"Grayditch." Joanie's voice was sure as she looked over the rest of the town.
Mouse leaned to the side to peer past her companion. Joanie was staring out a broken window in the top floor of the building they camped out in the night before, and Mouse wanted to know what she was looking at.
"G-G-Grayd-ditch?" she stammered, confused.
Joanie nodded shortly. "Grayditch. Fucking ghost town." Very calmly, the woman slid her weapon—which Mouse had learned was called a shotgun—into a leather strap hanging from her waist, and tugged a longer, bulkier gun off her back. Joanie was covered with straps and buckles—Mouse guessed she had about ten different weapons on her person.
Mouse crept a few steps forward, but was too scared to go nearer to the window. She didn't want something bursting into the room and mauling them, after all.
Joanie fiddled with the new gun for a moment, then leaned out the window so her entire upper body was exposed. "Hm," she grunted, coming back inside. "People lived here last time I was around." She suddenly gave a short, harsh laugh. "Fuckers. Wonder what did it?"
"D-Did wh-what?" Mouse stared at Joanie's back, where there were three guns. They had to get heavy after a while. The thought of one person being so well armed made Mouse's knees weak.
Joanie glanced back at her awkward little companion. "Killed everyone in town." She looked back out the window and drummed her fingers on the butt of the gun. "Well, there's only one way to find out, huh?" Suddenly, she stood and rested the giant weapon over her shoulder. Without a word of explanation, she marched toward the door leading downstairs and out of their safe haven.
"Wh-Where a-are w-we g-g-going?" Mouse stammered, eyes bugging. She hurried after Joanie, albeit reluctantly, with her sweaty palm resting on the little ten mill gun at her side. She wouldn't be much help if it came to a firefight, but hey, having something that could potentially save her life made her feel a little bit better about exploring the Wastes.
Joanie hopped down three steps and skidded around a landing on the stairs. Pausing there, she looked up at Mouse as she took more care in descending the stairs. "Outside. Find the shitheads that killed every fucker in Grayditch."
They continued to the main floor in silence.
When they made it outside, Mouse was disheartened to see that the day was definitely just as hot and bright as its predecessor. With a sigh, she pushed the sunglasses on her nose, covering her sensitive blue eyes. Well, at least this time she was adequately covered—though she didn't have a hat—so hopefully she wouldn't aggravate her sunburns anymore.
Joanie cast her a short glance, probably having heard the sigh. She clucked her tongue and shook her head; the movement made the sunlight catch lighter brown in her dark hair. "Fuck, kid, you don't belong out here. It's a goddamn clusterfuck. You ain't gonna survive. Gotta be why you're going to DC, isn't it? Three Dog'll know what to do with you. And GNR's the safest place you can be. Man, that, or Rivet City."
Mouse peered at her, unsure how to reply. She didn't know what Rivet City was—she barely knew what DC was. She saw a flicker of emotion cross over Joanie's face as the woman scanned the destroyed town, and then they marched onwards.
—
Joanie rested her Chinese assault rifle on her shoulder as she stopped walking. They stood in the middle of the street, perfect target for any raiders wanting their scalps. She scowled as she eyed the glass-free windows in the decrepit skeleton buildings. There weren't any raiders, of course. They were safe standing where they were. There hadn't been any raiders in Grayditch since before the newest families started living there. She knew that for a fact.
She heard Mouse's awkward, shuffled footsteps scuffle up behind her, and she stifled a sigh. Fuck, she sure picked out the weird ones, didn't she? First Tyler and one of those Talon Company fuckers, and now this vault rat. She needed new friends.
Snorting, she drummed her fingers on the butt of the gun and continued walking down the street, with her pet Mousey on her heels. Fucking vault rat didn't know how to walk in the Wasteland. She was dragging her heels all over the place. Thank God she didn't stomp around, but dragging was just as bad. And she was wearing vault-issued soft-soled boots, no doubt. Joanie made no sound as she walked, and she had heavy combat boots.
