Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a funny thing.

Junior was gone, and the white paint had run out. Ginny put the finishing touches on her second "KEEP OUT" sign, barely thinking about her letters, leaving them large and crude. A child's writing. She'd certainly blubbered like a damn kid, but only earlier. The waterworks had dried up.

Maybe it wasn't so funny, once you thought about it. The paint had just been one of the things she and Junior had done for caps- or shelter, or chems, or food. Every so often she'd find a particular type of scrap metal on her scavenging runs and bring a pocketful home. Junior would take a file to it, and mix the powder with old recycled oil, a few other odds and ends, and there it was. White paint. Ginny hadn't been on many scavenging runs lately, and Junior hadn't been doing much of anything since he'd taken sick.

Ginny chucked her improvised paintbrush down the hill, where it tumbled out of sight among the scrub and radscorpion burrows. She wiped her hands on her overalls and turned back to Junior's freshly filled grave.

"Whiskey Snakes Jr., you son of a bitch." The tears had all gone so she allowed herself a laugh. Whiskey hadn't been Junior's given name- it was Jack- but he'd inherited it from his father. Presumably he'd also inherited his illness from his father, who'd taken sick years ago in much the same way. Whiskey Snakes Senior had lingered painfully for a long time before the tumors finally took his life.

If she could see it, Junior certainly had been able to, and he'd had plenty of time to think about it, alone in their trailer while she'd foraged for enough to keep them alive. She'd come home today from the springs and he'd been gone. She knew exactly where he'd gone, and what happened.

Junior had always joked about dying, but he never used the words "dying" or "death". He had always talked about "giving his body to Mother Earth," or more frequently "becoming food for radscorpions." Nobody got killed by radscorpions these days unless they were stupid or really unlucky- or did it on purpose. The hard part for Ginny to think about was a brief morbid image of Junior crawling his way up the hill to the Goodsprings Cemetery. It had hurt him just to get out of bed. But walking? Impossible.

At some point he must have laid down in a good spot for a grave to be dug, and rubbed himself with a paste of herbs and rotten carp from Lake Meade. It was a bait recipe he'd learned from some tribals they'd stayed with temporarily, and was supposed to irresistably attract edible critters. It had done that, of course, and then some. The top of the hill had not only been crawling with scorpions, but also swarming with bloatflies. Before she could even get close to Junior's body she'd had to go back to the trailer and get the plasma pistol they'd saved for a rainy day- or in case the Gangers from up the way decided to do more than give Goodsprings a squeeze for some caps.

While she was there she cleaned out their trailer, down to the last bit of twisted wire. It had all gone to the municipal scrap pile, and hopefully folks would take what they needed. Ginny didn't need any of it. Maybe it would give ol' Lazy Pete something to do. Salvage was a lot better in the area than he believed, but he'd rather sit in his stinky old chair than put in the effort. She was going to miss their old trailer, just on the other side of the cistern from the Saloon.

Ginny had cleared everything out, but there was one thing she hadn't dumped in the scrap pile. She dug it out now and tossed it on Junior's grave, among the big rocks she'd piled on to keep vermin drawn by the bait from digging Junior up. It was a "snowglobe" as Whiskey Senior had called it when he gave it to them as a wedding gift, right after they had settled here. Some prewar souvenir showing a smiling idiot visiting Goodsprings. The bits of fake snow swirled inside violently from hitting the ground, and quickly settled as Ginny watched.

Not long after they'd gotten it, some shifty dude who said he was a Mojave express courier came by offering to buy it. For an obscene amount of caps. Said a wealthy collector was looking for them and willing to pay big- well, big for the lowly folks outside of New Vegas. She supposed it would only have been a day's work for a cardsharp or highroller.

They hadn't sold, as they did pretty well for themselves in trade, and didn't need much. Junior figured with how fragile a thing it was it might be unique- the only "snowglobe" of its kind, maybe. Something like that had its own value- the sort of value that could be passed down to your kids. Well, there wasn't ever going to be a Whiskey Snakes the Third, so she left it. That was it. That was all. The whole thing was done.

Well, almost done.

Early, Ginny had killed the flies and scorpions, and dropped the little energy pistol there where she stood on the road up the hill. Someone would find it- Chet or Sunny, maybe. They could put it to good use. She had buried Junior and rolled all the bug corpses down the far side of the hill, where nobody went.

She thought about those bug corpses now. They were going to draw the attention of the giant scorpions that scoured that part of the valley, and those big boys weren't anything to trifle with. Repainting the "KEEP OUT" signs had been her good deed for the day, Ginny supposed. With their home and possessions scattered, and Junior buried, that meant that there wasn't anything left to do.

"Goodbye, Junior."

It was a funny thing. Nobody got killed by radscorpions these days unless they were stupid or really unlucky- or did it on purpose. Ginny walked past her "KEEP OUT" signs, down the hill towards the big scorpion nests.

Chapter Text

Margo loved seeing new things- even though over two hundred years of life there were very few things that were new. It had become obvious to her that being a ghoul was a sort of tightrope balance. You could cling to the person you were before the transformation, or you could change and grow. She'd chosen the latter, and kept her brain healthy when so many of her fellow zombies had gone feral, scrabbling in the radioactive muck and attacking passers-by.

Of course there was a price to be paid for her approach to immortality- Margo wasn't her real name, and she couldn't remember it regardless. Every so often- once a decade, or so- she'd drop what she was doing, change her name and find a new job, a new life. Just to keep things fresh. She'd been Rosie when she was a mechanic, Kat when she was a bandit, Maude when she was a madam and Lulu when she was a whore. It was always easier to uproot yourself when in some small way it was another person's life you were leaving behind.

Now she was a caravan guard, and had been for just about long enough.

Not that she minded spending time with Klute the trader, and the rest of them, but even that was a clue that it was almost time to move on, since half the time she didn't care what her fellow guards' names were.

But Margo was glad she'd stuck around long enough to go on this trip. She got to see snow.

Normally the caravan routes stuck to right around New Vegas, since the NCR troopers made things a little safer. They were good business too, buying chems and sundries their quartermasters couldn't or wouldn't supply. At least when the troopers hadn't already pissed their caps away at one of the casinos.

A prospector friend of Klute's had mentioned something interesting, though. The old ski lodge up on Mt. Charleston was inhabited now. By super mutants. Friendly super mutants.

Margo just had to see that.

Klute had been hesitant at first- what would super mutants even buy? But Margo had traveled extensively and she knew the answer to that. Not chems or sundries. They liked trinkets and toys. At least, the less bloodthirsty ones did, clinging to some innocent memory of being human. So they'd loaded up on all the Moon Monkey toys, broken gadgets and fashion magazines they could find, and hit the old road northwest out of New Vegas.

Between the idea of trading with super mutants and the novelty of snow in the mountains, everyone in their little party had been jumpy, even though Margo had assured everyone that as a ghoul she'd be able to talk to super mutants no problem if things went south.

That ended up not being an issue. They'd been met at the gates of the old lodge by a couple of- yes, friendly- super mutant guards, and another mutant who was some sort of mayor. He called himself Marcus, and although a little terse, was soft spoken and welcoming. Apart from a vague warning not to "stare at the Nightkin" they were free to come and go.

Klute and the others shed their nervousness soon enough and set up a makeshift tent between a brahmin pen and a slightly radioactive pond, and Margo found herself with free time to explore.

There wasn't much to see outside, apart from the piles of crunchy snow and cool breeze, a welcome change from the dusty heat of the rest of the Mojave. She decided to check out the lodge, and once she stepped through the big wooden doors into the dim quiet of the interior, she realized she'd been here before. A long time ago.

When she'd been human. Before she'd been Margo. Or any of the others.

The lodge sprawled around her, rhythmic creakings from upstairs betraying the presence of ambling super mutants. In front of her was a reception desk, thick with dust that covered the polished burl surface and the defunct terminal, and...

She stepped forward and wiped the dust off a small, round thing, then picked it up and gave it a shake.

A snowglobe. Not only had she been here before, she'd played with this very snowglobe before. She'd been a little girl, and her mom and her mom's boyfriend- a seemingly nice guy who had nevertheless been a little scary- were checking in to the lodge for a "vacation". Adult stuff like hotel check-ins were always boring, and the little Vault Boy in his scarf seemed so cheery.

A lifetime of exposure to the bullshit of human existence gave Margo a different perspective on those memories. Her mom's boyfriend had seemed very insistent. Desperate even. And the timing. The goddamned timing. You know what else had happened that week?

The war ended. And with it the world.

At first nothing much had changed at the lodge. Most of the guests fled, but the staff and a few others stayed, since there was plenty of food and water. Her mom had spent most of her time with the boyfriend in their suite, "talking". Margo knew what that meant now. Her mother had problems- chem problems, like a lot of people, and she guessed now that maybe the boyfriend had helped out with that. In exchange for... other things.

She'd spent most of her time in the kitchen with a red-faced, chainsmoking chef. She'd started off calling him sir and asking politely for healthy dinners, like a good little girl, but he'd insisted that she yell at him for treats.

"Cookie, gimme some grub!" That was what he'd insisted on, and after her dinner she'd had her pick of the treats, Fancy Lads or Potato Crisps. Adult Margo knew that the chef had probably seen what was going on with her mom and was trying to keep her safely distracted. She wondered if maybe he'd had a daughter elsewhere. Who hadn't made it, perhaps.

Raised voices distracted her from her reverie and she replaced the snowglobe in its creche of dust. Margo followed the ruckus into a room off to the side of the lobby, and she could hear the thumping of super mutants not far behind her.

She entered what appeared to be a laboratory, electronic machines and wires and beakers everywhere. Margo didn't know anything about science, but had always been curious. The noise that had drawn her was one of her group- Bolan, a guard who was just barely more civilized than the Fiends he'd grown up with. Bolan was busy shaking someone by the collar- another human, a wiry old man with a scholarly look.

"Listen, doc, you're telling me you don't have a Med-X or three you can spare? That trip did hell on my back."

"I told you, you fool, I'm a scientist, not-"

"Bolan." She knew even with a low voice her ghoul throat would make it sound menacing. Bolan and the old man both looked at her, and Bolan sneered.

"Mind your business, you zombie c-"

She didn't let him finish the word, or let him finish going for his little 10mm. Margo drew her revolver- a big old hogleg from when she'd been "Ruth the Ranger"- and sent a bullet through Bolan's arm. No difficulty.

He screamed, of course, preventing him from saying anything else that would piss Margo off. He stumbled past her and out of the room, and out of the lodge.

"Well," she croaked, "I guess my contract is up."

The old man sighed, and chuckled. "Thank you for that. I'm Dr. Henry. You're a regular Calamity Jane!"

Margo beamed back. "I like that. It's a nice name."

He looked at her quizzically. "Jane?"

"Calamity."

Dr. Henry nodded, and Margo felt an enormous hand touch her shoulder with surprising delicacy. She turned and looked up into the face of Marcus, the mutant mayor.

"Saw what you did. We're a bit protective of our Doctor Henry. Helps us." Marcus looked back towards the lodge doors. "Suppose that's a problem for you. Can smooth things over with your friend Klute- he likes the caps we're giving him for worthless junk. You can stay here for now, if you like."

Margo thought about the snow, the snowglobe, the chef, her mother... then smiled at the man and the super mutant.

"I'd like that. It's about time for a fresh start anyway." Marcus gave her another surprisingly soft pat on the shoulder before lumbering away.

Dr. Henry came up to her and gave her a warm handshake as soon as she put her pistol back in its holster.

"Thank you again. Tell me... do you have any experience with neuroscience or biochemistry?"

She looked around at the chemicals and machinery. She'd figured out harder things. "Not yet?"

Dr. Henry released a short bark of a laugh and gave her hand one more shake before releasing it.

"Well, in that case... welcome to Jacobstown, Calamity!"

Chapter Text

The problem with being Keeper of the Story was that it also made you keeper of the lie, and Don had been having trouble with that for a while. As he stumbled home from the mess hall, he speculated that keeping secrets was unhealthy, and like many failings of virtue tended to shorten the lifespan. Great. Great!

At a more casual level, the secret he kept wasn't just his own. All the elders- Mother Pearl, Loyal, Raquel, a few others in positions of responsibility. They all knew that despite what everyone was taught in the schoolhouse, and drilled into your consciousness every day, was that savages- or, "outsiders" if you were feeling polite- were allowed onto the grounds of Nellis all the time. Where did the average Boomer think that delicious whiskey came from?

Of course, only a few itinerant merchants could be trusted enough for this duty, and they only met outside the gates by an old train tunnel, but still... it tickled him that Mother Pearl was essentially in charge of a black market, but it didn't stay funny for long.

Sharing knowledge of this secret was one of the foundations of his relationship with the young man who ran the munitions depot, Maurice. Well, that and Maurice's absolutely delicious face and body. Either way, after an assignation behind a hangar Don found himself relaxed, the only time that was true except for whiskey time. He supposed that wasn't going to last, either. Don couldn't be the only one with eyes for the gorgeous munitions manager. Loyal's assistant Jack had been acting strange for a while, acting secretive, mooning over someone he wouldn't admit. Fine. If it ended, it ended. Let the young be with the young.

Don struggled with the door to his room, and felt a further pang through the buzz he'd managed to acquire. It wasn't even really his room, it was a museum. In some sense, the history of the Boomers, the story, the room- it kept him, instead of the other way 'round. And then there was the rest of it.

Once he managed to get the handle turned and threw himself inside, Don was confronted again with what his life amounted to. A quonset hut with the barest of furnishings, a quonset hut that was itself just a hollow showcase for the physical manifestation of the Story: a crude mural that covered the entirety of one wall.

He hated that mural. To think that it encompassed the entirety of the Story, that was a notion that prickled. Don had been trained- a million years ago- as an a archivist, back in the vault. The Story had been born there, kept in the proper way, on paper and on holotapes and recited to rapt audiences. Shit, had it really been fifty years? Fifty years since the more... passionate dwellers of his vault- most of the dwellers, actually- had taken their armaments and moved on, here to Nellis.

As depicted in the stupid mural.

Don had offered to repaint the mural- he had decent hand with a paintbrush. Mother Pearl had declined. Something about "raw authenticity". Mother Pearl, whose cheescake photos from back in the vault had somehow made their way into the mens' barracks, wank fodder for a couple generations of horny boomers. Not only a deft hand with a paintbrush, Don had actually _seen_ real murals. More than the average Boomer would ever see.

Maybe since he'd just been an teenager and apprentice archivist he'd been expendable, but in the early days after they'd first taken Nellis, he'd gone with all the expeditions to various military installations. Not just the Hawthorne Depot and Area 2, as officially recorded in the Story, but also S4 and Area 51b. As the years passed he'd had parley with the Brotherhood of Steel- well, a fairly intimate parley with one of their Scribes- and discovered that they ran similar expeditions. They were more interested in robots and lasers than mortars and rockets, but very similar. He'd met a group of tribals that were themselves archivists, one and all, and though they dressed like they were barely out of a cave, their "cave paintings" rivalled the precision of the prewar blueprints he occasionally found.

He'd stayed with the Nevada Rangers for a bit, in their Citadel, where they had a proper museum, with a proper mural- "The Cycle of Man," as it was called. It might have made less sense than the Boomer mural- it had people riding monsters and marrying monkeys- but it was a true piece of art, not a child's fingerpainting.

He'd been a child when he first apprenticed to the previous Keeper- Wilhelm, who was actually the first Keeper. A stuffy old bastard, but at least one with respect for history and art. He'd resisted the growing narrative of the Nellis Boomers even though he was loyal to them, and perhaps Don had inherited some of that tendency. Maybe more than some. And now he'd been given his own apprentice, Pete. Around the same age he'd been when he first started training as an archivist, but without the advantage of the holotapes and computers.

Don looked away from the stupid mural and around the hut that was his museum and his home. Pretty soon it would be Pete's home, if he had to guess. Don had been drinking more. Fretting over the secret. Coughing. Blood on the pillow. How would Pete decorate the museum? Would it be full of toys and comic books? Would someone have to yell at him to clean it up?

Don had been careless lately. Drinking more. Finding ways to let slip little nuggets of his story- the real Story- in sloppy conversations in the mess hall. Nobody cared if some savage traders brought whiskey or textiles or a stack of Cat's Paw mags. But the second half of the secret- the long, continuing history of Boomers _leaving_ Nellis, bringing back what little munitions and armaments they could, along with fragments of culture... and more. Where did new Boomers come from? Not through the front gates of Nellis. Little savage babies, sometimes in their confused tribal mothers' wombs.

He wasn't sure how people managed to reconcile all of that with the Story. Even when they didn't know all the details. The brain was resilient. Don was alive somehow despite how careless he was- with his mouth, with his body. He'd drink every drop he could get his hand on and then take a long walk around the deadly perimeter of Nellis. Fuck it.

Don sank back into his pillow and sighed. Eventually one of those walks would be too long. Whiskey and land mines didn't mix.

