Author's Note: A major character death tag on this fic as a whole seemed redundant at best and misleading at worst, but for the sake of transparency, I'm letting you know now that there are two more coming up in this chapter.

"Lesson number one: sometimes a leader has to make unpopular decisions. It's not about what you, me, or any other individual wants, but about what's best for the entire community in the long run. It's better to be feared - even hated - than loved. Can you do that?"

"I don't know, father."

"Here, on the job, you will address me as 'Overseer.'"

"Yes, sorry. Overseer. I don't know if I can do that."

"We must be decisive and pragmatic. The people look to us for solutions, not sympathy. You make a choice and then you pursue it to the end, so as not to appear weak. Don't second-guess yourself. Never publicly admit that you were wrong. Understand?"

"I think so. But-"

"But what, Amata?"

"What about when circumstances change and the old ways don't work anymore?"

"It's my job - and, someday, yours - to prevent that from happening. That's our highest duty, our inviolable principle. Only misery can come of breaking it. Believe me, I've learned that to my cost. Hopefully you won't have to."

Try as she might, Amari could never get completely warm at night, no matter how many blankets she found to pile on top of her. The Craterside Supply, like every other building in Megaton, had no heating besides an occasional cookfire. Needed no heating, as Moira pointed out; in this stricken climate, temperatures rarely dipped below freezing, even in the wintertime. Amari missed the climate-controlled air of the vault, however. Once the sun stopped baking the corrugated tin of the uninsulated walls and roof, the atmosphere inside went from stuffy to cold in about an hour.

It was now late December. A dreary Christmas had come and gone with scant ceremony, and they were coming up upon the new year soon; if all went well, Amari expected to be long gone by the time spring had arrived in Megaton. She only lacked a full complement of supplies for the road, having suffered a devastating financial setback on that catastrophic night six weeks before.

Amari shivered in the early morning chill as she peeled off her cleanish clothes and plucked her mud-splattered work outfit from the heap where she'd dropped them the night before. She ran a hand automatically over the raised, pink scar on her leg, still marvelling at her close escape; it had gone numb and tingly over the bone from whatever the bullet had done to her nerves, but the pain and bruising was all but gone, with only a fading splash of yellow lingering. It had been a novel experience, and one she hoped never to repeat. She'd never been hurt before, or at least nothing worse than nicks and scratches from childish roughhousing, generally the consequences of Marilyn's hairbrained plans. She smiled at these memories, even as she felt a stab of residual regret and grief, beginning to be somewhat tempered by the passage of time - over four months now. Given the same set of circumstances, she knew that Marilyn would have left Megaton long since, presumably after staging a coup to destroy Moriarty and liberating the town from his influences, and probably defusing the bomb in their midst as well. Even in her most grandiose daydreams, Amari didn't have that kind of force of will. She was, however, ready to see something other than these walls and their immediate surroundings, and more than ready to be out of the saloon-keeper's greedy reach. She had to make a clean break from these people who had willfully consented to being governed by corruption.

I need to move on. This was her last thought before going to sleep at night, and her first thought upon waking up, a constant mantra of resolutions and vague plans: It's time for me to go. Get to Rivet City. Find James. Then I'll be free to discover a… - how had Deacon put it? - a raison d'être of my own. I can be myself, whoever that turns out to be.

At least she wouldn't have to travel alone, at least not for the immediate future. For all that he frustrated and sometimes frightened her, and frequently gave her cause to question her own ethical motivations, she had gained a very powerful ally in the man they called Richard. As guilty as she felt for asking someone with serious brain damage to fight her battles for her, she genuinely did not know what else to do with him. She paid him, of course, with money that he seemed totally uninterested in; she asked him for his perspective on things, and he gave no answer. Without an occasional nudge to action, he seemed permanently stuck in place.

He was waiting for her outside, as he always was in the morning. In reluctant concession to Moira's refusal to let him stay in her house, and out of fear of housing him anywhere near the saloon, she had arranged to pay Walter a pittance for the privilege of cot-space in the water purification plant on the level above. As far as Amari could tell, however, Richard needed very little sleep - no matter how early she rose, he was always up before her, dressed and ready to go.

"Richard, would you be interested in coming down to the river with me today? If we land a mirelurk, you can have half the caps. The Stahls will give us a plate of it too." Amari watched the man carefully, looking - even hoping - for some sign of resentment, annoyance, or disagreement. Even a contrary answer, something as simple as "I don't like shellfish" would have been a relief. It was hard to tell what he was thinking with his eyes concealed behind the damn glasses, but his face remained as serene as ever as he nodded his agreement. She wanted to shout at him to show a little spirit. He could, for instance, argue that he deserved more than 50% of the cut, since he'd be the one pulling the crab to shore and shooting the damn thing. He could point out that she was a useless hindrance in the waste, good for little more than announcing their next destination, his inferior in almost every respect. These truths were obvious. An ordinary human being - especially one of Richard's extraordinary talents - would have made these objections long ago. But Richard was lacking in self-interest, drive, and autonomy; though his body had recovered fully, his mind clearly had not. Even though she was the primary beneficiary of his unquestioning helpfulness, it frustrated and saddened Amari to find no spark of volition or independence in him. She spoke and he acted, and that in itself was bizarre. No one in their right mind would ever listen to her.

