Rivet City creaked all about them in the Middeck passageway, the combined noise of a million-odd nuts, bolts, welded fittings, and hull plates straining against the water, the wind, the thumping of questing feet on every level, and the prodigious weight of the Vertibirds parked on the aircraft carriers landing deck. An ever-present background, albeit a tolerable one, against which every other sound needed to compete. It was difficult to have a quiet conversation under these circumstances, as any voice pitched low to its recipient would require the interlocutors to be leaning in, nose to ear, to maintain the discourse. Rivet City was getting old and most who could afford better had already moved to the Mall in the centre of Washington DC or to one of the numerous other Squares or areas of note in the DC interior. If there was one thing DC had in abundance, it was unoccupied buildings laid bare by the ravages of the Great War. One simply had to commission a parcel of renovators, builders, and the like, tell them which building you wanted, and they would roll on in and turn it into something halfway liveable.
For this reason of high background noise, a man's voice could be heard from out in the hallway, chuckling and holding-forth upon his current subject of discussion. Whoever he was talking to was inaudible from the outside. Paulson and Toshiro halted outside the hatchway, above which the old-fashioned sign hung from the ceiling, creaking in time to the rest of the ships movement from its short chain. It had a stylised carving of a man with slick-back greasers hair, flexing a bicep underneath a t-shirt sleeve. The caption read: Bad Man's Barbershop, Enquire Within.
Paulson jabbed a thumb towards the door to indicated that the Couriers ragtag group had come to their destination, minus Ulysses and Joshua. First Ulysses, then Joshua had peeled off from their group upon seeing the signs denoting the presence of the Capital Preservation Society and the Church of Saint Monica. The cowboy and the Samurai had arrived at Rivet City some days previously and had gotten in touch with the contact, whose considerable network of contacts and friends had made the arrangements they would need to get the supplies and resources they would need from the Capital Wastelands. It had been done swiftly and efficiently, with the minimal necessary exposure to the eyes or ears of outsiders. When he wanted something done it usually got done in short order, his reputation and standing being what it was.
The Courier wasted no time on ceremony, rapping on the metal hatchway with a clenched fist, then barging in without awaiting and answer. They entered into a homely room, with a comfortable waiting area near the door that included several chairs, some wooden, others snug armchairs. On one wall were a collection of comic books, worn baseball cards, and a few artist impressions of notable locations around DC in wall-mounted display cases.
They were arranged around a baseball bat mounted on the wall, with the name 'Chance' roughly carved onto the pine exterior. In one corner a heavy wooden panel, carved into the likeness of a serpent hung, meticulously painted with black and green, and captioned across the top and the bottom with the words, 'Capital Wasteland Tunnel Snakes'.
Underneath these another display case, this one freestanding, held a number of what seemed to be carved animal claws, arranged in neat rows under the glass. A plaque on the wall behind it read, 'To those who ventured into the Dark, Never to Return. Metro Campaign: 2282 – 2285.'
Against the far wall were a row of five barbershop chairs affixed to the floor so they could swivel on their axis, in front of a number of basins, mirrors and small shelves that held pots of hair gel, numerous bars of soap, pots of clippers and scissors of all kinds, and many other assorted tools and implements. A broad-shouldered man with a sizeable, slinked back hairdo stood in a loose-fitting white t-shirt and olive-green fatigue pants, his black leather Tunnel Snakes jacket draped over the back of one of the empty chairs. He didn't turn around as the swinging metal hatchway disturbed a brass bell mounted above the lintel.
The Courier's big, bluff smile and hulking form was instantly pinned by several other sets of eyes from within. Two of the mercenaries in brown jackets that had passed by them on the wharf sat on chairs against one wall, their gear bags shrugged off and laid against the side of the coffee table used by patrons awaiting service. They had taken off their helmets, goggles or other accessories and now sat counting caps, disassembling, and cleaning their smaller weaponry, or communicating with one-another using the Chinese Hand Signals utilised by those who needed a method of communication that wasn't to be overheard. Or needed to be overheard over the creaking of the carrier.
One of the two was the forbidding black sergeant, the old Talon Company patch affixed under his stripes. With his helmet off they saw that his chevron moustache was his only appreciable scrap of fur. His head had nothing more than a short cropping of bristly hair gracing its surface, clearly having grown out since his last visit to the barber. The other was the lankier man who the cheery radio-operator, so taken with ED-E, had addressed as Letters.
The other occupants of the room were stranger to behold. An extraordinarily tall ghoul in combat armour and a long greatcoat, whose towering stature was as impressive as the Couriers own. A grizzled and scarred man dressed in the ubiquitous leathers and combat armour of a wasteland merc, with a slung Chinese Type 93 assault rifle on one shoulder. He had an evil cast to his eyes, but was laughing along in conversation with the others, displaying an amiable side that appeared to be at odds with his savage appearance. Finally, a lithe woman dressed in the formfitting matte black Stealth Armour used by the Chinese before the Great War. The original model, the Courier noted, not the Wanderer's modified Dragoon variant with its camouflaged brown and steel-grey armoured exterior, reinforced for heavier combat.
