Valeria stood frozen as the scream that split the air echoed from the tiled columns supporting the lofty shadowed ceiling. A sweeping staircase curved to a second floor promenade and standing halfway up the broad steps was a towering woman in a black and scarlet eventing dress. It wasn't just the woman's huge limbs displayed to full advantage by the dress, it was the face above a heavy steel collar that Valeria immediately recognized.
It was her own.
Valeria never sought out her own reflection, although she was familiar with her own appearance. The woman facing her was pale, but her eyes, wide with shock, were stark white as was her hair, styled in a pre-war high society fashion. Her scarlet lips gaped revealing sharp eye teeth, and the shaking finger she pointed at Valeria had a long talon-like nail painted the color of blood.
"Who...What are you?" The woman shrieked. "Are you a hologram? Speak!" Her voice was shrill as she continued to stare wildly at Valeria.
"I...I'm Valeria." Valeria stammered as she gripped her hammer.
"Valeria?" The woman shook her head in confusion. "I don't know that name." Then her head snapped up and her lips curled away from her fangs in a snarl.
"What are you?" She snapped. "Answer me!"
"I...don't know." Valeria replied, trying frantically to understand what she was seeing. Hearing the woman's voice snapped Valeria out of her daze, and she began to eye the strange woman warily.
"What are you doing here?" She demanded as her huge limbs tensed like a great cat waiting to pounce.
"I'm trapped here." Valeria said, suddenly wary of saying too much. Then she couldn't contain her curiosity any longer and she blurted.
"Who are you?"
The question made the woman's eyes widen with surprise and she looked away in confusion.
"Who am I?" She muttered as she seemed to forget Valeria's presence. "Who am I?" She whispered again as she pressed the palm of one of her huge hands to her forehead.
"You look like me!" She snarled as her head snapped toward Valeria. "Tell me why!"
"I...don't know." Valeria replied cautiously as she tried to read the woman's wildly shifting moods. "I've been told I look like Vera Keyes..."
"Vera Keyes!" The woman exclaimed, again looking away as she muttered to herself. "That name...I know it..." Then she began to chuckle mirthlessly as she straightened to her full height with one hand resting on her hip.
"I am Vera Keyes!" Se said as she struck a seductive pose with one hand on her hip and the other on her thigh.
"Vera Keyes died two-hundred years ago." Valeria cautiously interrupted. She was now aware the woman facing her was dangerously unstable, if not completely mad, but Valeria knew she was looking at the link to her own past, and she had to know more.
"Vera" glared loftily down at Valeria as she suddenly became strangely calm.
"I guess you could say Vera Keyes died long ago." She said with a sneer. "But then Vera Keyes was never truly alive."
"What do you mean?" Valeria asked as she stepped down into the Lobby. Vera seemed more lucid, and Valeria hoped her questions wouldn't provoke her.
"Vera Keyes was a fiction invented by Dean Domino." As she mentioned the ghoul's name, Vera's eyes began to burn with hatred as her fangs bared in a snarl.
"Then...who are you?" Valeria asked as she stopped at the base of the stairs.
"My real name was..." Vera frowned with concentration as she tried to gather her fragmented thoughts.
"Palmer..." She said uncertainly. "That was it! My name was Norma Geraldine Palmer! At least it was until Dean found me on my mother's farm outside Bemidji Minnesota."
The woman's eyes widened with excitement as memories rushed back to her, and she continued to speak, suddenly oblivious to Valeria's presence.
"Dean promised me the world." Anger again flashed in her eyes but she continued speaking. "He delivered, but like any deal with the devil I got my wish but not what I wanted. Dean showed me a world I only dreamed of, all he demanded in return was that I become an extension of him!" Vera's voice had dropped to a hiss as her eyes narrowed with rage. She was silent for a moment, almost quivering with suppressed emotion but before Valeria could say anything Vera again began to speak.
"That was when the pain began." Vera closed her eyes and slumped, held up only by her hand on the gilded bannister. "Dean finally took me to a doctor, not because he cared but because his latest scheme needed me. He lied and told me I was fine, the bastard!"
"He needed you to rob the Sierra Madre?" Valeria asked as Vera sat silent for a minute.
"No!" Vera snapped as she suddenly looked up and met Valeria's eyes. "That was...later. At first Dean wanted to steal secrets from...House."
"Dean took you to House?" Valeria remembered House's declared obsession with the long dead celebrity, but hadn't known he had actually met her.
"I was meant to be House's kept woman" Vera growled as her hand began to shake where it rested on the railing. "But he was too much of a germaphobe to do more than watch me stand before him. As soon as Dean took what he wanted, he got me away from House and introduced me to Sinclair!"
