Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Buy a kid for beer money?” Kara asks, her small form finally relaxing in his embrace and on his lap, relief not just in his consideration-but his acceptance. A small smile plays at the corner of her mouth on the words-but then those blue eyes come alive as she sits up straight, excitement filtering in, a scheme.

“Door number two wins-we steal her. No-we help her escape-she leaves nearly under her own power, and owned by no one. We take her somewhere where kids get to keep bears.” Survival was rough, out there-but it wouldn’t be as rough as here. It wouldn’t hurt the soul.

Kara had been afraid not of death but capture, and like hell she could waltz back through that gate, back into the bright blue sky and orange sands-and leave ‘Was’ Melody behind. Not without regret. Not without lying awake thinking about it, dimming all that she might see and do and live for. She could gloss over a lot, but not this. This one, they steal from the wolves, and revel in the spitting.

"Let's not leave any regrets when we get out of here, because I'm not coming back to Fortification Hill unless I get to level the fucking place. I can’t stand the lo-"

Kara kisses him. Right in the middle of the word, impulsive and sudden and hot, all of the preceding disquiet a deceptive preamble for her sudden boundless enthusiasm-her spark.

She doesn’t entirely know what she’s doing after reuniting girl and bear or even if they can honestly pull it off-but they’re going to try. And in the meantime, while they wait for dark-this task for House. If Caesar wins the war, he won't long celebrate the victory.

 

[Obuzeti]

They've got enough money to buy a hell of a lot more than beer, if they decide to go back and ransack the Sierra Nevada, or take House's payment that's waiting for them at the end of this. Jonah opens his mouth to remind Kara of those facts, but is instead interrupted by her mouth sealing to his. He doesn't complain, though; in fact, he's quite distracted. His arms wrap around Kara and he responds to the heat, drawing her tight against him, one hand working up to the back of her head and cupping it.

When he finally lets her go, Kara's passion has dripped its way into him. Jonah's eyes are alive again, not sullen and violent. "Well," he murmurs. "If that's what you want."

The demure words don't match the curl at the corner of his mouth.

His hand slips back to a pocket, and he presses a pulse grenade into Kara's open hand, and gives a little shrug. "Can I kill these robots, at least?" he says with a shrug. "You wouldn't let me take care of House's."

Jonah doesn't care about the little girl. Not really. But he cares that Kara cares, that it hasn't sapped the light and heat and energy from her to leave the little girl behind, and for that he'd do anything, even escorting teddy bears, as outside the purview of his regular duties as that is.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“No chains.” Kara says, echoing his words when they were in Vera’s bedroom, when he spoke the truth and truth only-cutting through her self deception, and seeing things for how they were.

And accepting it.

Her fingers smooth from his cheekbone to brush through his dark hair, fingertips grazing just over his ear while she just...looks at him, openly admiring, warm.

He hands her a pulse grenade, and the bridge of Kara’s nose wrinkles a little as her mouth slants into an amused, almost disbelieving smile, a laugh in her throat. She brushes her nose against his in an Eskimo kiss.

“All the robots you want, big guy. It’s a two for one special today, I hear.”

She loves him so much, and feels that love in return and-it’s not just her luck that makes her believe they can accomplish maybe anything, right now-it’s the whole package deal.

“Let’s go earn our paycheck.”

 

[Obuzeti]

The lobby leads into a staircase down, the exit flanked on either side by humming Securitrons in a long hall that leads to a pair of double doors and two more robots there. He makes some sticky jelly, applies it to on side of a pulse grenade, and takes a deep breath as he draws Hew, his shotgun, with his other hand. He takes a deep breath, just around the corner from where the robots can see him.

Jonah steps around the corner, and slaps the sticky pulse into the left hand Securitron, to the side of its chassis where it can't be scraped off by flailing. At the same time his shotgun drops and he fires a slug beside its motor-wheel, into the housing there - and shatters the drum break that lets it stop moving. The Securitron jets forward a little and spins to face him - and he leaps forward and tackles the bipedal moment, sending them flying forward, the wheel not halting their momentum whatsoever. He clamps his feet around the wheel to hold it in place and keep it from turning, and literally rides the robot halfway down the hall like a charging bull.

The Securitron behind him, with the pulse grenade stuck to it, does a wild circle once trying to detach the sticky explosive with its stubby arms, then chooses to open fire at him instead. Rounds glance off the chassis of his ride, and Jonah hunches his head in front of his shoulders. Two rounds punch into his fatigues over his shoulder and hips, but the material catches the rounds and turns the rounds into what feels like baseballs slamming into him from behind instead of deadly projectiles. The two in front of him wheel around in erratic motions, unable to open fire thanks to his hostage transportation.

The pulse grenade goes off. Back Securitron drops like a rock.

Then the crash, as he guides his bucking robot bronco straight into the nearest Securitron as well. They go down in a fucking heap, and he rolls off and to his feet as he charges headlong into the other, shotgun barking again as the solid slug tears the machinegun arm in a half-circle, permanently damaging its aim. He tackles it and promptly gets dragged in a circle after it as it thrusts into a squealing backpedal, single tire whining at the additional weight.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

RobCo’s Stealth Boy 3001 was an extraordinary device. Reverse engineered from Chinese stealth armor just before the Great War, it could render its user practically invisible using light transmitting and reflecting technologies.

The devices were invaluable but not entirely foolproof. Infrared radar easily bypassed the so called stealth radiation, for instance. Their provided stealth could also be thwarted by the gleeful, silvery peals of laughter of red haired couriers.

Notably, it wasn’t the manic sharp laugh she seemed to employ as a weapon-it was genuinely surprised and entertained. Jonah using a robot as a scooter was too hilarious a sight to suppress. Still, it would be difficult to pinpoint her exact location-and the robots were plenty busy with Moray regardless.

