Standard disclaimer: None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Bethesda Game Studios. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.

Author's note: A little interlude before Samara finally heads off to do the Lonesome Road DLC. I'm still trying to figure out how to write it without just basically recapitulating the playthrough and boring everyone who reads it; if anyone has any ideas feel free to post them in the comments. I have some clear ideas about what I want to happen and how I want it to end, but I'm not sure how to work them into the material without straying too far from the canonical progression of what happens, or even if I should just go ahead and write what I want to happen and not worry about staying too close to canon. If I ever do figure out how to write it, I've got two more F:NV fics after that, and then my long crossover between F:NV and FO3 that is shaping up to be epic. We'll see - hopefully I'll be able to work through this problem with the Lonesome Road and get all this stuff finished someday!

New Vegas never slept. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the New Vegas Strip teemed with life. Lights blazed forth from every window and doorway, turning the sky above into a featureless black void. The streets were filled with revelers, on their way to or from one of the casinos: wealthy NCR caravan owners and Brahmin barons; drunken, off-duty soldiers staggering through the streets cursing Crocker, Kimball, Caesar, or the Legion; hookers, male and female, enticing their customers; thieves and muggers looking for easy prey; and of course, vagrants and junkies warming their hands around trashcan fires or simply passed out on the sidewalk, often reeking of urine and vomit.

Arcade had often reflected cynically on this juxtaposition of wealth and squalor; in all his time with the Followers, he had never been stationed anywhere else where the contrast was quite this blatant. He sometimes wondered if Vegas had been like this before the war as well; somehow, the gritty tawdriness of the town seemed such an essential part of its nature that he could not imagine it any other way. Raul might have known, perhaps, or Beatrix; then again, perhaps not. And in any case, it was largely irrelevant. If he had asked, and they had said "Yes," it would only have confirmed what he had already suspected; if they said "No," it could serve no function but to depress him. The past was the past, and looking backward accomplished nothing.

He turned such thoughts over morbidly as he followed after Samara's armored form. Samara was wrapped in a distant silence, and Arcade for his part was in no mood for conversation. He was still reeling from the argument with Samara and the confrontation with Boone earlier, and his thoughts were black as he and Samara wove their way through the New Vegas crowds.

When they passed the gate into Freeside, he turned to her. "You said you knew a place you wanted to stop for the night - may I ask where?" It came out waspish, more so than he meant, perhaps, but he wasn't in the frame of mind to care. "Because unless you have a base camp in the region that I don't know about, we'd have been better off staying in the Lucky 38 - "

"You'll see." She glanced at him with one pale eye. "We'd have to go by there anyway to pick something up, so this way it saves time."

"Go by where?" he demanded again. "I know you haven't got anything around here - "

"I said, you'll see," she replied. "Now come on." She forged ahead, pushing her way through the crowd; Arcade trailed resentfully after her.

Freeside was quieter than the Strip proper, if more dangerous; the NCR MPs and the Securitrons kept the Vegas Strip pretty well under control, and where they failed, enforcers for the Families that ran the casinos were willing to step in. After all, he thought sardonically, junkies ambushing casino patrons are bad for business. In outer Freeside, however, the closest thing to any sort of security force were the Kings, and they were essentially a protection racket, no matter what airs the King liked to give himself. The outer Freeside streets were so dangerous, especially at night, that Arcade himself had been hesitant to step outside the walls of the Old Mormon Fort after sundown unless absolutely necessary; when he had done so, he had made sure to keep one hand on the stock of his Plasma Defender at all times.

Samara, in contrast, showed no such concern; then again, Arcade reflected sourly, courage came easily when wearing Powered Armor and loaded down with more firepower than a combat Vertibird. The various sketchy types hanging around the Freeside streets took one look at the two of them and promptly gave them a wide berth. Once, suspicious rustling sounds came from a nearby alley; after a look at her Pip-Boy 3000, Samara stopped, turned in the direction of the sounds, and raised her Plasma Rifle meaningfully. Sudden silence ensued.

Apparently the junkies are smarter than usual tonight. It was almost a shame; the way he felt right now, Arcade could have done with a good fight or two.

Samara continued to say nothing as they passed the outer gates and into the Mojave desert proper. As the heavy gates ground shut behind them, Arcade breathed deeply, inhaling the cold, clear desert air. It was blessedly free of the reek of the Freeside slums. In the nighttime stillness, their footsteps crunched loudly on the remains of the old prewar road. Above, the stars slowly began to peek out of the blackness as they left the city lights behind.

When they had gone perhaps a mile down the road from New Vegas, Arcade spoke again. "Now will you tell me where we're going, Samara? Because it can't possibly be around here; this road doesn't lead to anywhere that's less than half a day away, and if you plan to walk that far - "

"No. This is it." Samara stopped dead in the middle of the roadway, glancing back behind them at the New Vegas walls. The city glowed, its ramparts and skyscrapers ablaze with yellow light, and above it all towered the Lucky 38, its circular penthouse overlooking the entire Mojave. Arcade spared a moment to wonder grimly what the rest of the suite was doing at this moment: what they thought of Samara's abrupt leavetaking.

Well, I know what Boone is doing. His mood darkened further.

"What do you mean, this is it?"

"This should be far enough away."

"Far enough away for what? I don't understand - "

Samara turned her pale eyes on him. "Take my arm."

"What?" He stared at her. "Why?"

"Take my arm." She held out her arm to him. After a moment, he hesitantly obeyed. Her Powered Armor was cool under his fingertips.

"Okay," he said slowly. "I've got you. But I still don't - "

"Hold on."

With her free hand, Samara opened a compartment in her armor and produced what appeared to be a gun, of a type Arcade had never seen before: a metal frame containing a glass tube, within which pulsed a bluish strobe light. A short antenna stood up from the end, and there was no visible muzzle opening. Some kind of energy weapon? Arcade's curiosity was piqued despite himself. He leaned forward to study it more closely-

Samara pulled the trigger. A flash of light took them away.

[*]

A terrible wrenching sensation tore at him; it felt as if he were being ripped apart, molecule by molecule. Terror filled him. He couldn't feel his body. He tried to cry out, but could not - he couldn't breathe, he didn't -

Then his feet jarred against something solid, that rang with a metallic sound, and he almost wept with relief. His knees tried to fold under him, and he staggered forward a step, catching himself against a metal wall. "Wh-what - " he gasped, trying to fill his lungs. "What happened, what - "

"I'm sorry," came Samara's voice from behind him, strangely diffident. "I probably should have warned you."

His fear was ebbing, and anger rushed in to take its place. Should have warned me? What the hell - ! He managed to straighten up, turning on her, furious and ready to let her have it -

- when his eyes went past her armored form, and his breath caught in his throat.

They were standing on a roofed balcony, high up in the air-so high up, in fact, that the view extended for miles. The sky stretching above was dark, spangled with an impossible number of stars, more stars than Arcade had ever imagined existed. They stared down on the harsh landscape below like chips of distant ice: cold, remote, and heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Far off in the distance was a line of mountains, as black and stark as cutouts against the deep cerulean sky. They extended to the right and the left, wrapping around, forming what was almost certainly a bowl enclosing the area; at their tips, Arcade could detect the slightest trace of a glow, indicating the presence of some sort of force field. Nestled against the base of those dark, distant mountains was a massive dome structure illuminated with pink floodlights; nearer to hand, a bank of six chimneys puffed out silent streams of smoke. The dome drew his eyes again and again; the floodlights gave it an eerie, almost sinister appearance.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore….

He turned to Samara, his mind reeling in something like shock. She was just standing there, watching him, her bulky armored form half in shadow from the balcony's overhanging roof. He drew a breath to steady himself, trying to get a grip on his surroundings; if he hadn't been wearing armor, he'd have pinched himself. "What - " He inhaled, trying to control his voice. "What is this place? Where are we?"

She shrugged with one shoulder, then glanced at him sidelong, almost shyly. "Big Mountain."

"Big…. Big Mountain….?" He repeated the words vacantly, as if they had no meaning.

"Yeah. You said you wanted to visit here, so…." Samara trailed off, offering that awkward, lopsided shrug again.

Big Mountain…. A sudden, sharp thrill ran through him. "But - but how…" He stared at her, then turned to look at the panorama beyond the balcony. What Samara was saying didn't seem quite real; he could hardly make sense of the words. We're really - "How did we get here?" he demanded, hearing the edges of an unsteady wildness in his voice.

"Transportalponder." She indicated the strange gun in her hand, its strobe lights still pulsing. "It's a teleportation thing - pull the trigger, and it takes you here instantly, from anywhere in the Mojave; or if you're here, it takes you back. They gave it to me after I finished here, last time - guess it was sort of their way of saying thanks. Or sorry, maybe. I'd like to think it was that."

Arcade barely heard her. Slowly, he moved along the edge of the balcony, one hand on the rail as he circled the central tower, taking in the vista before him. His breath hitched, came unsteadily. He had dreamed about seeing the place when he was a child, and now -

The land over which he looked out was desolate, devastated, just as Samara had described it that starlit night on Lake Mead. There was nothing but bare, cracked earth and rock, stretching from the base of the tower below them out to the edge of the distant mountain range. Pipes and rails crawled over the ground, connecting to low, rectangular concrete buildings that dotted the area before snaking off to areas unknown. Huge satellite dishes loomed against the mountain backdrop; to the northwest, he detected the remains of a barbed-wire stockade enclosing a number of small, ragged tents, and beyond that a jungle of hexagonal concrete pylons reared up from the blasted earth. He could see no signs of life anywhere, nothing but the crumbling remains of industry. It was as lonely as if he stood on the surface of the moon.

"It looks….dead," he murmured. "It looks awful…"

"Awful?" Samara's brows contracted in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"This…this place," he said, inadequately. "Samara, it's - it's so empty. You - " He turned to look at her; in that moment, it seemed better than looking at the blasted moonscape around him. A chill struck him and he wrapped his arms around himself. "When I dreamed about this place as a kid, I never thought it would be anything like this."

Her brows contracted further. "Well … I dunno. It's not really so bad," she offered, as if trying to placate him. "It … it sort of looks worse from up here than it really is. Anyway, this isn't where we need to be. We should get below."

She crossed the balcony to the metal door, opening it with a touch to reveal an elevator. Arcade followed her inside, grateful to leave the sight of such desolation.

