"The slaver laughs at Blue-Belle, his third chin jiggling like chow hall jelly-pots during Tuesday mess hour. 'No-one can save you now! This safehouse is the most heavily defended location in the Capital Wastes! No-one who enters, ever leaves!'"
Sticky Hand Jack strode at the head of the small ground working its way up Pennsylvania Avenue, his Infiltrator hanging from its sling across his chest-rig, his combat helmet donned at as jaunty an angle as he could contrive past the straps, the microphone attached to his radio transmitter folded down to his mouth, and his shades shielding his eyes from the midday sun.
He was doing what he always did on long walks between areas of operation, entertaining his fellows with his own particular brand of storytelling, one that had graced the ears of many important figures over the years. His prime boast now and probably until the end of time, was that his stories had graced the ears of even the legendary Lone Wanderer.
His brand involved copious amounts of inside jokes, references to comic books, and little to no regard for passers-by. His wildly gesticulating arm, stretched out to mimic what he believed a comic book villain would look like during the throes of an evil monologue, almost clipped the brim of a hat resting upon the head of a pedestrian. The man gave the heavy armed Tunnel Snake an evil look, only to move quickly along at the sight of Ulysses' hulking form following on behind, Old Glory glinting in the sun as he moved it in time with his footfalls.
"Blue-Belle is terrified that what he says is the truth, but she musters the courage to put on a brave face, not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her afraid. And 'cause, you know, he monologues like a douchebag and it's a fucking cliché, right?"
His story was being transmitted from where he walked in the street to the rooftop far above, where Rook had extended the antenna on her backpack radio-transmitter to relay the signal across their area of operations. And while all this seemed to accomplish was transmitting Radio Sticky for all Tunnel Snakes monitoring their radio frequency to hear and enjoy like some screwed up version of Galaxy News, open lines of communication were the most important part of any venture.
"'Holy Toledo is coming for me,' Blue-Belle says, 'And when he does, he'll break every bone in your body!' The slaver laughs in a booming voice, looking around at a bunch of his goons, who join in to keep the boss happy. I'd love to meet a goon who didn't laugh at his bosses joke, but I think most of them get chopped up and fed to that shark-tank they all seem to got going on. 'Holy Toledo isn't coming for you, doll. This is the Wasteland? Why would anyone waste their time and risk their life on account of a waster like you? The only bone of mine you should be concerned over, I'm gonna give it to you free of charge!' Blue-Belle shrinks back from the slaver in disgust. This motherfucker looks like Bobby the Tits older brother, right? Only uglier."
Sarge snorted as his head rotated as he observed the entrance to a jazz club they passed on the opposite side of the road, the smooth melody of piano and brass interweaving in a complex stream of sound that drifted out across the sidewalk to grace their ears as they passed by. The type of music that got your hips working almost without you noticing. In other words, the very best kind. "Should I tell Bobby you said that Sticky?"
"Why not, I ain't saying nothing wrong!" Sticky shot back with infinite charm and his signature smirk, "He's big boned, Sarge. He's broad-shouldered. He's heavy-handed. He's stacked like a supermodel, son!"
This last shout made a passing mother gather her children to her side and hurry them along with a backwards glance to the small patrol, disapproving and judgemental. Sticky Hand Jack continued swaggering along with great enthusiasm, picking up his story where he'd left off.
Meanwhile on a nearby building, Craig Boone hunched down next to Wilks' matte black sniper rifle that lay within the makeshift snipers nest they had set up far above the street below them. Consisting solely of a blanket laid out across the flat surface of the rooftop, cushioning the marksman who would lie upon it to stare down the prodigious length of the main Avenue through the mounted optics. They ignored Sticky's retelling of one of his many classic tales, bonding over their shared expertise in the sniper's art.
The older Boone held the edge in this field by a considerable margin, in both training and experience, and was currently explaining the concept of a DOPE book to his younger counterpart as he flipped through his own leatherbound journal to show Bryan the notations of wind-speed, bullet specs, distances and even the more esoteric curvature of the earth that might effect bullet ballistics at the most extreme of ranges. Wilks paid close attention to his elder, making polite and well-informed comments at appropriate junctures.
"The slaver advances on her as she shuffles away as far as she can. Her back hits the wall behind her. She thinks the jig is up, right? Then a voice calls out from the shadows! 'Hey, asshole!' The slaver and his goons jump and turn around, all at once!"
Sticky whirled around with his hand on his holstered pistol, dropping into a theatrical stance of shock and anger. His face was twisted in the same fashion, an actor consumed by his impromptu stage performance. He started walking backwards, utterly unconcerned that he might accidentally back into one of the many civilians that flooded around them, as he stared at the small group that followed him, staying in character with every step.
After all, if he was about to knock into someone, he would feel it through his shared connection to his fellow Snakes, who were watching him as intently as the audience at a drive-in movie theatre.
