The life of a soldier requires being alert and ready at any opportunity. With all these crazy freaks gathering near McCarran, after all, who's to say that there wouldn't be a sudden massive attack of Fiends aiming to overwhelm the NCR's finest while they were still counting bighorners? But in general, as she painfully learned during boot camp, troopers often awake to the sound of shouting along and a slew of instructions. Dress up, dunk your head in the water, do some exercises, grab your gun, do whatever you have to do next! Unsurprising, given the conditions and job, Max went with the flow instead of complaining about it.

"HAHAHA! DEATH TO THE PIGS OF THE NCR! THAT'S WHAT I'D BE SAYING IF I WERE A DIRTY RAIDER SCUM! AND WHAT WOULD YOU ALL BE DOING?!" Max smiled, snapped out of her sleep by the yelling about, and smoothly moved to slide out of her bed to get on her feet. The actual acceleration off her humble night abode was done well. Too well perhaps, as she discovered when she fell out of bed, instead of gracefully escaping its confines. The cold, dirty floor of McCarran was… effective in waking her up further, though! And even if it a bunch of fairies had passed the night before, to clean it up of any impurities, the sudden shock dispelled any fatigue left in her. "YOU'D BE SCREAMING, PRIVATES! BECAUSE I'D BE SHOOTING THE LOT OF YOU, AND YOU'D STILL BE STUCK IN YOUR BEDS!" Caporal. Willis reminded her of her drill instructors in sheer volume output and enthusiasm. Still, at least he didn't zero in on Max. Why would he, when she was doing about as well as many in her unit, themselves doing better than the rest of them?

"That was a hard fall! Are you okay?" Her bunkmate from above leaped from above, sticking the landing with more grace. He was a lovely young man that she constantly forgot the name of. Fitzpeter? Fitzgerald? Well, whatever, she could play the mute game while she still had her bed head going about! But the name wasn't the sole reason behind her awkward stare his way. He'd replaced Emma. That was her "problem" with him. A problem he was innocent with and that she could only blame a faceless bureaucrat for. Still, it stung to see Emma so easily replaced.

"… I-I'm okay, haha, my head's pretty solid!" He nodded in acceptance, and she and the rest of the squad moved in for the rest of the preparation morning. Californian men and women went to their own room to change back into their uniforms, under the encouragement of Willis. These rooms also had some water faucets within them. Many of the soldiers commandeered the spot to fully snap themselves out of their morning daze. Those who used it to quench a thirst or even clean themselves up were always held in contempt by the rest of the soldiers, and thus Max was careful to be the last in line for these matters. Oh, it was dangerous to be the last to leave the locker room when Willis was around, ("IS PUTTING ON AN UNIFORM A CHALLENGE AT ALL, PRIVATE?! You may be a bit wee too soft for the wastes… SCRUBBING DUTY, NOW!") but Max trusted in her speed to leave before the very last ones. That'd only get her a glare, but not anything too bad.

Once under the faucet, Max would dunk her head with water at a quick pace. She'd pretend to be doing it to clear up the confusion if she wasn't the last one around. Still, this morning she used the occasion to quickly rearrange her hair, to the best of her ability, with her somewhat limited schedule. Beneath the desert sun, with a helmet strapped on her head for hours on, and a decent amount of time spent training, patrolling, or fighting around, she hadn't had the time to maintain her hair. It had devolved into a garbled mess sitting on top of her skull, so chaotic that she felt her helmet struggle with it whenever she wanted to put it on. And she'd decided to bring some change to that, or as much as she could in an environment with no way to properly maintain one's hair.

Having used the water to bring a semblance of shape to her hair, Max retreated from the faucet and walked to the room leading outside, extracting a white headband out of her right pocket.

It had less grime than it did yesterday when she traded it with a fellow soldier for a very modest sum of caps: she'd spent her time cleaning it up and was satisfied enough to immediately put it on top of her head, imitating her old bob.

Then, she pulled out her helmet with similar haste and put it on, not wanting Willis or even much of her fellow privates to see in. They'd mistake it for a sign of vanity when it really wasn't… well, it partly was, but her true intention was to show that Doleetle was moving on to a new chapter of her life. Emma and her fellow soldiers died, she wouldn't be getting over it so soon, but she was at least willing to advance! And well, Max would only have to wear it around people who wouldn't be too lax about helmets or her friends.

After changing, the soldiers were told to do exercises to steel themselves for long patrols and fights ahead of time. Mostly the former, but Max still decided to go at it like she was about to have a boxing match with Legate Lanius himself. When most soldiers were going for five push-ups, she'd go for twenty, aiming to finish them at the same time as the others finished up. When they'd stretch their legs, the trooper would desperately call on her hidden mutant heritage to awaken so that her limbs could extend just a little bit more. Failing that, she'd maintain position a bit longer than most.

Of course, all of that wasn't too easy.

"Doleetle! If you want to self-impose a goal, that's fine! But don't fail at them if you feel like you're too good for my orders!" Willis knelt close to the exhausted Max. Pulling off twenty pushes in about five seconds was liable to leave you slumped on the floor, with an ardent desire to go back to bed so soon after leaving it. "… But well, who would I be to disrespect that drives to go forward? Ten pushes!" the private groaned, the rest of her squad hesitant between mockery, confusion, or, in rare cases, respect. Well, there'd be a lot more of the last one if she'd succeeded, but that was a score to reach by tomorrow!

