"Number Nine"


Ch. 21: Horse and I.


"Got woken in the night,
By a mystic golden light.
My head soaked in river water.
I had been dressed in a coat of armor. They called a horse out of the woodland.
'Take her there, through the desert shores.'
They sang to me, 'This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back now.'"

- Bat For Lashes, "Horse and I"


Arcade had taken a break, and he was now savoring his well-deserved coffee after what he could call, with all the certainty in the world, the longest day of his life.

Or the longest two days and a half of his life. Whatever. It worked the same for him.

Blowing absently over the hot black liquid, he already felt a bit better after the first sip despite the initial bitter taste.

He had learned that nights on the Mojave, upon arriving nine years ago, were as cold as scorching were the days. No matter the time of the year, it always functioned the same… with the slight variable regarding how close they were to summer: days changed from uncomfortably hot to 'did someone just drop another nuclear bomb?'

In March, despite how recently they had gotten out of winter, contrasts between hot and cold tended to give Arcade headaches until his body got used to the new environmental change.

But his current headache, besides being a direct result of his tiredness, had very little to do with the annual weather cycle he couldn't, for the life of him, get used to for once.

Those boys, the tribals. He felt on edge around them.

He wasn't, by any means, as intolerant as the majority of the NCR were with tribal cultures… but he prayed they wouldn't become part of an already big party that was beginning to resemble more of an army than a squad.

As if they hadn't had enough with Boone and Zorro Salvaje bitching with one another all the time, plus the unsavory discovery regarding Six's past… now there were another six brutish tribals and the luminous necrotics' community Irina had brought along to deal with the Fiends.

Plus, the ones amongst the drug-addicted raiders who had surrendered.

Arcade wasn't sure what had happened exactly, but after attempting to stop Six on her folly search for - the Follower had no doubts - her chat buddy since the dangerous skirmish had ensued; he had found himself running after her to end up brandishing his Plasma Defender to Raul's face, who had done the same with his twin revolvers to him until both had recognized the other.

Then they had started yelling simultaneously, the two of them wanting to know where Six was.

And then, the fight between Glowing Ones and Fiends had ended abruptly when one of the raiders dropped her weapon, kneeling with both hands up in surrender.

A small group had imitated her, most prominently the younger ones that the necrotics had decided to spare/ignore during the fight to deal with the adults.

Gabriel and his fellow tribals had reappeared, dropping from a higher point carrying another Hispanic young man in a pretty bad shape… and a lot of pain.

Arcade had disliked how the blonde young man had grabbed one of the older Fiends, a teenage boy, by the neck and had started interrogating him with cold, precise methodology, demanding to know who had done their friend that.

The junkie had babbled, stuttered, and then cried when the tribal twisted his arm behind his back to the limit.

No matter what answer the Fiend would offer, Gabriel wouldn't be satisfied. Arcade had seen the interrogatory as something entirely pointless. The same it had been pointless and unnecessarily cruel to break his arm the way the tribal had done, obtaining petty satisfaction for something that they had been expecting since they had learned that their comrade had been abducted by the Fiends.

That methodic aloofness, that cold violence… despite not resembling one bit his brother physically, Gabriel and Zorro Salvaje were, indeed, birds of the same feather.

Under a thin layer of civility and good manners, they were equally ruthless, equally precise… as if they had been trained.

Arcade didn't want to insinuate things… but the way they had freed themselves picking the cuffs' locks had been too professional for mere amateurs.

Raul agreed with him that those boys were a gang of sorts. Maybe thieves, given their knowledge of locks. They had to; they were too well-organized to be mere street thugs assaulting tourists before reaching The Strip North Gate.

And that, by extension, made Zorro Salvaje a thief as well.

Maybe a scammer? They had found him on The Strip, after all… and Arcade wasn't blind yet. He had seen the young man a couple of times playing cards with Raul and Cass, and the ex-caravanner always complained that it was virtually impossible for someone to have that luck cutting decks. He had to cheat somehow.

And many scammers found their way, sooner or later, inside a dumpster, in the Freeside, with a blade in the gut if they were lucky… Or with a bullet between the eyes if they crossed someone like Nero from the Omertas. Those had been recurrent patient… or rather morgue cases for Arcade as well.

Whilst uncomfortable knowing they had a potential petty criminal in the group, Arcade knew how unlikely it would be to get rid of him given – despite being aware of his nature – how fond Raul was of him.

And Veronica. And Lily. Hell, even the dog literally adored him.

And let's not start with Six.

Since she had brought him to their group, she treated the young man like one would do with a pack of C-4 plastic explosives, as if she were afraid to push his limits too much. As if he were delicate.

He was the only member of their group she didn't hug or kiss. She contented herself with holding hands which, ironically, was way more intimate than the two aforesaid love demonstrations.

And Arcade wouldn't have been worried… should her attentions have simply been unilateral.

Which wasn't the case.

Gulping down the remnants of liquid caffeine that were getting cold at the bottom of his cup, he returned to the medical tent rubbing his arms.

The situation hadn't gotten much better since the last ten minutes when he had taken his break: occupying almost 200 square meters, the tent's volume looked stuffed and claustrophobic with so many people either sitting around the only available table eating or scattered around on chairs or, in the worst cases, lying on unclean stretchers.

The luminous necrotics kept the majority of the tent with their own space covered with reused radiation suits' fabric to make a minimal impact on the rest of the human patients. They had been given proper clothing and footwear, so now they looked more like the people they were instead of animals, all thanks to Gunnarson's intervention. God bless him and his unyielding pleas to Captain Parker until the already tired NCR officer had allowed another seventy-two bodies to get into the Aerotech Office Park seeking aid.

Reuniting with Boone and the rest, who had caught up with Six and Zorro Salvaje at the end of the Central East Sewers, had been more out of pure dumb luck than anything, with Raul following trails through the sewers he couldn't distinguish so well due to gloom and his faulty sight until they had caught sight of Lily's enormous silhouette.

The semi-chaos that had ensued with the ex-sniper and the supermutant pointing their guns to the Glowing Ones had ceased the moment a tall male luminous necrotic – Irina's lover, or so Raul said – had stepped in, giving them basic, very universal Sign Language to not shoot.

Forty-seven luminous necrotics, eleven underage Fiends, seven tribals counting Zorro Salvaje as well, five more humans counting himself, a Nightkin, a regular necrotic, and a cyberdog.

All of them crammed inside an NCR tent. And none of them were actively trying to kill each other. Arcade felt conflicted between deciding if such an image should give him hope or not.

Six was still asleep on one of the cleanest stretchers, as farthest from the multitude as possible, surrounded by the rest of the group, with Boone being the one holding her hand, whereas Raul cleaned his revolvers. Rex yawned on Lily's knees as she patted him gently, sitting as she was on two chairs, and Veronica and Cass napped on chairs as well, with the head of the Scribe over the ex-caravanner's shoulder.

Zorro's stretcher was immediately next to Six's; his comrades, bored to death, were teasing the youngest, Pequeño Chacal, whilst Gabriel directed severe glances to them from time to time to keep reading the dog-eared magazine he had in his hands.

Miguel, on the contrary, was tending to his cousin's bedside.

The captured Félix - or whatever it was pronounced – had been the one getting the worst part of all. Arcade had been grateful when Miguel hadn't asked for details of what those degenerated human scum had done to him.

The same human scum that gave birth to these malnourished, emaciated, toothless, born-addicted children who didn't know any better laying in stretchers close to the entrance.

None of them had wanted to return with Motor-Runner and his cronies; all had presented varied symptomatology of the same evil: abstinence syndrome.

It had been a monumental task to get all of them cleaned, bandaged, hydrated, and adequately medicated so they could go through the first night without much of a fuss.

Parker was being extremely generous not just by lending them a tent all for themselves but also water, food, clothes, and medicines for these poor people, turning a blind eye to the factions they had pertained to.

Somehow, Arcade experienced a bit of a déjà vu, as if all those months running up and down the desert with Six had never occurred, and he was back at the Old Mormon Fort.

He checked all of his patients once again, ensuring every last of them got saline and RadAway on their systems while checking on wounds, illnesses, and/or infections.

He flinched slightly when he made it to Zorro Salvaje, Gabriel's eyes as electrical as his sibling's when they rested upon the doctor's back while he worked on the unconscious young man.

When it had been his turn to be checked, neither Gabriel nor the other boys had allowed Arcade to take Zorro's clothes off or to feel his spine below the neck just in case he had hit something vital. And it had been a nightmare to convince them that he was in pain and he needed the Med-X, which, apparently, they thought to be a drug the likes of Jet or Psycho. Not even when Arcade had ensured them that they had Addictol enough to deal with a possible collateral addiction, the tribals seemed under the impression that healing powder, poultices, Stimpaks, and the disgusting, highly counterproductive Hydra were standard solutions for everything, and the rest were simply dangerous chems.

Ignorance made people unbelievably stubborn, and Arcade wouldn't have bothered fighting them if it wasn't because he genuinely believed that the young man needed it.

A firm hand grabbed his wrist when he wasn't looking, and it took an obscene amount of self-control not to yip like a scared dog.

Unfocused blue eyes with different pupils fluttered awake, trying to discern their surroundings.

Arcade took his pen lantern immediately, checking his response.

