19

I waited as Fawkes and Three's footsteps retreated behind me. It was warm up here, but the sun wasn't at its highest point; it must be sometime after noon.

After a while, a shadow flitted over me. I glanced upward and saw a buzzard circling, way up above. Maybe I looked dead from up there. I guess to a buzzard everything looks that way.

I waited some more. No need to worry about sweaty palms on the rifle stock, not for a Ghoul. The heat wasn't much fun, but it wasn't going to stop me for a long while. I was betting whoever was down there wouldn't take that long. They'd be listening for Fawkes. And if they were listening for anything quieter, well, I wasn't making any noise.

Five minutes or a year after Fawkes's footsteps faded, I heard the creak of the chain link gate opening down below. I grinned to myself and eased up to my feet, quiet as a mouse, and leaned over the parapet with my plasma rifle.

Jay stood down in the stairwell, looking around. His gun was still in its holster, and he was favoring that side a little. He saw the glow from the rifle before he saw me. I watched his eyes travel up the barrel to the shadow under my hat. For a second we just looked at each other. His nose was crooked and swollen now, and there was an ugly bruise on one cheekbone where Three had hit him. He was wearing his flat-crowned black hat on a string around his neck.

"Hi, Jay," I said.

He grinned. "Hey. How'd I give it away?"

"Why are you following us?" I said.

"Just you," he corrected. "I got no contract, if that's what you're asking."

"So what do you want?" I asked.

"How 'bout a stimpak?" he said.

"Seriously?" I said. "You've been following us for two days because you wanted a chem?" He nodded. "Why the Hell didn't you get some while you were in Underworld?"

"I did," he said. "I used them after your twitchy friend with the speech problem busted me up. And, being as how you managed to make sure I didn't get paid for my last job, I'm broke."

"And you think I'm going to give you one," I said. "What, for old times' sake? The whole time I've known you you've left me to bl - " I stopped. Yeah, he has. He also left me a stimpak. Both times. "But why follow us all this way if you're in such bad shape?" That can't have been easy.

"I had a feeling that guy might be hostile if he saw me," said Jay. "And yeah, I'll heal up on my own sooner or later, but it'll take too long. I got plenty of people'd be glad to shoot me before my gun hand heals up." He held up his hands demonstratively. They were swollen from knuckles to wrist, obviously too stiff for a fast draw.

"Un huh," I said. I'd known Fawkes and Three long enough now that I wasn't surprised it was Three he was worried about. "On the other hand, Fawkes and Three both think you're liable to be inconvenient somewhere down the road. And shooting you in the face right now is apt to save me more trouble than it causes."

"Now, that ain't no way to talk," Jay said reasonably. "I might be able to do you a favor sometime."

"That's all I need," I muttered. "Aw, screw it. Get up here." I powered down the rifle, hung it up, and unslung my knapsack as Jay limped up the stairs. I dug out a stimpak. I didn't really want to get that near him, but if I threw it he might drop it. I held it out with two fingers. He took it without touching me.

"You too poor to buy food, too?" I asked, watching him jab himself in the forearm. His nose shrank and paled as the chem went in, but it stayed crooked. It probably always would.

"No," said Jay. "I got some stuff." He watched his hands shrink back to normal as the inflammation went away. "You know, that was kind of stupid," he said thoughtfully. "You with your gun put away and all." He tossed the empty syringe over his shoulder into the dust. In the same motion he drew the .44. I looked at Jay over the black hole at the end of the barrel.

"You didn't kill me when I'd cost you money," I said. "You're not going to kill me for helping you." I didn't know if this was right or not. I did know was going to feel pretty stupid for a half-second or so if I was wrong.

He looked at me for what seemed like a long time. His eyes were yellow-brown in the bright sun, almost the same color as his hair. "You know, that's actually true," he said. "I'd like to know how you know, though. You never thought much of me after I killed MacPherson."

"Still don't," I said. "MacPherson had no chance, and you knew it. I bet he wasn't the only one, either."

"Nope," said Jay. "I get hired to kill somebody, I just kill them. Giving them a fair chance kind of defeats the purpose." He buffed his nails on the lapel of his long hide jacket. The gun spun back into its holster as quickly as it had come out. "Besides, nobody cried any tears over that little shit. You didn't know him."

"That's true," I said. "I didn't. I'm going on now. Don't you follow me."

"Not to worry," said Jay. "I got places to be."

I just shook my head and turned to trek on toward the outcrop where I'd told the others to wait. I saw Fawkes standing there, the front holes in the gat's barrel glowing in his hands. Three stood in his shadow, watching. I guessed they couldn't tell who it was from there.

I felt Jay's eyes on my back for a while, and then I heard him turn on his heel in the gravel. He made no noise going down the stairs again.

