By the time they reached the ground, Samara had gained better control of herself. Her face was still dreadfully white, but the stricken look had fled, replaced by a chilling silence. Her lips were compressed into a thin line like the slash of a wound, and her eyes... Arcade couldn't meet them.
She jerked away from him, with enough force to make him reel. He flinched and stepped back, raising his hands, but she didn't spare him a glance. She took her LAER rifle from her back. There was a terrible purpose in her face as she checked the load and raised it to carrying position. She glanced at her PIP-Boy 3000, before striding out into the ruins around them, each step ringing like the fall of doom.
Arcade glanced up the girder one last time. He thought about just leaving. He thought about trying to fight his way back. Thought about tunnelers and Marked Men. About Samara. He looked at her retreating back. Cursed, and went after her.
[*]
They stepped off the girder into a vast, empty, open plain, bounded on one side by a toppled fragment of highway overpass, as strong and solid as any brick wall, and on the other side by more shattered buildings. Arcade realized distantly he was getting very tired of constantly being surrounded by the wreckage of massive buildings; he didn't care for the feeling of diminuition that came with it. He mused about such things, as they strode onward, in order to keep from thinking about Samara.
The icy distance had settled on her again. She was totally silent, striding forward among the wreckage, checking her PIP-Boy 3000 occasionally, always keeping her rifle at the ready. In her face, Arcade fancied he could see the dim, obscured outines of the madness he had seen in her earlier, at the top of the elevator shaft. As they made their way among the ruins, Arcade found his mind circling the question of how sane, how much in control, she really was. He tried to push the question away, along with the twisting fear in his gut, and just concentrate on following her. Just following her.
Ulysses's last communication spurred him on. Arcade didn't know if Samara had caught the implications, but to him they had been all too clear: Ulysses had said he was planning on launching missiles at the NCR, the place he seemed to think Samara had come from. Who knows, he may even be right, Arcade mused, though Samara doesn't seem to think so, or care. The thought of a missile crashing down into one of the NCR's tightly packed population centers such as the Hub turned Arcade's blood to ice water; his traitor mind presented him too effortlessly with images of the masses of casualties such a strike would entail. If we don't get there in time- His hands clenched on his Plasma Defender.
He could have raised the issue with Samara-but one look at her white face, her stony eyes, silenced him.
The slow pace of their journey was maddening. It seemed to Arcade's anxieties as if Samara was almost purposefully dawdling, though he knew intellectually that she was as eager as himself if not more so to see the journey's end. They moved throughout the empty, open space as the shadows crept further across the ground and the sun sank further toward the horizon. Their surroundings were so vast that it looked as if they were making no progress at all, until Arcade might have screamed in frustration. His mind was consumed with thoughts of Ulysses and the danger he represented, and any delay at all felt almost intolerable.
He couldn't have said how long they'd been walking-surely a couple of hours, at least-when they came to a sort of archway formed by one of the fallen highway's supports, where it joined the curving road. The air here felt wet, humid, and beyond it, Arcade could hear the roaring of what sounded like a waterfall. They passed under the arch to see a small clear space with a large pool, formed by an outflowing of murky water from a pipe several stories up in the solid rock background. The dark space of a cave could be seen on the pool's shore. And splashing in the pool-
"Deathclaws!"
Samara's warning shout startled him badly; he realized later that he had been shocked to hear it without the eye-bot's threat cue. But he had no time to ponder it then because charging directly toward him were two massive walls of scaly, clawed flesh.
Sheer fright engulfed him-the Deathclaws were larger, their horns, their claws, longer, than anything he'd ever seen. And so fast-! In the time it had taken him to blink, the Deathclaws had already covered half the distance from the pool to their standpoint.
Samara raised her LAER and fired, screaming. Blue light lanced from her LAER to strike the Deathclaw's hip. It staggered a moment-and he saw Samara's eyes widen as the Deathclaw kept right on charging.
It didn't slow down-! The fright deepened into something close to panic. She hit that thing with her LAER and didn't even stagger it- His Plasma Defender felt light and useless in his hands.
"Run! Arcade, run!" he heard Samara shouting frantically; he heard her LAER discharge again and again. The second Deathclaw had broken off from the first and was coming straight for him.
Too fast-no way I can outdistance it- With a split second to decide, Arcade turned and dashed straight for the wall of the fallen freeway overpass. He heard the Deathclaw roar behind him; its claws whistled through the air. Fear seemed to lend wings to his feet. He didn't bother to slow down, but pushed himself off the wall with his hands, running straight along the side of it and for the rock face bordering the pool. The Deathclaw bellowed in fury, its claws pounding the earth; he felt hot air on the back of his neck and then there was a sudden tremendous bang followed by a howl of rage and pain.
