"You know you're not a very good warrior man you know." Alex was told this by the girl laying flat down on her back, sucking in breath, who'd just fallen from an overhanging bar in a mess of limbs. "A big fat D for your bucko, you should be ashamed of yourself." He approached the flattened scribe and prodded her side with his foot.
"You're tenderised." The tip of his foot brought her to theatrical convulsions, "Abuse! In the workplace...what's the unions like here?" She rolled away so her back met one of the scored walls that made up House's demonstration area that he'd turned into a tactical training area.
"Surprisingly not great." Alex picked up water from a nearby halfstand and felt the heat inside, he smiled and offered some to Veronica, "Thanks, I'm parched...where's my lemon slice? No ice cubes?" Alex kept his smile, winked.
"Don't you dare!" She stopped the protest as he approached, resorted to a mewling whimper. His grin got wider as he doused her head with comical loving attention.
She could guess he might just be a little annoyed that she wasn't taking his drills seriously. Why couldn't he understand she couldn't do one pull-up and then fire a weapon let alone five? Paladin Witley had cited her enough times to use up a scrapbook for 'under-par' performance.
"Why do you want me to use these stupid weapons anyway? Those legion assholes use swords!" Veronica winced as she pulled herself up into a sitting position, swept back her wetted hair, he was a jerk as well when she really thought about it, "I'll be wearing power armour, this is pretty much a no-brainer."
Alex smiled, appreciating the flawed logic and dopey laze she usually reserved for when he tried to get her towards anything resembling a soldier, it would have worked better if she hadn't shown him exactly what she was capable off when she was determined for it; not her expertise in picking apart all the old world tech he managed to loot or salvage, he was thinking of how skilled she was in breaking men down with just her fists and feet and her over sized sledge glove.
"The legion won't be easy pickings at the Dam, it'll be more Nipton than Novac." He definitely did know about the legion, she would give him that at least, "They'll probably be smart, well - smarter than usual. I'm guessing their few waves will be saboteurs and distraction tactics, but there going to come hard, I've heard there smelting massive shield walls in some plant near Drywells, there going to use it to cover their first assault, with a lot of covering fire. This won't be some folksy melee from yonder deal." Veronica got up and chanced her way towards the exit to his little fetish pit, the guy was crazy for the training nonsense.
"I really don't see your problem here, legion shows up - NCR show up and bam," Veronica clapped her hands together as she danced out of his pit, followed by his glare, "Then you get to swoop in and get your shiny brass medal from Oliver, that is if you're not planning on having House toss him over the side once you spoil their party." The Courier smiled, that big wolfish grin of his.
"If Oliver finds himself flailing over the side of the Dam he'd probably have tripped and fell himself, that guy- " Alex shook his head, god he hated the republic, promotion by way of dinner parties and political movements, it was madness, "-Is as much of a general as I am a cockatoo. What's a cockatoo? Hell if I know; but it still makes more sense than that bloated feedbag." Veronica whistled, clearly impressed.
"Gee, I sure don't care for that sort of talk against our commander-and-cheat." Keep him talking, that usually worked with the amateur dramatist she called boss. "You don't think his idea of slugging it out in the middle of the day with a bunch of pain junkies isn't just the cleverest thing?" His smile turned thin.
"A lot of young boys and girls are going to get gutted because of that guy, it's a crime in itself." He looked over her, propped against a tool bench with a bottle of water in hand, sweaty faced, lazily downing the contents, wearing her nearly always there grin, "-I'll be glad to let the republic boys toss him over the side themselves if they feel the need."
"And you really think they won't be mad you ya know...kinda stole the Dam from under their feet?"
"Not after I cut the legions throat, no." He replied. He took his own iced water. It wasn't the most premier luxury to be found in the Vegas, or even the wasteland; but it was better than what 90% of what most people had. "They'll have just fought the bloodiest battle in the post-war world. I doubt they'll be up for another fight once they figure out I've got a gun at their balls, bellies and brains." She winced at her crudeness, "Now what have I told you about that mouth mister?"
