They hit the Bed and Breakfast gang two or three months after the strike against Fordham Flash. Murphy had been warned again; this time he did not go up to watch the battle, but buried himself down in North Seneca Station, trying to read and forget about what was happening up above. It didn't work all that well. With every blast that shook the station, Murphy cringed, fearing that Bright had been caught in it and blown up. He was a doctor, he knew all too well what explosives could do to flesh and bone. And when at last the sounds of gunfire died away, and the blasts stopped coming, the silence that followed felt like the silence of a tomb.
He continued to fear until she returned to him a week later, in fine spirits; his heart leapt at the now-familiar crash of the door as she kicked it open. "Ghoulie!" she called cheerfully. As he came out from the back room, Bright caught him in an embrace and swung him around, hard enough that he reeled and almost fell. "Hey, ghoulie, how's it goin?" she asked, smiling.
Murphy disentangled himself, catching himself on the small table. The tension that had lain over him for the past week or so had broken; his relief was too strong for him to suppress. "Your operation was a success?" he asked, regaining his balance and straightening his clothing.
"Yep," Bright replied, dropping herself into a chair. "Loot for ya, ghoulie. Caps this time. Even some chems." She grinned. "I'm really happy, so I'm givin you lotsa good stuff. There's two toy cars and a Giddyup Buttercup in there, too," she said, gesturing to the bag with a grin. "That Giddyup Buttercup is real special-the only one our scavvers have ever found. Nuka wasn't too happy when I took it away from her, but she ain't complainin now." Her grin grew vicious. "Now it's yours, ghoulie."
Murphy took a seat, glancing at the bag. "So you won, then?"
"Yeah," she said again. "Kicked them Bed and Breakfast gang's asses, just like we did the Fordham Flash assholes earlier. This time Chains had us doin something new that we never tried before," she added parenthetically. "It was somethin he learned from Boney—he calls it drill."
"Drill?" Murphy asked, pulling the burlap sack toward him.
"Yeah. We spent, like, all last month workin on it. Basically he had us all line up in these fuckin squares and go places when he said to. Also he told us not to shoot our weapons 'cept on his command. 'Ready—Aim—Fire!'" she cried in a creditable imitation of a drill sergeant's voice. Murphy flinched. "Lotsa people weren't happy about it," she continued. "After all, the whole point of bein a Raider is that you don't take no orders off no one. But Chains kept sayin how this was gonna help us. He told everyone, 'Boney had drills, so we're gonna have drills.' And he did, he got two of 'em, and when people didn't pay enough attention in his drills, he drilled 'em in the fuckin skull. He did at least five already." Bright gave that nasty, vicious laugh again. Murphy repressed a shudder, caught between horror and fascination.
"And you used these squares against the Bed and Breakfast gang?" he dared to ask.
"Oh yeah. The drill shit worked great. We all surrounded their den in one o them squares an' then Chains sent a couple o' crews in to clean the place out. We fuckin took all o' them assholes prisoner and only shot, like, three of our own guys by accident," she added parenthetically. "Chains was real happy."
"I'll bet he was," Murphy murmured. He turned to investigating the bag Bright had brought him, pulling out the various items and setting them before him on the surface of the desk. As usual, it was a motley collection of junk. Chems, which I can't use; caps, which I also can't use, toys…why on earth would she think I would even want a Giddyup Buttercup? he wondered, taking out the small toy horse and setting it on the table. He was so lost in contemplating the mix of detritus that he almost missed what she said next.
"Yeah, Chains was so happy with the way this fight went, that he says next we're goin after the Enclave."
The Enclave. Right. Murphy picked up one of the two toy cars, spinning its cracked wheel with a finger. "I thought you told me Chains said you weren't going to try and fight them for a while."
"Yeah, well, there's been a change o' plans," Bright rattled on cheerfully. "A coupla our scav teams came back last week sayin it looks like the Enclave's movin in, settin up some big camp to the north, up the road a bit. They've got a couple outposts already, and some patrols an' stuff. So Chains says, long's they're here, well, we might as well go after 'em now. Ready or not, here we come." And she gave that nasty, sharklike grin.
"Wait. You're—you're saying the Enclave is here?" Murphy went still, the car in his hands forgotten. He raised his head, watching her closely. His heart froze within him. "Bright, are you—are you sure?"
