Few liberties with building interiors taken for narrative's sake, if you noticed. :) I won't be doing this with in-game geography though, so no Rivet City next to the Sat-Com arrays, or anything. Thanks for the new review and the watch!


Cort munched on a Dandy Boy apple as she wandered down the hill, poking at her Pip-Boy's buttons. She was't overly worried about this little mission; it was nice and bright out, she was within running distance to Megaton, and she'd already managed to deal with situations involving people trying to kill her and getting irradated. Reminded of that, she twirled a dial. "Oh that's not too bad, only a small amount of Rads." she mouthed out around a chunk of apple. "I should be fine for a few more meals before I need more Rad-Away." Cort wiped drool off the corner of her mouth and started biting the core apart, spitting the seeds off to the side. "Go get lucky and grow, seeds. This place is depressing with a capital suck."

Coming up to the right was a torn apart Red Rocket fuel station and the start of the old pavement, which led away into wrecked cars, houses and other assorted buildings. Cort fiddled with her map screen, humming to herself. "So this is Springvale. I think the spring has sprung right out. Put a feather in his cap..." Cort stopped singing once it sunk in that that and her humming had been along with something and not a spontaneous act. She jumped back against one of the giant novelty rocket's struts and looked around wildly, her eyes finally latching onto a...a...well she wasn't sure what. It looked like a cross between a satellite and a flying toaster. Whatever it was, it seemed to be ignoring her, or making such a cursory examination as to appear indifferent. It was also pumping out a tinny rendition of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Cort wasn't even sure how the thing was staying up. It has to be some kind of tiny thruster sets hidden inside, or who knows what. I'd love to take that thing apart. I wouldn't love to find out how powerful the little gun on the bottom is, however. Filing the impulse away for a later date, possibly after she found out who owned the thing and how annoyed they would be at an impromptu dissection of it, Cort directed her attention back to the wrecked houses and debris around her and started scavenging.


Two hours later Cort was soaked to the skin, hot, and feeling slightly accomplished. She had found more food, an instructional fighting magazine, plates and glasses, and some bobby pins which she knew were far more valuable than for just being used in her hair (Butch had taught her how to jimmy open the liquor cabinet behind the kitchen in exchange for a peek at her physical anatomy book, which had gone well for him until reaching the blown apart diagrams of the family jewels). Her big coup was a small pile of frag grenades found stuffed in a mailbox. Thank God my Pip-Boy can identify things for me or I'd probably be splattered around the landscape by now. She started checking everywhere after that, finding bits of random junk, paper and Vault-Tec letters. Officer Gomez's ancestors made it in, if it was the same Gomez family. Others didn't. Cort went to the last house waiting to be searched to distract herself from thinking about the final letter and the skeletons she had found. She was thoroughly distracted by the frying pan aimed for her head after slipping in the door.

"Heyheyheyhey!" Cort yelped, ducked and rolled. " What IS it with people hacking me in the head today?" She fetched up against the far wall and aimed her pistol at the blonde that had just tried to take an ear off.

"Who the hell are you? Did Moriarty send you?" Seeing as the blonde had a piece of cookware to her bullets, Cort figured there was no harm in being honest, and preferred it anyway.

"Yes, he did, if you're Silver. He blackmailed me into coming after you, specifically caps you took, to find out where my father's gone. Real charming guy, isn't he?"

The other woman lowered her frying pan. Cort lowered her gun. "Yeah I'm Silver, and yeah he is. He's also a fucking liar. I earned those caps doing...stuff for guys. I told him I wanted my cut and to get out of it. I don't want to end up strung out like Nova, and I'm very tired of being around Moriarty's period. I even slept with that bastard to seal the deal. Next morning, he tells me I can't go and I haven't earned anything. I grabbed my shit, including my caps, and bolted the fuck out of there." Silver leaned against the wall and stared at Cort defeatedly. "So what now?"

Cort put her elbows on her knees and flicked her thumb over the pistol's sight, thinking. There was no way she was going to kill this woman, not for getting bent over(literally) by the same man screwing her(figuratively). Oh, Jeez, never anything but figuratively. Evereverever. She came to a decision. "Well, he said to get them back however I wanted. I still need to bring caps back to find out what happened to my Dad. How about you give me some of whatever you took, and I tell him I killed you, and that's all that you had? I don't think he'll care enough to check once he gets his money back, and you won't have to worry about anyone looking for you wherever you go next."

