Tales From the Wasteland 2: With Friends Like These...
Raul's Nail Gun
"Hey Raul, there's something I've been meaning to ask you." I told the old ghoul as we continued our search through the H&H tools building for anything worth looting.
After having stepped on my fifth landmine of the day and the nice, tingly feeling from Hydra fading into a throbbing pain in my leg I needed something to focus on that didn't involve jamming another needle in my leg. Raul and the others chewed my ass out enough as it was for taking chems when I needed to. Having them bitch at me for taking another extra hit of Med-X in front of them when I could just as easily shoot up in private without any consequences just wasn't worth the pain of sitting through another one of Ganon's long winded lectures. I figured that hearing one of Raul's old stories would distract me from the pain in my leg just fine since the old man had a way with words that no one else did.
"Uhh… are you sure you're feeling okay boss? Usually you aren't this interested in other people." He said, making no efforts to hide his lack of concern for me.
"I'm fine, I'd be doing a lot more fine if I could get my hands on some more Hydra, but I'm as fine as I can be until Arcade takes a look at my legs again." I told him.
I wouldn't still be hobbling about if that damn doctor let me carry more than a single dose of Hydra these days, but I guess that's what I get for all the shit I've put him and the others through. Just because I'm allowing him to limit my supply of chems doesn't mean I'm enjoying it though.
"Tsk, you really need to stop taking that stuff. I've seen what it can do to people, boss. It isn't pretty." He told me, lecturing me like a damn child again.
"Raul, it's me we're talking about. Have I ever looked pretty to you?" I asked him.
Now I'm not saying that I didn't have a certain rugged charm hiding underneath the combat helmet, but after a couple of bullets to the head my face was about as many lumps as a mutfruit. Maybe some people might think I look good if they had worse tastes than whoever ordered Mr Fisto and a ghoul dominatrix at the Atomic Wrangler, but then again, maybe not. Either way, my face was fucked beyond repair and the months since I came back from the dead hadn't been much kinder to it. I came to terms with how I look a long time ago, and that was only because I had to look forward to seeing this face for the rest of my life.
Still didn't take away from the fact that I looked like a plasma grenade went off on my face though.
"Well, you don't look half bad with that helmet, sunglasses, and bandana covering your head." Raul said, doing his best to not look at the little skin I had showing above my neck.
"How about I take them off then?" I asked him as I started to unfasten the bandana around my mouth.
"Eheheheheh… if it's all the same to you boss, I'd rather not throw up my lunch right now. Sugar Bombs and Sunset Sarsaparilla taste a whole lot worse coming back up than they do going down." He said, shying away from me in case I did make good on that threat again.
It was a good call on his part too, because I took the moment he looked away to pull my bandana up for a moment and spat out a little bit of green ooze for the second time today. It had only been two weeks since I came back from the Sierra Madre and I was still coughing that shit up. Probably wasn't anything good that I kept on spitting out since then, but since I didn't have any other scars turning green and leafy anymore, I decided to ignore it as best I could. If throwing up a bit of the gook that made the Ghost People… THEM meant that I wasn't going to turn into a spore carrier then that was fine by me.
Veronica and ED-E were worried about me, but I told them it was just a side effect from one of the chems I found there. Ganon knew… but he also knew about my time in Vault 22 too. Since his diagnosis of "how the hell are you not dead yet" didn't change much since the first time we met, I figured that there wasn't worth worrying about.
"Anyways, what is it that you wanted to talk abou- DON'T MOVE ANOTHER STEP!" What started as a simple question soon turned into a desperate scream as the old ghoul made a frantic dive towards me.
Thankfully the old ghoul was quick with his hands when it came to something other than making a few repairs, because he just barely managed to lay a hand on the landmine I was mere moments away from stepping on. Sure, I wouldn't have died from it, but I was pissed off enough already without stepping on the sixth landmine of the day.
Seriously though, who the fuck booby traps a fucking tool manufacturing plant? I know Mr House said that I shouldn't ever get near this place, but come on! It was just a place for making hammers before the war, right? What the hell are all the mines, grenade bouquets, and sentry bots for anyways?
Somebody had to be hiding something, especially with this much security still hanging around after who knows how long. Whatever was hidden here had better damn be worth the trouble, 'cause if not there will be hell to pay.
"Phew, that was a close one, eh boss? I'm pretty sure this thing would have collapsed the catwalk this time if it went off. If getting blown up again wasn't bad enough, landing on a concrete bed lined with nails would have made this day even worse for you, boss. Good thing I'm still looking out for you." Raul said as he picked up the defused landmine and began dismantling it for parts like all the other ones I handed to him.
As much as I wanted to sell them for some desperately needed caps, I'd rather beat the next horde of fiends I see to death with their own pool cues than potentially let that mine find it's way in my path again. Stepping on landmines weren't Mr Fisto levels of bad, nothing can ever be that bad, but I'd definitely rank the overall experience somewhere in the top five on the "List of shit I never want to deal with again". Seriously, fuck landmines and the bastard that rediscovered how to make them.
Sure call me petty, but I don't really care what the hell anyone has to say when they aren't the ones getting blown up. The less of those fucking things out in the world, the better. That was one of the big reasons I had Raul with me right now instead of anyone else. The old ghoul was the one who taught me everything I know about spotting landmines and other rigged explosives, as little as that may be, so I made damn well sure that he was around while I explored the place after setting off a bouquet of grenades when I opened the front door yesterday.
"Yep, you're really making all the trouble I went through on Black Mountain worth it." I said. "Back to what I was saying Raul, there's been a little something I've been meaning to ask you.."
"No boss, I will not repair a car for you. Stop asking me that already." Raul said, sounding just as pissed as the last time I brought the subject up.
"Oh come on, just because what happen last month-"
"WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THAT, PENDEJO! WE NEVER TALK ABOUT THAT!" Raul shouted at me.
"Okay then…" I said, backing away from him slowly in case he snapped and finally belted me upside the head with the supposed super weapon he had stored away somewhere. I don't know what a 'La Chancla' is exactly, but I don't ever want to find out if it means I get hit by it. "I wasn't even going to ask you about the car again anyway. I've had enough trouble with those for one lifetime after getting hit by a Legion Chariot outside of Nipton."
"Oh, you weren't?" Raul asked, looking embarrassed for a moment before he calmed down and continued. "Uhh, uhm… well then, what is it that you wanted, boss?"
Deciding that it was now or never, I finally asked him the burning question I had for him since last night. "Why are nail guns called nail guns if nobody uses them to shoot people with nails?" I asked.
Raul just stopped working on the landmine for a moment and took an uncomfortably long look at me before saying anything.
"You aren't taking Mentats again, are you?" He asked me.
Son of a bitch. Not this again.
"No…"
"That includes the Party Time ones too."
"I already told you, no.
"How about some of that 'Black Coffee' then?"
"...not for the past couple of days." I admitted.
"What? You made some coffee and didn't give me any? What the hell is wrong with you, boss? You know I love that stuff more than Sunset Sarsaparilla!" He shouted at me.
"Oh, I know. That's exactly why I didn't tell you I made another three pots full. Me and the others wanted some this time." I told him.
This time it was Raul's turn to look sheepish now that I was the one bringing up his past mistakes. "Oh… eh heh heh... you guys are still angry about what I did last time?" He chuckled nervously.
"You mean the last four times I managed to rustle up enough coyote tobacco for everyone?" I said, enjoying the ever so rare look of shame on his face. "Yes, yes we are."
"Ah… I see."
