» Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:54 am Six years is an odd number. Long enough to forget the pain of war, but not long enough to learn to live in peace.
The Mojave was good for the NCR. It brought in water, power, and more than a little greed. With Caesar gone, they're talking about taking all of Arizona now.
The Mojave was good for me, too. Taught me a lot. How to play Caravan, for instance, and why I shouldn't. Also taught me how to walk, talk, and shoot my way out of trouble.
Sometimes, though, I get into a little bit too much trouble.
Background:
It has been six years since the end of New Vegas. The NCR won. Bill Oliver is running for President against Tom McLafferty, son of (notorious) Crimson Caravan owner Alice McLafferty. Bill is kicking the stuffing out of Tom in the race, partly because the McLafferty family is unpopular, to put it mildly, and partly because it doesn't look like Tom is even trying to win the race.
(In New Vegas, Alice McLafferty tried to set up a regional monopoly on caravan routes through murdering other caravans so that she could extort NCR troops with higher shipping rates).
The NCR's victory at the Hoover Dam has further pushed Oliver into a brash, overconfident warmonger that seems hell-bent on continuing former President Aaron Kimball's expansionist policies all the way through Arizona. McLafferty advocates a more moderate approach, insisting on the right for the former Legion tribes to remain independent if they wish.
Meanwhile, the economy of the NCR has boomed thanks to acquiring New Vegas. The massive, reliable flow of power and water has led to a renaissance of industry, on a scale not seen since the Great War. Crimson Caravans has become Crimson Caravans & Mines, and factories fuelled by their ores have sprung up throughout the Core Region. The Mojave blooms, feeding hundreds of thousands, thanks to Lake Mead and the magic of Floramin, a miracle fertilizer, which, again, is made up of phosphates and other minerals mined by Crimson and the other large merchant houses.
Shady Sands, capital of the NCR, is now a full-fledged city of close to 100,000 people. Growth has outstripped the ability of the NCR to keep order; many people live in shanties on the outskirts; the NCR police only venture there in convoy-like groups to raid "agitators" or "terrorists". Some in the shanties (mainly refugees from the Mojave or Arizona) suspect that the NCR is deliberately stealing away anyone with leadership ability to keep them down.
They are somewhat correct. For the first time in its history, the NCR is facing a large group of people with a completely foreign outlook on life trying to assimilate into NCR life. Some in the NCR propose extending all of them citizenship, but as many of them used to be Legion slavers, the argument becomes contentious. Strangely enough, even though he could easily buy their votes, and his moderate position on taking over Arizona appeals to their sympathies, Tom McLafferty has not joined these public appeals for giving the refugees the right to vote.
The courier (who is not the player character in this game) has become the junior senator of the Mojave, and makes a compelling 3rd-party candidate; that is, if he could be persuaded to run. Of course, he could also endorse either McLafferty or Oliver and likely tip the scales in their favor. Publicly, though, he has remained silent, preferring to spend his time wandering the Arizona wastes on his own. He also refuses to comment on the "Arizona issue", in spite of being, presumably, one of the most knowledgeable men in the entire NCR on the subject.
Chapter One -- Matrimonial Work:
Pedro would have been crying, had his tear ducts still worked. Instead, he was making soft croaking noises through his half-rotten vocal cords as he tried to express his emotions over the photos on the desk. The ghoul brushed his face. Two scabs peeled off his nose, one landing on the desk, the other between the words "Matrimonial Work" on a contract the man across from him was holding.
The other man noticed it and flicked one of the scabs into a wastebasket beside the bookshelf behind him. Never taking his eyes off the ghoul, he withdrew a cigarette and an ornately engraved silver lighter from a briast pocket, then a handkerchief to wipe down the lacquered rosewood surface. He looked cool and brisk in a white linen suit, despite the heat.
The ghoul rose up from his chair, and sent his fist into the drywall, narrowly missing a photo of the man sitting across from him ushering Lana Davis through a crowd of journalists. Then his legs buckled, his knees landing on the carpet, and he began to gnaw on the blinds.
"Alright, enough is enough. You can't eat the blinds, I just had them installed on Wednesday."
Ghoul cases were always the worst.
Pedro began to rise to his feet, slowly. The man reached across the desk and gave him a hand. Then he turned around and poured a shot of cheap whiskey.
"Down the hatch."
The ghoul stared at his reflection in the glass. Then he drained it, quickly, sinking back into the chair and resuming his quiet half-croaking.
