Missing in Action 26) "Through the Fire and Flames"
My thanks to the review gang DmCrebel25, ScrimshawPen, Aegon Blacksteel, Typedoutatnight, CMY187 (x3), WilSquare, JSailer (x2), colstrent (x2), Winding Warpath for their feedback and reviews.
0 = MiA = 0
Johnathan's lungs smoldered as his belly muscles tried to squeeze his organs into mush. He hacked in his hand and in the dim predawn, blood-stained spit stared back at him from his gloved palm.
He frowned. Had he caught the measles, somehow? No, it couldn't be. House had said he was vaccinated, and he hadn't got that close from anyone at Aerotech anyway. Maybe it was some mutated strain?
He checked his forehead, then his Pip-Boy. He wasn't running a fever. Not yet, at least. His vitals were in the green, anyway.
"Just running myself ragged with this stakeout," he told his companion, then wiped the dribble on the moth-eaten shirt belonging to the skeleton.
Propped up against the wall of the apartment John had turned into his scouting spot two nights before, the skull kept grinning through cracked and missing teeth.
Johnathan shook his head, downed his morning dose of lithium, and strapped his gear to his harness. The holo-camera Mr. House had provided him with hadn't made a peep during his few hours of shut-eye. It was pointed through a hole in the wall at Aerotech's entrance gates, the only real way out of the quarantine zone. The walls were too high to climb and the army garrison made sure to keep the perimeter as tight as they could.
He'd made sure of that on the first night.
Thinking of that brief bout under a Stealth Boy's cloak gave him a shiver and made his throat run dry. He was keenly aware of the extra one still at full-charge in his medical pack, but he buried it under a stale breakfast he forced down past the knot in his stomach.
The camera was programmed to recognize both Veronica's likeliness and the Enclave eyebot that now followed her around like a dog. Johnathan swallowed a mouthful of insipid cram and took up his binoculars, making sure he couldn't be seen from the parking and office complex in the street below, across the highway.
After a few minutes of searching, Veronica's hood and the bobbing robot strode out of one of the buildings, both carrying supplies and assorted tools.
Johnathan grimaced. The Followers had been fighting the measles outbreak for two days without much success. More sick people, mostly refugees from the southern Mojave, were forced through the gates by military sweeps every other hour; body bags trickled out to be buried in the potter's field or burned to try and prevent contagion. Several shacks and abodes were smoking heaps already for much the same reason.
Fires had been burning non-stop since the previous afternoon, a dozen grey and black lines cutting above the city ruins. McPayne said was no real cure once the sickness showed, other than keeping the patients clean, fed, and hydrated.
Judging by the baggage train the Followers carried in on the first day, however, John figured they would need to begin rationing in maybe another day.
How long until sickness and fear led to violence? How long before someone tried to make a run for it, and the army shot them down?
Johnathan sighed, checked his Pip-Boy for any update, then changed position to scan the caravan rest area. It wasn't that long ago that Cass, Veronica, Boone and he had shared lunch there, had it? A few caravans crowded the area at dawn, having trickled in since the previous afternoon with their brahmins and loaded carts.
No more than thirty people in total and none of them wore the metal armor of Veronica's associate, Stenton, or carried any energy weapons. The background noise they made was too strong for his mic to pick up their conversations, however, or any within the office complex further off for that matter.
The only thing of real notice, anyway, was the hulking mutated bear hitched to one of the carts. The bear scratched at the ground and paced, but it seemed docile enough under the scrutiny of a pale, powerfully-built caravan master.
It didn't stop the soldiers on duty policing the rest stop from keeping their rifles at the ready, however. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking what they were looking at as they let a couple of caravan hands through without even checking the bags they carried.
All in all, the weirdest thing was why these people hadn't left already at first light. Wasted daylight was wasted money – Cass had said something like that, once, before Nipton. Very little had been offloaded to trade. Not too surprising there: the people at Aerotech must have very little left to barter. Only sickness and misery called the place home these days.
And Veronica had been elbows deep into it for two days straight. She'd never made an attempt to leave, even if by now, news of Lost Hills' capitulation and Navache's parading High Elder Maxson around must have reached her.
