New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 34: Of Stealth Boys and Nightkin

You're listening to the Mr. New Vegas show, your little jukebox in the Mojave wasteland - only on Radio New Vegas. You know what time it is folks - time for some news. Tensions between the Kings and the NCR may have cooled down in the last several days, but gang violence is still very much present in Freeside. Visitors to the area should exercise caution, especially after dark. The news this hour has been brought to you by Primm: The other New Vegas. Coming up next is Bob Crosby and the Bobcats, taking us "Way Back Home."

"Holy shit, careful! That's a tree!"

"I'm not gonna hit the tree!"

"Hairpin! HAIRPIN!"

"Calm down already!"

"ROCKS!"

"Shut up and let me drive!"

Calamity was freaking out and shouting almost all the way up the mountain. Honestly, you'd think she'd never gone up a mountain road around hairpin corners at 80 miles an hour before. I mean, that's what the handbrake is for, right? She did eventually quiet down - because she was too busy covering her eyes to do anything else.

Thankfully, when I got to the Jacobstown front gates, they were open. So I just kept my foot on the gas, and powered on through, aimed straight at the lodge house where Doc Henry had set up his lab. I felt the bottom of the car go light as it hit a massive bump, and then a horrendous crash when the tires hit tarmac again. I spun the wheel, yanked on the handbrake, the car started sliding sideways... and came to a stop about 5 feet from the front door in a cloud of tire smoke.

"Well, c'mon," I said to Calamity, turning off the engine and opening the door. "Let's get the dog into the lab." I looked up, expecting Calamity to still be sitting there, but all I saw was an empty seat and an open passenger door.

"You are completely mental!" Calamity yelled, her raspy voice cracking. She was reaching into the backseat of the car, pulling out her backpack. "I will never, ever, ever complain about walking anywhere ever again, just so long as I don't have to go anywhere with YOU behind the wheel, you fucking maniac!" And with that, she ran into the lodge and slammed the giant double doors behind her. ED-E beeped something unintelligible.

I just sighed. I wasn't driving that fast. Still, at least she could've helped me with the dog. I reached into the backseat, and grabbed the dog by the chest, lifting it out of the car. It hung limply in my arms, and I grunted - this dog was surprisingly heavy. But then, it would have to be, wouldn't it?

"Need any help there?" I heard a voice say behind me. I hoisted the dog onto my shoulder and turned to face Cass, who was eyeing me with amusement.

"I think I can handle one dead dog," I said, trying to ignore the feel of the matted fur pressing against my face. Instead, I just kept going forward. Next thing I knew I was in the good doctor's office, and boy... was I in for a shock.

The office was almost nothing like I remembered it. There were more things cluttering up the space. I'm just glad I wasn't claustrophobic. There were machines that obviously hadn't been there before, and when I looked down, I couldn't see the floor for the masses of cables and wires. A few of the bigger conduits had metal footplates draped over them to keep people from tripping, but the vast majority of the cables afforded no such luxury. The largest machine in the center of the room looked like it had been constructed out of several cannibalized solar panels, with the strangest looking ceiling fan bolted above it - instead of fan blades, metal boxes protruded from the center off metal sticks. Behind the machine, I could see Calamity ditching her jacket and pulling on her labcoat, while Henry took a look through the bag of odds and ends she'd brought back. Arcade was also busy at work on one of the computers in the back, typing away at something. Oddly enough, he had ditched his labcoat somewhere. Laying next to him on one of the last remaining examination tables was Rex, fast asleep, and with several large wires hooked up to his brain and his other mechanical parts, connecting him to one of the nearby machines.

"Hey, doctor?" I said, I thought loud enough to be heard. Henry didn't seem to notice me, so, very carefully, I stepped over the wires and made my way further into his office.

"Hmm... yes, yes... This will do nicely..." Henry was turning a small device over and over in his hands, seemingly oblivious to everything else around him. "You've done well, finding this. Get this installed right away, would you Calamity?"

