A/N: Ah, here we get to meeting Clanden. Quite an interesting character, if you were to ask me. Evil, but interesting. I don't think Eris particularly cares too much about evil at this stage. At the moment, I'm not sure if it's her head trauma, some weird brand of empathy for the misunderstood, or general apathy. Her nonchalance is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.

You know I can be found sitting home all alone

If you can't come around, at least please telephone

Don't be cruel to a heart that's true.

-"Don't Be Cruel", Elvis Presley

It's funny how our memories work. Funny how we forget things in our brightest moments, our moments of euphoria, when the memory would be pretty but not indulgent. Funny how in our darkest moments, they're the sweetest. All thoughts of vice are forgotten, and significance is placed on people and person, not things. If in our darkest moments, we somehow come to the conclusion that we are the sum of our experiences, why do we immediately forget about it as soon as reprieve is found?

Memories were a sore topic for Eris, however, and that's why they were a butt of some of her greatest jokes. It was funny. So many things were funny – her life often felt like a cosmic joke, but that would be implying that there was any intelligent design to it, and there distinctly wasn't.

Clanden was a tall man, a gentleman with just enough spotless clothing to draw her attention. It was the most saintly people who irked her paranoia, which was no easy thing to accomplish. She operated on possibility of evil, not certainty of evil. Ultimately, it was his height over hers that gave him leave to drag her down the hallway, his manly bits becoming more and more pronounced through the business casual get-up he had on. He was handsome, in a do-gooder kind of way that probably attracted women who were the most down and out, women like the ones here in Vegas. Everyone was down and out in Vegas, they just made it look fashionable and quirky.

A hand with long, pale fingers was latched onto her arm, and she knew she had no choice but to follow him, for both of her hands were cuffed behind her back. As one clever enough might suspect, there were no Omertas on this floor, and she was beginning to suspect he had it to himself. She craned her neck to look at the man's eyes, which were dark and blank save for a fire that spoke of nothing good for her. He even had on a tie, though it was loose and one might have been persuaded to believe that he'd just returned home from a long day operating some kind of boring, radio signaling facility.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked, though both knew the only place he could be taking them was his suite, the door to which was wide open and staring at her from the end of the long hallway.

When he didn't answer, she stepped up her game. A man like this was probably not used to others knowing his dirty secret, and those that did, would've treated him with reverence and vain hope. Eris prided herself on having reverence for very few, if any, people. Though loathe to admit she was different than others, as House had told her once before when he included her in his own personal collective of 'important people', perhaps there were novelties to her personality that Clanden might find interesting enough to keep her alive until she figured out a way to make a daring escape.

"I'm asking, because I really don't know if I can handle a man of your caliber. I'm used to a monitor, and as you can imagine, I get a little skittish around corporeal men." She lied. The first part was actually true, though she wouldn't be half as good at her job if she were afraid of men. But this situation… it was making her question if she actually was good at her job. Best not reveal anything like that to Marquis de Vegas, though, she reminded herself. "I think you know where I'm getting to – you and me just aren't made for each other, baby."

"Shut your whore mouth." Her captor said it casually like he was speaking about the weather, and though it startled her, she was careful not to reveal that, and tossed her head back to laugh, though she was sure it wasn't real.

"Or what? You're going to do something entirely predictable for your character? Forgive me if I like a little bit of variety." She huffed dramatically when he pushed her into his room. It was a gentle shove, too, as though they were on a date, and her arms weren't locked behind her back. "Can you take off the cuffs? My blood circulation is shit."

Instead of reprimanding her as she expected, Clanden shut the door to his suites with a chuckle, and she wasn't sure if it was what she said or that she was saying it in this specific situation. Eris was good at making people laugh, if nothing else. When she couldn't make them think, her immediate follow-up involved saying something infinitely quick-witted that often had disastrous effects later on. Everything she learned about people, who were her favorite studies, was learned through these two means.

"You talk often, it's no wonder my hosts got wind of your activities, which they deemed more unsavory than my own." Clanden revealed, scoffing at the humor of it. "Foolish of them, if you ask me. No one like me should be allowed to walk freely, no matter the stakes."

Oh, so he was one of those self-aware sadists? Not the kind who killed animals, picked them apart, and put the blame on scientific curiosity. It was possible he could be playing at admitting to his sins to get her more comfortable, and though she had about a thousand questions to ask him, she jumped onto one of the parts of his statement.

