"Number Nine"
Ch. 24: True survivor.
"A devil is rising
A shadow from the past
Feeding the flames with fire
On the edge of fury
All the time running in and out of time
Hear the ticking on the countdown clocks tonight."
- David Hasselhoff, "True survivor"
"If you think you still have something to claim… come face me. I will do everything in my power… to sever all of your affiliations with the NCR, and I'm starting with the Mojave branch. Let's see how they react… when all the shit hits the fan, Burke… You're a dead man."
Every time he played the audio, he procured himself a smoke so he could process every word impersonally, cool as ice.
Didn't they say that revenge is best served cold, after all?
"I will do everything in my power… to sever all of your affiliations with the NCR, and I'm starting with the Mojave branch. Let's see how they react… when all the shit hits the fan, Burke… You're a dead man."
There's also something they say about disobedient children.
"… Let's see how they react… when all the shit hits the fan, Burke… You're a dead man."
Burke had never been a particularly religious man since he left such antique superstitions to Mormons, tribals, and ignorant Wastelanders overall… Still, if there was something he admired about the Bible, that was how unyielding and inescapable the punishments of its deity were.
'Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.'
"… You're a dead man."
Inhaling the last drag of blessed filth, he immediately grabbed the singing telephone before it rang a second time.
"Burke, the car is ready."
"Much appreciated, Chief." – he politely replied before hanging up.
Getting up from his favored armchair, he paced around the suite, silently grabbing his jacket, a brand-new pack of cigarettes, JHP hand load ammunition – best quality – with increased armor penetration at the expense of slightly less damage than hollow point rounds… then his silenced 10mm. Checking that the loaded cartridge was new, the rail mechanism conveniently oiled, the trigger tight but soft, the silencer well-adjusted around the muzzle.
Checking his weapon had been a routine he hadn't had the chance to exercise in quite some time. It had been something he hadn't given much thought to before… until now.
Comfort didn't sit so well with him after all. Comfort can put even the most fearsome man to his knees. Comfort was a very rich breeding ground for softness, weakness.
Just like any other disease.
Standing in front of the elegant pier glass, he smoothened any possible creases in his otherwise perfectly ironed shirt before adjusting his tie. He fastened the upper button, checking that the lapels were symmetrically distributed.
Appearances, as unimportant as they might seem, were always crucial. Always.
That was why he had taken good care in showering, shaving, and trimming his hairline before arranging the due preparations regarding his transport.
After all, a businessman cannot be expected to cross DC on foot when dealing with the Brotherhood of Steel. It would say very little about him.
The more if such a businessman, besides being the sole owner of all the caravan routes on this side of North America, is the brains and the executive producer behind the cleansing and restoration project Washington DC was undergoing these days.
Dimming the automated lights down to a warm, relaxing ambient, he neared the queen-sized bed with a lithe, silent grace he still prided himself on possessing after his days in Daniel Littlehorn's shadow had come up to a satisfactory, most well-earned conclusion.
Asleep, with her golden hair lying in graceful disarray all over the pillows, she almost looked like one of those fairytale princesses from way before the War. Preserved in time as a sort of reminder that one could still find beauty even in the most lethal things roaming this bitter land.
Lethal even to herself.
Despite Doctor Banfield having assured him that the dosage was perfectly safe, Burke wasn't so sure three Med-X shots qualified as 'regular medical prescription'. He wouldn't be so surprised that the old man would try to knock her out for good. Half the Tower would actually appreciate that.
Nevertheless, it would be the very last clinical case he would ever see since Burke knew for a fact that physicians needed their hands to exercise their profession. And Banfield would be as good as dead if he ended up with both his wrinkled upper extremities… let's say, severely mauled, wouldn't he?
Clearing her relaxed brow from a handful of rebellious golden threads, his hand lingered longer near her left temple, lightly drawing protuberant, bluish veins with a finger.
They were visibly beating, occasionally twitching the pale skin covering them as if she still were amidst her feverish episode. When she had destroyed half the furniture around old Tenpenny's flat.
He had always liked Tenpenny's flat; that was primarily why he had made himself at home in it after the old man's death.
And her temper tantrum had put to an end some of the finest furnishings Eastern North America had to offer. Furnishings he had hated to see rendered down to little more than splinters. He would have been furious with her… if she hadn't been so terribly inconsolable.
Though destructive as a hurricane, her mourning had been one of the few things throughout his existence he wasn't sure he wanted to witness ever again.
Laura was unstable. He had always been aware that she was unstable. Otherwise, she wouldn't have made it the first day she had been thrown out of her Vault.
Either you were made entirely of something else to survive a shift so violent between a secluded life and the horrors of the Wasteland on your own… or you had to forcibly be a little insane to put up with a reality where you can be stabbed to death over something so flimsy as a handful of caps or chems; hunt down by mutated abominations; kidnapped by cannibals, slavers, or factions you hadn't been aware they had existed in the first place… Or even been beaten down, gang-raped, and/or tortured by deranged raiders for sport on an almost daily basis.
That if you didn't die out of a combination of dehydration, starvation, and radiation poisoning.
Between human settlements, there were miles ahead of danger you either succumb to or fight against with all your might. Her Lone Wanderer legend had been well-earned when she had managed to thrive amidst the warzone the Capitol had been five years ago.
However, her psyche had taken its due toll on the horrors she had been forced to face whilst searching for a runaway father who had ultimately died in a most nonsensical fashion. All because he had preferred radiation over handing his precious project.
So much for playing the good Samaritan, the hypocrite.
Since then, from what he had gathered from her dispassionate narration and then how she behaved around people in general, Laura usually took a shine to a minimal number of individuals. Amongst them, he himself… and her disgusting ghoul bodyguard.
Even if he couldn't be happier now that the bothersome necrotic giant had perished under the heel of a Sleeper, Laura's violent breakdown had given him some pause to reconsider his next move over the board carefully.
For, now, it was his turn to answer to a defy as unacceptable as this one.
He had already radioed the Citadel to avoid possible delays. The Elder had been pertinently informed of his imminent arrival.
But he couldn't take her with him. Not when he knew she may prove more of a hindrance rather than an aid in his plans.
For, if she could get her hands on Birdie, he was sure she would limit herself to tear the girl's throat open with her own teeth, passionate and utterly visceral as he knew Laura could be when she had the proper motivation.
And a dead child wasn't likely to learn any lessons he might have prepared to chastise her disobedience, wasn't she?
No. No more delegating responsibilities like he had been doing in the last years.
When you want something done right, do it yourself.
Depositing a kiss on her brow - likely the last kiss they will share in a long, long time - he committed to memory her soft breath sleeping woes away down to oblivion. The nervous tics under closed eyelids crossed by delicate vein threads, the gentleness of her beauty, serene amidst the opiate analgesic tides, hopefully chasing after more pleasant dreams than what her reality had turned into.
He hoped she may forgive him once she would awake. For he held no delusions about caging her here despite the letter he had left for her on her bedside table. He was only delaying the inevitable.
His fingers abandoned hers the same he steeled his decision, taking his striped jacket and his fedora from the coat rack and disappearing through the door, leaving behind the life they had constructed together in this Ivory Tower to, finally, face the burden of his responsibility.
For Mr. Burke, after all, was a man of responsibility.
He had dragged his sorry ass out of Zion the way he had come in.
And he almost didn't make it.
It was one thing treading Yao Guai territory armed to the teeth with a full contubernium having your back… and another entirely different thing to crawl your way all through a whole den infested with cubs guarded by two full adults to find even more of them roaming around the path between the labyrinth of caves to Pine Creek Tunnel. There, one or two days' worth of traveling East throughout the Utah State Route 9 back to Mt. Carmel Junction awaited him, then another five days up the U.S. Route 89 to the North until he reached Provo, then switch to the I-15 for one more day toward Lanius' encampment at Salt Lake City ruins.
That, if green geckos didn't make a feast of his charred corpse first.
All of the above, armed with a dented machete, a pile of rocks (yes, fucking rocks), and a couple of pre-War military rations he had found inside one of the Ranger Substations before abandoning the valley.
He was smeared from head to toe in mud like some retarded tribal to avoid sunburns, and he was on the run for dear life.