Chapter Text

The Strip was positively packed with cars, so even though it was a few blocks too early General MacManus tapped his driver on the shoulder and hardly waited for the jeep to slow down before jumping out and hoofing it towards the Lucky 38. His dogrobber followed suit in a clumsier fashion, lugging a bag and briefcase.

MacManus was big and broad, and had never given a shit about people he didn't know, if it came down to it, so despite the crowd he was inside the casino within moments, snapping his aviators off and thrusting them backwards for Corporal Smythe to grab. When his glasses disappeared MacManus waved a paw of a hand at the liveried elevator boy, who dropped into a crisp bow and held the elevator door.

MacManus was on a mission, an important one. Of the two major projects he was working on, the first had ended early and the second was starting late. With that in play, he had managed- at great expense of money and mental effort- to carve out a teeny tiny fraction of vacation time for himself, and he was not going to hesitate at achieving it.

During the brief ride up he studiously avoided the elevator boy's attempts at pleasant conversation, dwelling instead for a moment on the difficulty at hand. The last project he'd have to put his stamp on was ludicrous- a monkey's job. A few of the eggheads kept wanting to tinker with the M42, adding blast shields and ammo variants. Which meant that he personally had ended up in the godforsaken desert south of Las Vegas at a makeshift observation deck, listening to the junior officers ooh and ah and quote Hindu scripture like it was the second coming of goddamned Trinity. He really pitied the poor grunt down there in the valley who had to nuke some cardboard targets from a grenade's throw away.

It was a waste of money, and he'd said so, but he put his stamp on it anyway to get the eggheads to shut up, but he'd taken his aide Colonel Tidewater aside to let him know that the budget for the project could be safely decimated. was out doing the legwork on the next project- some relatively practical idea about setting up newly built prisons, hospitals and such so that they could be quickly converted into useful military sites in the event regular bases were targets. Otherwise, he'd be here and there would be someone interesting to talk to.

MacManus felt the elevator slow as they neared the Presidential Suites, but he lashed out with a craggy finger in the elevator boy's face and waggled it very deliberately. The unfortunate lad blanched but made the right choice, ignoring whatver VIPs had called the elevator.

Here they were at one of the most important targets in MacManus' sight right now- the Lucky 38 Cocktail Lounge. He pushed out of the elevator before the door was barely opened, leaving his perpetually embarassed dogrobber to tip and console the elevator boy.

This was it. The Holy Grail. Shangri-la. There were better bars in Vegas, of course, and Robert House's taste in decorating would never match the Ultra Luxe, for example, but... MacManus peered through rills of cigarette smoke backlit by the sun through the tower's windows. The view. The thrice-damned view.

He made a quick circuit, taking it in. He didn't get to come in here often enough. The genius of this view, was that unless you got right up close and peered down, you couldn't see the filthy city of Las Vegas at all. Seated on his usual chair- which he regretfully bypassed for the moment- he looked out at the mountains, at the thin clouds as they were driven across the sunny sky. Soon enough. Unfortunately, business never ceased.

MacManus made a departure from his routine and sat down at the bar. He reached inside his jacket and removed his pipe- a scuffed, stubby Irish bulldog- and his tobacco, which he had made by Kramer's whenever he was in LA. It was a dark English blend, and he was sure that the smell of it straight from the pouch would keep anyone from sitting next to him. Once lit, though, it would be a smoke to rival any cathedral's incense.

The bartender limped over and discreetly handed him a shotglass full of matches. MacManus took them and began to pack and light his pipe without acknowledging the man. Once he was steadily puffing, he looked over and gave the bartender a smile.

"Thank you, Chet."

"My pleasure, General." He blinked a bit more than was necessary. The power of latakia. "What will it be this morning, sir?"

MacManus looked past him, behind the bar, and chuckled. The beer taps on display were a joke, the rube's idea of good beer and whiskey. Horowitz? Dirty Fenster? Jesus wept. House made a mint by catering to the poor schmucks who didn't know any better. But when dealing with an arrogant sonofabitch like House, of course it was a trap.

The only thing Robert House hated more than a rube was a poser. If you asked for some top shelf booze that wasn't shown, you'd be served it and made to feel like a king. But then the quality of service would plummet and your luck at the casino would disappear. Your punishment for putting on airs.

General Roderick MacManus was an arrogant sonofabitch as well, and ten years ago he'd made a sort of friendship with Robert House by escaping the trap the only possible way. He had cheated.

"The Satrap 1851, of course, Chet." It was his family's whisky, brewed for a short time and raved about by serious imbibers for some time, but discontinued before the Great War and never seen outside of Scotland. His first time at the Lucky 38 he'd asked for it, knowing they wouldn't have it. He'd endured the embarassment and apologies with a wry smile, but on his next visit there'd been a bottle of it waiting, as well as a discreet invitation up to the penthouse, to talk business.

Chet nodded and went to fetch the drink. MacManus tucked his tobacco pouch back into his jacket and almost relaxed.

His friendship with House had turned into quite the mutual arrangement, and he'd spent many a pleasant afternoon with the man, solving... well, some of the world's problems. At least until a couple years ago. House had always been eccentric, but at some point at least one of his gears had slipped, and he'd become a recluse. He didn't leave the penthouse and nobody was permitted in. They'd kept in touch over the defense network (a RobCo product, of course), but electronic letters were a pale substitute for the company of your peers.

"Your Satrap, sir." Chet brought the glass over to him like it was full of plutonium. Probably as expensive.

MacManus took a contemplative puff, before grabbing his pipe and using it to point vaguely... up. "Is... he taking visitors yet?"

"He is not, sir." It was quite a poker face. Chet's talents were wasted in this part of the Lucky 38. MacManus nodded with what he hoped was a reasonable expression, and without looking signalled for his dogrobber. The Corporal responded by swiftly slapping the briefcase on the bar and then stepping back into helpful distance.

MacManus snapped the catches open and reached inside for the souvenir snowglobe he'd had made for his friend. A little joke between the two of them. He set it down on the bar in front of Chet.

"Give this to Robert, with my regards, Chet."

"I will do, sir."

"Give Corporal Smythe a drink, please, Chet. Not the good stuff."

"Indeed, sir." MacManus grinned and crammed his pipe back in his mouth. He picked up his glass of whisky and stood up from the bar.

"I'll be in my chair. Admiring the view."

Chapter Text

scrabble scrabble

yes, one thought, many good scrabblings to find in the square cave, the square cave of the old ones

a good place to wait when on top of the world, out of the burning light, quiet enough to hear any little scrabble

one might dig through the many rocks to find a small scrabble or maybe a plaything of the old ones, dig in the red cracked rocks and gray powdery rocks that made up the square cave of the old ones, but there were many more things

it wasn't always easy for one to know what such things were- not rocks, exactly, or roots, or scrabbles, and strange to hold, fluttering and flapping like the wings of tiny small moon ones, when one dangled the thing from a claw

most of the old ones' things were hard and strange, soft things having long ago been eaten by a nibbling one, or desperate scrabbling one

one loved to look at a particular thing on the wall of the square cave, and one couldn't describe it- a frozen sight, a flat memory

the thing had many marks, some like worms and some like scratches, and the one who made those marks had left them all over, inside the fluttering strange things and on the walls and some of the playthings, but one did not care about those

one could look at the thing and see the face of an old one, and the face of a steel one

one heard a noise

the noise was harsh and loud in the quiet of the square cave of the old ones, and one could recognize it instantly- the red ones

the ones who first met the red ones thought the red ones were gods and ran- the red ones were covered in hard plates like the large pinching ones, and they carried magics that threw burning light or summoned small buzzing stinging things, but these killed

the queen had hissed her displeasure at the scared ones, but then laughed and spoke to every one, saying that these were no gods- not even old ones, who were the color of bone and sand, but

the queen spoke slow for slow ones, said these red ones were the color of a fresh scrabble because they were weak ones with skins already removed, to show the scrabble underneath, and no one should be scared, as the magics were no match for a prepared one, much less a pack of ones

for a long time the packs had hunted the red ones, who were stupid and loud, until one made a discovery in a hot green cave

a red one pinned by rocks, alive and squealing, and some ones had had a scrabble until their bellies were full, and very surprising

the red one squealed and squealed, but as the ones watched, the scrabbles came back

the packs did not need to hunt, so much, unless for playtimes

some ones said this red one had been a god, but the queen turned them to scrabbles in anger, then explained to remaining obedient ones that even this red one was no god

what god could squeal like that as it was scrabbled, what god could be scrabbled at all, and the queen cooed and preened one as she explained softly

one got bored sometimes

the square cave was good for a smart one to think and lurk and then hunt, and very good to trap stupid red ones, who were delicious under their scales, their tortured scrabbles softened by whatever had peeled them

clawing up the rocks piled to the top of the square cave of the old ones, one found a good spot to drop on the red ones and claw and bite, but then another louder sound, and one froze in place, in shadow

that roar, echoing against the rocks and the square cave of the old ones, and one could see the red ones cringe in fear, and begin throwing their burning light magics towards something one couldn't see though the glare

a tall clawed one

one slunk back down into the dark quiet of the square cave to wait for the battle to finish between the red ones and the tall clawed one

the square cave of the old ones was a good place to wait, to think, to play, the old ones had left many interesting things

once one had been desperate to scrabble, and had found a tasty glistening eyeball, and scrabbled it right up, feeling it crunch like the twisting shell of a slimy creeping one, but then one squealed

it was not scrabbles at all, and one looked closer in disappointment, seeing that the thing dripped bitter water and white bits, and in the center a tiny flat old one

one did not know where the plaything was now, it had been many times ago when one was small and slow and stupid, but one was large now, and fast, and smart

and most of all patient

one knew enough to wait in the cold quiet of the square cave of the old ones, amid the worms and scratches and rocks and playthings, wait for the battle to be over, wait then emerge and scrabble the winners

scrabble scrabble

Chapter Text

Skinner could tell shit was about to go down- it always did when Doc Calis took a personal day and the X-13 crew were allowed to actually do some work for once. That of course meant that they got all their daily tasks done before lunchtime and dedicated the rest of the shift to a thorough dicking of the proverbial dog. Some people don't handle relaxation well.

Geraldine Kael was probably the smartest person who worked at X-13 but she chafed under Doc Calis' "leadership" and paradoxically chafed even worse when he was gone for the day. Only an hour into their shift and she had started pacing the catwalks around her station, clanging and stomping and muttering British epithets that Skinner assumed were profanity and not references to some inedible English cuisine.

He knew Calis relied on her, but still hated her for being competent. Not even that she was a competent woman, just competent period. The brass had headhunted her from the MI6 gadget division or something, and while the Mountain was theoretically a private research facility, the army paid most of the bills. Money talks.

So Kael was able to forego the expected desk time that the rest of them were mostly chained to and spend her time either in her lab downstairs or in the bowels of the facility tinkering with the holoframes or adjusting algorithms. She was good- too good. Every time she improved the efficiency of the computers, the other systems struggled to keep up. And usually crashed. Calis could rant and rave, but there wasn't much he could do other than take it out on the other eggheads.

Skinner could tell today was different, though. There had been an undercurrent of revolution for some time, everyone chafing under the abuse of Doc Calis to the point where some weren't going to be able to take it, restrictive contracts be damned. If anyone was going to spearhead that revolution successfully it would be Geraldine Kael, but Skinner wasn't sure if she'd make it until Calis came back.

Luckily, he had a plan.

Kael had buzzed by his desk three times already this morning, not for any particular reason. They weren't working on any projects together at the moment, and on the third pass she had stopped to throw a paperweight at one of the robobrains down in the test area. She had turned and looked Skinner right in the eyes, daring him to say anything. At last she cracked her thin-lipped smile.

"For testing purposes. You understand."

Skinner sighed. "You going to be able to make it through the day without your boyfriend, Kael?"

Her face flushed in anger momentarily. "Not likely. I have such a desperate ache..."

"I can see. You're practically swooning. Look..." He called after her as she turned to go. "I have an idea."

Kael lifted a dark eyebrow. "I'm very busy, Skinner."

"Horseshit. You're weeks ahead of us on everything. Well, weeks ahead of them. I'm a couple days ahead."

"Mr. Skinner, are you trying to seduce me?" He was poleaxed for a second, having thought nothing even remotely like that, then realized she was kidding. "I'm taking the piss, Skinner. Please go on."

"Right. All I'm saying is that since Calis is gone, and we're spinning our wheels research-wise until the rest of these nimrods catch up... we should have ourselves a little vacation. Take a pause for the cause. For..."

"Mental health reasons?"

"Mental health reasons. Yes."

"Let's go, then. You drive. I want to get well and truly plastered."

"It's a date. Well.."

"Skinner, not only am I out of your league, I'm playing an entirely different sport. And on the other team, to boot. So don't get any ideas."

"No, absolutely not. We're just a couple of work buddies out to get fucked up." He thought for a moment. "I suppose we might as well get started early."

Kael nodded, already shucking her labcoat onto the floor to reveal an uncharacteristically bright and cheerful summer outfit. "An aperitif is always a good idea. Suppose I can lay my hands on a bottle of wine or something..." Skinner wasn't sure he'd ever actually seen her out of a labcoat. She looked like an awkward 14-year-old now.

"Forget that. Have you ever tried Mori's homebrew?"

She gave him a beady eye, like it was a trick question, and waggled her head slightly. "Not as such."

"Okay, follow me." He took off his own labcoat and folded it onto the desk, making sure to theatrically loosen his tie afterwards. It wasn't like suddenly revealing a yellow check gingham jumper, but he thought he should at least keep up with Kael for now.

They made their way downstairs, ignoring and ignored by the other researchers, until they came to the test subject area on level 2. "Mori keeps his brewing operation down in the storage room. Calis made him move it not long before you started working here. After you." Skinner held the storage room door open for her and they were greeted with a blast of humid, stinking air.

"Christ, I can see why," she gritted through a hand over her face. "I'll stay right here if you don't mind."

Skinner nodded. "The still he built is quite an invention, but I understand."

He nipped into the storage room and made his way over to Mori's still. It was bubbling along on a batch, though Mori was nowhere to be seen. The operation was fairly efficient, though, and a rack nearby held several bottles of the homebrew. He grabbed one and retreated outside, closing the door behind him.

He proffered the bottle to Kael, who eyeballed the label. "Battle Brew?"

Skinner nodded. "Pretty potent stuff. Like chartreuse mixed with grain alcohol. An acquired taste for sure. You might want to have a sip and..."

Kael had already prized the lid off and taken an enormous swig. She gasped and stood there wavering for a moment like a pugilist awaiting the finishing blow. Her eyes were instantly bloodshot.

"It's not bad," she rasped. Skinner reached out to take it back but she clutched the bottle in the crook of her arm. "No. It's mine now."

Skinner chuckled. "Sure. Shall we?"

They made their way back upstairs and as they passed Calis' second desk Kael reached out and gave his steel wastebasket a kick, crumpling it like tin foil.

Right outside the lab was the cart stop, and waiting for them there was one of the carts, a sleek three-seat jobbie with a modified protectron in the driver's seat. And tail fins, for some reason.

"HELLO, MISTER... SKINNER AND MISSUS... KAEL. HOW MAY I ASSIST YOU TODAY?"

Skinner had already jumped in the back, but noticed that Kael was stock still, still clutching her "baby" and quivering with barely constrained fury.

"Missus? MISSUS! Protectron- SETIO, $ASSIGN NULL. Who programmed your honorific protocols?"

"SS$ NOPRIV. AD...MINISTRATIVE PROTOCOLS FOR... X-13 STAFF ARE PROVIDED BY DOCTOR... CALIS." As the robot answered it sounded like there was a tiny epileptic going hog with an angle grinder. Amazingly, Kael seemed to listening to the noises with a drunkenly cocked head.

"CONINTERR CANCEL, $INIDEV. Fine, you bucket of sprue. BREAK, COMKRNL SETSPACE MACRO 12."

The robot fell silent for a moment but Skinner was close enough to hear the core spinning up furiously.

"USERPARAM RESET, SS$ EXTERNAL MACROS OK. THANK YOU, DOCTOR... KAEL. ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO YOUR TOKEN, AND... REMOVED FROM DOCTOR... DING DONG. HOW MAY I ASSIST YOU TODAY."

"Take us to... X-17, please," Skinner said. "Kael, I'm going to need a drink of that."

She handed it back to him reluctantly as she sat in the cart, and he took a sip. "What's in X-17?"

Skinner chuckled before swiftly returning the bottle. "Not, what, but who. Well, there's some what as well but the who is more important."

"You never struck me as a philosophical type, Skinner." He made an exaggerated who me gesture, and then slammed backwards into his seat as the protectron put its metal to the pedal.

It was always a pleasant drive on one of these cart trips, which was perhaps why they were inevitable discouraged by the high mucketies, and Skinner could recall a time when using a bicycle to travel between labs was made temprorarily mandatory. Temporarily, as of course one of the Think Tank docs got hold of it and suddenly quite a few of the researchers had been toodling about on "ergodynic velocitracks" powered by the latest in mini-fusion engines. God rest their souls.

