The Miracle Worker - 5/12/2287

[Brother Kermit]

Preacher.

It was a word that carried with it a lot of weight. A lot of expectation. A lot of hope.

Kermit didn't wear the title anymore. He hadn't worn it in over a century. Still, you wear a thing long enough, and you can still tell where it would go when you took it off. Like a tan line from wearing a watch too long. It was in everything about the ghoul. Didn't curse. Didn't drink. Those were easy. Thou shalt not lie, steal, or kill? Well the difference between a shepherd and a lamb was fuzzy at times, and straying when it meant staying alive blurred the line.

Little things like that were why he didn't wear the name Preacher any more. Couldn't in good faith. Faith he'd at last questioned too much to continue carrying. Of course, even without a higher reason why, he still tried to stay on the right path. There was ugliness in sin, whether there was a Lord out there to tell you to avoid doing it or not. He felt that in his bones.

Of course, faith and hope were like food. Folks would starve for it. Do all sorts of things for it. You hang up being a preacher, sure, but that life follows you far down the dusty road to the next town, to the town after that, and so on. Over two hundred years in the wastes, and folks in the high desert know your business. They ask you to pray for them. Heal them. Do the impossible.



New Reno


A city of evil. A den of wickedness. People scratching and clawing all over each other to survive. The wasteland was complicated, and Kermit wasn't so quick to judge a man as he might have once been. There weren't any good excuses for slaving, that one he could say for certain. Course that was outlawed under the long arm of the New California Republic. At least in theory. Sure, you couldn't go down the street to a slave pen and pick someone out to haul your load, but what was slavery? A tired and dirty girl on the street next to Sharky's Casino, sellin' her body for the next hit of Jet that she couldn't live without? Slavery in all but name.

Kermit approached the girl, who sized him up with a little apprehension.

"Mister, I don't take caps from ghouls."

Kermit tapped an ancient pack of Lucky Golds against his gnarled hand, fishing an old unfiltered smoke out. He lit up, sucking down a quarter of the dessicated cigarette in a go.

"I ain't buyin', miss. When's last time you ate?"

She blinked at the question, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Mister, I got money to make."

The old ghoul ashed his cigarette.

"Suppose you do. Well, when abouts you done whorin'?"

The way she paused, it was clear she was starting to seriously consider the olive branch. When she spoke, it was low, and she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Two hours. I'm off then."

Kermit finished his cigarette, smoke curling out of the two holes in his head where a nose once was.

"Alright then. What's your name?"

"Mister, I..."

"Alright fine. Don't need to know. You know Buster's Griddle Shack? Two hours. Squirrel tacos."

She made a face, and Kermit shrugged.

"Or whatever you'd rather."

She nodded, a faint smile threatening to appear on her otherwise worried face.

"No one's ever..."

The old ghoul put his cigarette out, and dipped his head a bit.

"Well they ought to."

There was a silence that followed, and Kermit broke it, stepping back.

"Well, don't want to interrupt, miss. Just remember. Two hours."

He turned and walked away.

[The Messenger]

Desperado Casino, New Reno

It started the way all the good funny stories begin: a man walks into a bar.

They called it the Desperado, but inside it reeked more like desperation. A haze of smoke clung to the ceiling; a bountiful crop of damp and mold clung to the walls. Buckshot and bullet holes were peppered about for flavour, sprawling strings of graffiti font left to fester because for better or worse they brought a much needed splash of extra colour into the dull and dismal place.

Not that the patrons weren't colourful enough, of course. Desperado catered for any vice: drunken, smoked, swallowed, injected, violated, or otherwise consumed. In one corner slumped a group of patrons burned out on jet, deposited there out of the way until they sobered up enough for the casino to sell them another fix. Those still cruising high on narcotic fumes hunched over slot machines, huffing new hits from their inhalers as the casino slowly chewed it's way through their caps. At the bar a highly dedicated alcoholic swayed on his stool, flaunting the laws of physics in preparation for a short-lived brawl with the floorboards.

It was the caravan table though that drew his attention as he entered: three grizzled and road-weary couriers following each straight and flush with a whiskey chaser. They were armed almost certainly; dangerous quite possibly; but for the moment two of them were utterly inconsequential.

His footsteps didn't falter as he walked calmly to the table; an unfired pistol round tumbled through his fingers, tiny letters carved into the lead surface. "Nicholas di Naso," he spoke in a soft, deep purr, as if reading the bullet aloud. Play at the caravan table faltered mid-hand; the eyes of the ghoul courier furthest away with his back to the wall climbed upwards, incredulously at first until they settled upon the face of the man who'd spoken.

"Nicky," the new arrival spoke again, "I think you know why I'm here." The courier's mouth opened as if he was about to speak, but a tired sigh interrupted. "You tried to pull a fast one, Nicky, but you made a couple of rookie mistakes."

With each passing second, more attention from the casino patrons snowballed to the scene unfolding at the caravan table. The arrival wasn't phased; not by the attention, nor by the fact that the hands of about a dozen people were straying nervously towards their guns. So unphased in fact that a hand calmly delved into his jacket, a pristine polished revolver brought into view.

"First of all, Nicky," he explained, a subtle motion of his wrist flicking open the cylinder to allow the single named bullet to be chambered within, "You didn't run for long enough. Think about it: after the scam you just pulled against our mutual employer, you should be half way to California by now, not pissing it away in the first shithole of a casino you stumbled across."

There was a satisfying click as the cylinder swung back into place. "And second -" A much more chilling sound followed as the arrival cocked back the hammer and prepared the pistol to fire. A subtle edge crept into his voice. "- you made the mistake of trying to rip off someone rich enough to afford me."

Nicky's face didn't pale; it didn't do anything really, save scrunch a little. It was one of the many hateable things about ghouls: all that scabbing and scar tissue made their faces nigh impossible to read. His voice however faltered, a slight panicked stutter creeping into his radiation-scoured growl. "C'mon, man. It's not like they're going to miss a few measly caps -"

"Clearly they did," the arrival countered, "Or they wouldn't have bothered hiring me."

"Be reasonable," one of the other couriers chimed in. "He'll pay them back. Right, Nicky? Just give the man what you stole -"

The arrival shook his head. "Doesn't work that way. The Family didn't hire me to recover their money: just to deliver a message."

"A message?" There was a flicker of hope in the ghoul's words.

"Yeah -"

The explosion of gunpowder ripped through the air a split second before the hollow point ripped through the courier's skull. The entry wound was a near perfect circle, but the exit wound was far less so, fragments of skull and everything contained within adding another splash of colour to the Desperado's walls.

"- don't steal from the Family." The Messenger's voice rose as he tucked the pistol casually back beneath his jacket. "Message received?"

All that answered him was silence, save for the nervous shuffle of the barman who'd managed to summon enough balls to grab the shotgun from beneath the counter, though he wasn't quite brave enough to do anything threatening with it just yet. "You've done what you came to do," he mustered. "The rest of us don't want any trouble."

The Messenger's eyes scanned the patrons. "No trouble," he agreed, his attention turning to the satchel slung across his shoulder. A moment of rummaging produced a grubby cyan box; a casual toss landed the Abraxo cleaner on the bar as he made for the exit. His head jerked over his towards the carcass he'd just created. "Sorry about the mess."