Hash browns…Preston savored the forkful of food. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, with bits of onion mixed in for flavor. When the only way you'd ever had potatoes in your life was the occasional box of Instamash, you had no idea how good they really were.
November had passed and December had come to the Commonwealth. Now Sanctuary, which by common agreement included Raina's homestead, looked more or less like the rest of the Commonwealth: grey and brown. It never got that cold in the winter, but most nights it did drop below freezing and occasionally they got some snow. It was a time to rest up from all the harvesting.
He wasn't the restful sort. It came as a welcome relief when after breakfast, a settler came by to ask for help. "It's raiders," the man from Tenpines said. "They're holed up in the old Corvega Assembly plant. Every time they get low on food, they come by and take near everything we've managed to grow. Now it's winter and…" He spread his hands. "We won't have anything to get us through to spring, the way they prey on us. There's at least two dozen of them there, probably more."
"I hear you," Preston said. "The Minutemen will help."
"That's good," the man relaxed. "There's only me and my sister at Tenpines, and we barely get by."
Preston had found a key labeled 'Corvega Storage Key' on one of the raiders on the day Raina rescued them in Concord, and he'd been curious as to what was stored there. Not curious enough to go there without another reason, but now that he had one, why not go find out. He was a little daunted when he heard the estimated number of raiders: at least two dozen.
Yet he had pledged himself to help. Even though he was the last Minuteman standing. He went in his house and got his gear. When he returned, he found the settler hanging around the rabbit pens, goggling at the young ones frisking around on the grass.
The man started when he realized Preston was there. "Sorry, I just—What are those?"
"Rabbits." He smiled at the look on the settler's face.
"Rabbits? Where did you get them? Why do you keep them?"
"We had the good fortune to meet up with someone who breeds them. Chickens, too," Preston pointed to the coops. "Now we've got good eggs you don't have to risk your life to get, lean, safe meat, manure to spread on the fields, fur to make yarn and blankets from, feathers to stuff pillows. If you're interested, go talk to Mama Murphy. She lives there." Preston pointed out the house. "She'll tell you what you need and how to care for them. We'll fix you up with enough to start breeding your own."
"You will? That's—what do they cost?"
"Nothing but a promise that you'll be as generous in the future when someone else needs your help. When everybody has enough to eat, we'll all be richer for it."
"That's—that's wonderful! Thanks, friend!" The man made as if to dash to Mama's place.
"Just—uh, if she asks for any chems you might have on you, don't give them to the lady," Preston lowered his voice. "She has…herbal cigarettes, and that's about as strong a chem as she ought to have, at her age." Raina grew ganja and was willing to share small amounts, which kept Mama happy and mellow. That was enough. Maybe her visions weren't as intense as when she was on other chems, but he didn't have to worry about her ODing.
"Oh. Okay."
"Come spring, come back and we'll see about setting you up with seeds for new crops, too." Preston called after him.
Two dozen raiders…
He had no back up, no power armor, and there were no other Minutemen to call on.
At least it wasn't raining.
As he made to cross the bridge, he saw Raina about to cross as well, coming from her place, King loping by her side. She'd been away for a while, and though Jonny-say-Quoi could look after almost everything on his own, the one thing he couldn't do was milk the cow. She didn't like cold metal hands on her teats, and his manipulators weren't really designed for that anyway. So she'd brought her cow and calf to board the animals with them, which was the least they could do. Now she was back, which was good, as he'd worried, even though she had her dog with her.
He waved, and she returned it. They met in the middle of the bridge. "Preston!" she greeted him. "Just the man I wanted to talk to."
"Welcome back," he replied. "Sorry, can't stop to talk."
"Oh. Well, I needn't get the cow right now. She can wait. Mind if I join you for a ways?"
"No, I don't mind," he replied. She reversed direction, keeping pace with him at a couple yard's distance.
"Are you…all right?" she asked, peering at his face. "I know I am not very good at reading people yet. I never had to before I came Topside. You seem upset. Did something happen while I was away?"
"Nothing. What did you want to talk about?"
"I've got all the parts on Sturges' list. You know, stuff to build a generator and a radio transmitter to draw more settlers to Sanctuary," she told him. "but I was wondering if you knew of some place where they still print books, or at least booklets."
"Books? Why?"