Not wanting to let him wallow in his own self loathing again, I quickly took control of the conversation before I lost my opportunity to learn something from him. "That's enough about that though, let's talk about nail guns. You said you used one after hitting a rough patch, right?" I asked the caffeine and sugar addict in front of me.
"I did? Oh yeah, I did. Well, it's not that hard to make one, but you'd still be better off using a real gun instead of a jury rigged nail gun." Raul told me. "Not unless you managed to make one large enough to fire railroad spikes, but who would be crazy enough to do that?"
Note to self: Find a nail gun large enough to fire railroad spikes.
"So… how exactly does one turn a nail gun into a real gun?" I asked him.
Raul looked uneasy for a moment, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of me turning yet another mundane item into another incredibly efficient weapon. Why he was terrified of that, I have no idea. It wasn't like he was someone I intended to shoot anyways, and the old ghoul didn't seem to have any friends other than me and our other companions that he had to worry about getting shot full of nails too.
"Boss, you know I can't do that. Arcade would go loco if he knew what you were trying to get me to do. You remember what he said after you melted down all those knives a couple of weeks ago..." He tried to explain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You manage to forge yourself a Saturnite golf club, use it to decapitate a guy in full power armor, and stab the handle all away through the head of the guy you just decapitated one time and all of a sudden you're not allowed to ask for help making any more new weapons. Raul, Ganon, Cass, and the others just don't know how to have fun.
"Raul, the only people who will know are you and I if you don't go blabbing your mouth to anyone. Who says that anybody else has to know too?" I said to my soon to be co-conspirator.
"Six, you know I want to but-"
"But what? Are you afraid of getting lectured by Ganon and Lily again."
"Are you kidding me? They still haven't noticed me sleeping through their lectures. Of course I'm not afraid of that! What I am afraid of is them locking up my supply of Sugar Bombs again!" He exclaimed.
Huh, so that's what it was. I knew those two had to have had something on him, but I didn't think they'd go for the throat like that. Guess I'll need to do some convincing then.
"I'm sure I can make it worth your while, Raul." I whispered in his ear like any soft-hearted devil in my shoes would.
For a moment, the old man looked like he was about to give in, but a fire lit in his eyes the moment before he accepted my offer. "No, I will not do it boss! I will not go through sugar withdrawal again!" He shouted at me.
So, that's the only thing that is stopping him? Fuck… I didn't want to do this but I have no choice. Let's see what all I'll have to risk until he finally breaks.
"Hey Raul, you know you aren't the only one around here with a sweet tooth, right?" I whispered to him.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked, confused but definitely intrigued at what I was implying.
"What I mean is that the other's can't stop you from getting your hands on some Sugar Bombs if they think you are the only one in the Lucky 38 who has a secret stash of them stored away somewhere." I told him, seeing his eyes widen in surprise and the man's will melted like putty in my hands. "I might have a few stashed away somewhere in the Penthouse where no one else can reach them but me, and I might be willing to share as many of them as I need to for a couple of days if a friend I owed a favor to asked for them."
"I… I don't know…"
Fuck, time for the big guns.
"I also have a cabinet full of Wasteland Tequila I-"
"Dios Mio! You have a cabinet full and you never told me about it? I thought we were friends!" Raul shouted at me.
"We are friends though, aren't we? And friends do favors for each other all the time, right?" I reminded him.
Whatever reservations the old ghoul had about helping me out were all but gone. If the Sugar Bombs didn't do it, the Wasteland Tequila definitely did. The stuff was almost impossible to come by if you didn't make it yourself and no matter how hard I tried to teach him, Raul just could never manage to recreate the recipe I had for it. Whether that was because he was a terrible cook or I was just as bad at teaching was something neither of us cared to figure out too much after we tried Raul's first and final attempt at cooking everyone's supper. I still have nightmares about that meal…
"Okay, I'll do it. Hand me those nail guns that you picked up earlier. I'll show you how to remove the limiter, safety, and which parts you need to rearrange to get yourself a half decent weapon in case you ever find yourself unarmed and your fists aren't enough to get the job done." Raul said, patting my arms and knowing full well that I could probably arm wrestle a Super Mutant and win.
"Now listen carefully, because I'll only explain this once." He said as I pulled out the two nail guns I had been keeping on me a while ago for this exact moment. "The first step is the trickiest, so don't mess it up…"
"Alright boss, that uhh… that looks like it would work." I said, feeling like I should have tried to get Six to throw in a pot of black coffee before agreeing to anything now that I was looking at how my end of our deal had turned out.
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't expect him to do something so stupid it was amazing. Sure enough, the crazy pendejo managed to reassemble a broken nail gun into a lethal piece of machinery just by watching me do it. Hell, if I'm pretty sure he would have figured it out in another hour if I wasn't here to teach him. Thankfully I was here, so nobody got hurt while he was figuring things out and I had a nice big bottle of tequila waiting for me once we finally got back to Mr House's gilded castle on The Strip.
Overall, what he managed to turn his nail gun into was… good. In fact, it was so good it was embarrassing because he managed to get his nail gun working on his first try when it took me a dozen tries just to make mine fire more than one nail a second. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure there a few of the niňos in the NCR don't have guns that are nearly as good as the goddamn construction tool Six is waving around like a new toy right now. It's safe to say that I have probably created a monster, but since I wasn't going to be the one dealing with a face full of nails or Ganon when he finally finds out about Six's new toy I wasn't too worried about it.
After taking a brief moment to yell at Six to holster his damn weapon before he shot himself in the foot, or he shot me and I shot him, I decided it was best to see just how good his creation was. Luckily for us, when a Protectron waddled up to us in the middle of my presentation, Six managed to rip off both of its arms before either of us got hurt without disabling the robot entirely.
I know I've seen him disarm a lot of things, but wow, if his job with Mr House ever falls through then he would make a damn good debt collector. Tearing a guy's arms off would make it easy to get him to hand over whatever he owed. All he'd need to do is just pry a few fingers open and then BAM, on to whoever was next on his list. Too bad the Atomic Wrangler already found a new guy for that job a while back...
Jokes aside, that Protectron had been watching us from a distance doing who knows what the entire time afterwards, so I figured it would make a good enough target as anything else in the old H&H Tools building would. I thought it was impossible for a couple of nails to any damage to the damn thing, but of course this was Six I was dealing with. That guy had a habit of making the impossible possible, whether or not it helped him out or somehow managed to bite him in the ass worse than a frag mine.
I still don't know how he did it, but he managed to make the Protectron explode into hundreds of pieces just by firing straight at the target I painted on its chest. I would have thought it was just because Six managed to land a lucky shot on some exposed wires or something if I didn't find a handful of nails buried in the bullseye I painted. How a half dozen nails managed to bury themselves through a few inches of steel is beyond me, but since it was Six who managed to make it happen I doubt I'd be getting any answers from him.
Poor guy doesn't even remember his own name, there's no way he'd know how he managed to pull off what he did. Since I wasn't taking "It just works" from him this time, I decided to drop the matter entirely.
"You really think it'll work? Mine is nothing like yours though Raul." He said.
If he wasn't the kind of person who was able to say that about something like that and mean it when my gun barely even shot more than a couple of feet, I would have slapped him right then and there for making a fool for me. I didn't do that because Six was just that kind of person, for better or worse. Whenever the guy put his mind to something, he made it happen and rarely took as much credit for it as he deserved. Everything else was just extra that he didn't care about, for better or worse.
