10

We went on down the tunnel. Here and there we'd have to climb over piles of bent rebar and dusty asphalt, or through the burnt-out hulk of a dead train. Tetanus isn't something a Ghoul has to worry much about, being as how it's caused by a microorganism that can't live on us, and Three seemed to have no problem avoiding sharp things. But then, it wasn't totally dark. I don't know what keeps the ancient generators going, down there in the belly of the earth, but there are lights on day and night, summer and winter. Some have gone out as time went by, but there's still enough light to see your feet.

It was quiet for a long time. We didn't run into so much as a radroach. After a while this started to worry me a little bit. It takes a significant threat to keep a stretch of tunnel clear for any length of time. Living things in the Wasteland may be awful to look at, but there are lots of them and they are persistent when it comes to carving out a space to live in. For the tunnels to be so empty there must be a good-sized appetite or a real threat down here, bigger than two half-starved Raiders. Maybe a Feral Ghoul pack. I didn't want to run into one of those down here. An unarmed human, even a Raider, is usually smart enough not to charge a loaded weapon. Not Ferals. With a plasma rifle I probably wouldn't get them all before they swarmed me. To get at Three, at clean human flesh, they would do that in a heartbeat.

So I went slow and I listened hard. I don't know how much of this reasoning occurred to Three. Anyhow, he didn't complain about the pace, not so much as a Gary out of him. Maybe he just knew it wasn't a good time to make a noise.

It's hard to judge distances down there. We might have gone two miles when we saw the side tunnel opening up ahead. Someone had set up sandbags and a couple of half-gone concrete barriers between us and it. There was a card table and a chair lying crushed on our side of them. Both were full of laser burn holes. We crept up quiet as mice, but nobody was there. No bodies, nothing.

I heard a sound. It might have been a shuffling footstep. I stopped in my tracks, waiting for another one. Three stopped beside me, and I saw him tilt his head like he was listening, too. Dust spiraled in the permanent half-light. I heard it again. A boot scuffing on the asphalt, maybe someone shifting their weight as they stood. It wasn't far away. Probably right around the bend into the cross tunnel ahead. Whoever it was stood too far back for his shadow to fall into the main tunnel.

He started walking. Heavy, solid footfalls, feet in big boots. I recognized the sound. I'd heard it only a few days ago. Super mutant. Down here? Well, that would explain why the tunnel was empty. An armed mutant might be able to coexist with a pack of Ghouls – Ferals are crazy, but mostly they're not that crazy – but he would clean out everything else right enough. Evidently the Raiders had settled in down at the other end of his range, or maybe he just hadn't noticed them yet. That didn't really matter. What mattered was that he was coming toward the main tunnel. I got down behind one of the barriers as fast and quiet as I could with Three right beside me. I powered up the plasma rifle, muffling the sound with my body, and tried not to think about the fact that super mutants were very seldom found in groups of less than two.

Three's booted foot crunched on a crumbly bit of something as he settled. I froze. He winced. The sound of footsteps stopped, and then I heard the mutant's rumbling snarl:

"I know you're there. Stop hiding!"

I thought fast as the footsteps picked up, and I heard the change in the sound as he stepped out into the main tunnel not twenty yards from us. I might – might – be able to take down a super mutant with one shot from a plasma rifle, but only if I took his head off on the first shot. After that I'd be in for a hard few minutes trying to avoid a huge, fast, berserk creature in a confined space. Nothing for it. I let him take another step toward us before I stuck my head up over the barrier, rifle ready. He loomed up huge between us and the light, just a big black shape, and I heard the whine of an energy weapon starting to power up as I fired at the top of the dark silhouette.

He must have guessed where I was. He ducked to one side as I was firing and the glob of plasma took a chunk out of his right shoulder. It staggered him, and he took a step back under one of the ceiling lights that was still working, and I was just about to shoot him in the head for real when I realized he was wearing no armor.

Just the shreds of a blue Vault suit.

And a gatling laser.

"Oh, shit," I said, and hit the dirt as he took advantage of my paralysis to grab the laser's barrel with his left hand and take aim. Lasers pinged off the barrier as I hid behind it. "Fawkes!" I shouted, but the gat drowned it out. Three was staring at me with his hands over his ears, apparently trying to figure out what the Hell was wrong with me. He scuttled crabwise over to the end of the barrier and peered around it for a second. I watched him gather himself, like an animal getting ready to pounce.

I grabbed his ankle. He twisted around violently until I let go, and then we were face to face. He was frowning, nostrils flared.

