11

Patience bolted upright, gasping for breath, clutching at the first things she saw. Valrie and Vincent hovered over her, reaching out to hold her down, to calm her. Everything was so bright, so clear. Even the ever present dirty haze in the air seemed brighter. Each and every particle floating around, drifting and falling fell into sharp focus. Her heart beat as if it were about to explode from her chest.

"My spleen tastes yellow!" She stared into Valrie's face almost as if she didn't recognise her. Patience grabbed the front of Valrie's many pocketed coat, pulling her forward. "I don't like it!"

"Jesus! Has she never had a StimPak before?" Vincent frowned at Valrie even as Patience's head wobbled as she turned to stare at him.

"How the fuck do I know? I've known her about a week." Valrie eased Patience's fingers open, releasing her coat, pushing the hand down, gently.

"I never had a pet moose!" Patience began pushing her legs against the ground, trying to scramble backwards. "Never! They eat too many diamonds."

"Alright. Alright, Patience. Relax." Holding her hands open, trying to calm Patience, Valrie edged forward, maintaining a calm, soothing voice. "We need to get you out of here before more Super Mutants arrive."

Valrie and Vincent picked up Patience by her arms, lifting her as she shot confused looks at them both. Patience allowed them to lift her. She knew it was the right thing to do. She looked down at the massive yellow creature at their feet. One side of its head a bloody mess, the eye socket empty with blood oozing down to the ground.

She could feel her mind clearing. The intense fire, as if all her neurones had flared at the same time, was fading along with her visual clarity. She felt strong, though. Powerful. Pushing Valrie and Vincent away, she began walking without their aid until a memory flashed through her mind.

"The prisoners!" She tried to turn back, but the others continued to lead her away. "I was supposed to free the prisoners."

"You did, you crazy fuck." Despite the language, Valrie looked up at Patience with admiration. "You got them. They ran away. I don't fucking blame them, if I'm honest, but you got them out."

"The other? There was one being tortured over the fire." Patience's brow creased as she twisted in the grips of her two companions. "I can't let him suffer."

"I took care of it." She didn't have to ask what Vincent meant with his muttered growl. She knew. It was what she would have done. The human thing.

Leaving the girder and barb wire barrier behind, they moved up the ramp at the side of the highway and travelled parallel to the Super Mutant camp. Patience looked down into the camp, seeing the two Super Mutant bodies, her memory of the events returning fast and clear.

She had thought the second Super Mutant had got her. The massive hand gripping her throat as she poured bullets into its brain. When everything went black, she thought that was it, but here she was, as if nothing had happened. She felt her throat, expecting to find indentations where the Super Mutant's fat fingers had gripped her.

"Those bruises will be gone soon, thanks to that StimPak Vincent gave for you." Valrie held out her hands, holding Patience's knife and sidearm. "The prisoners dropped the knife when the fuckers ran. I thought you'd want them back. I'd have kept them and sold them if you'd died. Of course."

"Of course. What's a 'StimPak'?" She took the knife and pistol, returning them to their respective places. She lifted the assault rifle, still dangling across her chest, and checked it for damage. It was fine. An amateurish design, but well made.

"You're not a soldier, are you?" Vincent continued keeping an eye on their surroundings, watching for more Super Mutants. "I thought you were, at first. You've got skills. I thought, being from one of those Vaults, you were a soldier in the World-That-Was, put on ice, you know. But you're not. No scars that I can see. Don't know what a StimPak is."

"I lost my memory. Maybe I used to know what one was before." The feeling of her rifle back in her hands made Patience relax. It felt comfortable. It felt right."

"I don't think so. Soldiers took them even when they weren't injured. Build a tolerance to the effects." Vincent paused from scouting ahead with his eyes and looked direct towards Patience. "The way you reacted, you've never taken a StimPak before. So, not a soldier."

"If I'm not a soldier, what do you think I am?" She wept her rifle muzzle around a blind corner as she spoke, maintaining her alertness. She had to admit, after the first, initial reaction to the StimPak, she felt great. Better than ever.

"I don't know." She caught Vincent looking back towards the Super Mutant camp, then he dropped his eyes as he noticed her looking. "Something new. Something dangerous."

"You're damn fucking right she's dangerous!" Valrie had remained silent, which was, Patience thought, remarkable, but she joined in now. "She just fucked up two Super Mutants. Alone! Anyone else's neck would have snapped in that yellow fucker's hand. Not our Patience. No sirree."

Patience didn't know if that were true. She had almost died. That didn't seem too dangerous to her. Also, she had help. Unexpected help. She turned her arm over and looked at the screen of the Pip-Boy, still flashing 'VATS activated'. She scrolled through the options and managed to switch it off, turning the radio back on again, set at low volume. She'd become used to the constant flow of music and talk.

