Chapter 14

Teacher-For-Hire

"Bobbi, what are you doing here?" Fahrenheit sounded more disappointed than she did angry or surprised. She stood on a metal grating above our heads in the strongroom with two big guys on either side of her, with big guns to match.

"Shit." Bobbi drew her gun on Fahrenheit.

"You seriously didn't think Hancock would catch wind of your scheme? He took you in, Bobbi. And you're stealing from him?"

"Don't listen to her," Bobbi told me and Mel.

"What does this have to do with Hancock?" I asked in confusion.

"Yeah, about that. As Mel guessed, this isn't the Diamond City strongroom."

"I see the rest of you are in the dark about this," said a speculating Fahrenheit. "Nice, No-Nose. You all just broke into Hancock's store room. You know. Hancock? The mayor of Goodneighbor?"

"Dammit, Bobbi!" Mel was sweating bullets.

Mayor Hancock? The Mayor Hancock?

Now I was sweating. Just upon meeting Hancock, I knew that no one crosses him and gets away with it. What I didn't know was what he was going to do to us once he found out. Not only that, but I felt strangely guilty for being prepared and willing to steal from him, regardless of Bobbi's lie.

"Listen, guys," Bobbi said in her defense, "I know this isn't what you expected. But there are still a ton of caps on the line here. Help me take her out, and all of it is ours."

"This is Hancock we're ripping off here." Mel looked like he was ready to tear his beard out. "The guy tends to hold grudges."

"Counter offer," Fahrenheit spoke up. "Just go back into your tunnel and we can forget this ever happened. What do you say?"

My mind was reeling. Hancock? Jesus Christ. I didn't like being played for a fool. I demanded an explanation from her. "What is this about, Bobbi? Why did you lie to us?" I was seething.

"I knew no one in their right mind would help me rip off Hancock. Everyone is so damn afraid of him or so damn in love with him. He thinks he is invincible. I wanted to show him he wasn't."

I was even angrier now. Hancock treated me with respect as soon as I walked through those gates. Hell, he even saved me from being extorted out my ass by one of his better fighters. And if he really took Bobbi in like Fahrenheit said, that made Bobbi an even shittier person.

"You lied to us, Bobbi. And you have to pay." I slowly reached for my gun.

"You can't do this to me. This isn't how this is supposed to go. Know what? Fine! More for me!"

She pulled her gun on me and aimed right for my face. I was terrified and ready to kick her ass all at the same time, but I never even got to raise my gun at her. Fahrenheit and her boys, even Mel, had drawn their guns and open-fired on her. The bullets whizzed past me and entered all angles of her body. She was down in seconds before my eyes.

I guess I owe Fahrenheit one, now.

The room grew quiet. Mel approached me first. "I gotta say, I'm not really cool with how this all went down."

"I'm sorry it had to be this way." It was a half lie. I could care less if Bobbi was alive or dead. I wasn't like my old self.

"Me too, me too. Well . . . I'm outta here." He looked up at Fahrenheit. "Sorry for almost stealing from your boss, Miss Fahrenheit, Ma'am." Mel made his way out of the store room by ways of the front door.

I thanked God there was a front door.

I made my way up the metal stairs to talk to Fahrenheit myself. I had hoped there was no bad blood between us.

"You made the right move," she said.

I made sure Mel had left the store room before answering. "Bobbi lied to us. I'm glad it shook out this way."

"I was itching for a fight, but I guess this works, too. Here, take this. A token for doing the right thing." She reached down and handed me the large mini gun next to her. "Ashmaker. She's my baby. Take care of her."

"Wow, I . . . don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. Just take it. Hancock will be happy to hear about your loyalty. You should go pay your respects in person. It's best to stay on his good side. Trust me."

"Are you . . . heading that way now?"

"Yeah. Goodneighbor's better than anything this hell hole of a wasteland has to offer. There's nothing more for me out here."

"I could, maybe, walk there with you?"

"Don't be a suck up." Then, she sighed. "Alright, let's go."

