Cass stepped off of the elevator and into the hallway. Having spent the last three hours at Gomorrah "relaxing," she was feeling much better than she had before she left. She heard voices coming from the kitchen. She went to the doorway and saw Amata and Abby sitting at the table, a few pieces of paper spread around them, and a pen in Abby's hand. ED-E was circling around the kitchen. None of them had noticed Cass as of yet. "…so this is how you make an uppercase 'Q,' and this is how you make a lowercase 'q.' Go ahead and give it a shot." Abby concentrated on the paper and copied Amata, although not as neatly as Amata.
"Good job Abby," Amata said with pride in her voice. "Now, the letter q is a weird letter. Any word that has a 'q' in it will always have the 'q' followed by the letter 'u,' which we will get to later. A couple of examples are 'queen,' or 'quilt.'" "Why is it like that?" Abby asked as she continued to practice. "Honestly, sweetheart, I don't know. That's just the way it's always been." "Okay," Abby replied. Cass smiled. Amata seemed to be doing pretty well with this parenting thing.
Amata looked up and saw Cass leaning against the doorway. "Oh, hey Cass." Abby looked up from her paper and looked at Cass as well. "'Mata," Cass said, nodding to Amata. Then she looked at Abby. "How's it goin', rugrat?" Abby scrunched up her face in confusion. "What's a rugrat?" she asked. "Eh, I heard it somewhere, it's a nickname fer people who are short or somethin'. Ya don' mind, do ya?" Abby looked at Amata, who shrugged her shoulders as if to say, 'it's up to you.' "I guess it's alright, and I'm doing fine, thank you Miss Cass." Amata leaned down and whispered something in Abby's ear. Abby looked at her again. "It's up to you if you want to, but I think that she'd like it," Amata said.
Abby thought on it for a couple of moments, and then spoke again. "I'm fine, thank you…Auntie Cass." Cass grinned. Amata remembered their conversation from earlier, and she was right: Auntie Cass did have a nice ring to it. "No problem, rugrat. So, what're y'all doin'?" Cass strolled around the table and looked at the papers. "Mrs. Franklin is teaching me how to read and write, so I'm practicing my letters." Cass picked up on of the papers. There were sets of uppercase and lowercase letters, some written neatly, most likely Amata's, and then there were some that looked like they were written shakily, most likely by Abby. Cass put the paper back on the table. "Well, yer doin' a good job, rugrat. Looks like ya got yerself a pretty good teacher."
"Abby," Amata said, "why don't we take a break. Why don't you, um, why don't you go into my room and listen to the radio. It's the second door on the right, and I'm pretty sure I left the door open." Amata and Cass helped Abby stand up. Amata looked at ED-E. "Hey, ED-E, can you go with her please?" ED-E beeped, and followed Abby out of the room and into the hallway. Cass took a bottle of whiskey out of the fridge, sat down at the table and propped her feet up, while Amata gathered the papers into a pile. "So," Cass said after taking a swig, "how's things goin,' mama bear?" Amata chuckled. "So far, so good, I suppose. She really is a sweetheart. Right now I'm just trying not to mess anything up." "'Mata, yer gonna be fine. From what I saw, ya already have a connection with her."
Amata shrugged. "I'm just worried, Cass. My mother died when I was only two, and I was basically raised by my father. What if- what if I do something wrong, and she hates me, and she decides to go live back on the street, and, and-" At this point, Amata began hyperventilating and was on the verge of crying. Cass, seeing Amata begin to drown in self-doubt, stood up, walked over to her and slapped her across the face. Amata looked at her in shock and bewilderment. "Sorry, but ya were ramblin' an' talkin' bout nonsensical shit that ain't gonna happen." "But Cass-"
Cass held up a hand to stop her from talking. "But nothin'. From what I saw, that kid adores ya, and I know that ya adore her, an' one day you an' Mark are gonna love her. 'Mata, yer a mom fer tha first time. Ya jus' got jitters, wonderin' if yer doin' something wrong, or if they're gonna hate ya cause ya took their toy away or somethin'. Shit like that's gonna happen, but when yer family, ya forgive an' forget rather quickly." Amata looked at Cass in disbelief. "What?" Cass asked as she sat back down, "There's more than jus' caravan routes an' names a drinks rattling around the ol' noggin. My ma told me how she acted when I was growin' up."