That… thing… it had followed him; it was toying with him.
Every time his eyes wandered off the undulating high road under his already blistering feet, he could see it.
Over a small hill, jumping between boulders, zigzagging amidst giant cacti, leaning lazily against a pre-War advertising billboard… it seemed to be everywhere, sliding with the grace of a giant salamander, covered in dark pelt like a sewer giant rodent, watching him from afar with its hungry, unnatural glowing eyes.
Not the legendary creature everybody liked to imaginarily morph at their bidding in hushed voices, nor a crazed ghoul or even a mutant… but a feral, deranged cannibal with unnatural speed and strength that seemed to have targeted legionaries in particular among its available culinary options.
A deranged cannibal that, apparently, still had some standards regarding whose bones it wasn't going to pick clean just yet.
Ivory had suffered the ignorance and superstition around his condition even before the Legion took him in, and he was used to mostly ignoring the better part of the remarks being thrown at him… however, for once, he didn't resent the Maneater's finickiness regarding albinos.
Hell, he didn't care if that thing would pick another group of legionaries using him as bait to attract them. As long as he managed to get behind the walls of the Legatus' camp, safe from it, he couldn't give a rat's ass about what happened to the entire Wasteland.
His fear, coupled with the increasing paranoia miles ahead of desert and hour after hour of unyielding sunlight, were baking slowly but surely inside his psyche, making him skip a handful of meals and another handful of resting hours as he trekked his relentless path throughout the Wasteland. His tired feet screaming, his sore muscles burning, his dehydration making his sight waver.
He managed to outrun two packs of hungry coyotes and a solitary radscorpion he had the preventive thought of depriving of its stinger with an inelegant slice before sprinting for dear life.
He was exhausted when the night came.
Nevertheless, he had kept pushing onwards until darkness had been so thick that he could not see beyond his own nose.
He had built a fire just to be able to see something. He had fought the need to sleep with a mouthful after the next of Coyote Tobacco leaves he had harvested during his hastened trip back. Legion rules be damned at this point.
He hadn't been sure when his eyes had given up, but he had opened them violently the instant his hearing detected something.
Besides sporting a sore neck for having fallen asleep sitting, the bonfire was completely extinct, only the last remnants of embers winking at him from scorched soil. He had made haste in rekindling them again… and wished he had just been left in the dark for once.
Once modest flames started erupting from the bonfire, his eyes caught sight of the present his unlikely companion had left for him.
Thunderfoot's already decaying head harpooned on a spear.
He had taken a wooden plank, built a makeshift torch out of it, and had resumed his escapade quicker than the crack of a whip.
He always had wondered about how such a promising brand as Chryslus Motors - pioneers of the 21st century in favoring motor hybridizations between lithium-powered batteries that could be both charged through electricity and solar energy since the vehicles themselves had been covered by small microfusion power solar panels, and a small fission generator capable of condensing solar energy for a limited period of time, ensuring a driver wouldn't be left in the dark, quite literally, once the night would come – had never gotten into the military industry the way RobCo did.
In all honesty, Burke had never understood how, in an Era where alternatives to oil-based fuel had been aplenty, the public had been so easily manipulated by their respective Governments – American and Chinese alike – when the flimsy excuse they had thrown to their citizens to start a war had been the control over petroleum.
Either the socioeconomic outcomes of globalization had been so grave that people had just held onto literally anything that would offer them a viable alternative to ease the strain… or pre-War societies had been so apathetic and complacent that any half-brained cretin with coin and contacts enough to back them could make political decisions not meant for lesser, uneducated men. For ambition without proper channeling were ingredients of a sure recipe for disaster.
With the cutting-edge technology and inventive minds that, obviously, had worked for Chryslus Motors to give birth to a pre-War wonder such as the Corvega line, they could have multiplied their sales exponentially should they have allied with the military, pretty much as Robert Edwin House had done. That way, their deemed 'civilian factories' by the military regime wouldn't have been reconditioned to massively produce tanks, Vertibirds, Power Armors, and all manner of weapons, effectively killing the most efficient American automotive industry in all its History.
Burke particularly favored the Highwayman model overall. Full analog system with no electronics, over 800 horsepower, and reached 60 mph in under a second. Combining a stylish design with a tough and resilient frame, the Chryslus Highwayman was an excellent vehicle for driving even under the hardest of terrains that the Wasteland could offer. A true jewel rescued from Boston - before the recent supermutant plague had made it nearly impossible to exploit the possibilities of the near-derelict pre-War city further, thus losing prospective commercial contact with Diamond City and Goodneighbor - that had given his current owner the speed and security he had lacked when trekking DC on foot.
One of the reasons he had resented Birdie so much after her little scandal with the local mechanic had been to prescind of the old man's services in the first place. And finding a substitute hadn't been easy or cheap since mechanics specialized in pre-War tech tended to be on the lack side in this part of North America.
Tires that fit his model car of choice were also quite challenging to find. Luckily, the Republicans had been gracious enough to send in several shipments fresh out of their prospector parties at pre-War Chryslus' repositories in Oregon – still not quite within their grasp, but soon-to-be-annexed territory - once his deals with Kimball had thrived beyond mere pleasantries and official paperwork.
California had benefited from his caps the same DC had benefited from the Republic's work precarity - yet another reason to desire control over Vegas' territory, expanding in consequence branches for both farmer and rancher jobs beyond the currently precarious NCR Sharecropper Farms, which, at the moment, rendered pitiful results at best – when entire convoys full of qualified and very eager workers had begun arriving to start with construction and restoration works.
Dodging the threat that those tribals dressed as Romans cosplayers presented all over the Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico had been a child's play once they had reached a profitable agreement with the Lakotah Nation at the Old South Dakota along with the frontier of Old Wyoming to habilitate an old pre-War railroad line so merchandise and people could travel between the Old States at a faster pace without having to worry for spies since those kilted barbarians sent few scout parties up North.
True that transporting those workers and raw materials had been costly and incredibly risky given the current political and geographical situation with those red buffoons sharpening knives pretty much like the Khans in their old days at the eastern side of the Colorado. But then again, thanks to his wealth and the good disposition of NCR civilians that had been starving back home, DC now looked so utterly different from the warzone that it had been two years ago that Burke couldn't help but feel slightly proud of what he had been able to accomplish thus far.
Project Purity had been but the tip of the iceberg. Key nonetheless when it had come to finance workforce restoring roads and bridges to effectively communicate Old North Highland and Rivercrest with Georgetown and the rest of the Capitol nexus.
New settlements had surfaced in a matter of weeks near the Potomac banks, the fishing industry slowly flourishing now that the decontaminated waters, besides turning out a breeding soil for all manner of aquatic life, had made mirelurks significantly weaker, thus easier to capture, tame and breed for meat and eggs.
With civilization stamping its mark upon the Capitol landscape and the precedent settled since the Lamplight incident, the Brotherhood of Steel had opened their door for outsiders to become part of their organization, thus substantially increasing security on the roads since whole groups of Paladins were now keeping peace among Wastelanders… Which had become an increasingly easier task the more raider gangs had started either traveling West in search of non-regulated lands… or even getting disbanded as soon as stable farm jobs were available.
As he drove the Old 66 up towards the newly-restored Theodore Roosevelt Bridge to turn to the right at the Old George Washington Memorial Parkway, Burke's chest swelled with pride as he took on the floor-mounted automatic turrets that covered the river's flanks every sixty feet, effectively chasing out critters' attacks and the occasional Deathclaw or Yao Guai that came from the mountains.
Flourishing populations with flourishing economies – the most relevant of all, the Punga fruit shipments coming from Point Lookout, where the Brotherhood had wiped it out of feral ghouls, raiders, and deranged swampfolk while sticking up a deal with Jackson and his people the same that freelance ferryman Tobar had done in the past -; all of them secured and in working shape.
No more criminals swarming around, no more critters reproducing themselves like no tomorrow… and, most importantly: no more mutants.