It was a long walk back to Goodneighbor. I was surprised that Hancock's store room was this far away from his home.

"What is this place?" I asked Fahrenheit as the two big guys led the way back to Goodneighbor.

"This is the NH&M Freight Depot. Back before the war, this was a hotspot for rail cars to bring in their goods."

"Why is it so far away from Goodneighbor?"

"Lemme give you some advice, doll. Don't keep your money under your mattress. It's where everyone will look first if they decide to screw you over."

I took in what she said and nodded. I could understand that.

"In this wasteland, everyone will milk anyone for all they've got. Down to the last cap and the clothes on their backs." She took out a cigarette pack from her back pocket and put one between her lips. She offered me one, and I politely declined. She shrugged and put the pack back in her pocket. She searched her left front pocket for a flip lighter and lit her cigarette, taking a deep, long drag from it.

"What's the story with Hancock? How did he really become mayor? He doesn't seem like the type to be interested in politics."

"It's not the politics that matter. It's keeping everyone safe and happy. The misfits like us. The drifters and the gamblers and the swindlers. The forsaken, the broken, the lost, the damned, and the forgotten. Goodneighbor is a refuge to those in need, so long as you remember who's in charge."

"And what are you to Hancock?"

"I'm his bodyguard. You mess with Hancock, you mess with me."

"Didn't think a guy like him would have a bodyguard."

"You make a lot of enemies in the midst of preaching freedom. You'd be surprised how many people want him dead. I'd take a bullet for him in a heartbeat."

I half smiled. "He must mean a lot to you."

"He means a lot to everyone. He's what keeps that town going and what keeps people in line. He's respected because he's honorable, fearless, intimidating, and generous in equal parts. He takes no shit."

I was beginning to look up to Hancock myself. He was charismatic and charming for a ghoul. His personality showed that he knew what it meant to truly be free. Someone that can treat you like family just upon meeting you was rare these days.

"Have you and Hancock ever – "

"Fucked? No, sweetheart." She flicked the ashes from her cigarette and smiled.

"I was going to say 'dated,' but if you want to put it bluntly."

"He's not my type. You might be, though."

I instantly clammed up. I didn't take her for a lesbian.

She laughed. "Chill out. I'm messing with you. No joke, though, you look pretty good for a merc. You're barely dirty."

"Uh, thanks, I guess. But I'm not a merc."

"Then why did you hook up with Bobbi?"

"I needed the caps . . ."

She looked incredulous. "Why didn't you just ask Hancock to help you out?"

"First of all, I don't want to owe anybody. Secondly, you don't just go up to someone you don't know and ask them for money, no matter what their social status."

She smiled even wider, more amused than before. "Someone who isn't looking for a handout. That's a rarity."

We continued to talk a while until we finally reached Goodneighbor. She stepped into the State House first to talk to Hancock. After their talk, she let me inside and left the room.

He looked as happy as a kid in Nuka-World. "Well, if it ain't Bobbi's little patsy. Here, for protecting my stash. Two-hundred caps." He handed me the little bag. It rattled in my hand as it fell. I smiled widely, knowing it should have been enough to cover my trip to the Glowing Sea.

"Wise decision, putting Bobbi down like that," he continued.

"So . . . we're okay?"

"We are." Then he got all serious on me. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "Lemme tell ya. This classy little tricorner hat of mine is getting heavy. Am I turning into The Man? Some kind of tyrant? I spend all my time putting down the people I would have been proud to scheme with just a few years ago. I need to take a walk again. Get a grip on what really matters: living free."

"Can you just up and leave Goodneighbor? Aren't you the mayor?"

"Hey, the mayor's still the mayor whether he's 'in residence' or not. I've walked outta here plenty of times. Keeps me honest. Can't let power get to my head. That's not what being in charge of Goodneighbor is about."

"Well, I'll see you around, Hancock."

"Yeah. You too. Gonna take some time to think about all this. And hey, you ever need a good-looking ghoul to watch your back, let me know."

