Missing in Action 19) Unconventional Pets
My thanks to ScrimshawPen (x4), DmCrebel25, The Desert Dancer, PaladinBailey, Aegon Blacksteel, PartyPat22, DocMarten2525, Blazw01245, colstrent, IAmTheAble, WilSquare, Master Doom Maker, Winding Warpath for their reviews, support, and feedback. Also, Aegon? The poker scene is the one you won around last year. Probably won't be the last of that kind either. And now, a full John chapter, because it's been too long since the last one. Enjoy!
Edit 18/02/18: PartyPat22 did his magic. The English language as a whole is grateful.
Shrouded in a stealth field and perched on the Old Mormon Fort's battlements later that afternoon, John spied Veronica drive the van into the courtyard and oriented the microphone built into his Pip-Boy after her. The spunky scribe hopped down from the driver's seat and gave a cheerful wave to the assembled crowd, rapping on the Lucky 38's unmistakable logo on one of the sides. As if the four Securitrons trundling with the van down Vegas Boulevard didn't make it clear already.
"Happy drugs delivery from the big man in the tower!" The earpiece reproduced Veronica's voice and even the louder ambient sounds and voices around her. "Doctor Farkas! It's Veronica. Remember me?"
The disheveled woman with the messy mohawk looked so exhausted that she probably didn't even remember her name. Tired enough she didn't look the gift horse in the mouth, at least.
Her eyebrows took off like Vertibirds when Veronica swung the rear tailgate up. "Holy - is that a Mark IX?"
"Look – Look at all of that! I don't even - " another doctor, a blonde woman John vaguely remembered from Novac – Lu-something? - echoed in a choked whisper, yet loud enough to carry far in the sudden hush. "But - how? I mean, why?!"
Veronica's smile seemed to grow with the sheer, palpable hope that was spreading through the crowd. Her grin was dazzling, even from afar. "Mr. House sends his regards to the Followers," he heard her say, parroting what they'd agreed upon. Then she took a sharp left turn from the script, "And I think I'm some last-minute attached bonus? I mean, his aide-de-camp put me on the wheel and pointed down the street, but I'm a good tinkering hand. I can set the Auto-Doc up, and if you need any repairing done, I don't know, a generator or something –"
Her rambling was cut short by a single, ragged cheer, then two, dozens, until hundreds of voices were cheering and crying and people were pushing to try and see, or just touch her. A scarce few even had Mr. House's name on their lips. Dr. Farkas soon toppled the ragged cacophony and wrestled it to order. Like an orchestra conductor, she organized and directed teams to haul down the towering Auto-Doc with its attached generator and then the many, many crates of supplies stacked in the back of the van, Veronica always at her heels.
Height and invisibility made John feel like a ghost: surrounded by people but ultimately removed from them. Every parent holding their wounded child, every doctor or nurse on the verge of exhaustion, every burned, bandaged patient on a blanket or person missing a limb was a reminder seared into his memory. A chorus of accusations in his left ear that no amount of cheering or tears shed in joy and relief could silence.
He was a critical reason why such extensive help was necessary in the first place. Did it matter that he never wanted any of it to happen? With every second he spent watching, memorizing, the feeling grew, raged, consumed him. He wanted to vent, let it out, but Cass had left, and Veronica didn't deserve to be burdened by his failure; not when she was among people that accepted her now, ready and eager to do good.
Could he make them understand? He wanted them to know, even if it was just one of the countless people in that crowd. Selfishness checked his tongue, however; conflicting needs froze his hand on the Stealth-Boy's controls. He needed to know who he was, who he had been. With Benny dead, House wasn't his best chance. He was his last.
Putting Veronica on the wheel and avoiding the downpour of goodwill was already stretching his contract's limits. Probably. He suspected the man-machine would throw him out as he did with Cass, or worse, should he come out clean and throw a wrench in his plans.
John's finger hovered over the switch of the Stealth-Boy. What if he'd been a better man than he was now? A good man? Would that change anything about what he'd done?
The mental 'No!' was a shout he couldn't vocalize. But if he knew the kind of person he'd been once, then maybe he'd have an example to follow? A line to toe, rather than keep stumbling blindly and leaving only destruction in his wake.
A beep from the earpiece scattered his looping thoughts. Only ten minutes of charge left. After one last look, John descended the wall as quickly as he'd climbed up, then made himself scarce through a side alley.
'What would Doc Mitchell have done?'
John choked on a snort. The old man would've never gotten into this situation in the first place. He couldn't have committed such slaughter, because he didn't possess a freakish body capable of shouldering it, time and again. Fatigue and a genuine human fear for his life would've given him pause much sooner; a lifetime of heaped experience would've made him reconsider the orders earlier, rather than arrive at a belated realization once he was already swimming into a sea of blood.
Beep-beep. John snuck into a gaping doorway, checked his surroundings, then switched off the Stealth-Boy. Better save the last few minutes of charge for his access to the sewers or an emergency. With no new communications from Mr. House, his legs carried him on, away from the sewer access. Street after street, cutting through gutted buildings and circling courtyards, gardens, and parking lots turned into farmland, he was but a midday ghost to the few who glanced his way.
He noticed the stalker as the urban jungle thinned, just a few hundred feet from the site of the crater.
The sniper rounded the last corner to meet Fritz's muzzle leveled at his chest. His hands went up in one smooth motion.
"Boone," John greeted. He frowned but lowered the rifle. Just an inch. Boone's hands followed. "I thought I saw you on one of the towers."
"You too." At his raised eyebrow, Boone elaborated, "Wall's old, crumbling. Kicked some dirt loose. Then I noticed the shimmer."
