We three, we're all alone

Living in a memory,

My echo, my shadow, and me.

- "We Three", by The Ink Spots

Nearly a week had passed since his star employee left his city, with neither hide nor hair seen of her since. From a purely cognitive stance, he could understand the fit she'd thrown the other day over the job he'd given her. And undoubtedly, she would understand the importance of this job once it was done.

The years had made him patient, of course, but he still felt the impatience of youth when his subordinates openly rebelled against his orders. Despite his demanding rule, he knew it was charitable. He expected nothing lesser of those he invested in, he didn't demean them with low expectations. Eris was no different, and yet, she was different in every way. Different, because a barrier had been crossed, at a rather gradual speed, between that of employer and employee, and friend. If the years had taught him anything, it was that making friends of employees spelled nothing bountiful for either party.

Yet despite that, he'd indulged her attempts at camaraderie and familiarity, against wisdom that spoke otherwise. No matter. He hadn't lived this long without denying himself a moment of human weakness. The many thousands of securitrons under his command did not make excellent conversational partners, nor did the tourists that came to the Strip. Furthermore, neither did any of his unimaginative employees.

It had been centuries, and many years more, since there was any individual exceptional, or annoying enough, to become one of the rare few he called a 'friend'. To his deep misfortune, his brightest, and newest employee, marked both tallies, and was the only one closest to the strict criteria of such a prestigious title.

And because of that hapless fact, was the situation at hand born. Her criticisms could have shortened the lifespan of many a poor soul in the Mojave, if she showed them the same kind of unhinged vitriol and wit that she did him, and he knew she did not. Fortunately for their concordant and mutually beneficial relationship, he was impervious to most criticisms, as he'd thought of nearly every flaw in every plan he'd ever concocted, a million times over. But she could find some flaws he'd looked over, usually the most innocuous, with her unique brand of pedantism, and latch onto them with the mercilessness of many of his prewar competitors, all of which, he'd knocked down one by one. Only, unlike them, she didn't stand to gain anything from criticizing him. It inspired no small measure of confusion in him, a feeling that invoked panic in a man who's lived for centuries.

That could be stomached. He even enjoyed some of her prodding, though he'd never admit that to anyone. It was the business of no one but himself.

What had irked him the most about last week's disagreement, was how it had ended. Oh, he did mourn that. She'd most certainly struck a nerve with her tale of amnesia, something that he could admit to fearing above most all else. If he'd no memory of the world before, how could his vision ever be enacted? Moreover, how could he ever fill his mind with thoughts of simple pleasures of the past? Those things became precious when most physical means were taken from him – willingly. Indeed, it was impossible to imagine not knowing his very name or achievements, both of which were of the utmost significance to him.

Put frankly, it would be a lie to say that he was not… bothered, as it were, about the damage that bullet had done. Even more so, he was irritated that he had not come to the conclusion sooner. Reading his employees had never been a challenge before, but he could concede to the idea that Eris held herself in such a way that made doubting her abilities very difficult. He was proud to admit such a thing, actually, since it meant he chose well in making her his protege.

The memories he had of her before were unsurprisingly few. He vetted anyone working underneath him with extreme scrupulosity, and therefore he'd discerned that she had been one of the rare couriers that were not aligned with either the NCR nor Caesar's Legion. She was not from the Mojave, anyone with ears could figure that out with relative ease. She spoke with scholarly experience, and though he knew not her name, he could, with confidence, say that she was likely from northern NCR territory, from one of the Pacific regions. Otherwise, her accent was untraceable, and before, he attributed that to her talents as a social chameleon, though now? It was an unsolved mystery.

It was more than likely that she was a Follower, or a Follower's daughter, at the very least. It was inconceivable that she was as informed as she was were she a common scavver. This issue opened up a world of possibilities that his vetting process must be more thorough, lest he end up with more cases like Eris'.

A phantom shiver went down his incorporeal spine. No, he certainly did not need more than one individual like her within a thousand mile radius, at any time, now or ever. She sufficed as it was.

To add more to his displeasure, she'd been correct about Cachino. He made for a poor head of the Omertas. That would need to be corrected in due time, and perhaps he'd let Eris find a worthier leader. She'd suggested once that another tribe replace the Omertas, a vague implication that it should be the Kings. Surely, that would make his life far easier, but it would be admitting defeat. No matter. His own pride mattered little in progress' shadow.

