Preparations had been under way since early dawn, and now the sun was fading fast behind Black Mountain peak, clear skies giving way to a hazy amber dusk. Those whose footprints regularly adorned the sands of the Mojave knew the 188 trading post to be a modest venture, little more than a smattering of huts and tents amidst the haze; founded in part out of necessity by a handful of settlers fleeing eastward from Primm, the town having been beset and transformed into a marauder's playground by a gang of escapees from the nearby NCR prison for a period during the Ganger Riots of '81. A wandering gunslinger rode into town one day and put a stop to things, so the story went; but by that time the 188 was already thriving, serving as a much-needed refuge from the scorching heat of the desert for troops moving between Camp Golf a few kilometers to the north and the Dam to the east. In time they earned enough to hire a guard, then a few, and before long more and more merchants were making regular stops in their routes along the 93 and 95, sharing the shade with the odd drifter or colorful blow-in with nowhere else to go.
But all that had been the six months prior to the Legion's defeat. The two years since had seen the 188 transform into something more closely resembling a miniature shantytown, its relative safety prompting overspill from more populous settlements to erect makeshift shelters beneath the shade of the overpass. Now it stood as a microcosm of the situation in the Mojave as a whole; a melting pot too long on the boil, too many different stripes of folk rubbing shoulders with nowhere to go. The colonists from the NCR heartlands had their choice of camping spots, to the surprise of few, brahmin barons, ranchers, miners and citizens looking to buy up land while it was cheap—those lucky enough to get in at the ground floor when the Republic settled the likes of Redding and Baja had made their grandkids' grandkids' fortunes, and more than a few young and plucky hopefuls from California were willing to roll the dice and brave 'uncivilized' lands in the hopes of securing their families' futures from poverty.
They camped together beneath the safety of the overpass, given abundant access to the merchants and trail amenities. The day prior had seen its share of friction and infighting as the convoy started to gather, the Republic settlers not taking kindly to being expected to share the overpass with the former citizens of Caesar who were beginning to arrive in their masses. Maeve and any others with a view to deescalating conflicts had seen their share of close scrapes, until a delegate from Shady Sands made the call to enact a band-aid solution before someone got killed: round up all the refugees and order them to their own, separate camp on the nearby ridge. Only the relief force the Followers sent had seen fit to kick up a fuss about it, so the diplomat politely suggested they join them there, then less politely ordered the mercenary outfit brass were subcontracting the expedition's security to to ensure compliance.
Things had been relatively peaceful since then, but none of the NCR settlers harboured any delusions that this was to be anything other than a long, bloody trail, most never too far from a trail carbine or hunting rifle of some sort. Despite that several had their families in tow, few other options for the truly desperate; those dodging drafts, fleeing debts to the Families or even uglier players back in Reno. Much like poker, polite society had winners and losers—many of the NCR's losers could be found here, furtive figures scanning the crowds with leery eyes from under loose cloaks, Flagstaff representing a new beginning for those willing to leave everything behind.
Though the encampment for NCR citizens was by far the safest, the bulk of the Ranger manpower was being used to secure the ever-expanding perimeter, and the regular troopers were plenty occupied dealing with disputes and petty theft. That left gaps in the system, and where such gaps existed one could typically find at least one group of neglected children causing trouble.
"Ewwwww! Look at this kid's clothes, Mason! Who invited him to be part of the Reclamation? And what's that thing on his head?"
One such gaggle of delinquents were currently amusing themselves in one of the darker corners under the bridge, a girl with a frilly pink dress and curls making a show of pretending to fan away stink lines as she and her cohorts surrounded a much scrawnier child sitting by himself. His movements were calm and measured, simply turning to the next page in his book, seemingly doing his best to ignore the half-dozen other kids fanned out in a loose semicircle around him and picking through his belongings. They were well-to-do types, military brats and heirs to landowners or merchant caravans, but their scorn didn't appear to trouble their target overtly.
