Lenora saw Goodsprings coming into view, waved at the few onlookers, but drove off the main road onto a dirt track. She had one final destination to visit before entering the Saloon. After that, she planned to start the drive to Primm, hopefully reaching it by Sundown.
As the water tower ahead of her, she nearly lost her balance from the bump that produced a wet crunch below her. Coming to a halt, Lenora observed the site of a tan scorpion writhing dejectedly behind her. Its 2-foot length would've been a shock had much of its hindquarters past the legs been flattened into a puddle of green blood by her tires. She made a mental note to keep an eye low from now on. If mutants like this were crawling around a short run from Goodsprings, it hinted that much worse things were hiding in the brush further out.
The cemetery was a hodge-podge of wooden crosses and planks. Names were carved and re-carved into the simple grave markers. Several hand-sized flies and ants watched Lenora as she slid between the graves. Near the wrecked fencing at the end of the hill, Lenora saw it.
—
"…Sorry you got twisted up in this scene…"
The well-dressed man clearly didn't have any regret for Jean. His voice barely contained the clear excitement he had at acquiring that strange chip. From his jacket he produced a gun similar in extravagance to his suit.
Well, she noted, at least there'll be no rape…
It wasn't much of a relief.
"From where you're kneeling must seem like an eighteen-karat run of bad luck…"
He studied the pistol for a moment.
"Truth is, game was rigged from the start."
—
The memory vanished with a bang. She was left fixating on the fresh grave before her.
"What game?" She muttered. "Rigged how?" The man and his goons obviously had advanced knowledge of her route. But how far back did it go?
It brought back the words of her contract. No way that was just some special edition trinket. Mercenary reclamation teams or not, she wasn't letting him get away. This was personal. Her former name floated through her head. "Jean Doe." Someone on the route had said it was a play on pre-war designations for people without an identity. But she did know her identity now. Her name, at least. Ironically enough, it was thanks to that smug jackass. Jean Doe was dead. Lenora Wilmbrooke would bury him with her.
She circled the grave for a few minutes, then her eyes caught something under a wiry tree. Several cigarette butts lay undisturbed in the dirt. The wrapping was of a style she hadn't seen before. Lenora scooped some up and dropped them in a spare pouch. Maybe they'd lead her back to the suited guy.
—
A teenager walked up to Lenora in front of the Saloon.
"Thank you for saving Aunt Jenine, lady." He held out a sack of caps.
"You got weird hair. Is it fake?"
Lenora giggled and pulled playfully at it.
"Down to root, all green, see?"
"Woah…"
As she moved towards the Saloon, a muffled shout caught several people's attention.
"-you have guns, well big deal!" Someone shouted from behind the door.
Lenora entered to see a tall man in blue clothes and a bulky bulletproof vest glaring at the middle-aged woman in front of him. Several customers leaned out of the way in their booths.
"You farmers don't scare me. I'm done playing nice. If you don't hand Ringo over soon, we're burning this town to the ground. The boys have been pretty restless lately without anyone to kill."
"We'll keep that in mind. Now, if you're not gonna buy something, get out."
The tall man stormed away without replying and eyed Lenora.
"Haven't seen you around here. Better be on your way before the week is out. Anyone tries to interfere in our business here, we're killing them too."
"And you are…"
"Joe Cobb, remember it. Me and my friends busted out of the NCR prison east of here and took over. We got to Jean, some other guy are heading to Sloan, and now my crew is gonna show Goodsprings whose boss."
Lenora noted the white letters spelling NCRCF on his vest.
"So then, um…" she began without thinking, "What makes you the leader?"
"What, like my rap sheet? None of your damn business."
Lenora suddenly had an idea, leaning back from the now-glaring man and trying to manage a timid sentence.
"Well surely you-if you can get people-you must've been quite notorious if other convicts are willing to follow you."
Cobb smirked.
"Yeah, that's me. Robbed some people, burned some things, killed a few guys. You won't be the next one if you walk out of here. Gonna give people safe passage out before we charge in, because I'm such a nice guy."
Now much less visibly irate, Cobb strolled out the door and scanned the crowd around him.
"Hey you, ranger, you'll get to know what we did to those guards at the Correctional facility if you don't scamper…"
The door swung shut and muffled the rest of his speech.
"Well you've been causing quite a stir," the woman Sunny had mentioned as Trudy approached.
"Thanks for helping Jenine out there. And welcome to Prospector Saloon."
"Hey, whose Ringo?"
"He's a trader. Was a trader. Ran into town a week ago. Survivor of an attack, he says. Breakout happened just before his caravan came in and now he needs a place to hide. We figured he was just in shock. Didn't expect anyone to actually come after him. Seems Cobb wants to get even because Ringo shot dead two of his guys. Looks like our little town got dragged into something we don't want anything to do with."
"Breakout? What happened?"
"NCR brought in chain gangs from California to work on the rail lines out of the old Jean Prison. Trouble is, turns out giving convicts a bunch of dynamite and blasting powder isn't the best idea. Was a big escape not too long ago. Never did hear of any NCR guards making it out. Some of 'em stuck together to make more trouble. 'Powder gangers' is what they call themselves."
"So he's got friends, then."
"They're not too tight-knit. No honor among thieves and all. Still, this town isn't exactly fit to sneak up their encampment. That's just not our way, either."
