Dark clouds rolled in and coved the Radium Groves in shadows. The air was thick with the smell of death and burnt gunpowder. Gaz dragged an unconscious Floyd into the hunting lodge through the blast hole left by the suicide bomber. She set him down on the floor and searched through the ruble for their equipment. She found Floyd's pack under a pile of broken 2x4s, everything seemed intact. She got two stimpacks out of the first-aid section and injected them into Floyd's wounds. The Courier suddenly took a deep breath and opened his eyes, his pupils were dilated to the size of dimes.
"Are you Ok?" She asked
Floyd mumbled something unintelligible then leaned over. He took three deep breaths then puked up a mixture of blood and bile.
"That a boy. Get it all out."
Gaz had next to no training in terms of medicine, she felt sort of useless just watching as Floyd suffered. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up so he wouldn't pass out in his own vomit. Once she knew Floyd was safe, she recovered her own gear. Aside from a few new dents and scratches, her power armor was fully intact. She put the suit on and hit the main power, then slipped a fresh mag into her Marksman Carbine and kept watch for a legion counter attack. Every noise she heard outside made her jump. She rummaged through Floyd's backpack and found a bottle of cateye, she swallowed a few tabs and suddenly her vison was illuminated with blue light. With her chem-induced night vision, she got back to watch. Floyd would occasionally toss and turn and murmur something to himself.
His eyes suddenly snapped open
"Can you hear me? Are you all there?" Gaz asked
Floyd looked at her and then around at his surroundings. He was breathing fast and had a wild look in his dilated eye "Where the hell am I… Wait… He's dead right?! Magnus is dead?!"
Gaz pointed to the Centurion's corpse through the window. The body was sitting in a pool of blood. "Are you sure you're OK? What was that you drank back there?"
"It was a Weapon binding ritual, extra strong batch too. Root Layer made it for me. You sacrifice some blood for extra strength in combat… It's also mostly made of dartura and peyote so it makes you hallucinate." Floyd explained, his voice had an odd bubbliness to it.
"Are you hallucinating right now?" Gaz asked
"I am tripping like a motherfucker." Floyd said and looked at his hands "Whoaa…."
"So it's all up to me to keep watch tonight?" Gaz said slightly annoyed
"That's a fact Jack. I need some time to recollect myself and recover."
"Recollect?"
"I guess you could call it meditation. Magnus accused me of wiping out two whole cites. I need to find out what the hell he was talking about."
"How do plan to find that out? Last I checked, Gaius Magnus was face down in a pool of blood and he ain't about to tell you."
"Oh Gaz… Your PreWar thinking makes you give up too easily. There are other ways… But you need to search deep within yourself." He said and reached into his back pack. He rummaged around for a minute then pulled out a small leather pouch. He stuck his thumb and index finger into the pouch and pulled out a pinch of ground-up plants and herbs.
"Dartura roots and horse nettle. The Sorrows say chewing these sacred plants will revive even the most deeply buried memories." He said and sprinkled the mixture into his mouth.
His face grimaced as he chewed the herbs.
"I never get used to the taste." Walker said and sat down cross legged. Before doing anything else he struck a match and burnt some of the herbs and breathed in the smoke. He then closed his eyes and folded his hands in his lap. He took long, deep controlled breaths.
"This is never gonna work. Look I know that you have some kind of weird tribal connection and all that, but I don't think it's gonna do anything here. If you forgot then you forgot, and whacky tribal traditions won't help. Plus, Magnus probably just said those things to mess with you." Gaz said and rolled her eyes
"The Legion doesn't mess around. If they accuse you of something, then they damn well mean it. And don't be so quick to judge something that you don't understand. And those "weird tribal traditions" saved both of our lives in the past… Now stop talking, I'm trying to recollect…. I'm trying to find myself."
"Alright, if you think getting high on Dartura will help you then be my guest. I still think it's a huge waste of time."
Floyd didn't respond, Gaz shook her head. All of Floyd's talk of meditation, psychedelics drugs and finding himself reminded Gaz of the PreWar hippie movement. She had always stuck up her nose at these types of people, but seeing Floyd seriously involved in a spiritual journey made her reconsider. He would occasionally say something either in English or in tribal dialect.
