E02: Come Go With Me

Declan startled awake, immediately locking eyes with a gecko a few paces away. It stared back as he gingerly lifted his head. When he groaned at the extraordinary stiffness in his neck, the gecko puffed out its crown of fins and hissed at him before scampering off.

Cold and uncomfortably sober, Declan slowly pulled himself off the ground. Sunlight was spilling out over the horizon in bright rays, chasing the midnight blue from the sky with streaks of magenta. He didn't think he'd slept long, nor deeply, but the way his body ached made him feel like he'd been out here and unconscious for days. He turned and peered into the window he'd slept under, more out of habit than anything. From what he could see, the room was empty.

Positive that there was no way Aggie was awake yet and thus not worrying that he'd been abandoned here, Declan made his way back into the house. Lo and behold, Aggie was still on the floor, cozy and content in slumber under the rug. At her side, Al caught his eye, put her finger to her lips, then pointed it to the kitchen doorway.

"You know — you know this is more than a little escort trip over to the nearest friendly outpost. We're supposed to be done. What's the matter with you?"

That was definitely Butch. Another voice, its harshness highlighted by the way the speaker kept to a hush, surely came from his ghoul companion: "So you wanna send these people —?"

"These people," Butch interrupted, noticeably louder than he'd started out, "are already lookin' for trouble."

His tone was remarkably pointed considering that Declan was generally very quiet when he moved around, but he figured that Butch and Charon both were well-acquainted with the sounds of their home, and of the front door in particular. Catching Al's eye in passing, Declan made his way into the kitchen. Butch was sitting at the table, heavy in the chair and hunched over his own lap, a cigarette jutting out between his lips. Charon was standing across from him, spine straight and shoulders back. The look he gave Declan was impassive, but there was threat beyond the patchwork layers of the ghoul's face.

"See? What'd I tell ya?" Butch said impatiently to Charon, before addressing Declan. "Didn't I tell you to beat it?"

Declan rolled his neck, partly in a show of unaffected bravado, and partly because it was still killing him. "You aren't surprised, are you? Sounds like you have us pegged."

"You're damn right I do," Butch said, baring noticeably straight teeth. "You're the folk taking the girl off our hands."

"I thought we were a bunch of shady bounty hunters."

Butch shrugged, leaning back into his chair. "Jury's still out. But I had a change of heart."

"I haven't," Charon growled. He turned to face Declan fully, and with just one shift of weight, was towering over him. Declan knew ghouls weren't the monsters they looked like, but this one really knew how to channel the ferals. "Wake your friends up and scram."

"Easy, boy," Butch said, idly drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Charon rounded on him.

"Don't you start —"

"He's doin' us a favor!"

"We ain't the ones who need a favor." Charon looked back over at Declan, radiating disdain. "'Specially not from any slaver thugs."

Declan scowled. "We're not —"

"Slaver-adjacent," Butch supplied.

"We're not slavers," Declan snapped. Charon leaned a scant distance closer, and Declan concentrated on not flinching away.

"Then how'd ya get here so fast, huh? How'd ya know to find her here?"

"The whole bar heard this guy going off," Declan said, waving a hand at Butch, who paused in scratching at his chin, "and it sounded like the girl was who we've been looking for. And..."

Charon whipped his glare back to Butch before Declan finished talking. "See? They were lookin' for her. We can't send her off —"

"It's not what you think," Declan said quickly. He had to get them thinking that he, Al, and Aggie weren't just trying to make a quick buck. A cause — that's what got Butch's attention in the bar. "There's — we have this list. And we think she's on it."

"How's that any better?" Charon spat.

"We…" Declan sighed heavily, letting off some true frustration, buying himself a moment. He thought about their plays; the sob story for drunks. "The truth is… our friend's on the list, too. We're hoping she can help us get him back."

"What're you talking about?" Butch eyed him warily, but the set of his jaw and the stillness of his hands had Declan thinking he was on the right track.

Declan unzipped his bomber's sleeve pocket — didn't miss how the other men tracked the movement — and pulled out the folded square he'd been in charge of since he first lifted it off of some loudmouth jagoff back in New Reno, when summer was just starting to get hot. Opening it, he watched as Butch and Charon took in the letterhead — Lucky 38 emblazoned next to a roulette wheel, a row of red diamonds, and a field of iconic green — and the recognition in their faces was quickly supplanted by a grim understanding.

