Author's Note: Had to change the rating to M to accomodate the good stuff; sex, drugs, graphic violence, and rock n' roll
36 hours earlier
The small virtual community that was the sink greeted him as he made his way to the Think Tank.
David was not in the mood to return their virtual gestures, and marched to the top of the dome with a heavy heart.
He had been duped. It had all started as a transmission from Primm, which sent him on a search across the Divide for answers. Ever since he took a pair of nines to the head, David had always been tormented when it came to the game for the Mojave that he had been roped into like a stray Brahmin, on a drive to the nearest NCR rail head.
His days were back then, as Doc Mitchell in Goodsprings put it, numbered. The cancer was supposed to take him sometime in the next year. With death on the horizon, David had been hell bent on settling his affairs. He returned the platinum chip that had been stolen from him, by Benny. From there, he took job after job for House, with little regard for his own life. That changed when he began to truly understand the character of the Lucky 38's resident ghost.
In a moment of rashness, he ran away with a caravan to Utah, in hopes of making peace with his family in New Canaan. Those plans died with the condolences of Joshua Graham.
In fury, he cleansed the canyon of those barbarians, killing their chief in the process.
With the defeat of the White Legs, he turned his attention to back to the Mojave. He would do right by those who had blessed him when he had no one else to turn to. Even Mr. House.
The great questions of the decade would be answered in that blood soaked desert that had somehow become his new home. A home he didn't appreciate, until he walked back through the doors of the Lucky 38 to be greeted by people who actually cared about him. House welcomed him back almost as if nothing had happened, if only because his shoes were too big to fill.
He had heard tales of a wandering renegade named Ulysses for some time. Ever since Graham told him about the story of Ulysses and his tribe, David had been gathering all he could on the elusive Frumentarii. Not four years ago, the White Legs were a nomadic tribe that had spent decades being chased away by so many rival tribes all from over Wyoming and the northern half of the old Four-States Commonwealth. That was of course, before they came into contact with the Legion.
A few months before Caesar threw the Legion across Hoover Dam, he sent a handful of centurions to lead an expedition against Ouroboros. Ouroboros was a city of sorts in Eastern Utah that was the spiritual capital of the Vipers, and more recently, the Hounds of Hecate. Sallow had heard tales of a mad tribal goddess known as Hecate, who held sway over that stronghold.
Hecate was born to the twisted hairs, the same tribe as Ulysses. When Caesar rewarded the Legion's greatest ally in Arizona with a mass crucifixion along I-40, Hecate disappeared north of the Colorado, and emerged from the wilderness as a warrior-goddess leading a small army almost as fanatical as the Legion forged from several weakened tribes including the Vipers of Utah.
The battle between Her followers and the Legion was quick and decisive. The Legion explorers were too arrogant to expect much from a matriarchal society and woefully underestimated her. Only by chance did the survivors come into contact with the White Legs, who were fighting a losing war against Hecate.
They were too weak to fight an enemy who did not hold to the traditional tribal mindset, and both too lazy and too stupid to become self-sufficient. Caesar forged an alliance with them just as he had done with so many other former tribes.
After Hoover Dam, Ulysses was sent build up the White Legs. Not just against New Canaan, but also against to make war upon a people led by his only surviving kin. Four years later, the White Legs destroyed New Canaan, and were now capable of fighting a serious war against Hecate.
As the last few months passed, the trail of whispers and rumors, soon took on the form of spray painted old world flags.
"There you are Mr. Kelly," the cold voice of Robert Edwin House snapped over the speakers behind him.
He snapped out of his thoughts, and turned to face the image of a smarmy House on the big screen that dominated the wall above the main lab entrance.
"Here I am." David was not in the mood to be baited by House right now.
"I see you're back from another attempt to find yourself. I'd hoped that you wouldn't act as rashly, after they cured you here." The exasperated voice carried across the lab.
He removed his helmet, and made sure that House could see his face, it would be best if they got to the problem at hand ASAP. "So, how much do you know about the missiles in the Divide?"
