Remi had only been to Goodneighbor once in her life, and she had been much too young to even remember it. She'd heard stories, however, of the terrible things that happened on the dark, dirty streets. She'd also heard stories of all sorts of creatures being welcomed there and, in the most positive of rumors, being taken in as just another member of a large, dysfunctional family. As Remi trudged through the debris and makeshift fences shielding Diamond City from the rest of the Commonwealth, she figured that a place like Goodneighbor would be good enough to find work until something else came along.
Until something else came along.
That seemed to be the motto to her life.
Passing the security guards on duty, the girl kept her head down and her face hidden well enough (she hoped) in the shadows. Still, they called her name and asked where she was going. Remi was the only Diamond City resident (well, former resident) who traveled in and out of the city on a regular basis.
"Oh, don't worry," Remi called back, figuring there was no point in ignoring their calls; it would only raise suspicion. "I'll be back in a few days. Just another boredom trip!" There had never been any trips taken to the Commonwealth from sheer boredom. The guards seemed to believe her lie; they simply nodded at her words and waved her on.
Tightening her fingers around the straps of her backpack, Remi pulled it close to her backside. The further she walked from Diamond City, the less protection she had. Even though her crowbar remained tied securely at her hip, rhythmically tapping against her leg at her strides, she began to wonder – at the echoes of gunshots somewhere in the distance – if perhaps leaving during the night was a bad idea. There was no turning back now, though. Just the thought of returning to that godforsaken place made her blood boil.
So, she kept on.
(~)
"I love those dear hearts and gentle people who live in my hometown."
Remi's already aching feet came to a halt the moment the song flew into her ears. Diamond City Radio played loud, the noise bouncing off the buildings that surrounded her. Although it wasn't one of her favorite songs, Remi found herself softly singing along as she searched for the source. Rain clouds were gathering, and so she needed shelter. Desperately.
"Because those dear hearts and gentle people will never let you down."
Finding anything in the dark seemed nearly impossible. Everything looked like black blobs of shadows. More often than not, she couldn't tell if something were a mailbox, or a living creature. Even so, Remi wandered the streets, hoping that the music would lead her to something of promise.
Rounding the corner of a building, the windows and entrances boarded with decaying wooden pallets, the young girl settled her eyes on a small, flickering flame, holding strong against the growing storm gusts. Inside her chest, Remi's heart began to patter away in staccato as she picked up her pace toward the flame. A jagged, square-shaped shadow around the flame suddenly had personality: a broken dresser, a dusty mattress, chipped coffee cups, and a radio all settled in an old one-car garage.
"I feel so welcome each time I return," the radio sang on, "that my happy heart keeps laughin' like a clown."
Finally, Remi thought, something was starting to work out for her. Placing her backpack down against the flimsy wooden porte-cochere, she let out a long sigh of relief. She'd made it to shelter just in time; droplets of rain were beginning to litter the ground. She took a moment to glance around, taking in everything she'd found.
Whoever made this place either left in a hurry, or was planning on returning. Remi hoped on the former, though she knew she couldn't stay long herself. Eventually, Raiders or Scavengers or even worse, a group of Rust Devils, would make their rounds nearby. Lately, those groups that often stuck to small towns and farms were becoming more partial to the city life.
There was a click of a gun cocking, and Remi's body turned to ice.
"The fuck you doin', girl?"
Like her mother had taught her her so many years ago, Remi raised her hands above her head and slowly turned to face the source of the deep, angry voice. Holding a shotgun aimed right for her stomach, a stout, balding man stood not six feet from her, his finger resting on the trigger.
"Just trying to get out of the rai-"
"LIAR!" he boomed. Remi flinched back, trying her hardest to keep her breathing even. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She couldn't afford to hyperventilate and pass out here. "You was tryin' to steal my Psycho Jet, wasn't ya?"
Psycho Jet? Remi had never heard of it in her life. Sure, there were people who used Psycho and there were people who used Jet, but never combined into one drug.
"N-No, I wasn't," she stammered. She prayed that this man wasn't so fried in the brain that he'd realize she really didn't mean any harm. "I don't take chems. I-I just needed to get out of the rain, I swear."