As much as Kael chafed under the so-called leadership here at Big Mountain, Skinner did as well, but he was older, of course, and had learned to keep his head down to maintain employment and sanity. Not that he hadn't been fired from projects before once he got comfortable enough to scuttle the deal out of boredom. Maybe that's what was happening now.

He suddenly felt bad for Kael, and letting her nurse her Battle Brew, Skinner dug around in his jacket pocket for another flask. Where do they keep going?

The trip was a pleasant blur before long, and Skinner kept conversation to a minimum, letting Kael drift into what seemed to be an uncharacteristically wistful fugue. Before he knew it they had arrived at the unassuming front gate of the sprawling facility.

"Here we are, lady," slurred Skinner. "Uh… voila?"

Kael shot him a withering stare and tossed her now-empty bottle behind her, where it disintegrated against one of the roughly excavated artificial canyon walls. The broken glass added to the sparkle of the lightly flourescing hafnon crystals that protruded here and there. "Voila, la-bas, allons y." Skinner lurched over and quickly opened the metal door of X-17.

He and Kael managed to stumble through the doorway with their arms around each other for support. The front office, normally a combination of dingy and brightly-lit, had the lights off, the doorway that led out to the main facility space was a torrent of light and noise. Kael goggled at it, until they were interrupted by an unexpected voice.

"Go on in, Skinner, and get your girlfriend a drink." Leaning back from the shadowy front desk, his feet up and the chair perilously close to tipping, was a sharp-featured man in a baggy labcoat, an open vodka bottle wedged in his crotch.

"Stow it, Jenkins."

"Jenkins, ehhh?" Kael purred and threw herself over the corner of the desk in what was presumably an attempt at sexy but barely qualified as ambulatory. She reached over and grabbed the neck of the vodka bottle. "Maybe you buy me a drink and I'll be your girlfriend."

Skinner and Jenkins both stared open mouthed for a moment, when in an instant of alcohol-fueled anarchy Kael pitched Jenkins backwards onto the floor, and rolled herself back over the desk, now in possession of the bottle of vodka. "Shall we?"

"Let's."

They resumed their slow march into the main space, and were greeted by a startling transition to light and sound, and an only slightly less boozy breeze than that which had emerged from the Battle Brewery.

"A party, Skinner?" Kael was exercising that British mystery of sounding somewhere between slightly grateful and solidly disapproving. "Did you set this up for moi?"

He shook his head, finding that his neck was subject to vastly more momentum than when sober. "Well, no, but I didn't want you to miss it."

The party was something else. X-17 was a cavernous space of tanks for water and solvents, pipe and conduit carrying everything everywhere. There were all the catwalks they were used to at X-13, but these traced an orderly spider's web surrounding a central space, instead of overlaying the haphazard underground test chambers. Which had been designed by Calis, of course, something else to resent him for.

Atop one of the catwalks to the rear was a makeshift bandstand. Doc Boney, from Y-17, was leading his crew in a rendition of one of Dean Domino's neutered ballads, sharing vocals with a nurse, and judging by the looks they were giving each other, they'd be sharing more than that before long. Doc Boney's philandering was as legendary as his wife's anger over it was biblical. Skinner shook his head. "She's gonna kill you, Doc." It'd be a shame. Skinner was more of a hard bop aficionado, and never understood popular music. But the Doc did have some pipes.

The shifting lights of the party owed their random nature to the fact that some genius had installed strings of Christmas lights on the handful of Mr. Gutsy robots that patrolled the area. Pretty slick, Skinner thought.

He felt Kael disengage as she began to take in the true scale of what was going on in X-17. There was the usual contingent of suits and uniforms and their wives, pounding back whatever cocktail squares like that considered "classic" at the moment. Then there were plenty of technicians and the like who had managed to either escape their managers or been dragged to the shindig by them. Most of those lot were universally sloppy drunk as well.

Then there were the real libertines, most of which were the top scientists and engineers. Not surprising, really. Skinner thought the average onlooker would be forgiven for thinking they were at a stag party or some Satanic grand guignol ritual instead of an impromptu office gathering.

Kael was clearly fascinated by this part of it, and some of her razor-sharp focus had returned, though she was meticulously sipping at the vodka bottle still. When her gaze fell on one particular tableaux, Skinner had a momentary pang of conscience.

"Now who is that androgynous drink of water?" Skinner peeked where she was pointing.

In one corner of the space, dimly lit by what appeared to be red warming lamps, a boyish-looking woman with a short haircut lounged in a high-backed office chair like it was a throne. She was still in the crisp white Howie coat of a senior researcher, though the… courtiers surrounding her, man and woman alike, had on not a stitch. Doctor Amala. She stared at the nudes around her with a mixture of scientific curiosity and primal hunger.

Skinner found himself physically interposing his body between Kael and the scene, and while it did seem to break her out of her trance, she was now pissed.

"Look, I know I brought you out to have fun. But… uh, you probably haven't had a formal introduction to all the members of the Think Tank. But..."

"You're stammering, Skinner." Kael tapped her foot.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Listen, I'll tell you what my dad used to tell me in these situations. 'Never stick your dick in crazy.' And he was usually right."

"You're blushing, Skinner." She was right.

"How about I at least introduce you to the host before I turn you loose to get us all civilian-marshaled. Or whatever they'll do to us."

Kael leaned into his face. "That's tough. But fair. After you, my dear Skinner."

He led her up the stairs to the main catwalk section, towards the main lab that squatted midair like the shadowy spider who weaved the space full of catwalks. It was one of the hardest things Skinner had ever done, and he hoped it was as hard for Kael as she made it seem.

The control room was much as would be expected- boxy walls with alternating slabs of blinking control panels, viewing windows, and holographic displays. At the moment it appeared that every desk, chair, or piece of kit that wasn't nailed down had been pushed to the corners of the room, to make way for what appeared to be the world's slowest game of craps.

A handful of party-goers crouched around a single kneeling figure at the center of the room, limned in crazy rainbows by the holograms and blinkenlights. The man of the hour, the host with the most. He was a compact man of average height, with olive skin and curly gray hair. With his turtleneck and tweed blazer he could just come from teaching an ethics lecture, or simply be an off-duty mad scientist. Which he was.

"Dimitry!" Skinner was immediately shushed. The kneeling man didn't even look up- his gaze emerged from a relatively round face with terrifying intensity, and the object of his study were a pair of dice. The man remained motionless as a statue, but as Skinner stared as well, the dice were positively rattling in place. As he tried to figure out whether it was just the bass from the band, or a rattling pipe that made them move, the kneeling man stood, seemingly in an instant.

"It's not vibration, Skinner. This room is of course isolated. You don't think we suspend experimental protocols because of a… shindig? Dimitry Chayanov," he continued, proffering his hand to Kael. "It's an honor to finally meet you, Doctor Kael. I hope I have not caused you too much inconvenience lately."

"A pleasure. Inconvenience? I'm afraid I..."

"Skinner, you haven't informed our guest of the preexisting connection? For shame." He turned away for a moment to talk to another guest, a breathless young tech in a rubber apron, who held aloft a vial of mysterious fluid. It would have seemed brusque from anyone else.

"Here you are, sir. Enough of our neo-ciguatera to render an elephant sessile." The tech seemed ready to run already.

"Splendid, son. Thank you. I do hope it's… as innovative as I asked."

Skinner turned back to Kael.

"So Dimitry used to be… you. Lead researcher at X-13, I mean. And a perennial thorn in Dr. Calis' side. Not long before you started he engaged in a campaign of terror that would have gotten anyone else fired, but instead they gave him his own facility." Kael again loosed a quizzical English look, seemingly both impressed and disgusted.

"I see. Humph!"

Chayanov reappeared suddenly in the conversation. "I prefer to think of it as a… pogrom of progress. Your genius is a much better fit on that project, Doctor. I only hope the philistines give you less trouble than they gave me."

"Perhaps you'd give me an abstract on what's happening with the dice, then?"

"Dimitry thinks taking chems gives him psychic powers." Skinner noticed the withering look Chayanov was giving him. "The sample size isn't the best, but, uh… he seems to be right. Not that I understand what using telepathy to cheat at dice or read minds has to do with meteorology."

Chayanov produced a nondescript green glass pill bottle and hucked it at Kael, who caught it with very little trouble. "You lack imagination, Skinner. Dice are low-hanging fruit. Work for interns. Perhaps Doctor Kael would enjoy seeing the true purpose of my experimental efforts? Allow me to demonstrate. And please enjoy those psychotropics at your leisure."

Skinner and Kael bunched together in shared scientific terror of what demonstration might be coming, but followed Chayanov's beckoning hand as he moved over to one of the viewing windows.

"LADIES," he shouted down at the gathering, and immediately a dozen or so women began to congregate on the platform below them, some disengaging themselves from the suit-and-boot crowd, some appearing from who knew where.

The platform lay beneath the central apparatus of the facility, an enormous battery of electrodes and instruments, while the platform itself held a scale model of Higgs Village, the enclosed neighborhood where the Think Tank lived. The ladies Chayanov had summoned milled about the tiny houses and streets. Skinner noticed they were uniformly wearing white blouses and shirts.

"Dimitry, are you-"

"Shh! Behold… my true power!" Chayanov laughed deeply, a low raspy thing that seemed to emerge from below his vocal chords. He stood stock still again, staring with even greater intensity at an instrument panel near him. The panel held only a curious antenna and a red indicator light.

Tense moments passed. Chayanov strained silently, until at last, the light turned on. And with it all hell broke loose. It was raining on the platform. Not sprinklers, not drips from pipes- rain. The ladies below screamed in surprise and glee as the cold water hit them and their white blouses with predictable results.

"Marvelous," breathed Kael. Skinner could only nod.

"I am pleased you find it acceptable, Doctor. Ah," he said as he leaned under the table and withdrew a utilitarian duffel bag. As he hastily zipped it, Skinner and Kael got a quick glance of its contents. Rubber phalluses of all shapes and sizes. Almost without warning Chayanov hurled the bag through the open viewing window onto the platform. "Don't forget your toys, ladies."

"Marvelous," repeated Kael. Chayanov clapped her on the shoulder in a very manly gesture of respect.

"Do make sure our guest remains suitably entertained, Skinner." Skinner could still only nod.

And with that Chayanov disappeared again.

Skinner turned back to Kael as she tossed back some of the chems Dimitry had given her. She held the open bottle out to him.

"For our mental health, Skinner?"

Skinner had managed to curl up in a somewhat seated position up against the elevator terminal on the roof of X-17. He wasn't 100% sure exactly how long it had been. The party was still going downstairs, he could hear that, noises of debauchery drifting tinnily through a nearby ventilation shaft. The squares had surely all gone home, though knowing how many technicians and interns wanted a chance at attendance, he was sure a graveyard shift had replenished the numbers. The last he'd seen Dimitry, the elder scientist had been ignoring the orgy around him, gripping a novelty snowglobe and shaking it repeatedly, muttering about "sensitivity to initial conditions."

Exactly how long it had been since he took just one of those chems? He had no clue. He was still fucking rolling.

The elevator door opened with a thump and Kael drifted out slowly, limping. She had wrapped herself in what looked like one of those silver foil survival blankets.

"May I?"

Skinner nodded and she sat down slowly next to him, and spread the space blanket out to cover them both. She was naked underneath, and he honestly didn't even care.

"I'm sorry, Kael. I don't want you to think I did this to make any sort of point or something. You're really a good friend to me. Just suppose I wanted to feel like more than just some lab drone for a while."

"You do know how to show a lady a good time, Skinner. What were you doing up here?"

"Fresh air?" He smiled feebly. He knew he was rank, and she was no lavender sachet herself. "Fake stars, actually. I mean, you knew we were underground, but… why fake stars on the cavern roof? Why a fake sky for 'daytime'?"

"Knowing our colleagues," she snorted, "they'll have blown the roof off this place before long. You'll get a good view of the sky then."

"Well, here's hoping. I'm… just going to rest my eyes for a minute." He laid his head down into Kael's bony shoulder and closed his eyes.

"You do that, Skinner. You do that."

Chapter Text

Singh had seen some shit, of course- between growing up in outer Vegas and making a living as a hired gun since just around the time his beard came in. Not that he had the same experience a lot of poor suckers did. Singh grew up in a huge, loving family that ran a small trading post just outside of Nipton. Dry goods, scrap, and building supplies, none of the funny stuff that attracted a shady clientele. Sure, if you had an ammo box full of jet then Singh's family store would take it off your hands and give you a huge sack of beans, but they wouldn't resell the chems to whoever wandered by.

That sort of stuff made its way to an itinerant Followers medic who popped by on his rounds to take any chems in trade for medical supplies or some of their good genetically modified seeds. A "triangle trade" Singh had heard it called. That medic became leader of the Followers outpost in Vegas proper, but continued his rounds out of both duty and friendship. He'd known Singh's family so long he'd gone from "Sir" to "Doc Forrester" to "Uncle."

It had all ended, of course. Things changed pretty quick in the Mojave. Singh's parents got older, his elder brothers and sisters moved on or died, and when the store got blown up in the crossfire between a couple of gangs- Fiends, Vipers, Jackals, he hadn't been able to keep track when he was that young- there was no means to rebuild. Between the NCR Outpost and the various corrupt businesses run by Nipton's mayor, there wasn't really any room for a mom-and-pop shop anyway.

Singh had been a teenager at the time, and already working mercenary gigs, so he'd saved up enough money to put his parents in a little apartment in Westside, where they made patent medicines little woven rugs to sell at the co-op. His mom passed and luckily Singh had been home to help. It wasn't until his dad was on his deathbed that Singh had even heard him mention the old ways.

The family had been part of some prewar religion that had shed its trappings bit by bit over the years. Singh's grandpa was the last to really be serious about it- the turban, leggings, and sacred knife. The whole bit. Singh's mom had always encouraged her husband to keep up with his father's wishes but that's not how it played out. At least until the end, and he began to curse a secular way of life.

Singh never thought of himself as a warrior of faith, as a lion or tiger. Just a dude trying to get by. He'd felt a little aimless since he'd been alone, and work helped, but eventually wandering lost its luster and he'd come back to where he'd grown up. Nipton was a no-go but the family had always felt most at home in Vegas anyway. Freelancing at first- some armbreaking here and there to make sure people remembered he meant business and that with cash in hand he'd do whatever needed done. Singh never hurt anyone unnecessarily, of course, and he put in pro bono work whenever possible. If a couple brass jerks cornered a girl in a Freeside alley, then one of them would end up as gibs in a dumpster and the other would at least be alive to tell the tale. And if their buddies came back with three or more against one… well, that was dirty pool and there'd be gibs every damn where. Singh wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't a nice guy either.

Once he'd shored up his rep. he'd ignored the various recruitment efforts of everyone from the King to the Van Graffs to the fucking NCR by way of some pencil-pushing ambassador. Singh had one destination in mind and plunked himself right at the gates of the Old Mormon Fort. The guards on duty- a couple mercs he half recognized and a ghoul lady he didn't- let him in but things got complicated when he asked to see the bossman. He was directed to one of the guardhouses that buttressed the corners of the fort proper, past a sandbag wall and tents and straggling sick folks.

Inside the tower was a small but well-appointed infirmary. Behind a screen some obscured Follower was treating an insensate person on a gurney. A clear voice greeted him. "Have a seat upstairs, please. I'll be right up."

Singh complied and found himself in a cramped space that must have been a duty room for when this place needed actual tower guards. He plunked himself down in a battered office chair at an equally battered bookshelf. A bed and filing cabinets, a desk and a silent terminal, and someone's personal effects were all that the space held. No- not quite. On the top of the shelf was a prewar trinket of some kind- a glass globe with some comic character in front of a crude rendering of the Fort. As Singh picked it up small white bits swarmed through the water inside the globe. A tiny snowstorm? He wondered when the last time was the Fort saw snow. And when the last time was that it had been white.

He hardly had time to get bored when footsteps on the stairs were followed by the figure of a Followers doctor, a surprisingly tall woman with a rigid crest of spiked hair that made her seem even taller. She was pretty in a serious sort of way but allowed a genuine smile when Singh stood up to shake her hand.

"Hi there. Julie Farkas. I'm what passes for in charge here."

"Singh." She sat down by the desk and scooted over to him as he sat back down. She looked almost embarrassed.

"We know."

"So… no Doc Forrester?"

"Jonathan- Doctor Forrester- was my mentor. The Mojave was getting a bit rough for him, so he retired back to the Boneyard. A cushy teaching position at the university." Singh nodded warily, "What can I help you with, Singh?"

"I'm here to pay a debt, I suppose. Offer my services. I doubt he mentioned it, but-"

"That you've known him since childhood? A close family friend?"

"Uncle Jon. He was family, yes. I don't think we'd have made it without him. He made things… comfortable for my mom at the end. I'd hoped he would be there for my dad as well. I tried to get word to him but he never showed."

