After my interview with Boxcars I needed to turn what I'd learned over in my head for a while. I improvised a stool out of two cinder blocks and a piece of wood and took a quick slug from the flask of whiskey in one of my jacket's inner pockets.

Soulless thug or not, Boxcars was a witness (after a fashion) to this Courier asshole really being the one man army some people had been playing him up to be. As I thought of it, my mind turned to the stories I'd heard about Lanius. If some of those were even half true he was a beast of a man. Someone so hard and brutal that he was either a throwback to the primal days of man or the vanguard of some new breed of human who could actually thrive in the fallout-ridden shithole the rest of us stupid apes had turned the world into.

I lit up another cigarette and my mind drifted back to a conversation I'd had three years ago in a San Francisco bar with an old Shi bartender. The subject of religion came up somehow. I'm a devote blasphemer and the bartender said he was a follower of some religion I'd never heard of before called Taoism.

I was too hammered to recall many of the details of what he believed. But during the conversation he showed me a pendant he was wearing under his shirt. It was circular and had a black side with a white dot on it and a white side with the black dot on it. But rather than being divided cleanly in half, the two sides seemed to be circling each other in a way that vaguely remind me of the astrological symbol for Pisces.

Ah, the crazy shit you learn just by living in San Francisco.

The bartender told me that the symbol was called a yin yang and that rather than good and evil the white and the black symbolized two complimentary forces that give rise to each other and cannot exist without the other. There was some stuff in there about balance, harmony, peace and all that other typical religion crap. But by that point I was too busy literally seeing miniature pink elephants dancing, shitting and fucking all along the bar to pay any real heed

Two complimentary forces…there was something there. The Taoists don't see their yin and yang as being forces trying to destroy each other. Just a duality. However, with Caesar and this Courier guy we also had a duality. For there to be balance someone would have to rise that could be a balance to Caesar. And when the Courier killed Caesar Lanius took his place.

God only knows what happened between them during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, but Lanius backed down and retreated east. A great and final reckoning put aside for another day.

So now we had balance of a sort. But only of a sort. The Legion and NCR both have a champion other people can hardly believe could even exist. Of course, this can't go on forever. The Bull and the Bear cannot abide the existence of the other. They will battle until one or both of them are dead. For now the Bear grows its strength while bull licks its wounds.

Jesus fuckin' Christ! Where has my mind been going! Chinese religion, astrology and animals fighting each other. Were the drugs rallying again? Or was this just nonsense cooked by my frustrated mind? I took a heavy drag off my cigarette that burned it to the filter. I flicked the butt away, stood and spat. It was time to get back to real journalism.

I recalled what Holmberg had said about some of the locals fighting back against the Legion and him telling me to ask about "Mr. Essence's House." That seemed as good a lead as any at the moment. I quickly flagged down a trooper who pointed out the house in question with a little smile on his face. I was starting to honestly get curious as to what the deal was with the place. But my journalistic instincts told me it would be better if I went into whatever weirdness was waiting for me blind.

I strolled over to the house in question and was pleased to find the door unlocked. I boldly stepped inside and gave the room a scan. The large metal cage on the living room floor immediately drew my attention. I had the feeling that Holmberg had be right in pointing me in this direction. I hate it when the fuckers of the world turn out to be right.

Glancing around some more I saw some tell-tale stains of what had to be blood on the floor and hell of a lot of scorches and bullet holes from guns and energy weapons all over the walls. Like the town outside, there had been one hell of a fight here.

"Tanamachi, is that you?" came a female voice from the kitchen. "Did you recharge those energy cells already?"

"Er, I'm not Tamanachi," I said as I strolled towards the kitchen. "The name's Duke. That is, R. Duke. I'm a reporter with-"

"Oh! It's you! I've heard about you! Come on back here," replied the woman. "I'm in the middle of something delicate or I'd give you a better welcome to my little workshop."

I shrugged and stepped into kitchen. Where the kitchen table would be was now a workbench with a Mr. Gutsy, its innards exposed, while a short, dark-skinned woman in NRC khakis and a stained white t-shirt tinkered within.

"Just…gimme a sec and…" The woman twisted something inside the Mr. Gutsy with a screwdriver and the machine let loose an electronic screech that made me clamp my hands over my ears.

"Shit!" cursed the woman who twisted the screwdriver again, ending the robot's wailing. "I thought I almost had that thing working again."

I couldn't think of a good response to that so I decided to get on with business. "I was told there might be something of journalistic interest here…uh, what's your name and rank, soldier?"

"Oh, sorry about that. It's too hot in this place for the full uniform sometimes," said the woman as she cleaned her hands off with a rag to shake mine. I did so and felt something oily get on my hands anyway. "It's corporal. Corporal Anita Gupta, NCR Core of Engineers. Like I said before, welcome to my little workshop.

"Cripes, where are my manners? Would you like some coffee? Let me get you some coffee. I could use some coffee."

Gupta stepped over to the nearby stove where I noticed a coffee pot was being kept warm. She poured two cups and passed me one with coffee that had to be as black as midnight at the bottom of a tar pit. Gupta downed half of hers in a gulp and grinned like cat who'd just been given a fish afterward. "Oh yeah! I knew I was starting to flatline. I'm sorry, I got distracted. What were you saying before, Mr. Duke?"

"Uh, I was told there might be able to get some information about Nipton residents who tried to fight back against the Legion. Lt. Holmberg said to ask about "Mr. Essence's House."

