Now I'm Learning to Love the Wasteland

Wilde

We were somewhere along the edge of the inner city when the loudspeakers started going off.

“In fourteen hundred and ninety-two your mother and my mother were hanging clothes around the mulberry bush...”

The alleyway wasn't nearly as obstacled as the tunnels, but it was still narrow. Charon and I pressed side-by-side at the same pace with Dogmeat zigging up ahead. Her ears and nose were pointed and primed, ready to alert us of any impending enemies.

“Dog!” Charon called, “Don't go sniffing at any of the mines!”

Dogmeat wagged her tail and carried on through rusted out playground equipment.

“She understand that? I hope she understood that.” Charon whispered under his breath.

“More than you or I could ever comprehend, I think.”

We stepped around the deactivated landmines and grenades with care. It was somehow safer than traipsing headlong into a gang of mutants. Charon said there was “some loon” here who was watching from high above in the old apartments.

Apparently, this man was the very same one who'd set up the loudspeakers. His voice gushed forth from every angle with shifting emotions, on the verge of tears both ecstatic and grieving:

“Back! Back, you lousy wyrms! We trapped the light in a glass and then we let it fall to the ground!”

“Ah, shaddup!” Charon shook his fist at a window in the brick building towering above to our left. “Don't listen to him, he does this everytime.”

“Has he ever set these charges off?”

“--WYRMS--” Speakers arranged around the walls whined and hissed like water hitting a hot pan.

“Go piss up a rope! No, he just gets up at the crack of dawn and screams at the sun. Talking the same old mess--”

“I see you, scorpio! Dueling with madness! Arise, align, to carry aquarius' burden! Gemini is a hungry ghost, year of the snake! Taurus fixed to follow!”

Charon made a full stop. His boots crunched in the debris.

“...That's..” My companion got that trance-like look on his face again, then tugged gently on my elbow to quicken our steps, “C'mon. We gotta get out of here. Now.”

“Hermes' net is set”

“Zeus' die is cast”

“THE WYRM IS HUNGRY”

The feverish figure was fully visible now, perched out on a balcony Charon was eyeballing nervously. The farther the man upstairs went in his speech, the more urgently we moved. Dogmeat was already out, barking from the clearing of a wide main street.

I froze where the alleyway ended and looked back. The man stopped barking into an old square megaphone to lock eyes with me. He waved like a toy soldier from atop an anthill. I swore there was a malaise grin plastered into his face as he dropped something to the ground below. A grenade?

“And I shall abide!”

I could feel Charon pulling me into an old 'Life Preservation Station' on the immediate corner. My partner slammed the locking door of the vessel into place while he held me to his chest. We toppled and spun with the boom, but I held fast to his shielding embrace. When the door of the old shelter broke, we separated and rolled out onto dust and broken concrete.

“Wilde! You alright?” I heard my companion call. I could hear Dogmeat, too, still barking alarms in the distance.

I coughed and sputtered. The sound of Charon's steady footfalls were fast approaching. My head felt dizzy, like it was leaking sand. My arms were springing with dull pain from trying to catch my fall.

“Everything's fine!” I yelled back. It was a half-truth, but sometimes those were needed to keep going.

He stood over me while I struggled to lift myself up. Jagged and tall and dark against the mean sun. The shadow of death, and the shield against it.

He offered his hand slowly, “Come on. There's still a ways to go.”

I took it, but not before struggling to get up myself.

“There's no shame in taking my help, Boss.”

“It's Wilde.” I coughed again in the rubble and smoke, “And thank you.”

There was no going back through the alleyway now. Not when it was riddled to dust.

“That man." I had to ask, "How did you know he was going to--”

“Unlucky guess. Let's go.” We matched each other's pace again—slowed as we passed a small prewar cafe. Its brick red porch littered with tattered husks of blue umbrellas. I mentioned never feeling rain before.

“Hmph.” Charon grunted. He was visibly shaken underneath his usual solidity, staring up at every speaker that was left crookedly rigged on the boulevard with winding unease. His hands were gripping tighter to his gun, thumb running across the carved end. “Unlucky guess” Load of bull. He was assuredly battered by another memory.

I wanted to stop him. There was no shame asking for my help, either. I was here. I was patient, I could listen.

But the wasteland would take that moment away like the deadly spinning wheel it was.