Right into one of the freeway struts- He shot a glance over his shoulder and saw the creature back on its heels, shaking its head dizzily for a moment; then it gathered itself and charged again. Claws raked the air above his head; he dodged instinctively toward the overpass wall. The Deathclaw's blow missed him by inches and smashed into the concrete, knocking out chunks; Arcade felt a small piece bounce off the back of his armor. Faster, dammit! He cursed, and put on a burst of speed. His armor seemed to weigh him down like chains. In the background he heard Samara screaming still, and then paired explosions. Frag grenades? The sound of her screaming froze his heart, but he couldn't stop to look back.
His armored boots splashed into the shallow water at the pool's edge, and right on his heels he heard the larger splashes of the Deathclaw bounding after him. Water droplets spattered him from behind. More explosions came from his right and he heard a gigantic bellow. She scored a hit at least-
The dark opening in the rock wall loomed ahead. Arcade skidded, altering his course, and on a wild gamble, made straight for the cave mouth, hoping that he might be able to lose his pursuer in there-find a passage too small for it to fit into. He bounded up out of the pool and over the lip of the cave, straight into the darkness.
Coolness closed over him at once, and the dark dazzled his eyes, but Arcade didn't dare stop; he ran, his feet ringing off the rock flooring, until they tangled in something and he went sprawling to the floor, banging his chin hard. He tasted panic like blood. Scrambling, he flung himself over on his back, raising his Plasma Defender though he knew it was hopeless, the weapon would be like a BB gun against the Deathclaw. He braced himself to see the monster looming above him-
There was nothing.
What-?
His veins still bright with fear, Arcade picked himself up off the ground, weapon at the ready. He was trembling with reaction. His eyes were adjusting now; he was in a long passage with a wider area of darkness off to the right that might have been another passage or might have been just an exceptionally deep alcove.
The mouth of the cave was a brilliant triangle against the darkness; in the center of that triangle, he could see the Deathclaw that had recently been pursuing him. It was snarling, swishing its tail back and forth and gnashing its teeth, but it came no closer; just waited there, glowering.
I was right. It can't fit in here, was Arcade's first thought. But as he took in the dimensions of the place, he could see that didn't seem to be the case; while not the cathedral-esque space of the Cave of the Abaddon, there was still enough room for the creature. It growled and raked its claws through the air. Then why is it not...
It wasn't coming in, he realized, because something was keeping it out.
It wasn't coming in because there was something in here...
...that it was afraid of.
Afraid? But what could make a Deathclaw-
"RAWWRRRRRR!"
Arcade almost jumped out of his skin as, charging out of the dark passage to the side, came the largest Deathclaw he had ever seen in his life. The creature roared again, stretching up and up above him, and the sound filled his eardrums. Its long, curving horns were dark black, signifying age and dominance, and it lunged at him faster than should be at all possible for something that large.
Shit-! Shit-! Shit-! His Plasma Defender would be nothing more than a peashooter against that thing. Can't go forward- He turned and ran the only way open to him: deeper into the cave, praying all the while that nothing worse would be lurking down there.
"RAWWWRRR!" That titanic bellow came again, filling his ears, filling the space of the tunnel all around him. He could hear the scuffling of Deathclaw claws on rock as it came after him. Muted explosions echoed through the tunnel-more of Samara's frag grenades?-and the barest tip of a talon grazed the back of his armor. He lunged to the side, but too late: the next blow struck him on the shoulder and staggered him. He reeled into the side wall, and talons clanged off his helmet. Spots burst before his eyes. Shit-! Panic was filling him, crowding his thoughts. Another powerful blow threw him to the ground, and searing agony sliced into his thigh. He thrashed onto his back to catch sight of the Deathclaw, towering above him, its pale eyes shining and drool dripping from between its teeth. It drew back its claws-
"Arcade! Arcade!" He could have wept, forit was Samara's voice, screaming, shrill with rage. He couldn't see her, but blue fire sizzled across his vision that he recognized as bolts from her LAER. It struck the Deathclaw-Rawr?-in the flank. The monster recoiled, its head drawing back and then swinging over to the direction the laser fire had come from. With a snarl, it wrenched away from Arcade, raising itself to its full height, spreading its claws wide.
Samara- The pain in his leg was burning, burning, making it hard for him to think. Miraculously he had retained his Plasma Defender, useless as he knew it was; he started to raise it when another detonation echoed through the cave, so close that his ears rang with the explosion. All sound died. He saw the Deathclaw open its mouth in a growl, saw it lunging forward, but heard nothing.
But he felt something. A distant vibration, almost a shaking, that was being transmitted to him through the rock on which he lay. Shivers were running up into his body, hard enough to rattle his teeth. Spatters of gravel were falling from the roof, bouncing off his helmet, his armor, followed by pebbles, then stones. A rock the size of a fist smashed to the ground, missing him by an inch.
Cave-in-!
The Deathclaw paused, raising its head uncertainly, and then the roof gave out. An avalanche of stones smashed down on and around it and Arcade, and the floor beneath him pitched like an earthquake. Then a massive impact jarred against his helmet and blackness descended on him.
[*]
Some time later, Arcade awoke to darkness.
