I woke up with a massive roar, didn't know from what, but it echoed throughout the tunnel and scared the crap out of me.
I found a dead NCR trooper nearby my makeshift-one-night-camp. On him he had a note for a mission, saying the tunnel was overrun by "semi-humanoid creatures sensible to light", so the troopers were issued flash bangs. I took what he had, just in case. There were two more NCR troopers dead ahead (in both meanings, see what I did there?). One of them was a Ranger and whatever could take out a Ranger had to be looked out for.
I kept hearing the roars as I advanced through the tunnel. Then I heard some rubble move and I hid, to see what it was. A freaking monster appeared from the ground, black with glowy spikes, claws and eyes. I shot him in the head with the sniper and he died. At first I was happy it was that easy, but then, as I walked a bit more, I heard the rubble again and with it three other of those motherfuckers attacked us. I took only two blows from one of them, but those two blows almost ripped my insides out. Jesus fucking Christ.
After killing more of those bastards I finally reached the exit of the tunnel, with the sign "High Road" on it. As I entered the High Road the Courier spoke with me again, through ED-E. Told me that The Divide had a lesson to be teach. People tend to hold on too much to something. So much it breaks, or falls apart. Then he told me that he could already see the cracks around New Vegas, from Mr. House holding it so much. I told him that, unlike him, I'd rather look to the future instead of the past and that was why I worked with Mr. House. He told me that there was no future in either road I could take from working with Mr. House: crushed and opressed like the Three Families of New Vegas or immortalized as a Securitron. I don't like to think about it that way. I'll do my best to help Mr. House and the mankind, but eventually I'll die off, knowing full well what I did for everyone. But I just told him that Mr. House's plans account for a future much further than what he spoke about. Then I added that Vegas was one of the safest places out there and that was because of Mr. House. That gave me - and not only me - hope.
He said he deduced that someone - referring to Mr. House - had protected Vegas during the Great War. That someone who protected Vegas, in his mind, was selfish enough not to protect the world. I mean, common! Mr. House almost died protecting Vegas! Sure, he told me he "did not care to save the rest of the world" but I saw through his arrogance! He meant that because he would not be able to save it then, so he saved what he could to then rebuild the world. I wanted to tell the Courier too many things at the same time, like how he never even met Mr. House. But, for the sake of the argument, I told him that Mr. House is more pragmatic that what he might think. He actually believed that Mr. House's plan was to, eventually, turn everyone into robots he could command. There I got sick of it. I wanted to meet him. The man who had hunted me, the man who despises Vegas.
I told him that the Mojave was behind us and I wanted to focused on what was ahead. Then he said he was surprise we made it this far, me and ED-E, living through the skinned men and those tunnel creatures. I asked him about them and he said the beasts were called Tunnelers. Told me they were created by the Great War radiation and that it would be a slower death to the Mojave, meaning they were spreading out, via underground tunnels they dug themselves. He compared them to some creatures I knew to exist only East, at Legion territory. He told me he knew that because he did not only walked the Mojave and the Divide. He walked through the East before the Legion came. Like the Bear - NCR - they seized everything. In his opinion, though, the Bull - Legion - did a better job at it. He also called those skinned walking corpses Marked Men. SO now I have a name for them. I told him about the blades and mask I found in some of them and he told him that they used it as an insult to their former Legate, Lanius, the commander of the Legion forces.
He was obsessed with me and The Divide, it being my home. Because of what I did. Something I made by walking the roads in and out of the Divide. He kept saying it, but speaking in riddles. I was close to getting to where he wanted me to go, to know what I "did", in his eyes. But after one more cryptic speech, his transmition ceased. Fuck.
Love you,
Bill
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