Author's Notes:

There is a lot of higher-level technical talk in the chapter that I am only somewhat familiar with. I did some research and combined that with my own knowledge but some of it will likely be off. Feel free to correct me if you see an issue.

I tried having a higher level conversation mixed with a game. I was interested in trying to describe all of it happening at the same time. The classic Holmes conversation over chess but with card games. Hope it turned out okay!

"Text"

"Speech"

Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout, RWBY, or any associated characters.

Remnants of a Courier

Arc 4: Chaos Theory

Chapter 45: Mind Games

Call him old-fashioned but Six still preferred to read from physical paperback books than a small screen. For some it was about the texture, the sound, the sheer experience of it. For the Courier, it brought back good memories of when he was younger.

There was a lot of reading in his youth thanks to his mother who insisted on it. Six resisted at the time but he was thankful for the habits she drilled into him now.

Cracking a book open, Six took a seat and began reading about some of the different kinds of functions and arrays that could be made in the Common Atlesian Programming Language. Hopefully, he would also be able to patch a vulnerability in it as well. This was more for his amusement as he had some time ago managed to splice his own world's programming languages with this one's. Now he had a one-of-a-kind programming language that only he knew that was nearly complete. It was what he planned on implementing for the Voidwalkers and his Pip-Boy. Once implemented and encrypted, there were very few that could even attempt to break into his technology.

That didn't mean he couldn't enjoy reading about something new in his free time. With suspicion being cast on him it was better to lay low and take in some of the events going on that he had directly influenced.

First was what the L.I.F.E. System had done for Remnant. Ever since it was introduced at the hospital for Richter and proven effective, multiple large companies had vied to get their hands on it. Of course, the Council of Vale had stepped in and claimed it for the State and its citizens. No one had found out who had placed it there and it was still up in the air on who would claim it.

Of course, the Voidwalkers got both suspicion and fame cast on them for having their brand on the L.I.F.E. System Version 1.1. In the short term, the Voidwalkers would get more clients and eyes on them. In the long term, well, it was all part of the plan. What the general populace didn't know was he already had a couple of ideas for making it function more efficiently. Still, that was when he had more time.

It almost made Six chuckle thinking about how the common citizen of Vale reacted to it. Many thought his stolen tech a modern miracle because it could speed up the recovery of most people by three-fold and even unlock the Auras of people. No longer did people have to train for years to unlock their Auras or go to a skilled and knowledgeable Huntsman or Huntress to have it unlocked. Of course, their Auras were weaker without training but that could be fixed after acquiring one.

It didn't just shake up the medical world. It also put Ozpin and his cronies into overtime trying to dig any info on the Mimic out. Not that there was anymore to find than what they already had. Being a non-person helped with that. To be fair to their paranoia, it was their technology he had stolen so it made sense when they had double-downed on their security. More guards, separated networks, a closer watch on him, and more encryption. Not that it helped for the bugs he and Cinder already had in their system. Six assumed at some point they would detect his spyware but by then it would already be too late.

Due to the increased surveillance on him, Six's activities had slowed greatly. He couldn't actively go to meetings or pursue more clandestine activities. Not when team RWBY and several other staff at Beacon were keeping tabs on him.

This did give him more free time to lay low so he was researching new possibilities in his idle time to incorporate into his new and still unnamed computer language. It was going to be a mix between his world's programming languages and Remnant's. Such as a patch for the newest up-and-coming vulnerability to CAPL.

Of course, that was hard to do when a certain team made an abundant amount of noise in the library.

Six turned his head towards the source. Team RWBY was currently playing some kind of board game. From what he had overheard so far, there were four players that each represented one of five factions; Menagerie, Atlas, Vale, Vacuo, and Mistral. Each faction had its cons and pros and the goal was to take the territory of the other players.

Team JNPR sat close by as well though they were more well-behaved. Their team sat and quietly read. Even if Jaune looked like he was reading something akin to Grognak the Barbarian, Six could appreciate that he did so in silence.

They were even bold enough to openly talk about him. Well, Six, not House. They brainstormed ideas on what Six's Semblance was. And thanks to his little stunt at the White Fang outpost, most assumed it was invisibility or cloaking. It would explain how he got around Vale so easily.

