Fallout NV fanfic: Old Man Courier chpt 3

Solmund walked up to the big green dinosaur holding the gigantic yellow thermometer. It seemed to be made out of some sort of stone. Some kind of old green brick. The stones, the bricks looked as if it had been standing around through countless generations of sandstorms and sunshine. Sol’s head was still hurting a bit but he finally remembered the place. The dinosaur, no matter how many times he walked under its majestic jaws over his many years of travels, he would feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia: a remembrance of the old world. Old America.

The town Novac was a peaceful place. It was a town for the caravan traders. At least eight men were walking around the area in leather armor. Sol suspected that they’re Crimson Caravan folks. This was an especially favorable place for them to trade as well. The town was known for a good deal of scrap metal trading. God knows we don’t get much of that around here anymore, he thought. So the scrap metal from the Repconn Test site had very high price tags on them. Scavengers liked to go about the place, picking up what they can.

The town had a couple of houses about, but the big housings were obviously the motel and the bungalows. Those are the more pricey ones to rent.

Solmund walked up the wooden steps of the dinosaur. Folks around here called it the Dino Gift shop. That was Cliff Briscoe’s shop. And honestly Sol had no idea what to expect walking up the place. With what Jeannie May said, Cliff seemed honest and nice enough, but with the wasteland, anything could happen.

“Hello, welcome to the Dino Gift shop, please come in,” said a middle-aged man with dark skin, he had a deep voice. Wore a dull brown shirt. Sol assumed this is Cliff.

“Hi,” Sol replied, “I heard from Jeannie May that there’s a gift shop up here. I take it that you’re Cliff Briscoe, nice to meet you. My name is Solmund, you can just call me Sol.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Cliff shook Sol’s hand, “Come on in and take a look. There’s a lot of good stuff to go around. We sell lunchboxes, branded by New Vegas folks, we also sell fresh water for you to buy. And I think I’ve got some snowglobes around, regular edition, though. Only God knows where those limited edition ones are. Ha-ha.”

“Thanks,” Sol went about browsing the merchandise for awhile. These were very pretty stuff. Especially the snowglobes, it was small, and easy to carry around. It felt like carrying a piece of the Old America inside your pockets. They felt like something that had been around for years and will continue to be around for a few more decades.

Solmund then asked:

“Say, do you have anything else?”

“Huh? Oh, I’ve got plenty of things for yer. Our special deluxe edition Dino Toys and Repconn Rockets are half price off.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Sol said, “What about weapons? You know, ammunition and ballistics? You got any?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to buy any of the Dino Toys? They’re great souvenirs, folks around here like ‘em a lot.” Cliff said.

“Um, thanks, but no thanks, I don’t really have anything to carry it around with me. It’s going to be quite difficult to move around.” Sol said.

Cliff sighed sadly:

“Darn it, no one ever buys the Dino Toys. I’ve been having them on shelve ever since I set up shop here. Truth is, most folks come in here to buy bullets and rifles. While I’ve got plenty of that, it’s the Dinos that I want to get rid of.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sol, “I’d love to help but I can’t. I’m sure you’ll have customers for those things soon.”

“Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout it too much. I can get by okay with them dinosaurs on the shelves anyway, so what…”

The door on the stairs to the left suddenly opened and a tall lean man walked down. He wore a red beret and a red sweater with some leather armor over on top. He had a hunting rifle on his back and also a small moustache. He spoke with a soft low voice:

“Hey, morning Cliff, could you go and buy me some lunch down there with the Crimson Caravan folks, here, I think I have a few caps lying around somewhere.”

“Sure thing Manny,” answered Cliff, “Oh, here, Manny why don’t you say hello to our new guest, his name’s Solmund, called Sol for short.”

“Huh? Oh yes, hello Solmund, nice to meet you, my name’s Manny Vargas.”

“Pleasure’s all mine Manny,”  Sol answered smiling.

“Here, that’s 11 caps, try to get me a big juicy Bighorner steak. If you don’t have enough then just use some from your own pockets, I’ll pay you back later.”

“Right,” and with that Cliff went out of the Dino shop.

“Cliff’s a nice fella,” said Manny, “You won’t find a better friend like him. Hey you kinda look familiar.”

Manny said as he glanced over Sol’s ranger duster.

“Are you a ranger?”

“Nah,” said Sol, “Used to be, I left the army before I went out any official missions. They let me kept the coat and this big gun right here.”

“Wow, that’s amazing,” said Manny looking at the Ranger Sequoia, “Well, I myself was once in the NCR army. I was assigned into the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion troops. Specializes in sniper troops.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Solmund, “So you… um, a spotter.”

“Yeah,” Manny confirmed, “How you know?”

“Ain’t it obvious? The binoculars around your neck.”

“Oh, silly me.”

“So who’s your partner, your sniper?”

“Yeah, that would be Craig Boone,” said Manny, “But we folks ‘round here calls him Boone instead of Craig, don’t know why. Anyway, if you see a rifle sticking out of the big Dino’s jaw, you can bet that 50 percent of the time it’s going to be me up there. Otherwise it’d be Boone. He and I take turns, I take the day shift, while he work nights.”

