Greentop

Sunlight streamed through the cracks in the wood-paneled wall of the Greentop Medical Clinic. The light fell across the top of a battered gray storage cabinet, a table full of meds and instruments, and the only bed with a patient in it. Shifting under his sheet and blanket, Declan squinted and raised his hand to ward off the offending light. His head felt fuzzy and his mouth dry.

As his eyes slowly adjusted, the items around him came into focus. There was a tray with some basic medical supplies at his bedside. He eyed the scissors and the partially spent stimpack and then looked down at his injured hand. His bloodied bandana was gone—replaced with a loose wrapping. Underneath, he could see more than a dozen stitches holding the red, irritated skin of his hand together. Then he noticed the IV line. Following it up with his eyes, he found a bag of RadAway hanging on a hook above his bed. Most of the orange liquid in it was already gone, leading Declan to wonder just how long he'd been at this makeshift medical facility. How did he even get there?

"Hey folks, this is Travis 'Lonely' Miles here, bringing you the type of news you just don't hear everyday. The details are a bit sketchy, but word from the Minutemen is that the Brotherhood of Steel has lost one of their Squires. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a Squire is like a child apprentice or, I guess, soldier. I couldn't imagine this is really the type of thing the Brotherhood would want getting out, but if they've enlisted the help of the Minutemen, then things must be serious. If you're in the Malden River area, keep an eye out for a twelve year old boy who might be out there wandering around all alone. If you have any information about his whereabouts, don't hesitate to go to the nearest Minuteman and let them know. I sure hope he's okay..."

Declan listened to the radio broadcast. They were talking about him. The Brotherhood had contacted the Minutemen? Would he be in trouble? He hoped not, although he couldn't imagine that Elder Maxson or Captain Kells would be very happy to hear that radio announcement.

"So, like, are you that kid that everyone in the Commonwealth is out looking for?"

Declan looked over to see a dark-haired settler leaned up against a medical table. He couldn't see past the settler's sunglasses, but he could tell the man was staring straight at him and it made him a little uncomfortable.

"Yes sir, I am," Declan answered.

The man smirked. "You sure know how to make an entrance."

"Wh-what do you mean?" he asked. He could barely focus on now, he certainly couldn't remember how he got there.

"What do I mean?" the settler chuckled and then paused just long enough to take a drag from his cigarette. "You're out there travelin' with the Mysterious Stranger and you don't think that's at least a little bit interesting?"

"The Mysterious—" The man in the trenchcoat! "He shot at that feral that was after me." All of those times he thought he was being watched, that time he saw someone out of the corner of his eye...

"Yes, well, he also carried you to the front gate and left you where the guard would see you-" a thin, silver-haired man in a white coat interrupted his thoughts. "Doc Pike," he introduced himself to Declan. "And Deacon, if I've told you once I've told you ten times, stop smoking in my clinic." The plaid-clad settler grinned mischievously as he adjusted his sunglasses and leaned over so he could flick his cigarette out the door. Pike paused to watch him. "And if you burn down this settlement..."

"Geez, don't worry," Deacon laughed it off. "Everything's wet."

Declan licked his lips. "What happened to the Mysterious Stranger?"

"Don't know," the doctor replied. "To hear the guard tell it, he just vanished."

"He popped a Stealth Boy and bugged out," Deacon grinned. "Or did he? He could've been watching us the entire time we were cutting you open."

Doc Pike gave him an exasperated look. "Oh don't be ridiculous. The dogs would've alerted us."

Declan watched them go back and forth uneasily. "You guys cut me open?"

Pike glared at Deacon. "And now you've scared the boy," he scolded him. "I had to make a few incisions to aid in the removal of the maggots in your leg. One of them had embedded itself quite deep into the muscle."

Deacon and Declan both made unpleasant faces.

"Now who's scaring him?" Deacon shuddered.