At that moment there was a loud crack from the railing and Valeria's eyes widened as she saw cracks forming in the marble under Vera's fist. Blood began to fill the cracks but Vera seemed oblivious to the pain as she continued speaking.
"The pain was getting worse, and I stopped believing Dean's lies that everything was fine. I tried to keep it from Sinclair, but he found out...he was always able to see the truth." Vera's posture softened as she spoke of Sinclair, and her crushing grip on the railing relaxed.
"Sinclair had his own physicians look at me, and told me that I was dying." Vera's eyes began to shine as tears began to form. "I already suspected as much, but Sinclair swore he'd spend his entire fortune to save me."
Vera shook her head as tears began to roll down her cheeks. "When Sinclair said he loved me, I could tell he meant it. Dean saw I was getting second thoughts. He had made tapes of our...intimate moments back when I was too naïve to see him for what he was. He was going to...give them to Sinclair if I blew my cover."
Valeria watched warily for Vera to fly into another rage, but the huge woman only looked at her bloody palm with an expression of detached sorrow.
"One day Sinclair came to me with news that an experimental treatment had arrived from his business partners at Big Mountain. Before he could bring it, someone broke into storage and stole millions in technological secrets, including my cure." Vera sighed and looked away as she dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Sinclair became obsessed with security after the break in, especially with news that the war overseas was getting worse. I knew I was going to die, and I couldn't keep lying to Sinclair." Vera began to sob, and Valeria watched with cautious sympathy.
"He...knew." Vera finally choked. "He'd known all along about Dean and I, and he didn't care."
"He must have really loved you." Valeria said quietly, hoping to keep Vera calm and still talking.
"Yes, but too late." Vera looked up at Valeria with a strange light in her eyes. "The bombs began dropping, and I collapsed. All I can remember is Sinclair carrying me to the private elevator while the other guests screamed and pleaded to be let out. After that everything went...dark."
Vera shook her head and began to growl, while Valeria moved back a step and raised her hammer.
"All I remember after that is...pain...eyes glowing in the dark...and hunger." Vera's body tensed as she snarled the last word. "Always the hunger! Then one day I...woke up surrounded by blood and bodies, looking like...this!" Vera growled as she gestured toward her huge frame.
"Apparently Sinclair gave me the serum, but it had...side effects." Vera giggled and then continued. "I found instructions for the elevator and returned to find this place dark and abandoned. I used Sinclair's vendor machines to create clothes and...waited."
"Who collared you?" Valeria asked as Vera's gaze began to wander.
"A treasure hunter!" She snarled and Valeria immediately regretted asking. "He came just like the others when the Gala opened the doors, but when I arrived to...greet him he used a light bomb on me! When I awoke he had put this on me!" Vera jabbed a finger at the heavy collar, but avoided touching it. "He made me take him to the vault, but I tricked him!" Vera laughed with savage delight before cutting off abruptly and snapping her head around to again glare at Valeria.
"I didn't tell him that my voice was needed for both trips, and now he's trapped!" Vera laughed again, before stopping and scowling furiously at the belated realization that she had revealed too much.
"How do you know he's trapped Vera?" Valeria abruptly asked as a desperate inspiration struck her.
"What do you mean?" Vera hissed as her eyes narrowed dangerously.
"He was able to capture you. How do you know he isn't using Sinclair's treasures to find a way out?"
"That's impossible!" Vera scoffed. "He'll starve if the Tunnelers don't kill him first!" But the woman's frown indicated uncertainty.
"You need to protect your home Vera." Valeria said earnestly. "I'll help you if you show me the way."
"I can't go down there." Vera snarled as she glared suspiciously at Valeria. "The walls protect me from his signal."
"Then I'll go." Valeria suggested calmly. "If I succeed you'll be able to remove the collar."
"Remove the...collar." Vera hissed as she ran a claw-like nail along the dull steel. "How do I know you aren't lying?" She snapped.
"You have my word." Valeria said as she shifted her hold on her hammer. "I will do everything I can to free you, I swear."
Vera stared into Valeria's eyes for a long moment, then with an enigmatic smile dropped her gaze to the Super Sledge.
"Follow me." She said as she stood to her full height and turned with a swirl of her black skirt.
Vera's high-heeled shoes echoed in the empty lobby as she led Valeria up the stairs and to an elevator at the back of a dimly lit landing with the gilded words "Executive Suites" set above it. Now that they were both on level ground, Valeria realized that Vera was at least as tall as she was, her height exaggerated by the high-heeled shoes she was wearing. Valeria was never in a position to watch herself move, so she watched with fascination the catlike grace and power of Vera as she strode before her.
