Chapter Fourteen: A Change of Plans
When words are scarce, they are hardly spent in vain. –William Shakespeare
Heat waves rise up off of the cracked I-93, and Boone hasn't ever been so happy to see the 188 Trading Post. Prospectors dot the horizon, and Boone feels a familiar surge of relief. The 188 is NCR turf, and that means it's as safe as it can be in the wastes.
Lola eyes dart all over the place once they arrive. She analyzes escape routes before focusing on the people. She catalogues the way they move and what weapons they carry, and gets half-way through all of the people she can see before stopping herself. What is she doing this for? This is a trading post. Sure, most everyone had a gun, but this was the wasteland. The necessity of a gun was a hard fact of life. What kind of person analyzes escape routes and all the best ways to neutralize potential threats?
"No offense," a voice says. "But you look like you've traveled a long way down some bad roads. Where'd you come from?"
"Goodsprings," she answers, although a nagging voice in the back of her mind tells her that's wrong.
"Wow, you're a long way from home," the girl comments. Lola nods sadly. "I've never been there but I've talked to a few traders who have passed through." She holds her hand out for Lola to take. "I'm Veronica. My home is a hole in the ground."
"A hole in the ground?" Lola asks. After a moment's consideration and a deft nod from Veronica, she says, "Well. That's not very exciting." Veronica laughs.
"And being from Goodsprings is?" she asks. Her head tilts and she adds, "So you looking for any new help? You and grumpy eyes over there are a group, right?"
"I hope you're talking about meathead and not me," Raul grumbles. Boone has the strangest expression on his face and Lola bites back a laugh as she notices that he is trying not to be offended.
"We could use some help," Lola says warily, feeling strange about the offer. She feels that being in a group isn't like her. Doesn't suit her. But she also finds she likes the company. There is something soothing about being surrounded by allies.
"What do you think of the Brotherhood of Steel?" Veronica asks. The question seems innocent enough but Lola notices the way her companions fidget and twitch.
"I heard they can shoot lasers out of their eyes," Boone says, thinking of the stories his parents told to him at night to make him behave. It brings a smile to Veronica's lips and he scowls.
"Insightful as ever, hijo," Raul says blandly. "They're a group who'll leave well enough alone if you don't have any fancy Pre-War technology that they want."
"I don't really know anything about them," Lola admits. "I can't really remember much of anything."
"Well, " she says, scooping up Boone's hat and plopping it on her hood before striding past them. "The only reason I asked is because I'm one of them. Dinner, anyone?" As they watch her stride away, Boone's hand momentarily reaches up to stroke at the peach fuzz on top of his shaved head. Then he scowls deeper and runs after the girl, declaring in the most overwrought voice possible,
"I'd really like my beret back, please."
"I like her," Raul says, shooting Lola a grin. "Can we keep her?"
Dinner is a jovial affair taking place with the four of them seated at a decaying bar made of the rotting shell of a bus. Veronica gestures wildly with a Nuka Cola in her hand and the others listen to her stories. Lola finds the words drifting in and out, hard to catch, but she knows when to laugh by Raul's rough guffaw and the hint of a smile cracking on Boone's lips.
"And then, just out of nowhere," Veronica's voice trails off as Lola looks around the outpost. She sees an angry looking man just under the overpass. She excuses herself from her group and walks down the hill to him. He scowls when he sees her.
"We're just about to close up for the night," he says and doesn't hide his annoyance.
"You an arms dealer?" she asks. Unfamiliar words spring to her lips and she says them. "Gun runner?" He snorts and crosses his arms over his chest.
"Like you have a clue what that even means," he scoffs.
"I'd look-like-to see what you have for sale," she tries again. "I know a bit about," her voice trails off and the word is on the tip of her tongue. Damn it! She motions helplessly to the object holstered on her hip. His eyes look down at it and he shakes his head.
"You cracked in the head or something?" he asks. "Am I selling? Yeah. But not to you. You're small time, and unstable besides." Her face flushes red and she speaks again, her words tripping over themselves and coming out as an indecipherable mess that causes the man to take a step back.
"She's with me, Alexander. Watch your tone." Lola turns to see Boone staring at the Gun Runner harshly over his sunglasses, Raul and Veronica trailing behind at a leisurely pace. "I can vouch for her. She can't really talk, but she knows what she's doing. We need ammo. Guns."
"Boone," Alexander says, surprised. "Well, hell. Since it's you. If Ms. Gobledegook over here has a First Recon guy vouching for her then I can make an exception." Lola glares heatedly at the Gun Runner as Boone, ungraceful as ever, buys the group much needed ammunition. Boone catches her eye and gives a slight nod to her, but that doesn't do anything to make her feel any better.
She eyes a small boy sitting underneath the shadow of the overpass. A strange contraption covers his head like a cage. She makes her way over to him, Veronica breaking from Raul to follow her at Boone's quiet and subtle urging. The boy looks up at Lola as she approaches.
"Words fail you," he says. She nods. "I'm the forecaster. Would you like a reading? It's only a 100 caps." Eyeing the threadbare mat behind him and the worn but well loved teddy bear he clings to, she nods her assent and counts the money out for him, crouching in front of him.
"Do you want you, here or everywhere?" She points at herself and the child nods, taking off his strange head gear. His eyes instantly glaze over and his face wrinkles in pain.
"Your face does the thinking - two to the skull, yet one gets up." She touches the scars on her head. Even now they throb. "Odds are against you, but they're just numbers after the two-to-one. You're playing the hand you've been dealt, but you don't let it rest, you shuffle and stack, and gamble. A gamble that may pay off? But how? Forecast: Rapidly changing conditions." She stares at the kid as he puts his headgear back on. Once it is securely in place, he smiles serenely.
