Chapter 8: Delivery
Tyler taps his foot impatiently against the ground. He is not known for being able to wait around all day. Between babysitting a junkie bitch and not knowing when the person they are supposed to give this damn package to is going to arrive, he is struggling to keep from getting a fucking serious headache. From where she is curled up on the ground nearby, Kc gives a low groan. No pity is felt for the girl. She chose to take all his chems, even after the explicitly told her not to, so she has to deal with the consequences. How she even managed to move around after popping that much jet and psycho without killing everyone or gouging her own eyes out is beyond him.
When she dropped in on him in that alley, she was already riding a high. As they started towards the drop point for this damn package, she just kept taking more and more stuff. Tyler warned her to take it easy, but she never listens to him. She never listens to anyone. Her addictions are honestly far worse than his own. He knows how to regulate his dosage to get the maximum effect and duration, she just hits up whatever and whenever.
The sun is starting to go down and Tyler is getting more and more anxious by the minute. If the receiver, or contact, whatever you call the person you are delivering a package to, does not show up soon then he is going to leave and take whatever is in the damn box. Perhaps therein lies the problem. The package looks to be nothing more than an old vault-tec lunchbox, the likes of which can be found literally everywhere. The people who hired him to deliver it, the Van Graff siblings, gave him strict orders not to open or tamper with the box in any way. Normally curiosity isn't one of his features, but he can't help but wonder what is small enough to fit into the lunchbox yet important enough to warrant offering five hundred caps for its delivery? Back east in DC, five hundred caps would have set him up for months.
A twig snaps nearby and Tyler's hand automatically goes to the sawed off at his hip. The weapon clears the holster and is aimed before the approaching party even realizes Tyler is standing there. "This is a foolish waste of my... Oh." The man standing there is dressed in simple clothes and appears to be unarmed save for a strange machete like weapon.
"You," Tyler rasps, doing his best to keep from sounding too threatening, no need to scare this guy if he is the receiver, "are you here to pick up a package?"
The man looks Tyler up and down, taking in the ghoulish nature of the person addressing him. "I was unaware that the Van Graffs associated themselves with vermin such as you. I am indeed here to pick up a package. I assume that it is the way it was given to you. You haven't soiled it with your filth?" The man sounds completely serious, as though he is unaware how fucking insulting what he just said is.
Tyler growls slightly, but manages to keep from going off. Remember, he reminds himself, five hundred fucking caps are riding on this. He reaches into his pack and removes the lunchbox. "Yeah, same as it was when I got it." An idea occurs to him. "Must be very valuable right?" The man nods and reaches for the box. "Not so fast," Tyler steps back as he speaks, "where is my deliverer's payment?"
"Your what?"
Tyler rolls his eyes. "I am supposed to receive a payment from you. For delivering the package safely? Ringing any bells?"
The man crosses his arms and sneers. "There is to be no payment. You will be paid by the Van Graffs, not me!"
Kneeling down Tyler shoves the box back into his pack. "Right then, no delivery. Guess this isn't as important as I thought it would be. Guess I'll just go back to Gloria Van Graff and tell her that you and whoever you represent have no interest in future deals." As he turns and starts to walk away, he hears the man take in a sharp breath.
"Wait!" Tyler stops and looks over his shoulder. The man is fuming, but also digging around in his pockets. "Here is one hundred and fifty caps. It is all I can afford to give you, take it or leave it!"
Tyler lets out a reserved sigh. "All right," He takes the caps, "it is less than my usual fee, but I can forgive that seeing as you were not informed about the details. Here is the box." The man all but snatches it from Tyler's hands and without another word turns and leaves. "Asshole." Tyler growls at his back. He rattles the bag of caps in his hands and looks down as Kc groans again. "Hey, girly, how wasted do you think we can get off of six hundred and fifty caps?" She groans again and rolls onto her stomach. "Yeah, this should be good."
Thinking about how many chems the money will bring him, Tyler pulls Kc to her feet and helps her back towards Vegas. His mood is considerably higher than it was before, and he hasn't even taken anything yet.
He reaches one of the gates into Feeside just as a huge mushroom cloud goes up into the air near camp McCarran. "What the hell?" He listens closely and can make out the sound of gunfire. "Sounds like the NCR is having some trouble." It isn't any of his business, but who the hell has the ability to challenge a fully staffed NCR stronghold? With Kc still leaning against him he sets off towards the camp.
Traveler grapples with the raider, struggling to keep a knife from slamming down into his eye socket. He heaves upwards, throwing the fiend over his head and at the same time putting himself on top. Their positions now reversed, Traveler starts raining punches into the fiend's face before he can attack with his knife. The guy passes out and Traveler tosses his limp body over the side of the overpass.
