Note from the Author: I'm back, bitches! Sorry it's been so long, but I'm ready to get back into the writing game. On top of having posted some chapters from Through the Generations, here comes the next installment for "The Road We Travel"! I'll probably have a couple chapters to a couple other stories posted after this, but the point is that I haven't given up on this story! I know some of you adore this tale, and I'm only too happy to bring you the moar you so (seemingly) crave! But enough chitchat.
*Chapter Eleven: The Good Fight Pt. 2*
"They're just waiting for us, aren't they?"
Kim asked that when we got to the end of the sewer system leading into a massive mess of Super Mutant trenches.
"Not particularly, no," I told her. "No, they're just fighting a double-sided war. Honestly, it's a wonder how they keep their numbers up."
Truthfully, I was torn between wanting to know and desperately not wanting to know the answer to -that- question.
Naturally, we were spotted by muties the second we left the safety of the tunnels, but the green bastards didn't put up as much of a fight as I was expecting. Certainly nowhere near the resistance they showed in front of GNR. It took some work dodging what bullets they did blast our way, but they didn't take much to take down individually. Which was surprising, but I sure as hell wasn't about to question it.
We had to work together to shut the doors of the Museum of Technology, though I was able to set a plank of wood in the handles to keep Muties from barging in. I leaned against a nearby wall to catch my breath, but I didn't get much time.
"Come on," Kim urged me, "that satellite isn't gonna find itself."
"While I agree wholeheartedly with getting out of here as soon as possible, don't push yourself too hard," I told her. "You can't hunt your father down if you get yourself killed in the process."
"Fair enough," she replied with a warm smile, if not a bit lopsided.
We scoured the first area, and of course we didn't find much. As it turned out, much of the stairway was destroyed by insects or rot or something or other. So now, the only way to access the rest of the museum was to go through the Vault-Tec display. Much of what was discussed by some long-dead recorded voice was news to me, but Kim just got more and more depressed the more we delved, so I didn't lag behind.
"At least we're alone in here," Kim sighed as we finally escaped the fake vault. But sure enough, we heard a gunshot directly after she said that.
"HEAR YOU!" some random mutie grunted loud enough for his voice to echo all over the museum, as far as we knew.
"Spoke too soon," I shrugged, taking my Scoped .44 out of its holster.
Naturally, the place was crawling with muties. They were fairly spread out, don't get me wrong. Nowhere near as clustered as the trenches outside, but there certainly wasn't a shortage of the green bastards, either. We made our way systematically through the complex, taking down every mutie we came across. Every once in a while, Kim would stop to fiddle with one terminal or another. I thought they were all connected to the same network, but I didn't bother her, trusting her to know what she was doing.
Soon enough, we had our sights on it. It looked like it was some kind of rocket, and I certainly wasn't accustomed to seeing one of those bad boys with a huge mouse ear attached to it. Of course, I studied rockets along with a plethora of other subjects in my Brotherhood-addled youth, but that wasn't on trial. The point was that we found what we came here for.
"Help me with this," Kim muttered, trying deperately to reach the top of the dish for some reason or another. I contemplated watching this stunt, but after what happened between us recently, I decided that doing so would be in bad taste, so I merely pressed the button that detached the dish from the rocket.
I did have to help her with it once it came loose, though. Not that it was particularly heavy. It was just this big, smooth, curved thing. It was just hard to get a hold of it. But we eventually did.
"Please don't tell me we have to lug this damn thing all the way back to GNR," Keiko huffed from exhaustion.
"We don't have to lug it all the way back to GNR," I told her with just a hint of wickedness in my smile. "We just have to make it to the Washington Monument."
"You mean we have to roll this... through all those..." Kim muttered, more out of exasperation than exhaustion at this point.
"Yup. If we're lucky, we might be able to get the Brotherhood stationed there to install the dish," I hoped. "But they know me, so they're just as likely to strap this thing to my back and have me climb up the monument with my bare damn hands."
"That's crazy," Kim huffed. "Maybe If you hung back and let me talk to them-"
"They'll just take the dish and use it for their own purposes," I told her, knowing the Brotherhood's attitude to letting non-members handle ancient technology. "Besides, I'm kidding, they won't bar us from the elevator, though we're likely on our own after- FUCK!"
I heard the gunshot before the pain came, but I wasn't crying out in pain from the noise it made when it bounced off the dish - damn thing flicked my ear on the rebound.
"GOT YOU!" the Super Mutant cheered, apparently not caring that it only grazed me. Three shots later, it slid its back against the wall, staining it in whatever color its blood was. Kim was quick with her response.
She was also quick with the first-aid kit, but I stood up and out of her way. "Relax, it was just a scratch."
"Sit down," she replied, pushing on my shoulder with surprising strength. I complied, and she went to work. "You go out there like this and it'll get infected in a hurry."
Somehow, I felt amused by all this, but I didn't express it. Once she was done and the blood stopped pouring out (trickling out, more like it), I lifted the dish and we kept moving.
