10/28/2287 7:02PM
There are memories that never quite leave you, no matter how hard your thinking brain tries to wipe them out. Even if all you have are hazy impressions that are of no damn use to man or beast; the animal part of your brain always remembers, makes sure that some hardwired instincts of survival, your reflexes, stay intact.
Five days after crawling out of a Vault-turned-tomb and Emma Zsoldos-Park was finding that she remembered quite a bit from the Old Country. In some ways, it was as though the dozen or so years in America, in a country that hadn't been smashed to pieces by back-to-back wars, had just been a dream. But there was no denying, this was what was left of Boston, not Budapest. This was Fenway Park. And she was drinking moonshine distilled from God-alone-knew-what, in a shantytown built on the ruins of where she and her husband had their first date.
This was Diamond City, her husband was dead, their infant son missing, and her search was stuck until the mayor's office opened in the morning. Worlds ended, husbands were murdered, babies were kidnapped, but bureaucracy went on. And if she couldn't bribe, borrow, steal or otherwise connive that key away from them she was really up shit creek without a paddle, and no way to …
She needed another drink.
Who was it that had said, "The more things change, the more they stay the same?" She couldn't remember. It didn't matter, really. They'd been right. If she closed her eyes, she could almost have been back in any quiet dive bar before… everything happened. The same dim lighting. The same songs on the radio. The same murmured conversations in the corners: business, flirting, complaints about the job, home life.
Almost. One breath in shattered that illusion pretty quickly.
Two-hundred years and a nuclear apocalypse had done nothing to improve the smell of the Dugout. Somehow it still had a lingering pungent aroma of tobacco and sweaty feet. Or maybe that was just the patrons. No deodorant, and the only water to bathe in set the Geiger counter on her Pip-Boy chattering so frantically that she wouldn't have been surprised if squirrels tried to mate with it. She lowered her head to armpit level and took a discreet sniff.
Nope. Definitely wasn't just the patrons. Wasn't that just golden.
Elbow on the bar, she dragged her hand over her face until her cheek was embedded firmly in her palm, and signalled to the bartender, Vadim, for another round. He sauntered over with a bottle, the label covered over with masking tape and marker. Bobrov's Best Moonshine, it read. Well, if this was the best, she really, really didn't want to try the worst, thanks. She held out her glass anyway.
"So, new girl," he said, pouring another generous helping. His voice felt about thirty decibels too loud at this distance. "You are the one who saved our Nicky to help look for missing person, yes?"
She looked up from her glass at him, eyes narrowed.
He simply laughed at her, big, and deep and much, much too loud. "Ah, I am bartender. I know everyone's business." Shrugging, he continued, "Besides, is small town. People talk."
Emma raised the glass of moonshine, and tipped it towards Vadim in a gesture of gratitude. She took a tentative sip. The taste wasn't improving with continued imbibing, but it was doing the damn job of quieting everything to a nice buzzing numbness. "After a few of these," she said, swirling the liquid around the glass before taking another sip, "I bet they talk a lot."
Vadim laughed again, and as the liquid burned its way down through to her stomach, she found herself chuckling along with him.
"Yes, new girl," he nodded, "I am learning many secrets this way. And giving much advice. Friends listen better when they are drunk, yes?"
Maybe it was the accent, so much like the ones she had heard in the little apartments they'd first lived in after coming to America, so much like her own had been, in that other time when she'd been lost in a foreign land. Maybe it was the broad smile and the belly laugh. Maybe it was just the booze. And maybe it was some combination of the three, but Emma looked over the rim of her glass, with all of her instincts yelling "trust this one." So she did.
"Much advice, huh?" she said. "Any for me?"
Vadim looked left and right – nothing so obvious as turning his head, just a quick flick of the eyes in each direction – and leaned in. "You want to hunt bad man? Take good man to watch your back, not just dog."
Dogmeat whined, and Emma patted him idly as the bartender continued, "I have friend in Goodneighbor. Name is MacCready. He is good man."
Emma chewed it over. Strength in numbers. Two guns would be better than one. And she didn't want to put Piper or Nick at risk, not when they had people depending on them. A hired gun… might just do the trick. Or it might land her a nice stab in the back.
"Your friend's a mercenary?" She asked, eventually.
"Ah, you wonder if you can trust him, no?" Vadim nodded, "He is family man. This makes him honorable."
With that he straightened up and went to attend to some other customers, leaving her to stare into the remains of her moonshine until she turned in for the night.
Makes him honorable, she thought, as she settled down on a mattress that seemed to be made entirely from stains and springs. Or desperate.
But then again, so was she.
Author's Note: I'm aware that gameplay-wise, you can go to the Mayor's office at whatever time of day, up to and including the middle of the night, but from a story perspective, that seemed a bit silly to me, so I treat the Mayor's office as having typical 9-5 hours. Thus, when I tried to get into Kellog's house at 6pm, the office would have been closed.