"Okay, that's roasted enough," Sunny said. "You can bag it now."
"Right." Akira carefully scooped the finely chopped and dried plants into a small satchel that Sunny had provided. "How much can I overcook it before it loses healing properties?"
"From experience," the courier said, "as long as you don't char it 'till it's black, it'll work fine." He then turned towards the carcass of a mobile home, now doubling as a dressing room. Whitmeyer had just stepped out of it, wearing the clothes they had brought him. "The clothes fit you alright?"
"I'm not complaining," he replied. "With the geckos around I'd prefer something more durable, but hey, beggars can't be choosers."
"Great." Akira got up, pocketing the healing powder. "If I got the geography right, we're heading in the same direction for now." He opened the map on his Pip-Boy to check. "To the Mojave outpost, through Primm. You wanna tag along?"
"I will need to stay a moment in Primm," the courier said. "Report my package getting stolen, pick up a new job if there's one. But Nipton Road is the only safe way out of this part of the Mojave, so we'll probably end up walking together for one reason or another."
"You know what, sure," Whitmeyer replied. "I don't mind civilized companionship."
The courier turned back to Akira. "The roads are probably crawling with Powder Gangers looking for a target." He pointed away from Goodsprings, towards some hills and a broken radio tower on top of them. "I know your stance on gunfights, so I say we stay off-road until we reach Primm proper." He smiled at his own joke. "Go in parallel with the road and avoid any assholes camping the interstate."
"There might be geckos and coyotes in your way," Sunny pointed out.
"I can deal with wildlife," Akira assured her. "I'd rather shoot a gecko than another living breathing human being."
"And what about self-defense?" Whitmeyer asked.
"I'll burn that bridge when I get to it," Akira snapped back.
"That's the goodbye for now, I s'pose," Sunny said, picking up her varmint rifle from the ground. "Thanks for helping me deal with the Powder Gangers, courier, and you," she turned to Akira, "good luck in the Mojave. I hope you'll find your friends."
The courier gave her a wave in response, then turned around and marched away. "So do I. Thanks for the help, Sunny," Akira said, then went after the courier.
Whitmeyer followed them. "Your friends?" he asked Akira. "What happened to them?"
"They got lost somewhere around here," Akira explained. "They're as sheltered as I am, if not more. I hope they're safe."
Makoto marched back to Primm down the empty road with nothing but her thoughts keeping her company.
One of said thoughts was 'crap, it stings', looping through her brain. The tissues, thankfully, did enough to stem the bleeding. They were good enough for a temporary solution, but if neither the Primm townies nor the soldiers stationed there had anything resembling a doctor, her situation would take a turn for the worse.
She liked a good fight. Or at the very least she thought she liked a good fight. The thing was, most of her combat experience consisted of fighting Shadows in the Metaverse, and that had a sort of structure to it. The resistances and weaknesses, the combination attacks, and most importantly, the healing items. It was easier to take a risk and charge at a smorgasbord of vaguely magic monsters with a pair of brass knuckles when there was a friend right behind you, with a warm word and a warm meal to recuperate after the skirmish.
She thought about the taste of Leblanc curry and coffee, and found herself pondering wistfully if she would be able to enjoy that little comfort ever again. She was stuck in the middle of a lawless dilapidated wasteland, half a world away, with no friends and no way back home. And her friends were out there somewhere. All of them had some talents, and even Ryuji could be relied on if push came to shove, but most life skills aren't useful when someone shoots you on sight.
She had reached Primm, and stood for a moment by the fork in the road from earlier – should she ask the townies or the soldiers for medical help? After a moment of consideration, she decided to bother a group that hadn't been barricaded in a single building for the past few days, and marched towards the NCR soldiers, as the road dipped down below the bridge.
"I'm sorry," Akira said, "I did not notice that earlier, is that a rollercoaster wrapped around that hotel?"
"Yep," the courier replied. "It's been there since before the War."
Akira, Whitmeyer and the courier were standing on the edge of a small hill, giving them a fantastic view of the town in front of them. "So wait, it's been around for over two hundred years and nobody dismantled it or anything?"
