"Number Nine"
Ch. 26: Innuendo.
"While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the aeons, and on and on
Oh yes we'll keep on tryin'
We'll tread that fine line
Oh oh we'll keep on tryin'
Till the end of time."
- Queen, "Innuendo"
"Hello, Captain."
They had had a frightening tendency to find themselves well-equipped hideouts.
"You've arrived, just as I predicted."
From metro stations filled to the brim with ferals to pre-War offices of multimillionaire corporations such as RobCo, Nuka-Cola, or even West-Tek, whose mostly intact defense systems they usually reprogrammed to do their bidding. Not for nothing; they were among the best young minds throughout the United States. Brilliant minds capable of unimaginable things. Brilliant minds that, with a well-earned scholarship, could have taken whatever studies they would have wanted.
Brilliant minds that could have been the inventors of their future. Their biologists, engineers, surgeons, physicists, philosophers, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, educators, architects, artists, and computer scientists.
They could have been everything they had wished.
"Now I see why. Why were you chosen to lead."
Although coming from military programs, most of them hadn't touched a gun in their lives until the simulators. Where violence tended to escalate fairly quickly.
"You have a very agile, very devious mind."
She had been one of the minorities that had come from enlisting, along with the ones who were the sons and daughters of decorated war heroes. Children who had been so influenced by warfare and so embittered by the loss of their loved ones that they had signed up for whatever America was concocting against China.
No matter the price, it hadn't seemed that steep for those who believed they had nothing to lose.
"Capable of defying even the eminence among Vault-Tec's successes."
Number One and his squad had been revered among the scientific caste of Vault 5 almost like demigods. The apex of forced evolution.
Him, a boy from a backwater town in Alabama, or so they had said. The rest, same unremarkable origins from very different parts of the country. She recalled a couple of twin girls coming from Alberta, Canada; another one had even hailed from Mexico, she believed. With the Annexation, everybody was in for Vault-Tec admission protocols, the more if they had something to offer in exchange for avoiding nuclear annihilation.
"Ah, I see. You're wondering if I know why you bothered to come here, bringing all of my guardians down."
With the experiments they had conducted on their bodies, a small percentage of those who didn't get sick immediately had started showing symptoms… of something else.
"I know you're here to kill me, as you were ordered."
Out of the ten preadolescents that had composed Number One's squad, only two had survived Burke's idle tinkering with the cryo-pod's reanimation software.
"I also know that negotiations, at this point, are useless, aren't they?"
A girl and a boy.
"Okay then. Do your worst, Captain."
They called them 'psykers'. People capable of doing amazing things… with just the will of their minds.
From telepathy to telekinetic, pyrokinetic, electrokinetic, photokinetic, and sometimes even clairvoyance abilities, those never developed on par with any other training they might undergo while connected to the VR pods. It wasn't something the scientists from the Vault could measure or even predict. It wasn't something they could analyze with their advanced, though ultimately ordinary instrumental.
This had been an entirely new field for them.
Thus, they had made sure to monitor them twenty-four hours a day, for they hadn't wanted to risk losing control over such a fascinating, dangerous discovery.
Females were more prone to develop their abilities up to satisfactory levels. In contrast, the boys' high percentages of testosterone due to puberty seemed to inhibit their minds from interconnecting patterns with thought and action with abilities more orientated to the physical/chemical reactions, but still enabling them as powerful telepaths. Or that was what the scientists had made them believe, given that they maintained Number One and the rest permanently connected to machines one way or another.
The psyker squad had been the most violent, and they had scored the highest percentage of deaths in the VR simulator. They could be great teammates in Campaign Mode… but were absolute monsters in Battle Royale Mode. Even as dehumanized and seemingly videogame-like as deaths were in a virtual simulator without real corpses but texturized fallen dummies.
You knew you were doing something wrong when you were launched on a Battle Royale session with Number One in it. He was the main reason why the screening was so effective.
He was good at predicting your next move, so you were constantly outwitted and disadvantaged right from the start.
So, if you wanted to survive against one of the psykers, you gotta be smart. Smarter than the Devil himself.
"I… don't get it…"
Smarter than them.
"Why… can I feel… sadness… oozing from you… Captain…?"
The remaining boy had been a clairvoyant and a telepath. He had had a horde of ferals and Glowing Ones acting as a barrier between him and everybody else at his disposal. As deranged as the necrotics may have been, they had obeyed him in a strange sort of way. As if they simply had ignored his very existence but were compelled to guard something far beyond their deranged, irradiated psyches.
The girl, on the other hand, had been a pyrokinetic-dominant.
"I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL, CAPTAIN!"
She hadn't even wanted to put up a fight, immolating herself once she had seen all of her raider followers decorating the floors and walls of the old SatCom Array NN-03d with their entrails.
Taking with her the whole building in the process.
If she got to admit one thing, that had been that she had been extremely lucky that Number One had perished upon his reanimation. She could have never bested him. No one really could. The best you could do at the screening sessions in the VR with him was hide and resist until the chronometer ran out. That was why there had been another seven numbers of difference in-between them, after all.
Besides, life in the Wasteland, as she had grown to recognize, tended to either kill you… or amplify whatever ability you might possess to aid you with survival. That same principle applied to psykers, it seemed. For, from managing to lit a small flame not worth even a bonfire… to bringing down a whole compound of three satellite dish arrays, run a helluva difference.
Maybe the mountain of boxes filled to the brim with C-4 on which she had been sitting like a queen had helped, though. The Queen Over the Mountain.
She, as well, had been expecting 'the Captain'.
Even Charon had been spooked a while after the experience.
"I don't know what those bastards from Vault-Tec did to you lot… but sure as hell I don't need more details to ponder on, kid." – he had replied when she had attempted to muster up some kind of explanation – "Let's get back to the Tower."
If it hadn't been for Charon, she might not have survived the experience with the pyrokinetic at all. He had been the one who had reacted in time to get the two of them out of the satellite array facilities before they had collapsed.
The rest, by comparison, had been easy pickings.
You didn't need much strength, speed, or impeccable shooting accuracy to bring an enemy down. Only strategy.
And strategy, she was good at.
"Don't let her come closer!"
Though she had to give the new programming team some credit. The new AI in the VR was incredibly well made. Very realistic. Their reactions were a lot harder to predict.
"Someone grab that stupid bitch!"
The simulation was new as well. It resembled a cafeteria of sorts. But the clients were all male and dressed in grey and blue. Their backs showed a common odd acronym that she wasn't too sure what it meant. Some of them also wore bulletproof vests and/or dynamite bandoliers. Didn't look too friendly to her.
"MY LEGS! MY FUCKING LEGS!"
She didn't recall the virtual briefing they had under the guise of receiving orders from the virtual rendition of General Chase… but she had the notion of retaking the premises, so maybe this wasn't a mere cafeteria after all.
"Shoot her, KILL HER!"
Weird, now that she thought about it. The simulations usually dealt with the Red Stars… but she could discern distinctive Caucasian faces among them. Afros and Hispanics too.
"Why is she still moving?! That was a solid .308!"
Oh, well, as Miller always used to say: Commies could be anybody.
"What the hell?! Stop there where you are, you fat pile of brahmin shit!"
Even your own momma.
"Fuck it, man! Not like this! I ain't fucking dying in prison!"
Get a grip, soldier. Reload, crouch to get a steadier aim, point, and shoot. Just like they taught you in the academy.
"NOOOOO!"
If you couldn't point to the head or their torsos were armored, you better shoot the legs. Even better if they're running. Bursting kneecaps and ankles off to make the target lose stability is always one of the best basic strategies in ranged combat. The pain usually was so great they often dropped to the ground, and their weapon with them.
Then you have some precious seconds to get to them, and if you don't want to waste precious ammunition, you can kick their gun out of reach and either pistol-whip them repeatedly or stomp their cranium with the heel of your boot. You'll find the right angle at the jaw or the spine eventually.
Or using the available furniture against them. The door fridge did the trick when one jumped over the counter.
Holy crapola, the squelching sounds and the bloodied dental pieces were also new. She wasn't aware the VR engine could deal with so many textures and sound resources without experiencing lag. This was amazing.
"Wait a minute! That's no NCR trooper! Is the Courier! THE COURIER!"
Who was this Courier? Was it some nickname for one of Jingwei's agents? They were infamous for disguising as mere civilians to infiltrate neighborhoods from where they radioed intel.
Those neighborhoods were razed to the ground once an enemy agent was discovered. The Anchorage renditions were very faithful to the real deal, even if it was all now in the past.
Woah, nice! The hair texture was also very well made! It felt authentic between her fingers as she grabbed one of the fallen programmed dummies by the scalp and neared a combat knife to his gullet. She bet her scores now must be amongst the Top Five, given that she hadn't used V.A.T.S. even once in this session, and she had kept ammunition usage to the minimum.
You could exchange points for sweets in the Vault's dispensers. You were permitted to have sweets during lunch break. She had been saving for a fireball. The cinnamon kind. Those were delicious.
