Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

[Obuzeti]

"It makes sense that all your treasures are things that can't be taken," Jonah says, reflective, and it's perhaps more true than he realizes at first. But he doesn't dwell, or extend the metaphor; instead, he heads for the music player and spins it up - only vaguely familiar with the process of getting it to work through time spent at the casinos - then sets up the dancing floor by clearing out some of the space outside Kara's little ramshackle room proper. He has to move the pool table pretty much clear across the room, and throw down a couple rugs to make a flat enough surface for him to do a slide-step on, but the end result is about a ten foot fabric square with no protruding bolts to catch a toe on in classic Vault style. It's not half bad.

Jonah gives his suspenders a little snap, then gives his hand a disgusted look once his brain catches up to what he's doing.

"So what dress are you wearing this time?" he calls up to Kara - she'd vanished, and he didn't know what all else she had stored here as opposed to the suite at Gomorrah. "Think it'll survive the night?"

He wouldn't tear any of her clothing regardless; tailoring is a lost art in the Mojave. The mental image is probably something she'd enjoy though.

Hnnh, maybe they can procure some Vault jumpsuits for the purpose, though. Food for thought.

Dancing first.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"It makes sense that all your treasures are things that can't be taken,"

“Don’t it?” Kara chirps with a cocky smirk and finger guns on her way out the door-flouncing not downstairs but into yet another little side room off the main former recreation space that housed their ramshackle bedroom and all her physical, mostly stolen treasures. She’d better finish up on her hair-it had to be dry under the handkerchief by now. She found the hair brush she’d abandoned earlier (how’d it even get on top of that lamp?) and started on brushing out each tendril of red as she unpinned them.

He’s right, of course. That was something she’d learned early, was mixed in with The Joke, the game. You can hardly do anything BUT come out on top if you didn’t have anything to steal, nothing that mattered. Unstoppable!

But she’d kinda fucked that up, hadn’t she? It’s a rather risky sort of gamble, being in love. Having him made life more meaningful than before, and he’d helped her realize things she hadn’t been willing...hadn’t entirely had the luxury?-to think about previously-but it also gave her something to fear. Jonah himself was something to lose, a treasure that could be taken away.

But he just wasn’t the sort of thing you passed up, not if you were living your fullest. Risky, but worth it. That was the other half of The Joke she’d come to realize after all-you weren’t supposed to do things-or not do things!-that you’d regret later.

And that’s exactly why they’re going to be dancing now, thank you very much. Live for the now, cause it’s the only ‘now’ there is!

She set the brush down and scrutinized her reflection in the mirror a moment, the final end result of her earlier efforts-all the pin curls she’d put in were now fluffy loose tresses of red, something straight out of an old magazine or movie poster. Kara dug around in the old cigar box she kept various little baubles in, and found a clip embellished with smooth white pearls she’d pilfered from somewhere.

Kara pulled a loose curl up away from her face and clipped it neatly in place. Yep, that’d do it!

"So what dress are you wearing this time?"

“A surprise!” Kara calls back, a little muffled from within the pajama shirt she’s pulling over her head, too impatient for the buttons and further fluffing up the hairdo she’d just perfected. Aw dang it-oh, actually, that still looked good. Better even!

"Think it'll survive the night?"

He’d hear a short surprised burst of laughter, and then nothing for a little bit as she apparently finished dressing up for him.

In a lot of the romantic books and films of days gone by, a well dressed woman usually made a dramatic entrance of some kind-graceful, she’d float into a room or slink down a marble staircase, a quiet picture of elegance and femininity.

Kara, had never seen nor read anything of the kind.

The courier burst out of the side room before the door had even fully opened, flouncing onto the raised walkway with a cheerful ‘Ta-da!’ to announce her entry-grinning ear to ear as she (admittedly graceful even if boisterous) strolled down with a tapping hand along the railing until she hit the three steps to the floor proper.

“Whatcha think? Had to hike the skirt of it up myself, took me nearly all morning.”

It was an impossibly clean silk white dress, the slinky sort of class a hall singer or dame of Vera Keyes’ calibur might have worn before the Great War. The smooth material clung to the smooth curve of her hip and nicely accentuated that pert derriere, while the front had another layer of material gathered a few inches beneath her navel, a ruffle of fabric draped before her legs that did nothing to disturb that outline of toned thigh to curved hip to dipped in, small waist.

The bodice of the dress was a bit more extravagant than the silk of the skirt-it bore a mesh overlay of some kind over the stiffer fabric, intricate swirls of white lace stitched throughout in an understated sense of elegance. Other dresses had beading or metallic thread, embossing-the delicate pattern of ivy swirls trumped both.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the marvel of so pristine a white color...or the cut of that neckline not needing much in the way of flash in general-it was strapless and had a rather risque cut, the pale column of Kara’s neck, slender shoulders, delicate collar bone-and the soft skin on all of it-was it’s own dazzling display, even before the soft swell of her chest was taken into account.

Add the sharp shock of color in that dark red hair, those large blue eyes?

Well, it wasn’t news- but Kara was a very, very attractive woman.

“Looks good, right?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah looks at her, and just smiles. Not the bitter, scarred thing he lets others see, but the one just for her. "Now you see what I see," he says, and that's all the summation he cares to offer, though his eyes fail to stray from her at all as he rises from where he was fiddling with the music player to cross the room to her.

The mercenary offers her a hand down the last step of the stairs, needlessly. "You remember the steps I showed last time, or do you want a new one?" he asks, and leads Kara in a gentle circle, lifting her hand to let her twirl underneath. "This looks fit for a slower one."

Jonah's underdressed compared to his companion, but that's nothing new; she's always been the shining gem compared to his dull efficiency, and he's content to let her shine someplace she doesn't have to worry about the pedestrian envy or greed or lust of those who'd covet her. The Mojave isn't a safe enough place for her to really shine, yet, but there will come a day where Kara can wear a dress like this every day if she wants, or hike across the desert, or visit her friends in the Khans or anywhere else she desires without staring over her shoulder for the next Legionnaire. She can look after herself, of course, but she shouldn't have had to grow the spikes he's seen.