He was surrounded by what at first appeared to be inky night, so dark that he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed. Where am I? Am I blind? Maybe he was back in the Lucky 38, he thought feverishly; the casino suite had no windows, and could be as dark as a tomb with all the lights turned off. The Lucky 38's guest bedroom...
But he couldn't hear the breathing and noises of Samara's other companions, and the surface under him was hard, not soft.
He tried to sit up, experimentally, only to be greeted with a bright flare of pain in his left leg. Sheer white agony lanced along the limb, and Arcade bit back a scream. What...am I injured? His mind cast around for possibilities. Maybe he had been wounded and Samara had brought him to this place, wherever here was. But why hadn't she used a stimpak on him? And how had he been wounded in the first place? Legion? Fiends? Cazadores? Deathclaws-
Deathclaws.
Memory came back to him then, of the huge Deathclaw rearing up above him, of the cave-in, Samara's shouts-Samara! Urgent fear spiked through him; unthinking, he tried to stand, only to be greeted by a monstrous bolt of pain as he tried to put weight on his injured leg. It folded under him, and he couldn't suppress a cry as he collapsed heavily to the ground; he lay there, shivering and moaning weakly, as the wave of pain slowly receded.
All right. Standing's out. His breath came hard. His own cries were ringing in his ears, and as he remembered the momentary deafness that had come after the explosion earlier, he realized it must have subsided. At least my ear drums aren't broken, he thought with what would have been, under different circumstances, a sardonic inflection. Small favors...
He put his hand to the compartment where he kept his chems, locating it by touch in the dark-but when he reached into it, his fingertips met shards of broken glass. What-? he thought, and then as memory returned, he slumped back in defeat.
The village of the Marked Men. He almost wept. He'd given away almost all of his chems there, keeping only a dose of Med-X and one of Jet, and the broken shards in his armor compartment gave evidence that they hadn't survived the fight with the Deathclaw. He could have kicked himself in fury. You stupid fool, why didn't you at least ask Samara for more chems? She carries a veritable pharmacy in that Powered Armor of hers, she'd have given you some...
Samara... Again that numbing fear came over him, and he swallowed, hard, trying to control himself. She must be alive. She has to be alive, he thought, unable to face the other possibility. No. Don't think about it now. Focus. Like triage, he told himself, panting slightly. Find the most immediate problem.
He tried to concentrate, but the pain in his leg drilled into him. What was the most immediate problem? He couldn't think... He pushed weakly at the ground, trying to turn over, but his limbs seemed to have turned to water; he only managed to heave himself onto his side...and then felt something digging into him. Something...something... his mind was hazy... Then it came to him.
Lily.
His mind went back to the evening Samara and he had left the Lucky 38-God, it seemed a lifetime ago already. Lily had met him in the elevator room, had handed him a knitted scarf, and wrapped inside the scarf had been-
Cookies. Lily's cookies.
His hands were trembling as he dug into his armor, fumbling with the straps, until his fingers brushed the texture of knitted wool. He pulled the wrapped package out, extricating it by touch, and unwound the scarf with shaking hands. The cookies spilled out onto the ground. Arcade slid his hands along the floor, groping until he came on one of the flat rounds; he took a bite out of it. The cookie was rock hard and tasted of sugar and grit with a strange, medicinal undertaste. He swallowed it down, shaking, and then waited.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pain in his leg began to subside. A comforting wave of strength flowed into him, and his mind cleared; his thoughts sharpened. He recognized the effects as a potent cocktail of chems- Buffout, Med-X and Jet, he had to guess. He tried to get to his feet again, but his leg was too weak; he couldn't even stand this time. No Hydra, apparently. He could tell, by the effects of the chems, that he hadn't received anything like a full dose; and suspected that some of the active substances had been rendered inert by the cooking process. Still, it was a long way better than nothing, and Arcade thought in a burst of gratitude that he could have kissed the old Nightkin.
He was feeling along the floor, searching for the remainder of the half-dozen cookies Lily had given him, when he noticed a strange bluish tinge bleeding into the edges of his vision. Outlines began to swim at him out of the darkness. It took him a moment to recognize the effect, because he'd never experienced it before, but something he had heard Samara say once swam into his murky consciousness and he realized what it was: Cateye.
Thank you, Lily. Thank God.
He blinked several times, trying to clear his eyes of grit and accustom himself to his new sight. He had no idea how long the effect would last, so he tried to quickly take stock of his surroundings.
At once, he realized what a miracle it was that he hadn't been crushed in the cave-in. He was lying in a small space pressed up against one side of the rock wall, and the only reason that he hadn't borne the brunt of tons of rock was that a huge slab of what appeared to be concrete had fallen at an angle above him, one end braced against the wall, the other on the floor perhaps three feet away. Even if he had been physically able to stand, he couldn't have straightened to his full height; the space in which he sheltered was small enough that he could reach up and touch the slab of his roof.
