"Good morning people, this is AWWWOOOOO….!"
The enthusiastic voice rose above the chattering of the crowd gathered around the makeshift entrance tower to Rivet City, adding vim and vigour to the steps of everyone that heard it. He was their figurehead, the man with the plan, the voice who woke them up in the morning and the sound that tucked them in at night. The man, the myth, the legend.
"…your host, Three Dog! How's everyone doing in Post-Apocalyptia today?! From the sidewalks of the Mall to the big attitudes of Big Town, to the slopes of Megaton! Which, might I add, are the Bomb! To all you wild child's in Underworld, you steel-clad Knights at the Citadel, you stylish Snakes with the hearts of gold, keep on fighting the Good Fight!"
Lantaya stood with one hand on the sling of her rifle, the other grasping a glass bottle of genuine East Coast Aqua Pura, the distinctive shape of the Nuka Cola bottle recognisable despite the boiling water that had been used to strip the label from the bottles exterior. She took a measured sip as she watched the throng of humanity that passed her. Big and small, tall and short, dressed in rags or in the attire of mercenaries or merchants, dusty faces or rosy-pink, they all smiled when the voice of the venerable GNR DJ spewed forth from the dented radio set that sat upon the table of the entry office to the drawbridge across the Potomac River.
"And to all you Bad Cats," the overwhelmingly passionate voice issued through the aged speakers like a commandment from Joshua's Lord on-high, punctuating every sentence with a dramatic pause, "You raiders! You Talon Company mercs trading innocent blood for caps! You gangsters and thugs! The Good Fight's coming to jam a boot up your ass!"
Lantaya choked on her sip of water, sending a jet of the pure liquid, decidedly less-so now that it had exited her nostrils with all the force of a full set of lungs could propel it, a few two metres from where she stood and directly into the side of Ulysses' face. He turned to regard her with raised eyebrows and dripping hair as she sputtered and coughed into her clenched fist, water dripping from her nose.
"So bend over scumbags, toss the lube and spread your cheeks because DC Wasters do our shit…."
There was an audible intake of breath as the DJ on the other end of the transmission, and more than a hundred throats closer to hand pulled in a mighty breath of air.
"RAW!"
And expelled it in a shout that split the air like an explosion, so loud it hurt her head from the reverberations. Lantaya was so shocked by the sudden, almost cataclysmic synchronised outburst that she stopped coughing as she clapped her hands to the side of her head were her ears would have been if she had been human. It was over as suddenly as it began, and her hands came away just in time to hear Three Dog's maniacal guffaw of laughter, "Ohh baby, that was a good one boys and girls! My floor shook all the way up here! Just for that, let's start off the morning on a high note, baby! So get to clapping those feet on the asphalt scumbags, 'cause we're 'Right Behind You Baby' and ready to start clapping those cheeks! Ray Smith, everybody!"
The voice cut out, to be replaced by a sonorous series of notes that became evermore rapid as they approached the crescendo, which cut through the cheers and laughter of the crowd that had, for one brief moment, been reminded that they were all one united people.
"You can run like a rabbit,
Fly like a Bee,
No matter what you do you'll never get away from me,
Because I'm right behind you baby!"
The laughter died away as some voices began singing along and the crowd seemed to move with a spring in its step. Lantaya grimaced contritely at Ulysses, who just shook his dripping, dreadlocked head and wandered further forwards as the crowd thinned ahead of them. Further to their left the Courier haggled with a street vendor selling Mirelurk burgers: The Rivet City Specialty. His tall figure rose like a skyscraper above the crowded streets of the DC Riverside district, the long path that led down the side of the Potomac all the way to the Farragut Crossing where traders came up from Megaton, and all the way up to the entrance to Rivet City and the Anacostia Station checkpoint.
Teeming with life, the windows of the pre-war Riverside houses and storefronts that had been boarded up or bombed out more than a decade before, now housed the lower class of the Washington DC wasteland. Fishermen who plied the river for their livelihood, small-time mercenaries or Rivet City Security guards, butchers, bakers, or greenhouse tenders. Bricklayers and builders who remained perpetually in high demand for their skilled services in the seemingly endless task of renovating or tearing down the wreckage that had once been the Capital City of the United States of America.
Rafts and barges plied the river running up and down the murky waters as they docked at the makeshift wharfs at the Riverside edge, where sweaty men hauled baskets of fish or Mirelurk up from the vessels crews. Otherwise, those more important vessels docked in the gap between the broken bow of the aircraft carrier that gave Rivet City its name, and the rest of the ship that housed the second largest settlement in the Capital Wasteland. Other men sat busily gutting or salting the catch, the smell of their labour making the noses of passers-by wrinkle in disgust, or barely effecting those who had lived along these banks for long enough years to be inured to the scent.
