Now I'm Learning to Love the Wasteland

James

“Harris... Harris are you seeing this?”

The old man tripped over to the window I was parked beneath. He swept a decaying lace curtain with the back of his feeble hand, eyes widening as he did so.

“More guests.” He twitched under his breath.

So I wasn't completely delusional. Not yet. By my count there were five men, all decked in black armor. At the forefront was a figure glinting in grays and silver--like a knight. Too add to the strange pageantry of it all, they were perched atop a creature I'd never seen out here before.

“A horse... is that really a horse?”

“Of course, of course.” Harris nodded. Very slowly, I could feel the life in me returning. This was a chance. This was hope. This was a miracle.

Charon

“Order up, honey.” Nova set the bowl of dismal mush down in front of me. Wilde had shooed me out so she could take a bath, but not before insisting I eat some “real food”. That was an order, she said.

“You don't got anything else, do you?”

Gob paused from whistling along to the newly tuned radio, “Sorry, pal. Mirelurk soup's it for today.”

The uncomfortably beige slop seemed to gurgle on its own. Looked like it had a damn sock in it. Smelled like it had a damn sock in it.

How was this “real” food? Sweets would do me just fine. They were real. They existed.

“Gob?”

“Huh.”

“You got any candy in this dump? Cake?”

Dogmeat perked up her ears at the sound of Gob banging around his kitchen. I set the bowl of unidentified goop on the floor for her. Waste not, want not and all that. At least she seemed happy with it. Dogmeat had been waiting outside the gates to greet us; her leg like new. Along with Remington, who'd been lazily giggling, shooting at ant antennas and watching them “duel”. He'd asked about Mei Wong again. His goofy face crestfallen when we told him the truth. We hadn't seen her.

We made good time coming back. Knowing exactly where the feral ghouls were congregating this go around allowed me to find a different route. Safer.

Gob was still slamming around cabinets behind his bar, “What about.... liquorice?”

“No.”

“Mints?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Uhhh.... Swedish fish?”

“What do I look like, some kinda monster?”

“I ain't gonna answer that... I got... ah!”

He disappeared to a back room. The saloon was quiet today. Empty save Nova and an ex-raider I recognized, named Jericho. He looked like he wanted to say something to me. I shot him the meanest look I could muster, and he looked away. Good.

Gob returned with a mound of sour gummies in a relatively clean bowl. He even brought a fork.

“You could've just thrown me the bag.” I told him.

“Hey, fuck you! I'm runnin' a proper establishment, here! Eat it or weep.”

We both laughed. Jericho was back to staring at me from behind a glass.

Mei Wong

“I expect you gentlemen to be on your best behavior. You're guests here, after all.”

Pimplehead spat. So much for manners. “Where's the Lone Wanderer?”

“Hold your horse, big guy. We greet the neighbors first.”

The town was just as I left it fifteen years ago. Sleepy and unassuming, inhabited by two families. The town that taught me how to distrust, how to want revenge. The final mold to crush all the light and replace it with something bigger, brighter.

Linda did not seem to remember me, and neither did the others. She shook the men's hands with the same sugary kindness as long before, a smile sheathing something else.

I was hoping she'd remember my face.

Oh well. It'd still be fun.

James

Harris wanted to go out, to “rescue” them. I managed to hold him at bay somehow. We watched like children—aware that something we didn't fully understand was happening, but incapable of looking away.

The woman decked in chrome and light clothing was planning something, that much was clear. I saw it in the way she whispered into one of the village children's ear. Pleasantries were passed around with showiness, while the armored crew seemed lost. A loose-limbed man slipped away, crawling under the foundation of the house when out of view. The largest of the men was led away from the house into a small shed across the street while the rest, along with everyone in the neighborhood save the children, disappeared into the home. The big fellow did not return. The scrawny one did, however, before he could be missed.

“What's happening? They went inside?” Harris dragged himself away from the window and into another room, cursing under his breath about finding his glasses. I stayed, eyes screwed to that grimy glass like every heartbeat depended on it, like I could siphon strength from the figure who rode in on the horse.

