Bidding John a fond farewell as he exited the front door, Sticky crossed the street once more as he dumped his helmet back onto his head with one hand, carrying the pizza box with the other. The rest of them stood ready to receive him, expectant looks upon their faces.

"Well, that gives us something to go on."

"How so?" Lantaya questioned, thoroughly confused by the whole situation.

"John was a suspect on Bobby's list. He knew the old man wasn't telling him everything, but I think it was just the thing with the caps that was setting his Tits a-wobbling. Picked up on the fact that John wasn't telling him and took it the wrong way, see?" Sticky explained as he opened up the pizza box and extracted a small piece of paper from underneath one of the slices. He read it as Sarge and Silver each retrieved a slice from the box and wolfed it down as quickly as their teeth could bit down. Jack smiled rakishly and looked up at the building where Wilks stared back at him through his rifle scope. He waved the piece of paper triumphantly, "Apparently, Nancy likes to hang out at the Jazz club down the street after work. Who knew?"

Wilks laughed across the radio link as Sarge raised an eyebrow and Silver shook her head in exasperation. "Smooth operator," Wilks praised him as he panned across their faces through his rifle scope, Boone crouched down beside him, forced to remain unarmed due to his status as an outsider in these parts. "I could have done better, though."

"Let me have this, playboy!" Sticky protested, "Just cause you got the real slick moves don't mean I can't show off every once in a while. Anyway, it ain't John. That much I can say."

"That just leaves us with one less lead," Lantaya commented, brushing a hand over her brow, and kneading the bridge of her nose. Why could nothing ever be simple in life?

"Maybe, maybe not," Sarge cut in, taking another slice of pizza from the box and one of the counterfeit caps from Sticky. He rolled the cap over in his palm as he took an enormous bite of his slice and chewed it slowly, his moustache wriggling on his lip like a walrus. "I recognise these. This raider merchant called Smiling Jack used to make them at Evergreen Mills. Still does, far as I know. The Mills is still a Raider fortress," he said for the benefit of those among them who didn't know, "Last real raider fortress in the region. And the machinery he adapted to press out the caps in still there."

"You sure?" Letters enquired after the Raiders component to the counterfeit caps.

"Sure as," Sarge replied, "I ran with the same raider gang as Smiling Jack for a few months. This was years ago, though. Before I joined up with the Talon Company. Jericho, can you take a look? You were at Evergreen around the same time I was. And you were there way back when the Wanderer cleared out Evergreen and killed the Jolly Green Giant, right? Was the bottlecap press still there?"

"Coming to you," Jericho answered, already making his way towards them with his rifle slung and ED-E swooping along behind him over the top his head. "Yeah, it was still there."

"So, what? Murphy was selling Chems to the raiders?" This time it was Butch whose voice broke into the conversation, cleaning down his scissors and his combat knife of hair while Latchkey got up and shook himself like a dog to clear himself of the last strands that stuck to him. He brushed himself meticulously, his leather jacket sleeves making an odd flapping sound as they scraped against the front of his jacket facings. He walked over to glance off the side of their rooftop to catch a glance of their companions far below. "Doesn't make any sense," Butch continued, "He wouldn't have done that."

"Why not?" Jericho asked scornfully over the radio as he approached them with the Courier and Joshua in tow, "Caps is caps, DeLoria. Not everyone else is so high and mighty as you."

Jericho leaned in to inspect the tiny pieces of pressed metal that clinked together in the Sarge's hand, tiny flecks of paint peeling off to get lost in the folds of his shooting glove. The ex-raider nodded slowly, poking them with his finger to flip the topmost cap over and get a good look at the underside. "Yeah, that's raider work. It's definitely from Evergreen Mills, too. See, Doyle? Even has that same scratch on the underside from the press Smiling Jack used to use. The one that caught a spark from a spot welder."

"And a bullet is a bullet. Murphy knows damn well I would fucking shoot him if I ever found out about it," Butch stated with all the subtilty of a sledgehammer, replying to Jericho's former statement without regard to his summation of the caps provenance, "The only reason why the raider clans are dying out is cause life inside the City is better than life outside. We don't want them getting their hands on high-quality Chems, good food, clean water, unless they're willing to play nice for it. Every day more and more ex-raiders turn in their guns and move to the City. We've got a good thing going on here. Murphy wouldn't break trust for caps. Not now."

"Sure, caps motivate a lad to do foolish things. Spirits whisper poisoned words in willin' ears," the Courier remarked sagely as he got close enough to converse with them without relaying through Jericho. He was smoking another datura roll-up, happily puffing away and watching the world go by. The crowd broke around his massive form as he parted the tide, "How sure are ye of this man's loyalty to the cause? Are his spirits in line with yers?"

"Dead sure. Stake my life on it," Butch stated firmly. "He's smart and he's definitely not the type to do business with raiders when he's got better options. We wouldn't be trusting him enough to take him on the…"

Butch frowned, glancing sideways at Letters with an enquiring expression.

"Expedition, Boss."

"…Right. An expedition. I knew that" he lied shamelessly, "We would trust him to come if he wasn't. And it's just Butch."

The Courier considered this for a moment but shelved the thought that it might just mean they had a terrible judge of character. Contrary to what his staggering body count would suggest, he was very much capable of being diplomatic. "An' if yer man here is correct," The Courier continued the conversation on to its logical destination, "An' raiders are involved, then I'll be guessin' ye'd have an idea where to seek our answers."

Jericho it was who replied, "If someone is spreading these caps around, then they're probably a raider. Or a former raider. And the first thing any raider does when he gets to a new spot is link up with his people. Always safety in numbers out in the Wasteland. Being a raider is like being a part of a gang. Or a fucking social club. Raiders keep track of each other."

Sarge nodded his support for Jericho's statement, his hard eyes peering out from underneath his bald, ebony pate and hard features. "First time I got to Rivet City back in the day, first thing I did was look up former raiders or mercs who might point me in the direction of paying work. That's how I fell in with the Tunnel Snakes. Jericho made introductions with Butch for me."

