They had gone overboard with the bullets, Max thought as she and about four other troopers struggled to push together the corpse of a giant ant. The roughly car-sized mass of chitin and ruined radioactive flesh was already certainly heavy enough, and all those bullets in it certainly didn't help matters. It didn't help that they had to move it well away from its former location, from the underpass all the way to the dry lake just outside, where dwelt even more radioactive insects. Sand and sun would provide a grisly spectacle to passing caravans, but that wouldn't be their problem.
"You… you think we should earn money for this?" Asked one of the female troopers, as she pressed her shoulder against the corpse to better move it. "We get five dollars for every enemy killed, don't we?" Max stood next to hear, using her gloved hands to achieve the same result. The two other troopers stood on the other side of the beast, using its legs to pull it. "They're enemy combatants, right? They have a Queen and all!"
"N-no…" the male soldier who answered sounded hesitant. "They're big dumb animals… We get the money if we can bring in the heads of Fiends and the ilk, not some dumb ants!"
"She has a point!" argued Max. "Ants have hives, right? They obey… some queen, right? So it's like an enemy queendom… Oh, the smell!" She almost pulled back to bring up her face-wrap, only to realize that using her slimy gloves to do so would be hazardous to her nose, so Max decided to shrug it off and keep working. It'd toughen her up! Hopefully.
"W-well, they're not recognized by the NCR as enemy groups or whatever! Kimball isn't asking us to… go out and kill some ants in the desert, right? So… argh, we can't do it if it's just the four of us!" The soldier on the right glared angrily in the distance and let go of the legs of the beast, before dramatically pointing at the distant NCR troopers above the underpass. "These morons haven't shot at anything for ten minutes now! They can spare us some help! They're the same rank as us too! It's not like they're lieutenants!" He turned to his neighbor and promptly gave him a slap on the shoulder, intending to earn his attention. "We're gonna start a revolution, godammit! We'll never make it to McCarran if we waste time with these ants!
"That won't be necessary, Private." the bold recruit yelped into the night and immediately turned around, reaching for the rifle he had strapped to his back. As luck would have it, he fumbled with it for about ten seconds, allowing him to realize that he was standing in front of a fellow trooper before he could try to fire the thing. He stood there, in shocked silence, and slowly placed the weapon to his shoulder again. "That's good. Didn't intend on getting shot tonight." Said the unknown trooper.
"Who are you?" Said Max, peeking from behind the corpse of the giant ant. That one trooper was a vanguard for the rest of his squad, who were all going down the underpass carefully, aware that their fellow soldiers could be rather jumpy given the darkness all around them. "Y-you're a bit too late for the ant killing, huh!" she finished, her tone wavering between sarcasm and a genuine apology before settling for the former.
"Oh, we're here to get them out of the way." Said the soldier nonchalantly. "Jackson's been trying to convince us to get down to help ya for a while. Said it was only fair to help out the rookies with that task. It's not like we get to do anything at the Outpost." He continued, predicting what she was going to say. Max stood there baffled. It was quite the agreeable surprise, but the idea that all those soldiers were disguised frumentarii ready to pounce on her squad at any moment was on the back of her mind. Could she be leaving the Outpost vulnerable to an attack of a sort?
"What's going on over there?" Max sighed reassuredly upon hearing Emma's voice, aware that the latter would see through any disguise with much more ease than her. "You guys are here to help us out?" asked the older soldier, placing herself close to the trooper.
"Yeah. You guys head on to Novac and we get rid of the remaining corpses and earn our salary." he answered. Emma judged him very briefly before turning around to face her gathered squad.
"Let's head out, guys. The boys and girls of the Outpost will take over!" a lot of the soldiers swore, dropping the ant carcasses they had been carrying around or rushing to give the information to those out of rear sights. Her role done, Emma wrapped her right arm around Max's shoulders, tipping her helmet at the new squad before walking off, towards what seemed to be the corpses of the Caravaners. Max grunted in disgust, but Emma kept a tight grip on her, and stopped in front of the ruined corpses, their humanoid shape barely recognizable after the ants managed to get their way with them.
"U-urgh! Gross! Why are you… I-i've seen dead people before you know? N-not much but I know what death is!"
