Masks
It was hot as hell in the New Vegas afternoon, as the vox populi crowded the streets of Freeside. Drunks stumbled from hole-in-the-wall bar to hole-in-the-wall bar, beggars pleaded for money, chips, water, meat, anything at all. Mercenaries hustled for work and the gangs all eyed each other sullenly from cracked and broken stoops. When the rabble cleared they'd rumble, but the Kings almost always won. The street smelled like vomit and fried rat meat and alcohol and sweat, and the rancid water that kept the sewers cold. On the strip the smells got better. Drunks got escorted back to Freeside if they were nobody and gently back into the casinos if they were somebody. Ladies in nice heels and ostentatious dresses stalked down the streets clutching little purses and smoked cigarettes in long thin cigarette holders. Mercenaries on the job stalked to and from casinos, or just silently glowered next to men in nice suits or women with high hemlines and low necklines. Military Police with black helmets and cattleprods weaved in between Mr. House's ungodly automatons with their cartoon faces and 9mm automatic hands. Though the smell of vomit and shit was notably absent, the smell of sweat was just as prevalent as it was in Freeside. Colonel Anders was relieved to be safely ensconced within the cool, dark game room of the Ultra-Lux.
Out of every luxury provided on the strip, climate control was by far Colonel William Augustus Anders' favorite. There was nothing that amazed him quite so much as central air. He grew up in poverty, his father was a sharecropper or a cowboy for most of the Colonel's life. He hadn't necessarily hated that life, but the New California armed services promised better than tin shacks and cured brahmin and every possession owned by the landowner or stolen or charity. At first that hadn't been true, when he was a private. It wasn't much worse than working someone else's land, though, so he stuck with it, and eventually it became true. He was a Colonel, with a fat pension waiting for him and in contact with some of the most powerful players in the Mojave. Yet to him there was nothing better than the fact that it was so hot outside, but so cool inside.
Currently at his table was a successful caravaneer, a senator and his wife, a mercenary, and a green private on leave from McCarran. The senator was a thicker man, but he still had some of the stout strength he'd put to use during the NCR-Enclave war. His wife was elegant but of age with the senator and could no longer be called beautiful. She wore an expensive shoal made of what was rumored to be Deathclaw hair but was really cat. The private was a red-faced young man from New Adytum who gawked and prattled about the cool beauty of the Ultra-Lux, yet in spite of his obvious gormlessness still managed to win a hand every once in awhile.
The caravaneer and the mercenary were both drunk and they both had red hair but in every other way the women were exact opposites. The merc was taciturn and hard, her leathery skin covered in scars and tight against her bones. She was losing badly despite being in possession of the best poker face Anders had ever seen, too stubborn to ever admit defeat on a staggering number of terrible hands. The caravaneer was conversely much more personable, softer, and better at poker. She was the toast of the table, before Anders had ever joined them she'd wowed the senator and his wife, and the private was clearly smitten with her. It was hard to tell if she reciprocated. The redness of her cheeks could just as easily be attributed to the heroic amount of whisky she'd imbibed as to the private's earnest and stumbling flirtations. Anders had to admit she was pretty, but if he'd come to Vegas to see pretty girls he'd be over at Gomorrah instead of surrounded by the porcelain-faced cocktail girls of the Ultra-Lux.
At least the air was cool. There were two things the Colonel cared about, air conditioning and the Dam. When he was given command of the greatest man-made structure of the old world it was the best day of his life. He had two kids, and he was married twice, but his kids were strangers and his wives divorced him, but the Dam- the Dam was eternal. It had survived nuclear hellfire and the ravages of time. The great concrete Goliath would be his legacy, what he'd talk about at the Veteran's Club after he retired. He loved its electric hum, the steady drip of its ancient pipes, the sting when it shocked him. He would do anything for the Dam, and that was how he ruefully found himself in Vegas.
All roads lead to Vegas he glumly reflected as he once again took stock of everyone in the Ultra-Lux's game room. The elite of the NCR all poured in from the Long 15 and the Divide, along with the desperate, the starving, the huddled masses all drawn in by the neon lights and promise of a better tomorrow. The caravaneers, the mercs, the beggars and the drunks all mixed together and with an equal chance of success. It was a true American city, but America was dead.
Colonel Anders hated New Vegas. With all his heart, he'd never hated anything more. Not his drunken father, not the Sargent who left him to die near Reno, never was there ever an enemy Anders hated more than he hated House's strip. And yet, he was on the strip more often than not, desperately trying to drum up support and push powerful people into throwing their weight behind his massive charge. It was not a position he was well suited for. The stress of lobbying for support drove him to drink. He was a skilled enough commander to recognize the threat that the raiders across the river posed, but he was too poor a politician to get anyone to believe him, least of all the drunken, bourgeois revelers that the NCR elite metamorphosed into when they arrived in Vegas.
