Love and Radiation

by HazardCore

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Romance, Adventure, Crossover, Human, Anthro
Length: 6561

Love can get to even the worst of us, and in the wasteland, it can be the one thing keeping you alive.

Since I made a major oupsie a long while ago and no longer have access to my old account, MyDigitalHazard, I will be posting under the name of HazardCore from now on. For more Info, click here

One courier, one Queen, a simple delivery, and an incredible destiny. The Mojave Wasteland is a place filled with opportunity, danger, and adventure. For some, it is home. For others, a means for power. For the Courier? The birthplace of his legend.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-12 22:25:52 UTC

Prologue

War.

War never changes.

Since the dawn of humankind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything, from God, to justice, to simple psychotic rage.

The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. In the later decades of civilization, the great superpowers of the world, America, China and others, engaged in a Cold War, one kept only in checkby the threat of mutual destruction, but even that eventually gave way. Mutual destruction went from a scary idea to our terrifying reality.****

***War never changes.***

*****The end of the world occurred pretty much as we had predicted, though irony saw that we could do nothing about it, regardless of our ability to see it coming. There were too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. The details are trivial and pointless, the reasons, as always, were purely human ones. In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The earth was nearly wiped clean of* lifein a great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands that quickly raged out of control.********

***Spears of nuclear power rained from the skies, launched from every corner of our planet, aimed at every other part. The world was plunged into an abyss of radioactivity and rage. Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. The sky darkened as ash and dirt filled the air, black rain fell and irreversible damage was wrought upon the land. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that now blanketed the earth.***

***But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter in human history.***

***For man had succeeded in destroying the world, but war... war never changes.***

***In the early days, thousands had been spared the horrors of the devastating holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters known as vaults. Many were built in the United States and advertised as shelters from the coming storm, and on the day fire fell from the heavens, their enormous doors sealed shut, saving and sealing their populations within. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them. Their inhabitants set out across ruins of the old world to build new societies, establish new villages, *form new tribes.******

***This was a time of great legends, as the vault dwellers spread out and made new lives for themselves. It was a time of fear, of uncertainty, and many died from the dangerous and terrible lands they now walked. Many tribal communities died from starvation or some other horror, yet others were more lucky. As decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, a government formed by traditions and knowledge passed down through time. They were dedicated to old world values, democracy and the rule of law.***

***As the Republic grew, so did its needs. Scouts and rangers spread east, seeking territory and wealth, in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave desert. They returned with fantastic tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, a city of lights and casinos, and of a great, stone wall spanning the Colorado river, drawing more power from it than any generator they possessed. The NCR, recognizing the potential value these things offered, immediately mobilized its army and set it east to occupy the Hoover Dam and restore it to working condition.***

***But across the Colorado, another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged in the conquest of eighty-six tribes: Caesar's Legion. Inspired by the legends, myths and facts of the ancient Roman Empire, Caesar led a brutal and tyrannical regime which saw the Legion grow in power as it absorbed tribes into its culture, rehabilitating its members to serve the Legion before themselves, stripping them of their former identities.***

***Proclaiming himself Emperor and preaching that the god Mars cleansed the earth with great fire to allow the strong a chance to rule and conquer the weak, Caesar managed to breed a force of unquestioning, highly disciplined and ultimately loyal soldiers, whose tactics and ruthlessness spread chaos and terror wherever they go. Every man of Caesar's Legion single-mindedly works towards the goals and ideals of their emperor, to unite the world beneath one flag, one monolithic empire, no matter the cost.***

***Caesar learned of the NCR and of their democratic government and determined them to be worthy adversaries. He viewed his actions as being like his namesake, the original Caesar, who over two millennia ago, after years of campaigning against tribes, crossed the river Rubicon, at the time an act of insurrection, to capture Rome and take control of the Republic. Caesar began his campaign against the NCR, and sent his right-hand man and general, known as the Malpais Legate, to lead the forces of the Legion upon Hoover Dam.***

***Four years have passed since the Republic held the dam, just barely, against the Legion's onslaught. For his failure to take the dam, the Malpais Legate was covered in pitch, set afire and tossed into the Grand Canyon. Caesar made an example of the man who was once his friend, for all the Legion to witness the price of failure.***