They continued down the main street of Grayditch. She had once stopped by after her band's first slaughter, when the Wilks and the Brandices moved in. She had spent the better part of an hour talking to William Brandice. Crazy bastard.
Joanie's fist clenched on her rifle. No. Somebody had killed the Wilks and the Brandices. She wanted to know who. After her band was here, what, five years ago, nobody had come by Grayditch. No raiders, at least.
They came to the restaurant a few minutes later. It was where she had met Mrs Brandice. Joanie couldn't remember her name or what she looked like for the life of her. Mr Brandice was much more intriguing.
Joanie came to a halt and roved her gaze over the barren street. The restaurant's windows were blown out and shattered, and the ancient paint was peeling from the sides. That hadn't changed in the past years.
Well, there was only one way to see if anyone was here.
Inhaling sharply, she cupped a hand over her mouth and shouted, "Grayditch!"
Mouse squeaked behind her, but she ignored it. The vault rat didn't matter at the moment. Joanie wanted to know what had happened. Getting to Rivet City was her top priority, but she could spend a few minutes to find out. A whole settlement of people didn't just vanish for no reason. They were killed.
Her call echoed off the skeletal buildings surrounding them like steel and concrete coffins. Only seconds after it faded away, there was a sharp metallic bang from nearby. Joanie's sharp eyes came to a rest on the Pulowski Preservation Shelter squatting calmly beside the diner. With a scowl, she marched toward it, her pet mouse scuttling up beside her.
"Wh-What is th-th-that?" she stammered quietly, tentatively stretching out a little, perfectly white finger to poke the side of the shelter. Joanie's mouth twisted into a wry smirk as Mouse jumped back, gasping. Well, the stupid girl would never learn that the sun heated metal if she didn't touch a hot preservation shelter for herself.
"Don't touch," she said belatedly, grinning sadistically at Mouse. Her eyes were wide behind her dark glasses, and she shuffled back, cradling her hurt finger close to her chest. Seeing the hurt, Joanie almost felt a little bad that she had snapped at the girl. "It's a Pulowski Preservation Shelter," she explained curtly. "Fallout shelter. Didn't work worth shit when the bombs fell, though."
She turned to the shelter and slammed the toe of her boot into the side. The resounding crash was deafening. "Open up!" she yelled. Something shuffled inside the shelter, and she quickly dropped the assault rifle to its perfect, comfortable position on her shoulder, barrel aimed head-level at the door.
The door hissed as it eased into its circular wall. Joanie blinked, surprised, then quickly lowered the aim of her gun to match the height of the young boy standing in the one-man shelter in front of them.
Her grip on the trigger almost faltered. "Bryan?"
The boy jerked back, shocked. His shoulder slammed into the heated wall of the shelter and he called in pain, grabbing his arm as he hopped out. "Ouch! Holy. Joanie? What're you doing here?"
She lowered her gun completely and backed off. "Going to Rivet City. What in the fuck happened here?"
Bryan ruffled his short, messy hair and ventured a step out of the protection of the shelter. "Hiding. I don't want to be killed too."
Joanie scowled and looked around again. Nothing else had responded to her earlier shout. Bryan was the last one left. That wasn't raider work at all. They would have taken him, if not killed him outright, and sold him to the fuckers in Paradise Falls, or brought him home to Evergreen Mills. "What killed 'em?"
He stared down at the ground rather pathetically. "Ants, I think. That's what it seemed like. I don't really know what happened."
"Hm." Joanie turned away and started to clomp back toward the main road to DC. There was a gasp and the flutter of scurrying feet behind her. Soon, her pet was back at her side.
"Wh-Why d-d-don't you h-help-p h-him?" she asked quietly. Joanie could hear Bryan weeping softly back at his preservation shelter. That had probably set the soft-hearted vault dweller right off.
"Why should I?" Joanie stopped, her boots sending several small rocks down a slope to clatter loudly against the sudden, broken asphalt. She turned, snapping her Chinese assault rifle back into place. Mouse was staring at her, the glasses slipping down her nose to show off the pretty blue eyes. "What do I owe the fuckers here? They got themselves killed by a group of fucking ants? Bullshit I need to help. I never liked the Wilks anyways."
