Seventeenth Hand – Burn
Date of Log: 8th January, 2282
Estimated Time of Memory: April 2262
You sure you don't mind this? The doctor who patched me up recommended it. I think he might have been joking, but I've been recording what I see in my dreams. All I ever dream about is my past, and it's good to keep track. That way I've always got everything I knew of myself before the… accident.
Go ahead. I'll get another drink. I know you'll want one too. Nuka cola.
Alright, great. And Six, if you're listening to these and you don't remember, right now you're sitting in the penthouse suite of a Vegas hotel with a woman named Rachel. You're fresh back from a trip to Zion to meet the Burned Man. Things are… strange for you right now. Maybe by the time you're going through these again you'll be able to make more sense of it all.
This one's from when I was young. Very young. Can't have been older than ten… in fact, I think if my memory of how old I am is accurate I would have been about seven. Maybe eight.
We were travelling, just me and my parents. The others had kept the area pretty safe, so we didn't expect to come across any trouble. Dad was making his way down to meet at some function for a bunch of his people. The 'Desert Rangers'.
Red Rock Canyon wasn't always home to the Great Khans. Years and years ago, before the tribe moved in and I joined them it was mostly empty. People still camped there, but without the safety of numbers it could be dangerous.
Dad was good with that gun, better than me, but even he had to admit how dangerous it was. So instead of passing through we took the less travelled road around the back of the canyon, a narrow pass that wound up behind it, coming down from the mountain's slopes.
It was a clear morning, thin white clouds flowing over the blue sky, wisps of vapour flowing through the air so far above us.
My feet hurt, we'd been walking for a few hours, and I could deal with that, but the days beforehand were beginning to take their toll. My legs protested every step, my eyes were drooping. I hadn't had a nuka cola in weeks.
I'm starting to remember that after I stopped drinking nuka cola bottles started disappearing around the Mojave.
There we were on the road, the heat rising off the asphalt, when dad's hand rose. "Hold on," he warned.
My eyes were getting better at spotting things too. It only took a moment before I could see it far in the distance. Something black lying on the road.
Dad drew his revolver, and we moved a little slower, him in front. After a while I realised there were two shapes, one black, one bigger, mostly orange.
That was the first time I ever saw a cazador.
Enormous and blue, with six legs splayed out. The wings were huge, orange, crumpled and bent where it had tumbled onto them and broken the thin appendage.
As we got even closer more details could be made out. The most obvious was that the cazador was dead. The reason for that followed; it's head had been viciously savaged, one of its eyes ripped entirely out of its socket, its neck hanging by a thread.
The stinger was missing; the horrific spear the giant wasps favoured using against their prey had been broken off.
The black shape moved, twitching slightly as we approached.
Dad's gun moved to aim at it, but his arm slackened. "Oh," he said quietly.
It was no beast or monster on the road. It was a dead dog, a great shaggy animal with the stinger of the cazador still buried in its side, the wasp's blood mingling with its own.
The source of the movement was not the dog, but her pup.
Three besides him lay encircled in their fallen mother's form, desperately clinging to the one who had saved them from the predator long beyond their ability to survive. Only the one pup had managed to keep itself alive for so long, but the weak twitch it had managed was the extent of its brief flicker of alarm.
Days had passed without food or drink, the cold comfort of resting alongside his siblings as they desperately hoped for their mother to awaken again slowly taking their toll.
"Poor thing," my mother sighed.
I took a step towards the aftermath of what would have been a savage struggle.
"Take a good look, son. The wasteland can be a cruel place, and death walks up and down these roads taking from whoever it pleases, be they man or beast," my father said sadly, watching me as I comprehended the sight before me.
I wonder how I'd react to a situation like that now? Heh, probably wouldn't be so different to how I had then.
I'm not ashamed to admit it; I was only eight. I walked over to that poor family of dogs and bawled my eyes out.
And that one little puppy still managing to cling to life…
Slowly my hand extended, tentatively running a solitary finger over the head of the survivor. It twitched and shivered at the contact. Poor thing was probably terrified that this was the end.
When it didn't break from the simple act of touching it I began to stroke it, petting the poor animal and attempting to comfort it.
"We can't afford to lose much time. Have a little longer, then let's put the poor thing out of its misery and get moving," dad instructed.
