"Number Nine"
Ch. 25: Painkiller.
"I have one sleepy eye,
the other one is wet and wants to cry.
I have one sleepy head
I really just want to go to bed
And take a
Pain-pain-pain-killer
Pain-pain-pain-killer
Pain-pain-pain-killer
Painkiller kill the pain."
- Siri Svegler, "Painkiller"
In all his twenty years of life, Vulpes had never been inside an oil-based automotive vehicle.
Or, more specifically, a moving oil-based automotive vehicle, that is.
It woke a strange yet not quite unpleasant tingling in his stomach. There was something undoubtedly peculiar about experiencing velocity this way. It made him wonder what it would be like to drive one of these… whatever they called them.
Trucks, he had heard that Lieutenant Gorobets calling them?
NCR standard transport vehicles, whether to move goods, supplies, or soldiers. They resembled those derelict trailers one still can see rusting all over the Mojave two hundred years after the bombs, most prominently throughout the uphill of the Long 15 to the Mojave Outpost… but smaller, lighter.
For starters, the roof covering was a vast canvas mounted over a frame composed of metallic arches screwed into the transporting platform where they were currently sitting.
Over sacks filled with sand. The very ones the Republicans used piled as barricades.
He couldn't say it was the most comfortable thing in the world, but he wasn't complaining… much.
Which still left plenty of room for improvement. Namely, having to currently wear the itchy, heavy, and asphyxiating fatigues of the standard NCR uniform inside a reduced space along with another seventeen people and a cyberdog.
Before departing, they had been instructed to don NCR field uniforms in order to maintain visual cohesion with the men they were going to work with.
Since skirmishes tended to be on the chaotic side and the ex-convicts had had all the time in the world to lead raiding parties assaulting travelers and caravans throughout all these months since the prison break, they couldn't be sure that some of them wouldn't don a disguise out of stolen outfits to escape if things started going awry for them.
It had sounded reasonable and even a very refreshing preventive strategy coming from a faction as sloppy and disorganized as the NCR… but now, cooking inside the damned military fatigues as he was, Vulpes wished longingly for one of his tunics and the light armor the breastplate, kneepads, and shoulder pauldrons provided to tread through this unsurmountable heat without becoming a living kebab.
Now he understood that recurrent catchphrase that was so popular as an inner joke among NCR troopers: 'Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.'
Around him, the mood seemed to be pervasive: Gannon couldn't stop fanning his face with his trooper helmet in one hand while he kept putting the frame of his slippery spectacles back in place for the umpteenth time with the other; Becky had kept gulping down consistently one bottle after the next of purified water, and the empty shells piled at her feet now counted seven since they had departed from the camp; Cassidy's face was so red every single freckle on it was glowing like emergency bulbs; and Raul wouldn't stop going on intermittent tirades of whining in Spanish such as "Ay, mamita, me cuezo", "Uno está ya demasiado viejo para estas pendejadas, hombre. Casi mejor irradiado que asado", or "Si lo que ustedes querían era Raúl a las finas hierbas, acá lo tienen, sí señor". (1)
Even Gabban and the others (yes, because now saying buh-bye to the Republicans when they were going to accomplish an operation as delicate as this one was bound to sound suspicious no matter how you looked at it… so they had forcibly come with the package… yet again… like the plague that they were starting to become…) seemed overwhelmed. For there was Titus blowing futilely under the lowered scarf of his uniform, whereas the rest either wiped their sweaty hands wherever they could… or were currently containing nausea with the best of their abilities since Vulpes wasn't the only one experiencing the automotive perks of a vehicle for the first time. Apparently, it wasn't for every stomach.
Since Lily was wearing her usual supermutant-adapted attire, she wasn't complaining at all as she snored placidly by Becky's side. Lucky grandma.
The ones who looked completely unfazed by the distinctive – and visibly heavy – armor they were wearing were the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion with whom they had shared tent at McCarran: the Slavic Lieutenant Gorobets (Sullivan said that his surname came from a part of the globe called 'Ukraine', thus making him part of this 'Slavic' ethnicity, pretty much like those with surnames of 'Russian' origin. She had even shown him a pre-War world map to point him to where these Ukraine and Russia countries were supposed to be before the bombs. He had never suspected that the world could be so huge, very interesting); the silent Bitter-Root; the stuttering young man that went by the name of Ten of Spades… and the latter's companion, the feminine version of the gruffy Republican dog, Betsy.
And, speaking of the Republican dog… he was behaving unusually quiet and compliant since the bomb incident.
Not one nasty stare, not one dismissive comment, or even openly hostile body language every time the Master Frumentarius happened to get too close to Sullivan.
Which, if Vulpes was completely honest, tended to happen quite often as of late, even if he wasn't actively seeking her company. Nevertheless, he would be lying if he qualified those occasions as mere accidental happenstances.
Such as when everyone had gotten seats in the truck and the two of them instinctively synchronized to end up sitting hip-to-hip.
Not that he minded at all… but since that strange conversation inside the derelict plane about being friends, he wasn't sure how he should behave around her anymore.
The 'friend' tag wasn't something he had been expecting to get out of their strange relationship, and he hadn't the faintest clue as to how he should manage it.
Whenever he thought about a friend, his siblings' faces were the only thing that came to his mind.
Gabban (regardless if, right now, they weren't on speaking terms since the fight) had been primarily the closest thing Vulpes had ever associated with the image of a friend: close age, same gender, same training, same profession, similar food tastes, having read the same books… and, above all: same circumstances.
True that Vulpes was still the oldest, and he treated Gabban as one would do to a younger sibling… but Gabban had been there throughout his entire life and knew him better than anybody.
Alexus… well, she moved in another entirely different tune than Gabban. Since she had been promoted to Decanus, she wasn't letting go of her delirious ideas of battle and glory, no matter how many times Vulpes had attempted to reconduct her path to subtlety and, most importantly: safety.
He and Alexus were too alike to refrain from butting heads at the minimum chance, but she was his sister above everything, and he understood that she could harbor ambitions amidst a society where she wasn't meant to be… yet.
Then, finally, Lupus was more of a… pup that Vulpes first needed to instruct, alphabetize, and be sure he didn't end up under the orders of an incompetent Decanus when he would be of age rather than share his thoughts with him. The thoughts of an adult shouldn't be a child's burden.
That was all the experience with friends he had.
Or thought he had.
He still needed to figure out how to catalog the relationships he had developed with some of the people in this group. Namely Becky and Raul, for starters.
And then, that got us back to Sullivan.
Could one really be friends with someone you wanted to… let's say, without further adornment, fuck senseless? Preferably until she becomes aphonic from screaming his name, and he gets deaf from listening to her doing so again and again? Kind of?
Alright, perhaps that sounded a bit over the top, but that was the general idea.
There was way more than lust playing here, alright… but the lust was there nonetheless. It was veeery there.
And it didn't help him to elucidate what to do with this new situation when she was sitting this close, with this overwhelming heat around, and her small right hand surreptitiously worming its way to his left one so nobody could see them, hooking her small finger with his.
She was sweating pretty much like everybody else inside this stewpot on wheels… and the only thing that was insistently coming to his dirty mind was licking, one by one, every single bead sliding down her throat like some desperate dog.
See? Even if he wasn't actively looking to get enticed, there goes his imagination.
It must be this horrible heat frying his grey matter until he would be rendered horny and stupid. Definitely.
As if sensing his restlessness, Rex raised his head and directed him a questioning whine while cocking his head to a side.
"Arooo?" – Sullivan responded in kind to the animal, earning gentle lapping at her free hand.
Vulpes didn't understand shit. At all.
Meanwhile, he heard Gabban retching violently as he put a hand over his mouth to avoid throwing up, whereas the huge silhouette of Cassius by his right wasn't faring any better, head between legs while his cousin supported him.
Felix had barely spoken since the Fiend incident at the sewers.
"Careful there, Blondie Boy." – the Corporal woman teased – "Last thing we need is your stomach contents smeared all over the upholstery." – the moment she received a silent middle finger for an answer, she roared in laughter.
"Lieutenant!" – the driver exclaimed suddenly – "Primm's in sight!"
Gorobets got up from his seat and advanced to the driver's cabin, gently dodging Lily's slumbering form to exchange a few muffled words with the man.