Bright scowled. "You callin me a liar, zombie?" She put one hand on her combat knife. Murphy barely saw it. "Hell yeah, I'm sure. It was Rock that ran into one of the patrols out there, a week or so ago when he was out with Violet, an' he told me all about it. Violet's crew didn't fight 'em, unnerstand—they just shadowed 'em a bit, followed 'em back to their outpost, but yeah, they were Enclave all right."
The Enclave. A chill went down Murphy's spine. He realized he was shivering. His surroundings seemed to recede around him, and Bright herself seemed to vanish, as panic rose within his breast. Memories of his former brush with the Enclave, over half a century ago, suddenly rushed in on him—it had been the most frightening moment of his life. If it hadn't been for Barrett, he wouldn't have survived. Or perhaps I would have, and that would have been even worse….
"You all right, ghoulie?" Bright seemed to have noticed his fear.
We were supposed to be safe out here. We were supposed to—they'd never make it out this far, they'd never find us down here…. He pressed one hand to his forehead. "Where are they?" he demanded.
Bright's brows drew together. "Well, the outpost Rock an' them found was up around Hamilton Moors Cemetary, but there's a bigger camp than that one to the north—not sure exactly where. Thought you knew 'bout it, ghoulie," she said, frowning.
"How would I know anything, trapped in here like this?" Murphy burst out, fear fueling his anger. We were supposed to be safe, dammit! "Bright, I – I can't stay here. I have to leave. Right away."
"What?" Bright's eyes narrowed. "Oh, no no no, zombie, you ain't goin nowhere. None o' this leavin' shit."
"Bright, you don't know what the Enclave does to ghouls. If they caught me I'd be—I have to go, now." The walls were closing in on him. Bright's frown deepened. She seemed to be studying his fear.
"The Enclave's bad to ghouls?" she asked him.
"Bad? Bright—" He broke off, unable to go on. He was aware that he was hyperventilating, and struggled to bring his breathing under control. "You don't know," he told her. "You can't know."
"Well, calm down now," Bright told him. She was watching him with a strange concern in her eyes. When he actually began to wring his hands, the concern deepened. She reached into her armor and pulled out a bottle of amber whiskey. "Damn, you really are bad off. Here, ghoulie. Drink some o' this."
Murphy took it as she handed it to him, swallowing right from the bottle, then coughed miserably as the whiskey burned its way down his throat. Bright studied him. "Ghoulie, the Enclave really that bad?"
"They—if—they—" He took another gulp from the bottle. "Bright, if they caught me, they'd do things—You can't imagine." He coughed again, swallowing. "I can't let them get me," he pleaded with her. "I can't, Bright."
"Well, calm down," she repeated. "Here, siddown and have some more o' that." Murphy dropped into a chair. She studied him for a long moment, and the concern in her eyes grew deeper still. Pulling the other chair out from the table and turning it around, she leaned on the back. "Okay, now, ghoulie," she said, her voice clear and firm with a clarity he hadn't heard from her before. "You listen to Auntie Bright. The Enclave: they're not gonna get you. I promise. Know how I know?"
Murphy shook his head. He watched her, wanting to believe…desperately wanting to believe.
"First of all, they'd have to find you. You may not believe it, ghoulie," she added, smiling a bit, "but you're pretty good hid down here—specially if you stay in yer den and put out them trash barrels. The only reason I found ya is 'cause I heard from a Waster I caught an' played with, and even then it took me weeks. The Enclave don't even know yer here. Whatever they're doin poking around up there, lookin for random ghoulies ain't it. Second of all, they ain't gonna be around too long." At his dubious expression, Bright smiled. "Toldja-we're goin after the Enclave next. Chains said it. When we kick their asses, there ain't gonna be no Enclave outpost around here no more. So no way for 'em to find ya. That make ya feel better, ghoulie?"
No. No, it doesn't, you ignorant, drug-addled psycho. You actually think you can beat the Enclave? Murphy was silent. Bright studied him again, then reached out and clouted him on the shoulder, hard enough to make him rock in the chair. Almost reflexively, Murphy tried to cower, and it wasn't until he saw Bright looking at him curiously that he realized she had meant it to cheer him up.
