New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 112: A Chance of Friendship

My original plan seemed simple enough. Get Veronica back to the Lucky 38, and into her room so I could 'prepare the ground,' so to speak, with Cass. That way, I could make sure that the three of us would have plenty of time to get settled, and we could work out the tangled myriad of issues in a clam, sensible, dignified manner. Like adults. So when the elevator doors opened, and both Veronica and myself were face to face with Cass, I mentally ran through every single conceivable curse that I knew.

No plan survives first contact after all.

At first, nobody said anything as Veronica and I stepped out of the elevator. The three of us just seemed to stare at each other, in a rather quiet, non-violent Mexican standoff. The tension was practically thick enough to taste.

"H-hello, V," Cass said with a subtle nod, breaking the tension. "Nice to see you and Shea not tryin' to kill each other..." Veronica smiled unconvincingly, fiddling with the edges of her hood.

"Don't worry," Veronica said softly. "I am over that phase. Trust me, you don't have to worry." I knew exactly what she was trying to do here. She hadn't said a single word the entire trip up - completely silent since the 188. And now that we were here, she was smiling, trying to brush off the fight from a week and a half ago with a half-hearted joke. Deflecting. Hoping that if she put on a brave face and a happy mask like she always seemed to do, the problems would just go away.

Credit where it's due, at least: she's consistent.

"So..." Cass shoved her hands in her pockets. "What's the deal?" She hesitantly looked back and forth between the two of us. "Things between you two good now?"

"Yes," Veronica said without hesitation.

"No," I said at the same time. Veronica looked over at me cautiously, and Cass just looked nervous. So I elaborated: "I hate to just come out and say it, Veronica, but... we're not all mates now and all forgotten that we tried to kill each other. I mean, I'm glad that you agreed to come back, that's certainly a step in the right direction. But we still need to talk about things and clear the air - at the very least - to make sure this kind of shit doesn't happen again." As I spoke, Cass and Veronica alternated between looking at me and each other. "All three of us need to talk about this. So... if anyone has any suggestions for how we should start, I'm all ears."

There was another long stretch of silence. I looked to Cass, who looked over at Veronica, who looked back over at me. And then, Cass decided to break the stalemate in the most inappropriate way possible.

"Threesome?" she asked hopefully with a smile and open arms. I buried my face in my hand. One step forward, five steps back...

"I - I don't..." Veronica went bright red. She shook her head quickly. "Yeah, that's not... I don't think... that's not gonna work. Just... no." She turned to me, and added rather quickly: "Uh, no offense." She gestured at my nether-regions, and shook her head. "I'm sure it's fine, don't get me wrong. But I'm not interested... in any penis... ever."

"Cass, this is the real world, not a trashy romance novel," I said, trying my damndest not to laugh at Veronica's attempt to reassure me. It was surprisingly difficult, given that 'penis' is one of those inherently funny words. "A three-way wouldn't actually solve anything." Cass just shrugged.

"It was an idea. Probably for the best, anyway. Not in the mood for a threesome..." She scratched the back of her head, knocking her hat down over her face. She added under her breath: "... today."

"Cass, is it possible for you to be serious for five seconds?" I asked. She tipped her hat back, and shot me a look.

"I was just tryin' to lighten the mood, you morose motherfucker," She grumbled. "I mean, you roll up in here all serious like you are and -"

"Guys!" Veronica interrupted. "I know what you're trying to do, and I can make this easy for everyone: I promise that I'm not gonna fly off the handle like I did ever again. I was dealing with a lot of stress and I... I just..." She stumbled over her words, and gripped both sides of her hood, pulling it down over her face slightly. "I know it's not an excuse, and I should've talked to... I'm sorry. You guys have fun... with..." Veronica shook her head, and ran out of the hall.

"V, wait!" Cass called out, but Veronica had already disappeared into the kitchen. "Aw, fuck..." Cass hit her forehead with the heel of her palm; the sound echoed through the hall with a resounding smack. "We scared her off, didn't we?"

