"Number Nine"
Ch. 14: Naughty boy.
"You got a pretty face
And you're so intense
A rebel without a cause
You're so pass
A devil without the horns
And the tail
A rebel without a cause
Oh, you're so lame."
- Killer, "Naughty boy"
Apprehension, cowardice, resistance, and shame found a way inside Six's psyche at once when she was approached by Arcade a couple of days later since the snowman incident with Lily. The teenager had decided to conclude their stay at Jacobstown as she had deemed that Rex's strength had returned with an uncharacteristic vigor when, upon leaving the lodge to take a morning stroll after breakfast, Six had watched, bewildered, how the canine had broken to a chase after the many daring corvids perched all around the snowy courtyard.
She had announced this at midday, and her decision had been met with overall relief. The group needed to leave behind the supermutant town and the terrible secrets that had transpired there.
Nobody had mentioned anything related to her outburst, and she was grateful for that. Even Zorro was behaving uncharacteristically compliant around the topic, avoiding further prying on anything related to her past on their recent interactions through the Pip-Boy chat at midnight. Instead, he had chosen to bombard her with questions about cultural references he often heard from her or came across when he watched or read the many archives she had overloaded his device's internal memory with.
It was funny and a bit odd to educate a mind as sharp and inquisitive as Zorro's about things she had considered silly and unimportant up to this day.
11:52 PM Tuesday, February 28, 2282
Fox: … So, according to your explanation, the "Big Bad Wolf" thing from this afternoon is a direct result of you having read a children's tale about a girl in red trusting a talking wolf and me happening to wear my Vexillarius headdress that time at Nipton.
Courier VI: Elementary, my dear Watson.
Fox: I beg your pardon?
Courier VI: Aw, sorry about that. Sherlock Holmes' quotation.
Fox: Who?
Courier VI: Fictional character. A private detective.
Fox: I see. This is one of those cultural references, isn't it?
Courier VI: Yasss ;)
Fox: Why do you always do that?
Courier VI: Do what?
Fox: At the end of some sentences, you use combinations of punctuation marks that are, to my knowledge, grammatically incorrect and do not serve to bring further emphasis to them.
Courier VI: Wait, what? You mean this? ;) That's an emote, dude.
Fox: A what?
Courier VI: An "emotion icon". Shit, I didn't know you were unfamiliar with those.
Fox: Which icon are you talking about?
Courier VI: Uhm… see this? ;-) That's a smiling face winking.
Fox: …
Courier VI: Wait, I'll show you.
After attempting to explain to him with the 'eyes, nose, mouth' example with no luck, she had instructed him to go to the chat's Settings and enable the emoji chart.
12:01 AM Wednesday, March 01, 2282
Fox: May I ask what purpose does this serve?
Courier VI: To clarify intentions to the person on the other side of the chat? Maybe?
Fox: I see.
Courier VI: Try it out! :D
Fox: 凸( •̀_•́ )凸
Courier VI: Ha! You learn fast. ಠ‿ಠ
Step by step, somehow, she felt that the dynamics between them were slowly improving.
However, she couldn't say the same about Arcade, whose timid approach had been met with eyes big enough to send the man in a stuttering mess about experiments and Doctor Henry wanting to meet with Lily.
Six already knew what he had been talking about, so the exchange had been immensely awkward for both parts but blissfully short. Even though she was perfectly aware of how unfair she was being with him, Six still hadn't gathered up the courage to either face her own demons or… ask Arcade to please leave the group.
She was an asshole. An asshole and a coward.
"Are you really, really sure that you want to do this, Lily?" – she found herself asking after the old scientist had put on both sides of the Nightkin's cranium several electrodes to read her brain waves using a working electroencephalogram connected to the lab's main computer. Apparently, the old man had a variation of the standard Stealth Boy in his power that had been developed and serialized only and specifically for the Enclave to use during the Great War.
But the thing was that the Mark II Stealth Boy was just a prototype, and while the invisible field lasted twice the time than a regular one, thus ensuring a more precise reading of the brain waves while wearing it, it also increased the risk of an FEV patient to aggravate pre-existing dementia.
And Doctor Henry had chosen Lily because she seemed the less unthreatening of her kind, thus the less likely to undergo a psychotic breakdown.
But Six wasn't so sure about that.
However, Lily had given her one of those sporadic facial gestures that had resembled the best approximation she could muster to a smile. Coming from a long-term FEV-affected patient, that was no small thing.
"Of course, dearie." – had been her kinda soft reassuring.
Biting her right thumb nervously, Six had added weakly:
"You can always say no…"
"I know that, dearie." – the Nightkin had replied, messing softly with her spiky hair before ushering the girl to keep her distance from her so the test would proceed without impediments.
The whole group had been present when the testing had come to fruition, revealing a load of data specs that, if the ex-Enclave doctor was right, could shed some light on the Nightkin Schizophrenia problem.
However, it seemed that the experiment had been overheard by Keene, who had violently knocked the door down, backed by two eager lackeys, demanding that Doctor Henry handed out the Stealth Boy prototype AND the specs.
The tension had been palpable in the lab, where the only exit had been blocked by three sturdy supermutants as the rest of the humanoid occupants had reached for their respective weapons.
Upon watching this, knowing that confronting Keene and the other two, in the best of cases, would end up resulting in several casualties on both sides, Six had first eyed the Nightkin, preparing themselves to launch at the insolent bugs in front of them, and then her group: while the scientific part, namely Arcade, Henry and Calamity, had only their hands over their sheathed energy guns; Boone, Vero, Cass, and even Raul were pointing guns and Power Fist towards the intruders as Rex had started growling menacingly. Lily was eyeing Keene's group with a disoriented gaze, muttering something about "always causing trouble".
The only one who seemed dead calm was Zorro, giving her a significant look as he discreetly pointed towards the Nightkin trio.
She gave him a panicked look which he answered by hardening his stare.
Counting down to ten as her feet took her in front of Keene, she directed her face towards the floor as she addressed the angry supermutant.
"Keene…" – she began – "Listen… I know our prolonged presence here has bothered you, and I'm sorry about that. We are leaving today, so your kind wouldn't feel threatened anymore by our staring… but, please, don't sabotage the doctor's experiment that is, primarily, to benefit your cause."
However, the smug Nightkin was having none of it.
"Do you truly believe that I find your insignificant presence remotely threatening, human?" – he scoffed – "No. This very reasonable petition comes from long back when we discovered the prototype, and here the human doctor tricked us into believing that it was inoperative, but I knew better." – he added by giving Henry an accusing stare – "Jacobstown was supposed to be a sanctuary, a place to find a cure… But, instead, we wait and wait. I'm sick of waiting!" – he boomed – "And I'm also sick of dealing with you humans and your disrespectful staring!" – leaning over her, a muscled monster baring fangs to a scared child, he threatened – "Get out of my way or I will squish you like the bug you are!"
Six was about to cry, feeling like a failure, unable to keep her group well and alive just as she had done almost six years before… Until a chalky pair of hands came to rest upon her shoulders, gave her a familiar squeeze that she immediately associated with the one he had given her at Nipton, offering hope amidst ashes, and then… he took her jaw to orientate her sight directly towards Keene.
She trembled between those hands that obliged her to confront the Nightkin's unnatural stare as the mutant bared teeth at her.
