A/N: Just... Don't hurt yourselves trying to follow all that going on her, guys, it'll all be explained soon (Proofreading this chapter made my head hurt. O_o)

Frontier Productions: No and I still haven't decided.

God and the Snake: I'm debating that right now, stay tuned and find out, I guess.

Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone! I appreciate it!

I own nothing. :/

After the Deathclaw stops bashing away at the wall, Valeria finally drifts asleep.

I watch the girl for a few minutes.

Something feels wrong with her; she obviously had a lot of training but shows very little emotional maturity, going from pissed scared to furious in a heartbeat. Its not logical, you can't be a professional and an amateur at the same time…

Unless she's faking it.

But then, why would she?

Ugh… Even thinking hurt.

I stroke her head for a few minutes then pretend to fall asleep; after two minutes, I imitate a light snore. I just remembered that time with Dusk, when she contacted the rebels while I was sleeping.

Five minutes later, she stirs and walk to the bedroom.

Next thing I hear makes me want to snap her neck again.

"Kodiak, this is Snake, come in." she whispers.

I hear her walk back to the door to make sure I'm sleeping.

I shift a bit and resume snoring.

"Subject is wounded, transportable… Yes… I understand. No, the cover worked, but its blown now; are you sure it was worth it? Damnit! No sir, I am not!"

She sighs and go sit on the bed. I get off the couch and try to avoid walking on planks I know are creaky.

"Yes… You are my employer, sir, I will do as you ask, but… No, sir, you hold my contract, but you have no right giving me orders like that. No, he is not! How? I know it, that's all, if he commanded Talon Company he would have asked for their help by now… Are you sure? No, I'm not quest… Okay, I'll do as you ask, but I want you to know I will not like it… Because he's nicer than all of you assholes, that's why! Yeah, fuck you too, sir!"

She leaves the room and curse upon seeing my legs disappear trough the hole in the roof.

Just in time.

"Cain! Wait!"

Too late, I'm already on top of the house, gun aimed at the hole.

"Don't come up, Valeria!" I warn, "Or I'll blow that pretty face of yours."

She still pops her head trough the hole.

Damn shame.

I fire twice, both shots way too high.

"Shit!" She dives back in.

I can hear the 'claws move around the house, excited by the sudden activity.

I'm really screwed; Legion assassin in the house, Deathclaws outside.

"Come on, Cain! Be reasonable! Let's talk!"

Yeah right, so she can give me some logical explanation? Or maybe Kodiak is actually the name of some government official that wants to hire me? Fucking bitch!

"Alright!" I yell, "I'm listening!"

"You are going to stay on the roof?"

Fucking right I am.

I look around me; Nothing but sand and wrecks.

I am leaning on my back, pistol held in my good hand and aimed at the hole. My wounded leg is throbbing, the scorches on my hands and thighs burning like someone was pouring acid on them and my ribs make every heartbeat hurt like a bullet wound.

I'm way too scrapped to run or fight.

"Yup."

"Very well, then; I am a contractor with a very powerful group back west… You ever heard of the NCR?"

"Nope."

She curses under her breath.

"Listen, I was undercover in the Legion… It's a long story and I must admit I don't feel like telling it all… Lets just say my employers have interest in you, as well as Talon Company. Please, come back in!"

"Not just yet!"

Infiltrated? It would explain some things… And bring up some more questions; How did they know I'd be in the temple? That I wouldn't shoot their agent? The way she speaks, they don't know I'm with Talon Company… Of course, during each of my ops, I try to avoid being linked to the Company, so I can see why they'd doubt… This means someone inside has been leaking info, but only fragmentary.

She doesn't know I lead Talon Company, which gives me the upper hand; if, of course, she's telling the truth.

Then again, I'm the one with the gun…

"How did you know I was coming?" I ask, after a few seconds.

"What do you mean?"

"What I said; answer!"

"I don't know! I've been working undercover for eight years now!"

"What! How is that even possible?"

No answer. That's not a pro's attitude, she really is desperate… Or extremely good at that game.

"Sorry, girl, but I don't trust you, you're still lying!' I hiss. "Maybe there is some truth in what you're saying, but I know you're hiding something!"

"Its my job, I'm always hiding something!"

Well, that was forthcoming.

I crawl next to the hole and peek in.

She's sitting on the floor, holding her head in her hands.

She's a professional, that much I'm certain of by now, but she obviously lost control of the situation and, as a professional, that's making her very upset.

"Listen," She calls, not bothering to look up, "I promise you we're on the same side; I don't know what my employers want, nor who you actually are, but I was ordered to gather information about you, gain your trust , find out if you were linked with Talon Company and, if you weren't, bring you to my employers. That's it, but it's important enough to them that they'd be willing to compromise a decade of work just to contact you. Please, don't do anything stupid; if you die, I'll be useless to my employers and they'll leave me to be eaten of found by the Legion!"

