After the Vault: Chapter 09 Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Fallout or anything that comprises it. This is a non-profit story written solely for my own enjoyment and that of anyone who wishes to read it. The story and all original characters are mine. Please don't use them without permission. *** After the Vault -A Fallout Fan-Fiction by Nutzoide- Chapter 09 Minty Fresh & Powered Up! Abigail checked the time on her PipBoy again and sighed. "The sun went down quicker when we were riding in the cart." "That's not something you want to be complaining about," Kyle said, walking ahead of her. "If you want to camp early you'll be out here an extra day." From beneath her cloak, warding off the mid afternoon sun, Abigail looked up to the mountainous horizon. There was an awful lot of nothing between them and the mountains. Flat, dry, dusty nothing. It was enough to make the vast majestic expanse of the surface boring. There could at least have been the odd ruined city to break up the landscape. Or some pre-war nutcase's shack. Or a rock. At least then she could have kicked it for something to do. "I know," she replied. "But when you said it was 'barren' up this way I didn't realise that was compared to the rest of the *desert*. It's depressing. I mean, I know there wasn't anything much around here even before the war, but still..." She left the sentence hanging, her point made. "Actually, it's not as bad as I thought it would be," Sharn opined. "It's peaceful out here. Once you don't have to worry about food and water, it's a nice break from caravan runs and having to keep watch all the time." "You mean when it's your watch tonight we'll all be eaten by mantises?" Rathley was still in a bad mood, two days after losing his finger. Nobody was humouring him about it, but they were giving him a bit more space than they had before, as if they thought he might actually be angry. Abigail wondered why, but kept those sarcastic thoughts firmly to herself. To his credit Rathley did still seem as alert as ever as he led them north-east, despite his lingering and justified resentment. "Come on," Sharn shrugged. "There's nothing out here. Not even wild brahmin. Hell, I bet Chopper's going to be stirring RadAway into our first cup of morning coffee once we get to Micasa." "So we get done in by floaters instead of bugs," Rathley said with a snide tone. "Fuckin' great." "Alright old man, we get the picture." Kyle quickly defused them both. "We might still run into something up here, so we might as well stay sharp." "Something like what?" Abigail asked. "If there *are* any old towns out here won't they have been found already?" She checked her PipBoy's old map records, to see what might have been around before the war. Not that there was much point, according to Kyle. "It's not towns we're looking for. They were mostly built out of timber, and *nothing* like that survived for dozens of kilometres around the Cobalt Line. We don't know what the hell kind of bombing could have made the Line, but it must have been pretty obscene. "What we're after is the small installations. Train yards, service stations, bunkers... Isolated places that wouldn't have burned up or been hit head on. You can get some good junk out of them." Abigail still wasn't convinced. "By why wouldn't anyone else have found them already? People haven't explored up here yet?" "Nope. Back in the day everyone thought the founders were mad to even think about building a town like Corva so close to the Cobalt Line. They were scared, and they still are. There's the mantis swarms and mutant freaks like floaters, but for the most part it's just because there are safer routes to take. The caravan routes go the opposite way out of Corva, east and *then* north, because it's a well known and well guarded route. Sure, the raiders know about it too, but they can be driven off more easily than up here, where you have to make your own path and no-one would know where to find you if you went missing." "That's why us Scavs exist," Sharn said. "No-one else wants to risk exploring just for the sake of scavenging and mapping out routes no-one wants, so we have to take advantage of that before another Scav does." "So why *do* you bother?" Chopper answered that. "Because when we do find something, it's all ours. We can set the price for the information, and we own *everything* we can carry out." *** Night did fall many hours later, and it was with great relief that Abigail dropped her travelling bag and helped them all erect the tent. Evidently their caravan riding recently had spoiled them all, because even Sharn - ever the outdoors girl - was massaging her calves when they finally sat down to eat. "Maybe Mayor Golway gave us an easy ride," she said while Abigail tended the shish kebabs that hung over their fire. To Sharn's delight Kyle took over the task of massaging her legs, and she flopped back into the fine sand. "A little luxury is good for us every now and then," her lover said. "A proper bed, a bath tin, bar food... Let's face it, we needed to wind down." Chopper agreed wholeheartedly. "Surveying the edge of the Cobalt Line is rough. Especially with the radiation we'd been soaking up. We might as well make it easy on ourselves when we go out there. Call it compensation." "I'd call it dangerous," Abigail said, but she knew what her companions were like, and she wasn't really worried. If they could handle raiders and the super mutant, they could handle the worst the desert could throw at them. And besides- "Hey, don't knock it," Kyle grinned. "We found you out there, didn't we? I don't know what the odds of that were, but *I* wouldn't have bet on them." "I know, I know." Abigail held out one of the skewers, set with gecko meat and chunks from several varieties of what were supposed to vegetables. Or was it fruit? Abigail couldn't tell. They were edible at least and she didn't *think* they could be animal, what with the stalks and seeds. Regardless of what it was Kyle took it and passed it to his girlfriend, who accepted the meal eagerly. Abigail passed the others around to Kyle and Chopper, while Rathley took his with a silent nod before resting back against the comfortably shaped rock he had picked to camp beside. Quite how any rock could be comfortable she didn't ask. He would be the one sleeping against it, not her. Finally she bit into the knobbly fruit on the end of her own skewer, and chewed thoughtfully. It was sort of soft but firm, like an over- preserved tomato or an under-ripe pear, and tasted both vaguely sweet and sour at the same time. Combined with the faint taste of the firewood it was actually quite nice, though she was both tired and hungry enough to have accepted Chopper's disgusting root paste without complaint. She moaned slightly with satisfaction as she swallowed. "I thought we were never going