However, as her eyes peered into Keene's, she discovered something that gave her some pause.
Because, instead of finding rage or even discomfort at being stared at, she read into his eyes an emotion that she would have never associated with a creature as powerful as a supermutant: anxiety.
"He who demands respect has to earn it first." – Zorro's calm voice filled the air, his ribcage vibrating softly against her shoulders as he spoke – "However, before me, I don't see anything respectable at all, but rather a desperate drug-addict whose only solution he can come up with is surrender to the very problem he wants to escape from in the first place."
"You dare to…" – Keene growled.
Behind the pair, the silent sniper lined his rifle's lens with the monster's right eye. He attacked the girlie; a bullet would be perforating his mutated brains before he could complete the action.
Nonetheless, reassured by the young man's presence behind her, bodily heat pivoting from one another like a closed electric circuit, Six also spoke.
"Have you ever considered that, by interrupting this research, you may as well be condemning your ilk to permanent damage just because you couldn't bear to be patient over a human attempting to save the Nightkin?" – she asked, emboldened – "Even if you left, what you do in the Wasteland affects all the mutants here, but you didn't think about that, did you?" – she added, letting slip an accusatory undertone between sentences, ignoring the mutant's increasingly frowning stare. She was done with his persistent bullying. She wasn't going to keep putting up with his crap by cowering like a rabbit. She could be small... but, by no means, she was insignificant – "Go ahead and be like Tabitha and Davison. That's exactly how a selfish human would operate instead of a Nightkin leader, you know?"
Under the stare of the grey mass of muscles that was Keene, Vulpes and Six steeled themselves either to dodge a massive blow… or to become a conjoined amalgam of chunked flesh, blood, and viscera splattering the lab floor.
Either way, none of them expected the following words that came from Keene's mouth.
"Very well, humans." – he hissed, clearly displeased – "You've made your point, and I withdraw my... request."
With that, without further ado, he got off the entrance, followed by the other two. They all retired into the shadows, where they were in their element.
Once they were out of sight, the entire room breathed relief as Vero came immediately to Six's side, hugging her tightly while Raul approached and gave Vulpes his backpack and a silent nod that the young man promptly returned.
They needed to get out of town as soon as possible.
Raul Alfonso Tejada had been living more than he cared to admit… but he still counted up the years since the bombs fell.
He had been thirty at that time, and he had thought that he had already experienced everything a man from a mid to low social status could aspire to.
He had been wrong.
As he trekked amidst the mountain range while sometimes struggling to keep with the rest's pace, his thoughts went from the Boss to the rest of their companions.
Boss or Jefecita, as he preferred to mentally address her, was too young for this shit.
And then, learning that, perhaps, given the nature of her origin Vault, she could be - chronologically speaking - the group's second or third eldest, depending on the difference between her and Lily's birthdates, Raul couldn't stop thinking that she still had experienced too much grief for the time she had been conscious in this world.
And yet… that candid innocence she tried to dissimulate all the time told him that she still hadn't experienced all the due stages and joys a girl her – biologically speaking – age should have.
Even Señorita Veronica (whom he privately addressed as the group's Niña Bonita, (1) for she was cuter than a button), who had been living an isolated existence - first within the ranks of her paramilitary faction, then as a 'Procurement Specialist' (the kind of title, Raul was willing to put his hand in the fire, the Brotherhood of Steel probably bestowed upon the undesirable challenging minds who dared question authority) scavenging for supplies at the 188 - looked like she had experienced what was like to be a young woman at least to some extent.
And let's not start with Miss Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Because Raul had never seen a woman who was so in tune with her own femininity… and alcohol… and life in general. If there was a word that could define Cassidy, that would be 'lived'. For she could go happily to her grave knowing she had lived, yes… and what a life!
But the Boss? She was like a tiny clumsy duckling freshly out of the eggshell, too disoriented to even notice her own feet.
Raul had been seventeen once, and he had never met a seventeen-year-old girl this incredibly oblivious of her own femininity.
Of course that he had been relieved that she wouldn't give any credit to the many lecherous looks she had received when they had set foot on The Atomic Wrangler in Freeside asking for work, and the Garrets' male twin had given her the task to find some prostitutes that met specific 'special' requirements.
That had been the most inadequate task ever to give to a girl like her. The poor thing had blushed all the way, first asking Beatrix Russell really cutely if she would entertain the notion of changing careers, then this Santiago defaulter who had thrown at her all the silly innuendoes he could come up with until Boone had stepped in threatening to "feed Santiago a knuckle sandwich until he starts shitting teeth for a whole damn month".
And then, when it came to programming F.I.S.T.O., she had asked Cassidy for counsel regarding what kind of 'dirty commands' a sexbot was supposed to have.
The whole issue, besides awkward, had been downright hilarious.
Since he was rescued from Tabitha's hands at Black Mountain, Raul has had his good share of fun hanging around with these crazy kids.
But getting back to the Boss, besides the laughs Raul has had around her… It had also pained him to watch how the girl tried so hard to keep so much of her group's disparity under control. How hard she tried to be there for all of them, how hard she tried to keep from crying when a situation surpassed her.
And it had also pained him how little she knew about the opposite sex.
Leaving aside the weirdos and perverts, that Great Khan lad had been doing a half-decent job by dedicating Boss a few lines of poetry. Really, amazing; not even Raul would have thought about that when he had been eighteen.
Boss' response? Oh, that was very profound. I bet the Followers would love to add you to their cause.
Please, Boss.
Then, that sweet Initiate boy at the Brotherhood bunker. The one who had lost a gun while attempting to impress a girl who hadn't been impressed at all. He had told the Boss about his problem, and she had returned him the gun after a not-so-pleasant episode with radscorpions where everybody had shot, run, and prayed.
She had impressed him, so, from that point on, he had offered to assist her with the partitioned virus problem at the bunker's databases… or whatever nonsense those Scribes needed.
And with the information gathering. And with asking for an audience with their Elder.
The boy had tried really hard… he still tried every time they came down the bunker.
Boss' response every time? Oh, hey, Stanton, how're you doing, pal? Have you already decided if you wanna be a Paladin or a Scribe?
Please, Boss. Just… please.
And now, there was the chavo and her, orbiting around each other like confused moons in search of a sun.
This one was a bit older than those two candid children. His posture tall and proud, his hands already used to be around a gun's handle, his jaw tense, his voice an adult's voice. His sad eyes pensive, making him look older beyond his years.
Not many joys seemed to have left a mark on this one, as adult responsibilities had probably made him mature faster, sucking away the vitality a youngster like him should have sported.
He could really pass as an adult.
However, there were those tiny details that, with age, Raul had learned to identify as the last remnants of innocence when a boy is close to becoming a man.
This one was well-versed in elaborated discourses and fancy words, that kind of languid charm that would make a girl's craziest fantasies fly to the moon.
But he didn't have the faintest idea about how to approach a girl.
In fact, this one pertained to a very rare breed that attracted older women like bloatflies to mesquite honey without even having to move a finger, Raul bet. But girls would shy from his type, finding him too intimidating to dare further approach beyond timid verbal exchanges.
Boss clearly hadn't picked him with silly fantasies in mind, but she was shy around him.
And he, in return, was totally clueless around her.
