Knight Rhys had a broken leg. Paladin Danse might be in power armor, but the ghouls soaked up laser bolts like sponges, and besides, even he had limits. He was tiring. Haylen could tell.
She might be a Senior Scribe, but she was still just a scribe, lightly armed and armored. Once Danse fell—and as another wave of ghouls assaulted them, mere feet away from safety, that fall might happen soon—she would be torn to shreds by the horde.
The eerie, dirty yellow-green sky flickered, showering them with rads. She had always wondered if the radstorms stimulated the ferals somehow, because there always seemed to be more of them during one. It didn't seem likely that she would ever get to compile any data on it, though, because it would take a miracle to save them now. The emergency beacon sang out their plea for help, over and over, but if anyone heard, they obviously didn't care.
Haylen's mind flashed irrelevantly back to the demonstration of that one-hit-kill poison on the Prydwen. If only, if only, if….
Groaning and flailing, another wave of feral ghouls charged. There were ones so ancient and withered you couldn't tell whether they had been men or women, though they were stark naked. There were newer ones which still wore ragged, filthy clothes. There were the ones which glowed and oozed horrible globs of greenish jelly when they were hit. Ghouls and more ghouls. 'For every sound that floats/ From the rust within their throats/ Is a groan.' There were so many of them that now they had to crawl over their own dead to get to the three members of the Brotherhood.
When she saw a feral jerk, convulse, and drop, dark froth spilling from its mouth, its eyes, everywhere, she thought it was a hallucination for a moment, a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but then another fell, and she heard gunshots as well, not from their guns, but somewhere out there in the filthy storm. And was that, could that be, the menacing growl of an attack dog?
Now the tide was turning. Between whoever was out there picking off ferals, and Danse and Haylen's own efforts, there were fewer of them. Then a male voice, rough and ragged, called out "Grenade!"
A flash of light and heat, and suddenly the area in front of the Cambridge Police station was clear. Clear of live ghouls, anyway. There were plenty of dead strewn around.
Out of the storm came three figures. A man in a hat and a pre-war trench coat, a woman in combat armor topped with a leather coat, and by her side, a dog. In the putrid-colored light from the storm, it was hard to see more than profiles.
"It's sad how many of them have something like a locket or a child's toy on them," Haylen heard the woman say. "Something of the person they used to be."
"Yeah," the man said. "Reminds you you're shooting somebody you might have liked to know, once."
"Is it possible they actually do come back to life?" the woman asked. "I don't care how overpopulated the world was before, sooner or later you'd think we'd make some kind of dent in their numbers. Instead, it seems like no matter how many we kill, the next time we swing by that location, there are just as many, if not more. Also, there are never any piles of bodies from the last time."
"That's a horrifying thought, but no," the man replied. "It may seem like we get swarmed by hundreds of ferals at a time, but usually it's less than twenty. Back when it was Massachusetts, this area was home to millions. As for why we never see any piles of old bodies—well, let's just say that like Supermutants, when ferals are hungry, they don't care what they eat as long as it's meat. I've seen them at it. Not that it's only ferals who eat ferals. Radroaches, molerats, bloatflies..."
"Nick, that is the most disgusting thing I've heard yet today."
He chuckled. "Good thing it's nearly tomorrow, then, because it'll be hard to top that."
"Hey!" Danse shouted, interrupting their banter. "You nearly got yourselves killed, civilians. Who are you and what is your business here?"
"Um, the usual response when people come to your rescue is 'Thank you'," the man said, pointedly. He was hanging back beyond the barriers, covering the street in case of another attack.
The woman had been poking around the corpses, but now she straightened up and came over. "I'm Raina Queen. We, ah, wanted to consult a terminal in the police station and on the way here we, um, heard your distress call." In the pool of light at the entrance, she was revealed to be young, medium height, with the kind of build that said she had not missed many meals but that she also worked hard for every calorie. She carried a syringer in one hand with the ease of one who was more than familiar with it. Haylen's eyes immediately went to the woman's face, and noticed that she was staring hard at Danse, who didn't seem to notice. Her eyes were working on his face in the way Haylen used to survey Rhys's.
"What could you want with a terminal at this specific station?" he demanded.
"A piece of evidence about a pre-war crime," the woman stated. She was still staring at Danse, who was one of the handsomest men in the entire Brotherhood of Steel but didn't seem to know it.
"If you don't mind, we'd like to consult it, and then we'll be on our way." The woman's male companion, who sounded much older and wearier than she did, now emerged into the light as well, and his face was grey plaskin, torn at one side to reveal wiring and internal mechanisms.
At the sight of him, Danse took a step back, raising his weapon. "That's a synth," he said, his tone of voice accusatory.
The woman's face suddenly fell, and she looked at the synth with an expression of horror, her eyes bugging out. She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. "My God, no! I had no idea."
The synth grimaced. "Very funny. Now can the melodramatics before the guy in the tin suit shoots me."
Her hands came away from her mouth, and she laughed. It was a rich, warm laugh, full of good humor. Then she glared at Danse. "This is Nick Valentine, and in the last five weeks he's kept me from being hurt or killed so often I've lost track. When he isn't keeping me safe, he tracks down missing persons, and practically every time we visit a settlement of any size, someone there comes up to shake his hand and thank him for bringing someone home safe. He has never pretended to be anything other than what he is, and I don't have a better friend. If you will please permit us to consult the terminal, we will leave immediately afterward and you will never have to deal with either of us again."
"I'm not about to compromise our mission by allowing-." Danse began, but Haylen caught at his elbow.
"Sir, permission to speak?"
"What is it?" he snapped.
