The first thing he heard after stepping out of the elevator, was the Geiger counter on his pip-boy quietly ticking away in a vast chamber with a vaulted ceiling. The sight of it, made David Ishmael Kelly instantly think of ancient cathedrals built far-away and long ago in an older world as monuments to gods and kings now forgotten by many.

Only a select few cults though, would be mad enough to choose this place as their temple to a higher power. Along the walls of the poorly lit temple, he saw the dim outlines of what could only be nuclear missiles linked together like two giant machine gun belts feeding one big receiver.

The implications were starting sink in, and he was certain that his bowels were turning into water. There was enough destruction in here to burn the Mojave at least three times over. Elijah's plan to gas the Mojave looked downright silly next to this. As someone who had spent a good part of their adult life carrying danger, this was easily the most horrifying delivery he would ever make.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of two eyebots speeding across the chamber towards its edge, where a low rumble of metal on metal could be heard coming from the ceiling. A shaft of light came down through the opening ceiling and shone down on a large circular platform at the edge.

Over the dais, a skeletal gantry stood towering over the launchpad like a ladder. Closer to the center, two twisted steel girders stood on each side of the platform, and from a line that stretched between them, the old flag of the United States hung from the towers meant to hold the missiles in place, draped down like one great big tattered shower curtain.

David could make out the shape of a ballistic missile emerging from the center of the temple like a flower growing in the sunlight. The eyebots began to fly lazy circles around the emerging missile and the lone figure who stood at it's base.

On the back of his duster, a familiar symbol of the old world stared at him defiantly, its white stars shining in the light, and its red stripes hanging below like trails of blood. His arms dark skinned and muscular, covered in what were probably tribal tattoos. His hair was a massive dark brown collection of dreadlocks, which only served to remind David of the fury he had felt upon learning of the destruction of New Canaan at the hands of a tribe of savage chalk-powder coated fucks. Fucks who wore Dreadlocks in honor of this very man.

As David approached the lone figure, he couldn't help but feel a presence of sorts, like a mythical hero of old. A demigod. To think Johnson Nash had called this man a deadbeat once. His head stared at the ascending missile. One hand clasped a golden staff topped with some pommel, and by his side hung a 12.7mm submachine gun.

"I came. Just as you knew I would." David growled when he reached the edge of the launchpad. Ulysses slowly turned to face him. A pair of hazel eyes alive with hate glared down on him, the only readable feature on a face mostly obscured by a respirator.

"Your city, Vegas lies behind you, with the rest of its slaves." The low guttural voice of Ulysses was made even more sinister by the mask he wore. "Or is it just you, Courier, without the lights and ghosts. Judging by your shadow, you can't seem to let your machine go. Doesn't matter now." Ulysses snorted and crossed his arms. "Either way, the divide giants are awakening. The missiles here on their way home. There is no way to stop them."

"I still can't understand why you're doing this." David desperately tried to keep his voice calm.

A low guttural sound escaped his mask. "You've answered your question. And you'll die with that question on your lips. You don't see, listen. Even when it's all around you, no matter if I nailed it to your head like a gift from Caesar. You brought the divide to life, brought the bear, then the bull, brought me, following your tracks. And when I saw the divide you made, I saw a second chance, a new way of thinking. My world, no longer the East."

His tone lowered with contempt, "but then you brought the West in that package. Destroyed it all. Nearly killed me, flesh and spirit."

He continued his speech, "you destroyed something larger than the bear, greater than the bull. Even when you could have turned away, you brought it again, in that machine." Ulysses nearly hissed out his acknowledgment of ED-E.

"You destroyed a nation taking it's first breath. A place that could have been my home. Now I'll destroy yours."

As if New Canaan just wasn't fucking enough. Just how many tribes and nations did you help butcher and enslave, David raged to himself. When he spoke in turn, he found that he had a hard time finding his words.

"What happened at the Divide," David lost his voice only to find it after a few long seconds that seemed like eternity. "What I did, was an accident. What you are doing, is madness."

"No," Ulysses growled. "There is purpose. I believe you when you say that you were... careless. The Divide... The Chip... The machine you brought here... Many messages can be taken from that real or intended or not. What I do now, is an act of conviction."

This time he found the nerve to call out Ulysses on his bullshit. "If you blame me for the divide, then let me be the one to answer for it, I mean, can this be worth the lives of thousands of innocents."

"Blame you?" Ulysses asked incredulously as if the idea was madness. "Learned from you. Both the weapon to kill a nation, and the strength to do it. You showed me a road, a way to carry my message. You've already answered for what you've done."

"So you're just going to bomb the Mojave. Just for shits and giggles." He gritted his teeth with annoyance. Another madman wanting to reshape the Southwest, into their own twisted image.

