Happy fiftieth chapter, everyone! In my word document, this whole fanfiction takes up 138 pages. I don't add page breaks in-between chapters; I just hit the enter key twice and keep going. Maybe I should go back and make it look more... official. Book-like. Na... I'll just keep going.
Anyways, thanks for reading, and thanks for being patient with me.
We were all squinting our eyes as we stumbled through the bright sun towards the tower. It reached high, scraping against the clouds. Arcade had once again not gotten any sleep since his nightmare, and he lagged behind the group considerably, slumped and continuously reaching underneath his glasses to rub at his eyes. Boone protectively slowed his pace to walk close to him. Benny also kept his distance from me. With no one immediately behind me, I felt naked and alone. I occasionally glanced over my shoulder to make sure they were all still following as we approached the front of the Tower.
There were a few elegant stairs leading up to a rusty, makeshift gate. Peering behind it, I could see a lovely but empty courtyard and a set of wooden double doors surrounded on either side by marble columns. Beside the gate was a small intercom, but as I tentatively spoke into it, all I heard was my voice echoing me from an identical intercom on the other side.
"Is there another way in?" Arcade murmured in a hoarse voice, rubbing at his eyes again.
"Sure, if you could fly," Boone answered him, and then stepped up to the gate beside me. He pounded on the metal, letting out a sharp clashing sound.
"They won't let you in, you know."
All four of our heads swiveled sharply to the sound of the voice—behind a significantly sized tree shriveled and bare. I shifted to peer around, and sitting on the ground was a white-haired bearded fellow in ragged clothes. He was watching us with unresponsive eyes and an unreadable expression.
"I'm Willy," he spoke again.
"I'm Lydia…" I responded. "What do you mean they won't let us in?"
"The residents of Tenpenny Tower were snooty to begin with; you don't want to deal with them now anyways." He looked away, out to the large expanse of the wasteland in front of him. "When they were all human, I could at least argue with the guards to let me in, give me a little water. Gave me someone to talk to. Now? Nothing."
"A water beggar," Arcade remarked, his eyebrows furrowing in frustration. "How many cities completely neglect the needy?"
Instinctively, I moved closer to offer him a bottle. When I came close, he looked up at me with wide eyes and a dumbfounded look. "Oh, no, I didn't mean… well, I've got water." It was then that I noticed the numerous plastic bottles beside him, some empty and others full. He looked sheepishly at his collection. "Normally, I would accept anything with a gracious 'you're my hero' and all that, but… well, I have a supplier."
After a moment of confounded silence, Arcade finally murmured: "Well, that's good."
He made to say more but was interrupted by a gravelly voice behind us. "Smoothskins. Can I help you?"
Five heads swiveled to look for the source—a lone ghoul who had opened the gate without us noticing and now stood at the foot of the stairs. Willy looked away, pressing himself against his tree and gathering his bottles into a protective blanket. The ghoul was a ghostly white, with little, round, milky blue eyes poking out of his face. On top of his head still clung messy, fiery red locks of hair. In his hands rested an assault rifle. It was pointed towards the ground, but Boone had already registered him as a threat and had drawn his own sniper rifle.
"It depends on if you want to lower that gun of yours."
"In case you haven't noticed, smoothskin, I have. I've got a big group of followers behind me, if you're so inclined to shoot anyway," the ghoul responded lightly. Arcade murmured Boone's name, and the sniper hesitantly lowered his rifle. "Listen, the lot of you. Your kind isn't very welcome around here. You'd best be on your way."
I sputtered. "Our kind?"
"What in the goddamn?" Benny surprised me by speaking for the first time. The ghoul tightened his grip on his assault rifle, and Benny put his hands up cautiously. "Let's just keep this in the groove, hey? Smooth moves, like smooth little babies…"
"We're not here to cause any trouble," Arcade added. "We just decided to be in the area; if you wanted us to leave, you could have just said so."
The ghoul stood motionless, as if frozen to the spot. Those milky eyes were the only things moving, flicking to each of our faces over and over. Finally, he took a deep breath and growled, "You know what? I could actually use some people like you."
"Again with the 'like you' thing," I muttered under my breath.
He put his rifle away and motioned us to come closer. "You fellas are mercenaries, right? You've got the armor and the guns, after all."
Boone stepped in front of me to take the lead. "Depends on who's asking, and for what reason."
"I'm Roy. Roy Phillips." He turned back towards the gate, all the while gesturing for us to hurry up. "I've been offering ghouls sanctuary in this tower ever since the previous bigoted residents were… removed."
"Mister Burke talked to me about Tenpenny Tower," I murmured to Arcade.
"Oh?"
"That Lone Wanderer fellow let these ghouls in to coexist with the previous residents, he said. But the ghouls slaughtered everyone, including Tenpenny."
"It's not so much Tenpenny Tower anymore," came the ghoul's voice as he turned to shoot me a suspicious look. "More of a Phillips Tower now, I think."
Arcade's arm made a slight movement as he reached to touch his new weapon from Rivet City—a laser pistol. "We have to stay on guard," he breathed. He glanced at Boone, who nodded. Even Benny's hands were twitchy, coaxing him to the pistol on his belt.
Phillips strode past the marble columns to the wooden doors. "We can be good friends, you know. I'll just need a little bit of assistance."
As the doors opened, Arcade tightened his hand around his weapon, murmuring, "Here we go."