Sarge and Silver remained aware of their surroundings however, alternating between watching the crowds around them, scanning that innumerable windows and vantage points they walked past, weapons cradled across their chest-rigs in the same manner as a mother cradling her child. They could not keep an eye on all of them, but this was the interior of DC itself, and one of the wealthier neighbourhoods besides. Regularly patrolled, populated by sturdy, mature, professional wastelanders with respectable vocations. Penn. Avenue was the preferred haunt of money-men, managers, shipping moguls and cannery supervisors. Men and women of substance.
Ulysses walked alongside them, uncharacteristically ensconced in the crude story that was being relayed to him by the Tunnel Snake. His eye followed every overenthusiastic motion of the storytellers hands, smiled at all the jokes, nodded in approval at all the right points. The perfect silent audience. They had all, especially Sticky Jack, been surprised at how well the intimidating tribal had taken to their tradition of story time on the march. The storyteller himself seemed to show off just a bit more for his new audience, put just a fraction more flourish and pomp into his performance, an appreciable increase in his passion for the show.
"And out of the darkness comes Holy Toledo, Super Dupe Dave, and Joking Joe! Eyes full of fire, right? Strapped like they're expecting to have to fight an army, and they want enough bullets to kill every damn one of them two times or more. Ready to do some Darkness, ready throw down or go down, like men."
Ulysses quirked his lip fractionally as they walked, "Knew Joking Joe could not ignore History shared with his tribe. His people. Knew his path to take. His road to walk. Who stood beside him as the bullets fell like rain on Arizona dust."
"Of course he came back," Latchkey interjected through the radio from his spot on the rooftop, his Confederate hat removed to reveal his messy brown hair. "What, he's just going to leave his folks because some villain thinks he's clever? That ten years fighting injustice together means dick? Fuck outta here."
"Joe's still your favourite, huh?" Butch commented behind him, his pair of emergency scissors and a combat knife in his hands, the only implements he had available. "Jesus, Latchkey. You need to take better care of yourself. I got birds nesting up here. You adopting pigeons, now?"
Latchkey waved the comment away dismissively, jotting down notes in his little notebook he had extracted from his Confederate Hats lining once more. A long string of numbers and equations calculating the trajectories of a smoke or chemical round if some sort of developing situation on the ground made it needful for him to deploy the 60mm lightweight mortar tube he had strapped to his back.
He was also making calculations in case Rook needed to rotate the large, dilapidated pre-war satellite disk left on the rooftop towards the Washington Monument and bounce a transmission to the Vertibirds based at Rivet City. All equally unlikely, but he was one of three sharp enough in their squad to run those calculations, alongside Letters and Rook. It never hurt to be prepared.
"Course he's my favourite. Joking Joe's got all the best lines. Wouldn't have pegged you to be interested in bad fiction though, Rasta. What gives?"
Ulysses shook his head at Latchkey's comment across the radio, relayed to him by Sticky, his dreadlocks swaying from side to side with the motion. "Many nights the Twisted Hairs sat beside our firepit, stare at the stars above. Told stories. Some of History. Most of History, to be true. Some were illusion, dreams for our pleasure. Can know a man by what stories grip him."
"All fuckin' tribals an' clan men love a good story, lad," the Courier cut in from where he had lost himself in the crowd along with Jericho, the former having decided to take a closer look at the crowd of people gathering around Joshua in the street. ED-E circled far above him, scanning the crowd below at the Courier's request. "Fuck all else to do on a full belly 'round a campfire at night."
The Mormon missionary had once again chosen to preach to the masses, his particular set of skills being unsuited to canvasing a neighbourhood for clues regarding the disappearance of a ghoul Chemist. His voice cut across the sound of the crowd, attracting more and more of the lunch hour traffic to observe the spectacle of the bandaged holy man, his forceful voice reciting Revelations in a way that brought the most controversial of the Bibles many passages to life.
These were the well-to-do sections of Washington high society, after all. Unlike the dockworkers around Rivet City, who needed hope most of all, these men and women needed something to remind them of the harsher truths that they might chose to ignore in favour of blind indulgence and indolence. And those troublesome truths were never that far away on this little island of DC, suspended in the midst of chaos.
"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods," Joshua's voice cracked through the crowded street, echoing off the high walls the surrounded them as a blazing conviction filled his eyes, the only visible part of his face past the bandages that covered it, "And have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked!"
Jericho obligingly, for him at least, repeated the Courier's words on tribals and stories into his radio and wondered just how sharp the Courier's hearing must be that he could hear what was being said through his radio headset over the sound of a crowded street. The Courier did not have a radio receiver himself, or a headset, so he was reduced to being babysat by at least one member of the DC natives that did possess just such a piece of equipment.
Within the crowd of wastelanders watching and listening intently as Joshua preached, the Courier and Jericho returned to their more private conversation about Jericho's time as a raider and the similarities between tribal life and the life of the more organised Raider Clans. Jericho, being in his late sixties as near as he could tell, made for a surprisingly astute historical source on the subject. Not one that could ever be quoted for posterity. This was the true history. The kind that never got written. The type that never left the mouths of the men who lived it, unless it was into ears that wouldn't judge. Like a cannibal.
