Robert heard the whine of the elevator as it approached the penthouse floor, slung upwards through his gentle mistress with a grace diminished only by the wear of long decades. Inside was an important, if not more importantly irate cargo. He doubted that the easy conveniences of brisk motor-assisted living, remaining like so many other simplistic affections of the old world as a single consistent constant within the tarnished beauty that was the lucky 38 was now appreciated by the arrival. It was a quality of difference that he could appreciate the difference from that very human refusal to act cordially when proud men were involved against the inability to appreciate apparent in his dulled-by-nature sentinels; a shame indebted to his self imposed exile above all other things when the situation was considered fully.
The cargo held an imperishable, if not undestroyable quality, determinable in both the intangible to the physical: Alex-of-no-known-familial-name, most likely false; better known firstly as a courier of the Mojave Express, then as Courier Six, a title with an almost titular quality given his notables: simultaneously a victim and villain of the Mojave, chosen by Benny's recklessness to become a torrential force of dusk, dirt, grime, blood and bombs, a cult figure for the wretched and sublime denizens of his pseudo-city; enthralling them with notions of the man who can't be killed, the man who can't be seen!
How else could he have picked himself up from a grave and hunted down his killer across the length of the Mojave? How could he have reached the inner recesses of the legion and execute the head of the chairman at Kaiser's feet? Of course these dolts would believe in the superstitious nonsense bandied about in explanation, the only razor they'd ever heard of was a straight one from the tops steam baths.
Luck intermingled with skill in the right situations formulated a heady dose of fame Robert had always found. His own experiences spoke of that of course. He hadn't been destined to ascend to his lofty heights even with his genetic brilliance, he'd fared well when the facing the sheer faced heights of life and brought himself to the tallest tower of his own will - fate was an ironic twist within the mind and no more. Skill was a key determinant in his affairs when tempered against a pragmatism that spoke against the filthy undercurrent that rode through Vegas with the New Republic Infestation - New Republic! What was so new about it? The dullards and apologists who had woven their naive attempt at civilisation had repeated a mistake that had cost them the world.
Skill: a touch of deception on his part. What he really meant was unadulterated violence; shooting and stabbing, explosions and energy, blood and guts and tears faced by a man with the ability to ration his compassion against progress.
Alex had brought some form of energy weapon with him, slung in a holster where 45 usually would remain, a gift from another dead man Robert had been cryptically told. Had his former employee turned potential rival brought something that he imagined would overwhelm his remorseless robotic sentinels?
He'd found the limits of the mans compassion too constricting after a time, and they'd parted as any gentlemen would have in the old world.
The Courier had finished Robert's offering of his now priceless Galich's 39 in a steady gulp, not temperate or fearful of a reprisal for his spurned offer.
"No concern that I might wish you out of the way Mr Sennser?" Robert couldn't have refused himself the temptation of the mans reply. His wit was a welcome removal from the base creatures that infected his sanctuary with their pettiness.
"I'd have enough faith in your ego that you'd tell me of my demise Robert." Oh how he enjoyed the sly lines of youth that Alex's face held, here was the reckless adventurer he required for his vision. So far from the unvarnished wanderer stealing scraps along the periphery that he had adopted.
He didn't think it would be that man today that stormed into his penthouse, adrenaline pulsating through his glands, his hand eager for the release of his new weapon, another failure of Robert's daring.
Perhaps.
Here was a mystery for even the ultimate enigma Robert House, a trickster that was oh so much more than Benny with his shortsighted greed.
He wouldn't have it any other way Robert realised as the doors withdrew; so much of his new man was unknown, chance! What a delightful allowance that he couldn't ever marshall.
The enjoyment that was unpredictability had entered the room with Alex's slight footsteps, hope began to coil itself in his breast, even as had been long removed from his breast. The hope was that Alex could be saved against the man's over attempts at moral clarity.
Robert had entertained many of the movers within his dusty little corner of this demented hell planet, but none protested morality like his own butcher.
"You can't expect me to murder the brotherhood for you." Alex had been irate, attempting to withhold his anger under the guise of preventing cruel reason- "Men, women and children, learning the old worlds greatest sciences; they're going to be buried in the ground for your closed vision?" That had irritated Robert himself, only in the fashion that this perishable little person could accomplish.
"An odd claim from a man willing to unleash destruction on those Caesarians with his own gained resources - and for what? A chivalric idea of facing an enemy like some jousting hero; or better yet, that the brotherhood is stocking up on autodocs? Bah!" The anger was visible then, Alex the easily riled.
"Chivalry? I've buried more people than I've known who never ever managed a glance my way!" What pride he held for slaughter! "You're talking about destroying a critical resource available to you, you can't control everything Mr House."