Johnathan's breakfast turned to ashes in his mouth, and he spat it out.
'What the hell am I even doing here?'
He followed Veronica's profile until she disappeared into one of the sick wards. The temptation to warn her was strong, but he didn't know how without tipping off his boss. What if Mr. House had some Securitron around he hadn't told him about? And then there was the Pip-Boy at his wrist.
Joana's security, their livelihood and freedom hinged on Mr. House's goodwill and need for him, but something hot and ugly churned within John at the thought of selling Veronica's chapter, her family, to the NCR and the Iron General for political brownie points.
There was war and then - then there was what he'd done by detonating the Silver Rush. The needless slaughter of the innocent and helpless.
Johnathan rubbed his eyes until it hurt. What right did he have to judge another mass murderer? He was a hypocrite. No better than any other name on his list of people who ought to die horribly. Benny never blew up neighborhoods, did he?
The Pip-Boy's alarm chimed in his earpiece. John took a deep breath to compose himself, then turned towards Mr. House's face on the screen.
"Good morning, sir."
"That depends, Mr. Ross. Updates?"
"Veronica hasn't made any attempt to leave yet, and nobody from the Brotherhood has contacted her as far as I can tell."
Mr. House hummed, dissatisfied. "Be on the lookout. The tracker in her suit went dark again a few hours ago."
"Understood, sir." He cleared his throat against a choking stiffness, then asked, "How's Joana? Have the Omertas bothered her again?"
"She's working hard and sends you her best." House voice flattened. "She's safe and will continue to remain so. Anything else, Mr. Ross?"
Ho, wasn't there. What the situation at McCarran was after the monorail bombing, to mention one. Where in the world Boone had dragged himself to, to say another.
Or maybe what made it right to build the bright future of humanity on piles of innocent dead.
Johnathan couldn't pick one. After a moment, his mouth clicked shut.
"Good. One more thing: the Boomers are conducting some retrieval operation on the shore near Bitter Springs shortly. It's likely that Ms. Santangelo will exploit the chaos from their artillery barrage to slip away. Stay on the ball, Mr. Ross, and do not abandon your post."
Johnathan blinked. "The Boomers are what?!"
"It's just an old bomber they based their foolish cult around." Mr. House sighed. "Terribly outdated. It was in the file I gave you. It looks like they finally have the means to carry out the retrieval after some fashion."
"And we're letting them, just like that? With an armed bomber, the Boomers could –"
"- Do no harm to New Vegas, Mr. Ross, or any of the people under my protection. Do you think I'd let them, otherwise?" Mr. House pixelated face didn't twitch, but his voice sharpened into a sneer. "I have means to deal with airborne threats with little to no collateral damage, and that is in the remote chance the Boomers can actually make their Lady of the Lake take off anyway. Remember, I saved Vegas from the nukes. Some history relic won't be an issue. As for their howitzers, Freeside and the Strip are well outside their maximum range."
Johnathan turned to the empty window to the north, but Lake Mead was concealed behind the city's jagged skyline. There was a refugee camp teetering on collapse at Bitter Springs, Cass had told him once. Then there were the communities eking it out in the ruins of the suburbs and close to the shore, who relied on fishing, Route 93's traffic, and the NCR's presence at Camp Golf to survive.
All of it was on Mr. House's files. He had to know about it.
How many would be in range of howitzers manned by those xenophobic nutjobs, especially if the Boomers used rocket-assisted projectiles?
"Sir, at least intercept the artillery strikes. It's gonna be a slaughter!"
Mr. House's silence was filled by Johnathan's heartbeat, burning against his sternum.
"Even with the new power plant up and running, the drain to power up the AA guns for any extended period of time would slow down the assemblage of new Securitrons for several days, Mr. Ross. It's a delay I can ill-afford at this juncture."
Johnathan's fists closed around the windowsill. His artificial fingers dug into the concrete. "Sir, please. This isn't about politics! It about the people!"
"Every conflict is always a matter of politics and business first, Mr. Ross. This one is no different. And our people will be safe." House was silent for a moment, then, "Take this lesson to heart and stay alert now, it's starting."