After he was done relaying the Courier's words, Jericho turned off his microphone so his words would not be heard by the rest of their little band.
"Burnscar was the next I ran with after Evergreen," Jericho related to the older tribal, his voice heavy with returning nostalgia, "His crew held down Meresti Station before the first of the Family moved in there. After that a few of us walked up to the city and set up on the route between Megaton and Rivet City. Easy pickings on the highway. Lots of overpasses and buildings we could use for ambushing. Those were the good old days for me. Plenty of caps, lots of loot, all the food you could steal, Megaton or Rivet City close enough to slip on proper clothes and sneak in for a midnight bender. I wore a mask while I was raiding, so I didn't have to worry about anyone recognising me."
"Got to be days when ye miss it," the Courier observed, "Thrill o' the chase, not havin' to go askin' for anythin' an' everythin'. I miss the days before the fall o' my clan. When we hunted the Clanless 'cross country, sometimes days at a time. Sun up through to the long nights. Rain or snow. Snow were my favourite. Used to go an' hunt them stark naked. Cold was bracin', see? An' I always thought their expressions when they saw me comin' for them were savage craic. Like they weren't sure whether to be more frightened o' me stickin' my cock up their arse or their neck 'tween my teeth."
Jericho snorted with laughter as some passers-by listening to the Burned Man edged away from the Courier, faces askance. The old bastard had a good sense of humour once you got over the fact he sounded like that radscorpion, Colin Moriarty. A raider's sense of humour. Full of references to the worst humanity had to offer. And the unspoken reasons for them, finely articulated in a way that let those that participated see a glimpse of their own natures. The kind of joke that bent the line between making you laugh, or cry. He had his fair share of those.
"Back in the day, I gave more than a few people the choice between a bullet through the head or my cock in their mouth," Jericho observed in a hard voice, dripping with caustic cynicism, in stark contrast with Joshua's ringing voice, "You know what I noticed?"
"Ye need to wind the duct tape 'round the back o' the head to keep the gag in?"
Jericho threw back his head and barked out a short burst of genuine mirth, before returning to his point, "Nah. I noticed that no-one ever chose the bullet. So that tells me," the old ex-raider theorised to his tribal counterpart, "That as much as people moan and groan about how bad rape is, they ain't really thought it through. Here's my take from being on both sides of the fence: when they get given the choice, they always choose life. Way I saw it, raiders usually kill folks, right? Every once in a while you get to live when otherwise you would have died. It's a good deal. And all you have to pay is a few minutes getting hot and heavy, hidden in the rubble. And you get to keep on living."
The grizzled merc chuckled to himself as the closest wastelanders within earshot decided to edge away from the two old killers among them. They couldn't hear the content of the discussion, but the savagely painful look of recollection on the aging raiders face was enough to give anyone pause, "A fate worse than death? What a fucking joke. Those people you hunted would have chosen the dick rather than getting eaten alive, for sure. I fucking would have. Hell, Doyle is only alive today because the raider clan that killed his folks and took him in liked their meat young and black. Ask him about it sometime. He has this story he tells about how he jammed a red-hot rebar rod up Joystick's ass once he got old enough to kill him and leave the clan. His impression of the guy screaming is hilarious!"
The Courier hummed and took a puff of his roll-up. As a survivor himself, he had to agree. When the alternative was death, you had to be thankful for the moments in life when the spirits gave you an unpleasant out from an even more unpleasant situation. Take the gifts offered to you. "Sure, we usually hunted men. I prefer women for a quick tumble. Ye let them live afterwards, right?" He enquired, curious to know what kind of killer the old raider actually was.
"Course," Jericho replied with an affronted look, "That was the deal, right? I ain't a fucking boy scout, but I ain't that much of a cunt to go back on a deal like that. World's changing nowadays, though. Haven't done that shit in decades. Not even sure my parts still work. My sperm all died and went to hell, where that preacher probably thinks the rest of me belongs."
The two old warriors, theirs head packed with so many horrors it didn't bare to contemplate, shared a significant look. "You every think about how we'll survive in this world, once fucking do-gooders like DeLoria have turned it all tame and harmless?" Jericho asked the fractionally older man, "They only keep us around because we're more dangerous than what they're fighting, and we'll do the fighting for them if they give us what we want. But Latchkey tells me about history sometimes when I can't get the redneck motherfucker to shut his trap. I'll probably have drunk myself to death by the time it gets good enough that they grow a pair and turn on me. But you? You might live to see it."
The Courier considered this, then shrugged casually. "Sure, there's a whole galaxy out there now. No shortage of fuckin' wastelands to find an' carry my message to, I'd wager. An' Vegas still stands. Civilisation won't reach all corners o' the galaxy 'fore I pass. I'll keep on goin' til the wheels come off, so I will."