As she ran through her checklist of what they would need, the sight of Leo Stahl carrying a crate of vegetables in from the gate reminded her of one of her regular duties. "Can you please help me carry Moira's shipment in first? It's waiting by the gate with the caravan." She hated giving him orders, preferring instead to couch them as polite requests. Watching him pick up a stack of boxes - several times what her thin arms could manage on a single trip - she walked slowly back up to the shop, wondering (and not for the first time) what would have happened if Moriarty had been the one to take charge of his recovery. If that amoral man's voice had been the one to take command of him, the consequences could have been extremely dire… for the truth was, Richard was objectively dangerous - and just how dangerous she hadn't told anybody, least of all Moira, though she suspected that the other woman knew already.

Being shot had done nothing to make Amari less skittish around firearms; though it should, perhaps, have moved her to learn to defend herself, it had only made her more adamant in her refusal to carry a gun. She kept a light melee weapon on her at all times, along with a utility knife, but still couldn't imagine using either on another human being. Still, acting out of a sense of responsibility, she had purchased what felt like an appropriate weapon for Richard - a standard hunting rifle - and asked Simms to test his skill at the range one morning, about a week after he'd woken up.

The two men had returned less than an hour later, with the sheriff looking spooked and irritable. Before returning to his station, he had muttered to Amari, voice pitched low so as to shut Richard out of the conversation, "There's nothin' I can teach him. Don't get on his bad side." Soon, she learned exactly what he meant by this. Richard, it seemed, could wield any gun provided to him like an extension of his own body, hitting targets accurately and very quickly, reloading with astounding speed. She didn't like to admit it out loud, but he was a living weapon himself - and, like it or not, Amari was the one pointing him at things and people. That day in the Super-Duper Mart, two weeks after he had first woken up, was one that she'd never forget.

Moira had sent them there, of course, to scavenge for food and medicine. Amari had initially resisted, pointing out - reasonably, she felt - that it would have been looted down to the copper wiring long ago, but her boss had been stubborn. So, they had gone. The shelves were bare… but the whole dim, creepy place had been crawling with raiders. She had frozen, her eyes still trying to adjust to the lack of light, but Richard had acted. She hadn't even seen most of the fight - her automatic response to the gunfire had been to crouch down and cover her face - but when she opened her eyes, it was onto a mostly-silent room with only one person left standing. For a moment - a long moment, and one that made her feel guilty even now - she saw not her one-time patient, but the monster of Moira's many vague warnings. Even as she watched, wanting to run like a prey animal runs before a hunter, but rooted to the spot in fear, he reloaded his gun with an effortless gesture and put an additional bullet into the only raider still moaning, a half-naked man clawing at a shattered arm. Soon, he too lay still, and Richard turned his attention to her, making her recoil.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was deep, pleasant, and always unexpected, she heard it so little.

She was so surprised by this - he'd asked a question, a first for him - that she forgot her fear for a moment. "Me? No. I wasn't the one in a firefight. How about you?"

"I am undamaged. They were nothing." The coldness with which he dismissed the bodies strewn around him frightened her afresh, but if he noticed, he didn't say anything. They'd made a lot of money off of the booty from that slaughter, enough to get them closer to leaving, but it had still given her considerable pause. Ever since then, she'd watched him a little more closely. If he could act without direction once, then he could do it again, and possibly against an inappropriate target. Though if he did, there was precious little she could do to stop him. Like the undetonated bomb at the bottom of the crater, he was an unknown quantity, and a potentially unstoppable force.

"Can you please wait out here, Richard? I need to take this receipt in and talk for a moment." She didn't think he cared one way or another, but it galled her to make him stay outside on Moira's account. On the other hand, she didn't want a fight on this morning, or on any of the few remaining mornings she intended to stay. Things between the two women had been strained of late, ever since Amari had informed her of her plans to leave. As if Moira was trying nonverbally to convince her to change her mind, she had made an sustained effort to appear level and agreeable, although she continued to make obscure remarks about Richard's trustworthiness. She was, however, forced to concede his helpfulness to Amari - and, by association, to Moira's own work. In the weeks since he'd begun to accompany her, Amari had achieved more concrete results that she had in all the months beforehand, accomplishing tasks much more easily than before.

Moira was awake, her tools and materials occupying every square inch of the kitchen table. She must have read some of Amari's pent-up feelings in her expression, and interrupted her own task to interject her views.

"Stop stressing so much, Amari. There are more important things to be concerned about. Like the mirelurk egg you promised to fetch me this week."

"Forget your damned egg," she groaned in frustration. "I know you don't care, but I'm worried about him. He has no sense of agency, no volition, no initiative. I can't even get him to tell me his real name. All I get is a serial number. I have no idea what he would do if he was left to his own devices."

Moira let out a huffy breath, bent over Amari's former Pip-Boy with a tiny screwdriver and loosening a panel within, opening it to gain access to… something within. "That's normal for… people like him. I told you. You'll have to teach him those things."

"I can't teach him his name, Moira. I don't know it. Why were you so insistent that I call him Richard, anyway? You never explained."

