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Corpses littered the ground, the pungent stink of death polluting the air so thickly that it nearly made the air unbreathable.
Fortification Hill was a smoldering ruin by the time the sun had risen over the horizon. All through the night, the Legion camp had burned – both due to the missiles dropped from the Boomers, and from the utter devastation wrought from the Securitrons that erupted out of the underground bunker.
Mr. House – or, rather, the Securitron who currently was housing Mr. House's consciousness – had returned to Vegas earlier that morning, along with the bulk of the Securitron forces. The Courier had detected a bit of annoyance in Mr. House's voice module when she told him she intended to stay a little longer at the Dam. "To provide some additional support, just in case the Legion decides to make a second attack" – that was her weak excuse. Mr. House was a strangely sensitive "man" (if he could still be classified as such), and often she felt the need to justify her actions to him. Oddly, she often felt as though she needed his approval.
There probably was some sort of psychological reason for that. Daddy issues, perhaps.
She climbed the hill, several Securitons trailing behind her as their optic sensors scanned the camp for signs of life.
Most of the camp was flattened to the ground. The red tents were broken and deflated, Legion flag poles snapped in two, weapons scattered all over the mud, tables overturned. The metal gates that had sectioned off parts of the camp had fallen down; metal blackened and warped from the heat of the fires that had spread throughout the camp.
She wasn't entirely sure why she was still here, perhaps she was looking to find the body of Caesar and drag it back to New Vegas as a trophy. But, if she was to be honest, she had spent enough time as a scavenger to know that battlefields often had the best pickings in terms of loot. Perhaps it was just greed. Or curiosity. Perhaps it was just because she wanted to see how much she'd made the Legion suffer.
A pile of bodies was slumped up against one of the metal railings of the fallen camp gates – a great many of the bodies were in the plain recruit uniforms, but one or two wore the feather-headressed uniform of the senior Decani.
Some of the bodies were burnt black from the fires, some looked as though they had been trampled to death by their fellow Legionaries trying to escape the flames, and others were… were little more than pulp from the Securitron machine gun bullets.
For a moment she paused, looking at the bodies that still were somewhat intact. . . it struck her how young most of them looked. A cold feeling of dread passed over her when she remembered that there had been boys – no more than perhaps twelve years old – training to be Legionaries.
Pushing the thought out of her mind, she reached the top of the hill, and she turned to look down at the gruesome vista of what remained of the lower Legion camp. From this vantage point, you could see the full extent of the devastation – and there truly wasn't much left. It was surreal to remember this camp being full of living people – the men sharpening their machetes, barking orders to subordinates, laughing at their strange jokes made in Latin, praying to Mars, and the slaves going to and fro. With a bit of vain hope, she wondered if the slaves had been able to make a run for it during the battle. But… seeing the camp… it honestly seemed unlikely.
"Scanning perimeter. Life signs detected." One of the the Securitons vocalized, rolling quickly past her.
The robot weaved its way around the bodies, and the whirring of its internal servos increased as it scanned the area.
"If you see any children or non-combatants, don't shoot." She snapped an order at the Securitron, and she only hoped that the thing would actually obey her.
Mr. House had ordered a complete extermination of the camp, and she doubted if the Securitrons would have any programming giving them moral qualms about gunning down kids or slaves. They were most likely seen as acceptable collateral damage. A wave of complete panic overcame her, and she quickened her pace to follow the robot.
Unlocking the safety on her gun, the Courier stepped over a fallen cross (with the body of some poor bastard still crucified on it), and walked further into the camp – her eyes alert for any sign of life. The sudden, stomach-churning smell of rotting corpses simmering under the hot Nevada morning sun was… horrible.
The Arena that had been at the center of the camp had collapsed in on itself. The large tent that had housed the throne of the great and mighty Caesar was gone – burned to the ground, smoke drifting up to the sky in a long black trail.
And then she saw movement.
The ragged, slow heaving chest of a Legionary somehow still alive. Buried under the corpses of two dead Praetorians, this survivor was absolutely drenched in fresh blood. His eyes stared blankly upwards into the sky, in wide-eyed shock. As she approached him, his eyes slowly turned to her – and the look he gave her was one of sheer, unadulterated fear.
He looked to be no more than twenty years old, and somehow his fear made his youth seem all the more obvious. Opening his mouth as if to speak, but no words came, he just gulped for air repeatedly in short gasps.
The Legionary weakly raised his hand, as if to surrender, but the Securitron immediately opened fire.
"Hostile eliminated. Perimeter secure." The Securitron casually wandered off once the Legionary stopped moving, the robot's optic sensors continuing to scan the area.
Standing there silently, still looking at the now-dead Legionary, the Courier was strongly tempted to just turn around and allow the Securitrons to finish up their work. There was no reason for her to be here anymore, Mr. House was completely right. Didn't need to see any of this. Could just go back to Vegas and start celebrating. Big hero.
