The quay was alive with humanity. Sailors told long tales to whoever would listen, their faces bright with the sun and dusted with salt as they spoke of krakens and mermaids and the horrors only they had seen and had the skill to survive. Children clad in the bulky clothing passed down to them by their parents dragged boxes of half gutted fish from ship to butcher, a wispy trail of vinegar marking their passage. And here and there, a fresh-faced newcomer detached themselves from their ocean-going chariots into the slick ground of the wharf.
An arm brushed his own as he took his first steps on the slick walkway. Nate half turned, hand going for his pistol. There was always someone in a crowd marking out the new arrivals, gauging the risk they posed. He had done it once or twice in his life, when the prospects of the dawn were grey with uncertainty. Law enforcers or not, not everyone could pass up the opportunity to get what didn't belong to them. Not everyone could fill a backpack with their belongings, no more than everyone was contented to a life where they were forced to be happy living with what they had. However the chance of confrontation passed, and with it the stranger. Sighing, he allowed his task to push him forward.
Past the fisherfolk and the vessels, the quay opened up into a proper market, signs of flaking paint announcing sales only a mutie could pass up. He thought he could see one of them in question, bent double beneath a mountain of rags meant to hide its repulsive features. Yet no one seemed to care either way for its presence, dragging their goods from vendor to shack as if nothing bad could come of the company. The vendors sat like shacks of their own, humble benches sitting beside larger warehouses while mounds of crates found any empty space to present their goods towards the customer. The shops stretched out for a while, before ending at what he could only assume were the homes of the residents: blocks of wood and mud and stone and iron draped with stained cloth of a dozen shades of grey.
Dodging the heavy march of what he assumed were a company of Harbourmasters, Nate found himself cutting a path through the shorefront market towards the supposed highlight of the harbour: the Port Pub.
The building would have been a modest thing in a town of greater size, two or three floors of lichen-covered stone and iron struts sitting before the waterfront like a great piece of driftwood. He could spy guards on its roof, rifles reaching out over the gunwall towards targets he could not possibly hope to see. His hand moved of its own accord back towards the holster of his own gun. Just because a danger was out of sight didn't stop it from being a threat, and relying on another was something that was sure to get him killed. It had taken weeks to get here, the small fortune he had amassed over half a lifetime becoming empty air in exchange for food and drink and shelter and passage. He wasn't about to become just another victim now that he had made landfall. Now that he was on the trail.
Inside the Pub, dozens of tables sat patiently for visitors who had yet to arrive. Behind a shimmering haze he could barely open his eyes wide enough to take in the whole room. For a moment he thought that the building had no light, before the sting of smoke informed him otherwise. It seemed to stretch out further than the outside walls had implied, ending in a thick cloud of darkness where wood or rusted iron should have stood. A few guards rested against the walls he could see, emblazoned caps marking them from the same outfit. Harbourmasters, he asserted with some confidence. They seemed drunk on the unsalted fumes of the pub.
"Ah, a stranger comes to Long Landing!"
He was greeted by a man as wide as he was tall, a smile as false as his health plastered over a carpet of angry warts Nate took to be his face. His waddle was only managed by the help of two girls, their bodies swallowed near whole by the arms of the speaker.
"I am Gareth, mayor of Long Landing and master of this here Port Pub," his voice seemed to cut through the smoke and ash of his establishment like a thunderstrike. "It is with a great deal of pride that I welcome you to this here my town and residence. You will find no greater dive to wallow in despair, nor den to celebrate the happy moments of your life, I tell you now."
Nate frowned. That was a more apt name for the place: dive. There had to have been a hundred or two people easy on the wharf alone, too many wastelanders in one place for the Port Pub to be going without patronage. He had been banking on the miasma containing a horde of potential recruits. Killers loved to crowd around drinks in shadowy rooms. And there was no better source of information than a drunk.
"I am surprised that you don't have more customers," he replied in a tone he took for diplomatic.
He thought that he could hear one of the Harbourmasters snigger at that.
"Good eyes, stranger. But it is not even noon yet. Long Landing is home to honest working people I tell you straight. Didn't use to be this way, I wouldn't dare lie. But I've kept the streets clean for the honest folks for fifteen year now, not a word of a lie." He raised one of his arms, allowing the girl beneath to take in a lungful of air that had not been polluted by his own personal brand of cologne. "Are you here for honest work, stranger?"
"I am here for a drink."
Gareth was prodding, testing the viability of a new recruit. Nate was as certain as radiation was deadly. No one got to be fat through honest work, not in a town this size. And it was almost a law that no one ran a town long by being friendly with every stranger who came passing by for a drink. Even the safest places in the wastes needed blood to flow, lest the limbs turn blue or gangrenous. It was those on top who made it so. And those with a pistol strapped to their hip that performed the surgeries.