to get dinner. I'm so tired." Chopper gave her an amused, questioning look. "Listen to you now. You did better when you were half dead from radiation poisoning. At least you had a reason to complain then!" "Shut up, we've been walking all day. I'm tired, and I ache, and I want a bath that I know I won't get." At least she was used to the smell now. Everything on the surface smelled bad, and her nose had been forced to re-calibrate or else flee in her sleep. Thankfully it had not chosen the latter. Chopper uncurled her legs and brushed the tip of her boot up Abigail's aching thigh. "Then we'll have to find some other way to relax." Abigail was too tired to suppress her blush. Not that she wanted to. She was getting to enjoy the inappropriately timed flushes of heat in her face, and what they tended to lead to. "As long as you brush your teeth. I don't want to get bits of gecko meat halfway through." "Nice, Abby." At the side of the fire Rathley finally let out a huff at the various displays of affection around him. "Oh fuck this shit! If you're all gonna start fuckin' again then keep it the fuck down!" He got up with what looked like great effort and circled the large rock, taking his half eaten kebab with him. "Now I know what I'm gonna buy with all these fuckin' caps," he grumbled, not quite out of earshot. "A fuckin' whore slave." "No you fucking won't!" Sharn called back, but for some reason she didn't look like she believed his threat. "Actually," Abigail said, "I knew I'd forgotten to buy something yesterday. I'm almost out of toothpaste. Can I borrow some of yours tomorrow?" Chopper blinked at her, before stifling a chuckle. "Sorry, heh, I'm out." Abigail turned to the other two, but Kyle shook his head, while Sharn looked at her with even more surprise than the others had. "What- paste?" "... You're kidding, right?" *** "You guys are mean." Chopper smirked at her from where she lay under her coat. "If you'd seen your face you'd have laughed as well! That was priceless." "And it's not like we *have* any toothpaste anyway," Sharn added from beneath her shared sheet with Kyle, but Abigail was having none of it. "You really never noticed?" "I'm not talking to you." "Abby-girl! I was teasing!" "Hmmph!" Chopper had to laugh. "You made her mad, Sia." Abigail stuffed her toothbrush and near empty tube of toothpaste back into her wash bag before turning on her. "So did you!" She frowned, unwilling to let the silly joke go. "So I'm still dumb. Big joke." She stepped over Chopper, and already clad in just her jumpsuit she pulled the edge of the heavy coat over herself, pointedly facing away from her lover. "You still have cola up here, even if it is mostly flat. I'm amazed all your teeth don't fall out." Sharn sighed, and ducked her head to try and meet Abigail's gaze. "You know, most of us don't drink Nuka-Cola that much. I mean, it's valuable in some places. It might not be rare yet, but it's pre-war stuff, I think." Kyle nodded from behind her. "Maybe there's an old factory somewhere still making it - otherwise I'd be surprised it hasn't run out already - but not around these parts. But why drink that crap when we can brew our own booze?" "Exactly." Chopper added. She laid a hand on Abigail's shoulder and slid up beside her, beneath their makeshift blanket. "And brahmin powder works well enough. That hot mint shit doesn't suit you." "Ground up brahmin bone tastes better than peppermint?" "You haven't complained yet." Annoyingly, she was right. Kissing Chopper had never made her recoil in disgust despite the fact that the highest form of dental hygiene on the surface seemed to be baked and crushed cow bones and the humble toothpick. Abigail frowned to herself again as Chopper's hand began to wander. "Stop it. I'm not in the mood." It didn't help that Sharn looked nice and content with Kyle holding her from behind, when Abigail herself was feeling so annoyed at being embarrassed by them. Chopper was supposed to be a good seductress. Couldn't she just take the hint and- "How about this then?" Chopper asked, as she slid her arms around her, spooning against her back and holding her protectively, but nothing more. Just like Kyle did with Sharn. "... That's okay." Damn her for knowing just how to make it better, Abigail thought, and she grudgingly let her annoyance go. *** Kyle emerged from the tent the next morning and blinked owlishly as the morning sun struck him full in the face. No wonder Abigail didn't like mornings, he thought. It was bad enough for those of them who *could* see in the sunlight. "Sia? What's up? Has the old man put the coffee on?" "Yes, he has," Rathley replied, not bothering to hide the bile in his voice. Kneeling by the small fire to the side of their camp Sharn held out Kyle's battered tin cup. "Here. It's still warm." "Still? You've been up with the insects old man?" "You should've been and all, boy. Just as well 'Marie' was on watch when I needed my stims." True enough, Chopper was cleaning one of her stimpack needles with a cloth, and turned to glower at him. "And if you want any more you'll stop calling me that." "Cry me a fuckin' river." Rathley clenched his bandaged hand into a fist and gritted his teeth, but turned his attention back to Kyle. "Over there, boy. Fancy a walk?" He pointed to a darkened bit of rough ground in the distance, blurred by the morning heat. "You think it's something?" "It's somethin' besides the bloody dirt." Kyle knew that his lover had better eyes than him, and maybe better than Rathley's, so he looked to her for an opinion. Sharn shrugged. "It's not that far out, and it looks pretty big. I don't think there's anything left standing though. It's probably just rubble. We could ask Abby. She's got that map-boy." As if on cue Abigail finally emerged from the tent, still blinking the sleep from her eyes behind her shades. "My PipBoy? What? Can I have some coffee before we start walking again please?" Sharn handed her the last cup, which Abigail looked grateful for. To Kyle she looked as though she'd run a marathon already. "It's a good thing you bought it too. You only just got up and you look knackered." Abigail just nodded. "I am. What time is it?" Rathley snorted in something akin to disgust. "And *you're* on watch duty tonight?" "Oh shut up, Rathley. She'll be fine." Sharn dismissed him with a middle finger. "Are you feeling better, Abby-girl? Abigail nodded and sipped her coffee. "Yeah. But that was still mean." The last thing Kyle wanted was to drag *that* up again. He liked to think that he was good with women, but damn, they just didn't know how to get over something. Come to think of it Rathley wasn't doing too well in that department either. "Abby, can you do us a favour?" he asked, before the girls had a chance to go back to their circular apologies - or what he hoped would have been apologies. "Can