"Boss, I don't think you could do any better if you tried." I told him, knowing damn well that he hardly ever had to try to do anything to discover he had a knack for it.
Guess his amnesia wasn't as bad as it could be… but still, not knowing your own name must suck. That's not even including all the people knew you and… and… forget it. I can feel sad on my own time. The boss needs me, and I'll be here for him as long as he needs me. Then it's just me, a couple boxes of Sugar Bombs, and a bottle of tequila in the Lucky 38's bar for a couple of hours…
"Well you know me. I am always full of surprises." Six said as he twirled his gun around like a freaking idiot.
I was about to say something about the kind of surprises I expected from the way he was spinning his gun around but before I could, it slipped out of his hands like I knew it would. He just barely managed to prevent it from hitting in the face, but unfortunately for him he would have been better off if that thing smacked him in his bad eye. That was because he just so happened to catch his new nail gun by the trigger. The nail gun also just so happened to be pointing towards his foot when he caught it and had one last shot loaded into it which he fired the instant he caught it and shot himself in the foot.
I never believed someone could nail their own foot into the ground before, but then again, Six did say he was always full of surprises. Things were never dull around him, and this was one of those moments both of us wished would have been very dull as we stared at the inch of steel poking out through the top of his boot knowing full well what happened to the other five inches.
"You sure are full of surprises, boss. You sure are." I said as I tried not to laugh at his inevitable reaction.
"FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-!"
Yep… I think I'll let him enjoy his Med-X in peace this time. Ganon would probably be better off not knowing about any of this happening, for all of our sakes.
It's made out of WHAT?!
"Damn, you've got to tell me your moonshine recipe sometime, Cass. This is the third best thing I've ever drank." I told her as I finished savoring the jug of moonshine she passed over me.
Sure, I had a hell of a time trying to get it through my bandana but thankfully the damn thing kept out alcohol just as well as it kept out water. Really wish it didn't, but at least I didn't have to ruin anybody's appetite whenever I felt like getting drunk.
"The third best?" She asked me, sounding like I called her a sadistic drunk again.
If anything, I expected her to be pissed that I downed a whole jug of moonshine in a single gulp. Hearing the gal getting angry at me for insulting her liquor was surprising. If I were her, I would have taken that as the best fucking complement that she could have gotten. After traveling across all of the Mojave and southern Utah, I acquired quite the taste for booze and any other drinks that I thought could get me drunk or high at the time.
Some of the stuff I tasted was amazing. Other times I would have preferred to have drank my own piss to get the taste out of my mouth like that one time in the Sierra Madre. Both food and water were hard to find during my time there, and apparently turpentine wasn't supposed to be drank. Really wish I knew that before I gulped down a mouthful of that shit.
Getting back on track, I knew a good drink when I tasted one. Really wish I could tell the good ones from the bad ones before then, but I'd like to think having tasted about every liquid I could get my hands on made me an expert on the matter. Calling Cass' moonshine the third best thing I ever drank was not much different than me calling it liquid gold, but she didn't seem to share my sentiments on the matter.
"Yeah, third best." I told her, offering her another cup of black coffee as I did so. "Your moonshine is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to my tequila or coffee."
"I agree with you about the coffee, but your tequila is awful." She conceded before trashing the best alcohol this side of the Glowing Sea.
"Wait until you're as old as I am." I told her. "Then you'll have a lot more respect for milder flavors and uhh… whatever Raul usually goes on about whenever I hand a spare bottle of the stuff over to him."
At the mention of that old ghoul acting like a kid whenever I opened up my personal stash of wasteland tequila, we both started giggling like idiots. As tough as he liked to act, he had a dorky side that he could never hope to hide from me or any of my other companions and we all loved that part of him. Sure, we always gave him shit for it whenever he squealed at the sight of a box of Sugar Bombs when I didn't store it in my Pipboy before I could add it to my own personal stash, but compared to the other issues that everyone in our little family of freaks had, he was perhaps the most normal one of us. It never failed to crack me up to know that behind that professional act of his was another guy that was a Child at Heart like me.
"Raul can't cook worth a damn yet he still eats he makes when even the geckos won't touch the stuff." Cass said after she calmed down a bit. "Are you really trying to say he has good taste? The rotter-"
I shot a glare the moment Cass referred to Raul as a feral, and even though I still had my face covered by my combat helmet and bandana she got the message all the same. Although Raul wasn't here right now, I knew he wasn't too fond of being referred to like a feral. Not sure if he would have bothered trying to correct Cass since she didn't mean any harm by it, but unlike him I didn't stay quiet about it.
I mean, I technically was, but I still made sure Cass got the message all the same.
"Sorry, the ghoul doesn't exactly have the best taste now that he isn't human anymore." She corrected herself.
"You're not wrong about his taste in food or cooking." I told her. We all tasted Raul's cooking before. We were all still in agreement to never let him cook our meals months after the first and only time he showed us how badly he could mess up a bloatfly slider. "But even so, from what I've heard about his past I don't think he had much choice in the matter. The guy practically had to eat dirt for a couple of decades, he probably thinks anything edible is good food."
"Well, we're not him, Six." Cass said as she downed yet another cup of coffee.
"Cheers to that." I said in agreement.
I tried to end the conversation there by drowning myself in some more of Cass' moonshine, but unfortunately there wasn't a single drop left in it anymore. Apparently there must have been a hole in the jug she offered me or something, because I burned through what she offered me in no time at all. Either that, or I'm more hammered than I think I am and really did just drink the last batch she made by myself.
Regardless of why I didn't have any more booze, I had no more drinking to look forward to unless something changed real quick. I could have started on the pot of coffee I made for Cass and myself, but I'd rather not drink another cup of that stuff unless I needed to. The last thing I needed now was to start remembering some of the shit that happened in the past and feeling sorry for myself again. That was the entire reason me and Cass were tasting each other's brews outside of Freeside tonight after all. It wouldn't have been right to let all the work those three jugs I drank go to waste like that.
I must have held the empty jug against my lips a bit longer than usual, 'cause Cass figured something was up right away. "Out of moonshine again?" She asked me.
"Yep, it's hard to hold back on that stuff." I told her.
"I could say the same about your coffee. I'm as hooked on the stuff as Raul is." She said. Couldn't tell if she was joking or not though.
"Then maybe we can work out a deal of sorts then." I offered.
Cass seemed to think my offer over for a bit, but I could tell the way that her eyes lit up that I had her interest before I even finished speaking.
"What sort of deal did you have in mind? It better be worth my while in case Ganon catches me breaking that rule of his." She said, although judging by the looks of things it wouldn't take much to convince her to teach me something.
"Don't worry about Ganon, I don't think that snot nosed smartass would mind too much if we swapped recipes." I told her. "Even if he does get angry, just brew up as much coffee as it takes for him to shut up and you'll be fine."
"You drive a hard bargain." Cass said, her words and smile on her face disagreeing with each other. "I'll do it, let's see what you got."
"It's made out of what?!" I shouted at Six.
"Read the damn recipe, Cass. One cup of water, one handful of boiled tobacco leaves, and one handful of crushed honey mesquite pods with just a dash of broc flower, all filtered through a coffee filter for a day or two over a low heat. How hard is that to understand?" He grumbled.
"That's not the problem Six." I told him, fighting the urge to throw up again.
"Then what's the problem?"
"You've been making us drink this crap without telling what's in it! What the hell were you thinking?" I shouted back at him.
"Yeah, and you've been making us drink battery acid. What's your fucking point?" He asked me.