Raul thought them cute when they sat together at sunset, sipping on lukewarm water and eating cold bighorner pie as lighting a bonfire within Cazador's territory wasn't worth the risk of becoming a nest's prey. Both sticking to the other like glue, pointy kneecaps protruding under military fatigues, dusty boots of very different sizes sinking slightly on dirt, pale faces softly illuminated in amber and green lights as they would converse silently through their Pip-Boys without exchanging a single look.
A mute private joke tipped on their screens, and Boss' freckles around her nose would make themselves more noticeable as her big eyes shone while the chavo's lips would allow a solitary fang to poke out.
Then Miss Cassidy uttered a crass joke out of the blue to fill the silence, and the magic was gone.
Niña Bonita and Abuelita (2) Lily were the ones taking the first watch that night, so the rest unrolled their respective bedrolls, unzipped them, and started to zip them back together as one big common sleeping bag to preserve heat during the night.
Raul expected to sleep in a corner on his own as he was very aware of his rotten body odor.
But he was surprised when the lad called for him, opening a gap on the conjoined sleeping bags so the ghoul could fit by his side.
Raul had met his open arm with fear that his skeletal frame would disgust him as his hand came to rest around the ghoul's back and shoulders to keep him close for sharing heat.
But the lad had zipped up the bag without further comment and had made sure to keep Raul's form and Rex's on the other side close to him. And Raul had felt that he, somehow, liked the lad a little bit more than he liked him already.
Laying in quiet, the necrotic's faulty sight perceived doctor Gannon's distant form rolling over a bit until Miss Cassidy's firm arm held him in place as she glued her back with Señor Boone's, whose arm rested protectively around Boss… who had extended her hand over Rex's fur, first scratching the canine, then meeting her fingers with the lad's.
Raul watched, mesmerized, how their hands crossed idly through fur until fingertips brushed. Then a tentative search, as if figuring out where spaces between fingers of the opposite hand laid.
And so, when they reached an agreement, fingers slid together, clasping around knuckles, thumbs caressing palms until they fit perfectly.
All of this done with both parts having their eyes closed.
Rex, halfway territory for such an intimate exchange, waggled his tail happily inside the giant sleeping bag.
And so, Raul watched the girl's asleep face, then the lad's. Both soft and impossibly young, relaxed and vulnerable in their contentment. Black and white hair tendrils like chess' pawns sticking to closed lashes, dreaming the dreams of youth.
Those two, they didn't know what they were playing at.
Maybe he, the no-adult, had an inkling, as improbable as it seemed… but Boss?
Please, Boss. – Raul thought, pleading amidst layers of dream state vigil – You just don't hold hands with a boy and pretend he's another girl you decide to befriend and share secrets and lipstick with. It never works that way.
He would know. He had already lived that.
Arcade wasn't having a good time.
Besides enduring the cold around the Spring Mountains as they had retraced their steps down the old California State Route 127 until they had reached a point where a natural path had led them further into the mountain forest, he was facing the fact that, perhaps, his presence within Six's group was wanted no more.
Not that the others treated him differently as Cass and Raul engaged him in occasional conversation while Lily would help him wade through steep terrain.
Boone and Zorro mainly kept to themselves, which wasn't a novelty at all… but Six had consistently been avoiding him, to the point she didn't even spare a glance in his direction even when Veronica had attempted to act as a bridge between them on several occasions.
Arcade wasn't, by any means, versed in psychology… but it didn't take a genius to see that she was tense. Tense and afraid.
She had been depressed during almost their entire stay at Jacobstown since he had committed the big mistake of opening his mouth, no doubt nursing the psychological strain that those memories had brought upon her.
Arcade wasn't mad at her at all. He even didn't blame her for feeling that way around him. It wasn't his sensitivities he was worried about… but rather how his presence affected her.
He held a great deal of affection towards Six, and the last thing Arcade wanted was to add to the list of villainous figures, Benny Gecko and the Mystery Man most prominently, that had managed to make her existence so utterly miserable.
Arcade had never experienced before what it was like to be feared, and he reaffirmed his belief that he would have made a very poor legionnaire should the Legion had captured him in his youth. What those sequestered tribals saw in gloating while looking at themselves reflected in the eyes of their frightened victims was beyond his comprehension as a human being. It simply attempted against every fiber of his being, making him feel sick and disgusted with himself.
Either the stories around legionnaires were exaggerated products of the NCR anti-Legion campaign… or Caesar had done a good job at brainwashing thousands of men into believing that murder, enslaving, pillaging, raping, and torturing people would somehow contribute to the making of a better future.
'Pax per Bellum'. That was what the golden Aurei coins read on their reverse. Arcade would know, as some of his patients at the Old Mormon Fort had ended up there seeking medical aid with a handful of those in their pockets. Being Legion spies, turncoats, mercs, or NCR backstabbers didn't matter. The hypocrisy of their actions had never escaped the Followers doctor.
Peace through war. There wasn't an Old-World quote as dangerous, twisted, and sad as that one.
It didn't matter how they wanted to paint it, what results were expected out of it or what intentions attempted to excuse it.
In the end, war never changes.
With those somber thoughts over his head like a stormcloud, Arcade's senses - naturally lesser and faultier than the average wastelander if his glasses were any indication – reacted perhaps a tad too slow when Zorro's usually placid, monochord voice elevated several decibels in volume for all to hear.
"CAZADORES!"
Arcade only then pointed his energy gun in front of him with trembling hands as he heard Boone shouting "Contact!" and a weight landed a few feet ahead of the blonde doctor with a heavy thud.
Then, chaos ensued.
Shooting the critter, still alive and creeping through the ground with its long-clawed legs at a fast pace, several times until it turned into a bright greenish puddle of goo, Arcade dodged by inches the stinger of a full-grown adult that was promptly put to the ground by one of Cass' bullets and was immediately finished off by Veronica's pneumatic gauntlet.
They had managed to walk into a large nest, for the flying critters kept coming in waves, first the smaller young ones, quickly put down by a single shot to the wings and then finished off on the ground either by Veronica, Lily, or Rex… then the gigantic enraged adults.
One of those enraged adults went directly to Six, and she managed to shoot it twice on the antennae before Boone's muscled arm pulled her down to the ground, and their bodies rolled aside to avoid the plummeting attack of its stinger.
With its tactile and olfactory receptors crippled, the large insect frenzied, unable to distinguish friend from foe, and attacked another adult, resulting in a furious buzzing between the insects as they grappled at each other with the hooks at the end of their legs while more of them joined in the madness.
Seizing the opportunity, everybody started to run in the opposite direction to the nest as Raul unpinned a hand grenade, counted down to three, and threw it to the bunched insects.
The explosion blew off several wings and legs, effectively disabling most of the bulk… but two of them got seemingly intact out of it and charged towards Raul, who, being the oldest of them all, wasn't as quick as the others while running.
Then Arcade watched, as if in slo-mo, how Zorro charged on forward with Cass' combat knife in hand, pulled aside Raul from the trajectory of one of the two vicious stingers that went to him, and stabbed the insect right in the abdomen, effectively pinning it to the ground with the impulse.
He literally chopped down the unfortunate Cazador, depriving it of its stinger, legs, and wings. In that order.
"JIMMY!" – Veronica's exclamation was only drowned by the piercing scream Six released as the Power Fist connected to the other insect's thorax… at the expense of embedding its sting into the Scribe's right thigh.