Funny enough, that would throw off their scent if they thought the Mimic had a Semblance when he didn't. Hell, he could probably use it to help his case in a court of law.

His glances did not go unnoticed. Ruby had been watching him as he had been watching them. When her gaze met his visor, the red-themed girl smiled and waved at him.

"Come on over House!" She called out before waving him over. This was probably another hair-brained scheme to weasel information out of him. Great.

House sighed as he rose from his seat and made his way over to the team. On his way, he took a second glance at the library.

A large square two-story room was lined wall to wall with tall wooden bookshelves. Each shelf was lined with books labeled in alphabetical order. There had to be thousands of books in the library. He was on the second floor which was designed with a large square rectangular hole to look down onto the first floor. Glancing upward, the roof was dozens of feet above them and was made of some kind of white stone. Six supposed this was what pre-war libraries looked like in his world. It was extravagant to say the least.

Looking down as he approached the four, Six greeted the group by saying, "this is a library, please keep your voices down."

Ruby shot him a sheepish smile while replying in a quiet voice, "sorry Instructor House."

"Now, what is it you need?" The Courier questioned while looking down at the board. From the looks of how the sand-colored pieces were set up, it appeared Weiss was winning with the Vacuo faction. But the former Heiress's look seemed unfocused and confused. Perhaps she didn't know how to play then?

"I… play Sandstorm?" Weiss said as she placed a card onto the board. From a quick read of the card, it was used to disable ground forces. Since she was using it against Yang who was playing a Vale faction, it rendered her ground forces inoperable.

"Oh, I uh…" Ruby stuttered out at his question. It was clear the teenager hadn't thought this through. "Want to play?"

Before he could respond, Yang let out a muted chuckle while flipping over her face down card. "You've just activated my trap card Weiss." On the card was a series of mountains and what looked like people hiding among them.

With Yang playing as Vale, Six assumed that the natural mountainous defenses just south of the Capital of Vale were what the card was named after.

"'Natural Traps' allows me to render all of your ground forces unable to press forward or pull back. They're stuck, and next round, sitting ducks for my airships!" Yang said in a triumphant but loud tone while making plane motions with her hands.

Six turned his head to her before repeating himself, "I said be quiet."

"Yeah, yeah," Yang replied as she turned towards Blake. "Your turn."

"What am I doing again?" Blake questioned in a tired and almost dream-like voice. Looked like she still wasn't getting any sleep.

"Going back to your room and getting some sleep," Six replied in a hushed tone. The twitch of her bow indicated Blake had heard him.

Just as a pair of two Faunus teenagers strode over, Blake stood up from her chair and replied in an irritated tone, "I think you're right." The rest of her team had varied expressions from confused to worried as the B of team RWBY continued, "I'm tired, I'm going back to our room."

Without another word, the Faunus power-walked away from the group. She even walked right past Sun and Neptune without acknowledging either of them.

"Did we… Do something wrong?" The blue-haired teen asked with a brow raised.

House shrugged as the rest of team RWBY looked down at their cards in silence.

A few awkward moments of that silence passed before Six sighed. Being the adult in the room was damn annoying.

The Courier sat down and picked up Blake's discarded cards for Mistral. "I'll fill in I guess." He had been invited in earlier after all.

Taking a look, the card names were rather… Criminal. "Everyone has a price," "Corruption," "Black Market," "Seize and Control," "Consortium." They were leaning into the darker parts of Mistral's history apparently. That or whoever made the game didn't like Mistral.

"So…" Yang finally got out as Neptune and Sun got comfortable in seats around the table. "What were you reading before you joined?"

Six idly glanced up from his cards as he replied, "I was reading about the programming language that Vale relies on for the majority of its systems."

"Why?"

"Because there was a new vulnerability discovered and I wanted to see if I could patch it. That and to kill some free time."

"You see, there is one primary language used for nearly every system across Remnant that was invented primarily by three people. Now, there are variations of this code and different encryptions to keep governmental and military channels safe such as the Military Atlas Programming Language or the International Algorithmic Language but at the end of the day they're all based on the original Common Atlas Programming Language."

In Six's opinion it was incredibly stupid. One vulnerability in the base language meant a vulnerability for every language based on it. He could imagine three primary reasons for having every programming language to date based off of the first.

