The first contract Steve had set us up with was a guy by the name of Tom Quigly. He was a former Ranger, and rumored to be one of, if not the, best marksmen in the Mojave. He had over twenty confirmed kills under his belt, most of which were at ranges just over the 1000-yard mark. He'd served two tours during the NCR's brotherhood wars, earning him commendations from Kimball. He'd even been present in some capacity at the first battle for Hoover Dam, prior to being drummed out of the Rangers.

Which was apparently because he was a syphilitic half-wit.

He was a playboy to some extent as well, and had contracted Syphilis at some point just prior to the first battle at the dam. It hadn't shown through until after though, and he'd been kicked out for hogtying an officer and planning to make him 'squeal like a stuck Molerat'. How much of that was true I had no idea. But the end result was the same, he was drummed out, and took to banditry to survive. Despite his loss of mental stability, his skill apparently hadn't suffered, as most caravans that'd been lucky to survive reported having been unable to tell where exactly they'd been taking fire from. It was only by chance one such caravan had gotten lucky, and reported having seen him committing the act.

Which was why it was now up to me and Cass to go kill him.

"You sure you're ok with this?" Cass asked.

"Hell no." I said, adjusting the sleeves of my new coat "But we've got the chance to make some good cash. Plus the man has clearly gone off the deep end… still, if there's a chance to take him in alive I think we should."

"Pissing on company policy on the first day." Cass smirked, shaking her head "No wonder you're broke."

"I'm not broke, I'm loaded with yellow coins. Not my fault no one wants to take them."

"Hm, yeah, it is kinda strange." Cass agreed.

I continued fussing with the coat. I just couldn't get used to it. The tails of it kept catching on my legs and it was lighter than my leather armor. I honestly sure how much good it would do me.

"… if it annoys you that much, why are you still wearing it?" Cass said, watching me constantly re-adjust my coat.

"Don't know." I grunted, finally giving up "Just kinda feels right wearing it."

"For what it's worth, I think it suits you." Cass said, smiling.

I gave her a nod, and we both came to a stop some distance from Quigley's last reported location, which my pip-boy's compass confirmed by pointing in the same direction. Quigley may have been a remarkable shot, but unless he was expecting company, this wouldn't take long. We'd waited until dark to get an idea of where we'd have to attack, and a better chance to get the drop on him. I honestly hadn't counted on it helping much - Tom was an ex-ranger; he'd have to know all manner of ways to stay hidden and get the drop on people. Especially since he was a sniper.

Then night fell, and I could see a blazing campfire on a distant hilltop, leading up to a cliff face.

Set right in line with my compass.

Syphilis must've been some scary shit.

"Alright, so what's the plan?" Cass asked, squatting behind a rocky out cropping with me.

"If we're going to take him alive, we're going to need to be able to sneak up on him." I said, gauging the distance to the hill. "We get his attention; he's got ample room to shoot."

"You sure taking him in alive is a good idea?" Cass asked.

"I'm determined to try and prove Steve wrong." I said "Maybe he's too dangerous, but If I don't at leasttry then it won't sit right with me."

"Didn't stop us from taking the bounties on those fiends."

"… Do you really want to compare an ex-ranger to three drug addled raiders and Cook-cook?"

"… Fair."

"All I'm saying is I want to try. Even if it doesn't work out." I shook my head, and focused back on the task at hand. "Either way, we need to be smart… Let's split, and take the hill from either side." I motioned to the distant hill top. "I'll take far side, you take near, and we'll climb the hill separately. With luck we'll catch him either by surprise, or asleep."

Cass nodded, and let me take point as we crept towards the hill. It was a calm night. The moon and stars were out over head, amid a cloudless black sky. There wasn't a whisper of wind to be heard or felt, and a light humidity hung lazy in the air.

I could hear wildlife howling and yipping not too far in the distance. Coyotes mostly, but the snarl of Geckos was unmistakable. The overgrown lizards were common in this part of the Mojave, them and their gold scaled or fire breathing cousins. They weren't anywhere in sight at the moment though. Part of me had to guess that Quigley had taken to hunting them. Either for food or, more likely, so they didn't sneak up on him in the night. Bad enough that the rabid little bastards bred as quickly as they did, they also had to breathe fire.