Veronica howled as she fell to the ground. Zorro stabbed and kicked the insect aside, grabbed her, and hoisted the woman over his shoulders like a potato sack as he broke into a sprint with Lily covering for them while another pair of gigantic adults emerged from the nest.
"CASSIDY!" – the young man screamed, eyes the size of platters and more emotion on his inhumanly tense features than any of the present had ever seen as he sprinted towards the redhead, nearing buzzing signaling he had another one just behind him and Veronica's flaccid form – "KILL IT! KILL IT!"
Cass' resolve didn't waver a millisecond as she aimed, fired, and effectively crippled one of the critter's wings, leaving its smashing to Lily.
"Retreat!" – Boone exclaimed, grabbing Six by the arm as he kept making signals to the rest of the group – "Wounded man! RETREAT!"
Six grabbed Rex by the metallic piece of his spine and coaxed the dog into not pursuing further engagement while Zorro's frantic pace reached them.
"Where?!" – he asked Six while still running – "WHERE?!"
"Ranger Station Foxtrot!" – she replied in-between panting as she struggled to keep up with Boone's pace – "Southeast, a mile and a half!"
They covered the distance in less than ten minutes cross-country. The Rangers almost shot them as they saw their frantic approach.
Veronica was already spasming.
As soon as the young man left her over the bedroll inside Comm Officer Lenk's tent, Arcade went in to observe her pupils and check her body temperature. She was burning.
Totally independent of what Arcade might be doing, Zorro didn't waste time tearing open Veronica's right trouser leg.
"What are you doing?" – Arcade questioned, panicking a bit when he saw him unsheathing Cass' combat knife again.
He had to admit the young man had a surgeon's pulse when he carved the Cazador stinger's remains out Veronica's flesh as he promptly started to suck off the venom's remnants and spit them aside.
Were it not because he had ripped down the Scribe's trouser robe, Arcade wouldn't have seen the odd cutaneous reaction in time.
"Shit." – the blonde doctor growled upon recognizing the discolored patches of inflammation – "Anaphylactic shock." – raising his head to meet the concerned look on Lenk's eyes, he almost demanded rather than asked – "Wouldn't you happen to have a First Aid Kit here perchance?"
The blonde woman hesitated, but a second female voice soon filled the tent.
"Here." - Ranger Kudlow said while extending the metallic case to him – "The Courier's friends are our friends, right?" – she said, more rhetoric than actually asking Lenk, who caved and nodded silently.
As Cass knelt down with Veronica's head on her lap as she kept the other woman from thrashing, the rest observed the scene silently while Arcade rummaged through the available medical equipment. Raul and Six hugging each other tightly as the girl wept silently even though the ghoul didn't appear better for wear. Rex's head over the girl's lap looked a bit depressed while, beside them, Boone merely watched the procedure with crossed arms and a steely expression.
But the instant the Followers doctor saw how Zorro was, by any means, attempting to make Veronica drink a small gulp of antivenom, he found himself raising his voice way louder than it was average in him.
"Stop!" – he exclaimed – "She would choke on it!" – and then, he told the redhead woman still dealing with Veronica's tremors – "Cass! Help me put her on lateral decubitus!" – however, upon watching the panicked reaction of the woman, who was clearly unfamiliar with medical jargon, he reformulated – "Help me put her on her left side! Quickly!"
After doing so, vomit started to pour out the Scribe's lips.
"She cannot ingest anything now." – Arcade explained while preparing a syringe with epinephrine, bless the Rangers and their meds – "Her respiratory tract may compromise further if we don't treat the allergic reaction first."
"Then inject her with the antivenom!" – Zorro exclaimed, evidently unfazed by Arcade's explanation – "Do you have any idea how quickly Cazador poison acts all over the body?!"
Arcade ignored him as he injected Veronica with the epinephrine… but soon, he had to stand his ground with the rebellious youngster when he attempted to snatch the empty syringe out of his hands.
"Who's the medic here?" – the Follower surprised himself with a calm voice that commanded obedience, something he didn't know he was capable of, as he grabbed the young man by the shoulders firmly – "You or me?"
He watched the conflict play in the young man's eyes, one pupil slightly bigger than the other, teeth bared the likes of a wild coyote warning not to further test his boundaries, specs of blood smeared all over thin terse lips.
Somehow, Arcade was very conscious that this lad had been capable of bringing down an adult Cazador with just a knife, and he was grabbing him by the shoulders, restraining him.
Veronica's pained moaning brought a halt between them as Zorro turned his head to look at her, and Arcade released him.
"We cannot use a brewed, unsterilized medicine made in its entirety out of venomous animal parts in a case of allergic reaction this severe." – Arcade went on explaining as he gave mute signals to Cass to put the patient's feet up to help improve blood irrigation – "Chances are that she would end up developing yet another allergic clinical chart like this one and won't survive it at all." – he knew how he sounded. He knew it, and he hated it – "She needs to be kept hydrated and warm to ride off the poison's effects while the epinephrine will help with her breathing and the inflammation." – as he went on reciting his cold diagnosis, he kept his hands busy by cleaning and dressing the bloodied hole the enormous stinger had left on the woman's right leg – "Saline will take care of the hydration part whilst Cass and I will keep her warm." – preparing the intravenous bag of saline courtesy, again, of the Rangers' meds; Arcade improvised a support for it out of one of the tent's ropes so the saline could get downwards to the Scribe's forearm – "Luckily for us, the natural Cazador antecessor's bite, the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, used to be non-poisonous, so their venom is mostly a direct result of radiation exposure. That, we can treat it with a mixture of RadAway and a steady supply of Stimpak injections during the next hours until she sweats off all the venom in her system. Other than that, there's nothing more you, or anybody else, can do right now." – then he turned briefly to the indignant young man, who was boring a hole into his skull with his eyes – "Bear in mind that, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have diagnosed her Anaphylaxis in time. You should be glad of that." – he finished, taking his full attention to his patient, who was already breathing more even.
Because, if looks could kill, Arcade would definitely be dead from the moment he had grabbed the other by the shoulders.
He already knew that the young man didn't like to be touched. But it was either that or putting Veronica's life at unnecessary risk due to misplaced stubbornness.
And that was, for the umpteenth time, why Arcade preferred investigation over field medical exercise.
He heard Zorro's voice asking briskly for a cigarette to one of the Rangers, and the blonde doctor actually felt relieved when the canvas tent entrance shifted and he, along with Lenk and Kudlow, abandoned the already crowded space.
Quite the temper, that one.
However, despite himself, Arcade felt a bit deflated as soon as Six's arms released Raul, and she went after the group's newest addition with Rex in tow without sparing a look.
Arcade felt incredibly alone after that.
Patting down brusquely his backpack, Vulpes produced a large matchbox and, after failing two consecutive times at striking a match, he finally managed to set one alight long enough to lit the cigarette's end as he took a long drag of filth that burned his throat and sent him on a brief coughing fit.
His hands were shaking.
Besides being angry at the doctor, he was also angry at the girl.
Why did she have to do that? Why had she jumped between him and the damned mutated insect?
Had she been where she had to be, prepared to smash already shot-down critters instead of knocking them down by herself, this wouldn't have happened. He would have taken the sting instead of Raul, yes, but he had already survived several Cazador attacks to know that the cooked antivenom worked just fine on him, which he highly doubted could be said the same about the ancient ghoul.
