Author's Note: For those who don't know, this is being written in conjunction to EasyCompany506's story, Fallen Angels. Go check it out
"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."
"We cannot control the evil tongue of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them."
-attributed to Cato the Elder, Roman senator
--
James was in a dilemma. He often had to contemplate this problem on occasional mornings. Julia slept on his right side. Who could blame her? No one wants to roll over and land on a hard metal object, otherwise known as his left arm. However, she also like to cuddle. (He would never complain about this.) This translated in her often snuggling up next to him to rest her head under his chin. (He also would never complain about this.)
Unfortunately, this often meant that his right arm would fall asleep. This, he also cannot complain about.
This fact would not be so much of a problem, a little numbness never killed anyone, except that he was feeling a little more than just mild pain on his left side. James could not believe it but even though he no longer had a human left arm, he felt pain in it, from the biceps to the forearm. He knew it was not the machine itself, there were no sensors in it. His hunch was confirmed after he did some searching in the Vault library. It seemed rather similar to this condition he found called "Phantom Limb" but he could not think of how any of the prescribed treatments could be done this day and age. He just had to deal with it.
The pain was becoming excruciating.
After learning that it was psychological, all in his head of course, James would rub or massage the metal arm. Incredibly, it helped a little. It probably didn't make the pain completely go away but it at least dulled it and eventually he would forget it was there. That was not exactly easy when your wife was fast asleep on your other arm.
Seriously, he thanked God every day for her. He leaned down to kiss her on the head and in so doing he ended up tickling his nose on her near shoulder length hair. Great, now he needed to sneeze. Desperate, he had just been able to suppress the instinct when Julia peacefully woke up. She greeted him with a kiss on the lips.
"Good morning." she cooed.
"Good morning." James grinned. All in all, everything wasn't so bad.
Adam left his room, his eyes still heavy with fatigue as he slowly made his way towards the bathroom. He kept telling himself that this thing with Marilyn wasn't really bothering him all that much. Of course, he also knew that a mild hangover said otherwise. Regardless, he understood he would be through the fog after an hour or so. The numbness from the breakup? Bah, he had stopped trying to figure that crap out.
Speaking of crap, he suddenly realized that the rat had been living with them for about a year. He never recalled actually getting the rodent house trained and it was eating with them all this time. The regulator suddenly felt a wave of horror go over him as he started wondering where in the world was the creature dropping all its, well, droppings. Was there some forgotten room in the Vault somewhere that was now cemented in rat crap?
No sooner had he thought that, having reached the bathroom door, the metal barrier opened up before he could hit the button and the rat slowly shuffled out of the room. Hearing the sound of one of the commodes shutting off from a recent use, Adam could only stare in shock as the furry rodent continued on its way, business as usual.
Adam decided that the rat was far more intelligent than they really gave it credit for.
James wandered into the kitchens, wearing his duster as usual. He had been wearing the coat a lot more often as that helped to hide the artificial arm. All he needed to add was a brahmin leather glove and then he hoped people just thought he lost the other glove rather than guess that perhaps the arm wasn't exactly human. Carl and Sven were already eating breakfast, as well as the rat who was stuffing its snout contently into a can of Pork n Beans. James noticed that Sven still had some of his features darkened by soot.
"So...what exactly where you playing with last night?" James asked incredulously.
"Some little thing called 'Potassium.' Didn't exactly produce the biggest or most dangerous explosion, but realize it only needs water to go off." Sven grinned.
"So...?" James failed to see where the pyromaniac was going with it.
"So it explodes and also gives radiation because of the water it stirs up. I don't need to scavenge for any extra radioactive materials. Just add water! " Sven reported with a little too much glee.
"I'll just stick with food recipes rather than disaster recipes." Carl announced, tossing a warm can of Pork n Beans to James.
"Got any brahmin milk to counteract the rads in this?" James asked. A glass of the questionable looking milk slid across the counter to him while Carl simultaneously flipped a few Salisbury steak patties on the grill. Adam chose that moment to step into room as well.
"You're not exactly looking bright eyed and bushy tailed, Adam." Sven told the man.
"You're not exactly looking like you're in your right mind." Adam grumbled irritably.
"Thank God; if I was we'd know something was wrong." Sven replied. Regardless, the men understood that Adam's less than jubilant response and mood meant he was either still smarting from the break up, a little hung over or probably both.
Breakfast continued in silence even after Julia arrived, who quickly picked up on the situation and also ate quietly.
