Patrolling the Mojave

by Vanto

Max, a young Californian woman, decides to enlist into the army to see the world beyond Shady Sands. Soon brought to the Mojave as a soldier, she quickly find herself embroiled in her Republic's vicious conflict with Caesar's Legion, its allies and hostile third-parties. As a new threat emerges from a shallow grave in Goodsprings, Max must adapt to the ruthless wastes to survive...

24. JAILhouse Rock

A FEW HOURS EARLIER…

She hated the looks of the Vaults. And not solely because it was an underground Bunker where merry survivors waited out for the apocalypse to pass! No, it was farther than that, back when she was a young scribe under Elijah's tutelage. The old man would take her and some of his other pupils to abandoned Vaults, where he was sure that they could nab old technologies, perhaps even a GECK, a water chip, and other valuable appliances.

She was sure and confident that he didn't care much for the life-granting abilities of the former device. He merely sought to understand how it could create soil good enough for an entire nation to spring out from.

But the few Vaults they visited were devoid of their GECKs, and more often than not, the water chip had given out. No, what those bunkers had in drove were traps. As it had been known by the Brotherhood and larger settlements of the Wasteland, the Vaults weren't meant to save Humanity. Most of them, or at least on the West Coast, were made to experiment on the dwellers inside instead. Sadistic scientists would concoct schemes of various kinds for the inhabitants of their vaults and their descendants to be subjected to. A Vault had a faulty door mechanism, letting in massive radiation from the bombs and dooming the residents to becoming ghouls. Another lacked food synthesizers, and one had only male skeletons in it.

This solidified her brethren's beliefs in the righteous cause of the Brotherhood, made to stand against the horrors of technology gone wrong and never let them happen, but Elijah had been merely analytical and curious the entire time. He'd sometimes praise the efficient mechanics of the Vaults, or he'd criticize them if they didn't work and would explain how it'd take a few recalibrations to make proper use out of it. In hindsight, him turning out to be none too stable shouldn't have surprised Hardin or McNamara or even the Elders who assigned him to lead an entire chapter.

Back on the Vaults, they were death machines mostly. Trudging through them was a better look at human evil than the Wasteland, at times. Of course, there were ruthless warlords and cannibalistic hags to fear, and she wasn't about to say that the likes of the Legion were unintimidating, but it was the corporate… bleakness that bothered her. Many raiders and Legionaries end up the way they are because of their environments and having no one around to help them out. The VaultTec scientists and executives behind it had all the benefits of life before the War and more, but they still chose to butcher tons of innocent people for the sake of twisted experiments that they would not live to see carried out.

She wondered what had been Vault 3's main weakness for the Fiends to be let inside. It couldn't be the door being left ajar since it was firmly closed when they got nearer, and the new owners were operating it in the first place. It would undoubtedly be quite a passionate story to read, but Fiends were crawling all around it, as well as a specific Courier, and Veronica had no intentions of dealing with the victor of the fight. As soon as she and the Courier had entered, she carefully split up and sneaked her way across the Vault. After all, most Raiders were busy getting off their asses to deal with the rampaging mailman.

She could still hear him laugh and roar down there, as she could listen to the Fiends scream in pain or defiance. From that guard that she grabbed right as the fighting began, she heard that the hostages were kept in the living quarters. Veronica was headed there, accelerating her pace progressively. It was an excellent way to ditch the Courier, and she was sure and certain he'd have everyone killed if he could anyway, so no point in waiting for him.

She ran through halls full of blood and gore and sometimes hid in rooms to avoid Fiend reinforcements coming through to add their numbers to the battle going below. They did not scare Veronica, who'd cleaved through dozen of their numbers outside, but one or two bullets were all it'd take to down her, and the claustrophobic corridos would fully compensate for their poor aiming! On the way, while waiting for them to pass her, the Scribe saw dead Fiends on beds, surrounded by empty canisters or syringes. She'd feel ever so slightly bad for the murderous rapists addicts before stumbling into a series of massacred captives in the next room and reminding herself of the murderous rapists part of it.

Needless to say, when Veronica burst into the living quarter's main room, it wasn't with much regret that she brought her right arm back and slammed it forward into one of the guards stationed near the cage. It would have probably not been enough to outright kill that Fiend girl on its own. Still, she came to this fight with a mechanical glove mounted with hydraulic piston-powered contraception. In layman's terms, the Scribe was swinging a power fist around. And hitting the Fiend with it was enough to hurl her across the room until she landed into a wall and painted it red, prompting a series of surprised yells from those within the cage.

The Fiend guard next to her fallen foe must have had his dose of Jet later than the rest of them because he was already swinging his sub-machine-gun her way. Veronica used her unarmored arm to grab the gun before it could be fully pointed her way with movements as far as her lightning reflexes. However, she kept her hand carefully away from the cannon. Stopped in the middle of his swing, the Fiend desperately tried to overpower her but failed to do so before Veronica spun around and landed a critical blow on his chest. Once more, the Power Fist worked its magic, and the Fiend flew on the other side of the room, his legs flailing helplessly before he smashed into a hard surface and splattered it.

