~The Scarlet Plus-Fours Fallout: New Vegas Picture Diary~

Starring Gracie Cutesman-Pieworthy

Fallout: New Vegas is one of the Fallout games, set in and around a city called New Vegas, which developed from Las Vegas after much of the surrounding America was destroyed in a nuclear war. It's a special game to a lot of Fallout fans, with characters and stories that feel human, different paths you can take through the main storyline, and a powerful, melancholy, yet beautiful atmosphere.

Since taking screenshots is such fun, I've started a new SSLP, which should eventually cover a whole game of Fallout: New Vegas and some of the expansion packs. I'm playing as a certified Charming Young Lady, complete with silver tongue, plasma weaponry, spiked knuckledusters and many bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla. I hope you like it.

Chapter 11: Retired Brotherhood of Steel Elder "Father" Elijah Gets Punched in the Face

After activating the Gala Event, Gracie lay down for a nap. She stood up again in a dark, ruined, but unmistakably opulent casino-hotel-thing-place.

"The holograms are still active, but not the lights? Good grief..." --Gracie

The Sierra Madre had once boasted holographic staff, who were said to have been far better than human staff. They could do anything they'd very specifically been programmed to do, didn't need to be fed or paid or given breaks, devoured as much electricity as three washing machines or six and a bit terminals, and some could shoot energy beams from their eyes.

It wasn't clear what the elegant-looking hologram on the stairs was meant for, but Gracie wished her a nice day regardless.

All too soon, Father Elijah was barking in Gracie's ear again. He wanted her to gather her allies, again; they'd been dragged into the casino and dumped in different locations, again. Of course, when he said 'gather', he wouldn't have minded if Dean or Dog (aka God) wound up murdered instead...

When it came to killing Dean, Gracie was almost happy to oblige. However, it was Dog she found first, on a rampage, with his other personality no longer able to control him. Through tears shared with his headmate, God implored Gracie to kill him, and put them both out of their misery. Poor Gracie didn't have 85 Speech yet, so in brutal hand-to-hand combat, she was forced to slay the Nightkin.

"The poor chaps... Nightkin haven't got good mental health at the best of times, but to go like that! And he... God..." Fleeing before their linked collars exploded, Gracie found herself grappling with difficult thoughts. "It doesn't... mean anything more, surely? That was just his name! I can't actually have killed God? For the second time in two thousand and a bit years?!"

After a rest and a bottle of mostly-drinkable vodka, Gracie pulled herself together, repressed the stuffing out of her emotions, and got to work finding Dean.

"I suppose Dean being the same Dean, I can buy. But two hundred years trapped in here, in the grounds at least, the poor thing!" --Gracie

She found Dean's changing room first, which was quite the revalation. Dean Domino had been a film star, a singer or something, before the apocalypse. Presumably, he'd turned into a ghoul and lived through two hundred years of the Sierra Madre, which would explain his personality. His room was next to another film star, Vera Keyes - Gracie hoped she'd stayed well away from Dean, back when she was alive.

"Can we maybe not, and say we did?" --A Ghost Person who realised it was throwing away its sort-of-life for nothing

Dean was trapped in the theatre, where a gang of security holograms were waiting for his rehearsal - a rehearsal he could no longer perform, because the holograms would kill him as soon as he approached the stage. Gracie dunked Dean in blue paint to disguise him as a hologram, allowing him to sing, more hoarsely than before but well enough to satisfy the crowd.

Gracie hurled Dean out of the window, unsure of whether he would survive. "New Vegas is that way!" she yelled at the dripping blue ghoul lying in a heap on the hillside, before slamming the window shut.

"What a nice hair style!" --Gracie

With Dean's exit, it didn't take much longer for Gracie to turn the power on. She headed upstairs past the hologram - the quiet, blue hologram, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Up ahead, the hologram situation got much, much worse.

A ghost in the machine.

The executive suites were where Gracie was meant to meet Christine, but turning on the electricity seemed to have woken up a hologram. A slender blue women like the one from before, she strode around the ruined hotel floor, crying out in despair. "Sinclair! Sinclair, please help! I'm trapped in here! The security holograms, they're recording me... I'm sorry I trusted him, Sinclair! I don't want to die... A ghost in paradise... Oh, God, please, at least order me a pizza! Some macaroni cheese, even! Why do they glow?! So bright... So dark... So empty..."

Gracie wanted nothing more than to comfort the hologram, but as soon as she came close, the hologram faded from blue to red. Blasts of burning light flashed from her eyes, tearing through the flimsy walls as Gracie ran for cover. The hologram was still crying out for her friend Sinclair, but Gracie's sympathy was waning.

Eventually, she stumbled into what used to be a finely-appointed room, and met a tragic victim.

"The dress... It's exactly the same!" Gracie fell to her knees in shock. This was the woman who, in her last moments, had been captured as the fear and rage of an undying hologram. Vera Keyes, the singer who'd been guest of honour alongside Dean. Why? Why had this Sinclair character locked her up before the world ended?

Gracie remembered vaguely that Sinclair had owned the casino, and Dean hadn't spoken kindly of him or Vera. He must have wanted a casino of his own, or... or a Vera of his own. Was that it? Had Sinclair locked her up out of jealousy? No, she didn't have all the facts yet. She might never. It probably didn't bear worrying about.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to air it out." --Gracie

Conveniently, Vera had a spare dress in the wardrobe which looked exactly like her fancy one. Gracie borrowed it and went to find Christine, hoping for no more surprise revalations.

