A/N: I'm sorry if I get anything regarding the Olney Underground wrong; all my detailed info is from the South Wilson building on.

Chapter 32

Unlike the CAU he was pursuing, the hunter had no Geiger counter inside his body. He had to use a miniaturized version built by those who had sent him. Ordinarily, he left it set on mute and clipped to his lapel, that it might not give away his otherwise silent progress. It began to vibrate long before he reached the pit. He took a Rad-X, unslung the plasma rifle from his shoulder, and padded silently forward, alert for any ambush.

None materialized. He found a couple of dead yao guai which had clearly been killed with the combat shotgun. No one had stopped there long enough to leave any interesting record of their passing.

He squatted at the edge of the pit and stared down at the dead spacecraft for a minute. No one had been there in many hours, and it was a puzzling object all by itself. He tracked the progress of the big one and B2-09 back to a campsite out of the irradiated zone. The man's booted feet made firmer tracks in the hard dirt, suggesting that he had been carrying something reasonably heavy. It was not hard to see what, for the small set of moccasins reappeared at the campsite. Here the two organics had slept, leaving further spectral traces. He found no evidence of serious injury to the small one.

Flakes of dry skin where the man had slept said he was probably a Ghoul, which was an interesting fact, but unlikely to be relevant. The fact that they had chosen this particular campsite probably meant the smaller one did not have immunity to radiation. Some of the clearer traces over by the little pool said she was female, and suggested other data which he was unable to interpret. Call it a strange flavor to her scent, not quite human but emphatically not Ghoul. Or perhaps it was only some strange illness, something that would explain the need to carry her back up the slope from the craft.

Perhaps this had something to do with B2-09's willingness to go along with these two. Or maybe she had developed sufficiently to feel gratitude toward her rescuers. He supposed it was even dimly possible that she had somehow managed to modify her own responses, banging out bits and bytes among the simple pathways in her brain.

That would be impossible for the hunter himself, whose psychology was quite human. Even had he known how, his internal processes were far too complex and delicate to be meddled with by any but one or two of the most advanced techs. Even they would not risk it lightly. The risk of madness or imbalance or even simple retardation was too great, millions of caps and years of work lost. It was this very fact that had allowed the self-determinative malfunction to flourish unnoticed and unchecked in one of his brothers.

How it had popped up unnoticed in a CAU was anybody's guess. The fact that B2-09 had been able to conceal it augured for a greater degree of sophistication in her reasoning than should be possible. The hunter hoped to have a chance to ask her about it. There should be plenty of time while they traveled back to the Institute. He had the new sonic collar all ready to go in the pocket of his coat.

---

The next night was long and dull, mostly involving more slogging through dark tunnels. Xen ate from her packaged rations, drank bottled water, and relieved herself where necessary; there were no public restrooms down in the Olney sewers. There seemed to be fewer deathclaws in evidence as they moved further West and North, but Xen wasn't sure whether to be glad or worried about this. Changeling reported only negative information. There was no alien technology anywhere near them.

"You know, there might just not be anything here," said Bell. "We're going to kind of a lot of trouble if there's not."

"There'll be something," Xen said, trying to sound sure of herself rather than just stubborn. "Whoever lived in that house thought the blaster rounds were important enough to hide them. If anybody from this town found anything, they'd have brought it back and put it in a safe place."

"I assume it is not necessary for me to point out the flaws in your logic," said Changeling.

"Shut up," said Xen.

"Acknowledged," said Changeling primly.

In point of fact, she was beginning to feel that she might have placed the others in danger for no good reason. What if there really was nothing here? Or, worse yet, what if it was here, but too well hidden for Changeling's sensors to find it? If she had been with anyone less unusually talented than Bell and Charon, would they have ever made it out of that first building?

The fact is that you don't want to go home yet, she told herself. Especially with so little to show for it. And who knows? Maybe it'll be worthwhile. Maybe there will be something even better than blaster rounds here. Maybe they carried away some other tech. You can't know.