Until that moment I'd never really defied my father. I'd behaved poorly, thrown the odd tantrum back when I was still a little kid, but it always boiled down to dad knowing best, because he was the one who could keep us alive at the end of the day. My mother was a smart woman, but she was no survivalist. It was my father who had helped us continue as we did.
But when he said that, trying to teach a child the lesson that the Mojave doesn't care who it kills, and that sometimes death is something you can only help people achieve, not avoid, I refused to learn it. Not that day.
"We have to save it," I said solidly.
"Son, I know you want to," my father replied with a sigh. "But I'm afraid we can't. Sometimes these things happen. If we take a stray dog like this then we have another mouth to feed. On a long trip that might be the difference between living and starving."
"He can have my lunch today," I stated.
"What if he's got something? We could get sick because we took him with us and he infected us," dad explained.
"You'll fix him," I said, turning to look at my mother.
She was torn. The lesson dad was trying to teach me was a harsh lesson, but even she knew that it was true. Sometimes saving one person doomed more. If saving a single puppy killed three people, was it a trade-off worth making?
But I dare anyone to see what I saw that day and tell me they wouldn't hesitate for a damn long time to do what my father was saying we should.
He didn't want to, and I never want to meet the man who would, but years of travelling the wastes had turned my father into a realist. A pragmatist.
A kid like me, though? Not a truth I was ready for. We all start out with that idealism, and it takes years for the world to beat it out of us.
"Damien, maybe we should let him. Just this once," she said finally, taking my side.
Dad sighed. "Please don't make this harder than it needs to be. I wish he didn't have to learn it, but it might save his life one day," he replied.
"If we teach it right, that little dog might do the same thing."
"Or it could give us all some disease and we all end up dead before we reach the meeting. It's not fun thinking about the cons but someone has to. Don't make me the bad guy," dad pressed.
I continued petting the little thing, shuffling closer and trying to find a way I could ease it off the ground without breaking it.
He let out a whimpering yap as I continued.
"You can't be serious about doing that now," she sighed, looking at me. "I don't think it's even our choice at this point."
I looked up at my father, eyes staring intently at him, doing my best to look steadfast and resolute, even if I still didn't quite get those words.
"I want you both to understand what you're doing," dad said finally, his own eyes sweeping across me and the dog. "This one little act of mercy could do worse to us in the long run."
"You'll see, dad. We'll take care of him, and he'll help us," I replied firmly.
My mother moved towards me and crouched down, gently picking the puppy up. It shivered and whimpered, but she shushed it gently, holding it close to her chest.
"Get a little bit of food. Just a little, he won't be able to eat much yet," my mother instructed. I moved beside her and dug into her coat, finding the container of cut up gecko steak left over from the night before. We were going to have it for lunch that day.
I tore off a little chunk, and held it towards the puppy.
It sniffed the meat and attempted to move its weak head a little closer.
I placed the food at its jaws, and slowly they opened and managed to chew the food a few times before swallowing.
"Quick, Damien, a little water," she instructed.
Giving in, my father provided his bottle of water, unscrewing the cap. "Here," mum instructed, handing the puppy to me. He was too light for his size, I could tell right away.
She poured a little of the water into her open palm and held it under the pup's nose. After a moment his tongue flicked out to get a little of the moisture.
We continued the practice for a little while, giving it water and then a little more of the gecko meat. Mum told me that normally a puppy like that shouldn't be eating solid food yet, but we had to do the best we could on short notice.
Eventually the little creature started to look a little livelier.
"Looks like we've got another mouth to feed," my mother said with a smile on her face.
"Great. What do we call the little mongrel?" dad replied, but he wasn't angry. He didn't completely approve of how things had gone, but it's hard to say no to that kind of a scene.
"Dogmeat!" I exclaimed, trying to be funny.
Both parents wrinkled their noses at the idea.
"How about Cerberus? The little puppy found at Death's door. I'll tell you where the name comes from later," mum offered.
"Sounds too good for a mangy beast like him!" dad laughed.
"I like it!" I said.
Of course it was. Cerberus, the hound at the gates of the underworld, the afterlife, hell, or whichever place you think you go after life is over. And that was where we found that mongrel years and years ago. At the gates.
Oh, what the hell? I told Presper not to bother us. Interrupting my records…
~ The Atomic Wrangler: The West's finest watering hole! ~
The Ranger
8th January, 2282 (06:13pm)
"He got aggressive when I told him I was going to expose them. In the ensuing skirmish he was killed," Richard reported.