"Doctor Henry!" I said right behind him. He just turned to look at me with... was that annoyance? "I found a dog. I think it's brain will work, but... it... he kind of... well, died on the way up."

"Well don't just stand there," he said, grabbing me by the shoulder and ushering me to the unoccupied examination table next to Rex. "Let's take a look at him, examine his potential." I set down the dog on the table... and was quickly ushered away by Calamity. Henry reached above him and grabbed what looked like the glass from an old TV, surrounded by metal and dials and buttons, and mounted to an extending metal scissor arm. He turned it on, the screen flickered, and a blue and white image of the dogs brain appeared on the screen. "Alright, let's see here... neural pathways look good... definitely a breed of guard dog... Excellent! It will take a few hours to complete the procedure, though. I'll call you when we're finished."

Cass was leaning against my car when I got back outside. Before I even got a chance to say anything, she rapped one of her knuckles against the car door, right next to the gaping bullet hole.

"So... I'm guessin' you had some fun," Cass said with a smirk. I just shrugged, and leaned against my car next to her. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know. Nothing I can't handle." I tried to be cool, but Cass just chuckled.

"Yeah, I'll bet," Without another word, she reached behind her and pulled out her flask. She started unscrewing the cap... and then her hand slowed to a stop, until she was just staring at her still closed flask. After a few seconds of staring, she sighed.

"Hey, Cass? You alright?" She shrugged, and finished unscrewing the cap on her flask, taking a drink.

"Yeah, m'fine. Jus'... thinkin' is all."

"Okay... what are you thinking about?" She shrugged, and offered me her flask. "Thanks," I said, but I couldn't help notice that she wasn't looking up. I took a swig, let the whiskey burn down my throat, and handed it back to her.

"I dunno. Stuff, mostly... Been thinkin' 'bout th' next caravan site a lot... th' one on th' map?"

Ah.

"What about it?" I asked, already feeling like I knew the answer.

"Well... s'like this. We know where it is, right? An' there's nothin' stoppin' me from headin' out there right now to find out what's what..." Cass sighed heavily again. "But we haven't."

"Yeah... I was gonna say something, but I thought it best to wait until you brought it up." I paused, thinking for a minute. "You know, we could go right now." Cass looked up at me from under her hat with a raised eyebrow.

"What, now? Y'mean, now-now?" She gestured back at the lodge with her thumb. "But what about Rex? An' Veronica? An' Boone? An' Arcade?"

"Don't worry about it," I smiled, and waved it off. "They can all keep for a few hours. We can head down there, see what's what, and then head back. Easy. I mean, hell, I made a promise." Cass just looked dumbfounded. Finally, she shook her head.

"No... no, s'alright. We don' have t'go righ' now. But... thanks. Offerin' t'just drop ev'rythin' like that, an' drive me out all that way, I... thanks." She raised her flask to me, said "Cheers," and took a long swig - if the flask wasn't empty by now, I'd be thoroughly surprised.

"Don't worry about it. I'm your friend, that's what friends are for. But... I have this feeling there's something else at work here. It's almost like you don't want to visit that x on the map." Cass stayed quiet for a while; the only noise came when she started fiddling and fidgeting with her flask, screwing the cap back on and turning it around in her hands.

"When I asked you to take me to th' first..." She gulped audibly. "...to th' wreckage of Cassidy Caravans, I didn't know what t'expect. I jus' wanted to pay my respects to th' dead. I thought I'd be able t'say g'bye, and then that'd be th' end of it. But now, s'like my caravan was just..." She trailed off. Eventually though, she put her flask away, and looked straight at me. "Y'ever get a feelin' in yer gut? Like... you know somethin' bad is gonna happen, but you can't put yer finger on what exactly?"

"Sometimes, yeah," I nodded my head. "You getting one of those gut feelings yourself?"

"Yeah... I jus' got this nasty feelin', deep in th' pit've my stomach. Like... when we get there, I'll find th' answers I was lookin' for, but... no matter what, I'm not gonna like what I find. It's almost like..." Cass grimaced, like she was trying to search for the right words to express what she wanted to say. "Have y'ever had nightmares?"

