Callie was through with the finalization of the Chip replacement so quickly it was a shame Benny had even left in the first place. Then again, he seemed to be in the middle of something the last time she tracked him down. While they had quite quickly and effectively eliminated House, that didn't transfer ultimate control of the Strip to them automatically, although wielding the Securitrons surely helped. House had ruled by force of personality more than anything else. He ruled because no one, up until Benny, had considered that the chips could fall any other way. And even then, Benny had been on the Strip for years, biding his time until he believed he could take control. But really, it had been so deceptively simple in the end.
She instructed Yes Man to send another Securitron unit after Benny. She still wasn't entirely satisfied with using the Securitrons as a communication method. It meant sending messages to lots of units, instead of just one. And then the Securitrons had to be accessible by the both of them. It was a cumbersome way of communicating. If her idea would work, she would have to travel to Novac for the Securitron power source. That was nearly two days travel. The idea of being out of contact for two days, when the NCR or Brotherhood could pounce at any moment, was unsettling.
The answer was straightforward, get Benny a Pip-boy. It would probably never be as useful to him as it was to her, but using the messaging function was simple enough he'd have no trouble with it. The hard part was just finding one. The Followers probably still had Dr. Mitchell's. It had been fried, but she could repair it. The second option was to check around Vault 21. If it hadn't already been picked clean when it was converted to a tourist attraction, there should have been some units laying around in robotics. Worst case scenario, Benny said some of the kids from Vault 21 were still around the Strip, and they were less well adjusted than her. They could probably be intimidated.
Benny breezed back into the suite much sooner than she had anticipated.
"That was quick." He pulled his suit jacket off.
"I had pre-programmed most of it. It just needed a couple of tweaks. Let's head down to the basement. We'll do those units first, deploy them, then recall the already provisioned ones." She hopped up. "Yes Man, do you need to come with us?"
"Nope, I'll just be on the intercom if you need me."
Benny and Callie returned to the elevator and headed to the basement. This was as good a time as any to bring up the Pip-boy idea.
"Hey, Benny. Those 21 kids you told me about. Are they older than ten?"
"I called them kids, but I suppose they're actually about your age. Looking to make some new friends? And here I thought you were the lone wolf type."
The floors dinged by as they descended.
"I've got to look for that power source, but I don't want to be completely cut off from you here," that sounded awfully sentimental. "In case the NCR show up. I'm not satisfied with the way the Securitrons relay messages." Good save.
"You and me both, my boys get jumpy around them. We're bound to get some of them shot up if you keep sending them after me."
"I want to get a Pip-boy for you, then we can message privately."
"I can't promise I'll wear it. It looks good on you, Girlie, but it would cramp my style."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I want you to have one, even if you don't wear it. We can still use it to communicate. Just have it around."
"So what, you gonna ask the Vault kids about it?"
"Yeah. There may still be some in the vault, depends on how stable their population was. It'll be a little different than mine, but it'll work fine for messaging. If not, I'll convince one of the kids to part with theirs."
Benny laughed, "You've never persuaded anyone of anything."
Callie scowled, "Got you into bed, didn't I?." She could persuade them with her laser pistol.
They reached the basement and the elevator doors slid open. Nearly the entire space was dedicated to an arena and shooting range. This was specifically to show off the capabilities of defensive mods and offensive weapons. Robot death cage, awesome.
"Hello again, Pretty Lady," Yes Man came on over the intercom. "You should be able to upload the OS updates at the terminal on your left."
Callie examined the cables attached to the back of the terminal, looking for the correct termination to attach to her Pip-boy. She pulled it up and inserted it into the side of her Pip-boy. She also pulled off a final file regarding the power source for the auto repair mod. The files transferred quickly and she detached.
"It'll take a minute to run."
"When are you leaving?" Benny loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves, exposing his tattoos. Maybe he was done for the evening. They couldn't be that lucky.
"I'll go by 21 after this. Then I'll leave for Novac in the morning."
"Novac?"