"Right, I should've thought about that." John's eyes followed Boone's hands. The sniper's palms were flat and splayed non-threateningly at his sides. "What are you doing here anyway? Didn't you go back to the army at McCarran?"
"I tried. Didn't pass the psych evaluation." He let out a long breath, removing his dusty shades. "I need work."
"The Followers need all the hands they can get." The line came easy after practicing it for Veronica. "You can do a lot of good there."
Boone's green eyes were light pinpricks rimmed with dark bags. "Not-at-Home will take care of their security now. Standing around isn't my kind of work. Nor yours." The muscles of his jaw tensed, keeping the words in for a few moments, then he let them out in one breath. "Can't let it all catch up with me. Not yet."
A ping from the Pip-Boy into his earpiece interrupted the staring match. John glanced at the message header, then back at the sniper.
Before Novac, he'd have probably said something insensitive already; that he could sympathize with Boone's terrible loss, understand what he was going through. Cass's fist had corrected some of that arrogance, but still, quiet sympathy survived a busted nose.
The question could wait. Boone was dead on his feet; John figured a lesser man would probably be swaying, or just passing out there and then. He only hoped his choice was out of sympathy, not selfishness under a different guise.
'King of flowers, three of hearts.' John raised twenty caps. Mr. House called from the tall screen. A silent Ambrogio added House's chips to the big blind with one of its prongs.
"You seem fond of collecting strays, Mr. Doe," Mr. House crooned through the speakers, his voice everywhere at once. "Have you considered the NCR's interest in you and the sensitive nature of your work for me?"
Mr. Cork, the bartender robot now doubling as the dealer, flopped the first three cards. Nine of diamonds, six of hearts, and king of spades. John raised by fifty; House topped that by fifty more. John's stack grew a little taller.
"I've already worked with Boone, sir. Both against the Khans and frannkesteins, back in Novac. He's a good man. Experienced, with a sharp eye and a steadier hand. We cover each other's blind spots. I'll pay him out of my pocket and run it by you before taking him along on an assignment. Can't handle this one alone anyway."
Mr. Cork burned a card, then dealt the fourth card. Three of spades. John's lips twitched.
"Very well. You may take your companion with you, but his silence is your responsibility." Mr. House paused a beat, letting that one sink. "Back to your task, four units will be waiting a mile west of the Junction 15 railway station, by midday tomorrow. The last reports had deathclaws in the vicinity."
John grunted, glanced up at House, and checked. "Make it three and leave me one as a pack mule, please. I'm taking some heavy ordinance from the armory."
House raised by a hundred. "Do you require another demonstration of my Securitrons' arsenal?"
"I'd rather be more self-reliant, sir. An adult deathclaw can still cut them and me to ribbons, and my nine millimeters will only tickle their hide." John patted Fritz, then re-raised by two hundred. "The word death's in their names for a reason, sir. You want me to eradicate a nest of them? I'll need explosives, and your Securitrons aren't exactly the most reliable outside your transmission range."
House sighed theatrically and checked. John smirked inside. 'Gotcha.'
"Just wrap it up sooner rather than later. My stock can only tide the slums over for so long before involving the Families will become a necessity. That's a prospect I'd prefer to avoid altogether. Once you've cleared Interstate 15, the NCR will lift the blockade at the Mojave Outpost and trade will resume in earnest, unbothered by Legion raids."
"And earn you goodwill within the NCR, sir?" John added rhetorically. Mr. Cork burned another card and revealed the fifth and last. Ten of flowers. 'Lame.' Focusing on the cards at least made Mr. House's priorities easier to stomach somewhat. John tapped the table twice, checking.
"I don't deal in goodwill or chances, Mr. Doe." House raised by another three hundred. "I make investments."
John grimaced. The pot could probably feed any family in Freeside for a couple years. John called. Ambrogio turned House's cards first.
Jack and queen. "King-high straight," Mr. Cork announced, pushing nine, ten, and king out of the five-card line on the table. "And you, sir?"
John flipped his cards with a sigh and tipped his stack. "Two pairs, kings and threes," Mr. Cork uttered the obvious. "Mr. House takes the pot."
"What have you learned from this round?" House asked as Mr. Cork reshuffled the deck.
John took a moment to run the game in his head. The loss of caps didn't bother him, not really; with how much Mr. House paid him, he had thousands more than he knew what to do with. Maybe he could drop some at the Followers' doorstep, an anonymous donation? Boone would need something better than the clothes on his back too. It looked like the army kept his armor when they turned him down.
"Never celebrate too soon? Still, if it wasn't for that last card –"
House scoffed. "Typical. You'd have lost anyway and not due to an unlucky draw." John looked up, meeting Mr. House's pixel eyes and ignoring the new hand. "That twitch of your lips. You betrayed your hand when the three of spades turned up; that was plenty of time to adjust my tactics. The lesson you should take from this is that we're often the architects of our downfall and always due to overlooking some minor detail or variable."
John drummed his fingers on his cards. Was House referring to his decision to hire Boone? Or had he guessed he was about to ask him about Cass, where she was? John swallowed that question, picking his next few words carefully as he set down the big blind for the next round.
"I've got a feeling this has to do with Black Mountain and the frankensteins there?"
Mr. House hummed approvingly. "I had a half-brother. A man of low cunning, utterly unimaginative in anything but his burning envy. When he realized I'd become the man he could only dream he was, he sold himself over to my rivals. The night before the missiles launched, he tried to sabotage a few critical systems, including my specialized, long-range communication system. Boorish spite and yet, he wasn't altogether unsuccessful. The equipment was irreplaceable on such short notice, and I still cannot replicate it with my limited means. As soon as you vacate the super mutants, the satellite arrays on Black Mountain will do as a replacement."
