Sally met Hawk at the junkyard, where they had agreed to meet. The Elder had told them about the trouble being caused by a couple of super heroes in the town of Canterbury Commons and asked if they could look into it. They hoped for good dealings in the unexplored territory as well.

They decided to take the road since according to the map it would take them right to the town, even though it was far up in the northeast. It was a nice, clear day so Sally spotted the Enclave camp set up on the road before the scouts saw them. She was inclined to go around as she didn't want to be held up but Hawk had other ideas. He was spoiling for a fight.

"Fine. Just hold on a sec, will you? Give me that missile launcher.", she said.

"What fun is that?", he growled as he pulled out the launcher.

Sally loaded the launcher and kneeled down, zeroing in on the camp. She got off two quick shots before the soldiers came after them.

"Go!", she yelled and Hawk took off, mini-gun blazing. She tossed the launcher and whipped out her combat shotgun. Hawk was engaging one of the soldiers. She took a flamer hit before she could get in enough shots to kill the remaining soldier.

She groaned, looking around at the mess.

"Hell, Hawk, what are we going to do with all this stuff? We can't carry it all. Come on, let's gather it up and help me strip these soldiers. The Outcasts could use the suits. We can put everything in that crate over there. Maybe we can pick it up later. My suit's not gonna take too many more hits like that. Can we please TRY to not pick fights? At least until we're done at the Commons.". she groused.

"Sure.", Hawk agreed calmly, retrieving the missile launcher and slinging it across his back.

They chose to not stay in the Enclave camp as other soldiers could check on it at any time. A small, almost intact house a few miles up the road provided sufficient protection for the night. A small fire, carefully banked and hidden behind a wall, provided heat and allowed them to warm a meal. The night was clear and passed without incident.

The next day was cloudy with the promise of rain later. The promise passed unfulfilled as the day waned and they moved closer to the Commons. Other than a couple of radscorpions they didn't encounter any other trouble. Sally had managed to observe an Enclave camp through her sniper's scope far enough away to go around so that Hawk didn't go after them.

It was getting close to dark when they saw the buildings up ahead. In her haste to get there Sally got careless. She didn't know the Talon Mercs were there until she took the first hit in her shoulder from an assault rifle. With a roar Hawk plunged to her defense, even as she flung herself behind a boulder, simultaneously jerking up her combat shotgun and zeroing in on the gunfire. From the cover of the boulder she fired at the Merc who had broken cover to get at her. She jerked back as a volley of bullets slammed into the ground beside her, then leaped out and fired rapidly. She couldn't let Hawk get killed.

There wasn't much danger of that. The Merc's assault rifles weren't much defense against Hawk's mini-gun.

"I'm sorry, Hawk. I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice them.", she said contritely.

"Yeah, we're both tired. We've been travelling all day. Let's just get these cleaned up and go on up. They've gotta have some place to grab some dinner and get a place to sleep.", Hawk said.

The first person they came across was 'Uncle' Joe who told them where to get some dinner. He then introduced them to the town officer, who agreed to let them spend the night at his home. After dinner they interviewed several town residents and learned about the crazy ant lady, the Antagonizer, who controlled a nest of giant ants, and her nemesis The Machinist who created and controlled robots. The problem was they carried out their vendetta in town, causing damage to the town and placing the residents at risk.

Uncle Joe offered her 200 caps to stop them, preferably without causing any further problems or killing them. It turned out the Machinist was a former friend of his. Sally bargained him into agreeing to pay 400 caps. After a good night's sleep she would begin her job.

They hit the bunks early.

"You take the bottom. You're too heavy for the top.", Sally said reasonably. Hawk merely grunted, tossing the mattress onto the floor.

"Hey, Sally, why did you charge them so much? I know you didn't take anything from the residents at Big Town."

"Well, it's like this. Big Town couldn't afford to give us anything. They were barley staying alive there. These people are well fed and prosperous. If I always give our services away we'll soon get a reputation and we won't be worth anything. They can afford it, so I charge what we're worth. It's just good business." Hawk thought about this before falling asleep.

The next morning Sally headed north of town to find the lair of the Antagonizer. She had been warned about the queen's guards, so she decided stealth might be the best option. It took a good hour to locate the lair by searching the paths leading out of town. At the wooden door she asked Hawk to wait.

"Please, Hawk, I don't want to kill her if I can help it. If we go in with guns blazing I probably won't have that choice. I'm going to use stealth boys to sneak in and try to talk to her."