Jericho nodded emphatically and turned his full attention to Sarge, "You remember Junior Mike?"

"That crazy fuck who liked hammering rusty nails into people's legs? Don't tell me…"

"He lives down the road," Jericho revealed to the Sergeant, grinning as he motioned down the Avenue with the hand that wasn't already occupied with his Chinese assault rifle, Xuanlong, the Black Dragon. "He's a money-lender nowadays. I bet any number of caps, counterfeit or otherwise, that if a raider dropped a body on Penn. Ave then Junior Mike knows who it might be. Could even tell us who it was straight off the bat. We just need to squeeze it outta him."

"Well, damn, what're we waiting for then?" Sticky Hand Jack said as he shut the lid of the pizza box and stepped away from the group, fastening his helmet strap with his one free hand. "Let's go talk with this crazy asshole, see what we can..."

Sticky paused, glancing around with a frown just visible on his features beneath the helmet, mic, and shades. "What's up, Sticky?" Sarge asked, feeling his unease as if it were his own. Sticky whirled around, looking up and down the street and all about them.

"Where'd the Rasta go? Hey, Wilks! You got eyes on Ulysses?"

They all blinked and cast around for Ulysses, looking for the formidable figure of the black tribal and his swinging dreadlocks. Or for the light glinting off the golden head of Old Glory. None of it was anywhere to be seen. "Motherfucker," Latchkey swore through the radio as he pulled a salvaged monocular scope from his belt pouch and peered towards the street bellow, "Has he wandered off in the middle of an operation? Did someone sneak up and grab him? Who was supposed to be watching him?"

The Courier barked out a sincere burst of laughter and repeated Latchkey's assertion to Joshua, who smiled indulgently and shook his bandaged head. "Load o' shite. No man could scuffle with Uly without makin' a ruckus. Ye'd hear it a mile away," the Courier assured them in a puff of datura which Joshua edged away from slowly, "Likely he's just wandered off somewhere. Probably doin' what Uly does. Followin' Roads, searchin' for answers. Leave him to it, I say. If there's somethin' he thinks needs doin' then 'tis best to trust his judgements. His spirits rarely lead him wrong."

"You sure about that? What's he up to then?" Sticky interrogated the Courier with an intent expression, as it had been his appointed responsibility to keep an eye on the tribal. Latchkey's remark had stung his professional pride, though no-one would blame him for not having noticed his disappearance, considering he had been in the diner gathering information that whole time.

"What's he saying Sticky?" Butch enquired down the radio. Unlike the Courier, his ears weren't sharp enough to listen in on the conversation.

"I find it profoundly unlikely that our companion is in any distress. I suspect that he has gone to do what Frumentarii do best," Joshua stated in perfect agreement with the Courier, momentarily forgetting that the Tunnel Snakes didn't have the faintest idea who Caesar was, nor his Frumentarii, and likely would not care much if they did. "He has gone to prepare the battlefield for our advance, as the Courier says. This is the way of the Frumentarii. They cannot help but do so. It is their training and what they know. Of this I am more aware than most; I was there when the first of the Frumentarii were being trained.

"Sticky, give the Courier your headset for a bit," Butch ordered over the radio, "I want to hear what he's saying."

Sticky did so, passing the tall tribal his headset and microphone after extracting it from underneath his combat helmet. He stood, fuming, as the tribal grinned at him before jamming the too-small headset over his ears and adjusting the mic to the optimum distance from his mouth before replying to the question. "Where is he?" Butch questioned in an irritated tone.

"Sure, I ain't his feckin' keeper. An' not fer nothin', ye ever try findin' a man like Uly when he don't want to be found? In all o' this?" The Courier waved his roll-up with negligent disrespect at the bustling crowd that surrounded them. Butch, on the roof far above them watched the movement through the scope of his Infiltrator propped up on the railing. "Gave my oath to let ye run this show, DeLoria. Follow it to the end, so we will, just like the Wanderer told us. Uly'll be fine. Count on it."

"The deal was that I would run this operation. You agreed to it. I'm not taking the heat for him if he drops a body in D.C.," Butch stated with absolute conviction, repeating what he had already said in an effort to drive it home, "You agreed to let me run this show, and I can't do that if you and your people keep wandering off to do god knows what! If he kills anyone then all bets are off. You cool with that?"

"Glacial," the Courier allayed the Tunnel Snakes concerns in his most reassuring voice, also repeating what he had already said, "But ye never told us not to kill. Ye said only to kill in self-defence. An' not to go eatin' nobody, which is a terrible waste o' food, by the by. Important distinction, see? Details matter. An' why this concern over us killin' someone? If the kill is fair then the kill is fair!"

"Because" Letters replied over the radio, cutting into the conversation, "If you kill someone in D.C. then it's murder. If we kill someone, it's peacekeeping."

Latchkey smirked at the Lettersman's words. Now that was also a good line, he thought as Letters continued.

"If its self-defence on your part then we can get the charge waved and that will be that, but it's still more paperwork and time lost. Just let us do the shooting, Courier. It's better for everyone this way. And Sarge won't have to stand up before the Assembly Secretary and make excuses for why we brought you into the city in the first place."

"Fair 'nough, I can get behind that," the Courier admitted before shrugging the concerns away, "Uly knows his business, an' he ain't a follower of my ways, so ye don't have to worry 'bout him snackin' on nobody. He'll be a ghost, my oath on it."

"Give Sticky back his headset, then. And keep an eye on the rest of your people," Butch reprimanded his guest with a sigh of discontent, "Another one wanders off and I'll fucking shoot them the next time I see them. Jericho? You said you know this guy, right? Then you take point."

Jericho nodded and shouldered his way out into the press of civilians with little regard for social convention or good manners, leading the way up the street with the rest in tow. "Fall in line, boys."