Max simply got back on her arms and, as the others began to leave the room around her, began to do as she had been told. The strain was arduous on her limbs, and her poor uniform felt soaked in sweat already. But she could see Willis's shoes at the very edge of her vision. The drive not to fail in front of that woman gave Max the necessary stamina to complete her session and get up instead of complaining. It felt like a more significant victory than if she had finished it in one go. And she wouldn't let Willis's obvious disdain taint her enthusiasm this time around!

The Caporal sized Max up and grinned slyly. "… That's a beautiful headband, private Doleetle," Max reached for her head and looked down to see the helmet at her feet: in her panic to complete the assignment, she hadn't noticed its fall. "You look like a pretty woman! But I'd much prefer a deadly one. Go fetch your weapon!" Max saluted, flipped on her heels, and departed, cooking up an elaborate revenge plot against the Caporal later. But this took a backseat when she went to the arms room to fetch her bolt-action rifle and pistols, holding the former weapon close to her chest like a lover's embrace. It was Emma's gift to her, after all.

She acquired some ammo boxes on the way, meant to load up her rifle for sentry duty. The two privates on the way out sighed in relief when she left and closed the door behind her.

The soldiers in her squad were given their orders of the "week" by Monday. The Caporal would take a bit of time, during the exercise, to tell them where they were going to go and what they'd be doing for hours to hours, until the following Monday.

But it was shifting: McCarran was a bustling camp, and privates that weren't looking to be doing anything important were picked at random to carry out tasks. This wasn't apparently the proper thing in an army, but who was Max to know this? With Willis not having bestowed any new schedule or activity on her, she could only conclude that she was set to snipe Fiends! And the thought alone made a smile creep up on her lips. Ol' Willis was soon gone from her thoughts, along with any devious plan of revenge against her. Instead, Max carefully placed her gun against her right shoulder and began marching, already eager to get in position.

"Hey, Max!" from ahead of her, Nolan ran by, waving his arm her way. With yet another reason to be happy, Max smiled earnestly and waved by as well, without breaking her stride. Once he was close enough, he began to walk by her side. He kept his eyes ahead on the road but gave his friend a glance or two. But not three or four because he didn't want to make it look like he was checking on her. "You look a lot healthier already! If I had been here the past days, I would've brought you to that clinic sooner, but I was a bit distracted with Freeside."

Max reached out to pat him on the back. "It's alright, there's a lot of works that need to be done in Freeside, I heard!" and partly because of her. But she wasn't about to let that spoil her mood. Nolan thanked her with a slight smile. "So, where are you headed?"

"Sniper nest 8. I'm on guard duty," Nolan told her, sounding only mildly enthusiastic at the idea. "This means that I'm going to have to spend the next hours cooking beneath the sun, watching Fiends and the occasional rude caravaners flip me off!" he laughed, already sounding exhausted with the ordeal. "You?"

"Same as usual, sniper nest 8… hey, we're on the same tower! Isn't that fun? If any of the Fiends below start to flip the bird at you, I can shoot their fingers off! Huh…" Max pondered for a brief moment before looking up at him. "I like having you around the tower, you'll be my spotter, but this seems new! I was alone yesterday."

"Oh, she did tell us, you were a bit… busy, though," Nolan moved his eyes aside and quickly changed the subject, not wishing Max to dwell any further on her failed attempt. "You'd want me to be your spotter? Like… I'd grab binoculars and tell you where the enemies are at?" as they descended the stairs, he curled his fists to put them up in front of his eyes, in case she happened to not know what the binoculars were for. She did find it funny, though, so she let it pass.

"'Course, why not! Any Fiend that's close to the perimeter could be a threat to the base or Caravaners. Might as well be zealous!" Nolan considered her in silence and scratched the back of his neck.

"I get that. Any threat's a threat!" he collected himself before speaking, anticipating a reaction out of her. "Well, with their leaders gone, a lot of the Fiends seems to be waiting for someone to pick up the slack. I'm not convinced they're that dangerous anymore. Those deeper into their territory are nasty, that much is obvious, but these guys, they're almost waiting to have their chems given to them, you see? And while they're waiting, well, they're not… doing. It rhymes."

Max raised an eyebrow in suspicion but then lowered it to instead smile at him, "Welp! They're going to have a delivery for sure! But it'll be… bullets, heh." Before he could question her, she turned around and began to march forth into the tarmac.

…

It was funny to Max how the NCR didn't bother removing all the planes on the tarmac. All left abandoned more than 200 years ago. Some said they were being kept around if anything useful could still be scrounged up from their great carcasses. Because more soldiers were pouring in every week, rumors said they were considering using these planes to house the soldiers as a temporary measure against overcrowding. These "rumors" were what they were, coming off the mouths of a drunk trooper here and there who heard from a buddy who was friend with a caporal that was in good relationships with General Oliver. But, the Doleetle wouldn't mind the experience of resting in one of those steel cuckoos.

But for now, the planes served as a reminder of the place's true purpose. And the soldiers weren't too eager to see them gone, not when the aircraft provided them with the shadows necessary to survive a harrowing journey across the tarmac. The concrete below did not mix well with the sun above at all. In the distance, a few of her patrolling colleagues were even slowly walking by the shadows, not entirely staying beneath but taking their sweet time leaving the comfortable darkness. She got them, but she understood that you can only get used to a harsh master like the sun. And the best way to survive exposure to the sun is to stand in its presence for long enough… and, well, proper equipment was also welcomed heartily.

