New Vegas: Sheason's Story - Chapter 140: Slowhand

“So, we were right then?” Emily’s voice buzzed in my ear.

“Seems that way,” I whispered softly, keeping the binoculars pressed against my face. “This is definitely another Los Zorroz hideout.”

It was around mid-morning the next day, and I’d decided to do a bit of recon. I was lying flat on my stomach, on top of a roof in Freeside, scanning a building three streets away through a pair of binoculars. It was another warehouse, like the other one from a few nights ago .The outside of the squat concrete building was covered in graffiti, and most of it was red, with several ‘Los Zorroz’ tags in prominent display.

What really made it stand out – at least to me – was how well fortified it was. It was subtle, and even if it wasn’t in a mostly abandoned part of Freeside, I doubt anyone would have noticed any of the defenses at all. The windows were covered in both metal bars and sheets of steel riveted in place. The front door looked like it was reinforced from the inside. And then there were the two steel hatches on either side of the big door; they had to be the same kind of gun-ports I’d seen at Los Zorroz Arms.

“Do you see any way inside?” Emily asked, and I heard a faint tapping of keys as she talked. She must be taking notes.

“No,” I grunted, shifting my weight to get a better look. “At least… nothing easy. I can’t see any skylights or a door leading to the roof, so going in from above is out. And every other door at ground level – except the big one in front – has been bricked over. I think the only way in is to knock on the front door.”

“So it’s impossible, then?” Emily asked, and I snorted out a laugh involuntarily.

“Oh, I didn’t say that. I just said it wouldn’t be easy.” I kept scanning the building, and my eyes drifted back to one of the boxy metal HVAC units on the roof; it was belching out puffs of yellow smoke every few seconds.

“Any ideas on what this place is?” Emily asked.

“Drug lab,” I replied, almost before she finished. “I’m not sure what, but they’re definitely cookin’ up something in there. Are there any cameras around, so you can take a look for yourself?”

“Maybe… I think there’s a feed… from…” Emily started typing furiously for a few seconds. “Ah! Yes, there we – JESUS!” I flinched from the sound of Emily yelling in my ear.

“What? What’s the problem?”

“You said that’s a drug lab?!” Emily’s voice cracked a little. I gave a sort of affirmative grunt. “That… that place is huge! If they’re really… that might be the source of all the drugs in Freeside!”

“Probably not all the drugs…” I muttered, knowing all too well that dangerous chems somehow found their way into every corner of the wasteland. “But a place like that is bound to be making a lot.”

“Can you tell if there are any more of those force fields, like at the armory?” Emily asked. I hadn’t thought about it, so I blinked, and suddenly the world was awash in dark blue, intercut with criss-crossing white lines.

“Hmm… I’m not sure. The EM vision in my cybernetic eyes doesn’t give enough detail from this far away…” I blinked, and everything returned to normal. “I still don’t know what these gangbangers are doing with something high tech like that.”

“They probably stole it,” Emily said simply. “I’ve seen force fields like that before. And yeah, the science in designing a photonic resonance barrier is absurd, but they’re easy enough to build if you have a schematic. All you need is a disassembled plasma rifle and a pair of pulse mines.”

“Yeah… I dunno. Somehow, I don’t buy that,” I muttered. “The first time I ever saw a force field was in the Sierra Madre vault.”

“Really?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Vault City has been using them for years. I saw about ten, the last time I was there about five years ago. It’s not impossible that they got their hands on one.”

“Hmm…” I grunted. I still felt like something was off, but without any more information, just talking about it wasn’t going to solve anything, so I just decided to drop the issue. For now.

“Alright, so… what’s the plan?” Emily asked.

“Well, since –” That’s all I managed to get out before I stopped myself. I thought I heard something. Was that somebody shouting?

“Wh-” I shushed Emily before she could say too much.

“Heeeeelp!” A voice echoed from somewhere behind me. Immediately, I started moving in the direction of the sound, but I still kept myself low in an effort not to be seen. I clutched at my earpiece as I ran.

“Emily, someone’s being attacked, southwest of my position! Tell me you’ve got eyes on it!”