'What if it doesn't work?", he growled.

"Then I'll do what I have to. Don't you think I can handle this?", she asked. He had little doubt about her abilities so he agreed to wait.

Sally opened the door with her combat shotgun ready. She would have to go through the tunnels to get to the queen. She had dealt with ants before so she was pretty sure the guards would only be in or near the queen's chamber. Since she only had four stealth boys she didn't want to use them on the regular worker or soldier ants.

The chitter chitter of ants warned her that some were near but none approached her. She found out why when she rounded a corner and saw that a door blocked the way. The sounds were coming from the other side. After considering the situation for a bit, she took out several mines. She placed one directly in front of the door, then went back down the hall and up the stairs, placing a few more as she went. Going back to the door she hit the panel to open it, turned and fled up the hall and up the stairs to the accompaniment of the mines going off behind her. At the top she turned, combat shotgun ready. From this vantage point she could take them down as they tried to come up after her, but only one tough soldier made it this far, and one shot took care of it as it was already injured.

The tunnels appeared to be part of some kind of ancient maintenance structure but most of it was collapsed in and blocked off. After going through what seemed to be a functioning generator room she came into more tunnels. Here a part of the wall had collapsed showing dirt and rock tunnels shored up with wooden structures going into the mountain. This was surely the way to the queen's lair. Sally crept carefully forward, ready to use a stealth boy if she spied a guardian ant.

The way through the tunnels was convoluted. At one place it split and she arbitrarily decided to go left. Further on the tunnels seemed to merge so it probably hadn't mattered which way she went. She was just surprised at how few ants there were. Perhaps the war with the Machinist had taken a heavy toll. Suddenly the tunnel opened up into a cavern. Sally could see the woman sitting on a throne across the cavern. She was wearing form fitting armor and a helmet fashioned like an ant's head with great solid eyes and antennae.

No guardians appeared to be in sight as Sally moved slowly forward, her shotgun in a neutral position to show she wasn't there looking for a kill. The woman watched her approach.

"Why do you dare to invade my lair?", she asked as Sally came up to her.

"I just want to talk to you.", Sally replied very calmly. "Why are you attacking the town?"

It took some convincing to get the woman to finally realize what she was doing wasn't in any way beneficial to herself or the ants she loved. Getting them killed wasn't going to help save them. In the end, the woman handed over her suit and helmet to Sally with the promise she was going to go away and not return, whereupon she simply walked off, leaving Sally to find her own way. Since that was what she did, Sally promptly set about seeing if anything in the quarters was worth taking. There wasn't much, the woman had lived very frugally, but she did find a ladder leading to the surface. At least she wouldn't have to go back through the warren.

Hawk was still watching the entrance when Sally came up behind him. He heard her coming and turned to greet her.

"Where did you come from?", he asked. She laughed. On the way back to town she told him about the woman and finding the ladder.

"It's kinda late. Let's get some dinner and some sleep. Tomorrow we'll deal with the other kook.", she said.

Uncle Joe knew where the Machinist was working and pointed out his shop on the top of a mountain out of town. It was some shop. It was comprised of an old robot manufacturing facility and was three floors of dangerous Protectrons and sentries. Sally and Hawk stood in the lobby, which seemed safe enough, and considered which way to go. There was a kitchen and office area off to the left. Down the hall there was a functioning elevator. Going straight led to the manufacturing areas.

"His workshop is going to be on the top floor, isn't it?", Sally asked drily. Hawk shrugged.

"More than likely."

"Well, if it was easy, they wouldn't need us, would they?", she sighed. "Okay, I'm going to explore the floors and see if I can find a way to get to him without destroying his robots. If they can be reprogrammed they can help the town. How about you check out the kitchen and offices? Do try not to destroy too many robots."

"If you insist", he said and headed off to the left.

Sally approached the floor carefully. She spotted the sentry hanging from the ceiling. Its constant beeping made it fairly easy to locate. She also noticed a Protectron patrolling the floor. There was a door not too far off. She would check that out first. Pulling the stealth boys from her pack she fixed one in place and activated it, dropping the others in a pocket where they could be accessed quickly.

The stealth boy utilized pre-war technology to render her nearly invisible as long as she moved slowly and the enemy didn't come to close. Once they focused on her she would no longer be hidden. She crouched and moved slowly into the room, keeping her weapon at the ready. It took a while to creep across the floor into the room but she quickly found it was worth it. The room contained a computer and she was able to break into it and shut down the defenses on the floor.