"She's just no good." He sounded a little better now.
"What can I tell ya, kid? You're right. You're right, you're right, and you're right."
"We've been together for eighty years, now. Eighty years, Hank! --and she throws it all away--all away for that two-timing little smoothskin, Rollo- Rollo-"
"Rollo Tomasi."
"Rollo Tomasi. Little bastard. I think I'll kill him. And her."
Hank heard the next client before he saw her.
"--I was hoping Mr. Redstone could see to this personally--"
Eddie, Hank's assistant, replied, almost in the manner of someone comforting the bereaved.
"--If you'll allow us to complete our preliminary questioning, by then he'll be free."
There was the sound of another moan from the office, then a shattering of glass. Eddie could sense her edginess seeping under the door.
Pedro was leaning over the desk now, his smell penetrating the half jar of menthol rub Hank had put under his nostrils before the appointment.
"They don't kill a guy for that." His breath made the menthol rub curl up in a ball and hide somewhere north of the detective's forehead.
"Oh, they don't?"
"Not for your wife. That's the unwritten law."
Hank tried to fight back a chuckle.
"I'll try to tell you the unwritten law, rotface. You got to be a somebody to kill anybody and get away with it. You think you got that kind of dough, that kind of class?"
He shrank back a little.
"...no..."
"You bet your ass you don't. You can't even pay me off."
This seemed to upset him a little more.
"I'll pay the rest the next trip--we only caught fourteen nightstalkers around Redding, and you know they don't pay you the same for nightstalkers as they do deathclaws or tunnelers--"
Hank began to ease him out of the office.
"Forget it, I only mentioned it to illustrate a point..."
They walked past Eddie, who was now pointedly avoiding his gaze, and a portly, overstuffed woman who was staring at Hank's arm around the shoulders of a ghoul as if he had been the one pulling a Rollo. He tried to keep up a smile at Pedro.
"Of course I'll take care of the watch. What kind of guy do you think I am?"
"Thanks, Mr. Redstone. I'll be sure to bring the rest of the money next time."
"Call me Hank. Careful riding home, Pedro."
Hank shut the door and stopped smiling. Then he turned around and started smiling again. Eddie arose.
"Mrs. Inkay, may I present Mr. Redstone?"
He walked over to her and put on his best look of sympathy.
"How do you do, Mrs. Inkay?"
"Mr. Redstone..."
"Now, Mrs. Inkay, what appears to be the problem?"
She held her breath. The revelation wasn't easy for her.
"My husband, I believe, is seeing another woman."
Hank made his face look mildly shocked, then turned to his partner for confirmation.
"No, really?"
She didn't catch on.
"I'm afraid so."
"I am sorry."
Hank pulled his chair next to hers. Eddie cracked a knuckle. Hank shot him an irritated glance.
"Can't we talk about this alone, Mr. Redstone?"
"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Inkay. Eddie is my operative and at some point he's going to have to assist me. I can't do everything myself."
"Of course not."
"Now--what makes you certain he's involved with someone?"
She hesitated. Later, Hank would realize this question had made her very nervous.
"--a wife can tell."
He sighed.
"Mrs. Inkay, do you love your husband?"
She was a little shocked, then indignant. "Of course."
"Then go home and forget about it."
"--but--"
Hank stared intently at her.
"Mrs. Inkay, have you ever heard the expression, let sleeping dogs lie? You're better off not knowing."
She looked anxious for a second. "But I have to know." Her intensity was genuine. Hank looked to Eddie.
"All right, what's your husband's first name?"
"Charles. Charles Inkay."
Hank, surprised: "Natural Resources?"
She nodded, almost shyly. He began to casually but carefully check the details of her attire--Raoul Tejada earrings, a Vault City silver-inlaid Pip-Boy.
"He's the Chief Scientist."
Eddie interjected, a little too eagerly.
"Chief Scientist?"
Hank gave him a shut-the-hell-up look.
"This type of investigation can be hard on your pocketbook, Mrs. Inkay. It takes time."
"Money doesn't matter to me, Mr. Redstone."
He sighed again.
"Very well. We'll see what we can do. Eddie, draw up one of our standard contracts."
The map behind the speaker was nearly as tall as he was.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this council meeting today. Our first speaker is the esteemed Senior Senator from the Mojave, Cassandra Moore."