“Uh… hang on…” I kept heading in the direction of the sounds, not entirely certain if I was getting closer or not; it was mostly indistinct shouting and yelling. The clickety-clack sounds of Emily typing furiously buzzed in my ear. “I think I see it. It’s an alley, two streets away. There’s two – no, three. There’s… he’s on the ground! Hurry!”

PKCHOONT!

I sailed through the air, having aimed the grapnel at a building about two streets away. The sounds got louder, so I must have been going in the right direction – and the next thing I knew, I was hanging onto the side of the building, almost directly above an alley where two red-clad thugs were kicking and shouting at someone curled up into a ball on the street.

“Augh! Stop! Please st-aaaugh!” The man yelled, between pain-wracked sobs. “I already paid this month, I don’t – ouugh!” The two thugs stopped kicking him, and one of them grabbed him, shoving him against the brick wall.

“I don’t care what you think you paid,” the lead thug growled. “The price of protection has gone up.”

“That’s right,” the other thug offered up. “You don’t pay up, we’ll set your shop on fire – with you in it. Understand?” While they were yelling, I was trying to get down there, but the release button on the grapnel gun was jammed. I was almost five stories up. And I couldn’t use my guns either – they’d be way too loud and draw way too much attention for what was still (technically) a stealth mission, and there was a chance I’d hit the guy they were attacking.

“Please!” the man against the wall whimpered. “I’ve – augh! – I’ve got kids! Please!”

I smacked the grapnel gun once… twice… and then, with the third hit, the wire finally gave me some slack and I started sliding down the wall.

“You should’ve thought of that bef–” He didn’t finish. I’d hit the button to disconnect the grapnel from the wall, kicked off, and tackled him from above. I heard some kind of surprised gurgle as I landed on him feet-first. He crumpled into a heap on the concrete, and I rolled off him, getting back on my feet.

“What the –” the other thug yelled by the time he realized what was going on. He reached back and swung, trying to punch me, but I was too fast. I grabbed his fist mid-swing with my cybernetic hand… and squeezed. He dropped to his knees, and he yelled; it almost drowned out the sound of all the bones in his hand turning to powder. He finally shut up when I belted him in the face with a left cross, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“No you don’t,” I growled, letting go of him. Without pausing, I brought my fist back over my shoulder, and it smashed into something solid with a wet thud. I spun around, and the first thug had gotten on his feet only to get his nose broken by my offhand-backhand. He was staggering back, clutching at his bleeding face, and I kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying into the brick wall behind him. He collapsed face-first, and didn’t get back up.

“Are you alright?” I turned to the man they’d been beating up. He looked about middle-age, wearing torn and patched up clothing that was flecked from the blood leaking out of his face. I offered him my hand, but he didn’t take it at first. He just sat there, trembling, and wiped the blood away from his mouth. “It’s okay, man,” I offered, trying to calm him down. “I’m here to help.” After a few seconds more, he cautiously grabbed my hand.

“T-thanks,” he said after I helped him back onto his feet. “I thought th-they were gonna kill me. I didn’t… I didn’t anyone would…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I patted him on the shoulder. “If you need a ride, I can drive you to the Followers. They can get you patched up.” He went back to staring at me, as if he thought I was nuts.

“A… are you for real?” I nodded. “Wow… that…”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it.” While he stood there dumbfounded, I turned my attention back to the two motionless thugs, lying facedown on the pavement. An idea formed in my head, and I reached into one of my pockets. “Hold on a minute.” I knelt down and grabbed one of the unconscious thugs by the boot.

“Wh-what are you doing?” He asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” I replied as vaguely as I thought I could get away with. I took one of the sharp tracking devices, and shoved it deep into the thug’s boot-heel. I did the same with the other one, and turned back to my new friend. “Alright, c’mon. Let’s get you out of here.”

Ding.

As soon as I walked out of the elevator and into the suite, I heard the sounds of music. It sounded like Veronica had hooked up her record player to the jukebox in the common room.

If you wanna hang out,

You’ve gotta take her out,

Cocaine.

If you wanna get down,

Down on the ground,

Cocaine.

