Descending the mountain had been easy. There were clear paths leading down into the valley, and soon enough Chloe found herself standing in a parking lot, the spaces still occupied by the decaying husks of cars. From there it was a short walk through winding streets of some pre-War resort, that heavy red haze lingering in pockets thick enough to make her nose burn and eyes water and lungs tighten, and to a gate that squealed when she opened it. The gate opened up on a courtyard, and it is here where she now stood.
Wherever here was. The courtyard was dominated by a large fountain, a ghostly blue hologram of a woman standing on it, hand on her hip. The fountain was littered with gold coins, which excited Chloe at first, until she discovered they were just casino chips.
No casinos here she thought. The place was certifiably abandoned, debris and rubble all over the ground, the buildings decrepit and decaying. The place had electricity, amazingly enough, but many of the lights were either broken or burnt out. The only light around was cast by the holographic woman, errantly flickering. Chloe walked around the base of the fountain and, aside from a copy of Pugilism Illustrated* which she ignored, there was nothing of interest.
She tapped the side of her .45 Auto Pistol against her pant leg and idly brushed the wrinkles out of her tank top. This place gave her the creeps, no doubt about it, but if she was alone then she was safe. For now, at least. To the right of the fountain, underneath some arches, was a vending machine. She approached and holographic lines appeared on the display, showing what was available and their cost in casino chips.
"Ah. Of course" she said, and turned back to the fountain. A few in chips in hand she approached the machine again, selected the option for purified water, and out it came. The water was warm, but she appreciated it all the same. Two bottles later and she was feeling like herself again, the burn washed away. There was a metallic taste in the air, which she found odd.
Unsure of what to do first she decided to just start exploring, to see if there was anyone else around. With gun in hand, barrel pointed toward the ground, she set out East, to the right of the fountain. The streets were narrow, cluttered, with plenty of cover around, and she came to a very small fountain set in the wall, long dry. To the right a lamp glowed brightly, some graffiti on the wall.
Madre's
Mine,
Mine,
Mine!
Chloe frowned. Madre? As in, the Sierra Madre? She'd heard a rumor once, in the NCR, about it, but had never paid any attention to it. Ghost stories and fables like that were common in the wastes, like the legend of the Burned Man or the technological wonders of the Big Empty, but those stories were just harmless fun. Chloe had never cared for the legend of the Sierra Madre because it always came with strings attached. 'I've gotta map that'll lead ya there, just twenty caps!', 'I've been there, and I'll tell ya the way, if you give me a room fer th'night!', that sort of crap.
To the right of the wall was a tunnel that led to a small courtyard, and Chloe ventured in. There were radroaches there to greet her, and she paid them no mind as she went right, around the edge of the yard. A sign on the ground boasted some ad about a knife, and a sign beside a door said 'Gift Shop.' Chloe entered.
The shelves were bare, as expected, but another hologram was there to greet her. It stared at her blankly, flickering and silent, and she ignored it. Upstairs were more shelves and cabinets, equally bare, and two doors, one left and one right. The door on the right was gone, leaving just the open threshold. The door to the left remained, however. Closed. Chloe turned the knob, pushed it open, and stepped through.
At once she was suddenly emerged in a thick blanket of the red cloud, her lungs on fire and her skin burning. She coughed and sputtered and closed the door, doubled over with her hand still on the knob. The horrible feeling soon faded, though she was left nauseous from the experience.
Just what the Hell IS that? she wondered. She turned back towards the other way and stepped out onto a balcony which overlooked the small courtyard outside the gift shop, the radroaches still mingling. The balcony was bare, save for a single suitcase to the right, and an open threshold to the left. She peeked inside, finding a small apartment. Bed, couch, and kitchenette, the hotplate working and on. There was only junk food in the refrigerator, but so far it was all she'd been able to find. She took a can of potato crisps and left the rest, some apples and Salisbury steak, for later.
There was another door in the apartment, which opened out on another balcony that hung over the street, the wall fountain below. To the right was the main courtyard, the holographic woman faintly visible in the distance. Chloe made her way back through the gift shop, back to the streets, and passed by the wall fountain and lamp. The road veered left, a storage room ahead, and she followed the road. It went on maybe twenty feet before it forked, a road sign telling her what was around. To the right was Residential, and to the left was a place called Salida del Sol. Back the way she'd come was Town Square, the Clinic, a place called Puesta del Sol, and a Police Station.