As it were, he could not afford to remove the Omertas just yet, even if they were severely weakened by the losses they suffered a little over a month ago. Eris had one quality that equaled her mind in usefulness, and it was her hands. Hands, that could grasp a weapon, and point with supreme accuracy where she wanted it to go, unlike his own securitrons. There was nothing that could be done for it, though he'd continue taking information from the secretary at Gomorrah, as well as from Cachino himself. Dreadful. His own bias was against the man, if man he could be called, after being subjected to a very thorough narration of his most darkest inclinations.

At his command, the speakers played one of the precious 78's he had in his collection, and carefully, he monitored every angle of his city – a precaution he took once every hour. He could only hope that his protege returned soon, though he wouldn't punish her for taking every measure imaginable to avoid being incinerated by the Brotherhood's impressive arsenal of energy weapons.

From the south, came a massive influx of refugees, fleeing both the Legion and the raider wars. Pitiful. Mankind just wouldn't learn, would it? It was precisely why he'd assumed leadership over his own, for he was not ambitious enough to save the entire world. If one group could be saved and rehabilitated from a generally wretched and purposeless existence, it would be by his doing. Very few others were as qualified as he.

Certainly, Caesar was qualified to shepherd his flock from point A to point B, though the demands he enacted upon them were intolerable, and even despicable. He lacked any respect for the sovereignty of humans. It was a nearly identical story for Oliver and Kimball. Shepherding was successful in the most basest of sense, but if the shepherd died, what then of the flock? Could they in anyway survive without the tyranny of the wise shepherd? Of course not. A large degree of freedom, and therefore responsibility, must be afforded to the many.

It had taken prewar America hundreds of years to accept that, and still, its remnants refused, like stubborn, idiot children.

A few days passed, stunningly uneventful, which he should be thankful for, but he could admit to some boredom – to himself, of course. It was peaceful times like this that he imagined walking the Strip one more time, with a newly restored body that could support his cognition. As it was, that was a pipe dream, but above all accomplishments and titles, he was a dreamer, and he could afford it now more than ever.

There was a flash of light hair on one of his cameras, and he focused in on it, though it was most assuredly not his protege. He should've given her one of the Pip-Boy's he'd designed for his own personal use, this lack of communication was eating at him. If he hated anything, it was not knowing something. More than likely, she was conning her way into the good graces of that disgraceful organization, a decision they'd regret in due time.

Evidently, luck had been on Eris' side, as she'd made fast friends with Veronica, who rather conveniently, was a scribe in the Brotherhood of Steel. She was impressionable, and was easily wooed by Eris' pretenses of being interested in the tech stowed away by her people.

To Eris' misfortune, Veronica was also a decent human being. Annoying, though, she was. She was as annoying as the most annoying of flies, and she wondered if this was what everyone else thought when Eris continued to talk. Only, Veronica didn't talk – she babbled, and she made passes at her.

Little did she know, Eris did have standards, despite being otherwise modestly degenerate in her own ways. But that was a detail she left out, as she followed Veronica to Hidden Valley. Night had fallen, and she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, even though every time she turned, there was nothing, except the occasional bloatfly in the distance. Paranoia festered where stagnancy bred, and if she'd been doing anything as of late, it had been vegetating in Vegas.

"What's it like in Vegas, Scarlet? Being able to dress up, to feel like a woman? To be that beautiful?" Veronica asked ahead of her, in her cheery voice. Scarlet was the crafted, if not uncreative, alias she'd used. Scarlet, because the shirt she'd met Veronica in had been a dark variation of red.

She'd told her before what it was like, but she was rather talented at saying the same thing several times, in several different ways, so Eris relented. Besides, people had a right to be annoying. She had firsthand experience on the matter, and personal sentiment tied to it.

"I'll have you know I pale in comparison to most of the women in Vegas. They walk with a little more grace than either of us, because they have everything to lose. When you stand to lose everything in a city that makes a habit of it, you hold yourself differently. It isn't just in Vegas' fashion that crowns it as the most decadent of societies, it's the stakes." House would, of course, be proud of such parroting, though Veronica would be none the wiser. "But, I guess I'll be merciful and answer your question." Veronica turned to look at her with a smile across her lips, and Eris winked.