"Yeah, there's a bunch of this shit, isotope-239, just sitting in a closet in that big ass dinosaur. In these little souvenir rockets."
"Oh, you mean I should have bought that crap?"
"I just hope there's enough left. I already stole a bunch of it to power that rocket for the ghouls. I wish I had never met them."
"Story there?"
Yeah, fucking story there. Manny and his dumbass asking a favor for a favor, couldn't throw her a fucking bone. And she was too disoriented to call him on his fucking bullshit. Nearly getting herself killed multiple times, by nightkin and trigger happy zombies, all for a piece of information that really got her no closer to Benny. That dumb fuck scientist, thinking he was a zombie too and taking the lethal radiation dose on the launch pad, rather than believe he was just a poor ass excuse for a human. She watched his flesh bubble and peel away from his lily white bones; he still refused to believe. And all the Mojave thought about it afterward was that she was some goddamn savior doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She had fucking saved the economy of Novac. Woo-hoo. Fuck ghouls and fuck rockets.
"Oh, the Securitrons are ready." What a convenient redirection.
They sat back in hard metal chairs as Yes Man showed off the new upgrades. The Securitrons were a good deal more threatening now, that was for sure. The missile launcher in particular was a heavy piece of ordinance. Callie wasn't sold on the grenade launcher. In general, she wasn't sold on explosives. The auto-repair unit would be by far the best addition, though. They would lose fewer units this way, and she wouldn't have to manually repair many.
Damn, when did she get so interested in all of this? Boredom, she chalked it up to boredom.
"Yes Man, isotope-239, will that work in these Securitrons?"
"Yeppers. It's a little more dense than the originally intended fuel, but it should work just 'll pack a real punch." Yes Man's disembodied voice confirmed.
"Well, that settles it, Vault 21, Novac, profit."
"What?"
"Never mind," she was a little sheepish. Why did she always have to say such weird things?
"I've got more damage control at Gomorrah. Which is exactly how I wanted to spend my night."
Callie glanced at her Pip-boy, it was coming up on three in the morning. "They're even up?"
"The chem cocktails they swig? You better believe they're up. That being said, how are you holding up?"
"Oh, fine, I'm fine." She made no mention of the vial in her pocket. Honestly, at this point she just wanted to be left alone about it. The vial would last her quite awhile, even though it wasn't large. Without the fillers, consuming smaller quantities of the drug was much more effective. Besides, he smoked like a fucking chimney, he was in no place to judge her. Cass was apparently perpetually drunk. Swank must have had some vice he was hiding. Right? It wasn't like he was clean-cut or anything.
"Alright, I guess we're both heading out then." Benny started to roll his sleeves back down, but Callie stopped him. She ran her fingers down the twined markings, tracing the patterns. It was an intimate thing to do, something she became comfortable with. After a moment she became self-conscious, releasing his arm and letting him finish covering up. For a second time now she had tried to pull him away from his sophisticated, domesticated posturing.
He remade his tie and pulled his jacket back on. He must have been warm, even though the sun was long gone. Callie had nothing to adjust. She wasn't a person of status, even if she may have been one of reputation. Benny said goodbye to Yes Man but Callie didn't bother. They parted on the pavement, Benny heading towards Gomorrah and Callie heading up the road to 21. They kissed briefly as they split up. This power play of theirs was a series of comings and goings, separations and reunions. She came to find herself less and less looking forward to those separations.
Callie hadn't returned to a vault, any vault, since her initial departure from number 3. She stuck with the exploration party for a few weeks, collecting samples and drawing maps. A handful of them skilled in science and combat had been in the initial scouting party. Valerie, as a junior ranking doctor, had been in charge. Then there was Callie, who could both assist in research tasks and was skilled in robotics. Peter Birch was the deputy chief of security, he had come. And finally the Chen twins, Mark and Hannah. Hannah was also a security officer and Mark was a bit of a diplomat. Callie knew from her snooping about in the Overseer's records that Mark had been earmarked as candidate for Overseer when he was older. He was being groomed.