***Despite their failure, the Legion did not retreat. Across the river, they gather strength. Campfires burn. Training drums beat. Soldiers train every day, without complaint and without cease, preparing for their future assault against the dam. Raiding parties of Legionnaires continue to cross into NCR territory, attacking caravans and towns baring the NCR flag, crucifying and burning men and capturing women for their own purposes.***

***Through it all, the New Vegas Strip has stayed open for business under the control of its mysterious overseer, Mr. House, and his army of rehabilitated tribals and police robots. Since the signing of the Treaty of Hoover Dam, NCR citizens from all over have flocked to the Strip, and the cash began flowing as they gambled away their fortunes and ambitions, just as it was before the war. Though focused much more on each other, the NCR and the Legion both have plans for the city, but the illusive and intelligent Mr. House has plans of his own.***

***In the midst of these factions and many others was a single young man, a courier with a sorted past, hired by the Mojave Express to deliver an unusual, yet uninteresting package: a single, oversized poker chip made from platinum. This courier, confident in his ability to deliver so simple an item and more than willing to accept the steep payment for the job, never imagined that this small, seemingly insignificant chip would end up being the key to his destiny, his past, and all of Mojave Wasteland itself.***

***And also his death.***

Chapter 1: Ain't that a kick in the head.

A picture hung crooked on a wall, a thick layer of dust covering it. It was of a large tower, its bottom surrounded by neon-lit buildings and smaller, yet also distinctive, landmarks. Great beams of light shined up at this tower, which seemed to get narrower the higher it went until one's sight reached its top floor; a distinctive, windowed, circular plateau supported by four beams of steel that emerged from its center, going outwards in four directions: north, south, east and west, purposefully resembling the centerpiece of a roulette wheel.

The building had its own neon sign near its base, with stylized red lettering which displayed it as the "Lucky 38," a casino. Behind the tower in this picture was the moon, full and bright, yet somehow paling in comparison to this magnificent feat of human engineering and architecture, this monument to gambling and wealth.

The Lucky 38 seemed like a symbol of man conquering nature, rising above even one of the most unreachable of places: the moon. At the bottom of this picture were the words, "Viva Las Vegas 2025!" betraying the picture's conception from before the Great War.

This wooden-framed, poster-sized photograph hung near an empty V.I.P. lounge, located on a higher level overlooking a casino with rows of slot machines, red and black carpeting, card tables and all manner of things one would expect to find in a casino located on the Vegas strip. Only completely and utterly devoid of human life. Cards lay on tables alongside poker chips, empty glasses litter the bars, stools and tables occasionally overturned. To say the place was out of order was a bit of an understatement, yet it still remained nostalgic of the elegance of pre-war life, as if frozen in time.

The interior of the Lucky 38 was impressive, even given the lengthy amount of time that had passed since anyone living had entered its halls. Its design was made for comfort, both for the body and for the eyes. Symbols of diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs were artistically incorporated into the walls, the floors and the columns that stretched up to the casino floor's tall ceiling. Smooth music filled the area from aged, yet still functioning, speakers, despite nobody being around to hear it. An artist who died long ago by the name of Sinatra sang a somber, slow tune about a blue moon.

Outside the halls of this dust-filled dead casino were other buildings much like the Lucky 38, though not as tall or magnificent as the still-lit tower. A full moon shined down on the other casinos which lined the streets, with names like "Gomorrah" and "The Tops." Each of these buildings had beautiful, eye-catching lights and signs that advertised what they had to offer to the multitude of individuals in the city streets, be it booze, card tables or cheap shows. A few small groups of soldiers in tan uniforms walked down the center of the road, waving a flag with a two-headed bear on it and holding bottles of liquor in their intoxicated hands. Tourists and other gamblers, each dressed sharply in suits and dresses, walked down its sidewalks. A group of women, soldiers as well and just as drunk, danced in a fountain in their underwear.

A small police siren was heard as blue, boxy robots with arms who moved on one single rubber wheel approached the women to issue a mandated warning that the fountain was off-limits and for wishes only. Their nearby commanding officer looked at them with a mixture of disappointment and embarrassment before walking up to them and ordering them out of the fountain and back into their uniform, promising that they wouldn't hear the end of this once they returned to their post.