The neighborhood's kids were playing catch, inching closer and closer to Harris' domain at the end of the street. I cracked the window slightly, unsure of why I needed to stay stealthy but obliging to do so regardless.

The noise of the glass shrieking open got their attention. The girl brought her chin up to rest on the sill with the boy following her gesture. They simply stared at me with an unnerving kind of numbness resting in the pools of their eyes.

I cleared my throat, “I-I uh... Could you tell me who those men out there are, please?”

“They're guests.” The girl answered flatly.

“Yes... but, they're a little different, aren't they?”

The boy, “You mean they're ready for dinner? Not like you, being rude with Harris.”

The girl flicked her playmate's skull with a frown bunching up her face.

This wasn't proving helpful. Still, I persisted, “The.... guest... on the horse, what did she tell you?” I asked.

“The princess? She said to get faaaar away from the house. On account of the See Four.”

“We don't have to get married anymore!” The girl looked to the boy and nodded with pride.

Mei Wong

“Where's Tony?” I heard a no-name Talon ask. Pimplehead was Tony. Who cared.

Grasshopper slipped through the door soundlessly. “Taking a dump.”

The rest of the Talons accepted this answer. I nodded to myself. Of course. I couldn't let the Fear take complete hold now. I was helping Lydia wash scuffed dishes, while her husband ranted about 'commies' in the corner and some mess about 'precious bodily fluids'. There was one other couple with us, the whole adult population circled around a plastic table covered in a sun-faded, yellow polka dot cloth. The radio coughed a dusty rendition of an old patriot song with fifes and happy snares. Everyone took pause when the signal seemed to magically reestablish itself. Not a whisper of static.

“My!” Lydia brought an arthritis twisted fist to her breast and smiled wistfully to her ugly curtains, “It's never sounded so nice! We'll get to hear the President so much better now, dear!”

Her husband ignored her completely, having returned to his previous ravings. Lydia was utterly unphased, acting in her own one-man show like she no doubt did a thousand times before. She lifted a lid from the bubbling ceramic pot on the stove. “Try the roast, Sally! Please!”

She held a spoon to my lips with a motherly hand. Just five years my senior and her hands were so veined, so cracked and twisted. Poor creature. For her sake only, I would make it quick.

“It's divine.” I told her. She bit her lip as little tears welled up in her eyes. I added, “I think it could use a kick, don't you? I have some spices. From the Super Duper Mart.”

She exclaimed jovially, following me out across her rotting porch with melodrama etched permanently into her face. I noticed one Talon tapping his knee under the table impatiently, frowning.

“...I think there's something sour with these people, Jeb. And I don't see The Lone Wanderer anywhere.” He whispered to his friend. His companion waved him away distractedly, eyeing the hissing stove with gluttonous greed. Grasshopper took the hint, slinking out and twisting behind the house in a sprint.

Ghost was tied carefully to a broken fence post near the tiny shed. She backed up nervously at the sight of Lydia. I calmed her with a word in her uneven ears and a pat on the neck.

I had to tell her. She needed to remember me. “Do you recall about 15 years ago, Lydia, the wretched thing from Two Sun you took in for a few days?”

“Two Sun. Two Sun.” She breathed loftily. I continued (not so much for her anymore as it was for me) as I searched through one off the large cloth saddlebags Ghost easily carried:

“Do you remember trading her back to slavers for two injured men?”

“Too skinny for any decent meal, too young. Even a stew would be bones and nothing else!”

I found the particular detonator I needed and clutched it stealthily in my hand. One of these days I'll have to get organ-ni-zized. The Cowboy's niave drooly voice rang within my mind. I calmly unhitched my horse and climbed into her simply made saddle. Lydia was wincing in my direction as she knotted her hands deeper into her pastel apron. “You do remember!” I said, “Fun!”

Lydia was backing into her porch slowly as I bore into her eyes before donning my sunglasses, “You don't have to pretend anymore.” She nodded in return, clinging to a rotting beam for support.

“KNOCK KNOCK.” I called.