The distant echoes of detonations drove the reality ever deeper home, hammering at tempo against the inside of his skull. House wouldn't stop the Boomers. He wouldn't counter the barrage. It wasn't convenient after, was it?
A wounded, boxed-in NCR was a more pliable political partner than a healthier Republic. Sooner or later, they'd come to House for help, and he'd squeeze them dry. What were a few dozen lives to that?
Just an acceptable price.
Johnathan snarled, shards of concrete digging into his artificial palm. Then he choked on his words at the howl of an explosion and the screech of curling metal.
"What on Earth -" Had House miscalculated? Did the artillery reach further off? He darted back to the other window, bowling the skeleton over in the process.
Smoke, dust, and raining debris choked the air around Aerotech's gates. It rolled on, engulfing some of the nearest dwellings, some straight-out flattened by the blast. The jumble of cries and wails soared up next.
John's hands curled against the windowsill as he tried to link the dots, holding his legs still against the maddening urge to rush down the stairs, across the highway, and help.
A bloodcurdling roar and the bear was loose. No, it was cut loose. In the rest area, few caravan hands prodded it towards the refugee camp with spears and crackling cattle prods. Face wraps a faded crimson and dark goggles concealed their faces, and there were slave collars and machetes hanging openly at their belts now.
All the other caravaneers were up in arms too: guns, blades, and javelins butchered the picket of soldiers at the rest area and the legionaries swarmed on like locusts. Some bee-lined for the smoke around Aerotech's gates, others charged into the maze of shoddy dwelling and rickety shacks, kicking doors or and falling on the refugees who stumbled out in confusion.
The tall caravan leader hefted a flamethrower, but it was the plumed helmet he wore that nauseated Johnathan.
Under it all, a steady chant rose to drown the cries for help.
"Caesar Triumphet! Caesar Invictus!"
It was Nipton, all over again. Only this time, he had a front-row seat from the incipit, rather than being a witness of the grisly aftermath.
"Your priorities haven't shifted. Don't forget your mission, Mr. Ross." House's voice came to Johnathan like a siren's song from a distant cliff. "Track down Ms. Santangelo. The NCR will handle this bunch of savages."
"How?! This is a coordinated strike! The Legion must know about the Boomers and the McCarran bombing. The NCR doesn't have the manpower!"
Muzzles flashed erratically in the dispersing smoke as soldiers tried to stall the charging legionaries to little avail. The bear barreled through a shelter and a high-pitched wail was cut short by a sickening crunch.
And behind the Legion lines, the decanus advanced, bathing every odd house in flames.
"You have your orders, soldier."
The John Doe who woke up in Goodsprings, the man saved by Doc Mitchell and Sunny out of nothing but kindness, would shoot Johnathan Ross dead where he stood. He'd be just another bastard crossed off his list, like Alice McLafferty and Gloria Van Graff.
Like Benny.
Then he would rush in and take another flamethrower to the face if that was what it took to save even one more life.
Had it really only been little more than a month?
Fritz's stock was cool against his cheek. The first two beams went wide, burning into the tarmac around the decanus. The third and fourth found the fuel tank on his back, carving through the metal and igniting the liquid inside.
"This is wrong, sir," he said over the distant explosion, already sprinting out of the apartment.
"And what about your wife, Mr. Ross? Unruly employees are a liability to me. A superfluous expense. Now turn back and follow your orders before I lose my patience."
John paused and peered up and down the elevator shaft. The car still hung a few levels above him, locked in place by emergency brakes and rust, leaving the cables tied to the counterweight taught along the length of the shaft. Stairs would be too slow.
"She'll understand." A growl climbed up his throat. "Harm her, touch a single hair of her head, and I go to the NCR with everything I know."
"No, you won't." House's voice poured like oil into his ear, thick and cloying. Outside, the gunfire picked up in volume. So did the screams. "Who would believe an Enclave soldier? A mass-murderer? The Butcher of the Mojave? You have nothing. You are nobody without me. This is your last chance, Mr. Ross."
