Veronica
She stepped out into the late morning sun and followed Arcade's lead.
He had to settle some affairs over at the fort before taking another leave of absence, and promised to be back at the Wrangler in a few hours time.
A Follower and a Brotherhood exile walking the Mojave. This would be an interesting if not awkward journey to say the least.
In the meantime, she decided to look around the neighborhood.
The first place to get her attention was the Silver Rush. It looked exactly as she remembered something felt different about the place.
As if to answer her thoughts, a man in metal armor emerged from the building. She recognized him as one of the bounty hunters who were known to hang around McCarran. Veronica called out to him as he neared her on the street.
"What's a laser pistol worth these days?" She nodded in her head in the direction of the Silver Rush.
"More than the usual. The caravan roads ain't safe and demand is through the roof."
"So how do you get yours?" She could probably guess, but she was curious to hear his perspective.
He looked at her curiously for a moment before his expression changed. It was the face she'd seen on men who happened to be in a bragging mood.
"Oh there's plenty for the taking. I dunno where they come from, but every other fiend seems have a laser weapon worth at least a hundred caps. Their guns are worth more than their actual bounties right now."
"They wouldn't get those raiding caravans would they?"
"I don't know." The merc shrugged. "I don't know, caravans usually avoid that area as much as they can."
"I heard there was a factory somewhere in South Vegas that made energy weapons." She recalled hearing about a plant in the area that the pre war government had contracted for laser weaponry.
He looked at her, as if trying to measure her again.
"I've heard a few stories about buried treasure in fiend territory. Not sure how many of them I should believe, but then again you never know what you'll find on a body, when you take the head.
Veronica grimaced. "Do you seriously need to carry fiend heads for a bounty?"
"They used to accept scalps, but a couple of assholes ruined it for everyone else a couple months back. Couple of dumbass ex-cons decided to raid the Quarry Junction for easy scalps.
"Quarry Junction, seriously?" That place made any raider camp in the Mojave look vulnerable by comparison.
Well, a pack of deathclaws had just decided to call the place home and ruined any chance they had at getting close enough to the miner they shot and finish the job. One of them became Deathclaw food, and the other was captured by rangers."
"What happened to him?" Veronica asked.
"Colonel Hsu had him hanged from McCarran's control tower. Had Dhatri round up the regular bounty crowd for moonshine and popped corn."
She felt her lips twitch in disgust at the idea of a man being executed in the setting of a neighborhood barbecue.
"You had a party while someone was being hanged. Doesn't that feel a little, I don't know... barbaric?"
"Maybe if you grew up in New California proper I guess. Me though, I came from the Den. Not even NCR could make that place value human life."
As disgusting as it sounded, did she really have a right to judge? That was a question she did not have the answer for. At least, not anymore.
"I heard about that place," Veronica deadpanned. "How goes the slave trade on big circle?"
The man in the metal armor laughed. "Pretty good. Maybe I should have gone into finance. I heard the Guild is looking to put a finger in the Mojave before Happy Trails steals all the fun."
"Good company to work for, that Happy Trials."
"A few of the boys back at McCarran figure they'll sign on when they come..." his voice trailed off.
"What?" Asked Veronica.
"I shouldn't talk about it," responded the soldier of fortune. "We contractors have a security clearance and all."
"That's a shame, you look thirsty." She reached into her robes and produced a bottle of whiskey.
His eyes lit up, and she let him have a swallow of the bottle.
"That's some pretty good stuff, what's in it?"
"Mostly corn, Boomers are pretty sparing with the grain."
"I heard Happy Trails got exclusive trading rights with the Boomers."
Veronica shook her head. "They probably do more trade with Gun Runners to tell you the truth. By the way, how are things over at McCarran?"
"Crimson Caravan is still filling most of the East Army contracts if that's what you were wondering. Most of course were no bids, or so Contreras tells me. I swear Kimball gets a nice kickback for this if he's sending a full brigade from the first up the long 15."
She tried to process the words as she heard them. "More soldiers, here?"
"Yeah that's right. They're coming in through Nipton and the Outpost."
"Nipton?" Last she had heard, the town had been wiped out by Vulpes Inculta himself.
"Yep, dug up from the grave. There's a second lifeline opening up, and its a rail head."
'Everything will change with the coming of the train.'
The Brotherhood of Steel had little interest in history save for "the important parts." Anything that happened before the birth of Roger Maxson was irrelevant. Of even less interest was anything the Followers called humanities.
Had they understood more about the settling of the American West, they might have understood their enemies better. The Railroad in her mind, was a symbol of all the things that would doomed the Brotherhood.
