Really

For the next eight days she continued up the Colorado. Along the shore was an unlimited number of empty soda bottles half buried in sand, and as she traveled she picked them up. When she could she lined them up on old stones and shot them. She couldn't bring herself to fire on any living creatures, since nothing threatened her and she couldn't shoot something that wasn't a threat. She still wasn't eating meat, she wasn't in a position to effectively capitalize on a good kill and anything less than using every part of an animal wasn't worth it. It was something her grandfather taught her, a high-minded ideal he couldn't commit to, but stuck with her.

In eight days she murdered more than one hundred empty soda bottles, though. In the process she expended more than one hundred bullets. By day eight she only had six bullets left for her revolver, a single cylinder. She still had three full clips for her submachine gun, but the first time she felt threatened she reached for the revolver first. It was a reflex she'd trained into herself because she loved the way it felt when she drew the gun. All up the river she practiced quick drawing. Obsessed with the perfect shot, she failed to notice she wasn't alone until she heard from behind her someone say, "Hi."

She drew her pistol and spun around lightening-quick, brought it to aim at the unfamiliar voice and stopped dead with awe. She couldn't tell if what she was looking at was a person or a robot, but she did know it was wearing a dirty brown duster. Its face was made of metal and its eyes were solid red. It had a low, menacing forehead below a completely round and hairless cranium. Instead of a mouth or nose it had a big disk like a wheel, another wheel on its cheek, and a cable like a snake bit into its other cheek. Its chest was smooth and black with seams made to look like a broad and muscular human chest. On its back was a beautiful and well-maintained lever-action rifle. It stood immense and powerful, like a legend come to life. She lowered her gun and mouthed, "whoa."

The thing tilted its head inquisitively, not the slightest bit intimidated despite staring down the barrel of her gun.

"What are you doing out here all alone?" it asked her. She was too shocked to respond.

"Are you a tribal?" it pressed, "What's your name?"

"Uh," she struggled to think of a name that wouldn't immediately mark her as Twisted Hair, something that a caravaneer would name their daughter, a name meant for someone from society, "Uh... Julia. My name is Julia."

"Ah," it said. It ambled up to her calmly, offering her one hand while taking off its helmet with the other, "My name is Really. Really Glenn."

Underneath the intimidating helmet was a woman in her early thirties with short black hair. She gave a lopsided grin to Julia as she shook her hand, "You're pretty quick on the draw, there. You a gunslinger?"

Julia stood for a moment and processed the words. When Really was next to her she realized she wasn't forty feet tall, but was roughly her height, give or take a few inches.

"Oh, uh, no. In fact, I've only had this gun for a week," as she uncomfortably chewed the first words she'd ever spoken in English, she could tell her tribal accent was unmistakable. Compared to Really's pronunciation she sounded like a child. She blushed with embarrassment.

"Okay, now I know you're tribal," they stopped shaking hands and Really sat down on a rock. She pulled out a canteen and took a drink, then offered it to Julia, who accepted to discover it was water, "Which one you from? You're not Bil Hinishnaanli are you? English is a little too good for them."

"I'm not... any tribe," Julia answered her, "I resold my tribe. I... I didn't belong."

Really accepted her canteen back and looked her over. She pursed her lips and apologized, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"My tribe is called the desert rangers. We patrol pretty much the whole Mojave and then some, alone or in groups. We, y'know, try to keep the peace, I guess," she shrugged, "If you want, you can tag along with me. I dunno if you're going anywhere but I'd be more than happy to have the company."

"I uh, I don't, uh... I don't want to slow you down..." Julia fiddled with her pistol. Six bullets, in her hands not much use in a firefight.

"Well," Really said, "I'm going to level with you. We've actually been traveling together for two days. You just weren't aware of it."

Really smiled her crooked smile apologetically. That was how they joined up. Julia had wandered without a destination for more than two weeks, so she was perfectly content to follow Really wherever she was going. Along the way Really told her how she came to be a desert ranger.

