"So is there ever going to be a time where you don't get your ass beat and I have to check up on you to make sure you wake up okay?" a voice asked as James stared at the painting in front of him. It was of some old general riding the now-extinct animal known as the horse. James looked over at Nate, who sat in a red reclining chair next to a window with red curtains and white walls all around.
"I like what you've done with the place." James remarked, ignoring the question. He eyed the walls, the hospital actually looked cleaner the hallways of Vault 101. "Where are we?"
"Well, if you have to know, we brought over to the brand-new Wanderer Memorial Hospital located in Goodneighbor Estates." Nate replied. He leaned back in the chair, a black baseball had hid his eyes until this point. No doubt, he was also hiding his synth eyes under a pair of extra-tinted black aviator sunglasses.
"Goodneighbor Estates? Wow, i must've been hit real hard to be out for a trip that long." James commented. Nate shrugged.
"We used your truck, so it took no time at all." he replied, flicking the curtain aside to look out the window. "But you have been out for two days."
"Guess I needed the rest." James replied.
"How long are you going to spend sleeping?" Nate chuckled. "First three years, how long is it until you do something dumb enough to put you down for good?" James shrugged.
"Guess I got to find out the hard way."
"Right." Nate nodded while leaning forward. His hands were folded in each other as Nate stared down. He looked up and finally said.
"What were you doing in Crime Alley?" he asked. James looked at the window as the early morning light began to illuminate the room. People began moving about so honks and clattering metal began to fill the room with sound as well.
"I needed to find someone." James replied.
"Listen, man. I get it." Nate said. "We all need to find Katherine, but I sincerely doubt that Crime Alley is the place to find her. I may not have seen my wife, well ex-wife, in a long time but she never struck as the type of woman to even want to consider being in a place like that."
"Well, knowing her, I think we'd both agree she's full of surprises." James replied, locking eyes with Nate.
"Yeah," he sighed. "We do."
"Finding Kat is the endgame, but I never expected to find her there. I needed some street cred to get where I want." James replied, picking at the plastic tube in his arm.
"And how would go about doing that?"
"Well, I saw some flyers for becoming the Grand Champion of the Commonwealth and figured it'd be a good start." James replied.
"Hell yeah it is." A gruff, rocky voice croaked from the door. James looked over to find Hancock slinking in as Marie and his personal bodyguard Farhenheit flanked him. "I've been showing the kid around while you out. Even lent her the lease on your old place."
"It was a warehouse with all your stuff!" James protested. Hancock held his hands up defensively.
"I treat my friends right so I had it worked on and decked out during the days you were gone." Hancock replied in the same gruff tone. "Figured it'd be nice to make some coin on the Lone Wanderer House of the Commonwealth. Make a museum of your, uh, past deed and collectibles."
"Eh, that's a little creepy, Hancock." James remarked.
"Which is why I lent her the place while you two are in town." he replied. Marie looked up at the ghoul and smiled.
"Thanks. Hancock!" she said enthusiastically.
"Now about that street cred," Hancock said as he sauntered closer to the hospital bed. He pulled up and chair and sat in it, facing James. "You should've come straight to the man with most in these parts."
James shrugged. "Figured the title is more than enough for what I need." Hancock shook his head.
"Word's starting to get around that the Wanderer's back." Hancock said darkly. "It can be dangerous for the people associated with your, uh, organization."
"In what way?" James asked.
"The factions are starting to get restless." Nate pitched in. "Every faction was rich and powerful without you. The people bowed to their leaders. With you back, well, it's not hard to think that someone even more influential in these parts is sure make a return as well." James nodded.
"The real threat to some people's spheres of influence." Hancock nodded in agreement. "I mean, don't get me wrong, you're tough and all but once you're gone, you're gone. But Katherine? Her ideals stick, and I mean they really stick." James smiled and nodded as he thought of Katherine.
"I understand. Not a big picture guy."
"So, what were you doing by getting the Grand Champion title?" Nate resumed his questioning.
"I need the title to get into the Third Rail." James finally answered. Hancock seemed to be slightly offended.
"You know me, kid. Why do you need that title?" Hancock replied.
"If I come in, as one of 'the boys', they'll never let me in on what i want to hear and know. Like the new gangs. I have to be someone that's new and yet also fairly well known to be able to get around the Commonwealth underground." Hancock scoffed as he adjusted his position on the chair.
"I'm not saying it's easy, man but you sure you really want to do this alone?" he asked.
"I'm not doing it alone." James replied. MacCready walked in suddenly, tipping his hat specifically at Marie and Nate before walking up to Hancock.
"I'll be guiding him the whole way, Hancock." MacCready said reassuringly. "No need to worry."
"Yeah, it's only the Commonwealth's most dangerous man traveling side-by-side with its most powerful one." Hancock said, fixing his hat and smiling wickedly. "What the Hell could go wrong?" Nate leaned forward.
"Enclave won't be able to help you down there, James." he cautioned. "You know that right?"
"We really don't have any close assets in the underground? I thought I had the Enclave clear it a long time ago!"
"A lot can change in three years." Nate replied. "We have assets but they're deep undercover, so if you would prefer to ruin three years of work and sacrifice, be my guest, but don't expect to call in on any favors from the Intelligence Department anytime soon."
James frowned as he attempted to think of other means of protection while he would travel in the Commonwealth's most dangerous arena.
"What about the Pride?" James asked. Nate frowned.
"They're not currently deployed on any major engagements, you don't mean to tell me you plan on traveling with them, right?"