"Hmmm." With a violent twitch of his neck, the man lowered his gun, his glossy eyes trailing Remi's body up and down, up and down, up and down. He sniffed thickly, turned his head, and spat something large and deep green onto the wood shielding them from the rain. "Nah, don't believe ya."
As he raised his gun again to pull the trigger, a gunshot rang out. Remi screamed, covered her eyes with her hands, and fell back onto her butt. She waited for any pain or the voice of her mother telling her that everything was going to be okay now that she was dead, but only the lyrics of the song coming from the radio met her heavy, ragged breathing.
"That's why I want the world to know I love the gentle people."
Her arms like stone, Remi brought her hands away from her face. She stared at the man, his body lying crumpled on the ground in front of her. Blood trickled a hole between his shoulders, where his head had been. A shadow shifted in her peripheral. Staring her down, a sniper rifle in his hands, was a Raider, twitching with his own possible drug addiction. Rain dumped on him, completely soaking his clothes and the mask covering his face, but still he stood motionless.
"Because those dear hearts and gentle people will never let you down."
"You can have his chems!" Remi shouted, hurrying to her feet and grabbing her crowbar. All the while she was staring down the barrel of a gun, her weapon had remained forgotten. But now, she knew she could take a Raider. She'd done it before, although she didn't kill the woman. It had been strange, really, the way the redhead had suddenly lowered her baseball bat, sighed in annoyance, and took off in the other direction mid-fight.
This Raider, though, simply tilted his head to one side. Then, as if he couldn't control his movements, he advanced toward Remi, nearly knocking her to the side as he rummaged through the dresser. It didn't take him very long at all to find the leather bag. Remi wondered if he could smell the chems, if years of drug abuse gave him some kind of superhuman nose.
The Raider didn't say another word to her. He twisted the opening of the bag into a tight knot and turned his head toward her. Through the mask, Remi could see that one eye had been sewn shut while the other, a soft hazel, surveyed her curiously. As if she didn't peak his interest, he turned, gripped the bag tighter, and carried on, leaving Remi to wonder what the hell had just happened.
"I love the dear hearts and gentle people who live and love in my hometown."
(~)
Instead of staying in the safety of the garage, Remi pressed on. She didn't want to have to stare at the body of the man who almost shot her anymore, nor did she want to move it so she didn't have to stare at it. Until the rain stopped, she camped in a hallowed out car, covering her ears the best she could to block out the noise of the drops slamming against the metal frame.
Goodneighbor wasn't far from where Remi had stopped, but she considered waiting until the sun crawled over the skeletal remains of the buildings. She felt so tired – a mixture of lack of sleep and being certain death was upon her left her feeling physically and emotionally drained. She didn't want to exhaust what little energy she had left, but once she dozed off for an hour and woke up to find that the rain had stopped, she forced herself from the car.
Splashing along in puddles and kicking rusted, bent tin cans along her way, Remi's thoughts traveled back to the Raider. They were known for showing no mercy when it came to people who had lost their way, especially females. Growing up, she, as a young girl, was taught to fear them, that they wouldn't think twice about kidnapping her, raping her, and killing her. In her mind, she'd always pictured them as ruthless, brainless humans wandering the Commonwealth for chems, but from her last two encounters with them, that image was beginning to falter.
When Remi finally came to a bright neon light reading "Goodneighbor this way!" with a large, blinking arrow, her pace quickened. Before, she'd just been following dingy, worn signs that pointed her to her next direction, not even sure if they were pointing the right way. Finding that they had indeed been telling the truth gave her a new sense of hope.
Ignoring the growls and barks from the dark corners of the streets, Remi began to sprint, nearly skidding to bruised knees once or twice. Goodneighbor was so close, she could practically smell it. It was either that, or someone was lighting up a cigarette just behind her. She slowed to a stop, though, when a simple sign propped against a lamppost and a mailbox came into view.
"All are welcome," she whispered, breathless from her running. Glancing past it, she saw one more sign, with a blue arrow pointed to a metal door. "Goodneighbor. Finally."