Sticky retrieved his headset with one last glare at the Courier, who seemed utterly unrepentant for any trouble caused. He reached for the pizza box, but Sticky withdrew it and shook his head. "Only kids that play nice get the slice," he proclaimed in a sing-song voice. The Courier narrowed his eyes but reached into his duster pocket and retrieved a paper packet of his own jerky. Which was of very uncertain provenance given its cannibalistic possessor. This he began to eat with great enjoyment.

Butch shook his head and scowled out into thin air, throwing a glance at Lantaya who was still leaning on the railing nearby. "Your buddy always like this?" He enquired.

"I believe so," Lantaya confirmed with an apologetic smile, "He is a free spirit. I believe that he likes to feel in control. The Courier may have underestimated just how much he has grown used to acting without regard for others. As I gather, he has been the only authority he was required to answer to for a considerable number of years. He may be chaffing under restrictions now."

"You think he told Ulysses to take a walk?" Butch asked, candidly. He found it a little too convenient that Wilks with his keen eyes and long optics had been distracted by Boone when Ulysses had slipped away, or that ED-E floating high in the sky above them had not informed them of the tribal's leaving.

"No. Ulysses is also of a very decisive temperament. He likely left of his own accord," Lani judged after a moments consideration. She did not choose to mention that the Courier, in all likelihood, had probably sensed Ulysses leave with his own considerable senses and had chosen not to intervene. It would not be prudent to do so. "I have experience dealing with such people, though how it may differ between my own race and those of humanity, I cannot yet be certain. If I am correct, he will try and claim as much freedom as he can within the restrictions you have imposed. He will not kill, as the Wanderer made the Courier give his oath on the matter, which Ulysses respects greatly. But, as far as he is concerned everything else is open for his involvement."

Butch sighed deeply, exchanging another long look with Letters, who just shrugged and shook his head. Nothing could ever be easy in this business. "This is why we don't like working with Outsiders," Butch complained as he turned away from the railing, "Can't trust them to play their role without making shit complicated."

The ground team forged a path through the crowds below as Wilks and ED-E observed their progress from on high. Jericho led the way, his rifle cradled in his arms and his leather mercenary jacket peeled back to reveal the combat armour concealed underneath, a 10mm handgun strapped across his chest directly above a rack of pouches, each containing a curved magazine filled to capacity with 5.56mm rounds. A pair of grenades hung at his left shoulder, one pulse and one conventional frag. All of this he hurriedly checked and rechecked with swift professionalism.

"Expecting trouble?" Sticky questioned from behind him, eying the mercenaries gear check and beginning to conduct one on his own setup in sympathy, as if such things were contagious. In many ways, they absolutely were. If someone as experienced as Jericho expected trouble, it was best to follow his lead.

"No reason, other than their fucking raiders. Or ex-raiders," Jericho amended. "Ex-Raiders are all radscorpion playing at being tamed dogs. Take it from me, I should know. Doyle too. He knows what I'm talking about."

Sticky looked backwards at Sergeant Doyle who nodded in agreement, being an ex-Raider himself, otherwise choosing to remain grimly silent. If there was one thing he had learnt from his times in both the raider clans and the Talon Company, it was how to keep his mouth shut. He checked his laser rifle's power cell and the feeding tube of his pump-action sawed-off in turn, making sure both were ready for use. Everyone else followed suit, save for the D.C. Outsiders who kept what weapons they possessed after the shakedown at the Metro Station, safely holstered or slung.

"It's just down this alleyway. Don't," Jericho ordered, jamming his arm out and into Sticky's path to prevent him from turning the corner. "They always keep a sentry outside. Old habits, right?"

The Tunnel Snakes stacked up behind Jericho, glancing around at the pedestrians walking by on the street. "So, what now?" Sticky asked as he checked the chamber of the 10mm submachinegun he had unslung from his back, making sure the suppressor was securely fastened onto its muzzle. He had slung his R91 in its place across his back. The submachinegun was much more manoeuvrable in close-quarters and didn't have the heavy scope attached to the top. Perfect for clearing a building, if indeed it came to that. "Do you want to talk with him, let us in? Maybe Silver wants to go talk with the guy?"

This last suggestion was aimed at the medic, who was triple checking her own 10mm SMG. She raised an eyebrow, "Me? Why me?"

"Well," Sticky Hand Jack smirked with his finger laid out across the trigger guard, shooting glove providing the reliable, tactile feel of friction against his palm as it secured itself around the handle. "Since I took one for the team and flirted with the waitress, maybe you should flirt with the door guard and get us inside. Come on, I did my part, go put the moves on him."

"Fuck you, Sticky."

"No, you don't have to fuck anybody. Just put the moves on him. Unless you're feeling frisky of course, then go nuts. We'll even keep watch, won't we Jericho?"

"I know where you sleep and I have a set of very sharp surgical knives, Sticky."

"Roger that, shutting up now."

Jericho warily peered around the corner, his hand on his rifles handle but his finger safely outside the trigger guard, his brown eyes narrowed. Down the alleyway filled with dumpsters, trashcans, chunks of displaced masonry that had been left there during the clean-up of Penn. Ave, the sentry sat. He was slumped over in his chair, arms carelessly crossed over his knees in the shadow of the two buildings on either side, seemingly fast asleep.

The old raiders sixth sense was tingling. The seldom ignored feeling in the back of his gut that told him when something wasn't right and he was stepping forwards into a trap. The Courier sidled up next to him, sniffing the air like an old, grizzled bloodhound. The two older men held each other's gaze, exchanging an as yet unspoken feeling. "Somethin' smells," the Courier whispered in his ear.

"Got a bad feeling about this," Jericho agreed, the deep wrinkles and leathery flaps of his skin deepening as his jaw and fists clenched. "What you thinking?"

"I'm thinkin' that I smell blood. Not fresh, mind. Hours old, maybe more."

Jericho took another look at the sentry, this time squinting and craning his head forwards to see if he could get a better look at the sentry. He could only make out the outline. Details were vague in the shadow of the alley. He keyed his microphone with a free hand and murmured into the receiver, "DeLoria? This Courier says he smells blood, and my gut is telling me something is up. This building has another entrance on the block opposite ours. Get your butt over there and let us know when you're in position. If we have to breach and clear the building then we might as well pincer from both sides."