A groaning noise came from the rock above him. A thin trickle of dust sifted down from the place where the slab rested against the rock wall. The slab seemed to visibly shiver as the wreckage shifted.
I've got to move.
One end of the space defined by the slab was sealed with rock; but the other end was open, and his Cateye-enhanced vision seemed to make out a wider, open space beyond it. There, he thought. Have to go there. Fumbling in the dust, he located perhaps three or four more of the cookies he'd dropped; the wreckage above him was creaking and groaning, and he didn't dare take too much time. Stuffing them back inside his armor, he gritted his teeth, gathering his strength, then pushed to his hands and knees. The delicate web of numbness that had stretched over his senses wavered, and his leg flashed at him in a strange, sick way-Arcade deliberately tried to avoid thinking of how seriously injured he was; he couldn't deal with it yet-but the pain remained below the surface of his consciousness, and that was all he could ask for. He drew a breath, and then, trailing his injured leg, began to crawl.
It seemed to take years. Despite what additional strength Lily's Buff-out laced cookies had given him, his limbs were weak and his joints unsteady; his arms in particular kept wanting to collapse on him. He would crawl a few steps, then pause and lean against the wall, catching his breath and bracing himself. A few steps more. Pause. Breathe. A few steps... His injured leg flashed again, and he felt something trickling down the outside of his thigh; he sank his teeth into his lip, guessing he was bleeding but unable to do anything about it right now. His emergency medical training floated into his hazy mind: Safety before treatment.
After a few steps his hand came down on something light and plastic-feeling. Looking down at it, he realized he was seeing his worthless Plasma Defender, apparently lying where it had been dropped when the cave-in hit. Mirabile visu, it's undamaged. Balancing laboriously on one hand, he picked it up with the other and, fumbling a bit, managed to slide it back into its holster at his hip, then started on his agonizing, slow journey again. When he finally made it clear of the end of the slab, he collapsed onto the floor for a moment. He lay there shivering, trying to get his breath back. It seemed like eternity before he gathered enough strength to go on.
His blue-enhanced sight was fading; he dug out another of Lily's cookies from within his armor and took a bite. His throat was dry and choked with dust, and he realized he was tremendously thirsty. Blood loss, he thought grimly. Fumbling at his waist, he managed to locate an unbroken bottle of purified water, and while waiting for the effect of the chems to kick in, he gulped it down, spilling perhaps a third down his armor in his haste. Eventually he felt a bit stronger.
He tried to sit up but his head swam and he pressed himself back to the rock, waiting for the dizziness to subside and simply trying to breathe. The blue tinge was creeping back into his vision and he felt his pupils dilating as the Cateye kicked in. Slowly he pushed himself to his hands and knees.
He had emerged from under the slab into a chamber, maybe twenty feet in width and twice that long, dead-ending in a blank rock wall. He estimated that the chamber would be twice his height; the left-hand wall rose to about six feet and then stepped back, forming a shelf of rock. On his right, the wall went straight up to the rock ceiling. A slight breeze whispered past his cheek, and it took Arcade a moment to realize what that meant: there was some opening to the outside. Enough, at least to provide him with fresh air.
But just because air can get in doesn't mean I can get out. Laboriously turning to check behind him, he saw that the other end of the chamber appeared to be completely sealed; the fall of rock of rock earlier had filled the passage with tons of rubble.
Forget it. Not important right now. Triage. First things first, he reminded himself, grimly. You need to get further away from that rock slab. Drawing a breath to prepare himself, he lurched into motion.
He'd crawled perhaps half a dozen yards before his hand came down on something cylindrical that slid out from underneath him, throwing him to the ground again; his chin banged hard on the rock, and he bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. Bright lights flashed before his eyes. When his vision cleared though, he realized he'd been in luck.
His hand had landed on a human femur bone. Pushing himself up on his arms, he realized he was looking at a small camp of sorts. A single human skeleton lay in the corner between the floor and the wall. Beyond it was a dufflebag that Arcade recognized as NCR issue, a pile of wooden sticks contained in an old tire-a campfire-and a small round metal and glass shape that he had to touch to realize it was a camp lantern.
Light-
His Cateye induced vision was starting to fade again; Arcade pawed at the lantern until he found the switch, then, holding his breath, flipped it on. Light spilled out from the lantern, bright enough to dazzle his eyes; Arcade squinted and looked off to the dark recesses of the chamber until the dazzle fled.
The lantern cast a small pool of yellow light over the immediate environs, throwing forbidding shadows into the corners. Strange, uneasy rumbles and mutterings drifted to his ears, coming from the rock shelter he had just vacated. The whole effect was eerie, sinister; in his exhausted, injured, half-delirious state, the rumbles and mutterings could have been the ghostly voices of all those who had perished in the Divide.
Panting, Arcade managed to raise himself to a sitting position. He was shivering uncontrollably, feeling chilled right down to the bone, and so thirsty he could barely think; he got the cap off another bottle of Purified Water and swallowed the whole thing down. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, waiting until a wave of dizziness passed. Fatigue and pain dragged at him. His thoughts were growing fuzzy again, indistinct as if they were wrapped in fog. Something...something I'm supposed to do...what was it?