"… Offfff…" – Zorro hissed, drawing out consonants, blinking slowly – "… Lightsssss…"

The medic could hear Cass guffawing behind him, her voice slightly mellow from her catnap.

"Look at that, he's higher than the 38." – was her unhelpful observation.

She laughed whilst Veronica got up from her chair, rubbing her eyes as she made her way to the young man's side to sit with him on his medical stretcher.

"Hey, Jimmy…" – she greeted, earning a mute scandalized look from Gabriel when she tucked a handful of increasingly long white curls behind Zorro's ear – "How're you feeling?"

To Arcade's much confusion, the young man directed her a beatific, sleepy smile.

"Beeeeecky…" – he murmured, taking the tips of his fingers to her forehead and sweeping them down to her chin with unsuspected fondness.

Though this being the most bizarre situation the Follower could have conjured happening (and, he suspected, the same could be applied to the rest of the present conscious tribals, who looked like they were hallucinating the whole thing), Veronica's smile was so bright that Arcade wasn't going to look a gift radhorse in the mouth.

"Aw, I know I shouldn't say this, but I could use you being drugged more often, Jimmy." – she said, earning an indignant stare from Gabriel when she pushed her luck a little bit more by getting herself comfortable at the top of the stretcher, putting the pillow and Zorro's head on her lap – "What if I give you a kiss? A little one. Would you mind?"

The young man shrugged, his pupils the size of platters as he eased his head on her lap like a lazy cat.

Good on her word, Veronica planted a soft kiss on his forehead, and the other accepted it without any complaints.

Encouraged by his lack of negative response, she gave him another peck on the tip of his nose, and he actually chuckled at that.

Arcade checked again the dosage of Med-X he had calibrated his dropper with and reduced it by half. He must be tripping balls to behave in such a way.

"… SSSullivannnnn…" – he muttered then, extending his hand to a now very awake girl, who was eyeing the tent's roof with a vacant expression.

Arcade almost tripped on his way moving Zorro's droppers when Raul took the initiative to bring his' and Six's stretchers together, aided by Lily, who made things far easier when Rex also jumped from her lap onto the young man's stretcher to give him a thorough face wash.

Overall, the scene they managed to put together was equally as tender as chaotic when Veronica aid Zorro to half-sit with his back on her chest to allow Rex some room to fit. Then, as the boy grabbed Six in the same fashion Veronica did to him – the girl allowing him to do so silently – they ended up with three bodies making a train of people resting against people with an enchanted, energetic cyberdog giving humid love for free to everyone.

Arcade wasn't so sure two old pre-War stretchers could support so much weight, but he allowed the scene to play religiously without useless medical complaints aimed more at the physical recovery than the psychological. And, after what had happened since the first attack, he knew everyone needed some degree of human comfort.

Even Boone looked uncharacteristically non-belligerent when he silently allowed his 'girlie' to rest her head on the chest of his least favorite person in the group.

If it wasn't because Gabriel's expression shadowed, Arcade would say that their former harmony seemed wholly restored for the first time since Zorro got inside the group.

They remained for a moment just like that, and Arcade resented not having a working pre-War camera in hand to immortalize the moment when Cass, per usual, broke the spell.

"So… we have now to call you Sullivan or what?"

Always the one who voiced those thoughts nobody dared to express, that was Cass for you.

Six trembled a bit between Zorro's arms, and Boone grabbed a military blanket he put over her.

"Doesn't make much of a difference." – the girl replied after a while, her eyes still wearing that vacant expression – "It's my surname, not my name. And the ones who know it are now the last people I want to talk to."

Many of them exchanged mute glances, and Boone was the next to pose a question.

"Who's Burke, girlie?"

Arcade winced.

Rex accommodated his head over Six's lap, allowing the girl to pet him to calm her nerves.

"An ex-Enclave who, besides having a prosperous empire based on trading water business, he's allied with a rogue Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel on the East and owns practically all the trading routes on the North America Eastern Coast." – she enumerated dispassionately, raising her left forearm and tinkering a bit with her Pip-Boy until she found what she wanted to show them – "From the DC Capitol to the Sequoyan Confederation and then, all the way back to the 3rd Texas Republic, N'Awlins, the Dixie Republic, Panhandle, Nuevo Territorio Cubano, Djaks, Gullah Land, the Duchy of Wilmington and Myrtle Beach…" – she trailed off, her finger following the interactive map she was showing them, earning quite the baffled looks from all the present company, who had never heard of the majority of those post-War christened territories. Arcade did, being a Follower, thus, knowledgeable of said territories other colleagues had discovered over the years. After all, that map was theirs in the first place – "Happens when you have the majority of the rivers irradiated, lots of seawater and have to keep going on basically pre-War soft drinks, mutfruit juice, and Mirelurk egg yolk." – yet another Wasteland creature they had never heard about despite New California having half of the Western Coast at their disposal as Mirelurks were a mutation from the Eastern part of North America… as far as Arcade knew – "As caps are the only currency everyone seems to agree with these days, they had plenty of those as well as enough resources to trade for potable water."

That earned a tense silence.

"So, he's filthy rich and a big fish at the other side of the country." – Cass summed up slowly – "What's his business on the Mojave?"

Six let go of a curt, humorless laugh.

"He was after Mr. House's tech when he sent me here to play the courier part." – she said tiredly – "He has half of the NCR's Council – the President too – eating right from his hand. He's currently the one who's funding the Mojave Campaign almost in its entirety."

The silence was deafening.

"Come again?" – Arcade had to admire that Boone didn't lose his shit upon hearing such news and, instead, was approaching the issue as calmly as possible.

Coming from someone like Boone, this was no small thing.

"Two years ago, I managed to make contact with someone on the inside who was a Kimball supporter and was willing to hear my grandiose tale of caps flowing from a distant community at the Old Washington DC" – the girl rubbed her forehead as if it hurt her recalling everything – "They arranged a meeting, I gave them the IP address… and then, Burke, Kimball and his people had a virtual business chat. It went well, and then, out of a sudden, lots of doors were opened for me to deal with those exchanges while Burke developed an agenda of his own. Biding his time until he found out the deal with Hoover Dam, New Vegas, and the fact that Robert Edwin House was still very much alive after two centuries laying in wait inside his fortress." – she sighed – "Given my own story with… cryogenic suspension, I wouldn't say him being alive today that far-fetched despite him being well into his seventies when the bombs fell."

The more she kept talking, the more nauseous Arcade felt.

"This Burke character… he knew all those things from you." – Boone spoke again, slowly this time as if trying to digest properly all the information given.

Six nodded.

"From me, yes." – she confirmed – "I was supposed to arrive with the Platinum Chip at McCarran, where a contact would give me a free pass to the rail back to the Republic. Once inside Republican soil, I was also supposed to take the roads up North until reaching the old frontier with Oregon, where I would be traveling back to DC avoiding Legion territory, as many of their spies pose as couriers. And, let's give them their due credit: they tend to be way more efficient than the NCR spies posing as couriers as well."

The dreamy expression on Zorro's face had been quickly diminishing as her explanation had kept going on, and now Arcade could see how aware he was of the matters being discussed there. He looked stressed, to say the least.

Gabriel, for his part, had blanched so much that the medic feared he would pass out any minute.

"Nobody counted on the Powder Ganger revolt at the NCR Correctional Facility, much less on the continued Deathclaw invasion, first at Quarry Junction, then expanding to the rest of the northern part of the Long 15. So, I guess I got lucky being shot by a Vegas' Rat Pack boy with a shitty aim and terrible taste in suits." – her voice was almost breaking as she kept on, and Arcade suddenly wanted for all the questions to stop – "Not to speak on the vantage the Fiends have now over the territory since they got ahold of Vault 3. My mission was doomed to fail right from the start."

Arcade almost jumped when Gabriel, apparently recovered from his shock, decided to open his mouth.

"So, to call a spade a spade: you are a spy." – he said plainly, his voice dripping with reproach that Arcade was sure Boone had noticed if his murderous glare was any measure to go by – "You owe allegiance to this man."

Six shot him a shocked, incredulous look.

"Allegiance?" – she repeated – "To Burke?" – she let go a humorless laugh again – "I'm afraid you mistake a Master for an employer. I'm no less a slave than those at the East of the Colorado." – at that, the blonde tribal flinched. Arcade wasn't entirely sure if due to involuntary empathy or disgust – "Me and my men were awakened from cryostasis almost six years ago by a merc organization called the Talon Company under Burke's direct orders. They killed the majority of us trying to decipher how to make reanimation stable and only managed to bring back twenty-nine of us." – Rex began licking her hand when she trembled again – "They collared us and sold the majority to a slaver group that resided in a place called Paradise Falls, mostly for sexual exploitation."

That seemed to silence Gabriel, and Arcade – even sick as the news had left him - felt a slight venomous satisfaction upon hearing how his big mouth shut with an audible click.

"Girlie…" – Boone began with barely-contained anger – "Did that motherfucker…?"

Six took his hand almost immediately.

"No, Boone." – she said, shaking her head slowly – "What he did was way worse than what you're implying: he made me construct a fusion pulse charge someone later attached to an unexploded nuclear warhead and…" – she licked her lips before continuing – "He… blew off a whole population just because they were posing an obstacle to his entrepreneurial plans."