Part of me wanted to start laughing uncontrollably right then and there. Another part of me wanted to exposit in great detail, and at considerable length all the nightmares I'd been having ever since killing Benny at the Tops. Nightmares about the people I'd killed, nightmares about Caesar and Kimball, about House and Vegas. I wanted to tell her about the floating, spinning rubix cube; and the neverending hallway; and the ICBMs turning the Mojave into a brand new radioactive wasteland; and Daniel Wyand talking to me with a hole in his head; and Benny rigging the roulette wheel; and all that was left of the memories of people I used to know dissolving into sand; and Victor burying me alive; and Benny's broken, mangled, bloody face reforming into my own. I wanted to tell her about waking up in the middle of the night, breathless with sheets soaking from all the cold sweat.

I wanted to tell her all these things.

"I've had a few, yes," I said eventually. And that's all I said on the subject.

"Well... I've been havin' one th' last couple've days," Cass said. "S'always th' same dream. I'm walkin' down this canyon, an' suddenly, there's this fork in th' road. Both path's are covered in darkness. Can't see anythin' down either one, but I can... I dunno, it's like I can feel somethin'... Just when I'm 'bout t'make a choice, th' ground drops out from b'neath me, an' I wake up." Cass sighed. "I dunno why'm so nervous 'bout this, y'know?"

"Listen, Cass..." I patted her on the shoulder as I talked. "This whole caravan thing? It's all you. I'm following your lead here, so I'll only take you there when you're ready. And I'm not gonna force you to go out there if you don't want to, either."

"I know, s'just..." Cass screwed her face up until a look of determination fell across her features. "Tomorrow." That was surprising.

"You're sure?" I asked. Cass tipped her hat back and nodded.

"Yeah. Not gonna put this off any longer. Tomorrow morning sound good?" I nodded back at her.

"First thing tomorrow morning, we'll go visit the next caravan site. I promise."

"Alright. Good. Yeah... this is... good." Cass slumped against my car, and the two of us just leaned against my car in silence for a few minutes.

"Hey, do you want to get something to eat?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"I thought you'd never fuckin' ask. I'm starving!"

There isn't anything even remotely restaurant-ish anywhere in Jacobstown, but we did eventually find enough food to make a couple of sandwiches. And even better - Cass found four bottles of beer! The two of us ended up having lunch sitting on the hood of my car, bullshitting about nothing. The conversation wasn't quite so heavy as it had been earlier, thankfully.

"How th' fuck didja survive all that anyway?" Cass asked, finishing off her second beer. "I mean, four Legion assassins come after ya, an' you get outta there without a fuckin' scratch?"

"Well, to be fair, I came out with a couple of scratches," I rubbed my arm where I'd been hit with the ricochet earlier. From behind me, I heard a few weird beeps - it sounded like ED-E was annoyed. "Yes, ED-E, you were a great help, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." The eyebot responded with a pair of satisfied sounding beeps.

"Still, that's impressive. Didn't think y'had it in ya."

Suddenly, the car started shaking. I looked around, guessing at the source, and saw Lily walking past us towards the lodge.

"Hey, Lily. What's up?" I asked, downing the last of my beer.

"Oh, hello dearie! Doctor Henry told me he'd be ready for me in his lab about now. We're going to test out the Stealth Boy Mark II!" Lily boomed in undisguised enthusiasm.

"Are you sure about helping Henry with his experiment, Lily?" I asked. "I mean, he told me yesterday that the procedure is... risky. Sure you want to go through with it?"

"Oh, look at you, all worried about your grandma!" Lily came over and patted me on the head; it was all I could do not to fall off the hood of my car. Off to the side, I heard Cass start laughing. "I know it's dangerous, but it'll all turn out for the best, you'll see! I should really go to him now. Don't want to keep him waiting!" She ruffled my hair, and turned on her heels into the lodge.

"Heh... you look like a damn goof," Cass said, and I realized I was lying down so low, my head was almost touching the hood. I straightened myself up, just in time for Cass to stop chuckling. "So... we gonna go in and watch?"