Jericho smiled and nodded, "Let me know if you set up a spot, cannibal. I'm getting old, but I got some killing left in me. Prefer to go down killing than living like these fuckers," he waved around at the crowd, and Joshua standing on his stage. Safe, happy, caged within this microcosm of something that could be so much greater, if they just had the guts to fight for it.
"I miss the bad old days. Sometimes, I wish I'd stayed a raider. Maybe gotten shot by the Kid when he first dug his way outta the Vault. Might have been better than dying of old age. Nowadays, I need to get up two times a night just to take a piss," he groused as he adjusted his rifle sling on his shoulder and hiked up his comfortably-sized backpack.
"Why do ye help them, if ye miss it so much? Are ye tryin' to atone for who ye are? Wouldn't have taken ye for a coward, even faced with the end o' things."
Considering this question took some time for the old raider, as Joshua continued to proselytise to the gathered masses, a thoroughly incongruous backdrop for such a dark conversation. Or perhaps, the most appropriate. "Fuck it," Jericho tossed his head as if dismissing a concern, "Figured I had my fun. All of us old raiders had our fun. Those of us that survived it all. Won't be around for much longer, and being a raider is a death sentence nowadays. Not that it was ever safe to begin with. And D.C. needs bodies in boots with loaded guns. Pays well, and what you needed to take as a raider, DeLoria makes sure to shove our way once in a while. Food, caps, Chems, water. Even company, as long as it's consenting. Worst ways to spend your last days. And" Jericho pondered his next words carefully before continuing, "Figure I also do it 'cause it's what the Kid would have wanted. And it's what DeLoria wants, too. Anyone else, I'd just tell them to go fuck themselves. But those two?"
The two men settled into silence, listening to the conversation that continued across the radio. He didn't have to elaborate. Those two were just different. Enough said.
"So, what happened next Jack?" Lani asked from her spot leaning on the rooftop railing, with a spare headset Rook had obligingly lent her while they waited for the ground team to get into position. She closed her eyes against the cooling breeze so far above the street, enjoying the mild climate of Washington DC with even greater joy considering her recent vacation to the baking oven that was Arizona and the Mojave. This was paradise in comparison. Not to cold, not too warm, a bracing wind set at an agreeable counterpoint to the sun's rays that caressed her upturned face like the fingers of the Goddess. It was enough to make a Matriarch believe in heaven.
She cracked open her eyes and stared lazily out across Penn. Avenue, watching the crowds below, the wastelanders interspersed with Brotherhood patrols working their way through the thronging street. Pennsylvania Avenue was mostly Brotherhood territory, under mandate from the Washington Assembly. Part of the deal for their aid in retaking DC during the Metro Campaign, Butch had informed her. They had negotiated for the areas around the White House, in a futile attempt to take Margot and the other technology housed in the ruins for themselves. It hadn't worked out the way they had intended, politics being what they were.
They had settled for being situated close enough to keep a very close eye on Margot's servers if the AI should ever start getting ideas beyond its station. It galled the Brotherhood hardliners to their core, that after all the effort they had put in to securing Margot's physical hardware within their territory, they had been foiled by the AI itself refusing to work with anyone other than the Capital Wasteland Tunnel Snakes. And they couldn't threaten the AI to comply. It was needed to run the Metro that was DC's lifeline. It remained a subject of contention between Maxson and the hard-line Codex-thumpers within the Brotherhood to that day, a divisive subject matter that could be relied upon to split the organisation into several opposing factions with differencing views and preferred courses of action.
"Joking Joe pulls his forty-four like greased lightning, clearing the holster in less time than it takes to blink an eye," Jack continued his story, pulling his attention away from discussing the merits of storytelling with Ulysses to respond to Lantaya's request for more of his modest creation. "The muzzle ends up pointed at this slaver goon who was reaching for his piece. The goon's hand stops cold. 'What's your name, boy?' Joking Joe asks, as Super Dupe Dave circles around him with his super-sledge in one hand and the plasma pistol in the other. The goon swallows, because looking down the barrel of that .44 had turned his throat as dry and itchy as Raider snatch. 'Brian,' the goon chokes out past the terror in his eyes."
Jericho and Sarge cackled like maniacs at the jibe, amused despite themselves, showing a shared appreciating for childish humour that transcended all backgrounds and walks-of-life. Though in this case, the walk-of-life they both shared in common made the joke all the funnier. Sarge had also been a raider in his distant past. Latchkey clenched his fist in anticipation and held up a finger, "Wait for it! Wait for it," he mouthed, practically vibrating in place as Butch smirked, expertly clipping another tuft of hair away.
"'Sure is nice to meet you boy,' Joking Joe rumbles, 'But if you lay a finger on that iron, I'm gonna paint the wall behind you a nice new shade of Brian, you hear?'"
"Fucking pow," Latchkey exalted at a respectable volume, sending a flock of city pigeons to the air with the suddenness of the shout. ED-E floated to the side to avoid the sudden influx of air traffic, returning the bird's cries with calls of his own. "See what I mean?! Now that's a fucking line, boy! That's badass!"