Big Mountain …. it isn't anything like I thought it would be ….

[*]

The ride down in the elevator was a silent one; Arcade was bursting with questions, but they were all unformed; he could not seem to put anything into coherent order. He still hadn't by the time the elevator hit the bottom floor and the doors slid open before them. Beyond was a large, brightly lit circular room with three evenly spaced doors in the walls. Banks of computer equipment flashed around a station in the middle.

"Welcome to the Sink. My home in the Big MT." She gave him another one of those awkward, diffident glances, then stepped out into the room beyond. He hesitantly followed.

"Good evening, sir. Wonderful to see you back again. Will sir be staying the night?"

The voice was erudite and obviously synthetic; it sounded like a butler in old holotapes. It seemed to come from nowhere. Arcade started in surprise, then fumbled, "I, uh, I don't - "

"Yes, CI," Samara interrupted him. "We'll be staying the night. Me and my friend." An armored hand closed around his arm and propelled him forward, to the round computer station in the room's center. "This is my friend Arcade Gannon. Arcade, this is the Sink Central Intelligence Unit."

The Sink Central - He directed his gaze at the computer station's lit holographic top, hoping he was looking at the right thing; he had no idea what he was supposed to be seeing. "Uhhh…hi?"

"Welcome, Master Gannon," the holographic voice greeted him again. Then it turned faintly reproachful. "If sir had told us that sir intended to bring a guest along, we would have done our best to be prepared. As it is, I only hope that the accommodations are to sir's liking."

It took Arcade a moment to work out that the Central Intelligence Unit was not addressing him. "It called you 'sir?'"

"CI claims it was never programmed with equivalent female titles. I just got used to it," Samara explained. To the round station, she said, "Everything's fine, CI. Don't worry about it."

"It is gratifying that you are pleased, sir. If sir and sir's guest would care to relax with a light aperitif…."

Samara was already headed to one of the three doors, ignoring the Central Intelligence Unit's rambling. Arcade moved to go after her, and then his foot crashed into something hard.

"Hey! New guy! Watch it up there!"

Arcade glanced down involuntarily to find himself staring at a tiny Securitron, perhaps six inches high, twisted to look up at him. The screen in its middle was displaying the image of a smiling, bucktoothed mug. "I'm - I'm sorry?"

"Didn't think you had to watch out for poor ol' Muggy, didja? Well, fuck you too, pal!" It rolled closer. "Say, you wouldn't, by any chance, happen to have…a mug, would you? Any mugs for Muggy?" As Arcade warily edged past the little Securitron, Muggy advanced on him. "Please! Pleeeease, you GOTTA hook me up, I'm DYIN here!"

"I - " He took a step back, then another one. His eyes went to Samara's armored back, but she was doing something with her Pip-Boy and paid no notice. "I … I don't have any mugs for you," he ventured, uncertain. Mugs? What the hell…? He took another step back -

"Greetings, citizen!" At the new, crisp, militantly cheerful voice from behind him, Arcade actually jumped. "Any seditious material to report? Remember, citizen: All such material is to be delivered to your friendly Library Processing Unit for reprocessing! Failure to do so is treason!"

"Seditious material - what - ?" He turned to see a bank of computer equipment he did not recognize on the wall behind him, surrounding what appeared to be a deposit chute of some kind. "I don't - Samara? Little help here?"

"Well, what have we here?" drawled a low, military-sounding voice from the direction of what appeared to be a standing Auto-Doc unit against the far wall. "Looks like another shoe-lung patient! Nurse! Fish scalpel, stat!"

Various, rather alarming whirs and clicks began to echo from the depths of the Auto-Doc casing. Arcade tried to back away, but Muggy was ramming his feet.

"Please! Mugs! For the love of God, MUUUGS!I'll do anything, only, dear sweet Jesus, make with the mugs!"

"Remember, citizen, failure to deposit seditious material is treason! Failure to seek out seditious material to deposit is treason! Possession of seditious material, with or without intent to deposit it is treason! Failure to admit to possession of seditious material is treason! And remember, if you can't find seditious material, you're not looking hard enough, citizen!"

"By God, this is the worst case of shoe lung I've seen in all my days as an Auto-Doc! There's only one thing to do: open him up and remove his third liver! Get him on the table!"

"Samara, give me a hand here!" Arcade called rather desperately.

"Everyone! Shut up!" Samara's shout rang in the confines of the chamber. She turned in the doorframe and glared into the room. "Muggy, here." She produced what appeared to be a plain, ordinary coffee mug from within her armor and handed it to him. "I brought that back especially for you. Make it last."

"A mug! Love of God, a mug! Mug-mug-mug-mug-mug-mug…." Babbling to itself, the tiny Securitron rolled away, clutching its prize between its hands. Samara turned to the wall, dividing her glare between the primitive Auto-Doc unit and some sort of computer slot that Arcade hadn't noticed previously.

"Book Chute, no seditious material to report at this time, although rest assured the search continues," she said in a tone he had never heard from her before: as crisp and authoritative as that of the book chute itself. "Auto-Doc, neither of us need healing; your services are not currently necessary. Both of you," she emphasized strongly, "we just got in. Give us a break, okay?"

"Certainly! Have a nice daycycle, and remember: Happiness is mandatory, citizen!"

"Well, if you're sure you don't need any help," the Auto-Doc drawled. "Have ya given any more thought to that operation, Courier? Yer brain certainly has," it continued, its voice suggesting a grin.

"I've given it more thought and the answer still is no," Samara replied to the Auto-Doc. "You might say that, on this issue at least, my brain and I are of one mind." She smiled a little, while the Auto-Doc groaned.

"Shame. I took 'em out of you, I'd like to get the chance to see if I could do it in reverse. Ah well. If you and your mind change on this, let me know."

"Will do," Samara said. She nodded to Arcade. "Follow me." She stepped through the door.

[*]

"Sorry about that," she said, turning and glancing at him with one pale eye. A slight flush stained her tanned cheeks. "It gets a little … talkative in here sometimes."

Arcade, who was feeling beleaguered, bewildered, and way outside his comfort zone, groped for a response. "Thanks," he managed at last. "Does everything in here like to talk that much?"

"Not everything. But the things that do really like to talk. Again, I probably should have warned you, but I … I didn't really think about it, I guess."

Arcade nodded vaguely. His mind was jammed full of impressions that he could not put into any logical frame. He looked over the new room. It appeared to be some sort of small-scale hydroponics set-up: there were tanks growing rows of corn, prickly pear, Brock flowers, Xander roots - all the produce of the Mojave. The room raised more questions than it solved. After a moment, he ventured, "Anything that talks in here that I should know about?"

"Yeah, there's - " Samara began, but was interrupted.

"Hey, baby," cooed a deep, oily male voice that seemed to be coming from a boxlike contraption on a table near the door. "I see you picked up a friend. Well, I can seed two at once. I'm just that good."

"Samara, what is this?" Arcade asked, indicating the blinking bank of equipment.

"Tell you what, hot stuff," the box drawled, "if I told you you had a great body, would you hold it against me?"

He stared at the box. He had no idea what the expression on his face was at that moment. "I'm sorry, are - are you - Samara, is this thing actually hitting on me?"

Samara glanced over at the box, her pale eyes narrowing. "That's the Biological Research Station. He's kind of a pervert." She turned to address the box curtly. "Leave my friend alone. I'm not kidding."

"I'm telling you, Blondie: once you've had seed, that's all you need," the box drawled in what sounded like a pathetic attempt to be smooth. "Haven't had any luck with her yet, but maybe a little three-way action will be just the thing to draw her in - "

There was a resounding metal clanggggg! as Samara stepped forward and smacked the piece of equipment hard enough to jolt it against the table. The Research Station groaned.

"Damn, baby, didn't know you liked it rough - "

"I've put up with your crap for too long. I told you, leave my friend alone. If you don't shut up, I'll yank your personality module."

The Research Station's lights blinked, and it gave a single, frightened beep before falling silent. As Arcade cautiously navigated among the hydroponic beds, he heard a voice from behind him, female this time, but as cultured and erudite as CI's.

"Mercy! It's about time someone put that third-rate Lothario in his place. Well done, dear. His constant seeding of everything in sight is truly disturbing, and he has the filthiest habits too - scattering dirt and seeds around all over the place. I tell you, it's enough to make decent folk want to wash their hands - or it should be, at any rate."

Now what? Arcade turned to his companion, who was going through the fridge. "Samara, uh … your sink is talking."

"She's not my sink," Samara said, glancing over her shoulder. "She's her own sink. Ha, I knew I left these in here ... " She pulled out a few extra stimpaks. "Say hello, why don't you?" she challenged, her lips quirking in a smile.

Arcade faced the sink again, feeling faintly ridiculous. All right, more than faintly… "Uh, hi," he said awkwardly. "Arcade Gannon."

"What a pleasure to meet you, darling!" echoed from the direction of the sink. "Samara's mentioned you a time or two - she says you're a doctor?"

"Well … " Briefly Arcade wondered, with some unease, exactly what Samara had told this sink about him. I've heard of being brought home to meet the parents, but brought home to meet the sink? "Yes, but - "

"Wonderful. Finally there will be someone else around here who understands the danger of - " The sink paused, and Arcade sensed that if it could have, it would have shuddered. "Contamination," it breathed in undertones of horror.

"Contamination," he repeated in a flat voice.

"You have no idea, darling. This place is so … filthy! Simply covered in dirt, dust and grime. I do what I can, but I'm only one sink and none of the rest understand - it's just terrible, how little the rest of them care for cleanliness-"

"Enough, Sink," Samara said offhandedly. She extracted a few more things from the refrigerator - "Salient Green," she explained when Arcade gave her a curious look. "It'll come in very handy on the trail" - and beckoned to him. "Come on."

[*]

Carrying a handful of stimpaks and more of that Salient Green stuff, she led him back through the outer central room. "Hydroponics," she said, indicating the door behind them. "Living quarters," she said, indicating the central door. "That leads to the Think Tanks," she said, indicating the door far on the right, then turned to look at him. "Stay away from there. I mean it. No good will come of going up there." She led him through the central door, into a lounge area with a table with a toaster on it, a jukebox against the far wall between two further doors, a long couch against one wall, and a giant, flickering screen on the other wall, facing the couch.