"And following that you returned here?"
"Yes. I moved from my post to pursue this inquiry, I knew what would happen if I were to turn up nothing and miss something important," the Ranger replied.
Hsu paced in front of the desk and gave Richard a pitying look.
"Oh no. Oliver's behind me, isn't he?" the Ranger sighed, partially joking, partially worried something bad was about to befall him in the form of his less lenient superior.
"Not quite," Hsu replied. "But I suggest you move quickly, or he will be more than a little agitated. The Courier has returned."
"Now I know you must be pulling my leg. Why would he come back?"
"Witnesses says there are two key reasons. The first is a woman," Hsu said.
"I've met her. Rachel. She's… a Follower," Richard reported, realising that his recent jaunt in the interest of the NCR's prosperity had ended in him blowing the brains of a Follower of the Apocalypse across a wall.
Hsu looked up at him. "I see. Well, hopefully that won't complicate things more than it already is. The Strip is a web, and we can't afford to have the NCR tripping over any threads, or that spider House is going to cocoon us tighter than he already has," he sighed without enthusiasm.
"Didn't know you knew what a spider was, sir," Morgan chuckled. "My dad used to tell me horror stories about the ones in Texas. He went into the Snared Zone once."
"I believe I read the file on that," Hsu mused, before returning the subject to its original road. "Regardless of the woman though, the other reason for the Courier's return might surprise you a little more."
"The other woman, Veronica?"
"No. He walked right into the Lucky 38. He came back to see House."
That changed things. "He's an agent?"
"Nobody knows. The rumour-mill's going insane. We can't get anything concrete beyond the fact that he went inside. Nobody knows what he did in there, of course, but the fact that he even can just made him extremely valuable. If we could get into the Lucky 38 imagine what we could do with its technology?"
"So Crocker's idea is being considered now?" Richard pressed, leaning over the desk the way he'd seen cops do it in the holovids when things were getting serious.
"Not considered. It's been given the green light, and since you're close to all this I want you to be the messenger. Last time we encountered the Courier we had guns and we were pointing them at him. You, on the other hand, he knows as something other than a soldier, especially now that you've met this 'Rachel' woman."
"I know I've asked this before, but you never give me a straight answer. Why were we gunning for him?" the Ranger demanded.
"That's classified beyond even me, Richard. I keep telling you I only know a little, and you keep pushing like I'm lying," Hsu replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Can you blame me? We shot ourselves in the foot hard over that man, and nobody has any idea why. Some of the men are calling him the 'Pirate of the Wastes' like he's been working against us from the beginning."
"We don't know he hasn't," Hsu pointed out. Morgan opened his mouth to speak but Hsu's hand rose to silence him. "Enough, Morgan. It doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you go and see him, and put the cards on the table. We can work out how we proceed once he's told us where he stands."
The Colonel opened his desk and pulled an envelope from it, placing it on the desk in front of the Ranger. Printed in red letters was a single word; 'classified'. On the back it had been sealed with duct tape, the two-headed bear of the republic stamped over it unceremoniously; a sign that General Oliver hadn't cared to put his name on the initiative. Only he and President Kimball got away with actual wax seals on their high-priority orders. Even Hanlon had to make do with tape.
"Take this, go see him, work out what we can do to help each other," Ranger Morgan summarised.
"Great. I have to get back to McCarran. I've got a few merchant caravans complaining about unfair play amongst the merchant businesses and rather than tell them to piss off Oliver decided I should placate them to try and keep business flowing," Hsu sighed, collecting a few files and following Richard as both left the office reserved for the Colonel's brief visits to the Strip.
"Good luck, sir," the Ranger offered.
"Thank you, Morgan. I'm going to want it," the Colonel replied with a half-hearted laugh before the two split off, he turning to follow the corridor leading out to the monorail and Morgan continuing onwards to the embassy's front doors.
Cass was waiting for him as he wandered out into the early evening. "So, guess who's back?"
"I heard. Where is he? Vegas is no fun when you're here on-duty, the sooner we find him the sooner I clock off and get to enjoy my stay," Richard replied striding out into the street, past the Securitrons who now guarded the embassy's gates.