It started with Dogmeat's barks, getting more and more frenzied as we drew closer to the concrete cutout of an office building. The sound sent Charon and me into a full sprint through the smoke. Dogmeat had rushed for a mutant. Charon was the first to get close enough to engage, cackling as he did so. I may have been behind, but I waited just until Dogmeat distracted the beast enough to turn its back. I blasted the mutant to neon against gray walls before it could even see me.

Charon frowned, reloading, “I had 'em. You stole my kill.”

I snorted a laugh, “What, like there's points?”

“Never know.” I smiled. It was good to hear him talking again.

“Alright, Cher. Next time, you get the killshot.”

A triumphant howl interjected. Human. I recognized the voice, one of Reilly's Rangers.

“Aaay! Where there's a will, there's a Wilde!”

“Hello, Brick!” I called. The clover and sword emblem on her chest was a welcome sight in the too-bright morning.

I took pause to tell Charon to lower his weapon before waving up at the green armored female wielding a unique minigun. She jumped down from the atomic car she'd been balanced atop, other companions ducking out from behind the cover: Butcher, their no-nonsense medic; Donovan, their tiny but formidable tech guy; and Reilly, the fire haired leader that I'd woken up at Underworld in what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Good to see you. Eugene was getting mighty lonely.” Brick patted her gun ceremoniously.

Reilly scolded Brick and 'Eugene' neglecting cover. She then nodded to me in greeting, “Now that the dust storm's passed, we're geomapping the last little of this corner of the city, thanks to you.”

Brick now, “What's with the ghoul?”

“This is Charon. My guide.” I uttered to him beneath my breath, “Be kind. Please.”

Charon made a struggling, distrustful sound that was something between a groan and a greeting.

“A fellow fightin' irish. Alright.” Reilly smiled. The soot on her nose scrunched, “We're headed back to base, but we'd be happy to lend you some firepower. Where are you headed?”

“GNR.” Charon squinted.

Brick shouted a “Hell yeah! Heavy mutant ass down there!” She was as blood-starved as the creatures she fought, that one.

I looked to my partner, “What do you think?”

“What do I....” He sighed, “What the hell. Come on.”

The six of us (with Dogmeat in tow) made our way through the cracked out alleys and dirt swept streets. We worked efficiently together, dropping centaurs and Mutant patrols like they were nothing more than bloatflies.

“You're a pretty good shot. I've never met one of your kind, old ghoul.” Brick attempted conversation with Charon, “Why ya out here?”

“Don't ask me nothing about nothing.” He sniffed simply.

“Sorry!” I called, “My partner doesn't like questions.”

All halted when we stumbled upon a small group of Brotherhood knights cornered near a station in Chevy Chase by a group of Uglies we'd picked off. The new group looked as though they were about to duck inside, but our noise gave them pause.

“Great.” Charon grunted, “More of these geeks. Get another raving prophet and we can start a fucking band.”

“We could grab the one from Megaton.” I suggested. Charon rattled a laugh.

“Halt.” The supposed leader of Steels squared their shoulders shakily, “Civilians are not allowed access beyond this point.”

Charon rolled his eyes.

“What the fuck? We just saved your asses!” Brick shouted.

“Eat it, pal!” Another knight spat.

Reilly had to physically hold her associate back as she spat more crassness than my companion could ever hope to achieve.

“Initiate Reddin! Show some damn professionalism.” The foremost figure hissed loudly beneath their helmet. Then added softly, “Besides. They're right.”

Charon whispered an aside to me, “And the light dawns on marblehead.” I had no idea what that meant, but I liked it.

The exasperated leader took their helmet off and stepped forward. A woman, blonde and tan with her hair piled into a messy bun. She and the rest of her squad wore the power armor typical of a Brotherhood member, with one noticeable difference: The symbols emblazoned on their chestplates included a lion in the design—reminiscent of the ones used as heraldry long before the Great War.

“I am Sentinel Sarah Lyons, of the Lyons' Pride. My squad and I were sent to thin out the ranks here and assist those stationed at GNR Plaza. But... as you may have noticed.... we're just... surviving.”

“You're doin' a bangup job.” Charon said dryly. “You know that station you were about to run into is chock-full of ferals, right?”

Sarah glowered at him, face reddening. She couldn't have been more than a year older than me.

“It's Reddin. It's all her fault.” Another of her squad piped up stealthily.