Grasshopper's nasally tone bounced from a distance like a happy prewar jingle, “Who's there?!”

I smiled softly. The punchline was for me and only me, “Orange.”

James

The boom was mercilessly loud against the still afternoon light. Red-yellow rose from the pitch black gaps under the home's foundation. Decrepit siding buckled and burst outward, took the roof, collapsed it, leaving flame to gnaw the rest. The air around the place distorted with smoke and heat, as though reality itself was bending to the intruder's will. The figure in chrome only reined her steed back from the blast slightly, staring into it with teeth, chin upturned in quiet pride.

Harris perplexedly opened the door of his own domain. And for the first time since waking up, I felt a seizable moment.

“W-Where are you going? Come back!”

I was jelly-kneed and tunnel-visioned. I cut across Harris' barren lawn without stopping to even grab a weapon. I could only clutch my shattered Pipboy to my chest like it was my last thread of life. Just as I had cradled my newborn child on the road to Megaton, twenty-odd years ago.

The woman got off her horse and paused to chew two red pills from within a rectangular yellow tin. Then, she darted into the tiny shack.

My hobbling steps stopped when I reached her rare creature. I couldn't help but circle it out of burgeoning curiosity.

“Amazing. Simply amazing.” My hand stretched to graze its ghoulish coat lightly, but not before the tiny shack door behind me burst open. The hand that grabbed my ankle was digging and desperate, yanking me down and dragging until I tumbled back down a long, dark set of wooden stairs too narrow for the both of us.... three of us. I cringed painfully and scraped myself into a sitting position at the bottom to find the mysterious woman had tumbled down with me. The meaty ankle-biter was now at the top of the stairs, in the doorway, running clumsy into sunlight.

She hissed in a language I did not quite comprehend. Ta-maude! Whatever the meaning, it sounded like something I would scold my own daughter for.

The stranger leapt up quickly, knocking a chair with fresh cut ropes over and climbing the steps in twos after her presumed target. At first the thought to follow was dormant—my screaming muscles only wanted the cold floor and my reeling mind focused solely on the fire glow of light fixtures above. My ribs felt cracked and my ankle twisted.

I would've stayed, at least until the screaming outside the shack stopped. But I made the mistake of turning my head. My eyes found two long tables, covered with blood and smeared in viscera. Strange metal cages lined the walls, interjected by a few refrigerators. Rusted metal hooks hung from the dark ceiling. Some of them swung slowly without reason.

It was the sight of a huge side of meat dangling from one of those hooks that prompted me to move. A lightbulb above flickered. The shape hanging from the hook was distinctly human. A sick kind of realization hit the back of my throat like bile. I forced myself up from the floor and made my way up the stairs with catches in my breath that hurt from every side.

I went unnoticed in the background when my feet found the outdoors again, dizzy with stars in my eyes. I could only fall to my knees and watch the two quicker fighters struggle. The male was obviously losing. He seemed to be hanging on solely by mass. Blood trailed down the side of his face in a river, the flesh of his cheek appeared to have been ripped away by teeth.

He was swinging blindly with an old street sign. The woman in chrome was sweeping past his blows with ease. Just as solid, but lighter. Faster. She laughed coldly when he finally went down panting. Blood in her mouth. She took his weapon from him and tossed it just out of reach. As soon as he began a desperate scramble towards it, she revealed a wrought hatchet at her hip and swung down upon an unfortunate ankle. The dreadful crack of bone did not bother me, neither did the sight of blood, what was troublesome was the fact that she seemed to find it funny.

“You answer my questions and I make this fast, Pimplehead.” Her voice was loud and easygoing over her opponent's howls. He twisted on his back and made the mistake of croaking out “why”.

“I'm ASKING.” Suddenly her tone was shakier and more like a snarl. She brought the hatchet down again. It was a heavy thing, but she made it seem like a butterknife. The man she called 'Pimple head' screamed down at a stump where his foot once connected.

“Who put out the bounty on the Blondie?”

“I... what?” He pushed the words out through twisted, pained breaths.