There is a better world to be made, and this is his glimpse of it.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Ya know, I was mostly jus’ cleaning up for you?” Kara muses cheerfully as she follows the circle, twirls with a soft curve of a smile on her lips. “But now I feel...I dunno.” A silvery bit of soft laughter and the briefest of averted gazes, a brush of a pale rosy color across her cheeks.

“Pretty.” It’s only really with Jonah she feels any kind of delicate. Feminine...?

Not that she’s ever felt manly; there’s just a difference is all! She’s hot shit. She knows she’s hot shit, genes or luck or fate, and then she dresses all them assets up whatever way she feels like, and it affects people.

So she’d up and taken charge of that too. She flirted and made crass jokes, delighted in twisting people up over the things they were never going to have, the things some felt entitled to. Her flippant, manic dismissal of that entitlement was as much a weapon as her self possessed sexuality in the first place.

She doesn’t gotta be that way with Jonah. He loves her, he sees her. She could probably burn up her face tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter.

Maybe feeling pretty had nothing to do with what she currently looked like, and everything to do with him and the way he looks at her.

The redhead’s Caribbean blue eyes flick back and she smiles at him, happy, content. In love.

“So. A slower dance!”

 

[Obuzeti]

In the morning Jonah took stock of himself - the stimpaks had done their work and he was healed up. He gingerly rolled his shoulder and arm, trying to get a sting or a spark of pain to flicker out of the dark, but nothing happened; he had all his flexibility back. He nodded in satisfaction and started strapping his weapons back on, the sawed-off shotgun strapping to his thigh first.

"Assuming House knows what went down, where do we go first?" Jonah asks, as he slides his sidearm into a holster on his opposite calf, and then a knife on that same leg. A pair of yawara, a tool he'd never seen a close equivalent of anywhere else in the Wasteland or at all for that matter, clip onto his waist, along with an ammo pouch slung high over his chest. His rucksack slides on last, fully loaded with the tools of his trade, and his carbine hangs alongside. Altogether his kit probably weighs fifty to sixty pounds, a considerable amount - but he's used to it, and he's big enough that it doesn't weigh him down that much outside of a combat situation. "I don't remember too much of the plan after 'get out alive'. That was a big sticking point."

The memory of dancing with Kara - watching her twirl and laugh to music older than both of them put together - he carries that closer to his heart. No one else ever gets that from him.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara was busy drawing her bat out of the sheath she’d made, the multi colored paracord and leather mock up currently hanging off her belt on one hip, anchored in two places to sit at an angle. As most of the godawful things Kara cobbled together, the thing was two parts shoddy and one part practical.

She seemed to mostly be amused in how it resembled something that’d hold a sword rather than a blunt force instrument given the piped ‘En garde!’ she fired off at Hrolf-who remained, per usual, indifferent but tolerant of her antics. Lupa sniffed along the bottom edge of the shelves, both dogs having picked up on the intention to hit the road again.

“He probably knows, but can’t hurt to check in and make sure. Since Vic turned out to be a spy, I’m thinking we can just look him up in Good Springs.” Kara muses as she tugs on the laces to one of her calf length boot. She checks the decorated ace of hearts slipped between tongue and laces on the other boot. The ball point pen picture was clear enough even behind the cording; a healthy looking tree trunk had the heart centered right in its middle, their initials scratched out against the red.

She looks that over a minute with an absent smile, then swipes up her combat knife to sheathe it in its usual place at the cuff of her boot. He’d sharpened it, but everything else about the weapon was all Kara-she’d painted the grid like handle of the blade to resemble chocolate of all things, down to little white ‘iced’ hearts and spirals in the center of the squares, reminiscent of boxed candies. She’d even wrapped the end in silver duct tape to finish the look.

She was sporting yet another pair of half pants, toned thigh of the one bearing an electric blue sheer stocking, one of the smiley faced knee pads buckled into place. The full length pant leg wasn’t duct taped up at least-it was intact. Despite this, and for no real discernible reason-Kara had wrapped a scrap of camo fabric around her thigh (no doubt cut out of ANOTHER pair of pants) the one side of it secured with corset styled lacing of all things.

It was in this lacing she popped two blow out noise makers-the rolled up, colorful paper bright and cheery even if faded-and three sparklers. Lil Devil holstered in the curve of her waist and her lucky jacket pulled on over a black tanktop, the new and improved rail gun on her back-Kara seemed nearly ready to go, but then suddenly stepped over to the messier set of shelves, started to dig around for something else in the boxes of various doodads and parts.

“Figure we find out what the next step of his plan is, see if it sounds fun.” The redhead was ready to wage war, but spoke as if it was the same dawdling adventures and excitements as ever, business as usual.

She may be openly motivated by better things and willing to be honest with herself now, but she’s still Kara Walker.

"Or we have advice or somethin', us being expert consultants." Well, ONE of them was anyway. But heck if she wasn't creative in a pinch, and useful once deployed.

Kara finds what she's looking for-a small brass whistle of some sort, a straight tube shape. She finds a ball chain in another box of junk, threads it through the welded loop of the tube-and then slips it over her head before tucking the whistle beneath her tank top.

She never wears anything that could get caught and choke her death-not in all the holes she's crawled around in, spelunking she's done. The other part of that was not wanting to make strangling her TOO easy, nope.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Fair enough, though I dunno if Vic is intentionally a spy," Jonah says with a shrug, as he steps over to pull the collar of Kara's shirt out just a little, letting the whistle slip in easily underneath. Then he glances at her outfit, newly gunned-up and maintained, and grants a nod of satisfaction. "I like to think he's just a loser, and House stuck him out here so he doesn't have to listen to the accent."

Okay, so they were rubbing off on each other a little. Kara has better and more weapons, and he has sass now, as opposed to seething frustration. Good trade on her part.

In comparison to Kara's complex outfit, his own ensemble hasn't changed much - but the loose fabric of the dark fatigues is now underlaced with ballistic fiber crossing over broad bands of muscle, and his forearms and elbows are backed with ceramic inlays strong and hard enough to take a gladius thrust, though it'd leave bruising afterwards for days just from the pressure. He's not sure he can trick the suit out anymore without swapping for Ranger gear or something else top of the line like that.

Although he did make a cosmetic change, for once: the outfit is dyed a deep, dark blue. Proof of allegiance.

