Note: Bonnie's a cad. What a bitch. Enjoy the end here...
"Victor," Bonnie said, pulling on a boot. "Can you lock up the Lucky 38 for me?"
"Sure can, pardner!" he replied, wheeling to the elevator at the casino floor. "Are ya'll planning a long trip?"
"Uhhh," she pulled her hair out of her collar. "I am leaving for a few days. I want you to lock Boone in the suite. There's food and water up there."
Victor was silent. "Victor?"
The regular securitron voice came over his cowboy accent. "In the event of aggressive action against securitrons, lethal force is authorized."
She paused, mulling it over. "So, if he attacks you, you can and will shoot?"
"Yep." Victor's voice came back.
She nodded. "Okay, give me a minute." She left his rifle laying on the floor of the elevator, where he'd left it when he stumbled back to the suite. For a moment, she felt a pang of regret, but pushed through it. She gathered up some odds and ends, then shouldered her haversack and met Victor at the elevator doors.
"Can you record a message for me?" she asked him. "Play it for Boone when he tries to leave."
"Ready when you are, pardner."
She took a deep breath, exhaled, and began. "Craig, I have to go. I don't want to leave you, but this is my job. It's not fair to you if I drag you along, and we'll only get into trouble. When I come back, we'll kill all the Legionaries you want, I promise." She paused and sighed. "I care about you, you know? I know you care about me. But I'm doing this for the good of both of us. I am going to the Fort. If you are inclined to follow me, please don't. I'll meet you at the dinosaur in Novac when Victor opens the door in two days. Don't fight the securitrons; they are allowed to use deadly force." She paused. "I... I'm sorry."
I hope he doesn't get his ass killed. She left Victor with instructions to reopen the door for him to leave after two days. Then, moving fast and with a purpose, she sped over the road toward Novac.
By the time she reached 188, the sun was rising above the horizon. She didn't have time to stop, and kept on until she could see the dinosaur. She went right up to Dinky's mouth and sought out Manny Vargas. "Boone might be coming through here in a few days. Can you try to keep him here?"
"What did you do?" Manny gave her a look of reproach.
"Nothing!" she said, flustered. "I'm heading south and I don't want him catching up with me. I'll be back in a day or two, I just want him to be here when I get back."
He shrugged, then, and said he would do his best. She continued on to the Cove, sneaking around Searchlight and the feral ghouls roaming the area. She plodded down the road toward the river until a Legionary ran to meet her.
"Halt, traveler!" he called. She held the Mark of Caesar up. "You must be the one that Cursor Lucullus is waiting for," he said, and directed her to the river. As he walked away, she removed the bit of armor around her stomach, displaying the branded bull.
Let's do this.
She rode up to the Fort, a boring trip of a few hours. At the hill, she strode into the camp, ignoring all the Legionaries, and went right to Caesar's tent.
"So I finally get to meet the courier who's accomplished so much in so little time. That is why I summoned you here, right?" He moved in his throne. "I mean, a man nearly kills you, and your response is to track him across the breadth of the Mojave?"
"What do you want?" she asked, carefully neutral.
He sized her up. "The question is... are you ready to get started?"
"I'm not sure what you mean," she said.
"Down the hill, at the west edge of camp, is an old building. It was here when the Fort was taken in 2277. Inside the building is a hatch, and inside that hatch are two steel doors that bear the sigil of the Lucky 38 casino." He smiled, and she could almost see the gears in his head turning. "Now that same sigil is on the Platinum Chip Benny was carrying when we captured him. Isn't that interesting?"
"Yes," she said, and it really was.
"Even more interesting, there's a slot about the same size as the Chip on the console that opens the hatch. So you know what I think? I think the Platinum Chip opens those doors―doors that can't be pried open or drilled open or blasted open. Because all that, I tried."
"What do you want me to do?" she asked, keeping the exasperation out of her voice.
"I want you to destroy that bunker and everything in it." He twirled a hand in the air. "Until then, we have nothing to talk about."
On her way out, she saw Benny, tied up and on his knees. She ignored him, for now. The guard at the weather station gave her back the chip, and she went to check out the bunker.
When she walked through the doors, a monitor with House's face on it came into her sight. He explained to her the reason for the bunker. A veritable army of securitrons, all waiting to be upgraded with the information on the chip. She nodded to herself. It was worth the caps and time he'd put into retrieving it.
She turned off the security in the bunker, walked to the very end of the corridors, and placed the chip into the slot. A loud thumping began in the floor. Machinery powered up, and she felt a chill in the air. Something big was going to happen, very soon.
Bonnie returned to the monitor and received accolades from House for her steadfast dedication to her job, the future, and the benefit of all mankind. Jeez, she thought. Could he lay it on any thicker?
When she left, she went back and confronted Caesar. She didn't tell him that she'd upgraded the securitrons, he assumed she had done what he asked. He asked her to decide the fate of Benny, now that the job was done.
If she left him, and didn't decide, they would put him up on a cross. She was tired of everything, sick to her stomach of the terrible decisions she was making. She approached Benny with a half-smile, half-resigned look on her face.
