A/N: I realize it's been awhile since I've updated, and I'm sorry for that. A lot has been going on irl, so I've been trying to compartmentalize my time for creative writing, and I've gotten back to Do It Again, finally, and the story is indeed progressing well. Not much relationship progression going on in this chapter, but this story is mainly focused on the journey of our lovely, annoying, and careless protagonist, and her eventual coming-of-age.
Your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last
But you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious, I can't understand.
- "Reelin' in the Years", Steely Dan
It is good to be good, and it is bad to be bad. Or is it? Such a statement could incorrectly imply that no good can come of bad, and vice versa, which everyone knew, deep down (and for the thick-headed, very deep down), was untrue. From happiness, can come the hurt feelings of others as the happy individual haphazardly rushes through life like a raging bull, whereas an unhappy person can bring happiness to others because humans love to juxtapose themselves against those that have less. So, was it worth being one or the other, or was it safer to be neither? More importantly, how does one even become the neutral party?
A cigarette was wedged between lips moistened by black coffee so strong that Eris swore could grow hair on any woman's chest. In the lobby of the 38, there were no windows, and if she hadn't woken up in the Presidential Suite, she could be convinced that it was morning. It certainly felt like it. Her Pip-Boy, whose conception was funnily enough the work of House, read 5 PM.
Securitrons worked to clean imaginary stains off of the floor, and she watched with a mix of pity and amusement at the neurotic programming of House. The man, if man he be, kept the place positively sterile – in a creepy way. No dance floor should be this spotless, nor this quiet. She wondered if he'd kept it like this during his prime, and what kind of people frequented it, if they frequented it. No way she was liable to ask him, though, he'd probably boast about it eventually anyways.
Down the hatch went the rest of her coffee, bitter as it could be. With a cringe, she nearly threw it onto the counter, which was minded by a securitron, staring at her listlessly. Eris stared back, almost hoping it would have a stimulating conversation with her. She and House still weren't on the best of terms.
"What can I get for you, miss?" It said in a lifeless voice, betraying no emotion, which Eris preferred over the false emotional programming of Victor.
"Hmm.." Eris mockingly put a finger up to her chin, and languidly crushed her cigarette into the counter's ashtray. "Something I've never had before. Make it light, but filling. But not nutritious. I haven't eaten since yesterday, after all. Also, I want no meat, but I do want an egg – but only the whites."
Eris watched, a grin spreading across her face as the machine struggled to understand her order. This had become one of her hobbies as of late, when there was little else to do. She so hated being bored, and there were always things around to play with. Though above all, she still preferred people. Bots were predictable, and she was sure she was going to exhaust every predictable error from them before long.
The machine said nothing, its robotic arms slacking and its head slumping as though it were terminating processes. She knew better, though. Victor did this occasionally, she knew it was House's manipulation. A sigh left her when she imagined what he'd have to say about her newest hobby. If he wanted her to get a new one, he needed to provide better stimulation, or uninhibited access to his library.
And just like that, the bot's unattractive little body startled from its trance and was back to functioning as normal. Her eyes narrowed at it, wondering just what House had commanded it to do. She was half-hoping he'd speak through the bot, as desperate as she was for conversation, and she had news about the Omertas.
"What are you doing?" She questioned the bot, which was moving as if it had an idea of what kind of breakfast it would make her. "Answer me!"
She huffed but watched it prepare a meal for her nonetheless. It wasn't as if she was actually picky. And how could she be? She hasn't eaten anything in a full day, and her stomach, full only on alcohol, was crying for mercy. Her liver too, probably. And her lungs, also.
"Come on, little bot. Did House silence you also?"
It was a full minute afterward when the bot replied, busy cracking eggs into a sizzling skillet. The smell was mouthwatering to her starved stomach, but she ignored it when she heard its next words.
"Mr. House has expressed that you are not to purposefully confuse the programming of his securitrons. In addition to that, Mr. House has noted that you have eaten very little, and commands this unit to cook a full, nutritious meal of all the daily necessities for humans." It spoke nothing else, and left her to wonder.
"Well you can tell House that if my health should fail, it won't be from starvation. It'll be exhaustion, from carrying his problems on my back." She smiled at her own retort. "Also, if you don't mind relaying an important message…"
She stared at the securitron's screen for a moment – a moment of mock suspense that would've earned her a reaction from anything or anyone else.
"A very, very important message, about the Omertas. Tell him his loyal, corporate slave has information he might find interesting..?"
