Echo's of Eras Past

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A Fallout: New Vegas fanfic

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By Zombie Boy

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"American Woman, don't need your war machine's

Find someone else's dream"

American Woman, by The Guess Who

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Chapter One

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Pausing to catch her breath and take a swig of water from her canteen, Molly scanned the moonlit horizon and exhaled tiredly. It had been a very long day for her, and judging by how that large concrete dinosaur slash snipers nest on the horizon, she had at least an hour and a half to go.

Assuming, of course, that she didn't run into anything predatory on the way. Like that camp of raiders she'd stumbled across around sunset. That had been annoying to say the least.

"Got armor and ammo out of it at least." Molly mused to herself, glancing down at the spiky metal armor she was clad in. "Better ventilation too... better than that damn Vault Suit."

Molly frowned as she screwed the cap back onto her canteen and started walking again along the cracked and buckled remains of Highway 95 towards Novac.

Molly scowled and reached up to scratch at the bandages covering a patch on the left side of her head.

"Benny, you are gonna fucking die." Molly thought, a growl bubbling up through her throat.

Benny. Yes, that gaudily dressed man was going to die for what he did. Nobody shot her in the head and got away with it. When she found him, she was going to take that scrimshawed Hi-Power of his, shove it up his ass, and empty the magazine.

As for those Khans that had been with him, all she wanted from them was her rifle and pistol back. She had rather liked that 10mm...

Her musings were cut short when she heard the scrabbling of clawed feet on pebbled ground. Instantaneously, her rifle was up and shouldered as the first Gecko came boiling out from out from behind a boulder.

The green tritium dot settled in between the two on the rear leaf, aligning perfectly with the Gecko's gaping maw as it came scrabbling towards her. Squeezing the trigger, she sent a 75 grain boat tail through it's left eye and into it's brain.

Racking the bolt on her rifle, she shifted her aim as two more came following hot on the heels of the first one. Two quick shots later, Molly found herself standing over three fresh Blue Gecko corpses.

Taking a breath, she exhaled and lowered her rifle.

"Oh well." she said as she slung her rifle. "At least they're not Golden Gecko's"

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Boone's brow furrowed as he made out a figure walking on the road.

"The hell..." he thought as something caught his eye, and cranked up the magnification on his scope up to 12 power.

It took him a moment to reacquire his target, and when he did, Boone confirmed that what he had seen was true: the figure was wearing a First Recon beret.

"Huh. First Recon." he thought as he leveled the cross hairs on the figure. "What's your story?"

Boone followed her through his scope as she approached Novac. As she approached, he noted that she was very pale, with what looked like a blueish complexion, but he marked it off as distortion from the scope.

When she got into town, she talked with the traveling doctor for a few moments, then headed for the motel office. He heard her enter the office, reemerge a few minutes later, then walk up the the steps to her room.

"Huh." he thought as he resumed his scanning of the Mojave through his scope. "I'll ask Jeanne-May which room's hers in the morning."

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Molly's eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the motel room and she paused to take in her surroundings and make contingency plans. She hadn't lived as long as she had by being sloppy.

"Well, this is four star, isn't it?" she asked herself and started to unbuckle her pack.

Dropping her pack on the floor with a 'thump', her rifle and gun belt followed suit. Leaning the rifle against the wall next to the bed, she sat down on the bed and checked her ammo.

"Okay, forty six rounds of .223 hunting ammo and six rounds of 5.56, for a total of fifty two rounds." she muttered under her breath as she tallied her ammunition. "And twenty nine rounds of 9mm."

Drumming her fingers on the bed, Molly frowned. This was not anywhere near the amount of ammunition she was comfortable with.

Well, actually, she had no real shortage of ammo if you were going to be technical about it. She had an extra two hundred and fifty rounds of ammo in the bottom of her pack- in .308 and 10mm, respectively.

Her frown deepened as that brought back the memories of when Benny and his Khan butt buddies had ambushed her. She had just passed Goodsprings, and was walking up the hill that their cemetery was located on when they got her.