"Ch-Christine! Oh, my days, you're saying words!" gasped Gracie. "And you sound just like... Just like..."

"Like poor old Vera Keyes?" Christine grunted knowingly.

Gracie blinked. "I was going to say like Laura Bailey, the talented voice actress who recorded the vocal grunts for female player characters, including myself, but please go on! Do you really sound like Vera now?"

"Judging by her audition tapes, yes. Dean's master plan," sighed Christine. "Well, I guess it's Elijah's plan now. Vera's voice is the key-- Don't giggle. Her voice opens up the whole casino, same as Sinclair's voice."

Gracie blinked some more. "The entire casino? Wait, Dean's plan?!"

"He stuffed me in that auto-doc to... rewire my throat. Make me sound like Vera so I could open the vault. Wasn't the first time I've been cut open, either..." Christine winced at the memory. "I suppose it... worked. Yay, me."

Gracie blinked a few more times, opening and closing her mouth without sound. She reached her arms around Christine. For a moment, Christine shuddered, then she folded forwards into a long, gentle hug. Tears dripped down Gracie's cheeks, staining Christine's vest, but for the first time since she'd killed God she felt like things were going to be all right.

"I suppose," Gracie sniffled a bit later, "next on the agenda would be finding a way into that vault."

"I'm the way in," said Christine. "Just gotta put up with it until Elijah's in our sights, and then..."

"Oh, but Christine, you're still injured from surgery! You should leave him to me," said Gracie.

"NOT beat up Father Elijah? That's a big ask." Christine smiled. "But I'll think about it."

With a classic Vera Keyes quote, Christine opened the lift to the Sierra Madre vault. Gracie crept into the depths, past lingering clouds of red fog and radios which, for some idiotic reason, were beeping at just the right frequency to set off her collar. She couldn't wait to see the back of that place.

Eventually, the Sierra Madre vault opened up before her. Gracie was faced with the smell of rust and two-hundred-year-old air, a pile of gold bars, a few weapon and ammunition lockers, a vending machine... Nothing much she couldn't have found outside the vault. The gold certainly looked shiny, but even one bar felt heavy enough to pull her trousers down.

"Is that... You've unlocked it!" Elijah's voice crackled through Gracie's Pip-Boy speaker. "Don't touch anything! I'm coming down to claim my vending machine. DON'T touch ANYTHING, do I make myself clear?"

"I live to serve," sighed Gracie.

In a few minutes, Father Elijah came clanking along the metal bridge to the vault. He strode inside and regarded Gracie suspiciously. "You haven't touched anything, have you?"

"Only the floor, which is unavoidable," Gracie said with a tap of her tow.

"Good girl." Elijah smiled. "Well, Gracie, I suppose I have no further need for you. I also can't risk any of this valuable technology falling into undeserving hands." He whipped out his Gauss Rifle. "Your resting place shall be the heart of my conquest!"

This was the moment when Father Elijah's plan went off the rails. Gracie exploded towards him like a radscorpion's sting, her fist ploughing into his stomach. Then came the bear trap on her wrist, biting through his coat and drawing blood. In a split second, her leg whipped into the barrel of his rifle, sending it spinning across the room as Elijah himself was thrown onto the carpet.

Gracie grabbed a shiny yellow bar of gold. "This is for God! Both of them!" Like lightning, she brought it down on Elijah's head with a crack that echoed through the vault. He barely had time to gasp in pain before the injury did its job, and Elijah was silenced for ever more.

"Bastard... You brought this upon yourself!" Gracie's heart was pounding. "Tormenting us, all because... All because you couldn't... All for a vending machine."

The gold bar fell from Gracie's hand with a terrible clang. "I should... It's probably time for me to go." She sighed. "Time to give Christine the good news, and... And work out how to get back home! Truth be told, I don't actually know the way to New Vegas."

To Gracie's immense relief, Christine had found an old road atlas tucked under Vera's bed. It covered the whole of Nevada, and while the roads weren't as clean or existent as they had been two hundred years ago, it showed the way to New Vegas. Gracie got to work packing for the trip, which was easy, since all she wanted to keep was the Holorifle. Christine, on the other hand, wasn't coming.

"You aren't?!" cried Gracie. "Why, Christine, I would have thought you'd give anything to see the back of this wretched place! What gives?"

"It is a wretched place, Gracie. You're right," said Christine. "That's why someone needs to stand guard over it, make sure no more treasure hunters get themselves killed. And besides..." She smiled faintly. "Vera's going to need someone to talk to, isn't she?"

"Ah..." Gracie nodded slowly. "Vera. Yes, she would certainly need some human companionship, in order not to lose her mind. Well, if you're certain, I wish you all the best... Look me up if you're ever in New Vegas, won't you?"

"I will. Good luck on your journey."

Gracie gave her another hug, shorter this time, but squeezing more tightly. As she turned to leave the Sierra Madre, she knew she would never be coming back.

"I hope you'll return, in happier times. Until then, the Sierra Madre... and I... will hold you in our hearts." --Vera Keyes

After kicking down the gate outside the village, Gracie found the road, and then the secret tunnel Elijah had used to kidnap her. Eventually, she found his bunker again, and that damned radio, now wishing her a heartfelt goodbye.

"Goodbye, Vera..." Gracie swallowed. "I still don't entirely know how you became trapped there, but I know you deserved better. We all did."

"So, um, did anything happen to your fashion sense while you were gone?" asked Cass.

"Do shut up, Rose of Sharon," sighed Gracie.