Cards forgotten, John leaned back in the chair, lips pursed. "I'll never say no to mopping up frankensteins, sir, but why now? Aren't the Fiends in South Vegas a bigger threat to the people and trade? Black Mountain's a ways off from I-15; by this Tabitha's spiel, they seem content to remain there for the time being. Let'em rot up there for a little while longer, I'd say."
"But I'm not content to let them; indeed, this has gone on too long already. Black Mountain will extend my transmission range. My reach won't be limited to Vegas' metropolitan area anymore; incidents like Victor's in Goodsprings can't and won't happen again."
John had to nod at that, biting his cheek. If Victor hadn't gone rogue due to Benny's little hacking attempt, if House had had the range to control it directly at such a distance, things would have gone much differently in Goodsprings.
"As for the Fiends, leave the browbeating to the NCR for now. We only have to profit from the conflict. Let them exhaust their forces in a pointless struggle: it'll make Ambassador Crocker and that peacock Oliver more receptive to my terms. With the Van Graffs removed from the equation, the Fiends have lost their main supplier. I assure you: their time will come."
Boone's head snapped up. A tiny frown creased his brow as John joined him in the abandoned Veterans Village compound a little way off Freeside's east gate. Outside, beyond the city's outline, dawn gave way to early morning.
'Maybe it's the full kit,' John considered as he scratched the itch behind his left ear for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. Or maybe it was the faint but pungent smell from his after-breakfast trek through the sewers to reach the meeting place unseen.
"Expecting trouble?" the sniper asked, nodding at the hefty M60-something strapped across John's chest and the couple of ammo belts he carried.
"Always. Here, catch."
Boone's eyebrows arched in what John hoped was appreciation as he perused the contents of the large pack. Anything short of T-51 power armor was only an encumbrance against deathclaws, but the extra kit John had assembled from House's armory would serve the sniper well against the frankensteins, or pretty much anything else. Boone hefted up the riot armor chest-piece, turning it this way and that to check the Kevlar and ceramic plates. It wasn't long before he'd neatly arranged the entire set, the extra AP ammo for his rifle, and enough supplies for a week in the field before him.
"What are we up against?" Boone asked as he went through every single mag.
"Search and destroy. Likely timespan is two, three days. Ideally, less. Deathclaw-hunting down I-15 with a side serving of super mutants on Black Mountain." John's lips curled back in a snarl. "The rest of Davison's clique, from the sound of things. Don't worry; we'll have more support on-site." He patted the machine gun. "This is for unpleasant encounters on the way to the rendezvous point and a bit of an extra punch."
"You're serious." Boone pinched the bridge of his nose. "Quantify support. Deathclaws take a lot of gun."
"Heavy." John studied the sniper as the man brooded, still as a statue. Some color had returned to his face, but his body was still one mess of taut lines, his jaw almost ready to snap. He didn't look like someone who'd enjoyed a full night of sleep, but at least it didn't seem like he'd keel over any moment either. It'd do.
At last, the sniper offered a single nod. Before he trusted Boone with his back again, however, John needed an answer.
He stepped up to knife range as the other man started donning the armor.
"What was the warning for, back at Aerotech? Why the Morse code?"
"Picked up a tail." Boone's hands paused on a strap. "Major Granite wanted you at McCarran; ordered me to take you there. He didn't tell me why. I didn't ask."
"You disobeyed an order from a superior officer?"
"I was retired. Still am, and the Major's stuck in the last war. Sees enemies and plots in every shadow." Boone shrugged. "I figured I still owed you."
"The info on Benny made us even."
"Not enough," Boone sentenced, jerking the last strap into place. "Doesn't matter. It's in the past. It happened. Nobody can change it."
Again, John couldn't shake the feeling he was missing something; just a few days in Mr. House's employ and that was already becoming a frequent recurrence, as familiar as breathing.
"I want to trust you, Boone," was what he said instead. Two fingers made a beckoning gesture; a single tire track advanced around a corner, kicking up a thin cloud of dirt as it rolled closer. Boone went for the draw, but John shook his head. A hiss, then a crack of burning ozone; the pack-mule Securitron appeared, encumbered by the rest of John's arsenal for the excursion.
He gave the sniper a few moments to let the implications sink in. "You work for me, but I work for Mr. House."
"Yesterday's delivery made that clear."
"Anything you hear or see remains confidential unless I say otherwise. I'll pay you for the trouble. If that's a problem, speak now."
He half-expected something patriotic along the lines of "Keep me out of anything that'll cross the NCR". From how the muscles in Boone's jaw tensed and worked, the words weren't relegated to his imagination only either. Slowly and stiffly, Boone coerced his own body to stand almost at attention. The heavy frown lifted into a dark furrow, unlocking his jaw. He let out a sharp exhale.
"Your caps, your call."
John wanted to believe the mercenary attitude was genuine. "Alright then. Saddle up, daylight's a-wasting."
They made good time on the way south, retracing much of the same path they'd followed just a week before, but at a much brisker pace. Trails of smoke and distant echoes of gunfire continued to rise all morning from South Vegas' ruins, to the south-west. After three days, Mr. House's reports had it that the Fiends' offensive splintered into a dozen different skirmishes, all trying to push the NCR across Interstate 15 by throwing bodies at them.
Maybe the news of Gloria's fall from glory still had to reach them? 'Or maybe Motor-Runner doesn't want to lose face with that bunch of fried-brains, and his head along with it. Might as well go whole hog.'
