One and a half hours northeast of Diamond City, deep into the concrete jungle of busted interstates and rusted out skyscrapers, our mismatched band of misfits halted their progress. Travis sat on his knees, hunched over behind the protection of a partially destroyed wall, and assessed their position. Hancock tapped him on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of heavy footsteps. They both ducked down behind the rubble to avoid being seen. Bet and Danny were scouting the perimeter to find a clear spot to put down the mines.
The mutie patroller stomped right by their hiding spot again, but fortune favored them and he didn't notice they were only inches from his massive feet. Several minutes went by before they dared to poke their heads up again. In the next building over, they could see one of their friends crouching low to the ground, taking pains to both avoid making any sound or being seen, and moving slowly toward their spot.
"We found a great spot on the left side of the building to draw them out. It's narrow, too, so it'll force them to bunch together." Bet whispered so quietly that her words were hardly more than a breath. "Danny is planting the mines as we speak. We'll cover them with a light coating of dust and pebbles, so they'll be harder to see."
"A patrol just went by, so be careful. We don't want the greenskin to catch you laying them out." Travis warned her with another glance in the direction that the mutant had gone. She nodded solemnly and left the way she'd come.
"Ready kid?" Hancock popped a mentat from the tin in his pocket. Travis nodded as he opened the safety of his weapon. They waited silently for the signal as they plugged their ears with the bits of rag.
Suddenly, a red beam shot up in the distance and Hancock leaped over the wall. Almost immediately, the unnerving, thunderous howl of a mutant hound broke the peace. Super mutants shouted to each other in the growing confusion. "WHERE ARE YOU, LITTLE BLEEDER?!" Roared a mutie from within the Tower.
"Over here, puke for brains!" Travis shouted back as he took aim for a mutant running at him with a tire iron. A bullet pinged as it ricocheted off of a broken metal beam behind him; several more followed the first. Travis barely dodged out of the way of the tire iron and put three slugs in the massive bicep of his attacker. Blood, brilliantly crimson and viscid, rained down in a shower over the radio host. The mutie let out an ear-rending snarl of pain.
Hancock, in the meantime, had to roll out of the way as a chunk of concrete was knocked loose by a poorly aimed missile. Another missile followed with a fizzling hiss like popping the cap off a shaken Nuka-Cola. Thankfully, this one went wide, too. The ghoul knew that the missiles would compromise the already weak integrity of the building behind them and it would be only a matter of time before it would collapse. He could only hope that the mutants would run out of missiles before it happened.
"YEAH!" He whipped his head around to see Travis shove the barrel of his gun under the chin of the mutant he was fighting and pull the trigger. Its head exploded violently in a mess of viscera and bone. "HOLY SHIT, DID YOU SEE THAT?" A timid and mild-mannered man no more, Travis Miles wiped the mutant's blood from his face with a grin of victory.
"Always knew you had in ya, kid!" Hancock's congratulations were cut short when he spotted a couple of hounds come bounding out of the Tower. "Heads up!" He got a couple of shots into the first one, but it just kept coming. Slavering and mad with bloodlust, it launched itself at him. He sidestepped the attack, but realized too late that the first attack had only been a diversion. The second hound's teeth sunk deep into his calf. "FUCK!" He bashed at its skull with the butt of his shotgun.
Travis managed to kill the other dog before it latched on to Hancock's other leg. The Mayor of Goodneighbor reloaded his trusty double-barrel while gritting his teeth against the pain. It shook its head from side to side and he could feel his flesh tearing, but he forced the business end of his gun against the neck of the beast. Two consecutive shots later, he was able to pry open the jaws of the dog to free his shredded leg. "Oh man, that looks bad." Travis groaned at the sight of the grotesque wound. He looped Hancock's arm around his shoulders. "We need to go, now!"
"No! We need to lure…..gah..the rest of them out." Hancock grunted in pain as he resisted Travis' insistent tugging.
"You could be bleeding out! I'm not leaving you here to die!" Travis shouted at him. Shots started ringing out around them all over again. It seemed that the muties had realized that their dogs had lost the fight. The final two mutants could be heard pounding down the stairs of the Tower. "Fine! Here they come, we'll stay until they're out the door."
They didn't have to wait long. The pair were soon barreling toward them, and all the while shouting insults in gravelly voices. Travis wasted no time in getting the fuck out of there. He hoisted Hancock up on his back and maneuvered his way through the destroyed streets of Boston. He had just cleared about half a mile when, blinking through the stinging mix of blood and sweat in his eyes, he saw several laser shots light up the alley ahead.
"This way! You take five more steps and you'll blow yourself to Kingdom Come!" Bet screamed from the alley.
"We told..you..heh..to run.." Hancock gasped for air as he fought not to black out from the blood loss.
"We were cornered by one of those fucking dogs." Her eyes grew wide. "Your leg-"
Danny grabbed her shoulder and hauled her father down the alley. "No time for that. Travis, this way!" The four of them zigzagged between the crumbled remains of several brick houses. Behind them, the shrieks of mutants were soon drowned out by a massive explosion; and then another, and another. Somehow, the muties managed to step on ten out of the twelve frag mines that had laid in wait for them.
The buildings around them mostly protected them from the resulting wave of force, but it was still so powerful that Bet, who was at the back of the group, was knocked forward and skidded several feet. She cried out as she landed on a jagged piece of glass sticking up out of the ground.
They all froze, afraid to move, but also afraid that the muties had managed to survive their assault. The silence was all that met their ears. Travis was the first to move. He sat Hancock down on the ground as gently as he could. Bet yelped as she yanked the glass out of her thigh. "Why is it always this leg in particular?" She watched with dismay as the blood slowly soaked her jeans. She glanced up from tending to her minor wound to see that blood was dripping down Travis's arm. "Travis?! Are you hurt, too?"
He shook his head. "No, one of the mutants came at me with a tire iron and I filled his face full of lead. This isn't my blood."
"Right on." She grinned half-heartedly at him.
Danny administered a stimpack to Hancock's calf after disinfecting it with the antiseptic they'd packed. He watched the ragged and torn skin knit itself back together. "Bet, did you bring any irradiated blood?" He noticed that the ghoul was blinking slowly and he slapped at his face. "Hey! Stay with us, man!" Hancock mumbled incoherently.
Bet dumped all the stuff in her rucksack. She gave Danny the glowing blood and knelt down beside her friend. "Are you sure he's going to be alright?" She asked worriedly.
Danny hooked up the pack to some medical tubing and a butterfly needle, and then slipped it neatly into the ghoul's arm. "Rads are supposed to cure ghouls of pretty much anything, but I'm not 100% sure. I think that dog got pretty close to an artery. The stimpack would have taken care of the wound itself, but it can't replace the blood he's lost. If this is the only pack of irradiated blood we have we need to get him back to Goodneighbor as soon as possible."
"It'll be slow going if one of us has to carry him, even if Danny and I take turns." Travis paced the short length of the alley. "Plus, we still need to check the Tower to see if the mayor is still alive."
"What about irradiated water? Nearly every puddle in the Commonwealth is at least a little irradiated." Bet proposed to the other two. "We can use my Geiger counter to find a source with the most rads." She pulled out a hefty, solid hunk of tech from her bag and clamped it around her wrist like a vambrace. It wasn't nearly as good as a Pip-Boy, but it would definitely work.
"It'll have to do the trick until we can get him to the doctor in Goodneighbor. I'd say it's a fair bet that she'd have the most experience treating ghouls." Danny frowned hard. "The only problem is that the person getting him the water would probably get a bit irradiated, too."
"I'll do it then." Bet volunteered. "We have a little Radaway and a couple more stimpacks for emergencies. You guys need to stay as healthy as possible, so you can bring Mayor Miller back to Diamond City if she hasn't been made into a sandwich yet." She chuckled. "I'm sure that there's no way I can expect the guards to let me or Hancock in after the stunt we pulled."
Danny spoke up. "I had a hand in that, too."
Bet shrugged. "Yeah, but you're a member of Diamond City Security. At worst, they'll put you in a cell for a while. Travis is a citizen and they'll probably just assume we kidnapped him."
Danny scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I suppose you're right."