Joshua Graham stood not so far away, preaching in a loud and sonorous voice to a small congregation of believers who had been drawn through the crowd by his voice, and now stood, enraptured by his rousing recitation of the Sermon on the Mount. He carried his time and careworn Bible in his bandaged fist, but he left it closed to illustrate the depths of his faith. The three-chapter spanning segment of the Gospel of Matthew, the longest sermon ever attributed to Jesus Christ in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Burned Man recited from memory to an enchanted circle of listeners. He was well over halfway through, and still going strong. Not even Three Dogs unintended interruption had stymied his flow of scripture.
Boone stood silently not far away from the Couriers side, guarding his friends back as he always did, his Gobi-Campaign rifle strapped across his back and the All-American slung under his arm. His stoic gaze scanned the crowd, the boats on the river, but mostly they scanned the armed mercenaries that passed them by. Some wore the green camo and combat armour of Reilly's Rangers. Others, the duller garb of the less well-known merc bands that had started cropping up like wayward mushrooms in the years after the Talon Company had fallen from grace in DC.
Some armed figures were Rivet City security, their distinctive black combat armour setting them apart from the rest. A contingent of Brotherhood soldiers wandered past, moving upriver towards Project Purity, whose squat presence in the distance was brought to the attention of all by the occasion Vertibird that swept in overhead to land on the Brotherhood pads there. Most likely ferrying water to the Citadel or delivering parts to the facility for repairs or maintenance.
ED-E warbled from next to Boone's red First Recon beret, taking in the sights and sounds with the enthusiasm of a child, bobbing up and down and from side to side as was his way. He was especially vocal when another Eyebot zipped past them at speed, oblivious to its counterparts shriek of exhalation and surprise at seeing another of his kind. Cold, disinterested in anything but its programmed directives. ED-E beeped in disappointment, floating a little lower as he realised that Eyebot was not, in fact, like him. It was hard being unique.
A passer-by stopped at the sound of the distinctive beeping, pulling down a pair of makeshift earphones cobbled together from wire and an unidentifiable ballistic fabric. Thickly-shielded cables ran from the contraption to a heavy backpack the short Hispanic woman carried. An antenna almost half again as tall as she was towered over her head. Then again, she wasn't especially tall to begin with. In complete contrast to her cradled short-barrelled 10mm submachinegun, the heavy body armour and chest rig, her face was cheery and personable, what might be described as cherubic. It gave the impression of lively vivacity and childlike joy, amplified by her girlish coo of delight.
"Is that an Eyebot with an inbuilt personality matrix?! Ohh lord, isn't that the cutest thing ever!"
She leaned in and bopped ED-E on the front of his Duraframe with a hand clad in a fingerless glove and shrieked in joy as ED-E bobbed from side to side and chirruped delightedly at being not only noticed, but directly acknowledged. "Hey little guy! How are you doing in there?"
ED-E returned a series of incomprehensible sounds that caused his newest friend to literally hop up and down and clap her hands together like an excited schoolgirl, positively glowing as her gear and heavy radio equipment bounced up and down with her. It was a wonder she could hold it all up. Her combat helmet was hooked onto her belt beside a collection of pouches and ballistic eye protection. "How did they fit a personality matrix into you and still have space for a weapons system, little guy? You're so cool!"
The quirky little radio operator turned to Boone; the closest human who looked business-like enough to own the rotund little eyebot. "Is he yours?"
She asked this in the tone of voice men and women from all generations and walks of life employed when asking an adult if the child was theirs. In a 'Ohh my god, he has your eyes' kind of way. Not the 'If you don't give me an explanation for why you are interacting with this child then I'll call the police' kind of way. It was curiously endearing. Boone blinked, nonplussed at the sudden domestic enquiry. He felt like he'd been unexpectedly teleported to a pre-war park and was being asked to a playdate by one of the other single parents. All without ever having experienced that in the first place.
Struck speechless by the unfamiliar feeling, or more speechless than he usually was in any case, he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the Courier who continued haggling with the vendor even though his enhanced sense had surely made him aware of the newcomers presence. He was now exchanging the looked-for caps with the trader and receiving and mass of burgers on a well-used wooden plater. He and the vendor exchanged words, during which the two of them seemed to be enjoying each-others company very well. The Courier, due to his long years spent on the road and providing for his own meals, was a bit of an expert at survival cooking. And had more of a wide-ranging palette than almost anyone when it came to ethnic cooking from other continents.
The women pulled Craig's attention back to her, clearly attempting to ask a question regarding the little eyebot. Before she could however, another similarly dressed man in an identical brown leather jacket came up behind her with a short-barrelled R91 rifle slung on his shoulder. He didn't have as expansive a radio setup as the short lady with her gargantuan back rig, but he more than made up for it with the rucksack he carried with him. It was as large if not larger than the woman's entire body and was clearly clipped in multiple locations to a full-body harness to keep the weight evenly distributed.
"Making friends, Rook?"