"No one did. I live here. And it's my—"
"You don't know? Didn't your dad ever tell you? Sheesh, girls are dumb." The denim-clad boy whose shoulders the girl was hanging off like a backpack rolled his eyes, giving the metallic apparatus adorning the smaller child's head a lazy prod with his boot that prompted a wince of pain.
"My neighbor Billy Madison used to wear one. This here's for kids who got 'emselves kicked by a horse or charged by a Bighorner. You know."
He dropped his voice to a sardonic, pitying hush.
"Retards."
The other boy shook his head.
"That's not it. Don't, please."
He took his eyes off the book for the first time as the most rotund among his accosters picked up an antiquated flashbulb camera, its mechanisms long since rendered inert by rust, his fingers already sticky from inhaling the sweetroll he'd found among the younger boy's possessions.
"These are my things. They belonged to my p—"
Mason jumped on the opportunity to snatch the diary out of his hand, and both him and his hanger-on burst into shrill bouts of laughter upon rapidly leafing through its contents.
"Oh man, what'd I tell you guys? This kid's just been sitting here reading a buncha squiggly lines!"
"Freak! Mason, he's prolly dangerous. Hey weirdo, I bet you're hiding a gun somewhere in all this junk, aren't you?"
Unbeknownst to any of them, a woman in blue watched proceedings with mild interest from above, a taut frown on her face, chin slumped in her palm and legs kicking as she fiddled with some dials on her wrist and yearned for a cure to her own boredom.
Dominik chose the latter and stood off to the side with those who were already cleared to go. There were the slightest of intrusive thoughts that urged them to pull out their rifle and start trouble. Taking a good long look at one of the nearby Rangers immediately aborted that thought from ever becoming a reality.
"...could we get a move on, already?" They muttered, the picture of exasperated.
Dominik, like many of their ilk in the Mojave Brotherhood, stood as a direct inheritor of their former elder Elijah's neurosis and paranoia, albeit out of necessity rather than choice. The former scribe had been one of the most brilliant minds to ever grace the Brotherhood, unquestionably, but his hunger to understand the secrets of the old world had quickly fallen to obsession, and ultimately brought about a reality where none of their people could ever roam the wastes without looking over their shoulder again. He knew that was the end result of his aggression, didn't care, but did his best to have his chapter of the Brotherhood trained and shaped accordingly.
Right now those teachings were both blessing and curse, because they were how Dominik knew they were being watched.
It had proven difficult to notice, at first; hooded and cloaked figures appearing on the periphery of their vision, stealing what they thought were glances at them or their rifle, then vanishing into the crowds again only for the cycle to repeat thirty minutes later. Sometimes there were two figures, sometimes three, sometimes huddled together, sometimes fanned out, features impossible to discern as they observed them from intermittent points across the outpost.
It had been coming up on two hours since their last sighting though, and the seed of doubt that the entire affair had simply been a trick of the mind was just beginning to germinate when they felt themselves shoulder checked with enough force to send them spinning, and righted themselves just in time to see their assailant: one of the hooded figures, marching determinedly away from Dom through the crowd and already beginning to meld into it.
Maeve's look of suspicion didn't fade even if they lowered their hand from their sidearm. "...Refurbished, huh? Okay. That still doesn't really tell me why you're here. And no. Not a courier. I'm NCR, Ranger Donchev. So with that in mind, whats a 'refurbished' securitron's operator want with this caravan?"
"Scoutmaster Donchev."
Of all the voices to drawl its way into an exchange between an especially odd one of House's doohickeys and an NCR ranger, a simple caravan hand was likely the last one either could have foreseen. Yet that was the voice that did, a man Donchev had seen busying himself doing menial work like loading wagons, digging latrines and hammering tent poles throughout the day lending his unsolicited two cents as he sauntered past them carrying a hay bale.
"Yeah, you NCR rightly enough. Maybe even know your stretch of desert back California-ways, 'f you can call it one. Thing is..."