Jonah clicks his tongue to the dogs, and nods to Kara. "Let's head out. We got a lot of moving ahead of us."

~*~

Vic is balancing on a tire by the saloon, watching people pass by - at least Jonah assumes as much. It's hard to know just how sentient the Securitrons are, especially the ones with personalities. If boredom is included in artificial intelligence, that's an unnaturally perverse punishment.

"Howdy, pardner!" Vic cries, gravy-greased country tones creaking awkwardly out of his speaker box. "What brings you by this way."

"House," Jonah says, always short-spoken when confronted with the verbose. "Need to get in contact with him."

Vic's smiling face stares at then out of the monitor for several seconds. No sounds come out. Jonah's eyebrow ticks.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Whaaaat? That cowboy schtick is great, what’re you talking about?” As was typical, it was hard to tell if Kara was bullshitting or not-but given the entertainment she seemed to derive from all things ridiculous-

Perhaps the bullshitting was pretending shock in his opinion, and the truth was amusement in the unique way the robot blared his western twang. With Kara, truth and lies always seemed to go hand in hand.

~*~

“What he means-” Kara cheerfully provides as she steps out and around her larger companion, voice continuing on in a negotiating sort of dish as she slipped between them- “Is that we know you’re friends with House, and now we’re friends with House, and since you were at his house and all-we thought maybe you had a way to dial him up, see what he wants us on next!”

Kara tapped on a spot just to the left of the cowboy robot’s monitor, a faint ring of her metal fingertip against his chassis. “Speakin’ of-you move that fast, or are you in two places at once? There’s gotta be only one Vic, least that’s what I always figured. One-of-a-kind!”

She’s genuinely curious, if applying a bit of unique flattery. “Are you pulling double duty right now in manning that elevator, or didja put one of them floozy robots on it?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Vic's cowboy monitor winks at Kara. "Well, that'd be just plumb telling," he says. "Suffice to say, a good sheriff finds himself where he needs to be, yeah? Gimme a minute, let me see if I can ring up Big Hoss."

His familiar screen blinks out and is replaced by the omnipresent waiting screen found on monitors across the wasteland, ready to receive information that will never come from the broken networks that once stretched the breadth of the continent. This one lasts for no more than five seconds before House's familiar, faint sneer replaces Vic on the Securitron's screen.

"I suppose it was an inevitable supposition," he says, in lieu of a proper greeting. "How went your objectives?"

Just as short of words as his erstwhile employer, Jonah glances over at Kara. "You still got the chip?"

He'd lost track, honestly, but he'd been in shit state after Goodsprings, and hadn't thought about it until they'd made it home, and by then he'd only managed to remind himself before passing out. It was at least in the bunker somewhere, but damned if he'd kept track after surviving the whole mess.

House doesn't say anything, but the silence of the radio screen feels somehow dry.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara approves of that answer and it shows in the sparkle of amusement in those Caribbean blue eyes. The courier did like Vic’s shtick.

The cowboy blinks out and Kara’s cocky smirk lights on as she glances over at Jonah.

“He’s calling up Big Hoss.” She needlessly informs as she rocks back on her heels a minute, hands loosely gripping the lapels of her jacket. She looks pleased with herself as much as she does amused, and then House flicks on and her eyes cut over to him instead.

She’s still honestly figuring him out. He’d gotten her pretty good that first meeting and she hadn’t liked that-but now she knows he’s New Vegas best shot on top of having been its biggest benefactor, AND he was around before the Great War.

She’s already decided that they’re gonna be pals.

“Chip?” Kara returns in the empty headed farce she sometimes put on-only to interrupt it with a very convincing sudden ‘recall’. “Oh, the Chip. Course I do, course I do, let’s see here...” Tongue caught between her teeth in the corner of her mouth, Kara starts patting down her jacket in a seeming bid to try and remember where she put it. She reached into one side, then the other; dipped a hand into a lower pocket only to retrieve the jumbled mix of coins, pins, and other various metal trinkets he’d seen once before and from which she’d blindly retrieved a gold Denarius during their interrogation of the legionnaire.

Not finding it in there, Kara dumped the jumble back into her pocket with a frown, looking over and up at Jonah as if at a loss.

“Oh wait-” She steps closer to pop up on tiptoe and reaches just behind his ear, somehow producing the Platinum Chip with dramatic flourish. “Here it is! Gosh Jonah, you should really be more careful, keep things in safer places.”

Flipping the coin and catching it in her fingers, Kara dispenses with (most) of her dramatics and smiles over at House’s visage. “So now that the payload was delivered, what’s the next job? Bringing this doohickey back to you, in Lucky 38? Ought to go better than last time.”

Mere yards away from the cemetery Benny had almost murdered her in, and Kara’s making jokes.

 

[Obuzeti]

For all that House's representation is a still image, he does a flat stare very well, almost as well as Jonah, the reigning champion in the Mojave of Being Tired of Your Shit. "Yes," the man in question says, dusty and dry. "I will do my best to relocate all my bullets into the enemy for safekeeping."

House ignores the byplay with the patience Jonah supposes he's built up from dealing with Omerta, White Gloves, and Chairmen for generations now. It's fair to say that in comparison to backbiting, cannibalism, and rampant corruption he probably has a lot more tolerance for Kara's gimmicks in light of her competence, cast against the lack thereof within the tribes. "If you would relinquish the chip to me," he says, popping a little tray open in the burly midsection of the Securitron, "I will ensure that it is properly secured - I find myself loathe to let anyone know what the value of the Chip is or was, aside from those present. Upgrading the fleet will take some time and strain even the considerable provisions I'd set aside in hopes of success; I'd like the pair of you to secure a supply caravan to the Mojave independent of the NCR."

"Planning to make a move?" Jonah says, lips thinning. He just fought a hell of a battle against the Legion. Going straight into another against the NCR, who by all accounts are better trained and equipped, is not in the cards.

"Preventing theirs," House corrects, prim. "Once the Legion is neutralized I imagine that they'll try to settle troops in this area, or at least contest ownership of the dam. Economic pressure is the first and easiest tool they'll reach for - preventing food shipments from the south and east, choke out business opportunities for local merchants, etcetera. I'd like a trade route to prevent that sort of thing in advance and force them to come to the negotiations on a more fair footing."

