/N: The existence of an undetermined number of non-Vault Tec private vaults is canonical, at least according to the Vault wiki I've been using for background info.

17

The door across the lobby led into another large room. Display cases lined the walls, most of them broken, all of them empty. Someone had dusted everything, and the floor was clean. A couple of tables and chairs stood in the middle of the room. Ammunition boxes were stacked neatly around them.

I felt my stomach tighten as I saw Jay. He sat slouched in one of the chairs, across from a man in Brotherhood power armor. Jay must've had Snowflake cut his hair while he was in Underworld. He wore it buzzed tight to his skull, a thin yellow fuzz. The Paladin had his helmet off. I can't imagine how the chair held his weight in the power armor without collapsing, but it did. He looked to be a hard-worn forty, leathery and angular. The top of a long scar ran up his neck to his ear.

He seemed to know Fawkes. They exchanged nods. Jay raised his eyebrows as he looked up at the super mutant. I watched as his gaze traveled down to Three, correctly recognized his lack of a weapon, and dismissed him. Then he looked at me. I was dressed differently than I'd been before, and like all Ghouls my facial topology tends to change a little over time. ("Facial topology" is how Fawkes puts it. He says he can identify me from the bone and muscle now, which is how Ghouls generally tell each other apart.) Jay probably didn't know who I was until he saw the plasma rifle slung over my shoulder.

Then he grinned. "Garcia," he said. "I figured you'd make it."

"Did you?" I said. "And my name is Thistle."

"Hey, you got me fired," said Jay reasonably. "Ahzrukhal says he'll have his goon shoot me if I show my face in Underworld again, and that big bastard might actually be able to do it. I'd say we're even."

"You go straight to Hell," I said. Jay tipped his head briefly, like I'd made an interesting point.

"You want to put in a bid on the contract, Fawkes?" said the Paladin, ignoring this.

"What is your current offer?" said Fawkes.

"He says he won't do it for less than a thousand. That's a little out of the budget for a simple retrieval job."

"Simple retrieval, my ass," said Jay. "You want me to open up a sealed vault – a sealed private vault – it's going to cost you. No telling what's been going on in there for the last 200 years."

"We think there hasn't been anything alive inside for over a hundred," said the Paladin to Fawkes. "It was built by an entrepreneur for himself and his wife and two assistants. Both assistants were male. The wife was past menopause. And the door seals are still intact. Even if they lived a good long life in there, they're all dead now. Probably some radiation leakage is the only real hazard to worry about, and that's not likely to be a problem for you. Or her." The Paladin nodded at me curtly, then looked at Three. "We'll give you some chems for your friend if you take it on for us."

"Why would you hire an independent contractor for this?" asked Fawkes.

"We can spare the caps better than we can the trained manpower," said the Paladin frankly. "And it's a couple of days' trip on foot."

Fawkes turned to look down at me. "Are you willing?"

"Sure," I said. "Three?" He looked at me with one raised eyebrow. Then he nodded.

"We will do it for six hundred caps," said Fawkes. "Plus chems and rations."

"Fair enough," said the Paladin. "We've found enough stuff in here we can probably keep even you going for a while. It's all prewar packaged stuff, mind you."

"That is adequate," said Fawkes. Compared to raw yao guai, it certainly was.

"Six hundred? Split between three of you? Ain't that a little thin?" said Jay. I say this for him, he wasn't afraid of Fawkes. But then, I'd never seen evidence that he was afraid of anything. (Fawkes says he always suspected Jay was a sociopath, but I don't know what that means, and he says it will take too long to explain.)

"I have no need for currency," said Fawkes. "I do have a need for imperishable protein." He looked down at Three and me. "How you divide the amount will be up to you, once we return with the item." I nodded, although three hundred caps for two days' work wasn't my normal rate. Three just shrugged.

"So what is this thing we're supposed to get?" I asked the Paladin. Instead of answering, he turned to look at Jay. Jay unfolded himself lazily from the chair and turned toward the door.

"Suit yourself," he said. "See you around, Thistle." He grinned at me as he said my name. I stared after him, feeling a cold draft up my spine.

The Paladin stood up when Jay was gone. It didn't put him on Fawkes's eye level, of course, but it seemed more polite than staying seated. "The entrepreneur was a research biochemist," he said. "We want what he was working on, plus any notes or prewar records you can find. There should definitely be viable samples left. He had the best preservation system money could buy when he went in. We'll want a full report on whatever tech is there that you can't carry away. Getting the doors open will be up to you; it shouldn't be hard once you find the place. The site is well hidden. We found it by the heat signature."

"I understand," said Fawkes.

"Here's a map." The Paladin produced a folded piece of paper from somewhere on his armor. Fawkes looked down at me. I held out a hand for it. The Paladin dropped it into my outstretched hand, apparently reluctant to touch me even with a powered armor glove on. Or maybe he just didn't want to hurt my hand.

"Thanks," I said.

"Sigerson will give you your rations and chems before you go. See him on your way out."

"Yes," said Fawkes. "Thank you."

"Good luck," said the Paladin.

We turned to go. That was when I realized Three was gone. I looked around quickly, but there was no sign of him.

"Fawkes," I said as we approached the door to the lobby.

"Yes, Thistle."

"Where's Three?"

"He followed the other person out. I thought you knew."

I swore quietly and sprinted for the door. Sigerson and co. looked up as I skidded to a stop in front of them. I heard Fawkes far behind me, arriving at a tranquil walk. "Did the other two go out this way?" I asked.

"Sure," said Sigerson. "Hey, aren't I supposed to get you some - "

"Give them to Fawkes," I said, and went out the front door with my rifle in hand.

