Author's Note: To guest reviewer Fireheadz506, I am glad that you are enjoying the story. It's reviews like that that make me want to continue writing. To all of you, enjoy the chapter, and reviews are always welcome and appreciated.
"Elijah?" Mark said. "He's the one who separated you and Christine, right?" "Yeah, but no one's seen him since-" Veronica was interrupted by an old, raspy voice that seemed to emanate from the fountain. "Are you listening? Good. From now on, when I talk, you listen, and follow my instructions. Play stupid, play clever, make the mistake of saying no? That collar on your neck will go off and take your head with it." "Elijah," Veronica said, still looking stunned, "what the hell is going on here?" Elijah sounded a bit surprised. "Veronica, is that you? How did- ah, you must have got caught in one of my traps. Lucky you. The beast must have been fed."
"Elijah, no one's seen you since Helios. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Where the hell are we?" "Ah, Helios. I was so close to uncovering the secret there, before those NCR fools took the facility and Hoover Dam. Stupid children playing with bombs. It is of no matter, I have found something that will enable me to wipe the slate clean." "Yeah," Mark said, "you and Veronica can catch up later. I have some questions of my own." "Ah, Veronica," Elijah said, "you brought a friend. Hurry up and ask your question, then." "Ok, first of all, where-the fuck-are-we?" Mark said, stressing each word. "This is the Sierra Madre. It is a monument to everything the old world stood for. Greed, corruption, wastefulness. But the casino itself is of no matter. What I seek is under the casino itself."
"Alright," Mark continued, "so where is all of our gear?" "The Sierra Madre has many…defenses, means of screening guests for illicit or dangerous materials. Your arrival here, weaponless, was not my intention. Your gear has been taken to a secure location within the casino itself. The process is automated, and the casino itself has other, similar services. I was unable to find a workaround, except to send in others as tools." "Ok, so tell me then, how do I still have my pip-boy?" "That piece of RobCo trash has a biometric seal on it, and security is unable to remove anything that can only be removed by the wearer." "Elijah," Veronica said, "You abandoned us at Helios. I have to know. What was so important that you refused to order a retreat?" "Veronica, the past is of no consequence. What matters is that I need your help. Perhaps it is fortunate that you are here. If we succeed, we will be able to make the Brotherhood the dominant force on the west coast again. That is why I need to get into the vault under the casino."
"Why? What's in this vault?" "Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Human nature dictates that we keep our most valuable secrets locked up. I believe the schematics to the technology here are in that vault. When we get to it, the world will take notice and the Brotherhood will no longer need to hide in the shadows. Not even McNamara, or Hardin, or those fools at Lost Hills will be able to stop what will be coming." "Uh, sorry to interrupt again," Mark said, "but I have more questions. Why the hell is the sky red?" "I call it the Cloud." Elijah said, "It is not a natural occurrence." "No shit," Veronica said under her breath. Elijah continued. "It has blanketed the casino and Villa since the bombs dropped, preserving them." "Is the air safe to breathe?" Mark asked.
"Yes. The air is only lethal if you enter concentrated pockets of the Cloud. Too long inside one, you'll die, so be careful where you step. I've seen some survive concentrated pockets for short periods of time, if healthy enough; others were too weak. Rebreathers, chemical suits, it's all useless. The Cloud decays everything it touches." "You've-you've sent others in there?" Veronica asked. "Yes," Elijah said, "too many, though. This place is dangerous. Its hazards have claimed many. Failures upon failures. The Sierra Madre is a complicated lock, and I need human hands to open it." Mark looked at the ground, and saw some type of weapon. He picked it up and examined it. "Elijah," Mark asked, "what is this weapon? It looks like a grenade launcher, but heavily modified."
"It is a holorifle. I constructed it when I arrived. For now, that will have to serve as your only means of defense until you find other weapons, and I suggest you do. The ammunition is limited. I fashioned it from the holograms of the villa, and used it against the villa's inhabitants." "Wait," Veronica asked, "holograms? Like the woman in the fountain?" "The holograms here act as vendors, performing the duties the dead once did. There are also security holograms. Weapons are useless against them. Energy weapons, EMP's, they will all do nothing. Each hologram is limited in its range by an emitter, however. Destroy it or disable it, and they will cease to be a problem."
"You mentioned something about 'inhabitants?'" Mark inquired. "Yes. The…inhabitants. I would avoid them if you can. They are difficult to kill. Whatever created them, bullets, explosions, energy, it only renders them inert for a short time, and then they will get back up. You will need to cut off a limb to ensure proper death. Now enough of these questions. The reason you both are here is to help me break into the vault. But as I have discovered, one cannot do it alone. There are three other collars like yours around the villa. Find them, and then contact me when you are ready for next phase. But be warned. Try to take the treasure for yourself? All of your collars are linked. One goes off, they all go off. There are also speakers and radios located around the villa that can set your collars off prematurely. The radios, either destroy them or turn them off. The speakers are another matter."
