They spent the rest of the night at the Memorial, taking turns standing watch on the great steps. Usually when she had to sleep out in the wastes, she barricaded herself into a supply closet in the metros and slept sitting with her back against a wall and a loaded gun in hand. Jerking awake at every sound, both real and imagined, it never lasted more than a couple hours and it was never restful. Having Charon nearby was surprisingly reassuring, and Truth was grateful, but she still slept with her hand wrapped around the handle of her knife.
The next morning, they retrieved the mines she disarmed the night before and reset them along the path leading up to the Memorial to discourage anyone else from moving in while they were gone.
After a long argument about what they should take and what needed to be left behind, they figured out a route that would take them directly north, through D. C. and straight into the wasteland beyond. Charon assured her it was not as direct as the maps they consulted made it look but if it meant not having to double back through super mutant territory or stray too close to Rivet City where she might run into her father, Truth thought it would be best.
When they passed into the metro neighboring the Lincoln Memorial and the constant commotion of the surface was shut out by heavy doors, Truth realized the quiet around them was warped. She tugged at her ears, trying to shake them back into functioning. "My ears are still ringing from that explosion…" she grumbled.
"How are your eyes?" Charon asked uneasily.
She blinked up at him and quipped, "I can see you scowling at me, they're fine." He didn't look amused at that. Truth shouldered her weapon awkwardly, turned her face away from him in embarrassment. "They're fine," she repeated.
Normally, the old subways were a quiet cacophony of settling concrete and stubbornly buzzing fluorescent lights punctuated by voices and footsteps that echoed down the tunnels and alerted her to other creatures' presence. Now she had trouble telling echoed voices from the groaning of the tracks. Having Charon behind her threw her off as well. His footsteps confused her and his presence at her back disrupted her sense of space and made her anxious and jumpy.
Nonetheless, it was nice to be below ground again, with a ceiling over her head and walls closing in on either side so she only had to worry about danger coming from a couple of directions. The stench was a fair trade to avoid being out in the open. She tried to get Charon to talk to her as they walked, but neither of them were interested in sharing their own stories and her ringing ears made him hard to understand anyway. They fell back into silence except when he communicated some threat to her.
The tunnel led them into the square blocks of tall, brick tenements and office buildings surrounding the national mall. Truth had never been to this pocket of D. C. before and the alien layout confused her as soon as she left the subway. Luckily, Charon was not fazed and he seemed familiar with the area so Truth let him lead her past the abodes of raiders and super mutants and north through the proper metros.
Obviously they couldn't avoid fighting entirely, but Charon startled her by loudly instigating he fights he thought they could not avoid. Truth had a bad habit of rushing into battle herself, but she had learned to try to start them quietly at least. Maybe he was trying to get the jump on the opposition and draw fire away from Truth, which he did well, but it gave her little time to size up the people shooting at her. She repeatedly found herself unexpectedly surrounded by gunfire and scrambling for a target, half of the time unable to tell whether Charon was yelling at her to find cover or to help him through the bubble of her ringing ears.
He did keep her safe as they trekked through the old city streets and they made better time than Truth might have had she tried to navigate the ruins on her own, but every time she had to take cover suddenly while he taunted raiders and super mutants, she became more irritated.
She was nearly spitting when he rushed her into the safety of a stairwell leading to the next station and she finally had the chance to round on him in anger, snapping to attention like a pre-war action doll and gripping her gun with white-knuckled hands. "I need some warning before you start shooting," she snarled up at him.
A hint of alarm flashed across his face and was gone the next moment, replaced by his usual blank frown. "Of course," he answered her calmly, "I am sorry. I meant to keep them from targeting you."
"Well you're gonna get yourself shot and you're drawing every raider on the block!"
The ghoul's jaw tightened. "I know what I am doing. Pardon this, Truth, but you do not watch what is going on around you. If you did, I would not be taking you off guard."
The corners of Truth's mouth pulled ever downward as the fault fell on her. "I'm half deaf," she hissed, "I do too watch what's going on."
"No," Charon corrected her, "you do not. You failed to in Underworld and at the Memorial. Now, once again, you are not watching so I am doing it for you."
Truth cringed. She'd been trying so hard to make sure she held her own. How she was supposed to watch everything around her, she did not know, but she'd have to figure it out. She took a deep breath and tried to relax, squelching the thought in the back of her head telling her she was being a jerk. "Fine, I'll keep a better eye out."
"…And I shall endeavor to give you better warning." She could not tell how annoyed he was with her.
But that would do. She meant it and he was required to mean it. "Thanks, good." She forced herself to break out of her hostile stance and stepped toward the tunnel entrance.
