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Chapter 4: Jericho

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"SHIT!" Jericho pressed his back flat and felt the explosion reverberate through the heavy aluminum and steel walls of Megaton. What a fucking time for his antique to jam. Piece of Chinese crap. He'd just serviced the damn thing last week.

Of course, it could have been worse. He had the kid to thank for the plate that kept his face and chest from being shredded by the scrap in that pipe bomb. As it stood, he'd just be pulling shards out of his gear with pliers after this was over. If it was over.

Those Springvale assclowns had been at it all fucking day since just before sunup. He'd never seen this many Raiders attack a city, not even when he was a dumb kid following that psycho Preacher around. What the fuck did they want anyway? Did Bertha not being ready to pop for the first time since she dumped in the goddamn crater signal a feeding frenzy or some shit? Did they want revenge for what Simms had done to that dickcheese Boppo?

When he heard Moira whistle from the gate, he moved towards the rocks where her walking talking action dildo was picking off Raiders with a hand laser like it was one of his attachments. That broad was fucked in the head, humping robots and chattering all the time like a squirrel on jet, but nobody in their right mind got in the way of her Rock-It Launcher. Bad enough to die fighting piss ass Raiders. Worse to die impaled from behind by a teddy bear going in excess of 500 mph.

You'd have to be fucking mental to even come up with that weapon.

She got that asshole with the pipe bombs too. Man had a toy Nuka Truck driven into his liver and rolled down the hill towards the merchant's rest in front of the gate. What made it even better, is that the stupid shit dug it out. Blood sprayed everywhere and the look on the Raider's face just as he died? Hilarious. It was a shame the HUD didn't have instant replay.

There were times when he loved that crazy bitch.

"Dil, you got another weapon? Mine's fucked."

The android passed over the hunting rifle at his feet without even otherwise acknowledging Jericho.

"Thanks, tin man." Jericho dropped his assault rifle and started to ease back down to his former position. "Tell Moira, she wants to ride me, anytime, I'll give her a first class ticket."

Her android gave him a withering look and went back to shooting.

"What's wrong, Dil? Afraid she might not come back for you if she got some real meat in her?"

With more emotion than he'd credit a machine, the android merc looked into Jericho's helm lenses and snarled. "My name is Darwin. DARWIN! And why don't you go fuck yourself in the ass with a mine and save us all the trouble."

Jericho laughed. So, he was chatty. Fuck em all if they weren't having a good time too. It was a hell of a lot better than sitting on his ass in Moriar... Gob's and doing jack shi...

He never even saw the missile. Oh, he figured it out, sure as shit, afterward. When the maroon and black stars cleared and he was staring up at the sky unobstructed because the front of his helmet was gone, sheared off somehow within scant millimeters of his face. The sun was fucking bright and his ears felt like he had ten tons of water pumped in his head. Concussions were about as fun as having your balls in a vise. He righted himself and watched the horizon spin. The shock was keeping him from feeling what were probably parts of his leather undersuit burned into his skin.

Darwin was there in an instant, dragging him like he was no heavier than a Lamplighter, swearing all the while about why the fuck did the crazy old bastard take him so seriously. He couldn't reply right then, not even when the android banged his head into the gate trying to drag Jericho through the narrow opening left for defenders. Hell, he wanted to laugh though. If the inside of his lungs hadn't felt like someone had stuffed plastic wrappers down his throat, he would have. Served that cocky mechanical knuckle-nuts right. Talking shit back to him like he was somebody.

Over his sputtering comm came a sloe voice. "Lover? You alright?"

Jericho coughed and tasted blood in the back of his throat.

"Lover?"

He sounded like he'd given a blowjob to a frog and contracted warts on his vocal chords when he finally cleared enough phlegm to reply. "Clover, if you don't get off my channel and start swinging that shiskebab, I'm going to wear your ass out when this is over with."

"Oooo, sounds like fun... we can do that anyway..."

"Yeah, whatever." Clover was about as subtle as a face-full of nailboard. Most of the time it was great. Right now he wanted to throttle her. He was too fucking old for this shit. As fun as it was, all out war was a young man's pastime. He pulled off a gauntlet and put a hand to his exposed skin, feeling for damage beyond burns and cuts. Christ. His nerve endings were starting to wake up. His face felt like he'd been sandblasted.

"AMMO!" Stockholm shouted from his nest. "HARDEN, AMMO!"

Through his grimy fingers, he watched the Sheriff's kid jump across the roof of his dad's shack with bandoleers weighing him down. Jericho found himself holding his breath until Harden's feet hit the sniper's catwalk. That boy was going to get himself killed thinking he was some kinda fucking flying rat...

"Hey, asshole, Moira's--"

Jericho coughed and rubbed away the spittle from his mouth. It felt like Clover was sitting on his chest. "Fuck you want, Dil?"

Darwin scowled. "You want to be left lying in the street, fine. That's your fucking business." He made a scrubbing motion. "I wash my hands of you." He looked to Moira.
"Watch yourself."

"Why? All the fighting is out there. Jericho's perfectly safe..."