She had no idea if the mutant was truly Vera Keyes, but her mind was still reeling at the implications of what she had learned. Sinclair had created a serum, possibly derived from FEV to cure Vera and instead may have turned her into a strain of Supermutant. Was that the connection between her mother and the Sierra Madre? Had Catherine found the lost serum? Vera led Valeria into the mahogany lined interior of the elevator and stood watching her with an increasingly unsettling smile. As the elevator sped to the top floors, Vera shifted from foot to foot, absently running a hand along her bare thigh as she slowly licked her crimson lips.
"Why did you come to the Sierra Madre?" She purred.
Valeria started at the question. She had almost forgotten Vera's earlier question and assumed the unstable woman had forgotten as well.
"I was looking for a friend." Valeria said as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open revealing a dimly lit hallway decorated in crimson and gold.
"Of course." Vera said with a smile and the strange light again in her eyes. "This way."
Vera strode languidly down the hallway, stepping over what human bones without even looking down. Valeria's unease was getting stronger. Vera was too erratic for Valeria to read her moods, but her eerie calm was unsettling. Valeria was getting the strongest feeling that the strange woman had made up her mind, and was now acting on the impulse.
Vera led Valeria down the dark hall, revealing rooms to either side with shattered furniture and ever-present skeletons sprawled in the debris. Valeria recalled Dean's comments about how no one who entered the Sierra Madre came out after the bombs dropped. As they walked further, Valeria also began to smell of gas mixed with the tang of sulfur as well as hear an odd hissing and muttering sound. Vera glanced back over her shoulder and saw Valeria's furtive looks as she tried to find the source of the sound.
"It's one of the radios used by Sinclair to entertain the guests." Vera explained with a distant look as she turned away. "They were all linked to the casino and most are still working. Sometimes I hear my songs play on them and it helps me...forget."
Vera stopped in front of a pair of double doors opening upon an opulent dining room and froze as her face suddenly twisted into a snarl of rage and confusion.
"The doors are open!" Her fingers hooked like claws as she peered into the dimly lit shadows. "That's impossible! Nobody has been up here but me!"
Valeria said nothing, but felt a surge of hope. Was it possible that someone else had managed to get inside? Could Dean have found a way in that Vera was ignorant of? If he did, then it was possible Veronica was with him.
Vera had stepped into the room, sniffing the air and snarling. Suddenly she straightened and turned to Valeria with a glittering smile that exposed her sharp teeth and a cold appraising look in her white eyes.
"It's nothing." She finally declared as she swept a massive arm toward a door behind the wet bar. "That is where the lift is! Just say 'begin again, let go' into the speaker. Let's see if you sound as much like me as you look!"
Valeria walked warily toward the doorway as Vera watched with a radiant smile. The gold paneled hallway beyond was narrow and Valeria realized it would be too confined for her to wield her hammer. With a glance back at the still smiling Vera, she slung it on her back and approached the elevator. She leaned toward the speaker and after a moment's hesitation spoke the phrase. The elevator remained silent as Valeria straightened and Vera began to laugh with mirthless delight.
Then the elevator began to hum and Vera's mouth opened in shock.
"No!" She shrieked and launched herself at Valeria. Startled by Vera's speed and ferocity, Valeria barely managed to raise her forearms before Vera seized her wrists and flung her away from the doors with a savage wrench. Valeria sprawled on the carpet, then rolled to the side as Vera stamped for her face driving her heel into the floor. Wild eyed, Vera wrenched her foot free, as Valeria leaped to her feet. Before she could reach her hammer, Vera slammed into her, hurling them both into the dining table. The heavy oak shattered from the impact as Valeria and Vera smashed through and crashed into the floors. Vera's nails scored Valeria's bracers as she blocked the woman's frenzied attacks and drove her heel into Vera's with all her strength. Vera flew through the air and crashed into the bar in a shower of shattered glass.
Valeria tried to stand when Vera, bleeding from dozens of cuts and eyes blazing with madness again hurled herself across the room. The two women hurtled through the open doors smashing through the opposite wall in an explosion of wood and plaster. Gas suddenly billowed about them in a choking cloud as Vera tried to sink her nails into Valeria's throat. Only her armored collar saved her as Valeria seized the crazed woman's wrists then with a shriek of effort slammed both her booted heels into Vera's body. The impact flung Vera across the kitchen revealed by their struggle. Vera slammed into a table, shattering plates and an antique-styled radio with a burst of sparks and smoke. Valeria's eyes went wide with horrified realization and she turned to leap just as the gas ignited with a deafening roar.