She was weightless, floating. Her eyes were shut, lashes flush against her rouged cheeks. She felt her lips pull in to a smile, and, slowly, she opened her eyes. Lights shined down on her, masking the faces of the audience members. The house lights were out and she could hear the silence that resonated from the spectators. All eyes were on her and she was acutely aware of it. A hand lifted, the scars on her knuckles and lower arms, marks that made a map of her life were hidden under a white silk glove.
Her fingers touched the old mic before her and she could feel the cold resonating through her fingertips. She pulled it closer to her, tender, like a lover.
Beatrice shifted her weight to one foot, popping her hip out as the other leg slid to show through the long slit of the inky black dress that parted like water, tasteful sequins glimmering like the stars in the night sky.
"Blue skies, smilin' at me," she crooned into the mic, "nothin' but blue skies, do I see."
Her hip bopped slightly as her eyes shut once more, the motion languid, "Bluebirds, signin' a song, nothin' but blue birds all day long."
The big band behind her kicked up, loud and vibrant. Her own voice lifted up to join in the noise, powerful and strong.
"Never saw the sun shinin' so bright, never saw things goin' so right." Her eyes opened, joy filling her veins. "Noticin' the days hurrin' by when you're in love my how they fly."
The rest of the song was a blur, an amazing high that she only came down from when they were doing their bows. People were standing, clapping, and in the audience she saw them. Her older brothers standing beside one another, Andrew holding his young son as Mark cheered for her. Her parents were at the same table with them, her father mouthing something she couldn't catch and her mother looking proud of her for once.
She moved forward, gathering her skirt as she went to leap off the edge of the stage to go meet them. The laughter that came from her, light and airy, disappeared as everything twisted. Her feet left the stage and she was falling, the ground swallowing her hole.
She felt nothing but the cold rush of air on her skin.
Just as she was coming to, she felt a sharp crack against her head. Pain radiated through her skull and by the reaction of whatever was carrying her, it was an accident. She heard words, some sort of chastising, and her head bounced against something sturdy like she were nothing more than a sack of potatoes and she was out again.
She awoke with a pained groan. Lying on her side, half curled up, her face was pressed in to the dirty cobblestone street below. Breathing slowly, the woman didn't open her eyes, not right away. Her head hurt like the aftermath of getting smash-faced drunk without any of the fun. She tasted blood in her mouth, prodded her lower lip with her tongue to find it was bleeding. There was something else too, the taste of poison and death clinging to her tongue. It stuck to her skin, she could feel it wrapping around her like a sickly humidity.
Pressing a hand on to the ground, she grunted as she pushed herself to sit up. She let her head hang down as she sat there for a moment, staring at her bare legs. Things were clicking slowly.
Her clothes were gone, leaving her sitting there in her boxer-shorts and sports bra and- she frowned, reaching up to touch her neck. There was something there, biting in to her flesh and chafing it uncomfortably. With both hands, she investigated what had been placed on her, her mind telling her she knew what it was but she couldn't quite place it.
Then, she knew. The blood rushed out of her face, turning her sickly pale. She had seen these things before, but only with the Legion. No matter how bad her tribe had been, not even they used these.
It was a slave collar.
She had a bomb strapped to her throat.
"Are you listening?" The masculine voice asked. She was sure he had asked it before only to receive no response.
Watching as her legs were bathed in a pale blue light, she finally looked up, staring at the face in the hologram that floated above what seemed to be an old fountain. Her breath was coming faster, anxiety pooling in her stomach. The face was that of an old man, his hair and thick beard white, eyes cold even in the picture.
She didn't respond, but the hologram seemed to take that as compliance.
"Good. From now on, when I talk, listen- and follow my instructions." The man continued. "Play stupid, play clever, make the mistake of saying 'no'? That collar on your neck'll go off and take your head with it."
She was glancing behind him at the Spanish villas in the background, at the towering casino that loomed over the city. Everything was dark, rust colored smog hanging low and twisting through the streets like snakes. Standing on her bare feet she squared her shoulders and looked at the hologram.
Fear filled her, but she didn't let that show. She had practice in hiding her emotions, in keeping them locked behind a deceptive smile and boisterous laugh. Beatrice didn't like being controlled and disliked those who tried to control her even more.
"The fuck do you want, Chingado?" She spat the word with defiance that only came from someone who hated authority more than anything else. Without care of hiding her body, not even knowing if he could actually see her, she placed her hands on her hips, her stance wide. "The hell am I here?"