"If you deserve death," she said, slowly, "and I can't say whether you do, then at least it will be quick."
He nodded, a rueful smile spreading across his face. "I shoulda known that the minute you came back from the grave."
"Close your eyes, if you want."
"Nah, I'd rather see it coming," He looked very tired. "Do it, baby. Make it clean."
I can respect that, she thought. She raised the repeater to aim. He stared, unrepentant. She exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
She pulled out the chip, looked it over, and put it away. "I hope it was worth it," she said to his corpse. "I don't think it was."
She bought a hood from the trader near the gate to the Fort, and pulled it over her head, hiding the tears that fell as she left.
The entire journey from the Lucky 38 to the Fort, and back to the dinosaur, took less than two days. She felt accomplished, if exhausted, and wasn't sure if she was ready for the fallout that would come from locking Boone into the tower.
Roll with it, she told herself.
She went into the motel and found Boone hadn't arrived yet, checked her Pip-Boy and realized he was probably on his way. She went up to her old motel room and unlocked it, throwing her haversack onto the couch.
It felt like the first time she'd come to Novac. She fell onto the bed, passing out from exhaustion. She didn't dream. There was nothing to dream about.
The peace of the afternoon didn't last. The door to the room slammed open, and she went for her pistol out of a dead sleep.
"What the FUCK," he raged, aiming down the sights of his rifle at her heart. She dropped the gun, held her hands up. The sheet fell away and the branded bull was visible on her stomach. The gun sights lowered to it.
He didn't speak. It would serve me right if he shot me, she thought. And I'd much rather be shot by someone who knows what they're doing. The hood concealed her face, and she was glad of that. She didn't know if her emotions would betray her.
"Say something!" he yelled, and moved closer, still aiming the rifle at her.
"Did you get my message?" she asked, calmly.
"You―" his hands started to shake.
"I heard what you said about the Legion." She didn't move. "But there are some things that we have to do on our own."
He threw the rifle down, then, and lunged across the bed toward her. Her hood was pulled off, thrown to the floor. She wondered if he was going to hug or hit her. He went with the former, crushing her to him in a chest-bursting embrace.
"I'm okay," she muffled out. "Please let go."
He backed off, and then retrieved his rifle, throwing it onto his back. "I ought to shoot you," he said, angrily. "Fucking locked me in that goddamn tower."
"I'm sorry for that," she said. "I can't say that strongly enough."
"Yeah, sure," he snarled.
"I got the chip back," she said, fishing it out of her pocket and tossing it onto the bed.
"And that's it?" he asked, angrily. "That's the reason you had to trick me?"
She pursed her lips and breathed out through her nose, trying to control her temper. "I tricked you because I didn't want you trying to get yourself killed." She pocketed the chip and ran a hand through her hair. "I also dealt with Benny, if you think that wasn't enough of a reason."
He said nothing. She didn't know what else to say. Minutes trickled by, the heat of the room became unbearable.
"Craig?" she finally asked.
"What."
"Right now, this... whatever's going on, can you forgive me?"
"I don't think so," he said, roughly. "If this is how you show you care, it's a surprising way of doing it."
"What would you have done?" she asked, quietly.
"You know what I am capable of," he said, his voice hushed with emotion.
She moved off the bed and went to him, touching the sleeve of his shirt. "I..."
He jerked away. "Don't touch me."
"Has all we've done together mean nothing?" she asked. "Bitter Springs, even?"
He shot her a glare. "For all I know, that was just a ploy. Better standing with the NCR. Maybe you set up that raid." He looked away. "You said yourself, you might be setting up a sneaky plan."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," she griped. "I was making a joke! And I was drinking."
"Some joke," he said.
"Look, I didn't want to run away from you," she said, "but you really didn't give me much choice to get my delivery done. I value my life." He didn't answer. "Let me find out what House wants, and then we can go forward from this."
"No guarantees," he said.
"What?"
"No guarantees." He turned to face her, his face hard. "I will not be with you." With that, he left the room.
No, no, no―
She started to cry. It's all my fault, she told herself. I am a terrible person. Everything that has happened, happened because I earned it. ...I hope I am paying his dues, she thought. I deserve it.
She laid down and cried until the tears wouldn't come anymore.
Now walk alone, play it to the bone, don't make it right.
She walked away from Novac, in a daze. The cowboy repeater went, tossed into the bushes on the side of the road. She took the tiny pistol, chucked it into the wasteland north of 188 Trading Post. She walked north with nothing but her brass knuckles and a haze in her eyes.
You had your chance, you lost your chance.
That was Vegas for you, she knew. A big fat game of chance. And the house? Hah. House always wins.
It's all about living in some other man's dream.
She dropped the knuckles to the pavement. Her haversack followed it, discarded on the road. She walked away from it, leaving behind the memories.
Nothing you could say could ever take this away, now.
She stumbled on the road, went down. She stood. The sun was high, her mouth felt dry. When had she last had water?
All that's become must unbecome.
She started walking again.
North. To New Vegas.