The Mojave Wasteland night was as desolate as always, just another reason Benny hated leaving the walls of New Vegas. He already just wanted to head back to the Tops on the Strip, but knew he had quite a while before he could get back to the fast caps and loose women that he had become accustomed to. This was the first step in a long plan, one that had been in the works for years. One that was gonna see him go right to the top of Vegas, staring down at the jewel of the wasteland from the top of the Lucky 38. But for right now, he was stuck in the ass end of fucking nowhere.
Benny had been vaguely aware of Goodspring's existence before showing up with a platoon of Great Khans earlier that day but had never stepped foot in it himself. A small stop on I-15 that had nothing to offer the world besides a shitty rickety saloon and a barely stocked general store and more bighorners than Benny ever cared to see again. It was strange to think about the fact that if he cared to look with some binoculars, he could see Goodsprings from his suite in the Tops. Glancing behind him, he could see the lights of the Strip from here, the walled off city of New Vegas unmistakable in the pitch black night, the only source of light for miles in every direction. The hills and dry cracked earth of the Mojave Wasteland provided an infinite abyss that sent chills up his spine imagining what could lay within it. Even just making the short trip down I-15 from Vegas to here was enough to give him nightmares. All his life he'd been warned about this area, that the creatures here only got mad when you pumped them full of lead. Even when he had been a tribal, riding the Mojave in leather and skins, before he had challenged his chief to a ritual knife fight to bring his tribe to Vegas and Mr House, he hadn't wanted to travel there. And now he was faced with the issue of whether to return that way.
Suppressing a deep shudder he placed a cigarette between his lips, taking out his custom engraved silver lighter and holding the flame to the end. The rest of his Khans were watching the hill, leaving just Jessup and McMurphy with him. The leaders of the Great Khans that he had hired for this job, the two men were vexing to him, to say the least. Jessup was a pale man with bright red hair styled into a spiky mohawk, tall and wiry and covered in scars. He was down in the grave with a shovel, digging. McMurphy was standing next to Benny, which only made the contrast between them all the more obvious. McMurphy was a stocky and wide man with dark skin and an even darker handlebar mustache, a white bandana wrapped around his head. His Khan leathers were very reminiscent of Old World bikers, and before the great massacre at Bitter Springs the roaring motorbikes of the Khans were their signature weapon. The helmet wearing skull on the back of his jacket declared his allegiance, a dangerous thing in the Mojave where Khans were typically viewed with hostility outside of Red Rock Canyon. Benny, on the other hand, oozed style. In his black and white checked jacket and smoothly gelled hair, he was the epitome of everything that was great about Vegas. Exactly the image he wanted to portray to the world.
"How much longer until we're paid?" McMurphy demanded for about the twentieth time that night, only adding to Benny's current headache. The man had not shut the fuck up since they left the village in the hills after the battle with chem-addled fiends, where one of the Khans had gotten himself killed, seriously souring the relationship between Benny and the Khans. He had been in the game long enough to know that a double cross was inevitable. No doubt McMurphy was so insistent because the moment Benny handed over the caps, he would get a bullet in return.
"You're cryin' in the rain, pally," Benny replied casually, his cigarette down to the butt now. "You think I carry that kinda scratch like pocket change?" McMurphy scowled at him, but Benny didn't back down for a moment. He knew he couldn't show weakness in front of a man like this, who searched for weakness like a hungry coyote. Technically Benny was McMorphy's employer, but that sacred bond was tenuous at best. The only thing keeping him from a slit throat in the night was the promise of payment. "You get your caps when we get back to New Vegas, dig?"
"You said-"
"I said you'd get paid when the job's done," Benny shot back, cutting the man off as he flicked his cigarette butt into the dirt next to the open grave, already itching for another and pulling it from his engraved cigarette case. "And the job ain't done until I'm back in the Tops with the chip." Even just mentioning the Platinum Chip made his heart race, made its presence in the inside pocket of his coat even heavier than it already was. This was it. One more death, one more bullet, one more grave, and Vegas was his.
Jessup grunted as he got out one more shovelful of dirt, sifting it onto the ground. "Grave's dug," he announced, climbing out of it bathed in sweat and covered in filth, panting for breath, the little light from the lantern next to them bathing him in a sickly yellow. "Ready to throw her- oh shit!"
Jessup's sudden exclamation and fear made Benny turn around where he was watching, where the courier they'd ambushed and hogtied was waking up, messing with the restraints around her wrists, grunting as she tried to get a sense of her surroundings. "Looks like the guest of honor is waking up," Benny mused as the three men faced the courier, and he couldn't help the smirk that came to his lips. "Heya doll. Sleep well? Hope the accommodations were to your liking, but if not, spare me the complaints. My heart couldn't take it, pussy cat."