Her breakfast was a large one – egg white scramble with strips of brahmin and cubes of pepper, along with a slice of bread on the side, slathered in preserved jam. It wasn't what she'd usually eat – preserved grain meal was usually her go-to. She didn't require novelty in her food, only in her people and her ideas.
After breakfast, as usual, another cigarette was lit. And to her private bathroom she went, to get ready for another night out. This kind of work, playing spy for the most serious employer ever, was ultimately what she preferred. Work that involved physical labor was boring – there were so many others doing that. But work where she could wax philosophical just to fit in? That was the spice of life.
The penthouse was as sterile as the ground floor was, and she wondered on the state of the other floors in the 38. If they were even in working order, and if so, what he did with them? Anytime she got answers from House, there were only ever more questions, as she liked.
There was no connection on his gargantuan monitor, only the same message that was usually there when he wanted to make her wait. And she did. Only, she thought about several things, seemingly at once. For one, why he seemed to show any kind of interest in her diet. Another, that he'd clearly been avoiding her. Furthermore, his apparent possessiveness towards his machines, he hadn't seemed to enjoy her manipulation of them. All of this, she thought of in no specific order. Like everything, it simply played like a musical tune in her thoughts, the tune was discordant but somehow made sense.
Men like House never cared for others beyond their use to self, which was fine by her. It was still an expression of care for his employees, even if they were viewed as extensions of himself. At the same time, she despised being associated with the rest of his 'employees' in any kind of way. Those degenerates were not her specific brand of degenerate. Even she didn't know her own brand, but it certainly wasn't that.
A telltale, handsome face with smug, aristocratic features appeared on the screen then, colored in black and green. Eris bit back a sly smile, but she'd never been famed for her self control, and she cracked anyhow.
Her blue eyes left the stony face on the monitor, and trailed down to the puddle of water on the floor, accumulated by the drip of her still-wet hair. That would make for a perfect conversation starter, she just knew it.
"You got something there." She pointed with the heel of her stiletto at the puddle, eyes drifting from it to the monitor. "A wet something, better clean it up before I fall in it. Your employee is about to have a fall from grace, then, you'll be one courier down!"
Eyes rolled on the other end of the screen, she couldn't prove it, but she could feel it. Inspiring annoyance in House was coming to be her favorite pastime – he was just too stone cold. A challenge, that dwarfed all other challenges, but that made it sound like she liked him, like he were a schoolgirl crush. And she was far from being a romantic.
"Are you certain it would not be a short fall?" She laughed at his grumble, cackled like a maniac even. He could be very funny when he allowed himself to be, but it would be dangerous to tell him and risk stoking his ego in anyway. Surely, he had plenty of casino managers that did that. "Besides your proclivity for stating the obvious, why have you come? Something to report, I imagine. My securitron informed me that you had a message worthy of my time, but I'll be the judge of that."
So, he was still sour with her, licking his wounds like a prewar kitten. Not that she could judge, she was constantly licking her own wounds inflicted by means she knew not. Such was the life of a victim of brain damage. Thus far, a steady stream of nicotine and prewar books kept her from dwelling on anything important for too long.
There was a conflict between them, it was as palpable as the desperation floating around the hookers showcasing their wares on the Strip's streets. And equally, the starved eyes of the NCR soldiers lurking, watching them. Eris liked to think she shone in conflict, but it was usually her starting it, not resolving it. If this conflict didn't end, then she couldn't start another one, which she needed in order to learn more about him.
"Look, I know that last time we had a heart-to-heart, I said some.. distasteful things." She grimaced at her half-repentant tone of voice, not enough to change the opinion of House, whom she wasn't afraid to admit was very clever. "What I'm trying to say, is that if I say anything uncalled for, it's only because I like you. More than I like others, which is a privilege, dig?"
Ah, that was far better. It wouldn't do to reveal her cards. And God, she was spending way too much time around gamblers, so much time that she was beginning to use their colloquialisms.
"Is that all you have to say, never mind that you squander every privilege I allow you?" Was his far too angry reply. She bit the inside of her cheek, to put a stop to anything 'cheeky' that might leave her. "I would say, rather, that I am impressed. Rarely have I ever had an employee so useful yet so irritating."
She wondered if he was saying this aloud to play her somehow. It wasn't like him to say something that revealing, and for him, it was quite revealing. He was practically admitting that she was useful, somehow not revoked from his list of admirable people. Someone like House calling her 'useful', was like Caesar calling her 'funny'. Neither had a particular streak of good humor, however.
Deciding not to dwell on that, and instead dwell on it later when she was drunk and far removed from the 38, Eris moved on and let her quick tongue speak for her. Contrary to popular belief, well, contrary to House's belief, she did have a filter.
