Calli spent the next day going around the shops and trading post getting acquainted. She managed to find a strong pair of leather boots that fit her tiny feet and a craftsman that agreed to alter her leather armor for a fair fee. He promised to have it to her in a day. She would drop it off when they went to meet Jack's parents.
Jack's family was polite but wary of the little scavenger. She was wearing a nice dress but the effect might have been a little mitigated by the sidearm and the calf knife she wore. She had politely offered to surrender her weapons at the door but they had allowed her to keep them. They just didn't know yet if they could trust this armed, and obviously dangerous, woman.
He had only the one sister, who was married to a fisherman, and a brother who was out of town. The brother-in-law seemed more inclined to take warmly to her but that sure didn't help Lisa to like her any better. Calli was glad when the awkward evening drew to a close and they could return to the Tradewind.
"That went well, don't you think?", Jack asked hopefully. Calli snorted.
"It doesn't matter anyway", he said quietly. "I'm still asking you to marry me. You will, you know. I'll keep asking until you do." Calli didn't answer as she strode along beside him. The warm evening dusk was settling about them. It was so quiet and peaceful. The song of insects could easily lull one into feeling safe. Calli stayed on alert. She rarely felt safe in this savage world.
Jack stirred awake and watched Calli perform her morning ritual of watching the sunrise through the window. She turned as he slid from the bed and came to stand beside her.
"I think I'll go do some exploring today. Do you have any suggestions?" Jack didn't bother to object.
"You could try heading northwest into the mountains. I think there might be some tribes up there. No one goes that way much. There are old stories about a vault somewhere around but no one seems to know where it's at. We looked for it when we were kids. I'm not sure if they're true or not."
"Okay. Have you decided when we'll sail?", she asked.
"We should be ready to leave in four days. We're behind schedule now. I've tried to speed things up to catch up some.", he replied.
"Four days. Okay, I'll be back by then. I don't want to hold us up." She turned to pull on some loose seaman's garb. She still had to do something about her wardrobe, she thought with a sigh.
Calli strapped on her weapons and took up her pack. She felt a little strange without her armor but she tried not to rely on its protection anyway. This new body felt lighter, stronger, more agile. She was anxious to try out its capabilities. The boots were good and fit well, which was most important. She smiled back at Jack and headed off up the broken road leading northwest.
Lisa came looking for Jack around noon to see if he wanted to come to her house for lunch. It was actually the house Jack had bought for his wife but they never referred to his previous marriage. He had been devastated when she had died in childbirth and the child with her. He hadn't told Calli that was why he had been secretly relieved she couldn't have children.
"Is Calli around?", Lisa asked. "I thought you might like to have lunch with me. Gerald's out on the water."
"Calli's gone exploring. She won't be back until we sail.", Jack said, looking up from his books.
"She's very different, isn't she Jack?", Lisa asked hesitantly.
Jack considered his sister thoughtfully. "Listen, Lisa,", he said intently . "I'm not blind to what Calli is. I know more about her than you ever will. I've seen her climb a rope and toss a grenade in a crow's nest, and I've seen her take bullets out of a man's gut and repair the damage. She wields a rifle and a scalpel with equal precision. I've seen her take out half a dozen pirates without even thinking about it and then cry because she thought an 11 year old boy might be too damaged to be allowed to live."
He ran his hand through his hair agitatedly. "That woman walked into a room filled with lethal radiation, the same room where she watched her Dad die, and activated the machine that cleaned the waters of rads. She fully expected to die there, to give her life for the wasteland. You know what Hawk told me she said? 'Tell Jack I'm sorry.' That's all, just tell me she's sorry. I watched her change into something different and didn't know what was going to happen to her, or even if she'd live.
She's given everything to this world. So, yes, she's very different. I don't expect you'll ever understand her. Hell, I don't expect I'll ever understand her. But understand this. I don't care what you, or Mom, or anyone thinks, I love her and I'm going to marry her, so don't bother trying to change my mind. There's never been anyone like her and maybe there never will be again. She's mine and I'll not give her up for anything. You don't have to like her but you have to respect what she is."
Lisa's face paled and tightened. "I'm sorry, I didn't know.", she said, going over to touch her brother's arm. He put his head in his hands.
"You don't know what it was like, Lisa. I didn't know what she did until I got back to the Island. They told me she was in the Citadel in a coma. I wanted to go to her, but there wasn't anything I could do and I had responsibilities, to the crew, the business. It took 3 days to get there. I had to take care of business, talk to people, make trades like everything was all right. Each night I wondered if I would ever get to hold her again. When I finally got there, she didn't even want to see me! Hawk told me what she had done and explained about the GECK radiation. He didn't know how much it was going to affect her. I wanted to help her but I didn't know how to get her to see me."
Lisa patted his arm. She had always been close to her big brother but it seemed she had lost that to a wild, strange wasteland scavenger.
"I'm sorry, Jack,", she said softly. "But she seems to be with you now. Everything worked out, didn't it?" Jack rubbed his face and looked up.
"Sure,", he said with a crooked grin. "I guess it did." Lisa didn't know what to say, so she changed the subject instead.
"You seem to have bulked up, brother. You been working out?", she asked. Jack relaxed.
"You have no idea, sis.", he said.
Calli left the road shortly to cut into the mountains. It had been her experience roads were much more dangerous as predators of all kinds had learned that's where humans liked to tread. Not this human. If she was still human, she thought sourly. But the day was warm and bright and promised to be hot. She was glad she wasn't wearing the hot wasteland armor.
A slight noise or vibration caught her attention and she stilled alertly. Something was in the jumble of forest ahead to her left, and it was big enough to cause concern. She slid silently forward, moving cautiously, a part of the landscape. Combat rifle at the ready, she crouched and parted the foliage to peer into the glade.
A large creature was snorting and rooting in the glade. She had never seen the like before but from her studies decided it was probably a descendant of the wild pigs that had once inhabited this area. This creature was much more formidable, probably altered by FEV experimentation. Calli never ceased to wonder at the stupidity of the men that had created these things.
It was the size of a small car, with large, sharp tusks and beady, feral eyes. Its cloven hoofs left sharp imprints in the glade, indicating they were hard and sharp as well. A pair of long horns sprouted from the top of the skull, and a row of sharp points ran down the back, ending at the stubby tail. It was lean and muscular and vicious looking. Calli was sure it was extremely fast and agile, not something she would choose to tangle with. She slowly let the foliage close and crept backwards. Hopefully it wouldn't even know she had been there.
She wondered how many of these things were in this place. There was much more foliage here than in the wasteland, making this a strange environment for her. She was going to have to be exceptionally careful. The land was alive with sounds strange to her but most of them seemed to be the low hum of insects or calls of birds. The birds intrigued her. There was more variety here than those that inhabited the wasteland.
Calli had been travelling steadily northwest for several hours. She had examined several ruins but found little of interest. This area was pretty much scavenged out. The mountains looming ahead of her might hold something more worthwhile. By the time she reached the mountains it was early evening and she would have to start thinking about the night. She took out her field glasses and swept the mountains.
The foliage grew less as her gaze swept up the rocky surface. A glimpse of an object, out of place among the boulders, caught her attention. She focused in. It was just the edge of a timber. It could be the ruins of a building. Calli pulled up her map on her Pip-boy and set the location so she could find her way through the foliage. She noticed her radiation was on the low side but her health signs read optimal. She set off for the ruins.