II
Mojave — Landing (Goodsprings, NV) — Crowd — Sunny — Powder Gang — Push to Talk
Las Vegas and Goodsprings were both in Clark County, Nevada. Both were in the Mojave Desert, which was mostly in California but reached into Nevada, Utah and Arizona. It had an area of almost 48,000 square miles. The notorious Death Valley, home to Badwater Basin and Devil's Golf Course and Furnace Creek, was in the Mojave—in Inyo County, California—and also had the Mojave and the continent's lowest elevation, 282 feet under sea level.
The Mojave was a proper desert, too, with mountains; rain shadow; basin and range topography—it was in the USA and México's Great Basin—featuring among others the contiguous US' highest summit-peak, Mount Whitney, in the Sierra Nevada range; salt pans (aka salt flats); sand dunes; spice; giant sandworms and everything.
It had several thousand species of plants, some more common than others, such as Joshua trees (very common); various cacti, such as prickly pear and barrel cactus, especially the saguaro barrel (also known as desert barrel or miner's compass); banana yucca; buffalo gourd; silver-leafed nightshade (aka white horsenettle); datura (aka angel's trumpets, moonflowers); pinyon pine trees; mesquite, especially honey mesquite; Nevada agave; sagebrush and mugwort. People cultivated land or used planters and grew many of those plants, as well as chiles, grapes, rye, carrots, lettuce, coca, apples, pears, beets, cabbage, cannabis, desert parsley, burdock, opium poppies, turnips, radishes, mushrooms, corn, dandelions, jalapeños, several bean plants (mostly for pinto beans), and mutated fruits people called mut-fruits. A few people even grew flowers, like marigolds, roses of course, lavender, St John's wort, lilies, chamomile, echinacea, hawthorn, irises (especially yellow ones), passion flower and yarrow. Cara grew some willow trees himself.
The desert had wildlife too, some of it mutated by FEV, and some of it killed by nuclear weapons and their fallout, but most of it not. Las Vegas had been a popular target for some reason, as had some military installations, like Nellis Air Force Base, but the desert itself hadn't been; being a desert, it was mostly desert. Wildlife had come back in the Mojave in the last 204 years. If you hung around in the desert for long you'd see buzzards and hawks, bats at night, snakes (like glossy snakes and sidewinders), kangaroo mice, coyotes, hummingbirds, desert tortoises, lizards (like the slow but venomous Gila monster), spiders (including tarantulas), mule deer, pronghorn, rabbits and hares and jackrabbits, desert bighorn sheep (which mostly mutated after the Great War, and became very large), domesticated cows (also mutated; now two-headed and called brahmin), chickens (mutated), horses, donkeys, Mohave ground squirrels and several species of raven.
There were more kinds of insects than Cara could keep track of; once in a while he'd look down at an arm and there'd be something new, weird, winged and yellow on it. Or black, small and beetle-looking. He seemed to see flies the most, and sometimes bees or hornets. You saw bugs in Freeside more than anywhere else, often disgustingly like on or in food, normal-tiny-sized cockroaches and lots of flies and ants and mutated giant cockroaches and everything. Rats were pretty common in Freeside too, normal tiny ones not bigger than your foot and giant ones bigger than newborn babies too. Cara had to imagine that Las Vegas had pest problems before the war.
You could walk miles in the hot bright yellow-brown expanse of the desert and not come across anything alive, though; or not know if you had. Some slept during the day or buried themselves in sand. You'd see plants fairly often, though, especially on soft ground.
Cara, Olivia and their followers saw some animals, and all kinds of plants, sand and hills go by beneath them on the flight.
Goodsprings was about 30 miles away from the Strip. Cruising at 173 miles per hour in the UH-60M Black Hawk, Cara piloted the group of them there in minutes. It was still morning when they landed.