"Please… please…" – the tears were also very realistic; she could appreciate the light particle effect reflecting on them – "Mercy…"
"There's no mercy for Commie scum like you." – was her reply before slitting his throat with a clean cut.
Weird. Perhaps the programmers had surpassed all her expectations regarding ambiance and realism… but warm, sticky blood that she could actually feel was just plain creepy bad taste on their part.
Who had given the stupid order to attack before everybody else had gathered at the agreed point?!
Vulpes could feel Paciencia sliding from his sweaty palms as his whole being trembled with rage and adrenaline.
Raul, Cassidy, Olivian, Ignatius, and he had gotten under the southwestern watchtower the moment they had managed to get through the minefield at the parking lot that a handful of troopers had managed to clean either by disarming the powder charges or the traditional NCR way: blowing them up by an ill-placed boot.
No sign of Titus, Felix, Bitter-Root, Gorobets, or even the two Rangers who, at some point, had gotten separated from them the moment they had set foot at the other side of the blown fence.
Between the constant waves of intermittent attacks either by easily avoidable shooting and the not-so-easily avoidable dynamite cartridges, plus the pungent smell of rust, shit, and piss so perennial in the air, Vulpes was seething.
As soon as he saw that damnable Sergeant Lee, he was making sure he wouldn't be ordering another rushed assault this size ever again.
They hadn't waited for the East group to start pouring into the prison facility. The NCR had already opened two extra gaps in the fence at the eastern and western perimeter.
And the ex-convicts' snipers were piling corpses around them, whereas the rest kept coming in waves, tracing arcs between the prison cells and the Administration block to take a few shots, throw a handful of incendiary cartridges and disappear inside the concrete buildings.
Somehow, they had been waiting for them.
They had gotten significantly better than the Master Frumentarius had seen in October and November. They were organized.
Were it not because he was literally fuming, he would have laughed at the irony of NCR criminals getting better at strategy than their very Army. Figures.
He loaded another three-round .308 ammo into the rifle magazine, waited for the next group coming out of the cell blocks, and, at Cassidy's signal - who was keeping an eye for the ex-convicts with a hand mirror, so she hadn't to risk her head (he wouldn't question why a woman would have one of those in her person during a military maneuver) –, he got up from his crouched position between the rusty foundations of the watchtower and shot his deal before being promptly substituted by Raul, then the rest.
Reloading again, his temper got the worst of him when he noticed Cassidy taking a gulp of her whiskey flask from the corner of his eye.
He couldn't believe this woman!
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" – he barked, earning involuntary wincing from his men, who weren't used to his cussing, less even yelling.
His heated momentum was worsened by the rain of bullets that came after and the fact that, when he tried to snatch the flask from Cassidy's hand, she rudely slapped his'.
"You try that again; you're asking for a boot in the fusebox!" – the redhead woman growled, sitting the flask by her side to start reloading her caravan shotgun full-speed – "Now, there goes the pain…" – she breathed contently before turning around and delivering a few shots to get down again behind the intertwined metal. That's when Vulpes noticed the growing bloodstains in her thigh and hip.
This woman was unbelievable, relying more on alcohol to palliate pain than actual medicine! Only a Profligate could be so… so…!
Before she could rise after reloading, he jammed a whole homemade Stimpak he had gotten from his bag in her wounded leg.
"Son of a…!" – Cassidy hissed before noticing what had caused the sudden burning sting to spread throughout her lower muscles, noticing how nasty the thigh wound actually was. With the clean path the bullet had carved from one end to the other, chances had been she would have ended up drained off before noticing something going wrong – "Oh…" – she said stupidly, eyeing the First Aid Kit he had left between her legs as if not knowing how to take the courtesy – "Dying to stick it in me, weren't you?" – she half-heartedly joked while she took a handful of bandages and iodine, earning a furious glance as he delivered his shots and crouched again near her.
"Dress your wounds and don't move until the itching passes." – he instructed as coldly as his anger allowed him, reloading again while the others kept at it – "Viejo, give her your backpack."
Raul crouched, did as told, and began reloading his twin revolvers with dizzying speed, his skinned fingers becoming a blurry mass that informed the ex-caravanner woman that the drug had started kicking in her bloodstream.
"Listen to me, Miss Cassidy: you are going to pick whatever I ask from Raul's pack and follow my instructions." – when he saw she was about to open her mouth to object, he quickly intercepted – "You cannot move right now. Do you want to be useful?: do as I say."
Between her wounded thigh, the shooting, the fireworks booming around, and the reek of piss under this damnable big pile of rusty shit, Cass didn't feel too inclined to argue with the lad as she started picking what she later discovered to be the right ingredients to mount several clockwork bombs.
"How in the bloody hell do you know how to deal with explosives, Tribal Boy?!" – she yelled amidst the firefight, her pulse trembling as she duct-taped dynamite cartridges to the mechanism, then to the rusty foundations of the watchtower – "And why are you carrying all this shit, Raul?!"
"Hey, the fewer questions he's asking, the happier this old man is, Miss Cassidy!" – the ghoul replied while he fired, dodging a couple of clumsy bullets before he crouched and began reloading again – "You want to interrogate the chavo about bringing the working tools of a demolition expert into a battlefield, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you!"
Coward old codger. – Cass thought as she cut the duct tape with her teeth, wincing when yet another rain of bullets ricocheted against the rusty foundations.
"I will need a lot of whiskey after this…"
"Later." – she almost jumped when the young man's face was but an inch of hers, his rifle flat on his chest, his cold eyes squinting with intent. At that moment, he reminded her of someone else so much that Rose of Sharon Cassidy had to blink twice to focus – "Program the detonators each ten seconds less than the previous one. Start with five minutes."
"What? You are now giving orders, your Majesty?" – she half-joked again, her trembling voice product of adrenaline and something else she didn't want to dwell in right now made her hate herself – "Wait… five fucking minutes?! Are you out of your goddamn mind?!"
Once he finished reloading, he grabbed her by the shoulders, and then, the very same sensation from earlier hit her with force. Believing time had gotten thirty years back, and she was seven again, staring at a face she had willed herself to forget for her own mental peace.
"Now, Rose."
"Now, Cassidy." – the young man in front of her demanded.
Nodding mechanically, Cass did as she was told, working with a speed her very brain couldn't quite keep up with until everything was arranged, the digital red numbers of each clock on the countdown.
"Hey! Woah, woah, woah!" – she exclaimed when, at the young man's signal, his other two tribal pals grabbed her by the shoulders and knees to carry her on wings. Raul and him getting behind to cover their backs – "I can use my fucking legs! Ow!" – she yipped when one of the young brutes' hands gave her a very suspicious squeeze not so far from her ass – "A drink and healing chems ain't gonna make you prettier, nor older, tots." – she huffed, shooting the daring one – who was giving her a very unconvincing poker-face - a murdering glance.
They retraced their steps full speed to the fence gap, then rounded the compound to the East to go directly to the main entrance, almost tripping when the charges exploded and brought the watchtower down with a massive slam onto the yard.
"Serves them right." – Cass hummed appreciatively until they jumped over the guard's corpse to get inside the concrete block – "What the everliving f…"
The whole building resembled more of a chop-chop party than an actual visitors' center, as if, instead of NCR soldiers, a whole raiding party had razed the place to the ground. From maimed corpses lacking a leg or two due to what looked like explosive ammunition, there were quite a few whose craniums had been either stomped or knifed down with what looked like broken Sarsaparilla bottles, crystals still sticking around the gouged eye from one of them. The tiled floor was drenched with their blood.
Behind the counter, next to an inoperative terminal, a lonely Powder Ganger corpse had gotten his head jammed in the working fridge, where it had been systematically slammed until the poor sod's neck had likely given up.
This had been where the offenders had probably entrenched themselves to shoot at the rest, given that there were 10mm shells all over the place.
This didn't look like NCR standard procedure at all. This was a gratuitous massacre.
"Leave her behind the counter and get that medicine box over there open." – the lad started issuing commands to his two tribal mates as if it was the most normal thing to do. As if giving orders came naturally to him – "Viejo, I entrust you with Miss Cassidy's safety until her wounds stop bleeding at the very minimum." – at that, the old necrotic simply nodded, possibly relieved at not having to go back to the battlefield.
Why was everyone making decisions about her well-being without asking first?!
"Hey! Maybe I've got something else to say on the matter other than being ordered around and taking it in the ass!"
Her eyes were playing tricks on her, definitely, when his lean silhouette turned on his heel and eyed her with that aloof, authoritarian grimace.
A methodical authority like his, she had only seen once before. And damn if the dude didn't look every inch the part that seven-year-old Cass' brain dully reminisced.
Even the way he crouched to her visual level, like a bird of prey looming over her, was familiar. Predatory. Agile. Bone and sinew constructed out of many scouting hours, perched over canyons with impeccable equilibrium despite being over forty when little Rose had been only seven.