Marching side by side, John often spied Boone's eyes flitting to the ruins; he figured Boone was screaming inside, fighting the urge to ditch him and make a beeline for the new frontline. John could respect that and yet was glad for the sniper's presence, even if he wasn't much for conversation. As the sun rose higher and started to roast them slowly despite the late season, John almost wished Mr. House had switched the tasks around, just to give the sniper a little bit of peace of mind.
He dismissed the thought soon after. Boone was just one man, and the NCR wasn't defenseless; Freeside was home to hundreds, thousands, and many would depend on the caravans and the railway line for food and meds, if not water. The priority was clear.
The sun began its descent to an early autumn sunset as they skirted around the few, spread out farmsteads and fences around Junction 15 station. The area looked half-deserted, with only a few people out and about, tilling the land and feeding cattle; an NCR flag hung limply from a pole beside the station, but from almost a mile away, John couldn't tell how many soldiers were garrisoning it, if any.
The other three Securitrons awaited where the flatland started to give way to the rocky foothills, a couple of miles north of the limestone quarry the eye-witnesses said the deathclaws had turned into their home. If he squinted, John imagined he could see the top of Goodspring's graveyard hill far in the distance, several miles to the south-west. He let out a long breath, then directed his mind back to the matter at hand.
"Anything to report?" he asked the picket of Securitrons.
"Mr. House ordered these units to wait for your arrival here, citizen Doe. These units waited."
"Okay. Good. Any sighting? Any movement from the quarry? Black Mountain?"
"Both lie beyond sensors' range, citizen. These units' orders were to wait."
"And you waited. Yes, yes. I get it." John looked up at the sky, then at his Pip-Boy. They had maybe two and a half hours before sunset, but it wouldn't do to get caught at nighttime around the nest, not when the whole area was supposed to be swarming with the critters. The good old U.S. of A had designed deathclaws as terror weapons and man-hunters in a time of global warfare; the cover of dark was just another advantage they were imprinted to exploit.
He paused, blinked, then filed the information with the other tidbits coming back to him piecemeal. After guzzling down some water, he handed a grenade launcher from the pack-mule Securitron to Boone.
"We're reconnoitering the nest, right now."
It was a long trek through treacherous terrain that led men and machines to the upper edge of the limestone quarry. The drab landscape lent itself to camouflage, marked by deep crevices, low hills, and rock formations that could hide a silent stalker in ambush. John felt exposed every step of the way as the sun inched lower; he kept his eyes roaming all the time, expecting a mutant lizard to jump out from behind every other rock.
Interstate-15 ran parallel to their path at times, compressed between rocky formations. Dry blood was splashed in great fans here and there; it decorated upturned carts and car skeletons, the odd busted crate or loose item that rolled away in the panic. Spent cartridges and shells glinted softly in the afternoon light. No body, limb, or bleached bone baked in the sun, however; dragging marks of flaking black cut lines across the tarmac, disappearing into the rocky hills.
More blood smeared the rocks around him in irregular patterns; it was faint, mostly covered by the windblown dirt. All of it was black and crumbling, weeks old at least. All led, inexorably, to the quarry.
Boone selected a sniping perch on the ridge, upwind and with the setting sun on their backs. John set down the M60 on the bipod and unloaded some extra ammo from the pack-mule, leaving the Securitrons just out of sight but ready to intervene and rain death on the quarry below.
At a single glance, John could tell Boone had picked a prime spot. The quarry opened up beneath them like a gaping wound in the hills, all concentric terraces and conveyor belts, still and unmoving. Several trucks and backhoes lay unmanned here and there, frozen and empty where the miners abandoned them weeks before, to flee from the deathclaws.
John wiped the sweat away from his brow and glued his eyes to his binoculars.
'Where are they?'
"Look," Boone said seconds later. "Lower ring, two o'clock. Near the cave."
Shadows were growing longer across the quarry. It took John a moment to parse what exactly he was seeing. Blast marks blackened that whole stretch of the quarry. Amidst all that were deathclaw corpses, huge and smaller, desiccated and shriveled up where they weren't just yellowed bones cracked open by vultures to find the marrow inside.
The eye of that storm, long blown past, was a massive carcass; the dark scales, the backward curve of the remaining horn, and the sheer size could only belong to a nest mother. More lay around her, their broken forms arranged almost in a protective circle.
"Blew them to high heaven," John drawled. His mind was running. Who had that kind of firepower to throw around? He discarded bounty hunters and mercenaries in the same breath: they worked for a profit and hunting deathclaws was risky, expensive business. Nobody had turned in the heads for a reward. Who then?
The Fiends? 'Would they even care?'
The Legion?
John scowled. If someone benefitted the most from cutting Vegas's supply lines after Mr. House, it was them; killing the deathclaws was counter-productive. If anything, he could see them driving a pack from the Divide into the quarry in the first place.
The scowl curled into a frown. The remains were weeks old, at least, but both the NCR and Mr. House still believed the deathclaws were up and about. Mr. House's latest reports spoke of sightings less than six days old. Maybe a few had survived and been roaming? Why hadn't they met any so far, then?
"They didn't go down easy." Boone's words dragged him out of his spiraling thoughts. John blinked sweat away from his eyes. "Ten o'clock, near the hoist."
At first, he saw only heaped rocks and rubble; then, he noticed how they were arranged. One, three, seven, oblong lines tightly packed in a somewhat secluded corner. Even without crosses or markers, graves were graves.
"We're missing something here," John said as he climbed to his feet, lifting the M60. "I'm taking a closer look."
Boone unglued his eye from the scope for the first time in minutes. "It'll be dark soon."
'Says the guy with shades.' "We're already here. It'll take longer to trek back." He produced a small bottle of pills from a pocket and lobbed it at the sniper. "Cateye. Only two pills at a time. It's not addictive, but for a few moments your retinas will burn like staring at the sun."
