High was not the busiest time at the Atomic Wrangler and Beatrix tried to ease her boredom with shots of whiskey at the bar. The problem was that as a ghoul, it took a lot of alcohol to affect her bizarre metabolism. Fortunately she had an arrangement with the Garret twins who owned the Wrangler and they provided her with a discount in return for her plying her escort trade in their establishment. Beatrix knocked back another shot and waited for James Garret to fill it up again. The booze the Garret's made was potent, which Beatrix liked because her condition only allowed her to taste the strongest of flavors.
Garret poured another finger of whiskey and leaned on the counter giving Beatrix a knowing smirk. Her noseless face crinkled as her scabbed lips twisted into a smile. Garret wasn't bad-looking, and cut a nice figure in his usual tan business suit and tie. However Beatrix had a personal rule about getting involved with employers, and knew his tastes didn't run toward women without skin anyway. When she thought about what his kink really was she snorted with laughter and turned on the bar stool to face the door to the Wrangler.
Located down the street from the intersection of Freemont and Las Vegas Boulevard, the Wrangler represented the only gambling in Freeside. The slum was the only route into the Strip crammed between two walls made of abandoned boxcars, slabs of concrete, and abandoned buildings filled with rubble. Anybody wanting to find their fortune in Vegas had to come to Freeside, and the first thing they would find was the squad of hulking Securitron robots guarding the last gate. The robots challenged any who approached to submit to a credit check. Any who failed to measure up stopped there, and any who tried to make a dash for it were shot dead by the merciless robots. It always surprised Beatrix how many tried, and there was almost always a fresh corpse near the gate as a warning before the Securitrons hauled it away.
The Legion kept a garrison in the Old Mormon Fort in the suburbs outside the first wall. Their presence seemed mostly ornamental to the ghoul since they showed up to put down riots. With a steady stream of desperate migrants entering Freeside and finding themselves trapped between the walls, the slum became a pressure cooker of tensions. The Wrangler provided a safety valve of sorts, and at the corner of Fremont Street was the headquarters of the Freeside Kings. The Kings were one of the few gangs allowed to continue operating, and that was only because their relations with the NCR had been bad enough for the Legion to give them the benefit of the doubt. The King stayed in the old Impersonation School and sent his leather-jacketed soldiers into the street to keep Freeside from spiraling into chaos and bringing in the Legion. Nobody wanted that, because when the Legion arrived they restored order as quickly and brutally as possible. A lot of heads would be displayed on stakes after they were through, and the Legion was indiscriminate in who they made examples of.
Beatrix sighed as she thought of the King. He was a truly fine-looking man with an inner quality that really filled a room. Sadly he also preferred fully fleshed women, leaving Beatrix to her usual clients who had a taste for ghouls in cowboy hats and using whips. The jaded ghoul didn't mind her current line of work, it was often fun and she got to choose her own clients and kept most of her profits. At that moment the hot sun was keeping things quiet. Once it began to set and the shadows got darker, then the squatters and gamblers would begin to emerge from the ruins and shanties and head for the neon beacon of the cowboy riding an atom. Currently their only patrons were a few Kings who headed straight to the pool tables on the gambling floor in the adjacent room.
Suddenly the door opened, making Beatrix to blink in the harsh sunlight.
"Welcome to the Atomic Wrangler." She heard Garret say as she heard the door close while she blinked. "What'll you be having?"
"We're here to meet someone." Replied a pretty young woman in a hide robe with her head covered by a scarf.
"I'm Veronica and this is Valeria." Beatrix was already looking past the young woman to her companion and her decaying lips pursed as she made a low whistle. She had been around a very long time and seen a lot of strange things, but the giant woman looming over her companion had them all beat. Beatrix had never seen muscles that big on men, let alone on a woman, and her spiked armor hardly covered anything.
"I was told you were coming, but nobody's showed up looking for you yet." Garret said with only the slightest widening of his eyes showing his surprise. "Feel free to sit a spell. Perhaps I can get you something?"
The young woman smiled and turned to her companion. "What do you think Val? Feel like splurging a little?"
"We don't have much to spend Ronnie." Valeria replied with a look of concern.