It was as if the room temperature suddenly dropped 15 degrees. For a moment unbearable silence hung in the air, before House finally broke it.
"It was you wasn't it, the detonation over Ashton?" House inquired, this time with no small amount of concern in his voice.
This was not how David hoped to start the conversation. "Sort of," He couldn't bring himself to tell the complete story. "There was a missile, one...one of the few left in the silo. It was, rigged to launch when I opened the door."
"What do you mean rigged to launch?" The voice of House snapped once he smelled the blood.
"Ulysses," He growled.
"Ulysses?" House knew little about the circumstances in which David entered the Divide.
"There's an ex-Frumentarii in the Divide who goes by the name of Ulysses, and he wants me to have a front seat to watch him launch every missile in the Divide at the Mojave."
"And what would he stand to gain by nuking the Mojave?"
"Because he's a zealot, and because he wants to get back at me."
"So you went to the Divide by yourself then?" House clearly knew that there was more to the story.
David almost asked Yes-Man to pull up the transmission that Ulysses had sent him not four days ago. He only stopped himself when he remembered that it would reveal too much of his hand, and manually searched for the file.
Even now with a madman on the verge of baptizing New Vegas in nuclear hellfire, House would be furious to learn that he had saved a backup of the AI that Benny, that lazy bastard, had commissioned to auto-pilot the strip. It meant that it would be possible to unlock the many secrets of Robert Edwin House, should anything happen to him.
He found the file, and played over the speakers of his pip-boy.
"Why didn't I take the job? You Courier, you were the reason. See the Divide. See what happened, what was done. Your world stripped bare. All its shadows. Got a message for you. Come find me, you know the way. Bring all your weapons, bring your convictions, your flag of the bull, two-headed bear. Or whatever flag you're carrying now. And at the Divide, you and I, we'll have an ending to things. This is your road, when you come you'll walk it alone."
"Why did you even listen to him?" House spoke as if David were a mere child.
David took a deep breath. "Because what happened at the Divide, happened because of me."
"Because of you? You're telling me that whatever happened four years ago, was because of you?" House's voice actually seemed capable of shaking when he asked about Hopeville.
He cleared his throat, "Five years ago, I uh... Discovered the Divide. It was home to a small community of survivalists."
It pained him greatly to speak of it. In only a few months after he left Junktown with his first Pack Brahmin, he had unwittingly turned the greatest fears of the Divide's residents into reality one by one.
"They wanted to be uh, left alone. Didn't lessen their need for trade with the World beyond the valley though." He started his own little caravan and brought supplies to the isolated community. For the first time since he left Colorado, he actually had something that resembled a home.
"I saw a path, where others saw nothing, and brought life to Hopeville and Ashton. It was still a road to hell, and I was the one who paved it." A single tear fell across his cheeks as he recalled the story.
"And from there the NCR found a supply line to the Mojave," House connected the dots, much to David's silent relief.
He nodded, "Wasn't just the supply line of course, they wanted the nukes just as bad. They wanted me to lead an OSI expedition from out of Navarro. That expedition included an eyebot, that remote linked to the missile network as soon as it as in range."
"So that earthquake happened, when the missiles detonated from within the silos?"
"That's right," He confirmed dryly. "And the storms too. Not many people survived that day.
"To this day I still live with the guilt of bringing hell on Earth, to the Divide. I went alone, because it is my burden to bear. Not the Legion, not the NCR, not the Enclave remnants and thier children who gave the NCR an excuse to invade. I condemned Ashton, the day I started supplying them."
"And what's keeping Ulysses from launching the missiles now?" House returned to the subject.
"I'm really not sure. I'm no expert on ballistic missiles, but if Ashton is any indication, we should be seeing the sky light up any minute now."
David wondered how long it would be, until Ulysses broke the encryption on the launch controls.
"Most of the silos are within range of my defense systems. The chances of a missile being able to leave the Divide airspace without being disabled is roughly 23.6 percent, and that's assuming that the missiles are capable of a stable flight."