"What do you mean, we?" I asked. "You're the one who spooked her suggesting a threesome!" Cass clutched at the back of her head, and let out a frustrated growl.

"Fuck... I never wanted things to get so fucked up with her an' me, you know?" Her hat fell down over her face, and when she looked up at me, she looked through one of the cutouts in the brim. "I mean... I still care about her! I still like her! I just can't... I can't give her what she wants. Not what she really wants, anyhow. She wants a girlfriend, and I... I just wanted to have some fun! And then things got so fuckin' complicated! All these stupid fuckin' emotions are just so... fuckin' stupid!"

"Maybe you shouldn't be telling me this," I leaned against the wall behind me. "Maybe you should tell Veronica."

"I already did." Cass said firmly. "That's exactly what I told her when... when I... broke up... with... her." Cass sighed and smacked her forehead again. "Fuck."

Veronica hadn't gone far. When I found her, she was standing in the kitchen, with her back to the door. I hesitantly crept into the room, and quickly realized: she was staring at the massive hole in the floor - or, rather, what used to be the hole the two of us had crashed through during our fight. It had been hastily patched up with sheets of metal... and it was quite a lot bigger than I remembered. It's entirely possible we'd done more damage to the Lucky 38 than we did to each other.

"Ahem," I coughed to try and get her attention. Veronica looked over her shoulder at me... and then turned back to the patched hole. "Look, V... I'm sorry about that. I was kinda hoping Cass would have a bit more sense than to-"

"Forget about it," Veronica cut me off, continuing to look at the patched hole. "Let's just... let's just take all this as read, for the moment. I won't... I don't wanna..." She paused, clearly struggling for words. "This is all too much for me right now. I promise that I won't start anything else. And we can talk about this later, but just... not... not right now."

"Alright," I nodded slowly. "I'm sorry for being so pushy about this, V. I just wanted to take care of it as quickly as possible, so we can all get back to being friends again."

"No, I get it," Veronica said, mirroring my nod. "And I appreciate you're trying so hard, but just... not now." Veronica gulped audibly, and turned to face me; her expression was set in stone. It reminded me a bit of how Boone normally looked. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Something I can wrap my head around. Something I can talk about to help me focus properly."

"Okay," I said with a nod, folding my arms across my chest. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I was thinking we could talk about our fight the other day."

It was like the bottom of my brains had fallen out, and then gone straight through the bottom of my feet. I hadn't gotten that sinking feeling in my stomach, so... violence was probably not imminent. If anything, I was more confused than anything else. I worked my mouth up and down for several seconds, trying to force my mouth to catch up to my brain, but no sound emerged for a while.

"Why?" I eventually squeaked out. Veronica suddenly looked very tired.

"They teach us a lot of things in the Brotherhood. A history of the world before the bombs. Maintenance of old world technology. How to fight... but they don't teach us how to deal with..." She gestured to the space around her and shook her head. "You don't bring up personal problems to other members. Any other members. 'They're your problems, deal with them yourself. Suck it up.' I heard that a lot." Veronica inhaled sharply through her nose. "So, whenever I needed a good distraction, I'd go to one of the 'Applied Violence' courses. Thinking about fighting is straightforward. It's uncomplicated. It's something I can use to clear my head."

"Okay," I nodded, still a bit wary of where this was going. "So... what about the fight did you want to talk about?"

"You... uh... you held your own against me a lot better than I was expecting," Veronica answered. I narrowed my eyes, and raised an eyebrow, as even more confusion took root in my skull.

"Held my own?" I asked, a bit perplexed. "Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I'm pretty sure you handed me my ass on a silver platter." An image flashed in my head of my bloody and bruised face, reflected at me from Arcade's mirror. A small smile appeared at the edges of Veronica's mouth, and she shook her head.