"Sorry," I said, still mostly inaudible over the roar of the gat. Fawkes seemed to be firing indiscriminately now, lost to that bloodlust I'd seen once in a mudhole out in the Wastes. "I can't let you do that."

"Gary?" he demanded.

The lasers stopped coming, and I heard the while of the cylinder spinning as Fawkes waited for it to charge all the way up.

"I know him," I said. "First, you'll just get killed. You can't kill a super mutant with your bare hands. And second, I owe him."

"Gary?" said Three, apparently stunned.

"We're probably not going to live long enough for me to explain," I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the gatling laser powering back up to full.

Then it powered back down.

There was silence. I heard the super mutant panting, heaving air in and out like some hydraulic juggernaut from an earlier age.

"Fawkes?" I said from behind my barrier. There was a drawn-out growl that I felt through the tunnel floor.

"One... Moment... Please..." said Fawkes, and in that hard staccato I heard him trying to fight his way back to sanity. The hole where I'd shot him had to hurt like Hell. (Which, Fawkes is now pointing out, he said earlier. I'm going to ignore him.)

I waited for what seemed like more than five minutes. Three held himself very still, obviously confused about what was happening. Fawkes's breathing gradually grew calmer. Then I heard him speak again. His voice still vibrated with harsh bass, but it was under palpable control.

"You sound... like a Ghoul," he said. I powered down my rifle. Beside me, Three looked at me like he thought I'd gone insane.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm Thistle. You remember me?"

"I remember," said Fawkes.

"I didn't know it was you," I said.

"So I supposed," said Fawkes. "You may stand up if you wish. I will not harm you."

Three shook his head quickly.

"It's okay," I told him. "This is Fawkes." I straightened up as I slung the rifle back over my shoulder. Fawkes was in the process of hanging the barrel of his gat back onto the backpack with his left hand. It should have been awkward. It wasn't. I hissed between my teeth as I saw the wound I'd caused. Fawkes's right shoulder now hung slightly lower than his left, because I'd blown off a chunk of the muscle that connected it to his neck and collarbone. (The trapezius, says Fawkes, who is still reading over my shoulder and, not that I should have to point this out, still breathing down my neck.) A plasma burn will cauterize any vessels it hits, but because it keeps burning for a few seconds the damage has a tendency to spread.

I swore under my breath. "I'm sorry. Here. I've got some stimpaks." I shrugged out of my rucksack as I came forward. I heard Three jump up and follow me. Fawkes's head turned to watch him.

"I don't know your friend," he said, like we'd just met in the street. I knew the shoulder still hurt, but his voice was now the voice I knew. The transformation was complete.

"This is Gary 3," I said. "He prefers to be called Three. It's hard for him to talk. He mostly just says his name. I met him in Megaton. If you kneel down I can reach that."

"Gary," said Three suspiciously. He stared up at Fawkes. The super mutant looked down at him. Then he got down slowly on one knee so I could deal with his shoulder. This put him just about at Three's eye level, same as mine. They looked at each other, Gary narrow-eyed, Fawkes unreadable as usual.

"Hello," said Fawkes. Three nodded curtly. "Are you by any chance a clone?"

Three looked at me, then back at Fawkes. He did not look any happier. I came up with the first stimpak and applied it to Fawkes's shoulder. The wound got fractionally smaller. Tendrils of muscle grew slick and dark from the side of the mutant's thick neck. "How'd you know that?" I asked.

"I've told you I learned a great deal from the database in Vault 87," said Fawkes. "There were some notes on other Vault-Tec projects. I understood them to be entirely theoretical. Apparently I was wrong."

"There was something in there about the Scary Garys?" I said.

"Not by that name," said Fawkes. The exposed nerve endings the stimpak had created must feel like I was flaying him alive, but he watched with apparent calm as I got out another stimpak. "You should not use all your medicine."

"I've got more," I said. "Talk to me about the clones. Three can't tell me much."

"There may be things you won't wish to hear," Fawkes said to Three. I applied the second stimpak. Muscle began to grow together out of the plasma burn. I swallowed as Fawkes very deliberately lifted his right shoulder so they could reach one another properly.

Three looked at me. He was frowning now, but it wasn't an angry look.

"It's up to you," I said. "I trust Fawkes. He helped me out of a jam not too long ago."

"I am flawed, as you've seen," said Fawkes. "But I am not a dishonest person." The heavy dignity of this must have convinced Three. He nodded slowly.

"Okay," I said, and came up with yet a third stimpak. "Tell us about clones."