"Thank you, Councilman Phillips. Fellow citizens, when we won the war in the Mojave six years ago, we won because of sheer damn luck. The Legion had us outnumbered, and dare I say outmaneuvered as well. Our number one difficulty was keeping all those troops fed. Today, you can walk out that door, turn right, and in two days end up smack in the middle of a wasteland. Now you can ride through it, you can mine it, but you can't farm it and you can't graze your brahmin on it. Remember--we live in the fertile lands of California, but the citizens of the Mojave live right on the edge of a moonscape. New Vegas is a wasteland community. Without more Floramin, the dust will rise up and swallow the Mojave as though we never had won it!"
Hank had to admit, she knew the number one rule of public speaking: talk loud.
"The Val Verde can save us from that, and I respectfully suggest that eight and one half million dollars is a fair price to pay, so that the blood we spilled for the Mojave may return as the bounty of the earth."
The amalgam of farmers, businessmen, and NCR officials around Hank began to cheer. The councilman pounded a gavel, shushing them.
"Thank you, Senator Moore. Let's hear from the departments again. I suppose we better take Natural Resources first. Mr. Inkay?"
Hank sat up and put down his newspaper.
Charles Inkay walked, languidly, to the huge map. He was a slender, grey-haired man, who wore glasses yet moved with surprising fluidity. Hank remembered that he was sixty-two this year. The scientist turned to a smaller, younger assistant, and nodded. The assistant proceeded to turn the overleaf on the map.
"In case you've forgotten, gentlemen, over five hundred lives were lost when the containment field at Von Metzger Field failed. Core samples have shown that beneath the Val Verde bedrock is shale similar to the permeable shale in the Metzger disaster. It couldn't withstand that kind of corrosion there."
He turned over another overleaf.
"Now you propose yet another dirt-banked containment field with slopes of two and a half to one, one hundred and twelve feet high and a twelve thousand acre fermentation surface. Well, it won't hold. I won't build it. It's that simple." And then, slowly, enunciating each syllable: "I am not making the same mistake twice. Thank you, gentlemen."
Charles Inkay left the podium and sat down. He looked past where Hank was sitting, and his expression clouded. Hank heard whoops and hollers from the rear of the chambers. As he turned around, he saw a red-faced ex-Legionnaire leading a pack of children.
The councilman banged his gavel, to no avail. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" He turned to the bailiff. "Get those goddamned runts out of here!"
The bailiff unsheathed an electric prod. The Legion man was defiant. "Tell me where to take them! You don't have an answer for that so quick, do you?"
Hank could hear and smell the prod as it traced its way across unarmored skin. But the Legion man was unfazed. "You steal the water from the Colorado, poison the soil, starve our children--who's paying you to do that, Mr. Inkay, that's what I want to know!"
A riverbed, green.
Hank remembered it being dry yellow, like the color of a dessicated corpse, when he had first crossed the bridge eight summers ago. He could almost hear the parade beat, one, two, one, two, the sergeant smiling at them for the first time since Week One of Basic Training.
The sergeant had been the first to die. A Legion spear pit took him three miles south of Nipton.
Sweat got in his eyes. He could barely make out a gray-haired figure standing in the middle of the field of green, stooped over. The binoculars gave him a better angle, but not by much.
A farmboy riding a brahmin began to make its way through the riverbed. Inkay stood, wiped his trousers, and waved. Hank's trigger finger involuntarily twitched as the boy returned the wave with the Legion salute.
The Chief Scientist appeared not to care. He walked closer to the boy and began to speak. The boy made a few pointing movements. Inkay took out his pip-boy and fiddled with a few dials.
Then it was over. The most exciting thing to have happened in the past five hours. One of the heads on the brahmin yawned as it sauntered away, tail idly chasing a small bloatfly. Inkay climbed on his electric bike and began to navigate it out of the riverbed.
Hank looked at his pocketwatch, and followed Inkay to the next riverbank.
There was water flowing here. Hank was surprised at how much that could change the landscape. Not the sight, but the sound--the buzz of a bloatfly, the bubbling of a creek. Still nothing compared to the distant roar of the dam spillways, of course, but it was powerful nonetheless--a constant reminder that the Earth was still alive, and that he was still alive to hear it.
But in spite of the noise, the old man was nowhere to be seen. The small streaks of moving water made it difficult to spot a movement in the bushes. Hank could see the bike, though, neatly propped up against a tree at the upper lip of the riverbank. He waited five minutes, then decided to take a risk.