"It's liable to get me killed, and it isn't nice at the table - yes yes I get it." He realised that she might just be edging towards something. Was she trying to get towards the whole hanging mess that House's agreement to his side of their bargain was going to bring?
"It might just get you with a lot of blood on yours hands." Veronica looked him over. Yes, he wasn't the Courier now, definitely the charming, easy on the eye, easy on the heart Alex. "I mean, do you really think the republic will take this lying down? Or that Boone or Cass won't have anything to say once they realise what you and House are cooking up? I love the idea of screwing over those republic jerks, but I mean this is just going too far..." He chuckled at that, she liked to think it wasn't a derisory laugh either.
"That's exactly what's so good about it, that's what Oliver or Moore doesn't or won't see. They think it's a sacrilege to even think about double crossing their precious republic, they think they're so fucking untouchable." He relished when he could see the look on Moore's face if and when he pulled the rope tight around their throats. Let that hard ass 'only the result matters' bitch see what he was really capable off. "I'm going to take that pompous attitude and wrap it around their fucking necks, let them see what it's like to become just numbers and obstructions."
Veronica winced slightly at his overt cruelness again, she'd heard Elijah once too often fulminate about the republic in that same tone. "What about Cass and Boone?" What about Arcade for that matter, and her? Wasn't she going to have to be even a little worried given House's intention towards her own band of misfits before?
"Boone has no loyalty left to the republic, that left him the day one of their finest citizens sold his wife like a dog." She couldn't imagine that, the way someone must be changed by having their love stolen from them, and the Courier was the one to give the sniper his only respite in life. "Cassidy is a pragmatist at heart, she isn't going to give her life trying to go up against House." House was the problem. Alex wasn't stupid, the Courier was downright sadistically brilliant. She couldn't understand why he didn't see House for the real evil genius he was, the guy could make up a good villain for a Gronak comic!
"And what if a few thousand republic soldiers decide to give up there lives?" Alex stalled at the question, gave her that cold dead stare he coated himself in when something truly unpleasant came up around them.
"Then they'll regret it." He knew he must have seemed like a monster then, but what did it matter? They weren't talking about the usual love and life and all things nice, they actually had a chance at working out this hellhole they were stuck in, nicely in line with the republics death keel.
"So you'll just put them all to death? That's awful nice of you." Veronica looked him over, the bandages and the bruised skin, rolled over his sweat stained white shirt, the body armour he'd taken - been given by Joshua Graham in Utah off all the horrible people in this world. He was darkly handsome, but if you weren't looking to get under his cloths and into his skin, you could definitely see the subtle undertone of malice in his look, not as stark as Graham...but still.
He had helped her so much, he'd put himself up against House just so that her family could continue being jerks to anyone they came across. He'd helped so many people in the rotting city around them and helped murder all the men who wanted to lash everyone from here to California to a cross, but he was still so cold.
"You know you never really told me about your family." She mentioned it when he got too cleaning up for the day. She probably unsettled him, why else would he shut his yapper after all?
"They where all deadbeats in the traditional Vegas sense," He answered it casually, no point digging up things he'd long since stopped thinking about. "Save my own parents. The rest of them? Animals. It's a shame I had to come from their same gene pool." That was honest of him at least. He didn't care what people thought, he could remember the moment he lost his innocence, sucked up into a mushroom cloud pumped out by his own indebted family.
"Wow, you're really a well adjusted guy, you know that?" She didn't like thinking about her own parents, or any of her not so filled family, but she definitely wouldn't have slandered them.
"What made you...dislike them so much?" The Courier snorted.
