Given another task by Mal, Rose set out to complete it for the return of her parcel.
Pushing the wheelbarrow, she took with her, Rose was prepared to use it.
Following the map on her Pip-Boy, Rose looked for the cave Mal mentioned.
The sun shining brightly over her, Rose wasted no time as she found shortcuts that drew her closer to the hidden cave.
Unsure of the underlying dangers, Rose kept her BB gun close, and made her way towards a rock formation with obsidian dotting it.
Checking her map, Rose sees she was indeed where she was supposed to be, but now she must bravely enter an unknown cave and find whatever Mal wanted.
"Okay-Dokey," Rose exhales as she forced herself through the cave entrance.
The temperature difference was notable compared to outside and Rose couldn't see very well beyond her own hands.
Fiddling with her Pip-Boy, she turned on the flashlight module, and used it to see through the darkness.
Mal didn't mention how long the cave system was or if there were any offshoots, so Rose had to rely on what little she knew.
"Okay, just like when you were a kid playing hide and seek with Cousin Tom!" Rose exhaled as she carefully went over uneven crags as she stretched her neck out.
Around her she heard water dripping from somewhere and nothing more.
She expected more of those rats like the one that initially broke her Pip-Boy or something worse.
It was surprisingly barren, for a cave that raiders would have easily overtaken, and turned into one of their encampments, but given Mal and Hal's treatment of them, they've likely never gotten the chance.
Or they did and they were summarily destroyed after being discovered, but their hidden treasures inevitably lost.
Either way, Rose wanted to find what was in the cave and get out.
"Oomph!" Rose tripped over something and almost lost her footing.
Managing to prevent herself from falling over, Rose restituted herself and looked down.
Skeletal remains.
Human.
Covering her mouth, Rose's eyes widened at the sight as it scared her.
Bleach white.
Wore clothing that was dissimilar to what raiders wore.
Using her flashlight, Rose searched around, and she was at the end of the cave, she didn't see any open veins or anything suggesting anything nested inside.
Behind the skeleton, there was a locked trunk.
Attempting to use one of the Bobby pins she took with her, Rose found it near impossible to crack it open, and didn't want to risk breaking the lock by forcing it.
Grabbing the side with metal handle, Rose began pulling it away from the skeleton, and it weighed more than she expected.
It took sheer will for her to pull it over the uneven crags towards the mouth of the cave, but she did what she could to get it out of the cave.
Overexerted, Rose stops for a moment to catch her breath as she leans over the green trunk.
Whatever is inside, it weighed a ton, and Rose prayed whatever inside was what Mal wanted.
With it safely in the wheelbarrow, Rose ventured back to Mal's place.
HAROLD
It never crossed his mind that things would turn out the way they would, all he wanted was to live a quiet life out in whatever safe place in the Wasteland he could find, but that was for naught.
If it wasn't radioactive areas that made traveling dangerous, there were mutant animals and insects that dot the area, claiming dozens of lives, and almost his hadn't fled when he got the chance.
Madmen and women taking to the roads claiming lives to take whatever they can find for their own, raiders they were normally called.
If that wasn't enough, there were unseemly types running around doing whatever they could to stay on top and were willing to do whatever it took.
The experiences made Harold wonder if he made the right choice to leave his Vault.
He didn't mind it much, it kept him safe from the exposure to the topside but suppose having been relied upon too much as the only available scientist and doctor pushed him to his breaking point that he wanted nothing more than to explode his own head.
Well, suppose he didn't know what he had until he didn't have it anymore, given the misfortune he experienced after leaving the vault.
He endeared himself as a doctor to a settlement desperate for one and for the most part things were fine.
The settlement had so many setbacks that it was decided to vacate it and leave it to the raiders.
In a caravan, all twenty moved across the dangerous Wasteland in hopes for a safer area, but inevitably that wasn't the case.
Pure luck had Harold survive the attack on his caravan, but in a cruel way it was karma, since he had to endure people being killed by the raiders with him hiding under the corpses of the slain settlers, and their screams still pierced his mind even unconscious.
