The mid-afternoon was grey, like all mid-afternoons in the Sound. Justin walked purposefully (for there was no other way to walk while wearing a power armor frame), bobbing his head and singing along to music piping from two eyebots that hovered alongside him. On his back was a supercomputer - The Supercomputer. It was the size of a refrigerator, and as far as Justin knew, it was the smallest ever made. Almost four years prior his little clan, scavengers for the Followers of the Apocalypse, had found it near the base of Mt Rainier in a heavily fortified pre-war manufacturing base of some sort. Information about it was nonexistent, and it's secrets were buried under mountains of encryption. None of them wanted to leave it to rot there. So, using an old power armor frame and some metalworking skills, Justin devised a way to take the computer with them.

On the way back to their main base in Emperium, every single one of his friends died. Suddenly the Supercomputer was all that remained of the life he had known. They'd wanted him to crack it, and by god, he'd see that one last thing through.

In the years since, he had perfected his armor design. Now lugging the Supercomputer was only a slight burden, and not the nigh-impossible task it had started as. It still felt like the weight of the world, his haunted box, but as far as reasons for living went, he thought he could have done much worse.

The music coming from his left began to warble, fading in and out. Justin glanced over to find the eyebot spinning as it flew. Slung along it's underbelly was a modified laser rifle, and the weight of it made the second half of it's spin significantly faster than the first, and each rotation edged it out farther.

"Barrel. Quit it." Justin said. "Just fly normal, you fuckin' weirdo."

Barrel stopped spinning. To Justin's right, the other eyebot made a few low beeping noises. Justin looked over to it and nodded.

"You're right, you should be embarrassed to be related to him." He said, knowing very well that the beeping noises it made meant nothing.

Justin came to a cliff and stopped walking, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the landscape. It was scraggly rocks, dirt and trees for miles. A long, low hill cut the sky, over which peeked the very tops of skyscrapers - well, what remained of them. It was hard to see in all the low, grey clouds, but he could barely make out the distinctive skyline of what used to be the city of Seattle. He was still a couple days out from Seatac proper, but he'd traveled this route hundreds of times before, and he knew the land well. Attached to the Supercomputer on his back were bags and ropes hung heavy with tech he'd scavenged from his latest trek out into the mountains. After a quick stop at one of the trading outposts he'd be out into the wilderness again, resupplied and ready for another run.

His stomach growled, and he put out a hand toward the second, beepier eyebot. "Stock, drop." The bulbous capsule on the eyebots undercarriage opened, and a tin of Cram fell into his hand. "Thanks buddy." He said, hooking a finger under the tab and pulling it open.

Justin began making his way down the sharp incline toward the valley. The power armor frame on his legs whirred, easily finding footing on the rough terrain, mostly by slamming right through any debris that happened to be there. He ate as he walked, making a face at the weird aftertaste the 'meat' had and creating a mental note to find some RadAway before too long.

The sun, were it visible, would have just started creeping down toward the horizon. Justin expected to make it at least another couple miles or so before he had to make camp for the night. The low clouds that hung above weren't churning in the way that promised rain, which Justin was grateful for. It was getting a bit chilly and Justin didn't relish the idea of being both cold and wet.

Frantic beeping called Justin's attention to his wrist. He sighed and stopped walking, sitting back and letting the power armor frame provide a chair. He pulled up the Pip-Boy on his wrist (well, the shell of one, at least) and hit a button on the side. "What do ya got, Lock?"

A grainy image appeared on the tiny screen. The vantage was high above where he currently sat, and the top of the picture was fuzzy, disappearing into fog. He would have to remember to edit her flight parameters to try and avoid scraping the bottom of the clouds. "Lock, this is useless to me." He muttered. "You're too high up. Why did I let you out on your own."

He turned off the video feed and pulled up her source code.

/start program-manual-override

/return to chassis

/enter

The Pip-Boy beeped. 'New parameters accepted' appeared on the screen, and Justin glanced at the sky behind him, scanning the underside of the clouds for a small ball. She was so high up he doubted he'd be able to find her against the grey sky. He wondered what she could have possibly managed to spot from all the way up there.

"It would have to be pretty big." He thought aloud, before his brain caught up with his mouth. "Oh… shit, that's probably a bad thing."

Gunfire cracked across the valley. Justin swore, throwing one of his arms up, hoping to at least block any bullets aimed at his head. Another shot rang out, and he heard something ping off metal entirely too close for comfort. To his left, the blinking lights on Barrel's chassis turned red, and the eyebot peeled off, disappearing between rocks and tree husks.

