edited 8/7/14

Callie crossed the Strip with a quiet determination, not really for what she had set out to accomplish, but to accomplish it without devolving into a sputtering, blabbing, pool of puke and second-hand men's clothes. Even though Benny was very vocally hoping the autodoc would fix Callie's medical condition once and for all, and Callie was quietly hoping so as well, there were other, less chipper, possibilities to consider.

First, forcible removal of Mint's brain matter could cause her vital systems to just shut down. There was no way to tell exactly what parts of her brain had been damaged and subsequently replaced with Mint's tissues. Had Callie been thinking of self-preservation instead of self-destruction when she killed Dr. Henry, she might have bothered to swipe his files on her procedure before vaporizing him. No one would ever accuse her of having her priorities straight. There was absolutely no returning to Jacobstown at this point. Nope.

The second option was that she lived through the procedure, but that didn't mean her seizures improved. Hell, there was some outside chance that the surgery didn't even cause the seizures, that could have been purely Benny's bullet's doing, or there was even some slim chance that it was from a preexisting condition she hadn't yet remembered. They didn't actually have any evidence at all that surgery was going to fix her. This was sort of Benny's wild dream that she adopted as her own when she sort of, kind of, decided on living instead of dying.

As she became more and more herself, and less and less Mint, some memories had returned more clearly than others. There were still huge gaps in her history though. Her parents were entirely missing. So was anything that resembled childhood. In her mind, she sort of popped into vault life at sixteen.

She remembered the vault opening and leaving with one of the research teams headed by Valerie. She was eighteen or nineteen. Before the short, slightly overweight, doctor had been married off to the Overseer's tattoo-artist son a couple years earlier, Callie had eaten her out in the medical supply closet. When Valerie came she knocked over a box of unused syringes, scattering them around Callie, who knelt on the floor grinning like an idiot. She would later assign a maintenance bot to covertly clean up the mess.

And she remembered that her Mentats habit didn't have a whole lot to do with her introduction to Wasteland hospitality. It had more to do with the dimness of the vault and her lack of direction. By sixteen she was already branded abnormal by the vault's elite, just because she wouldn't let a boy whose name she couldn't recall climb on top of her after the spring dance. The Mentats made her so wired she forgot to be lonely, or angry, or anything at all. Maybe she would try and keep that one to herself. After the surgery she would make a good faith effort to stop. She promised.

Victor was in front of the Lucky 38, as expected, to greet her with automated cheer that could rival that of Yes Man's. She smiled back. It was hard not to like a happy robot.

"Welcome to the Lucky 38, Miss Washington!"

Callie recoiled. Of all the fucking names, the fuck. Another one that she responded to because it was hers, obviously it was hers, but she hadn't recalled it up to that point.

"Uh, Callie is fine."

"Sure thing, Callie. I've been told to show you straight up to Mr. House. He sure has been mighty keen to meet you."

"Likewise…" The computer tower was still tucked under her arm. While it wasn't particularly heavy, it was cumbersome and was still a pain to carry around and her arm was getting tired. Her annoyance with the box must have been really obvious.

"Where are my manners! We can make a quick stop in your suite first, if you'd like? I'm sure Mr. House could spare a minute more?"

"My suite?" Callie said incredulously, although Victor probably couldn't pick up on that. "No, no that's fine, let's go see him."

The interior of the 38 was spotlessly clean. The bots had cleaned it meticulously over the last 200 years, that was for sure, not letting dust settle into the upholstery or cloud the glasses and tumblers that lined the walls behind each bar. Sparkling, the whole place was sparkling. But for all its pristine exterior, it felt decaying, dead, empty, even as a robot worked in the corner, polishing an already shiny bartop. Maybe Callie had sort of gotten used to being around other people after all. Everything was a surface and nothing had any depth.

"Right this way, Callie. Up we go."

Callie moved into the elevator before Victor followed her. It was a little cramped, sharing shoulder room with such a wide robot. The Securitron series was versatile, that was for sure, but they were still sort of clumsy things. From what she had seen they were fairly sturdy and infinitely upgradable if one had the resources. She assumed House had the resources, which meant Benny would have the resources.

When they reached the penthouse floor Victor again stuck out its stubby articulated arm and gestured for her to exit first. Chivalry among the unalive.