One, Remnant was still fairly early in its written history. Grimm and a smaller world with fewer States meant less progress on a technological scale. Or perhaps over-reliance on their Auras and Semblances led to a lax defense? Six put his caps on the Grimm being too big of a threat to care about security against other people until relatively recently in Remnant's history.

The second reason was that a standardized system made pushing updates out and maintenance far easier. No technician or programmer would need to learn multiple languages or understand them. If they were familiar with one, they were at least rudimentarily familiar with them all. There also wouldn't be out of standard or strange devices across Remnant being used in mass, making tracking their citizens easier.

The last reason was the most interesting. Arthur Watts, Pietro Polendina, and Astrid Ashford were the ones that had created the literally revolutionary CAPL. There were other languages but they were far too limited in comparison. But with the coming of CAPL, it was theoretically possible to create quantum computing and other such advanced technologies. This helped lead to the state-of-the-art airships that Atlas uses along with nearly every new technological marvel in the past few decades. This led to its near worldwide acceptance.

It was so advanced someone might even be able to create AI with it. Which is what Pietro was doing. A dangerous and stupid game but he supposed no one on Remnant had firsthand experience with rogue artificial intelligence.

Other than the AI, it was intriguing that neither of the other two creators were in Atlas's spotlight anymore. Arthur stuck around for a while and even created the Atlesian Paladins. But after a scandal involving Pietro, he left and hasn't been heard from. Miss Ashford grew more reclusive after her time with CAPL. She stopped talking with people not directly associated with her work before eventually vanishing altogether. While the other two had traces of where they possibly went, it was like Astrid grew more distant and then simply vanished off Remnant.

If Six had to guess, either Arthur or Astrid were helping Cinder and her master spy on Ozpin. They were the only ones with the technical know-how and personal experience to do such a thing other than Pietro who was currently working with Atlas.

"Professor… Professor!"

Blinking a few times, House turned his head towards Ruby who had been shouting his name.

"You were kinda spacing out there, it's your turn," Yang informed Six as she pointed at his cards.

Right… His Mistral Kingdom had lost a few territories but was still relatively neutral with every other faction. With Weiss having just blundered, that left Ruby who was crippled, and Yang as his main competitors.

House looked down at his cards before replying, "I'll lay two cards face down and play 'Blackmail.' I'll use it against Yang. If you attack my Kingdom in the next three turns, you'll incur a morale penalty of three. That's the end of my turn."

The two cards he placed face down were Corruption and Everyone Has a Price. Thanks to Corruption, as long as no one attacked him every time an enemy player would gain a resource he would gain half a resource on top of his turn's resources.

And to protect that card, he played Everyone Has a Price. That was his Kingdom's Leader ability. Ryder Zann used to be the head of an underground Consortium back in the day before being outed by The King of Vale during the Great War. His ability meant any attacking cards that weren't leaders would switch over to his side. The catch was the card would disappear and he'd have to pay one resource.

"You know how to play this game?" Sun questioned as he crossed his arms. "Lame."

Not really, he picked up the gist of it from listening in on their game. Not hard to do when Ruby shouted all of her moves.

"Hey, it's a thinking man's game," Neptune chastised as he turned to Weiss. "Only intelligent people would play it."

Both Shade students were sitting at either of his sides and watching him play.

The pale Huntress-in-training blinked a couple times before realizing he was complimenting her. Weiss returned the compliment with a soft smile and said, "thank you."

It was a bare minimum of a response. Normally, most teenagers around Beacon would be thrilled at having some good-looking guy their age compliment them. But Weiss didn't seem particularly up to it. She even looked slightly uncomfortable.

Six assumed she hadn't dealt with compliments like that in a while since Jaune had turned his focus to Pyrrha. Even if he hadn't made a direct move yet.

"Then I'll play "Unbreakable Spirit" to rally my morale!" Ruby once again shouted, earning a long and disappointed stare from House.

In a quiet tone, she continued. "And I'll use my Paladins to attack your Kingdom Instructor House." Good, she was learning to be quiet in libraries.

Six idly flipped his face down card over before replying, "you mean MY Paladins."

"Nooooo," Ruby quietly whimpered out as her head hit the table.

"Instructor House, what were you talking about earlier?" Weiss questioned as she placed a card face down.

"Right, you remember that programming language? There was a new vulnerability discovered recently that could impact the Common Atlas Programming Language or CAPL."