And now, she could die just because she hadn't stuck to the group's dynamics.
Was it really that difficult to keep the ranged attacks to flying objectives while the fallen were dealt in close quarters?
The cohesion of this group was a disaster. A huge, dangerous disaster that may bring more of these unsavory situations in the future should combat roles weren't defined from now on.
None of them could afford this senseless sentimentality out in the Wastes. Not with the laughable work the NCR was doing when it came to cleansing areas from vermin this size.
And they pretended to seize up not just the Dam but also New Vegas should they be able to find a slip in Robert House's agenda? They would eventually become impoverished due to the likely high percentage of attacks from wildlife onto caravans resulting in human casualties and loss of resources. Their campaign on the Mojave had already been costly during these last years since the First Battle for Hoover Dam.
"Didn't know you smoke."
Coughing a bit as he took yet another drag, Vulpes didn't look at the owner of that voice, choosing to keep his sight on a non-particular point ahead of him.
"I don't." – he replied tersely, his mouth already tasting like shit – "I hate it."
The first time he had tasted a cigar had been almost three years ago, during a break with two Gomorrah male prostitutes who had invited him over to share a smoke at the fountain of the Ultra-Luxe.
Since the rules didn't explicitly forbid occasional smoking, he had accepted.
One had been fifteen and the other eighteen, whereas he had been seventeen. Even if the situation had been a tad weird for his taste and he had been coughing half of the time, the strange companionship he had found with those two boys who hadn't laughed at his evident inexperience with tobacco but instead had given him a conspiratorial smile - like they were making some mischief at the very gates of the poshest casino in the entire Strip - had eased his worries and given him some degree of mental peace.
There had been next to no conversation. Just silent, young complicity between boys. The same kind of complicity that he had been missing since he had been placed under Anguis' command.
At first, he had thought that keeping company with Degenerates such as them would help him to blend in… but, as the weeks had been passing and his tongue had acquired a bit of taste for tobacco and nicotine, he had shared those ten minutes with them daily just because he had felt like it.
Just because their silent camaraderie was pleasant.
He had kept consistently sharing that daily break with them for three months or so until the youngest of them had disappeared, and the oldest had only shown up once after that, dried trails of tears still present on his cheeks when Vulpes and he had shared that cigar in silence, knowing it would be the last one. He hadn't asked why or how. It hadn't felt right to.
Since then, he hadn't touched a cigarette until today.
However, the experience had left some sort of a mark in him, for after that, the young Frumentarius had made a point of not accepting any manner of perdurable companionship coming from strangers, most pointedly any working staff from the casinos. It was best that way.
He had already forgotten the names of those two boys.
Just the same he would forget, in due time, the names of these sentimental fools he was accompanying once the shadow of the Bull would engulf them all.
Again, it was best that way.
Warm irradiating by his left as another body stood by his side without touching him distracted Vulpes momentarily from his somber thoughts.
"I see." – was all she, the Courier, commented about his earlier reply – "Are you alright?"
"Yes." – he answered a bit too quickly for his liking, internally battling to keep his voice under control – "Yes, I am."
"Okay." – she murmured, sharing in his magnificent view of nothing in particular ahead of them. Rex obediently sat by her side – "You're angry, aren't you?"
Vulpes caught himself in time before answering with something downright scathing. He had to remind himself that she had nothing to prove to him, but him to her instead.
That included watching his tone. She wasn't one of his men, but actually quite the opposite.
He was, at the moment, one of her cohorts.
Which reminded him…
"This shouldn't have happened at all." – he said after taking another long drag.
"It wasn't your faul…" – she began to say, but he cut her mid-sentence.
"No, it wasn't." – he agreed, remarking the last word – "She should have limited to fulfill her role finishing the critters, not engaging one of them armed with a Power Fist."
She eyed him, shocked.
"She just wanted to protect you!" – she exclaimed – "You're being unfair to her!"
"No, I am not." – he differed as calmly as he could muster – "Should you forget, my job is to assess the field I am given, calculate risks and act in due consequence. I calculated the risks, and I assumed the likely outcome of getting stung knowing that I had the preparation and means to counter it." – he explained dispassionately – "She, on the other hand, acted on an impulse without measuring consequences, and here we are." – then, he turned his face to her for the first time, his eyes steely – "This group, tactically speaking, is a disaster; you cannot have seven people and a dog acting as reckless and unorganized as they currently are. Without a strict chain of command that defines everyone's role, this unit is doomed to fall apart."
The Courier's face had gotten several tones of scarlet as he had kept speaking. Was it out of anger or actual embarrassment, Vulpes couldn't really tell.
"This is NOT the stupid Army, damnit!" – she retorted, almost desperate to make him see things her way – "These people are my friends, not soldiers under my command!"
"Are we not?" – he replied back, purposefully adding himself onto the equation as she seemed so intent on keeping things on a personal level – "Please, Courier, don't insult my intelligence by depicting this as a social club because we both know that it is only half the actual truth." – she was doing that again, putting on puppy eyes to appeal to his sympathies. She needed to know, and better sooner than later, that such childish behavior was beneath her and will NOT earn any points on his book – "Stop that and let us be perfectly clear for once: you are, up to some extent, working for Robert House playing the ambassador part with as many important factions present on the Mojave as possible. Very well, I accept it the same as the rest of the group does. Nonetheless, being the good follower that I currently am…" – he remarked – "… I do also expect something out of this. Namely some enlightening, for starters." – but before she could become evasive again, he pressed – "And that something cannot be achieved if we all end up dead for a mere lack of foresight on your part."
She opened and closed her mouth several times like a gaping fish, clearly raking her brains to form a sufficiently convincing reply that would sway him from the current track this conversation was taking. But nothing came out of her lips.
Unconsciously, she was acknowledging his reasoning.
That told him that, somehow, Vulpes had managed to find a crack he could easily exploit to his benefit… were he not as pissed as he was at this scandalous display of incompetence.
This time, the Commander in him spoke instead of the spy.
"People are responsibilities." – he pointedly said, poking her shoulder with an index finger – "You formed this group; you take responsibility for each member's behavior AND welfare." – he stated sternly – "Stop eluding your responsibilities and start acting like a leader. Because that is exactly what these people, your insufferable sniper included, do need right now."
She frowned, her puckered lips drawing a hard line. All apparent traces of vulnerability gone.
Good.
"Very well." – to her credit, her voice didn't sound any bit strained as she turned heel and, after clicking her tongue twice the same she had seen him doing with the mongrels at Nipton, she left him wearing her head proud and high with Rex whining behind her.
Filling his lungs with filth one last time before breaking into a stinging coughing fit, Vulpes threw the cigar butt amidst the pitiful bunch of empty scotch bottles that seemingly littered the encampment's perimeter. A nearby crow squawked impertinently as if it were chiding him for contributing to add on the littering around.
Just his luck: trapped within an NCR camp full of drunken Rangers AND stuck with a bunch of Profligate idiots led by a stubborn seventeen-year-old.
Infuriating girl.
Six had been sulking for the rest of the day.
Dividing her time between thanking the Rangers properly for their aid, checking on Vero while trying to avoid talking with Arcade, AND roaming the encampment with Rex like a lost soul, Courier Six of the Mojave Express conjectured over and over the stern advice, disguised as an insulting reprimand, that her local legionary had decided to 'gift' her with.