His legs, because his arms had been ripped off while still clutching the gun. By now used to grotesque sight thanks to Courier Six, Veronica shrugged and hurled the weapon at another female Fiend in the corner, right before she could take a shot at the Brotherhood scribe. The weapon smacked into her head with enough force to shatter itself into parts, but Veronica had to credit it more to the shoddiness than her raw strength. Still, the Fiend was hurled off her feet and over a nearby desk with an indignant cry. The prisoners cheered.

A much stronger one answered her, likewise shutting them up, and Veronica faced her next enemy: a muscular brute coming at her with a sledgehammer. She could see an empty syringe of Psycho behind him too.

Staying calm, the hooded woman stood her place as the madman reached her with surprising speed. Once close enough, he threw his entire upper body back, lifted the sledgehammer overhead, and swung it vertically. At this point, power fist or not, blocking was out of the question!

But Veronica had training on her side, and so she countered this massive attack by merely taking two steps backward, the head of the hammer missing her by a whole mile. Unable to control his movement, the Fiend stumbled forward, leaving his back wide open for her to attack with a direct punch. His spine crumbled before her might, but she wasn't about to take any chances. As he fell to one knee, the pain not yet registering, Veronica swung her right leg at the back of it, sweeping him off his feet and into the air. And then, to complete the maneuver, she brought her right arm overhead and slammed her elbow into his face, sinking down to a knee herself to accompany the gesture.

Behind the fallen giant, a Fiend woman ran up, wielding two razorblades like they were three meters longer than really were, and swung at the air where Veronica used to be seconds ago. Realizing her mistake at the very last second, she died probably never knowing where her enemy was, as the young woman rose up instantly from her kneeling position with an uppercut carried out by her power fist, striking the Fiend so hard that she almost hit the ceiling on the way out.

Within the cage, the hostages applauded, and Veronica grabbed her robe to perform a proper curtsy, bemoaning her lack of a pretty dress to go along with the gesture.

Then, she casually swung her left fist over her shoulder. It met an uncanny obstacle in the form of a now-broken nose. Then Veronica remembered that Fiends were immune to pain and dove to avoid the blade at the last moment, the weapon instead merely cutting into the fabric on it. Unsatisfied with her close call, Veronica spun to face her assailant, grabbed him by the left arm, and headbutted the Fiend in the head, this time with enough strength to hurl the cowardly attacker off his feet and unto the ground. As attested by his writhing about, he was still not down, so Veronica stepped forward with her right fist drawn.

"Mercy! Mercy!" he shouted, holding his hands up overhead. "Look, I'm not like the other crazies, okay?" Veronica picked him up by the collar with her freed hand and kept her eyes on him if he'd draw something. In case it'd come down to a split-second decision, she pulled her arm back, the pistons on her fist gearing up for a private meeting with the guy's skull.

"You sure looked like the other crazies when you tried to stab me with a razor!" Veronica contemplated killing him here and there but saw uses in him. It was a very… Elijah way of sparring a human being, but his potential knowledge of more hostages or the location of a certain Ranger was enough to spare him the power fist. Veronica threw him on the floor near the jail cell but did not let him approach it, in case he'd try putting another blade on one of their throats.

"It was all fun, right? We'd just get high on Psycho, and… well, things turned out bad, and they kind of kidnapped me. Well, Motor-Runner did, he…" he scrambled about for keys, several of them in fact, tied to a belt around his waist, right next to a pair severed human hands which he not-so-sneakily disposed of by untying them, as he did with his skull hat, taking it off and tossing it about in a corner. "… He knew that when I get too high, I get in a fetal position and sleep, so he trusted me with the keys. Huh… there's a lot of them, but it may be some of the Jet still in my system tricking me, hang on!" A roar interrupted his would-be monologue, accompanied by several more screams of pain. And the metal walls gave it a lovely trailing echo.

"You brought a Deathclaw here, lady?" the ghoul of the trio joked as he desperately attempted to reach for the Fiend's keys. Veronica smirked at the comparison and simply waved him and the Fiend off.

"Something like that. But you guys should step aside. Keys are overrated when it comes to opening doors." To their credit, the caravaners quickly realized what she meant to say after watching her kill a roomful of thugs and stepped aside as Veronica smashed the door off its hinges with a powerful jab. Freed from their confines, the hostages poured out behind Veronica.

"Thanks a lot! These awful Fiends have been holding us hostages, for weeks now! And that guy-" the man of the trio pointed at the Fiend, who stood aghast at Veronica forcing the jail open. "-he was the worst! One of our guys, Carter, he managed to escape, and this guy killed him and taunted us with the body!" Veronica glanced at a corner of the room and wasn't surprised to see a body older than the much newer ones in a corner. Recognizing he was caught red-handed, Daniel could not escape from Veronica before she stepped up to him to grab and hoist him up by the neck. Meanwhile, the trio scattered about, each attempting to grab a weapon for themselves.

"Huh, Motor-Runner told me to! And he attacked me anyway!" The Fiend begged, desperately attempting to find a way out of Veronica's steel grip. "Look, I…"

"There's a Ranger in here. You're going to tell me where he is so we can nab him on the way out!" Veronica put on that solid tone when they wanted something out of a target. Evidently, it was more effective on a soldier clad in a suit of powered armor and a helmet with a voice-altering processor, but the raider had plenty of reasons to fear her already.

"I-I'll tell you! Put me down, please!"