The trickling sensation down his thigh brought him back to himself. Leg. Injured leg. Deathclaw... The thoughts drifted through his head, and he shook himself, forcing his eyes open.
What...what to do...first...Assess the wound. He felt light-headed; it was hard to concentrate. He steeled himself and glanced down at the leg.
Not good, was his first thought. The wound was open, bright red meat showing through the blood-soaked fabric. The Deathclaw's talons had sliced right through his armor like cheesecloth, leaving a meandering scrawl at least six inches long down the outside of his thigh ending just above his knee: shallow at first, but then deepening to a gaping, ugly mouth. Thick dark blood was flowing sluggishly from the wound; it had caked the leg of his armor, stiffening the kevlar fabric and turning it nearly black, and his entire lower leg was streaked with gore. How it missed the femoral artery...
Another wave of dizziness overcame him and Arcade leaned his head back against the wall again until it passed. Shit. Shit. Shit... More blood was trickling down the outside of his thigh. Arcade couldn't even estimate how much he'd lost.
He couldn't reach the pressure point in his groin through his armor and he could feel that he was weak enough that divesting himself of the entire harness would be beyond his capabilities. He cast about vaguely, and his eyes fell on the NCR dufflebag beside him. He reached for the bag with numb, feeble hands. His fingers didn't seem to be working right as he pawed at the zipper. He managed to get it open, and slowly, painfully searched inside, hoping for stimpaks, chems, hell, maybe a field dressing; but there was no such luck. All that met his eyes was a combat knife, a bottle of whiskey, a holotape and a few ruined books, probably field manuals or some such thing. Damn. Damn. Damn... He slumped back in defeat.
At least there was whiskey; Arcade fumbled the cap off the bottle and took a gulp. The burn seemed to affect him like a slap, briefly clearing some of the mist from his brain; the shaking of his hands steadied. He groped at his hip for his Plasma Defender. It seemed to take him forever to draw it, and even more so to change it to continuous fire, lowest setting. The light little pistol seemed to have tripled in weight. Squinting clumsily, he aimed it at the fire the dead NCR Trooper had so considerately laid in the tire-hearth. The dry wood crackled merrily to life as he pulled the trigger. Arcade poured some of the whiskey over the blade of the combat knife, then laid it in the flames. He sat back again, soaking in the heat: the cold rock under and behind him seemed as if it were leaching the warmth from his body, and the fire felt wonderful.
While he waited, he used the time to devour another of Lily's cookies, and to take a few more gulps of the whiskey. Not that either of those things will help much, he thought grimly. The knife blade began to smoke. Arcade stared at it. He knew what he would have to do, but part of him quailed at the thought. His leg was thick with pulsing agony. Blood was continuing to ooze down the limb.
"Fuck it," he muttered distantly. Can't put it off any longer.
He took a final gulp of whiskey to fortify himself, then braced himself against the rock wall and drew a breath. He took the chin strap of his helmet in his teeth. It tasted like leather and sweat. Another breath. Two. His heart was pounding; he swallowed, trying for calm. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he seized the combat knife and laid it against the wound in his thigh.
Pain blossomed out to fill his entire world. His head banged against the wall behind him and his teeth sank into the leather in his mouth; it wasn't enough, and the cave walls rang with echoes of his strangled scream. The sickly sweet smell of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils, overwhelming the metallic tang of blood. Arcade's fingers spasmed on the grip of the knife; it fell from his hand to clatter on the floor.
He ground his teeth into his chin strap, panting heavily. The world around him was fading in and out; all he could feel, all he could concentrate on, was the searing pain burning into his leg, a knot of bright, brilliant agony. It seemed forever before the pain receded enough that he could think again. He forced himself to look down at the wound: the surface of the wound was an angry-looking red and white, but there was no blood at least. He'd managed to stop the bleeding.
But he was only half done. Even without the burn, Deathclaw wounds had a nasty tendency to fester, he knew. His hands-his entire body-were numb except for the bright metal pain in his leg. He was cold with fear. Digging his teeth deeper into the helmet chin strap, breathing hard, he seized the whiskey bottle by the neck and upended the thing over the savage, angry weal.
Liquid fire rolled up his leg, and he screamed again, even louder, biting the chin strap to his helmet in two. Gray fog rose to obscure his vision, and for a time, he blanked out.
[*]
When he came back to himself, he felt a little better. His head felt clearer, not as if it were about to float off his shoulders. His leg still hurt-well, "hurt" was too mild a term; his leg felt as if it had been filled with molten iron-but the screaming agony that had taken him when he had laid the knife against the wound had receded.
He had no idea how long he'd been out. His wrist chronometer was broken. The facing over the display was cracked and the chronometer itself read a flickering 34:76; he grimaced in disgust. Useless. The fire had burnt itself down to embers, a bed of softly glowing coals, but the warmth it gave off had seeped into the air; the cave was, if anything, perhaps too warm.
