Warning: Marijuana in this chapter. I figure if you play Fallout you're mature enough to handle that. *cough* Hancock *cough*. It's not going to turn into either Weeds or Breaking Bad, I promise.
Raina was not looking forward to moving the manure pile, ripe with chicken and rabbit droppings decomposing into fertilizer. Hopefully Jonny-say-Quoi would come back and tell her the ground was fertile enough that she wouldn't have to enrich it immediately, but she wasn't counting on it. In the meantime, she was turning out the contents of the old stockroom looking for carrying crates to transport the chickens and rabbits, and wondering about how people went about finding someone to have a child with in the post-nuclear war era.
There were plenty of books about courtship in their Vault, and she deeply loved classics like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Phantom of the Opera,and Wuthering Heights. However, diverse as they were, one thing they had in common was that they had already been old-fashioned when the Vault was sealed. A great deal of social change had happened since then, and with the total breakdown of society, who knew how people went about it now?
Well, some things would never change. The instinct behind mate selection was based a lot on health and fertility. Simple science. In a woman, fertility depended a lot on her age. Raina was twenty five and had always enjoyed good health. She ought to be able to findsome man who was willing…
A grinding sound interrupted her thoughts. The Vault was opening, and then she heard Jonny calling her name. "Miss Raina?"
"I'm in Stockroom One!" She clambered over the boxes and equipment to greet him. An odd clicking noise accompanied him down the hall—had he been damaged while he was gone?
No. She stopped dead to stare at the black and tawny creature that was trotting along behind him.
"What is that?" Jonny stopped, and the animal did too, sitting down on its haunches and cocking its head to the side to study her.
"A miracle in the form of a dog. A German Shepard, to be precise. I found him at a place I judged to be a very suitable base. In my estimation, he is as far above the ordinary dog in intelligence as you are above the average human." It was not flattery. Doctor Theodosia Queen had had an IQ in the genius range, so of course her clones did as well.
Jonny-say-Quoi went on, "He recognized me as a fellow creature capable of interaction, he is fiercely protective in the face of threats to his companion, he is thoroughly house-trained, and has even been taught to find useful items while scavenging. Moreover, he can sit up and shake hands on command. His master is dead, poor fellow. Rather than leave such a treasure on his own, I brought him here in the hopes that he will be as good a companion to you as he has been to me and to his former master." The robot gestured to the dog, who gave an appealing whine.
"A dog? I've never—what do I do?" Raina asked.
"I would begin by kneeling and holding out your hand, and calling him. He likes being petted and scratched behind the ears."
"All right…" She did as Jonny suggested, "Here, boy? Good dog, nice dog?"
The German Shepard trotted up to her and sniffed her hand, then ducked his head under it and nudged as if to say, "Pet me! Pet me now!"
She did, cautiously at first, but then with confidence. He flopped down and rolled over on his back, looking at her upside down with liquid chocolate-caramel eyes, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he smiled a doggy smile. It was an irresistible display of charm, and Raina was more than willing to charmed.
"Oh, he's beautiful!" She stroked his belly and scratched deeper around his jowls.
"Yes," Jonny said. "Now I suggest feeding him. Dogs are primarily carnivores, with some grain and vegetables such as they might ingest along with the innards of their prey. "
"I have some chicken soup I made yesterday," She got up and brushed off her knees. "I keep making as much as I used to when—Vicky was alive. So there's plenty. Follow me, boy."
The dog was very happy to follow her to the kitchen area and to gobble up a bowl of soup, after which he licked her hands as if in thanks. She restrained an impulse to recoil from the sliminess. "Vicky never let me make pets of any of the bunnies or chicks, because they were going to end up in the pot some day. But I always wanted to… I love him already. Um—do you think he'll be good around the rabbits and chickens, or will his carnivore instincts take over?"
"I have no idea," Jonny confessed. "However, we can see what he does here and now, if you're willing to risk a few of them…"
In the incubator room, Raina loosed half a dozen baby chicks on the floor, and they watched the dog very carefully. He sniffed the mobile balls of fluff as they swarmed around him, cheeping and peeping, looking somewhat bemused by all of it. Then he nudged them back into their box, one by one, until they were all safely inside. One outlier evaded him, running away under the table, and he went after it. Raina tensed up when he opened his mouth to engulf the chick, waiting for the inevitable crunch, but instead the dog came up to her, and nosed her hand. She opened it, and he dropped the chick, damp with saliva but thoroughly alive and unharmed, into her hand.
"Jonny, I think you were absolutely right. This dog isa miracle. What's his name?"
"I've no idea. His master left no clue, and he can't very well tell me."
"Well, he needs a name befitting his dignity, his handsomeness and his character." Raina turned to address the dog, "Do you think you might like to be called…Prince? Or—no. Better still, how about 'King'? What do you say? King?"
The dog gave a happy bark and licked her hands again. "Then it's settled. Your name is now 'King'. Come on, King. Jonny, tell me all about what you saw and did…."
Five Months Later:
Raina shifted her grip on the shovel and waited, not moving a muscle. Growing things in the Real World had proven to be more challenging than growing them in an EnviroVault. The asphalt had to be pried up in chunks and carted off, the ground underneath dug over and enriched with manure and compost. Some plants refused to thrive outdoors no matter how much work she put into the soil, while other things took off like rockets.
