- Sheriff Simms -
As he stepped into the front door of Moriarty's Saloon, Lucas Simms had a flashback to his childhood on his father's ranch out east. He distinctly remembered the wide-eyed terror in the eyes of the brahmin as they were taken to the slaughterhouse to be sliced into steaks and sold to the traders of Canterbury Commons. Lately, Lucas knew exactly how those brahmin felt.
Truth be told, the waterway bargain had been spiraling out of control since the very day Simms had made his deal with the devil. For a brief moment in time, the sheriff had thought there might'a been a ray of hope when the Vargas boy had come to see him about exposing Moriarty, but that opportunity had literally gone up in flames when the Vargas family home went off like a mini-nuke.
In fact, that was the reason Sheriff Simms was coming through the front door today instead of slinking around the back of the bar like usual. He was here on official business to investigate the unfortunate fire. The official ruling was a gas leak in Manya's kitchen, but that didn't pass the smell test for Lucas. The Sheriff had spent the better part of two days asking around town and no one had seen any indications of foul play, but the timing of it seemed awful damn suspicious, and Lucas had learned in his line of work that there was no such a thing as coincidence. The sheriff was convinced there was more to the incident than bad luck, and he'd bet his badge that Moriarty was behind the 'accident'. Unfortunately, Simms couldn't prove it.
Gob was behind the counter, polishing glasses and listening to Three Dog on the radio. As the sheriff approached him, Lucas noticed that the ghoul's face looked worse than ever. Either ol' Gob was suddenly decomposing extra fast or someone had given him a good whoopin'. Simms was sure it was the latter.
"Morning Sheriff," the ghoul mumbled, not looking up from his busywork.
"Mornin' son," Lucas tipped his hat. "You got somethin' you'd like to report," the sheriff asked, leaning into the bar just in case Gob wanted to make a confession.
"Just clumsy," the ghoul replied, not meeting the sheriff's eye.
"Looks like you slipped and fell into someone's fist, son," Lucas observed. "You sure you don't want to make a statement?"
"It's nothing," Gob lied. "Just an accident."
"Yeah, there's a lot of that goin' round," Simms grunted. "Speaking of, you happen to hear any rumors about the fire the other morning at Manya's?"
Although it didn't seem possible, the ghoul's face turned even darker as the question struck him hard. He fumbled with the glass he was polishing, and then made a show of shakily setting it down and picking up another.
"That was an awful accident Sheriff," the ghoul stammered. "Just awful."
Gob was never hard to read, especially for a professional interrogator like Simms. The sheriff could clearly see the ghoul was hiding something, but Lucas could also see that Gob was too afraid to confess what he knew.
"Were you hear at the bar that morning?" Lucas asked.
"Oh yes, bright and early," Gob replied with a little more enthusiasm. The ghoul seemed relieved to be able to say something truthful.
"What about Moriarty? Did you see him?"
"Oh yes, Sir, sheriff," Mr. Moriarty was in his office.
"How about Jericho?"
This time Gob did drop his glass and nearly jumped out of his deteriorating skin when it shattered on the bar room floor.
"Jericho?" the ghoul stuttered.
"Yeah, you know. Surly guy, scarred face, likes to sit at the corner table and stare down the clientele."
"Yeah sheriff," Gob nodded nervously.
"Yeah you saw him?" Simms pressed.
"No, Sir," the ghoul shook his head vigorously, wincing at the pain it caused him. "I haven't seen him."
Simms obviously knew the ghoul was lying to him, and the sheriff had a pretty good idea he knew who had thrown the bartender a beatin'. It looked like Jericho's handy work. The question was why, and did it have something to do with the accident. Lucas was guessing it did. The sheriff was about to intensify his interrogation when Colin stepped out of the back room.
A range of emotions flashed across the Irishman's face, but Colin was quick to recover and even quicker to plaster on his charming smile that he used on all his patrons.
"Welcome Sheriff," the bar owner bellowed as he crossed the bar and grasped Lucas's hand in a friendly shake. "What brings you in today?"
Colin cast a suspicious eye toward his bartender. It was a fleeting glance – nearly imperceptible except to the trained eye of Lucas Simms.
"I'm asking around about the fire at the Vargas place the other day."
"Awful shame that was," Colin said sadly, shaking his head with such earnest conviction that Simms could almost believe the man was grieving. "Such a horrible accident and a real loss to our community. Dear old Manya was practically the founding mother of Megaton."
"Indeed," Simms said, still unconvinced. "That's why I gotta do my due diligence and look into this accident real close."
"Well, why don't you step into my office," Colin said, placing a friendly hand on the sheriff's back and ushering him into the back room.