"Shea, no offense, but if I had really kicked your ass, you would've been dead by the first swing. Not only that, but..." Veronica scratched at the back of her head, shifting her hood down over her face slightly. "Well, you did a lot more damage to me than I admitted to Arcade after the fight. You cracked a few of my ribs... broke most of the bones in my right hand when you stabbed me through the power fist... and... well, I was concussed pretty badly. It was a solid two days before I could see straight again."

"Oh, shit!" I grimaced, taking a step back. "Dude, I'm... shit, I'm sorry, I didn't realize-" Veronica just waved it off.

"Don't worry about it. We were trying to kill each other anyway. Besides, I got all fixed up when I went to see the Followers at the Mormon Fort. The point is, I didn't think you'd be able to put up the fight you did, and I was wrong. And... it got me curious about something."

"Where are you going with this?" I finally worked up the gumption to ask.

"Where I'm going is this: you've never had any formal hand-to-hand combat training, have you?" Veronica asked. I thought about that for a minute, trying to figure out exactly what she meant by 'formal' training.

"I was a member of a fight club just outside Sac Town for a few months about... what, six years ago? Maybe? I can't really remember. Does that count?" Veronica hid beneath her hood, and it was hilariously apparent that she was trying not to laugh.

"No, but it makes sense. Your fighting technique is unrefined and practically nonexistent, but you have a lot of raw, natural ability. You're effective in a scrap, but sloppy, like a bar room brawler. I think that with a bit of tuition, you can become a force to be reckoned with."

I couldn't tell: was that the sound of a bottlecap dropping inside my skull, or was it the sound of a lightbulb turning on above me?

"Back up," I said, holding up my hands. "Are you offering to teach me how to fight?" Veronica nodded.

"Yes. You're pretty good, but rough around the edges. Talented, but not very skilled. And I think I can help you work on becoming more skilled."

"There's a difference between talent and skill?" I asked, genuinely confused. Veronica smiled sweetly and nodded.

"Talent is something that comes from within. You can be taught a skill, but you can't be taught a talent. You either have talent, or you don't." Veronica tapped her chin, and then snapped her fingers. "Let me give you an example. Eric Clapton was an extremely skilled guitarist, because he worked incredibly hard to become so... but Jimi Hendrix was probably the greatest guitarist who ever lived from the very moment he picked up a guitar." Veronica tilted her head and screwed up her face. "Actually, that's probably a bad example. Neither of them could read music."

"I'll tell you something else," I said, flatly. "There's a better reason that's a bad example. I have literally no idea who either of those people were."

Veronica stared at me for a few seconds, and it was really difficult to get a read on what was going through her head.

"On the one hand," she started off slowly. "That... makes a certain amount of sense. They were never really... in America, they weren't..." She looked at me with a smile, grabbed me by the shoulder, and led me out of the kitchen. "C'mon, we're gonna fix this."

A few minutes later, Veronica and I were set up in the living room. She set a metal box on the coffee table between us with an audible Thunk!

"What I'm about to show you..." Veronica paused for effect. "...is the greatest collection of music east of California."

She snapped open the tabs, and carefully removed the lid, setting it aside. The inside of the box was full to the brim of square record sleeves; the edges of each sleeve were heavily worn and frayed into strips of white. Veronica's fingers danced over the tops and flipped through the records swiftly, before pulling out one of the records in the middle. The image on the cover - a painting of a blonde woman with half her face hidden behind a bouquet of puffy white flowers and standing in front of a yellow background - was faded and slightly marred from time and use, but it was still visible. There weren't any words on the cover.

"Go on," Veronica said with a smile, walking over to the pool table. "Take a look through the collection. See if anything catches your eye. Just... uh... be careful when you do. Vinyl LP's are notoriously fragile, and these are all... kind of... irreplaceable." She'd set up her mobile record player on top of the pool table in the middle of the room, claiming it would be better for the acoustics. I wasn't really sure it would do much good, since the speaker attached to the turntable was only three inches wide, but still.