I came to a stop a short distance a short distance from the bottom of the hill, ducking into some sparse foliage. It wouldn't do much in the day, but in the dark, it was slightly more useful. It's always harder to distinguish shadows. Especially when looking into, say, a roaring campfire. Everything seemed to be in favor, if Quigley had noticed us, he'd have started taking potshots well before now…

Or perhaps not, he was a sniper after all. His whole shtick was removing enemies in as few shots as possible over long distances.

I waited a moment to see if bullets would start raining down on me.

'…'

I was pretty sure I was in the clear.

I carefully crept out from the weeds and started up the hill slowly. Taking care not to ruin having made it this far without getting shot.

I stopped once more just before cresting the hill, carefully peeking above me to see where Quigley was at. I spied a limp form laying on their side near the fire, back to the flames and facing out towards the desert. In the light of the Campfire, I could recognize the uniform of an NCR Ranger. Not any of their armored variants though, just the basic vested version I'd seen when they weren't on patrol. That meshed with the description we'd been given.

I crested the hill and crept up on Quigley. The fire behind him burned strong and bright, causing both him and myself to cast shadows that stretched out into the yawning night. From the right angle, one could consider them obscuring.

For example, if they had their back to the fire.

I realized that a moment too late to do anything though. I'd already been in motion to hit him when I realized something was amiss.

I struck Quigley in the head, and expected him to flip around and shoot me.

Except he didn't. He just laid there. Still and silent.

I spent all of a second looking at Quigley, waiting. But it was enough to take in that there was something distinctly wrong with him.

Namely, that he looked an awful lot like a she.

"… Awcrap."

I yanked 'Quigley' around to face me, and was greeted to the site of some random wasteland woman who'd had her throat slashed. Her eyes long since gone glassy.

There was a sound of shifting dirt and scrambling just beyond the body. My head snapped up as Quigley crested the hill from the darkness and charged me. A deranged, screaming battle cry on his lips and a psychotic light in his eyes to match the gleam of his combat knife.

He was also completely naked.

Instinct would've had me scramble to my feet and back the help up. Which is a standard reaction when a man runs at you with his knife and Johnson out. Unfortunately, there was a campfire behind me. So instead of putting distance between me and the rapidly approaching Quigley, I wasted a few precious seconds trying to figure out what to do.

By the time I did move, he was practically right on top of me.

I dipped to the side and scrambled to my feet as Quigley lunged over the cadaver between us. He slashed wildly at where my head had been, before turning to face me proper. He gave another scream and lunged again, but I was ready this time. I slipped past him and put the fire between us. We both began circling the fire erratically in a dangerous dance.

"Thinkin' yer hot shit ya filthy fuckin' shit-bird!?" Quigley spat "Yer candy-ass bitchwhistle thot ya could make me scream!? I'm not a squealer, you-er!"

"Fuckin' shit, calm down!"

"CaLm cAlM, silence of the city, burning writhing scratching pissing- Maude, MAUDE!"

Quigley switched directions suddenly hoping to catch me, but I was faster on my feet, and reversed course in tandem.

"I'm trying not to kill you, but you're really making me regret it." I growled.

"Kill, kill!" Quigley snarled, stopping "Take the kill, save the whore, in the shadow of the Valley we'll MARMELADE her KIDNEYS!"

Quigley threw himself at me, running straight over the fire without a second thought. He reverse gripped the knife and tried an overhead stab at me. I side stepped him and clocked him on the jaw. I didn't hold back, and he stumbled to the side of the blaze, swinging his knife to keep me back.

It didn't, I just weaved in and batted the knife out of his dazed hand and began laying into him. I started by hammering his chest, hoping if I could knock enough of the wind out of him, he'd stop fighting back. About three punches in though, his training with the rangers must have kicked in, and he put a guard up. He retreated, and I knew better than to chase him.

"Voices… voices…" Quigley gasped, somehow still as deranged as if he were speaking "Rasping… bleeding…"

I picked up Quigley's knife and gripped it, ready to start cutting if forced to.

Quigley, in turn fell to his ass and continued backing up, circling back around to the woman's corpse again.