A face wrap, a good helmet, leather armor, and sweat! The most natural, if unsightly, of the body's defenses against heat. And Max was shedding plenty of it on her way to the "sniper nest," one of the numerous towers spread across the base. She ran where many walked, eager to start the day and get her mind concentrated on anything else at all. Behind her, Nolan lagged behind, struggling to keep up despite his larger frame. "Wait up, Max!" he called, though his fellow Californian refused to heed his orders. Once she was at the ladder, she instead began to climb without any pause. And that got him to accelerate in particular, without envisioning a grim fate for Max, like her limbs letting go at the worst moment. But he was underestimating her… slightly. Every second built-up fatigue, yes, but her yesterday self would be out cold by the tarmac, not on her way to instead do so on the right spot. It's still a victory, right?

As the brunette ascended to the grey circular platform that overlooked the wastes all around the base, her body begged for a pause, which she briefly obliged by slumping over the metallic ground at her feet, too weak to grasp her trusty water canteen. Behind her, Nolan ascended on his own, managing to climb up to her position in about nine seconds while placing about three swears within each second. Max laughed, and her arms retrieved the strength to grip the steel railing and prop her up. "You want me to give you a hand? You sound a bit tired, Nolan!"

"If you were a guy or an uglier girl, I'd have thrown you down all the way down for that!" with an athletic push, the black man hurled himself over the platform, only slightly out of breath compared to Max. "But I'm a…" he briefly cut himself off to stare over his left shoulder: the soldiers they were replacing were standing on the other side of the platform, mouths agape. "… Hi! I'm Private Osweal, this is Private Doleetle. She's very enthusiastic."

"… Yeah." Their reply delivered, the two soldiers checked out the ladder to see if there wasn't any friction on it and began descending, muttering about "glowsers" and other unflattering stereotypes. Max had used that lull to get herself ready in the meantime and was checking out anything left behind. She was disappointed, yet unsurprised, to see fewer supplies than yesterday. But, well, it had been nice to have gifts, but everybody was running around with what they could afford already, so she wasn't about to act spoiled because those two gentlemen only left her with the bare minimum: five bottles of purified water, three ammo boxes and, oh! Two cans of Pork N' Beans!

"Max, I get being enthusiastic, but could you not do that again?" a hand settled on her shoulder. Then he retired it promptly, meaning only to remind Max of his presence. "When our shift will be over, promise me not to… jump off the railing to get down there faster, alright?" he sighed, but she could see him smiling slightly as he walked over and got into position by drawing his binoculars, leaving his rifle aside for now. Even as he mimicked looking away, she could tell that his eyes were laying on her.

"I'll grab the ladder on the way down!" Max opened the bolt of her rifle, pulled it back, and picked into the ammo boxes to insert the bullets into the magazine before putting aside her own boxes next to them. That added three packages, for a total of six. So she wouldn't feel guilty bringing the number back to three throughout her shift: she'd be leaving it right as she found it, after all. She added a seventh unofficial ammo box by placing her helmet and filling it with a decent amount of bullets, plucked from her own ammo boxes, and slammed the magazine shut.

Nolan, in the meantime, placed more bottles of water and snacks of his own, mostly on his side, in case his partner decided to indulge her hunger a little. He glanced at his fellow soldier to tell her not to eat too many snacks but stopped when he saw Max's new hair decoration.

"… Nice hairband." He complimented; Max blushed at that and took her hand off her gun to lightly slap him on the knee.

"If you can see it, it means your eyes aren't down on the road!" she teasingly giggled. "Focus, mister Nolan!"

"Aye, Sergeant! Any more tips?" he settled his eyes down. Below, caravans passed, and he could see a few patrols heading to Freeside or patrolling around the camp. Back when they first arrived at McCarran, the Fiends were too strong and numerous for the caravans to access the place, and most patrols couldn't go through without several firefights on the way. But now, he could barely hear any gunfire, and the troops seemed unmolested in their patrols. Was it true? Were the Fiends really on the backfoot this time? He'd been told the NCR had killed plenty of "Fiend leaders" in its time, but a successor would take their place after a brief lull, and the usual unpleasantness would ensue again.

With the Powder Gangers's main hideout firmly under NCR control and the Fiends on the way out, the young man wondered if they'd be seeing an end to the war with their own eyes… or if the Legion would dig up more goons to throw at them.

His binoculars settled on four Fiends eventually, by one of the many ruined buildings surrounding the area. Two of them stood still, burning their eyes out in a direct stare battle against the sun. A third was hacking away at the numerous titanic scraps forming a wall between the Strip and the rest of the Mojave outside, taking this massive endeavor with nothing but sheer rage and two broken machetes. The fourth and last of the Fiends was lying motionless next to a torn-down wall. Her hands sometimes moved to fend off an opponent that only existed in her head.

Hard to believe that guys like these held the NCR by the balls not too long ago. But he remembered that the sickos kept to themselves.

"I'm seeing four of them, coordinates-"

"Coordinates? That's a nice find, Nolan, but could you just tell me, huh, the shape and size of the building they could be standing next to?" Max peered through her scope, keeping her finger off the weapon's trigger to avoid any unfortunate accident. Nolan made a brief bookmark of the Fiends's location and lowered the binoculars to stick his tongue out at Max.

"Oh, sure thing Maxxie! Hm, let me check…" he raised his finger dramatically and set it towards a random row of ruins. "They're close to a random destroyed building. It's itself close to the ravaged households around the areas. Just look at the dilapidated ruins and peer around until you see the people with funny skull hats poking around the area." Max laughed slightly and lowered her rifle to return the raspberry in kind.

"You gotta dig it up in your imagination! C'mon, each of these annihilated abodes can be identified with their own marks! Look at this one, with the… little antenna sticking out of that mound of ruins!" she pointed left, then right. "And this one, the bricks are almost shaped like a little fist!" Max then tapped on the right side of her head, with a bit of a wink his way, before she resumed seeing through her scope. "Use your head… hubhead, ah!"

