Ancient doors of reinforced concrete and tempered steel cracked open to the howling winds as long disused mechanisms and servos played the part of stalwart gatekeepers. Where once the sinew and muscle of men would ply cranks and pullies, dribbling sweat and blood to make clear the path, mechanical substitutes acted in their stead. To Lantaya, it shared the same airs. A tomb from ages long passed, buried beneath the sand, and surrounded on all sides by ominous guardians. As the doors ground to a halt, she realised at once that she knew this place. From the Courier's Dream. The vision of a Cathedral to Man's Voluntary Self-Immolation. The temple that lay at the very centre of the Divide, the final resting place of the Giants of the Old World. Weapons of unspeakable destruction. The final message, only ever to be sent when all others had been disregarded or ignored.
They stepped forward onto hallowed ground and out of the whirling sand, weapons sweeping the dark interior. It was not how it had been, so long ago when the two Couriers had battled with words rather than weapons, at the end of a Road unknowingly shared. It was dark, the illumination once to be had by long-lasting fluorescent wall-inserts that dotted the silo walls now extinguished. The silo launch bay itself was also locked tightly shut, blocking out any light that might allow unworthy eyes to gaze at the monoliths on either side, above the squat form of the missile that had never launched. The missile Ulysses had almost fired at the lands of the New California Republic, and the Long 15.
"Mister Boone," Joshua yelled over the shriek of the Divide as the Courier and ED-E, the two most familiar with the silo and its controls, jumped the divider between the bay entrance and the guard room offset to the side and began interfacing with the door controls. Boone took a grateful knee, setting Follows-Chalk down against the cool concrete wall before placing his hand upon the young tribal's shoulder and bellowing directly into his ear to be heard, "You good, kid?"
Chalk nodded, face resolute beneath his mask, and thumped his own chest with a clenched fist then Boone's own in turn, right above the heart. A Dead Horse gesture meant to denote extreme gratitude from one warrior to another. Heart to heart, in the most literal sense. Boone paused, unfamiliar with the custom, then seemed to understand. He clapped his hand on the shoulder not currently healing from extreme trauma, locking eyes with Chalk to show he understood, and that he had been happy to do as he did. Lantaya backed up towards them as the great bunker doors began to close behind them, cutting off the deluge of sandy air that had enveloped them within itself for almost three quarters-of-an-hour. As soon as the two sliding ends re-joined one another in the centre with a resounding and comforting boom, and the hefty locking bolts slid back into place, Lantaya slung her carbine and knelt next to Chalk.
"Graham is calling for you. Go, I have medical experience. I shall tend to him," she reassured Boone as she rifled through her own pouches to retrieve the necessary gear. "Do you know how to use human medical gear?" Boone asked, tone business-like and as stoic as ever.
"Yes, the Wanderer is friends…" She paused for a brief moment to consider whether that killing machine who had just devastated a platoons' worth of ferocious ghouls with the speed and efficiency of an automated assembly line, and who had no emotions worth speaking of, could indeed be capable of something as benign as having 'friends'? She quickly discarded the thought, deciding that it truly did not matter at this juncture. "…With a medical man of some skill. I consulted with him at length abord the Zeta. Don't worry, he's in good hands," she stated as she laid out the bandages and antiseptic vials with a steady hand, almost drowned out by Raul and the Courier loudly conferring through the guardroom window. Boone pulled down his NCR mantle from around his face, making it inescapably plain just how heavy the weather had been outside, by the stark contrast between his clean formerly covered skin and the rest of him, heavily encrusted with dust and sand.
"You did good," he acknowledged, abruptly and with infinite bluntness, as was his way. "Would have given a lot to have a bundle of tricks like you on our side of a firefight in First Recon. Doubly so, now I know I can trust you not to leave someone behind."
"I would never," Lani growled, the decades of Huntress training pushing the words out of her mouth and through her cloth mask with all the feeling she could muster. All the feeling those words deserved.
"Never know about people 'til you know," Boone told her, then gave her a significant nod. He picked himself up and strode towards Joshua, who joined by the Courier and Raul, were advancing into the silo, clearly intent on sweeping the interior of the pre-war facility for any sign of Ulysses. Boone gave a short, piercing whistle that made Roxie and Rex look up from the arm they were eating from both ends, like some macabre and bestial rendition of the scene in the movie, where the two lovers' hands meet within the depths of the popcorn. "Stay," he jabbed a thumb towards Lantaya and Chalk, "Guard!"
The two cyberdogs barked in confirmation of the order, coming from one of the few humans they would take orders from. A very exclusive group of individuals, limited to the Courier and his immediate circle of companions. Lantaya picked up the surgical scissors from the kit in preparation to cut the fabric away from the wound, only for Follows-Chalk to shrug his shoulder out of the sleeve with a mild grimace and grunt of discomfort. "I like these clothes," he clarified at her disapproving look at moving the effected joint so casually, "A women from the lands of Utah made it for me. The duster, I mean."
She accepted the excuse, not wishing to press the issue in the middle of a veritable warzone like the Divide. Her eyes took in the surprising progress of the wounds healing process, cupping the wound, probing it to feel the tell-tale lumps that might denote trapped fragments of bone. Or fragments of bullet. Chalk spoke, his smooth singers voice sounding vaguely metallic through the respirator, his eyes partially obscured by the goggles he wore to protect his eyes. "The hydra will close my wounds. Nothing that ails me now is bad. Have had far worse, Miss T'Rali."
"Hydra? That is what this is? Mister Tercorien spoke to me of a miracle drug from out West that the Courier had shown him how to make, but I never realised it was this efficacious."
She was beginning to feel slightly delirious, for some reason. She shook her head to clear the feeling of nausea from her mind, but it proved surprisingly stubborn. To occupy her hands and her mind, she began packing away her medical kit with shaking hands. Chalk reached out and grasped her gloved hand with a surprisingly firm grip. He gazed at her for a moment, feeling the shaking of her extremities and motioned for her to lower her mask. She did so, to reveal a strikingly pale-blue skin, almost drained of colour. She wasn't sweating, however, which was at odds with the likely cause he suspected. "Do your people sweat?" Chalk asked, reaching with his unaffected arm for the contents of her medical kit.
