Today Raina planned to accompany Nick back to Diamond City, to have a look at the file he had on her family. At the moment, he was visiting some people he knew in the neighborhood, having mentioned a Doctor Amari and a man named Kent who ran the Silver Shroud radio broadcast. Raina had written a note to Preston to tell him she would be gone a little longer, and a letter of introduction for Murray, so he wouldn't just be a random settler showing up on their doorstep. Then she had gone down to the street to look around the community.
Almost as soon as she stepped out of the hotel, Hancock emerged from the State House onto a balcony to deliver a speech to his constituents. She stopped to listen.
"Hey, everyone! Gather round. Let's kick the breeze back, shoot the fat… Now I know you all are doing your own thing, but I don't want anyone here to forget what really matters." He stopped for a moment to speak more personally to a couple of those gathered around, then went on.
"All right, all right. We're getting off track. What was I saying? Oh, that's right. What matters. We freaks gotta stick together, and the best way to stick together is to keep an eye out for what drives us apart, you feel me?"
The crowd nodded and made noises of agreement, one or two calling out encouragement. "You tell it like it is!"
He nodded in acknowledgment. "Now what out there in our big friendly Commonwealth would want to drive us apart? What kind of twisted, un-neighborly boogeyman would want to hurt our peaceful community?"
"The Institute and their synths!" a woman cried out.
"That's right! Who said that? Come on up to my office later. You've earned yourself some Jet. The Institute! They're the real enemy! Not the raiders, not the Supermutants, not even those tools over in Diamond City."
While he spoke, Raina watched him and considered. In the last twenty-four or so hours, she had met three people who stood out among the other citizens of the Commonwealth, Piper, Nick, and now Hancock. Preston was like them, too. Lights in the darkness, glowing like candles in a window to show the way to home and safety. If she were to name their defining attributes, Piper's would be… truth. Nick's would be justice, Preston's would be helping, and Hancock's would be…what? As yet she didn't know, but she liked him instinctively. She liked the way the corners of his eyes crinkled up when he smiled, too.
He bantered with another member of the crowd before he returned to his theme.
"I want you all to keep the Institute in mind. When someone starts acting funny, when people are doing things they don't normally do, when family starts pushing you away for no reason… We all know who's behind that kind of shit. And the only way to stop it is to stick together. They can't control us if we're not afraid! Now, who's scared of the Institute?"
"Not us!" the crowd shouted.
"And which town in the Commonwealth should the Institute not fuck with?"
"Goodneighbor!" came the reply.
"And who's in charge of Goodneighbor?"
"Hancock! Of the people, for the people!"
The mayor raised a hand, smiled, nodded, and went back in.
Raina went to shop while she waited for Nick and put away her thoughts about the mayor of Goodneighbor. Kl-E-O, proprietor of the shop Kill or Be Killed, had several fusion cores for sale and according to her, almost always had them in stock, but the bad news was, Raina couldn't afford even one of them. Having paid Piper two hundred caps the day before, she was over a hundred caps short, even though she'd cleared out everything she could barter with. Next time I leave home, she thought, I'll bring a pound of marijuana so I'll have something better to trade than another shoddy little pipe pistol. All she had with her was a couple of joints, not enough for a fusion core.
"I saw what happened last night when you came in," Kl-E-O leaned over the counter to speak to her in almost a whisper, "I'm not saying this just for the sake of making a sale, but dear, you need something with a little more style."
"Than what?" Raina asked, wondering precisely what the robot meant. Her clothes? Her pack? Her escort? (If Kl-E-O meant Nick, Raina would have a few choice words for her. Nick was wonderful.)
"The shovel. Obviously it's practical for some things, but as a melee weapon, it's unwieldy and unbalanced. No flexibility. For you, I'd recommend something like a sword. You have more upper body strength than the average human woman, I can tell from your arms."
"I tried using a machete but it just didn't have the stopping power," she explained.
"Oh, machetes," the robot said dismissively. "Fine if you want to keep hacking away at your opponent, but they lack finesse. Little better than pot metal, actually. A higher grade of steel would cut through flesh and bone like butter, and I can tell you where to go—the only question is, do you dare to do it?"
"Where?" Raina asked, intrigued.