While House had brought up a good point, it didn't change the fact that he was clinging to numbers for reassurance that someone wasn't going to trigger another apocalypse.
Suddenly, a thought flickered. Considering the ridiculous amount of effort Ulysses put into trying to make sure the Divide killed him, there was no reason that Ulysses could have figured out how to launch his missiles all by his lonesome.
He had walked the depth and breadth of the Divide, laying minefields, setting traps, and painting markers. He needed an eyebot to break the security encryption. Ulysses had plenty of chances to take the bot, and break the codes.
The answer was staring him in the face.
Everything Ulysses had done, went back to what could only be described as obsession. The man was intent on making him suffer as long as possible.
"I think he's just waiting for me." David voiced his thoughts aloud.
When House said nothing he continued, "Everything he's done comes back to me. Part of me thinks that its simply a show to him, that the actors on his stage will simply show up for the final act."
"And are you going to do that?" House pressed the question though the answer was obvious.
"Sure do. Soon as I resupply here, I'm going kick down the doors to his hideout."
"In that case, you can help me stop it before it starts." Another plan was coming together.
"What's the plan?"
House told him about a piece of aerospace tech called a deep range transmitter, that would allow him to remotely control any machine fixed to the piece. It had been modified to fit an Eyebot, as well as receive Robco proprietary signals, and only could be made with the help of the Central intelligence Unit now that the schematics were uploaded.
The screen went silent, and David walked back down to the Sink.
On his to do list, he a transmitter to make, armor to fix, guns to mod, and ammo to craft.
Something was wrong.
That's what David kept telling himself, as he realized what his senses were picking up.
The first thing he remembered was the unmistakable sound of a waterfall. That was strange. As far as he knew, there was no rivers in the Divide.
That was enough for him to open his heavy eyes. His sight was blurry, which may have had something to do with the massive pounding in his head.
When his vision focused somewhat, he saw that it he was sheltered by some structure of eroding cement.
He lifted his left arm, for the sake of checking his Pip-boy. He had barely moved it, when he realized that he was somehow soaked.
His breathed through his nose, which was immediately assaulted with the familiar smell of heavy sweat and piss.
"Oh hey there." The cartoonish voice of Yes-Man, projected from the computer on his arm.
"Yes Man?" David asked groggily.
"In the flesh, well sort of," the obnoxiously cheerful voice of the AI replied.
"So what happened and how the hell am I still alive?"
"I don't know either. I went offline about the time your vitals went haywire."
"So how long was I out, "asked David.
"I don't know, yet. I'll need to sync with a time server to know that." Yes-Man's cheerful tone dimmed somewhat at the statement. "I know that I've been out long enough for most of your injuries to heal, though."
He thought about his bitter fight with Ulysses. "So how many broken bones do I still have?"
"Nothing too serious now," came Yes-Man's diagnosis. "You should probably get that shrapnel in your legs taken care of though."
Instinctively David moved his legs. Pain shot through his body, and he grunted in agony.
"F-fuck! that hurts," he remembered the thud of a well placed mine exploding behind him and sending hot shrapnel through the split in his armored duster and into his legs.
"You should probably rinse those wounds in the river by your feet. If it's anything like the mist in the air, then it's completely radiation free."
David stared dumbly at his pip-boy. Nothing was rad free in the Divide. He took a long look at the free flowing river that was almost in reach. His eyes wandered towards the structure that sheltered him, and noted this time that it was not concrete, but actual stone. In fact, it wasn't even a decrepit building, but a bridge that he was underneath.
He didn't know where he was, but right now that wasn't important. David slowly lifted his riot helmet, breathed in the air. He exhaled and breathed it in, even deeper this time. The cold night air felt good, tasted good. It was like he was in the mountains by Jacobstown.
After his journey through the Divide, good air almost felt like a forgotten luxury.
Despite the pain in his legs, he inched down the riverbank, and into the water, shedding his heavy armor along the way.