"HEY!" Justin bellowed, turning so his back was facing in the direction of the gunfire, using the Supercomputer to block line of fire. "RUDE! STOP FUCKING SHOOTING ME!"

From the cliff face above Justin heard a voice. "Holy shit it talks!"

"Yeah it fucking talks! Jesus Christ, in the middle of the fucking mountains and your opener is just to shoot, what the hell man!"

A different voice, this one older, female, and very scary, called out. "What in God's name do you have on your back, son?"

If Justin tried to imagine what a loaded 50 caliber sniper rifle would sound like if it could talk, it would be that voice. It made his blood run cold.

"Just a computer, ma'am!"

There was a pause.

"It ain't gonna explode or nothin'?"

"I sure hope not, ma'am, it's attached to me." There was no immediate response and Justin stared off into the grey rocks and rubble in front of him, imagining that sniper rifle voice taking careful aim at the back of his head. "And those were his last words." He whispered to himself. "Here lies Justin McShannon; dead of a bad case of the snark."

The Pip-Boy on his wrist chirped. After a brief moment of hesitation wherein he judged how shot he thought he would end up if he moved, he pulled it up and looked at the screen. Red words flashed on it, waiting for a prompt.

Engage? y/n

"Hey, um… so are we cool?" Justin asked aloud. Behind he heard movement, heavy footsteps on dirt and the snapping of dry branches. He tried to guess how many people, but all he could definitively settle on was 'more than three'. There was a lot of noise.

"Turn around."

Justin did.

Six people stood there, all dressed in dark leathers with welded bits of rusted metal and obviously-scavenged robotic parts making patchwork armor. Each had at least one gun, and all pointed squarely at him. Justin groaned. He recognized raiders when he saw them. They weren't exactly unique in the aesthetics department.

"Well the shoot-first-ask-questions-later thing makes sense now." Justin mumbled.

The older woman, clearly the one in charge, narrowed her eyes. In a surprising turn of events, the gun she had trained on him looked more like a shotgun than a sniper, though Justin knew it was just as lethal.

"What the fuck are you supposed to be?" She asked.

A thin, red-haired man next to her spoke up. "We thought you was a weird Protectron or somethin'."

"He's a Follower, look-" The woman standing to the leader's left stepped forward and pointed at the side of the Supercomputer with the barrel of her rifle. The filigree cross of the Followers of the Apocalypse gleamed on the dark metal. Justin had put it there himself a few years ago. She sneered at him, clearly unimpressed.

"Looks more like Brotherhood, with that getup." Another, a teenager, muttered.

"Where's the rest of your little buddies, eh?" The leader asked. Justin knew what that question really meant. 'How many people are gonna come after us if we kill you?'

"Um, well you see-"

"Doesn't matter." The other woman interrupted. She used the barrel of her rifle to shove Justin's shoulder roughly. "They're Followers, bunch of pussies. Pacifists, right? Prolly have a good cry about you and move on."

"We're not pacifists, we're humanists." Justin said. The Pip-Boy on his wrist chirped again, and he held it up, nodding to it. "And my robot is neither, so do I call him off or are we doing this? And-" He put up a finger as the leader opened her mouth to talk, "I know I'm covered in tasty looking tech and maybe tasty looking meat, I dunno your lifestyles, I've seen some weird shit, but I would first like you to ask yourselves if any of you knows the average longevity of most tech, cause I bet you don't, and I guarantee it's not as long as you want, so it's probably more worthwhile for y'all to keep me alive rather than, you know, shooting me in the face and stealing my shit."

The woman who had shoved him glared and then raised her rifle into firing position. "Please let me shoot him."

The leader looked like she was considering it. Behind her, another of the raiders came forward and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes flicked over him, up and down, and then she shook her head. "Put the guns down, boys. You too, Bethany. Besides," She nodded at one of Justin's legs. "Too late for that."

Justin looked down and saw blood trickling from between the holes in his power armor frame. "Oh god dammit." He let out an annoyed sigh.

The Pip-Boy beeped again, one final time. Justin entered a negative response into it's prompt. Then he shifted, set the Supercomputer onto the ground, and detached the top half of his power armor frame. He stomped around to the side of the Supercomputer and grabbed his med bag. "Those are mine," He announced, hearing the puttering sounds of eyebots approaching. Barrel and Stock emerged from the trees, resuming their positions hovering on either side of him. From above he heard a third - Lock had finally seen fit to rejoin the pack. Justin glared at her; not that she had sentience to be offended or guilty.