"The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston," Kl-E-O said, practically into Raina's ear. "Among other things, it had the finest collection of Japanese art and handcrafts on the East Coast…including an impressive number of samurai swords. Unplundered. Also overrun by ferals, but I'm sure you would make small work of them. The only catch is that you'd have to break into their conservation vaults."
"Am I the first who you've shared this information with?" Raina was learning rapidly.
"No, but you could be the first to come back," the merchant purred.
"I see. So it's really dangerous. What do you want in return for this information?" Raina asked. "It's too juicy a tidbit to come for free."
"First chance at what you don't want to keep for yourself, baby. That's all. Depending on how much you can carry, this haul could keep you in fusion cores for the rest of the century." The robot stood up.
"I'll have to think about it," she said.
Someone knocked on the wall from the other side. "Come see me before you leave town!" a gritty female voice called.
"That's Daisy," Kl-E-O remarked. "Go see what she wants—just remember who pointed you to the Museum."
"I will," Raina promised.
Daisy was a Lucid, as it happened, and while she had a welcoming smile on her face, she was also looking at Raina's head with great interest. "I overheard part of your conversation with Kle-O, that you're a little short on caps at the moment. I was thinking of sending you on an errand for me, but I've just thought of something else. Is your hair virgin?"
Raina reached up to touch her tresses. "I know what they mean by 'virgin' as it applied to people, but not specifically to hair."
"Sorry, I mean, has it ever been chemically processed? Colored, straightened or permed?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
Daisy reached up and patted her own neat coif. "See this? It's a wig. One of the side effects of radiation is hair loss, partial or total. It's not so bad for men, as most of them lose their hair eventually, but for women—it's a terrible blow. Worse than losing our dewy-fresh complexions, even, because we all become hags if we live long enough, but a woman's hair is her crowning glory. So the answer is wigs. If you would be willing to cut yours—not all of it, just ten or twelve inches, I would pay you two hundred caps for it. Two hundred caps, plus the knowledge that you've helped someone feel better about herself."
Raina frowned in thought. It wasn't that she was opposed to the idea, but that it was Vicky who had the shorter hair.Vicky is gone, and my hair isn't me. I'm not so insecure that my hair is key to my identity. After all, it will grow back.And it had gotten very long over the last few months. Long and heavy.
"I think you're trying to play up on my kindheartedness. Four hundred," she replied.
"Two fifty," Daisy countered. They agreed upon three hundred caps, Raina bound the portion she was cutting at the top and bottom, then used the scissors Daisy lent her.
"Do you have a mirror?" she asked after she handed over her shorn ponytail.
"No, I'm sorry. But you look nice with shorter hair. I didn't realize how curly your hair is until now. The length weighed it down," Daisy said. "Tell you what, I'll throw in an extra fifteen caps, that way you can go to the barber in Diamond City and have them style it for you."
"Thank you," Raina said. "What was the other thing you were thinking about, before you got distracted?"
"Oh! The library. I understand you're a reader."
"I am, but how did you learn that?" Raina's brow furrowed.
"You made quite an impression on our mayor," Daisy smiled, arching a penciled-on eyebrow. "He wanted to know who 'Erik' was, and he knew I'd probably know."
"That makes sense," Raina nodded.
"Anyway, the Boston Public Library's been taken over by Supermutants. It's so big they feel normal sized in it. Ordinarily I'd say, they're welcome to it, but I have a lot of good memories connected to that library. Y'see, along with the rad damage, there's metabolic changes that go along with being a ghoul. You live a very, very long time."
"I didn't know that," Raina said. "But there are a lot of things of which I am ignorant."
Daisy patted her hand. "Don't worry. You'll catch up. Anyhow, I hate to think of those Supermutants ruining the old library. I'm willing to pay to have them cleared out of there, but it can wait for another time, since now you have a lot more caps."
"I need to replenish my darts before heading out to do something that major, anyway," Raina said. "I gather that chems are highly prized here. Am I right about that?"
Daisy gurgled in laughter. "Oh, yeah. Life is hard, and sooner or later, everybody needs something to cushion the hurt. Why? You buying or selling?"
"Selling, potentially. If you think there'd be a market for these." Raina brought out the tin where she carried her first aid supplies and medications, including joints. She had not offered them to Kl-E-O on the grounds that the robot could not smoke.
