"Now just hold your breath, and make the shot." MacCready whispered next to me.
I inhaled deeply, held it, and eased back the trigger. In the distance, the feral ghoul staggering around the parking lot experienced a sudden headache. Well, taking a bullet to the head will do that, I suppose. A triumphant grin spread across my face. The last week with MacCready had most certainly sharpened my shooting skills.
With an encouraging nod, he stood up from the prone position we'd been laying in as he taught me some of the beginning tricks to sniper shooting. I boosted myself up, and passed him back his rifle. I grabbed Helga and my pack from the nearby log they were leaning against.
"Thanks, MacCready. I'm starting to almost believe that I'll survive out here in the wastes one day." I said, looking down towards the large medical building we'd been picking off ferals from.
"I wouldn't go that far, moneybags. You're too…precious to wander on your own." he said, adding a snarky inflection to the word 'precious'.
I wrinkled my nose at him. "Precious, huh? Whatever gave you that idea? Was it the whole 'ew ew ew ew' the first time I saw you blow someone's head clean off?" I teased.
"That, and how prissy you can be about getting dirty. I've never met a wasteland woman who had an issue with not being able to bathe daily, Princess Moneybags." he replied, smirking.
"Alright alright, I'll own that. Let's get going down to Med-Tek before I lose my nerve." I replied.
Moments later, we stepped into the destroyed reception area of the research building. MacCready had told me that he had seen my mysterious Vitruvian man on a lower level than this one. We made our way uneventfully downwards, dispatching a few ferals along the way. MacCready suddenly held out an arm to slow me down, miming the one finger shushing motion. I stopped where I was, nodding that I got his message, and remained quiet.
The room down below us contained holding cells. I assumed they were for test subjects, and hoped they were not humans. I was probably wrong. The telltale sounds of zombie moans indicating a larger group of ferals issued from the rear cells. I looked to MacCready, and waited for his ok to continue on. He nodded towards Helga, silently telling me to get ready to shoot. Slowly and as quietly as possible, I got her off my shoulder and prepped. It was go time.
Just as we started for the stairs, the moans grew louder. They'd heard us.
"Crap." MacCready said, and pulled a grenade from his duster.
"Shit just got real, huh?" I whispered, fairly surprised to see this turn of events.
Explosives indoors seemed like a bad idea.
"Indeedy. Time to have some fun, Princess." he said, lobbing the live grenade down towards the feral noises.
It bounced off the bottom stair railing, and rolled to the side of the ferals who were now heading directly towards us. Before I could even count to three, the frag grenade went off with spectacular results. Of the six ferals stumbling our way, two lost arms, and another two had everything below their waist blown off and turned to bloody mush. It was the first time I'd seen a feral in that particular state continue crawling for its prey with mindless determination.
MacCready and I had worked out a routine for taking out any threat that came our way. He got the right side of us, and I got the left. Maybe odd, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I carefully picked off the crawling ferals, as MacCready shot the remaining four with expert precision. We headed downstairs, and I spotted a faint green light in my peripheral vision. I tapped MacCready's shoulder, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the light.
"Reload! Now! It's a glowing one!" he said in a tone that clearly negated any argument from me.
"What the hell is that?" I asked as I shoved more ammo into Helga.
"A more dangerous feral than you've dealt with before if you don't know what that is!" MacCready shouted as he ran back up the stairs to gain a better vantage point from which to shoot.
"Already cleared out he said. Should be easy he said. I'm gonna have words with Preston. Mean words. Four letter words." I growled to myself while I began firing at the fast moving green ghoul.
The skills Mac had taught me came in handy now. While I was certainly not a Commonwealth native who was accustomed to fighting for their survival, I was better by far than I had been upon waking in Nick's office months ago. I may have missed my head shot, but I did get several rounds into the abomination's legs. It slowed the thing down enough for me to take cover. From above me, MacCready finished it off.
I sat with my back against an overturned desk, and I suddenly felt quite nauseous. Mac made his way over to me, pulling what looked to be an iv bag with a golden fluid in it from his pack. Oh man.
He grabbed my arm, pushed up my sleeve, and quickly found a vein for the attached needle.
"Shit, Mac! Warn me next time!" I squawked.
"Do you want to get sicker or what? You need the Rad Away. Just sit there, alright?" he said, pushing my shoulders back as I attempted to get up.
I sat back, and glared at him. My agitation lasted only a few minutes though. The nausea faded away rapidly, thanks to the Rad Away. In short order, he gave me the ok to get back up and remove the iv bag. I looked around for a sharps container, simply out of habit built by my time of giving myself Enbrel injections. Mac raised an eyebrow, and told me to just toss it somewhere. I made a disgusted noise and threw it into the corner.
After getting back to my feet, we picked our way through the feral ghoul corpses. We finally reached a laboratory room in disarray. Counters full of old cracked beakers, flasks, and other science supplies. Skeletons clad in tattered lab coats lay scattered through the room. Dust reigned supreme over all.
I looked over to see MacCready bent over, going through some boxes to see if there was any decent loot. I called out to him, asking where he'd seen the Vitruvian man emblem. He pointed off to the right, and told me that there were a few skeletons with that on their remaining clothing.
Slowly, I started walking over towards where Mac had directed me. A strange anxiety crept through my guts. My fate lay upon what I could find on those long dead people. It was another link to finding my way back home. So why did I feel like simply walking away instead?
Finally, my approach was done. Before me were 5 skeletons in various positions on the floor and draped across a nearby desk. It was clear that I'd have to touch them if I were to search for clues other than the patch on their coats. Gross. I steeled myself and grasped the closest set of bones. The skeleton fell into its separate bones as I wrestled with it. At least getting the lab coat would be easier.
Coming face to face with the final thing I'd seen in my world here in this one shocked me far more than I expected. I sat down with it, just staring. This symbol had some sort of link between our worlds. This is what took me away from my family.
"This is what brought you to Dan." whispered that little guilt ridden part of my mind.
Shut up, brain.
I checked through the pockets of this coat, and came up with nothing but disintegrated paper. Moving on to the next set of Vitruvian clothing, I noticed a small difference on this one. All the others, including the one I remembered from home, had an orange background on the patch. This one had a cerulean blue background. I snatched it up, feeling this one might hold the answer I was simultaneously looking for and dreaded.
Digging through the pockets, my fingers brushed across a plastic square. I pulled it out, and gave it a critical once over. The square was slightly bigger than a music cassette tape from my childhood. Like those, I could spot a set of reels for the tape. Then I noticed the writing across it:
Living will: Morely, Brenna.
What the hell was my name doing on a tape from the future of a devastated timeline?