“Lyons, shape up and cut it out.” She directed her gaze back at me, “Look, I don't trust wasters, ghouls, and mercs. And you don't trust us. I get it. But if you want to go any deeper, we can bring the heavier guns.” She nodded towards Reddin, who held up a Fatman—a bulky launcher.

Brick tsked at the inadvertent attack on her ego.

“We're headed for the Galaxy News right now.” I smiled icily, “If you'd like our help, I suggest you follow.”

“Heh.” Charon finished.

Brick added to the stewing pot of tension, “Hope ya'll can keep up.... Clunky shits...”

Charon smiled at me for just a moment. No doubt revelling in the unusual, newfound fuzzy feeling of being united in cynicism with people he'd normally hate. I couldn't help but return the gesture.

We walked further into the uniquely hollowed hell. The Lyons followed, muttering, but throwing no more stones at the command of their Sentinel. The alleys seemed to get slimmer and dustier, but with Brick and her Eugene bent on leading the charge, it was easier to choke the groups of mutants down to the last--at least enough to get through to our destination. Sarah and her own proved formidable at taking down stragglers, if a little disorganized. The Initiate seemed restless, complaining about too little action.

Just when it seemed like there'd be no more room to get through the veined networks of broken walls, the path opened up as soon as we passed beneath a wilted billboard advertising a shiny red atomic car. I wiped the sweat from my brow and took a deep breath. Another light at the end of another tunnel.

Galaxy News Radio's plaza was massive, perhaps the largest rubble-cleared space in the entire network beyond the Mall. The slate and ash headquarters of the old radio station stood defiantly unbroken against the foggy sky. At least, it seemed intact from the entrance's side—in reality we'd find the headquarters had been sliced cleanly down the middle. Brown sandbags bolstered the threshold of the impressive wraparound steps to the entrance. Brotherhood troops paced along quietly. Sarah'd notified via her walkie talkie that we were “granted clearance”.

The radio tower atop GNR's building and its original logo were both shiny gold, the cause for preservation as mysterious as the man housed inside.

“It's like reaching the Emerald City.” I breathed, reaching out to touch the large globe sculpture centered in the square.

“'Cept it ain't exactly green.” Charon added as he lowered his gun and relaxed his stance.

“What the hell's an 'Emerald City'?” Reilly was spinning on her heels to take every bit of the square in.

Donovan heckled, “We must be one of the few 'dirty wasters' to step foot out here, huh?”

“Damn quiet.” Brick huffed, “Eugene doesn't like it.”

There was a thundery sound rolling in from behind us, northwest of the building.

Maybe it'll rain, I thought excitedly. I turned towards the sound and watched the sky.
Thunder again. Again.

Now, it was far too rhythmic. Dogmeat began to growl, then bolted off.

I called for her, but it was to no avail.

“Wilde...” Charon stepped closer and warned softly. His scarred face was struck with worry. I felt the back of his hand brush against mine. I recalled the planetarium and his fingers in my hair within the Life Preservation capsule—the same rushing sigh of closeness just as danger cut in. I felt the hairs on my arm rise.

That awful, rumbling sound drew nearer from behind the cluster of buildings. Dust from the aftermath of the storm began to jump with the impact of... of..

Sarah shouted fiercely to her crew. Reilly mirrored her, “Rangers, cover! Now. That means you, Brick!”

I was the one to grasp at my shocked partner, now. I took the collar of his brown leather jacket and yanked towards the nearest sound structure—the reinforced concrete surrounding a subway entrance. We wound up sandwiched next to Sentinel Lyons, her Initiate, and Brick.

“Dios mio....” Brick sweat while readying Eugene. Electric eagerness and fear danced in her features, “Do you see that? It's as big as a fuckin' house!”

She was right. The largest mutant any of us had ever laid eyes on. Twenty feet tall, its flesh the orange-green scab color of the rotten, irradiated mud that lined the Potomac River. Car parts decked it for armor and a collection of rusty shopping carts were fixed to its back. A collection of human heads dangled from a necklace comprised of thick cables. They swung dully, mouths open forever.

“A Behemoth.” Even Charon's voice was shaking.

The beast roared as though acidic pain was compressed within its heaving chest and swung blindly with a strangely too-large fire hydrant attached to a long steel pole. Several brave knights stationed outside met it in force, but were swiftly flicked away by the Behemoth's wrath. We were nothing more than ants to this creature.