The wrinkles in Jonah's brow lighten and he shrugs, accepting the reasoning. It's not another shootout fresh on the tail of the last one, at least, though negotiation and trade is more Kara's wheelhouse than his.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Yes, I will do my best to relocate all my bullets into the enemy for safekeeping."

“That’s neighborly of them.” Kara cheerfully notes, clearly entertained by the response-before she deposits the Platinum Chip with a flourish of her partially gloved hand.

Happy trails Vic.

That dispensed with, the courier reaches into some other pocket to produce two blowpops, knowing the answer to Jonah’s question before House provides it. Sure as shit House ain’t unveiling the death army until the NCR and the Legion weaken themselves on each other-least, not if he’s smart.

And he seemed pretty smart-that’s half the reason he’s the horse she’s backing! Smart, immortal, maybe robot in love with Vegas, and looking to make bank? Oh yeah, definitely the best bet-nobody can beat good commerce.

And did he say the pair of them?

Kara offers up a blowpop to her larger companion (sliding the stick through the corset laces of that camo band if not) before she unwraps her own, pops it into her mouth while looking pleased.

“Ya know,” Kara starts around the sucker, flicking the stick to one side before drawing it out and gesturing with it. “I’m gonna cop to being plumb impressed House-you’re a heck of a smooth operator.”

And at that she pops the sucker back into her mouth and withdraws her crappy map, giving it a very serious, musing study. “Can’t trust the Van Gruffs or Crimson, they’re happily reaping the benefits of Legion business.”

Also, Gloria and her psycho brother would really like to paint a wall with her insides. No amount of sweet talk or money would bring Gloria on anything she even suspected her ‘gal pal’ Kara might benefit from.

“But assumin’ you’re willing to grease her wheels, I think I got just the medicine this outfit needs in a lady fancily named Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Not the biggest name in business, but then that’s half the point.”

The hard drinking potty mouth didn’t care for the Legion any more than she did, and was too good a business woman to think highly of the red tape and overall thin spread the NCR had going on. Offered a lucrative enough contract and the promise of free enterprise, Cass would go for it.

Course, there’d been some rumors lately, and Julie had said something about a late shipment…? Well, good investment capital could turn something like that right around, couldn’t it?

“Gotta find her first, and that might take us out of the Mojave for a minute or two-but we’ll be back before you know it.” Kara chatters as she folds the map back up, completely ignoring the creases already pressed in it.

She wouldn’t be surprised if he sent them to further some aspects of the NCR cause next. Better it was remnants of the deployed NCR troops than the Legion hanging around once this blew open; He envisioned fair and profitable deals with the former once this was all over, deals dead in the water if it was just the skirts still hanging around waiting to be chased off.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah is uninterested in the blowpop, though he does take it. He glances at it, brow furrowed, and then shrugs and sticks it behind his ear. The colorful wrapping contrasts hard with his placid expression and dull-shaded fatigues.

"Considering the source, I suppose that's a compliment," House drones. "Yes, the Van Graffs have happily taken the Legion's denarii - I've traced known Legion moles to their operations multiple times. They don't do business with each other, precisely, but I would suspect they are at least trading information. The Crimson Caravan, on the other hand, is mainly guilty of what I suspect to be - competitive business practices."

He sounds almost approving.

"Rose of Cassidy - Caravans, I believe?" the owner of the Strip muses. "I recall the name. A water caravan primarily, I believe. In any case your ear is closer to the ground than mine. If she proves amenable and reliable, notify me as to what she will require."

"Blank check?" Moray says, raising an eyebrow.

"It has been manifestly proven to me that investing in loyalty before existing power structures provides better results in the end," House says, a little tart. "It solves problems down the line."

"That's so," Moray agrees. "Anything else?"

"Subcontract some help the next time it becomes necessary to annihilate an entire Legion outpost," House says. "Or at the very least, bring more explosives."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara’s lights up at the gesture, a slash of a grin despite the sucker caught in her teeth. It’s hilarious and earns him a silvery bit of laughter, deft little fingers catching at the sucker stick so she didn’t choke.

“That IS a lotta grease.” Kara agrees about the blank check. She’s still visibly delighted, vivid blue eyes sparkling mirth as he talks a bunch of fancy that boiled down to not only having the bigger carrot to dangle, but letting them have a taste. First one’s always free, right?

He doesn’t want collars though, he wants good and profitable business associates. Lot of autonomy he’s doling out. Assumin’ he’d follow through, he’s basically unleashing them on the Mojave same as they’d always been, but NOW with him backing them.

Kara chews on that a minute, remembering some of what he said at that first meeting. About being important, about the boons he could offer to her ‘chosen peoples’.

"Subcontract some help the next time it becomes necessary to annihilate an entire Legion outpost, or at the very least, bring more explosives."

He’s right. More right than he realizes probably-Jonah had been so hurt. Some guy looking to get at her too, and all those skirts! They wouldn’t do that again. She’s glad they saved those people, but not again. She loves Jonah too much to go getting him killed because she’s soft.

Nothing of that anxiety shows on her face however-Kara covers up with her usual dramatics, and the amusement in doing so chases them away.

“Pft, I enlisted a yao guai, how much more backup does a person need?” She goes from overly dramatic haughtiness to sudden wide eyed excitement, eyes cutting back. “Unless you know where we can subcontract death claws?! Oh, wait, no-that’s probably a bad idea, I’m allergic.”

There’s a beat of empty headed amusement, the sucker coming back to her lips-but she pauses just before popping it past them again, watching the static image of House proper. She lowers it again, losing the charade for a moment of genuine curiosity.

“...did you really survive the Great War, lived in the times before it? The real Robert House?”

 

[Obuzeti]

"Quarry Junction, I believe," House says, still dry as the Mojave. "As it is your specialty, miss Kara, I will leave the specifics of persuading the local deathclaw population to you."

A pause as the robot regards Kara, the shift from business to personal not a thing he'd ever allowed before - but then, his agents were usually both less efficient and less interested in matters of intellectual merit, such as historical data. He decides to indulge the question, since there's no pressing matters at hand. "I am he, yes. The mechanism of my longevity is not up for discussion, and is not replicable in any case, but I was indeed alive and active before the Sino-American War reached its nuclear conclusion. That would be your 'Great War' by the way: it was a two-hour exchange of nukes at the end of eleven years of war between China and America."