The five of them left the vault and four of them returned to the vault with findings. Callie always dallied by the entrance, refusing to go below ground again. The others would return to the surface after a few hours of resupplying and visiting family, reporting to the Overseer too, and they'd set off again into the Wasteland. This cycle continued for several weeks until one night Callie slipped away while the others were asleep. They were hours away from the vault, and the others were too timid to come looking for her.
Eight weeks later reports surfaced of the massacre. Raiders entered the vault and murdered everyone inside. Well, maybe not everyone. Maybe some of them got folded into the raiders and survived, maybe. Callie didn't run into anyone though. She never saw anyone from Vault 3 again, and she never went underground. Never scaved in one, never took Followers assignments that included vault work. It wasn't for her.
She stood outside the gaudy, sanitized entrance to 21. This was okay, she told herself, this wasn't her Vault. Her Overseer wouldn't be waiting down below to lock her into a life she never wanted. This wasn't even a Vault anymore, it was a hotel and casino, a tourist attraction for those Wastelanders who wanted to live the Vault experience. Stupid Wasters who didn't realize it was no better underground than it was above, they all had their tragedies to bear.
Stepping through the door turned out to be the worst part of it. Inside, the walls were the same, heavy and metal and solid. But it had been made up like a gift shop. It wasn't scary at all. Clean Vault suits sat on a shelf, other little knick knacks she had seen through her childhood, baubles of Vault life: tin mugs for coffee, ration packets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, those heather-gray pyjamas that she didn't wear a single night after her mother had died, preferring to sleep mostly naked.
The room was empty and the adjoining door sealed. After a few minutes a female voice came over the intercom, it was sleep addled. "Give me a sec, I'll be right up."
Callie took one of the mugs between her hands, turning it over. Vault-Tec was stamped into the bottom. She remembered that quality control hadn't been one of their strong suits. Sometimes the stamped emblem was so exaggerated that the cups would rattle on the tables because they wouldn't sit flat.
The door swung open and on the other side was a pretty blonde girl, her straight hair tied back in a ponytail and her eyes still filled with sleep. She had a large bone structure, standing maybe only an inch shorter than Callie, with wider hips and bigger breasts, but everywhere else she looked too skinny. "Can I help you, do you need a room?"
The woman took her place behind a desk and started up the terminal. There was a Pip-boy strapped to her left wrist. Excellent.
"No, ah, I don't need a room, I'm here for something else."
"Oh," she cocked her head to one side. Fuck was she pretty. Pretty in that generic sort of way that snuck up on you. Classically pretty, yeah, that was it. So obvious that it actually went kind of unnoticed. Fuck, maybe Callie needed more sleep too.
Callie fidgeted with her own ponytail, grabbing it at the top and pulling her hand down to smooth it out. Pretty girls, hell, pretty girls.
"Oh!" Her light blue eyes lit up. "You have a Pip-boy too! Are you from a Vault?"
"Yeah, that's actually what I'm here about."
The blonde started up again before Callie could even finish her statement. She spoke like she was starved for attention, although that couldn't be true if she ran the hotel. She would have seen and talked to people every day. "What vault are you from? Oh, you didn't live here, did you? I don't remember you at all. How old are you? When did you leave? Why does your Pip-boy look different? Why do you wear it on that wrist? That's wrong..."
Oh fuck people. Fuck all people everywhere.
"No, no I didn't live here, I came from another vault. Listen, I need another Pip-boy, do you have any. Maybe down in the robotics lab?"
"Oh, oh, Mr. House cleared out everything around me. Oh, he was awfully kind to let me stay though. He wanted everyone to leave, but he let me stay. Did he make you leave your Vault too? You could stay here if you want? We have the room."
"Listen, focus. I need another Pip-boy. Now, if House had them, I would know. So they have to be here. Where is your robotics lab?" Callie was ready to grab her and shake her to get some answers. Was this the level of social interaction that she was capable of too? Did other people look at her like she was looking at this sheltered, narrow-focused girl? They each had their own brand of social malfunction.