“The Vault Gal! Lone Wanderer! Who wants her head?” The woman rose her hatchet in punctuation. Pimplehead screamed in objection, raising a hand for her to stop. She paused mid-air. Expectantly.

“...It was.. It was Burke. Mr. Burke. He works for Tenpenny.”

“And? Where'd you last see him?”

“Weeks ago. Rivet City. That's all I know. Pl... please..”

The woman rolled her eyes, “Boring.” She brought the hatchet down into the center of his his skull with gruesome finality. The urge to move hit me again and smarted like a whip. I got up, too dizzy, fell once more.

She noticed. “You there. You look like something the cat puked up.”

I shielded my face instinctively. I didn't dare run now. She stepped closer, glowered at me from the other side of her horse.

“Hey, I know you! You're that Dad!” She exclaimed this brightly as she procured a large number of sharp tools from one of her saddlebags. “I can see the resemblance. Apple doesn't fall too far, does it?”

I looked away as she went to work on the man she'd quite literally axed. “You... you know my daughter? Is she safe?”

“Safe's pretty subjective out here, huh? She's alive, if that's what you mean.”

“She can't know where I am. Please...”

“Relax. Your little family drama is none of my business. Hm... You're in a bad way, aren't you, Dad. You aimed to please where you should've aimed to kill?”

“Yes.” I admitted, feeling as though I were in a dream, “My Pipboy is broken.”

She paused from slicing at Pimplehead and leered down at me for awhile. Went back to searching through another bag. And for a second I thought it was all over, she was going to kill me, to pull me from my misery. Instead, she threw something at my feet.

A flare.

“You fire that when the sun starts to set. I have a friend that can fix that Pip-thing for you. He's a fool and a flirt, but he's.... an honorable sort. You understand?”

“I'm afraid I don't have--”

She threw something else. A tiny threaded coinpurse. I opened it with trembling fingers.

“There's only nine caps here.” I said.

“You can count, too!” She laughed at the joke I wasn't in on, “Cool.”

I stammered nothing words while she finished... whatever she was doing to the unfortunate soul in the middle of the town. Every look she gave me was full of judgement, and I wasn't sure I was worthy. She sighed and rolled me a can of beans.

“Don't just stare at it, eat it.”

I cracked open the pop-top tin quickly. Her accomplice—the skinny youngster in black armor—joined us with a tiny square icebox. I watched the woman pack various organs of Pimplehead's inside with gloved hands. Years of research and doctoring had taught me to withstand being squeamish. But as I stared into my beans, and suddenly didn't feel quite as hungry.

“OLD MAN.” The woman shouted. I looked up, as did Harris from his frozen stance across the way. “You take care of those little ones. Vice-a Versa.”

She mounted her horse a final time after packing away the cooler. She nodded at the scrawny figure in black and told him how to get to someplace called 'The Temple'.

It took all the courage I had left, but I finally asked, “Who are you?”

“I'm just leaving.” She smiled at me with the sunlight bouncing off her armor at all angles, “And you don't know where I'm headed. Understand?”

I bowed my head. She clicked her tongue, bringing her twisted mare to trot through smoke.

“Don't get dead, Dad!” She laughed. I couldn't tell if she was sincere in her good wishes or not. I could only remain kneeling tiredly, waiting for the sun to set.

Charon

“I remember you. What are you doing out here?”

Jericho pulled up a seat directly across from me. His voice growled, grinning low with the scent of whiskey. Dogmeat emitted a low growl from the floor.

“Listen, I'm outta the game but I got a buddy in Evergreen, lookin' for a runner.”

I said nothing. Chewed another worm. Part of me wished he would just go away. Just like all things dealing with the past.

“It's good caps. Hey, are you listening to me? How about it?”

He laid a hand on the table. I picked up the fork and jammed it right between the thin space of wood between his middle and pointer fingers. He scooted his chair back in surprise, eyes frozen on the utensil frozen upright between us.

“How about this: you never speak to me again, or I'll kick your teeth so far down, you'll be able to chew your own shit for two weeks.”