"There are many dresses in Vegas that were designed before the Great War, and preserved by its leader, Mr. House. Some of them have faded with time, but the most fashionable among them have persevered, and are now sold and worn by the most 'prestigious' in society there. Wives of brahmin barons, and the likes, see. When my scholarly curiosity is sated here in Hidden Valley, and when we've managed to convert your sorry excuse of a boss, maybe I'll take you to Vegas?"

It was an empty offer. Veronica would be dead by the end of the week, if Eris managed to figure out a way to kill her people without having to resort to baser means. House had left her a rather large book on programming on the counter where she usually took breakfast, and begrudgingly, she'd taken it. She was stubborn, but she could take a hint. This was uncharted territory, and it could end with her as a puddle on the floor if she didn't do this right. While she had no extreme attachment to her own life, she did appreciate having her body and all its functions intact.

"You could do that? I hear that it's outrageously expensive to get in to the Strip."

"Are you doubting my abilities? You did see how I handled those highwaymen a few miles ago, didn't you?" Eris began, erratically formulating another well-placed lie, "My brother runs one of the casinos. Name's Swank, we were both tribals once. We called ourselves the 'Boot Riders' before we were civilized. I think it's safe to say you won't be shot upon entry if you're with me."

A good lie, because she knew every detail about the Chairmen, as they were the most reliable of Vegas' families, and whom she'd worked the closest with, even if she didn't like Swank – and the feeling had become mutual.

A good deal of silence passed between them, blissful, really. Eris had no idea how spoiled she was by the respect House had for his own solitude, and the solitude of others. Had she really changed so much over the past couple of months that she'd rather spend her time in an air-conditioned tower than be roughing it up with wastelanders?

Yes, yes – she had. Air conditioning was a privilege of very few out here, and though she could respect how the others chose to live, she had no desire to convert back to sweating underneath the miserable heat of the Mojave. Prewar people just had better taste.

More than likely, the rest of the Mojave would call her a sellout, but she had plenty of defenses against that. It was a choice to suffer a life without ventilation, and while she wasn't mechanically inclined, she was fully aware that if any of them wanted to pursue mechanics, they could figure out in no time how to set it up. Or, they could get shot in the head like she did, and be smooth enough to stay in the good graces of a prewar robotics engineer.

The choice was theirs.

"How much farther?" Eris quizzed, observing the setting sun in the distance. Both of them were growing tired, most assuredly.

"Another day? If we rest now, we can be there by tomorrow afternoon, I'd reckon." Veronica paused in her tracks, placed her hands on her hips, and stared upward at the burnt oranges that had taken up residence there.

She did a sweep of the area, and because this was the Mojave, there were buildings looming in the distance. Nothing to salivate over – a couple of farmhouses that looked abandoned enough for her tastes, and the added bonus of no explosives going off in the distance.

A cigarette was lit between her lips, and she cursed that she'd left Benny's lighter behind. Always, she was leaving lighters behind, and having to scavenge for half-filled flip lighters everywhere she went. It just didn't cut it for her standards, which were shockingly higher these days.

"Let me finish this cigarette, and we'll go sweep those houses." She said to Veronica, exhaling the smoke to the right of her.

"I'm sure they're nothing like Vegas, but they'll do. Anything's better than sleeping in the bunker, I think."

Eris considered herself someone supremely difficult to annoy. Thus far, she'd had an irregularly high tolerance for things many would put under the category of 'annoying', or otherwise 'mildly irritating', but Veronica's constant deflecting back to the superior life in Vegas was enough to ruffle some feathers Eris hadn't even known were there to be ruffled.

If it was anyone's fault, it was Eris'. She had, after all, told lofty stories of urban life, and the ease of living it, to Veronica. 'Scarlet' was a pampered, if not worldly, Vegas princess, and it was easy to play the role, because it was somewhat close to home.

A few rudimentary sweeps revealed some mole rats, though nothing else, to which she was grateful for. Eris was not a fighter, and she preferred it when others could get that work done. Luckily, the wasteland had cleaned many of the bums like her and had replaced them with Brotherhood types, who were ready and willing to do the dirty work for her. Thank the heavens for people willing to crawl in the dirt.

Eris took first watch, because she needed to engender at least some trust in the other woman. In the squalor of the living quarters, she read a vapid book on programming, and wished she'd taken some Kant with her instead. Reading this book was like reading the Book of Kings, though she had no recollection of reading it in her living memory. She just knew it was a fair comparison.