The women looked up sharply from where she lounged in the corner, spinning around and around in one of the swivelling barbershop chairs, a hopeful look on her face under her punk rockers half-shaven head. She looked back and forth between the crowd of new faces that bustled into the room before rising from the seat and sashaying across the room to peer around them, as if searching for something. Or somebody. "You here, loverboy?"
The Courier, ever the obliging hound that he was, grinned willingly and cocked his head to the side. "For ye honey, I'll be anywhere ye want me to be."
Lantaya glanced at the back of his head sharply, narrowing her eyes. The two mercenaries that sat to the side saw this and smiled privately. Someone was playing the field it would seem. Lantaya needed have bothered, as Clover gave him a withering glance, but otherwise ignoring him entirely. "Clover wasn't talking to you, man," the proprietor of the establishment cut in, his back still turned to the new additions as he diligently worked on the hair of a young boy, no more than eight or nine, sitting in his barber chair. He was currently in the process of smoothing the hair back with a comb as he clipped and shaped it with a pair of well-used scissors. Lantaya felt her eyes drawn away from burning a hole in the Couriers skull, to the implements being used to style and clip the young boys hair. She had known that humans did such things, of course, having seen Ulysses see to his braids before their night out on the town the day before.
This was the first time however, that she seen something that looked like a professional at work upon the fibrous growths that set humans apart from her own kind. Butch seemed to be approaching the end of his labours, for she could scarcely imagine that the artfully sculpted wave of hair with the sides trimmed tight to the skull could be induced to look any better than it already did.
"Clover's talking about the Wanderer. He was the last guy to own her before he took the slave collar off. Dame doesn't have eyes for anyone else," he clarified, holding the young boy steady as he jerking in the chair and tried to look backwards over his head at the tall barber.
"The Wanderer, Mister DeLoria? Cool! Is he here?"
The kid spoke as if conversing about his favourite superhero or comic book character, utterly unconscious of the sharp implement hovering near his head. Butch DeLoria manoeuvred the scissors skilfully however, making sure that the jumpy and hyperactive boy retained his ears for future use. "Nah, kid," the barber chuckled, "You know how the Wanderer is. He's everywhere and nowhere. Always looking out for the little guy, like good guys should, you know? And it's just Butch to you Kid, none of that Mister DeLoria stuff."
He clipped another errant wisp of hair from his work as he continued on his conversation with his diminutive customer. "But tell us about this girl you were talking about, Luke."
The kid shifted uneasily, aware of the presence of the newcomers in the room as they all settled where there was space to be had, waiting politely until Butch was done with his business. Boone, Toshiro, and Paulson stood near the doorway with the tall ghoul, surrounded by their own expanding auras of stoic silence, a gaggle of nonverbal pees in a proverbial pod. ED-E hoovered over to Letters and curiously observed the mess of various disassembled weapon parts, stray ammo rounds, caps and other assorted knickknacks that littered the table, occasionally beeping an enquiry as to where that nice lady from earlier was, that neither Letters nor the Sergeant could not decipher.
The Courier watched for a moment as Clover, disappointed by the absence of her wandering loverboy, returned to her chair in dejection. He paid particular attention to her tightly clad legs and rear in the Chinese Stealth Suit, as being a man of refined tastes he found the outline of the female form clad in form-fitting garments to be, intriguingly, more titillating than straight nudity. Lantaya, who could tell where his eyes were pointed, harrumphed with great disapprobation, and followed him as he sat down.
"She's cool," Luke summarised in the manner of all young boys everywhere, who had not yet learned to express themselves fully, and therefore described everything with variations upon the same set of descriptors. "She's in my class and said she liked my hair. I told her I get it done here, Butch! I said that my dad was a Tunnel Snake, and she said that was awesome."
His young voice was filled with pride and the juvenile longing for positive reinforcement. The man from the wharf who had spoken with Boone, Letters, chuckled from his spot to the side, one hand holding a roughly copied manual open as the other catalogued a set of parts for a radio receiver. He was playing it cool, but something about his body language made Lantaya think he was more invested in the developing conversation than he let on. "Which girl is she," Letters asked as he noted down a broken part on a scrap of paper, "Is she's Danvers' little girl?"
"Nuh-Uhh," Luke shook his head vehemently, causing Butch to restrain a curse as a long section of the hair he had laboured upon was nudged to the side and he smoothed it back into place with a thumb, "Her names Yi!"
The grizzled merc who sat in the dustbin in the corner, laughed out loud. "Fucking weird-ass names."
Luke frowned, while Letters glanced at the man with something like murder in his eyes. "No cursing around my son, Jericho."