"They have decayed over the years. The ones with a blue light, they can be destroyed. The ones with a red light cannot. They are shielded, and need to be avoided or turned off another way." "How are we supposed to find the others out here?" Mark asked. "Your pip-boy. It is just a machine. It can be manipulated to anyone's needs. And yes, I have access to it. Each collar gives off its own frequency. I have pinged their locations to your pip-boy map. Contact me when you have the others. We're done here." The picture over the fountain turned back into the holographic woman. Mark and Veronica looked at each other. "So…that's Elijah, huh? Seems about as pleasant as a deathclaw." Mark put the holorifle on the edge of the fountain, and checked his pip-boy. "Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that it's only been five hours since we walked into that the bunker slash trap. The bad news is that we're in northern Nevada, and I have absolutely no idea how we got here in five hours. It looks like we have to play along until we find a way out of this."
"Maybe…maybe I can talk some sense into him. Get him to let us go." "Look, Veronica, I don't know what he was like when he was your Elder, but from what I can tell, he waved goodbye to his sanity a long time ago." Veronica looked at him pleadingly. "Mark, please, if or when we see him, please don't kill him. I've got to at least try. If you really are my friend, you will at least give me that chance." "Veronica, he is forcing two people, one of whom he knows, to fight creatures that don't die unless you cut off a limb, under a blood-red cloud of god-knows-what that is probably slowly killing us as we speak. We also have to find three people to help him break into an old-world casino, which probably has security up the wazoo, to get into a vault that even he doesn't know what's inside. God knows how many other people he's sent to their deaths in this hellhole. He has lost his damn mind. He needs to be put out of his misery."
"Mark, please." Mark sighed and hung his head. "Alright, fine. But it's the same rules as Hidden Valley. If he attacks me, I will defend myself, and then all bets are off. I will kill him if necessary." Veronica got a relieved look on her face. "Thank you. So, who should we go for first?" Mark looked at the map on his pip-boy. The pip-boy created maps using historical and real-time satellite data, but there was no map of this place. It could create a map as they went, but that didn't help them at the moment. All there was were five blinking dots. Two of them were him and Veronica, and the other three were spread around the villa. Mark pointed to the one that was closest to them, which was to their left and a little towards the casino. "That seems to be the closest. Let's go there first." "Okay. Let's go," Veronica said. Mark picked up the holorifle. "Just be on your guard. And on the way, you can tell me what Helios is, and what the hell happened there."
(Same time, Lucky 38)
It was close to 11 pm, and Amata had gone from annoyed, to pissed, to now just worried sick. Mark's pip-boy signal had disappeared entirely. She kept looking at her pip-boy, hoping that the signal would reappear. She kept pacing around the room in a tank top and sweat pants, the black dress and shoes she was planning to wear on their date having long since been taken off and thrown aside. When Arcade and Cass asked where Mark was, Amata pretended like everything was okay, telling them that they got caught up helping the NCR with some business, and that they would be back late. They seemed to buy it, and they left her alone. She hadn't seen Boone since they talked in the kitchen hours ago.
Mark had said that the signal would be blocked while they were in the bunker where the Brotherhood was, but he had said that they were done with that. She had a gut feeling that he wasn't dead. Even if he was dead, his pip-boy would've still been transmitting. Whatever happened, she knew it was because of that radio signal he and Veronica were tracking. She checked her own pip-boy, but didn't see any radio stations that seemed out of the ordinary. There were a couple of times when she was in the vault when there would be no reports on him on the radio for days, which worried her, but she had other things on her mind at the time, like making sure that the rebellion didn't fall apart. Here, she had no such luxury, if you could call it that. Of course, she didn't really know why there were no reports on him until he told her it was because he had followed radio signals. "Dammit, Mark, I told you that this was a bad idea," she said quietly. "Why the fuck didn't you just listen to me?" She put her hands on the windowsill and looked out the window. "Mark, where the hell are you?"
(Same time, Sierra Madre Villa)
"…and that's basically what happened at Helios." Mark and Veronica were heading towards the first target. To Mark, this entire place felt like something out of an old horror movie he had seen in the vault once. Luckily, they hadn't run into any of the creatures that Elijah had mentioned yet, but Mark knew that with his luck that they would be meeting some of them soon. "So, he just outright abandoned you guys?" Mark asked. "Yeah," Veronica responded, "it's like he-"
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Their collars started to beep as they entered the area that was deemed as the medical district. They stepped back, and the beeping thankfully stopped. They looked around for where the radio or speaker was. There was a light illuminating the cobblestone path I front of them, but nothing resembling what they were looking for. There was a wooden overhang above them. "Do you see anything?" Mark asked. "No," Veronica responded, "there's no radio or speaker that I can see. Maybe it's above that overhang." Mark ran out from under the overhang as his collar started to beep. He saw a white speaker, and they were in luck, because the light was blue. Mark quickly lined up his shot, and fired at the speaker. What looked like blue cubes came out from the end of the weapon and hit the speaker, destroying it, and the beeping stopped. Mark exhaled, and looked at the end of the weapon. He had never seen anything like that before.
