A QUIET WORLD

Robert House was alone.

Well, not entirely alone. Jane and Marilyn would always keep him company, and there was somebody out there responsible for this atrocity. But all of the progress he was responsible for, all his careful planning, had been undone. Not by saboteurs or his own miscalculations, but by that Cloud.

That horrid, horrid Cloud.

It was the Courier. His calculations were not 100% certain, but there was simply no other explanation for her sudden disappearance and the direction of the Cloud. All had been going so well: the battle for Hoover Dam was close at hand, and the young woman had proven to be an adept right hand. She had secured the aid of the Boomers, foiled the Omertàs, eradicated the Brotherhood…

…and that was where things had started going wrong.

She hated the NCR, even more than the Brotherhood. Someone, somewhere had done something to her, and House had surmised that someone was an NCR soldier or high-ranking official. And so he had been forced to sit and watch as President Kimball had been assassinated, confirming his worst projections.

Or what he thought were his worst projections. For the Courier had disappeared shortly after powering up the El Dorado Substation. She had done just short of what was necessary to secure his victory, and then had just…vanished. No warning, no explanation.

And so he had been forced to watch as the NCR and the Legion fought one another, horrified that his plans were foiled at the last minute. And indeed they were, though not quite in the way he had thought.

The Cloud came on the day of the battle. Blood-red and a bringer of slow, choking death. The legionnaires and NCR troops had died alongside one another, the dam lifeless. Thinking fast, Mr. House had ordered Victor to power up the dam admist the corpses, and at first it seemed as if victory had been assured. The dam was secured, and his upgraded army moved to secure New Vegas.

But what was a leader without a people to lead? For the Cloud did not stop: it slowly consumed all the Mojave, including his beloved Strip. The last time he saw people was the day he had sealed the Lucky 38 from all outside contaminants. The people on the Strip banged on the outside doors for awhile, begging to be let in.

Then all was still.

The securitrons remained, for a time. When the Holograms came, they were of course wiped out. No amount of upgrades could stop the Old World ghosts, and so the Lucky 38 entrance was sealed with cement from the inside. His emergency environmental protocols were enough to keep the Cloud out, but what was the point? There was nothing; everyone was dead. And the Cloud would soon travel west, he knew.

For if the Courier was responsible for this, the NCR would die by her hand.

…

ELIJAH: All is quiet now. A clean slate. A new beginning.

COURIER: Not quite. There is one more.

ELIJAH: Who? They should join the silence along with the rest. Join the ghosts of Helios One and the Cloud.

COURIER: No. We should let Robert House watch.

ELIJAH: House? Old World abomination. Why should he live?

COURIER: The Lucky 38 is sealed. And what better punishment for his arrogance than an eternity of loneliness, surrounded by the Cloud?

ELIJAH: Hmm. Perhaps.