"It is a very real and unfortunate hazard in the Commonwealth," Pike dismissed him as he moved Declan's sheet and blanket aside and peeled back the bandages on his leg. "Hand me the partially used stimpack on the table, I think he can handle the rest of the shot."

"Will do."

Declan watched the settlement doctor as he checked on his injuries and removed some of his bandages. "What all did you have to do?" Now that he could see the damage to his leg, he was suddenly very aware that he was wearing nothing but his underwear and only had a patched sheet and blanket to cover himself up with.

"Well, we had to flush out the wounds on your hand and extract the bloatfly maggots from your leg before we could stimpack you," Pike replied as he pulled his glasses onto his face and examined a place on the side of Declan's neck and face. "Technically, I suppose we didn't have to, but it really aides in the healing process and helps minimize scarring." He leaned back and smiled. "No one will ever be able to tell those burns were ever there." He handed Declan a fancy little mirror, and Declan turned his head to look at the side of his face. The Doc wasn't lying about his burns, but Declan couldn't get over how pale his face looked, or how dark the skin was under his eyes. "Then I loosely stitched your wounds to encourage the way I wanted the tissue to grow back together and I administered the first half of the stimpack to the deepest of your damaged tissue." Pike removed his IV and pulled the empty RadAway bag off the wall. "Normally I would've given a child your size an entire stimpack, but with your level of dehydration and the number of other medications I had you on, I opted to err on the side of caution."

Deacon stood waiting with the requested stimpack in one hand and a lounge shirt in the other. Pike took the stimpack but Declan hesitated to take the shirt. "Hey, it was with your stuff so I assumed it was yours."

Declan took the shirt and pulled it on. It was comically large on him, and he wrapped it around himself as Pike removed the last of his bandages and readied the stimpack.

"This should help your body finish healing its wounds. Don't worry, you're not going to feel a thing."

Despite being familiar with stimpacks, the sight of the large needle still made Declan cringe. Turning toward Deacon, he buried his face in his shirt and slid an arm around his waist when the doctor leaned in.

"This is familiar," Deacon announced as he placed an arm around Declan's shoulders.

"Wha?" Declan started to ask but stopped when he felt Pike touch his leg. He held his breath, waiting for the stinging sensation that was sure to follow, but all he felt was a little bit of pressure. He tightened his hold around Deacon's waist and kept his eyes tightly closed as he waited.

"When you first arrived here you grabbed onto him and you didn't let go until we pumped you full of Med-X." Pike moved around the small clinic, cleaning up. "I've already administered the rest of the stimpack, boy."

Declan loosened his grip and pulled away from Deacon. He looked around, not entirely believing the doctor.

"Med-X is some powerful stuff," Deacon said with a grin.

"Alright, as soon as you're up to it, you need to get up and move around," Pike informed him. "Your muscles have been through a significant amount of trauma, the last thing you want is them cramping up after they've been rapidly repaired. Also, between the stimpack and the RadAway, you're going to end up dehydrated again if you don't drink enough. Make sure you drink as much as you need. Actually, drink more than you think you need."

"My mouth is really dry," Declan admitted.

"I'm not surprised. I'll have someone bring you something. Take it easy," he added as an afterthought, "and I'll remove those stitches before you leave."

Declan watched as the doctor removed his coat and hung it on a nail sticking out of the wall. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I have been up since the Mysterious Stranger left you at our gate. I am going to go sleep until someone comes to get you and inevitably has a dozen questions they want to ask about your treatment. Remember to drink."

"I will," Declan assured him. "Thank you."

Pike smiled. "Thank me by staying out of trouble."

Moments after the doctor left, a ghoul wearing a Minuteman uniform came in. He brought a mug of water with him. Declan stiffened and sat up a bit straighter. Deacon took a seat in a corner chair and crossed his arms.

"I see you still don't like ghouls," the ghoul stated as he offered Declan the water. Declan opened his mouth to speak but the Minuteman didn't let him. "Don't waste your breath kid, I heard all about what an abomination I was while you were drugged up and fighting us in your delirium this morning."