"Of course," I said, jumping off the car.

By the time Cass and I entered Henry's lab, Lily was already standing in the middle of the machine I'd seen earlier that looked to be made out of solar panels. Her hat and goggles were nowhere to be seen, and a number of sensors hooked up to wires were stuck to her skin. Calamity and Arcade were both standing behind computer monitors and technical equipment, while Henry was busy putting the finishing touches on the machine Lily was standing in. Lily turned to look at us when we entered, and it almost looked like she was trying to smile behind her leather face harness.

"You came to visit! How lovely. You're just in time for the fireworks!" Lily said. Henry looked out from behind the machine at us, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, it's you," he said, closing the panel and walking towards us. "You're welcome to stand and observe the experiment if you want, but please, stand back - I don't want any erroneous readings."

"Doctor Henry!" Calamity rasped from across the room. "All of the equipment is hooked up and ready."

"We can start the test as soon as you give the go ahead," Arcade perked up from his station, and gave Henry a thumbs up. It was then I got the first look at Arcade since he'd started helping Henry last night... and it looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. There were massive dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was rather disheveled. He had ditched his labcoat, the sleeves on his shirt were rolled up, and the top two buttons were open.

"Excellent," Henry reached inside his coat, and handed Lily what looked like a Stealth Boy. It didn't look any different from a normal Stealth Boy, but then again, I don't know about these things. "Let's go ahead and start the test."

The floor rumbled, and the air was filled with a loud, low frequency hum. The fan blade above Lily started to slowly turn around just as she strapped the Stealth Boy Mark II to her wrist. What looked like two tiny plastic satellite dishes dropped out of the top of the machine, pointing towards Lily. The solar panels behind her started to glow a faint blue around the edges.

"All right Lily," Henry said, stepping back from the machine. "Power on the Stealth Boy."

Lily nodded, and lifted up the arm with the Stealth Boy strapped to it. She punched a few buttons, and with a blue-electric flash, and a belch of ozone, Lily disappeared... except she didn't quite disappear completely. The sensors connected to her were still mostly visible - the wires still looked solid, but the suction cups faded in and out, and what I could see almost looked like it was underwater. The fan, the solar panels, the satellite dishes, all of them started sparking slightly with blue electricity, and bits of Lily started to fluctuate in and out of visibility.

"Urgh..." Lily grunted, and the half-visible silhouette moved a little. "Feels... strange. Strange but good!" The fan above her head started spinning slightly faster.

"Interesting," Henry said. "Alright, try thinking aggressive thoughts now. Think about smashing a radscorpion!" The silhouette started shaking again, and the lights around the machine shifted from a light blue to a blue green. Lily started growling.

"Nyah-ha-haa! Lily smash!" I could hear Lily laughing, and the stealth field fluctuated even further; I couldn't tell if it was because she was moving, or because something was going wrong.

"How are those readings looking Calamity?" Henry called out. The ghoul assistant was hunched over one of the machines in the back of the lab.

"The stealth field is unstable, and scrambling things," Calamity yelled out over the ruckus caused by the machines. "The readings say gamma wave activity is zero... but that can't possibly be right! Must be a result of the interference..."

"Arcade? What does your readout say?" Henry said, turning to the blonde doctor.

"I'm getting the same thing on the anti-mass spectrometer, Henry. Gamma wave activity is zero, even with the processors clocking in at 20 petaFLOPS. This can't be just a result of any interference."

"Alright, alright, we're done here," Henry sighed. "Calamity, Arcade, shut down the machines. Go ahead and power the Stealth Boy down, Lily."

"Awww... I liked having it on!" Lily said... but then a moment later, there was a crack of ozone and Lily became completely visible.

The low frequency hum that had permeated everything for the past few minutes finally died down, and the electricity slowly stopped arcing. The satellite dishes folded upwards again, and the fan above Lily slowed down to a crawl, before finally coming to a stop.

"Well, that was... different," Cass said, tipping her hat back.

