New Vegas: Sheason's Story - Chapter 117: For Auld Lang Syne

“Well, I’ll be damned…” Marcus laughed to himself as Arcade and I walked through the Jacobstown gates. ED-E was with us, hovering along right behind. “Didn’t expect to see The Courier strolling back into my town anytime soon.” He held out a massive hand, and I tried to shake it, but it just seemed to disappear within his palm.

“Didn’t expect to be coming,” I said with a smile. “How’re you doing, Marcus? Those asshole mercs leaving you guys alone? Or should I start crackin’ some heads?” Marcus shook his head, and folded his massive arms across his chest.

“Nah. You scared them off pretty good last time. Haven’t heard a peep from them in weeks.” He nodded, looking me up and down approvingly. “You look good. Different. Confident. You look like you’ve been taking my advice to heart. What’ve you been up to?”

I almost laughed out loud. I tried to think of all the myriad things that have gone on in my life since Marcus and I had that conversation here in the middle of the night all those weeks ago. The Sierra Madre. Nellis. Mobsters. Killing House. The Brotherhood. The Vaults. Cannibals. A love triangle that resulted in two floors of the Lucky 38 getting demolished. Getting abducted by mad scientists. Deathclaws chasing me. Enclave assassins. Apart from the love triangle, that is a long list of hilariously improbable things. And even the love triangle was… if nothing else, it was proving that triangle relations are the worst kind of geometry.

“Dude,” I continued trying to hold back laughter while I shook my head. “Even if I told you half of what I’d been through lately, I don’t think you’d believe me.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Marcus shrugged, and fiddled with one of the vice knobs attached to his shoulder armor. “I used to roll with The Chosen One, remember. After following him around the wasteland, my tolerance for unbelievable acts is pretty high.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “Henry in his office?”

“You’re looking for him again?” Marcus asked, furrowing his brow.

“Yeah, but it’s for something… there’s no cyberdog this time. He in his office?” Marcus nodded, and Arcade, ED-E and I started to walk past him.

“Hang on.” Marcus called out after us. I turned around to see him looking at his wrist and holding up his other hand. I honestly couldn’t tell if there was a watch on his wrist or not – would it even fit around that tree-trunk of an arm? “Keep holdin’ on…” He counted down with his fingers: 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. As soon as he closed his raised hand into a fist, there was a very loud bang from one of the lodge buildings. I looked over to the noise, and realized that several of the 1st story corner windows on the building that housed Henry’s lab were lit up like a mushroom cloud before finally fading away. Speaking of clouds, several clouds of smoke appeared to puff out of the cracks in the window after the light died down.

“Alright,” Marcus finally said, lowering both arms with a smile. “You’re probably safe to go see him now.”

“Probably?” Arcade asked, a bit worried. I slapped Arcade on the back, and tried to cheer him up.

“Look at it this way. Probably safe is a lot better than definitely unsafe. We should be fine.”

The two of us started to walk away, when I suddenly stopped in my tracks. The last few minutes, my brain had been trying to remember details of when I’d talked with Marcus in the middle of the night the last time I’d been here. There was something he’d said that night that was pulling at the back of my brain. I felt like it was important. And then, right at that moment – it hit me.

“Hey, Marcus?” I turned back to the super mutant. “When you used to travel with the Chosen One… I seem to recall something you mentioned as being the craziest thing you guys did. I can’t remember – what was it?” Marcus rubbed his chin, as if deep in thought, but I could tell he already knew what he was going to say.

“Well…” Marcus cleared his throat. “I suppose if I had to pick just one – and, believe me, picking just one is very hard – then I think I’d go with nuking the oil rig.”

Dead silence.

“I.. I’m sorry, what did you say?” Arcade asked, once he found his voice. I didn’t say anything. I was just grinning like an idiot at the sheer hilarity.