Simms didn't like getting behind closed doors with Moriarty, but he followed the Irishmen into the office. If Colin was going to say anything worth saying, he wouldn't do it out front in front of the customers. Moriarty liked to keep his business private.
"Have a seat Lucas," Colin said once he shut the door. Some of the man's charm evaporated, but his tone was still light and non-threatening. He sat at his desk across from the sheriff and fished a pack of cigarettes out of the top drawer.
"Smoke?" Colin asked, shaking a cigarette halfway out of the pack and offering it to Simms.
"Much obliged," Lucas nodded. He could use a good smoke and Moriarty had the best. Simms wasn't nervous, but he was unsettled. Water shortages, people being poisoned to death by the Holy Light cult, Billy Creel trying to rob Brotherhood caravans, and now Manya's death was all adding up to take quite a toll on the little metal town of Megaton. And the weight of all that fell on the sheriff's shoulders. The people looked to Sheriff Simms to solve their problems, and lately Lucas felt like he was only adding fuel to the fire.
"You look troubled, Sheriff," Colin said, leaning forward to light Lucas's smoke. The sheriff puffed the soothing nicotine into his lungs without responding.
"There's nothing to worry about," the Irishman reassured his guest after lighting his own cigarette. "Jericho's got the waterway syndicate well in hand and we'll get a shipment into Megaton in the next few days one way or another."
Lucas didn't like the 'one way or another' part of Moriarty's declaration, but at this point, any Aqua Pura coming into the city was good news – no matter how it got to Megaton. Unfortunately, these were the compromises Simms had signed up for when he agreed to work with these people.
"Speaking of Jericho, I didn't see him out front in his usual spot…" Simms said casually. He was trying not to get Moriarty riled up, but the Irishman was nobody's fool.
"He's out of town," Colin replied trying to sound just as casual, but a slight edge in the bar owner's voice indicated that Jericho was a touchy subject
"Was he around yesterday morning?" Lucas pressed.
Colin's features darkened. The amicable persona he had affected out at the front of his bar had completely evaporated and Lucas could see that he was now staring at the Megaton mob boss vice the friendly neighborhood bar owner.
"Careful Sheriff," Moriarty warned. "Things around here are finally about to settle down. Now would be a bad time for you to start stirrin' up more trouble."
"Settle down!" Lucas barked with an ironic laugh. "Just these past few weeks I've had to keep a lid on crazy cultists, angry mobs, break-ins, poisonings, and a whole town dyin' of thirst. And now, as you said yourself, Megaton's 'founding mother' has been blown up in her own home! Tell me just how the blazin' hell you think things are settlin' down?"
"Calm down, Lucas, and try to see the silver lining here," Colin replied soothingly. "The Vargas family has been the biggest troublemakers in all of Megaton. You know that crackpot Nathan was always runnin' around spewin' conspiracy theories left and right, gettin' folks all stirred up for no good reason. And Manya did her share of rumor spreadin', which was even worse because folks trusted her. Like I told you, we'll have water commin' into town in a few days and a whole lot of revenue once we finish locking down the waterways. After that I'll help you take care of those fuckin' Apostles of Light. And without the Vargas' stirrin' up trouble, your town will go back to the peaceful place it's always been."
Lucas took another long drag on his smoke and considered all that had just been said. He wasn't so sure that Megaton had ever been a peaceful place – not with Colin Moriarty in the mix. If ever there was someone who stirred up trouble, it was the ruthless Irishman. It would have been ideal to get ahold of the proof that the Vargas boy had stolen from the mobster, but that dream was dead, and Simms didn't want Colin to know that he knew about what was on his computer.
Still, Ricardo Vargas knew what Moriarty had been doing, and the boy wasn't just going to skip back into town and drop the whole thing. The Sheriff had gotten a good read on the Vargas boy and he knew Rico was stubborn and tenacious and had the balls to back it up. There was no telling what the Brotherhood Paladin would do once he found out about his mother's mysterious death!
"What about Manya's son?" Simms said. "There's no way he's gonna believe Manya's death was accidental. He's gonna be pissed off and out for blood."
"Don't worry about that," the Irishman said with a smile so wicked it made the Sheriff's skin crawl. "I've got a little surprise lined up for him at the Monastery."
- Knight Joules Prescott -
It was well after curfew, the time of night when the streets of Downtown were normally sleepy and silent, and in the residential district that was still primarily true. Tonight, however, Joules immediately heard the distant sounds of shouting and civil disobedience coming from the direction of the Market Square. He felt the same tension in the evening air on this side of the gate that he had in Uptown. The Pitt was on the verge of revolution and the thought made the knight pick up his pace.
