Gifts of the Minutemen
Preston's words stuck with me for a long time after that night in the Super-Duper Mart. That we are judged in death by the darkness... or evil, I think he said, that we destroy in life. I don't think he meant literally destroy, but more a sort of redemption. Of course, he wasn't talking to me when he said it...
Ancient doors of thin metal wailed from neglected hinges when Martin pushed them open. the sheet metal was brown with rust, flakes falling off at the merest touch. Behind them, a corridor opened up, a long and wide hallway of gray concrete. Gypsum and plaster covered the floor where the pieces had broken off the ceiling, and the one lamp still clinging to its place gave off only a dim, flickering light, but it felt strong enough, in the otherwise absolute darkness.
The Wasteland had such an odd way of being in a state of utter decay, and yet somehow hadn't just collapsed in on itself already. As if some unseen force of cosmic indulgence held the whole thing together.
Dust lay thick on every surface in the first storage room they peered into. Crates that had once been a bright yellow now hid beneath a veil of filth and time. It seemed almost as if nothing had been touched for two hundred years. Only the end of the room, by one of the overhead windows, betrayed life still existed. Footprints in the dust, and drag marks on the floor where a table had been arranged. It wasn't empty.
Jackets, shirts, trousers, boots, even gloves. All of it bore the same, distinct hue as Preston Garvey's had, though it seemed time had dulled the once more starkly deep-blue colors. It all seemed of good quality, especially compared to his own now threadbare clothes. A small spark of white stood out on the arms of each jacket, a rifle crossed by a bolt of lightning.
"Minutemen uniforms?" Piper exclaimed incredulously, hefting up one of the jackets, "So that's what he meant. You know, when Garvey said there'd be clothes laid out for us, I didn't really figure he meant... like, this. Feels... Does this feel odd, to you?"
"No?"
"Oh, that's... good, I guess."
"There is more," Martin plucked a water canteen from the table, half-buried under the clothes. It was pewter, and might have once been bright and reflective, but now dulled and without gleam. He tried using the flask as a mirror, but couldn't tell if it was his reflection or shadow he saw in the metal. There was a knife too, underneath the flask. It looked old, and handmade, with the handle whittled and the blade seemingly hammered out of some larger piece. Piper sighed, putting down the jacket, "You disapprove?"
"I don't... disapprove, as such, really. I mean, it's probably a lot... better than what we had. I just... I worry, is all," she muttered, turning to face him. Half her face hidden away, and the rest a worried frown, she remained beautiful, "Traveling the Wasteland alone is dangerous enough. Traveling dressed like Minutemen? Not really helping. Ghouls won't care, sure, but the raiders out there? Gunners? They might let regular folks by, with a toll, but they'll gun us down soon as blink when they see these..."
"We will be in sewers though. There will not be raiders there, I think." There just as well might be, but he knew she was already on the edge of her nerves. Every minute delayed here, something could have happened to Nat at home. It made him work faster at the new clothes, pulling off what remained of his old shirt. Piper stopped her own changing, briefly, and he felt he caught her eye on him before she went back to work, "And... I will walk first. We should be safe from ghouls, yes?"
"Hopefully that's the worst we'll find down there." Piper began stripping out of her coat, though it looked more like it was falling apart around her than any kind of deliberate action. Even if she wore a shirt under it, it somehow felt like an intimate gesture. Martin wasn't sure if he should avert his eyes or not, and picked the middle ground that was focusing on his own pile of clothes. He'd already seen her in less, so what was the problem? The new jacket was nice, felt strong, heavy and was long enough that it was almost a coat, and the shirt as well seemed of high quality, "At least we're gonna be dressed for the occasion."
"Should there not be also clothes for Robert?" he asked, pausing for a moment before pulling off his one shoe. Losing a leg at least made taking off your shoes faster, if nothing else, "Garvey said there are clothes for us all, yes? It seems odd he should not get his own, I think."
"Well, he did go ahead of us," Piper shrugged, though she didn't sound as indifferent as she might have wanted. Martin turned his head away again, though less so this time, when she started pulling the shredded remains of her jeans off. They were still intact enough that removing them actually made a difference, but he doubted she could have walked into Diamond City wearing them, "Maybe he already got his? Hey, Martin, need a hand here..."