I smirked. "Alright. Thanks." I felt my heart flutter strangely. The mayor took that much of a liking to me?

I guess I was still grinning when I left his office. One of his ghoul guardsman by the door looked particularly unpleasant, but I smiled and waved anyway with the look of a dumbfounded idiot.

"What'cha admiring? The clothes, or the man wearing them?" He smirked with a smooth expression.

My expression flipped instantly. "Shut your mouth." I turned to another guard who looked a little less like an asshole. "Can I ask you where – "

"What do I look like? A bartender? Take your rambling to the Third Rail. Geez . . ."

"The Third Rail?"

"The bar downstairs. Beat it."

He pretty much answered my question. I made my way down to this bar to see what was happening. It had been a while since I had a drink, and I felt like I earned it.

At the top of the stairs before going into the bar, a man – a ghoul to be precise – in a derby hat and a tuxedo greeted me. "Mayor Hancock says newcomers are . . . welcome . . . in the Third Rail. Go on in." He didn't sound too thrilled about that notion.

Inside the Third Rail, it was literally built into an old subway station. They had a bar, a robot bartender, a band, a singer, and enough chairs and tables to fit half of Goodneighbor inside. I could tell that this was the pinnacle of the town.

A woman at the bar spotted me. "What? Another one of those mercs looking for MacCready . . ." She shook her head. "He's in the back room," she called to me.

Why did everyone think I was a merc? It must have been Kellogg's stolen outfit that I flautned.

I entered the back room out of curiosity to see just who this MacCready was.

Inside, I heard passive-aggressive voices. A gruff man was talking to another man, who had a lighter, happy-go-lucky type of voice. I peeked around the corner. There were two big men conversing to a guy sitting in the red chair there by the wall. The guy in the chair had a sniper rifle propped up against the wall.

He wore a green cap, a green and tan duster, combat boots, and had dark brown hair with a perfectly trimmed beard. His duster and his shirt both had long sleeves. The only way I could tell this was the fact that his duster had one of the sleeves completely ripped off at the shoulder. The ends of the duster was ripped and covered in small tears and holes in the fabric.

"Can't say I'm surprised to find you in a dump like this, MacCready," said one guy.

"I was wondering how long it would take your bloodhounds to track me down, Winlock. It's been three months . . . don't tell me you're getting rusty. Should we take this outside?"

"It ain't like that. I'm just here to deliver a message."

"In case you forgot, I left the Gunners for good."

"Yeah . . . I heard. But you're still taking jobs in the Commonwealth. That isn't going to work for us."

"I don't take orders from you. Not anymore. So why don't you take your girlfriend and walk out of here while you still can?" He didn't sound too confident.

"What?!" The second man looked at Winlock with annoyance. "Winlock, tell me we don't have to listen to this shit . . ."

"Listen up, MacCready. The only reason we haven't filled your body full of bullets is that we don't want a war with Goodneighbor. See, we respect other people's boundaries . . . we know how to play the game. It's something you never learned."

"Glad to have disappointed you."

Winlock chuckled. "You can play the tough guy all you want. But if we hear you're still operating inside Gunner territory, all bets are off. You got that?"

"You finished?"

". . . Yeah. We're finished. Come on, Barnes."

The men brushed right past me without as much as giving me a second glance. I figured now was a safe time to approach this MacCready character. My curiosity was getting the better of me, as it had been lately. I kept reminding myself that my curiosity was going to get me killed one day.

"Look lady," he said as I entered the red-carpeted room, "if you're preaching about the Atom or looking for a friend, you've got the wrong guy. If you need a hired gun . . . then maybe we can talk."

A hired gun, huh? Never thought about it before. And I had just rolled in plenty of caps. He wasn't bad-looking, either. "Maybe. Why don't you tell me who those guys were first?"

"You like sticking your nose in other people's business. They're a couple of morons looking to climb the ladder of success by stepping on everyone else on the way up. You shouldn't be surprised, though; that's how it goes when you run with the Gunners."

