Chapter Twenty-Six: Idle
James' hands clutch the rifle he pilfered from a dead raider, white knuckled and covered in blood. Charon shifts the assault rifle he scavenged. It's a piece of shit but it'll have to do until they find the slaver group that took Sunshine. He tries not to think of the first time he saw her shoot a gun, an assault rifle in little better shape than this one.
"That's the last clip."
"Where'd you get that piece of shit? Did you pry off the cold dead hands of a super mutant?"
He sighs, shifting the gun on his back again. He can't get comfortable, can't make it feel right.
The group is large and fairly easy to track. Little to no effort had been made by the slavers to cover their trail. They probably didn't realize that Charon and James were coming for them.
Good. It'd be that much more satisfying when Charon filled them full of bullets.
"What's on your mind?" James asks quietly; Charon snorts.
"Silence isn't golden where you are concerned, is it?"
"It isn't that," James says. "You just look like you could use a friend." Charon's eyes dart over to him. James is reminded of a nervous child.
"She's the same way," he says after an eternity. "Heh. Always lookin' to be someone's friend, even when she's better off just leaving them alone."
"Thinking of anyone in particular?" James asks. Charon nods and sets his eyes toward the horizon.
"Yeah. Someone you might know."
"Most of these people are injured," Sunshine says as the group stops for a rest. Sister sighs.
"You've said that three times this morning."
"They need medical attention," she persists, eyeing a woman supporting an injured man. She can smell the infection in his leg all the way from where she stands.
"They'll either survive or they won't. Why the hell do you care so much?" Sister grumbles.
"You'll make more money if more of them survive," she says nonchalantly. Sister snorts.
"You and I both know that isn't why you're so gung-ho to help them,'" he says. "But if it'll get you to shut up, you can attend to them."
"Sister," another slaver interjects sharply. "Our orders are to keep her away from the general population." He eyes Sunshine warily. "Our reports said she's crafty."
"And that a lot of that craft came from that ghoul she ran around with," Sister says. Sunshine's stomach flops at the mention of Charon and tears threaten to spill from her eyes.
Man up, kid.
I'm alive. You're alive. The dog's alive. And so is your dad.
Sunshine!
They weren't dead. Charon and her father were too strong to let the wasteland take them out. They had to be. She doesn't know what she would do if they died.
"We left him to rot, along with anyone else who'd bother enough to come after her. And I want her to shut up. If bandaging up a few slaves who are going to die anyway accomplishes that then so be it." Sister looks at Sunshine, motioning sharply to the group of slaves. "Go on." She rushes the couple supporting each other. They flinch away from her as she approaches.
"I'm here to help," she says gently. The woman eyes her warily, placing her body in between Sunshine and the man. More like 'the boy' if Sunshine were completely honest. He looked maybe three years younger than Sunshine, maybe more.
"You were with the slavers," the woman says. Sunshine wearily motions to the slave collar on her neck.
"I'm prime merchandise," she says unhappily. "I'm not in any more control of the situation than you are. Please, let me help you. I have some medical training." A dull ache starts in her chest as she remembers her father. He's alive, she tells herself. They didn't get so far just to have it all end like this. "I also have some expertise with explosives, if you catch my drift," she mentions underneath her breath. The woman, after a long and hard look at Sunshine, finally nods her assent.
Sunshine helps her sit the boy on the ground and she manages to get a small campfire started. She opens the small knapsack Sister permitted her to carry to see two lone bottles of water at the bottom underneath some gauze she has scavenged. Sister had snuck her more water, stating that the rest of the slaves were expendable as long as she lived. After all, she was the one he was getting the mountain of caps for. She bares her teeth as she thinks of the callous way he said it. She opens one bottle and pours about half of it into a pot to bring it to a boil. She hands the rest to the woman who murmurs a soft and nearly intelligible thanks. As she's waiting for the water to boil she takes a closer look at the boy. All of the color has bled out from his face and his breathing is labored.
"What's your name?" she asks gently.
"Jo-Jonah," he wheezes.
"And you?" she asks the older woman.
"Anna," she says, scooting closer to the boy. "He's my brother." Sunshine nods as the water begins to come to a gently boil. She gingerly rolls the boy's pants leg up.
"Tell me about yourselves," she says, dipping a rag into the scalding water. Her hands turn red almost immediately but she makes no effort to withdraw them.
"Not much to tell," wheezes Jonah. "We lived up in The Rotten Core." At Sunshine's questioning look, Anna clarifies.
"The Sleepless Wasteland. New York City," she says. Jonah nods, sweat dripping from his brow.
"I wasn't aware the slavers of Paradise Falls made raids that far up," Sunshine says, eyeing Sister and his group.
"Neither were we," Anna says bitterly. Sunshine pulls the rag out and begins to gently clean the boy's wound.
"You've had this for a while," she says, stopping to see maggots writhing in the wound. Anna follows her gaze and makes a face, reaching over to pluck the bugs out. Sunshine grabs her wrist. "Leave them. They'll help clean the wound."
"If you say so," Anna says, clearly not convinced.
"Gross," Jonah groans. Sunshine continues cleaning the wound, careful of her little helpers.
"What is the Sleepless Wasteland like?"