The Sierra Madre had Father Elijah, a former elder of Mojave Brotherhood of Steel who understood the threat of civilation and sought to save humanity by freezing the desert in time and killing all stuborn vestiges of civilization. Arizona had Edward Sallow, who fancied himself the second coming of Julius Caesar and now dreamed of making old sin city his playground of evil. The Divide had this projectionist hypocrite.

The conversation that he had with Elijah at the big MT must have really been something. At least House, the vicious pychopath he was, could be made to see reason. House was capable of creating a plan for the future that did not require mass murder, despite his wilingness to silence entire communites for nothing more projected opposition to his rule.

"No, not the Mojave." Ulysses continued to explain himself like a super villain from an old world comic book. "The West, and all that has been built since America died. Same symbols as carried before the war, now a flag carried by a tribe of children." The man in the sleeveless duster tilted his head slightly to indicate the flag of the old world that hung behind him. "You walked the West, didn't stay. You know the reason... The Bear grows without structure, follows a symbol without knowing its history. Without NCR to support it, Vegas will fall to the Legion. That grave of lights, back to dust and ghosts as it was meant. After this, only one flag will remain over the Mojave. Let that one fly, or destroy itself."

"You know, As bad as this looks, you still don't have all the missiles you need to do that." David spoke hoping that it was true. At the very least each missile was a reminder for god only knew how many innocents would have to be baptized in nuclear fire for somebody's concept of a glorious, abstract tomorrow.

He laughed gutturally, "No need to destroy the Bear, just cut its throat. You taught me that, here in the Divide... Only need to cut off the supply line, the road, to watch something greater die. I'll turn the long 15 into miles of fire, cut off the Mojave. The Bear will fall back, lose Hoover Dam, and leave their throats exposed to the Legion."

David could feel the panic welling up within. House's defenses would only go so far, and the numbers he ran for having a chance to knock out any missiles while still in the divide were slim to none. On the other hand, if the missiles were anything like the one in Ashton...

He shuddered at the memory, of the launch, the terror of helplessly watching the missile leave the silo, and the searing heat of the blast moments later as he was curled up in a fetal position sobbing uncontrollably.

There was still hope however, he didn't know if Ulysses was aware, but ED-E had been modified many times over, with the most recent addition being a deep range transmitter. The transmitter was a pre-war design, small enough to fit in ED-E, but strong enough to send a signal to planets undiscovered. The design had been taken by House from a fellow CIT student who founded an aerospace company known as Arc-jet Systems, that House had tried to acquire not long after his hostile takeover of Repconn.

After Ulysses stole ED-E, David teleported himself to big MT. There he was joined by House, whose mainframe had established a connection with the Think Tank via satellite.

House concocted the plan. He would use his Pip-boy to track down ED-E, then install the transmitter which the sink had built to order.

With the help of the Transmitter, House could remote in to ED-E, and the Missiles would be disarmed. Once down, the detonator in his pack would handle the rest. That only left Ulysses.

Without looking, he sent the waiting command on his pip-boy. One moment later, ED-E turned on the signal.

"So how far are you willing to take that promise to Caesar not to kill other Couriers, especially ones making deliveries?" Though he had long since made up his mind to kill Ulysses, he wanted to see if he could force the last of the Twisted Hairs to stand idly by as he foiled the launch.

"Don't need to kill you. Divide's not done with you yet." His eyes suddenly betrayed the fact that he was ready to die if it meant taking David with him. The meaning, as scary as it was, was lost on David, but he knew would have to act quickly.

ED-E chirped, and he knew that House had received the call. He lifted the pip boy closer with his left arm, keeping his right clear all the while. A single prompt took over the screen of his pip-boy, 'AUTHORIZE REMOTE ACCESS,' it said.

"Ironic isn't it Ulysses? For the second time, I bring a package to the divide. First time I was convicted, but this time, I come here to commit my own act of conviction.

David's lips twitched into the beginnings of a smirk, as he pressed the select key on his computer. A second later, the Eyebot buzzed away towards the control console.

"Took my sweet time in getting here. You could have launched the missiles before I knew what was happening, but you didn't." He smirked as the realization dawned on the man wearing an old world flag. Behind him to his left, ED-E made a connection with the console and began his work. If left uninterrupted, House would brute force the kill code in no time. "You were right about the Rangers by the way. They remember me. They remember what I did."

"You took their lives courier, damning them to this place." Ulysses grunted. "Before that, you were just a man from the wrong tribe. Now you live one great lie."

He felt his smirk expand into a grin.

"That man died in the Divide, so that I might survive. Kind of like the Rangers you might say."

"The Bear will know your secret, It's why you went back to being a courier"

He lauged a weak laugh. "A lot of dead men keep my secrets, but thats nothing to the lives that will be ruined when they find out. I think you know how this has to end."