He realized he was tremendously thirsty, and drank half a bottle of Purified Water, then forced himself to stop and put it to one side. He knew that the Followers' instructions in survival situations were not to ration water-to drink all the water you needed, and to worry about finding more later-but in this case, Arcade thought grimly, it was clear that "finding more water later" was out of the question. Even if he hadn't had a serious leg wound - he checked it and saw the scar was still an angry red color, but at least there had been no more blood - he was trapped in a cave sealed behind tons of rock. The leg alone meant he wasn't going to be going anywhere under his own power anytime soon, and the rockfall-
He exhaled and bent his head forward, rubbing his closed eyes.
I am in so much trouble here, he thought.
His helmet had fallen off; he pushed it to one side, laid his head back against the rock wall, and tried to take stock of his situation. His leg was a burning, heavy pulse; he did his best to ignore it. Think, he told himself. Where are you? What's happening?
Slowly, he ticked off his conditions in his mind. He was in a cave, the mouth sealed by a rock fall. He could still feel the breeze against his face; fresh air was getting in somewhere, but from his location, he could not see anything that looked like an exit. His leg was severely wounded and he could not walk. He had managed to get the bleeding stopped, but he was still incapacitated-and if I manage to avoid infection, it'll be nothing short of a miracle, he thought glumly. He had limited supplies of food and water. He had no chems, no stimpaks, no healing aids; and once both the fire and the lantern burned out, he would have no light.
Samara...
If Samara found him, he'd make it. As bad as his leg was, there was no doubt in his mind that a stimpak could heal it; and Samara had water and food, chems and weapons. If Samara finds me... But he had no idea if Samara was even alive.
When he thought about it realistically, he had to admit that the odds were very good that Samara had either been killed in the cave-in herself or else fallen to-to Rawr, he thought, picturing the giant Deathclaw. She shot it with her LAER and it didn't even flinch. Counting on her to survive is, as they say in New Vegas, a "sucker's bet." Hell, even if she did survive, it's entirely possible she's in the same predicament: severely wounded, trapped, unable to move...
All of that was perfectly logical, of course, certainly possible-hell, even probable.It made perfect sense except for one thing: Arcade just couldn't make himself believe it. Whenever he steeled himself to picture Samara lying dead, her skull crushed under a rock, or gutted by Rawr, some part of himself kept interposing a different image: the canopic jars, back in the bowels of Big Mountain, holding her brain, her heart, her spine-and Samara herself, whole and healthy, alive. Having her goddamned internal organs cut out didn't kill her, argued a deep, irrational, stubborn part of himself-his id, he supposed. If that didn't kill her, how on earth is a Deathclaw supposed to do her in?
Arcade groaned and passed a hand over his eyes. He couldn't believe it. No matter how hard he tried. He just couldn't. If the entire world collapsed into ruin, there would still be Samara's bulky, Power-Armored form standing upright among the wreckage.
And besides...you'd know it if she were dead. You'd feel it. Total nonsense, of course-but that stubborn, childlike part of himself insisted it was true.
Fine. He gave up. All right. Samara's alive. Now what?
His leg ground at him. Arcade shifted position, trying futilely to ease it a bit. Even if Samara was alive, he thought dismally, he was trapped on the opposite side of a ten-foot-thick rock wall from her. It didn't follow that she either knew he was alive, or could get to him if she did.
Or if she would even try, another, traitor part of himself whispered.
Arcade frowned. He thought about Samara's rage during their rooftop conversations with Ulysses. About the icy coldness that had come to surround her as they traveled deeper into the Divide. Of the contours of lowering insanity he had seen emerging in her face as they neared the end of their quest. It occurred to him with disturbing plausibility that Samara might very well decide the best thing to do was cut her losses and continue on, to the final confrontation with Ulysses.
"No, no," he muttered restlessly, rubbing at his head. He waited for his id to speak up and insist otherwise-but there was nothing, except a low feeling of bleak assent.
No. She'd come back for me. Look at-look at how she acted with the eyebot.
With the eyebot. Not with you. And Ulysses has the eyebot now.
The light from the glowing embers flickered on the walls. As Arcade stared at the moving shadows, a black despair seemed to seep into him. He realized suddenly that he was near tears.
She's not coming for me.
He rubbed at his temples. He was so tired. Pain ground at him from his leg. At last, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Perhaps things will look better after some rest.
[*]
When he woke again, things did not look any better.
The fire had almost completely burned out in the little fire ring; Arcade dug into the duffle bag and threw some more ruined books on the embers. It flared up again, giving off an acrid stench, but he knew that he did not have enough fuel to keep it going for long. He took a few more swallows of Purified Water, then set the bottle aside; he only had two more bottles after this.
So thirsty, he thought distantly.