"I know," Boone said, checking the label. "Standard procedure for night recons. You're using another Stealth-Boy?"
John answered by linking the sleek device to his Pip-Boy, then felt Boone's frown. The sniper's shades were poking out of a pocket, at last.
"That's the idea. Why?"
Boone was silent for a beat, sunken eyes searching, then, "How many have you burned through already?"
"A few." John shrugged. "I'll leave the schizophrenia to the nightkins, thank you very much."
"Not that. Paranoia. Addiction. Worse than most drugs." Another pause. The muscles in Boone's jaw were working up a storm. "I saw it happen, once. Keep it up, and it won't be your call."
"Duly noted and ignored. I know what I'm doing and when to say enough. Just stay on overwatch."
Night had well and truly fallen by the time John found a path down to the bottom of the quarry. His world switched between a familiar green hue and the blues of thermal vision, but neither evidenced any life signs. The vehicle's engines were dead cold. The only yellow and red blotch was his right forearm and fingers as he advanced, Fritz leveled.
The Stealth-Boy, however, remained switched off. That gave Boone a visual on him, but visibility made him prey on the turf of predators. The three cloaked Securitrons followed in formation around him, but if not for the telling crunch of trundling tires on gravel, he couldn't even begin to tell where they were.
He didn't like it, the exposure, but Boone probably had a point, even if John didn't want to admit it out loud. He felt weird and funny without the stealth-field. His finger brushed up and down the trigger and his skin prickled in the still night air. The hair on the back of his head stood to attention every odd minute during the descent; after a while, he'd have sworn Boone was peering at him down the scope. Sometimes, it was just a passing moment. Other times, the sensation lingered, summoning second and third thoughts. Paranoid thoughts.
John banished them as nerves and paranoia. Anyone would be nervous walking into a deathclaw nest, wiped out or not. He just had to stay focused, keep his mind on the right track. The pack-mule wasn't only up on the ridge with the sniper as artillery support.
He picked a cautious approach, searching for heat marks, then circled towards the graves, sending two Securitrons down in the other direction, to join up again at the mouth of the cave. The stench of decomposition was eye-watering, the reptilian corpses thoroughly baked, maggot-ridden, and rotten by weeks in the sun.
Up close, however, more signs of a two-sided battle jumped out at him. Here, the imprint of a body in the side of a truck, metal crumpled on impact, punctuated by dribbles of dried blood and claw marks rending the thick metal; there, the head of a super-sledge, covered in dirt and gore. The whole area, well beyond the blast marks, looked like a stampede had gone to town, even after weeks of erosion.
He ignored the pull of curiosity and skulked past the graves, signaling above his head to the mouth of the cave. He switched Fritz for the M60, checking that the belt wasn't jammed in the feeder and rolling his shoulder to loosen up taught muscles, then turned in the general direction of the Securitrons.
"Lights on."
Boone was already locked and ready to depart when John found him on the ridge again. A few miles behind the sniper's head, Black Mountain's tallest crest was like the edge of a serrated knife in the sharp greens of night-vision, the top of the satellite dish a silent promise of mayhem.
"It's the frankensteins. Can you believe it? They buried their dead." He hacked and spat some of the desert dirt clogging his throat.
"Frankensteins?"
"Super mutants." John shook his head. "There's seven of them buried down there. Well, what remains of them. The nest's abandoned. No trace of the younglings, just bones, leftovers, and smashed eggs. Everything's a few weeks old, far as I can tell."
Boone pinched the bridge of his nose, his face to Black Mountain. "Did House say how many there are up there?" John shrugged. "Muties with explosives are bad news; chances are they'll outnumber us. Again."
"Explosives are always bad news, man," John said, trying to swallow the shaking note creeping into his voice. 'Not now. Mission first. Keep moving. Keep fighting.' "It's all a matter of who lights the fuse first, and where. We have the Securitrons: not the sharpest bunch on their own, but they're fast, they sneak, and they pack quite the punch. Not to mention, my extra load."
"The muties killed the entire pack and lost only seven." Boone crossed his arms. "You're taking this too lightly."
"I'm stating facts. It's seven less for us to kill, plus how many wounded. This won't be like at REPCONN: we'll scout the area and make them come to us, not the other way around." He brought up the satellite view of Black Mountain on his Pip-Boy. A flip of a knob and a close-up of the area at the base of the satellite dish filled the screen. His annotations, vectors, and overlapping lanes of fire were scrawled everywhere, a scanned copy of the original plans hashed out at the Lucky 38.
Boone rubbed his chin. His eyes narrowed at him, at the pack-mule, then in Black Mountain's direction.
"I see. A crossfire."
"And lots of explosives." He offered Boone a tight nod and patted the sling strapped to the pack-mule. "Let's go say hello."
They agreed that darkness was a scout's best ally. With the risk of deathclaw ambushes drastically reduced after the findings in the quarry and the night still young, Boone suggested they get started immediately. John was of the same mind: the earlier the blockade was resolved, the earlier trade would resume and the monorail reopen, taking food and water north and blunting the famine.
He didn't delude himself about the nature of Mr. House's interest in Freeside, nor how far stubbornness and old resentment could take people. Some'd rather break and starve than bend.
Climbing Black Mountain was slow-going, methodical business. A road snaked up the mesa, a narrow strip of tarmac servicing the satellite array. A roadblock cut across it from side to side not two hundred feet in, but either the nightkins all remained under Stealth-Boy constantly, or none actually manned it. After over half an hour of observation with not a ripple in the air – thermal vision remained useless against stealth fields - John concluded the latter. Invisible sentinels around a very visible, artificial barricade would make little sense anyway, though he didn't even want to try and think like a mutant would.