Declan looked down at his lap, not sure if he was more frightened or mortified.

"Believe me, after 200 years a ghoul gets used to it. Here, drink up."

Declan looked up just enough to see the coffee mug. Reaching out a trembling hand, he took it.

"Are you afraid of me?" the ghoul asked. "I promise I won't bite."

Declan closed his eyes and started quietly crying. He spilled some of the water on the edge of his bed as he tried to sit the mug down so he could cover his face.

"Look what you did," Deacon accused.

"No, no kid! Don't cry! I said I wouldn't bite."

"He was attacked by ferals," Deacon scolded.

"Oh, kid, I'm so sorry. I mean it, really." He tentatively placed a hand on Declan's shoulder but then thought better of it. "I'm one of the good guys. I've been out there tryin' to keep people safe from things like the ferals for over 200 years."

Declan sat very stiffly but his thirst was a strong motivator. Lowering his hands to wipe the tears off of his face, he reached out his still trembling hand and picked the coffee mug back up. He held it tensely between his hands. "You're prewar," he whispered, studying the mug and still not looking at the ghoul.

"I was thirty-four when the bombs started droppin'," the ghoul said as he pulled a chair over and sat on it. He grimaced a bit as he propped his feet up on the foot of Declan's bed. "Had myself one of those suits of armor... back when a fusion core would last damn near an entire deployment—longer if you didn't see much action. I don't know how the Brotherhood keeps all those sets of armor goin' on such limited capacity cores."

Declan looked up and made eye contact with him for the first time. He had surprisingly blue eyes, even if they were a bit hazed over from radiation, ghoulification, or whatever chems he currently used. They were nothing like the feral ghoul's eyes—they were soft and friendly...they were disarming. "I never really thought about it."

The ghoul grinned. "Chip Carpenter," he introduced himself. "149th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade of the U.S. Army."

"Declan Ashley," he said quietly. "...Named for both of my parents."

"I like that," the ghoul smiled.

Declan focused his gaze on his water, bringing the mug up to his lips and taking a drink. He got choked up when the liquid hit his parched throat. He coughed for a few moments before chancing a second drink. "What was it like before the bombs fell?"

Chip sighed and sat quiet for a few moments. He stared distantly at a little metal trinket woven into the laces of his boots. Declan followed his gaze and squinted as the battered, little, bronze star came into focus—the significance lost on him. He looked back up and chanced making eye contact with the weathered old ghoul. "It was like nothin' you'll ever experience in your life. Clean, comfortable little houses, beautiful, manicured yards, you didn't have to hunt, farm, or purify your water...You could walk outside and not pack a weapon. The wildlife was generally non-hostile, there were no raiders or super mutants, certainly no deathclaws or ghouls. Just regular people everywhere, livin' in their cute little communities, hopin' the government would be smart enough not to get them blown up."

"We know how that turned out," Deacon said under his breath.

"What was that like?" Declan asked. "When the bombs fell?"

There was an uneasy pause. "One of the scariest days of my life."

Declan's grip on his mug tightened. "It wasn't the scariest?"

Chip shook his head. "I was on leave from a deployment. I didn't have a family or many non-military friends to go back home to visit—service was pretty much mandatory for anyone without a convincin' doctor's note. So I followed a few of my fellow soldiers to New York City for a vacation. The thing about New York, is it was the biggest city in the country. Millions and millions of people, skyscrapers that blocked out the sun, people just packed into some places like sardines—although I guess that reference is a bit outdated. But when the bombs fell, the people that didn't burn up and die, or get crushed under fallin' debris, went into a panic. It was pure chaos and terror. It is really a wonder any of us survived, the city had to be a huge target to the enemy. But right off the bat there were people lootin' the shops and department stores.

