Beyond the Beef

Beyond the Beef is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas in which a well-known rancher named Heck Gunderson asks the Courier to track down his son Ted Gunderson, who disappeared in the Ultra-Luxe Casino Hotel. Ted was accidentally kidnapped by the White Glove Society, who serve human meat from people who will not be missed as a delicacy.

If the Courier has a bad reputation, Mortimer will ask the Courier to help the White Glove Society by murdering Ted and framing Heck for the killing. If the Courier does as Mortimer asks, Mortimer reveals that the standard of luxury at the Ultra Luxe was threatened by Heck, who was driving down beef prices to the point where anyone might be able to afford it. In addition, Mortimer will ask the Courier to hunt down the original target, and to persuade Marjorie to allow the White Glove Society to resume the practice of cannibalism.

Quick walkthrough
Note before you begin: This quest involves a lot of getting attacked, so you may want to smuggle some weapons in. If your sneak isn't high enough, use a Stealth Boy. Another solution is that you can steal all of your weapons back after they are taken. They are stored in a metal box at the feet of the casino cashier, behind a restricted area. If your sneak is high enough, or you can spare a steal boy, you can easily steal it all back. There are a few ways to skin this cat if you don't have the bad reputation to sign on with Mortimer. If you talk to Heck at the bar, he'll tell you that his son was kidnapped and ask for your help. Ask around until Marjorie gives you a key to go upstairs and speak to the investigator. Upon going to see the investigator, you will find him dead with an important matchbook on his person and a group of white gloves will attack you, and may knock your followers unconscious. Upon dispatching them, take their clothes and dress up like them. No one will seem to mind that you've killed them. Meet the investigator's contact in the steam room at 4pm in the bath house. From here, you will have three ways to complete the quest:

1) Sneak into the member's only area and drug the wine

The wine will be in the kitchen next to the stove where you would prepare the meal in the following walk through. Drug the wine with Med-X and have the head waiter bring it down. Once everyone falls asleep, sneak Ted out.

2) Sneak into the member's only area and take the head chef's place, preparing the "meal"

There are multiple ways to go this route, but they all require getting in to the Investigator's room. Speak to Marjorie to learn about another investigation, as well as the Society's cannibalistic past, then talk to Mortimer. Use truthful answers to get him to give you the key with no hassle, then, if you have a high speech skill, you can lie about being a cannibal to get him to give you the keys you need for later.

Once inside the Investigator's room, be prepared for an ambush by two white gloves wielding canes. Grab the matchbook from the investigator and the clothes from the attackers, then wait in the bath house sauna. Chauncey will walk in around 3:30PM and stay until a little after 4PM. Talk to him to learn about the banquet, Mortimer's plan and, if your Strip and/or White Glove Society fame is high enough, honorary membership to the Society (though this isn't necessary if you get Mortimer to trust you in the first place). After this an assassin with a silenced .22 will kill Chauncey and attack you.

Head in to the kitchen however you can. A speech challenge will let you by the guards. When you get to the cook you have multiple options. High speech will get him to give you the recipe, but high medicine will get him to yell about hit horrible upbringing and cause him to quit, leaving you with the recipe and the job to cook for the banquet. If none of this works, you can pickpocket his freezer key and recipe, then lock him in the pantry. If all else fails, you can just kill the chef, take his key and recipe and drag the body to one of the side rooms. Hide there yourself too when the head waiter comes to pick up the food or he will attack you. On a side note, there is a recipe sheet for Brahmin Wellington on the counter in the kitchen that you can steal for yourself.

Cooking still requires either a 6 INT with the recipe or high survival without. Prepare the meal and call the head waiter through the intercom. After the head waiter takes the food up, go and get Ted with the freezer key and bring him to the dining room. Speak to Mortimer and reveal what he was trying to do to the rest of the White Glove Society. He will then flee and you bring Ted back to Heck in the Casino. You will gain both Strip and Society fame for this route, and likely will not have to fight more than the two previously described ambushes.

NOTE: Timing in Mortimer's speech is everything. If you approach him too soon you will be unable to expose him to the rest of the society.

3) Lay waste and kill everyone in your way.

You may want to have backup such as Boone before considering this method. If your Alignment isn't evil enough to do this quest, it certainly will be by the time it's finished. First, do everything up until the you find the dead investigator. White Glove members will attack you and the best bet for this plan of attack is to flee the casino, wait a few days until they forget your crimes enough to allow you entrance to the casino again. Enter and the door guard will ask for your weapons, take the third option that mentions blowing his ass away, then choose the option with [Attack] preceding it. Continue to lay waste to everyone until you reach Mortimer. Try to talk with him to see if your Alignment is where it needs to be. If it's not there yet, kill him and take his keys, this will allow you entrance to the kitchen where you can rescue the son.