Okay… so maybe he had a point, but I was not about to lose an argument to him of all people if I could help it.
"That's disgusting." I said, trying not to think about how good his coffee tasted before I knew what was in it.
"I've seen you drinking Dixon's Whiskey before. Don't talk to me about the shit my drink is made out of if you're still willing to drink that crap." He snapped back.
"So what? It's good stuff." I told him.
I don't know what his problem was with Dixon but he seemed to hate more than just the drinks and chems he made, for whatever reason. It was probably because Six couldn't hope to brew anything half as good as a back alley drug dealer could.
"It's liquid brahmin shit." He said.
"You say that about everything you don't like."
"Uhh, Cass? I wasn't kidding. I saw what Dixon used to make that shit. IT IS LIQUID BRAHMIN SHIT."
"Wait, you mean…"
"Yep. He made it from whatever was leftover from those Reno style Jet he couldn't sell." Six told me.
All of a sudden, the pot of black coffee in front of me looked appetizing all of a sudden and I wasted no time drinking down the rest of it faster than when Six drank my last jug of moonshine on his own.
"If I ever find out where he ran off to, I'm going to kill that son of a bitch." I said, trying my best not to think about what it was I had really been drinking when I still bought his cheap liquor.
"Already beat you to it, Cass. Killed him on my first trip to Freeside, fed him into whatever the hell he was making his Jet out of so that no one would ever find the body." He told me like it was something he did regularly.
Of course, knowing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he did that all the time when me and the other's weren't watching over him. We all heard the rumors of what he got up to before he started travelling with us, and he certainly doesn't seem like he's much different from what people say about him.
"Now, are you going to keep on bitching or do you want another cup of joe?" Six asked me as he raised another pot of coffee in front of me.
Rather than argue against him, I grabbed the pot out of his hands and started drinking straight from it. If Six had any complaints, he could shove them up his ass for all I cared. I've learned enough for one day and just want to relax a bit longer before calling it a night.
Target Practice
*BANG*
"FUCKING FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR BOONE?! FUCK!" I shouted at the dumbass that tried to blow out my ear drums with the sniper rifle I gave him once again.
"I saw a gecko." He told me, as if that was an excuse for almost deafening me twice in one hour.
At least, that's what I think he said. I could hardly hear myself screaming at the top of my lungs and my lip reading was still a little rusty. As much as I wanted to blame it on not having time to memorize faces and expressions after visiting the Followers Clinic in Eastside for a long overdue second opinion on Doc Mitchell's work, the truth of the matter regardless is that I am just plain shit at reading people. Looking at Boone to understand what he was saying didn't make things any easier for me since he never once wiped that blank look off of his face. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he kept that creepy look on his face the entire week and a half since last I saw him in Novac.
Well, since I know what it feels like to have some random fuck sell you out for no fucking reason, I can only imagine what was running through Boone's head considering he remembered what it was that he lost and how it was someone he trusted who screwed him over. I wanted to tell him to grow a fucking pair and get over his wife's death but I couldn't really do that, not without without sounding like a bigger piece of shit than I already am.
I might not care what other people think about me, but even I have standards. Not morals, but definitely standards.
Chewing him out for sorting through his feelings wasn't something I felt comfortable doing. Giving him hell for trying to deafen me was another story entirely.
"YOU SHOT YOUR FUCKING GUN RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" I yelled at him.
"I wasn't taking any chances. Could have been a Legion hit squad nearby waiting to ambush us while we were distracted." He said, as flatly as always.
Fucking asshole. I know he's paranoid about the Legion and rightfully so. Hell, I'm not much better than him when it comes to those dickbags after my run in with Vulpes and the five assassination squads I met in-between Nipton and New Vegas. That doesn't mean he can shoot a gun right beside my fucking head though! How the hell does a sniper who is one of 'the best of the best' forget basic firearm safety? Motherfucker…
Since I couldn't hear for shit on account of the ringing in my ears and fearing what might be able to sneak up on me as the sun continued to sink below the horizon, I decided that it was high time we set up camp for the day right then and there. I had already sent Veronica and ED-E back to Camp McCarran while me and Boone continued to survey Fiend territory after getting a few warnings while scoping out my targets up close from a couple of professionals at Camp McCarran.
Veronica thought my idea to wear a couple of the helmets that the fiends so we could pass ourselves off as new recruits was a joke after a few fiends generously donated them after me and Boone blew their brains out. Well, the joke was on her in the end because she was the one looking like a fool after I finished getting the locations and schedules of every bounty target I set my eyes on from Driver Nephi, one of those very targets.
Sure, my stock of Psycho and Med-X took a nasty hit to buy everything I wanted to know off of him, but it was well worth the effort. I could only hope that ED-E doesn't start repeating any of the stuff Nephi was saying, because that son of a bitch actually managed to teach me a thing or two about cursing. Even after talking to that crazy fucker for a couple of minutes, I still felt that we could take the kiddos with us to scout out the rest of the fiend leadership scattered around Southside.
It was only when I heard that Cook-Cook would be getting some more 'fresh meat' that I thought it was better to leave those two someplace far away from a pyromaniac rapist as fast as possible. I don't know why I didn't think to do that earlier, but after hearing how the other Fiend leaders were apparently terrified of that monster the reality of what I almost got them into finally sunk in.
Me and Boone made sure to cover those two until they were back in the NCR controlled portion of Southside, then we made our way to where we could find the next target on our list if what Nephi told us was right. Turns out he was right, both about where we could find Violet and what she fed those damn dogs. I luckily had the foresight to carry a 'gift' to feed the Psycho bitch's dogs so that way we could inspect her place for any weaknesses. Not sure what Boone was thinking about me when I pulled out some poor bastard's arm, but I'm pretty sure he was as happy as I was to not get swarmed by a couple dozen feral mutts by the time we left her corner of paradise for some alone time with them.
Last but not least we managed to track down Cook-Cook, or at least, some guy that I hoped was Cook-Cook. If the average Fiend is able to buy a couple of slaves from two oddly clean looking fellas while balls deep in a brahmin, then I would hate to meet the guy who would make someone like that look normal.
So yeah, after seeing something that no amount of alcohol would help either of us forget, we decided to head back to Camp McCarran by taking the long way around Southside and the Fiends. Aside from the nest of cazadors we accidentally stumbled upon, and the damn good loot that their victims had before we found their remains, things had been mostly uneventful.
That had been until Private Dickhead traveling behind me thought it would be a good idea to snipe yet another sad little wasteland pest from a quarter mile away, almost deafen me, and scare me shitless in the process. After I considered slapping Boone upside the head for that shit and deciding that I might want to hold off on that until I have enough caps saved up to fix my vision before starting a fight with him, we set up camp for the night just outside the cave that gecko apparently crawled out of. Supper that night was gecko steak, big surprise there, and once again I proved that even a badass like me could cook a damn good meal if he wanted to.
For the first time since I joined up with Veronica, I spent the night in complete silence while waiting for something to happen before drifting off to sleep. Sure, what I did was less sleeping and more 'try to remember what I was like before Goodsprings' on most nights, but I still at least looked the part of a normal person when I did unlike Boone. It was only after an hour of restlessness combined with visions of brahmin and what I hoped was Cook-Cook that I decided to try and break the odd tension in the air.
"So... how've you been since last I saw you, Boone? It's been about, what, a week since we parted ways in Novac, right?" I asked him, trying to break the ice.
"Yep."
Well, he clearly didn't sound like he wanted to talk much about any of that. Guess I'll have to try something else to bleach my mind.
