Nevada: High Roller (Fallout New Vegas)

Chapter 35: The Diplomatic Approach

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"I sure hope that'cha know where you're goin when we're in there, 'cause I'm more lost than a preacher in Gomorrah."

"Not really. I never went inside Hoover Dam's offices." Boone replied, staring along the cracked blacktop of Highway 93, which stretched over the top of the Dam itself, further east. "There'll be signposts pointing us where we need to go. We'll find the office, no problem."

To our right, a short ways off the road and up some gray, concrete steps, the circular, dome-like building of the visitor's office stood, patrolled by several NCR Troopers, some of which were followed by guard dogs at their heels. 

               A few NCR Rangers, too, patrolled the stretch of concrete between Hoover Dam's visitor's center and the stage, just north of it, made up of metal posts creating a platform and solid steel mesh creating a floor. 

The Rangers were dressed up in their hefty brown combat armor over black fatigues, their faces stern and focused beneath the brims of their khaki campaign hats, emblazoned with their trademark badge. Only briefly did they turn their attention towards me and Boone, stood out in the middle of the road leading towards the Dam, but soon turned their heads when they deemed that neither of us were a threat, so long as we weren't dressed in Legion red. 

At the top of the visitor's center, Boone had pointed out on our way towards it, was a helipad, where Vertibirds probably landed from time to time but, now, remained empty. To our left, two towering sculptures of winged figures perched upon square blocks of chipped stone, seated on either side of some faded, inscribed memorial. 

               Old world or not, folks had died for Hoover Dam, which laid ahead, bridging the road from Nevada to Arizona across Lake Mead and the Colorado River, seven-hundred feet below the blood-soaked old world wall.

Staggered sandbag barricades continued along the road over the top of the Dam itself, reaching towards one large, sealed checkpoint at the center point, the door of which had been blocked and held closed with thick, heavy chains. Two towers along the south edge of the road had been turned into sniper nests, the telltale signs of red berets and long gun barrels, glinting silver beneath the afternoon sun poking out from the tops. 

There were another two towers over the south side of the road, making four towers on the Dam in total, but those other two were on the eastern side of the checkpoint. Legion territory. No NCR snipers in sight there, not that they would be for long for anyone under the wrong flag, anyhow.

"So, neither of us know which way we're goin'?" I summarized, stopping in the dead center of the road along the long-since painted white line splitting it in two with my hands firmly planted on my wide hips. 

"Exactly." Boone nodded, curtly. "We'll be lost together."

"Poetic."

"Thanks." Boone replied with equal sarcasm, stopping to stretch out his arms and roll his shoulders, adjusting the rifle slung over his back. "Clearly, I'm not just a dumb, old, ugly sniper. I'm also a poet."