Now I understand why she seems about to have an attack; VIP protection is hard, much harder when the VIP thinks he's the one protecting you…Fucking Super-spy bullshit is making my head spin… Might be the sun too.

"Alright, I trust you;" I finally call, making her look up with hope. I grin and add: "No fucking idea why, but I do. Don't make me regret it." She sigh and nod a few times.

I try to lower myself trough the hole slowly but end up landing on my ass.

"Ow."

Val giggles.

"Wow, are you sure you're a professional killer?"

"Right now, I'm seriously doubting. Help me up." I groan.

She hesitantly help me get on my feet and bring me to the bedroom.

"So… You heard all I said?"

I nod and, for some reason, she blushes.

I sit on the bed and she go sit on a drawer, opposite to me.

"We need to talk." I speak up.

She nod shortly.

"You talked about a contract back there; tell me about it."

She frowns, like I just told her she has a few kilos to loose.

"It's my contract, I am linked to it since my birth, anyone who buys my contract automatically become my employer and can require my services for combat and infiltration." She sighs, her head seems heavy all of a sudden and she leans on the wall. "I had to work my way trough the casts of the Legion, use my wits and looks to reach a post high enough to be useful… Shit, my formation wasn't even done yet!
But it worked, I was in a position to influence the Legion, if only a bit, and gain useful intels… Then, you came along, they knew you were coming because Talon Company knew, but they weren't sure what your goal was… Actually, they seemed to think you were going to try and kill me."

Because Talon Company knew… It seems they have only a very general and blurred view of our ops. Whoever is leaking info must be low ranked, but have access to our troop movements and ops planning.

Comm. Officer?

"You think your employer could be the one that hired me? " I ask, trying to use new developments to solidify my cover.

She nods slowly, seeming about to pass out from exhaustion.

"That's possible, would be like them to organize every detail like that."

I frown and analyze her again. She has no weapon, no equipment whatsoever and her jumpsuit is too form fitting for her to hide anything under it.

"What do you use to contact them?"

She points to her head.

"Sub-dermal implants."

"So, for all I know, you could be making that up or be completely insane."

"Pretty much." She smiles weakly her eyes closed.

Wonder-fucking-ful. I need to drink something.

I get back on my feet and her eyes snap open.

"Where are you going?" She asks, clearly worried.

"I'm getting myself a Nuka-Cola, want one?"

She relaxes a bit and nod, fixing me with a cold glare. Don't you fucking run out on me again.

"Yeah, sure…"

I limp my way out of the room, using my Carbine as a crutch, and tell a Deathclaw to shut the fuck up as I pass a window, hearing an hungry snarl.

I kick the fridge's door open and gap two bottles of Cola. I try to close the door for a few seconds before realizing nobody gives a shit.

The Nukas are warm and very probably flat, but hey, Nuka's Nuka and it's better than water.

When I reach the bedroom, Val is in the bed, snoring lightly.

Oh well. I put the Nuka on the drawer, lie down next to the Pri.. Uh, spy… I mean… What the fuck is she even supposed to be!

I debate about it with myself for a few minutes before pulling the book on Anchorage from my rear ammo pouch, opening it at a random page again.

-Crimson Dragoon ambush point. Of course, we were all nervous; we were trying to ambush stealth masters, this could only go wrong, but the brass would have none of it. "American Soldiers cannot be surpassed by commies on american soil! Unthinkable!" Fucking retards.

The colonel was so angry, I had never seen him like this. In the end, though, he accepted this as another challenge and started planning the ambush, thinking and rethinking stuff so in dept I simply lost track of how far he was gone.

As far as I understood it, he wanted to post a squad in the most obvious ambush spot possible, hide two more squads nearby and wait for the first squad to be ambushed then send the others to flank the enemy.

However, that was just the first layer of his plan, since he figured the enemy commander would see this coming and only send a small group to attack the ambushers, forcing the others to reveal themselves before sending his whole force; he decided to send only his most hardened soldiers in the first squad, so they could hold their position long enough for the Reds to decide this wasn't a trick but somewhat of an insult and charge in…

I'm sure there were many more plans within this one, but I really don't know much more.

So we camped on the cliff face, freezing our asses off because HQ refused to let us light fires. Too dangerous, they said.

In the morning, we set up our positions like the colonel had said and waited.

"Any minute now." Lieutenant Morgan would say on the radio.

Fucking Reds never came. We camped on that cliff for two days and never saw a single Chinese.

We still lost two boys to hypothermia and had to cut some fingers because of frostbites.

Score one for military "Intelligence".