10
Vincent left Wilhelm's Wharf with a package filled with food, a pair of gloves (because he looked cold), a loving peck on the cheek and ruffled hair. Patience and Valrie left the Wharf under the cold eyes of Grandma Sparkles with the shotgun pointed in their rough direction.
As soon as they left sight of Grandma Sparkles' hut, Vincent's dogged and gruff demeanour returned. But he wore the gloves.
"We cross at the Anchorage Memorial then turn back north, up the river." He pointed to the structure settled in the centre of the river, not a hundred yards away. "Watch out for Mire Lurks."
"Mire Lurks?" Patience raised an eyebrow towards Valrie.
"Big fucking crab things. Hard as hell to kill, unless you hit them in the eye." Valrie pressed a finger at the point between her eyes. "Never seen one myself. Don't fucking want to either."
Vincent approached the memorial with his assault rifle at the ready, using it to search the way ahead.
Patience recognised the Anchorage Memorial, erected in honour of those fallen in battle against the Red Chinese in the icy wastes of Alaska, though she didn't know how she recognised it. Like many things in her fractured memory, it was there, but felt like something remembered by someone else.
The memorial itself, a high plinth carrying three triumphant, brave soldiers, sat in the centre of the island, surrounded by dead, barren trees, trash cans and dilapidated seats. It was different from the bubbling memory she had, smaller, somehow. And also more decorated. Grisly, foul decorations.
Each of the statues of the soldiers had bodies dangling from them. Parts of bodies, at least. Some without arms, or legs, others without heads. Trussed up by chains and hooks and hung in stomach churning fashion and, upon the base of the plinth, the words "Kinndum of Supper Muttants" were written. Large letters written in blood. Patience edged towards the plinth, touching the bloody words. Congealed, almost dry. Only a few hours old.
"Patience!" Valrie had wandered to the northern side of the island, away from carnage on display at the monument. She leaned against the parapet, staring down. "Something you should see."
Patience, followed by Vincent, crept towards the edge of the island, weapons at the ready, making slow, careful steps. What they saw appeared to be the sight of a battle. Bodies littered the ground. Some, hulking things with what appeared to be hard carapaces on their backs, she assumed were Mire Lurks. Others appeared robot-like. If she couldn't see the blood pooling around those bodies, she would have sworn they were robots. And the rest she knew well. Super Mutants.
"Looks like a three-way and no-one came out on top." Vincent hopped over the parapet, sliding down the side of the island. Coming to a halt, he raised his rifle again and edged toward the bodies.
Following Vincent, Patience scrambled down the side of the island onto the dried out section of the river bed, moving her weapon from one body to the other, making sure all were dead. When she was certain, she began searching the bodies. Several Super Mutants had assault rifles, but none were in better condition than the one she had. She took the ammunition though, bolstering her supplies. She picked up one rifle and shook it in Valrie's direction.
"Nope. Still don't want no fucking gun, thank you very much." Valrie had joined them, putting her hands deep in her pockets, hammering home her refusal of the gun. "And I don't want to get no closer to them, neither."
Exhausting the Super Mutants, she moved on to the robot-like bodies. Vincent had already found some .45 clips, which he duly liberated and Patience found a strange looking shotgun. It looked like a semi-automatic with a large, barrel-like magazine attached. She took out the magazine and checked the contents. Still plenty of shells within and, in a utility belt around the body's waist, she found a pouch filled with more shells. She transferred those to her pack and slip tied the shotgun to the pack.
"What are these things?" Patience turned one of the robot-like bodies over, with some effort, saw a symbol painted on the chest plate and the bloodied face of a young woman through the cracked and broken helmet. "They're humans?"
"Brotherhood of Steel. Self-righteous cock suckers." Vincent didn't sound impressed, kicking over the body nearest to him, bullet holes puckering the chest plate. "Looks like they got their asses handed to them."
"What is this? Armour?" Patience checked the joints but couldn't see how each piece attached to the other. Not that she wanted to take any of it. It looked bulky and she knew, only by instinct, not memory, that agility was one of her strengths. "How did they get in and out of it? Is it permanently attached to them?"
"You never seen power armour before?" Vincent reached down to the body nearest to him, searching for something. They heard a click, a hiss and the body armour broke apart at invisible seams, flowering outwards to reveal the body within. "Useful stuff, but you need training to use it. Try putting some on without training first and you'll end up breaking your back, or dying."
Patience looked at the partial face of the woman in the power armour near her. So young, yet already dead in some pointless battle. For what? Territory? Water? Patience couldn't tell, there was nothing in sight to show what they had been fighting about.