"The radstorm is still going strong. Leaving a civilian out in it, whatever her views, would be inhumane-and contrary to the mission we were briefed on by Senior Scribe Neriah and Elder Maxon prior to deployment." Haylen tried to point to the syringer with her eyes and prayed Danse would catch on. He was a good CO, a good soldier, and even a good man, but there were times she badly wanted to smack him upside the head.
He frowned. Had she reached him or not? It was hard to tell. "Very well. She can come in. And the dog. The synth stays outside."
"I thank you for my share of the favor, but I'll stay outside. I won't go where my friend isn't welcome," Raina Queen said. Her voice was very firm.
"Don't be ridiculous," the synth told her. "Go on in. You're running low on Rad-X and Rad-away and your health is more important than my pride. You don't have to prove anything to me. I doubt you could prove anything to them no matter how hard you tried."
While they were talking, Haylen whispered to her commanding officer, "Sir, him too."
He glared as if she had lost her mind.
"Trust me! I can explain."
Danse's face twisted with disgust. "Him too-but he has to surrender all his weapons and stay where one of us can see him at all times. And he can't touch any computer terminals. You get ten minutes with the one you came here for, but that's all."
"Gee, you're all heart," the synth remarked. He divested himself of two guns and a set of brass knuckles, plus a cigarette lighter.
Queen looked from her companion to Danse, frowning in thought. Sounds made by still more approaching ghouls seemed to decide her. "Thank you."
Haylen helped Rhys cross the threshold, and didn't drop him even though he snapped both at her and at their not-so-welcome visitors. Once inside the police station, she settled him down where he could watch the synth while Raina Queen went off to use the terminal. Danse wanted to demand an explanation right away, but she jerked her head toward the inner room.
"Now, soldier. What exactly is so important that we have to cater to a civilian who's a synth sympathizer? This had better be good." he demanded once the door was three quarters closed.
"Not so loud," she whispered. "Sir, she has a syringer and a dog, just like Scribe Faris reported. Didn't you see what happened to the ghouls she shot? They died immediately. Of poison. If she's not the botanist we're looking for, she probably knows who it is-or at least she's a strong lead!"
His face cleared. "Good thinking. There's still a functioning cell on the premises. Once she's secured, the synth can be disposed of-."
"No! Don't you remember, sir? We're supposed to recruit them for the Brotherhood, not..." Her good manners deserted her for the moment. "Not piss them off! Elder Maxson specifically said we want whoever it is to sign up willingly, whatever it takes. Locking her up and destroying a synth she perceives as a friend will ruin all chance of that, if she's the botanist. Okay, maybe she's not the one, but that's a risk we can't take. As it is, between you and Rhys, you've already given her the impression that the Brotherhood is full of jerks and bullies."
"And on what do you base these observations, Scribe?" he asked, ice dripping off his words.
"I'm not speaking as a soldier at the moment, sir. I'm speaking as a woman. And as a woman, right now you need to...to woo her. From the way she looked at you, she finds you attractive. So you made an unfavorable first impression. You can still fix this."
Now he was looking at her as if she'd lost her mind again. "Woo her? That's beyond what's called for as a member of the Brotherhood."
"Not this time, sir. Whatever it takes, remember? Do you want to go back to the Prydwen and report that you had a lead on the botanist and lost it, or that you're actively involved in recruiting the botanist? Or that you already have them signed up?"
She could practically see the wheels grinding in his head as he thought. Honestly, if you didn't look at the Paladin and the synth called Valentine, if you only spoke to them, you would almost think that Valentine was the human and Danse was the synth. Valentine had more personality and warmth. Haylen hadn't even spoken to Valentine herself, but she'd already noticed that about him.
"...What do I do?" Danse asked.
Haylen breathed an inward sigh of relief and seized one of their canisters of purified water. "First, take off your armor. Then go and apologize to her for being so gruff. Tell her you were upset at the thought that you'd endangered a civilian and offer her the water. Smile at her, too. Nicely, like when you're fraternizing after hours. Apologize to her and the synth-."
"Apologize to a synth?!" Now he looked like he was offered raw radroach for breakfast.
"Yes. Apologize for how you acted, and explain that your experiences with synths up until now have you on your guard. Then..."
A/N: I had no idea this was going to be Scribe Haylen's chapter until I started working on it from Danse's POV and realized I needed someone who was more empathetic to take the lead. The bit of poetry while they're being attacked is a snippet from Poe's 'The Bells', specifically the verse about ghouls, and the chapter title is a riff on a line from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
And now for my readers: Crimson Katana, you're thinking like I'm thinking about grenades and anti-personnel charges. Look up the Australian Stinging Bush, aka Gimpi Gimpi or Gympie, aka, the Suicide Bush. Its sting is so painful that after a bad exposure to it, people have to be restrained in a hospital bed so they don't hurt themselves. People have killed themselves just to end the pain. Not as funny as itching powder, but itching powder would be a first line of offense. Just imagine someone getting a terrible itch inside their power armor...
Hyperventi: Thank you! I do so love Nick. He's the best. Of course, so is Hancock, and Curie, and... No, it won't stay on track, but no spoilers now!
Guestman: You have to be one of the most thought provoking reviewers out there, so much so that I find it difficult to reply fully in notes like these. I do hear Raina as I write her, and I hear Nick when I write him, especially the 'sweet, goofy kid' part in that last chapter. I can tell you Raina has an alto sort of voice, and her accent isn't exactly Bostonian or Midatlantic either. Her vault had the overflow of the Concord Library system, culls, duplicates, donated books they didn't need, old holotapes of performances, a real mixed bag without any plan to what went into it. I also have to say that I am frustrated that you aren't writing these ideas out into stories, because your ideas are solid and you have plot and story arc nailed, in my opinion.