New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 148: Who's Next

It had been a very long week since my fight in Cerulean Robotics.

On the one hand, Los Zorroz had been pretty effectively broken after I killed Vulpes. Losing all of their leadership and so many men in their failed attack on The King had definitely taken a toll, and they weren't nearly as effective at causing chaos as they had been before.

But on the other hand, they were still trying. Just like I'd predicted, scattered pockets of Los Zorroz were still all over Freeside. Actually fighting them wasn't really difficult, to be honest. Thanks to the daily combat training I'd been receiving from Veronica, any idiot dumb enough to go went toe-to-toe with me ended up with a perfectly flat surface where their face used to be. The problem was that it was like playing whack-a-mole: every time I found another group and shut it down, two more would pop up.

Of course, it wasn't just the fighting keeping me busy, either. Apart from cleaning up Freeside (which, as an added bonus, allowed me plenty of time to hang out with Raul), I was doing whatever I could to help out the Followers. Every day, I'd help them set up a new "vaporator" in another part of Freeside. I wish I could say I came up with the name, but it was actually Julie's idea, once she figured out how they made drinkable water.

Jeeves had also made a lot more of those floating sensor balls for the personality constructs in The Sink, which was useful. Jocelyn, Barry, and even the Doc had all visited the Mormon Fort multiple times over the last week to try and help the Followers with all their various projects. And after talking with them, I was informed of another problem: it was starting to get very crowded in the Mormon Fort. The Followers needed to find a new headquarters with more space. If nothing else, they needed to expand to other places in Freeside like franchises, but actually useful. So, I put that one on the 'list of shit to do' as well.

I was also doing my best to keep up with the bigger picture, getting daily updates from Yes Man whenever I had the chance. Legion troops were still pouring in to the Fort from Arizona... but the NCR were also getting serious, too. Yes Man showed me satellite images of heavy troop movement and truck convoys coming into the Mojave by way of the outpost on the Long 15, and he'd intercepted reports of elite squads of Veteran Rangers all clad in Black Armor arriving (or on their way) from Baja.

And if that wasn't enough, Yes Man also told me that the NCR was planning on having President Kimball come to the Dam in the next week or so, as a sort of public relations publicity stunt. He couldn't tell me exactly when it was going to happen, but he made it very clear that it was very important Kimball didn't die during his visit. He didn't go into any more detail than that, which just seemed ominous. Maybe I wasn't asking the right questions?

In short, I was keeping very busy... but I wasn't in any kind of mortal danger. And that felt weird. It kind of gave me an appreciation for Cass' earlier sentiment about dropping shoes. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. At least, it didn't drop during that week.

When the shoe finally did drop, it came from a place absolutely nobody expected.

I certainly didn't.

The change, it had to come

We knew it all along

We were liberated from the fold, that's all

And the world looks just the same

And history ain't changed

'Cause the banners, they are flown in the last war...

It was around noon-ish, and for once, I actually had a bit of downtime. My original plan was to do some calibrations to the Jury-Rigger. Mostly routine maintenance kind of stuff, like zeroing the sights, checking all the connections to make sure all the heavy combat hadn't knocked anything loose, that sort of thing. But that plan fell out the window when Roxie bounded into the room and started demanding attention.

Because really, when an adorable, hundred-pound, cybernetically enhanced German Shepard leaps onto your lap and starts licking your face like you're made out of doggie chow... you're kind of forced to drop what you're doing and pay it attention.

And that's how I found myself sitting on the couch, listening to The Who, absentmindedly petting Roxie while the giant cyberdog lay sprawled across my lap, fast asleep. Part of me wanted to move her; she was mostly metal and starting to weigh down on my legs like a ton of bricks. I was really starting to lose a little feeling down there. Then again, it was nice having an actual excuse to not move for once. And it's not like I had any room to complain about all the "metal parts," anyway. I was probably at least 50% metal by now myself.

"Fuck me, man," I heard Cass say from somewhere behind me. "Y'look dead."