Charon hesitated, distracted by something across the street. He touched her shoulder briefly and told her to wait a moment before creeping back up the stairs to look around. There was nothing there, no lurking raiders or sudden ambush, and he came back to her with one eye cast suspiciously behind him. "I thought I saw something, be cautious."
Truth rolled her eyes. She'd already lost count of how many times he had told her to be cautious since leaving Underworld. But she tried to keep her promise and watched the area around her with a swiveling head and peeled eyes and he did manage to give her some fair warning before shooting something. They made it all the way to Chevy Chase without having to scold each other again.
"There is only one more train to catch before we leave the city," Charon informed her so dryly as they entered yet another empty train station that she almost failed to catch the joke. The station here was as desolate as the rest, though filled with a light smoke, and Truth had never seen a train that wasn't a rusting metal shell or an image in a textbook or on a holotape. When she did get it, she laughed and the sound echoed off the crumbling concrete ceiling. The broken tension between her and Charon making it hard for her to stop until he shushed her and told her to get her gun ready as he turned to watch behind them, listening carefully.
A group of raiders had followed them into Tenleytown Station and were closing in on the tunnel behind them. When they saw Charon turn around and raise his shotgun, they charged, screaming obscenities. Truth and Charon moved backwards to take advantage of the curve in the tunnel, spreading out to either side of the track to get a wider range of fire as the raiders ran at them. They were so pumped full of chems that they didn't seem to notice being shot unless the injury was nearly fatal.
Charon's yelling was almost louder than that of the raiders, he sounded bloodthirsty and the noise of his hate bouncing off the walls and distorted by her dampened ears was more chilling than her own laughter. The ruckus was so loud that Truth didn't notice the second group of raiders until she had beaten one of the group from Chevy Chase to the ground with the butt of her rifle, shot him in the head, and crouched against the wall to reload her gun while Charon covered her.
They were coming from the opposite direction when she looked up, presumably to investigate the noise Charon and the raiders of Chevy Chase were making. Truth swore and curled into a ball as she finished reloading, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. They were still in the alcove connecting their tunnel to the one that ran parallel, out of Charon's line of sight. She shouted a warning at him just as they spilled into the tunnel.
At first she was afraid they were backup but after firing a few addled shots at her, much of their attention turned toward the first group of raiders. Truth and Charon were quickly caught in the middle of a turf battle and they couldn't simply slip away while everyone was distracted – they were outsiders and intruders to both sides.
Charon ended up in the midst of them, taunting anyone who dared attack him or his employer with offers to show them their own blood, and then delivering. Truth worked her way around the edges of the fight, trying to keep her back to the walls so nobody could sneak up on her and shooting at raiders who were distracted or who broke from the fighting to come at her.
The second group of raiders had something like soot on their hands and bodies and seemed to have brought the smoke with them. It became so thick it burned Truth's eyes and scratched at her throat. She ducked into the connecting alcove and coughed, looked around for the source of the smoke. There was no light here to suggest a fire, but a wrecked train and rubble blocked most of the tunnel toward the next station, Friendship. It seemed the soot covered raiders had set something on fire before running over to defend their territory.
She could still pick out Charon through the smoke because he was easily a head taller than everyone else in the fray. The others were reduced to hazy silhouettes, apparently a problem for the ghoul because he stopped shooting and started brawling instead. He shouted her name over the din, loud enough for her to make it out. A shade of concern tinged his voice.
"I'm here! I'm fine!" Truth shouted back. One of the raiders hopped up on the platform and came at her with a nailboard. Truth hoisted her rifle to her shoulder again but before she could pull the trigger the raider jolted and collapsed at her feet. Startled, Truth took a step back and stared down at the blood running out of the raider's head.
That didn't hold her attention. A thin red light cut through the dim and she might not have noticed it in the first place if not for the smoke billowing through the beam. It stopped in a wavering red dot on her chest.
Truth threw herself out of the way and hit the ground. She couldn't tell if the shot meant for her had been fired, but the light followed her. Starting to panic, she pushed herself up and scrambled to hide behind a wedge in the wall. When she peered around the corner, three figures were coming toward her out of the haze.
She leaned out from behind the wall and tried to fire at the closest of them, but the first one was already close enough to grab her gun by the barrel and wrench it from her hands. This close, she could see that they weren't raiders, they were something else entirely. They were dressed head to toe in quality armor, all uniform with a symbol on the breast that Truth couldn't make out with smoke in her eyes. She scrambled backwards and away, pulled her pistol from its holster and fired a few shots.
One of the well-armored men tackled her before she could see if any of her shots hit and they toppled off the platform and onto the tracks in the adjacent tunnel. She landed on her arm and leg, crushing them under the combined weight of her and her attacker, but instead of a cry of pain all she could get out was vicious coughing.
She still had the gun.