Fortunately, Midea's shanty was close to the Downtown gateway and Joules made it there in short order. Even so, his nerves were a jangled mess by the time he reached the old Mother's doorway, and they didn't get any more settled when he noticed her humble wooden door was slightly ajar. That was unusual for a woman who liked to answer her door by stating who was on the other side before the visitor had a chance to announce themselves and it made the knight even more nervous.
He considered calling out to her but changed his mind. He currently had the element of surprise on his side and, somehow, Marie had fallen back to sleep and was being mercifully quiet in her bundle on the knight's back. So, he opted for the silent approach and carefully poked his head inside the open doorway.
At first glance, the knight saw the old woman seated at her small kitchen table. For a moment Joules felt a rush of relief until he realized she was not alone in the room. There was a figure behind her, poking at the coals in her kitchen fireplace. It could have been a visitor preparing tea for the two of them, but something about the scene didn't feel right.
For one thing, the knight noticed upon closer inspection that the Slave Mother's hands were bound to the chair she sat in by thick cords of rope. And for another, he recognized the profile of her guest when the man finally turned away from the firelight and made his way around the table.
Even from this distance and backlit in the murky glow of the fireplace, Joules easily recognized the hideous leer of Reddup's wicked face. The man's mottled grey skin and red-rimmed eyes made him appear almost demonic in the flickering firelight as he turned toward Midea brandishing the red-hot poker.
"I'm done fuckin' with you ol' woman," the Pitt Raider snarled. "I want Werhner's location and I want it now!"
As the Raider roared his demands, Joules took the opportunity to quietly slip past the door and into Midea's entryway. The knight thought that the old woman might have seen him, but if she did, she was clever enough not to react.
Reddup had his back to the door and didn't notice the knight's approach. The Raider was leaning over the tabletop, menacingly dangling the glowing red tip of the fireplace poker mere inches from Midea's face.
"You tell me where he is," Reddup growled, "or we'll find out how good you see the future after both your eyes have been burned out of their sockets!"
Joules was nearly within reach of the Raider. The knight was unarmed again, but at least he had the drop on the miserable bastard and with any luck he could snap the man's neck before Reddup knew what hit him.
That opportunity evaporated, however, as Reddup's shouting suddenly woke the baby again and Marie began another round of crying!
The Raider reacted purely on instinct, but his instincts were good. He spun around toward the door, bringing the poker around at the same time to ward off his would-be attacker. The tip of the weapon struck the knight in the shoulder and seared through his leather armor and into his flesh, slamming Joules into the table and causing the baby bundle to tumble to the floor.
Joules gritted through the pain of his branded shoulder and grasped the poker near its center to prevent Reddup from taking a second swing at him. The two men tried to wrestle the weapon away from one another as Marie continued to wail.
Even near the center of the poker, the superheated metal was still hot to the touch where Joules had grabbed it. It wasn't going to cause any serious damage, but it was beginning to burn his hand and affect the knight's grip.
Reddup could see that he was winning and attempted to maneuver the tip of the poker in line with the Knight. Joules was bent over backwards now with his back against the table as Reddup used both hands and all his weight to drive the smoldering metal tip closer and closer to the Knight's face.
"Maybe I'll give you a third eye so you and the old woman can see each other's futures," Reddup growled, the demonic leer returning to his infected face.
The poker's tip was mere inches from the knight's forehead and Joules could feel the heat of it rolling off in waves. The knight pushed back with all the strength his burnt hand could muster as his free hand flailed around the table blindly searching for anything to use as a weapon.
"Here's a hint about those futures," the Raider howled. "You both fuckin die!"
Joules felt a plate, but his hand kept searching. It discovered some sort of mushy meal but moved on. Finally, miraculously, his fingers closed around the handle of a table knife. Without hesitation he jammed the weapon into the Raider's side once, and then again, and then again. The knight must have stabbed Reddup more than half a dozen times before the Raider managed to throw himself off the table and slither along the dirt floor.
Joules was blind with rage and well beyond the point of restraint. He retrieved the disgarded fireplace poker and launched himself on top of the fallen Raider. With a battle cry fit for a Brotherhood Knight, Joules raised the glowing rod and jammed it straight through Reddup's right eye, staking his disease-ridden head to the dirt.
Reddup's remaining eye flashed a look of pure hatred, and then its light went out completely and the evil Raider died with a single, full-bodied twitch.
Joules sat on the dead man a moment as the blood lust continued to course through his veins. Finally, the persistent sound of Marie's wailing brought the knight back to reality and rational thought returned to the warrior's mind.