"If it h-h-hadn't b-been ant-ts, w-would y-you have h-helped h-him?"
The question made Joanie keep from marching further from Grayditch. She frowned at her companion, who was looking dirt- and tearstained in the morning sun. Her pale blonde hair was ruffled and knotted in the bun at the back of her head. She looked like she had been run over, to be honest.
"No," she retorted hotly. Why would it matter? She only wanted to know what'd killed Grayditch. "Why should I? They're not my fucking problem, not if those cocksuckers got themselves killed by a bunch of ants. Even if they didn't. My shit? No. I just need to get to Rivet City."
Joanie turned away and started back to the road. No raiders. No slavers. Fucking ants. Not even that crazy, paranoid bastard William Brandice could stop from being killed.
Weak.
The whole lot of them.
Shaking her head as Mouse stuttered something behind her, she scowled into the bright distance and muttered, "Idiot shitheads."
—
Mouse gawped after Joanie for several long beats before hurrying after her, cringing as the muffled pain from the previous day began to show itself. She was so out of shape. How she ever kept from getting morbidly obese in the vault, she didn't know. Joanie showed no signs of feeling tired or sore, not ever. And here she was, one minute after leaving the little boy crying over his dead family, already hurting.
But how could Joanie be such a heartless, cruel woman? That poor boy. He was all alone in a big, harsh world, and all he needed was a little help.
Mouse pouted as she followed Joanie, determined to keep from looking back at Grayditch, where little Bryan was undoubtedly huddled back up in his Pul-whatever Preservation Shelter, sobbing at what he'd lost.
Hm. Joanie was just as bad as the Tunnel Snakes.
Stupid Butch DeLoria and his gang of bullies. Joanie Beck would fit in perfectly with them. Once Mouse found her father and brought him home to Vault 101, she'd suggest that they recruit the ruthless, gun-toting woman.
Soon, they were back on the road with Grayditch receding into the distance behind them. Mouse frequently glanced back over her shoulder, wishing she could have done more to convince Joanie to help the boy. Even if it meant setting him up somewhere safe, or just getting vengeance on whatever killed his family. Not for the first time, Mouse desperately wished she had more of a backbone—wished she wasn't so submissive and passive.
Shards of broken glass and rocks crackled and crunched under their feet as they followed the broken road toward DC. It felt like they were so close—Mouse could already hear the rushing of the Potomac River, the smell of which already eased her parched and cracking lips—but she knew it would take more than an afternoon's walk to get there, to Three Dog.
Mouse frowned as she picked up the pace; Joanie was so much faster than her, and she kept falling behind. She blamed it on the heat of the day, combined with a heavy altered vault suit, and her empty-feeling pack of supplies. And being unused to it. Joanie carried the weight of countless hidden weapons and supplies, but she walked with confidence. She had been born to the Wasteland.
Nobody had told her who Three Dog really was, yet, or why he could help her. Abri Ryder had simply said to go to DC and find Three Dog. Joanie had merely agreed to take her to DC, since it was on the way to—what was it?—Rivet City.
She bit her chapped lip to keep from gasping in exhaustion, and lifted a hand to wipe the sweat off her brow. Her hand came back filthy and damp. Oh, she had to look a wreck. Maybe Joanie would spare a few seconds to wash off in the river.
Joanie suddenly picked up speed. Her weapons rattled as she jogged down the road; her ridiculously short hair was slicked back over her head and glistening in the orange sun as she moved out from underneath a shadow. Mouse followed, her heart beating erratically; what if something had seen them!
Yanking off a huge weapon with a cylindrical plastic object on the top, Joanie skidded to a halt, causing dust to blow up all around her. Mouse crouched behind a rock nearby, heart thumping against her ribs and legs and lungs burning, but she merely watched, waiting for Joanie to let them continue.
She could hear the river perfectly. She had no idea how long they'd been walking, but she knew they were close. So close.