Then they found an ash pile. It was quite a large one, right in the middle of a dry tunnel. A single claw sat neatly on top. There were greasy scorch marks on the floor around it, and some on the walls as well.

"Looks like somebody else has been here," said Bell. She folded her arms and shivered. "Somebody with a damn big gun."

"Not very recently," Xen said. She looked around. "There's no fresh blood anywhere." She couldn't tell human from animal by sight, but any fresh spill would light up from its own heat.

"Doesn't mean a thing," said Bell. "Maybe they got it in one shot."

"Charon?" said Xen.

"Naw," said Charon. He looked at the wall. "Dis was done wit' a flamer or somet'ing like it, not an energy weapon."

"I concur," said Changeling. "Spectrometry indicates no recent origin for the burn marks. They are at least three months old."

"Let's keep on," Xen said. "I want to know what they wanted down here."

"It is highly unlikely that they were looking for xenoorganic artifacts," said Changeling.

"Good," said Xen. "If there were any, maybe they're still here."

Nothing so interesting presented itself for most of the night. They found one more dead deathclaw a few miles further on, this one riddled with bullets and stinking of rot as it putrefied. A few miles after that, they came to a steel door with a familiar clamshell design.

"That looks like a subway maintenance door," said Xen. "Charon?"

The big Ghoul triggered the door open without drawing his shotgun. A subway tunnel yawned beyond it. The stuttering flicker of a blue light dragged Xen instantly back to the subway under Washington, D.C., where she had seen the Raiders dying -

"Xen!" said Bell's voice. Xen blinked, and her own eyelashes fluttered against the palms of her hands. Cold sweat beaded on her spine. She realized she was standing bent over, covering her own face. Xen lowered her hands and straightened up.

Bell stood in front of her with her arms wrapped tight around herself. "What the Hell was that?"

"What did I do?" asked Xen.

"You stopped walking, and then you covered up," said Bell. "Your blood pressure jumped pretty hard. I thought you were going to seize or something."

"Behavior and physiological activation is consistent with post-traumatic stress," said Changeling. "The episode will pass momentarily."

Xen took a shallow breath and looked at Charon. He was looking around the subway with heavy-lidded eyes.

See? Charon knows I'm all right.

"Sorry," she said. "It's been a while since that happened. Charon had to kill a lot of people in the subway. It just seemed familiar for a second. I'll be all right."

"Okay," said Bell. They began the long journey through the Olney Underground.

---

The hunter slowed to a walk as the distant buildings of Old Olney came into view. He unhooked the water bottle from his hip and took a drink. His on-board recycling was much better than an organic person's, just as his muscles could carry him a little further and faster, but eventually he would die without water. And that was another tradeoff they'd had to make with him. He could not live without his fleshy components.

He accepted that, much as it occasionally inconvenienced him. It was his job to be only a little better than human.

His masters would have been startled by that thought, too. He smiled humorlessly as he walked toward the first parking lot. He sweated, but very little. Humans with whom he interacted would take it as evidence that he was in excellent condition, or that his nerves were unusually steady (both of which were true), not that his system kept a lower fluid balance than theirs. Most would never think to wonder about the lights in his retinas. They were too clear and too steady to be taken for artificial. He had never in his short life shown the kind of system-threatening glitch that would cause one to blink.

He unslung the plasma rifle again and crouched behind a ruined car, surveying the scene. There were two dead deathclaws in sight, near the broken window of the nearest building. The hunter smiled more genuinely. These he must ascribe to his large friend with the combat shotgun. Was it ever annoying for him, the hunter wondered, to be saddled with the little one? Was she a child of his, somehow spared the radiation that had changed him? Or his lover, and just of an unusually small size? What was the tie that bound someone who could kill so easily and so well to someone who needed to be carried up steep hills? Hired muscle would never endure so long or so much as this man had. The hunter had considerable experience with mercenaries, had even posed as one himself.

The hunter surveyed the scene for a moment more, assessing for signs of life, then got up and jogged over to climb in the empty window frame.

