Chapter 13: Just Business

I sat in my chair overlooking the New Vegas strip from the lucky 38 and played my next chess-piece against House's queen. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold. After we suppressed the NCR and the Legion effectively in the surrounding area, we were able to expand the walls well beyond their limits in 2281. Personally I think House realizes it was a smart move to reopen the Lucky 38. We managed to build a whole new series of Casinos with the extra profit, effectively turning Freeside into a new part of the inner New Vegas strip. We destroyed the Powder Gangers and Fiends' headquarters and power within the area, and the rest fell into place. Of course, when the NCR and Legion shipped out, I left spies among their ranks in order to keep an eye out for the future. Sure enough, 16 years later, they came to be invaluable.

I saw a Securitron run up to me, similar to a human's way of walking. I knew instantly that it was Victor, the robot that had saved my life more times than one. He dug me out of my grave, and here he was; about to give me the most vital piece of information to the safety of Vegas, probably since Hoover Dam. "Uh partner, I think we have a big situation on our hands."

I chuckled at the over-dramatic robot. Then I realized, Victor is always in a cheery mood, not one of fear. I spoke to him fearful for the news, "What is the BIG situation?" I chuckled and kept cool, until he told us what was being plotted outside our borders.

"The NCR and Legion have put their differences behind them. They are both planning to reenter the Mojave and reclaim Vegas and the Hoover Dam. The Legion has become desperate for power and resources, and the NCR needs safe passage to the east to go on an Enclave goose hunt. From what our informants information are saying, seems they've reemerged out east, and it looks like they came out running. DC is completely under their control and they've begun to expand west. The legion, on the other hand, was moving east and didn't realize they were stepping into a firefight they couldn't win. Enclave decimated 2 or 3 entire tribes that belong to Caesar already. We need to prepare for a rather big war, because from the sounds of things from our informants, they're willing to burn everything in the Mojave Wasteland to the ground if that's what it takes."

House's screen came online, with the same face he always had, one of content. "Well then, while you both are used to conflict not being in my nature. Here's what I think; give them what they came for. I had a courier deliver a new piece of technology all the way from the commonwealth which will prove useful in keeping me alive after the dust settles. The Securitrons are more than capable of holding off the NCR and Legion by themselves, but however, together we can't beat them. We need to lure them into the a controlled environment where we can destroy compromise their chain of command. If the two enemies are working together, that means they're weak. Which means they'll be open to compromise. Or rather, staged compromise. We lure them in and we, and I mean you, 'deal with them'"

"You want me to kill Kimball AND Caesar? Then what? Are we supposed to have a dramatic last stand here in the casino? In case you are forgetting, you happen to be attached to the mainframe of the entire casino! This place goes down, you go down, all our plans for this city, gone."

"You think I'm that naive? I have been expecting for this day since the day we turned those black rangers and general Oliver into 5 piles of ash. The day you went out to the Dam, I sent a message to the commonwealth for a piece of equipment I needed for when this happened. It finally came in a few days ago."

"You mind telling me what this piece of gear is?"

"A body."

I was confused, even for what House normally has planned, I was outright stumped. "A...body? What did you need a corpse for? I could have gotten you one myself a lot quicker, you know."

"Not exactly a corpse. The commonwealth deals in technology. It is also the only place in the united states to have be able to build androids. Can you do the math from here?"

"You... you're going to be human again?"

"I have always been HUMAN, but for the past 2 centuries I have been unable to be like a human. With the android body from the commonwealth and my own medical capabilities, I will be able to make a never failing human body, instead of the shriveling prune I have now. I miscalculated how long my own body would last, by several hundred years. It will be so good to live again, but be aware, I'll be severely limited, I haven't used any mind power towards using a limb in 2 centuries. And as for our dramatic last stand, you won't have to kill them. I built a fail-safe inside the lucky 38 as...insurance if I was about to be destroyed. You always thought that when I contacted you, I was trusting you to make the proper decision, that I was RELYING on your free will. Not hardly. If you had gone with the NCR, Benny, or even Caesar and they ordered you to destroy me; you would not have survived the aftermath of such a grave decision. If the securitrons failed to kill you, the second Victor's AI went offline, the fail-safe would have initiated without a doubt killing you and eradicating the entire strip's population quite possibly."

"You mind telling me what this fail-proof fail-safe is?"

" I think it will be the first time you ever got to see this particular weapon go off, if that tells you anything. And if that fails, which it won't, who remain won't make it out of the gates. My...our army will see to that. But other than that...I think you would want it to be a surprise. And don't worry, there will not be any excess casualties, I have given the Omertas, the Chairmen, and the White Glove Society orders to turn any and all patrons away at the door and to evacuate the strip within 48 hours. Marjorie, Swank, and Cachino, were evacuated 20 minutes after the reports were received by Victor's AI. Even if the rest of them fail to survive, those who ran the joints will be safe from the aftermath. Lastly, the Securitrons are ordered to seal the gates and destroy the monorail, everyone thinks New Vegas is just being renovated, and after the battle for New Vegas, with any luck, both the NCR and Legion will be under our flag, and as such, finally concede this age old slugging match."