Veronica walked out. "Well, we're not dead, so I assume you got it." "Yeah. Although, this is an interesting weapon, because I don't really know what the hell just came out of the end of it. It looked like the hologram that we saw at the fountain." "Well, Elijah was a whiz with technology. He had this gift where he could just look at something and immediately know how it worked, so the fact that he built this doesn't really surprise me," Veronica said. They walked another twenty feet or so when Veronica noticed something. "Mark, I see something." They took cover on opposite sides of an archway and peeked around their respective corners. About twenty yards away they saw a human-shaped figure walking, albeit slowly and awkwardly, like how someone would walk with a sprained ankle. It was wearing some kind of green suit, and its eyes were glowing green. It was also carrying something long and narrow.
Mark held a finger to his lips, indicating for Veronica to remain silent. Mark aimed with the holorifle around the corner and lined up his shot. He needed to be careful, because this rifle only had five microfusion cells left, so that meant five shots. He took aim and fired. The creature made a weird noise and quickly moved out of the way. Mark couldn't even begin to guess what the noise was, or how the creature moved so quickly, mainly because the creature was on him before he knew it. The creature seemed to be carrying some type of spear, which it tried to stab Mark with. Mark moved out of the way, and slammed the butt of the rifle into the back of its head, causing it to stumble forward. The creature turned and headed back to Mark, but Veronica came from behind it and twisted its head, causing it to fall to the ground. She then took the spear out of its hand, and the drove the spear into its neck. Then, with one clean swipe, beheaded the creature, ensuring its death.
A white fluid spurted out of the creature's neck. Veronica examined the spear. It was four kitchen knives taped to a broom handle. "Hmm," Veronica said, "if these creatures can make crude weapons like this, they might still have some form of cognitive function." "Well, good for them. They're slightly smarter than feral ghouls. Come on, I think we're close." They continued walking, nearly walking into a concentrated area of the Cloud, which Veronica noticed and stopped Mark from walking into it. They came up to a building with the words "Medical Clinic" illuminated in neon above the door. Mark checked his pip-boy. Whoever we're looking for is in there," he said.
They opened the door, walked in, and shut the door behind them. The area was dimly lit, with a couch to their right, some chairs to their left, and a reception desk with a couple of ruined terminals on it. There was a hallway to the right of them, and a stairway leading upward on the left side of the room. They searched the room. Mark looked on the reception desk. There were a couple of stimpaks and a holotape with writing on it. It said, "Vending Machine Code-Stimpaks," on it. "Hey, Veronica, have you seen any vending machines around here?" "Don't know. Haven't really been looking for them. But look at this." She was examining something next to the chairs they saw when they entered. There was a white handprint above an old suitcase. Veronica opened it and they both looked inside. There were three stimpaks, a 9 mm pistol with some ammo, and a frag grenade. "Who do you suppose left this here?" Veronica asked. "Don't know, don't really care. It's ours now. I've got the rifle, you can take the pistol. I found a couple of stimpaks on the desk, so you can take those." Veronica, who also had the spear from the creature they killed, stuck the pistol in the back of her pants, the stimpaks in her pocket, and gave the grenade to Mark. "Veronica, do you hear a tapping noise?" There was a dull tapping noise, which Mark hadn't really noticed up until this point. Veronica listened. "Yeah, I think it's coming from down that hallway." Mark checked his pip-boy. The signal was coming from that direction. "I think we found our first mystery person."
They walked down the hallway and turned a corner. They looked in the first room on their left. There was a grey, freestanding circular metal tube with a picture of a snake wrapped around a rod, which Mark recognized from his dad's medical books as the Rod of Asclepius, the Greek symbol for medicine. There was a terminal attached to it. Veronica looked at the terminal. "Mark IX Auto-Doc," she read. "Well," Mark said, "it doesn't look like the auto-doc that the Followers have." They walked back out of the room and continued down the hallway when-
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
They both took a couple of steps backward. Mark looked up and saw a speaker at the end of the hallway, only this time the light was red, meaning it couldn't be destroyed. "Fuck," Mark said, "how the hell are we supposed to disable that thing?" Veronica thought for a moment. "We passed a set of stairs heading down. Maybe there's something in the basement to kill the power." "Well, it's our only option at this point. Let's go check it out." They walked down the stairs to a small landing with a wooden door. Veronica tried to open it, but it was locked. "How do you wanna get this open?" Veronica turned around, and looked at Mark. "Move," Mark said. Veronica stepped out of the way, and Mark gave a swift kick to the door, right near the door handle. The door splintered open. "Problem solved," Mark said as he walked past Veronica. The room was dimly lit, with rusted generators on either side of them, and a desk with a computer on it. Veronica sat down at the desk and started typing.