“Well, to be fair, it was Frank Horrigan who set the self destruct.,” Marcus said with a shrug. Arcade and I looked wide eyed at one another, and then back at Marcus. “It was a sort of final ‘Fuck You’ to the Chosen One, after we blew him in half.”

Another moment of dead silence.

“Frank… wait, did you say in half?” I was the one to break the silence this time. “What do you mean, in half? Do you-”

“I mean,” Marcus said with a chuckle. He was clearly enjoying himself. “He was split in half. His torso was over here,” Marcus motioned to a spot by his feet. “And his legs were all the way over there.” He pointed to a place very far removed from the location by his feet. “The crazy thing is, that didn’t really stop him. That stubborn, giant bastard clung to life as a torso just long enough to walk on his hands and monologue at us. I’d say that took guts, but by then they were spread out all over the floor, so I suppose that’s not strictly true, is it?” Marcus laughed heartily, and all Arcade could do was just nod his head weakly.

“This is… just… what the fuck, man…” There was a sick desperation in my laugh as I rubbed my face trying to make sense of all this. “We were just talking about the oil rig less than an hour ago, and Frank Horrigan as well! This is… I mean… just…” I laughed, and shook my head with a smile. “Small world, isn’t it?” Marcus nodded.

“I’ve known that since I found out you were traveling with John Cassidy’s daughter.” Marcus looked around, over both shoulders several times, and then settled back on me. “Speaking of which, where is Rose of Sharon? She still around?”

“Yeah, Cass is… She’s still around. She just didn’t come up today because it’s kind of… It’s Arcade’s thing today, you know?”

“I understand,” Marcus nodded. “You take care of her, alright?” I tried to suppress the smile. Not sure it worked.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Arcade, shut up,” I didn’t even bother to look at him when I preemptively cut him off.

“Wh- I didn’t even say anything!”

“Yeah, but you were thinking it.”

“Uh…” Marcus regarded the two of us cautiously. “Should I… do I even want to-”

“No you don’t,” I said quickly, shaking my head. I jammed my thumb over my shoulder at the (presumably) still smoking lodge office behind us. “So, we’re gonna go see Henry, now. It was nice seeing you, Marcus.”

“You too,” he said with a smile and a wave. “Come on back anytime.”

The double doors that led into Doc Henry’s office looked like they had been fixed – which is good, because the last time I’d seen them, they’d been broken open by a giant Nightkin and practically reduced to splinters. The door frame, however, was still cracked and mostly broken around the edges. Which meant that the new doors didn’t quite fit properly.

My hand was mere inches away from the handle when I heard a few voices from inside:

“I think we really made some progress with that last test, don’t you think?” Henry’s distinctive elderly rumble echoed through the door.

“I should certainly hope so,” That sounded like a female ghoul – Calamity, probably. “We used two extinguishers putting the fires out.”

“This harness is itchy!” came another voice like a 300 pound lumberjack gargling gravel. That might be Lily, but it could’ve been another super mutant. I couldn’t stand just standing here listening, so I rapped on the door several times; there were a few indistinct shuffling sounds.

“Check the levels, Calamity,” I heard Doc Henry again. “Make sure they’re consistent with the readings from yesterday, I’ll get the door.” There was a click, and one of the doors swung inward; Henry’s expression changed from confused to delighted as soon as he saw the two of us. “Well, this is unprecedented – I certainly didn’t expect to see either of you around any time soon.”

“Hello, Henry,” Arcade said with a smile and a nod. “Always nice to see you.”

“You got a minute?” I asked, leaning around Arcade. “We need to talk about something.”

“Certainly, certainly,” Henry stepped aside, allowing the two of us entrance into his office. It didn’t look the same as before – there was quite a lot more stuff inside, now. There were more monitors, tons of linked servers, machines spewing out reams of paper with line after line of data, wires and cables and conduits stapled to the floor, the walls, the ceiling… And speaking of walls, one of the far walls had been demolished completely, leading into the next room. That next room was completely FULL of power generators. It was wall to wall, floor to ceiling, generators piled on top of one another. It was like a gigantic metal beast was chained up in the next room, vomiting power cables into this one.

