Rubicon | Vulpes Inculta

4

New Vegas, Nevada
November 9, 2284

"Please tell me you're lying." Her friend Arcade was staring at her with horror. Six couldn't quite meet his gaze, knowing how completely justified his reaction was... and how much he utterly loathed the Legion. She wasn't even going to tell him, but he caught sight of her walking past the Followers of the Apocalypse clinic where he spent most of his days. His concern wasn't diminished when she assured him the blood covering her wasn't her own, it was only changed into a different sort of worry.

She had to stop telling people "don't worry, it's not my blood."

Six shook her head, shower-damp hair sticking to her neck. "Nope. All true. All stupid, and all true." She leaned back. "Was he right? Am I impulsive?"

Arcade looked at her with pity. "No! Of course not," he said after a very long pause, immediately taking a drink. "I'm sure your decision to get in a shootout with the NCR and save the life of a war criminal was very well thought out. Like everything else you do."

"Thanks." She rolled her eyes at him across the table.

"Anytime." He adjusted his glasses, removing them briefly. "I'm amazed you really felt it necessary to ask." Something more was coming, though. Arcade never gestured with his glasses unless he had an important point to make. Six patiently waited for whatever Arcade had to say. "You," he announced finally, "are not allowed to leave here by yourself anymore."

"What?"

He nodded forcefully, stabbing the air with his eyewear. "Let's list, shall we? You decided to go to an old casino all because of a radio ad, and ended up kidnapped by some crazy Brotherhood of Steel dropout."

"Yeah, but there was—"

"Not done yet," he cut her off. "Unless you plan to explain why you shot all the radios when you got home and then tossed them from an eighteenth story window."

Six was silent for a moment, hand drifting to her neck. "No, I don't want to talk about that right now." She still had nightmares that involved the sound of the explosive slave collar whenever a radio was too close.

"Fine then," he said with a shrug. "Let's talk about that caravan to Utah you joined on a whim. While I'm not surprised you were the only survivor of an ambush, since killing things is the closest you get to having a hobby, getting pulled into some tribal war in Utah by the boogeyman the Legion uses to scare their recruits was unexpected. I mean, really... the Burned Man? How did you even find him?"

Six shrugged. "I think he kind of found me," she said. "Besides, he's not Legion anymore. He's kind of got that whole repentance thing going. I mean, he's a shaman again! I'm pretty sure he wanted me to join his tribe's religion, too."

"What was it?"

She shrugged. "No idea. He said it was pre-war, though. Something about some book. He offered me a copy but I pretended I couldn't read." Six waved a hand dismissively. The Burned Man was nice, which was unexpected, a person sets certain expectations when they hear about a man who drags himself free after being set on fire and tossed into a canyon

Thinking on it, Six wondered if people made similar judgments about her. Getting two bullets in the head and living wasn't exactly common. Maybe everyone who met her in New Vegas was disappointed that she wasn't scaling buildings while wearing a belt made out of the scalps of her enemies or something. Probably, she decided. Everyone was disappointed by just about every other aspect of her life, after all. "I don't know," Six whined finally. "I thought the caravan would be a good way to make some caps. I heard the recording and headed over, it—"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes, I know. That's what you said when you got home. That's what you always say. Six, you're rich. You don't need caps," he pointed out. She forgot that quite frequently, it was a strange thing to get used to. "You get stuck in Big Empty and come back with a whole lot of new scars and a toaster that, I'm pretty sure, threatened to kill Boone." Arcade paused, adding "that could have been a hallucination of his, though. I can't decide which seems more probable. Your new tendency to set teddy bears on fire is a little more disconcerting, though. While I have a slightly morbid desire to know what happened... I'm hoping you never actually decide to tell me. I suspect I wouldn't sleep at night after knowing why your latest revenge obsession is targeted towards inanimate objects." She shrugged, not knowing how to explain the story without being locked up as a madwoman. "Oh, and you end up in some strange death match with... who was it?"