Nolan pursed his lips but couldn't hold back an amused little giggle. "Imagination can be a detriment, Max. It may lead to falsehood, like you Shadies thinking that you're the best state in the Republic!" Max smiled as well, but her reply died before she could begin to formulate it: in the snap of a finger, her demeanor turned cold and her face statue-like. Her eyes, ordinarily peering around everywhere in curiosity, settled entirely on her scope, and she adjusted the weapon before firing once, quickly slamming the bolt back to free the spent bullet and rotate another in. She shot again, swore lightly, and hit the bolt again before firing a third time. The bolt movement was almost hard-coded into her brain by that point.

Another shot, and Nolan remembered he had binoculars before looking back at the Fiends, the three of them laying in a pool of their own blood. He'd peered in very shortly after her fourth shot, and so she could see the third guy down on the floor, pressing his hands against his neck to hold back the blood. Max had been more accurate on her other shots: the two other Fiends had been shot in the head, the little smoking hole on their helmets was proof enough. He wasn't keen enough to see if she'd missed beforehand, but he guessed she didn't: the last of the Fiends, the one that was suffering from some kind of overdose, was still alive and blithely unaware of the fates of her fellow Raiders.

And then a fifth bullet ripped through the air to slam against her head at high speed, scattering blood, bones as well as other fragments all around the group. Nolan, having flinched, composed himself for a few seconds and turned to look at Max again. With her targets eliminated, the brunette took a short break to load more bullets into her rifle. Her smile was back, but it was a bit wider than before and showed more of her pearly white teeth. "Next," Max spoke to herself, completing the reload.

Then, she remembered that her undertaking was a cooperative one and stopped to look at him. "How was my shooting?"

"I… erm…" Nolan looked back at the dead Fiends. Below, the caravaners and their soldiers scattered in a panic, thinking they were being shot at and taking measures to stop it. He wasn't so sure he could tell them, all the way up from his tower, that Max truly saved their lives: those Fiends were out of the way and hardly a treat, aside from the guy with the broken machetes, and he'd deemed it better to focus all his hatred into that scrapheap wall. "… Max, why did you do that?"

His interlocutor tilted her head, in disbelief as well now, and then grimaced in disdain. "Why did I shoot the drugged raiders with an inexplicable hatred of people like you and me, the means to act on it, and countless demonstrations of brutality? Well, geez, I don't know!" Max went to look at her scope again, attempting to use it to bring an end to the conversation, but then regrets seized her before he could even try to formulate an answer, and she lowered the weapon again. "Sorry, Nolan! You're… you're a good guy. I shouldn't be getting upset with you. But… well, you can't be saying that what I did was…."

"I'm not ever going to defend Fiends like Nephi. You'd be right to shoot these guys on sight. You line up…" he swept his right arm over the edge, placing several imaginary floating Fiends along the way. "A dozen of these guys, kill them all, and all I'm going to say will be "nice aim," which… it was nice…." Max smiled. It was sweet and almost made Nolan forget he was supposed to chide her. He rubbed his temples and carried on. "But the lower guys, they're junkies picked off the streets of Westside and sent to fight! They barely know what's going on to start with, and they'd overdose if they don't die by bullets. Those guys weren't a threat to the people down below. If they ever began to move their way, we'd act, but as it stood… were they that dangerous to them? It's a matter of keeping ammo available."

Max considered his point but coldly reloaded the gun, thinking back of the astounding depravity she saw from the Fiends. Nephi was a piece of work for sure, but the laughter and shriekings of his troops would forever be engraved into her mind too. She wasn't angry, however, much as she felt… disappointed? She'd hoped that Nolan, who saw the wastes more than she did, would have realized the irredeemable nature of the Fiends earlier.

Still, she didn't want to be harsh. He'd never been up close with them before, right?

"You can pity the Fiends, and then they start to shoot at you, or they tackle you to better bash your face in, or they go for another victim and… well what do you do?" Max began to peer into her scope again. She'd humor Nolan, but little he could say would stop her from continuing the carnage. It wasn't merely vengeance: it was marksmanship. It was more than getting a new haircut: She would become the sniper that Emma hyped her up to be. A crack shot with any weapons, who would never again pathetically miss a near point-blank shot. Never again would she be forced to watch, in helpless horror, her vaulted aim fail on a good friend at a critical moment... "Never again," the would-be sniper repeated in her head, her grip tightening.

A lone Fiend appeared in her sight, with a mere machete in hand. He barely peered over his makeshift hiding spot in the rubble. He meant to watch out for enemies but only doomed himself, for Max swiftly took her shot. From her scope, she could see the guy's head explode into another mess of blood and bones as his body fell backward into the slump. Another dead body to sink into the desert sands.

Below, the soldiers and caravaners quickened their paces, seeing that something in their surroundings was causing the soldiers up above to be trigger-happy, and they weren't about to deal with it. More remarkably, the noises made more raiders act up in ruins. They were hiding at mostly Fiends, but more deserts highwaymen were hiding within. Or they were terribly lost. It was pretty hard to say, thanks to their lack of distinctive gears. But she figured they were up to no good because any self-respecting citizen would not be sleeping in those ruins, right?

They were crawling over the place like the worms they were, now, and a sinister joy caught Max at the idea of practicing her aim. It was practically free range! And the workload on subsequent shifts would be considerably more manageable."