The more questions they asked her, the less Arcade wanted to know. She told them about Littlehorn & Associates and how the mysterious organization had woven its sinuous threads across the American Wasteland, selling their 'services' to many NCR fat cats, Brahmin Barons, and crime lords at New Reno. How they had adapted into an espionage web that worked even across Legion territory disguised as traveling caravans.

They dealt in blood and secrets, and she had worked for them, exchanging secrets for secrets. Everything under the direct supervision of the shadowy man behind her.

She even recounted something about a Project Purity and a Garden of Eden Creation Kit or G.E.C.K. – a marvel of the Old World capable of bringing back life on sterile, irradiated soil – used as a key device to enable a water purifier at the Potomac River, later turned into a very profitable business this Burke man had used to expand his influence beyond the Capitol.

She told them everything, for the first time, not shying away from questions that nobody, up to this day, had known she had needed for them to ask, even if the answers hadn't been anywhere close to pretty.

All of them had ended up consternated upon discovering the truth. Even Veronica - sweet, humane Veronica - had been unable to contain herself from cringing and trembling with disappointment and rage the moment she had learned that a rogue Chapter of her organization, in a desperate effort to survive, had allied themselves with such a dangerous man, lending him all the military power he had needed to reclaim the purifier from yet another rogue group of Enclave deserters commanded by the fearsome Augustus Autumn, no less.

Arcade had known Autumn the same he had known John Fitzgerald Burke, a man who, having been named after a U.S.A. President, had parted ways with the Navarro remnants seeking to rekindle his political career at a new, distant destination. Since the Navarro Oil Ridge survivors had received a radio signal from one John Henry Eden claiming to be their new President, everybody had been eager to make the 'rightful heirs of the American Dream' - them - fulfill their destiny.

Everybody but Arcade's family.

His father, Mark Gannon, his wife, son, and old squad members had refused to accompany Autumn, Burke, and the others, so they had been deemed Renegades.

They had been chased down like criminals, his mother an unfortunate victim of such a collision.

But not for nothing, Mark Gannon and the rest had been dubbed the Devil's Brigade once. His last assault on Autumn's forces had been brutal, and he had taken a sizable number of them before falling down, giving a chance to the others to escape.

The NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel hadn't made their lives any easier throughout the years, pushing them further and further onto the frontier, where the threat of Caesar's Legion colliding with the Republic made itself bigger every year.

After their first shaping, it seemed that every nation's initial ideals always got corrupted to the bone once Power got in the way of Justice.

The NCR had originated in a small community attempting to thrive in the Wasteland with honest work and humanitarian ideals and laws… but since Tandi's death, greed ran rampant up to the point that no longer human life mattered but expansion. At any cost.

For expansions were costly… and funds always came from people who, the same they had lots of money, they had zero scruples when it came to obtaining more benefits out of their 'generosity'.

Such as it had happened to Ashton, Six had told them, a prosperous settlement thriving on the frontier inside a very convenient, vulnerable connecting path between Republican soil and the Mojave. The NCR had made sure such a settlement, along with its inhabitants, had been promptly erased from the map whilst severely irradiating the zone so not even Caesar's newest Legate, a masked man they had dubbed as 'the Monster of the East', would dare to tread such dangerous, poisonous territory. Should the Legion want to invade the Republic, they would have to pass through the Mojave Outpost at the I-15; thus, the Rangers and the nearby military base Southwest acting as a contention point.

"And this ghoul enforcer they sent after you…" – Arcade had never heard Boone talk so much, asking questions desperately, trying to make sense of what he was listening to about a Government he once had served and supported – "What he was to you?"

The girl had cried so much that she didn't have any more tears left to spill at this point.

"A comrade." – she simply replied, her voice weak and tired – "A Brother in Arms. A friend." – she closed her eyes – "A forsaken soldier who endured the worst the war had to offer. A prisoner as well. The only one who bothered with teaching me the way of the Wasteland… a Vault-Tec war experiment… just like me."

"That's enough." – Arcade interceded before anyone else felt like questioning again, fed up of the consistent political shit he had been listening to so far – "Enough about NCR's shady politics. Enough about Legion spies. Enough about Enclave psychopaths. Enough about the Brotherhood of Steel, the militarized Old United States, pre-War China, the Soviets, the European Commonwealth, and whatever other Governments that were, are, and will be nothing but simple and plain garbage. Six, look at me." – he said, sitting near the girl – ignoring the warning screech the gurney made under his weight - taking her hands between his' – "You are not an experiment, nor a tool, nor a machine, but a human being who has been systematically used and discarded by people who didn't deserve to have you in the first place." – he saw then how Zorro's arms squeezed her briefly and, out of a sudden, the Follower felt a surge of sympathy for the young man who, despite not having pronounced a single word since this interrogatory began, apparently was here for her as well – "This Enclave man, the same as Vault-Tec once was, is not your jailor anymore, Six. You have already broken free from him. What can he do now? Coming here flying in a Vertibird specifically to chase after you?" – he added nervously, his hands going cold and clammy around hers as she dedicated him a very significant look.

"He will, just because he can, Arcade." – she replied inhumanly calm, terribly serene as a sad broken doll – "Once Burke sets his sights on something, he never stops. And now, he wants the technology that tiny chip has. Military technology. For what purpose, I can only take an educated guess, but he wants it. And he will do anything to obtain it, no matter the cost." – she sentenced, allowing that information to set amidst her companions, her friends. For them to know what they were facing.

Many uncomfortable glances were exchanged between Boone, Cass, Veronica, and even the medic himself, whereas Zorro still remained silent, his mind working a very different set of gears, his eyes never really looking at what he had in front of him, his long pale fingers combing idly Six's hair, earning that the girl nuzzled his shirt briefly, her dark eyes closing in defeat.

"Now that you know everything…" – she began again – "… I want all of you to know that you've been the best friends I could ask for since I awoke in the fucking post-Apocalyptical future and all..." – she swallowed. Hard – "I know… that this is incredibly bizarre and…" – Arcade saw fear in her eyes before gathering the strength to carry on – "… It's… been really nice. You know… to have all of you around me… and I wanted to thank you for that."

"Boss…" – Raul muttered, smelling what was coming next already.

"But…" – she swallowed again – "This is my battle, and it's for real… I'm so deep in shit that I gotta do something. Defend myself from Burke the best way I can… And I'm gonna use the Mojave conflict between the NCR and the Legion to shove his fucking politics down his fucking throat. If the NCR wants to turn a blind eye to their own corruption… I'm gonna throw them out of New Vegas and the Dam, so they go home with their tails between their legs. Burke's not gonna gain more influence. Not here."

At that, Arcade bit down his tongue before spurting out idiocy that was brought up nonetheless by Boone himself.

"You plan on helping the Legion with that, girlie?" – he asked very slowly, very deliberately, his green eyes turning steel behind his sunglasses. He had issued his warning, and the medic felt a slight pang of regret when he saw hurt playing plainly on the girl's eyes.

"I don't know." – she said equally slowly – "Legion's got pretty bad stuff going on, I know… but if there's something they got right, it's this." – she added, producing a gold Legion Aureus from one of her camo pants' pockets – "Pax per Bellum" – she read to a very dumbfounded ex-sniper – "You know what that means, Boone? It's 'Peace through war'. You cannot achieve peace by dialoguing or reaching a consensus. Not in this case. With Burke, the only dialogue that works is either yielding to all of his demands… or facing the consequences. That's why I didn't even bother to try to make amends with him, to tell him that I had been robbed instead of going rogue the very moment I got my Pip-Boy back." – she pocketed the coin again – "Maybe we'll need the Legion to kick him in the nuts. Maybe we'll also need the Khans, or the Kings… or even the very Brotherhood of Steel to stop him and the renegades he has gathered along with all the advanced tech they have."

"Six…" – Veronica intervened before Arcade's idealism would get the best of him objecting against anything the Legion – thus, the past – had to teach them about warfare, licking her lips while doing so – "Who's the current Elder from the Capitol Chapter?"

"Sarah Lyons… I think."

Relief was evident all over the Scribe's features.

"Her father, Owyn Lyons, was never a very popular man." – she explained – "His personal interpretation of the Brotherhood's Codex was questionable at best. If his daughter is now at the head of the rogue Chapter, at least Hardin and the other Paladins would love to see her ass kicked out of the Mojave… but we will need to change tactics with McNamara. You have already seen how short-sighted he can be." – ah, yes… Arcade recalled their group's futile efforts to build a good relationship with Veronica's 'family' (everything for the Scribe's benefit, to be completely honest) with them undergoing stupid missions again, again, and again to be met each time by a brick wall in the shape of a very afraid, very paranoid middle-aged man who thought that biding their time underground would do their already dying organization some good – "There are plenty options before picking the Legion as the definitive answer…"

"But…" – the girl muttered until Arcade forced himself to intercede once again.

"I agree with Veronica." – he declared with a firmer, decided tone that didn't reflect how he truly felt - "Forget the crypto-fascists and don't throw us out of this so soon, Six. You want to expose Kimball and Burke's dirty deal to instill some awareness and avenge your friend? I'm with you. You want to work for House in this diplomatic crusade of his so the Mojave can stand a chance against the incoming war between the Legion and the NCR? I'm with you. You want to build an army of crazy people to back you up should Burke and the East Brotherhood decide to present themselves here? I'm the first one signing." – and then, without letting go of her hands, which had been between his' all the time, he raised his head, challenging the rest – "Who's with us?"

