~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 12: Danger! and Intrigue! at the Hoover Dam Visitors' Centre

Gracie's holiday at the exclusive Sierra Madre resort had left her needing a holiday. Thankfully, she got one with Melissa, spending a week going to all the museums in Dayglow. Melissa spent the first couple of days worrying about the Great Khans' drug operation, and whether they could get enough raw materials without her, but by the time they'd defeated the feral ghouls in the old science museum she was on cloud nine.

By the time they got back to the Mojave desert, both women were feeling refreshed and ready to get back in the saddle. Melissa had plans for a delivery tunnel running right under Quarry Junction, too narrow and deep for deathclaws to get in. Gracie was ready for another go at finding the Brotherhood of Steel, and hopefully starting a dialogue with someone more approachable than Father Elijah.

"Let's add a red vagina on the left." --Rose of Sharon Cassidy

Rose of Sharon Cassidy joined Gracie in Novac. Her new salvaging business wasn't going anywhere fast, and another adventure felt like the best way of taking her mind off it. She and Gracie wandered the desert for a few minutes until they found a fresh trail of power armour footprints, which they followed to the bunker in Hidden Valley.

"I have heard bad things about these Brotherhood of Steel guys. Do you know they were at war with the NCR?" Cass asked outside the bunker. "Something about energy weapon regulations. If I were you, I'd hide that fancy new Holorifle."

"That much is true, but the impression I had was that Elijah was a renegade. It wouldn't be fair to judge this chapter of the Brotherhood by his example," said Gracie. "Of course, I don't expect them to be as cuddly as Elder Lyons' chapter, but I hardly expect to be stuffed into a bomb collar again!"

So saying, Gracie opened the door and wandered into the bunker.

"You were SAYING, Gracie?" Cass said icily, as the paladin dangled two bomb collars in front of them.

Gracie swallowed. "Can we not discuss this like reasonable people? My only interest lies in a peaceful future for your lot and the Republic! Please, put aside whatever paranoid, authoritarian nonsense is convincing you we pose some terrible danger, and let us talk to your leader."

"You've made your choice. Violence!" the paladin yelled, and he and his two comrades unholstered their rifles.

There was no other fate for two travellers cornered in a bunker by three hulking power-armoured soldiers. Gracie came flying at the knights, punching and kicking with the force of an anti-air cannon, leaving craters in their thick titanium armour and shattered bones under their skin. Cass's shotgun rang like a shotgun in the bunker, turning gauss rifles into scrap and helmet visors into so much broken glass. In just a minute, it was over.

"We've... We've got to get out of here!" panted Cass, helping herself to a surviving gauss rifle.

"Not yet! This is a perfect opportunity," said Gracie, squeezing into a surviving suit of power armour. "To disguise ourselves as Brothers... er, Sisters of Steel, and effect positive change from within."

Cass blinked a couple of times. "That works too, I suppose."

"I can hardly believe they named this place after a type of vacuum!" --Gracie

After activating the self-destruct system and blowing up the bunker, our heroines went to the Hoover Dam for lunch. Gracie was looking forward to trying the visitor centre's famous honey mesquite quiche.

The Hoover Dam turned out to be quite busy. Soldiers from the NCR army, or NCRmy for short, were hoofing it around the courtyard and the walls on top of the dam. A stage seemed to have been erected in front of the canyon, where a crowd was starting to gather.

"Oh, I remember!" remembered Cass. "This must be President Kimball's visit. You know, Aaron Kimball, president of the NCR, that visit to the Hoover Dam people have been talking about? It's a pretty bold display from him, given that the Legion want to take over the dam."

Gracie giggled. "Was that an 'as you know...' moment, Rose of Sharon?"

Cass scoffed. "We're in Fallout! It's only a few steps away from adventure comics and radio serials. If I want to 'as you know', I'm going to 'as you know', you know?"

Gracie understood vaguely. "Let's have our luncheon before the visitors' centre gets too full," she decided, leading Cass inwards.

"Oh, dear... Weren't you just saying you needed to stock up on red paint?" --Gracie

The afternoon went by quite happily, until Gracie, looking for the loo, wandered into a closet and found fresh blood. It could have been a bad vacuum accident, couldn't it? An unlucky janitor hoovering the Hoover Dam? No, the president of New California was about to pay a visit, during a war with the ruthless Legion. Something dangerous was afoot.

"I didn't want to hand New Vegas to the NCR, it's true, but allowing Caesar to assassinate their president would be awful," Gracie said worriedly. "You and I may be the only people who know about this conspiracy, Rose of Sharon. We must keep it under wraps so people don't panic."