Once he was down to his undergarments, he reached into his pack. He found the doctor's bag, and a bottle of Vodka. David started the operation with a swig of the Vodka.
The burn from the alcohol moved down his throat and then spread to his veins, briefly jarring some of the mist from his brain. The Vodka reminded him just how dry his throat was, and wondered if it was due to a loss of blood. Some more of the hooch was used to sterilize his wound. It stung like a bitch, but it did not deter him from ripping out shard after bloody shard from his wounds that had not yet fully healed.
When it was over, he rested his feet in the water. Yes-Man had been right about the water, the computer had not clicked once since he woke up. From his pack, he produced his trusty Vault 13 canteen, and filled it with the sweet untainted water.
When it came down to it, the canteen was one of his most prized possessions. It had been given to him many years ago by his dad, who came across in his travels in California (travels he chose not to talk about). It was a curious thing, a simple thing that had saved his life more times than he bothered to remember. It had also nearly cost him his life on a few occasions.
The canteen pressed against his lips, and he drank the cold, clear water that poured from it's top.
In such a pristine environment, he suddenly remembered just how filthy he was. David returned everything he had taken from his pack, which he concealed in a crevice below the bridge. The biometric seals on his Pip-boy were released, which he used to clamp the bag shut over the top as a crude lock. All he had on him now was a bowie knife he had taken from the Hopeville Silo, and a bar of homemade soap.
Upstream, he waded and settled in the middle of the stream. The current of the cold water was reasonably strong, but not bad enough that he worried about the waterfall behind him.
For a man who had been under the gun for months on end, the passage of time was suddenly irrelevant as he rubbed the homemade soap, all over his skin. The stream's current was strong enough, to take away the dirt and grime as it came loose from contact with the oils. Feeling at ease in the stream bed, he sheathed the knife, and clipped it to his boxers.
As he bathed, he found his eyes staring up at the stars in the night sky. He couldn't for the life of him place what it was, but something was not right. He already had the feeling that somehow he'd ended up in the far North. Before he could contemplate further, something cold and metallic pressed against his shoulder.
"Take off your clothes," a male voice demanded from behind him with some bizarre accent David had never heard of before.
"Uh, shouldn't you be buying me dinner first or something?" David quipped. Though he managed to keep his voice level, he was cursing himself inwardly for letting his guard down again.
The man chuckled without mirth. "You're a funny one," replied the melancholic voice. The knife made its way down his back before resting below the ribcage.
"Okay, okay. Wouldn't want to go through the trouble of washing off all those white stains." He slipped his thumbs under his briefs. After wiggling his boxers he carefully slipped them off his feet loose, while taking care to unsheathe the knife that was still hidden beneath the water's surface.
Slowly he found his feet, and then in one fluid motion, he turned, and tossed his underwear at the face of the creep. It landed square over his eyes, blinding him long enough for David to bring the Bowie knife to bear.
David lunged at his assailant. With one hand grabbed at the wrist that wielded the knife, the other simply came to rest on the man's throat.
"I believe it's your turn to drop the soap, raider." David growled.
"Soap?" the man calmly lifted the still soiled undergarment from his face, to reveal a confused expression. His reaction spoke volumes about his location. Wherever he was, the only people around were probably isolated tribals.
David got a look at the man's face. His head was dominated by a full head of dark hair that threatened to touch his shoulders. Beneath the hair, was a pair of gray eyes that had about the same hue as San Francisco fog. They stared back at him, as if to say "Who are you." Under his short round nose, a thin set of lips formed the beginnings of a smile.
His outfit, looked almost like it had been cut out of an ancient burlap sack. Small wonder the tribal wanted his clothes.
David had figured this man wrong. He wasn't out to assert his primal dominance at the point of his dong, like some of the of tribesman in the less civilzed parts of Montana were known for. Many tribals, particularly the Twangers of Flathead Lake, who were said to perform horrifying and perverse rituals on those who were unfortunate enough to not heed the sound of their war banjos.