The vehicle-free road eventually came to a stop when it reached a large wall constructed of chain-link fences with barbed wire at the top and reinforced with a multitude of sheet metal, old signs, poles and scrap. The great fence lined the entire city with the intent to keep those who were not welcome, out. Just beyond this wall on one side of the city was a sign which faced outwards from the shining city, which had, at one time, read, "Welcome to Fabulous LAS VEGAS." Only now, new lettering had been placed over the "LAS" part of the welcoming sign, so that now it read, "Welcome to Fabulous NEW VEGAS."

The lights on this sign still worked, for the most part, which helped to conceal a sniper who sat on a small perch behind it. This man was like many others, a ranger who guarded New Vegas from harm. He sat up from his perch and turned on his helmet's night vision. He saw movement and took out his weapon, an anti-material, high penetration rifle. It was an impressive firearm, more than half of his body height in length. He carefully aimed it, holding it masterfully with the stock of the rifle to his shoulder, his head angled to look through the scope, and fired in the timeframe of mere seconds.

The gunshot was loud, and a small amount of flames were emitted from the end of this powerful gun's barrel. The bullet found its mark: the head of a fiend attempting to aim at him. The drug-addled raider twitched before falling to the ground, dead, near an old motel. The sniper reloaded his gun without giving the body so much as a second glance.

Further away, out of any patrolling sniper's sight and looking down on New Vegas was a group of soldiers. One of them looked through a pair of binoculars, while another silently rallied them to move into an organized attack party. Unlike the soldiers inside the city, these wore black and red armor in the style of ancient Roman soldiers. They carried spears, machetes and similar weaponry, and stood behind a red flag with a golden bull in the center. The one holding the binoculars looked down upon New Vegas, the shining jewel of the Mojave and a large part of the goal in their regional conquest.

The wasteland of the Mojave desert is a place of incredible people, places and happenings. It is a place where fortunes are won and lost at the roll of a die, where great minds conspire to control and where lives are lost every single day. Power looms beneath the surface, waiting to be found and exploited. New Vegas' own Mr. House, Caesar and his Legion, the New California Republic and its democratic leaders and politicians, they are merely the most recognizable gamblers for this power. But the obscure, the relatively unknown, they are the ones with the greatest stories to tell, and the most obscured of futures... and pasts.

A woman, kicked around by the world and drowning her sorrows in whiskey, trapped in a prison of self-doubt and contractual obligations. A sniper, pained in the past and living in darkness, seeking retribution against a person he does not know. A scientist, burdened by the troubles he sees daily and wishes to correct, torn between his sense of tradition and his independence. A warrior, shunned by her family and her home and seeking answers from the old world, losing friends and mentors yet never submitting. A mechanic, troubled by age and feeling the world slowly leave him behind, silently defiant yet hurting all the same. A grandmother, losing her mind and trying desperately to remember her grandchildren, fighting an enemy she cannot see, but hear. A loyal hound, bound to a body that is half not his own, with a long, unknown past of traveling. A machine, broken and forgotten, carrying secrets supposedly lost, the sum achievement of a dead man who belonged to a dead organization. A hunter, sitting with her only friend and waiting for opportunity to knock, struggling to leave behind her barbaric routes.

A traitor, handsome of face and dressed finely, charming and charismatic as can be, waiting for his time to strike, plotting and scheming for the grandest of things, and the Courier, who held the key to his victory and did not know it, and the unknown man, carrying the flag of the old world, who was responsible for him being the one to deliver it.

And a queen. Beaten, bruised and left for dead after a failed attempt to topple a mighty enemy.

This is a tale of the Mojave wasteland, of that Courier and all the others, some friends, some enemies, all joined and connected by one destiny: the future of New Vegas.

It begins very simply: it begins with a young man and a tune stuck in his head.

The moon was shining amongst the stars, illuminating the landscape of the Mojave wasteland. A man, a youth of twenty-three, walked north along the center of a dusty road, kicking aside small amounts of sand and dirt. His boots were leather, tied tightly with the laces tucked in. His blue jeans were dirty and his hands were shoved into his pockets. He wore a leather jacket over a red plaid shirt in addition to a brown scarf that concealed half of his face. A cowboy hat, simple and not too big, adorned his head.