There were about ten jars scattered in various random places around the room, and each jar contained a small brain (or possibly just pieces of damaged brains) suspended in bio-med gel. One of them was sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the device Lily had been hooked up to when she tested the Stealth Boy Mk II. There were more sensors and panels and dishes all surrounding the device. The collecting dishes looked a bit like umbrellas – and on closer inspection, that’s exactly what they were.

“Oh, hello dearie!” Lily’s gravelly voice broke me out of my inspection of all the various bits of scientific equipment around the room. I turned to look at her, and saw her suspended from the ceiling, sun hat and goggles still on her head. Several wires were poking out from under the hat, snaking their way up to the ceiling and over to the rest of the machines. She reached out to try and grab me, but was a bit too far away because she was strapped into the harness. She couldn’t move forward to reach, so she just flailed around uselessly in place. “It’s so lovely to see you again, pumpkin! C’mere, give your grandma a hug!”

“It’s nice to see you again, Lily,” I said, gingerly giving one of her giant sausage fingers a shake, and then turned to Henry. “What’s she still doing here? I thought you said you didn’t need her for tests?”

“I have con-troll!” Lily shouted happily… and then she snapped her head to the side. “Yes, Leo! You have con-troll, too! There’s no need to interrupt!”

“Don’t worry, she hasn’t tested the Stealth Boy since the first one,” Henry said with a nod. “We have her here as part of the control group, monitoring her brainwave patterns against the neuro-peptide nightstalker brains. She’s not the only volunteer, but it’s still fitting you should come today – it’s her turn.”

“This harness is still itchy!” Lily turned (as much as she could) over to Henry. “Can I come down now?”

“Certainly. Calamity, help her down. I have a strange feeling…” Henry looked over at Arcade and I with a smile, staring at the two of us with strangely magnified eyes behind his gigantic thick glasses. “… that we’re done for the day.” While Calamity helped Lily get down, Henry turned to face us completely, and folded his arms across his chest. “So… to what do I owe the pleasure, boys?”

“We’re getting the team back together,” Arcade said simply. Henry’s eyes widened, and his glasses made them look almost comically large.

“You mean -” Henry began. Arcade just nodded. At least, I think he nodded. I was just a tiny bit distracted by Lily picking me up in a bear hug like she was trying to snap my spine.

“Yep. If you’re in, then we need to head to the bunker as soon as possible.” Henry furrowed his brow as Arcade spoke, and after a moment, it was obvious his mind was made up. He turned to Calamity (who had, thankfully, pulled me out of Lily’s grip and was in the process of shooing the super mutant grandma out of the room).

“Calamity, I – I’m going to need to leave the lab for a while. In fact, I need to leave Jacobstown completely. I’m not… entirely certain when I’m going to be back. Do you think you can handle the tests and production for the cure?” Calamity raised a skinless brow in mild confusion.

“Uh… I think so? You and I have been pretty meticulous about notes, and we’re fairly close to a cure anyway. The biggest hurdle is figuring out the proper dosage. And manufacturing it on a large scale…” Calamity coughed. “But yeah… yeah, I think I can handle it.”

“Good,” Henry said, extending his hand. “I’m sorry for springing this on you, but this is…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Calamity shook Henry’s hand, and nodded, smiling at him with a cracked grin. “You do what you need to do. I can handle things here.” Calamity glanced over in my direction, and instantly her smile faded. “Just so long as you don’t ask me to ride in that lunatic’s car again, I’m good.”

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?” I asked. Calamity just shook her head.

The bunker was (apparently) pretty close to Jacobstown. About a mile down the mountain, on the east side. I’m not sure if Calamity’s comments had any bearing on the decision, or if the terrain was too uneven and wooded for driving a car to be feasible, but Henry opted not to have me drive us there. The three of us instead decided to walk, with ED-E zooming along through the treetops above us.