"No," Lantaya answered between heavy breaths. Her head was spinning like dancers on the stage, making it difficult to look the young tribal in the eyes. "We evolved as an aquatic race. Our head fringe is optimised for shedding heat."
Follows-Chalk, not being that well-versed in biology, or any form of zoology for that matter, simply extracted a bottle of pills from the kit and an IV bag full of a flowing amber liquid. "Take two of these Chems," he proffered the bottle first then handed her the IV bag, "Then this direct into the blood. Old World evil in the air. Worse here in the Divide, or so the Courier and Joshua say. You forgot to take these, didn't you?"
Lani reached for the pills and twisted the cap off, hastily swallowing two with a gulp of water from the canteen on her belt as she struggled with against own stomach, contending with it by sheer force of will, to keep the medicine down. Her innards roiled within her. She held out the bag of Radaway towards Chalk, who obligingly helped her hold it above her head as she uncapped the needle, tapped it once or twice to get the air out of the tube, before rolling up her sleeve and locating a vein. "Thank you," she gasped when the needle was finally in place, and the lifesaving drug was seeping into her arm to be circulated about her body by her rapidly beating heart.
"All is well. Was the same when I left Zion. Rads, the evil that dwells outside the valley, are not common there. Forgot my lessons many times. But pain is the best teacher."
"It is comforting to know that I am not the only one who finds it difficult to adjust. I certainly won't make the same mistake twice," she promised, as the placebo effect of the recently taken drugs made her feel somewhat better. She glanced sideways into the darkness, watching their companions faint figures in the blackness as they advance in pairs through the wide underground silo. "This hydra of yours is an amazing drug," she said, by way of conversation.
"Not mine," Chalk said with his usual tendency to take everything literally, "If I had made this, I would have made it taste better. And smell more pleasant. Here," he said as he pulled up his respirator to expose his mouth. The edge of his chin that had been sandblasted by the wind outside was now rapidly scabbing over, "Smell."
He breathed out a pungent waft of fetid air directly into her face, causing her to lurch away from him as she gagged at the noxious odour. Fallows-Chalk laughed raucously at her reaction, making sure to hold her IV-bag steady to keep her from ripping it from her own arm. "See? Bad smell, yes?"
"Disgusting, thank you very much for enlightening me," Lantaya coughed, voice heavy with sarcasm that was entirely lost on Chalk. "You are most welcome, Blue One," Chalk replied, continuing to laugh.
"Coming up behind," Boone notified his friend as he come up behind him in the dark. Boone had caught up with the Courier as the two of them advanced further up the rightmost wall, sweeping the interior of the ancient military installation with the barrels of their guns. In the deep depressions inset into the floor that were meant to keep the operators of the missile silo and their control equipment safe from the explosive backblast of a launching rocket, they had already spied Ulysses' sleeping arrangements. A lonely bunk bed tucked into a corner, surrounded by charcoal drawings, and salvaged paper and animal skin that had been prepared for use as a medium for drawing.
An empty oil drum had been dragged in, cut in half, and was being used as both a makeshift desk and a stool. A lump of wax of origins unidentifiable to Craig, housed a makeshift candle wick that had clearly not been lit for some time. Boone privately considered what it must be like to live here, utterly alone save for a bunch of papers and the Marked Men and other abominations that surely hunted you for every step you took outside the confines of your refuge. He decided that it wouldn't be too different from how he had lived after Carla had died.
Being alone in a crowd or being alone in the midst of nothing but ruins and the remains of lives long since ended weren't that far apart. "Uly, you here lad?"
The Courier's voice echoed around the silo walls like a gunshot, his duster swaying from side to side with each step. He had sheathed his club and blade after wiping them off on the lower reaches of his long coat and had instead unslung Randell's rifle from his back. He kept it down, however, fairly sure that Ulysses would keep his one refuge in the middle of the Divide's chaos and fury safe from even the most tenacious of invaders. And the pre-war military engineers who had built this place had obviously built it to last through the centuries. It was unlikely that any denizens of the wastes had found their way inside.
No voice save his own echoed back to him through the darkness, no signs of life save the faint footsteps of Joshua and Raul on the other side of the silo, and the almost indistinguishable whisper of the Wanderer's passage further forwards in the silo. He couldn't make out where the cyborg was by eye alone, but that was the way of things. He didn't need eyes to know where the Omega was, when his other senses were so much more reliable in this case.
"We even sure he's here?" Boone enquired from behind him, rifle up and scanning. The Courier glanced back at him, and gently brushed the muzzle of his friend's rifle down with his armoured glove, pointing it at the floor. "Uly ain't as dumb as me, see? Wouldn't be out on a day like this. He'd have gone to ground here or somewhere else with just as much cover. Somewhere familiar, easily defended."
"Booby traps?" Boone enquired, his eye having already been scanning the darkest shadows and likely spots of concealment for just such an eventuality.
"Nay, not here. Uly likes to pace an' wander about while he's alone. Talk to himself. He delves deep into the Dream, oftentimes deeper still into the Nightmare. Dangerous to have traps around an' about when yer deep within yerself like that. An' talkin' with yerself is the only way to be if ye don't want to speak too much with the spirits. An' not many do. Drives them a bit peculiar, ya know what I mean?"
Boone glanced sideways at his thoroughly peculiar friend, who by his own admission spoke with spirits quite often and didn't often engage in the practise of conversing with himself. At least to Boone's knowledge he didn't. "Not at all," he answered, somewhat dryly.
Across the silo, Joshua dropped down into the hollow opposite, as Raul stood above him and scanned the surroundings. This looked to be Ulysses work area, doubling as a makeshift stockpile of weapons and ammunition. Neat stacks of ammo boxes lines the surface of several salvaged tables, while underneath the table was a number of lead-lined survival boxes that upon closer examination proved to contain military MREs and Chems. Water too, bottled, and sometimes labelled with iconography that Joshua recognised as Legion cache markings. Devised to denote the purpose of premixed herbal remedies and combat enhancing supplements at a glance, they had been meticulously catalogued and stockpiled. Rushing Water, Fiery Purgative, Blood Shield, Healing powder, Healing poultice and Hydra.