“So you’re like the town’s police?”

“Well, yeah, we’ve also got Ranger Andy downstairs, too. But with his broken legs he won’t be going off anywhere further than a mile. You might say that there’s not much to do up there besides a couple of gecko attacks but actually there’s also been some Legion spies going around as well. Right across east of here. You go down that road and you’ll see Nelson, that’s Legion camp.” Manny sighed, “Well, that’s the life of a sniper.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sol smiled, “Back in Baja, me and my ranger troops used to go on recon missions all the time. Although, we didn’t have any Legion encounters.”

“And let me tell you that that is Lady Luck’s fortune on you. The Legions are a bunch of savages. I wish I can just go into early retirement, that’d be great, I’d rather be at your posts in Baja than here with troops at Hoover Dam. Sometimes I wish I was dealing chems again, like I was with the Great Khans.”

“What?” Sol startled, “Wait a minute, you were a Khan?”

“That’s right, we were the toughest sons of bitches in the entire wasteland. We don’t take shit from nobody and we deal chems with everybody. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a couple of Khan folks who came by Novac the other day. Strangest thing ever, they were with a city boy…”

 

 

 

 

Few weeks ago…

“Hello…” Sol called across the counter, it was still early in the morning, “Anybody there?”

“Be right there in a minute.”

Solmund was waiting for this moment. Ever since he got shot in the head back in Goodsprings’s cemetery. He wanted answers, and Johnson Nash was the right man to provide answers. John was an African American, he had many wrinkles on his forehead with a pair of squinting eyes underneath, and his ears were wide. He was carrying a cardboard box, so he wasn’t looking in front of his shop. Had his back turned while walking out to the counter.

“Alright, sorry about that,” He said while putting the box down under his chair, “Got a lot of stuff here that I need cleaning so please excuse my mess. So how may I… no… you!”

Solmund stared straight down his eyes. John looked as if he had seen a ghost. And maybe he did, maybe the old ranger before him really was a ghost. He just didn’t know it yet.

“I heard ya,” John said, “on the radio, I thought you were dead…”

“Well…” Sol answered, “You can’t keep me down for long.”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say that it’s going to take a lot more than lead to kill me.” Solmund said, almost coldly, “Now, I’m sure you may have some question regarding my condition but I need answers. I’m sorry to barge in here like this first thing in the morning, but…”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” John said, “so you wanna know the truth huh?”

“Yeah, that order you gave me. Tell me everything you know about it.”

“Okay,” John sighed, taking in his breath, “I’d start off first by saying that with nearly three decades of experience working in this courier office. That package that we had was the strangest package by far. You’d be dull if you didn’t stop for a second look. There was a cowboy robot…”

“The one in the casino?” Sol asked, “The one named Primm Slim?”

“Naw, nah, not that one,” John denied, “It was blue robot, taller with big shoulders. The robot had us hire six couriers. Each carrying something a little different, a pair of dice, a chess piece, etc. When I filed the reports it seemed that payments were already made for the other jobs. Seems like those other couriers went about as smooth as butter. I guess that it was just you and your little poker chip that got a little hiccup along the way. First deadbeat we hired to do the job cancelled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive.”

At that moment, something struck another chord in Solmund’s memories, he wasn’t entirely sure. John continued:

“We had this fellow a few months ago, big fellow, got big biceps going on, wore a blue jacket with some red smudge on his back or something. I can’t for the life of me make good use of my eyes anymore. He was about to take the job until he saw your name on the list. Strangest thing, too. He had this look as if he couldn’t believe it. Turned right around. Asked me if your name was actually authentic. I told him yeah, it was a sure as the day had sunrises and sunsets. Right there and then, he declined the job, just like that, said that let Courier 6 carry the package, as if the Mojave’d sort you out or something, maybe some sort of special snowflake.”

John paused for a moment, it made Sol a bit uncertain.

Sol asked:

“So is that it?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose. I told ya, it was a strange day. Cowboy robot came in, told us to do some delivery and left without say a single word.”

“Well, alright then, thank you,” Sol said, “So did you… perchance happened to come across a bunch of punks in leather jacket and a city boy wearing checkered coat would you?”

“Oh,” John exclaimed, “as a matter of fact I did, they were Great Khans, and a boy with slick smooth silky hair. Came by a few weeks ago. Asked for directions and left few days after. I don’t know much more though, however I think that Deputy Beagle may know some crucial information about them folks.”

“Good,” Sol said, “Thank you so much John, I guess I’ll be looking for the deputy then.”

“Wait, hold on a minute, you’re not serious are you?” John said, “No, you can’t do that. You mustn’t, Deputy Beagle is being held hostage by a bunch of escaped prisoners in the Bison Steve hotel over yonder. Now normally we would’ve paid off the ransom and let them convicts get their asses on the road. But we just don’t have enough caps for that. Please, don’t go confronting them convicts, I’m sure we can find another way to rescue the deputy, I wouldn’t want another good man dead on my conscience, and you seemed like one of the better folk around here. I just can’t…”

“Don’t worry about me, John. Like I said, it’s gonna take more than lead to put me down for good.” 

With that he loaded his revolver and headed out.