The regulators had come to the conclusion that they were going to have to take a few days off again as well as do a little rethinking on their strategies. Adam thought on that firefight that occurred not but a few days ago that brought them to a rather harsh wake up call...
–
Once again, Adam decided it was about time that they made one of those raids off the beaten path. They had spent a good deal of time clearing out the Bronx and Manhattan areas but they had largely neglected the east side after their last foray there with the super mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel's Iron Storm troops. This time, they headed off towards an area that had been known as Queens. That was going to require the possibility of crossing a river. Hopefully they could find a working bridge or other such crossing arrangement.
On the west side was the Hudson river but on the east, separating the central part of the ruined city from Queens, was where the New York bay broke off and entered into what was once Long Island Sound. There was a narrow crossing, or rather two, where a smaller island sat in between the two large bodies of land.
Unfortunately, the old Queensboro bridge had seen better days since the Great War.
"You really think this won't...you know, collapse the moment we step on it?" Carl asked with a shrug as they gazed at the ancient wreck. Whole patches in the bridge had corroded while some sections lacked pavement. All but the strongest beams seemed to have weakened drastically. Sure, some holes had been patched up by previous human activity but it all looked very flimsy indeed.
"It's the only way unless we find a boat and we're already up here. What do you think, James?" Adam asked, looking over at their marksman. James glanced at the whole thing.
"Yeah, it looks fine to cross." James stated.
"Really?" Carl asked skeptically.
"Sure, if you don't mind the risk of suddenly falling to your death." James finished. Adam scoffed.
"You're all very ridiculous. Just follow me. This thing has been standing for the past two hundred years and I doubt it'll pick today to fall." Adam grumbled, leading them on. Having left the rat back at the House, the five cautiously moved on into the bridge.
The sound of the wind howling through the bones of the old bridge didn't help pacify any qualms they might have had. Even Adam was feeling extremely nervous but darn it, someone had to see that Queens wasn't running amok if they were any decent human beings living there.
"Always look for movement or anything out of place. You'll know what stands out and what doesn't after awhile. The moment you hear gunfire, you immediately head for cover while trying to figure out where it came from. Always reload behind cover and whatever you do, do not get caught out in the open." James muttered to Julia. This was her first mission out with them as a regulator. She blended right in with the men, shedding her Brotherhood of Steel scholarly robes for a combat armor, regulator coat and her old combat helmet which was probably a size too big for her head. Naturally, James was worried about her safety.
"James?" Julia asked.
"Yes?"
"Honey, you've told me all of that. Three times at least already." Julia stated flatly. James bit his lip. That was certainly awkward.
"Uh...just reviewing." James grumbled.
"James, I need your eyes up front, I think I spotted something." Adam whispered, crouching down and getting behind one of the old car wrecks. Everyone else also followed his example before James scanned the forward area with the scope on his rail rifle.
"You're right. Movement. Raiders, they've set up an ambush." James whispered.
"So what do we do?" Carl asked, readying his gatling laser.
"They've dragged a bunch of the cars together to provide some cover. They look unexploded though they may still be hot." James replied, referring to the still live fusion elements in the vehicle's engines.
"Awesome. I'll just throw a grenade and they'll all go out in one big flash of happy awesomeness." Sven snickered.
"Yes, except that big flash of happy awesomeness will also turn into a massive boom of hurt and death when it destabilizes this whole bridge with us on it." Adam retorted.
"Hmmm...that would be a bit of a drawback..." Sven murmured in thought.
"I'll take care of this." James murmured and lined up the scope on his modified railway rifle. Already chambered with a clip of eight of his own custom made heavy metal bolts, he spotted the barrel of a rifle sticking from the side of an old car door. A raider was crouching behind it. James could not get a proper fix on the raider himself.
Not that he needed to.
A sharp whistle cracked the air and a hole suddenly appeared in the car door, the heavy round shredding the ancient steel, causing the raider behind it to seemingly explode in a flash of red mist as his chest simply disintegrated, sending body parts in all directions.
Knowing their ruse had been figured out, the raiders reacted with a vengeance. Ricocheting bullets popping off the surfaces of the cover the regulators had been hiding behind. Cautiously, Julia called out a question.
"So what do we do now?"
"This is where we let Carl, Sven and James take care of the problem as they can fire effectively at these long ranges." Adam replied. Carl got up and started sending a fury of laser blasts in the raiders' direction. The energy beams shredded and fried any surface they touched. Carl was rewarded when a raider's arm simply fell right off. Adam noticed Carl sweep the whole length of a car with the gun.