"You're here because like so many others, your curiosity- greed perhaps –has gotten the better of you. That structure you see above the fountain," she glanced up back at the hotel in the distance, "The Sierra Madre Casino…you need to break inside. A heist too many years in the making."
The Sierra Madre Casino. She was there, she was really there.
Any excitement she might have had felt wrong, settling heavy in her body.
"But you can't do it alone. I've tried." There was something to his voice, a sort of insanity that didn't sit right with her. "You'll need to gather the others, a team."
"So I'm not the only person you've drugged and kidnapped? Great."
He continued as though he hadn't even heard her. "Around the Villa there are three other collars like yours- collar 8, 12, and 14. Find all three and get them here, to the fountain, then we'll talk."
Not one to blindly comply, she cocked her head to the side. She sucked in a breath through her nose and almost gagged right then. Gathering herself, she spoke. "Not sure if I'm the one you want for that, I don't play well with others. Raider blood, you know?" It was a threat, a casual one that usually kept others at bay. Though she didn't believe it herself, many swore that once someone was a raider, they were always a raider. People didn't change.
But she had.
"I fear you're going to become a problem. A warning, then. You'll be glad to know all of your collars are linked, connected together. One of you dies…you all die. If that's what it takes to make you cooperate, so be it. Do this," he took a breath, "and I will let all of you go."
She didn't believe him for one second. She had been tricked once and would not be tricked again. The holograph disappeared and for a moment, she was left in the dark red mist alone.
But that lasted for only a moment.
The holograph flickered and in the place of the man's face, a woman stood. She was beautiful, a pre-war actress of some sort if Beatrice had to guess, and she spoke. She repeated the same advertisement that had played on the radio, heartless, empty. For a moment, she felt her broad shoulders deflate, then, something caught her eye. Moving forward to the tiled fountain, she picked up the folded pile of clothes and frowned. The jumpsuit was either a light brown or dirty white and it sported a large red 'x' on the back as though someone had just slapped paint across it.
Grumbling to herself, she stepped in to the jump suit and shrugged it on, pulling her arms through the sleeves that were too tight on her biceps for her preference. It agitated the cut on her arm, and that was when she realized the bandage had been removed.
"Mother fucker." She shrugged the sleeve off her shoulder just enough to look at it. The blood had congealed, scabbed with however long she had been out, but the flesh around it was swollen and an angry shade of red. This did not bode well and her experience with survival told her that much.
The zipper caught a few times, rusted with age, but she eventually got it up. Sitting down, she tugged the boots in to place on her wrapped and blistered feet before standing. Grabbing her pip-boy that had been resting under the clothes, she shoved it in her pocket.
A gun had been sitting next to the jumpsuit, a new-age rifle of some sort, and she frowned at it. Guns and Beatrice had never gotten along. She was more likely to shoot her own foot (again) then do any actual damage to what she was attempting to aim at.
So she left it.
She was about to leave, turn and try to find her way through the maze of villas when something caught her attention. Coins were shining in the cracked, dry fountain. Stepping over the edge, she crouched down, hearing her knees pop as she picked up a coin to look it over.
It looked like it belonged in a slot machine.
Figuring it could be of some use, she shoved what she found in her pockets, picked up an ace of spades card that had been left abandoned and stood up straight once more.
Passing a hand through her tangled curls, realizing the bandana that kept them out of her face had been stolen as well, she looked around, taking in something new every time her eyes passed over the scene. The villas seemed to creek and groan, looming over her with broken shingles and boarded doors.
Blind to her new surroundings, she moved forward in to the twisting halls and pathways that the buildings created. Her shoes were heavier than she was accustomed to, clothes smelling like old blood. God she hoped that 'x' on the back had been made with paint. Taking to a half jog, she maneuvered her way around the buildings, glancing over her shoulder occasionally when she thought she heard something.
Of course, nothing was ever there when she looked.
Streaks of blood marked walls here and there, pooling at the bottom of a handful of steps and, to the side, she saw what was left of the victim who had left such a grizzly path. Half way up the steps that led to slightly higher ground, she eyed the skeleton that had fallen, boxed in where they had tried to make their last stand. Some part of her wanted to chastise them for being so foolish. Everyone knew better than to get caught in a corner, didn't they?
Still, their loss was her gain. Stepping off the landing, she landed loudly on the ground below, kicking up dust as she did so. From the skeleton's hands, she pried out what had been their dying weapon.
She looked over the spear that was nothing more than a broom handle with four cosmic knives taped to the top.
Well, that would do the job. At least this fool had chosen knives that didn't need to be sharpened. That made her life a bit easier.
There was that sound again, louder this time, like someone breathing through a gas mask.