Amazingly, he recognised the Legion markings for Datura hide salve and Datura-based antivenom. The Courier must have brought Ulysses some of the sacred herb on his many visits here, for him to have had access enough to it to brew so much of the useful mixtures. He did notice the paper and handmade charcoal pencils that littered the area. Apparently, Ulysses was something of an artist. He picked up one such drawing, marvelling at the skill displayed. It was a carefully drawn picture of the Twisted Hairs, as they had been long ago before the arrival of Caesar and the first of his Legionaries. Proud figures dressed in a mixture of rags, animal skins and pre-war clothes salvaged from ruins and ages long passed. Some carried hunting rifles, pistols - the types of firearms readily available to the pre-war American public. Most carried braces of wooden spears or lengths of crude metal that had been inexpertly shaped into serviceable machetes.
They were gathered around a campfire, partially illuminated in the glow. Ulysses had displayed the skill of a true artist in how he had carefully graduated the charcoal to simulate the circle of firelight, the flickering shadows. And his work on the finer details of the hands and finicky objects, like weapons and the never-ending complexity of the twisted locks of hair that denoted the wearer's History, was striking in its beauty.
But the faces were blank. Like dull grey holes in the midst of a vibrant world. Utterly out of place.
Joshua touched the small hole punched into the corner of the page, surrounded by crumpled paper that had at one point been crushed in an enraged fist. Then smoothed out once more.
He could almost see him in his mind's eye, Ulysses sitting at his workbench, putting infinite care and attention into this drawing of his long-lost tribe, only to discover how his own memory was failing him as the decades slid past into eternity. Becoming part of History. No amount of Twisted Hair could capture the details of another man's face. No amount of pre-literate tribal tricks could hold the past connected to the future. He could practically hear how Ulysses' hand had tightened on the page, crumpling the paper in a sudden rush of emotion. How his finger had punched through the fragile sheet of paper before he flung it aside. Then at some point in the indeterminate future, how the tribal had returned to smooth it out once more. Perhaps to gaze at the sheet, the closest he would ever come to knowing his tribe once more. And getting further away with every second that passed.
Another small tragedy of the wastelands, concealed behind the hard-bitten exterior of a man who would never let it show, the depths of just how much it wounded him. Joshua set the paper down, with infinite care, making the sign of the cross. Above him, Raul observed this and turned away to give Joshua his privacy. Despite being Latin American, a land eternally marked by the former occupation of Christian Spain, Raul Tejada was not an overly religious man. Most ghouls who had lived long enough to see the Great War either dispensed with the concept of religion entirely or found the kind of faith that could not be shaken by anything less than a repetition of the same degree of tragedy. And thus were impossible to dissuade or dislodge from their chosen belief, by deed or word.
But when the Burned Man prayed…
When Joshua Graham prayed, silent and seemingly oblivious to watching eyes, you felt as if you were intruding on something deeply personal and private in nature.
Raul ambled away, hands hooked into his belt near his holstered .44 Magnum Super Blackhawks, brushing the hilt of his knife with a leather encased finger. His eyes scanned his surroundings, taking in the titanic forms of pre-war missiles housed between metal catwalks. These were the weapons that scorched the world to nothing more than cinders. To call this place a 'Temple' was either the most insightful of comments, Raul thought privately, or the most cynical and jaded of criticisms. Perhaps even both.
He untightened the drawstring that had held his vaquero hat in place, untangling the fabric of his poncho from the hat and the straps of his goggles, taking a grateful breath of air that wasn't stifling within the confines of the covering. Then he paused, stroking his moustache with a considering look upon his face.
Glancing around himself with the air of a man who was looking for anyone who might snitch on him, he extracted a small brown paper bag that rattled gently with a sound like children's marbles. He unwrapped the top and sent a questing hand within, kneading the inside of his lip with the tip of his tongue. His fingers found their prize, small spherical shapes within the paper prison, that clicked together as they shifted within his grasp. Raul extracted one and sighed in contentment. A Boxcars Original Hard Candy, New Vegas made and mixed with love, care, and attention. This one was Sweet Brahmin Custard. And when Boxcars had his mixers put 'Sweet' in the label, it inevitably meant that the small candy could and would kill a dentist at fifty paces.
In other words, just how the aging vaquero liked it.
The old ghoul, indulging his sweet tooth, popped the dainty confectionary into his mouth and he and the candy both, collectively, began to melt. Bliss spread through his mouth like waves upon the faraway ocean, sending a smile across his haggard face.
Then he felt a knife rest itself gently against his carotid artery, and a resonant voice whispered into what passed for an ear on the head of a ghoul. "Be silent as the grave or prepare to become so."
A mammoth arm swiftly but gently led him backwards into the darkness, shadows folding the pair within the embrace of loving concealment. Raul, suspecting who this likely was, kept on sucking on his sweet. They drew to a stop, safely away from prying eyes or ears.
"The Courier and his Shadow I know," Ulysses rumbled in the ghouls ear, knife steady at the precise point where it hovered millimetres from ending a life. "Walks this Road freely. Marked Ones allow him passage. A matter of respect. Maybe fear. Never once brought others, only ever walked the Divide with those he found awaiting him there. Not since he brought the Bear, not since the giants awoke, since before the Old World spoke. For a time. Before they returned to their slumber."
The knife was adjusted by the barest of angles, just enough so that the flat edge could be drawn, whisper smooth up and down the uneven surface of Raul's neck, as if stroking it in an act of intimacy. Meant to intimidate. It might have been effective on someone other than the Ghost of Mexico City.
"Question in there somewhere, mi amigo?" Raul enquired through a mouthful of hard-boiled syrup, keeping his voice pitched low to keep Ulysses calm and avoid drawing more of the others into this tense standoff. Keep the exchange simple. Simple was good. Kept men from doing something rash. His hand still clutched the brown paper bag, hoping that Ulysses didn't ask him to drop it. Waste of good sweets.