"…Between Hopeville and Ashton? I dunno, that's a long way off…" Floyd said in his sleep
Gaz could remember the Pre-War versions of Hopeville and Ashton, she had once been assigned to the military base there.
"… Ok. Ok. Two Thousand caps, and I'll deliver your package…" He said softly
He sometimes would stand up and walk a few paces, then sit back down. His eyes were half opened, his pupils were dilated to different sizes. Floyd remained in this trance for the rest of the night and into the next day. Gaz watched him the entire time to make sure he didn't get up and wander off into the woods. At midday, he returned from his hallucination.
"So, did you find yourself?" Gaz asked mockingly
"No… I found something worse. I remember now. The package I delivered…. I was paid to deliver a package to a settlement directly between Hopeville and Ashton. The guy who paid me was unusually well dressed and clean, he didn't talk much either. And the package itself was weird, it was a small metal box… maybe some kind of computer. It was all covered in these weird markings, they looked like they were from before the war… The thing I don't understand is how the hell a little package could wipe out two entire cities."
"Have you been to Ashton or Hopeville since your delivery?"
"No. People don't go to Ashton or Hopeville anymore. When I arrived for the first time the place was a battlefield waiting to happen. Both the NCR and Legion wanted those cities for supply hubs, last I heard a huge clash broke out between the two sides. I entered through the NCR held territory and arrived at the delivery spot. After about two hours a little eyebot showed up, took the package and dropped a fat sack of caps."
"Caps?" Gaz asked
"Money. Anyway, I've delivered packages to robots before, but this one seemed pretty high tech, I assumed it was an NCR eyebot or a privately owned bot."
"That's interesting… The U.S. government was pretty secretive about the Eyebot series, not sure how people in this day and age could get ahold of one." Gaz said
"Hmmm… That's good to know, but doesn't explain how Magnus knew that I made the delivery." Floyd said standing up. He walked out the hole in the wall and began to search the body of Gaius Magnus.
Gaz walked out and yawned, she had been awake all night keeping an eye on Floyd. The Courier then pulled a holotape out of Magnus' rear pocket. He plugged it into his PibBoy and turned up the volume. The voice on the tape was very deep and commanding,
"Gaius,
I've followed him for some time now and he still hasn't noticed my presence. He remains ignorant of his actions concerning Hopeville and Ashton, he truly thinks it was just another package delivery. I trailed him from the Mojave to Zion, on his return trip he appeared to have added a companion to his company. His companion is well trained, her skills rivaling his own. I watched the two of them eliminate an entire nest of Deathclaws, and saw his companion survive a swipe from the Nest Mother. I witnessed them take down a squad of our assassins, but more impressively I watched them kill a man in power armor. For some reason the Enclave has returned from the dead and have taken much interest in his companion. His last known location was at the northern end of the Radium Groves, you know what you need to do. As for myself, I'm heading to the Grand Canyon. Caesar tells me that there is a presence New Canaanites there, and for me to eliminate them.
Ave, True to Caesar.
~Ulysses."
Floyd was quiet. He shook his head in disgust
"It's a shame such a talented courier would whore himself out to the legion… Not only that, but he sold out a fellow courier…. Well, at least I was right about the Grand Canyon." Floyd stood up
"Ulysses… That's the courier you telling me about. You still think this guy is worth saving?" Gaz asked
"He Legion now… He's… He's lost."
Floyd had a look of sadness in his eyes, as if he had just learned a friend had died. He wolfed down a can of pork and beans without even heating them up and tossed a package of salsbury steak to Gaz.
"Eat up and check your gear. We are leaving in five minutes."
"Five minutes? You just spent the last day and a half on a serious drug trip, don't you want to wait until tomorrow when we both have gotten some rest?"
"Were you not listening? Ulysses is on his way to the Grand Canyon. I need to stop him before he finds the New Canaanites and all hell breaks loose."