John stomped on the earpiece, switched off the Pip-Boy, and jumped. His artificial hand grabbed the cables, and he plunged down to the scream of tortured metal.
0 * MiA * 0
Legs still aching from the landing, John rushed out of the apartment block and onto the sandblasted highway. Medical supplies dropped from the open kit at his belt, but his searching hand closed around the Stealth-Boy. He reached the cover of the barriers in the middle of the road just as a legionary, one out of the eight clustered around the burning remains of their leader, shouted in alarm.
The rounds slamming into the concrete inches away from his head were but a pitter-patter as the stealth field washed over him. It was like hitting the bed at the end of Hell Week in boot camp, or like being plunged into icy water high on a fever.
His fingers danced like sparks as he primed a couple of stun grenades, crouch running along the barrier. He flung them hard in opposite direction, making them bounce and skip between the legionaries' feet as he vaulted behind a car wreck to avoid ricochet fire.
Someone shouted in Latin; hands grasped for the cylinders, but it was too late. Groans and cries replaced bullet discharges as legionaries fumbled with their weapons. Some tried to stumble away, their hearing and balance shot even if they wore darkened goggles. A few cried louder as they stepped into the fires burning from their leader's demise.
By the time he rose from cover, a couple of concussion grenades were landing among the slavers.
The shock wave threw everyone in a two-meter radius off their feet to land in broken heaps of limbs and squished organs. The survivors ducked and tripped, hissing and clutching at their heads. Fragments bounced off John's armor and helmet as he put the closest legionary in his MP5-SDK's sights and fired.
"Please," the last one said, trying to crawl away. His foot-wraps and pants were smoking, hands blackened from patting down the flames. "I-I had no -"
Two to the brain shut the legionary up. John's heart was hammering behind his eyes and his lungs ached against his ribs. 'Like shooting fish in a barrel.'
John double-tapped the legionaries downed by the grenades, then sprinted on, changing mags on the move. It was nearly a straight line to the blasted remains of the main gates to Aerotech; the gunfire was loudest there, with legionaries hunkered down behind wrecks and shacks and adobe walls, their minds and muzzles on the resistance ahead. More were pouncing towards the smoke, blades naked and ready to hack.
Easy targets with their backs exposed, laughable to catch in a pincer… but at least a good dozen more slavers had spread out into the shanty town, and there was the raging bear.
Animals always sought the easiest prey and slavers were no different. The kids, doctors, and sick in the Park had soldiers to defend them. They had Veronica, who'd taken on Lyons barehanded, and her reprogrammed eyebot. The rest of the refugees were on their own.
John squared his feet in a shooting stance and emptied an entire mag into the legionaries' backs in short bursts, sending sharpshooters and chargers alike to kiss the dirt. Return fire was sporadic: unable to see or really hear his gun report over the mayhem, the confused legionaries scrambled to find new cover.
He was long gone by then, anyway. The shanty town was a maze of sharp turns and cul-de-sacs; canvas burned overhead and ramshackle structures leaned into each other, threatening to collapse at any moment. It all blurred at the edges of his vision as he dashed past kicked-down car doors, planks, metal sheets, and torn canvas acting as doors or maybe walls, a drab background against the shining Legion crimson.
The first legionary dropped like a doll on the young woman he'd pinned to the ground, three bullets buried into his brain. His two comrades didn't even notice, too caught in a frenzy of snapping collars and manacles on the dazed refugees, a middle-aged woman and an older man they'd pushed to the ground in a side-alley.
"Two more. Two more," one was reciting like a mantra as the metal clicked. "Just two more and -"
John snapped his neck like a twig, then fired a burst point-blank at the other's temple. They both collapsed like sapling trees and only then the first refugee started to scream at the fresh blood splashed on her face and the dead weight pinning her to the ground.
A pull with his artificial fingers and the crude metal around the refugees' necks and wrists gave way. They flinched away, clustering like scared cats, eyes wide searching for the invisible rescuer.
"Take their weapons and get to safety. Stay away from the fire and the main gates. Go!" Then he turned on his heel and disregarded his own advice, plunging deeper into the shanty-town.