I was worried about Three, but not so much I forgot where I was. I ducked down to one side of the door as soon as I was outside, making myself a smaller target in shadow rather than a large one silhouetted in the doorframe. Then I looked around.

I saw the gun first. Jay's .44 lay on the sidewalk out ahead of me, gleaming in the rising sun. Then I heard an oof, and I looked over to my left into the shadow of the next building. Three stood there with his hands loose at his sides. Jay faced him with a switchblade in his hand, looking slightly bent and more than a little surprised. I guessed he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

"You're pretty damn fast," said Jay. Neither of them was paying attention to me.

"Gaaaaryy," said Three. He drew out the two syllables into a weird little singsong.

"That so?" said Jay dryly. He swiped at Three's belly with the knife. I almost bit through my lip; I didn't want to make a noise and distract the clone. If it had been me, he'd have got me. Three avoided the attempt easily, and then they both moved so quickly that I couldn't tell what was going on for a few seconds. It ended with a thud, and Jay staggered back with blood streaming from his nose.

He recovered quickly, but he just stood there looking at Three. Three was wiping the heel of his hand on his pants with apparent distaste. His other hand held Jay's switchblade. Jay had a look on his face I'd never seen. Whenever we met he laughed at me, but he wasn't laughing now. He was quiet and very grim.

Three held up the blade so it caught the light. Then he tossed it behind him. It clattered on the sidewalk at my feet.

Then they were moving again. I caught a glimpse of Three with Jay twisting his arm up behind his back, and then he ducked, writhed, and hooked one leg around Jay's shin. Jay hit the ground on his ass. I noticed he didn't let go of the knife. Three rotated his shoulder joint for a second. Then I watched his shoulders shake in that weird silent laugh of his. Jay tried to swipe his feet out from under him. Three hopped lightly back out of reach.

"Gary," Three told him cheerfully.

"Your friend here talks kind of funny," said Jay. I don't know how he saw me. I never saw him look away from Three. He seemed to ignore the stream of dark red down his face and chin.

"He was born that way," I said. "What'd you do, Jay?"

"Nothing," said Jay, and he actually laughed for a second, spitting blood. "He jumped me three feet outside the door. Weirdest damn thing I ever saw."

He aimed a stiff-fingered jab at Three's body. Three nudged it easily away with his forearm and turned the movement into a throw.

The door beside me opened as Jay was rolling back to his feet, ducking a kick aimed at his head. Fawkes stood inside the doorway. He looked at the lethal blur that was Three and Jay. "You do realize that if you do not stop him, he will kill this person," said Fawkes.

"Who, Three?" I said.

"Yes."

"You hear that, Jay?" I said. "Fawkes thinks Three's gonna kill you."

"No shit," said Jay, who was currently trying, and failing, to punch Three in the head. That didn't seem to scare him, although he didn't look thrilled with the idea. The funny way he was breathing probably had something to do with that. I guessed Three had broken one of his ribs. Even so, he managed to keep his balance and avoid the next blow. "You tell him to do that, Thistle?"

"Not me," I said. "If I wanted you dead, I'd shoot you."

"Naw, you wouldn't," said Jay. "I'm faster than you - " he dodged again, then grimaced. "- And you're too much of a girl scout to shoot from ambush."

"You want to offer a counterpoint to that, Three?" I asked.

"Gary," said Three. The intonation was negative. He let Jay breathe for a minute. Both of them were sweating in the cool morning.

"Oh, I get it," said Jay, and laughed breathlessly.

And then I did, too.

"Three," I said. "Cut it out." Behind me, Fawkes was quiet. I heard him draw in a deep breath, and the chemical smell blew past me as he exhaled. There was nothing he could do that wouldn't make things worse instead of better. This wasn't a case for the gat. And Jay would be down with a broken neck or a shattered skull before he could get to Three.

"Thistle," Three objected. He wasn't stupid. He'd seen what Jay was, maybe because they had one or two things in common. He could probably even tell I was a little scared of Jay still. (Which made me really mad, like stuff I'm scared of always does. Fawkes says this is a very common defense mechanism which he himself has spent many years attempting to overcome. I really don't even want to ask what Fawkes is afraid of.) And, as Jay had said, Three already knew me well enough to guess that I wouldn't do anything about that unless I had to. And he knows I'd get killed if I tried. Jay's already shot me down once.

"So you do know some other words," Jay said to him.

"Straight to Hell," said Three clearly, and I watched his jacket draw tight across his shoulders as the muscles bunched up.

"Damn it, Three," I said. He paused. I watched him stand there for a second, wound up tight as a spring. I swear to you, I could feel how bad he wanted it, wanted to break the other man's body bone by bone over long minutes, letting him fight back, enjoying every second. This has got to be about more than just me.

Then Three took a long, deep breath, and he started to back up. This is the point where somebody dumb would've tried for one last hit, when they thought he wasn't ready for it. Then they would've died, quick, and Three would've looked at me sort of apologetically and shrugged. Jay was not dumb. He just watched.

"Here," I said. I kicked the switchblade back over where he could reach it. Jay leaned over, grimacing at the pain in his ribs again, and picked it up and wiped it on his pants. It left a little smear behind. I risked a glance at Three. There was a tear in the thigh of his jeans, and a very shallow cut. Jay had been trying for the big artery and he'd been too slow. "You can get the gun yourself," I said. "After we're out of sight."

"Sure," said Jay. He grinned. "No hard feelings."

"Seriously?" I said.

"Sure," said Jay. He spoke to Three. "You know I'll leave her alone. Don't you?"

"Gary," said Three, the word pregnant with hate and dire promise. "Yes."

"So long, Jay," I said.