New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Ding.

Veronica and I didn't say anything as we walked out of the elevator. With how awful the two of us must have surely looked, there wasn't anything to say. Hell, if I looked even half as bad as I felt, then I must look absolutely fucking terrible. It had been a hell of a day, and it was barely even noon.

"Oh, hey guys," Cass muttered absentmindedly as the two of us walked into the kitchen. "You're back earlier than I expe-WHOA!" She seemed a bit more alert once she actually took notice of us. "What the fuck happened to you two?"

"Oh, you know..." I shrugged, sliding past her on my way to the fridge; I coughed, and a cloud of soot and ash shook off me. "Just another day at the office."

"Fucking-A, man... you guys look like shit." Well, that answers that. Apparently I did, in fact, look about half as bad as I felt. "What, did someone try and light you guys on fire or something?"

"Near enough." I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, tossing one to Veronica; she caught it without even moving from the doorway. For a solid minute, nobody spoke. Cass was too busy looking at us with slack-jawed confusion, and Veronica and I were too busy trying to wash out the awful taste of ash. I only spoke up again once the bottle in my hand was empty. "Hey, V? Are you..."

Veronica didn't answer right away - not even when I trailed off, at a loss for the right thing to say. She just finished her water, letting the empty bottle drop from her hands, and started... staring. Not at me, or Cass, or at anything, really. She just had this dull, unfocused look in her eyes. It was a look that spoke volumes about how exhausted, how lonely, and... just how defeated she must have felt.

"I... I'll be... I..." She sighed, trying in vain to wipe some of the soot from her forehead with her sleeve, and only succeeding in making her face look dirtier. "I just..." She didn't finish. She just turned on her heels, and slowly walked away. As soon as she was out of sight, Cass edged closer, and started whispering:

"... Dude. What the fuck happened?"

"It's just..." I sighed, shaking my head. "It's been a bad day."

"Yeah, you can say that again. Understatement of the fucking century." When I didn't immediately respond, Cass gestured with her hands, obviously eager for me to keep going. Eh, might as well tell her.

"We got attacked by a sqaud of Brotherhood Paladins," I said simply. Cass' eyes went wide.

"Oh shit..." she gulped audibly. "So... does that mean..." Are we going to have to deal with assassins from both the Legion and the Brotherhood now, she didn't need to say.

"I dunno. I mean... I'm not sure, honestly." I sighed, running my hand through my hair to try and shake more of the ash and soot out. "Last I talked with McNamara, he seemed pretty dead-set on not lifting the lockdown. Not to mention he seems to care for Veronica's well being. Given that, I highly doubt that he'd lift the lockdown just to send a squad of Paladins to kill us. Especially since it was the same squad that had been bird-doggin' us since Veronica brought me into the bunker..."

"So what are we going to do?" Cass' worried expression didn't change.

"I... I don... Until we get concrete proof McNamara was behind sending them out, I'm just going to... leave the Brotherhood alone. I'll go upstairs, tell Yes Man that we should focus on something else for the time being."

"You think that's going to work?" Cass asked. Her expression seemed to suggest she didn't think it would.

"Short term? Maybe. If I'm right, and McNamara hasn't lifted the lockdown, then they shouldn't venture beyond Hidden Valley, and they won't attack us unless provoked. If nothing else, we'll have a bit more breathing room, so we can deal with them after all that business with the Dam is taken care of."

"But..." Cass looked back in the direction Veronica left. "... we are going to have to deal with them."

"Yeah..." I muttered grimly. "And that is not something I'm looking forward to."

Ding.

"April. Emily." I nodded to the two scientists as I made my way down the stairs to their cluttered workstations in front of Yes Man's monitor. There was a faint sound of music coming from somewhere I couldn't see; was there a radio up here? "What's the good word? Any progress?" April didn't look up from her computer; she just absentmindedly nodded as she typed away, a pencil clutched in her mouth. Emily, on the other hand, turned in her seat with a smile.

"Oh! Hey, Sheason," She smiled, brushing a few errant strands of red hair out of her face. "It's, uh... yeah, it's been slow going. But steady!" She added quickly. "Every day we keep finding more. A lot of it is kind of... it's the sort of thing that isn't really useful unless one has access large manufacturing facilities, or vast stockpiles of raw material... but we haven't really found a whole lot that can bridge the gap between where we want to be, and where we are. "

"Hey, anything is better than nothing," I said. At least there's some good news from someone.

"Actually, there was a bit of news. Sort of. We sent over the first batch of holotapes to Julie Farkas the other day. She wanted me to pass on her gratitude for giving us so much access to so much information."