"So Henry," I stepped over a few cables and approached the doctor. "Do you think this experiment was a success?" He shrugged in a very non-committal fashion.

"I'll have to get back to you on that in a moment, once I've analyzed the results..."

THUD.

Everyone in the room shut up, and turned towards the direction of the noise - the door leading out to the rest of the lodge. It sounded like someone was -

THUD.

Someone was beating against the door. It was either being hit with a battering ram, or a super mutant was hitting it with a fist the size of my head. Almost on instinct, I started to reach for Roscoe sitting in my holster.

THUD.

The door handle splintered, and flew off the door into the room; the door itself swung open on its hinges, smashing into the wall behind. A blue skinned Nightkin filled the doorframe to such an extent that I couldn't see anything behind him. He ducked, and slowly walked into the room, each footfall shaking the floorboards with a resounding stomp. From the way he carried himself - and from the sound of his voice when he spoke, which I recognized from a few days ago - I realized that this was Keene, self-proclaimed leader of the Nightkin in Jacobstown. He looked around the room, his eyes finally settling on the Stealth Boy Mark II in Lily's hands.

"Well, well, well..." Every word was spoken with a careful exactness, and the sort of danger that would make my skin crawl if it wasn't already threatening to shake my teeth out with the volume. "Congratulations on getting the Mark II prototype functional doctor. Now... just hand it over, and we'll be on our way."

"We...?" I heard Henry ask. Keene merely advanced towards Lily, each step slow and dangerous.

"Yes, we. My kin and I. There are caches of Stealth Boys out there - hundreds, maybe thousands. With the Mark II in hand, it shouldn't be all that difficult to upgrade each and every one of them."

This was turning into a very bad situation very quickly. I looked around - Henry, Calamity, Arcade, not even Lily was going to stand up to Keene. If he got his hands on the Mark II... an image flashed in my head of hundreds of invisible and crazy super mutants cutting a bloody swath across the wasteland. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I stepped between Keene and Lily.

"Hold on, Keene - you can't take the Mark II," I held out my arms in what I hoped was a disarming gesture. The massive super mutant just got close, and loomed over me.

"Ah, the human Marcus let in. Step aside. My request is perfectly reasonable. Give us the Stealth Boy specs..." he brought up a massive fist, and held it several inches from my face. "...and there will be no need for us to splatter the room with your insides."

"Keene, listen to me, please. The Mark II's are even more dangerous than normal Stealth Boys. If you take it..." Keene cut me off.

"Our lives, our decision to make," he growled menacingly. "We're tired of sitting around Jacobstown waiting pointlessly for a cure that will never come."

"It's not pointless! Henry is close to finding a cure..." I felt something tug at the back of my mind, and I turned back to Henry, desperation in my eyes. "You are close to finding a cure, right?" Henry was next to Calamity, looking over the computers and the readouts.

"Yes, I believe so. This test may have been short, but it has yielded reams of useful data."

"You see?" I said, turning back to the massive Nightkin standing in front of me. He just kept scowling. "If you and the rest of your Nightkin leave Jacobstown now, the Stealth Boys will just make your conditions worse. Not only will you never get a cure - but none of your kin will get a cure, either. You'll ruin everything Marcus has set up here to help you and your kin get better. I know you said it's your choice, but what you do in the wasteland is going to affect everyone: humans, ghouls, mutants, Nightkin: everyone. But you didn't think about that, did you?"

Keene regarded me carefully for a few moments. His breathing sounded almost like a low growl, and he scanned the lab with a scowl. I could practically feel the thudding of my heart beating in my ears. His expression was completely unchanged - though, I couldn't tell if that was from the leather straps holding his mouth in place.

"No... no I didn't. Not until now." He growled. "Very well, human. You've made your point." Keene snorted, and turned on his heels. Just as he ducked to leave the room, he clutched the top of the doorframe, and turned back to face me. "I'll withdraw my request... for now."

Keene left without another sound, and I finally let my arms lower to my side. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and afforded myself the luxury of a soft chuckle. For a minute there, I was sure Keene wasn't going to go for that, and I was going to be little more than dead meat.