"What stakes are we talking about here?" She asked, watching him change the music he had going on his turntable. She noticed that it was lower quality than the ones at the 38. "If you're looking for some kind of dramatic tune that captures the essence of human misery, then I suggest Billie Holiday."

"You miscalculate my ability to do that without music, miss." He pulled her handbag off of her arm, along with her Pip-Boy, which he should've done earlier, all things considered. Her gun, too, was in the palm of his hand, and with precision, he managed to render it entirely useless.

"So, why do these upjumped thugs let you stay here? Forgive me for being the curious one, but there's no way they'd let a degenerate of your… specialty, cut their profit if only for the sake of.." She scrunched up her nose in a way that she hoped passed as condescending. "..this."

"Quite right." He answered, setting up his camera for the no doubt grand show he had planned for the two of them. "I'm not just a snuff film producer, which I could tell you is more profitable than any of my other talents. Those people that get a thrill out of my work are fucking degenerates, and I hate them as much as I hate your kind. The Omertas and I have a contract – I build explosives for them to use on the entirety of the Strip, and they let me have my fun with women like you."

High stakes indeed. That was a risky gamble from the Omertas, and all to take down House? She wondered how exactly that lot planned to manage the Strip once taken? Loathe as she was to admit it, she doubted anyone but House knew how to manage a high civilization complete with a securitron army and electricity, the latter of which sounded mundane and trivial, but Vegas' power ran very stable in comparison to everywhere else. This spoke volumes about its ruler, who was, unfortunately for his enemies, a fucking engineer.

Eris was very curious about the political powers grasping for a measly little crumb of Vegas. Even the Legion seemed hungry for it, and it didn't take a genius to find out why. Only, it was one thing to have ambition, and a totally other thing to have a feasible idea about how to execute it. In this sphere, Eris admitted to being clueless, she had none of the stuff, nor the interest, to lord over others. But she did have ideas, and she did have an idea about a functioning society, and she doubted a society ruled by Omertas would be the pinnacle of societal evolution.

Clanden made them to sit across from one another. Now, she could get a better look at his face. The first thing she considered about the man was that in his eyes was a hatred totally foreign to her. This was a personal kind of hatred, a kind of vendetta foreign to her. It wasn't the hatred that tyrants approached an enemy's army with – that cold, determined wrath, and though she tried to search for a word that could describe it, she came up short. Eris concluded that this kind of person, though hesitant to call him evil, because that would require her to have more information about him, was far crueler than someone like Caesar.

Because men like Caesar didn't look upon an innocent and see someone to exploit for their own benefit, to the detriment of the innocent. Men like Caesar were utilitarians, exploiting others to the benefit of their definition of 'greater good', but men like this cared little for the 'greater good'. It was philosophically sinful, she thought, to be so distracted from the things that mattered in a way that Clanden was. If she was a utilitarian like Caesar, it's likely that she would look down her nose at a man like this, for so blatantly wasting useful flesh for the pleasure of self, or the pleasure of a few. As it were, looking down her nose at someone wasn't quite her style.

Her hands, cuffed behind the chair, worked to try to loosen the metal digging into her wrists. Quiet wasn't exactly something she was good at, but this could work in her favor. Maybe.

"So, why do you kill women like you do? Well, besides the one boy." She got the urge to use a derogatory term on him, just to see how he'd react, maybe she would when the time was right.

"A thousand questions, and you ask the most common one. I was starting to think you were somehow a different kind of hussy. Don't worry, though, I like being proved wrong." He winked at her then, and she tried to find the lock with her fingernails, which, because of her general carelessness, were long.

Eris threw her head back and laughed genially, as though they were two old friends. She laughed, because he fell for it. Everyone did. As with everything, she didn't know if this was a quality of hers that had endured through brain trauma, or had began with it. All she knew, was that people were flattered by all the questions she asked, and this benefited two parties. The questioned, because flattery works wonders on the human need for validation, and her, because she learned.

The cuffs were old, prewar probably. Rusted, and she wondered how many women, as well as old world criminals, may have worn them. In terms of escape, 'old' was nearly always a good sign – prewar things were all built the same – made to be disassembled. Wastelanders never thought that far ahead. Why she knew this, she was none the wiser, there was always a chance she'd been some kind of historian before the Incident.