Since the fighting started here, he and the ranger have been holding their own. Moments ago the ranger got smart and used his last round to ignite the nuclear engine of a nearby car, taking out a large chunk of the overpass and the fiend forces. What remains of the horde is steadily making its way over the gaping hole in the bridge while Traveler and the ranger switch to melee weapons. Traveler had been reaching for his katana when a fiend hurled himself over the gape at him. The ensuing fight left Traveler bruised, but still with both eyes and a dead fiend tossed over the side of the overpass.
He now draws his katana and banishes it over his head. The charging fiends hesitate for a moment as the behold one of the two ragging men who have decimated their numbers all while laughing holding a long wicked sword over his head and with blood lust in his eyes. Traveler gives them no time to think. Turing the tables, he charges them with a savage battle cry. With a spin he cleanly removes the head of a fiend. The corpse falls to its knees, blood spurting from the stump on its shoulders where the head once was. The other fiends panic and begin scrambling backwards over themselves.
Traveler presses his assault. Every fiend that comes into range meets a quick death. His blade shears through flesh and armor with equal ease and vigor. At some point, Traveler begins to laugh again. Blood spurts from the fiends, covering him, spraying into his open mouth. The iron taste of the red liquid only fuels his battle rage. The Fiends begin piling up as they struggle to cross the gap in the overpass before the mad man can reach them. They start pushing those closest to the gap down into the hole in desperation to escape. Realizing that they will not be able to escape in time, the remaining fiends make a desperate last push to get past Traveler.
Traveler braces himself as six fiends rush him all at once. The ranger suddenly charges past him with two combat knives in his hands. The ranger skiers one fined, lifting the raider off the ground, before splitting open his belly and spilling his guts onto the overpass. Three fiends continue past the ranger towards Traveler while two stay back.
Traveler deflects an attack from the first fiend to reach him and quickly slashes at the woman's leg, crippling her. As that fiend falls to the ground in pain, the two others attack at the same time. Traveler catches the attack of one with his sword, and the other's bounces off the armor on his shoulder. He parries another attack and splits the throat of a fiend. Quickly he leaps at the one still standing. The bastard panics and takes off running. Traveler snarls and sprints after him.
The fiend is wearing lighter gear and is fueled by fear, thus he starts to pull away from Traveler. Just when Traveler is sure he is gong to loose the fiend, a gunshot goes off. Traveler instinctively ducks down and covers his head, but nothing happens to him. He looks up to see the fiend's body laid out in the street with a hole through his chest. "What the hell?" Traveler mutters. "Who?"
"Now that is what I call a fucking damn good shot!" Traveler turns to the source of the scratchy voice. Standing there is a ghoul with an unconscious teenage girl draped over his shoulders and a smoking sawed off shotgun in his hands. The ghoul is dressed in heavy metal armor, and caries not only the sawed off but also a lone combat shotgun as well. Traveler stands slowly, unsure of the ghouls intentions. Something about him seems familiar. "There is nothing like wasting a stupid raider, right girly? Ah fuck, still out. Fucking steal my chems and then have me carry you everywhere, typical."
"Tyler?"
The ghoul's gaze locks onto Traveler and his eyes narrow. The ghoul lets the girl fall unceremoniously to the ground as he approaches. Traveler flicks his katan up to the ghoul's throat, halting his approach. The ghoul looks down at the blade and speaks in a low growl. "Now that is a very foolish thing to do. You hold a weapon to me, one of two things happen. Either I kill you for being so stupid, or you fall to your knees and beg for me not to."
Traveler steps forward, keeping the blade at the ghouls throat. "You threaten me, and I won't even let you beg. The hell I will send you to will make you long for days spent slugging through the capital ruins. When I am done, you won't be able to tell your outsides from your insides." The two hold the others gaze. Second's tick by, and then Tyler cracks a smile.
"Well screw me up the ass. You've finally learned how to be scary as shit. Good to see you Nick."
Nick smiles and sheathes his blade. "What, you get so tired and bored that you decided to follow me west in the hopes that I would get you into some trouble?"
Tyler shakes the hand Nick offers him. "Hell no, I wan't nothing to do with the sort of trouble you get into. Sides, I have plenty of my own troubles to deal with, the least of which being that junkie bitch over there."
Nick regards the passed out teenager. "What, did you miss having a starry eyed kid following you around?" The girl gives a groan and manages to sit up and look around. Nick watches her as she takes in the dead fiend and the other carnage all around. She mutters something about jet before slumping against a building. "Or is she like your long lost daughter or something?"
"Hold it!" Nick and Tyler turn to see the ranger approaching them with his rifle ready. "Who are you?" He indicates Tyler.
Tyler growls and moves to attack the ranger. Nick stops him, "His gun is empty. He and I just defended this point from a horde of fiends. You can go count the bodies if you want. I think I have out paced you by now old man." Nick turns to the ranger. "I don't think I caught your name."