"Oh, and by the way… I'd need something else," Veronica dropped the Fiend. "I'll tell you on the way here."

…

She didn't trust him not to lead them deeper into the Vault, to more Fiends, and she was not going to take directions from a junkie anyhow. So Veronica had decided to take the lead in the little group. As he was called, Daniel stood next to her with the threat of her power fist wrapped around his neck and the barrel of a gun pointed at his back, courtesy of Rick Lancer. Apparently, their caravan had been ambushed and destroyed, and they were captured by the Fiends for a ransom in cash and chems. Little did the Fiends realize, but most of the people who knew of the caravan were on it, to begin with, meaning the hostages were useless. A fact they thankfully still hadn't realized before Veronica's rescue.

All that was left was to rescue the Ranger. Going out of her way to help an enemy of the Brotherhood would not earn Veronica any more points from her brethren, but it was more than a matter of NCR vs. Brotherhood Of Steel: No one should be left behind like that, plain and simple, especially with the Courier on the loose. And maybe "Anders" was actually a decorated war veteran of HELIOS One, but she'd have the time to regret it later.

Spending more time in Vault 3 was also eye-opening on the matters of her beloved organization and how outpaced it had been by the brutal wastes. It wasn't solely that those guys had put the hurt of the NCR for years with nothing but chems, barely-working weapons, and no armor to speak of; it was also all the laser weapons they used! The cred of the Brotherhood had always been to preserve technology, and now violent chem-heads who probably couldn't tell you what color the sky is if they wanted to were running amok overwhelming their opposition with laser and plasma weapons.

But Veronica had to put these thoughts away, for the way to Anders involved plenty of vicious traps set by the man himself, as she quickly assessed after Daniel opened the locked door leading to him.

"Are you sure that we should go down this way? There are traps," complained Rachael, the sole woman of the caravaner trio. "I don't like these sounds at all; we should get out of here as fast as we can!"

"Hold him for me, will you?" Veronica opted to let her skills speak for themselves. She crouched and began to disable the contraptions as Daniel stood to the side surrounded by the trio. Mines and the occasional booby traps, nothing too severe for her to handle, but it wasn't so surprising for the Fiends to have trouble with it. Once she was sure that the traps were disabled, the Scribe would invite them in with a casual wave of her arm, and the four of them followed suit., Rachael nodding in approval along the way.

"He hauled himself up, and we couldn't get to him, but he was wounded, so we were sure that he'd die on his own," Daniel assured, being led down the hallway by his irate former prisoners. "Why are you seeking him out anyway? You're an ally to the NCR or something?"

Veronica laughed almost bitterly at that but couldn't deny that he was right on the money. Hardin would kill her if he discovered half the things she'd done for the Republic during her little exile. And the NCR would probably interrogate and kill her back if they learned of her true allegiances! But well, no one would miss the Fiends. She could always pretend, to the others and herself, that their removal was her pragmatically using the NCR to exterminate a band of savages worse than what those guys back East had to deal with.

"Maybe I am! Or maybe you guys are a pain in the ass for everybody in the desert." Having answered his questions, Veronica opened a door at the end of the hall. She immediately found herself having to back off when she saw the wounded Ranger in the room, gun in hand, and pointed at her.

"How the hell did you get in here?! Who are you?!" He glanced past Veronica's shoulder and lowered the weapon slightly when the rest of the group walked in, with a nervous Daniel in tow. "… You're probably not Fiends. Or else they've got good actors."

"I'm a very concerned citizen," Veronica stressed. "Who was politely asked by Colonel Hsu to see if I can't take care of a pest problem and give you a hand in doing so. I freed these hostages, and I'm freeing you now. If we make it in time, we'll be back home to hear out Dashing Dick's adventures in Zion!"

The Ranger grunted in annoyance. "Hsu put you up to this? A civilian?" He began standing up, only to harshly fall on his behind. Veronica glanced at his legs: she was no doctor, unlike those guys at the Clinic, but the bandages he had on were doing little to stop the trauma to his legs. And the smell… wasn't coming from either the Ghoul or Daniel.

"A civilian… with a power fist!" Veronica grinned and held up the weapon. "… And barely enough training in medicine to know that your leg's busted."

She pointed at his bandaged limb, and he groaned, hardly paying any heed to it.

"I'm fine. I've applied first aid, I'm a Ranger, I know how it works. Been through worse anyway!" As a matter of pride, he got up on one leg, tried to use the other to support himself, but soon realized his folly and leaned on the wall instead. "Fiends will need this handicap if they want to have a shot at surviving me!"

"Not to offend you, sir, but as it stands, you'd have troubles wiping out geckos, let alone the Fiends," the ghoul, Dennis was the name, politely pointed out. "Your leg sounds and smell, I might add, as bad as I do."

Daniel, looking to endear himself to his jailers, began to fumble in his pockets. "I could fix that! I've got some… mentats, huh… psycho could help? Med-X to suppress the pain… Well, primarily mentats, but-"Veronica didn't bother reacting as Dennis smacked Daniel on the back of the head and instead headed out for one of the windows outside the room. Apparently, Anders had managed to hide in plain sight right next to the… entrance of the Vault. She recognized the room, especially the massive closed door leading out of it and into the ruthless wastes.