The lady gestured to the Eyebot, her expression still glowing with excitement. "Letters! Look, it's an Eyebot!"
"Can see that, Rook," the man who was apparently named 'Letters' replied, glancing between her and Boone to the eyebot then back around at his surroundings in turn, scoping around him with the watchful eyes that all career soldiers developed after spending enough time in the field. He focused for a long moment upon Boone's First Recon patch before continuing his sweep.
"Never seen you around here before. What unit are you with?"
The question was spoken without direct eye contact, or even the common courtesy of looking in Craig's general direction. The First Recon sniper took no offence, however. He knew how it was. After a tour or two you just couldn't help the wandering eyes, the constant state of vigilance that made you almost preternaturally perceptive. This man seemed sharper than most. His eyes slices through the commotion of the crowd without getting bogged down. A man of experience. Boone made note of a twisting serpentine tattoo that curled around the outside corner of Letters' right eye, framing at least half of the socket with its once-distinctive black lines. It had clearly faded with age, and the deepening crows-feet that formed as the man drew closer and closer to middle-age, spurred on by exposure to the elements.
"Freelance," Boone clarified in his habitually toneless voice, "Working for the big guy."
He nodded towards the Courier, who took that moment to draw attention to himself by bellowing at his fellows at the top of his lungs. "Grubs up, lads! Grab it while its hot!"
Ulysses and Lantaya turned around and walked towards him, pausing for only a moment to take in the sight of the two new arrivals who stood alongside Boone and ED-E. The Courier shrugged off his own backpack and situated it with one large hand as the other kept the platter steady, then he plopped the food down on the backpack and sat cross-legged next to the path. The two Capital Wastelanders took note of this, and the man who was clearly the leader of their pair, continued asking his next question. "First Recon. The Last Thing You Never See," he read from the berets patch in a didactic voice before smiling and nodding, "That's clever. Hope your PR guy got paid for that one. Where you from?"
Boone blinked, owlishly, and jutted his chin towards the Courier again. The meaning was clear: 'Don't talk to me, pal. Talk with the big man.'
Coming up the path from Project Purity or somewhere further afield, another pair of the identically dressed mercenaries approached, youngish men who nevertheless looked formidable in their combat rigging.
One carried a DKS-501 model chambered in .308, a more common model of the Gobi Campaign Rifle Boone carried slung across his back. The DC mercs model had a matte-black finish rather than the desert camouflage pattern, and another heavy silencer rather than a muzzle break. Clearly an aftermarket addition, Boone decided. The factory fresh model came with a muzzle break by default. This approaching marksman had hacked off the muzzle break and added the threads for the suppressor to the rifle himself.
Or had paid a credibly competent gunsmith to do it, as Boone had done with his Gobi rifle. Good work as well, Boone noted with his precise gaze. He might have to enquire after the weapons alterations.
"I suppose it would be too much to ask to have a look at his internals," 'Rook' asked with a slightly crestfallen look. Boone nodded in affirmation, "Uhh huh."
ED-E spun around and communicated with a series of beeps that sounded awfully like, "Quit port-blocking me, dude!"
Letters looked between the Courier and Boone, and clearly deciding that an answer to his query wasn't worth enough to walk up to another stranger just to tender the question, walked on with an upwards pointing finger twirling in the air towards Rook. Tie it up and bring it in. "Coming," Rook assured him, before turning to Boone and smiling broadly. "Take care of the little guy, right? He's unique, one of a kind. I've never seen an Eyebot with a good personality matrix before. It's a shame whoever built him couldn't fit in a vocaliser. I would love to know what he's saying."
The next pair of mercs nodded to Rook and Letters as they strolled past, clearly deep in conversation. One of them, a man with a rough lumberjack beard wearing what appeared to be a Civil War era Confederate cap watched Lantaya as she passed by, emitting a piercing wolf-whistle as he nodded towards her for his companions benefit. Lantaya gazed back at the pair dispassionately. The sniper unstrapped his helmet to reveal a well-maintained high-and-tight hairstyle and a face possessed of a more attractive set of features than the majority were blessed with. He winked at her with an artful smirk. She ignored him utterly, sitting down next to the Courier to consume the proffered burger.
The sniper's companion laughed raucously at his friends attempt at non-verbal romance in the way that true friends always do, then turning away and almost ran face first into Ulysses. The big tribal towered over him, standing with Old Glory propped up against his shoulder and his eyes fixed on the Confederate symbol on the hats front. "Old symbols demand respect. Demand strong shoulders to carry their weight. You bear one older than most. What right have you, to drag ghosts back from the grave? Wear it on your brow, a trophy from a war you never shed blood in. Symbol of the South fell long ago. Do you even know its History?"
"The fuck you say to me, you Rasta-looking motherfucker?" The bearded man asked incredulously in a thick southern accent. Blunt words notwithstanding, his tone wasn't overly hostile, just taken-aback at being so addressed by a complete stranger. He adjusted his cap and peered at Ulysses from under the brim.