"Know the mark the marksman wears. Servant of the Two-Headed Bear; or used to be. Eagle-eyed killers, the ones who wear the red skull. Seen them many times, close enough to touch. Close enough to strip meaning from the words they echo like a boast. Far from the last thing my eyes ever saw. No reason for such a man to walk here unless there was a score to settle," Ulysses intoned, referring to Craig Boone who they could both see out there in the dim glow of the silo, covering the Courier's back as they searched. Then he guided Raul's gaze to Joshua, who still stood praying over the picture in the hollow below them, only his bandaged skull visible over the lip.
"No man could mistake the Burned Man for any other. Hiding himself behind white cloth, hoping no-ones sees through to what lies beneath. Not just burned skin, but burned bodies, oaths set alight. Fool. Can't hide from History. Should have known, after the Courier spoke to me of Graham, that History would come to judge. Want to know the why of it. Why you walked these Roads. Why Graham allowed his legs to carry him so far from Zion's walls."
"Well sure," Raul muttered, "I love telling stories to my kidnapper, mi amigo. Favourite pastime. Got a lot of experience. So, Uhh…"
"Uly, ye fecker! I know yer in here! The bloody hotplate is still warm to the touch," the Courier's voice echoed through the silo. They both ignored it.
The ghoul sucked on his sweet for a moment, then tendered the question. "… What was it that you wanted to know? Lost the thread somewhere around, 'white cloth hiding', or 'walking roads', or 'Two-Headed Bear' maybe?"
Ulysses hand pressed the knife into the flesh, the minutest amount of applied pressure away from cracking the skin. Clearly not amused. "Why has the Courier allowed Graham and others to shadow him here? Come here to put an end to me? Wishes to wipe an irritation from the slate. Repay in blood the words I spoke to the White Legs? The words that broke the generations of New Canaan, destroyed a people whose History stretched back a thousand years or more, razed their walls to so much dust and ash. Speak."
"Didn't come here to put an end to anyone, mi amigo. Courier wants your help. He asked Graham too. Asked all of us. He said you two were friends," Raul clarified, "Wouldn't have come if I knew your relationship was this complicated. I hate drama, Si? Bad for an old man's health."
Raul held up the bag of sweets, shaking it like a set of maracas. "You have a sweet tooth?"
The Twisted Hair paused for a moment, considering the offer. Then he plucked one of the spherical balls out of the paper container, the hard-boiled sweet vanishing into Tejada's peripherals to the accompanying sound of hard candy on teeth, and tongues working in concert. They shared a companionable silence, the two of them there concealed in the darkness, sharing their sweet bounty.
"Tastes how a rotting corpse smells. Sickly sweet, like a battlefield under Arizona sun. Is this what the Courier builds in his new Nation? Sweet ignorance to keep the people silent, as if the lights of Vegas weren't enough to bleed out the soul. Another few steps in a dance that none but Old-World ghosts understand. Like House, when he yet lived."
"Careful there, mi amigo. I am one of those ghosts, and I dance like a nine-legged Brahmin," Raul replied. Then, "Tastes good though?"
"Prefer bitter to sweet. Easier to come by in a world gone sour, or easier for it to find you. So, not come here to settle old scores? Some new path that the Courier wants to walk. Why come seeking me? When the Courier chooses to walk, he walks. Can count the ways I know of to stop him on one hand. A hand with all fingers cut off."
"That's mighty funny, mi amigo," Raul chuckled at the comment, treating the situation with the same level of casual sarcasm and utmost care that he applied to everything in his life, "You say that Señor Graham wouldn't be here if Six didn't want you dead, Si? But if you know the Boss well enough to say that he wouldn't need nor want help walking a new road, then I'd say you know him well enough to see he wouldn't bring help to kill an enemy of your reputation. He'd come by himself and take care of you by himself, Señor. Real personal like, Si? Now, that sounds more like the Courier to me."
Ulysses returned the chuckle, mulling over the ghouls rebuttal as he tapped the flat of the knife against the side of Raul's neck. Finally, he took the knife away. "Held many lives in my hand during my time. Know the worth of a man by how they stand. If they stand. Some stand firm, never flinching, facing down the end. Others crumble to dust at a whisper."
Raul turned slowly to face the Twisted Hair, rolling up the paper bag and tucking it back into his vaquero jacket with infinite care. His milky white eyes peered through the gloom at the figure that stood there, listening to the resonant voice as it uttered its verdict. "You have steel in your back, more solid than the ghost you claim to be. More solid by far."
"Only thing I have in my back is arthritis," Raul snarked, "So, you going to speak with the Boss? I want to get out of this place, go someplace with an old-man chair for me to sit in."
"Going now," Ulysses muttered as he glided out of the darkness, his duster embroidered with the flag of the Old World rustling behind him, "Know your kind well, ghoul. Steel takes time to forge, time to shape. How long have you walked this world? Wager all the light in Vegas, or water held at bay behind Hoover Dam, that you've walked longer than most."
"Longer than most," the Ghost of Mexico City confirmed as the two men walked from the darkness together and into the light, catching the attention of the rest. The Courier clapped ironically at the sight of Ulysses, who was missing his usual metal respirator from around his mouth. A thick coating of stubble was building up around the tribals dark-walnut cheeks, framed by the sheet of braided dreadlocks that give his tribe their name. Joshua pulled himself out from the hollow below, standing to his full height. Against Ulysses, the Burned Man wasn't especially tall, standing a foot or two above average. Ulysses stood closer to the Courier's impressive stature, above six foot tall and towering above most in the wastelands, save perhaps giants like the deceased Lanius. But all three men approached one another in the manner of beings far larger than the reality of their stature would suggest.