The hairs on the back of Beatrice's neck stood up and she straightened. Turning as quietly as she could, she surveyed the small open area around her, eyes cold and calculating not like prey, but like a predator.
It was dawning on her then as she headed back up the steps, that this wasn't her home. This place wasn't a barren wide expanse of land filled with creatures she knew how to handle and plants she knew how to use. She was out of her element and that knowledge worried her. Shoulders rolling forward, she half hunched down as she crept along the pathways. In the dark, in the smog, she really did look like an animal. She was still confident, yes, but now she was beginning to become cautious as well.
Spear clenched tightly in her right hand, the other lifted to try and adjust the collar that had been clamped on too tightly around her throat. It burned, already she could feel it starting to rub her skin raw.
That pain distracted her, drew her attention away from her surroundings just long enough as she rounded the corner to not see the figure move back in to the shadows.
That sound was there again, strange clicking noises under the filter of a gas mask. To her left, then right, and she heard the footsteps a split second before the creature was upon her.
Twisting on her feet, she threw her spear up just in time to block the weapon coming at her face. The creature had lept down from the rooftops, forcing her to stumble back. Gritting her own teeth, she watched it for just a moment, knees bent as she too was ready to spring forward at any time.
Whatever it was, no matter how human it looked, it was clear that it wasn't human any more. The glass orbs on the gasmask emitted an eerie green glow and its head tilted to the side, body covered in a strange ensemble of clothing and rags.
She lunged at it, spear ready.
She jabbed forward and the creature lept over her with a shocking ease like a mantis on Psycho. Beatrice pivoted on her feet once more, one foot slipping on a piece of tile that chipped off. The precise attack lost its strength but she managed to clip it on the side of the head, smacking it with one of the knives.
Dazed, it stumbled.
Fire roared through her blood, adrenaline pulsing. She could feel it in the way her muscles shook, the way it heightened the world around her, the way she could feel the spear pierce the creature's stomach, slicing through tissue and organs. Blood spilled out, staining the ground and she drove the spear in farther. The noise it made was inhuman, a half screeching sound that made her teeth hurt as she continued forcing it backwards. Its back hit the wall and she twisted the spear until she felt it hit the brick and mortar.
The creature went limp.
Breathing hard through her nose like an angry bull, she grunted as she pulled the spear out of its torso. The blood glistened in the low-light and the action had pulled some entrails out of the open wound. They dripped.
A grin found its way on to her face, ease coming over her limbs once more.
That hadn't been so bad.
Turning away she let out a breath that was surprisingly shaky and shook out her arms, trying to relieve the tension that had built up in them. Letting the spear rest over a shoulder, she hummed and took a step away.
Sharp pain bloomed in the back of her calf, sending sparks of light shooting in her eyes at the agony of it. She stumbled and fell, losing her spear in the tussle. Twisting on to her back, ready to throw her weight up and leap on to her feet, the creature met her first. She rolled to the side to dodge the attack from the spear it held, kicking a leg to swipe its feet out from under it. It fell over her and all she could see was her own reflection mirrored in those green lenses.
Dirt was smeared across her face and in her own eyes she could see raw fear.
She had killed this thing, it had been dead.
It pulled a spare knife and she smacked her forehead against it, head-butting it with as much force as she could muster. Grabbing its shoulders she twisted, using her power and strength to shift their weight. She had pinned it down but it still had the knife, the wound on its abdomen still weeping blood. Grabbing the hand that had the knife she wrestled with it, keeping it apart from her. Its hand tried to grasp her and she socked it across the face. Then she hit it again.
It was struggling.
Again.
The screaming sounds that came from the gasmask filled the air and drilled in to her.
Again.
Knocking the knife to the side she grabbed the creature by the head and smacked it against the stone below, repeating the motion over and over until the sharp cracking sound turned in to something soft and wet as she beat mush and brain matter against the ground. It wasn't moving.
But this time, she would take no chances.
Grabbing the impossibly sharp cosmic knife from its limp gloved hand, she drew it with a quick motion across its throat, severing the head.
Then, for a moment, she just sat there.
It didn't move.
She nudged a knuckle across the side of her own nose, smearing blood on her face without thought as she looked up. Part of her wanted to be horrified with what she had just done. She was scared, yes, but not for the right reasons. She was scared because it had come back to life, not because of her own actions, scared because she was alone.
Alone.
Standing on shaking legs, she grabbed her spear and continued down the lonely roads of the Sierra Madre villa. Blood wept from her leg, soaking in to her jumpsuit, and with every step she took she flinched.
Her collar beeped steadily.