Gupta gave a laugh that wouldn't have been out of place coming from a Chihuahua on jet. "You've come to the right place then. I guess I should explain. According to records on a computer we found in here, the guy that owned this place before the Legion came was some kinda paranoid nutcase. He thought the other residents of the town were plotting to steal his "vital essence." I don't want to think about what that really meant but that's why we call this 'Mr. Essence's House.'

"While he might have been nuts, he was hella prepared for trouble. We found two Mr. Gutsy and the bodies of a few bark scorpions he's apparently caught and been keeping as a nasty surprise for anyone who ever broke into his. We never did find his body, but we did find the bodies of three Legionaries when we came in here."

"Couldn't the Legionaries have just been killed by whoever took out the rest of the Legion in this town?"

Gupta took a sip of her coffee. "You mean that Courier guy? I mean, that Fisher guy?"

That got my attention. "So it really was him that did all this?"

Gupta visibly winced. "Shit, I said too much. I always get nervous and say too much when I talk with strangers. Been like that since I was a kid. I should have some coffee to calm down."

She took another long drink of coffee and rather than starting physically vibrate as I'd expected she actually seemed to relax a bit. "Uh, that comment was off the record. Officially just what happened here in Nipton is still under investigation."

I grabbed the coffee pot and gave her a refill. In cafea veritas! Gupta smiled at this as I asked "And unofficially?"

"He was the one who reported the massacre to a ranger at Mojave Outpost. A scout was eventually sent out to confirm. But we had our hands full with the Legion and those bastards love to leave behind booby traps so the scout just had a quick "Yeah, everyone looks pretty dead!" glance through her binoculars and hightailed it back to the outpost."

Gupta paused for a moment to sigh and rub her forehead. "Before we came here they'd warned us that thing might be nasty. And I've heard plenty of horror stories about things the Legion does to people. But seeing it with my own eyes…god. I'm just an engineer. I fix things. I…wasn't prepared to see just how fucking evil people can be."

The suddenly wore and tired look on Gupta's face was a familiar one. I'd seen it on many of my fellow soldiers and I know that'd worn it more than once during my time as an NCR trooper.

"Man's inhumanity to man. The day that doesn't bother you any more is the day you need to stop being a soldier," I said. "I was a trooper once. I remember the time my unit found a farmhouse that raiders had hit. Father, mother, daughter of about twelve and a son who looked maybe nine. What was done to those people…it still keeps me up at nights sometimes."

Gupta seemed to appreciate the unexpected kinship and I could see her lower her guard a little further in her eyes. "Does…it ever get any easier?"

I shook my head. "Seeing shit like that? No. It marks you. Scars you for life. But the funny thing about scars is we all seem to have them and most of us learn to live with them eventually. In my case, my unit and I tracking those raiders down and killing them to a man also helped."

"I've never done more than take potshots at the Legion during the battle at the dam the other month. Even then I was shaking so bad I could barely aim my rifle," said Gupta. "After seeing what they did to Nipton I'd pay for a chance to take a shot at some Legion."

I glanced over at the workbench. "Is that where the Mr. Gutsy comes in?"

My question seemed to restore the cheer to the engineer. "Oh, you bet your ass that's what these things are for! The guy that owned this place found these babies and managed to get them working again. The other one is in the bedroom. From the blood splatter we found on that one he took out at least one Legionary."

"Mr. Gutsys are tough SOBs. What took them out?"

"We found the shells of two EMP grenades by the Mr. Gutsys. Normally those things are floating tanks. But EMP weapons are totally their kryptonite!"

"Uh, kryptonite?"

Gupta now looked full on flustered. "Yeah, I used to read a lot of comics as a kid. There was this one about an alien who had all these awesome powers and was pretty much invincible. But rocks from his home planet could…

The corporal caught herself and visibly blushed. "Uh, anyway. Robots plus EMP grenades equals fried robots. I'm hoping to get those two working again so that we can use them to help protect the town. It would free up troops for use elsewhere and lesson our need for supplies.

"Once they're up and running a Mr. Gutsy can go damn near forever without maintenance. Of course, without regular maintenance they also tend to start killing everyone and anything they come across. But you gotta admire that solid-built American craftsmanship!"

"Uh, yes. God bless America," I mumbled as I adjusted my sunglasses. The tale of Mr. Essence's house was an interesting anecdote, but there wasn't much here I could turn into a story. Gupta had said herself that she hadn't done anything more than take potshots at the Legion during the battle at the dam so she'd be of no help from that angle. I decided it was time to cut and run.

"Thanks for the chat, corporal. I'll let you get back to work."

"See you at dinner, Mr. Duke!" said Gupta with a friendly salute before she turned back to the robot on the work bench. I nodded, let myself out of the house, returned to my improvised stool, lit up another cigarette and inhaled deeply.

So what had I learned from all that? That one loon, in the right place, at the right time with the right kind of craziness could hurt even the most powerful. Shit, I live my life by that idea.

I exhaled and watched the smoke float in front of my face before rising up into the blue Nevada sky. Yes, indeed. The right kind of lunatic in the right place and time with the right kind of craziness could do all sorts of things. I truly believed that. Now the questions were where, when and who to unload my craziness on and just how far and fast would have to run to avoid the fallout when I did it.

At last the Mojave was starting to seem fun.