The robo-dog pile proves too much to resist, though-Kara comes into view mid leap from the loose brick she’d been clinging to damn near where wall met ceiling, landing on the massive securitron back and popping open it’s access panel. The bot shoves hard at his compatriot just as Kara rips out a handful of wires AND it’s targeting/firing inhibition module and thrusts the pulse grenade inside-gunfire blasting into and through the static police image on the one below it.

Kara tumbles backwards, dizzied and planted on her pert derriere-vibrantly blue eyes widening with delight as the pair of robots exploded-first the one on the bottom, small and contained-and then a more impressive blast that knocks the standing, wildly firing bot forward and her back onto her ass and elbow before there’s a third, mini explosion inside the robot’s chassis-and his guns cease firing.

 

[Obuzeti]

The Securitron Jonah is perched on blasts some kind of siren as its tire squeals. It winds in circles to throw him off, but he's got an arm punched through its chassis as a handhold and the other is trying to get his shotgun around for more shots, but the centrifugal force is too strong, flinging his other arm and legs out in a wide spiral. Instead, he releases his handhold only to snatch on some vulnerable wires instead - which fail to hold and dump him in a spinning mess on the floor a half dozen feet away.

Moray rolls to his feet - staggers - readies his shotgun - then falls over in a heap, too dizzy to hold his aim straight. Instead he rolls over and braces the big gun with his foot, then blasts the tire out and the screen next with consecutive slugs.

Dead silence, through the ringing of the gunshots. Jonah stands, or tries to. He falls over again instead.

"Fucking robots and their shit driving," he mutters, and manages to kind of crawl over to a wall and prop himself up against it as he reloads his shotgun.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara had rolled over just in time to catch most of the spectacle-vivid blue eyes (already a smidgen too large for her face) widened to comical proportions, jaw dropped and pink lips parted as she followed the spin a few rotations.

It’s too much-Kara starts to laugh even harder than she was before, coming to her hands and knees, trying to straighten up-only for him to go flying, roll to his feet-and be DIZZY!

The shotgun barks and deafens their hearing, but Kara’s tumbled back over and laughing so hard she can’t hardly breathe, boots kicking a little at nothing as she curls in around her middle, tears streaking down her flushed cheeks.

It’s quite the workout, and her midsection aches with it, Kara finally struggling to all fours again, coughing.

“Oh man-” She manages, unsteadily crawling over to where he was. “-an’ you still looked so serious!” A fresh fit of giggles rather than peals of laughter, but she seemed to mostly be under control as she joins him against the wall, warm against that side of him as she finally plops down with her hands between her crisscrossed legs. She gives an expectant, appraising look around the room and at the damage, back straight and head up.

“Okay, I get to ride the next one-gotta see if I can beat your record.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah grumbles, but can't quite cut off the unwilling smile that carves across his stone face in response to Kara's hysterical laughter. He leans against her shoulder and ducks a little to plant a kiss in her hair, contented by her glee even if its at his expense. "Only if you run faster than me," he says, content. "Or cheat."

Jonah considers.

"You'll probably cheat," he admits, stands up without falling over successfully this time, and turns to offer a hand to Kara. "Let's see what else is out here."

The double doors on the other side swing open to reveal a hallway with two rooms of some kind. There's terminals here for Kara to work her magic on, though what arrests him to the spot is the catwalk to the right, and the sight of rows of Securitrons out on some kind of factory floor below, silent and inactive. There's an army's worth, there, all hidden underneath Caesar's camp. That has potential.

"Kara, please tell me you can set all these things on the Legion right above us," he murmurs. "We aren't going to get a better distraction than this."

Granted, the control room for that isn't likely to be on some podunk terminal out here by the front door, but what does he know about computers. That they stop working when you shoot them, certainly, but that fails to be a unique response.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

A warm sort of smile slants her lips, and she’s happy. Her and Jonah, having fun. You could totally forget about the hateful skirts up top. She mostly was, right now. Impulse to impulse.

She flourishes her left hand and presses it against her chest, pretending wide eyed innocence. “Saint Kara, cheat?” And then her smile turns wicked, cause yeah-she totally would.

Up they go, and through the next door-terminals ready and waiting to be cracked, and…

“Wow.” Kara’s hands curl around the railing, boots leaving the floor as she supports her weight on her arms and leans dangerously over the side of the catwalk, visibly impressed. “He wasn’t kidding.”

"Kara, please tell me you can set all these things on the Legion right above us,"

Tall order, but she hasn’t looked at the terminals yet, and the chip has to be for more than just a door, right? It was...A LOT of robots. This was what Benny had had Yes Man for, it had to be. It suddenly occurs to Kara she’s right where Benny had stacked the deck to be-poor bastard, Jonah had really fucked his whole grand plan over. Well. Helped, cause she’s not sure he really had a handle on things to begin with.

"We aren't going to get a better distraction than this."

“That’d show House’s hand. Or ours, but I think we already agree we don’t want to own the Mojave.” Kara muses, dropping back on the walkway. She swings her arms a little and bounces on the balls of her feet, weighing things out. “Guess we could, if we followed through with Manny’s plan.”

Kara didn’t seem to find that appealing. She starts to count on her fingers, and continues.

“Caesar and the NCR haven’t moved on him ‘cause they don’t want to be weak for each other, ya know? This war’s about to start, though. You know it, I know it. And neither side is counting on him having this death army. If it were me in a three way fight, I’d let the two big guys duke it out, then knife the winner before he remembers me, ya know? Bull or Bear, House will be there to finish off whoever wins, or force them to make terms or whatever.”

“Very astute.” Robert House’s voice came through from overhead somewhere, a giant display on the far wall of the factory floor lighting up to show his static image. Kara doesn’t jump or otherwise twitch-but her musing expression drops off her face faster than one could blink-a grin taking its place, a little too wide but not quite Cheshire, yet. She says nothing.

“Caesar keeps the NCR busy while I make preparations.” He confirms, idle and matter of fact. “I see you found the chip. Congratulations-I knew you’d both manage."

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah considers that for a moment. Then he leans against the railing besides Kara.

"That's awful long term planning, given that I thought we heading straight to the NCR after this," he says. His eyes are steady on hers, head turned to regard her.