Chloe turned to head back and froze. To the left of the road sign, in a tunnel leading to a cloud-blanketed courtyard, was a man in a black hazard suit. She thought he was human until he started walking towards her, and the way he shuffled and wobbled as he walked told her that he was no human. He, or rather, it, was carrying a spear. She lifted her gun and the strange creature finally noticed her. It growled, lifted the spear, and began running straight at her.
Chloe opened fire. The .45 jumped sharply in her hand as she plugged five rounds into the abomination, the holes spurting green blood. The creature pitched forward and hit the ground, dead, and Chloe reloaded. She was almost tempted to search the creature but she didn't want to imagine putting her hands on it. Besides which, it didn't look like the hazard suit it was wearing had any pockets.
She had just turned back when she heard this horrific, other-worldly groan from behind her and she spun. The creature she'd just killed put its feet on the ground and lifted itself back upright, the green eyepieces of its cowl casting pale beams on the villa's pale walls.
What the fuck what the fuck?!
Chloe beat feet and ran, unwilling to try shooting the thing again. If five rounds of .45 FMJ hadn't been enough to kill it then nothing else she had on her would be. She scrambled down the street, around the corner, and into the courtyard of the Town Square. She crouched behind the low rim of the fountain and aimed her gun back the way she'd come, the shambler following her. It paused by the edge of the courtyard, staring at the hologram. It growled and purred for a few moments before it turned around and soon vanished from sight.
Chloe stood, shaken. She'd seen plenty of what the wasteland had to offer back in California, from giant geckos and radscorpions, to a single Deathclaw she'd once watched from a distance, to the stories her father used to tell her about Wanamingos. But there was one constant to all these things, Chloe knew: they could be killed. Whatever the Hell that thing back there was could apparently reanimate. Either that, or her shots hadn't killed it.
Her jitters from the encounter passed and Chloe stood. All around the Town Square were buildings, shops and apartments and suites, most of the doors boarded up or blocked by rubble. There was one, however, that looked open. To the North-West was a three-story building, the lights outside dead, a tree stump next to it. The door had boards on it, but was cracked open.**
Intrigued, she raised her gun and approached the open door. She pulled the door open all the way, gun pointed into the room beyond. There was a counter with one of those holograms standing behind it, a pair of shelves at its back. There was a stairwell to the right and an open door to the left, leading to what looked like a kitchen. There was a little placard on the counter that read 'Welcome to the Sierra Madre Casino and Resort.'
So this was the Sierra Madre. Chloe frowned and closed the door behind her. There were a few tables around, along with some stools by the counter. Coffee mugs and pots were scattered all over the place, and through the door to the left was indeed a kitchen. A stove, a refrigerator, and shelves, all mostly empty except for scraps.
Chloe walked back into the lobby and headed up the stairs, a landing halfway up. She rounded the corner and the stairs continued up to a hall that went left and right. The hall curved to the right, the wall lined with three windows that looked out on the courtyard. She followed the hall to the end, a single door to the left, and she pushed it open.
The room inside was another apartment or hotel room, a few couches arranged in an L-shape directly across a kitchenette beneath a single window. A door to the left opened out onto a balcony, and opposite that door was a threshold that led into a bedroom. A bed and a dresser was all there was to see there.
Chloe took a deep breath. Surprisingly enough, her nose didn't burn here. This apartment had the cleanest air yet, already a welcome change from the terrible haze of the cloud outside. She stepped back into the main room, holstered her gun, and searched the room. Next to each end of the couches were night stands, their drawers home to a number of Sierra Madre casino chips and sundries like eyeglasses and cigarette packs. There was a coffee table across from the couches, set at an angle to them, a dead TV on top of it. On the shelf below the TV was a pre-War book, Boon Island.
She moved across the floor to the kitchenette and was about to start pulling open drawers and cupboards when she looked out the window and saw him. Clad in his Reinforced Leather Armor and clutching his M1 Garand was the bounty hunter looking for her, and she crouched a little bit. Between the branches of the dead tree outside and the layer of grime on the small window there was almost no chance he'd see her, but she wasn't going to risk it. She watched the bounty hunter turn to his left and disappear from sight, heading West.
Staying alive was going to be a lot more complicated now.
Jackson had heard all about the legend of the Sierra Madre, but he'd never expected to actually see it for himself. So far, the legend was rather disappointing. Dilapidated pre-War ruins and a poisonous cloud that blanketed the city and blotted out the sun. Whatever treasure was supposedly here was either well-hidden, or complete nonsense.
