Echos of Eras Past
Chapter Thirty Two
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As they approached Sloan Molly and Boone were surprised to hear the rumble of machinery off in the distance. When they got closer they were able to see clouds of dust rising from the quarry and drifting off in the wind.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say that the people we're looking for passed through here." Molly said as the sound of dynamite going off echoed across the desert.
"You think so?" Boone asked.
"Considering what we've seen of their work, I'd say it's a sure bet." Molly countered.
Boone grunted in acknowledgment of her point and they fell silent as they continued on towards Sloan.
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Upon reaching Sloan a few quick inquiries directed then to the quarry foreman, one "Chomps" Lewis. He was all too happy to tell them of how a power-armored woman and her party had came into town a couple of days before, along with how they had taken care of the quarry's Deathclaw problem before heading off to New Vegas to escort the caravan survivor to a Followers outpost the day before.
They thanked him for his time and headed out, hoping to pick up the trail again.
"Well, on the bright side, we're catching up to them." Molly had commented to Boone as they left Quarry Junction. "Hopefully we catch up to them before New Vegas."
Boone grunted in acknowledgment Molly figured that was as much as she was going to get out of Boone on the subject so she ended the conversation there. As they left Quarry Junction behind Molly glanced south, towards where the Mojave Drive-In lay.
"I wonder how Ami and the kid are doing?" she thought.
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Ami's arrival at Big Mountain was marked with a violet-white flash and startled moo's from Suzeanne. Staggering backwards in surprise, Ami's heel caught on a rock and she fell flat on her ass. She sat there for a moment to clear her head and get her bearings.
Once she had did that she got to her feet and took a look around at her surroundings. They were in some sort of old Pre-War facility, that much she could tell. Pipelines and roads radiated out from a central geodesic dome to other facilities, but there was nothing to tell her what the place was used for or where it was.
"Okay, I have no idea where we are." she said after a few minutes, then looked at Suzeanne "You got any ideas?"
Suzeanne's left head mooed at her in response and Ami sighed. "I was afraid of that." she said as a flicker of light in her periphery caught her attention.
Turning her head, Ami saw a figure running towards them in the distance waving something that was glowing.
"Oh, look, Suzeanne, it looks like we caught the attention of one of the locals." she told the Brahman. "Who is waving around a... glowing ax. Well, looks like we can skip trying to figure out if they're friendly or not."
Snapping the retention strap on her holster open, in one smooth move Ami drew her hunting revolver, cocked it, and fired. The .45-70 semi-jacketed flat-point slammed into the person running at them but much to Ami's surprise the shot didn't drop them.
The figure hunched over and grabbed their side but still kept coming towards her. So, following the sage advice that her father had taught her years ago when he was teaching her how to shoot, she shot them again.
That one staggered the figure, and they went from a run to a stumbling, lurching, gait. By this point the figure was close enough for Ami to see that it was a man dressed in a pair of coveralls and wearing what looked like some sort of mask.
Ami didn't waver as the man came at her, ax raised for the killing blow. She cocked the hammer on her revolver and aimed at the man's head, putting the front blade dead center on the "T". He was just under ten yards away when she gently squeezed the trigger. It broke like glass and the hammer dropped, detonating the cartridge in the chamber, putting the third 405-grain flatnose in the cylinder right into the mans head, just under and to the left of the bridge of his nose, through his cranium and out the back of his head.
Ami was no stranger to violence. Growing up, Raiders had been a semi-common occurrence at her family's farm and she had helped with the defense at a young age. Being a Courier in the Mojave hadn't lessened her exposure either. So she had seen what happens to people when you shoot them in the head with a big bore revolver, and knew what to expect.
That's why she was stunned when instead of the geyser of blood, brains, and bone that she was expecting when she pulled the trigger she got a shower of sparks, blood, bone, and metal fragments.
"Okay." she said after she stood there for several moments with her pistol leveled at a non-existent target "What the hell was that?"
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"The Long 15 was not misnamed." Molly thought to herself.