Jericho got the message. Stood. Rubbed nervously at his chin with the hand I'd almost maimed. Left. I finished my meal and did the same. Except I paused to give Gob his kitchenware back.

“Remind me never to give you silverware again.” Gob muttered.

“Still got hands.”

He cackled. Bobbed his head towards the entrance. “There's a basket of laundry for Wilde by the door, courtesy of Nova. Some clean clothes for you in there, too. Guessed on your size, but wasters can't be choosers, yeah? Grab 'em on your way out.”

“Er, thanks.”

I paid him with money Wilde had insisted on sharing since The Monument and thanked Nova. All of this accompanied a hyperaware clumsiness that came with suddenly having to deal with people. The sun was sinking low when I stepped outside. The air was crisp and cool. I popped a Rad-X and briefly heard two guards posted on Megaton's wall laughing about how “The Cowboy left in a hurry”.

I felt better heading back to Wilde's pieced-together shelter with its lopsided metal door. Back to purpose.

She was messing around with a chemistry set, it looked like. She stopped without taking off her comically large goggles to take the basket of clothing from my hands and coo over Dogmeat.

“Did you eat?” She asked finally.

“...Yes.” It was the truth, wasn't it?

I ignored her robot's friendly greeting and navigated over piles of crap to the workbench by her bobblehead stand. I set to work cleaning and reloading all our weapons.

“I cleared out the spare bedroom for you upstairs. It was Wadsworth's, but I think he can deal.”

The robot clicked in the corner. Christ. Another reason for it to want to kill me.

“No need for that.” I told her plainly.

“Why?”

“I don't sleep.”

“That's impossible. How?”

“I just don't.”

“You could try counting Brahmin, that's what my father always suggested.” She joked, but there was concern in her words.

“Vault Dweller wouldn't know a Brahmin from a foot.”

“I wasn't born under that rock, you know. ”

“Then where're you from?”

“I... haven't got a clue.” Sad words. I felt odd for probing at the subject, so I uncharacteristically searched for a new one. I found it in my back pocket.

“I.... uh... found this at The Monument.”

Wilde made a strange, excited noise as I handed her the comic book. She flipped through the pages, all the bold, dusty ink reflecting in her eyes.

“Grognak seven? I don't have this one! Do you think it still has the crosswords in the back? Amata and I used to do those together.” Hinted melancholy again. I really had to stop opening my damn jaw so much.

We worked in silence for the rest of the night. Her with the stimpaks and I with the weapons. The need for sleep took hold eventually. She yawned, dropping her tools haphazardly around her work table. She laid the newfound comic over on the dresser housing the little framed stitching of the Bible quote, and took one final pause to set a novelty bobblehead on the radio near it.

“The spare room's still yours if you need it. I'm a heavy sleeper, so feel free to... do whatever. Just make sure Dogmeat doesn't chew the legs off the furniture again, if you'd be so kind?”

“As you wish.” I answered. I was caught in a weird sort of dread at the prospect of being alone with my thoughts. When I had somewhere to go, I could focus on the road. And the Ninth Circle had rarely been empty.

I could feel Wilde's eyes, worried and sad, on the back of my head as she tread lightly upstairs. “Goodnight.”

“Hrmph.” Her bedroom door shut softly. Dogmeat was asleep; twitching and dreaming near my feet. Probably thinking about chasing raiders, I snorted to myself.

Wilde

My bedroom was the smallest room in the house. There was only enough room for an old office desk, a lonely bed and a filing cabinet. Strung up lights warmed the always present draft in the room—coming from a lopsided window centered over my wire framed cot. Vault 101 had been far more spacious and sterile. But this place lived. It creaked and breathed and welcomed. It made me feel less alone.

I was inspecting Charon's contract again. I'd taken my Pipboy off and set it on the desk, propped atop a thick book titled “Lying: Congressional Style”. I clicked the light on 'low'; just as I'd done in Underworld. Barrows said I needed to prod him with questions. But that was starting to feel wrong.