They stood a chance against the adventurers who came east with only their guns as backup. Soon they would bring their families and root themselves in the sands of the Mojave under the cloak of manifest destiny or whatever came out of Kimball's mouth these days.
"Who's trains are coming to Nipton?" The merc took probably took her for a caravaneer, and she had no intention of disavowing him.
"I don't know," he shrugged. "Crimson has plently of rolling stock in the Hub, but I hear the competition is pretty cutthroat back west. They say every cattleman and water merchant in California are trying to get their own working engine. I'm pretty sure Happy Trails is trying to get in on it too."
Cass had once mentioned that a line between Sac-Town and New Reno was in the works. After recent success in both Nevada and the Utah country, that was no longer a distant possibility for a company that teetered on bankruptcy less than six months ago.
They continued chatting for a while over other caravan gossip. None of it held her interest though, and before long they parted ways.
Veronica looked at her pip-boy for the time. It would be about two more hours before Arcade was ready.
To kill the time she decided to head on down to Mick and Ralph's and do some shopping for the trip.
As she walked down Freeside she took in the sights. It may have been exactly as she remembered, but she could feel change in the air.
Down the boulevard, she could see a securitron making its rounds. Behind it, a small band of departing tourists walked briskly to keep pace with the robot. Along the sidewalks, she could see the lean hungry stares of destitute men. Resentment lined their faces. Both at the robot and the tourists she guessed.
Before the troubles, Freeside was a pretty harmless place by wasteland standards. The muggers only came out at night and the Kings walked around like actual kings of the road.
All that changed with the influx of refuges. The easygoing anarchy of Freeside attracted many individuals from both east and west who for one reason or another had been displaced by someone bigger.
Since many of them came from cultures that simply took what they wanted, it was only a matter of time before the locals got violent. Now self proclaimed vigilantes roamed the streets at night, exacting retribution over crimes both real and imagined.
Things had clearly not changed for the better since House sent patrols through down the main avenue. At the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Bonanza, a decaying corpse hung from a street light a stone's throw from the Old Mormon Fort.
As she passed the grisly sight, Veronica noticed a placard hanging from his form. Rape fugee was inscribed on the cardboard in barely legible handwriting.
"Something to see ain't it?"
Veronica turned to face the speaker. It was a King with the usual rock star haircut and a black leather jacket. He was an arrogant one. He held sway with many of the Kings, she could tell, and had he been more tribal she might have expected him to proclaim his status as an alpha male and demand mating rights.
"Its like a puppet on a string." He spoke as if it were an old world painting.
"Your work? Am I supposed to admire it or something?"
Her response had taken the greasy man in the King's Jacket a back, but only for a second.
"You should, that New California reject raped some girl over on the North side. Not sure who got him in the end, but I approve."
Veronica wanted to call bullshit. This was Freeside.
Since when did anybody in this part of town care about the concept of justice? If a hapless tourist was taken advantage of, the locals would just as likely take turns with her as they would take pity.
Before House deployed securitron patrols, Freeside's reputation was the perfect place for "protection" services. Its gangs had made a plenty of caps on ensuring safe passage of travelers through the hellhole of muggers and worse that was Freeside.
The Kings easily had the biggest share of that market, which had dried out overnight.
Part of her still felt that seeing communities like Freeside fight back was supposed to be a good thing. But Veronica knew plenty about the vigilante movements. For many, things like justice and fair play took a back seat as wealthier neighbors from the West began to surround the nascent downtown and newcomers encroached on turf that was previously unchallenged.
"Must have been a pretty important girl if he would up in Freeside," Veronica deadpanned.
"More important than men like him," he pointed at the body. "All they do is steal. They want our homes, our food, our hooch..."
"Our women?" She finished for him.
The lines on his face twitched when she said it.
"You should feel safe," the King angrily retorted. "Its the only thing to put the Californios and the Easterners for that matter in their place!"
"Right, I feel very safe knowing that I only need to take care of myself if its a local." She gently lifted her sleeve to reveal the cold steel fingers of a pneumatic gauntlet on her right hand."
Veronica walked away before he could respond. No good would come out of that exchange. Thankfully, it was a only a short walk to Mick and Ralph's from there. Indeed, it was barely more then a block away.
As usual, a small group of bums loitered outside the store. As she passed through, two of them heckled her for caps, but she refused to make eye contact.
"Well howdy do, how's prospecting?" Mick greeted her as if she were a distant friend.
"I got an expedition to pack for," replied Veronica. "I need some things you aren't really allowed to sell."
He laughed. "What kind of things?"
She reached into her pack and pulled out an envelope. "Arcade Gannon sent me."