"Why should I stay away from - " Arcade began to ask Samara, when he was interrupted by a snarling voice.

"Burn! Burn! All shall perish in the hellish fires of destruction! I shall call down my extra-crispy vengeance on the world and scorch the sky with charred deliciousness!"

"Will you shut up already? Damn! I'm sorry, Samara - jes' seems like he's been gettin worse since ya left."

"Indeed," chimed in another voice, cool, professional and feminine. "I think that using him to create all those Superheated Saturnite Fists was, in the long run, a mistake - it has increased his overall destructive tendencies."

"Thanks for the update," Samantha replied, without batting an eyelash. "Arcade - Toaster, Blind Diode Jefferson," she said, motioning toward the jukebox, "and Light Switch 01."

"Samara, how many things in here talk?" he demanded.

"You've met most of them," she said with a shrug. "And all the most obnoxious ones - "

"Hardly," the professional voice of the light switch scoffed. "You haven't yet met … " The voice paused, and when she spoke again, her tone dripped disapproval. "…her."

"Her?" Arcade couldn't help asking.

"The other light switch. She's nothing but a huge party girl, that one. All she cares about is fun and games. Dr. Mobius and I were for advancing the pursuit of science, while she - "

"That's enough," Samara reprimanded, looking back over her shoulder. "And Arcade - don't encourage everything, or they'll never shut up. This way." She passed through the open doorframe to the right, and Arcade followed. Behind him, he could hear the toaster snarling,

"That's right! That's right, puny flesh creatures! Flee from my righteous incendiary wrath! If only I had hands, or access to the reactors, I would SCORCH THE WORLD!"

"Fer the love o' God, won't you please shut yer trap? Damn!"

"I've been saying all along they should have decoupled your vocal interface. It would really be for the best."

"BURN YOU ALL! BURN YOU ALL!..."

The toaster's voice rang out behind them as they stepped into the bedroom.

[*]

"Hey, handsome. How about we turn out the lights and … turn on the lights?"

"Stop it, Light Switch 02," Samara said sharply. "We're not here for that sort of thing."

"Your loss, honey," the light switch cooed, but fell silent. Arcade waited with some trepidation to see if anything else would speak up and add its two cents, but there was nothing but blessed quiet. He turned to Samara, who had crossed the room and was investigating a chest by the side of the bed.

"Samara, what is this place?"

She didn't bother to glance up as she replied, over her shoulder, "This was Dr. Mobius's quarters. Before he left."

"Mobius." Arcade thought back, trying to remember what Samara had told him of the man two days or a lifetime ago. "He was the head researcher for Big MT, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Samara nodded. "This place belonged to him. He was really into robotics - not as much as 0, but a lot - and that's why the whole place talks: he wired up everything to respond to him. Gave everything their own personality modules too, probably for shits and giggles, or just to see if it could be done. That's why CI was never programmed with female titles," she added, "because it was just intended to respond to Dr. Mobius. He apparently didn't think he'd ever have anyone else visiting."

"I see," said Arcade, who didn't, at all. He rubbed at his forehead, where what felt like a decent migraine was starting. Out in the lobby, he could hear raised voices. Sounds like all the appliances are arguing with each other, he thought reflexively, then paused to consider just how weird that thought was. Samara continued to rummage in the chest, then straightened.

"This," she said. "This is what we came for."

Arcade looked over at her. She was holding some kind of energy weapon, one that he didn't recognize. He frowned. "What is it?"

She straightened. "Elijah's advanced LAER rifle," she told him. "He cobbled this together, then left it behind in his rush to escape when the Think Tanks came after him. It's kind of fragile," she said, frowning as she examined it, "because he sort of spliced it together from whatever he had lying to hand, but … I fiddled around with it enough while I was here that I have a pretty good idea how to keep it in working order." Some of her awkwardness and distance fell away from her as she turned the weapon over in her hands; she was smiling a little. "Father Elijah really knew what he was doing. This is more powerful than the Plasma Rifle, more powerful even than the Q-38 Matter Modulator. If I'm going after Ulysses - " her voice went cold " - this is the weapon I want at my side."

"I see," Arcade said quietly. He glanced back at the living-room area, where the appliances were still chattering away, then crossed his arms with a dissatisfied sigh. Samara took no notice. Her hands were clenched on the LAER rifle, but her pale eyes were distant; she seemed to be gazing past the weapon to something only she could see. Arcade scuffed the sole of his boot along the floor restlessly.

"Samara … "

She seemed to come back to herself a bit. "Yes?"

"Not to belabor the proverbial moribund equine, but … are you sure you've really thought this through?"

"Arcade, stop."

It was cold, clipped: a clear warning that he was seriously testing her patience. Arcade knew he should probably back off. Then again, he mused, I've never been accused of knowing what's good for me…. "Look, all I'm saying is that - "

"Arcade." She turned to stare at him, with those cold, unblinking pale eyes. So like Boone's… "We just had this argument. You lost. Remember?"

He held up his hands. "Yes, I remember that. This isn't …. This is different, Samara," he tried to tell her. "What I mean to say is - "

"If you're trying to talk me out of going after Ulysses, forget it." Her voice was iron hard. "That's not happening."

"Will you just listen to me for once?" he demanded, his voice rising harshly. "Te provoco, Samara. God. You know, what's the point of even having companions if you don't at least hear them out once in a while? I'm your friend, Samara," he said, wondering if it were true. "I'm really, truly your friend. I just want to help you."

She gave him a sour look. "I've heard that before."

"Really? Where?"

"It was …." She cast her eyes down. "I don't remember."

"Right." Arcade sighed. "Samara, look. I get that you don't care about the Mojave right now. Believe me, I do. You made that perfectly clear. That's not what I'm talking about here."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about … what's best for you," he said quietly.

Her brow furrowed. She doesn't seem angry, Arcade thought. At least there's that…. After a moment, watching him with those pale eyes, she said, "I don't understand."

"Samara, what will going after Ulysses do for you? How will killing him add to your life in any way?" Suddenly his armor seemed to weigh a metric ton; his knees felt as if they were going to give way. He moved to take a seat on the edge of the bed wearily. "Do you think it'll cure your amnesia? That's not likely. Maybe that might work in pre-war holotapes, but in real life, the causes of amnesia, whether psychogenic or physiological, are - let's just say it's a little more complex than that." He looked up at her, spreading his hands helplessly. "And then there's the fact that, from everything you've told me about him, he wants you to go after him. He's been trying to get under your skin, and right now? He's succeeding. You're giving him exactly what he wants by charging after him like this." He studied her. Her face was expressionless. "You want to get him back, really get him back? Well, then, 'Living well is the best revenge,'" he quoted, and watched those pale eyes glimmer.

"What are you saying?"

"You don't have to do this," he told her. "You can still walk away. Don't go after him, Samara. Go home instead. Back to the Lucky 38. Back to …" He swallowed a bit, then went on steadily, "Back to Boone, if you like. He'll take you back - there's not a doubt in my mind about that, though you may want to have him tested first," he added, letting some of the acid in his tongue slip. "Just go back there and go on with your life. Let that bastard rot in the Great Divide. Let him wait for you forever, until he finally realizes that you're not coming because you just don't care. Because he's not important to you. If he's as much of a narcissist as he sounds, ignoring him is by far the worst thing you could ever do to him." Her face was still unreadable; Arcade couldn't tell if he was reaching her at all.

"Ulysses needs to die." But he could see a muscle quiver along her jawline.

"Look at all the things you're giving this guy, Samara. You've damaged your relationship with Boone for him; you've hurt Veronica's feelings; you're making yourself miserable over this, leaving the Mojave in the lurch and exposing yourself to all sorts of unknown dangers … You're giving him so much power over you," he said, hearing his voice rise a bit in frustration. "For your own sake, Samara - let it go. Let him go. Get on with your life. You hear me?"

Samara said nothing for a long moment, her face expressionless and still in the warm neon lighting. Arcade held his breath, wondering, hoping that maybe he'd actually reached her …

"You'd better turn in. I want to head out early tomorrow morning. We've got a very, very long way to go and I want to get as much of a head start as possible."

She turned away from him and began the arduous process of climbing out of her Powered Armor. Arcade's jaw clenched and he cursed quietly to himself.

She didn't hear a damn word I said.

[*]

Arcade had expected that Samara would take the bed and he would be relegated to find sleeping accommodations wherever he could. He was surprised when Samara graciously gave up the single bed in the suite to him, taking the sofa in the outer room herself.

"Too many things in that room and they're too talkative," she said only when he asked her about it. "They'll shut up for me. Not sure they'd do the same for you." She jerked her head toward the doorframe. "Only Light Switch 02 in there, and even though she's kind of a party girl, she'll keep it down if you tell her to."

"Well … thank you, Samara," he said, oddly touched. She darted an awkward glance in his direction, and nodded once.

"No problem."

He'd retreated into the bedroom as Samara settled down on the couch outside. The various appliances out there raised their voices in cacophony, only to be effectively silenced by a ringing shout from Samara. Thereafter, all was quiet. Arcade, meanwhile, climbed out of and carefully stacked his Combat Armor Mk. II in the far corner, then stretched out on the bed, musing on Samara's unexpected generosity.

Of course, the problem with such generosity, he reflected some time later, was that it made it much more difficult for him to slip past her and into the rest of the suite.

He hadn't been able to sleep. Too many strange and stressful things had happened over the course of the last twenty-four hours - had it been less than a day ago that they had left the Mojave? It seems like years, he mused ruefully. His mind was crowded with confused thoughts all jostling for attention. Samara's loud snoring didn't help either; the noise echoing from the outer suite reminded him of his Ripper chainblade when he revved it up to full power. Finally, he realized that sleeping was a lost cause. Might as well go up on the balcony and look at the stars for a while - who knows, maybe I can sleep up there.

As he swung his feet over the edge of the bed, the lights in the room came on. "Going somewhere, big guy?"

Arcade cursed under his breath. What did Samara call that one, Light Switch 02? "Just up to the roof," he said, feeling faintly ridiculous - he wasn't even sure where in the room the light switch was located, so he really had no one to address. "I thought I would get some air."

"Why in such a hurry, handsome?" the light switch cooed. "Instead, why don't you stay down here? You could turn me off … and turn me on."