"Ain't about the dead. It's about what they're carrying." Max was let go off and watched in morbid curiosity as her friend knelt down and proceeded to pat the corpses down. Whenever she'd find something interesting in a pocket, be it a little bag full of caps or even food, Emma would put it in her own little pouch, completely ignoring Max's increasingly louder exclamations of disgust. All around them, a few soldiers watched, appalled as well but at a safer distance. "… Heh, look!" Emma suddenly got up and approached Max, placing a weapon in the palms of her two hands. "Here, a gift."
Max looked down at her gift: A long-barreled pistol, covered in a substance that she refused to identify. After tossing a placid look at it, the auburn-haired woman looked up to find her interlocutor holding up two bloody boxes of ammo, with a goofy smile on her face. "W-what the fuck Emma! You're l-looting their bodies!" She yelled, her vocal cords finally catching up to her thoughts. Well, it was a nice gun, but she'd rather buy it, not steal it off a dead man. And speaking of that, she snapped out of her trance by moving her right arm over to a holster on her right hip. She once again barely managed not to touch the holster, keeping the substance on her hands away from her body once more. "And I've got a sidearm right here!"
"Sure, 9mm. This one is 10mm." Emma held the boxes out, and Max almost reflexively moved to grab them out of her hands. Upon realizing her mistake, she stood there for five seconds before sighing in defeat, wordlessly accepting that she'd carry the weapon with her. Turning to keep up with her friend, the younger woman began to struggle, realizing now that the empty holsters she had on her were not meant to house a slightly oversized pistol. "In the Wastelands, you'll find a lot of good stuff on bodies, be they ancient or... fresh. It's up to ya to grab their stuff to make better use of it than they can."
"I already have weapons on me, don't I?" Cleaning her hands on the uniform of an oblivious trooper, Max seized her assault rifle and held it up proudly. Then, trying to sound casual about it, she seized the nearly-empty magazine and took it off the gun, tossing it aside to grab a new one out of her pouch. Placing it on the main gun, she jammed it in and pulled the bolt back with her right hand… only for it not to go all the way in. Her confidence quickly making way for surprise, Max slammed the forward assist with the lower side of her right palm. "Yeah the guns aren't perfect, the magazine's a bit slippery, the… huh other thingies don't work sometimes but I don't think that random weapons picked up off dead wastelanders are going to be much better off!"
"They can always be sold or repaired." Retorted Emma. "This desert's full of danger. Why'd you wanna say no to having one more gun on ya?"
"W-well, I just think it's a bit sinister." Max caught up, once again strapping her rifle to her shoulder via the cord tied to it. "Being looted by scavengers and not even properly buried, I mean. I guess why it's useful but… well, ya know!" Emma stared back. Obviously, she didn't know. "Well, I just hope it won't happen to me. If I die, I wouldn't want strangers to take my gear and just abandon my body." Emma froze, looking a little bothered.
"Well, no shit it's sinister." She said, sounding almost angry for a moment before calming down with a long sigh"…But the Wasteland doesn't care. You need to be a deceitful killer to make it through. And… and you're not that, I know. You're a good person. But being a good and successful person here... That's hard... And I think that most of the other soldiers don't know it either." She jerked a thumb their way, and Max turned her head to see her fellow troopers starting to join up into a single line. "Just between you and me, those guys will be names on a monument by the end of the week." The regret in her voice was palpable. "But you? I want to pay for my beer with dollars with your face on it, girl. And that won't happen if you don't abide by the rules of the Mojave." She smiled a little and placed her hand on Max's back, patting her a little. "I'm sounding cruel, but I'm looking out for ya, really. The place will eat ya up if you let your guard down."
The younger soldier nodded slowly. Not agreeing, but understanding. It was one thing to adapt to the wastes, but it was a bit unnerving of Emma to champion such a lack of morality and scruples. It wasn't a matter of being a good person, it was one of not succumbing to lesser temptations even while facing hardships. Would she really "win" if she was forced to become as bad as some of the enemies that she was supposed to fight? Max was convinced that there was a future for the righteous in the post-apocalypse. One that could survive, but wouldn't resort to outright ghoulish measures to keep up with the rest.
"Hey girls." Said Nolan, walking in from behind them. Max smiled at hearing his voice, and glanced back at him… Only for her relieved smile to make way for horror when she saw him holding up a little Fancy Lad Snack Cake box with his index and thumb, unconcerned with the blood that was dripping from the box, belonging to its former owner. "Who's got a sweet tooth here?" He asked, with a nonchalant smile. "Girls love cakes, right?"
