Chapter 135: Slow Boil

Chapter 135: Slow Boil

The smell of coffee was in the air.

I emerged, bleary eyed and groggy, from my room. I barely knew who or where I was, I just knew that the smell was promising coffee from somewhere. It got stronger as I stumbled through the haze and fog clouding up my mind until the smell was right in front of me. My eyes opened just enough to register the steaming cup of wondrous brown liquid in front of my face.

"Morning, sunshine," Arcade's voice echoed from somewhere. "I thought that might wake you up. Barry suggested that particular strain of coffee for rousing heavy sleepers."

I think I grunted out an acknowledgement of some kind. Slowly carefully, so as not to spill the precious brown liquid I brought the coffee to my lips.

My eyes snapped open and the world exploded into stark focus.

"I say!" I exclaimed with a laugh. I sighed, taking another sip. "Oh, that's magnificent!" Arcade grinned broadly back at me.

"Good, isn't it?"

"It is fantastic, you beautiful man!" I said, taking yet another sip and savoring the heady aroma. "I could kiss you!"

"Is that a promise?" he retorted, without hesitation. I paused, blinking for a few seconds as I tried to work out exactly what it was I'd just said. I briefly wondered if Barry had altered the beans in some subtle yet blatantly obvious way when cloning the seeds. Honestly, I wouldn't have put it past that smooth-talking sex machine from The Sink. Arcade just started chuckling at my apparent confusion, clearly bemused by the whole thing.

"Give me some time to wake up properly, and I'll let you know," I said, finishing off the cup.

A few hours, several trips to The Sink and back, and two pots of coffee later, I was in the common room. I was sitting on the couch and surrounding me was a motley collection of equipment, technology, and all the tools I'd need shoved into a nearby toolbox. Most of the clutter was on the coffee table, but there was far too much of it to fit; some of it was on the cushions on either side of me, and some of it had fallen on the floor.

"You seem focused," Cass said suddenly. I hadn't heard her come in and was so startled I practically jumped several feet in the air. I fumbled awkwardly with the motor and tiny torque wrench in my hands for several seconds, frantically trying to keep them from falling; Cass just laughed, sitting herself down on one of the adjacent easy chairs.

"Fuckin' hell, Cass! Gimmie some warning, next time!" I said, gently placing the motor and wrench back down on the table once I was sure there wasn't a danger of breaking them. Cass shot me a peculiar look and started chuckling.

"What, you can stare down deathclaws without battin' an eye, but you're startled by lil' ol' me?" She shook her head. "That shit don't add up, Fisher."

"I suppose not," I said with a shrug, leaning back against the sofa. "What can I say? I guess I'm just a paradox." Cass shot me another curious look, and started shaking her head.

"Right... whatever. So, what is all this crap, anyway?" Cass asked, looking at everything collected all around me.

"Funny thing about mad scientists," I began, reaching for my coffee; I was gonna need another refill soon. "A lot of the time, they'll start working on projects, but then something will distract them. They'll get bored, they'll shelve it, and then they'll move on to the next thing that catches their interest in an unfinished cycle of unfinished projects. And sometimes, those useful projects don't even need a brilliant mind to get finished... all they require is a mind that isn't as easily distracted."

"So?" Cass asked, looking at everything again, apparently trying to figure out where I was going with this. "That doesn't really answer my question."

"I found a couple of projects in the Big Empty," I continued. "On their own, they might not seem like much, but might be useful if used correctly. Take this, for example." I reached across the table for a spool of metal cable. "This metal wire rope is made out of carbon fiber nanotubes woven together with a titanium-saturnite alloy. It's very thin - less than an eighth of an inch across and yet, it can withstand up to 400 kilo newtons of force. That what a one-inch thick steel cable can take before snapping."

"Okay..." Cass leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees. I set down the metal wire and picked up the motor I'd been working on earlier.

"This motor still needs a few tweaks, but once its hooked up to something like an MF cell or an EC pack, it should be able to spin at 30,000 rpm. If I've done the math right, it'll produce just shy of 10,000 pounds feet of torque."

"Oh, you did th' math, huh?" Cass didn't seem to believe me, but I was on a roll. I set down the motor, and picked up a small pistol that wasn't actually a pistol at all.

"Now, this is a miniaturized harpoon gun. It uses compressed nitrogen gas to propel a small projectile a tiny spear, a dart, a crossbow bolt, maybe a grappling hook at incredibly high speeds over extremely long distances. If it's aimed right, then whatever's fired can bury itself into wood, solid rock, concrete, metal, you name it."

"Get to th' point, man!" Cass leaned back, shaking her head. "Th' fuck is all this about, anyway?"

"The point is this," I put the harpoon gun down, grabbed a rolled up blueprint that I'd printed out during one of my trips to The Sink, and handed it to her. She unrolled it, looking it over for several seconds with a raised eyebrow.

"A grapnel gun? Am I readin' that right?" She asked, a bit unsure. I nodded.