Not that he was here for fabled gold or the secret to eternal life. He had a job to do. He'd tracked the target north across the Mojave Wasteland, well past New Vegas and into the barren wastes of the Nevada desert. He had estimated that he was half a day behind the target when he'd come across an abandoned shack and a deep valley beyond it, shrouded in a red haze. It was almost a guarantee that the target had come here, and was hiding somewhere in the ruined city.
It was just a matter of finding her. On instinct he'd gone West, a road sign pointing him to Puesta del Sol and a Police Station. He'd passed by a door that apparently led to a clinic, but decided he'd hit up the Police Station first. He passed by a strange vending machine and to a courtyard with two planters in it, the trees nothing but stumps.
The roads were an absolute mess! Everywhere he stepped he was forced to watch his step, the stone and wood and gravel and glass shifting under foot. A road sign pointed him Southwest to the Police Station and he kept moving, rifle in hand. He'd just walked up a staircase into another courtyard when he saw a shambling guy in a hazard suit mindlessly walking around, his whole body wobbling as it went. He crouched at the top of the stairs and took aim, unsure if it was hostile or just drunk.
"Hey!"
The shambler stopped, hunched forward, and turned. It unslung a spear from its back and ran straight at him, and he opened fire. The Garand thundered harshly in the confined streets and the first round hit the shambler in the ribs. It turned to the side and stumbled, and the second round hit it in the hip. As it pitched over the third round hit it in the shoulder and blew its arm clean off, and it fell to the ground.
Jackson stood, keeping his rifle trained on the mysterious creature. It was still breathing, a green haze piped out of the respirator built into the suit's cowl, but it was completely motionless. He kicked the spear away from it and it still didn't move, just lying on its back and staring into the sky. "Don't move. Can you talk?" he said.
The creature did not respond.
Jackson backed away and lowered his rifle. If it was out of the fight then there was no reason to waste any more rounds on it, but something told him this wasn't the type of creature to just play dead. He turned around and headed up another, wider, staircase and into a segmented courtyard, another fountain in it. There was a terminal on the wall, but all it had on it was something about activating a hologram. He passed through an archway into a bigger section of the courtyard, a building in the distance bearing a black sign on the side of it that said 'Police.'
The courtyard was clear, save for the dead trees and rubble, and Jackson made a beeline straight for the Police Station. The door was unlocked and he moved in, low and at the ready. There was some rubble on the floor in the station, but otherwise it was clear. A few of the desks had ham radios on them, turned on but silent, as well as some terminals. To the left was an open door, a storage closet beyond. Jackson headed right, through a threshold and into a hallway. Ahead and to the right was a bathroom, occupied only by rubble. Jackson turned left down the hall, the first door locked. The rest of the hall's doors were open, a reloading bench in a closet the only notable find. Satisfied, Jackson went back to the lobby.
The holding cell was empty, which he was pleased to see. The station's kitchen was opposite the cell, and still had plenty of food and water to spare. Canned food, cartons of junk food, purified water, even a functional hot plate. After a quick check Jackson discovered that the coffee maker still worked, and that there were even a few packages of coffee grounds in a cupboard underneath.
A quick search of the rest of the station didn't reveal much, beyond a locked basement and some more holding cells, one locked. Jackson headed back into the station lobby and looked around. All that was left was the closet next to the desk. Closets, in his experience, rarely held anything of value, besides the odd carton of cigarettes or fission battery, but in a place like this anything could be useful.
One glance after he entered the closet told him he was very wrong about this one. It was less a closet and more an armory, the shelves lined with boxes and cans of ammunition. A Browning Automatic Rifle was on one shelf, propped up by its bipod. To the left, on the third shelf, was a metal case. Jackson pulled it down to the second shelf and popped it open, the contents putting a grin on his face.
Inside the case, in beautiful condition, was a .44-caliber Desert Eagle, set on purple felt, brushed stainless steel and black rubber grips. The gun was held firmly in place by the walls of the case, two spare magazines set in their own slots. Set in a final slot was a brick of ammunition, brass-cased FMJ rounds. Jackson loaded up the three magazines, set one in the pistol, and racked the slide. It fed perfectly, a faint smell of oil in the air. He'd lost his last handgun, a 9mm, in Reno. This was an ample replacement. He slipped the magnum into his holster and the spare mags into his leather pouches.
Hunting the target was going to be a lot more fun now.
*This book is actually there in game.
**This building is not accessible in game.