Lantaya and Follows-Chalk staggered into the main silo from the entrance with the two cyberdogs trailing at their heels, supporting one-another with an arm each, just in time to see the three men come together in at the centre of the Temple. Boone stood off to the side, Raul opposite him, while in the shadows from whence Ulysses had been hiding, the Wanderer materialised like a spectre from the ether, sliding his knife back into his hip sheath beside his holstered MPLX Novasurge. Raul's quick-witted effusiveness had evidently saved Ulysses from a sharp pain between the ribs, followed no doubt by a short and brutal fight.
"Thought ye'd never stop talkin', Uly. Leave the ghoul alone I thought, he's only little! An' 'sides, I thought we knew each other better than that. Shame on ye, thinkin' I'd come here lookin' to do for you like some common Legionary. Shame," the Courier shook his head dramatically from side to side. The effect was spoiled somewhat by his helmet still being on, thus making it impossible for them to see his usual display of windswept grey hair and glittering grey eyes.
Ulysses smirked, eyeing the Courier up and down between sidelong glances at Joshua. "Shouldn't be surprised. Ears that hear the voices of spirit and ghost, surely hear mutterings of mortals in the dark. Had to be sure. Not live long by treating life lightly. Nor grudges."
His sidelong glances at Joshua became a fixated stare. "Last my eyes saw, you were a fading dot on the horizon, a force many Centuria strong trailing behind. First Battle for Hoover Dam. Where horns were first turned aside by teeth, the rumble of explosives. Never thought to see you again. Not as allies."
"On my own part, it was quite the opposite," Joshua replied evenly, "When the first of the Frumentarii began following my trail, I expected to one day be confronted by you. Or Vulpes Inculta. It surprised me that Caesar refused to send his best. I had thought my skill to be held in higher regard. To warrant a more efficient response than what I received. But I am curious: The price upon my life, and the orders given to those Frumentarius who pursued were all-encompassing. Why did you never attempt to hunt me down?"
"Believed you to be dead, even after hearing of you among the tribes of Zion, even after walking among the White Legs. Why I never sought to deliver Caesar's Law. Thought the war inside would kill more surely than any hate I could bring to bear. A man like you, to swaddle himself in the cloth of an Old-World God, preaching of love and kindness."
Ulysses chuckled as if it was the greatest absurdity he could have ever envisaged, "You, who once removed the heads of twenty men, and made Legionaries cast them against the leader of their tribe. Stone a man to death with skulls, only to preach the words of a peaceful god. Thought you would end yourself or be cast out by those who welcomed back the prodigal son. Let the land do the killing. Or let History keep your memory."
Joshua considered the words, remembering the curious mode of speech that Ulysses had adopted from his tribe, and had carried forwards into his time with the Legion. Memories of a long-ago and almost entirely forgotten association with a younger Frumentarius of the Legion. As he recalled, no-one in the Legion had ever liked speaking with Ulysses. They got lost in the odd turns of phrase, his twisting and meandering prose, and quickly became convinced that every colourful metaphor concealed a hidden slight or a gently simmering contempt.
After meeting others of the Twisted Hair, he now understood that this was just how they spoke. They had managed to maintain a comprehensible version of spoken English through the two-hundred odd years of tribal living. But clearly, someone in their tribe at some uncertain point in the distant past, had closed their grubby hands about a book of poetry or classical literature. With predictable results.
"Wars that begin must have an end," Joshua replied in a more than civil tone, nodding his greeting to an old enemy, and an even older comrade-in-arms, "With some assistance, thankfully, I managed to do better in that conflict than I have in the past; than I did at Hoover Dam. It did not prove to be the end of me. If a man's mind and soul are his Kingdom, I feel thankful to once more be my own Master. Subject only to God."
"Can guess who assisted," Ulysses replied with another sidelong look, this time at the Courier who mimed a little, smug so-so gesture with his gloved hand. "Cannot restrain from carrying every parcel, solving every trouble, ending every unruly soul on his road towards History. Would open every outhouse door from the Divide to the Endless Water, just to ask if they required help shitting."
The Courier muffled cry of negation was swallowed amidst the laughter this wholly accurate summation of the Courier's character provoked amongst those present, all of whom were well aware of the Courier peculiarities in this regard. Even Boone cracked a small smile. A vanishingly small one.
"Well, fuck ye too Uly," the Courier grumbled. He slipped off his helmet, revealing the smaller of his two headscarves that he had tied around his hair to keep the unruly mane out of his eyes while he wore the helmet. Ulysses shifted his weight, relaxing somewhat now that it seemed unlikely these unforeseen visitors were not come to put an untimely end to him. "Haven't gotten around to me yet, Boss. Way to make an old ghoul feel jealous," Raul quipped from the background, remembering the similar rebuttal he had provoked outside Fort Defiance.
"Know why you would walk these Roads once more. History holds something in this place, something known to you. Something you gave birth to. Good or ill - right or wrong," Ulysses made a cutting motion with his hand as he rambled, "Holds no meaning in these halls. Gave birth to it as a mother does a child. Keeps on drawing you back to it. Never brought others here before. Strange shadows you bring, risk making sacrifice to the Divide's wrath, it's wind and desire for revenge. Why?"
A question that even some who travelled with the Courier would not mind an answer to. Boone fingered the railing of his rifle, while Raul sucked on his hard candy from the side-lines. Follows-Chalk suddenly felt his pillar of support step forward, dragging him with her. He glanced at her with alarm, thoroughly unwilling to be dragged into the overly bright limelight of the exchange between men he both knew and respected by reputation. Lantaya T'Rali was not intimidated, however. "He came because of me," she stated, bowing her head towards the tall tribal. An explorer, like the Courier. Or like herself. "My name is Lantaya T'Rali. Matriarch among my people. I am from a planet far away, among the stars," she gestured towards the roof of the silo as if to indicate the night sky concealed behind the Divide's storms. "He has promised to take me home. To my people."
Ulysses regarded her for a long moment, then turned his attention back to the Courier with a raised eyebrow. "Grew tired of Outhouses, then?"
His expression was inscrutable, but there was a latent hint of scepticism behind it. As if he didn't quite believe what Lani had said and was looking for some quiet hint from those he knew to reassure him that the alien wasn't speaking lies or insanity.