you look up where we are on your PipBoy? I'd like to see if that thing used to be anywhere special." Abigail peered into the distance where he pointed, as if squinting behind her shades. "Uh, okay." She rolled back her sleeve and pressed a few buttons. "Right, we're... here. Not much around, except an old highway that we should have seen already." "It's probably buried under the dirt somewhere," Kyle speculated. That wasn't what he needed to know though. "And that rubble?" "Rubble?" Abigail peered at it again, before shrugging and looking back to her arm mounted screen. "It's... a caravan park, I think. Or a car showground maybe? The map just says there's a motor shop around there somewhere, but there's something recreational behind it. It's not labelled though." Kyle had to grin. Pre-war cars might never run again, but they did at least tend to leave scavengeable husks. And if the shop had survived, or even if it hadn't, mechanical parts and tools could fetch a nice price from the right buyer. From their smiles Sharn and Chopper evidently shared his enthusiasm. "Shall we, ladies?" *** The showground, or whatever it had once been, had been further away than even the eagle eyed Sharn had guessed. It had drawn them much further north than they had wanted to be - closer to the Cobalt Line - but for its distance it was a much larger prize once they reached it. The cars' corpses stretched out like a twisted metal maze, and while little remained to show why, none of Abigail's companions actually cared. "So, what are we going to be looking for here?" Abigail asked as she sat with them for lunch on the edge of the metal graveyard. Kyle had looked over one of the blasted cars before deeming it safe and promptly setting light to what remained of its worryingly synthetic upholstery, giving something for them all to cook their gecko shish kebabs in. "You're a mechanic," Kyle said. "Look for something usable and in decent condition. Anything." Rathley rattled off a list. "Charged fusion cells, cell regulators, fans, coolant bottles, radios, passenger junk..." He sounded almost bored, but he was helping, which was a big enough improvement. Evidently the size of the place had improved his mood. "You want to keep your eyes out for signs of other people too. Don't want to get shot in the back when you're goin' through a glove box." "Does that mean you aren't on battery duty?" Sharn asked. When Abigail looked at her cluelessly she explained. "He's usually the one checking the fusions cells. He's more techie than us." "I'll leave that to the new gal," Rathley said. "I want to check the shop." He jerked his thumb behind him. The workshop looked fairly big and it was still standing, though only barely. Like the cars and trucks around it its metal walls were buckled and bent, and the roof had either been torn off or been burnt away entirely. Kyle nodded. "Fair enough. Abigail, you Sia and me will split up and start going through the vehicles. Honestly, except for the fuel cells don't worry too much about the machinery unless it looks worth lugging around for two more days. By the looks of it most of these girls' cells blew back when the war hit. It's the trucks and trunks we need to check. Usable *goods* are better than usable *parts*." Abigail nodded in understanding. "And what will you be looking for?" she asked Chopper. "I won't. You can have fun scavenging, I have meds to make." "She guards the camp," Kyle added, "and if we holler she comes running." Rathley gave Chopper a dark smirk. "That's the idea anyway." Chopper just returned the evil smile with one of her own and continued to eat, which was more effective than any reciprocal threat. "Anyway," Sharn said, leaving them to their stare off, "It's going to take more than an hour to search this place, so either way it would be nice to have a camp and some dinner to come back to after hauling our loot around all day." "You're letting her cook?" Rathley asked, and blinked, leaving Chopper to look smug as the winner of their impromptu evil-eye competition. Sharn nodded, dead serious. "It's about time she took her turn." *** Sharn had been right about how long the junkyard would take to explore. Abigail had elected to take the west side of it, while Sharn took the east and Kyle went right up the middle. It was easy enough to split up, since several huge lorries lay as rough dividers, inside which was Kyle's territory. Abigail hadn't expected it to be quite so monotonous though. The odd cry of exultation gave her the impression that Sharn was doing well, but the whole thing just came down to dull methodical routine. Check the fusion cell (dead), examine for any working parts (few, if any), check the trunk (junk). Rinse, repeat and enjoy - not. It wasn't a waste of time, far from it, but Abigail had got the impression there would be more exploration and adventure to real Scav life. Exploration, it turned out, was just a matter of enduring the desert, and adventure would probably amount to getting shot at by more raiders. But that was life, and as unpleasant as it was she knew now that it could be a lot worse. Compared to her brief and naive stint as a Merc this was the better option by a long way. She slammed another rusted boot shut and hauled her Bag of Swag (Trademark of Abigail Iseley, Anti-Vault-Tec exploratory corporation) over to the next burnt out vehicle. It was a cute old bubble of a van, and Abigail only had to pull to open the engine cover. Whatever latch there had been was no longer around, but the contents were all present and correct, as far as she could tell. She knew nothing of motor vehicles, but she understood the basic power systems. Whether it was a truck or a hydroponics regulation system, they all used the same power relays and fusion cells. Those cells just had to be plugged into the correct system of regulators and adaptors for whatever they were powering. Whoever had made those fusion cells a standard must have had a tidy little monopoly before the war, Abigail thought. The van's relays and drive system were burnt out and seized solid, but remarkably the fusion cell still sparked when she pulled it from its socket - the proof that it still held a charge. She would have preferred to use a voltmeter, but apparently they didn't have those on the surface, and just plugging and unplugging the battery a few times looking for a spark was the accepted method for testing one. Thank god the heavy little things were stable enough to deal with such rough handling, because when one blew the miniature nuclear explosion would vaporise anyone within twenty feet, and produce the most adorable little mushroom cloud to send them off with. Abigail had seen it in her vault training films. Still, loot was loot, and they were very stable batteries. It was just a shame that she only had three of them to show for her four hours of