"No no no.." She said as if in pain at the thought of being compared to others, which was true, she didn't like mundanity much. "You got it all wrong. I'm not like the other girls, not one bit. If I was, I wouldn't have gone up to this floor, despite smelling something foul about the suggestion." Remembering there was indeed a foul-smelling corpse involved, she quickly corrected herself, "No pun intended."

The man actually laughed at that, eyes twinkling at the apparent nonchalance she'd approached the subject of a hooker's death with.

"What the hell are you laughing at? Answer the question, I'm all out of turns here." Her voice shook him from his amusement, and he turned dark eyes towards her, taking in her restricted person with a hunger she didn't even want to dissect, surprisingly enough. She already knew, anyways.

She made a show of relaxing into her chair then, even going so far as to cross her legs and toss her hair back.

"Normally, I'd smack your mouth, then fuck it for good measure. But I'll allow some fuckery from you, because I've never had them like that. Letting them get high, and watching them get low as I take the opportunity away from them. So I'll indulge you." He mimicked her pose then, crossing his legs as she had. It was one of those things that people-persons like herself would notice. "I hate the way women always search for greater opportunities even when they have a good thing going. It's arrogant, it's ungrateful. They are ungrateful, and I enjoy teaching them a thing or two about gratitude. They always learn to be grateful towards the end, even if it's just for a single moment, before they learn that I have no pity for them. Not anymore."

So, he was miffed about the innate opportunism of women? That reptilian instinct to always be on the lookout for a male who is even more alpha than the current? Hating that was too primitive. She was half-hoping he'd say something more neurotic, like how he perceived the mangled, female form as inspiration for his artistry. Somehow, that'd be more impressive, more unpredictable, and more acceptable. Acceptable was really pushing it, though.

"I take it you got burned once? Let me guess, she left you for a better man, a man with a bigger…" She trailed off, wanting to defy his expectations. "Wrist watch? And further, the seed was always there. You've always been a little confused about women, you've always loved them. There are some who say hate is just a brother to love. You hate to love, and you love to hate, either as painful as the other. Do you love to hate women?"

There it was. She felt a little initial resistance from the lock, her fingernail not quite hitting the sweet spot of it. But it was there, she itched with triumph, but showed him a guileless expression, whom both knew was anything but guileless.

"Yes." He replied with a slow smile that didn't quite reach his cold eyes. "My work scratches this itch inside that can't be reached by anything else."

Many, many, thoughts floated through her head rent-free, while she fiddled with the lock on the cuffs. It'd take a few tries to get it loose, but she figured if anything was worth it, it was her life. For once.

"Where do you come from? What's your name?" He asked conversationally, and she could sense that it was sincere. How odd, but she had faith that she could use his sincerity somehow. Sincerity was a dangerous thing in a criminal lifestyle. She now had firsthand experience.

"Two questions? One more question, and you'll have to rub the bottle again." She teased, fingering the lock as she did so. "Suffice to say, I've got only one answer, for both questions. I got shot in the head. Tragic, I know. I cry about it every night, cry about how I've lost my true name and I could've been anyone. I'm actually a genius, so it wouldn't be surprising if I was a Follower. Nobody calls me Eris, except my esteemed employer. You can call me courier, if you're so inclined. Or mailman, if you're feeling adventurous."

It was the same story she told everyone – it was starting to get old, already. When she wasn't being interrogated about it, it was easy to forget, the wound had completely healed and was hidden somewhere underneath her thick head of straight, blonde hair. Also, she had no attachment to her past self, something that truly baffled everyone else.

"My turn again." She began. A click, silent save for the feeling of it, sang her release from the cuffs. Luck was on her side, like it had been when the bullet hadn't turned her into some kind of vegetable to be cooked in wasteland stew. Like a fox, she smiled at the killer who fancied himself a lion. "How are you going to kill me, Clanden? A girl likes to know."

"It's going to be particularly ravishing. I'll keep your head on your shoulders, because I like pretty blondes. But there won't be anything left of your cunt. I think that's where the death blow will start. There's an artery there, that when slashed, can't be mended by anyone around here. It'll be particularly difficult, though." She tilted her head at that, and his next words made her blood freeze, and time slowed, the moment feeling like an eternity. "Because I'll need to put your cuffs back on."