Jericho smirked and held out his hands to show no offense was meant, and that if he meant to cause offense in the first place, he would not be so easily cowed. "Forget you heard that, Luke," Letters commanded in a patriarchal tone, as he noted down a serial number off a small circuit board.
"Okay dad," the young boy said meekly, but with the fixed expression of someone who was most definitely going to remember it and use it in everyday conversation with his similarly aged peers. "The other kids make fun of her because she has a weird name. Every time she tries to answer the teachers question in class they go 'Yi Wong!' and start laughing. I can tell she doesn't like it. She always looks down and stops smiling."
Luke stopped frowning and fiddled with the fabric of the sheet that was laid out over his front to catch the stream of falling hairs. His eyes took on a faraway look. "She has a nice smile."
Lantaya smiled despite herself. The boy was endearingly young and naïve. It was unfathomably adorable.
"Have you said anything to them?" Butch asked in a serious tone.
Luke hung his head dejectedly. "No," he muttered.
Butch shook his head from side to side, and looked sideways at Letters, who nodded in turn in a stream of silent communication that those watching had trouble following, so quickly and surely was it exchanged. "You gotta do something then, little man. You got to stand up for her. Don't mind if they make fun of you too. It's doing the right thing that matters."
The boy remained stubbornly silent, obviously thinking that if he refused to acknowledge the comment then that meant he hadn't heard it and was thereby absolved of any wrongdoing for not heeding the advice. Butch noted his reticence.
"Let me tell you a story, Luke. When I was a kid, there was this bully in the Vault where I grew up. Real hardcase; didn't know right from wrong. Didn't have a father as good as Letters here who'd teach him, you know?" He motioned to Letters, who gave Butch a slightly embarrassed look in return.
"Always looking to get one over on people so he could feel better about himself. He used to pick on this other kid all the time, beat up on him, call him names, flirt with his girl, make fun of both of them. But this kid see, the one he was picking on? He always stood up to the bully. Didn't matter if the bully brought all his friends to the fight, didn't matter if he snuck into his room while his father wasn't there to catch him by surprise, or even if they took a baseball bat to him. He would always fight back. Until one day when the bully was in a bind and the only person around to help was the one he bullied every day. And that kid helped him anyway. You know why?"
Luke, realising this was a rhetorical question, just shook his head.
"Because that was the right thing to do, that's why."
"But…" Luke paused, unsure how to articulate all the desperate thoughts running through his mind. It was a skill that only came with time.
"Some of the others who pick on her are my friends," he admitted with slight chagrin, believing that it reflected badly upon him for being friends with kids who would do such a thing. "I don't want them to stop talking to me."
Butch nodded knowingly, while the Sergeant and Letters had similar reactions. Lantaya nodded along also, though for entirely different reasons, intrigued by this demonstration of human child-rearing tactics. It put her in mind of a Matriarch giving life advice to a string of Maidans barely old enough to grasp what they were being told; but somehow, coming from the mouths of these human men, the advice seemed to have a more prominent edge of peer-to-peer communication. Something more akin to a conversation between equals. Perhaps it was the way Butch and Letters waited for Luke's opinion before they waxed lyrical upon philosophical issues. It showed that they cared about the child's thoughts on the matter, rather than just using the child to make a demonstration of how wise and caring they were.
But the repetition of a diminutive descriptor such as 'kid', the dull storytelling with the patently obvious lesson contained therein, and the ceaseless preaching after moral concerns, on the other hand. That was all Matriarch. She'd chaffed under such societal constraints for too long to not recognise them in another, less familiar environment. But it was necessary to impart those lessons to the young, so that they did not make the same mistakes as their parents. On the other hand, it was necessary NOT to impart some lessons, lest the children make the same mistake as their parents. Lantaya was suddenly immensely glad she had not sired children. She restrained the natural, Matriarchal urge to offer her own opinion, and simply listened to what was exchanged.
"I figure you still gotta do it anyway, little man. You can't just take a step back and not help Yi. I've known lot of solid guys, who could do a lot of good, get caught up with a bad crowd and just get…"
Butch motioned with his hand as if to indicate forward motion, "Just carried along with the flow, you know? They're not bad guys, they've just had bad leaders and bad friends. Trust me, you don't want to be that guy. The only thing worse than being that guy, is being the one who led them down a bad path."
Butch's face had a latent hint of deep sadness in its depths, a guilt that seemed to effect the other men in the room. Sarge nodded, imbuing the point with a greater significance. Jericho had a thoughtful look upon his greying features. Letters, by right as the boy's father, broke the short-lived silence.
"Luke," he caught the boys attention after placing all that he held on to the table in front of him and giving his son his full attention, "There was this guy I read about from before the War. Way, way before the war. An Emperor, which is a guy who is kind of like a King. And he wrote two things about situations like this. Or maybe just in general. One."
Letter held up a finger to illustrate his point to the boy who was staring at his father with great attention.
