Over the ridge, a dented, gray-painted helmet silently rose up to scan the area ahead. A pair of red-tinted lenses faced the valley below, staring motionlessly as an indiscernible set of eyes stared out beneath them.
It was the Courier.
Just in front of him, the silvery barrel of a pistol rose above the rock, sliding out with the end facing out towards where he looked in the distance. His hand, holding the grip of the pistol—a modified version of the all-popular hunting revolver—was put halfway between lifting the pistol up and using it to lift himself above the rock he laid against. His head was high enough that he could see all his surroundings without alerting anyone—or anything—and he could see that there was nothing in his immediate proximity.
What he was looking for, however, were the two deathclaws about sixty feet away from him, down in the valley beneath the ridge he had positioned himself on. They were wandering, aimlessly, through the open swath of sand that filled the valley below and obscured any tracks or human footsteps that may have been left behind by the workers who had been there a month ago. One lingered near the base of the gigantic, abandoned silo in the center of the clearing, passing beneath the large narrow ramps that led up to the wooden structure at the top. Another wandered near the mouth of the quarry, near both the path that led out of the quarry and the path that led up to the ridge the Courier was now posted on. Neither had seemed to notice that he had run past them—even though he had stayed close to the opposite, high rock wall of the quarry—and even then he had been much closer to being seen than he had now.
The deathclaws just seemed to amble on, not noticing the Courier. It was as though they were in the clear.
"Is that lipstick?"
The Courier had pulled himself up. He had been hugging the ground, legs sprawled out behind him with half a knee keeping his stomach from the ground, his arms levying his upper body just enough over the ridge to look down and survey the scene ahead. Now, as he pulled himself up to a squat and considering the possibility of standing to get the best view now that they were out of danger, he was caught off-guard by a voice behind him. It hadn't been a whisper, it hadn't been anything in the context of the sneaking scenario they were in, it was just the voice of his companion behind him speaking as casually as if they were at some trading post or other watering hole conversation.
Squatting a half-dozen feet away, Veronica Santangelo—the Courier's trustworthy companion—was looking back at the Courier like she was expecting an answer, and she was. She looked dead serious too, like it wasn't a joke.
The Courier didn't have time to come up with an answer, he was too engrossed in the situation—like he had expected that Veronica might have been, if she were at least focused on the task at hand. Maybe, he thought for a second, that she was referring to the gash on his leg he had received earlier, going toe-to-toe with a baby deathclaw. Maybe she was joking—although, in his humble opinion, the reddish-brown cloth he had tied to his soaked leg was looking much closer to a turning side of mole rat meat than lipstick.
The natural first thought that would have come to mind would be the mark on the Courier's leg; a member of the deathclaw patrol they had encountered getting into the quarry had flung its deadly claws and slashed out at the Courier while he had been reloading, and while the deathclaw had missed it hadn't missed enough. There was still a gash through the front of the Courier's thigh on his worn combat pants where the end of several six inch long claws had slashed through his flesh like it was butter. It had mostly dried through the section of cloth the Courier had tied on, but it was a deep cranberry color now—not quite the bright red of an unusually well-kept Nuka-Cola label, but the more muted and natural color of lipstick.
This, of course, was an absurd answer, and it would only have worked if Veronica had asked an absurd question—which was unlike her. The Courier knew better, he knew it wasn't an absurd question. In fact, he knew exactly what Veronica was referring to.
As the Courier brought himself onto his feet, gloved hands pushing himself off the rocky floor of the quarry he had been laying against, he looked down towards where he had left his sniper rifle.
A cartridge full of bullets had been left out beside the empty slot on the rifle—he had been caught in the middle of changing it out when he heard deathclaw footsteps and turned his attention up to look. The cartridge normally attached to the underside of the rifle had been removed, and though it hadn't traveled far from the open slot it lingered near several other cartridges filled with similar-looking, shiny, brassy bullets. Some of the ammo cartridges had a big, red 'X' painted on the side of it—one that had remained glossy and oily, looking like paint that hadn't dried, even showing smear marks where the Courier had held it in his hands. It was clearly the lipstick that Veronica was talking about, the kind she was referring to while the Courier looked out from the ridge, and the kind she was holding in one of her hands.
Normally, this wouldn't have made the Courier uneasy. He had no reason to, but something about it was still turning his stomach like he was in danger—it was a new feeling among the already intense feelings he had been experience since they had run into their first deathclaw face-to-face in the quarry that day.
Though somewhat clumsily, Veronica wormed her finger into the side of the open side of the ammo cartridge, managing to push the topmost bullet through the metal tabs that held it out for the rifle to load it into the barrel, placing it between her fingertips. She turned it silently as she set aside the cartridge, her fingers barely poking out of the unusually long sleeves of her scribe robes as she inspected the bullet. The Courier couldn't see the expression on her face beneath the hood that was drawn up over her head, her head lowered to look at the bullet, but he could see some hesitation in her as her nail traced circles around the hole that had been gouged into the tip.