"See, you always know what to say! What a fine sugar daddy you would make.." She trailed off, "For someone, I'm certainly not talking about me." She added, for effect.
Then, there was silence. Her idle, flirtatious comments, which sometimes amounted to some little truths, had silenced the rigid businessman. Everyone liked being flirted with, Eris was sure she'd known this for a long time. After all, she was good at it, if the flattered blushes on Layla's skin said anything. Humans, especially men, enjoyed hearing flattering things, even and especially if they knew it came from false pretenses. Eris suspected it was because their mothers often deceptively complimented them on traits of theirs that both knew were irredeemable.
Surely, Freud would agree with that. That men enjoyed whores, even their false pleasure, because it hearkened back the purely loving game that mothers played with their children.
"Now I know why the Omertas call you Not-At-Home. I don't know about you, but I think it's very funny, even clever, that they use 'home'. Not that it takes much brain power to come up with something that idiotic, I mean, look at me." She was aware that she was rambling, as much for his comfort as hers, and was tempted to continue. "Ahem, and, speaking of the Omertas…"
She paced the floor, which, she noted was currently being mopped by securitrons. The tips of her feet kicked idly at the light tiles in front of her as she did so.
"There's some creep staying there named Clanden. All of the workers are afraid of him, and one of my contacts implies that he likes it rough." She explained, "And not in anyway that's acceptable by common society."
"One degenerate among a den of them? Come now, focus. Your prioritization is severely lacking, Eris. Whatever this 'Clanden' is up to, I'm certain it isn't crucial to our case. However, I did give you creative freedom for this, and I'm not going back on my word. If this lead of yours ends up being significant enough to bring ruin to their plot, I will reward you just the same." The mood between them was shifting, and it allowed her to breathe easier, which was just unheard of. It was almost as if they were becoming.. friendly?
"What, and risk proving yourself wrong?" She chuckled, "And as for the reward, your fine company is reward enough," She really was lathering it on thick – too much time spent around prostitutes, she wagered. "Alright, maybe just a few caps, and you raise my book allowance. I have some requests that you could indulge."
"It matters very little if I am 'right' or 'wrong', all that matters is that you identify any potential threats to us." Instead of addressing her flattery, he ignored it entirely. She wondered if he even knew how to respond.
"Oh, I seriously doubt that…"
Nighttime reigned over the city of Vegas, the city that famously never slept. Eris watched the tourists in false pity, at the looks of hopefulness in their eyes – for just a morsel of materialistic triumph. They'd get none, barely anyone did except the tribes running the casinos, and the House of course.. the actual House. But these tourists made those poor choices on their own, it was no one's fault but theirs if they gambled away their money knowing the stakes.
And that was what she liked about Vegas. The people here acknowledged the power of luck, even praised it, but as soon as their luck ran foul, they blamed forces that wasn't in the province of luck. People were whimsical like that, philosophically fickle. For her, it was a dream to watch all these carefully constructed facades shatter and fall, to become bare so that she could pick at the pieces.
A nameless jazz tune sounded in her ears as she entered Gomorrah, and got her daily dose of molestation from the bouncer. He always eyed her, but he eyed everyone, she noticed. Noticing these things weren't exactly her expertise, but working under pressure was how she worked best, and she was now being pressured by House about figuring something out.
He criticized her poor prioritization, but she criticized his hyper focus. Focusing on one thing for too long made you blind to obstacles in your peripheral, after all. But he doesn't need a peripheral, he has hundreds of cameras scattered throughout the Mojave. So she had to get creative with her criticism of House, and it began with his gravitas, which she wasn't sure was endearing or disgraceful. She almost wondered if she disliked it because she was jealous of him for his gift in an area where she had none. That made a lot of sense, but there was a fat chance she'd say that aloud.
"Any idea where I can find Layla?" Eris asked the receptionist that she'd initially been told was an informant, but she'd never followed that lead. Thinking about a million different things while talking to the woman was child's play, and images of Layla danced with Benny, Victor, and the Boomers. "See, I scheduled a session with him last night, and he's already…"
Eris made a show of looking at the clock on the wall, which showed 9:06 PM. Layla was almost never late, as insecure as he was about the impressions he made on others, especially on her.
"Six minutes late.." Eris' brows pinched together in a dramatic show of unease, "Better get on that, miss. You don't wanna see me at my worst."
"Unless…" She began, "You do?"
The receptionist rolled her eyes, and Eris practically sang with glee at the expression of annoyance plastered on the older woman's face. Sometimes, she really was lucky that her greatest qualities were also the qualities that hid her motives from others. But that wasn't accounting for her greatest quality being an annoyance to others, which was commonly regarded as a poor quality.