The man simply wanted an outfit that came from a culture greater than his own.
"That's civilized speak for drop the knife, and make yourself vulnerable." David wanted to see the his reaction. The look that came from his calculating eyes did not disappoint.
His hand opened, and the knife made a splash upon hitting the surface of the stream. "Gods, you Bretons are arrogant."
David didn't understand what the strange tribal meant by the word "Breton." He assumed it was a word for "people different than us." In the strange language that travelers refer to as Res, it was "Owslander," in the world of the Legion, it was "Profligate."
Suddenly, he felt a painful shocking sensation course through his body. The shock forced him to step back and release his grip on the man.
When he recovered his senses, his right arm was sore, and the man in front of him had something in the palm of his hands. It was something, that he could not for the life of him place, but for some reason made him think of a Gauss Rifle building its charge.
He had his answer a moment later, the pale blue swirl of energy left the man's hands, and materialized into a spike of some sorts.
He tried to dive out of the way, but the circumstances made it next to impossible for him to move fast enough. The spike pierced his exposed right leg just above the knee, and its impact knocked him into the stream, and on his ass.
David shivered involuntarily, and realized that the spike embedded in his Femur was pure ice. Thinking quickly, he hacked off most of the protruding section with his knife.
He looked to the bridge behind him. He was close enough to the waterfall that the current was gathering strength. If he could just reach his gear, he would riddle this thing with first gun he got his hands on.
The thing, whether it was a man that got actual superpowers thanks to some natural Hubologist style rad therapy, or it was some bizarre cyborg like himself, calmly waded down the stream closing the distance.
"Not the mage type I suppose," he gloated.
"The hell is a mage?" David roared back.
The Mage looked at him, as if he was unable to grasp a concept as basic as eating or sleeping. "Let's just say, that some time in the civilized world would do you good," sneered the mage.
He began to step away from the middle of the stream, towards the riverbank. This move was not lost on David, who found his footing and started in his direction. Halfway out, the mage put his hands together, and from them came sparks of electricity that emitted from his hands as if they were a Tesla coil.
"Stop right there," he threatened. "Take off your small clothes, and toss them to the bank before I end up killing everything in the Darkwater."
Before he could react, the rapid beating of hooves nearby seized their attention.
Taking advantage of the distraction, he made it out of the stream that the mage called the Darkwater in three steps.
The hands moved to face and then zap him, but not before David acquainted him with his left fist, which was already clenched with his boxers. The man fell on his back, on landed just beyond the edge of the water. David pressed the offensive, and landed his wounded knee on the fallen mage's chest.
"Go on, let's see who can take the shock."
Instead of unleashing a charge on him as he was half hoping his would be mugger would be stupid enough to try, the hand shot out, and grabbed his exposed member.
Before he could wonder what the fuck was happening, he heard himself scream in pain, as fire erupted from the hand of the stranger, and made contact with his special place.
In rage, he brought his nine inch knife down on the offending arm, cleaving straight through the bone and most likely rendering it useless. The hand went limp, and he leaped over the bastard, and into the stream to cool off the burn, which he knew would sting worse than even concentrated Nightstalker venom.
He slipped his boxers over his arm, and rushed over to that dirty son of a bitch. With some grim satisfaction, he watched the man's active hand trying to pull the knife out of his not so active arm.
"ASSHOLE, MOTHERFUCKER!" David screamed at the man. "Of all the could hit me, you choose one that isn't jacked up on implants!" He gave a wicked backhand with his right, across his face. Hopefully though, he wouldn't need any special medical attention for this. It would be embarrassing, as hell asking for the help of Arcade, and Usanagi, or even worse the Think Thank.
David planted his foot on the free arm, and with both hands he yanked the almost machete out of the arm.
Not pausing to see what gruesome damage the knife left behind, David grabbed him by a leg, and dragged him into the current.
When he neared the fall's edge underneath the stone bridge, he let go of the body letting the water carry him. Nothing could keep the wounded man from falling over the edge. Or him for that matter...