"You're going to the Strip, right?" She nods in response. "Bet two to one on whatever gamble you make. You can't lose." She nods and stands. Before she can walk off, the kid says, "Hey, you counted wrong. You gave me two hundred. You get another reading." She shakes her head. She doesn't want one. She saw the pain it caused him. As if he could read her thoughts (or maybe just her body language) he says, "Something happened that doesn't happen very often. I picked up something else while I had the limiter off." That stops her. She looks over her shoulder at him expectantly. He grins sheepishly. "I only told you one because I thought you only paid for one." She motions for him to continue.
"Your friends? Watch the one in the red hat. Dead end future. Hopelessness at the end of the barrel of a gun. Nightmares seen through a scope. Looking for a way out." She eyes Boone haggling with Alexander. The sound of his voice, but not necessarily his words, carry across the air to her. He sounds tired. "Weariness weighs down every bone, searching desperately for the long sleep. Forecast: Dark with a chance of storms."
"Odd," Veronica whispers softly next to her and she jumps. She had forgotten the woman was there. She smiles, gently patting her arm. "Raul and Boone sent me after you. We saw the display with Alexander. They told me I should hustle you to bed." Lola nods, with one last look at the Forecaster, and then to Boone. She lets Veronica lead her back up to the decaying bus and the military tents that had sprung up around it.
She plops down on an empty cot with a frustrated hiss and all but tears a book out of her pack. Veronica sits with her and tinkers with her powerfist. Lola mouths the words as she reads, and tries speaking them.
"In naught of stormy weather, where coldly houses haven," she says, making a frustrated noise. Wrong. All of it wrong. She's so focused on trying to get the words right-right, God damn it. Speaking wasn't this hard for anyone else, even Boone!-that she fails to notice when Raul and Boone enter the tent. A hand pulls the book from her grasp.
"Give it a rest," Boone says. He closes the book and sets it down gently beside her. "You won't get anywhere with that tonight. You need to rest." She opens her mouth to speak, and the shuts it again. Tears of frustration burn at her eyes. Why can't she speak?
"We'll try again in the morning, hija," Raul says.
She goes to bed that night discontented and silent. Words and disjointed memories swirl in her mind like some long forgotten nightmare and she wakes several times with a deep piercing pain in her head. Murmured sounds she can't understand work to soothe her back to sleep. Once, she even feels a hand stroke her hair.
Boone keeps an eye on Veronica as they travel, but soon grows bored with watching the scribe do nothing but punch at fake enemies with her powerfist. Lola trails behind them taking in everything around them. She had been able to speak a little better when she woke up but she hadn't been making as much of an effort to speak as she had been. Boone finds that her silence bothers him.
"You know, you don't have to worry," he says. She looks at him. "About the talking thing. I'm no good at it either." She smiles wryly and it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"At least you don't get words confused, or forget how to say something," she says. She sighs, pulling her hat off and running a hand through her hair and over the scars on her temple. "It's-" her voice trails off and her forehead creases.
"Frustrating," he finishes for her. "Yeah. I know." She nods.
"You know," Veronica calls from in front of them. "I hear the Followers of the Apocalypse have a camp in Freeside. They may be able to help you when we get there. We're gonna have to go through there to get to Vegas anyway." Lola nods.
"If you think it'll have-help," she says with an irritable noise building in the back of her throat. They continue to walk in silence and he hears Haze whisper words every now and then. Practicing how to speak.
Camp McCarran slowly comes up into view on the horizon and Boone clenches his teeth. Last he hear First Recon was stationed there. He can remember the faces of his old team clearly. They were just one of the things that haunted him whenever he tried to sleep. He hopes Haze will pass the camp by but he has no such luck as he sees a familiar flash of red exit the decrepit airport.
They meet the sniper battalion in the middle of the road. Lieutenant Gorobets looks even more world worn and weary than Boone remembers.
"Howdy," Lola says slowly, tipping her hat to him. He nods in response.
"Ma'am. That beret looks good, Corporal Boone," he says. Boone automatically straightens his posture and salutes the other man.
"Sir," he answers.
"At ease, soldier. What brings you all the way out here? I thought you'd wiped your hands of Vegas."
"Change of plans, sir," he says, cutting his eyes over to Haze. Gorobets looks her up and down before answering with a soft,
"I see."
"So, you found a nice piece of ass? Good for you," a woman says from behind the lieutenant. She catches Lola's eye and winks. Lola notices the dark circles underneath her eyes and the rigid way she holds herself. "Girl, you are some grade-A poon. Did anybody ever tell you that?"
"Goddamn it, Betsy," Gorobets says. Lola reaches for her gun and pulls it out of the holster.
"Haze, what are you doing?" Boone asks.
"Get down," Lola says to Betsy. She stares at the barrel of the gun, dumbfounded, until the youngest sniper with the glasses and the face wrap pulls her out of the way. Lola shoots, the recoil vibrating up her arm all the way to her shoulder. A single fiend, armed with a cowboy repeated, falls to the ground a few yards away. Their Brahmin skull helmet cracks against the concrete and it seems to echo because of the silence. Lola silently holsters her pistol and holds a hand out to the dazed corporal. Betsy takes it and Lola pulls her up.
"You folks need help?" she asks. Gorobets looks between her then Betsy and finally Boone.
"Yeah, if you have the stomach for it."
"Lead the way," Lola says, gesturing for the group of snipers to lead.