As the adrenaline drained out of him, the knight wearily scooped up the crying bundle and held the baby to his good shoulder. Both his burnt hand and seared shoulder were throbbing, but Joules ignored the pain and soothed the baby with pats on the back and soft whispers of reassurance. He told her everything was going to be all right even though he knew the jury was still out on that verdict. There was still a long way to go before Joules could be certain that tonight didn't end with the city tearing itself apart!
Joules noticed Midea quietly watching him and he felt his anger flare again.
"Do you know what this is?" The knight huffed, moving around the table to free the old woman. He set the baby in her lap and then began to saw at the ropes that bound Midea with the dinner knife that still had Reddup's blood all over it.
"A miracle…" the old woman whispered in awe. She snatched up Marie as soon as her hands were free and held the baby up to her face as a tear slowly traced its way down the old oracle's wrinkled face. "It's a miracle."
"So you didn't know that this was the cure Werhner wanted stolen from Haven?" The knight pressed, his voice thick with accusation.
"Contrary to popular opinion, I don't know everything," Midea said wryly, not taking her misty eyes from the baby as she answered the knight. "Werhner said the cure was something that Ashur cared for even more than himself and that its loss would cost him dearly. He never said that it was a child."
"Ashur told me about the vision you had for him," Joules continued angrily. "He said you told him that a man would come from beneath the ground to threaten his reign… and that Ashur would be asked to make a great sacrifice… and that his decision would decide the fate of the city!"
"Yes…" the oracle nodded absently, staring hypnotically into the face of Marie.
"Yes what?" the knight replied in frustration. "Am I the man from beneath the ground?"
"I do not know," Midea mumbled.
"Is Marie the sacrifice?"
"I do not know." She repeated calmly.
"And what is the fate of the city?!" Joules roared.
"I don't know the answers to your questions, knight," the oracle replied, finally looking up to meet Joules' frustrated glare. "Fate is a fickle thing. If you throw a stick into the Monongahela River do you know where that stick will end up?"
It would probably melt, Joules thought. Instead he said, "It depends on many factors. Current, wind direction, obstacles, any number of things. If I knew all the variables I could make a fairly accurate prediction."
"Exactly," Midea nodded. "My vision helps me see some of the variables and offers a glimpse of where Fate may take us, but in the end, they are nothing more than predictions. There are no certainties…"
"Well, I know for certain that this city is teetering on the brink of revolution," the knight said. His voice was still thick with emotion but some of the anger was bleeding out of him.
"Yes," Midea agreed. "I can feel it too."
"And the leader of that revolution sent me into the heart of Haven to kidnap a baby!"
"It would appear that he did," the old oracle nodded. "And it would appear that you did."
"What choice did I have?" The knight protested. "I don't know who to trust in this godforsaken place. Werhner's got me kidnapping babies. Ashur's got half the city digging for a vault full of contamination. The workers want to kill the Pitt Raiders. The Pitt Raiders want to kill the workers. And all the while the entire city is slowly dying from who-knows-what kind of disease…"
Midea silently watched the knight rant as she gently rocked Marie back and forth. The old woman's face almost had the look of amusement as she thoughtfully regarded the knight. "You could just take the baby and go," she offered. "Let the Pitt destroy itself," she added with a pointed glance down at the dead Raider. There was a spreading stain of darkening dirt around Reddup's impaled head.
"No… I couldn't…" Joules admitted. It seemed like he was confessing it to himself as much as he was to the oracle. "I want to help guide your stick down the river, Midea, I truly do," he said decidedly. "I just don't know what decisions are the right ones for the future of the Pitt and the fate of its people."
"Neither do I," Midea shook her head. "There are many paths down the river, and not even I can see them all, but I know that you are the one who has to make those decisions. That much I have seen clearly."
"Then I guess I must find Werhner," Joules sighed. "Try to stop the revolution and find a peaceful way out of this before it is too late…"
"I think the revolution may already have begun," Midea said sadly, "but there may still be time to prevent the city from destroying itself. Werhner should be in the rebel command center. Go speak to Slow-eye Joe in the bus by the Mill. He will help you."
Joules nodded, wondering for the millionth time what he had gotten himself into. He thought he was doing this solely for the cure, but Midea was right. The knight could take Marie and make a break for the Wabash Bridge while the city revolted. There were plenty of Brotherhood Scribes at the Citadel that could study the baby and possibly synthesize a cure for radioactive mutation. But those weren't the actions worthy of a Brotherhood Knight – at least, not the kind of knight that Elder Lyons had sacrificed his career to establish. The order of knights that Joules believed in vowed to assist mankind in its march toward enlightenment. And, according to Midea, the people of The Pitt needed his help.
What kind of a knight would he be if he turned his back on them now?
