milliways_bar | (no subject)

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From the moment Corazon comes in it's obvious that something is wrong - not with her, exactly, but something has recently gone wrong in her general vicinity. The first thing she does is head off to the ladies' room and take a shower. She's glad she has that luxury here, since she most definitely does not back home.

When she's clean, she goes to the Bar and sits on what has become her usual stool. "C'n I have some gecko stew and a beer, please?" she asks. The Bar provides.

Ten minutes later, Corazon has barely touched her stew. Though her stomach is grumbling, she doesn't have much of an appetite to speak of. She's having some unpleasant flashbacks to a town called Nipton,¹ and is trying not to let it show.

¹Minor spoilers for Fallout: New Vegas.

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"I swear, finding this place this easily is going to leave me with a drinking problem worse than- oh, hello..."

Arcade had been talking to nobody in particular, as is occasionally his wont, when he came through the Milliways door instead of the bathroom. No, really.

That happens a lot. Corazon turns around at Arcade's greeting, clearly as surprised as he is. "Hola," she says, uncertainly. "Didn't know you hung out here too. But...that 'splains why I thought you looked familiar. I think."

"Possibly," says Arcade doubtfully. "I think... hmm. Hold on a moment."

He reaches for a napkin from a nearby table and holds it up to Corazon's head.

"Okay, now I remember why you looked familiar," he says. "Last time I met you, you had a bandage on. I didn't recognize you without it."

"Yeah. That's what I thought," Corazon says. "And I was full of Med-X. Everything was...kinda hazy." She lifts the spoon out of her stew and tips it, sending the contents glopping back into the bowl. "You want this?" she offers, pointing to it. Like mama said, waste not, want not. "I'm not so hungry. It's gecko stew with chipotle in it.

"Sure, why not," says Arcade. "Better than the alternative."

He pulls up a stool and settles himself down, then pulls the bowl over.

"How're you holding up, anyway? You look as if you found out what really goes on behind Gomorrah's doors."

"Believe me, if you'd seen what was in that Ranger station, you'd be really glad we had you stand watch outside." There's a brief cause while Corazon frowns. "Shit, no, that don't make sense. Let's just say it was really bad in there. You know those frag mines Boone and I came out with? They were hidden under dead people. That's how I know the Legion did it."

Booby-trapping dead people - and sometimes live people - is a common tactic employed by Caesar's Legion.

"Ah," says Arcade, wincing. "I see. No wonder our ex-military companion was in such a sunny mood when he came out."

Boone hasn't spoken for the last hour.

"He's seen this kinda stuff before," Corazon says. Arcade doesn't know about what happened with Boone's wife and the Legion - it's not her business to tell him. "Me, too. They did the same thing in Nipton when they cleared out." She almost adds 'at least there were no crucified people,' but someone's gotta eat that gecko stew, and she doesn't want to make Arcade lose his appetite.

Arcade nods. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that," he says. "Both in Nipton and just now. I may not have seen it personally, but the stories that reach us at the Fort from people who've been on Caesar's wrong side... I'm getting them third-hand and they're still enough to put me off my feed."

Pause.

"Not literally, and not at the moment, but you take my meaning."

Corazon nods and takes a swig of beer. She doesn't want to eat, but really wants to drink - for the same reason. She's restraining herself in part because she knows imbibing too much alcohol will upset Arcade, and there's enough upset going around in their little group already.

"That's why I want to get that chip for Mr. House - so he can stop that kind of thing going on," Corazon says. "Well, in the city, anyway. Except I don't want to give him the chip, either. Does that make sense?"

"You're probably talking to the wrong person about that," says Arcade. "Mr. House no doubt does a spectacular job of protecting the Strip and everything that's been revived and retrieved there. I wouldn't know. Most of what I deal with is people he can't be bothered to care about, along with the occasional casino patron in need of more advanced medical care than they have on the Strip."

"Speaking as someone who met the guy," Corazon says, "or at least spoke to him through a screen: he's an asshole and I don't trust him one bit. He knows I have to go along with him and he was rubbing my face in it," she explains. "Like he's the only game in town. In Vegas, for fuck's sake." She sighs and slumps. "The worst part is, he may be right. I don't think handing the Mojave over to the NCR would be a great idea."

"Well, they have a certain amount going for them, I'll give them that," says Arcade. "And if it comes right down to it I'd consider them a superior alternative to putting the city into the hands of a single autocrat with no accountability or answerability to anyone but himself. I realize that's not saying much, of course, but it's hardly an ideal situation to begin with.... Out of curiosity, exactly how does he plan to keep the whole place under control and defended, anyway?"

"See, that's the trust thing again. He said the chip would upgrade the Securitrons, but didn't really explain what he meant by 'upgrade.' And he may have been lying about that." Corazon thinks for a bit. "If he's telling the truth, then maybe the reason he's confined himself to ruling the Strip - and having the Three Families actually see to the day-to-day stuff - because it's all he can handle. With the Platinum Chip he may not have that limitation to worry about."

Corazon leaves it off there, so Arcade can enjoy figuring out the disturbing implications for himself.

"Huh," says Arcade. Either his expression is thoughtful, or he's chewing on a particularly tough bit of gecko. Hard to say. Eventually he swallows, then says, "Definitely not the kind of djinn you can stuff back into the bottle, either."

