Scene 1: Flip of the Script

Arcade

2281, November

The warm laps of hot air brushed against the working doctor's back, brought away for now from his experiments and notes and onto tending this Freesider who had been wounded in some commotion in the night before, too bad he still owed more to Julie than he could quantify just then. Once the last of the sutures were firmly affixed, the dark-rimmed, spectacled man looked up, seeing the old man nod appreciatively at him. Arcade returning some of the cordiality, meeting a face he really hadn't seen before, the boy beside them slept, for now, no doubt traumatized by the events of last night.

"Okay, then. Just get some rest, and don't work the arm." He said as he rose, coming a head taller than the average height man before him. Finding his white coat around him as he straightened, meeting the older patient here at the Mormon Fort, whose slate gray eyes were however fixed somewhere behind him when he tried to speak more, Arcade turned, wondering if Julie was supervising his return, which would make sense. Instead, he found someone else, a tall, slender boy standing at the mouth of the tent flap opening.

A golden man around his hard-jawed face that swayed softly to the winds brought on the outward warmth, the thinly bearded boy spoke, a voice deep and still only newly formed since puberty perhaps, Arcade's analytical side presumed, "Julie said there's a Roy here?" He asked and looked about the decrypt tent room void of an actual floor. The doctor looked on, seeing his hard, blue gaze fall on him, the taller doctor only stepped aside, and he saw the fraying man look alarmed and aggravated, no doubt as puzzled as Arcade was in the situation he found himself in.

"Peace, old man," The newly arrived said, coming deeper into the shaded tent, his long, brown duster now no longer at the mercy of the warm winds outside, "the King sent me here, relax."

Arcade saw the older man visibly loosen, going down back to his chair and leaning back he grinning, "Sorry kid, you just don't look the type." he said with a smile, his eyes catching the sleeping boy beside him who would no doubt be roused in this coming interrogation, "I bet he wants them bastards caught as much as I do, wait a moment," he said, rising as he went beside the sleeping boy, the wrinkled hands outwardly reaching to wake him.

"Tom!" a female voice called out, making him and the stranger turn at once, "That mo-haired woman is a bitch!" Arcade saw a spry young woman wearing brown leathers draped in hiding, an out-of-place-looking pneumatic fist resting familiarly on an arm that carried a sack. The woman seeming a few years older than the other, her dark eyes were enraged with something, "79 caps for a stimpack." She edged him on after her words, leaning up to him in a friendly sort of way, the youth called Tom had his arms folded and only shook his head as he closed his eyes and spoke once he was walking towards the pair to the corner of the tent.

"No doubt your charms were wasted on her." He said, making the slightly older woman who had suddenly come in to swear words that made even the old man turn for a look. Sighing she leaned against the wall once she had settled down, eyes then darting around the tent until they fell on him.

"Hello there." She said, straightening up and already walking towards him. An arm reached out to him, he took it into a three-time shake that she correctly receded afterward, making Arcade wonder upon the strange woman's beginnings.

"So, what's your name?" She asked with an arm to her hip as she examined his face while looking up at him.

"Um, I'm Arcade." he said, trying to smile for the interested woman, "I'm mainly a researcher here," he said with a shake of his head and a loss of breath, "I just owed Julie over something," he said, nodding towards the three who conversed softly, Tom kneeling and listening to what the boy had to say. The old man suddenly reprimanded the boy and helped him on, the boy lightning up as some connection struck gold in his mind.

"That woman, she's pretty stuck-up, huh?" The woman started with a smile.

"Well, Jules is up to her neck with things, Freeside gets wounded almost every day now," Arcade whispered, even working on things as inanimate as medical compounds and cell cultures; his minds and internet still went out to those new faces that arrived every day to the old fort that had suddenly started getting more and more attention. A simple research station for the Followers is now converted into a full-time hospital for all of Freeside, all knew that things would get worse before they would get any better.

She nodded, "I know." speaking quietly, turning to the crouched man who she seemed to be traveling with, and then finally speaking up, "Don't worry, my friend here?" She pointed back with her thumb, turning to him again with a ready smile, "He's gonna fix this place up." She said determinedly, her friend Tom now came up to the two of them, having apparently acquired what he had come for, nodding to the energetic woman who affirmed him with a tilt of her head, then finally to him.

"See you around, doctor." She said, Tom, meeting his eyes, those dark, clear blues piercing into him as he as well gave him nodded thanks, the two walkings out through the tent flaps, soon disappearing out into the windy heat of the midday sun.

The room was a quiet hum under the incandescence above him as his fine print notes below him, writing down patiently while standing up, lost in the haze of work for over hours as his alert brain caught the small step outside his tent out of nowhere, turning at once he saw the dark, flowing coat around the same youth from earlier today.

"Hello, doctor." He said, moving to one of the counters and reaching a colorless test tube to the air, examining it under the light as his other hand came around and pocketed his coat around him. Arcade turned fully, capping his pen and leaning against the table, trying to find words, "Oh, um, hey Tom," he said, the man turned to him, smiling and putting the tube back down and coming closer, after greeting him he reached over towards the table Arcade had been working over. His hand reaching over the sheets, finding the pages of poetry and nineteenth-century fiction to be of more pronounced interest, his finger stopping on a word as he looked up.

"Abyss" Arcade spoke up, his head turned down on the sheet as both men read an old Brontë passage he had felt strongly enough to jot down. He brought the youth back, speaking up as he inquired, "So, anything you wanted, Tom?" Arcade asked, turning to one of his cultures set under his microscope, leaning in as he heard the man start to speak.

"Just a proposal, but first, what's that?" He asked, pointing towards a set of half disassembled stimpacks that were marked and a kind of greenish solution filling some of them.

