Six people; She had shot five people, and just finished beating another a woman to death with the butt end of her childhood BB gun. Percy wiped the blood on her jumpsuit, taking deep breaths to try and calm her nerves. The woman had come at her swinging a bat, and without thinking, Percy had retaliated. She just kept on coming, with a desperately wild look in her eye…
She couldn't stop her hands from shaking.
The lone figure stood up and looked over the horizon to try and distract herself. Everything within sight was in different tones of green, grey, and brown. Dead trees and the occasional burnt husk of a house littered the landscape. Off in the distance to the south east was what looked to be a giant mound of scrap metal.
'Looks like better shelter than a roofless old shack…It's going to get dark soon too.'
Looking to her pip-boy with a mixture of fear and determination, the exile took a few strides in that direction before stopping short and looking back at the corpse of her former attacker.
'She won't have use for her equipment anymore…God forgive me.'
"Welcome to Megaton; I say this to everyone, and I want to make it clear that I don't want any trouble from you. I have enough trouble keeping hell at bay already, and I won't tolerate more chaos than there already is."
The self-appointed sheriff surveyed the new arrival with a wary eye. His weapon was holstered, but Percy doubted his reflexes were slow.
"I don't plan on making a mess of things, believe me. I've had enough of that already."
Her eyes scanned what had turned out to be a city of sheet metal and pipes.
After arriving at her destination, she nearly turned back around after seeing the Securetron at the entrance. Percy had a general suspicion of robots, ever since Andy had nearly taken off her finger on her tenth birthday. Her father had patched her up well enough, all the while yelling about having that hovering death machine decommissioned. Her finger was fine, but the event had instilled in her a distrust of anything non-sentient that moved on its own.
"I've had a pretty eventful day, is there anywhere I can stay for the night?" She asked, wearily.
"The bar is always open, but not always free. I suggest the common house if you're fine with sharing the lodgings with other travelers. Apart from that I can't suggest much unless you get hurt enough to land yourself with the good doctor." The Sheriff seemed less suspicious of this new wanderer, but maintained a firm gaze.
"Thank you, I think I need a drink now, anyway. I promise not to cause any trouble, but if I should see some, who should I call for?" Percy shifted from foot to foot, trying to ease the pain from both.
The Vaultie was eager for the conversation to be over so she could at least find a wall to lean against. She had been up for a while, and felt like she had been running the whole time.
"The name is Simms, but you can call me Sheriff" He replied sternly.
"Right. Nice to meet you, Sheriff." With that, the former vault dweller headed in the direction of what she now saw was Moriarty's saloon.
Gob stood at the bar, scrubbing away at the counter. Some wasteland asshole had decided the old wooden surface would be a perfectly reasonable place to leave their damn gum.
'I'll never get this shit out of the cracks…'
"Another scotch and ice over here, please." A bored voice drawled from the smoke filled side room, just out of Gob's view.
"Right away, sir" He called, tossing down his old rag in mild frustration.
He didn't know why Burke asked for ice every time when he knew perfectly well that all he would get was slightly chilled at best. As he placed the drink on the counter, Gob called to the man in the corner
"Your drink is ready, Mr. Burke."
…
Burke made no movement to get up, and Gob rolled his eyes and looked to the ginger in the corner. She got the hint and strode over, grabbed the glass, and put on her best sway as she went to serve the man.
"Here you go, sweetie." She purred, the drink hovering eye level with Burke.
He took it without looking her in the eye. Instead, keeping them on her legs, he reached out and stroked her knee as he replied,
"Thank you, I don't suppose you're free tonight?"
"You know I always am when you come to call, baby."
"Of course; well I hope to see you soon."
Nova gave a small smile and walked back to her corner. She couldn't stand Burke. It wasn't as if he looked at her differently than anyone else, or was especially rough in the sack—God knows Jericho was the winner there—but there was a something about him that unnerved her; like he jacked it to patriotic anthems in his spare time. The music suddenly became incoherent amongst waves of static. Gob grumbled and began fiddling with the radio antenna. After a few minutes of this, He slammed his fist on the top
"Come on, dammit! Work!"
"Give it up, Gob! It's the station, not the radio. Change it to the Enclave. That one works fine."
Gob hated Enclave radio; it was nothing but nationalistic Brahmin shit, babbling about hope and baseball and playing the same song on a loop.
As he gave up and moved back to the gum problem, the door opened, flooding the bar with unwelcome light. There stood the cleanest person he had seen…well second he's ever seen. She looked a little familiar in the face, but the outfit was a dead giveaway.
