"Charon. Charon, wake up. It's morning." Cort was hovering over him, getting ready to flick his cheek. Charon jerked awake before she could, then groaned at the movement.
"I feel like shit."
"Well, then why did you fall asleep in a damn chair? That's what you get, fussbudget. Have the sense to lay down like I did." He glared at her. "Come on, crankypants, I'm ready to start on this stupid dish." Cort had changed back into the shirt and cargos that went under her combat armour, and had two ropes looped around her waist. Charon got up, popping his neck and shoulders, then followed her over to the relay station. She leaned over the safety wall and whistled. "Long, long way down. Splat. Okay, Charon, come here and hold onto this longer rope."
Taking the proffered end, he looked at her. "You're not seriously going to climb out on that thing."
"Yes, I am, there's no way to reach it from here, I figured it all out last night. I'm not strong enough to keep you from falling, so out I go." Charon wrapped the rope around his arm as Cort leaned out and grabbed the scaffolding bolted to the side of the Monument, then hooked a leg around part of it. Reaching around, she looped the second rope through a joint several times and tied it back around her waist. "Okay, now pass me the dish." He handed it up and watched her silently, listening to her occasional quiet profanities as she fiddled with her screwdriver and handfuls of assorted wiring. Continuing to discretely pop any complaining joints, Charon relaxed. This was one of the less insane things the kid had gotten up to, in terms of risking her personal safety. He tightened his grip on the rope. At least she was taking sensible precautions with this, and looking over the Mall from this high at sunrise with the kid rimmed in it was almost pretty, when you forgot about all the death down-
"There, finished." Cort pushed on something and it gave a small click, then jumped when the signal box on the relay station blared out a second later. "Waugh!"
"People of the Capital Wasteland, you can HEAR MEEEE! Yeeeaa haaaa! You can't stop the signal, baby! That's right, from Megaton to Girdershade, Paradise Falls to the Republic of Dave, we are coming to you loud and proud, in a special live report!"
Charon had come within an inch of shooting the speakers out, and was pressed against the wall, snarling. "Fuck's sakes!"
"Charon. Charon. You're pulling too much, let up, let up let up!" He spun back around the corner and relaxed the rope immediately. Cort was clinging to the scaffolding, being pulled between the ropes on the bars and the rope in his hand and wheezing from the strain.
"Sorry. The fucking radio." Cort coughed and spat after the tension on her midriff had been relaxed.
"I know, it freaked the shit out of me too, would've been nice to know THAT was going...to...hap...what the hell is he saying." Cort untied herself from the joint she was secured to and scrambled back into the Monument as Three Dog continued to talk.
"...YOU know I can hear you, all the way out here in the ass end of nowhere? Because of the kid from Vault 101, that's how! That gal Cort actually managed to repair our antenna relay, my board just lit up like crazy a few moments ago. How's that for ingenuity, folks? From here on in, it's bye-bye stupid static, hello magnificent music. So sit back, relax, and absorb these classic tunes. Kid, you get your ass back to GNR, you hear me? We've got some stuff to talk about!"
Cort started hiccuping. "Do you know what this means?"
Charon considered shooting the signal box out for her and settled for turning it off, not wanting to spook her further. "Yeah. It means that every single fucking shitstain in the Wasteland, including the fucking Talons, knows where you are now and where you're going thanks to that fuckstick."
"Yes. We have to get moving. At least they don't know I'm going to Vernon Square." Cort started ramming things back into her pack.
"You're still going to go through with that after this?"
"Yes, I'm still going to go through with that. Reilly thinks we're going to help her, and I am. I said I would. Besides it would be nice to have mercenaries that like me out here, and aren't trying to get me all...bloody." Cort stared at her Vault suit, having paused while shoving it away. "Oh, no."
"What? Will you get your damn armour on already?" Charon was waiting by the elevator with Dogmeat, combat shotgun already in hand. Cort grabbed her armour and started whipping it into place.
"We're stopping at Underworld first. I need to talk to Barrows."
"For fuck's sakes, do you want to get moving or run in circles?"
"It'll be in and out." Cort slapped her helmet on and grabbed her repeater. "Let's go."
Apparently, there had been Talon Company within range of the Monument when Three Dog's celebratory broadcast went out. After making it back into the Museum Metro, Cort and Charon not giving the Brotherhood a second glance upon leaving, they had run almost immediately into another squad. Thankfully it was dark enough for them to be confused by the matching armour and the shield Cort had retied firmly over her Pip-Boy.
"Hey, which unit are you? Have you seen Cort yet?" The leader hissed at them.
"Every day in the mirror." Cort fired almost simultaneously with Charon, and then closed on the mercs as Dogmeat ripped open the inside of one of their thighs. When it was over they stripped the bodies of anything useful, loading up any spare space on all of them with extra plates, then moved on to Underworld.