She and Boone were trekking down the highway, following what they figured was the most likely path of the woman in power armor. As they walked Molly found herself ruminating on the task that House had given her and how it had ended up sending her and her party on a wild goose chase across the Mojave. She also wondered what what she was going to do if they lost the trail. It's not like she could just crack it, not with Boone with her. That would cause far, far, far too many complications. And the bunker was several days walk from New Vegas, so it's not like she could claim that she had an errand to run and slip away for a couple of days...
"Not like I could do like in the old days and hitch a ride on a Vertibird." Molly mentally grumbled. "And it's not like I could dispatch an Eyebot to go hack into the bunker's systems. A government bunker like that, the critical systems are isolated for just that reason. Have to physically get in there to hack in."
As she walked Molly glanced at a nearby wrecked pickup and wished that there was some form of motorized transport available in the Wasteland. The closest thing to it was robots, but it's not like she could hitch a ride on the back of...one...
"Wait a fucking minute." Molly thought as an idea occurred to her. "I can hitch a ride on a robot- a Sentrybot. Strip the back weapons off of one and rig up some hand and foot holds so someone could ride it piggyback, and you're set. Wouldn't even have to rig up a steering system, just issue commands to the AI."
Molly glanced over to where Black Mountain was silhouetted against the sky and realized that she would have to have a plan to be able to use this asset that she had just inadvertently discovered. Looking back to the path ahead of them, she began to think.
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Rolling the body of the local didn't yield much other than the glowing ax- just some bits of junk. After a bit of examination Ami found the control switch on the ax and turned it off. After stuffing it into Suzeanne's pack and not knowing what else to do, Ami headed for the large, domed, building that dominated the local landscape.
"You think we'll find out what happened to Sara there?" Ami asked the Brahman.
Suzeanne gave a low moo in response to Ami's question, which she figured was the best answer the Brahman could give her.
They pressed on and soon reached the building. They spent some time poking around the base of the dome until they finally found a doorway that was thankfully unlocked. This door opened up into a small room with an elevator on the opposite end.
"Well..." Ami said after pressing the call button and spending a moment considering the size of the elevator's car "I think it'll be a tight fit for both of us, but I think that we can get in there."
Suzeanne mooed as if to say "If you think so".
Ami was right- it was a tight fight for the both of them, but they were able to get into the elevator. Pressing the button, the doors closed and they were whisked upwards. When the car reached it's destination the doors opened to reveal a small anteroom with a pair of vending machines flanking the door to a much larger room.
Getting off the elevator Ami motioned for Suzeanne to stay put as she cautiously approached the other door. Had on her pistol, she carefully stepped through-
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"Ahhh, fuck!" Sara swore as she got a look at the person she had just sucker-punched. "Of all the gorramed people to come through the fucking door, it had to be you, Crazy Bitch."
Wincing at the pain in her hand- it turns out the purple haired girl had an iron jaw- Sara knelt down next to Ami and rolled her over.
"Wakey, wakey, Crazy Bitch." Sara said, slapping Ami's cheeks in an attempt to get her to wake up.
Ami mumbled something about corn but otherwise didn't respond to Sara's attempts to rouse her. Sara, being a blunt and none too gentle sort of person, grabbed the purple haired girl's canteen and upended it over her head.
The water splashing onto her face did the trick, and Ami was jerked flailing into consciousness.
"AAAAaack! I'm awake! I'm awake!" Ami sputtered as she rolled away from the water.
"Hey, Crazy Bitch." Sara said.
Wiping her face off, Ami looked over and did a double take when she got a look at Sara's appearance.
"What?" Sara asked, seeing Ami's reaction.
"What happened to you?" Ami asked.
"I got kidnapped and apparently experimented on by some fucking weird robots, that's what happened." Sara snapped.
"Oh, well, that explains it." was Ami's apprehensive response.
"Explains what?"Sara demanded.
Ami hesitated a second before answering. "Ah, have you looked in a mirror lately?" she asked.
Instinctivly Sara ran her hands over her face and was startled to very faintly feel scar tissue under her fingertips. Gingerly, she traced her fingers along the scars to her temples, where she found that her hair had been shaved away from her temples all the way around the base of her skull.