"What about those guys you were talking to in McCarran? Were they all First Recon people like you?"
"Yep."
Strike two. Fucking hell, gimme something to work with!
"Can you say something other than yep when I ask you a question?" I blurted out without thinking.
"Nope." Boone said, the dying light of our campfire illuminating a faint smile spread across his face.
...fucking younguns. Why's it always young folk like him that have to be such a pain in the ass all the time?
"Okay, you know what? Fuck it. 'S there anything you feel like talking about Boone?" I asked him, finally giving in.
"You feel like killing some Legionnaires after we clean up and hunt down some Fiends tomorrow?" He asked me before I could even crack a joke about him saying exactly that.
"Fucking hell. There's got to be something on your mind other than 'Legion this' and 'Legion that' all the time, boy. What'll you do if the Legion just disappears somewhere where you'll never be able to find them?" I asked him in an attempt to pierce through that thick head of his.
For a moment, he looked me straight in the eyes instead of somewhere in my general direction like he usually did. I'm not going to lie, the way he looked at me nearly made me draw my pistol on him from how badly he made my skin crawl. Those dead eyes of his felt like they were staring back into my soul, asking me the same thing about Benny.
I'd have done the exact same thing that Boone did to me, truth be told. I… I've really been banking on that rat bastard knowing something, anything about who I was before he tried to kill me. After the Nash couple got killed by a couple of NCR deserters that thought Primm was still easy pickings after I cleaned out the Powder Gangers there, Benny was the only person in the world who might know anything about me. There was always a chance that the guy who hired me to carry the package the rat bastard stole might know something about me, but the odds of finding that guy were next to nothing on account of the Powder Gangers burning all of the Mojave Express' records when they took over the town.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that." I told Boone, hoping that would be enough to get his eyes to stop probing me for answers they didn't have.
Sure enough, that seemed to do the trick. The cold hearted sniper seemed to ease up, if only just a little bit, the moment I apologized to him.
"Sorry for not warning you before I took the shot." Boone apologized back to me.
It took me a while to figure out what the hell he was talking about until the sound of the cap I was twirling around on my hands fell to the ground with a tinkling noise that wasn't unlike the same one I heard for an hour after the youngun forgot some basic firearm training again. From there I had to pick my jaw up off the floor as I realized that the stone faced bastard that killed the 'friend' who sold his wife into slavery was apologizing to me.
"So… how about we start talking about anything else before things get any more awkward between us." I said as I shifted uncomfortably against the log I was laying on.
Boone thankfully didn't give me a one word answer this time, but simply nodded his approval towards my idea. I guess we both didn't feel like getting much sleep tonight, and thanks to that I finally figured I could ask him something I'd been meaning too when he first saved my ass.
"Hey Boone, how did you get so good at shooting things?" I said, before clarifying what I meant. "I mean, I can barely hit what I'm aiming at half the time when it is more than twenty feet away from me and yet I keep on seeing you dropping down a man or monster with every bullet you shoot. What's your secret?"
"Practice. Lots of practice." He told me.
"Come on, there surely has to be something more than that. I'd be as good as you if you're telling me the truth because I have been getting a lot of fucking practice thanks to everything that has been trying to kill me this year." I said, counting down the days until I could enjoy a brand new year with no one trying to kill me if everything went right.
I only had a little more than a month and a half to go now, so my fingers were crossed and expectations already lowered so that way I wouldn't be facing any unfortunate surprises.
"Hmm… what kinds of guns do you have the most trouble aiming with?" Boone asked me after taking a moment to think.
"Anything that requires two hands." I told him. "I've only got the one eye, and I am not left-handed when it comes to weapons heavier than your average pistol."
Oh the fun of learning that you are right handed when you don't have a fucking right eye anymore on account of some fuck shooting you in the head to steal your package! FUCK YOU BENNY YOU SLIMY FUCK! YOUR ASS IS GRASS ONCE I FIGURE OUT WHICH PART OF VEGAS YOU'RE HIDING IN!
I really cannot wait until I get my hands on that prick. I can only hope that the NCR might know where I can find that son of a bitch and are willing to scratch my back after I scratch theirs. Really wish I asked which part of Vegas that snake was hiding in when I blew my entire savings bailing out those Khans in Boulder City. Might need to visit them for a favor if Benny has another bunch of goons protecting him. Jessup and the others owe me BIG TIME for saving their asses back and I'm fairly sure they have their own scores to settle with him too.
I'll have to remember that for later.
"Go ahead and show me how you hold one, I'll tell you what you're doing wrong." Boone said as he started making my way over to my side.
"Alright, but just let me warn you that I am still a little unsteady after that last bottle of scotch." I told him as I exactly did what he asked.
"So that's what that little metal thingy on the end of my gun was for! I never thought that thing was supposed to help you aim." Six said.
"It's called an iron sight. That's what they're supposed to do. Scopes too." I told him.
I wanted to ask him how he had been hitting anything without trying to properly aim his weapons before now, but since I didn't want to know, I didn't bother asking. We were just doing a job together. Nothing more, nothing less. This was the last time we would be seeing each other if everything went well. After we part ways again, he'll go back to tracking down whoever robbed him and I will start putting Caesar and the rest of the Legion in my sights again.
That's what I should have been doing right now, but there was something about the old man in front of me that made me think maybe it wouldn't be so bad traveling with him for a while instead. Caesar seemed to have a bounty on the mailman's head big enough for every one of his assassins in the Mojave to drop what they were doing and try to hunt him down. That alone made Six worth traveling with.
I don't know how he would feel about storming The Fort alongside me, but something tells me he wouldn't mind joining me if I ever brought it up. He probably wouldn't even ask me to pay him. The man is already on a mission to kill the guy who shot him in the head a month ago, hunting down a tyrant that's trying to get in his way seems like something that crazy mailman wouldn't have to think twice about.
As much as I wanted to ask him to help me now, I still owed him for what he did in Novac. Not everybody would be willing to risk their lives avenging someone they never knew existed, let alone do it for free. Once we get even or he owes me something for saving his life someday, then I won't hesitate to call in another favor. Until then, there was no harm in training him to be a better shot.
While Six was better than most of our troops in the Mojave before I started training him, that was not saying much. Hardly anyone in Camp McCarran could hit their target half of the time when they were standing more than twenty feet away. Six could at least manage that, but unless he started using rifles like the troops did instead of that hunting rifle that somehow hasn't fallen apart on him yet, he wouldn't make it much longer.
I didn't believe it when he first told me that he took out Vulpes with nothing more than a 10mm pistol and a fire axe when I overheard him talking to Major Dhatri. Seeing him take out that last group of Fiends before we set up camp with a half dozen knives sticking out of his back made me see that he wasn't lying about Vulpes or when he told me how nothing would stop him from finding whoever was stupid enough to try to kill him and failed to make sure they finished the job.
"Please tell me that I don't have to try shooting any more bottles tonight." Six begged.
Oh, that's right. I was supposed to help him train his aim. Getting him ready to face the Legion in full force could wait.
"You wanted my help, so that's what I'm going to give you. I've already set up another set of bottles. Six bottles, six shots. Show me what you've learned." I told him.
The old man had been practicing for three hours straight, and with the sun starting to rise over the horizon it won't be long until Fiends or something worse wakes up and decides to investigate all the noise we've been making.
Overall, his training had gone far worse than I expected it to. I hadn't been expecting much when he told me that he lost an eye and couldn't shoot straight anymore, but I at least expected him to hit something. Instead, the best he could do was knock over four bottles when he lost his temper and threw his hunting rifle at the targets I set up for him. It was a nice throw, but not the result I was looking for.