Normally, she would have heard them a mile away and either avoided them or (most likely) sneak up on them and kill them. But in this case, she'd been distracted by the valley full of radscorpions that she had been keeping an ear on.

One thing was for sure though- she'd lucked out when they'd jumped her. When they'd hit her, her pack had rolled down into the valley and they had understandably not gone after it.

Since they hadn't did that, they weren't able to go through it and find her First Recon beret. If they had found it, Molly was damn sure that she wouldn't have left that hole.

Wincing, she rubbed her eyes and realized that she was damn tired. Even though her stamina was considerably higher than average, the last couple of days had pushed her to her limits.

"Fuck, I'm tired." she said to no one in particular, and glanced over at the teddy bear lying face down at the foot of the bed.

"Hey, Mr Bear, you mind if I share your bed?" she asked, poking the bear with the muzzle of her pistol.

Smirking in tired amusement, she peeled off her underclothes, turned off the light, and lay down, one hand still clutching her Hi-Power.

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Molly's eyes snapped open to the sound of someone pounding on her motel room door and instinctively she flipped over onto her back and had her pistol leveled at the door. It took her a moment for her to realize that if someone was trying to break in and kill her, they wouldn't be just knocking on her door.

Exhaling noisily, she rolled out of bed and got to her feet. "I'm coming!" she yelled as her unknown caller pounded again.

Walking up to her door, she stood next to it, pistol at the ready. "Who is it?" she asked, finger resting lightly on the trigger.

"Boone." a some what gruff male voice answered on the other side of the door. "I want to talk to you."

"About what?" Molly challenged.

"About why a First Recon is out wandering the desert." the voice answered.

Molly scowled for second, then it clicked into place. Novac was guarded by a pair of sharpshooters, both former First Recon. Mentally cursing, she shook her head and wiped a few strands of hair out of her eyes.

"Fucking Benny." she thought sourly about how the tackily dressed casino head's shooting her had rendered her normally quick thinking slightly fuzzy.

"Hold on." she told the guy on the other side of the door and began to unlock it.

When she opened the door she found a stern faced, well muscled man in cargo pants, a graying white undershirt, and combat boots, with the red beret of First Recon and a pair of aviator sunglasses rounding out the picture.

When he saw her, the man paused for a second, then arched an eyebrow. "You certainly know how to put a man at ease." he said.

Molly blinked a couple of times, then rolled her eyes as realized that she had answered the door without a stitch of clothing on.

"What? You never seen a naked woman before?" she asked.

Molly noticed the dark look that flickered over Boone's face when she said that. There was trauma associated with her comment, and she filed that away for possible use later.

"Yes." he said, trying to keep his voice flat (and failing).

"That's good." Molly said. "Look, you mind waiting half an hour while I clean up and get dressed?"

"Fine by me." Boone said.

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Thirty five minutes later Molly stepped out of her motel room, bathed and dressed in her newly acquired metal armor. Outside her door she found Boone sitting on the balcony, with his back against the railing.

"Okay." she said as Boone got to his feet. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I hold the night watch here." Boone began. "And I saw that when you came in last night that you were wearing a First Recon beret." he added, tapping the one perched on his own head for emphasis.

"Yeah." Molly said, her face calm, not showing any of the thoughts racing through her head. "You could say that I was one."

Boone nodded once, accepting her explanation with out question. Molly filed that interesting tidbit away for further investigation.

"Good." Boone said. "I need someone I can trust."

There was a 'ding' in the back of her mind as a little red flag went up. In her experience, when someone said that, it meant that they needed something done. Usually bloody- and profitable.

"With what?" Molly asked.

"My wife is dead." Boone explained.

In the back of her mind, Molly could hear the sound of bottle caps. "She is?" she asked, playing dumb.

"Yeah." Boone said. "The legion took her."