"Okay," I said as I came up to the others. "Let's go."

"Did you discover why he was following us?" asked Fawkes. He hung the gat up again. It hissed down into silence.

"He wanted a stimpak," I said. Three's head snapped around so fast I expected it to make a noise. "He used up his others this morning."

"Gary?" said Three. He looked over his shoulder, but the mercenary was long out of sight.

"Take it easy," I said. "He's gone now.

"Thistle, why?" demanded Three.

"Why d'you think I gave you one when we met?" I asked.

That shut him up. He turned to glare at the barren way ahead.

"You just be glad he didn't ask to come along," I said. Three made a disbelieving hrm noise. Fawkes chuckled deep in his chest.

"Stupid," said Three.

"Oh, no," said Fawkes. He chuckled again. "Not Thistle."

"Gary," said Three sullenly.

"You don't actually have to stick around, you know," I pointed out. He was starting to irritate me. "You've paid me back a couple of times over. You can talk well enough to get your point across. That's good enough to get a job. Shouldn't be hard, for somebody moves like you do."

"Take it easy," Three said effortlessly. I looked at him. He smiled sadly, letting the tension go out of his neck and shoulders again.

"You're repeating what I said," I realized. No gary-ing.

"He has done so before, if you recall," said Fawkes.

"I do," I said. Straight to Hell. He said it to Jay without a stutter.

Three nodded. "Thistle," he said. He'd had trouble with my name the first time he'd said it. Never since then.

"You mean it's easier for you if you repeat what I say," I said.

Three made the so-so gesture with one hand, tipping it this way and that way. "Gary. Only for gary a little while."

"You mean a little while after I say it?" I said.

"Yes."

"I would guess that has not been a common experience with others," said Fawkes. Three shook his head.

"How come?" I said. "It's not like my voice is easier to understand than anyone else's. I'm a Ghoul. I sound all scratchy."

Three shrugged.

"It's probably a matter of continued proximity," said Fawkes.

"Huh?" I said. (Even now, I seem to have a lot of conversations with Fawkes that go that way. I don't think he can help it. Now he's saying that long isolation resulted in his developing a speech pattern independent of ordinary use of the language, which I guess means with nobody to talk to but a computer, he didn't have a reason to use small words. Which is also funny considering how much effort it takes him to talk at all – I can't even come close to putting the way he actually sounds down on this keyboard. Everything he says takes a lot longer to say than it does to type, because there are these abrupt pauses between words. But I'm getting off-topic again. Fawkes was saying...)

"He has spent enough time near you that your voice is familiar," said Fawkes. "Is this so, Three?" The clone nodded. "If he left you, he would have to accustom himself to someone else. It would be difficult, and he might lose progress he has already made. He will not quickly become comfortable with another person."

Three nodded in quick agreement with that.

"Among other things," said Fawkes. "You seem to have quickly grasped that he has no interactional model for non-hostile physical contact."

Three shot him a look, like he'd wandered into an area Three didn't want to discuss. Fawkes remained calm.

"If he means you don't like being touched - " I said to Three.

"Yes," said Fawkes.

"- It's not hard to tell." The only time I'd ever laid a hand on him was when I thought he was about to jump Fawkes and get himself killed, and he'd fought me like a fish on a line 'til I let go. That had been less than a week ago. It seemed longer. "And I can see why you'd rather not talk about it."

Three nodded once. The corners of his mouth were folded down, like there was something behind them he didn't want out in the light of day. I wondered if he had ever been touched by someone who wasn't in some way trying to hurt him. Maybe not.

"You know, Fawkes," I said. "Given what you've told me about how you spent the first part of your life, I'm surprised you have a – what was that? An interactional model for -"

"Non-hostile physical contact," said Fawkes. "I have developed the ability to resist my instincts over a long period of time." His voice got a little quieter. Not quiet, he doesn't do that very well, but definitely different than it had been. "And as you have seen, there are gaps in my control."

"Hm," I said. "You know, I grew up in Little Lamplight. I always wondered why my Mom would leave me there, if it was her. Maybe she did me a favor." The worst that had ever happened to me there was getting picked on by one or two of the bigger kids, and then only until I hit my first growth spurt. Nobody had experimented on me. Nobody had shut me up in a box for a hundred years.

"Lamplight Caverns," said Fawkes. "How very curious."

He never did say why. I didn't find out until a lot later that Vault 87 backs right onto the Caverns. It was years after I'd left that the Vault Dweller convinced the Mayor to let him through. He snuck right into the Vault, locked the door up tight behind him, and slaughtered every creature he found there on his way to the GECK.

Every creature but Fawkes. Fawkes, who had been patiently poking at computer keys for years before I was born. I was never more than a mile away from Fawkes for the first sixteen years of my life. Until yesterday, before I started to type this, I never knew.