"It's really quite incredible. I can take you to see it, if you like. I'll be leaving with my escort in the next couple days, and I can promise you safe return when you've finished touring," he lied. While they'd certainly be safe while accompanying the Colonel in charge of the Dam back to Hoover, the senator and his wife weren't important enough to take troops away from defending the Dam. At best, he'd send them off with one green private from Arroyo and hope they'd chased off the Jackals at REPCONN on their way out.
"I'm afraid we have a prior engagement the day after tomorrow," the senator's wife politely declined, "Back in California."
"Just as well," Anders drunkenly sneered. The caravaneer told a bawdy joke about being escorted by soldiers and the table laughed gaily, the private a little too loudly. Even the merc chuckled. Colonel Anders took another swallow of his martini, and then waved down a masked cocktail waitress and plucked two more from her tray. At the other casinos the girls always smile, no matter what he thought glumly when he stared into her doll's face. He was halfway through the second martini when the broadcast came on.
The merc had left, and been replaced by another member of NCR's high society, some businessman who owned a chain of robot repair shops up and down the coast. Anders was just as unsuccessful in swaying him to the Dam's cause as the senator and his wife. His clumsy attempts to procure some refurbished protectrons for his baby were charmless and slurred. He was rapidly approaching the point where he'd be too drunk to function, and summarily tossed from the Ultra-Lux. Conveniently, he discovered the perfect excuse to leave before that happened.
The commotion from the bar drew the attention of his companions before he noticed. People near the exit of the game room began getting up and filtering into the bar and lobby, having caught snippets of Mr. New Vegas's special report and desperate for more. The senator caught the attention of one of the doll-faced cocktail waitresses and asked what was happening. When she said it was something to do with Hoover Dam, that finally caught Ander's notice.
He drunkenly stumbled out of his seat and pushed people out of the way as he made it to the bar. One of the bartenders on a tip from the kitchen staff had set up a radio, and everyone was gathered around it, nervous and upset.
"... Now, it's too early to give an accurate count, my beloved listeners," Mr. New Vegas said, "But estimates are upwards of one hundred thousand men wearing crude leather armor are right now engaging with NCR forces at Hoover Dam. Although they appear to be armed with mostly scrap weaponry, experts estimate that they will overtake the Dam in a matter of hours, utilizing superior numbers. I promise to keep you all updated as further reports warrant... New Vegas, I just want you to know in these delicate times, when the whole world's a little shook up, I'll always be there for you. All you have to do is turn on the radio. There's a whole lot of shaking going on, and I think Jerry Lee Lewis agrees..."
Colonel Anders was gone before Jerry's first note, stumbling drunkenly out the lobby and into the oppressive heat of the Mojave midday sun. He was blind in the light and blind in the drink, and so conspicuous stumbling down the Ultra Lux's light-up steps and past the fountain that he was immediately intercepted by a Securitron.
"Sir, would you like to return to the casino?" the boxy robot gently prodded. It bounced merrily in spite of the cartoonishly severe cartoon face on its monitor and its tone was meant to be gentle. The Colonel stared dumbly at it for long enough to demonstrate just how drunk he was, then slurred, "Take me to the train."
"Of course, sir, immediately," the Securitron cheerily clasped him by the arm with its metal claws, then carefully wheeled him just a little down the street to the NCR monorail to McCarran. "Have a good day, sir," it said as it left him with little fanfare by the MPs.
"Alright move it along, rummy," one of them said to him as he tried to stumble past.
"I have to get to McCarran," his tongue felt like a fat wet slug in his mouth but he still managed to choke the words out. He couldn't quite understand that one of the MPs was physically restraining him to prevent him from walking up the station's steps.
"Sorry buddy, but the attack's goin' on, and everything's locked down 'till we get those hippies sorted out," the soldier tried to tell him, but he accidentally wrenched free of the man's grasp and stumbled backwards and bonelessly fell down on the cement.
"The attack?" he said dumbly, after he'd sat for awhile.
"On the Hoover Dam, rummy. Shouldn't you be harassing some girls at Gomorrah?"
"I should be at the Dam," was all Anders could think to reply, after slowly processing what the MP said.
"Oh yeah? I should be at Gomorrah," one of the men joked. Anders rummaged around in the pockets of his gambler's suit, but came up with only a handful of chips. Belatedly he realized that he'd left his wallet with the cashier at Ultra-Lux. He sighed slowly, then gathered what little authority he had left and with much deliberation rose to his feet.