Reilly's Rangers had driven a hard bargain… but with their experience scavenging medical supplies and the combined forces of the Talon Company and the Brotherhood keeping security tight at the western side of the Potomac; cleansing the Lincoln Memorial, then the Old United States Capitol and, finally, the White House had been a child's play once they had gained control over the Metro lines, thus precluding possible leaks.
This, combined with the impossibility of retreating back into Vault 87, their original nest where they had swelled their numbers out of kidnapped Wastelanders, had pushed the beasts up Pennsylvania. Then Rhode Island. Then Massachusetts where they had presumably clashed with their Commonwealth cousins since reports from the Paladin scout parties from the North hadn't mentioned anything related to the monsters coming back on their tracks.
Nevertheless, ghouls now were also a minor nuisance, since most of those who cared about not being shot on sight now crammed themselves inside the Underworld.
Which suited the Brotherhood just fine as long as they kept to themselves… for now.
This apparent passiveness coming from an organization as fanatical as the Brotherhood of Steel had raised multiple suspicions among the population, eager as they were to get rid of the necrotics to take their places at the Old Museum of History, but not to Burke.
Not when he had financially backed up the project they had been occupying themselves with in the last four years up to its finalization.
Because, since the supermutant population had vanished from the face of the Capitol, their expansionist zeal had already seized Pennsylvania after striking a deal with Ishmael Ashur - a former Brotherhood Paladin - and his raiders; then Virginia; then Maryland; then New Jersey; then Connecticut.
Now, their sights were set up North, where an already-pacified Rhode Island begged to expand its frontiers up that hellhole the Commonwealth was.
However, to hold such a vast territory, they knew they needed more than their Vertibirds to come and go between headquarters. And there was still something to say about Massachusetts and their ghoul, mutant, and synth problems. That place was a no-man's land, much worse than DC had been in its darker days.
The Commonwealth was in another completely different league. And with their Minutemen led by that Becker fool, the Brotherhood had tough competition to deal with before thinking about launching a pacification campaign.
Their claim on the rest of their territory outside DC was already precarious at best, and they needed backup forces quickly if they wanted to keep their already meteoric hegemony.
Not your average reconditioned bunch of Wastelanders swearing fealty under the Brotherhood's flag and with a laughable experience of three years maximum patrolling already secured territory, but trained, veteran forces.
Forces with educated Scribes among them.
And those very forces, he had confirmed a month ago through one of his old contacts from Littlehorn & Associates since Birdie had gone rogue, were still within the Mojave territory, trapped between the Republicans and the Roman cosplayers.
They just needed to come to get them.
No matter the old grudge between the Capitol rogue Chapter and the Old Timers when the latter would see who was leading them.
That little skirmish at the Adams Air Force Base with Autumn and his pitiful remnants almost two years ago couldn't have been more fortunate for his plans to be put into motion.
Humming an old tune, he took the first exit to the right and entered an old rotunda, where he turned to the left this time. Were pre-War traffic signs still in effect, he, theoretically, would be driving on a no-entry road. Oh, well…
He knew the time would come when he would appreciate the efforts put in restoring old asphalt roads not only because that would cause his car's pneumatics and shock absorbers not to suffer unnecessarily, but also…
"Halt!" – a voice he had grown to know so well in the last years barked from the right side of the distant Citadel's main entrance – "No unauthorized civilians allowed inside the Citadel! You'll have to leave now!"
Burke's big hands squeezed the leather-upholstered steering wheel in malignant anticipation.
"Bael!" – he saluted once the window glass slid down smoothly, allowing him to address his interlocutor without having to abandon the vehicle, relishing the moment – "Long time no see, my good man!"
The other man didn't look nearly amused, ever the grumpy sentinel. That was why it was so easy to pick on him.
"Apparently, not long enough." – was his dry reply, still not having mastered the fine art of conversation despite all these years – "State your business, Burke. And be quick about it."
Burke laughed. Nothing like a grumpy Paladin as a warming up to deal with the Brotherhood. Since the Outcasts had returned to the flock, the Brotherhood's old martial, hostile air had come back with a vengeance. Nevermind Bael, the fellow had always been denser than a brick, his own brand of hostility a front to compensate for his lack of social finesse.
"Ah, you wound me, Bael." – Burke replied with a smile that seemed to contradict his own words – "Alas, as much as I would enjoy exchanging pleasantries and worldviews with a dynamic and effervescent mind such as yours, my presence here has been requested and conveniently scheduled to meet with your Elder regarding the due preparatives of our imminent… takeoff." – savoring the grimace Bael put on, Burke allowed himself to add with the barest petulancy, making a complicated flourish with his hand – "Shall we?"
He allowed the other man to go through his usual pantomime of checking with the interphone before giving him clearance.
The same as the Citadel's doors were opened for him to make a grand entrance driving inside its walls, Burke's inner businessman shone with pride the moment his eyes took in the renovations that had made the courtyard considerably bigger, taking rubble aside and leaving behind only the once-glorious expanse of what had been the United States of America Defense Department.
Or more commonly known as… the Pentagon.
He started seeing things that he knew couldn't be real.
First had been red dots in the air and flashes of color that, from that point on, had, slowly but surely, been evolving into wriggling snakes and maggots.
His eyes were watering at this point, and fatigue had started to become simply yet another bodily state to contend with, along with thirst, muscular tics, headache, stomachache, and, generally, a random number of other aches that would appear, disappear, and reappear periodically throughout the day.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he was certain that he must have already covered what their contubernium had spent a week's worth of travel in less than half of it.
Miles and miles ahead of the red desert seemed to never end, and he was already too spent to mind himself around wildlife further than keeping chopping whatever critters that dared to think of him as their next meal.
That had also taken its toll when his movements had become sloppy, and he had earned more than one bite and scratching marks from coyotes, geckos, and solitary radroaches. Fucking glowing radroaches.
If he had the bad luck to bump into a Deathclaw, he knew he wouldn't be able to muster the will to start running.
How he hated Utah.
He had lost count already… but he recalled some of the pre-War road signposts he could barely read that had passed through his weary sight in the last days: Mt. Carmel Junction… Glendale… Hatch… Circleville… Salina…
Mars above… how much to the Spanish Fork already? Why did all the pacified towns in this despicable land have to be Southeast?
Besides the strategic move that had supposed to take over the Old Hill Air Force, South of Ogden, as her headquarters, the Great Whore had shown both a combination of tactical sense and practicality by securing her city in the remotest part of the most indomitable Old State that Caesar's Legion had had the dubious pleasure to assimilate. Even if she lost the city, she still had a free way up North through the Long 15 to Idaho or Northwest to Wyoming.
Lanius' campaign was an errand's fool. They would never present Hecate's head on a platter for Caesar.
Throughout the long decade that they had to contend against the incredibly hostile tribes in this no-man's land, Hecate's forces had grown stronger and stronger. Her spies, the majority having been former slaves of military Legion camps, knew their formations and tactics like the back of their hands; they knew how their shifts worked, they knew how to discern a rookie from a veteran, and how to breach through their defenses.
They donned slave rags, covered themselves in mud, and feigned to work until they could subtract a sizable number of women and children they would train to join their ranks. No matter how strict the slave tabulation would go over a Centurion's desk, they always managed to infiltrate them.
They had learned a thing or two from the Legion as well, since the ones who were captured either killed themselves or waited for a rescue operation, enduring everything their Slavemasters and even the very Lanius would do to them rather than betraying their Lady.
The Burned Man had said, back in his day when he still had been Caesar's successor, that to pursue contention against a hellbent madwoman would be the ruin of an empire created by men. That they shouldn't feed her embers with more battles but rather allow her to wither and turn to ashes. For she had already the predisposition to become a conflagration.
Babylon, he had named her. Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth. The Mystery Woman, unrepentant and masculine without a husband to temper her belligerent nature. The one who talked with snakes.
He had called her these names once in a loud voice, standing proud before one of her spying posts in the mountains, unable to reach her amidst a sandstorm. His voice echoing in the expanse.
The woman had limited to answer by laughing, stating impudently that hypocritical men had used religion throughout History to bend the will of the weak and ignorant… and she was neither.