Cara hadn't thought much about where he could land his Black Hawk in Goodsprings, a helipad- and landing strip-less tiny town. Its pre-war population had been 229, in 107 households, most of which were lost to time. He banked around town, which took a few seconds, south and east, staying high so he wouldn't knock anything around. Few things were secured down there, very few of them at all well, and most of it was old, untouched since the time of the Great War, most famously the Prospector Saloon, which was 368 years old and looked it. The town consisted mostly of dirt and livestock. If Cara wasn't careful he might dislodge and re-landscape the whole shit and terrify the animals; the Black Hawk had a powerful rotor wash, the rush of turbulent air caused by the rapid locomotion of the helicopter's rotor blades that gave the thing lift. Cara settled on descending just east of the town, heading north, so he'd end up landing the Black Hawk about 50 yards south of the saloon on what remained of Nevada State Route 161, which led into the town. If by car he'd take the Interstate 15 and turn right onto the 161.
He landed in a flat area on the road near the big Goodsprings sign, which was short enough not to be a problem for the helicopter's rotor blades, but after touchdown he noticed he'd also accidentally blown over a pre-war telephone pole by the road sometime during the descent. He'd apologize to Trudy for that, but he didn't think she'd care; the poles stood, but the power and phone lines were long since out of use and broken down or sold for scrap.
It took Cara a lot of flight time in helicopters and planes to get any good in either. It'd seemed like kind of a waste of time back when he'd been doing it, mostly in Kentucky, but it was worth it now. He knew what he was doing. He was a relatively good, safe pilot. And a considerate one—he didn't let Olivia minigun anyone. She got a funny look in her eye when she saw some of the bighorner pens in Goodsprings.
As it got closer to the ground, the Black Hawk began kicking up more and more dirt and dust, little cyclones of it in oddly orderly waves and pulses. The clouds of sand and detritus didn't appear to make it into Goodsprings, except for some that landed on one house and a trailer by it and some fencing.
The noise and sight of the big flying machine made it to the town before the helicopter did. They would've heard it coming. Cara flew relatively high but fast, and the mountains around the area tended to hold sound in, tunneling it. They wouldn't have seen it until it was close, though.
By the time Cara began to land he'd gathered a crowd, which he hadn't expected but shouldn't have been surprised by. Showy technology tended to draw people's attention, and Cara's Black Hawk wasn't just a little weapon or armor or something, it could fucking fly. He was proud of it but didn't like the attention it called to him at all. Back east he'd already been famous, and now he was famous in the west too. Fame was just attention, in the public eye, and he mostly didn't like attention; it made him a target, along with a very few positives, like sometimes people vying for his attention or giving him things.
The only people who were really cool with his fame were about the most anti-social faction he'd ever encountered, the Boomers of Nellis Air Force Base, formerly of Vault 34. Cara was very close with the Boomers. He was in the process of re-equipping them and strengthening their perimeter security, and he still flew with them a lot, mostly training, practice and instructional stuff. In the last few months they'd also started together a drone—unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—program which was very useful in addition to being an awful lot of fun.
It appeared that everyone in Goodsprings had turned out—all ten of them—plus a few merchants on their way through; Cara had seen a pack brahmin and a shopping cart in town. He hoped the crowd he'd inspired wouldn't get any closer before he powered down or the flying sand would irritate their eyes, or maybe the rotor wash would knock them over, or rip their clothes off. Well, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Sometimes under a flying helicopter it could get difficult to breathe, or stand, or keep loose clothes on, and that was if nothing got blown into you. He worried about bags of plants and Sunset Sarsaparilla boxes. He didn't see anybody get hit with anything or fall over, though. Just people standing around shading and clearing out their eyes.
Cara was tall, around 6′6″, and the UH-60M's bubble cockpit was a little tight and awkward for him; practical space constraints. When he piloted things he was frequently reminded that apparently before the Great War it was best for a pilot to be short, or at least not tall, for example less than 6′, and less than 5′8″ even better, especially for fighter pilots because of G-forces and the physics of speed, acceleration, bodily fluids and gravity.