"You should've given them to me to send over, I am a courier after all," I said with a laugh. "To be honest, though, I didn't really come up here to check on your progress. I actually came up here to talk some business with Yes Man." Instantly, the big monitor blinked into life, and Yes Man's gigantic, smiling cartoon face looked down at us.

"I thought I heard someone say my name! Hi there! What can I do for you today?" Yes Man boomed.

"Do you, uh..." Emily looked up at Yes Man's monitor, and then back at me. "Do you want us to get out of here?" I shrugged.

"Ehh," I shrugged. "Don't want to interrupt your work. Besides, this shouldn't take too long. Alright, Yes Man..." I sat on the edge of one of the desks, stalling myself so I could think of how best to phrase this. "Close the file on the Brotherhood. They're... for the time being, consider them taken care of. Got it?"

"Got it!" He said, cheerful as ever. "I'll ignore the fact that they'll want to blow me up for as long as you deem necessary! Consider them forgotten! That's four down, two to go!"

"Four, huh?" He must have been counting the Chairmen in that list, along with the Boomers, the Omertas, and the Brotherhood. And I'll be honest... the only one of those I didn't have any serious doubts about were the Boomers. "Alright, who else is left?"

"According to the files Benny stored in my databanks during my stay in The Tops, and cross-referenced with some of the reconstructed files in House's system, the last two tribes we should deal with before moving to the next phase of the plan are the Great Khans and the White Glove Society!" Yes Man said proudly. "It's up to you who we should deal with next! Or not! We could just ignore them, like we're going to do with the Brotherhood!"

I let out a huge sigh. He wasn't going to let that one go, was he?

"The White Gloves are the last of the Three Families, aren't they?" I asked.

"They sure are!" Yes Man said proudly. Truth be told, I already knew the answer. I just wanted to move the conversation away from the Brotherhood. And really, I didn't want to leave Vegas again so soon, so dealing with them first, then the Khans seemed like the best course of action.

"Tell me about them," I said firmly. "If they're anything like the Chairmen or the Omertas, then I'll need to do something to get them in line."

"From what I understand, they're perfectly delightful!" Yes Man said matter-of-factly. "They're cultured, clean, and super-polite! Of the Three Families in Vegas, they're the richest - despite their casinos catering to a smaller percentage of total tourists on The Strip! Benny didn't like them, though! He said they were 'creepy'!"

"Yeah, I think I remember Swank saying something similar..." I mused out loud. "Something about the masks they wear, right?"

"I'm honestly not sure! It's all very mysterious! I think that's what they're going for, but frankly - who knows? Certainly not me!"

"Alright," I got up off the desk, and started walking away. "I'll let you know when I finish checking out the White Gloves. I'll make sure to see what's what over there."

"Don't hurry on my account! I'm the one with the flexible schedule!" There was a burst of static, and Yes Man's face disappeared from the screen.

"Well then," I said. "Best get to work." As I started to leave, I noticed April - still absorbed in whatever it is she was working on - halfway acknowledge me by waving goodbye.

"So, you're going to the Ultra-Luxe?" Emily asked, following me as I started to walk up the stairs back to the elevator. "Don't you think you should... I dunno, change?" I looked back at her, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Emily scratched the back of her head and let out a pair of soft, nervous laughs. "No offense, but... combat armor and trenchcoat? I'm not sure you're really dressed well enough for a place like the Ultra-Luxe."

"Yeah, probably not. Hell, I'm pretty sure I wasn't dressed well enough for Gomorrah," I rapped my knuckles against the breastplate several times. "But I was damn glad to be wearin' this when a Legion assassin tried to ambush me." Emily stopped at the top of the stairs, and just stared at me for a second or two.

"Wh- seriously?"

"Yeah, I didn't tell you this? When I went to Gomorrah, there was a wetwork specialist trying to get the Omerta's on the Legion's side, help them with a takeover plan. Damn near took my head off with a garrote."

"What happened to him?"

I thought back to that fight - how I kicked him out of a window, and how Cachino told me they found him later, wrapped around an AC box.

"I sent him to cool off." She just stared at me blankly. Obviously, it was funnier in my head. "Well, anyway. If the Ultra-Luxe is as fancy as you say it is, maybe I'll need someone to help me look respectable. Wanna tag along?" This just seemed to perplex Emily further.

"Ah... ah-heh, yes, well... um... ah..." She smiled weakly, and her cheeks started to flush like mad. "As... generous as that offer is, I'm not sure how well I'd do at making you look respectable. I mean... really, what you see is what you get." She gestured to her glasses and Followers labcoat. "This is... basically the only outfit I own. Hell, if you hadn't offered us a place here in the 38, April and I would probably be staying in Vault 21 because it's the cheapest place on The Strip - if we could get past the credit check. Er... and besides. There's still a lot of... stuff... that needs to be done in terms of unlocking House's files. So... I think that I'm going to... Thank you. But no. I'm good with not being attacked by Legion assassins."