All of a sudden the sound of caps were replaced with a warning klaxon. "The Legion?" she asked cautiously. "You want to go up against the Legion?"

"No, nothing like that." Boone said with a shake of his head. "Legion slavers took her. And I know someone around here helped them."

And then things clicked into place. "And you don't know who to trust around here, because it could be anyone."

"Exactly." Boone said. "So I decided that the only one I could trust is a stranger."

"Aand that's where I come in." Molly said.

"Yeah." Boone confirmed. "So, are you in?"

For a few seconds Molly considered Boone's offer. On one hand, the NCR wanted her dead thanks to what she had did in her past, and if Boone ever learned of who she truly was and what she had did, she had no doubt in her mind that he either turn her in or try to put a bullet in her head himself.

On the other hand, he was looking for the SOB who had sold his wife out to the Legion, and while she was no angel, there was no way in hell that she'd ever do anything like that.

"Yeah." she said. "I'm in. What do you need me to do?"

"I just need you to lead the person who did out by the bridge in front of the dinosaur." Boone said, describing his plan. "When you get them out there, signal me by putting your beret on."

"Right." Molly said. "When do you go on shift?"

"Sundown." Boone answered her.

"Okay then." Molly said. "I'll go ask around."

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"Well, that was a entertaining twenty minutes." Molly thought as she wandered away from No-Bark.

The man known as No-Bark, was, in her unprofessional opinion, completely out of his gorramed mind. But as had been mentioned before, he was at least entertaining.

For the past hour and a half, she had been asking around the town of Novac about Boone's wife, and No-Bark aside, she had been able to pick up a few things about her. For instance, she had found out that his wife had apparently didn't there.

She'd also been asking the other residents about the town itself, and she'd heard a few interesting tidbits about Jeanne-May and had decided that it was high time that she had a chat with her.

The bell chimed as Molly pushed the door open and strode into the lobby.

"Hey." she said as she approached the desk.

"OH, hello there." Jeanne-May said, marking her place in the trashy romance novel she had been reading. "How can I help you?" she asked.

"I got a few questions I'd like to bounce off ya." Molly said, leaning against the counter.

"Oh, well, ask away!" Jeanne-May said cheerfully.

"What's up with Boone?" Molly asked. "He seems really moody."

"Oh, that." Jeanne-May said with a wave of her hand. "It's about his wife."

Molly got an interested look on her face, the look of a gossip who had just heard something particularly juicy- though in her case it was confirming someone's doom.

"Oh, what about her?" Molly asked.

"Well, she was never happy here." Jeanne-May began. "He says that she's dead, but I know what happened. She decided to run off to better pastures..."

"Do tell." Molly said as a cash register rang in the back of her mind.

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Boone had just gotten on shift and the last rays of the of the sunset were hemorrhaging on the mountains when he noticed that new girl in town- Molly, that was her name- come walking along the street towards the bridge with Jeanne- May. Idly he watched them, and as they neared the bridge he saw Molly put her beret on.

Shouldering his rifle, Boone settled into a crouch and eased the cross hairs of his scope onto Jeanne-May's head.

"So that's who it was..." Boone thought as his finger caressed the trigger.

There was a sharp kick, the cross hairs jumped, and Jeanne-May's head exploded. Lowering his rifle, he saw Molly stand up from Jeanne-May's corpse, dusted something off of her shoulder, and walked towards the office.

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Flicking an eyeball off of her pauldron, Molly strode towards the office of the Novac Motel and walked in. Letting the door swing back into place behind her, she walked around to the far side of the counter and approached the safe embedded in the floor.

Twisting the key in the lock, she opened it and rifled through the contents, which were almost 1,100 in caps and a bill of sale written out on a yellowing sheet of paper. Pocketing the caps, she scanned the paper

"lets see here..." Molly murmured as she read the paper. "Bill of sale, for the woman and delivery of healthy child..."

Scowling, Molly slapped the door to the safe shut. "Jeanne-May, you heartless bitch." she growled, getting to her feet.