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t liiiiiie,

Cocaine.

“Hey, V! You got a sec?” I asked, sticking my head in the common room. Sure enough, she was sitting on the couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table. In her hands was a book that she seemed thoroughly engrossed in reading.

“Hm? What’s up?” she asked, not even bothering to look up. I grabbed the back of one of the adjacent easy chairs, and flopped down into it, leaning over to try and get a better look at the cover.

“What’re you readin’?” I asked. Veronica lifted up the cover, but kept her nose in the book.

“Ulysses by James Joyce,” she said, the faintest hint of a smirk creeping into the side of her mouth. “Arcade started reading it after you got that transmission, and let me borrow it when he finished.”

“You know, the Ulysses I fought in the Divide named himself after the Civil War general. I told you that, right?” Veronica shrugged.

“Yeah, well, Leopold Bloom isn’t really the Ulysses from myth, either. I don’t know where Arcade keeps finding all these books, but his room is starting to look like a library.”

“I wonder if he has Alice in Wonderland. I haven’t read that in years.” I mused aloud, and then chuckled to myself. “Maybe we should talk to him about starting a book club.” Veronica started giggling.

“Knowing Arcade, he’d pick Marcel Proust’s À la recherché du temps perdu as our first book, and reading that would take up all of our time for the next month,” she said. “I mean, it’s a good read, but seven volumes? That’s way too long.” I shook my head.

“Yeah, that’s no good. Who’d want to read something that long? There’s too much stuff to do. In fact, that’s actually why I’m here – I need your help with a little project I’m working on.”

“Oh yeah?” Veronica looked up for the first time, raising an eyebrow. “What do you need?”

“If you can tear yourself away from your book for, say, two hours? I’ll show you. I’ve got all the tools and supplies we need for the project in the car park – down in that nest Stripe’s made for himself.”

Veronica looked confused for several seconds. But apparently, that did the trick because she set her book down and got up.

“Damn… this place looks…” Veronica trailed off as the two of us descended down the ramp into Stripe’s hidey-hole in the underground car park.

“Yeah, he’s certainly done a number on this little nook.” I shrugged, calm as you please. Stripe had clearly done even more work turning this level of the car park into his idea habitat. The heat, the soft ground covered in damp moss and decaying animal parts, the dim lights… about the only thing that hadn’t been touched was the parked deuce and a half – complete with a clear track leading from the truck to the exit ramp.

“Hey, Stripe!” I called out. “You down here?”

A growl echoed out of the darkness, and Stripe suddenly materialized from behind the truck. His eyes shone like pinpricks until he shuffled into the light, the ground shaking with a heavy thud from every footfall. He was cradling Sasha in his left paw, and Roxie was perched on the deathclaw’s shoulder, half-in and half-out of the furry white mohawk.

“Oh, wow.” Veronica took a step back, her eyes going wide. “I… I know you said he’d gotten bigger, but I… just… wow.” Stripe regarded Veronica carefully, sniffing the air around her.

“Greetings, Sheason!” Sasha barked happily. “Are we ready to get started?”

“I think so,” I said, nodding at the minigun. “All the tools and supplies are still where I left them, right?”

“Да, they are still in back of грузовик,” Sasha said. While we were talking, Stripe was continuing to sniff the air around Veronica. He hadn’t licked her, though. Which was probably a good thing, I don’t think she would react at all well to that.

“You know, you still haven’t told me what we’re doing,” Veronica inched her way over to me, away from the deathclaw. I held back a laugh when I saw Stripe and Roxie both sniffing the air, almost in sync.

“Sasha and Stripe came up with a design that’ll allow the two of them to work together, and now we’re gonna build it. The job is way too big for me to do all on my own, mostly because Stripe here,” I patted the deathclaw on his scaly shoulder, “is entirely too broad for me to get my arms around. And this kind of job requires the kind of technical know-how and mechanical aptitude that only you posses.”

I couldn’t tell in such dim light, but it almost looked like Veronica was flattered by the compliment.

“Xорошо!” Sasha exclaimed. “We will surely be credit to BLU team!” Veronica blinked.