"God damn! I wish I had my pack brahmins!" Valrie had forgotten her earlier distaste and had rushed over to the opened power armour. "I could make enough caps to retire on with these power suits. Help me hide them somewhere."
"No! We move on." Vincent had already begun walking northwards. "Scavenge on your own time. We have a job to do."
"Fuck you, Vacant! This is my fucking job!" Valrie squared up to Vincent, even though the bodyguard towered above by almost two feet. "My job ain't fucking killing people for ass-licking bastards like Moriarty!"
Patience closed the gap, dragging Valrie away from Vincent before things became ugly. Vincent, for his part, remained more calm than she expected, setting his jaw and gripping his assault rifle tight, but nothing more.
"We don't have time, Valrie." Patience turned Valrie around to look at her. "If these power suits are as expensive as you say, this Brotherhood of Steel won't want them going to waste out here and I'm sure more Super Mutants will be on the way, too. We don't want to get caught between that."
Valrie shrugged Patience's hands away, adjusted her football helmet and spat in the direction of Vincent. She said nothing more, though, and Patience was glad of that. They needed to keep moving. To head further into the city ruins and find the Vault-Tec headquarters. Tussling between themselves would help nothing.
With one last glare at Vincent and a long, mournful look at the power armour, Valrie began to move northwards in the direction Vincent had started heading. Patience gave Vincent a questioning look, but he turned away, raising his rifle and tracking the area ahead.
Patience sighed. The last thing she needed was two bickering children. Especially not when one of them carried deadly weapons. She didn't want to kill Vincent unless she had to and, especially not before reaching their destination.
"Good news coming in from the Republic of Dave, uh, I mean the Republic of Shawna!
Apparently, good sense was found by someone, whose name I will not mention, and the planned annexation of Old Olney has been put on permanent hiatus.
Word is that the 'General' in charge of the expedition saw a huge gathering of Deathclaws as soon as they entered the ruins and said, and this is not a direct quote, "Screw that!".
It's good to see that common sense won out over dumbassery.
Stay in the Republic, Shawna. Build on your own community before casting your eye on areas you simply cannot capture, for little gain. Your citizens will appreciate it.
Three Dog has all the best advice. Listen to Three Dog!"
They continued northwards, hugging the outskirts of the derelict remains of the city. Patience found that she had little memory of the place. Nothing seemed familiar, not helped by the fact that few buildings remained untouched by the devastation that the nuclear war had wrought upon them.
Some buildings were only shells of their past glories. The insides collapsed and dangerous. Others had entire faces torn from the rest of the building, leaving the buildings looking like they suffered vast, gaping wounds. Concrete and steel skeletons with wood, concrete and metal organs on show and festering. Still others were mere mounds of rubble with little to show of the structure that had once stood in its place.
Further up the northern side of the river, they past a gathering of Mire Lurks. Patience marvelled at the creatures. Large, bulky things with thick shells upon their backs, deadly looking pincers and single eyes, hooded beneath the outer edge of the shell. The Mire Lurks saw them, but only watched as the party passed by them. Too much distance between them to be of any bother. Still, Vincent trained his rifle in that direction until the creatures dwindled into the distance.
"Do you think we're going the right way?" Patience hung back from Vincent, watching him as she spoke to Valrie. "I just can't find it in myself to trust him."
"I have no fucking idea. Most I've seen of the D.C. ruins is down to Rivet City, in the south." Valrie nodded towards Vincent. "As far as he's concerned, it's not him I don't trust. It's the rat bastard that employs him. Until he proves different, I see Vacant as just an extension of the Irish fucker."
"Vincent!" The bodyguard turned, almost with a sigh, as if he expected more insults and rebukes, raising his eyebrows in questioning fashion. "We go much further north, we'll be heading out of the city altogether. Isn't there a more direct route."
"Sure, if you don't mind wading through a shit-ton of Super Mutants, tangling with remnants of Enclave soldiers in electrified power armour, fire-breathing giant ants, having to crawl through Metro tunnels to climb into more Metro tunnels, through flooded service tunnels, into yet more Metro tunnels to get to another above ground section filled with more Super Mutants ..." He raised his hand to offer to continue. Neither Patience or Valrie said anything, so he dropped his hand and slung his rifle onto his shoulder. "Look, this way we only have to pass through two Metro tunnels and we're far away from the worst of the shit in Downtown. So, yeah, there's a more direct route, it's just shit."
He waited for a few seconds and, when he met no response from Patience or Valrie, returned his rifle to both hands and carried on walking north. Patience and Valrie exchanged glances.