"Not dead," I said, rolling my head back against the couch. "Just tired." Cass chuckled as she walked behind me, and that caused Roxie to perk her head up.

"Yeah, so's every'ne else over thirty," Cass said, vaulting over the back of the sofa, flopping down on the opposite end. Roxie's head followed Cass, she panted hot air in my face, and then got up jabbing a paw in my crotch for maximum discomfort so she could get some attention from Cass. "Hey girl! How're you doin?"

And then:

WHAP! "Sonuva-" WHAP! "Gah! Eh-" WHAP! "Phut!" WHAP! "Augh!" WHAP!

"Damnit, Rox!" I yelled, finally grabbing hold of the cyberdog's rear end and shoving it away from me. "Enough with the tail already, damn! Augh! Pah! Ah, fuck, dog hair! Bleaugh!" Cass didn't say anything at first. She was too busy laughing her ass off, scratching Rox behind the braincase.

"Good girl!" Cass laughed again. Roxie barked once before nuzzling into Cass, and settling down in her lap. "Alright, so what've got planned fer today? Smashin' some more bad guys, I hope?" I let out a single laugh.

"I'll let you know when we find more. We've been hammering them so hard this last week, I'm pretty sure most of them have gone to ground. They'll turn up again, soon enough... but for now, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet."

"Shame," Cass shook her head. "I was really lookin' forward to pullin' another 'psychological warfare' gag." It took me a few seconds to realize what she was talking about.

"We could always just play some AC/DC, you know," I said, finally remembering the action two nights ago. "We don't need it blaring at full volume from speakers mounted on top of a securitron if you want to listen that badly."

"Well, duh," Cass shrugged. "But, y'have to admit: bustin' in through th' roof, guns blazin' while 'Shoot To Thrill' is blastin' so loud it's shakin' th' goddamn walls? That shit's fun!" I opened my mouth to object, but paused, thinking it over. I shut my mouth and nodded.

"Okay, yeah. I'll give you that." I let out a huge sigh, leaned my head back, sank even deeper into the couch, and listened to the crazy guitar and mental drums as "Won't Get Fooled Again" drew to a close. I suppose this is the problem with coming to a stop after you've been going for so long: it's really hard to get going again.

And this was a really comfy couch.

"Soooo..." Cass broke the silence. "How's Dala doin'?" I perked my head up and looked in her direction. She was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I half expected her to vanish in a minute, leaving only her hat and smile floating in midair.

"She's good," I said with a smile. To be honest, I was just glad Cass had stopped calling Dala my 'side bitch.' That joke got old real quick. "She was actually asking about you the other day."

"Oh yeah?" She said with undisguised interest. I knew that would get her attention. Cass tried to shift in her seat, but was hampered by the enormous dog in her lap. "What'd she say?"

"Well, I told her about that idea of yours, and she's..." I paused, remembering Dala's response. Her rather... enthusiastic response. I smiled to myself and started chuckling.

"C'mon man, don't leave me hangin' like this!" Cass reached over and prodded me in the side of the head. "Gimmie the details! Spill!"

"Well, I think her exact words were, and I quote: 'another test subject would be extremely beneficial to my research,' unquote." I looked at Cass, who furrowed her brow in confusion. "That's Dala-speak for 'she's interested,' trust me. Everything has to be justified with science for her. Even sex." I paused, and amended: "Especially sex." Cass shook her head.

"Hey, ev'rybody's got their kinks," she shrugged. The two of us started laughing again. Before we got a chance to continue, however, my Pip Boy started beeping at me.

"Hi there!" Yes Man's voice buzzed at me right before I hit the transmit button. "Sorry to interrupt, but I have news!"

"What's up?" I asked, cycling through to the radio.

"You remember how told me to let you know if I discovered anything related to that mysterious Enclave assassin lady?" He asked rhetorically. "Well, guess what!"

A heavy knot formed in the pit of my stomach.

"Oh fuck," Cass muttered, tipping her hat back. "Here we go again."

"What have you found?" I asked, followed swiftly by: "And get to the point." I'd dealt with Yes Man's verbose nature way too many times before.