"I'm no expert, but…" Veronica said, thoughtfully. "I've only seen a few kinds of hollow-point bullets before. I… at least know that much about these."
They were hollow-points. The Courier had acquired them on a recommendation.
"And… you marked them with lipstick? Got any leftover?"
Veronica was clearly joking, her smile was testament enough. Still, she sounded eager, like she wouldn't be disappointed if he still had some. Either way, it couldn't have made the Courier more defensive. It wasn't his.
"Relax, relax," said Veronica. "It's just a joke. I get it, all of these ugly gray stocks look the same and you need something to make them look a little different. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with trying new things either. Whatever you wear beneath that mask is yours to enjoy and secretly get off to, none of my business… That was a joke too, by the way."
The Courier scowled, making a sound barely registering as anything more than a wheeze beneath through the breathing ports of his helmet. He wasn't sure why he had worked himself up so much over such a trivial question—it wasn't something he could just blame on the situation at hand. It wasn't personal, even if he took Veronica seriously more than anyone in his personal circle in the wasteland he probably had the least reason to in conversations like these. It still didn't calm the knot sitting in the bottom of his stomach, weighing down his chest and his mental state just thinking about the unusual sensation it made. All he had to do was remind himself that he had no reason to worry.
Right?
"So… it wasn't something you found? Sounds like it came with the bullets. I don't know too many with lipstick in their arsenal… I don't know too many women who sell weapons—well, that we know…"
The Courier wasn't sure where Veronica was going with this. Of course he knew women, and some he had bought some from. There wasn't anything unusual about it. He wasn't sure why he had to repeat to himself that it wasn't unusual—maybe it was that feeling in his stomach still telling him to worry about it.
As the Courier took the cartridge that had been left on the ground—the one with the red, lipsticked 'X' on the face—he reached up and took the bullet from Veronica's fingers, popping it back into the metal tap at the top. He reached for the rifle on the ground, rolling it over on his knee and fitting the cartridge into the wide slot with a satisfying snap, turning it back over to slide the grip of it into his hand, lifting the heavy piece of machinery as he tested how effectively he had put it back in.
"So then, whose lipstick is it?" asked Veronica. She hadn't dropped it as quickly as the Courier had.
A simple-enough question, right after a simple-enough joke. Yet it was evidence enough that Veronica's joke wasn't a joke, it was a probe. It reassured him at least that he had not fallen so easily into the trap by denying it outright. Still, the Courier remained tense, unable to look Veronica in the eye for fear of incriminating himself—even with a mask covering his face. He instead lowered his head, looking back down towards the rifle in his hand, grabbing the small metal clips to a strap he had left on the ground and attaching them to small rings on the stock of the rifle and just in front of the scope—all in the service of soon putting it on his back.
This wouldn't satisfy Veronica so easily. She stepped in front of the Courier, even taking a few steps closer. She kept her arms folded, the hand wielding the black glove of her Ballistic Fist careful to rest against her arm, even as she seemed so intently focused on determining the Courier's thoughts beneath the expressionless, blank mask.
"Who is she?" Veronica asked, simply. Half of it was a tease, the corners of her smile curling up despite her best 'interrogating' look. Half of it was serious—the Courier didn't know why, and yet somehow the sinking feeling in his stomach told him he did.
Who's who? Veronica was assuming a lot. They knew a lot of people.
"That's not why I'm asking. I'd ask about anything that seemed stunningly obvious that you were hiding from me."
Veronica didn't seem to be having it—standing there, arms folded, waiting with an impatience that could be seen in the way she held herself with folded arms than the expression darkened by the hood over her head. When she had asked who she was, she had asked the question with her tone almost explicitly begging him to answer it with anything that wasn't stupid, and it hadn't gone away—it wasn't a joke. There was something concerning her about this, and there was something concerning the Courier; he just wasn't ready to tell her. He didn't have anything prepared, any suave explanation that would as easily diffuse the situation as it had started it. He didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to tell her either what exactly had happened. It was a can of worms that didn't need to be opened then and now. He would tell Veronica when he was ready.
If the Courier couldn't remember it wouldn't be the end of the world. He'd have to backtrack.
"That's your final answer, huh? 'You don't remember'?"
Choosing to ignore Veronica, the Courier took the chance to look back out over the ridge and focus on their current objective—the whole reason they had come out there and put themselves in any danger in the first place. The two deathclaws were still relatively in the same spot, with one having moved closer to an abandoned, pre-war truck parked near the wooden legs of the large silo, and the other still wandering through the wide open rock of the quarry, drawn closer to the entrance by the scent of blood but not wanting to leave the safety of the inner walls.
"And... I'm supposed to believe that's not suspicious... why?"