He went through his checklist and powered down the helicopter, taking his time. It was best not to rush. Olivia opened one of the side doors and everybody piled out. Checklist done, Cara took off his flight helmet. Olivia, he noticed, had stored her big Hécate 2 under his SRS on a locking metal rack he'd installed on the back wall of the passenger-or-cargo compartment. His HK417 was also in it. There were small rack seats against the front and back walls facing inward.
The various Goodsprings personalities started clapping and cheering as Olivia and company started getting out. After them, Cara got out of his pilot's door at the front of the Black Hawk. Olivia was directing people to him. They gathered around him.
"What the hell is that thing?" one asked.
"Holy crap, Cara!" Doc Mitchell said, in a congratulatory tone. Cara was pretty sure he meant the helicopter.
"Wow," Easy Pete said.
As everybody else bothered him with too many questions to answer or hear clearly, Cara saw a young good-looking guy in a caravaneer outfit, a brown and yellow flannel shirt and denim suspender pants, whom he didn't recognize, but before Cara could talk to him to see who he was the guy wandered off and Cara didn't see where he went.
People went on talking to Cara excitedly for a while.
In the meantime, Olivia walked away to talk to Sunny Smiles, who was too taken aback by how attractive Cara was even in armor to try speaking to him, as she immediately told Olivia. "You've told me about him, but you never mentioned a helicopter," she also said; she'd read about them but never seen pictures or evidence of them.
Olivia had her followers stay with Cara for the time being. Rex looked very conflicted about whom to go with; Olivia beckoned for him to come with her, Sunny and Cheyenne, Sunny's dog companion, an excited perky German Shepherd.
After the rest of the town's population cleared out and went back to raking dirt, the Prospector Saloon's owner and the town's unofficial mayor, Trudy, came up to Cara and started talking as if he was looking at her or already knew she wanted to talk to him. He still heard her, though, and shortly looked to her, and paid attention to something other than Olivia's ass, which he couldn't really see under her bulky IOTV anyway. "Look," Trudy said, "I know we don't know each other real well, but I know Olivia and what she thinks of you, and you have a good reputation. I think we need your help."
"'We' like Goodsprings?" Cara said.
"Yeah," Trudy said, and told him: Their little town had become involved with something bad to do with the Powder Gangers, on account of a sorta flinty guy named Ringo who'd come to town, and recently some of the convicts at large had come looking for Ringo.
The Powder Gangers were these loosely affiliated convicts from the NCR—glorified raiders, highwaymen, bandits—brought to Nevada and given explosives to clear and rebuild railroads to connect the Mojave with the rest of the NCR, like its self-named capital city formerly called Shady Sands, and the Boneyard, formerly called Los Angeles, California, the City of Lost Angels. The convicts hadn't been treated well. They'd revolted and overtaken their prison, called the NCR Correctional Facility, which had been the Southern Nevada Correctional Center before the war, using explosives and killing all their guards. Now they harassed and robbed and raped and killed travelers on I-15, often called the Long 15, raiding caravans as well as unaffiliated people, or NCR or Caesar's Legion soldiers alike.
More recently one of them who said he had more men with him had come back to Goodsprings, to make threats about Ringo and burning down the town, and Trudy wasn't sure what to do. She kind of hoped Ringo would sneak out of town and leave, but said that if Cara and Olivia helped the guy Goodsprings would appreciate it.
"Do you mind if I go talk to her about it?" Cara asked.
"Sure, go ahead. I'll be in the saloon if you're thirsty," Trudy said.
Cara said "Come on, guys," to his followers. "We're gonna go find Olivia."
Cara, Cass, Raúl and ED-E checked Chet's general store and Sunny's usual hangout, the saloon, but Olivia and Sunny weren't in either. They didn't see her, Sunny, Rex or Cheyenne out in Goodsprings. It would be a waste of time to check all the houses in town.