His leg was still painful, and when he checked on it, he did not like what he saw. It was hard to tell in the light from fire and lantern, but he thought the leg was slightly more swollen, and the burn site was beginning to turn a yellowish color. He drew a breath, then deliberately put it from his mind. Not a damned thing I can do about it.
Time passed. The lantern grew dimmer. He waited, but Samara did not come.
He realized he was beginning to feel cold, even with the heat of the fire; he wrapped his arms around himself and gazed into the embers, thinking of her. The question, he thought with mordant humor, was what it added up to: his seemingly endless frustration with her, coupled with his grudging acknowledgement and sneaking admiration of her presence and combat prowess; his resentment of the fact that she had captured the heart of a man he wanted and could not have; his horror and wrenching, desperate pity at what had been done to her; his deep wariness of her potential for violence and pathologically obsessive tendencies. He wondered what she thought of him.If she thinks of me, that is. He wasn't sure how capable Samara was of seeing or registering anything outside her narrow area of focus. She seemed to experience some sort of affection, possibly fondness for him; she allowed him to see sides of herself that he suspected even Boone had not seen...
She knows about my Enclave background. That was something he had never told anybody before. She knew...and she hadn't rejected him, hadn't turned against him.
What was that worth? What did it mean? Was he anything more to her than a simple vade mecum?
"Ah, hell, I dunno," he muttered aloud. He flung himself backward on the rock floor, draping one arm over his eyes. In any case, it soon wouldn't matter one way or the other, he thought blackly. His leg ached and throbbed, a live wire in his mind.
He tried to sleep as much as possible; sleeping gave him some relief from the tedious present of pain that just went on and on. It was strange to think of it that way, but he had never realized before just how monotonous pain could be. It was always there, a grinding drone that flared to agony if he moved the wrong way or jarred his leg somehow.
He slept and woke, slept and woke; without his chronometer, he had no means of telling how much time had passed. The fire burned down and the supply of ruined books diminished. Somehow he was down to one bottle of purified water, though he couldn't remember drinking the rest of them. He was cold now, all the time; no matter how close to the hearth he pressed, he shivered uncontrollably. Somewhere there was something he should be worried about, something to do with missiles, or perhaps - her name eluded him at the moment, but he remembered her eyes, her stone-white eyes - but he couldn't recall what and in any case, it didn't seem important.
By now, he could no longer deny it: his leg had festered. Septicemia, whispered some part of his mind that was still functional, under the web of pain and thirst. It had swollen hugely; the site of the burn-but wait, I thought it was a Deathclaw? -was weeping pus, and the leg was so painful that even the pressure of his armor on it was agony. Red streaks were radiating outward from the injury, up his limb to his groin and when he leaned over it, he caught the sickish, bland smell of infection. Arcade tried to fumble with the straps on his leg armor, but his hands were weak as water and even touching his leg hurt; he lay back, exhausted, closing his eyes. He was almost out of water now; there were only a few swallows remaining in one bottle and the others were bone dry. His mind drifted aimlessly.
He was in the Mojave again, feeling the sun on his face, seeing the rusted, corrugated shack where he and his mother had come after they had moved from the NCR. His mother was there, outside, his mind suggested, working in the garden. Tall green stalks of maize towered over the fence railings, and she smiled as he approached her.
"Arcade," she said warmly. "How was school with the Followers today?"
"Fine, Mother." He went to her and let her embrace him, but there was a cold uneasiness in his stomach. "Mother, I heard something today, from the other kids. Something about-" He drew a breath. "The Enclave."
His mother stopped and put down the rake. "Well? What is it, Arcade?"
"They were talking about ... something called Mariposa. And Vault 13." He saw the shock of recognition in his mother's eyes; the chill in his gut intensified. "They said-"
"What did they say, Arcade?"
"They said-they said terrible things." Arcade drew a breath, and pressed on. "Mother. I-I need to know. Was Father involved in any of those-"
His mother turned on him with a look of fury so intense that he backed up a step. He saw her raise her right hand, draw it back, but he had no idea what was coming until she swung at him with all her strength, hitting hard enough to stagger him. His head rocked on his neck. She had never struck him before, and he retreated, shivering and afraid.
"Your father was a hero, Arcade!"
He nodded, too scared to do otherwise. "Yes, Mother," he said rapidly.
"He was a hero! He gave his life for us! Don't you dare believe anything you hear about the Enclave. It's all lies, you hear me?" Her face was frightening. Arcade nodded again.
"Yes, Mother," he repeated, swallowing.
She began to cry now, her shoulders shaking; her knees folded and she sank down on an old stump they used for chopping wood. He went to her and put his arms around her instinctively.
"Please don't cry, Mother," he begged her softly. "I'm sorry I upset you. Don't cry. I don't want you to cry."
"Your father was a good man, Arcade," she sobbed. "Never doubt that. He loved us both so much. When you were a baby he used to hold you and play with you for hours. Everything he did, he did to make a better world for us. He was a hero, you understand?"
"Yes, Mother. I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry," he repeated helplessly. Slowly, her sobbing tapered off and she took his face in her hands, smiling through her tears.