That done she headed up the stairs to the next floor to repeat the process. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as successful. She moved a little too quickly and a Protectron caught sight of her. Gunfire would have drawn too much attention so Sally quickly hurled a pulse grenade before it could get too close to her, then another. The electromagnetic pulses fried the robots circuits. That was too bad, that was one robot that wouldn't function again. She quickly entered the control room and shut down the defenses for that floor. One more floor to go.

The stealth boy was still holding out but it wouldn't last much longer. She fixed another and activated it. Sneaking out of the doorway she crept, crouching, toward the control room past a number of machines. A Protectron was patrolling across the room and was about to turn the corner, heading right toward her. Sally slipped between the machines and went completely still. Hopefully it wouldn't pass near enough to catch sight of her. She waited with the combat rifle at the ready. If it did see her, it would be too close to use a pulse grenade.

The Protectron patrolled by without checking the machines. As soon as it was past Sally slipped out and crept on toward the room. It didn't notice her. She made it to the room and shut down the defenses on the last floor. She could now move freely.

Following the catwalk she came to the Machinists work room. He wasn't there. Sally checked the room and the rest of the floor. She went back down to the ground floor and found Hawk in the kitchen.

"I didn't find him but I noticed that there wasn't any elevator on any of the floors. I think it might go to a different area so I'm going to try it next." , she said.

The elevator opened onto an enclosed walkway. It was totally empty but Sally could hear sounds echoing in the end of the tunnel like enclosure. She moved cautiously toward the sound. She was almost in the room when the costumed man came out and confronted her.

"I heard you got rid of the Antagonizer. Good, good. Just give me her suit so I can make sure no one ever uses it again."

"Hold on.", Sally said. "I'll let you have the suit but first we need to talk about what you're doing. You're scaring people with your antics. And what about little Derek? Do you know he comes out to watch every battle? What if he gets hurt?"

"What?", the Machininst said. "No, I don't want anyone to get hurt. I want to protect them. Here, you take my suit too. I'll just leave. I can't show my face in this town now. I didn't mean to scare anyone."

"Now wait a minute. You don't have to do that. The people aren't mad at you. They just want you to stop causing trouble in town. They want you back. You know, you're so good with these robots, you could program them to help protect the town under your control without causing so much damage. I've been thinking too and I have a deal for you. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time and I think you might be able to do it.", she said persuasively.

He was intrigued. "What is it you think I can do?', he asked.

"I've seen a lot of old motorcycles all over the wasteland. Some of them look like they're in pretty decent shape but as far as I know no one has made one work. If you can get one to work for me I'll pay you 2000 caps for it."

The man's eyes lit up with the challenge. "You got a deal. I think there's one just out of town and I can get the traders to bring me parts from all over. Give me a year and check back."

"Good. I'll be around. Take care of the Town.", Sally said.

"Yeah, I will, good travels.", he said absently, heading for his workshop.

Sally slung the suit over her shoulder and tucked the helmet under her arm, then headed back down the tunnel to the elevator. It was time to get Hawk and go claim their reward.

Uncle Joe was so happy with the way Sally had handled the affair that he threw in a bonus of 200 caps. The pair was now richer by 600 caps and two super hero costumes. After another good meal and a good night's sleep they left for home.

"What do you think, Hawk? How about we pick up some of those Enclave Tesla suits and some plasma rifles and take them to the Outcasts? We'll just stop off at Home and leave these outfits until I decide what to do with them."

"Hah! You know you're going to keep the helmets for trophies.", Hawk grinned.

"Hmm, yeah, they can go on top of the gun cabinets. They'll look interesting there, don't you think." Hawk guffawed.

He said, "It's still a good idea though. There's the Enclave camp now. Let's see if anyone's raided the lockers."

They made good time and made it home the next day before it was completely dark. They spent the following day going through salvage and choosing items to take to the Outcasts. The early morning sun lit the sky above Megaton and glinted off the bomb as they left to go to the Outcast outpost in the south.

By the time they had finished their trades and stopped at the library to sell some books there was only one day left before the Tradewind was due at Rivet City. Sally wasn't going to let salvaging keep her from the Tradewind. Picking up what items they could off the raiders, mutants and wildlife they killed on the way in they had a fair amount to trade when they arrived at Rivet City. Hawk handed the beggar a bottle of pure water on the way in to the ship city.