Shout out to my reviewers, you guys are awesome! Word on abbreviations, MoT is Museum of Technology, MoH, Museum of History.


It had worked perfectly. After consulting quietly for a few moments, Dogmeat had run in and bitten the nearest raider while Cort had screamed at the Super Mutants. Whirling, both of them ran pell-mell through the dark towards a collapsed section of tunnel wall she had found, diving into it. It had almost been like watching an adventure film on Mr. Brotch's big screen as both groups slammed together. Cort had had great fun popping up and yelling "Surprise!" at the last raider cheering over the downed mutants before shooting the top of his head off. Taking out the security turrets afterward had almost been like a game, she was riding on such a high. The rush only increased when she crawled out of the raider's camp and into Metro Central. The place was huge. She wasn't sure how many stories were in it, but it was practically an underground cathedral, platforms and escalators running everywhere. Cort had never seen anything so big. Fighting through level by level, she clashed against more ferals, raiders and vicious dogs, sometimes sneaking and sometimes using Dogmeat to draw them out to her. In between everything, she scavenged.

"Well Dogmeat, we're putting out more medical supplies than we're getting back, but we're almost there if the markers are right." Dogmeat whuffed, climbing an escalator beside her. Cort paused, looking around. "Wait. That thing there isn't supposed to be there. Wait, are we at where we actually are? Oh, no."

Getting lost more than once, Cort had to backtrack over and over again to find the Brotherhood markers Three Dog had told her about. She was comparing the map she had downloaded to the one on the wall(nothing matched up right, the distances were all out of whack on her Pip-Boy) when she heard her name.

"Hey, Cort!" Whipping her head and rifle around, she saw a small armoured group heading towards her, and looked at them askance.

"Yeees?"

"It's her. Open fire!"

"WHAT?" She flung herself to the side, spraying them with bullets and narrowly missing a shot to the gut. Her side lit up on fire. Thank God I got in the habit of having this thing out instead of stuffed up my ass. Christ from now on if anyone asks if you're you, say no, idiot. "Dogmeat, sic em! Rip them up!" The dog snarled and launched himself at the one who had spoken to Cort, laying his arm open. He shrieked. "Serves you right, motherfucker!" Running, Cort smashed the butt of her rifle into the face of the nearest one to her, feeling a slug hit her leg. She grunted and ducked, hauling her knife out, plunging it into the man's knee then stabbing him over and over as Dogmeat flew raging at the last of them. Laughing, she scrambled over and buried it into the screaming woman's throat while the dog savaged an arm.

"Now what, the fuck, was that about." Cort hissed and then listened carefully for a while. If there was anything else in here, they weren't coming at her. She dug her lantern out of her bag and flicked it and her Pip-Boy light on to examine her leg and side. "In and out, thank you, thank you." Jamming a Stimpak into herself, she called Dogmeat over. There was only a single slug to pick out, and a whole lot of grazes. "Lucky, lucky boy. Now let's see what these jerks have on them after Momma can stand up again."


What they had, aside from some very nice combat armour Cort was more than happy to strip from them, including taking spare plates to upgrade Dogmeat's apparel, were a couple Chinese assault rifles and a baton. Positively crowing, she happily gutted one rifle to repair the other. Cort decided to settle onto one of the nearest platforms and spent the evening fixing her new armour and fussing over Dogmeat's.

"There, little bit heavier, but much much better. You've got plates over everything important in there. So do I!" Rolling him over, she tickled his belly, laughing as he mouthed at her wrists and yipped. "Let's see what those scrubs had to eat, huh?" Cort upended the last bag and dug through the mess. "Cram, surprise, surprise. And a sticky note. Ugh, this better have leaked out of the Cram." Popping the can open, she shook half of it out for the dog and ate her own chunk as she read.

"' Talon Company Contract: Find Cort and show how we treat people that fail to live up to Mr. Tenpenny's expectations. Do not fail me. You know what will happen if you arouse my displeasure. B.' And a description of me. Threat level, minimal? Hey! I've gotten better, thank you very much. Wasted your asses." Cort frowned, puzzled. There wasn't any reason she could think of for mercenaries to be after her. She hadn't been out here that long, and hadn't done anything really significant enough to warrant attention.

"B, who the fuck is B and what did I do to...oh crap." Cort groaned and grabbed her head in both hands. "Dogmeat it's that lecher from Megaton, it has to be. I don't know very many people out here, and only one 'B', and he's the only one I know of that I pissed off for sure."

Reaching down she grabbed a handful of rubble and started scrubbing at the insigina painted on her armour, then tucked her sunglasses carefully into a pocket. "I don't need to look like a damned mercenary while I'm running around out here, and we'll change the rest of it." She hiccuped. "At least my hair's already done, and they don't know about you yet, according to this. Or my helmet, or the ear." Cort started ripping apart a spare knee guard and mounted it over the top of her Pip-Boy. "There. Not perfect, but it's better than nothing. Let's get some shuteye honey, and then we can make a nice cache out of everything extra." Cort crawled behind a debris pile to the back of the platform, pulling a metal panel over both of them, then cuddled up to Dogmeat and slept.


Willow was having a bang-up day. First she had avoided Talon Mercs oozing down into the Metro. They weren't gutsy enough to attack Underworld, but they'd take pot shots at her if she let them see her. Then she avoided pot shots from the Brotherhood. Half the time she didn't even bother to dodge anymore, since she was sure they were doing it out of boredom like she did with radroaches, a depressingly accurate motivational comparison. She couldn't even remember the last time they'd actually hit a ghoul, as long as they weren't stupid enough to approach the tin cans.

