Calhoun was going over inventory slips, and cursing whoever had invented the process, when Celia returned after having been gone for over a week. She looked hungry, dirty, and bloody, with a cut running from her right forehead to her left cheek.
"Well," Calhoun said to her, his patience thin, "thanks to your little expedition, the town almost lost a few Brahmin calves."
"We have a major problem," she said, sounding older than she usually did, "so shut up and listen to me, for once."
"I've always listened to you, Celia," he said, carefully.
She detailed a fantastic story about soldiers in some town called On-the-Bay, who were exploding some kind of giant octopus underneath the waters. She told him that Lionel had shown up and gotten hurt, and how the soldiers were holding him hostage until she returned with Calhoun to speak with their leader.
"I know I messed everything up," she said, nearing tears. Calhoun poured a cup of the terrible coffee that Darla served him every morning. "And you can imprison or kill me or whatever, but Lionel deserves to be saved."
"What exactly do they want from me?" Calhoun asked her.
"Power armor, probably our munitions and robots too," she said. "I had to tell them. You know how bad I am at lying."
Calhoun sighed. "Well," he said, and pinched his nose. "Who are they?"
"I don't know," she said. "I heard one of them talking about something called Paramount, and another one mentioned a place called Detroit."
"For the love of―" he started, and sighed. She sniffled a little.
"They're going to kill him," she said, looking down, "because I went and got in trouble and Lilian asked him to help." She wrung her hands.
Calhoun did not like to see her so depressed, and sighed to himself. "Alright, let's check it out." He dispatched Jacob and Gus to check up on the soldiers, and called in Pesaro and Mike, to explain the story to them.
"There are most definitely four people in power armor up on the dry lake bed," Jacob said. "And Lionel is up there, too. You are in some deep shit this time," he directed at Celia, who shook a little and wiped her eyes. Gus added in that the firepower of the group was much more advanced than they had access to, other than the sentry bot.
"It might be a good idea to try to touch base with them," Pesaro said. "If we are more aware of the politics of the region, maybe we could advance community goals."
"It would do us a world of good to have more supplies for the town," Calhoun said. "All we can really offer up is repair and electronics skills, however."
Mike chuckled a little. "Maybe Pesaro was right about building robots."
"They aren't going to talk with you," Celia mumbled. "They're only going to hurt us."
"That sort of thing usually depends on how we go about our initial contact," Calhoun told her, softly.
"We may not have the people to defend ourselves," Pesaro said, "against technology like these men have, but we do have the robots. Not even power armor can withstand all the robots, put together."
"So, what, we'll offer to deal with them?" Mike asked.
"They'll still kill us all," Celia muttered.
Mike shot her an annoyed look. "Gee, and who do we have to thank for that?"
She sputtered a bit. Calhoun stepped in. "Look, if you're that concerned, let us work out this plan. It'll be a lot easier if you aren't acting like this, Celia."
She pushed herself up off the couch and stared at him. "Acting like what?" she asked, challenging him.
"Stupid," said Pesaro. "Running like an idiot off to have an adventure, abandoning your job and your animals, and not even bothering to let someone know where you were?"
"I'm not going to leave Lionel out there with those bastards!" she nearly shouted, clenching her fists.
"Celia," Calhoun said, gently.
"I don't know why you'd bother with that nasty old zombie, anyway," Pesaro said, flipping through the papers on the desk.
"He's ten times a better person than you!" she yelled. "I'm starting to wonder why I bother to stay here, anyway! All you ever do is say I'm stupid!" She pointed at Mike. "I am not an idiot and I am not treating someone else like you treat me!"
Calhoun escorted her from the room, and shot the men a parting look. They'd made her upset with truths and while Calhoun didn't think she was stupid, he did think she was a bit immature to be dealing with her problems by yelling like that. "You know I don't think of you like that," he said.
She pulled her arm away from him and scoffed, walking away. Calhoun followed her outside, watching her. "At least stay until we get the robots in position, Celia," he said.
"No," she said, "if I'm no good here, I'm no good anywhere. I'm going back and if I die, so be it."
A decidedly bad time for her to start acting serious, he thought to himself. Teenagers! He followed her, though, because his conscience would have killed him. If the soldiers were serious about her bringing him to speak with them, he ought to extend the invitation the opposite way.
"Benjamin!" he yelled. "Send Sergeant Sawyer out with me!"
Calhoun sighed to himself once more and followed the impetuous young girl out into the wastes, a slightly battered Mister Gutsy trailing behind.
Wade would be on contact point for the next two weeks, isolated from Sigma for having lost a prisoner (even if he did get her back) and causing Sigma to lose face. And Wade had failed to utilize his equipment properly, so he was being punished with contact point.
As Wade was leaving the group to scout the area one more time, Mayer described for the ghoul what happened to the defiled who entered Detroit. He shook his head at the description.
"First," Mayer said, "you will submit yourself to the High Ferrule, who will judge your worthiness. If you are considered worthy, you will join the exalted in the Temple." He smiled at the thought. Wade knew Mayer's father had been considered exalted. "But you, my mephitic friend, are corrupt and will invariably be judged as defiled."
"If you're trying to insult me," Lionel answered, snarkily, "you should dumb down your words."
Mayer grabbed Lionel's left arm and twisted it, causing the ghoul to shout out in pain. "Then, once judge defiled, you will be thrown into the Sepulchre at Golgotha, where Phaeton will send his army of demons to gnaw upon you until you are nothing but bone!"
Wade shuddered. Every kid in Detroit knew about Phaeton. A boogeyman of terrifyingly real proportion, who ate up bad children and the defiled. For someone who knew what it was like to occasionally wake up and find a giant rat chewing on his feet, the prospect was not unimaginable. Wade had worked very hard to get himself out of the slums, where light was never visible even in the daytime. The manufacturing plants produced too many toxic fumes and too much smoke. He was glad he no longer had to look forward to working at the refitted Chryslus plant.
On contact point, Wade was essentially bait. He scouted the area around where Sigma was moving, seeking and destroying opposition. Out here, it was more like a pleasant walk through the woods as relatively few critters were about.
His motion detector beeped, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he moved to the area located. "Dammit, Wade," he said to himself. "Gotta keep on that."
Perhaps Control had been wrong to assign him to Sigma. Hazards Response Division wasn't what he'd expected when he applied for a military post. He was a tech, for goodness sake! What did he know about shooting things, he hadn't seen a Lakelurk before in his entire life. Sometimes he imagined that he was a test for Bradley, rather than a potential team member.
Wade rounded a tall hill and came across the girl, arguing with an older black man. "Let me go!" she was saying. The man had her by the wrist. A Gutsy-model robot hovered nearby, sounding off on Wade's approach.
Wade raised his pistol. "Back down," he ordered, sweeping the gun across the two. "Are you Calhoun?" he asked the man.
"Yes. Who are you?"
Wade waved his pistol at them, motioning that they should follow. "Wade," he said. "Paramount Force Sigma."
Celia fell in step. "Is Lionel okay?" she asked, worriedly.
Wade didn't answer. He heard her make a small thin noise. "So help me, Celia," Calhoun said, "if you say anything while I'm trying to talk to these men..."
She went quiet. Wade smiled to himself. At least he wasn't the one who was in the most trouble.
The three people and the robot moved across the lake bed to join up with Sigma.