"You..." the question didn't really wish to pass his lips, though he understood when she reached out for support. He couldn't help but note though, that she could have just as easily used the table for support. Not that he intended to say that, or complain. Privacy wasn't something they had really had since setting out from Bunker Hill, and it seemed Piper was as appreciative of the chance as he was. He did take the chance to jab at her, though, "What, you cannot stand on your own?"
"What, you can't be a gentleman?"
"You know, we do not have that word in my language," he chuckled, stepping in, "It is only in Common and Colovian."
There was a brief moment when he took her hand, like a mild electric jolt through his skin. It felt like a moment he didn't want to end, but Piper was through changing in what felt like the blink of an eye, and he had to let go, though he did so only slowly. Neither was she in any apparent rush to let go, running instead grime-smeared fingers across his palm. When he curled his, she paused, locked together. He ran a thumb over the back of her hand, leaving a mark where it pressed aside dirt.
"Common is like English, right?" she mused, her voice now a little softer, quieter too, than before. It hadn't lost the teasing edge, though, "You know, I still think that's so weird."
"Convenient, I think."
"Well, yeah, obviously," she hummed, chuckling, "Talk about a language barrier."
"Do not think all people in my home speak Common," Martin sighed. If he actually found a way home, for all of them, that was going to be the next hurdle, "If... if we find a way, that is. Home. It is not important otherwise."
"I'll give it the good old college try, promise," Piper's grin was a display of broken lips and a gap where one of her front teeth should have been. It seemed he wasn't alone in being brought down from thirty-two. Sadly, one of the limitations of Restoration, or at least his level of aptitude, "Can't be thát hard, learning a completely new language, you know?"
There it was, that trace of optimism that had ensnared him to her, all the way back in the subways of Boston's western outskirts. For all that life and the Wasteland piled on her with misfortune and hardship, it was still there, underneath. Sometimes it shone through, like it had in the Monument, and when they spent that night in the hostel.
He longed for the sense of normalcy there had been, back then. When it felt like, for all that the Commonwealth was a diseased ruinscape, it still held civilization. It had almost felt like home. You could visit tabernas, or peruse storefronts. You could eat, dine, relax and recuperate.
"It feels so long ago, Bunker Hill" he muttered, "It seemed safe."
"Yeah.." Her voice was a whisper, barely audible, and just as likely thoughts spoken aloud as words meant for him. He wished, in this moment, that he could see her face, all of it. To see warm brown orbs, and the way the overhead light would have made her hair gleam, if it hadn't been all but shaven off. Her one visible eye instead now was weary and bloodshot, and the tufts that did protrude from the bindings gave her a far more boyish look than before, "...remember the Monument?"
"...it was nice there."
"It was," she hummed, leaning in. Her forehead landed on his shoulder, and stayed there. A warmth spread from it and to the rest of his body, driving out the chill of autumn night. A minute passed, and still she said nothing more.
"...Piper?"
"Shhhshsh...shhhhh... " she whispered, curling her free hand around the hem of his shirt. It was blue linen, or maybe some kind of wool, with a collar that could be buttoned up. It made his old feel cheap - which it had been, but it had also been one of the few things he still possessed from home, "Just... gimme a second."
"Okay."
He could give her that much, easily. If she wanted, he would give her years, like this. He didn't want to move at all, dared barely even to breathe, for fear it would remind her they had a mission.
A last, sharper breath than the rest told him time was up. Piper lingered for a second longer, then stood back and wiped something from her cheek, where color was starting to return. Though it was a somber smile, it was there all the same on her lips, broken and bruised though they were.
Martin reached out, touching a trickle of restorative power to the abused skin of her lower lip. He felt the shudder in her body as he did, but kept his eyes instead on her lips, not knowing what he would find in her gaze. And he was not sure yet if he had the courage to find out. He couldn't give her back the missing tooth, but this he could do. His thumb left a path of unblemished skin, but when he made to move his hand away, she grasped it, pulling it to her uncovered cheek. It was warm, and soft, and he could feel the trace of wetness.
"That's a real nice trick, you know," Robert's voice broke the moment like a sledgehammer on eggshells. Martin, suddenly, felt like he was a youth again, taken in the act in the barn with a girl whose name and face he no longer remembered. Only that he'd been tanned for it. The mercenary stood in the doorway, already furnished in blue. To his credit, he hadn't even made a sound, "Is that what you did, at the caravan?"
"Kopile! You make habit out of sneaking up on others?" Martin snapped, annoyed as well as a little frustrated that not only had Robert interrupted them, but he also sprung a question Martin wasn't ready to answer, "How long were you there?"