He feared the immediate silence that followed… until Raul's raspy voice spoke up high and clear.

"Me." – he simply said, his usual dry humor and cantankerous personality replaced by determination.

"Me too." – Veronica agreed, her usually cheerful countenance now dead serious – "Let's give them hell."

"Leo and I agree to help Pumpkin." – Lily boomed immediately after – "Yes, Leo, there will be chopping, so you're in!"

Eyes fell over the three silent remnants. A tribal and two Republicans.

Arcade saw the conflict playing inside Zorro's eyes, his pupils moving full speed as if weighing his options, avoiding purposefully to look directly at his brother, whose tense glare darkened again when the albino spoke up.

"I'm in." – he simply stated, his eyes daring Boone to speak up, and the ex-sniper immediately threw his concerns to the gutter, rising to the challenge.

"I'm with the girlie." - he finally said, his own eyes fierce.

Cass stretched in a very unladylike manner before answering.

"What the hell, let's do it for shit and giggles." – was her humorous quip, easing the tension built around their circle – "Don't expect me to forsake whiskey on this one, though."

Rex barked, raising his flesh-and-blood paw briefly, earning some good-natured laughs from the group. The animal could sometimes be so strangely human…

Gabriel then decided to step in, despite the invitation not involving him or the others directly.

"We will be going wherever my brother goes… for now." – he emphasized slightly, eyeing the aforesaid with an undecipherable look – "We owe the Courier at least a small courtesy regarding her intervention being instrumental in the rescue of one of us."

Six nodded cautiously, whereas Zorro's eyes briefly met his brother's, a mute message passing between them.

And then, almost immediately, the two available Pip-Boys on the tent began beeping in unison when a tall, slim figure stepped in bearing a letter between his glowing hands that he offered to a very puzzled Six, who had barely interacted with Irina, much less with who Raul called 'her valentine'.

The letter was actually a short paragraph.

The moment Six finished reading it, she quickly disentangled herself from Arcade's and Zorro's grasps and saluted the Glowing One with a rigid spine as her right hand flawlessly met her temple, her expression schooled into an essayed respectful neutrality. Her salute was answered in the same fashion by the mute necrotic, who also squared up proudly as he gave her a polite, crooked knowing smile.

Once the Follower's eyes found the note, the first thing his brain processed was a rank followed by a name.

Brigadier General Mason J. Reed, Air Forces of the United States of America.


Little Becky always wore creases of worry on her beautiful little face, hiding the innate prettiness of her big, intelligent eyes.

Lily would know, since Becky was her granddaughter.

She had always been such a responsible, good-natured little girl. Lily was sure she would grow into an important woman one day, the likes her parents would be proud of.

She only feared that her gentle nature could be taken advantage of. She was such a dear…

Jimmy, her brother… had been more on the rebel side since he had been a toddler.

He wasn't a bad boy, though. He just liked playing tough and important sometimes, so his dad noticed him more.

He also wasn't good at sharing his toys or his comics, thus why the rest of the children didn't want to be friends with him. Lily had told him this countless times, but Jimmy, although sweet and tender with the ones he loved, could be a hard nut to crack.

Lily was glad that Pumpkin, the cute little girl with short hair, would have braved befriending him despite how nasty he could get sometimes. She had seen them playing together, huddling together in their sleeping bags while holding hands. Two little angels putting on red horns and building houses of cards, telling little childish lies but acting true.

Pumpkin could sometimes be a troublemaker too, but Lily was sure she was a good influence on Jimmy. God knows the boy hadn't had it easy.

However, it worried Lily that their pranks and trickery on the other children and adults could get too out of hand. For they would be separated as punishment until they learned to behave.

And the poor dears had so much fun playing together, such a tender joy… their little hearts would break if adults deemed it best to separate them.

Such as that big bully that had come to pick Pumpkin from the kindergarten. How rude and inconsiderate! Didn't he see that she was faring better since she got friends?

But the girl has been making a big hassle since she arrived, Lily. It reminds me of that other girl, the one with the blue jumpsuit. Remember how sneaky she was? She played out her cards correctly, detonating that nuke below the Cathedral. Sly little minx; the Master really never stood a chance against her cunning.

That's very mean of you to say, Leo. Number 13 was a bad, bad girl. Never understood how personal property worked, never cared how many lives she doomed as long as she got what she was looking for, such as those poor starved, burned people at the Necropolis. Pumpkin would never do such a thing.

But that Vault Dweller brought down the Lieutenant, Morpheus, and the Master. Now she's a legend amongst the Wastes, revered as a messiah, founder of a prosperous city. Even one of her descendants found his way into the local stories in California too. History tends to get too reasonable and forgiving with victors, as they are the ones who write it. Always, Lily.

You're being all philosophical again, Leo. Get to the point.

My point is that your 'cute little girl' is acting the same way that 13 one did when all the mess with her Vault began: her hand was forced due to circumstances, and she went on a quest to save her people, alright… but she destroyed entire settlements to achieve her goals. She merely buttered up the right factions at the time, batted her lashes a couple of times to get weak, stupid men ensnared in her web… and then, years later, she led a good life while everybody else acclaimed her as a heroine… because there wasn't a single soul who could tell them otherwise… but us.

Pumpkin isn't like that other girl, Leo! Sure, she needs some guidance, but that doesn't mean…

Please, old woman, are you even hearing yourself? Think about that poor Ian idiot who was so blindly in love with her! Or the Desert Ranger, or the scavenger from the Boneyard! None of them remained alive long enough to spread the word of her misdeeds! Even the dog got killed under her watch!

Pumpkin loves her little friends!

Are you certain about that?

I've seen how she treats them! How she worries about how they feel!

The same she worried about their wellbeing when the ghoul attacked the first time, when she shielded herself behind the doctor? The same she allowed her so-called 'friends' to fight her battles by putting them at risk?

No…

Look at the state Jimmy was, laying aside bleeding on that sewer once his utility on protecting her was needed no more. Do you know what will happen with him and Becky should they keep her company? Hmmm? They will disappear! She'll get them killed so they can't speak the truth. And you will be left alone… again.

No!

Pumpkin doesn't love anybody but herself. The rest are mere pawns in her game, just like you are, old woman.

Hush, Leo!

You can drown yourself in those pills as much as you want, but you will never escape the reality of your existence. You were created to be a tool for the Master the same you are used now as a tool by this girl, Lily. Remember, remember the Dipping…

Hush, Leo. It's medicine time now.


"Separate your legs a little bit more. You need to distribute your weight as evenly as possible since this is gonna mess up your balance a little. Takes some practice getting used to it."

Since the common agreement in aiding Sullivan with her campaign against this man of the far East, Vulpes' mind had been working full speed to sort out how to overcome this new obstacle that now, with the presence of his brother and the others making things even more complicated, had presented to his cover.

Too many secrets had been carelessly thrown into the air in one single night, and now Gabban openly opposed his work policy.

"I'll get straight to the point, Vulpes: were you aware of the Courier's nature up today, or you'd simply decided to ignore it in favor of entertaining this little charade of yours for… how long, exactly?"

Had he not been his brother, the Bull's Fox would have dislocated his mandible with a single well-directed punch. Or he'd instead have made an example of him when nobody else but his men would have been looking. Stringing him on a cross, specifically.

To question your Commander's orders and procedures was a grave affront Caesar didn't encourage but demanded from his trusted men to apply the due corrective to a rebellious underling that thought they knew better than the Son of Mars' inner circle.

It was a direct challenge against the chain of command and, unlike a challenge by fair combat, it had to be backed up by tangible evidence should said daring underling wish to retain life and limb.

"I'm not sure I've heard you correctly, dearest brother… but have you just questioned my professionalism with the mission Caesar himself entrusted me with?"

So, he had made himself abundantly clear on the issue, warning his usually complacent brother not to pursue such a dangerous line of thought.

"For fuck's sake, Vulpes! Are you even hearing yourself? You're deflecting the question by invoking duty when you and I know that introducing such a volatile element to the Legion will do more ill than good in the long term!"

Instead of slapping some sense on him the hard way, Vulpes had contented himself with simply grabbing his mouthy brother by his shirt collar while slamming his back against a wall, far enough from indiscrete eavesdroppers inside that dump of a camp the NCR used as an infirmary for the lowliest forms of living post-War society had to offer in this godsforsaken desert.

They had been lucky to land on such a cesspool, though. After all… how ironic was that, on NCR's occupied soil, not only the Courier Six herself could plot against their Government, but they also unsuspectedly had lodged a Legion group exclusively composed of spies? Sometimes he wondered how the Republic had been able to beat them five years ago, given how incompetent and sloppy they could really be.

"First of all: vocabulary, Gabban, VOCABULARY." – had been his collected threat – "And second: which 'volatile element' are we discussing exactly?"

A sudden weight was thrust upon his right shoulder, and he eyed Becky's concentrated countenance checking the weapon's stability whilst he recalled that unpleasant conversation with his brother, his most trusted Frumentarius, three days ago.