"Don't you mean cap-l?" Yang said with a smirk. Six always made sure to pronounce every letter in the acronym. Just now, Yang made sure to pronounce the word cap and then say "L" after it. Together it sounded somewhat like the word "capel."

"I say it like an adult," Six responded as he watched Yang accrue more resources and armed forces to her army.

"Anyways, there's a vulnerability with CAPL, and if there's a vulnerability with the base language that all others are based on…" Six trailed off, hoping one of them would use their brain and follow along.

"Then they all have a vulnerability, right?" Neptune chimed in, surprising Six. The Courier nodded in return.

"Bingo. To give a very brief summary, a lot of functions in CAPL are governed by arguments and environmental variables. Arguments are programs and file names usually. Environmental variables are… Values that are set outside of whatever program you're using. Like if you were playing a video game and it pulled information from your scroll to do something."

Six placed "Consortium" and "Black Market" face down as he continued explaining.

"Now, these arguments and variables work in functions together and are only separated by null. Null usually indicates the end of an item or function or the lack of a variable or argument."

Ruby failed to attack Weiss. Weiss placed a card face down. And Yang used her leader's ability to charge up her units for a massive attack on her next turn. Said next turn would be the fourth turn since he put his card down, meaning she could attack him.

"Then there are Program variables which work inside the program or the argument. These are usually set by you. Finally, arguments are broken down into elements such as zero, one, two, three, or more. These are values for each element."

Six placed his leader's ability face down again before expending the majority of his resources on upgrades for his paladins and new units. Though he did make sure to draw his new cards.

"This vulnerability preys on that function by having the user not provide an argument at all in the zero element. Meaning, don't set a value for the element. If you do this, it makes the zero element null. And what happens between arguments when there is a null?"

Six smirked as he held up his new bounty hunter card and used it to incapacitate Yang's leader for two rounds, canceling her leader ability. The flash of red across the blonde's eyes was worth it.

Neptune once again answered. "An… Argument ends and an environmental variable begin?"

Finally, he placed a Defiler card face down as a trap.

"Exactly, so let's go back to that program variable. If a variable inside the argument is set to one, but the zero element for the argument is set to null, then the program stops at zero and the variable set to one is out of bounds. Making the program variable out of bounds."

Ruby attempted to attack him again which made Six use his trap Defiler card to infiltrate her army's ranks and sow discord. She could still attack if she wanted but she'd do so at a large disadvantage. The teenager sighed in defeat as she withdrew.

So far, Weiss had managed to scrounge a small army. Ruby had shored up her defenses but didn't have a means of attacking anymore. And Yang was trying to get her leader's ability back to attack him.

It was disadvantageous that Ruby attacked him because he wanted to use that against Yang.

"Since the argument element is set to null, it automatically moves to environmental variables to set a value for that program variable. And if that program variable is created in a specific way, any environmental variable may be set for it. Including unsecured environmental variables."

Yang drew a card and laid it face down, waiting for the timer to wear off on her leader's ability.

"There's a lot of steps that begin after this. But to make a long explanation slightly shorter, you can inject a specific unsecured environmental variable for that program variable to give you administrator access."

Since he waited for two rounds, he could now activate Consortium and Black Market.

"And that's for any computer in Vale?" Ruby questioned as Six turned over his Consortium card. When activated it could steal any player's already discarded card; he chose Sandstorm from Weiss.

Nodding his head at Ruby, Six then activated Black Market. "Which means that any user can be elevated to admin if they have the tech and know-how." He used the black market to upgrade all of his units' attack points by one.

Yang's look of concern grew as Six sacrificed his Corruption card to gain an extra resource and card on his turn. That meant three cards in total.

Two of the cards were attack units he was planning on using. The last was a "Natural Defense" card. For Mistral that was the unsteady ocean waters surrounding Mistral. He made sure to play all three.

"But why do you care?" Sun finally piped up. The tailed Faunus looked extremely bored with his hands behind his head.

Six shrugged in response as he attacked Yang's forces. Without their leader's ability, they would be easy work for his forces.

The blonde let out an "aha" as she activated her trap card. The art on the card looked like some kind of primitive anti-air cannons. It destroyed his aerial forces but that wouldn't stop his ground assault.