He used to wear long earrings made of small feathers, and he shaved his eyebrows, temples, and forehead, sharpening his already sharp features down to make him look aquiline. Not unhandsome – at least in her infantile, enamored eyes – but severe, his thin lips permanently set on a hard line, his hair styled in a dark auburn menacing-looking mohawk. His steps whisper-silent, marking him untrustworthy around other people's belongings, his voice honeyed to deceive. Not a warrior, but the closest thing his father had gotten.
Keen on the supernatural, his eyes had been permanently lost in another world until he got his sights set on something. Then, there had been nothing that could have gotten in between him and his goal.
Not even his own wife, whom he kept leaving behind as if dragging an unwanted dead weight. Not even his child, a quiet, astute creature carved in her father's image, with his same cold eyes and his same tenacious mind.
Not even the Cassidys. Father and daughter as well. Alleged friends, more on the lapdog's list. And not even the lucky ones.
For dogs had followed him the same as people. Deathclaws too. Dogs usually had fared better in his company. He ensured those survived. Even mangy ones.
Not the same could be said about people or mutants.
"How are your reflexes, Miss Cassidy? Can you say, should the need arise, you would be able to fend for yourself out there?"
"If you cannot react in time and fend for yourself, you are as good as dead out there, Rose."
Blinking twice, Cass stared at the pale young man, still debating between memories and reality, unsure of what to take.
Must be the handmade Stimpaks these tribals cooked. Made her hallucinate weird similarities that weren't there in the first place.
A hard, stinging index finger was pointed at her solar plexus.
"No, you can't." – how could a lad so young become so pretentious and acidic at will? With the pontifical intonation and the solemn face, like a gravestone angel – "I'm going even further when I say that your senses are, right now, severely impaired due to Herbal Sickness. Am I right?"
That's what they called the derived effects from their shitty medicine? Or were they so high on Peyote all the time that they didn't bat a lash when they injected themselves with this fucking crap?
"Fuck it with this fucking…" – why was it so difficult to weave a coherent sentence? – "… Fuck."
"That's what I thought." – he sounded triumphant, the bastard.
"Bleh."
"Sticking out your tongue to me isn't going to help your cause, Miss Cassidy."
"Go awooo with your pals, schoolboy." – fuck, was she really using bloody onomatopoeias like some three-year-old? – "Pffft." – she added, giving him the finger. Self-explaining to a fault.
"I see. We are done with this conversation. You will remain here until you've gathered your strength and wits… despite that I'm not so sure of the latter even existing."
Cass was sure she would have retorted something witty… had her mind not been so muddled with jumping lights and pale eyes… pertaining to a man she had thought she had admired and, why not, secretly crushed on… until the true man of her life, her father, John Cassidy, had disappeared along with his most long-standing companion.
Neither of them had ever returned, but she knew from reliable sources that the hunter had kept scouting the Wastes… until the home he had built as a neglecting husband and absent parent had perished somewhere deep in Colorado.
After that, he had gotten back, tail between his legs, to Arroyo, the village that had seen him grow before braving the sirens' chants of New Reno and the secrets of Navarro. He hadn't moved from there since. The man he once had been nothing but a shadow, barely a ghost of his former self.
And Cass had hated herself for having been consistently asking throughout the years for the old bastard to her old contacts within the Big Circle before her caravan business went to hell, wanting to know if the radioactive worms of this bitter land had taken their due share of him.
Wanting to be sure he was six feet under, just like her father was.
"Fénec, Licaón. Vosotros conmigo." – turning again to the ghoul, the albino kept distributing orders calmly in Spanish as he handed him one of the walkie-talkies – "Toma, viejo. Nos mantendremos en contacto. Si acaso necesitaras refuerzos…" (1)
"Retransmitiré, chavo. Encuentren a la Jefecita y… buena suerte, mijos." (2)
If she wasn't feeling so incredibly dizzy, Cass would have sworn that genuine respect and care were flowing both ways from those two. Spanish folk, she would have liked knowing what they spoke in their harsh yet dulcet foreign tones.
She wasn't sure when they had disappeared out of the door, back to that hellish yard, but the moment she saw a grenade poking out of Raul's backpack, she took it, admiring it as if she were looking at one for the first time in her life.
"Bet this isn't the only one." – she smiled tiredly to the ghoul who, after administering her yet another Stimpak from the medical First Aid box the tribals had opened for them to use, simply filled the revolvers' antechambers with bullets parsimoniously, words coming easier as she put every ounce of effort into speaking coherently despite the sweet lethargy cocooning her right now – "What else do you have inside that bag of yours, abuelito? (3) A bunny? A goddamn sentry bot?"
Testing the mechanisms of the guns, Raul merely shrugged.
"Let's say that, if it comes to it, we can erase a good chunk of those Powder guys before they could even reach the counter, Miss Cassidy."
Cass huffed, amused, and then, true to the Whiskey Rose of the West's spirit, reached for her hip flask… to discover that it had vanished entirely.
She laughed humorlessly, her throat already dry out of nervousness and dependency, unwilling as her mind was to go back there without the blanket alcohol offered to her.
And here she had thought she could make a toast to His Fucking Majesty's planning proficiency… When this was over, she was going to spank the hell out of his smart ass. Maybe that'll teach him NOT to meddle between a woman and her poison of choice.
For memories… were a dangerous thing to stir. The more if you were a Cassidy.
Since he was six, Pequeño Chacal had known very little aside from what Legion dogmatism had taught him.
That had started to change the past year when Vulpes Inculta had selected him to become part of his Frumentarii forces.
Disillusioned as he had been, his hopes to eventually become a Decanus crushed to become part of the 'Rat Forces', one of the most despised among legionaries; Chacal's perspectives had begun, slowly but surely, to evolve over the last months under the orders of Inculta's Second-In-Command, Gabban.
Because nothing is what it seems to be when you're working among Caesar's Intelligence.
His training, which he initially had deemed boring and disgraceful, had opened a world of information and possibilities when he had been forced to put what little basic literary knowledge he possessed to start reading longer documents than mere paragraphs issuing orders.
In Legion boot camps, besides the basics of martial training, you were taught how to survive in the wilderness on your own, how to craft a weapon out of the raw materials at your disposal, how to keep your space minimal and utilitarian, and how to proceed in limit situations. But what you weren't taught was how to properly redact a letter. Or even read, depending on the commanding officer in charge of your unit/encampment.
Despite Fortification Hill not being one of the most desired destinations among recruits, Chacal had grown to learn that he had been extremely privileged to end up there instead of under Lanius' lead or even at the Frontier up Northwest in Oregon, where Legion divisions were still working on expanding the borders of the Empire (never mind the southwestern Contention Forces near the Texas border, for no sane legionary would want to end up stuck up there).
Because the closer you were to Profligate culture, the more specific knowledge you were expected to acquire.
Military glory aside, Chacal would have never expected that the Frumentarii could be so… multitasking.
It was true that he had seen much less battle than he would have liked, but his experience in Vegas had soon outshined the lack of Profligate blood to offer in reverence to Mars.
In the Legion, your role was always clearly defined… but out here, among Profligates, you could be whomever you wished.
In fact, out in the Wasteland, as a trained legionary, you were way, way better than many other men he had seen so far. Men in good health and body-abled who were incapable of making a living out of basic things such as hunting, prospecting, or simply surviving off the land.
City Profligates were lazy, passive, meek, and complacent. They could have easily removed criminality and poverty from their streets if they had had half the basic formation the Legion provided to its soldiers.
On that point, he couldn't agree more with what Caesar's teachings preached to them from their most tender age.
However… the fact that, out here, you could live the way you pleased, knowing you could easily switch jobs should you end up overwhelmed or simply get bored, didn't make it any easier to accept that such a land full of possibilities would end up assimilated to become another replica of what you already know. Without the chance to redirect your future the way you liked the most.
Such a line of thought was dangerous in their profession, given that the mere idea of individualism was deemed perverse and unnatural in the grand scheme of things.
Or, at least, that was what Vulpes Inculta's discourse had taught the teenager since the very day he had picked the recruit Titus among Aurelius of Phoenix's forces.
To his great disappointment, Chacal had learned later that the Master Frumentarius hadn't chosen him out of raw newbies because he had seen hidden potential in the teenager but because the two of them had happened to pertain to the very same tribe the camp instructors had severely punished them for simply mentioning.
Once you became Legion, your tribal roots were officially severed. At least, that was the theory.
But then, once again, Caesar's Intelligence Service wasn't known for being orthodox.
Then, the chain of lies and intrigues had started. From inventive strategy on the battlefield to plotting the demise of a particularly despised Centurion; there was a very defined set of tenets as well as an underground chain of favors, influence peddling, intel market, favoritism, vigilantism, corruption, and complicated schemes that composed what overall was defined by the Master Frumentarius as 'politics'.
And the worst of all was that the very Imperator, although not publicly, allowed and approved for this to happen as long as he was informed. Which wasn't necessarily always the case.
Considering these facts, Chacal had started to fear that their system wouldn't be better than the NCR system but instead made them frighteningly similar.