The light didn't reveal anything new. The same logo revealed itself under words too faded to read. And I had tried to read them; not even a magnifying glass was useful. There was a raised seal at the bottom of the page near my newly added signature. But it'd been torn away. The pattern of the wound showed that it'd been done away with on purpose.

Only more questions. I sighed and shut my Pipboy down. I wanted to understand. To be there. And not just because I liked answers, or because he was someone who needed help. But because he was becoming a friend. Somewhere to belong.

Charon

For a while I could only think to work in the quiet. Loading, repairing, cleaning. The guns and the armor. Not the house. I wouldn't dare try to sort that mess. I bathed, desperately avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

But even all that didn't eat up enough time. I clicked on the radio for some quiet noise and sat in an uneven, prewar chair centered in the room. Grounded myself in the here, the now. Among the weapons and holotapes, she had gathered everything useless and arbitrary Stuffed them into little corners and cramped shelves. A collection of this and thats--obviously never used; but most certainly studied like they were precious jewels: Piles of pre-war pajamas with clashing, horrid patterns. A shaving kit. Packs of gum. Dinnerware, cake molds, a pressure cooker. A leather jacket emblazoned with “Tunnel Snakes” on the back. Garland (?) and gardening equipment. Cow skulls. Coffee-stained lingere catalogues. Those made me blush. Pencils and hotel soaps.

Junk, upon junk, upon junk.

”I've lost all ambition, for worldly acclaim...” The radio sirened and glowed warmly, drawing my eye. I found myself staring at the dancing little hula figurine in its gentle wave. The music grew louder and clouded the room.

I remembered.

Charlie

...I just want to be the one you love...

The radio and the hula dancer taped to the dashboard was an offensive contrast to the world outside. The bus shook and rattled with the noise of protests below. The driver—a man who looked as lifeless and squishy as bread dough—hummed as though this route was a quaint little routine.

Everyone had lost their goddamned minds. I rested my head against the window, glaring at a single tear in the vinyl seats ahead and nothing else. Said no words. Frank couldn't seem to shut up in the seat beside me, pointing:

“That new Power Armor looks good on our guys, don't it?”

I turned my gaze on the scene outside. An ebbing swarm of civilians were protesting, rioting in the streets below. Power armored soldiers formed a wall along the road, giving the bus a clear path to wherever the hell we were going. There were screams of rage, screams of fear as the soldiers spewed gas into the throngs of people. Not a single townsperson without a white doctor's mask or some manner of thin cloth to cover their faces. The masses poured and jerked like an open wound. There was a plume of thick, white smoke rising from the nearest building. A pet store. A bizzare amount of iguanas were darting out from the smashed in windows.

The jeers and the painted signs all declared the things everyone on the bus already knew: the price of gas was too high, disease was spreading, monstrosities by the people up top were being swept under the rug without the slightest hint of remorse.

TOO LATE. The simplest banner I could read. And the most true.

“Old Oney.” Phillip had told us the name of the small town. He had family from out here, in Germantown. What a welcome back. It was tame, compared to others. The concrete wasn't running red yet.

Philly was in the seat ahead of us, hunched in a permanent way with his hands cupped around his ears like he wanted to tear them out.

“Close the window.” He said, “We'll catch what they got.”

Frank pretended not to hear him, laughing instead at the innocents being drenched below. My brother could be a disgusting person. I was learning it more and more.

“Close the damn window!” Philly yelled again, near to tears. I blinked out of my own little bubble and stood, sliding the metal at the top of the glass and dragging it up. Secured it closed. A glass bottle hit the reinforced glass and shattered into splinters of brown. I could barely react. Not when the world around us was blowing up with a hundred times more noise.

A big hat three seats down barked at me to sit down. For once, I did what I was told.

“What, you think the fuckin window's gonna protect you?” Frank mocked our wilted friend, “Get outta here. Catching the plague's the least of our worries.”

He was right. A shithead, but right. Where we were going, there were things worse than the end of the world.

“It's your damned fault.” Frank was talking at me now, clamping his hand down on my shoulder and shaking me in sarcastic brotherly love, “Couldn't follow fucking orders like the rest of us.”