She snorted. "Anything was better than X6-88. That would have attracted the wrong sort of attention." Eyes narrowed with concentration, she reconnected a tiny wire inside the device and closed it up with a smile of satisfaction. "Like I said, Rick - or Richard - Deckard is perfect for him. Very apropos."

Very annoyed now, she burst out, "What are you trying to tell me?"

Moira let out an aggrieved sigh. "It's from a book. Deacon would have gotten the reference, you know. Didn't you read in that fancy vault of yours? I would have."

Amari was in no mood to be baited. "I'm not Deacon, and you have a lot of books. Just tell me what you know, Moira, please. Maybe it can help me help him. What does it matter, anyway? You're just being difficult."

Moira carried the Pip-Boy away and came back, empty handed, crossing her arms and rocking back on her heels nervously. "Okay. Whatever. He's never going to give you a real name because he's never had one. I promise you. He may," she amended, brushing long tendrils of unwashed hair out of her face, "someday, construct enough of a personality, develop enough of an ego to desire things like that. It depends on exactly what that mesmetron pulse did to his memories. If we're lucky, it was a clean rinse. If we're not, then they're just submerged, and might surface at any moment." Slowly, as if she was dragging something out of herself by force, she went on, "If you're getting impatient, I have a suggestion."

"If you're going to tell me to abandon him in the waste again, Moira, so help me I'll-"

"No, that was uncharitable of me. Chalk it up to a knee-jerk reaction based on… ah, experiences of my own. I've had a change of heart." She was calm despite Amari's outburst. "There's a man I know - name of Pinkerton - who can usually help… people like him in similar circumstances. He knows how to create and impress a believable backstory onto their brains, offers a ready-made person to walk around in that well-trained shell. He lives near Rivet City." She sighed, drumming her fingers on the table. "I'll tell you how to get to him but you can't tell anybody about him, Amari. It's very important that his work remain secret. What you need to understand is that I'm a part of a group that needs to operate very sub rosa in the Capital Wasteland. We can't go around telling people what we do or there'll be problems. Big, life-shattering problems. Understand?"

This was new and intriguing. Amari perked up her ears, listening intently. "You can trust me. Deacon and Tom, too?"

"Yes. They-" A jingling sound from the front of the shop cut her off mid-sentence, and she gave a silent order for Amari to go check it out. Impatient to hear the rest of the explanation, Amari stalked out to deal with the new customer, a farmer from the look - rough overalls caked in manure. She was suddenly thankful that she couldn't smell much of anything at the moment, courtesy of a recent cold. In a few minutes, she came back.

"You know how to midwive brahmin, Moira? Foster says one of his is having trouble."

"Ye-ahhhh… Church refuses to see animals, so I usually get roped into veterinary stuff, even though it's not my favorite thing. At least they let me have the placenta afterwards." Without explaining this peculiar comment, Moira went out to strike a deal with the man, and then returned to the back to pack up the things she needed. As she stuffed tools into her bag, she muttered to Amari. "We'll finish up… what we were talking about… tonight, alright? I should have told you as soon as you found him. Call me paranoid. I am. On an unrelated note, are the two of you going to go to the river today? I really would like to dissect a mirelurk egg tonight."

It had been on the tip of her tongue to request to accompany Moira to the farm - she would have liked to see the birth of a two-headed calf - but after quick internal deliberation, Amari decided to stick to her original plan for the day. She felt like she owed it to Moira for this declaration of transparency, especially since she'd be leaving her in the lurch soon. "Yeah, we'll get you your egg. Maybe an adult too. With those hooks you designed and Richard standing by with his rifle, it shouldn't be too hard to pull one to shore without it hurting us. You will tell me-"

Moira interrupted her smoothly, handling her something made of glass, "Can you also grab a sample of the water for me? I like to check it every year or so to see if the radiation levels and microorganism count has changed at all. It doesn't, or not much, but I'm making records for the long-term."

Amari took the proffered test tube and stopper. "Sure, whatever. You won't change your mind about telling me, will you? I need to know."

She got a weak smile and a cross-my-heart gesture in return. "Nope. We'll talk tonight. I'll christen you an unofficial member of the Railroad. We'll drink to it. I promise."

Richard was still waiting patiently outside, sitting on the stack of crates, but he had gained some company by the time she returned to him. Nova was up early as well... or maybe she hadn't been to bed yet, Amari considered, noticing that the woman was practically vibrating from Jet abuse, the whites of her eyes spidery red and bleary. She had one arm draped over the man's shoulder, and was cooing something nonsensical into his unresisting ear. For some reason, this upset her even more than Moira's idiosyncratic rudeness, and she snapped sharply.

"Nova! What are you doing? Leave him alone."

The blonde sneered at her, baring the blackened stumps of her rotted teeth. "Jus' 'cause you ain't getting any doesn't mean you get to keep this gorgeous halfwit to yourself. Frigid bitch, al'ays wrapped up in your goggles and gloves, like you're too delicate to touch the air around you…"

Amari didn't want to get into a petty squabble with the likes of Nova. "He's not a halfwit, Nova. And he might be too polite to say so, but he doesn't want the likes of you slobbering all over him. Just move on. Go eat some food. Get some sleep. Please."