"Are you kidding me?! You're trying to ally us with a pre-War soldier girl who represents everything Caesar has taught his Legion to avoid since it was her very society's so-called 'ideals' of individualism and personal gain what turned this land into a radioactive dump two hundred years ago!"

He hadn't wanted to hear such things, not because they weren't true, but because Gabban's judgment regarding Sullivan's character was more oriented on where she came from than who she was.

He didn't know her the way Vulpes did.

She despised what her Government had done to her and despised what the pathetic descendants of said Government had done with the inner structure of the Republic.

She had seen what those societies strived for, and she would see the same pattern that her contemporary, Robert House, had replicated inside his micro-ecosystem of capitalism and degeneracy contained in a bubble that, sooner or later, was bound to burst.

Then, she will come willingly to him. She had insinuated that much throughout her confession, admitting she didn't like the military aspect of the Legion or the image (an image that the Republic had, conveniently, exacerbated) they give to the rest of the world… but she still was considering them, knowing their modus operandi was more efficient than the Republic, giving them the credit they deserved.

He was sure that, had she been a man, she wouldn't have hesitated so much in joining them.

"A pre-War soldier girl whose society no longer exists and is searching for a place to call home." – he had argued calmly – "A girl whose political interests don't align with the Republicans' anymore; even less with House should he prove unable to give her the protection and stability she needs. The Legion, on the other hand, can provide for her in both ways."

In the present time, Becky corrected his posture a little bit, aligning his feet, indicating to him how to wield the voluminous weapon.

"The Legion… or you, Vulpes?"

He had never hit his brother outside training before.

He still hadn't… but it had been a close call this time.

"Not too close to the ear, since you can get deaf if you aren't careful, Jimmy." – Becky explained to him – "Also, without previous experience, you will need someone to assist you should you get propelled forwards with the impulse. Just to be sure."

He had wanted to hit Gabban because he hadn't liked the implications of his words.

The same he had wanted to just about eat Sullivan up when she had pronounced 'Pax per Bellum' so magnificently.

Maybe she being female was a problem after all. Maybe his fixation with certain parts of her anatomy, namely those distracting lips of hers, was a bit inappropriate.

Maybe the immature, increasingly sensual fantasies he was entertaining as of late with her as the indisputable protagonist of his particular flavor of obsession were incredibly counterproductive for his mission.

However, he thought, had Sullivan been a boy, Vulpes would have missed a lot of things. For starters, how to use a Fat Man.

And he loved learning new things.

Becky deposited a mini-nuke on his left hand.

"Get a feel of it. If you believe it's too warm, don't even think about loading it because it could literally explode in your face." – she instructed – "Don't drop it unless you want to get permanently crippled in the best of cases. Load it by grabbing it by the hemisphere core, stabilizer fins at the bottom… that's it."

He was glad that Legion's training regime had gotten him strong arms and a firm grip, because the weapon packed quite a load.

It had been an interesting week, if he would say so himself.

His recovery, accelerated by Profligate meds, had been short-lived since, even bedridden, plans on how to give the NCR a warning call had started taking shape. Happening almost immediately when the tall Glowing One, Reed he was called, had decided to introduce himself as a contemporary both for Sullivan and Raul. He had done so while offering his assistance with any field tactic she might need as a sort of gratitude both for having returned his wife to him and to make his community reconnect with the human world, secluded and forsaken as they had been since the Families had taken The Strip so many years ago – tribals by then – shutting the pre-War residents out their own homes.

Sullivan had arranged that everyone formed a circle, hospital gurneys, chairs, and the only table available, so all of them could discuss the next steps to take.

It had oddly reminded Vulpes how, before Lanius' campaign on the East began almost three years ago, Caesar had gathered all of his Commanders and some relevant Legates and Centurions to discuss war strategy around his table.

He had been recently promoted, and he had gathered the distinct impression that, whereas twisted and venomous, Callidus Anguis had been greatly respected among his peers, and almost every single man at the table had eyed him as one would to an unexpected, unwanted guest: politely enough but wishing they could just kick him out the tent like the petulant lapdog they all thought he was, amusing Caesar every single time he would come up with a sharp retort against any veiled jab or sneer directed at him questioning his leadership capabilities just because he had been eighteen.

Lucius had never had to put up with such crap since he got the Impaler's position.

Nevertheless, everyone's opinion held the same worth at Sullivan's table.

She had asked them to brainstorm, and their work had begun.

Ideas had gotten afloat as soon as it was decided that the first and foremost move they should make about giving the NCR a fair warning before jumping to conclusions was playing diplomacy.

"If there's a big-timed cocksucker among Kimball's partisans, that would be General Oliver." – had been Cassidy's input to the issue – "On the other side of the scale, however, we got James Hsu, who's a more level-headed leader that actually believes in dialogue, unlike his warmonger counterpart. I say it's worth a try buttering him up should his opinion sway consciences the likes of Chief Hanlon at Camp Golf, or even Cassandra Moore, who is now in charge of the Dam."

The sniper had agreed with her on that. On the other hand, Becky had exchanged several nervous glances with Gannon.

Colonel Cassandra Moore, a former NCR veteran Ranger, had a reputation for being a war hawk, and turning her attention to them was a hazardous maneuver that could backfire in plenty of nasty ways.

"Okay, let's say we want to butter up Hsu's butt and call him a biscuit…" – the joke hadn't been nearly as funny as intended, but everyone had laughed nonetheless when Sullivan had dropped it in – "What would that take? To fix his food processor and tell that Corporal cook at the Concourse that he really should broom up the mess hall lest he wants roaches dancing claque all around the place?"

McCarran's mess hall, last time they had been there – or so Gannon had said - had given them the distinct impression that, if the soldiers stationed there didn't succumb to stomach flu, they either were going ghoul or they had lead bellies. They had never seen a military environment so incredibly disgusting.

Vulpes would know, since sabotaging the aforesaid food processor had been one of the many subtle maneuvers that he had dictated his undercover agents to implement at McCarran to demoralize the troops and, if possible, get them so sick they couldn't take a shot without soiling their pants first.

They said everything is fair in war and love, and Vulpes Inculta echoed this sentiment at every chance he got.

"By eliminating the Fiends." – had been the non-immediate suggestion he had proposed, earning astonished looks of disbelief – "If I recall correctly, there are plenty of bulletin boards at The Strip Embassy announcing the rewards' rates on the heads of each Fiend leader one can bring to a Major Dhatri, I think."

He could tell his plan hadn't been something Gabban had approved, but neither disapproved. The Fiends weren't Legion material, and the only purpose they served was tormenting McCarran. They had been bound to be eradicated sooner or later… and Vulpes never allowed an opportunity to put someone he despised to their knees to waste.

Besides, an exemplary wiping to one of the most relevant groups at the Mojave would do some good at defining who were major players there.

Sullivan, still between his arms, had given him a look that had briefly cut the air off his lungs. A look so intense, conveying so many things in such a short time span that had left him with a sandpapery feel on his tongue when she had taken her eyes off him.

Twice he had already experienced the same chain reaction of warmth and cold, calm and nervousness in one since that unfinished episode at the sewers.

Since he had dared to admit to himself that he wanted her. In more ways than he had ever wanted any other human being.

He wasn't sure how had happened since she - physically speaking - wasn't exactly what he would find appealing in a woman, and yet…

And yet his imagination was now running wild with possibilities of what she would like should he manage to push her buttons correctly, and how he could give her what she needed in return for her attentions…

And, most importantly: when.

A week had passed, yes, a week full of recovery, strategy, and grandiose plans… but his mind seemed to have picked a roller coaster pace given how much thinking he was putting at equal measures to prove to his brother that he was being professional while helping Sullivan out with her plans… while helping himself getting as close to her as possible.

Because there hadn't been a single moment he had managed to steal alone with her. Not even through their nightly virtual chat, since she ended up too mentally exhausted to entertain more than brief exchanges that always had the persistent thematic of what had been already discussed that day.

So, he was frustrated. A lot.

He had been frustrated while lying on his back, too softened by the drugs to try to put his mind - or his eyes - anywhere else but her small frame resting on the neighboring gurney. He had been frustrated when everybody else but him would get her attention, asking her how she felt as well as coming up with ideas regarding the approach they should take regarding the Fiends and their unassailable fortress at Vault 3.

He had been frustrated knowing he didn't hold a special place among the others when it came to priorities.

He sometimes envied the dog, being able as the animal was to jump up the gurney with her, lick her face, nuzzle her and rest his head on her lap whenever he felt like it. Rex didn't have to ask for permission to act on his impulses, to show how he felt.

Rex was a very lucky dog.

And Vulpes, right now, was a very frustrated legionary.

That was why what he was doing now, if short-lived, felt almost therapeutic in helping him appease this unyielding wanting.

At least for now.

"Forget what you know about missile launchers." – he heard Becky saying, still assessing his posture – "This is a catapult based on a spigot mortar mechanism, so you have to count with where the wind comes from while taking a rough guess at the angle you ought to take a shot. The more diagonal the shot, the more distance you will cover."

He entered V.A.T.S. briefly to take note of his chances, his mind already calculating the shot through the interactive grid when, once he shut down the targeting system, he tensed immediately when he felt warmth irradiating from another human form just behind him.