"A simple yes or fucking no would have been fine." Valrie shrugged and set off after Vincent, her eyes making constant sweeps of her surroundings, searching for salvageable materials.
Before moving, Patience caught a glimpse of something in the distance, back the way they had travelled. A glint of sunlight on a piece of metal. She raised her rifle, staring down the sights to get a clearer look. It looked like a metal ball, bobbing and weaving in the air, several metal antenna thrusting out from its rear casing. A robot of some kind. It didn't seem to be moving in any one direction, snaking from one direction to another, then another.
She dropped the muzzle of the rifle. She considered that it wasn't anything important. Only a malfunctioning robot wandering around. Still, she decided to keep an eye over her shoulder every so often, just in case.
After a while of travelling north, Vincent took an almost ninety degree turn, heading east, following a wide section of broken up road. Many burned out cars and trucks littered the highway, causing difficulty in walking in a straight line, forcing them to zig-zag between vehicles. Here and there, Patience caught sight of burned bodies. By the look of their clothing, these were post-war deaths, though what had caused the fiery demises, Patience couldn't tell.
They were about to turn around the edge of a large, burned out truck, when Vincent brought the to a halt, indicating they take cover. With his hands, he urged Patience forward and to look around the truck. She saw a poorly constructed barrier, stretching from one side of the highway to the other, made from rusting, pointed girders, barbed wire and vehicle piled atop each other. She also saw a fire-pit, belching out flames and smoke. The way was closed.
Vincent pointed to the opposite side of the highway, where a ramp led up towards another, smaller road, and then pointed to a dilapidated concrete bridge, beyond the barrier. Patience glanced at the ramp and the bridge, but something had caught her eye beyond the barrier.
"Valrie, your half-binoculars, please." Without looking at Valrie, she held out her hand. After a few seconds, she felt the broken binoculars placed into her palm.
Tapping Vincent on the shoulder, she swapped places with him, raising the binoculars up to her eye and surveying the barrier and beyond. There, she saw what she had caught the tiniest glimpse of. Several people, kneeling on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs, their heads bowed and then, from out of sight, Patience saw something move in front of the bound people. A Super Mutant.
"There are people there. A Super Mutant has them captive." Patience handed the binoculars to Vincent, but he passed them back to Valrie. Patience furrowed her brow. "Aren't you going to look?"
"It's not our problem." Vincent used his rifle to survey the ramp on the other side.
"Not our problem? There are people there! Tied up!" Patience pushed down the muzzle of Vincent's rifle. "We need to help them."
"Aww, shit. Not again." Valrie slapped the top of her football helmet, then adjusted it once again.
"Yeah. Not our problem. It's outside mission parameters." Vincent pointed towards the ramp. "We take the ramp, circle around and bypass the barrier. We stay on mission."
"Fuck the mission and fuck you!" Patience popped the magazine on her rifle, checked the ammo then clicked it back into place. She flipped the RoF switch to 'Auto' and glared at Vincent. "I'm going to help those people. You stay here and wait for your boss to tell you what you can and can't do!"
Fuming, Patience eased her rifle around the edge of the truck and began crouch walking to the next piece of cover. She only hoped that there was only one Super Mutant to contend with.
Using stealth, Patience moved from cover to cover. Vehicle to vehicle. Stopping, every so often, to survey the route ahead. The closer she came to the barrier, the more her stomach rolled. The last time she had come into contact with Super Mutants had not gone well, despite what the man on the radio, Three Dog, had reported. If the 'King' hadn't walked away, for whatever reason he had, both her and Valrie would be dead or captured like the people beyond the barrier.
Thinking of the radio, she checked her Pip-Boy to ensure it was off. The last thing she needed was the thing to make a noise while creeping into enemy territory. She found herself distracted, though, flicking through the options while watching the way ahead. By accident, she clicked on to the option 'VATS' and her attention returned to the device on her arm.
The screen blinked. The words, 'VATS activated', appeared and she found she couldn't switch off the Pip-Boy at all. Frustrated, she stopped herself from slapping the device. It was too late now. One of the prisoners had caught sight of her. Hopeful, pleading eyes begging for help. If the Super Mutant saw that look and tried to see where the prisoner aimed that look, she'd never run fast enough.
Steeling herself, she crept ever closer, reaching the barrier, placing her back against one of the great, rusted girders. A quick glance around the girder showed that the Super Mutant had moved away from the prisoners to the flaming fire-pit and that the prisoner had whispered to the others of Patience's presence.