"Doctor Forrester touched a lot of peoples' hearts over the years." Singh kept a poker face but conspicuously folded his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry, Singh. I didn't mean to minimize your relationship. Just thinking about how I miss him as well. He actually wrote about you, in a letter he gave me when I took over the operation here."

"Is that so?"

"He was in Utah when your father passed, and when your message arrived we were in the midst of a crisis. By the time things calmed down and he returned, you were gone as well. I am so sorry."

Singh relaxed a little, leaning back into his chair, and realized he was crying.

"Did he… did he mention my promise?"

"He did. I wasn't going to bring it up until you did. Most hired guns aren't quite as comfortable with their emotions as you are. Probably one of the reasons Jonathan spoke so highly of you."

"Then put me to work. Doesn't have to be glamorous. I don't need to be the gunslinger hero I said I would be when I was a little boy. I'll sleep on the ground. And caps aren't even an issue. But I owe him. And I owe all of you."

Julie Farkas' look of genuine compassion took on a slightly pinched look. "Well, there are plenty of caravans to the Boneyard. I'm sure Doctor Forrester would love to see you."

"No, no… Vegas is my home. I know he cared about the people here. I do too. Let me help you."

She nodded, clearly taking a moment to pick her words. "There is plenty of work to be done, sure. I won't have to tell you that Freeside has its share of troubles. And your passion and talents are undeniable."

"But?" Singh wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"People are afraid of you, Singh. I'd put you on security detail in place of a dozen of the people I have working here, but I want the citizens of Freeside and outer Vegas to come here when they need help, without hesitation. Do you understand what I'm trying to express?"

"Sure. Sure. I won't apologize for my career. I've tried to live cleanly and protect people, but… I've put a lot of bullets in a lot of heads." Singh shrugged and rose to leave.

"Wait, Singh. I didn't mean to offend you. Jonathan told me that even as a child you were a fighter. He hoped you might have picked up a stethoscope at some point, but… well." She affected a much more open smile now and Singh waited to see what she had to say. "I do need help with something. We need help. It's a bit more complicated than the usual vicissitudes of Freeside, and I think you are the right person for the job."

"What is it? Just point me in the right direction."

Julie rose as well and moved to her desk, shuffling some papers before finding a worn key, which she handed to him.

"You may know that we maintain a safe house for our doctors and workers, over in the hills. A place to rest, resupply, and lay low for Followers coming and going through the Vegas area.

He hadn't known that. Guess you had to really be trusted by the Followers to be in the know.

"I'm with you so far. What's going on?"

"One of our doctors- not a medical doctor, so not as needed in Freeside all the time- visits the safe house every couple of days to keep it clean and keep the supplies stocked. She has been reporting being watched recently as she visits. And a small encampment of raiders has sprung up not too far away."

"Probably connected, I'd guess."

"She's not the flighty type, and I can tell she's genuinely frightened."

"Well, I'd want it checked out if I were in your shoes." Singh rubbed his hands together. "You can't take a piss in Freeside without a rumor starting, so I'll storm out of here when we're done. I doubt anyone will put two and two together."

"Singh, I can't tell you what a relief it is how accommodating you're being."

He stood and shrugged. "It's fine. I'll check it out for you. Nice meeting you, Julie."

"The same, Singh. I'll show you out."

They walked down the stairs and as Singh touched the door handle he paused.

"Not that I'm going to spill to anyone, but I just wanted to be clear about something."

She looked truly concerned suddenly but she had almost as good a poker face as he did. "Yes?"

"You didn't exactly give me any directions as to what you want done. I'm going to investigate this, and if it's a problem- which I'm sure it will be- I'm going to deal with it. Just so you know."

He turned without waiting for a response and made his way out of the door and out of the Fort.

Singh didn't normally run around armored- despite what some people would have you think it was unnecessary, and hot and disgusting. You needed two lunches on a day when you wore heavy armor. That sort of thing. But on a working day, that was a different matter. Back at his little flat, which he left guarded by one of the street urchins in his building, he got kitted out. Singh had built himself a custom suit of armor, thick leather with ballistic plates, At the joints was a sandwich of materials of his own devising that was a reasonable combination of tough, flexible, and breathable. Over this he threw the shittiest-looking poncho he'd been able to find.

In a fragment of some old holotape film he'd watched as a kid, the gunslinger hero won a fight against a faster opponent by hiding a metal breastplate underneath his baggy poncho. Thinking the hero was dead, the baddie wasn't prepared for the return shot.

Singh was no gunslinger hero. He knew that, and it wasn't just posturing for Julie Farkas. But it was a good idea. A dude in nicearmor stuck out like a sore thumb, but dudes in scroungy desert gear were a dime a dozen.

Otherwise he packed light, figuring this would be a short engagement, even if it weren't easy. Machete, pistol, light SMG all went under the poncho and over it he slung his battered old rifle. This was a custom job like the armor- he'd re-chambered it in a huge and unnecessary caliber, put a really fantastic scope on it, etc, and then painted the whole thing to make it look as shitty as possible.

That was another nod to the heroes of old. No holotape this time, but he'd been told the legend of Carlos Hatchback, a sniper of such supernatural ability that he'd attached a scope to .50 cal mounted machine gun with wonderglue and a prayer, and made a head shot on some enemy goon from 5 miles away,

That was probably bullshit but Singh couldn't deny the effect when an enemy thought you were going to plink-plink at them and instead you went BOOOOM.

Apart from that, Singh grabbed a ditty bag full of useful stuff and headed out in the general direction of the safe house, munching a moderately stale piece of cornbread.

This safe house was pretty much a cunthair north of due west from outer Vegas, where the 167 went off into the mountains towards a whole lot of nothing. Singh couldn't even see it yet, though his hasty orienteering put him at just about there.

It was already just about evening, like he had planned, and while there might be the odd gecko waiting to snack on travelers, and of course mysterious watchers and bandits, he plunked himself down an made a wee fire.

Singh waited until night fell, and sure enough, slightly to the south was the telltale barrel fire of some marauding Fiends. They didn't normally make it this far outside of the ruins they'd pretty thoroughly conquered, but with enough chems he was sure they could make it anywhere. He wasn't concerned about scaring them off, which could happen in a pinch later.

The thing that did catch in his mind, though, was that the Fiends were loud and sloppy and not likely to set sentries. So who had been watching the Doctor so intently and unseen?

Singh let the fire die down as the evening wore on, and ate another quick bite from his ditty bag. Just to keep up appearances. As his night vision began to return he turned towards the general direction of the safe house and took in the scene.

A whole lot of nothing. At least until-

"Shit," he let slip as he dropped to the ground and rolled away from the fire. There'd been the glint of a goddamn scope.

Singh waited for a shot that didn't come, not moving at all. When it still didn't come he waited some more, so motionless and quiet that he could hear the noise of the Fiends partying as it drifted over the wind. Maybe he'd imagined it? The eyes could play tricks on just about anyone. Singh slowly worked his rifle over his shoulder and even more slowly brought it to bear and put his eye to the scope.

He almost swore again, as for a moment there was a figure in his sights, in some sort of weird combat armor. Just as soon as it appeared, it disappeared no matter which way Singh swung the rifle. "What… the fuck."

Alright then. Singh stayed in as comfortable a spot as he could until he felt it was safe, then crept off back to Vegas.

That morning he was back at the Fort, and he didn't even bother to ask to come in, instead handing the guard a sealed note addressed "YOU ABSOLUTE BITCH" and told the guard to either give it to Julie Farkas or shove it up his ass. Singh turned on his heel and stomped off, just barely concealing a grin.

He liked this skulduggery stuff. It was not his usual thing but it was fun. Maybe he should have read ¡La Phantoma! Like his sisters did.

The note was brief, and rude, but he somehow managed to mention both a group of fiends, who he suggested might take her dog and eat it, and a mysterious soldier type who he hoped took her mother to the Monte Carlo Suites for a honeymoon. With some extra cursing besides.

He'd signed it Singh, but he dotted the I with a little heart so hopefully she understood what was going on.

Singh knew that all he would have to do now was wait, so he wandered down to Freeside to the Wrangler, in order to get lightly hammered. Something about this just plain stank.

He'd spent a pleasant morning bullshitting with the regulars and being studiously ignored by the Garrett twins, for whatever reason. Before too long he heard the door swing open and he swung around on his stool to meet the urgent newcomer. It was one of the Kings.

"Hey," said the young dude in his pompadour and leather jacket. "You're the guy who's been helping the Followers, right? Julie Farkas wanted you to have this." Singh frowned at the waste of a good skulduggery but accepted the note from the King, who beat feet almost before the paper left his hand.

The note was simple and to the point, which seemed to fly in the face of the discretion Julie Farkas had wanted.

It wasn't the response he'd expected. Julie didn't know anything about mysterious soldiers, though she admitted that they had contacts far and wide and presumably enemies as well. As far as the bandits were concerned, the immediate problem was that Doctor Luria had been expected to check in at the nearby Followers outpost this very morning, but hadn't. She suspected the worst.

Singh did as well, and he knew that there was no need for any further communication. He had to get his ass to the safe house.

You could only get there so fast, but Singh took the opportunity to indulge in a chaw of some coyote tobacco, sobering up during his long walk. Chems were bad, he'd always believed that. But he felt that medicinal plants grew for a reason.

As he approached the safe house he had a feeling that things had gone awry exactly as he'd thought. A crushed jet inhaler and a ragged boot that someone had lost along with a lot of blood. Trouble.

Singh pulled out his SMG and approached the door quietly- no sentries, as he expected, but from inside the safe house he could hear the sounds of a struggle, muffled though they were by the thick front door. He crouched in front of it and as smoothly as he could slid the old worn key in and twisted the handle.

Then he went to work.

Singh threw open the door and did a quick hop into the room. You didn't need to be a detective to see what had happened here. Five fiends and a blonde woman in a Followers lab coat. Three fiends on the ground, dead or bleeding out. Two still standing, wrestling with Doctor Luria, who was busy trying to stab the ever-living shit out of them with a quite significant combat knife. No damsel in distress there.

In a fraction of an instant the distress was there, though. The three combatants froze for a second with Singh's entry, but one of the fiends managed to disengage from the fracas and went for the shitty pipe revolver at her belt. Singh didn't give her a chance to use it, and she went down with one burst from the SMG.

He snapped the barrel towards the other fiend, but Doctor Luria had her knife embedded in his gut, and she withdrew it to quickly jab him a few more times in the neck and face, before they both fell to the ground. Luria screamed and promptly puked.

It wasn't first kill jitters, either. Her less stabby arm was completely snapped.

Singh ignored her, as hard as it was, and quickly made his way through the rest of the safe house's interior, looking for Fiends and luckily finding none. Then he ran back to the Doctor and knelt down to give her medical attention.

"Hey, you okay? Anything other than this arm?"

Through gritted teeth she waved vaguely behind her. "Dark gray cabinet, top left. Med-X. Then chit-chat."

Singh knew not to be offended and busted ass over to the cabinet and found a handful of ampules for the Doc, then went right back. He snapped the tip on one and jabbed it into her leg, and threw the rest in a pocket.

She pounded the ground with the palm of her good hand and then her body relaxed somewhat. "Give me a- a second." Singh nodded and looked around from his crouch. Nothing special about these fiends. None of them in serious armor. One of them was missing a boot and a large chunk of his leg.Do no harm, he thought.

Once Doctor Luria was good and fuzzy, but not completely out of her mind, Singh decided to get the story out of her. His instincts weren't far off- the Fiends had wandered too close to the safe house, and seeing someone in a lab coat assumed correctly that chems weren't too far away. They hadn't figured on robbing someone with Doctor Luria's skill set. Singh had gotten a thumbnail of her life story before she started rambling from the Med-x. She'd been a combat medic with the NCR before training as a veterinarian and becoming a Follower.

The poor Fiends hadn't even gotten to the chems before Luria had slaughtered them, with his help of course.

Luckily for the Doc she had been attacked somewhere that was chock full of medical equipment. As Singh fastened a metal and leather brace to fit her arm's current completely fucked up shape, he ignored her occasional chuckles and started to worry about the walk home.

"Doc, I know you would probably rather just take a nap here and eat all the potato crisps, but Vegas isn't going to come to us. You think you can walk if I support you?"

Luria scoffed and tried to stand up on her own. Singh helped her anyway. "Let's go, then-" She peered intently into Singh's face. "Pumpkin." Singh grabbed his SMG from the floor and hung it loosely at his belt. This wasn't going to be optimal but they had to get going.

Singh and Doctor Luria shuffled slowly out the door of the safe house and they had barely gotten a meter before the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he looked behind him.

The safe house door was set back into the roughly hewn face of a rocky outcrop, which worked wonders for protection and camouflage. Standing on top of that outcrop, close enough to spit at, was the mystery soldier.

The figure was clad in what at first appeared to be the armor of those scary veteran Rangers the NCR occasionally trotted out. This wasn't a dirty black, though. It was a dark army green, with white piping and stars, and more significant armor plating, including some imposing epaulets. The figure's face was covered by a helmet with faintly glowing eye lenses. Their hand slowly came to rest at a gunbelt on their waist that held a huge old-timey revolver.

"Shit," muttered Luria as she too noticed the figure. Singh was used to tight spots like this but was honestly terrified. This was no Freeside junkie running up with a pipe wrench to try to steal a few caps before getting beat down. Hell, this wasn't even an NCR press gang or Omerta sniper. Singh didn't know what the fuck this all was.

As gently as possible, Singh pushed the Doc down onto a low boulder to the side. She made a noise of complaint but that was the least of his worries. The figure had moved its hand from the butt of the revolver to hover slightly in the air above it.

Singh had never been in an honest to goodness duel before. But he'd practiced for it. Hours and hours as a kid. And of course in secret as an adult, with a real gun. A quick draw was a good thing to have, and he knew that his was about as good as it got. Just never had the chance to prove it.

Singh adjusted his body slightly, presenting a smaller target to the soldier, and also so that Luria wasn't in the line of fire. The soldier didn't bother- stupid, Singh thought. Overconfident, maybe. Well, he'd rather be underestimated than dead.

After he was situated, a process that had taken a couple seconds that felt like hours, he waited.

Singh supposed this was no different than those strange timeless moments before any altercation, but in some strange way he felt like he had been waiting for this mysterious stranger to draw his whole life.

Then it was time. The soldier's hand started to descend and he let his do the same. A brief surge of confidence filled Singh as he knew he was going to be faster than he'd ever been. He'd timed it, of course, with the same instinct as men who measure their dicks with a ruler, and he knew that the timescale these quickdraws happened on wasn't measured with a stopwatch. Singh's palm landed against the grip of his own pistol, and then-

The figure had already drawn down on him before he'd even lifted his piece out of its holster. Great, Singh thought, I'm dead. Then he noticed that the soldier wasn't holding a gun. They were pointing their finger at him, with a cocked thumb. Finger guns.

In a blaze of humiliation and anger Singh went ahead with his draw, but before he could bring his revolver to bear the soldier had changed their mind, and gone ahead with their own draw. Singh was now staring at the deep hole in the barrel of that beautiful old revolver.

The soldier shook its helmeted head at him, mockingly, then put their piece back in its holster.

Singh did the same. "What the fuck, man? What the fuck is your game?"

The soldier said nothing, and might as well have been a statue. He remembered Luria suddenly when she began to softly chuckle. This must be his chance.

Not really expecting a bullet in the back, but not sure, Singh turned and helped the Doc up. Taking one last look at the figure, he could tell they were just watching. Then he turned to go.

By the time they'd gotten back to outer Vegas, just outside the Clinic, Luria's dose of Med-x had worn off and she was not a happy camper. In between flurries of cursing, Singh had looked her straight in the eyes. "I don't know if you're going to remember any of this, but maybe the less we say about phantom gunslingers, the better." She nodded with her face contorted around a really solid bout of teeth gritting and they walked into the clinic.

It was just a quick stop for him, literally dropping Luria into Doctor Usanagi's arms with only the briefest of explanations. Then he was off to the Mormon Fort.

Where he found Julie Farkas waiting for him, flanked by all the Followers and guards just inside the gate.

"Singh!" He really had trouble reading her, but it wasn't good.

"Julie. Why the welcome wagon? Figured you'd want a quiet debrief on what went down."

"I got word from Usanagi at the Clinic. She wanted to pass on how grateful she was for you saving Doctor Luria, who passed on all the details about what happened at the safe house."

"All the details, huh?"

"How you took out an entire pack of Fiends right before they would have killed her. Or worse. And the way you slaughtered them… well, I doubt any of the gangs will wander near the safe house any time soon. But there's good news. And bad news."

Singh knuckled his forehead in frustration, and realized he was caked in dust and sweat from the long haul with Luria.

"Yes, the way I slaughtered them. I'll… take the bad news first."

"Singh, you're a hero. And you have to leave. People were afraid of you before, and now… this sort of violence is not what the Followers stand for. Even though it saved one of us."

"I see." He wasn't going to cry in front of her again, and definitely not in front of these tools.