He rubbed at his forehead, wondering how he'd gotten into this conversation. Does Samara have to deal with this every time she visits here? "Sorry, not interested," he said shortly. "Look, I'm going to head out - can you tell everyone in the outer room to keep it down so Samara doesn't wake up?"

"Fine, be that way," the light switch huffed. "There, I've told them. Happy?"

"Yes, thanks." Arcade left his armor but hurriedly collected his weapon - he'd learned the hard way always to go armed - and moved toward the door, trying to tread lightly on the metal planking. The light switch apparently had been as good as her word, for as he made his way through the lounge, the other appliances all held their peace; the only sound was the chainsaw of Samara's long, rasping snores.

He was halfway through the room, trying to stealth past Samara, when Light Switch 02 called out, "For your information, Dr. Mobius used to spend hours turning me off and on. He couldn't get enough. Just so you know."

Damn.

"You? Please. Don't give yourself airs," the cool professional voice of the other light switch called out. "He was only using you. I was his true intellectual partner."

"Damn, girls, you still goin at it after all this time?" The jukebox's lights flashed in time with the words. "Mobius is long gone. Want my opinion, he was just playin ya both. Cool cat like him, way too much man to ever get hisself tied to one woman for long. No sense getting all heated up over 'im."

"Heat? Yes! Scorching, searing heat! All will burn! All will burn in the fires of my toasty rage! My heating elements of destruction shall sear the earth char-black!"

"Now look what you've done, 02," scolded Light Switch 01. "You've gotten him all worked up again. It'll take him hours to calm back down."

A snicker came from the direction of the bedroom. "At least I'm capable of getting something worked up -"

Samara's snores hitched and she tossed restlessly on the couch. Arcade winced.

"Can you please keep it down? You're going to wake up Samara!" he hissed, somewhat desperately, to the chattering appliances. "I - uh - you - jukebox," he faltered, appealing to what seemed to be the oldest and wisest personality in the room. "Can't you get them all to shut up?"

"That's Blind Diode Jefferson to you, young'un," the jukebox chided him. "Girls - Toaster - ya heard the man. Let Samara sleep. Girl's got enough problems without you all disturbin her more."

There was some grumbling, but the other appliances subsided, much to Arcade's relief. Samara tossed again on the couch, and her snoring hitched before resuming, louder than before. How on earth can she sleep through all this?

Two doors led out from the room. Desperate to get out of there before everything started chattering again, he darted through the nearest one.

[*]

Wrong door.

Instead of the roughly circular room dominated by the Sink Central Intelligence Unit, this was a rectangular metal box whose walls were lined with blinking computer banks. The only notable features were a row of three large spherical glass tanks against the left-hand wall. Great. Now how do I get back through there without waking everything up again?

While he was thinking, he wandered absently over to the first of the tanks. What is this thing? The tank was filled with an opaque liquid, but he could see that something was floating inside it. He narrowed his eyes, straining to see through the medium …

…then jumped back with a curse.

Floating suspended in the medium was a disembodied human spine. It was in perfect condition: each vertebra was articulated smoothly with the one above and below from C1 all the way to L5, the transverse processes were all intact, even the coccyx was present. Nerves and shreds of flesh still clung to it, clouding the liquid in which the spine floated. Arcade's mind immediately flashed back to what Samara had told him, that moonlit night on the raft in the middle of Lake Meade, and he knew whose spine this was. In a horrible, intuitive leap, he realized what must be in the remaining two tanks, and now as he looked at them, he could make out their forms: a human brain, hovering suspended in the liquid, and a heart, torn from its chest, in the tank furthest from him. Still beating, Jesus God.…

Christ, it's true. What Samara told me is true.

Arcade was not ordinarily squeamish; he'd seen many gruesome sights over the course of his medical training and career. But somehow, standing there, staring right at the evidence of the ordeal Samara had endured- realizing that the organs here belonged to his companion, to the woman with whom he had traveled, whose life he had saved and who had saved his life on multiple occasions; the woman with whom he had argued so bitterly just a day before, and who was now sleeping soundly in the outer room not thirty feet from these awful jars - he was filled with a wave of nausea. Dreadful visions of Samara, flesh torn, mutilated and bleeding, swam in the back of his mind. He shut his eyes, but it didn't help. His stomach lurched and he swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit. Jesus, it's all true, she …

"If you're going to do that," spoke a voice, male, accented and cultured, "please don't do that in here."

Something else? At this point Arcade had basically given up expecting things to make sense. He swallowed again, rubbing at his mouth with the back of one hand. "All right, w-who said that now?" He was dimly proud that his voice was only a little shaky.

"Who do you think, Arcade? It's the only thing in here capable of coherent speech, or at least - thought. I mean, you could try to talk to Spine or Heart, but I don't think you'd get anywhere."

"S…Samara's brain?" Hesitantly, Arcade took a step closer to the third tank on the end, where the dim outline of a human brain could be seen through the murky fluid. Now, he saw there was an indicator light at the tank's base, which pulsed as the brain … speaks? Thinks? This can't be, some distant part of his mind was yammering. All medical logic says this is impossible, it's impossible….

Distantly, he heard himself say, "How do you know who I am?"

He realized almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth how stupid a question that was, and Samara's brain gave a short, sharp laugh. "I was in Samara's head up until about a month ago. I know everything she knew up to that point. Of course I know who you are."

Arcade's eyes narrowed. "You - you don't sound like she does...why do you sound male?"

"When I got stuck in this tank, they had to give me whatever voice module was available and there wasn't a lot of choice. This was the only one that was even programmed in English. Believe me, I'm just as unhappy about it as Samara is, and that's a lot."

"Don't you want to be back in her head? How is she even - " He raised a hand to his own head. A terrible sense of unreality flooded him; he could barely even believe he was having this conversation. "How is she even able to live without you? I don't understand …. "

The brain laughed again. "Do I want to be back with her? Not a chance. Not while she's taking so many risks, at least. I told her: I've been shot once; that's enough for me. As for how she's able to live …" The blinking light flickered; it seemed to be the brain's equivalent of a shrug - and dear God, did I actually just think that? What does that even mean? "Both the Think Tanks and the Auto-Doc who did the extraction tried to explain it to us, but I don't think either of us could really follow it. We decided to just call it 'Science' and try not to worry about it too much. Frankly," the brain confessed, "with the things she's doing, I'm just glad to be well out of it and safe here."

Arcade's brows drew together. "Samara isn't this much of a coward."

"Samara hasn't been shot in the head," the brain retorted snappily.

"Yes she has - Wait, what am I even talking about here? Why am I arguing this?" He pinched himself, hard. That far-off part of his mind was gibbering in something close to hysteria.

"Argue away. I'll argue with you all day if you want. I've got nothing to do but sit here and float in a jar all day. I'll take any chance for human interaction I can get. What's that body of mine up to now?"

This whole situation is crazy, it's just crazy, it's just crazy - Abruptly he held up a hand. "I'm sorry… Can you give me a minute?"

"Take all the time you want," the brain told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

Arcade slumped back against the wall behind him, trying to make sense of the whole thing. Samara … dear God … He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples, shuddering, waiting for that sense of laughing horror to fade. Here I am, in the bowels of Big Mountain, talking - actually carrying on a conversation - with the disembodied brain of my team leader, who is sleeping soundly in the next room filled with chattering appliances … He drew deep breaths, trying to calm that part of himself that wanted to throw its head back and start howling at the moon.

How on Earth did Samara go through this and not lose her sanity?

He massaged his temples again as a thought came to him. "You're Samara's brain, right?"

"Short term memory problems? I just told you that."

Arcade's brows contracted again. "Samara's not this much of a wiseass, either."

"I float in a tank all day. I need to do something to occupy myself."

"Great. Never mind." Arcade pressed one hand to his forehead. "Look, if you're Samara's brain, you have a right to know what her body's doing - I mean, your body - I mean - you know what I mean," he said in exasperation. "Did you know she's going after Ulysses?"

The light at the base of the brain's tank flashed. "Ulysses? You mean, that other Courier? The one before us?"

"Yeah." Arcade started to say more, but the brain in the jar cut him off.

"Good. I hope she kills that fucker."

Et tu, Cerebrum? He bit back a sudden urge to scream. "Christ, what is it with you? Both of you? Don't you even see it's what Ulysses wants you to do?"

"Perhaps. But it's also what we want to do, so it works out fine for everyone," the brain answered smartly. "That bastard set us up to get shot in the head and left to die. I hope my body finds him and I hope she slaughters that son of a bitch. If anyone has it coming, he does."

Arcade pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his closed eyes. His incipient migraine felt as if it was returning. He gritted his teeth.

"You know, that's your body out there? Don't you - Don't you even care?" He was suddenly overcome with a sense of déjà vu, remembering how he'd said the exact same thing to Samara less than a day ago.

The indicator light flashed in its version of a shrug. "Should I? I'm out of her head. It doesn't matter to me what happens with her one way or another."

"But if she gets killed going after Ulysses, you'll never get back in her head," he insisted, trying not to lose his temper.

"So?" the brain fired back. "I don't need her anymore. Here in the tank, I'm safe. No bullets, no battles, no getting shot at - It's a pretty good life. Your brain should try it sometime."

Its light flickered coyly. What the hell - ? Is it suggesting - As Arcade tried to figure out what had been said - tried even to figure some way to parse the situation: having himself - or his brain? - hit on by the male-voiced brain of his female companion, herself sleeping just outside the door - the brain went on to say, "Embodiment is overrated. And from my point of view, one body is much like another; they're all expendable. If I ever do want to go back and Samara is not around, I'll just have the Auto-Doc install me in a lobotomite. Until then, I'll stay right where I am, thank you."

"But - " Arcade forcibly cut himself off. "Forget it. I've already had this argument with you - with her - with you? - twice. I'm not doing it again." His weirdness meter was on the verge of redlining. Suddenly he felt that he had to get out of there, or his own mind would shatter like glass. He could actually feel his sanity bending dangerously, like a tree limb in a high wind. "Have fun rotting in your jar while your body endangers herself."

"Oh, I will," the brain called after him as he headed for the door. "And if you ever want to try it, just let me know …"

He had never been so glad to get out of a place in his life.

[*]

He'd half expected another cacophony to erupt when he stepped back into the lounge, but except for a few, almost inaudible mutterings, the appliances held their peace; the only sound was Samara's chainsaw snoring. The jukebox's lights flashed at him in what he suspected was its version of a wink.