However, he still had hoped that the people of the Legion couldn't be more different from the people of the Republic. That there were still some fundamental differences that made their cultures so vastly opposed that their eventual assimilation would be a blessing for their idle, purposeless lives.
But, then again, his perception took on a radical spin the very moment that man he had been following from the very start of the battle against the Powder Gangers, this Lieutenant Gorobets, proved him wrong about his beliefs that Profligates knew nothing about glory, honor, and self-sacrifice.
Neither Bitter-Root nor the Rangers saw the handmade tin grenade that landed at their feet when they had been scouting the perimeter of cell block A, under a set of stairs that had disguised a whole group of enemy fireworkers.
The space had been narrow at best, the consequences devastating for the five men standing near the explosive radius without a chance to quickly disperse to avoid the worst of it.
Chacal had seen the grenade. Gorobets too.
A brief, mute communication had passed between them, and before the teenager could react, the Lieutenant had screamed "Grenade!" upon launching himself face down on the floor to act as a barrier between the men under his command and the explosive wave.
Between his bulletproof vest and the weight of his body, the wave was effectively suffocated… but Chacal didn't need to put one and one together to know that the explosion had burst the man's insides, watching as the blood started pooling slowly under his belly.
Whereas the rest had taken good care of the fireworkers once they had gotten on their two legs again, Chacal had approached the fallen Lieutenant, who was still twitching on the floor, life quickly draining off his eyes.
And then, the legionary in him had done what he would have done for any other comrade: he had seized the hand of the other man and had squeezed in a silent reassuring, letting him know that he wasn't alone in his last moments.
Despite not having anything in common other than the side of the current battle and not having crossed a single word throughout their brief acquaintance... this man, this Profligate, had rushed to save his life without hesitation.
If that wasn't an act of honor and valor greater than what many Legion officers would ever dream to aspire to, then Chacal didn't understand values at all.
If Mars were a fair god, he surely would welcome Gorobets in His Halls despite his Profligate background. He had earned it.
The hand between his' squeezed weakly before going limp.
Betsy's pulse around her rifle betrayed her fear when she confronted the very same image she had tried, for the last months, to forget since the Alpha Team had been assigned to Camp McCarran to deal with the Fiends' problem.
"You move; we're putting a bullet in him before you get your guns up."
Beside her, the Followers doctor who always accompanied the Courier was sweating profusely, whereas one of the Courier's tribal guys was gnashing teeth, tense as a coil about to jump. The rookie behind her was none the better, trembling like a leaf while adjusting his clumsy grip around his service rifle.
In front of them, among the biggest pile of both Powder and trooper bodies, a group of ten ex-convicts had surrounded Ten of Spades near a row of cell barred doors and had him sprawled prone atop an old metallic desk, his glasses lying cracked on the floor merely paces ahead of his bloodied, beaten face.
However, that hadn't been the worst of it but the fact that the kid had been half-naked and restrained by two of the Powders while another one had been in the process of undoing his belt when Betsy and her three present companions had entered the security staff office.
They had thought it amusing to have some fun even when they were under siege, the sick fucks.
And Spades hadn't been the only one since quite a share of dead troopers, male and female, had been hastily stripped off their lower garments, showing various degrees of abuse and knife work before likely getting a bullet.
It had been out of pure sheer luck that the four of them were facing ten and not dozens of Powder Gangers, having managed to dodge the worst upon entering the cell compound and getting disbanded as a direct result of the heavy resistance they had met inside, not being able to enter more than three or four troopers in waves despite the huge gaping the NCR demolition team had dug on the main entrance.
Upon losing sight of Spades and the Power Fist woman, Veronica, who had entered alongside her, it had been nothing but a bloodbath for the next ten minutes. That, until Betsy, amidst the maelstrom of uniformed bodies, shooting, and explosions, had managed to gather a handful of troopers, then the blonde medic armed with his customary plasma pistol to lead a line of defense to allow the Rangers to breach through the wall of inmates.
It had gone well for a time until someone had stepped on a rigged tripwire, and the formation had gone to hell.
From that point on, Betsy had lost sight of the Rangers, and she had simply stuck to the medic, who had proven quite reliable at having her back, all things considered, drenching walls and floors with organic plasma goo made out of shot-off corpses while she would take down the dynamite throwers.
Somehow along the journey, the tribal had joined in tackling bodies with a combat knife until he had found a 9mm he had given good use until ammo had run out, and he had been saved by a hair's breadth by a lucky shot made by the nervous trooper, who had stuck with them since.
A couple of levels upwards later, they had found the fucking security staff office with the interrogation cells filled to the brim with corpses, Spades, and these limp-dicked cowards. Quite the journey… to end up trapped in a tight space with a bunch of smelly fuckheads. So much for sticking together and dodging striped Blues.
The cell compounds had been huge to the point they had been divided into three blocks named from A to C situated alongside the left, right, and rear sides of the central campus and, from the outside, had resembled condominiums or apartments constructed in free-standing modules. The cell blocks had each housing unit consisting of two wings. Each wing had a central rotunda with two tiers of cells to encase the whole population the pre-War facility had been intended to: 2,149 inmates.
A number that, despite having substantially decreased over the months the convicts had been roaming the desert at their leisure, had been more than enough to take by surprise a battalion composed of less than three hundred operatives counting the Alpha Team and the Courier's group amongst them.
They had been thrown to the lions without having been given further information. Without having been given a plan once inside the prison facilities, despite being severely outnumbered.
The brass was supposed to have construction plans for their facilities, damnit! When they had launched an attack over Vault 3, the Courier had already devised a clear, very straightforward strategy to deal with the junkies!
Why neither Hayes nor Lee had devised something more specific beyond opening holes in their external defenses?! How had they intended to take over a compound this size by sheer outright brute force?! This had been a suicide mission right from the start!
"Whaddya think, guys? Don't know about you, but game was already getting cold with this one. Wouldn't mind having a taste of that pussy, though."
Betsy felt bile rising up her throat, her upper lip retracting over more-than-ready sharp teeth she wouldn't hesitate to use should one of these bastards have the bad call of trying to put something in her mouth that didn't belong in there. She wasn't going to allow what happened with Cook-Cook again. Not to her, not to Spades. The stupid kid didn't deserve to go through the same hell as her, as much as he believed he deserved it for letting her down. Which he hadn't. Not a single day. Spades had been the biggest support she could have hoped for. He had never given up on her, not when she would clamp herself down and start spiraling back into shit over and over again, not when her screams had robbed him of sleep, not when she would make a pass at every available female at the camp to stupidly reaffirm her wounded pride that she was every bit of the proud lesbian she had known herself to be and he would have her back in front of Dhatri and Gorobets when they received complaints on her behavior.
He had never let her down, no matter the circumstances. She wouldn't repay his comradeship and kindness by being more of a bitch than she already was.
Upon seeing her snarl, the fat piles of excrement snickered.
"Nah, something tells me she aims for the crotch." – another quipped – "Four-Eyes, on the other hand… You remember how we bought and sold guys like him like property back here?" – he added, leering at the medic, who got several tonalities paler in the face.
A deafening yowl caught everybody present off-guard when the tribal guy launched upon the convict who had spoken the last, the combat knife carving his face repeatedly as he kicked another two aside.
The distraction was promptly exploited both by Betsy and, to her much relief, the blonde medic who shot straight two of the Powders in a row rendering them piles of goo before Betsy took care of the ones holding down Spades, who didn't waste time in kicking another one right to the barred doors of the interrogation cells. Then, the unfortunate met the death grip of a pair of bruised, naked feminine arms that held onto his throat until he ran out of air.
The other four didn't get a chance when the medic kept shooting, aided by the clumsy bad aim of the trooper until not a single Blue was breathing.
However, the tribal seemed intent on carving out eyes, tongue, and teeth from the already-dead convict beneath him.
Betsy assessed the situation quickly.
"You!" – she addressed the trooper, who flinched at hearing her bark – "What was your fucking name again?"
"M-Mullins. Private Charlie Mullins, ma'am!" – the squeaky young man stuttered.
"Well, Mullins, move your candy ass and get the keys for that cell over there, quickly!" – she barked again, clapping her hands to give effect to her words while she took her eyes to Spades, who were immediately attended by the doctor, and then, to the stabbing tribal – "Stop it."
But the guy kept at it, the skull of his adversary already rendered down to a bloody pulp.
"Stop it, I say!"
When she attempted to grab the young man by the shoulders to force him to react, the reflex move he did to avoid physical contact froze her on the spot.
Because that very same reflex move, she had displayed countless times when one of her teammates or a fellow soldier would touch her. It was so familiar it hurt. It was an involuntary reaction that spoke of a traumatic experience she hadn't wanted to repeat ever again.
It was the fear, the disgust, the disdain, the pain, the vulnerability, the powerlessness, and the self-deprecation all condensed in one single response. Wordless, instinctive, protective.
It was the outcome of the anger at not having been strong enough to avoid something that, now, was irremediable. It was a way of coping with the sadness, to cocoon yourself.
However, until now, Betsy hadn't realized that she hadn't been alone in her screams.