Becky's hands were hovering an inch from his armor's midsection.

"Do you trust me, Jimmy?" – she asked, meeting his eyes when he turned around his head to look at her above his shoulder.

A strange question. He asked himself the same.

For, to trust was to yield. To rely on another's support.

To care.

Did he care? For Becky? Truly?

Nonetheless, he nodded, and then, her arms encircled his waist as her shorter frame accommodated his', giving him leverage when he angled the weapon at the exact point he had wanted it.

Then, he pulled the mechanical trigger.

He was sure he would have gone face down into the sand if it hadn't been for Becky's strong hold.

The moment the tiny dot landed roughly one thousand feet ahead of the rock ledge they had been standing on, it unleashed a chain reaction that made the earth tremble, multiplying the explosion into a wider radius as the mini-nuke exploded all the ungodly amount of plasma landmines that they had put around the South Vegas ruins' perimeter.

Brick and concrete melted into piles of radioactive waste the same the inhabitants hiding behind the walls got either vaporized or burned under the instantaneous amount of heat and pressure the atmosphere around them experienced, leaving charred skeletons behind.

Even from the great distance Vulpes was, his Pip-Boy gathered a brief peak of rads per second that diminished as quickly as it had started. It didn't matter to him since Sullivan had insisted on cramming them all up with Rad-X minutes before launching.

He admired his handiwork, almost mesmerized, green radiance flashing into his retinas behind the tinted crystals of his sunglasses.

And then, that strange, dark desire began stirring at the back of his head, spreading down to his lower anatomy, whispering to him how purifying and redeeming the fire was, cleaning away everything – sins and good deeds equally - to leave behind a clean slate in which to begin anew.

Just like Searchlight. Just Like Nipton.

Just like Dry Wells. Just like… his tribe's encampment.

Unlike his own hands, which were permanently stained with blood, no matter how much he washed them again and again.

Maybe he should burn as well, just as the Malpais Legatus did, to begin anew.

To be worthy of the name he stole from his brother. A name he had bestowed upon the purest soul he knew. A name for the unnamed, a name that wasn't his.

A fox should never be allowed to best a wolf, never.

Becky's arms squeezing him softly brought him back to the real world.

"Are you okay, Jimmy?" – she asked, rounding him until they ended up face to face, hers frowning with concern.

He didn't understand the question the same way he didn't understand why his eyes had this strange, burning itch now, protected as they were behind sunglasses.

Or why, out of a sudden, the need to gnaw at his wrists until they bled returned to him redoubled after almost two months of becoming what he would have liked to be instead of what he truly was.


Once Veronica had radioed the readings Zorro's Pip-Boy was getting from the southern ruins' perimeter, Six nodded to Reed, who immediately signaled his men.

All ex-members of the pre-War U.S.A. Air Forces, along with their spouses and families, were the most disciplined squad of twenty men the girl had seen since practically before the bombs. The reinforced combat Mk II armors she had managed to salvage from one of her many excursions with her companions throughout a nightmarish Vault where people had turned into feral ghouls when they had been investigating why there was a radiation leak at the Vegas' East Pump Station (long story), suited them incredibly well.

Not that she hadn't insisted to the rest to wear the same outfit as long as their confrontation with the Fiends lasted. She couldn't bear the thought of losing any of them because of a plan that was entirely for her benefit.

Coming back to the Lucky 38 with a low head had been one of the most displeasing moments she had had to bear since she got on House's payroll.

She only had gotten back to gather medical and military supplies from their shared cache, and then, before leaving, Victor had warned her in his creepy cheery cowboy act that the boss had wanted to see her.

Yes Man had known how to act by controlling her cardiorespiratory responses through the Pip-Boy… but placating the Orwellian man behind screens and cameras hadn't been easy.

"May I inquire, Miss Sullivan, what is the meaning of this?" – he had asked, slightly irritated, as one of his screens had shown her footage of what had ensued at the Freeside a week earlier. He showed her images of Charon pursuing her, unleashing destruction around the squatter zone at the Freeside. Everything recorded from above, as she had suspected he would do with those drones everybody opted to ignore – "Recently, I have received an envoy from the NCR Embassy demanding to know the cause of why an employee of mine had attracted a dangerous war criminal to their zone specifically, suggesting this might be a plot to take military forces out of the surroundings of the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas, thus, violating our mutual agreement since the Treaty doesn't include Freeside or Westside on the peace terms."

That had angered her. How dare they?! How dare they treat Charon as an independent agent when they had been the ones signing his papers to access the Monorail's services?!

How dare they play offended when they had been the ones endangering their own citizens?!

How dare they use her assassination attempt as a political maneuver to pressure House into a conflict she had been avoiding since the very start?!

She had told her employer that much, informing him of almost everything that had been said at the Aerotech Office Park, including Burke's dirty moves to obtain the Platinum Chip.

And she was sure his securitrons would have reduced her to ashes… if it wasn't because he still needed her. So, she had been granted a chance to explain herself.

If his trust had diminished considerably upon - citing his words textually'confirming his suspicions regarding that his human agent had initially been a spy from the NCR'… she had given him reasons enough not to suspect a backstabbing on her part since she was the first and foremost interested in cutting the Republic's wings out of the board.

"It seems that I ought to recalculate probabilities since, apparently, there is yet another player to arrive at the table." – he had dictated at last – "With the information you have provided me, Miss Sullivan, I will gather intel on my own about this… competitor to decide the next steps we should take. In the meantime, you'll do well by putting that plan of yours on casting doubt among the Republic's higher ranks in motion. We don't need a war declaration at our doorstep with the Platinum Chip still missing and Caesar silent as a tomb." – he had added, showing her different screenshots of Zorro catching her, holding her, and grabbing her hand among the ruckus, rubbing in her face that he knew what she was so insistently trying to deny to herself – "Take both the Fiends and the Powder Gangers out of the picture, Miss Sullivan, appeal to the Republicans' good graces… and make that Legion spy of yours collaborate for once and all least he wants his face on every single 'Most Wanted' bulletin board around Vegas. And I'm sure his Lord would be less forgiving than my securitrons or any other disreputable bounty hunters should he manage to escape the city alive."

Her anger had been rapidly substituted by utter shock and fear.

This wasn't fair! Zorro had been nothing but hard-working and… understanding and… and nice since she had invited him over!

She hadn't asked him to join them because he was a Legion Commander, damnit! She didn't give two fucks about where did he come from!

With those feelings threatening to overcome her in front of her employer, she had acquiesced to everything while grinding her teeth and making herself look as composed as possible. Then, she had reappeared from the elevator pale, telling the rest to gather all the supplies and go directly to Camp McCarran to speak with Boone's old unit should they want to help her pay her respects to Driver Nephi, Cook-Cook, Violet, and Motor-Runner, respectively. Knowing very well what Corporal Betsy – a rape victim of Cook-Cook's deviated raiding tactics – would say and how the rest of her unit will support her decision no matter what.

So, twenty pre-War Glowing veterans, six NCR 1st Recon counting Boone, seven Legion Frumentarii counting Zorro, and a recovered, vengeful Félix, plus your average ex-Enclave Follower of the Apocalypse, Brotherhood Scribe, pre-War vaquero ghoul, Nightkin ex-spy, cyberdog, and the most awesome tough, foul-mouthed redhead caravanner ever, Six now counted with a formation that, coupled with the field tactics Reed had provided on paper, was unstoppable.

The first one going down had been Violet, the most unprotected of them all by far.

Zorro had taken care of it using a Stealth Boy to approach the deranged Psycho-addicted woman's hideout, who had been so high that she had barely acknowledged being showered in a mixture of Psycho and human blood out of blood bags that had attracted her dogs immediately.

Six hadn't been present when it had happened, but Zorro had arrived at the exact point where they had been observing Nephi and his men running, howling, Violet's mangled head in hand, spurring the mangy dogs against the Fiends surrounding their leader.

Between crazed, sanguinary dogs tearing apart whatever body they happened to snatch with their teeth and the combined firing forces of NCR snipers, legionaries, and necrotic veterans, Nephi had taken an inhuman amount of lead before falling face down to the mud amidst a pool of his own blood.

Lieutenant Gorobets, the officer in charge of the 1st Recon Alpha Team, had been the one who had claimed his head.

Cook-Cook had been a harder nut to crack since he had been the best prepared of them all, and he had been surrounded by way more minions than the other two combined.

Radiation waves had proven to be more than he could have taken since he had started coughing up blood when, finally, the fuel of his flamethrower had run short.

Since being an exclusively Mentats junkie made him way more intelligent and cunning than the rest, his field tactics had bought him a couple of hours more when he had resorted to negotiating with the child prisoners he had held inside rusted cages as if they were no more than cattle as an exchange currency.

Since Six and practically everyone in the group knew what the deal with Cook-Cook and those sequestered children from the Westside was, they had led him to believe that he, his remaining men, and his pet brahmin were free to go in exchange for the lives of his prisoners… To, in the end, being caught later near the Sunset Sarsaparilla HQ by an ambush Six's group had time enough to brew since Queenie, Cook-Cook's pet brahmin, was considerably slower than her human owner.