High on the building above, Butch nodded his agreement and keyed his microphone, "On the move."

Turning back to the rest of his team on the rooftop, the good-humoured barbershop owner was suddenly completely absent from his bluff features. It his place, something entirely different arose. Something infinitely more assertive in its attitudes towards the world around him. "Letters, Latchkey, with me! Rook, stay here and act as our relay for the radio signal! Wilks: You and the Courier's man stay here with Rook and watch the entrances. You cool with that, Boone? I don't have to nail your fucking feet to the floor to keep you from wandering off?"

The NCR First Recon sniper, unconcerned by the casual threat, nodded and reached for his belt, unfastening a medium-sized pouch hung from his side and extracting a pair of binoculars. "I'll be his spotter," he stated to Butch after motioning to Wilks with the black duel-optics, offering his services, "Just because we can't kill anyone doesn't mean we can't help kill someone."

"I can work with that. Don't sweat it, Boss. I'll keep an eye on him," Wilks agreed, passing Boone back his DOPE book and hefting his DK-501 to scrutinise the street below through its scope. Boone settled down next to him, mentally dividing the street into sectors and then relaying this information to Wilks for the optimum level of precision in relaying targets.

"Just Butch."

Lantaya stepped forwards as Butch turned away, expectant. "And what of myself?"

Butch regarded her for a moment, taking in her rather unimpressive and average stature and her lack of weaponry. It was true that she was in better shape that most human women, being muscular and obviously in very good cardiovascular shape, but as for her combat capabilities and what she could offer them in the heat of an engagement? He wasn't sure.

"What can you do with that freaky glowing shit you showed us? That won't kill someone?" He asked and then clarified in short order, with a raised eyebrow.

"I can break bones, hold men or women immobile, make barriers to block bullets or explosions, throw objects with extreme speed and force, lift heavy obstacles…"

Butch held up a hand to stay the flow of the possible applications of biotics, "Okay, okay, you're with us then. Stay behind Latchkey and Letters. I take point, Letters and Latchkey cover the sides. You bring up the rear and do what you do. Kill no-one. If bodies need to be dropped, we'll be the ones to do it. Ropes out, boys!"

The Tunnel Snakes holstered their weapons or slung them securely across their backs, tightening the straps to prevent them from rattling or moving, before unfastening long coils of rope from their gear harnesses and securing carabiner clips to the railings. Latchkey tested the old pre-war railing by front kicking them with his heavy boot, putting his whole weight into the blows. The concrete in which the metal pipes were embedded in remained firm, and the railings hardly shifted under his attentions. "We're good, Boss!"

"Butch. Blue, you follow us down once we've reached ground," Butch ordered, before vaulting over the railing and leaning back, the rope fastened around his waist and paying out behind him into empty air. The rope tightened with his body at a ninety-degree angle from the face of the building, and he and his two companions abseiled down in a series of perfectly executed hops, which sent them swinging outwards from the vertical face and then back again like a pendulum, to impact the side of the building with their combat-booted feet.

"You've roped climbed before, right?" Rook enquired from her spot near the antenna, realising too late that Butch had never made sure of this with Lani before heading down. He was getting too used to working with Tunnel Snakes, or other wasteland mercs of comparable, if not equal, expertise and competence. Lantaya smiled graciously at the radio operator, gave her a polite nod and a bow of her head before strapping her combat helmet over her tentacles. "Thank you for your concern, but I shall be fine. Take care!"

And with this parting pleasantry, Lantaya placed one foot on the railing and threw herself over and off the edge.

She caught the stupefied look on the Tunnel Snake's face before her view of Rook vanished below the rapidly shrinking lip of the building, wind whistling in her ears as her biotics flared into life around her. She plummeted past the three men on the ropes, who jerked in surprise at the blistering speed of the blue blur that passed them, before rapidly slowing as her biotics brought her form into a smooth, arching glide, and she alighted on the pavement as if she was stepping calmly from the bottom step of a set of stairs.

Butch's boots impacted the ground next to her and he unfastened the rope from his harness. Lantaya threw him a Matriarchal smile, standing patiently waiting for the three men as they disentangled themselves from the climbing gear. She brushed a non-existent speck of dust from her shoulder. Butch raised an eyebrow as he passed her by, taking point as he had ordered, Latchkey and Letters falling in on either side of him as they unslung their weapons once more.

"Show off."

"Every once in a while, Mister DeLoria," Lantaya confessed with a twinkle of merriment in her eyes. Butch grimaced. Great. Now the alien was in on the joke, too. "Butch," he corrected her.

Back at the building, Jericho and Sarge pushed up towards the sentry, weapons up and scanning. The two men moved in close proximity to one another, as they both wore large amounts of body-armour and could therefore receive most small-calibre weapons fire with little expectation of injury. Bruises and cracked ribs were non-lethal and non-debilitating, and with combat-oriented Chems and stimpacks, a matter of almost no concern. For this reason, they took point.

Jericho reached the sentry first, removing his hand from his rifle barrel and letting the sling keep the barrel of the gun aimed steady. He pushed the sentry lightly on the shoulder as Sarge covered the door with his sawed-off pump action. Sticky and Silver stacked up on either side of the door, the former thumbing the pin of a flashbang grenade attached to his combat webbing as he slid the half-depleted pizza box onto a conveniently placed dumpster as they passed.

They all watched as the sentry toppled sideways out of his chair, landing on the ground with a wet squelch of half-dried blood. The head lolled, revealing the gapping gash that opened his throat from ear to ear, soaking the man's clothes with crimson fluid.

"One sentry KIA at main entrance," Sarge relayed through the radio as he deliberately tilted the head backwards to get a better look at the wound, "Throat cut. Professional job, looks like."

"Roger that, Sarge. Silver, know how long he's been dead?"

Silver made for the body, but before she could the Courier knelt down next to the body and dipped a finger in the tacky blood that had partially solidified over time. He rubbed his fingers together, sniffing it experimentally, before jamming both fingers into his mouth and tasting it with a considering expression.