The Courier used his last card, Sandstorm, to render all non-robot forces blind and weak. This wouldn't affect the Paladins that he sent in.

"It's a good way to pass the time. Plus I plan on using it for my wrist-scroll." Six glanced up for a moment as he continued, "and if all goes well, I guess I could even sell the solution."

His army was weakened but now he owned the majority of Yang's territory save for her capital. Six's resource and card production would sky-rocket. Meaning now all three of them had to focus on him as a prolonged game was his to win.

"For Atlas!" Ruby shouted as she sent her forces towards his. Only to have them decimated by his Natural Defense card. And all of her troops were washed away by the ocean tides.

"Library Ruby," Six chided as he turned to Weiss. The last member of their team had been quiet in her frustration and confusion while trying to understand the game. More so because she didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Neptune now that he complimented her.

"I use… Another Resourceful Raider… To take Ruby's card?" Weiss sounded unsure of herself but it was a good move. So far, the former Heiress had managed to completely rebuild her army and while her territory was small it was easier to defend. Unlike ruby who had depleted her resources fighting him.

Six nodded his head as the group returned to silence. With the group having traveled fully down the conversation topic of his programming hobby, they didn't know what to continue with next. Or maybe they were just too nervous to talk freely around him.

A few turns passed in complete silence before once again Six was forced to continue the conversation and hopefully make his exit.

"Alright," he began while setting his cards face down. "This has been sufficiently entertaining but you should go check in on Blake. She's obviously not doing well."

"She's just worried about… Stuff…" Yang trailed off as she did her best not to blurt out White Fang in a library.

The Courier placed his hands on the table and stood up as he responded, "be that as it may. It doesn't excuse her behavior. She can't help anyone or even herself in that state. It's also driving me crazy how moody she's been."

"I suggest you all handle it or I will." With that final statement, Six took a few steps away from the table. A thought entered his head as he stopped and turned his head. "And trust me, you don't want me to handle it."

Hopefully that would get through their heads that they couldn't act like dumbass kids forever. He was only a few years older than them but the difference between him and team RWBY was night and day.

"Neptune, take over my hand," Six called out as he made his exit. He had left the blue-haired teen with more than enough territory and advantages to win the game.

"T-Thanks for playing!" Ruby called out after him. The girl was too nice for her own good.

Author's Notes:

This is the last chapter I went ahead and got ready in advance for when I start posting again. You should see this roughly 5-6 months after I start updating again.

For anyone curious, the entire card game and faction Six played was based off an RTS game. Can you guess which one? Probably.

And finally, for a special event. It's a bit early (by two days) but I figured I'd do it anyways. This post will mark nearly four years of writing this story. With that, I have two things to do. One, give an update on what my schedule for the future looks like. And two, like every year, is reply to a few reviews.

First, for the next few months (3-4), I plan on maintaining the same monthly upload. On a good note, my schedule is clearing up a bit. If nothing ruins my plans, then after 3-4 months from now I'm hoping to move to a bi-weekly upload schedule as I'll have more time to write. That's all for a schedule update.

Now onto the exciting stuff, reviews!

Rio Skyron (for Chapter 31): My only issue with this chapter is Blake asking Six what he was doing was a missed opportunity for Six to make a snarky comment along the lines of "I'm so glad you asked, because I just wanted to take this moment to explain my evil plan" Other than that amazing chapter.

Author: Six isn't usually quite that sassy but I like the mentality. I've found a good number of people seemed to come into the story with a dislike for Blake beforehand. While I haven't made attempts to endear her in this story, I personally am neutral on the character.

Falloutman111: Damn, and here I was thinking Six would kill someone. (Blake). Oh well, I can wait the long game if necessary...

Author: Like this individual. Or perhaps I wrote her more on the annoying side in this story?

kukuhimanpr (for Chapter 31): courier six's fight with rwby's sun wukong kinda fits with the theme of usa vs china.

Author: In a way, I suppose it does. Their fighting styles are also completely mismatched so the contrast is widened even further.

Destroyah7 (for Chapter 31): Feels fear lol didnt he just get jumped in the beginning by everyone if he can survive that. Then he shouldn't be worried about a ai controlled robot especially if he had the pulse gun

Author: I would disagree. Not only is it an essentially unshackled AI that could go rogue at a moments notice, it's been given firepower to take down VTOLS which are roughly equivalent to Vertibirds in Fallout. Imagine something with the firepower to shoot 3 Vertibirds out of the sky with ease. Even Six has a hard time scoffing at that. That and some personal reasons for Six.