Sarah spoke fast into her radio. “Loudmouth HQ. This is Pride Six, right outside. For godssakes how do we fight this thing?”

A voice from the other side buzzed, “Throw everything you've got, Six. And get the Wanderer out of there, stat. Three Dog needs her alive.”

Sarah looked to me, at my jumpsuit, a realization suddenly hitting her.

I shook my head, eyes still carefully glued to the monster while still trying to remain hidden, “I'm not going. Not until this thing is dead.”

Sarah screamed, “I have orders--”

“To hell with your orders!” I shouted over Brick's desperate barrage of gunfire. I would not leave my friends here alone to fend and die for themselves.

Charon, “Wilde, you have to find your father. Focus on the task--”

The Behemoth screeched and flailed closer to our position. The ground shuddered, more pieces of stone and dust raining from above. Charon and I both reflexively pulled the other down to duck lower.

Sentinel Sarah began to shout and argue, but it was then that Initiate Reddin got up and charged. The Sentinel screamed at her troop to retreat, but Reddin was already out in the middle of the firefight, brandishing her Fatman with a reckless cry. She fired a missile on her knees, missed. It was in that same sweep of a second that the Behemoth swung its massive fire-hydrant weapon closer, sending the heavy globe sculpture jumping from its pedestal with a sickening crack. I watched with blood rushing panic in my ears as it swooped upon Reddin--knocking her down and rolling over her body like it was nothing.

Sarah made a weak, sick kind of sound with the shock. Reddin lay before us, closest to Charon. She was bent all wrong. Blood poured from the breaks in her armor, sunk out into the cracks of the ground. She was still trying to move towards the Fatman in the middle of the plaza. A mangled metal hand was twitching and pointing.

“Please ...Take... t-take it...”

She wilted—silenced, over. The beast raged on. Its attention was dangerously close, only held back by the engaging troops. Without warning, Charon darted out from cover.

“No, don't--” I hissed. But he was already gone, making a beeline for Reddin's weapon. Sarah held me back. “You've gotta stay alive.”

The ugly hammer fell again. Charon zipped from it by what seemed like inches. All the relentless noise, the tremble in the ground, the hectic movement of other soldiers—they all seemed blocked out. I reached out for him as soon as he was within distance. He passed the Fatman into my open arms and dove back down at my side.

“I told you not to--”

“You want that thing dead?” Charon gasped a catching breath, “Then we'll get it dead.”

He rose his voice against another Behemoth scream, “You! Brick! You're strong enough to fire this thing.”

Brick went from looking hopelessly doomed to happy as a child in the pre-war movies. She motioned towards the heavy launcher in my hands now. I passed it to her, Sarah helping me with the weight.

“Hell yeah...” Brick chewed her bottom lip and cursed in panic suddenly, “This doesn't have any ammo, old man!”

Charon reached into his jacket and passed along a mininuke. Sarah radioed inside and the stout, silver shapes began to fall back as though choreographed.

“Holy shit. Where'd you find—nevermind...” Brick shouted as loud as she could, “ALRIGHT. Soon as the Fatman sings, shut your eyes!”

She waited for the tired Behemoth to take a wheezing breath. What looked like a thousand tiny punctures bled out from its skin. I almost pitied it. It was in mindless pain, even before it'd been weakened.

"Rock and roll, bitch!" Brick balanced the launcher on her shoulder with a grin as fat as the mammoth weapon's name. The nuke catapulted, hitting its target beyond the ear shattering boom. Ugly yellow-white light invaded my shut eyelids with it. I hummed the old 'Duck and Cover' song I'd learned as a child to combat the assault of noise in my ears, and I could feel Charon and Sarah both shielding me on either side. Brick was laughing a cheer even through the furious sound.

Reilly was the first to call out from her own hiding place as the carnage settled, “It's over! It's down!”

“It's dust, more like!” Another of her Rangers clapped. Half the buildings that made up the plaza were dust now, as well. A dense ring of charred gray scarred the now wide open wound in the plaza. Brick, Sarah, and I got to our feet shakily. Charon took a Rad-X, offered one to the rest of us. To my overwhelming relief, Dogmeat appeared behind the last of Riley's men.

Brick got up and rattled herself into good spirits again. She slapped Charon's back breathlessly, “Not bad, ghoul. Not bad.”

“Helluva kill shot.” Charon stepped away slightly and nodded. There was a note of pride in his voice.

