For the third time that day, Sue got the broom and and the bucket and cleaned up the mess that Graham had made. She hoped that whatever he'd eaten had melted a hole in his stomach, because if he threw up on the floor again he was going to be dead, either way. She muttered this to herself as she swept up the mess and applied Abraxo to the tile.
"I'm dying," the idiot moaned. "Ross, you gotta take over."
The lesser officer adjusted a dial and shook his head. "Not until Control gives us a replacement," he said. "If you do die, I'll run the tower. But only if you do die, which I think is unlikely."
What a shame, Sue thought, and scrubbed harder.
The senior operator moaned and groaned, writhing in his chair. His prompt beeped, and he ignored it.
"Graham, your prompt," Ross said.
"Ughhhh!" But Graham looked at it, and rubbed his eyes.
Sue stayed in the tower only a little while longer, before dashing outside to the fresh air of the wastes. Well, as fresh as a dead world can be, she thought to herself. The tiny three building town of Sterling didn't smell very good, anyway.
Outside, she moved away from the tower and dug a hole, burying the vomit. Carefully, she wiped out the bucket with more dirt, grimacing. A noise in her ears brought her to attention and she looked out at the distance, scanning. Sterling hardly got bothered by creatures in the wastes, thanks to Paramount's vigilance, but the kind that caused the most bother was usually people.
A young man's head popped up out of the brush, and moved toward her. She pulled her knife out and tossed the bucket at him, backing up a few steps.
"Stop right there!" she said. Whoever he was, he wasn't from Detroit. Too clean.
"Friendly," he gulped, when he saw her brandishing the knife. "I'm friendly. Jesse." He held out a hand, kept his other flat out where she could see it.
"What do you want?" she asked, roughly.
"I'm, uhhh..." He chuckled and looked sheepishly. "I'm lost."
She eyed him. "You going to Detroit?"
"No, no... well, not yet," he said, and flopped himself onto the ground. He sighed. "I'm trying to find someone called Peanut?"
She swore, and relaxed. "Didn't Abramov warn you not to approach the place, directly?"
Jesse grinned at her. Sue felt her heart melting a little, and wrapped a cold hand around it. "He did. I'm sorry," he said. "I really am lost."
"Go around the trees and find a rock that looks like a skull. If the tower men see you skulking around, they might shoot you," she warned.
He saluted, and disappeared around the hillside again. Sue returned to the tower, after putting away her knife. She put the bucket by the door and grabbed the broom.
"Who was that?" Ross asked her.
"Lost little idiot," she muttered. "Wanted a cigarette." She huffed at the thought.
Graham had lain his head down on the console and gone to sleep. She looked at him, saw the slick wet spit that dribbled from his mouth, and sighed. "Ross, can I have a break?"
"Go on," he said, waving her away.
Quickly, ducking through the brush and moving around the hill to stay hidden, she moved toward the rocks. The young man was waiting for her, and stood up off the rock as she approached. "I'm Peanut," she said. "What's up?"
"Abramov said to tell you 'Bully!' and that it is time to enact the plan."
Sue swore, and rolled her eyes. Bully, really. He's gonna get himself killed. "What plan?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
"I dunno," he said. "He just kept saying 'the plan' and making weird twitching movements."
She sighed, and stared down the black-haired young man. Great, she thought. "The plan" was Abramov's way of saying he wanted a full-scale take down of the radio tower. "Why?" she asked, curious.
"Something, something..." he pulled out a gun and held it on her, aiming for her heart, "...because I said so."
Sue just stared at him. This was quickly becoming the worst day. "What, you want in the tower? Can't get in without my keycard?" She fished it out of her pocket, and shrugged. "Take it. I'm sick of that pukey bastard, anyway." She tossed it down onto the ground.
Jesse gave her a tired little smile, a rueful one. "I don't like holding guns on girls," he said. He didn't make a move to lower the rifle, though. "The devil made me do it."
"The devil. Really." She rolled her eyes and made her hands into fists on her hips.
"Yeah," he said. His eyes flicked up and over her shoulder. "That one."
And a massive arm swung around her chest, pulling her backwards into a hole in the rocks.
"Man!" Jesse said, listening to Peanut's struggle, as she fought the restraints back in the rocks. Lionel had gone into the small hollow and said something to her, and she'd redoubled her efforts to escape. "What did you say to her? She's really freaking out."
Lionel, crouching by the bushes, shrugged his shoulders. Jesse picked up the keycard and turned it around in his hand. "What's the plan, then?" he asked.
