"No kidding? Damn, a lot have people died chasing a prize that didn't even exist." Ringo said surprised.
"Yep. We are only on the way there for one of those people in fact." I said with a shrug.
"Well I hope you find your guy. I best get back to it but thank you both again for your help." he said before turning to walk away.
With this little side trip done we left the Crimson caravan branch and headed south following the road and then west around the sharecropper farms and the entrance to camp McCarron. We soon ran into New Vegas's version of raiders among the ruins of the buildings that sat here at the edge of the city. -
The Fiends were to put it bluntly, drug addicts.
They were dirty, barely dressed in scraps with whatever they could find as weaponry, usually pool sticks, golf clubs, tire irons and knives. They were also either high when encountered or trying to murder you so they could get high. They weren't like the Legion that did fucked up shit with a reason either but did it for no other reason than madness and whim.-
"Fiends. Filthy savages." I said kicking the corpse of one of them that had charged us with a tire iron.
"What even was the point of this?" Jess asked confused.
"Point? The point was that we might have caps, gear worth caps or drugs on us and they wanted it. Simple as that. Fiends are all outcasts with barely any hierarchy and a constant crazed itch for drugs. Any that aren't that way are either getting a constant fix or are new to the title." I said flatly.
"And no one has thought to just remove them?" Jess asked confused.
"Oh of course they have but theres no point. It's the nature of New Vegas to churn out more. It's not an immediate thing usually. It goes, visit the Strip, try drugs, get addicted, run out of money, start getting desperate for the next fix, do some dumb shit that alienates you from everyone else, get shunned outside the walls, turn into a fiend. More or less at least." I explain calmly.
"I thought you said House was capable? That sounds like a structural problem." Adam said calmly.
"You are looking at it all wrong. Vegas is a machine designed to wring out as much profit from those who visit it as possible. It's a sinful paradise where almost every vice can be pandered to. The problem is that nowhere in this machine is there anything that stops people from losing themselves to the vices and eventually ending up as fiends because of it. It's purely business as far as House is concerned." I explained seriously.
"So why does the NCR want it then? If anything it sounds almost cancerous." Veronica asked.
"Because of three reasons mostly. The first is profit. If the NCR somehow managed to take Vegas over from House they just needed to maintain it as is in order to constantly generate enough wealth to fuel further expansion. You have to remember that the NCR is comprised of a great many people with a great many jobs. Jobs that require pay to get done. The NCR is basically hemorrhaging funds in a controlled manner to simply exist. Expansion takes even more funds for weapons, soldiers, rations and other essential resources." I paused to take a breath.
"The second reason it's so valuable is that it's a solid staging point towards the other half of north America. At least on the bottom half of it anyways. The trouble with expansion is that eventually you WILL have to delegate the control of further away regions to subsidiary powers under your control. Still part of you but a sort of subsection of you, like a toe or finger. New Vegas is already set up as a prime location for this exact sort of structure. It has a community that is mostly stable, a solid infrastructure and valuable resources for the NCR. It's literally an ideal location for the NCR to stage further expansion from once they clear out the remnant undesirable forces." I said taking another breath.
"Finally you have the last reason, manifest destiny. The NCR simply believes that by virtue of it's own existence that it should bring everything under it's control. The wild wasteland is just something to be reconquered and brought to heel once again." I said with a chuckle.
"I think I get it." Jess said with a frown.
"Not the prettiest picture is it? I won't deny that the NCR is considerably better than most wasteland institutions but it's certainly not perfect." I say with a shrug "Anyways while we were jabbering away we've gotten near our destination." I say motioning towards the solid stone building with a hollow metal bottle sitting as the entrance.
The place was still a mess with some parts clearly having collapsed over the years but more or less still standing.
"Think we will find a buttload of caps here?" Veronica asked eagerly.
"Nope, maybe five hundred or so at most. We are not the first visitors and those ones have grabbed most of the obvious caps and loot. Lucky for us I know a little trick to collect the rest." I say with a grin as I lead the way in.
The reception area of the soda companies headquarters was a mess of crumbling walls, trash and faded, worn promotional stuff. There was a worn down curved desk in the middle, three doors in the middle and sides of the back of the room. And on the left hand side near the corner sat a busted up animatronic cowboy on a metal barrel like one of those animatronic gypsy fortune tellers.-
"And there's old Festus himself. The greeter and blue star prize promotional management construct." I said with a chuckle.
"THAT'S Festus!?" Veronica exclaimed is shock.
"Yep, that near mythical figure that the stories talk about, is none other than this beat up ancient animatronic." I said with a snicker.
"How though? Anyone with eyes could see that theres nothing special about this thing!" Veronica complained.
I shrugged "Beats me. Besides the game the thing has as part of it's programming it really is just a promotional gimmick the company used." I say casually.
"Game?" jess asked curiously.
"Yeah, Lucky horseshoes. Go give it a go, the thing still mostly works after all." I say motioning her towards the animatronic.