"Go spit your venom tongue unto the lap of your man of Galilee, see how much mercy he has left in him before cutting you down for your treachery!" – she had cackled, prophetess in her madness, curses in her mouth becoming an omen – "Go sell the name of Rome to another Israel, you vile Hortator! May Nero's flames baptize you a second time before treading the Gates of Hell!"
All of this merely months shy of the First Battle for Hoover Dam.
From that day on, it had been that the seeds of fear and doubt had begun showing in the otherwise steely eyes of the Burned Man, avoiding further confrontations with her patrols. For she had known him way deeper than he had known himself. And he had realized this.
She was a keeper, a hoarder of knowledge no mere tribal woman would have been able to access on her own. And she knew that they knew this.
She was a cancer, a leach. And she was thirsty for blood.
The Legion had never fought against a foe who held such a frightening hatred for them before Hecate and her Hounds and Daughters. Not even the Republicans, who had lost a sizable number of troops in the last five years at the hands of legionaries, hated them as much as the Great Whore did.
Anyway, he hadn't noticed he had stopped walking, staring into empty space. His lips were so dry he wasn't surprised when he tasted blood the moment he managed to coordinate his hand with the canteen hanging from his modest backpack to take it to his lips. He merely tasted a small, lukewarm gulp before realizing that he had also run out of water.
Red maggots and snakes began dancing in front of him again, and the tall, dark silhouette following him stood mere feet ahead as if observing him.
He trembled, wobbled, tripped… and the last thing he recalled seeing were two naked, dirty, bony feet right in front of his nose before darkness ensued.
Unluckily for him, he wasn't allowed much rest and peace before being awakened violently with a blow to the stomach that put his world upside down and shoved bile up his nose before noticing being on his knees, tightly bound by the wrists to two posts of an enormous tent.
"Primus Legatus, sir, he's awake!" – he heard a voice calling from behind him.
He was bound, dressed only in his sweaty tunic, and entirely at the mercy of the monstrous pair of boots that planted themselves in front of him.
"Raise your head." – slow, contemptuous, the grave voice of the Monster of the East reached his ears through layers of unreality – "Only slaves and dogs wear their heads low." – unwilling as he was to meet the unyielding gaze of the Legatus, aware of what would await him should the man saw his eyes; he tried to bow in respect to meet, once more, the iciness of the metallic voice – "Raise your head least you want me finding other uses for it… such as decorating a pike."
He did raise his head… but it was one metallic thumb all it took to pry open his eyes.
The immediate sound of disgust was promptly followed by a punch that gyrated his head more than ninety degrees and didn't break his neck due to pure dumb chance.
"A chindi." – Lanius' voice hissed, aversion and antipathy dripping heavily from every syllable – "Who has authorized to train this filthy demon as a legionary, less to join my ranks?!"
Not a single present man inside that tent dared to start muttering apologies. Not with Lanius. Never.
"Explain yourself, demon." – the monstrous man demanded, imperative – "Yours was the contubernium sent to deal with those two female agents of the Great Whore. What happened to them?!"
His tongue was dry… so, so very dry…
"T-the Maneater…" – he managed to blurt out – "We had the women… t-took us… unprepared…"
"A whole contubernium and two Daughters are massacred, leaving you as the only survivor?" – the Legate asked, incredulous – "Do you take me for a fool, demon?!"
"N-no… the agents… they weren't killed… T-taken away…"
"And yet, you allowed for that to happen. You failed your mission. You weren't strong enough to face honorable death, but you managed to drag your sorry hide throughout the desert to here, like the dog you are." – Lanius spat – "You are a disgrace, both for the Legion and humankind. And I don't have any use for coward dogs in my army." – signaling to the men at the prisoner's back, he ordered – "Take this filthy chindi out of my camp and crucify him. He will serve his purpose as an example… and a warning."
Ivory knew he was already a dead man even before he was forcibly dragged outside the tent, the unyielding sun of the Wasteland already catching with his dwindling sight, still drawing brushstrokes of maggots and snakes in red.
Brotherhood bureaucracy. Burke couldn't say that the notion surprised him at this point.
He was biding his time, though. Having a smoke at the refurbished courtyard, directing the occasional thin smile to big-eyed training recruits, or frowning old Paladin Gunny barking commands abound while keeping an eye on him from time to time. After all, this was Brotherhood of Steel territory, and they liked showing off, trying to make you feel like you were the guest here.
Burke had a small laugh at their expense. Were it not for his money, contacts, and Laura's vital interventions throughout the years, these poor wretches wouldn't have stood a chance against the Enclave; nor would they have restocked their genetic and military pool if it hadn't been for what had happened at the Lamplight Caverns, yet another intervention by the hand of lovely Laura and him.
Thinking about her brought in conflicted feelings since what had happened with the record Birdie had sent them.
So strange was the common history they had constructed based on what had once been her father's dream. Love was strange.
And ever stranger was this bitter aftertaste it left on his mouth, unable as he was to cure her malady… and unwilling as he also was to allow himself renounce to what he had been forging these last six years, much earlier than when they had met each other.
Birdie. Birdie had been a critical component in, literally, everything he had accomplished since his service under Tenpenny's rule had gotten to a dead end, unable to advance further.
Unable to prove to himself that his brief political career had not been in vain.
With Birdie, progress had started hitting the Tower first with a renovated computerized internal network. Then telephones, then power generators… indeed, if every inhabitant of this post-Apocalyptic Wasteland had half the knowledge and willingness the girl had shown during her first years in the Capitol, Little America would be already great again.
Which was why her rebellious attitude should not be tolerated. Brilliant, scientific minds were made to serve under the guidance of other entirely different kinds of mindsets meant for leadership.
Society ought to aspire to build itself around the concept of a constantly working, productive machine, where all of its gears fit down to perfection.
The same one cannot have a drooling, greedy simpleton occupying a position of responsibility; one cannot have a soldier calling their General out on strategies they couldn't even begin to fathom.
Nothing to impede progress.
The door from the B Ring Sector opened, and Burke took a slight drag from his cigarette before throwing the butt aside calmly, still leaning against the car hood of his Highwayman.
He directed a small condescending smile towards one of the approaching Elder's chaperones.
"Seneschal." – he nodded to the unsmiling Afro-American woman, both a marvel and a monstrosity born out of pre-War tech thought long lost that, if the rumors were correct, need no nourishment nor sleep to sustain herself – "Head Knight." – ah, yes, a classical Brotherhood macho ironically named in a rather feminine fashion whose body count had earned him a position of power he liked to boast given the minimum opportunity.
Neither of the two gorillas looked too happy to see him. Nor the newly-appointed Elder, after Sarah Lyons' demise at the Adams Air Force and the rather forgettable list of failures that had come after her, seemed too enthusiastic about having him there.
"Arthur." – he saluted, using the first-name formula deliberately, assessing the tall young man in front of him with a clinical eye.
Fifteen years old and with a knack for achieving war feats that would put him eye-to-eye with any Sleeper any day, the promising youngster in front of Burke truly lived up to his ancestor's surname if becoming the youngest Elder in Brotherhood history was already a foresight of what awaited the military organization under his rule.
He had already redefined their role in the Capitol – thus, earning the return of the Outcasts - by derogating Owyn Lyons' prerogatives.
And, to be perfectly honest: nobody dared to challenge a fifteen-year-old who held the highest body count for Deathclaws and mutants since he was barely thirteen.
Burke hadn't expected less from a Maxson, after all.
"Mr. Burke." – the aforesaid fifteen-year-old replied with dry courtesy. His voice, an adult's voice already that, coupled with a bushy beard and a stern countenance accentuated by harsh facial scars, made him look ten years older – "We were waiting for your arrival to begin with the preparations." – not cordial, yet impeccably polite. Arthur Maxson was the main reason why Burke had bothered taking his plans one step further while, under Sarah Lyons' rule, the charity-oriented nature of the Brotherhood's operations on the East Coast had been, if necessary to ensure the cooperation of the locals, fairly ineffective when hard decisions had to be made – "Will you be joining us in the negotiations with Rivet City?"
THIS, precisely, had been an operation Burke had been itching to launch upon the only city in the entire DC Capitol with a nuclear fusion reactor in its power.
A nuclear reactor that would be the last piece to solve the puzzle of an ambitious project that had been in the making over the previous four years.