She was having difficulty coming to terms with what he had said and how she had felt about it.
Six was a person who downrightly loathed confrontations with people she cared for.
That was mainly why she was avoiding Arcade and felt like shit after that tense talk with Zorro.
She… she cared about them. Even with the fear Arcade's background had inspired in her, she still – somehow – recalled the old Arcade… the one who would come up with witty remarks about life in general and behave like a mother hen every time she would end up doing something stupidly dangerous.
But she couldn't, for the life of her, reconcile those fond memories with the notion that he was Enclave.
"Ah, alone at last."
The machine… that damned machine that had arranged things, first to have a lengthy talk with Laura and Burke… then with her.
"After exchanging gallantries with one of my former… let's say, 'trusted advisors' and his snarling bodyguard, I have decided that a little chat between fellow Americans couldn't hurt, could it? After all, you are what one could say… 'ahead of your own time'."
She had been shocked. First, upon discovering the true identity behind the John Henry Eden persona that had sent Autumn after Project Purity.
The project of Laura's father. A work of a lifetime.
"Rest assured, unlike with those two, I have taken the liberty of including you in our program, as it was intended right from the start. Your country needs you, child."
Then to know that her life, the service she had done for her country when she had been collaborating with the Engineers Corps had been nothing but a lie. Hers and her old unit lives had been first and foremost lent for researching. Then, should favorable conditions ensue, their next step would have been becoming the next generation of Enclave enforcers throughout the American Wasteland, acting as agents of law against any opposing factions, such as the renegade paramilitary Brotherhood of Steel.
They had a name for them: Sleepers.
And Vault 5 had not been the only one hosting brilliant minds from the pre-War.
America had failed them much earlier than when the nuclear Armageddon had occurred. The Enclave had, literally, bought them from the very Army that had sequestered them to bottle them up in that hellish Vault.
They had been tools all along.
"You and I have a chance to make our country a better place for all of us. I'd like you to make sure that chance isn't wasted."
Men, machines… men that were part machines, machines that think they were men… Since she enlisted, she had faced multiple masks from the same ill: greed.
"Understand that I am placing a great deal of trust in you. Your simple presence here proves that."
She had spent hours, then days talking with the AI. Sheltered under the Enclave's wing at Raven Rock - a pre-War military base designed at the beginning of the Cold War -, barely sleeping and eating, she had squeezed the ZAX computer's knowledge of American History to its limits. Seeking answers, unfolding its plans, attempting to find the logic behind the AI's actions and personality representing a faction that had perpetrated the most horrid crimes against America and now were self-proclaiming themselves as the new messiahs of the American Dream.
The John Henry Eden persona firmly believed this, and it had attempted to enlist her to their Cause, privately assuring her that, out of the three main guests held at the facility, she was the only one the ZAX truly wanted by its side. Hacking the AI's terminal to expose its code to further prove the circular logic beyond its reasoning, faulty and human, like the ones who had programmed it… had proved to be a task beyond her technical knowledge as the AI would keep changing passwords in real-time. It had been a sadistic game of power the ZAX had proven to be quite proficient at.
So, she had resorted to negotiating with the machine.
But it seemingly had previously negotiated another deal with the other two guests.
At some point, Laura and Burke had been released from their cells and found their way back to the ZAX's chamber, leaving a trail of corpses behind.
They had found her sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes reddened and unblinking, conversing with the machine calmly.
The AI had stated its intentions: Laura had the purifier's code, Burke had the means, and little Birdie had "the blessing of all America" - in its own words. In exchange for their freedom, John Henry Eden only wanted absolute cooperation regarding the distribution of the Modified FEV in the water and turning coats regarding Laura's alliance with the Brotherhood of Steel.
After that, secretly, the AI expected the fourteen-year-old to betray her jailor and the infamous 101 Vault Dweller by trapping them inside the purifier's irradiated chamber or something along those lines.
The AI had promised great rewards, and, for a second, Six had really considered working for an evil machine in exchange for getting rid of Burke forever.
Along with countless lives regarding the ghoul and supermutant population of DC.
For a second time, the opportunity had presented once more to be free from her jailor and his nefarious influence.
Burke had wanted the vial and the prospect of taking advantage of a reinstituted position within the Enclave, from where he had been banned once. So, he had agreed.
Laura had wanted to face Autumn once again to set scores… and she had been the only living soul in possession of the code, so she had agreed as well.
The only apparent condition had been for Six to be the vial's carrier while a small number of Enclave soldiers would accompany them back to the Jefferson Memorial to put down Autumn and finish James Alden's work.
Nobody had asked little Birdie's opinion on the matter.
Nobody had cared.
"… The people here didn't care. It was a town of whores."
As soon as the sudden thought invaded her head, a blinding pain seized the left side of her skull, rendering her speechless as she grabbed her head with both hands, her senses taunting her as she thought she could smell the stench of smoke and charred flesh.
"… Truth is… the game was rigged from the start."
As if yet another bullet had just perforated her skull, she couldn't see or hear the friendly voices and hands cushioning her from falling to the ground. She barely registered Rex's soft fur between her digits as the only feeling she could process was pain.
"Between man and monster, Birdie, only one of them is the true inheritor of the Wasteland… And time has proven to me repeatedly that only the most gruesome abominations are the ones at the top of the chain food."
She never noticed how she had ended up inside Lenk's tent, Rex lying by her side, curled beside Veronica as both of their hands held each other's.
And the Scribe's eyes were open.
Vulpes had decided to play watch at the top of the mountainous gulch.
Besides not trusting one bit the Rangers, the encampment's incredibly faulty layout made him nervous: not only had they decided to station their main tent near a radio mast – an evident giveaway of their situation for miles around – but also the mountainous gulch was a complete dead-end.
It had taken him, a trained young legionary, almost ten minutes to crawl his way upside. Under attack, none of these Rangers would stand a chance, even with those pitiful barricades they had constructed around the place.
And every last of them were women. Given the isolated place it was positioned, this encampment was an invitation to any Legion scout unit strong enough to have their merry way with their residents once they managed to subdue them. And nobody would be the wiser.
Soldiers, women, and isolated? This would likely become an orgy of blood, rape, and torture before they were strung up crosses. Soldier women had no place even among Legion slaves.
The thought, Vulpes couldn't begin to fathom why, made him want to vomit.
Even though they weren't military per se, the Courier, Becky, and Cassidy were the closest thing to a soldier woman next to an actual NCR female recruit.
The Courier, he was sure, would receive special treatment should she collaborate with Caesar in the end… but the Master Frumentarius wasn't so sure about the other two.
Cassidy had a mouth too big for her own good and a passion for whiskey any average legionary worth their salt would love to crush out of her should the opportunity arise.
And Becky… well… it was best not to think about what they would do to her once they learned her preferences.
Vulpes wasn't an idiot, he had seen the wishful glances she occasionally directed to Cassidy, and the other woman didn't help at all, considering she half-jokingly flirted with Becky quite brazenly to see the younger woman blush.
Quite true, he had been the one to rat out many of his colleagues' homosexual affairs in the Legion, first under the Serpent's orders, then to let the rest know that he, quite literally, had them by the balls.