The sound of the metallic beings twisting to watch him was unnerving as he passed. Forbidden from wearing weapons on the Strip, the Securitrons would be able to do as they pleased if the NCR truly angered House.
Then he realised the new faces on them were soldiers now, not just police.
It was like a noose tightening around their necks. House had always been a mixed blessing for the NCR, providing Vegas and running it just fine without them, even giving them a spot on the Strip, but behind the pleasantries there was always the distrust and the hints of subterfuge.
Not if the NCR struck first.
"Stacked Deck. Back to the scene of the crime," Cass answered.
"Wonder what takes him back there," the Ranger mused, heading towards the building made to look like a tower of cards.
"Throwing a party?" she suggested hopefully.
Morgan pushed one of the double doors in and stepped beyond, into the large foyer with the enormous pillar, wide enough in circumference that an entire man could comfortably fit inside. It rose all the way up to the ceiling, thirteen floors up and disappearing above into the suite at the top of the building.
The balcony of each floor stacked one above the other, each room with a suit facing them from the pillar in the middle of the room.
Sitting at the reception desk was an old man with a mass of white hair so thin that it no longer obeyed gravity, becoming a fluffy mass that tumbled unevenly down to the back of his neck.
His face, old and wrinkled, contorted into a smile as potential patrons approached, pulling the lines around his mouth taut. "Well, well, another customer or two, is it? And what key shall I fetch for you, my friends? Humble six of hearts? Or perhaps something more grandiose, hmm? The Queen rooms are just the thing for a couple who want a bit of luxury," he offered in a warm, somewhat laboured voice.
"Actually, I'm looking for someone," Morgan replied, making his way over to the counter and leaning against it.
"And for future reference, we're not together in any way beyond travelling companions," Cass pointed out, tailing the Ranger in.
The old man smiled and held back a laugh. "My mistake. Now, who was it you were looking for?"
"The Courier. We heard he was here?" Morgan stated, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
The old man looked down at the book he had been using to keep his clients and rooms in. The name 'Courier Six' was easy to see, booked into the most prominent room in the hotel. "He's here, but he asked not to be disturbed."
"My name is Richard Morgan. I know him personally, and I've got something here he'll definitely want to see," the Ranger tried to bargain.
"You can leave it here if you like, but he asked not to be disturbed," the old man stated apologetically. "Bad policy to go and bother him after he asked me not to."
"You can't just call the suite? It's just ten seconds and we both get to be done with this," the Ranger continued pushing.
The old man sighed and gave him a measured look, seeing if he could gauge how patient Morgan was going to be about his delivery. "He says no, you're going to leave?"
"Sure thing," he replied, confident he'd pass the test.
The old man mumbled something and picked up a wired receiver, tapping a few numbers on it and then holding it to his ear, giving a smile that was part irritation, part defeat.
"Sorry to bother you, but I've got a man here who says he's Richard Morgan, and you know him… well he claims to have something for you, and he's very insistent about delivering it now. Alr-what?"
Cass, uninterested by the building's design and finding nothing else to occupy her attention, reached into her jacket and unscrewed the cap on her bottle of whiskey.
"Oh, sorry. Interference with the line. Alright, then," the old man finished. "Sorry to bother you."
He placed the device back down and looked up at Morgan, smiling. "He said he's not open to guests right now, but if you'd like to leave that item for him I'll happily hold onto it for when he comes down again."
"What? Come on!" Morgan growled indignantly. "I need to see him."
"Sir, I called him for you, and you said you'd leave if he told you he wasn't accepting guests. He isn't accepting guests," the old man replied. "You can rent a suite to stay at if you like, but I cannot let you go and barge in on a guest when he's asked not to be disturbed. It's bad policy."
"He can give me a hand," came the voice of Aaron Holmes as the stepped out of the elevator. "The Courier just kicked me out for some time alone with Rachel, and I've got something to do over at the Old Mormon Fort. Care to travel with me, Ranger? I could use a keen eye for a walk through Freeside at this time of the evening."
Morgan was surprised by the arrival of the Follower, but he wasn't gaining any ground in reaching the Courier for now, and if what Holmes had just told him was true it meant he could write off the evening as a loss.
"I suppose I'm not otherwise engaged," Morgan agreed, turning back toward Cass, who had swallowed most of the alcohol in her bottle as soon as Holmes had appeared.
She coughed and shrugged, forcing the drink down her throat and keeping her mouth closed in case it shot back up.