"Don't you worry none, ghoulie," she told him. "You'll see I'm right. Here." She nodded to the sack she had brought in earlier. "There's Sugar Bombs, and you know what to do. We're gonna hit those Enclave bastards soon, but I'll be back in a coupla days t' check on ya, okay?"
It was perhaps a mark of how thoroughly fucked up their relationship had become, Murphy mused sourly, that he actually found her attempt at reassurance comforting. She scooped up her hunting rifle. "So get crackin, ghoulie—and don't worry none. You ain't got nothin to worry about. Trust Auntie Bright, okay? And here—keep this. You look like you need it more 'n I do." She pressed the bottle of whiskey into his hands with a strange, solicitous concern, then followed it up with a pat on the shoulder. As she stepped out the door, Murphy glared at the whiskey bottle, then gulped half the remaining contents in one swallow, shaking.
As Bright crossed the landscape of the Wastes, heading back to the den of the Drainage Chamber gang, her thoughts kept returning, almost against her will, to Murphy. The memory of his fear gnawed at her, sinking into her vitals like a Deathclaw's talons. Damn, that ghoulie sure was scared of the Enclave. She chewed her lip. He was even more scared of the Enclave than he was of—of me. What the fuck does the Enclave doto ghoulies? Bright didn't know. Her experience with the Enclave was almost nonexistent. But somehow—perhaps it was seeing his own fear—the thought of Murphy falling into their clutches filled her with dread.
A quick puff of Jet, followed by a dose of Med-X, helped to chase some of the fear away; the sight of the den coming into view pushed back the rest of it. The drab, gray concrete of the power substation had been altered dramatically following their conquest of the Bed and Breakfast gang. With both their rivals gone, Chains had declared that there was no longer any reason to conceal the den; the substation had blossomed into a riot of day-glo colors, green and pink and yellow and blue, courtesy of several buckets of paint that Shimmer had been hoarding in the bombed-out shell that had been the Bed and Breakfast gang's den. Almost overnight, a crowd of flimsy, ramshackle corrugated metal structures had mushroomed around the substation, most of them open on two or even three sides, some no more than a simple roof on four poles. Raiders lounged among them, lying on stained mattresses or seated on crates and chairs pilfered from other pre-war buildings, drinking or doing chems or fucking, or sometimes all three at once. As Bright drew nearer, she could see a group of prisoners from the Bed and Breakfast gang, pushing rusty shopping carts filled with large stones to the base of the power substation and unloading the rocks there. They were under the command of Trace, a former Fordham Flash gang member, who was standing and watching them with arms folded and a deep smirk on his face. The rocks were another of Chains's ideas; when they had gathered enough of them, he said, the gang would take those rocks and start replacing the rickety metal sheds with buildings made of stone. "Stone huts, Bright, think of it!" he'd exclaimed, his eyes shining. Bright had drawn in her breath in mixed exultation and fear. Nobody in the Wastes had built anything of stone since before the war, not even the Enclave or the Brotherhood of Steel. Chains had had scav crews out collecting pre-war clothing as well; he kept these in a big stockpile and said that they were for something called "uniforms," which he intended for the gang to wear when they finally went on the march.
The wind drifted the rhythmic sound of Wrench shouting cadence to her ears. Chains had designated a flat area to the west of the settlement as something he called the "parade ground," and it was there that he held his "drills." "Just like Boney's guys had," he'd said in satisfaction. Wrench was drilling now; Chains had taught him how to run the drills so that there would be someone who could do them when he himself was busy. Now Wrench was reviewing what looked like perhaps half the gang, his voice raised in the calls Chains had taught him. One of the two power drills that Chains always carried when he conducted drill was now thrust through Wrench's belt, and he kept his hand on it as he shouted. "Fuckin' Riiiight….On your face! Fuckin' Leeeeeeeft….On your face! Fuckin' Forward….March! Fuckin' Backward….March! Fuckin' stop! Fuckin stop or I'll fuckin drill yer head in, Toad!" he raged. The offended Toad, a late member of the Bed and Breakfast gang, Bright seemed to recall, began cursing back at him volubly. The high buzz of the power drill and a hoarse cry of pain ended that disagreement. Bright smirked and looked around, searching for Chains.
She caught sight of him coming around the side of the substation toward her. The moment he saw her, a scowl crossed his features. He gestured sharply, waving her over. Crystal was behind him, dressed not in her Pre-War Spring outfit but in her old Raider Sadist armor; there was a Chinese Assault Rifle at her back and her sledgehammer hung at her waist.