Digging around in his coat pockets, he found Pedro's collateral, still ticking away merrily. Hank made a mental note to slip in an extra five hundred on the Mrs. Inkay's expense form. Checking both watches to make sure they had the same times, he placed Pedro's watch under the rear tire.
"Christ, Eddie, he was at the salt flats all night."
The hands of the crushed Tejada watch were stopped at 2:47. Hank dropped it into a drawer and sat down. Eddie came into the office holding a small tray, wet photos attached with clothes pins.
"So what you got?"
Eddie help up a photo, then another. The series showed Inkay arguing with another man outside a restaurant. None of the photos had the other man's face, although in two of them, a silver cane was visible.
Hank was annoyed. "This?"
"They got into a terrific argument outside Dusty's Cantina."
"What about?"
"I don't know--the traffic was pretty loud. I only heard one thing--Casa Door."
"Casa Door?"
Eddie shrugged. "Yeah."
Hank tossed down the photos in disgust. "Jesus Christ, Eddie, that's what you spent your day doing?"
"Look, you tell me to take pictures, I take pictures."
"Let me explain something to you, Ed--this business requires a certain finesse--"
The phone rang. Eddie handed Hank the receiver.
"H. H. Redstone and Associates."
The voice on the other end was very excited, speaking in quick, run-on sentences.
"Okay, slow down. Where are you? Hanlon Park? Rowboats? Alright, stay there. We'll be over in five minutes."
Eddie's knuckles were still gripping the oar much more tightly than he needed to.
"Who was that guy, anyway?"
"Old friend of mine."
"You make friends with those... those things?"
Hank knew Eddie was scared of mutants, especially ones with blue skin and mild schizophrenia. When he was ten, both of his parents had been "chomped in half," according to the newspaper article, by the time the Rangers had defused the hostage situation via gauss rifle.
"We found him on a patrol. Caesar's boys had chained him up and were having a grand old time trying to spell their names with branding irons on his chest. Started screaming in Latin as soon as he saw us. Got every Legionnaire in earshot staring at him, then we opened fire."
"Huh. Didn't know they were smart like that."
Hank shrugged and raised the camera. "Let's see a big smile, pal."
Behind Eddie, Charles Inkay and a striking raven-haired girl in a summer print dress drifted by in a rowboat. Hank snapped a photo just as she fed Inkay a banana yucca fruit.
They followed the lovers to a small apartment overlooking the valley where the defeated Legion had settled. The bluish smoke from dinner campfires mixed with the setting sun to form a soft purple haze in the air. Hank's mouth watered a little. He had picked up a taste for Legion food in the Mojave, since it was usually better than the endless corn and beans the NCR fed its own troopers.
They climbed on the roof of an adjoining building, tiptoed, then crawled the last fifteen feet. Eddie held onto Hank's legs as he dropped his upper body over the edge. Hanging upside down, he peeked the camera just below the top of the window and peered through the viewfinder.
Sure enough, the Chief Scientist and the girl were sitting together on the couch. The evening light was feeble, though, so he couldn't quite make out whether they had undressed. But it was still two people in a bedroom. Hank snapped a few more photos, then coughed twice to signal Eddie to haul him up.
Just as Hank rolled onto the roof, he and Eddie heard the door open below them.
"Who's there?" It was the girl. Sharp ears, Hank thought. Then they heard the door close and climbed off the roof.
The barber had been the first to notice the headline.
[center][big]Department of Mines and Surveying Blows Fuse Over Chief's Use of Funds for Palatine Hill Love Nest[/big][center]
Below was a heart-shaped photo of Charles Inkay and the girl sitting on a couch together. Next to the photo, a smaller column:
[center][i]Henry Redstone Hired By Suspicious Spouse[i][center]
"When you get so much publicity, after a while you must get blase about it."
A slight smile came to Hank's face.
"Face it. You're practically a movie star."
Behind them, a few of the waiting customers were engaged in an animated conversation. Through the buzzing of the razor, Hank could hear barely hear the words. "They're going to start rationing food again." "Only for those folks down in the shanties." "You're not going to be able to buy more than three loaves of bread per day." "They should just move all those damn Legion slavers out to the Rio Grande." A loud murmur of agreement arose at the last statement.
"Well, Maury, maybe next time you can find a girl pretty enough to be on the front page." The barber responded with a belly laugh.
A fat, slightly balding man sitting next to Hank turned the page on his copy of the paper.