"Bet and I will go back to Trinity Tower to search the place." Travis took off his own supply pack. He pursed his lips into a thin line of indecision. He slipped his hand into his bag and pulled out a Jet inhaler. "I…uh..found this while we were doing recon on the Tower. I was gonna sell it, but…uh..-" He pressed it into Hancock's scarred palm. "Yeah…anyway, we should….ahem..we should get going."
"You're alright, kid." Hancock smiled weakly up at him. Travis turned beet-red and averted his eyes. Bet gave the Mayor a loose hug before getting to her feet to follow him.
"Be careful." Danny advised as he watched them go. "Watch out for the rest of the mines!" Bet held up a hand to show that she'd heard him without turning around.
Getting into the tower was difficult because of all the debris that had been kicked up by the mines. The entrance was littered with fresh lengths of congealed intestines, bits of flesh, powdered bones, and chunks of asphalt. "My god, it reeks in here!" She covered her mouth and nose with her shirt, but that didn't keep out the rancid stench. "I can't say if they smell better alive or dead."
Travis held out his hand to help her over a gap in the floor. "At least all these holes make for halfway decent airflow. Imagine if this were all in an enclosed space."
"I'm pretty sure I'd vomit." She kicked a bloody skeleton out of her way and grimaced. "Multiple times, profusely."
"Why do you talk like that?" Travis asked as he shoved open a door that had rusted shut.
"What do you mean?" She helped him push the door open and followed him into the stairwell.
"You know, big words and stuff."
She was taken aback by his comment, but not offended. "I guess I don't really know that I do it. I don't sound pretentious, do I?"
He laughed. "There you go again."
She gripped the handrail tightly and looked away because of her discomfiture. "Sorry, I meant; do I sound stuck-up?"
He shook his head. "No…well, sometimes I just wonder what you're saying and it makes me feel stupid. I'm pretty used to feeling stupid, though, so it's alright."
She put her hand on his arm. "You're not stupid. I'll make a conscious effort- I mean…I'll try to stop if it'll make you feel better."
"Thanks, but you shouldn't have to censor yourself just to make me more comfortable. Besides, I know you're not actively trying to sound smart. It's just a habit." They were done searching the second floor by then. "I hope they didn't put her all the way at the top." Travis sighed wearily, but he perked up when he saw her fiddling with her Geiger counter. "You know, I owe Hancock a lot." Bet looked up from the hefty device.
"That was really sweet of you to give him the Jet." She knew that the Mayor had barely packed enough mentats for himself. He really needed to stop concerning himself about using around her. She was used to it, after all. She stopped that train of thought before it led somewhere that would distract and upset her. "So, what do you mean when you say that you owe him?"
"Well, he and Nora are basically the reason I still have a job." Their shoes left tracks in the thin layer of wet blood that seeped out from the meat-sacks that littered the floor. "Long story short, they gave me the confidence I needed to be the person I'd always wanted to be. Heck, I probably wouldn't have had the guts to be standing here right now if it weren't for them."
She made a face. "Please, don't remind me about guts, right now." She lifted up her foot and watched something slimy cling to it. She scraped it off on a bench. "Nora is really important to lots of people. She's helped me, too."
"No kidding?"
"Oh, yeah. Hancock, and Nora found me in a vault. I was desperate to leave, but also terrified of going outside. Hancock gave me money, and more importantly; a home. I'd never felt like I belonged anywhere before I set up shop in Goodneighbor." She held up her Geiger counter. "Hancock gave me this a few days ago." She smiled fondly at it. "Maybe it is silly to have a favorite thing, but that's what it is. It reminds me of everything those he's have done for me."
"Nora saved Danny's life two months ago." He let her know. "I'm not sure what she's done for Hancock, but it had to have been really something because they're good friends. You mentioned you've got a shop in Goodneighbor, so what do you sell?"
She loved to talk about her pet project because she was so proud of how well it was coming along. "I don't sell anything just yet, but I'm sure I'll be ready soon. Nora, Sturges, Hancock, and I have been working on putting up a still in one of the old warehouses. I guess you could say I'm a bootlegger of sorts."
"That sounds cool." They worked their way up to the next floor and found nothing. The fifth floor was mostly caved in, but the collapsed ceiling made a nice ramp up to the sixth floor. "I'll really have a tale to tell on the radio." He smiled at her.
"Just make sure to make us all sound incredibly heroic and awesome, because I'll need to have something entertaining to listen to while I'm scrubbing my skin raw." She flicked a speck of gore off her shoulder that had fallen out of one of the bags. "Why do they hang their 'food' up like this? It's disgusting."
Travis gagged as he stepped over a bag filled with various bones; some of which were undeniably human. "I don't know…maybe it improves the flavor?" They looked at each other and shuddered.
"Ewww. Hey, wait what's this?" She picked up a faded yellow fedora that had been resting atop a miraculously intact desk. "Oh, I like it!" She immediately put it on. "How does it look? I've always wanted a hat like this."
"Looks good, maybe you should hang on to it." He grinned. "After you wash it, I mean." He made a show of pinching his nose closed in disgust.
Luckily, they did not have to search much longer to find Mayor Miller. She was bound, gagged, and slumped over the top grate of a dead fire barrel. "It looks like they were planning to roast her just as we showed up." She checked her pulse. "She's just unconscious. Help me move her, please."
Together, they lifted Mayor Miller off of the grate and carried her out of the Tower. It was a precarious journey in some parts because they had to watch their footing in the destroyed places and the layer of blood/entrails that coated the majority of the floor didn't help matters, either. It took twice as long for them to make it out as it had taken for them to find her, but the important thing was that she was alive.
Danny and Hancock were both relieved to see that their friends had returned, not only intact, but also touting the unconscious woman. "Now, all that's left is to find Hancock some irradiated water." Their satisfied demeanor changed immediately. It was getting dark and unknown dangers could lurk around any corner.
Bet was not unafraid, but it was time to do what was necessary. She flipped on her flashlight. The blue glow lit up a small area around them."Wish me luck." She saluted them before darting off into the darkness. They watched her light until she rounded a corner down the street.
Danny pulled out an old cigarette pack and opened it to reveal that it actually contained a deck of worn playing cards. "Poker, anyone?"
It was well past midnight when she returned. She didn't say anything right away, but instead turned her head to the side and vomited. Her skin was so pale that she was clearly visible even in the dark without the flashlight. She had filled her old military canteen to the brim with irradiated water. "Twenty rads per second." She managed to say before coughing and dry heaving again onto the ground. "Radaway…please…"
Danny instantly grabbed the waiting bag of Radaway, opened a can of purified water, and handed them both to her. She took intermittent sips of the water and the medicine until they were both completely gone. She wished she could have more water to wash the bitter taste out of her mouth, but that would be a waste of their supplies. Instead, she settled for dishing out rations from her rucksack.
"Damn, feelin' better already." Hancock settled his head back against the cold stone of the wall behind him. He'd had some food, plus all those rads were already working their magic. "I think I'll be good to go with a few hours of rest." He stilled Bet's hands, which were scratching at the beginnings of the rash on her arms. "Wish ya hadn't had to do that." He told her ruefully as he brushed his fingers lightly over the raised bumps.
"I think we could all use some shut-eye." Danny agreed.
"I'll take watch duty." Travis offered. He borrowed Danny's cards and Bet left her light on, so he started up a game of Solitaire to pass the time. No one was extremely comfortable sleeping on the hard ground without even a blanket to keep out the frigid night air. However, they were lulled purely by exhaustion, so the night passed quickly and morning came without incident.
Bet woke up first, stiff and aching. She stretched and heard several bones crackle at the movement. The blood on her jeans had dried and, if one didn't know any better, you could say that it was just mud that coated her upper pant-leg and thigh. Travis glanced up at the sound of her movements and blinked owlishly at her with bleary eyes. She reached in front of him to turn off the flashlight. Danny rubbed a hand over his face and glanced over at Hancock.
The ghoul's eyes were still shut, but he was clearly awake now. His eyelids fluttered and coal-black pinned them all with an uncanny stare before his thin lips tilted upward into a troublemaker's grin. "Mornin'. Seems like we all survived the night." To their disbelief, he raised himself to his feet without any assistance, although he did appear to have a slight limp.