He took the envelop and opened it. "Identification documents huh? I can have those ready first thing tomorrow. Anything else?"
Veronica took one long look at the wares on the shelves.
"I'll need a new bedroll, a bottle of cateye, and a change of clothes."
"What kind of clothes are we talking about?" Mick asked as he gathered the other items.
"I'll need some decent undergarments, preferably NCRA issue. I'd also like a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt."
Mick brought the items to the counter. The shirt was homespun by its looks and colored a drab grey and only a few shades darker than the army underwear. The pants were a light brown and by a cursory glance, looked to be a reasonable fit.
"Say, you got any dresses Mick? Veronica asked on impulse.
Mick furrowed his brow, and looked around the store. He came back with a faded yellow dress.
It was a beautiful dress. She looked at the barely legible tags within. It was by no means perfect fit, but it could work.
"How much for this?" She asked.
"Its all been taken care of."
Veronica raised an eyebrow. "By whom?"
"An old ghoul," replied Mick. "You might say he takes care of your tab..."
Veronica pondered that for a moment. Who in Freeside would do that for her?
A few names came to mind, most of whom she did not trust.
"On second thought, I don't know about the dress. Maybe not this time."
Without a word, the shopkeeper tenderly returned the item to its place on the shelf.
"Thanks," she halfheartedly muttered.
"No problem," he replied. "See you in the morning."
After leaving the shop, she decided to return to the Wrangler. She wasn't necessarily afraid of wandering alone in Freeside, but at the same time, something around here felt volatile.
It felt almost like sharing a dimly lit basement with killer ants and high explosives.
There was something about the atmosphere of Freeside, that made even seemingly dauntless individuals like David Kelly tread with care.
She took an alternative route to the Wrangler through the territory of the Golden Geckos.
When she was last here, the nascent gang of Californian immigrants was maybe half a dozen chem addicts.
Now, she could feel its presence all along the East fringe of Freeside up to the fort, wherever desperate men in rags congregated. Graffiti covered the walls, and toughs in golden brown leather suits roamed the Maryland parkway in broad daylight.
Not long ago, the Kings walled the streets of Freeside unchallenged. Now, upstart gangs like the Golden Geckos, the Zorros, and the even the Siegal family were carving up Freeside as best they could. None of them were strong enough to challenge the Kings directly, and all except the Geckos went out of their way not to offend the Kings.
After about a dozen blocks, she reached the sight of the fort, and from there, it was a quick walk to the bar.
It was a half past three when she returned to the Atomic Wrangler. The table they had lunch over was open, so she took a seat and ordered a gecko kebab. Arcade had figured on coming back sometime around four.
She thought about the idea of a Follower and a Brotherhood exile walking the Mojave as she waited for the food. This would be an interesting if not awkward journey to say the least.
The food came about the same time as Arcade; ten minutes to four.
"How do you do Mr. Gannon?" They were visited by the slender, handsome form of Francine Garrett.
"Pretty good, Francine." Arcade's reply was curt and automatic.
"James says you'll be out of town for a while."
Arcade grimaced for a moment before he spoke. "I'm sure he'll manage without me. Julie Farkas is easy enough to get along with."
"I don't doubt it, but James seems to prefer you for some reason."
Arcade may have been one of the best poker players she had seen on a card table, but Veronica saw right through his features and found herself fighting to keep a straight face.
For most people, Arcade was a shy dork with zero people skills. She knew him and his type better though. Beneath the surface, there was raging sexual beast rattling its cage to get out.
Nobody makes love like a dork. She could still hear that voice in her head reminding her of a lover long vanished.
"Probably because Julie never comes here," deadpanned the Followers doctor.
Francine laughed at that.
"While you are a regular that is." She winked at him. "By the way, thanks for handling the next couple weeks of shipments for us. James is a bit 'indisposed' right now, but he'd like me to comp you the high roller package."
She checked her pockets, and produced a key and a small stack of poker chips. "Your meal is on the house too by the way."
"In that case, I'd like a well done Lakelurk Steak, and a desert salad with a glass of tequila. preferably, preferably that stuff that comes from Bullhead."
"Anything for you dear?" Francine turned over to face Veronica. "I imagine you'd want more than a kebab if you're with him.
"I'll have a double brahmin burger, the one smothered in agave sauce."
"Anything to drink?"
"Get me an Atomic Cocktail."
Francine nodded and headed off to the kitchens."
Veronica looked at Arcade for a moment after she left.
"So James Garrett, what's he like?
Arcade shrugged. "Pretty upright businessman by Freeside standards.."
"Uh huh," she deadpanned. "Very altruistic."