The arms, both the good one, and the bloodied to his surprise flailed wildly. They hooked around an ankle, and he lost his footing. David fell headlong into the falls, and landed shoulder first on a rock jutting out of the falling curtain of water.
Next thing he knew, he was floating in the wider river, with a much gentler current. Except, it was more than just the current carrying him.
He realized that his arms were being held around the form of a feminine stranger.
'Damn, must have lost consciousness in fall,' David decided.
They neared the shore, where he could see a handful of crudely built pup tents. Behind them was some sort of hut.
His attention shifted to a voice from the shore.
"You have committed crimes against Skyrim and her people, what say you in your defense?"
In the dark early morning light, he made out a figure held by two armed men, and questioned by another. The light of a campfire nearby gave the captors the look of Bitterroot Mountain hunters.
"I'm not the thief you're looking for." He snickered when he recognized the voice.
"Nice try trickster, but you're not fooling me. I heard about you and your honeyed words," replied the voice, that made him think of some old-timey holofilm action hero. "I also happen to know that Riften Hold has an even greater bounty on your head," continued the voice.
The woman carrying him started to emerge from the water, and soon David could feel his feet drag along the riverbed. Once her waistline emerged from the water, she turned to look at him.
For his part, he got to his feet and stood.
By the light of the fire, he could see that she was a beautiful woman who he guessed to be in her mid thirties, with strawberry blond hair that seemed only a few shades lighter than his own light red hair.
"Are you alright," she asked in a voice sweet and tender.
David nodded, "Thanks, I must have blacked out."
"It looked painful," she replied.
"I've had worse," David shrugged it off while cradling his shoulder with his hand. "The name is David by the way, David Kelly."
She just smiled at him, "I'm Annekke, Annekke Crag-Jumper." There was an awkward pause for a second or two before she spoke again. "Are you okay?"
He suddenly realized that he was staring at her midsection. Her clothes though simple were well made, but it was the skin that it covered which held his attention. The outfit was thoroughly soaked and clung to her body in a way that left very little to the imagination.
He jerked his head away with some embarrassment hoping that the fire light did not give away the look on his face.
"And I'm Verner Rock-Chucker, her husband." A new voice spoke up and he noticed a thirty something man with a dirty blond beard, and a coat of patched leather. "Should that thing be on your arm?"
David looked at his arms, and saw to his horror that his Boxers were still on this right arm. Looking down, he saw his fun stick partially visible, and even now he could tell that there was a fair amount of circulation down there, although he wasn't sure if that was because of sex drive, or because of the fact that it was on fire for a second. 'Probably both,' David assumed, as he moved his hands to cover himself.
Before he could do anything more, the leader of the small group pointed at him, "You there."
"Me?"
"Yes you," the deep voice that dripped with authority. "I suppose we have you to thank for the capture of Flokir of Riften. He has a bounty in this hold of eight hundred Septims. Come with me in Windhelm, and I will see to it that that my steward rewards you handsomely."
'Riften, Windhelm, Skyrim. Where the hell was he' David could hear his mind screaming at the names of strange places he had never heard of. There was also the fact that his showdown with the strange thief, had earned him money that happened to be something other than bottle caps.
Obviously, he wasn't dealing with mere tribals despite their appearance to the contrary.
That was when the name for their currency clicked. Whatever it was, it sounded an awful lot like Legion money.
A horn blew. A war horn, David realized. From every direction, the outline of armed men seemed to come out from behind every tree and bush. He could not make out any details about them, except for the obvious discipline they displayed in surrounding the party.
"Stand down," came the deep voice of the leader.
"But my Jarl..." asked one of his braves.
"I said stand down," interrupted the chief. "We don't need to die for this."
"Secure their weapons," bellowed a voice from a ways off.
"Yes Legate," came the reply of a junior officer type.
'Shit!' He realized. Wherever he was, it was Caesar's territory now.
Author's note: I would like to thank Mandalore the Freedom for beta reading this chapter.