Amata leaned back in her chair. "What was your mother like?" Cass thought for a moment. "She was a hell of a woman, fiercely protective of her family. She was a tribal, ya know. Came from east a tha Colorado. Not really sure what tha name a tha tribe was, though. It was before Caesar rounded 'em all up an' made 'em Legion. She walked a hell of a way until she crossed paths with my dad, an' he convinced her ta stop walkin'. Lucky fer me he was a horny ol' bastard." Both Cass and Amata laughed at that statement.
"Did she pass away?" Amata asked. "Yeah, she passed away right as I was getting' into ma teens. Started doin' odd jobs ta support myself, and I thought I might try ma hand at tha caravan game. Turned out that I was pretty good at it, so that's what I was doin' until ya'll found me at that god-forsaken outpost." Cass went silent and started playing with the pendant on her necklace. "What's that pendant of, Cass?" Cass took off the necklace and handed it to Amata. The necklace itself was a thin strip of metal, and the pendant was a bronze diamond shape with a flower on it.
"It's a rose," Cass said. "Kinda fitting, with that bein' my name an' all." Amata looked at it for a couple of moments before handing it back to Cass. "I thought it was one a mom's tribal necklaces, but it turned out that dad got it fer me." "Well, it's a very nice necklace, Cass, and it obviously means a lot to you. I also think it's fitting that it's a rose. A rose is a very pretty flower, but you gotta be careful because it also has thorns on it, so that name fits you to a t." Cass smirked. "If I didn't know any better, I'd a thought that ya were comin' on ta me." Amata smirked back at her. "Sorry, Cass, but-" Amata was interrupted by a crash that sounded like it came from her and Mark's room. Amata quickly got up out of the chair and leaped over the table and into the hallway, with Cass hot on her heels.
Amata and Cass entered the room to see Abby hanging off the top shelf of the bookcase that was behind the desk, with the chair having fallen over. "Abby!" Amata yelled as she ran over and got the young girl off of the bookcase and deposited her on the bed. Cass picked the chair up and turned off the radio. "Abby, what were you doing?" Amata didn't intend for it to sound like she was angry, but that was the way that it came out. Abby started panicking and crying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I just saw the BB gun on the top shelf, and I just wanted to look at it because I used to have one, and I went to get it and the chair fell from under me. Please, I'm sorry, I'll do anything you want, just please don't kick me out!"
Amata's heart broke for the young girl, and pulled her close to let her cry. "Shh, shh, shh, Abby, Abby, it's okay. I'm not angry, and I'm definitely not going to kick you out." Abby sniffled and looked at Amata. "You're-you're not?" "No, Abby, I'm not. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was angry. I was just worried because I don't want you to get hurt any more than you already are. I don't mind if you look at it, but in the future, if you can't reach something, please ask someone to get it for you, okay?" Abby nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." "You're forgiven sweetheart. Now, how about a hug?" Abby embraced Amata once more. While they were hugging, Amata looked at Cass, who grinned and then mouthed 'I told ya'.
As soon as Abby released the hug, Amata got up and went over and spoke quietly to Cass. Cass nodded, and then walked out of the room. Amata then spoke to ED-E. "ED-E, next time you think she's doing something she's not supposed to, come find one of us, okay?" He beeped in the affirmative. Amata then got the BB gun off the top shelf and sat back down on the bed. "You know, my father-in-law gave my husband this gun when he turned ten." She smiled as she reminisced. She had seen James speak quietly with Mark, and then James had left the room. Five minutes later, Mark had snuck out of the party. She had noticed and quietly followed him down to the reactor level and spied on them as James and Jonas had given Mark the BB gun. She would never forget the beaming smile on his face as he held the gun for the first time.
James had said the he would show Mark how to shoot it, when Mark noticed Amata peeking out from behind the doorway. She tried to hide, but it was too late. She had apologized for intruding, but Mark said that it was fine. So James showed the both of them how to shoot, and afterwards they took a couple of pictures. One was of Mark and his dad, and the other was of Mark and her. She had kept the one of Mark and herself, and gave it to him when he was just about to leave the vault the first time.
She realized that Abby was staring at her. "Sorry, Abby, just reminiscing. I had your Auntie Cass set up a surprise for you, so why don't you go into the game room at the end of the hall and I'll be down in a couple of minutes." Abby nodded. Amata helped her get up and handed her the crutches, and Abby made her way out of the room and down the hallway to the game room. When she went in, she saw Cass setting up old tin cans at various points around the room. "Hey, rugrat, what's shakin'?" Abby looked around the room, a bit confused. "What's going on?"