"Bright," Chains shouted at her as she came toward him. "I been lookin for ya all over. Where the fuck 've you been, bitch?"
Bright tensed warily. "Lookin for stuff," she responded, deliberately noncommittal, then threw back at him, "Since when d'you care?"
"Since the scav team came back this morning with news and I couldn't find ya." Chains turned his head to shout at the drill field. "Wrench! Wrench, get yer ass over here!"
Wrench visibly flinched at the sound of Chains's raised voice, and held up his hands, shouting at the drillers to halt. The Raiders on the parade field dropped out into sprawled positions on the dry and brittle grass, and Wrench came trotting over.
"What the fuck's up, Chains?" he asked, drawing near the three of them.
Chains regarded them all. His eyes were less red than usual, and there was a keyed-up, excited air about him. "Scav teams came back this morning." He pulled a cigarette out from inside his armor and lit it up, sucking in a cloud of smoke. "Violet's and Daisy's. And they've got news. Said they found an Enclave outpost. Not too far up the Hamilton Hideaway road from our den."
"An outpost this far out here?" Bright asked, gripping her knife. A thin, cold blade brushed her heart. "I thought they were all up near that big camp o' theirs."
"Yeah, well, this is a new one. The scavvers watched 'em settin it up. Didn't go near 'em, least not near enough for the Enclave guys to see 'em. You know they've been movin this way for a week or so." Chains took another drag on his cigarette. His free hand fiddled with the stock to his gun. "Daisy got close enough to get a count o' the soldiers. She says there isn't too many of 'em, maybe three guys in Powered Armor and one officer. They've also got one o' those boxes, like they keep Deathclaws in, but Daisy said she didn't see any Deathclaw; she thinks it's somethin else, but she don't know what. Anyway, this is it." He crushed the cigarette between his fingers. "You know I been wantin to try the Enclave for ages, and now's the time. You three are gonna take yer crews and go fight 'em. Fuckin' reconnaissance. Recon the shit outta their asses."
Wrench cursed under his breath; Bright frowned. "You sure, Chains?"
"Sure. No time better." The Drainage Chamber leader grinned.
"You sure we got enough Ultrajet for this?" she asked dubiously. She had no idea how much they might have left—not only could she not count high enough to know how many they'd used in their last battle, but even if she could have, she couldn't have added or subtracted if her life depended on it—but she knew they'd used a lot.
"Yep. I saved some on purpose. Daisy's got it—go see her before ya go, and tell 'er I said it was okay." Chains gave a fierce grin. "You guys'll outnumber 'em three to one and you'll have Ultrajet—should be no fuckin problem to completely dominate those guys. An' once you kick their asses, then we're gonna go on the fuckin march." His eyes grew distant again. "All of us. We're all gonna go together and fuckin' destroy that Enclave camp. Show those fuckers who's boss. They won't be so big after we get done with 'em, all right," he said with relish. Suddenly, he seemed to come back to himself. "What're you all doin just standin here?" he snapped. "You heard me. Get yer crews and fuckin go."
Bright and Wrench exchanged a glance, but Crystal stepped forward. "Sure thing, Chains," she said, smiling, closing her hand around the haft of her sledgehammer. "Kick their asses. You got it, baby."
"Yeah," Chains said, grinning, then his grin faded to a stony glare. "Remember, guys—I'm fuckin countin on you. This'll be the first time Raiders have ever tried to fight the Enclave. Don't let me down." He put his hand to the drill at his waist, then gave a vicious laugh. "And bring me back somethin' good."
Half an hour later found Bright huddled in the hills above the Hamilton Hideaway road, peering down from the stony bluff onto the small Enclave outpost below.
Rock was to her left; the two other members of her crew, Edge and Growl, were ranged beyond him. Wrench was a bit farther off, peering over the side of the bluff himself, pressed flat into the stone, with his crew of three: Rainbow, Drop, and Killer; and Crystal, with Pretty, Pink and Hammer, was lying on the ground beyond them, shading her eyes as she studied the settlement below. Crystal left the den so rarely that Bright had almost forgotten what a good fighter she was, but in the field, the woman's warrior instincts came to the fore; she had chosen perhaps the best position of all three of them, right behind a low-lying rise of rock, and her crew lay still in perfect concealment.