When we set off down the mountain, the sun was still relatively high in the sky. As we walked, we talked. Arcade and I relayed to Henry everything we’d told Judah about an hour ago about the Enclave Shadow – not to mention everything he’d told us about Frank Horrigan. He needed to know exactly what we knew about this for him to be any help at all, I reasoned. By the time Arcade and I were finished, the sun was significantly lower than the treetops.

“So,” I said, lacing my hands behind my head. “Is there any information you can provide about this mysterious Shadow person?”

“Captain Kreger certainly thought you’d be able to help,” Arcade offered up. Henry, on the other hand, just kept his gaze straight as we walked through the woods, refusing to look up at either of us. I shot a look of concern at Arcade, who seemed… I’m not sure. Cautiously optimistic? Perhaps that’s too bland a description for that face.

“What you’re describing…” Henry finally said with a slight shake to his voice. “It’s… that’s not possible. It was cancelled, there’s just… there’s no way…” Henry trailed off, and I looked back at Arcade again. Okay, that was definitely worry, now.

“What was?” Arcade asked. Henry just… was that a smile?

“Judah was right. About a lot, but one thing in particular. Back when I was stationed on the oil rig, I knew a few people… responsible for Frank Horrigan. At least, responsible for sealing him inside that armor. Enhancing him. Running tests. But they weren’t what made him the monster. He was already a monster, even before the FEV.”

“FE…” I said slowly. It felt like a lightbulb lit up over my head. “Wait, so he was a mutant? Kreger said he didn’t know for sure.”

“Oh, he was a mutant, alright. Not that anyone would ever say that to his face. He was part of the vanguard that assaulted and occupied the Mariposa base in California… and he was also one of the first to be exposed to the wrecked FEV vats. The compound there was nothing like it was supposed to be – the virus itself had mutated heavily, being contaminated to the open air for so many years. I don’t know if it was the compound, his level of exposure, or his specific bio-chemistry, but the FEV turned Frank Horrigan into something… unique. His like was never seen before or since.”

“The Captain didn’t seem to think so,” Arcade said. “This Enclave Shadow – or, our descriptions of her, at least – reminded him of that monster.” Henry kept staring ahead, muttering a soft grunt of understanding.

“And that just proves what I’ve said for years about Judah – the man has great instincts. A few months after the tests on Frank stopped yielding useful data, a few of the scientists responsible got together. They created a proposal for a new project, and tried to run it by the President. A sort of ‘Frank Horrigan 2.0,’ as it were.”

“Like a super soldier program?” Arcade asked. “Sort of like what FEV was supposed to do in the first place, right?” Henry nodded.

“If I recall correctly,” Henry continued, “one of them even said flat out: ‘We don’t want to make more like Frank Horrigan. He was a mistake. A freak accident. The goal is to do it better.’ I can guarantee he wouldn’t have said that if Horrigan was in the room.”

“You knew some of the scientists involved in that plan?” I asked, already guessing the answer. Henry nodded, still refusing to look at either of us.

“I knew most of them, professionally at least, but I was only friends with one. Jacob Stein. He was going to be the Project Lead. Talked about it constantly during the summer of ’39. But… as far as I knew, he never got the funding. The project was shut down before it even started. They only got as far as the project code name: ASCENSION. So, what you were describing… it sounds like there was a successful test subject. But that doesn’t make sense. How can there be a success from a mothballed initiative?” Henry shook his head. “Something doesn’t add up…”

“Hate to be Captain Obvious, here,” I coughed, clearing my throat. “But don’t you think it’s likely that a secret project like that would only claim to be cancelled? I mean, nobody would even think to look too closely for something that’s not supposed to exist, right?”