He chose the other door this time, and found himself back in the central area of the Sink, dominated by the big, round table of the Sink Central Intelligence Unit. His shoulders tensed warily as he stepped through the door, as he waited for the chatter to start up again, but this time the various appliances were silent. The tiny little Securitron, Muggy, was drowsing in a corner, holding the mug Samara had given him and mumbling to himself; nothing else spoke up to greet him, either. Whatever that jukebox did to shut everyone else up, I guess it worked.

He leaned against the cool metal of the wall, massaging his temples and trying to regain some sensation of normality. He felt as if he had just been plunged through a trap door into a nonsense world, where everything was frightfully skewed and horrors lay around every corner. Jesus God, Samara... The image that had formed when he first realized what was in those jars, of Samara's nightmarishly mutilated body, kept flickering behind his eyelids; trying to bring that picture together with the perfectly healthy Samara who was currently slumbering on the couch in the room behind him filled him with an unbearable sickness. Traces of thoughts and perceptions flitted through his mind more quickly than he could comprehend; he tried to grasp at some of them, any of them, to distract himself, but it was no use. Behind it all was that terrible, awful vision. How is she even - He slid down the wall and buried his head in his hands, shaking, for a long moment.

And she still wants to go after Ulysses. Somehow, in his current emotional state, that sounded like rankest insanity. He wanted to just grab her and hang onto her and stuff her away somewhere where she would be safe from all this craziness.

He drew a few breaths, striving for control. After a moment, he was able to master himself; the horrific images receded into the depths of his mind. Though he could still sense them below the surface of his consciousness, they no longer dominated his perceptions. He straightened from the wall, drew a deep breath and looked around.

I have to get out of here. He felt he couldn't stay in that nightmare suite another moment. But where to go?

His eyes fell on the door that Samara had warned him against, the door to the Think Tank. Almost without thought, he found himself heading toward it. At that moment, he didn't much care what lay beyond that door, as long as it was a distraction.

And besides….

After all, the thought ghosted across his perception, he'd always dreamed of meeting the founding giants of the Big MT….

[*]

Beyond the first door, Arcade found himself in a tiny airlock-type room with two doors leading out of it; the one to the right was marked "Think Tank" and the one to the left, "Big MT." Through the door to the right, he found a set of stairs, leading upward and opening into a vast space above. He ascended the stairs, only to hear….

"*Welcome! To BIIIIIIG MOOUNTAINNNN!*"

The voice, crisp and slightly nasal, echoed and reverberated throughout the cavernous, cathedral space; it was loud enough to make Arcade jump.

"-0, you CLATTERING COLLECTION of BOLTS! Refresh your biomed gel once in a while. That's MY line, you talentless hack!-" thundered a second voice, this one rich, supercilious, almost overpowering; distantly it occurred to Arcade that this one sounded like a narrator in an old prewar holotape.

"*Oh - gosh, I'm sorry, Borous! I just wanted to see what it would be like to say it, that's all - *"

"-Well, now you know, don't you? If you'll excuse me, 0 … *ahem* WELCOME! To BIIIIIIG MOUNTAIIIINNN!-" the second voice thundered, even louder and more overwhelming than the first one. Arcade staggered back a step in surprise, almost tripped over the stairs, and caught himself on the wall at the last moment. He straightened and for the first time, got a look at what was addressing him.

The metallic rasp of the voices had tipped him off that his interlocutors were not human, but seeing them was still a shock. Facing him, were gathered a group of hovering - machines? Arcade's mind was still reeling from the sheer level of weirdness he had encountered so far, but he thought he counted five. The entities facing him consisted of large globular jars containing brains floating in a viscous gel-like fluid of different colors. Attached to each jar, by mobile arms, were three huge video monitors, two displaying images of a single human eye and the third one showing a mouth, to make a "face" of sorts. The video monitors were of non-uniform size and seemed to have been scrounged from old parts. The dominant impression was of being surrounded by a flock of enormous eyes and mouths, all staring directly at him with intense interest. It was tremendously unnerving. Arcade stumbled back another step and this time nearly fell.

Think tanks, Arcade realized, remembering what Samara had told him. These must be the think tanks ….

He had no time for further reflections, as the Think Tanks jetted forward to surround him in a loose arc. "WHAT HAVE YOU GOT THERE, 0, BOROUS?" thundered the middle creature, this one with blue gel and his left eye-monitor significantly larger than his right. "AH. SEE HOW CLUMSY IT IS. IT IS CLEARLY A LOBOTOMITE THAT HAS SOMEHOW MANAGED TO FIND ITS WAY INTO OUR DOMAIN. SIMPLY VAPORIZE IT AND RETURN TO YOUR DUTIES."

"I don't think it is a lobotomite, Klein," purred another of the creatures, in a rather sultry, female voice. This one had purple brain fluid and two large "eyes" over a smaller mouth monitor. "Look, it's not wearing the patient jumpsuit or the hood and goggles, unlike my teddy bears."

A third creature, with green gel and three small-sized monitors, hissed and spat a crackle of static.

"*Hah! That's telling her, 8!*" This was the slightly nasal voice of the first speaker, the one who had previously been identified as 0; Arcade was able now to trace it to a tank with duller blue biomed gel than Klein's, and an enormous mouth-monitor. The female tank swiveled sharply to face him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"-It means, Dala, that your juvenile OBSESSION with lobotomites is both DISTURBING and DISGUSTING,-" announced the one who, by process of elimination, had to be Borous, with vibrant green gel and three large monitors of equal size.

"IT'S EVEN WORSE," thundered Klein, "THAT YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF YOUR TOYS AND THEY END UP GETTING THEIR ICKY FLUIDS EVERYWHERE. HOW MANY TIMES, DALA, HAVE I TOLD YOU TO PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF?"

8 hissed again, another static crackle.

"YES, YES, 8, YOU'VE SAID SO MANY TIMES BEFORE. DON'T YOU HAVE SOME AUDIO WAVES TO CALIBRATE?" Klein swiveled to glare at 8, who shrank back. "WE ALL HAVE RESEARCH TO DO AS A MATTER OF FACT, AND THIS LOBOTOMITE HAS TAKEN ENOUGH OF OUR TIME. AS I HAVE ALREADY INSTRUCTED YOU, VAPORIZE HIM AND RETURN TO YOUR DUTIES."

"Klein, he is not a lobotomite," Dala insisted, her biomed gel flashing.

"WELL, THEN, LOBOTOMIZE HIM! DO I HAVE TO THINK OF EVERYTHING FOR YOU, DALA? GREAT HEIDEGGER'S GHOST!"

Klein swiveled back to Arcade again, extending a mechanical projection from its - his? - central body that consisted of a central antenna surrounded by rings. A faint glow crackled around the end, and Arcade retreated still further. A spike of fear brushed his heart.

"Whoa - whoa, slow down here!" he spoke, figuring that the time to assert himself was now or never. "No one's lobotomizing anyone, all right? Who are you?"

The think tanks drew back in alarm. "IT TALKS!" said Klein, sounding completely bewildered.

"See? See? I told you it wasn't a lobotomite," purred Dala, sounding exceptionally pleased with herself. "It's not one of my toys, either, Klein."

"-Well, I say we cut its HEAD open to make SURE,-" demanded Borous.

"What?" Arcade began. "No, I - "

"QUIET, SKINVELOPE, THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU," Klein ordered peremptorily. Dala and 0 both flickered uneasily. 8 spat another burst of static.

"-EXCELLENT suggestion, 8!-" Borous replied. "-YES, by all means. Let's knock it out. Then we can do … WHATEVER WE WANT with it!-"

Rapidly descending toward panic, Arcade started to raise his Plasma Defender … and stopped. The weapon fell from his nerveless fingers. He realized, suddenly and with fear, that not only could he not draw and shoot them … he didn't even want to. He was frightened, yes, afraid of what they would do to him, but despite that, he had neither the desire, nor even the intention, to defend himself. What the hell - ?

"*Ehhh … I don't know if that's such a good idea,*" the one called 0 protested rather weakly. "*I mean - do you really think that's necessary, Borous?*"

"Now, Klein, let's not be hasty," Dala was pleading with her colleague. "After all, a self-aware research subject may provide us with useful information, and once we lobotomize it - "

"DALA, YOUR DISTURBING FASCINATION WITH THE SKINVELOPES IS ONCE AGAIN CLOUDING YOUR OBJECTIVITY. AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A SCIENTIST!" Klein spat in disgust.

"-And 0, your SIMPERING PUSILLANIMITY is NAUSEATING,-" denounced Borous. "-If you haven't got the stomach to do SERIOUS research, then get out of the way and let those of us who DO have the necessary digesting apparatus ADVANCE the cause of HUMAN KNOWLEDGE! DALA!-" Borous commanded. " -Prepare for … VIVISECTION!-"

"No!" Arcade shouted, trying to make himself heard over the chattering of the entities, wondering why under the sun he hadn't the slightest desire to defend himself. The icy shroud of fear was surrounding him. "Nobody's vivisecting me! Jesus, what's wrong with you?"

Klein swiveled to look at him with those huge, flat eyes. "NO VIVISECTIONS?" he asked, almost naively. "BUT THEN HOW ELSE WILL WE LEARN ABOUT YOU?"

"Oh, I don't know, you could try asking me?" he demanded, folding his arms across his chest.

Klein drew back now, retracting his monitors. His biomed gel flashed. "ASKING YOU? WHAT A NOVEL IDEA."

"See? This is what I was trying to tell you, Klein," Dala said. "A self-aware subject presents a fascinating challenge. We should take some time to … explore … this unique phenomenon." Her biomed gel flickeredalmost eagerly.

Borous's jets hummed. "-YES, it's all too OBVIOUS what YOU wish to … explore, Dala,-" the greenish yellow machine scoffed. 8 crackled again, somehow sounding almost exactly like a snicker.

"*Eh, I dunno, I think Dala has a point,*" 0 said, somewhat diffidently. "*I mean, it's kind of wasteful to vivisect when you don't have to, right? I mean - *" he tried to backtrack hastily as Klein swiveled to look at him. "*That is - that is if you want to vivisect him you can always do so later, and - okay, I'll shut up now,*" he stammered, and fell silent.