Victor waited just outside the elevator door while she continued ahead, soon confronted with an unmoving image of House on a giant, dim monitor.

"Ah, Miss Callie Washington," that fucking name again. Like the whole world was mocking her for having not remembered something so banal as her own name. "A pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh. Victor has kept me abreast of your well-being."

Callie set the computer tower on the floor, she could already tell this guy was a talker.

"I've been kind of indisposed lately."

"Yes, yes," his pitch variation was haunting, not quite unnatural, but certainly forced and exaggerated. "I heard of your confrontation with the Legion. Taking out Caesar was quite the feat. Nearly in his own bed as well. Shame you were unable to obtain the Platinum Chip. Had you come to see me before your little world tour I could have stressed upon you the importance of recovering and installing that Chip. It appears to be lost now. One of those Legion fools likely mistook it for garbage. Ah well. I suppose I will have to make due…though I have already assigned a number of Securitrons to scour the area. Well, in any case, I have another task for you to carry out. Well, one step at a time. What say you?"

Callie cracked her neck. Forget about having another seizure, she was going into a fucking coma at this rate.

"I don't get what's in this for me. Everyone around here expects me to help out of the kindness of my heart."

"Caps, my dear Miss Washington, caps make the world go round."

She rolled her eyes. Still, for now, it was best to stay on his good side. Wrap up this conversation, get a little privacy, and start snooping around the network narrowing down the location of the autodoc. Later she could deal with House's smug ass. Or, better yet, kick back and let Benny deal with House's smug ass. He seemed way more into it than she did. She didn't have much of a reason to dislike House honestly, other than he treated her basically like everyone else did, as someone who could get things accomplished. You shoot one colony of ghouls into space and suddenly everyone thinks that you're hot shit.

"What do you need?"

"First and foremost, I need Benny Gecko eliminated."

She stifled a laugh. Either Victor was a terrible spy or House was a really poor judge of character, thinking that caps would be any sort of motivating factor for killing off Benny. Seriously? She hadn't quite figured out what was going on there, between her and Benny. And honestly, she was getting more and more okay with the idea of never really understanding it and just sort of having fun for an indefinite time period. But seriously, at this point even if she wasn't shacking up with him, she wouldn't kill Benny.

"I know that you have rather unlimited access to Mr. Gecko. It should be an easy task for you to complete and you'll be rewarded quite handsomely."

"Ok-ay" she exaggerated her vowel sounds and stifled her laughter, "anything else while I'm at it?"

"I will also need you to decimate the Brotherhood of Steel base. This should effectively destroy the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood. They have been sneaking around my doorstep for far too long."

Any more of this and she wouldn't be able to keep her laughter inside any more. It just kept bubbling up in her gut. House, somewhat predictably, was completely disconnected from reality. Like hell she was going anywhere near the Brotherhood, although they bothered her now too, since they had clearly sent Veronica to keep tabs on her as some sort of science fair project. But it had been quite awhile since she had seen the scribe. Callie had lost her back at Old Mormon Fort and hadn't looked back. Arcade hadn't mentioned Veronica at all upon her return to the Followers base.

"That's going to cost you a lot of caps."

"I can more than deliver. Finally, this is all to the ends of pushing the NCR influence away from Strip affairs, and seizing control of the dam." That fucking dam seemed to be everyone's business around here. Fuck the dam. "But that can be a conversation for another time."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be. Let me get right on that eliminating Benny project and I'll be back at you."

Not a word about the Legion. Sure, she (or maybe Benny, neither of them were sure who had gotten him in the end) had killed Caesar, but that didn't mean his faction would just up and vanish. Surely they were still rooting around. And to be perfectly honest, they were the ones that troubled Callie the most. Seeing those women, those slaves being held in pens at Cottonwood and the Fort, it made her blood boil. If she had been a better woman, she would already be on her way to the Cove to finish what she had started and actually kill all those fucks. She was still too self-centered for that, and she knew it.

"I have prepared quarters for your use while you are under my employ. Complete killing Mr. Gecko and I can provide you additional equipment for assaulting the Brotherhood base."

"Sure thing."

"Victor will show you to your suite." Callie saluted, that might have been a bit much, and retrieved her computer from the floor.