"This started floating around a few months ago," Declan explained, making a point to keep his eyes on them. "Then our friend — Eitan — went missing. The man up top hasn't said anything, so we figured our best bet for answers would be someone else on the list. If they don't know where he is, they'd definitely get us in to see Deth."

Charon's expression remained steadfastly unwelcoming. "What makes you think she's on this list?"

Declan looked away; it was easy to use his stalling as a show of discomfort. "Eitan was — uh, special. He could do things… with his mind. And the way Butch was talking about this girl… like a ghost, talking to radios…"

"She ain't on it," Butch cut in. Declan looked at him, surprised, and Butch pointed at the page he held aloft. "This list. She ain't on it."

‖ « You really need to shut up about her. ►

Another shower sounded like overkill, but the runaway wasn't going to turn down the luxury, and especially was not going to argue with the giant that all but ordered her to take one. Charon, as Butch had introduced him, was taller and scarier than most ghouls she could remember seeing, and was very much unlike those others in that he wasn't hocking wares, cutting hair, dealing with scrap metal, or tending to livestock. Charon was the opposite; not quite a people person, and in fact seemed always to be a scant moment away from soundly dispatching the next person to cough too loud, or walk too close.

Despite that, he'd been nothing but kind to her — they both had — and she would be sorry to have taken that for granted when the kindnesses inevitably ran out.

Drying herself off with a towel that was so threadbare it may have been original to the house, she resolved to repay them the only way she could: by leaving. She was scarcely a few days out from Kingman, and it wouldn't do to draw any attention to this quiet little homestead at the crossroads. Better to move on now that she'd had some proper rest, and trouble her benefactors no longer.

She pulled on her shift — clean and dry now, thankfully — and looked down at herself, all the way to her bare toes against the tile. The room was quiet still, so much so that stray clinging droplets of water fell with clear and decisive splats, but soon enough the buzzing would begin again.

It was there in the back of her skull when she walked into the living room and nearly stumbled on a pair of women under the rug. One was thin, but her mouth was wide and ajar; curious bolts of red were littered among the dark hair haloing her head. The other woman was stockier in the face and body, with hair similarly but plainly dark, and looked at her with large eyes and a guilty smile. Before the runaway could wonder about that, she caught on to a voice from the kitchen.

"... our friend — Eitan — went missing." It didn't sound like Butch, or Charon, whose voice was distinctive even if less often heard, and ended up responding soon after.

"What makes you think she's on the list?"

"Eitan was — um, special. And the way Butch was talking about this girl…" She caught her breath. "Like a ghost, talking to radios…"

"She ain't on it." That was Butch, lying through his teeth, because she hadn't told either of them her name; wasn't sure of it herself. All she had was what they'd called her in the pens, that the old lady started using when she hadn't found her words yet, which meant all she could do was listen; the name that Regor had seen as auspicious and had him decide to purchase her.

The buzzing spiked in intensity.

She needed to see that list.

Butch was pleading exaggeration — "I say all sorts of shit when I'm drunk" — when she walked into the kitchen, and any reply the stranger was making dropped off as he turned to look at her. She didn't really register his face; instead, her eyes went straight to the paper in his hand and the buzzing was a racket in her head, making her heart race. Choking out some jumble of sounds, she grabbed the page without thinking, and scanned it greedily.

Lucky 38

Holly Alvarez

Maricris Calle

Ambra Menezes

Eitan Valence

Jasper Klinai

Darlene Patisar

Eugene Stier

Something somewhere snapped and the whir of noise depleted into a ringing in her ears. Her eyes unfocused, and the worn paper doubled in her vision, the text floating on itself.

Take her for a spin!

The stranger ducked his head down a little to look at her. His voice came from far away. "Hey. What's your name?"

She blinked, and the page was one again, though a single name lingered above itself in an afterimage. It felt important to meet his eyes when she answered.

"Oyente."

Behind him, she could see Butch slump back in his chair.

"See? What'd I tell ya. Nothing to deliver here," he drawled, taking a fresh drag off his cigarette. "But, hey, she can help carry shit."

Charon objected, but the stranger was watching her still.

"Did you recognize someone on that list?"

