New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 20: Fortification Hill

Cass was quite cross with me.

She didn't want me to go up there all by myself - too much of a risk of me not coming back, she said. Eventually though, she did relent and let me go; although it must be said, she did get the last word in: "I swear, if you die out there, I'll kill ya!"

ED-E, on the other hand, had been much harder to dissuade. I was already a decent ways up the river when I heard him beep and whistle, hovering just behind me. I kept telling him that he couldn't follow me - if I was going to get in and get out, I needed to be as inconspicuous as possible, and having a floating metal ball hovering behind me would scream "THIS MAN IS AN INTRUDER! SHOOT HIM!" like a giant glowing neon sign above my head. He just let out a few sad sounding whistles, like a dog whimpering. Eventually though, I got him to turn around and let me continue up the river on my own.

I didn't really have much to do on the way there, except go over the plan... and go over what I had with me. Obviously I had the Platinum Chip - it was hidden in the palm of my left glove. I also had Roscoe hidden in the back of my pants, out of sight along with two extra mags. I didn't wear it on my hip because that's where I kept the machete I'd looted to keep me looking like a Legionnaire. I had three MFC grenades hidden in various places in the armor, and a flare tucked away in my right boot. I didn't bring That Gun with me, because I had no place to hide it.

It took nearly an hour going upriver before I saw the first signs of Caesar's camp. By that time it was just starting to get dark... but that just made the torches easier to see. It was a small dock, sticking out of the Arizona side of the river, with two torches and a single Legion soldier standing guard. When I got close enough, he threw me a rope and helped me guide the boat into dock.

So far, so good. All I had to do was keep playing it casual as you please, and with any luck I'd be on my way out within the hour.

"Ave. True to Caesar," the Legionnaire said to me as I stepped off the boat. He thumped his fist on his chest as a salute, and I returned the gesture. He looked me up and down once, and just as I was about to try and make my way past him, he said "You have the look of a Speculatore about you. Tell me, what is your business back at the fort?"

"I'm here to deliver an urgent message to Vulpes Inculta," I told him. I'd had plenty of time to think of an excuse on my way up river. I'd forced myself to remember what I'd seen in Nipton - specifically, Vulpes, and what he'd said to me: "I am Vulpes Inculta, commander of the mighty Caesar's Frumentarii." If my hunch was correct, the Frumentarii were spies, and for an army that didn't use radios, it was likely they'd use runners to deliver their messages.

Hopefully, the cover would wash. I mean, I was still a courier, after all.

"What kind of urgent message? I was under the impression all the patrols were in from today," he said. He was starting to sound very suspicious. So I had to think fast.

"That is not for you to know," I said as forcefully as I could from behind the cloth in front of my mouth. "This report is for the eyes and ears of Vulpes Inculta only, until he tells me otherwise." I pulled the machete from my belt. "I could tell you... but then I'd have to slit your throat."

To his credit, he didn't flinch. He just stepped to the side, and gestured an arm to let me pass. I sheathed the machete and walked off the dock. As I passed, the Legion soldier called back "You certainly speak like one of The Fox's men. No respect for honorable combat."

It was a very long hike from the dock up to the actual fort itself. The walls at the end of the pass must've been ten feet high, and looked like they were made out of a really thick metal. There were a pair of Legionnaires at the top of the wall with hunting rifles, stationed on either side of an open drawbridge. I just marched through the gate like I owned the place and into the fort... the first part of the fort, anyway. There was another, slightly smaller hill, up another winding path with another wall and an open drawbridge.

Nobody had shot me yet, but aside from the guards on the wall and maybe one or two other Legionnaires I saw patrolling the perimeter, I didn't really see anyone else. Maybe it was just the darkness... but that couldn't be it, there were torches everywhere, lighting the way. I pressed on, trying my best not to be unnerved.

And then, as I was walking up the hill... that was when I got my first look down the other side of the hill.