"Nobody needed the materials, I guess. I'm more concerned about the town itself."
"Why?"
"Primm has two halves, and if I remember it right, people live in the less destroyed one." He pointed at the side of the town further away from him, the one with the rollercoaster wrapped around a building. "You should see someone loitering around, going to and fro, doing anything. If they're not around, something must've gone wrong."
"Do you think it's related to soldiers in this half?" Akira asked, pointing at the uniformed people stationed among the ruins.
"Not directly," the courier replied. "They're the NCR I've mentioned earlier, and it's not like them to wipe out a town for no reason."
"They did blow Boulder City to smithereens a few years back, didn't they?" Whitmeyer asked. "During the first Battle of Hoover Dam."
"Yeah, I just didn't want to drop names." He pointed at Akira. "The kid here is a Vault dweller and they won't tell him ja-"
"Hold on a moment," Akira said, staring into the distance. The road going through Primm led further away towards the unknown, and he spotted someone marching in their vague direction, holding their right arm with their left hand for some reason. And if he squinted his eyes just right, they looked somewhat familiar.
"What?" asked the courier. "Did you notice something? Is that one of your friends?"
"If I get down this hill and run in the direction of these soldiers, will they open fire at me?" Akira asked.
"They shouldn't."
With that confirmed, Akira descended the cliff with a few quick leaps. The soft thud of his final landing was enough to get the attention of the NCR soldiers guarding the entrance to the town.
"Watch out, kid," one of them said. "There might be raiders-"
"Nobody's in town!" Akira shouted back, trotting past them. He was able to get a good look at the newcomer now – brown hair cut in a bob, black waistcoat over a white turtleneck shirt from her school uniform, plaid skirt, stockings and boots. She was holding a clipboard in her right hand, and held a tissue to an arm wound with her left. And having heard his voice, she was now staring directly at him.
"[Akira?]"
"[Makoto!]" Akira didn't stop, reaching into his pocket. "[Shit, who did this to you?]" He pulled out the satchel of healing powder right when he reached her, and put it up to her mouth. "[Eat it. It's medicine, it will make you heal faster.]"
Makoto had reservations about putting unknown things in her mouth, but was willing to extend some trust towards one of her closest friends. She lifted his hand to tip the contents of the satchel into her mouth and swallowed without chewing. Some of it went down the wrong pipe and she coughed a bit.
"[I have some water to wash it down if you need,]" Akira said, reaching for a bottle he had gotten earlier.
She felt a weird tingle underneath her left hand and dared to remove the tissue. In front of her eyes, the wound started healing itself, with all the bits torn by the bullet mending themselves quickly enough to be visible to the naked eye. "[Right,]" Makoto said, grabbing the bottle with her left, "[so that's the most pressing matter dealt with.]"
She then, without warning, embraced Akira and squeezed the air out of his lungs.
"[I'm also happy to see ya,]" he hissed, wriggling out just enough to return the hug.
"Did you deliver the accession papers to the outpost?"
The two turned towards the NCR soldier, now looking at them. "[He's talking to me, Akira,]" Makoto said before switching to English: "No. I got shot at and retreated back here to patch my wounds."
"[You got shot?]" Akira asked, concerned; he hoped slash assumed she got slashed by wildlife like he had been.
"Yikes," the soldier winced in sympathy. "Did the other kid give you some healing items? I dunno if we have any stimpaks to spare."
At that point the courier and Whitmeyer were also on ground level. The courier approached the NCR soldiers and poked one of them to get her attention. "Hey there. What happened to this town?"
Makoto released Akira and walked up to the group. "Can I explain?".
"Sure, go ahead," the poked soldier replied.
"So," she said, "a bunch of convicts have invaded the town, killed the sheriff, and taken the deputy hostage for ransom. The townies don't have money, and the raiders are reportedly not open to negotiation, so both factions holed up in the casino and the hotel respectively and are at an impasse."
Akira glanced at the soldiers. "And why are you just standing here?"