He strode on, both whistling and humming to himself, occasionally singing a few silent words to a song he had heard on a radio recently, which had, for the same inexplicable reason any song gets trapped and replayed in ones mind, become stuck in his head.

'Blue moon... you saw me standing alone... without a dream in my heart... without a love of my own...'

He carried a courier pack with the NCR flag, that of a two-headed bear, stitched onto the side of it, though he didn't consider himself an affiliate of the army or its nation. The pack was worn on his left side, with the strap hanging from his right shoulder. The pack had some food and water inside of it, along with the package he was to deliver. There was a single holster attached to his belt, with a 9mm pistol inside of it. Every few steps or so would move the combat knife in his jacket ever just slightly, reminding him of its existence.

'Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for... you heard me sayin' a prayer for... someone I really could care for.'

Though his current attire overly masked his appearance, he was in no way a hard man to look at. He had been called handsome on more than one occasion, and with tanned skin, dark hair, dark green eyes, a rugged and closely-shaved face and a healthy, tall physique, he was more than fit for his job as a wasteland courier, walking from place to place and hand-delivering packages. The Mojave desert was a dangerous land, like any other, and he was fit to survive most of what it had to offer. At least, he liked to think so, having defended himself on occasions in the past from various threats.

'And then there suddenly appeared before me... the only one my arms will hold... I heard somebody whisper "please adore me..." And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold...'

And his good looks didn't hurt either, considering the women he had come to know from time to time. He slid his left hand out of his jean pocket and into his pack, fishing around until he found his package: a small, yet larger-than-average poker chip made out of platinum, as the order had specified. He took it out and squinted as he looked at it, holding it up to the moonlight and turning it so that he could observe the light playing across its smooth surface. It reminded him of a girl back in a small town to the southwest a ways who had a necklace made of silver pearls he always assumed to be fake. Whether they were fake or real didn't really matter to him, they came off like the rest of her clothes just the same: quickly. He chuckled to himself and slid the coin back into his bag as he continued to softly sing the tune.

'Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone... without a dream in my heart... without a love of my own...'

He almost couldn't believe the pay he was getting for this job. It was so simple a package, and so short a distance to walk, relative to some of the past jobs he had pulled. Far away, he could see New Vegas like a shining beacon in the darkness, lighting up the night sky even from the greatest of distances. He couldn't remember one single moment of his life, save for stormy nights, when he couldn't look across the landscape and see the jewel of the city glittering, inviting all those who saw it to come. He had never been, which was part of the reason he was so eager to sign onto the job. That and the pay, of course.

Some noise to the east drew his attention. An echoing, frog-like sound. 'Sounds like geckos,' he thought. 'Damn things.'

While looking to the east for any sign of ambush from the bipedal lizard creatures, he failed to notice an old, broken vehicle lying alongside the road about twenty feet ahead of him. At least, he failed to notice it until it went up in flames, a great inferno of explosive fury that tore the car apart and knocked him to the ground. He stared at the rising fire with panicked eyes, his mind reeling as he tried to keep cool and figure out what was wrong.

He heard noises. People, coming towards him. The fire from the wreck lit their forms: Great Khans. He couldn't tell how many there were, at least seven, maybe nine. The leather-jacket wearing raiders were cheering and brandishing weapons and torches. He fumbled once as he reached for his pistol and fired indiscriminately at the nearest one, managing to kill the man, who sunk to the ground with a surprised look on his face and a bloody hole between his eyes.

The courier considered himself a decent shot, but he knew he wouldn't get that lucky again. The only option was to hightail it out of there. He rolled onto his stomach, narrowly avoiding a spear hitting the ground where he had just been laying, its head sinking into the dirt causing it to point almost straight up. 'Spears? Christ, who throws spears?' were his thoughts as he got up to his feet and ran from the road into the desert.

The Khans took up chase. His mind, going a mile a minute, thought, 'Why the Khans? What the hell did I do to them?' One of them tossed a lit stick of dynamite his way. The explosive fell short, but he still felt the wave of heat and the sound hurt his ears. Another blast went off to his left. 'Shit, shit, shit!'

A house stood in the distance. Knowing he couldn't keep up this chase forever, he decided to take his chances in there instead of out in the open. It was wooden, one floor, with broken windows and a boarded-up door. He knew he probably wasn't going to get lucky with this one and discover a hidden basement or some kind of bomb shelter underneath the house or literally anything to get away from his pursuers. And he still had no idea why this was happening, but he wasn't too keen on thinking too heavily about it at the moment, as they were shooting at him now.