"A minute, give or take," the mercenary chuckled. He stepped into the room proper, casting a glance around before his eyes again found the two of them, "Didn't mean to evesdrop or anything. Just got curious when the lamp wasn't the only source of light from in here, decided to peek in. Hope you didn't have to touch me like that."
"It was more like pressure on a wound," Martin said, his voice as flat as he could make it. Much as Robert did deserve to know - maybe - his sudden appearance was less than appreciated, "I kept blood on the inside, and helped your body... Most could have done it. It's not really important. A stimpack does the same, I think."
"Aye, but I know what a stimpack is. What you did, I don't know," Robert's expression tightened a little, "And most folks can't play stimpack and actually get away with it. Waving your hands and muttering stuff doesn't actually tend to work."
Mostly he wanted to be angry with MacCready, or at least deeply annoyed. Being interrupted like that... Robert was lucky Martin was as much in his debt as the mercenary was to him.
"You are inquisitive for a sell-sword..."
"Never used a sword, but I've been told as much," the mercenary shrugged. He fished out a pack of Grey Tortoise from one of the chest-pockets of his new, blue jacket. He deftly, and by some trick, made a smoke pop from the cardboard and drew it out with his teeth. Then extended the pack to them, "Want one?"
He did. Honestly, and strangely, he genuinely did crave the acrid taste and smell of a cigarette. Even as he knew they harmed his body, and even as he knew why he craved it. There was something in those little white sticks, it enslaved the body as much as the mind, promising a comfort only they could provide. But it was a gilded cage, if anything, and one he did accept as he plucked a stick from the package. Piper too, though she at first picked only air, missing by an inch.
"So," Robert started, once the smell of tobacco hung in the air, "What's the deal then? You some kind of mutant? Escaped Institute-prototype?" he turned a suddenly interested eye on Piper, who for her part seemed intent on not meeting it, "Wait, is the illustrious Miss Wright a part of the Railroad?"
"As if," she muttered, taking a drag on her stick before speaking again, "They're not exactly the bunch to show up for interviews, if they even still exist. Lord knows I've tried though, looking for them, but the closest thing I got was a near-dip in a sewer."
"Shame," the mercenary shrugged, turning his attention back to Martin, "So, not a synth then. And you don't really look like a mutant, you know. Not that I've ever seen or heard of a mutant capable of what you did. Most seem to be those glowie-ghouls, shitting radiation all over the place."
"I am a Healer," would have sufficed at home, whether he'd been in Valenwood or High Rock. The word would mean respect, even admiration in some parts. Traveling healers were supposedly always well-received in the smaller hamlets and villages of the Empire, where access to doctors and apothecaries often was scant. In a way, it was the same as here...
Here, though, it meant something akin to a drug dealer. The only other 'Healer' in Diamond City was a store down the Market Street selling all manners of chems. Chem-peddlers, vultures and slugs that fed themselves on the misery of their fellows. They grew fat on the downfall of civilisation, like maggots wriggling through the dead flesh of a long-still cadaver.
"A Healer?" the disbelief was clear in MacCready's voice.
"I can help the body recover from wounds," he breathed in, sucking intoxicating air down into his lungs. It hurt, and felt like dragging sanded paper through his windpipe. But it helped, somehow, "A healer is taught how to progress the body's own recovery. If the body can mend it, I can help."
"Sounds like the kind of spiels I've heard from some of those wandering chem-pushers..."
"I don't sell chems, ебам," Martin spat, "I am not charlatan."
"Okay, okay..." the mercenary held up his hands as if to ward Martin off, though the gesture was more placating than defensive, "Okay, so you help people. I didn't mean to question that, it's just... Like you said, most healers here are chem-pushers and dregs. They'll shove a syringe in your arm and get you hooked on jet or psycho or some other shit. So, you're like a doctor then, right? Training and all?"
"I had my journeyman's papers, but... lost them," Martin shrugged, "I did not plan on coming to the Commonwealth. If I had not met Piper I'd likely not have lived past the first day, I think. I did not know Radstorms, and she dragged me to shelter."
"So, you... heal people?" MacCready repeated the question as if Martin hadn't explained it in Common, "Like, you heal them?"
"When I can."