He gave a light 'hup', loading the bale into the back of a truck marked by the Crimson Caravan atop a stack of several more, then turned, reaching into his mechanic jumpsuit's inner pocket as he leaned back against the truck and mopped his brow with an oil-streaked rag, eyebrows raising, mouth breaking into a crooked half-smile.
"Round these parts, out east, folk still remember what a Ranger looks like. So it's Scoutmaster Donchev."
He produced a flask of something, took a swill, spat out a mouthful of liquid and tobacco. He was a man who'd seen tenure of some kind or another, not particularly old and not particularly young, a frame lean yet muscled ending in weathered workman's hands; wispy locks once dark bleached fair by the sun, swarthy complexion glistening with the desert's dew. He paused from his labor, seemingly just to observe them, flapping the hand bearing the flask at them with an encouraging nod and spilling a bit.
"Please, continue. This tickles me."
Oh. Definitely mistook this person for someone else. Roll with it. Or off. Literally either way.
"I'm here to sign myself up as whatever suffices to ensure the caravan gets to where it needs to go! And to surveil the state of the outside world in the meantime. Plus I am literally programmed to see an objective through without fail."
The robot was most certainly unconvincing in its attempt to truly convey itself as another of House's securitrons, having already undermined the image from the start.
"I'll understand if you wish to turn me away but it does seem you need more bodies and a metallic one goes a long way!"
Just then, a small LED screen zipped up to them on jet propellers, flitting to and fro around Job's metallic frame irritatingly as something resembling a camera lens clicked its shutter a few times. A triumphant chime sounded, and the billboard repositioned itself to float gently over the securitron's casing as several dots illuminated to spell out a troubling missive.
⬇ PURE EVIL! TELLS ONLY LIES! ⬇
The words were accompanied by a blinking red arrow pointing down for the machine, and a synthetic voice crackled through the same speakers the odd little gizmo had emitted a tone through.
"Greetings! This synthetic construct is the property of: BIG. MOUNTAIN. RESEARCH. FACILITY. Its presence here may bring about: UNTOLD. CALAMITY. We at: BIG. MT. ask for your FULL cooperation while our dedicated retrieval specialist moves to retrieve this exciting glimpse into the world of tomorrow! Potential outcomes if full cooperation is not granted may include: WISTFULNESS. INFERTILITY. AND... PLAGUE."
"Well shit, I'm two for three already."
"Maybe we'll see each other on the walk if I get that settled, but take care of yourself if not" She said as she gave Loulou a friendly enough pat on the back, all things zion considered, and picked her dusty suitcase back up off the ground as she walked away with her eyes roving over the crowd for someone less armed and more clean than the average settling schmuck who might want a personal triggerhand.
"Couriuh! I said, I said COURIUH!!!"
There were few faces more liable to be recognised up and down the west coast than a courier for the Mojave Express, no matter how much they tried to maintain a low profile. Sally, known for fucking the president's wife and not maintaining anything of the sort, probably found it little surprise when another voice cut above the chatter of the 188 in a bid to get her attention, accompanied by a waving cowboy hat and pair of impatiently clicking fingers.
"Finally! Just when I was startin' to think these soldier boy types put an embargo down on decent help. You lookin' for somethin' to do, missy?"
As employment opportunities in the wasteland went, Heck Gunderson was far from the worst, certainly preferable to his equivalents out east who traded in human livestock as opposed to cattle. He wasn't exactly the
best either, his precise methodology in persuading his rivals to liquidate a relatively open secret; still, he was rich as all hell, honored his word, and as favors owed in the West went there were few weightier.
Judging from the fact that approximately half his organization seemed to be setting up for the journey he was considering his investment opportunities to the east very thoroughly, and looked to be doing everything in his power to get his foot in the door as one of the expedition's community leaders at an early stage; barbecues, merchant stalls, and even a port-a-potty gave a distinct atmosphere to his corner of the camp, one that was attracting more than its share of envious stares from the others.