She handed the two joints to Daisy, whose brow furrowed. "I haven't seen anything like this in over two hundred years. Are these really cannabis?" She ran one under her nose hole, rubbing it between her fingers. "I'll be damned! They are. Where did you find these?"
For a moment, she considered saying, 'Some caravaneer or other', but since she was trying to sell to Daisy in the future, that was hardly an intelligent answer. Raina instead said, "I grew them. My family was prepared for anything, back in the day."
"And here I was thinking butter wouldn't melt in your mouth. It goes to show you never can tell about people. Do you like to...blow a cloud yourself?"
"Now and then. Not often. I have too much work to get through," she told the friendly woman.
"I hear you. Yes, you'll find buyers here. How much can you supply, when will it be ready and what are you asking for it?"
"I usually trade at the rate of two fusion cores per quarter pound," Raina replied. "I was planning to come back to the area in two or three weeks, and I'd need caps more than cores then, so...eight hundred caps No seeds or stems, mind."
"Done. That gives me time to get as much together. What do I owe you for these?" Daisy indicated the two joints.
"Consider them a thank you for throwing in the fifteen extra and directing me to the barber in Diamond City," Raina said. "So-a quarter pound, no seeds or stems, eight hundred caps. Shake on it?"
"Of course," Daisy held out her rad-burned hand, tilting her head a little and watching Raina closely as they shook hands. "So, it really doesn't bother you."
"What doesn't?" Raina asked, because she had no idea what the older woman was referring to.
"The whole ghoul business. There are people who can fake it, until the moment comes when they actually have to make skin contact. Then they falter."
"It bothers me that it bothers other people. You're lucid, amiable, and most importantly, you're not trying to kill me," Raina shrugged. "That last part counts for a lot."
Daisy chuckled. "You get that a lot, do you?"
"Almost constantly, some days. This time I've spent in Goodneighbor is the longest stretch no one's tried anything since I left Sanctuary two days ago."
At that moment, Nick came up. "Are you ready-What happened to your hair?"
"Daisy bought part of it. I feel so much freer now-I had no idea how heavy it had gotten until I cut it."
He eyed her head. "Well, if you're happy with it. I had an idea. Last night, I read over your stuff. You probably think you have a lot more to write, but if anything, you need to edit. What do you say we put Ellie on it to help you? With a little effort and any luck, you may have a finished manuscript to give Piper by the end of the day."
"I don't know..." She looked at the bag of caps Daisy had paid her for her hair, and figured that she had just enough to pay Piper the second payment. "But I'm willing to discuss it while we walk. Daisy, I'll see you in a few weeks. Take care."
"You too," the shopkeeper waved good bye.
As the gate closed behind them, Hancock appeared, looking around the square.
"Hey! Over here!" Daisy waved to him. When he came over, she told him, "You just missed them, loverboy. However, I can tell you a few things now that you don't know. First of all, Miss Raina is not faking it when it comes to accepting ghouls simply as people. She isn't even trying too hard, like a certain young smoothskin who blew into town about ten years ago, name of John McDonough. Remember him?"
Hancock smiled a little at hearing his former name. "Yeah, but he got over it."
"He did. Second, she's coming back to Goodneighbor in about two or three weeks, because we shook hands on a deal." She held up the joints. "Want to guess what these are?"
"Uhhh..."
"This is cannabis. Pot. Wacky weed. Herb tea," Daisy pulled out a flip lighter. "Want a taste?"
"Marijuana? Are you shitting me?"
"Hey, I had an adventurous girlhood, two hundred fifty years back. I can tell when somebody's trying to pass oregano off on me. Here." She lit one and took a drag on it, holding up a finger, before she let it out slowly. "That's how you smoke it. Not like cigarettes."
"All right," Hancock took the joint. After a few moments contemplation, he said, "That's...interesting. Like getting smacked upside the head with a comfy pillow wrapped around a brick. Most chems, you just get the brick. Leaves ya dry-mouthed, though." Then he giggled. "So, what, ah, what's the connection? Between Raina and this."
"She grows it."
"Really? And she's coming back to town..."
A/N: So, a little more than a week between chapters, but here it is. Huge snowstorms= more work, when you're an adult. More work = tired.
Guestman: the steam is there! So you're from the area? Small world... Now I definitely need to go back and play f3.
Thank you to my other reviewers, I'm so impatient to post this but I will reply better next chapter.