Around late afternoon she heard an uproar across the Mall, somewhere near the MoT, and wondered if the Mercs were getting into it with the Super Mutants. They were doing that a lot lately, which Willow was one hundred percent in favour of, as long as it was the hell away from their side of the Mall. Sure, the mutants didn't bother them, as long as they stayed out of their territory, but that didn't mean that it wouldn't be nice to have less of each party overall. Leaning over the side of the Metro station entrance, Willow chain smoked and waited for anything to come by. Anything came from below sometime around supper.

Looking down when the gate creaked, Willow saw someone hitching and wheezing out of the Metro.

"Fucking stupid stomping giant boogers." Someone pissed off hitching and wheezing out of the Metro, then. The ghoul unslung her rifle and idly watched the person -a female smoothskin- hobble up the stairs, followed by a dog. A dog wearing clothes, at that. Both of them were wearing a mish-mash of Talon Company armour, with the insignias scraped off. Willow decided to speak up before they got on level ground.

"You doing okay there, tourist?" She watched the girl's shoulders hitch up in surprise before she continued to hop up the stairs, dragging on the handrail. There were bloody spatters trailing behind her.

"Just peachy today. And you?" Making it to the top step, she flung an arm over the barrier surrounding the stairwell and started moving towards Willow. The dog was pacing beside her, not taking its eyes off her face.

"Well, I'm not bleeding out all over the concrete. What's your business in Underworld?" As fascinating as this could be, Willow had to decide whether or not to shoot them before they got too close. The amount of blood made her fairly sure the girl wasn't playing possum, but then you never could tell these days.

" I found it? Oh thank Christ. I'm looking for a doctor. I'm too torn up to fix all of this shit myself." Gesturing, the girl nearly fell over, then looked at Willow. "Please tell me you've got one."

"Yeah, we do. Just go straight through two sets of doors that way, and behave yourself, tourist. Keep the dog in line too."

"Thanks, uh." She wiped the blood off her hand and held it out.

"Willow." Willow stared at the hand and did nothing.

Dropping her hand, the kid sighed. "Thanks Willow. I'm Cort. This is Dogmeat."

Willow watched the kid stagger towards the door and considered helping, then dismissed the idea. The girl had made it that far, hadn't asked, and Willow had her own duties to take care of. Turning around, she popped another match and went back to smoking.


Cort shuffled through the doors and leaned panting against them for a moment, then gasped.

"Dogmeat, look in there! A mammoth! And a dinosaur! Just like in my books, this is awesome!" She reached up to clap and grimaced, grabbing her sides. "Okay, so not as awesome as it could be. Oh God, I hurt." Barking out a few wet coughs she made an effort to straighten up.

Emerging from the MoT Metro station, Cort had gotten sloppy rushing to find the dish. She hadn't made it more than fifty feet through the museum doors before a brute of a Super Mutant came down on her like a ton of irradiated shit. Screaming at Dogmeat to run after it had flung him into a wall, Cort had made it back into the Metro after blinding it momentarily with a pistol shot to the face. Unfortunately, it had also shot her, and gotten in one hell of a blow to her right calf with a sledge.

Using up the last of the Stimpaks on Dogmeat, Cort pumped herself full of Med-X and started scrabbling towards the other end of the station, wobbling under her pack. "Come on, Gob said Underworld was around here, and they should still have a doctor, they live long enough. I can't get these bullets out by myself. I'm not even going to try fooling around with my leg." Giggling, she jerked along the walls. "At least we've already slaughtered everything in here."

She had nearly jumped out of her skin after coming topside and hearing someone speak, relaxing after she recognized it as a ghoul. Cort had been mildly disappointed at how cool she had been, but couldn't really be surprised after what she had observed at Moriarty's. She had gotten spectacularly lucky with Gob, or Gob with her, depending on how you wanted to look at it. Lurching past the entrance desk to the atrium, Cort continued her path towards the far doors, which were capped by a giant skull. This was definitely the place. She dimly noticed that Dogmeat was circling her and whining.

"Shush Dogmeat, you want to behave when we meet new people. You know, people that aren't trying to kill us. Yet." She held the door open for him and followed the dog inside, both of them sniffing in the draft. This was better. This smelled like Gob, only stronger.

Cort stopped stock still in the entry way. There were twin staircases flanking either side of the long main room, and larger rooms on the far end, past a huge statue made of writhing figures. There were also a lot of just standing figures, she noted. Wow. Lot of ghouls. Whole lot of ghouls. At least a dozen heads had turned around to look at her and the dog. Apparently smoothskins were rare enough to be a novelty, or at least ones that were bleeding on the floor. A ghoul in faded blue coveralls came over towards her as Cort hitched farther into the room.

"Holy crap, smoothskin. You look like you've gone through a wringer." He had a fairly concerned look on his ruined features, and Cort felt better, at least in spirit.

"I look worse than I feel." She balanced on her good leg and held out her hand again. "I'm Cort. The woman out front said you had a doctor in here."

Looking at her oddly, the ghoul reached out and shook her hand. "Winthrop. I keep this place running, or at least from falling apart entirely. The doc's at the far end of the hall, in the Chop Shop, you can't miss it. You sure you can make it down that far?" Cort squinted, trying to see him clearly. It was getting dim in here, and while comforting it made it damned hard to see.

"Yeah sure, I made it this fuh-" Dissolving into racking coughs, Cort sprayed the front of Winthrop's overalls in bright crimson before going down on one knee, Dogmeat's wails following her into darkness.