A/N: One commentator points out that lore says feral Ghouls won't attack nonferal Ghouls. This is probably an error on my part based on my having played FO3 using a playable Ghoul mod – feral "creature" Ghouls will attack a nonferal Ghoul player character.

Moira's mercenary guard has no canonical name.

7

It's kind of a steep climb up to the Craterside Supply. The people who built Megaton realized before too long that there are some disadvantages to building inside a crater, one of those being that you end up with a lot of stuff built on the steep walls and you've got to get up and down somehow. The Megaton solution to this is a bunch of walkways made mostly from steel mesh, so you can look down and see just how far it is to the ground if the rickety walkway should happen to give way while you're on it.

I didn't have much time to worry about this, because I was busy keeping an eye on everyone else. A couple of kids had followed me from the front gate, yelling "Zombie!" at me, but I ignored them and after a while they went away. Other people would keep a wary eye on me as I passed, but I was doing the same to them, so that seemed about fair. The ones that might've thought about giving me trouble saw the plasma rifle and thought better of it. You see a pretty good number of weapons out in the open in Megaton, just like any other city in the Wasteland. Sheriff Simms tries to keep the peace, but there's only so much one man can do to maintain law and order here. Especially with scum like Moriarty digging out from under him with everything he tries to build. But things are what they are, and that's a story for another day.

Now, some of you reading this might be thinking I'd be better off to carry a small gun and work on a fast draw. There's fellas that do that. Even a few other women. Most of them die real young. There's always somebody faster than you. And most of the time a bad situation is something you can see coming if you're smart enough to look, not a matter of some moron coming up behind you and yelling "Draw!"

Which they only do to the kind of other morons who carry tied-down handguns, which, if I haven't lost my point again, is what I meant. (The person reading over my shoulder has been kind of quiet the last couple of minutes, but now he says one should not underestimate the value of deterrence, which I think means people are less likely to attack you if you carry a big gun.)

But anyway. I made it up to the iron deck in front of Craterside Supply without being out of breath. This represented a nice change from a lot of my recent experiences, which I took to be a good sign I was all healed up inside. The way the shop was put together was a very good example of how Moira Brown usually does things. The building was made from bits of corrugated steel and aircraft parts, just like most buildings in Megaton, and the deck out in front of it had a solid railing to prevent anyone falling off by accident. Moira probably thought of that because she likes kids. I have no idea why she thought it would be a good idea to use the nose cone from a dead aircraft as a roof. Maybe she was out of tin sheets. The huge rusty cylinder tipped kind of precariously over the deck as I came up.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside. It was dusty and gloomy, except for the bright lights around Moira's workbench and the counter. A big, tan, stubbly guy with enough ammo hanging across his chest to keep a small war going stood leaning against one wall. He had one of those tied-down guns I mentioned earlier plus a shotgun tied across his back. I'd seen him here before, but I didn't know his name. He must have remembered me, too. He nodded once when he saw me.

"Is she here?" I said. The guard turned his head toward the doorless entry to the next room and said,

"Moira. Customer."

"Coming!" said a chipper voice. A minute after that, Moira herself came bouncing back into the room. She was small and trim, same as she'd always been, same as she probably still is. She always wears a blue jumpsuit with the Robco logo on the back. I've never figured out where she gets them. Probably convinces some sucker to bring them to her, same as most things she has there in the shop. She doesn't think of it like that, of course, which is why it works. The world looks a lot different from inside Moira's head. Everybody is her friend. Everything is new and interesting. And she wants all her friends to share her curiosity about everything in the whole wild world, including dust motes, geography, Wasteland wildlife, and exactly how much punishment a human body can take without dying.

Not that Moira would ever hurt anybody on purpose. As far as I knew, the big guy represented her one concession to the fact that the world contains bad people. I wondered if he was getting paid, or if he was another one of Moira's friends. He looked like a practical sort of individual. She was probably paying him.

"Well, Hi there!" she said. Moira talked with sort of a different accent, like maybe she came from somewhere a little West and a lot North of D.C. I never caught her saying "you betcha," but she sounded like she should. "I remember you! You're Thistle, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Hi, Moira."

"Hi!" she said, just like she hadn't already said that. "So what I can do for you today?" She scooted around behind the counter and leaned on it, looking up at me wide-eyed. I'm about four inches taller than she is when I stand straight.

"I need some ammo," I said. "Stimpaks. Food. Clean water if you got it. And if you got any clothes that might fit, I'll have a look at those, too."

"Sure," said Moira. She pushed a stray strand of dark hair back off her face. "I bet I have just the thing. Can I fix anything for you?"

"No, I'm good," I said. I prefer not to let anybody else work on my rifle. It's a little different from other plasma rifles and nobody knows it as well as I do, except maybe the guy I got it from. But he's all the way down in Rivet City and has his own stuff to worry about.

"You must've had kind of a rough time," she said, making the sympathetic face she makes when something bad happens, like a murder or a kid with a skinned knee. She rummaged around behind the counter, pulling things out and setting them on top while I dug out my leather money pouch from my rucksack.