Don Cheeto: I would love if he started his own rebel group. Someone like Makarov from Call of Duty, but with the skills of Taskmaster from Marvel. Btw Team RWBY are definitely gonna stalk him when he's with Carmine aren't they?

Author: This man predicted the future. Kudos.

The Baz: So Ozpin know his database has been compromised, why doesn't he just go about changing all his passwords for everything. It's cyber security 101, if you even think there's a chance your password has been leaked you change it. Ozpin would know this.

Author: This was actually an oversight on my part that I corrected in a later chapter. A fairly minor issue that was resolved quickly but still an oversight.

Chainthatbinds (for Chapter 33): Ok thanks for coming back. I hope you were able to work through what ever caused you to whant one be it wrighter block or just needing time away for a more personal reason

Author: It was actually finishing college but I appreciate the sentiment.

Axccel (for Chapter 15): It'd be funny if there is news of the reporter and anyone connected to spilling the classified information being arrested later. Classified means classified.

Author: It's revealed later that much of the "classified" information that was leaked wasn't leaked at all. Ozpin and other groups have on a few occasions shared tidbits of information for their nefarious plots. We'll have to see what happens to Amberly.

Gnormann: Doesn't make sense how someone who fought as hard as he did to preserve society in the mojave would join a terrorist organization to tear one down.

Author: I think you may have missed the part where he went off the deep end in the beginning of this story. He's also being blackmailed at the moment as well. More importantly, I think you'll see in the future why Six is willing to go along with it.

Author: A few people also chimed in on the pauldron debate. The question I was more asking was geared more towards if pauldron was the right word in a modern setting. If there is some sort of modern military version of the word as pauldron usually refers to armor for hundreds of years ago.

Author: Ableuser and obertoronier left very flattering reviews. Thank you for your kind words, it's what keeps me writing this story!

Author: I would like to focus on a section of obertoronier's review.

obertoronier: I'm curious, what perks has six? obviously has Terrifying Presence and Jury Rigging, maybe too have some in Swift Learner and Unstoppable Force?(i mean, he destroy the skull of that poor man), but does he have others like Lady Killer? It would be fun to see him seduce women even with those bandages XD. or what about the cannibal? Will six have flashbacks remembering times of being hungry in the wasteland and doing whatever it takes to survive?

Author: He has a number of perks I've selected from the game but I will introduce them when I believe they're appropriate to the story. I usually try to stray away from anything too meta or strong in the story. As for flashbacks, there will likely be more, significantly more. I may have an entire side project or two centered around the idea.

Odnoglazyy Rytsar: But I do wonder, has six ever incountered a set of power armor in his travels in the mojave, something that could help him deal with Cinder when time comes?

Author: Six definitely has a set of power armor and knows how to use it. It's just him getting back to it or using other means I won't get into here.

AinzOoalGown's chosen: Was Six scared of Neo there, or was he just caught off guard because of his earlier thoughts and getting snapped out of it?

Author: Mostly caught off guard but anyone that can rival Six in killing intent does make the Courier wary.

Spatialyeti8: Sidenote I like the end of the author's note where it took 45 chapters to decide that

Author: I'll have you note good sir that I flip-flopped on that topic for over 3 years before deciding. Makes me want to go back through and change all previous possessives to that for consistency.

P (for Chapter 42): This is honestly my favorite chapter, would love to see more chapters of six telling stories about the mojave or hell maybe even a chapter dedicated to seeing how the mojave is faring with the distinct lack of the courier

Author: Thank you! I do have plans for that but they won't be for a long time yet. I'm talking seasons 7-8 long time.

And that's it for the reviews!

This was a lot of fun to do again. I try hard to let my story speak for itself and not respond directly to reviews but I can throw you all a bone every year or so.

This story has been crazy to write. All my previous stories have paled in comparison to the effort I've put into this one and I feel like my writing has finally reached a point where I can be proud of it. It took maybe a decade of writing but hey I'm still going.

Thank you for all the kind reviews and I promise to continue this story and (eventually) conclude it.