Walking out of the office with quick strides, she headed straight for Dinky. Going inside, she headed straight up the stairs for the snipers nest. Going through the door she found Boone waiting for her.

"So, it's done." he said.

"Yeah." Molly agreed.

"So, how did you know?" Boone asked.

"This." Molly said, and handed Boone the bill of sale.

Boone took the proffered piece of paper and read it, a scowl darkening his face.

"Figures." he muttered. "They would keep paperwork."

"So now what are you going to do?" Molly asked.

Boone shrugged. "Wander the wasteland I guess. I don't know." he answered simply. "I know I'm not staying here."

For the life of her, Molly didn't know why she did what she did next.

"Why not come with me?" she offered. "You want to get lost for a while, and I'm looking for the guy who shot me, so I have the feeling that I'll be going all over the place."

Boone considered her offer for a moment, then arched a questioning eyebrow at her. "You sure?" he asked.

Molly nodded. "Yeah." she said. "It'd be nice to have backup."

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Dawn's first blush was coloring the horizon when Molly knocked on Boone's door. After a few moments she heard the sound of footfalls padded up to the door as Boone checked to see who it was, followed by a pause, then there was the sound of the deadbolt being thrown.

"Morning." Boone grunted.

"Good morning." Molly said cheerfully. "You ready?"

"Yeah." Boone grunted again in reply. "Give me a sec."

"Kay." Molly said, and spent a few moments waiting outside Boone's door tapping her foot.

Boone reappeared moments later with his pack on his shoulders and his rifle slung.

"Alright, lets go." Boone said, shutting the door behind him. "So, where are we going?" he asked as they started walking.

"REPCONN." Molly answered as they passed through the parking lot gate. "Got a ghoul problem, apparently."

Boone grunted, then tapped Molly on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" Molly asked.

"Why are we going to REPCONN?" Boone asked as they took a right.

"I told you, it's got a ghoul problem-" Molly started to say but Boone interrupted her.

"No, why are we going there to deal with them?" Boone asked as they started walking towards the REPCONN facility.

"Information." Molly answered.

Boone grunted. "What are you looking to find?"

"There?" Molly asked. "Nothing. But Manny Vargas knows where Benny went, and he'll tell me after we clean it out."

The irritated sound grunt made Molly look over her shoulder.

"That gonna be a problem?" she asked.

"No." Boone said. "It's just Manny and I have some issues."

"Oh." Molly said. She'd seen the look that had came in Manny's eyes when the subject of Boone had came up, and she'd bet caps on what it was about: They batted for opposite teams.

Not that she had a problem with that- she was you could call a free agent.

"Well, in that case you can wait outside while I talk to him." Molly said and turned her attention back to the road.

Boone's answering grunt was cut off as a green humanoid figure came cresting over hill, running straight at them.

"He's mine." Boone said as he unslung his rifle.

Molly deliberately pulled her reactions and allowed Boone to get the shot on the Glowing One. Her purpose was twofold: One, it allowed her to get a better grasp of Boone's abilities, and two, she was concealing what her capabilities were as so to pass as a regular human.

Boone was way too young to remember some of her past exploits, and she would have remembered someone as charming as him from her time at Camp Golf -but, if it's one thing troopers liked to do, it was tell stories. And she was reasonably sure that her exit from Camp Golf and the First Recon had generated a lot of stories, stories that Boone was sure to have heard, if only in passing. And the last thing she wanted to happen was for him to figure out who she was.

Boone's rifle cracked as she brought hers to her shoulder, and she watched as the ghouls head exploded.

"Nice shot." she commented.

"Thanks." Boone said. "Why didn't you have him?"

"You try getting shot in the head and see what your reflexes are like." Molly shot back, pointing to the bandages on the left side of her face.

Boone was quite capable at using grunting as a means of communication, Molly noted.

They trudged on.

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End.

Authors note: And now I begin yet another story. I must be out of my gorramed mind... anyways, read and review please!