"One of the long range scanners on the roof picked up an energy signature! It's not an exact match, but the readings are remarkably similar to the energy signature recorded by ED-E just outside Red Rock Canyon! It's highly probable that I'm picking up readings from another anti-gravity hovercraft!" Cass and I glanced at each other.

"What, out in the open?" Cass asked. I nodded slowly, the gears in my head turning.

"Something stinks," I said, getting up off the couch. "Can you get a fix on the location?"

"I'll keep an eye on the scanner, and send regular updates to your Pip Boy! If you leave now, you should be able to catch it!"

"Thanks," I started to make my way to the door, but turned back to Cass. "C'mon, gear up. We may not get a better chance than this." She nodded, but didn't move.

"Yeah, sure, I'm comin'... I just... I'll..." Cass struggled against the mass of sleeping fur and metal on top of her, but no matter how much she tried, she could not dislodge the dog. "Uh... little help?"

My Corvega roared down the open highway north of Vegas, leaving dirty huge clouds of dust behind. Roxie was in the backseat, sticking her head out the window with a goofy smile on her face. Cass was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, checking and re-checking her AA-12 over and over again. And I was occasionally glancing down at my Pip Boy map every few seconds, to make sure we were still on course.

We were going in to this situation seriously under-strength. Boone was down south, hunting fiends, Arcade was busy up in the Mormon Fort (and he'd taken April and Emily with him, so we had no Mission Control except Yes Man), and Veronica was somewhere in east Freeside, hanging out with Raul and keeping an eye on things. So it was just Cass, Roxie and myself, because I didn't know how long we'd be able to track this signal before it vanished.

All that said, for as under-strength as we were, I was never going to check if Stripe or Sasha wanted to come along. Tempting as it was to bring out the really big guns, I decided to leave them be for the moment. If it really was Tuera, then the plan was to try and catch her, not... not...

I needed answers. Not a corpse.

"We getting' close yet?" Cass muttered, popping the drum magazine out to check the ammo for the fifth time.

"Not sure," I admitted. "The waypoint on the map keeps moving. But if I'm reading this right, then who or whatever it is doesn't seem to be in much a hurry to get anywhere."

"Maybe yer luck from fightin' Los Zorroz is holdin', an' that Enclave bitch has let her guard down," Cass smirked, slapping the ammo drum back in place.

"Assuming that's who it is," I said, as a flash of realization crossed my mind. Cass shot me a confused look.

"Who else could it be?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, the gears in my head starting to turn. "And that's worrying. Yes Man said what we're chasing isn't an exact match for that hovercycle of hers; it was just similar. It could be her, sure. Or it could be some of her friends, maybe. Or maybe it's something even worse. Something we have no frame of reference for, and we aren't prepared to face."

"What, y'mean like that alien ship from a while back?" Cass asked, suddenly fidgeting in her seat and looking around. "Now I come to think've it... Aren't we close t'where it crashed? I think we are. Y'think it might be more aliens?"

"For all we know? It could be aliens, yes." I said, remembering that close shave with the crashed UFO two months ago. "I hope not. Either way, it's too late to turn back now."

Suddenly, I noticed something new off in the distance: a dust cloud. That was the unmistakable sign of a vehicle somewhere up ahead, and it just about matched the coordinates Yes Man had been sending me. And if I could see that dust cloud, then whatever was causing it could see mine.

"Get military," I said, gunning the engine. "Things are probably gonna get loud real quick." I reached back and patted Roxie to get her attention. "Head inside Rox, I'm rollin' up the windows." She let out a disgruntled 'murf' but got back in the car all the same.

I crested the hill, and a blur of metal whooshed perilously close to my window.

"JESUS FUCK!" Cass shouted, flailing in her seat. I didn't say anything. I just came off the throttle, spun the wheel as hard as I could, hit the clutch and yanked on the handbrake. The Corvega practically pirouetted around, sliding through the dust cloud, and when we came out the other side I slammed it back in gear and stamped on the loud pedal. It wasn't long before we got out of the dust trail it was leaving in its wake, and we could finally get a good look at the thing.