"Yeah, and it seems like we make an ideal team, too." Danny cracked a tired smile in return.
"I wouldn't be opposed to keeping this good thing going." Bet voted as she picked up her gear and her gun. "Just in case Nora ever wants a break or if she's indisposed at the time."
"This is an enormous opportunity." Danny mentioned casually. "People from Diamond City and Goodneighbor working together to save lives; it could potentially be the start of something pretty great."
There was no denying that fact. Now that McDonough was dead and Diamond City owed the life of its new mayor partially to the work of a ghoul, it opened up a whole world of possibilities. The march home was a chore, but the five of them made it to Diamond City by noon. "Guess this is where you get off." Hancock said as they got within sight of the Great Green Jewel. He clapped one hand on Travis' back and the other on Danny's. "You two should stop in Goodneighbor sometime."
Travis nodded vigorously. "How about sometime next month?"
"Sounds like a plan to me." Bet piped up and gave both of her new friends a tight hug. "Now, go home, take a hot bath, eat a butt-ton of food, drink a butt-ton of alcohol, and get a butt-ton of sleep."
"Any more butt-tons we should take care of?" Danny rolled his eyes.
"None that I want to know about." She said with a sly wink. They all groaned, but she laughed heartily at her own joke. "Go on, skedaddle." She made a shooing motion at them. They took off with Mayor Miller in tow. Once again, she and Hancock made the hike to Goodneighbor. "It's so nice to have friends." She sighed contentedly.
Hancock had returned to worrying about Nora's uncertain fate. "Nick should hear from Travis or Danny about what went down at the Tower. Here's hopin' he'll remember to send us word about Nora's condition."
"I'm sure he will." Bet reassured him. "It's just going to be a matter of time. If he hasn't sent someone by the time Sturges is fully healed, we can pay someone to go ask about it. Until then, we should hold off and let him have some time with her. He almost lost her, so I'd imagine he'd want to spend as much time with her as possible."
Sturges was healing well and was extremely eager to begin the journey to Diamond City to check on Nora. He would be ready soon and he had been a gracious guest while staying with Marie. She'd never had a more polite, and gentle-natured person grace her doorstep. In the days that followed her adventure, Bet and Sturges worked away at building the still and bottling machine. Sturges modified an ancient pre-War oven up to give her a way to make her own tarrberry sugar and dry out the corn, while she worked on setting up a growth media for her starter wort. The slant and homemade tarberry sugar that her grandfather had given her were practically godsends because it would have taken ages without them. She practically had a head-start on things in regards to that.
They had to wait a few days to assemble the bottling machine, the grinder and the still because the supplies they'd scavenged had been left outside Diamond City during the attack. Thusly, Nora had to arrange for a Minuteman to escort a provisioner to Goodneighbor in order to get it all to them. The shipment of corn and tarberries came soon after that. It was a whirl of activity that had them both working tirelessly. Finally, though, their labor came to fruition when Sturges added the finishing touch to the worm box by welding the water pipe to it that was fed by a re-designed water cooler. Sturges, with his mechanical brilliance, managed to make it work by using cryo cells to cool the water.
The bottling machine was finished by the next week, though, Bet had no real hand in that because she honestly had no clue where to start with machinery. So, she'd just been careful to stay out of Sturges's way and hand him whatever tools he requested. "Now, all you gotta do is load up a crate full of bottles on to the conveyor belt and push the button. If the machine is out of caps; open up this cylinder and carefully load in 100 caps at a time. It can only hold 300 caps at one time, though, so be careful to not overload it or it might become blocked."
"Thanks, Sturges." She hugged the giant man tightly to show her gratitude. He'd been living with her for two weeks now and they'd become fast friends. "I'm going out to grab a few groceries. Take a break while I'm gone, you've been working yourself pretty hard."
He smiled warmly at her. "Hey, did you know that kid made a broadcast about your super mutant adventure today?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the radio. "I heard it this morning before you got up." He chuckled and his whole chest resonated with the deep sound. "I'd advise you to stay out of sight if you can. He laid it on pretty thick…Bootlegger."
"What?" She looked up at him with confusion written all over her face, but he just laughed and waved her out the door.
It didn't take her long to figure out what he'd meant by that; Goodneighbor was abuzz with gossip concerning Hancock's adventure with her. Bet was accosted several times by citizens who wanted to ascertain the present condition of their mayor. Once she had relieved them of their worries, they would often return to their normal activities. However, someone else would, sooner or later, bring it up again and make her recount the tale. Apparently, it was because Travis had made such a chilling impression upon his Goodneighbor listeners that many of them thought their beloved mayor was as good as dead despite the fact that many of them had seen him limping around the State House in the past few days.
Hancock, of course, was not helping quell the tide of rumors. In fact, he hadn't left the State House since their arrival weeks prior. She learned that tidbit of information from Daisy on her way back to her place. When she finally made it back to her home, she hurriedly slammed the door shut behind her. Sturges called out to her."You're back! How did the shopping go?" It seemed he'd taken her advice and was lounging on her couch in her office upstairs with the latest issue of Publick Occurrences. She gritted her teeth, forced herself to refrain from stomping up the stairs, and peered into her office. "Wait, don't tell me. I can tell from your face that you're annoyed."
Bet huffed as she sat down on the couch opposite him. "I just wish that every Tom, Dick, and Harry would stop making me tell the story over and over again. Once was fine, twice was alright, three times was dull, but the sixteenth was ridiculous! I just wanted to get some food and supplies, but no!" She got up from the couch. "It took me ages to buy a basket of mutfruit, razorgrain, and a few cobs of corn because everyone kept stopping me on my way to Daisy's and on the way back here. It's a miracle I made it home before dark."
He checked his watch. "Yep, you made it home with three hours to spare."
Her green eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. "It's six?! Shit, I was supposed to meet up with Hancock at five!" She rushed out of the room and back out the door. Sturges shrugged and straightened his paper out before returning to reading.
Hancock was patiently waiting in his lounge. Fahrenheit stood near the door cleaning her fingernails with her switchblade and generally being intimidating. Frantic footsteps running up the stairs broke the silent calm. "That would be Bet." There was a sudden and loud yelp of pain, and then a series of thuds and shouts. "That would be Bet falling while going up the stairs." The footsteps on the stairs came again after a short break, then a single bump followed by a crash and the sound of several sympathetic voices. "That would be Bet tripping over the table on the landing." Fahrenheit opened the door just as the footsteps reached the doorway. "Have you noticed that she tends to get kind of clumsy when it comes to the stairs in here?"
"Yeah, but I put it down to exuberance." Hancock watched as Bet stumbled inside. "How's my favorite hot mess? Heard you got caught up in storytellin'."
She plopped herself down on the couch beside him, careful to avoid knocking the mountain of Jet off of the arm, and groaned. "I went outside. That was my mistake. I should have taken a leaf out of your book and hid away until the hype died down." She crossed her arms and huffed in annoyance. "I should have just listened to Sturges. He warned me about the broadcast before I left, but I brushed it off. I didn't think people would make a big deal out of it."
"Eh, it's the price you pay for being a public figure." He took a hit from the inhaler, held his breath, and let out a misty puff of chem fumes. She questioned him about what he meant by that. "Our names are rollin' off of people's tongues all over the 'Wealth by now. There's hardly a person around that doesn't listen to Diamond City Radio, you know that as well as I do. After Travis decided to spill the beans this morning on our little rescue, I'll bet none of us will be able to enjoy anonymity any longer."
She scoffed. "You've probably spent half your life without the luxury of being a nobody."
"Be that as it may, it seems you've got your own nickname thanks to our mutual friend. He's taken to callin' you Bootlegger for some reason." The ghoul closed his eyes to better enjoy his trip.
She put her head in her hands. "Kill me, please. Strike me down where I sit!" She bemoaned as she recalled her conversation with Travis.
Hancock patted her back. "Hey, think of this as a convoluted advertising strategy." He smirked. "Now you've got a name for your brand." He made an arching gesture with his hands. "Bootlegger. How'd he even come up with that?"