"And Ringo is…"
"Holed up at the abandoned gas station on the hill near Doc Mitchell's house."
Anxiety was starting to creep over Lenora. Cobb had made his plans for Goodsprings very clear. Her plans to reach Primm suddenly felt much less realistic, not when the town that had saved her was under threat. She also pondered how safe the route to Primm would be now that escaped convicts had spilled over the vicinity.
"I'll have to think about this, but I've got my own problems."
"Those men who shot you, yeah. All I know is they're a bunch of freeloaders who expected a few rounds on the house. We kept them honest, though. Of course, one of those Khan mercs knocked the radio to the floor "by accident" and it hasn't been working since. Heard them trying to get deep into an argument before the guy in the checkered coat kept shushing them. Probably because they came in from the Quarry junction to the North. I can't blame them for getting riled up. The whole area's overrun with the kind of critters that just get mad if you shoot them, and what's worse, I've heard they're migrating South towards Sloan. Still, the leader kept going on about getting back to the Strip. That means going East. Take Highway 93 up."
Lenora nodded, then thought back to when she first saw the Saloon.
"You have a weird array of people loitering outside here."
Trudy shrugged. "Comes with the business. The old fellow sitting outside is Easy Pete. He just spends the day there retelling stories from when he was a prospector. The NCR gal doesn't try to preach, fortunately. She's just a scout. As for the ones dressed for a fight, they're hunters, drifters, scavengers, the kind of people who might pass through a place on the fringe of society like ours."
"You don't like the NCR?"
"They do what they can to keep things safe in the region, but if you ask me, they're trying to do too much. That's why they lost the NCRCF and haven't retaken it. Spread too thin."
"Interesting."
Lenora listened to people thanking her for saving someone, said her goodbyes, and was about to leave when a holotape on the bar caught her eye. Trudy noticed.
"Courier handed that out for me and Chet for customers to see. Some bounty hunting job, he said."
The holotape uploaded a text file onto her Pip-boy's archives titled "Randall and associates"
It outlined the aforementioned group's intention to perform "high-risk bounties on behalf of various clients". The requirements, especially one describing "moral flexibility" were off-putting. The initial payout of 1000 caps was appealing, though. As was the at-will schedule that presumably came with needing to track targets. The file also added the coordinates of Randall and Associates HQ to her map. Conveniently, it was located South of Primm over the California border. She decided to make a detour there, just to get some in-person knowledge.
Outside the Saloon, she walked towards the dark-skinned NCR woman.
"If you're asking about the guys who shot you, I can't help. My camp is up North of here and I was asleep at the time. I'm Sergeant Arkus, NCR Rangers."
"Don't worry Ma'am, I just wanted to know what's going on around this part of the Mojave. What're you doing here?" She was saluting before she knew it, and addressed her formally. The gesture made Arkus examine her closely. She began to say something with a hint of interrogative tone, but switched gears in an instant.
"-the usual Ranger business. Scouting out neutral settlements, getting a feel for the hearts and minds of the population."
"What about that business with the Powder Gangers?"
"That Cobb shitheel? I'm not authorized to interfere with local disputes. But seeing as how the Powder Gangers are all wanted criminals…" she brought up her weapon. The revolver was heavily worn and more silver than black, but the large gun remained imposing, as did the visible "44" engraving on the barrel.
"I've got another reason to be here though, and I think you're just the person I need for it."
"Why?"
"I'm on the trail of a rogue trooper named Baxter. He started feeding intelligence to Caesar's freakshow a few months ago, and split before we could catch him. I think maybe another mole gave him the head's up. Lots of bad implications. Whatever let him get ahead of us, I have him pinned somewhere in this area. Locals mentioned a few caves where he could be hiding."
"You want help tracking him."
"Exactly. Haven't bothered anyone who lives here. They're too busy tending to their crops, caring for kids and older folks, who make up most of the town anyway. I haven't found any hunters willing to search for an NCR defector holed up with body armor and several military-grade guns either. You though, there's no local needs preventing you from heading into the mountains to smoke Baxter out."
"You want me to find this guy all by myself?"
"Oh, no, no, sorry. I'll be joining you. We can take him and whatever wildlife might be hiding in those caves easily."
"What's the reward?"
"As a temporary contractor with the NCR, you'll receive payment after we find him, dead or alive. I can spare…3000 in NCR dollars. Does that sound good?"
A twinge of concern hit Lenora. She found the prospect of killing someone to provoke tides of displeasure. Wasn't she supposed to be protecting other people?
The thought was odd. She still didn't know what she'd been supposed to do before she'd awoken from that pod. Again the idea of defending people, of…humanity, her mind corrected, struck her, as did the ignobility of taking a life.
She remembered Sunny's harsh advice. Kill an enemy before they killed her. This too, seemed to be an impression she knew, and isolated from the need to shoot someone, it felt overriding, commanding, urgent.
Barton's corpse flashed in her mind. The man who tugged at her heartstring for his own selfish goals. This world, she decided, was different from the one she'd been born into. She couldn't even say she knew of it, thanks to whatever strange glitch had purged her mind. Additionally, she remembered, Baxter was an agent for those Legion people. Every rumor she'd heard indicated that they were a particularly vile and primal type of group. Someone who aided them needed to be brought to justice.
That settled it.
"I'm in, Ma'am."