"We can shoot the Fiends as much as we want. In the end, there's no guarantee that another group won't pick up in their place. The chems are the problem, and we're too busy on the Dam to take care of that. Suppose we could bring humanitarian aid to those towns in Outer Vegas and provide them with safety. In that case, there'd be far fewer addicts." Max took some more shots, and Nolan winced. It was quite the excellent aim; it'd be handy against the Legion… but he was terrified of what had happened to Max in such a short time. Almost like a split personality! And he could understand it. In his heart, he knew that very few would weep for those Fiends she was in the process of gunning down. Because no one would try to get them or the reasons why they picked up on the chems or weapons, to begin with.

But he didn't want Max to be seized by anger. It's anger that convinces a man to pick up a gun and shoot his fellows until he can get what he wants, and it was because of anger that Max was convinced none of the Fiends deserved to live. And that same anger would cause her judgment to eventually spill out to people far more sympathetic than them, and Nolan had no desire to witness the end of this.

"People pick up on these chems when they have nothing left, you know?" Max reached for those bullets again. Good: he'd been waiting for her gunfire to die down. "When you feel like life's kicking you around, and there's no way to claw yourself out of your situation, chems seems like an easy alternative. To them, it becomes a way to be strong or plainly happy when the real world doesn't want them to be, see? It's a vicious downward spiral," he pointed his finger down and made a rotating motion with it. "Where the more they take chems, the weaker they get, so the fewer chances of escaping they have and the more chems they start to abuse."

The brunette heeded his words, thinking back of the pleasant feeling that the Stimpak had bestowed on her back in that clinic. And Stimpaks weren't addictive, to begin with. But, while Max was listening to him, she was also lending attention to a voice of her own in her head. It wasn't calm or patient like Nolan, forcing her to divert attention from him to listen to it.

It was quick and jittery, and it changed topics before she realized what it was talking about five seconds ago, but she understood it well. Addiction is tragic, but the Fiends are closer to animals than humans because of it. Deprived of chems, would they still even be functioning? Would they not want death after realizing the chaos that they caused in their artificial bliss? Or would they not care, caring solely about the pleasures they experienced injecting that shit into their veins?

It's what defines addiction to her. It means knowing that you're hurting yourself and other people but ultimately failing to resist. It's selfish to keep going when so many of your loved ones are pleading with you not to! That bottle of whiskey or that canister of Jet isn't talking to you with its little non-existent mouth, encouraging you to keep going at it: it's you who's making the decision to consume whatever is inside.

And just because you're feeling a little sad on the inside. Because you can't deal with it like an adult, you drag everyone else into that spiral Nolan so accurately described.

And it doesn't need to be a poison you can drink or jab into your veins! Some people have obsessions they can't let go of, no matter how painful, and let them control their entire lives! How ridiculous is that? You'd throw everything away, your better half, a happy family, safety in the wastes, and a future, just to run away to the fucking Mojave and gamble away everything you have?

You'd abandon the man you were to drown your sorrows and favor a bottle of "wine" over your daughter? Because you still can't get over your wife running away, probably because of your shit temper even when you're not operating with more alcohol in your veins than actual blood? Fuck that! Addicts dig their own graves and let their loved ones put them in for it. How fucking selfish!

It was admirable of Nolan to still care for them. Really! But these guys got the way they are because they've been shown too much of that pity before. And besides, what were the odds of them running off to commit a horrible injustice upon innocents later? They were harmless now, but they'd probably done something awful before or would commit in the future. That mound of rubbles was right next to the sharecropper farm! If these guys managed to worm their way through the fence, or worse, overtook it, then the situation would've gone to hell in a handbasket.

"You're right; actually, I saw that in Freeside," Max contemplated, careful of what her words could inspire in Nolan. She didn't want him to go away, but at the same time, what would happen if he decided to stay his hand upon cornering a Fiend? He'd indeed be killed! She had to get through him! "A lot of lowlives provide drugs to their desperate clientele and then do nothing when those same clients eventually wander out of their communities in search of more of that stuff. We should focus on stopping the people who are behind this traffic as well as their own suppliers."

She gripped her rifle harder and opened fire. The raiders dropped below and began scattering. Noticing the movements, the soldiers and guards on the road restored to shooting at them too. And the usual NCR tactic of swarming the enemy in bullets once again demonstrated its might: All that the brunette had to do from this point onward was to pick off the few stragglers who found something good to hide behind and let the others do the rest.

Even with her gains in experience down the line, the sound of a hundred bullets being fired in a timespan of seconds made Max flinch. But she didn't wait for them to be done before ranting.

"But! When you've seen the way, those freaks operate, when you've been close enough to see the glee in their eyes as they choke you to death… I don't want to show them mercy, Nolan. I'm…" Max cut herself off mid-speech but held up a finger when Nolan prepared to interject. "I'm sorry, but I hate these vicious bastards. Maybe you thought that I would forgive them after they got done killing my entire squad and Emma, but… I don't want to. I'm glad you think I'm that good a person, but…" she smiled, trying not to sound too sad, and lifted her weapon. "I'm not anymore. And if you want to blame someone, anyone, for that, you can always look for them with your binoculars. And I won't miss them this time."

Nolan sighed slowly but didn't protest. Maybe the Fiends were truly lost: at this point, everyone in the camp had lost someone to them. If a girl like Max was advocating for their extermination, what in the world could he do? All he could hope was that the lessons would be learned and that the victorious NCR would take steps to prevent the emergence of a new breed of raiders. But he knew that maybe five years from now, even if House suddenly proved cooperative, even if Caesar personally walked all the way to Shady Sands for his own trial, he, Max and the others would be in the Mojave, dealing with a new group of raiders, emerging from the ashes of the old group to carry on their brutality.