I just stopped and stared. I couldn't help myself. All along the other side, stretching all the way to the coast of Lake Mead, were tents. There were hundreds of the damn things, maybe thousands of them. I can't be sure, because I didn't actually stay there long enough to count. I suppose in the back of my mind, I knew that any army that was a threat to the NCR would have to have been huge, but it wasn't until that moment, when I looked down the hill and saw just how many tents there were, that I finally got a sense of just how massive Caesar's Legion really was.

The deeper and deeper I went into Caesar's camp, the more worried I got. I was seeing a lot less sports equipment, for one; most of the Legionaries I saw up here were wearing real armor - metal chest plates and what looked like some kind of kevlar underneath. All around, I could see men working. Some of them looked like they were training, and some of them looked like they were making weapons... and not just blades, but guns and explosives. Lots of guns and explosives.

The thing that scared me the most, however, was the howitzer. I've seen artillery pieces in the past, mostly on NCR or abandoned US military bases. But more importantly, I've seen what they can do: really big guns making even bigger explosions. And when I passed it, I realized that it was pointed directly at Hoover Dam.

I suddenly got a nagging feeling in the back of my head warning me that gun would be problematic.

I kept my head down, and stuck to the shadows as best as I could. Ducking in and out of unoccupied tents, avoiding the groups of Legionaries marching around the fort... I have to admit, I was starting to miss my Pip Boy. I'll be honest, the thing I was missing the most at that moment was the radar.

I turned a corner, and came face to face with a group of four Legionaries headed right towards me. I tried not to look suspicious when I walked into a nearby tent and closed the flap shut. The Legionaries kept walking... all except one. I could see his silhouette against the fabric of the tent. I pulled out Roscoe in one hand and the machete in the other, just in case. If he was suspicious, and figured out I wasn't actually Legion, I'd have to get rid of him. So I waited on the inside of the tent, holding my breath, and hoped I'd be able to take care of him quietly if he decided to be nosy.

The other Legionaries ahead of him called out. I couldn't tell what they said, but shortly after, the silhouette walked away. I let out a sigh of relief. And then tensed up again when I heard a voice from behind me.

"Are... are you here for me?"

I pointed Roscoe at the voice out of reflex. I'm just glad I didn't fire. Sitting on a filthy piece of cardboard and wearing even filthier rags was a small girl. She couldn't have been more than ten years old, maybe eleven. It looked like she was trying to hide behind one of the metal poles keeping the tent up. She was skinny, and probably malnourished, and her rags had a red "X" painted on them. More than anything else though, she looked terrified.

I put Roscoe and the machete away immediately and held up my hands in what I hoped would be a disarming gesture.

"Whoa, hey! Uh, sorry. I didn't know this tent was occupied," She just shrank backward even more, and bowed her head down. It looked like parts of her head had been shaved, and what little hair she had was filthy and matted against her head

"I-I'm sorry... I forgot I wasn't... wasn't supposed to speak... I'm sorry... please don't-" This poor girl looked on the verge of tears. I had to get her to calm down... I had to think of something. So I did the only thing I could think of. I took off the goggles, the face wrap, and lowered my hood.

"Hey, calm down! I'm not gonna hurt you. I mean, er, I'm not even Legion!" Honestly, this was probably a bad move, blowing my cover like this. But I couldn't think of anything else. The tiny girl picked her head up and no longer looked like she was about to cry, but she still eyed me with fear. "Seriously, I'm not Legion. Look," I pulled up my left sleeve to show her my arm - scarred, but lacking the Legion tattoo Cass had told me about earlier. She just stared at my arm for a minute or two before finally speaking up.

"Um... If you're not Legion, then what... what are you doing here?" She still looked a little scared, but not of me.

"That... is a long story," I scratched the back of my head and chuckled softly, trying to take the edge off. She just stayed quiet. "What's your name?"

"...Melody."

"Listen, Melody, I've just got to do some... stuff. Could you do me a favor, and just... not tell anyone you saw me?"

"You're... you're not gonna do anything to me, are you?" She shrank back, wrapping her arms around her legs and pressing them against her chest as she asked.

