Chapter 10: Ad Quad Damnum
Part 1: According to the harm; Implies the reward or penalty ought to correspond to the damage suffered or inflicted.
Being back in Lexington had Garv's senses on high alert. Well, higher than usual. Jared had to have known they had survived Concord and been in Lexington - he had to. Now they were planning on assaulting his base. His home. He'd lost some of his men, but he'd had plenty more.
They had decided against bringing the dog, or the power armour - both would be too much of a giveaway. What frustrated Garv more than the ruins or Vaultie's chipper attitude on the way here now that she assumed everything was fixed between them - it fucking wasn't - was the fact they could not find the promised tunnel. Hell, he was sure at this point it didn't exist. The old lady was off her face on drugs - psychic or not, he had an inclination not to believe her and couldn't honestly believe his two companions did.
'I say we take the loading ramp.' He said after their third skirt around the massive facility - it was massive - and it would house the whole gang better than Libertalia ever could. Thick walls, resources, it was on the edge of the caravan trading routes - if they played it right, they'd be kings. 'Take out a few people, observe from one of the scaffolds -'
'The tunnel would be the safest. Mama Murphy said it was mostly unguarded-' Vaultie began.
'She was stoned out of her gourd!' He snapped. 'It might all be a figment of her imagination.' Relying on some wasted granny's "visions" would get them killed rather than help them and Garv did not survive this long to die at the whims of some Jetted out old bat.
'One more sweep, Garv?' Vaultie begged him.
'We don't even know it's around here!' Garv warned.
'Well, I'm game if you are.' Sturges chipped in. Garv crossed his arms and glared. Since they'd bumped into Vaultie, Sturges had begun to take her side more and more. He didn't know why, either, and he didn't like it. It would only last a little longer, though. They do this, and go their separate ways. She would no longer be his problem and Sturges would revert back to being Sturges. His friend.
'You two can do another pointless search, but I'm staying right he-' He went to lean against a piece of concrete, his foot shifted on a pile of decayed crap and Garv felt himself fall unexpectedly. 'Fucking - fuck!' It was hardly eloquent, but it conveyed his sentiments perfectly.
Sturges and Vaultie peered into the semi-gloom of the overlarge tunnel he'd fallen into. If Garv's ass wasn't soaking wet and in so much pain, he'd have cursed the look of bright expectation on Vaultie's face.
'Whaddaya know? Garv went and found it for us.' Sturges smirked.
Garv cursed all handymen to the pits of hell as he pulled himself up and out into the open world again. The whole back of his leathers were soaked, as was his hat. The tunnel-water smelled like Mirelurk and filth. If he wasn't in a bad mood before, he was now. Though, he had to admit, from the outside you could hardly see the pipe - it had rusted brown and was covered in mutated vines. It had almost rusted down to the concrete, too. The inside was barely big enough to walk in, provided you didn't mind walking kinked at the waist.
So what if the pipe was real, that didn't mean anything else the old fraud said was true.
The pipe stank and was almost pitch black as they moved further away from the entrance of vines but since Garv was the one that was most proficient with weapons - Vaultie being a newbie and Sturges being more handyman than cowboy - he was the one leading them. The tunnel only stretched out for another minute.
What he wasn't expecting at the end was a feral graveyard and an automated turret. It locked onto him immediately and fired rounds into the rust of the pipe.
'Shit!' Garv swore and plastered himself against the rounded side. Vaultie launched out of the pipe immediately, before he had a chance to grab onto that blue suit of hers and disappeared.
That was that, then. She was dead. What a lot of help she'd bee-
The turret shut down.
What? Suspiciously, Garv poked his head out of the tunnel, waiting for it to spool up again and start attacking, but it hung there, limply.
'What'd that girl do?' Sturges wondered as he crawled along beside Garv.
He didn't know.
They gently stepped over the bodies of the ferals just in case one wasn't quite as dead as it looked - Ferals could take a beating - and moved further into the room.
There was a small office space to the left and Vaultie was standing in the doorway smiling. A hacked computer sat just behind her on an old, battered desk. 'I saw the cable.'
Garv and Sturges glanced to the floor. In the mass of feral bodies, they could barely make out the thick black wire that gave it power.
She could have been shot, she could have been killed if the turret wasn't wholly focused on killing Garv first.
'It had to have something powering it, right?' She smiled.
'That it does!' Sturges replied.
Atom on a spit-roast. Could their pat-on-the-back pow-wow get any worse? The woman was lucky she didn't get a round to the back of the head.
'How the hell did you know it wouldn't lock on to you?' He demanded suspiciously.