"With any luck, I can get everything finished and put together by the end of the day, so I can start testing it out. If it works, it'll make navigating certain situations a hell of a lot easier." Cass rolled up the blueprint and shook her head, handing it back to me.

"I'm getting' a distinct 'Batman' vibe offa this," she smirked. "Have you been readin' those old Detective Comics again?"

"No!" I said defensively, just a little bit too quickly. Cass, to no ones surprise, didn't believe me. So I backed up slightly. "Well, alright, yes, a bit. But that's not the real reason I'm making this. I'm doing this because..." I paused, faltering slightly as images from The Divide flashed through my head. "It's because of ED-E. When we went through The Divide together, he kept telling me how..." I swallowed, as my mouth had suddenly and inexplicably dried up. "...how a grappling hook might have made the going easier. And, I just..."

"Mmm..." Cass hummed. I tried to clear my throat.

"It was a good idea. And I'm gonna try and make the most of it."

"Yeah, alright. Y'made yer point," Cass nodded somberly. After a few seconds of silence, she added: "I'm gonna miss the little guy."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Yeah, me too..." I started fiddling with the motor again, but with considerably less gusto than before. The common room was once again silent for several minutes. While I worked, Cass slouched in the easy chair, watching me.

"Alright, changing the subject: I gotta ask," Cass said, pointing vaguely in my direction. "What's yer secret?" I looked up at her from my spot on the couch, staring at her quizzically.

"What?" I asked. "The fuck are you talking about?"

"Well, I'm just thinkin' out loud here," Cass leaned back even more, throwing a leg over one of the chair's arms. "But all the shit we've done the last few months, and I don't see a single hole on those jeans. How th' fuck are those damn things not torn to shreds by now?"

I looked down at my pants, and then up at Cass like she'd gone nuts. Enough people had looked at me like I'd gone crazy lately, so I guess it was my turn.

"Uh... because I only got these the other day? I picked them up at Mick and Ralph's for, like, next to nothing." Cass narrowed her eyes, looking confused. "I'm serious. I've gone through about ten pairs of pants since coming out to the Mojave. The rips you can just sew up, and mud washes out, but blood's hell to shift! Once it dries, that shit never comes out. You might as well just get new at that point. And with the amount I've been shot at the last few weeks..."

"Are you fuckin' with me?" Cass smiled and started chuckling. "Ten pairs! What th' fuck, man!"

"Did you seriously think I'd been wearing the same pair of pants all this time?" I asked. Cass shrugged and nodded.

Someone was standing next to my car, looking around suspiciously. He wasn't anywhere near the doors, and it didn't look like he was trying to break in, but his shifty eyes under a short-brim fedora was making me all manner of suspicious. I held out a hand to stop Cass as subtly as I could; once she was stopped, I cautiously approached, the fingers of my cybernetic hand flexing slightly.

"Hi there," I said aloud. He jerked his head up at the sound. "Can I help you?"

"Oh... uh..." He cleared his throat. "Hey. You... you're the Courier, aren't you?" He was only mostly looking at me. He kept glancing from side to side, like he was expecting someone.

More alarm bells blared inside my head. I unbuttoned the holster on my hip as subtly as I could manage and my hand hovered above Roscoe.

"Who's askin'?" Behind me, I heard Cass drop her bag with an unceremonious thump and grab the shotgun off her back that she'd been carrying with her.

"I ain't lookin' fer trouble, man," he said, raising his hands after noticing the shotgun. "I already got enough of that on my plate. That's kinda why I tried to find you." I raised an eyebrow. "My name's Carlitos. Carlitos Wayne. Word on the street is if you got a problem you think is too big to be fixed, find the blue Corvega. The Courier can help just so long as you don't get on his bad side." He looked up at me fully, desperation evident in his eyes. "You that guy?"

"Maybe," I said, still not quite calm yet. "What's the problem?" Carlitos looked around again, nervously.

"I'd rather not say. Not out in the open like this." He cleared his throat again. "If it's all the same to you."

"Hang on a minute," I said, tossing a look to Cass; her shotgun was resting against her shoulder, and she shrugged, apparently not knowing what to make of this either. "I'd like to confer with my colleague first, if you don't mind. Fair?"

"Yeah... yeah, that's fair." He nodded, moving away from my car. Cass headed back to pick up her discarded bag, and I followed her.

"What do you think?" I asked in a hushed whisper. Cass slung the bag over her shoulder and scrunched up her face.

"I dunno," she whispered back. "He seems shifty, but not, like... dangerous shifty. More like..."

"Like he's worried someone's gonna try and kill him," I finished for her. She nodded.

"I say we hear him out and go from there," she said. I nodded back.

"Tell you what," I said, turning back to Carlitos. "The two of us were planning on getting a bite to eat around the corner. If you want, you can join us. Tell me your troubles there, and I'll... tell you if I can help or not."