Twice more he happened on legionaries too feverish and engrossed in their slave-making to notice their comrades were dropping like flies before it was too late. And yet, other than his handiwork, very little killing was going on: even when the smoke was clogging an abode and their lungs, legionaries wouldn't let go of their prisoners.
One tried to reach for the leash he'd dropped when the 9mm bullets shattered his kneecaps even as John stomped on his back and put the Sig-Sauer against his nape.
Another cried for his mother and sister even as blood filled his lungs. "J-Just another," he gurgled. "Please. I only need another. Mom!"
By the time the last mag clicked into the MP5, John was out of breath and sweating, but he figured he'd looped around to the other side of the main gates. The gunfire was loud and close, compounding on his headache, but he counted fewer reports. The Legion's battle-cries had quietened too, replaced by the jolly tune of Yankee Doodle.
He hoped the NCR and Veronica had prevailed as he rounded a corner, following loud sobbing into a low-roofed shack. There, he stopped cold.
The legionary was holding his head, bloody hands clutching fistfuls of grubby hair. He was curled onto himself, weeping. He couldn't be older than twenty.
"I can't do this, Maria," he wheezed, chest heaving. "I can't. I'm sorry, I can't."
"Shh, it's okay. It's not your fault." A thin woman about his age held him against her shoulder, leaning heavily against him as she rubbed slow circles on his back. Her face and bared arms were covered in a splotchy rash and dry coughs punctuated her soothing words.
They weren't alone in the shack. Half-hidden by the seeping smoke, another legionary was slumped across a filthy mattress. A blade was buried deep into his back, one of many leaking wounds, and his head smashed by a brick.
John deactivated the Stealth-Boy, pointing his submachine gun at the legionary and barking an order. The slaver turned up a watery stare, revealing dark bruises and scarred tissue wrapped around his neck like a band. Even staring at the muzzle, he made no move to run, nor begged for his life.
The woman put her hand over his and shook her head, then doubled over, wracked by a barking cough. Close up, there was no mistaking the resemblance between the two.
"- What's going on here?" John asked, lowering his gun an inch.
"Just leave us alone," the legionary said. "I won't harm anyone anymore. Just go."
The gunfire spiked then faded in the wake of barked orders. A roar and the screech of rent metal cut through the air. John stood transfixed, staring at the two siblings, the legionary and the plague victim with feverish eyes.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Slaves. We're just meat for the grinder," she said. "This is another Legion trick, fool. The measles, this raid. They sent the leftovers to die. We're all Caesar's puppets to the bitter end." More couching cut her short. Her brother wrapped an arm around her, staring into nothing.
"Just let us die," came the muffled whisper.
"No way." John tasted blood and bile, his belly cramping in disgust. The scars and bruises on the brother's neck cast a new light on the past quarter of an hour. The lack of discipline in the legionaries. Their obsession to capture more and more people, mindless of their own safety.
No, not legionaries. Desperate slaves used to sow chaos and get more slaves. Brother pitted against sister.
Had he killed any actual legionary today?
John holstered his gun. The metal was scalding in his hand. "Come with me. The Followers can treat you, and the NCR needs to know about… all of this."
A rumbling tremor, the scream of metal, and the stench of burned hide was the only warning he got before the bear mowed through the shack's wall like it was tinfoil.
The crazed beast was on him before he could turn fully, slobbering maw open wide. It closed around his artificial arm with several cracking sounds as John turned around, then he was soaring and slamming against the ground, again and again.
It was like Lyons trying to tear his arm off all over again. He screamed in pain as muscles tore and bones cracked. His head hit something and a haze descended over his eyes, a deafening thumping drilling from the inside of his ears, trying to escape.
He didn't feel the knife in his hand until he buried it into the bear's neck until the grip was too slick to hold on to. The beast howled and scalding blood poured down John's arm.
Then he was flying.
The cheap wall gave way under his weight. He tasted dirt as his world spun head over heels, awash with more pain with every second. He came to a stop on his side against something cool and hacked on the ground, spitting blood and a few teeth. His lungs felt like they were melting and black crept at the edges of his vision.