But the idea of having a suite at the Lucky 38 was welcome. It meant she had a room with at least some level of privacy to work from in finding the autodoc. It shouldn't take long, but she wanted to do it out of the scrutinizing gaze of House and Victor. The former was more of an issue than the latter. Callie wasn't sure of the extent of House's sensory reach and his mind was very much human and active, if addled. House could put two and two together. Victor could be easily deceived.

Dutifully the robot showed her to her suite. It was massive, easily twice the size of Benny's at the Tops. Like the lobby, it was about the cleanest place she had seen since leaving the vault. It occurred to her that the Tops must have had a penthouse, just like the 38, but Benny hadn't taken the room as his own. He was on the same floor as Swank and a few other chairmen. Mint's room….Mint had her own room at first, for appearances sake, or maybe just a gesture of independence. But that drawer in Benny's dresser suggested that she had moved at some point.

She waved goodbye to Victor and switched on her Pip-boy screen. She hadn't activated the HUD for a while and left it of for the time being. She would need it later for sure, but it got in the way of her field of vision when working directly from the screen interface on her Pip-boy.

A few experienced clicks later and she had attached her Pip-boy to House's internal wireless network. She made her way into House's gateway interface and studied the station table entries. Locating the correct MAC, she made note of the switch the autodoc seemed to be connecting to. Fuck, there were a dozen switches and they were only labeled by number, no physical location information. Switch 6, port 2…she would have to actually find the gateway and figure out where each switch was located, maybe manually trace cables through the walls. She wished she had told Benny to hold off even longer. If the equipment was a rats' nest of cables it could take her hours just to figure out where everything went. All this and she didn't have a proper service kit.

Okay, it was likely that the network equipment would be somewhere on the first floor, maybe in a closet or something. In the vault, it had been on the reactor level. Classy place like this, it would be somewhere out of sight.

She rode the elevator down to the lobby and started poking around, ah! There was a door at the back, adjacent to one of the bars. It wasn't locked, not like that would have stopped her, locks were shit. In the back room was a computer, some filing cabinets, a safe, and another door. Looking good. Maybe if she had time she would hit up the safe.

The second door was locked and Callie turned her attention to the desk. She could lock pick it, sure. But it would speed things up if she just found the key. Sure enough, there was a thick custodian's ring with about two dozen keys on it. She eyeballed them and picked a couple of likely candidates given the size and general shape of the keyhole. The fourth one slid right in, clicked in the lock, and the handle turned.

A glorious sight met her. An equipment rack with the gateway, a dozen switches, and beautifully managed cables. Everything was tagged and tied off and organized. Benny wouldn't have to come in guns blazing after all. Small miracles. In neatly printed letters one of the switches read "switch 6 – penthouse/helipad." She could kiss the engineer who had taken the time to draw her a personal map to her supposed salvation. On the back of the unit, five of the eight ports were in use. Port 2 was labeled "AP PENT." Damnit. That meant the autodoc was probably connecting wirelessly. It could be anywhere up there. She'd have to take the risk and just go look. At least now she wouldn't be aimlessly wandering the floors.

She relocked the door on her way out of the MDF and gave a second glance at the safe. None of the keys on the ring looked the proper size but there had been a set of tools in the drawer as well. In the end, she did grab the screwdriver and a number of paperclips, but left the safe. It was best not to risk it and they could clear it out later.

Before heading to the penthouse she had to return to 'her' suite and pick up the tower. The penthouse probably posed a slight problem since House clearly had sensors installed. She had seen the station table entries for six visual sensors and three mics, all also on switch 6. There were others scattered around other switches as well. The question became how attentive was House to what went on around his sanctum and how much he cared about her rooting around. Also, did she become a sitting duck in the penthouse if something went wrong? Instinctively, she put her free hand on the laser at her waist. From what she could tell, Benny was hoping to keep as many Securitrons intact as he could. He would need them later.

She scanned 'her' suite one last time after retrieving the tower. Was it weird that she was staying in Benny's suite? Sure, they were sleeping together but that didn't necessarily mean he wanted her up in his space all the time. She wasn't quite sure what constituted a normal relationship, or even if this was supposed to be normal. Right, not normal. Benny hadn't said anything about her staying anywhere but his room, so she had to assume that was where he wanted her.

Upon reaching the penthouse Callie opted to put the tower down on the bar rather than lug it around in her search for the autodoc. House's monitor was off, though that didn't have any bearing on the audiovisual sensors. She could only hope that he wasn't monitoring her, or at least that she wouldn't raise suspicions.