"Fool's names and fool's faces..."
Hank sat up and turned to face the other customer. "What's that, pal?"
"Nothing--you got a hell of a way to make a living."
"Oh? And what do you do to make ends meet?"
The fat man was smug. "Mortgage department, First Republic Bank."
Hank laughed.
"Tell me, how many people a week do you foreclose on?"
"We don't publish a record in the newspaper, I can tell you that."
"Neither do I."
"No, you have your press agent do it."
Hank stood up. Maury, a little concerned, grabbed ahold of the barber sheet around Hank's neck.
"Maury, who is this guy? He a regular?"
The barber gently pulled on the sheet. "Take it easy, Hank."
Hank ignored him. "Look, pal--I make an honest living. People don't come to me unless they're miserable. I help them out of a desperate situation. I don't kick them out of their homes like you bums at the bank."
The other customer turned around, pretending not to hear.
Maury put a hand on Hank's shoulder. "Relax, buddy."
"If you've got a problem, Mister First Republic, maybe we can go outside and talk it over--"
The fat man turned around and began to shrink back into his chair.
"Hey, c'mon, Hank. Sit down. Here's a joke. Real funny--you hear about the fella that goes to his friend and says, 'What can I do? I'm tired of screwin' my wife?' and his friend says 'Well why don't you do what the Khans do?'"
Hank allowed himself to be dragged back to his chair. "I don't know how that got in the paper as a matter of fact--it surprised me, it was so quick. I make an honest living."
"'Course you do."
"An honest living."
"So anyway, he says, 'why don't you do what the Khans do?'"
Hank burst through the front door of his office, a huge grin on his face.
"Eddie! Eddie, ya gotta hear this--"
Eddie came out of the darkroom.
"--so there's this fella who's tired of screwing his wife--"
"Hank, listen--"
"Shut up, Eddie, you're always in such a hurry--and his friend says why don't you do what the Khans do? His friend says the Khans, they screw for a while--just listen a second, Eddie--"
A stunning green-eyed redhead appeared through the door to Hank's office, out of his sight. A small, white-haired, bespectacled man followed. They continued listening.
"--and then they stop and they draw some funny stick figures in the ground, and then they screw some more and they stop and inhale some Jet and they go back, screw some more and they stop and contemplate the Moon or something, and it makes it more exciting. So this other guy, goes home to screw his wife, and after a while, he says 'Honey, excuse me for a moment', and he goes and reads a magazine, and he goes back and screws some more and he goes and has a cigarette, and then he goes back and by this time his wife is getting pretty pissed off. So he screws some more, and then he gets up to look at the moon, and his wife says, 'Honey, what are you doing? You're screwing just like a Khan.'"
Hank hung on to Eddie's desk, bent over in laughter as he turned to head into his office. He saw the two and awkwardly tried to compose himself, his cheeks turning a bright shade of red. The little white-haired man winced. Eddie flashed a painful grin. The young woman gave him a few seconds, then fixed him with a polite but icy stare.
"Mr. Redstone?"
"Yes?"
"Do you know me?"
"--well--" Hank tried to fake a smile, then thought the better of it. "--I would have remembered."
"Have we ever met?"
"Well, no."
"Never?"
"Never."
"That's what I thought. You see, I'm Mrs. Evelyn Inkay -- you know, Mr. Inkay's wife."
Hank blinked.
"Not that Inkay?"
"Yes, that Inkay, Mr. Redstone. And since you agree that we've never met, you must also agree that I haven't hired you to do anything--certainly not spy on my husband."
She began to walk out the door. "I see you like publicity, Mr. Redstone. Well, you're certainly going to get it--"
"Now, wait a minute, Mrs. Inkay..." Hank rushed to the door and grabbed the handle. "--there's some misunderstanding here. It's not going to do any good to get tough with me--"
"I don't get tough with anybody, Mr. Redstone." She flashed a cold smile. "My lawyer does."
Evelyn took Hank's hand and moved it off the handle, then opened the door. Hank stood there, dumbfounded. He was interrupted by a firm tap on the shoulder from the white-haired man.
"Here's something for you--"
The lawyer handed Hank a thick sheaf of papers--a summons and complaint. Evelyn walked out of the office.
The lawyer continued, pleasantly, "--I suppose we'll be hearing from your attorney soon."
Redstone stared down at the papers in his hand.
-- END CHAPTER 1 --
More chapters to come. Stay tuned.