Turning her sight to Spades, who was trying to put on his trousers with all the astigmatic dignity he could muster, her eyes met with the medic's.
There was understanding there. No pity. Just plain and simple understanding. He had known all along about both of their stories and hadn't commented. Bet he had seen plenty of their cases at the Freeside, where gloomy, narrow alleys cooked casualties like theirs.
Betsy had forgotten that they weren't in NCR territory, that this wasn't Shady Sands, San Francisco, or Vault City, with all the tight-laced police security and the law courts. This was an untamed land between two nations warring for supremacy. He was a field physician, and she was a soldier. Both had seen and experienced plenty, yet tragedy and loss were now a day-to-day occurrence to him, whereas, for her, everything was still painfully raw.
She had been too comfy and disconnected from the real deal with the Mojave Campaign, stuck Southwest with Royez's boys the last two years before the Reds had dared their first assault at the Dam to be aware of where she had signed to put her sweet ass in. Hungry for action as she had been assigned to one of the elite teams. Enduring every single jab and come-ons thrown by the local horn-dog alpha males that make up the bulk of the Army recruits in Vegas, thinking their dicks entitled them to talk the louder and stupider as a fucking legionnaire would, but protected by the Republic's uniform.
She had never given further thought to the local problems before, to the persistent tribalism and the due superstitions that came with customs, the consequences in the face of lacking laws and regulations allowing human trash like Cook-Cook jamming his dick when and wherever he had pleased. The black markets that had nothing to do with the Legion but still dealt in slavery. The problem with lacking infrastructures or qualified personnel, relying on convict meat to gunpowder the new roads.
They had been led to believe that they were on a 2.0 version of New Reno due to the apparently civilized patina in which Mr. House had coated the details surrounding the New Vegas Treaty, that they were the likes of back home.
But they had been deceived.
They could have been warring for this piece of desert for five years with the Reds while enriching a bunch of tribals led by a cunning weirdo who hid behind a screen… but the Followers had arrived before.
And nobody had asked them a damn thing about their take on the current situation. Their experience in a land they had traveled in and out countless times. Something that might have saved countless soldier lives and money on the Government arks.
Soldiers that came with three - maybe four if they were fortunate – weeks of basic training before being thrown to the lions, incredibly unprepared and undertrained as the line of defense at Nelson had demonstrated.
She, like many others, had simply chosen to ignore the Followers' pacifist campaign, dismissing it as anarchic. For she had swallowed every single lie they had been fed through the military propaganda.
"Women of the NCR
Every one of YOU who serves is a SLAP! across Caesar's face! TAN HIS HIDE, LADIES!"
God save the motherfucking Republic. Long live the Californian Dream.
They had arrived to become heroes, and they were the ones currently losing. On all fronts.
Once Mullins found the key among the mess of corpses and managed to get the cell door open, the Private took one of the blue jackets from the fallen convicts and put it over the naked shoulders of a heavily bruised yet determined female silhouette who walked off her prison eyeing the bodies with an odd, detached look, as if the whole ordeal was utterly disconnected from her. She had part of her scalp either shaved or with the hair pulled off, nails from both hands and feet black and dirty, and dry blood between her thighs and around her bloated face. A constellation of swellings and bruises on very different healing processes mapped her slender, malnourished body beneath a crust of grime.
This woman hadn't been one of Lee's troopers.
"Corporal Elizabeth Daniels of the New California Republic Army, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Alpha Team." – the sniper woman greeted the other with her eyes behind the sunglasses meeting the other ones' directly. The way she would have liked everybody else in the camp would greet her after surviving Cook-Cook. The way the Courier treated her, making her feel worthy and human again – "Who I'm talking to?"
Because she was a survivor, not a motherfucking victim.
"First Sergeant Annabelle Dent, from the Military Police, NCRCF Security Staff." – the other woman replied with a tired, aphonic voice.
All of them were survivors. Fighters.
Taking a rifle from one of the fallen troopers, Betsy checked it was loaded before handing it to Dent, who grabbed it with a trembling hand.
"Welcome back aboard, ma'am." – Betsy said firmly, saluting her, noticing from the corner of her eye how the tribal was eyeing her, his gruesome display put aside, his face grave as if trying to understand the implications that weren't being mentioned.
As if suddenly getting her. Or part of what she was trying to convey anyway since Betsy wasn't good with words without fucking everything up. After all, she was a stone-cold bitch. And proud of it.
A bloodied, swollen corner of a mouth that had endured abuse worth for a whole lifetime tugged upwards.
"Thank you, Corporal."
Everything was gonna be alright.
Everything was, swiftly and surely, going to hell.
He was failing, once again, at keeping tabs on maintaining the girlie safe and sound. And the itch on his left arm was killing him.
When did she slip under his nose? He recalled arriving at the agreed point, Lee saying they couldn't wait any longer for the East group, that his scouts had informed him the convicts were regrouping and making preparations. That they had to attack at once.
Then, he didn't know how, but Boone had found himself barking orders at troopers to fire their flares over the northeastern fence while the rest clockworked a hole big enough for three men to get inside the prison facilities.
She had been next to him one minute, then the next second, she was gone.
Veronica had freaked out, shrieking to Lily that she went to search for her around the yard, then she, Arcade, and he would search the cell blocks.
However, after some ugly skirmish inside the aforesaid gigantic cell blocks, Boone had this funny idea that the girlie would be at the visitors' center.
She wasn't… and yet, she was.
There was a lot of blood and broken Sarsaparilla bottles. All mixed with 10mm shells.
Bloodied, small bootprints had gotten in and out, using the doors as shields, then as offensive mechanisms judging by the marks left.
The boot prints had ultimately gotten back into the yard, mingled with dirt and sand from the desert.
The yard had been an honest-to-God whirlwind of junk and furniture used as barricades, whereas bursts of either bullets or powder charges kept pouring like rain, forcing Boone to adopt an overthrown picnic table as a shield while he scanned the perimeter in search of the girlie.
BOOM.
The formation broke among Powder Ganger lines when one of their watchtowers was brought down, blocking the space between the visitors' center and the Administration building. Boone had been lucky enough to hole himself behind a table at the center of the cracked sports yard.
Nevertheless, he had almost knifed down Veronica the moment her body knocked over him when she had rolled behind the picnic table with him.
For once, he hadn't resented the brute force her Power Fist lent her when she had blocked the armed hand intended for her gullet.
"Why do we always hurt the ones we care about the most?" – she said wryly, displaying an utterly inappropriate streak of humor Boone had grown to recognize when she was under tremendous stress – "Just when being showered in bullets and dynamite was getting old…"
A wild dickwad appeared from behind one of the garbage piles near the northern watchtower, and before the ex-Recon could react, Veronica simply carved a hole through his bulletproof vest with her pneumatic gauntlet.
"Don't know about you, but I wouldn't buy that the guy was dead when we arrived." – the small woman said conversationally despite that her shoulders were visibly trembling, perhaps due to having to wear something she knew wasn't as good as her Scribe robes when it comes to stopping bullets. Then, a solitary dynamite cartridge landed near the corpse, making Boone and her get around the table before the body exploded in a rather gory fashion – "We better get out of here before we add 'dismemberment' to the felony list as well."
A couple of stray shots chipped the rotting table wood transforming it into a rain of splinters neither of them appreciated in the slightest before Boone directed the scope of his rifle upwards. The son of a bitch was using his advantaged position at the watchtower to take potshots at nearby targets, probably due to a shortage in the ammo for long-med distance scoped guns. It was reassuring knowing that even the Powder Gangers didn't have an unlimited stock of ammo and dynamite; if they were running dry already, there might be a chance to even the scores.
That gave him an idea.
"Say, Veronica." – he said without looking at her – "You and me, a little quick sprint up to that tower, and we make some motherfuckers fly." – taking a shot at one of those very motherfuckers squatting at the metallic stairs to get a more precise shot at them, he beat gravelly – "Then we use the vantage point to search for the girlie."
He hadn't to turn around to hear the smile in her voice. They couldn't have been more synchronized in action and thought.
"It's a date, then." – she snickered – "I expect a bouquet of flowers after this, you know."
"A beer's the best I can offer." – and here he comes to discover that sassing can turn out contagious.
"Ooo. You know how to make a girl swoon."
"Let's go."
"Let's."
They received a welcome worthy of the strategic point the bastards were defending.
Using Veronica as a wall to keep on the punching line, whereas he took care of the distant targets, they managed to clean their path up the watchtower before starting using convicts as practice dummies whenever they felt brave enough to worm up the tower to counter the loss of snipers or to shoot range from the cell blocks' roof.
If they came from below, Veronica would send them back down. If they attacked from the nearby watch posts, Boone would slingshot them to the point that they managed to clean up the whole northwestern part for the guys entrenched at the opposite side of the cells blocks to start shooting down the Blues from both the Administration building and the remnants from blocks A and B since the C looked pretty clean after the previous incursion.
With the tide slowly turning their way, the outside remnants running their way up the Administration building met tightly shut doors that Boone took advantage of by gunning down each one of them at a time.