"Sounds like you can handle yourself. But I worry about those guys throwing a wrench in the works."

"Heh. If you're worried about Winlock and Barnes, don't be. They couldn't kill a squirrel with a rocket launcher. Now, what about you? How do I know I won't end up with a bullet in my back?"

"You don't. That's part of the risk, right?"

"Can't argue with that. Tell ya what. Price is 250 caps . . . up front. And there's no room for bargaining."

I smiled. "Everything's negotiable. Would you take 200?"

"You drive a hard bargain, but you just bought yourself an extra gun. All right, boss . . . let's get outta here."

"Wanna grab a drink first?"

"I like you already."

We went to the bar and MacCready ordered a bourbon while I took a vodka. It was nice to feel the burn in my throat again after so long. I had stopped drinking entirely after I got married. Nate and I shared a glass of wine now and again, but it wasn't often. Only for special occasions. It wasn't until Nate got stressed with his job and me being pregnant and on maternity leave that he started drinking it more often. Whole bottles . . .

I shook Nate out of my mind and took another gulp of my vodka.

"You come here often?" MacCready asked.

I raised an eyebrow at him and smirked. "Kind of cliché, don't you think?"

He laughed. "Nah, not like that. You look like a merc yourself."

"I'm far from a merc." I took another drink of my vodka. "I'm more like an ex-lawyer slash widow slash emotionally unstable mental case."

"Wow. No wonder you wound up in Goodneighbor." He sipped his bourbon. "Lawyer, huh? Not many of those around anymore."

"Long story short, I'm two-hundred years old."

"You're shittin' me."

"I wish I was."

I went through the whole story after that, leaving out the sentimentality. He listened intently as we drank and I spun my web of sadness before him.

Our drinks were gone and I asked the robot what he had on offer.

"Oi, we got beer. And if you ain't buyin' beer, you ain't buyin'." The robot looked a lot like Codworth – another Mister Handy bot. He had a British flag sticker on his rounded body, and he had a distinct English accent. Not like Codsworth's. This robot's was more along the lines of improper and he used a lot of slang. He wore a little black derby hat on his head, similar to the one the bouncer was wearing that greeted me when I first arrived.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the singer exit the stage. She wore a red dress and had a straight, black hair cut. "Who's the singer?"

"That is Magnolia. The flower of the Third Rail. Anything you want to know about her other than that is her business."

"Is this your place?"

MacCready and the robot laughed.

"Wot? Nah, gov'. This place is Hancock's. Ole' Charlie just keeps the floor clean and the drinks dirty. Now, are you gonna order, or wot?"

"Sure. Give me another vodka."

"Don't bother tippin'. I'm already overchargin' ya . . . " he mumbled as he poured me another glass.

"You can always count on ole' Whitechapel Charlie to keep you drinkin' until you can't sit up straight," said MacCready after he ordered another bourbon.

"Is that what we're doing? Getting shit-faced?"

"Nah, that wasn't the plan. Which makes me wonder: what is the plan, boss?"

I took another sip of my drink. "Well, I need someone who can watch my back, who knows what he's doing, who knows how to make caps, and who can teach me a thing or two about guns."

"Then you came to the right place. Although, you seem to be doing fine on your own."

"I have to make it through the Glowing Sea . . . I need to be prepared for anything in there. I'm not nearly strong enough for something like that."

"You do realize that this kind of teaching is going to take a while, right?"

"How long?" I frowned.

"Two, three months? At the least?"

I huffed. I guess I shouldn't have expected to learn everything overnight. But I needed to get to Shaun . . .

After we finished our drinks, Charlie approached me again. This time, he offered us something more than drinks.

"Now that you're all liquored up, I got a proposition for ya. I need a dirty girl to do some dirty, dirty work. Blood on the pavement. Bodies on the ground. That kind of thing. Interested?"

It was no different than what I had been doing. Though, I was feeling pretty buzzed. I only thought about how much I was going to get paid. "I wanna hear details."