Charon stood by the statue in the concourse, trying not to fidget. The kid had blown through like a freight train and made directly for the clinic, Reilly and Nurse Graves ejecting from it like their asses were on fire a few minutes and some muffled yelling later. He heard the lock click behind them.
"Let's just practice with those crutches while they chat, huh human? We'll try making it to the atrium and back." Swiveling his head to watch the nurse and the other smoothskin go by, Charon looked down when the dog whined from his feet again. This was the reason for him being twitchy. She never left the dog behind when she went somewhere, familiar or no. This time she had told them both to stay put here. He turned his head back to the door and waited.
Cort came out close to an hour later, her eyes bloodshot. "Okay, let's get going."
"What the fuck was that about?" He lengthened his stride to keep up with the pace she was setting.
"Nothing."
"Like hell nothing, look at you."
"I don't want to talk about it. What do you care, anyway. Let's go kill some shit." Charon bristled and followed her back to the Metro.
Cort was silent the entire way to Vernon Square. Metro Central had had a few raiders move back in, and the ferals in Freedom Street were almost literally crawling the walls. Charon hated the things, seeing them as a preview into his own possible future hell; the girl seemed to be taking her loathing to an entirely different level. He had shot more than one off of Cort when she had resorted to strangling them instead of using any of her guns. She had just picked herself up each time and continued walking, not bothering to wipe the rotten blood off herself, letting it slip off on its own. Crazily, they had found a scavenger merchant down in one of the rooms, unbelievably trying to set up shop in the dank labyrinth. Cort had ignored his hails and pushed through on her way to the correct exit. Charon grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked back when she made to walk directly out into the open.
"Stop being a fucking idiot. You're bleeding all over and we need to repair and reload shit. You haven't even eaten yet today." He scowled at her as she turned back for him and waited for the snappy comeback. It didn't happen.
"Okay." Cort sat down, cleaned off and started working, gradually rising back out of herself as she did. "Reilly said there were an awful lot of mutants outside, and I don't think dragging them into the building after us would be very good, especially since there's more inside. So we just keep sneaking around like we have been and pop the bastards when they're not looking."
Charon mentally shook his head and just let the entire afternoon go. Whatever had driven her off her rocker was apparently resolving itself and he didn't feel like bringing it back. "That, and wait for nightfall. The darker it is, the easier time we'll have. Not like we're going to have trouble seeing the snotbags in the dark, they're fucking huge. Even you can't miss that."
"When the fuck do I ever miss? You're one to judge accuracy, you use a Goddamned scatter gun."
"At least it's not a fucking antique like that clunky repeater."
"Clunky? Wait, everything out here is a fucking antique! Leave my rifle alone, eat your damn..." Cort scrambled around in her pack, then tossed a can at him. "Pork N' Beans." Charon did with a small amount of satisfaction, watching her eat two cans of Cram with the dog, alternating handfuls. If she was back to being testy at him she was back to whatever approached normal for her, at least in his narrow range of experience. He remained silent until she had finished performing her remaining tasks, then spoke up again.
"What is your plan for going through the Hospital?"
"Don't get smooshed? Kill everything in the way, and pick up as many goodies as we can find, there should be lots. We're probably going to get hurt again, and I bet the rest of the Rangers aren't feeling too hot to trot at the moment so we'll scour through everything. We'll have to go slow anyway to avoid the traps Reilly said they left behind them." She sighed and leaned back against the tunnel wall, looking out into the growing dusk. "When the hell did all this become so matter of fact for me?"
Charon, not knowing how to answer the question, or even sure it had been directed at him and not rhetorical, remained silent, staring at Cort in the fading light. Pushing up when he could no longer make out her face, he slung his pack back on. "We should go now."
The trio eased out of the Metro and down a long shattered corridor of buildings lined by the crumbled girders and walls of the upper floors, creeping towards the entrance to Our Lady of Hope. The dappled moonlight made variegated patterns of shadow that Cort reveled in. Improving her stealth and killing things before they knew she was there had become an almost physical high, and Charon being able to move even more silently than she could only amplified it and her desire to do better. It made her feel in control and invincible. At least until I get shot up, anyway. Which oddly hasn't happened yet. Wait, I'm unsettled because there's nothing shooting at me. Great. Perfect. I am so totally well-adjusted right now. Cort frowned and peeked at her Pip-Boy, firmly ignoring the bloody hand print smeared on the door to the Hospital next to her face.
"There's nothing near us here, and nothing directly inside the building. Wherever the mutants are at, they're not here." Charon shuffled next to her and looked at the screen.
"They may be clustered towards the Statesman. The Rangers have probably been shooting long enough to get their full attention."
Cort rolled her eyes. "Oh fantastic." She pushed the door open and they all slipped into a long lobby, windows flanking their right side. There was a depressing amount of pre-war skeletons on the floor, but nothing else inhabiting the space. After rifling through the entry desk and cabinets, Cort nudged open the interior door to peek through, and immediately started to choke to death.