Silver stared at her like she had two heads. "You'd do that for me? Hell girl, you've got a deal." Silver dug around in the back of an old cabinet and chucked a bag at her. "Here, and good luck finding your old man." Cort caught it and stood up, heading for the door she came in.

"No problems. Good luck, Silver."


Cort was ecstatic. She'd ducked into the lee of a remaining house wall and counted out the caps Silver had given her; either she'd taken a lot more than Moriarty knew of, or she'd had a stash and decided to hedge her bets and give Cort extra, either way she could now set up more supplies for herself. Three hundred caps went back into the bag when she was finished, and then firmly down at the bottom of her rucksack. "I'll have to count the hundred out at my house so that jerk doesn't figure out she gave me more." She looked around while securing the ties on her bag. There was one more building here she hadn't been through that looked promising, an elementary school. The rest of the town had been quiet except for Silver and the flying ball, so she decided to investigate it while she still had daylight. "Maybe I'll find some books. Maybe even a cafeteria, with more food! At the very least, more exercise." Hoisting her sack over tired arms, Cort trotted down the hill in search of lunch.


This was possibly the worst position Cort had ever found herself in. Inside of five minutes she had gone from searching for lunch to being searched for as lunch. She had forgotten about her refractory period again, and didn't notice anything wrong immediately after slipping in the door. That struck her after stepping into the room far enough for her to get a whiff of air away from the door. Being a doctor's daughter had a lot of advantages; recognizing the smell of blood and tissue was one of them. Oh no. That's not good. That's not good at all. She blinked rapidly, almost strobing what she could see. Faint voices came from above her, and she made out a stairwell. Drawing her pistol, she skittered to the left down a hallway. Whoever was in here was either responsible for it, or cleaning up. She had no desire to meet the former, and the latter could do without her help.

"Hey, fresh meat!" Cort whipped around towards the voice. "Here kitty kitty, hahahaaaa.." Whoever he was, he stank, and the knife he had shone enough for her to see. She aimed for the blotch of darkness moving towards her and fired until the hammer clicked dry, and he slumped to the ground.

"Oh holy shit! Raiders, Moira talked about Rai-" she slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Hey who's down there? Ratbag, who you shooting at?" The voices upstairs were closer. Cort tore down the hall and through another open door. Her eyes were finally adjusting, which meant she could see details a little better. Unfortunately, what she could see better was a larder of massive piles of human body parts, complete with sides of somebody on meat hooks. Spinning in a circle and listening to footsteps coming closer and starting to jog, Cort did the only thing she could think of and dug into the back of the largest pile, dragging gore in behind her.

"What the fuuuuck, someone shot Ratbag." This was a woman's voice. Cort gripped harder on her empty pistol and made an effort to breathe through her mouth. It was quieter and thankfully her tongue couldn't smell. It could however taste what ran down from her cheek. She was in hell.

"Well no shit Starla, he ain't sleeping. OW, what was that for?" Male voice.

"For being a smart-mouthed jackoff, that's what. Take Hooks and go get the others lookin' around. Whatever dickhole wasted Rats might be still in here, and their dick is going in my pie-hole when we catch em. Raw or cooked." A giggle. Cort was in all nine levels of hell. She listened to them stomp off in different directions.

Afterward, Cort wasn't sure how much time had passed. Once or twice someone had walked very close to her hiding pile, jabbing things under the counters and smashing the fridge in the room open. During the second ordeal, she'd needed to cough badly and had settled for sucking fluid out of a hunk next to her face, not daring to risk making a noise. If there had been anything left in her gun she would have eaten it then. When she hadn't heard anything after slowly counting to a thousand, she very carefully reached down and flicked her Pip-Boy on after dimming the light setting. Shunting to the biological detector, she peered at the screen. She'd been too stupid to turn it on before leaving Megaton, and too scared shitless after coming into this godforsaken school. There wasn't anything moving near her, at least nothing alive.

Quickly and quietly she shucked out of her blood-soaked cocoon like a butterfly from some diseased nightmare, then slid down the hall towards the door. Cort paused at the threshold of the main room and focused again on her Pip-Boy. Seeing nothing on it she made it to the door, checked to see if there was anything outside before slinking through it, then ran into the gathering dusk still clutching her empty pistol.