"Good fucking l-"
…
"… It's not a bad cake, Max. A bit iron-y because of the blood but…"
"P-please talk about something else." Sighed Max, lacking the courage to outright tell Emma to shut up but nonetheless not wishing to converse about that cake any longer than she had to. Emma had gone back to serving as the squad leader, leading the entire group on their walk to Nipton through the pacified road ahead. It had been perhaps crawling with raiders or oversized wildlife before, but their colleagues of the NCR had done away with them. Sometimes while walking, the group would discover the oversized corpse of a Radscorpion, rotting on the side of the roads, or would glance at the corpses of overconfident raiders, foolish enough to tackle a squad of soldiers with useless junk for armor and weapons.
Max gave the bodies a glance, but not for long. She could apply Emma's words right here and now and throw herself to her knees to try and find anything of value on their persons, but she had standards, she thought. Her uniform and its values would not be sullied by resorting to… scavenging to keep up. So the young woman decided to take a look at the desert all around her, vainly trying to peer through the darkness everywhere around them. Seeing that there apparently wasn't much in here besides a lot of sand and darkness, she lastly looked at Nipton in front of her.
The town strongly contrasted with the dark wasteland all around it, being a shining beacon of civilization in the arid nothingness all around. It wasn't anything big, but even at a distance, Max had to squint her eyes, stunned by the sheer brightness of it all. It was almost careless of them to expose themselves to danger, one would think. The town had no defensive walls to it, nor did it have guards (that she could see from afar at least) or even makeshift barriers. From afar, it looked as if anyone could just waltz in there and attack the town to steal whatever precious loot it had.
And yet they were… partying? As the squad waltzed in closer and closer. Music from the old world, and the dancers to go along with it. Some were even wandering out of town, only to be discreetly led back by the lead dancer, who had downed fewer shots throughout the night. Max caught herself smiling despite her reservations with the place, tilting her head to the beat of the music with more and more energy as they approached. Her fellow soldiers likewise began to check their pouches, silently wondering if they had enough money to throw at refreshments for the night.
To Max's surprise, Nolan was one of the few not to do either. If anything, he had a much straighter posture now.
"We're not stopping here just so you know," Emma said, addressing the whole group. "Lieutenant will have our asses for dinner if we get too slow. And drunken troopers tend to have trouble walking down the end of the street, let alone the miles left before we get to Novac." There was some mumbling in the crowd, but few defied her orders, deciding to take a solemn look at the city instead. As they approached closer and closer, what seemed to be a guard eventually approached them. "Seemed to be", because he was too drunk to notice that the varmint rifle he was equipped with had no magazine attached to it. He looked to be younger than Max, and not even old enough to drink from a bottle of such liquor, let alone down several.
"H-h-hey wazzzuppp guys!" He spoke and lifted his rifle, meaning to slam it against his shoulder… but he instead managed to smack himself in the face with the weapon, falling into a crumpled heap on the cracked road. A few soldiers laughed and even Max found herself stiffening some chuckles of her own, causing her to quickly cover her smile with her right hand. And as the unit walked by, she briefly bent over to grab the unconscious youth's collar and drag him deeper into the city.
"… What the fuck are you doing?" One of the soldiers behind her asked, nearly startling her into dropping the boy. Which was sort of her plan at first, even if she'd do it gently, but Nipton was a crowded town by the standards of the Wasteland. The lights were already dizzying, but the noises and crowds around her were all rather distracting as well. Oh, heavy crowds, she could deal with. It was a pain to have to walk in one while carrying someone, but that wasn't her first time. What bothered here moreso was what the crowd was up to.
Nipton was a pretty little town. The buildings still looked a little dirty but at least they were pre-war, standing tall and not made out of the garbage or cobbled-up debris. The street was littered with trash, but it was relatively well-conserved for its age and one could walk down it without trouble. They obviously had a ton of power to waste on cheap devices, and the numbers of people who were gathered at the bar weren't going to run out of water or beer anytime soon. Mostly the latter, and that's what bothered her.