With either Owyn or Sarah Lyons and their scrupulous policies, negotiations wouldn't even have reached their desks as a possibility among many more should words would prove… insufficient.
But, with a Brotherhood purist like Maxson at its head? The nuclear reactor will be theirs… indistinctively if Rivet City complied or not.
Burke directed one of his rare, genuine looks of sympathy to the young man.
They say he who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon. And Burke was all for providing spoons for those who proved him to be game over the board. And, the shorter those spoons were, the better.
"Of course." – was all the confirmation everyone needed – "Lead the way."
Time to settle scores, Chief Harkness.
The legionaries that had nailed his hands had been a bunch of rookies.
Ivory would feel personally insulted if not because nailing his open palms instead of his wrists still gave him a chance at unpinning the nails if he was patient and cautious enough.
Anyone with a minimal grasp of how human anatomy works would have known that one doesn't nail the palms as the weight of the rest of the body, eventually, tends to go down once fatigue starts hitting, thus ripping the thin flesh of the hands with it. The bones at the wrists served as a better subjection.
He could also count on the extra subjection ropes around his forearms, posed instead of falling down and damaging his feet with the nail they were secured with.
And he will need his feet to start running once he manages to free himself.
He planned to do so once the night came, thus making him a less obvious target.
Until then, he would endure the brutal sun of the Utah.
He tried to do so with a low head and closed eyes in utter silence as his fingers and flexors slowly worked around the nails. They were firmly fixed, and it hurt like a bitch to take them out.
"Hey."
Briefly startled, Ivory remained immobile until his slightly dizzy mind recalled something, and he simply ignored the voice.
"Are you… conscious?"
Ignoring the strongly-accented voice, ignoring the sun and how much his eyes and skin burned, the albino kept at his thing.
"They haven't… put nails on my hands…" – the voice persisted – "Probably thought that I'm… not strong enough to undo the ropes. A waste of resources… probably."
A waste, indeed. Shame they hadn't deemed it necessary to gag her to prevent her tongue from flapping around.
Lanius was surrounded by idiots.
"My side is also less exposed to the sun, so I'm… likely taking less damage if I manage… to slip my hands under the ropes."
He would know since every infantry legionary had ended up passing through his hands one way or another. He had been a fucking Legion babysitter for the last three years, and he hadn't even dared to acknowledge just how pathetic his existence had become much earlier than when he had been put on these stinky slave rags. The last insult to a whole life of servitude. Fucking fitting.
"If we help one another, there's… still a chance to be free."
But, hey, fuck Lanius. And fuck the Legion too. They had wanted to shame him by making him share his crux with a woman? Fine.
"Don't worry, as… soon as the sun goes down, they won't be… paying attention to us."
Let the Legion crumble beneath the boot of the armored giant of a bucket-head, go ahead. Caesar was the one who wanted that brute to lead them once he would be pushing daisies, so now it was Caesar's problem. They can suck a cock. All of them.
There was an indeterminate space of time of blessed silence in which the ex-legionary kept working until he already felt that he had made some progress.
Then, the sudden, unwanted touch of a hand upon his own almost made him yip like a scared dog.
"I've told you. I could… free my hands." – the woman's voice came back with a vengeance as her smaller, daintier fingers ghosted upon his own. Brown, warm fingers – "Let's see…" - Ivory repressed hissing in pain when her fingertips roamed blindly until they found the bloodied crust around the nail – "Help me out with the nail."
He wasn't sure why this chatterbox of a woman was helping him, but he was in no position to refuse any sort of aid, regardless of its source.
So, he… collaborated with her despite that, more than once, he was briefly tempted to bark a handful of insults every time her nails scratched his wound.
With time and patience, the nail finally got loose, and he got his left hand free. The limb in question had been up so much time that Ivory, initially, couldn't even feel it.
The sun was already sinking on the horizon, so they made haste to free each other's opposite hand the best they could.
"Now, I don't know how beaten you are… but I can move fairly well." – she told him, then a pause – "Give me a hand as I… descend to get rid of the nail in my feet."
The operation was easier said than done, with the ex-legionary giving the unknown woman his left hand as she descended painfully slowly while he sustained his weight with his right hand grabbing the telephone pole the best he could.
He waited a while in that position until his right arm went numb, and the woman finally hissed in pain before dropping onto the ground.
She regained her shaking breath whilst Ivory was already berating himself mentally for allowing her to be freed first, pondering how desperate this woman may be to trust her life to a legionary.
He obtained the answer to his last question when she limped until she was in front of him, patting the pole until she detected his feet.
Whereas covered with a cloth bandaging, her eyes were but two dried stains of blood imprinted onto the fabric, gawking blindly like the lens of a pair of goggles.
One of Lanius' slaves. A leftover. Too stubborn to die, apparently.
"Give me your arms as I lean your hands… over my shoulders." – she instructed, still breathless – "Don't worry." – she smiled weakly with full, brown lips that were dry and cracked – "I'm stronger than I look."
She truly must be, since she had survived the Butcher.
Ivory hesitated minimally before leaning on her, allowing her to redirect their combined weights downwards slowly, allowing him, at the same time, to deal with the nail with one hand while she assisted.
If Ivory had been more of an optimist - which he had never been - he could bet some people in Vegas would actually pay for witnessing the show-like weight balance this woman and him had improvised in the last thirty minutes.
Once he was free, the fleeting thought of starting running and leaving her behind crossed his mind briefly… until he found that his feet, given the puncture of the nail combined with fatigue and the numerous scratches, hematomas, and bites he sported throughout his body, weren't going to sustain him without help.
She proved to be a decent crutch once she helped him get on his two feet.
"I need you to act as my eyes." – she whispered to him – "I will cook a healing paste to tend our wounds as soon as we get out of their visual range and find some Broc flower and Xander root." – inhaling with a shaky breath, she added – "Lead the way."
Salt Lake City ruins grew smaller and smaller the more they pressed to the North, Ivory squinting eyes in the dark for the occasional mature Xander root sprouting from the clay ground. Broc flowers proved to be evasive, though.
They kept walking until the stars were the only available source of light at hand, which meant that the already defective sight of the albino couldn't make out more than a couple of feet ahead of his own. Old, cracked asphalt, the only consistency under his naked soles.
"Keep walking." – the woman said firmly when she detected him faltering in his steps – "We need to get as far as possible from the camp before the dawn breaks."
Although he would have felt insulted by taking orders from a mere slave, Ivory didn't complain and forced himself to get a grip on that never-ending journey of fleeing from monsters for the umpteenth time.
Their already-pathetic march took on a more relaxed pace once she noticed him hesitating through the dark. The silence was only broken by their ragged panting.
"I'm Khadija." – the woman said after a while, her strong accent oddly comforting amidst blackness, her body warm in the chill of the nightly Wastes – "What's your name?"
The ex-legionary wanted to bite down his tongue so, so badly…
"Ivory." – he replied with a dry throat, dehydrated as he still was.
"That's a lovely name." – she replied warmly, already encouraged from hearing him speak – "It is the real one?"
The albino resisted the sudden wave of violence that washed over him. The very same violence he knew so well that had been keeping him company since he could barely remember.
"It's the only one that matters." – he finally replied, his voice a murmur amidst the sounds of the desert.
"And before the Legion?" – she pressed.
Ivory didn't see the point in this conversation. Once both of them would be rested and healed, he didn't plan on sticking around a blind woman incapable of fending for herself in a world where using all of your senses correctly was the only difference between being dead or alive.
The crosses painted on the rags they wore were already an incentive for wild animals to pursue their next meal with them on the menu since those paintings were done with brahmin blood. Something to keep rebel slaves from leaving the encampment amidst a desert full of hungry critters.
"There's nothing before the Legion." – he sentenced, intent on ending the conversation.
Nevertheless, chatterbox to the end, the woman – Khadija - added in a whisper:
"If you weren't born Legion, there's always something before the Bull." – and then, at that point, her voice darkened – "Always."
If, before his fall from grace, someone within the walls of Raven Rock would have told his younger self that cities could be set inside a crashed, split derelict aircraft carrier rusting in the Potomac River, he would have laughed it off as tales of the Wasteland born out of excessive, impressionable minds with way too many hours under the sun while out on patrol.