"They're prob'ly out hunting," Cara said to his followers.
"Yeah. She likes to shoot things," Raul said.
Cara and Olivia, before leaving the Lucky 38, had made sure their hand-held radios were both on the same tactical channel. They both had scanners, so they'd hear more than one channel; not that anybody else used radios, apart from the NCR and sometimes Powder Gangers, who used common unencrypted civilian channels anyway. Cara had meant to double-check with her about which channel they were on before they left the helicopter, but she'd headed out without him. Maybe she thought he liked or wanted the attention. Hopefully she hadn't changed channels.
Cara made sure his radio was on (it was) and the volume not too high or off, then used, hooked to his armored vest at the shoulder, the big black round push-to-talk (PTT) button component of his fancy throat microphone headset, a TEA Los Angeles SWAT Headset (LASH) II.
"Hey Pretty Lady, this is Dapper Gentleman. Do you hear me? Over," he said into the radio. His fancy LASH II throat mic was a black band wrapped around his neck that picked up the vibrations of his larynx directly; he didn't have to aim his mouth at a boom mic, like with the one Olivia used. His transmitted little background noise, and worked just fine in loud environments. Hers was different.
A second later he heard her say, in his little earpiece: "Hey handsome, this is Pretty Lady. I can hear you well. What's up? Over."
"Are you out varmint huntin'? Over," Cara said.
"As a matter of fact I am," Olivia came back. "I'm south of town right now. There's geckos about! Over."
"Sounds exciting, Pretty Lady," Cara said. "Over."
To Olivia, Sunny said, "Who are you talking to?" Olivia was using a headset, talking into a mic that wrapped around to her mouth, and hearing Cara in a headphone over one ear. Sunny couldn't hear him.
Olivia said to Sunny, "I'm talking to Cara." Like him, she had her headset on PTT. She pressed a little button, on a line that led from the headset through her shirtsleeve to her hand, and said to Cara, "I don't think darlin' Sunny's used a radio before, over."
Sunny grinned.
"Can you switch to voice-actuated, please? Over," Cara said.
"Sure. Over," Olivia said and switched from PTT to the voice-operated switch, abbreviated Voice Operated eXchange (VOX).
"Could you please pass Sunny the headset for a second? Over," Cara said.
Olivia did it. Sunny shifted the spider-looking thing onto her head for a second and then heard a slightly tinny, slightly distorted but fairly clear Cara's voice saying, "Hi, Sunny! This is Cara. If you wanna talk back to me just talk like normal."
"Hi, Cara!" Sunny said. "You have a cute voice."
"Thank you, Sunny," Cara said. "You have a cute voice too. Are you guys having a good time?"
"Yeah, so far!" Sunny said. "It's a little exciting."
"Cool," Cara said. "Could you hand the headset back to Olivia, please?"
"Sure," Sunny said.
A couple seconds later Olivia's voice said, "You have a cute voice, Dapper Gentleman. Over." Cara was pretty sure he heard giggling.
"Thank you," Cara said. "I heard her say that too. Over."
Olivia laughed.
"What?" Sunny asked her.
"He said 'I heard her say that too.' It was just funny," Olivia said to Sunny, then thought to switch her headset back to PTT, feeling silly that Cara had just heard her say all that. Sunny smiled at Olivia's expression. Olivia pushed her talk button and said to Cara, "So yeah, we're just huntin' varmints, over."
"There's sort of a situation here with the Powder Gangers," Cara said. "When you get back I'll brief you on it, okay? Over."
Olivia replied, "Sounds good, baby. Over."
"Did you just call me 'baby,' Pretty Lady? Over," Cara said.
"Yes I did and thank you for the compliment, over," Olivia said, chuckling.
"You're welcome. Over," Cara said, also chuckling.
"Talk to you later, baby," Olivia said. "Over and out."
Cara laughed.