"Nnnno? I didn't even know you were in here. Why would you think I would- " I stopped dead as a thought hit me. No... that would be sick, even for Legion. Doing something like that would be... beyond monstrous.

"Because..." Melody gulped audibly. "Because sometimes, some Legion soldiers... um... I mean... I'm supposed to tell people that I take care of the brahmin, and bring water to the soldiers, and that's it. But... sometimes they... I mean..." She got very quiet, and stopped talking altogether.

It felt like my brain stopped working. Not because I didn't understand. I could read between the lines just fine. I just didn't want to understand. I didn't want to accept that there were people, even in this broken shell of a world, who were capable of such mind-numbing savagery. I'd never even seen raiders stoop that low. I'd heard of, and even seen, raiders eating people before, but never...

And then my brain started working again, and all I saw was red. I felt a level of hatred towards the Legion that I'd never felt towards anything or anyone before. All I wanted at that particular moment was to kill every single Legionnaire here. But I also knew that I had a job to do.

"Listen, Meldoy," I said as calmly as I could muster; it took a lot of effort to keep my voice from wavering as I spoke. "There's something I have to do. But as soon as I'm done, I'm going to come right back here - and then I'm going to get you out of here." As I spoke, I started putting my headgear back on.

"Get... me..." For the first time since I'd entered the tent, Melody didn't look scared.

"I'm going to come back to free you. And then I'm going to take you somewhere safe. I know a group called the Followers of the Apocalypse. I know the name sounds bad, but they're doctors and teachers - they take care of people. You should be safe with them," As safe as you can get in the wasteland, at least.

"You... you promise?" she asked. She looked almost hopeful. I put up the hood and nodded.

"I promise," I lifted the tent flap, and scanned the outside. I didn't see any Legionnaires nearby. "And when I make a promise, I keep it."

It took me 15 minutes to get from Melody's tent to the weather station at the western edge of the fort. I had to use all my self control not to just start shooting up the place. Of course, even I realized that would be suicide. So I kept low, stuck to the shadows, and kept Roscoe in it's holster until I found my way to the weather station House told me about. There's no way I could've missed it - it was a concrete box with an antennae array sticking 30 feet in the air.

I pulled the door out, and walked inside... only to see three heavily armored legion soldiers staring back at me. Every single one of them wore metal armor fashioned to look like a heavily muscled chest, and they wore helmets with ornamental red frills on the top complete with a metal mask sculpted to look like a weeping face. These soldiers also were not armed with machetes - they had those same kind of shotgun fists I'd seen earlier at the Gun Runners.

"Who are you?" the lead Legionnaire spoke up, walking towards me. "No one is allowed in this building without the express permission of the mighty Caesar." I palmed one of the MFC grenades behind me and did my best to pull out the pin with my thumb.

"Oh, sorry, er, sir. I think I came here by mistake. Sorry about that. I'll just be going," I kept a firm hold of the grenade, making sure the striker wouldn't activate as I edged my way back towards the door.

"You did not answer my question, Legionnaire. What is your name? Who is your Decanus?" The two soldiers on either side of the one advancing on me loaded shells into their ballistic fists.

"Oh, you want to know my name?" I tossed the grenade at the Legionnaire, who ducked; it bounced off the back wall, and rolled back towards the soldiers. I bolted for the door, and just before I slammed it shut, I said "It's Eff Ewe!" I leaned against the heavy metal door as hard as I could, and braced myself for the worst.

There was a very loud, but muffled, explosion from inside; it sort of sounded like Arcade's plasma pistol, only amplified - like a million methane bubbles exploding all at once. The door shook so much, it felt like it was going to rattle my teeth out. But I held firm against the door. It probably helped that the door felt like it was two and a half inches of metal.

I stayed leaning against the door for a few seconds after the explosion. I looked around - I couldn't see any Legion soldiers nearby. I could hear the sounds of Legionnaires exercising off in the distance, but the sounds didn't seem close enough for them to have heard anything. So, with trepidation, I opened the door and stepped back inside.