"But Mr. House sealed that part of the Vault...no one is allowed in there. I'll get in trouble, he'll kick me out!"
For fuck's sake. "Have you checked your messages? House is dead."
"What? Messages? I only get messages from my brother anymore." She looked at her wrist with confusion. Oh please, don't let this be how Callie was perceived by other people.
Callie, not knowing in the slightest how to calm the woman down with words, took hold of her left wrist and wrenched her arm towards her so she could access the blonde's Pip-boy. Flicking through screens, she reached the messages folder. SarahW, the girl's name was Sarah.
"Read this, you got it yesterday from House." She released Sarah's arm so she could look at her Pip-boy screen. Her big blue eyes got impossibly bigger as she read. From the time that elapsed, it was clear she was bothering to read the whole obituary.
At this rate, Callie wouldn't get any sleep before heading off to Novac. She fondled the vial in her pocket.
"No, no, oh no! What will happen to me? Will I have to leave?"
"That's not what I'm here about," Callie seethed through her teeth. She was two minutes away from taking the Pip-boy off of Sarah's wrist by force to just be done with it. "Benny, you know Benny, right?" She was under the impression all the Strip proprietors knew each other through House at least.
Sarah sniffled, she wasn't really crying, not yet, but she was clearly distressed. She didn't take to change well, it seemed. An affirmative nod eventually happened.
"Okay, so Benny is in charge now. And I need you to do me and Benny a solid here, and let me into the robotics lab." She spoke as if Sarah was a child. Maybe she was. Maybe that's why Benny called her a kid, even though she was probably even a couple years older than Callie. Clearly Sarah's introduction to the world above had somehow gone even worse than Callie's if she wanted to stay down here.
"You're with Benny?" In multiple meanings of the phrase, yes. Sarah's eyes lit up a bit. They were so expressive.
"Yes, I'm with Benny, and Benny and I need another Pip-boy. So you're going to let me into the robotics lab." Maybe, blissfully, she was getting somewhere.
Sarah took a set of keys and a small notebook from one of the desk drawers and pressed both against her chest.
"Benny's so nice." Stop talking, stop talking. "He used to come see me all the time. He gave me this." She held out her right wrist, a delicate little gold chain hung there, a simple thing.
Fuck this, she was murdering this bitch.
Okay, maybe not. But that jealousy flamed hard and deep and Callie tried really fucking hard not to remember her conversation with Benny earlier about procreation and fuck since when was jealousy a thing she had to deal with. Oh, right, fucking always. This was the girl who had to be fucking jealous of herself for awhile. Fuck.
Maybe she would just lock Sarah in a reactor room or something.
"He hasn't been by in weeks though, maybe months." She looked at her Pip-boy as she walked. That was a skill all Vaulties seemed to learn by the time they were eleven, walking and talking while face-first in a screen. "Six weeks, it's been."
That would have been just before Benny shot her. Her rage wasn't really dealt with though.
The two women stopped in front of a sealed door. Various bits and pieces of furniture were visible through the windows, stacked up as if for storage. Extra beds, dressers, mess hall tables, jukeboxes, everything.
Sarah opened the little notebook and examined the fine handwriting within. Her long, bony fingers danced along the keypad, entering an obnoxiously long string of numbers. Callie made out the code by the sounds produced on the keypad; five-four-zero-nine-eight-zero-three-one-zero-zero-three-four-seven-seven-three-two.
There was a little smile on Sarah's face. "I didn't want to put it in the Pip-boy. I didn't know if Mr. House could read what was on it. I didn't want him to know that I knew. But I guess it's okay now." She tucked the notebook into the top of her vault suit. Its hard corners stood out against the soft flesh of her chest.
"So," the last thing Callie wanted was for Sarah to say literally anything else. "Will you at least answer some of my questions? I've never met someone from another vault. Which number did you come from?"
"Three."
"Oh! I heard everyone from Vault 3 died. It must have been horrible."
Callie shrugged and made a noncommittal grunt.