As I looked through the collection of records, I realized rather quickly that I didn't recognize anything in here. I mean, I'm not really all that clued up on music from before (or after) the bombs, but the names and albums I was looking at seemed completely... alien. It definitely wasn't Sinatra, I can tell you that much.

"Let's see..." I looked up in time to see Veronica daintily hold one of the black disks along the edge with the tips of her fingers and carefully set it onto the turntable. "It should be about... nine and a half minutes into side four? I think?" I went back to flipping through the records, looking for (and failing to find) anything familiar...

And that's when I heard the guitar riff.

I'm not really sure how to describe it. How do you describe music when the person you're trying to describe it to can't actually hear it? That's like trying to describe the color red to a blind man. All I knew was that this wasn't like the kind of pre-war music Mr. New Vegas played before that radio station went poof. It wasn't like any kind of pre-war music I'd ever heard before...

What'll you do when you get lonely

And nobody's waiting by your side?

You've been running and hiding much too long.

You know it's just your foolish pride.

"What is this?" I managed to bring myself back to reality, utterly bewitched by the sound. "This is... this is great! I've never heard anything like this before, what is it?"

"Layla," Veronica sat down on one of the easy chairs nearby. "It's from 1971. This is Eric Clapton on guitar. Well, lead guitar."

"1971?" I did the math in my head. "Hang on, that's... most of the pre-war music I've ever heard on the radio is from the 1950's, isn't it?" Veronica nodded. "Well, this wasn't that far off, then. But the names of the bands in here... Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Who... I've never even heard of any of these bands before. How come?"

"Because this is a collection of contraband." Veronica leaned over and patted the edge of the metal box. "Everything you see in that box was on the US government's banned list before the war. If the collection I'd found it in hadn't been so well hidden, I'm sure it would've been marked for destruction, simply because it wasn't American."

"Wh - really?" I shut up for a minute, just so I could keep listening to the wonderful sounds filling the room. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to get rid of anything like this... "Why?"

"Because the world before the bombs was even more fucked up than it is now," Veronica said forcefully, leaning back in her chair. Yup, Cass had definitely rubbed off on her. "When most people think of the world before The End, what do they think of? Rows of identical suburban houses filled with smiling housewives wearing aprons and pearls, pipe-smoking fathers who always know best, teenage girls in poodle-skirts... a patriotic heaven full of friendly, smiling people who loved freedom, baseball, and American apple pie. But it was all lies."

"So... what was it, really?" I asked, already fairly certain of the answer. All I had to do was think back to the 'human farm' I'd seen firsthand in the Big Empty...

"It was an oppressive, imperialistic, hell-hole run by a bunch of paranoid anti-communist fanatic jingoists obsessed with keeping the country perpetually locked in the 1950's. Big Brother was always watching, happiness was mandatory, and anything deemed un-American was ruthlessly hunted down and stamped out by jackbooted thugs and then set on fire."

Yep. That sounds about right.

"Well, if that was the case, where did you even find all this?" I asked, carefully pulling out another LP. It didn't have any art - just a bright yellow back, and black lettering (except for the bottom two words, which looked like they'd been cut out of a strip of hot-pink paper): "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols"

"I found it in a private collection in California," Veronica smiled. "I was 12 when Elijah first gave me permission to leave the Lost Hills bunker. That's when I first learned how to become a 'Procurement Specialist.' Most days I would head into the ruins just outside Bakersfield, and try and find things of interest... and then, one day about 10 years ago, I found a bunker that changed everything."

"A bunker?" I asked; Veronica nodded.

"It was a private fallout shelter, built by someone who must have been incredibly wealthy before the bombs dropped. When I first found the place, I thought all I would find were a few supplies here and there. But hidden inside the bunker was another bunker, underneath the first one. It was deep, deep underground... and it was full of music. Whoever this guy was, he had somehow managed to build an enormous collection of pre-war contraband, and keep it safe from both the prying eyes of the government, and the horrors of the end of the world."