He doesn't say anything else. He doesn't ask or twitch or stir. Jonah just watches her, steady and calm.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"That's awful long term planning, given that I thought we heading straight to the NCR after this,"

Kara forgets to pretend, is visibly caught off guard by the statement. Her vividly colored eyes were on his green ones, a blink. Then she glances down to the fingers she was just counting on, blinks at them too. Okay...yeah. That was kind of a lot of thought put into, you know, stuff she doesn’t care about. Stuff that’s not going to involve them-they’re gettin’ while the getting’s good. That’s the smart money. It’s already a little silly they came here with the chip, honestly.

They didn’t owe that to House, and they weren’t even doing it for the money, she doesn’t think. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and Kara knows full well that if you stick your neck out far enough, someone’ll come along and chop your head off. It’s rough out there. The wasteland would eat you up, you get soft.

Sure they’re going to help the kid, but even that was kind of dumb-she just can’t ignore that shit, not when it’s front of her. She can’t sit and do nothing. She always has to try, always figures something out despite the risk-because...because…?

A person who COULD ignore things is no one she really wants to be.

Kara suddenly feels dizzy, and all the Plato-ing she’s been at since she picked up Jonah’s arm and cuddled into him-it finally clicks into place.

The Joke wasn’t really about it all being pointless; it was about living without regret at any and all cost, because regret...regret was to wear chains.

And she doesn’t do chains.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah nods, as he watches Kara's face morph and twist with waves of surprise. He just scoots a little closer and wraps an arm around her shoulders, steady at her side. There's a long pause as he lets her compute what he already knows: there are things for which Kara has no patience and no tolerance, and until now only her curtain of pretensions has prevented her from pursuing from her sight.

They'd toppled Gomorrah for these things, and slain Elijah, and Jonah's not sure what they're going to do to the Legion, but it's going to be eight miles of ugly by the time he's done, because Caesar's name has a list of sins at least that long attached, and every man there is just a slave to his word.

But for now, it's time for Kara to reassess her priorities, because he already knows what his are.

"What is it that you want, Kara?" he asks, quiet.

House is, for once, reassuringly quiet, and he feels a burst of gratitude to the strange man for allowing his partner to work through this in peace.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

”What is it that you want, Kara?”

Her eyes flick up to his face. “You mean other than you?” Both the question and the accompanying smile are a little weak. He’d follow her anywhere she leads; and it’s not a thing Kara takes lightly.

But she needs his help. She can’t do it alone, she doesn’t know where to start. He asked her what she wanted, and Kara decides to tell him.

“I want to give this bear to Melody, and take her somewhere she can keep him.” She starts, a little slow and coloring some to admit that in front of House-but it’s true. And you know what? She’s not even ashamed-she doesn’t do shame, she does what she wants-and he’s going to need their help, that’s just a straight fact.

Gaining traction, Kara turns her body more into Jonah’s, her arms snaking around his middle, head tipped back to look up at him. “And I want...I want to free the slaves in Cottonwood Cove!” A bit of a bounce and she’s on tiptoe, vibrantly colored eyes excited, energized.

“I want the Mojave to stay free, cause the Legion is a bunch of dumb fucks and the NCR can hardly hold on to what’s theirs as it is.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah looks down at Kara, smiling again, and decides those are worthy goals. Not things he'd look to accomplish on his own - but that is no failing on their part.

"Immediate priorities first," he says, focusing again on the bear. "We activate the Chip and seal the main entrance to the Vault, to appease Caesar temporarily. Extract Melody - I'll clear an exit, you escort her out, set some distractions to hold off pursuit."

House speaks up, dry. "I hope your distractions are suitably distracting to prevent Caesar from immediately realizing what possibly-hostile agents he has only recently taken into his territory."

Moray shrugs, unzips part of his rucksack, and draws out a clinking pair of mini-nukes.

"Ah," House says, and with some grace allows the subject to drop.

Jonah resecures his doomsday tools and looks back to Kara. "We hit Cottonwood Cove after that, on the way out. Ruin the beachhead, alert the NCR to contest it or impede their control somehow. Could lure a deathclaw pod down from the quarry, if necessary."

Jonah's brain is spinning on all gears, now. The world divides up into tactical strands, possibilities and cause / effect ratios delineating his reality.

"If the stories are to be believed, there's a radioactive transport truck stranded on the overlook with some rather unpleasant cargo," House offers, voice dry.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I saw that truck!". Kara pipes, impressed and finally giving the static screen her attention again. And said truck was full of what now? Oh, that'd be hilarious, especially after what Bea had said happened to Searchlight.

"I could totally climb over and spring it, easy." She boasts with a thumb to her chest; it's almost as if the business man had just declared a dare.

"I mean, think about it-we get the caged up peeps out, drop nuclear waste and bombs down on the Legion's heads, and THEN bring in Deathclaws?! They won't know what the fuck hit 'em. It'll be hilarious."

It's an explosive-literally-first foray into making war, but hell if the red headwasn't committed.

"But it'll be easier to do all that-and funnier- if we -sneak- Melody and whoever out of here, ya know? Then the cove won't know we're coming. I can do it easy-sneaking around psychopaths is a bonafide specialty of mine."

 

[Obuzeti]

Moray considers. "If we're using the waste to irradiate the cove, scrub the deathclaws," he admits. "I was planning for them to set out in pursuit, then I could leave a false trail to the Quarry. Once the 'claws had their scent I could have lured them back up the trail to Cottonhead, but they won't stick around if the place is glowing green."

House hums. "Given that you no longer have a use for pursuing hordes of Legionnaires, perhaps you should reconsider delivering pocket nukes to their doorstep."

Moray looks reluctant. "Fair. Kara, I'll clear out the wall to the left of the encampment, past the slave pens - set up a piton ladder for you. You get in and get Melody out. We'll extract, dump the waste on the Cove on the way out, rendevous with House back at the Strip and consider further options there once we're out of Caesar's immediate reach."