“Wait, what? Blue team?” Veronica looked over at me questioningly. “What’s he talking about?” I shrugged.

“Oh, it’s something he picked up from his old owner in Russia. Something about a couple of mercenary units, called RED and BLU, I’m honestly not really sure about the details. Oh! That reminds me!” I turned on my heel and rushed to the back of the deuce, rifling around in the collection of tools and parts. As I busied myself, I heard Stripe speak up.

“I smell paper on you…” he growled, apparently talking to Veronica. “Ink. Leather.” He snorted loudly. “Books. I smell books. Many books. You… Do you read books? Yes?”

“Uhhm…” Veronica gulped loudly. “Y-yeah? Yeah, I… I read. Why?”

“Do you think I could borrow some books?” Stripe asked; it was almost comical how soft he was speaking, considering his normal booming, guttural growls. “I like to read. But I have read no books since Higgs.”

“Really? Uh… sure. Sure thing, that’s… that’s no problem,” Veronica chuckled nervously.

“I think maybe we’ll get that book club after all,” I said, finally pulling myself away from the deuce, with my Riot Gear helmet in my hand. “Check this out, this is awesome! You’re gonna love this.” Veronica, Stripe, and Roxie all turned their attention to me, and the helmet I was cradling in my hands.

“What? What’s the big deal?”

“So, I was talking to Sasha earlier about Los Zorroz, and how they all wear red, right? And because my Corvega is blue, he suggested that we be BLU team – and that’s when I discovered this about my helmet!” I fiddled with a tiny, nondescript dial on the side, and the red lenses shifted colors several times – first changing from red to orange, then yellow, then green, and finally settling on blue. “Look at that! Isn’t that awesome?”

Veronica stared blankly at me for several seconds. So did Stripe. So did Roxie. Veronica looked over at Stripe, who looked over at her – and then he shrugged his scaly shoulders with a grunt. Only Sasha broke the silence, barking out an enthusiastic “You are credit to team!” Veronica shook her head and looked back at me.

“You are such a dork.”

A little over two and a half hours later, Veronica and I had finished.

“Alright,” I said, fastening the last strap in place. “I think that’ll about do it.” I reached for a nearby rag and started wiping off all the grease. Stripe snorted, and his whole body shimmied and shook as Veronica and I both stepped back to admire our handiwork.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into helping with this,” she said, taking the rag when I offered it to her.

“Well, you have to admit – the whole getup is pretty impressive.”

That was an understatement. A deathclaw all on its own is scary enough, but we had done the impossible and made Stripe even more terrifying. The most noticeable feature from the front was a series of leather straps and harnesses that wrapped around Stripe’s torso, holding a metal backpack in place. The metal backpack was divided into two halves: on the left side was an armored metal box. This housed many complex electronics – such as sensors, radar, air sniffers, the whole shebang – all wired up into Sasha’s brain, which was buried snug and secure deep in the bowels of the armor. On the right was another armored box, but this didn’t have sophisticated sensors: it just had lots and lots of bullets. It held just shy of 2000 rounds, in fact. An articulated mechanical arm stuck out of the center of the backpack, connecting the two sides. The minigun which used to be the main feature of the K-9000 cyberdog gun was fitted to the end of that arm, sticking high up above Stripe’s head, and connected to the ammo box by a flexible ammo belt.

“How’re you doing, Sasha?” I asked. “Can you hear me?”

“Oh, absolutely!” I heard the cyberdog reply, his voice carrying a much heavier audio flange than I’d ever heard from him before. As he spoke, the mechanical arm moved, and the minigun pointed directly at me, shining a laser, and the two metal flaps on either side of the barrel perked up. Veronica backed up, but I stayed put; the primary cameras for Sasha were on the minigun itself, so he had to point it at whatever he was looking at. “This is fantastic! I have never been able to move the weapon on my own before! The last time I felt this alive, I still had fur!” The minigun swung around, and the arm whined with mechanical servos with every movement.

“What about you, Stripe?” I stepped forward, cautiously placing a hand on one of the his scaly, muscled arms. “You doing alright?” Stripe snorted, bringing up the back of his right paw to rub against the leather straps.