"Men do not do wrong out of evil, but only because they were never taught a better way. And that better way is how to exist at peace with your own nature, the nature of others, the nature of the world, and maintain that peace. And when you drop the ball, and lose your cool, to return to that place and continue to do what is right. Two," he held up a second finger.
"You should always reconcile, and make peace, with a man who shows a willingness to be reconciled. Because you being tight with that guy might save your life one day. It might save his life one day. And it's better for everyone that we all stand together when the shooting starts. And maybe, sometimes, you come across a guy you think is evil, and you can't reach him simply by talking with him and explaining. Maybe that guy has been taken down too many dark paths by his half-wit buddies and is too far gone. That sometimes happens. But don't think less of him for it."
Butch, although he nodded along to his friends words, had the glazed eyes of a man who only understood half of the long and complicated words being used. He poked his scissors in Letters direction in either case, "That's why he's the Lettersman. Listen to your pops, kid. He's a smart man."
Letters sat back into his chair and nodded to Luke with a warm and reassuring air. The young child was confused, but he seemed to grasp the basics well enough. "So, I should tell them to stop?" He asked hesitantly.
This time it was Sarge who replied, after eyeing Butch and Letters for permission. Lantaya wondered how they were so in tune with one another that they hardly needed to speak to be understood.
"Next time they do it, tell them to stop. Be calm, be humble but firm, and don't flex on them," the Black man said with the calm certainty and immovability of NCO's everywhere, "Remember why you're doing this. You're doing it because Yi is hurting, and you don't want it to continue, not because you want to show up your buddies. If they're true friends, they'll understand. Maybe not that day, maybe not next week, but in time."
To his credit, Luke seemed to understand the importance of what was being conveyed to him. Even at his early age, he still seemed to become imbued with the solemn formality of the situation, as if a torch had been passed into his tiny hands and he was expected and honoured to hold it aloft on behalf of those that came before. If his narrow shoulders could hold the weight. "What if they don't?" He asked, the last remnant of uncertainty peeking out from behind this oddly-placed sense of duty.
The men were about to answer, grave expressions still on their faces, when the Courier cut in. "Well, ye'll always have the girl," he commented blithely. His sudden interruption, his knowing wink and smirk, and the sudden popping of the ambiguous bubble of tension that built up in the interim was so exactly gauged to the situation, that all those present burst into an abrupt stream of laughter.
"Hey, that's true little man! Girls like it when you play hero," Butch clapped the boy on the shoulder before tucking the scissors into his back pocket, as he took off the boys cloth covering and wiped away a few stray strands of hair.
Letters shot the Courier a nod of approval for his well-timed jest. The Courier kept his council. Butch had one more piece of wisdom to share, however. "Hey kid, I'll let you in on something."
He knelt down next to Luke, who had stood up from the barbershop chair and was kneading the back of his neck which still had some prickly, trimmed hairs adhered to it. He pointed to the displays on the wall: more specifically the baseball bat that hung underneath the transparent display glass. "You see that bat up there?"
Luke nodded. Butch grinned, "That bat belonged to the Lone Wanderer. He gave it to me when we were teenagers. Nineteen years old."
The child's face was transfigured by awe, gazing now at the baseball bat as if it were a holy relic of some description, rather than an unremarkable length of varnished pine. "Wow."
Butch savoured the look of shock on the child's face and continued. "Yeah, he gave it to me to protect my mother from a bunch of Radroaches. And he went straight into the fight with me, despite everything I did. That was just Chance's way."
"Everything you did, Mister Butch?" Luke had caught the tone of voice and had asked the question that Butch had wanted him to. "Just Butch," the aforenamed man replied automatically.
"Yeah, Luke. I was that Vault bully I told you about, who used to hurt others to feel better about himself, and the Wanderer was the one who always fought back," Butch revealed, making no attempt to make himself look better to the young child in front of him. He laid it out simply, unvarnished by excuses or preamble. Luke looked at Butch, stupefied by the revelation. He looked from Butch, then to the bat, then back again to the barber in turn before shooting a glance to his father as if he would confirm whether or not this was the truth. Letters nodded silently to him.
"And that's why I don't want you to worry about your buddies, Luke," Butch stated in a voice possessed of absolute certainty, "Like the Sergeant says, it might not be that week, might not be that month, might not even be that year. Hell, maybe it might take several years, but maybe…"
He licked his lips, as if embarrassed by his own words. Afraid of being called out for a hypocrisy, Lantaya realised, even though it seemed to her from this unintended glimpse into his personality that he was an honest soul. She suddenly felt much better about the prospect of being left in this man's care for the duration of their stay in the Capital Wasteland.
"…Maybe they'll surprise you," He finished, somewhat lamely. He patted Luke on the shoulder and stood up.