She drew in a calming breath through her nose. "No, you're right. I've gotta make the most of this. Even if I hate the nickname, I've gotta think of the caps."
He turned the volume up on his radio that was placed on his coffee table. "Have ya listened to the broadcast, yet? It's one of Travis' best so far." She shook her head and told him that she didn't really want to. She'd always been the type to be easily embarrassed by excessive amounts of attention and the knowledge that possibly hundreds of people had heard the story made her queasy.
"Suit yourself, although my only complaint was his intense description of my part in the whole mission. Harrowing? Sure. Dangerous? Of course. But heroic leader bent on rescuing a damsel in distress? Not so much. Hell, I've gotta give him credit where it's due, though. The kid's learned how to tell a damned good story, even if he laid it on a bit thick in certain parts."
Fahre chuckled quietly in the background. "The best tales are the tall ones, as they say."
Bet eyed the radio with contempt. "The important question to ask is; will this be the first step in a better direction?"
Fahrenheit seemed to seriously consider that question. "I haven't heard a negative reception of the story at all, so far. I'd say our odds of making a good impression are pretty high."
Bet nodded. "That's great. If we can pitch change to the general populace, there may be enough people who'd be willing take up our banner." A knock interrupted the conversation and the three of them all looked at the open doorway, where a member of the Neighborhood Watch stood. He was clutching a slip of paper in his hand. "A message from Nick Valentine to you, Mayor Hancock, it came from a Minuteman provisioner."
"Thanks, James." Hancock took the paper and sat back down. His eyes followed the neat script on the note. He turned it over. "Says that Nora's gonna be okay and that Mayor Miller has promised to make a speech about her rescue tonight." Bet held up crossed fingers for luck and he pumped his fist. "Hell, yeah! Best news of the day. Sturges should be passin' by Diamond City on his way back to Sanctuary. He'll probably drop in for a couple of minutes to check on 'er for us."
With Nora on the mend, and her own anticipation for the coming speech, Bet's spirits were raised just as quickly. Doubts lingered at the back of her mind, but she shoved them aside in favor of savoring the moment. She returned home in the dark after enjoying the company of Fahrenheit and Hancock for several hours. While the head of the Neighborhood Watch was not exactly a talkative person, Fahrenheit was slightly more loose-lipped after her third drink. Bet, clumsier than usual from the excess of alcohol, wobbled home around midnight to find Sturges in her kitchen cooking up a delicious smelling steak of unknown origin. "Never knew you were a tinker and a chef." She noted with a smile as they sat down to a hearty meal.
"Well, I suppose I had to repay your hospitality somehow." He cut a bite-sized piece of meat from his steak. "Cooking seemed the best way to do it."
She swallowed a mouthful of Instamash. "You're a great friend, Sturges. You wouldn't have needed to repay me at all. I am just so happy that both you and Nora are still with us."
He rolled his enormous shoulders back in a half-stretch. "I feel the same about you, Hancock, and those other two guys from Diamond City." He finished his food in a few more bites and took up both of their plates. "I'm headed over first thing tomorrow to check on my fellow Atom Cat." He washed up and went back to his borrowed bed.
She was alone with her thoughts for the first time in weeks. She hadn't had any real time to herself since before she'd gone off scavenging around Goodneighbor to decorate her warehouse. After that trip, it was like everything just kind of snowballed and she hadn't had any time to think –only to react. She leaned back in her chair and tried to make sense of the events that had led up to her (completely unwanted) fame. Out of the entirety of these last three weeks, she'd only come to regret two things; the incident in Vault 81 and unknowingly encouraging Travis to exaggerate her role in Mayor Miller's rescue. While there wasn't much she could have done about Travis's broadcast, she definitely believed she could have done more to prevent Hancock from going postal on Bobby.
True, she'd forgiven Hancock for his brash actions, but she had yet to ponder the reasoning behind said actions. Why had he done that? Sure, any friend would have sympathized with her and tried to protect her, but he went completely wild. The sound of Hancock snapping Bobby's wrist echoed in her ears and her stomach rolled. There was another side to Hancock, she realized, that relished violent justice to any and all who deserved it. She didn't mind it when he unleashed his wrath on raiders and others of that ilk, but it was a different ballgame when it came to someone she'd actually known. If she were completely honest, however, there was a part of her that absolutely loathed Bobby and had enjoyed Hancock's retaliation. She'd been disgusted by herself; what kind of person thought things like that? It was part of the reason she'd been so upset with him in the first place. Hancock had made her feel things that made her sincerely question who she was as a person.
Bet, despite the fact that she had been bending under the weight of deep-seated exhaustion only minutes earlier, found that she kept coming back to Hancock's overreaction back in the vault. What had he been thinking? She settled her head into her hands and stared at the stone wall with her mouth turned down into a troubled frown. Her thoughts would not allow her to settle down or even relax; she felt on edge and it was like she could sense something was building up inside her. She jumped up and ran after Sturges. "H-hey, do you mind if I tag along with you? I…uh…I need some time away from people right now." Her words spilled out of her mouth before she had a chance to really think about what she was saying and it all came out like a jumbled mess. "It's just with the broadcast thing a-and I don't like the attention…it makes me feel weird. It's like I've got…I dunno…" She sighed heavily and tried to start over. "Can I please go with you, so that I can take a break from all this commotion caused by Travis's broadcast?"
He folded his arms behind his head and reclined on his make-shift bed. "Sure, long as you don't mind makin' a pit stop down near Quincy for a few days. I have a few friends I wanna visit after we check on Nora."
She sat down heavily on her bed. "I'm not sure if I understand your meaning. Do you mean a vacation?"
He'd grabbed a couple of cushions from one of the couches on his way up and borrowed a blanket from her dresser by the door. He stretched out on his temporary bed like a cat. "Something like that. I'm feeling like going back to my roots and go runnin' with my old gang again. You could tag along, if you're feelin' up to it. It's an offer; not an obligation."
"Depends." She was hesitant to make a decision until she knew more. "What's this 'old gang' of yours like?" As an afterthought, she added another stipulation. "And, how long will it take to get there?"
He thought for a minute on how to describe Zeke and the other Atom Cats. The words 'hard to explain' coupled with 'you need to see it to believe it' came to mind, but he settled on a single descriptor. "Charismatic." They certainly were exactly that and more. "It's pretty far down south near the edge of the Commonwealth, so it'll be a three-day trip to get there. I'm not lookin' to spend more than a week there, so you'd be back here in two weeks." He judged by the unenthusiastic sound she made that she wasn't too keen on the idea. "Like I said, it's up to you, but I want to head out tomorrow afternoon at the latest."
She was silent and he thought for sure that she'd change her mind. "Sure, besides it might be fun." He settled down with a mile-wide smile on his face. She'd be a great Atom Cat; Zeke had a way of turning troubled people around. The Atom Cats had an effect on people he'd witnessed firsthand. If nothing else, she'd be happy again. He hadn't seen her actually happy since the incident with the muties and he felt like he owed her a bit for taking diligent care of him while he was laid up.
The hike to the Atom Cats' garage was one of the toughest she'd experienced so far. A well-aimed bullet from a raider damn near splattered her brains all over a wall. Luckily, Sturges picked the asshole off like a flea with his trusted .50 cal. Avoiding raiders altogether on a trip like this was an impossible feat, although they skirted around raider camps when they could, sometimes it was necessary to sneak past them to get where they needed to go. For instance, they had to cross a bridge their second day in and three ruffians dressed in combat armor demanded a 'toll' of five hundred caps.
"Just when I thought I'd finally escaped assholes." Bet remarked under her breath. "Do we look like we can afford that?"
The raider looked them over; Bet in her crumpled fedora, ratty jeans, and tattered t-shirt made for a rough sight and Sturges, who was covered head to toe in a thick layer of Commonwealth dirt and decked out in utility overalls, didn't look any fancier. "Even if we could, do you really think we'd carry that amount on us?" Sturges crossed his burly arms and widened his stance, ready for a challenge.
"Fine," The raider flipped up the cage-mask on his football helmet. "Two hundred caps."