Starting off hostilities with the largest sucker punch he can has always been Moray's preference, but perhaps arming the Securitrons is a bigger blow than anything he can do himself. Besides, Kara's safety is paramount - and on reflection, he doubts she would have left him run off and lead a swarm of Legionnaires into a Deathclaw nest by himself.

It wouldn't be the worst place he's ever been, but for terrestrial threats it's pretty solid.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Alright, sounds like a plan! And now-!" Kara holds the platinum chip high above her head, good mood inspiring antics of the non-destructive kind. "-it is time to learn all of House's secrets!"

"Not quite. Little of importance datawise -there-. Perhaps you can look into disabling some of the systems in the next few areas instead; I'm afraid I've long lost remote access to the turrets and Protectrons when the bombs dropped."

"All of the turret and robo secrets, then!" Kara declares without missing a beat-bouncing over to the terminal and starting it up. She uses the forearm of her sleeve to swipe an inch of dust off from the screen, same way she's done to hundreds of computers before it. Reading through old emails and messages and diaries, piecing together the lives and cultures of a long dead people-one if Kara's favorite hobbies, and part of why she's spent a lot of her life delving into the abandoned places of the world.

House had been one of those people, and Kara wonders if he'd -really- tell her stories from before The Great War, of all the things he must have known about the distant land of China and the conflict between the two, given he said he'd predicted it. All those preparations only to lose out on this one special little key...

Kara's feels kinda good for being able to finally deliver it to him. It's always kind of nice, a successful delivery; she hadn't known this one had been so direly important, but it's good they'd gotten it back. Especially 'cause, ya know, it was gonna save the world she'd come to enjoy so much, and apparently only mostly existed because of House.

Benny was a fink. She briefly wonders what had happened to him-but the thought blips away as soon as she finds what she needs in the jumbled mess of code-the remnants of a security interface! Score!

"Hm, hm, hm, HMMM!" Hums Kara as she leans in, eyes narrowing on the pursuant options she finds. Turrets, off. Easy enough-she clicks the arrow key down until it's highlighted and hits enter.

The next bit's jumbled across the two columns though. "Hm...doesn't look like I can turn this gobbley goop about robots into English. It's time for my special, very professional, super awesome HACKER SKILLS!"

She glances at Jonah with a grin-and secretly to make sure he's watching-then puts her hand over her eyes, metal tipped index finger tapping against the screen-and goes nuts zigzagging it all over the glass before stopping dramatically. The insane redhead lifts a finger to peek-and then moves her hand to select something else ANYWAY, hitting enter with a flourish.

Gunfire erupts on the other side of the next door, the target systems having just been deactivated. Kara glances over a little wide eyed, and tries the original option. She 'coughs', and then mutters-"That's copyrighted, but I'll let you use it for free, anytime you want."

 

[Obuzeti]

Kara amazes him, sometimes, and not in a good way. The kind where he wants to keep her away from scissors and other sharp objects.

"Programming has little patience for theatrics, Kara," Jonah comments. There's a certain dryness about his face. "Know your audience."

He draws Hew and checks the shotgun, then loads a trio of slugs into the breech and pumps it once while crossing the long catwalk to the control office opposite of where they'd been standing. Then he activates the door and swings around the corner to check out the carnage. There's a pair of turrets at the end of the room that are pouring fire into a downed Securitron; they hit it from behind when Kara jacked the systems. She probably deactivated their friend-or-foe identification. He hits the one on the opposite side and trashes the barrel on its gun, then has to duck back into cover as the other one rotates to face him and unloads a hell of a lot of lead. The turret fires mindlessly at the doorway and fails to stop after a few seconds. Jonah backs up and looks at the sparking, ricocheting rounds right in the way of where he needs to go, then lets the door slides closed and glances around. The gunfire continues anyway.

He could wait for it to run out of ammo, he supposes, but that could take a bit.

Instead, he glances back down the catwalk at the other ruined Securitrons, and spots one with its wheel still intact. Holstering his shotgun, he walks over and hefts it up, then awkwardly wheels it back down the catwalk again. The door slams open, and he pushes the dead robot husk into the room with a firm boot. The turret retargets onto the moving intruder and lambasts it with automatic fire, swiftly silenced once Jonah peeks and lays waste to it with another slug.

"Room's clear," he calls back to Kara.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"What in like, the biblical sense?" Kara says with a slanted grin; amused as ever by his flat faced reaction.

She tries to make something else happen on the terminal, pokes around through what she can select in the strings of code-but it's not much use, and she's given up about the time he walks past her and hefts up a broken robot.

Kara's way too excited about that, practically skipping alongside. "Get some strings on his arms and you got yourself a puppet!"

A new hail of gunfire drowns out whatever else she says as she falls back amd watches with interest-and approval!-at his creative use of the discarded bot.

"Sweet." Kara flips the chip like a coin and catches it on her way through the doorway, a curious glance around-but it's mostly just a big console with an appropriately shaped slot open and waiting. "In we go!". She sets the chip into the depression and slides the tray closed.

 

[Obuzeti]

The facility winds up with a groan - dust shakes from the ceiling as a generator somewhere in the earth begins to whine, and the Securitrons pop in place and come to attention. One files off to some kind of automated dock and plugs itself in there. Then nothing, but he supposes that a software update is not a literally earthshaking event most of the time. The Chip plunks back out into a receiver dish, and he flicks it to Kara with two fingers like a dead fish.

"Should be enough noise to satisfy Caesar," he says. "Let's get a move on. We've got a lot to get done tonight."

~*~

The slave tents to the east of the entrance are badly lit - by now, it's deep evening, and the natural light fails. The sentries light torches against the night, which ruins their vision, and Moray picks the closest one off easily with a loop of rope he tosses up the wall from outside to settle around his neck. He hauls back and jerks the man off the walkway, who falls with a choked gasp. There's an ugly crunch as he hits the ground on his neck and shoulders, and the brutal kick Moray lands in the same spot a moment later probably seals the deal. He pulls one of his camouflage sheets and covers the body with it, weighing it down with stones, then snuffs the closest torch. That'll keep him out of sight for the duration of their insertion.