The rest of Sarah's team came crawling from the stonework, too, along with other surviving Brotherhood members.

“Sergeant Vargas. You made it.” The Sentinel sighed. The quietest of her team mirrored her movement in taking off their helmet again.

“Are you holding up okay?”

“Barely.” Sarah trembled, grimacing, “We... lost Reddin. I should've held her back at base. I knew I should've...”

An unknown knight, not of Sarah's crew, interrupted:

“Lone Wanderer? Three Dog's waiting inside for you.”

Charon

The lobby was dim. Stuffed full of the silver geeks and sandbags. The golden voice behind five years of static—Three Dog--called from the top of a narrow staircase. Gleaming a smile and howling against a backdrop of bright fluorescent lights:

“There she is! Woman of the hour! Peacekeeper of the Wastes!” The short, black smoothskin figure waved his hands excitedly in a beckoning manner, “Well, come on up! Don't be shy! No need for name exchanges. You know me, and ol' Three Dog knows everyone.”

Wilde looked mystified, grinning wide as she climbed the steps to greet him. Three Dog shook her hand warmly, did the same to me before reaching down to pat Dogmeat's head. The self proclaimed 'disc jockey' (whatever a disc was) wore a sliced up leather vest over a white tshirt; torn jeans. A gray scarf covered his head and tinted glasses covered his sparking, alert eyes. He addressed Riley's crew and Sarah's team shuffling inside below:

“The rest of you, welcome! Take a load off, grab all the ammo and stimpaks you need!” He clapped his hands together and turned heel towards a doorless room, “This way. Let me show you where the magic happens.”

He rivaled Wilde in his positive energy. ...And her collecting habit. The large tiled floor of his studio was clear and travesable, but the walls were stuffed with hanging “treasures”--framed photographs of people smiling before the war, sports equipment, posters for old concerts. I recognized one. “Dean Domino”. Couldn't remember a lick of what he sang, just that he was kind of an asshole.

The rest of the space held heavy, ancient recording tech, blipping monitors, desks filled with typewriters and enough pencils, ashtrays and half-empty mugs to improvise a weapon with. There was only one other person in the room with us, who simply waved and quietly greeted us as “Margaret”.

"Maggie helps me write the reports." He explained, "She's not much of a talker, though." Three Dog had swiped up a rolling chair and zipped down in front of the biggest desk, armed with more recording dingies and a single, hanging silver microphone. Wilde stopped to marvel at a row of pressed leaves nearby.

“I hope the Brotherhood didn't give you too much trouble.” Three Dog paused to stir something into a mug and sip, “We have a... little agreement. They get an outpost in the center of the city, I get protection, supplies ...and coffee rations! Sweet, sweet, symbiosis.”

Wilde laughed, then motioned at the walls, “Where did you get all this?” Her mouth was practically watering. God, I thought, I hope he doesn't offer any of it to take home.

He kicked his boots up on the table, crossing them and leaning back in his chair, “Three Dog's been around the country, kid. I've seen it all. My folks were a traveling theatre group, and now... here we are. The big time.” He cackled a laugh as he waved his hands. “The good fight. But you don't need me to explain that, do you? You've been fighting it all along.”

“I--” Wilde blushed. The rest of her face matched the small sunburn on her nose. I smiled from my silence in the corner.

“No need to be modest. I'm not handing out medals. Keys to caches are my thing.” Three Dog laughed, then shifted to serious, “...I got paid to keep quiet for the old man, but you're helping me and the children of this hellhole more than anyone. So I've got something more to help you.”

Three Dog flicked through a stack of papers near his mic, “The most valuable thing in this world. Information.”

Wilde leaned against the closest table for balance, swallowing and gripping the edges intensely.

“Hm... here... Your Dad came by about a month ago. Asking about a “Doctor Li”. And something called “Project Purity”. Any of that ring a bell?”

“He used to talk about it when I was little. Never more than in passing, though.” Wilde rubbed at the space between her eyebrows.

Three Dog went further on down his notes, “It's some plan to provide clean water to all the Wastes.”

I snorted instinctively, “Ain't possible.” I cleared my throat and shuffled my boots at the crestfallen look on Wilde's face, “Sorry.”

“James said that with Doctor Li, it was.” Three Dog shrugged, “I don't make the stories, I just yell them. He was trying to find her.”

Wilde looked a little resentful, and more than a little hurt. She twitched a blink. Determination clouded over it all just as quickly:

“Where is this Doctor Li?”