"Why do you wear your Pip-boy on your right hand, that's weird." Well, at least her questions were moving into the inane instead of the insulting.
"I'm left-handed."
"Oh, I guess I never thought of that." She seemed genuinely puzzled by that. Callie would ask what rock she had been living under, but that was obvious.
"Do you like Benny?"
"Eh."
The little plaque in front of the door read "robotics and computing laboratory." Sarah inserted one of her keys into the lock and Callie pushed past her before she could say anything else. The lights came on automatically, revealing several deactivated Mr. Handys, various autodoc attachments, and several other labeled boxes. Two long desks held two terminals each.
"So why do you have a different Pip-boy?" Sarah stood just inside the doorway to the lab, keeping her hands to herself and fidgeting slightly.
Callie grabbed the set of keys out of Sarah's hand and used the sharpest looking one to puncture the tape on the top of one of the boxes. Dragging the key down the seam, she managed to get the first box open.
"I was the bot engineer for 3. I got a special one after the GOAT."
"But they don't come off. Mine forever and ever from the day I turn ten until the day I die."
Callie turned and faced Sarah. She was legitimately shocked. "You believe that?"
Sarah nodded. Dr. Mitchell had clearly known that was a lie. He handed his old one over without thinking twice. Callie had just assumed everyone knew and it was a lie they perpetuated once outside. Maybe 21 was an experimental vault and that was part of the experiment? To make them believe?
"Of course, the Overseer said so."
Callie dropped what she was doing and approached Sarah a bit like a predator. She grabbed the blonde's arm, again, and hit the release latch on the underside of the Pip-boy. The device loosened on Sarah's wrist to a degree that her hand could easily slide through. The completely traumatized look on Sarah's face made it worth the trouble. There was a fierce blush there too. She could feel the heat radiating off of Sarah's body. Blondie was aroused. Callie went back to inspecting the boxes.
Several minutes elapsed and Callie could feel Sarah approaching her position, slowly, cautiously. Part of her wanted to just fuck the shit out of the woman. That jealousy flared again and she both wanted to prove to Sarah that she could please her better than Benny could and that she could fuck Benny better than Sarah could. She had to stamp the impulse down. Maybe she didn't know romance, but she was pretty sure Benny wouldn't want her fucking around with other people. She knew that much about relationships.
Finally Callie located a box with three Pip-boy units. One had a smashed screen, but the other two looked outwardly functional. The first one she tried had a tab separation and half the screen was obscured, it must have been dropped. The final one flickered to life and asked for basic provisioning information. She named it "JOKER-2," unassuming a name enough. It took a couple of minutes to confirm that the unit had been properly wiped before being stored away. Everything looked good. Finally, she set up a private encrypted channel between her Pip-boy and the new one intended for Benny. The whole process took twenty minutes and Sarah stood like a good girl in silence, waiting on Callie.
"Hold out your arm, Sarah."
She stuck out her left.
"No, the other one," Sarah switched arms, offering her right. Callie tore the delicate little chain off, breaking the clasp in a petty gesture. Sarah gasped. While she wanted to toss the chain behind the boxes, she placed it gently on the desk. If Sarah really wanted to, she could mend it. If it meant that fucking much to her. Callie pushed up the sleeve on Sarah's jumpsuit and strapped the Pip-boy on. She looked comical with two Pip-boys, they were so clunky in comparison to her pale, slender arms.
Callie sent a test message from her Pip-boy to the one Sarah wore. "Did you get that?"
" From JOKER-1?"
"Killer, okay." Callie hit the release latch and slid the unit off of Sarah. "I'm done here." She didn't bother to pack things back up behind her. The other Pip-boys were as safe here as they were anywhere else. At least now she knew where to find them.
Callie didn't miss Sarah picking up the bracelet as they left the room. She could always kill Blondie another day. She was useful for now, and would ensure that 21's resources were accessible. Sarah was probably going to be loyal to them. Yeah, or something.