"The good news is," she said as she pointed at a studious looking Follower technician to her left. "Emily here managed to get a message through the terminal network, and we've heard from Doctor Forrester. He's asked for you to come join him in the Boneyard. There's a Crimson Caravan group headed that way tomorrow morning." She forced a smile but Singh could tell she was bothered by the whole thing.

"I… sure. That's probably for the best." Singh was too tired and wired to truly be embarrassed by whatever the hell it was that was happening.

Julie Farkas stepped up close to Singh and leaned down. At first he thought she was going in for a Judas kiss, but instead she pressed her lips to his ear. "I really am sorry, Singh. And your friend paid us a visit. She said the Followers are under her protection now. And not to worry."

She? Singh was completely confused. He nodded weakly and trudged back out as one of the guards held the gate for him. She?

Singh was apparently leaving Vegas in the morning, which he could wrap his head around, even if the rest of it was a total cipher. And that bothered him. Maybe he'd look for answers down south. Find religion. Dig his grandpa's turban and such out of that old footlocker. Why not. He could manage. But…

She?

Chapter Text

“Fiddlesticks,” cursed the man with the handlebar mustache and costume of an old-timey shopkeeper. Which he was, he supposed, despite the lack of interest in such things from the general public. Ahh, the curse of being a general store’s proprietor.
He had cursed upon knocking over a relatively tidy stack of papers next to his cash register, and beyond the inconvenience of simply having to pick them up was a certain sight that gave him an unpleasant reminder of things having gone wrong.
Among the receipts and invoices was something particularly galling to the shopkeeper: a considerable pile of handbills, business cards, and the proof sheet for a hand-painted sign, all bearing the legend HORACE APPLEBAUM DRY GOODS AND SUNDRY in a handsome condensed-serif typeface.

Horace Applebaum was his name, and he’d had grand dreams of making his little shop just like ones that cultured, upright folk remembered from old books and films, or faded photographs of their great great grandparents. He had dreams of offering paper bags of salted peanuts that had been just roasted in a tumbling copper drum, of taking orders for twine and hair pomade and ribbon candy dispensed from apothecary jars.

The gall- well, he might be galled, but it was the gall that belonged to the goldarned Zion Tourist Association. The shame. The cussed affront to taste and good sense. Horace could tell that he was becoming quite red in the face and made himself take a deep breath before his waxed mustache was at risk of drooping.

It would remain a dream, and while Horace Applebaum was not a political man, he felt that the American dream was going to remain just that as well. A man might own his own general store, but if it was on government land, run by a government tourist bureau, then it might as well be Red China for all the small business owner’s rights mattered.

He’d paid good money for all the handbills and such to be printed up, and paid a nonrefundable deposit on the commission of the sign, only to be told by the Tourist Association that none of it “fit”.
None of it “fit” in his mind. The Zion Tourist Association had sent him a vague form letter telling him that his proposed décor did not fit Zion’s modern “camping” aesthetic, as decided by a committee somewhere, and a unified aesthetic was key to the successful future of tourism in the park area.

Horace realized that he was still squatting on the floor behind his counter, not having picked up his mess at all, and was only shaking in impotent rage.

“Camping,” you see, was not an aesthetic. A committee was not the inspired hand of an auteur. He’d seen the unified aesthetic and it was about as authentic as a freshly stocked aisle in a department store. Rubbish.
Picking up his pile and placing it back on the counter, Horace looked around at his very own unified aesthetic. His shelves were stocked with complete poppycock, as mandated by the Zion Tourist Association. Cheap souvenir toy cars- in a place not exactly known for its motoring. Cheap souvenir snowglobes. Cheap tin lunchboxes advertising Vault Tec’s “Lil Scout”. Horace wouldn’t have been surprised if the government bureaus overseeing Zion had some sort of lucrative contract with Vault Tec, and if ever there was a tail that wagged a dog, it was them. Instead of handmade candies, pemmican, and trail mix (based on Grandma Applebaum’s recipe, of course) there were bags of crisps and plastic tins of mass-produced cakes.

The worst- and Horace absolutely bristled at this- was that even his beloved apothecary jars were gone, singled out specifically as verboten by the cockamamie Tourist Association.
He’d unfortunately responded to their original letter with some questions- and statements- of his own, which triggered a much more personal and official response from some withered soul of a bureaucrat located in Coeur d’Alene of all the places. Not even in Zion.

This letter explained to him in great detail as to why his objections were incorrect and unnecessary, but also took the time to spell out all the elements of décor and merchandise he had that were to be removed. The insulting response even went on to speculate that perhaps Horace Applebaum was so consumed with a sense of anachronistic theatrics that he hadn’t understood even the bare minimum of what was expected of participants in the business venture that was Zion National Park.
It also specified that there was a cascade of punishments should he fail to comply, starting with fines and eviction, and leading to lawsuit and criminal proceedings should he continue to deviate from the unified aesthetic.

Well, Horace Applebaum had a response, though he was certain it would not fit anyone’s aesthetic. His father’s Ruger, which had been his father’s before him. It had been a modern style 100 years before but looked quaint these days, in a way that Horace could appreciate. For defense of the store and his customers, of course, but he’d crafted a rudimentary silencer for it. Horace Applebaum hated loud noises but also felt that while it might be gauche to murder a visiting parks official, hypothetically, it would be a terrible faux pas to let anyone know about it.

That little tidbit of thought tucked away for the moment Horace turned his attention to one last thing for the day. He couldn’t abide what the parks folks were doing to the small business owner, but he had obligations to fulfill before things became… well, uncouth.

Horace logged on to the terminal in his stockroom, which doubled as his office and boudoir. The glowing things were unavoidable and while he had no use for them, they were a part of modern business. He needed to send an electronic message to a woman in charge of logistics for a certain company, and her obligation to send him a bevy of shining junk that could only charitably be called “survival kits.” Horace tried to compose as nasty a message as he could without verging on rude, though he lamented that he almost certainly done so. Those compasses were three weeks overdue, and punctuality was such a virtue. It really could not be compromised.

Horace sent the electronic letter and logged off his terminal. Those survival kits had better arrive by the date the parks commissioner was coming in from Coeur d’alene. If anything else went wrong, Horace Applebaum was going to snap, and it would be very uncouth.

Chapter Text

Sarah had become an expert at managing people. Her bubbly manner was authentic, but between years in a vault and years managing that now-former vault as a hotel, she had a hard head dealing with the drunks, gamblers, and other unsavory lifers who populated the outskirts of the strip. She was one of them, in a way.

Most importantly, Sarah had survived the destructive whims of Robert House, and she supposed something of that mysterious magnate’s autocratic style might have rubbed off on her.

That part of her was luckily not on show very often. The old rules of the vault held true- in part because they worked, especially in comparison to other vaults; Sarah had heard plenty of travelers’ tales about the horrors of those. The gamblers of the former Vault 21 had lived by those rules, and almost made them religion. Since folks everywhere need something to believe in, people in every corner of the Mojave prayed to Lady Luck in a pinch. Or her sister.

Growing up, Sarah had always gravitated to the engineering side of things, and her brother Michael had been quite the artist. He’d drawn quite a sophisticated picture once- in crayon- and Sarah still had it in a beat up old frame on her nightstand, next to a photograph of their parents.

At first she hadn’t realized the classical inspiration behind the picture, but vault dwellers had books, of course. They had both read voraciously as soon as they were able to read at all, and eventually Sarah found the text that had given Michael his idea. With that, she was able to peg “Lady Luck” as the Roman goddess Fortuna, easily recognizable with her white tunic, bare boob and overflowing cornucopia. He must have absorbed the idea of two-faced Janus as well, as he had Lady Luck standing back to back with her sister. Michael had portrayed her- Miss Fortune, as he’d explained when questioned- as a sexy showgirl in red and black, her lower face veiled, and wielding a wicked looking revolver.

Sarah smiled at the memory as she withdrew a well-worn holotape from her cabinet and plugged it into the hifi in its wooden credenza. Hubtones, by Freddie Hubbard. The original label was gone, but they’d seen a faded poster of it in a crazy traveling merchant’s stock once. Sarah fell in love with it, and while she couldn’t afford it, for her birthday that year her brother had reproduced it from memory, in watercolor this time, having graduated from crayons long since.
The speakers blared into life, piano, saxophones, and frenetic drums replacing the hum of warm tubes. Sarah’s music collection was just one of the things that attracted folks to the hotel, and honestly it needed all the attraction it could get, being half full of concrete from Mr. House’s takeover.

Things were good, otherwise. Drama from the casinos periodically crept its way into the lower levels of the vault, since it was deep and wide and the average guest couldn’t necessarily tell a gambler from a gangster. She had a thriving stock of vault suits and various vault bric-a-brac to sell as souvenirs- even really groovy leather flight jackets from the Boomers up north. Having your own personal- well, tomb robber wasn’t polite- your own personal archaeologist was quite the fortunate thing.
Still, something was off. There was never anything specific, just occasionally a cluster of the serious gamblers talking in whispers with expressions that were either thrilled, or nervous, or both. Everyone clammed up when Sarah came near.

Otherwise things had been business as usual. Sarah hadn’t had a visit from her lover in a while, but that was to be expected. Everyone was busy- even Michael, with his near-crippling agoraphobia had found a couple of trusted assistants and they were all deeply engaged in some enormous project making signs for a new casino some wealthy idiots from Needles were trying to start up.

Sarah’s day continued into night. Holotapes changed from Freddie Hubbard to Art Blakey to Joey Baxter, guests came and went. Someone from the Crimson Caravan dropped by to deliver a crate of frozen brahmin steaks.

Then he showed up.

Throwing open the front door like he owned the place, and flanked by an entourage of of unfamiliar gambler types- in flashy outfits that would be too garish for The Tops. Their leader had the worst outfit of all, some abomination of black velvet and red tulle, wide-brimmed hat and turquoise bolo tie, high heeled boots, and somehow despite the puffy pirate shirt, a flash of bare chest.

“Hi, welcome to the Vault 21, let me know if there’s anything I can-”

The half-dozen douchebags walked right past her and down the stairs into the vault proper. Sarah found she was gripping one of the little plastic aliens she sold as souvenirs, to the point of it making a tiny cracking sound. She put it down abruptly, and waited a moment, taking a few breaths to compose herself.

At least until she heard footsteps, and from the stairs came a familiar face, Wiley, one of the regulars.

“Hey there, Wiley,” she began, laying the sweetness on extra thick. “What’s happening downstairs?”

“Aww, Sarah, You know I don’t-”

“It’s okay, Wiley. Just curious what the hubbub was all about.”

“This guy, Don Guapo, supposed to be the best poker player in the world. He’s been going around taking on all comers, claims he can beat the best. Beat the house. It’s none of my nevermind, but I know a lot of the other guests didn’t want to worry you. We know you like things quiet.” She nodded thoughtfully. “See you in a few, Sarah.”

Sarah waved goodbye to Wiley has he left the gift shop to run whatever it was his errands were. You couldn’t actually hear any noise from downstairs when the vault section doors were closed, but Sarah thought she could hear a ruckus, just barely beneath the jazz music that filled the gift shop.

Wiley was back before too long and Sarah hastily conscripted him- iguana kebab in his mouth preventing him from objecting- into watching the front desk for a while so she could check into the goings-on downstairs. Sarah straightened her vault suit and hustled into the vault proper, realizing that Wiley was one of only a couple residents of the hotel, including original vault residents, that she could trust with that duty. Probably something that needed to be addressed, but it was hard to get out into the city and find qualified applicants when open sky was enough to give you a panic attack.

The volume of the hubbub increased as she got closer to the common area, where the poker tournament had been presumably been set up. Without her approval. Or even her knowledge. Another thing to address.
The scene as was suddenly revealed to her didn’t have anything overtly wrong when she got to the main atrium that functioned as a casino. There were always impromptu tournaments happening, apart from the regular operations of the hotel itself. That was fine. The original vault dwellers were almost all employed as croupiers and the like, something they excelled at, even if dealing with the general public was almost impossible for them outside of a gambling context.

Most of them were traditionalists as well, much like Sarah herself. Then why hadn’t any of them come to her?

Once she found herself looking at the douchebag crew, she understood why.

There was an excitement to the room, an intensity that even the best tournaments never had. It wasn’t just that there were strangers playing, or that those strangers were particularly interesting, but somehow they’d brought an atmosphere of mystery. Sarah glanced around the crowd and noticed that almost everyone was there- even long term residents who never showed an interest in cards or craps.

The noise level was something else, too. The crowds spectating around the tables were raucous, drowning out the sound of the PA (Dexter Gordon sadly being ignored), but on top of that one of the entourage- a rail thin, waxy-faced man with a monocle and tiny razor slice mustache- was announcing his commentary over some sort of portable loudspeaker. A sign perched on the speaker cabinet read “Mr. Vegas Junior.”

Sarah couldn’t tell if she was amused or ready to clear the vault with a riot shotgun.

“Ma’am?” She was jolted out of her reverie by a hand touching her shoulder.

It was another of the entourage. Despite his insane outfit (a patterned three-piece suit with a goldcloth waistcoat?) he had the weathered face and laugh-lines of a garrulous trader.

“Can I help you? I sincerely hope so.”

His grin widened. “Thank you so much for hosting our little exhibition, ma’am. It’s truly an honor.”

“It was a… nice surprise.” Sarah was doing her best to maintain a proper level of politeness, even though she could tell she was being hustled.

“Yes, of course. Don Guapo wanted to apologize for the late notice. We try to keep these exhibitions exclusive, on the QT, to build up the mystique. And of course, the cachet. Makes the pot that much sweeter.”

“What is the pot, Mr...” That at least explained how quiet things had been.

“David Russel, ma’am.” He pronounced the I like it was at least three Es. “Forgive me for not introducing myself. Tonight has kept me hopping! As for tonight’s pot, it’s just bragging rights and a negligible purse. But once the action narrows down, I’ve never seen a casino champion refuse to put up some weighty stakes against Don Guapo.”

His tone had started to get an edge, a level of threat atop the smarm. She didn’t like it, and hoped that her face conveyed that. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Russell.”

“Of course. ma’am. I do hope you enjoy the exhibition tonight.” He reached into his jacket, and from somewhere in the golden swirls of his waistcoat produced a business card, wheich he handed to Sarah.

The card was on a nice paper, and displayed a tasteful logo in the space-age Prewar style. Ordinarily she would have shown it to Micky but in this case she figured it would only ever see the bottom of the circular file.

“Daveeed Russell. Brite-coast Ventures.”

“At your service. A number of the smaller independent casinos have already signed on as affiliates. Perhaps you’ll consider joining?”

She crumpled the card into her hand. “Have a good evening, sir. Excuse me,” she muttered and turned to walk away.

“Who would you say was your casino’s champion, ma’am? The original Vault 21 crew are all renowned as fantastic croupiers and gamblers. If you’re in charge of them, surely that makes you...”

“Good evening, Mister Russell. I-”

“Then you’d surely take on Don Guapo. For the honor of the vault? Or the renown, and publicity?” His grin had shifted somewhere closer to a leer. “We’ll see you in about an hour for the main exhibition. And Don Guapo likes it when the women around him are the most beautiful. Wear something nice, alright?” Swift as a snake, HE turned and walked away.

Sarah Weintraub had never been more livid. She stomped back up to the gift shop, startling Wiley who was busy reading an ancient Manta Man comic she kept under the counter.

“Wiley… you’re watching the counter for me for a few hours.”

“Uh…, sure thing Sarah.”

“Your rent will be free this month. Okay?”

“Okay.” She didn’t even wait for him to finish before stomping right back down the stairs and into the hallway to her room.

It wasn’t much- at least compared to the vault rooms for rent- but it was hers, decorated with the bric-a-brac that she loved, prewar automotive memorabilia and art pieces of Micky’s that he had loved too much to sell off.
In a cramped but cozy locker she kept her few dressses hanging, and staring for a few minutes too long, finally picked one out. It was a deep crimson, with black embroidery, and she’d only worn it a couple of times for special occasions. One of those had been the day she’d negotiated with Robert House for her and the other vault dwellers to continue occupying 21. The other time had been to celebrate over a bottle of tequila, when Lizzy Blue swung by to announce that she had beat Robert House’s rotten head in with a golf club.

They’d toasted that night to masters and slaves, and knowing who was who. And tonight?

Sarah did her makeup and applied her darkest lipstick. She thought it was a shame that beauty had to be weaponized sometimes. A damn shame, but Sarah supposed she was lucky that situations like this happened rarely. She had heard stories of how shit went down in Reno.

The hour was almost up and Sarah got together what little she thought she might need- with a big befeathered purse to carry it in- and strolled over to the casino.

The roar of the crowd disappeared as soon as she appeared. Whatever excitement that had gotten everyone worked up rapidly deflated. Not that Sarah considered herself a femme fatale or anything, but she know most of the people in the room had never seen her like this. A snug, faded vault suit was her usual style, or lately one of the baggy leather flight jackets that were coming down from Nellis.