"What the..." I said aloud.

"The fuck is that?" Cass asked, clearly just as perplexed as I was.

Whatever it was, it sure as hell looked alien. It was a car-sized wedge of riveted metal plates, like half a pyramid pushed on its side, or a really big teardrop. Of course, by 'car-sized,' I mean that it was about as long as my Corvega, but it was also about twice as wide and three times as tall. It was hovering about a foot or two off the ground; rows of blue jets on its underside were kicking up the dust as it skimmed along. Two circular thrusters were mounted in the back of the craft, vomiting jets of super-heated blue gas behind - at least, they looked like thrusters. Like the kind of thing you'd see on a spaceship in an old sci-fi holotape. Except these definitely were not just blue lights surrounded by a bit of tin-foil.

"Think it's spotted us?" Cass asked, holding onto her AA-12 as tight as she could.

Before I could answer, the two thrusters in the back lit up, and it roared off ahead of us. The blast from the rockets buffeted my car, and everything shook. I wrestled with the wheel, trying desperately to keep it on the straight and narrow, and managed to look up just in time to see that the strange metal wedge had pulled a 180 and it was now facing us. Not only that, but it had come to a dead stop.

"SHIT!" I yelled, stamping on the brake. My Corvega screeched to a halt, a good five or ten feet away from the metal wedge. Now that I could see it from the front, there were obvious windows built into it like a windshield. Someone was driving this thing, I was pretty sure, but the windows were tinted black and I couldn't get a look inside.

There was something else odd about the craft. Something was painted on the nose, but it was so faded and scratched that I couldn't tell what it was originally supposed to be. Some kind of... what was that? A circle? A gear? Was this a Brotherhood thing? And are those supposed to be letters or numbers?

For a few seconds, nobody did anything. The two vehicles were facing each other, nose-to-nose, completely still. The dust was still swirling around us and starting to settle... but no obvious weapons appeared on the strange craft. My hand hovered over the switch to activate the grenade machine guns, just in case, but I didn't flip open the safety cover. I wanted to be ready just in case this thing whatever it was turned out to be hostile, but if it wasn't, then I didn't want to piss it off needlessly.

The windows on the front of the craft popped open with a mechanical whirr, and began to slide backward. No guns popped out; instead, it revealed an entrance to the interior of the craft... and a grayish-black dog appeared. It propped its front paws on the edge and barked at us.

"What." Cass and I both said in unison.

"Hey there!" I heard a man's voice bellow at us from inside the craft. "That is a nice ride! Wanna race?"

The owner of the voice grabbed hold of the windshield above him, and stood up out of the car. He was a massive white dude wearing an up-armored Vault suit. He had spiky blonde hair, a pair of mirrored shades on his face... and a Pip Boy on his arm. The arm with the Pip Boy was covered in metal, and it looked like armor specifically, it looked like the arm from a set of T-51b power armor. And I have to say, this dude had the sort of build that could actually pull off something huge like that. Motherfucker was a massive mountain of meaty muscle. His biceps alone had to be as big as my head, for fuck sake!

"It's all right!" He said, hopping out of his hovercraft. "I come in peace!" He paused, and added with a laugh: "Take me to your leader!" He turned to the dog with a smile. "I've always wanted to say that!" The grayish-black mutt barked happily in response.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" Cass practically whispered. I shrugged, just as much at a loss as she was... but got out of the car all the same. "The fuck're you doing?! Get back here!"

Honestly, I didn't know what I was doing. This day had swiftly turned surreal, and I felt like I should be worried... but I wasn't. The pit of my stomach hadn't fallen out yet. But maybe I was just too confused to register all that was going on.

"Uh... hi." I said weakly, standing behind the open door. "So, this might be a little awkward," I held up my Pip Boy. "But we were tracking an energy signature, and we weren't... you weren't who we were expecting to find." The Vault dweller dude just shrugged and kept smiling.

