Chapter 542 - Vent It Out

"No. I didn't know that... I thought she was just another Chem addict with all those Med X's she was popping, but I see now that I was mistaken..." he mutters through the radio, "Thank you for revealing this to me, Afton.*Bzztch!*" he says gracefully before ending communications.

Afton sighs, takes his helmet off and rubs his jaw. What's with this place and confusing him... He just wanted to return to the Mojave where everything was 'relatively' simple. NCR grey, Legion bad, House equally as confusing... Nevermind...​​

He glances back over to Vera Keyes and taps his foot, "I haven't been sheepish about looting before, why should I start now?" he mutters, walking over and stripping the skeleton of its dress... As long as Veronica didn't know its origins, he was sure she'd love it.

The skeleton crumbles to the floor as he removes the dress, revealing the wall behind her... His crooks at brow at the writing on it, Vera seems to have written a message in her own blood... 'Begin again', and 'LET GO'... He wasn't sure what it meant, but maybe it was a message to Sinclaire or something? Who knows.

With everything said and done, he begins heading back down to the lobby to see how the others were doing getting the VIP status... They'd failed thus far, but Christine was actually pretty good... Despite her inability to speak. Still, since he'd managed to gain access to the VIP rooms, the status was less of a priority.

Elsewhere :

Elijah was heavily scowling as he crawled through the ventilation ducts of the Sierra Madre Casino... He'd had this all planned out before Afton and Veronica had arrived... The Ghosts would breach the Casino and put the place on lockdown, he'd use this opportunity to turn off the power and allow Ghosts to continually harass the group to get them moving where he wanted... Yet... That Ghoul had used his former relationship with the place to completely ruin his plans before they'd even started...

Because of this, he was now forced to hide away and crawl through the vents to reach places he needed to go... It was inevitable as if he was spotted by anyone he didn't doubt that he'd be killed. Afton and Veronica had shown incredible combat capabilities, and he'd seen enough to know he stood no chance in a direct confrontation.

Fortunately, knew this place like the back of his hand, the last time he was here he'd almost entirely mapped the place out and discovered the vault... The only problem was the last security system in place, the system that prevented him from accessing the Vault at all.

All he was able to do was gain control of the Turrets, Holograms, and Forcefields around it. But, no matter what he did, the Vault was impenetrable. As much as he hated to admit it, he still needed those fools to succeed... Even if using them could prove more dangerous than the Cloud or Ghosts had ever been.

This was one of the main reasons he hadn't used the main security systems and turned the place completely against them... While Afton and Veronica might survive the initial assault due to their Power armour, Christine would undoubtedly perish. This was unacceptable as she was the most important piece in this puzzle.

He scratches claws his head in annoyance, not noticing the thick clumps of hair falling to the floor as a result, or the blood thick under his fingernails.

Two days later :

Christine had finally broken the chip limit in the Casino as was quickly given access to the VIP sections of the Casino. The trio had quickly made use of this but had yet to find anything of use... Though, they had discovered a ridiculous amount of valuable items during this time... Sure enough, VIP's were very rich, and if you combed through their rooms you'd find a litany of gold jewellery, expensive watches and suits, and large piles of pre-war cash.

Other than that nothing much had happened, aside from the confusing buzzing that'd occasionally occur from Christine's collar. Afton had investigated it but found nothing, meaning it was either a glitch or something Elijah was doing.

Afton hadn't been idle during this time either, having finally found the ventilation systems and hacked into it. Once he was in, he began expelling any and all Cloud left within the Casino, this would clear the blocked pathway he'd found days ago... To be honest, he had high hopes for it... Why else would that place be the only Cloud infested area in the Casino? Everything else was clear of it. He suspected that someone wanted to protect it.

In the end, he was right. Once he headed down the heavily corroded hallway, he'd found himself standing before a heavy Saturenite door, though, it seemed to be lathered in something that actively resisted the Cloud's effect on the metal.

The Saturnite was very dense, tempered, and reinforced, so most attempts by anyone else would prove useless... Afton didn't have such issues however, he ignites his Ultra Chainsword and easily swipes through it, his Perks allowing the weapon to act as a more efficient lightsaber.

Once he'd cut around the rim of the door, he gives it a firm kick, knocking the chunk of metal out and allowing him to step into the pristine yet dusty laboratory... His eyes were immediately attracted by the Big Mt symbols prominently plastered on everything... From the walls, containers, and even the glasses.

Clearly, Big Mt had some serious dealing here, yet, Afton hadn't found any evidence of such in the scientist's database, even Glados hadn't noticed anything of interest, meaning that everything had been destroyed or intentionally deleted.

He scans the room for anything dangerous but only finds a couple of skeletons slumped in their chairs in front of a couple monitors... They had a few empty bottles of whisky scattered around them with even more empty bottles of pain killers...

He takes a glance at the monitors and notices that they seemed to have been observing the town below the Casino... The town which had been utterly annihilated by the Cloud...

He sniffs, "Seems like they couldn't live with themselves after what they had done." he mutters, not feeling an ounce of sympathy towards these people.