There is a lot of killing, but there are lots of Nuka-Cola and Sarsaparilla bottles to be stolen at the cost of your alignment. Some would consider this the spoils of war. Even with all of the White Glove society wasted you can peacefully return the son to Heck and receive the 500 caps and 500xp.

Note: With a high enough speech level (62) the quest can be completed solely by talking. You may get Mortimer to admit that he is a cannibal and you can agree to "take care" of Ted for him. The majority of the way to Ted's hiding place can be reached using speech checks. Though you will need to lure the chef into the pantry and lock him in from the computer to avoid him attacking you and causing the White Gloves to become hostile. This route also means you don't have to go to the investigators hotel suite, poison the wine, or prepare an alternative meal for the white glove society.

Bugs

 * Some of the following bugs will occur when you simultaneously take path 2 of the above Quick Walkthrough and agree to help Mortimer. For example, if you've already visited the investigator's room and will be going to the Steam Room, do not speak to Mortimer about his Craving and help him with his problem. In addition to Mortimer exiting the Members Only Area before ending his speech and you being attacked by many White Glove Society members (including Majorie) when you attack Mortimer during his speech, there may also be the problem of chef Phillipe not spawning.


 * Sometimes Mortimer starts walking towards the exit in the middle of his speech, stopping him while he's walking or while he's standing at the podium, he'll attack you no matter what you do in this situation; and so will his allies (Head Waiter, Marjorie). You'll gain lots of bad reputation with the White Glove Society, personally I got past "Hated". You'll get attacked by all White Glove Society guards on your way to out of the casino. When completing the quest, you'll gain good reputation with The Strip.
 * I don't know the solution to this problem, but I did do some bad stuff in that casino that you should avoid, perhaps that will fix it. I pick-pocketed Mortimer before I had started this quest, took the members only key and went inside the Members Only Area - which instantly aggravated the White Glove's sitting in the diner, impossible to flee from, I had to kill some of them. This gave me bad reputation with the White Glove Society, but putting on one of their costumes made it possible for me to walk inside the casino without getting attacked by guards. I also brought Rex, the robo-dog companion, who were quite annoying in there.


 * If you fail the quest but manage to get Ted Gunderson out of the Ultra-Luxe casino, he will continue to follow you as a second companion. However, unlike proper companions, he can die during battle.


 * This hasn't been confirmed yet, but I am not able to contact Marjorie as she and the rest of the White Glove Society are stuck in their nightly meetings. Waiting, leaving the casino, or sleeping haven't solved the problem so as of now, I'm not able to complete the quest.


 * Ted Gunderson may become invisible during the quest, similar to the Powder ganger bug. This seems to have no effect as his name is still shown and you can still interact with him. It's a severe inconvenience though as he can get "lost" in the walls. Only known way to fix this is to somehow force Ted into another room and refreshing that room.


 * The door to the deep freezer where Ted Gunderson is being held remains inaccessible after the dinner has been served and the deep freezer key obtained from the chef.


 * Ted Gunderson wont follow you through area doors -- after rescuing him from the kitchen he will be unable to leave the Gourmand


 * I had a problem where Mortimer would leave the room during his speech, thus leaving it uncompleted and making it impossible to reveal Ted at the right time. If you confront him on his way out of the room, he just attacks you.
 * There is a way around this on PC- enter the console when Mortimer starts to walk away from the podium and use the command 'setunconscious 1'. He will freeze in place and continue his speech. When he finishes, target him again and use 'setunconscious 0' and he will start to walk away again, and you can confront him.


 * I recently encountered a bug with Ted. I sneaked him out before looking into the investigator's room. Now, he is with his father like normal, but there are still quest objectives regarding him such as Mortimer wanting you to talk to him. This is exceedingly frustrating and I'd advise you to navigate around it.


 * When waiting to meet the investigator's contact, Chauncey, in the bath house, the game crashes. Use wait and quick save frequently to work around it. PC version.


 * When starting a conversation with Chauncey, the game crashes. It appears that the closer you stand to him when you start the conversation with him, the less likely it is to crash. PC Version.


 * NPCs would walk around continuously after being drugged. Talking to them only brought up their inventories.  Was unable to complete the quest.


 * If you make the food but fail to bring Ted up immediately after the food, the banquet will end and Mortimer and the other important White Glove Society Members will have left the hall, making it impossible to parade Ted and expose Mortimer.