On the building opposite the door, posters littered the wall. Scantily dressed women decorated the torn papers, advertising some kind of bar drink Remi had never heard of. Passing by them, excitement rose in her. Maybe, if she could get her hands on a few caps, she'd have to try these drinks.
She pushed the door open with a grunt of effort. It certainly was a lot heavier than it looked, but once she was through, she grinned to herself. With its stench of cigarettes and cooking meat, its lazy residents lounging on the streets and broken benches, and its immediate smile of welcome from a female Ghoul, Remi knew the past three hours and the death threat had been more than worth it.
"A new face," the Ghoul murmured, setting her broom against the wall. She dusted her hands off on her pants before reaching over to curl her fingers around Remi's chin. Gently, she moved the girl's head side to side. "Pretty as hell, too. Don't tell me you're here to sell yourself."
"Sell myself?" Remi repeated slowly before realizing what exactly that meant. "Oh, shit, no. Not at all!" She shook her head, freeing herself from the Ghoul's grasp. Apparently taking no offense to it, the Ghoul grabbed for her broom once more and returned to halfheartedly sweeping the street.
"Pretty girls like you don't just come to Goodneighbor for the hell of it. There's got to be a reason."
Awkward tension filled Remi's chest as she realized that the lazy street dwellers had suddenly taken an interest in her. Heads turned, a few stood up, and one even started to make his way over toward her, only to be smacked in the knee by the Ghoul's broomstick.
"You sit your ass back down," she grumbled, reaching in her pocket. Remi's heart plummeted when a switchblade replaced the broomstick in the Ghoul's hand. "I swear it, Jorge. I'll take you down right here."
Jorge, who looked as if he were about to shit himself, held his hands up the way Remi did with the crazed, drugged man. "All right, all right. Shit, Daisy, I just wanted to say hi to the new girl here." He flashed a sad attempt at a seductive wink and lower lip lick before the Ghoul, Daisy, bluffed a stab at him. This seemed to be more than enough to get the point across that he wasn't welcome in their conversation. Rolling his eyes, he returned to the group he came from, who proceeded to stare Remi down.
As if it were an everyday thing, Daisy folded her switchblade, pocketed it, and returned to her sweeping. "If you ain't here to sell yourself, you might want to reconsider," she advised gravely. "You'd have plenty of customers."
Suddenly, Remi wished she'd just stayed in Diamond City to live on the streets, begging for food and water. "No, that's okay," she murmured uncomfortably. "I'm actually here for any other kind of worse, besides that kind. I lost my home in Diamond City, so-"
"Diamond City, you say? Well, join the club."
Chewing on the inside of her mouth, Remi found herself craving a cigarette. Along with the stench of it in Goodneighbor, and the fact that her conversation had taken an extremely unpleasant turn with Daisy, all she wanted was to feel it – to feel something – between her lips.
"If you're lookin' for work, I could always use some help around my shop," Daisy continued. "I won't pay you much, but it'll be something, at least. And it'll be a roof over your head."
The offer sounded nice, really nice, but the thought of living with someone she just met five minutes ago didn't settle quite right with Remi. "Thank you for the offer," she said, "but I'm also looking for someone. He told me his name was MacCready."
This seemed to spark Daisy's attention. Looking up from her sweeping, she chuckled softly. "Oh, I see," she replied. "You one of Robert's newest flings, aren't you?"
The look of sheer bewilderment on Remi's face must've been amusing to Daisy, because her laughter grew stronger. Who in the hell was Robert? And why was Daisy laughing? Looking past the Ghoul, Remi noticed one of the residents, who must've overheard, stifle a fit of her own giggles.
"You might want to check out The Third Rail," Daisy suggested, jutting her chin toward a dark alley. "He hangs out there a lot." Giving Daisy a nod of gratitude, Remi began toward the direction she was led, holding her backpack closer to her than she ever had before.
As she passed residents and drifters alike, she received a variety of acknowledgments. Some lifted the corners of their mouths into small smiles, some narrowed their eyes in intimidating glares, and some just pretended she didn't exist. She preferred the ones who looked through her; at least they didn't see her as a target or a threat.