Somehow, his left arm was still attached to his shoulder, shards of bear teeth pockmarking the synthetic flesh. He tested his fingers, clawing around for some weapon, only to find Fritz and the MP5 missing.
The familiar hiss of Fritz's laser discharge reached him a moment later, punctuated by angry, panicked screaming. Righting himself to his knees, he saw the slave unloading shot after shot point-blank into the bear, screaming his lungs off calling his sister's name.
The bear fur caught fire, flesh smoking and sizzling under the onslaught. Roaring in pain, it turned a crimson paw around in an arc.
Time seemed to slow as the claws tore through the chrome metal of John's rifle and the arms holding it. Then the world was awash with scalding light that made spots dance in front of John's eyes even as he squeezed them shut.
When he opened them again, the young man was a smoking shape discarded in the half-melted remains of the shack. The bear howled in pain a little distance away, convulsing and clawing blindly at the ground. Its front paw was a charred stump, the flesh burned off its side and neck to reveal cracked, blackened bones. And yet, it still lived.
Of Fritz, there was nary a trace left.
It took a few tries and the support of the car door he'd slammed against for John to stand up. Even with his mutation hard at work, it felt like his shins were about to snap under his own weight just to stand still.
His ears filled with the bear's agonizing gasps and little else, John tore the car door from its weak hinges, then used it as a crutch to drag himself towards the dying beast. With every step, he had to stop and catch his breath, choking as the air turned into molten slag inside his lungs.
He tasted wet salt as he stood over the animal and lifted the car door. With a choked roar, he slammed the wide edge onto its neck, his full weight behind it. His legs buckled as metal ground against bone, fingers digging into the rusted panel, but he forced himself to stand and dislodge the thing from the bear's flesh.
Blood spurted all over him as he brought the door down on the bear's neck and skull, again and again. Soon, the animal stopped convulsing, but it didn't matter. It wasn't enough! He wouldn't be satisfied without pulping it for good.
And if House decided to show his mug at that moment, he'd pulp the smug bastard too.
Only when the bear's spine shattered and the remains of its head came off did John sag against the crumpled door, chest heaving and limbs numb from too much pain.
0 * MiA * 0
He must have passed out at some point, because the next thing he knew, he was being dragged around and there was a pistol pointed at his face.
"He's awake," the decanus holding him at gunpoint said. He'd lost his goggles and face-wraps at some point, leaving only the feathered helmet to cover a squat, flat face scrunched up in pain. "Festina lente, you two! Caesar will want to see this belua."
The cold bite around his wrists increased. Head spinning, John looked upside down to the manacles linked to chains held by two legionaries – or maybe press-ganged slaves. It was hard to tell.
One of the workhorses glanced briefly at him, only to snap his head to the alley ahead, a flat line of upturned cobblestones that unfurled between two-stories detached houses and scraped against John's shins and heels.
The Park was surrounded by apartment blocks. How long had he been out?
"We should ditch him, domine," the other legionary growled. That was Latin. Definitely Legion, that one. "We're too slow. The profligates are gonna be on us in no time. They could already be watching us!"
"Tace, Claudius!" The decanus's snarl turned into a groan. He pressed a hand against his side, where blood was seeping out of a gunshot wound. "I won't be shamed by your weakness and I won't be disgraced due to one of Inculta's games!"
Whatever Claudius's was about to say was cut short by the opening of Star Spangled Banner and a laser beam that pierced through the decanus's face, boiling flesh and brains. A banged-up, familiar eyebot soared out of the second-floor window, thrusters blazing and chassis gun firing wildly.
John snapped the chain holding his manacles together with a pull just as the legionaries dropped the chains and ducked for cover. He kicked at Claudius's leg and missed, his muscles heavy like iron, but the legionary fell screaming and trashing as a laser beam burned through his back, cutting through and melting organs.
The last legionary whipped out a revolver and peppered the robot with Magnum rounds that sent it careening off, warbling in protest. He whooped, but then the air above John's head hissed, and the whoop turned into a gurgle.
The legionary crumpled to his knees, then flopped on his back, the STOP sign embedded deep into his face still shaking with momentum.