There's another sentry posted probably forty feet down the wall. Moray glances at him with a grimace, trying to decide if it's worth killing him too.

Probably not.

"Good enough to get you through?" he asks Kara, as he nails a climbway of pitons into the outside of the wall, close enough that a child can climb down them. "If you can get her to the wall I can get us out, it's just getting her over it without someone noticing that's going to be sticky. Move quick if you can. If they rotate shift someone's going to notice this one's missing."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Way better than my red carpet and emergency flare idea.” Kara approves, buoyant as ever. They had coiled up her sleek fancy rope and packed it into his bag as part of their prep work-and she makes use of it now, tying off on a piton within reach and slipping the looped material over her shoulder as she hefts herself up onto the second ‘rung’.

She’s got her stealth boy, she’s got her bat. Her knife is in her boot and her gun at the small of her back. Sergeant Teddy was mostly repaired except for one of his button eyes; Kara double checks that he’s tucked into the belt on her hip, something she’s done for exactly none of her weapons.

The courier likewise measures out the distance between pitons, then peers up. She hopes the kid wasn’t afraid of heights. It’s not bad, but probably still a little vertigo inducing if you weren’t used to them. Well, she’d be there too. Free piggyback ride if she freezes up, right?

Her left hand tightens on a piton and Kara leans away from the wall as if she’s on a hinge, only two points of contact as she casually turns away from it. She’s looking down at him now, just a scant few inches ‘taller’.

Long or short, Kara doesn’t do goodbyes-she’s coming right back. Right back to him again.

But...the flippant assurance doesn’t really come. She smiles anyway, but it doesn’t come. The asshole skirts within the Fort aren’t any less unsettling, nor the stomach twisting fear of capture relieved-but the kid and the lack of regret, they’re worth pursuing.

And, if absolutely nothing else, absent her finally, really getting The Joke-escorting Sergeant Teddy was pretty funny, and she'd be able to spin into a very hilarious story, later.

“I need a good luck kiss!” Kara finally says, lighting on the idea impulsively. Yes, exactly! She doesn’t have her lucky jacket, and you never know when you might need some more of the stuff, luck. Sure time’s short, but deadlines were always more of a suggestion anyway, right?

She hums a little in that kiss-and deftly slips the Platinum Chip into one of his many pockets, just in case. Her fingers smooth over his jaw and cheek, fingertips brushing over his ear and into his short dark hair. She pulls back, and she looks at him-and marvels, not for the first time-at the way he looks at her.

Jonah of the whale.

Kara visibly springs to life again, taps at his bird pin with a wink. “See you soon, big guy.”

And then she turned back to the wall, and scaled over it.

~*~

Sergeant Teddy keeps his own counsel as Kara slides down the rope and lands lightly on her feet, knees bent and body low as she sneaks the little bit she’s got to sneak to get to the tents.

It’s not just Melody she’s here for, it’s anybody brave enough to try for it. Maybe they get caught in the process, maybe they don’t-but that’s why her and the kid would be first-because hey, there are realities here.

She slips into the first one-and comes face to face with a woman propped up and watchful at the tent’s opening just as she’s deactivating her stealth boy.

For a surreal sort of moment, they just stare at each other-and then the woman frowns and gives a fearful look to the flap. “You shouldn’t be here.” She says in a low murmur, flat. “Get out.”

“Hey now, why not? You gonna snitch on me?” The woman says nothing, but looks unmoved. Kara glances over the women, most of whom look frozen in place, rows and rows of unmoving eyes rooted on her. No ‘Was’ Melodys in here.

“Listen. In about five, six minutes, I’ll be coming back through. Anybody who wants to bail should be ready to go.”

No one moves. No one brightens up, looks hopeful, or otherwise changed. It’s like she just said Santa Claus was stopping by, with emptiness instead of cynicism. Women turn their faces away or otherwise avert their eyes, the select few that had propped up on elbows lying back down on their straw mats or patches of dirt flooring. The bravest of them, the woman she’d first run into-is the only one who actually shakes her head.

“Tough crowd.” Kara murmurs with a frown, attention returning to the woman seemingly on guard-for what she’s not sure. Maybe first in line for use, trying to spare the others or something? Fuck, that’s pretty grim.

“Hey, fine-the less there are, the higher-nearly guaranteed!-the chance of making it.” She jerks her thumb at the flap. “Anything is better than this, right?” Her mouth was dry and her skin feels clammy, cold. She doesn’t grin the manic grin though-no, she allows for sincerity, she practically pleads. “Come with me, I come back through. You don’t...you don’t have to stay here. You should at least try.” A helpless glance around before she looks back, the woman unmoved.

“You should at least try. What’s your name?”

“We don’t have names, anymore.” The woman’s eyes lower, but Kara doesn’t drop it, not yet.

“C’mon, you do. I’m Kara Walker-what's yours? I can play the alphabet game, you want me to guess.” It’s a weak attempt at humor, and it falls as flat as the woman’s expression.

“Go before you get caught in here, and we all suffer for it.” The nameless woman states, listless and without any force behind it-as if it didn’t really matter if they DID suffer punishment or not. As if...they weren’t even afraid of it anymore, just hopelessly accepting of their lot regardless. They don't even retreat into the safe place Kara's seen on people, but never identified with-they just are, and it gives her a chill.

There’s nothing she can do here. People have to want to help themselves-and these ones were just...waiting to die, she guesses. Disturbed and uncharacteristically grim, Kara twists her stealth boy back on, and she leaves them.

~*~

The other two tents don’t contain Melody either, and while there wasn’t a representative as there’d been in the first one-no one takes her up on the offer, no one is even brave enough to speak to her. By the third she finally gives up and straight asks where the little girl is, but all she gets are dead eyed stares.

No wonder the kid had been so desperate for a friend-everyone in this fucking place was too shelled out or too damned cruel to flash so much as a friendly smile at her, shit.