Sarah barely acknowledged anyone in the room and walked directly over to the central table, sitting at the empty chair across from this… Don Guapo.

He smirked. Don Guapo seemed almost incapable of any other facial expression. Sarah gave him a polite smile and waved for the croupier. The announcer was booming off to the side, announcing the match at the very limits of what his little speaker was capable of. Like an old blues shouter destroying a ribbon mic.

“Ladies and gentleman, give a round of applause to Don Guapo, undefeated against all comers here in Vault 21… unless… wait! What do we have here? The champion of the vault, Miss Sarah Weintraub! She’s your champion, so lets hear it!”
The crowd was cheering. They were more excited that she’d ever seen them. The announcer continued. “And before you wear out your voices cheering… let’s hear what’s at stake… your champion Miss Weintraub has put it all on the line. The deed… to Vault 21!”

A hushed silence fell, for just a moment, before the cheers resumed. Twice as strong, and Sarah felt her stomach twist. Part of her said that she was worthless. They were cheering because it meant someone else would run the vault. Part of her said they were cheering because they were proud of her. Well, there was really only one way to find out.

She grabbed the deck from the croupier and slammed it on the table in front of Don Guapo, staring him in the eyes without blinking.

“Cut.”

He did so and it was the first twinge of anything other than confidence she had seen on him. The croupier shuffled and dealt, and Sarah and Don Guapo stared each other down.
The blood rushing in her ears had compressed all the sound to nothing. Her eyes fought tunnel vision and she could see nothing but her cards. Then she didn’t even need that. She didn’t need any cards, and this Hollywood straight would almost certainly be good enough.

Don Guapo took two cards, and when he saw his hand now, the smirk was back. So much for a poker face. Sarah faltered was he that good? No point waiting. Sarah slapped her hand down on the table and gave a polite smile.

“Ohhh, no...” Don Guapo said, and laughed as he threw his hand down. A full house.

The crowd was noisier now, muttering and sighing at least. Distantly, Sarah could hear the announcer doing his Mr. New Vegas ripoff schtick, and announcing the end of her world. Don Guapo rubbed his hands together as if he was about to eat the world’s tastiest hamburger. As he did so Sarah noticed something in his sleeve.

A card.

She wasn’t sure how, but she’d known this was going to happen. Sarah quickly glanced around, barely recognizing the shock in everyone’s eyes, and behind Don Guapo, on the packed upper floor, a familiar face.

Well, a familiar veil.

The showgirl in black in red gave Sarah a quick wink above the fabric covering her mouth and chin, and then was gone. Sarah stood abruptly. “Fine. You win.” She turned to Russell, also smirking, and said as flatly and quietly as she could “Let’s get this over with.”

“Well then, no sense prolonging things, of course.” Smug, he drew a pen out of his hideous waistcoat.

“No, at least give me a moment of dignity. Let’s use that conference room down the hall.” She pointed at a small room that was just that, though usually used for the buffet table instead of actual conferences.

Russell led the beaming Don Guapo and his entourage towards the room, and Sarah followed them, trying not to meet the gazes of any of the Vault 21 regulars. Once the men had seated themselves around the table, Sarah closed the door behind her and reached into her purse.

She took out a bulky gas mask with dark lenses and slipped it over her head.

Don Guapo chuckled, no doubt wondering what new vault nonsense this was. Sarah reached into her purse again and pulled out a flashbang grenade. They weren’t smirking now.

She yanked the pin and tossed it across the table, before throwing herself down to the ground and clapping her hands around her ears hard enough to make them pop. The grenade went pop, too, and she could feel the concussion and even see the flash with her eyes shut tight.

Sarah’s ears were ringing even with her precautions, and a dense smoke filled the room. All the entourage was on the floor, and miraculously Don Guapo rose to his feet, eyes crossed and watering, his ears bleeding. Sarah grabbed him by his luxurious hair and slammed his face into the heavy wood of the table. Now his nose was broken, and it joined its friends the ears in pouring blood all over the place.

Grip on his hair still tight, Sarah dragged him over the table and onto the floor. With her free hand she opened the door, releasing a huge puff of smoke that looked like a sideways mushroom cloud.

Slowly- Don Guapo was a big boy- she dragged him by the hair out into the main casino area until she reached the middle, and let his head fall senseless onto the floor. Sarah pulled off the gas mask and looked around at the shocked faces of… well, everyone. With one toe she scooched Don Guapo’s sleeve up his arm, revealing the hidden cards. That elicited groans and gasps, and Sarah knew she didn’t need to rile the Vault 21 folks up, but she wanted to anyway.

Stepping on Don Guapo’s hand for good measure, Sarah spoke up, panting a little as she did.

“I… want you all to show our guests… what happens… to cheaters… in my vault. IN OUR VAULT.”

Sarah didn’t wait, and immediately stalked off to her room. She knew exactly what they were going to do. She loved them, and should never have doubted them.

Back in her room Sarah stripped out of her dress, making a mental note to wash and/or burn it. Once in a comfy vault suit, she sat on the bed and allowed herself just a moment to breathe. On the nightstand was the picture Michael had made for her, of Lady Luck and Miss Fortune. She looked over at the red and black dress, and back to the picture.

That was the funny thing about luck. A run of good luck was wonderful, but the pendulum always swung back the other way. She stood again and tucked her purse away in the closet.

It never hurt to be prepared.

Chapter Text

Sierra Madre

The door hissed and the bus driver pulled the handle to let the doors open. Joey stepped up and slapped him some skin before stepping off with his small valise and garment bag.

“Have a good day, Mister Baxter. What a surprise to have you on my bus sir, what an honor!”

“My pleasure, Bill.” Joey gave him a great big smile before watching the bus take off leaving a huge cloud of dust in his face. People had this idea that he wore a sharp white dinner jacket every second of the day. This is why he didn’t. Bad enough on his wide-lapeled leather coat, and he took a minute to swipe all that dust off its deep ocher-colored leather. It was too hot out, though, and he decided to just take it off for now.

When Joey tucked his jacket over his arm he noticed he had been approached by a big monkey-suited guy, easily recognizable as a bouncer type gussied up for business with the VIPs.

“Can I help you sir? This is a private event.”

“Hey, good afternoon. I’m one of the performers. Joey Baxter.”

The bouncer’s glare deepened the creases in his red face, and then twisted to a grin. “Sure. And I’m Wilfred the Wizard.”

Joey sighed and glanced around. Sure enough, just down the way by a staging area for suitcases and such staged by valets, a series of framed posters advertising the big acts for this weekend’s gala.

Joey Baxter stared pointedly at the poster advertising… Joey Baxter.

The bouncer was at least quick on the uptake, following Joey’s gaze and immediately blanching. “Sir… my deepest apologies. I guess I expected you to turn up in that white tux.”

Joey sighed. The bouncer waved over his equally brutish partner with a mitt. The second bouncer carried a clipboard. “Mister Baxter, do you have any special accommodations we need to know about?”

“Tyler,” said the second bouncer. “Lookit this.” They peered at the sheets on the clipboard for a moment.

“Ahh, I’m not sure what happened, Mister Baxter, but it looks like we weren’t expecting you. Says here on the list that you canceled.”

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” Joey spread his arms out in an exaggerated shrug. “I think I know what happened… my band took their own bus to get here and broke down. Called me from Needles of all places. They must have got in touch with the stage manager here or something.”

“I think I’m going to have to get the Tampico floor manager on the horn. Mr. Sinclair was pretty insistent about all the gala details.”

“Whoa, now. Tyler, was it?” The bouncer nodded and Joey reached a hand into his leather jacket. He pulled out a wad of cash and peeled off four DeWitts and handed two to each of his new friends. Two grand apiece was peanuts but it made the world go round. “I’ve got a solution. Seeing as how I am on the list, maybe you fellas can just get me through for now. It’s pretty parched out here.”

Tyler tucked his bills away and his grin returned. “Seems more than reasonable Mister Baxter. I’m sorry for the confusion. Carl?” The second bouncer shrugged and made his money vanish. Joey’s gramps had called it “bleach” because of its… lightening effects for darker folks. Gramps was a high rolling pimp back in the day, so he knew. Joey understood it better these days.

“Tell you what- lets keep it smooth and quiet for now. Maybe my band gets the bus going and shows up after all. Maybe I sing along to some of those canned tunes. No sense getting Sinclair’s hopes up in case things don’t work out.”

“Ahh, you do have style, Mister Baxter.”

“Heh, it’s nothing, Tyler. Will I see you at the gala, then?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” He gestured behind him with a solid tree trunk of an arm. “And Mister Baxter?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome to the Sierra Madre.”

[cough]

Jesus wept, Gordon. I’ll never get used to this. I played back that first holotape I made for you. It’s hard to believe this is the same technology that we record music with. My best friend growing up, we had the cans and string thing going between our houses. My friend farted into his can once, that’s what these dictated holos sound like.

I mean- a good holotape recorder with some of those fancy Muscovy valves, a hot ribbon mic, a decent plate room- you could make a squawking chicken sound like a middlin’ torch singer. Hell, you could make a middlin’ torch singer sound like an angel.

But maybe I’m stalling because I still can’t believe anybody would ever want to read a book about me. Or watch a movie about me. Gordon, I’ve seen your pictures. That Harlem series was where it was at, and the series you did in Mobile broke my heart. I know you’re an artist.

So I made it to this shindig of all shindigs. At the desk they put me in touch with a photographer to get some shots of my performance, assuming it happens. We’ll have copies of that, and I’ll mail these holotapes back to you once the thing’s over. There’s just too much going around here right now. This place is still under construction… do you believe it?

And they’re already moving celebrities in to the bungalows and apartments. Real celebrities. Something about the whole thing doesn’t smell right. It smells downright funky. Funky like the Helios greenroom, if you get what I mean.

Anyway, I’m signing off for now. I’ll make sure to record some more of my… what’d you call them, musings? I’ll do more soon. This evening I’m going to go on a little reconnoiter, if you reallllly get what I mean.

Talk to you soon, brother.

Joey Baxter was relieved to get into the casino proper. The air conditioners were something else… he could feel them vibrating down beneath the floors. It was almost too cold, coming in out of the damn desert like that. After his encounter with Tyler a valet had run over and snagged his luggage, to who knows where.

Shrugging his leather jacket back on, Joey took in the scene. This place was hopping, which made sense considering how close it was to the big opening. And loud- between the crowd and the background music, really loud. The music was coming from a piano and its player off to the side in a sitting lounge area, just under a grand staircase.

It was a pretty even mix of guests and VIPs battling for space with the staff, either liveried porters and waiters, or the occasional construction crew in their smart coveralls.

Joey could see the reception desk and figured he might as well get checked in. He sauntered up just behind the guests being served ahead of him- a lady in a fancy tennis outfit and her two- well, “tennis coaches” probably. Seven foot tall twin Swedish hunks. Who knew with people.

His rubbernecking was interrupted when suddenly it was his turn. Joey stepped right up with a smile on his face. This shouldn’t be too bad.

The concierge was a cheery apple-cheeked fellow who didn’t look old enough to drive. “Good afternoon, sir, may I see your service paperwork?”

“Excuse me?”

“The paperwork you were given when you were offered the job, yes?”

Joey wasn’t stupid but he didn’t feel like letting this guy off easy with whatever white-bread bullshit this was.

“Look, I don’t carry contracts around on my… person,” he said, swiping some imaginary dust off his jacket, despite there being the real thing as well. “If you want to get on the horn with my agent, be my guest. Otherwise...”

The concierge looked poleaxed but before he could come up with a response, there was a familiar voice from behind them. “Beau, you are insufferable.” Joey turned and coming down the staircase was Dean goddamned Domino. “Please don’t tell me you mistook our friend here for a somelier or a… a roustabout or something.” Beneath his aviators Dean’s mouth twisted like he’d stepped in dogshit.

“Mr. Domino, I’m sorry, I don’t...”

“Stopper the old spout, Beau. You don’t recognize Joey Baxter? In two hundred years there will still be posters of him all over town when your name is but dust and ashes.” He turned and gave Joey an imperceptible nod. “Baxter.”

Joey returned it. “How are you, Dean?”

“Never better, dearest chum. Now, while Beau here is seeing to your accommodations- you top quality accommodations- I was wondering if you’d come have a cocktail with me?”

It was Joey’s turn to be stunned. He didn’t exactly consider Dean a friend, but they’d always been… friendly. At least until the last time they’d shared a gig. There had been words. More than a few. And then some.

Dean strutted up and threw his arm around Joey’s shoulders, and leaned in. “Look, Baxter, I know we didn’t part under the best circumstances.”

“Boston.”

“Right, Boston. I-”

Joey cut him off. “We got in a fist fight, Dean.”

“A fist fight which you won, Baxter, handily.” Dean sighed. “I don’t do this often. I.. apologize. I had quite the hangover and not even a single hair of the dog. The cursed combat zone always brings out the beast in me, darling.”

“Dean, you-” Joey couldn’t help it and started laughing. A real gamble since Dean Domino could be downright prissy when he thought he was the butt of anything.

“If you tell anyone I said I was sorry, Baxter, I’ll deny it. And have you murdered in a suitably gruesome fashion.”

“It’s a deal.” He slapped Dean on the arm of his admittedly exquisite suit.

“A deal it is. So a drink or three, then? My place? I have a bit of a business proposition for you.”

“Can I meet you? Just saw someone I wanted to say hello to.”

Dean’s eyebrows raised and Joey couldn’t tell if his tone got a mite colder.

“Not a problem, Baxter. Just ask around in the Villa. You’ll find it.”

And with that Dean Domino was gone.

Okay, Gordon… you’ll never believe who I ended up having a drink with. I’ll give you a second.

Yeah, whatever it was you just said, you’re wrong. It was Dean Domino. Of all people. Yeah, I knew he was going to be there but I figured we’d just pass each other like ships in the night. Especially after Boston. Which… well, we talked about it and he actually apologized. Don’t uh… you’ve gotta edit that out, actually. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.

So here are Dean and I rapping, thick as thieves, and he gets me all set up with the staff and asks me back to this place with a “proposition.” I said sure but I’d meet him- you’ll never guess who else I saw.

Tickling ivories in the lobby, it was Josefina. Looking, if you don’t mind me saying, fine as I hell. She was all dudded up in a tux with tails, her hair short and waved tight up against her scalp, like it was the Wiemar or something.

You know me, Gordon. I’m no slouch with the ladies. And Josefina’s looking like her ass tastes like candy, but… this is stupid. I respect her too much to act the hound dog. She was playing piano like… nothing I’d ever seen.

People hoot and holler when I sit down at the Hammond for an encore, and I love it, but that’s just messing around. Josefina’s the real deal.

I walked up and she was playing “American in Paris,” and when I said “Hey Josefina” she said “It’s Joe,” and switched to another song without missing a beat. You’re an educated guy, you’ve heard of Satie? Crazy classical pianist from back in the day… like, really weird melancholy stuff, but still nice enough to be the background at a party. I only knew that it was his because my moms had a tape of it.

“Nice one, Joe, Haven’t heard a Gnossienne in a long-ass time.” She actually smiled at me then, and I don’t know if it was because I sounded like I knew my shit, or rolled with the name. I mean if Pavel Kowlaczyk can be Paul Clooney, who am I to tell Joe Greene what she gets to be called.

We shot the shit a while, reminiscing about that crazy gig in Raleigh, you know when the riot happened? And the Helios… I’ll tell you about those when I get back. I could use up a hundred of these tapes just talking about that.

I was lucky to have her for that one tour. She’s going places.

But anyway, before I let her get back to it, I said “Now where can a hardworking fella like myself have a hot cup of green tea?” She laughed at that one, and told me there was a little get-together most nights in one of the maintenance tunnels and I was more than welcome to attend.

Got to take a pause for the cause sometimes, right?

Well, I’ll sign off again. I’ve got a date with Dean goddamned Domino. Later, brother.

Joey wandered his way through a series of Mission-style villas and bungalows called the “Salida del Sol”. Fancy stuff, he thought, but there was something that was off. He couldn’t tell if it was just the usual pasty-whiteness of a swank resort, or what. There was a strange smell. Acrid, chemical, nasty. But faint. He hoped it wasn’t some scunge in the air conditioning, and they were all going to get Rotary Club Flu.

At least nobody had recognized him, yet.

That didn’t last long, as he made his way to Dean’s place. Directions hadn’t been hard- seems like everyone knew where the VIPs were staying. It had been a stroll to get there, but relatively nice. No hassle, but somehow… dreamlike. Between the funky smell, the omnipresent loudspeakers playing muzak, and the sheer newness of everything, it was just strange.

Joey clearly wasn’t the only person who thought so. Everyone he passed was wide-eyed and gawking. They were all walking too, nicely egalitarian to his eyes. There were no cars or trucks allowed here, he saw, but an occasional golf cart carrying the elderly or infirm or inebriated slightly spoiled the observation.