"Fine, I'll go ask Cachino what's taking so long." The brunette woman huffed and prepared to leave the counter area.
"That's what I like to hear!" She smugly replied. There was nothing to be smug about, however, nothing about her was worthy of smugness.
And so… she waited. The Gomorrah was crowded with tourists, as it always was. No newcomer was wise to the Omertas' ways, as House had lectured her on. What were his opinions on prostitution, she wondered? He'd made his opinions abundantly clear on slavery, but surely he had to think much the same about the Omertas' practices to remain consistent.
Layla often talked about how desirable freedom would be to him, implying that he was little more than a slave. House claimed to offer them freedom through reaping the harvest of their labor, that is to say, their slavery was emancipated only through profiting off of it. If most of them were pleased by this, it was only a little pathetic to her. Though she had no real room to judge, money wasn't pleasing to her, and so her opinions on it were close to redundant. Perhaps if she was as swayed by money as they were, she'd better understand.
"He's up on the suites level, Cachino says." The secretary spoke, interrupting the delicate thinking processes of the blonde woman.
Eris shrugged as if to ask where, and apparently it wasn't enough, so she rolled her eyes, and pulled a cigarette from her handbag, a little purse she'd found among others in the 38. This one was tacky, and contrasted well with her dress, which was fashionable and decidedly not tacky.
"Any idea how to get up there?" She asked, taking a drag from her cigarette and blowing the smoke away from the other woman.
The other woman pointed in a direction opposite of where she and Layla usually spent their meetings, to a few elevators leading up to the upper levels of the casino. Eris looked at her curiously, and the woman's lips formed a pinched expression, and this drove her to wonder just how she managed to keep her job. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't her charm.
"Take the elevator to the sixth floor. When you get off, take a right and go down the hall. Cachino said the door will be cracked, but that's where your server is." There was no way she'd remember those exact directions, but it always worked out somehow. "Oh, and… be careful."
She looked the woman up and down, and just when she'd thought she'd get some particularly lucrative warning or information, the woman went back to existing as if she wasn't there. Something suspicious was going on. Was it an ambush, or was it the Omertas just being as seedy as ever? Neither would surprise her. Her approach to everything was to expect the worst, and never be surprised. She wondered if that was pre-brain damage or post-brain damage.
But her inquisitiveness eclipsed her caution, the latter of which was unreliable at the best of times. There was a couple already on the elevator when she boarded it – a young, reedy man with one of the hookers she's seen around. The woman's beauty would've been exceptional if she didn't somehow remind Eris of a brahmin's left hoof. That is to say, she was a ghoul.
Even to Eris, who had little to no shame, could sense the awkwardness in the ride upwards. Sleazy jazz, her favorite kind of jazz, played in the speakers, and her eyes slipped from the reedy man's face to the ghoul's face. It was cramped, and the air was slick with sexual tension, and not any kind that Eris was interested in analyzing.
As soon as the elevator arrived on her floor, she stepped off and took a breath of free-ish air. There was next to no one in this hall, not even one Omerta. Though she fought often with the urge to pull her weapon, preferring to speak instead, she took the piece from her thigh and turned the safety off for good measure.
A pin could be dropped, and the entire floor would hear it. That was how quiet it was, and she'd be lying if that kind of silence didn't invoke some kind of primordial fear in the reptilian part of her brain. That part that still thought it needed to run from prehistoric animals.
The stub of her cigarette was abandoned for the door that was slightly ajar, as the woman up front had said. There was a light on inside, along with a hum of electricity. Nonchalantly, Eris pushed the door aside, and what she found was enough to bring a ghostly hue to her normally tanned complexion. Gone was the easy going countenance, replaced with a blank look of… awe? To call whatever she was feeling 'awe', would earn her a reprimand from those who didn't fully appreciate the full spectrum of human emotion.
On the off-white tiles, was the dismembered body of Layla, the useful, if not broken, hooker that she'd been corresponding with for nearly a fortnight now. The man who, due to circumstances, chose to present himself as the toy for the most perverted of customers. Either arm was severed, leaving only a pair of legs attached to a torso, and his head, which she'd found to be quite a handsome head, was only a couple paces away. Its head was shaved, shaved of the hair that Layla had said he prided himself on. According to him, it was impressive for a man to grow such a head of hair and still be a 'man'.
Now certain the Omertas were somehow onto her, Eris shut the door quietly, and took House's advice to prioritize a bit more seriously. Not only was the entire operation now at stake, but possibly her life, too – which had never seemed so valuable until she looked with her own eyes at the visceral way it could be taken.