The Tunnel Snakes laughed at their compatriots outburst, Sticky Hand Jack in particular was proud that his story was meeting with approval. Lantaya was surprised at the casual feeling in the air, almost as if they were sitting in a parlour or a living room, sharing hot drinks and conversating together on matters of little import. It felt like home. A profoundly odd home, where one of the uncles was currently explaining to his nephew how to arc a shot over a piece of cover from long range to kill a target in concealment, but a home, nonetheless. This was the most she had ever heard Craig Boone speak, Lantaya realised, half an ear on Sticky's story and the other listening in on Craig and Wilks.
Sticky mimed the penultimate fight scene between the three heroes and the slavers of a blatant rip-off of Grognak the Barbarian comic issue eighty-nine, The Tribes of the Wide-Open Plain, with plenty of stereotypical kung-fu noises and absurd descriptions of hilarious injuries below her, his voice distantly audible past the sound coming from the headset.
"Break, break, break. Clear comms and wrap it up, Sticky," Sarge's voice cut through the chatter, cutting off Silver before she could get into an in-depth explanation of the particulars of cycling such steroids, "We're coming up on the diner where Murphy and his bodyguard ate every evening. Everyone; front and centre."
"Shall speak with this purveyor of meat and gossip. Pick over his mind for clues," Ulysses stated as he forged ahead in preparation to do just that, the metallic cap on the bottom of Old Glory's staff clacking upon the pavement with each step. Sarge held out his arm and stopped the larger man with some effort. "Negative. Tunnel Snakes are known quantities around here. You sit your ass down right here and let Sticky do the talking. It's all he's good for."
"That, and being fucking adorable, loveable, and just an all-round swell guy to be around," Sticky Hand Jack quipped with a wide grin and a confident wink. "Got a giant hog, too. Don't lie; Everyone knows and loves Sticky Hand Jack."
"Against our better judgement," Letters joked through the radio as Lani wondered why Sticky Jack of all people felt it needful to inform them of the fact that he kept pigs, their size notwithstanding. How was that relevant information?
"If your wish is to know the path ahead of us, to find the man you seek, let me lead your way. I am of the Frumentarii," Ulysses declared, eying Sticky Hand Jack's back as he moved away from them towards the diner. "Your names are known, your mark is known, this is truth. But a man with no name can accomplish that which those of a known name cannot."
"Simmer down and let Sticky work, Rasta," Sarge replied in a relaxed yet confident voice, reassuring the foreigner to D.C. as they followed on after Jack. "He's never failed us before and I don't see why he would today. If he doesn't turn up paydirt then you're welcome to try it your way. Whatever that way might be."
The Procurement Specialist made his swaggering way across the street and into the dinner, weapon slung in the most blasé of fashions, the very picture of a jovial Tunnel Snake taking his thirty-minute break to catch a bite to eat and a few moments of conversation. The rest of their small detachment lined up across the wall outside, acting as though Sticky was ordering food for them and they were standing at rest outside the establishment, simply observing as the world went by.
It was a rather typical specimen as diners went. One long row of booths in the classical 1950's style that had risen to popularity and stuck around like the smell of urine in a public bathroom. Checkered red and white flooring that had been laid down before the war and was now bleached by radioactive fallout and sunlight. The white was now the same type of yellow that you found within the mouths of men and women with poor dental hygiene, while the red was now a disgustingly faded pink.
The furniture was new though. Plenty of salvaged building materials to go around. Upholstery wasn't in supply, but lumber was, and the owner of this establishment had clearly managed to source some comfortably carved hardwood pews to replace the traditional red upholstered booth seating. All in all, it looked exactly as it was: An old pre-war diner that had been cleaned out by callused hands, repaired with anything that wouldn't be too unseemly, then filled with rustic requirements to the abused and worthless relics of former times that had survived within it. It radiated profound honesty and a lack of pretence.
He unstrapped his combat helmet and lifted it off his head, surreptitiously switching his microphone to full-receive volume. They all listened to the heavy breathing and the rustling of clothing as Sticky ambled up to the bar and set his helmet down on the countertop. "Hey, how's business on Penn. Ave today pops?"
The grey-haired black man behind the counter looked up and back over his shoulder from the dough he was battering into submission on the wooden worktop, his gnarled hands beating the makings of a pie crust of a loaf of bread like it owed him caps. The wrinkles in his careworn face ran deeper than some parts of the Grand Canyon, almost as if listening closely enough would allow you to hear the cries of stranded recreational climbers. He wore a roughspun apron with word crudely embroidered into its front: 'We Feed You Lunch, Or Feed You Lead. You Choose Which.'
"Like always. Whose asking?" The man rasped, a trickle of sweat running down his brow from the heat radiating off of the nearby griddles surface. It tracked its way swiftly down his brow, reached the bridge of his nose and followed this path until it reached the inevitable conclusion. It hung suspended at the tip of his nose, which had clearly been broken numerous times and badly reset on every single occasion. Then it dropped onto the floor below the counter, lost to Sticky's sight.