"Could've gone better," I admitted.

"I don't suppose you have any water from out in the Wasteland, do you?" she asked, perking up again. "I'd trade you straight across for the clean stuff."

"Why?" I asked, pulling out my bottle of pond water.

"I'm doing a microzoological survey!" she said. "Since Project Purity there should be all kinds of new flora and fauna swimming around. But the water around here has been through the purifiers and it's just no good for what I want."

"Okay,"I said, having grasped that for some reason she wanted to look at tiny critters in dirty water. "Here you go." I pushed the bottle across the counter. She handed me a clean one. It sparkled slightly in the whirl of dust motes as I held it up to the light. Nice.

"Okay, let's see. Stimpaks, how many? Five?"

"Ten," I said, thinking of recent experiences.

"Ten it is. Can't be too careful! Cells for the plasma rifle, I've got a lot of those right now... Food. How about some salisbury steak and Dandee Boy apples? They're in the original packaging! And I'll throw in some crunchy mutfruit, too," said Moira. "How about jerky? I've got some more of that. Great. Gee, those clothes you've got on are just in really bad shape, aren't they? Let me see what I've got here." She set aside the things I had agreed to buy and rummaged some more. "Hm. You're kind of a tall lady. Let's see what I've got. How about these pants?" She held up some brown leather trousers. "They might be just a little loose, but they'll be the right length. Want to try them on? You can come back here behind the counter. Michael won't look, will you, Michael?"

"No, Moira," said Michael, which was apparently the guard's name. I was not worried he'd peek. Not a lot of smoothskins want to look at a naked Ghoul. I went around behind the counter, set the plasma rifle where I could reach it, and tried the pants on. Some merchants would've complained about shed skin if I hadn't bought them. Not Moira. Anyway, they fit okay and I just left them on. She sold me a matching vest to replace my ruined one, a dark gray linen shirt that might've been black once, and a gray felt hat with a big enough brim to keep the sun off. I kept my old belt and shoes. They were stained, but the leather was still good.

"I'll just wear them out," I said as I counted out the caps. "You got a trash can for these others?"

"Sure," said Moira. "Gosh. Did you get shot?" She held up the once-white shirt with the small hole in front and the big hole in back. Michael looked a little more interested at this.

"That's a big damn hole," he said. ".44?"

"Yep," I said.

"It'd take a pretty tough Ghoul, survive that," he said.

I shrugged. "I soaked up some rads and it healed fast."

"I know a guy who's looking for somebody tough," said Michael. "Name's Ratliff. He's bunking up at Moriarty's if you're interested. Kind of an asshole but he's got the money."

"Thanks for the tip," I said. "'Bye, Moira."

"Bye," Moira said, already headed to the back room with her bottle of pond water. Michael sort of rolled his eyes as I left.

What I ought to have done right then was get out of town and head East, quick as I could. I'd have to tell Tulip I didn't have her package and why. Somebody ought to. But then, I knew Carol would ask about Gob. She'd be disappointed if I didn't have anything to tell her.

And, I don't know if I mentioned this, I'm not a very good liar. Never have been. So as soon as I'd got out onto the deck, I turned and headed for Moriarty's Saloon.

Moriarty's sat in the middle of its own patch of mesh decking, not coincidentally close to Megaton's public restrooms. It is not a good idea to walk under the railing below here. Most Megaton residents know this. You can identify new people by the swearing that happens two seconds after they figure it out.

I shoved the door open and stood back for a second, waiting to see if anyone came staggering out. No one did. In the early afternoon I didn't really expect it, but you never know. I ducked into the dim main room, looking around. There was Gob, washing the bar, with the radio sitting there next to him playing songs from a time when there were no Ghouls and slavery was illegal. Gob wore the same dirty white tee shirt he always wore, though it had shrunk until it was tight across his big shoulders. I don't think Moriarty would let him have another one, the slimy old bastard. Gob had no hair and not a lot of skin left on him. The red surface of his muscles looked damp. Here and there his arms were purple. A muscle bruise hurts a Hell of a lot more than a surface one.

There was one guy sitting at the bar nursing a beer, but I'd seen him in here before. His name probably wasn't Ratliff. Three guys were back in a corner of the room, half-hidden from me by a table. They were talking, but I couldn't hear what they said. One laughed. I didn't see Nova anywhere. Maybe she was with a customer. Maybe with Moriarty. I'd rather cuddle up to a radscorpion. But then, whoring is one fate from which most Ghouls are safe, thank Atom.

I went up to the bar. "Hey, Gob," I said. He flinched first, like he thought I was going to hit him. Then he took a look under my hat.

"Oh. Hey," he said. "I seen you before?"

"Once or twice," I said. I laid a couple of caps on the bar. "Carol says Hello. There somebody here named Ratliff?"

Gob scooped the money quickly, looking around to see if anyone had seen. "Yeah, he's back in the corner over there. Guy with the bandoleer. Tell Carol and Greta I said Hi, will you?"

"Sure," I said. "Take it easy."

"Ha," said Gob.