"What's going on, Abby," came Amata's voice from behind her, the BB gun and a tin of BB's in hand, "is that we're gonna have a bit of a friendly contest. You against me. Whoever hits the most cans wins. You said you used to have a BB gun. Is that how you learned to shoot?" Abby nodded. "Well, Abby, it's been about eight, nine years since I actually shot this, so I may be a bit rusty, but I think I can still manage. So, Abby, are you game?" Abby smirked at her and Cass. "Oh, I'm game. What do I get if I win?"
Amata tapped a finger to her chin in contemplation. "How about…if I win, we go back to doing your letters, and if you win, you can do whatever you want, within reason, for the rest of the day. So, is it a deal?" Abby copied Amata by tapping her chin. "You're on." "I got ten caps that says tha kid wins," Cass proclaimed. "I'll get in on that," a voice from the doorway came. It was Arcade. "Seriously? You two are betting money on this?" "Hey," Arcade said as he sat down in a chair along the wall, "you're wagering something, too. Plus, this is Vegas. Might as well live a little."
Cass sat down on the seat next to him. "Yeah, what tha nerd said." "Hey, I take offense to that," Arcade said. "I prefer the term "well-learned." Cass waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, tomato, tomahto, let's get this show on the road." Amata looked at both of them. "Fine, you're both on. Just don't start crying when you lose your caps." Amata got a stool from near the bar and set it up at the front of the room and helped Abby get up on it. "Ok, Abby, there are seven cans. You get one shot at each. Whoever hits the most wins. If we tie, we shoot until we miss. Sound good?" Abby nodded. Amata loaded the gun and handed it to Abby. "Whenever you're ready, sweetie."
(Same time, Sierra Madre)
Traversing the villa by rooftop was a lot easier said than done. Some of them were just barely within his reach, and he nearly slipped off a couple of times. After about thirty minutes or so, he had finally reached the bell tower, using a ladder that led up to it from the rooftop below. Once he got inside, he bent over for a few moments to catch his breath, and then looked at the panel. It looked like he only had to pull a switch to activate the gala event. Mark took a second to look out at the villa and the casino. It was a nice view, and it probably looked even better before the bombs dropped.
He then called Elijah on his pip-boy. "Alright, Elijah, I'm at the bell tower and everyone else is in position." "Very good. Just give me a moment so I can link into the other collars." At first he heard static, and then he heard a beep from the collar. "Veronica," Mark said, "can you hear me?" "Mark, is that you?" Veronica asked as her voice came over the collar. "Yeah, Veronica, we're about ready to go. Everything all set on your end?" "Yeah, Mark, we're all set. Just let us know when." "Dean, what about you?" Dean scoffed. "I have to connect a wire. I may have worked in show business, but I'm not an idiot. Just get on with it." Mark rolled his eyes. "Uh, God, are you able to hear me?" "Yes, I can," came the low, guttural voice of God, "let us alight the fires in the sky."
Mark took a deep breath. "Alright, everyone, we'll do this on three. One…two…THREE!" Mark pulled the switch, and for a couple of moments, nothing happened, and Mark began to wonder if it didn't work. His fears were for naught when fireworks began to explode in the sky, music began playing, spotlights gleamed up to the heavens, and a woman's voice began speaking. Mark quickly climbed out of the tower and back down the ladder. He ran and hopped over to the nearest rooftop. He made that one, but on his next leap he misjudged the distance, and was barely able to grab the edge of the roof before his hand slipped off of it and he fell to the ground, landing in a crouch.
There were a couple of ghost people a little ways away from where he was, but Mark didn't even attempt to fight them and started running towards the casino. He ran as fast as he could past groups of ghost people, who tried to give chase to him. He barreled through a rather large group of them, tossing a grenade behind him for good measure. At this point, he was more or less running blind, not being able to check his pip-boy, and only using the casino as a reference point to where he was.
By the time that he made it back to the fountain, his legs were burning. It had been a while since he had to run this far this fast. He had kept in shape since coming to the Mojave, with jogs around Goodsprings as part of his training regimen, but that was nothing compared to what he was doing at the moment. Turning into the courtyard, he saw that the gates to the casino were open. He began his run up the long staircase that led to the casino, and his legs were feeling like they were about to give out. He came to the top, wrenched one-half of the wooden doors open, went inside and slammed the door shut.
He sighed in relief, and turned around and fell back against the door and slid down. It was then that he noticed that Veronica, Christine, Dog/God, and Dean were all passed out on the floor. He then heard what he assumed was some type of canister roll towards him, and then it began to hiss. Mark figured that it must be some type of knockout gas tied to the casino security. "Ah, fuck me," was all he could get out before he slouched over, and passed out. A short while later, Mark opened his eyes. "Uhh, I seriously need to stop getting knocked out," he said to no one in particular. He rubbed his eyes and got to his feet, albeit a bit slowly. He looked around the casino.