"What about then? How are we supposed to get out? What about the surrounding area? Freeside? The old Mormon fort? The Gun Runners? What about them Robert?"

"Hah. You really haven't been paying much attention to the securitrons activities lately, have you? The boys have been reinforcing the walls between the strip and the rest of the Mojave. They are now completely indestructible. Like I said, I knew this has been looming on the horizon for years, it was just a matter of when. And as for you and I, we shall be making our escape on a vertibird my securitrons salvaged from down south of Nipton."

I cringed at the use of the name of that town. To this day I remember walking through that town to find Benny, I was looking for assistance when I came upon a burned out town, corpses hung up on crosses and Caesar's legion troops stringing up more of them. At the center of town, a man wearing a wolf skin approached me, told me to go to the Mojave outpost and tell a trooper that the town was destroyed. I nodded absentmindedly as if someone had taken my soul from me and strung it up on one of those damn crosses. After that, I went to the outpost and drank every last drop of their liquor and my liquor too. Eventually, I made pals with this merchant, and trust me, she was a nice lady, right up until one of my business associates killed her with a laser rifle. That was my first dealing with a policy that my allies not only needed from me, but they demanded it. House calls it the just business policy. Hell, that would be the one thing he would say to Caesar and Kimball if he had to kill them. It's just business. He tried to break my emotional ties to my work, but never could. If anything I broke him. We spent 2 months going back and forth over whether the Brotherhood should be destroyed or not, and I finally won with the argument that power armored mechanics fighting alongside an army of robots was a good idea. Same thing with the Lucky 38, dealing with the Khans, and allowing the Van Graffs to set up shop in a new building a reopen the Silver Rush. Over time, the old man has learned to respect the way I get things done, while it often defy orders, it gets the more valuable results than simply blowing shit up.

"Well House, I guess you're going to be needing me to tie up some loose ends?"

He laughed at me and said, "You know me all too well...the NCR recently started sending black rangers disguised as citizens to the strip to note new defensive tactics and to make more than a few infiltration attempts. We at the moment have over twenty rangers in the basement who are unconscious. Since they are about to breach the Mojave any day now, the most tactical approach is to tear them apart at the seams. Kill and string up the rangers on crosses like the Legion, that will make them question Caesar's loyalty. Once they're on edge, send them both up to the penthouse. I'll threaten them that if Caesar goes downstairs and says he killed Kimball, the Legion can walk away with the Dam. He's a simple man and will turn on Kimball. The legion will slaughter the NCR troops, and then the securitrons clean up the rest of both sides."

I sighed and stated, "Not your best plan, you need to scare them into the strip. Make them think that if they don't move in there is something far worse waiting for them. Keep the rangers alive, but keep them on the crosses in pain. Hang up some dead fiends too. I will personally impersonate one if the rangers. Claim they were ambushed, they never stood a chance. After Caesar and Kimball ran, I took over the strip, killed you, and now the entire place is under my control. All areas have been abandoned for years. I abandoned the dam, and that I have just used the Strip as my own personal safe house and the securitrons as my own personal army for years. Claim I lost my mind, rigged the entire Mojave to go up in flames if they don't move to take the strip now and stop me. Once inside the strip have a surprise explosion at the monorail, and afterwards have the gate collapse behind them. Have the intercom on with me talking telling them to enter the Lucky 38 or die. You activate the fail-safe, we escape. They are corpses in the dust. "

"That's why you're second in command. Your ideas are very clever. But I need you to leave the penthouse for a few hours while I have the place decontaminated and prepared so I can finally be put back into a real human body."

"Why can't I be cleaned with the rest of the place?"

"You were born in the wasteland, as such, you are biologically unclean. I could soak you in every chemical ever made and it wouldn't change the fact. And if I am exposed to even one microbial of bacteria, I might have a year at most."