Walker slung his pack over his back and stormed out the lodge. Gaz watched him walk over to the dead Centurion and pried the machete gadius out of the body's cold fingers. He raised the curved blade high above his head and brought it down on Magnus' neck. In two solid whacks the head was separated from the body. Walker grabbed a throwing spear off one of the other bodies and impaled Gaius Magnus' head on the blade and planted the butt of the spear in the ground. Gaz's face grimaced in a look of disgust as Walker dipped his fingers in Magnus' blood and began to smear a grizzly message in Latin on the wall of the hunting lodge which said:
"Pro illis, qui in Caesaris fide ;
Conculcabit ad ulterius . Vos estis monuit."*
Walker took a deep breath and lit a cigarette. He took a big drag and exhaled a cloud. Gaz walked up behind him, she looked at the head impaled on the spear and the message written in blood.
"Was that really necessary?" She asked
Walker kept his back turned, he just kept looking at the ground, and then at his hands. They were sticky with half dried blood.
"Floyd?"
He pulled a canteen out of his pocket and slashed some water in his hands and washed the blood off.
"Come on Floyd talk to me. You can't stoop to they're level. I know that you are better than them."
"Gaz… The Geneva Convention don't apply no more. Remember how I said I got my skills? You've walked a pretty far path, no doubt. But the wasteland is about to get MEAN. And the farther we walk it's just gonna keep getting meaner and meaner and meaner. So you know what your gonna have to do? You're gonna have to get mean with it."
"Is this what Joshua would have wanted you to do?"
Walker paused. He looked at the ground and then at Gaz.
"I stand by my message here… But thank you. Maybe PreWar thinking is good for a few things… Gaz I want you to promise me something: If I forget myself, I want you to help me remember."
"Help you remember?"
"What makes me."
"Uh. Ok. I promise."
"I'm holding you to that."
Before heading out, the pair picked all the ammo and usable supplies off the dead bodies. Floyd managed to secure 40 rounds of .308 armor piercing. Gaz picked another marksman carbine off one of the bodies and compared it to her own. This carbine had a less rusted barrel, so she quickly disassembled both weapons and swapped parts. With their new looted gear in hand, they began to walk south. They walked for what seemed like hours until they came to a road leading through the Groves. The sun was beginning to set and the stars were coming out. It was dead quite, only the dull whistle of wind through the trees. Floyd stopped and looked around. He cocked his head to the side and whispered
"Shhh…"
"Do you hear something?"
"No. And that's what I'm worried about. Usually you hear a few coyotes or wild dogs howling at this time. Take a look in the trees, no bird. Even the giant rats are gone." Walker said and got down on his knees.
He placed his ear to the asphalt and listened. Gaz looked to the left and then the right, nothing in either direction.
"Something is coming. It's big. Very big."
He motioned towards a rusted out tractor trailer. The pair hid inside the rear trailer behind some rotten shipping crates. Floyd opened the grenade rifle and slid a high explosive round into the gun, them quietly snapped it shut. Gaz felt a familiar sensation in her gut, it was a cold debilitating fear that made her skin crawl and made her shake in her armor. The last time she felt fear like this was when the Mother Deathclaw was chasing her down. She clicked the safety off her carbine and looked into the scope. She scanned from left to right, nothing but trees. Then she felt the ground begin to shake. A lump formed in her throat. That's when she saw the first of them, a Deathclaw. It wasn't like the ones she had killed in the nest. It towered a full fifteen feet tall, much larger than the average Deathclaw, but smaller than a Mother. Then another appeared, and another. Striding through the trees and leaving huge four-toed foot prints in the soft ground. Walker looked into his binoculars
"What the hell are they doing here?! We are WAY too far South to be running into deathclaws." He sharply whispered
Gaz carefully observed them through the scope. She then noticed something strange on the Mutant's head. A metal headband was wrapped around each of their foreheads and a spring-like antenna was jutting out the back of it, right where their spine met their brain. She wanted to tell Floyd about the antenna, but was quickly hushed when she tried to speak. The three massive deathclaws walked in a perfect triangular formation. The one are the head of the pack stopped and sniffed the air, then looked directly at the trailer the pair was hiding in.
"He's looking right at us." Gaz said quietly through clenched teeth
"Shhh. They have terrible eye sight but good smell and hearing…."
The Deathclaw threw its head back let out three sharp yelps. As if they had been given an order, the two deathclaws behind it advanced forward towards the trailer. Gaz began to shake harder and take quick panicked breaths, the thought of the Mother Deathclaw bearing down on her kept flashing back in her head.