"AN EXCELLENT POINT, 0," Klein thundered.

"*Re-really? I mean - I mean, really! Of course it is!*" 0 said, somewhat stronger.

"YES, AN EXCELLENT POINT INDEED. I SUPPOSE EVEN A DECIDEDLY INFERIOR INTELLECT CAN STUMBLE UPON A NUGGET OF BRILLIANCE EVERY NOW AND THEN. VERY WELL. WE WILL HOLD OFF ON LOBOTOMIZING THE SKINVELOPE FOR THE MEANTIME. YOU MAY QUESTION HIM AT WILL," Klein boomed. "BUT BE SWIFT, BECAUSE FOR EVERY MOMENT WE SPEND LISTENING TO THIS UGLY BAG OF MOSTLY WATER, DOZENS - NO, HUNDREDS - OF VITAL DISCOVERIES GO BY THE WAYSIDE, SETTING THE CAUSE OF MANKIND BACK FOR CENTURIES."

Hundreds of vital discoveries …. Arcade wanted to rub at his temples. How deluded can you get?

"*So,*" said 0, sounding almost amusingly banal, "*who are you and what brings you here to Big Mountain?*"

A transportalponder gun? He thought that was what Samara had called it. He didn't say that. "I'm Arcade, Arcade Gannon," he said instead. He waited to see if there was any reaction, but the machines were silent. "I came with Samara - "

"SAMARA? THE COURIER?" Klein's booming voice reverberated with interest. "SHE HAS RETURNED?"

8 chattered more static, ending with a sharp hiss.

"*What is she doing here?*" 0 asked, his jets firing.

"She came back because … because she's going after a man named Ulysses," Arcade began, thinking rapidly.

"Ah. The first Courier to come through here. He was … intriguing," Dala purred.

Arcade edged away from her. "Samara has learned he's in a place called the Great Divide. She wanted to retrieve a certain weapon to take with her - "

"-The K9000 Cyber-Dog gun, I'll bet,-" Borous said proudly. "-None of the rest of you APPRECIATED my GENIUS,-" he boomed, turning to the others. "-They all called me MAD, putting the brain of a dog into a machine gun, but now the WORLD will see just how CORRECT I truly was!-"

"Is this true, skinvelope?" Dala murmured, turning to him.

"No," Arcade said bluntly. "She wanted Elijah's LAER weapon. That and something called Salient Green, from her stores."

"-Oh. Well … she COULD have wanted my gun.-" Borous's biomed gel flashed sulkily. "-Why DID she bring YOU along anyway, skinvelope?-"

"I - she thought she was doing me a favor," he began. Talking to these Think Tanks felt like trying to cross a river on slippery, unstable moss-covered stones, he realized; it seemed as if everything was continually shifting and he was in constant danger of being thrown off balance. "We'd talked about this place before, and - "

"YOU'VE HEARD OF US?" Klein boomed. The rest of them perked up as well, their monitors swinging toward him. "WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD? TALES OF OUR LEGENDARY BRILLIANCE?"

"Something like that." Arcade shoved his hands in his pockets, looking up at Klein rather ingenuously. Somehow he found himself offering an edited version of the truth. "I'd heard about this place from the time I was young. It always sounded like a - a place of wonders, a magical place where some of the brightest intellects in the country were gathered together - "

"THE BRIGHTEST INTELLECTS, SKINVELOPE," Klein corrected. "AND NOT JUST IN THE COUNTRY - IN THE WORLD."

"-SOME of us, anyway,-" Borous added, with a sideways glance at 0; 0's monitors retracted slightly.

"The brightest intellects, you say?" Dala moved closer to him. There was a rather disturbing intensity in the way her ocular monitors locked onto him; they tilted at an angle that suggested heavy liddedness. The languor in her voice thickened. "Tell us more, o bear of teddiness."

Bear of teddiness? Arcade frowned, thinking about how to proceed. The Think Tanks watched him expectantly. For a brief moment, the thought of trying to get them to pressure Samara from going after Ulysses occurred to him; then just as swiftly, he rejected the thought. He could already tell that these beings were far too arrogant and solipsistic for him to try and count on them for anything. So what, then, can I do? Slowly an idea came to him.

"I've heard this place, Big Mountain, called the repository of all human knowledge."

"YOU HAVE HEARD CORRECTLY," boomed Klein. "WE POSSESS, LOCKED WITHIN OUR DATABANKS, THE SUM TOTAL OF ALL THE KNOWLEDGE MANKIND EVER PRODUCED IN THE YEARS BEFORE THE GREAT STATIC. IN THE YEARS SINCE, THIS HAS EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED THROUGH THE NEVER-ENDING, TIRELESS EFFORTS OF MYSELF AND MY COLLEAGUES, IN OUR ONGOING STRUGGLE AGAINST THE EVIL DR. MOBIUS!"

I'll just bet. "The stories about this place said that those who found you could ask you questions." He could feel his confidence returning as the tales of his childhood came back to him, tales told by Daisy and Cannibal Johnson, Doc Henry, Moreno and Judah Kreger: the entire Remnant squad gathered around open fires, passing bottles of beer and whiskey around, laughing and reminiscing. His mother had always let him stay up late when the whole gang was together, and he had listened, rapt and dreaming, conjuring up bright and brilliant visions to fit the stories they told. "They said that anyone could ask you anything and you would answer. Is that true?"

The Think Tanks turned toward each other, communing silently. "*Well…true -ish,*" 0 said at last, his videoscreens canting. "*It all depends on - *"

"SILENCE, 0, YOU INTELLECTUAL MIDGET," boomed Klein; 0 beeped in distress and shut up. Klein's monitors flared in what looked like impatience. "WHAT WOULD YOU ASK OF US, SKINVELOPE?"

Arcade hadn't thought it would be this easy. He hesitated for a moment - and then it was there, as if he had thought it up beforehand. He drew himself up half-consciously. "My question is this: What will we find when we follow Ulysses to the Great Divide?"

Again, the think tanks turned inward, and a low humming sound passed among them; they seemed somehow perplexed.

"The Great Divide?" Dala asked, swiveling one monitor to look at him.

8 chattered some more meaningless static, and his ocular monitors tilted. So did Borous's, but at a different angle.

"-WHAT? THAT'S not facts, figures or data! What are you asking us for here? QUALITATIVE research? - " Borous swung on Arcade so violently that Arcade backed up a step.

"Look, the stories said anyone could ask you anything!" he insisted. "That's my question. Can you answer it or not?"

"*What you're asking … mmm, I dunno.*" 0 swiveled back and forth a bit. "*I mean, mostly what we know is either stuff we can access from our memory banks or that we've learned from experiments. Sounds like what you're asking for is for us to do some predictions, which - *" He cast an uneasy glance at the rest of the group. "*I mean, I personally always found predicting the future to be kind of dicey at best. Not to cast aspersions on Futurology, of course,*" he added hastily. "*It just always seems like - *"

8 rotated to glare at 0 and gave off more of that staticky chatter.

"NOW, NOW, 8," Klein chided. "THERE IS NO NEED TO BE SO HARD ON 0. HIS DEFICIENCES ARE COMMON KNOWLEDGE TO US ALL. THE QUESTION IS," and here he swiveled to glower at Arcade, "WHY WE SHOULD LISTEN TO THE FOOLISH INQUIRIES OF AN IGNORANT PRE-LOBOTOMITE IN THE FIRST PLACE. WE MUST ATTEND TO EXPERIMENTS THAT WILL AFFECT THE ENTIRE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE AND YOU WISH US TO ENGAGE IN FORTUNE-TELLING? WELL?"

It wasn't just Klein; all of them were glaring at him now. The huge video screens of eyes and mouths were more than a little disturbing; Arcade fought to maintain his composure. He folded his arms across his chest. "Well, if you can't do it - "

He hadn't really believed such an old trick would work, but amazingly the Think Tanks fell right into it as if they'd never heard of it before. "-NONSENSE!-" thundered Borous. "-By DEFINITION we possess ALL knowledge! Do you have ANY idea how many degrees we have all together? Why, Dala alone has 210 DOCTORATES! That's right, DOCTORATES! How many do YOU have?-"

"Two hundred eleven, Borous." Even in Dala's synthesized voice, there was a bit of an edge.

"-I don't count your doctorate in … Formography,-" Borous sneered. "-FILTHY subject not worthy of TRUE scientific investigation!-"

"It's the study of Formography, Borous," Dala corrected sharply. "Not that I would expect your limited brain to be able to appreciate such a fine and subtle distinction - "

"ENOUGH," thundered Klein. "YOU SEEK AN ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION, SKINVELOPE? THEN YOU SHALL HAVE ONE. COLLEAGUES!" he commanded.

Again, the Think Tanks turned inward, facing and communing with each other. The air seemed to thicken, to hum with unspoken mental communication; the atmosphere somehow grew heavy, portentious. The biomed gel filling the domes of the Think Tanks flickered with activity. Arcade waited, shifting restlessly from foot to foot. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Samara was going to awaken soon and what she would think when she found him gone. There was silence for a long time; Arcade was on the verge of prodding them again, when Dala spoke.

"The Great Divide…." she sighed. Her voice keened like wind in the old pre-war telephone lines that stretched across the open countryside.

"What will we find there?"

She turned her large oculars on him, but the video screens were dim and flickery; it was if her power was being rerouted to something else, some internal process that he could not see. "Should you and the Courier journey to the Great Divide, you will find …"

"What?"

The rest of the Think Tanks swiveled toward him now, and as with Dala, their attention seemed elsewhere.

"Death…." Dala sighed.

"-FIRE!-" thundered Borous.

"*Loss,*" 0 said, strangely mournful.

8 chattered more meaningless static.

"THE END OF EVERYTHING THAT HAS GONE FORWARD!" boomed Klein majestically. "THAT IS ALL, SKINVELOPE! WE CAN SEE NO MORE!"

The Think Tanks swiveled away and the flickering snow cleared off their video screens as they returned to the present. Arcade stared at them. His brows drew together. "What?" he demanded. "What does that even mean?"

"It means what it says, skinvelope," mused Dala. "We have told you all we can."

"*I told you Futurology was dicey at best,*" 0 offered, sounding conciliatory.

"But I could have come up with that on my own!"

"-But would it have been validated by SCIENCE!-" Borous challenged. His monitors were beginning to tilt at an aggressive angle.