The noises were still going. If anything, they'd grown louder. Too loud for Veronica's liking. And while this place could be used as a good hiding spot, she knew that the Courier would wait them out. Their best shot at survival was to depart while the Fiends were still keeping him busy, and this meant shutting up and getting the hell out this very instant! "What the hell's going on here? Who's backing us up, Legate Lanius?" Rachael and Ricky both began to support Anders, the Ranger accepting the help with much reluctance.

"I think Lanius would make it quicker for all of us!" Veronica winced and almost ran to a computer in the room. The most primitives of defenses had been put on the device, child's play for even the lowliest of scribes. However, she pretended not to make it too easy to avoid suspicion.

Within seconds still, a door leading to the entrance slid open, and Veronica pointed to the way out, taking the lead once more to access the control panels of the Vault. The room was covered in blood and dead Fiends. Still, she grew to ignore that and accessed the panel instead, casually stepping over a corpse or two along the way. "Don't mind the decorations! Instead, huh, how about we relish that Mojave sun? It'll feel good to have it shining on us for once, heh?"

"On us and a thousand more of those drug-addled freaks outside! How are we going to make it back to McCarran?" Anders bemoaned, hopping along the two caravaners. They kept quiet, but they looked to be silently agreeing with him. All that was left was Dennis and Daniel, the former slowly taking his attention off the latter as they approached freedom.

"Don't worry, I've got… my ways!" She was probably going to have to slip out of the camp soon. She knew that the NCR would really like to know all about this mysterious cute stranger, skilled in the ways of the fist, hacking, or reparations. Then they'd see that there weren't any "family" to be found in the outpost. Standard troopers, she could send off since they weren't interested enough to delve in, but Hsu? Now that was a good time to go back to Hidden Valley. She could always pretend to look for her lost ally after getting the hostages home and head back home none the wiser!

Then she'd get back to the Bunker, and she'd warn them all about the pace of the outside world and how'd they gotten their asses kicked by a group that was now getting its ass kicked by chems addicts.

"Just don't get too far off from the entrance just in case!" She feigned curiosity over the control panels, but really as with all things, it was a matter of buttons and the right levers to pull. Well, it wasn't all that, but it sure looked like that for the others.

The massive vault door opened slowly, distracting everyone, and Dennis took his chance: pushing Dennis aside, the Fiend ran deeper into the base. "GUYS! GUYS! THEY'RE ESCAPING! THEY'RE ESCAPING!" Veronica swore and ran up to Dennis to help him to his feet, not noticing that the screaming had ceased entirely during their brief escaping stint.

"Should've killed that Fiend as soon as he'd opened the door!" He swore, rushing off to the entrance. Veronica was tempted to follow them. It'd be easy to do so, but then seconds after getting into the corridor… Daniel was spat out of the door. Well, she couldn't tell if it was him or not, owing to the brutal separation of his torso and limbs, but he likely was. And she wasn't going to check because he entered the scene, by way of his massive frame barely emerging out of the darkness of the Vault.

Silence settled in, sometimes interrupted by the sound of chewing, as she peered at the Courier Six. As expected, he was covered in blood not his own, and he'd temporarily ditched the helmet to feed, though his face was carefully hidden by the darkness and the angle, being too tall to fit into the doorframe comfortably. All she could see was a very bushy, filthy beard, blood-soaked like the rest of his spiky armor. He was covered in all manner of stuff that she didn't want to know about, and in each hand, he held the body of a deceased Fiend, or at least what remained of it.

Then, he dropped his gorey trophies and spat the… whatever body part he was chewing at Veronica's feet or as close as he could with the distance and lousy aim. Then, he very carefully held a single gore-covered hand and began to wrap the fabrics around his neck to cover his mouth and chin. Once covered up enough, bar the occasional beard poking out, he took a deep breath and slowly lowered himself to stare at her, his face almost floating in the darkness.

Fear gripped Veronica's heart; that power fist on her right hand suddenly felt like it was made out of pâpier-mâché and wooden sticks, and a cold sweat began to run down her body. If she could run, she'd probably do so with enough speed to reach the East Coast by the end of the day, but instead, her legs remained hopelessly stuck in place.

She could barely see his eyes behind those thick black goggles he had on. But Veronica knew him well enough to tell that his cruel little eyes weren't exactly giving her a warm glance. It's what she hated about him: The Scribe could never tell what he thought or even looked like, with the motorcycle helmet he had on as well as the face wrap and goggles. Well, at first. Then, Veronica realized that he was predictable enough, without needing to look at his face or even hear him out, silent as he was. Whenever the titan would glance at someone in a prolonged manner, like he was doing right now, he was contemplating a brutal murder.

Well, at other times, he'd take no look at all or for the barest of seconds before attacking. Either way, the next course of action was predictable. And Veronica chose not to humor him in their little staring contest. With blinding speed, she turned around as the sound of something slamming against metal assaulted her ears. Undeterred, the Courier slammed himself into the door again, and she heard the metal buckle. Veronica passed by the control panels with the slightest second of distraction, perhaps enough to doom her, and quickly programmed the door to shut. She could destroy the panels entirely and make it final, but there were chances of the door opening or staying in its current position if she did that, and the hooded woman didn't want to take any chances. VaultTec's technology was faulty like that!