Her lips were dry. She looked back at the list, clutched between both hands, and nodded slowly. "Maricris…" And, suddenly, because the need to know shot through her: "Do you know her? Do you know where she is?"

The stranger looked taken aback at that. "I — no. I don't. We were actually hoping you could help us find… someone else there."

Her eyes pricked with tears and she pressed her lips together, inexplicably overcome, but bobbed her head earnestly. She would do anything to stay with this worn sheet of paper. She fought to keep her voice steady when she spoke. "Where did you get this?"

"It came from the Lucky 38 — in the Strip." He paused, considering her. "That's the main base of operations of the head of New Vegas, Garrett Deth."

None of that made any sense to her, which opened up a pit in her stomach, because she was sure that she had life here, outside of Legion territory. She tried to picture the Strip, which must have had slot machines and card tables and hustle and bustle, but her brain rewarded her with only the return of that insistent buzz, a white noise nobody else could hear.

"I want to go there," she said, resolute. "I want to talk to him."

The stranger smiled at that. "We can take you there."

At the table, Butch sat his chin in his hand, facing away. A tendril of smoke curled up from his fingers. "Was nice knowing you, kid."

Then Charon said, "I'm coming with you," and Butch dropped his cigarette.

‖ » Face to face at last. ►

Aggie's ability to sleep through pretty much anything afforded them with a tidy excuse to convene together, in private, without looking too suspicious, as it took both he and Al to drag her into the bathroom. The running faucet provided some extra background noise to mask their conversation.

And, sure, Aggie's unholy screeching as the cold water made contact added authenticity to the ruse, but for Declan, it was mostly entertainment.

"You fucking — fuckers — !"

They let her rant away behind the shower curtain, her elbows and knees knocking into the tub as she scrambled for the tap.

"Got those mercs after all," Declan said. Al hummed.

"I guess. But these guys sound like they'll be more trouble than actual mercs."

"Yeah, but they come for free. And they know their stuff."

"Yeah? Even the Butch Man?" Al grinned. Declan laughed.

"Even him. Even hungover. You can tell they've seen some shit."

The rush of water shifted to a spray as Aggie managed to turn the shower on, grumbling to herself. Al tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, brows furrowed.

"So what do we do when they catch on?"

Declan shrugged. "It doesn't matter. That girl was definitely on the list, and she's practically delivering herself. We can get info off of her, get paid at the Lucky, and leave them to it."

Al was quiet at that. Aggie had moved on to singing to herself. Declan rubbed at his jaw; he hadn't shaved since before they'd headed out for the Dead Mountains.

"She didn't seem much younger than us," Al finally said. Declan snorted.

"Yeah. The way Butch talked about her, I was almost expecting a toddler."

"He said she could be a robot, or an experiment, or something. Before you came in." Al bit at her thumbnail. "But when I saw her, she looked… like one of us. Totally normal."

"She's not," Declan said, sure of it.

Al sighed. "Usually they look a little more mean, y'know?"

"Usually they're not this high profile," Declan reminded her. He carded a hand through his hair, grimaced, and looked forward to his turn in the shower. He hoped there'd be hot water left to soothe his neck. "She even had good teeth. You know that says something. To me it means this'll be the kind of payout some people retire on."

"I don't wanna hear a runt like you talk about retiring," Al snapped, but she was grinning again. He smiled absently. Even Butch didn't seem old enough to be making the fuss he was over being out of the game, and he had to have at least 20 years on them, easy.

"I said some people. But it would be nice to settle down."

And Al looked at him like she knew he was thinking about Bea, which he truly hadn't been until that moment, and really it wasn't about her at all — it was just that he felt tired sometimes, chasing the next head. He missed getting to take a bath whenever he wanted, and not being bandaged up on some limb or another, and having meals with more seasoning than the metal that leached off of tin cans over the campfire.

But Aggie loved the adventure, and Al loved Aggie, and Declan… Declan wasn't sure he could be good at anything else.

"We can take a vacation after this," Aggie said, her wiry arm reaching out from behind the curtain. Al passed a towel to her obligingly, and Aggie shook it for punctuation. "If you don't shoot Al again."

Declan heaved a theatrical sigh. "No promises."