They had taken care of Cook-Cook's men from a distance, whereas the veteran necrotics had captured, undressed, and tied him, making the snarling Fiend leader kneel before the Courier, who had endured his empty promises of rape and torture until she had kicked him in the mouth with all her hatred and disgust, making him spit blood and several corroded teeth in the process. She had wanted to do that since the first time he had opened that disgusting mouth of his to suggest she followed him to 'have a good time'.

Now, he was the one who was gonna have a good time.

"Corporal Betsy." – she had announced, giving the woman the most mean-looking combat knife at her disposal – "He's all yours."

The woman's demented smile had made the Fiend leader soil all over himself before she had proceeded to exact revenge from all those months awakening in the middle of the night screaming, his revolting body odor all over her still fresh in her mind, no matter how much she showered or how many pretty gals she kissed to take his filthy taste off her mouth.

Even the legionaries – minus Zorro himself, who, apparently, had a strong stomach for atrocities - had chosen not to look at what she did to him. Which had shocked her, by the way. For the NCR propaganda usually depicted their society as strictly militarized, keen on exemplary punishments that always served as a way of indoctrination where failure and the human component had no place amongst their beliefs.

She had seen it first-hand at Nipton and the grandiose discourse Zorro had introduced himself with, dealing with matters such as honor and loyalty disfigured by egotism and cowardice. She had accepted to live knowing the principles on which their society was cemented and yet keeping Zorro with them despite everything.

But looking at them now, without their black and red paraphernalia, their banners, and their outlandish costumes… she only saw boys trying to make sense of what they were doing and what they were fighting for.

Like her.

After the gruesome end of Cook-Cook with Betsy claiming his head, with half the Fiends disbanded and the other half cowering behind the sturdy walls of the southern ruins where Vault 3 lay, the second part of the plan had begun.

Bringing down the structure had been a tactical choice, given that the raiders were plenty and the building was finite. Their confinement inside such a small space would do more ill than good, even though many of them would cram inside the Vault.

With the walls melted, they had already half of the job done.

Lily, Raul, Reed, and his men had been the firsts braving the structure, adding on the floating radiation with waves the luminous necrotics used on the remaining adult survivors.

The bottle of Rad-X had passed from hand to hand again, and breathing masks had been distributed among the human components of their group before evacuating Fiend children and prisoners to put them along with Cook-Cook's victims and the brahmins.

Then, as predicted, they had found the large bulletproof door of Vault 3 tightly closed.

"More plasma mines?" – Cass had suggested, eyeing the gigantic cogwheel hesitantly.

"If the nuclear bombs didn't make it, no matter how corrosive, there's not a substance strong enough to beat Vault-Tec handiwork, Miss Cassidy." – Raul had replied as if he were talking about the weather.

"Leave them to rot, I say." – Gabban had judged, eyeing the closed entrance with disdain – "They have a leak that has their pump system filled with radiation, yes? That's why the previous inhabitants opened it in the first place." – he was well informed, Six had to admit – "Let them poison themselves. Even better: let them kill themselves. I bet the abstinence they will develop from lack of trash to inject themselves with will drive them against each other before they die out of radiation poisoning."

"No." – Corporal Sterling, the veteran of the 1st Recon had spoken – "We were informed not a week ago that not only there's a whole group of prisoners inside those walls, but also a Ranger who volunteered for scouting work to kill Motor-Runner."

"Oh, yeah?" - the Frumentarius retorted acidly – "I didn't hear you complaining when we were mining the perimeter to bring the building down, thus endangering not only possible prisoners' lives but also children's. You actually don't care about these other prisoners, but your Ranger." – he finished, an index finger pointing straight to the old sniper's chest – "Typical NCR bullshit."

"Watch that fucking mouth, blondie." – Corporal Betsy rose to defend her comrade – "This is an official business. Don't interfere unless you wanna an extra hole in your stupid ass."

"Like you did with that pathetic junkie trash before? You're welcome to try, woman."

Six was already opening her mouth to yell them to shut the fuck up when Cass' laugh got everyone else present off-guard.

"Holy shit." – she said amidst roaring contagious laughter - "You two look like the cheap version of Dumb and Dumber here." – she added, signaling Boone and Zorro, who directed her silent murdering glances – "Fucking priceless…"

Before anyone else began spurting more confrontational shit spurred by their own political agenda, Six took the chance Cass' interruption had brought upon the split group parts and began tinkering with the console panel at the left side of the cogwheel door.

"It's blocked." – Zorro's smooth voice caressed her nape, making the baby hairs on her scalp stand up, bringing silly, inadequate, wonderful sensations. As if to prove his point, he attempted to move the handle downwards without success.

"I know." – she replied softly, her voice almost a whisper – "It's password-protected."

He seemed to sense that there was something else, for he inquired further in his calm way.

"So?"

"We're gonna hack it." – she replied.

"How?"

"With your Pip-Boy." – taking his left forearm between her hands, she showed him the hidden latch underside, showing a USB connector she pulled from the device, revealing it to be a cord – "You're gonna hack it."

She was glad she bit down her own tongue when he eyed her with the funniest shocked face as if she would just have sprouted horns.

"I…" – he seemed to hesitate, licking his discolored lips in a way she wished she would be the one doing it… and the subsequent mental facepalm that she delivered to herself for invoking such out-of-place thoughts – "I don't possess the knowledge to attempt such a thing."

He was unbelievably cute whenever he admitted not being knowledgeable in some specific topic they discussed. He struggled with eye contact, whereas his ears always got pink.

She knew she was being cheesy again, but he looked adorkable.

"Don't worry." – she told him, smiling reassuringly – "I'll teach you how."

And then, that avid look he put on, eager and excited to learn new stuff. She lived for that look.

She told him how to localize a USB port in RobCo hardware and how to insert the cord's power connection pins.

"Now wait until you receive a reply from the console into your device." – she instructed, showing him the 'Connecting' screen until they got green lights.

VAULT DOOR | REMOTE ACCESS

::: READY :::

"Press down the following keys: 'CMD'. Then accept to initiate a session in Admin Mode." – she dictated – "Now type down as follows: 'SET TERMINAL/INQUIRE', then hit Enter." – she was getting excited as well, looking at how familiarized he was now with the keyboard jargon proudly. She had taught him well – "Now type: 'SET FILE/PROTECTION=OWNER:RWED ACCOUNTS.F'." – he was so quick – "That's it. Now type: 'SET HALT RESTART/MAIN'."

The moment he hit Enter, he looked overwhelmed though concentrated when his eyes took on the black and green screen filled with glyphs, diacritic signs, and lines full of possibilities.

"RobCo's Operative Systems usually store in their inner memory old passwords used at some point in the past, so the system can detect if you are using something that another person you may not want to grant access to could remember, as a safety protocol." – she pinpointed, explaining to him what he was looking at and what he should expect – "You've got four attempts. The first one you try is to give you a rough idea of the number of characters the current password has, so this menu would tell you how many you get right, but not which ones those characters are. You will have to rule out characters before you exhaust attempts, or else the system will lock itself, and it will be more difficult to bring it to its former state."

"So, this is a guessing game?" – he asked, fascinated.

She almost giggled. He reminded her of her first attempts at hacking Big Bro's computer after reading a basic guide on RobCo OS hybridizations. She had been seven, and Big Bro didn't allow her to play videogames more than one hour per day, so she had sneaked her way into his study late at night to see if she could work out the password on her own so she could secretly access the games any time she wished.

It hadn't gone well the first time. Or the second. She had managed to lock down the system, and Big Bro, who had been no computer savvy, had had to call a maintenance worker to unlock it.

Years later, he had told her he had known all along that it had been her the one messing with his laptop, but he hadn't said anything because he wanted to know how further she could get on her own, so the moment she had been able to crack the password, he had deemed fair to allow her to play more 'secretly', for she had earned it.

Looking back at the screen, both rolled their eyes once they read the possibilities. The passwords were so Fiend-like… all insults, swear words, infantile thinking, and the like. She was even surprised that all of them were - technically - grammatically correct… but guess that was due to the OS's inner autocorrection software by default.

"Sixteen options. Pick one of the shorter ones." – she suggested – "Let's see how many characters you got right."

He did as told.

"One character in common with the real password." – she observed – "Start ruling out letters from the rest, see if you can discard at least one."

She would have given anything to know how his mind worked, for she was surprised when he claimed to have already ruled out two more choices almost immediately.

He tried a couple more, all long passwords that got him very frustrated when he saw that he only had a remaining attempt.

"Wanna learn a trick?" – she asked with an impish smile.

He was all ears.

Then she told him about the diacritic character groups contained inside an opening and a closing less-than and more-than symbols respectively, parenthesis and brackets.

His eyes got bigger than the moon when the duds magically began disappearing. Then, despite having the allowance replenished by then, he hadn't needed the extra attempts to guess the correct answer.

"FUCKTHENCR." – he said after a while.

Six bit her inner cheek when his apparent impromptu released a chain of gasps and indignant snarls.

"What the hell did you just say, fucko?!" - Corporal Betsy hissed, ready to punch him until Zorro's bored, indifferent stare gave her some pause.

"It's the actual password the Fiends have chosen for this door." – he replied with a monochord intonation, showing her the device's screen – "Seems like the Republic's popularity is making a meteoric rise, I'd say."