As I expected, it was a mess. A rather satisfying mess, it must be said. The walls had been painted a satisfying mixture of blood and slowly smoldering glowing green goo. I looked down at my feet - one of the Legionnaires arms hadn't been completely disintegrated, and the stump that used to connect to a now non-existent body was glowing with that same green goo and smoking. The walls, floors, and ceiling were surprisingly undamaged... as was a console on the right side of the building.

This must be the console House told me about. I did my best to wipe away the blood that had been splattered on it, and looked for a slot similar to the one I'd seen in the penthouse of the Lucky 38... sure enough, there it was. I took the Platinum Chip out of its hiding spot in my glove, and pressed it into the slot. There was a whir, and a click as it disappeared into the machine.

A moment later, the ground rumbled, and a hatch in the floor opened up (displacing a rather large piece of smoldering meat, which rolled off to the side), revealing a staircase. The console clicked again, and returned the Platinum Chip. I grabbed it, drew Roscoe, and cautiously made my way down the stairs. It wasn't that long of a trip - 20 steps, maybe - before I found myself at a rusted elevator door, emblazoned with the emblem of the Lucky 38.

"I guess I'm going the right way..." I said to myself, walking slowly towards the elevator doors. They creaked open with a shudder, displacing a great deal of dust, and I cautiously stepped into the elevator. It didn't feel like it went down too far before a second pair of doors on the opposite side opened up.

I had Roscoe pointed at the doors as they opened - I had no idea what to expect, and I didn't want to take any chances. It dumped me into a short, dimly-lit metal corridor, like it was running on emergency power. The smell was overpowering, like sulfur, and had a strange metallic taste; more than anything else though, it was hot. I started sweating as soon as the elevator doors opened. Cautiously, I made my way down the corridor, and found myself in a small room with a large monitor against one wall. The screen flickered, and the familiar face of Mr. House greeted me.

"I see that you reached your destination safely," he said, his digital image still as a grave. "You look ridiculous, wearing that Legion uniform. But I suppose a level of subterfuge was needed to get here. Well then, shall we get to work?"

"Sure. How about we start by you telling me what this place is?" I asked, wiping the sweat off my brow.

"It's a facility I built many years before you were born," No shit, I thought. "You might think of it as a barracks. You'll understand soon enough."

"Alright... so why'd you send me down here?"

"Please, don't interrupt," House snapped. I just snorted. "As you know, the Platinum Chip upgrades my Securitons' operating software. Well... there's an army of them here. The Securitons policing the Strip are but a fraction of the total number manufactured. The rest, I stored here. I need you to manually upload the data from the Chip to the facility's primary computer. There's a terminal at the other end of the facility."

"Seems easy enough," I said with a shrug.

"Yes, well... there's a complication." Wonderful.

"What else is new?" I grumbled under my breath. "So what's this complication then?"

"While I can broadcast to this screen, the equipment failure that made me comatose for several decades after The War has severed my control of the facility's systems. That means I can't deactivate the security bots... most of which appear to be active, according to the status board I'm looking at."

"You've got to be shitting me!" I practically yelled at the screen. I wiped my brow again; I'd barely been down here five minutes, and I was feeling like I'd been out in the desert sun without water for hours. House kept his casino in sub-zero temperatures, but he kept this bunker as hot as a furnace? That didn't make sense - or maybe this had something to do with that equipment failure?

"I most certainly am not 'shitting you,' Mr. Fisher. If I recall correctly, there should be a security room near the base of the stairs... perhaps you can deactivate them yourself?" I looked to the far end of the room - there was a door and, presumably, another set of stairs. Oh joy.

"Alright. So, what are you going to do with this army of Securitrons, once I activate it?"

"My army will do what an army does best - defend territory from invaders... and maintain order."

"Alright, alright, fine... let's get this damn thing over with," I glared at the Platinum Chip in my hands. I wish I'd never taken the job in the first place. Hell, I was wishing I'd never taken the job when I got shot in the head. This damn thing was proving to be more trouble than it was worth.