There is a pause. "I am also the founder and main innovator of Robco Industries, which products can still be found across the continent in varying states of disrepair and neglect. The Securitrons are my own design, for example."

"You put the unicycle wheel on them?" Jonah asks. The corner of his mouth hasn't curled, precisely, but there's a flatness to the way that he asks the question that indicates his amusement.

"Leg articulation is complex and difficult to manufacture, and the only factory with appropriate machinery was in the Midwest," House replies, his words sharp with irritation. "I believe I adapted well to the circumstances I found myself within."

Jonah raises his hands and lets the topic go. He's definitely smirking now, though.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

China vs the good ole home team of America ™! Kara knows a bit about that from various propaganda and terminals scattered from here all the way to the Capital Wasteland, as well as the stories pestered out of a few long lived ghouls here and there. Journal entries galore were also some of the best snapshots of what it was like living back then-rabid ‘patriots’, anxious people just trying to live their lives in worsening times, and, more than once-actual military documents.

If he’s really Robert House, then just about everything she knows was thanks to computers running on his Unified Operating System software, and all the hacking and circumventing of security she’d figured out over time. And her stealth boys! Those were something his company invented, maybe stole?-but got producing. And the eyebots she’d grown up listening to President Eden’s chats on. And the automated robots in all the factories she’s scavenged in, the buildings she’s explored.

And here he was. It’s like meeting a celebrity, and that’s not even counting anything with New Vegas.

“I mean, it DID make ‘em good scooters, don’t forget.” She says to Jonah, but she’s a quieter sort of amused as she says it, a little distracted. She likes that he’s poking fun, though.

“Alright House-” Kara comes back to herself, swelling up to her full height with visible buoyant gusto. It’s different the way she says his name-she believes him, now. “We’re going to go get you your caravan, and we’ll make sure your supply line is iron clod! But it’ll cost you, oh, it’s gonna cost alright-” She’s got the sucker in one hand half forgotten about, and her other one up and curled in, pretending to look at her nails.

“My half, I want stories. That’s only fair, seeing the kind o’ overachievers we are and all.”

Kara pops that sucker back into her mouth with a grin, gives that familiar tug of finality on the lapels of her jacket-and spins away to start on her-their new adventure.

~*~

“Okay, so he had to know the nukes were gonna happen.” Kara was saying as she hopped down off a three foot high slab of rock. Two miles ago she’d busted out her map and insisted on a ‘shortcut’. Thing was, it didn’t seem to be saving much time-technically the distance was shorter if you drew a straight line, but the hillier, more varied land slowed them down enough to cancel them out. It was entirely possible however, that Kara just found the admittedly boring, flatter stretch of road undesirable in comparison.

“I mean, it was probably obvious things were going to end bad, but how’d he guess at when? If he was able to scoop his brain out, or ghoulify himself, or whatever it is he did-he didn’t wanna say and before he called it a ‘costly sacrifice’ or something, so maybe he’s traumatized, or just doesn’t want us knowing how to undo it?-then he had to have had a good idea, I’d think. But if he IS Robert House-then where the heck was he between the bombs and when he went and recruited the three families? Swank said he was quiet until then-I only got here about a year after it happened, so that was...six, seven years ago now? I guess House recruited them all up just in time to go meet with the NCR on the Dam and sign that first treaty. Maybe he's NOT House, but like, a defense system that only woke up when soldiers showed up.”

 

[Obuzeti]

"Presumably, the fact the Strip is still standing and not a nuclear crater like every other major city I've seen has something to do with his preparations, though obviously I don't know the specifics," Jonah says with a shrug. "All the information I found pointed to the fact that the end of gasoline and the food riots that started in the last couple of years, coupled with the Chinese reluctance to surrender, probably let him know something bad was going to go down. I dunno what or how after that, though."

As per usual, Jonah's interest is entirely engaged once the topic touches something scholarly. He would have been just as at home with a pen and notebook in hand as a pistol, but life takes strange turns.

"That said," Jonah notes with a shrug, "I doubt the fact he never puts in a personal appearance is entirely a safety issue. Robobrains are still functional today, if batshit crazy. Maybe his tin can just worked better."

He's not worried about it. House's word and his caps are good. That's the end of his concerns on the matter.

"Where's this Cassidy girl you said we were looking for?" he asks, changing the topic. "She stay still enough to make her easy to find or are we gonna have to track her down?"

That wouldn't be impossible, but an experienced caravan hand can make fast tracks, and he doesn't much favor trying to catch a lone wanderer across the Mojave. Hopefully she has an office or a favorite bar or something akin to that he can hit up first. It's how he found Kara in the first place, after all - the Kings were known to have a soft spot for her, one she returned. Granted, he finds the King himself a fair sort of man as well.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

(Please let me know if this just bulldozes over any Jonah dialogue opportunities!
I didn't want to not progress the story/leave you nothing to respond to, but maybe I over did it.)

House’s tin can…

Kara briefly considers being alive but just a brain in a jar, life without physical sensation.

Sounds pretty boring. She’d rather go out with a bang. But! He seems content enough planning his takeovers n’ forming New Vegas to his profitable liking, and good for him! That’s the smart kind of money she can get behind.

Jonah changes the topic and Kara bounces to it without further thought to the previous one.

“Oh yeah, Cass! She’s got an ‘office’ in Vault City-” If you counted the last stool at the counter in Spitoon that was- “She’ll either be there or somewhere along the road. Figure we’ll check in with any of her caravans we see on the way- she likes hoofing it much as I do.”

It belatedly occurs to Kara they may have already passed one, going off the road like this-but hey, she’s never in much of a rush. They can double back they got to, have some fun in Vault City.

She said she’d help with the war effort, she didn’t say she’d be quick about it. Snrk.

“Our deal’s probably coming at a good time-I hear it’s been kinda rough for her in the last year or so. And now she’s running late on shipments? Damn.” According to Julie Farkas anyway. “She won’t deal with Ceasar, and she’s losing out to caravans that do-my gal pal Gloria, for example!”

Kara glances back and past Jonah, sees Hrolf and Lupa sniffing around a ways behind. Even further, if she really squinted-three or four of the other mongrels far off in the distance. It’s a spaced out train, but she likes it.