"Guys, try not to blow up the cars! We want to keep this bridge intact!" Adam shouted over the noise. Sven sent a bunch of raiders running from one of their comrades who was unfortunate enough to get caught in a blast of napalm from the heavy incinerator.
"Doing our best, boss." Carl called, biting his lips as he ripped a piece of sheet metal in half before swinging the lasers back to shred the cowering raiders. A stray one got his head nailed clean off by one of James' bolts. Two more got caught within one of Sven's flame launched incinerator pellets.
Suddenly, they saw a flash of light fly into the sky. Apparently, a raider had fired an old rescue flare high into the heavens. Julia squinted at the peculiar sight.
"I wonder what that was for?" Julia muttered. Out of nowhere, a vicious hail of bullets started peppering the old wreck Adam was hiding behind, driving the man from cover to find a safer place. Unfortunately, in trying to get away, Adam ventured too close to a open hole in the middle of the bridge.
The next thing the regulator knew, he was holding onto dear life while contemplating the long drop to the river below. Julia immediately sprung into action.
"Hang on!" Julia called, rushing to reach Adam. Another flurry of bullets fired, this time closer to the woman, preventing her from getting to Adam. It was coming from under the bridge.
"That flare was a signal. They have backup from the river! They got a ship down there!" Adam deduced. He also figured out the raiders were aiming on purposefully making him fall into the water. They wanted him still alive, apparently.
"Carl, you can't fire on that ship because the lasers will trace your position. Keep the raiders on the bridge at bay. James, Sven, blast that thing so I can get back up!" Adam ordered desperately.
"No problem, just hang in there." Sven replied.
"Oh trust me, I'm hanging." Adam growled unhappily. James was the first to assess the situation.
"Small ship, probably one of the smaller ferries back in the day. They have a minigun on the bow and it's getting closer." he took a snap shot at the man loading the minigun before he had to dive back behind cover from the actual gunner.
"They got me so you need to come from another position and blast that thing." James told Sven.
"Understood." Sven nodded, readying his dual missile and mini-nuke launcher. Hefting it on his shoulder, he rushed towards the edge of the bridge to join James when a spark materialized on the side of the weapon, throwing both it and Sven to the ground.
"Sven!" Julia called. Adam cursed.
"Come on, Carl! What are you doing!? Covering fire, man! Covering fire!" Adam berated.
"I don't see you helping." Carl retorted, his gatling laser still zoning in on targets. Sven suddenly got up.
"You all right, Sven?" James asked.
"No, I'm not." Sven replied unhappily, sitting up.
"Where are you hit?" James asked, reaching into his new satchel. Julia watched on nervously. She made a motion to get to Adam again only to be driven back by a hornet's nest of rounds.
"It's not me that's hit. It's my launcher. The bullet took out the wires, it won't arm the missiles." Sven explained, showing the ruined mess of wires that fed into the launcher. Adam cursed again.
"Well, figure something out, I can't hold on like this forever!" Adam screamed. Sven gritted his teeth and looked at his launcher again. Tentatively, he played with a switch and tested the trigger to be rewarded by the mini-nuke launch plate springing to life.
"Well, you better hope that ship is close enough." Sven muttered, reaching into his bag to pull out a mini-nuke. Ready, he quickly stormed up to the edge and made a quick mental guesstimate on the river pirates' ship before adjusting the angle he held the launcher.
"We're going to have a little more than smoke on the water." Sven chuckled and sent the round airborne.
The ship simply disappeared in a raging fireball. Exhilarated, Sven fell flat on his back laughing his head off while Julia reached over and helped pull Adam to safety. That done, Carl finished off the last of the raiders on the bridge.
"Well, that's new." Carl announced, walking back to them, steam still rising from the gatling lasers.
"I'm feeling really bad about those fingers we'll never get on the ship." Adam mumbled.
"Is this how most adventures end for you guys?" Julia asked, watching Sven continue to howl with laughter, tears streaming down his face as he held his aching stomach.
"Yes, but few have the revelation that the enemy is bringing in a new tactic." James muttered, still watching the ferry continue to slip beneath the waters. They stood around for a moment.
"We're going to have to do some rethinking on our strategies." James announced.
"Yeah...after we check Queens out." Adam stated.
He wasn't kidding.
–
Adam let himself come out of the haze of remembering realizing he had finally walked out of the hangover. Unfortunately, another rather bad sound echoed through the Vault. This time, it wasn't an explosion.
It was the alarm stating that there was someone at the door.
Naturally, everyone in the Vault grabbed a weapon and headed straight for the door. The rat was the only exception. It voted to scurry under a bed.