There was a crate next to one of the windows. He jumped onto it and climbed inside, cutting his palm on some of the old glass. 'Shit, that stings,' he thought. It was dark inside. What few rooms this house had were lit only by moonlight coming from the windows.

He heard them nearing the house. Their shouts reached his ears quite clearly: "Get that son of a bitch!" "Hell yeah, we're gonna fuck him up!" "Wooo-hoooo!"

He crouched and gripped his pistol all the tighter. 'Damn, what I wouldn't give for a big fucking gun right about now... or an army.' He heard one get close to the window he had climbed through. He stood up and aimed and fired two shots which missed and six shots which killed the man. He saw others behind him, but he quickly dived aside as they opened fire on the house, their bullets busting through the old wood. He found himself crouching in front of a broken dresser as he struggled to reload under the pressure of the moment. Afterwards, he slid out the knife from his jacket and held it in his other hand.

In a room to his right, he heard someone coming in. Crouching, he moved forward and saw the Khan climb onto a kitchen counter. The Khan saw him too, and as the courier raised his weapon and raider leapt from the counter and tackled him. He tried to shoot but he missed, though fortunately, the man quite literally had leapt onto his knife. The Khan choked out a few garbled words as he died on top of the courier. Grunting, he stood up with the man, now having a much clearer understanding of the term, "dead weight."

Someone else had climbed into another room alongside the one he was now in. He appeared in a doorway to the courier's left and fired at him. The Khan's bullets would have hit him, were it not for the impromptu shield the dead man offered him. He raised his own pistol and fired, killing that Khan as well. He quickly dropped the dead man, taking but a moment to slide his knife out of the man's chest, before he heard someone outside shout, "Did you get him?"

The courier didn't say anything in reply. His mind raced as confidence began to bleed through his fear. After all, he had killed four of them, perhaps a chance for survival yet remained.

"Throw dynamite in!" one shouted, ending the courier's hopes of remaining inside. Though he couldn't hear or see it, the one that had suggested that was smacked over the head by a man in a checkered suit and told to shut up. What the courier carried was far too valuable to risk blowing up.

He went for the kitchen window, praying to god that nobody was watching that particular exit. Leaping from the windowsill, he hit the sandy ground rolling and quickly got to his feet. He seemed in the clear!

A sharp, nerve-racking pain shot through him as a knife was thrown into his right leg, tripping him. The throwing knife stuck out neatly, despite being dug into his flesh. He shouted and grabbed his leg, dropping his weapons as he did so, as he attempted to stand and continue to walk. It seemed like he might be able to limp away, but then, purely on account of the thrower's cruelty, another knife sunk into his leg, only this time it was his left. That put him down for good, as he fell onto his chest, his face buried in the dirt of the desert. He struggled to get up on his hands and crawl, but he was too exhausted. After crawling a few feet, he fell back down.

He heard footsteps. Someone walked around to the front of him. He looked up and saw a nice pair of shoes, then white pants, then a black and white checkered suit with a black tie. The man's face was handsome, with stylish, combed black hair.

The man and his cocky smile was the last thing he saw until one of the Khans knocked him out with a shovel to the back of his head.

"Damn bastard nearly killed half of us," Jessup said as he started to dig in the location Benny had given him. They were in a small graveyard near some backwater town they had passed through on their way to intercept the courier, who now lied not too far away, bound and gagged and still unconscious. As Jessup dug the grave for the man, he continued, "We should just kill'em now, and get outta here, eh?"

One of the Khans, McMurphy, agreed. "He's right. What the hell are we doing?" He looked at Benny, the man with the checkered suit, who was striking up a cigarette with his fancy, custom-engraved lighter.

After sliding the lighter into his coat pocket, he took a drag, blew out the smoke slowly and said, "Look, baby, just be smooth, alright? We'll be outta here in no time."

McMurphy shook his head. The three other remaining Khans kept silent, though they agreed with their two friends. Jessup continued to dig.