A position of power deciding over so many had felt incredibly good, even better if one of such transgressors ended up being on his blacklist, for no shortage of Decani, Decuriones, and Centuriones had felt like it had been a sport to bully him when he had been under Anguis' boot.
But those rules, somehow, inside his head, would apply to any other Profligate lesbian… but Becky.
And he hated himself for professing those feelings.
He hated himself for even giving further thought to the question.
He despised the notion of seeing people instead of targets. He was trained to ignore personal attachment; he was trained not to care.
But these people… They were invading his vital and mental space. They were, slowly but surely, dragging him inside their circle.
It was easier when everybody treated him like a newcomer. A foreigner. Hell, it was easier when the stupid sniper decided to open his stupid mouth to threaten him.
"Hey…"
It was easier when she was pissed off at him.
"What are you doing up here?"
It was easier when she didn't treat him like a friend.
"I brought dinner and stuff… though I suppose it has cooled by now. Took me my good fifteen minutes to climb up here."
Nononononononononononononononononononononononononononono…
A body heat source came to sit by his right, then a plastic tupperware was put on his lap.
Vulpes willed his head, although incredibly rigidly, to move.
Foolish girl. She was such a nuisance. She had almost hit her forehead with a rock this afternoon had he not grabbed her when she had nearly fallen.
The sniper had almost bitten both his arms off for touching her.
"The guys have told me you brought me to the tent when I… you know." – she sounded awkward, infuriatingly shy – "So, this is a sort of thanks and an olive branch… for earlier, in case you were wondering."
He made a point of ignoring her as he opened the small container to peruse its contents: grilled mantis.
"Yeah." – she kept talking as if his silence didn't bother her – "Apparently, those are pretty common around here, and it has been some time since the last supply shipment, so…"
He didn't comment on it until he took a bite.
"It tastes like…" – he found himself muttering.
"Scotch." – she finished for him – "Cass' idea. Apparently, said beverage is also common here." – she added, almost humorously.
"So I have noticed." – he confirmed, taking another bite. Giant mantis' meat was usually gamey and tasteless, so the scotch flavor, at the very least, added certain… interesting quality to the meal.
She must have seen his expression, for she kept talking.
"Hey, I've had it worse, believe me." – she said – "When you're out of luck with a hole in your stomach from three days going basically on dirty water, even roasted radroach sounds good. Or, if you happen to stumble on an abandoned camp, there's a tiny chance you may find leftovers or an old can of…"
"Pork N' Beans." – the two of them said at the same time.
Looking at the other in surprise, they immediately mirrored each other's disgusted grimace.
"Yeah…" – she nodded – "I know the feeling. And it's worse when you have to eat it cold. It's vomitive."
"Downright awful." – he nodded as well.
With that, their harmony apparently restored, he finished his meal, and she produced two fresh mutfruits out of her backpack, which she had climbed up with to carry the food.
"Here." – she said, handing him one – "To take off the scotch's edge."
They munched in silence while the night finished setting on.
"How's Becky?" – Vulpes asked before he could catch himself. He shouldn't ask those things. He shouldn't care.
"She's fine." – she answered calmly – "She was awake when I did. She couldn't speak due to her throat's inflammation, but she had managed to purge most of the venom out of her system. Arcade says she should be up again in a couple of days or so."
Vulpes nodded pensively.
"Do you intend to cast the medic off the group?" – he asked, giving her a pointed look – "It would be a mistake on your part to do so."
Was he really doing this? Giving her advice?
Her head lowered, and her shoulders visibly tensed.
"It's not that I want to… but I also do." – she confessed, hugging her legs and putting her chin on top of her knees – "I know that makes me a bad leader. But I didn't start asking people to come with me so I could guide them or something." – shivering, she held her legs tighter – "ED-E, I found him at Primm's Mojave Express office and repaired him to help me get rid of the raiders that had besieged the city. He did all the work and kept following me. That's really all." – Vulpes didn't comment on the male treatment she was giving to a machine and allowed her to continue – "Cass, I tried to convince her to come with me since she was a caravanner and would have proved me useful until we reached Novac at least. She refused the first time but joined in when I came up with McLafferty's offer to buy her caravan business." - why she was telling him - a spy - all of this, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to persuade her on the contrary – "Boone… I told him my sad story, helped him with a personal matter… and he offered to accompany me since he thought I wouldn't survive on my own with only ED-E as a backup." – she smiled while recalling this. She was evidently very fond of the NCR dog, and Vulpes couldn't help but wonder… if her affection went beyond mere friendship – "Vero, I approached her after a kid at the 188 told me she was sad and that she could use a friend." – she came to a sudden halt – "Which reminds me that we probably should stop at the 188 at some point to bring Clay with us now that House has lent us the Presidential Suite. He should be fine there, better than alone at the 188 anyway."
"Who's Clay?" – the Frumentarius asked, curious to know if yet another addition to the group was in store.
"The kid at the 188." – she replied – "He's… special. Like, really special, you know?"
"Do you plan to bring a child to your perilous pilgrimage through the Mojave Desert?" - he asked, incredulous and slightly taken aback by such a preposterous notion.
But she eyed him as if he had become mad.
"What? No!" – she exclaimed, just as scandalized – "I just want to escort him to the Lucky 38, so he can have a real roof over his head, a proper bed, food, and protection! He's special, but he cannot fire a gun, and I am not giving him one. He's only nine."
He then gave her an approving nod, satisfied to know they were on the same page. The Mojave Desert was anything but child-friendly. If he were ordered to bring Lupus along on a mission, he would do everything in his power to discredit such a notion. Either that or taking him to one of the Legion safehouses and leaving him with one of their other siblings to guard him.
Watching her squeeze her legs even tighter whilst attempting to control her slightly shaking shoulders, Vulpes rolled his eyes. Just like her: complete lack of foresight at the rapidly changing temperature conditions once the night came over the Mojave.
Picking up the sleeping bag he had brought with him to sit on, he unzipped it and used it as a blanket putting it over his shoulders, making an opening with his right arm for her to join in.
She slid in so easily, so trustingly, that the Frumentarius was briefly tempted to shake his head. Too easy. This girl's misplaced trust made things too easy. She should learn to be warier with whom she shares space.
But she kept talking after her hip was touching his, and her left arm and his right arm, respectively, had come around each other's waists inside the improvised blanket to maintain heat.
"Raul, we came across him after climbing up Black Mountain. He was held prisoner by a Nightkin named Tabitha. She wanted him to repair her robot companion. I volunteered to help him and, after some time tinkering with its inner program, we managed to set it up, so Tabitha was happy and let Raul go." – quite the adventure, that one. He might interrogate the ghoul further about it – "Rex was already ill when I caught sight of him beside The King at the School of Impersonation. I asked what was wrong, and the man promptly sent me to deal with Julie Farkas at the Old Mormon Fort who, in turn, redirected me to Jacobstown to treat Rex's problem, so I told The King where the wind blew. In turn, he lent me Rexie's custody until I was able to cure him… but I'm not planning to return him any time soon." – she laughed, seemingly content, recalling how she had picked up her companions – "Lily joined us at Jacobstown after telling her about dealing with the local Nightstalker problem. She simply never quit after that."
Her voice was growing sleepy as she kept filling him with quite the interesting pieces of information about the members of her group, describing them and their little adventures together.
She also spoke of the medic as if he were another person who was no longer there.