"Good. I won't hold you up any longer," And with that, House's image disappeared from the screen, and was replaced by the words CONNECTION LOST...

"Yeah, that's not ominous or anything..." I made my way to the stairs, and stood in the doorway just long enough to register the sound of a laser charging up. I ducked to the side and out of sight just in time to see a lance of crimson energy cut through the air and impact into the ceiling with a fizzling pop.

"HALT. THIS IS A LAWFUL USE OF DEADLY FORCE," a mechanical voice called out, accompanied by a very recognizable series of clunks. "ALL NON COMBATANTS, PLEASE: EXIT THE AREA IN AN ORDERLY FASHION." Yep, that clinched it - I was up against Protectrons. As far as I was concerned, I'd finally caught a break. Yes, they were armed with lasers, but they were notoriously slow, legendarily dim-witted and stupid, and above all else: horrible shots. I heard once that if you're fighting a Protectron, the safest place is directly in front of it.

I popped back into the doorframe, took aim with Roscoe, and... suddenly I became very much aware that I didn't have VATS. A laser blast arced up towards me, and shot perilously close to my ear. So I concentrated, took aim, and fired. A single clean shot right through the dome; there was a shower of glass and sparks, and the robot crashed backwards with a metal thud.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I gingerly stepped over the broken robot, and quickly scanned the corridors for more robots. After the second glance, I leaned against one of the nearby walls, pounded a fist against my chest and coughed a few times; for some reason, I found the air down here difficult to breathe.

I shook it off - I've never really been comfortable underground. I've ventured into a few Vaults in the past, and a few smaller abandoned fallout shelters, and I've hated them all. Just something about the closeness of the walls, and the idea that above your head was probably several hundred tons of earth and rock - and all it would take was the slightest nudge to make it collapse and leave you with no way out.

I eventually found the security room - if you could call it that. One wall was lined with a few lockers, and three RobCo computer terminals stuck out of the adjacent wall. In the corner was a pair of ammo boxes, so I decided to check and see if I could find anything useful. What I found was a plasma rifle (with a melted firing chamber, making it little better than a paperweight), two microfusion cells, a hammer, some scrap metal, a roll of duct tape, two plasma grenades, and an EMP grenade. So I grabbed the grenades and decided to try my luck with the terminals.

The terminal on the far right, labeled "sentry bots" above the monitor, was completely broken. The terminal on the far left, labeled "protectrons," looked like it was encrypted far too heavily for me to even attempt. But the one in the middle, labeled "turrets" appeared to be well within my ability to crack.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Sheason, why would you, a courier living in the post apocalyptic wasteland, even bother learning how to hack a computer? The answer is pretty simple, actually. These terminals aren't as rare as you might think, thanks to how durable they are. Being able to crack the security of one can be pretty useful - right now is probably a good case in point. As for how I'd know what to do? That's thanks to that Big Book of Science I have in my trunk. There's a whole chapter devoted to cracking the firmware BIOS of computer terminals.

All I had to do was remember the debug commands, sift through the lines of code that would pop up, and pick out the password from the noise. Of course, the heat wasn't helping me think any. In fact, I was starting to get a headache, it was so damn hot. So, again, I wiped the sweat off my brow and pressed on. It took me a couple tries, but eventually I cracked the security, and disabled the turrets.

With that done, I left the security room and made my way down the adjacent hallway that led deeper into the facility. It was getting a lot harder to breathe now, and my headache was getting worse; this couldn't be just due to the heat and nerves. Something was seriously wrong. But I couldn't think about that right now. I just had to finish the job and leave the Fort with Melody.

A pair of laser blasts cut through the air as I arrived at the end of the hallway, and I dove to the floor. Beyond the hallway's exit was a decently large atrium, and through the dim light I could just make out the shapes of two Protectrons slowly clanking their way towards me, and firing lasers wildly. I took careful aim and... I missed. I kept firing, and I kept missing. Finally, I was able to land two decent shots, and the robot fell. The same thing happened with the other one. What should have taken two bullets cost me what I had left of an entire 13 round clip. I only had 26 bullets left for Roscoe now.