The courier stirred. His eyes slowly opened. His vision was blurry, and he felt disoriented and nauseous. He tried to move, finding it very difficult, as a pain shot through his legs. His hands and feet were bound by rope, and gloves had been placed on him. Though it was difficult to hear, McMurphy spoke and he heard the man's words. "You got what you were after, so pay up."

Benny shook his head, seeming annoyed by the Khan. He dismissed the man, saying, "You're crying in the rain, pally."

The courier began to struggle against his bonds as his vision cleared. Jessup heard him and looked over. "Hmm! Guess who's wakin' up over here?" he said to the others. Jessup climbed out of the grave and walked to Benny's left.

The courier slowly looked up, seeing the man in the checkered suit flanked by two Khans. Benny threw down his cigarette, saying, "Time to cash out," as he did so.

The Khan to his right, McMurphy, was a tall man with dark skin, short hair and a pronounced moustache. Like all Khans, he wore a leather jacket over a white shirt, with a white rag-like headband. He seemed irritated or angered by something, perhaps nervous of being caught. He threw his hands out to the side and said to Benny, "Will you get it over with?"

Benny stopped and gave a short sigh, irritated by the Khan's persistence. He held up a finger and spoke, never looking at McMurphy, instead only looking down at the courier. "Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' 'em in the face." He lowered his arm and shot a sidelong glance at McMurphy, adding, "But I ain't a fink, dig?"

The man to Benny's right, Jessup, had pale skin and bright orange hair, with a short beard and a large mohawk hairdo. He held the shovel and seemed fidgety, most likely sharing his comrade's fear of being found out here in the graveyard. The courier looked to his left and saw a fresh grave. He knew what it meant. 'Oh... no, no, no...' he thought.

Benny ordered two of the other Khans to get him up on his feet. They moved over to him and forcefully lifted him up by the shoulders. The courier, dizzy and beaten, offered very little resistance. As he blinked a few times, he noticed the full moon in the distance, as well as the great lights of New Vegas, seeming so near and yet so very far away. Farther now than ever, at least to the courier.

Benny approached him, reaching into his suit's breast pocket and pulling out the platinum chip. He looked at it for a moment, seeing something the courier couldn't comprehend, before holding it up and saying, "You've made your last delivery, kid." He sounded almost sympathetic as he put the chip away. "Sorry you got twisted up in this scene." He pulled out a pistol, a custom 9mm that glistened in the moonlight. The courier's eyes widened and fear ran through him.

Benny got a small smirk on his face as he said, "From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck." He looked down at the gun, before pointing it at the courier, aiming it right at his forehead.

"Truth is?" He paused, for whatever reason, possibly because he enjoyed the drama of the moment. The courier tried to struggle against the two Khans holding him but it was useless. Benny suddenly put on a nonchalant face, like it was all simple business, and finished, "The game was rigged from the start."

Were he not gagged, the courier would have shouted at the man one simple question. But he couldn't speak. Eyes wide, sweat running down his face, his head was full of questions, but all of them could be summed up with this one: "Why?" He wanted to know why he was hunted, why the man wanted the chip, why it was worth killing him over and leaving him in a shallow grave. He had never thought his death would come like this, and in the few seconds after Benny said his words, he prayed for some kind of a miracle.

Instead, all he got was a bullet to the forehead. The Khans holding him felt him go limp and they dropped him to the ground. Benny walked around and used his foot to turn the courier back over, so the man's bright blue eyes were looking up at the star-filled sky. He shot the man again, in nearly the same place. "The hell'd you do that for?" McMurphy asked.

Benny was getting a little tired of that one. "Because I could," he casually replied.

They buried the courier unceremoniously in the unmarked and shallow grave and left soon after. Benny held the

platinum chip up to the moonlight, much like the courier had earlier, only whereas the courier had remembered a woman, Benny looked at this chip and saw his means to bring his plans to fruition. For unlike the courier, this man knew what secrets this chip truly held. As the remaining Khans and Benny left the area, heading south along the road, a strange figure entered the graveyard.

It was a robot, a securitron model, a blue machine that moved on a single rubber wheel. Its face, a television screen in the center of its boxy chest, showed the mug of a cartoon cowboy, specifically, an old pre-war character named "Vegas Vic." This robot's arms ended in three metal fingers, which it used to begin moving dirt from the courier's grave. After it had exhumed the body, it scanned him, detecting very weak life signs.