She gave his angry, vehement face a bemused look. 'There was a court case a few years ago about it. A few years for me - anyway. The military were unhappy the Mk 1's had a propensity to fixate on one target. The manufacturers were sued and promised to pull that code in the Mk 2 and beyond. We had a class on it.'
He supposed they were lucky it was a Mk 1, then. The Mk 2's would not have been so forgiving. He wouldn't say she was smarter than him - brawn only got you so far in this world without brains, after all - but the high and mighty, almost flippant way she brushed off his demand made him furious. He'd already been riled up plenty by the stupidity of her actions without even consulting him.
'Lets just get this done.' Garv snapped and avoided the hurt look on her face. He turned and began a slow, calculated walk down the corridor, careful to avoid jangling the cans that hung down from the ceiling. Sturges did the same. They both watched Vaultie flail to avoid making the cans jangle as she passed them. Garv shook his head. Why had he thought that bringing Vaultie here was a good idea? It was almost as if the duel with the Deathclaw that she had walked away from had been pure luck.
The pipes continued upward.
'Watch your footing.' Garv warned. He wouldn't put it past Jared to rely on a little more than a simple mk 1 turret. There could be grenade bouquets, scale bombs - even mounted hair-trigger shotguns.
There were an almost infinite number of ways simple things could be turned into traps but if you were smart - and careful - it was possible you'd be able to get by them all without setting one off, tipping off the patrols or both and avoiding loss of life and/or limb.
All three paused at the sound of footsteps. Two sets of footsteps. Sturges pushed a hand in front of Vaultie's Firecracker. The sound of a badly aimed shotgun could attract more ferals or more patrols, each one as bad as the other.
By comparison, a laser musket hardly made any sound at all.
Sturges pushed her back against the wall and planted his feet as Garv did the same on the other side. 'Hey,' He drawled as the footsteps got louder. 'This remind you of something?'
'Firing squad.' Garv answered.
The two people in patrol rounded the corner, following the pipe only to spot Garv and Sturges spooled up and ready for them. They hardly got in more than 'What the-' before they were disintegrated. The sounds the lasers made as they hit and turned their targets to ash bounced around the pipe but faded after a few seconds. Sound leaked in from above after a few seconds, all three listened.
'What the fuck was that?' Someone demanded.
'It was nothing.' Came the reply. 'Probably the turret tearing up ferals.'
Sturges and Garv grinned at each other. Two down - a few dozen more to go.
Garv could hear patrols moving around. Voices echoing off the high walls. After that seemingly strange noise and a sudden burst of paranoia, it seemed everything had gone back to normal.
Black mark against Jared right there. Garv would never be stupid enough to dismiss a strange sound and he wouldn't have let people who worked for him get away with it either.
They ascended up the stairs and arrived at some sort of workshop room, off the main factory. There had to be somewhere where you did maintenance, right?
There were spotlights sweeping the stairs.
Shit. No way were they going up there without someone seeing them. Garv could hear the movement on the other side of the wall. Could count every clanging footstep as booted feet moved over metal. At least four people patrolling the grated floors up there.
How were they going to play this?
He saw the oil on the floor - the combustible materials everywhere.
Suddenly, he knew how they were going to play this. Just like Super Duper Mart. He pulled back as another spotlight swept over the doorway he'd been lurking in and caught Vaultie and Sturges' eyes. 'You still have that tiny piece, Vaultie?'
Thea blinked in surprise. 'The 10mm? Yeah.'
'Good. Alright, here's what we're going to do.' He whispered. 'We're going to take out the spotlights. That should get their attention. We're going to pull them into the workshop.'
'Which is covered in oil.' Sturges chipped in with a surprised look on his face. 'Worked for the ghouls, but raiders're smarter.'
'Not when they're on fire, they're not.' Garv replied. 'People're just as dumb and as panicky as ferals when they're burning.'
Vaultie looked decidedly uneasy at the idea of burning people alive. 'Isn't there some other way to-'
'Not without attracting a lot more attention and taking a lot more bullets.' Garv frowned. 'You weren't complaining about it in the supermarket.'
'We didn't have a choice, then!' She replied and squirmed uncomfortably.
'We had a deal.' Garv reminded her. 'You help us clear Corvega, we'll take you to Diamond City. You know what clearing Corvega means?'
'Killing Jared.'
'Killing people.'
A/N: Guest - He will always be our Precious Preston ™ he's just taking a while to get to boyscout mode again :) Vaultie will help him though!
It's been a while, peeps! Have 2000 words and all my love for raider!Garv. Also working on an expanded AUniverse because I cannot stop playing with this thing now. Anyone up for some Mobster Nick, some Conspiracy Theorist Piper or vigilante by night Hancock? I know I am!