He wasn't sure if he had any right to survive, if this was a cruel joke by some power above, but all good things come to those who wait, as he woke up restrained to a medical bed with a Mr. Handy overseeing him.
"Oh goodie! Madam! The patient is awake!" It cheerfully said as it fetched its owner.
Walking in with her arms crossed, the woman eyes Harold with suspicion.
"And here I thought we'd have to toss your ass!" she huffs as she walks closer to Harold as he attempts to move away from the medical bed.
Unable to move with the restraints holding him tightly, Harold settled in the medical bed as he meekly asks, "Where am I?"
Sighing, the woman goes, "Not in a raider camp, if you were wondering. You better be happy, though. Someone came in a big way for you."
Remembering Rose, Harold nods.
"It's been a while, madam. Do you think she's alright?" Hal wonders about Rose.
It didn't pick up any signals or anything that denoted danger, but it was weeks ago when it first received a strange signal.
Thinking it over, Mal sighs, "Hm, didn't think what to do with him."
She spent quite a bit of caps on him and since Rose hadn't come back with the item in question, Mal needed to recoup the costs somehow.
"Please…" Harold winces as he sees the look on Mal's face.
Raising one of its arms, Hal cautioned her, "He stills needs time to recover."
Mal reminds it, "Spent 1200 caps on him, Hal."
Even their raiding raider camps weren't that lucrative enough to eat the cost.
Thinking it over, Hal suggests, "Hm, his organs were in good condition. Could always sell those."
Always someone needing a kidney or two.
"Good point. Problem. Who's buying?" Mal waved her hand.
Discussing what to do with Harold, the two were stopped by him pleading with, "Please. I have money. Just, don't hurt me."
Raising her brow, Mal grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the medical bed. Sitting with her arms around the headrest with her head on top, Mal inquires, "You have caps, now?"
Didn't see anything of value when Hal was performing the medical procedures.
Turning his head towards her, Harold explains, "I kept it safe, didn't want anyone getting their hands on it."
Raising her brow, Mal inquires, "And where is it?"
Harold responds, "If you let me go, I will lead you to it."
Shaking her head, Mal spat, "Do you think I'm as green as her?"
Insisting that he wasn't lying, Harold begged Mal to let him prove to her that he was telling the truth.
They weren't able to continue the conversation when a voice echoed throughout the hidden bunker.
"Hey!"
There are sounds of something hitting the slide door.
Going to check on his owner's insistence, Hal exclaimed, "Fortune smiled on her after all, madam!"
Shocked, Mal went to see for herself, and through the hidden camera she sees Rose with the wheelbarrow.
"Yeah, no kidding!" Mal exhales before leaving to meet Rose as Hal lets her through the slide door with the wheelbarrow.
"I found your what's it!" Rose struggled to lift the wheelbarrow up for Mal to see.
Instructing Hal to retrieve the green trunk, the Mr. Handy robot proceeded to force it open with a well-placed laser, and inside there was a large weapon hidden.
"Well, now!" Mal's eyes widened to the sight of it.
Cheerfully, Hal remarked, "My sensors have never failed me, yet madam!"
Gesturing, Rose weakly asks, "Is that enough?"
Looking over the weapon with careful detail, Mal sighs as she admits, "I'm actually surprised you made it back in one piece."
Using its arms, Hal carried away the weapon to be stored for later use.
"Does that mean we're even?" Rose gestures.
Sighing, Mal answers, "Deal's a deal. On that note, he's awake. Here I thought it'd be a Greek tragedy!"
Walking with Rose, Mal led her to the recovery room where she promptly released Harold from his restraints with the threat that if he tried anything, Hal would obliterate him on the first try.
Promise.
"You're alive!" Rose cheerfully said.
Harold weakly smiles as he responds with, "I suppose I am; you are too!"
Hal returned with the parcel and Mal handed it over to Rose and she thanked Mal for keeping her word.
"How is he?" Rose inquiries about Harold's health.
Hal cheerfully responds that aside from cotton mouth, which is temporary with some specialty gum, Harold was 100% once again.
"Oh good!" Rose smiles.