"You see, back before the bombs fell, basic necessities were scarce and rationed by the government. People began fightin' over whatever they could find. Fights began breakin' out everywhere. Those that were desperate to get away or get home had no way to get there. Most of the roads were buried under the rubble of fallen skyscrapers and the trains stopped runnin'. The underground tunnels were passable, but with no power you might as well been walkin' blindly through a cave. The air was almost unbreathable—there was this thick dust in the air. It was –" he stopped talking. "I shouldn't be tellin' you all this... you're just a kid, and you've already been through enough."

"You have to tell me," Declan pleaded. "I'm with the Brotherhood. It's my obligation to secure information. None of the books on the Prydwen have this kind of information in them."

At his insistence, Chip smiled a bit uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his head. The action pushed his cap forward and he took a long moment to adjust it just right. Declan finished off the water in his mug and sat it down. Deacon picked the mug up and took it outside.

"There wasn't a person there that wasn't injured in one way or another—burns, dismemberment, radiation sickness. Some people were in such a state of shock that they just wandered around. Their eyes were open but nobody was home. They were like ghosts just drifting, unable to process what had happened to them." Chip grew quiet for a long moment.

"The first ghouls, the first feral ghouls I remember seein' were out on the freeway a few days later. We didn't understand what we were witnessin' at first. But we saw a pair of them, bloodied and well, ghoul-like. Their clothes were ripped and soiled and they lunged at people like animals. I watched a delivery man beat them to death with a tire iron to protect some lady and her kid hiding in the back of a car. We were so shocked by the scene that we didn't do anything. It worked out I guess, the delivery man was a strong fighter, but I was a soldier and I should've helped him."

Chip paused long enough to rub his face. "One of the soldiers I was travelin' with, his name was Jack. Jack had family in Boston. There were three of us that survived from our group and we walked from New York to Boston. It took weeks. The other guy, his name was Danny, went ghoul while we traveled. There was nothin' we could do to stop it—we just watched a little of his humanity fall away with every day. First it was his skin and ears, then it was the nose on his face. He was rightly freaked out about the whole ordeal but he wasn't alone. We saw other people goin' through the same thing as they traveled, tryin' to get to wherever they were goin'. He wanted us to shoot him but with the looters and scavengers out, we couldn't spare the bullets. Two days before we reached Boston, Danny went feral. Up until that point ghouls had been frightenin' to look at but I wasn't afraid of them—if that makes sense. But to actually fight one off for the first time..." He sighed and gave Declan a sympathetic look. "He turned into a dangerous animal and we had to shoot him on the side of that freeway. One of the hardest things we had to do was leave his body behind."

Deacon returned with a mug full of fresh water and placed it next to Declan's bed. Declan picked it up and sipped it, too enthralled with Chip's story to be distracted by the fact that he was a ghoul.

"We made it to Jack's house on the outskirts of town, but Jack had gotten sick and eventually he died from what I guess was radiation sickness," Chip continued. "I helped his family bury him in the backyard. I stayed to protect his family from anyone that tried to come around causin' trouble. I went into the city at least a few dozen times with Jack's father, doin' whatever I could to help him find Jack's wife. She was a nurse at one of the local hospitals but she never came home after the bombs fell. We found her car down an embankment and partially submerged in some water. We had to wade through some nasty stuff to get to the car but there was no one inside. We never figured out what happened to her," he frowned.

"It wasn't long after that I realized I was startin' to go ghoul. I locked myself away from the family so I couldn't hurt them. His parents were old and his kids were little, I could've posed a very real danger to them. I was becomin' a monster and the day I realized that was the scariest day of my life. I felt so powerless and I just knew that I was gonna hurt someone. But as time went by, I never went feral and I came out of confinement. Jack's parents eventually died and his kids grew up, married into other families, and went their own ways. Left alone, I went on to join what would eventually be known as the Minutemen."

Declan sat silently as he let everything sink in. "That's... quite a story," Declan settled on. Truth be told, he didn't know what to say. "The Minutemen do good work."