Not five minutes later, the vehicle began diminishing speed until they parked.
At the Lieutenant's signal, everybody got out of the truck; Vulpes' small finger was still within Sullivan's grasp.
"Where's Lily?" – the young man asked once everybody else was out and the Nightkin was nowhere in sight.
Sullivan gave him a confused look until he disentangled his finger from hers and returned to the truck, leaving the girl behind with a lost, longing expression as she watched him disappear into the dark again.
"Lily?" – he called, suddenly unsure how to approach the still-asleep big grandma, putting a cautious hand over her giant shoulder until the supermutant's incessant snores came to a halt, and she stretched a little bit before opening her mouth.
"Jimmy?" – she asked – "Have we arrived yet?"
Vulpes repressed the long sigh that threatened to escape from his mouth.
"Yes, grandma." – was his monochord reply, willing himself to play along with her dementia – "We have."
He wasn't sure how to feel when the Nightkin unfolded a slight smile, so uncommon in her, who always wore the same default facial expression her FEV condition had forced onto her muscles.
"Awww." – the mutated woman cooed in her booming baritone voice – "Such a good boy you are, coming to wake old sleepyhead me. Come give your grandma some sugar!"
If alarmed and with his mind going full speed into how much of a déjà vu this felt, Vulpes tensed but allowed the Nightkin to wrap him into a close, though careful embrace. He had learned long ago that Lily, despite her size and appearance, could be immensely gentle, and she wouldn't hurt him.
Somehow, he realized, he felt safe around her. He trusted her.
Two feelings he had thought he wouldn't ever associate with a supermutant.
He patted her midsection nervously as he wasn't able to encircle her whole girth, and then, the giant granny released him.
He was slightly put off when she kept eyeing him through her goggles.
"Look at you, sweetness!" – she exclaimed as gently as her voice permitted her – "All tall and grown-up... and so handsome!" – she gave him another of her strange smiles – "My, soon you'll be a man, and you'll have to choose who you want to be out there." – she sighed dreamily – "Maybe you'll end up becoming a doctor, or an engineer… or even a President! Grandma's little President…"
This conversation should have felt ridiculous and not so surrealistically… close.
Close to something he hadn't given a single thought… until today.
"Darling, you are smart. A lot smarter than the rest of your half-siblings. You cannot possibly aspire to simply become one of the tribe's hunters when you would be of age! There is a whole world outside this valley. A world with machines, science, and technology waiting to be unearthed from abandoned Vaults! A world where everybody else speaks English. A world where being a hunter is not enough to survive. In the outside world, you will need knowledge and cunning to counter worse dangers than a Yao Guai. In the world of the men in red, you have to be quicker, stronger, and a lot smarter than the tribesmen that merely hunt animals."
"What do the men in red hunt, mom?"
Only that he had never been asked who he had wanted to be, but instead told what he should be.
"People, darling. They hunt people."
He had never asked her why she hadn't looked for an abandoned Vault to see if she could unearth those technologies she spoke about and be the one hunting the men in red. Why wouldn't she become the predator instead of the prey.
Why did it have to be him.
"Tell grandma, sweetheart: have you already decided who you want to be?" – Lily asked, bringing him back to the present.
Who did he want to…? Did he really have options, anyway?
As if his silence had been all the answer the Nightkin had needed, she got up from her seat and messed lightly with his already overgrown hair before adding:
"Well now, darling. You still have plenty of time before making the important decision, right?"
If he didn't know better, he would say that Lily was way more perceptive than everybody else gave her credit for.
"Yes, grandma." – he answered weakly, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears.
"That's my boy." – she replied, satisfied enough to accompany him outside the asphyxiating truck.
Outside memories of a lush valley where greenery now bloomed crimson under the Bull's hooves.
Boone went through all the usual formalities between them and Lieutenant Hayes - the officer in charge of Primm's NCR encampment whose forces had been charged with the containment of the Powder Gangers – with a grave face.
Not only Hayes' men were lacking on the number department enough to even consider taking up a prison now populated – no matter the surrounding encampments and the rogue ones who had gone with Cooke - by a number of over a thousand ex-convicts… but the raids those very convicts had been conducting up North the Long 15 to subsist had left loads and loads of corpses… from male merchants and bodyguards.
The female members of caravan groups usually either disappeared… or reappeared a short time after in a state so poor that not many of them managed to make it alive to the nearest Followers' outpost.
He wasn't just worried about what may happen to women troopers and the female components of their group - most notably the girlie, of course… but he didn't have the stomach for the chance of Corporal Betsy going through the same hell she had endured with Cook-Cook.
Boone didn't want to imagine what would have been being in the center of every single gossip going throughout McCarran, with everybody feeling sorry for her, knowing they were aware of what had happened to her, giving away for free pity that, maybe, Betsy had loathed receiving.
Any soldier would be miserable knowing they were regarded as a soldier no more but as a victim instead.
That was no morale boost any day.
Nevertheless, a good part of Hayes' boys was meant to stay near Primm regardless of the new sheriff in town (yet another of the girlie's 'little adventures' before Novac, running around with that pile of floating junk now sitting decommissioned at the Lucky); mainly because they needed to act as a contention wall to hold back the ex-convicts that may escape down South to the Mojave Outpost.
Yet again, not because the brass gave a damn about civilians. If they weren't NCR – thus, paying taxes just like every-fucking-body else – they weren't worth the trouble.
The thought sent an itching, uncomfortable sensation all down his left arm, where scarred tissue still felt tender.
That was another reason why, despite missing the military life so much, Boone wasn't going to give the Republic a second chance just yet.
First, he had yet to see them doing something to counter the Legion's advance over the territory on their own and stop delegating on random strangers and mercs.
That was how intel leaked out of the encampments. And Legion, no matter how much he despised them, paid way better than the Republic. Well enough for someone greedy or desperate enough to question their loyalties.
"Are you completely sure that the station entrance was guardless, Sergeant?"
Boyd's indirect accusations hadn't boded well with him either. His whole arm and left side of his face had itched as if countless worms had been meandering under his skin.
"Are you accusing me of lying, Lieutenant? Because, if that's the case, state it explicitly and stop playing mind games with me."
But the implications of the woman's following words had made his blood boil.
"Just contrasting versions. And yours doesn't quite add to the night shift's. Those boys swear they were on their posts when the explosion happened."
"Maybe they were once it happened, but not before. Either they're lying because they decided to take some extra time off having a smoke or something without thinking about the implications of them leaving their post for a few minutes… or they're lying because they had some vested interest in leaving their post unprotected before the explosion."
He had done the correct thing.
"Now, the one talking in riddles is you, Sergeant. Speak your mind freely."
He still was a professional, unlike them.
"You've got at least two more Legion spies inside the fucking camp, Lieutenant. And, what a fucking surprise, the night shift is composed of two people. If they're both young blokes, do the math yourself."
"And what about the guards inside the train station? Those were absent when you and the Courier also broke in without authorization?"
"To ask for authorization when there's the threat of a bomb about to explode is like pushing the button yourself, Lieutenant."
"I'm willing to concede you that, Sergeant, but what about those coincidental absences when you were supposed to disarm the bomb but failed at the very last minute? Forgive me if I cannot help but connect the dots to conclude that this screams 'setup' out loud."
"Guard duty responsibilities within McCarran ain't ours to assume."
"The same happened with this inner investigation, yet you managed to get the Colonel's approval within a day by worming your way through other apparently unrelated investigations."
There we go. Again with the work intrusion stuff.
"We're here to collaborate in House's name. The Treaty contemplates mutual support to keep relations going smoothly between the Republic and New Vegas."
He hadn't meant to, but politics had been the only argument Boyd couldn't refute without straining the rope.
"Yet your arrival has, somehow, prompted these Legion spies to put their plan into motion. A plan that cannot possibly be achieved by a reduced force of only three people, if you ask me."
"Maybe Hsu has a whole unit of rats roaming around his encampment."
"Or maybe the Courier and her friends aren't as saintly as everyone else wants to believe around here."
Boone would have broken Boyd's jaw with a well-directed punch regardless of her gender and status… if it hadn't been because he had known that he had been walking on thin ice with the Lieutenant.