She saw several places she could sneak behind. Barrels. Over-turned vehicles. There was even a marquee tent, tattered and filthy, but good cover if she could reach it. It was also clear, now, that the Super Mutant was alone. A single guard while the others did who-knows-what elsewhere, Patience presumed. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she moved in.
The prisoners were only twenty feet away, now, and Patience counted four of them. Another one laid, rag-doll like, a few feet away. They didn't move at all. Dead, she mused. The other four looked at her with excitement, twisting and fighting against the ropes tied around their wrists and legs. She put a finger to her mouth, urging them to silence, as she slipped behind a set of rusted, battered barrels.
She had a better look at the fire-pit now and found herself horrified at the sight. The Super Mutants had hung another prisoner above the fire-pit, tied, spread-eagled and face down. Low enough for the heat to burn the flesh, but high enough that the torture would last longer. The hanging prisoner still moved, still alive, his flesh and remaining clothing burnt black. Patience retched at the sight.
There was no time for sentimentalities. The Super Mutant could turn back at any moment. Taking a circuitous route around an upside-down car, she made it behind the prisoners. Taking the knife she had liberated from the raider at Girdershade, she began cutting the ropes of the first prisoner. The knife was sharp and sliced through the first prisoner's rope with ease. She held a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't run yet. Wait until I've freed the others or you'll call attention to us all." The man seemed terrified, but he stayed still, waiting for Patience's go-ahead. She moved to the next prisoner.
"Human!" It was too late. The Super Mutant had grown bored the entertainment of a man burning alive gave. It had seen Patience. "King's prisoners! Not human's prisoners!"
"Free the others!" Patience thrust the knife into the hands of the prisoner she had freed. "I'll buy you some time."
Almost sighing, she stood, resigned to whatever fate she had brought upon herself. Knowing that she had done the right thing. The Super Mutant was running towards her, his long, big legs carrying him fast. Patience raised the assault rifle and prepared to empty the magazine into the creature.
Then something strange happened. A bright, pin-point red light flashed out from the edge of her Pip-Boy, sending pulsing light beams in lines from the head of the Super Mutant to its toes in a fraction of a fraction of a second. The light disappeared replaced by a green light tracing several circles on the Super Mutant's body with one, on the neck of the creature, pulsing an urgent message.
She didn't know why, but she trusted this phenomenon, training the rifle towards that pulsing green circle, and fired. The butt of the rifle kicked into her shoulder, like several baseballs striking her, one after the other, fired from a practice machine. The sound of the mini explosions of gunfire cracked into her skull, reverberating as bullets spat out at supersonic speeds towards that pulsing green target.
The bullets ripped into the Super Mutant, tearing its tough flesh from its neck, sending gouts of ichor-like blood spraying into the air. It howled in pain and rage, grasping at its throat, the blood spurting from between the creature's thick fingers. It didn't die straight away. It's eyes widened and it tried to continue running towards Patience.
The pulsing circle on the Super Mutants body changed, moving to a knee-cap. Again, Patience trusted the green light emitted from her Pip-Boy, targeting the monster's knee-cap and letting fly with another burst of gunfire. The bullets slammed into the knee-cap, ripping in to flesh and bone. The Super Mutant collapsed on to the ground, tried to push itself up, but the blood from its neck wound was beginning to falter. The flow stopping. The Super Mutant dropped its head to the ground.
Patience couldn't catch her breath. She had done it. Killed the monster. She looked for the prisoners to see them all racing away through the gap in the barrier. She didn't need thanks. She was just happy to have helped them.
"Human kill Super Mutant. Super Mutant kill human!" The marquee! It hadn't been empty and she, like a fool, hadn't checked it. The blow caught her on her chin sending her spinning through the air.
If she hadn't turned her head at the last second, the strike would have taken off her head. She crashed into one of the girders of the barrier, her skin torn by the barb wire twisted around it, and fell to the dusty ground. Her head was in a haze, but she still tried to lift the assault rifle towards her surprise attacker.
It was too late. With amazing speed, the Super Mutant had covered the gap between them, swatting the rifle out of her hands and grabbing her by the throat. She felt herself lifted, her feet dangling in the air. She couldn't breathe. Clutching and grasping at the huge arm that held her. She could smell rotting meat. Hear a gurgling, cruel laugh.
She was beginning to black out, unable to find the air for her body. A last resort. She reached down to her hip, taking out her sidearm. Using her other hand, she reached forward, scratching at the Super Mutants face, memorising where it was, then pressed the pistol towards that point and fired, and fired, and fired.
As she lost consciousness she knew only one thing. She may not have survived, but she had helped. She could die happy knowing that others would now live instead of being prisoners of the Super Mutants, or killed by them.
She could die happy.