“It’s certainly possible…” Henry mused, rubbing his chin. “One of the… many reasons the Enclave leadership and I didn’t see eye to eye was a certain… lack of transparency. Too many secrets, and no way to figure them out without getting charged with treason. That’s no good for a scientist.” Henry grunted again. “But if there was a success, why not broadcast it? The first thing they did when the Mark II was operational was show it off. Until the unveiling, that was a secret project, too.”

“They wouldn’t if she was part of Enclave Shadow Ops, like Judah thinks,” Arcade chimed in. “The most dangerous thing for a spy is being visible to everyone. I know you may not like it, but I’ve learned over the years that secrets can have their uses.” Henry shook his head at first… and then slowly nodded.

“Yes… yes, I suppose you’re right. And that would make a certain amount of sense… It’s still strange, though.”

“Speaking of secrets,” I added. “Orion can never know about this. You know that, right?” Henry laughed out loud.

“Believe me, I understand. If Moreno were to… God, that would only end in tears.” Henry grunted, shaking his head. “This was the absolute last thing I thought I’d be talking about when I got up this morning, you know that?”

“Welcome to my life,” I said with a smile.

“Well, it’s about damn time,” Johnson said as the three of us rounded a small ridge. He was leaning against a rocky cliff face; standing next to him were both Daisy Whitman and Judah Kreger. Daisy’s motorcycle was leaning up against a nearby tree.

“Hey! Henry’s here!” Daisy beamed, tipping her hat back. “I knew you’d find your way here eventually!”

“Always nice to see you, Master Sergeant,” Judah said with a nod. He was wearing his Enclave officer hat.

“Daisy. Hannibal. Judah,” Henry said with a smile, nodding at each as he said their names. “It’s good to see you all. It has been far too long.”

“Hang on, someone’s missing,” I looked around and did a mental headcount. “Where’s Orion? Don’t we need him to get into the bunker?”

“He got tired of waiting,” Judah shrugged. “He said he wanted to do a little hunting.” A rifle shot echoed from somewhere in the woods. “Ah, that’s probably him now. ”

A few minutes later, Orion Moreno walked out of the woods with his Winchester resting on his shoulder. His dog, Jackson, was trotting along next to him, with something large and slimy clamped in its mouth. When they got closer, I saw the dead nightstalker Jackson was dragging along by the tail. Moreno halted a few steps away from everyone, and looked over the assembled crowd, his gaze eventually settling on me.

“Fuck,” Orion scowled at me. “I was almost hoping you weren’t coming. Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Kreger and Johnson were the first to move. They both made their way to a sunken portion of the ground nearby, and the two of them leaned down to clear away some debris and foliage… and their efforts revealed a circular metal hatch buried in the ground. The two of them grunted as they turned the wheel, but it eventually gave in with a pop and a hiss of displaced air. The hatch was lifted, revealing a dark shaft and a ladder; one by one, each of the Remnants climbed down into the hole.

I was the last one down. Thankfully, the tight circular tunnel didn’t last too long, and I found myself in a rather large metal chamber. The curved walls and ceiling reminded me a bit of the Brotherhood bunker in Hidden Valley, as did the dark green color of the metal and the faint lights coming from below the grated metal floor. Judah flicked a switch, and suddenly a light flickered on with a clunk. At the far end of the chamber was a large metal door, and on the wall next to it was a terminal, which flicked on with the overhead light.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Kreger’s silky smooth voice echoed throughout the chamber. “When I put this place into standby mode, I expected to return to it within a few years. Not decades. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t fallen apart.”

“Wait, what is this place?” I asked.

“Minor refueling station for vertibirds from before the war,” Judah replied. “Seemed an appropriate place to stash our equipment, and keep it safe if we ever needed it again.”

“It’ll be nice to see the old gal again,” Daisy chuckled. Judah walked past her and approached the terminal. He wiped some dust off the screen, and held a thumb over one of the buttons.

“You ready?” He looked at the assembled Remnants. One by one, they each nodded. His thumb hit the button, and the screen flashed.

“Dear,” Daisy said.

“Old,” Johnson added.