But that was a glossy mask. Cheap artifices to distract strangers or gamblers. Only by "merely" looking around, Max could see obviously inebriated women, some her age or younger, being dragged inside some of the buildings by some creeps. The men with them would notice, but were either fighting amongst themselves out of drunken rage or shaken down for money by thugs after being pummeled in the open, crying out to the others partygoers for help but being merely ignored. Gamblers and other relatively wealthy clients laid unconscious on their tables, as the waiters and clients battled to attempt to acquire their hard-earned caps.
To say that she was getting disgusted with the town was an understatement. What she had mistaken for a festive haven in the wasteland was actually a vicious little town, where naïve adventurers found themselves exploited by hardened criminals with absolutely zero consciences. Poor souls downed shots after shots of alcohol, eventually becoming too numb to fight back or too stupid to realize that was happening.
"I said, what are you doing? Just drop him."
"I can't." Said Max, the disillusionment seeping into her voice. "He… needs to be brought somewhere safe where he can rest."
"Yeah, right. In a town like that? He's going to wake up and drink some more." Snarled the soldier. "Drop him. You're gonna slow us down walking like that."
"I'll drop him somewhere else." She walked to the right, in the crowd. Her goal was to simply drop him off and then return to the straight path that they were taking to travel through the city. With any luck, she wouldn't be distanced: After all, it was a straight and narrow road and the trajectory was quite obvious, so she wasn't afraid of accidentally losing tracks and getting herself lost in a sea of buildings and partygoers. She heard the soldier call out to her, but decided that she'd stomach Emma's scolding later instead of abanding someone in need of help. With a determined frown, the youth cut through the crowd, seeing countless debaucheries at the corner of her eyes but always ignoring them.
With a determined gaze, she waltzed across confetti, sometimes ducking to let a bottle of whiskey sail over her head and sometimes stepping over someone who had fallen asleep on the ground. The music pounded away at her ears, working in tandem with the lights and the howling of the guests to try to overwhelm her. But Max held strong, lasting until she encountered an empty wooden bench close to a house. Fighting off the desire to use it for herself, the recruit gently placed the would-be guard on the bench.
"Well." She said to his unconscious form, tapping him on the head with her left hand. "If you wake up before the sunrise, please try not to drink again, alright? See ya… well never, I hope." Max took a look around and groaned. "At least not here!" And with that she was off, leaving the young stranger to his dreams. She had hoped for a smooth road ahead, but the reality of things set in quickly: The partygoers' numbers had grown while she wasn't looking, and more members had joined in to contribute to the living wall that stood in the way of her squad.
"Excuse me." She'd say. "Pardon me!" She'd repeat multiple times, keeping a tight grip on the rope of her rifle while desperately trying to remember if she had put the safety on or not before entering Nipton. "Just passing through! Sorry! Make some way please!" Max cycled through the words, attempting to lightly push the thinner members of the crowd out of the way or sneaking past the larger ones. So far, so good: The more seconds passed, the less she felt objects were tossed in the vicinity, as the partygoers converged in a point behind her. Smirking in triumph, Max sneaked past the final obstacles to her squad…
And bumped into someone, her excited pace coming to a screeching halt all of a sudden. Surprisingly enough for her, Max was not the one to be knocked off her feet: Instead, the other figure, the one that stood in the way, fell over on its back with the grace of a bag of potatoes, only being caught at the last minute by its two friends. Though "caught" was a merciful term to use when the figures also promptly fell over, unable to support the weight of the fallen comrade.
"Oh wow, I'm stronger than before!" Was the first thought to come to mind. Then, a second after, "Maybe they're hurt too! I can't just brush past them!" After adapting to her shock, Max bent her knees slightly, offering a gloved hand to her victim. Realizing that there was still ant gore, she quickly took the glove off before re-offering her hand. "Sorry about that! I'm in a bit of a hurry!" She meant to just help the person up and leave, but stopped when she saw what they were wearing an NCR uniform, just like hers! Even if their own clothes were quite a bit dirtier. The man in the foreground was a tall man with tan skin, dark hair, and a wild bear, with too much muscle mass to him for Max to outright topple him like that. His friend on the left was a young woman with round cracked glasses and blond hair, coiffed into a long ponytail. The last one on his right was a bald white man, who was the thinnest and tallest of the whole group.