They reached a bridge, crossing the highway below, to another section of ruined buildings. Vincent brought them to a halt as he scanned every nook and cranny, every door and window. It was clear he considered the area a hot spot.

"We cross here, make our way to that side street." He used his whole hand to point to the street he meant. "From there, things become difficult. Too many alleys and houses. Keep your eyes and ears open. Shoot first, cry later. Once we're through there, that's when shit gets really hard."

"Why, what's after that?" Patience kept her rifle trained across the bridge.

"Then we go underground." He almost looked apologetic and Patience frowned, questioning, towards Valrie.

"Fucking underground." Valrie met Patience's look and shook her head. "Feral fucking ghouls. Like Gob, back at Moriarty's, but mindless. Vicious. They'll tear anything apart. Humans, non-feral ghouls, Super Mutants. Not 'cos they're strong, but because they swarm. Nasty."

Patience didn't like the sound of that, but after that StimPak, she felt like she could take on an army. She had to watch that, though. By instinct, she knew the feeling was temporary, at the least, and fake at the worst. If she went into a fight, confident that the StimPak had made her invincible, but finding out she was no stronger than usual? Well, that would be bad. Over-confidence equals dead. Dead means no answers.

Her need for answers overrode any fake confidence.

Progress became slow through the ruins. Every doorway could hide a raider. Every window could shield a Super Mutant. Every corner. Every open space. Patience felt the tenseness of the situation with every step. Turning a corner, she dipped her rifle to lessen her profile, then brought it up again as she moved around it. Sticking close to the wall, crab-stepping forward to the next piece of cover and then the next, and the next.

Reaching another corner, Vincent brought them to a halt, crouching down and surveying the area with his rifle. It was yet another battleground. Yet more bodies littered the floor. Humans, in mix-and-match outfits, around ten of them, and a couple of Super Mutants. It was unclear to Patience who had won that particular battle. Pieces of raiders ranged as far as only a few feet away. A leg, ragged where it had become bloody, ripped from the body, leaned against the half-broken pillar of the building.

"Movement." Vincent pointed his hand straight ahead, towards a fluted roof above, what appeared to be, a set of escalators. "That's Friendship Heights Metro station. That's where we need to go."

Valrie didn't even need asking, the broken binoculars pressed into Patience's hand and she raised them to get a better look at the scene ahead. There were three people, that she could see. One seemed seriously injured, laid on the parapet, thrashing around as the other two tried to help them. Those two weren't in the best of shape, either. One had an arm dangling useless at their side, the other had a gash in their back, bloodied and ugly.

"It doesn't look like they're much of a threat." Patience offered the binoculars to Vincent, but he shook his head.

"Everything's a threat. We should kill them." He popped his magazine, checked his ammo, even though he hadn't fired a shot.

Valrie had taken a look through her broken binoculars. "No, Patience is right. They look fucked up. Maybe we should, you know, talk to the fuckers?"

"Since when has talking got anyone anywhere in the Wasteland?" Vincent gave Valrie a pitying look. It was clear how he felt about talking and Patience understood.

She hadn't had as much experience of the Capital Wasteland as her two companions, but nothing she had seen showed that people were likely to listen before fighting. It was a harsh place. But, she considered, did that mean she shouldn't try? She chewed her lip in thought for a second.

"Maybe, just maybe, if we show mercy to people they might pass that mercy on." She stood up, dropping her rifle across her chest. Not putting it down, but not holding it aggressively. She'd be ready if she needed to be. "I'm going to try, but you be ready if it doesn't work."

"You've got to be shitting me!" Vincent stared at her for a good long while, wrestling with his instincts to kill the raiders while it was easy. "This is a bad idea."

Patience shrugged and began walking towards the Metro station and the raiders. She moved slow, picking her way through the bodies, and body parts, of the raiders and Super Mutants, staying in full sight, but the three living raiders were too focussed upon each other, not noticing her approach. She realised that seeming to appear out of nowhere, without warning, would, most like, spook them.

She moved to the side of the building nearest to the raiders, pressing her back against the wall, surprised to find that Valrie and Vincent had followed her. Likewise, they hunkered against the wall, Vincent muttering to himself, almost in silence. Patience popped a glance around the corner. The raiders still remained oblivious. It would be so easy to kill them and save herself the bother.

"Raiders!" She gripped her rifle at the exclamations from around the corner. "Drop your weapons! No-one needs to die here."

"Fuck you!" Vincent cocked his head in an 'I told you so' manner. "We'll cut your fucking faces off!"

"Cut?" Valrie said what they were all thinking. "He definitely said 'cut'. Not shoot. Those fuckers haven't got anything."