"Yeah, and your help isn't doing jack shit for me." Six complained.
"What do you usually do when you're trying to hit something?" I asked him.
"I… I dunno. I just sorta do what feels natural." He stammered out.
"Tell what feels natural then." I said.
Maybe I had been going at this the wrong way. The mailman didn't even know what the iron sight on his rifle was for and yet he could still hit a gecko at over a hundred feet. Six has talent and experience, but something else is missing. Maybe getting him to think about what he was doing would help him figure out what that something was, because I don't have enough time to do it for him.
"Uhh… well, I just sorta hold my breath and think about how much I want to kill the thing in front of me and start firing away. For some reason, I get better at shooting things whenever I'm extra pissed at my target." Six rambled on.
As outlandish as that sounded, I believed what he told me. I've known quite a few soldiers that were similar to him, saying they had to get in the right mindset before they could fight someone. Never heard of any that couldn't hit a bottle that was standing still unless they were angry at it though. Still worth a try to see if this is what Six needs to stop missing his shots.
"Six, get ready to fire. We'll do this one last time before returning to Camp McCarran." I said.
Six did what I asked, grumbling the whole time. He didn't sound happy with me, but he had sounded a lot less happy when he threw his gun too. I need to push him further, get him as angry as I can. But how?
...maybe this will work?
"Imagine that every one of those bottles is the face of the guy that shot you, and every shot you miss is one step closer he is from running away from Vegas to somewhere you can never catch him." I said, hoping this would be the push he needed.
I expected Six to get angry at me for trying something like that on him, but instead of cursing me out again he went deathly still. For a moment I thought his heart gave out after all the drinking he did last night, but he was still standing up straight after killing a half dozen bottles of alcohol. I wouldn't say he looked focused, but he looked far more serious now than when I first saw him fleeing the Legion raiding party that almost killed him outside of Novac.
Odds are that was the most I could do for him. Now the rest was on him.
"Ready, aim, fire." I said.
Six didn't even take time to line up his hunting rifle at the targets on the other side of our camp, he just fired off every single bullet he had as soon as he pointed it towards a target and fired at each one until he ran dry. I was about to tell him that it would be best if he were to trade in his hunting rifle for a weapon that didn't rely on accuracy so much, but when I looked at the bottles I had set up for him I could hardly believe my eyes.
He hit every single one of them, his raw fury guiding his aim far better than his one eye ever could hope to match.
"Hey, look at that Boone! I hit something!" Six shouted.
"Yes, you did." I told him. "I think I know what we'll have to try the next time you're up for some target practice."
Maybe I can stick around him for a little longer after all. I could use a partner like him.
Old Dog, New Tricks
"Hey Rex."
[Bark! Bark!]
"How do you find all that cool stuff for me?"
…
"I asked you to show me something cool, not lick your own asshole. I mean, that's kinda cool… but not even close to what I was asking for."
…
"Yeah… you're still… damn, I wonder if I could do that?"
...
"Ahhh… ahh… ah-FUCK! I'b bid dy dongue!"
…
"Fuck ib, it was a stubid thing to try anyways."
…
"That's it buddy, we're getting you checked out by the Followers first chance we get. There is no good reason for licking yourself for a minute straight."
[Arf!]
"Try not to bite anyone this time."
Living Anatomy
We had been exploring the area around Camp Searchlight for a while now in search of feral ghouls to lay to rest on the request of the local NCR troops stationed nearby, and I really wanted something, anything, to take my mind off of what we found in that one burned down homestead. ED-E and Boone were as silent as ever, although still visibly unnerved by what happened there, while Veronica looked like she was ready to cry after I handed her the last of the notes I found scattered about the place. Each one of them had lost someone, and I guess getting a look inside the head of someone who thought it was better to take a dirt nap then keep on living struck a nerve with them.
Ganon handled things a bit better than the kiddos and young'un did, but even I could tell he was shook by what we found. The Legion was always a sore spot for him, not quite the 'shoot on sight' attitude that Boone had towards them, but even he couldn't find anything nice to say about them. Ganon said he wasn't the type of person that would carry out some vigilante justice, but I had a feeling that he was thinking things over a bit more now than when we came across what was left of Camp Searchlight and the surrounding area. The way he was looking at the horizon certainly wasn't that of a man trying to defend himself, not with the way he was gripping onto his plasma defender.
I suppose that leaves me as the odd man out about all of them. I honestly didn't feel much of anything after finding the notes scattered around what had once been Matthew's Animal Husbandry Farm and being the first to read them. Didn't feel much of anything when I moved a few handfuls of dirt over the child sized skull that had been sticking out of the homestead's debris either. I had enough reasons to be pissed off at the world as it was, finding another unlucky bastard that bit the dust didn't bother me much. If anything, it just made me feel a little bit more glad that I was on the right side of the ground when I damn well shouldn't be.
After about an awkward hour walk back to the outskirts of Camp Searchlight I really wanted to take everyone's minds off of things for a bit. Well, I say everyone's minds, but I mostly meant mine. As much as that whole mess didn't affect me, I still had plenty of questions that I didn't want any answers to. I'd much rather focus on something else so that way I didn't have another reason to not sleep at night. Asking Ganon something that had been eating away at me for a while now seemed like the perfect thing to take my mind off of things, and maybe everyone else's mind too.
Even if I failed, at least I would learn something that would make life a little bit easier for me. That alone made it worth breaking the uncomfortable silence that had surrounded me and my companions.
"Hey Ganon, there's something I've been meaning to ask you." I told the gentle giant by my side.
"Sure, what would you like to know?" Ganon asked me cheerfully.
As much as I liked the guy, I couldn't help myself from hating how he always sounded so upbeat about everything. If you ever listened to what the guy said instead of how he said it, you could clearly tell that he had quite the opinion of people that didn't quite agree with his ideals. Boone, ED-E, and Veronica were all either too naive or too stupid to notice this most of the time, but I knew that Ganon could lie through his teeth just as well as he could make an insult sound like a compliment back when he first agreed to travel from me.
Ganon knew that I knew too, and we tiptoed through a lot of conversations because of that. I had a certain knack for figuring things out, Ganon said it had something to do with me being some sort of 'Savant' whatever that means, and I knew that Ganon wasn't always as upfront about things as he wanted to be.
The guy was clearly hiding something, but since it didn't seem like it would ever bite me in the ass and he wasn't willing to open up about it yet, I was fine with him keeping his secrets to himself. I had some hope that things would change if his secret was that he could shoot lasers out of his eyes or something awesome like that, but I was okay with waiting until he either opened up to me or let a few more details about his past slip.
"How exactly did you get so good at fixing people up?" I asked him.
The guy was a damn good doc, second only to Doc Mitchel back in Goodsprings and since… since… oh fuck.
It wasn't your fault Six, it wasn't your fault. Get fucking over it already. The Powder Gangers will pay for what they did. Powder Gangers, Legion, Benny, anyone and everyone that has ever fucked over me and people like me will all get their comeuppance someday soon.
Anyways, after what happened in the past, I knew a good doctor when I saw one. A pair of hands like Ganon's could steal life away from the jaws of death or they could do just the opposite if he ever felt like it and no one would be any wiser. Since I knew jack shit about medicine other than "It just works", I figured that asking Ganon how he got so good at what he does would be well worth the headache I would get from listening to him. At the very least, I would be able to get more mileage out of my Stimpaks since I doubt jamming them straight into an open wound was the best of ideas even though it felt so right when I did it.