"The brotherhood as allies? They are a threat, a force capable of undermining the control of my securitrons if any could." This boy was too trusting, were was the worthy cynicism that allowed him to skirt around Edward Swallows grim brutality? "I require only the skulking ignorance afforded by the realities of the Mojave. I don't require those able to challenge me." Alex had became hard eyed then, the hawkish features of his face forming his brutal face, his butcher face.
"I won't bury a friends family just so you can side-step a skirmish. You'll find my mercy apparent when I'm not facing slaving despots."
That girl, the fresh faced Californian zealot labelled ridiculously as a scribe had infected Alex's decisions, like a mask of illusion distracting the minds eye. How easy was it for men to be fooled by their base urges; how easily it could anger Robert, another agent seduced by his thoughts of easy pleasure.
"Hi there Hon, Robert's just stepping over his toes to see ya!" Jane's greeting was returned with a polite return, inflected with the curious effects of the Courier's eastern origins.
Through the arch he came, at the perfect point for Robert to have him tussled up and strangled as he'd often thought he might have needed done with Benny, and what a sight he was: dusk was the word for the man, sharp eyed and stern above his breather, held across a shadowed face that held an appeal he could feel across Jane's neuro-matrix, given to a look of casual lethality. His coat was tarnished, a long desert stained fabric that was effortlessly intimidating when coupled with his soot stained jeans, the military beret and single eyed prey-vision lens.
Robert reminded himself that Alex could be the most ruthless of murderers when his mind was set. He had already financed his punic incursions against the legion, amassed a considerable armoury filled with all different manners of explosives both crude and sophisticated - whatever he could get his hands on that went boom.
"Mr House." Alex greeted him. Did he wish to tell Robert of his demise, burst into a frenzy of action that would reduce his robotic defences to scrap? Robert reminded himself of the auxiliary units powered down and awaiting instruction in his antechamber.
"Mr Sennser, I take it you come to report on the big empty?" They had made an agreement sometime after Alex's refusal to destroy the brotherhood, both of them pragmatists of course. He realised the youth had looked to have a hand near Robert's throat if he succeeded in his aim; of this he was certain, and where else could the Courier secure the funding for his bloodbaths against the legion?
"You're already well informed of that." Alex held no visible signs of injury, did he ever? The man was a borne soldier to the eyes of someone who couldn't read anything beyond the apparent use of a person. This cynical formation of their more adrenal savage genes as just a simple soldier?
Who would give him the orders then? The man was always so wide eyed when Robert showed him a sliver of his Robco machinations.
"Indeed I am, I see you've managed to neutralise the effectives of the crater, impressive given their number and exotic nature." From a decaying satellite he had watched Alex battle his way through a myriad of prototypes from the Big Empty facility, almost enthralled; witnessing how the man whipped and flailed through the massed ranks of roboscorpians with reckless abandon. There he found what removed humanity from the future, that lusting after the ultimate test of visceral combat.
"You sent my friends into a death zone." It was a clear statement under his stony expression, no anger held at a bite away behind his razor-like cheeks. Could he really overwhelm Robert's guard units? All of those roboscorpians, cyberdogs and brainless flesh-sacs, numberless against the singular of Alex - dismantled and slaughtered equally. "I offered your friends a contract, which they accepted." Where had he learned to use what was a ridiculously fabricated plasma-charged axe like that? The man was peerless with some needless tool fashioned by the impotents of the old world crater, how could he fathom such effortless skill with a weapon he'd never imagined before?
I must have his brain scans for my future plans Robert realised. It was so crucial if he was to escape his self imprisonment.
"You should have waited for my return." Alex faced the pixilated face of Robert without fear, reminded himself of the bulge under his coat; not as useful as a shoulder holster, but readily available for purchase.
Would he use it? Would he finally come to a head with his generous benefactor? He reminded himself that Arcade had once remarked that a mercenary like him would allow House to gut them all, if only he gave over another shiny weapon for Alex to have his fun with.
The easily upset follower had something of a penchant for the dramatic statement, of course he didn't think that of him.
"You've gotten my friends killed."
"Your friends are very much alive." House's bored voice annoyed him, there was always too much chastisement in his voice for mere trivial emotional matters.
"At the hands of some deranged lunatic." Alex remembered the voice of this Ulysses, the man who labelled him the man of his nightmares, a sleeping beast that had ruined the world - he didn't even realise he'd pissed off someone that much and couldn't have cared beyond curiosity.
"Please...just don't hurt us! Get away from him!" The voice was Veronica's, the very idea of innocence. She was one of a kind in the wasteland, more impressive than any of House's clever contraptions; any of his towering towers of pre-war glory, his merciless securitron armies.
