MacCready slams the door, then proceeds to barricade it with the dusty crates laying about. "Well help me," he yells at the woman standing off to the side catching her breath.
She jumps into action without another thought, building a protective wall in front of the old door.
"Were they following us," she asks, stepping back to survey their meager protection.
"Call me paranoid, but I'm not taking any chances," he tells her heading to off to the warmly glowing fire.
The young woman shrugs, following him to the fireside.
The both of them make a beeline for their clothing in hopes of redressing properly.
She holds her Pip-Boy out toward her jumpsuit, hearing no clicking. "Wow, these suits dry fast." She slings it over her shoulder, finding a dark shadow behind a large stack of crates to change.
The mercenary runs his hands over his slacks and coat finding the material still damp. Even his favorite hat hasn't half-dried in the fire. The only articles he finds wearable are his scarf, boots, and miscellaneous leg and harness armaments, with which he puts on gladly. He pulls over a nearby derelict crate to sit and tie his boots.
"That tape you found," the woman says, coming out from behind the crates adjusting the Velcro on her collar. "Can I see it?"
He fishes it from his pocket flinging it in her direction before getting back to his boot lacing.
The Survivor turns it over in her hands, comparing it to the other she found on the Institute corpse. "They're identical. Except for the handwriting." Since her friend's tape reads as one of three, she pops his into her Pip-Boy first, listening carefully to the muddled audio entry:
"There are stories out of Washington D.C. that the water is the cleanest in all the Commonwealth Nations. People for hundreds of miles come to the outskirts of the city just to drink it. Three made the trip all the way to the border to take the first drink. He sent for us later, and we tested it in every way we could imagine. Two collected the data and started extrapolating the math from our theories. I hired a bodyguard to take me to the place where most say the water began to clean itself. I spent hours scouring the top parts of the rubble before finding massive hot spots of radiation. Too bad the computers near the original site were buried too far down, the information would have been useful, even in pieces. The question still remains though, if they did it in D.C. with their meager resources, why not here where we are the strongest? I must bring this to the attention of Father, he may know what to do."
A map flicks on the screen of her wrist computer as the holotape clicks off.
She studies the map with her usual intense focus, remembering something useful. "Hey, MacCready."
"Need something," he asks, strapping his miniature satchel to his left thigh.
"You said you were from Little Lamplight." She pulls up a wood box beside him, showing him the map on her screen. "Where exactly is it in D.C.?"
The young man eyeballs the mostly foreign symbols, tucking the ends of his scarf into the folds of his leather jacket. "That eighty-seven," he points at the fluorescent green number on the screen. "I'm from just outside there."
"Do you know where any of these other places are?" She fiddles with the rolling switches, moving around the map.
"I remember Big Town wasn't too far from Little Lamplight. Other than that, I didn't exactly get out much."
The Sole Survivor sighs, moving on to tape three.
"Father and the Director both want the full results destroyed. They say keeping this information is dangerous to those who have no schooling in the sciences or the proper facilities. The three of us have nearly recreated what we think was the process of water cleansing all those years ago with only the most basic of equipment at our disposal hundreds of miles from the surface town of Boston. How could they say that and expect us to believe it when we have the proof right here?! When we try to expand to the surface some day again, what about all the irradiated water on the surface? If we can convince the Surface dwellers that we are benevolent, another 'University Point incident' doesn't have to come to pass. They may even learn to accept us and the Synths in time. For that to happen, someone somewhere has to make the first gesture of peace. It's been decided between the three of us, we leave for the surface and never look back. Perhaps we can succeed where the Director's would not."
As the audio clicks off, a list of what seems to be titles relating to their water conundrum pops up.
"They must have been the bodies in the next room," MacCready surmises. "And the Synths. They must be looking for this project of theirs."
His employer mutters her agreement, reading through the graphs and complicated mathematical theories in the form of simplified charts with annotations. "This explains the oceans and lakes being clean, but not any residential water." She becomes absorbed with the other charts.
MacCready feels his stomach growl and churn from the lack of food. "Got any food," he queries, feeling through the junk in his own inventory sack. Finding nothing, he eyes her bag next, asking the same question.
The Survivor keeps her attention on reading.
"I just love these one-sided conversations," he snarks, reaching into her bag anyway. The young man comes away with a box and can of food for each of them. "Do you ever stop and eat?" He puts a box of Salisbury steak in her lap.
The woman turns her attentions from the screen to the food, wrinkling her nose at the thought of her every bite setting off her Geiger counter. Despite her distaste for radiation, her stomach also demands she nourish herself. The Vaultee swallows her pride, and her two hundred year old pre-packaged food.
"You know," her companion points out as he cracks open a can of Cram. "I'm more surprised the Brotherhood hasn't tried to take this 'Free Water' thing from here."
She swallows, ignoring the tick of her Pip-Boy. "Maybe they don't know what to look for. This information isn't exactly Pre-War."
"Well yeah, but it's still a big deal, having clear water." He notices she's like Curie when it comes to all the science floating around the Boston Wasteland, she always get in the last word because she thinks she knows everything, which to him isn't the greatest of feats. "You think they would look for stuff like this."
"If they're anything like Danse, they spend most of their time picking through the old things instead of building new things." Talking about her life in the past tense always seems to strike an illusive raw nerve, and right now is no exception.
"I just realized something." A smug grin curls the corner of his lip. "We should sit together more often." MacCready wraps an arm around her waist. "I like having you close."
"You're hitting on me," she uncomfortably tells him. "In the middle of an enemy-infested warehouse."
The slight wrinkle forming in his brow adds to his frustration. "How many times have you flirted with me out in the open?"
The young woman blushes every so slightly, avoiding eye contact. "I was tactful about it. You're just..." She chooses her words carefully. "More subtle about it."
The mercenary chuckles, withdrawing his arm. "You really are from another time." He shovels more food into his mouth. "Next you're gonna tell me we're not together because we haven't kissed yet."
The young lady realizes he was talking in jest, but the implication upsets her. "And what's wrong with trying to be proper?"
Her almost indecently modest customs shocks him. "You actually believe that crap?"
"You know that foot in your mouth," the cutting sarcasm she especially reserves for Danse is now being aimed at him. "It looks like you're going to swallow it whole." Angrily, the lady picks up her crate and moves it to the opposite side of the fire.
A loud clang from above draws their attention upward. They draw their borrowed rifles in unison, keeping their eyes trained up.
"We'll save this fight for later," the young woman tells him, searching for a way up to the second level railings overlooking the warehouse floor. "Let's find some stairs."