There was a reception desk to his right with a functional computer terminal on it, a wooden door about thirty feet away in front of him, two staircases leading up to the next level, which had an elevator. Above the elevator were stained glass windows with some saint-like figure holding her arms open in a welcoming gesture. The lights were dimmed, probably operating on emergency power. He looked down and realized that the others were missing. While he wondered what happened to the rest of them, Elijah started speaking over the building's speaker system, and it crackled as he spoke.
"Can you hear me? Power's fluctuating…emergency power. Oh! You are in. Good, thought that might be the end of you. Unfortunately, your…friends found their way here. Knocked unconscious, just like you. I can't hear you over the intercom, so pay attention. You were knocked out by casino security. Detects anything foreign, and subdues the visitor, and moves them if needed. Looks like the casino moved your "friends" around once inside. Might be useful, might not. Still…." He trailed off a bit, and then began speaking in a cheery upbeat voice that disturbed Mark a bit. "…Welcome to the Sierra Madre in all of its glory! This is what the old world stood for, even with bombs about to rain upon them. Now look at it. Quiet, the way it should be, the way the Mojave should be."
"Right now, the casino is sleeping. It's got places closed off, places you can't go yet. You need to restore power. Go straight ahead into the casino, and up on the second level is maintenance and utility controls. Go now and get it done. We're almost there." With that, the casino was silent once more. Mark just shook his head, and then checked his pip-boy to see if he could pick up the others. The collar signals were fluctuating on and off, indicating that there was some type of radio interference in the building. He switched to Veronica's frequency, just to see if he could hear anything. "…Christine…okay…auto-doc…" The signal dropped, and Mark switched it off.
Mark sighed and walked ahead to enter the casino. He pulled out his pistol and opened the door slowly. He closed it behind him and looked around. There was a small alcove with a terminal to his right, straight ahead of him he saw some slot machines, and close to the machines were a set of stairs leading to the next level. He then saw a holographic guard walk into his field of view near the stairs. Mark quickly moved over into the alcove so that the guard didn't see him. He booted up the computer and saw that it was set to have the guard patrol near the bar stairs, so he set its patrol to "casino west." The guard disappeared, and Mark then walked slowly out of the alcove and towards the main floor.
He saw a flicker of blue from the other side of the casino, but believed that he was safe for now. He walked up the stairs and went behind the bar. There was a speaker on the wall, which Mark smashed with the butt of his pistol. He found a first-aid box with a couple of stimpaks in it, so he put those in his pocket. He walked through the doorway that was behind the bar. To his left was a set of stairs that led up, and to his right was a hallway with a door at the end of it that said "Electrical Closet." 'That's probably what I'm looking for,' he thought.
He started to walk down the hallway when a security hologram walked in front of the door. Mark backpedaled quickly and hid around the corner. Mark peeked back around, seeing the guard face the wall, and then walk out of sight. Mark waited a few minutes to determine how long it took for the guard to walk back and forth. Once he was satisfied, he walked down the hallway and checked where the hologram was. It was still walking back towards the other end. He saw an emitter along the base of the wall to his right. Mark smashed it with his pistol, and the guard flickered out.
Satisfied, Mark holstered the pistol and went to go back to the electrical closet, when he realized that there were two other doors in the hallway besides the electrical closet. The one at the end of the hall was unlabeled, but the one in the middle, the one that Mark was standing in front of, was labeled "Security." This piqued Mark's interest, remembering what Elijah said about their equipment being stored in a secure location within the casino. He grabbed the handle and opened the door. The room was mostly utilitarian, having two desks and chairs on either side of Mark. One of the desks had a functioning terminal on it. On the opposite side of the room from where Mark entered, there was a large metallic door with a keypad next to it, and above the keypad was a sign that said, "Contraband." Mark grinned. "Paydirt."
He walked over to the door and examined it. Mark knocked on it, and found that it felt like about three inches of steel. Mark wasn't even going to try to guess the code. There was the fact that he didn't know how long the code was, leading to an unknown number of possible combinations. The keypad itself extended out slightly from the wall. If he could unscrew the panel from the wall, he could probably override the security code and get the door open. He checked the desks in the room but came up empty. He tried the computer, but there was no option to open the door, just some incident reports. He went back over to the keypad and wiggled it, but it wouldn't move.