Thin ice that could get them in front of a court-martial. And law still applied to NCR citizenship regardless of political affiliation. The tumbleweed and him, at minimum, could be sentenced to life imprisonment with forced labor.
And he didn't picture House interceding for anyone other than the girlie. If even.
"We aren't working with the Legion." – he had stated sternly – "I would never allow it. Never."
The woman had given him a critical look before starting to talk again.
"Given your… particular history with them, Sergeant… from you, I can believe such a statement." – crossing her arms, she had added – "Which I cannot say the same regarding the rest of your group, the Courier included. I trust you know the kind of company you are entertaining."
"Believe me, Lieutenant: the legionnaire I'm catching under my watch is a dead legionnaire."
"Very well, then, I suppose I can trust that this conversation wouldn't get out of this office the same I can trust that you will sleep with an open eye. Just in case. We're always willing to receive with open arms a loyal citizen willing to share information… if, for some unfathomable reason, said citizen would discover that he had been led astray by the very people he trusts."
"Will keep that in mind, Lieutenant."
"Splendid. Then, that will be all, Sergeant. Carry on."
On one hand, the woman had been so sure… and he, on the other hand, hadn't been among the living to overhear anything to refute any likely falsehood. The one giving the official version of the events had been the girlie, and her version coincided with everything he recalled before the explosion.
Why would Boyd suspect them in the first place if they had been the ones carrying on with the investigation with Hsu pertinently informed about the spy issue beforehand?
Something didn't add up.
And then again, why entrust them with this mission if they were under suspicion?
Why allow them to leave McCarran at all?
"It took months to get authorization for this assault." – he heard Hayes saying, his tent already overcrowded by the 1st Recon Battalion, himself, the girlie, and the slimy albino, who now was getting a seat at every single deal they had with the NCR despite not having anything to do with them, unlike Arcade, who was a Follower and even him hadn't been invited – "We've only recently gotten support from the Mojave Outpost in the form of a squad of Rangers and three platoons of volunteer troopers Colonel Royez has sent in from the southern Long 15 Encampment, so at least they're fresh." – the Lieutenant admitted – "Since I'm in charge of the point of containment, Sergeant Lee will be the one leading the assault." – he added, signaling the quiet Asian man sitting by his right. Boone caught the girlie squirming at the guy's sight, and the albino charlatan wasted no time grabbing one of her little hands under the table – "Sergeant, proceed."
Nodding vigorously, Lee started talking.
"Thank you, sir." – he replied – "From our patrols, we know that we've got the surprise element on our side, and that's about it. Once we blow a gap in the fence, we've got to pour on the fire and keep them disorganized. Our goal's to take out their leader, some assbag named Edward O'Halloran or, as his goons know him, just 'Eddie'. With the ringleader gone, the rest will fold."
"Not so sure about that." – the girlie interceded timidly – "I've dealt with the Powder Gangers in the past, mostly for the sake of getting the gist on their powder charges, and they have quite a few names among them that don't fold by Eddie's leadership. Two in particular: Joe Cobb and a man that calls himself Chavez, who now are smaller ringleaders assaulting caravans throughout the northern part of the Long 15. I say we take those two out first before they alert the rest of our presence in order to gain adepts among the outer Powder Ganger camps."
"We have counted the number of outer camps as four." – Lee confirmed.
"Plus, the guys staying near the Jean Sky Diving, the subgroups at two consecutive caravan wreckages Northeast along the road, and the cave Southeast of the very prison." – the girlie informed – "Maybe the caravan wreckages, being as they are a bunch of months old, are of no use at this point… But what I can guarantee is the moving of Chavez and his goons from the southern camp. Since there are not many places an ex-convict that refuses to hang the uniform can go, I would check the farmsteads around Vault 19." - she smiled tiredly as the officers eyed her with no small amount of surprise disguised with a touch of suspicion – "As I've said: they're all over the territory, and we cannot cut the head of the Hydra without risking two more grow in its place. The Fiends were containing them but a couple of weeks ago, and once they realize they have the path clear up North, they aren't going to stay in the same place for much longer." – sighing heavily, she added – "I have contrasted several maps with Colonel Hsu, and he says that Chavez and Cobb must be eliminated as well."
She hadn't brought up Samuel Cooke even once. That was maybe for the best, though.
"What do you suggest then, Courier?" – Lee asked.
However, before she could answer, the creepy lanky shit opened his oily trap.
"Chavez isn't going to prove a challenge at all to find: he's at the El Dorado Gas & Service station, Northeast of HELIOS One." – he said, giving all the astonished present people a condescending smile as if revealing this were but a small thing to him, a treat he was giving up for free – "Check your reports on recent criminal activities near the 188 Trading Post in the last three months and put two and two together. It's no secret at all, but only natural that he would use an old Viper nest as his new hideout since the unholy triad composed by Quarry Junction, the Hidden Valley, and Black Mountain is of no use to a small-time raider like him, given that Sloan has next to no economy, to begin with, thus, no easy pickings in miles around without clashing with Eddie's men. And, between Deathclaws and supermutants, at least you can be sure who are the ones more prone to be fooled if you are sneaky enough… and can avoid the Centaurs' noses, of course." – he was having fun at this. Boone could swear that the little shit, deep inside, was laughing at their expense, and the ex-sniper wasn't any near to getting the joke the same he could only tell all of this just because of a hunch he had had since the very instant the charlatan had joined their group, not because he had any solid proof against him – "Regarding Joe Cobb… I can only but speculate that his best chances at survival out of Eddie's scope are either the Devil's Gullet, Southwest of the Yangtze Memorial… or the very Goodsprings." – he said – "That... providing he hasn't managed to slip beneath notice down South to entrench himself at the ruins of Nipton, since the Southwest isn't a choice and the rest of the Southeast is Jackals', then Legion territory near the river."
"No Powder Ganger has managed to get through our defense line to this day, I assure you." – Hayes replied almost too quickly, too forcefully.
"Of course, Lieutenant, of course." – the slimy bastard had replied with a very condescending smile, a smile that Boone didn't like one bit – "I'm merely ruling out options."
How in the holy fuck would he know all of that? Boone knew that the little shit was a brainy schemer, alright… but this worked in an entirely different league than being part of a tribal gang operating in Vegas.
Who were this bunch of howling, sharp-dressed losers?
The girlie had paled significantly, and Boone was about to ask her if she was okay when Betsy put her two cents on the situation.
"To me, the strategy is clear: we send in two Ranger scouts to confirm to us the positions for both Cobb and Chavez." – she explained, leaning over the map over the table they were sitting around, her index finger hovering over the discussed points – "A small unit of… say, a couple of snipers, two Rangers, and seven guys from the Courier's 'stash' per ringleader will be waiting at an agreed point nearby, roughly one or two miles behind the scout, so they won't be spotted, and await instructions if one of the scumbags ends up being way too well-prepared for a single-unit attack." – she added, pointing blind spots around the Old Sloan National Conservation Area and Goodsprings – "Once secured the situation with the minor ringleaders, we get the surrounding encampments until we secure the prison so no-fucking-body else can get any ideas of leaving. Just the very same we did with the junkies at Vault 3. We're getting all of them."
"Besieging the outer rings to reduce the points of containment… interesting." – Lee admitted – "It will take us a bit more to get to Eddie, but this way, we'll secure the perimeter almost in its entirety, probably with fewer casualties in the long term." – satisfied, he concluded – "Give the order, Lieutenant, and we'll start the hunt right now."
Hayes gave them his blessing, checking his watch and setting the deployment within an hour. And then, the assembly was deemed finished.
While Lee was to inform his men about the change of plans, Boone couldn't help but notice that either the girlie or the charlatan were nowhere in sight.
A worrisome recurrent pattern as of late.
His left arm itched so, so much…
Six was about to have a panic attack.
It didn't help that the military fatigues the NCR had lent them for this operation were only apt for California's much more forgiving climate and not the searing heat of the Mojave in early April. Dehydration was making her slightly nauseous.
Besides the recent gathering inside that cooking pot of a tent, of course.
As if having to talk with Colonel Hsu hadn't been bad enough, now the NCR had decided that deploying all of their Asian-American military officers to work with her was the best idea ever.
Plus, as if this were not enough to put up with, there was her difficult legionary going all smug in front of the very noses of the NCR brass. As if all of this were just a game to him.