"Tunnel Snake, pops. What's on the menu?" Sticky sat down at the counter and picked up a stray knife from a ceramic cup on the counter, twirling it around his hand and between his fingers, the stainless-steel flashing like burnished silver. Lantaya frowned at the casual beginning to the conversation, having thought that Sticky would just come right out and ask the questions pertaining to the kidnapped Murphy. Apparently, the Tunnel Snake had something different in mind.
"Got some meat pies coming out the oven, some pizza if you're in a hurry. Working on some ravioli too. What happened to Jerry Notch and his crew? They're usually the boys from your gang who patrol out here. This is Brotherhood turf."
"Ohh, that ravioli sounds tempting man, but I'll take a few slices of that pizza you got. Me and my squad just got rotated off the Frontier," Sticky replied still twirling the knife without so much as a glance at his long, slender fingers. He grinned at the aproned man and flipped the knife out of his grasp so the blade landed side down in his palm, using the handle to gesture about him. "Got light duty for a few weeks, you know? And this here is the lightest spot around. Looks like it got the best food too."
"True that. Rich folks keep a tidy neighbourhood. The Frontier?" The cook asked, still kneading the ravioli dough into a respectable lump, rolling pin laying off to the side as it awaited its rapidly approaching usage. "How far out they send you?"
"Out by Evergreen Mills," Sticky answered.
The cook clicked his tongue against cheek and whistled low, shaking his head in sympathy. "Tough gig, that. You got the trifecta. Raiders, Muties and fucking Radscorpians. Thank you for your service."
Sticky waved off the praise with the handle of the knife, dismissing it with excellent humour. "It's a job. I'm Sticky, by the way. Sticky Hand Jack," the Snake introduced himself with a sly grin and a wink at a passing waitress whose eyes went wide at the sudden attention. She stumbled; her frizzy hair tied back within the confines of an embroidered headwrap. If her skin hadn't been the colour of a rich dark oak, he probably would have been rewarded with the sight of a spectacular blush. The cook raised an eyebrow archly, voice noticeably colder as he responded.
"John. And that's my daughter," he added sharply, with a pointed stare that said without words everything that needed to be said between the two men, "Nancy."
Nancy lowered her head as she cleared a number of empty plates from a nearby booth, carrying them away as she tried not to meet the eyes of either man. She snuck a quick glance at Sticky's broad-shouldered back and his artfully arranged hair and dexterous fingers as she retreated, doing so at a moment when both men were looking away. Wilks caught it through his scope however, and whispered into his microphone with a grin, "She was checking you out, Sticky. Good form, mediocre opening. You might have had something there if you'd had the sense to wait until the father wasn't looking. I could have hooked her even with the father there."
"Are you two seriously doing this now? She isn't a fish, Bryan. She's a women. A human being. Keep your ego and your dick in your pants," Silver reprimanded him, staring at Sarge as if it was somehow his fault and he should set it right. The Sergeant gave her a look that conveyed his status as the man in charge of her narrow ass, to which she looked away, rendered contrite.
"So, this is a family joint?" Sticky continued on his conversation with John, nodding his approval, "That's good. Family is important, you know? Gotta spend time with them as much as you can. Never know when things might go down to the Dark. A man's gotta make the most of his time with his folks."
John nodded his agreement, taking this sudden statement of family values exactly as Sticky had intended it. An implicit apology for flirting with his daughter. "Sure, true enough that. You got family?"
Sticky looked down at the counter then back up, shrugging half-heartedly as John rolled out the dough to begin stuffing the ravioli with a robust mixture of vibrant green spinach and wasteland red Tato from a bowl to his side. "Nah, I'm an orphan. Though," he edged around on his counter-side chair until his back with the Tunnel Snake insignia was visible to John from across the counter, "Got family of a kind. Though I got to choose mine. Guess I'm lucky that way. Always look on the bright side of life, right?"
John laughed, calling back into the back of the dinner where Nancy had retreated with her burden of dishes. "Hey, Nancy! Bring the gentleman out some of those pizza slices we got heating in the oven, girl! How many you want? Your friends you got waiting outside want some?"
"How large is the entire pie? And deep dish or thin crust?"
John snorted in derision, "Thin crust, of course. The day they serve that deep dish shit in my diner is the day they lower me into my grave. Even then, I'll fucking haunt this place til they take it back off the menu. Twenty-one inch."
"I'll take one of those then, to go. Thanks, pops," Sticky said, slapping the caps down on the counter and sliding the knife back into its container.
"One slice?"
"Nah, one whole pie. Got mouths to feed," Sticky clarified, nodding his head to the rest of the ground team, clearly visible across the street, "And they get whiny if I don't feed them. Kids, right?"
"Sticky," Sarge growled warningly across the connection. Sticky gave no indication that he heard.