Alex was always assured that the world was destroyed. But could he make a world where Veronica, Julie, old Daisy and all the other kind people were the person to drag them forward? It was a teasing flick of salvation at the back of his mind.
"What did you pay them to do?"
"To stop a madman. One of the more dangerous sorts that has appeared at this critical juncture."
"I know he's a madman! Where is he? What makes him so dangerous?"
"A number of functional nuclear batteries."
"What?! how could you not know about this?!"
"Me? I believe it was you that has stoked up this man's anger."
"I don't even know him! he's a rambling lunatic, like my past is his own."
"We both know you've came from a fractured past." Alex bristled at that.
"Don't attempt guilt on me Robert. It's an insult that you'd even think I could be guilted by things not in my control." So it was, a cheap shot that House appreciated the reprisal too.
"Quite. But not it remains what is to be done." Alex laughed, light and dry.
"Let's not play around each other Robert, we both know whats going to happen." Alex imagined irony would be surging through House's neurological matrix, they both knew what was to come.
Will he go for the gun Robert wondered?
"When did you know about this man?" Ah, there was the mind at work, the deduction motivators pressing themselves.
"At his attempts of contacting you." Alex was quicker than most. Minds are but machines, functions and processes at differing levels of operational efficiency.
"So you sent my friends towards some unhinged psycho on your own behalf? How could you be so irresponsible!?" Robert vocally groaned, god he despised this trivial nonsense of Alex's creation, what matter was it that he used certain protein based constructs over others?
"I suppose you'll have some fun dealing with this fanatic." Mr House felt tired without the ability to feel so, Alex had his points of aggravation as any reduced humanoid did of course.
"What can you tell me about this man? What is the Divide?" Robert presented a chip from his console; Alex snatched it up and downloaded it to his Pip-Boy without care. All of the requisite information flew towards his prodigy as fast as he eyes could delineate it.
"A particularly mad part of this already loose wasteland." It was as fine an answer as he could relieve himself off. These bi-pedal beasts were messy, he had been messy - he could be gleefully messy again.
Alex quickly examined the information within his Pip-Boy, amazed at the supposed barbarity held within this region.
"This is some tale..." Alex found his mouth was dry, human feasting words that were an evolution of the old form long pork - savantry. If this was truly the case then this was a considerable problem...it automatically reminded him of Sierra Madre.
"This is a severe problem." He had to forget about Robert's duplicity for a moment, forget about his almost unknowing hateful behaviour, "If everything included in this report is true then we have a concern." We!
"Primed nuclear warheads are always a problem yes." Alex caught Robert's visage with a severe look.
"Don't be smart...though I doubt you could help that." Alex's mind drifted back to Veronica's voice, god he couldn't imagine her hurt. Had ARcade already managed to talk his way into losing his good sowing hand? It was a fight to keep his composure. "These men you describe seem formable, and there equally numerous; as well as these other burrower creatures. I doubt I can deal with this."
"Why so faltering Alex? Surely your skills of bloodletting aren't lost upon you?"
"I'm the best killer in the world, bar the presidents and despots of course." Alex replied, casually sadistic, "No, these...whatever they are, they going by your reports are problematic. I doubt I'd be able to overcome then myself, given that they appear perched to overcome anyone who enters the Divide."
"You have a proposal then, a strategy?" Oh yes, he was good, this one was calculating beyond what he prescribed as his moral code, as always a pleasure.
"We hire the dirtiest, most hard backed mercenary company we can find, as much men as they can field quickly." Dispensable men for his friends, how very moral. "Send them into this Divide, let them hit these burned men hard."
"And you?" Robert couldn't wait to hear it, the bravado.
"I'll go in with a LSAR rifle, quiet, this information is invaluable...how did you know so much about the missile defences in this areas?"
"What? No overwhelming violence; no overt brutality, convoluted hatreds?"
"Well it's only early yet, who knows Robert; maybe I'll get to rape a few of these monsters, teach them a lesson about messing with the big bad Courier." He knew when he attempted to contact me... "Robert, I can only guess at what your intention was in dragging my friends into this-"
"Do not threaten me Sennser!" Robert blared his voice across his penthouse, his penthouse!
Had Robert's voice shaken Alex the unworried? The callous killer?
"Let me remind you of something Robert." Voice calm, Alex sprung! Hand whipping inside his cloak at a roll, his securitrons no chance, twsp! twsp! They had seconds between them, a charge of the weapon but what did it matter? Suddenly they were there, Alex with his weapon in hand docile and Robert still in control.