"Are ye growin' tired of this, yet?" The Courier re-joined, jutting his chin in a rough indicator of the dusty ruins that surrounded them. "World turned out to be wider than even I gave it credit for. If ye ever looked up at the stars that blaze in the sky at night an' wondered what they held that might benefit us dusty wastelanders, ye know why I'm going. Has nothin' to do with outhouses, helpin' others 'side myself, or even her," he gestured again, this time with the flat of his hand towards Lantaya, "No offense, Lani."
"None taken," she remarked, mildly.
"Ye told me once o' yer namesake, the man who made two nations into one. Brahmin stubborn. Stood durin' a time where to stand for anythin' took real courage. Real strength. Ye said how he only died once he'd won his war, finally. Sat down an' never got back up. Stopped walkin' long enough for the sickness to take hold, see? Like moss on a stone. Ain't that what yer doin' here Uly? Ya lived through the joinin' of the Legion an' the Twisted Hair. Ya lived through the Divide, the death o' the Nation takin' its first breath. Last, not least, lived through the chaos I leave in my wake. Now what? Ye sit down here an' wait to die? In this bleak Temple? Tis not fittin' for men such as we. I have a task. Yer one o' the few equal to it. An' ye need to get movin' again. Pick up the pieces and pick a path worth followin'. That's why I came."
Ulysses narrowed his eyes, glancing between those present as his legs began to move, carrying him in a circle at the centre of the Temple. Joshua and the Courier were propelled before him, as if in sympathy, until they were three men walking in a perfect circle. They watched one another as they paced, round and round, like a game of musical chairs without the chairs. Locking eyes as they traded words like blows.
"Searched near and far for meaning in the ruins of History. The Divide taught me History was not so forgiving of curiosity," Ulysses spat, "Nor of Nations without the proper ideas. New ideas, not dried husks, worn, used up by those who came before. Twisted Hair was the first of the peoples I called my own to perish. Then the Divide, a victim of a force it could not possibly predict or control. Legion collapses under its own weight, every day draws closer to its demise. To the day History claims it for its own. What can I expect to find in the Endless Black between distant dots of light, but more of the same?"
He glanced at Lantaya as the three men continued to circle that one, undefined point in the centre of the concrete floor, like animals surrounding their target. "You, Blue Skinned One," he spoke sharply, "Where among the Blackness did you ever see the secret upon which Nations are built?"
Lantaya blinked at the vague question; opening and closing her mouth in confusion, she opted to ask for more to work with before tendering an answer. "Could you clarify the question?"
Ulysses chuckled once more, shaking his head sadly. "Don't even know the question. Unlikely my answer is to be found among these. Just a chance, a whisper of what might be. Have followed whispers and imaginings from horizon to horizon, East to West. Bull to Bear. Only you ever understood the question. And remember what you told me, Courier? When I stood with my hand upon an Old-World Sword, held it above the neck of the West, like Damocles before me? 'Still have their part to play'. Men like us leave death wherever we tread, Messengers of Death. Heralds of Doom. Why would I risk carrying my message beyond these forgotten places? Risk those who still have their part to play?"
The tribal regarded Lantaya again, asking her a question she often had asked herself as the full enormity of the nature of humankind was displayed before her, its grim realities inescapable to any with a modicum of foresight. "Do you know the disease you unleash upon the stars? What we have done? Have found nothing that makes me believe all Nations do not crumble to dust. It is our curse. America came the closest. Makes me wonder what they discovered that those in the Old Europa the Courier tells of, did not. Can the world outside of ours, survive our ghosts?"
"The galaxy is unfathomably vast," Lantaya reposted without preamble. "Larger than you, larger than me. Larger again than anything you have ever seen or contemplated. What makes you believe you can survive it? There is more than enough space for us to destroy ourselves to our hearts content. And maybe you will find answers there. I cannot guarantee it, that is correct. But no-one knows where an answer may lie. You can travel a lifetime only to find a million assorted ways to fail. You only need to find the one way to succeed. Maybe even a way to lift this curse you speak of. A way to live without the war that made," she cast around them with an expansive hand, "All of this."
She hardened her heart, coxing out a justification for her own actions that she desperately hoped was true, no matter how harsh it sounded to her own ears. The only thing that made up for it, was the hope that the tiny nugget of hope it offered was enough to provide the light in the darkness that Joshua spoke of. That he hoped for, that they all hoped for.
"You may not be a man of the faith, Ulysses. But you must know the benefit of having the one Light shining in the darkness, to orient ones-self upon. A Lighthouse, guiding us forwards, from where we languish. Trapped within the darkness," Joshua stated, still circling ever around and around, "Where did you lose your hope for the future and begin to obsess upon the past? All men, regardless of faith, have their own best judgement. Trust in this, or trust in nothing at all. The Lord's Will must be done."
"Trust in the Will of Gods, is like tossing ones-self off a cliff, and expecting the winds to catch you," Ulysses scathingly reposted, "Where was your God at New Canaan, prophet? Just another dead people, following dead ideas, under a dead flag. We used your symbol of peace to crucify our enemies. Where was the Will of your God then?"
"Within me," Joshua proclaimed, his anger channelling itself into his legs, which adopted a predatory gait despite himself. His hand rested itself up the Light Shining in the Darkness. "Locked within, struggling to make itself known. The Fire set it loose. It kept me alive, to cherish love once more, and family, and tribe. And for those things I fight, in the name of my Lord. Argue against the Word and Scripture of the New Canaanites as you please, Ulysses, but never question our commitment. God's Will is our Will, and you shall know His word by the footfalls of his Soldiers. We stand as the Bulwark against the tides of Evil. As we always have. New Canaan, the city, may have fallen. New Canaan, the people, march ever onwards."
Ulysses, surprised by the response, laughed out loud, a full-throated laugh that echoed throughout the silo in rumbling waves of sound. None of them ceased their circling. "Call it God's Will. Caesar spoke in your voice, just now. Might makes right, you shall hear it in the war drums we beat, in the thousand feet beating the earth. In our cries for blood not our own. More of the Legion survives in you than you know. Will your people stomach it for long? How long will you stand as their lonely sentinel before they cast you out? How many men of the Legion wait for that day, when New Canaan slit their own throats rather than draw their own steel?"