She wanted to scream. Badly.
And screaming – in a rather pathetic fashion, all things considered – did she the very moment she bumped into yet another Asian-American soldier at Primm's encampment.
"Hey, hey. What can Tyrone do for you?" – had been the too-friendly-for-her-shirt salutation the aforesaid trooper had delivered to her before she had squeaked as if being scalded.
The situation hadn't gotten any better when the guy had attempted to soothe her by asking if she was okay, putting a hand (that had tried to be comforting but had failed miserably at it) on her shoulder.
Her response?: regressing to the Mesozoic Era by giving the man frenetic Tyrannosaurus' hands while screeching in a very Pterodactyl-like manner.
That had been the panorama in which Zorro had found her, getting in control of the situation as soon as he had gotten ahold of her shoulders, redirecting her energetic thrashing far from her unsuspected victim, whereas he had merely mouthed 'dehydration' to the shocked soldier as he had taken her to a quieter location inside one of the ruined pre-War apartment blocks around the encampment's perimeter.
"Can I have my arm back now, Sullivan?"
Apparently, from the dinosaurs, she had moved to just ditch millennia of Darwinian evolution by becoming a tight-hugging chimpanzee.
Once she had released him, he did a few stretching exercises to shake numbness from his sequestered limb. It would have been hilarious if she hadn't been so shaken.
She was forced to gulp down a whole bottle of purified water before being allowed to speak. She admitted that rehydration coupled with sitting in mid-gloom far away from the burning sun did actually help.
"Why did you have to be so obvious?" – were the first words she managed to utter once she was sure her voice wouldn't sound the likes of a scared rat.
Admittedly, she could have phrased that better, for Zorro had arched a brow in question.
"Define 'obvious'." – he said slowly.
Sometimes she felt like he was playing difficult on purpose, just to annoy her.
"Really?" - she asked, tired and incredulous – "Couldn't you simply wait until leaving the tent to pose your theories regarding Chavez and Cobb's whereabouts so I can discreetly nudge the others in the right direction? Kind of?"
"I still don't see your point."
Smug bastard.
"No? And how about cluing a whole tent full of NCR servicemen regarding knowledge you aren't supposed to be in possession of?"
It hadn't helped his case that he had simply scoffed at that.
"Please, Sullivan, it's the NCR we are talking about." – he snorted, clearly as amused as she wasn't – "Besides, Chavez's gang location stopped being a secret a while ago when they were bold enough to test the aim of the Followers' guards at their own outpost near Lake Las Vegas. Even the very Radio New Vegas kept chanting the whole affair for a week after the altercation."
"You seem to be well-acquainted with Chavez's moves as of late, from what I see. I wasn't aware that such a small-time scumbag could be of any interest for… your uncle."
Then, again, that enigmatic smile gleamed in the semidarkness right before nearing his lips to her ear, putting the baby hairs on her forearms and nape on edge before whispering something to her.
"No shit!" – she gasped, her voice also considerably lower – "Then what happened at Quarry Junction…"
"All conveniently planned and negotiated." – he confirmed conspiratorially as if sharing some mischief with her, his voice a whisper as well – "An imbecile of his caliber wouldn't have been able to circle Black Mountain safely in the first place. Less to cross radscorpion territory near the Hidden Valley without risking a rogue stinger or two amidst the sandstorms."
If it wasn't because Legion's misogyny was still a sore topic for her, Six would have admired just how capable and inventive their Frumentarii were.
"Nevertheless, you shouldn't be so flippant as to underestimate the Republic this way." – she replied, unwilling to allow him to divert her attention from the main topic on hand. He could be the best among his peers… but he wasn't that good as to tangle someone who liked to consider herself his friend with his agile palaver – "If your plan is to silence Chavez before he can talk, go ahead with the East group. Just… don't show your cards this openly again, okay?"
It felt a little silly, besides incredibly vulnerable, to show her worry for him this way. To be vocal about… how much he meant to her.
"Oh, Sullivan, Sullivan…" – he purred in return – "If you only but got a glimpse of the whole card deck I am managing…"
She couldn't help but wonder if her old, non-random-amnesiac self would have entertained getting so close to someone who met all the requirements to get inside the Sleeper Program from her Vault… should he would have been a contemporary of hers.
Someone capable of laying whole populations to waste if he was ordered to do so. Someone who was the most perfect representation of a loyal soldier.
"Okay, James Bond, have it your way. But don't expect this Courier losing ass over saving yours just because you got too cocky for your own good."
Someone who, despite his chromosome disorder, had survived and thrived amidst the wild, irradiated Wasteland.
"Gods forbid you lose such an integral part of your anatomy on my account, dear Sullivan."
Her flirty, dummy legionary.
"You're naaaaaughty."
"Am I now?"
"Very."
"Perhaps the quid lies within your interpretation of my words instead of any actual implicit naughtiness."
"You implying I've got a dirty mind?"
"It is a possibility."
"YOU have a dirty mind by suggesting that kind of stuff. And for calling my butt 'integral'."
"It is also another possibility."
"Yeah? And what's the third possibility? That we both have dirty minds weaving naughty implications?"
"And there goes a profound conversation by turning it into a cross-purposes' one."
"Yeah, as profound as your naughtiness."
"It never ceases to amaze me your uncanny ability to turn a perfectly civilized conversation into plain banter."
"Did you doubt it, perchance?"
"Oh, absolutely not, dear Sullivan."
She also wondered if, prior to the two bullets, her old self would have considered it normal and perfectly innocent to sit on the lap of your male friend in the dark, exchanging teasing barbs, wanting nothing more than wiping that arrogant, beautiful smirk off his face with a kiss.
Daniel Ramiro Chávez had lived for the most part of his existence on the fringes of the law.
Now, he lived at the fringes of the road. Not bad, considering he could have done worse in this goddamned desert.
Way worse than allying himself temporally with a bunch of enslaving weirdos in skirts.
Since the Mojave Campaign had started many years ago, his luck had run short ambushing caravans going East with the troop deployments and migrations a good chunk of the population had gone through in the hopes of starting a new life in this godforsaken piece of land where nothing but honey mesquite, cacti, and fucking jalapeños thrived.
With the increasing military presence throughout the western part of Nevada, his options had been either trying his luck up to Idaho, where nobody knew what awaited ahead but the irradiated Wastes of the North; Oregon, where there was nothing but fucking irradiated snow, cultists, ghouls, weird mutated fauna, and fucked-up tribes… or moving East with the migrations.
Bad idea. A whole one-year sentence working the railroad like an animal had taught him that much.
Anyway, that General Oliver cocksucker could say whatever he wanted to say… but Chávez had seen way more Brotherhood of Steel than he would have liked scattered around all the fucking Old State of Nevada even after the HELIOS One fiasco. Operation Sunburst, he believed they had called it?
He had seen the scout parties not even fucking Deathclaws had been able to best in close quarters. It may have something to do with those Power Armors or the friggin' energy weapons they seemed to have ammo to last a whole century for.
And what had the NCR done to prevent having those tin soldiers prancing around the place like fucking Nightstalkers? Shit, that's what.
Maybe crossing mutie territory to nest up this close to the power plant hadn't been a good plan after all.
But it was either that or sucking Eddie's cock. And that was a no-no in Chávez's book.
Asshole wanted a cut? He could chop his jerking hand for all he cared.
Nobody said to Daniel Ramiro Fucking Chávez's face to relinquish the fruits of his hard work. Nobody.
So, it had been moving from the NCRCF's radius onto greener pastures. Figurately speaking, that is, since everything on the Mojave was fucking sand and Cazadores sticking stings and eggs in your ass when you weren't paying attention.
How he hated this desert.
Legion Dog Head had stuck to the end of the bargain, though. Quarry Junction went to hell, and they got out of Eddie's turf safely.
Those fruit-something guys were sneaky as fuck. And Dog Head could swing a chainsaw real quick against radscorpions.
Funny, that one. With the clipped accent, the solemn attitude, and shit, like a goddamned undertaker. With a face as sour as that one, Chávez couldn't believe those guys buggered one another. Bet them ex-tribals didn't even know what a quickie was. Oh, well, at least they weren't fucking weenies like the NCR.
If they didn't dress so fucking ridiculous, Chávez could even respect them.