"Dude! Are you serious?" She exclaimed with a loud groan. Inwardly, she smirked at the idiot raider. Between them, they had over a grand in caps, but there was no way this knucklehead would see a single one. She'd rather go out fighting before she willingly supported a lazy, bone-brained murderer. "We can barely rub two caps together. C'mon and give us a reasonable deal."
"Seventy-five caps and that's my final offer." He growled. He was growing impatient and frustrated, as were the two goons behind him.
"Really? That's the best you can do?" Bet shook her head.
"Fifty caps, then." He stared them down. "I know you can do fifty."
"Maybe, if we sold everything we own." She replied.
The raider groaned out of annoyance and frustration. "You know what? Just go. I'm getting tired of looking at your ugly faces." He stood aside and let them pass.
Once they were out of earshot, the duo high-fived and shared a laugh over the encounter. "I wish we could have just taken them out, so they don't have to bother anyone else." Bet said. "We're just not equipped for a straight-up fracas." It was true. Sturges wore a chest-plate, a pair of metal bracers, and shin-guards beneath his outfit, but she wore only a bit of leather armor under her own clothes. The only weapon she had on her was her beloved .10mm and Sturges simply had a rifle slung over his shoulder.
On the evening of the third day, just as the sun was setting the coast aflame with golden hues of peachy fire, they reached the outskirts of Quincy. Sturges ceased his cheery whistling and fell dead silent. Only the creaks of the ruined highway could be heard, and his expression hardened with every step closer. He crouched down behind a cracked stone wall. She settled into a sneak position, too, and wondered if he'd spotted something.
Nothing moved, but he continued to give the main street a wide berth. Gunners, she knew, had taken up residence in the ruins of Quincy, but she wasn't aware of many details. Ahead of her, the mechanic edged along the shoreline until they were safely past the danger zone. Of course, since he had friends here, she assumed he was familiar with the area. She followed his lead without questioning his cautious manner. She quickly forgot his overtly careful behavior as they entered into view of the garage.
Husks of old vehicles were stacked up by the rusted-out chain-link fence that surrounded the two-centuries-old Red Rocket garage. The fence was shored up in some places with metal and boards, but the gate was mostly intact. Sturges pushed open the gate and stepped into the yard. It'd been ages since he'd last set foot in those gates, but it felt like finally coming home again. He was happy to see nothing had changed. Rust and grease scented the air just as he'd recalled, and the sound of the waves lapping against the shore brought him back in time to careless days.
A sound like a roll of thunder in the avatar of footsteps pounded around the side of the building and Bet jumped back a few feet at the emergence of a man clad in power armor. "Duke!" Sturges called out.
"Sturges!" Duke's voice was muffled by his helmet. Another dude in power armor clomped in behind the first guy. "Johnny D., can you believe this knucklehead took so long to come back?"
The second guy removed his helmet and shook out his D.A. haircut. "Zeke's gonna flip his rag top over this. Zeke! You're never gonna believe this."
A small group came barging out into the drizzling rain from a warehouse beside the station. All of them wore a similar get-up of leather jackets and jeans. They were greasers; Bet recognized the style from her pre-War books and the covers of Hot Rodder magazines. The power armor made more sense to her now. "Whoa, who's the doll?" Duke asked of Sturges.
"My name's Bet." She peered around Sturges to look up at him. It felt a bit wrong to have anyone besides Hancock call her 'doll'.
Duke, in his power armor, was a foot and half taller than her. "Well, doll, I'm Duke. This cat's Johnny D., that Jack over there is Zeke and beside him is Bluejay. Roxy is the fox beside Bluejay, and the shy babe at the back is Rowdy. Welcome to the Atom Cats' Garage."
She gave him a small smile because she was feeling a bit overwhelmed. "Thanks, it…uh…it's impressive." It wasn't tidy in the least, but she firmly believed that how other people chose to keep their homes was their own business. It also wasn't a lie because the place truly was impressive. It was a massive area filled with tools, engine parts, and other bits and bobs. Power armor pieces littered the garage portion of the Red Rocket and a whole frame was parked in a corner.
Sturges went over to examine the frame. "We retired your power armor frame when you hit the road." Zeke piped up. "Rowdy has the rest of the pieces in storage."
"I guess I'll just have to put it back together again." Sturges opened up a metal cabinet to search out the armor pieces.
Roxy stopped Bet a few feet away from the power armor stations. "Sturges, is this doll with it?" She eyed her up and down with doubt in her eyes. "She looks like a cube to me."
Bet struggled to remember some slang that had been referenced in the magazines. "Cool it, I'm hip to the jive, kitty-cat. Can you dig what I'm layin' down?" She was pretty sure she'd read that somewhere and it seemed to ease a bit of Roxy's suspicion. The words felt foreign in her mouth, but it seemed like she'd have to pick up the lingo if she planned to stay for the week.
"If you're hip, then where are your plates?" She questioned her in a doubtful tone of voice.
Thank goodness KL-E-0 had let her work with the power armor back in Goodneighbor, otherwise she'd have no idea what to say. "I'm..er…saving up. Plates cost a car-load of caps."
Zeke patted Roxy on the back. "No need to give this doll the third degree, I've got a good feeling about her." He leaned casually against the garage. "So, what's your tale, nightingale? You here lookin' for a ticket to Fat City?"
"Oh,…you know…I was stuck in Nowheresville for a stretch and I needed some cool cats for company. Too many..uh…too many squares in Nowheresville." She really hoped that what she'd said made some sense to him because she wasn't too sure even she understood the words dropping from her lips.
"I dig it, so like Duke said 'welcome to the garage' an' all that jazz." He hooked his arm under hers. "Let's give Sturges' doll the grand tour, Cats!" He led her around the junkers and into the warehouse. Inside, a jukebox was pumping out tunes from classic rock 'n roll kings like Elvis, Bowie, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis waged a war on a piano in the background as Zeke led her around the first floor. "A classy doll like you probably doesn't play pool, but here at the garage it's just about the only game we bother with besides races." Classy? She looked like she'd been dipped into a mud puddle, dried out and lit on fire, but it was probably just a nicety on his part. "That's it!" He swung around to face the other Atom Cats. "We'll have a power armor race to welcome our favorite cat back into the fold! His doll will set the rules and the prize." He looked at Bet expectantly.
"I'm..n-not..exactly his doll…, but if you really want me to set some stipulations and gift a consolation to the winner I'll do it." She hated being the center of attention and just wanted to blend into the wall, but now everyone was staring at her. She gnawed at her oft-abused lip. "Maybe we should finish the tour, first?"
He grinned widely. "Sure, it'll give ya time to think." He leaned in so that the others couldn't hear. "Would you mind if I made a suggestion? Set the race underwater. I've wanted to do that for ages. Add any other type of handicap you want." Thanking her lucky stars that he'd done half the work for her, Bet allowed the Cats finish out the tour. They showed her a place to fix up her armor and weapons if she needed to do that while she was there, and the upstairs portion of the warehouse where she would stay with the other two girls. Zeke had his own trailer, which he pointed out just in case she needed to speak with him.
At the end of the tour, she'd had enough time to think up her own embellishments to Zeke's proposal. "You'll do the race underwater tonight. You can't use the headlamps on your helmets and you'll each be carrying an engine." Power armor came with a built-in aqualung, so they should be fine for at least an hour. They lined up behind the finish line and prepared to take off. Sturges had bolted his plates back onto his old power armor frame, shoved a spare F.C into the slot, and stepped into it. The paint job on his armor was different from the flame job the others favored; it featured the maw of a shark on the torso. Each of the guys picked up an engine. She took a Nuka-Cola Quantum from her pack and fifty caps for the prize. "Looks good to me, but I think we should go for pinks and spring for a kiss from each of the pretty little dolls in attendance to sweeten the deal." Zeke added when he saw what she intended for the prize.
Bluejay rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh, for the love of-…We all know your game, Zeke. Everyone knows you just want a kiss from Rowdy." He grinned at the tinge of pink his words had brought to his leader's cheeks.
Bet raised her pistol into the air. "If you boys are done gabbing, we have a race to start." Roxy smirked back at them. She nodded at Bet to signal it was time. She squeezed the trigger and let off a shot into the sky. At the crack of the shot, the men were off. Zeke had a lead straight up until they started treading serious water and that was when Johnny D passed him. It was neck and neck for third place; Sturges and Bluejay were hauling ass side by side. Duke was in last place and breathing hard long before he was even neck deep in the water.