Chip smiled. "That they do, especially with Luke, Preston, and Ronnie runnin' things."

Declan smiled faintly. He still wanted to know more but he didn't know how to ask. He sat his empty mug aside as he debated. It was odd, he'd had two mugs of water but he still felt thirsty. "Where's the nearest latrine?" he asked sheepishly.

"There's some outhouses at the end of the shacks," Chip gestured as he stood. "I can go grab your clothes and your boots if you want to go out."

"Yes, please," Declan said as he tested putting weight on his newly healed hand before easing over to the edge of the bed. Chip retrieved his things and then he and Deacon left to give Declan privacy. Declan pulled on his pants, surprised to see that someone had crudely stitched the tears back together. They'd also apparently washed them because much of the dirt was gone but they weren't quite dry yet. Damp pants aside, he did feel better wearing them. Pulling his socks out of his boots and onto his feet, he reached for his boots and took his time slowly pulling them on and lacing them up. Sliding his knife into the holster on the inside of his boot, he slowly stood and tested his balance a little before flattening out his loose leisure shirt against his chest. Leaving his damp undershirt and armored coat behind, he carefully stepped outside and shielded his eyes.

Squinting against the bright sunlight that made it through the fog, he walked along the row of shack buildings that appeared to be forming a perimeter wall—complete with guard posts up on top. Some of the shacks were more decorated than others, some even having potted plants next to their steps. He peered inside a shack with an open doorway and saw a chair and a trunk against the wall and a metal framed bed with black linens spilling onto the floor. There was a lantern and a pack of cigarettes on the trunk and it was then that he realized that each little shack was someone's home. He looked up at the nearest guard standing at his post, and watched the turret that sat vigilantly beside him—waiting for the moment that the guard should ever need assistance.

The continuous rumble of the turrets seemed to be everywhere. It wasn't overwhelmingly loud but it was an ever-present background noise. Looking over his shoulder, he found another sitting up on a makeshift mount built on top of the greenhouse. Well within the settlement's perimeter, that turret had to be a backup should the walls ever be breached. Feeling more secure than he'd felt since he'd left the Prydwen, Declan kept walking.

Reaching the end of the shack house row, he found a settler in welding goggles, a bandana, a lighted helmet, and head to toe leather attire. From what he could tell it was all protective gear because the settler appeared to be breaking down scrap materials and separating it at his workstation. He would've stayed longer to see what the settler was going to do with but the scrap but the outhouses were in sight and he really had to go. Stepping to the nearest available outhouse, he pulled open the door and went inside.

When he emerged a few minutes later there was a boy washing his hands under the flow of a water pump. "Hey," the boy called out to him before tossing a block of soap in his direction. "Wash up, we don't need people getting sick." Declan picked up the soap and watched as the shorter boy shook his hands off and then dried them on his shirt. His boots and the knees of his pants were caked in mud, and Declan wasn't sure that the boys hands were as clean as he thought they were.

"Are you a farmer?" Declan asked as he followed the boy's lead and used the water pump to wash his hands. He was very careful around his stitches even though the skin looked fairly healed.

"All my life," he answered. "Are you any good with a shovel or a hoe?"

"I've never really used one," Declan admitted as he shook the water off of his hands.

"That's adorable. Follow me," he gestured as he led the way back towards the rear of the greenhouse. Curious, Declan followed him. "Did Doc clear you for work yet?"

Declan shook his head. "He said to take it easy."

The boy frowned. "Figures. Still can't hurt for you to watch—you might learn something. And if you stay here long enough you might end up tending the crop. We're kind of competing with Abernathy Farm to see who can produce the most food. They're still beating us but they've got a lot more farmhands," he said as he picked up a shovel and leaned on it for support. "They were an established settlement before Greentop was and they've also been designated a distribution point so they have more people. That place is big enough to be a small town."

"I've heard about it but I've never been there. I've been to Starlight though," Declan offered.