“Friends,” Doc Henry coughed out.

“Remember,” Moreno growled.

“Navarro,” Judah finished off the code.

As soon as Kreger said the final word, the computer blinked red several times, and then beeped, flashing green. A heavy thunk echoed throughout the chamber, and the door split in half, displacing quite a lot of dust.

“Voice key passcode accepted,” a robotic, vaguely female voice said from a speaker near the terminal. “Welcome home.” The doors ground open with a shudder, and several lights flickered to life deeper within the bunker.

The room beyond was positively cavernous, and dominated almost entirely by the vertibird parked in the center. I’d never seen one up close before, and it was a lot more… bulbous than I was expecting. It reminded me a bit of an insect, with twin rotors on the sides instead of wings. Emblazoned on the side of the aircraft was a large E surrounded by a circle of 12 stars.

“Hey there, gal,” Daisy went up to one of the bulbous viewports at the front of the vertibird, and ran her hand along the outside. Her fingertips left distinct marks in the dust. “I’ve missed you.” While Whitman got reacquainted with her helicopter, I looked around, and saw something that made my jaw drop.

“What the…” I muttered under my breath. Lined up against one of the walls were six… they looked like giant cylindrical beer cans made out of shimmering blue energy. Inside each was a massive set of power armor that most certainly was not the kind of armor the Brotherhood used. They were painted dark green, and were altogether much more bulky and menacing. The energy fields surrounding them must have kept out the dust as well, because I couldn’t see any on the armor. The joints looked a bit rusty, but that was it. The helmets were definitely familiar: the angry yellow eyes, the cables sticking out of the top like a pair of horns, the triangular, almost beak-like covering over the mouth…

No wonder Arcade recognized the Shadow’s helmet.

“You coming?” Arcade said, drawing my attention. I looked over, and realized that all five of the Remnants were funneling into another nearby room, and gathering around a large circular table. It looked like it could display a map… I can see where this is going already. I scrolled through the functions on my Pip Boy as made my way to the room, and just as I found the map I was looking for, the heavy doors slid shut behind me.

“Well, you’ve got us all here,” Judah said, leaning against the table. “What’s this mission you have in mind?”

“Any day now,” I said, pulling out one of the cables on the side of my Pip Boy and connecting it to one of the input ports on the side of the table. “Caesar’s Legion is going to try and cross the dam, just like they tried to do four years ago.” The map flicked to life, and an overhead topographical view of Hoover Dam and the surrounding area appeared on the top of the table. It was just a two dimensional image though. I was half expecting it to be a hologram. “The NCR held the line last time, but I seriously doubt they’ll be able to pull off the same trick twice. That’s why I’ve been gathering allies to fight against the Legion and drive them out of the Mojave for good. I thin-”

“I fucking knew it!” Moreno shouted, cutting me off my slamming his fists on the map table. “I didn’t come out all this way just to save the fuckin’ NCR! Fuck this, I’m out!” And with that, he stormed out – which certainly explained why he’d stuck so close to the door.

“Wh- who said anything about – hey, wait! I wasn’t fi-” The door slammed shut before I got a chance to explain. I pulled the cord out of the table, and it retracted back into my Pip Boy with a snap. “Fuck.”

“Saw that coming,” Johnson said, leaning against one of the back walls.

“I thought he would’ve at least let me finish before running away,” I muttered, turning to Judah. “You’re his CO, can’t you order him to come back and hear the whole plan?” Kreger shook his head.

“I’m not his CO. Not anymore. Hell, if Gannon Senior hadn’t bought it, I wouldn’t even be that. I was the squad XO… but it’s like I said before, we’re all just folk, now. I have no more authority to order anyone here around than you do.”

“Is he going to be a liability?” I asked, heading for the door. It wasn’t motion activated, so I had to hit a button on the side.

“He won’t turn on us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Judah said as the door began to slowly creep open. Why was it taking so long? “But he’s a good shot, and I’d hate to do this without him. If you want us to succeed, then we’re going to need him.”