"What the fuck is that?!" Dennis screamed; he and the others seemingly made it out of the Vault in time! Veronica didn't humor him with an answer and simply ran out into the sunlight. Luckily, the Courier would be too primitive to open the door independently. The Fiends may have done it, but at this point, she suspected those guys to be even more intelligent than he was! No, he'd probably wreck it and would accidentally lock himself inside for good. And no group outside would have the firepower or want to burst that door before he'd eventually succumb. There was water and plenty of, ugh, "food" inside, but the Vault was otherwise sealed forever.

As he finally tore his way into the room, the Courier screamed in anger and ran up to Veronica, with speed unbefitting his massive bulk. The Brotherhood Scribe pondered on the best way to send him off but decided to keep it simple for him: She flipped him off.

Still, Veronica took a step backward in fright when he almost made it out… but the door slammed itself shut before he could, the sound of the mechanisms lightly overshadowing the furious pounding against the door. For a moment, the young woman imagined him knocking it off its massive hinges or punching his way through, but for once, the man had met his match: no matter how enraged he was, and how furiously he swung his fists, the door didn't budge.

To the very end, what unnerved her was his repeated punching against the surface, no matter how impervious to his assault. He hit, and hit, and hit, and hit, and hit, and hit, without stopping. Was there anything more permanent to put on? A barrier, or a warning, or insurance in case he'd get out? There were an awful lot of objects scattered around the Vault's entrance. Some traps to dissuade the lesser Fiends outside, others "offerings" to be let in, others covered in a sheet. Could she…?

"Hey! Now that you've locked up your Super Mutant friend, could you help us out? A walk to McCarran will take hours!" Anders yelled at her from above. The other three Caravaners stood by him, aghast at the multiple corpses strung up outside the Vault. There were uses to Courier Six, and while Veronica hadn't made the smartest of decisions in sticking around with him, she'd ultimately trapped the murderous mailman in a place where he could hurt no one else! It felt good to help out the Wastelanders for a change.

"I've got better than a walk!" Veronica shook her head and stepped up to the group. "A drive!"

"A car, you say?" Anders sighed and leaned on Veronica for support. "If you do have one, then I'll… eat my hat soon as we're back home."

"Hope you've brought salt!"

Behind her, the Courier's screaming and pounding on the metallic door slowly faded as the group left, none of them bothering to address it.

That Vault, and its sole occupant, was a story best left buried by the sands of the Mojave.

…

All it'd take was one twitch of her finger to send Dixon straight to hell. It could be slow if she aimed for the guts, or it could be instantaneous if she aimed cleanly for the head or his heart. But she wouldn't be satisfied with the option that'd spare Dixon pat of the suffering he so gleefully spread over the years.

"Wait! Wait! Don't do this! Don't do this!" He begged, getting down to his knees and joining his hands, almost in prayers. It would have gotten through to Max days earlier if she'd gotten angry enough to point her gun at his head anyway, but then again, how many people did he cruelly mock when they similarly begged him? How many did he keep feeding his poison to with no remorses, simply for the sake of watching them spiral down into madness? How many of them would later wander out to become Fiends

"Max!" Nolan's hand rushed into Max's point of view as she prepared to squeeze the trigger. With a firm grasp, he lowered the gun to point it at the ground, fewer chances of shooting up someone that way. "Max! What the fuck are you doing?! You're pointing a gun at a prisoner!" he hissed, attempting to let her see the pointlessness of the gesture. She was undeterred, and if the woman had her way, she would've merely readjusted the gun before firing. And he had to know this because he kept a steel grip on the weapon. Those muscles weren't for show, she had to guess.

"I'm making the Mojave a better place!" Max defended herself, sweeping her hand in Dixon's direction. Seeing his fate preserved, for now, the dealer smugly winked at Nolan with a nod and faked indignation when his gratefulness was met back with a middle finger. "They're releasing him! You patrolled Freeside! You saw what his kind does! Why'd we let him out?"

Nolan glared Dixon's way, silently ensuring the sleazy man that he wasn't looking out for him, and sadly closed his eyes. "Even then, you can't shoot him down in cold blood, Max! That's not what the Republic upholds. Long as he is our prisoner, we've got to respect his rights as a human being… rights he won't give to his clients, but rights he has nonetheless."

"He sells drugs; what rights does he get to have after this?!" Max shouted in frustration, throwing her arms over the air.

"I told you. Rights inherent to a human being, the same rights we give to prisoners in custody. Even that Centurion over there has 'em-"Nolan pointed the way of the cell, and Max froze, even if he didn't immediately notice why. "If we start taking rights away from prisoners, then we're turning them to slaves. And that's acting a bit too close to these freaks east of Colorado, don't you agree?" the young man heard faint coughing behind him and looked at Max with a distressed expression until a strong hand settled on his shoulder to turn him around.

"… Private First Class Doleetle? There's something we should be talking about. Private Osweal, you'll stay on guard for now. If you make any more noises, the both of you, well…" Captain Curtis's eyes settled on Dixon's cage. "… There's plenty of space left in that jail."

…

The walk to Curtis's office were some of Max's most humiliating seconds in life. As it turns out, shouting and voices carried out "really" good in McCarran with nothing to stop them, and plenty had heard their arguments and shouting about. This caused the soldiers to stare at her, some in pity, some in condescension, others in outright disgust. Being invited to his office almost felt like mercy: at least further embarrassment would be for his eyes only to behold.