"We weren't tribals, sort of like a semi-civilised town, whatever civilised means anyway. We got into a fight over a fresh water cache with another town...it was a massive fight, it was the first time I got my hands dirty," He could remember it vividly, remembered seeing his uncle Smith beating a guy to death in what would have been seconds. It was a highlight around the campfire; four punches, a headbutt, two knees directly into his mouth, and enough follow up kicks that left him pooling with blood. He'd finished it by running his knife across the guys throat. "It ended up in a two sided bloodbath. A junk trawler got his hands on a nuclear weapon...put it on a train as a tribute to the the the other towns working rail system, it was their main thing you see. Well, it ended up that they went up in a big plume of smoke, while most of our little stain was dead or dying. It was a nightmare."
Silence was the only answer she could give to that, what do you say to that?
"Look, don't worry about it." He brushed her off, no need for sympathy. What sort of person pumped out their own nonsense so that someone else could belittle them with pity, "The only thing that sort of crap does is remind me of something that might just be a little bit important."
"What's that?"
"That people shouldn't have to gut each other over things like water." There he was, the real big softy Alex that drove the Courier to murder and slaughter with severe intent.
All of those bandages and padding was just papering over the cracks for him. He was broken, and she hated the world for it.
"I kind of know what you mean." She mentioned it quietly, never liked talking about it, she never liked talking about anything real. "My parents died at Helios One. Imagine that? Your parents dying for something that doesn't even matter anymore." She hoped it balanced him, kept him on the ground while his fate was decided in House's matrixes up in the wizards tower.
"Billions of people have died, if you die serving a cause you believe in? Well, it's better than most deaths." He offered that up as a sweetener she thought, unlike him, gee was she special. "Does it count if it was a stupid ideal?" She was more bitter than she should have been, annoyed at how they always turned towards death, why did they have to be here now? In this nightmare world with her best-friend who was turned into a teetering lunatic by it.
"Most ideals are stupid, people do enjoy lying to themselves." There he was, the Courier, the monster. God she hated the Courier, why couldn't he always be Alex?
If he went with House, if he got to his side then he'd always be the Courier forever.
She was going to say something, demand - futilely that he leave with her right now so that they go and overlook some obscure tech maybe, something that wouldn't changes things a single iota.
"Mr Sennser, would you come to the penthouse?" There it was, the dull monotone that Veronica would imagine couldn't have any mirth in it if House had just found out Caesar had a broken finger and Kimball had a broken asshole.
"I'm going to have to see what House wants, can you get the two republic misfits down here?" She looked at him strangely, that was to say almost - almost tearfully.
"I really don't want this to happen." She said it quietly, why was she so forlorn all of a sudden? "I don't want you to go up there and listen to that snake, I don't want you to try and give the republic a bum hand; just for those assholes throw away all their poor citizens lives just so that they can have a bigger cut." It was rushed, unlike her, Veronica wasn't a frightful townie who buttoned up at the slightest chance of danger.
"What's wrong?" He didn't understand it.
"This is going to end in blood, serious blood, even if I was okay with the Dam...yeah fine, but if you and House try to screw the republic," She shook her head, visibly animated in her worry, "You might have just met the thing that's as stubborn as you." He really didn't know what to say, the idea of all this talk - coated in emotion and pain, it unnerved him.
"I'll...I'm sorry." He stopped himself, he looked over her, he felt all the useless emotions that raged through him. "I'll do what I can, just don't get down. I'll make sure we don't have to have a Republic-Vegas war, you know how clean I like things." He tried to be clever about it, but even then, he remembered Novac; all those dead legion men, he had half a mind at the time of lashing them up onto crosses just for the mad humour at the time.
It wouldn't end with a tight bow and knot, she saw him walk heavily in his battered stride and realised he didn't even think that, how could he? He was the Courier after all, the merchant of death, an easy smile and an easy gun.
She was left there for a long time, kicking up a storm in her own head as she realised just how useless she was, how useless the brotherhood had become. The fate of the world lay here with them and all the power armour and laser rifles.