"No problem, son," John said through an indulgent smile, warming to the Tunnel Snake as Nancy called for confirmation from the back of the diner, which he provided. A pair of men in builders garb slid out of a booth further into the diner and ambled past, one of them slapping down a handful of caps and calling out a farewell to John as they passed.
"Thanks for the grub, John! See you tomorrow!"
John returned the farewell with a business-like nod, "Take care of yourself, Mark."
He turned his attention back to his Tunnel Snake customer as the door opened and closed, letting the two builders out into the packed street. "Can I do you for anything else?"
"Nah," Sticky said, then frowned as if something had just occurred to him. "Actually, yeah! Friend of mine said there was this real good Chemist knocking around this neighbourhood. Looking to score some Jet while I'm off heavy rotation. Take the edge off before I have to go back out."
On the building, Lantaya's frown deepened, and she decided to ask the question that was on her mind. "Why is he doing this? Why not just enquire after Murphy, rather than playing this game? Does he believe the owner has something to do with the disappearance?"
"Just let Sticky do his thing," Sarge ordered across the radio, "He knows his business."
"Chemist?" John asked, "You mean the ghoul?"
"That's the guy. Murphy, right?"
"That's him," John confirmed before shaking his head, "He's gone, son. Been missing for days. Jerry Notch and his crew found his bodyguard's corpse at their lab down the Avenue there."
John made a vague motion with his finger to indicate the general direction of the lab, now encrusted with ravioli filling as he stuffed the pasta parcels with their bounty before overlaying another piece of pasta dough to lock it in place. His working fingers left indentations where he pinched the tiny parcels closed one after the other, like an automated machine on an assembly line. "Shit, someone dropped a body on Penn. Ave, pops?"
John nodded in the affirmative, grim faced. "Got folks round here worried, you know? They think that kind of shit is supposed to happen outside the City. Not inside. Don't get me wrong, son: Life's only been getting better since that Mister DeLoria organised everyone to get the City back and all, but tough shit happens every day. Every day. These rich folks want to get angry about it like that shouldn't ever happen again, just 'cause we got some law and order now. I don't know," John sighed, the ravioli piling up in a mound to his side, neat little creations of sublime taste and delicacy.
"Maybe I'm just an old man talking foolishness son, but we all remember how it was before D.C. got sorted out. Five years or ten, you go through it anyway you wanna do it, it ain't that long ago. Things have changed, sure. But there ain't not guarantee that they won't change back. And I for one, don't think anything can ever go back to the way things were before the war, you know? This is our lot now. Better get busy living this life, cause it's the only one we got."
"I hear you, pops," Jack nodded fervently, tapping the countertop idly with his knuckles, which were encased in his fingerless shooting gloves, "A man can only do his best."
"That's damn right, son."
Nancy appeared with a medium-sized cardboard box in her hands, wafting the smell of fresh mozzarella, tato sauce with basil and garlic. Sticky stepped forwards and met the girl halfway, taking the box from her hands with a gracious smile and a suggestive wink that his orientation concealed from John behind the counter. Nancy returned the smile. Sticky cracked open the box open and eyed the contents appreciatively, then looked up and stared directly into Nancy's eyes. "Beautiful," he commented.
There was something in his eyes, if not his voice, that seemed to infer that he was not only talking about the pizza. He took the box from her hands, which remained outstretched as if she was still carrying the box, a faraway look in her eyes.
"Yeah, you've got her. Nice one Sticky," Wilks commented, watching as the poor girl shook the daze from her head and hurried away with one hand grasping at the hem of her waitresses dress.
"Really?" Silver reproved, "We're not even going to be here in a day or two and you are stringing her along. That poor girls going to be in knots about that for weeks."
"All good things come to those who wait," the Lettersman opined from his spot far above the street, only half paying attention to the proceedings as he and Latchkey confirmed the calculations for the firing of a 60mm mortar round at current weather and elevation.
Ignoring the conversation going on within his ear, Sticky turned back to John, who hadn't seen the little exchange between him and Nancy. "Thanks pops. Hey," Sticky leant forwards onto the counter, sliding the pizza ox onto the surface with his facial expression slyly arranged to give the impression that he was only just considering something. "How about me and mine take a look into this Murphy thing for you?"
"Don't got money to pay for mercs, son," John countered warily. John was an old-school wastelander. The kind who always assumed ulterior motives when something was being offered for free. But he had enjoyed their conversation with Sticky, who himself was a charming individual.
"Don't worry about it, pops. No charge," Sticky dismissed the objection in a tone of voice that suggested he wouldn't dream of charging a new friend for something so trivial, "Call it a favour. Me and mine don't have anything to do and Jerry probably has his hands full. And you know what the Brotherhood are like."
John and Sticky shared a moment, as they did indeed know what the Brotherhood was like. It was a tossup between the pro-local Lyon's loyalists on one side, and the returned ranks of the Outcast's who Maxson had reintegrated. Until the internal schism in the ranks of the Brotherhood was sorted out, you couldn't trust how a Brotherhood member would react.