Pushing himself up from the bed, Harold held his chest as he exhaled deeply.
Their reunion was paused when Mal admitted, "I might've jumped the gun and presumed you dead."
Rose was shocked at this before Mal pointed out, "Look, we're in the Wasteland. You learn not to get attached."
It didn't help when Harold admitted, "If I am honest, so did I."
Considering he survived the raider attack and the carnage that came with it, it wasn't surprising he would think similarly as Mal.
Pointing at herself, Rose asserts, "Well, I'm here now, so."
Shrugging, Mal then turned her head to Harold and said, "Looks like you're off the hook with the bill, but things may change next time around, so I'd be prepared."
Raising her hand, Rose asks Harold, "So, what where was your caravan going?"
Adjusting himself in the medical bed, Harold answered, "We were going to a new settlement, Brown's it was called. It's past Memphis that much I know."
Well, when the caravan got attacked, guess Harold wasn't going to the new settlement either, before Rose innocently asks where he would go from here.
"I don't know, I'm not familiar with the area to really have an idea," Harold admitted.
Trying to come up with some ideas, Rose suggests, "Could always go to Memphis."
Mal then reminds them, "All Memphis is are those god-awful Elvis impersonators and their King. It's honestly a miracle there's people still alive there with the way they eat!"
Unless Harold can somehow put on a good impersonation, he wouldn't last very long in the city.
"I'm told it's actually a safe city, for the most part," Harold argues.
Snorting, Mal mocked, "Yeah, because the sane people stay away from it."
Seeing her slant Memphis as insane, Rose asks her about her disdain towards the city, and Mal pointed out that nothing good can come out of a city filled with impersonators.
"But it's where I'm supposed to go," Rose argues.
Mal points as she eyes her, "Your parcel is going to someone in Memphis?"
Meekly nodding, Rose confirms this before Mal exhales sharply.
Gesturing, Mal asks, "You have any sort of plan getting there?"
When Rose points to her Pip-Boy, Mal elaborates how getting to Memphis would be dangerous on account Rose would need to get herself on a ferry to cross the irradiated river.
A river prone to having mutant crawfish crawling on the shores and will often attack the automated ferries that brought people across.
Crawfish with plated exoskeletons that a BB gun, blunt or used for its purpose isn't going to do much.
"I did pretty good on my own before," Rose asserts as Mal crosses her arms.
Mal then warns, "Even if you do cross the river peachy, you still have to contend with those wannabe cowboys that got kicked out of the west."
Seeing her knowledge made Rose curious on how Mal knew so much about life outside her bunker.
Mal gave an elusive, "Trust me, you learn quick."
Though she can't understand how Rose was able to keep herself cheerful despite being on the surface with hell at every corner.
Her answer on why didn't ease Mal's concerns.
"It's just Vault-Tech pride, ma'am!"
Hal returned to the recovery room to tell Mal that the upgrades were finished and ready, causing Mal to exclaim, "Groovy!"
Standing up, Mal points to Rose as she brought up that if Rose wanted to get to Memphis, she would need to go now.
If she's lucky there isn't anyone near the automated ferries when she arrives, but given there's shanty towns nearby, that may not hold water.
"Don't worry, ma'am, I can handle it!" Rose asserts.
Seeing the look on Mal's face, Rose sheepishly remarks, "You make it sound like I'm crazy!"
Flatly, Mal states, "I'm a realist."
No point idealizing and being whimsical when death is a stone throw away.
Getting up from the medical bed, Harold groans as he popped his back and stretched his arms before jumping off the bed.
"Well, since your friend made a recovery, you two can make your way out there," Mal stood up as she stretched.
Jokingly, Rose offers Mal to come with them, before Mal gave her a sharp look before guiding them out of the recovery room with Hal sterilizing it heavily.
Can't be too careful, all that.
Guiding them back to the main area, Mal sighs as she retrieves something from her stash that she handed to Rose and Harold.
A 10mm pistol and a hunting shotgun with their respected bullets.
The generosity was surprising, before Mal gave a pragmatic reason for doing it.
"I got something better," Mal smirks.