All of this, he had kept pondering day in and out since they had gotten ahold of the old gas station. For pondering was the only distraction he had left while he waited for news from the other guys through the shitty yet effective method of communication through notes among the encampments. Cooke's idea. Wonder where the bastard was now.
Nevertheless, since Chávez couldn't read the few burned books and magazines they had found inside the gas station for the life of him, the only distraction he had was scanning the surroundings… besides raiding and the occasional cunt that came with it.
Fucking Skirts, why did they have to burn Whore Town down the road, anyway? The Mayor might have been a sleazy, greedy bastard, but the rumps and tits there had been damn fine.
"Shit." – he spat as he brought the cigarette pack to his mouth to catch one of the cylinders with the lips, getting up from his sitting position – "Jones, give me the fucking binoculars." – he demanded, already extending a hand toward the interpellated.
Once he got ahold of the requested item, he took a quick peek and blinked twice before putting the binoculars back in front of his eyes with disbelief.
There was this black, helmeted silhouette hobbling slightly toward the gas station upfront from the West. Unarmed, apparently.
Since their last raid at the 188, pickings were getting slim. Now, the caravans rather braved the Dry Lake than using conventional roads. Maybe this poor sod came from some fireant carnage out there.
Chávez was usually a patient man – he had to, being only backed by a very limited number of guys -, but the bloke was taking his sweet time before approaching them, walking as dandy as candy with that… wait… was that a fucking whole Riot Gear set?
Pickings were starting to beat louder by the second. One of those sets alone cost a small fortune.
He got ahold of one of those, Chávez would start considering taking a hike to Boulder City's Saloon. Total protection and anonymity were ensured by simply wearing such a thing.
This was a one-in-a-million opportunity he couldn't let escape.
Once the armored idiot got in their guns' action radius, Chávez nodded to the men, who passed the signal onto the others inside the building.
"You just walked into the wrong camp, my friend." – was how he greeted the other, unholstering his 9mm – "Hand over everything you've got, and we might let you live."
The guy stopped with his hands up at the very edge of the gas station's rusty roof, where the old compound didn't offer coverage.
They surrounded him in a matter of seconds.
"Take off the helmet and armor. Slowly."
Once again, compliant, the sod took his hands to his head to unclasp the helmet.
"What the…?!" – Chávez didn't get any chance to complete the sentence as his intact cigarette fell off his lips when, a bunch of shots later, all of his men lay face-down on the asphalt in a conjoined growing pool of blood.
The distraction was enough for the guy in black to disarm him with ease, leaving the Powder Ganger leader stunned.
"Goodbye, Chavez." – the voice, the motherfucking voice of…!
Ice-cold blue eyes and wavy white hair were the last things his eyes processed before his spine snapped and his brain, along with the rest of his body, disconnected for good.
Allowing the body to fall heavily onto searing asphalt, Vulpes picked his helmet off the ground with one hand while he unclasped the walkie-talkie he carried on his tactical belt with the other. Bringing along the Pip-Boy would have been too suspicious, even for desperate raiders. Something as valuable as those Vault-Tec devices were nowadays a rarity, he had learned as of late, usually inherited from a grand-grand parent who used to be either a Vault dweller or a Prospector.
Luckily, his men could be trusted with its custody since Vulpes wasn't risking that one of the Republicans or Sullivan's friends would attempt to go through his notes.
"Rommel to Ghost-Vaquero. Target killed. I repeat, target killed. Do you copy?" – he said to the talkie's speaker while holding the pushing button.
The codenames had been Sullivan's idea. And who was he to argue with her for naming him after a General famous for the inventiveness of his field tactics that had also been nicknamed 'The Desert Fox'?
He didn't have to wait much for the answer.
"Loud and clear. That's some mean cojones (2) you pulled out there, chavo."
Vulpes snorted, secretly delighted.
"¿Otra vez diciendo palabras malsonantes, viejo?" – he replied in Spanish, holding the pushing button again – "Vamos a tener que lavarte la boca con lejía, me temo." (3)
At the other end, the ghoul cackled. The walkie-talkie produced a slight white noise before another voice addressed him.
"Got to admit, Tribal Boy, that was a risky move. How did you know he would bite?"
"Greed is an astoundingly pervasive trait among raiders, Miss Cassidy."
"Remind me never to set foot in your Psychiatrist's office if you ever set up one. You're one mean, dangerous son of a bitch."
"Who knows, Miss Cassidy, maybe I can turn your love for whiskey into a passion for humbler beverages, such as water."
"Ha, ha. Did you come up with that pick-up line on your own? Because your tactics suck even more than a Gomorrah whore on her knees."
"If I really wanted to ask you for a dance, Miss Cassidy, I would do so without further adornment. Which isn't the case since I suspect I would end with feet ache."
"Are you always like this with gals, or am I just that lucky?"
"Luck is but an illusion, Miss Cassidy. A mere social construction meant for alleviating the uncertainties of life."
"Okay, smartass, get your sweet existentialist cheeks back here. I think we've already done our part with Chavez."
"As you command, Miss Cassidy."
When he had offered to accompany the group which the Courier had gotten into in order to finish some Powder Ganger fuckwad named Joe Cobb, Gabban's intentions had stemmed more on the gathering intel side rather than actually helping.
Which he soon learned he couldn't avoid no matter what.
Weird as it felt helping the NCR fend off their hopeless war against ill planning, complete lack of foresight, and an overall shortage of firepower, his sights were more centered around the Courier's moves and how she tackled the situation.
Because, right now, Gabban's job was ensuring what his infatuated brother wouldn't be able to provide correctly to Caesar given the circumstances: information, planification, and cautionary measures should she prove to be the backstabbing schemer that Gabban suspected she was.
No matter that he was the first and foremost detractor against bringing her to The Fort. If Vulpes showed up without the girl after this unacceptably extended time frame picking daisies with her, he would be crucified or worse due to his scandalous incompetence.
Just the very same it happened to the Burned Man. No exceptions applied.
The Imperator had been quite explicit regarding his impatience over Vulpes' delay. And they were several weeks late already.
Gabban trusted that the report he would deliver with both the Fiends and the Powder Gangers neutralized, plus the Monorail destruction, would appease what would be, no doubt, one of the most dangerous reunions with the Son of Mars in all his nineteen years of life.
He himself could become a living, strung-up-on-a-cross warning should he end up on the receiving end of Caesar's wrath.
And the Imperator, lately, seemed even more volatile than strictly usual. His moods became more violent and erratic the more those migraines got in the way of his daily routine.
"Radio check. Captain Pumpkin here." – he suddenly heard the Courier's voice cutting through the walkie-talkie line – "Do you copy, Medicus?"
"Really? That's what I am now reduced to? My profession?"
"Yeah, welcome to my world. Besides, you wouldn't let me name you 'Gannon Fodder'."
"And due to good reasons, wouldn't you say?!"
"C'mon, it was funny!"
"I believe you and I don't share the same definition of fun, mi amica."
"You two done with your geeky stuff? We're still on some fuckheads' hunting." – finally, even as infuriating as she was, Recon Woman couldn't have come to the rescue at a more appropriate time before this turned into a circus – "Besides, Spades here had a burrito this morning, and he's giving me the fucking day."
"S-s-sorry!"
Oh, for fuck's sake…
"Okay, okay. Radio check again. Medicus, Furiosa, and Spades on air. Niña Bonita?" (4)
"As bonita as the day you met me, honey!"
How he hated the Courier band's inner jokes…
"Granny?"
"Hello, Pumpkin dear!" – Gabban almost went deaf from listening to the supermutant's loud greeting – "Leo, don't be rude and say hi!"
By Mars fucking balls…
"Redboone?"
"I'm here, girlie."
This was so fucking ridiculous…
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee?"
"Yeah."
"Yup."
"Archangel Miguel?"
"Sí, Mensajera." (5)
Even Cassius and…
"Archangel Gabriel?"
Why even the fuck he had to answer that?
"… Archangel Gabriel?"
Urgh…
"… Yes…"
"Rexie?"
The loud howling that came afterward was an outright violation of Gabban's eardrums, who almost began yelling obscenities that, should his stupid brother catch wind of them, he would carry his threat of washing his mouth with soap.