"My name is Colonel William Augustus Anders, service number 502, Commander in Charge of the third infantry brigade, stationed at Hoover Dam until further notice," he even managed to sound relatively sober, "And I demand transport to Camp McCarran so I can be briefed on how and why the men and women under my command are dying."
He swayed a little. There was a pregnant, nervous pause as the two MPs nervously glanced at each other, then back at him. They eyed him with more scrutiny, sizing him up. He wasn't dressed in military attire, but he did have a square-jawed, meat-fed look. His hair was cropped close in officer style.
"Fuck, Rutinsky, do you really think..." one of them nervously asked to the other.
"He's still a rummy," the one called Rutinsky narrowed his eyes and examined the drunk man in front of them like he was an insect, "Take him up to receiving. She'll know what to do with him. I'll keep watch here."
The other MP shrugged his shoulders in agreement. He grasped Anders by the arm to lead him up the stairs and said, "C'mon, rummy. You better fucking pray you ain't who you say you are."
Receiving turned out to be a very pale woman in glasses. She had big ears, but was sort of pretty in a delicate way. Then again, in Anders' eyes everyone looked much more attractive.
"Yup! Anders definitely arrived, at, uh... 9:30 AM. So he definitely was on the strip..." she bit her lip after flipping through the six pages of arrival-departure logs she had clipped to her clipboard, a long list of names and numbers written in cramped, hurried calligraphy, "But everyone working that shift has rotated out. We'll have to get someone from base to come clarify this is him."
"Oh, come on," Anders moaned impotently. At least they hadn't cuffed him. Receiving ponderously rotated through the numbers on her desk's rotary phone, each spin of the dial seemingly longer than the last. 999 the Colonel thought dryly.
"Receiving, in Las Vegas Boulevard Station for McCarran Command," she finally spoke into the receiver. The phone was connected directly to another in McCarran, attached by a cable bolted to the monorail track like an oily black vine. There were no other lines. Before the line was secured, there was talk of making lines all the way to Camp Golf but no effort had been made. For the time being all other assets were connected by radio. Rumor had it the casinos were all wired together in a phone system, with separate switchboards for each casino, but the truth was at best each casino had its own intercom and that was it. The Atomic Wrangler employed messenger boys to relay notes from the desk to rooms and vice versa.
"Hey Rhonda. We think Colonel Anders is here but he doesn't have any ID on him. And he's drunk. Could we get someone who can identify him over here?" Receiving asked. She received a reply that Anders couldn't hear, but it seemed good news. She smiled and hung up, then said, "We better get him some coffee or something, 'cause the Colonel's coming down herself. Said they've been looking for him."
Anders didn't need coffee, because he'd just heard the most sobering sentence he'd ever heard in his life. Once upon a time he'd been told by a Sargent that he was going to die. He believed it then and he believed it now.
The monorail took only two minutes to span the distance between McCarran and Vegas Boulevard Station, so it took exactly two minutes for the Colonel to arrival. She wasn't a very tall woman, with brown hair so neat and meticulous it was practically a helmet. There was something odd about her, something deeply unsettling- a sort of blankness. She'd been in the army as long as Anders, but he'd been infantry and she'd been a Ranger, and although he wasn't privy to many details of her service with the Rangers, he'd heard some very disturbing rumors about her career. She'd fought against every one of California's many enemies, sometimes more than once. She'd fought Enclave, Jackals, Vipers, Great Khans, Brotherhood, and Fiends in service to California, and there were rumors she was so determined to fight the Master she'd drawn up an assault on the peaceful mutant settlement of Black Mountain. She'd also been gunning for Anders' job at the Dam. She took the eastern raiders as seriously as he did, but she had differed in opinion as to what the proper response to them was. When she marched into receiving, she eyed him once and said only one thing.
"Yep, that's him."
Then she spun on her heel and marched back to the monorail. Anders followed closely behind. The monorail ride only took two minutes. The only passengers were the Colonel and Anders, sharing the same cab in complete silence. She stood. He sat. They were two of the most important and powerful people in the Mojave. When they arrived at the McCarran station, Anders somehow dead sober and completely black-out drunk at the same time. On the platform they heard a noise not unlike a distant atomic explosion.
"What was that?" Anders asked. It was Boulder City exploding, and with it hundreds of Legionaries and dozens of Rangers. But the soldier guarding the McCarran station only shrugged his shoulders, and waved both Colonels inside.
Two weeks later, after he'd been stripped of his rank, Will Anders was found by a drifter in a Freeside Alleyway. He was face down in his own vomit, dead, and the drifter stripped him of his stained gambling jacket.