She doesn’t know where Melody is, and at this point-she’s not leaving without her. She knew things were bad for these women, but she didn't know they were that bad.

"Into the jaws..."

No, dammit, fuck that guy.

For a sickening moment Kara worries she might be in someone else’s tent despite what the frumentarii had said about that sort of awful-something even Maara had made crystal clear wouldn’t be happening to little kid Kara-when she suddenly remembers the drawings in the dirt by the feed sacks, the emptied flat one near the pile over in the Brahmin pen. Fuck, she’d forgotten all about that-even then she had figured the girl slept there, that such idle entertainment would only be permissible at night. They've come in at the wrong part of the wall.

God dammit, Kara!

That’s alright, it’s okay-it’s not that far, and supposing one of these women HAD been willing to try-still, that was yet another few minutes spent in this place, and Kara was full up on it. It’d take her past Caesar’s tent too, and things had seemed pretty dense there, least at the front of it. Whatever-she’s snuck through the nastiness that was the Fiend vault more than once without getting caught-she could sneak through a bunch of torch bearing, fire lit legionnaires. No challenge at all, these guys-stick to the shadows, and she’d be fine.

Of course, she’s got to make it back with the kid too, not just make it TO the kid.

She’s sneaking behind what little space there is between tents to avoid the firelight and the distortion of her cloaked form from being detected, avoid the patrolling soldiers-when it occurs to her that this was the closest she’d ever be to Caesar. She can hear men talking just on the other side of the canvas to her left, and listens just long enough to pick out what must be Caesar’s voice among three others.

Kara pauses to weigh this out.

He has them worshiping him like a god, has grand ideals of a perfect world crafted by his hands, tyranny on a grand scale so that he and only he could shape perfection from ‘dust’. She’s been through his lands, and some of them aren’t much different than anywhere else-but this slave army, the strict division of the sexes and their purposes-it’s disgusting. He’s not the fucking ‘son of Mars’ and Kara wonders if he actually believes the lie, or if he’s just playing them all while ironically believing he’s above the game, above The Joke.

He’s crushed so many Tribals beneath his heel Kara’s not sure anyone knows the exact number of vanished peoples-or the true total of murders and enslavements, his will broken victims.

The three dozen women she’d just seen were high crimes enough, in her opinion. Nipton, was crime enough. His believing he was above the game is crime enough. Kara lowers to her hands and knees, then balances on her hands and toes, lies flat on the ground between tents. Without touching the canvas, she peers through the barest of spaces between cloth and ground-and counts how many sets of feet. Four behind and in front of a chair of some sort, a throne or some shit-she can see red cloth draped and spilled over it, fancier sandals than the others. Gladiator shoes in the back corners of the tent, and then the feet of his apparent advisors.

Kara carefully pushes herself up, and counts on her fingers, frowning.

What can she do? She’d be in trouble against TWO men if she wasn’t fast enough on the draw, let alone nine, ten of them. She’d gotten her ass beat in the bar for the first time since she was a kid, and there’d only been five of those guys. Besides-as soon as she fires off Lil Devil, the whole encampment would be here in a hurry, anyway.

Maybe she could roll this grenade into his tent and make a run for it? That still leaves her in the middle of hostile and alerted soldiers, and Melody without her bear and freedom. Sure the Legion would splinter without its lynch pin, but in the immediate-the war would still have to be fought, she and Jonah would still be dead, and Melody and the people in Cottonwood would still be slaves.

Her fingers touch at the stuffed toy’s head. She can’t sacrifice these things. She’ll do more good alive and well than dying after a messy assassination. No sense stepping out of her lane. She’s a sneaky thing, after all. A good spy.

Kara looks over at the other tent idly, a little disappointed by having to be ‘sensible’. For the hell of it, she peeks into it instead-and sees plush carpeting, the legs to a bed or something, and…

And?

That looks like Vault-Tec...tech?

Kara tests the tautness of the canvas wall, and finds it lifts a good several inches-enough that, while tight, she can probably slide under it. It also allows her to see what looks to be a salvaged auto doc.

Kara’s heart rate increases as she carefully climbs in, stomach muscles and shoulders straining a little as she stays on her hands and toes to avoid dragging noises an army crawl would have made.

She barely trusts herself to breathe, this close to Caesar and his elite guard.

It IS an auto doc. Holy shit, that hypocritical fuck! He was playing the game after all rather than being insane and thinking he was the son of Mars or whatever-no technology her ass, he just didn’t want his soldiers to have it, to rely on it, to take precedence over him or his stupid hierarchy.

Kara would approve if he wasn’t so awful.

Her cloaking drops as soon as she touches the keyboard, a nervous glance to the tent flaps before she turns her attention to the terminal. It’s missing modules, but someone’s been trying to make it work anyway-data and strings of code flicker across the screen, largely incomprehensible to the courier-but she taps back through, looks for what she can find that’s at all familiar-and finds a log of symptoms, self reported apparently.

Caesar’s ill-something the auto doc has determined to be a tumor on the brain. Kara doesn’t know what that is, but if it’s involving his brain, can’t be good. Kara looks to see if a surgery was performed-it had not. She looks to see if it’s even capable of the surgery. She clicks through, makes mental notes of different functions of the various arms. She pieces together what little she knows about autodocs in the first place, having fucked around with them in vaults before, in Sierra Madre. Caesar’s not as experienced, it looks like. He’s been trying...SOMEONE’S been trying to make this thing work despite the missing modules. Do...do they not realize that’s what’s wrong with it? That they need the correct module? There’s a safeguard in place to prevent this thing from going ham without the right programming, without the finesse it’d require for literal brain surgery.

Kara rocks on her heels and considers this information. Could she sabotage this thing, trick them into thinking it was functioning now, that they’d figured it out? All she’d have to do is override the restrictions placed, make it look like they just had to move one menu further. Even if they find the right module, she can have her false option take precedence, replace the real one. How desperate was the so called ‘Son of Mars’?