But then he chased that thought. Or rather, he trapped it in a small box and shoved it deep inside his psyche, to be forgotten. One doesn't thrive in the Wastes by being a pessimist!

"… I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for you when you needed it." He picked up the binocular again and watched as Max sadly shook her head.

"It's fine. I'll get better. I'm already better, see?" Max glanced at the corpses of the Raiders below, and her reassuring smile became one of twisted satisfaction again at the sight of the bullet-riddled corpses. Several NCR troopers would be returning home to their families in the future because the people who would have gruesomely tortured them were not around anymore. No one would have to learn that they would carry on their lives without their loved ones now. No one would have to read a letter or wake up to see an army official standing at their door, with grim expressions on their faces.

But it wasn't enough. Max needed to do it right for Emma. She needed to save as many troopers as she'd unwittingly doomed back in that fight, and she needed to make that a reality. How she'd do it yet, she hadn't figured, besides killing Fiends. But maybe she was doing it for the sheer thrill of it?

On the very left, a new raider approached, his gait slow and awkward. He made for a perfect target, and Max promptly got his head in her line of sight, smiling at the lives she was spared. And the revenge she was taking.

A bullet ripped through the air again.

…

"Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! C'mon! Be faster, Nolan, you slowpoke! How the hell are you gonna catch up to me by walking, heh?!" Max stopped her sprint and turned to face Nolan, sticking her tongue out at him as a taunting gesture before continuing her race.

"There's a lot of ways to catch up to a little sand rabbit, you know that?!" he yelled from his side, annoyed at her. A few patrolling soldiers watched Max run by. A few were impressed by her speed or amused by the banter. A lot more wished she'd slam into something so that she could shut up. And they were about to have their wishes granted as Max entered the terminal building and almost slammed into the emerging figure of Arcade Gannon, the blond man having suddenly emerged into her line of sight before she could attempt to maneuver around him.

"… Told you!" Nolan cried out in victory after initially waiting to see if Max and Arcade were both okay. He upped his own pace to join them in case an officer was around to reprimand Max for her bout of speed, but the troopers around the base were far too busy with their own work to care about a near-accident. His colleague, meanwhile, thanked every god she knew the name of (not many, religious texts hadn't been spared by the flames in most parts of the Wasteland) and began patting Arcade on the back as a reassurance maneuver. Arcade, in comparison, looked flummoxed at best and took off his glasses.

"Greetings, Max," he took off his glasses to clean them up. "I'd advise you to look both ways before crossing. My presence around these parts does not quite grant you carte blanche to hurting yourself, you see?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry!" Max joined her hands together, slowly melting into an awkward mess before Arcade's eyes. "I'm working on my cardio, and I feel like I worry less when I run about. And erm… oh! It's to make Nolan less of a slowpoke. And by the way…" the trooper lightly spun on her feet to let her left side face Nolan and held an arm out his way. "Introducing… Nolan, my best, huh, bud!" Then, she moved her right side to Arcade and held her arm his way. "And introducing… Arcade! My friend in the Followers and the guy who's willing to let me whine in his ear about my life problems!" It was so bizarre to see her cheerful after their discussion that Nolan froze, unable to compute the sight or sounds.

They'd spent the last hours in awkward silence, waiting for more Fiends to step into the line before shooting at them. Max hadn't said a single word while doing so: she killed four more raiders on her own or revealed their positions to the guys below and spent her time waiting for more victims or occasionally indulged into a snack. However, she was willing to interrupt it at any moment if she thought that a raider was in sight. And then, when their shift was picked up, she switched back to her regular self without missing a beat.

War can really fuck you up fast, heh?

"You introduced me to Nolan yesterday," Arcade corrected Max. Mortified by her latest mistake, the soldier lowered her arms and left out a mighty sigh. "Unless he…?" A pointed stare his way.

"W… no, no!" Nolan snapped out of his daze to get closer to the dynamic duo, amicably patting Max on the shoulder as his fellow Californian desperately attempted to vanish from her spot. "You're her therapist, right? I don't blame her too much. It was kind of hectic because of the sudden introduction." How was your first night on the camp?"

"Oh, that's right!" The brunette snapped to attention. "Did they treat you right? I'm sorry, I should've checked on you!"

"Oh, I was left alone and naked outside and had to beg a soldier to be let into his tent; it was utterly abominable!" Nolan laughed, but Max didn't, instead of glancing the way of the courtyard, ready to kick an imaginary soldier's ass. "I'm joking… badly, it seems," he reassured, blocking her line of sight hastily. "I was allowed to reside in the OSI's quarters. I'd need to put in some work to help in exchange, but Hsu seems to be a reasonable man…", for the NCR army, he almost said out loud. "even if my arrival to the base was quite abrupt. And no need to look guilty, Max. I proposed it to you."

"The OSI, huh?" Max glanced to the right side of the base.

"Yes. told me much about their improved efficiency next to the Followers," Arcade almost spat. "How we are satisfied with, to quote, "marinating in the gutter handing out candies to societal failures, your heads full of impossible dreams" while he plans on solving the "problems of a civilized nation" and gets the ear of the president," the blond man folded his arms and smiled slightly. "I told him that the Followers and he aren't so different in tending to impossible dreams, and he rather crudely guided me to the nearest exit. Angela is a wonder, though."