"Duke's mostly muscle, but he's never been a runner. I think he's won maybe one race so far." Rowdy said. "He's handy in a fight, though, and super sweet."
Roxy elbowed Rowdy in her side. "Keep running your mouth like that and Zeke might think he has competition. As for you-"She faced Bet. "New girl, don't go thinkin' you're part of the gang just 'cause Zeke approves of you. You gotta earn your spot here. Personally, I don't think you're Atom Cat material. We don't let any Clyde in off the street, but I'll be fair and give you some work. If you impress me, I might have a reward on hand to give you."
"Alright, what did you have in mind?" Bet hoped like hell it was something she could actually do, because it would be nice to have more people she could call friends. They seemed like the right type of people to fall in with, so she was eager to impress them.
"First, get in that garage and show us you actually know how to handle some plates. My power armor was damaged in a fight with some knucklehead Gunners. If you can fix it, I have another job for ya in the works." Roxy ordered. The two Atom Cat chicks started walking her back in the direction of the open garage. "We'll be countin' laps for the boys out here. You should be done by the time the race ends."
Bet swallowed her own self-doubt and determinedly set to work. KL-E-0's help with understanding power armor would hopefully get her through this. Roxy's power armor had been completely dismantled and the first thing she had to do was examine the bare frame. A bullet was lodged in one of the joints, which was easily removed by prying it out with a screwdriver. Next thing she did was make sure all of the joints were lubricated and that the fusion core hadn't been dinged up in the fight. She opened up the suit and got in to check that everything was moving as it should and, once she was satisfied, she hopped back out. She examined the actual plate armor pieces and discovered that the left leg was terribly dented, but it could easily be hammered out. She steadied the leg piece by using a C-clamp to hold it to the workbench. A nearby claw-hammer would work just fine to do the job, so she grabbed it and set to work.
The right leg was not much better off than the left had been; the soldered area that connected one of the hinges had been broken. Endless hours poured over Guns and Bullets mags (as well as her time spent working for KL-E-0) had taught her that power armor fits together like a puzzle piece, and if even one of those pieces is bent or broken it could mess everything up. Power armor plates were partially held in place by popping them on ( bits of more flexible metal on the frame were designed to bend inward to allow the tight plates to snap into place and then pop back into place behind a ridge on the plates to secure them) and secondarily held by aluminum or steel buckles. T-60 buckles were a bit weaker than X-01 buckles because they were made of aluminum and not thin steel. It made them easier and quicker to secure, but also more susceptible to damage if someone knew where to aim. She had to solder the hinge back on, and, as a precautionary measure, checked the buckles on both legs.
The arms weren't so easily fixed. Rowdy had modified them to deliver more powerful unarmed attacks and it took Bet a solid twenty minutes to figure how the hell to fix the shock-absorbing mechanism in the left hand. The spring had been bent somehow, so she'd had to replace it with a spare she'd found atop a cabinet. She wasn't so great when it came to mods because she hadn't had much experience modding out the power armor she'd worked with. Thankfully, common sense and a bit of troubleshooting went a long way. The torso was also modified administer stimpacks automatically from a built-in supply. Stimpacks were loaded into the spring-lock mechanism and a nearby patch of tinier needles led to a miniature monitor in the helmet that kept track of vital signs. Bet grimaced when she saw all of those needles. How could Roxy stand to move around with all of those things sticking her like a pincushion? Sure, it was useful, but it definitely couldn't be comfortable.
Roxy's helmet was the easiest fix of all. All that she needed to do was replace the headlamp. She had just finished gluing the new headlamp in place when she heard the boys outside cheering. She peeked out the door in time to see Johnny D. bounding across the finish line. Duke emerged from the water not a minute later and claimed second place. Zeke was third and Sturges was fourth, but Bluejay was nowhere to be found.
They waited for a while, but Rowdy was feeling anxious. Bluejay should have surfaced in the fifteen minutes that had passed, but there was still no sign of him. "What if he's in trouble?" Roxy wrung her hands worriedly and kept searching the water's surface for evidence of him.
Zeke kept a cool head, but it was obvious he was just as concerned. "Sturges, Johnny D." He pointed to the south to indicate they should search that area. The two nodded solemnly and took off. Zeke walked off in the opposite direction with Duke to begin their half of the search.
Roxy ran up to Bet. "I hope you did a decent job because I'm going down there to help, too." She declared. She didn't even bother to check the suit, but climbed right into her armor and set off into the ocean.
Rowdy assigned herself to be on watch just in case Bluejay somehow came back on his own. Bet was left alone in the garage and forgotten in the chaos. Bluejay had seemed like a nice guy, so she really hoped he was okay. She heard Rowdy pacing around outside and, for a time that was the only sound; until gunshots whistled through the air. Rowdy let out a pained gasp outside.
"Rowdy!" She ran outside to find the greaser girl clutching at her arm, which was bleeding badly. Another handful of shots whizzed by and hit the water. She glanced around in a panic to try to find the whereabouts of the shooter. A bullet bounced off of the chain-link fence with a sound so piercing it made her flinch back. She grabbed ahold of Rowdy's jacket and hauled her back inside the garage; taking care to grab her pack as she ran. A ballistic shower followed close at their heels until they were safe behind the walls of the station.
"Gunners." Rowdy growled as she clutched at her arm in an effort to halt the bleeding. Splatters of her blood hit the concrete where she stood, and Bet started to worry that the bullet had hit something important. "They're always tryin' to get their dirty mitts on our suits. We're gonna have to hold them off until the boys get back."
Bet quickly loaded up a handful of bullets into her pistol's magazine and slid it back in place. "You stay here. I'll do what I can to hold them off." Rowdy attempted to protest, but Bet shut her up with a serious glare. "You're wounded. I can't let you go back out there." Rowdy was growing unsteady on her feet from blood loss and leaned heavily on a cabinet stocked with components. She knew she couldn't go out the way they'd come in, so she snuck out the door of the garage into the station and out of the back door. She took cover behind the shells of cars stacked against the fence.
A gunner was making an attempt to clamber over the gate. She took aim, fired and missed her first shot. He fell off the gate, but jumped back to his feet. She fired again and caught him square on the shoulder. The hit staggered him and gave her time to finish him off with three more shots. She ducked back behind the makeshift shelter to take cover while she reloaded. Gunners could be heard shouting orders to one another in the distance. Metallic pings and sparks flew as they tried to get a shot at her, but her cover held strong. A break in the fire made her chance a peek around the hood of the car and she spotted another gunner that had made the first few steps into the yard. He'd be close enough to take Rowdy out if she let him go any farther, so she took the chance. The bullet hit him in the stomach, but he was wearing combat armor and it didn't faze him at all. He kept getting closer and raised his pistol in the air.
She shot wildly at his raised arm. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she let Rowdy die. Luck favored her and a shot grazed his wrist, which caused him to howl in pain. His distraction gave her an opening she could take adequate advantage of, and she let off several rounds into him before he finally dropped. Dead or merely close to it, she didn't care to check and she ignored him to seek out another gunner.
Peepers the Eyebot dropped to the ground as a bullet found its way through the poor robot's circuitry. Damn, she'd liked that cute little 'bot. "Found you, bitch!" She jumped away from the fence to see that the third gunner had snuck up to the top of the car stack she was hiding behind. This was it. She gritted her teeth and waited for his bullet to blow her brains all over the ground.
"Hey!" She heard a familiar voice shout from the shore. A shot caught the gunner in the back and he toppled forward. He landed right at her feet. When she looked up, she saw Zeke grinning at her from over the fence. They'd returned in full force to drive back the mercenaries.
An unwise merc tried going at Duke with a switchblade, but he simply caught the guy's hand and crushed it in his own. A bullet to the head, and the merc was finished. The rest of the gunners were gradually picked off or ran off, she didn't really see which option it was. She urged Zeke to return to the garage because of Rowdy's situation. He wasted no time in getting there and when they arrived to find Rowdy, pale and sweating on the ground, she swore the guy almost started bawling. "Rowdy…hey…it's gonna be alright." He eased her into his arms and held her tightly like he was afraid she was fading away right before his eyes. They'd have to remove the bullet before they could give her a stimpack, but he wouldn't let anyone get any closer to her.