"Anyway," he said, bending over and picking up a broom from in the corner as he prepared to clean up his workspace, "These cool cats that arrived while I was giving you a haircut are looking to talk business, kid. We're…" Butch paused for a moment then sent a sidelong glance at Letters, who raised an eyebrow. "Letters, help me out here. Fancy word for planned?"
"Scheduled, Butch."
Butch beamed a bright smile and nodded forcefully, "Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. They're scheduled for a whole bunch of stuff and I'm meant to be their tour guide. Letters can walk you back to school. If you hurry you can get back before lunchbreak is over."
Luke looked to his father, then back to Butch's hunched shoulders as the man started sweeping up the clipped hair into a neat pile to be brushed up into a pan for dumping into the wastebin. "Uhm…. Mister Butch?" Luke asked hesitantly.
Butch turned back around and returned the child's gaze, "Just Butch, kid."
"Can I touch it?" Luke asked, pointing at the bat with a trembling finger, eyes bright at the prospect of touching something that had once been owned by the Lone Wanderer. The adults chuckled at the juvenile request. "Tell you what, Luke. If you stick up for your friend, then I'll lend it to your dad and the next time your together, the two of you can play a game with it."
Letters looked at Butch, gratitude plain in his eyes. Butch seemed to be aware of the gaze without even looking at his fellow Tunnel Snake, and just smiled as Letters stood up and gathered up his things. The man shifted a sheaf of written reports across the table to the Sergeant, who glanced down at them then back up, nodding his approval. "Dismissed, Second. Take your son back to school then find the rest of the squad. We're slated for field operations the second this meeting is over. I'll file these reports down in Logistics," Sarge ordered, holding up the sheaf of paper and tucking his own little mess away into the various pockets and compartments on his rucksack.
The Lettersman was up and had taken Luke's hand to guide him towards the door. "Dad, when I stand up for Yi, when can we play that game?" The kid asked eagerly, proving for all to see the effectiveness of incentivisation.
Jericho snorted in the corner, knowing full-well how powerful self-interest was as a motivating force. After all, he had spent most of his life propelled by that force like a ship being blown forwards by the prevailing oceanic winds and current. Letters grimaced, "I don't know Luke. It depends on your mother. Don't tell her about this, she'd make trouble if she knew I was here when Butch was cutting your hair."
Luke swallowed as they walked to the door, looking up at his father through worried eyes. "Dad, why doesn't mom want me to see you?"
By this point, Lantaya could not see the expression that flitted across Letters face, as he had already walked past, and now had his back to them. For the first time she saw the Tunnel Snake patch on the back of his jacket, unobscured by his heavy rucksack, identical to the one on the Wanderers jacket. But she could see how Butch's jaw tightened, and the Sarge's eyes once more took on the qualities of hardened flint as he shouldered his rucksack and tucked the sheaf of reports under his elbow. But most of all she noticed the set of Letters' shoulders. The way it seemed as if the whole world was pressing down upon him, crushing him under it weight. "Your mom and I are going through a rough patch at the moment, Luke. Don't make trouble for her and keep your grades up at school. It may be a while until I can see you again, but once I do then we'll play that game together. Me and my team are going away for a while to help Mister DeLoria with something."
The man and his boy exited the hatchway, stepping over the raised bottom of the hatchway frame, Letters lifting his child through by his arms as the kid laughed in delight at the feeling of weightlessness. Then they were gone into the hallway beyond, their voices lost amidst the creaking of the ship. Sarge was the next to go, saluting with a crispness that Butch clearly found surplus to requirements. "Permission to be excused, sir. These reports on our patrol need to be filed before Logistics will green-flag our resupply at the armoury."
Butch tipped his finger to his forehead in a lazy salute, "Do your thing, Sarge. And this isn't Talon Company. You don't need to salute and go yessir, no sir. It's just Butch now, and you can leave a room whenever you want."
"Understood, sir," the Sergeant replied, then beelined for the door. The four silent statues at the entrance noted his private smile of amusement as he passed them and Butch's expression of mild exasperation. Once Sarge was gone the barber turned his attention to the Courier. "I remember hearing about you," he stated as he manipulated the broom handle and inclined the tip of the handle in the Courier direction, "You and the Wanderer rolled through a few months ago, looking to speak with Lesko about…"
DeLoria paused, lips pursed together, a constipated expression on his face. After a moment, Clover put him in mind of the answer. "Genetic engineering, Butchie," she reminded him with a sigh and a roll of the eyes.
"Just Butch. I knew that" he commented offhandedly, "I also know how it ended. Old Chance's walking corpse can get from one end of DC to another without causing any trouble whatsoever. He can walk past a Brotherhood Paladin and they'd never even know he was there. But you?"
The broom slid across the surface of the floor, gathering up hair into a neat pile. Butch was thorough in his cleaning. He obviously cared about his profession and laboured to make sure everything was handled appropriately. Thus, his interest in the Courier. Boone noticed how the as-yet unnamed ghoul fingered the butt of his combat shotgun, how Clover had a supressed N99 holstered at her hip, and how Jericho had his hand curled around his rifle sling. All seemingly casual motions. Toshiro and Paulson were silent, carved from stone.