Like the Sleeping Beauty roses, for example. They weren't long-stemmed beauties with no scent and the occasional elegantly shaped thorn. They were shrub roses, a cultivar of Rosa rugosa alba, with simple pink and white short stemmed flowers. They smelled like a heady mix of cinnamon, roses and cloves, and their canes were so thick with thorns that they looked fuzzy. Moreover, they grew fat, squashy rose hips full of Vitamin C, edible and tasty. And they were green. They were lush and vividly, vibrantly green, spreading out crinkled leaves to bask in the sun and pouring out oxygen in all directions.
The roses were everything they had been bred to be and more. They were growing four times as fast as they did in the EnviroVault, and she'd had to bring an agribot from the Repository to help Jonny keep trimming them or the truck stop would be overgrown inside of a month. And that was with the radstags coming by to graze on them. The leaves were tasty enough for the mutated, two headed deer, but the roses themselves were like candy, judging by how they ate them. However much they ate, they never made a dent on the Sleeping Beauties.
One morning, she had gone out to find a two headed cow out there cropping the roses, her belly swollen with a calf. It was friendly, so Raina led it inside her compound and made a pen for it. A couple of weeks later, she helped it birth that calf, and now there was plenty of milk for both of them—not to mention more manure for the pile.
Raina waited. So did King, whose keener nose and ears were quivering. In fact, his whole body was tense and alert. He abruptly jerked his head to the right, and Raina struck straight down at the spot, flattening the molerat's skull. She'd read about playing Whack-A-Mole, but never imagined she would ever get to do it. And the old stories were right. It was fun. Scooping the rodent corpse up on the shovel, because there was no way she was going to eat the thing while there was something else, anything else to eat, she threaded her way through the bushes to throw the disgusting thing across the road.
In the distance, she spotted a Brahmin carrying a full load and a person trudging along beside it. It was Trashcan Carla. She waved until Carla returned her greeting, then ducked back in to get the goods she had carefully grown for trade. She also brought clean water, because the road was long.
Carla was waiting, a sour expression all over her face. "Hey. I don't wanna go repeating myself. Yeah, I got fusion cores. Three of 'em. But I don't trade in live animals, live plants, soft fruit or vegetables, eggs, or anythin' else you had last time. Unless you wanna sell your dog."
"No. There aren't enough fusion cores in the world to part with King," Raina shook her head, and she meant it. He was a dog in the same way that the Hope Diamond was a precious stone—so much better than any other that there was no equal to it. He had followed her out, and when she said his name, gave a happy bark and nosed her hand.
"That's what I figured," the trader nodded. Then she squinted up at the wall of Sleeping Beauty roses. "But—whoa, is this thing taller than last time! And so damn green! If you had seeds for this, then maybe, but unless you got a ton of them, ya still won't be able to afford one fusion core. Hard stuff, like mutfruit, melons, dried corn, canned goods, ammo, that's what I mostly want. And you'd still need plenty of them to buy one core."
"No, none of those," Raina waved a hand in dismissal. "But last time you said you'd take chems."
"Last time was last time. This time I got Psycho, Buffout, Daddy-O, Daytripper, Med-X, Jet, Mentats in three flavors. You got anything that I don't?"
"Yes," Raina opened the box. "Cannabis." It was a compromise with her conscience. Marijuana was much less addictive than tobacco or alcohol, it had legitimate medical uses, and withdrawing from it was mild compared to most recreational drugs. In the world before, it had been legal, and in terms of impact on someone's general health, it was much less harmful than refined white sugar.
"That's—You're shitting me. Cannabis is extinct. No way is that really Maryjane."
"My family kept a plant growing under lights in our Vault. Try some," Raina offered her a joint.
"Only if you do, too." Carla raised a suspicious eyebrow.
"Sure," She had already tried it to be sure she had gotten a good strain and grown it properly. Her thoughts on it were that it was very nice, and the euphoria muted that missing-limb feeling Vicky's death still gave her, but then she had no inclination to go back to work afterward. That was a problem. She needed to work.
But she understood the need to put Carla's mind at rest, and she had to have those fusion cores. So she lit up and took a few puffs.
Seeing that, the trader followed suite. "Okay, that's for real. Even though I'm not sure it's really marijuana, it's something. What have you got?"
"Four ounces, plus two dozen rolled. Twenty-two, now."
"I'll take all of it, but I'm going to have to give out the joints as tastes for the skeptical, like you did me. Plus I don't know who's going to want it, but if I can find somebody who goes by Goodneighbor…Anyway, I'll trade you one fusion core for the lot."
"Deal—but if it turns out you do want more, then the price is two—and don't tell people where I live." Raina bargained.
"Done." Carla handed over the fusion core, and Raina handed her the bottle of water.
"What, again?" the trader scoffed. "It's not that I'm turning it down, but you know, you could make a lot of caps off of good clean water like this, and instead you just give it away. You've got to learn better."
"You come out of your way to trade with me," Raina said. "I'm sure you get thirsty hiking out here. Besides, as you said, your Brahmin can't carry enough water to make trading in it worthwhile."
"Yeah, you're isolated out here," Carla shrugged, "but what the hell, I've got time. Anyhow, I've got to get going if I want to get to the Drumlin Diner by dark."
Raina seized that cue, as she actually wanted to talk to the older woman about a few things. "I was planning to go toward Concord today, so if you'd like some company the first part of the way, I could get going now."
"Eh, why not?" Carla replied. Smiling, Raina ducked back into the truck stop to get a few things.
A/N: This is the new version. Anyhow, my thanks to those who added this story to their favorites and follows. I would love to hear from any of you, no need to be shy.