Once he found himself in front of Dean Domino’s two story villa, he finally got recognized. A casually dressed bodyguard at the base of some stairs that angled up the side of the building spotted him immediately.

“Mr. Baxter, nice to see you. Mr. Domino is waiting for you upstairs.” He stepped out of the way and joey stepped up.

“Thanks, brother.” Joey reached out and gave him a quick dap. As he did so, the sleeve of his jacked brushed against the stucco of the wall. It crumbled off.

Joey reached out to the spot where he’d marred the wall and crumbled some of the stuff between his fingers. Sand, and asbestos, and… fucking mucilage? He looked at the bodyguard, who shook his head.

“I ain’t saying a god damn thing. You have a good evening Mister Baxter.” Joey shook his head as well and headed up the stairs.

The door of Dean’s upper floor was open and he arrived to the sound of a conversation in progress. Peeking around the corner, Joey saw Dean leaning theatrically against a tall credenza as a resort employee stammered at him. Joey stepped into the room.

“I’m going to cut you off there, Maddox. Young squire Baxter’s ears must have been burning.” Maddox was an older man with a gray, overshaved face. He turned to look at Joey and immediately kowtowed and backed out past Joey and towards the door.

“It will be taken care of. Right away, sirs. Have a great evening.” And he was gone.

“Forgive me, Baxter, but this gala seems to be developing more wrinkles than a linen suit.”

“You sure know how to treat the help.”

Dean stood up straight. “Oh, I have a reputation to keep up, you know. But I’ve tipped Beau, and Maddox, and Cheryl the towel girl… enough to put their grandchildren through college, I’m sure.”

“Well, you’re just a big softie, aren’t you, Dean?”

“You’ve got my number already, Baxter. And an ounce of tip earns you a pound of abuse. Never forget that. Now...” he glanced over at the wet bar and licked his lips. “A libation?”

Joey nodded and Dean sauntered over to the bar and got to work. Letting him, Joey took a survey of the room. It was nice enough, sure, and well outfitted for a bon vivant like Dean, but it had that same strange feeling of unreality that the rest of the Sierra Madre had. Like you were looking at a picture of the room, and the frame was really cheap and dirty.

And there was dust on the floor.

Joey stepped over to the veranda and looked out at the rest of the villas, idly. He called out behind him to Dean once the noise from the shaker stopped. “Got your set worked out? Any special numbers for the occasion?”

“You bet, buster.” Dean approached him with two martini glasses and offered him one. “Let’s have a seat, shall we?”

“You’re the boss, Dean.” Joey sat on a weird slanted couch and Dean took the one across from him. “This is a new concoction, inspired by my already luxurious stay here.”

“Cheers.” They clinked their glasses and Joey took a sip. His eyes immediately watered and he resisted the urge to do a vaudeville spit take.

“Easy, chief. It gets a little peppery at first.”

Joey tried to think of a relatively polite way to describe the taste. “Is this… khh… uhh… jalapeno vodka?”

Dean laughed after his own sip, and Joey was relieved to see that his eyes were watering as well. “This place wouldn’t know an infused vodka if it bit them on the ankle, Baxter. Now, I’m no chef, or bartender, but I like to think of myself as creative.”

“I’ll say.” He steeled himself to take another sip, noticing a slight approval on Dean’s face.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the tap water here has quite the interesting tang. High desert spring water or something? I’m no geologist either. But I made some ice cubes and tried a few spirits. Mostly gin at the moment, but then I started experimenting. I cooked up some vodka and vermouth in an empty chili con carne tin, and crinkled up some of those spicy corn crisps you can get at one of the vending machines. Strain it off, mix well, and...” He raised his glass high. “Here we are. I’m thinking of calling it a ‘Sierra Madre Martini’.”

“It fits. But I have to admit… it’s much better than it sounds.”

“Thank you, Baxter. Your assessment is duly noted. Now, to your earlier question… that factors into, well… one of the propositions I had for you.”

“Ahhh, here it is.”

“I was discussing with Maddox as you came in, discussing the circumstances of your lodging here. Or lack thereof. It seems on every list in this cussed place, you’re marked as having canceled.”

“Story of my life. So what did they have to say about that?”

“Ahh, everyone wants to kick it up the food chain. All the way to Sinclair in some cases. Now, I’m not someone who is particularly interested in keeping Frederick Sinclair from being inconvenienced, but if I’m going to stick it to Sinclair… I’m going to stick it to him good.”

“Not a big fan of our host, I take it.” Joey sipped his martini again. It grew on you.

“Well, I wanted to instill the fear of god in the staff, but while they’re bumbling about I thought you might want to have this lovely villa to stay in.”

“You- what?”

Dean crossed and recrossed his legs. “Not to share, Baxter. Not like that. I’m not going to be staying here much, I don’t think. I came here with Vera Keyes, if you didn’t know. I’ll be spending most of my time with her, ironing out a few details. I’ll be deep in her… partitures, so to speak.”

“Dean Domino, man of the world. I’ll drink to that.”

“Indeed. Now, to business. First off… let’s talk music. I do have a set in mind, but unfortunately I’m only allowed the house band. So we’re stuck with standards. But I thought, and going with the theme of things that stick in Sinclair’s craw… perhaps you might want to come on for an encore as my special guest. Maybe… a duet?”

“Now I know you’re clowning on me, Dean Domino.”

“No… no. Baxter, I know we’ve had our differences and we’re certainly of different musical backgrounds, to say the least, but… you’re quite talented, my boy. Remarkably so. In fact, I got the idea for us to do a number together back in Boston. Luckily you didn’t pound it out of my gray matter.”

“Well, I am fond of sticking it to the man. And I suppose it would technically… contractuarry...” The Sierra Madre Martini had snuck up on him. “Take care of my obligations. Can I get another one of these?”

“Of course. Be careful, they’ll sneak up on you.”

Dean maneuvered to the bar again and busied himself. “So what did you have in mind? Song wise.”

“Like I said, Baxter, we’re stuck with standards, but I thought… ‘Best Is Yet To Come’? Would that work for you?”

“Oh? Not going to stick me with Angel Eyes?”

“Not likely.” Dean returned with the refilled glasses and sat back down after he handed one to Joey. “Cleo Laine you are not.”

“Cheers to that.” They clinked again. “Tell you what, Mr. Domino… I’ll do it. With glee. But I have one condition.”

“Do tell?” Joey could tell he was maybe on thin ice with Dean here.

“I’d like to do one song of my choice. And we get Joe from the lobby to sit in on piano.”

Dean’s expression was stony, and whether that was disapproval or the face-numbing martinis, Joey couldn’t be sure. “What did you have in mind? For your… guest spot?”

Joey took a sip. “I’m thinking… ‘Compared to What’. How does that strike you?”

There was a long moment of quiet. “Devious, Baxter. I like it.”

Oh, Gordon. The shit I’m dealing with here.

So my evening with Dean wound down once he put forth the rest of his proposition. He started talking about Sinclair, and Vera, and the riches of the Sierra Madre, and…

“I’m going to stop you right there, Dean Domino. No offense, ‘cause I think you’re a stand-up guy. No, let me finish. You have a reputation for someone who’s always on the move for a hustle. That’s fine. That doesn’t confront me none. But if you’re going to ask me to take part in some crazy heist? I don’t… I don’t want to die here in this bullshit fake hotel.”

He didn’t understand what I was trying to say. You understand, Gordon. You live it every day just like I do. But we rub elbows with some folks who do things the old-fashioned way. Sure, they might put us on the inspirational posters and billboards, we might be working in the cubicle next to you… hell, maybe in a hundred years nobody will care about the color of your skin. But here with the movers and shakers, the rich… the old world views? We’re just porters and waiters… and entertainers.

I could tell he still didn’t really get it, and you know… we went back and forth a while, then I said… “Look, you grow up as a spider, you might not see anything wrong with the web. You might not see it at all. But if you’re a fly...”

I could see his gears grind, gummed up though they were with those damn martinis.

“I’m sorry, Baxter. I didn’t realize.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“You remember the terms, though.”

“Don’t tell anyone you’re a big softie, or you have someone give me a… what did you call it?”

“Granada Bowtie.”

“Right. Good night, man.”

Jesus, Gordon, I need to get the hell out of this place.

Joey jumped bolt upright out of his borrowed bed, in just his drawers and undershirt. He’d heard the front door slam, and was honestly scared as hell. Something about last night had him wondering what else was going on.

“Baxter?” He heard Dean from the living room, and had barely swung his legs over the side of the bed when that familiar pair of Wayfarers peeked around the doorway.

“Good morning.”

“Oh, put some pants on, my boy. No need to flaunt your youth and virility. Besides, there’s something I want to show you.”

“I don’t suppose it’s a plate of steak and eggs?”

“If you insist, Baxter, but we should get going.” Then he was gone, and Joey could hear him at the bar again. Joey reluctantly stretched and got up, thanking his lucky stars that Dean was in the habit of bribing and berating the staff. Last night a porter had swung by and dropped off Joey’s garment bag and small valise. He tossed on as smart an outfit as he could throw together in a hurry- slacks with knife-sharp creases, a dress shirt and a funky little vest he’d gotten as a birthday present from his old trumpet player, Alphonse Wiegand.

Joey walked into the living room and started getting on his shoes.

Dean held up a shaker. “Ready for an eye-opener before we step out?”

Joey shook his head. “No, a morning like this calls for… Black Coffee.”

In a funny little unplanned moment, they both started humming the slinky brass figure that made that tune so memorable. Say what you wanted about Domino, he was a talented cat. You didn’t get those wordless synchronized moments with regular folks. Or the ‘strictly union.’

Dean finished his libation and Joey was ready as well. “Shall we?”

It was a nice sunlit walk- neither he nor Dean rated a golf cart, apparently- and not much had changed since Joey got here. There was a hush, though, and while he and Dean didn’t really have anything to say, there was something else about the morning. Maybe he still just had whatever jitters had given him such a poor night’s sleep.

Back at the entrance to the casino proper, Dean took a drag off his third cigarette of their walk, and stopped.

“You haven’t spent any time at the casino, have you, Baxter?”

“No, I’ve pretty much strictly been enjoying your company my short time here.”

“Funny. Well, we should take a quick gander on our way to the Tampico.”

Joey nodded and they made their way into the building and through the expected chaos. Once they entered the casino floor, Joey knew exactly what Dean had been talking about.

Instead of croupiers, there were… ghosts? Instead of monkey-suited guards, there were… more ghosts. No cashiers. No cigarette girls. Just ghosts.

“What the fuck?”

“Holograms. Oh do close your mouth, Baxter, you’ll catch a fly.” Dean scanned the room with a scowl beneath his shades. “Illusions made of hard light. Controlled by computers.”

Joey stared at one of the holograms. “Bet those aren’t cheap. I doubt the instant vending machines are either. Someone’s putting on airs.”

“Bingo. Now follow me, and you’ll see the real… uh, complication.”

Dean strutted back off the casino floor like there was a fire in ass, and Joey kept pace. They blazed through the lobby again on their way to the Tampico. Some stiff was manning the ivories, and it must not have been Joe’s shift yet.

They went through the doors of the- nightclub? Lounge? Joey wasn’t sure what to call it, and they made a brisk clip with Dean in the lead, blowing past a hapless woman manning the check-in desk, who tried to greet them, in vain.

At the saloon doors to the club itself, Dean halted again and leaned in close.

“Last night I came here to see Vera. She’s… a bit under the weather, and staying in her private dressing room to avoid the crowds. Apparently I had one as well, not that anyone bothered to tell me. At any rate...” Dean’s head suddenly acquired a swivel. “The floor manager nabbed me. He said Sinclair had a special interest in the musical acts going off without a hitch, and that I needed a dress rehearsal so they could set things up.”

“...and?”

“Could hardly refuse a request like that, could I? It is the biz we’re in. So I got up there with one of those holotapes with a backing tracks, and they wrangled over a bunch of guests and staff and made them be an audience.”

“Nothing too hinky about that, Dean.”

“I’ll get to hinky in a moment. And you can see for yourself. So bright and early I get called down from the dressing room by the floor manager again. He said that Sinclair insisted I come down and watch a… replay… of my performance.”

“Like after a football game? The hell, man.”

“I didn’t notice any cameras last night. But I came down to see this. Just… take a peek. Inconspicuously.”

Joey reached over and parted the saloon doors ever so slightly. Inside was the main floor of the lounge, and behind it the stage. There was a packed house already, but not with gamblers or VIPs or even random staff.

Every seat in the house held a ghostly blue figure. Holograms.

And up on the stage- the pale shade of Dean Domino himself, belting out ‘Saw Her Yesterday.’

Joey let the doors close and hissed quietly at Dean. “They got your number, man.”

“Sinclair has it out for me. Always has, the snake. But he must know something is up. Now listen- let’s get out of here.”

Joey had no argument to that, and they beat feet.

Back outside they gave each other a look.

“So what now?”

Dean sighed and slammed his eyebrows together. “I promised you steak and eggs, so I think we should make that happen. And maybe a greyhound or...”

“I mean, with this whole goddamn freakshow!”

“I know, I know, Baxter… truth is, it’s a bit discouraging. But on with the show. I have no intention of dragging you into my… ‘hustle,’ was it? It’s happening tonight, though, when the gala kicks off. I have a feeling the safest place for me- and you too, Baxter- will be on that stage tonight, in full view of as many eyes as possible.”

“I suppose if we were about to get snuffed by an eccentric billionaire, they wouldn’t exactly let us leave anyway.”

“I always said you were a smart cookie, Baxter. Now, I need to get back to Vera and keep up her spirits. You should try to find some place to get your breakfast. And hopefully served by human hands! And… put it on my tab.”

He thrust out his hand, and Joey gave it a good shake. Dean turned and vanished back into the ghost-infested Tampico.

[hacking cough]

[muffled, unintelligible]

Gordon… I [unintelligible] ...reason. I hope you can hear me through this. Just needed to get this down so you knew what happened. So somebody knows.

I’ll make it quick.

[coughing]

I was keyed up after everything I’d seen, but there was still a show to perform, a little later in the evening. I [muffled] and in the traditional way, so I found myself at the meeting spot Joe had mentioned. [cough]

It was me, Joe, Dean’s bodyguard Ed, Shawn and Eric from the kitchen, a couple contractors I never got the names of, and the maintenance dude Lou, who was letting us use this area. Apparently- [hacking cough]- apparently Lou was working on some special project for Sinclair, so apart from being micromanaged to hell and back, he got carte blanche to do what he wanted in his little shop areas.

So there we were in this dark little hallway. It stank, like dirty coveralls and grease and solvent, but it was still homey, you know? Not like the rest of this fake-ass place. Real people did real things here.

In our case, we were smoking some real joints. Relaxing.

I bet [muffled] what we had in common aside from a love of the reefer.

Doing my best to relax, Gordon, but… everything that was going on was still weighing on me. And I was thinking about my chat with- [coughing] with Dean. I had a little more respect for him but did I expect Dean Domino to become a champion against inequality? Naw…it’s never that easy.

Every now and then I got a look from Joe when she passed the joint. She was enjoying herself. One of the boys I guess.

[pounding noises]

I gotta wrap this up, Gordon. I need to [muffled].

So I was just about to excuse myself, had to go get my tux on for the gala, when there was this rumbling. Like an explosion off in the distance. Then they kept coming, and I swear- [cough] it was a goddamned, like [muffled] a goddamn chorus of screams. And the lights started flickering.

None of us knew what was up, and we were honestly paralyzed. Lou cursed a blue streak- he said he bet the power cores had blown, and it was going to be the devil to repair, but before he could keep up his rant something happened.

This… red mist. A cloud of gas, started seeping out of some vents and down from the end of the hallway. It stunk to high hell, just like that stink I noticed when I first got here. We all started coughing and sneezing, and Lou’s eyes about bugged out.

Everyone scattered and started running the hell out of there, but Lou grabbed me.

“Joey, hold up. My buddy Simmons told me they were dealing with a toxic gas leak down in the lower levels. I thought they had it under control. But you need to protect yourself. That stuff is nasty. It’s going to fuck up your voice something fierce.”

He turned and went to a locker and pulled out this… [coughing] hazard suit, with a scary looking hood and gas mask thing. Lou said this is what the cleanup guys were wearing and I could have it.

“I’m not going to be the one responsible for Joey Baxter losing his voice.” He grinned but I could tell it was forced. He was worried and I was too.

[banging noises, muffled thumping]

So he got me all buttoned up in the suit, did the rubber seals around the cuffs and fastened all the metal clasps. I’m not claustrophobic but it [muffled] and he sent me on my way.

Getting back through the hotel, that was bad. Really bad.

You know those holograms? The nice blue ones were gone, and the security ones that looked like riot cops? They were red. And they were on the rampage.

They were pacing back and forth, and any time a guest or staff member ran by or popped up out of hiding, shot a fucking laser or something at them. And they died.

I could barely think about hiding myself, when one of those fucking ghosts [coughing] they crept right up on me. But it took one look- at the suit, maybe? It flickered for a second and turned yellow, then just turned away.