scavenging. What she *did* have though was luggage. The cars had all been in use when Armageddon had hit, and while most had been destroyed through and through a few had preserved the suitcases inside them. While basic everyday clothing might not be valuable it was at least *useful*, Abigail had decided. Civilian cars also came with car toolkits, and she had long stopped bothering to collect their contents. She had enough good tools to make herself an entire new toolbox, which would be a valuable addition to her own supplies, despite its weight. It would not replace her vault multitool, but it would complement it perfectly. More worryingly, several cars also had guns in their glove compartments. Abigail had known that people had owned guns even before the war, but it had still unnerved her to find the defunct pistols there. She had taken the ones that looked like they still might work, but she had made sure that any safety devices were locked the way Kyle had shown her. He would have to decide whether they would still work, but since weaponry was so valuable on the surface she couldn't simply leave them there. Not that any of them really needed the caps, she thought as she opened up the back of the van. They were apparently very well off after their mercenary work, enough to buy their gecko meat instead of hunting up iguanas, and they were still searching for things to sell when they got to the next town? She shrugged, and put it down to natural desire for security. If they didn't get it, someone else would. Abigail had always been provided with what she needed until leaving Vault 42 behind her, and even she already understood her friends' need to be a part of the material wealth race. The more they had now, the longer they could live without needing to risk their lives, and the more comfortable they could make themselves between jobs. They would be fools to pass up the opportunity to further themselves just because they were not in desperate need right now. It felt wrong, but she had already convinced herself that it was just the culture shock talking. She buried the unease and peered into the van. Whatever was in there, it hadn't survived. All that remained was ash and metal struts, outlining where the crates has been before they had burned up, along with their contents. Then a soft, metallic thump made her freeze. She had seen nothing to suggest anyone else had been here. The tools, weapons and luggage had been hers for the taking, and she hadn't seen any footprints in the dirt besides her own. But that had definitely been something close, knocking into the side of a car out there. Kyle and Sharn weren't anywhere near her, so it couldn't have been them. She whipped around to see nothing but the wrecks surrounding her. She forced her breathing to slow. There was no need to be jumpy. If she was calm, she would be able to hear it again. Maybe it was just some old tire finally giving way to its rim after she had disturbed it. And then came a soft pat against the open van door, followed by a wet, shallow chittering sound. Abigail froze again and the van door swung slowly against her arm. That hadn't been human, and surely no person could have got so close to her without being heard. Even now the only noise to betray the creature's movement was a gentle brushing of a tail against the blasted ground. Abigail slipped a hand into her jacket pocket, and wrapped her fingers around the square metal handle of a knife. She could do this, she told herself. It was only an animal, and she was armed. She had taken down a *super mutant* with those knives. With lightning reflexes she darted from behind the van, slamming the door closed... And what met her eyes was like no animal she had ever seen, vault videos or not. The first image to flash to mind, bizarre as it was, was of an upturned kitchen ladle. A foot of pink, fleshy handle rested on the ground while another four feet rose up to meet the thing's ungainly, car-tyre head. Two horns - or were they fangs? - rose up from a small, contorting mouth set into the side of that discus-like head and giving it a front while the tail joined its circumference from the rear. From beneath that flat fleshy mass hung gently swaying sacs or polyps, with no pattern or function Abigail could divine, while the top of the flat 'head' sank inwards in a huge second, coarsely toothed maw. A maw to where? She had no idea. It took up most of the 'head', and the creature's tail at its widest was only as thick as her thigh. Where it could keep any organs was a mystery, and the complete lack of eyes anywhere on its fleshy surface made it an even more alien sight. While ungainly, the thing didn't wobble or stagger. Its upright tail flowed back and forth to keep its disproportionate head steady, and when that head had come around to 'look' blindly at her it had merely glided in a short, graceful arc. There was something hypnotic about that movement, as if the creature was entirely invertebrate. And yet that couldn't have been all. The creature lunged at her, and as she watched transfixed she understood. The slender final foot of tail had arched and contracted like a caterpillar, and pushed, but it had not supported the creature's weight. The head sailed forward, faster than Abigail had thought possible, and its tail merely trailed along behind it leaving a faint line in the dust. Somehow it... floated. Then it was atop her, and there was only one thing she could do. *** When Abigail's scream came Chopper didn't even bother to set her medicine making aside before she was up and running. The bowl was left to fall where it wanted, and if anything was left in it when she got back, that would be a bonus. This was a rare case for her - it was unusual for anyone to get into trouble while scavenging, and if they did it was for basic medical help or assistance in unearthing something valuable, and not reported by the scream of fear that Abigail had let out. That's what they got for not scouting the area first, and for leaving Abigail alone. The stupid, adorable girl must not have stayed alert enough. Chopper just hoped that whatever had happened was fixable. She hadn't heard the crash of falling debris, so she hadn't been crushed, but if the girl had been ambushed... That was the flaw in their strategy. Chopper could help, but only if she had time to. She was not fast on her feet, and compared to the others was woefully out of shape. Even Rathley, almost twenty years older than her, could still match her speed on foot even in his armour. She didn't *need* to be in shape - she was a doctor, not a fighter - but right then she swore at herself for it. She *liked* Abigail, damn it. The stupid girl should learn to be more careful! Didn't she know that Chopper *couldn't* look after her at times like this? Then the shooting started, and Chopper was grateful for it. It