"Alright," I settled down in the booth, Cass to my left and Carlitos sitting opposite me on the other side of the table. We'd ended up going to Buck's Steak House it was a buffet, so we wouldn't have to worry about any waiters overhearing and the three of us found a quiet booth away from the noisy lunchtime crowds. I did keep Roscoe's holster unbuttoned, however. Just in case. "Why don't you start the beginning? What's the problem?"

"I guess it all started a couple months ago. A while back, I was a Made Man. My fingers worked the magic, and my hands dealt the luck. Nobody but nobody pulled in as many caps as I could when I ran the tables." The bottlecap dropped, and I finally figured out who this guy was.

"Wait... are you an Omerta? One of the dealers, right?" I asked. He nodded.

"Damn straight! Or... well..." He coughed. "I was. The best they had. There wasn't a player who stood a chance, no wiseguy who didn't fear me, and no doll who could resist me. Gomorrah was my turf, y'know?"

"So what's the problem?" Cass asked, digging into her ribeye.

"I met a girl," he said simply, and I forced myself to pull a straight face. Of course it was a girl... "Joana. She was... beautiful doesn't even come close. When I first met her, she was working at the Atomic Wrangler. I must have gone to see her every day for a month... and then... then things got serious."

"You didn't tell her you loved her, did you?" I asked. I had a sneaking suspicion that 'working' at the Atomic Wrangler meant she was a hooker, rather than a waitress, and if that was the case, then it was possible that this situation was all manner of stupid. Carlitos shook his head.

"No, man. That's just it. She told me. And that was it. I was hooked. I was in love, and I... I..." He hung his head and sighed heavily. "I fucked up. I convinced her to come work at Gomorrah. I thought it'd be better for her if I got her out of the slums and into the city. Safer, you know?"

Cass and I exchanged glances. I could see where this was going, and it looked like Cass did too.

"When it was just me, I only paid attention to my own self. I mean, all I wanted, I had. Caps, booze, drugs, women, power, you name it. But then I brought Joana there... and I found out what it was like for the girls. Most of 'em are strung out on jet, coke, Med-X or worse. Hell, most of them are so fucked up, they don't even know where they are half the time. The bosses get 'em to spend all the money they earn on chems, and keep the girls in debt keep 'em working. Fuck, most of the girls there are slaves in all but name." Carlitos sighed again. "And then... Cachino made it worse..."

"How could it be worse?!" Cass asked through clenched teeth, finding it harder than me to remain calm. He hands were balled into tight, white-knuckle fists.

"Wait, Cachino?" I asked. I had a bad feeling about this...

"Yeah. He wanted Joana all to himself, the backstabbing snake. Before he whacked the bosses and took over..." Don't say anything, Sheason. You'll just confuse the matter. "...he told Nero and Big Sal that he caught me spring cleaning my tributes to the family. The bosses put a price on my head within the hour. I had to skip town, just to keep from swimmin' with the lakelurks. Nobody leaves the Omertas unless it's in a bodybag... and now with Cachino runnin' the show, it's even easier for him to keep me out of the way."

"So, what, you want my help to get Cachino to back off?" I asked, fairly certain that I could manage that. If he was as squirrely as I remember, I'd barely need to rough him up and I'd gotten a few upgrades since then to help me in that department.

"Man, fuck Cachino!" He raised his voice and slammed a fist on the table, but reined it in before drawing too much attention. "I don't care about that asshole! All I care about is Joana! I got her into that godawful mess, but I can't do a fuckin' thing to get her out! If it wasn't for the price on my head, I'd have tried to bust her out of there weeks ago. But I can't even so much as look at the Strip without Cachino knowin' about it, and siccin' every wiseguy in town on my ass!" He let out a rough sigh. "That's why I came to you. I'm stuck like I don't know, man. I need some help."

I looked over at Cass. She nodded at me with a fierce look in her eyes. That was determination if I ever saw it.

"I'll see what I can do."

"So, what do you think?" Cass asked from her spot in the passenger seat, her bag of jeans in the footwell. After we talked more details about the situation (and the plan he couldn't carry out himself), we dropped Carlitos off at his safehouse and I drove the two of us back to the 38.

"I think he's a moron," I said without hesitation. "But he's a moron who wants to do some good."

"Sounds like the two've you are made fer each other, ya moron," Cass smirked. I nodded in agreement.

"Quite. Point is, he's right. We need to get those girls out of there as soon as possible."

"Good." Cass said, a bit forcefully. "Course, I don't know why you can't just go up to Cachino and force that asshole to let 'em go. Hell, since gettin' rid of House, you're practically his boss. You could just roll up an' tell him what-for." She smacked a fist in her palm, and then cracked her knuckles to punctuate the thought.

"Oh, trust me..." I gritted my teeth, focusing very hard on not putting any creases into the steering wheel with my cybernetic hand. "Cachino and I are gonna have words. But I think Carlitos has the best idea for right now. We should try and get Joana and as many of the girls clear before doing anything else."

I'd limit any potential collateral damage that way.

"Alrighty then," Cass smirked, leaning back. "Let's go free some hookers!"