"Or more o' their God found its way into the Legion than Edward Sallow wanted ye to remember," the Courier took up Joshua's point in an effort to head of the latent murder he saw growing in Joshua's eyes. "Ye never trod Old Europa, nor the Great Deserts 'tween there an' Asia. Where their God first came together from the spirits o' the Dream, made itself known to the world. Where the Muhammadons crack open the spine o' their Holy Tomes amidst a carpet o' bodies, an' the Cavalier still bear arms against all that don't worship the same alter. They're God knows how to fight, Uly. Just chooses not to, unless pressed. The world is pressin' now."
"The cross is a symbol of sacrifice for the greater good. As Christ sacrificed. Not just peace," Joshua added in a harsh voice, "Whether that sacrifice is made at the tip of a sword, or by the sweat of ones brow, all is one within the sight of the Lord. We come from a Massacre of four-hundred Legionaries at Fort Defiance. Do not seek to test us as they did. But this is not why we came, to argue matters of faith. You avoid the issue."
Ulysses measured this response, judging those who circled with him at this impromptu Council within the Divide. Where the lonely three who had shaped the History of the Western Wastelands, who as yet survived while all their contemporaries laid dead at their feet, matched Will against Will. These Three Unwise Men, together in the same place for the very first time, their voices echoing around the confines of the Cathedral to Old-World Violence. To the ultimate form of Self-Sacrifice.
"Give me the why of things, then. What message do you bring, Courier? What summons could pull me from the storms of the Divide? What new idea has your Nation birthed?"
The Courier stopped, dead in his tracks, causing the other three to grind to a halt in their tracks. He grinned a terrifying smile beneath his beard, eyes glinting like pieces of silver in the half-light of the silo. Lantaya found herself restraining the deep feeling of foreboding that welled up beneath her heart.
"If there were somethin' worth dying for, if there was somethin' worth killing for, then surely there is somethin' so transcendent, so valuable, it would be worth everyone dyin' for? Toss aside all these doubts, Uly. What's one more Divide in a galaxy full o' promise? A thousand Divide's wouldn't be worth one answer to the question ye carry. The Wasteland is nothin' but the Divide to those who came before. But that question… That question is the message that'll hold up a Nation. All it takes is the will; The Will to draw the blade and let it fall. Trust in History, or in God, or in the Spirits. If the Road is right, it'll be for the best. See?"
To those uninitiated, the words he had uttered sounded like stark, raving madness. Lantaya croaked out what might have been a denial, had it not stuck in her throat through sheer force of consternation. Raul and Boone raised eyebrows and dropped their heads to look at the Courier as if over the brim of Aviators or sunglasses they weren't currently wearing. Follows-Chalk was hovering in the background, looking at the Courier as if he were some long-slumbering God of War who might turn on him and savage them all should the wrong words be spoken.
The Wanderer, ED-E and the two cyberdogs were the only ones that held their council aside and did not react.
The reaction of the Three Unwise Men was most starling to behold. It was to those who observed, as if all three had been infected by a kind of mania. Slow smiles began spreading over their faces, and the light that glinted in the Courier's eyes emerged too within their own. At that moment, it felt as if History itself had been set upon a different path, that twisted and turned towards a destination somewhere out of sight over the horizon. A destination no-one knew, but all dreaded. All save the Three Unwise Men, who through nothing more than the utterance of this simple oath of insane intention, now seemed to have united under a singular purpose. One that no-one save themselves seemed to take any joy in. But their thrill in their shared revelation alone was like the depths of an inferno.
Before Lantaya could master enough of herself to interject and call some measure of sanity to order, a sharp cracking echoed through the Temple, reverberating like a gunshot. Weapons bristled like a porcupines quills as every single person present, who had suddenly brought them to bear all at once. "What was that?" Lantaya croaked through her dry throat.
"Tunnellers," Ulysses stated with a grim certainty, as the hissing became audible to all those present.
"Bearing?" Boone queried, the All-American's stock tight into his shoulder and his eagle-eyes peering into the darkness of the silo through the night-scope attached to the picatinny railing. Raul heard a fizzle behind him, and glancing over his shoulder, saw that the Wanderer was once more concealed within the darkness, nowhere to be seen.
"Beneath the Giant at the Temple door," Ulysses enlightened him. Which explained why the noise was coming from further into the silo, rather than behind them at the main entrance. The silo had another door, after all. One for the military men who manned the installation. The other, reserved for the giants who could be sent forth to wreak havoc upon the world outside this grim, storm-wracked den of suffering. And deep below, the Tunnellers, enraged by the breaching of their domain by the Courier's explosives, had breached their own in return. They swarmed like insects up the sides of the hollow in which the missile resided, the same missile the Courier had prevented Ulysses from launching all those years ago and had left there. Dormont. Forgotten. Its purpose unfulfilled.
"The Divide rises. The message must fly now," Ulysses boomed in his outside voice, "We must stand united. No doubt, no question other than this. Go now, make the world see."
The Courier did not raised his weapon however, even as the tide of Tunnellers began appearing over the lip of the silo. He alternated between cackling and shouting in an almost unhinged fashion as he stalked away from his companions, "No gain without pain, no glory without sacrifice, no peace without war. Where are ya guts an' yer balls, ye small-minded men who cling on to what little ye have, so fearful to lose, that ye haven't the courage to gain! We'll feckin' show ye how to make the world pause an' pay heed! If ye don't believe, we'll at least make ya question! Oi, lads! Watch yer bloody fire back there. Ye'll hit the missile!"
They formed firing line in the darkness, combatting the deluge of Tunnellers that flowed like a sea towards them, hissing and spitting, crawling over one another with sharp claws and fangs dribbling with viscous venom. Follows-Chalk staggered as he fought to remain upright and control the placement of his Storm Drum's bullets, wincing as the effort of regulating the recoil with one damaged arm shot a stabbing pain up the limb and through his shoulder. Joshua and Ulysses fought side-by-side, the former having tossed his own Storm Drum to the unarmed Ulysses, while he fired calm, deliberate shots with his carbine at the sudden swarm that sought to overwhelm them.