Two of the members of the trio were struggling to get right back up, much to Max's embarrassment. "I-is okay! Is okay!" The leader –or so she assumed- grabbed her hand and hoisted himself up. Immediately after getting up, he checked into his pockets, fumbling with his right hand for a little while before pulling it out. "M-my hand's… fine so… so they must not be… be… bleh." He spat at the ground. "Iz fine." Max grimaced at the drunk man and ignored him, looking out for the glasses-wearing woman instead.
"Hi! My name's Max! If you're from the second squad, I'm that gal who came up late to the meeting! I'm pleased to meet other NCR troopers here!" Chuckling awkwardly, the young woman held her hand out for it to be shaken… but the female soldier glanced at her hand awkwardly, and tentatively reached for it before pulling back to observe it some more. Finally, she realized that the hand was tied to an arm, and the arm to a person, and looked up to stare at Max.
"… EENZIAR? Wazzat?" She slurred, almost falling over again. Her interlocutor bit her lips, trying very hard not to look too disdainful. Not that the drunkard would notice it anyway, she thought. When she turned to the bald man, she was relieved to see that he was standing quite well on his feet, and glaring at his companions.
"It's NCR, you dunce! You know, the republic we're from!" He rose his hand almost as if to slap her on the back of the head, but then realized that she'd fall over again and turned to look at Max. "Wow, haven't seen you around the block." His brown eyes quickly scanned away at her, and the younger soldier felt briefly uncomfortable, though she guessed it was because of the location. "… So you're a member of the new batch, right?"
"I zo… I zo… hurr helping ah… gai." Interrupted the soldier, obviously the worst of the bunch in terms of holding her liquor. The man in the middle, in the meantime, was devoting all his brainpower to standing still and not failing, preventing him from taking action yet. In answer to his female coworker, the bald man threw his head back and laughed, prompting Max to raise an eyebrow in suspicion.
"Definitely new batch!" He wiped a tear, attempting to regain control of himself. "Kid, I think you're a little confused about what soldiers are supposed to do. If you want to be out here to help people, you're in deep shit." He tried to glance at the crowd.
"Do unto others as you want to be done to you," Max replied, mentally patting herself on the back for remembering that little quote. Her brother would say it often enough that she had it printed. The soldier lets out a shorter chuckle.
"Well if you had been the unconscious one, I don't think he would've done what you did to him." He leered slightly at the trooper, causing her to cross her arms over her chest when the realization hit, though she kept a defiant glare. "Mojave's a hellhole with a bunch of arrogant tribals and ungrateful fucks crawling all over it. I just wasted one year of my life defending it from the Legions and yet we still have random wastelanders trying to steal our food or water." He clicked his tongue. "They've never seen the fucked-up shit that the Legion does to the people it catches… urgh, hey! Walski! Bottle!" With surprising swiftness for a man who could barely even standing, Walski grabbed a bottle of whiskey and handed it over in a flash.
"I know. I had this discussion… And I'm probably going to have it again." She took a glance to the side. "Huh, thanks for nothing. I'm leaving!" And Max intended to make good on her premise, only for a hand to immediately reach her shoulder, stopping her cold in her tracks. Annoyed, the young soldier turned around swiftly, slapping the hand away with her movement… and found herself faced with her reflection on a featureless bottle of alcohol, the brown liquid churning inside after being handled.
"You're gonna need this." Said the soldier, in a cryptical tone. "You'll see… The actions will speak louder than any words an' all."
"Well, just leave it if you want out so badly!" Yelled Max, though it was out of both anger and necessity, being heard in this town definitely required a certain vocal strength. "The Outpost is right there!"
"Oh, we're on leave. We've got our tickets for tomorrow and we're done. Nipton's just the last stop. Place sucks but… at least we're not getting shot at." He sighed, drinking from his bottle. "… I mean, we're getting shots at least heh?" He held out his drink and that was the last straw. With a snarl, Max raised her own bottle above her head and then slammed it downwards, tossing the bottle into the ground and shattering it into a thousand small pieces of glasses. The debris flew around the impact zone harmlessly in the meantime, as the whiskey within briefly splashed around before becoming inert. For a second, she almost expected the partygoers to throw themselves at it, licking the alcohol fresh out of the ground in defiance of the shards, but instead, the bald man looked at her with disdain.
She stared back with a similar amount of disgust, pointing at him outright with her hand. "Fuck you, fuck this town, and fuck that poison you just gave me!" It was exceedingly bold of her to do that, especially in public, but that was merely one outburst amongst many for the nights. Those who bothered to glance at the confrontation promptly looked back to deal with their own matters at hand or began to look for another fight. Max frowned and turned around, this time meaning to head right back to her squad. If Caesar himself were to stand in her way, then Caesar would be shot.