"Hey, don't worry about it!" he laughed. "Some of my favorite quests happened because I was following something and got sidetracked! I mean, that's how I found Dogmeat here! Ain't that right, you adorable fleabag, you?" The mutt barked again, and the Vault dweller dude started scratching his dog behind the ears.

"Uh " I was just about to say something, but something heavy and furry brushed past my leg. Roxie bounded out of my car, and trotted over to the newcomers.

"Oh hey! You have your own pup too? That's fantastic!" The grayish-black mutt jumped out of the hovercraft, and the two dogs started barking and sniffing and circling each other. You know, basically saying 'hello' to each other in that peculiar way dogs tend to do. "Well, that's a good sign!" he said, leaning against his hovercraft; the vehicle didn't even wobble. "Usually, if I'm supposed to be shooting at people, Dogmeat starts mauling them immediately!"

"Is that so?" I said with a chuckle, stepping out from behind the door. "Well, truth be told, Roxie tends to go for the nuts more often than is probably healthy. But, on the other hand, she does bring in my slippers every morning." The Vault dweller let out a raucous belly laugh and clapped his hands together.

"Ha! Oh, I like you!" While he laughed, I unclipped my helmet and set it on the hood of my Corvega. Cass cautiously stepped out of the car as well. I walked up to him, and I have to say... I'm not short, but this guy made me feel like a midget. He was huge!

"So... where were we? Oh!" The Vault dweller snapped his fingers. "Right, the introduction bit!" He held out a hand that looked about the size of a baseball glove. "My name's Christopher. Back east, people call me the Lone Wanderer."

"Sheason," I said, shaking his hand. I couldn't be sure, but it almost seemed like his fleshy hand was just as strong as my metal one. "People around here call me the Courier." At that, both his eyebrows raised up over his shades.

"OH! So you're the FAWKES! Stop snoozin' and get your ass up!" He spun around and banged on the side of his hovercraft several times. "This is the guy! It's like I told you turning right at Albuquerque was a good idea after all!" A heavy, grunting growl echoed out of the darkness, just as Cass walked up.

"So, what th' fuck's goin' on?" Cass asked. For a few seconds, I was at a loss for words.

"Honestly? Not really sure. But it seems to be more interesting than anything else that's happened today. Cass? Christopher. Christopher? Cass." I said, gesturing back and forth. Chris started looking Cass up and down, and didn't even try to hide it.

"Hey there," he said, grinning broadly and leaning against his hovercraft like he was leaning against a bar. "How's your day going?" Cass just raised an eyebrow.

"What, s'that it?" Cass asked. "That's the best line you can come up with?" I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be playful banter or if she was genuinely insulted. Chris just shrugged, but didn't stop smiling.

"Well, you have to start with hello."

At this point, the grunting from inside the hovercraft got louder, and a large hand fumbled around at the edge of the opening, trying to grab hold of something. And for as big as this Lone Wanderer dude was, this hand belonged to something bigger... and it was... yellow? The figure that emerged out of the darkness, clutching at his head like he was hungover, swiftly revealed himself to be a super mutant... but he didn't look like any super mutant I'd ever seen before.

I've seen green ones and blue ones... but never a yellow one before. How many colors of super mutants are there? Are there red and purple ones wandering around somewhere out there in the wasteland?

"Ughhh..." he grunted. "And I was having such a nice dream, too. There were twins... and they were reading Jules Verne."

"Guys, this is Fawkes," Chris patted the super mutant on the shoulder; that was when I noticed he was wearing some heavy duty armor (built from scrap) on top of what looked like a tattered Vault suit. "He's one of my closest and most loyal friends."

"Yeah, well... Someone has to get us out of all the trouble you cause," Fawkes rubbed his eyes one last time, and blearily looked around. "So, where are we this time? El Paso? The Fiji Islands? The Moon?"

"Well, if this guy is the Courier, then we've made it to the Mojave Wasteland! And that means..." He looked down at his Pip Boy. "Yep! Right on schedule!" He reached into his hovercraft, and pulled out an old Chinese assault rifle.