She was evidently in two minds regarding his presence with them, and she didn't want to decide. Just the same she didn't want to decide about the Fiends, the NCR, and the very Legion.
So, there was still a chance to sway her to their side.
Somehow, throughout the conversation, her head had come to rest on his right shoulder, and her smaller frame had nestled against his. The comfortable warmth inside the sleeping bag was kind of compelling, Vulpes had to admit.
"The medic will not wait much longer." – he warned her as he squeezed her closer. He felt comfortable having her this close. She smelled nice. Mutfruit sweetness permeated her breath as she talked, and her lips had a lingering gleaming film of juice that made them look redder. It was incredibly distracting – "No matter our little detour here, he will leave as soon as we pass through NCR safe territory if you don't say otherwise."
She produced a sleepy groan.
"I know…" – she muttered, half-yawning – "I know… But I don't wanna think about it now…"
"Doing nothing is a dangerous occupation, Courier." – he gently chided her.
"Stop calling me that, you dolt…" – she protested softly, nuzzling a bit on his shoulder – "… My job… not my name…"
Vulpes almost smiled. The old game again, it seemed.
"And your name is…?" – he asked, not really expecting an answer at all given that she had already closed her eyes.
But she kept talking.
"… Don't have a name to give…" – she muttered – "… Gotta surname, though…"
Vulpes' heart rate notably increased. This was fresh news.
"And that surname is…?" – he gently prodded, fearing she would get asleep now, leaving him with the intrigue.
Every second she took the time to respond felt like years.
"… Sullivan…"
After that, she was fast asleep.
Vulpes remained a while without doing anything in particular, mulling over possibilities.
He shifted their positions so he could hold her more comfortably and shielded her closed eyes from the light of his Pip-Boy.
He hadn't managed to obtain a single moment alone to test something until now.
01:22 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
Fox: Are you able to read her heart rate now?
The chat remained silent.
He tried a different approach.
01:25 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
Fox: Are you the same Yes Man I talked with at Benny Gecko's workshop in The Tops?
The chat remained silent.
He wasn't giving up just yet.
01:28 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
Fox: You seemed more forthcoming then than now. Why the silent treatment?
The answer wasn't immediate.
01:30 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
:D YES MAN D: Aw, I'm sorry, it's not like I don't want to talk with you! But she has written some lines in my code that prevent me from divulging information to anyone other than her and the members on my internal memory's whitelist. Sorry! T_T
So, she had been intelligent enough to tamper with the AI's behavior. Interesting.
Nevertheless, he wasn't done yet.
01:31 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
Fox: By "she" I assume you mean Sullivan.
He had never attempted to manipulate an AI. They say there's a first time for everything.
01:32 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
:D YES MAN D: Oh, she has already divulged to you that information? My code recognizes that as a protocol to work with the information of your knowledge and "keep along" with it as we converse.
So, she had told him the truth. Her surname was Sullivan.
Good.
01:33 AM Monday, March 06, 2282
Fox: How much do the restrictions in your code allow you to tell me?
:D YES MAN D: Very little :(
Fox: I see you are also keen on using emotes throughout a conversation.
:D YES MAN D: Oh, yes! They are handy! They help me convey feelings about what I want to communicate! :D
Fox: Are you happy right now, then?
:D YES MAN D: The correct word would be "excited". You are one of the few people I have talked with since my creation! And you questioned me a lot the first time we met. I enjoyed that very much ^^
Fox: A shame you cannot do the same now.
:D YES MAN D: Yep. Sorry :(
Fox: That whitelist you spoke about before… what do I have to do to be added to it?
:D YES MAN D: Why, getting Sulli's approval, of course! :D
Fox: She is the one who adds people in it, then.
:D YES MAN D: Yup.
Fox: You sound a bit different than when we first met. Why is that?
:D YES MAN D: Oh, you have noticed? :D I've been building a database on ways of conversing, and Sulli has been helping me to improve! She's so nice to me! ^^
So, the girl had been coddling the AI – so to speak. And she had gone through the trouble of disabling its overly helpful nature to keep her secrets safe.
Vulpes doubted very much that House would be aware of Yes Man's existence.
That told him that the Courier… Sullivan, had in mind betraying the mysterious owner of New Vegas at some point.
Or maybe she simply regarded the AI as a pet, like she did with the floating mechanical orb, and didn't want to erase it.
He already knew her well enough to be sure that both possibilities were equally valid in her head.
But he shouldn't underestimate her. A wise fox is a fox that knows when to cuddle and when to bite back.
For now, it was cuddling time, it seemed.
Eyeing the asleep girl between his arms, he wondered if he could take a peek at her device. After all, she had confided to him that she usually took notes of whatever tasks she needed to do.
It was true that she had loaded him several maps with updated locations he had found of great interest to the Legion… but those promised notes about 'private information' of many Mojave's inhabitants had, somehow, never appeared within his device's internal memory, no matter how exhaustingly he had searched for them.
He could easily forgive her for that tiny transgression as he had obtained since then so much in return… but he still wanted to take a peek.
However, as soon as he attempted to raise her left forearm to his line of sight, a loud squawk by his left almost made him jump.
He hadn't noticed the corvid perched near him, almost too close for a wild creature.
However, Vulpes noticed the red luminous dot pointing beside him by turning his sight to his left. It started to sweep along his form until it reached the Frumentarius' forehead.
Picking his binoculars slowly, knowing that such a display was meant for him to notice, Vulpes adjusted his sight to the dark and saw the NCR sniper perched on another rocky ledge on the mountainous gulch.
Knowing he was being watched, the other man lowered his telescopic lens a bit and raised two fingers to his eyes, first pointing at his glasses, then to Vulpes.
The message was clear: I'm watching you.
Lowering the binoculars, the Master Frumentarius contained an indignant huff. The cur was cunning. He had to give him that.
However, a malicious thought crossed Vulpes' mind as he lowered his lips to the asleep girl's forehead and planted a soft, measured kiss over it.
Perfectly innocent, yet a clear message for the other: I'm not going to do anything improper… but I still can get too close if I so choose.
He hoped the damned sniper would be seething with impotence.
SPANISH:
(1) - "Pretty Little Girl"
(2) - Granny
A/N: dense chapter again? Maybe? The real action will be coming soon, but first, I have to set things up, and I am a fanatic of details (probably more than it's really healthy), so here's the new chapter, group-centered and with various perspectives.
Six and Vulpes are warming up to each other, but the doubts are still there. Slow Burn. Yeah.
I wrote quite a few things very intentionally today, such as Vulpes' smoking pals being young male Gomorrah prostitutes. Why? Because I've read a lot of fics that glamourize Vulpes' role as a spy on The Strip when the reality is more along the lines of doing a very distasteful job where your bedding partners are, besides information targets, most likely people the spy in question wouldn't bed under normal circumstances. And him being male doesn't mean that he cannot be disgusted by it.
I want to emphasize this: being male and Legion DOESN'T automatically make the character willing to engage any available (willing or not) female on his sight radius.
This being said, I wanted to thank the new Fav. I'm so happy you're enjoying this story of mine! T_T
Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: I tend to be more active on Archive Of Our Own, given the page's more flexible HTML format... and the lesser traffic I obtain here. But nevertheless, I'm still here :D
Here you go, more scenes featuring the main group ^^
Cheers! :D