"You think you're better than the rest of us, dontcha? You forget that I knew you when you couldn't roll over without pukin' or shittin'... I helped you then, you know. Felt sorry for you, even." Her voice raised into a pitched whine. "You messed up what we had up there when you forced your way out, y'know. And who d'you think th' Boss takes it out on?"

Repressing the whisper of guilt at the back of her mind, Amari was already walking away, followed by her silent guard, calling back over her shoulder in reply. "I'm sorry, but that's not my concern, Nova." Twenty minutes later, she had already forgotten about the confrontation, content to do the work she'd set herself with the company she had. Mentally, she had already left the town behind, and didn't much care anymore what problems she left behind.

A few hours later, they had accomplished everything they wanted to do. Lugging the carapace of a monstrous crab along a long stretch of uphill back to Megaton was an awkward job, even with the rough rope harness she'd fashioned for the two of them to drag it along. The mirelurk embryo, floating in a jar of grain alcohol, along with the water sample were tucked safely in her pack. The two of them were tired, dirty, and damp from the effort of wrestling the beast to shore, but they felt triumphant - or Amari did, anyway. Richard didn't seem to care one way or another about getting paid or the prospect of feasting on crab meat that night.

"Is there anything that would make you excited?" she grumbled to her companion. "Anything that would make you happy?"

He ignored her, as he always did when the questions were hypothetical or stupid, but a moment later he shocked her by speaking up without a prompt, a sharp tone in his voice that she'd never heard before, even in the supermarket.

"Alert. Something's wrong up there."

She froze, staring up at Megaton, only beginning to be visible a quarter-mile ahead, mostly obscured by the landmass. She could see nothing, hear nothing out of the ordinary. "What is it? How can you tell?" she whispered, straining her eyes and her ears, but sensing nothing.

"Sounds there shouldn't be - screaming, shooting. Smell of gunpowder." He set his end of their burden down and drew his rifle from its holster on his back. "We have to leave the animal here. Follow if you must, but stay low. Behind me." He was calm, but projected a sense of urgency that couldn't be ignored. He'd also just spoken more words than he had in an entire week of deflecting her interrogations; not only that, but he'd actually given her orders.

Rendered mute with astonishment, she bit back a series of irrelevant follow-up questions and obeyed his directions, gripping the pitiful weapon she'd taken to wielding - a claw-hammer the length of her forearm - and matching his stealthy tread step for step. She couldn't hear anything at all, actually - a chilly wind was blowing strongly in from the wide river behind them, and it deafened her hood-muffled ears with its howl. She had long known that all of Richard's senses were keener than her own, however, and she didn't doubt his warning.

Long weeks in the rough environment had led to some necessary repairs on her gear, with the result that the many patches and stains on her garb had given it a mottled look that lent itself well to camouflage against the gray-brown terrain. If she laid still, flat against the ground, she could almost disappear into the grass, rock, and dirt. The same could not be said of Richard. Though his movement was stealthy, he could not be ignored, his long, kevlar coat a deep, unnatural black that stood out starkly, especially in broad daylight. She had half a mind to order him to hunker down with her for an hour or more, waiting for whatever trouble lay ahead to pass. But if there were raiders in Megaton - and who else could it be? - then she knew they would need his help. She said nothing to dissuade him from his course.

Following Richard's lead, they took a clockwise route around town, approaching the gate from the relatively high ground on that side. Still hidden behind the ever-present rocks and debris, they spotted a line of eight men running in an orderly formation down from the gates, to destinations unknown. These were not raiders; Amari knew that at a glance, even at this distance. Raiders didn't have military haircuts, quality armor (dark, bulky, and uniform in appearance), or the discipline and self-restraint to move in a group without whooping and hollering. They were running away from them and hadn't spotted them in their cover, and Amari breathed a sigh of relief. Her relief vanished when she felt the man beside her stand up to aim his gun.

She put a futile hand to grab his pant cuff, trying to restrain him. "What are you… don't do it. Don't shoot-"

Ignoring her, he took the shot, dropping the trailing man at fifty yards. He shot again, and winged a second, someone who'd turned to look at his fallen comrade. His third shot appeared to miss, but the rapid fire had apparently spooked the survivors, and they sped up their steps rather than accept a shootout with a target or targets that they couldn't see.

He dropped back down into a crouch, watching them disappear over the horizon while Amari stared open-mouthed at him, impressed by the accuracy, but irritated that he'd risked their safety in an unnecessary attack. She held her tongue, however, and waited an extra minute before approaching the body cautiously. With an effort, she grabbed the man's armored shoulder and turned him over, wincing at what remained of his face, now little more than an splintery, gory exit wound.

"Do you know this symbol, Richard?" He shook his head, and she sighed, not sure what she had expected. Hand-drawn on the chestplate of the blood-speckled armor was the rough image of a white eagle. Or-... she frowned. She supposed it could be an eagle's claw instead of the bird itself. Perhaps it was intentionally ambiguous. It doesn't matter, she reminded herself. What matters is why they were here. What they did when they were in Megaton. Dread gripped the pit of her stomach. She was now even more afraid of what they'd find inside.