"Wow..." I said, looking back at the collection of music. I ended up pulling out an album that simply said "Jazz" on the cover... and then the gatefold fell open, revealing a scene of several dozen nude women riding bicycles, all parked up behind a painted white line on the pavement, like they were about to race. I let out an impressed whistle, holding it up so Veronica knew exactly what I was looking at. "This looks promising." Veronica laughed, taking the sleeve from my hands carefully.

"Sure, we can be upstanding for His Majesty, the Queen. But I had a better idea for what we could listen to next..." Veronica closed the gatefold sleeve, and put it back into the box. She flipped through the records, and pulled out another album.

This one was an amazing blend of colors, even despite the large white gash running through the center of the image. Three men were sitting on a statue. The statue was a girl sitting on a large mushroom, and flanked by a grinning cat, a rabbit in a waistcoat, and a man in a top hat. The whole ensemble was surrounded by children. Every color you could possibly think of was swirling around the image, and the whole thing gave me an impression of a really strong drug trip, like Turbo or Psycho or something. The three men sitting on the statue had a mix of purple, red, and blue skin, just to give you a taste of what I'm talking about.

"You've already heard some Eric Clapton," Veronica said, walking over to the turntable. I'd been so focused on the conversation, that I hadn't immediately realized the record had ended while we'd been talking. The needle was hovering over the center of the record, clicking away, without making any music. "So I think it's only fair that you hear some Hendrix." She swapped out the records, and carefully placed the needle on a very specific part of the next record.

Just when I thought the music couldn't get any better, it did. The frantic guitar, the crazy lyrics and vocals that were smooth as silk... It was strange, to be sure. Almost otherworldly. But it was exotic. It was intoxicating. It was... it was great.

Now I knew why I never listened to the radio much. I was waiting for this.

"So, why was this considered un-American? This is fantastic!" I asked, during a lull in the music. Veronica had been leaning back in her chair, smiling with closed eyes as she drank in the music, but she perked up when I spoke.

"Because it was literally un-American," she said simply. I raised an eyebrow. "Most of the music in there comes from England. I mean, there's a few exceptions. AC/DC was from Australia. The Scorpions were German. Focus and Golden Earring were both Dutch..." Veronica counted off with her fingers as she listed the names.

"And that was enough to get them banned?" I asked. Veronica nodded.

"That's why most of the music left in the wasteland from before the war is actually from before the 1960's. Not much of anything else was allowed."Veronica sighed, leaning back in her chair. "It's not like the original bans were logical, anyway. Joe McCarthy didn't like it, and when he was elected President, that was enough to get it banned. And then, after Nixon's fifth term, nobody even bothered to challenge it anymore..."

"Hang on," I scratched my beard. "How do you know all this?"

"There were a bunch of ancient news articles in several scrapbooks in the bunker. Every day, I'd go down to that bunker, put on one of the LP's in the collection, and read whatever I could find down there." Veronica shrugged. "The thing I could never understand was how this guy, whoever he was..." She trailed off, shook her head, and continued. "You asked about where I found this collection? I never figured out how he found any of these old records, much less how he kept the location of the bunker safe and hidden..."

"Actually," I coughed. "I was talking about your knowledge of the world before the bombs. I mean... all I've ever known about the US Presidents was that there were some. Never bothered to find out any of their names."

"Oh!" Veronica laughed, sitting up in her seat. "Oh, well, that's easy. The Brotherhood keeps surprisingly detailed records of the world - or, you know, at least the United States - from before the end. Scribes like me are nothing if not good record keepers." I nodded.

"So, what happened to the bunker where you found all this?" I asked. Veronica shrugged.