Ulysses snarled through his mask. "Then I'll finish history's work. If the Divide couldn't kill you... perhaps these old world missiles can. Let's end this Courier, you and I. Here with the Old World flag as witness."

"You are as much a hypocrite as Caesar." It was David's turn to snarl. "You want me to suffer for all those who suffered in the Divide, but I've crossed your trail, seen the damage you've commited fully aware of the consequences. Remember New Canaan, you and your White Legs murdered children out of spite. How about the Big Empty? You broke thier loops, got them to think about all the helpless people who could die for science, just so you could figure out how to launch nukes. What about Father Elijah who found a chemical weapon in the Sierra Madre.

I like to think I've spent too much time saving the world from the evils you've unleashed, you fucking hypocrite. I'm not playing by your rules. I'm going to decommission these weapons, or should I say House is doing that right now."

His face contorted with rage upon the mention of House, and David knew it was time.

"The Mojave sorted me out, made me strong." He spoke mockingly, "The Divide put me at the top of the food chain. Make a move you piece of human garbage, and you'll find out how I put father Elijah in the ground, how I made the Big Empty my bitch, how I put down the White Legs in the name of Joshua Graham. I'll be coming for what's left of Edward Sallow's scalp once I have yours!"

Ulysses reached in his duster and produced a flash bang, as he dropped his hand to the magnum revolver on his right side. By the time he cleared leather, the grenade was in the air. Time slowed to a crawl as David leveled the gun, and squeezed the trigger. The shot went low, and missed. With his left, he cocked the hammer back, and this shot pierced the flash bang.

The explosion of white light from the flash bang stunned both of them, and for a few moments, they must have just stood facing each other. As soon as he came to his senses, he fired off a round at his torso. The bullet went high and struck Ulysses, in his shoulder.

Then, the last of the Twisted Hairs, just simply vanished as a stealth boy cloaked him in darkness. Fuck you pal, I can play that game too, thought David. He dug into his satchel, and pulled out a Stealth boy, snapped it onto his riot gear, and disappeared.

David began moving slowly to the left, careful not to make too much noise. He began to look around for telltale signs of Stealth boy use, and noticed one of the eyebots, painted in red and white trying to administer medical aid.

The other eyebot began firing on ED-E. On his left side hung the Sonic-Emitter he got from Big MT. Drawing the weapon, he slipped into VATS, and let the sound waves knock the eyebot against the nearest wall, ripping off its antennae.

Turning back to the base of the launchpad where he knew Ulysses would be, he pulled a frag grenade from his belt, and lobbed it at the pedestal. Suddenly, a big hulking figure shrouded in illusion sprang into action diving from his spot, and with an elegant forward roll before he lost track of the shrouded figure. The grenade exploded, and clearly did not even scratch it's target.

He let the emitter loose on the general direction, with only an indirect hit on the active med-bot. The impact did not knock it out of the air. Instead, the machine instantly disappeared in a belch of ozone, vanishing before he finish the job.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath. The son of a bitch must have wired a Stealth boy on that eyebot.

David looked around, suddenly aware of the sound of that god awful Klaxon alarm screaming somewhere in this cathedral to death. The surviving eyebot was nowhere to be found, and neither was Ulysses.

The rush of a cloaked figure came at him from his left. He barely had time to get out of the way. David side stepped, leaving Ulysses to trip over his own momentum. As his enemy fell, a large rough hand grabbed him by the arm and yanked him down spinning to the ground. He fell beside Ulysses, arms in front of him braced for the fall.

He tried to get up only to have a pole slam against the back of his helmet, the impact nearly flattening him. His left arm buckled, and he rolled to his side, drawing a Bowie knife from his boot with his right.

A hand strong as iron smacked, then grabbed his wrist, and with a lunge, forced him on his back. The massive pack he carried involuntarily arched his back nearly exposing his throat, with no protection save for that of the stealth boy. A knee came down on his groin, and another hand kept tapping him all over the chest for weakness. "I'll end you and your history," Ulysses sneered as the hand came down on his throat.

With all the strength he had, he lifted his left arm, and followed the noise. His arm made contact with what had to be the face of Ulysses, and bashed him across his temple with his pip boy hard enough that it clearly knocked something loose.

The grip which was only a moment ago determined to choke the life from him, was suddenly lifted. David was about to lift his arm for another strike, when all of the sudden, the report of a three round burst reverberated through the chamber, and wild shots whizzed over their heads.

Like a cat, Ulysses sprang into action practically leaping off of him, and taking cover somewhere.

David got to his feet quick as he could, several more shots filling the air. From where he stood to the elevator, were half a dozen marked men seeking out his form.