She reached inside the dead man's pockets, searching for a clue to his identity, or perhaps some caps. She found only a crumpled piece of paper, on which was scrawled a crude map and several short lines of text. All written with a familiar hand. Her breath caught in her throat, and her apprehension became that much more more tangible. No, she thought as she folded the paper carefully into a smaller square and tucked it safely into her pocket. I won't despair yet. To Richard, she said only, "Let's go see what the damage is inside. Stay wary."

Something poked her in the arm. It was the butt of a shiny pistol she couldn't identify. Richard was trying to hand her the gun that had been in the corpse's holster. "You need to carry this," he insisted. "Use it to protect yourself if something happens to me or we get mobbed. It's the logical thing to do."

She stood up and shook her head, eyes wide. "I can't do that."

A flicker of impatience skimmed over his features, then disappeared. "Yes, you can. Just hold it while we walk in. If there are any more of these men, point and pull the trigger. It's not that hard." She accepted the weight, holding it at arm's length as though it might bite her, and followed him up the hill to the gate.

Megaton was no longer secure against the outside world. It looked as though one of the attackers had landed a grenade at Deputy Weld's feet: the cowboy-hat clad robot lay silent and unmoving beside the warped metal sheeting of the gate, now caved inwards from the explosion. Still reeling over the the implications of what she'd read, Amari followed Richard's lead, letting the pistol he'd forced her to retrieve dangle from nerveless fingers as they crossed the shattered threshold.

"Amari… Rich… y'all made it. I was afraid that they might have bushwhacked the two of you goin' out this mornin'. You catch the end of that?" Sheriff Simms staggered up to meet them, holding his heavy revolver in his off hand, skin an unhealthy grayish color, faced beaded with perspiration. And no wonder. He'd been shot in his right arm, and the sleeve of his duster was dark with blood.

"Richard killed one as they ran away. Sheriff, there's something you need to know about those men-" She had to tell someone what she knew. Simms would know what to do. Could take action on it to prevent further harm.

"Not now, honey." He groaned and leaned against the wall of his own house, fighting to stay upright. "Doc could use an extra hand down there, plus whatever supplies Moira can spare. Lotta people hurt in the clinic down there. Lotta people dead. Thank God Hardin was inside for the whole thing… told him I'd tan his hide if he stuck his nose out again."

In a rare moment of authority, Amari took charge of the situation. "You need help, Sheriff. Let Richard take your place while you go get that arm seen to. I'll be down in a moment with Moira and our med-kit." Partially supporting his taller, heavier frame, she got him down the hill to the door of the clinic, though he kept stopping every few paces to look uneasily over his shoulder back at his post, only reluctantly relinquishing the guard to the other man.

Handing off the injured lawman to Manya at the door, horrified by the crowded conditions inside - how many people had been hurt? - Amari ran up the ramp to the Craterside Supply, mentally making a account of the things she needed to borrow. Moira won't mind the donation of a few stimpaks, she affirmed silently. I never saw her skimp on helping another person. Except for Richard, of course, but I'm sure there's a good reason for that.

She skidded to a stop outside of the shop, frozen in the act of pulling her outer gear off - she couldn't stitch people up while wearing heavy gloves and tinted goggles. The door was still locked - she jiggled the handle to be sure - but there was a hole the size of a man's head blasted through the wood at chest height, with extra buckshot peppering the perimeter. Chilled by a premonition, but without knowing why she was afraid, she turned her key in the lock. Although the edge of the door dragged slightly as it swung out - the attack had damaged it slightly in its frame - she got it open in the end, though by then she'd seen enough inside to wish she hadn't.

"Oh... not again. Not again." Nothing about the shop was disturbed - the cashbox was intact, the lights were on, Moira's tools and projects were scattered like chaff over every conceivable surface like they always were. But Moira herself had been on the other side of the door, and still held her own, unfired weapon; two inches of wood had stolen a lot of the force of the shot, but not enough.

Kneeling beside another dead friend - hadn't one been enough? - and checking for signs of life more out of habit than hope, she found what she expected. Again. Pulling the paper out to study it once more, Amari gripped the damning document with fierce resolve. Moriarty would pay for what he'd done. The town couldn't help but admit his crimes now. She'd personally see him brought to account for this, if it was the last thing she did.

Other things took precedence, though. The living victims needed care, and she did what she could, learning on the fly about bullet wounds, watching Church out of the corner of her eye for an example of what to do. Stockholm, the guard who'd been stationed above the gate during the attack, was the first to die on her, choking to death on internal bleeding from a lung-shot she couldn't figure out how to access for a stimpak treatment. Two more died before evening, Billy Creel and a middle-aged woman, a local farmer whose name she had never learned. The rest looked as if they would survive the night, and the majority were able to limp away to their homes.

When her usefulness was spent and she saw that Church had things in hand, she left the clinic and saw to Moira's grave, digging most of it herself, raising blisters on her soft hands with the rough-handled shovel before accepting Richard's offer of help to finish.

"She didn't even like you," she said to him with the first words she spoken in an hour, watching the dirt fly. "I'm sorry about that. I still don't know why. Don't know if I'll ever know. Do you?"