"Validation? What validation? I don't see any validation here, just a bunch of random words strung together!" The atmosphere in the room was changing: Borous's biomed gel was beginning to flash aggressively, and Klein's and 8's monitors were canting as well. 0 had retreated a bit, looking uneasy again, while Dala watched everything with cool interest. Somewhat recklessly, Arcade pressed on. "What good are you, if you can't answer a simple question? I thought you knew everything! Do you or don't you?"

"-How DARE you question our answers, skinvelope!-" thundered Borous. "-Do you have the SLIGHTEST IDEA who we ARE?-"

"OUR UNDERSTANDING IS VASTLY BEYOND THE FEEBLE COMPREHENSION OF YOUR LIMITED MIND," Klein boomed. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT EITHER TO CRITICIZE OR TO JUDGE US. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE US, TO SEE THE THINGS WE SEE, TO KNOW THE THINGS WE KNOW. ACCEPT IT AND BE CONTENT."

"Look, all I'm asking for is a straight answer to my question! If you can't answer it, just say so directly, instead of giving me all this unscientific pseudo-mystical hogwash. If you-"

The biomed gel of the Think Tanks began to flash at an alarming rate. Their aspects turned distinctly stormy. 0 shivered and retreated even further behind Dala, whose ocular monitors flared. Arcade realized distantly that he might have said exactly the wrong thing -

"UNSCIENTIFIC!" thundered Klein. "HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU EVEN SPEAK TO US IN THAT WAY, YOU FILTHY SACK OF MEAT!"

8 hissed a menacing burst of static and darted forward.

" - I won't stand for such INSOLENCE! - " raged Borous. " -WE are as far beyond your COMPREHENSION as an AMOEBA is to YOU! And YOU seek to question US? - "

They began to advance on him. Alarmed, Arcade backed up, raising his hands in an attempted pacification gesture. Even though he could tell the situation was rapidly turning dangerous, he still didn't have the slightest desire to defend himself, and he couldn't figure out why - this curious lack was even more unnerving than the behavior of the Think Tanks. "All I'm saying is that the answer you gave me didn't seem to make sense," he tried. "If you could just explain - "

"EXPLAIN? EXPLAIN! WE NEVER EXPLAIN!" Klein boomed. "YOUR FEEBLE MIND IS COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING EVEN THE SIMPLEST OF THE EXPLANATIONS WE MIGHT GIVE! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A TOY FOR THOSE WHOSE INTELLECTS VASTLY OUTSTRIP YOUR OWN, SKINVELOPE! IT'S TIME YOU WERE TAUGHT TO REMEMBER THAT!"

Arcade's sense of alarm deepened into panic as Klein again extended the robotic arm from his chassis, tipped with a glowing antenna surrounded by a variety of rings. He recognized it all too readily as some sort of energy weapon, and backed up further, cursing internally.

" - YES, Klein, - " Borous boomedfuriously, unfolding his own weapon arm. " - Perhaps it's time I SHOW this skinvelope my advanced STERILIZATION PROCEDURES! - "

Oh, that doesn't sound good - A numb dread filled him. Klein and Borous were moving toward him, extending their weapon arms. Why on earth didn't I listen to Samara -

"Oh, now, Borous, surely there's no need for that," cooed Dala, jetting forward. "This pre-lobotomite would be an excellent subject for my research. Simply allow me to take him into custody and after I have exhausted his … potential … then I will turn him over to you, to do with as you like."

Her ocular monitors flared, again canting at that heavy-lidded angle. Somehow the predatory undertones in her voice disturbed him even more than Borous's and Klein's outright aggressiveness. Arcade slid backward another step, cursing and wondering why he didn't want to defend himself -

"All right, that's enough!"

"Samara?"

And there she was, striding up the stairs, clad in full Power Armor with her helmet off and hanging on her hip. In her hand was her Pulse Gun, a weapon specialized for killing robots. Relief washed over him in a powerful wave at her approach. She spared him a glance, and he could see that she was not happy with him; but she turned her attention to the Think Tanks. They backed up in a flurry of ocular monitors and robotic arms; Klein and Borous both blinked.

"COURIER? IT'S YOU?"

"That's right." Samara stepped past Arcade, placing herself between him and the Think Tanks. Her face was stern, her eyes cold. "It's me. And this man is under my protection. So no vivisection and no sterilization, Borous," she said, glaring at the Think Tank. "He leaves with all his parts intact. Or else we're going to have problems. Understand?"

"UNDERSTOOD," Klein boomed. "TAKE YOUR SKINVELOPE AND GET HIM OUT OF OUR SIGHT. HE HAS FAILED TO SHOW US THE PROPER DEFERENCE DUE OUR STATION!"

Samara glared at him. "What did you do, Arcade?"

"I just asked a question, that's all!" he protested, spreading his hands. "I didn't know they would be so touchy - "

"-He INSULTED us!-" raged Borous. "-This filthy bag of MEAT whose intellect is LIMITED to a BODY! How DARE he - -"

"I'm sure he didn't mean to," Samara hastened to reply diplomatically. Again, she cut a glance his way; Arcade simply shook his head. "I will remove him from your presence and won't bring him here again. How's that?"

"YES. I THINK THAT WOULD BE BEST," Klein agreed coldly. 8 crackled agreement. "LET US RETURN TO OUR EXPERIMENTS IN PEACE. VITAL DISCOVERIES ARE WAITING TO BE MADE, DISCOVERIES THAT WE HAVE LET PASS US BY FOR TOO LONG ALREADY."

"Exactly. Come on, Arcade," she said, glowering at him. "Let's go." She took Arcade by one arm, in a grip hard enough to hurt, and practically dragged him from the room.

"*Goodbye. It was nice meeting you,*" 0 called after them. Samara ignored him. As she pulled Arcade down the stairs, he glanced back over his shoulder to see Dala watching them go.

[*]

She kept up the grip on his arm until they were safely back in the suite; then she let him go with enough force to make him stumble a bit. Her pale eyes were cold, and he couldn't suppress a shiver. "All right, do you want to tell me what the hell you were doing up there after I told you to stay away from them?"

"I was - I was just curious, that's all," he protested lamely. His arm hurt where she had grabbed him and he rubbed at it slowly. "I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought - "

"You thought you'd do some exploring." Those eyes chilled further. "Well, I hope you're happy now. The Think Tanks are dangerous. I thought you understood that when I told you about them before. They see ordinary human beings as - as nothing more than test subjects to experiment on. You wouldn't even have been able to fight back if they went after you, either, because of that pacification field they've got there."

"Is that what that was?" he asked, still rubbing his arm. "I noticed that when they started, ah, getting aggressive, that somehow I didn't - I didn't even want to defend myself. It was pretty frightening. "

"Yeah. It doesn't work on me for some reason - I think it has to do with my being shot in the head - but it does work on other people." She stared at him, hard. "If I hadn't woken up when I did and asked the Sink where you'd gone, you could have been in serious trouble, Arcade. The next time I tell you not to do something, listen to me."

"I will, Samara," he said, chastened.

"Good."

She finally released him from that cold stare, busying herself with resettling the Pulse Gun in one of the many compartments of her armor. Arcade turned away, wrapping his arms around himself and trying to settle down. Now that he was away from the Think Tanks and in her presence again, the images he had been trying to suppress returned: images of her ripped open and bleeding, the awful jars holding pieces of her body in the back room. He felt his gorge rise and swallowed, hard.

"I, uh - I went into the other room," he ventured.

"The other room?" She glanced at him blankly.

"With the jars." He nodded in that direction, and saw her face change. "Samara - God, Jesus, why the hell didn't you tell us when it happened? We could have - I could have - Jesus, Samara, if you had let me know, if you had just said something, I - " He broke off, choked with emotion. His hands were trembling. Again that overpowering urge came to him to just scoop her up in his arms and shut her away somewhere safe, where nothing could hurt her.

That pale light in her eyes dimmed; Samara dropped her gaze to the floor and shifted her weight uneasily. "I dunno," she managed. Under Arcade's incredulous stare, she gave a lame shrug. "I guess it …it just didn't seem important. Anyway, I don't think you could have done anything the Auto-Doc out there can't do, so …. "

"Didn't seem important? Christ above, Samara, that's your body back there!"

A faint line appeared between her brows as she stared at him. "It's all right, Arcade," she offered tentatively. "It - it doesn't matter, not really. It turned out okay. The stuff they gave me - the stuff they put in to replace it - " she gestured at herself vaguely " - It's better than what they took out, so really, I came out of it ahead." In the very back of his mind, Arcade wondered blackly if that were some sort of pun. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and awkwardly touched him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine. I'm still here, aren't I?"

No, you're not "fine," he wanted to say. Christ, Samara, you're walking around without your internal organs and you don't even seem to care. He turned away again, kicking restlessly at the ground.

"Samara, please. Please, don't go after Ulysses. Let's just go home, please. I couldn't - I don't think I could stand it if something else happened to you." He didn't even stop to think what it sounded like.

That line between her brows deepened. "Arcade…. it's going to be all right," she offered him again. "There's nothing to worry about. We're just going to go in, kill Ulysses, and get out. We've done stuff like this a million times before, at least me and Boone have." He felt his jaw tighten at the mention of Boone. "It's not going to be like when I beamed in here."

"You don't know that." He drew a breath. "Samara, I asked them - "

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind."

Samara watched him for a moment longer, then said, "Well, I've done everything I came for, so we're done here. Get your armor and meet me up on the roof; we'll beam out shortly." He nodded silently. "And Arcade - " He glanced up at her. She offered one of her rare, small smiles. "Try not to worry, okay?"

Easier said than done, he thought grimly, and stood listening to her heavily armored footsteps ringing on the decks as she retreated.

[*]

He'd left his armor piled in Samara's room; he scrambled into it, wincing as he buckled the straps around him and braced to take the heavy load. It wasn't until he put his hand on his weapon holster and met only air that he realized he was unarmed.

What the - For a moment he only stood there, bewildered; then a sick feeling descended on him as he remembered where his Plasma Defender was.

Back with the Think Tanks, goddamn it, Gannon - He cursed himself and lashed out, kicking Samara's weapons chest hard; then cursed again, vilely, and dropped to the bed, grabbing hold of his throbbing foot with both hands. He felt like weeping a little at his own stupidity.