He lunged first, and she was quick enough to fall out of the chair. Clanden was fast though, experienced. A hand, large and pale, yanked onto her ankle in a death grip, and she struggled to free herself from it. In a gunfight, she could rely on the chaos to serve as a shield for her, but this was different. Maybe. The same rules could apply – music still played on the turntable, a dreadful tune she didn't know the name of.

Legs flailed, erratically enough to flail him in the face, where she was sure something had popped. For a split second, he reeled back, and she made the mistake of looking at his face, which carried with it the joyful expression of a predator. He enjoyed this, and it shouldn't have surprised her. Eris wished she could somehow photograph that expression on his face, and save it for a scrapbook on the range of human emotion.

On her knees, she crawled away from him, spying a heavy lamp on the nightstand next to his bed, a luxurious piece of furniture that was reminiscent of hers in the 38, only it was tainted by the fact that it had been slept in, in the last two centuries. She only made it a few paces before he grabbed her in a vice-like grip, deceptively strong arms around her waist, his chin on her shoulder. The only edge she had on him were the absolute lengths she was willing to go to prove herself against a problem. He hugged her to him, and she felt the breath leave her, but she persisted in drawing breath, though it was slow and strained.

Her neck craned upwards to… kiss him? His grip loosened and he laughed disbelievingly into her kiss, eagerly latching onto her lips. She struggled in his arms, and his grip loosened more, if only somewhat.

Clanden tasted normal, like nothing in particular. Certainly, he tasted nothing like Benny had, like cigarettes, booze, and a woman from the previous night. This one didn't even taste like a degenerate, which was just a shame. Her tongue darted out to lick the roof of his mouth instinctively, and she wondered why he hadn't bitten her tongue. She'd make sure he regretted that. Because with her teeth, she bit down hard on his own tongue, tasting copper a moment later, a triumphant grin steeling her face.

Immediately, a pained grunt sounded and it gave her leave to escape his arms. She ran for it, making for the prewar lamp, and she would have had it, would've had it right in her fingertips, but he'd caught her again and spun her around to face him, raising his fist to her face and striking her with a blow that only barely missed hitting her nose directly. But nonetheless, she felt a warm trickle running from her nose, and blood pooling in her mouth, much like it was trailing down the corners of his lips.

For a moment, Eris saw only stars, and experienced the feeling she often got when she drank a little too much – a vertigo unequaled by almost anything else. He was on her then, and she wondered just when her back had hit the ground. Instinctively, her knee rose to kick him in his manly bits, but he caught it and her attention was drawn to his generically handsome face, the false congeniality entirely gone and replaced by a fierce hatred. His hands wrapped around her slender throat and squeezed, but somehow she knew this wasn't intended to kill her, but to knock her out. He squeezed, and her world threatened to go dark, but something in her, something she'd need to really analyze later on, resisted, and she let him think she was going out, before violently butting his head with her own, sending him away from her reeling in the pain of blunt force.

It was her turn to lunge then, and she did, because her reptile brain told her to. Enough force, something that must've originated in desperation, went into the action that it sent him to the floor. But just as quick, was he ripping at her dress, and she'd knocked over the lamp on the nightstand, struggling to pick it up while keeping Clanden underneath her. The light fixture rolled on the floor teasingly, and Clanden wrestled her onto her back. But clearly, he was even more out of it than her, and hadn't gotten the rush of survivalism that she'd gotten, enough for her to reverse their roles again.

She heard a tear of cloth, and knew her dress was ruined beyond repair, but that didn't matter. There were thousands of dresses, and she might even be able to persuade House to buy her more after this.

His fingers dug into her hip so painfully that she hissed, and she knew there were going to be a little crescent-shaped indention there for awhile. His manhood was hard, and stuck into the thigh that was straddling him, in a thoroughly un-arousing position, according to her. With vitriol she wasn't sure she had, she slapped him across his face, as he'd struck her earlier, but he recovered impressively quick, and he bucked up against her, startling her enough that she jumped off of him and landed on the floor haphazardly, blonde strands of hair blocking her vision. Memory, which was often in short supply, reminded her that their empty chairs were only a few yards away from them, and she crawled backwards, using her hands as support, back to them.

A hand pulled at her leg until she crashed gracelessly to the floor again, lamp forgotten for the chair that could most certainly serve as a weapon for the prospecting, desperate wastelander. She tugged at the chair she'd sat in, as it had collapsed with her. It was wooden, something that had lasted since the Great War, like so much of Vegas.