In the other tunnel, she thought she heard Charon yelling in exasperation that he could use her help and she wanted to strangle him. Her attacker had a billy club and he held her down by the strap of her backpack. She thrashed, trying to get both of her arms free. She threw one hand up to deflect the blows falling on her and with the other she pressed the gun into the space between the plates of his armor and fired into his stomach. He screamed and she punched him where she'd shot him before throwing him off of her and scrambling to her feet. He was curled up on the ground, but she kicked his helmet off and shot him twice in the head just to be sure he wouldn't get up again and surprise her.
She swung around to face the other two and was, again, too slow. One of them slugged her in the gut and grabbed hold of her so she couldn't run. The other knelt beside their fallen comrade. The man who had her wrestled the gun from her and threw it to the far end of the tunnel. She glanced behind her to see how much room she had left before she backed herself into a corner. By some miracle, there was an open door right behind her. She didn't know where it went, but it went away.
Truth wrenched her body, punched the man handling her in the face, then slipped out of the straps on her backpack and ran for the door. She slammed it shut behind her and swore when the lock wouldn't turn all the way. Instead of fussing with it she kept running down the stairs, throwing the mannequin and chair that had been left in the stairwell onto the ground behind her.
At the bottom of the stairwell she stopped briefly to take in the new room. It was full of machinery that took up two floors. A metal catwalk led to a platform supporting large engines and pipes. From there the catwalk ran across a second open space to a door. There were stairs on either end of the long room.
Behind and above her, the door she had slammed shut was knocked open and heavy footsteps landed on the stairs. She bolted across the catwalk and tucked herself behind one of the engines. The air was slightly clearer here and she was able to catch her breath, but the smoke in her lungs scratched her throat. She heard the men reach the bottom of the stairs and forcefully stifled the impending coughing fit.
She craned her head to see them conferring on where she might've gone, then one went down the stairs on their end of the room and the other started across the catwalk, shotgun at the ready. As far as she could see, she was trapped. She didn't know where these men had come from or why they chased her so intently but with no backpack and no gun, she might as well have been naked. She forced herself to stay calm, even though her heart was pounding and she wanted to roll into a ball and scream for mercy. They hadn't taken her knife yet, she had a chance.
She removed the combat knife from its place on her hip carefully and watched the man approach her hiding spot.
As soon as he stepped into reach, Truth launched from where she was crouched on the floor, jammed her shoulder into his crotch, and wrapped herself tightly around his leg. He stumbled and she seized the moment to slice through the back of his thigh where there was no armor protecting him. His leg spasmed and he collapsed, screaming and dropping his gun so he could grab the wound. A moment later, loud footsteps rang on the metal stairs his buddy had descended. Quickly, she crawled up to crouch on her target's chest, hit him across the head with her Pip-Boy to stop him from writhing, and then held his head down with one hand and slit his throat with the other.
The blood gushed out and Truth jumped to her feet, holding the knife between herself and the dead man's buddy defensively. He came to a halt when he saw what she'd done and his stone killer's face melted into a pool of anguish as he looked at the body. He hardly seemed aware of Truth.
Slowly, carefully, she returned her knife to its sheath without cleaning it and reached for the shotgun the dead man had dropped. The man standing across from her focused suddenly and his mouth warped into a hateful scowl that sent a chill down Truth's spine.
"Oh…" he said and returned his gun to its holster and starting toward her again, "you're gonna get it."
Truth gulped and dove for the shotgun, then screamed as she was dragged to her feet by her hair and thrown against one of the engines, never having touched the shotgun. She hit the ground and ducked under his hands to skitter away from him. Her feet found traction and she managed to stand and run across the second catwalk, through the door at the far end of the room. She tried to push this one shut too, but he was right on her heels and barreled into the door before it latched, making it fling open and smack Truth in the face.
Cutting her losses, she threw herself at him, punching and clawing in a wild attempt to get past him and out the door. She managed to bloody his nose before he doubled her over with a solid punch to the gut. He grabbed her, swung her around by her hair, and slammed her face into a countertop. There was blood in her mouth and she thought she felt the room lurch. She shrieked when he slammed her head into the counter a second and a third time, and more until she was disoriented and her legs refused to support her any more. She twisted her head against his grip frantically, trying to at least distribute the damage evenly if she couldn't break free. She had to stay conscious.
She managed to get her knife out of its sheath again but before she could do anything, he threw her to the ground. She landed flat on her back and knocked the air out of her lungs, which started another painful coughing fit.
Then he was sitting on her chest. She coughed and swung the knife at his face clumsily. He grabbed her arm and yanked the knife from her hand, then tossed it under a desk.
He was slowing down, she realized, because he had her. His eyes still shone with rage and she could feel it burning through his hands when he wrapped them around her throat and throttled her.