"What was the last time you saw Murphy?" Sticky asked, as though he didn't already know from Booby the Tits investigation notes that John had been the last person to see Murphy or his bodyguard alive. He retrieved a slice of pizza from the box, curling it slightly to keep the weight of the toppings from bending the dough like a sheet of paper, spilling it all over the countertop. He took a large bite, engulfing the tip of the savoury creation with great enjoyment.
"Day he vanished," John admitted after a moments consideration, "Him and Barrett used to come here all the time and have lunch. Two of my regulars."
"Anything odd happen the last time you saw him?" Sticky asked through his mouthful of pizza.
"They were a bit flustered with one another. Raised voices and the like. Barrett didn't look happy. Although," John again admitted with a shrug and a self-deprecating grin, "Can't often tell what those leather-faces are thinking. Ghouls, am I right?"
"Sure," Sticky agreed, savouring his first bite of pizza in over a month. It was a relatively new addition to the DC diet, but a welcome one. With the availability of food skyrocketing due to the introduction of managed greenhouses, safe land for the cultivation of livestock, and certain other contribution factors, people of a culinary persuasion suddenly had a much larger supply of resources. And a much larger market.
"Other than that, no. Normal working day, pretty much."
"You sure?" Sticky pressed lightly after swallowing and licking his lips clean, "Anything at all, pops. Small details can matter the most. Those are the ones that everyone overlooks, you know?"
John's hands stopped their motions and he looked at the ceiling, thinking hard. "Well, one thing does come to mind. Hardly like to mention it, see? On account of Barrett being dead and Murphy being missing. Seemed wrong to speak ill, you know?"
"What you thinking?"
"They came in short on caps for their bill. And not in a good way."
Sticky stopped chewing, pursing his lips to lick up some of the sauce. "What, they try and stiff you? No barter? No deal? Barrett was a bodyguard, right? Could have traded you some spare rounds to make up the difference."
"Could have," John agreed, "But I didn't notice until they were already out the door."
"Don't tell me you can't count, pops. Your old-school, I can tell from a mile off. The old-school might not be able to read or write, but they can damn sure count their caps. Right down to the lint stuck between them."
John smirked, this being something of a compliment between men that's shared a certain walk of life. "Ohh, for sure. My eyes are still as good as ever. They paid with counterfeit caps. Good enough to fool me at a glance, not good enough to stand up while I was emptying the register after-hours to count up the days take."
"Counterfeit? Can I see?"
The aging cook popped open the even older register that stood upon the counter next to him, passing Sticky a number of metal caps that glinted in the light. The shape was right, Sticky decided as he turned them over and over in his hands, but the paint was all wrong. It wasn't the right kind. The kind that adhered to the surface of metal. This stuff was peeling off in strips. "I don't know, pops. Your eyes might be going. These are fake as fuck. You think Murphy is into counterfeiting?" Sticky asked in a teasing tone.
"My eyes might not be as good as they used to. Maybe so, maybe so," John returned the smile, "I can still hit a molerat from fifty paces, though. But about Murphy and the fakes? Nah, I just can't see it. Don't even think he knew he was paying in counterfeit bottlecaps. Like I said, the guy was a regular here. Probably got paid off for some Chems and these bad caps got mixed in with the good ones, somehow. Some of his tab were the genuine article, some were these fake caps. Why pay with only some fake and some real if he was into counterfeiting? And Murphy's the smart sort. Smarter than most. If he ever got into counterfeiting, I don't think he'd do such a shoddy job of it."
Sticky chuckled, then held up the caps and enquired, "Can I take one of these, pops? Might help me looking for him."
"They ain't no good to me, son. Fake as Assemblyman Moriarty's smile. You take as many as you want."
He tucked the caps into his chest rig and stood up, shooting a look at Nancy over his shoulder. She was making a show of rubbing down one of the booth tables with a cloth, bending over it just far enough to give him a view of her calves as they emerged from under the length of her modest skirt. She gave him a tentative smile, which he returned with a wink and a suggestive grin. Nancy made sure her father wasn't looking before returning the wink, biting her lower lip quite fetchingly.
"And that, Blue, is how a professional gathers information," Jack boasted under his breath and into the microphones receiver as he dialled its input back down to normal levels.
"Hey, you got enough pizza for all of us, right?" Latchkey asked from his spot on the building rooftop, opposite them. "Don't eat all of it. Leave some for us once we get to come down off the roof!"
"That's a great idea. How about you come down here and pick up your slice yourself, Kenny?" Sticky innocently suggested as he made for the door, Nancy's supple legs and fetching smile already forgotten amidst the storm of calculating thought rushing through his mind. "Better hurry though, if you don't get here quick the others might eat your slice."
"Motherfucker, I'm five stories up! How am I gonna get down there in time?!"
"You could try jumping," he mumbled through a mouthful of pizza.
"Fuck you, Sticky!"