"My little man. My hero. Not so little anymore, are you?" He was taller than she by a few inches already; his mother said his height was his father's. "What would I do without you? You are my strength, my life. I never would have made it without you, Arcade."
"Don't say that, Mother," he pleaded with her. "Please, don't say that..."
But she was wrong, Arcade thought vaguely, as he drifted in the land between sleep and waking, lost in time and place. Father wasn't a hero. He wasn't and neither am I. Heroes don't die like this. And he was dying. He was very sure of that now.
He was lightheaded, dizzy. The world seemed to be pitching like the deck of a ship. The ground under him was shaking. He could feel a series of shocks and vibrations being transmitted up to him through the rock on which he lay.
The vibrations grew stronger, jarring his injured leg, and he moaned at the pain. Somewhere in the distance, a dull rumbling sounded; it seemed far away, not like it had much to do with him. Then a strange wave of cool air flowed over him. He felt himself shivering and moaned again.
Light flared through his closed eyelids, and something cold and hard slid under his shoulders, lifting him. "Arcade?" a voice was whispering. "Arcade, please wake up-Please, God, wake up, Arcade-" It was a female voice, and the first thought of Arcade's wandering mind was, Mother...
He opened his eyes, and was jarred by a moment of huge disorientation. Instead of his mother looking down at him, his vision was filled with the face of a different woman: one with a thin, not quite gaunt face, sharp cheekbones, ice-pale eyes and short-cut, reddish brown hair. Tears were running down her cheeks, and her eyes were hollow with fear and desperation. Who is she? She seemed familiar, but it took a moment before his mind provided a name.
"Sa...ma...ra?" His voice was a rasping croak.
"Oh my god, Arcade-" Her voice broke on a sob, and her shoulders shook. The hard surface supporting him trembled. Arcade barely noticed; his dreaming mind was occupied with the sight of the wetness on her face.
Actual tears, he thought with wonder and fascination. He would have been less surprised to see water flowing uphill. Am I still dreaming?
"You're...Crying," he whispered.
"What?"
"Crying..." Half-consciously, he lifted one hand. It seemed to weigh a ton, dangling at the end of his arm. He clumsily brushed at Samara's face, wanting to feel for himself, to see if the tears were actually real. His fingers came away wet.
"I thought you were dead. I thought the Deathclaw had killed you, or the cave-in, or that I wouldn't get here in time-Arcade-"
Arcade let his eyes drift closed, trying to think. There was something...
"Leg," he said finally, opening his eyes again. "Samara...leg..."
Her face paled, and she swallowed once. "It's...pretty bad," she admitted. "What do you need?"
"Stimpak..."
"Hold on." The world revolved around him, and he heard the whining of her servos as she lowered him to the ground. He got a flash of her tear-stained face-she's actually crying, his mind repeated in wonder-as she opened a panel in her armor. She took a stimpak from it, then leaned down, out of his field of vision. And then-
Monstrous agony ripped through his leg, a shock of silver-white pain so strong it blanked his sight. Arcade heard himself give a high, bubbling scream; there was a thud, and Samara's terrified voice crying his name. One of his hands was seized; Arcade clenched it in a death grip, holding onto it as an anchoring point in the sea of torment engulfing him.
Slowly, slowly, the tide of pain started to recede. It rolled back inch by inch, and consciousness came seeping in to fill the places left behind. By the time his vision cleared, the pain had ebbed to a low drone-not perfect, but light-years better than it had been. This is almost bearable. And his head was clear.
He opened his eyes and looked at his companion.
"Samara..." A little thin, perhaps, he evaluated his voice mentally, but even and in control.
Samara leaned toward him at once. It was strange, to see her huge, Power-Armored form kneeling at his side; the bulky armor somehow accentuated the awkwardness and uncertainty of her posture. She was still crying. Crying. Over me... He still wasn't quite sure he believed what he was seeing. "Arcade..."
He licked his lips. His throat was parched. "Water. Please, water?"
At once, she handed him a bottle of purified water. Arcade drank the whole thing practically in a single gulp, thinking that he'd never realized how wonderful water could be before. The bottle fell from his fingers with a thud. He realized he was exhausted.
"How do you feel?"
"Better. Tired," he admitted. "Think I need...need to rest a bit."
"Go ahead," Samara said instantly. Her eyes shone with concern. She was still clutching his hand; he could feel the pulse in her knuckles. "You'll be safe. I promise."
Arcade nodded, suddenly too weak to do anything else. He lay back on the rock floor of the cave, his leg muttering restlessly in the back of his mind. "Med-X?" he asked faintly.
Samara swiped at her face with the back of one hand. "Got some right here." She took a hypo from her armor. He felt the sting of the needle against his shoulder, and then sighed in blessed relief as the pain evaporated. He closed his eyes.
"I thought...thought you weren't going to come for me."
Her hand tightened on his. "I'm here. Sleep now."
Arcade slept.