"Excellent, let's not waste time," the Follower said, marching past the counter towards the door, passing Morgan and Cassidy as he went.
"Isn't there another chick who usually hangs around you?" Morgan asked, turning to follow him.
"Veronica. She's retreated to her own suite for the evening. Seems what happened earlier has given her something to think about," Holmes replied as they paced through the cool evening air.
The sun had slipped below the walls of Vegas, hiding beneath the towering buildings of the Strip. The neon lights had flared on, a new sun born every night in the heart of the city of sin, partying itself to death by morning. The next night a new heart of light would dance on the grave of its predecessor until it could do so no longer.
"What happened?" Richard wondered.
"You hadn't heard?" Holmes replied. "Earlier today a man tried to kill her in the street. She'd be dead if it weren't for the help of a good man with a revolver."
"I take it that was our Courier?"
"Courier Six? No, actually. Someone else, a man with a flag on his back. Didn't stop long, just gave Veronica a warning about the people she used to work with and then went on his way," the Follower explained.
One of the women standing at the front of Gomorrah gave Morgan a wave and beckoned seductively. He tried not to make eye contact.
"Sounds like a weirdo. What'd he look like?" the Ranger wondered.
"Didn't get a chance to see his face through all the commotion. He took out the guy and then was already on his way off the Strip by the time he stopped to give us anything to remember him by. Other than the bloody corpse of a would-be assassin, that is," the Follower replied.
Morgan turned to look behind him; Cassidy was being oddly quiet this evening. The reason was obvious. She continued to somehow have an infinite supply of alcohol, and was currently making her way through another bottle of it rather than join the conversation. He returned his eyes to the checkpoint as they passed through it.
"Still, that's not important. I'm interested Morgan, what's your opinion of the Enclave?" Holmes wondered, cutting right to it.
"What? The hell's the Enclave got to do with this?" the Ranger demanded, on edge just from the mention.
"I suppose that's something of an answer in itself," Aaron mused. "Humour me, I read a few things about them recently and I'm curious to see what the modern opinion is."
"Enclave? I know about them," Cass said, sparked into the conversation. "They're no better than the Brotherhood!"
"Worse, if the stories are to be believed," Morgan agreed. "They could have wiped out the NCR back in its early days if not for the Chosen One. Hell, some people even said they might have taken over America."
"All of it? Wonder if such a thing is even possible," Aaron mused thoughtfully. "Still, history claims it actually happened once, long ago."
"Yeah, I've seen the holovids. Huge cities, people everywhere. California's got nothing on 'em yet. Although Vault City's pretty large, maybe one day it could rival the Old World," Morgan replied.
"Wouldn't that be a sight?" Holmes said with a chuckle. "But if you want the Old World, look at where we are. Vegas is preserved."
The gates of the Strip opened, permitting them to enter Freeside once again.
"Maybe, but the place feels kind of cold, doesn't it? Ever been to Vault City? It all feels a little more… connected. Granted, some of that's because there are criminal connections everywhere, but people say hello in the street," Morgan said, shooting a glance back at the neon city.
Holmes laughed. "Criminal connections aren't your usual sense of community. You never did properly answer my question though. What do you, Richard Morgan, think about the Enclave?"
"Well they're bad, I suppose. I only know what they told me back in school, but they were hunted for a reason. Even one with access to the right technology could wipe out scores of people," Richard replied evenly.
"Saw a suit o' that armour they wore once," Cass interjected, now that the subject was back to the Enclave. "That shit could stop a grenade."
"Really?" Holmes said, surprised. "A grenade?"
"Well, maybe not if it was standing on top of it, but its fuckin' durabull," she slurred.
"Quite impressive. The Brotherhood's just as strong though, isn't it? Or was? So why is the Enclave feared like a phantom, while the Brotherhood are treated like very sturdy rats?" Holmes continued interrogating.
The streets of Freeside at this time of night were not yet at their most dangerous, but the lowlifes prowled all day long, so calling it the 'least' dangerous wasn't quite right either.
Fires burned in drums along the street, lit by the gangs of people standing around them for warmth, then later dragged away to somewhere more concealed when it was time for another night of sleep, hoping nobody would choose their door to break down.
Despite it all though, the lights were still on. Lamp posts continued to shine light down, illuminating the main street but leaving the allies from which the filth of Freeside's society could spill.