Frank was my twin. Fraternal. I “lucked out with all the good”, he always said. Whether that was looks or character, I wasn't sure. Ha ha. A funny joke.

Nothing felt like a joke anymore. Everything was...

”Burning. Ugly...” Philly was rocking slower, but tearing at his ears more. I kneed his seat gently and he stopped. Still blithering, but at least he wasn't digging into himself so much.

“Ain't gonna say nothing?” Frank smiled at me in a threatening way I knew too well. White teeth and bleeding gums. Blue eyes and sloppy black hair.

No.

“Never changes.”

The bus sputtered as we neared the vault. We were far beyond any civilization, now, however chaotic. End of the line. Time to say goOOOOD MORNING CAPITAL WASTELAND--

Charon

I started awake in the chair at the sound of Three Dog's loud, merciless cheering for the sun's rays. Without him, I doubted anyone would rise and shine again.

The pain in my shoulder was back, and it was digging in with fangs. The legs of the ugly chair hobbled like it was going to throw me out of balance, but I clawed into the tattered arms and steadied myself.

Wilde was leaning bleary-eyed and messy against the railing above. She was dressed in shabby blue pajamas that were too big. It was odd, seeing her out of the armor. I always wore mine.

“You okay? I thought you didn't sleep.” Her voice sounded groggy and cracked, a little like a ghoul's.

“Tried counting Brahmin.” I replied as I stretched back in the chair for a moment. The damn thing threatened to overturn once more; I fumbled and cursed with it before regaining balance again. That made the boss laugh, and I felt mildly better.

I would recover, I always did. I was just thankful she didn't ask me anything more about the way I was holding my bad shoulder. About the how or the why. Or the was.

Penny

Sammy lowered his binoculars and itched at his scout's uniform. “Still nothing.” The kids that started lamplight used to wear those little uniforms, I was told. Why anyone would wanna keep wearing that, I didn't know.

“Rory will be here.” I said.

Squirrel clicked his teeth, “Why do we have to walk all the way out here? He should just meet us at the Cave.”

“Idiot.” Sammy snapped, “Do you want him telling other Mungos where we live?”

Rory wouldn't do that. But this was the way it'd always been—journey out into the empty valley once a month to swap supplies with the adults. Exactly at sunset. Sammy had his eagle eyes and I had the gun. Squirrel was no use here, he only knew computers. But he was a new arrival and needed to know the routine.

I was the eldest of the small group at age twelve. I'd lived at Lamplight for about six years. I vaguely remembered living in a blown out town years before. Until the night my father left. A young woman named Sydney had found me and my brother Joseph, barely surviving. She took us to Lamplight and that was that.

The caverns were nice, but Joseph would have to leave soon. No one over fifteen was allowed to stay. It hurt to remember my mirror image—black and tall and resourceful—would be separated from me, after all we had to go through to be there in the first place. The other kids wouldn't understand. Most of them had arrived alone.

“Someone's coming.” Sammy grinned and struggled to perch upon a rock. I boosted him to reach the top.

His excitement turned sour in an instant. “Oh no.” He said.

“What? What is it? What do you see?” Squirrel wiped at some snot beneath his nose.

Sammy jumped down and crouched with us, “Not Rory. Four Mungos, spiky armor. Three rifles, one ripper.”

Without a doubt, raiders. Or worse.

“Did they see us?” I put a hand on my scoped magnum. If they did, we were doomed. There was no running back to Lamplight, for they would follow. And that would doom everyone else.

“I.... I don't know. But they have dogs, too.”

Shit.

“Everybody, lay low.” I hissed. If we could make it till nightfall without being found, we had a fighting chance. If not, we'd be forced to fight.

James

Harris had invited me back inside, but I'd declined. I could only watch and stare as the daylight shimmered orange again and then shifted to cool blues. I'd fired the flare, but here I was, a broken man still stranded in the aftermath of somebody else's rage.

