Chapter 21

Camp McCarran was the NCR base next to the Strip. Prewar, it had been an airfield, and the NCR made use of the vast space. All things considered, it was pretty defensible.

The guards at the entrance performed a rather brief security check. They did a quick search but allowed her to keep her weapons. Something in the back of her mind insisted to her that this was stupid. The Legion had better security. Even the casinos on the Strip were more careful.

"Who are you visiting?" a guard asked.

"Captain Curtis," she told him.

The NCR soldier repeated the information on his radio. And then she was welcomed into Camp McCarran.

Captain Curtis's office was on the first floor, and he seemed rather surprised to see her. "Why are you here?"

Annoyed and impatient, she crossed her arms. "Caesar sent me."

Curtis jumped from his seat and ran to close the door. "Why don't you tell all of the NCR that we're Legion?" he hissed. "Why are they sending me a woman anyway?"

His agitation didn't faze her. "Do you have any news for Vulpes or not?"

"Not really news," he grunted, returning to his seat. "I'm sure he already knows about Mr. House. I just have a small problem." His voice trailed off, and he looked up to her expectantly.

She rolled her eyes. "What do you need?"

"They know there's an informant here. I've been tasked with finding who it is. But I can't very well turn myself in. The lieutenant's getting suspicious. I just need you to frame someone—a private that causes a lot of trouble anyway."

"Why can't you do it?" she asked.

"I can't do anything from my position," he said. "It would be too suspicious if I was seen rooting through his footlocker."

"And it wouldn't be suspicious if a civilian was doing it?"

Curtis frowned. "Not as suspicious."

He went to explain how after she planted the incriminating evidence, she would need to slip a bomb on the supply railway. It would help solidify their case against the private, benefiting the Legion.

"Once you've done that, you'll need to kill him."

"The private? Why?"

Curtis looked incredulous with her confusion. "So he won't be able to say anything otherwise or have a chance to prove his innocence."

"Wouldn't that be even more suspicious?"

"It's a risk I can't take."

She shook her head. "I won't kill him. I'll plant your evidence and blow up the rail line, but if you want him dead, you'll need to take care of it yourself."

"What kind of help are you supposed to be?" Curtis asked, annoyed. "I'll be sure to give a full report to Vulpes."

"Is that supposed to scare me?" she asked, unimpressed with the threat.

"It should. You might have heard what happened in Nipton."

She didn't bother to inform Curtis that Vulpes was, by every Legion right, her husband, and no matter what atrocities her husband might commit in Caesar's name, she was by no means afraid of him. For the most part.

She turned to leave the captain's office when he called out, "Silus has been captured and is here for interrogation, if Caesar wanted you to do something about that."

She paused at the doorway. "Silus?"

"You don't know who Silus is?" Curtis asked, getting bad-tempered all over again.

Her knuckles went white with how hard she gripped the doorframe. Her back flared with the ghost of the scars Silus himself had inflicted when he tortured and ravaged her. "I know exactly who Silus is."

After briefly speaking with the officer responsible for capturing and interrogating Silus, she discovered Silus had easily surrendered in the face of defeat. She smirked, knowing that surrender was not part of his training in a society that upholds honorable suicide. Silus was nothing but a coward, and here he was at her mercy.

The officer enlisted her help in the interrogation, since Silus had revealed nothing of Legion strategy. As a member of the NCR, the officer wasn't allowed to utilize the barbaric methods she preferred for interrogations, like senselessly beating the information out of her captives. This is where she, the Courier Reborn, came in. And she held no reservations about those methods either, especially if it was for Silus.

The officer went in to lead him off, introducing a 'friend.' From behind the glass, she saw Silus was smug and unafraid, even taunting the NCR officer with his enjoyment of taming slaves.

"We'll see what my friend has to say about that."

Silus's smirk instantly vanished once she stepped into the room. He tried unsuccessfully to recover from his shock. "Figures you are here, betraying us," he grunted in a thick voice. I told them all you would."

"You were the one that surrendered yourself," she pointed out, circling around him. "And, actually, Lord Caesar sent me here."

"No—" he hissed, the chair scraping across the floor as he struggled against his bindings. "No, I haven't betrayed Lord Caesar. I haven't defected. I've told them nothing."

"You surrendered, Silus. You have failed Caesar already."

"No. I am loyal. I am—"

"I don't really care, if I'm honest, Silus. Caesar might want you alive. But he's not here. I am."

Time began to pass strangely. Minutes ticked by, feeling like agonizing hours and brief seconds. She was not sensitive to the passage of time, only aware of the dull stinging on her knuckles.

She was not experienced, practiced at hand-to-hand combat, but since the NCR officer had confiscated her other weapons, her hands were the only things she had left. And she made use of them.

Silus's face was bloody and purple, dark bruises covering his cheeks and nose. Though he had struggled against his bindings, they prevented him from escape and retaliation. The force of her anger, her revenge rendered him unconscious within minutes. The last, meaningless words he choked out with bloodied spittle, "You profligate whore."

She didn't grace him with a response.

The NCR officer returned some minutes later, slightly irritated that Silus was unconscious. Her temper soothed when she told her the location of some insignificant Legion camp she had heard Vulpes mention. Satisfied, the NCR officer left, and she went to grab her knife in the absence of NCR eyes.

And she shoved the blade of that knife through Silus's temple.