His sniper buddy glanced sideways at the tall black man with dreadlocks, tapping the side of his rifles receiver mechanism a fingers breadth from the safety switch. "Got an admirer Latchkey?"
Latchkey waved him off, causing the heavy mortar tube strapped to his gear bag to clack against his rifle barrel, "I'm good."
He turned back to Ulysses, eying the tribal and his golden-headed flagstaff with a calculating eye. "You got a problem with southerners, big man?"
Ulysses shook his head. "Been south. Been north. Been further west than you have ever known. Come so far that east became west. History tells of a land beyond the Rising Sun, further east still. Far East. The Furthest East. Points on a compass mean little against a world that cannot fit between two horizons. Better reasons can be found to hate than this."
Latchkey raised an eyebrow. The merc turned his head slowly to look at his partner, who returned his befuddled gaze with a wide smile. He shook his head and mimed drawing the edge of his flattened palm across his throat. Latchkey rolled his eyes and plucked his hat from his head. He reached into the brim and retrieved a small pad of jotting paper, upon which he scribbled a rough address with a pencil stub. Ripping the resulting slice of paper from the pad with a flourish, he shoved it towards Ulysses with an air of dismissal. "That's the place to go if you want to talk about history, big man. There or the Temple of the Union. The hat isn't your business. Unless you want to try taking it from me," he added in a deceptively bright voice, which abruptly dropped to a softer, ominous tone of 'Fuck around and find out' for the last comment that followed, "Which I do not recommend."
Not bothering to wait for a rebuttal, the two of them continued on after the rest of their patrol. Ulysses took a look at the paper. Upon the white surface of the paper was written in an almost illegible scrawl, 'Capital Preservation Society, Rivet City, Midship deck.'
Not knowing what the Capital Preservation Society was, Ulysses just tucked the paper way and walked over to the rest of his fellows as the three remaining brown jacketed mercenaries passed him in staggered column formation to continue after the two pairs who had already been and went. He glanced back over his shoulder as a black man with a shaved head and an overgrown chevron moustache walked past cradling a laser rifle. This one had a sergeants stripes stitched into his jackets shoulder. Black against the brown leather, along with a patch displaying the talons of a striking hawk or eagle. It was an old patch, torn and stitched back together again on multiple occasions, and the eyes that met his from inside the black mans shaved head looked like flecks of sharpened flint.
Following the sergeant, another woman and man plodded past, staring hungrily at the burger vendor who was serving another of the crowd. "Want me to get one for you, or wait until chow hall?" The man enquired, fiddling with his chest rig pouches for his caps. The woman, who carried a number of medical bags attached to her rig, discernible as such from the red and white crosses stitched into them, shrugged. "Sure. I'll have a quarter pounder with the cheese sauce. No chutney."
The man's head snapped around, looking at her disbelievingly. "No chutney? Fuck you, you disgusting piece of garbage, no chutney! Who has a Mirelurk burger with no chutney?!"
Seemingly unperturbed by her partners reaction, the woman just smirked. "I like the cheese sauce better. Not asking you to eat it, Sticky."
"No chutney," her partner continued, shaking his head in mock revulsion, and continuing on up the path without buying the burgers they'd discussed, "I don't even know if we can be friends anymore."
Ulysses walked past, the metal cap on the bottom of his staff occasionally tapping against a wayward paving stone or hard surface. As he approached, the Courier handed him a burger that dripped fragrant sauce and what strings of what seemed to be melted cheese of some description. Ulysses, who had lived his entire life out in the wastelands or along the Frontier that had no such analogous foodstuff, looked at it in confusion. "Ye put it in yer mouth an' chew Uly," the Courier mimed the action as if to a child, jovially biting into his own morsal with white teeth. He had to agree with the merc. The chutney really tied the whole burger together.
Without his beard to catch it after having shaved in New Vegas, juices trailed down the sides of his mouth and down his cheek. A thin line of the melted cheese had adhered to his chin and Lantaya shook her head in irritation before smacking him on the shoulder and tapping her own chin to indicate his error. He cleaned it off with a swipe of his tongue, then gave her the thumbs up. "These are delicious," Lantaya spoke over her shoulder to the vendor, who smiled in gratification despite her odd appearance, idly wondering if Lantaya eating seafood wasn't some kind of cannibalism.
For her own part, Lantaya was beginning to see just why the Courier enjoyed this lifestyle. Travelling to new and exotic locales almost every other day, tasting the local food, hearing the locals speak amongst themselves as the hustled and bustled about. Washington DC, like the burger she ate, had its own unique flavour. A much more urban and gritty background, offset by the almost pre-industrial residents that it contained within itself. Much more restrained and simplistic than the overt ostentation of New Vegas, the city of lights and sin.
She found that she quite liked what she had seen of DC so far. Although, she sniffed the air and tried not to notice how the smell seemed to translate to her tastebuds, the air quality could use improvement.