That earned some snickering among the Frumentarii, Cass, and even Arcade, who bit his cheek not to add more salt to the wound.

Before he wrote down the password, Six arranged for all of them to be at both sides and behind Lily, who loaded a mini-nuke that she was instructed to shoot once the door opened.

Everything went as smoothly as it could be expected once the Vault was opened, the guards were disposed of by Lily's Fat Man, and then the incursion separated them into two groups to cover both sides of the tunneling passages.

The Fiends hadn't been expecting them, which worked in Six's group's favor.

Bad news arrived at the cafeteria and the Vault's recreation area, where the junkies had regrouped and had given them a hard time with rows of Molotov cocktails that got more than one Frumentarius wounded and a couple of sniper's rifles wasted.

Nonetheless, Reed's men and Lily's endurance got them a hard-earned victory when the latter threw on a psychotic attack that broke their defenses, allowing the former to further incapacitate trembling junkies for the rest of the shooters and Veronica's punch to take care of the remnants.

But the bravest of them all, Six had to admit, had been Arcade when he had approached Lily from behind - at the expense of his own physical integrity - and had injected her with an intravenous variant of her antipsychotic medication that had calmed her within minutes.

After that, and with both Gabban's men and the Alpha Team's nerves on edge after such an episode, they even had a funny moment once they had broken into an expanse pertaining to the living quarters where the Fiends had kept their prisoners.

"Who ya gonna call?!" – the excited Courier had exclaimed, completely forgetting that nobody in this dystopian post-Apocalyptic future she had awakened in would likely get her reference but maybe her ghoul contemporaries.

She had underestimated the Brotherhood of Steel's and the Republic's love for pre-War holotapes.

"Ghostbusters!" – the entire sniper group (never to count Boone as he was too serious for that stuff) plus Cass and Veronica, both giggling madly, and Arcade, who immediately covered his mouth with embarrassment, exclaimed.

After that, everyone had started shooting immediately.

The cleansing hadn't been pretty, but it had been damn effective.

Out of four prisoners, three remained alive, all NCR caravanners that looked the worse for wear once they freed them.

The Ranger scout was found much later, badly injured and entrenched inside one of the server rooms, surrounded by landmines and already half-crazed both due to pain and fear. Six hadn't been happy when all of the Frumentarii had directed him disdainful stares, exchanging snide remarks between them that only she seemed to catch as the rest of the group were too concentrated on getting the wounded prisoners and the Ranger medical attention before continuing; as if the 'mighty' legionaries hadn't been Fiend prisoners too once.

Then, the time to confront Motor-Runner down the maintenance wing, near the Vault's reactor, had come.

The maintenance wing had been sealed, and the space between the corridors and said wing had been sparse at best. Motor-Runner had counted with tactical advantage here.

Zorro had offered to hack the terminal that controlled the automatic door to Motor-Runner's hideout, eager to practice once more what he had learned today.

She had allowed him to go on his business, and he, never she had doubted his capabilities, had cracked the password.

Then, chaos had ensued.

Surrounded by his most ferocious minions, trained dogs, and packing a salvaged Power Armor, three of Reed's men had succumbed before being even able to reach the Fiend leader.

Corporal Sterling had fallen prey to the skirmish as well, and Miguel and Cass had to be attended to afterward.

The true hero who had decapitated Motor-Runner encasing a combat knife through a slit of the Power Armor until he had sectioned flesh, then bone, had been Pequeño Chacal, the youngest of the Frumentarii who, once he had claimed Motor-Runner's helmet, had been hoisted in arms by his comrades (minus Zorro who, like Boone, was way too serious to indulge in such displays), who had acclaimed his feat quite loudly.

After being able to beat the junkie tribe, the general merriment had gotten bittersweet once the dead Glowing Ones had been helped to carry to give them proper sepulture, whereas Sterling's death had been loudly mourned by Ten of Spades, Betsy's stuttering spotter and youngest member of their team.

After that, the Alpha Team had parted ways with them, taking Sterling and the Fiends' prisoners and children to McCarran to lay on the news to Hsu as Six had asked them to, telling them to communicate to their Colonel he should expect a courtesy visit to discuss heavy matters with him in a matter of days.

Then, per usual, after picking up the bodies of Reed's men and allowing the luminous necrotics to return to the Aerotech Office Park with their families, Six's group had started what they always do after cleaning a zone: looting the good stuff.

Arcade had been left in charge of Miguel and Cass' recovery while the rest had searched through the immense underground structure.

That had given Six an excuse to be alone, so she had gotten inside a bathroom and, after closing the door, had knelt in front of the less disgusting-looking toilet to begin retching violently.

She hadn't managed to get anything out yet when a pair of familiar, strong arms had gotten her off the toilet's rim, scoping her up as far away as possible from temptation. Containing the panic attack she threw on kicking, clawing, and hissing until she simply allowed herself to give in to the anxiety she had been containing for the sake of her group's morale and simply cried, holding onto the armored torso that was shielding her from getting back to her unhealthy tendencies.

She had known the risks… everybody else had known the risks of such a big-scaled attack on one of the most vicious and larger groups in the entire Mojave, and nobody had blamed her for what had happened, but…

This time, it had been an NCR veteran and three pre-War U.S. soldiers… but what about next time?

This had been but an eye-opener of what would await them at Hoover Dam should she really end up siding against the NCR, thus Burke.

What if Boone ended up on the other side of the battle? And Cass?

What if she ended up working out an alliance with the NCR and fought against the Brotherhood of Steel AND Caesar's Legion instead?

What if she had to shoot Zorro? Or his brother? What if, after discovering where the tribals' true allegiances lay, half of the group decided they had had enough of her lies and abandoned her?

What if it was herself alone with House's securitrons against everyone else?

What if…?!

Her looping reasoning was cut short the very moment she felt warm lips kissing her forehead.

It had acted as a balm for her, slightly dizzy from the sensation, but allowing the lips to wander, kissing brows, kissing eyelids, kissing cheeks, ears, and nose even; always softly, always warmly.

She returned the attentions clumsily, kissing hollow pale cheeks as well, too coward to brave more on the center, closer to that source of calm bliss she dreamed with, unsure and scared at what would happen should one of them dare to cross the line.

Both danced around the issue longer than mere friends would, hands even getting so far as touching the others' hair, cupping napes, pressing forehead against forehead, black and white brows mixing, lashes intertwining and tickling, blue staring black.

She ultimately decided against it by pressing the last kiss as closer to his lips as she dared, for now, her fingers itching once she willed herself to disentangle them from his curls.

He looked a bit disappointed, but his voice was gentle when he spoke again.

"I've seen a strongbox at a room labeled as 'Overseer's Office'." – he said – "Since you have taught me how to hack a terminal, I'm willing to teach you how to pick a lock… if you like." – he added, as if fearing his suggestion may seem a bit lame or something.

But she was now on Cloud Nine. Of course she wanted to learn!

Giddy and excited like a little girl, she hugged him as firmly as her ridiculous stick-like arms allowed her, effectively communicating her willingness to have lockpicking classes.

They were way safer than learning how to deal with feelings that she wasn't entirely sure were neither beneficial nor good for her… or for him.


A/N: I'm teasing you mercilessly, the ones who came here in search of romance ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ) That's what you get in Slow Burn :P

Anyway, here I am, writing politics with hormonal protagonists that now care more about getting smooched than the warlike mess they've gotten themselves into. Never said it's a good idea to mix business with pleasure.

Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: As flattering as I find your take on my story, I don't find it surprising at all that it's barely commented/Faved since politics are a delicate topic and the more if you depict the characters involved as human beings, with good and bad points to take into account. Then, there's the lack of sexy times issue: porn triumphs whereas developing a relationship is tedious to read. If they aren't physically attractive, don't want to fuck, and don't struggle on a certain mistreating level, it's not exciting, it's not interesting. Legion porn fics usually depict Vulpes as a manipulative rapist and the Courier as a warmonger peas-for-brains too fixated on being humiliated and/or fucked by the bad guy that doesn't seem to give any mind to the extremely compromising political situation her story takes place in.
I've read plenty of those. Some I've enjoyed; some others have sickened me... but I've rarely found a story where Vulpes is depicted as a human being, so I had to contribute to that forsaken corner of the Fandom. According to canon, it IS interesting knowing that, should the Courier avoids killing Vulpes on the two (maybe three if you decide to attack Fortification Hill) occasions they have to do so, he's never mentioned in the Ending Slides, but he's neither present at Hoover Dam, so... maybe he turned up a new Caesar should you kill Lanius? Maybe he began anew with a new identity? Who knows? I've always found his disappearance fascinating. And yes, a Crossover with Vulpes and My Little Pony is, to me, an abomination that should burn in Hell eternally XD

I'm studying, so I don't know how often I can publish now. Maybe I will publish soon a four-chaptered F:NV fic I keep revising (because is old and bad as fuck and I feel so ashamed of it that I must make it worth your while before daring publishing it), but I don't know when I will be able to publish a new chapter for "Number Nine". Gimme a month or two or so, for exams are coming and I'm truly stressed, okeydokey? ❤

PD: all the Pop/Media Culture references are treated as Wild Wasteland Perk, so don't kill me xD