However, the more his eighteen-year-old self had walked the cracked roads of the post-Apocalyptic world, the more extraordinary he had found the survival instincts of its inhabitants.
Rivet City had been, quite literally, at the very opposite end of the Capitol from Raven Rock. And it had taken Burke more than two years out in the Wastes teaching raiders to either appreciate the wisdom of his ways… or rather appreciate the ultimate irony while facing the barrel of his gun to be aware of its existence.
He had known Rivet City before and after Horace Pinkerton's rule. And if Burke would say something about how politics worked within the stranded vessel, that would be a pre-War catchphrase he had read once that had echoed his very thoughts on the matter: Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.
If Pinkerton, at the head of the ship's scientific caste and a privileged seat on the city's Council, had been impossible to negotiate with to gain some leverage and influence within the city's walls; his successor, Madison Li, had ultimately pulled her weight in with the security personnel to effectively impede external influences to have something to say beyond what she and the Security Chief would dictate whilst the local citizenship in the hands of a very inept Bannon would simply comply.
Rivet City, no matter Burke's contacts within circles of relevance throughout the Capitol and beyond, had always been a bitter thorn in his side that he had never managed to fully extricate.
The more when a certain irreverent Security Chief had taken an unprofessional interest over a certain Vault Dweller blonde.
An unprofessional interest he hadn't bothered to disguise even when she would walk arm in arm with yours truly. His brazen flirting disguised as stern advice against 'predators', the ultimate insult to who he had cataloged as a snake that had run out of venom long ago.
However, if anything, Burke's bite had but grown in girth and lethality over time.
And now, surrounded by a squad of men in Power Armors and four Vertibirds in position awaiting further commands, he felt like the scores between the accursed city and him had finally gotten even.
The answer to their upfront hovering presence over the city didn't take long once the Security Chief's armored figure and a whole troupe of lackeys made themselves visible on the deck entrance armed to the teeth. The absence of the drawbridge extension was significant to a fault.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen." – the chestnut-haired man declared after a tense minute of silence, calmly addressing the Paladins from his elevated position – "Can I help you?"
Not so bold when having the city surrounded by military forces, wasn't he?
Despite knowing himself in the scope of one too many sniper rifles pointing at his head, Arthur Maxson planted himself in the Chief's field of view so the other man could be damn sure to who he was dealing.
And so, for that sole reason, Burke hadn't any inconvenience in stepping aside to allow the young man who had made all of this possible to take the speaker role.
"I speak in the name of the Brotherhood of Steel as its Elder." – the youngster spoke with a clear, powerful voice – "I want to talk with the highest-ranking member of the security staff."
Harkness' gleaming, liquid eyes squinted after briefly assessing his distant interlocutor.
"You're already talking with him." – he declared – "Who are you? Since Sarah Lyons' death, you guys have kept passing the buck to one another, and I have little patience to memorize all the names."
"Elder Maxson, Arthur Maxson." – the young man replied, unfazed.
"Very well… Elder Maxson." – Harkness acquiesced, still eyeing the men in Power Armors behind their leader with suspicion – "State your business in Rivet City."
Burke relished the moment before the Elder took a deep breath and spoke again.
"It has come to my knowledge that Rivet City has in its power a nuclear reactor." – Maxson declared – "And the Brotherhood of Steel is here to claim it."
Ultimately, a tense silence ensued to be broken by Harkness's dry, humorless laugh.
"Is that so?" – the Chief guffawed – "And what makes you think that the city, which enjoys electricity due to that very same reactor functioning since its very beginning, it's going to hand over such a commodity for the simple fact that the Brotherhood demands it?"
"I am not here to make demands… yet." – Maxson replied sternly – "The Brotherhood simply asks the citizens of Rivet City to hand over their nuclear reactor as a sign of goodwill to help our organization expand up North in order to defend the protected territories from further mutant incursions." – he explained calmly – "We are willing to provide the city with power generators as a compensation for the inconvenience, so its residents can still enjoy electricity." – he declared – "Plus increasing its security through implementing standardized automatic turrets to keep at bay critters." – inhaling once more, the young man kept talking – "Give the Brotherhood this small concession, and we can start a long, tremendously beneficial relationship that can even expand your walls by means of joining the two parts of the aircraft carrier. We have already discussed these arrangements with Horace Pinkerton, your former head of the scientific caste, and he agrees to collaborate." – he added – "Let the Brotherhood take care of you."
As Burke had predicted, the Security Chief dignified an inelegant snort before raising his chin in perfect synchronization with his unholstered gun to reply arrogantly.
"Excuse me?" – he hissed, like the good knuckle dragger he was – "Let's be perfectly clear here: Pinkerton's business with this boat has been over for more than two decades, time enough for half the city's population either forgetting his existence or not giving a damn at all. He's been conducting his business at the broken-off bow, and everyone's been happy with the arrangement to this day. End of story." – he sentenced – "You think you have any right over us just because you have been around these last years playing errand boys in the company of snakes?" – at that, he gave Burke a very pointed-out glare; the businessman returned the gesture by tipping his hat – "You think Rivet City would bow to you for the mere sake that his bloodstained caps are the real thing calling the shots in this conversation? Unlike you, the people in this boat are not somebody's property. We still have an integrity to answer for."
"Your city has been benefiting from the water purifier the Brotherhood recovered, cleansed, and repaired at the cost of the lives of many good men and women!" – Maxson boomed, his youth and evident passion taking the reins now in the conversation. Had he been a lesser man, Burke would have deemed such passion the fruit born out of mere idealism and innocence. And Arthur Maxson, if anything, wasn't as innocent as his fifteen years of life seemed to suggest – "You owe your safety and economy to the efforts the Brotherhood has been putting in driving the mutant menace far from its nest, then the Capitol, so the caravans could trade safely!"
"We were doing perfectly fine without the Brotherhood intervention, thank you very much." – was Harkness' forthright reply – "And we were doing even better with our little trading arrangement with Megaton until that devil over there decided that a city constructed around an old nuclear warhead wasn't deserving enough to remain among the living." – he added bitterly, his stare growing angrier the more he observed Burke – "You think we need your purified water? Keep it. This ship is more than prepared to deal with radiation due to the water filters Madison Li, and NOT Horace Pinkerton, engineered and helped to implement in Rivet City's pipe system. Rivet City doesn't need you, your purifier, or your protection. That's what the security staff is for." – he finished as his men cheered him when he turned heel back to the reinforced entrance doors, ending the conversation for good – "Have a good day, Elder Maxson."
And, with that, the initial negotiations with Rivet City came to a totally predictable conclusion.
Whereas young Maxson sported a livid, incredulous look upon being disdained this way, Burke took their initial defeat with philosophy.
After all, words should always precede plain firepower. Just for the sake of wielding them as a reminder for the defeated rebels that they had been given a chance prior.
His well-placed expectations didn't have to wait much longer when, after recovering from this blow to his young ego, the Elder – chillingly calm - began radioing preparations for the upcoming assault on the floating city.
"Wait… you aren't really serious, aren't you?" – and then, predictable as well, here comes the classic duel of wills born out of a misplaced sense of morality coming from a fellow soldier. Burke couldn't say that it surprised him either – "What the hell, Arthur?! I thought this was only meant as an intimidation campaign! Negotiation with a little coercion! There are goddamned unarmed civilians in there, for fuck's sake!"
Even less taking into consideration who these objections came from.
"If you have any complaints regarding my tactical choices that you want to share, Knight McCready…" – Maxson coolly addressed the impertinent sixteen-year-old embedded in Power Armor next to him – "… Share them now, and they shall be taken into consideration once I find a space within the Council's currently-tight agenda."
The foul-mouthed little shit from the Lamplight Caverns now turned into a hormonal, unimpressive, and bony piece of crap with uneven, rotting teeth to match the quality of his speech.