Wrench glanced over at her. He had his hands on the bundle of Ultrajet Daisy had given him, though he hadn't passed it out yet. "Whaddaya think?" he hissed to Bright.
Bright looked over the scene down below. The Enclave outpost consisted of three Powered-Armor-wearing soldiers and an officer behind some thin, dark, prefabricated walls enclosing an open space. A table set up around the central communications spire was covered with equipment, and she could see the big metal box that Daisy had mentioned. The doors were closed, making it impossible to see inside.
"I think it looks fuckin easy as shit," she hissed back to Wrench. "Let's do it."
"Gotcha." Wrench reared half-up and gestured toward Crystal. "Ultrajet!" he breathed to her. She caught his eye and nodded. At the same moment, Bright turned and signaled the rest of her crew.
Simultaneously the members of the three teams took out their inhalers and breathed the sweet spray of Ultrajet. Bright sucked it down, feeling it hit the back of her throat, feeling her eyes widen and her nerves begin to sing. The world blurred around her as with a yell, she surged up and gestured to her followers. Wrench was howling beside her, and Crystal was shrilling a high hawk-shriek that sounded like the cries of the vultures that circled above the Wasteland. As Bright heaved herself over the boulder in front of her and sped down the hill, her feet seemed to barely touch the ground; the distance between her team and the Enclave outpost fell away. The first of the Enclave troopers was just starting to turn when Bright raised her hunting rifle and fired. She had aimed true; the bullets shattered one of the eye pieces of his helmet and the man collapsed.
The man to the left of the trooper gave a cry. He was carrying a laser rifle; now he took it from his back and began to fire back at them. The blasts of red light danced across the air, shimmering and burning green trails across Bright's vision. To her Ultrajet-enhanced senses, the man himself seemed to be moving in slow motion. Then Wrench was there, right beside the Enclave trooper, howling in rage. Wrench weaved past the barrel of his weapon and locked his hand around the laser rifle's muzzle. He pulled the weapon out of the Enclave soldier's hand as easily as if he were taking it from a child, and as he did so, Drop stuck a combat knife through the man's armor into his back.
Wrench stepped away from the man as he fell and turned to face the third man, who was wielding a Ripper. The chainblade roared as the Enclave soldier swung at his head; he dodged, and then Rock and Rainbow were there beside him. Rock was holding a baseball bat. The two of them swung at the same time, and the Ripper sheared through Rock's bat, but as it did, Rainbow raised her Assault Rifle. A stream of bullets stuttered toward the soldier at near-point-blank range. High-pitched, synthesized screams rang out through the man's helmet and he toppled. Blood flowed from the chinks in his armor, pooling on the cracked road pavement.
"Officer!" Bright shouted. "Where the fuck's the—"
She fell silent as she caught sight of Crystal. Crystal was holding a plasma pistol in her hand, looking down at the sprawled form of a man in gray clothing with a black, brimmed cap lying to one side. As Bright watched, Crystal stuck the plasma pistol through her belt and knelt at the man's side. "Hey, Rock," she called to Bright's prisoner. "Hand me that Ripper, will ya?"
Rock kicked the thing over to her. Crystal lifted it, her small, fine-boned hands curling around its heavy engine housing. She fired it up, and severed the officer's hands with a single swipe. "Well," she said as she caught Bright looking at her curiously, "I needed a new pair, didn't I?" And she indicated the pair of bloody hands dangling at her hip.
Bright turned away as Crystal detached her current pair of hands and began to tie the new set taken from the Enclave officer to her belt. Rock came up beside her. "Fuckin' shit," the big man exclaimed. "Look at how easy this was!" He pumped one fist in the air in triumph. "The Enclave pussies are total pushovers, with this new Ultrajet shit, I'm tellin ya."
"You see that?" cried Edge, laughing. "Fuckin you see that, Bright?" he insisted. "Damn, ain't no Raiders ever born fuckin' take out an Enclave encampment before. When we go to Evergreen Mills , we're gonna be able to brag on this for months. Fuckin' years." Beside him, Growl was grinning fiercely, his gap-toothed smile shining in the sun.
"I gotta say, this shit Chains's got us doin fuckin' rocks," he said. "Those bastards didn't even get a shot off."