"I was born in Nipton and I grew up there," she explained as they climbed over rocks, "Nipton's a little north and way more west, like, California west. It's a pretty alright place for a lady if you're cool having sex for money like my mom was, but when my little brother got kidnapped by Vipers I figured, hey, alright, good a chance as any to skip town. Tracked 'em for awhile, caught up and turns out they kidnapped my brother 'cause a lot of 'em got killed by NCR and they needed new members. But, he died, 'cause the ritual to join is eating a buncha snake poison. Anyways, I wasn't doing anything, so I did the ritual and became a member, which was alright. Did drugs, led raids, killed the leader and became the new leader. Ran wild in the Mojave for awhile, but then these guys, the desert rangers, they were killing a bunch of my guys, so we had a big meeting with 'em, they offered to let me join. They seemed alright, I said yes, that's why I'm not known as Queen Cobra anymore. For the best, anyway. I prefer Really."

Spending time with Really was a revelation. The desert ranger didn't seem to care about anything. She was never scared. When they made camp, she didn't bother making sure they were safe, she was never on guard, and she was always smiling and happy. She never held back and she never worried. The more unabashedly open she was the more Julia was open with her.

"I learned very young how to read English," the girl who named herself admitted one night, "But I didn't learn to hear it or speak it until a couple of years ago."

She'd spent her entire life being completely closed off, perpetually paranoid that anything she told anyone would be used against her, that even the most benign revelation would somehow be twisted into a weapon by the person she trusted it with, that her life was comprised of vulnerabilities she needed to ardently guard. She'd always assumed that everyone she knew was a coyote on the periphery, licking their lips and eager to pounce when the opportunity arose. Yet, even as she told Really the things she'd never told anyone before, she realized that they weren't secrets worth keeping. The little personal details didn't compromise her or make her vulnerable like she always thought they would. The realization only spurred her to reveal more.

"Once we established relations with the Legion more traders came to Dry Wells," she explained in her accent, "I learned to speak and understand English listening to them."

Whenever she mentioned Caesar's Legion Really was particularly intrigued. Julia didn't have much to say about them, though. When she was among the tribe there weren't a lot of things she was happy being excluded from, but dealing with the Legion was first and foremost among them. She was perfectly happy to leave those psychopaths to the tribe leaders, just as she was perfectly content to leave the Legion behind as she made her way to her new life. She never noticed that the Legion was the only thing that ever made Really concerned.

"We need to go kill someone!" Really smiled and ran in the direction of the first gunshots they heard. Really scrambled up embankments and through narrow passageways with practiced deftness. Julia struggled to keep up, pistol in hand and submachine gun knocking at her hip, nothing she had half as heavy as the armor Really wore.

The gunshots kept up and they tracked down the source, a gunfight between two groups of raiders, Jackals and Really's Vipers. With her brush gun Really killed all of them, sizing them up and sniping so fast they didn't have enough time to realize there was an interloper in their conflict. Julia wasn't fast enough to fire off a single shot before Really took them out.

Six Jackals and five Vipers, although they were dead too fast to identify them when they were living. Killing them only took Really twelve shots. After they examined the bodies and realized who they were, Julia tried to show some sympathy to her friend. She would be horrified if she killed someone only to find out afterwards that she shared a heritage with them, and assumed Really would feel the same. Really did not.

"Trust me, Jules, they're better off this way," she smirked, "If anything, we did these poor fucks a favor."

Julia hesitantly asked her if she knew them. Really laughed.

"Ha! Oh no, of course not," she chuckled and picked a corpse up by the collar and examined it, "Pssh. Nope. Dunno if they were even part of my crew when I was running. Probably some kinda late-comers on shit detail. Chumps went down so easy, wouldn't surprise me if they usedta be vault-dwellers or something. Buncha pussies."

"That's, uh, that's horrifying," Julia stammered. Really shrugged.

"Raider life is different from regular life. Lot cheaper. Part of the deal," she said, "They know how it is."