The android made a frustrated sound and stalked to the thin opening in the gate and drew his pistol, preparing to jump back out in the fray like some kind of hero. Darwin had as much concern for his own life as Weld or Steel sometimes. It just went to show, robots were morons.

Moira stomped her foot. "Ohhh...he never listens to me." Her arms were crossed and her lip stuck out.

What was she gonna do next? Fucking cry?

"Must make screwing him interesting."

Moira's flush started with her neck and climbed up to her cheeks rapidly. "B-bu... he... I... I'll just go get Doc Church..."

"You do that, sweetcheeks." Jericho leered as best he could manage. "Ol' Jericho will be right here when you get back."

Brown was a hoot. Half the fun of heckling her was watching her turn fifty different shades of red. Then there was the stammer. Backing away like he was a loaded bomb and then running: priceless. Safe. Yeah. Sure, Moira. Whatever helped her sleep at night. Well, besides robowang.

Damn thing probably vibrated...

He coughed and felt like the plastic wrap had turned to bayonets. Jericho put a hand to his chest. His fingers looked for scrap that had actually penetrated. There wasn't any to find, most of it was loose and would come out with a few tugs, but the armor was awfully damned hot for some reason.

"How bad is it out there?"

Jericho looked up to find the resident leper kneeling next to him. He didn't dislike the guy. From what he'd gotten out of him with whisky, he was a ruined paladin. The BOS kicked him out for something he wouldn't mention. Wouldn't even lift a fucking gun anymore. Wouldn't do much of anything but stare into space like he'd lost his balls somewhere and talk about how thirsty he was-- unless he was drunk. Micky was thirsty for something, but Jericho doubted he needed water. Or booze, really. Sad shit, considering that his recollections were pretty vivid, and entertaining, when he was wasted. In Jericho's heyday, they'd have probably been facing each other over gun-barrels and somebody would have done some dying. Now they sat at the gate on weekends, getting hammered and talking about the bad old days. He didn't know who needed the kick in the ass worse.

"Ugly, Micky." He snorted, clearing more phlegm. "Like Clover on the rag ugly."

Micky shook his head and put out a bandaged, scabby hand. "Arm up?"

"Yeah, sure. Moira probably stopped to powder her fucking nose."

He shouldered Jericho's weight while the old Raider found his legs. It was fucking embarrassing. His knees wobbled and his ankles felt like they were made out of rubber. He would have taken Micky down with him if the BOS antique hadn't stood firm. Some life. He'd have shot the bastard who predicted this is the way he'd spend his retirement.

A train whistle droned- then gave two sharp blats.

What the hell? That was a railway rifle. Raiders usually didn't have the smarts to assemble the things. They were steam powered. Broke easy too. It could only mean some kinda damn cavalry had showed up. He had to see!

"Mick, think we can make it out the gate?"

"If you can, I can."

"Then why the fuck we standing here with our thumbs up each other's asses, eh?"

"...Probably because it's more comfortable than having rippers up there."

He cracked a joke... Goddamn, Micky cracked a joke! HA! And Church said drinking was bad for him. Fuck that noise. He ruffled the old BOS man's sweat-stiffened white hair and grinned.

Micky helped him take that first step. After that, they made slow progress while the train sounds got closer and more frequent. That was part of the beauty of the piece. Stealth was impossible and the low whistle got in an enemy's head. Made them dread the toots that meant railspikes were coming their way.

Squeezing out of the gate revealed that the shit had hit the fan and ended up splattered all over Springvale. The two old soldiers crouched behind a pile of bodies, more or less hidden. Sure, the things didn't smell that great but Jericho was pretty sure half of what he was smelling was burned nose-hair. Micky made a face when Jericho leaned on a corpse. He was ignoring the gore and mess seeping down his armor from the pile. Micky was a trip. For a guy covered in open sores and blisters, he sure could be squeamish about some bizarre shit.

Simms was closest. He looked like a fucking tool, cowboy hat and all, screaming about yahoos and flanked by his robot deputies. Sure, they were killing shit left and right, but it didn't make him inspiring while they did it. No way. Darwin had more finesse. The android could make a grown man crap his pants at thirty paces without even touching a weapon. Best Lucas could hope for is that his quarry was so busy crapping their pants laughing at him he could kill them while they were distracted. It'd worked on that assmunch Boppo, but how many times could you be that lucky?

The whistle sounded again and he was able to spot who had the rail-rifle. For a moment, the immense weight on his chest lifted. Where her pet corpse was, she was. The vault kid was here.

She was mean the day she came in, eyes narrowed and clutching that gun, her vault suit streaked with blood and filth. It's why he'd talked to her at all-- told her to get herself a real weapon and quick before the wastes came knocking with something bigger and badder than she thought she was. Then he'd seen her outdraw Burke that morning he tried to get the drop on Lucas. The kid ratted him out for trying the detonate Bertha and when he wouldn't play nice with the Sheriff, BLAM. No expression, just that detachment he loved to see on a woman's face after she killed. It had been beautiful. Enough for him to lay down some caps for Nova to suck him off afterward.