Bright made shooing motions with her hands. "Awright, you assholes, knock it off." Somehow she was feeling less triumphant than the rest of her crew. She could have said that knocking over an isolated outpost was a very different matter from taking on a whole Enclave base camp, but she didn't quite know how to put it in words. "Look at what Wrench is doin' over there," she said, and indicated where Wrench had stooped over a downed Enclave soldier. "He's lootin, and we should be lootin too. Get to it."
She herself suited action to words, bending down to the Enclave soldier she had killed. Working quickly, she opened the compartments of his Powered Armor, searching for food, chems, caps or anything that might seem useful. She pulled a couple of plasma grenades out of the officer's pack and tossed them to Rock. "Here. You know how to use 'em?"
"Can figure it out easy enough," Rock grunted, stowing them away.
"Good. Check them crates over there," she ordered, pointing to two long boxes standing by the central pillar. As Rock knelt by them, bashing at the locks with a stone, Bright went over to the central equipment bank. She inspected it curiously. Lights flickered and words scrolled across transparent screens, but she couldn't make any sense out of them. She poked at a button or two, then jerked her finger back, swearing at the crackle of electricity. What is it? she mused. Some kinda energy field? She had read about such things in Captain Cosmos. Can we use it somehow? Damn, just imagine what Chains would say if I could bring this back to him. We could have an energy field set up all around our den…no Raider never had nothin like that either—
A shout from Wrench jerked her back to the present. "Well, fuck," the second in command of the Drainage Chamber gang drawled. "Lookie what we have here." A nasty mirth was in his voice.
Bright turned away from the computer bank as Rainbow gave a brutal laugh. "And here I was thinkin that this raid was gonna be borin," she drawled. "Things've got all sorts of more interestin now."
Huh. Must've found a prisoner or somethin. Bright dismissed the thought and was returning her attention to the bank of computers, when a rasping, thin voice drifted to her ears.
"Please," husked the new speaker. "Please, I—I have no weapons. I can't harm you. The Enclave were going to—please, will you let me go?"
That voice. I know that voice. The grating, grinding tones scraped down Bright's spine with an almost palpable shock. The voice was female instead of male, but the ruined, ravaged quality was the same. Fuck. They found themselves a fuckin ghoul!
She straightened quickly from the Enclave equipment and turned, searching. Wrench and his crew were gathered around the large box in the back of the encampment. They'd managed to get the doors open and were standing in a semi-circle at the open end, staring inside with interest. Now Wrench turned his head and spat on the ground. "Hey. Crystal," he called, looking over at the other woman. "Take a fuckin look at what we got here. Think we should do her now or bring her back for Daisy to get her hot little hands on? Chains did say to bring him back somethin good…."
Bright missed Crystal's response. A horrible chill had gripped her body. A clear picture formed in her mind, so complete she could see every detail: The Drainage Chamber den, the harsh light from the battery-operated lamp mixing with the glare of the fires. The members of the gang drawn up in a huddle around a writhing figure on a mattress, as they had been innumerable times before, laughing cruelly as they played with the thing that they had captured. But instead of being some random Wastelander, it was Murphy's ruined face she saw, streaked with blood.
No. A flare of rage and fear went through her, so strong it made her tremble. Without pausing to think, she closed her hand on the hilt of her knife. She caught the eye of Rock, jerked her head, and started toward the Deathclaw cage.
"Whatcha got there, Wrench?" she asked as she drew near, her voice determinedly casual.
Wrench glanced at her sideways, a cruel, gloating grin on his face. "Take a look. Fuckin good shit, eh, Bright?" he asked, and stepped to one side, so that she could see.
Bright moved in to take his place. The interior of the cage was dark and fetid; it stank, though not as badly as the interior of the Raider den had before Bright and her crew had cleaned it. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the light coming through the few cracks in the Deathclaw box. When it did, she saw what had caught Wrench's attention.
The floor of the cage was dirty and foul. Toward the back, there was an indistinct pile of something that, on closer inspection, turned out to be the bodies of several ghouls; most of them were the feral sort that Bright had killed by the score back in the days when she lived in the DC ruins, but several of them were wearing clothes and had a less-distorted appearance. What did Murphy call 'em—the sentiments? she remembered. Nah. The sentients, that was it. Sentient ghouls. Somehow, her stomach knotted at the sight of the dead sentients. Perhaps it was the evidence that they had died in torment, all too apparent from the wounds they sported, clotted with black blood; the missing or shattered limbs, the open gashes. Damn. Murphy wasn't shitting me when he said that the Enclave was rough on ghouls….