"Yeah, see? The NCR might be a little better, but not much. I'm pretty sure the Legion is the only thing that keeps them and Mr. House from trying to blow each other up. And I gotta say, I'm not the only one who resents the way they treat the Mojave like a colony."

"You're not," Arcade says, without even blinking. "Believe me, you're far from the only one."

"Which is why the NCR is just the best of some not-so-good options, instead of the best option, period," Corazon says. She's quiet for a good half-minute. "Actually, there might be another one, but I'm not sure I can pull it off." Which is why she hasn't told the others about it yet.

Arcade lifts his eyebrows, his spoon paused midway to the stew. "Go on," he says. "I'm listening."

"Mr. House said the Platinum Chip would help him beat the Legion, but not the one who told me about the Securitrons," Corazon confesses. "The one who told me is called Yes Man. He's a Securitron Benny hacked. With help from one of the Followers," Corazon adds. "Benny was using Yes Man to spy on Mr. House's network and the other Securitrons."

"Huh," says Arcade. "Hacking one of Mr. House's robots enough to get it out from under his thumb? I'm impressed. Did you find out who helped him, by any chance?"

Corazon's eyebrows go up. "You mean your people didn't know about this deal?" She shakes her head. "I don't want to get this person in trouble. They meant well, and Benny didn't hold up his end of the bargain."

As far as she's concerned, that means Emily Ortal has suffered enough.

"Julie probably did. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly Mr. Popularity, although admittedly that's largely by my own design," Arcade says. "I do my job and catch the odd scrap of news when it falls from the table, that's all."

Corazon considers this. "I'm gonna have to talk with the person responsible before I give their name to anyone else," she concludes. "Might be a good idea anyway, so I can learn more about that hacked Securitron."

"Fine by me. It's not that important, I was just wondering," says Arcade. "But I don't blame you for wanting more information about that robot. Especially since you've already got one unknown robotic quantity following you around, a fact which I feel contractually obligated to point out on a regular basis."

"No, really?" Corazon says with a roll of her eyes, because Arcade has so far been very diligent in fulfilling said obligation. "And the fact that some of yoir buddies took ED-E apart, put him back together again and gave him their stamp of approval doesn't make you feel any better?"

"Marginally, at best," says Arcade. "It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, that's all."

Corazon looks at Arcade thoughtfully. "Have you actually seen the Enclave in action?" The NCR basically rendered the Enclave extinct (in the West, anyway) years before Corazon was born, but Arcade may be just old enough to have collected some bad memories of them. "You don't have to get specific if you don't want to."

Arcade has to think about that for a while. Eventually he puts his spoon down and says, "The place where I grew up... it's not there any more. Not that it was much to begin with, you understand, but it's the kind of thing that you don't let go of very easily."

Corazon nods sympathetically. "Would you feel better if I, y'know, put ED-E up for adoption?" She's fond of the little robot, but in the end it's just a thing - and she knows a few people who might be willing to take it off her hands.

"Let me get back to you on that," says Arcade. "It knows about us now, and I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of it getting out of our sight. At least you keep it on a short leash, which other people might not necessarily do. In the meantime I'll... tone down the grousing, at least somewhat."

"Fair enough," Corazon says, "But I really hoping we can keep ED-E, because I like having that zapgun on my side. And I want to show him to my brother in Juarez some day, if I manage to get out of this alive," she adds cheerfully.

"I suppose I can understand that," says Arcade. "I'll do what I can to make sure you get back to Juarez in one piece, as long as I'm at it. Might as well make myself useful somewhere."

Corazon grins. "You don't know what your signing on for, guero. Juarez is even more of a shithole than Freeside, and nobody's heard of the Followers there."

"I suppose I'll have to learn to manage between now and then," Arcade says. "And learn Spanish, come to think of it. Latin's just not the same."

"Hey, Latin's a good start," Corazon says. "The Padre always said Spanish comes from Latin, so he couldn't understand why we didn't remember our lessons and so on and so forth."

"Educated man, your Padre," says Arcade. "There's not a lot of people out there who know enough to acknowledge the relationship any more."

"He was brought up by Jesuits, which is how come he knows all this stuff," Corazon explains.

"Really? I'm impressed. I've read about them, but I didn't know any seminaries survived in this part of the world," Arcade says. "Huh."

"There's a couple in Mexico," Corazon says. "I think they'd like the Followers, actually, even if you guys are..." She looks thoughtful. "Are you officially atheists or agnostics or what?"

"Actually, we don't have anything to do with religion one way or the other," says Arcade. "We're just secular. Granted, the symbol's not, but from what I understand that had more to do with our founder picking something recognizable and easily replaced if a sign broke than anything else."

Corazon blinks. "That's a religious symbol?" The Padre never covered the Knights Templar in school.

"Well, it was. It was pretty medieval, originally. I think the first Followers may have appropriated the signage of a destroyed convent or something- I'm really not sure how we wound up with it," Arcade says with a shrug. "The closest thing I've seen to it in old books is the version of the cross used by an order of crusader knights in the Middle Ages."

"Oh," Corazon says. "You might want to make that clear if you meet any Jesuits, then. I mean, if you come to my village and meet the Padre or something like that."

"I'll bear that in mind if it happens," Arcade says. "We've still got a lot of work to do in the Mojave first."

"Oh, yeah. And we have to remember not to get killed," Corazon points out.

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