"Zeke, we need to get the bullet out." Sturges said softly.
"I...I should never have left her." Zeke's shoulders shook a little as he struggled to keep his composure. "Baby, I swear I'll never…I'll never-"
"Zeke, stop it." She pushed him away weakly. "Duke, grab the medkit. Someone get this sappy knucklehead a drink. I'm not dyin' on ya today." Sturges pulled Zeke away, while Duke did as she'd asked.
Bet retrieved a few beers from the icebox and handed them over. Zeke popped the cap off one, but only rolled it sadly between his hands. These men were absolute sweethearts and it broke her heart to see him so cut up about leaving Rowdy alone. She patted his armor-plated shoulder. "Don't blame yourself, Zeke. You didn't know."
"Yeah, besides if anyone's to blame it'd be me." Roxy owned up to leaving with the last suit of power armor. "If I hadn't run off, she would've had a bit more protection."
"Roxy, no…" Bluejay slipped an arm around her. "It's no one's fault. The Gunners have never attacked at night before. We thought we were in the clear. Rowdy's going to be fine and she'll chew us all out if we play the blame game."
Rowdy was, indeed, fine. After Duke helped her fix herself up, she went immediately to bed. Zeke grabbed a chair from downstairs and decided to hold a vigil for her while she rested. Later on in the evening, Roxy approached Bet and took a seat opposite her in the station. "I owe you an apology."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Bet insisted whole-heartedly.
Roxy sighed. "In my defense, you don't come across very well." She gestured at her. "You're short, pale, and scrawny. You look like you're fresh from some cozy little place where people get three meals a day and enjoy functioning showers." The dark-skinned woman leaned on her hand. "Plus, you gave off this, like…aura of square…or something."
Bet arched an eyebrow at her. "Gee, thanks."
Roxy laughed. "Anyway, I'm happy I was wrong. It could have really gone sideways for Rowdy if you hadn't been there."
She picked at her nails to have an excuse to avoid looking the other woman in the eye. "I didn't do anything special. You make it sound like I took on twenty gangsters armed with tommy guns." Dirt was caked under her nails, which were chipped and worn down from her work earlier. "I'm sure Rowdy would've been fine if they hadn't caught her off-guard outside without any armor."
"That's the thing though; you kept her safe until we got back." She stood up and got something from under the counter. It was a leather jacket that matched the one she and the other Atom Cats wore. "The guys and I…well, we talked it over and we decided that you're Atom Cat material." She dropped the jacket into her hands. "Zeke told me to say thanks a lot for saving Rowdy. None of us will forget it."
She smiled widely and slid the jacket on over her tattered t-shirt. "I'd do it again. Speaking of what went down, did Bluejay explain why he was held up?"
Roxy returned her smile and rolled her eyes. "A glowing mirelurk decided to start an underwater wrestling match with him. He was fine, but for some reason those things creep him out."
"Well, they aren't exactly easy on the eyestalks." She joked. "But if you can get past the mandibles...they're still pretty ugly."
Roxy rolled her eyes. "Right, so I wanted to ask you where you learned to handle plates like a pro." She cocked her head questioningly at her, prompting Roxy to elaborate. "When I finally got the time to take a good look at your patch job, I was pretty impressed. So, you gonna spill?"
Bet told her all about her time in Goodneighbor and her previous job there working for KLE0. "KLE0 used to have a guy before me, but he..ah..well, he's not hanging around much these days. She needed a replacement and I needed a job at the time. I still do things from time to time for her when I'm not busy. The best part of running a still is I tend to have plenty of time on my hands."
"You know," Roxy tapped a finger against her chin. "We've been tryin' pretty hard to get people to come around to trade, but ever since the Gunners holed up in Quincy it's been sorta tough. If we gave people a good reason to make the trip…" She trailed off and grinned. "How about we start sellin' your stuff, too? You'd have to talk it over with Zeke first, but after the show you put on I think he'd be willin' to do it."
Bet frowned. "Why don't you guys just try to clear out the Gunners? I'm sure that with your power armor-"
Roxy glanced around nervously and lowered her voice. "Between you an' me, Zeke is still pretty cut up because of the last time we confronted the Gunners. It was around a year and a half ago, back when Sturges was still hangin' around, and the Gunners had only just launched their attack on Quincy. We were trading partners with the people there, plus Sturges had family there, so we decided to lend a hand." She rubbed her face roughly and cleared her throat. Sadness was etched into her expression. "We...lost a Cat in the fight and it messed Zeke up really bad. We Cats are family; i-it was like losing a brother."
"I'm sorry to hear that, now I can understand why you would be hesitant to take them on."
Roxy nodded and sighed heavily. She stared at her lap to help her think of something to fill the growing silence. "So, Sturges was talking about you." She sounded eager to change the subject.
She smiled into the mouth of her Nuka-Cola bottle. "Let me guess; was he complaining about babysitting me on our trip here?"
"No way!" Roxy grinned. "He told us you got yourself a piece on the radio. The boys wanted to hear it, so they're fixing Peepers right now. Peepers was the only way we could listen to Diamond City Radio. That station's reach is really shit."
They both heard footsteps approaching and stood to see Bluejay running out towards them. Bet's hand went for her gun. "More Gunners?" She asked quickly.
He shook his head. "We fixed Peepers, so the guys sent me to get you two so we can listen to the broadcast."
She kept her lack of enthusiasm for herself. There was no reason to be a spoilsport for the others just because she had a problem with it. She wondered why Sturges, who knew she hated it, would bring it up to them. She had no idea why everyone was making such a big deal out of it. After all, people had run-ins with super mutants all the time; why did this escapade make all the difference?
Travis's voice echoed loudly off the walls of the warehouse; they'd turned the volume up to hear it better. "Hope you liked that last number, folks. Now, here's a story I've been asked to re-tell…oh, I don't know how many times, but it never gets old." He definitely sounded a lot smoother over the radio than in person. "Nearly everyone who owns a functional radio has heard by now about Mayor Miller's run-in with super mutants. Almost as many have heard that a ghoul had a hand in her rescue, too. However, it wasn't just any ghoul; the mayor of Goodneighbor himself saved her bacon. While the infamous Hancock is, indeed, impressive, he didn't do it alone. No, folks. He rounded himself up a ragtag posse and, believe it or not, yours truly was a part of the action. You see, Hancock asked me and two others on what we all thought would be a suicide mission into greenie territory." Marie took a seat at the bar beside Zeke while Bluejay pulled up a chair across the room. Roxy leaned up against the wall and kept her eye on the robot. "Now, some may ask why he didn't take his ol' buddy the lady General along for the ride. After all, she's started and finished her own fair share of fights. Well, I'm sad to say she was badly hurt in the greenies' attack on Diamond City that started this chain of events and she is, as of now, in thankfully stable condition. At this time, I'd like to interject a comment on behalf of Nick Valentine because so many of you seem concerned about her well-being. He has asked me to request that any and all visitations be limited between twelve and five pm, as well as to ask whoever keeps sending in the gift baskets to kindly stop. Thank you for that, Mr. Valentine, and now back to the story."
"Is this Clyde ever gonna get to the good part?" Johnny D. griped.
"Chill out, a real storyteller has got to build the suspense." Zeke leaned forward eagerly. "Besides, the kid finally had an experience that put some hair on his chest, so lighten up a little."
"Most of us in Diamond City know Danny Sullivan, but for those of you that don't; he's only been a guard here for a short time now. However, I think most people would agree with me when I say that the Great Green Jewel should count itself lucky to have such a person. A person, who, without any thought to personal safety, immediately went after the mutants who kidnapped our mayor. So, now I've introduced all of those involved save for one. Who is that one? Why, none other than the fearless female I've taken to calling 'The Bootlegger'!"
"Bootlegger? What the hell kind of nickname is that?" Rowdy chuckled and they all stared at Bet, who was redder than a tato. Why did Sturges have to tell them? She pulled her fedora down over her face and said nothing.