"You dropped some bodies while you were here. They didn't die nice either. Lots of blood, cracked bones, bite marks…."
The Courier grinned his white-toothed smile, "Sure, the rats must 'ave got at 'em. Cryin' shame that, but there's a whole raft o' rats to be had in the big city."
"I fought in the Metro Campaign, buddy. We were lucky if the ghouls swarmed less than ten times a day. I know what human bite marks look like," Butch clarified, tapping the broom at an angle on the ground to knock stray hairs loose from the bristles. "But I've also been to Meresti Station, so I also know that cannibals aren't that much different from the rest of us. Maybe a bit more high-strung. But if you think you can go around eating people in DC," Butch clicked his tongue and shook his head, "Sorry, Charlie. Ain't happening. We have law and order in the city. You drop a body and someone is going to find it. This isn't the Wastelands. If you can prove it was self-defence, people will be okay. But no-one is going to be cool with you eating them afterwards, you dig?"
It was a frozen moment, with those of the Courier cadre facing off against the eclectic group that gathered around Butch. Looks were exchanged, but weapons never left their place.
Finally, the Courier smirked and nodded slowly, "Well, they won't know nothin' if I eat all the evidence, now will they? But aye, I dig. Yer buyin' me lunch to make up fer it."
Jericho chuckled from the background. "What, you're going to crunch up the bones too? Come on Butchie-boy, cut the psycho some slack. I'd pay to see him eat a body whole."
Butch ignored the remark. He propped his broom up against the wall and spread his arms wide, "That'll work then. Give me a second. I gotta clean up around the shop then we'll close up and get moving. We're heading into DC first. Your two goons over there," he pointed towards Toshio and Paulson, both dressed in the exact same fashion they had been on the Zeta, "Had me pull together a list of fellas and dames that the Wanderer wants, and a long list of supplies. Most of it is in DC waiting for you. Some other stuff, on the other hand…."
Butch shrugged as he got down to one knee and swept up the neat pile of hair into a pan with a small brush, before dumping it into the bin. Then he returned to brush the same spot another few times, because only a sorcerer can get everything in one go using a brush-and-pan. While he did this he continued his report, "… Some of the people on the list are tied up at the moment or are just straight-up missing. You'll need to give me a hand to find them. And no," he smiled good-naturedly over his shoulder, "I don't mean literally, Mr Stabhappy. Keep your knives to yourself."
The Courier, not knowing who Stabhappy was, focused on the job at hand. Or as much as he was likely to do in the absence of immediate danger. "Wanderer wrote the list ye got. Don't know whose names were on it, so ye'll have to fill in the blanks."
He sat down in one of the barber chairs and glanced at Clover as he did so, experimentally swinging around on the swivel chair. "Shite, this is fun," he commented to Clover, who nodded in straight-faced agreement. Lantaya closed her eyes, sighed heavily, and shook her head. "My apologies for the Courier. He cannot always be induced to take situations seriously and he seems to be in an… overly playful mode today. Can you perhaps let us know which people you had difficultly contacting, and how we might assist you in finding them?"
"We found Lesko and Stiggs. They were working with a few of our cells, so that was the easy part. Murphy is somewhere in the DC interior but we haven't been able to find him. We did find his bodyguard Barrett's body, so we're assuming he's in trouble. Then there's Scott Wollinski and Tanya Christoff. Why the Wanderer wants those two loony motherfuckers is beyond me, but he's the one choosing. A little vine told me that Tanya is up at Shalebridge. In which case we'll have to divert up in that direction when we go to the Pitt to pick up Scott. Ishmael wants to speak with me or the Wanderer before he'll let Scott or the shipment we requested go, so that'll be the next target once we've tracked down Murphy and briefed Lesko and Stiggs."
"I'm afraid that the Wanderer did not see fit inform us who these men and women are before he left us here," Lantaya clarified with the suitable amount of contrition and vexation at having been bombarded with names that meant nothing to her. "Could you fill us in on the specifics?"
"Aye, details," the Courier cried out as he sprang from the chair and grinned at the barber, "An' while yer at it, you wouldn't mind fillin' me to burstin' with as much detail as ever ye can recall about the Wanderer hisself."
The barber glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, "Chance? Sure, I can tell you all about Chance. The more people who appreciate what he did for all of us the better. And I knew him better than most, you know? I can tell you the real story, not the bullshit that the roadside storyteller keep on shovelling. The real shit."
"I saw some mighty strange things happenin' while we were out West collectin' some other folks for this little venture, and I feel like ye might know more than the Wanderer is tellin'," the Courier clarified, pacing back and forth at a slow amble that carried him from one end of the cramped barbershop to the other, "Whispers o' somethin' powerful. Somethin' that bathed a hundred Legionaries in radiation enough to ghoulify the feckers on the bloody spot. That's either Old World tech, or New World magic, dunno which. Tell me 'bout that shite."