"I got a certain anonymous client who's payin' top dollar for a cleanup job. Three locations. Everyone inside. No witnesses. Only catch? It's all in town, in the old warehouses, so I can't use my regulars. Too noticeable. That's where you come in. The job's 200 caps. Payment after it's done. And don't worry . . . I'll know when it is."

I didn't want another episode like the one I had with Bobbi. "I don't do work unless I know who's paying the bills."

"Not. Your. Concern. Now, you takin' the job or wot?"

If I couldn't know who the client was, I at least wanted extra pay, for insurance. "Three locations? That's a lot of time . . . A lot of bullets . . ."

"I guess we could sweeten the pot a bit. 250."

I smirked. I'm getting my money back that I spent on MacCready, and then some. "I'll get it done."

"You'd betta'. Now go out there and bust some heads."

"Ugh. Nothing says 'welcome' like the stench of urine-soaked garbage."

We walked through the alley in Goodneighbor and checked out the warehouses.

"If you hate it here so much, why did you settle down here?"

"Made a deal with Hancock . . . long story short, I get to stay here and do mercenary work, and he gets a small cut."

I made sure no one was looking and picked the lock on the storage room door. Or tried to anyway. I was struggling with it, as I always did.

"Here, let me do it," said MacCready. He took the bobby pin from me and picked the lock almost effortlessly. He handed it back to me.

"How did you do that so easily?" I asked.

"Practice. Now, shh."

We snuck inside and took a look at our targets. They all looked like triggermen and mobsters to me. Fedoras, suits, and machine guns everywhere. It didn't take much to take them out. I had plenty of Molotov cocktails that I had saved up from when I ran into those super mutants. Super mutants seemed to love Molotov cocktails.

We cleared out one warehouse in a flash.

"That's how we do things around here," MacCready boasted. He proceeded to steal from the boxes laying around the room. He pocketed a stimpak and a few caps.

I gave him a slightly judgmental look.

"What? Don't look at me like that. How many stimpaks do you have?"

"Two . . ."

He tossed me one. "You gotta take care of you before you take care of anybody else."

I shrugged and put the stimpak in the bag on my back.

Next warehouse, same old shit. MacCready picked the lock. We shot up the guys, took what loot we could find, and made for the last warehouse.

"Let me show you," MacCready said. He took a bobby pin from a little case shaped like a matchbox from his pocket. He took the end of it and jabbed it into the lock. "You have to feel the tumblers, hear them clicking." He leaned his ear close to the door.

I leaned in toward the doorknob to listen in without thinking. Our noses were almost touching. I could feel my face get hot. I hadn't been this close to a man in a while.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry. I, uh – why don't you give it a shot?"

I took the bobby pin and fidgeted with the lock. It was easier after he explained it to me. I got it unlocked.

"Good job."

Inside was the same as the other warehouses, except this one was particularly full. We still managed to take them out. I was grateful that MacCready gave me an extra stimpak. I needed it after a bullet nicked me in the arm.

We returned to the Third Rail and reported to Charlie.

"Hey, Charlie," I greeted him.

He wasted no time getting down to business. "I've heard some exterminators cleaned out the rats in the old warehouses. Wouldn't know anything about that, would ya?"

"I might. Depends on what you have for me."

"Here you are. Every single cap. As agreed."

He handed me a bag of 250, and I couldn't have been happier.

MacCready and I took a seat in the back room where I met him a few hours prior. I wasn't thinking at first with my head being a little fuzzy from the vodka, but he deserved half. I gave him a cut. 125 for both of us.

"Don't mind if I do," he said, pocketing the caps. "I'd walk a hundred miles if I knew there was a pile of caps waiting for me at the end. Didn't think of it as a partnership or anything, but I'm not going to turn down you down."

"What do you mean?"

"You point, I shoot. Pretty simple arrangement. Yet, you gave me half your pay."

"I don't mind. You helped me out. Think of it as an investment for the next few months you'll be spending teaching me.

"Heh. Partnering up with you sure beats drinking myself blind in Goodneighbor. Though, I don't see why we can't do both."