"You're really pretty." Sarah spoke from a step behind her. The layout of the vault may have been different than 3, but these vaults had some kind of internal logic to them, and Callie knew what direction to head through the corridors.
"You too." She answered automatically. They headed back upstairs. Sarah was clearly keen on seeing her out.
"Tell Benny I say hi. And that he should visit!" Her smile was coy. Maybe there was something confrontational there.
Callie kissed her on the cheek, really, closer to the corner of her mouth. Sarah blushed something fierce. The heat radiated from her face intensely and suddenly.
"What does the W stand for?"
"Weintraub."
"Okay, well, bye." Callie held the Pip-boy in one hand and stuck the other in her pocket as she left.
The streets of the Strip were virtually empty. As least as empty as she had ever seen it. The light pollution from the casinos and the remnants of the radioactive haze that haunted them all even now blotted out all traces of stars. It was only in the truly wild places that you could see stars. Callie sort of loved those places.
Two alert night-shifters manned the front desk at the Tops and nodded in her direction. Callie sort of blew them off. She had learned one name, that was progress. Best not to rush things.
In the empty elevator she pressed three rounds of the powder into her gums. She dissolved it towards the back of her mouth, where others were unlikely to see. This would be her last round before bed. But she had one last thing to do.
She tried the handle on the door, but it was locked. She knocked and Benny appeared in a sleeveless tee and boxers, he must have known it was her. He opened his mouth to say something, but she knocked him to the floor before the words left his lips.
Callie got up and dragged him so that his feet weren't sticking out the door, then slammed the door shut before jumping back on top of him.
"Thought you'd be too tired, Callie, I know I'm tired." He ran his hands up and down her arms.
"If you ever go near Sarah Weintraub again I will kill you and fuck her on your corpse."
"You do have a prefered, specific threat, that's for sure."
"Are you trying to start a 'Vaulties I've fucked' scrapbook?"
"No. To be fair, I didn't know you were a Vaultie when I first fucked you."
"Did you try and marry her too?"
"No."
"Did you knock her up? Does she have your fucking kid?" She was becoming frantic Oh fuck, what if she was going to have an attack. What if the autodoc hadn't fixed her afterall.
"No." He just kept rolling his hands over her, like this was a perfectly normal way to have a conversation. Maybe for Callie it was.
She tried to control her breathing, if only to preserve her own dignity. If she kept panicking like this she might start crying. Fuck no, that wasn't happening. Regaining control of herself, Callie released Benny and stood. She stalked off to the bedroom, leaving the second Pip-boy on the floor.
Benny was hot on her heels and she allowed him to pin her down to the bed in a show of strength. She feigned annoyance, but let it go easily.
"You're mine and I'm yours," he growled into her ear, unhooking her belt and moving to the button on her slacks. "How fucking clear do I have to make this to you."
He pulled down her pants and up her shirt, and she didn't mind in the slightest. Her slacks got caught on her shoes and Benny had to rip them down with force. The vial flew from her pocket and rolled under the bed. If Benny noticed, he said nothing.
She spread her legs as he climbed on top of her. Her original intention might have been to beat the shit out of him, but that had gone astray at some point. She had already proven that she could hold him down, dominate him. Now her concerns were somewhere else, that he would turn to a good girl-like the buxom Sarah who was just as socially inept but oh so sweet and innocent. Sarah was every girl she hadn't wanted to be, that she was incapable of being, in the Vault. Trusting, soft, pretty, and obedient. The Overseer said girls like that made the world go round. Couldn't Callie be a girl like that?
Benny kissed the corners of her eyes as he slid into her.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," his chant of affection rang in her ears.
Maybe she was stupid for believing it from his lips, but she had already crossed that threshold. She shifted her weight and rolled on top of him, riding him until she came, biting at his neck where the black of his tattoos ended. When he was close he pushed her off clumsily and came into his hand.
The last pulses of her high faded.
I just wanted to thank everyone who has been reading this story. I know at this point it's quite long, and thus, a bit of a time commitment. If you have a moment to leave a review, it would be much appreciated.