"Fuck you." Said the soberest of the soldiers, though his drink-holding hand was shaking, spilling some of it out of the bottle and into the ground. "You'll get me! Sooner or later! You'll see that this is the only way to keep oneself sane in that goddamn nightmare!"
Max ignored him, and instead quickly regained her squad, almost seamlessly slipping into her original position. Either because of a very nasty case of tunnel vision or simply because they had silently sworn to make her pay for later, no one raised a fuss. That, or Max's angry eyes were potent enough to scare half a battalion's worth of soldiers into silence. She found herself somewhat preferring that theory.
"Did you pick a fight with a local?!" Eventually complained that old soldier in the back. With a sigh, Max adjusted her hair.
"Hell yeah."
…
"Huh, is it dead?"
"Nahh, I think he's asleep." Corrected Nolan, putting emphasis on the "he". "Ghouls can sometimes sleep in odd places because no one else wants them in, so they're forced to sleep in uncomfortable spots. Or just never do, and get cranky."
"Well, I'm pretty sure he's dead. Else he'd have woken up." The female soldier chuckled, Max couldn't see her tag in the dark. "They all look like corpses anyhow, so good luck figuring out if they're sleeping, dead or not!"
The lights of Nipton were thankfully distant now, once again casting the land in darkness. The reunion with the Lieutenant's side of the squad had been short: Upon leaving the town, the two sides simply headed to Novac after initial verbal greetings. By all indications, the Lieutenant had somewhat underestimated the distance between the Outpost and McCarran and was thus desperately trying to reach at least Novac before stopping. The presence of more troops proved beneficial to Max's worries: Surely the Legion or other enemies wouldn't want to mess with so many of them in one place, right?
As for the wildlife, molerats weren't much of a threat to even one soldier with adequate gear. What really bothered her was moreso the narrow path they were taking, and the numerous elevated positions that enemies could decide to use for their own gain. She had seen for herself how effective the higher ground could be in dispatching enemies and had as a result elected to look up, attempting to detect any dark figure up above. What she'd do if she did spot them though, she didn't know. Perhaps she'd yell? But what if she was wrong? It's better to be safe than sorry but Max was afraid of looking like a hapless lunatic in front of the NCR's finest.
Her habit of looking up at the night sky left her unprepared for the situation on the ground, however. Some troopers had spotted a dead ghoul, nestled against a rock. Corpses were a common sight here, had she had learned, but many of the younger soldiers approached nonetheless. Some wanted to see a ghoul up-close for the first time, others like Max were more curious about the black robe that he had on him, as well as that odd gun by his side. It was like an assault rifle, but more crudely put-together, with several tubes running over it and even tape here and there. The weapon had no magazine: Instead, it was alimented by a single energy cell of a sort, which apparently kept the weapon active enough judging by the dim glow of the green barrel.
"Is that a plasma rifle?"
"Huh. Must've been killed by an animal then." Nolan assessed. He tentatively raised his hand, perhaps to shift the ghoul a little, but then retracted it. "… Raiders would've taken the gun, see?"
"Well shit." Spoke one of the soldiers, getting up. "If there's something out there that can kill a ghoul packing that kind of weaponry, we best catch up with the others." He went off, walking slowly to let the others walk up. The others, after all, were more occupied by the gun, studying it silently.
"I heard that these are the best weapons of all. If you're good with them, you can reduce a Deathclaw into a green puddle of goo." Argued one of the troopers. "If the Great War hadn't happened, we'd all be fighting with guns like these, and not those crappy rifles."
"They can't be that good." Another soldier cupped her chin with her hand, deeply pondering. "The Brotherhood used those and so did the Enclave, right? But we still beat them both."
"Well yeah, but look at the fiends, they're kicking our ass apparently. I say it's a good gun to have around." A third soldier intervened. "… But you can't just point and shoot them I heard. It's not like firing bullets, ya hear me? I've got a friend in New Reno." The other troops either chuckled or sighed derisively, some likewise getting up to join their friends. "Hey, I'm not a liar! Well, he has them, and they're apparently harder to use. They're a bit more fragile, needs much more maintaining, but when they're properly taken care of, it can demolish armor." He then hesitated slightly. "Once, he was attacked by a Centurion and he just punched a hole through him with a laser gun. I'm not lying."