He didn't answer anything to this, but helped her lay the body, wrapped in an old quilt, in the cold dirt and began to cover it up.

"Hold on a second. There's some things I need to say first." She sat down on the edge of the grave, letting exhausted hands drop into her lap. They were dirty and bleeding - she'd forgotten to put her gloves back on - and they felt weak and useless in the face of the deaths she had failed to prevent this day.

"I'm sorry, Moira. Thank you for taking a chance on me, for saving my life. I'm sorry - I know this is partly my fault. I'm sorry I never made it to the library for you. I'll make sure he can't hurt anybody else again. I'll try to be the same sort of person you were, kind and helpful and curious. Only less erratic," she amended quickly. "I'll tell Deacon what happened when I see him again. Good bye."

They refilled the hole, and carried rocks over to weigh it down against the packs of dogs that would scavenge the dead. Cold, hungry, and thirsty, she sank down beside the mound and pulled out the paper again, and told Richard her plan.

He listened politely, then objected in a measured tone. "I think you should wait until tomorrow to move. You're exhausted, and the sheriff won't be good for much tonight either. We should do it in the morning. Catch him alone. An easy mark."

"You're just full of opinions today, aren't you? Where did this come from?" She pushed herself up, fumbling for the pistol - apparently a model called a Desert Eagle - that she'd jammed into her belt at some point. "Take this. It'll be better at short range than your rifle if it comes to that. And no. We're going tonight. Tomorrow might be too late - it'll give him time to consolidate his resources, spin a narrative, maybe finish off any witnesses." She jerked her head toward the gates. "He's up there right now, letting cheap drinks flow to soothe peoples' sorrow and establish himself as the sympathetic, powerful man in town. Let's go get Simms, and then we'll confront him in front of that crowd. That's the way we have to do this."

Lucy West came to the door when Amari knocked at Simms' place. It was clear from her eyes that she'd been crying. Billy Creel's little daughter, Maggie, and Hardin sat at the table, picking at their food, while the sheriff himself sat slumped, dejected at the other end.

Sparing Lucy only a sympathetic look, Amari called past her to the law-man. "Sheriff Simms, we need you to come with us now." Quickly, she laid out her plan a second time, getting a round of blank stares from the children and adults in the room.

Hardin broke in first, voice cracking as he shouted angrily, "My dad's hurt! He doesn't need to go anywhere with you."

"Hardin." The boy settled down at a single word from his father, but he still fixed his glare on Amari. "You got proof, girl?" His voice was slow and heavy, making her wonder just how much med-x Church had pumped into him.

"Yes." She handed him the document and waited while he looked it over, face darkening with anger despite its pallor.

He handed it back, hand shaking, either from fury or weakness. "Okay. You talk, we'll back you up with guns. We'll have one shot at this, understand? Hopefully, it won't end badly. If you've never felt angry before in your life, Amari, you need to be angry tonight. Angry, but in control."

She nodded. "Do you know of anybody we can ask for help?"

He shook his head. "As you can probably tell from that lil' piece of paper, my best men are the ones lyin' dead or laid up in the clinic. Nah, it's just us. We can only hope that there's enough of the scaredy-cat neutrals hanging out in the bar tonight to be a fair jury." Standing up, he ordered Lucy, "Keep the door barred, keep the kids in, Lucy. If I don't come back, th' three of you get the house."

"Let me come with you, dad." Hardin had jumped up and gotten his .22, eyes burning with eagerness. "One more gun can't hurt."

"No, son. No way in hell am I doin' that. Stay."

They took the long way around, following the outer edge of the wall - behind the water plant, behind the Craterside Supply, and then over the rickety catwalks to the saloon. Simms put his good left hand on her shoulder for a second, and rambled encouragement. "Alrighty, Amari. Be loud, okay? Really, really loud. Everybody needs to hear this. Remember what he did. Richard, you have two guns now? That's good. Don't just shoot 'im, though. We need to convince the people first. C'mon, gang."

Inside the bright, crowded room, Colin Moriarty was sprawled in the biggest chair in front of a roaring fire. He was in the middle of a toast when they walked in. "...and in memory of our oddest friend, let's raise a glass. This town won't see the likes of Moira Brown for a long time… we can hope, anyway!" He was grinning with hearty good humor, and the desire to crush that smile moved Amari to speak up boldly as he drained his glass.

"The jig's up, Moriarty. We know what you did." This came out like a corny line from an old holovid, but it got the attention of every person there and she raised the volume and continued before anybody else could say anything. "Colin Moriarty is responsible for bringing that gang of mercenaries to Megaton. He gave them a hitlist, told them how to get by security, and told them where to go once they were in. I have proof of this."

The saloon keeper greeted this accusation with derisive laughter. "Hear this! A bitter ex-employee and her stupid bodyguard, together with a sheriff that couldn't even keep us safe, are trying to pin this tragedy on me. She doesn't have evidence at all. She's clever. Educated. She could have written whatever 'proof' she needed." He'd straightened up in his chair, and exchanged his empty glass for a knife and an unfamiliar, thick-skinned fruit, which he peeled in front of them, slowly and deliberately.