You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear the same way you cannot turn a low-life Wastelander with a penchant for insubordination into a loyal, obedient soldier.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Arthur!" – the aforesaid low-life replied indignantly. If it wasn't because Burke had deemed all these years the little critter to be more trouble than he was really worth since the very start, he would have thought his claims pathetically cute – "This is a long way more important than sizing whose dick's longer! There are fucking lives at stake here! From innocent people who haven't attacked us!"
"You are correct. There is something more important here than petty squabbles among us: they have something the Brotherhood wants. Something we need in order to work at full capacity. And we shall have it."
"They have said no, and they're in their right to keep what's theirs if they don't fucking want to surrender it! You cannot force your way on people whenever you feel like it!"
Oh, that was certainly rich, or so Burke thought as he hid his amused grin behind a big hand wielding a lit cigarette.
"I can, and I certainly will if that means forging a better Wasteland out of the ashes of a world that still cannot comprehend, after two hundred years of penitence in the wake of repercussions, what means to use technology with responsibility!" – the Elder exclaimed – "The only and most important reason our organization was founded in the first place was when my ancestor witnessed what the Government of the United States was capable and willing to do with their fellow countrymen, the very people that trusted them! All because they were given gifts they didn't use the way they were meant to!" – he expressed passionately – "Whether to use such gifts destructively or selfishly is irrelevant. Everything that hinders progress is irresponsible usage of pre-War technology, such as what is happening here with these people."
Indeed.
"Can't you see you're contradicting yourself, Arthur?!" – McCready protested, his frustration making the sweeter the smoke Burke was having at the expense of the show both young men were giving. Ah, the sweetness of youth… – "You're preaching responsibility and all that fancy crap while simultaneously abusing your power to make those people bend to your will!"
"Codex above all, Knight: 'Shield yourself from those not bound to you by steel, for they are the blind. Aid them when you can, but lose not sight of yourself'." – Maxson replied inflexibly – "They are ignorant; thus, they do not know what is best for them in the long term." - he explained, pointing to the rusting vessel with an index finger to, immediately, orientate his gesture to encompass the Vertibirds and them as well - "We, on the other hand, do. And so, it is our duty to be responsible for them, since they cannot be trusted to make the right decision on their own."
"Oh, yeah? And that's the excuse you're gonna pull out your sleeve when they'll ask you why you are stealing from them?" – McCready challenged – "Because someone's fucking ignorant you have the right to decide for them?!"
"This isn't a philosophical debate but my orders, soldier!" – the Elder boomed, addressing the insubordinate little shit with an iron index pointing to his chest – "I have already explained myself, which is more than what any other in my position would have humored coming from an irreverent Knight!" – turning around to face the aircraft carrier of a city again, he added coldly – "However, if you find my policies on strategy questionable, maybe you should also question your place among our ranks as well, McCready."
The interpellated closed his big mouth, his lips turning a grim, angry line, whereas his skinny jaw twitched once. His eyes dull as he nodded in silence to himself.
Enjoying himself as he had been witnessing the heated debate between the youngsters, Burke's smile turned reptilian the moment he saw the foul-mouthed adolescent stepping aside, clearly not wanting anything to do with what was about to happen in the next coming hours.
A pity the East Brotherhood didn't retain the pre-War notion of holding a court-martial against a subordinate questioning orders from their highest rank authority but simply conducted themselves by the dogmas of the Chain That Binds.
If the little cretin had been born Enclave, the repercussions would have been worse than the chance of being stripped of rank and title.
Burke would know. He could count himself lucky that his own court-martial had been a pantomime rigged right from the start.
Otherwise, attempting to re-program the entire inner network to sabotage the President's control over the base and learn his secrets would have gotten him in front of a firing squad.
When the first ray of dawn broke through the Earth's crust on the East, Ivory and his unlikely companion were literally drained.
The hours of darkness they had left behind had been an experience the ex-legionary wasn't looking to repeat any time soon. Between the unyielding cold that settled in the desert for twelve hours that had also drained their caloric reserves through uncontrollable trembling and the slight blood trail both of them had left in their wake from the telephone post where they had been crucified, thus, attracting carnivorous critters they had defended themselves from with the best of their abilities (thus, also, resulting in more scratches and fresh blood)… Between those two factors, their advancing had been halted on so many occasions throughout the night that they had been forced to abandon the main highway to avoid patrols.
Ivory knew they had less than two precious hours before his sensitive retinas would render further traveling impossible. He couldn't cross the desert in daylight without his tinted goggles.
"I see a cavity in-between two rocky salients around a couple of hundred feet ahead." – he informed Khadija, his tongue and throat raspy as sandpaper – "I say we take cover there and start a modest fire to cook some healing paste and meat."
He didn't add what the two of them already knew: that he was starving and the gecko bite on his left calf was killing him.
At least that same bite coming from a stray hatchling had earned them a modest meal out of the lizard's small carcass.
It took a pathetically obscene amount of time for them to reach the aforesaid cavity and even more to secure their camp before gathering twigs and leaves to light a fire.
Their stomachs growled with impertinence throughout the entire process until they were able to cook the gecko meat and satiate their hunger.
"Three Xander roots and one Broc flower." – Khadija mused, her fingers pinching the ingredients, recalling their form in her mind – "I can either cook a single dose that would work as effectively as ever or…" – she hesitated – "I can cook more paste for the both of us that will be less effective and will take more hours until the skin absorbs it."
"Cook it all." – Ivory replied tiredly – "We have all day for the paste to take effect."
Neither of them acknowledged that healing paste, whereas it sealed open wounds in less than three hours, it didn't help with either inner capillary spill, swelling, or limb trauma. That would require more dosages, hot water bottles, cataplasms, bandages, and lying on a stretcher for the next few days. Maybe a week.
And they didn't have the means or the time to get themselves to full health again until they managed to reach the northern frontier.
And the fact that Ivory could still make out Salt Lake City ruins in the distance, though barely, informed him that they weren't as far from Lanius' encampment as they should have been.
The paste felt too hot upon his sore muscles and burned skin, but he bit down his complaints. It would serve no purpose to him but to get his crutch far away from him once he opened his mouth.
He had never been soft or gentle with members of the opposite gender, and he was smart enough to realize how repellent an ex-slave would find the company of an ex-legionary if he but dared to disclose his shitty personality in front of her.
No, he had to be intelligent as long as he needed her by his side.
They lay close to each other on the hard, sandy ground. The bonfire's embers still warm near his back, where she had put them to soothe his multiple aches.
He allowed her to sleep first, spying the entrance of the rocky salient until the light was too much for his eyes to take, and he closed them.
He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until Khadija's shaking hands woke him.
"There's someone out there…" – she hissed, hyperventilating – "I don't know how many there are…"
The sniffing and heavy rawring got Ivory on his haunches in seconds, his hand clasping instinctively over the woman's mouth as soon as heavy steps put a pair of humongous, scaly hind legs at the entrance of their lair.
"Don't make a sound." – he whispered, hating how tense she went in a matter of seconds between his arms – "Deathclaw."
The beast remained at the entrance as if waiting for something; its disposition, surprisingly, was non-hostile but excited as it opened its powerful maw and allowed its long, slippery tongue out while a thread of saliva descended from the appendage's point to the ground, pooling at its feet.
Ivory noticed that the beast's eyes were an opaque, kind of milky shade.
A blind Deathclaw.
The ex-legionary was already about to whisper to his companion to stick to the cavity walls so they could confound the beast's senses when an unknown voice outside broke the unstable silence.
"Absyrtus!" – it exclaimed – "Come here, boy, come here…"
To Ivory's infinite awe, then dismay, a woman in her early twenties dressed in raider armor arrived by the beast's side and cooed it until it hunched towards the considerably shorter human figure and rested its portentous, horned head between her hands, allowing the raider to scratch under its drooling maw.
"Aw." – she cooed again, using a baby-talking voice that, to the albino, felt entirely out of place and context – "You have discovered yet another molerat nest, ain'tcha?"
The beast's answer was a low, rumbling purr before taking its long tongue to the raider's face, giving it a thorough wash.
The woman raider giggled a bit, absolutely unfazed by the slime now covering her face until she peered inside the cavity, and her eyes took on the two paralyzed silhouettes holding one another in a fly-or-fight frozen response.