Ganon seemed a little too enthused with my interest in his profession for my tastes, but I let him go on the spiel I knew he had saved for me once again. "Oh, you want to know more about how to become a doctor? Have you finally considered joining the Followers of the Apocalypse? We could use someone like… you…"
And there he goes again, looking at me like I was something that he stepped in while looking through the alleys of Freeside. For being a smartass, he's a pretty big dumbass.
"Ganon, what did I say about treating me like an idiot?" I interrupted him.
"What? I-I'm not treating you like that at all. How could you ever say something like that!" Ganon asked me, sounding shocked at the very accusation.
"Because you were barely able to stop yourself from calling him stupid the first time you two met?" Veronica chimed in, still sounding a little quieter than usual after what we saw today.
"Exactly. You've got a habit of pussyfooting like that, and believe me Ganon, people notice it when you're forcing yourself to be nice." I added on.
"Oh come on, I have never been anything but nice to all of you. It's not like you have been keeping a list or something of all the times I have accidentally misspoken." Ganon said with a nervous chuckle "You are all being ridiculous."
"Do you want me to give you that list alphabetically, sequentially, or in order from your worst fucks ups to the least noticeable ones?" I asked, daring him to try and challenge me.
For a moment, Ganon looked like he was ready to call my bluff. It was only after he looked at the way that me, Veronica, and especially ED-E were looking at him that he realized that I wasn't talking out of my ass for once. Boone didn't care too much about what we were talking about as per usual, but I could hardly blame the guy for that. After what he went through, I'm just amazed he hadn't shot up all of Nova by the time I met him.
"Okay, maybe I do have some problems when it comes to my choice of words." Ganon admitted.
[ (#1) *Bedeepo bebop peeeeeeeep. Bebop didly dodop bingbop!*] ED-E suddenly beeped.
I don't know exactly what words ED-E was booping and bopping, but from the way he seemed to be menacingly bobbing towards the good doctor I was fairly sure it had something to do with where exactly Ganon could shove the EMP grenades he had been threatening the little eyebot with. Then again, maybe he was taking his side. I wouldn't know. I don't speak robot.
"Don't think I haven't heard you insulting the Brotherhood behind my back every time I bring them up." Veronica chimed in, causing Ganon to leap back from her.
Okay… maybe Veronica knows a bit more about Ganon's smartassery than I thought.
Ganon quickly tried to stammer out something to our little bruiser, and with the way she was holding her power fist at crotch level I couldn't blame him for freaking out a bit. The rest of my companions didn't see what happened when you tested out their enhanced grip strength when applied to certain limbs and 'extremities', but I did. Shotguns had nothing on power fists when it came to painting a room red with blood, at least they didn't with the way I used mine. Veronica was a different story.
"B-but I didn't-" Ganon tried stammering something in his defense, but our little bruiser wasn't having it.
"You're not entirely wrong about them…" Veronica interrupted. "But that doesn't mean I appreciate the way you've been talking about my family."
"They are no better than murderous raiders!" Ganon exclaimed.
"Pretty sure you could say the same about me too." I said. "What was it that you said when I first asked you to join me? You had to keep me from doing something stupid or some shit like that?"
Ganon's face went stark white the moment I brought up that fantastic blunder of his. Apparently he thought I forgot about that, but thanks to my brilliant decision to fix my memory issues instead of replacing my missing eye when I first visited Dr Usanagi for an implant, there wasn't much that escaped my mind these days. I still couldn't do math to save my fucking life, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting who I was again. At least I had that going for me, I guess.
"I never said anything like that to you Six." Ganon told me.
"No, but you weren't exactly saying the nicest things about prospectors and guns for hire the last couple of days, were you?" I reminded him.
"I… I'm sorry?"
"Water under the bridge, pal. I know you didn't mean anything by it since we are friends." I told him as I wrapped an arm around him and squeezed him until I could feel his ribs start to shift. "We are friends, aren't we?"
"Y-YESH…" Ganon gasped.
"And friends do nice things for each other when they know they've fucked up, right?"
"Please… let go… can't… breathe…"
"I couldn't quite hear you Ganon, what was that about agreeing to help us all out with something?"
"I'LL DO IT! JUST LET ME GO ALREADY!" He shouted at me with what little air he had left in his lungs.
Seeing as how he had finally seen the error of his ways, I did exactly as Ganon asked and released the death grip I had on him and let the doc fall to his knees, gasping for air the entire way down. Veronica shot me a dirty look when she went to check on him to make sure I didn't hurt him too badly, but I wasn't too worried about him.
The way I saw it, Ganon was asking for someone to beat the shit out of him sooner or later thanks to that mouth of his. I figured that so long as I did it in a way that he would at least be able to walk again, with the added bonus of getting a favor out of the effort I put into teaching him a lesson, it would be worth whatever hell Ganon and the others would give me for it. Even though Ganon was one of my companions, I was not going to let all the shit he said to them slide forever.
[(#2) *Beepop bo-didly bop beep.*] ED-E beeped at me.
Guess my little buddy also thought I went a little too far, and now that I look at him checking his ribs for any that might be broken I suppose he might be right. That didn't mean I was going to wait to call in my favor now.
"On our way back to Camp Searchlight, how about you tell us a little bit about how you met the Followers of the Apocalypse and how you got so good at patching people up? I'm sure we could all learn something useful listening to you." I told him as I helped pull him up to his feet.
Ganon shot me a dirty look, but backed down the instant he saw my eyes from behind my sunglasses. "Sure, I can tell you some of what I know tomorrow, but don't expect to learn anything useful without having someone to test what I can tell you about. There's a big difference between hearing about the different injuries that can kill a person and getting your hands dirty with some living anatomy.."
Huh, I wonder if there are any more Vipers holed up in the pass between Nipton and Novac? I could probably cripple one so that way they can't run away while I practice with some 'living anatomy' before trying anything on myself…
"And Six, don't even think about it." Ganon snapped.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." I replied.
"Nice try, but I know you far too well. If you even think about finding someone to practice what I tell you, then I will never teach you anything again." Ganon told me.
"Oh come on, I would never do something like that." I told him.
Well, not in a way that he will ever find out.
"You better not." Ganon said.
We all listened to Ganon's lessons on first aid and vital organs on the rest of the trip back to Camp Searchlight and before deciding to set up camp for the night while we still had some daylight left. Me and Boone quickly set up camp just west of the tents set up by the NCR troops stationed there while Ganon and Veronica were on meal duty again before turning in for the night. When everyone but me and Boone were sleeping, I asked him to take my shift for night watch so I could try and practice some of what Ganon taught me. He told me he would so long as I made sure my test subjects were from Caesar's Legion, so I started pulling up the supposed Legion patrol routes and started making plans to ambush one if the messages I 'borrowed' from the nearby NCR camp were accurate.
Before I finally set out for the night, there's one last thing I needed so that way my trip doesn't end up being a waste of time. Since I still hadn't remembered how to read and write to a point that Ganon considered 'acceptable', I needed someone else to record down anything I discovered. Between traumatizing Veronica for life with a little science experiment or letting ED-E vent off a little bit of frustration at the guys that have been trying to hunt us down ever since passing through Nipton about a month or two ago, I figured it would be best to take the little eyebot with me for the sake of keeping track of things.