"I'm coming out, raiders. I have a gun and lots of ammo. I don't want to kill you." Patience heard hushed, rushed whispers around the corner. She stepped away from the wall, raising her rifle as she turned the corner.

They were little more than kids, late teens, Patience guessed. A boy, holding a tiny knife in his shaking hands, wearing a metal worker's leather apron, and a girl, her hand resting on the injured one's chest, wearing a grubby string-strapped top and over-sized combat pants. She didn't have a weapon at all. The one on the parapet, another boy, groaned in pain.

"Drop the knife." Patience used the gun barrel to indicate where the knife should go. She looked at the girl, arm hanging limp beside her. "That arm's dislocated. I can fix that."

Patience heard a grumble from behind. Vincent pushed by her, hitting the boy in the head with the butt of his rifle, sending the boy flopping to the ground, unconscious. Spinning his rifle to his back, he grabbed the girl's useless arm, holding the wrist, pressing his other hand on her shoulder and pulled. There was a sickening crack and crunch, and the girl fell to her knees, screaming in pain.

"Talking was taking too long." Even as he had relocated the shoulder of the girl, Vincent had spied the raiders' settlement. A series of broken down, corrugated palisades surrounding a set of beds and tables. "Coming, scavenger?"

Valrie shook her head and Vincent walked away to the raiders' settlement. Patience picked up the little knife, passing it to Valrie and sat the boy upright against the parapet. She forced the girl, still holding her shoulder, to sit beside him. Crouching, she looked at them both as Valrie checked their badly injured friend.

"First things first, we're not going to kill you." The girl, even injured, glared in defiance at Patience. "We're going down into the Metro. Is there anything we should know?"

"Yeah. You're going to fucking die, bitch!" The girl spat towards Patience.

"Hey! Watch your fucking mouth!" Valrie slapped the back of the girl's head. When she caught Patience's eye, she pointed to the injured boy on the parapet and pulled a thumb across her throat.

"Your friend's dying. No-one else needs to. Just tell us what you know of the Metro down there." The girl strained her neck around to look up at her dying friend.

"Nothing. No-one goes down there. Too many ghoulies." Knowing her friend was dying subdued the girl's defiance.

Vincent returned, carrying a bulky, well-made rifle in his hands and chewing on some kind of meat. He tossed the rifle to Patience.

"Chinese. Same ammo. Better than that piece of shit you got." He coughed and spat out the meat, wiping his mouth with a disgusted look. "No ammo, though. That's why that little shit only had a knife."

Patience turned the new rifle over in her hands. It was, to be certain, a much better gun than the one she had. She almost felt guilty removing the strap from the old, home-made rifle and tying it to the new one. She had become used to the weapon. Yet she was certain the Chinese rifle would be better down in the Metro. Where ghouls roamed and raiders avoided.

"Hoo-hoo-boy! Do I have some fresh, fresh news, children! Straight from the horse's mouth.

Earlier today, four people, captured by Super Mutants, were saved by a 'mysterious woman'. Yes, brothers and sisters, one of those prisoners stopped long enough from running away to tell old Three Dog the incredible story.

This 'mysterious woman' walked in to the Super Mutant camp, cut the captives free, then decided to take on two Super Mutants. Alone. I know! Crazy, right?

And the craziest thing? She won! That's right. Two yellow freaks versus one itty-bitty lady and the lady came out on top.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Is this our new Avenging Angel? The Beautiful Stranger from Vault I-Don't-Know-What?

Well, dear listeners, how many of these female killing machines can there be?

Instead of making assumptions, Three Dog will simply doff a knowing hat, with a wink, thankful for any help the Wasteland gets. If I had a hat.

This newly, newsy, bulletin came to you from Three Dog! Ahwooo! Holding it together in hope."

"I didn't tell him!" Valrie threw up her hands in her defence. "I was here the whole fucking time."

Patience stared, open-mouthed, at the Pip-Boy on her arm. For a post-apocalyptic world, with no working telephones, few radios and almost as few people, news got around pretty fast. She brushed an incredulous hand through her steel grey hair and looked into the hazy sky. So much for keeping a low profile.

"Wait. So, you're this 'Beautiful Stranger' he's been talking about?" Vincent kicked the young male raider back onto his backside. The boy had regained consciousness and tried to get up. "You're not that beautiful."

"I didn't call myself that." Patience turned away, looking over the parapet towards the gates of the Friendship Heights Metro station.

"Yeah. That was me." Shrugging, Valrie looked over the parapet too. "I thought it would give the news a bit of pizazz. Besides, she's kind of beautiful."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, she's pretty, but beautiful?" Vincent stared at the raider boy, daring him to move again. "Not that there's that many beautiful women around to compare to."