"Oh, those motherfuckers." she swore.
"The robots?" Ami inquired, wanting to make sure she knew which particular motherfuckers Sara was talking about.
"Yes, those fucking robots! They weren't fucking with me! They actually did it!" Sara snarled as she jumped to her feet and started to pace back and forth. "Those cocksucking, shit-eating, worthless, crazy fucking robots-"
"What did they do?" Ami asked.
Sara whirled to face her. "THEY LOST MY GORRAMED BRAIN, THAT'S WHAT THEY DID!" she screamed, pointing to her head and the faint line of scar tissue marking her crown.
Sara blinked in surprise. That was weird, even by her fairly odd standards. "Then how are you able to talk?" she asked.
"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" Sara screamed as she waved her arms in frustration "NOTHING HAS MADE GORRAMED SENSE EVER SINCE I WOKE UP HERE!"
Ami winced and held her hands up in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay. How about we try to find out where they put your clothes instead?"
Sara nodded. "Alright. Lets do that."
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New Vegas was a blob on the horizon as Molly and Boone rested on the crest of a ridge. Not one to remain idle, they were using their rifles to search the surrounding area looking for threats. About the only thing of interest had been a patrol of Rangers slowly working their way to the northeast.
"See anything?" Molly asked quietly.
"No." Boone's answer was just as quiet.
On a whim Molly slowly swung her rifle's sight picture up towards where the Ranger patrol was and a flicker of movement caught her attention. Focusing on it, she saw that there was a Fiend trailing behind them.
"I got something." Molly alerted Boone. "About a hundred and fifty yards southwest behind the Rangers. Looks like a Fiend's following them."
"Just the one?" Boone asked.
"Yeah." Molly answered. "So that begs the question, where are the rest of them?"
Boone grunted as he shifted his rifle to get a look at the Fiend. "He seems to be pretty smart. Staying back and keeping to cover."
"I saw that." Molly said in acknowledgment. "Wind looks like it's at four o'clock, maybe five miles an hour. What do you think?"
Boone was silent for a moment as he watched the wind gently rustle the brush around the Fiend. "I'd say that's about right." he agreed.
"Okay." Molly said, and then pulled the trigger.
She felt the trigger break right before she felt the recoil and the muffled report from the silencer. The scope jumped and she momentarily lost sight of her target. When she reacquired him, the Fiend was lying crumpled bush he had been hiding behind, leg twitching.
"He's down." was Boone's only comment.
"And the Rangers?" Molly asked.
She heard Boone shift slightly as he swung his scope's field of view over. "They're fine. It doesn't look like they noticed the shot." he reported.
Eyes on the dead Fiend, Molly nodded slightly. "The wind must have carried it away from them." she commented.
Boone grunted in acknowledgment as they both began to search the area in case they had missed anything. After not seeing anything for a few minutes Molly lifted her head from the stock massaged the kinks out of her neck.
"Looks like we're clear." she declared. "But now we're not going to catch up to the woman in power armor."
Boone lifted his head from his rifle to give her a puzzled look. "How so?" he asked.
"The Fiends." Molly explained. "If we don't take care of that guy's crew and continue on after our target, they could stumble across us and decide that we'd be easier pickings."
Boone mulled over what she had said for a few moments and nodded. "That makes sense." he said. "Can't have them operating along the Long 15 when traffic starts to pick up."
"That too." Molly agreed, then looked down the slope to where the dead Fiend lay. "Lets get down there and roll the fucker. Hopefully he has some actionable intelligence."
Boone grunted in agreement.
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Before they found Sara's clothes the search turned up several deactivated appliances, a miniature Securitron, a holotape that Sara said that she had gotten from one of the robots, and a large bedroom/living room.
It was in there that they found Sara's gear stashed in a chest- or at least almost all of it.
"Where the fuck are my jeans?" Sara demanded as she went through the chest.
"They're not in there?" Ami asked.
"No!" Sara exclaimed.
"Well, crud." Ami said with a sigh. "I'd offer you a pair of mine, but I don't think they'd fit."