"What the Hell?" He spoke aloud to nobody in particular.

"The dead men of the New World, they come for you." Ulysses answered his question from somewhere he couldn't quite pin down.

For one terrible moment, He could only gape in horror as Marked men by the dozen stormed through the entrance.

He dropped to one knee, and snatched the Holorifle from his pack. He flicked the MF breeder on, the safety off, and fired at the closest one. The weapon jumped in his hands as it struck the ghoul in the chest and liquified his torso.

The flash of the rifle was not hidden by the stealth boy, and quickly attracted attention of another ghoul who turned his weapon towards the flash, but then fell against as the sound of a few shots came from somewhere around the platform.

From somewhere on the on other end, he saw the flashes of an automatic weapon, whose bullets ripped through the toxic air of the Divide. Two of them found their mark, with one landing on his shoulder, and another by his right holster. For all the armor he wore though, the bullets would have a hard time even scratching the two hundred year-old army paint.

For that matter they would also need much more force to even knock him back. He squeezed off a round just above the flash, and saw the ghoul behind the trigger in legion armor glow as if he was already beggining his journey to hell.

More shots were fired from the platform where Ulysses was hitting ED-E, who was still hovering above the console taking potshots. Groping blindly at his belt, David found and unhooked another frag grenade. He pulled the pin, and tossed it at the platform to stop the zealot.

The firing stopped, and Ulysses no doubt left his spot for cover, as did he. It was then, that David heard more noise coming in from the elevator. More of them were coming.

David put down the Holorifle and drew the detonator from his pack. He spied the outline of an unattached warhead within spitting distance of the elevator, and squeezed the trigger. A thin red light shot across the chamber, and concentrated on the warhead. The dull blast bellowed destruction, tearing apart the marked men in its wake who would have considered it a healing factor not two second ago.

The blast died down, and the shooting ceased. The smoke from the blast obscured the temple behind ED-E. He picked up his rifle, and looked for hostiles. The marked men weren't done yet, he was certain of that. And neither was Ulysses...

A quiet beep from the Stealth-boy told him that its battery was running out. David scrambled to his feet, while trying not to attract Ulysses.

A louder beep was heard, this time from his pip boy. He jumped back two steps, out of fear that the noise had given him away. A few moments passed, before he worked up the courage to turn on the HUD. To David's satisfaction, ED-E was downloading the kill codes, now that House's Mainframe had found them. A moment later, he could see ED-E go from bombarding the machine with small precise blasts, with the codebreaker, to arcing electrical energy with the console receiver.

And then, the low guttural voice of Ulysses made itself known. "Big Mountain access code... Ulysses." The words came from the edge of the walkway.

David was already running towards the noise, he didn't dare waste time shooting at what could just be air, so he closed the gap. He raised his weapon as if it were a rebar club.

At his foot, he heard a rapid set of beeps that could only come from a frag mine.

Fuck, a mine, David realized with horror as he saw a flicker of movement, shifting form to face him. The figure shrunk back few a steps...

Boom!

He heard the deafening thud of the mine behind him, just as its hot shrapnel bit him behind his knee. Still David kept going pressing his momentum, against Ulysses.

The big tribal may have given way as he brought the butt of his gun down onto what had to have been his chest, but it barely seemed to phase him.

Instead, a pair of strong arms grabbed him, one snagging his belt, and the other his gripping an arm. What momentum he still had was used against him as Ulysses brought him around his own shrouded figure.

David landed on his knees, and fell forward landing with his head peering over the edge of the walkway.

"Big Mountain access code Ulysses. Command Override... Navarro" Ulysses spoke quickly from where he stood.

The words brought him new panic. What if the override actually worked?

It all happened at once, explosions erupted throughout the chamber, intertwined with the sound of twisting metal.

David turned his head in time to face the missile shining at the end of the chamber like a great phallic idol of death, topple from the launchpad without getting a chance to launch. All around him. the missiles on the walls began to shake and one by one, they exploded.

The master plan was foiled, no missile would ever escape the silo after this. A cry of joy escaped his lips, and he silently praised the lord for bringing him this far.

A moment later, his joy turned back to horror, as it became obvious that the destruction of the missiles would bring down the roof over his head.

The vibrations on his pip brought him back to his senses. David propped himself up on his right arm to see what was happening. ED-E's CLI was suddenly awash with new commands he didn't recognize.

A crackle of blue electricity revealed Ulysses, followed by one around himself that meant the stealth boy was out of charge.

And then, for some reason, he jumped. He did not come down, when he should have though. He just stayed there hovering above the walkway. That was when David realized that he was being lifted too by an unseen force.

His eyes grew heavy while the temple collapsed around him. The last thing he felt was paralysis.

Author's Note: If anyone is up to the task, I could really use a beta reader.