"Your conclusion, Courier?" Joshua asked as the rest of the Snakes grimaced, peering at his companion with one bandaged hand on his pistol. It hadn't cleared his holster yet. And unless he was in dire need, there it would remain.

"Yer man were a junkie," the Courier commented without much feeling, licking his fingers clean, "I'm gettin' hints o' Jet an' a mite o' Buffout as well. Been dead 'bout ten hours, there abouts. Flecks o' bone in the cut. Yer killer were strong as a bloody bullock."

The grizzled tribal glanced up and sniffed the air, his armoured chest expanding like a set of blacksmiths bellows. He placed his hand palm down on the concrete surface of the ground, closing his eyes and cocking his head to the side as if listening for something that none of them could hear, sensing the vibrations through the solid surface of the ground. "More dead inside. Lots more. Can't hear nor feel any livin'," he spoke slowly, the furrows in his brow deepening as he concentrated his senses.

"Courier says the sentries been dead for about ten hours," Sergeant Doyle relayed to Butch, eyeing the Courier warily as Sticky took his hand away from his flashbangs. No movement inside meant no need to flash the door before entry. "Says he can't hear or feel any movement inside. Want me to get him to send his fancy Eyebot in for reconnoitre?"

"Affirm, send the drone in through the upper windows. We're at the other entrance. Breach and clear, look for anything that could tell us what happened here. And Sarge," Butch clarified his own orders as he and the second team power-walked towards the second entrance, weapons cradled with forced nonchalance to appear as non-descript as possible to the wasters they passed by in the street, "Breach silent. If the Courier is right then we can be in a and out without causing a panic. That way, we won't get held up for hours explaining this to the Brotherhood."

"Wilco," Sarge responded, before catching Jericho's expectant gaze. "Breach in ten seconds. Sticky, you're up."

Doyle and Jericho fell back to either side of the door, leaning themselves against the ancient brickwork as Sticky Hand Jack knelt by the door with his hands reaching for the deviously concealed set of professional-grade lockpicks in his belt pouch. Then he seemed to think better of it, and stood up without a word, crossing back over to the dead sentry.

"Sticky, what're you doing?" Silver questioned in a horse whisper, her hands tightening around the handle of her 10mm SMG as her trigger finger tapped the outside of the trigger guard with marked impatience.

Sticky patted down the sentry, eventually pulling a leather thong from underneath the mans salvaged-steel breastplate. Upon the strip of treated animal hide hung a plain iron key, slightly rusted, but done in the same colour and style as the doors lock. He returned to his fellows with his find in-hand, flashing a shit-eating grin from underneath his combat helmet. "Work smarter, not harder, boys."

Jericho chuckled as Sticky jammed the key into the lock and twisted. The doors lock clicked, and with infinite care and slow deliberation, Sticky cracked open the door. He checked through the scant gap, searching for a tripwire or any sign of another, equally deadly surprise. None presented themselves. So he hefted his weapon and pushed the door open. He and Silver went first, their stubby weapon barrel outfitted with the matte black suppressors, leading the advance with silent and malicious intent. The strike that laid you out was the one you never saw coming, and they had the silenced weapons.

Their combat boots came down on a floor soaked in viscous blood. A scene of absolute carnage met their eyes. It was the typical uptown apartment building hallway, a long stretch of hardwood floor that had succumbed to rot and mould in some places, framed on either side by walls of faded, peeling wallpaper. Holes had been knocked in the drywall at some indeterminate points in the past, allowing all that entered through the hallway uninterrupted views of the rooms that branched off the entrance, and vice versa. Makeshift firing holes, most likely.

Not a building of any great distinction. Of greater note, however, were the bodies strewn about in various states of surprise or shock. Weapons and spent brass littered the floor, stuck to the tacky film of blood that had drained from the bullet holes in their flesh. Three in the hallway near the door, next to an overturned table that had once stolidly carried the weight of an ongoing game of poker. The caps, Chems and bottles of hooch that had served as the apparent pot for the game now lay among the corpses, abandoned.

"Bodies in the hallway," Sarge relayed over the radio as Silver and Sticky carried on without stopping, utterly unconcerned by the discovery. Stealth systems engaged with a muffled hiss and pop of electrical discharge, all three Snakes disappearing from view save for an indistinct heat haze and the sight of footprints appearing upon the surface of the bloodstained floor. "Preacher, Courier, check the bodies for live ones."

Jericho felt one of the Snakes fall in behind him as he advanced. Sticky, most likely. He moved forwards as the sweat began to run down the small of his back, trailing down the grove of his spine. His hands remained steady, however. His hands had always been steady. One of the reasons he had lived for so very long as a raider without being laid out like these poor fools had been. In a firefight his aim had always remained true. He gave the dead no attention beyond a quick glance to make sure they weren't faking. Clearing the building took priority to the dead. The dead could wait. Indefinitely, if need be.

The ex-raider prowled like a giant cat, moving through the room with the rolling gait common to all those who killed well and killed often. Then he too activated his stealth system crackled from sight and making the Courier who entered in behind him smile despite himself. Spirits help the unlucky fool who ran into that old murderer when the raider was both armed and invisible.

On the other side of the building Letters was already packing away his own lockpicks and standing up with his weapon carried low. Passers-by afforded the odd group a quick glance but walked on when they recognised the Tunnel Snake patches and tattoos. Butch kept a wary eye on the crowd as he whispered to his men through the radio. "Go in slow and casual. Don't give them a show."

Letters followed the order, opening the door with his weapon lowered and his stealth system deactivated. Once he was beyond the sight of any curious onlookers outside, he brought up his Infiltrator and strode forwards. He felt the stealth system come online with a pop, advanced pre-war tech bending light around his advancing form like a pair of hands folding origami. He banked right through a hallway door to begin his sweep.

