wrist-rope over the hook so that she could stand on the ground while he untied her.
"That was… amazing." Gleeson said, trying to move her arms as the feeling slowly came back. "How did you know how to do all that?"
"Well, I'm not just some Recruit, you know." He explained, finishing untying her. "Back in Arizona, we encountered several primitive tribes, and Caesar's plans for getting some of them to submit were… helpful here, let's just say."
Now that he had rescued them and finished untying Gleeson, Tonya expected the Legionary to say something about her needing his help, or maybe the fact that neither she nor Gleeson were wearing pants, but he didn't. Instead, Julius put his arms around her hips and lifted the Courier gently off of the hook before setting her down… but not letting go just yet… at least not before leaning in and giving her a kiss on the forehead.
"I told you I'd protect you, Tonya." He whispered into her ear while untying the rope around her wrists. "No matter what happens, you can always feel safe with me."
Julius then kissed her on the cheek, leaving Tonya just standing there with her mouth hanging open while he walked over to a pile of clothes that had been discarded. Gleeson followed, with the Courier barely aware of what the brunette Trooper was saying, such as isn't she married, and also something about not everyone wearing the same size clothes, even though such a thing would have made life a lot easier.
Her thoughts, however, were not on the conversation, but apparently stuck on a continuous replay of the Legionary lifting her down from the hook, and the things he said before kissing her cheek. No, Tonya thought, no, there was no way that she was going to start having romantic feelings about a member of Caesar's fucking Legion… they had burned down her home, killed her friends, and hurt her in ways that were hard to even think about… but the way he had freed her from the hook had been so damn… sexy.
Still not thinking quite clearly by the time that some new pants that sort of fit were found for herself and Gleeson, the cold wind from the snow-covered crater never failed to repair the Courier's focus… that, and the fact that she was starting to hear music. Not the pre-war kind that was usually played on New Reno News or Radio New Vegas down south, but a loud, jumpy kind of electronic music with a fast tempo… and lights that flashed along with it.
"What in the world is going on over there?" Tonya asked, pointing across the way. "Are you two seeing this?"
There was a building not too far from their current location, designed one of New Reno's giant old factories with a big smokestack and walls that went up several floors, probably for a single large room… and it sounded like the electronic music was coming from there. Small searchlights also lined the edges of the building's rooftop and archways, flashing a series of bright colored beams that changed and blinked with the music… and causing the Courier to realize that the sun was setting.
"If it's being used, maybe one of those Think Tanks is in there." She suggested, starting away from the cave. "Come on, let's get indoors before it gets too dark outside."