Still, Davison had been on a wild goose chase for more Stealth Boys at Repconn. Chances were supplies weren't at an all time high. Maybe.
Boone bypassed the issue by pointing out the start of a hiking trail a little ways north, just beyond a rickety visitor center. The Securitrons' sensors and the ensuing sweep of the building revealed that the place had seen some recent activity. Drag marks and encrusted blood led them to the cold remains of a campfire and a meaty meal.
The deathclaw was a young and lean male, taller than John was. It was also tossed into a corner and missing its head, as well as some choice cuts. The whole room reeked of decomposition.
"A single cut," John said after examining the clean edges of the wound. "Lopped the head clean off, but no burn marks. It wasn't a laser."
"Shit. A blade?" Boone asked after a long beat.
"Probably. Pretty large and heavy thing I'd say, but damn sharp. Maybe some kind of ax." John shook his head, but his hand was tight on his knife's handle. Likely less than a toothpick compared to the monster thing that beheaded the deathclaw. "Put one from a few hundred yards into the brain of whatever wields it, and it won't be a problem."
That was the last either of them spoke for a while. A cold desert wind picked up as they began the ascent, numbing John's cheeks and cracking his lips. Hand signals replaced words seamlessly, a language more comfortable to Boone than words and one John found himself dusting off more and more rather than picking up. Rusted signs half buried in the dirt, the Securitrons' sensors, and John's Pip-Boy guided them up the winding hiking trails, often barely wide enough abreast for a single robot and steeper by the minute.
They coasted around and above the main road, careful not to kick up dust or give away their position to anything that might be watching. Twice, they had to backtrack and find a different route when old rockslides or plain erosion blocked their path. At various turns, John spied two more roadblocks; without exception, all remained deserted.
One hour turned into two, then four. The satellite dishes and radio towers loomed above his head, challenging even the Lucky 38 in magnitude.
Working on Mr. House's information and his stint at REPCONN, John had made a mental checklist. Arsenal, tactics, ambush sites, the works. After the discovery in the quarry, a lot of it flew straight into the dumpster. He adjusted what he could on the fly during the march from the quarry and ascending the mountain; at the end of it, he liked his odds better this way. Nothing better than enemies taking each other out.
It was another of Mr. House's lessons, bestowed upon him while being trounced at poker: running scenarios in his head upped his reaction times and adaptability. More importantly, it gave him a palpable margin of security that maybe this time around he wouldn't screw up royally, somehow. In any case, not much could be worse than rushing in wearing the metaphorical horse blinders.
That modus operandi showed its fallacy time and again; ever since Nipton, John had promised himself to turn it around. Repconn, Vault 11, the whole Benny business. Every time, another bust.
After the poor thinking that led to blowing up the Silver Rush and leveling half the district around it, this time he'd make it right by his word. Mental preparation would help, he'd figured.
A stand-off between super mutants inside a bomb crater littered with bones didn't count among his predictions, somehow. The two deathclaw younglings nibbling at the shredded legs of the man's body that hung by chains into the crater from a toppled pylon, even less. The reptiles cracked bones underfoot, competing for the tastiest morsels left.
'Hope he died before they started eating him.' Then he recognized the fashion of sports gear in the green hues of night-vision and swallowed the pity. At his side on the crest dominating the wrecked town and the bomb crater, Boone grunted.
"Not a war crime if it's Legion," the sniper said after gulping down some rad-x. The wind beating in their faces and hiding their scent from the deathclaws lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
"Yeah. What's one of them doing up here anyway, with all the radiation?"
"Scout, maybe." Boone adjusted his scope. "Things're getting heated."
"You can say 'I told you so' if you want."
The sound Boone made was the epitome of non-committal, but it still made John purse his lips. Dozens of super mutants crowded the edge of the bomb crater and the few natural platforms inside it, little more than ledges of compacted rubble. The Securitrons' latest count beeped on the Pip-Boy's screen, silencing the constant ticking of the Geiger counter in his earpiece. A whooping forty-nine, but there were a few suspicious gaps in the ranks that probably meant nightkins and Stealth-Boys. The good news didn't end there, either.
Even with his world bathed in green hues, it was hard to miss the two different populations of frankensteins mingling and hanging on every word and gesture of the two mutants in the middle of the crater. The vast majority were a dark green and covered in patchwork metal armor and gutted tires; the slightly taller nightkins, those visible and unhappy about it, favored minimal clothing, much like Davison's had.
Some were wounded. Scratch that, there wasn't a single one, color notwithstanding, that didn't sport a personal collection of scars and wounds. Some looked more recent than others, long and angry and still mending. Others missed an arm, a hand, or some portion of their face, adding new depths to the word ugly. Some were a collage of the above and much more. One of the green ones, going around bare-chested, was just a canopy of thick scar tissue from the chin down.
There was still enough firepower down there to rival the Iron Guard, John figured, grimacing. For every sledge, rebar club or spiked board, there was a minigun, a missile launcher, a flamethrower, or some juiced up LMG, and enough grenades alone to blast a battalion to pieces. Dangerous, but a nice bonus to his plan. The explosion blast would be enough, especially with the frankensteins all packed together. Then it'd be mop-up time.
'Time for an upgrade.'
Taking care to keep out of sight, he untied the Fat-Man from the pack-mule, then sent a radio command to the Securitrons. Fire only on my order. He'd sent the other three to circle the frankenstein parliament and cut off their retreat to the radio compound proper, up the last stretch of road to the far left of his position. Four pings answered on his Pip-Boy not a moment too late.