"Primm ain't our jurisdiction," one of them replied. "We're here to try and stop prisoners from going out of the area, and we don't even have people for that."
Whitmeyer nervously looked aside. The soldiers either didn't notice or didn't care.
"This is where I tried to help," Makoto added. "If the town requested the accession to the NCR, it would receive support from the Republic. I offered to deliver the documents to the outpost south of here, but, like I said, I… was shot at by bandits, got wounded, and retreated here."
"Um, so there are bandits ahead?" Whitmeyer asked. "I planned to leave Mojave via the outpost, and I'd rather be prepared for anything."
Makoto didn't reply. She looked aside with an expression of a high-schooler being dressed down for bad grades.
"[From what I've gathered, we're at the frontier,]" Akira muttered in Japanese. "[Nobody will hold self-defense against you. Heck, there's no authority that could do that as far as I can tell.]"
Makoto took a massive gulp of water to get a moment to brace herself, then glanced at Whitmeyer. "Not anymore, there aren't. There are some scorpions ahead though."
"Bark scorpions or radscorpions?" the courier asked.
"Which of them is as tall as I am?"
"That's a radscorpion then." The courier thought about it for a moment. "Tell you what, I already expected to walk you to the outpost, and between the four of us, we've got enough firepower to take the creepy crawlies down. Let me wrap up my business with the townies first and we'll head out, how does that sound?"
"Okay," Makoto raised her hands a bit, "first of all, who are you and that other guy?"
"We just happened to go the same way." Akira pointed at them as he went: "Whitmeyer's a local that wants to move out of the area because of all the instability, and, uh, this guy here is a courier. He doesn't remember his name 'cause he got shot in the head by some jerkwads that stole the package he was carrying."
"I picked up my package in the Primm office, and wanted to report losing it," the courier added. "And you're one of Akira's Vault friends, I assume."
"That is correct." She bowed. "Makoto Niijima. I am pleased to meet you."
"Likewise," Whitmeyer nodded slightly in response.
"Alright then, Makoto," the courier announced, "you've said that the townsfolk are holed up in the casino, right?"
"Right."
"Maybe the guy running the Mojave Express branch is among them." He spun on his heel to march into the uninhabited half of Primm "I'll have a word with him now-"
"The bridge's mined," said one of the soldiers. "Go down the highway and up an inlet."
After wondering for a moment if he could get away with disarming and pocketing the mines, the courier turned around and marched back to the main road. "As I was saying," he continued, as the rest of the group followed him, "I'll talk to him now to get this out of the way and we'll move on to the outpost."
"Sounds like a plan," Makoto replied. After a moment of walking in silence, she leaned to Akira and whispered: "[Why did the courier describe me as a 'Vault friend'?]"
"[That's my cover story,]" Akira explained, as they turned into the on-ramp leading to Primm. "[We're the descendants of people living in an isolated underground bunker called Vault 37. That's why we look East Asian, know little about the area, and speak accented English. The courier knows the truth, he helped me craft that backstory, but I didn't mention anything to Whitmeyer.]"
"[Right. I accidentally spilled the beans about that to one of the convicts that was in the area.]" Beat. "[By the way, what year is it? He seemed shocked when I told him what year I'm from.]"
Akira displayed his Pip-Boy to her. "[Well, according to this doodad, it's 2281.]"
Makoto glanced at the date in the corner and her jaw involuntarily dropped a bit. "[...I had a library book due mid-January.]"
"[Crap, I forgot to say the important bit: Igor can send us back in time to right after that god banished us here. We just need to find the others.]"
He expected her to be happy about it, or at the very least relieved that this whole misadventure had a way to end with her going back home. Instead, a soft frown decorated her face.
"[What's wrong?]" he asked.
"[I'm worried about the others.]"
He could've guessed that, truth be told, but he preferred to make no assumptions. He decided to go with a platitude in response: "[I'm sure they'll be fine.]"