"Yeah, there's no way in hell I could fit into any of your clothes." Sara agreed, referring to Ami's much smaller stature. "Too bad Fatass isn't here. I could always borrow off of her."
Ami mentally agreed that Sara did have a point there. "So, what are you going to do?" she asked.
Sara sighed and slapped her hands on the trunk. "The same thing I always do when a situation like this comes along, Crazy Bitch: Improvise."
Standing up, Sara yanked the hospital gown she had been dressed in off and unsheathed her knife off her belt. While she did that Ami took the opportunity to stand there and ogle Sara's bare backside as she worked.
While Ami knew that Sara was definitely not interested in women, she also one to never let a chance to appreciate the view slip by her, so she did. And while she was looking, she was happy to note that the Khan girl was continuing to fill out more and put some muscle on.
Sara paused when she happened to glance behind her and saw Ami standing there. "Are staring at my ass?" she asked.
"Yes." Ami answered without hesitation.
"You know I'm not into girls like you and Fatass are, right?" Sara asked.
Ami nodded in the affirmative. "Oh, I know. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view."
Sara gave a look, then went back to work. "As long as that's all you're doing." she said, a warning note in her voice.
"Trust me, I respect boundaries." Ami assured her.
"Good." was Sara's response.
While they had been talking Sara had cut a large strip of cloth from the hospital gown, which she then fashioned into a loincloth with a length of leather cord from her pack. Once that was done, she donned the rest of her gear before and turned to Ami.
"Alright, I'm dressed." she said. "Let's get to work on getting the fuck out of here."
"Good idea." Ami agreed. "First, let's figure out where "here" is, then we can find a path out of here-"
"It's not gonna be that easy." Sara interrupted.
"What do you mean?" Ami asked.
"When I told those robots that I wasn't gonna do their scut work and get the fuck out of here one of them mentioned that there's a fence surrounding this place that keeps people out and "lobotomites" in." Sara explained, her irritation with the robots showing through in her voice.
"Oh." was Ami's response. "Well, that complicates things."
"Yeah, no fucking shit it complicates things." snapped Sara.
Picking up the holotape that she'd had with her when Ami found her, Sara headed for the center room.
"What are you doing?" Ami asked, caught by surprise by Sara's abrupt action.
"One of the robots gave me this." answered Sara, holding up the holotape. "It said that this would help me with doing stuff around here."
"Okay..." Ami said distractedly as she found herself suddenly contemplating the fact that Sara's jeans had left her with a farmer's tan.
Standing in the center room, Sara looked around at her surroundings and came to a realization:
"Okay, how the fuck am I supposed to use this thing?" she asked, holding up the holotape for emphasis.
Figuring that running around the Mojave would help even out Sara's tan, Ami switched her focus to the Khan's question.
"You don't know how to use holotapes?" she asked.
"Why the fuck would I know how to do that?" Sara asked. "We don't have computers just lying around in the Khan's."
"Oh, right." Ami said, remembering that Sara was a tribal after all."Here, allow me. I know how these things work."
"I'm glad one of us fucking does." Sara said as she handed the tape over. "So how do we do this?"
"Well, first, we need to find a tape slot..." Ami began.
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The Fiend that Molly had popped had a small sheaf of notes on him, listing what he had been up to for the last couple of weeks. Included in that sheaf of notes was a list of camp sites, which told them that this crew was mobile, which meant that they weren't one of the more well established crews.
According to the list, the current camp site was a location that Molly and Boone both knew: Coopers Gully. That was a small gully next to a pre-War railway that the Fiend's liked to use as a campsite. It was fairly well known to First Recon because the area surrounding it had some rocky hills that offered excellent shooting positions along with great cover, and they had used this to great effect to thin the population of Fiends.
After about half a dozen crews had ended up dead, the Fiends had quit using it. Apparently the Long 15 having been shut down meant that the NCR had shifted patrols away from the region so the Fiends had felt safe in using it again.
And that's why Molly and Boone had been perched up on the enfilade of a hillside overlooking Cooper's Gully since mid-afternoon. They had slowly waited as the day had gone from the afternoon into the early evening, spending the time watching the camp and making notes of how many Fiends there were.