But Clanden had other ideas, and had tugged her body upwards to bend it across the table next to the chair. It didn't take cleverness to know what he intended to do, with his hand roaming up her thighs, and something hard digging into her back. She wondered how saddened he was that this exploit couldn't be filmed.

"I'm going to fuck you like you don't even know, you hussy." He whispered into her ear.

Eris had a trick up her sleeve, however, and her eyes caught the bulk of the Pip-Boy, and she knew what she had to do. She picked it up, and swiveled around, and brought it to his head. Sending a silent thanks to House for designing it to suit the act of blunt force trauma, she leapt off of the table and sprinted for the fallen chair, lifting it with the ease of anyone high on adrenaline, and sent it into the body of Clanden.

An audible groan left his lips, and she was sure they'd been making plenty of sounds that she hadn't been paying attention to. The chair couldn't kill him, though, it wouldn't be precise enough. There was a perfectionist there somewhere in her, but it was buried deep within and only manifested during specific moments. She dropped the chair like it was a hot tato, and decided to use the Pip-Boy to subdue him.

"But just before the dawn," The crunch of bones underneath her drew her attention away from the beautiful falsetto voice sounding from the turntable, "I'll awake and find you gone.."

Unwavering, her hands brought the deceptively hard tech down onto the man's face, and his struggle was minimal at best now, as dazed as he must be. Again, and again, and again, she was losing count. His face, once an unremarkable handsomeness, was twisted and beaten beyond recognition. Still, she continued, watching his fingers twitch and feeling his body convulse with a detached curiosity, like she was a scientist and this wretch was her experimental subject.

"It's too bad that all these things can only happen in my dreams…"

When she was sure that he was dead, had probably been for longer than she knew, she disentangled herself from him, collapsing onto her back in exhaustion, and no small amount of survivor's euphoria. Music continued to play on the turntable, and she swallowed an imaginary lump down her throat. Her heart was fluttering in her chest like she'd run a race, and her satisfaction was mingled with thoughtfulness.

After that, she needed a cigarette. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she sent one more glance to the sorry, dead clown lying dead on the floor, and made for the handbag he'd snatched off of her, smiling to herself when she found her cigarettes. With shaky hands, she lit the cigarette at her lips, and collapsed onto the chair that was still intact and upright. What a trip, she thought to herself.

Layla had been an individual with hopes and dreams, no matter how mundane they might have been to a passerby. Freedom, a most sought after dream for most. Fickle to Eris, but she was in no position to desire it. His life had been ended before those dreams came to fruition.

Though Clanden had also been an individual with hopes and dreams, acknowledging that was intrinsic for her to understand. His desires had been largely unacceptable for society, however, that was for good reason. Freedom to pursue one's dreams, but to the real, tangible detriment of others wasn't exactly what she had in mind as an ideal beacon of virtue.

Then, the thought of how in the hell she was going to leave this place alive struck her in the middle of her meandering. She could tie some sheets together and try to make for the window, but she was six floors up, and she had enough head trauma as it was.

Of course, she could just get cleaned up and take the elevator down to the lobby and leave like that. That kind of boldness was the spice of life, after all, and totally reckless and bereft of self preservation, which was the brand she went for. A snicker left her at the image of her reckless plan, and she spared one last glance at Clanden before flicking the butt of her cigarette down on top of his prone body.

"It's been lovely getting to know you, Clanden." She said to no one in particular.

Her Pip-Boy was still intact somehow – it was built to endure, she supposed. Cachino's journal went inside of her handbag, and she left the suite of her would-be killer, and the would-be co-conspirator of the Omertas, not even bothering to check her own reflection, which she knew would be covered in blood. Clanden's blood was all over her, after all, and she thought it would be a good message to the Omertas. House probably wouldn't approve of something so 'primate', but she was a wastelander, and wastelanders asserted their dominance like this. Surely, he'd understand.

Deja vu hit her in full force when she paced down the hallway to the elevator, and it took her a minute to realize that the moment was positively reminiscent of the night she killed Benny. On the ground level, she sent a wink to an Omerta, one she hadn't seen before. He was a handsome one, she thought, darkly handsome and tribal looking. He gaped at her, and she felt his dark eyes on her as she crossed the floor to the entrance. Her bruised lips formed a sly smile at the handsome Omerta, and she slipped out of the door and into the fray of Vegas' streets.