---

Xen was grateful for the chance to wash up at a functioning tap, but after that, the Underground seemed to go on forever. It was well after midnight when Xen rounded a corner and was hit by the nauseating stench of rotting flesh. She covered her mouth with her hand, fighting off another flashback. Charon had not drawn the shotgun.

We're still safe, she told herself firmly, and lowered her hand, trying to breathe through her mouth.

"Christ, that stinks," said Bell. "Give me a second. I'm squelching about five different alarm routines."

"What happened here?" Xen asked no one in particular. The tunnel ahead of them was scattered with the remains of people and deathclaws. Some of the humans were in pieces: a torso here, a leg there. She couldn't tell how many of them there had been originally. There appeared to have been two deathclaws.

"Assessment complete," said Changeling. "Probable overlap at the edge of two territories, as previously predicted. Insufficient data regarding the presence of the Ghouls."

"Ghouls?" Xen forced herself to look more closely at the rotting corpses. Now that she was looking for it, they did seem further gone than the deathclaws. Even with her inner lids open, the blue aura of radiation around each one was so faint that she had missed it.

Charon was already kneeling beside the nearest body, going through its clothes. If the state it was in bothered him, he gave no sign. He transferred a pair of bobby pins and five bottle caps to various pockets around his leather garments, then moved on to the next one.

"Bell, are you going to be able to follow me through here?" Xen asked. "There's no way around."

"I'll just look at your back," said Bell. "Only damn well try to hurry, okay? The sooner we're out of sight of this many dead guys, the fewer fucking loops I have to pull out of." She was looking at her feet as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world, and the light in her left eye was flickering like a strobe.

"I understand," said Xen. "I see a door over there. As soon as Charon has cleared it, we'll run, all right? We'll wait on the other side of it."

"Thank you," whispered Bell.

"Charon," said Xen. "Clear the door."

"I will obey," said Charon. He pocketed a final stimpak, straightened up, and jogged over to the door, stepping over an out-flung claw as he went. Xen watched as he triggered the door open and stepped through. A moment later she heard him say, "Clear."

"Ready?" Xen asked Bell. Bell nodded quickly. "Go."

She ran as fast as she could, trying not to trip over body parts and breathing as little as possible. The floor was black with blood, but it had dried; only very occasionally would her foot stick to a tacky patch of something unmentionable, and then she would pull loose and run on. Bell was so close behind her that she could feel the warmth of her body. Behind them, she heard the soft hum as Changeling glided along, effortless and unperturbed.

She reached the door and stepped quickly through and out of the way. Bell shot past her, dodged awkwardly around Charon, and skidded to a stop just before she hit a concrete staircase. Changeling slid in behind them with somewhat more poise. The clamshell door hissed shut behind the packbot.

Xen blinked as she realized it was suddenly lighter. She looked up. Stars winked above her.

"We're outside," she said stupidly. "Is it safe?"

"Yes," said Charon. Xen went up the stairs. It was somewhat startling to find herself in the ruins of a building instead of on the street. It must have been a large structure, once. A dirty tile floor stretched out in front of her. Piles of crumbled cement, jutting rebar, and glittering shards of broken glass were everywhere. She looked up. Something had destroyed the middle of the building and left the edges mostly intact. Most of each floor remained around the edges, a ragged set of shelves tilted in toward the center. Xen counted at least three floors. Someone had laid boards across the gaps between some of the bigger ledges, forming bridges and ramps.

"Those look like more scorch marks," said Xen. They blackened the ground and the walls in many places around them, impossible to miss on the pale gray concrete.

"There's bullet damage, too," said Bell. "All over the place. Somebody had quite a fight here. I wonder who it was." She shivered. "They're long gone now, anyway. I get no heat signatures anywhere near us, except us."

"Me, neither," said Xen. She looked around. "I don't see any bodies. They must've taken them away."

"Or the deathclaws got them," said Bell. Xen looked quickly at Charon again, but he had not drawn the shotgun.

"Xen," said Changeling. "I have detected what appears to be a xenoorganic energy signature."