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The Mojave sun was never merciful, even in its sleep. Never piteous of the memories it burned away.
Two shots to the head, he’d been told, and he remembered; the smell of powder, and the blinding flash that sent him to two weeks in a vacuum. A last call for memories just before one dies. Not much had come back with him.
The suit was familiar, at least. It moved in the right places, when he put it on. He’d put it on with hands too rough for a Vault Dweller to have. What had he seen, to drive him here?
The man had been in a checkered suit, the bartender told him. He had almost told her to shove off with her radio, but his hands knew how to fix it, even if he didn’t. A hint at his mystery, traded for a favor. Favors ran the Wasteland. He couldn’t forget that.
Yet the doctor had given him everything, without a favor returned. The doctor gave him his life back. And clothes, treatment, a computer. A Pip-boy with a courier contract, with little on it. ‘Nathan Chapman; Courier Six. Deliver the platinum chip.’
A platinum chip, something taken from him by the checkered suit. Something that had cost him his past life.
“Chip.” He said quietly, at the top of his grave. It overlooked the town. He would have liked the view, if the dead rested where they died. Better to watch the mountains than the rubble of cities.
A cigarette rolled against the wind, against the mound of his own grave dirt. He picked it up, twisting it with two fingers. It was inked with half a word, the rest smoked away. Several more littered the upturned ground. Maybe it was the suit's nerves that fueled his addiction. Two messy shots, and yet his target still lived.
“City fool should’ve smoked more.”
He would call himself Chip, then, so that if the man took off his checkers, he could still be recognized by the fear in his eyes. Chip hoped its mention would startle him into recognition. Just long enough to get a shot off. Or two, for poetry’s sake.
For what did he still walk, if not revenge?
Chip heard a soft blip from his Pip-boy. He brought the screen to his face, only to read a short message: “Courier Six."