Yeah so um one of my worries is that this doesn't make cohesive sense. Is it all right?
The first thing he felt was this strange feeling of warmth. Then, of course, the nausea and dizziness kicked in.
Owen coughed up what felt like a solid pound of soot before opening his eyes. Thinking was hard. Where was he? Had something happened on the farm?
Memories came rushing back and he groaned. Gunners. Missile launcher. B8-67.
Suddenly a face appeared over him. It was Hazel. She was frowning and seemed concerned about him, which replaced some of the nausea in his stomach with the warm feeling from before. Soot made a long, dark mark across her left cheek.
She also seemed to be saying something. Owen strained his ears, which seemed to be ringing a little.
"…not supposed to protect me, you idiot!" Okay, now she seemed mad at him. "You absolute moron!"
"When it comes to you," Owen muttered. "Always."
She froze.
Had he just said that out loud?
Owen groaned again and sat up. His head was killing him. "Ugh…where are we?"
Hazel handed him something. It was a Nuka-Cola.
"Drink this," she said. "It'll help you feel better."
He popped the cap off and took a sip. Still tasted pretty decent, for something at least two and a third of a century old.
"You have a concussion," Hazel continued. "I already used a stimpak on the wound on your head, but it can't help with that. You've also got a nasty bruise on your back and a couple scrapes."
"Where are we?" Owen repeated, holding his head in one hand and the soda in the other. "Last thing I remember is the building collapsing."
Hazel crossed her arms. They were both sitting on the floor of what looked like a small apartment. Moonlight filtered into the room from the doorway, where broken boards sat. The place was a mess. They were sitting on the floor because all of the furniture looked like it had been chewed through by the dead mole rats in the corner of the room.
"We're in an abandoned building a couple streets away from Hubris Comics," Hazel told him. "I dragged you here after you were knocked out. Had to kick the door in and kill a few pests, but it was better than dealing with those Gunners."
His headache was fading slowly. "What about B8—uh, I mean Bryan? Where's he?"
She shook her head. "I couldn't find him in the wreckage. There's no way he could have survived."
Owen rubbed the back of his head, where the sore spot was. "I'm sorry. I know that you were friends."
Hazel sighed. "Not really. Deacon and I saved him from a gang of Raiders before Deacon disappeared. I try to keep in contact with all the synths I help, but he just didn't want to be contacted." She hesitated. "Thank you."
A memory suddenly slapped him in the face, and he immediately tried to stand. He fell back onto the ground when a bout of dizziness overwhelmed him.
"Don't strain yourself," Hazel told him, pushing him back into a sitting position. "You took quite the beating from that building." She noticed his expression and her brow furrowed. "What is it?"
"It was the Commander," Owen growled. "The one from the farm. He blew up the store." He cursed.
"The one in power armor?" she asked, frowning. She got up and started to pace, obviously thinking hard. "Clearly the attacks on the three safe houses were just a distraction," she started. "So that they could go after B8-67. But why, if they already knew about this second facility?"
Owen tried to focus on what she was saying so that the acid of his anger wouldn't eat him alive. "Well, Bryan was about to tell us what synth knew where the second facility was, wasn't he? The Gunners must not have known that. How did they find out what he knew?"
Hazel suddenly froze. "Donor told me that there had been a call for me. It could have been common knowledge in the Railroad for who knows how long."
"So?" Owen asked.
She turned to look at him, looking tremendously worried. "The Gunners found out where four of our safe houses were. How?"
"Maybe they found a couple dead drops?" he suggested, not liking where she was going with this.
She shook her head. "No. Dead drops are hard to find even for people who know the location they're in." Hazel visibly swallowed. "No, the Railroad has a mole. Somebody is telling them exactly where to find our safehouses. And Bryan."
Owen muttered another curse. "We need to get back to HQ."
"Agreed." She hesitated for a moment. "But there are still Gunners in the area. Searching for bodies. I think that they assumed we were thrown from the wreckage." She looked at him. "How do you wanna play this?"
He frowned at her. "Why are you asking me?"
Hazel crossed her legs on the floor so that she was sitting right across from him. "These Gunners keep throwing us for a loop, but they pissed you off first. The way I see it, you deserve a chance to kick their asses first."
Owen's frown deepened. Why was she offering him this chance at revenge? Why not just help sneak him out of there so that they could regroup at the Railroad's HQ?
But when he looked in her eyes—trying not to think about how nice the green looked—he saw something else. It was a dark look. Not exactly hatred, at least, not for the Gunners, but something that understood his compulsion for revenge. What exactly had happened to her?
Owen thought about their options. On the one hand, they could hunt down all the Gunners in the area and then get to HQ, and he would be lying if he said that a large part of him wasn't itching to do just that. But the issue was if they attempted to do that, they could very well be killed trying. Owen was fine with his death, as long as he took the Commander with him. But he couldn't allow Hazel to suffer the same fate.
"We take out only as many as it takes for us to get away," Owen said slowly. "We have to tell your father about what we learned." He didn't tell her about his main motivation for refraining from revenge. It wouldn't have mattered.
Hazel was doing that thing where she watched him carefully again. She seemed to be analyzing him. Finally, she nodded. Had he passed some kind of test?
"All right," she said. "We try to run for it, then. Can you stand?"
"I think so."