"He's also a good man to have a few shots with." She was certain she saw a twinkle in his eyes.
"You know, I've never done body shots before."
"It was some pretty good tequila." This time his expression was unabashed.
"Did you have the worm afterwards?"
Before Arcade could reply, a ghoul in a suit spoke into a microphone on the stage.
"Its just a little after four, and we've already got a pretty good lineup for you today. I'd even say we have the Tops beat this time."
A few laughs came from the audience.
To kick things off, we have a special guest who would like to 'get some notes off his chest' so to speak."
She turned her attention to the band, as they started their song. It was old favorite among ghouls from California if she remembered correctly.
I came here looking for something
I couldn't find anywhere else
Now, I'm not trying to be nobody
I just want a chance to be myself
Suddenly, a ghoul in a familiar jumpsuit entered the stage from behind the curtains and started singing along with the lead. Veronica clapped along with the crowd.
I've spent too many years just roaming
I traveled hell in search of Bliss
Trying to find me something better
Here on the streets of Necropolis
Hey, you don't know me, but you don't like me
You say you care less how I heal
But how many of you who sit and judge me
have walked the streets of Necropolis?
Spent sometime in San Francisco
I spent a night there in the tank
The Shi threw this drunker in my jail cell
I took fifty dollars from that bank
swapped out my watch and my old house key
Don't want folks thinkin' that he'd miss
Then I thanked him as I was leaving
And I headed for Necropolis
Hey, you don't know me, but you don't like me
You say you care less if I heal
But how many of them who sit and judge me
have walked the streets of Necropolis?
They repeated the chorus once more before the song came to an end. The curtain closed, and the room erupted with applause. Half of it she assumed was drunken cheer.
Veronica smiled to herself. For a ghoul, Raul had a pretty good singing voice. There was also the fact that the afternoon crowd never wrangled much in the way of talent before Cass convinced him to moonlight as a bar singer.
It had been a joke at first, the product of a tequila drinking contest (which Cass won). Raul had to sing in one of the sketchiest bars Freeside had to offer.
The mostly reclusive ghoul in his dirty Petro Chico jumpsuit put on a surprisingly good performance, and local crowds seemed to take an instant liking to him.
Now he took to the stages of Freeside now and then. His gigs brought in almost as much as his shop did, and more than a few customers.
The experience had also made Raul a little less timid; Well, at least when it came to standing on a stage. Singing an old ballad or playing a popular classic.
It was funny to imagine, but in a way she envied Raul. In less than two months, he had gone from being a timid old ghoul locked away by super mutants to being a beloved icon of Freeside.
Nobody expected anything of an old ghoul when he came to Freeside, and yet here he was having found his own way in the world. A renaissance man as some in the pre-war world would have called him.
For the first time in decades if not a century, Raul had found something in Freeside that threatened to hold him down.
Suddenly, he put himself closer to the microphone.
"I've got another song to sing if you don't mind, this one's for a friend."
Veronica and Arcade traded glances.
Ulysses
That night he dreamt he was in Dry Wells. At first, it looked as it had been when he saw it last.
Legion tents lined the open spaces in neat orderly rows, while the skeletons of his kinsmen hung on crosses beside the long 40. Beneath them, local recruits trained and marched off to war. And yet, not all was as he had last seen it.
A dark mist shrouded the encampment and everything else as far as his eyes could see. Mist that the living seemed indifferent to at best.
He looked up to the sun. Through the mist, its golden light shined down and watched all below its skies with a sublime appearance, through all the darkness.
It was a sun without heat, and only faint light.
Ulysses walked down a broken road that fed into the highway, feeling an odd sense of detachment.
To his left, a Decanus led his ten past him on the other side of the road, without even one glancing in his direction.
Past them he could see a fox marking territory at the base of a cross. The animal could not stay content for long and sought more places to mark. For all its cunning, it still needed to indulge its true nature.
It crossed the road and an old railroad track, where a signal light was planted by the rails. That was when he saw the beast.
On the other side, was an animal he had never seen. The creature pawed at the rail bed as though there were a nest of mole rats beneath the tracks.
Its eyes were blue, its coat was gold. Four muscular legs supported its lean and hungry body.
The fox was not quick enough to pay heed, nor did it offer the proper deference a lesser animal would give to a stronger predator.
In barely more than a leap, the creature was on the quick fox. He could hear a whimper as it tore open the throat of the fox.
He moved past the scene, and walked near the tiny cluster of Old world buildings that clustered along a three way junction that made the Dry Wells as it had once been and as it would become.
A roadside eatery was first of a handful of buildings that still stood. Its windows were long since shattered and the painted sign towering over the storefront had been eroded from the wood one chip of paint at a time.