A quick scan of the rooms didn't reveal the autodoc in any obvious location, though there were a number of closed doors in the penthouse, presumably leading to closets and bathrooms and secret chambers where one could hide the bodies. She flipped on her HUD and her vision was filled with bits and pieces of information. It was a bit much to hope the autodoc would show up. As a stationary bot that was probably idle, it was unlikely to generate a tic on her radar. There was something, a non-hostile, in the other room. It was moving of its own accord so it wouldn't be the autodoc, probably another maintainance bot. And then, quite faintly, a tick that seemed some distance away, absolutely still, but present in this zone. She left the HUD on, lest anyone try and sneak up on her.

First door, bathroom, no autodoc, no additional doors.

Second door, closet, full of outerwear that looked too crazy warm for Vegas. As far as she had learned the Mojave had always been hot, even before the bombs, whatever, no additional doors.

Third door, closet, damn, House must have been some sort of kinky bastard when he was alive. Best not be said what was behind door number three, no autodoc, no additional doors.

Fourth door, bedroom closet, full of expensive clothes and a rack of watches. Callie thought about if House might have been about her size. Clothes looked kind of right. Nice suits and crisp dress shirts. No autodoc and no additional doors.

Fifth door. Autodoc! All of its attachments were wrapped in sterilized paper. It hadn't been used and it looked as Benny had predicted, perfect condition. She scanned it looking at what was available. There was no diagnostic module. Likely House had the module on him to detect any malfunctions with his health. Callie would have to do without. Her Pip-boy had a rough diagnostic built in, but it had never detected a problem with her head. She wasn't overly familiar with how sophisticated the diagnostic modules normally were in these autodocs, only that the vault doctors had always prefered programming the autodocs themselves, suggesting that they weren't great. Callie hadn't gone the autodoc route before because she didn't have enough information about what had been plaguing her.

She had a little more insight now, but she still wasn't a doctor. She had basic first aid training and knew how to craft a number of standard medicines. But the time to consider the ramifications would have to come later. If the module was on the network, Yes Man would have told her. If it wasn't on the network, it could be anywhere in the building or nowhere at all. She couldn't risk looking for it now. They would figure something else out.

Backtracking to the bar, she retrieved the tower with the cloned mac and set to work. The tower didn't have a wireless card in it so she would have to find an ethernet hookup somewhere. This would change the port number potentially, but that shouldn't raise too many red flags with the bots.

Next to the nightstand was an electrical outlet and an ethernet jack. That would do nicely. First she booted up the machine. She didn't have a monitor so she counted off the startup time, waiting until she was sure the machine had fully booted. The ethernet cable would come next. This was where she had to be fast about things, getting the autodoc off the network quickly after putting the tower on.

Back at the autodoc she checked around for a switch to disable the wireless function. That would be quickest and easiest if she could find it. She ran her fingers along the surfaces looking for a toggle. Finding it, she double checked for the right icon and confident that it was for the wireless card, she wheeled the autodoc out of the closet and over to the bedside.

Here went nothing.

She snapped the ethernet cable into the back of the tower and turned her attention to her Pip-boy that had the gateway open. Once the tower had negotiated and she saw the cloned MAC, she toggled the autodoc off. It could take a moment for the drop off to be confirmed.

Part of her waited tensely, thinking that at any moment an alarm was about to go off, red lights strobing and pulsating noise. Her Pip-boy would go crazy and she'd be surrounded by hostiles. But there was nothing and the station table entry for the autodoc disappeared, leaving only the clone. She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in.

Pushing the autodoc ahead of her she made her way out of the bedroom and back towards the elevator. It would be even more cramped than it had been with Victor next to her. House's monitor was still off. There was no way he didn't see any of that if he had been looking. Maybe his attention was elsewhere. He was still human, after all. Even augmented by sensors and monitors, he probably could only 'be' in one place at a time, rather than splitting his attention. And considering he hadn't had many visitors over the years, it seemed unlikely that he would be in the penthouse very often. Then again, with a stranger in his sanctuary, he was bound to keep tabs on her, right?

It all seemed very suspicious as she made her way back down to the lobby and strolled right out onto the Strip without a peep from a single one of House's Securitrons.

Then there was Victor just outside.

"Come back soon, Miss Washington!"