The Cyberdogs howled and bayed at the horde, but kept back, tearing at any Tunneller that got too close for comfort, as Boone and Raul alternated through targets. No explosives, the one tool ideally suited for use in this situation, could be used while in close proximity to the missile. Just as it seemed that the horde would close with their thin line of defence, the Wanderer proffered his denial in a hail of high-velocity lead. Tunnellers began erupting with bloody holes that spouted greenish blood through their perforated scaled hide. The staccato pop-pop-pop of the Wanderer's silenced rifle barely audible over the gunfire, but it's influence was immediately felt. Lantaya summoned a Singularity in a rush of biotic corona, sending the gravity well into the very heart of the advancing horde.
It popped in a deluge of purple light, gripping Tunnellers in an invisible grasp and lifting their furiously hissing forms up into the air. "Flashbang going out," Boone roared over the din, pulling the pin as he tossed one overhand into the press. It detonated, sending the Tunnellers around it into a frenzy as they ripped into one another in confusion.
And before it all, the Courier stood, muttering to himself as he strode towards a control panel. Then he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth to hang in his beard.
"For God, for the Spirits, for History! Matters not, today we choose the future! Today we answer the questions, today we hold the feckin' power to decide! We grasp it with both hands closed tight around it an' hold it up to the Light. Ye think ye can stop me!?"
He howled in sudden fury at the Tunneller horde, as if they had somehow offended him. He was in the midst of what seemed to those who had the attention to spare while under assault by the horde of ravenous beasts, a fully psychotic break from reality. He approached the panel and began flipping switches and turning dials as a maniac grin spread across his face as his eyes blazed from within his metal-plated skull. "It 'twill be a cold day in the Nightmares of all, 'fore I'm laid out by the likes o' ye!"
His voice echoed out through the concrete interior as the silo doors shrieked and opened to the sky above. The wind roared in answer to his own, as the outside light bathed the interior of the military missile silo in what paltry glow the sun could force past the roiling clouds that swirled above. The Tunnellers hissed in fury, the outside light anathema to them and their carefully adapted subterranean eyes. Hands flew across the control panel, reawakening the giant whose massive frame had been made ready for flight years previously. All that needed to be changed was the target. This the Courier did, hands firm despite his mania.
And as the horde staggered, stymied by the Light that invaded the darkness, the Courier flipped the cover off the 'Launch' button, and called out to those present. "Duck n' Cover!"
Those most familiar with the Courier's voice issuing that cry, and the likely meaning behind it, dove for cover while dragging those less aware of the Courier's latent streak of madness into the hollows that housed the assorted Control Panels and launch computers. Then, the gloved hand depressed the button with a menacing click.
And all was engulfed in fire. The Tunnellers simply evaporated as the rockets strapped to the missiles tail fired, sending roaring tongues of flame down the silo and into the warrens of the Tunneller's bellow, cleansing all within like a flamer clearing a pillbox. Igniting agent and nuclear fuel produced less smoke and heat than its petroleum-based equivalent, thus allowing the rocket to fire within the confines of a silo of such open construction without killing the staff that manned it, but all below the rocket as it fired, or too close to the lip of the silo, were instantly turned to so much ash or crispy-fried Tunneller.
It was so loud, that none of them heard the clamps that held the massive Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle upright, as they disengaged with a metallic boom and the missile thundered upwards and outwards, exiting the silo in a billowing wave of faintly radioactive exhaust. The storm closed in around them once more, as they realised through the ringing in their ears, that the background noise had returned to normal. The silo doors shrieked once more as the Courier engaged the post-launch sequence.
They clanged shut like the tolling of a Church bell, signalling the end of their meeting. Heads poked over the lip of the hollows, as they gazed in shock at the empty space that had once housed a Giant of the Divide. One of the titanic missiles that had destroyed an entire world with the force of their arrival. "Goddess. Courier, what have you done?" Lantaya breathed out in a shaky voice.
His laughter was the only answer. Howling, demented laughter. "Makin' a proof of our conviction," the Courier yelled over the howling in his ears, "The spirits were sendin' me a sign out there in the thick o' the battle! Look here, now, at the works o' mortal men! Why ever so cautious o' what acts the unwary make in the dark, Uly? Here, 'tis what men do when they know full-well what evil they make! Today, we decide what path the future takes! Who lives an' who dies. You were right, Uly. Sometimes the slate needs a clearin' to make room for new flags. But yer timin' was off. Can expect the flags to rise of their own accord, can ya? Ye have to wait until the time is ripe. An' how can anyone believe in yer path enough to follow if ye ain't first willin' to prove it by takin' the first giant leap down the Road."
Ulysses stood to his full height, gazing up at the closed silo door in something like awe. He turned his head to stare at the Courier for a long moment, before returning his gaze to the silo door. His haggard face seemed to take on new life. He had found the why of it when the Courier had stopped him from launching this same missile at the Two-Headed Bear. Only now, with the message sent to spread his lesson, did he finally have the strength to grasp it.
Joshua nodded slowly, crossing himself and inclining his head in prayer. A weight had lifted off his shoulders. The problem with having to punish others for wrongdoing, was telling the sinner apart from the everyday folk. "They were afforded every chance deserving for mortal men," he stated, "And though it is only God's place to judge, in this case, I have no compunctions letting them be judged sooner rather than later. I am correct in guessing where you sent that missile, Courier?"
Courier Six followed Ulysses' gaze up to the door, nodding as if to reaffirm his choice as the grin took on a painful rictus. The drugs, and the madness provoked by combat and zeal was settling back to normal. His heartrate calmed. When the enemy was down, strike without mercy, and without hesitation. Such was one golden law of life in the Wastelands. It was not as he would have liked it to end, but you could only waste so much time on the beaten and the maimed.
"Flagstaff."