Watching with bated breath, she saw Joanie rest the long, thin barrel of the gun on a rock in front of her. She hunched her shoulders and set her cheek near the back end of the plastic tube, as if she was looking through it. After several tense moments, a small smirk stretched across her dark, perspiration-beaded face. Cursing delightedly below her breath, she reached up and slowly adjusted something on the tube. Whatever she saw, it had to be good. She grinned.
Joanie lowered the weapon and cursed only a little louder, "Fucking don't have any goddamn bullets."
Mouse swallowed heavily and shuffled forward a little bit. She peeked over her rock, but only saw a slope to the river, the river itself, and the skeleton city on the other side. "Wh-Wh-What is it-t?" Embarrassed, she felt her face flush behind her sunburn, but she knew Joanie didn't care if she blushed. She'd make fun of the stutter if she so pleased, and Mouse doubted anyone had ever said no to her before and lived to tell about it.
The woman grinned happily and put the gun back where she had taken it. "Fucking raiders. All over the fucking place. Heh, this is the shit I fucking live for. You ready, kid?" She glanced at Mouse, her thick eyebrows raised expectantly.
Mouse twitched uncomfortably. She was aching, overheated, and extremely hungry. She doubted she was ready for anything but some vault-issued preservatives, in a soft vault cot with a climate-controlled vault environment.
"F-For wh-what?" she whispered, scared at what could possibly make Joanie smile.
Joanie pointed across the river. "Raiders. We gotta get to that goddamn metro station, but they're fucking mobbing the place. So you know what we gotta do, Mousey?"
Mouse stared at her, terrified for the answer. She didn't know what raiders were, but she had a feeling it was bad.
"We gotta go on a goddamn fucking killing spree." She shuddered happily and grinned as she looked back over the river. "This is my kinda day."
Mouse looked at her little ten mill gun, and remembered how the security guards at the vault had shot at her, leaving her crying and scared. She had shot back once or twice—but hit nothing. Even if she had the aim and practice for it—the BB gun for her tenth birthday hadn't been used all that much—she couldn't have shot and hurt people she had grown up with. People whose children she went to school with. Her father's coworkers.
Joanie looked her over with those condescending dark eyes. "Well, maybe you ain't going on no fucking spree. You don't look like you could hurt anymore than a shit-eating fly. So here's the plan: I'm going to take that bridge over there." She waved a hand to point to another road that branched off and flew over a long bridge in a state of extreme disrepair. Several people-shaped figures patrolled the top, and the occasional barking laugh. "I'm going to fucking take those shitheads out. You'll just get yourself fucking killed if you come, no doubt."
Mouse nodded. She really couldn't disagree with that exquisitely articulate statement.
Joanie was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then she outstretched her filthy hand and took Mouse's bag from her shoulder.
Unable to resist, she merely stared pitifully at Joanie. What was the woman doing? That was her bag! It was one of the last things she had from home.
Joanie hooked it around her, keeping it clear of the many guns she bore. "I'd say that we could just fucking swim, but I got way too much shit for that. And you got this. Gimme your gun."
Mouse bit her lip, ignoring the fiery pain of the cracked skin, and unclipped her gun from her waist. She handed it shakily to her companion, and watched as Joanie simply tossed it into the vault bag.
"Kid, you're going across the river."
"What!" Moments after her shock passed, Mouse realized she hadn't stuttered at all, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. It made her sunburn ache, but she couldn't help it. She hadn't stuttered. Maybe Joanie should just spew nonsense all the time.
Joanie stared at her with a slight frown. She grunted and shook her head. "Nice. But you fucking heard me. You got ears that work perfect, dumbass."
Mouse grimaced and stared across the river. Sure, it'd be nice to cool off; sure, it'd be nice to ease her sunburn and chapped lips; sure, it'd be nice to have water for the first time in days; and sure, it'd be nice to not have to deal with these raider creatures Joanie mentioned.
"I-Insane," she mumbled, looking down at her hands so she didn't have to look at the vast expanse of muddy grey water that would surely be her death.