"How?" the mercenary pressed, "No, seriously you have no idea how vague that is. Healing someone, like, what do you even do? How do you do it? Stimpacks don't even heal people, they shove some kind'a cocktail of all sorts of stuff in and let the body do the rest."
"Do you trust me, prijatelj?"
"There's an awful lot in that question," MacCready muttered, shifting on his feet. Martin drew the knife he'd found with the clothes, causing once more the mercenary to halt in his steps, now watching him with both curiosity and wariness. His voice came out half-muffled from the cigarette he still held between his teeth, "What's... what's the knife for?"
Piper made a disgruntled sound at the drawn blade. She knew what he was about to do, and did not care for it, that much was clear. He disliked it too. It felt like he was stooping to some lower level in order to make a point. It was better to make an impression once, and not have to do so again.
Martin brought it on his own upper arm in response, in the same place he'd done before back in Diamond City. The blade was clean, at least, and split the skin of his left arm with less pain than he recalled. Was he getting more used to the trauma? Or, more likely, had he damaged the nerves and not healed it properly? The wound wept blood, red and glistening opaquely in the light of the ceiling lamps, a stark contrast against his skin, pale only where the bruises did not yet linger.
It still hurt, though, even if less than before. Not a few slurs and curses wanted past his lips, but he held them back and instead put the knife away, work done. In the next breath, his right hand clasped down upon the wound, pouring just a trickle of restorative power into the injured skin. The golden light was weak, barely visible against the room's own.
But the result still remained, when he took away his hand. The cut was gone now, and what blood had escaped already was now little but dried, blackish-red flakes that fell off when brushed.
"The body wants to heal the wound on its own, and can," Martin slowly explained. Robert seemed not as shocked as he'd expected, but then, the man was alive because of the very same spell, "I can make it faster. What would close in hours, I mend in moments."
Robert didn't speak for a few moments, and barely seemed to move. His eyes seemed about to fall from their sockets, and the cigarette dropped from his mouth, though he made no motion to catch it. In the silence of the room, even the soft thud could be heard like had it been a metal pin.
"Th...that's... that's... useful," the mercenary coughed, standing back. He fumbled for the cigarette pack, only to drop it on the floor,. He gave it a glance but didn't seem in a hurry to recover it. Instead his eyes were as glued to Martin's arm, "It's... it's really all gone? The wound it... it was there, right? You cut yourself, right there?"
"I could try on you, if that would make it more believable?" Martin suggested. A joke, though he held up the knife for show. Robert stepped back, his face a little paler, "I joked, I joked..."
"Well you're definitely not a synth," Robert glared, but with little mirth, "I doubt the Institute would ever design a model to be thát much of an ass. If it's thát effective though, why not heal that leg of yours?"
"Would if I could," he shrugged. There was no-doubt those at home, in the upper echelons of the Cynod and the College of Whispers, that could do more. There had been rumors of flesh-crafting, but he'd never seen it, "I can mend what the body can mend, not more."
"And the body can't grow back a leg," Robert nodded, something like dry amusement in his voice, "Figures. But hey, you got a fancy new one, right?"
"How fortunate I am..."
"Can you deal with diseases the same way? Like, infections and stuff?" Martin waited for the man to fish another cigarette from his pocket and light it. There was a strain to MacCready's movements that betrayed his lingering state of confusion. Maybe. Could as well be nicotine withdrawal. He'd noticed it in Piper when she went too long without smoking.
"Diseases and infections are different. It depends on what they are, I think," Most could be treated with the same, or at least similar enough cocktails of anti-bacterial and immune-boosting poultices, but there was always enough risk of erring, "What I do hastens the body's own response. Often the body responds to bacteria or disease by a fever."
"- and let me guess, you'd risk making the fever hotter, and kill the patient?"
"I... yes, actually," Martin, for a moment, found himself a little surprised Robert had managed that conclusion on his own. In hindsight it was not a hard thing to understand or figure out, but for all his disbelief, the mercenary seemed as quick-witted as ever, "That's why usually healers prefer potions and poultices against diseases."
"Can you... make one of those potions? I mean, what's in 'em?" MacCready's voice betrayed some optimism, though the reason for it lay beyond Martin's own understanding. Unless it was simple curiosity and a hope for the betterment of the Commonwealth.
Somehow, he doubted the latter, even as he accepted a cigarette from the mercenary's outstretched hand, as did Piper. It was the same brand, Tortoise, that seemed to be everyone's favorite, for some unknown reason. It tasted about as horrid as the rest.