The sound of a motor stirred my aching head. I rubbed at my eyelids upon seeing it: A motorcycle. I real, working motorcycle. It eeeeked to a slow halt in the sand right in front of the ruined house I'd been viewing all day. The figure it carried was chubby and hardy just the same. Bearded and baby-faced. Like most people in the world, two sides of their own battered coin.

The Biker unsecured his a strange helmet and finally noticed me. He paused to take a stick of gum from his breastpocket and chewed it thoughtfully, glancing back once at the blown up house with raised eyebrows.

His voice was very odd. Hard 'r's that plonked through a deep, muddy drawl: “Are you the one that set off that flare, sir?”

“...Yes?” I did not feel at risk with this man. In fact, there was more puzzlement than anything else. He was surprisingly warm, for being so obviously roughspun by these elements. He got off his bike and approached me.

“Alright. What's she want?”

“I'm sorry, what?” What does who want?

He groaned, clearly at his wit's end, “Mei Wong! The smoke was one thing, but those red colored flares are hers. I'd know 'em.”

In truth, my rescuer(?) never did give me her name, but I could jump to a conclusion with the best of them.

“Ah!” I snapped my fingers, revealing the tiny pouch I'd received from this Mei Wong hours ago. His deep brown eyes were sparking up. Obviously the meager amount of caps were important to him, in some respect. I spoke quickly as he took it from my fingers: “I need my Pipboy fixed. And I was told you could do that.”

The man chewed thoughtfully. He was so oddly dressed—with a sniper rifle and a guitar case secured to his back. By my inference, he'd caught too many old westerns on leftover holotapes. And read far too many comic books. “I'm something of a tinkerer, that's true. What about you, silver fox? Why'd Sally leave you to your lonesome?”

“Er... my name is James.” I stood up with his help, “I'm just a doctor. Looking for... something.” And running from something, all the same.

“Oh! I'm Remington. Remy to my pals.” He shook my hand without warning. The tired bones in my arms shouted in protest, but I tried to hide my wince behind a smile. Remington motioned over to his vehicle and cleared out a space in the sidecart.

“I'll get you a helmet back near Springvale. You're gonna need these goggles, though.” He ripped the riding glasses from a cracked garden gnome statuette previously occupying the seat. “And if you wouldn't mind holding onto Marlon Brando, I'd 'preciate it.”

Marlon... who? Ok, I took it that was the little gnome's name. I squinted at the heavy decoration as I secured myself painfully in the cramped pod. It squinted back at me with a cracked smile and chipped nose.

“Well, jeez,” Remington chirped as he donned his helmet again. It looked like... something not of this world. He handed me his other hat, “Hold onto that, too, will you? These folks have a lot of cleaning up to do. And... have we met? I swear I've seen your face somewhere before.”

“You know my daughter?” I asked him. “The... girl from Vault 101.”

My little girl. With immediate threats dashed and hope brimming from the man in the ridiculous cowboy gear, sadness crept in.

“She cannot know where I am.” I insisted. I would not put my child in more danger.

“Alright, James, if that's what you want.” Remington putted and revved up his remarkable machine with a giggly sort of grin, and we were off.

Charon

It took another full day before the dust storm finally passed over GNR. Wilde and I were arguing over whether or not salisbury steaks were actually technically edible when Three Dog announced it over the airwaves as though clean water had just magically begun flowing through all the rivers and basins. He even addressed Wilde directly. “Come by the studio, kid. You and I need to have a chat.”

She leapt (literally) at the chance. The aforementioned frozen meal was thrown to the ground as she rushed out of the minuscule kitchen. She was a lit up like fury--grabbing stims, gathering the guns, raising her emptied pack into the prewar chair.

“We have to gear up! We have to go!” Wilde was not commanding, but cheering. Dogmeat barked by the door and wagged her tail. “Pack cola! Pack food! And something other than snack cakes, please.” She disappeared into the bathroom. Out of sight. I could smile.

We would finally meet Three Dog. She had a chance at locating her old man now. And for the first time since I could remember, I wholeheartedly wanted to follow.

(fool. don't)

Too late.