She thought about the 'zapper' she made, something she'd devised to maybe, just maybe temporarily overwhelm House's guard just for Alex, incase he needed it. But he was the calculator, the Courier didn't make a bad deal, she bit her lip and hoped for blood as she thought it, he wasn't a monster.
"Hey there skinny, where's the brooding hero type?" It was Cassidy with Boone skulking in behind, Raul would be there in five, 'picking off some annoying flesh' she'd said, crass Cass - Arcade was off about they knew, summoning up his remnant friends for their last big hurrah.
"Up talking to his master." She said it with scant anger. She felt more deflated than anything.
"So we're going?" Boone looked awful, wrapped up like Alex but with less grace, always grimacing.
"I don't know where we're going." She hated her whining voice, but it felt like that last time she'd felt so down. It was Elijah and Christine all over again, the father taking away her first love a second time.
"It'll be the Dam." Boone was decided, "He won't miss a chance to fuck with the legion." Veronica agreed with Cass's sentiment, because it was the truest thing she could say.
"You know, if your so worried there drip, why not calm the man down a little." The republic loud mouth settled down beside her while Boone took himself to the range, "Settle him down?" Cass smiled at her innocence, laughed.
"You know exactly what I mean. Our dear leader would be settled down if you took off those ratty robes and showed him a good time." She was so vulgar, it made Veronica blush, looked away - she was right as well, but it hadn't been talked about, it was so awkward.
"I'm not into guys." Cass snorted.
"Alex isn't a regular guy, he's a force of nature. Fucking him would be like fucking the wind...you know you've never really tried it?" She shook her head, how did she always bring it to sex? "No, but I know, it isn't just something you switch on or off, I know I am." The republic bitch snorted again.
"He really cares about you, he appreciates what you are, how sweet and truly unique you are girly - too bad you'll never be able to oblige him" It was a cutting, vulgar remark yet again.
"I know." She didn't want to talk about this, not now.
"I'm going to go watch Boone blast imaginary legion, think about it drip." She gave her that annoying hip bump and then swaggered off behind Boone into Alex's little den, the powder and boom of the shots kept them all distracted she imagined until he returned.
Craig stopped shooting the moment he heard the shrill scream of the elevator, all the practise in world wouldn't stop his mind from running, all of the Mojave was rolling across it.
Alex entered the room at a pace, limp subdued, a clear danger to anyone standing against him.
He wasn't stupid, neither was the republic girl beside him who always had a glare or fickle biting remark whenever the easterner put down their homeland.
"The Legion assault is imminent. They're rolling their entire force across the Colorado, and Oliver's concentrated most of his force at the Dam. Forlorn hope and Novac are due to be overrun." Craig didn't know how he felt about that, he hated the idea of legion being anywhere but downwind, but Novac was where his life had ended.
What are you going to do to the republic? That was the question he wanted to ask...but Novac, the time when the legion came and they met them together rather than the republic; in Bittersprings when they met them again to stop them. The Courier had earned his loyalty - the NCR had taken advantage of it.
"So what's the plan?" Cassidy asked the question, he heard the slyness hidden inside it.
"We're going to the El Dorado sub-station, we need to put a piece of tech in place. We'll be sending most of the power towards a certain node in the Hoover Dam." What was he talking about? "On the way, we'll be taking a trip to Hidden Valley."
"What about the Dam? The legion?" He got there before Cassidy, why where they playing House's game?
"Hidden Valley?" Veronica asked. She inadvertently looked at Cass's holster.
"I've already organised our equipment. Everything here save for a few speciality items is going to be loaded up and directed towards the Dam," He directed them to the rolling of the secondary elevator rolling from the service point. "I've organised mercenary companies to go south, heavy weapons for Forlorn Hope; grenade launchers and sentry bots, and I'm going to make sure Cottonwood Cove gets a visit from the old lady in the water." From the elevator came two heavy lift bots that Alex had taken from the old construction sector of the city. Boone remembered that he and Alex had spent a long day placing all their weapons into crates with enough ammo to field a squad three times their size. "Unfortunately Caesar has been busier than we thought; and more dynamic. We've spotted hundreds of motorcycles being unloaded from Cottonwood Cove and old world artillery pieces being set up along the Hope coast."