Owen attempted to struggle to his feet, but he stumbled a little bit. His body ached. After a moment, Hazel caught him, placing one hand on his chest and the other on his ribs. She still smelled like Nuka-Cola, even after the explosion. After a moment, she let go of him.
"Urm…" Owen said, swallowing. "Thanks."
"No problem," she replied.
She cocked Deliverer and made sure that her Railroad Rifle was on her back. Owen did the same with his weapons. She let him go first, and he took a hesitant step, found minimal dizziness, and stepped outside their hiding place.
The cold of the Commonwealth hit him almost immediately. That, and the sound of someone walking nearby.
More out of instinct than anything, Owen crouched down, sticking to the shadows, making sure that his laser pistol was loaded. A moment later, Hazel joined him. Another moment after that, the Gunners came around the corner.
There were five of them, all of them armed with laser rifles. Owen noticed that all of the rifles had modifications that were not standard. A few of them had sniper barrels, which increased damage and range. He didn't want to be shot with one of those. They marched around the corner, their faces all covered by bandanas. They caught sight of the busted-in door on the old apartment and approached carefully, weapons drawn.
Owen and Hazel struck quickly. Before the Gunners could catch sight of them, they both took their pistols and took out four of the enemies before they realized what happened. The fifth and final Gunner opened his mouth to yell for help, but Owen and Hazel both fired on him at the same time. It was unclear which shot took him out.
"That was close," Owen muttered.
"Yeah," Hazel agreed, reloading her gun. "Come on, we've got a ways to go."
Together, they snuck off into the darkness.
x x x
They didn't encounter any more Gunners on their way back to HQ, although they came close more than once. Owen's trigger finger itched to put energy blasts in all of them, but he restrained himself with great difficulty.
When they reached the back entrance to the church, they had to sneak past a few Raiders. Once they got inside, things seemed to have calmed down a bit. There weren't nearly as many people milling about, but the occasional runner here and then still nearly ran them over.
"Where's Whisper?" Hazel asked a Railroad agent running past. The agent pointed at the infirmary.
Hazel and Owen shared a concerned look, though Hazel's face had drained of all color and looked tremendously worried.
When they entered the infirmary, they both gave a sigh of relief at nearly the same time. Whisper—should Owen refer to him by his codename?—was fine, but he was sitting at someone's bedside. All the other beds in the room were filled.
Owen was surprised to find that Donor was lying in the bed, a bandage around his head. He felt neither satisfaction nor worry. Just confusion. Donor hadn't struck him as the type of Railroad agent to go out and fight in the field.
"Dad!" Hazel said, walking up to the bedside. "What happened?"
"The Gunners," her father replied, anger burning in his brown eyes. "We had to send out everyone we had to defend the safehouses. Mercer and Dayton safehouse are fine, but we have yet to hear back from Montague. Donor here was injured in the battle for Mercer safehouse."
"I'm fine," Donor insisted. "I can still—"
"Sit down," Whisper said firmly. He turned to Hazel and Owen. "How did the op for B8-67 go?"
Owen and Hazel shared another look.
"Not well," Hazel said.
When they finished with the story of what Bryan had told them and the attack by the Gunners, Whisper muttered a string of curses that made Owen's ears go red.
"A second facility," he said, shaking his head. "It's the Institute all over again."
Donor attempted to stand, but Whisper pushed him back down again.
"We need to investigate this immediately," Donor said.
"Agreed," Whisper said. He turned to Owen. "Do you remember anything else that could help us? Anything at all? We can't allow the Gunners to get their hands on the technology there."
Owen thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Sorry, uh…sir. I can't remember anything else." Why ask him and not Hazel?
Whisper sighed. "It's all right, kid. Get some rest."
Owen bristled slightly at being referred to as "kid," but he did as he was told. His head was still aching, and he was still injured from the farm, though he almost didn't feel those anymore. He'd forgotten to change his bandages, too.
"Does something feel off to you?" Hazel asked Owen as they left the infirmary.
"Like what?" Owen replied.
She frowned. "I don't know. I just can't help but think we got away from those Gunners too easily."
He thought about that for a moment. "Why would they blow us up and then let us escape? It makes no sense."
She did that strange thing were her eyes went distant, and he could tell that she was thinking hard about it. "Why…"
Owen tried to remember anything odd about their escape for her sake. They'd taken out the Gunners and snuck past the rest. Although, there had been a moment or two when he thought for sure that they'd been seen. Odd? Yes. Suspicious? Maybe. Why would Owen and Hazel be allowed to escape?
Hazel suddenly gripped Owen's arm so tight that he thought for sure it was going to lose circulation and fall to the ground right then.
"Owen," she breathed. "What if they let us go so that they could follow us back here?"
Two ideas flashed through Owen's head. Either the idea was redundant because there was a mole who would have told them that, or there was never a mole in the first place.
BOOM!
Dust rained from the brick ceiling as the entire basement shook. Hazel and Owen staggered into a wall. Several other agents fell to the ground. Somebody screamed.
Whisper ran out of the infirmary, skidding as he came to a stop.
"How did they find us?" he asked of no one in particular.
He turned to the frozen Railroad agents.
"Prepare the defenses!" he bellowed. Then:
"The Railroad is under attack."
Yes, yes, I know the Railroad has been attacked before. Once again, it is important to the overall plot. Remember: in two chapters, you get the SS's POV!
Thanks for the reviews, guys. I really do appreciate them.
