[Reversal of Fortune] No, It's Not Dead... · 6:32am Feb 13th, 2014
...Nor am I.
It's been a while since I've had anything to say, but now I do. Have something to say, that is.
Reversal of Fortune! I'm over 7,500 words now, (it only took me over a month), and I'm really close to wrapping it up. If it wasn't made obvious by the amount of time I've spent writing, I'm trying extremely hard to make this excellent. But it's not easy. I gave some more thought to how Ryan and Celestia are reacting to each other, and I decided to go in a different direction instead of sticking to where I was headed.
So, I've also made a lot of progress mapping out the length of the story and how the plot will progress chapter-by-chapter. I can now 100% guarantee that the story will be nine chapters with one epilogue and the already-done one prologue. Each chapter will range anywhere from 8,000 words to 10,000 (probably), and I feel like I've said all this before, so I'll just keep going.
To give you guys a taste of what's coming soon, I've clipped a bit of the next chapter. Think of it as one of those little sample things that people hand out in front of restaurants at the mall.
"Who are you kid? Really?" Benny was sitting in a stool. One of his hands was flat against the bar, the other loosely gripping the half-glass of scotch that he had been sipping at.
"Who am I?" Christopher echoed the question. He had finally managed to track down Benny at The Tops, and the two were talking in the hotel's presidential suite.
"That's what I'm asking, baby," said Benny, sipping again from his glass. Even though his worst fears had come to be realized, he didn't crack. That smooth facade, the polished mask that was Benny, did not break. He never faltered in his speech, his hands did not quiver, his eyes kept the sparkle that they always had.
Christopher was quiet. Contemplating. Before he walked into the hotel, before he woke up in Goodsprings, before he left California for the first time; he might have been able to answer that question. But now it was all so confusing. He had chased Benny across the Wasteland, never relenting, hardly stopping to rest. Before, he might have called it a thirst for revenge. Now, he wasn't sure.
"If you strip away the parts that I'm looking at here, this rugged, tough-as-nails cowboy, what do you get?" He gestured to the various parts of Christopher's leather armor, his eyes lingering for just a moment longer on the loaded magnum strapped to his hip. "What's beneath the exterior? What makes you tick? Why are you here?" His voice had grown quieter as the time progressed.
Christopher was still silent. He didn't have an answer then. He had met friends and enemies of all sorts of types while he was searching for Benny. He had gone on adventures the magnitude of which would have shocked him had he been told back in California. He learned that he was capable of so much more than what The Couriers said he could do. And he didn't know what to make of that.
Benny heaved a sigh and looked to the bottom of his glass. "The things we could have done, what we could have accomplished." He fell silent for a brief moment before continuing. "And here we are, you poised to throw it all away. New Vegas could be great without House holding it back. The man is a relic, unfit for 2281. But you still seem to want to swing with that dusty old cat, huh?" He smiled, the lines never reaching his eyes.
Christopher opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He had spent weeks planning for this moment, but words failed him. For once, he couldn't think of what to say.
"I know how this all ends. I can see it in your eyes. The same way I knew you were different from the rest of the couriers that House sent out. There was something in your eyes. Like I could see the gears turning. Of course it didn't matter at that point, I already knew you were carrying the Chip." Upon mentioning it, he pulled it out of his pocket and gently set it on the bar's counter.
"You want it. You want it back so much. It's because of your job, I guess. Never supposed to lose a package, but this one was stolen. House will understand. He knows you, just like he knows me. Too much." He put two fingers on the warm platinum and slid it over towards Chris. "Take it, and get on with it." He looked in his glass and held up a finger. "Wait just a second. There's a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good scotch. Seeing as how I may be rapping on the door momentarily..." He downed the rest of his drink in two swift gulps, wincing as it burned a trail down his throat.
Christopher pulled out his gun slowly, with quaking hands and unsteady nerves. Hesitantly, he brought it up to aim the sights on Benny's head. "You were right about one thing, Benny."
His head turned to stare down the barrel of the pistol. "Oh yeah? What's that?"
Christopher pulled back the hammer, eliciting a soft click from the gun as it readied to fire a bullet. "House can't rule. Not anymore. He's an outdated king, and you were his last try at an ace-in-the-hole."
"Really? Then what does that make you?"
The question gave him pause once again. But this time, he had an idea of how to answer. An idea of who he truly was.
"The Wild Card."
He squeezed the trigger with much more force than was necessary. A flash lit up the darkness of his eyelids, and a sharp bang echoed in his ears long after the actual sound faded. His breathing was more forced then, heavier, just like his arms felt. The gun clattered to the floor, making contact with the wood underneath, through the padding of the carpet.
Christopher— no, that man was dead, dead like the man that slumped on the stool in front of him. The Courier opened his eyes and looked around the room, seeing them in a sort of different way. Benny's head was turned, the bullet wound not facing him. He laid on the bar table, one might even suspect he was asleep. But The Courier knew he wasn't. Benny was dead by his hand.
He picked up the Platinum Chip with numb fingers. The metal had gone cold, restoring some feeling within his deadened body. He pocketed the device, then he turned and picked up his gun. Lucky is what he would call it. Lucky that everything so far had been smooth compared to what lied ahead.
The Courier fixed his hat upon his head as he walked out of the room.
So, as you can see, our Ryan wasn't always Ryan. The Courier's past is an obscure one, that's for sure, so I'm going with a pretty hectic interpretation of it. The big things are still canon, of course, but I'm essentially creating my own canon on The Courier's history for this one. And it. is. intense.
