[StLee]

10.24.2290

Lee turned to me with that look he had right before he smashed in someone’s face.
“It’s all a damn conspiracy,” he said.


I thought he might question me again about what I may have shared, but by this time I knew he knew I was his and his alone. No one else in the entirety of the Mojave had any control over me.

“Look,” Lee said to me. “There are many things I have let you know because I always thought this place had a chance, but now I doubt it. I never should have trusted anyone but myself and the people who fought beside me, but I was a fool. Always have been and probably always will.”

He paused. “I don’t even know your name.”

I started to tell him, but he stopped me.

“No, it doesn't matter. Right now things are as bad for me as they’ve been, and I think I know who is behind it all. I can’t explain it. I just can’t. But if I disappear at all, just know it was not because I wanted to but because I had to.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I was concerned.

“I mean that this is not just bad for me. I can handle being hunted. But it’s people like you and others I don’t understand. It’s people who think they have something going in the right direction, and then others come and jam a spike in their heart. I have a bad feeling that some things are going very wrong and that the people in the Mojave that I have worked hardest to protect are going to be the greatest victims. That’s why I think I might have to disappear.

“There is,” he hesitated, “a person who has been hunting me for a very long time. For years I thought he was nothing but a strange shadow, something harmless. Kind of like how you have been shadowing me for these past few years. But then I started to see that he was a tumor, something that needed to be eradicated. I knew that because he started spending a lot of time in the Mojave, a lot more than he ever had before. And I knew it was his work that caused a few bad events out here.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you. Everything can be revealed in time, but for now I don’t have much time. I may even have to fight again. I may have to cost people their lives. Or I may have to disappear for good.”

My concern was raised. He started walking towards the door and beckoned me to follow.
“I never let you see the Lucky 38 vault, have I?” He knew that I hadn’t.

We entered the area of the casino that I had never traveled to before. It was a hidden vault in the penthouse suite of the casino. There, computers cranked and belched out data. Below the walkway I could see an entire bunker of what looked to be a military training facility. It was empty.

At the end of the walkway, there was a lone Securitron robot. It’s video face was different than most of the others, set with a cartoonish smiling face.

“This is Yes Man,” Lee said. “Yes Man, this is the Historian.”

“Pleased to meet you!” Yes Man belted out in an upbeat and cheerful voice. “And nice to see you, sir!” I could tell Yes Man only spoke in exclamations. “Today is a fantastic day, isn’t it?”

Lee cut to business. “Yes Man, I have been having some trouble getting around to my usual locations lately. Have you noticed any strange activity on your network?”

“There has been lots of activity on the network! It is busy as a bloatfly!”

“But has there been any strange activity?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by strange, sir.”

Lee sighed. “Has anyone tried to hack you?”

“Tried? They succeeded, sir!”

“What?” Lee looked incredulous. I could see the blood rush away from his face.
“I said, ‘Tried? They succeeded, sir!’”

“Yes, I heard you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Lee looked at me, and I could tell he felt rotten. There was something he wasn’t telling me, but it was obvious Lee was in severe trouble.

“OK, OK, OK. Who hacked you?”

“The NCR, sir!”

“And how do you know it was the NCR?”

“Because he or she or it reprogrammed all of the Securitrons to follow only President Kimball’s commands.”

“Can you override it?”

Yes Man hesitated. Strange. “I would like to say ‘Yes!’ but the answer is ‘No!’”

“Does that mean there is no longer a failsafe? Kimball can command the Securitrons to do whatever he goddamn wants?”

“That is absolutely correct, Sir!”

Lee motioned to me to step back. I knew what that meant.

“Yes Man, is there anything you know about me from the hack? Are there any commands with my name in them?”

“There are many commands, sir!”

“Tell them to me.”

Yes Man went through a long list of places where Lee would be assaulted on site by the Securitrons. He would be “safe” in the Mojave region for the purpose of not turning the people against the NCR. However, if Lee tried to go anywhere west or approach any NCR-designated facility, he would be considered an enemy of the state with shoot to kill as protocol.

Lee thanked Yes Man for the information, pulled out his .38 special, and blasted Yes Man to nothing more than scrap parts.