‖ « They're in here with me… ►

Charon did not say anything about the fact that Butch already had a travel pack ready to go, which suited Butch just fine, because now that they were done waffling over the will-they-won't-they of what to do about the runaway slave girl, they were able to skip straight to sitting her down and getting to the bottom of things. She was perched on the edge of Charon's bed, looking miles more human than she had when she'd first stumbled onto the farm — black hair clean and tied back, face freshly scrubbed, and her shift dress was worn but bright, having been laundered of its dust and grime and hung to dry in the sun.

"Are you a runaway slave?" Butch asked archly, making sure to enunciate, intensely channeling the very pretty and very professional border patrol woman they'd met around Fort Wayne all those years ago.

Oyente nodded once.

Butch nodded back, then looked over to Charon. "I ain't got any more questions."

The uninitiated may have thought Charon did not react to this, but his annoyance was very clear (and amusing) to Butch. The ghoul stared down at the girl, opened his mouth to say something, and Butch, struck with another thought, interrupted.

"Alright, alright, hold on." Butch plucked the toothpick from his mouth. "Is there anything — anything — you wanna tell us, that you don't want Dex and them to know?"

Oyente didn't move, hands clasped placidly in her lap, but her lips thinned. She glanced at Charon, then seemed to straighten up. "That list."

They were silent at that, waiting; something that Butch had long since learned the value of. It wasn't his style, but Charon and Charlie both had been masters of patience — one out of a general lack of desire to be interacting with others, and the other for the exact opposite. It invariably led to the other person in the conversation spilling their guts out, either to fill the void or cross it. Butch was intimately familiar with the phenomenon, having been subject to it countless times during their travels.

But when Oyente spoke again, all she said was: "I don't think they're being honest."

"You sure you wanna go with 'em, then?" Charon asked.

"I can't stay here —"

"Got that right," Butch snorted.

"— and I think… I think I can get some answers there. At the Strip." She looked distant, clenching her hands into fists. "There was a casino. I'm sure of it."

The confused determination was so very Charlie that Butch felt it physically in his throat constricting. Charlie the first time, when the two of them couldn't have been older than this girl, coming back from the swamp cult's church with a shaved head and a series of sloppy stitches.

"Someone," he rasped, "really did a number on you."

"That why you left?" Charon said lowly. Oyente shook her head.

"I left because — I couldn't stay there. But this," she waved a hand at her temple, "was from before."

Butch cleared his throat of ghosts. "That what that list's about?" When Oyente frowned at that, looking like she was about to cry, Butch shook his head emphatically, and wagged a damning finger at her. "Nuh-uh. Don't you start. Can't keep secrets if you're gonna take things so personal."

She nodded her head, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay. "That list…"

"It's important to you. We know that, they know that. Why's it so important?" Butch shrugged. "Tell us whatever you want. Tell them whatever you want."

"They — their friend is dead," she said, her voice so faint it trembled. "Eitan. He's dead. He's always been dead."

Butch looked at Charon then, who was simultaneously unmoved and more grim than a walking zombie had any right to be. Charon looked back, folding his arms in a motion that just reeked of smugness, even if he looked stoic otherwise. Butch rolled his eyes.

"Obviously he just picked a random name off that list to spin that sob story. They tried the same thing at the bar, talking about his wife —"

"Yeah, did they?" Charon grunted.

"Yeah. They did," Butch seethed back. "You wanna stop jerkin' yourself off for a minute? Clearly she knew the guy."

"I didn't," Oyente said, shaking her head, but she didn't even look convinced by her own words. "I don't?" She hung her head with a ragged sigh. "I'm sorry… My mind… It's all a mess."

"Well, that's why we're tagging along," Butch said. "You're on your own as soon as you work that shit out."

She looked so stricken by that he almost felt bad, but he was a seasoned old veteran of the wastes and retired gang leader, not a softie like his stalwart, shambling ghoul companion, who seemed to take pity on the girl at every turn. Probably something former slaves could smell on each other.

"Takes a long time to work that kinda shit out," Charon rumbled, the sage of brain rewiring. Butch didn't know the details of the program he'd been produced by — never cared to ask — but Butch had a front row seat to the contract-bound, vintager-than-vintage Charon back in the seventies. It had taken many years of jury-rigged pseudo-therapy sessions and Charlie's can-do attitude to get Charon to where he was today, which was still far less chill than Butch would have liked.