Vibrant blue eyes slide to the man himself, a mischievous smile playing around her lips. “I stole a cart and two brahmin right out from under her nose once. I sent them back, but boy she was pretty hot about me rentin’ it for free.”

Kara laughs.

“Didn’t stop her from drinking that Nukashine with me though, the one time? Never did find out where she ended up on her trip-but she shouldn’t of dared me, all it bought her was a double dog dare back!”

~*~

The NCR Mojave Outpost was impossible to miss-miles away the Unification Monument was easily seen, the two giant figures formed out of scrap metal (Dan and Stan according to Kara) reaching out and shaking hands at the mouth of the Mountain Pass. The statues commemorated the merge of the New California Rangers and Nevada’s Desert Rangers into one force some ten years ago, where the dwindling rangers signed a treaty and were absorbed into the NCR’s ranks.

“The gateway to the Republic! I got arrested here four years or so ago, big misunderstanding.” Her smirk makes it plain it wasn’t a misunderstanding at all, but something she’d weaseled out of. “Boy, that was a doozy.”

Larson had told her this place used to be the front lines for the NCR, and Kara supposes it might be again, shit goes badly enough for the NCR. She wonders if he’s even still alive, what Bea said about Searchlight...

Like McCarren, she doesn't recognize any of the soldiers milling about, 'cept maybe the lady up in that little sniper's nest. That white hair was hard to miss on Ghost after all.

They’re probably going to have to start helping these guys soon. If Fiends were enough to give ‘em trouble and Caesar’s skirts had figured out how to irradiate entire settlements, well-

Come to think of it, with Nipton having gone up in ash and Searchlight apparently indefensible there wasn’t all that much between this place and the skirts. Something to ask Jonah about later-military tactics were his wheelhouse, not hers.

“I say we hit up the bar and see what kinda news Lacey’s got-you ever meet Lacey?” Kara’s gesturing to the side of the camp where the barracks were built, squat one level concrete buildings, well fortified. There were picnic tables out in front of it, the only indicator of it being some kind of foodstuffs provider. That it doubled as a bar and that Kara KNEW it was a bar was just par for the course. It also, most likely, had something to do with her having been arrested here.

“Plus I’m thirsty! Ain’t you thirsty?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah frowns at the statues. His brow is wrinkled in thought. "I've never actually been to the NCR. I had a disagreement at the border with a recruiter last time I tried to cross and decided it wasn't worth my time to visit. I dropped my stash just over the border in a Deathclaw den then left."

The man had tried to insist it was his duty to enlist. Jonah has very clear views on what his duties are and at the time, even less patience for pushy personalities. Some bludgeoning had ensued, but nothing serious.

His eyes flick upwards to the sniper nest on the roof, and he gives a short, upward jerk of his head in that direction, and then curves towards the barracks, past the decrepit picnic tables outside. There's a handful of troops, but nowhere near enough visible to even make two squads, and more importantly not the logistics trail around that would be bringing them the supplies necessary to fight - this is a garrison duty, not an expeditionary force, which says bad things about how far back the NCR has pulled back.

Well, with the Legion well and truly on the back foot, now, they might have time to gather themselves and do something fucking useful for once.

"Briefly," Jonah replies, "Only once, as well. I doubt she remembers me."

Walking into the barracks proves the lie to that, because as soon as Lacey sees the two of them she cringes a little. To be fair, though, it's equal odds on which one of them is bad news at this point. There's another two women in the building, both with the well-worn but quality leather of a caravaneer; the rest are troopers, most of which glance over Kara first, then at Jonah, then find something else to pay attention to.

"I don't drink on the job," he says, and a bare quirk touches the corner of his mouth, because that was a barefaced lie even when he still had the stick up his ass. He can admit that.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara’s not here to stir up any kind of fun or trouble-today. But that doesn’t stop those bright blue eyes from taking in the available marks anyway, a “Well I won’t tell-” tossed back at Jonah before-hey!

The diminutive courier’s shoulders snap back and her spine straightens as she lights on their quarry, a silvery little sound of delighted surprise. She half spins to Jonah while placing a hand on the front of his spiffy dark blue fatigues, her other half gloved one pointing somewhat obnoxiously at a lean, tall woman currently half curled over the bar.

“That’s Cassidy right there! Hot dog, this is some stupid good luck even for me-Cass!”

It wasn’t a dense enough crowded place for Kara to call as loud as she did, but other than stealing or sneaking around, what DID the courier do quietly?

~*~

Cassidy doesn’t have to look to confirm the owner of that manically chipper voice-she knows who the hell it is. In lieu of a verbal response she sits up just enough to throw back her shot, then gestures for the bartender to leave the goddamned bottle. She’s already got a headache, and she ain’t even hung over yet-that was the usual effect the courier had on her, but also the mildest.

Other occasions, it’d been worse. And the LAST time she’d been in the company of Kara Walker, she’d ended up spewing blue bile over the side of a billboard catwalk, half naked and missing her hat. That’s what she got for getting into that drinking contest, daring the red head to settle it with that Nukashine shit.

She’d had to take radaway for a week.

And now here Kara is yet again waltzing into a bar she’s patronizing. Come to think of it, aside from that first meeting-they only ever seem to run into each other in shitty bars.

One or both of them might have a drinking problem.

As if to punctuate the thought, the mismatched troublemaker hopped up onto the stool smack next to her-but was smart enough not to try swiping her bottle this time.

Rose of Sharon Cassidy wasn’t the largest of women-just a few inches short of lanky all told-but even seated in the barstool she carried herself well. This wasn’t a woman to be trifled with, and while the rifle on her back and the knife in its sheath had something to do with that, it was the clear and quiet confidence in her own competence that carried the day.

Light brown hair stuck out here and there the messy bun that held it, a few wispy strays touching at the brim of her dusty hat. Her face and what could be glimpsed of her chest was freckled, some sort of amber colored pendant in a diamond shaped bit of silver around her neck.

Without looking up she jerked her head towards the pair, already pouring herself a second shot.

“Who’s the tall bucket of water?”

“Ha, this here’s Jonah Moray of course. Jonah, Rose of Sharon Cassidy!”