The boy smiled. "I've heard that there are so many people there that they have a working factory and a shower house."

"They do," Declan smiled. "They make toys there."

"That explains where the new toys at the store are coming from."

Declan nodded with a grin.

"I'm Stanley," the boy extended his hand.

"Declan," he responded, reaching out and shaking hands with him.

"Pay attention Declan and you might learn something. This is a shovel," Stanley said as he held the instrument up by it's handle. "We use it to move dirt, dig up rocks, bust up roots, chase off mongrels, bat at stingwings...it is quite the multi-purpose instrument."

"Bat at stingwings?"

"Yeah you know like baseball—whack 'em real good in the head and then use the spade to slice it right off! I've personally eliminated two that way," he declared proudly. "I have one of them hanging in the house as my trophy. I'll show you when we're done with the carrots."

"Okay," Declan smiled.

"Anyway, I like to use the shovel to loosen the soil a bit. The dirt out here gets really compacted and some of the plants have a hard time growing in it—" Stanley quit talking and appeared to be waiting for something.

"What is it?"Declan asked.

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The ground," Stanley said at about the same time Declan felt the ground rise and move underneath his feet.

Declan stumbled backwards, his boots making contact with the base of a set of stairs, causing him to fall back on one of the steps. He lifted his feet up to the bottom step and then sat there and watched the ground suspiciously. "What was that?"

"Molerats or radscoprions," Stanley answered as he propped the shovel up against the wall next to the staircase. "Are you armed?" he asked quietly.

"I've got a combat knife," Declan offered.

"Take the shovel," he ordered. "Hank! Hank!" Stanley shouted up at a guard. "Something's coming!"

Hank turned around as the ground between the greenhouse and the perimeter buildings erupted and dirt rained down from the sky. A pair of radscorpions landed with very audible thuds and their massive bodies caused the shack and staircase to shake. Stanley dove for the stairs and pulled out a pipe pistol. He fired off a few quick shots before the turrets had focused their sights on the beasts.

"Up! Go up!" Stanley shouted as he pushed Declan up the exterior staircase and onto the second level deck that connected the rooftops and catwalks that the guards patrolled on. Stanley fired off another few shots as Hank, the other guards, and the settlers ran over to assist. Declan moved up against the wall of a second story residence to allow Hank to rush past. He reached up and took hold of the wooden safety rail and stood up.

A warning siren wailed overhead as the turrets unleashed on the uninvited beasts. One of the radscorpions dove back into the ground while the other whipped around the back of the greenhouse pursuing a heavier settler. Everyone focused their gunfire on it as the other radscorpion came up closer to the main house. Declan would've shouted a warning but a third scorpion surprised him by lunging up out of the soil just beyond the perimeter wall. He clutched the top rail and watched as it disappeared under the fog. He couldn't see it anymore but the turret next to him clearly could, because once it started firing it didn't stop.

He looked over, suddenly aware that Stanley wasn't with him. Where was he? His brief feeling of safety was quickly slipping away as he looked for his friend. He whirled around searching the ground below and then the catwalk that connected the buildings and guard towers. His eyes came across something just barely visible through the trees and it stopped him in his tracks. At first he didn't believe it but there she was—through the trees and above the fog, the Prydwen floated high over the horizon.

Declan was taken aback, he hadn't expected to see the ship ever again and yet there she was. The sheer joy and relief he felt was overwhelming. He covered his mouth and took a step back. A sharp pain tore through his hip and, in trying to twist away from whatever had a hold of him, his foot slipped off the edge of his platform and he fell to the ground below. He landed square on his back next to the brahmin trough and the wind was knocked out of his chest. The already panicked brahmin jumped over him and fled the area. He attempted to raise his arms to shield himself—not that they would've made a difference against an animal of that size—but his body was still too shocked from his fall to really do what he wanted it to do. If he could just survive this attack, maybe he would make it home.