Kenji still has no answer hours later, as we reach the end of the bridge. As we pass the painted signs leading us to Manawkin and the Parkway, to our left, there lies some kid of pre-war waterfront development – rows after rows of crumbling seaside houses, their backs facing canals and lagoons choked with wrecked boats, detritus, and overgrowth. It's the perfect breeding ground for bloodbugs and mirelurks, and the perfect hideout for pirates, too.
But the green-and-yellow flag proudly flying ten feet above the skeleton of one particularly wrecked house – and the pair of Republic Army guards we now pass on patrol – tells me rather plainly that whatever might have once made a home here had been quite effectively cleared out.
Even with my eyes open, I can only imagine what this must have been like in the summertime before the War, an idyllic sun-baked waterfront paradise, light piercing through a sky clear of radioactive isotopes.
"These were summer homes once," Kenji explains, noting my interest in his characteristically gentle, deep voice, something like those of the lounge singers in Atlantic City hotels. "After they built the Garden State Parkway, New Yorkers would come down here to escape the city for a month."
"Ah," I say simply, silently wishing I could have that life.
"But this place…it…seems so familiar. The ocean, the boats…" Kenji continues, placing a hand to his head, and stopping in his tracks, his muscles looking ever tenser.
I help him to a seat at the side of the road. "You alright?" I ask.
He gingerly nods. "Just a little headache…I have medicine for it, in your bag." But I know from his tense tone that it is more than that. I can detect a faint, anxious tremor in his voice. And he's had these headaches before – the last one, admittedly, months ago, but still, it is not a new phenomenon.
I unsling it from my shoulder and hand it to him. "You sure you're alright?" I ask, as he fidgets through my things to find an otherwise empty cloth bag filled with a few blue-coloured capsules.
"What are you, my mother?" Kenji chuckles humourlessly, and then winces again. "No, I wish I knew who she was." From the bag, he takes two of the capsules between his fingers and places them down his throat. After a few seconds, he exhales. "Ah, that's better."
"Good," I smile a little. "That's good." But those words – No, I wish I knew – they still replay in my mind.
"Fuck," he grumbles, slowly standing up on unsteady feet. "These things are hard to come by."
"This isn't the first time I've seen you have these headaches," I say. "You're sure you're fine?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's perfectly alright. Just a mutant thing," he chuckles nervously, as he hands the bag back to me and we slowly start walking in the direction of Manahawkin again, "just a mutant thing."
"You can trust me, Kenji. I'll help, whatever it is."
"It's…oh, fine, you're never going you give up, are you?" he cracks a smile.
I can't help but laugh back. "You know me."
"I looked at those summer homes, and I felt…well, I've gotten that same feeling before. It's like I'm on the verge of remembering something big, something from before the War…but then all I see is the sensation of being pulled out of that damned vat of FEV in eighty-seven, and then the grenade launcher they gave me." He pauses. "This time, it was almost as if I could remember my mother's name...then, nope." He pauses for a second, then looks down sadly. "For fuck's sake, how do I even know my name is Kenji?
"It was on the piece of paper in your pocket," I remind him of what I've heard a thousand times. He pulls it from the pocket of the coat he's now wearing – a little piece of white paper with the boldfaced type: KENJI G. My guess was always that it was a shard of a pre-war identification paper. But as for what the G meant, I hadn't the slightest damn clue, and more importantly, neither did he.
"But what if it isn't?" Kenji asks, sadly.
"What else could it be?" I say. "I'll help you find out, whatever it is. Let's just do this job first?"
He smiles, and nods.
And I put my hand on his back, and we walk on together.
A minute later, "Hey, you two!" I hear a shrill cry from behind me. I turn round to see a pair of youthful men, rifles in hand, racing towards us, the rear of the pair wearing sunglasses. They are in plain leather armour, indicating they are local militia, not the Republic Army. I tense a little, my hand instinctively drifting to my plasma rifle's holster at my belt – these locals simply cannot be trusted.
"Hey, aren't you those detectives from Great Lanta?" the one in the front asks, coming to a halt not two feet from my face.
The other one pokes him in the back with the back end of his gun. "No, don't," I hear him whisper – or, rather, fail at doing so – in his colleague's ear. "No one from there calls it Great Lanta unless you want a slap in the face."
"He's right," I interject, seeing the surprised looks on their faces. "Now, what do you want? If you don't mind, we're on business, so could you make it quick?" I assume that Kenji's hulking form behind me only makes my words have added effect.
"Right," the first of the two says, gulping. "My name is Andrew...yeah, Andrew. And this is Paul." The second waves on cue. "We're from Manahawkin, just down the road – you must have heard of us? We've…well, let's just say..."
"We've heard of you," Paul fills in for him.
"How?" I frown. I'm not at all sure if I like this.
"Well," Andrew says, "there was this trader who passed by here a day ago…a gun dealer…he spoke quite highly about a black girl and a super mutant who got his business back for him from Randall Wayne. Fucking Randall Wayne!" Andrew laughs quite obnoxiously, and looks at me with shimmering eyes of adoration. "And if you could do that, you could help us."
"Look," Paul says after this, "Manahawkin has a problem."
"Listen," I reply. "Whatever it is, I'd absolutely love to help. But we've got to get to Barnegat as soon as possible. I told you already, we're on a job."
"Barnegat…are you trying to find a girl?" Andrew asks eagerly.
My eyebrows arch, and I feel a little chill on the back of my neck. "Yes...yes, we are."
"You're not the only ones," Paul says, licking his lips, staring dead ahead at me. "Three others have come through our town in the past two days asking the same questions about Barnegat. Two neuf-trois and this mercenary character. Said he was from Timbuktu."
"What the fuck do the neuf-trois want with this girl?" I ask, more thinking aloud than anything else. The neuf-trois, which I'd been told translated to "nine-three," are the tribal remnants of the inhabitants of what had once been Vault 93, from up north, near a town called Freehold. They'd become dominant in that part of Jersey, becoming a nuisance to Federation and Republic both. And Timbuktu was a trading town out west, along the Turnpike. What people from either of them were doing this far south or east utterly baffles me.
"Beats me," Andrew replies, shrugging his shoulders, and taking his sunglasses off completely to reveal a pair of jumpy hazel eyes. "With your talent, it won't take long, I promise! And if you help us, we can help you back."
Still, I know that this Manahawkin thing is just a distraction. I am unsure what help they could possibly provide; the Republic, if nothing else, does a damned good job of keeping the Parkway safe, at least as far north as New Asbury.
"Take it," Kenji whispers in my ear. "You know you want to know. Besides…trust me, these people truly need help. I've seen enough people in my life who need help, and even if they are completely different from whom they say they are, they need help."
I look at the pair. Andrew is looking at us with equal parts eagerness and desperation, and Paul – despite his otherwise laconic and deadpan deamanour behind the sunglasses – has brought his hand to his mouth, and is now gently chewing on his nails.
"Alright," I say, exhaling. "We'll help you."
"You will?" Andrew's eyes twinkle like crystalline stars. "Thank you!"