"What's the advantage?" Julia asked, "How could it be worth it?"

Really took a deep breath and sucked her teeth. Usually when her new friend asked her a question she had an answer right away, but she had to think about this one, "Well, drugs, especially. I mean, I dunno your exposure, but drugs are pretty rad, and Vipers got specially good ones... But, it's kinda more than that. It's... it's a special kind of freedom."

She chewed her lip and thought hard before continuing, "People, y'see, they always got this, kinda, like, preservation instinct. Y'know? People are obliged to keep going, to keep doing stuff even though, like, they don't really have a reason. Like, nothing they've ever done is really important, so why is it so important that they gotta keep acting this certain way, like they have a right to be here, y'know? I guess it's a kind of freedom from always trying to keep yourself alive. I guess I can't really explain it... Sorry. Just know that these people don't feel bad and neither should you."

Julia wasn't satisfied with her answer. She mulled it over as they scavenged two N99 pistols in poor condition, a couple of .22 pistols that looked a little better, and some ammo. They looked to see if anyone was wearing matching boots that would fit Julia's feet, but they had no such luck. As they left, Julia brought the topic up again.

"Okay, so, being a raider means freedom from self-preservation?" she asked. Really groaned.

"Yeah, but- no!" she spun around and marched backwards as she explained, "Okay, lemme explain it to you... um, let's see. You're a tribal? Right? Well, whatever, hasn't your whole life been about survival? Pretty much everything you do is, like, through that lens. Every choice has gotta be about whether or not it'll help you get by."

She ran her fingers through her hair and reached out for confirmation. Julia nodded her head.

"Well? Wouldn't it be great to not have to worry about that? To do shit and not be scared about whether or not you're gonna get by?" she threw her hands up, "It's freeing! The downside is, yeah, your chance of dying goes, like, way way up, but it isn't like they don't know it. To them, it's worth it."

"I guess I never really thought about it before," Julia said, "It makes sense, though."

"Yeah, you know something about rebellion, huh?" she turned back around, "It always costs somethin'."

"Everything costs something," Julia mumbled. Really didn't notice.

All up the Colorado Julia spoke infrequently, parceling out bits of information about herself with practiced caution, but when she wasn't talking, Really was. Really spoke often, and on a diverse array of topics. Although she mostly spoke about herself, she also talked about guns, about the rangers, and about the Mojave.

"Hot, hot, hot all the fuckin time," she complained as they soaked their socks in the river. They sat on the shore in their bare feet, taking a break from their travels.

"Except at night," Julia lay against a rock and pulled her hat down over her eyes, "Sometimes it gets too cold at night. I think that's the worst."

"Hmmm. Whenever it got cold at night in Nipton, we'd go out and get rocks," Really stared out over the river and remembered, "They'd be so hot from the sun all day, we put 'em under these scratchy blankets and slept next to them. Kept us warm."

"Same," Julia said. They sat in silence for awhile. Julia rested her eyes and Really clutched her knees to her chest and stared at the opposite shore. The sun beat down and the water lapped at the beach as their socks (or in Julia's case, foot-wraps) dried.

"Did you ever see your mom again?" Julia asked. She sat up and pulled her hat off of her eyes. Really cocked her head back and looked at her. She looked sad.

"Yeah, but not for a long time. Not until I had my ranger armor," she looked out over the Colorado again. Julia followed her gaze.

"Dunno how long it was," she continued, "Time spent with the Vipers was, heh, whooa fuzzy. When I saw her again she looked old, though. Real old. Didn't even recognize 'er at first."

She picked up a stone and tossed it into the river, where it landed with a ker-plunk.

"Didn't even wanna go back, really. But, whole buncha rangers headed out there and they needed my help. Big shit goin' down, like, Nipton wouldn't be there no more if we hadn't bailed 'em out. Figured I'd go, but I didn't seek 'er out or anything, y'know? She was there, though."

"Did she find you?" Julia asked.