"That was incredible!" I heard Henry say from behind me; I turned, and saw that he was now holding the Stealth Boy Mark II in his hands. Lily was no longer in the machine, and was off to the side, putting her sun hat back on. How long had I been standing here? "I've never seen anyone able to talk their kind out of anything once they had their mind set to it."

"Just tell me one thing, Henry. Do you think you got enough from this to find a cure for the Nightkin's schizophrenia?" I asked, still breathing a bit heavy. Henry screwed up his expression, his already impressively wrinkled face filling with even more lines.

"Well... yes and no." He sounded worried - and honestly, I didn't blame him.

"What?" was all I could think to say. Cass spoke up behind me.

"Didn't ya jus' say you got 'nuff from th' experiment?" Cass scratched her head, displacing her hat slightly. "I'm confused."

"To be fair, we collected a lot of useful data, like I said, and I'm a lot closer to a cure than before, but... I'm not sure that this brief test will yield a cure any time soon." Henry looked down at the Stealth Boy in his hands. "However, if Lily were to continue to wear the prototype..."

"Don't worry about a thing, Henry!" I heard Lily say, walking up behind the doctor. "I'm just happy to help!"

An image flashed in my head from Lily in the cave: wide eyed and wild, blood pouring from her mouth... completely feral and mad, ready to kill anything and everything in front of her. And the Mark II would only make that worse.

"There's got to be another way," I said, trying to wrack my brain for something. But I'm not good with all this science stuff, especially something specialized like this. And if Henry couldn't even see any alternatives...

"I have an idea," I heard Arcade speak up, still behind his console. Everyone in the room turned to get a look at him. "Why don't you use neuro-peptide stimulators on a nightstalker brain? As long as the brain is properly preserved in bio-med gel, then it should produce results similar to a live specimen." I was just about to ask Henry if he knew what Arcade was talking about, when Henry's expression changed from worry to elation.

"That's... Arcade, that's brilliant!" Henry said with laughter in his voice. "Simple, yet elegant. I can't believe I didn't think of that! Arcade, I think you may have cracked it!"

About an hour after the Mark II experiment, Henry announced that the brain wave mapping transfer... whatever it was he did to Rex, was completed and the dog was ready to go. Cass, Veronica, and Boone were gathering up their things to get ready to leave and head back to Vegas, while Arcade... he was slumped in the passenger seat of my car, completely passed out. ED-E and I went into Henry's office to meet the cyberdog - but Rex beat us to it. Before I even crossed the threshold of the door, Rex bounded up towards me and started barking happily.

"Hey there, Rex. How're you feeling, boy?" I knelt down, and gave the cyberdog a scratch behind the braincase, and he barked again, nuzzling into my hand. "Well, you're certainly looking better."

"Yes, Rex should be fine for the foreseeable future. That new brain has revitalized him considerably. With any luck, he'll still be functioning long after you and I have fallen into dust."

"I'm sure the King will be happy to hear about that," I said, getting up. Rex sat down at my feet; I think he was wondering why I'd stopped scratching him. "So, is that it?"

"Yes. Thank you again for all your help with the Mark II test. I know it was a bit of a hassle, but you really were a considerable help. If everything continues to go like it has been, Calamity and I should be able to find a cure by the end of the month." I waved him off.

"Hey, I didn't really do anything. I just got a few things where they needed to go. After all, I am a courier." I smirked, and Henry laughed.

"Quite. Oh!" The old doctor snapped his fingers. "Before I forget, Marcus told me he wanted to talk to you before you and your friends left town."

"Alright, I'll go talk to him. But before I go, there was one more thing I wanted to ask you." Henry raised an eyebrow, and I continued. "I remember you said earlier that the Nightkin aren't allowed to use Stealth Boys here, right?"

"Correct. Every Stealth Boy we could find has been confiscated, so they're not tempted to use them." That's what I thought.

"Alright... so where are they?" Henry narrowed his eyes and still looked confused.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I had an idea," I said. "How would you like to remove their temptation completely?"