"ED-E, you fool of a 'bot! I said 'follow', not 'charge ahead'! I should scrap you and use the pieces to build a toaster."
Veronica walked out of a side alley massaging her wrist, a gore-splattered fire ax hanging from a loop in her tool belt. The hood of her torn burlap sack was thrown back, revealing a stormy expression smeared by soot as well as drying blood. Gone was her long tress, replaced by an uneven bob of dark hair that framed a thinner face than John remembered.
The eyebot chirped and bobbed in the affirmative, playing a few notes from Yankee Doodle before Veronica rapped a fist against its chassis.
"Enough fooling around. Engage patrol protocol, thirty meters radius. Go." She sighed as the eyebot floated away, clasping and unclasping her hand before looking down at him. "Man, you look like a bear used you as a chew toy."
John pulled himself up to sit against a nearby wall and took stock of his situation. The legionaries had stripped him of all weapons and most of his gear; everything hurt, especially his ribs and back, and the world around him was swimming in bright, blurry colors.
He still forced out a chuckle that turned into a wet cough. "Trust me, I feel worse."
Veronica made a face, then crouched, set a small medi-kit on the ground beside him, and produced a syringe of morphine and a stimpack.
"Don't waste it. I'll heal." Eventually, at least. He hoped his mutation would set his spine damage right on its own. His legs felt funny, in that he could barely feel them.
Her grip on his shoulder was steel. "Shush, macho man. Stop being a pain in the ass." More than her words, it was her eyes that gave him pause. Weighed down by dark bags, none of the flippancy in her voice shone up there. They were dull stones: most of the light he remembered being there had been snuffed out.
She depressed the med-x in his neck, then split the stimpack between his ribs and legs, removing the chest piece of his combat armor in the process. The bear's ministrations had cracked it beyond repair anyway.
A sigh of relief escaped him as the pain lessened, but the meds did nothing for the awful churning in his stomach. "I'm sorry about –"
"Don't go there." Her tone was flat, but there was no missing the heat simmering beneath it. She turned to her medi-kit, snapping it shut and tying it to her belt. "You have no idea what you're talking about. I grew up at Lost Hills. I had friends there. A few cousins." Her hands struggled with the buckle and she cursed under her breath.
For a moment, he thought she was sniffling. When she met his eyes again, hers were almost dry. The light sheen gave them an eerie appearance. "You know, Christine was probably there too. The name will mean nothing to you, but I loved her, once. I liked to believe that she loved me, too. Navache killed her – he killed them all, or worse. And now he's parading the High Elder around like some dancing bear."
John opened then closed his mouth. He had nothing to say to that and even if he had, shame was choking his throat like a vise. He remained silent as Veronica looted the dead legionaries, recycling strips of their cleaner clothes as wraps around the torn bits of her burlap sack that showed the exoskeleton she wore underneath.
She gathered their pistols too, and the ammo for it. The revolver went into her belt, but she turned the blocky N99 in her hands, peering at it and at John in turn.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, she rooted around a pouch in her belt and produced a tiny black box no bigger than her pinkie. John tried to keep a straight face, but inside, he was cursing House and especially himself.
"Just tell me one thing: did you know about this tracker? Or was it all House?" She locked gazes with him, a new kind of flame burning behind her eyes.
John tried, but he couldn't hold it and looked down.
Veronica let out a strangled, humorless chuckle. "Of course you knew. I thought I could trust you, John. Stupid, stupid Veronica!" She closed her fist around the bug and began to pace, eyes rising to the sky before they slammed back into him. "And you had the nerve to say you were sorry when you and your boss tried to sell the last of my family to Navache!"
The crushed bits of the tracker hit him in the face. John wished the ground would open and eat him whole. When that didn't happen, he tried to stand, but his legs and back weren't quite up to the task.
"I don't work for House any-"
"Shut up. Shut the fuck up!" She jabbed a finger at his face, eyes flashing. Then she turned around and her shoulders shook and slumped as she took a deep breath.
"I don't even know why I came after you," she said after a few moments, shaking her head. "I thought you were my friend. I should have let them drag you across the river. Or maybe I should drag you back to Aerotech. The NCR would love to get their hands on House's henchman, I bet."