"Shit…" – they heard her saying until she turned around to give a shoutout, allowing Ivory a brief peek at the ink pattern covering her neck and collarbone: a snake – "Commander! I think you should see this!"
A Viper.
The answer came almost immediately with various sets of footwear and several arms bearing a wide range of weapons that passed from plain spears to Power Fists.
Then, a tall, wiry female silhouette dressed in a mixture of camo and tribal armor with a bulletproof vest and a Power Fist equipped in each hand made her way to the entrance, unflinching as she shoved one of the blind Deathclaw's paws aside.
Whereas Ivory didn't recognize her face in the gloom, he knew the pattern of the warpaint she wore on her vest, where white dreadlocks cascaded upon from above tinted biker goggles.
The pattern that every single Chosen Daughter of Hecate earned upon having slain a certain number of legionaries and brought proof of their deaths to their Lady: Trimorphe.
And there was only one Commander among the Daughters of Hecate.
Artemis. The Moonchild Huntress.
"Take the woman away and tend to her wounds." – was the Huntress' immediate command, her voice darkening as she added – "Chain the legionary."
Craig Joseph Boone awoke the same he had been rendered unconscious: violently.
His eyes immediately resented the artificial light inside the terminal Concourse as he held his right hand in front of them.
So… Huh. Figures. Alive after all…
He couldn't say that he wasn't disappointed.
"He's awake!" – he heard someone saying, and before he could react, there it was Gannon's damnable pen lantern falling upon his fucking eyes.
He would have snatched the stupid gadget to throw it as far as possible if it hadn't been for the thinnest pair of arms ever that immediately surrounded his thorax to squeeze him mercilessly.
"Boone!" – then, as if coming out of the fog that still surrounded his mind, there she was. Spiky short hair, mousey voice, and eyes the size of the moon that were, right now, soaking his shirt a little bit – "I was so worried! I…"
Nevertheless, instead of allowing her calming presence to wash over him as he always allowed her to, Boone grabbed her by her bony shoulders to give her a thorough look.
"Girlie…" – he rasped, his tongue dry as the desert, his still foggy mind picking an increasingly alarming pace – "You hurt?"
She shook her head so quickly that the longest parts of her hair gave her a momentary black halo.
"No." – she denied – "How're you feeling, Boone? You okay?"
Then, he recalled something.
"No." – he rasped again, his voice darkening – "Not until I've got my hands on those bastard Legion spies."
He tried to get up from his stretcher until Lily's enormous hand put him forcibly back in place.
"Your wounds are still too tender, dear." – the big grandma chided him in her booming way – "You cannot go play around until the doctor says so."
"And the doctor isn't giving his blessing yet, thank you very much." – was Gannon's vitriolic observation, eyeing Boone behind his glasses with a disapproving frown – "Besides, the doctor is actually sorely tempted to undo his hard work by punching a certain someone in the face regardless if that can leave a lasting mark through the healing process."
"You couldn't throw a decent punch even if you tried, Doc." – the voice of the tumbleweed guffawed in the distant background – "You're too delicate for that."
"Don't tempt me just yet." – was the blonde medic's dry reply.
Taking his left hand to his face, Boone felt the bandages and gauze patches all over his arm, his chest, throat, and mandible. The fingertips peeking from under those bandages were all scarred and oddly reddish.
"You were fortunate you didn't lose your left eye, ear, and even your sense of hearing." – the Follower told him sternly – "It was a headache to reconstruct your bleeding eardrum. Do you know how many different types of bacteria could have ended up in your middle and inner ear with all the rubble that explosion created?!" – he exclaimed, worsening Boone's already incipient headache – "What the hell were you thinking?!"
The explosion… he had been too late. He hadn't been able to turn the damn explosive off.
"You were tasked with taking care of Six throughout the investigation, and this is what you do?! Exposing her to unnecessary danger just because you really, REALLY want to swell the list of heroic suicides among the NCR military?!"
"Arcade!"
"Don't 'Arcade' me, Veronica! Not in this one! If he wants to kill himself, I'm not going to stop him anymore; but I'm not going to allow him to drag someone else into his self-scourging walk through misery! He could have gotten Six killed, for God's sake!"
That… stung. Even if it took Boone a few seconds to acknowledge the consequences of his actions.
He had forgotten that he hadn't been alone. That the girlie had been there with him.
He had forgotten that his one-man crusade had ended long ago at that place down the river… with the auction… with Carla…
He wasn't aware of the single tear that had slid down his cheek until the girlie's tiny fingers swept it from his jaw.
And then, he had given up. Given up on everything. About feigning not giving a damn. About denying that he was still capable of bleeding. About holding it together like he had been consistently doing since that night when his almost perfect life with a perfect wife and an even more perfect unborn son had been violently truncated by a bunch of savages in red and greed translated into one thousand bloodstained bottle caps.
He had allowed the girlie to cradle him on her small shoulder, and he had held onto her for dear life like a drowning man amidst the sea. Faces of shocked, consternated, muted people he knew blurring in the background, his entire being shaking, giving in, embracing the pain in a way he hadn't allowed himself to since he had enlisted. Since this stupid war had begun.
Not far away, though, two silhouettes resting against opposite walls eyed the scene with very different sets of eyes, processing very different feelings.
Galvanic blue, mismatched eyes pertaining to the least personality likely knowing the meaning of empathy (at least toward what he still considered a Republican dog, that is), were squinting in a confused, conflicted gaze that kept consistently coming and going from the dejected man over the gurney to the girl holding him.
The owner of such traits didn't like the discomfort the scene awoke in him or how difficult it was to keep his sight on a grown man crying in utter silence for more than a few seconds.
So, he stuck to the shadows, where he pertained, even when he dared a discrete approach.
Dark brown eyes under the shadow of a camo beret on his opposite side analyzed the scene pensively.
Someone was lying. Either the soldiers that were supposed to be on guard duty at the station's doors or the Courier and her pretty boy.
Versions didn't match; the shifts had been too convenient. Too synchronized.
She had already interrogated all the witnesses, and nobody but the Courier and her two allies had been present when the train had exploded, the rest coming in waves afterward.
Something smelled fishy, and the man's initial words upon regaining consciousness had given her some meat to chew on.
He had said: 'Not until I've got my hands on those bastard Legion spies.'
The keywords here being the plural pronoun and substantives.
She saw the pretty boy skulking around to get behind the woman with the pneumatic gauntlet as if he had been there right from the start. Sneaky, that one.
Lieutenant Carrie Boyd didn't want to shove more troubles over the Colonel's already-packed desk, and even less now when the food processor was operative again and the commercial agreements with different food suppliers had been sealed.
The Courier's group had been an indisputable source of comfort and help since they had brought down the Fiends for good.
But Boyd wasn't as blinded as the rest of the camp by the girl's apparent angelic glow yet. Even less since her interrogation of the Lieutenant's Centurion prisoner had resulted in the man submerging in a coma that not even Doctor Kemp had been able to explain yet.
True that the man had been abused to the point of unconsciousness… but, to her knowledge, nobody had ever become comatose after a beating. Not on her watch.
This stank of a setup, and she wasn't going to gulp down the pill without making some checkups.
And she was going to start by making the ex-First Recon answer a couple of questions for her.
A/N: ... took me ages to finish this chapter, and here's why: too complex dialogues I didn't know how to construct; too much delving into Oxhorn's videos on Lore and theories; too many hours snatching captures from Washington DC and Utah in Google Maps to situate the characters; too much time spent in trying both Arthur Maxson and McCready to sound like what they might have been in their teens... too much time recalling and looking for Fallout 3 events and characters. I barely remembered how the Citadel worked, and it shows.
To Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R... your comments never cease to amaze me. I giggled a lot with your comedic recreation of Vulpes and Six's dialogue ("You're completely overreacting." priceless xD), and the Dyslexic Font was actually very interesting! Didn't know such a thing even existed.
Anyway, sorry for the delay. Besides all the stuff I've commented on before, here's the thing: I'm an insane perfectionist and went through a revision of the first 13 chapters of this fic to make them more legible, given that I've learned a lot since I started this story.
I will try not to delay so much the next update, but please be patient with me. Cheers!