After everything else I'd done, part of me wanted to just leave town without bothering to see what Marcus wanted, but... well, Marcus was a decent enough guy. I should at least see what he wanted. So while everyone else was trying to corral the cyberdog in my car, I went looking for Marcus.

"Hello, Courier," Marcus said when I finally found him. He was leaning against one of the cabins, with his arms folded across his chest.

"No cigar this time?" I asked. Marcus just smiled and shook his head.

"Nah, I don't smoke in the middle of the day." He got up off the wall, and started tightening one of the vices on his orange shoulder plate.

"So Henry told me you wanted to speak to me?" I asked. Marcus nodded.

"Yes. There's... something I need done, but I've been hesitant to send someone from Jacobstown to check up on it. Well... someone else." Marcus sighed.

"Go on, I'm listening."

"Jacobstown... it wasn't my first attempt to help muties here in the Mojave. There was another place, at an old weather station at the peak of Black Mountain. Long story short, a crazed Nightkin called Tabitha arrived, and convinced the second-gens that she was some kind of prophet."

"Second-gens?" I asked. Marcus shrugged.

"Second generation super mutants. Results of the Enclave's experiments at the Mariposa ruins. Well... I don't want to say they're a bit dim, but, to be honest, the Enclave wasn't as good at making mutants as The Master. The point is, I sent one of my best infiltrators - Neil - to Black Mountain a few months ago to check on things. At first the reports were pretty regular, but I haven't heard anything from him in a few weeks. It's like he's gone completely dark."

"Let me guess," I said, holding up a hand to get him to stop. "You're worried about him, and you want me to go and check on him, so you don't have to send anyone else from here, right?"

"Not worried, really. I know Neil can take care of himself. I was just thinking, if it's not too much out of your way, do you think you could swing by Black Mountain at some point? There shouldn't be any rush, you know." Marcus looked hopeful, and I just sighed.

"I'll see what I can do."

It was a surprisingly calm trip back to Freeside. I'm not sure what everyone else had got up to today, but only myself, Boone, and Rex, stayed awake for the trip back. And even better, the King was absolutely thrilled to see Rex again.

"Why Rexie! You look all better boy!" It almost looked like Rex was going to jump into the King's arms. Instead, the King knelt down to hug his cyberdog, and Rex started licking the King's face. "Ha ha! Aw, you're good as new! Did my Rexie get a new brain? Yes you did!"

"Should I leave you two alone?" I asked, trying to hold back a laugh. The King shook his head, but kept smiling, and stood up. Rex sat by his feet, looking up at the King, and panting heavily and happily.

"Naw, I'm just happy to see my pup back on his feet and happy. You're a man of your word, no doubt about it. I can't thank you enough for this," the King said, shaking my hand. "You've helped us plenty around here in Freeside, so I'll tell you what. Just this once, name whatever you want, and if I can make it happen, it's done."

"Hey, don't worry about it," I said, trying to wave it off. "The last few days were pretty fun. Bit dangerous, but hey, what isn't?"

"I'm serious. You've done right by me, and I want to do right by you. Don't rush it, though. Toss it around in you head a little. You only get one favor from The King."

"Fair enough."

"So, all that nonsense is over and done with," Veronica said, leaning against my car next to Cass. Boone was leaning on the other side, Arcade was still slumped in the passenger seat asleep, and ED-E was buzzing around above us. "What do you want to do now?"

"Well," I shoved my hands in my pockets, and thought. "We started all this nonsense in Freeside a couple of days ago with lunch. How about we go for some dinner?"

"Sounds good t'me," Cass said with a smile. "Hey, how 'bout we go back to th' El Cortez? There was a steakhouse I wanted t'check out last time we were there."

"Maybe I can pick up where I left off with the blackjack tables," Veronica said, looking up at ED-E hovering above her. "I still haven't forgiven you for that, you know. I was just about to make a killing when you came to fetch us the other day!"

ED-E let out a beep that sounded suspiciously like he was blowing a raspberry.