Chapter 21: A Tough Act to Follow

BANG!

The sound thundered in my ears as I jumped to my feet, knocking my chair back as I watched Malone's body slowly slump to the floor. Ilya's scream pierced the air, the girl nearly fainting at the sight of so much blood and brain as it splattered all over the room, pooling around the man's lifeless body. I stood dumbfounded… barely able to believe what had just happened, let alone look away from the gruesome scene before me. I was paralyzed, unable to move even as I heard shouting in the distance, the sound of a thousand raiders rising up just beyond the theatre door…

"HEY! Are you even listening?!" I heard Hancock shout again, his voice cutting through the chaos like a gunshot in the night, "I thought I told you to block the damn door… THAT MEANS NOW!" And with that, I snapped to, racing across the room and locking the door just in time to stop the guards from bursting through. Knowing it wouldn't last for long, I began to push an oversized bookcase against the frame but no sooner had I gotten it into place, then a barrage of bullets came blasting through the door, whizzing past my head as I dove for the floor.

I ducked behind the desk as fast as I could, scrambling for my gun as my heart pounded in my chest, but to my surprise, the onslaught had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Though I could still hear the guards cursing our names in the other room, I let out a sigh of relief. Looks like it was going to take more than a few bullets to break into here, but somehow, I doubted there was any shortage of heavy weaponry sitting on the other side of that door…

"Just what the HELL do you think you're doing?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, rising to my feet as I reeled around on the only bastard dumb enough to get us stuck in a situation like this.

"Have you lost your goddamn mind? For fuck's sake man, we'd done it! We were in! We finally managed to strike a deal with this son-of-a-bitch and what do you go and do? Why, up and shoot the man, of course! Now how are we supposed to get into Nuka World? Better yet, how the hell are we gonna get out of here?! We're trapped… Trapped behind enemy lines with nowhere to go and worse yet, not a damn thing to show for it! Just… just…what the hell were you thinking?!"

But Hancock didn't seem to be listening… In fact, he didn't seem to care at all! Too busy as he was ransacking the room for all it was worth; Caps, chems, and what I suspected were a couple of old copies of Cat's Paw magazine, were all being shoved into his already overflowing bag, but even that wasn't enough for the greedy bastard. Before I knew it, he was back at the body, rifling through the dead man's pockets just like the sleazy, two-bit scavver I'd always known him to be.

"Oh, you have got to be… Just who the HELL do you think you are?!" I stuttered in disbelief, the audacity of it all nearly enough to make me shoot the man myself.

"Is this some kind of joke to you? A game you play with people's lives? Because any second now, those savages are going to break down that door and tear us limb from limb… Live. On stage. With a thousand raiders ready to pay them for the pleasure! Goddammit, Hancock… LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

I grabbed ahold of the man's shoulder and reeled him around to face me, ready to beat some sense into his thick, ugly skull once and for all, but before I knew it, I suddenly found myself staring down the barrel of my own gun. The son-of-a-bitch had sprung it on me faster than the devil himself, leaving me with no other choice but to back away slowly with my hands in the air.

I watched on in horror as Hancock shoved his long, rotting fingers deep into the bloody pink pulp that had once been Malone's body, feeling around as if he were looking for the hidden prize at the bottom of a particularly morbid pack of Cracker Jacks. Before I knew it, the madman was slapping a slimy wet gob of gray-matter into my hands, squeezing it tight until the ooze began to run down my fingers. Just as I was beginning to think the man had finally fried his last rad-addled brain cell, I felt it. It was small and hard and still hot to the touch, but in an instant, I understood everything.

"You wanna know who I am?" Hancock replied with a sneer, "I'm the son-of-a-bitch that just saved your life, or don't you know a Gen 3 synth when you see one?"

My heart sank into my chest, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. I cursed under my breath as I felt the weight of the microchip between my fingertips, furious I hadn't seen it before.

"W-wait a minute, did you just say… a synth?" Ilya stuttered at last, her face paler than death as she drew in closer for a better look, "A-are you sure? All this blood… It looks pretty real to me…"

"Trust me kiddo, I've known Malone for years, and that? That wasn't Malone…" Hancock growled, "Besides, not all synths are made the same, some of these things are damn near impossible to tell from the real deal, but we ain't got time for all that now, where there's one synth, there's always more not far behind… And we still got a long way to go before Nuka World, so-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I stopped him right there, "Just hold on a damn second… You don't think we can still make it to Nuka World tonight, do you? After everything that's happened?! We've got to get out of here, man! Find someplace safe and hole up for a while, not run headlong into god-knows-what! I mean, if the Institute has already taken out Malone, then there's no telling what they've got planned for us down below… Nuh-uh, no way. We do that and we'd be walking straight into a trap, right where the Director want us…"

To my surprise, Hancock only laughed, shaking his head as if I were no better than a fresh-faced Vault Dweller myself…

"You just don't get it, do you? You really haven't figured it out? That's exactly what he wants us to do, in fact, he's counting on it…"

"What the hell are you going on abou-"

"Think about it…" he continued quietly, "Up until you two stumbled onto this little mystery of yours, what use did the Director have for a place like this? Let alone a hellhole like Nuka World? Raider country ain't nothing but a liability to the most technologically advanced civilization on earth… Which is why that imposter was so damn obvious, they may have been able to crank out a carbon copy of the man, but they had to rush him out so fast that they couldn't even import his memories properly! Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the Director was scared… Truth is, he ain't as powerful as he wants us to think, Burnsie, and this here proves he ain't got the networks we've been told…"

"That's why he's trying to smoke us out, chase us out into the ruins where he can pick us off one by one… He knows he can't let us take one step inside that park or else he just might lose us forever."

"So wait, are you saying…?" I began.

"That's right, the Director ain't got eyes in Nuka World. It's his blind spot, his weakness. And this may be our last chance to get in…"

I could hardly believe what I was hearing, everything he'd said was completely insane! I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, tell the bastard he was going to get us all killed, but I never got the chance. We both stopped dead as the sound of footsteps came racing down the stairs and barreling towards the room. I felt myself tense, my gun at the ready, when who should appear out of the darkness but none other than Magnolia herself, a smirk on her face as she stepped over the threshold with a piece of paper in one hand and a smoking gun in the other.

"Miss me, darling?" She smiled coyly as she sauntered into the room, blood splattered all over her evening gown as if she were something right out of a comic book…

My jaw dropped to the floor, a million questions running through my mind… What else was Hancock hiding from us? But they'd all have to wait for now, our time was running short as I heard another thunderous blast strike the door, the frame finally starting to crack beneath the weight.

"Maggie, baby, it's about time you showed up. I was starting to think you weren't going to make it…"

"Oh please, eet may 'ave taken a little longer zan I would 'ave liked, but eet was nothing I could not handle…"

"You got good news I take it?"

"Now John-nee… 'Ave I ever deesappointed you before?" She replied with a wink, handing over what appeared to be just an old subway schedule, until I realized it was actually a map of the entire Boston underground… The Road to Nuka World.

"Malone's trade route, perfect. I was starting to get a little worried when I didn't find it down here. So, where're we headed?"

"Ze Park Street Station, or, if you like, you could try ze shortcut beneath ze stage… Malone 'ad been secretly digging down there for quite some time, it would seem."

"Yeah, we'll take the station, thanks. I don't really feel like getting trapped beneath a theatre full of people who want me dead…" Hancock said casually, before clapping his hands together with a sense of excitement, "So, is that it then? We all set? Alright, in that case… FIRE IN THE HOLE!" He suddenly yelled, pulling out a grenade and throwing it towards the door just as the frame finally broke with a resounding crack, the raiders breaking through at last.