Being a courier was one thing above all others, being cautious. Making treks across the wastes was fraught with danger, any number of things could maim or kill. As the lone figure crossed under the overpass separating the town of Primm in half, he elected to ignore the sounds of gunfire he could sporadically hear in the distance. The first rule of the wastes, not my problem. The courier walked down the I-15, his light-coloured cowboy hat keeping the sun off his head. The Mojave sun was crushing, the desert heat a constant companion. While the heat was nothing new to the veteran courier, its constant pressure was a reminder of his dwindling water supply. Thankfully, news travels the same roads couriers do, and all news pointed to Goodsprings. Following the instructions given to him by a caravaneer, He walked until he reach a T junction with a shack. He watched as a large Gekko ran across the road and pounced on a rad roach, then continued with his journey.
Scanning the environment for danger, The Courier kept a steady pace, the ruin of a fridge sitting next to the road of amusing. Suddenly his hands, in their tan work gloves, reached slowly towards his nine-millimetre pistol. his muscles slightly tensed and the hair on the back of his neck stood. Something was wrong, there was no wildlife in the area as he began to reach the springs. Water always attracted critters, unless something drove them off. The Courier's attention was locked on to a sound fizzing through the air, his head darting around. When a red tube with a sparking end landed nearby, he had just enough time to register it was an explosive before he hit the deck.
The thunderous boom left him dazed with a ring in his ears. looking around, he grabbed his hat off the ground and slammed it on his head, then fumbled with his holster to use his gun. From his prone position, The courier could hear gunshots and bullets whizzing above where he had been. finally pulling the 9mm pistol in front of him, he fired a few rounds blindly into the air to buy some time. Scrambling to his feet, he ran for a bolder nearby for cover. After taking a moment to breathe, he held out his pistol in front of him and popped out of his cover, scanning the surroundings. He noticed something troubling, the bullets were not aiming near him, just above where he had been. He stood out from his cover in confusion as to why someone would wait for him to pass by, attack him, but not actually try to hurt him. The answer was upon him as he barely heard the sounds of footsteps over the gunfire, it was a diversion. Turning to see who had snuck up on him earned the Courier a face full of sand, As he recoiled in pain, he looked up. The last thing he saw was the flat end of a shovel racing towards his head. Upon hitting the ground, the last thing the courier heard was someone walking up to him. " The dynamite was a bit much, but it did the trick. We can deal with the square once he's done with his nod off." Darkness took him.
When he eventually came too, it was dark. The Courier was lying down in the dirt, his face on the dry ground. unable to use his hands, he slowly maneuvers himself to his knees. He as he notices his hand were bound, he heard a deep voice talking nearby.
"You got what you were after, so pay up."
The response comes from a man, his accent strange to the courier.
"You're crying in the rain, pally."
The Courier, assuming his captors were busy, attempted to undo his bonds without success. It turned out, not everyone was distracted.
"Guess who's waking up over here?" Another man asked rhetorically.
At being signed out, the courier stopped struggling with his bonds and looked up at his captors for the first time. Two of the men were dressed in leather jackets and white bands of cloth around their foreheads. One was dark-skinned with black hair and a handlebar moustache. The other was pale and had a ginger spiked mohawk and beard.
In between them was a man who looked out of place amongst the wasteland. he had slicked-back hair, a clean shave and wore a checkered suit. The checker-suited man had one last drag on his cigarette, threw it to the ground and stepped on it.
"Time to cash out." He said stepping up to the kneeling courier.
"Would you get it over with?!" The dark-skinned man demanded exasperatedly.
The checker-suited man held up his index finger.
"Maybe Khans kill people without looking them in the face," The checkered suited man started before looking back at the dark-skinned man. " but I ain't a fink, dig?"
The dark-skinned man scoffed it off and continued to wait. The man in the checkered suit, however, took his hand and began to ruffle around in his suit. As he pulled out a small silver object from his suit's inner pocket, he looked back at the courier.
"You've made your last delivery kid." He told the Courier, shaking the object lightly to emphasise his point. he then put it back in his inner suit pocket.
"Sorry you got twisted up in this scene." He continued with a hint of remorse in his words. The message was darkened by the engraved pistol he pulled out from inside his suit.
"From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck." The man looked down at the gun in his hands at the last words. Then he pointed the gun at the head of the kneeling package deliverer.
"Truth is... the game was rigged from the start."
Before the courier could process what the insinuation behind the words was, he saw the flash of the gun's muzzle.