"Enough, Quigley." I said, walking toward him "You're done, stop fighting."

"gasping… grasping, fondling-"

Quigley threw himself on the corpse, rolled over it, and came to his feet with a Trail Carbine in his hands. He turned to face me in fluid motion.

The action cycled and he got bead on me before I could grab my gun.

"LICKING THE GRUNDL-"

Half of Quigley's head blew away in a spray of gore and a thunder of gunfire.

A second crack of thunder took his left forearm and threw him to the ground. He writhed for a moment, then subsided.

I turned and saw Cass laying prone on the edge of the hill.

"… So" Cass said "You still want to take him alive?"

"… Gonna need to think on it."

Cass picked herself up off the ground and joined me as I loomed over Quigley's body.

"Did Steve say which finger we needed?" I asked, looking between Quigley severed and yet-to-be severed hands.

"I think he said index." Cass said "Good thing we've got a knife now."

"Mm, how kind of him."

By comparison to Dhatri, standard bounty hunting procedure only required we chop a finger off. One could call it slightly more humane than requiring an entire head. But it's still not a pleasant experience. Though it worked out in this instance, considering Cass had to pulp half of Quigley's head. If we'd still had to bring it back, we'd probably have gotten less than half the caps for it.

I put the blade to the knuckle of Quigley's index finger and stepped on it. There was a sickening noise as the blade broke bone and cartilage. Then I had to saw it loose from whatever flesh was still intact. It was worse than it sounds.

"Something tells me I'm not going to get used to this part." I said, sawing.

While I continued retrieving the finger, Cass went about scavenging. There wasn't much, but hey, waste not want not. She started with the woman, checking all the pockets.

"You recognize her?" I asked.

"Nope."

"She got any I.D. on her?"

"Nope, but she's got a ranger pin. Something tells me these are Quigley's clothes though."

"Figured" I said "Shame, not much we can do for her then."

I may not have known her, but that didn't change someone might've. But we couldn't well go walking up to any place dragging a mutilated corpse behind us. We'd probably get shot. Which, if we were feeling kind, meant we really only had a few options available.

The one I chose was to give her a basic wasteland funeral. Which basically amounted to throwing more wood on the campfire until we could use it as a funeral pyre. The fire was already going strong, so it didn't take long.

I finished sawing Quigley's finger off, and wrapped it up before tucking it away. We then hoisted the woman's body and tossed it onto the fire. Doing so with about as much care as you can have when tossing a corpse. We then added whatever campfire wood was left at that point on top of her and made tracks out of there, leaving Quigley's body to rot, or get gnawed on by geckos. Whichever came first.

"Glad that's over with." Cass said.

"Same, shame about that lady though."

"Can't save 'em all." Cass shrugged "But at least Quigley's not going to be a problem anymore."

"Mmm, can't save 'em all…"

"… Does it really bug you that much?"

"… Only a little, he was clearly out of his fuckin' gourd. But just because you're crazy doesn't mean you should die."

Cass gave me a pat on the shoulder "Don't take it too hard. There's always next time, right?"

"… Yeah, always." I said, pushing onward "We find anything useful in Quigley's bag?"

Cass fished around in her pocket. "Some odds and ends, bullets, food, the usual. He also had this." She produced a holotape from her hip pocket.

"Interesting." I said, holding out a hand "May I?"

"You really want to know what's on here?" Cass asked, complying regardless "Probably just some insane ramblings."

"Maybe, but you never know." I took the holotape and examined it for a second before loading it into my pip-boy. There was a bit of tape slapped onto it, with the word 'WHORE!' scribbled onto it.

The pipboy gave a small whir as it loaded what was written into it.

Which was… um…

Maude you old fuckingcuntbitchslutass cock burning scream! Whore! Whore! Whore! Scratching, burning, fondle, voices talking, crying, BECKONING!

… Interesting.

I really didn't know what I was expecting, the man was insane.

"… I warned you." Cass said, looking over my shoulder at the screen.

"Hmm."

BECKONING!

BECKONING!

BECKONING!

ALHAZRED SPEAKS!

That's all that was written on it. I ejected the holo-tape and stared at it for a moment.

Yep, Syphilis was some scary shit