"I thought you'd be ... bigger. Taller." Now the young raider girl, cradling her arm, sat on the ground, joined in. "You got muscles, but you're pretty short."

Patience stared at them all, unable to articulate what she was thinking into words. Shaking her head, she moved away, setting off towards the escalators. Before entering underground, she wanted to get a good look at what might lay ahead. As she set off down the seized, unmoving stairs, she caught a glimpse of Valrie lighting a cigarette and offering one to Vincent. Relations thawing for the moment.

"Now look what you fucking did! Asshole." Valrie's words drifted away as Patience descended.

The gates on the station, rusted and bent, had a sign declaring "No Dead Bodies Dumped In Metro" hung limp and off-kilter, hanging by a thin strand of decaying wire. The concertina gates were closed firm, a thick chain wrapped around the handles, held together by a large padlock.

Patience grabbed the padlock, hoping age had loosened it, or forced it into uselessness, but even a vigorous shake and tug couldn't dislodge it. Covering her eyes with a hand, she tried looking through the gates into the station, but a thick mist, or smoke, blanketed everywhere in sight. A last tug on the padlock proved as useless as the last and she turned back towards the escalators.

"I swear to Jebus! They just fucking walked away. Walked. Away!" Valrie was making a dramatic sweeping gesture with her hand as regaled her tale to Vincent and the two rapt raiders. "I won't lie, I almost needed new underwear. I never seen anything fucking like it."

Patience crouched down in front of the young girl, who now appeared to have an undisguised look of admiration on her face. She gritted her teeth and tried to smile at the young raider.

"Hey. What's your name?" She crossed her arms over her new assault rifle, hoping it would make the girl feel at ease.

"Don't you fucking tell her, Gia!" The young man received a back-handed slap from Vincent and he yelped, rubbing his head.

"Gia. Is that your name?" The girl made furious nodding gestures, her wide, bright eyes staring at Patience with glee. "Well, Gia, we're just passing through. We don't want to hurt anybody. We don't want to fight. We just want to get into the Metro station. There's a padlock, though. Do you know where the padlock key is, Gia?"

"Uh-huh. Darrin has it." She hooked a thumb at the young man beside her, making a show of rolling her eyes and pretending to be sick. "It made him feel important in the gang."

"Shut the fuck up, Gia! Geez." The young man couldn't believe Gia had given up the information so fast. "I am important in the gang! And no fucking old whore is taking my key!"

Darrin's defiance didn't last long. Vincent grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up until his feet almost left the ground. With his other hand, Vincent searched through the boy's pockets, soon finding the key and tossing it to Patience. Turning the dangling boy, Vincent glared into the boy's eyes before half-dropping, half-throwing him back to the ground.

Patience nodded at Gia and stood up. Without saying a word, she urged Valrie and Vincent to follow her and she, once again, made for Friendship station's escalators to descend down into whatever hell the underground had waiting for them. She didn't relish the idea.

"Miss Stranger?" The girl, Gia, braver than her companion, ignored the muzzle of Vincent's rifle, arced around, swift and precise, to point at her. "Can I come? There's no-one else left but Darrin and he's an asshole. I mean, you can say 'no', but I'm gonna follow you anyway. I just thought it'd be polite to ask."

"We're not going on a trip to the fucking park, kid." Valrie still held the dead cigarette between her lips. "You said yourself, these tunnels are filled with fucking ghouls. And we don't have any weapons for you."

Gia held up a finger, urging them to wait and disappeared from sight. Patience looked at Valrie, silent communication wondering what the hell she was doing. Valrie, as she did often, merely shrugged, adjusting her football helmet. Seconds later, Gia came skipping down the staircase, wearing a new top, a padded, leather and cloth bra-type thing, and carrying a baseball bat and, what looked like, a World War II flying helmet.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she pulled the flying helmet on to her head and draped the baseball bat over her shoulder, grinning at Patience, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Vincent, as expected, seemed less than convinced, turning away from the girl, waiting for Patience to open the gate.

She shook her head, herself. Looking back up at the parapet she could see Darrin, leaning over, thrusting out an arm, leading to a fist with the middle finger raised. At least he wasn't joining the group. Taking the key, she unlocked the padlock, untwisted the heavy chain and passed that back to Gia. Maybe she could wrap it around her as a kind of armour.

Vincent grabbed one handle, Patience the other and they pulled the gates apart. An ominous, screeching howl erupted from the gates as they collapsed aside, revealing a space to climb through. She pulled the butt of her new, Chinese, rifle into her shoulder. The weight of the new rifle felt comforting and solid and she wondered how long it would be before she found out how well it fired.

As they all made careful steps into the gloom of the murky, smoke-filled station, she considered it wouldn't be that long at all.