"Oh, that's only a prototype, more effective stimpack vectoring, the blood intake is too low for people with iron deficiencies." He mindlessly chartered, stopping himself as he looked up; Tom was over there, reaching for one of them and examining the notes closely. He was no doubt mostly puzzled by the written script as most were, people, having become more acquainted with terminals and printed text compared to the older norm after the bombs.

Arcade's eyes went to a shiny looking machine then, the narrow mounted device hidden prior behind his thick coat now revealed thanks to his raised arm as he caught a glimpse of the smooth dark screen on his wrist, moving close and asking on instinct and in interest, "That a pip-boy?"

Tom turned to him, bringing down his arms from examining the prototypes as he spoke, "Yeah, an old doctor gave it to me" he said, putting down the half-assembled stimpack and turning to him fully, "You heard about the shootout over by the freeway?" Arcade nodded, how could anyone not. It had been the talk for the day, apparently, some Kings had gone rogue and lashed out against the two-headed bear, well, it would have turned out back for the Fort had the NCR been free to rein death, no doubt. The young mediator working among the outfits had apparently solved the issue without any additional blood, which was a miracle in itself

Arcade couldn't say he was totally unaware of the youth who had decided to show up today, he heard the radio stations, knew of what happened across the valley, it was just strange to see a man shot in the head come so far and so quick, already miles off from the Great Khan confrontation that had also ended peacefully a few days back, his involvement clear then as well, "Yes, thanks for that. More bullet-holed Kings there are here, the less there's to go around."

Tom nodded, sighing as he started, "Arcade, listen. I want you to come with me." He asked simply.

He frowned at the sudden request, he supposed this was the proposal he was speaking of earlier. He folded his arms and spoke, "Oh? Don't you already have that pneumatic woman?"

"She went home, I was too busy," he sighed, shaking his head, "Listen, It's just the two of us, well two on two legs anyway" he turned to the tent flaps, the formalin brain preserved in the glass dome over a Rex who walked in slowly. So he got him as well, Arcade mused.

"And what would we do?" He probed, a genuine question asked with a smile, somewhat entertaining the idea.

"Simple. Help the Mojave." He came close, both arms pocketed and his head turned low to the floor leaning against the doctor who was waiting for him to speak, the words that came next left Arcade wide-eyed and breathless.

"I know your past, Arcade." He spoke, "I met the Remnants, and I know of Navarro." He said, looking up, "I had a friend whose line went way back." He confessed, "Wasn't too hard to piece it together, a few Navarro refugees hidden among their usual territories of aptitude, it wasn't that much effort after to map all of you down. Well, most of you at least" He said with a smile into the distance, mostly to himself as he remembered something. Arcade couldn't disagree; some of the remnants had gone into unconventional routes after their home had been destroyed.

"So you know what I am then, what I am responsible for." He spoke softly, mostly reminiscing on his own.

"I know you're responsible for saving that boy I talked to today", He said, coming closer, "The NRC is taking over Arcade, soon they'll find you out, especially after today." Arcade nodded slowly after considering for a while, eyes glazing over as he remembered Daisy and her seldom messages that she still encrypted in the old ways, just as she had taught him.

"If your intentions are good, I guess I could tag along." He began, turning to the dog who breathed through a wagging tongue at him back, "But the Legion, I can't work for them." He turned pointedly at Tom. The man before him went serious, his soft, blue eyes suddenly hardening as he nodded with a menacing smile, looking dangerous, eyes then towards the nightly dark through the half-drawn tent flap.

"You heard of Nipton?" He whispered into the quiet that remained after a while. Arcade had, and he so nodded gravely, his point duly made.

Tom straightened, "Sleep on it, I'll be back tomorrow." He smiled, remembering something as his gaze went back to the stimpack table to his right, he came close to him next, and his hands reaching into something as a dark leather pouch came out and onto the table as his hand receded after. Arcade gave him a questioning look, "From Zion, I think you might find this more interesting than mesquite and Broc flower."

He said no more, a final nod with his head as he exited the high poled tent and was off into the dark, leaving Arcade behind with the strange bag of tubers and roots he soon started examining. His haze of efficacy clouding his thoughts and continuing his work, his mind considering Tom's words on the side, the NCR will be here any day now, he's right about that, he figured, somewhat distracted from his work yet working on familiar set actions, science for most of the whole was testing and doing it again some more.

Once his work for the Fort was done he reached for a cigarette, lighting it up as he worked out the method of extraction and essence secretion from the strange flora he had been left with, once the stick was almost burnt out he reached for it, cutting fleshy slices that he slipped over a glass clasp and examined, his mind working now as he soon found something different. This was also a part of Science, sometimes in the mundanity somewhere someone got lucky, and Arcade felt just that man.

He was up and about, outside the large double door that had been planked open by himself as all the others were still asleep this early into the dawn hour as he examined the empty, broken streets of Northern Freeside. The desert chill of nightly hours passing, Arcade however had decided to carry an extra layer for when the elements might get harsher, he knew of the forested mountains westward with some speck of snow among them, if the stories could be believed.

He heard steps then, turning left towards the four-way as Tom appeared around the high bricked wall of the Fort, turning and finding him, "Mornin', doc" he said, breathing in the still cool air, turning to him then with a quizzical smile, "So, did it work?"

"Let's just say the initial readings were promising." He said, "I still have more tests to run," but his optimism must've shown as he went on, "But I'm hopeful" he ended by saying.

"I see, glad I could help," he said, then started walking, "Come on," he went on, "I have something going with the Silver Rush, we can get breakfast at the wrangler later if you want," he said, turning back to him. Arcade stepped up to him, walking abreast before the old rubble road that led through the old blue bus, accepting the plan he offered as a bright, hot day slowly dawned over the outer Strip.