"A shithole," Jonah says. "Radiation everywhere. The only real sustainable places are the metros." He gestures to her Pip-Boy. "The Vaults failed forever ago and where never really habitable to begin with."
"You had to live in the metros?" Sunshine asks with a thin layer of discomfort lining her voice. "What about ferals?" He shrugs and shifts his leg, wincing at the effort.
"What about them? They aren't the worst things we have to fight down there by far."
"Did the slavers follow you into the metros?" Sunshine asks, setting the rag back down into the water. She bites her lip. She didn't have any antiseptic and she's afraid that even if she did, it wouldn't do anything. The boy's leg is in a bad state. If she had antibiotics she may have been able to better help him but those were scarce unless one lived in a Vault. And the only still functioning Vault she could think of wouldn't let her back in, let alone give her antibiotics to save the life of a wastelander.
"No. Bastards caught us out on a supply run," Anna says. "The bastards killed Micah." She runs her hands over a worn and dull ring resting on her finger. "That's how they operate. They kill the ones who would cause the most trouble and take the weaker ones. The ones who want to live at any cost." Sunshine falls silent and dresses Jonah's wound to the best of her ability.
They left Charon and her father to die but that doesn't mean they did. At least, that is what she tells herself. She can't imagine a world without either of them.
She looks around to see the slavers occupied. They hunch over a pile of caps and worn playing cards that are nearly indistinguishable against the dirt. Her pack lies next to them looking empty and deflated. They're gambling for her possessions. The ones they've deemed worthless are scattered by group and they are the ones Sunshine deems most valuable. A book about losing paradise. A set of holotapes, one of which is the only way she can hear her mother's voice. An old and threadbare baseball cap. A piece of paper that should have long been decayed with a single distinguishable word.
These get left in the wasteland dirt when the group moves on.
Paradise Falls is a cesspool of desperation. Even before they reach the front gates of the slaver compound Sunshine can feel the hopelessness that seems to permeate the air. A slave making a break from the main compound rushes past her and none of the guards follow. She feels a sickening churn in her stomach as she waits for the inevitable explosion of his collar and the laughter of the guards.
One of Jonah's arms is slung over her shoulders and she helps Anna support him. The infection has brought about a fever and he mutters deliriously at no one. Anna's lips are fixed in a tight line and unshed tears twinkle in her eyes.
"I'll help him," Sunshine murmurs to reassure the other woman. The slavers are sure to have a doctor.
"Yeah. Thanks," Anna says but the dull tone of her voice betrays her disbelief. They stop in front of the scavenged gates of Paradise Falls. They open with a slow and torturous creaking. Sunshine's eyes are darting all over the compound, cataloguing the different buildings and the positions of the slaver's guards. She can make out a bar, an arms dealer and, with a captured breath, a clinic. One of the slavers from their group rustles them into the slave pens.
The pens are filthy and overcrowded. Sunshine looks at the inhabitants with dismay. A large majority are either sick or dying, too tired or weak to keep on living. Wordlessly, she begins to go about to help everyone she can. Sister, shaking his head, closes the gate to the pens with an echoing click.
She and Anna set Jonah down in a dark corner and lean him against the wire fence. Anna collapses next to him as his head lolls back and rests her forehead against his shoulder. Sunshine kneels in front of him.
"Jonah," she says softly. "Jonah, I'm going to help you get better. But I need you to stay with me, okay?" He chuckles.
"I don't see how," he slurs, pulling himself up on the wire fence. "Better to let me die. But I want to be on my feet if I do." Sunshine looks around to see the guards on the pens switching out.
"Damn it," she says. She feels a tug on her arm. She looks down to see a dirty hand attacked to a dirty child.
"Ma'am," the little girl says, much to the chagrin of the other children in the pen. "I think I know how to help you."
A pile of discarded possessions catches Charon's eye. His fingers clench and unclench into fists as he makes his way over to it.
"What have you found?" James asks, inspecting the burnt remains of a campfire alongside some dirty bandages. Charon stays silent, but his hand strays to the book, Paradise Lost, still creased from where she had been reading it. He holds it to his ruined nose to try and capture some remnant of her to no avail. He begins collecting the various holotapes, the journal entries of Sunshine's parents, and finds a weather piece of paper underneath them. His heart starts beating faster and faster as he moves to pick it up. A current of pain shoots through him but his fingers clench around the scrap of paper anyway.
The writing on it has all but faded away except for one single word: Charon.
"It's been two hundred years since I've held this piece of paper," he breathes raggedly, the pain from his conditioning increasing by the second.
"What does it say?" James asks. Though the paper lacks words, Charon recites them as though they were written in new ink.
" 'Protect the contract holder with your life. They are your master, and you are their servant. This is a binding contract detailing the full measure of your employment: You will be the contract holder's gun, their left hand and you will obey their orders, no matter the cost. Use of physical force against you by the contract holder terminates your employment. You, Charon, will serve and protect and obey until the termination of your contract. This is your one true purpose.' " James remains silent and Charon holds the slip of paper out to him.
"Keep this for her, will you? It'd be a shame to lose it."
This chapter was so hard to get out and I don't even know why, you guys. But hopefully now that I've gotten the ball rolling for this arc the chapters will be out quicker. (Although, I'm afraid I'm a little bit predictable. Hope that doesn't bother you guys. XD)