Kim insisted we scavenge a bit before leaving, eventually finding a safe and cracking some terminal to get into it. Among the merchant fodder was a note.
"What does it say?" I asked Kim, who started reading it immediately.
"Something about Jury Street Metro," she explained.
"Don't worry about it," I told her, pulling out my Xuanlong Assault Rifle. "Found this in a corpse out there. The rest of the area was picked clean."
"Oh," Kim said, sounding a bit dissapointed. "Well, saves us a trip, then."
We continued on our way after that. Kim was sharper than I gave her credit for. As we made our way to the Washington Monument, she picked off the mutants that had line of sight with us, and kept us out of sight of the rest. It made my manual labor a bit longer, but that's nothing compared to not getting killed.
"Come on in, you two," the power suit in charge said as we made our way to the monument. To my surprise, they sent us up the elevator with very little joking.
"Can I ask you something?" Kim spoke up once I propped the dish against the elevator wall and stretched my muscles. "Why were you so upset when the soldiers at GNR congratulated us on taking out the giant mutant?"
"They weren't congratulating us," I explained. "They were congratulating you. But mostly, they were chiding me for letting some slip of a Vault Dweller do the job I should have done."
"That's stupid," Kim retorted, shooting me a slightly disgusted look that I could tell wasn't meant for me. "Who cares who got the kill, the monster was taken care of."
"You don't know the Brotherhood of Steel," I told her, sounding equal parts proud and annoyed. I'm convinced the proud bit was just old habits bubbling to the surface.
"Whatever," she sighed. I didn't blame her for not getting it, but I also didn't explain further. To be honest, I'd had enough Steel in my day, as well.
We managed to get a bit of rest in, but the ride up was a lot shorter than we thought it was going to be. But sure enough, when the doors opened, we could tell we were in the top floor.
"I can't tell if it's beautiful or depressing," Kim said when she saw the view that the altitude offered. I knew the answer was both. We could see Capitol Hill from here. The old White House. My mind glanced back at all the gatherings and speeches that took place in that area before the bombs fell, but my eyes could only see what the bombs left behind. Ruin. Even the skies were filled with whites and grays - an appropriate mirror to the world below it.
I took a step back to strap the dish to my shoulders. "Come on, we've got work to do."
Unfortunately, there was little machinery in the room that wasn't radio-related, so I had little choice but to climb the exterior of the building to get up to where the dish needed to be placed.
"Be careful!" Kim shouted. Not that it did me any good. But I managed to make my way to the device meant to hold the dish in place when something pinged against the metal next to my hand and scared the everloving fuck out of me. I went into shock, grasping on to a metal beam for dear life, closing my eyes, inhaling, and telling myself that no matter what happened, looking down would only get me killed.
Fortunately, the distant whir of a minigun told me that the danger of getting shot had past, so I relaxed enough to exhale, but not enough to let go of the metal bar. I pushed myself forward, then back. I did this a few times before lunging backwards, hoping my aim wasn't off. When I heard the click of the device and felt myself free of gravity's grip, I relaxed a bit more. Then, I grabbed hold of a different metal bar with my left hand, cutting myself free of the ropes with the Combat Knife in my right hand (it was in my pocket a moment before) and letting them fall to the ground. I then climbed around to make sure all the wires were connected properly before my re-entry into the monument.
Kim's reaction to my re-entry was something of a slap in the face. Well, okay, it was a slap in the face. Literally. "Don't ever do something that dangerous again!"
I smirked, despite the seriousness of the situation, let alone the conversation. "Hey, you're not the one that got shot at."
"I'm not kidding!" she shouted.
"Neither am I," I smirked. "I know, I know. But I did what I had to do. And now-"
"And now, GNR is singing, baby!" Three-Dog's voice echoed through the biggest machine in the room.
"Figures you'd have a way to contact your people out here, " I huffed.
"I'm kinda surprised you didn't wait until we were back in your building," Kim wondered.
"Eh, it'd be kinda cruel to drag you all the way out here just to send you back the way you came," Three-Dog explained.
"We had a deal, deejay," I said with a stern tone.
"A deal I plan to keep," Three-Dog reassured me. "Your lady's old man headed to Rivet City when he was done here. Went to talk to a... what was it? Oh yeah, a Doctor... Li? Pretty sure that's who it was. Kept talking about this project of his."
"Maybe that's why..." Kim muttered. "Thank you, Three-Dog."
"Thank -you-, milady," Three-Dog cheered, "for helping with the Good Fight."
I rolled my eyes as Three-Dog signed out of the walkie-talkie. Immediately, his voice broadcast over the radio about how everyone in every bare-ass corner of the Capitol Wasteland could hear him. I was almost too salty toward him that I didn't notice Kim hugging me.
"Thank you," she sighed.
"We're not done, yet," I told her with a smirk.
"I know," she replied, refusing to let me go for a second. Eventually, though, she did.
"Come on," I told her. "We've got another sewer system to crawl through before we can get to Rivet City."