He'd imagined those eyes looking up at him as she worked. Cold eyes, like the dust clouds that came in the fall, when the horizon turned a sickly greenish rust color before going completely black.

Those Raiders better say their fucking prayers.

That enormous rotting bastard spiked a skank to the gatepost, just feet from Jericho. Her body had flown like a Super Mutant clubbed it and hit the damn gate like a gong. This was another moment when he wished someone had a working camera. She quivered with the last throws of life, trying to pull herself free, and the old Raider couldn't contain a whoop of excitement.

"Kill those fuckmonkeys! Yeah!" Jericho's cheer cost him. He was reduced to coughing and the inside of his head thrummed to the sounds of death around him. The edges of his vision turned gray.

Micky shook him. "Jericho?"

"I'm fine." He ground out. It took more than a pipe bomb and a fucking missile to put Jericho out of commission. Making a big show of putting his gauntlet back on, he realized how cold his fingers were. They shook. When the spasms finally passed he was drawn again into the action.

Lucas had moved out of sight, but he could watch Clover's fiery arcs past a boulder. Why the kid had brought her to him, Jericho'd never guess. Oh, he knew what she'd done in Paradise Falls. The kid had freed the caged mooks and slaughtered everything else that moved. Except for Clover. She hadn't freed her, just taken off the collar and handed her over with some shit about him being her new body. At first, he'd been too horny to care why. Now he wondered. Clover'd start talking about her dead pimp sometimes, that slick wad Eulogy, only she talked about him like he was still alive. When he corrected her she'd give him this look like she'd actually forgotten. Other times, when she was drowsy, she'd start talking about what she'd done before she was a slave. Most of it wasn't in complete sentences. She'd been some kind of records keeper somewhere-- kept trying to tell him these whacked out stories she'd read, but couldn't completely remember. Green knights, the angel of death, some dumbfuck that robbed the rich and gave to the poor; she had a story for everything. Sometimes it made his skin crawl because it brought back memories of Preacher going on for hours. Clover though... she didn't sound like she was trying to convince anyone. She was more talking to herself. And yeah, he might be going soft in his old age, because he'd listen. Whatever she was rambling about... he'd listen.

Jericho's head drooped for a second and he was face to face with one of the dead Raiders. The corpse's expression, fixed and staring, was almost halfway between accusation and horror. He'd killed this one. Nearly cut him in half with the assault rifle before the thing jammed. Wasn't much older than Harden, really. Some dumb kid...

Seeing the only place those thoughts could go, he grimaced. It hurt his face. His skull weighed a ton and his neck was getting wobbly. Something was wrong... maybe...

Jericho, man, get a fucking grip.

The train whistle made him look back. It was getting closer again and the kid's favorite ghoul popped over the rocks. After a few minutes of watching Charon cut a path through the stragglers, all he could focus on was what was probably going on in that vault kid's house. That corpse-faced motherfucker bending that sweet little thing over and giving it to her hard and dirty. Probably spanking her ass too. Nice and red. And her taking it, all of it, like the flush-faced moaning little whore he always knew she was underneath all that righteousness and iron. It had to be. The creep usually hovered over her like some kinda goddamn vulture-- giving the evil eye to anyone that so much as glanced at her. Sure, she still talked to him and passed him smokes, asked after Clover, but that ugly fucker was always at her shoulder, watching. Glowering. Like she was his goddamn exclusive property and who did old Jericho think he was.

Bodyguard his ass. He knew when he was being given the two steps towards the door. Besides, that kid needed a bodyguard like he needed another hole in his head. Oh, she might have Simms fooled but it didn't change the fact Jericho knew what was really going on. Bad knew bad. There was no way she could be that good and associate with the people she did. Men like him and that corpse. Nah. Good was fucking oblivious. Like Brown. That's how it managed to stay good. Everyone else was on the road to hell-- fast or slow, didn't matter.

Wait...

Jericho frowned, ignoring the stinging sensation that accompanied it.

He hadn't seen the kid at all. Where was she? In pursuit?

"C'mon." Micky pulled him towards the gate. "I think we've had enough excitement. Let the mercs earn their caps."

Jericho allowed himself be maneuvered into town. It seemed like, instead of being heavy, his head was now floating somewhere next to him. He kept expecting to see himself from the outside. He wondered, distantly, if he looked as fucked up as he felt. Speaking of which, where was Brown? Wasn't she going to go get the doctor? Church was nowhere to be seen. He was probably giving Moira some shit about being a noncom or something. She was such a prole, he'd probably have her argued into doing it hers...

Jericho's vision blurred and swam. Opaque gray mist surrounded him.

Smoke? Where was smoke coming from? If he was on fucking fire, whoever had the bad aim would be getting an asswhipping later.

He waved in front of him but the haze didn't clear.

Water. He had to get to the water before he burned alive...

"What's wrong?" Jericho was briefly aware of Mickey's florid face hovering near his cheek before the ground rushed up to meet him.