It didn't help that all these idiots laughed through the radio channel. The purpose of this wasn't to make a radio party full of retards, damnit!
"Okay, everyone on air. Out."
Finally.
Now, with all the idiotic stuff out, Gabban paid attention to the next course of radioed orders.
Apparently, the Powder Ganger leader Joe Cobb and his goons had effectively settled themselves in Goodsprings, running the town with an iron fist but allowing caravans and other wealthy drifters to buy and sell at the local general store and water at the wells, getting a cut out of the deal and the Saloon's services under the guise of Cobb flaunting the title of Mayor, who now was living at the local physician's old house, or so the Courier said.
All done with a simple reconnaissance with the participation of the woman with the Power Fist and the two Rangers feigning the merchant with bodyguards' part.
It should have been a simple ambush field tactic. Still, apparently, Cobb and his men had sort of 'adopted' an NCR rogue militia composed of some chick called Layla and her three fellow deserter thugs, who were acting both as guarding dogs and a sort of cover for Cobb's abduction, legitimizing their presence in Goodsprings as if the NCR had taken control instead, which helped to raise no suspicions among travelers, who went as clueless as they arrived.
This Layla sported a green beret, so she must have been some minor officer who had convinced her fellow soldiers to operate under her orders. And all of them got rifles and 10mm's, so the chances of a frontal attack without civilian casualties were slim at best, and they had patrols going in and out around the town and wells constantly.
Everybody had agreed on taking the wells first stealthily in the hopes of taking out the stationed guards there, plus the ones coming and going.
The supermutant, though enormous in size, proved to be extremely silent and inconspicuous while approaching the guards at the wells camouflaged with a Stealth Boy. Every one of their fragile craniums fell under her powerful hands to give their uniforms to the Courier's sniper cohort and the Rangers to blend in with the rest of the town thugs.
Meanwhile, the Courier, her Power Fist cohort, and the Recon Woman would be securing the perimeter by disabling the powder charges set around crucial points in town, such as Cobb's new home backyard, the Saloon's back room, and a hidden cache of dynamite near the town's outskirts. Miguel, the stuttering dude, the Follower's doctor, and he had been tasked with securing the civilians inside their homes.
Nobody saw anything until the Layla chick recognized one of the incognito Rangers, and then, firepower ensued.
Gabban got to admit that the Rangers were impressive when on guard - unlike what had happened at Ranger Station Charlie with every single one of them trapped inside their main building with Alex's men taking potshots at them -, for their combat moves quickly disarmed Layla and her men, who ended on their knees with their hands over their heads as the rest of Cobb's men entrenched themselves inside the Saloon since the local store had closed up immediately the firefight had started.
The Courier, being the one in charge of Cobb's house backyard had, somehow, gotten inside the building even though it didn't have an external basement entrance. Inside the house, a gun that didn't sound like a 10mm fired several times.
Whereas the rest were dealing with the Saloon situation, Gabban slipped away from the communal house up the cracked road to take a peek through one of the windows.
There was a bunch of furniture blocking the main corridor that went into the main entrance, where an Afro-American man with a goatee, dressed in a clean shirt and a pair of trousers with suspenders, was crouched down with a revolver in his hands. All of him trembling like a newborn brahmin calf.
"Don't you fucking come closer, you freak!" the man yelled, clearly frantic and completely terrified, to Gabban's surprise.
Intrigued, the Frumentarius angled his sight to the opposite side of the knocked-over furniture, squinting his eyes since the gloom inside didn't allow him a clear image of what was happening.
At some point, the man swiftly got up from his crouched position and fired his revolver blindly.
The unmistakable sound of a body hitting the wooden floorboards curdled Gabban's blood for a second until the brief triumphing snicker spreading across the man's face froze to turn into a gesture of pure horror.
"No… no… NO!" – the man yelled, kicking the door behind him open to start running aimlessly down the small hill on which the house was built, meeting an abrupt end at the end of the stuttering guy's rifle when he blew his head from the window sill from one of the houses.
Coming into the light pouring from the open door, with unstable, slow steps and a void expression, the Courier waded her way as if in slo-mo amongst the knocked furniture, grabbing onto chair legs and the metallic wheels of a hospital gurney.
The underside of her cranium bleeding profusely from a gunshot.
Why she still could walk and talk was a question Veronica had been systematically drilling inside her head so much for the last hour that it had already lost its initial meaning.
Now, it was plain staring. Trying to elucidate how a bullet can get through the Semispinalis Capitis muscle clean without touching a single vertebra and without, minimum, immobilizing the victim down to a state of pain so great they wouldn't be able to move, since so many nerve endings converged on that tiny chunk of flesh.
Either Six was the luckiest girl Veronica had ever met… or there was something Arcade wasn't telling them since it had been him the one who had examined, then patched up her wound.
Since the firefight with the Powder Gangers ended, resulting in several casualties on the ex-convicts' side while keeping the rest along with the NCR Army deserters as war prisoners, Six's behavior had drastically changed.
For some reason, many of Goodsprings' inhabitants blamed her for what had happened to them under Cobb's rule. To the point that some histrionic guy called Chet – the owner of the local store that had tightly shut the door the moment the shooting had started, the coward weasel – had yelled at her that this wouldn't have happened at all should she hadn't returned from the grave.
Boone had taken good care to show the weasel some good manners the way Veronica enjoyed the most: delivering a good punch right to his trap.
After all, violence was a universal language everyone understood down to perfection.
She would have added to the punching party, and, she suspected, the same was for Betsy if the weasel's bleeding mouth and nose wouldn't have been a symptom that the idiot had already had enough.
Although Veronica had yet to confirm that the asshole had swallowed a healthy percentage of his dental pieces, just in case. Punching was, after all, an art in itself that Veronica Santangelo prided herself on being a master at.
"Hey, girl." – the Scribe heard Betsy saying – "Where did you say we gotta rendezvous with your boyfriend?"
If Six had been okay, she would have blushed from head to toe while stuttering something along the lines of Jimmy not being her boyfriend.
But Six wasn't okay at all.
She merely directed an empty, unfocused look to the Corporal, whose teasing smile soon turned into a frown of concern.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like shit, girl." – she said – "You sure you're up to the task? Nobody would blame you for stepping aside given the circumstances; that wound looks ugly." – she added, pointing to Six's bandaged neck with her brows.
When the girl opened her mouth, Veronica had almost seconded Betsy in her assessment that, perhaps, she shouldn't continue at all.
"Northern Powder Ganger camp, six and a half miles from Goodsprings." – she replied to Betsy's earlier question – "Should be clear by now. Lee radioed a while ago." – short sentences, monochord voice, slow movements, nervous tics… Veronica didn't need a Medicine Degree to put two and two together – "I'm okay. Can do this."
As if bringing further emphasis to her words, Boone's hand landed atop her shoulder and brought the much smaller girl to his side, offering his silent comfort as they pushed East, the rest following in silence.
Nearing the Followers doctor, Veronica elbowed his ribs.
"Owch!" – the blonde man protested – "What was that for?"
"Don't you think you've overdone the Med-X this time, Arcade?" – Veronica chided, deadly serious.
Nevertheless, the puzzled look the other gave her froze Veronica in her tracks.
"I haven't used a single painkiller on her." – he declared, his voice dropping down to a whisper – "Not even when I sutured the wound. I believe that Pip-Boy of hers is interfering with pain responses, thus, somehow, aiding with natural endorphin release to dull the signals traveling through the nervous system."
"And you think that's safe for her?!" – Veronica exclaimed, voice equally low – "Damnit, Arcade!"
"I need advanced instrumental to prove my theory correct." – he replied, apparently as outraged as worried as Veronica herself was – "Her Pip-Boy readings are normal, and the Super Stimpak is doing its job, so I venture she will be alright when we get to the NCRCF, but that isn't the real problem." – he faltered – "There's a situation with the NCR brass that the 1st Recon Team isn't telling us, and I believe Six is aware of it." – he muttered, green eyes sweeping nervously over every single member of their current squad, slouching so his mouth could be closer to Veronica's ear while the Scribe found herself walking on tiptoes so she could listen better to him – "I overheard Gorobets this morning before we got aboard the truck. Apparently, they have orders to escort us back to McCarran once this skirmish with the Powder Gangers is over."