However, when his scope rested over a particularly short Powder wearing a security helmet with a glass panel, something clicked inside his head, and he missed a beat when the Administration doors opened again and the remaining bunch entered in droves before getting them shut once more.
"Boone? What's wrong?"
He hadn't noticed he had clamped a hand around his mouth to contain nausea. His left arm itched so... so goddamn much…
"The girlie…" – he rasped, an unsurmountable wave of terror washing over his soul like the fall of a coffin lid – "The girlie's inside the Admin block."
After that, he broke into a mad sprint downstairs.
Rarely did the VR load infiltrate missions in Campaign Mode, and she could barely contain her anxiety. If she was caught, the pod was programmed to deal with anything that might happen during the simulation, being it emulating the pain of a bullet, electric shocks coming from torture sessions during interrogation… and even asphyxia if the AI decided to choke answers out of her.
For there were WAY worse outcomes than simply being gunned down by the textured dummies and getting your brainial waves permanently disconnected in clinical death.
She had to act carefully around the enemy, no matter how virtual it was.
She had been lucky enough not only to find a dead Commie with a clothing size close to hers but also a helmet that would cover her face. As long as she didn't talk, she was fine.
"Shit! Those assbags are regrouping outside! They've got snipers! Myers, Carter, and Torres at the watching posts already bite the dust!"
Which she didn't find very complicated, given that everyone was yelling at the same time; the AI giving her one of the best glimpses at how a frenzied, terrified enemy would behave under siege. Amazing.
"Hannigan! Move your fat black ass and get some stims over here!"
"Fuck you! I knew I should've gone with Cooke. I just knew it!"
"Quit whining lest you wanna Eddie make Scrambler carve a third eye in your skull and pass the fucking meds!"
She followed the designated medic from the overcrowded entrance to the infirmary, also flooded with wounded operatives.
It was surprisingly easy to slide a knife under his jacket, pointing at his liver. A painful, slow death if the First Aid course in the military had been accurate.
"Don't move and don't scream if you wanna make it out in one piece." – the dummy tensed, and she slipped an unpinned frag grenade into his trembling hands, her voice barely a whisper among the ruckus – "Grip tightly that safety lever if you don't want a big, bad smoky stain where you're standing and nothing more. Not even a toe."
"W-whaddya want?" – the dummy predictably replied. Not that she would have expected a deep, meaningful conversation coming from a pre-programmed AI.
"Take me to your Commander."
"E-Eddie?!" – the mannequin muttered, effectively emulating the average psychological resistance also expected from a real situation – "Oh, m-man, h-he'll kill me if I g-guide you to him!"
"Go ahead then, scream. Drop the grenade. Make a big fuss. You're as good as dead once my knife cuts through your liver. Your choice."
She counted the seconds when the AI was supposed to calculate a reasonable hesitation that would feel authentic.
"Okay, okay!" – the dummy hissed – "I'll d-do what you s-s-say! Anything!"
"Put your hand with the grenade in your pocket. Conceal it. That's it."
"F-follow me. Just… d-don't kill me!"
"Slowly. I also have a gun. You start running or asking for help, you're getting a bullet in the head plus all the likely carnage you will unleash with the grenade."
She stuck to him, putting on an apparently harmless display in front of the rest of the base – if you could call this rundown place a base at all – during the following stair levels they took up, her knife tightly pressed to his back.
"Ignore everybody else. Tell your boss you want to communicate something important to him."
"O-okay…"
Her Pip-Boy, besides reading some annoying alarms regarding her vitals, displayed a map of the compound and let her know that there was an office on the second floor where this 'Eddie' character would likely be hiding. Perfect.
There wasn't anybody roaming the hall on the second floor, and the doors of the rest of the rooms were closed. She then allowed the bait to play his part when he knocked at the first door by the left.
"Who goes in?"
"E-Eddie?"
Damn, perhaps she had overdone the threatening. Now her abductee was stuttering. Bad news if the Commander didn't allow him entrance.
"Damn it, Hannigan! What is it now?!"
"G-got something important for ya."
"Yeah, 'important', he says. More likely you don't want to whip more bastards back into shape because you're a lazy ass! Get back to the infirmary before I lose my patience!"
"B-but it's important!"
"Fuck off, Hannigan!"
"I-it's about those snipers out there…!"
"Drop it, moron. You haven't set foot in the yard to know what's like out there!"
"B-but here's someone who has!"
There was a short silence.
"What the hell?! Scrambler! Go see what this shit's about!"
The very instant the door opened, she kicked the bait straight into the arms of a man with an eyepatch and a mohawk, making both of them lose balance. Hannigan put his hands immediately on Scrambler's shoulders reflexively.
"WHAT THE F…?!"
She kicked the door closed, got out of trajectory, and waited the few longest seconds of her life before the door blew off its very hinges while a dense puff of smoke that smelled acrid as fuck shuffled from inside the office.
The explosion had created a painting of gore so utterly graphic she felt slightly queasy. Stupid Vault-Tec programmers and their stupid nerd textures and ambiance enhancements. Extra realism too extra. Yuck.
In one corner, grabbing a plasma pistol with shaking hands, a redhead man sat on the floor, eyeing his surroundings as if still not believing it until his reddened eyes landed on her, his whole expression an amalgam of contracted facial muscles.
"Game over, you Communist heathen."
Gabban didn't know where he was and how he had gotten there.
When the fight had started, he had signaled Cassius to keep with him so both of them could control the Courier's moves.
Not five minutes inside the prison facilities, they had already lost sight of her.
Then, he had lost sight of Cassius. And his own emergency backpack as well.
Alone and exposed, he had sandwiched between the backyard of the cell blocks and some decommissioned power generator while swimming in trash.
And no, pre-War gigantic rubber tires didn't make good bulletproof protection.
But they made a hell of an offensive mechanism once you're out of ammo, luck, and self-respect.
Three convicts had already succumbed to the power of the Mighty Rubber Tire. And lots of knife work. Damn shame they couldn't bring their machetes; that's what it was.
Dumb chance and good stamina had allowed him to climb the half-rusted, half-rotten emergency stairs that got up to the cell block's rooftop to start tackling down Powders before they were aware of his presence.
Zigzagging amidst alight dynamite cartridges had proven to be quite the interesting task; the more when one of such explosions throws you to the very edge of the building. The Degenerate piece of crap kicking you in the nuts and the subsequent rolling over the edge only adding to the shitty flavor.
Despite his good reflexes at grabbing at something before falling, he peeled his hands off descending through one of the rusted pipelines that run the building up to down. The fact that said pipeline had decided to give up and bend under his weight is an unimportant detail when you're less than one story from the ground. Falling on his ass but a minor inconvenience once he had managed to touch the ground without breaking his spine or cracking open his skull like a melon.
Then, out of pain due to the nut kick, he vomited what was left of his lunch with all the dignity he was able to muster.
And that's Gabban's little Odyssey around the motherfucking NCR Correctional Facility. Ta-da.
Because the next dynamite cartridge that was thrown in his direction, he didn't see. Just went along with the script when another body tackled his' at full speed to end up both rolling aside until their wild snowballing crushed against… yet another pile of rubber and trash. Because Fortuna had a peculiar sense of humor in store today.
"What do you think you are doing standing amidst a firefight and not searching for a place to take cover, you idiot?!"
His immediate reaction would have been throwing a rude gesture… had he not been so relieved to be yelled at by the unmistakable uptight voice of his brother.
So, he allowed himself to let go of part of his anxiety and started laughing, his forehead touching Vulpes' collarbone as he permitted himself a millisecond to forget what was happening around them.
Vulpes wasn't so amused, though.
"You stink." – he hissed, scrunching his nose in disgust.
Gabban snorted. Vulpes could be so, so utterly ridiculous at the most unsuspected moments when he wasn't in control of the situation.
He had missed that ridiculousness.
"Neither you smell of roses, Fox."
Missed messing with his ridiculous brother.
The disgusted grimace accentuated when they got up from the garbage pile and secured their hides behind an old, decommissioned mine cart probably used in demolitions before the prison break.
"Where's your gun?" – the Fox demanded.
"Ran out of ammo."
"And the backpack with spare cartridges?"
"Powders got ahold of it."
"You are a walking disaster." – hissing irritably, Vulpes handed him his own backpack, instructing him to unpin a grenade.
"And you're a walking pile of bullshit." – Gabban replied unusually calmly and in good spirits, throwing the grenade at the approaching pair of Powder morons with more dynamite in hand.
Nothing like some good ol' Profligate carnage to bond over with your waspish brother.
"I believe I taught you better than this folly lack of self-preservation." – when Vulpes was bent on pursuing a conversation in which he wanted to have the last word, there was nothing that could convince him to change the topic. Usually, the wisest course of action entailed shutting your mouth and leaving him rambling until he was satisfied.
Nevertheless, Gabban had never considered himself to be the wisest Frumentarius ever.
"Where are the others?" – change of topic had never worked on Vulpes before, and neither did it work now.