Oyente didn't look very reassured by what was admittedly not a very reassuring statement, but she was holding herself with determination again, her jaw set and chin up. "You don't have to —"

"We're gonna," Butch said firmly. He wasn't cheerfully ignoring his own desire to wash his hands of all this just so she could question their help.

"But —"

"But nothin'."

Oyente hesitated, her eyes flickering over to the door for a moment. "Then... is it a good idea to travel with them?"

Butch snorted. "You can bet your ass they have more intel on that list, and on Deth."

"Cannon fodder," Charon grunted.

"Yeah, that too," Butch agreed. "So don't be shy, but don't be stupid either. Got it?" She didn't look like she did but she nodded very confidently, so he let it slide. "Good. Now let's lay down some ground rules so we can ditch this dumb backwater."

Charon frowned at him. "You mean our retirement f —"

"Retirement? What do I look like, you?" Butch scoffed grandly. "I am a beautiful spring chicken. I'll retire when I'm dead."

"I'll remember that," Charon promised, but he said a lot of things Butch didn't care about.

‖ ► Come home with me, way beyond the sea… ►

The six of them stood outside in the dust and sand as the sun hung east, creeping toward its peak. Aggie had carefully followed Oyente's demonstration and was proudly showing her new wrapped headband to Al, who fixed her hair around it. Charon was checking the straps on his pack, and Butch was looking at the closed door of their home from a few paces away.

"Aren't you gonna lock it up, or something?" Declan asked. Butch turned with a face like Declan had just insulted his mother.

"You ever walk the wastes before? Huh? Have some respect!" Butch shook his head, busying his hands with lighting a fresh cigarette, and went on muttering. "Lock it up. Unbelievable. If just one wrong door was locked up, I'd've been dead meat years ago..."

Abashed, Declan glanced at the others and was thankful none of them seemed to be paying any attention. Brash as he was, Butch definitely followed a code; though Declan could not imagine having a whole house to himself and just leaving it open to any passer-by.

"If you all don't waste your time chit-chatting when you grab your stuff at Billy's, then we should hit Maxi Verde by sundown," Butch drawled, waving Oyente over to put a knapsack on her.

"Maxi Verde… that's south," Al said, brows knit.

"Sure is," Butch agreed, starting to walk.

Declan frowned, following. "Vegas is north. As in, straight-up-Route-95-for-a-few-days north."

"So's Camp Searchlight," Butch said, tersely. "Heard of it?"

Declan had heard of it, but only in passing, given that they'd come west through Boulder City on their first visit to the Strip, and left the area out south through Sloan on the last, but Aggie answered first. "It's mostly contained, isn't it? Can't we just go around?"

"You sure can try, babe," Butch gravely replied, "but I wouldn't go within five miles of that place without some heavy duty firepower. And since the big lug and I weren't exactly sitting on a weapons cache, being retired and all, we're gonna hit up the Linefel trading post on the other side of the mountain range first."

The words mountain range struck a chord of dread for Declan, but it went over Aggie's head as her face lit up and she bounded past him and Al to get next to Butch. "Ooh, I always hear about that place but I've never been before!"

Butch tried to hide a smile and keep his face schooled, but basked in her attention nonetheless. "I, uh, got a few buddies who set up shop there."

"Is it true you can buy a one-headed brahmin?"

"It would be nice to get some real repairs done," Al said, watching them. Declan huffed in agreement, watching Oyente on Butch's other side. While not animated by any measure, she was just as engaged as Aggie was by some anecdote Butch was sharing — so much so that Butch had to yank her away from a pothole she was blindly veering toward.

She seemed a little green to everything, yes, but it was appropriately guileless. She could have been one of those girls they passed by on their travels, selling maize or prickly pear fruit, never straying far from a handful of familiar stretches of road.

Totally normal.

Declan became acutely aware of a creeping pressure across his shoulders. He glanced back and saw only Charon bringing up the rear, a few yards away. His shotgun was strapped across his back, benign; but the ghoul's milky eyes were steadfast on Declan's.

"Don't take it personally," Al murmured, looking brightly ahead. "I think he's just like that."

Declan knew she was probably right, but felt the urge to check that his gun was in place all the same.

■.