The one in the near distance rose his head sharply, raising his eyes above the shadows the sun had drawn across his face. His nostrils stopped sniffing the air as whatever ears it had buried beneath thick, bulletproof hide, caught something faint. The sound was like a crumbling rock, or the murmurs of wind, seemingly nothing and yet enough to arouse his attention somehow.
The Courier was silently realizing that the distance between the deathclaw that had been alerted to something wasn't all that distant. He was guessing about thirty feet, which was about seven large-toed deathclaw steps away—likely a third as many seconds. Forcing the deathclaw into climbing and scaling the ledge of the sharp rock wall would likely give them an extra four or five seconds tops—saving the chance that he may jump. Beneath the viewports of his mask, the Courier's eyes traced the steps of his next moves in his head with searching eyes, guessing how many shots he could get in before the deathclaw could launch any sudden attack.
"Because, to be quite honest," Veronica continued, "I have a small guess as to where—who—you might have found that exact color…"
Any chance they had while the deathclaw hadn't spotted them seemed like a viable opportunity. The Courier reached back into the leather trenchcoat on him and for the pistol tucked on the inside of the jacket—exactly where he had left it. He had brushed past his traditional go-to handgun, instead reaching down for the silvery six-shooter in a lower pocket, grabbing the worn wooden handle and carefully pulling it out. The unusually long barrel caught on the inside of his pocket in what could mildly be considered a haste as the Courier weighed his options, finally managing to fish it out and have it held out in his hand—it was the hunting revolver he had acquired from NCR, complete with the original scope on the top.
Popping out the barrel from the side, he tipped the revolver back and let the bullets slide out and land in the palm of his gloves, left by the ammo cartridges on the ground. He then produced another set of bullets—hollow-points, from a pouch in the lining of his jacket with a red 'X' on it that he casually kept hidden from Veronica—loading up the pistol and the fitting the barrel back in the body, testing and cocking the hammer back.
Veronica, as coy as she was being, was starting to show signs of annoyance—real, tangible annoyance. She was doing that thing again, flexing her fingers in the thick steel mesh of the Ballistic Fist like it was some kind of stress-relieving exercise—more like her last attempt at keeping cool, knowing exactly what it was on her dominant hand in case it was needed. The piston in the worn steel casing flexed as carefully and controlled as Veronica's wrist allowed, following her movements obediently on the hinges of the glove it had been mounted to. Though it had engrossed her visible attention at least passingly, raising her head enough to squint and look across the white limestone of the quarry was bringing her back to reality. The Courier couldn't see her directly, just the shadow of her figure dragged out behind him—the last direction he could look at away from danger, even if to set aside the ammo cartridge, was filled with her disapproval.
"And, I won't lie… It makes me a little annoyed…" Veronica continued, casually sighing, raising her voice just enough to make sure she had the Courier's attention. She passively turned, facing away from the deathclaws in the quarry valley, unfolding her arms and dropping down to squat on the toes of her boots beside the Courier, her arms resting across inward of her knees as though she was casually enjoying a campfire in front of her.
The spines on the deathclaw's back turned, shifting has his head rose to turn. A few, thundering footsteps signaled he had turned around, coming to face the general direction he had heard sounds in—which, conveniently, happened to be the Courier and Veronica's location on the ridge ahead.
The Courier could almost see the deathclaw grinning in his direction, showing his ugly and totally exposed teeth as the Courier looked through his end of the hunting revolver scope. Something—namely, someone—was still distracting him from carrying out the shot. Though he kept it within the sights of his own eyes only, he lowered the weapon in his hand, letting it rest across his knee.
As ball-numbingly terrifying as Veronica's tone had turned, it wasn't nearly as terrifying as the prospects of what he was looking at ahead of him, right on the other end of his hunting revolver barrel. If Veronica was aware of the situation and using it to play some game of chicken with his senses to force a confession, she might be more evil than he had previously estimated. On the other hand, he couldn't see what was worse: Veronica not knowing about the deathclaws ahead or flat-out ignoring it to taunt him.
What would make her so upset about this?
"I mean there's nothing wrong with it… Maybe I'm just a little more, well, peeved, is all…"
Veronica was smiling. The Courier could see it out of the corners of his mask-limited vision, the corners of her mouth curling beneath the the shade of her drawn-up hood. This really was a joke—she was truly one sick fuck.
"…I mean, you could have told me you had a big, fat crush on Red Lucy…"
Yeah, well, instead the Courier could tell her what happens next. It was the first time he genuinely looked over at Veronica—even if she only faced a pair of red, dimly-glowing viewports for eyes.
"And what's that?" Veronica's smile seemed overstretched, like she suddenly wasn't getting the joke.
The two of them, running. Free exercise, she could think of it as.
In one swift action, the Courier held out his pistol towards the deathclaws in the distance, aimed, and fired. He never looked away from Veronica, but he knew he landed his shot.