The sun managed to find a gap in the perpetual cloud cover of the Capital Wasteland and shone its light on two travelers, a man and a woman, navigating a rocky hillside. The female walked a ways ahead of her companion as if not wishing to acknowledge his presence as he stomps behind her, hands in pockets.
Finally, the man spoke up. "I said I was sorry, you don't have to give me the silent treatment."
But Carmen did exactly that and kept walking.
"Look, it's not like I wanted to ditch you while you carelessly irradiated yourself with nuke water...Actually, I guess I must have since that's exactly what I did. But you have to admit it wasn't really a two person job! Besides, Moira got to do her tests and that made her happy. That's what's most important here, right?"
Silence.
"Tch. At least the view is good from back here," he muttered to himself.
Carmen apparently overheard this last remark because she dropped a frag grenade in his path. Grey leapt to cover behind a rock and covered his head in case of debris. When nothing happened, he poked his head out to see Carmen tossing the grenade up and catching it with one hand. Grey kicked himself mentally for not noticing she'd never taken out the pin, but Carmen laughed saying that they were even now.
The reason for their current excursion into the wastes was the second part of Moira's job. They were to scavenge a nearby supermarket for food and medicine and retell the experience to Moira so she could write up a chapter on how people can find supplies in the wastes. As the pair of explorers reached the top of a hill, they saw the backside of their destination: Super Duper Mart. Grey explained that places like this were prime targets for many Wastelanders and that they would have to approach with caution.
At the bottom of the hill, Grey and Carmen stuck close to the walls of the building and stealthily made their way along the side. Grey peeked around a corner to the front of the store and Carmen heard him curse under his breath.
"It's worse than I thought," he whispered.
Carmen looked for herself, expecting to see a crowd of people or something like that. What she actually saw was far from her expectations.
Disfigured bodies were hung from chains, nailed to the wall, and tied spread-eagled on mattresses dyed by blood and dirt. Carmen's hands flew to her mouth and she turned away, resisting the urge to vomit as she wondered who could do such a thing.
"Raiders," Grey said as if reading her mind. "They do this as a warning that this is their turf and you should stay the hell away. Or maybe they just do it for kicks. Probably both." He clapped his hands together. "In that case, I'm sure they won't mind if we sneak in and borrow a cup of sugar and some bandages."
Carmen seemed as disgusted by her partner as she was by the corpses. "How can you be so casual about all this?"
Grey shrugged. "You get used to seeing things like this in the wasteland. You'll also see things far worse. Who knows? Maybe my jokes are the only thing letting me keep a hold on my sanity." He grinned back at his companion. "Or maybe I've already gone crazy and this whole thing is just a delusional fantasy."
In spite of herself, Carmen allowed a small smile. "If jokes are all that keep you going, I think you'll live forever. Now let's get going, the sooner we finish this the better."
Grey pried open the doors to the supermarket and Carmen followed him in, keeping her eyes focused on the ground until the bodies were out of sight. The sunlight dimly lit the interior and the two surveyed the area from behind a checkout counter. Most of the floor space was taken up by large shelves, some of which had fallen over or were leaning against others. From their hiding place, they spotted two Raiders: one standing watch from wooden platforms bridging the tops of the shelves, and one patrolling the floor below. Grey nodded toward a corner on their right with a small area that may have once been a snack bar.
Grey vaulted nimbly over the counter of the snack bar, but when Carmen imitated the move, she landed on top of a tin can. The crunch of the metal was deafening in the silence and they froze. In a crouch, Grey walked over to where the counter became a wall and looked through a crack in the door. Sure enough, the ground level sentry had heard the noise and was coming to investigate.
Grey motioned for Carmen to get behind him and pulled his knife from his sleeve. With a flick of his wrist, he positioned the blade between his index finger and thumb and waited. Seconds later, the sentry, armed with a baseball bat, opened the door and stepped inside. The Raider slumped against the door as the knife buried itself into the side of his head, and Grey jumped forward to catch the bat before it crashed against the floor.
"One down, I suppose," he said as he pulled the corpse to the side and closed the door before anyone noticed.
"In more ways than one," Carmen called softly from the back of the room. She had found a working refrigerator filled with food. "I don't see any medicine though."
"Well I bet I know where it is. Under heavy guard at the other end of the building. Just your average day at Super Duper Mart."
Grey peeked outside and saw the other patrol coming down from the shelves to get a drink out of the row of freezers against the wall. Grey pulled his head back in and produced a cylindrical object from inside his jacket.