I picked myself up, and walked into the atrium, and noticed that the walls had windows - and looking in were Securitrons'... or, they would be looking in if they were activated. Their face screens were blank. I walked up to one of them to get a closer look, and by chance I glanced behind it.

"Holy shit," I said aloud to myself. "House wasn't kidding." There were rows and rows of Securitrons lining the floor behind the glass. There were easily several hundred of the damn things in there... waiting.

I wiped my brow again and picked up the pace. My headache was getting worse - my vision was starting to blur around the edges. I rushed down the corridors, past several disabled sentry turrets (I was coherent enough to be thankful that I'd been able to turn them off - they were Mark IV laser turrets: they aren't really better shots than Protectrons, but fire about 6 lasers a second. If I hadn't turned them off, I probably would've been a smoking pile of ash by now.) and found myself in a generator room. I rounded a corner, and found myself face to face with about four Protectrons, who all shot more lasers at me.

"Give me a fuckin' break already!" I yelled, popping off a trio of shots and diving back behind the generator. I tried to shake away my ever increasing headache.

"Fuck it," I grabbed the pulse grenade, flipped open the button cover on the top, pressed the button and tossed it over the generator. There was an electric crackle, and a blue flash as the pulse grenade went off. Electricity arced off the walls, and I could hear pops and sparks as the Protectrons vital components overloaded and exploded, one by one.

More stairs. Great.

I only got halfway there before I unexpectedly lost my balance. I grabbed at the wall to try and steady myself

Shake it off. Keep going.

Up the stairs.

Turn the corner.

Up more stairs.

Finally. There it was: the same kind of console that opened the hatch in the weather station. Next to it was a window, with more blank-screened Securitrons looking in and waiting. I leaned against the console, palmed the Chip in my hands and started coughing. I saw red splatter against the console.

Fuck.

Had I been hit by a laser without realizing? Was something else wrong? I didn't really have time to think about it. So I put the Platinum Chip in the slot, and wiped the blood from my mouth. There was a soft whir from the machine, and then my entire world became noise. What was probably heavy hydraulics kicked in and started a rhythmic pounding that reverberated all through the facility. Outside the window, the Securitrons' screens blinked and showed that same cartoon soldier face.

The console clicked again, and spat out the Platinum Chip. I grabbed it, put it back in it's hiding spot, and started running back the way I came. I did my best to ignore the pounding in my head, and tried to force my vision to clear. Finally, I made my way back to the room with the large monitor against the wall. I was about to pass by and head back into the elevator when the screen winked back into life, and House started talking to me.

"Your work here is done, Mr. Fisher. Return to the Lucky 38 so we can discuss the next steps," He said. I tried to nod, but all I ended up doing was leaning against the doorframe. I resisted the urge to cough, for fear of coughing up more blood. "You have a very bright future ahead of you. Thanks to your actions today, so does the rest of mankind."

And then, without so much as waiting for a response (not like I'd be able to give one) the screen winked off again. Fine with me. I wasn't really in the mood for another of House's long-winded speeches right now.

I stumbled back down the hallway, and collapsed into the open elevator. The doors slid themselves shut agonizingly slow. When they finally shut, I immediately felt so much cooler. I was still sweating all over, and I could feel some blood leaking out of my mouth... and my nose, too. But at least I was out of that fucking underground deathtrap.

The doors on the opposite side of the elevator opened, and I started walking towards the stairs. Before I could make my way up and out of the weather station, I felt my insides convulse violently, and before I knew what hit me, I started vomiting all over the walls. I couldn't help myself.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Ok. I just had to keep moving. Get up the stairs, get out of the weather station, find Melody, and leave the Fort. Easy.

Well, I was able to get up the stairs easily enough. It wasn't until I left the weather station that I ran into problems.

I opened the door, and before I got five feet -

WHACK.

Then my world became darkness.

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