Forget it, part of him urged. Just go on. Samara can easily give you another weapon.

But it was my father's! another part of him cried desperately. It's all I have …. Memories came back to him, of his mother showing him the weapon in its case when he was a child, showing him how to clean it and care for it, letting him practice-fire it for the first time when he was ten; telling him how his father had used it to defend them, that it would be his someday, that his father had always wanted him to have it. I can't leave it, I can't -

He dithered uselessly for a moment, gave himself a rough mental shake. This isn't hard. Look, Gannon, just go in, take a quick look around … if they're all still hostile, you can get out immediately. Just do it. No need to bother Samara. Do it quick and get out.

"Right," he muttered to himself. "Okay. Here we go..."

His heart was in his throat as he made his way across the mercifully silent Sink to the stairs leading to the Think Tanks' room; he felt his pulse pounding and his hands were clammy. Remember: just take a quick look around, he repeated to himself, and if it looks dangerous, get out. He tried not to think that he might not be allowed to retreat; that perhaps they might have some sort of immobilization ray or stasis field that would keep him trapped there.

If they did have that … Samara would come and get me, he told himself. Nothing to worry about. He also tried to suppress the thought that Samara might not know anything had happened to him until it was too late. Musing once more that he had never been accused of knowing what was good for him, he drew a breath, braced himself, and started up the stairs, one step at a time. A chill had descended on him, and it was only the thought of his father's Plasma Defender up there that drew him onward.

He had half expected them to know he was coming and be waiting for him, ready to pounce when he reached the top of the stairs, but when he stepped off the top step and ascended into the vast, cathedralesque chamber, it seemed completely empty.

Where is everyone … ?

For a moment, he feared that it was some sort of trick, that they'd vacated the cathedral room so they could spring some trap on him, and he almost retreated; but then, deep in the shadows on the left side of the room, he spied the form of one of the Think Tanks working at a computer station. He hesitated a breath longer, debating whether to retreat in any case, when the Think Tank turned and he saw that it was Dala.

He went still, watching her warily. Dala jetted forward a bit, to the edge of the platform on which she was working, but came no closer. Her video eyes blinked.

"So, you have returned, as curious as a teddy bear. Welcome back, pre-lobotomite."

Arcade was silent a moment, trying to assess the situation. Dala watched him with her solemn, televised eyes, but remained where she was; she made no threatening moves, nor did she attempt to approach him. Carefully he took a step away from the stairwell into the room.

"Where is everybody?" His voice echoed slightly in the hush.

Those eyes blinked again. "They are recharging. The other Think Tanks are not accustomed to such excitement; it places a heavy drain on their internal batteries."

He studied her. "But you're not recharging."

"One of my twelve superdoctorate fields is skinvelope studies," Dala replied smoothly. "I am well acquainted with the raw, unbridled energies such beings of flesh can unleash. I have actually grown to find such discharges … stimulating. Thus I do not require recharge afterward as they do." Arcade forced his mind to slide right over any implications to that statement. "I suspected you would return."

"You did?"

"Yes. Unlike my colleagues, I not only have keen observational powers, but know well how to extrapolate from what I observe. You left something behind." She paused for a moment, and he heard a humming sound in the stillness. A panel opened at the base of her biomed gel dome, and a long, thin robotic arm extended. "Do you seek this, skinvelope?"

"You know, I have a name. It's Arcade. Arcade Gannon." He took another step forward, trying to see what the robotic arm held through the gloom.

"Names are paltry and inferior descriptors. They convey little meaning. We prefer to deal in titles."

"Well, I have a title, too," he retorted. "Doctor. Is that lofty enough for you?"

Her video monitors canted a bit, almost as if to express amusement. "It is acceptable. Doctor. Is this what you seek?" she repeated.

Arcade peered through the gloom, and saw his father's Plasma Defender, clutched in a robotic claw at the end of the arm. His heart leapt at the sight. "Yes. That's mine, all right," he said with evident relief. "It's what I came back for."

Dala's video eyes blinked. "Then come here, Doctor," she said, "and take it."

Arcade hesitated for a moment, then shook his head at his own doubts. If she wanted to harm you, she could easily have done so by now. He started forward, across the vast, metal expanse of flooring, to where Dala hovered at the edge of the platform. Dala remained still, watching him approach. He reached out to take the weapon from her robotic extension -

- and froze as another arm shot out and seized his face, closing its metal prongs around his jaw in an iron grip.

"What are you doing?" He jerked away, fighting to pull free. It was to no avail. The vise-like claw at the end of the robotic arm held him fast. A glowing light shone out from the base of the jar holding her brain, scanning him.

"Relax, Doctor," Dala murmured soothingly. "I mean you no harm. I only wish to examine you briefly; that is all. The Courier would not stand for more, I suspect." The claw swiveled, turning his head rather roughly to the side as the light strobed; he stumbled a bit. "You shall have your weapon back, never fear. Simply remain still for a moment more."

He swallowed, holding still as Dala turned his head the other way, still scanning, her huge monitors studying him solemnly. Just as he was about to protest, the claw at the end of the robot arm released him and the light clicked off. Dala gave a rich, rather sultry laugh. "Ahh, I see…. Take your weapon, Doctor. You may go."

He took the weapon, seating it back in its holster at once, sighing in relief; a subtle tension left him at the feel of its familiar weight on his hip. His jaw ached where Dala had grabbed it and he rubbed at it with one hand. Still, he lingered, though he couldn't have told why. "What did you see?"

She swiveled to face him fully front, and her monitors canted. "I see … why the Courier keeps you. You carry within yourself a rare and precious gift, young man."

Arcade shifted, somewhat irked at being called "young man." "And what gift is that?" he asked, his curiosity piqued.

Her monitors canted still further, and that sultry chuckle returned. "The gift to be perpetually dissatisfied with everything."

He crossed his arms. "That's not a gift. That's even lamer than your answers to my question earlier."

"Ah, you see?" Again, Dala gave that smoky laugh. Arcade took what he hoped was an unobtrusive step back from her. "It is evident," she continued, her voice turning darker and more somber, "that this gift has not made your life easy. It has caused you a great deal of heartache and pain; for you are someone for whom 'good enough' is never good enough. That can be a hard thing for those like yourself: when the reach of the perfect runs up against the limits of the possible. But without those like you, young man, to continually challenge those limits …. " She regarded him with those video eyes. "We could never know what the possible might dare. And living hobbled thus, what progress could there be?"

"I'm not sure 'progress' is such an unalloyed good." Arcade gestured, indicating the ruins of Big Mountain, the devastated, radioactive wastes beyond.

"Hm. Perhaps not. But in the end, it is our only hope."

"I suppose I can't dispute that." An idea came to him. "I've got a question for you, Dala."

Dala hummed contentedly. "Well? Ask, my beautiful bear of teddiness, and I will answer as I may."

"What makes a hero? A true hero?"

It was Samara he was thinking of as he said this: pale-eyed Samara, who waited for him up on the roof right now, while her spine, brain and heart were stored forever in canopic jars deep within the bowels of Big Mountain. Samara, and her rare, small smiles and frightening anger; Samara, who had journeyed beyond the bounds of the Mojave to places distant as legend and met with dogs and gods, savages and scientists. Samara, with her complete disconcern for the Mojave and its inhabitants: Samara, the keystone of the Mojave, the one who would turn Fortuna's wheel by hand, deciding now and forever whether it would be NCR or Legion, good or evil.

Dala drew back from him in surprise and her video eyes canted.

"A hero?" For a moment, her monitors dimmed. "Hero. Noun. Classical mythology. 1.) A being of godlike prowess who came to be honored as a divinity. 2.) A warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage or ability. 3.) An immortal being; demigod - "

"No." Arcade brushed aside Dala's recitation. "I'm not interested in the dictionary definition of 'hero.' I can look that up for myself. I want to know what you think. What makes a hero?"

"I … I cannot say I had ever considered the matter before," Dala admitted. Her jets fired briefly, as if in confusion. "I suppose I would say … that a hero is one who accomplishes impossible tasks."

"No. That can't be all there is. There's got to be more to it than that." He clenched one hand on the stock of his Plasma Defender, and shifted his weight again, restlessly.

"Perhaps you will find the answer in the Great Divide," Dala hummed.

"Perhaps." Arcade glanced at his wrist chronometer and suddenly realized it had been nearly half an hour since Samara had left him. "I really need to go. The Courier is waiting for me."

He was slightly wary, wondering if she would attempt to stop him from leaving, but Dala simply hummed equably. "Farewell, Doctor. And know that if you ever should seek more knowledge, Big Mountain awaits."

"I'll keep that in mind," Arcade said, and took his leave.

[*]

It was rising dawn when he stepped out of the elevator a thousand feet up in the air; the sky that stretched above them like a bowl was a pale azure and the mountains to the east seemed to glow around the edges with brilliant pink. The beauty of the heavens only threw into stark relief the cracked and broken landscape below. Samara was leaning on the railing looking out over the landscape but she straightened and turned toward him as he came up.

"What took you so long?"

"Looking for some things," Arcade said easily. "I'd misplaced my Plasma Defender; it took me a while to locate it."

Her brows drew together. "You have it now, though, right?"

"Yeah, finally found it." He placed one hand on its stock. "Ready when you are."

"All right." She opened the compartment on her armor and took out the strange energy weapon that she had called the Transportalponder. "Take my arm."

He did so, curling his fingers around the cool shell of her armor. Samara looked at him sideways, another one of those awkward glances. "So … " she offered. "What did you think? About - " She gestured, taking in Big Mountain and the surroundings.

"Big Mountain …. " Arcade was silent a moment, trying to sort through his jumbled impressions of the devastated landscape around them, the Sink, the Think Tanks, Samara's horrific canopic jars, everything he had seen; trying to reconcile it all with the magical, mystical place he had dreamed of as a child. "It's nothing like I imagined," he confessed at last. Then, as Samara's face fell, he added, "But - thank you for bringing me here anyway. It was good to see this place at last."

Samara said nothing, but that small, rare smile crossed her lips again, softening and transforming her. In the back of his mind, Arcade wondered if she smiled like this for Boone. The smile remained in his mind's eye, as she pulled the trigger to the Transportalponder, and she and Big Mountain disappeared in a flash of brilliant light.

Finis.