Butch shrugged while in the process of stowing away his implements. His tone was matter-of-fact, possessing not a hint of disrespect as he responded, "Now, that's another story. If the Wanderer hasn't told you about that, then I ain't telling you neither. Not my place to say, you know? The Wanderer'll have to fill you in on that score. And you are an insane psycho-killer, right? Not exactly my idea of a trustworthy associate."
"Well I ain't never eaten ye or yers, have I?" The Courier re-joined; mocking offended by the comment. He placed one hand over his heart and the other over his mouth to appear the picture of shock.
"Well I don't know, do I?" Butch replied with an innocent look equal to the Courier's theatrics, "Like you said, man: You might have eaten all the evidence."
Jericho chuckled again, which drew the Couriers attentions.
"Sure, I don't yet know the lot o' ye. We'll want to be makin' introductions," the taller wastelander opined with an engaging grin on his savage features. He held out a hand to Butch, who took it without a moment's hesitation. Lantaya was continually surprised by the human ability to not only countenance, but also efficiently adapt to the numerous unexpected circumstances they were confronted with on a daily basis. Far be it from her to assert to the presence of a racial trait of some description after only circumstantial data, but human beings seemed to have a remarkable capacity for ignoring the bizarre. She couldn't imagine one of her own people reacting so well to a seemingly insane cannibal, much less shake their hand. "Courier Six," the Courier identified himself through his grinning mouth, positively ripe with white teeth.
"That's Boone, my right-hand man," he waved a hand at Boone who inclined his head slightly.
"ED-E, my eyes an' ears," the hand passed over the floating robot that chirruped happily at the attention he received.
"An' that's Lani. She's a stray the Wanderer an' I picked up a month back. Been followin' us ever since. Don't give her food, or she'll keep comin' back for more." The Courier sheltered his head with a forearm as Lani plucked up a stray pair of scissors and threw them underhand in his direction. They impaled a good inch into his forearm armour plating, which he responded to with a cackle of satisfied laughter and a hearty tug that removed the implement from his arm. With a clatter, he tossed them neatly over Lani's shoulder and back into the bowl she had snatched them from.
"What happened to Courier Five and Four?" Butch asked flippantly, ignoring the violence with only a twitch of attention spared.
"Dead," the Courier answered almost immediately.
"Eat them too?"
The Courier paused for a long moment, trying to recall what had happened to the men he had only briefly met upon receipt of the platinum chip so long ago. Eventually deciding that he didn't really know their fates and may indeed have run across one or two and eaten them at some juncture, he shrugged. "Don't know. Might have?"
Butch chuckled and shook his head, indicating that he took the implied cannibalism in good humour. "Butch DeLoria. I grew up with Chance in Vault 101. Travelled with him for a while, back before he bought the farm. Over there are Six-Leaf Clover, Jericho, and the big man is Charon," he pointed them out in turn, and the indicated wastelanders nodded their greetings, inclining their heads or throwing lazy salutes with the ubiquitous two fingers. "They all used to travel with Chance too, once upon a time. Chance's message said he wanted as many of the original team back together as I could get at short notice. So, here they are," he swept his hand grandly about the assembled wasters.
"And since I'm here, DeLoria," Jericho cut into the conversation with a leer that clearly disguised some hint of latent irritation at this whole affair, "Then that means someone must be footing my bill. I don't work for free. And no-one has even told us what the damn job is yet. That'll be what decides what I'm charging."
Butch nodded to himself slowly, mulling this over. Then he turned his attention to the Courier. "So mailman, you got a piece of paper on you that knows what the job is, or do I have to keep pretending like I know what the fucks going on here?"
The Courier grinned widely. It was the kind of grin that most big, savage men could replicate, seemingly at a moment's notice. The kind that left some doubt as to whether the possessor of said grin was feeling especially jovial or was about to beat you within an inch of your life. Most big men didn't seem to be aware of the double meaning. "If the Wanderer hasn't told ye yet, then I ain't tellin' ye either."
Butch received the grin without batting an eyelid but did roll his own eyes so liberally it was a wonder they didn't pop out of his skull and burrow underground. "Should have seen that one coming. I'll ask the Wanderer myself then," he replied.
"Sure yer no fun," the Courier pouted, ruining his aura of savage mystique. If, indeed, there was any left after his spinning around in the swivel chair like a gigantic child. "We're takin' the lass here home to be with her own kind. An' much action an' adventure 'tween here an' there I'll be reckonin' on, if ye must know. Plenty o' time and opportunities for lootin' an' pilferin' too, I shouldn't wonder," he added as an aside to Jericho.
Jericho perked up at the mention of looting and pilfering, a glitter of avarice sparking in his eyes like stray electrical wire.