Lionel gestured to the door. "You run out there, go around in circles by the door. I'll stand behind it." He looked at the keycard in Jesse's hands. "Won't need that."
Jesse pocketed it anyway, and started running in place. "Say when, O Devil," he joked.
"Just go, kid."
Jesse took off, the ghoul following behind him. He ran around on the dry earth outside the door, whooping for the hell of it. Lionel shot him a look and shook his head.
After a moment, the door beeped, then flung open. Lionel caught it with his leg, and slammed it back onto the man behind it. Jesse ran up and kicked the man's feet out from under him with a dropkick, knocking him backwards on the tile inside the doorway.
"Helmet," Lionel said, and Jesse swiftly removed the combat helmet from the man's head. He tossed it aside as Lionel sat down on the man's chest, pinning his arms down with his knees. He growled at the dazed man, and put his hand on his neck.
Jesse looked around the corner of the hall, spying on the other tower operator. He looked like he was asleep on the console; this one was wearing power armor. Jesse sneaked up behind him and aimed his rifle at the man's helmet. Hah! He is asleep, he thought. With a swift motion, he unlatched the power helmet and jerked it off the man's head.
In the hall, an agonizing sound echoed, and Jesse fought back a tremble. Lionel was brutal. He aimed his rifle at the back of the sleepy operator's head. "Don't move, man," he said, to the drowsy man.
The ghoul came to join him, after the sounds in the hallway stopped. "Jesse," he said, "Go strip the armor from that one."
"But I'm having so much fun here," Jesse said, trying to play off his nerves. Lionel shot him a withering look. "Fine!" he said.
While he tried to figure out how to get the armor off the dead man, Lionel had a muted conversation with the radio operator. Jesse heard glass shattering, and clicking noises like a keyboard. When he returned, the operator's head was smashed into the console and Lionel held the mans' arm in his hands, fiddling with the display in the armor. "What are you gonna do?" Jesse asked.
Lionel looked up from the screen, his face a picture of frustration. He shoved it at Jesse. "You type," he said. "Tell them, 'Phaeton walks, tower―" he looked around the room. "Tower 32 is dead."
Jesse typed it as best he could, then looked up at the ghoul expectantly. "Anything else?"
"Send Bradley," Lionel said, darkly.
"Who's Bradley?" Jesse asked, but received no answer. "Uhh... Oh, shit, dude!" he laughed at himself. "Uh, I may have sent that to all Pip-Boys everywhere."
Lionel grunted and hooked the operator's body, peeling it off the bloody console. "Drag the other one in here."
Jesse let Lionel do the next part. He hadn't been aware of what Lionel was planning, but once the combat knife came out and started slicing open the corpses he had a fairly good idea. He threw up in his mouth a little, but he wouldn't admit it. The insides of people were almost as disgusting as Delaines, and he'd never had a head for butchering. Lionel grabbed out intestines, tossing them like decorations around the room.
"Doesn't that bother you?" Jesse asked. The smell―shit, and blood, and a faint smell of vomit.
"Sometimes," the ghoul said, calmly. He sliced a hunk of skin off one of the men and threw it at the ceiling.
Jesse walked outside, waiting for him to finish. He went down to the hole in the rocks and untied the girl, telling her to find Abramov and let him know Phaeton had walked. He kept his rifle on her until she had disappeared over the hills completely. She was sort of cute in a Kewpie doll way. He chuckled. Not a chance, now that he'd had to hold her hostage.
He sat down and wondered why he'd even wanted to help these people, or Lionel. If this was an indication of how things were going to be... Lionel just could not give a fuck about anything, or anyone, but himself and his goal. Which was what? To get his girl back? She was probably dead, and if she wasn't, well, Lionel might not want her back.
Maybe she'd been brainwashed, too. Abramov said the conditioning was in the airwaves, broadcast over the area through radio towers like this one. It kept the locals passive and productive. No one knew exactly how to break the conditioning, not even Abramov, though most of them had been asleep and having nightmares when it happened. Abramov kept a careful record of everything, but was waiting on every radio towers to be disabled before effecting any change.
Jesse didn't really understand how someone could be brainwashed by listening to the radio. Abramov had warned them away from any source of radio, just in case, but how would they even get into Detroit if there was a chance they could be conditioned? At least the other rebels had the buffer of knowing they'd been under control, and that let them keep their heads. But, how did you know if you were conditioned?
Jesse determined, much like many other things in his world that he didn't understand, that he ought to let it lie and ignore it until it became an issue.
Covered in various disgusting fluids, Lionel exited the tower. The two newly joined rebels walked out into the wastes, to wait for the next move.