Rayne sat firmly in her armchair, a putrid green granny chair, designed to exile the elderly to. It didn't go at all with the flowery sofa, vinyl wood coffee table and vile flowery drapes.
This place wasn't familiar to her, a prewar house, donning some of the ugliest design choices that the 2070s had to offer. Yet, it felt like home... in an odd way.
She was thankful for the layers of smoke, that built up in the atmosphere. Smoke brought on by the roaring flames, that consumed the walls and random patches in the house. The smoke obscured the wallpaper and drapes and that was all that she could ask for. It mostly avoided the main sitting area, as did the flames, though the house was on fire, the flames caused her no inconvenience or trouble.
She didn't really take this in as odd, she breathed in the smoke like oxygen, took in the glow of the flames like a tamed fireplace and they didn't seem to leave much damage in their wake. She was willing to play live and let live with it.
Again, this all felt very familiar, she'd been here before... or had she never left? It was honestly impossible to tell.
Sat opposite was her guest, a dark haired man in a black suit and a roving trader hat. Short, unkempt black hair and a beard/moustache combination that gave him a devilish air but nowhere near as devilish as his eyes.
There was a hell in them, an abyss that one wouldn't want to stare into for too long, so long as they felt ghoulish hands slither up their arms, sending their hairs on end.
"You've settled in nicely." Hamilton mused, voice calm as usual, straight to business in both attitude and dialogue.
"What is this place? It seems... familiar..." Rayne admitted, rubbing her neck as it felt slightly sore.
"This? It's just the world, made microcosm."
"R-Right..." Rayne sighed, sitting upright in her chair.
"What am I here for?"
"The serum is battling to have control of you. Here is where you decide how much you give to it."
Rayne gasped as she felt a sharp sting in her neck...
Serum? Of course, that... Freak in Velvet. The injection, the pain and...
Hardin...
"I don't want to give anything to it."
"It takes something, it already has. It depends on you how much it takes, how much you'll let it."
"N-No. I don't... I can't be like you."
"You can but you don't want to. Not something I blame you for."
Rayne brought her hands to her head, feeling the sharp pain of the needle. Something was... it was wrong. Her skeleton was too big for her skin, teeth rattled, nerves screamed. This wasn't right... she couldn't remember a time, where she felt this bad.
The fires raged some more, climbing up the curtains, melting them, like weak metal.
"How...? How do I...?"
"There's no cheat sheet... you are one of few. You just have to remember who you were before this nightmare and who you want to be after."
"M-My head...!"
"You'll give in at some point, use the serum. However, how much it takes from you is dependent on you. How much you take from it, is again dependent on you."
"I just... I understand, I only have to take so much. I only have to give so much..."
It was difficult to tell but she could swear that the flames were giving off some heat now, not as much as their real-life counterparts would but she was working up a bit of a sweat.
"I need to fight it..." Rayne panted, falling back in her chair.
"Mutants to beat..."
"Can't rely on Hardin to do everything, not after last time."
Rayne gave a faint smile, accompanied by a bit of laughter.
"You're not wrong there..."
Rayne slowly awoke, feeling about as good as one could expect. She felt like her bones were pulling at her skin, she didn't want to do anything but go back to sleep. Mercifully, it was still night time.
Hardin and the others were gathered around a campfire, seemingly discussing what their next move was. They were unaware of Rayne's internal struggle, seemingly trying to distract themselves from it.
"Your disguise can get us near the Vault, right?" Durga offered,considering it some more.
"From there, we should be able to scout the place out decently enough."
"When the Outcasts join us, we should be able to stage an assault. I'm just worried that we'll get bottlenecked." Arthur admitted, with a sigh as he considered the odds.
"It's hard to bottleneck a guy in Power Armour, right? Nevermind seven." Hardin chipped in, noticing that Kyu had long since zoned out.
The Supermutant hadn't really been involved in this Brotherhood chin stroking. His thoughts were gathered on the horizon, angry flickering, moving across the hills.
It was an odd sensation, being an outcast of his own kind. He wondered just how much he could trust that he wouldn't also be exterminated by the Brotherhood, as soon as his usefulness ended or if he'd be exiled or maybe he'd get the chance to live among nervous glances, among settlers.
Kyu honestly couldn't tell if he should be grateful for having his mind given to him, by his mentor or resentful for being given a harder path. A path of discipline and thought, in a world that deemed such values obsolete.
Resent it was.
He wondered if the Old Man would deem this the right course of action, violence for a peaceful tomorrow went against what he taught but not all of the mutants could be saved like him. With Shephard feeding thoughts into their minds, they would remain forever misguided. Perhaps this was the way that the Supermutants could be freed, maybe they'd find another way?
It was a big maybe but hey, one could dream.
Speaking of which...
He'd already heard a watch rota being discussed. Apparently, he was third. Wasn't the most ideal but which position even was? Staying awake when everyone else got to sleep or waking up three hours early and doing nothing?