It wasn’t as funny as a frag grenade, but it sure would be ironic if a female ‘profligate’ was able to kill him with the same technology he so decried-yet kept for himself.

Very ironic, and House couldn’t blame her for it, would never have to know. Nobody would. Right? Right. Her own little secret.

Question was, could she do it? Kara taps on the directional keys, pokes around. She thinks she can do it.

She wants to do it.

So-she does.

~*~

“Psst.”

Melody bolts upright and quickly swipes at her drawings to erase them-her heart’s in her throat and the fear lances through her like lightning. She’s been caught, or sent for, or-no? No one was here?

“Psst!” A rustle over her head-Melody looks up and there was Sergeant Teddy, peeking at her from over the pile of feed bags!

She can’t believe it, she can’t believe he’s back! She burst to her feet and took hold of the bear, drew him into her chest for a tight hug before darting to one side of the feed bags, heart beating fast as she peered around them and gasped. It’s the pretty woman from earlier with the silly glasses, lips quirked in a triumphant smirk.

“We are friends!” The little girl exclaimed in a whisper, hardly believing this was real, that she really had her bear back, that he was okay and only a little bit smelly, was only missing his eye. She throws herself forward to hug Kara, nearly knocking the woman over in the suddenness. Kara hugs her back, and it feels good, it feels nice-something she hasn’t had in a long, long time.

But...

“You shouldn’t have brought him back.” Melody whispers as reality starts to settle in again, her heart sinking into her stomach as she pulls away. “He’s...he’s not safe here. They’ll only take him away again.”

“See, I tried to take him with me, but he kept insisting we come back, that he misses you.”

“No he didn’t.” Melody murmured, full of dread and anxiety, holding the bear out to her new friend, to Kara. “He’s...he’s just a toy. I’m not a baby.”

“Alright, alright-so he didn’t say exactly that.” The redhead finally relents with a sigh, looking down at the bear in her hands. Melody tries not to cry-it’s almost worse, having to give him up again after just getting him back.

The woman’s mouth quirks though, eyes rolling back as she turns the toy to face her, puppeting him from side to side and bobbing his head forward as she adopts a deeper whisper. “He actually said, “God dammit, leave no soldier behind private!”” Kara pretends wide eyed shock that fades nearly as quickly as it’d come, grinning wide and silly, pressing the bear back into her. “And I figured I’d better listen to him, that sounded like an order.”

Melody’s hands slowly lift and she takes hold of the bear again, hardly believing what she thinks...she thinks her new friend was saying. “You...you mean you came back for...for me?”

“Sure I did.” Kara confirms, bopping her nose with a metal tipped index finger. “Aren’t you worth coming back for?”

“Came back so...so I could leave?”

“Uh huh. Me and my friend'll help you, if you’re brave enough to try.”

“Just me?” Melody glanced towards the distant slave tents, and Kara’s smile dims a watt.

“They weren’t brave enough to try. But you are, right?”

“Well I...I don’t want to stay here.”

“Sweet, then we won’t!” Kara seemingly decides on the spot, as if it could really be that easy-and despite herself, Melody almost believes it could. It could be that easy! “C’mon kid, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Moray keeps watch on the wall, scanning for the other guards. The closest one is fifty feet away, by a torch - it's ruining his night vision, and he keeps crouched in the dust and the dark, waiting for Kara to finish her work and come back. There's a prickling on the back of his neck, his instincts high, but no one calls out - nevertheless, he decides to pick off the other, closest guard just in case. He works his way around across the wall, scales up with a leap, and when the man is still turning comes up over the lip of the battlement, smooth as an otter, and thrusts backwards out into open air.

They start to fall. Moray's hand, over the other man's mouth, muffles his scream, and instead he presses down and kicks the other man's leg up in midair, then expands himself out into a side fall, spreading out his surface area as much as he can even as the Legionnaire he'd just abducted turns nearly vertical, head down towards the onrushing ground.

The landing knocks the wind out of Moray, but he's okay. The guard lands on the back of his neck, and his weight and the weight of his armor drive him down on it with an ugly crack, shattering vertebrae. The corpse falls over in a heap, and Moray manages to roll over and press the other man's face into the dirt before slitting his throat for good measure.

Quiet kills aren't hard, but doing it on such an elevated platform, where you can't afford to leave the body or be seen, that's harder.

The exit secured, Moray returns to his post - and worries. He can't help it - there's a camp full of enemies he can't kill, no way to smooth the path for Kara. This is a battlefield he doesn't know how to fight on, and he has to trust in her, just as she had in the Gomorrah and the Sierra. It's not a sensation he finds entertaining.

Now it's up to Kara, and he can't help but worry.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

With the one stealth boy, Melody was enjoying one Kara patented piggy back ride free of charge. That she’d never actually had cause to GIVE someone one didn’t deter her from calling it patented-but as funny as that was, it’s more practical than anything. Thankfully the kid was smart enough to keep quiet-everytime Kara holds her breath while waiting for a skirt to pass or while timing patrols-Melody draws in and holds hers, too.

Kara doesn’t cut back between Caesar’s tents, she moves behind them-which takes her a little longer but was better given she’s slightly off balance and a little less stealthy footstep wise with the added weight.

Speaking of extra weight-Kara hadn’t really considered the fact that, even with as skinny the kid is-she’s heavy. Or maybe not so heavy? Kara herself is maybe only a foot taller than Melody; her being small probably had more to do with it than Melody being big.

Kara Walker-good courier (well, most of the time), but bad pack mule? Snrk.

It feels like a long time before she makes it back to where she’s left the rope, but they make it. She’ll feel a hell of a lot better outside of these fucking walls again, that was for sure. She hefts Melody up on her back a little higher and slips her arms free for the rope, the kid’s legs tightening on either side of her.

But if carting Melody had been a little draining while sneaking, climbing with her was downright exhausting. Kara works at it, she does-but most of the way up her arms are trembling, that telltale soreness of overexertion. Well, shit.