Boone collected his own and ate it standing up, maintaining perimeter security out of pure habit, as Ulysses took his first bite. His tastebuds exploded like a choir of angels singing through a loudspeaker. His pupils dilated. He finished his bite and looked at his burger for a long moment. "If food could speak, this would of joy and harmony," he commented, before taking another wolfish bite.
"Don't ye ever get tired o' accostin' folks on account o' History? Ye preach more than fuckin' Graham," the Courier said through a mouthful of food, causing Lantaya to smack him again. He turned to face her and grinned through a mouthful of half-chewed food, before continuing on his conversation, in a clear attempt to goad her. But she was a Matriarch, Lantaya thought to herself, and would not be goaded by such childish attempts at social manipulation. Even if his constant social faux paus made her grind her teeth down to stumps. Dear Goddess, she needed to get back to Thessia. She needed to visit a psychiatrist. Then a qualified dentist.
"Carry symbols as you would a Message," Ulysses intoned, through a mouthful of burger. Lantaya's eye twitched. Athame save her, they were multiplying. "The Divide taught us both the power of the Message. Nations rise and fall on their ideas. Carry a symbol to a far-off land and set it loose, you bring the ideas in its wake. Few symbols or pages of History more discordant than the war between North and South. My namesake fought against men who wore that symbol. Takers of slaves, as History tells."
Ulysses croaked out a gale of laughter at the last statement, seeming to find it infinitely amusing, "History has ideas of its own, it seems. One who bears the name of Ulysses, also fighting for the cause of the Legion. The Bull took its own share of flesh for coin. Here," he gestured around with his burger-filled hand, "I see no chains, no slaves in the mercenaries domain; or cages beside those the fisherman employ. Should swap symbols with the mercenary. History has a way of returning in ways you do not expect. We should all know which flag we follow."
"Swings an' roundabouts," the Courier confirmed, "Been here before at the Wanderer's urgin'. Richest slave-trader in these lands is a black man. Or used to be," the Courier admitted, "'Fore the slave-trade were outlawed an' he had to find a new racket. Trades lumber an' wheat now, I hear."
"Walked this land before, have you?" Ulysses enquired, shaking his head in self-derision for the stupid question, "Anywhere your legs haven't carried you Long Walker? The river of exploration from horizon to horizon has run dry, now you seek to travel the stars. To die finally, on some far-off star in the Endless Black will be your fate. New Vegas lives and dies on the word of another absent King. No matter. In your travels, have your ears heard the name," he pulled the strip of paper from his pocket and unfurled it with the one hand not occupied with his burger. He showed the paper to the Courier, not needing it to recall the words perfectly. One of the skills that made him so valuable as a Frumentarii was his near-perfect memory. It took years for him to begin forgetting details. "Capital Preservation Society," the two men read together, one from memory, the other from the surface of the paper.
"Think I saw it on a sign in Rivet City one time," the Courier answered, popping the last bite of his burger into his mouth. He almost whipped the grease off on his trouser pants but caught the meaningful glance of Lantaya in his peripherals and decided to extract a handkerchief from his pocket to do away with the worst of the grease. "Spirits above an' below, Lani. Keep this up an' yer gonna make me civilised," he quipped.
"If I should be so lucky," Lantaya grumbled.
"Find a quiet place amongst the ruins and vent your lust. Married pair would bicker less," Ulysses commented acerbically, causing Lani to choke on her burger.
"Fuck ye," the Courier re-joined.
"If I should be so lucky," his fellow courier echoed without a moment's hesitation. Never let it be said that Ulysses was lacking in wit.
The Courier sat up suddenly, ears pricked towards the Rivet City drawbridge. He sniffed the air, breathing in a deep and protracted lungful of the pungent wharf-side aroma, fish guts and barrels of salt being used to preserve the catch, rotting fish that had been tossed in the water. His nose saw smelt past all of this to identify the smell of gun-oil and metal he associated with only one 'man'. "What's the story Wanderer?"
"Paulson and Toshiro are in Rivet City and have contacted our man there. We have significant resources and manpower to acquire while we are here," the disembodied voice of the Alpha came from a faint heat haze that had drifted up to the Couriers side. The Wanderer had moved like a ghost through the crowded streets, having come from Rivet City where he had been contacting their two advanced scouts that had been dispatched, what seemed like an eternity ago, when they had first left the Zeta.
"Our man has already gathered much of what we need to Rivet City itself or to a warehouse on the Mall. I cannot be seen to be directly involved in the Capital Wastelands. The political and social situation in these lands are complicated but be aware of this: The Brotherhood of Steel are the largest military presence in Washington DC. They knew me by reputation, and they have severe concerns as to my status as an artificial being. If I make myself know they will dispatch a squadron in an attempt to neutralise me. For this reason, you are to defer to our contact during our time here. He will be handling operations while I assist from the shadows. By this I mean he will be planning them, providing manpower and logistical support, and his word is to be followed at all times."