"Anything new?" he asked Boone when he crawled back to the vantage point, dragging the sling and one, precious mini-nuke. The sniper eyed the pocket nuclear device, then tilted his head.
"Can you listen in on what they're saying?"
John loaded the nuke into the launcher. "Why?"
"Green one keeps pointing at the body."
John picked the binoculars again, sticking them against his night-visor. The green mutie was on the far side of the crater, partially hidden behind its ridiculous interlocutor and the swaying body. The air on John's neck prickled: while the nightkin with a wig and – 'are those shades heart-shaped?' – flailed its arms around and paced, kicking up bones, Greenie stood still and smoked an honest-to-God cigar, clad from the neck down in a full set of stripped T-51 power-armor plates. When it turned around to address another mutie on the ledge above, the slab of metal on its back made John pause.
"Ten caps says that one's the executioner."
And sure enough, Greenie jabbed a finger at the dangling legionary a moment later.
John oriented his Pip-Boy in the parliament's direction. An input later, words began to pour from the earpiece, gravelly and low.
"Do you want to be a slave, Tabitha?"
The nightkin with the wig stomped on the ground, pulverizing a spine. Fragments and vertebrae flew as high up as the crater's edge.
"The two-headed bears fear the dreaded battle-cattle, but the battle-cattle fears and respects Utobitha! Squishy, puny humans are no match for the Master's elites!"
A roar went up from the mutants.
"Have you forgotten why we left the NCR?" The roar faltered. Greenie advanced. "You've broadcasted your position to every radio in the Mojave. For months. By now, the General will know there're super mutants up here. This alliance with the Legion is the best excuse he could ask for."
"Oh shit."
"What?"
John shook his head. Greenie wasn't done, "What you do in the wasteland affects all mutants, but you didn't think about it, did you? You just wanted to usurp the Unity. Become the new Master."
"Lies!" Tabitha erupted, a single voice in the silence. Nudging, elbowing, and shoving had silenced all but the most persistent among the green mutants. The shouting did the rest. "All lies!" Her voice shifted to a cleaner pitch, chewed gravel replaced by a rapid, cultured growl. "Best Friend Tabitha hasn't forgotten the Master's kind, invasive voice. Best Friend Tabitha awaits the Master's return. Utobitha follows the Unity! He promised he'd come back. The Master doesn't lie!"
"Doe. What's going on?"
"I'm not sure. The nightkin's out of its mind. Multiple personalities, or something like that. Worse than Davison." John dropped the binoculars and reached out for the Fat-Man. "And apparently a faction's allied with the Legion."
Boone paused. "The bones." He cursed. "Explains the missing caravans the past few weeks. Not deathclaws. Muties."
John nodded, then frowned as his hand touched only dirt. 'Where's the Fat Man gone?'
Boone cursed under his breath. Another round of shouts went up from the parliament. It almost muffled the crash of metal on metal and the warble of dying electronics. Almost.
John's nostrils flared with the smell of ozone. He spun, or tried to. A weight pinned him to the ground, stealing his breath; the muzzle against the back of his head made him freeze.
"Don't try it, human," another gravelly voice snapped somewhere above and behind him. "Don't. Marcus says we don't kill humans anymore unless they attack first, but he doesn't need to know. Just two more corpses lost in the wastes." The voice grew closer. Spittle hit the back of John's head. "Keep quiet and very still, or I'll rip your spine out. Through your chest."
Panic flared, but hate and disgust smothered it in the crib. 'Stupid idiot' came only a moment before 'They don't know about the three other Securitrons'. Beside him, flat on his belly, Boone stared ahead, hands at his nape. His eyes were closed, his lips moving with silent words. 'Is he praying?'
"Who are you?" John hissed.
"Quiet," the voice said. Or was it another? There were at least three sets of footsteps behind him. Maybe more. 'And they all snuck up on us, pretty as you like. Low on Stealth-Boys. As if.' "No questions. No staring. I'm trying very hard to be civil here." The muzzle nudged him. "Keep listening. Maybe you'll learn something."
John gritted his teeth so hard it hurt, crunching fistfuls of dirt in his hands. Maybe he could recall the other Securitrons through his Pip-Boy? Maybe. 'Cocky fucking idiot. So much for planning and first contact with the enemy. Idiot.' Around the crater, the racket had subsided enough again to make out Greenie's voice.
"Why else settle here?"
"Utobitha has everything a super mutant wants! Food, isolation, the warm glow of radiation!"
"You're trying to replace the Master's voice with a radio broadcast. Don't deny, Tabitha." Greenie took another step, offering a hand. The deathclaws stopped eating, hunched and tensing. "Come back to Jacobstown. We have a cure for the schizophrenia. It works. You can ask Keene."
Something snorted somewhere behind John. "She's hopeless. Can't believe she's trained two deathclaw pups to replace her robot. In her condition, that's a fear."
"I can't believe some human tricked her into raiding caravans for the Legion," another said. "Anyone who leaves a pawn up here doesn't care much for their lives. Good Man, ha!"
"Humans," the one above John said and the weight on his back increased for a moment. More voices grunted and hummed in agreement. "Doesn't matter. We were all hopeless. She deserves a chance. Same as everyone else."
"The brothers that died to capture her pet lizards won't get it," the one pinning Boone spat. The sniper grunted as the nightkin shifted its weight.
"Enough," the nightkin pinning John said, silencing the others. "It's starting."
Tabitha stopped pacing, its wig askew atop its head. The mic failed to pick up its grumblings, but the next shout was loud enough through the earpiece, it left John's ear ringing.