The cool, sterile air of the Lucky 38 was a relief from the chatter of the Strip outside, a new feeling for her, who typically disliked the quiet. Right now, though, she wanted a stiff drink, another new thing. She didn't often seek out alcohol of her own volition, but the past couple of weeks had refined some of her tastes. And, she's pretty sure it's normal for people to want drinks under stress.

She ordered a fancy, mixed drink from the securitron manning the lobby's bar. It was sweet, and most importantly, it was strong. It was the kind of drink she would only drink in a safe place, and that disrupted her for a moment. 'Safe' wasn't exactly a word she'd use lightly out here. And she liked to think she usually felt safe no matter where she was, but she trusted that House wouldn't do something shifty, like pulling one over on her while she was drunk. That was something to contemplate. At a later time, of course.

With her drink in hand, she strolled up onto the elevator and for the penthouse, where he'd be waiting. Blood was splattered onto her chest but the dark color of her ruined dress mostly hid it, but she felt the wetness of it heavy against her skin. It had dried somewhat, and was crusting, a delightful spin on the term 'bloodbath'. Her lip was busted, and she knew blood was crusted underneath her nose, but thankfully it was her own. Some splatters here and there were also on her face, a truly unavoidable fate for anyone who beat a man's face to a pulp with a piece of tech not invented for that purpose. It was funny, so funny and she couldn't help but cackle like a maniac all the way up to the penthouse.

He was waiting for her, to her surprise. Normally, she had to wait a few minutes before he deigned to reward her with his regard. She took a gulp of her drink, and flipped her hair back in a mock gesture of sultriness.

"Get me while I'm hot and soaked in the blood of your opponents, baby." She spoke suggestively, clouded with survivor's high, and now boosted by alcohol. "Just got back from Gomorrah, and guess what? You were right, they were up to something. But I was right too, Clanden was involved."

Eris gestured towards her body, eyeing his monitor in the vain hope that it would one day react like she sought after from everyone. She relied heavily on her ability to read others, and reading House was a talent she hadn't quite honed. Yet. There was still enough reason running through her mind to keep her from leaning up against his sterile wall, and risk staining it with blood.

"I ask myself if I even want to know how you finished him." He began with a sigh, earning him a chuckle from her as she nursed her glass. "Still, you're alive and relatively unscathed, and for that, we should be thankful. I wouldn't be opposed if you bathed before relating to me the details of your discoveries, but it's your decision. Of course."

Now that was rich. So rich, that she choked on the burning liquid going down her throat and nearly wheezed. Her stomach shook as she replayed the words over and over again in her head, and decided that he did indeed have a sense of humor, and it seemed to be present only when he was in a good mood. Foreign for someone like her, who relied on it in nearly every mood she found herself in.

"Oh, believe me when I say you do want to know how I finished him. He had me cuffed, and I guess you could say I 'shimmied' my way out of it. We tumbled around a little bit, I'm pretty sure he busted my lip. I bludgeoned him to death with my Pip-Boy, which, by the way, is remarkably tough for prewar tech."

"It is, isn't it? All of my inventions were built with the intention to last, though it brings me no great joy to see it used in the name of barbarity. You'll find it takes much more than a few 'cracked skulls' to render it useless." The way in which he said 'cracked skulls' sounded alien, like how your average wastelander would use the word 'refined taste'. It was condescending, but at least he was in a good mood, and that nearly always spelled a good conversation waiting to happen. "Nonetheless, I congratulate you on your resourcefulness. What did you discover?"

She set her glass down on a shelf behind her, now emptied of the sweet alcohol she'd ordered. Her arms crossed over her chest, and she began a familiar pace in front of his screen, occasionally looking back and forth from it to the cameras, where she knew he was watching her through.

"Do you want to hear about Clanden first, or what the Omertas were using him for?" Eris asked, voice thick with the slyness of someone who held all the cards.

"All in equal measure." Was his short response.

"You're aware by now that I had an informant by the name of Layla, right?" She paused for effect but didn't seek an affirmation, "The Omertas somehow knew I'd been using him to case the place, and they'd have to be awfully dim not to. When I got there earlier tonight, they'd told me Layla was waiting for me up on the sixth floor. It was only a little suspicious, considering we never meet on the sixth floor.