"Hidden Valley? Why not go straight to the Dam?" Veronica asked a question that she thought she might know the answer too, but she needed to see was Craig's response, Cass's take on his new plan.
"We're aware of the brotherhood," He looked at Veronica, "The republic aren't. We need to make sure that the brotherhood doesn't do anything too stupid while we deal with Caesar."
"And the Dam? Why El Dorado?"
"We're going to reroute the power there, it'll give House access to a reserve army that's situated under Caesar's camp." She couldn't have imagined that Boone would have shouted out in surprise, but his tame response left her wondering just what he was thinking up in his mind.
"House has an army right under Caesar's nose? And he hasn't used it already?" That conniving old bastard.
"We aren't part of opposing governments declaring war. We aren't two tribes comparing our warriors by slugging it out face to face, it's about deception for maximum slaughter." The Courier didn't care about the morality of not having used it before now, they had too good a chance to end the legion there and then. "Caesar will commit his forces across the Dam. With everything else he's planned up, they'll push across most likely and stretch themselves out. That's what we want, because when we bring our robots online half of them will already be sent hell the other half will be ripe for the plucking. No retreat this time - no third battle for the Hoover Dam."
"You really think this will work?" Cassidy asked. The end of the legion? She doubted it, people like that tended to stay around long enough to make sure there enemies died with them.
"It'll be bloody, but it'll be an end one way or another. We'll be facing them head on, down in the Dam where there going to try and do damage." This was important now, the republic weren't good enough to do the job, they thought they could saturate the legion by drawing them on, idiots. "We'll have riot shotguns, shock batons, some liquid armour that I found in an old lab; everything to create maximum carnage. This is going to be filthy - get your minds right, there isn't no hundred yard bluff, you'll be swimming in it, sound good?"
"Hoo fucking Ra." Craig snarled it or just about, time to finish this.
"I want you all to know that I'm planning on rolling Oliver over, I'm not with the republic on this." He stalled to catch their eyes, he had to have them behind him. "We won't be laying a finger on one NCR man if we don't have too. I'm going to make sure they know there fucked, but I want you to know that if Oliver or Moore tries to throw their mens lives away then they'll be dealt with on the spot."
"Treason then?" Cassidy asked. Alex snorted.
"You see any two headed bears flying around here? I didn't get us here just to hand this place over to Kimball and his scumbag friends. This is the city where civilisation starts, not where it ends like the last trial run."
"You can dress it up whatever way you want, you're making a run for dictator along with your egomaniac boss upstairs." She wouldn't go along with this, just for House to have all the reward? "What about all the soldiers who gave their life? Who are about to give their life?"
"I didn't bring them here, and tell me; what exactly will they be getting for winning the Dam? A big pat on the back, maybe a medal if they can be bothered smelting enough. Or is it more likely they'll be stuffed up in caravans and told to get the fuck home so that they can do die in more rich mens wars?" He wouldn't listen to her weak patriotic bullshit. He was sick of the republic, he was glad to help it die.
He made for the door, he'd left enough kit for them to get past the guards at the station, uniforms and mantles that would give them the advantage they needed.
"Everyone here knows what I'm about to do, if you want to go play the hero then go give Oliver a hand while he sends thousands of people into the meat grinder." Alex slung up his bag, inside his insides quivered - this was it, no more fencing with Caesar, he'd finally have the chance to put his blade to the old bastards throat.
"It's decision time folks, do you wanna go taddle on me to Oliver and let Caesar walk through us to California, or do you wanna go fuck Caesar where he lays his wrinkled old head?"