'I guess this is James' kid.'
The girl walked over to the bar and practically fell onto the nearest stool. Resting her head in her hands, she mumbled through her fingers,
"Can I get a whiskey, please?"
As Gob set the drink before her, she finally looked up and met his eyes.
Surprise, fear, realization, and then curiosity played across her face as she sat frozen.
"Thanks." She said, after the pause.
Gob moved the glass away before she could reach it.
"Hold up pal. Eighteen caps first."
"What?"
"Caps. Money. No caps, no drink"
Gob was fairly certain he was the first ghoul this girl had ever seen, and was more than a little surprised she hadn't acted more violently at his appearance. He didn't wish to disturb this trend, however, so he remained silent. The matter of payment was a different matter. He didn't want Moriarty coming after him
"I don't have any money; do you know where I can get some?"
"Moira closed up an hour ago."
Nova had been tired of Gob's general attitude all day.
"Christ, Gob. Trade with her and sell the shit to Moira tomorrow." Nova was pretty irritated about the GNR signal too, and watching this new girl was a good distraction.
Blushing, he grimaced and turning back to the Vaultie.
"Fine, what do you have on you?"
Percy had dug through some old world wreckage on her way to Megaton. It was all so interesting to her, she couldn't just leave it. Not that she had expected any of it to be of use to anyone else.
Finally, after trading some cherry bombs and old glue, she had a drink in her hand and her nerves were at last calming down a bit.
"Thanks, do you have a name?" Percy smiled slightly at the man before her.
"Gob…so?"
"So, what?"
"So aren't you going to ask?"
Percy giggled as the whiskey took effect.
"I was pretty curious; unless it's leprosy, whatever you have wasn't covered in dad's medical books."
Gob's expression remained the same. He wasn't sure what to make of her yet.
"Oh crap is it leprosy? I'm so sorry!"
"No, no, I'm a ghoul, miss."
Percy's face went from incredibly apologetic to the same curiosity it held earlier.
"I've never heard of that one before, is it a post war condition?"
"It's not a damn condition, I'm not human anymore." Gob was not in the mood to discuss the shit turn his life had taken. He wished this bitch would just finish her drink and leave.
Percy seemed to have caught onto that. Downing her drink, she left for the door, hoping her legs would remember how drunk she was after she left the premises.
No such luck. She bumped her head on the door as she opened it, earning a laugh from other patrons.
The common house was full of men, eyeing her the way she had looked at her drink earlier. She ended up finding a dark corner between the supply shop and the armory to huddle in. Hugging her bag, She let the whiskey sooth her into a much needed slumber.
Percy woke up to the sun beating into her eyes and what sounded like a town crier in the distance.
Carefully getting up, she stretched the pins and needles out of her legs.
'Might as well try and sell some of this if I want to eat.'
Squinting into the light, she read the sign painted on the side of the metal shack she'd slept next to.
Crater Side Supply
'Someone has an interesting sense of humor.' she thought, wryly
It had been difficult to miss the giant atomic bomb in the town center, and Percy was beginning to wonder if anywhere was safe in this new environment.
Opening the door, Percy was greeted with a loud blast, and grey smoke "don't mind the smoke! It's perfectly harmless!" A tall redhead with ash and burn marks all over the front of her jumpsuit appeared from around the corner.
Recovering from the shock, Percy cleared her throat. "Sorry... if I'm interrupting something, I'd like to sell some stuff."
"Sure, sure-wait. You're that vault dweller aren't you? This is incredible! What was that like? Why did you leave!?"
Percy didn't like where this conversation had gone so quickly, and made a note to find new clothes.
"Yeah, that's right; it was pretty cramped and not so bright. But back to the thing about selling this stuff…"
"Right, of course, one man's trash is another man's treasure! What do you have?"
Percy looked through her bag.
There were a few vault jumpsuits, Butch's tunnel snake jacket, some weapons, medicine, and a few odds and ends.
As soon as Percy set down a couple pilot lights, Moira's eyes grew to the size of saucers.
"Oh my! I need those! I'll give you 10 caps for each."
'That's hardly enough for one meal' Percy felt her heart sink.
"I won't suppose there are other ways to earn more caps?"
Moira tried to contain her excitement at these words.
"Actually, I've wanted to perform some survival based experiments for a while now. Problem is, I need someone else for the foot work, and mister lazy over there," She shot a glare at the intimidating man in the corner, "Is against getting a tiny bit irradiated for the purpose of science!"
"...Um…just how irradiated are we talking here?"