"Suit yourself," I said with a smile and a shrug. "Just don't work too hard, right?" Emily blushed again, and smiled.

"Oh, don't worry about me. I know how to pace myself. It's April who's the workaholic. I don't think she's left that terminal since she made a pot of coffee..."

"That's not too bad," I said.

"At four in the morning." Emily finished.

"Oooh... yeah." I grimaced, trying to hold back a laugh. "Yeah, I can see how that'd be a problem. You guys should relax, or you're gonna risk burning yourselves out."

"Actually... speaking of relaxing..." Emily paused, as if unsure what to say.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Well..." Her glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose, and she peered at me over them. "I promised you a drink, didn't I? You ever going to take me up on that?"

I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't expecting that. Was she...

"Uh... not right now," I said as diplomatically as I could. "I've kind of... you know, got work to do. But... later. Rain check?" Emily nodded, pushing her glasses back up her face.

"Later is an acceptable answer," She said with a smile. "It's that no thing that gets me."

Ding.

I've never been more grateful to be made paranoid. That may sound silly, but keep in mind: I was up in the Penthouse, and only two people besides myself come up here on a regular basis, and they were both already here. Which is why, as the elevator doors started to slide open, my hand was resting on Roscoe, ready to draw it. Who could be...

"Veronica?" I said, taking my hand off Roscoe as casually and nonchalantly as I could. "What are you... uh... what's up?"

"Uh... yeah. Hi Sheason," Veronica said eventually. She still wasn't really looking at me. "I was just thinking... I know today didn't... it was... sort of... horrible. But I still..." Veronica finally looked up at me; even though her eyes were red and puffy, it was obviously a look of as much determination as she could muster. "I still want to do some good. I figured, if I can't help the Followers... there... then I might be able to help them here."

"You want to help with the decoding project?" I said, looking over to Emily. The redhead scientist could not look happier.

"That sounds like a great idea!" Emily practically bounced over to Veronica. "We could always use more help, and your expertise from the Brotherhood will definitely come in handy, I'm sure of it!"

"Sounds like a plan," I smiled at the two of them. "Hell, we should get Arcade up here to help, too. With you and April, Yes Man, ED-E, and now Veronica, he's probably going to end up here anyway."

The Ultra-Luxe was located at the absolute south end of The Strip. When I finally got to the front of the casino, I couldn't help but admire how rich the place looked. Hell, even the sign out front was ridiculous - it looked like it was made out marble, with the words "The Ultra-Luxe" and "Las Vegas Resort" written in fancy cursive and (backlit in gold) underneath a shield with "UL" written in the middle. The whole thing was even topped with a crown.

That would've been enough by itself, but then they had to make it even more ridiculous with a gigantic fountain spraying dozens of jets of water 20 feet in the air. There are people out in parts of the wasteland dying because they don't have clean water, and they're using it as decoration. Even being here for so long, there were still parts of Vegas I couldn't quite wrap my head around.

What's more, I couldn't quite figure out what the shape of the casino reminded me of. I mean, the entrance was under a under a dome covered in gold lights, and behind that was a tower (made out of glass, obviously) with a top that looked like it had been cut off at an angle, creating a diamond shape. Every edge was lined with gold lights, making the whole building shimmer and glint. But then there were two... I almost want to say "wings" on either side of the tower, with a shape that reminded me a little of the grandstands at the speedway north of Nellis.

I actually thought it was kind of funny - this was obviously the most expensive casino on The Strip, with the way the place practically oozed money. But all you had to do was look right across the street, and there was the cheapest casino, Vault 21, sitting like a squat, ugly brick under the gear-shaped Vault door sign.

That sense of being surrounded by money stayed with me as I stepped through one of the big double doors in the front of the Ultra-Luxe. The walls looked like white marble, the lights in the ceiling looked like they were made out of gold, and even the carpet beneath my feet had the faded green color of pre-war cash.

"Beg your pardon," I heard a voice off to my left. "But could I trouble you to turn over your weapons?" The voice belonged to the man behind the front desk... at least, I'm pretty sure it was a man. I couldn't really tell behind the mask. He wore a tuxedo with a white tie, white gloves (obviously) and a white mask that completely covered his face, and was decorated with gold filigree around the edges.

"Sure," I said, offloading the obvious weapons I carried with me... but I was pulling the same trick I did when I went to Gomorroah. I wasn't going to give him everything...

"My deepest apologies for the slightest inconvenience," the man said as he loaded the assault rifle, the submachine guns, the pistols, the knives, and all the various grenades into a metal box, locking it and handing me a metal claim ticket. "You have my assurance that everything will be returned upon your departure. But we simply can't have anyone waving their weapons around in the hotel. It's not the atmosphere we wish to cultivate."

