THE LUCKY 38
AUGUST 18
02:49
The dream didn't end when they took the elevator to the presidential suite. Rising higher and higher above the chaos outside should have shaken her back to reality, back to the eerie stillness of the Lucky 38 where she'd murdered the man who'd promised to save the world. The fragile infrastructure of Brianna O'Reilly should have crumbled to dust, so she could build herself up again out of stone and steel. But she was lost in the arms of a dead woman, wandering deeper and deeper into the woods, losing all sense of direction.
This dream was impossibly real. She leaned her head against Sunny's shoulder, nestling further into the mess of cushions and feathers. She could smell perfume and strawberries and skin. She could run her hand across Sunny's arm, feel the light wrinkles of her leather armour, the warmth of her body. She could feel the ceaseless pounding of her heart, hear a conversation around her, detect movement as her friends made a feeble attempt to clean up the mess she'd made of her suite. But Brianna O'Reilly couldn't wake up. She was losing blood, leaving her bones behind, losing herself to the abyss of impossibility.
"How?" She asked, almost surprised to realise she hadn't been rendered voiceless. The other voices died when hers rose. She'd interrupted something she hadn't been paying attention to, but she didn't care. She'd barely noticed Veronica and Christine sitting together on the only remaining table, hadn't spotted Cass retrieving a chair from somewhere else in the suite, hadn't noticed Cheyenne lounging on the end of the bed, her tail wagging lazily. She moved back to look at the woman in her arms, suppressing a burst of giddy laughter. "How are you alive?"
"Hey, it wasn't that hard. They kept me there for a while, in the kitchens. Taunted, threatened, beat me up a little. A couple days, I think. They left all the doors unlocked one night, some kind of passive-aggressive way of telling me to get out. So I did. I had a lot of time to think about what I was gonna do afterwards. Made some elaborate plan to sneak out and kill the ringleader." She smiled ruefully. "I couldn't do it. As soon as the door opened, all I wanted was to find you. Figured you'd probably kill them all for me as revenge. But I found Cass outside the Lucky 38. She wasn't in a good state."
"Passed out drunk on the steps," Cass muttered bitterly. "Wouldn't have got up either, if you hadn't been there."
"I helped her," Sunny elaborated. "Took her to the Followers. They let her rest up, get better, even gave her another box of Fixer."
"Which I declined," Cass added, taking a swig from the bottle at her hip.
"When she woke up, she told me what you did to her, what you said. You thought you'd eaten me, God I- and she didn't know where you were. Said you and Veronica just left. I thought you'd gone off to the Fort. Part of me was worried you were gonna do something stupid. Another part was worried that you just moved on, tried to pretend like nothing happened. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if you were going off to help House or to fight against him. While you were gone, I talked to Dr Farkas, got up to speed on what was happening in Freeside while I was stuck in the Ultra Luxe. More casualties, more drunks, more corpses on the streets. She said it was like Freeside was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for you."
"She wants to help," Sunny continued with an earnest grin. "She said it didn't matter whose side you were on as long as you really thought it would be best for everyone. If it really does come down to a battle at the dam, I think her and the Followers will be there if you need them. That is, if you decide on gathering up any humans for your army." Her eyes glittered. "It was incredible, what you did. Killing House, I- I know I said I supported him, but after all he did to you, I'm glad he's gone. What made you change your mind?"
"He was spying on us, using Victor as a way to monitor us. He threatened to kill Cass and Veronica, make me- keep me on the Strip and-" She swallowed the lump in her throat. "He knew about my family, Sunny. He got things wrong, he thought they lived in Reno because that's what I told Mortimer - but he knew my dad's name, knew about my mom. And he said what happened to you was all my fault. When I came back, it was the exact same thing: follow or die. So I chose the third option and put a bullet through his head. God, you should have seen him. He wasn't a person, he was barely alive. He was a monster. The sight of him scared me more than Caesar did." Noticing her confusion, she explained, "I activated the Securitrons at Fortification Hill. Had to butter up the Almighty Caesar and His Vast Glory before I could get the Platinum Chip back."
"Dammit!" Sunny said, slamming a fist down on the mattress. "I should have been there! I should have escaped, I should have been with you! Even if it had to be that way, even if House had to die, I should have at least been by your side. He did all that to you and I was locked up in a freezer. Veronica and Christine, they told me what happened before you left. You thought I was dead and you followed that broadcast into some crazy man's death trap all because I'd given up. All because I didn't know how to get out of there."
Brianna took her hand. "That wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have left in the first place. Leaving Cass the way she was, abandoning everything I was trying to save, that was wrong. But it doesn't matter now, none of it does. We're all here, we're okay, we're- God, I'm still waiting to wake up. I'll tell you everything that happened, I promise. We're not going anywhere until you know every single thing."
"Tomorrow. I want every detail."
"I promise," she said, and meant it. She would relive the Madre, tell her story and let Veronica and Christine tell theirs. She would listen to Cass' bitter account of her own days during Brianna's absence. She would explain the destruction of the presidential suite, tell her everything about the casino, the ghost people, the man she'd come to care for after losing her mind to a toxic casino. She would record every second of the conversation on her Pip-Boy, print it onto a blank holotape to make sure she never forgot a single detail of the Sierra Madre.
In the morning, they would agree that Yes Man was right. The people of the Mojave needed to know who Brianna O'Reilly really was. They needed to see her face, hear her voice, her promises. She could inspire hope in them, perhaps, let them know that she was worth fighting for. They would agree that their next stop was Hidden Valley, to the Brotherhood of Steel. Veronica would explain how fear and worry kept her awake at night, that she was terrified for her family's future, that she had to do anything, anything she could to convince the Elder that it was time for change. She would retell her experience of the Sierra Madre a hundred times over if she had to. She would save them, if she could.
Or, like the rest of her friends, brace herself for that slow or sudden end.