"The Brotherhood are predictable because the NCR's known them for so long. They go for technology, they hide in holes. If they went to take a place they're arrogant about it, they send squads, not armies. The Enclave was different. They had armies, and they didn't need to go for technology because they already had better. When they attacked their equipment wasn't whatever they'd salvaged and hoarded, it was the best stuff in the world," Morgan explained, keeping his eyes keen. "Why so curious? Shouldn't you know, as a Follower?"
"The Followers tend to discourage their own from pursuits like mine, even if they acknowledge the value of chronicling technological weaponry. Until recently the Enclave had been of little consequence to my research, but now I've encountered cause to investigate the matter a little further. Perhaps I felt chatty," Holmes replied.
"Care to elaborate on that?" the Ranger asked.
They approached the walls of the Old Mormon Fort as it was known, the well guarded base of the Followers of the Apocalypse.
"Hey, military man!" came a yell from a darkened alley.
The Ranger's eyes narrowed, and Cass suddenly became remarkably sober, pulling her shotgun from her back and sending the bottle of whisky twirling away to smash against the wreckage of a car.
"Easy, nothing's happened yet," Aaron said, hushed.
"Don't let them come to us," Cass growled.
Someone was walking up the street towards them, coming from the gates that opened out into the greater Vegas area. The darkness of the evening left the features unclear, but it didn't seem to be the form that had let out the yell.
Whoever they were they walked slowly and cautiously, the yell from the local likely having put them on edge.
"We don't want you here!" someone else yelled.
"Stay quiet, stay unassuming. We're only going to make things worse by drawing giving them a reason to get hostile," the Follower continued, trying to keep the situation calm.
The figure walking away from the gates passed them by. Up closer Richard could see it was a woman huddled over, dressed in rags with discoloured skin and gaunt eyes. Fastened around her neck was something thick and black.
Aaron rapped on a heavy wooden door set in one of the thick towers built on the fort's corners, and after a few moments a pair of eyes appeared through a slot in the door. "Oh, it's you. Bit late to be out walking, isn't it?"
"I brought an escort," Aaron replied, gesturing to Morgan. "Let us in, the locals don't like him."
"Aaron, this woman looks like she needs medical help," the Ranger said, turning toward the Follower.
Suddenly the ragged looking woman was alert, her wide eyes turning to them in panic.
"Wow, she looks like shit," Cass observed with mountains of class. "Get her a bed and some medication, doc."
"No," the girl replied, trying to sound polite but failing miserably, the word instead collapsing into a whimper.
All three of them sensed something was terribly wrong. Morgan took a step towards her, his hand reaching forward. "Hey, are you okay? You look like you need help," he offered.
The woman tripped over in her hasty attempt to get away. "No, no, no, no," she pleaded. "It wasn't my fault! I was trying to hide it!"
The thick object on her neck began to beep with increasing speed. Cassidy stepped back on instinct.
Aaron seemed to understand the situation. "Get that thing off her neck! Now!" he yelled. "Morgan!"
Used to taking orders on short notice, the soldier simply accepted that Aaron knew more about what was happening than he did, and he moved for the woman, who shrieked and pleaded for the beeping to stop.
"I'm trying to help!" the Ranger grunted as he knelt beside the girl and placed a hand on the thick black device. It's beeping was rapid and frenzied now, as were its wearer's shallow gasps of air.
Close enough now, he could see that the woman had something in her ear, a piece of technology that looked completely out of place amongst the ragged scraps she wore.
There was another voice he could hear under the woman's. That of a grizzled old man.
"The calibration seems to be successful. Range is still a problem. Better than nothing. Bye, sweetheart. You were useful enough."
In her final moments the woman gave up, giving the Ranger a chance to reach closer as the old man's words rang in his ears.
The bomb collar exploded, ripping her head clean off.
As Richard Morgan dropped backwards onto the ground, scorched wounds ripped open on his arm, he caught glimpses of the people above him. Cass in a fit of panic grabbing him to drag his body into the Mormon Fort and two Followers of the Apocalypse rushing to join her from within.
Aaron Holmes watched him, his brow furrowed in an unreadable expression.
~Burn: An anti-cheating measure in poker games, 'burning' is the act of removing a card prior to dealing, preventing this card from entering play and making it more difficult to anticipate the next card to be dealt.