It wasn't like she was a stranger to death or killing. But this was, somehow, different. Larger. Worse. And somehow seeing the robots finish off the last of the Legion troops just felt almost depraved. God knows that the Legion had this coming, but… but this didn't feel like a victory. At least if it was human soldiers killing each other, there would be a sense that … that there might be consequences, guilt. Shame? The robots had no programming that would allow them to feel shame, or guilt, or anything. Just lines of code.
Seeing all this helped nothing. This wasn't the glorious victory she'd envisioned in her head – it was frankly depressing, pathetic, and just. . . just empty.
Numbly, she stumbled further into the camp. Maybe if she found the mangled body of Caesar, maybe that would – what, cheer her up?
This all felt like a dream, and almost like she was looking at the camp from outside her body. Detached, somehow.
The closer she got to Caesar's tent, the more she realized that it was ridiculous to expect to find anything there. The area around the tent had been bombed to oblivion – huge mounds of dirt and smoldering ash sunk into a deep crater where Caesar's tent used to be. Even if she spent the time to find any remains, it was likely there wouldn't be enough left of Caesar to fill a shoebox.
So, no trophy. No parading Caesar's head around on a stick.
The idea that she even wanted to do that in the first place just seemed so juvenile now.
A few more gunshots echoed from the valley below, the Securitrons finding more survivors to eliminate.
Walking past the crater, the Courier looked down towards the kennels where the Legion had kept their warhounds – and, of course, she saw the remains of what was left of the dogs. The campground right outside of the underground bunker was full of dead dogs and also the massive, bloated carcasses of the Brahmin littered the courtyard as well. Obviously, in the chaos, the Brahmin must have broken out of their pen.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a small body curled up hiding in the corner of the Brahmin pen. Definitely a child – and a slave, judging from the tattered burlap sack the child was wearing.
Rushing over to the child, the Courier felt her heart leap into her throat – maybe she could save one of them, maybe this wasn't completely pointless, maybe she could get one of the slaves out of this alive.
The child looked almost like they were in a deep sleep, eyes closed, their pale hands holding a teddy bear tightly.
The child wasn't breathing. Frantically, the Courier tried to shake the child awake, but it was immediately obvious that rigor mortis had already taken effect. The little girl was stiff, cold to the touch, and her skin was even starting to turn faintly gray.
The teddy bear. She'd seen this little girl before. Spoken to her, in what seemed to be ages ago. A sweet girl trapped in a place like this – she had seemed skittish and frightened at first, afraid to make eye contact, but her tiny face had brightened instantly the moment the Courier had kneeled down and given back her teddy bear friend.
The Courier looked at her face now. Was Hoover Dam worth this? After all that fighting over some stupid fucking pre-War Dam, the girl still ended up dying alone, nobody to comfort her except that little toy.
She was getting soft in her old age. This wasn't the first time she'd seen a dead kid, this wasn't –
Her face contorted in pain, and she looked away. It came over her suddenly – the tears, the deep feeling of total emptiness. It overtook her and she stayed paralyzed there, crying.
A lone Securitron moved carefully closer, retracting its machine gun turrets into its hull. The robot's metal claws twitched and sensor optics whirred as it approached the Courier.
"Not the moment of triumph you were hoping for?" The voice of the Securitron was familiar, and definitely human – yet far colder than any of the other robot's synthesized voice modules, "Not what you expected?"
The Courier looked up through swollen eyes to the face of Mr. House on the Securitron's screen. He must have been watching her the entire time— transferring his consciousness from robot to robot. Her loyalty to Mr. House almost evaporated completely in a moment. In a brief, irrational moment she wanted nothing more than to lash out at him – to kill him, if that was even possible. The hatred within her was so intense it made it almost impossible for her to breathe.
Something about his expression changed though. Perhaps the screen only flickered slightly.
Her anger almost appeared to give Mr. House pause, and he uncharacteristically seemed be picking his words more carefully than usual, speaking more slowly.
"I am genuinely sorry about the girl." He said, the coldness in his voice thawing a little, "This isn't ideal and, certainly. . . not what I had wanted the future to be like."
She suddenly stood up, only barely restraining herself from shooting him. Not that it would do any good— shooting "him" would be about as effective as shooting at the sky to bring down the clouds, couldn't kill him anymore than she could kill a god, he'd just transfer himself to some other robot, his main consciousness safely entombed somewhere deep in the Lucky 38 mainframe.
"Did one of your fucking robots do this?" Her voice was thick with venom.
"Of course not, don't be absurd." He said, in an atypically quiet voice, "Look at the girl. Do you see gunshot wounds? Do you see signs of grenade impact anywhere near her? Judging from the lack of obvious external injuries, I'd say this child died of asphyxiation from the smoke of the fires."