"Seems reasonable enough," I put the tag in my pocket, looking around. The greeter reached under the counter, and a second set of doors on either side of the counter slid open, allowing me access to the rest of the casino.

"Please, enjoy your stay."

You know, maybe I was being paranoid.

I'd been wandering around the casino for twenty minutes now, and nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. I mean, the place was a bit... empty, sure, but it's possible that was just because there weren't any slot machines anywhere. The employees were a bit creepy, too, but I just attributed that to the masks they all wore. It all seemed harmless enough.

Of course, that's about when I got to the bar. In the center of the room was a giant statue of a blueish-purple flower with green highlights made entirely out of glass and lit from within. Surrounding it was the bar, with the base of the flower acting as the shelf for all the liquor, and the bar itself made out of dark-green granite and ringed with brass poles. The ceiling was a massive dome, made out of glass triangles, spilling gold light everywhere. But the one thing that stood out most of all was the patron at the bar wearing a black 10 gallon Stetson - and the man standing next to him wearing leather armor... and carrying massive shotgun.

Now, that is interesting. Why is this guy allowed to carry a gun? Next thing I knew, my feet had carried me to the seat next to the man in the cowboy hat. And it wasn't all that long after I ordered my drink that he turned to me a struck up a conversation. I didn't even have to prompt him or anything.

"Beg your pardon, stranger," the man said, and I turned to get a good look at him. He was an older man, with a full head of grey hair under his hat, and an impeccably groomed Van Dyke around his mouth. He was wearing a suit that matched his hat, and somehow managed to pull off 'fancy' and 'rustic' at the same time. "My name is Gunderson. Heck Gunderson. You ain't seen a young man with dark brown hair and white hat on lately, have you?"

"Sorry," I said, taking a sip of the whiskey that just arrived. "I haven't seen anyone like that." As I said that, Heck sighed heavily.

"Ain't nobody got one darned piece of news about my boy? Not one lousy speck of information?" His voiced cracked slightly as he spoke. "Ain't got one Brahmin unaccounted for across a dozen ranches, but I'm here for an hour and my own son just up and disappears on me."

"You lost your son?" I asked. The pit of my stomach didn't quite fall out, like it always seems to do before something bad happens, but... there was definitely something wrong, and the only way to figure it out was pursue this.

"My boy, Ted. He was right here," he gestured to the seat at his left, close to where his bodyguard was standing. "I didn't leave him but a minute. I told him to stay put while I talked some things over with the White Glove folks. Got most of my staff out looking for him now. I'd be out myself, but I keep hoping he'll show up back here! 'Course, if he does that, I'll whup him till his skinny hide turns to leather for putting me through this. But that don't mean I won't be grateful."

"You're doing business with the White Gloves?" I asked. "That why your man is allowed to carry a piece in here?" I motioned with my head to his bodyguard. Gunderson just smirked.

"Made me a special arrangement with the hotel. They want to do business with me, they got to play by my rules. Lot of people out there resent success. Might wanna take a swipe at me. This should make 'em think twice. If I'd have been thinking, though, I'd have had him watching my boy instead. Then maybe none of this would've happened."

"I don't mean to pry, but... what business do you have with the White Gloves?" Part of me wanted to ask more about his missing son, but I needed to get some information about the White Gloves, and this seemed like the most promising lead.,

"That business is between me and them," he said matter-of-factly. "But lets just say they control the food supply around here. I got lots of food to give - Brahmin and bighorner meat from my dozen ranches - but that ain't as welcome as you might think. Especially with those masks... Real hard to trust folks like that. Couple of them show their faces. That's who I do my business with."

Now... that sounded promising.

"You know," I said, finishing off my whiskey. "I've got some business with the White Gloves myself. I can't promise you anything, but I'll see what I can do about trying to find your boy. I've gotten pretty good at solving problems over the last few weeks, and this seems right up my alley." Gunderson nodded, and smiled at me when I said that.

"I'd be more than happy to have your help. Heck, I'll hire anybody with a pair of legs and at least one good eye at this point. There'd be a lot of money in it for you if you can get him back to me safe. And if he ain't safe... well... you can bet I'll pay for the names of the sons of bitches responsible."

Yeah, that doesn't sound ominous at all...

"I'll see what I can do," I said, getting up from the bar.

"Wait, hold on. Before you go," Heck called out after me before I got two feet. "If you're serious about helping, I think I should at least know your name." I just chuckled, and shrugged.

"Me? I'm nobody," I gave him lazy wave, and turned on my heel. "I'm just a courier."