Lantaya nodded slowly, facing the Courier, and making it seem as though she was speaking with him and him alone. The sounds of the crowded wharf prevented passers-by from overhearing them, or from focusing too hard upon the heat-haze that betrayed their cybernetic companions presence. "I take it you trust this man if you are willing to allow him operational control over our expedition here. Very well. If you trust him then I will place my faith in him also."
The Courier and Ulysses murmured similar sentiments. The Courier motioned to Boone and ED-E then to Joshua, silently asking his friend to bring Joshua over so they could enter the aircraft carrier. Boone nodded and set off at a measured pace towards the crowded plaza in front of the Metro Station entrance where the Burned Man preached, ED-E bobbing along behind him.
"What's our list o' recruits? An' what are we pickin' up?" The Courier asked.
"My contact has already gathered several of our new additions to the Mall, where they are awaiting pickup and our initial briefing. He has also recalled one of his frontier cells to serve as our muscle, should we need a team of skilled operators to delegate missions or jobs to. They will be accompanying us on our expedition. They are competent individuals, well-used to sustained periods of isolation cut off from supporting elements, and I am certain they will be an asset to our venture."
"Got ourselves some more gunhands, then? Fair 'nough, I can get behind that. Never hurt to have a few extra bodies to back ye up in a fight," the Courier agreed. "An' the cargo?"
"Raw materials. We are going to be away from earth for several months at the very least, quite possibly without any means of repairing gear, building required tooling or mission specific aids. My contact has arranged a large shipment of various metals, industrial equipment, manufacturing tools and vehicles to be made ready and stored in preparation for their transport to the Zeta. This will supplement the shipments already provided by Big Mountain and New Vegas."
"Lush," the Courier stated, clapping his hands together and jumping to his feet, "New Vegas was my rodeo Wanderer. I don't have a clue o' the lay o' the land 'round here. So, ye an' yer man just tell me where to go an' what to do. The stage is yers, lad."
He turned his attention to Ulysses, "We all on the same page 'ere Uly?"
His peer nodded his ascent while finishing off his burger. "We are of one mind in this. Shall trust that this man is no fool if the Courier says it is so. Let your boots carry you out first, so we might know the Road," he motioned for the Courier to take the lead.
"Ohh, are we goin' then?" The Courier asked his friend in a stage whisper. He turned to Lani and leaned in close to give the appearance of imparting some grave piece of knowledge to her, and not wishing to be overheard. "Uly says we gotta get movin', honey."
"Does he, now," Lantaya played along with his dramatic tone, widening her eyes, and mockingly placing her hand over her mouth in a dainty fashion, "Well, we must surely go then."
They began doing so, as the Courier turned away from her and back to Ulysses, who had raised his eyebrow, unimpressed. "Let's be off then, yer Highness! La de-fuckin' dah!"
Ulysses made a rude gesture, and the Courier reached up and playfully mussed up his dreadlocks. Uly forcefully shoved the laughing wastelander away, while Lantaya chuckled into her hand. The two of them looked like the largest and most ungainly children she had ever seen, roughhousing, and playing at some private game only they knew the rules to. "Cease, worse than Legion children fumbling with practise blades! Fool," Ulysses cried out as the Courier dropped into an exaggerated boxing pose as he made overexaggerated crab walking steps sideways to keep level with Ulysses long stride. The Twisted Hair seemed to be doing his best to keep his deep voice loud and severe, but he couldn't disguise his mirth. His mouth curled upwards at the strange sight.
"Have at ye, knave! Yer 'bout to receive a pummellin'!" The Courier cried out in a faux-Shakespearian stage shout that was ruined by his native accent, drawing the eyes of the fishermen on the wharf. They shook their heads at the strange pair and continued on processing the catch. Lani continued to hide her grin behind her hand as she always did, endeavouring to remain close enough to her companions that she did not loose them in the crowd, whilst also trying to remain far enough away to disavow any association with the odd pair making a spectacle of themselves.
Ulysses pointed threateningly towards his older, although not necessarily more mature, counterpart with Old Glory, "Cease, or have what little sense you have beaten from your skull, Courier."
"Feckin' Spoilsport."
"Profligate."
"Are we quite finished, children?" Lantaya cut in with great good humour.
The Courier turned towards her as they walked, smiling like a loon. Without his beard, and smiling as we was now, she thought he actually looked a much younger man than he really was. Though his age was sometimes difficult to pin down from his demeanour alone. Sometimes he acted like a child, sometimes in a manner that made him seem older than she, despite her thousand years odd years of experience. "Course not. Temporary truce, see?"
Old Glory's haft clonked on the Couriers head with a soft 'thunk' of wood on bone, and the Courier spun around. "Sounds hollow. Only such a head would turn itself away from its opponent," Ulysses commented, gravely.