"Or we could tell one of those Rangers?" suggested Cass.

"Well, they aren't likely to take it seriously, are they?" reasoned Gracie. "Or rather, they'd be taking things too seriously to trust the word of two strangers. No, we need to investigate and gather evidence ourselves. Come on, let's check the men's broom closet!"

He blinked.

Once it was established that the Hoover Dam didn't separate its broom closets by gender, because that would have been very silly, our heroines started grabbing engineers to interrogate them.

"Yes, a serious accident, in one of the gender-neutral broom closets! Blood was left splattered, all over the... wall," Gracie pressed the bald engineer. "You didn't happen to hear anything, did you?"

"Well, um..." The engineer glanced at Cass. She was wearing a hard hat, so logically, she had to be someone very authorised and important; someone he'd have to fool. "I haven't been in there since last week, but I did hear the big floor-cleaning machine fell over."

Cass looked at Gracie. "And that was enough to leave to leave such a big blood stain? I am quite surprised."

The engineer shifted nervously, dislodging the throwing spear stuffed down his trousers. It fell to the floor with a clank. Blushing, he picked it up and hid it behind his back. "So, those cleaning machines, they are pretty big. Um, and this one had a paint scraper attachment, and it fell at just the right angle to hit the poor guy's leg. Poor person's leg! I-I don't know who it was, and we do employ female engineers because they're as... Well, you'd know, wouldn't you? Probably fine at engineering, cleaning, and whatever it is you both do."

Gracie wrote a few lines ostentatiously in her notebook. "Paint scraper, I see. And this did enough damage to the victim's leg to leave the--?"

"Yes, it split his- their- it split the leg clean in two! That's how all that blood got on the floor! You know how much blood's in a leg, enough for a... quite a big puddle..."

"But we didn't say the bloodstain was on the floor, did we?" Cass smiled and held up her shotgun.

The bald engineer looked at Gracie, with those boulder-like muscles and callouses on her knuckles, then at Cass, wearing a dangerous smile. "Fuck it. Ave, Caesar! Those who are about to die salute you!" he yelled, and tried to swallow a stick of dynamite.

A heavy atmosphere hung over the Hoover Dam as President Kimball's vertibird drew near. There was some excited chatter coming from the crowd, but news of the assassin had spread.

"The doctor told me that guy's in no state to be interrogated. His tummy ache from the dynamite's too bad," said Cass, joining Gracie in front of the stage. "Do you think that's everything? The Legion could have set up a contingency plan."

"Potentially, but what? He's safe in his vertibird now, and during the speech, he'll be under a strong guard..." Gracie's brow furrowed. "But still out in the open. A sniper could..."

"Gracie, look at those towers!" Cass tugged on her sleeve and pointed at the watchtowers along the top of the dam. "If I was a Legion sniper, which I'm not..."

"And Kimball's nearly landed. Dash it all! This way!" yelled Gracie, running for the dam.

This picture was taken by dangling a camera from a rope.

Gracie and Cass skidded to a halt outside the first watchtower.

"I'll climb up the ladder," panted Gracie. "You take the other ladder inside. Hurry!"

Cass followed Gracie up the ladder outside the tower. It clanked and wobbled as Gracie all but galloped up, and finally swung herself over the top. For a split second, she saw a rifle and a red uniform, as a man dove down the hatch into the tower.

"Dash it all, Cass, you were meant to be inside! Well, no matter, after him!" yelled Gracie. She dove through the hatch, leaving Cass to slide down the ladder outside the tower.

In the watchtower, Gracie heard nothing and saw nothing. She hurried down to the front door and burst through, to find only Cass standing there under a sunlit sky.

"Where... Where'd he go?" Gracie's eyes darted around. A shot rang out behind them, then more shots, and after a few heart-stoppingly tense seconds, she heard a cheer rise from the crowd.

President Kimball's vertibird was leaving, but that hadn't been the cheer of a crowd who'd watched their head of state be murdered. That had been a cheer of victory.

"Cass, do you think--?" Gracie gasped. In the corner of her eye, an orange 'quest completed' message was telling her she'd saved Kimball's life.

"I think," Cass said carefully, "we rattled him. We scared that assassin off the tower, made him play his hand too early and run right into the Rangers' line of fire. It easily could've gone south, but luck was on our side... And you don't get to be in the president's guard unless you know what you're doing!"

"I suppose not," agreed Gracie. "It is a shame, though, that we didn't really get to see what happened."

"And you are most welcome, whoever you are! We'll just have to take your word for it," sighed Gracie.