"I had to sprint across the courtyard to get your insufferable hide far from enemy lines, so I venture they are taking cover around the visitors' center." – the Praefectus Frumentario replied as he got up from his crouched position to deliver a couple of shots over the cart's rusty rime before lowering again to reload.
"Gee, how cute. You're also going to carry me out of here bridal style as well?"
"Don't flatter yourself. You aren't an enchanting enough damsel for that."
"Yeah, but close enough. After all, we both know you're into butch ladies."
A duct-taped combination of four dynamite cartridges with a single common fuse landed in between them, and then, true to his line of acting ridiculous and unpredictable, Vulpes wasted no time grabbing it and throwing it back before the thing exploded midair.
"You thrice-damned loony!" – he could have lost an arm, and Gabban was sure he was well aware, but he simply did the thing to prove something. What, Gabban could start giving a couple of guesses – "Are you trying to get us killed?!"
"I won't have you speaking to me in that tone again." – Vulpes replied with feigned nonchalance as he picked a random nearby empty bottle from the ground to start with his Molotov cocktail routine, signaling him to pick another one and collaborate in the projectile making – "I have already suffered your disrespect more than my patience is willing to take at this point."
Huffing, Gabban went on automatic mode as he was passed a… whiskey flask to add to the inflammable mixture that went inside the clogged bottle.
Both waited, took a peek from under the cart's wheels, ignited the fuse rags, and threw their projectiles to the most immediate Blue nearby.
"Okay, okay. Geez." – the blonde young man grunted, displeased – "Did you get laid at least?"
The bottle from the next cocktail on the making almost slid from Vulpes' hands.
"What?"
"You know, the other night when you didn't show at…"
"What?"
"Quit the gawking, Fox. You look retarded."
"You… I'm seriously debating whether I should backhand you for your reiterated insolence or not. Again."
"So, you didn't."
"I'm not discussing my private affairs with you!"
"So, you did."
"Stop prodding!"
"Nah, definitely you didn't."
"I said stop!"
"It's okay if you're still working that angle, you know. I already have half a mind of giving the gal a goddamn medal. She's earned me a hefty sum already."
"Wha… A sum?! What are you talking about?!"
"You see, there's this wager at The Fort…"
"Don't! I'd better not hear it." – as he reloaded his rifle again, he paused briefly, giving him a suspicious glance – "Unless you're giving me some names…"
"Forget it." – Gabban replied with a toothy grin – "I'm not ratting out the guys that are going to make me a handful of Aurei richer. It's hard enough being trusted around working at the F Division. Pun totally intended."
"I could force you to lay a report to your Commander, whom I happen to be, dearest brother."
"C'mon, you're gonna pull rank on me over something so superfluous?"
"To make a mockery of one of your Commanders isn't superfluous."
"Pah! If only you knew about what the wagers on Lanius are…"
Two rifle shots, two Molotov cocktails, and then back again, grabbing empty bottles that apparently were as numerous as the rusted Pork N' Beans cans all around the disgusting courtyard that kept piling up bodies and flies.
"What are those wagers about?" – Vulpes finally asked, mixing inflammable liquids from vastly different sources.
"Ha! So, you're curious then."
"Knowledge is power."
"Name your bet."
"What?!"
"If you wanna get into the wager, you ought to loosen up your purse. Those are the rules."
"I'm not going to gamble over aleatory guessing games that could or not prove true!"
"Why not?"
"We do NOT gamble!"
"Says you."
"Says the rules!"
"You don't give a flying fuck about rules, Fox."
"Keep that vocabulary in check!" – Vulpes hissed, annoyed again at his coarse language. Gabban found it funny that, despite being far more knowledgeable in the English tongue than Alexus or himself, Vulpes still made occasional silly construction mistakes that stemmed more from their native Spanish when he was pissed off – "And, for your information, I care about rules more than you could imagine."
"Yeah, sure. And what about Vegas?"
"Justifiable work!"
"C'mon, you've set up a lottery before…"
"That was different! I have to set an example, which doesn't contemplate gambling with the troops!"
"Seriously, dude, no wonder everybody believes you're a closet case. You don't know what having fun is."
"I am a what?!"
"Yeah, you know… That you give chase to queer guys because you're a resentful queer or something."
"Qu… where did you get that word?!"
"Westside. Less crude than the whole 'inverted' thing. Sounds funnier too."
"Are you even hearing yourself?!"
"Relax, Fox, I bet you were straight, and I won. Those guys now will have to stick their tongues up their arses when you show up at The Fort with the Courier making eyes at you." – hunching shoulders, he added – "And you better play the part in front of them as well. You know how they get over fresh unclaimed titties at The Fort." – pausing again, he grinned – "Even if there are no actual titties to speak of."
He knew he deserved the whack he got on the back of his head immediately afterward. Bad news will come later when the whack described above would sting like hell. Vulpes' whacks were always the delayed-effect type.
"Vocabulary, brother, vocabulary." – Vulpes grumbled after delivering his share to the next wave of Powders, who were now actively avoiding their spot thanks to the work from the North watchtower, where Sunglasses and Punch Girl were posing a fair challenge to the guys trying to stuff their arses in the Admin compound. Then, he added accusingly as an afterthought – "I wasn't aware you were out of a sudden concerned about how Sullivan would fare at The Fort."
Owch. He was sore. Definitely sore over that last tidbit. Gabban didn't want to start another fight on account of whether he should or not pursue a liaison as dangerous as that one, so he begrudgingly caved. He couldn't stand another round of non-speaking terms with Vulpes. He had had enough of that.
After all - no matter how well Gabban got along with many of their comrades -, besides Alex, Vulpes was the only real friend he had in the whole world. Even if Gabban had never been his first choice among their siblings.
"Our hides depend on her presenting herself as the ideal ally over there, in case you have forgotten." – he huffed unhappily – "Besides… I gather I can't force you to change what tickles your fancy, so… okay by me."
He could swear he saw something twinkle in the corner of Vulpes' eyes, but that notion was promptly discarded as soon as Sunglasses at the watch post jumped on a mad dash downstairs right to the Administration.
"The fuck's wrong w…?" – the blonde Frumentarius hadn't finished the sentence when every single hair on his body stood on edge as soon as the unmistakable bass voice from the supermutant with the picture hat cut through the air.
"JIMMY!" – she yelled, a very enthusiastic cyberdog hot on her heels barking loudly as she stomped her way up to the two legionaries to grab them at the back of their uniform to sit them each on a shoulder and keep running.
To say that Gabban was now paler than the very Vulpes would be an understatement.
"Why are we riding over a supermutant's shoulders?!" – he asked, completely aghast, while he attempted to maintain balance so he wouldn't end up licking the concrete yard.
"I don't know!" – Vulpes offered in response, equally baffled and making the same futile attempts to keep from falling… though, Gabban suspected, the crazy lunatic was having a better time than him – "Ask her!"
"I'm not fucking asking…!" – then, the motherfucking door of the Admin block was but a hair's breadth from their physical radius.
To say that both of them had screamed like sissies before the Nightkin drew her sword to slice the entrance open would be too embarrassing a fact that was best left unsaid in the annals of Legion History.
Arcade had come out of the cell blocks as soon as the situation in the courtyard had been stabilized. Sort of. For he still had to plasma-goo his way while avoiding the occasional dynamite cartridge thrown in his direction.
He hadn't waited for Betsy and the others, intent as he had been on searching for Six.
The overall unhygienic environment, coupled with loads of corpses from both sides of the conflict – most of them maimed due to explosions beyond recognition - made his eyes water and his stomach protest in retaliation. If he had thought the carnage with the Fiends had been bad then, now he was seriously debating whether he should get aboard the pain train when the second battle for Hoover Dam occurred.
His plan had sounded fairly solid in his mind when he had been ready to disclose his past to Six and expose himself to Boone's and even Veronica's wrath due to his Enclave background.
Turns out that the first thing he should have given some consideration to had been Six's personal background and not her followers'. Or lack thereof.
Now, with much more on his plate to chew on than he had initially bargained for, gathering the old-timers while making a stellar apparition wearing his father's old Power Armor didn't sound so reasonable.
For nothing looked reasonable or even justifiable anymore just by looking at what they had unleashed in less than an hour.
Violence, misery, disease, drug addiction, and overall everything that came with living outside of the Big Brother's golden cage at The Strip had made Arcade accept everyday human suffering as a persistent cancerous disease the Followers, in close collaboration with the Kings, hadn't managed to purge in the near-decade they had been fighting against entropy… But this? This was but an aperitif of what awaited them once the Legion decided to make a move across the Colorado.
A mass slaughter.
And for what? For a wall of concrete constructed in the image of its Old-World contemporaries? Testimony of twisted life philosophies, stained with the blood of the men and women who had sought to control it, a gravestone to crown the Mojave once the fight is over.
No matter the enemy today had been criminals, human leftovers that the NCR society had decided to forsake in favor of expanding their borders employing slave labor, uncaring to reconduct their delinquent ways into something good. Indifferent about giving second opportunities for the damned.