"That's fuckin' cheatin', that is," the Courier commented, still grinning. Before Ulysses could continue on the session of juvenile needling, the two tribals and Lantaya reached the circle of believers gathered around Joshua Graham, who had cut his sermon short at Boone's insistence, much to the disappointment of those present.
The Courier and Ulysses forged through the crowd, their hulking forms parting the sea before them like gigantic icebreakers in the Baltic Ocean. Some of those brushed aside bridled at the quasi-rough treatment received, but the Courier bowed with a winning smile and clasped his hands together, "Peace be with ye, Shalom, As-salamu Alaikum an' all that good shtuff, lads. Just come to be getting' our preacher."
Stunned into silence by the flow of unfamiliar greetings, the members of Joshua's impromptu flock gave way to their passage.
"Burned Man," Ulysses called out in his deep, foreboding voice, "Ask your God to save me from this Profligate. Strike him dumb with plague, set him alight, call a flood to wash his lunacy away. Only leave him not the use of his tongue. A pestilence on my ears, like bugs burrowing through my skull."
Joshua, who was at that moment whispering words of council and caring to an infirm wastelander, looked up to peer through his letterbox worth of face left uncovered by his bandages. "Loath though I am to suggest such a thing, but have you tried removing his tongue? The Courier has an overactive mouth. This much is without question."
The Courier huffed and puffed in feigned outrage at Joshua playing along with Ulysses, "Now ye turn against me, Burned Man? Curse yer inevitable betrayal."
"Your God supports such measures?" Ulysses enquired, ignoring the subject of their conversation, seemingly quite taken with the idea of a spontaneous glossectomy.
"The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out," Joshua recited from memory in a glib tone, then turned his attention back to the man he stood with. His expression became grave once more.
"Against all hopelessness you must set your will. Though all seems lost, know there is always time for one last act of kindness, one last effort made for the good of all. When hard times are upon us, then we can take comfort in the memory of our good works. My the Lord be with you, always."
The man he spoke to seemed to bow under the weight of the words offered to him, leaning on the wooden crutch he used to keep himself upright. His leg was severed at the knee, leaving only a stump that peeked out from beneath his rags. His tears cut track marks through the dirt on his face, but he clumsily attempted to lean forwards to embrace Joshua, who met him hallway with all the gentleness of a father. The cripple parted from the hug awkwardly, as if it had been some great time since he had been shown even this small amount of affection and bowed his head as he hobbled away through the crowd.
Lantaya stared after the man until she lost sight of him, then looked at Graham. "Should… should we not do more for him?"
"Good news is the most valuable commodity of the missionary. This I have given, along with the Lords blessing, and his Word. The Sermon on the Mount is a good passage for long souls," Joshua nodded to himself as he gently wrapped up his King James Bible in a large section of cloth to be stowed within his backpack. "It will lead a man of even the meanest understanding, straight and true to the lower steps of the Stairway to Heaven. And even with only one leg, I have no doubt that man will find his way. He has a good soul."
The Burned Man shouldered his pack, and bidding farewell to his congregation, joined them to the welcome of the Courier clapping him on the shoulder with a heavy hand and jerking his head to indicate their direction. Boone and ED-E followed behind, one cradling the All-American in his arms while the other orbited the Couriers head in a slow orbit as they made their way towards the gate.
Courier Six, his fun with his two friends drawn to a close, rubbed ED-E's Duraframe as he passed by his left ear, stroking the Eyebot like a pet. "Ye liked that lass from earlier, did ya?"
ED-E beeped and warbled in confirmation and with something else the others beside the Courier had trouble identifying, but caused the Courier to nod in clear comprehension, "Fair 'nough."
Their small teams reached the entrance, where a crude checkpoint had been set up to police the influx of traffic in and out of Rivet City. It was manned by an elderly gentleman in Rivet City Security armour who sat engrossed in a newspaper. It was a fresh, pristine newspaper, of the type that used to exist before the war and now reprinted by a local press, though with a slightly larger typeface. The name of the paper was clearly printed in large, blocky letters at its head, the front-page facing outwards to great them as they approached: 'Mason Street Gazette'.
"Mornin'," the Courier greeted him as they came to a halt before the checkpoint.
The old man glanced up, then lazily unpropped his legs from the dilapidated ottoman he had them rested upon, to reveal the massive rent in its fabric from which the filling was slowly bulging outwards like a malignant tumour. "Morning to you as well," he shook out a large A4 sized ledger and unclipped a pen from around his neck. "Names."
"Names?" The Courier asked in return.
The gate-guard raised an eyebrow and smiled sarcastically, "You do got a name, don't you mister? Or didn't your mother remember to give you one?"
The Courier grinned, still in a playful mood from his roughhousing with Ulysses. "Lord Edwin Humperdinck the Fifth," he proclaimed grandly, adjusting his duster collar at a rakish angle for the effect.