But Layla was up there, alright. But he wasn't all there. Clanden had mutilated him almost beyond recognition. Full tilt degenerate, that one. He'd filmed it all too, there were rows of film of other women. First, he raped them, as that's the most predictable course of action for any kind of murderer staying at the Gomorrah. No great shocker, there. Then, he killed them in ways I don't think your prewar sensibilities want to imagine. But if you want me to describe it to you sometime, I can. I got a pretty good, long look at it.

He told me that they hired him to rig up a bunch of explosives here on the Strip, in his exact words, 'the entirety of the Strip'. To give him a proper incentive, they paid him in women that he could torture and film for his… art?" She finished, letting him process what she said but she doubted he needed much time. He wasn't the type to take long to process anything.

There was silence for a moment. This gave her time to think about what else could possibly be going on, because tribals like that were raging opportunists. One master was never enough, there was always one that could be better. It was kind of reminiscent of the feminine quality that Clanden had claimed to hate so much. Many possibilities floated through her mind about who they could possibly be in it for. Fat chance it could be the NCR, but that was always possible, if not likely. The Legion was possible also, but the Legion allying themselves with the kind of people they made a public face to hate? Also not likely. They were probably in it for themselves, like Benny was.

"Hm, then let's rejoice that you've countered the spread of such a pest. Men of that stripe have no place in my city." That was commendable. It was best that someone like Clanden was dead rather than in 'rehabilitation'. At least she and House saw eye to eye on that. "'The entirety of the Strip', you said? How very ambitious of them, though short-sighted nonetheless. There would be no Vegas without its luxuries, which I doubt could survive a bombardment of explosives. It's the exact kind of mentality you would expect from tribals, only I made the mistake of thinking that enough incentives could delay this habit of theirs. No matter, the same mistake won't be made again."

Seldom did he ever admit to a fault, but she commended his acceptance that it was at least partially his doing. After all, the rumors of House being too detached of a leader were rampant, and while he managed his city very well, she believed he put too much stock into the capabilities of others to change. If there was one thing Eris had learned above all else, it was that people didn't change, per se, they just adapted. The primitive urge for men to dominate twisted into rapists like Clanden, and mobsters like the Omertas. Those people could never be domesticated, and that was okay for her, but not for society as a whole. There was no easy solution to that problem.

"I, uh, also found a journal belonging to Cachino, one of the bigger cats over there. Layla obviously thought it was important enough to keep for me, and if I didn't know any better, I might be led to believe that Cachino is our new go-to." Feeling bone-tired now, Eris yawned, though she hadn't been awake for even six hours. "And honestly, this is me just talking out of my ass here like always, but don't be too hard on yourself for putting hope in clowns like the tribals you hired here."

Eris had a grand speech planned about how it wasn't entirely his fault, but it would make it seem like she was somehow cozying up to him, and based on all previous encounters, he was skittish. But she could be friends with him? Right?

"What's that expression again?" She made an 'o' with her mouth and her face brightened when she remembered, "You can take the person out of the wasteland, but you can't take the wasteland out of a person. Very clever colloquialism, I know, I just created it. Maybe it would be a good idea to invest in heretofore civilized people to run your casinos?"

Behind the screen, she imagined a dark, brooding expression on his aristocratic features, with his chin propped up on a closed fist as he planned his next move. Not for the first time, she found herself curious about his person – and not his personality, but his physical state of being. But also his personality, too. She excused this with her persistent and unquenchable curiosity.

"The numbers will have to be run before I take any leap that would expand my employee base. For now, extolling those who have remained loyal is my priority, and it will have to suffice until greater risks can be taken." To so callously talk about ruining the lives of his employees didn't even cause her to bat an eye by now, even though she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel the urge to criticize his readiness to give up on some of his people. "Have you read the journal yet?"

"Not yet, but soon.." She said, taking it out of her handbag and waving it pointlessly in front of his screen. "I can read it for you?"

"That won't be necessary.." He replied, already sound a little exasperated from her now all-too-familiar game.

"Oh, now I insist!" Annoying him but not pushing so far as to upset him was like an art that she was eager to learn.

"If it encourages consistently positive results, then I'll indulge you." He said in an indulgent tone, as if she were a child. She snickered. "But make no mistake, I expect this little problem of ours to be resolved within the week. No more games, Eris. And no more unnecessary risks like the thoughtless stunt you pulled tonight. Are we clear?"

"Oh, you know I'd never defy direct orders from you." She crossed her fingers in front of her, "Scout's honor." And winked in his camera's direction.