She studied him over her shoulder, eyes cold and indifferent, then dropped the N99 onto the furthest corpse and threw a loaded clip across the street.
"We're even now. The next time I see you, I'm punching your face in for good." She pulled the hood over her face and started off. "Let's go, ED-E. And no music."
John closed his eyes and banged his head against the wall, regretting the action immediately when agony blossomed behind his forehead.
"Veronica! Let me explain! Veronica!" He shouted himself hoarse after her, but the Scribe never looked back or even slowed once.
Soon, the ruins swallowed both her and her robot, leaving John alone with the bouncing echoes of his pleas.
"Goddamnit."
A morning wind blew against his face, bouncing off the alley's cracked walls. John turned his eyes to the sky, then sighed and started to crawl towards the N99, dragging his legs behind him.
First Cass, then Boone. Now, Veronica. And before them, Doc Mitchell and Sunny. One by one, he'd lost them all. No, he'd sent them away, estranged them, put them in mortal danger. Sunny was dead. His promises always fell short, always meaningless in retrospect.
Why did he even keep trying? What was the point?
He thought of Joana for the first time since the bullets started flying. His wife might be the last person he had left in this world, and she could be on the other side of a boiling ocean for all of his ability to get to her, her life prospects shifting with every swing of House's mood.
And yet, she may still be better off in the Strip. What did he have to offer her, other than a life on the run with death and danger behind every corner?
The Pip-Boy remained ever silent. Of course, he'd switched it off. John grabbed the N99 and slid the decanus' machete through his belt, then crawled on, wincing and coughing as his mutation did its dirty business.
God, it felt like he'd puke out his lungs at any moment.
He'd reached the mag and chambered the first bullet when the smell of ozone burned up his nostrils. Eyes widening, John flipped onto his back, swinging the gun around in his right hand, only for his left arm to be pinned to the ground by a boot that felt more like a boulder.
A stealth field rippled away like water, revealing a statuesque woman garbed in the green ceramics of Ranger standard patrol armor and wearing wide-brimmed Ranger hat over blonde hair tied up in a ponytail.
The assault carbine in her hands was casually pointed at his face, almost like an afterthought. It was the smirk on her tanned face and those strong, blue eyes, however, that turned John's gut to an icicle.
"And I thought we'd hit jackpot with the pilot." Sarah Lyons gave him a smile that would have been charming coming from anyone else. "You're a hard man to find alone, Johnathan. It's been a while."
John swallowed, not daring to blink even as the pounding headache redoubled. The 10mm gun in his hand felt like a kid's toy right now. Last time they'd fought – last time she beat him into the ground like a chump - she'd shrugged off broken bones and a full-on laser barrage by Securitrons.
But even if his hand was trembling, he still aimed it at her face.
"You're with the NCR now?"
"It's just a disguise," she said, indifferent. "You're coming with me, John. You have a face-to-face scheduled with my masters, and it's long overdue."
John bit the inside of his cheek. There was something off here, but thinking was hard. Lyons could knock him out in moments, and they both knew it. Then why all this theater?
"Why don't you make me?" he seethed through gritted teeth.
"I don't have to. You're coming willingly." Her smirk evaporated, leaving behind a grim line. "I snap my fingers, and Vonnie dies."
The words plunged into John's gut like hot iron rods.
"Courser A1-13 has her in his sights right now. It won't be quick, either. One limb at a time, and the laser will prevent shock from setting in too quickly. And if that's not enough, I'll personally beam up to Utah and bring back Rose of Sharon Cassidy for a little show. Remember Benny?"
The image made John's gut heave, but he gritted his teeth. The only comforting thought was that they didn't seem to know about Joana. Not yet, at least.
It had to remain that way.
"Why should I care what you do to them? They both left me."
Sarah held his gaze and cocked an eyebrow. The kind smile that crept on her face told him what she thought about his bluff. Then she brought her hand up, fingertips touching as if to snap.
"What will it be, John?"
0 = MiA = 0
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In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy 2019 filled with quality writing and stories!