Joanie cackled and scrubbed a hand through her hair. "I'm crazy. People've said it before. But it keeps me a-fucking-live, kid. Now you'll do as I fucking say, 'less you want me to leave you here or you want to fucking drown in that shit."
Mouse nodded reluctantly. She appeared to have no choice.
"It's not that fucking deep here. See that? Buildings fell. Made it all fucking shallow and shit. You'll probably be able to fucking touch the ground the entire fucking way across. Only thing you gotta look out for is goddamn mirelurks, but these raiders probably took care of the fuckers already." Joanie grunted and smirked. "Trust me. I've done it before."
Mouse's eyes widened behind her sunglasses. Trust her? Not likely.
"Don't flail too fucking much, or they'll see you. And raiders got some good ass fucking snipers, so look out for that." Joanie stood and unclipped her shotgun. "I'll see you on the other side, kid." With that, she jogged off toward the bridge—her dry, safe passage across the Potomac.
Mouse sighed and looked back at the river. She had to cross that?
She had never swum before.
Ever.
Maybe Joanie didn't take into account the fact that, having lived in a vault all her life, Mouse never would have found the chance to swim. Especially not across a river.
There was no way around it. If she followed Joanie, she'd probably get shot, either by her companion or the raiders. She figured she'd rather drown than be shot.
Mouse poked out from behind her rock and peered up at the bridge. Joanie was sneaking up to it, trying to avoid notice of the raiders. Well, that was all fine and dandy, but how would they react when they saw Mouse floundering and flailing in the river?
She had to hope that Joanie's distraction would be good enough.
With that less-than-promising thought, she inched toward the river.
The smell of water was overwhelming as she got close. Rotted and irradiated, it was really quite foul and disgusting. Things floated down it that she didn't even want to imagine. But it was water. She was dying of thirst, and her lips were cracked and dry.
Mouse toed toward it. As soon as her boot touched the lapping shore, her Pip-Boy began emitting a loud crackling noise. She jumped, shocked, and stared at it as the noise continued uninterrupted.
"What…?" she murmured, and tapped her finger on the screen. She had heard it make that noise only once before: when she fell in the pond of water to hide from a radroach on her way to Megaton. She hadn't known what it meant then, and she certainly didn't know now. She had a feeling it had to do with water.
The crackling alarmed her, sure. She was sure Joanie could wait a bit to kill all the raiders while she discovered what was wrong with her Pip-Boy. It was her lifeline—everything she needed to survive was in that little mechanical device. She had despised it when she first got it, and resented her father and the Overseer for forcing it upon her, but she had come to rely on it completely. When she had gotten sick as a child, it had showed how her health was deteriorating, so her father knew exactly what to do to help her. It helped her around the vault after she got lost. It let her listen to the vault radio.
She needed it.
If it was breaking, she thought she might die.
Looking at the water below her, she winced. What if it wasn't waterproof?
Wait, no, she already knew it would be fine. If not from the pond/radroach incident, because Amata had doused her in water as a prank when they were fifteen. And how they had been walking innocently through the halls of the vault at eleven, and Butch DeLoria and his Tunnel Snakes had bombarded them with rubber balls full of water.
No, it would be fine, she decided, and took another step into the water. Her ankles were soaked. At least her wet clothes would keep her cool through the day.
Reluctantly, Mouse waded farther into the river. Gentle currents pulled at her loose pants as she walked in, trying weakly to tug her downstream. She hoped the currents wouldn't be strong enough to sweep her away.
The sand and rocks beneath her boots suddenly vanished, and she squinted through the murk to see that she was standing on—a wall. Concrete. Just as Joanie had said, buildings had fallen and made the river passable. And she was only up to her thighs. Maybe this would be easier than she thought.
As she made her way farther into the river, her Pip-Boy continued to buzz incessantly. It turned swiftly into background noise; after a few minutes, she didn't even notice it.
What she did notice was how pleasant the water was against her superheated skin. It pulled her filthy clothes away from her body and washed off the dirt and sweat, leaving her feeling the cleanest she had since before she left the vault.