Now it was early evening, and the sun was behind them as it got close to the horizon. Molly looked up from the sights of her rifle at Boone and made a hand signal at him.
Ready? It meant.
Boone gave her a confirming nod. Time to get to work.
Their camp was fairly simple, just a campfire with their bedrolls arrayed around it. There was a small lean to off to one side that they stored their food and other belongings under. A latrine was dug behind a large boulder, currently in use.
One of them was sitting on his bedroll, drinking from a bottle and watching as one of the other men in the group had sex with one of the women. A fifth one was cooking something over the campfire while the last Fiend was asleep.
The plan Molly and Boone had came up with while waiting was this: Molly would do the shooting, since her rifle was suppressed, while Boone spotted and kept the group covered while she worked. If the Fiends realized that someone was shooting at them, Boone would start shooting to keep any from escaping or rushing their position.
The first Fiend to die was the one using the latrine. Molly's shot caught him just above his ear and he fell over without a sound, straight into the latrine.
"Face down in a latrine." Molly thought as she swung her sights onto the voyeur. "How appropriate for a fiend."
"Wait." Boone whispered, his voice barely audible above the wind. "Let him put the bottle down."
"Got it." Molly answered back in an equally low whisper.
The reticule hovered over the second Fiend's head, barely moving as he drank from the bottle. After a couple of impossibly long heartbeats he lowered it as Molly took up the slack on the trigger. When the bottle touched the ground she applied just a little bit more tension and the trigger broke.
He caught the shot in the back of the head, the bullet punching through his brain stem and killing him instantly, without a sound while the fire and the couple's carnal relations covered up the sound of the shot and the bullet's impact.
The third Fiend, the cook, finished stirring whatever it was he was cooking, straightened up, only to catch Molly's next shot in the nape of his neck. He crumpled to the ground unnoticed by the three remaining Raiders as Molly swung her sights on the couple.
She lined up her next shot, then paused.
"Problem?" Boone whispered, seeing her hesitation.
"The guy's about to pop." Molly pointed out.
"So?" Boone asked. "Take the shot."
Boone lifted his head off the stock of his rifle to look at Molly, and in the dying light of the day he could see that she was completely focused on her sights, still as a statue as she looked through scope.
"Just wait." was Molly's response, her lips barely moving. "Trust me."
He knew from seeing her work that Molly was a damn good sniper, so when she whispered to him to trust her, he figured she had reason for what she was doing, even if he couldn't figure out what it was at that moment.
So, he lowered his head back onto the comb of the stock and reacquired his target. He got his sights back on target just in time to see the male Fiend shudder as he climaxed, right before the slap of Molly's suppressed muzzle went off beside him.
The blood spray looked like a puff of dust through Boone's scope as the male Fiend convulsed and slumped over, trapping his partner. His partner didn't even have time to realize that there was something wrong before Molly's next shot caught her in the head.
The last Fiend was dispatched with such ease that it was anti-climatic, compared to the others. There was the muffled muzzle report, and the Fiend twitched, and went still.
Afterwards, Molly took a moment to surveil the campsite just in case they had missed anything, then lifted her head from her rifle and looked at Boone.
"I think we can get by with leaving the guy in the latrine." she suggested. "What do you think?"
"I'm okay with that." agreed Boone. "You want to roll them now, or in the morning?"
Tapping her finger on the trigger guard of her rifle, Molly took a moment to ponder Boone's suggestion.
"Morning." she decided. "You always miss something in the dark."
Boone grunted in agreement as he shifted out of his shooting position. "So, where do we go from here?" he asked, keeping his voice low just in case.
"Probably be best to head back to the Lucky 38." Molly suggested. "That, and if we run across an NCR patrol, we can let them know about the Fiends."
"That's not a bad idea." Boone agreed. "I'm gonna go dig a fire pit while there's still some light left."
"Okay." was Molly's response. "I'll keep watch."
END.
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Author's note: Oh, holy hand grenades and shrubberies, did this update take a while! It's been- checks update- FIVE YEARS?!
Dear God, here I thought George R.R. Martin was slow…..