It was funny how lucky coincidences seemed to happen in such a way that it almost implied that the universe was in any way partial or merciful. Rarely, did Eris take her Pip-Boy on outings like this in the city. It put too big of a target on her head, and practically screamed that she was separate from the rest of the populace.
Though by no means a technician, she wasn't completely hopeless. With her Pip-Boy, she managed to connect to a server that anyone else who had a Pip-Boy would be able to see. She wasn't exactly sure how it worked, but it was probably worth looking into if she made it out of here alive. She began to type out hastily:
It's getting hot in here at Gomorrah. Like in a murder, mayhem, gore, kind of way. These chumps are onto me. -E
She sent the message quickly, not bothering to finish it as her eyes caught on a basket smeared with blood. In it, was a bloodied change of clothes – leathers, the kind that Layla wore, and a journal of some sort. Eris looked through the journal, and swore after realizing it wasn't the diary of Layla, but of Cachino. Just what were these people playing at? Had Layla somehow pocketed the journal to give to Eris, and been punished for it? And on that note, had he been tortured into revealing just who he'd done it for? The onion was that it remained in plain sight, for Eris' hands to find, and hadn't been stashed away.
The little diary was small enough to fit in her handbag, which she'd rather unfashionably pulled all the way up her shoulder so as to not lose it. A stack of analogue films sat next to the television screen, and Eris, cursing her curiosity but not able to contain it, unraveled the row of film that looked the newest of them, hoping it would… settle her conscience or something. She knew she should feel worse about what had happened. As it were, there was a mystery now and it needed to be solved.
Eris, strong of stomach, winced at the first indication that it was indeed Layla. First, Clanden, at least she assumed it was Clanden, shaved the hooker's head, and while he'd resisted and tried to separate himself from the razor, Clanden seemingly cackled. She assumed this, because there was no audio and no fluid movement.
Her eyes narrowed in shock, repugnance, and bewilderment, at the turn of events. Though initially resistant to viewing all of the frames, it was like watching someone get slaughtered by a vertibird – impossible to avert your eyes once you've started. No matter how neutral she usually was towards violence and the human condition, this was different. This was raw. Eris had a sneaking suspicion that House would find this particularly repugnant, he seemed to have a sore spot for what he called 'primitive' cruelty.
"Fuck…" She said to no one in particular as she spied the different frames of all the films that Clanden must have 'directed'.
It was all women. Or, in Layla's case, womanly people. Eris thought very long, and very hard, as much as present circumstances allowed, about all the demons of a man like Clanden, that would've forced his hand to make demons of others. Because surely, all the mangling of their bodies were demonic. He certainly seemed like an interesting person, and despite how naive it was, she foolishly wished that people like him would stop their killing, if only for her to dissect their minds.
There were a few other rows of film, all looking rather recent. She noticed that every single row of film had in it the exact same setting, not one chair or piece of décor out of place. Either Clanden was meticulous, or he hadn't been here for long, and had killed a great many hookers in a short span of time. Could he somehow be connected to whatever hare-brained plot the Omertas were brewing up?
For the pursuit of truth and clarity, she had to ask herself that – accusing a large group of people of a crime because of the sin of one of its members was not her way. But deep down, she was certain it was connected to everything else that was going on, that they had planned for her to arrive at the scene of a gruesome murder spoke volumes. Cachino's diary being left to sit there and be picked up by her, was nothing if not suspicious. But like anything else, it could be a coincidence. Pointing fingers at others was her employer's job, not hers.
Her ears twitched at the sound of music outside of the room she was in, the sensory distraction reminding her that she'd all but forgotten that she was standing in front of the mangled corpse of a human she once knew. The sound of it was muffled, and no song she'd ever heard before. Like most music in Vegas, it was a pre-war number, but that was all she could tell. The volume of it was growing louder, and louder, and not one minute later, she heard steady footsteps treading the hallway outside.
That's it. She's the dumbest and smartest person in the entire Mojave – a wily court jester for everyone to laugh at. Despite having realized she was being set up, she'd all but forgotten what could come after. Reason suggested that it was Clanden who'd stopped in front of the door outside, and she froze, her survival instincts still underdeveloped despite having months of memories here in this shithole.
The doorknob turned and twisted, and Clanden must have had a flair for the dramatic, because the door opened slowly – or perhaps it was just her fear, an entirely new feeling for her. But that voice in her head, which she's heard people say should be annoying, advised her that it may not be fear, but… 'cautious curiosity'.