"Still there. Hopefully," Veronica leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. "When I knew that I was going to leave California, I made one last trip. I grabbed my favorite records, put them in the box, grabbed one of the Stratocasters hanging on the wall, and locked the place up behind me one last time. With luck, nobody else has found it... it would be a shame if that collection was ruined..."

I sat back, just listening to the music filling the room.

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"

Said the joker to the thief,

"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.

Business men - they drink my wine

Plowmen dig my earth

None will level on the line

Nobody of it is worth."

"It certainly would be..." I said softly.

The two of us sat there for a while, just listening to record after record. Eventually, however, we got back to talking about fighting. It was still a bit surprising to me that she could talk about the two of us trying to kill each other so casually, but... if she was truly serious about offering to train me, who was I to say no? If nothing else, it would give us a chance to use the gym on the 2nd floor.

Once we'd worked out the details of how the training was going to go, that's when things got really interesting. Because that's when I asked Veronica if she'd be alright playing some of this music for other people.

"Sure, why not?"

And that was it. About an hour later, it was like everyone had gravitated to the revolving restaurant near the top of the 38. Myself, Cass, Veronica, Boone, Arcade, April, Emily, ED-E buzzing around the ceiling... I'd even popped over to Freeside earlier, and convinced Raul to come back. At least until this completely unplanned-for party was over.

This... was good. Everyone was having fun. Veronica and I had even figured out how to connect her turntable into the restaurant speaker system, so music that had been forgotten by the world at large for hundreds of years was filling the air. I wasn't entirely certain exactly how all of this had happened... but now that it was, I wasn't going to question it.

By the midpoint of the night, I was content to just watch everything unfold from the sidelines. That's why I was sitting in one of the booths at the edge of the slowly revolving floor, and had my feet propped up on the table. Just... relaxing.

"So..." Cass snuck up from somewhere, and slid into the seat beside me. "Are things cool between you two now?" I thought long and hard before I gave her an answer... but it didn't do me any good.

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Maybe. I'm hopeful. And I believe her when she says she won't fly off the handle again..."

"I can hear that 'but' in your voice," Cass said, leaning back into the seat, and smiled broadly. "It's a huge but."

"I just want to help her be legitimately happy, and not just putting on a mask, pretending to be happy, you know? She's my friend."

"Yeah..." Cass sighed. "Mine too."

"We really fucked her over," I said. "And she doesn't want to talk about it, just because it's easier to hide behind a smile."

"Yeah..." Cass rubbed her face and threw her head against the back of the booth seat, knocking her hat off her head. "Fuck, I could use a drink..."

"Here," I reached into the cooler near my feet, and pulled out a pair of beers. "Go on, I'm not made of stone." Cass just stopped and stared, looking at me questioningly.

"Uh... wasn't I supposed to not drink any more?"

"You know, I never told you to stop drinking completely. I just wanted you to cut back, because too much of anything is a problem. And besides, I was talking about liquor. This is just beer. So long as you don't go overboard and have, like, 20, I think you'll be fine."

Dead silence.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Cass said, setting the beer bottle on the table and turning in her seat to face me. "But isn't beer considered alcohol?"

"Not in Russia," I stated matter-of-factly. "Anything with less than 10% ABV is considered a soft drink over there."

Again, dead silence.

"How..." Cass finally spoke up, blinking at me. "How do you... is that true?"

"It's what Sasha told me, at least," I said with a smile. Cass furrowed her brow.

"Sasha? Who's Sasha?"

"What, I didn't tell you about Sasha?" I laughed. "Oh, Sasha's great fun. I found him in the Big Empty. He's just a brain in a jar, fitted into the side of a huge minigun, but he was originally a dog from Russia. He told me a lot about his home before he was put in the gun. Plus, he's pretty funny. Got a great sense of humor, you'd like him." Cass stared at me quizzically, obviously having a bit of trouble processing this information.

"Is it bad that I can't tell if you're fuckin' with me or not?"

"Eh," I just shrugged.