"What's this?" Carmen asked as he handed it to her.
"A silencer for your pistol. I can't get close enough to use my knife, so I need you to get rid of the other guard."
Carmen crept out of the room and took cover behind a trash can about thirty feet to the Raider's right. She screwed the silencer to the end of her gun barrel and took aim. A sudden release of adrenaline caused her hand to shake, lowering her aim slightly as she pulled the trigger. The bullet sliced through the man's neck, puncturing his windpipe. While not an instant kill, the wound prevented the guard from raising the alarm, and he eventually crumpled to the ground dead of blood loss.
Carmen let out a sigh. She had heard that taking a life was supposed to be an incredibly hard thing for a person to do, but she felt somehow glad to have done it. Thinking of the bodies outside and how many others the Raiders may have killed gave her a sense that they deserved to die. She flinched as she felt someone touch her back while she was lost in her thoughts. Her head snapped around to see that it was only Grey.
"Nice work, but we have to hurry now. Someone's bound to notice when their buddy doesn't reappear."
They found the pharmacy tucked into the back-left corner of the store with two Raiders behind the counter. Carmen snuck around through a small hallway to the employee entrance. She knocked on the door, drawing the Raiders' attention as Grey rolled into position. On of them walked over, and when she opened the door, Carmen delivered a bone-crunching blow right between the eyes with her brass knuckles. The other Raider drew an assault rifle, but didn't get any further before Grey sprang up, reached over the counter, and snapped his neck.
With the path clear, the Wastelanders moved to the door to the storeroom only to find it locked. Grey lowered himself onto one knee and took a bobby pin and screwdriver out of his pocket.
"Watch my back. This could take a minute."
While he worked, Carmen's eyes fell on a table next to the door with a computer on top. She bent over the keyboard and typed on it for a few seconds.
"Hey, Grey."
"Shh. I'm trying to concentrate, this isn't as easy as you think."
"Grey."
"Carmen, you need to understand that lockpicking is an art. It can't be ru-"
"Grey!"
"What?"
"Door's unlocked."
Grey reaches up and turns the doorknob in front of him. Sure enough, the door swings open. He turns questioning eyes to Carmen and she nods toward the terminal beside her.
"I got bored sometimes growing up in the Vault. So I learned how to hack computers."
"Devious. I approve."
The two entered the storage room full shelves of alcohol, small food items, ammo, and various other items. Grey made straight for a first aid box on the wall across from them and found it full of medical supplies. Carmen, meanwhile, was drawn to a large metal chamber to the right. She wiped some dust away from a window on the side and saw...
"A robot?"
Grey stepped closer and looked over her shoulder. "Protectron. It's a security robot. Guess the store owners never got around to turning it on, and the Raiders couldn't figure out how to-"
He was cut off by a voice on the store's PA system. "Hey, we're back. Someone open up the...Hold on. Something ain't right here."
Grey drew his magnum and looked out into the main room. "Shit. Looks like a hunting party just got back. We might have to fight our way out." He suddenly perked up and ran back to the Protectron capsule. He pressed the power button on a connected terminal and waved Carmen over as it lit up.
"Do you think you could use your technical prowess to power up our friend here?"
"I could try."
Grey went to guard the door while Carmen furiously tapped away on the keys. She jammed the Enter key, and a green glow poured out through the glass. One side of the capsule retracted and the robot stepped out. Its torso pivoted as if observing the new surroundings. Then it started walking. Grey stepped out of the way as the Protectron passed him saying, "Security breach detected. Lethal force authorized." A little while later, they heard shouting and gunshots.
"Let's go," Grey said. "We'll be lucky it that thing lasts ten seconds."
Exiting the storeroom, the duo bounded over the counter and behind the nearest shelf. In the center of the store, they saw at least half a dozen Raiders ganging up on the Protectron. Despite Grey's previous misgivings, the robot was handling fairly well and had already brought down several of its attackers with laser blasts.
Grey went to make a dash for the front door when he was knocked to the ground after colliding with a cowardly Raider trying to save himself. The Raider was the first one to recover from the surprise and leveled his weapon at Grey's head. Three 5.56 rounds in the Raider's chest stopped him in his tracks. Grey nodded his thanks as Carmen placed her rifle back over her shoulder, and the two completed their run back out into the wasteland on their way to Megaton.
Ending seems a bit rushed to me, but I couldn't think of anything else to do.