The Supermutant lay back, staring up at the night sky. Millions of tiny dots, the occasional coloured swirl and one or two abortions. It was the greatest reminder of how small we all were, how fleeting and temporary we were...
"I knew a guy, who said he was up there." Hardin murmured, getting the mutant's attention.
"Space, I mean. Said he stood up there, in the night's sky, looking down on creation bellow."
"How'd he manage that? Get a tall ladder?" Kyu huffed, not quite buying such a tall tail.
"Nah, he reckoned little green men took him. Anyone else, I'd say he was crazy but... Weird shit had a habit of happening to Denis."
"I'm a big green man, so... I guess weirder shit has happened." Kyu mused, crossing his legs over.
"Are the green men still up there or...?"
"Nah, he says he killed them all. Had a big fight in the sky or something, like Captain Cosmos."
"Is he the one in the loin cloth, with the axe?"
"That's Grognak the Barbarian."
"Oh... He was always more my speed. Simple but effective."
"Heh... They were more Maggie's thing. I preferred Western Movies. Guys like Josey Wales and D'jango were me and my pop's speed."
"Didn't know directions mattered in movies." Kyu admitted, thinking on it.
"My Mentor talked about movies from the east. Said he'd show me one, if we found one but it never happened."
"Wild west movies are from a time before the war. Long before... things were like they are now but without the radiation and the monsters. People were just starting to settle on the land, so they couldn't uphold the law."
"Wait, how did they not control the land that they lived on?" Kyu asked, finding that weird.
"Oh, they didn't always live on it. They or their ancestors came from far away. I only know, because this old guy, Jerry, says that he comes from a place called 'ireland.' Guessing it's named after all of the anger there, Jerry's a pretty angry guy. He says that Alistair Tenpenny brought a bunch of people over, years ago. They fixed up Tenpenny Tower, so they'd have somewhere to live."
"Why not just fix where they were?"
"Not always possible. Or not always worth it. New world, new opportunities and shit. Alistair was gonna build up quite a... what did he call it, a mono-op? Monopolis? Whatever, Denis killed him and put a stop to that crazy shit. Guess we'll never know what was going on in that crazy old guy's head."
"He were probably greedy. Sounds greedy." Kyu murmured, keeping track of the stars above.
"Greed's just one of many vices, my man. Some of us are haunted by more than a few..." Hardin uttered, staring tiredly at the night's sky.
"For a while, drink felt like the only thing that gave me a way out. Now it's just another problem."
"Oh yeah, someone said something like that..." Kyu acknowledged, finding it hard to pinpoint where exactly he heard it. It was almost universal knowledge that Hardin had a drinking problem.
"I don't want it during the day or when I'm travelling like this? Just being at home, when I have down time. Just... Staring off, into space. You remember some of the stuff that made you start and there's no other escape. For a while, Rayne was that escape but... then I dragged her back into it."
"That's why you aren't together anymore, yeah."
"I'm... Kinda glad. After a while, I just felt like I was dragging her down, y'know? I brought her along on this and..." He paused to glance over, noticing that she was still in the position that she was in, the moment that they laid her down. She had only shivered and muttered in her sleep but was otherwise out of it.
"You think it... Well, how bad do you think it changed her?"
"I ain't got a fuckin' clue. I erm... Asked Durga, she's looking over the notes that we pulled out of the place. Apparently everyone reacted differently to it. In fact, one chick called... Matilda, I think? She didn't react at all. Somethin' about it being 'dormant in her genes.'"
"What so... Her little bundle of joy is out there, chomping on people?"
"Could be. Second name is 'West,' which is a common enough name. Doubt anyone would ever find her kids or her at this point. Gotta... Lucy West, in Megaton. Wonder if she's ever given anyone a nip?"
"Guess she's your go-to answer for any missing person's cases." Kyu shrugged, putting his hands behind his head.
"Most of the men probably went willingly." Hardin added, giving it some thought.
"Most of the guys with working dicks had a thing for her at some point."
"Kinda wish I had one, so I could know what the fuss is about." The Supermutant admitted, crossing his legs over.
"Though they are the source of every human's downfall so... Probably not."
Arthur watched the dancing embers of the camp fire, wondering how much further they had to go. Well, he knew technically but more things could happen to their group and there could be further confusion to hold them back.
"It'd be a kindness to kill the girl." Durga muttered, getting Arthur's attention.
"We saw what that serum does, she's going to lose her mind."
"That serum is an abomination, like FEV. When I'm Elder, I'll make sure that nothing like that can happen again."
"It can and will happen again, Arthur. That wouldn't be your job. Your job would be to eradicate it before it goes too far."
"R-Right... That's what I meant."
"It's Madness that they're taking her with us. I'd take charge but both the mutant and the boy would turn on us and we need the former."
"Yeah, she'll just have to be a necessary evil for our mission. At least for now."