"Ah yes," he twisted to face a bar that seemed to materialise from the smog itself. "I am sure you would have a thirst, seeing this fine establishment. That and having to spend a trip with our Abbey. A good woman, but any man would need comfort after her companionship. What will it be then? Jiv here has the best stock in the whole Commonwealth, no word of a lie."
"Something cheap and foul," he replied, a brief glance telling him that there were no stools for him nor Gareth.
With Abbey? An honest guess at how he arrived would not have raised any questions. Long Landing was open to the sea, and he had seen enough fellow strangers to make the assumption that most traffic came through the wharf. However, the method by which he had plucked the name of any number of ship captains from air was worrying. Spies, was his initial thought. That made sense for a mayor, his Harbourmasters keeping tabs on everyone coming and going. But to match him to Abbey seemed like something more. Perhaps she sold me… but the thought died before it could take form. There was no way that she would have managed to broadcast her arrival, not without a radio. No, Gareth had another mean. But what it meant for Nate was a mystery.
The barman poured something thick and dark into a stained cup. With an almost careless flourish, he nudged it towards the new arrival. For his mayor, he decanted a pale pink liquid into a glass, slender and tall. A tepid sip assured Nate that his order was indeed worse than the salty brown soup which lapped at the coastline. It could easily have been Jiv's regurgitated breakfast.
"Are you heading anywhere in particular?"
"I had a mind to try Diamond City." He took a mouthful of the broth-like liquid, allowing it to burn its way down. If it had been poisoned, he was definitely going to find out soon enough.
Gareth reached out for his own drink, the girls swaying like grass in a gale at the movement. "A nice place, if you have money to get above the crowds. They call it the Great Green Jewel, for the wall you see. Think big of themselves for a bunch of vagrants if you want my word. What would you be wanting to do there? You don't hold yourself like someone who is going to be begging for a living." His eyes dropped to the pistol that rested against the newcomer's hip. "A score to settle, perhaps?"
"Perhaps," he replied. "I was hoping to find someone to make the trip with. Safety in numbers."
"Oh that is very true, very prudent, though I could tell you were a wise one for choosing this place for your drink. Can never be too trusting when bodysnatchers are about. Just so happens we got a mercenary out of a job who'd probably want the money. Came in a week or two ago with some gang. They seemed to have left him behind." His girls struggled to turn him back to face the empty tables. The near empty tables. "His name is MacCready, claims to be a mayor, but he seems too young for all that."
And too skinny, Nate added silently. The man didn't look particularly young, old scars cutting up his beard as surely as radiation, but he wasn't in a position to care about arguing the point. "I'll go speak to him then, thank you."
"One other thing." The man gestured to one of the Harbourmasters. The guard in question dragged himself before the mayor and drinking partner with all the good grace of a man ostensibly happy enough to being ordered around by the wet click of a fat man's fingers. "There is a merchant, goes by Hamish, who is going to the Green Jewel as well. Honest man, cuts a good deal for friends. He is all set, but I can't let him go without with some more guards."
Nate almost settled for just accepting the offering with a smile and leaving it at that. The journey ahead was sure to be far too long without getting roped into helping out some brahmin-dragger. Besides, the mayor did not look to be the type of man one should take to relying on for help. Not at least until his method of information gathering was revealed. However his thanks was overtaken by the irresistible urge for more. "And why would he be wanting more guards?"
"Why, he is delivering my wife a present. It's a photo of Long Landing, from before the bombs. Now it doesn't matter how it gets to her, troubles in the rubble being as they are poor Hamish might not make it. I made sure that he keeps the picture on his person, should he have to make a speedy escape. If death forces the two of you to part ways, then I daresay that would be where to look for it. Get it to her, and I'll be sure to have some more work for you."
"Honest work?"
The mayor didn't want to follow that road of the conversation. "Her name is Kyla. Short woman, but striking," a wide tongue moistened his lips. "Makes good men stare, if you understand me. Gorgeous skin, blessed by the sun. She is the only one who wears a pink dress in that city. You'll find her in the upper stands, just ask around. But only hand it over to her. Can't be trusting any of those Green Jewel types these days."
Gareth's new recruit nodded. "I'll be sure to see that the photo gets to her." It could not do him any harm. And if it did, he was in the position to walk away.
The subservient Harbourmaster offered him a tall stack of cards. "Hundred and fifty," he muttered, as if such a number was meant to make him weak at the knees.
"To pay for expenses for the journey," Gareth explained. "You will get your payment for the job once you come back with my Kyla's reply. Oh yes, and there will be more work for you then. Much more."
With the job accepted and his wife's present safe for its transport, the mayor seemed to lose all interest in him, shuffling away with his pink liqueur and female walking sticks. Left to the tender mercy of his owns swamp water, Nate took a final swig of the foul nectar. He made to give the bartender a card, but found his offering rejected. "Business drink is free," he informed Gareth's latest lapdog. Nodding as he came to understand the reasoning, Nate turned away from the bar, leaving the rest of his poison for Jiv to offer to another witless patron.