"Depends on the disease," a touch to the tip of the little white stick, and it sprang alive with a fierce glow. There was a certain kind of freedom in being able to do it now, in sight of others than merely Piper. MacCready did stare, if briefly, and looked at his own lighter as if it had offended him, "Most can be treated as bacteria, but there are enough exemptions to the rule that you want to know. Some diseases turn your own body's defenses against you, others make your little white cells... sleep, yes? I do not know the plants of the Commonwealth well enough yet, so I have not dared work with disease-potions. There is local medicine for that though, I think?"
"Figures," MacCready blew a disappointed huff of smoke. He seemed to want to say more, but bit his cigarette instead and kept silent.
"I think you squashed his hopes and dreams," Piper remarked. She was holding the cigarette in the gap left by the knocked-out tooth, "What about that stuff you got sent to the clinic?"
"Spent, and not much would work on diseases," he muttered, taking a drag on his cigarette. Acrid air filled his lungs and dulled the mind, as well sharpened it. It was a medicine that calmed the soul at the cost of the flesh, "And they would not do well for fevers or diseases. The body already does the best it can. Adding to it only overburdens it."
MacCready didn't speak for a while. Instead he watched the floor in the glow of his cigarette, gears of his mind churning for all to see. Robert MacCready was a harder man to read than most Martin had come across so far, and not just for their still nascent familiarity. He could hide very well what went on inside his head. Finally, when he did speak again, his voice held little of its previous mirth, only resignation. Something akin to a hope that had indeed been squashed.
"Well, it's probably for the best then we're parting ways here," he sighed, heaving a drag in with such vigor that the end came alive once more, "Garvey offered me the same deal he gave you. Only, I'm going to Malden. There's an old Med-Tek office there, it's got something I need."
There was something about the way a man could speak a sentence in perfect Common, or English, and still somehow the words didn't seem to make sense once they came over his lips. MacCready's expression hadn't much changed either, only taking on less emotion than before. As if he was suddenly bored.
Piper had paused in the middle of a drag, and it was only her harsh coughs that shook Martin from his stupor.
"You are not coming with us?" he felt somehow both saddened and, somehow, insulted. Was it because he hadn't been as amazing as he'd been hyped up to be? Was that even his fault? "When was... when did you decide?"
"I was always going to Malden," MacCready sighed, holding his smoke out as if for personal inspection, "...was a chance I'd found what I needed, but seems I'm back on the old trail."
"What you needed..." Piper chewed the words, "Martin. That's why you were so..."
"Sorry," the mercenary ground the word out like an unpleasant taste, "It's nothing personal. Got someone sick, you know. Started thinking, maybe..." he looked at Martin, eyes far older than they should have been, "...maybe this guy, with his weird powers, maybe... Wasteland's got a way of repaying optimism with a kick in the nadgers, you know?"
The indignation vanished, like raindrops from a boiling plate. MacCready wasn't acting out of some selfish interest, and Martin felt almost ashamed that he'd thought so. It made sense now too, the questions. The man wasn't sick, clearly, they'd been for the sake of another. And Martin had told him no, in few uncertain terms. As it was, he could do little against even an outbreak of pox or measles, if more mundane medicine proved unable.
"After Malden, what will you do?"
"Go home, if I find what I'm looking for..." MacCready shrugged, though his voice betrayed uncertainty, "I... you're a good sort, Martin. Both are. I hope you make it back home to Diamond City in one place."
"Diamond City isn't..." Martin paused, unsure if the words would feel right when spoken. Already they were sour on his lips. Home was where the hearth was, or the heart. One of those, though he'd never seen it written so he'd never truly found out which it was. There was no hearth in Piper's home, though then again there hadn't been one in his studies either. As for the heart... "You as well, MacCready."
"Malden's not that far off our route, you know," Piper said. There was something optimistic in her voice, something asking to be disappointed, "Could come with us some of the way, then break of?"
"Already gave my word to Preston, feel like I've disappointed enough people today as it is," the mercenary sighed, though this time with more of a smile behind his unkempt beard, "I'd like to say it's been a pleasure, but I spent like half of the time actually knowing you, getting shot at. Don't wanna add liar to the list."
Robert held his hand out. Martin grasped it, firmer than he'd expected or meant to. He would miss this man, for all his secrecy and oddities, Robert MacCready was, in his own words, a good sort.
"Good luck on the path, eh?"