His weapon tracked the interior of the room, taking in the body slumped sideways out of its chair, blood cacked on the side of its paper-white face as the pot on the stove behind it emitted the foul stench of overcooked stew. He felt the borders between his own senses and those of his fellow Snakes blur until he was feeling their presence through walls, feel their intentions and emotions like a soothing murmur in the back of his mind.

He felt Sarge cross the hallway and stop just long enough to get a read off of Letters examination of the room. A passing unvoiced enquiry that came away with its answer as Letters pushed through the room and onto the next. Ground floor was almost clear, Letters felt through the link, and he ducked out of the next room past another pair of bodies entwinned on the couch. Clearly they had been in the middle of some heavy-petting when their executioner had drilled them with a series of shots from the doorway, soaking the dilapidated and mould infested couch with bodily fluids.

"Wasters in the street aren't paying you any notice," Wilks informed them as he scanned the crowd below through his scope. The citizens of Washington DC went about their day, ignorant to the cell of Fully Patched Tunnel Snakes breaching the building that sat within their midst, unremarkable and unnoticed.

"No Brotherhood around. Yet," Boone commented from behind his binoculars, making use of his wider field of vision through the wider optics to get a more general view of the situation. He knew exactly what to look for, being an experienced sniper himself.

The Courier knelt on his haunches next to first body, the hem of his long coat brushing across the bloody floor, a youngish looking woman with a scarred face and two neat holes in her forehead. The contents of her skull had long since leaked out all over the faded hardwood floor. Joshua went from body to body, crossing himself and keeping one hand on the butt of his Light Shining in the Darkness, checking the dead for signs of life. "Don't be botherin', Joshua," the Courier advised from his spot by the dead women and shaking his grizzled head, "Dead as doornails. Spirits have left an' went off to see what's happenin' in the Dream."

He leaned in until he was nose to nose with the dead women, looking into her eyes. They were bloodshot, partly because the screaming passage of the bullets that killed her had ruptured the blood vessels in her eyes, partly because she had been high on Psycho at the time of her death.

"Who was winnin' the game?" The Courier whispered into her cold, dead ear, motioning towards the spray of cards piled next to the overturned table. The body remained immobile, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. But the dead told many stories. He took in her facial expression, the angle of her recumbent form in relation to the door and the rest of her dead brethren. All combined, it painted a distinct picture.

"They look as though they were caught completely unawares," Joshua gave his opinion as the sounds of the Tunnel Snakes clearing the building drifted down to them from the second floor. They moved fast, Joshua thought, and with surprisingly little conversation or calls to convey instructions. Fast, silent, and efficient. A winning combination.

"True that," the Courier responded to Joshua unwittingly mirroring his own thoughts. He lifted his eyes from the women, doing a quick survey of all the weapons he could see in the room. 10mm pistols, .32 revolvers, Chinese assault rifles and double-barrelled shotguns. All manner of armaments. But one thing was missing from the picture. Something quite striking if you knew what to look for. "None o' them managed to fire back," he concluded.

Joshua blinked and took a closer look at the bodies. Most had neat holes in their skull, some had been double-tapped in centre mass, unerringly precise shots sent straight through the heart in cases where the heart wasn't covered by protective armour. He reached down and plucked one of the spent brass casing from the surface of the blood-soaked floor. 5.56x45mm. Post-War. No conventional manufacturing marks. The only type of spent brass present, despite the wide variety of weapons scattered about.

The Courier picked up one himself and smelt what remained of the expended powder, before running his pinkie finger on the open end of the brass cartridge where the bullet had once been and taste the residue with the tip of his tongue. He recognised the particular mix. Match grade ammunition, high grain count, non-standard formula that burnt hotter and faster than usual, providing more bang per grain of powder.

"Wanderer did this," he concluded with absolute certainty, "Not long after he left us at Rivet City."

"Possible," Joshua agreed with his friends assessment as he tossed the spent casing away and stood up, "The times do coincide. And from what I have seen of the Wanderer in the Divide, this would appear to be the work of our metal companion. Merciless, methodical, yet done with haste despite that."

Upstairs, the Tunnel Snakes stalked among the bodies like ghosts among the dead, the only marking of their passage being the occasional creaking board or bloody footprint. They did not need to speak to coordinate their passage. Feelings and emotions passed like air between them, guiding them as they slide past one another moving from room to room. Hunting, searching for a target. All they found were the bodies. But they did not relax their posture. It was foolish to take anything for granted.

The only ones who remained aside from the rest were Lantaya and Jericho, neither of whom possessed the same mental link, and would only get in the way of the others.

Instead, they stacked up covering the stairway, a continuous flight of stairs stretching from the lowly ground floor to the lofty summit of the rooftop emergency access door. Something about the indistinct heat hazes that ghosted through the doorways like spirits from beyond the veil, the bloody boot prints that tracked back and forth across the rotted floor, the ominous creaking of the dilapidated building that surrounded them. Something about this situation unsettled her. Triggered the nervous reaction that made her heart beat faster in response to outside stimuli.

Maybe it was the dead man slumped at the bottom of the stairs, half on and half off the lowest step, blood pooling about him. Not far from his limp hand lay a beer bottle, evidence that he had died without even knowing his time was approaching. She found herself curiously unwilling to meet the dead humans gaze, but recognising this, she forced herself to look. To take in the details. If only for a moment.

Brown hair, bearded in such a way that she suspected it was more about convenience than any attempt at style. Hazel eyes. Very thin, but also broad shouldered. The type of man who worked hard on an empty stomach, more days than he would care to mention.

"On your six," Silver's hushed, feminine voice whispered from behind her. The first words spoken since they hit the second floor. Spoken only for the benefit of Jericho and herself, Lantaya realised.

"Move up," Sarge ordered. Letters fell in behind Lantaya, placing a hand on her shoulder to let her know she had someone covering her back, his R91 pointing over her shoulder and slightly off to the side. They advanced up the stairs in pairs: Jericho and Sarge took point with their heavier combat armour and flak vests, then Letters and Lani. Letters traverse his weapon to cover the lands above. Above, where at any moment attackers could appear and rain down a murderous hail of gunfire from high ground, where the Snakes had nowhere to run or hide save the biotics own barriers.