"Thanks a lot." He muttered.

Justin stomped over to a nearby rock and put his injured leg up on it. He undid the side clamps and unlocked the frame, pulling his leg up enough to find the bullet hole in his jeans. Behind him, he could hear the raiders muttering amongst themselves.

"Yo what the fuck is this guy?"

"Who cares we should just kill him and be done with it."

Hoping at this point if they were going to kill him they would have done it already, Justin ignored them. He pulled a long set of tweezers and a bottle of alcohol from his medical bag. He stuck each end of the tweezers into the bottle, then unceremoniously jammed the tweezers into the bullet hole in his leg, feeling around for metal. Behind him, the raiders went silent. He dug around for awhile before finally feeling the tweezers scrape. He clamped down and pulled, and the end emerged with a red-slick bullet. He dropped it on the ground, then grabbed some gauze from his bag and started wrapping it around his leg tightly.

At this point he looked up to find all six of them watching him.

"What's up, are we done here?" He asked. "I got places to be, I assume you got places to be, we kickin' it?"

Their expressions ranged from horrified to confused, except the leader. She watched him shrewdly. "Who the hell are you?" She asked.

"Justin McShannon. Local trader, scout, tech guy, bullet sponge, you know. I would very much appreciate you not robbing me. I mean you already shot me. But that look on your face is a robbin' look; I know those when I see 'em. Trust me, it never goes well."

A smirk came onto her face. "Does it not?"

"Well… no. You think you're the first people to shake me down out here? Ask any of the other raid-um… professional… sc-scrounger...ssss…? Uh." He swallowed. "Ask anyone else you run across with your whole general…" He gestured at them as a unit. "Aesthetic. They'll tell ya. I think they call it a 'McShannon Bust.' A bit hurtful, but also kind of cool, I guess. At least someone out there's thinking of me, you know?"

"You've got a funny way of threatening people."

"Oh, I'm not trying to threaten you. Honest. But look, what do you think you're gonna take from me? These guys?" He jerked a thumb at the three eyebots hovering nearby. "They're programmed to follow my commands. Can you reprogram them? I doubt it. You can shoot 'em down I guess but it wouldn't be the first time I've rebuilt them. Gonna take my computer?" He banged a fist on the side of it and the sound echoed across the valley. "It's encrypted to shit, literally useless, and good luck carrying it. My power armor frame ain't worth the time, I've modified it so much it's basically only good for carrying the computer, can't get actual power armor on it anymore. So your best bet is… I dunno, my supplies? You're already not killing me so I'd hope you wouldn't leave me out here to starve to death. And, in case you are so inclined, I got a better option for you. Y'all are headed into Seatac I assume?"

"That direction, yes."

Justin nodded. "Alright well you so happen to be talking to the guy who knows this area the best. I also happen to be heading that way. So, instead of robbing me, why don't we just… all go that way in a nice little group?"

The angry woman (Bethany, right?) spat. "We've been fine on our own this far."

"Yes, and that is impressive, don't get me wrong. But, let me guess…" Justin turned to look out over the valley, and then pointed to a barely-visible break in the wilderness, the remnants of a highway. "You were gonna head there and follow that road over the hills into the city, right?"

"...Yes."

"Ah. Rookie mistake. That road might as well be named 'Kodiak Boulevard'. Can't blame you, it does look real inviting. The kodiak know that. They're clever bastards."

"What's a kodiak?"

"Oh, right, y'all aren't from around here. I think they're called yao guai, other parts?"

Bethany smirked. "We can handle some yao guai."

"Can you handle them when they're as big as a truck?" He saw their faces collectively pale. "Oh yeah, we got 'em bigger and badder here. Closer you get to the Sound you start seeing shit that makes even deathclaws look cute. I don't know if you know this, but the ocean-" He held up a finger for dramatic effect. "The ocean is a fucking evil place where fucking evil shit lives. Do you know which of these lakes are connected to the death ocean and which aren't? Do you know what areas have been staked out by bandit clans, or where the super mutants live? Do you even know what a sabir is, much less how to avoid them? Trick question - you can't, you just gotta pray they're not hungry."

"Surely there can't be that much shit here."

Justin shrugged. "Welcome to the wild north, baby. We got it all up here. 80% of it is awful."

The group looked to their leader. She eyed Justin for a few moments, shadows in the deep lines on her face. "Fine," she said, "on one condition."

"What's that?"

"You talk less."

Justin nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. Behind him, Stock let out a series of pleasant beeps.