"If I have learned anything over the last month and a half, it's that I can't simply hand over plants or animals with a few simple instructions on how to grow or care for them and what to do with them. People need to hear things more than once, and since there will come a time where I can't be everywhere, I thought that written instructions would be the answer. Illustrated, if possible," She looked up at him.
He smiled. "The only place I know of is in Diamond City. They have a newspaper there, Publick Occurrences, I think it's called. I'm willing to bet that if you have the caps, they'd be willing. Anyhow, I may have created a new chicken and rabbit breeder today…." Preston explained about the settler with the raider problem.
"I'm glad you're getting the word out about the animals, but I thought something was weighing on your mind," Raina said when he was done. "So you're going out alone after these raiders? Stuff that. I'm your back up, me and King."
"That's very kind of you," he said, touched.
"Not at all. I have a new batch of darts to try out. A new formula, one that isn't so unforgiving," she replied.
"What was wrong with the old one? It seemed to work fine to me."
"Yes, but what if I'd shot one of you by accident? You would have been as dead as that deathclaw. There's an antidote for this formula, and if you're hunting radstag, for example, you could even eat the meat afterward. Here, let me drop off the components for the generator and the radio beacon, and then we can make some real speed. How I wish horses had survived—walking takes forever. Plus, we could use the hair and manure."
He chuckled. "That's you all over. Always thinking of something."
"Too true! Also, I was thinking…It probably wouldn't be a good idea to take a load of seeds and crates of animals to Diamond City on Market Day to give out, would it? Not if I'm the only person who has them. Doing as you did today, distributing things through the population one settlement at a time, through the structure of the Minutemen, that would be better. If they're willing to support the Minutemen, they're showing enlightened self-interest, enough to…" She trailed off.
"To what?" he asked.
"Not jeopardize the source by delving too hard into where these things come from."
"Why? Is this something to do with where you've been these last two weeks?" he seized on that. "Where you were working on a new formula…You aren't actually from the Institute, are you?"
"The what?" The puzzlement in her voice was convincing.
"The Institute…" He explained about the shadowy and contemptuous organization which was dug deep into the Commonwealth like live blowfly larvae hatching in an open wound, about the synths, the kidnappings, the informants who come and go among the ordinary citizens.
"That's horrible. No, I'm not. I would never… Do they clone people there?"
He wondered at the sudden question. "Uh—I wouldn't know. Probably not. They like making synths out of them instead."
"The technology must be somewhat similar," she mused. "No. I am not part of the Institute. I can't imagine being that selfish and shortsighted."
"I didn't really think you could be. Just a knee jerk reaction on my part. They're the…the boogeyman, you see. No, everything you've done is the opposite of what they'd do. But…where were you?"
"Back in my old Vault, working. Keeping it going. It was my home and before me, my family's home for generations. If things don't work out Topside, I may wind up going back there." Raina looked very somber for a moment.
"Okay, I can see that. And that's where you keep these poisonous plants, so they don't get mixed up with regular plants?"
"You're right!" She flashed him a sudden smile. "Otherwise, the livestock could get into them."
They continued on companionably in the direction of the Corvega plant, which was indeed swarming with raiders. Afterward, they split up the loot, Preston marked the way to Diamond City on her map, and Raina set off. Once she was far enough down the road, she stopped to look back at him. She liked him. In fact, she liked him very much. Objectively speaking, she had no idea if he was good-looking or not—she chalked that up to being a clone and never seeing another face until she went Topside—but she liked his face and his way of speaking. She liked his willingness to work and the way he looked after Mama Murphy. He agreed with her when it came to believing that people should help each other. She could even imagine he would be a good and caring father.
However, she could not imagine being the mother of those children. She liked him, but no more than that. Even when she recalled how he smiled when he held a baby chicken in his hand, petting it with one finger, she could not summon up a stronger feeling about him. Parting with him just then had not made her sad in the least, and though she hoped he made it back to Sanctuary alive and well, she wasn't especially anxious about his welfare. She didn't feel her heart racing when he was near, her breathing did not quicken, and there was no 'liquidity in her loins', a phrase she had read and snorted in laughter about when she was twelve or thirteen.
Whatever it was you were supposed to feel when you were attracted to someone, she didn't feel that way about Preston. Nor did she feel anything for Sturges, either. That was both sad and annoying, because it would have been nice to find someone straight off and not have to do a lot of searching.