“This harness is itchy…” Stripe growled, and I fought back a laugh, remembering how Lily said the exact same thing.

“I’ll see if I can get you some lotion,” I said, trying my damndest to keep a straight face. “Either that or some olive oil. Isn’t that the trick to get leather to stop chafing?” I asked, turning to Veronica. She shook her head and shrugged, obviously having no idea either. Stripe snorted.

“I think I can manage, Courier,” Stripe nodded his head and let out a deep, pulsating chuckle. I stepped back again, only to bump into a heavy lump of fur and metal. I looked down, and saw Roxie looking up at me with a very stern expression. Well… stern for a dog, anyway. She was looking up at me, growling from the back of her throat, and scowling.

“Rox?” I asked, kneeling down and scratching her behind the ears. “You alright?” Her expression didn’t change, but I did notice her tail start to wag as I petted her.

“I believe she is annoyed, Sheason,” Sasha said, amidst a whirring of servos. “We have made her perch on Stripe’s back very crowded.”

I thought back to Sasha’s admission of puppy love, all the way back in the Big MT crater, and silently wondered if perhaps Sasha had an ulterior motive for the placement of this minigun harness…

“So, are we ready to go?” Veronica asked several hours later, while she leaned against her trusty super sledge like a cane.

“In a minute,” I said, staring down at the clock on my Pip Boy as the two of us stood just outside the elevator in the garage. Because I didn’t know exactly how much or what kind of opposition I’d be facing in that drug lab – other than ‘a lot’ considering the fortifications I’d seen – I decided to just go in guns blazing. But I also had a secondary objective.

“Why?” she asked. “What are we waiting for?”

Ding.

“Alright!” Cass stepped out of the elevator wearing her riot gear and her AA-12 in hand. “Let’s get this shit sta-” She cut herself off and went very quiet when she realized Veronica was here. “Uh… hi.”

“Cass,” Veronica nodded curtly.

“And there we go,” I said with a nod. “Guys, I feel a wedge has been driven between the three of us. Every time we’re all in the same room together, the awkwardness is palpable, and so thick you could cut it with a knife.”

“There are reasons for that,” Veronica said, with a face made of stone.

“Exactly,” I nodded. “And I think we should clear the air with a bonding exercise.”

“A… bonding exercise?” Cass raised an eyebrow. “Have you been readin’ Arcade’s psychology books again?”

“What did you have in mind?” Veronica asked.

“A hunting expedition,” I said with a broad smile. “I was thinking that the three of us – and my secret weapon – could all take on that Los Zorroz drug lab. With all of us together, it should be a nice, relaxing walk in the park. With explosions.”

“Well, I’ve already brought my shotgun,” Cass said, resting her AA-12 on her shoulder. “I’ll gladly join y’around this barrel t’shoot some motherfuckin’ fish.”

“Alright, sure,” Veronica shrugged, and hefted up her super sledge. “Sounds like fun. Although, I do wonder what this says about the three of us.”

“Probably best not to think about it too hard,” I said, slipping my helmet on and fastening it in place.

“Oh, dude!” Cass laughed. “I didn’t know you could change th’ color on those lenses! That’s awesome!”

“I told you!” I pointed at Veronica, who just shook her head and sighed.

“I’m surrounded by dorks.”

“So, that’s the place, huh?” Cass asked. We were all standing next to the parked deuce and a half, in an alley directly opposite the entrance to the drug lab.

“Yup,” I nodded. “Y’all ready?”

“Oh yeah,” Cass nodded, pulling the charging handle on her AA-12.

“Let’s go,” Veronica gripped her super sledge tightly. Towering behind the two of them was Stripe, who snorted in the affirmative and nodded.

“Yesssss!” Sasha growled, the minigun maneuvering in position with a whirr. “I am ready to kill cowards!”

“Then let’s get started,” I said, hefting Elijah’s jury-rigged Tesla cannon onto my shoulder. I planted my feet, and flipped open the trigger guard; suddenly, the interior of the weapon was awash with crackling electricity. I took aim, pulled the trigger over and over again, and the thunderous booms echoed off the alley walls as giant clouds of dirt and dust were kicked into the air. Five beams of blue-white energy lanced through the air and plowed into the reinforced front door, ripping it apart with gouts of explosive energy.