"There's nothing wrong with the nightkin! Even the horn-lizards recognize nightkin as superior. Tell him, Rhonda! Tell him!" Tabitha grabbed one of the deathclaws by its scruff and held the writhing creature before her like a puppy. "Supreme Commander Mama Tabitha is so smart and audacious. She keeps us fed here. Without Supreme Commander Mama Tabitha, we'd rut in the dirt like the inferior creatures we are!"
"Then where's Davison? Where's Kurt? Drew? Char? Daggarth? Dog?" Greenie threw every name like a punch. "I don't see them here. Are they buried in the quarry? Lost on some fool's errand? How many more, Tabitha? Come back to Jacobstown. We cannot reproduce. Every life is irreplaceable!"
Silence. A mutant shouted his approval, fist in the air. Then another. And another. Within moments, the chant of 'Marcus! Marcus!' grew until Black Mountain itself seemed to shake with it.
"Dumb! Stupid Marcus! Kill him, Rhonda! Kill him!"
Meal forgotten, one deathclaw charged, aiming low; the other galloped halfway up the slope, circling Greenie's side, and leaped. On the lookout, John's eyes widened.
Greenie stepped into the charge and opened the deathclaw from hip to forehead with an upswing. The mutie torqued with momentum, kicking up dust and spinning the blade above its head. It bit into the second deathclaw's side mid-flight as the first staggered back; the leaping reptile went crashing, screeching in an eruption of blood as Greenie's blade continued. Momentum carried the super mutant, spinning faster, weapon closer to its chest. It struck the first deathclaw again as it hit full circle, lopping an arm off and carving into its torso from side to side.
The mutie planted a foot and shoved, freeing the blade. The nearly bisected deathclaw crumpled with a wheezing rattle that sent blood spurting out of its chest.
'Jesus Christ.' John swallowed and blinked. Greenie's handiwork stayed.
'No. Not Greenie. Marcus.'
Tabitha was on the shorter mutant without a moment of respite, lungs emptying in a blood-curdling scream. Super-sledge crashed against blade, like two meteors colliding. Marcus stepped back, then pushed and slammed the pommel into Tabitha's face. Distance closed, Marcus dropped its weapon and grabbed the handle of Tabitha's. A tug-of-war ensued; fists, knees, and headbutts flew in both directions. Bone-white and yellow ash billowed around the fighters in clouds. Tabitha's heart-shaped shades shattered, but its blows hit metal. Marcus's smacked flesh.
The sledge went flying. Tabitha dove for the sword, but the other mutant drove its face into the ground instead. The nightkin howled, pawing at the bone shards piercing its eyes. Meaty arms wrapped around its neck into a chokehold, cutting the howl down to gasps. Tabitha's struggles weakened. Then, silence.
The nightkin holding John at gunpoint sighed. "About time. I told him words were pointless."
"Gather your things," Marcus said, addressing the silent parliament, "we're leaving for Jacobstown. Now. Neil, fetch some chains to bind Tabitha and stop the bleeding."
"Marcus take her wid us?" one of the green mutants growled from the edge of the crater.
"No one left behind," Marcus said, and that was it.
John's blood went cold when some of the visible nightkins trudged back to the radio compound, but the Securitrons didn't open fire, still waiting for John's signal. In less than fifteen minutes, they'd returned, carrying supplies and a limp Mr. Handy; chains packaged the unconscious Tabitha, and the muties were ready to depart. By then, John was losing feeling to his legs and the biting cold of the desert night had seeped into his bones. Boone was still beside him, blinking slowly. His breath came out in steady puffs.
John watched them disappear down the main road and sighed internally, coals burning in the pit of his stomach.
"Get going," the nightkin leader said. Boone exhaled. John's confusion and to his shame, hope, lasted only a moment. "Better deal with the centaurs before someone remembers they exist." The weight didn't lift from his back, but the muzzle left his nape. "Nice rifle, human. I think I'll take that too as a souvenir."
'Not Fritz. Not again.'
The weight lifted from John's back and his brain shut down. The artificial hand darted up and closed around the muzzle, bending the metal even as he twisted on himself and brought Fritz to bear one-handed on his attacker. A meaty hand engulfed the rifle's other end as he squeezed the trigger; laser fire lanced straight through violet flesh, but the nightkin leader didn't let go or cry. The familiar stench filled John's nostrils, yet he didn't fire again. He'd miss anyway. None of the other nightkins around the downed Securitron nor the one pinning Boone opened fire. One of them was shouldering the Fat Man.
John and the nightkin held on the other's weapon. The mutant's raw strength, ready to explode and overwhelm him, traveled through Fritz to shake John's flesh arm. They studied each other for a moment, then the nightkin smiled, all gums, saliva, and blocky teeth.
"You've got guts, human. Brave, or very stupid. What's your name?"
John put all the hate he could muster in every syllable. "John. Doe."
"I'm Keene, John. Doe. You can keep your toy. It's too small anyway." The nightkin let go of Fritz. For a moment, John contemplated blasting its head off. The other nightkin aiming their guns at Boone and him stayed his hand.
"Not that stupid, then," Keene said. "Don't try and follow us. We'll know if you do."
Inside the broadcast building, the Geiger counter's ticking barely faded. Munching on more rad-x, John planted the remote signal transmitter and linked his Pip-Boy to the main broadcast control board. He selected the new frequency popping on the screen, then activated the physical commands on the console. A long minute passed as the smaller dish atop the broadcast building realigned towards the Lucky 38.
On the tv screen of the Securitron that followed him upstairs, the grizzled soldier's face flickered. Mr. House's appeared.
"You lost only a unit. All things considered, it's the result that counts. Well done, Mr. Doe."
"Black Mountain's yours, sir." And yet, success tasted like ashes in his mouth.