His next words whooshed down like heavy stone in my ears. The Behemoth smashing his fire hydrant into the ground next to me all over again:

“Rivet City.”

A gray cloud seemed to hang in the room, and it was not Three Dog's newly lit cigarette that was the source.

“Right.” Wilde perked up and hopped down from her perch at the table, “Rivet City. It's good to finally meet you, Three Dog. More than you could ever know.”

“Oh, I know.” He winked as they shook hands once more, “And good to meet you, too, kid. Keep your head up and your gun clean.”

Three Dog was true to his word and handed her a small key with coordinates. Wilde whistled for Dogmeat and nodded to me. I lingered behind, shutting the door softly as soon as she turned down the steps.

Three Dog didn't seem surprised in the least, just went on rifling through papers and writing things down. I didn't want to waste his time, so I got what I needed to out right away:

“You can't expect her to keep doing this without making her a target.” I said simply.

“I never report anything in the moment. In fact, I go out of my way to get it out of sequence, most days. I never use her name, I never say where she is.”

“That still doesn't make things easy.”

“The right thing--The Good Fight--isn't easy. She picked up the torch, and she sure doesn't object to carrying it. She's strong enough. The people need that, Red Guy.”

Red Guy. My insides twisted. Three Dog stood up from his chair and approached me. Suddenly the friendly little gleam in his eye was gone and his voice was lower than a whisper.

“That's right, I've heard of you. I know what you've run from. Who you've run for. Raiders, Slavers, the scum of the earth. What's your angle here, Red? Is that why you're nervous about her stories being on display? Or did your heart change for a shot at repentance? What do you want?”

More old nonsense words I couldn't quite pin pinched the sides of my stomach and my head. Words like respect, words like affection. Words like faith and peace. Hope and love.

“Nothing. I want nothing.” I said finally.

Three Dog eyed me, shadowed and grim. He nodded to himself as he inhaled a sharp, deep breath from the end of his cigarette.

“Alright. I'll be even more careful.”

“And don't ever--”

“Mention you as the cheery sidekick? Haha! Of course not. Nobody out here wants to hear about a Nice Group tidying the world. They just want a Lone Wanderer.”

Three Dog turned back to his equipment and said his farewells, adding, “Sooner or later you're gonna have to confront it, Red. The past may hide, but it never dies.”

Wilde

I ran into Sarah slumped over near a Nuka Cola machine. She sat on her helmet, hair fraying from the ends of her bun and eyes swollen with tears.

She spoke out to me, almost acerbic, “How do you carry all of it? The death. How do you do it with a damned thumbs up and a smile?”

“I... I don't know.” I sat down beside her. Most days I felt something beyond my control was guiding me through. Separating the pieces of me like oil and water, just so I could get something done without breaking. I was above and below, looking through my own eyes and somewhere else all in the same seconds. But I couldn't give Sarah all those details. Surely, she'd think I was crazy.

The Sentinel hid her face in her hands, “I told Reddin... I told her to watch herself with those damn Frankensteins and she didn't listen... but she was still under my command. It's my fault.”

“You can't take it back.” I said, “But you can honor her in what you do. Every day.”

“This was our team's first real mission, you know?” Sarah sniffled, “I'm just... so tired.”

“But you cannot, will not, give up.” I replied quietly.

Sarah shook a sigh out. It was just us and the cracked buzz of the Nuka Cola machine, until one of her men called her name. We both stood.

She put her helmet back on, “When I first saw you and your ...friends, I didn't realize... I worried you were a bunch of dirty, needy wasters.” She paused to scratch behind Dogmeat's ears, “I'm glad I was wrong.”

Charon

“There you are!” Wilde waved from the bottom of the stairs. She was burning blue even in the damned dark--the sun and stars. “What took you?”

I stomped down the stairs, “Telling Three Dog he needs to find some new music. Aren't you tired of listening to that fucking sunnin' song yet?”

She chortled while gathering up her pack. “Reilly offered a place to stay on the way to Rivet City in exchange for more map data. You ready to head out?”

“Yes.” For once the diversion (hell, the very idea of being surrounded by people) sounded like relief.

Rivet City was going to be tricky—not because of ferals or mutants or raiders. But because Three Dog was right. My sins were not going to stay buried with Ahzrukhal.

Not unless I could smash them into the ground myself first.