“Alright. Hopefully he’s not in his truck and driving off already…” I said just as the door finally opened completely, allowing me to step through.

I could not have been more wrong.

The first thing I noticed: of the six force field cylinders lining the wall, one of them was deactivated… and empty. At the far end of the hangar, I heard a loud clunk… followed by heavy, metallic, plodding footsteps. And then the door behind me slammed shut, a lot faster than it opened. I looked behind me, and realized that I was now cut off from the rest of the Remnants – and Arcade.

“Change of plan…” I heard Moreno’s voice. It was pushed through a filter, booming, and echoing off every surface, but unmistakably his. A massive set of power armor walked around the vertibird, each footfall echoing like thunder. “I’ve sealed all the doors leading into the hangar. I don’t want my friends getting involved in our little… disagreement.” When I saw what he was carrying, I tried to hide my shock: that had to be the absolute biggest plasma caster I’d ever seen in my entire life. “Once I’m done with you, I’ll talk them out of this idiotic plan. You’ve opened some old wounds…” The plasma caster flicked on with a hum, and the three bladed prongs on the end sparked into life with a burst of green energy. “It’s only fair that I return the favor.”

“You know,” I said, keeping my voice steady as a stone. “You could’ve at least had the decency to listen to the whole plan. There was a lot more to it.” Moreno laughed darkly.

“What’s there to know? You want to help the NCR beat the Legion… and that’s all I need to know.”

“Just because I want the Legion to lose,” I said quickly, ignoring the bead of sweat on my forehead. “Doesn’t meant I want the NCR to win.” Moreno stood still as a statue for what felt like eternity, until finally… the plasma arcing at the end of the heavy weapon shut off.

“You’ve got sixty seconds,” Moreno growled. “You start talking, or I start shooting.”

“I want you to picture something in your head. The Remnants swoop in on the dam from on high, dispensing high-speed death. You show the NCR how it’s done. We all roll in, guns blazing, and push the Legion back to the other side. We kick the hell out of them until they run back to Arizona with their tails between their legs… and then, when the NCR is celebrating, licking their wounds, and – most importantly – too tired to put up any kind of a fight? That’s when we turn around, kick ’em in the nuts, and throw them off the fuckingdam.” I paused, hoping that would be enough, and that I hadn’t taken the whole sixty seconds. When Moreno didn’t move or say anything, I added one last thing: “I may let the NCR take the dam, but I’m sure as shit not gonna let them keep it.”

At that moment, the door behind me ground open with a painful groan of metal against metal.

“I think that did it!” I heard Arcade’s voice from behind me, on the other side of the door. “Oh, fff-” I couldn’t tell if Arcade finished that curse, because he was a bit drowned out by Daisy gasping loudly. I walked up to Moreno, ignoring the voices behind me, and craned my neck to look up at the towering behemoth. I only let myself relax after he lowered the plasma caster.

“So…” Moreno growled again. “You have us help them at the dam, only to screw them over later?”

“In a sentence, yes,” I nodded. “That’s the plan. I don’t like the NCR, but I hate the Legion even more. So I want to build a Mojave free of both of them. Free of the NCR’s corruption and bureaucracy, free of the Legion’s slavery, brutality, and bullshit. I’m going to create a new nation by kicking those two square in the ass until everyone goes home. I plan on making a place with no gods, and no masters. Just a bunch of people – common folk – all standing up with one voice and shouting: Leave us alone. No more invasions. No more armies. Get the FUCK out!”

Behind me, I heard a few hushed whispers… but I was mostly concerned with the power armored bastard standing over me. He snorted out a grunt, which was amplified to ridiculous levels by the filter on the helmet.

“All right. Fine. But don’t expect me to hold my fire if any of those NCR faggots get in my way.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, pulling a straight face. At least he wasn’t trying to kill me anymore. “Now, c’mon. We’ve got work to do.”