Some bits were more interesting than others, like the implications that her Pip-Boy could override most terminals, as most of them were also RobCo-manufactured. She's sure that this was the part of the book he'd wanted her to read.

Was she still upset with him? Of course not. She'd thrown her fit, and tried to make him understand that she needed to understand, and he did understand, but he was just too fixated on the future rather than the means to achieve it. Their primary disagreement, the disagreement to end all disagreements, was that she believed the means really did matter.

It took a human more decent than her to find sympathy for the Brotherhood's ways. House had informed her, of course, but Veronica had babbled endlessly about their methods, and their beliefs, to Eris' benefit and to her own detriment. It didn't take a genius to deduce that the Brotherhood had some kind of failsafe for their bunker should their secrets be accessed by 'outsiders'. Indeed, Eris had deduced this from the moment Veronica talked about their borderline suicidal behavior when faced with defeat, a minor detail that would come in extreme usefulness.

Although as with every other infiltration mission, Eris would do nothing until she had a full comprehension of the situation. Though logic demanded that finding some kind of failsafe was the most suitable action to take, there could be other options too, and unlike House, she didn't dismiss alternatives. She likes to think that this is the wise way to approach things for any well-to-do, budding genocidist.

"For wise men say it is the wisest course!" She said to herself as she reclined further in the rotting piece of furniture she sat on.

That was one corner of literature she wanted to explore as soon as she returned to Vegas – Shakespeare. It wasn't rare for her to quote him, but she's sure she's never read him ever since the Incident. It leaves much room to wonder just what had given her the opportunity to read Shakespeare, of all cliché prewar poets. Certainly, from what she knows of it, he was eccentric enough to suit her standards, but it wasn't novel enough.

There was a stubborn inclination which she was sure originated in contrarianism, to flit to the most unpopular or the most niche, as it were.

Hours passed like that, with her head in a book, so it often goes. She's fast learning that computer science isn't boring, per se – it was a useful discipline to know. Though after finishing a fourth of the massive textbook, she can still say she prefers the humanities. People are still more unpredictable, and therefore interesting, than the binaries of technology.

Her Pip-Boy played the same numbers as usual (boring), along with the news of the area (again, boring), and she began to play through the possibilities of all that could happen as soon as she reached the Hidden Valley bunker. She imagined a completely new way of life that she hasn't been exposed to, and all the things she could learn, before the bunker was given the 'permanent' solution.

Along with that, she considered just why she was doing as House bade, and she couldn't really come to a better conclusion than, unfortunately, she did kind of see why reason led him to deciding that his regime was incompatible with the Brotherhood. Still, however, her faulty moral compass was screaming at her to take some kind of caution, which was precisely why she was doing what she was doing. She always knew her contrarianism would be the death of her, and if she could choose between dying over a debate at some hole in Freeside or dying over attempted genocide, she'd choose the latter. It gave her a legacy, at least, and it had much more prestige attached to it.

As soon as Volare came on, she switched off the Pip-Boy's radio, willing to sit in a moth-eaten couch in the middle of nowhere but completely unwilling to listen to Dean Martin. She does still wish there were more wops in the Mojave, though. She's sure she's known a couple, in a previous life.

The natural conclusion to that line of thinking was that House could've been a wop, and why she hadn't teased him about it at some point, or tried to divulge what his ethnicity was within the 'Caucasian' spectrum. She's certain that used to be far more important in his time, and unfortunately, it's no longer a point of divisiveness that she can use against others.

Many such cases!

Veronica is still fast asleep in the farmhouse's bedroom, and Eris is sure she can sneak in a couple hours of sleep. Leaving her Pip-Boy able to be snooped through was dangerous, sleeping would make her vulnerable, so she set an alarm on her Pip-Boy for two and a half hours, because Veronica seemed like a snooper. Under normal circumstances, she'd respect it. Well, she does respect it – the curiosity, but she also respects her own head being attached to her neck.

One last smoke, and she'd take a short nap. Though in the grand scheme of things, it was small and insignificant, she wondered how she'd be able to take smoke breaks in the bunker. She'd find a way around it, she was confident enough that she would.

When her cigarette was spent, she flicked its last remaining ashes in a dirty, chipped ceramic mug that was on an equally dirty and chipped coffee table.

Eris was sure she'd wake up with the worst knot in her neck in a couple of hours.