To his credit, the Rivet City Security Guard didn't so much as blink. "There's been four of you folks already with a name like that?"
He shook his head and tisked under his breath, jotting the name down without question, "My condolences. How do you spell it?"
The Courier proceeded to spell it, while Lantaya looked from his back to the Security Guards weathered face, utterly devoid of any fucks left to give in his old age. He finished jotting down the name in his ledger.
"Next," he ordered gruffly.
"Joshua Graham," the aforenamed Burned Man answered, quite honestly and forthrightly.
"You were that fella I saw preaching out in the plaza, right? You a priest of some sort?"
Joshua blinked and shook his head. "I am merely a Missionary," he answered, again, with absolute honestly.
The Gateguard raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Tato, tomato," he replied flippantly.
He put pen to paper and spoke out loud as he wrote, "Father Joshua Graham."
His voice was slow, drawing out the word to match the methodical pace at which he wrote it down, almost daring Joshua to disagree with the inaccuracy. Joshua remained silent. The Courier was grinning as if this was stage theatre.
"Next."
"Ulysses," the Twisted Hair spoke in his rich, resonant voice.
"Like the novel, the Odyssey, or the President?"
Ulysses scoffed. "Named for History, not cheap tales, ancient myth long forgotten. Share my name with a man who laboured to bring America together, when it stood divided between North and South. Regardless," he shrugged, "all spelt the same."
The Gateguard gave him a Look, with a capital 'L'. He looked like Ulysses had just told him the moon was made from green cheese. The Courier was clutching at his stitch, trying not to make his amusement too evident and failing miserably.
"Son," he began with infinite scorn, "Has anyone ever told you that you take a long time to say not very much?"
Ulysses opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and shut it again with a click. The Gateguard shot him one last scathing look and scribbled in his ledger once again. "President Ulysses S. Grant. Welcome to Rivet City, Mister President. We had three Abraham Lincolns, one Paul Revere and two George Washingtons this morning already. You'll be in good company. Next!"
Lantaya, thoroughly non-plussed and slightly concerned at this point, hesitantly stepped forwards. But before she could summon up the courage to speak her name and discover what manner of butchery would befall it, the Gateguard peered at her blue skin and raised his brow. "Now, ain't you just the bluest thing since the Devil's music. Has somebody been out fucking the Mirelurks again?"
Boone, who had been about to take another bite of his burger, looked down at the delectable Mirelurk patty with sudden suspicion. Gingerly, he dropped the small section that remained and rubbed his hands on his trouser leg. He felt ill.
"No," Lani said coldly, already growing tired of the comments comparing her to the local planetary seafood. Of which there had been a surprising number. She didn't look that much like a crustacean, did she? "My name is Matriarch Lantaya T'Rali."
He bit the top of his pen and hummed a tune. "That some sort of title?"
"Indeed," she replied crisply, "It is a title denoting great age and respect among my people."
The Gateguard made the 'fair enough' face common to all clerks and office staff that had spotted an inaccuracy and nevertheless couldn't be bothered to set the record straight.
"Granny Lantaya T'Rali," he slowly mumbled below his breath, causing the Courier to snort in the background. Lani just glared at him, unenthused.
"Next."
Boone, however, was ready in the wings with the perfect rejoinder. "Dick Richardson."
The Gateguard glanced up, and his own deadpan face met Boone's stoic visage as they savoured the moment. "Pleased to meet you…," the Gateguard paused for a long moment to let the suspense build before speaking the word with an emphasis on each sound of the word.
"…. Dick."
Boone nodded gravely to the Gateguard, as the Courier not-so silently died of hilarity behind him. Then the Gateguard snapped his ledger shut with a loud bang, "Well, that's that then."
ED-Es disappointed beep that he didn't get to give his name to the funny man was drowned out by Lantaya's exasperated enquiry, "If you aren't going to take this seriously and take down our real names, why even bother?"
The old Gateguard chuckled as he once more unfurled his newspaper, "Ain't my job to take down anyone's name, lady."
Lani gapped at him like a carp, before pointing at the checkpoint and him with an outstretched hand, the query erupted from her like a gunshot, "Then why?"
"It's entertainment," came the casual voice of dismissal from behind the newspaper. She could hear the shrug in his tone. The Courier was leaning against Ulysses for support at this stage, who led the giggling King of New Vegas by the shoulder as he grumbled internally.
"And remember to visit the Muddy Rudder before you leave," the voice of the Gateguard pursued them, "So I can tell the joke about how an Aristocrat, a Priest, a Grandmother, a President, and a man named Penis Cockboy walked into a bar!"
Lantaya shook her head as the cackling laughter drifted after them as they climbed the ramp and began their crossing of the bridge across the Potomac River. The Courier was laughing so hard Ulysses considered tossing him over the railing and blaming it on the wind. He restrained himself. Barely.