"Ok, so the speakers should be off now, but the holographic security in here is still active, so be careful." They walked back up the stairs, and when they turned the corner, they saw that there was no longer any light on the speaker. Even so, they proceeded carefully, listening to the tapping noise grow as thy came to the last room in the hallway. There was another auto-doc, with the tapping coming from inside. Mark walked up to it. "Hello? Can you hear me? I'm gonna let you out." Mark hit the release button, and the door hissed open. As soon as it did, Mark felt someone tackle him and started to punch him. "Uh, Veronica, little help please?" he said while trying to deflect what he saw was a woman's punches. The woman did a double-take when she saw Veronica, and she stopped punching, which enabled Mark to throw her off of him. He then stood up, very pissed off.
"What the hell, woman? I got you out of there, and that's how you thank me?" Neither the woman or Veronica was paying attention to him. They were staring at each other in disbelief, and Veronica looked like she was on the verge of tears. They then started to make out, which was the last thing Mark expected to happen. He started to get very uncomfortable. "Uh, Veronica, you wanna let me know what's going on here?" They stopped kissing and they both looked at Mark. "Mark, this is Christine Royce, the woman I told you about." "So, this is the woman that Elijah separated you from?" At the mention of Elijah, Christine scowled. Now that she wasn't attacking him, Mark got a good look at her. She was bald, with surgical scars around her head and one on her throat. She was wearing a blood-stained white tank-top with camouflage pants, and she also had a bomb collar around her neck.
"Well," Mark said, "at least we know why she didn't check in with McNamara." Christine looked at Veronica and raised an eyebrow. "It's okay, he knows about the Brotherhood," Veronica said, "he worked with them in DC. Christine, where have you been? Come on, talk to me." Christine pointed to the scar on her throat, opened her mouth, and shook her head. "The auto-doc took out your vocal cords?" Veronica guessed. Christine nodded. "Christine, what are you doing here?" Christine pretended she was looking down the scope of a gun, and swept the area. "Veronica," Mark said, "I'm not great at charades. Do you understand what that was?" "You're looking for someone?" Christine nodded. "Oh yeah," Mark said, "McNamara said she was tracking someone." "Who are you tracking?" Veronica asked. Christine put her right hand on her chin and pulled down. Veronica's face fell. "You're tracking Elijah, aren't you? You're here to kill him." Christine nodded.
"Christine," Veronica pleaded, "you can't. I think I can talk some sense into him." After Veronica said that, Christine made a series of hand gestures that Mark couldn't follow, but apparently Veronica could. "Christine, he's not crazy." More gestures. "He was our Elder. You can't just discount that." The gestures became more demonstrative. Veronica put her hand over her mouth in shock. "And you kissed your mother with that mouth?" As intriguing as it was to watch Christine and Veronica play "angry charades," Mark knew it was time to end this. Mark put an arm between the both of them.
"Alright, alright, ladies, time out." They both looked at him. "Look," Mark said, "I know you guys just found each other, and you've probably got a lot to talk, or argue, or hand gesture about, but this is neither the time nor the place. In case you've both forgotten, we've all got bomb collars around our necks, and until we can figure out how to get them off, we have to play Elijah's game. Now, we're in a medical facility, so we need to search this place for any usable supplies. So, for now, can we just call a truce, and focus on surviving? We've got two other people to find." Both Christine and Veronica crossed their arms and turned away from each other. Mark clapped his hands together. "Alright, I'll take that as a yes."
Mark walked in front of Christine. "Uh, Christine, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I am Mark Franklin." He extended his hand for Christine to shake, but she frowned and walked out of the room. Mark was confused. "Was it something I said?" he asked Veronica. "I wouldn't take it personally," Veronica said. "She's Brotherhood to the core, so she has a hard time trusting outsiders. Once she gets to know you like I know you, she'll soften up." "Well, I hope so. The fact that she can't speak is already making it hard enough to communicate as it is." Mark then cracked a smile. "So this has been an interesting day, hasn't it?" "Yeah," Veronica said, staring at the doorway, "it certainly has."
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. I tried to come up with a feasible reason as to why your pip-boy wouldn't be taken, because unless I missed something, I don't think it was mentioned in the game. Until next time, and reviews are always welcomed and appreciated.