made her realise there had been no shooting *beforehand*. Whatever had caught Abigail needed killing, but it hadn't been able to shoot her. She as an athlete, she should have been able to stay away from mantises or radscorpions. And she couldn't have let one of *them* take her down in a single hit. Not someone as lithe as her. The heavier report of a rifle didn't join them though, even by the time Chopper made it to that side of the yard. Had Sia not reached them yet? No, Chopper saw Sharn dart into her field of view briefly. She'd just taken up an improvised spear. Again. What was she playing at when she had a rifle in her pack? Then the rest of the battle appeared as she rounded the blasted van. "Fuck me!" Sharn was batting at the floater with the end of her steel pole, drawing its attention while Kyle lined up another shot with his .44 pistol. Off to the side Abigail gripped one of her knives, but she clutched at her left shoulder with that same hand. Her left arm hung limp at her side, and even from that distance Chopper could see it was dislocated, though probably not broken, thank god. "Abby! Get back here!" she yelled as she took cover behind the same car as Kyle, but Abigail paid no attention. Instead she dashed in towards the floater the second it bent its head down to attack Sharn, and slashed at the base of its tail. The attack barely seemed to hurt the mutant creature, but when its whip-like tongue shot out from within its maw it missed, allowing Sharn to reclaim the distance she had been losing. Kyle added injury to the insult, and his next magnum round hit it square in the side of its 'head', pushing it aside for a brief moment. "What are you waiting for!" Chopper exclaimed. "Kill it!" "I'm trying!" Kyle spat back. "Where the fuck's Rathley?" He wasn't lying either. Floaters were notoriously difficult to shoot at because of their strange, unearthly movements, and even when you did hit them the things were so hardy it might only knock the creature off balance for a few vital seconds. Mutants like that were the exception, and tended to live in harsher environments like around the Cobalt Line, but those environments made them horrifically resilient. That was why Kyle was using his most potent pistol. He needed to inflict as much trauma as possible, so that later shots might penetrate properly. Abigail meanwhile kept moving, and vaulted up onto the roof of one of the cars nearby. There was murder in her eyes again, mixed with the pain from her shoulder no doubt. Chopper could barely believe her eyes when, a second later, she leaped off, hurling her knife down and into the floater's maw. It might not have done much damage to the beast, but the floater gave a throaty scream and curled over on itself to try and disgorge the blade, flicking its elastic, flower-tipped tongue at it. The attack came too late though, and even as it hit Kyle shouted, "Re-loading!" Chopper's eyes darted around. This was the perfect chance to go for the kill, but neither Sharn or Abigail was armed well enough to try. Where the hell was Rathley when they needed him? And then there he was, just standing at the side behind another car, with his arms crossed. He was just *watching* them when they were trying to fight off a *floater*?! "Rathley, you bastard!" Rathley just grinned. Well, fuck that, Chopper decided. She reached for the sub-machine gun at her hip. She might not be able to shoot for shit, but she'd damn well try and perforate that thing. And if she survived, she'd perforate Rathley too. She flicked off the safety device and flicked on the switch for fully automatic fire. Then as the floater reared back up she shouted at Sharn to back away, before unloading her entire magazine at it. Out of thirty bullets maybe eight or nine hit their target, but those that did knocked the floater around in a screeching, chittering mess, and like Kyle's shots several of hers drew sickly orange-red blood where they hit already abused flesh. It wasn't enough for a kill though, and the floater twisted its head-body around to 'look' at her, even though it had no eyes in its front, or anywhere else. Then, with a hard push of the tail, it leaped towards her. Sharn hadn't been fast enough to try attacking it again, and Abigail had been cheering in premature euphoria before she had realised it hadn't been killed. It didn't look fast, but Chopper didn't have time to run. The floater's strange slide-hopping took it half the distance before Chopper had taken her third step back, and Chopper knew her cover wouldn't be worth shit. The floater would simply land on the car's bonnet like a flying snake, which is exactly what it did. And then, with a horrific bang of shotgun fire, the floater's head literally exploded. Chopper had already raised her arms to war off the creature, falling backwards to land flat on her backside, and those arms were showered with orange ichor where the gas filled lower rim of the floater had been torn apart like a ruptured balloon. Chopper sat staring at the wet, shrivelled corpse on the bonnet for a moment, before she turned to see Rathley with his shotgun smoking. The asshole had the gall to look pleased with himself. Sitting back against the same car Kyle looked equally perturbed. "Thanks for not missing, you old fuck." He wiped the spatter of orange goo from his shoulder. "And, if I may ask, what the *fuck* was that about?!" Rathley just smiled, clenching his bandaged fist in satisfaction. "This ain't the first time. Up to you lot whether it's the last." Chopper glared at him as he turned to head back to the camp. She was rather grateful she had already emptied her gun, or she might have done something very stupid just then. Sharn offered her a hand, which Chopper took with grudging gratitude. Sharn didn't seem to share Chopper's anger though. Instead she looked worried. "Maybe we fucked up with the rat." "After this, I'm glad we did." Kyle seemed to take the middle ground, as always. This time he sounded bitter about it though. "The shame is, he's right. He does keep covering our asses." The three of them shook themselves out of their funk when Abigail kicked at the dead floater's tail, which hung off the edge of the car bonnet. "That'll teach you!" Once again, the 'normal girl' was still riding her combat high, and Chopper felt herself grin. Hypocrite to the end, but she couldn't fight who she was. "Abby, are you okay? Take off your jacket and I'll have a look." Abigail winced, shaking a little, as Chopper helped ease her out of the leather. "That bastard snuck up on me. It hit me with that tongue thing, but that's it." "They kiss like a stampeding brahmin, right?" Kyle said. Abigail nodded. "It knocked me off my feet with its *tongue*! Disgusting bastard." She winced as Chopper began to probe her arm, and Chopper smiled. "Did anyone ever tell you that you get vitriolic after a fight?" Chopper asked, suppressing her amusement as Abigail gasped with the twinge of pain. "This thing's a mutation, but god knows what of. Okay, your shoulder's just dislocated after all. Hold still." Then, with a scream and a satisfying pop, Abigail's shoulder was back in its socket. Chopper allowed her inner sadist to enjoy it just for a moment before letting her guilt squash it, and she lifted Abigail's chin up. "All better." Abigail grabbed her face and kissed her forcefully. That startled Chopper, but she was all too happy to oblige. Abigail was getting more pro-active but she rarely played aggressor, and the variety was nice. Or it was until she actually realised what she was tasting on Abigail's tongue. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, and Abigail was glaring at her. "By the way: OW!" But her manhandling of Abigail's shoulder was suddenly far from the front of Chopper's mind, and she returned the kiss with equal suddenness. But, as Abigail soon realised, it wasn't one of passion, but one of concerned analysis. Whatever that taste was, it was unpleasantly chemical and synthetic, with the same sharp edge as Abigail's nasty toothpaste. "Abby, what the hell did you take?" *** The recriminations had been short and sharp, and left a bitter aftertaste on an already sour victory. Chopper had not minced her words, a fact made worse by the Buffout high that Abigail had been forced to ride out for the next five hours. In retrospect she could see what Chopper had meant, sort of. She'd defended taking the drug with a blind zeal that she simply couldn't back up, now that she was coming down from the artificial confidence and physical power trip. She should have just admitted it and taken the lecture, not started a screaming match over who was the idiot for using or not using the drug. She hadn't been able to help it though. Who was Chopper to lecture her, she'd thought. Why not take advantage of what she had scavenged from the Hearts? Now, with the effect of the chems fading, she was already beginning to think the reverse. Why *had* she popped that pill? She'd taken it in blind panic, and it had given her the will and the power to keep the floater away until Kyle had shown up, but she could have run without it. She might not have had the guts to help Sharn keep its attention away from Kyle, but Sharn probably could have managed okay without her if she'd had to. If Kyle's bullets had only been able to soften it up, why had Abigail herself needed to fight with such crazy zeal? She remembered this helplessness from the last time she had taken Buffout, and stared at her roasted gecko stick feeling very small. There would be no running off this time though. She'd made her decision when she hid those tablets in her pockets, and now she had to deal with the result. At least both she and Chopper had calmed down now. Although Chopper thought she needed to be educated some more, because her lecture had resumed at a much more calm level. "Most of the steroid kicks in *after* the initial endorphin rush," she explained. She had already finished eating, and had adopted a learned tone of voice that seemed most unlike her. "But even then the actual steroid effect - some sort of hybrid androgen - is very small and short lived in real terms. You're not actually any stronger or faster than you were the hour before, the chem just allows you to push the muscle beyond its natural comfort levels." "I still don't understand half of what you're saying," Sharn said as she ate. Chopper gave her a wry glare. "*I'm* no chemist either. This comes from lots of reading and checking the labels on the damn bottles. The whole concoction's just nasty. The adrenaline and endorphin rush make you reckless enough to use the extra power that you're wringing out of your own body, and whatever short term benefits the steroid hybrid gives come with more aggression as well. It was designed for soldiers, so no wonder the raiders like it." "Also, it can be addictive," she said, looking at Abigail pointedly, "and I don't know what the long term effects are for weird hybrid shit like this. I've never found a study on Buffout itself. But very generally androgen steroids are bodybuilding drugs, and you aren't the right shape for that, hon. Not to mention they'll fuck up your periods, your heart, liver..." As if coming down off the drug wasn't making Abigail feel bad enough already. "Alright, I get it." "Good." It was information worth knowing, Abigail had to admit. She'd had no idea that the little green tablets were steroids of all things, even if they were odd and spliced up for short term use. If she had, she never would have tried them against that Super Mutant to begin with. Then again, if she hadn't they might all be dead right now. What the hell was she supposed to think about that? "Come on, Chopper, cut her some slack. It's not like you've never taken anything either. Or us." Abigail looked up in surprise to hear Kyle's words. "Sometimes you need a kick-start," he said, sounding unconcerned, "and we know a hell of a lot better than she does what they'll do." Chopper sighed. "Oh, for fuck's sake." Abigail felt the need to change the conversation, if only to stop them fighting between themselves over what message they should be giving her. "Look, I get it, okay. I fucked up. I'm sorry. I couldn't fight that thing without... something." She didn't know how to explain without sounding like a fool, so she left it hanging. They knew what she meant anyway. "Honey, you took on the Diamonds without it. You don't need it. You know that." Honestly, Abigail didn't. All she'd done against the Diamonds was start a fire-fight from the safety of the shadows, cower while everyone else got shot, and then beat an already wounded man to death out of panic and anger. But she agreed anyway. Maybe she would understand it more tomorrow, when she was feeling better. "I guess." "Well, running into a floater was bad luck," Kyle said, now finished with his food. "But even so, we've done pretty well out of this place." "Really?" The others had told her that considering what little she would get for the clothes they weren't really worth lugging around, but Sharn had helped her pick out what they might be able to haggle a good price for. "Yep. One of those pistols you found, the revolver, will actually work once I've cleaned it up, and between us we've got enough ten mil ammo to refill the mag Chopper spent on the floater, and then some." "Kyle got the real haul though," Sharn said, beaming in pride. She held up a pair of Nuka-Cola bottles. "There was an old Nuka-Cola truck here! Most of the bottles were smashed, but we still found a few, as well as *all* the caps." "That'll buy back *our* ammo then," Rathley said, sounding amused. "A whole clip of those .44s'll be fuckin' pricy, boy." "We still come out