Sighing, though less out of emotion than an effort to create room in the smog for a lungful of smokeless air, the newcomer approached the mercenary singled out by his employer.
He did possess the look of a mercenary at the least, with the distant glare and closed posture of a killer down to the tee. It was an image Nate had learned to spot as easily as the rising sun. And yet even by the notorious standards of freelance mercenaries, MacCready looked down on his luck. A cap so moth eaten than it was more hole than fabric failed to hide a badly shaven scalp. For a moment Nate hesitated. Was this the mayor's creature? Or, far more troubling, was Gareth having an elaborate joke at his expense? MacCready didn't look drunk, though the possibility of him being so well and thoroughly numb to the effects of alcohol as to manage to present a veneer of sobriety was just as high. On the road, in the rubble, he was going to have to rely on this man. The thought did not fill him with hope.
"Are you going to sit or are you only here looking for a fight?"
Nate sat, oddly bemused. Perhaps he wasn't making a complete mistake.
"Names MacCready, though I suppose you knew that, judging from our fair mayor's want for gossiping. Looking for a hired gun I take it?"
He isn't drunk at least, Nate reasoned. Those eyes were piercing even in the gloom. "I am going to Diamond City, tagging along with a trader. Could use another gun."
The mercenary nodded, though from his expression the newcomer could tell that it wasn't in outright acceptance of his new mission. Was that a good sign? Taking on the job without hesitation would have been a red flag for sure. And yet Nate could only wonder.
"Fifty cards for a one way trip, upfront." He paused, turning to look over his shoulder at invisible eavesdroppers. "I will do torture but if you are looking for someone to start up a gang of slavers, you can find yourself someone else."
Well this is easy, he reasoned. Though perhaps too easy. "Done."
Nate's unwillingness to barter a lower price seemed to please MacCready. "Alright then, you have yourself a second gun. I don't need anything else, so let's go find this caravan of yours."
They found Hamish where all traders end up when their caravan is delayed by a town's mayor: sitting amidst the shit of their brahmin. He was kept company by two other men who could only have been his guards, cleaning rifles that looked like they held together on the basis of equal parts twine and juvenile hope.
No, he found himself correcting, not men.
"He is using children?" Nate found himself asking, incredulous. For a moment he thought that he could feel Gareth's smile behind him.
One of them looked no older than fifteen, all oversized clothing and abrupt angles. The other was barely taller than her rifle. Together they had the mass of half a grown man.
"Anyone can pull a trigger," his new-made companion replied, a knowing smile on his face. "And adults have a tendency towards inflating their egos when it comes to settling the prices of their service. Everyone learns to shoot well enough young or old."
Before he could find anything to say in response, Nate found himself before the trader. Hamish certainly wasn't much to look at either, all beady eyes and slumped shoulders, wrapped up in a faded leather cloak. A dangerous man he certainly was not.
"Can I help you?" Maybe he tried to sound tough - as if sitting on a throne of crap could come across as naturally threatening - but Nate found himself assuming that the squeak was of genuine concern for his well being. And that was strange.
"I heard that you were off to Diamond City." He resisted the urge to look over at the man's escort. "We were hoping that you had a place for us."
The trader hesitated before his answer, gobbing like one of the fish Abbey had caught in their northern journey here. He was not someone that Nate would have entrusted a loved one's gift to. No, he looked weak, vulnerable. Something that I'll have to worry about moving forward, he accepted. But having an inferior paymaster did have its benefits.
"Oh, did Mayor Gareth send you? What a man. He promised me some extra help not an hour ago and here you are." He rose like some ponderous leaf, pushing against the soft breeze with all of his might.
"We are good to go as soon as you are."
"Very good. Very good. Payment is double: ten cards for the trip, but you already knew that."
Idiot. Nate turned to face his own hired help, whose professionalism did not extend to resisting a laugh at the naivete of his employer. He was someone to watch. If he was happy enough to fleece the unwitting, slaver or not, he was someone happy enough to go all in when another offer presented itself. Maybe that line about slavery was just icing.
"I am ready on this side. Let's get to it."
Long Landing ended at a wall of rubble and driftwood, rising to the height of two men and at least as thick. Harbourmasters, an assortment of weapons in hand, clustered around its only gate like flies to a wound. A momentary discussion between Gareth's men and Hamish saw the exit cleared for them. Beyond the wooden stakes which marked the boundary of Long Landing, the city lay dead. The buildings had been turned to rubble in the war, giving way to rising dunes of blasted concrete and sloping valleys of shattered glass. It was a grey ocean, covered in a fleet of skeletons. Rising above it all: the spires, tall and radiating in their glory. For a moment, a brief second as his eyes adjusted to newfound light, the pillars of human memory looked down at him with faces leering at his mortality. To Sanctuary, he promised the note. To my new life.