"Fine fine, I'll go and traverse the strip for a while. There's got to be something someone needs done before we fully close up shop." I walked out of the room and iron doors sealed the entry points into the room. I hopped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the casino floor. I had been worried that House was keeping something from me considering he closed us to the public awhile ago. I stood in the elevator for a minute and then it stalled. It opened at the presidential suite. I stepped out and went to my fridge when saw a shimmer of light. Over the years I mastered the ability to sense when there was a stealth boy user was in my presence. I pretended not to notice at first and continued rifling through my fridge, grabbing some psycho, slasher, and most of all; turbo in case things got out of hand. While in the fridge, I grabbed my favorite pair of spiked knuckles from behind a Nuka Cola. I walked out back to the elevator doors a banged on the switch a little. I saw the person sneaking closer, and I banged on it a few more times. I said "stupid damn elevator." I slipped on if the knuckles on backwards, and prepared to make a swing for the switch. At that precise second I spun around, did a sweeping kick and slammed my palm right into his chest. He flew back into the wall and I felt rather proud that after more than 15 years, I still knew how to preform the ranger take-down perfectly. I pulled out my weathered .357 Magnum and walked over to the unconscious assassin as his stealth boy, damaged, shorted out. I was slightly shocked as to who it was. My old assistant, Dr. Arcade Gannon was lying in my hallway having tried to assassinate me. He wore an armor I recognized well, considering I made it and he stole it when he left. It was a custom made NCR ranger adaptation. I used a few plates from the Legate's armor, pulled some T-45d shoulder pieces on it, and made a new overcoat from destroyed and defiled NCR and Legion's flags. But the thing Gannon left over was I had it modified into the power armor class with Enclave Remnants armor that I tricked him into giving me. I titled it the Centurion Ranger uniform. I remember giving away the original helmet and another ranger armor to the kid of the man who bought Boone off of me along with Euclid's C-finder. The look on his face was priceless; it was a combination of 'holy shit how did you find me?' 'I don't want to know how many people you murdered for that armor do I?' I spent 5 years on that base, knowing that kid would be something special. Gannon groaned in pain, disrupting my thoughts. I remembered what I was doing, grabbed a crowbar from my workbench and pried the elevator doors open. He was still reclaiming consciousness so I picked him up, stabbed him with a empty syringe, and dangled him over the endless shaft now that I had his full attention.

"You mind telling me what you're doing back in my casino you miserable, spineless, enclave twit!" I barked at him like I was still his boss.

He laughed and spat in my face, "Your preparations for the upcoming final stand are pointless, you know. You are outnumbered at least a 1000 to one."

"Are you forgetting who you used to work for? Well maybe you need a reminder..." I got my best leverage and I tossed him up the shaft, grabbing him before he plummeted to his imminent death. "Next time. You'll just fall, and it won't be pretty when I send the elevator to turn you into a pancake. Now tell me what you know."

He shocked me with an unexpected statement that I respect him for. "Go to hell. I'll gladly die to see you and that robotic master of yours burn with your city. Your 'preparations' for this attack are too little, too late. You don't have weeks, you maybe have hours! Whatever your boss has planned to get you out of here isn't going to work. Your bluffs will arrive too late. Don't you get it? They're fully ready to take you on. They have enough pulse weaponry to completely disable the entire network and strip. In fact, by now, you've probably already lost Hoover Dam and House's standard feeds he gets from there are probably still being perpetuated."

I looked at him smug, while in truth I was terrified. But I knew that was all the information I was going to get out of him. "Tell you what, I'll send the elevator down for you." I loosened my grip on him, but not enough for him to drop. And then he said

"So I'm about to go the way of the Legate...hah. I always imagined dying of old age, a commander in the enclave with children." With that, I tightened my grip again and pulled him inside. I disarmed him and ran into my room grabbing a dusty sack with something I found long ago. I tossed it at him and told him to get out of my casino. He looked shocked but left gratefully, afterwards I headed up to the penthouse, to find the iron doors wide open and the main computer in House's main room deactivated. Instead, I find a chair with a man sitting front of it, sipping whiskey as if it were preserved along with him. He bared a amazing likeness to his picture on the computer. He stood up when he saw me, and walked to me as if he hadn't been stuck in a shell for 200+ years.

"Kid you're looking at me like you just witnessed Jesus rise out of the grave as a blind man. It's just a cybernetic body. Apparently carved out of an android named A3-22. Took the guy twenty years to rebuild it, on account of A3-21, my expected body, grew a conscience and ran."

"Boss we need to get the troops armed NOW." was all I could blurt out to warn him of the impending attack.

"Has something come up? What happened?" A look of fear splashed across his face and it was almost alien to me.

"Gannon tried to assassinate me. Told me we might have hours and that's it. Not weeks. Not days. They already have the dam, they've just been continuing broadcast relays to delay your reaction time."

"Damn. Arm the troops. Oh and during the operation I was still able to access data. Couldn't use anything but, that guy Boone looked into. That guy is in some serious shit. There are names on that guys allies, that I used to know back when I was still able to breathe on my own. Once we get out of her and settle our own issues here, we need to head east and give your friends some support. One of those guys is more clinically insane than any of the fiends around here and has the power to back up that insanity. Damn nutcase basically birthed the FEV virus himself while in search for immortality. And clearly he found it." He walked to the window, silhouetted by the setting sun. Victor rolled up to him in his normal voice.

"Orders, pal?"

"Arm the securitrons and prepare the vertibird. Order all securitrons to move into the strip, and to guard the lucky 38. No prisoners, I don't care who it is. Caesar, Kimball, Oliver, I don't care if the damn Legate himself comes back from the grave. They are ordered to shoot anything approaching the strip. Safety protocols disengaged."