"Hell no. Didn't even realize it was me 'til I told her. Shit, didn't even believe me 'til I told her his name," Really sneered, "Told 'er what happened to 'im. Bitch didn't even fuckin' care. Never gave a fuck about me or 'im. Shit, she had two more fuckin' kids after I left. Didn't treat 'em any better than she treated me an'..."

She pulled out a flask Julia hadn't seen before and took a long drink from it. When she pulled it away from her lips she coughed and blinked, then put the flask away.

"Blech," she stuck out her tongue and wiped her mouth, "Yeah, it didn't go well. Basically, told her she was a bitch and I was done with 'er... Kinda felt amazing, actually. At the time... not so much. But, later."

She smiled at Julia and Julia smiled back. She asked Julia if she ever thought she would return to her tribe.

"Oh, fuck no!" Julia blurted, "Ha! Yeah, no way... Well... maybe if I had my own set of armor and a big gun and I was supreme warrior of the wasteland like you. I'd go back then and rub it in their faces, absolutely."

"Oh, absolutely," Really laughed and threw a clod of dirt at Julia, who broke out in hysterics and fell backwards. She'd never been happier in her entire life. Really was her first friend.

They didn't want for anything as they traveled. Keeping close to the river gave them a near-limitless supply of fresh water, and even though Julia was an expert forager, Really was even better. Having spent plenty of time along the river she knew exactly where every good source of desert fruit was. In addition, she had a small supply of food on her, including jerky. When she offered it Julia wolfed it down, her first taste of meat in weeks.

They came across an ancient boathouse and decided to make a fire. Julia was especially excited when she discovered mugs and an old coffee pot in the musty kitchen. She'd been saving some coyote tobacco for just such an occasion.

"I can finally have a cup of coffee!" she exclaimed to Really, who was prying up floorboards for the fire. Really smiled. She didn't care for coffee, and was surprised to find out her friend did. She seemed too young for that stuff. After they got the fire going, Really asked Julia why she was so excited for a cup of coffee.

"Can't stand the stuff, myself," she admitted.

"Hmmm," Julia sipped her coffee contentedly, "Well, before I left, I drank it every day, at least two cups. The first day on my own was a nightmare, because I got a huge headache at the time I usually drink it," she laughed.

"Well, okay. But why start drinking? Always tasted like mud to me," Really chewed thoughtfully on a honey mesquite pod. Julia suddenly fell silent and gazed into the crackling fire.

"My grandfather," she said finally, "I used to drink it every day with my grandfather. He loves coffee even more than I do."

She stared into the fire and her head felt too hot, she started to shake and take deep breaths. She burst out into jagged sobs, and tears streamed down her face.

"Whoa, whoa," Really moved over and embraced her, pulling the girl to her armor-clad chest, "It's okay, it's okay."

"I just- I left so fast," Julia said between sobs, "I didn't- I didn't say goodbye to anyone or anything. I just- I just left, and-and-and, this is, this is the furthest I've ever been from home, and-and-and I, I've never been this alone, and I don't, I don't know where I'm going!-"

Really held her close, stroked her hair and rocked gently. Julia kept crying.

"Before you met me, a week after I left, I killed the first people I saw. And," she admitted, "I stalked them, and I killed them, but I think- I think I just wanted to get to know them!"

"It's okay," Really got up and took her coat off, and wrapped it around Julia's shoulders, then sat down and hugged her close again, "Here, the night gets cold sometimes."

She let Julia cry for a little longer, then said, "It's okay to get sad every once in awhile. Even I still get sad about my brother dying, and it's been years."

Julia rubbed her eyes, "Really?"

She smiled warmly, "Really. Everybody gets sad sometimes. Even supreme warriors of the wasteland."

Julia laughed, embarrassed. Really laughed along with her. She leaned against Really's armored chest.

"Thanks," she said. She'd stopped crying.

"No problem. But," Really added, "You're gonna tell me the story how you killed those people, 'cause it sounds awesome."