"Well, they'd have to be undercover." James returned. "So no power armor."
"No energy weapons. Don't want the dwellers there to get all frisky." Hancock pitched in.
"We're going to need someone to set us up with espionage-level equipment then." Nate agreed rubbing his chin. MacCready smiled.
"We already know a guy, don't we Hancock?"
James waved his hand up to block the bright light shining in his face.
"You do know we're in broad daylight right, Tom?" James asked the man scrutinizing James's face with a magnifying glass and a flashlight attached to his head.
"Yeah, but, man. You sure you're not a synth?" Tinker Tom asked as he changed the angle at which he studied James.
"I think I'm pretty sure, Tom." James replied, trying to hide his annoyance. "I just need the kit, Tom. Nothing else." Tinker Tom however, continued to study James very carefully as if memorizing every detail.
"Hmm, either way, it's hard to believe you're still alive." Tinker Tom said nonchalantly while he left James still on the medical bench. James threw his jacket back on as Tom moved to the other side of his brand-new Goodneighbor workshop.
"Thanks Tom." James managed to say as he fixed his jacket, Pip-Boy, hair, etc.
"Oh, no problem, James." Tinker Tom said as he flurried past various workstations and past piles of unfinished contraptions. James eyed them all as he watched Tinker Tom fly by, making something.
"Y'know, I mean, it's a great honor to be helping out the former Railroad's best agent in its history!" Tinker Tom grinned as he threw together some kind of device and threw on James's lap. James studied it while Tinker Tom carefully slipped off James's jacket for the third time.
"You need to stop doing that." James said as he studied the device.
"Sorry." Tinker Tom said casually as he began to stitch some kind of plastic fabric into his jacket. "While I work on your jacket, lemme give you the run-down on the transporter there." James flipped the machine around and found a trigger. It was a gun.
"That's the Transporter Gun, idea is to use the Institute's teleporter to move stuff around for cheap. But never could get it working on things that are alive and things bigger than a suit of power armor."
"You're telling me I can teleport power armor wherever I want?" James asked, excitedly.
"Well," Tinker Tom pondered. "Technically yes." He waved a wrench at James as he switched stations with the jacket.
"All you have to do is to get the Transporter to remember where your power armor is and once you aim and pull the trigger, the armor will come to you." Tinker Tom said as he flipped a blast shield over his face and began soldering something onto the jacket.
"Now that's what I'm talking about." James said as he stashed the gun in his backpack. Tinker Tom returned with James's last intact leather jacket until next month's shipment arrived.
"I tried to keep the logo intact but it's a bit faded." Tinker Tom said as he handed James's Tunnel Snakes jacket to him. James held the jacket gingerly before putting it back on. "I've changed a few things, it's been upgraded with a brand-new experimental ballistic weave that's been inspired by the Mark-IV variant, Enclave power armor."
"And where did you get the plans to the Mark IV that's still under development, as Arcade tells me?" James asked, but not serious. TInker Tom thought for a moment before answering.
"I did design most of it, so technically the plans came from me!" he returned enthusiastically. James nodded with approval before standing to his feet. Thanks to Tinker Tom he felt like a secret agent from old prewar holotapes. He was decked out in the latest ballistic weave for all his clothes. Jeans, combat boots, grey t-shirt, and his jacket all had it. While his Enclave-inspired combat gear consisted of a right shoulder pad, but not a left for some reason, kneepads and a right ballistic gauntlet since his left had the Pip-Boy.
"Man, I feel like some kind of superhero, dressed like for war while also walking through the street." James joked.
"A walk alone these streets can still get you shanked, Mr. James." Tinker Tom reminded.
"That's not what I hear about the Commonwealth these days, Tom." James said as he zipped his jacket up halfway. "How do I look?"
"Good enough, Mr. James." Tinker Tom replied with a smile. "Would you like bag with that?"
James rolled his eyes and waved as he exited the store.
"So boss," a voice said ahead of him, James looked up to find all members of the Pride, Nate, Marie, and MacCready standing before him equipping similar gear and paraphenalia. "Ready to head into crime country?"
James shrugged as he walked slowly down the steps. He carefully observed the now-clean streets of Goodneighbor. People walked by in suits, clean suits, not even the dirty, patched suits that Triggermen wore. These people looked important, they checked their watches, fixed their neckties. Some even took strolls along the road with strollers and babies. The place was completely different to the Goodneighbor that ruled James's memories.
"Quite a place, huh?" Hancock's gravelly voice filled James's ears. James turned to find the ghoul in a new immaculate version of his John Hancock outfit.
"New threads?" James asked. Hancock laughed and raised his arms as if showing off the entire neighborhood.
"New city!" Hancock cackled. "I'm a new man. We really turned this place around."
"Without sacrificing your ideologies of a society that is entirely free to do what they want?" James asked.
"There has always only been one rule in Goodneighbor: Remember who's in charge. And so long as they remember that, things always work out." Hancock said simply. James watched a Triggerman in the background. He carried a submachinegun but was dressed in a pressed tux. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"And the others find this new setting and ideological makeup to be satisfactory?" James asked. He noticed that none of the drifters and transients that used to grave Goodneighbor's streets walked around in the streets anymore. It was as if they all disappeared.
"Well, for the most part, yeah. It was work for me or work for Whitechapel Charlie." Hancock admitted. "You'll see what I mean when you're down there." James nodded as he slipped on his backpack. "Good luck down there." Hancock said as James waved the group forward into the Third Rail. "You're gonna need it."