Maybe it was something that would happen later, once she knew them better.
Or maybe it wasn't something that would ever happen, because being raised in isolation meant that some part of her had failed to develop when it should. She could feel love, she knew that, because she had loved her sisters and she loved King, and even Jonny-say-Quoi, but not in any romantic or sexual way.
There were also other things which set her apart from most people. For example, nobody else seemed to have functioning ancestral memories. They had to learn almost everything on their own, from reading and writing on up. Or so she gathered.
Being a clone on your own was terrible. Even when you were among friendly people, the desolation did not fade.
Raina squinted after his receding figure in the distance, then turned and went on to Diamond City. The mysteries of love, fulfilling one's genetic imperative, and being a singleton clone would have to wait. Picking her way through the ruins of Boston took some time, and she camped in an abandoned building overnight, King curled up beside her. He helped with the loneliness; the simple, unconditional love he had for her was like sunshine on a flower.
In the morning there were raiders and supermutants to contend with before she reached the gates. Secretly, Raina had been hoping 'Diamond City' would be like the Emerald City from the OZ books. It was not. It had been a baseball stadium before the war, and while it might be the best place to live now, it was only better by comparison, from the look of it.
A very angry and noisy woman about her own age was trying to get in the gates, which were resolutely closed. When Raina approached, she left off yelling at the guard behind the metal panels, glanced at the newcomer and did a double take. "Ah—oh, what was the name? Um, your name wouldn't happen to be Isadora Queen, or maybe Theodora Queen, something like that?"
"No, I'm Raina Queen. But my great-great grandmother, who was alive when the War happened, was Theodosia Queen. How do you know her name?"
"A friend of mine, Nick Valentine's his name, has an old, old file on her—and on three other women who were dead ringers for her. Were they your relatives?" The woman turned to face her fully. She had very regular features, which probably meant she was attractive.
"Yes, they must have been! Several of my, ah, aunts and cousins left our Vault over the years, and none ever came back. Who is this Valentine? Can I meet him?" A rush of emotion swept over her, so intense she could hardly tell what it was.
"Sure! I'll be glad to introduce you. The name's Piper Wright. I'm the reporter, editor and publisher of Diamond City's one and only newspaper, Publick Occurrences." Piper stuck out a hand for Raina to shake. "This will make a great story. A mystery that stretches back over two hundred years, finally cleared up! And you come from a Vault, too?"
"You run the printing press? But you're why I'm here! I want to have some booklets printed. I won't need them until spring—well, one of them I could use sooner, but I don't know what your rates might be or how long it would take, so I came to find out now." Raina smiled. "What luck!"
"What, you have a job for me? A paying job? I mean, what do you want printed up, and how big a run?" Piper Wright looked…a lot like Preston and the others had looked when they arrived for breakfast the first day. Like someone had given her a present and she wasn't sure that they weren't going to snatch it back the next moment.
"One booklet on…agricultural methods and another on animal care. A couple hundred of each for a first run. I can provide the paper if you tell me what size and kind you need. Can you do illustrations?" Raina asked, "If you can, I have some colored inks."
"Maybe, if they were simple. Heck, if you pay for it, my sister and I will hand-color them individually. Do you have the manuscripts with you? Hey, Danny open the damn gate already! You're interfering with my livelihood now!"
A/N: And with this chapter, this fic now passes the Bechdel test! If you don't already know, the Bechdel Test refers to a comic by Alison Bechdel. To pass, a work of fiction (movie, TV, book, comic book, whatever) has to have:
At least two women in it with roles important enough to warrant actual names, (not just Prostitute # 1 or Blonde Waitress).
These women have to talk to each other.
Their conversation must be about something other than a man.
Why is this important? Think of all the works that don't pass it. The Bechdel test doesn't mean a work is feminist, but it does mean a work acknowledges that women exist as people outside of their relationships with men. That is important. We need more works that pass the Bechdel Test, and I'm upholding that here in fic-dom.
Anyway, FF dot net seems to have fixed the review problem. I am amazed at the responses and degree to which people are into this! Thank you so much! This chapter is dedicated to the anonymous Guest Reviewer who wanted to be sure potatoes are among the crops reintroduced to the Commonwealth.