"It's not fake," she said firmly, looking around the room at the range of faces looking on. She saw fear, disbelief, cynical disinterest, and drunken amusement. For a split-second, she caught Nova's eye from her place in the corner on some old man's lap, and saw nothing but blank horror there. "It's a page torn straight from the back of that little account book of his. The same one that has a ledger of every debt he's got on us. You all know the one I'm talking about."

Moriarty smiled in genial warmth, shaking his head. "That book went missin' a week ago, kiddo. Its loss has caused no end of confusion for me and my clients. But that doesn't mean I should get the noose for someone else's petty theft." He still held the room and he knew it. "You lot know who's a thief around here? Little miss butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth Amari Wilder. I sent her to collect a debt off poor, psycho-addled Silver, peaceful-like. Next thing we know, Silver's dead in a shallow grave and our resident vaultie's flush with cash. I say she's the thief. I wouldn't have said she was a murderer… but, you know, it's a possibility. Who knows who she really is? What she's capable of? What she and Crazy Moira were cooking up in that laboratory of hers? I say we hold her in the drunk tank until we have a chance to look over what happened today."

Amari heard the murmurs of the people around her, felt their eyes on her, and stumbled in her speech for the first time. "Not my name… and she was dead… she was already gone…" she stopped. "I can prove it. I can match the handwriting and the style of page between this document," here she held up her the paper, "and the contract I bought off of Mr. Moriarty months ago. Even an untrained eye will be able to see that they were written by the same hand on the same notebook paper. This is your chance, Megaton. You don't have to be under this man's thumb anymore. You can be free. He's guilty. He's obviously guilty!" She was breathing heavily now, and felt her hold over the room slipping away.

Confessor Cromwell, a lean and hungry look on his long face, sidled through the door behind her, reaching spidery fingers out for the note. "May I see this document, my child?"

She didn't think the Children of Atom owed Moriarty anything, and relinquished it reluctantly, watching him uneasily as he carried it over to the fire to read by its light. She gasped with horror when he crumpled it into a rough ball and threw it into the fire behind him.

"A childish forgery," he declared to an uneasy room, even as a blurry shadow brushed the sleeve of his descending arm. Because Richard was there, by the fire - when had he moved? - his hand in and out of the flames in an instant. He retreated to her side in between two heartbeats, a slightly charred note clutched in a sooty hand.

"Oh, God… your hand… how could you do-" she stopped in confusion. His hand looked unharmed, just dusty from the particulates. She reached out to touch the skin, forgetting about the note for the moment. His hand was hot, hot enough to burn, but it was undamaged.

"So…" Moriarty began, chuckling, but rising to his feet with an attentive, combative air. "Richard, is it? How much is she payin' you to follow her around? Whatever the amount, I'll give you triple your month's pay tonight if you hand me that wee piece of paper right now and walk out of here."

Richard paused, contemplating this offer behind that inscrutable face, and he nodded, walking over to the man, who was grinning and extending his left hand - the one not holding a knife - out for the prize. For a sickening moment, it looked as if he'd won. Amari didn't see what happened next - she didn't think anybody could have followed the man's movement - but before anybody could take another breath, Moriarty's knife was no longer in his hand, but through it, pinning it by the wrist to the table, and Richard had the pistol pressed to the older man's head, keeping him down in his chair with the other arm. The ball of paper had dropped safely to the table, and Amari darted forward to pick it up before the spreading pool of blood could damage it more than the flames had.

"Right," she said, trying to talk over the stricken man's groans. "Add Confessor Cromwell to your mental list of people who don't have this town's best interests at heart. Moriarty, will you accept the civilized process of law, or would you prefer… shall we say… 'frontier justice'? Because Richard here's just been deputized, and he's more than willing to carry that out here and now." She wasn't sure if the wounded man was capable of articulate speech right now, but if looks could kill, she'd be dead on the spot. She made the decision for him. "I'm going to read this out loud now and remind you all of the people we saw killed and maimed today, and you can decide for yourself if this was a hit job or not."

She spread out the fragile paper on the table, memory filling in the gaps left by the burned spots. "'Lucas Simms, sheriff. Front and center. Stupid hat.' For all you people in the back, there's a little picture of our lovely town here, with arrows pointing out Moriarty's biggest obstacles in life. 'Moira Brown, chirpy broad, lives in the shop shaped like a bomb.'" She swallowed the rage that threatened to bubble up and continued. "'Billy Creel, got one good eye, lives with a noisy brat. Kill 'em both.'" She raised an eyebrow in disgust, "That's pretty spiteful, even for you, Colin. Lucky thing Maggie was over at a friend's house. Is there any depth too low for you?"

"You can't prove it." Moriarty's reply was a strained whisper through gritted teeth. "It's nothing but slander from a dead bitch and her cronies."