"Oh come on, let's have some fun. Two whiskeys." Veronica said holding up two fingers before Garrett. He nodded and with practiced efficiency produced two shot glasses and filled them with quickly filled them with amber liquid without spilling a drop. Veronica took her glass and with a grin tossed it back. Beatrix smiled as the young woman's eyes went wide and she began to cough uncontrollably as the booze burned its way down her throat.
"Go ahead Val, it's fine." Veronica finally choked out. Looking dubiously at her companion, Valeria took the glass in her huge hand and quickly drank it. Beatrix waited for a reaction but aside from a frown of distaste, Valeria showed no discomfort.
"I'm going to check out the tables." Veronica said. "Maybe I can win us something." And with a wave to Valeria she strode to the door leading to the tables.
Valeria watched her go with some concern. Ever since their invitation to the Ultra-Luxe, Veronica had been acting almost giddy with excitement, laughing and joking almost as soon as Chauncey had left their apartment. After they had accepted his invitation, Chauncey asked if he could take a few measurements to confirm the sizing of their dining attire. Veronica almost squealed with delight at the prospect of wearing a dress, and Valeria marveled how her friend could act with such childlike enthusiasm. Chauncy was hesitant and clearly very uncomfortable when he unrolled a measuring tape and measured Valeria's hips, waist, and chest. He almost stammered when he asked to do the last measurement, clearly concerned about Valeria's response. She smiled as reassuringly as she could and stood with her arms away from her body as he took the last measurement than informed them that a contact with a one-night pass would meet them at the Atomic Wrangler in Freeside.
As soon as he left Veronica almost doubled over with laughter. When she recovered she wiped her eyes and said. "That look on his face when he wrote down your measurements was priceless. I wonder if the Ultra-Luxe is going to think he made them up?"
Valeria smiled in response and suggested they get some sleep. Veronica was up at the crack of dawn, and when she couldn't stand it any longer insisted that they head to Freeside even though it was still morning. As they traveled through the ruins, Veronica kept up an excited stream of conversation until they passed through the first gate and saw the standard of the Legion, a gold bull on a red field, flying above the walls of an ancient adobe-walled fort. Veronica immediately fell silent and urged Valeria on while Legion sentries silently watched them from the guard towers. Her spirits didn't return until they saw the neon sign of the Wrangler and she had led Valeria inside.
"My, you're a big one." Beatrix observed as she looked up into Valeria's white eyes. "My name is Beatrix. I've been around a long time, but I've never seen anyone like you."
"Have you lived in Vegas long?" Valeria asked with a look of honest curiosity. Beatrix noticed that Valeria's reaction to her appearance was neither disgust nor lust. But than she observed that with looks as bizarre as Valeria's, she probably had learned tolerance.
"I've been here long enough to know House before and after he became a face on a monitor." Beatrix saw a flash of hope in the giant woman's eyes.
"Do you remember someone named James? He was a doctor and would have been here over twenty years ago."
"You must mean 'Doc'. Sure I remember him." Beatrix replied with a nod. Valeria stared in astonishment at the ghoul. After more than a month of frustration and dead ends, to have the lead she was looking for dropped in her lap caught her completely by surprise.
"Vegas twenty years ago was nothing like it is now. Nothing but ruins and tribals fighting them. The only folk who came here were running from something or heading somewhere else. A doctor willing to put out a shingle and make house calls was really unusual."
"Did you meet him?"
"Sure, he hired me as his bodyguard." The ghoul smiled at Valeria's start of surprise. "I haven't always been doing the slap and tickle for caps hon. Why the curiosity about Doc?"
"He was my father." Valeria replied causing Beatrix's opaque eyes to widen in surprise.
"Really?"
"Yes." Valeria replied with a sigh. "I've been through a lot of…changes. Did you know anything else about him?"
"Not really." Beatrix admitted. "Doc was real nice but he didn't talk much about himself. All I knew was that he came from Arroyo."
"Did you also meet someone named Catherine?" Valeria asked hesitantly.
"Sure. Was she your mom?"
Valeria froze in surprise. "Yes she was. How did you guess?"
"It wasn't hard to see that your Dad fell for her. They headed east not long after she met Doc and I always figured they'd be a couple. You have the same hair she did."
"My mother's hair was white?"