with a profit," Kyle justified. "And that's before we sell the location." "And you found some more toothpaste!" Sharn said to Abigail, looking on the bright side. "Seriously, I've never found *any*, let alone a tube that might be usable!" Chopper grinned at her "Not that you'd have bothered using it." "... True. But I bet we could have talked up a great price if Abigail didn't want it!" That was the biggest surprise of the whole trip. Among the more useless luggage in the cars had been uncountable wash kits, and amazingly one of them had a factory sealed tube of toothpaste in a military issue ration box. A soldier must have packed up his family and made a run for it when the real bomb warnings had come, alas too late for him. The box might have been almost a hundred years old, but in the last few years before the war making supplies as long-life as possible had become an art form. Stimpaks had been the pinnacle of that art - essentially eternal, and several of them had been in the same sealed supply box - but the toothpaste was only five years out of date and it hadn't started crystallising. Because of that, and since it had still been airtight, it would still be as safe to use as any old meds. It wasn't a big tube - just a small, one-man ration - but it would keep her going for a little while now that her own supply had almost run out. "What I want to know is where everyone went," Abigail said, finishing her overcooked meat. "I didn't see a single body. They couldn't have just vaporised if so much stuff like their luggage survived, could they?" "They ran when they saw the mushroom clouds," Rathley said. His face was strangely devoid of humour for such a dramatic statement. Kyle looked at him with a disbelieving smile. "You think?" Rathley nodded. "They're in the basement, underneath the shop. Must be over a hundred of the buggers. Or what's left of 'em. Wasn't much of a bomb shelter by the looks of it. I didn't fancy climbing through the bones to check it out." Abigail was suddenly humbled by the revelation. Every driver and their passengers or family, crammed into the room beneath that twisted building, only to be burned to death seconds later when the nuclear blasts reached them. It made all their own squabbles and recriminations that afternoon seem very petty. *** While Abigail might get tired of the empty open spaces and the dull yellow-brown horizon that was forever out of reach, she doubted she would ever grow tired of the night sky. It was so beautiful that no other sight above ground - or below - could ever hope to compare. Lying against her rock, looking up at that sky, she found herself grateful for her secure and enclosed upbringing underground. If not for that she might have taken that star studded cloth of space for granted, like her companions did. Even in the pathetic emotional after-chasm of the Buffout, feeling small and insecure didn't bother her with all those stars looking down, watching her. There was something gentle and pretty and delicate about them, forever out of reach and yet forever there, waiting for night to fall. Abigail could take comfort in the fact that they put the wasteland into some kind of perspective. She *was* small and insignificant, but they appeared for her just as they did for everyone else, and she appreciated their unconditional display of beauty. She smiled at her own whimsy. She'd been feeling emotional ever since dinner, and she was glad of the calm night to bathe in. She was supposed to be on watch, her first turn for the duty, but she found it difficult to concentrate on the blackness around her when the sky twinkled gently so far above. She kept her ears open, and cast her gaze around the dark desert every now and then, but she wanted to enjoy the soulful silence and the beauty of the night while she was still depressed enough to appreciate it the way she did now. The alternative to that stellar scene was sitting attached to the PipBoy on her wrist. Finding out the truth about their camping ground and what had happened to everyone there had sparked her more melancholy mood, and it had reminded her just how much she did want to know about the war. Up until then she had purposely ignored her own curiosity about the holotape Celia had given her, but as evening fell she had plugged it in and downloaded the data. She had felt guilty about it almost as soon as it had been done. In Vault 42 it would have been a gross invasion of privacy to access another person's PipBoy, and even now she couldn't shake the feeling that what she was doing was tantamount to a betrayal of trust. But Celia had given her the 'tape. That was all the justification she should need. However, it was only two hours later that she activated the PipBoy's screen again, finally feeling brave enough to read any of it. She didn't have to read the diaries. There was plenty of other stuff there. Celia had travelled quite a bit before losing her PipBoy it seemed, and there were plenty of notes and map references to view. She had been to Micasa, their own current destination, for example. 'A small town. It seems to rely exclusively on trading and entertainment for its income and sustenance, and as yet has made no attempts at agriculture. They say it is too close to the 'Cobalt Line' for that, though Corva manages despite being a day or so closer, as the crow flies. Crime appears to be high, but largely petty, and the establishment either does not care or is incompetent to stop it. 'The town has a reputation for being welcoming and hospitable to newcomers, but I am not sure why. Superficially it appears that way, but after staying any real length of time it seemed no more genuinely welcoming than any other safe town. That worried me slightly. 'It has little to recommend it besides the prevalent gambling houses and other dubious entertainments, but still remains well travelled. I think most travellers would find better quality facilities and services elsewhere, though probably not all in the same town, as they are here.' What a charming place, Abigail thought dryly. Celia evidently had more bite to her opinions before she became a ghoul. Abigail added the entry to her own map, along with the many others that she did not bother to read. At least all those little markers made her map look more impressive, though Celia hadn't bothered to record her travelling routes the way Abigail was doing. Abigail looked more closely when she realised that Celia had even recorded the location of her own vault! Vault 37 was many miles to the north, and if the Cobalt Line stretched the entire length of the US then Celia would have had to travel *through* it to reach places like Corva. Was that how she had become a ghoul? No, that was unlikely. Chopper apparently came from the west, so the Cobalt Line did have a start point and an end point somewhere. Celia had just travelled