Chapter 43

It was not two days later that they reached the Mall. The noise of desultory gunfire could be heard a long way off, with the occasional ground-shaking report of a rocket exploding.

"I don't remember it being this loud last time," Xen said after one such noise. "Are the super mutants fighting someone?"

"Probably t'Brot'erhood of Steel," Charon said. To Xen's relief, he had begun to put on flesh again. There were erratic patches of leathery skin on his face and his visible arm, and a definite area of scar behind the new hole in his chest armor.

"I wonder if they really did put something in the water," Xen said.

"I noticed you've been sticking to the irradiated stuff," Bell said. "Are you worried it would do something to you?"

"I'm not sure," Xen said. "Odds are good this cure is some kind of enzyme delivered by a carrier virus. My cells have some human surface markers and some xenoorganic ones, where the markers on a Ghoul or a super mutant's cells would be all human. The virus might or might not be able to attach to them. If not, it wouldn't have an effect."

"But you think it might," Bell asked.

"I'm not willing to risk it," Xen said. "I'm thirty percent xeno, and enough of it is coding sequences to show some serious phenotypic markers." She wiggled the three fingers and thumb of one hand demonstratively. "My inner eyelids are the only things I know for sure are a mutation – they're neotenous - and I definitely need those."

"Maybe we should pick up a hot rock when we get the chance, then," Bell said. "Then we can irradiate our water whenever we get it. That'll kill the carrier organism, right?"

"Right," Xen said.

"Dere will probably be opportunity in Underworld," Charon said. "Dose who do not wish to be changed will have found a means to protect demselves from t'cure." He stopped some yards from the mouth of the alley. Past his shoulder, Xen saw a vertical slice of the Mall. The stretch of trenches and barbed wire did not seem different from the last time she had been here, except that there was more movement among the distant super mutants. "Please excuse me."

Xen waited beside Bell as Charon padded silently forward. He went down on one knee at the entrance to the alley, partly screened by a trash can. He stayed there for a long couple of minutes. With her inner lids open, Xen could see his silhouette in the infrared. She watched his head turn back and forth slowly as he made his unhurried assessment. Then he ghosted back to them.

"How's it look?" Xen asked.

"We are perhaps fifty yards from t'Museum," Charon said. "But dere are two BOS in powered armor pinned down on t'steps of Museum Station at the moment."

"Oh." Xen considered this. "So the area is under heavy fire, and even if we didn't get shot by the mutants, the two in armor might shoot us themselves. Would you agree with that, Charon?"

"I would," Charon said.

"Well, you're the expert. What's your recommend -" Xen broke off, twisting quickly away from the brilliant light that flashed past the alley mouth. Painful afterimages lingered on her retinae even with both sets of lids squeezed tight shut.

Rocket. Has to be a rocket. She covered her ears just in time to avoid being deafened by the explosion that occurred a moment later. There was another one after that, and another.

After perhaps five minutes, the noise died down.

"It's okay, it's over," said Bell's voice. Xen risked a peek. The gynoid was between her and the alley mouth now, the net bag on the ground beside her. "Charon went to look again."

The big Ghoul's returning footsteps made no sound. He had drawn no weapon.

"I believe t'problem has been solved," Charon said. "If we wait anot'er minute or so, t'mutants will be finished retrieving what is left of t'bodies. Dere is sufficient cover to hide us between here and t'steps, at least while it is dark."

"Ugh," Xen said. She felt a momentary sympathy for the two dead men.

"Better them than us," Bell said. She picked up the net bag and slung it over her right shoulder, leaving her left arm free. "We'll be less likely to attract attention if we don't run. How's your night vision, Charon?"

"Adequate for t'purpose," Charon said. "Follow me."

"Stay on my left when we get out there, Xen," Bell said as they crept down the alley. "There's a lot of lead flying out there still."

"Acknowledged," Xen said. "Charon, don't run off to shoot anything unless you absolutely have to."

"If dat is your order," said the Ghoul dryly. Charon paused for a moment beside the trash can, looking around one more time, and then he stepped lightly out onto the sidewalk and Xen scooted after him.

She didn't see much for that fifty yards. There was the sidewalk in front of her, and Charon's broad shoulders looming out of the dark, heat signature steady and reassuring. Bell and the looming bulk of the net bag prevented her from seeing much of what was going on to her right. The gynoid's infrared profile was just a degree or so below human-average. She could probably pass for a person with bad circulation. But then, humans couldn't normally see in the infrared, could they? Tori had hoped she would get to know some ordinary people, and she never had, had she...

Well, ordinary was probably a word that would not be easily susceptible of definition in this place and time. Xen smiled slightly at that, barely noticing the ricochet that struck sparks from a mailbox nearby.

Then they had reached the Museum, and she was moving up the sidewalk as quietly as she could, hugging the shadow of the adjoining building as she walked behind Charon. She glimpsed the familiar subway opening as she went, but there was no sign of Willow or, indeed, of anyone. Only a couple of horrid stains on the concrete steps suggested the fate of the two Brotherhood soldiers.