The knots in her stomach tightened as she saw the prisoner that Wrench was eying. A female ghoul huddled on the floor of the Deathclaw cage, her arms wrapped around herself, shaking with fear. Dressed in filthy rags that bore some resemblance to a Wasteland Settler outfit, the ghoul's patchy skin might once have been dark in color, and the straggling strands of what remained of her hair had gone a very bright lavender shade. Bright knew that the ghoulification process often did strange things to a person's natural coloration, but she could not even guess at what color this ghoul's hair had been before her change. The ghoul's eyes were a milky bluish-white, the same as Murphy's, and if Bright hadn't known better, she would not have guessed that the ghoul could see out of them.
But somehow she could; because as Bright shouldered her way past Wrench and looked down at her, the female ghoul's gaze went to Bright's face. As if she sensed Bright's emotional turmoil, the ghoul rasped, "Please. Please, h-help me. I never did anything to anybody—I just want to go home—please, ma'am, I—"
"Ma'am," Wrench sneered. "Hear that, guys? She called Bright ma'am," he said, and gave a coarse, brutal laugh.
"Ooh, ma'am!" Rainbow echoed, laughing, and Drop and Killer laughed along with Wrench. The female ghoul cowered back before the rough sounds.
"She's gonna be singin a different tune when we get 'er back to the den, ain't that right, guys?" Wrench asked, grinning. "I know lotsa people don't like doin' ghouls—not enough left to cut—but Daisy's a sharp girl. She likes a challenge, and I'm sure she'll be able to make it fun for all of us, ain't that right?" Again, Wrench's crew gave that rough, coarse laughter, and this time Edge joined in. After a glance at Bright's face, Rock stepped on Edge's foot, hard, and the younger Raider shut up quickly. Bright thought of the things Daisy and the other Raiders would do to this ghoul, and was filled with a wave of unease. Suddenly, without quite knowing she meant to do it, she shouldered past Wrench and shoved him out of the way . With one hand, she reached out and grasped the female ghoul by the shoulder.
"Awright, Wrench, shut the fuck up already," Bright ordered. "I claim her. This one's mine."
"What?" Wrench cried in almost comical outrage. "The fuck d'ya mean, bitch, 'this one's mine?' This zombie's all of ours. We're gonna take her back to the den and Daisy's gonna play with her—"
"You're gonna do no such thing. She's mine. Chains said," Bright said sternly, glaring at him. "Chains said that as part o' the deal of me makin the Ultrajet for him, that I got first pick of all the prisoners. I pick her. Chains said I could," Bright insisted, glancing down at the female ghoul. She could feel the woman's shivers through her hand, and the ghoul's milky eyes clung to her as if she knew Bright alone could help her. Don't you worry none, ghoulie, Bright thought with grim resolve. I've gotcha.
"The fuck's up with you, Bright? You got a thing fer rotten bitches?" Wrench demanded, angry. "Or do ya just like bein' called 'ma'am?'"
"Sure do. I never had no one call me 'ma'am' before," Bright insisted. "Now you back the hell off, Wrench. I toldja, she's mine, and if you gotta problem with it, you take it up with Chains. Go tell him that you decided you was gonna take away a prisoner he specifically said I could have," Bright sneered. "I'm sure he'll like that a lot."
Wrench hesitated, irresolute, then gave a scowl. "Ahhh…hell with you, bitch," he snarled. "If yer so sick you like getting your kicks with rotten meat, have fun. We're movin out." He stalked away, shouting ill-temperedly at his crew to move after him. Crystal lingered a moment more, her eyes resting on Bright; Bright shifted uneasily under Crystal's gaze. Then she too beckoned to her crew. As they moved off, Bright turned her attention to the ghoul.
"Th—thank you," the woman whispered, licking what remained of her lips. Her eyes darted up to meet Bright's and then darted away again, as if she were frightened to hold eye contact for too long.
"Don't you be thankin me yet, you rotten bitch," Bright told her, conscious of the eyes of her own crew on her. "You ain't got nothing to be thankful for so far. What's your name, bitch?"