"Hildern? Yeah, he's an ass," Nolan admitted, after waiting to see if said Hildern was around the corner, ready to pounce. "But the office of science and industry handle complicated stuff. We can shoot at a problem all day as soldiers. Ultimately, it's up to them to fix the real issues. Like food shortages, plantations, repairing old tech... the common folks owe a lot to them. They redistribute power from the Dam back at home, so they keep the lights on for the common folks – us." He touched his chest to make his point.

"Hildern does not seem to care much about fixing the common folk's issues," the doctor sighed. "He'd rather renovate new Vertibirds for Kimball to parade around with or find ambitious researches to mark the pages of history with. It's a bit of a trend with the NCR: People in high places attempting to be like Tandi and forever mark the Republic, but ignoring the common good and the needs of others. Oliver and Hildern are too focused on the "big picture," and people, especially soldiers in the former case, become numbers for them, to use at will."

"Oh, careful, Arcade! You're slandering the Republic's finest!" Max warmed with a light smile on her face. "You better hope I'll forget about it once Nolan and I are done with guarding the prisoners."

"Yep, which we should really be doing," Nolan motioned for Max to follow him, and both soldiers settled out.

"See you later, Arcade!" Max called out, ascending the stairs. Nolan echoed her words, though he turned his back to his fellow soldier to mouth some comments at the blond doctor. The Follower nodded, but the success of Nolan's little maneuver wouldn't be known to him until later. And as he too began departing from the premises to reach the infirmary, he started to wonder if his stay at McCarran would be a prolonged one.

…

The jail of Camp McCarran is very rarely used to host Raiders and other desert scumbags, thanks to the average trooper's limited interest in peacefully subduing them. Moreso, you could find soldiers who stole from their fellow troopers or traded in and/or consumed chems and alcohol, amongst other crimes.

"It's not the most important spot of the base to guard, so be ready to have Lieutenant Boyd send us to the other side of the base in five minutes," Nolan said as he and Max took a position at the half-open door. "It's a pretty easy job aside from the occasional soldier looking to free his buddy from these cells. Just enjoy not being out under the sun, hm? Could be minutes before we get cooked again."

Max got to the left and glanced in curiosity at the closed door. In front of them, four more soldiers were guarding the interrogation room, where Boyd and others tried desperately to extract valuable information out of him. Even now, she could see the occasionally hired interrogation expert departs from the premise with a forlorn face, having met a brick wall with the Legion's discipline. Nolan likewise couldn't contain his curiosity, even if he ultimately looked away urgently.

"Are you alright?" Max's attention switched to her partner, and she patted him on the right shoulder. "You were a part of the mission to capture… hm-" the brunette receded her hand. Emma had been involved, and so was Deacon. How unfair was it to wade through the hellish hordes of the Legion but die to a Psycho addict with a golf club? Well, if she'd taken her cue and threw herself in Nephi's way… perhaps they would've put up something to survive altogether? It sounded lovely in Max's head until she remembered that she would have died in this same reality.

Huh, what would it have been like if she died? Would Emma have missed her? Would Deacon even acknowledge it? Her family at home, Andrew, Matthew, even Jessica or Veronica…

"Y-yeah, I'm fine, urm!" Nolan coughed into his clenched fist, the sound waking up Max from her dark thoughts, which she'd be forever grateful to him for. "I just keep thinking of the way his men killed themselves altogether when it was clear they lost. Do you imagine that? Unflinchingly ending your life because death is far better than outright defeat and capture? Caesar's a fucking madman…" he spoke in a hushed tone. The banter between soldiers was technically allowed, but that was a relatively flexible authorization, dependant on the officer's mood.

"I heard that they brainwash their soldiers from early childhood," was the TV a truthful source of information? Questions for later. "… Emma-" she marked a very brief pause but powered ahead for this one. She wouldn't let herself slow down when someone else was having a tough time. "… told me the way it went down and well, erm, I can't out and hug you in front of everyone else but if you want…."

"You could always give me more of your rations tonight," he glanced at her, hopeful, and she gave an earnest sigh.

"I'm a developing young woman who needs her calories, Nolan," Max stepped back to her side of the door. "You can always politely ask Hector. He thinks that the food's being slowly poisoned by the Made Men sent his way."

"I'd take the poison over those goddamn beans any day! I couldn't believe my luck when the caravans came rolling in again!" he glanced down in ponderation and then looked at Max. "Forget the casinos. When I make it to the Strip, I'm sinking my money into the menu at the Ultra-Luxe. What about you, Max?"

"The Ultra-Luxe? Isn't that a rich people's place even for the Strip?" Max looked up to the ceiling lights and began to wonder as well. Should she ask? "Maybe… if we pour our caps together, we could eat there? I miss Brahmin steaks…." Nolan smiled at that, but before they could begin making more plans, a banging sound resonated from the jail section, snapping the soldier's attention towards it. Drawn by curiosity, Max reached out for the door and glanced at Nolan. "I'm going to check. Hm, try to rescue me if I scream." She smiled his way, trying to reassure him as much as she wanted to reassure herself.

"I'll be there, don't worry." Max turned her head to the jail and slipped through the door, fully closing it on the way in. Realizing it'd be easier for Nolan to listen and intervene if it stayed open, she moved her hand to re-open it, but a voice cut through the darkness.

"You better keep it closed. I like my discussions face to face." Max stopped mid-motion, lightly recognizing the voice, and decided to spite its owner by keeping it slightly ajar before heading his way. Several jail cells were lined up in a row over the room, with a faucet to the very left and lockers full of "confiscated materials" only accessible to Boyd.

Rumors were that plenty of guards apparently wound up in the very same jail they were supposed to guard when they tried to use the key to access the stolen goods.