Percy was fully aware that her stomach was warping her sense of self-preservation as it twisted inside her, but she didn't care.
"Oh not much! Say, four hundred rads. Six hundred would be ideal. And I'd compensate for it, but that's a bit more dangerous."
Wincing at the thought, Percy negotiated "Throw in a decent meal and some radiation medicine, and I'll do it."
"Thank you! You've got yourself a deal! And I'll even flush out that pesky radiation for you!"
Six hundred rads was far worse than she could have ever possibly anticipated. Percy clutched the rusted out railing as she made her way back up to Moira's. She had puked once, and now could only stop to dry heave every few steps. Her insides seared and her skin felt like it was about to melt off.
"Oh you poor dear! Now, while the feeling is still fresh: how are you feeling?" Moira asked, slipping an IV of orange liquid into Percy's vein.
"I feel like every cell in my body is inciting a rebellion..." She replied, too exhausted and nauseous to ask for food.
"Well in a way, they kinda are." Moira said, distractedly tapping away at her computer terminal.
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah; funny thing really, your genetic make-up seems to be oddly similar to the genes required for ghoulification, in that they are reacting differently to radiation than the normal human being..." Pausing and looking up, she corrected, "Well, more interesting than funny..."
"Am I going to become a ghoul?" Percy asked, more than a little afraid to hear the answer.
"No! Well, probably not; but you do have a teeny tiny case of mutation…"
"How so?" She asked, Unable to hide the horror creeping onto her face.
"Oh, it's not a bad mutation, per-say. Radiation will heal your minor cuts and scrapes. And the bigger the cut, the more radiation. Almost like a ghoul, but not quite. Really handy out in the wastes."
While she knew Moira was probably giving her own version of reassurance, it didn't help much. However, eager to distract herself from the residual pain, she asked,
"So…can you tell me more about ghouls?"
Nova was enjoying a cigarette after her latest "job". It was one of the few pleasures she had these days since Silver had gone AWOL. She wasn't sure whether it was the girl, or the jet she made, but Nova missed something. Burke hadn't bothered her since that vault girl had shown up a couple days ago, so that was a plus. Nova had heard from some travelers about her headed in the direction of the raider's food mart camp yesterday.
'Well at least she won't be messing with Gob anymore' she thought, assuming the girl to be dead.
As if on cue, the girl walked right through the door. With a bigger gun and leather armor instead of the blue jumpsuit she had first been seen in. She went straight for the bar.
"Gob, can I get a whiskey please?"
She was clear spoken as she strode to the bar and confidently sat down. There was determination in her eyes as she reached for Gob's hand when he moved to set down her drink.
"Hey! wha-!"
"Hmm…" She mused, while examining his hand.
"While there does appear to be missing skin, that isn't to say your muscles are completely exposed; there's this thin membrane, see? That leads me to believe that aspect of ghoulification is more cosmetic than purely detrimental...Tell me sir, can you still breath through the two usual orifices? Are you able to eat, drink, and relieve yourself without obstruction? Is your blood red, and do you require sleep?"
Percy asked all these things with a professional tone, neither releasing his hand nor his eye contact.
"What? Yeah! To all those things! So what?!"
Gob was not comfortable by any stretch of the word. First of all, he wasn't used to people touching him, unless you counted Moriarty throwing him around. Second, last time he saw this weirdo, he had essentially kicked her out of the bar. Anyone else probably would have shot at him for it.
"Well based on that information," She continued, "I have concluded what while you do have a severe case of ghoulification, you are still completely human."
"Quit messing with me smoothskin, I can't age; radiation fucking heals me. You call that human?"
"Those are more like perks though, don't you think?"
For the first time during this interaction, Gob noticed the vault dweller's hands were way warmer than they should be—practically burning, but in a pleasant familiar way.
"Yeah, and how do you figure?"
"Who hasn't dreamt of immortality? And as for the irradiated healing," she suddenly released his hand, pulled a knife from her belt and drew it deep across her arm.
"Whoa, HEY!" 'What is this girl's problem?!'
However, within a few moments, the bleeding stopped and the cut sealed into a thin scar
"As for the healing, I can see several advantages to that."
Percy smiled and reached for the whiskey bottle
"So what do I owe you for this?"
"Fifteen caps."
"Yesterday the drinks were eighteen, weren't they?"
Gob was thunder struck. Over the course of a minute, the vault girl had touched him without flinching, looked him in the eye without a grimace, and healed like a ghoul right before his eyes."
"For you, it's fifteen. What's your name, smoothskin?"
"Percy" she said, smile broad across her face.