At waist-height, her boot slipped into a crack and she fell shoulder-deep into the water. Gasping and spluttering, she straightened and moved back onto the underwater wall. Maybe this wouldn't be easy.
Well, she would just be more careful. As she toed along the wall, hoping it wasn't about to give out or vanish beneath her, she tried to distract herself from what she was doing. Because really, when she thought about it, it was just absolutely crazy.
Here she was: nineteen year old vault dweller of Vault 101, never before left home, fording an irradiated river to reach a man called Three Dog in the ruins of DC, so she could find her escaped father and bring him home, to live happily ever after underground.
Mouse snorted. It was stupid.
She hesitated for a moment, considering giving up and going back to Vault 101, defeated. She wasn't even halfway across the river yet, and it would only take a day to get back to Megaton. She didn't know what would greet her back home, but surely Amata could argue with her father to let Mouse back in. After all, Mouse was innocent: she didn't know why her father left and she didn't know where he had gone. She had been unlawfully cast out of her home.
Taking another cautious step, she dismissed the idea. The Overseer would never let her back in. Never. She was a Wastelander now.
The thought of that made Mouse sputter and almost cry. She didn't belong to the vault anymore. She would never see Amata again.
Hell, she'd even take Butch. She was lonesome without her fellow vault dwellers nearby. All she had was an angry, weapon-laden woman with a penchant for swearing.
She waded further into the water, and the wall abruptly ended beneath her. She sank quite suddenly, nearly submerging her head, but she struggling for a moment, flailing her arms and legs, and moved enough to find what felt like a car beneath her. Mouse decided not to question it as she straightened and stood, chest-deep in the water. Her chin and hair dripped, and her Pip-Boy was still making that ridiculous sound.
Glancing up at the bridge, she pushed the glasses up on her nose to see Joanie and the raiders engaging in some kind of firefight. They were too far away to be heard; Mouse had inadvertently gone a little farther down the river.
Pulling against the current, she continued to walk. The water got deeper and deeper as she went, but as Joanie had said, there was enough debris on the bottom to help her across the way.
The clicking of her Pip-Boy was really starting to piss her off. Mouse paused, perched precariously on a rock underwater, and began flipping through the switches of her wristband. She stopped when she came to her radiation level.
It was at 150—and rising.
Well, she thought, as she held up the Pip-Boy to her ear. The crackling matched how the radiation level was going up. She didn't know what it meant, but at least she knew that her wristband wasn't breaking or something.
A small green figure in the corner of her Pip-Boy screen said +1 Rads/Sec, but she didn't know what it meant. Nobody had told her what a rad was. She thought she had heard it repeated over the intercom in Vault 101 sometimes, but really, what child pays attention to the Overseer's PA?
As she ventured across the Potomac, she watched Joanie safely cross the bridge and begin gunning down the raiders grouped around what she had called a 'metro station'.
By the time Mouse crawled out of the river, soaked through and feeling a strange mixture of clean, safe, light-headed and sickly, Joanie was walking down to the beach, blood-spattered but grinning proudly.
"You made it. Good." Joanie tossed the vault bag on the ground in front of Mouse. "Got you a forty-four. Way fucking better than your ten mill. Use it. Now come on. We gotta fucking get out of here before more of those cocksuckers show up."
Mouse continued to sit on a rock on the edge of the river for several moments longer. Joanie might be able to keep going, but Mouse had just forded a river despite being unable to swim. She thought she deserved a break. Her chest was heaving, but at least she wasn't dehydrated and feeling like a dried out husk anymore. That was promising.
Joanie walked up the slope to the square, then stopped and stared down at Mouse. "Are you coming or not, dumbass? I don't got all fucking day!"
Mouse groaned and climbed tiredly to her feet. She stooped to pick up her bag, then trudged after Joanie, her boots and vault suit squelching wetly as she walked.
When they reached the paved square, she waited at the top of a set of stairs as Joanie hopped down to a metal chain gate and cautiously opened it. Despite her exhaustion, her aches, and her hunger, she felt a small thrill of delight at the below-ground door.
They were going back underground.
Mouse was practically home.