The woman didn't respond, just staring at him with those eyes. He had done as much research as possible on this courier, named 'Courier Six' by the Mojave Express handling the job he was in the process of robbing, but hadn't been able to turn up much. Couldn't even pull a name, so she had been 'Six' to him for a long time, now. She wasn't New Vegas beautiful, but she had ruggedness to her that gave her a wasteland beauty that would have driven him wild in the Boot-Rider days. With auburn hair and skin hardened and darkened from a lifetime spent in the sun, she exuded danger, which was interesting considering just how young she was. By his guess she was sixteen or seventeen at most, wiry and thin as a reed, and gave off the same energy as a deadly Mojave dust storm. Her features were strong and sharp, her clothes simple and hardy, but it was her eyes that kept drawing him in. Grey. Grey as steel, or gunpowder, or stormclouds. They held so much anger in them, those eyes, so much hate and fury at the world, but every bit of that anger was directed at him, now. If looks could kill, he'd be the one in the grave behind him.
"Will you just get it over with?!" McMurphy demanded from beside him, throwing out his arms in frustration. "Goddamn, just kill her already so we can go!"
This square's attitude was really raining on his parade, and threatened to ruin this amazing moment for him. He glanced over at him, glaring at him, staring daggers that were returned right back. "Maybe Khans kill people without looking 'em in the face first," Benny shot right back, reaching into his coat, rummaging around in the pocket, "but I ain't a fink, dig?" He pulled his hand out from the coat pocket holding the chip. A poker chip, heavy and metal, made from platinum and featured the logo of the Lucky 38 casino on its surface. He turned it in his hand, admiring it in the lantern light. "Such a small little thing," he mused to himself aloud, "for so much trouble." He put the chip back into his coat, looking at Six.
"Sorry kid," he said with genuine regret, "from where you're kneeling, this must seem like an eighteen karat run of bad luck." His hand went back into his checkered coat, and this time, pulled out his pistol. A nine millimeter handgun made with silvery steel, engraved, pearl grip, as expensive and custom as it could be. Maria. His beauty and his love. He looked at it before leveling it at Six's head. He pulled back the hammer with a loud click, the pistol ready to fire. "Truth is, the game was rigged from the start, doll."
He should have just done it then. Pulled the trigger and killed her and been done with it. But his damn sentimentality got in the way, again, and he hesitated. Just for a moment. But long enough he let the thought escape his head. "Any last words, pussy cat?"
She stared at him for a long time, those gray eyes glaring daggers into his soul. But finally her lips parted, and her dry emotionless voice came out, scraping on his ears like the sand at their feet, sending chills up his spine. "You better hope you don't miss."
You better hope you don't miss. Jesus, that was a line straight out of an Old World flick, wasn't it? Benny felt his blood run cold and instantly regretted letting the kid talk, so he didn't hesitate this time. The peace of the desert night was interrupted by the boom of a gunshot as he pulled Maria's trigger. He watched as Six's head jerked back, a little cloud of blood appearing in front of her face as the bullet caught her in the brow above her eyes, and she fell back into the dirt, still. Benny stared at her corpse for a few moments before walking closer, aiming at her head again. A second gunshot filled the night as he made sure the job was finished.
"Jesus!" Jessup protested, "Was that really necessary? She's already dead, man."
"I don't like loose ends," Benny said simply, staring down at the body as he replaced Maria in his coat. Maybe the Khans should have looked deeper into that statement, but if they did, they didn't give any sign of it. "Toss her in and cover her up," Benny ordered as he pulled another cigarette, his hands shaking. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes. He couldn't get them out of his head. Christ, she was just a kid, what the hell was House thinking?! "And make sure there's plenty of dirt on top, too."
An hour later Benny and his partners in crime descended from the top of the hill that held Goodsprings Cemetery to join the other Khans at the bottom, but Benny wasn't there. Not really. He was still staring at Six's eyes, hearing her last words. You better hope you don't miss. Despite having just killed a teenage girl and being in the last phase of his plan, he didn't feel very victorious. In fact, despite having just put someone else in theirs, he felt like he just walked over his own grave.
Maybe if he had been paying better attention he would have noticed the large robot on a single large wheel that came out of the dark at the top of the hill, standing over the grave. The robot was a television on wheels, a screen at the center of its large and stocky rectangular body, two arms ending in three metal appendages and one large wheel. It seemed to process the situation for a few moments, a cartoon image of a smiling cowboy on the screen a direct contradiction of the current very serious situation. After those moments, it leaned over the grave, worked its six metal fingers, and began to dig.