"I understand you had… past interactions with ," Curtis lowered himself into his chair and set his hands on the desk. In front of him, Max decided to put her arms on her lap. The last time she placed her hands on a desk like that, it was in middle school, with that one nasty teacher with a ruler and-

"By which I mean you pummeled him on the streets of Freeside in front of a large number of witnesses, wearing an NCR uniform in a part of Vegas…" he interrupted himself and held up his index "one of the parts of Vegas not too keen on our presence amongst them."

Max almost frowned. Why was it treated as a bad thing to do? He was poisoning people, for kicks, with a unique brand of drugs so vicious it'd take dozens of doses of Fixer to cleanse an addict. Of course, it was right to mangle him! It's the simplest logic: do bad things and have bad things happen back. Do good things, and good happens to you back! But in the wastes, as it turns out, those were switched! But… all she had to do was hear out Curtis, nod a few times, accept any perceived faults and leave. No need to afflict her reputation any further, right?

"At the times, you had meant to interrogate Dixon over the matters of mysterious vanishings in Freeside and Private Varzi-"Max's hands immediately spread out to grab the fabric on her legs, warping it and her flesh below. She smiled and nodded, telling him to carry on. "-reported that he'd attacked you, making your beatdown seems like self-defense. However, the more we spoke to Mister Dixon, the more we discovered that he was a dead end over the disappearance matters. It also became apparent, to us, that you'd attacked him," he glanced at her from beneath his beret and leaned forward slightly over his desk. "Your unfortunate attempt at murdering Dixon, who was perfectly harmless in his cell, confirmed my suspicions."

"Harmless?" Max asked, her lips quivering as nausea assaulted her. But as strong as it was, it couldn't prevent her from violently standing up to Curtis, knocking over her chair in the process. "A-ask his victims. They're crawling over the streets of that…fucking slum! He's killing people! And he'll kill them again because he's being allowed to walk away freely!" The officer glanced at her, keeping a stern glare her way for the duration of the rant but otherwise remaining calm. Lacking another emotion to bounce off on, Max's righteous anger slowly petered out until she was left to stand there, aghast and confused.

"I am aware of Dixon's… misdemeanors, miss Doleetle. Sit down," Max got the chair right back up and did as asked, mechanical in her motions. "Thank you… Yes, Dixon is a problem for us. Drug dealers like him or the Khans are the reasons behind the rise of the Fiends. But he is simply a cog in a machine. A very well-oiled machine. Remove him, and he'll be replaced. That's as simple as that. Oh, chaos may ensue, it has ensued, in case you do not follow Mr. New Vegas's delightful reports. Still, another will keep the drugs going."

"… So, do we let it happen?" Max asked, the old anger flaring again, even as embers. "We're supposed to be helping these people, right? Yet we're letting them… distribute drugs, kill each other, or our own settlers and make their own bizarre laws and overrun the Followers without doing anything! We could help, right?"

"General Oliver was a high-ranking officer in the army when you were an infant, Private," Curtis smiled politely, but his slight eye-rolling was telling. "We are dealing with a lot of groups at once. The Fiends, the Legion, some Powder Gangers remnants south, and himself. If we were to take over Freeside with no justifications, we'd be one step closer to The Strip, and he'd have us back off from it within the instant. We can't handle a fight with his army and thugs when Caesar is so close to our doorstep… but…" he tapped on the right side of his head again. "With justifications, a casus belli, as they'd say in that strange tongue…."

"Latin, right?" Max interrupted before immediately smashing her mouth with her hands. She meant to silence herself, but he'd be right to think she was looking to break her jaw to pieces with the violence of the gesture!

Curtis once again smiled, barely concealing his irritation now. "You know, very few people tend to make it worse for them when I call them to my office," he dismissed her would-be excuses with a wave of his hand. "But I digress. We're looking for opportunities to seize some establishments for the Republic after proving that they assaulted or otherwise harmed representatives of our great nation. The Kings are secured on that aspect. We've got a bloody ambassador to prove it. And for the Wrangler, Dixon has promised to deliver us condemning secrets on them in exchange for his release." Hard proofs that they've been knowingly making the drugs flow will force House to intervene himself or let us punish them."

The brunette's lips parted into a smile, "And what if he decides not to…."

"Miss Doleetle," Curtis brought his hands to the table, startling Max out of her attempted speech. "You are not to tell me how to perform my duties. Pulling a gun on a prisoner and meaning to shoot him, no matter his past actions is a horrendous act, unworthy of a torchbearer of the light of the Republic!" his tone grew harsher and more condemning, enough that the brunette began to retract herself into her seat, her grip only tightening further. "You are to be an inspiration for troopers! A way to show them that no matter their origins, they can still rise to the occasion and take down the numerous evils in the way of Peace and Democracy! You've been chosen to carry out a great task, and you're squandering it by indulging in needless violence and short-sighted bouts of anger!"

Max couldn't have said a thing if she'd wanted to. But who was Curtis to speak to her that way? She didn't ask for that place or to become a mascot! And he indeed never withstood the dedication to human misery that was Freeside, from behind his cushy seat! Or perhaps he wasn't wrong? Maybe the laws of the NCR meant that anyone, even the vilest and cowardly, deserved to be treated fairly and equally?