The familiar smell of blood and gun smoke attacked his nose, and grabbed his attention. Below a side walk table he could see a puddle of blood welling up as if fresh spilled.
On the rusted iron table was a poker chip and a mostly empty bottle of whiskey. By it on a chair, he could see a gray short haired kitten curled in a ball and purring away.
A second look, and he could see that the poker chip beside the bottle was cracked.
Might be a sign there, he wondered.
The next building across the intersection was a dusty road stop.
The sign that proclaimed the station's ownership was broken in two. Most of the sign remained up while the a significant chunk had fallen on a lame Yao Guai crushing it at the neck. The three pronged fork of the Poseidon seemed as if it had been lodged firmly under its thick flesh. For all the blood and broken bones it could still grunt as if undaunted by its wounds.
"More," its angry guttural cries seemed to say.
He moved on, not spending too much time focused on the strange sight.
Ulysses turned his eyes to the old police station across the roads. Its outside front was well maintained, fresh paint coated its walls. Through the opened doors, though he could see a dirty interior.
Blood covered the walls and hooded men hung from the rafter beams.
The next building was known by its sign as the Dry Wells Merc, a general goods store. It was falling apart, but treasures in nearly anything man valued lined its shelves.
The aisles of the store were covered in more bodies. Nothing remained except for their weapons and their symbols of allegiance. A lone eyebot roamed the ghostly store.
As he moved on, the Eyebot ended its vigil over the scene and sped down the road alongside him.
It knows its symbol, Ulysses decided, and stopped by the last building on that dusty road. An old world traveler's lodge stood by the roads. Much of the original writing had faded and only the word "Vacancy" was fully legible.
By its entrance, he saw ruins of a statue he did not remember. Two trunk less legs of tarnished silver stood over a pedestal, with its plaque long since disappeared. Around the base were chunks of the statue fallen by under the shadow of what little still stood.
"Don't you remember you," he mumbled to no one in particular.
"Then maybe you can grasp the meaning mortal," a booming yet strangely soft spoken and distorted voice answered him through that machine by his side.
"What meaning is left in such a monument then?"
"You know the meaning, Ulysses. The only thing that truly matters." The machine floated level with his shoulders as its speakers seemed to quake with the sound of the voice.
"Its purpose was to preserve a past long gone, a past few remain to remember."
"Most impressive," said the deep voice. "A history gone to forbidden tombs, and forgotten tomes. You can see it the structure of the statue, the silver legs will lose its structure, and soon only the feet will remain on the pedestal. Feet of iron, ebony, and many other metals that mingle poorly. All that will remain is are the broken foundations on which it was built."
"What made the rest of the statue?" Asked Ulysses.
"Many more things long gone to the ground. Can you see the large stone at the base of the pedestal?" The mysterious voice taunted him. "How many would still remember the gold that made its thighs, or why it turned to stone and fell from its place?"
He noticed other material on the desert sands by the asphalt. Shattered red rock covered in strange writings, and a great head of marble still showing the proud features of a woman despite the scars of time that crossed her face.
"Would seem that time has done its work," he commented on the ruins.
"Indeed it does wanderer. Nothing lasts forever."
"What happens now. Do the ruins stay ruins?" Ulysses was beginning to understand the riddle.
"They do, Its a monument to something long gone. Something its children could never rebuild. Instead, they will cut their own stone and pray that they last an age."
"They should not pray. They should keep building, or all that they have made will falter."
"Oh, I agree. The problem is that few these days understand it. Most thirst for for the things of today, never stopping to think of what they will leave behind, yet obsessed with destroying what their forebears left behind.
"How does this concern a wanderer like me?" He asked the voice.
"The world will soon have a chance to create in itself a new image. A time shall come when you understand more. For now though, go about your travels and think critically."
The voice echoed, then faded. The sun disappeared, and the sky grew dark.
Ulysses opened his eyes.
Note time children...
Citation du jour is Streets of Bakersfield - Dwight Yoakim.
I'm back. In addition to the usual bullshit of life, I would like to add volunteer work, alcohol and relationship drama to my list of excuses for emulating literary serial killer and mountain who hardly ever writes, George R.R Martin. Oh, and a new job.
Speaking of the man, I saw this video where Iweon Rheon (Ramsay Snow from Game of Thrones) was singing with Danny Trejo (Raul), about some red nose day or something like that. It dawned on me that Raul should be a good singer as far as ghouls go.
On a related note, Raul is a gunslinger with an awesome voice, a killer costume and a dark backstory. Considering the love Charon and Hancock get, why does Raul have to get by on so little?
#Dicks out for Raul