"What?!"
"Shhh! Not so loud!"
"But what else do they want from us?! We're House's ambassadors; they cannot detain us indefinitely!"
"Now you understand why I hate the Republic's bureaucracy so much?" – he hissed – "All of their system is based on large-scale results to the point that the notion of 'common good' is always lost along the way. It's an inhumane kind of public service when people and the basic resources they need become numbers in a ledger." – he inhaled, frustrated – "And we now, my dear Veronica, are resources they are shamelessly using in the name of diplomacy. House has offered to cleanse the air between Vegas and the Republic by tackling two of the NCR's main issues at this side of the Colorado… and they are simply grabbing the opportunity."
"But…!"
"Not to interrupt your ready-witted, though dilly-dallying exchange." – a third voice added to their apparently not-so-private discussion, earning quite the jumpy, scandalized looks from Arcade and Veronica – "But I believe this situation is something open to debate since ours is a circumstance nobody has taken into account up to this point."
Jimmy's brother, the one called Gabriel, stepped to Veronica's right side, managing a casual posture as they walked together, and he kept talking for both of them to hear only.
"I'll be crystal clear so we are on the same page when I say that me and my men aren't interested in working for the Republic the same your own diplomacy tour in NCR turf should be over with this last favor, if I am well informed." – he whispered, his face betraying nothing as his lips barely moved when he spoke. His vigilant eyes not losing either the Rangers or Betsy and her partner, Ten of Spades, as they firmly strolled a few paces ahead with Boone and Six – "Thus, it will be in both our best interests if we kind of… breach through the 1st Recon Team to get back each to their own businesses."
"We aren't risking a war between House and the NCR." – Arcade replied coldly, evidently pissed at having been overheard – "Not now, with the Legion strengthening at the other side of the river. We cannot touch the 1st Recon Team."
"Besides, they have been nice to us." – Veronica added – "We aren't losing points by playing dirty with soldiers that are just following orders. And the situation, if Arcade is right, is delicate at best since what happened at the Freeside three weeks ago."
Gabriel snorted dismissively. Unlike Jimmy, who plainly could be a stiffy dork sometimes when he got pissed, this one's smugness didn't sit quite right with Veronica.
"Please, this maneuver at playing 'offended' because of an agent sent to deal with the Courier that happened to sweep a handful of squatters throughout his destruction walk is as ridiculous as easily countered once your employer starts talking money and percentages with the Embassy. You are simply becoming 'sequestered' for him to pay the due 'ransom' that would ensure the immediate reconstruction of the Monorail, I imagine." – the young man assured, making quotations with his fingers – "The Republic always operates on the same terms with everybody they cannot economically or militarily best: intimidation and negotiation. Thus, why their deals with this mysterious Mr. Burke are still in function up to this day. They don't bother to investigate if he's ex-Enclave or not as long as he's fattening the Government's arks while Kimball takes a pinch over here and there as he makes the public believe that the Mojave Campaign is costing a lot of money that he justifies by raising taxes." – rolling his eyes, he added – "You'll be doing your employer a favor getting out of this situation by yourselves."
While the notion of buttering up House wasn't what Veronica truly wanted at the moment, it would play in the Brotherhood's favor, she thought, if they managed to ally themselves with the Old-World CEO to get the upper hand with the Republic, maybe even political immunity to walk the surface without having to wait for the night.
She knew that such an alliance would be unlikely in the long term, with either McNamara or Hardin wanting to get ahold of HELIOS One once again and House defending the sovereignty of whom he called 'his customers'… However, if they managed to get rid of the Legion together and allow the Brotherhood to seek greener pastures without any more reprisals from the Republic, that worked for Veronica just fine.
Even if she wanted to remain with her new family, she couldn't just forsake the people in the Brotherhood… despite them having forsaken her long ago.
Nevertheless, the amount of intel this boy was adding to what they already knew made her suspicious. What were these guys? In which field had Jimmy been working prior to his incorporation into the group?
Could they be information brokers? The likes of those who sold intel to the highest bidder?
That was why they had remained with them after the sewer incident?
"What do you propose then?" – Arcade asked, clearly having given the question some thought.
"Once the NCRCF issue is over, there will be many casualties and wounded operatives. I propose one of us feign dizziness or some clinical chart grave enough to need further assistance out of the prison medical facilities. I myself can play the trick, but, for that, I need the complicity of the doctor here." – he explained, giving a pointed look to Arcade, who pinched his chin as if weighing the chances – "Since you are one of the Followers, you can come up with an excuse of better medical equipment to work with at the Old Mormon Fort or at the New Vegas Clinic. Once there, it would be easier to get a chance to slip out under their noses."
Definitely, these guys were quite something. Something dangerous since not even Veronica could have devised a plan as sophisticated as that one to pull the wool over the Recon Team's eyes.
They had to get rid of them as soon as possible and ask Jimmy LOTS of questions later.
So, she signed up for the plan as well as Arcade did after further consideration.
Little did they know that the original topic of their chat - their worries over their leader's health - should have been their maximum priority. Meanwhile, the aforesaid girl leader kept walking in a semi-aware state while Yes Man was working full efficiency to both keep her nervous system from collapsing and trying with all its might to circumvent the command of her health not interfering with the current mission that she had scribbled down once the AI had stated that she cannot keep going after the shot.
That she needed advanced medical surgery to remove what that bullet had destroyed, and now it was prompting her system to produce the natural equivalent of the drug Turbo - ergo, adrenaline shooting in non-stop.
And Vault-Tec's enhanced genetic engineering can only be abused down to a certain extent.
It had been some time since Burke had gone on a hunt.
It added to the thrilling the difficulty of being silent while wearing Power Armor, courtesy of the Lamplight little shit that had refused to take part on one of the most glorious days the DC Capitol had seen since the Mutant Menace had been driven off the White House.
The taking of the last DC bastion where neither the Brotherhood nor his influence could reach: Rivet City.
Breaching through their defenses and blowing the main door had been a child's play that had been accomplished thanks to a couple of plastic explosives over here and there and carbon-fiber Hécate II's anti-materiel rifles (GRA) with dashing .50 MG caliber on ammo's account. Truly, a wonder of weaponry engineering fresh from his deals with his western allies in the Boneyard: the Gun Runners.
Even he, a faithful user of the old, reliable 10mm pistols, had experienced the pleasure of seeing what one of those things could do to a Deathclaw.
Not to count what it could do to an android.
He had to admit that the city's Security Team had a most excellent training that could put any Brotherhood Knight to shame any day. And they knew the structure of their city like the back of their hand.
A pity it had taken to execute their Second In Command, Lana Danvers, for them to see the light and surrender their weapons and the city.
It couldn't be said the same about their Chief.
"This wasn't what we agreed!" – he still could hear Pinkerton's pitiful attempts at pulling any weight into the relations between the Brotherhood of Steel and Rivet City – "You weren't supposed to damage any of this ship or its inhabitants!"
"You are out of your mind if you truly believe that the Brotherhood would tolerate an insubordination of this caliber, old man." – Burke had scoffed – "The more if amidst the so-called 'inhabitants' of his rotten vessel there is a synth operating as their Security Chief."
He had enjoyed the horror so plainly painted across Pinkerton's wrinkled face the same he had savored the shocked, then disgusted expression in Arthur Maxson's.
"That felon is a synth?!" – the teenager had exclaimed, his dark eyes burning with something way deeper and darker than mere hatred. Something Burke had seen quite a few times in lesser men empowered by whatever belief they happened to profess: fanaticism. Truly, a Brotherhood Elder through and through – "How it is possible that such an affront against the laws of nature has managed to get this far from the Commonwealth?!"
"Because he's a Courser. They are resourceful and way more resilient than the average models we have seen so far." – Burke had replied calmly, unpocketing all the evidence he had had the preventive thought to bring along should the filthy machine would have decided to behave as his programming was intended from the very start: rationally – "A Courser our good Doctor Pinkerton here aided in disguising as one of the Rivet City's citizens by tampering with his inner program." – the old man had paled so much that Burke had been briefly tempted to laugh at his expense, just to admire the irony – "All, no doubt, in the pursuit of scientific knowledge by close examination of such a rare specimen." – he had added, giving Pinkerton a pointed look, willing to defend him in front of the Elder… for a price he would be collecting one of these days. For a favor coming from the newly-appointed Mayor of Rivet City may come in handy in the future – "Isn't that right, Horace?"