The ghoul swallowed. "Miss Jeannette," she whispered. "I—I was a slave at Paradise Falls for a while until it was—shut down." Bright said nothing, though she knew what the ghoul was talking about; Paradise Falls had been the major headquarters of slavers in the Wastes, until the armor chick had single-handedly destroyed it. "I escaped, but a – a few days ago, the Enclave caught me. I—" She shivered, glancing toward the back of the Deathclaw cage where the piles of ghouls lay. "I thought I was going to die."
"You still might," Bright said, deliberately brutal. Inside, her mind was racing. "You don't do exactly what I want, bitch, and you'll find yourself in a world of hurt. Course, there's a good chance you'll find yourself in a world of hurt anyway," she added nastily.
The ghoul seemed to shrink in on herself at Bright's threat, cringing back and looking up at her with wide and terrified eyes. Bright ignored it. She turned back to the rest of her crew. "Rock. Take these assholes and go back to the den. This 'Miss Jeannette' here and me, we're gonna have ourselves some…alone time." She deliberately gave her most evil smile and dropped one hand to her knife hilt. Edge and Growl gave knowing chuckles, but Rock did not join in the mirth; he simply regarded her for a long moment. At length, he nodded.
"That's what you want, then fine. All right, you shitheads!" he shouted to the other two. "Back to the den. Move your asses!" Still chuckling, Edge and Growl moved off, in the direction Wrench and Crystal had gone. Rock lingered a moment more, watching her.
"What the fuck you lookin at? Your eyes hurt, asshole? Cause if they do, I'll be real happy to do something about that." Bright closed her hand on her knife again.
"Nothin," Rock said after a moment. "See ya back at the den." He headed off as well. Bright waited until he was out of sight, then scanned her surroundings quickly, to make sure she really was alone. She dropped down on one knee next to the trembling ghoul, and put one hand on her shoulder. "Okay, ghoulie, how bad are you hurt? Can you walk?"
"I…No, not well," Miss Jeannette faltered. "The Enclave—they hurt my legs. I can't—I need help. Please, please don't hurt me—"
"Well, shit," Bright snarled. The ghoul flinched. "Ahh, knock it off, bitch. If I was gonna do anything to ya, I woulda done it by now." She glowered down at her captive. "If I helped ya—helped you to stand—could you walk?"
"I—I don't know. M-maybe."
"Shit," Bright scowled again. "Okay, bitch. First let's get ya stood up." She knelt beside Miss Jeannette. The other woman recoiled, but Bright ignored it; she looped one of Jeannette's arms over her shoulders and levered her to her feet. Jeannette floundered and almost fell; she clutched at Bright reflexively. Shit, what'd the Enclave do to her? Bright wondered.
With her free hand, she dug into her armor and pulled out a small bottle. She passed it to the ghoul. "Here. It's Buff-out. Take a coupla these, might help a little." The ghoul gave her a distrustful glance, but shook two pills out and swallowed them meekly. She handed the chem back to Bright. Bright gulped a couple pills down herself before returning the bottle to her armor, and drew a breath at the wave of strength that flowed into her. "Okay, bitch. I'm gonna take you to a place I know, hear me? A friend of mine, name of Murphy. He's gonna take care of ya, fix you up. But we gotta move fast, you hear me? The other Raiders find out what I'm doin, they're gonna beat the shit outta me when I get back and then come lookin for you."
"Oh." The ghoul shuddered against her. Bright caught another one of those cautious, frightened sideways glances. "I—I—"
"Spit it out, bitch."
"Wh-why are you being so nice to me?"
"Nice?" Bright snorted. "I ain't bein nice to ya. I'm a Raider. Don't you know us Raiders ain't nice to no one? Naah…just ain't got no room for ya back at the den, is all. And 'sides, ghoulies ain't fun to play with like people." She paused. "My friend's a ghoulie, too," she confessed after a moment. "Guess I don't like the idea of Raiders goin an'playin with ghoulies no more."
"Oh." The woman digested this in silence for a while. "W-well…thank you anyway." Timorously, she added, "Samantha was the only smoothskin who was ever this nice to me before."
"Ah, shut it, bitch," Bright said without heat. "Now move yer rotten ass. We gotta hurry."