The woman tempered her anger. Curtis had been in this longer. Like any Officer, he was stuck in grunt duties before. He'd fought and earned his rank. She had to listen to him and see him not as an assh… not as a condescending pr… not as that, but as a veteran who was genuinely looking out for her mental health. Her lips quivered, and her eyes darted around, never focusing on an object for too long. Assuredly a shame for them to start doing that when she had to keep up with the eye contact!

Curtis slowly joined his hands, sighed, and lowered his head until she couldn't see his eyes beneath the cap. "I think Emma would've been greatly disappointed, Max." Her anger doused, the private looked down in shame, seeing his point. After a few seconds of tense silence, the captain got up from his seat and walked closer to Max, laying a hand on her shoulder comfortingly and settling himself behind her. The temptation to smile in triumph was… admittedly immeasurable, but he refrained.

"You need time to cool off. You've been through difficult events. It was pure incompetence to put you near Dixon, even if it does not justify your behavior," the brown-haired man retook a slight pause, like a judge about to deliver his final verdict. "You will be standing guard from 10PM to 4AM. You'll be quite far from Dixon or anyone else who could incite a nervous reaction!" his grip on her shoulder tightened a little, just enough to be noticeable. His voice lost some of its friendly edges. "Is that fair?"

Max was too exhausted to demonstrate her surprise if she had any: She'd failed Emma, what choices did she have? "Right, sir."

Curtis smiled and gave Max a contemptuous pat on the top of the head. "Good girl. Lt. Boyd will handle the next tasks to be assigned until your night shift. Good evening, private!" He saluted, and the girl barely summoned forth the energy to limply lift her arm before getting up and walking away. Once Curtis was confident of her departure, he sighed in regret, hiding his utter triumph.

He had a scapegoat with a motive now. All that was left was to "leak" that Dixon would be getting off McCarran via the Strip Monorail, and he'd have found the perfect culprit. Poor, poor little Maxine Doleetle, driven mentally unstable and deranged by the war! Oliver's ploy at boosting morale would catastrophically turn against him, the Strip would be cut off McCarran, and the Legion would strike a devastating blow in the Bear's most extensive fortification outside Hoover Dam.

But now was not the time to partake in triumph. For now, he needed to make his plan work: the celebrations would wait until Lanius's entrance into the profligate den.

…

The rest of the journey was a haze that Max didn't care about. By a miracle, her sheer apathy to things made her master the art of putting her whole body on autopilot, a valuable skill to have when one is made to scrub the toilets clean or move a large stack of paper from one end to the base, only to be told it had to go elsewhere. Nolan was nowhere to be seen, but she didn't want to see him after what she'd done. He and Curtis were right: she was a trooper. In a cutthroat world like the Mojave, her task was to bring rights and laws to all. But she'd failed in threatening Dixon. Curtis was right: Emma would be ashamed of her.

Whenever she wanted to think of something else or perhaps reject the accusations in her head, these words would always put her back in her funk. Emma was ashamed, from wherever she was, of the woman who'd already failed her in life and now in death.

Max was still thinking this even outside the camp, peering at the darkness directly in front of the base. She could see more lights in the motel or the gas station close to the gate, and of course, the Strip was there, but on the west side, the ruins were incredibly hard to recognize in the dark of the night. Plenty of attacks had happened from that angle, she guessed, her deductions partly helped by the quasi-mosaic of bullet holes behind her. Because of those, she'd decided to crouch behind the sandbags at the entrance, pointing her gun at the darkness in case shots was ever fired from it. The brunette would be stressed, mainly because the other sentry's replacement was late, but she didn't care. She deserved being alone. It's what Curtis had told her, right?

"I can't say that I'd ever get cold in the Mojave desert, and yet, here I am," a familiar voice cut off Max from her inner thoughts. She wheeled back to see Arcade standing beside her, looking slightly uncomfortable with the cold. "Was our last session so dreadful, Max?"

"… I… erm… shouldn't you be erm…." Max glanced at the darkness in front of her and Arcade, hesitant on knowing which to focus on. "… Be sleeping, heh?"

Arcade huffed. "I completed my shift and granted those poor souls at the infirmary the privilege of returning to the frontlines within two days," the blond groaned at the thought. "They need rest, and shooting at Fiends or patrolling a desert is not my idea of it… Moving on, pleasant as that topic was, may I remind you we have a deal? I said I'd help you with your therapy. And "helping" means reaching out when you miss a session. What's the big idea?" He sat down on a chair and watched Max; his eyes were telling enough: he knew the truth and waited to see if Max would have the courage to say it.

"I… well, I did a terrible thing to Dixon again," Max blurted out, seeing no benefice in running around the subject. Arcade's lips pursed. "I threatened him when he was already defenseless and in a jail cell, so I was sent to carry out sentry duty along with… cleaning duties. And that's probably because the general is going to be making a speech soon, so they need me around and ready."

"Him again, huh?" Arcade frowned slightly. "He seems to bring the worst out of you. This is not me judging, mind you, I know Freeside, and the Wasteland as a unit, would be much better off without his ilk," Max nodded enthusiastically, sometimes turning back and forth to do her duty as a sentry. "I think we should talk about him. You've said some words in our session from yesterday that intrigue me, and getting down to it would help us with your issues. Of course, if you do not feel ready, we could talk about another topic."