Whether through the powers above or sheer luck, the courier was not dead. As this securitron looked down at the man, a powerful and hidden entity already began to formulate long-reaching plans and goals, completely reevaluating the current situation and all of its implications. This courier would be the key to it all, a new wild card in addition to the one already on the table; a previously unforeseen outcome but a welcome one, given who now held the platinum chip. But time was short. The securitron knew what to do. Hoisting the courier up, it rolled out of the graveyard and towards the local clinic

'A bright light... it's surrounded by some kind of maelstrom... a whirlpool... spinning, constantly spinning... now a shape begins to form... some kind of wheel, with a four-pronged handle in the center... red and black squares along its circumference, with white numbers... from one to thirty-six... save for two squares, green, one with a single zero and the other with two of them... the wheel is spinning clockwise, but a white ball along its edge is rolling against that...'

'This small white ball is the most important thing of it... it dictates who wins and those who don't... who takes all, who loses everything... a gamble... a game... a life lost, a life gained... now the table is fading, and something is still spinning... a fan... a fan is spinning... above me...'

The man's eyes had been half-open for some time, but now they blinked. Fresh breaths of air moved past his lips. His vision, watery and blurred, was returning to him, though very slowly.

He heard a voice that sounded both far away and very near at the same time. The voice was soft, comforting. "Huh... you're awake. How 'bout that."

He became aware that he was looking up at the ceiling, and lying in a bed. He struggled to move upwards, to at least attain a sitting position, but he felt a hand on his chest keeping him down. The voice returned. "Woah, easy there, easy. You been out cold a couple'a days now.

He looked to his left. The room was still very blurry, but he could see a man sitting next to him in a chair. In this moment, everything seemed to sharpen a bit, and his sight seemed to come back to him.

"Why don't you just relax a second? Go ahead and get your bearings."

The man was old, with a balding head and grey mustache. From what he could see, he wore dark blue shirt, brown suspender pants, a red neckerchief and leather gloves. Everything behind him was still a little bit fuzzy, but he could make out a hospital-like patient stretcher behind him, a clock on the wall, a shelf and a strange machine against the wall at the far end of the room. The room was constructed of wooden planks.

The doctor sat back a bit and put his hands in his lap. He looked at the now-conscious patient with curiosity. "Can you hear me alright?" he asked. The man nodded weakly in response. "How 'bout speaking? Can you talk?"

He tried to form words. "I... I... talk... whe... wha... who..."

The doctor held up a hand. "Don't push yourself too hard. Might take a moment, but you should be comin' right around now any minute. But, let's see what the damage is." He leaned a little closer, so to the man on the bed, the wrinkles of his face were a bit more pronounced. "How 'bout your name? Can you tell me your name?"

He looked up at the doctor with weak, half-lidded eyes. He thought, as hard as he possibly could, about his name. A storm of thoughts, images, flashes, things he hardly recognized, a flood of information came to him in the span of a few moments and it hurt. He grimaced and shut his eyes tight, but the headache became stronger still. His hands rushed to his forehead, where the pain was greatest.

The doctor immediately stood up to lean over the man, trying to discover what was wrong.

The patient's fingers dug into his dark hair, and he shook his head almost violently. The constant pain did not cease, it only got worse. More and more things were coming to him, flying from him and assaulting his brain. He felt on fire, or hooked up to live electrical current.

His name... many things came to him, but none seemed right. None seemed correct. He tried as hard as he could to focus through the chaos and the pain, but nothing came to him. The answer was lost to him.

Then, it all settled down. The doctor had just injected him with a sedative, Med-X, and the morphine began working through his system, calming him, killing the pain. His arms drifted back to his sides, and his breathing became slow and patterned.

Throughout the steadying pandemonium of his mind, a sudden answer came to him as memories seemed to fade together, forming order In the mental chaos that was his mind.

"My name...." He said, just louder then a whisper "My name..."

The doctor leaned closer. "What?" he asked.

The man's eyes opened, dark green orbs fixing on the rotating fan above.

"Owen.." He said slowly, his throat feeling like the Mojave "Owen... Ryder"

The doctor stood and smiled. He gave the man, Owen, a pat on the shoulder and smiled, saying, "I'm Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings."

The Courier smiled and tried to say, "Thank you," but ended up laying back and falling asleep.