"Stay calm…"
Gaz was so afraid she felt sick. The two deathclaws closed in on the rusty old vehicle and began to poke their snouts around the premises, sniffing for any signs of prey. Suddenly a very frightened and mangy wild dog went shooting out of its hiding place from under the truck. The deathclaws instantly gave chase to it. The dog made it about twenty feet before one of the mutants grabbed it. The three deathclaws then growled and hissed at each other, probably over who gets the first bite. As the deathclaws argued, Walker and Gaz slipped out and made for the trees. They could hear hideous series of crunching and squishing noises as the mutants tore into the dog. The deathclaws then gave out a cheerful "hoot" when they were finished. One of the deathclaws glanced back at the truck. It had a string of blood and saliva dripping down its chin. All it took was Gaz stepping on a branch. The little snap of the twig caused the Deathclaw to slowly advance past the truck and into the woods. It took a deep breath through its nose and then roared. They had been spotted. Walker spun around and fired a 40mm HE round at the mutant. The heavy round whistled through the trees and detonated on impact with the monster's leg. It howled in pain but before it could charge him Walker opened fire with his Automatic Rifle. The deathclaw stumbled back and clutched at the bullet wounds. Walker jammed a new mag into his rifle and emptied another twenty round clip into the monster blowing off one of its arms. The two other deathclaws sprang into action, both emitting earsplitting shrieks in response to their fallen comrade. Gaz covered her ears, the image of the Mother Deathclaw attacking took over her vision. She screamed
"MAKE IT STOP!"
Floyd popped out the spent shell in his grenade rifle and loaded a fresh one. He fired at the leading mutant's knees causing it to fall face first to the forest floor. The Deathclaw behind it leaped over the leader and ran full speed at Gaz. She was frozen stiff with fear.
"GAZ! MOVE!" Floyd yelled at the top of his lungs.
The mutant cocked its arm back and heaved it forward. There was a loud metallic "Clank!" as the claws of the beast bounced off the power armor. Gaz flew back and hit a tree. The monster leaped forward to finish off Gaz, but Walker jumped between the two. He fired another 40mm HE round directly into the chest of the deathclaw mid-jump at almost point blank range. The deathclaw was pushed back from the blast and fell on its side. Walker covered his face as burning shrapnel sprayed over him. Floyd checked on Gaz, she was still breathing but had hit her head pretty hard. He pulled out his 12.7mm Survivalist Rifle and prepared to fight the remaining mutants. Both of which were injured, but now very angry. The two deathclaws straightened themselves and lunged forward at top speed. Before they could get to Walker, and before Walker could even fire, a massive black object came bounding through the trees and slammed into the deathclaws. It was the "Mother in the Forrest", the oversized Yao Guai that the feral children had told them about. The enormous mutated bear opened its huge jaws and ripped the throat out of a deathclaw. The remaining deathclaw frantically swung at the bear, it even managed to land a solid blow. But the thick pelt of the bear absorbed the impact without breaking the skin. The Mother in the Forrest reared back on her hind legs and brought her front paws down on the deathclaw and pinned it. It let out a ghastly cry of frustration before the bear bit into its neck and ripped out a mouthful of flesh. The deathclaws cries became increasingly gurgled as it's lungs filled with blood. As the final deathclaw bled to death, the bear turned to Walked. He was completely still and had his rifle lowed. The Bear turned to him and nodded its head just once, Floyd stood there astonished with his jaw hanging open. Then he too nodded, the bear then turned its back and lumbered away into the trees. Floyd then turned his attention to Gaz, her hair was matted down with blood.
"Floyd… Floyd are they dead Floyd? Please tell me they're dead…" She mumbled
"Yeah. They're dead. You are in fact very lucky to not be dead. I think you got your bell rung through…" Floyd said pulling Gaz up. He helped her into the rear trailer and made a mattress out of cardboard for her. After her made sure Gaz was safe he swallowed a few tabs of cateye in preparation for an all-night watch.
*Authors Note: The Latin message Walker smeared on the wall translates to: "To those loyal to Caesar; tread to further. You have been warned"