"I'd love to," Max glanced at the door and back at her therapist. "But I can't… Another sentry will be there, and I'm not comfortable speaking out openly about my issues with them, and-huh, he's coming! T-thanks for trying to cheer me up, doc, but we can always try again tomo… ?" The figure that joined her and Arcade, far from being a faceless soldier she would attempt to casually ignore for her shift, was none other than… "Nolan?!"

"H-hi," he waved by at her. x "Good to see you again, sorry, I couldn't move out because Captain Curtis wanted to- "before he could conclude his sentence, Max leaped out and embraced him, caring not if a passing stranger caught a glimpse of them. Quickly dispelling his surprise, the young man warped his arms around her back until she parted way.

"H-how'd you end up being a part of my shift?!"

"Well, I…" Nolan nodded to Arcade, and the Follower understood the storytelling duties would fall upon him.

"After avoiding the watchdogs sent after him, Nolan made his way to me to help you out. I'm only a part of the Followers of the Apocalypse, the Republic's best friends, after all. But perhaps he was right to trust in my… winning smile and people skills. Once I went to Hsu, he understood well the problems in keeping you away from your friends or confidants," Arcade shook his head. "He didn't quite approve of what you did, but he had the senses to realize that it'd only grow worse without any assistance." Max smiled, a little bitterly, and almost pointed out that it was bad enough even when Nolan was around, so what help could they provide?

But it didn't matter, she had her friends over, and there'd be scum to shoot at once or twice. It wasn't a bad deal, right?

"A problem isn't solved by putting it away and ignoring it, or else it wouldn't be one," Arcade concluded. "You made a big mistake; I can't sugarcoat it. But mistakes can make you stronger or wiser if you learn from them, and I will help with that as a doctor."

Max giggled softly. "Nope, I don't think I can!" Nolan took his cue when the Shady Sands inhabitant glanced his way. "Nolan, if you're so interested in me, you could just tell me! No need to volunteer to be on my shift!" He blushed in embarrassment and scratched the back of his head.

"I guess I want to make up for the moments where I wasn't there for you," he admitted. "The desert is a big scary place, so when you find yourself, buddies, you gotta stick to them. But if it bothers you, I can always…."

"Nah, it's fine! I'm glad you're here!" Max took her position, and so did he, leaving Arcade to awkwardly stand in place until he went to her side. She paused, noticing her negative thoughts had receded by now. "So, hm, Arcade, does it bother you if I say that therapy in the middle of the night bothers me?"

"I get it," He shrugged. "I'm probably still sticking around the entrance, though. Hildern's still up, and I'm in no mood to entertain the man's bloated ego. You'll have to tolerate me for the shift, I'm afraid."

"Sorry, Nolan, it won't be just you and me tonight!" Max cheered, taking her eyes off the road to wink at him.

"H-haha!" Nolan pulled on his collar from behind his own little sandbag wall. "J-just keep an eye out, hm? We're on sentry duty, after all. We gotta keep an eye out and spot the threats from afar!"

"Good luck to you both! Because as for me…." Arcade tapped his blocky glasses. "Those aren't for show."

…

Beautiful Zion, lush land with trees, clean water, grass…

And EVIL!

"Golly gosh, we are lost in the jungles of Zion!" *Whack, whack * "The vegetation is too thick for my machete to pierce through!"

"What will we do?!"

"Bark!"

"Calm down, my friends! The good people of New Canaan will surely rescue us! As they do to all manner of strangers!"

"You are well informed, my friend!" * sounds of footsteps * "I am the emissary Papa Jesus! I come to rescue you! But let us be swiftly on our way. At night… the men-apes roam!"

"The men-apes? Oh, hold me!"

"Very well, we will… BY THE GRAY FIRE OF ST JAMES! WHAT IS THAT FUR ON YOUR NECK?!"

"Arrghhhh! Clever, Dick! TOO CLEVER! You thought me a mere emissary… but I am THE MAN APE IN THE FLESH! GROOARGHHHH!

How will Dick survive the madness of the men-apes? Will Charlantanplan make it out okay? Children, tune-up next week for the next opus in our hero's adventure: Tricky Dick versus the onslaught of the men-apes!

…

That's one chapter done, with some important development to go with it. How will Veronica and Max be able to stop Curtis before he destroys the monorail? Is Courier 6 truly stuck in Vault 3 forever? Well there probably wouldn't be much of a fanfic if they both failed at their objectives!

I hope you've enjoyed the chapter. I also have a request, which I'd like all readers, be it my usual reviewers (thanks a lot for your reviews, by the way) or not, to answer my question: in-between Dead Money and Honest Hearts, which DLC could Max go through? I have my ideas for each, but I feel like it'd be too "fantastical" for a NCR trooper to get into those and be of matter. But I also just like these DLCs and I figure out that Courier 6 would be an awful fit for Dead Money.

I can promise though, that Zion will be visited in the future, it just may be without Graham and the others in it. Why? Well, that's for later.

I'd also have another request, but that's for latter! Enjoy the chapter!

See you later, alligator!