Many of these men, the same as the Fiends and many other tribes and communities deemed monstrous and depraved enough to be stomped under either the Bull or the Bear's policies, were, at the very end, victims.
And they had been the ultimate force to wipe them off. As if they had never existed.
As if their lives were nothing but numbers on a ledger any bureaucrat would use to wipe his ass anytime he felt like it.
Pawns over a chessboard.
Somehow, the Administration building had called for his attention while evading weakened attacks across the courtyard. The unmistakable indentation product of Lily's blade slashed at the entrance, a signal of sorts that he was on the right path.
Inside, he had to push his way across the hall to reach the stairs. The task was infinitely easier with Lily, Rex, Boone, Veronica, Zorro Salvaje, and his sketchy brother as backup forces.
He didn't know how, but Arcade had found himself two-thirds up the stairs flattening to the cracked wall, allowing pass for a few indeterminate numbers of Powder guys too afraid to bother opposing any sort of resistance, kneeling with their hands interlaced behind their napes as soon as their feet touched the first floor.
Once he reached the second level, Arcade couldn't help but scrunch his nose.
A pungent odor came from one of the offices, slivers of smoke trailing out the open door.
Charred flesh.
He believed his heart had stopped for a second to redouble its pacing, trying to escape from his constricted throat when Arcade's eyes traced the fallen figure of a redhead man in stripes and blue and the more petite figure dressed in the same fashion that had him pinned flat on the floor by sitting on his back, legs astride containing twitching arms.
The helmet's glass panel was raised, and then, in place of Six's doe-like eyes, two black pools shimmering like petroleum were looking directly at him.
"Sir, report on the mission: success, sir." – was her monochord salutation, her gun's muzzle resting over the man's cranium, her left nostril bleeding from an untouched nose – "Sir, commanding officer of the enemy captured. Asking permission to pull the trigger to end the simulation, sir."
Simulation?!
Arcade didn't get to open his mouth when the sudden apparition of a somewhat tense Boone at the door frame operated a complete transformation in Six, whose face melted into the biggest, brightest smile neither of them had seen in the teen before, her eyes shimmering with indescribable joy.
"Big Bro!" – she squealed in delight – "Did they allow you entrance?! Are you testing the new engine as well? I have beaten the VR already!" – she exclaimed proudly, like a child way smaller than her actual age would when showing an adult their progress with homework – "I have a whole squad on my own now, just like you! You see, I'm Captain, but… I miss you and Big Sis so much. Has she managed to get back my custody already?" – she moaned pleadingly, eyes shining in anticipation – "Can we go home now?"
And then, suddenly, Arcade remembered that a wall of concrete wasn't what he was fighting for.
Robert Joseph McCready, former Mayor of Little Lamplight and a very pissed-off Knight as of today, had eyed the whole deal with the reactor extraction with squinted eyes.
Arms crossed, mouth pressed into a hard line, he had looked over the rows of Rivet City's denizens waiting their turn to sign for the Brotherhood census with a disapproving frown that had intensified the more of those poor people had also asked to sign for Brotherhood recruitment as well.
The only reprieve he was able to obtain from this nightmare was when he caught sight of the piece of shit that had started all of this after coming back from his hunt. Without the coverage that his tortoiseshell sunglasses and his hat usually provided for his shady charisma, the son of a bitch didn't look near as menacing and sophisticated with his pinstriped suit wet and ruined, his throat and face full of bruises, and his right hand on a sling with a bone-realigning metallic brace.
Served him well, the creepy psycho. Hope the android had rendered his hand fucking useless.
But then, there was Arthur following the stupid protocol, eyes hard as steel as he had addressed the measures to be observed while installing the power generators that would serve as a poor substitute for what they were taking from the city while they waited for the qualified hands to arrive so the broken bow of the vessel could be reattached to the functional one and Pinkerton, the old good-for-nothing coward, would retake his long-dreamed project of whipping the air carrier back into shape.
Meanwhile, he was also waiting, detained between two of his former mates from Lamplight. Had he been told he one day would find himself at the mercy of Knick Knack and, most importantly, honest-to-God motherfucking Princess, he would have gunned himself.
"You shouldn't have put on a show like that one in front of everybody." – the oldest out of the two young men whispered to him, blowing a huff of tobacco smoke, a disgusting habit McCready had also fallen prey to. After all, they were all now stupid mungos with even stupider vices – "You cannot call out the Elder's orders just like that, you know."
"Sod off, Knick Knack." – McCready huffed arrogantly, blowing the smoke of his own cigarette.
The other blushed furiously before hissing:
"Quit calling me that! It's Knight Nicholas now!"
"Yeah, and after passing basic training, you're still the same moron walking in Power Armor with a thumb up your asshole."
"Fuck you, McCready!"
And Robert just had more comebacks on the way when Angela 'Princess' decided to stick her nose where it didn't belong.
"Are you two ever gonna grow up?" – she said, scrunching her nose in disgust – "If I'd known I'll be sharing shifts with the two of you, I would've tried for a Scribe position."
McCready snorted.
"You ain't got what it takes to be a Scribe." – he mocked – "That's brainiacs' game, and you've always been better at pushing people around than explaining stuff to them. You'll be a lousy teacher."
"At least I wouldn't be suffering your stupid bickering now."
"No, you'll be suffering Rothchild's long rantings instead."
The three of them squirmed uncomfortably at the idea.
"Think you're gonna get disciplined for this, Mac?" – Nick finally asked, clearly unsure if breaching the topic now was safe.
"For what? For telling the fucking truth?" – McCready scoffed.
"It has nothing to do with truth but questioning your superior publicly." – Angela pointed – "Having Maxson as our new Elder is the best thing that could've happened to us, and your little cocky show diminishing his credibility is not gonna pay off in the long run. You've gotten yourself an automatic dislike among the veteran forces already."
"Like I give a fuck about what those guys think of me."
"Stop being a prat for a second and think!" – she exclaimed, unusually irate and unusually rational. It seemed that adulthood had indeed made the spoiled little Princess mature faster than them – "We've been changing Elders non-stop since Sarah Lyons's death, and everybody expects a Maxson to be the solution to all our internal problems! It's a matter of morale, legacy, and History! You two know very well just how important that stuff is for the Brotherhood."
"Not for me."
"With that attitude, they would start closing doors to new admissions just that easily. They already have enough actives to raise the bar and start discarding people who wouldn't adhere to the Codex."
"I didn't ask to join the Brotherhood cause."
"Neither did I, and still, here we are: trained, decontaminated, well-fed, safe, and with the certainty of a bed and a roof over our heads." – she sighed – "Those things, in the Wasteland, are privileges, McCready. Privileges you're to pay with loyalty and obedience. That much, they already warn you during preparation."
Inhaling another mouthful of smoke, McCready gave the matter some thought.
True that the Brotherhood of Steel had been watching over them since the Lamplight breach with Blonde Bitch and her asshole psycho lover.
True that the training, food, and healthcare were very appreciated.
But the Codex and the inner structure of the Brotherhood could eat a sock.
He wasn't gonna trade principles for commodities. Even he knew what the difference between leadership and just plain tyranny was. He had lived a simulacrum of such things back at Lamplight thanks to the very Princess, and he had stepped into power because he wasn't going to acknowledge royalty when a humble but honest Mayor position had been just fine.
That had been a child's scuffle. Now, this was the real deal, and he still disapproved.
However, picking a battle with the Brotherhood's brass just for the sake of making a point wasn't going to make life any easier for the other Lamplight kids inside.
He had to leave.
Arthur Maxson and his goddamned Prydwen Project will be better without him.
And he, in turn, will feel less disgusted about what he still could become under the Brotherhood's wings: a mungo like Burke with no qualms about whose throat he could stomp over just because he could.
SPANISH:
(1) - "Fennec, Lycaon. You two with me. Here, old man. We'll keep in touch. If you'll need reinforcements..."
(2) - "I'll broadcast, lad. Find Boss and... good luck, kiddies."
(3) - grandpa
A/N: I'm showing a tendency to get carried away with characters' backgrounds and philosophies that are slowing the story considerably. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I wanted to say so much. I have a very hyperactive mind that is always wondering about characterizations and information when I'm writing. I often revisit old chapters to correct stuff, so...
Anyway, this chapter got longer and longer the more I wrote, so that's mainly why I have delayed the update... that and, as the plot thickens, the less I'm relying on how the game unfolds. Battle for Hoover Dam will happen, yes, but there's a lot to say about the involved parts before we get there.
Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R: thank you! I'm really trying to make missions more meaningful and wholesome than what we get In-Game, so you noticing and appreciating it's the best compliment an author can get ^^
More Politics and Plot Bunnies coming, guys! :D
PD: Yeah, I'm making allusions to Fallout 2 with the Chosen One (It's canon he's male since he's Mr. Bishop's father. The Vault Dweller, however, aside from making him a dude just because the developers put In-Game masculine pronouns, it could have perfectly been the female option, Natalia Dubrovhsky, who is here the original Vault Dweller).