Charon reached the door, hauled it open, and stepped inside; his shove pushed it far enough back that Bell could catch it with her arm up over Xen's head. Xen hurried inside, and Bell came after her. The gynoid pulled the heavy door to behind them.

Xen looked around the dingy lobby. It seemed an age since she had been here. Charon stood beside the counter, looking without apparent interest down the barrel of a revolver held by a slender Ghoul in a leather jacket and jeans.

"Charon?" said the woman. "Is that you?" Half her face was completely healed now, pink and human. She had shaved her hair short, but it was growing back full and lustrous, not in patches.

Charon turned to look at Xen. She nodded quickly.

"Yes," said Charon. "Willow?"

"That's me. Hard to tell, isn't it?" She put the gun away slowly, gesturing at her face. "In another month I won't even be a Ghoul any more. I'll have to take off out of here long before then, of course. The old ones don't like Exes to hang around. That's what they're calling the ones who drink the water."

"So it's true," Xen said. Willow watched with a small frown of recognition as she came forward.

"You're the one who bought Charon's contract last time you were here, right? Yeah, it's true. Thistle and Fawkes and that weird little smoothskin they hang out with came through and warned everybody before it happened. Everybody forgot about what happened to Ahzrukhal pretty damn quick, believe me. Why did you kill him, anyway?" she asked Charon. "I thought you liked Ahz."

Charon just shook his head.

"Well, I'm not going to miss him," Willow said. "But I'd watch yourself if you do go in there. There's a new supplier for the drunks and the jet-heads now, but things got pretty crazy at the 9th Circle for a little while." She looked Bell up and down. "You an Ex?"

"Not me," Bell said. "I've always looked like this."

"You probably better not hang around," Willow said to Xen. "CPM gets higher in there every day. It's not healthy for smoothskins and, no offense, you don't look so good already."

"I just want to get Charon's Hayflick Limit tested," Xen said, although this had not occurred to her until the present moment. "Can anyone in there do that?"

"Sure, the Doc can," Willow said. "He jury-rigged up a kit not long after the shit hit the fan. Can't tell a regular life expectancy or anything, but he can say yes or no to whether your chromosomes are regenerating. That's why I took the cure. I'm not going to stay young forever."

"Thanks for the information," Xen said. She tried to think of something appropriate to say. "I hope things work out for you."

"Oh, usually they do," Willow said. "You just be careful. You seem kind of young to be out on your own."

"That's what I keep hearing," Xen said. She nodded to Willow and moved on toward the main lobby with its moldering mammoth and the great gray skull over the doors to Underworld. She pulled her goggles up as she went, remembering what she had done the last time she was here.

"Charon," Xen said as they approached the doors. She could see the many heat signatures up ahead, and this time the bloom of gamma was so strong she could see the violet glow right through the doors.

They must have whole barrels of radioactive waste in there.

"Yes," said Charon.

"How likely is it that someone will take a shot at you while we're here?" Xen asked.

Charon appeared to consider this. "Somewhat likely," he said. "One or two of t'junkies will hold a grudge, if dey are still alive."

"And be crazy enough to try it?" said Xen.

"Possibly," Charon said.

Xen stopped, looking at the closed doors. She was tired. She felt the dull ache in her calves and thighs that said she would be sore tomorrow. It had been a long time since she'd had a hot meal, or a bath with hot water from a faucet. But those things were available at the Lab, and that was only a few more hours' walk; and she could see the rough outline of the Mister Gutsy unit on the other side of the doors, the soft little flares of its attitude jets.

"Tori can do a Hayflick test," Xen said. "Probably a better one than the doctor here. Let's just go on."

"Are you sure, Xen?" Bell asked. "I know I can do that, and I know Charon can, but you've been walking a long time today. Don't think Charon and I can't handle a couple of drug addicts."

"But then you might have to kill Cerberus," Xen said. "He's the only real security here. I don't know if I could deal with that right now. He looks too much like Tori. And besides, then these people would have no protection. I think they're probably going to need it."

"I agree," Charon said unexpectedly. "We can stop in t'subway if necessary."

"If that's what you want," Bell said. "I don't really have an opinion."

They trooped back out past Willow without another word. Charon nudged the front door open and peered out. After a moment he nodded. Xen followed him the few quick paces out and down the steps to the subway gate. The steps were tacky underfoot, and the stink of human mortality was awful, but it was too familiar now to cause her any real discomfort.

The flickering half-light of the subway was almost welcome. Xen pulled her goggles back down and looked around at Museum Station as they rounded the corner and saw the big open space ahead.

The first time I came here, I couldn't go without them even in this much light, she thought. I'm not as sensitive as I was. She blinked and squinted, but it was because her eyes were tired and it was dusty. Charon led them silently out and down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and looked at her. She pointed at the appropriate tunnel mouth with its quiescent caterpillar of a train half-blocking the entrance. Charon nodded. Together, the three of them moved on into the dark.

And just imagine how many people didn't die in Underworld tonight, Xen said to herself. I hope there are no Raiders between us and the Lab.