But the Snakes moved quickly and professionally, gliding effortlessly over the treacherous stairs and upwards to the next floor with Lani trailing along behind. Just as the pointmen had reached the landing and were beginning to spread out to begin clearing rooms once again, a familiar beeping sounded from above them.

ED-E floated downwards from the floor above, burbling and warbling like a round, robotic cherub, completely at ease with his surroundings. He squealed in surprise as Butch materalised from beyond the veil with his Infiltrator fractionally lowered from the ready position, looking quite grim and forbidding in his full battle rigging. "Clear up top?"

The Eyebot squawked an acknowledgement that sounded to him to be in the affirmative. Butch relaxed somewhat, flicking the safety on his rifle to its titular setting. The rest of the Snakes faded into view with a sound like a shorting fusebox, all of them starkly different from the jolly group of personable companions Lani had become familiar with.

These men and women did not look the sort who cracked jokes, flirted with waitresses or argued over pizza. They looked like mercenaries who came to your door at dead of night, dragged you from the warm confines of your bed and clamped their rough hands across your mouth as they slit your throat to the bone.

Or, indeed, the type of people who would murder an entire building of armed men in cold, methodical silence. The type of people who could and would perpetrate the carnage that surrounded them. They certainly didn't seem at all moved by the bodies they stepped over.

"Silver, take account of the bodies," Sarge ordered as he took control of the situation, "Sticky, search the building for intel or useful salvage. Jericho! You and Latchkey on door security?"

He phrased the last as a question, as the grizzled old merc wasn't technically a part of the Tunnel Snakes and could not be ordered by anyone. He needn't have bothered, however. Jericho just nodded and ambled down the stairs once more, bowing to the Sergeants authority as that of Butch himself. While Butch hadn't signed on the dotted line as of yet, he was still Jericho's new employer to the tune of two-thousand caps. For that kind of money, he would follow a man he respected substantially less than DeLoria. Latchkey followed after him at a brisk jog, 60mm mortar tube swaying in time with his footsteps.

"I'll set up in the hallway and keep the gawkers back," the ex-raider advised him as one man to another, "Be quick about your business, Doyle! The second Brotherhood catch a whiff of this, we'll get hassled on out of here. This is their turf."

Jericho and Latchkey moved to the side and gave a brief nod to both the Courier and Joshua as the pair came up the stairway, before hurrying down the creaking stairway. "What a shithole, right?" Latchkey commented to the Courier in passing, looking much less rough with his newly trimmed beard.

"Tis a fixer-upper if I ever saw one," the Courier returned the comment with equal friendliness.

The Courier was just putting the final loving touches on his next rollup, but his eyes roamed as though the rest of him was completely unoccupied. His heavy frame made the wood underfoot moan like a tortured beast under the pressure. One of the many disadvantages of his impressive frame. Dilapidated buildings such as this were profoundly dangerous for him, especially kitted out with as much armour and gear as he was now. "Watch yer step," he warned Joshua as his carefully attuned ear caught him before he put a foot through the floor.

"Looks to be the Wanderer's work," the tribal informed Butch as to their conclusion, as he flicked open his lighter with a thumb and worked the flint. Fire came to life in his palm, turning the tip of the rollup to a puff of aromatic smoke and a warm orange glow.

Butch nodded slowly, squatting down next to another corpse. This one a balding, office worker type gentleman, dressed in a plain brown suit. This one had caught a burst of 5.56mm rounds with his face as he craned his head over the railing to see what all the commotion was about. His reward for the splendidly executed interception was his own instant demise, and one irrevocably ruined suit. "Or Tunnel Snakes," Butch added in a considering tone, "I taught my boys how to fight like Chance did. Always worked for him. I figured it would work for us, too. He always could punch above his weight class."

The greaser looked up and then down the stairwell, judging angles. Sticky exited one of the rooms on that floor and sidled up to him, catching his bosses feeling through their link and moving to assist. He repeated Butch's motions with a second pair of eyes, with a fresh perspective, and came to the same conclusion. "Shot from above," Sticky Hand Jack said confidently, "Came in from the roof access and left the same way. No-one on the street heard the killing start and no-one heard it end. It was either one of our veteran cells or the Wanderer. Since we don't operate here without Brotherhood permission, I'd agree with the Courier, Boss. Bet my money on the Wanderer."

"Looks like it," Butch agreed before reaching out and beginning to frisk the dead man for anything useful, ignoring Sticky's use of the 'B' word just this once without correction. A Browning Hi-Power was holstered under the man's suit jacket, slung underarm in a leather holster. Two spare 9mm magazines in the opposite holster. A man who wanted to carry heat but didn't want to be noticed for doing so. An unusual attitude in D.C.. Handguns weren't restricted and most people carried them openly as deterrents, or to use in the event of an unexpected need for pest control.

"Odd customer," Sticky commented as he patted down the inside pocket of the suit jacket and extracted a folded collection of papers, soaked through with enough blood to turn it into one solid wedge of wood pulp and ink. Sticky read what he could off the outside-facing paper, "Shipping permits, inner city only. Penn. Ave to…" Sticky paused and raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Vernon Square? What the hell would anyone be shipping to Vernon? It's radioactive. And more of a shithole than this dump. Registered under the name Junior Mike."

Sarge knelt down beside Butch and Jack and tilted what remained of the man's head upwards to give himself a better view. He grimaced and shook his head. "Might be Mike, might not. Didn't know the man well enough to recognise him without his face. Odds are good though."

ED-E warbled, drawing the Courier's attention to him before floating away up the stairwell. The Courier followed, wordlessly leaving the rest of them as he stepped carefully from board to board. Letters caught the Courier's movement and got up to follow him, his weapon hanging from his sling with the safety on. His mind brushed those of the rest of the Snakes within the building and made his intentions clear. They acknowledged without a word, all occupied turning over bodies and combing through the rooms.