"Then why didn't we try to evacuate these people before—"
"I think you already know that is a ridiculous thing to suggest. Strategically, it would have been impossible. There would have been no feasible way to free every poor wretch in the Fort, while also setting up the line of events to ensure victory at the Dam."
"Oh, right. Of course." She sneered, "The Dam. At least we have the Dam. Thanks for reminding me, just thinking that we saved a pre-War dump makes this all worth it."
Mild irritation returned to Mr. House's voice, "I'd hardly call Hoover Dam a 'dump', surely you can —"
Mr. House seemed to prevent himself from saying anything more. His screen flickered and blinked a few times, in careful silence. Even now, the Courier could see that Mr. House was showing a fair deal more tact than he ever had shown her before. Normally Mr. House had no patience for things like this. He'd tell you to do something, and then he'd expect you to get the fuck out of his office. End of story.
Not now, though. Mr. House seemed like he was actually… trying.
If only the next thing he said wasn't so full of bullshit that it almost made her laugh.
"This little girl died so that other children can live a brighter future." Mr. House said, in a tone that sounded like he was deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
"Please." The Courier shook her head, "Spare me, you wanted this place and you didn't give two tin fucks who got hurt in the process."
"Very well, I won't waste any more time or processing power in trying to convince you of the sincerity of my convictions." Mr. House sounded almost… offended, "But don't pretend like you weren't aware that this was a full-scale war, with all of the horror that that entails. Don't pretend like you are some innocent wandering into the battlefield by mistake. You wanted to see carnage, and you saw exactly that."
The Courier turned red, taking a sharp gasp of breath as though she was gearing up to say something. But she remained silent, furious and at a loss for words.
A long silence stretched between them.
Finally, Mr. House spoke, in a voice that sounded thoroughly exhausted but soft, as though he was forcing himself to show kindness against his own nature, "With the Dam, we can make Vegas the first rung of a ladder for humanity. A ladder to actually climb out of the filth and despair humanity has been wallowing in for the past two centuries. Create a future that may even be worth providing for future generations."
The Courier seemed to be completely defeated, finally lowering her head and nodding. There was no point in arguing – it was too late to change anything now. After all the things she had done and all she'd sacrificed for Mr. House's plans, the chance to second-guess all of this had long, long since passed.
To the Courier's shock, Mr. House extended his arm (or, rather, the metal tubular arm of the Securitron he was residing in) and patted her gently on the shoulder two or three times before awkwardly moving away from her a few paces – as though Mr. House was surprised at himself.
The Courier stared at him, not sure what to say. That was perhaps the first time Mr. House had ever even bothered to be the least bit. . . human.
Eventually, the Courier looked back down at the girl. It was wrong just to leave her here, like this – in this place.
"I know you probably have more important things to do," The Courier gave a sideways glance to Mr. House, "But will you help me bury her?"
"Yes," He answered, stiffly.
They buried her facing West overlooking the Colorado River, in a quiet place away from the camp. The Courier was not by any stretch of the imagination religious, but it seemed foolish to tempt bad luck or the wrath of an old god in this instance. Picking a few broc flowers, the Courier scattered some petals over the girl and said an old prayer asking the spirits to help the child in the afterlife (Some tribal traditions die hard, the Courier thought, remembering how her uncle had taught her the old ways they buried the dead before the NCR had come and assimilated their village in the Sierras). Just to be safe, the Courier prayed to Jesus as well, an Old World Christian prayer that one of the NCR missionaries taught her. No need in praying to Mars – that asshole obviously cared little for anyone in the Fort.
To his credit, Mr. House at least kept his mouth shut during all the praying. Although she could almost feel his eyes rolling— or, if he still had eyes, they would most certainly be rolling now.
After all was said and done, they meandered down the hill together, and already the Securitrons were piling up the bodies for burning.
Judging by how efficient the robots were, perhaps in a week all signs of a battle would be erased and nobody could ever guess what had happened here. In a year, perhaps the Fort would be reclaimed by the wasteland, or maybe Mr. House would expand the bunker. In ten years, this would all be in the history books. A hundred years, and… well, maybe humanity will have moved on from this planet by then.
The Courier was lost in her own thoughts when Mr. House spoke up.
"I am very glad that I chose you as my protégé." He was trying to be kind, but there was still a hint of pride in his voice. "I hope when we return to the Strip, you may get some well-deserved rest."
Despite his somewhat arrogantly self-congratulatory tone, there was something genuinely flattering about him saying that. He didn't give out compliments easily – or at all, actually. The Courier couldn't help but feel a bit happy at having earned such high praise.
She gave him a smile, and he seemed to bob a little when he turned to look at her, suddenly rushing ahead. If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn Mr. House was embarrassed by his own behavior.
"Come along." He said, rolling off into the horizon, "We have much to do."