The Third Rail wasn't as far from the entrance of Goodneighbor as Remi originally thought. Guarded by an armed Ghoul in a dirty suit, it stood as one of the tallest and well-maintained buildings in the town. A glowing sign hung above the door, telling Remi that she'd found the right place. Once she made her way inside, however, she instantly began to doubt herself.
Aside from another Ghoul dressed in a clean, black and white suit, she was the only one there. "Oh, another dancer?" the Ghoul questioned, motioning toward a staircase leading downward behind him. "You'd better hurry. Magnolia doesn't like when her dancers are late."
Remi wanted to correct him, to say that she was the furthest thing from a dancer. Her body just couldn't keep up with songs. From the determined look in his eyes and the way he stood proudly before the staircase, she figured going along with it was the only way she'd get inside. She nodded toward him, just as she did with Daisy, and hustled down the stairs.
The Third Rail wasn't quite what Remi imagined. Hell, she didn't even know it was a bar. As she descended further down the second flight of stairs, the smell of cigarettes became more intense. She figured that the smell on the streets wafted from this room alone. Couches and chairs supported all sorts of people who just casually lounged in them, listening to the silky voice coming from a beautiful woman singing on a stage near the bar, where a Mr. Handy robot floated behind.
Some people lifted their tired gazes to look at the newest customer, but for the most part, Remi remained invisible. Near the foot of the stairs, a tall man stood, his armor and gun giving away that he must've been a guard. His eyes settled on Remi as she walked closer to him, and his finger found its way to the trigger.
"You a dancer?" he questioned.
Remi shook her head, deciding that lying at this point wouldn't do her any good. She had already gotten in, after all. "I'm looking for someone. MacCready, or...Robert?" The name sounded strange on her tongue. She'd never known a Robert before.
The guard glanced around the corner. "A new fling, huh? He's back in the VIP room."
"What the fuck is with the fling shit?" Remi hissed to herself as she made her way toward the flashing red sign that read "VIP."
She knew that she should've turned back when the two mannequins that met her around the corner nearly scared her out of her skin, but still, she wanted to find MacCready. The further down the extensive hallway she traveled, the dimer the lights fell. Then, finally, as she reached the VIP room, she understood why everyone assumed she was another fling.
MacCready sat on a couch, a half-naked girl at both his sides. His arm looped around their shoulders as they leaned into him, one taking a drag from a cigarette and the other taking a swig from a beer bottle. Remi's legs suddenly felt as if her bones had disappeared. She wanted to turn and run, but one of the girls, a blonde, had spotted her before she could.
"Who the fuck are you?" she questioned, sitting up from MacCready's arm. "RJ, do you know this girl?" She sounded almost jealous that Remi had showed up out of the blue. "You promised it was just me and Felicia tonight."
The other girl, a brunette with extremely large breasts, gave MacCready a gentle slap on the chest. "Yeah, you promised," she pouted.
Obviously drunk, MacCready ignored the complaints of the girls at his side. His glossy eyes remained locked on Remi, who wished she had the ability to disappear into thin air. Taking a small step back, she nervously laughed and glanced around the room, realizing what this place was. Holding back a shutter of disgust, she forced a grin onto her face.
"Sorry, wrong room," she said, feeling a bit less awkward at the relieved looks on the girls' faces. "I'll just be going." Remi turned on her heel, resisting the urge to sprint down the hallway. Instead, she quickened her walk into an almost jog.
The sound of MacCready's voice forced her to a halt. "Remi, wait!"
Having legs that were much longer than hers, it didn't take him long to catch up with her. When he did, his fingers curled around her arm and gently yanked her to face him. Remi gave little resistance; she didn't want to talk to him here while he was drunk and right after she found him with a couple of women, but at the same time, this was the reason why she came all this way.
"What are you doing here?" MacCready questioned. He didn't sound angry or irritated that she was here. Deep in his tone, Remi could've sworn he sounded almost apologetic.
"I'm in trouble and I think you're the only one who can help me."