"Well good luck maintaining that gun with our salary!" Interrupted one of the soldiers. "… But I mean, in a pinch, it'd be useful." He thought as well. Max, meanwhile, simply approached up and took the gun, grabbing and lifting the weapon close to her chest. It felt slightly lighter than the rifle, but not by much. Also unlike the gun, she could feel some weird energy at the tip of her right hand, the one closest to the barrel. It felt nice and warm, even if it was probably something horribly radioactive.
"What the hell, Doleetle?!" The first soldier looked back and forth at the corpse in a stupor. "You… you just took it! Like that!"
Max contemplated hitting a cog or two as if to "calibrate" the weapon, but backed off after realizing that it was genuinely her first time holding that kind of weaponry. Who knew what'd happen if she got too careless! "Y-yeah." She coughed, to gather courage. "Well, you guys were too slow with your debate. So I just took it. Nothing personal."
"Do you even know how to use that thing?! I said that it's not something you can just shoot with!"
"W-well, your friend at New Reno uses them well, right? But can you?" Max jammed an accusatory finger his way, and the soldier blinked twice before simply turning away, throwing his arms into the air in anger. The young woman was glad that he had given up: She wasn't too proud of her comeback herself. The other soldiers also left, too bored with the matter to discuss further, and eventually, all that was left was Nolan. After some more hesitation, the soldier approached closer to the deceased ghoul and, using two fingers, closed his eyes, giving him a more peaceful look in death. Max looked somberly at first… but then looked on in confusion bordering on horror as he promptly checked the corpse for stuff. With a triumphant huff, he turned to her and held up a fistful of black cells of a sort, which she identified as being Microfusion Cell, the ammo for the Energy Weapons.
"Each of these can be used to fire about… 24 shots. That should give you a good amount of ammo for that gun." He held his hand out and dropped the cells into her open palm. "Well, be careful though. The guy wasn't really lying when he said that weapons like these need to be taken care of."
"Huh, thanks!" She pocketed the cells, and both began to walk towards the rest of the troops at a fast pace. Max would've very much liked to bury the body, but they're just wasn't enough time for it. "… Huh, that was a nice thing to do, for that ghoul." Nolan looked down at her in surprise and nodded. "Sorry for the gun theft but people were taking too long and I didn't want to just watch us fight over a corpse, ya know?"
Nolan scratched his nose with a knowing smile. "I get ya. I worked with ghouls. Some are kinda grumpy, but they care. And I mean, hey. Two hundred years in the post-apocalypse? I'd be pretty sour too. Sure, some of them go ferals. But I've seen raiders with about as much intelligence as a feral anyhow." He briefly looked at the sky and then back at her. "… That guy at Nipton, is he okay? You sure went out of your way to help him out." Fearing another spiel about the nature of the Mojave and how ruthless it was, Max shook her head.
"He's… fine for tonight. But if he keeps drinking like that, I'm only delaying the inevitable." With a grimace, she hefted the rifle on her shoulder. "I don't think you're fine if you drink alcohol. Especially in the wastes. I keep being lectured over and over about it but… like, Emma drinks, those three soldiers drinks, that red-head drinks! What gives? Shouldn't they be all alert and stuff since the Mojave is sooooo dangerous?" She spoke, using her free hand for air quotes at the end.
"Well, I drink too." Nolan chuckled teasingly when Max realized what she had just said. "It's fine. I get why you feel that way." He paused, wondering if he knew Max enough to start pausing on private matters. "… You had someone you know experience troubles with it?"
Max stiffened a little. "A bit. But… It was back in Shady Sands. Why do people get drunk here? You could wander or do something stupid!"
"People drink to forget." She was told back by Nolan, with a cryptic tone to his voice. "… Hey, let's talk about something else, ya know? Like what you're going to do with that plasma rifle."
"Oh? That?" Max smirked and held it up. "I know exactly what to do."
…
"Seriously? You just sold it?" Nolan stared in incomprehension as Max walked back from her meeting with the wandering merchant with a smug face and a bagful of caps in the palm of her right hand. "That feels like a waste. Guns like these are pretty rare, ya know?" Upon approaching, Max's smile grew just a little bit nicer, and she held the bag out.