“YAAAAAARGHHH!” Sasha yelled, as Stripe reared back and drew himself up to his terrifyingly intimidating height. Cass, Veronica and I all stepped back, practically welding ourselves to the wall to get out of his way. “NOW IS COWARD KILLING TIME!”

Stripe threw his head back and roared at the sky, bellowing with such volume that I thought he was going to make the buildings collapse in terror. In a single motion, he leapt out of the alley with a speed and agility that really shouldn’t be possible for something with that much bulk, and must have cleared about twenty or thirty feet. The pavement buckled and cracked when he landed, and he disappeared into the fire and smoke that used to be the front door.

“Damn,” Cass said with a whistle. “I thought I was kiddin’ with that fish in a barrel joke.”

“C’mon,” I said, tossing the spent tesla cannon aside and charging headlong into the smoldering wreckage of the front door. When the three of us emerged through the curtain of smoke, we were met with a scene of carnage and utter devastation. All around, I heard the sounds of shouting, screaming, the roars of Stripe, and guns of all manner of caliber firing in every direction. I couldn’t tell if all the dead gangbangers littering the warehouse at our feet were red because of their clothing, or if it was because Stripe had punched all of their blood out of their bodies.

On the plus side, it was a nice feeling, knowing that I was completely right about what this place was. All the dead gangbangers were definitely Los Zorroz – when I looked up, I realized the entire ceiling was covered in a strangely elaborate tag of their logo. Plus, all the dead bodies were surrounded by rows and rows of chemicals and chemistry equipment, a floor littered with Jet inhalers and broken syringes, and bags of cocaine.

“Alright, spread out,” I said, pulling out That Gun and the Ranger Sequoia. “There’s bound to more of –”

“There they are!” Someone shouted from above us. “Get em!”

The next few minutes were hilariously chaotic, and (somehow) exceptionally well executed. The three of us dove for cover out of the way of the incoming fire, and immediately fought back. Even though the gangbangers were attacking us from above on top of a pair of metal cargo containers and a few catwalks, they didn’t really last all that long.

Most gratifying was the fact that Cass and Veronica still seemed to be working well as a team, despite everything that had happened between them. I barely managed to get in any kills at all before the unstoppable duo started wrecking shit left and right. Veronica smashed Oh, Baby! into the side of the container, sending it flying and throwing all the gangbangers to the ground… right into the path of Cass’ shotgun. Or, as it should be called, The Chunky Red Salsa Machine.

“On the right!” I yelled, spotting a group of incoming mooks running at us and firing my pistols. Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize that they weren’t running at us, but running from Stripe and Sasha. The massive deathclaw smashed through a wall, roaring and slashing at some of the stragglers, turning them into bloody ribbons. Meanwhile, the minigun was cutting them down with gusto (and a surprising amount of accuracy).

“VZZZZZZT! RAHRAHRAHRAH! VRRRRR! WAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!” Sasha yelled and laughed, somehow louder than both the firing minigun and Stripe carving the thugs into a bloody and fashionable set of furniture. “YOU CAN RUN, COWARDS! BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE! DOH-HO-HO-HAHAHAHAAAAAA!”

“Holy fuck!” Veronica yelled, getting out of the way just in time. The last of the thugs was flattened into a pancake under one of Stripe’s massive clawed hands, sending blood and body parts flying. I had to duck as a bloody foot sailed past my head. The minigun spun down, and sheets of steam curled into the air off the barrels. Stripe roared in triumph, shaking the entire building.

“G’damn, man!” Cass said with a laugh. “Take it down a notch!”

“Do you think… maybe this was a bit overkill?” Veronica asked, gingerly stepping around the rapidly expanding pool of blood pouring out from beneath Stripe’s paw.

“Nah,” I said with a smirk. “I’d say this was just enough kill.”

“Ahhh, yes!” Sasha laughed. “I am amused by entire eety-beety-teeny baby team! The burning you feel? It is SHAME! HA-HA!”