I never did know what the little fella did whenever he powered down for the night, but I was sure to be gentle when I woke him up all the same. The little eyebot silently rose up off the ground and looked at me with that same expectant bobbing that he always did when I was up to no good, and since he probably knew what I was planning to do tonight I figured there was no point of beating around the bush.
"Hey, ED-E, come with me. There's a little something I need you for tonight…"
"Oh my god." I gasped at the sight of the bodies in front of us. "Six, what have you done?"
I have seen a lot of deranged, disgusting, and other unmentionable things before I joined up with the Followers of the Apocalypse, but what I was looking at right now topped them all. We smelled the bodies before we saw them, and even now I felt sick just looking at what was left of the poor souls that had been butchered not too far from our camp last night. I would have been terrified of the abomination that could disembowel people like this just to do it if I wasn't already familiar with Six's… more 'extreme' behaviors.
Just because I was used to watching people's limbs fly off of their bodies for no reason I could wrap my head around, for now, didn't mean I liked looking at a massacre that had the crazed mailman behind me written all over it.
"Why the hell am I getting blamed for cutting up five Legionnaires before skinning them alive?" The sociopathic manchild I agreed to accompany shouted at me. "Anyone could have done something like this. Caesar's boys aren't exactly great at making friends, you know."
"Six, where are the other bodies?" I asked him.
"What the hell are you talking about Ganon? I said I didn't have anything to do with this."
"You just said that there were five bodies." I told him. "There's only three here."
"Oh… uhh... oops?" Six stammered like a child caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
"I think I'm going to be sick." Veronica said as she took another glance at the carnage we found this morning.
Poor girl. I can't imagine what she is feeling knowing the guy looking out for her is capable of this.
[(#3) *Bip-bop bo-bippity beep beep. Beep bippity bippity bop.*]
I don't know what the flying ball of junk was trying to say but, since it looked like he was trying to nudge her away from the mangled bodies in front of us, for once I didn't bother trying to shut it up. As much as I hated that relic of the past acting so friendly around Six, I couldn't find it in me to yell at him, not when someone else was more deserving of my attention.
"How did you know it was me?" Six asked me.
"Hmm, where do I start?" I asked myself as I reviewed all the evidence that pointed towards him. "First, there's all the blood that you haven't washed off of yourself since last night."
"But that could have been there since yesterday!"
"That's what I thought too until I saw your hatchet. I watched you clean it off last night before going to bed." I told him as we both stopped to look at it's blood soaked head.
"Shit, I knew I forgot to do something."
"You also didn't draw one of your weapons like you usually do when finding a dead body, didn't try to have us spread out to see if what caused killed these men were still nearby, and knew that there are two other bodies lying around somewhere that looked like they were torn apart by a teething Deathclaw hatchling." I told him, adding on to the damning evidence I already had.
The other reasons I neglected to mention and most convincing of all was Boone's confession when I asked him what he and Six were talking about last night. As much as I wanted to reveal that his partner in crime had sold him out, I thought keeping that little detail to myself might help me in the future should I ever need to ask Boone for any of Six's activities in the future. Damn, I knew that those two couldn't have been up to any good when I heard them talking to each other last night but I gave them the benefit of the doubt like a fool.
Well, I guess what Six might be more right about some people than he realized. You really can't trust anybody but yourself sometimes to not do something stupid, not even yourself.
"Okay, so I might have gone a little overboard-"
"A little overboard? You dissected five people and cut them into pieces to the point that I can hardly tell that the three we have found so far were even human to begin with!" I shouted at him before he could even start rationalizing what he did.
"Alright, alright, you're right to be mad at me." Six conceded. "But I was only trying to put your advice from yesterday into practice, so if anything you're to blame as much as I am?"
"Excuse me?!" I shouted at his absolute audacity to accuse me of enabling his awful behavior
"Yeah, you told me that the best way to do something was to see it for myself and to practice." He told me. "So… I did exactly what you told me to do."
I was about to argue against everything he was accusing me of, but I calmed down right before I was completely honest with him and thought things over rationally for a moment. I had to remember that the person I was talking to was 'special', far more 'special' than most other people that need medical attention as often as he did. Not only that, but I also had a word with Doctor Usanagi before leaving Vegas about how well our clinic in Eastside was doing. I never expected to hear that anyone that qualified for the Intelligence Implant discount could ever afford it, let alone that I would end up travelling with that same person out of pity after their surgery.
Six was dumb, plain and simple. He wasn't stupid, because being stupid meant that he should know better, but still acted like a complete monster anyways. Six was dumb and probably insane thanks to either his near death experience or surgery that saved his life, but that was no fault of his if what he told me about what happened to him in Goodsprings was true. I've only heard rumors about the so called 'Ghoul of Goodsprings' from a few of the NCR soldiers that saw what was left of the settlement after it was overrun by some escaped convicts, but if Six really was the only survivor of that attack then I can see why he is so violent towards anyone that reminds him of those barbarians.
His morals, while definitely messed up, are still there and guiding him like they would any other sane person. It's just a shame that he can't remember much about himself or anything else that would give him a reason to act like a normal human being. Acting like a decent person also seemed to be out of the question for now, but I can at least see some hope of that changing in the future.
With that said, I couldn't absolve him of all blame for what he had done. Despite not seeing what he did was wrong, he still needed to be held accountable for his actions… no matter how much some people would say his victims deserved it. Boone for one sounded happy when he told me what Six went to do last night, as I'm sure most everyone else in the Mojave would be so long as they didn't see the bodies for themselves. Only a few people would have cared to punish Six for what he had done, but since I couldn't just let what he did go I had to be the 'bad guy' to him once again.
"Six, I am never going to teach you anything if you do anything like this again." I told him.
I didn't really know where I was going with that threat, but Six recoiled away from me like Veronica punched him with her power fist again.
"You wouldn't dare." He growled, but from the way he was looking at me I could tell that he didn't have the bite to back up his empty threat.
"I would, and I will also ground you for any alcohol for a week too the next time you do something outrageous." I told him. It was only after a moment of thought that I decided to add, "You can do whatever you want if our lives are in danger, but unless we're in extreme circumstances equal to or worse than that, I will see to it that you will not have access to a single chem or drop of alcohol until I know you have learned your lesson."
I only added that last part because I knew who I was talking to and Six would likely have taken me too seriously otherwise. As much as I would hate to see him tear someone in half with his bare hands again, I have to admit that it's nice knowing that he would be willing to go that far to make sure none of us gets hurt. It's a sick way of showing us that he cares for more than just himself, but at least it's something.
Six seemed to consider my threat for a moment before agreeing to abide by the new rule I made for him. I could only hope that he would never force me to make me enforce the rule I made up on the spot for him.
I thought that would be the last I would ever have to deal with Six's behavior in the future, but sadly this was only the start of something terrible. In less than a month he managed to make himself a gold club out of a metal I have never seen before and killed someone in a full suit of power armor with it. I honestly don't know what I had been expecting, but I did have some small shred of hope that Six could change for the better in those days.
If only everyone else had that same hope for him before everything went to hell.
ED-E Translations:
1: ["Let's strap a couple of EMP grenades to his back and throw him into Lake Mead! We'll see if he wants to keep on being a smartass with us after that!"]
2: ["Now can we throw him into Lake Mead?"]
3: ["I'm deleting the photos and video you made me take. I'm NOT getting in trouble for this."]
Author's Corner:
I don't really have much of anything to say this time. This little intermission is just meant to give a bit of insight into Six's interactions with his former companions and have a bit of fun mixing things up a bit.
Anyways, regular uploads will return in one week. Thank you for your patience.