"I'm a considerable ally, a considerable enemy." Alex holstered his weapon, deadly and calm as the guard securitrons smoked faintly. "We'll talk about the fact that you put my friends into the path of some animal to stir me to whatever action, after I stop the madman with the nuclear weapons."
"Remember who controls this place." House returned, unabashed was he? "This is my city, your my employee, your friends are at my whim."
Alex laughed.
"So where these guards of yours." Alex turned away without another word, towards this Ulysses.
"Remember Sennser! I am the future of the human race!" Robert bellowed through his communication systems, damn that man!, "Don't return here with any subversive ideals. You've played your hand."
"So you think." Alex was gone in a wisp of electrical activity in a moment, leaving Robert with his new asset. He was furious even with the satellite over what had once been a key strength of this maligned continents last & greatest power.
A critical threat now. He realised that watching this Ulysses upon his perch, the king over all these horrific animals that failed their destitute lands.
A first thought that occurred inside that feral mind.
How could a man come to such a place; of hope, of desperation and fearful forbearance...and annihilate to it's very foundations?
Alex caught only a little slip off the shadow as it passed along the broken crucible.
There were no remnants of Hopeville here, Ulysses realised that even as he craned his gaze over the forlorn cityscape.
The Courier, number Six, the man from the east, yet not a legion man? Impossible! How could a man exist from the east and not bear the lash of Kaiser's mighty whip?
Even Lanius had bowed, Graham before him.
Here was a man - not so vicious, not so hate filled as these two men of the killing arts...and yet.
An entire hope, an entire breath for humanity was decimated beyond all repair.
He was coming, but there were was no outrageous bloodletting as Lanius would engineer, no sickening atrocity as Graham would have guaranteed.
Sixteen dead mercenaries with an equal number of burned men along with them, the result was non-committal and inconclusive to the main scale of the Divide. Four of the best of the guns for hire had won against what was left of his skinless freaks. Save the one peeled head who brought a tactical nuke to end things.
Unless you thought of the three bodies across the badlands - the badlands of a place like the Divide!
Ulysses had nearly not found them, hunting for the Republic sniper that had survived his initial ambush and assault.
"Please! You're killing yourself." So the girl had said, and when pressed Ulysses had understood the truth of them.
A trio of almost peaceful burned men, a bullet wound each; no ordinary rifle, calculated piercings with determined results.
His message at the beginning silo had been transmission to a mercenary long dead.
This Courier was a cancer who could infect even the most tumultuous places, the Divide was Ulysses fortress trapped under madness.
He was here, under the skin of them all; his knife! That knife that had helped them bury this place was busy at work.
The explosions started a day from when the realisation awakened inside him, a methodical destruction of the burned men as they hunted - another lesson being taught here.
How could you teach the sadistic men of this place a lesson in savagery? That was what Alex Sennser was determined to do.
Body by body, Ulysses held to his plan, the Courier would come for his little device sooner rather than later; and the Republic sniper? Leave him to rot.
Boone reminded himself of that fate, festering in a tight duck in some arid hillside, bleeding from his stomach to his feet from exposure and enemy treatment.
He was going to die slowly, leaving all of his friends to die at the hands of the legionary nightmare.
He'd let Joshua Graham remain on this world so that he could protect those ill tribals of his, all of Alex's behalf.
The man had filled Craig's desires to slaughter the legion in the masses, but he'd realised very quickly that their was a mischief about the strangling from the east that he never fully understood.
Alex was fond of the sweet girl with the jet black features that held that irreplaceable enthusiasm for life, just like Carla in a world of dead men.
Boone distracted himself with the foolish thought for a moment, long enough for a massed figure to leap onto him from above.
He tangled with the burned man; mangled to toss him off and level his knife at it's throat -
"Already cut." Craig turned at the voice. Impossible, but there he was: Courier Six.
"Took your time." Boone grunted. Ever the strong silent type.
"Here, take care of yourself." Alex handed Boone his supply of quick access marvel medical supplies, enough for that rough bullet wound and split shin, "This place is a nightmare world. I'd be surprised that you survived if you weren't you." Boone almost - almost smiled.
"I'm a hard man to kill."
"Especially with legion everywhere." Alex fell forward into the little crevice, dangerous. "This place needs to be dealt with, and I don't know if I can do it alone."
"You want to find the girl?" Alex choked at the directness of the question.
"I need to find all of them." Craig heard the determination, had heard it before in his own voice, "You were unlucky last time, ambushed and beaten." Alex held his rifle as him, an easy kill bozer rifle. "The first are meant to be ghosts - I say let's give these bastards nightmares."
Craig smiled, honestly.
"Ulysses is legion. Let's hunt this prick down."