He took a step back and thought for a few moments. He then moved over to the side of the keypad, brought his right foot up and kicked it. It loosened a little, but not enough. He then kicked it a couple more times, finally exposing the wires. This however, seemed to be enough to override the security as the door opened. "Huh. Not exactly secure if that's all it takes to open it." He shrugged and walked in, the lights in the room coming on as he entered. It was a fairly large room, almost the same size as his and Amata's room back at the 38. There were rows of metal shelving with various articles of clothing, food stuffs, and other miscellaneous items.
On the wall on his right, he spotted a very familiar-looking set of armor. He walked over, and on the shelf was his armor folded neatly with the helmet on top, the weapons he wore on himself, and his duffel bag. He saw his 10 mm pistol and picked it up. He saw Amata's name on the grip and shed a tear. Next to his things were Veronica's robe and her power fist, along with a skintight black bodysuit, which he assumed was what she wore underneath her robe, and her own boots. He then took off the bulletproof vest, the jumpsuit, and the boots and tossed them all to the side. He then proceeded to put his own gear back on. Once he had his gear back on, he felt a sense of peace, as if things were slowly returning to normal.
He emptied the scavenged 10 mm pistol, put the clip in his bag, and then verified that everything that had been in the bag was still in the bag. He then gathered a few useful items from the room, including medical supplies, a couple of flash bang grenades, and to his shock and amazement, a pair of Colt .45 Single-Action Army Revolvers in a cushioned briefcase. While not really useful in a fight anymore, they were still pieces of American history that Mark, in good conscience, could not leave in an abandoned casino. On top of that, they were in excellent condition for guns that were probably close to three hundred years old. There was no way in hell he was leaving those here.
After a couple of minutes of rearming himself, he was about to leave when he noticed a door in the back of the room that he had missed earlier. There was no label on the door, so he went over and pressed a button off to the side to open it. The room was no bigger than a broom closet, and inside he found a computer terminal hooked up to some servers on either side of it. He went up to the terminal, sat down and began typing. After a couple of minutes, he found that this was where the emergency broadcast signal was originating from. His first thought was to destroy this so it could never be used again, when another thought occurred: he could possibly use this to contact Amata.
Amata's pip-boy frequency may not have been available on his pip-boy, but he was the one who programmed both pip-boys in the first place, so he knew what her frequency was. Before he began trying to connect to Amata, he turned off the emergency broadcast that had been running since the bombs fell, one that had led an unknown number of people to their deaths. Ten minutes later, he believed that he found the correct frequency, and then hit Enter. "Amata? Amata, can you hear me?"
(Same time, Lucky 38)
"Yeah, yeah, here are your caps," Amata said, paying off Cass and Arcade after she "lost" to Abby. If she had wanted to, she could have probably beaten Abby, but she figured that the girl would feel a bit better if she won, so Amata threw the contest. She knew that those caps were already lost, but it was a small price to pay to see the smile on Abby's face. Abby was now sitting in one of the chairs along the edge of the room while the adults cleaned up the cans and the BB's. Suddenly, a voice came over Amata's pip-boy. "Amata? Amata, can you hear me?"
Amata dropped the tin of BB's that she was holding, scattering them on the floor. All movement in the room ceased, and all eyes were now on Amata. "Mark? Mark, is that you? Where are you? Are you okay? Start explaining, and start explaining now!" Amata commanded. "Babe, it's kind of a long story, and I'm not sure how long this signal will hold, so I'll give you the short version. First off, I'm fine, (Amata fell back into a chair as a wave of relief came over her when he said he was okay) and so is Veronica, I think. That signal we checked out came from an old bunker, and it led to us being knocked out and being dragged to a casino in northern Nevada, and don't ask, I don't know how we got that far either. An old friend of Veronica's, who she thought was dead, is forcing us to help him get into a vault that is supposedly under the casino. I'm using an old broadcast system in the casino to relay this message to you."
He paused for a moment. "Babe, I'm really sorry about this, and when I get back, I promise that I'll do anything you want me to do to make it up to you." Cass and Arcade moved around her, and Abby leaned as far over the arm of her chair as she could. "Mark, you had me worried sick, but I'm glad that you're okay. Listen, I, um, I have some news of my own," she said, looking over at Abby. "Mark, we have a dau-" She never finished because a screeching noise came over her pip-boy, forcing everyone to cover their ears. "Amata," came Mark's voice, "the signal's…out…don't have…time…take care…business…be back…five days…love you." The signal cut out after that. "MARK! Mark, are you still there?" Nothing. "Mark…" Amata said, tears beginning to fall, "I love you too."
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter will be the final chapter for Dead Money. Until next time, and reviews are welcomed and appreciated.