Makoto's expression didn't change. "[The guys that shot me… they didn't say anything before that. The moment they spotted me,]" she made a finger gun with her left hand, "[they just grabbed a gun, pointed, and fired. Bang.]" Her hand twitched. "[I avoided a more serious wound by sheer dumb luck. Luck that the others may not have.]"
Akira thought for a moment about what the best response to that would be. Finally, he decided to gently put a hand on her shoulder, and say: "[I'll do everything I can to find them as soon as possible. Whatever it takes.]"
"Uh…" The two turned to Whitmeyer, walking behind them, confused. "If I can ask… what language are you two speaking?"
"Japanese," Akira said. "That's the language we were using in our Vault."
"We're just more comfortable with it than with English," Makoto added. "Nothing personal."
"Right, right," he nodded.
The group approached the entrance to Vikki and Vance casino. The courier stuck his head in and, unbothered by the guns pointed at him, asked, "Hey, can me and my friends come in and talk for a moment?"
"If you have to," Johnson Nash remarked. Noticing Makoto entering the building, he asked: "Did you give our accession request to the soldiers?"
"I'll get it to the Mojave outpost before the end of the day, I swear," she reassured him.
"Back to me, please," the courier said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. "I wanted to report my package getting stolen. Here's the delivery order."
Nash skimmed through the document. "Oh, this thing. That was a weird one."
"How so?"
"Well, it started when this cowboy robot rolled to town and-"
"You mean that guy?" Akira asked, pointing at a sturdy-looking bipedal robot with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on top of his chassis. After everything else about this world, working robots just barely moved a needle on the weird-o-meter.
"No, it was a different model," Nash explained. "It was one of them Vegas robots. One wheel, screen in front, and that screen displayed a cowboy face."
Akira noticed the courier's face change very subtly - it was the expression of someone with two matching puzzle pieces in front of him. "Interesting. What else was weird about it?"
"He had us hire six people," Nash continued. "Each of them was supposed to carry some random bric-a-brac. A chess piece, some fuzzy dice, playing cards, stuff like that. And every other package reached its destination. And yours, of all things, was stolen?"
"Yep. Some Vegas asshole in an ugly suit and two Khan bodyguards jumped me and knocked me out."
"Was that suit checkered black-and-white?" asked one of the townies.
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"I saw these guys when I was scavenging, not that long ago."
"Well, you were luckier than I was." The courier moved his hair to reveal his scars. "Bastards executed me. The only reason why I'm alive is because someone got me out of my shallow grave and got me to the doctor in Goodsprings."
"And who was that?" Makoto asked.
"The robot that ordered the delivery."
"Dun dun duuun." Everyone glanced at Akira and he smiled sheepishly in response. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself."
"Sounds like a mess," Nash replied. "Tell you what, as soon as the kid here gets us support and the Powder Gangsters get pushed back, I'll get to Goodsprings and ask the doc there to confirm your story. When he does, I'll write to the Hub to confirm you were robbed and left for dead, so they won't send mercs after you to reclaim the package."
"'Preciate it, thanks," the courier nodded. "One last thing though… I lost bits of my brain to bullets and one of them had my name on it. You wouldn't happen to remember it, would you?"
Nash scratched his head. "Beg your pardon, I can't say I committed it to memory. This job has a high turnaround, I don't bother with names at this point." He pointed to the side. "It's probably somewhere in the paperwork back in my office. Come back when this whole mess gets resolved and I'll look for it for you."
"Got it." The courier glanced at Makoto. "I've done all I wanted, let's go and resolve this mess."
The group left the casino and marched back to the highway. "Right, so now we're-"
As they turned a corner, Makoto found herself trailing off because the group found itself in front of a robot that seemed to match the description that Johnson Nash had provided. It was just over two meters tall, moving on a single large wheel, with a bulky chassis shaped like an inverted triangle, with two flexible arms protruding at the top, long enough to reach the ground. At eye level was a screen that displayed a black-and-white cartoon of a smiling cowboy's head.
"Howdy, pardner!" The robot greeted the courier with a vaguely southern twang. "I see you've found company on your way here."
"Hey, Victor," the courier said, unamused. "We were just talking about you."