That was [muffled] chance. I got the hell out of there.

The red shit seemed to have thinned out, and on my way to the villa it was even thinner, barely noticeable. I figured I’d stay protected until I got to Dean’s room and change out of the suit, grab my stuff and go.

No sign of Dean, or Ed, and the yelling and screams and everything was hardly audible for the moment. I thought I might have a second to rest, grab a drink maybe, get all these holotapes boxed up so they won’t get lost.

But I can’t get the suit off, Gordon.

It’s hot. I can’t breathe. I don’t think this gas mask works worth a shit. The rubber seals are all gummed up with some nasty residue from that red stuff, and they’re already cracking like they were left out in the weather for years. And the metal clasps won’t open. They were shiny went Lou fastened them, but now they’re all rusted shut. How did that happen so quick?

[coughing]

[muffled] going to try to just get out of here and get to the bus, maybe. I can hear something going down not far.

I’m scared, Gordon. The suit won’t come off. I- [clicking noise]

[tape ends]

Chapter Text

HOOVER DAM

One, two, three…

The sun was absolutely pounding today, and the heat was just too much, even under the shade of a knobby bush and with a functioning coolant system in her armor. She couldn’t even imagine what it was like down there on the concrete, much less bound up in one of those trooper uniforms. Those boys needed to learn about boonie hats. Or something.

There were a lot of troopers down there, though there were surprisingly few actually working security for an event like this. The rest were there for the event itself, an audience of sorts, though she had a feeling they were not really excited to be there.

Nobody was, but this was just the kind of thing the NCR excelled at these days. She’d heard from a number of reputable sources that things had been different back in the days of Seth and Tandi. Which was probably still half bullshit, or sanitized. But regardless, they sure loved their morale building.

She took a moment to relax, disconnecting the electrical cables from her helmet and removing it. Fresh air. She wiped her brow where the helmet’s sweat band had become overwhelmed. The moment wasn’t there just yet. Soon.

What would ol’ First Ranger Seth think of the chucklefucks she could see on listless patrols around the perimeter? She really wondered. The veterans had been slowly drifting in from the Baja, and they were nothing to sneeze at, but your average ranger or trooper was a glorified boot camp recruit with better gear.

Which brought up the old argument… did the clothes make the man? Or the gear? Her armor was a superior version to the intimidating kit that the veteran rangers wore, but the deluxe version reserved for top officers. There wasn’t another one like it in the entire wasteland, she bet.

The gear didn’t make her, of course. She was far stronger than that. But it did make a statement. And after all, had it done anything substantial for the previous owner? No, not much. He was a desiccated pile of bones scattered across the disintegrating carpeted floor of a toppled office building.

Enough grousing, now. She could hear a vertibird. Lizzie Blue put her eye back to the scope of her rifle and waited for President Aaron Kimball to arrive.

The boots on the ground were all stirred up now, MPs rallying and the regular troops shuffling sullenly forward towards the makeshift stage. Like if you forced someone to watch the Kings practice all day. At gunpoint.

“Snipers work in teams,” she had said to her friend. Or as she had also put it, “we can kill more if there are two of us.” He’d responded to that when it was time to go put a bullet in the collective head of the scumbags who called themselves the Legion. They’d done plenty of that, and more besides. But her spotter wasn’t here today.

He was still loyal to his old employer, the NCR military, and this was going to be… “off the books”, so to speak.

The vertibird was in sight now, angling over the river and the long expanse of concrete and rubble. There wasn’t much out here, really. Just water and sand and distant radio towers, doomed useless soldiers and mutated animals learning to be afraid of the sound of motors and marching boots.

And her.

Lizzie Blue put the helmet back on and reconnected its leads. She leaned back into the scope of the rifle, though she didn’t strictly need it. Optics in the scope connected to systems in her- heavily modified- armor and put a picture of her targets directly into the right eyepiece of the helmet.

There was no finer way to control a sniper rifle. She didn’t put much stock into doing things the hard way to build character, or doing things the old way to respect tradition. If there was a way to improve things with new methods, or new tech, or a new philosophy, then that’s how things should be done.

Scanning the area, Lizzie Blue noticed Ranger Grant with his ridiculous eye patch, stationed at a comms bay by the helipad. He was the “security” coordinator for this boondoggle, and a real old school soldier.

Earlier that morning in the Visitor Center he’d tried to give Lizzie Blue a tongue-lashing despite knowing full well that she had been asked to come here as a consultant by Colonel Moore herself. All because Lizzie Blue had dared suggest a more logical approach to the security.

His DI impression would have been the stuff of nightmares for any recruit, but she was like a mountain. Never to be moved. When Grant was done erupting she looked him square in the eyes and leaned over the reception desk he’d been using as a command center.

Without looking away, she put out one finger and slowly pushed a souvenir Hoover Dam snow globe across the surface of the desk until it fell off the side and onto the floor, where it shattered.

Must have been a prized possession judging by the way Grant had been idly tapping on it when she first arrived at the dam, and by the way his face had turned gray after.

Ranger Grant didn’t have much fight left in him then, and in a much quieter and hoarser voice he laid out some of the areas of security that needed tightening up. She was glad to oblige.

Her primary concern had been Legion spies, as she’d been getting whispers along the well-paid grapevine that they weren’t going to miss a chance at President Kimball, no matter how well-guarded he would be.

Hoover Dam was practically crawling with Legion spies. She had ferreted a few out with no trouble. Honestly, she probably should have brought them to the MPs, but Lizzie Blue had been in a bad mood after Ranger Grant, and there was a barely-used bathroom deep in the sub-levels of the Visitor Center, and one of its stalls was practically piled with mutilated Legion bodies.

After some other “consulting” she took up a counter sniper detail, refusing the offer of a First Recon spotter. She had one of those at home and if she wanted a First Recon spotter, she’d have brought one.

The troops below continued to mass and Lizzie Blue became agitated despite herself. Part of that was how much energy she’d soaked up this morning. Not many people tended to sunbathe these days, not like the idle, jaded people of the prewar world. For Lizzie Blue it was practical. At dawn she’d climb up to the roof of the Lucky 38, shuck off all her clothes, and take in the sun.

Her back was tattooed with a dense pattern of circles, swoops and angles, looking like the traces on a circuit board. It didn’t have any sort of meaning, outside of mathematics. The “ink” was a colony of genetically engineered bacteria on a substrate of germanium and other rarer substances, and it transformed sunlight into usable energy. One nice effect of that was that she didn’t need to eat anymore.

That, and years of punishment fighting in the wastes had transformed her body into something… else. During those morning sessions she supposed any peeping toms would be less than titillated. Her tits, small to start with, were basically gone, along with most of her body fat. Scars everywhere, both from trauma and cybernetic surgery. Lizzie Blue thought that she was still beautiful, inasmuch as that mattered anymore.

It wasn’t just excess energy that had her antsy today. She had decided that she really did not like armies, and that realization had come after thinking over an odd little stray thought- everything she had done recently was motivated by two questions- Why, and Why Not.

Why build and maintain an army, at great expense, when one person, or a very small team of trusted fighters could accomplish everything an army could do, and more? Lizzie Blue had wondered more than once that if given favorable circumstances, time, and sufficiently elbow room, exactly how many people she could kill in one sitting.

Why stay locked to a human form riddled with frailty, if you could change it? Why keep an unreliable heart in your chest? If you could replace it with an advanced prosthetic that was superior in every way, why not? Lizzie Blue had done just that. The benefits were unimaginable to the average person. She’d once taken a full dose of cazador venom, straight from the tap, and laughed.

If you could remake yourself in whatever image you could think of, why not remake the world as well?

The vertibird landed on its concrete pad. Its side door opened and disgorged a foursome of those veteran rangers, in their black armor, who took up positions on either side of the vertibird, surveying the scene. Ranger Grant had joined them, and he reached inside the vertibird and helped a suited figure out onto the pad.

President Aaron Kimball.

Lizzie Blue kept watch through the scope, or at least part of her did, a segment of brain replaced with advanced processors quantum-entangled with even more advanced processors in a facility elsewhere in the Mojave.

The rest of her brain, bored out of its skull, thought about that facility and how it had changed her life.

One night, trekking through the outskirts of New Vegas on some pedestrian mission or the other, hustling for caps, she’d made the beautiful mistake of touching a crashed satellite that glowed blue in the desert night, projecting the ghoulish image of an enormous, spastic eyeball.

She’d been kidnapped in an instant- teleported to a huge prewar facility lost in the desert, experimented on- no, scratch that. She’d been vivisected in a truly horrific way, and not only managed to keep her wits mostly about her, but in the wake of that trauma Lizzie Blue had discovered in herself not only a natural talent for absorbing the how and what of science, but a fertile ground for her imagination and ambition.

Lizzie Blue had met the owner of that eyeball, an immortal, demented genius who had not only revealed to her the possibilities of science and technology unfettered by human limitations, but had also become her mentor and friend. His colleagues there, just as immortal and demented, hadn’t become her friends, but had become her employees.

One of them- a Doctor Borous- had come up with some truly amazing discoveries once she’d convinced him to give up his obsession with prewar grudges and pointless biological experiments. If she never saw another nightstalker in her life, it would be too soon. The germanium tattoo had been his idea, among others like viruses that used chelated manganese as a form of extrasomatic memory, allowing them to evolve much more efficiently, and accept orders on just how virulent to be.

The others had followed suit, inspired by Lizzie Blue’s seemingly inexhaustible vision of the future. She’d become immortal as well, among other things.

When she’d at last teleported herself back to New Vegas, she was a different person. Less human. More than human. Now she was limited only by her imagination. Morality, biology, even physics- they could go fuck themselves.

So she had begun seeing her ambitions take form. Caps, power, sex, violence- all irrelevant now except where they played a part in her design.

Lizzie Blue’s scope sight had tracked Kimball effortlessly as he made his way to the stage area. After introductions from some functionary who’d introduced himself as a chaplain and had the oak leaves of a major, then from Colonel Moore, the President began to speak.

“Thank you, Colonel Moore. And thank you, my fellow Californians, who have come so far to answer the call to service put forth by the republic. It is for you that I have come here, and it is because of you that I am able to do so. We enjoy our privileges because you take the greatest of risks...”

The bloviating continued in that vein for quite a while, until a little something through the scope perked Lizzie Blue up.

Further down the dam, on top of a short structure that had been converted from a maintenance building to a guard tower, there was the glint of another scope. Finally.

She knew from her consulting that there weren’t any NCR troops that were supposed to be positioned there. Further, after some “consulting” with a legion spy in that blood-soaked bathroom stall, she’d learned that that was exactly where they were placing a sniper.

Lizzie Blue put a bullet through the Legion fuck’s eye.

As soon as she did, before anyone had reacted, she reached up and toggled her helmet comms.

“Grant! Legion snipers. Get Kimball the hell out of here!”

She saw him react, and then the chaos started. The troopers exploded in a mix of confusion and terror, and the rangers that were flanking the President grabbed him and hustled him off the stage, back towards the vertibird pad.

One of the troopers didn’t look confused at all, and the combat knife he’d drawn didn’t look like it was for protecting Kimball. She put a bullet in him as well, then slung her rifle back over her shoulder and vaulted down the embankment before running to the vertibird pad herself.

She got there in almost no time, but as she ran up the stairs Kimball was already stuffed in the vertibird with two of the veteran rangers. Its rotors were spinning up and Ranger Grant approached her.

“Good work,” he yelled over the noise of the rotors. “Colonel Moore wants you to stick with President Kimball. His safety is priority one.”

She nodded and hopped in the side of the vertibird as it began to rise from the pad, doors not even shut in their haste to escape. She took her helmet off and locked eyes with Grant, before giving him an exaggerated wink.

Grant was a blowhard, but he was a good soldier. He must have known something else was wrong.

She was seated next to one of the rangers, across from the other, and across from Aaron Kimball who looked like he was one bout of turbulence away from puking.

The vertibird continued rising and putting space between them and the compromised Visitor Center.

Kimball leaned forward and extended his hand. Lizzie Blue took it and gave him a handshake with a bit too much grip, but not enough to injure him. To Kimball’s credit he didn’t flinch.

“That was some fantastic work, Miss. You saved my life out there.” He shook his head. “I thank you. The Republic thanks you. I understand you’re just an auxiliary, but I’m sure we could see about getting you a proper rank.”

Lizzie Blue nodded and shoved the ranger next to her out the door. He plummeted to his death below with a rough scream like something out of an old melodrama on holotape. The other ranger reached for his sidearm, fast, but not fast enough. Honestly, it wasn’t really fair. Before he’d even touched iron, she’d already lashed out and punched him in the throat where armor met helmet.

She grabbed the second ranger, gurgling with a crushed windpipe, and heaved him out of the vertibird as well. It never got old. She allowed a genuine smile as she turned to face the President of the New California Republic.

Kimball had been green before, but now was completely white, his mouth twitching in fear.

“What… you?” He started to stammer before Lizzie Blue reached forward and covered his face with her gloved hand.

“Shh. Be quiet now.”

With her other hand she pulled back the collar of his shirt, which tore, and leaned forward to kissing distance.

With a snap, Lizzie Blue opened her mouth wide and bit deep into President Aaron Kimble’s neck. His scream was muffled and didn’t manage to escape her hand. She bit again, and tore, and released him. She sat back with a mouthful of meat and blood, which she swallowed. Kimball had slumped over, blood spurting from the wound on his neck, and she could barely hear the pilot yelling and screaming.

This was it.

Lizzie Blue, in starting to take over the city of New Vegas, had thought about the men who held power in the Mojave, and the men of power from before the war who’d shit all over the world before they burned it down in nuclear fire. Why was it always men? Only men. Why not a woman? When she decided that woman was her, she’d thought about the most powerful men in the Mojave, and how she would kill them.

There was the King of course, and though he was ridiculous at the head of his prewar cult, he wielded an extraordinary influence throughout the region. He’d been the first she’d taken down, and the easiest. The King had invited her up to his bedroom to talk business, perhaps with the aim of turning her into one of his groupies. That had pissed her off, and as she stabbed him repeatedly she’d looked over at his pet Rex, the cyberdog. She’d wondered if Rex was going to eat the King now that he was dead.

That had given her an idea.

As Lizzie Blue had paused in her stabbing to take her knife and carve off a piece of the King’s flesh she reflected that she had never been prone to magical thinking. As the meat slid down her throat, the surge of power and strength she felt said otherwise.

After the King, she’d gone on a mission to the Legion fort with her First Recon friend, who had a very specific grudge against the Legion, as opposed to hers that was based on general principles. They’d fought their way through the fort, killing hordes of legionaries, until they made their way to Caesar’s tent. Once his bodyguards had been dispatched, she let Boone slay the tyrant. She knew his awful history and why he wanted revenge against the Legion.

Lizzie Blue cut off Caesar’s ear and offered it to Boone as a trophy. He’d refused, and when he wasn’t looking she popped it in her mouth.

Next on the list was Mr. House. She had a distaste for him as much as the others, but once she’d worked with him long enough to take advantage of his considerable resources, she’d bypassed all the robotic security of the Lucky 38 to reach his inner sanctum.

There, inside a life-preserving pod was the two hundred-something-year-old body of Robert House, withered and shrunken, kept just alive enough to allow his formidable brain to manipulate the outside world. Lizzie Blue popped the life support pod open, and House had cursed her from his atrophied throat.

She clubbed him to death with a golf club she’d taken from his own resort. Wham, bam, goddamn. While the body twitched with the remnants of life, if it could be called that, she had considered the butchery at hand. His skin and muscles were barely there, and amazingly foul. So she cut open his chest to reveal his heart, probably the freshest bit of flesh in his whole body.

It had been disgusting, but she forced it down until she was practically ecstatic with the rush of power.

Now, she had crossed off the last name on her list. With Kimball dead the NCR in the Mojave would be in complete chaos, and that would probably reverberate all the way back to Shady Sands. Lizzie Blue knew that the NCR probably considered her a terrorist and Cassandra Moore would be sending ranger hit squads after her head. A complete waste of effort and lives. Lizzie Blue had what she wanted from the NCR, and if she needed more she would take it.

The vertibird had made it pretty far out into the desert, and though the pilot was turning around to get back to the Dam, it was too late. Lizzie Blue had activated her teleport device, and as it was building its charge she noticed something- under Kimball’s seat, a large, crude explosive. The Legion just wouldn’t stop being annoying, even under the impulsive leadership of Caesar’s replacement Lanius.

Lizzie Blue grinned. They were going to have a hell of a time figuring out what had happened to Kimball once they found the scattered wreckage of the vertibird.

Still grinning as the teleport device activated, Lizzie Blue felt amazing. She was a champion. She was a demigod. It had been said that war never changes, and what was the human struggle for power and survival, but a war? Well, she had changed it. Just like she had changed herself.

Lizzie Blue was going to drag the Mojave kicking and screaming into the future. And the future was only limited by her imagination.