"WHOA!" I yelled, my hand immediately went for Roscoe, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cass bring up her shotgun. But Chris didn't point the rifle at us, and he didn't stop smiling. Instead, reached in and pulled out another rifle: a plasma rifle, this time.

"Oh good!" he said, hefting up both guns. "You've brought some guns! You're gonna need them in a minute."

"What?" I asked, utterly confused. And then I realized something else: both the dogs had stopped talking to one another, and were looking around, growling and snarling at something off in the distance.

"Do you... hear..." Cass began, before her eyes went wide. "FUCK!" And when I heard the sound, I knew why she looked worried. It was faint at first, but it was growing steadily louder:

Buzzing wings. Lots of really big buzzing wings.

"Cazadores!" I yelled back, grabbing my helmet and reaching into the car for the Jury-Rigger. I snapped my helmet back in place just as the first of the giant insects materialized off in the distance. I was suddenly reminded of that day when Veronica and I were ambushed by these fuckers.

Only this time, I had an energy rifle of my very own.

"Alright you flyin' fucks!" I yelled, readying my rifle and leaping onto the roof of my car to get a better vantage point. "You're not getting my car this time!"

"Hey, Fawkes!" Chris said from somewhere on the other side of his hovercraft. "Turn the radio up! We need some music for this fight!"

I didn't hear if there was any response, because the cazadores had finally started to close the gap. The buzzing all around us was completely all consuming. I didn't even hear the sound of the LAER blast from the Jury-Rigger as it effortlessly turned three of the bugs into ash.

But I did hear - and feel - a massive THUD from behind me. The ground shook so much, I thought I was going to be thrown from the car.

As quick as I could, I glanced over my shoulder: Fawkes had leapt out of the hovercraft, and was carrying the absolute biggest gatling laser I had ever seen. Because it wasn't a single one: this crazy mofo had lashed four gatling lasers together into a gun that looked like it would be more at home on the side of a tank. Or maybe the deck of a battleship. And he was swinging it around like it was made out of paper!

I couldn't focus on that right now. The air was still thick with bugs. Blue laser after blue laser cut through the air, accompanied by a fusillade of red lasers from Fawkes' gatling laser, round after round of buckshot from Cass' AA-12, tracers and green plasma from Chris' going all guns akimbo with his rifles...

But it wasn't enough. There must have been hundreds of these damn things all coming at us! It was insane! And it didn't take long before the Jury-Rigger was dry and needed to recharge. Which was especially bad, as a really big one was coming straight for me, and wasn't slowing down.

"FUCK YOU!" I shouted, tossing aside the rifle and leaping off the top of my car. My fist slammed into its head, and it split apart in a shower of cracking exoskeleton and gore.

"STAY!" I landed on the ground, picking up half of the exploded bug, and tossing it at another.

"AWAY!" I pulled out the sawed-off, and blasted apart two of the bugs trying to flank me. One barrel for each seemed to do the trick, especially when you go for the face.

"FROM!" I tossed aside the shotgun and pulled out the grapnel. The hook fired out so hard and so fast that it passed through the bodies of three cazadores before coming to a stop in the fourth.

"MY!" I yanked on the grapnel, and leapt up; the jets in my rocket boots kicked in, and the bugs got burnt to cinders. The jets propelled me straight into another cazador.

"CAR!" I grabbed hold of the massive bug, and the two of us started tumbling through the air. I got my bearings long enough to register the stinger coming straight for my face... so I grabbed hold of it with my cybernetic hand, pulled the massive spike out of its abdomen, twirled it around in my hand, and jammed it sharp-end first into the mutant bugs face. The two of us crashed into the ground.

"Fuck off!" I growled, getting up. I gave the twitching insect one final kick for good measure.

After that things finally started to calm down. Everywhere you looked, there were dead bugs everywhere. And now that there were no longer any buzzing insect wings, I could finally hear what Chris and Fawkes had been listening to on the radio:

He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'!

He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'!

He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'!

He just hacks, wacks, choppin' that meat!