"Hey now. I'm not built like a rock like you are!" She laughed. "I can't carry too much stuff. And the rifle would be tough to maintain. May as well get money, right? And half of it's yours." She shoved the bag a bit closer to him. "I managed to sell it for 600 caps, so you can get 300! It was a bit damaged, but I could count on my city girl attitude to help out!"
Nolan opened his mouth as if to protest. Then he carefully bowed his head and considered her points, prompting him to take the bag. "… Well, it's going to be hard just taking precisely 150 caps out of this the manual way. How about I spill it on a table and we just take our share each?" Max shrugged in agreement, and the two soldiers headed out to one of the numerous empty tables found within Novac, their latest stop.
Novac was very much the opposite of Nipton in … a bit of everything, mostly. She could describe it as a quiet town, but it was pretty easy to be a quiet town in the dead of night. Though a few souls lingered about one of the nearby towns, with what looked like a Brahmin pen on it. A few others were contemplating the NCR soldiers setting up shop at the place, with gazes of suspicion or surprising relief. Such activity at night was a bit suspicious, but she didn't mind it. It did allow her to find a merchant to trade with.
Nolan took out a flashlight and both young soldiers set on opposite sides of the table, spilling the caps unto it and forming a mound. Then they both sat there for a couple of minutes, dumbstruck, before bringing over their halves of the caps.
"Ok, I'm going to count, huh…"
"You're gonna count to 300?" Asked Nolan, baffled. "There's got to be an easy way to do it. Let's make rows of it." The young soldier sat there, unanswered. Max had already begun to steadily count each cap, glaring at them with tired eyes. Nolan listened to her, hearing out her counting patiently and eventually starting to slowly sway to the sides as she continued to spell out the numbers like he was being sung to his sleep.
"… What the fuuuuckkk comes after… 134?" Slurred Max. "… Is it 134-2?" The woman daringly looked away from her caps to glance at her interlocutor and found him slumped into the table face-first, his peaceful snores reaching her ears. "O-oh yeah… we walked for a whole… rnnnghh suntime?" Max yawned and also swayed, preparing her own entrance into dreamland. Before she could fulfill her destiny, however, she felt a particular hand grasp her right shoulder, somewhat startling her back into full clarity. Regrettably, in doing so she yelped hard enough to awaken Nolan, who jolted to his feet and promptly fell out of the bench he was sitting at.
"… Wow, you guys are tired." Emma frowned. "I was about to suggest some training but… yeah, you guys could get knocked down by a bloatfly charging into you or something. Not even the larger ones."
"…. Oh hey, Emma." Max said, after waiting for exactly seven seconds, only now remembering that her friend existed. "We were counting caps. You wanna help?" Emma's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the caps, but she kept her cool. "I'm the world champion at… cap counting though. Haha."
"Well, why bother with helping you then? You go get 'em champ" Emma scratched the back of her head, clearly at a loss. "… Wow, I can't even be mad at you for breaking rank in Nipton. But anyway. We're sleeping in Novac for tonight. How about we use this time to train you up hand-to-hand?"
"… No I don't want to hold hands." Max pouted and turned her head away from Emma. The older woman grunted in displeasure.
"Well lookie here. I'll give ya your beauty sleep for like four hours, and then we're off to train in front of the motel, you alright with that? You need to be ready if… when you get up-close with the Legionaries and all, ya know. Should be eight hours before we get running again. Easier to navigate when the day's up." She peeked over to the nascent sun in the distance. They had walked all night, after all. "So how 'bout that?" As soon as she focused back on Max, she found the young girl passed out on the bench. Likewise, Nolan had also gone back to sleep. Or been knocked out by dropping out of the bench, who knew? Either way, Emma pocketed their money for them and then walked up to each soldier to hoist them up over her shoulders, grunting with each step.
"The NCR's finest ya all."
Sad news from Goodsprings. The town was wiped out after heavy fighting with a gang of escaped convicts, though it appears that both sides managed to successfully wipe each other out. A female Courier recently arrived unto the scene describes the events as, quote, "fucking atrocious."
…
Oh, spooky! Anyway, I hope you've liked this chapter! Don't hesitate to review this! I love getting feedback! So put a review or two if you liked it, or if you have time of course!
Anyhow next stop is McCarran! See ya next Friday!