"Not at first." Beatrix admitted. "It turned white pretty fast after she met Doc. She was on the run from the NCR, and I always assumed she was one of the Enclave remnants on the run."
"The Enclave!" Valeria exclaimed.
"She didn't talk about it, but she wanted to avoid the NCR pretty bad. Back then the NCR was hunting Enclave people, and your mom was a scientist from down South. To the best of my knowledge the only people with tech savvy down that way were Enclave."
Valeria stared at the floor bewildered by what Beatrix had said. Her father had mentioned her mother was secretive about her past. Could it be it was because of involvement with the Enclave?
"You said her hair turned white after she met Dad?" Valeria asked as she looked into the ghoul's eyes.
"Her eyes too." The ghoul admitted as she looked into Valeria's. It seemed kind of strange, but strange stuff happens all the time those days so I didn't give it much thought."
"Do you remember anything else about them?"
"Nope." The ghoul replied shaking her head. "But Doc was a real decent man at a time when I didn't run into many. I was sorry to see him go."
"Thank you Beatrix." Valeria said with a smile when Veronica's scream echoed from the next room followed by a crash. Before anyone could react Valeria leaped across the room and through the door to the casino. Two dark-haired men with leather jackets inscribed with the words "Freeside Kings" had Veronica backed against a blackjack table. A third King was getting up off the floor and rubbing his jaw while the dealer was running for cover.
"Hey, he just said you must have pretty hair little lady." One of the Kings snapped as he grabbed for Veronica's hood.
With a shriek Veronica smashed his forearm aside with hers, then drove the palm of her hand into his sternum. The King fell sprawling to the floor as his companion seized Veronica from behind and lifted her kicking into the air. The first King she had struck got to his feet and was wiping blood from his mouth when a huge hand seized his shoulder and flung him over a poker into the wall. The King holding Veronica released her with a curse when she smashed his nose with the back of her head. As soon as her feet hit the floor she whirled and with a cry punched him in the stomach.
As the King dropped, the last one got to his feet and looked up at Valeria's snarling face. Egged on by sheer bravado he drove a fist into the mutant's stomach and another into her jaw in a vicious one-two combination. Valeria didn't even flinch as the young man cried out with pain and fell to the floor clutching his hand.
"What th' hell's going on in here!" A voice boomed from the doorway. The Kings froze and Valeria and Veronica whirled to face the speaker. A tall man with slicked back hair and sideburns and wearing a white jacket was glaring furiously from the doorway with his arms crossed.
"We were just having some fun King." The man Valeria had thrown said quickly as he painfully pulled himself to his feet. "Then the girl went crazy on us."
"Is that true?" The King drawled as he glared at Veronica as she stepped next to Valeria and pushed her hair back under her hood.
"I told them I wasn't interested." Veronica growled. "Then that one tried to yank my hood off." The King glared at the young man who glared back defiantly. It was then that Valeria noticed there were leather armored enforcers also standing in the room.
"You damn fool!" The King snapped. "Are you tryin' to bring the Legion down here! When a lady says no, its no! Now get you and your friends out of here! I'll deal with you later!"
All signs of defiance gone, the three men staggered through the door and with glares at Veronica and Valeria the Wrangler enforcers also returned to their posts. The King then approached Veronica.
"Sorry little lady. Some of the King's teachings make more sense to youngsters than others."
"It's okay." Veronica replied as she glared at the floor trying to calm down.
"You must be that Thorn fighter Valeria." The King said turning to Valeria. "Much obliged that you didn't kill those boys. When I was told you were passing by, I had to come see what all the fuss was about. I caught the tail end and it looks like some of the rumors are true." The King looked intently at Valeria's face, noting there was barely a bruise where she had been hit.
"Now I don't need trouble with the Legion right now." The King said as he folded his arms. "I'm considering this matter closed if you're willin' to let bygones be bygones."
"We are sir." Valeria replied as Veronica glared at her.
"Fine than." The King said with a nod and a half-smile. "I'll make sure my boys get the word and treat you right as long as you keep the peace. 'Till we meet again, adios." The King turned and without a backward look strode out of the casino.
"Are you okay Ronnie?" Valeria asked turning to her friend in concern.
"I'm fine." Veronica snapped. "Let's find a table in a dark corner somewhere and wait for that damn contact to arrive."