Grey eyes finally flick up and over, a deadpan look as she leaned back in her stool a bit.

“Hope you got paid up front pal.” And with a toasting gesture, she threw back the shot.

~*~

Kara’s answering laugh and megawatt grin settle into her usual cocky smirk, eyes roaming over the bottles behind the bar.

“I got kinda lost in Tribal lands once I escaped the tin can ones-and that’s where I met Cass! We had a great time, didn’t we Cass?”

“Showed up at my campfire one night, wouldn’t go away.” Cass agrees...sort of. “Day later some angry tribals my teenaged travel companion neglected to mention caught up to us-and wouldn’t you know it, said companion didn’t even own a gun?”

“But Cass was good with a rifle!” Kara pipes, clearly entertained by the flat retelling. She points to a silver labeled bottle of hopefully not rotgut-but it has a swan or something embossed on it, she’s always wanted to drink booze of the swan!

“Mmhm.” The caravanner agrees, leaning on her opposite elbow and turning towards them both properly now, apparently deciding to drink with rather than next to them “She lit out the next goddamned day, not an ounce a shame when we saw each other in a bar year or two later. Like I said-hope you took your caps up front.”

Cass considers the railgun on Kara’s back and makes an allowance. “You look a bit like you can carry your own weight today though, Kara.” A small gesture between the trademarked denim jacket and Jonah’s fatigues. “Not that she probably needs to though, eh?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Cassidy appears competent, if soused. As it appears the woman is another one of Kara's favorite targets, the latter is understandable.

"She's my partner," Jonah says in response as he seats himself, an empty stool between the new woman and himself, so that Kara can sit without surrounding their quarry. "I'm satisfied."

Trying to explain that money is little object to him is a difficult concept to most of the Mojave, and he doesn't care to explain comparative scarcity to a merchant, who counts caps with near the same scale as drops of blood. Moray's prices command him respect and means he isn't hired lightly; the actual amount of currency involved in the exchange has never mattered to him, so long as it hurts the person handing it over. Death should not be cheap. It must be bartered and bought dearly.

"Must have been awhile ago," he muses. "She does her part these days, least."

Sounds like right after her escape from the raiders, to be honest, in which case he hasn't got much to reprove her over. Whatever she could get at the time is what she had on her, likely. Kara doesn't seem to be taking much offense at the dry woman's stings, but he's not keen to see this conversational angle continue.

"I'm not up here to break heads," Jonah disagrees, though he doesn't deny that he could, either. "Checking the border, seeing what's free to come across and how trade's doing, that's more the job at hand."

"It's not doing anything," Lacey interjects from the other side of the bar, with her own frown. "The troopers here don't have the firepower to clear the road right now - there's a cazador nest buzzing somewhere they can't find, there's Fiends taking potshots, it's a fucking mess right now. They're just holding position."

Jonah snorts. There's nothing a team of properly trained soldiers shouldn't be able to do that he can, but he'd just walked up that road with Kara without so much as a blink. It's either not as bad as Lacey's selling it, or there's some kind of admistrative bullshit going on and the top's making excuses, or someone's playing insurance games. No way to know offhand.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"She's my partner,"

Lord. He’s either chasin’ his losses or just as crazy as the redhead.

"I'm satisfied."

Crazy, then? But hell, who’s she to knock it? She’d heard Kara’s got good hustle, maybe he got roped in with that. Or, you know, other things.

“Yeah, it was.” Cass agrees about the long time ago with a sigh, contemplating the amber color of yet another shot. She’s resigned to Kara’s company on the one hand, and on the other-maybe doesn’t entirely mind the interruption to the drowning of her sorrows. The big guy might be alright, who knows. “Had more to my name then than now.”

“But you only had the one cart then.” Kara states with mild confusion, and all she can do is shrug in response, because yep-that was a fact. All that currently remains of Cassidy’s Caravans was its namesake and whatever she’s got in her pockets, and she’s not sure she can say that out loud without being sick. She pointedly avoids the redhead’s inquiring look. What’d it matter to her, anyway?

Then Lacey interjects and Cassidy’s mood goes from melancholy to sour, seizing on the big man’s snort and expanding on an argument she’d been having for three goddamned days. “Ya see? ‘S bullshit!”

Like an echo Kara matches the indignation, but as ever there's a glimmer of amusement to it. “Yeah, we didn’t get to have any fun on the way here-we off roaded a minute even! Nothin'!”

“That’s what I’ve been telling Jackson. Even if there was some ‘fun’-I can handle some fucking cazadors and the odd Fiend, shit. It's further away the trouble's at.”

“Is he keeping you here Cass? Making the bar prop you up?”

Cass slammed the shotglass down with a slosh of liquor, fully incensed and not even caring if Kara was mocking her or not. “Yep! ‘Roads aren’t safe.’ No shit, you washed up old fuckup, I didn’t need a Brotherhood Scribe to fucking tell me that.” She leaned on the bar, talking to Jonah because why the hell not-she was sick of the Outpost and everyone in it, at least here was somebody who got it. “He’s got caravans locked up tighter than a New Vegas virgin, penned in here. None in or out." Her lip curled in disgust. "And it’s papers for ash that are keeping me here, and he won't even take that into account cause bureaucracy.”

“Ash? Whaddya mean ash?” Kara’s eyebrows shot up, and Cass half thinks it's genuine. And here was the heart of it. She wasn’t going to cry about it, and maybe she’d been drinking to forget-but hell if the whiskey didn’t just make her mad instead.

“Ash." She hisses with a conspiratorial nod. "Good man named Irene got taken out by some big guns on his way North. They didn’t even take the cargo-just turned that to ash too. Lost another two somewhere else in the goddamned Mojave, and I can’t get down to see what in Sam’s hill is going on because MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE-” Cass leaned back away from the courier to holler over at the uncaring soldiers. “Wants to put their dick in everything!”

Fuckers.

"Even Long Dick Johnson couldn't get away with that." Kara agrees in that nonsensical manner of hers. Cass goes with it anyway, the drink inspiring that mutual camaraderie with the redhead once again.

"And he had a long dick. Hence the name." Cass agreed. She gave the courier a light pat on the back and slid her whiskey over, accepting the blue swan labeled one when Kara did the same. It's some kind of clear shit, maybe vodka. Not as good, but the redhead's tastes ran all over the place-probably a habit. Kid probably drank whatever she could steal.