"I'm not the one with a gun on my-" Even as she spoke, he moved for his own gun with his free arm. She couldn't later understand what he'd been thinking. Sure, he was fast, but Richard had already proved his inhuman superiority in that regard. It had probably been shock clouding his thinking. In any case, he never got hold of his secondary weapon. In a moment, his left arm was no longer attached his body - there was only a spurting stump, an uneven pairing to the arm still pinned to the table, which was itself going a bit blueish at the fingernails. The detached limb, ragged at the shoulder joint, dropped from Richard's grip as he stepped back, eyes on a wary swivel around the room, gun at the ready. Amari gulped at the sight, trying not to think about the force that it would have taken to do what Richard had just done without effort, and forced herself to continue this farce of a argument for appearance's sake.

"You got a few minutes left before you bleed to death, Moriarty. Church is busy across town with your hired thugs' handiwork and I don't know that I'm skilled or motivated enough to even try to keep you alive. Why don't you come clean? Admit that you hired those eagle mercenaries? Confession is good for the soul, you know."

"It's Talon, you stupid girl," he gasped, trying futilely to lift his remaining hand off the table. "And they'll get you in the end too. Save me, and I'll call them off." Her fingers, still filthy from the dirt of Moira's grave, twitched at the sight of all those torn vessels, and for a second, she considered - she could clamp those, maybe tie off the whole mass… - but no. She wasn't interested in making the attempt, not even for the practice. She'd happily watch him die.

"No, thanks," she told him. "Are we all satisfied?" She swept the room with her gaze, silently checking with people individually before moving on. "Does anybody doubt that this dying man is getting what he deserves?" She gestured around the room. "This is your town, people. It's not one man's job to police all of it. Each of you has a responsibility to keep people like this from buying up too much power. Take the room, Simms. You all need to talk about this now."

Moriarty was unconscious in about a minute, and probably dead in less than ten. Amari ignored him and stepped into the shadows near the entrance while a representative slice of Megaton's citizens murmured plans for the future in stunned, fretful voices. She checked Richard's hand again, marveling at the lack of damage. "Why weren't you wearing your gloves today?" she asked. "Why isn't your hand burned?" He shrugged at both of these questions and she gave up on the interrogation. "Thank you for your help, Richard."

After watching the deliberations for an hour, Amari decided that the crisis had officially passed when Gob quietly started selling drinks again. Everybody studiously avoided the side of the room with a body in it, but otherwise they seemed to have moved on. Shaking her head over the absurd, violent world she found herself in, she led Richard back down the ramps to the general store. Sidestepping around the sticky pool of blood, she barred the door behind them, and, with Richard's help, added a heavy chest of drawers as an extra barrier against unwelcome visitors. There was no sense in taking risks. Spent from grief and exhaustion, she pointed her companion to Moira's bed and fell onto her own mattress without a backwards look. Tomorrow, she could make sense of her circumstances and move forward. For tonight, though, she was done.

A knock at the door - late in the morning - woke her up from muddled, troubling dreams. Mostly of her father, she thought. Padding downstairs, she peered through the peephole before asking Richard to move the dresser and undoing both locks herself. The sheriff's star gleamed back at her as she opened the door to Lucas Simms. Standing back, trying not to step on Moira's blood, she let him inside.

"How's the arm?" she asked dully, still half-asleep. She wanted to eat and drink something, then go back to bed for about a week.

"Hurts, but I'll live." He refused to meet her eyes, and gestured for her to follow him across the room, leaving the other man standing by the door. Leaning toward her, he spoke in a whisper, "I'm here on behalf of the surviving members of the council. We're here about… Richard. He can't stay in Megaton. You're more than welcome if you want to stay on and run this place, but he has to go."

"He didn't hurt anybody but our enemy last night," she responded with weary resentment. "You lot put up with Moriarty for decades, and now you want to punish the guy who rid you of him?"

"It's not what he did, but how he did it. The way he pulled Moriarty apart… it's in people's heads now. They're afraid of him, threatening a mob to kill him or drive him out. I got them to agree to giving him until tomorrow morning, as long as he stays in here."

"He can hear every word you say, you know," she muttered reproachfully. "He has very good ears."

Simms shot the man a scared, shameful glance, before saying in a normal tone, "Yes… well… it's nothing personal. Not my decision. I appreciate your assistance, Richard, but the others are afraid."

Amari almost choked on the unfairness of this, but decided not to fight for it. She'd had enough of Megaton and its rotten core. She nodded. "We'll leave. Both of us."

Simms was openly relieved, and it disgusted her to see his cravenness displayed openly before her. His tone became almost jolly when she didn't put up a fuss. "Knew you didn't want to stay forever anyway. Take the cash, and whatever supplies you feel like carrying away - the store and its remaining inventory will revert back to the town. All of this has left a big hole to fill, but we'll survive in the end. Thanks to the two of you."

And that was how it came about that, thirty-six hours after triumphing over her worst enemy, Amari found herself back where she started: homeless and grieving, wearing a two-hundred-year-old Pip-Boy on her left arm, and setting out with the vague intention of finding James Wilder and telling him that his daughter was dead. At least she wasn't alone this time, though. Together, she and the man known as Richard had carried away plenty of clean food and water, and ammunition for both of his guns, along with about two hundred caps. She left behind a settlement that, like every other community in the wasteland, could never be any braver or nobler than its average citizen; hoping for something better than what she'd left behind in the vault, she'd found it terribly disappointing at the end. And so her initiation into the wasteland was complete.