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Corazon drags herself to the bar and collapses on her usual bench. "I want some whiskey and some of those Fancy Lads snack cakes," she says. "Not the frosted ones, just the plain ones." It's been a tough couple of days. Lots of getting shot at. Sometimes with artillery shells.

So now Corazon is engaging in the extremely unhealthy practice of washing junk food down with copious amounts of alcohol. You can bet she'll regret that come tomorrow morning.

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"Whurf," says a voice from near the floor.

"Dogmeat, leave her alone. She doesn't have any jerky for you today- I'm so sorry, Corazon..."

"S'okay." Corazon's a bit slurry. "Bein' dog-nosed ain't the worst thing that's happened t'me the past couple'a days."

"Oh- oh dear." Ellen winces. "Oh, that doesn't sound good at all. Are you okay?"

Corazon appears to examine herself thoroughly. "No holes. 'M fine."

If Ellen had glasses, she'd Look at Corazon over them.

"That's not the way I meant." She pulls up a stool. "What happened?"

"Well, I think I said nobody's seen the Brotherhood out west in a long time, right?" Corazon pours herself another shot of whiskey. "Turns out they're still there. Just kinda hidin'. And I got to talk to their Elder. He said he needed me to get these holotapes, right? An' I did it because Veronica wanted me to help 'em."

"Right," Ellen says, "I remember..."

Then she goes quiet, because there's no way this next part is likely to go well, given what she's seeing of Corazon at the moment.

"Well, one of the tapes was in REPCONN HQ," Corazon said. "That wasn't so bad. There were just a bunch of robots and if you know how, you can sneak up an' shut 'em off. One was near Black Mountain, in this crater with...with...I don't even fuckin' know crawling all over it. And the last was in this place called Nellis where the people are real touchy about their privacy an' have artillery guns."

"Crawling?" Ellen says; that could be any number of disturbing things. And: "Artillery guns? Working ones?"

"No, no, the folks with the guns weren't crawling. The artillery guns weren't either. Who the fuck ever heard of crawling artillery guns?"

Corazon maybe had a bit too much to drink.

"The Chimera tanks the Chinese used in the Anchorage campaign might've qualified," Ellen says, "but that's not what I was talking about. what kind of crawling things?"

"Oh, y'mean at Black Mountain?" Corazon drags a hand over her face. "They look kinda like people put together all wrong, and they were walkin' on their hands and spat acid loogies. 'Least I didn't see any Super Mutants - apparently a bunch of 'em live on Black Mountain."

"... how many tongues did they have."

Even by Vault standards, Ellen is suddenly looking pale.

"Uh...it was kinda hard to count because we were pretty much scared shitless. At least two...no, three. I think."

"Centaurs." Ellen drops her gaze and rubs at one of her upper arms. "They're called centaurs. Most people call them that, I mean. I always called them tongue monsters..."

"Oh. I was thinkin' of callin' 'em 'those fuckin' crawlers.'" Corazon pushes a Fancy Lads cake towards the edge of her plate. "Want one?"

"Thanks, no," Ellen says. "You're welcome to them."

The thought of the tongue monsters kinda kills her appetite.

Corazon has developed a pretty high threshold for death of appetite. "Anyway, I got to talk to the folks at Nellis. They used to live in Vault 34, but they left," she says. "Then they settled at Nellis Air Force Base. They apparently got the guns in working order, and they're actually trying to get an old bomber back in the air. Not a vertibird, but a real plane."

"...."

Yeah, that's all you're going to get out of Ellen for the moment.

"I kinda helped them out. There was this old bomber at the bottom of Lake Mead...well, the long and short of it is, when things go to hell I'll get air support. Assuming they can get the damn thing in the air."

"Wow," Ellen finally says. "A real plane?"

The only one she's ever seen up close was the one Mr. Mills took her on, so she's thinking a jetliner here.

"Yeah. And they've been training in simulators to fly it. Of course, they have to make sure it works, and they have to fuel it up and repair one of those runways at Nellis to make it work. I hope Caesar's gonna take his time."

Ellen nods slowly. "I'm a little surprised they're able to find that kind of fuel to use," she says, "but if they've got it... wow."

"Yeah. They're pretty handy. Pretty nice too, if you can get close enough without being blown to smithereens." Corazon takes a bite out of a snack cake and continues talking with her mouth full. "Crawly things an' artillery shells. Elder McNamara better give me a fuckin' medal or something."

"I hope he does too," Ellen says. "We've got a working Vertibird back at the Citadel, but nothing like a full-sized plane. That's kind of amazing."

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