“But NCR can’t guard the roads or stick troops proper down there. It’s just greed of the head honchos back West. So here I am tied down by the resulting red tape that doesn’t do anybody a lick of good.”

“But if it’s just ash, why stay?” Kara wants to know, offering the bottle (after a happy swig) over to Jonah. The three goddamned amigos now, apparently.

“And head back with my tail between my legs? Fuck that. I want to know what’s happened Kara, somethin’ ain’t right. These were good people working for me too-I’m responsible for what happened, I’m not going to sign it away.” She scowled. “Some shithead from Crimson already came out here with an offer. Told him where he could stuff it.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah's lip curls. Bureaucracy is his least favorite reason for failure.

He can't change the NCR's system; bureaucracy first ensures its own survival. He can't make the roads permanently safe, because scum is endemic. He also quite plainly doesn't care to argue with the local major about orders he probably doesn't even want to fuck with either.

So therefore: proceed as if they don't exist. The antidote to officious asshats is to ignore them until they try to do something, and then reinforce reality as needed.

"Fuck 'em," Jonah says, flat. "Where'd the caravans get hit? Take me to them."

Government authority in the Mojave is a lie. Even House with his army is careful enough to restrict his demands and rules to the Strip, and allow the rest of the desert to manage itself. The NCR, on the other hand, gains as much power from people allowing it to push them around as from its actual power. He cares nothing for that overreach, and as he stands up and looks around, matching every soldier's stare dead on with his own and watching them look away, he knows no one is going to stop them.

Lacey opens her mouth to say something, and then shrugs. "Your call."

"It is," Moray agrees, which is not quite the response she's looking for, evidently. "Animals, Fiends, or Legionaries would leave bodies. The only things wielding ashmakers are Brotherhood and the Van Graffs, and I'm interested enough to find out which. Let me touch base with the Runners and we'll have a squad roll out and check on things."

The Runners do their own business through this checkpoint, and regardless of whose caravan got hit, its in the interest of everyone traveling along the road to make sure the path is safe. With a Gun Runner squad backing him up - and him backing them up - there's nothing short of a full scale Deathclaw infestation that's going to bring them down, and Quarry Junction is on the other highway.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Would Kara set her up? Cass doesn’t think so. She’s a troublemaker alright, short a few screws maybe, but ultimately harmless. And while their meetings were few and far between, Cass had always half felt Kara was at least a little glad for the company, as opposed to just being out for the entertainment the nut found in harassing her.

Would she let her get set up, though? Suppose this beau of hers was into robbery?

Cass took a moment to study the little redhead. The courier was already happily withdrawing some god awful water stained, quadrupledly folded, scribbled on map Cass wouldn’t wipe her boots on, let alone try and navigate with.

No...no, she doesn’t think so. She’d make up some kind of obnoxious signal to warn her off the trip. Maybe out of a genuine regard, maybe just to spoil the big man’s plans who knows. But she wouldn’t let her get hauled off and executed in the desert, she’s fairly certain.

Besides-she ain’t got shit to steal, she’d just told them that. And you know what else? He was right-fuck ‘em. She was no drooling flag waving patriot, and this red tape wasn’t doing her any goddamned good. She took one last swig of the clear liquor before rising to her own feet, not so much as a sway.

“Van Graffs, Brotherhood-shit, I didn’t consider that. Assumed ash as in burned, fire.” The implication made her eyes narrow. Without thinking about it and without even being conned this time, she paid for both her and the courier’s drinks before stepping away from the bar that had, indeed, been propping her up the past few days.

“Tell us where! We wanna help, and hey, if your people get in touch with my people-” Kara was trying to hand her that map, but Cass waved it away to withdraw her own slightly worn, official NCR trade route. “-maybe we can make something of this, and pay off whatever fines they try to slap ya with?”

“Uh huh-well, I was told Irene got hit Northwest of the 188 trading post, off the highway a ways. It’s a near straight shot North of REPCONN, farmer out there was a steady customer."

“Hey, I know where that is!” Kara unfolded and refolded the map, then held it up like a sign for the both of them. Cass squinted at it, but between the chicken scratch and the tiny, intricate little pictures-gears, a cup and straw, an almost airplane bird combo-it didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.

“Well-practical knowledge in having been there counts for somethin’, if nothing else.” She eventually allowed. “There were two others-guard on the one was a man named Durable Dunn. If any of the three put up a fight, it would have been him.” She offered up her map, neat notations of the stops and travel times between them along the marked routes. The reported attacks were circled and labeled with the date she'd heard of them, not long before now.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah shook his head. "Bones don't burn," he says. "The calcium phosphate that gives it definition can't be oxidized any further. A high enough energy state can burn away the surrounding oxygen and reduce the calcium and phosphate to separate elements, which then ash when reintroduced to oxygen, but that has nothing to do with combustion."

A moment of silence. Jonah blinks once, then turns away to another corner of the bar, where two men have stowed away from the troopers in their own little corner. They wear long, grey coats with heavy assault rifles slung over their shoulders and visible tactical webbing underneath the coats as well. In fact, they're more heavily armed than any of the soldiers around the fort, which is probably why the space around them is so unoccupied.

"Damien," Jonah calls across the empty tables, rather than walking over. One of the men, black-haired and with a mild stare much like Jonah's own, turns to look at the other mercenary. "Going to check out the trail, find out why it's shut down. You want to join up?"

"You gonna charge?" Damien says, eyes flicking over Kara and Cass - their weapons, mainly.

"Pro bono," Jonah replies. "Tied into other business. Figured I can get your caravan through as a courtesy, meanwhile."

"Fair enough," Damien says with a nod. "I'll pass it on. Give me thirty minutes to get things tied up."

Jonah shrugs and glances back at the other two women he's with. "Hold on a bit until they get done - the Runners are good men to have at your back. I'll go up and check with the Ranger, meanwhile."

It's been a minute since he's seen Ghost, and passing word that the Legion's had its nose broken will galvanize some movement, help keep Caesar on his back toes. He doesn't care to stand around in Cottonwood Cove and keep the Legion from sending men over, but the NCR will happily garrison it for him and gun down any rickety boats trying to cross.