The ranger lowers his rifle and approaches them, keeping his head turned towards Tyler. "I didn't give it to you. Who is your fiend here?"
"This is Tyler, mercenary and mass murderer. He enjoys maiming, drugs, and making other peoples lives hell."
"Right." The ranger nods his head to Tyler before turning fully to Nick. "I thank you for your help back there. I have never met anyone who is as good in a fight as you are. Those bastards never stood a chance. I don't know how you are still standing. where are you wounded?." Nick is startled and looks down at himself. There is blood covering ever surface of his chest. He pats himself down, finding a few cuts as well as several burns and maybe a few broken fingers.
"Most of this isn't my blood."
The ranger seems taken aback, but is hard to tell with that helmet on. "Right, all the same I would like to offer McCarran's medical facilities to you, but they are likely filled with wounded from the fight. Speaking of which, we need to find the fiends source of energy weapons. Like I said before, no way they came by such high quality goods just by chance. If they have a supplier, we need to find them and take them out, if not, we burn them all alive and hope that no one else finds out where they were getting those weapons and does something stupid."
Tyler clears his throat. "Actually, I may be able to help you with that little detail."
Tyler has to admit, scamming Gloria Van Graff is probably one of his best ideas ever. After meeting up with Nick, and having a short reunion, never enough time to dwell on such things, their little passe set off for the Silver Rush, the Van Graffs home and store. Tyler went in first. He told Gloria that the job was done and collected the caps from her. She congratulated him and even offered him more work with higher pays. It was tempting, but he already had another mission. On his signal both Nick and that ranger he was with charged into the store and all hell broke loose.
The Van Graffs are no pushovers. Their security force was well trained and very well equipped. All of them carrying the very best in weapons and outfitted in the best combat armor. Despite that, the three of them made short work of the bastards. Tyler actually managed to grab a massive plasma based weapon and nearly gooifiyed both Gloria and her brother Jean-Baptiste.
Luckily that didn't happen and the ranger got to preform his interrogation. Tyler hadn't thought much of the man at first, what with him having threatened him with an empty weapon, but watching the man pry information out of two people made of iron, well, that was impressive. Tyler had always thought that the NCR was too soft and had too many restrictions. Apparently, those laws and restrictions don't apply to their ranger veterans.
The ranger actually strapped the siblings to metal chairs and then proceeded to electrocute them with a power line he ripped from the wall. Then he took out a knife and buried it into Jean-Baptiste's knee, twisting it to make sure that the leg would be useless from then on out. He did all of this before even asking them one question. He claimed he was just making sure that the duo knew he was serious. Needless to say, both of the Van Graffs were ready to talk. They admitted to supplying the fiends with weapons and ammunition. They also admitted to attempting to establish trade relations with the Legion. Tyler was pissed to learn that his delivery was actually part of those plans.
Everything was going smoothly, until Jean-Baptiste revealed the name of the fiend to whom the weapons were being sold. "Damn it all man!" Jean shouts as the ranger again twists the knife in a circle. "I've told you all I know. Motor-Runner stopped buying from us when he had his whole army outfitted. I knew he was planning something but I didn't know what. We had no part in the attack on the fort!"
Tyler is aware of Nick moving forward, and of the sudden anger spewing from the man. He watches as Nick pushes aside the ranger and grabs Jean. "What did you say?" The fury in the man's voice is at a level Tyler has never heard from him before. Tyler and Nick have a long history together, and the fact that Nick's anger is putting him on edge is a bad thing. A very bad thing.
"We didn't have anything to do with the attack..."
Nick slams a fist into Jean's head. "Not that! The fiends leader! What is his name!" Nick is roaring like an animal.
"Motor-Runner!" Jean shouts in fear, "His name is Motor-Runner. He is the leader of all the fiend tribes in the New Vegas area!" Nick releases him and steps away, an unreadable expression on his face. Nick mouths the name of the fiend leader twice. His expression darkens to the point where Tyler is sure that Jean will drop dead from the intensity behind it.
"Where?"
"In the ruins around vault 3! He has an entire army stored away in there!"
Nick turns and starts to walk away. "We are done here." His tone leaves no question that it is an order. Tyler is slightly surprised when the ranger nods. The ranger draws a magnum revover and puts two round into each of the Van Graffs heads. Tyler stares at him until he speaks.
"Loose ends." The ranger moves past him to follow Nick, and soon so does Tyler. They find him standing outside staring up at the night sky.
"Motor-Runner." Nick's voice is a low whisper. "I want his head." He turns to them and Tyler sees a familiar fire in his eyes. "I want his hear roasted on a spit and his body put on display as a message to all other fiends."
Tyler asks what both he and the ranger are thinking. "What did Motor-Runner do?"
Nick lowers his head and growls. "He killed my dog."