She was already slipping, she knew it, but there was a small part that became frantic at the start of this final attack. She sputtered angrily and reached up to claw at his face and his exposed throat, she stretched as far as she could but couldn't quite reach his eyes.
Most of the raiders were dead or incapacitated but Charon had not seen or heard his employer in far too long for his peace of mind. He grabbed the last standing figure, pulled it close to his face so he was absolutely sure it was not his employer, and then broke the raider's neck.
"Truth?" he called through the smoke, coughing into his arm, "Truth, are you okay?" There was no answer. None of the bodies belonged to her and Charon's heart was pounding painfully fast as he tried not to panic. Letting his employer die within three days of obtaining his contract would be not be a record he was proud of.
He found her railway rifle abandoned in the alcove joining the two rail tunnels and her backpack on the tracks in the other tunnel beside a body that had been shot in the head and stomach. The dead man was too well armored to be a raider and that was enough to arouse his suspicion. Charon rolled the body over and swore when he saw the white claw emblazoned on the breastplate. He might have lived under the rubble for the last seventy years, but enough news came and went through Underworld and Ahzrukhal had been steeped in enough unsavory business that he knew immediately.
Talon Company.
He could not breathe. He had to find her, and quick.
"Truth!" he shouted again, infuriated at the lack of an answer as he tried to decide which direction to start looking.
Then a scream broke through the hazy silence. Charon's breath came back to him. He dropped her belongings and ran through the door the scream had come from and down the stairs. On the catwalk where the ground fell away beneath him, he paused and looked down for any sign of her. None.
There was another of the Talon Company bleeding out in the center of the room. Charon only stopped long enough to make sure he would not be getting back up. Over the sound of the machines he heard a thump and a scuffling from the direction of a door standing ajar. He checked that his shotgun was loaded and moved across the second catwalk, careful not to make any noise, and pushed the door open.
They were on the floor. The mercenary's hands were wrapped around his employer's throat and her face was bloody, purple, and snarling. The sight enraged Charon.
He hit the mercenary in the back of the head, then dragged him off of Truth and threw him onto the catwalk outside the room. Behind him, Truth's loud gasping and coughing assured him that she was still alive. The man at his feet looked stunned and afraid. Charon could not crack a smile through his rage, but could not deny that he felt righteously satisfied to fire two rounds of shrapnel into the hitman's head.
When he returned to the room, Truth was dragging herself across the floor on her stomach and reaching for something under a desk. He knelt beside her and gently pulled her back toward him to see how badly she was hurt. She stiffened in his arms and turned toward him. There was a knife in her hand and she swung it at him with a grunt.
She was weak and he caught her arm easily before the knife came near him. Her eyes were barely open and she pulled pathetically against his grip, muttering slurred threats at him.
"Mistress. Truth. It's me, let go of the knife," he commanded and tried to ease the weapon out of her hand without waiting for her to comply. She was injured badly and if he could not calm her down, he could not help her.
Truth forced her eyes open and rolled her head around to look at him. Her eyes failed to focus on him even though there was no more than a foot of space between them and he could see her trying.
"…Charon?" she croaked.
"Yes."
She looked around the room frantically and tried to grab the knife back from him. "Where is he?"
"Dead." He pulled the knife out of her reach and set it on the desk behind him. She still looked confused and blood dripped off her chin from her mouth and nose. The purple of her face had lightened to bright pink but he could already see the broken blood vessels around her throat and the crown of her head where serious bruises would form. "You are safe, calm down. You may have a concussion."
A guttural rasp came out of her throat like she was trying to growl but could not and she pushed away from him. "I think I'd know if I had a concussion…" she muttered and tried to crawl away. A shudder passed up her spine. Charon saw her lurch forward and he grabbed a bucket lying on the floor and pushed it under her face just as she began to vomit.
When she finished, she slumped against the desk and sat there quietly for a moment, holding her head, before saying bitterly, "I might have a concussion."
Charon rolled his eyes and opened the pouch on his belt where he kept a few stimpaks. Truth had more medical supplies in her pack but that was upstairs and he could not retrieve it until he knew she would be okay. If she was going to make a hassle out of treating injuries and keep insisting on running headlong into danger, this employment would grow tiresome very quickly, no matter how polite she tried to be. It already angered him that she failed to mention that Talon Company was after her.
He cupped her head in his hand and turned the side of her neck up. She flinched and pulled away from him again. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
He kept his face ambivalently blank to hide his annoyance and showed her the stimpak. The hitman must have knocked her around pretty bad because it took him giving her an explanation before she understood what he was trying to do and then she argued with him until she was satisfied he knew how to use a stimpak properly. Only then did she let him touch her, squeezing her eyes shut and grimacing as he pushed the needle into her neck.
He was so tired.