“Think you and Sarge can climb up the rope, quick and careful?” Kara whispers over her shoulder, tightening her thighs and boots on their ticket out so she can stop a minute, rest. They’d lose their cloaking, but if they were quick enough it wouldn’t matter in the dark, not with the torches blinding the skirts.

“Yeah. I won’t fall.” Melody promises, and Kara holds fast while the kid climbs over her and onto her shoulders, starts up the rope with a little jump. She’s pretty skillful with it, actually-Kara can’t help but approve. Offering a bit of a supportive push to help her climb over on top of it, before hauling herself up after her-a little winded.

Kara crouches low and ushers the girl to the other side, those pitons. Melody doesn’t even hesitate-and good thing, cause Kara was antsy being up here, more exposed that they’d been in the shadow of the wall. She swings over the edge and climbs down a few rungs, then drops off soon as Melody was clear.

She takes a minute to catch her breath, flashes a thumbs up sign to her partner in the jailbreaking of teddy bears.

“Mission success! Shoulda tried to hustle for a bet.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah doesn't hesitate. He steps forward, picks Kara up by her shoulders, and kisses her hard. Then he sets her back down, draws his carbine, and gives the little girl she escorted out a nod. He doesn't remember her name off the top of his head, though Kara had mentioned it. Meredy? "Child. Stay close to Kara, she'll keep you safe. We're heading out towards the ferry and out of here."

"They have guards at the ferry," she says, very quiet.

Moray shrugs and points at the two guardsmen he'd pulled off the walls to their deaths, which she hadn't noticed yet in the dim light. Her eyes grow wide. "They had guards here, too," Moray points out, dry, and then gets a move on, eyes sweeping for any other potential snags in the plan.

The path to the ferry is clear so long as they avoid the main road, and they creep up to it from the side. That cunt Legionnaire who'd made cracks at Kara is still there, manning the boat, though now he's seated at a stool looking out over the water. Moray touches Kara's shoulder to slow her down, slips out a garrote from his pocket, and creeps closer, dead silent. For such a big man, he moves like oil when he wants.

The wire slides up and over the other man's head, and he starts, but not in time. Moray draws the wire tight, and then saws it back and forward once as he twists the handles tight. The thin little wire slides right through the thick meat of the soldier's neck, and cuts right through his larynx. A little gasp comes out and his feet start to kick as his hands fly up, but that's all the noise he can make, and the garrote is already inches deep in his neck, seeping out blood in spurts.

Moray flips the other man over his hip in a judo toss, slamming him to the ground, and then reverses and pulls the wire tight again in the opposite direction, like he's trying to work the crinkles out of a piece of paper around a corner. The wire grates against the bones of the other man's spine, and his struggles cut to a stop.

Moray waits a full six seconds, then pulls the garrote loose from gutted flesh and wraps it in a hankerchief. It's too stressed to use again, but it's evidence he doesn't care to leave behind either. He hops onto the ferry and gestures Kara after him.

Melody stares at the body as she walks past, eyes huge and disbelieving.

"Should be good now," Jonah says, quiet, as he pushes the ferry away from shore using an oar. They start to drift out from the dock, silent, leaving the corpse behind.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Well if that doesn’t put some bounce back into her step-Kara staggers back with a breathless sort of laugh, pulling her bat out of it’s sling for emphasis as he gives Melody his brand of encouragement.

The little girl’s eyes go wide, and Kara doesn’t quite know what to make of that-so she doesn’t, just shoulders her bat and flashes a finger gun at her, making an appropriate clicking sound with her tongue. And then she’s back in motion, starts after Moray with her bat in both hands. Melody’s quick to follow, still hardly believing she was outside the walls, that she was escaping.

It’s some gruesome shit, and rather than watch Kara taps her bat against the sand and leans on it, casually. “I mostly just gloss over messes.” She says conversationally, a one shouldered shrug. “You ain’t gotta look at things, if you don’t want-I mostly don’t!” She’s almost cheerful in saying as such, but Melody does look, wide eyed and disbelieving. The man was most certainly dead. Very, very dead, inky black wetness where he’s bled.

“He’s dead.”

“Kinda what happens; Him or us, kid.”

Melody nods, slow and quiet. She steps onto the raft with a little jump across the gap between water and ferry, Kara hopping on behind her-giving a short, quiet whistle-and two BIG dogs slip out of the dark where they’d apparently been following-jumping onto the raft too.

Melody tucks Sergeant Teddy behind her back as casually as she can, and shuffles a little more behind her new friend. “I can’t swim.” Melody seems to be agreeing about needing the boat, or maybe mildly concerned about the water-but Kara answers before she really thinks about it, so it doesn’t matter now.

“Me either! Guess if we flip, we drown!” It earns her a stare, and then Melody scoots a little further away from the edge instead. “Where are...where are we going now?”

“That place over there.” Kara motions to the lit cove with her bat before tapping the business end against her right hand. “I think the folks will be braver, don’t you?”

“Yes, but bomb collars.” Melody says quietly, but Kara remains unbothered, cheerful. “I know how to pop ‘em kiddo, don’t worry.” Kara takes off her cadet’s hat, the heart shaped sunglasses still perched on the brim. She pulls it onto Melody’s head instead, which the little girl adjusts so it’s not covering her eyes.

It’s a weird sort of comfort, but it works-the kid smiles at her, and seems more at ease than she did a minute ago.

~*~

They stash the kid with Lupa and Hrolf, staging the scene-Kara intends to send whoever she can to the same spot, possibly with Melody’s help to guide them there once she links back up with the kid, collects Hrolf.

First though, that truck. They’re trekking up the backside of the overhang freely-she wonders if the Legion had any idea at all about the contents of the truck, and how House knew it himself.

It’d been a handy tip. She wonders what other things he knows, and what he’d be willing to share. “You know, I’ve been climbing around my whole life, but never with like-endurance weights, or whatever! Melody on my back, it occurred to me I could have super buff arms if I scrambled around with like, a feedsack on my back or something.”