Letters passed by another body, this one an older women with one leg encased within a metallic brace that kept the injured leg usable. He knelt, reached down, and hiked up her ragged jacket to find the sheathed knife concealed at the small of the old biddies back. Age was no object in the wastelands. Most people knew the reality of life. It was always better to know how to fight than to become the next body lying on the ground next to the gravediggers shovel.

Like all of the dead they had seen so far, she had died to 5.56x45mm rounds that had caught her unawares. It had to be the Wanderer, Letters decided as she straightened up and followed the broad back of the tribal newcomer. To clear an entire building from top to bottom without alerting a single victim to their impending departure from the world of the living. And to do so in the middle of a crowded urban area populated by hundreds of twitchy wastelanders without alerting any of them either, was a feat of skill so profound it could only be the Wanderer's doing.

It fit his Modus Operandi to a tee.

ED-E floated through a doorframe and into a room at the end of the hallway, quickly followed by the Courier in a drifting cloud of datura smoke. Letters came to a halt in the door and watched as the old tribal leaned over a table with a Terminal perched upon it, surrounded by papers, empty coffee mugs, and chewed pencils. The room housed a number of filing cabinets, a dishevelled bed comprised of a dusty sheet and off-white pillow sitting forlornly on a wire mesh suspended within a rusty frame.

Letters sighed, feeling a sudden burst of kinship with whatever poor fuck had lived in this room. He crossed over to the table and picked up one of the pencils, tracing the indentations of human teeth embedded deep into the wood. The room stank of barely managed depression and rampant body odour. With a splash of mould and a dash of rotting wood. The type of workspace belonging to a man who didn't have much going for him beyond throwing himself into his work and hoping that things eventually got better. But knowing deep down that this was as unlikely a prospect as a quartet of Deathclaws slipping on ballet shoes and dancing to the tune of classical music.

The Courier's hands had begun to work the keyboard, and Letters was amazed to see the tribal halfway through the process of breaching the systems security measures to gain local admin access. "Didn't think you were the type to know how to work on a computer."

"When ye have been around as long as I have, ye learn not to ignore anythin' that might give ye an' edge. Feckin' fat fingers," the Courier replied over the swift tapping of the mechanical keys, cursing every so often as a number of the key stuck and caused him to have to delete an entire row of characters. "Learned to love readin' what folks left behind on these things. Spill out a piece of their soul an' save them in green an' black on a terminal screen for any man or women to read. Only thing better is readin' that shite people write on walls."

"Graffiti?"

"Aye, the words o' the prophets ain't written in ancient tomes no more. They're written behind terminal screens, on crumblin' office paperwork, an' on subway walls. The cries o' those long since reduced to naught but bones. All o' them miserable an' desperate to a one."

ED-E bobbed behind the Courier shoulder as those leathery fingers worked the keyboard in a storm of clicking, green lines of text flowing out over the screen as the Courier hunted through code to find the override. "Trust me," the Courier stated with a wry chuckle, puffing on the roll-up hanging from the corner of his mouth, "Don't go lookin' for truth in art, nor love, nor riches, nor beauty. The ones that came 'fore the war tried that, an' they didn't like what they found. Blew it all up to feckin' escape it in the end. Look for truth in the sufferin'. 'Tis easier to find an' harder to deny."

"It's harder to live that way too," the Lettersman pointed out, curiously detached, as if he was talking to himself and the Courier was just a bystander. A curious happenstance that held no great relevance to him.

"Not at all. Not at all. Livin' with sufferin' is easy. Happens in spite o' ye, see? It's livin' happy that's hard to be doin'," the Courier proclaimed as he tapped in the last series of characters and ran the resulting crack from within the pre-boot command prompt. As the confirmation was given, the screen filled with a veritable wall of text that scrolled downwards from the top, confirming the creation of a new local administrator account on the machine, before immediately rebooting.

"Very slick," Letters admitted, craning over the tribal's shoulder as the boot screen for the RobCo OS came and went. It had indeed been a very neat solution, which required a level of familiarity with the RobCo OS he would not have credited the Courier with. "You can use the new local admin account to reset the password on the other local accounts. We can get a look at whatever user data they had saved."

The password was reset and the logged in account switched in due order, and they found themselves looking at the desktop screen of green and black for a brief moment, before an automated script ran on start-up. It seemed as though the user of this Terminal had been something of a coder himself. He had set a script to run that reopened the documents he had been viewing before the last restart, without his having to navigate through the text-based RobCo UI.

Both men began reading the document in spite of themselves, eyes trailing down the typed operations summery. And with each word Letters' heart sank lower in his chest until it rested somewhere in the region of his gut like a cannonball. "Ohh, fuck…."

There was a clattering of feet outside and Butch appeared at the door, drawn almost inexorably by the panic radiating into the surroundings from the Lettersman's destress. "We got a problem, Boss!"

"What sort of problem," Butch demanded, crossing the room with sidelong looks between both men as he leant over the terminal. Silver and Lani appeared at the door and stood observing the backs of the three men as Butch slowly read off the contents of the Terminal files. He wasn't a very fast reader, but the contents were plain even to the meanest understanding.

Letter's hand flashed to his headset as all the Tunnel Snakes turned around as if borne by the same impulse, heading for the door at a run. Butch caught the Courier's and pulled, dragging the larger man after him as they all sprinted for the stairs in a thunder of boots.

"Rook, we have intel onsite that says these Raiders are smuggling Chems out of D.C. through an undocumented tunnel! Get on the horn right-fucking-now," the Lettersman yelled into the microphone with a surprising amount of force, "And tell them to scramble Vertibirds to Statesman Hotel! And have them pick us up on the way! Tell them we have a breach in containment around D.C! All cells not assigned to critical functions need to respond as soon as they are able!"

They charge down the stairs at full speed, passing Latchkey on the landing, who had managed to retrieve the pizza box Sticky had left at the door and had been in the process of finally eating his first slice. Sensing the urgency of the situation, he made the reasonable choice, and tucked what slices of the delectable meal remained into his chest rig for later. Waste not, want not.