Evidently powerless in a situation he hadn't held any power from the very start, the old fart had nodded silently.
"We have to get that thing before it abandons the vessel!" – Maxson had exclaimed – "It cannot be left on its own devices throughout Brotherhood territory!"
At that, Burke had savored the following words that had abandoned his lips.
"Allow me to track down the Courser, and I will bring you his memory component."
For the pleasure of bringing down the daring machine could be no one else's… but his.
That, Arthur Maxson had given to him with great pleasure, Burke suspected, just to see who got rid of who.
And, in a gloomy, hostile environment full of loose wires, gas leaks, and humidity as the broken bow of the pre-War aircraft carrier was, mutual stalking was served.
The android, if anything, had clever programming designed to learn. He never made the same mistake twice.
Such as when Burke entered V.A.T.S. crouched from behind a huge pipeline, resting the anti-material's nozzle over rusting metal before pulling the trigger.
It had blown the left arm to the elbow, synthetic red blood pouring abound like a fountain.
With a suppressed scream and quite the panting the effort must be bringing to the synthetic organism, Harkness returned the favor by resting the stock of his Chinese assault rifle over the shoulder of his good arm, aimed to Burke's general direction, and sent a rain of lead that ricocheted against the rusty pipelines; sending pieces and mud onto the Power Armor helmet, effectively disabling the night-vision, thus, the piece's utility.
Even better, since Burke prided himself on having an acute sense of hearing.
"Are you proud of yourself, little man?!" – he heard Harkness yell, huffing and puffing, having retreated back to the shadows. The android's voice reverberating among murky corridors and tunnels – "Proud of your accomplishments among military parades, stale emblems, and ideologies you cannot disagree more with?!" – he snarled – "Proud of the countless unmarked graves you left at Megaton?!"
Oh, so the machine wanted answers as time slipped from his fingers. That, Burke was in the mood to humor.
"What would machines understand of human ambitions and expectations, I wonder?" – he asked to the air, loading the next shot, his ears informing him of the barest change in the air, the slightest vibration in the ground – "Do they copy and replicate what they see based on arbitrary percentages retrieved throughout a pre-programmed time-lapse… or they manage to recreate any feeling beyond what their binary code processes as 'free will'?"
The next lead-spraying got a bloodied rash across his jaw while ruining the right crystal of his tortoiseshell sunglasses.
He had liked those glasses.
"How unsportsmanlike, Chief." – Burke hissed – "I thought you were supposed to be good." – he goaded, his eyes searching the surrounding darkness – "Aren't you supposed to be among the best? The good, reliable hunter who brings runners back home?" – he asked – "Come on. Show me what you're made of."
His answer was a flash grenade that the Power Armor both acted as a shield and as a burden to get away from it in time.
"Do you often wonder about the next life, Harkness?!" – he yelled – "Wouldn't that be something a machine trying to comprehend the human mind would, at least, give some thought to?!"
Another grenade. And another.
Soon, the Power Armor suit was rendered useless, and there was only the metallic exoskeleton piloted by a man against a killing machine.
Burke bided his time, his next shot already loaded, the gun's nozzle spying the perimeter.
An old rusted can of Pork N' Beans landed by his left side, meant to distract him and confound his senses.
He pulled the trigger, aiming in the opposite direction from where the can had come from.
The gigantic bullet embedded a hole in an old fire extinguisher, and it exploded next to a gas leak.
The businessman made it by a hair's breadth, grabbing desperately at the broken floor and walls of the aircraft's rift since he had rolled dangerously close to what was worth three stories between him and a fall onto stale water. Time enough for the android to come running over Burke's overthrown figure to deliver the worst kick in the stomach he had received in years.
Barely managing to get air back into his lungs instead of the vomit mixed with blood that now was overflowing his nostrils, making his eyes water, Burke reacted by aiming blindly, pulling the trigger to get his loaded silenced 10mm swiftly kicked off his grasp, leaving his hand insensitive while strong legs trapped him beneath the heaviness of a synthetic body.
The exoskeleton's structure screeched between Harkness' powerful legs as the synth fished one of Burke's hands with the one he still had attached to his body.
When the businessman attempted to release his hand from between hard, synthetic fingers, the phalanges of his own index finger were crushed beneath the pressure.
"That is for Lana." – Harkness declared, immovable artificial eyes glowing in the gloom as he observed the other scream and wriggle under his weight – "And this is for Lucas Simms and his son, Harden." – another finger crushed, making Burke's sight waver – "For Maggie and Billy Creel." – another one – "Harden and Maggie were only ten and nine years old respectively, you monster. Those people… they never stood a chance, didn't they? You took that from them."
Quickly gathering his wits amidst the waves of pain and pressure, Burke used the strength the Power Armor exoskeleton lent him and kicked the android off him onto the aircraft's rift.
However, he didn't have any time to enjoy victory as one of the exoskeleton's legs was grabbed by Harkness, prompting the two of them to fall into the expanse in-between broken bows.
The exoskeleton absorbed the impact shock, but it also dragged Burke underwater, so he had to act quickly to get out before he drowned.
Without the strength and protection of the Power Armor, Burke found himself facing a crippled android as equally crippled and unarmed as him.
It wasn't after too long that he was seized by the throat by a mechanical hand whose fleshy cover had been ripped in several places during the fall.
Burke laughed.
"Look at you!" – he exclaimed, amused even in a situation he knew he couldn't possibly win – "The almighty, righteous Security Chief! Nothing but a machine designed to hunt down corrupted variables. Your masters must be proud of you."
Something flickered in Harkness' liquid eyes, glowing electric blue beneath artificial eyeballs. His grasp squeezed around Burke's throat.
"What would you know about masters when you have always been the one holding the strap and not the one wearing it?" – Harkness challenged – "You cannot preach about humanity when you disdain it to its very core." – nearing his face to Burke's, he added – "You have everything a man could ever desire… and yet, you always want more. Always." – the pressure of his fingers digging around Burke's throat grew to the point of the first asphyxia stertors – "I may be a programmed pile of bolts that may know shit about being human in the first place… but you yourself are an empty man."
A sudden rush of anger surged from the bottom of Burke's stomach, giving him strength and clarity enough to reach for the switchblade he always had tucked in one or another part of his person, depending on the situation, to manage a whole arc with his good arm that encased Harkness' neck and punctured below his nape in the precise place the businessman knew most synth models had their memory component installed.
He didn't err, and, as if suddenly switched off, Harkness' body lost consistency and fell forward with Burke's weight still within his grasp.
Slowly, Burke peeled the mechanical fingers from his already swollen throat one by one, his whole being trembling with adrenaline.
Once he managed to put some distance between himself and the fallen android, Burke sat on one of the rusted metallic salients from the aircraft rift and eyed the empty, opaque eyes of his adversary with cold detachment, his good hand already patting his jacket instinctively for a packet of cigarettes he knew were ruined beyond repair.
"Tell me, Chief." – he murmured, voice hoarse and immensely tired – "Do androids dream with electric sheep after all?"
SPANISH:
(1) - "Gosh, I'm baking here", "Too damn old for this shit, man. Better irradiated than roasted", "If what you wanted was Raul with fine herbs, there you are, yessir".
(2) - balls
(3) - "Again with the foul words, old man? We'll have to wash that mouth of yours with bleach, I'm afraid."
(4) - "Pretty Little Girl"
(5) - "Yes, Courier" (feminine form)
A/N: Blade Runner references? What? Where? xD
Turns out that the NCRCF scene (or more like separated interconnected scenes) was too long to be included in this chapter, and I still wanted some Burke action to finish it, sooooo... cliffhanger? Kind of?
Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R: to name a Deathclaw "Chaunsey" is blasphemy, my Lord! Against everything the Brotherhood Codex has taught me xD A mighty creature deserves a more honorable name.
Chapter 26 is already in the making. Remember when I said that I didn't want this fic to last more than 40 chapters? Ah, those were the days... *Author Facepalm*
[Edited: done a couple of readjustments both to Boone's and Harkness' dialogues to fit better their way of speech. Didn't sound natural]