Within the jails, several of her fellow soldiers resided, having been crammed together in the cells. The only one to live alone in his tiny abode was Dixon, sitting on his bed like it was the mightiest of thrones. Next to him resided a little wooden spoon, still soaked in… whatever meal he'd eaten. "Sorry for the disruption, but your little conversation was giving me a hell of a toothache." He opened his jaw and pointed his thumb at a few missing teeth in his jaw.

Max didn't get close, in case he'd try and throttle her through the bars, but her facial expression twisted in disdain. "It might be something else. Like your teeth being punched out last week."

Dixon gave her a very brief incredulous look before giggling nervously. "Hm, you're right. I did run into a brute not so long ago. One private Max Doleetle."

Max rolled her eyes and began walking away. "I'm closing the door on the way out. Go be a nuisance to your jail mates." Dixon rose from his spot upon seeing her leave and almost smashed himself against the bars of his cell.

"I think I'll be a nuisance to a lot more people, Maxxie. They're releasing little ol' soon," Max stopped in the middle of her walk and turned around to glare at him. "Why the surprise? There's a lot of bigger problems for the NCR. Why harm an honest citizen of Vegas and his business when he's innocent of what he was accused of, to begin with? Technically, you did the crime," he tapped one of his pockets, "Taking my money and beating me up in the open like this."

"And? You sold drugs," Max huffed, now fully facing him and walking closer. "I took your dirty money and gave it to people who'd make a real use out of it – The Followers!" she smiled, confident it'd shut him up, and he did look briefly offended before once again putting up his facade.

"Well, you're going to pay me back in kind before I leave, toots!" he leaned back to sit on his bed. "Take those caps you were gonna waste for your little tête à tête with the guy outside and give them to me, and we're good friends again. I'll give you a little Jet for free to calm you down when I see you walking 'round the neighbor again. It solves anger issues good."

Max raised an eyebrow, taken aback at the sheer gall of it. He was the one behind bars! How could he demand money out of her? And to make matters worse, the other prisoners were now listening to the dialogue, waiting for their cue to step in. Her instincts told her to walk away and ignore the (a bit literally) toothless dealer. Still, something deeper told her to slam her fist into the bars and lean closer in. "Eat shit, you fucking piece of garbage dealer!"

Dixon rose up, incensed as well. The "crowd" cheered. "You disrupted my business, you fucking bitch! Your damn squatters move in and try pushing us out of our own town, and when we fight back, you rob and beat us up! Enough's enough! If you don't pay me, I'll walk back to Freeside and tell everyone you did this! And maybe the other grunts won't give a shit, but information spread! Everyone in and out of Freeside will know your name and what you did to disrupt Freeside. Because those guys here told me it's grown a lot worse with my absence!" He pointed to the others, and their howling grew even more thunderous. "Pay up! Or you and that other whore are done for when I walk out of here!"

Something snapped in Max, and a lot of questions ensued in her mind. How'd she pay up? Was he really being let go of despite everything he did? Free to walk back and spread his versions of the events? How unfair! How fucking unfair!

She'd never killed a man in cold blood and up close like this. A defenseless man at this, stripped of his meager weaponry and locked away from her.

But maybe there was a first time to everything.

"Well, you're not walking out!" hissed Max as she furiously drew her rifle and pointed it straight at Dixon, who backed off in sudden fright. And before the others could even react, she set her finger on the trigger.

She remembered Andrew, vomiting black tar and convulsing, and smiled in delight at Dixon's visible panic.

"How does it feel to be the one dying, Dixon?" She readied herself, steadied her aim, to make sure the shot would count, and…

…

In other news, the Kings of Freeside have recently uncovered a bodyguarding scam! The culprit, Orris, charged his clients great prices to be transported across Freeside. He would then slay a devious pack of thugs on the way to the Strip to justify his costs and sometimes ask his client to pay more for every defeated thug. As it turns out, they were paid to be shot at with blank rounds and laid down, to merely pretend they were dead.

"It was a little bit suspicious, so I tailed the cat… and guess what? Soon as he and that old guy were out, the thugs got right back up and left! 'Course, I told it to the King himself, and the man took significant steps to remove that scam artist from the neighborhood.

"What can I say? We're all Suspicious Minds," said The King upon being reached out. "We don't like liars in Freeside. It's why we stand against the NCR. And unlike the NCR, when there's a problem, we verify it before taking action that could leave you all shook up!"

In other news, the absence of Orris has caused an outcry within the more destitute in Freeside. "He gave me money to get my chems! What the fuck am I gonna do to get it?!" In protestation, a gathering is now taking place in front of the Strip North gate to contest the massive wealth disparity. has reportedly dispatched more Securitrons to ensure the peace is kept.

…

A bit of a "filler chapter", I hope you'll forgive me. But it settles Max's new status quo quite nicely, if I may say!

Fun useless fact that I may have aleady communicated: Her name is an homage to Max Caulfield from Life is Strange. Anyway, I hope her progression won't bother anybody! While her therapy was a good talk, she's still been traumatized, and it's going to take time before she can make real steps.

Re-introducing Nolan! I hope you'll like him being back.

I'm glad about the prompt interesting you, pancake. I wanted to do something different, I guess. This is why the Courier is a low INT brute: it's based off my playthrough, but also I did it to make him stand out next to the others! And speaking of the Courier, we're off to see him soon. And the same for Andrew, Wayne and a very important DLC character.

All I can say (and perhaps I will hint too much) is that he has a peculiar manner of speaking, that I hope I'll live up to for his appearance.

See you next Friday!