"Until recently, she was nobody special; just like you and me. Bootlegger, a good friend of Hancock and the Lady General, operates out of Goodneighbor selling her fine as wine moonshine. I've heard tell she'd give our Bobrov brothers a run for their money, but I'll leave that up to you. Though, I can say that her homemade liquid courage must be distilled from her very own character."
"Okay, that was a good line." Rowdy admitted.
Travis continued on recounting their story with great detail and expert inflection. When it was over, he laughed into the mic and said. "Now, let's play a song that reminds me of a certain firecracker in a fedora. Here's 'Atom Bomb Baby'."
She thanked the stars that it was finally over and sighed out of relief. "Aw, she's hiding. Babe, why didn't ya tell us you're famous?" Zeke teased.
"No, not 'babe'." Duke chuckled. "It's 'Bootlegger', remember?"
"Why, Sturges? Why?" She groaned and struggled to find some way to fit her whole body into her hat. Sadly, one poor fedora cannot hide an entire person and she made do by slumping down on the bar.
"Sorry, it just kind of slipped out when I was telling Zeke what I'd been up to." Sturges didn't sound very apologetic. In fact, he sounded more than a little amused.
"You're almost as bad as Hancock." She snapped back, though the harsh tone was muffled by her attempt to become one with the countertop. "He'll carve that damn nickname on my tombstone, I swear to everything that is holy." While the Atom Cats enjoyed their laugh at her expense, Bet hopped off the barstool and decided to take a walk. She would have preferred that Sturges hadn't embarrassed her like that, but she couldn't find it in her to be truly angry; only mildly annoyed and upset.
Rowdy watched her leave and elbowed Zeke hard. "Hey, I think we might've actually hurt the new girl's feelings."
Sturges admittedly felt a bit bad; he'd known full well how much that nickname and the broadcast bugged her. "I'll go get her." He jogged after her. He searched the scrapyard for her, but suddenly heard a shriek of terror and saw her pointing her gun at a cowering figure behind a coolant pump. A dog, mangy and limping, had approached her. It had an odd look, as if it were glaring at them both. It glanced up at Sturges and took a few steps back, and growled in warning. Bet scrambled back from it, clearly unnerved by the glowing ghoul mongrel, and stumbled backward onto the ground. "Did it hurt you?" He asked her, but she still kept her eyes locked on the dog. She didn't speak at all, in fact, she just kept her eyes locked on the dog. She shook her head wildly, but didn't lower her pistol. Sturges noticed that one of its front paws was bleeding.
"We heard a scream." Rowdy said as the others came running out to see what the matter was.
The dog growled and tried to back further away, but stumbled and had to put weight on its bad paw. It whimpered loudly and lay down. "It's hurt." Bet took a handful of hesitant steps toward the ghoul mutt.. "It looks like a gunshot from here. Those gunners must be shooting at strays for kicks." She didn't dare to get any closer; wounded and cornered animals were often the most dangerous kind of animals.
"We can't just kill the poor thing." Roxy said sympathetically. She picked up a long, narrow pipe and pulled a syringe of Med-X out of the medkit resting in the widow of the station. "We'll give it a shot to send it to sleep, clean its wounds, and give it a stimpack. After that, we'll see if it's too feral to tame or not; it'd be good to have a guard dog around."
Bet, despite her misgivings, stared at the poor thing's wounded paw and her heart gave a pang of sympathy. "Those Gunner bastards…" She shot a nasty look in the direction of Quincy. She held out her hand to the pooch. "It's okay, buddy. We got you…yeah…we're gonna help you, okay?" She inched closer, but took a step back each time the ghoul dog growled at her.
"Hey, I don't think that's such a good idea." Roxy warned her. "Let me get a sedative in him first…hey! Are you listening to me?!"
Bet really wasn't listening at all. She didn't have a suitable container for food, so she just grabbed a couple of old tin cans and set them in front of her. She took off back to the garage and returned with her pack in hand. She fished out a container of ground mole rat and a can of purified water; both of which she dumped into the cans. She stepped cautiously back from the food to watch what the dog would do.
The glowing mutt crawled forward slowly and kept a suspicious eye on them before it fell on the food as if it had never eaten before. The food was gone in seconds and the mongrel backed right off, but Bet urged him quietly to come back. She held her hand out, but just before the mutt went to sniff her fingers Roxy blew the syringe of Med-X through the pipe and hit it right on the side. The dog howled and tried to nip at Bet, who withdrew her hand just in time to keep her fingertips. It staggered and swayed for a while before it finally collapsed to the ground in a deep sleep
Roxy and Duke took the injured dog into the garage to take care of the poor thing. When they returned, Rowdy was slightly blood-splattered, but smiling as she held out her hand. Nestled there in her palm were several bullet fragments. "He had more bullet holes in her than we originally thought, but he made it through the surgery just fine. The Med-X and Calmex mix I used has knocked him out for the moment."
"That's….uh….good..I guess. Can…can I..see him?" She asked curiously. She'd never seen a dog that hadn't tried to rip her throat out. Plus, she had to admit that the dog would be an enormous asset if they could get it to trust them.
Sturges scratched the back of his neck. "Is that such a good idea?
She bit her lip. "I don't want to get really close. I just want to check on him." The animal was heavily tranquilized and probably unable to attack. She stood a few feet away from the open door and cautiously peered inside.
The stray was laid out on a work table and breathing evenly. Its ears barely twitched to acknowledge her presence. Its eyes opened to narrow slits. A hand on her back broke her focus on the dog; Sturges met her concerned gaze and took the next step with her. He guided her closer until they stood only an arm's length from the half-asleep canine. "You good?" He asked. She nodded because her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. They stood there for a while watching the dog doze.
"How could someone do this?" Her voice was hoarse with emotion. Overwhelmed by her heartfelt sympathy for the poor animal, Bet could neither move nor speak. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides repeatedly. Her vision was becoming a bit blurry. "She doesn't look so hot." Duke's voice resounded like an echo in her head. Her face was cold and her lungs burned as she fought to take another breath. Suddenly, the world tilted and grew black.
"She fainted!" Sturges had managed to catch her before she hit the floor. He scooped her up and carried her outside. Duke pumped a bit of water onto a washcloth and wrung it out on to her face. She spluttered and came to almost immediately. She gasped and choked on nothing, except her own surprise.
"Next time, maybe we shouldn't let her get herself so worked up." Bet blinked the water out of her eyes. Rowdy, Duke and Sturges' faces swam in front of her eyes until she was able to properly focus. A lurch in her stomach forced her to turn to the side and retch. When she was able, she pulled herself to her feet and dragged her body to the water pump. She washed her mouth out and splashed more water on her face.
Over the next day or so, Bet forced herself to visit the glowing dog a handful of times. It slowly became easier to get closer until she didn't even feel the need to sedate it beforehand. She felt sorry for him, especially considering the mutt had turned out to be a gentle thing. Rowdy or one of the others most often accompanied her on these visits, but she finally mustered up the gumption to go alone. Her fingers had gone white from her grip on the can of dog food as she dumped it into a bowl and offered it up.
The dog eyed her warily, but accepted the food and gulped it down in a flash. It was able to put a little weight on its paw at this point and it dared to limp closer. "Easy boy…" Bet forced herself not to withdraw and show fear. Her hand felt like a lump of lead when she tentatively reached out in the dog's direction. "Come?"
The dog sniffed in her direction and huffed at her impatiently. Its boney tail twitched, and it opened its maw to yawn at her. She got the feeling it was waiting for her to do something. "Come?" She steeled herself for it to lunge, but the expected attack didn't occur. She opened one eye a crack and saw the dog stretching out on the floor. It circled a couple of times before settling down into a ball to snore. "Are you ignoring me?" She couldn't help being slightly offended. The dog blinked lazily at her and yawned again before tucking its tail over its snout.
The mutt had clearly ascertained her threat level to be non-existent and was now sleeping soundly only a couple of feet away. Bet slid down the wall of the garage and wrapped her arms around her knees. "If you're going to stay, you'll need a name." She looked around and spotted something on the ground that gave her an idea.