south or south-east over the top of it, making her notes along the way. So how had she become a ghoul? What must she have gone through? Abigail couldn't ignore the question as easily as that. She could just check the personal entry that talked about that single time in Celia's life. Its heading should be easy to spot, she thought grimly. As she had expected, they were all simple dated entries to start with, probably of life in the vault. There was nothing to suggest that the war had started at any point, so she had probably been born in her vault like Abigail had, or had been very young when she had gone in. She'd know for sure if she ever read them properly, but she wasn't going to do that. Not until she felt better about it. Then, after several hundred entries, the headings changed dramatically, both in wording and frequency. Just like Abigail's were doing now. One heading just read, "FUCK!!!" and showed no entry contents at all. Then, a little later, they started getting really dark. '244: Jan 13, 2100 "New Year Binge, and bad water. Again." '245: Feb 25, 2100 "My life is over." '246: Mar 01, 2100 "If they touch me again..." '247: Mar 14, 2100 "someone help me" '248: Jun 23, 2100 "there is no escape . goodbye" '249: Jun 25, 2100 "WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWYWHWYWHWWYHYYYY!!!!!!!" '250: Jul 16, 2100 "i have realised something" Abigail switched the PipBoy off. She didn't want to read that. Not now, and not ever. And that was *before* Calia had mutated into a ghoul? Abigail was glad that she had lost her faith, because if she hadn't she would have cursed God in every way she knew for making her see those words written on the PipBoy's pale green screen. And she was grateful that she had been spared a similar fate. "Hey, Sugar. You still watchin', right? What're you cryin' over now?" Rathley's voice broke the silence like a sledgehammer through a pane of glass. "W-what?" Abigail blinked back the sympathetic dampness in her eyes. "Yes, I'm still on lookout! Why are you still awake? And I'm not crying." Amazingly, that was the truth. Her breaths were shallow and ragged and her eyes watered in sympathy, but real tears hadn't come. They would have done, if only she'd kept reading, but she hadn't. She was learning her limits, and they were being stretched; She was hardening to the surface and its horrors. Even Rathley had mentioned buying slaves already, so it wasn't as though she hadn't known. She just hadn't been ready to read about it - even so briefly - from someone she had become friends with. "I can see that light turnin' off and on, Sugar. You're foolin' around with that computer again." "And I'm *also* keeping watch. There's nothing out there, Rathley." "Good." Abigail frowned. She had known Rathley had been lying against the other side of the rock, but she should have realised that he hadn't actually been sleeping. "You didn't answer my question. Why aren't you asleep? You're taking over at one thirty. Are you planning to stay up all night?" "Don't have much choice. Been a wild day. I'll try and catch a couple of hours before then." A wild day? That was one way of putting it, Abigail thought. "What if you hadn't killed it with that shot? Kyle and Chopper both used a full clip against that thing, and it didn't die." Rathley didn't reply for a moment, as if shifting where he lay. Or shrugging. "Then I'd have shot it again. They'd both fucked up its right side pretty well - I was surprised your girlfriend didn't manage to take it out." This time it was Abigail's turn to remain quiet a moment. "... And you pissed everyone off just to teach them a lesson? There's something wrong with you, Rathley." "Probably, but as long as it keeps me alive I don't give a shit. You need me, Sugar. I've been buyin' those three their extra lives for the last six years. Thankfully, they don't forget too often." "Does that mean I have to thank you for not letting her die? For being more useful than me?" "This ain't a power trip, girl. Just a reminder to 'em. Life ain't expensive, but I can't grow this finger back." He chuckled. "Here's some free advice, Sugar, since you're the reckless type. Don't take risks you can't talk, fight or buy your way out of if you screw 'em up." "You put me in that pen too. I almost didn't fight my way out of that." "Bullshit. You weren't missin' anythin' when you came out. It got you fightin', it got you wise, and it got you respect out of thin air. Out of that, all I got was the respect, except I already got my reputation. They know what they want to think about me, and I *had* to stay in to keep it decent." "It got you money." "Cash ain't what any of us are worried about right now, Sugar. Not worth losing a digit over unless you're down to scratch." That was fair enough. Abigail wouldn't have wanted to lose a finger - or more likely a toe - against her pigrat either. But it was evident that Rathley wasn't going to be getting his sleep any time soon. "Don't be thinkin' I got anythin' against 'em though. Or you. That stuff ain't personal unless they want it to be, like the rat. And don't worry about the chems either," he added, sounding amused. "If you need 'em, you take 'em. No-one's gonna choose to die when a pill or a shot'll help get 'em out of it. Not even your hypocrite girlfriend. You just take your shakes and get over it, if you have to." Abigail sighed, and yawned for the n-th time that night. "I don't know. I don't want to need them." "Then there you go. Tell you what, you go crawl into your girlfriend's bed and I'll take watch. I'll wake you early and have a kip before sun up. I ain't gettin' any sleep like this, and she's probably starin' at the roof of the tent without you." If only that was true, Abigail thought. She wasn't about to turn down the offer though. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and she would gladly suffer an early morning for it. Maybe it would mean she was actually awake and alert when they decided to pack up and move on again. "Alright, that's a deal. Thanks." She climbed unsteadily to her feet and made her way to the tent, stripping off her jacket as she went. Inside Kyle and Sharn slumbered together, while Chopper slept beneath her coat as ever. It might have been a little disappointing that Rathley hadn't been right, but Chopper wasn't the type to lose sleep over anyone. At least she'd left some of the coat for Abigail, and as she slipped beneath it Abigail was grateful to have the warmth of Chopper's body next to her, even if it was only her sleeping one. *** To be continued... *** Please send any comments and constructive criticism to: nutzoide@nutzoide.net They are always greatly appreciated, and there is no better reward for a writer than to hear back from the readers. Many thanks to Richard King for his proofreading assistance. (c) Nutzoide 2009 http://www.nutzoide.net