"I would rather you did not 'loot and pilfer' from any of my own people, Courier," Lantaya groaned through gritted teeth as she kneaded the bridge of her nose, "I may have been a Matriarch, but I will not endeavour to shield you from justice if you break our laws with the flagrant abandon you seem accustomed to."
"And where are you…," Butch made to ask, but was immediately cut off by Lantaya's warning finger held up under his nose. She peered at him from underneath her massaging fingers, a thoroughly evil cast to her expression. Her next words were quiet, but full of feeling. "If the next words out of your mouth make any mention of local seafood or shellfish in any shape or form, young man, I will smear your insides across this room with my mind."
To illustrate her point, her finger began glowing with an ominous purple corona of biotic energy. Butch glanced from her to the Courier, then back to Lantaya, feeling a bit out of his depth. "Make a mess of my shop," he replied after a moment, "And I'll make you clean it. And where are you from and how come the Wanderer said it would take so long to get there? These supplies he's been having me stockpile are next level, doll. He's either building another city of his own somewhere, or he's up to something I can't figure."
"My home is much, much further away than you or your compatriots have ever been, I would wager," Lantaya spoke, lowering her finger now that the comparison to seafood had been averted. "My name is Lantaya T'Rali. I am from another planet far away from your own. I believe the common expression would be that I am of a race alien to your world."
Charon's head creaked around, in a way that in a cartoon would have been accompanied by the sound of screeching metal and stared at her along with everyone else in the room who wasn't already in-the-know. "Great, fishtits is from space," Jericho commented. The Courier had to lunge across the room to restrain Lantaya from bludgeoning the old raider to death with his own spine, which Jericho ignored with a calmness befitting his background. Namely cackling like a baboon. "It'll be two-thousand caps, DeLoria. And not a cap less," he laughed, "And I'm only going that low because I like you."
"I'm so fucking touched Jericho," Butch said, not sounding the least bit touched by anything except profound apathy. He turned his attention to Clover and Charon. "How about you two? Now that you know what the job is, still feel like signing on?"
"If loverboy is going to be there," Clover purred, "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Count me in for a thousand."
She turned her attention to the Courier, who had succeeded in calming Lantaya down, and now stood patting her on the back as she continually repeated the mantra of, "I'm calm, I'm calm, I am calm!"
"Tell me something. Has loverboy finally managed to turn himself human again?"
"Nay, yer lads as much o' a bloody robot as I hear he was when he left ye. Ye never know though, all things change if given 'nough time. Lani's people have some interestin' tech, or so I hear from her. Maybe he can make somethin' of it."
"And maybe Pinocchio can turn himself into a real boy again," Paulson muttered under his breath as he fiddled with the butt of one of his six-shooters. One of the few who was old enough to remember the initial release of the titular film way back in the 1950s. His sarcasm was audible only to the Couriers sharp ears, and to Charon, who quirked his lip silently upwards at the side. He was old enough to understand the joke too. "An' maybe pigs can fly," the Courier responded, drawing odd looks from those who hadn't heard Paulson's comment.
"Charon?" Butch asked.
The tall ghoul regarded him through milky white eyes. Finally, he responded. "The Wanderer was the last to hold my contract before it passed to you," he said in a scratchy baritone, "And I am honour-bound to do whatever you say, smoothskin. No point asking, just go ahead and tell me to."
"There hasn't been a contract in years, Charon," Butch re-joined in the tone of a man who'd had this argument a thousand times and wasn't about to have it again. "It was ashes the moment I got it. Will you help, yes or no? It's a simple question."
"Yes," the ghoul ground out.
"Good. See, was that so hard?"
"Suck my burnt dick, DeLoria."
The barber sighed heavily. "See what I gotta work with here?" He asked Lantaya in a way strikingly reminiscent of the Courier's theatrics. The two of them were similar in that way. They didn't seem to take offense to much but liked making people believe they took offense to everything. "I tell you, I get no respect around here," Butch carried on his mock tirade as he unhooked his Tunnel Snake jacket from over the backrest of his barber chair, "No respect, I tells ya. I'll write you up for a thousand too, Charon? Sarge and Letters will be getting the team ready at the front gate. They're the team I pulled from their rotation if you didn't already know. Did I say that already?"
Butch peered at all assembled as if they would answer him, but no-one did. "Nevermind then."
He wandered out into the hallway and waited until the group had trooped past him before swinging the heavy barbershop hatchway closed and twisting the locking wheel into position with a resounding clang and a shriek of metal against metal. "Hey, Harry!"
A dark-haired man in suspenders and a plaid shirt poked his head out from another room further down the hallway and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Watch the shop for me. I'm going out!"
"How long?"
Butch checked his Pip-boy screen and made a show of checking the readout. "Uhh, eleven months?"
Harry snorted in derision and retracting his head back into the darkness.