10: Barbarian
The raider that Preston had only really labeled internally as "the younger one" did, in fact, have a name. Her parents- two tato farmers living under a self-proclaimed raider baron about two hours north of Boston- had named her Barbara Greene. When the baron that owned her and her parents came around conscripting those that suffered under his reign in an attempt to repel a slaughter-order from the Gunners, Barbara's father had resigned himself to go. Barbara, who would have done anything to escape her farm life, stole her father's guns and fled in the night to take his place. The baron didn't give a shit one way or the other of course, all he needed were bodies.
The fight had been ruinous. Barbara had trekked out of their shabby little war camp to collect a private stash of chems she'd hidden when the Gunners made their ambush. Barbara's baron had no hope of fending off the Gunner's, even if it'd been the baron and his men doing the ambushing rather than the other way around. They'd lit up the camp with mobile floodlights, disorienting the baron and his men. Barbara had been lucky to be far enough away to not be caught in the dazzling beams. Instead, she watched as the camp she'd been in only a minute or two ago was bathed in Gunner spotlights.
The raiders screamed in confusion, firing rounds off here or there into the night. The Gunners had held their fire, allowing the poorly-directed attempts to shoot out the floodlights to continue for a few moments. At last, the Gunner's target had shown himself. The baron emerged from the back of an eighteen wheeler they'd refitted for his camp that evening. He was only able to get half an order out before the Gunner's opened fire themselves.
It seemed to come from everywhere, lighting the camp up. Thirty seconds of non-stop automatic gunfire, though for Barbara it felt as though the roar of guns might never stop. She'd thrown herself into the rocks, not caring in the slightest that she'd split her chin on a particularly sharp piece of glass that'd somehow made its way this far from the road the raiders had been camping on. She'd glanced to her right, spotting one of the ambushers; a lone Gunner manning an assault rifle with a makeshift belt-fed clip. She could see his face everytime the barrel lit up. His expression had been so lacking, she recalled. Not a trace of emotion. This was just a job for him.
Even in her panic and fear of incoming death, she had admired that sort of professionalism. All the same, she'd trained her fathers gun- an old world laser pistol that had a tendency to stray-fire in a seemingly random direction- on the Gunners head. He was close, so close. Even with how unreliable her heirloom weapon had been, she was positive she could blow his brains out from here. She didn't. Barbara had lowered her pistol and let the gunfire continue until a Gunner commander screamed for a cease fire. Faintly, even through her ringing ears, she marveled at how silent it was. She'd expected screams, return fire from the baron and his men, anything at all… But it was silent as the grave.
She'd lain still- unseen- while the Gunners advanced into the camp. She watched them roll over every one of her "comrades", planting lead in every brain. A few raiders had been playing possum. One even got lucky and caught a Gunner in the balls with the rusty screwdriver that'd been fixed on the end of his pipe gun before the Gunners avenged their maimed brother in arms by unloading a season's harvest worth of bullets into the spiteful "possum".
Barbara had almost forgotten to grab her stash before she'd absconded into the night, heading south. It was those chems that, ultimately, made her more than just some road-side mark when she'd stumbled into one of Jared's idiot-traps outside of Lexington. When three of his raiders- her raiders now too, she figured- jumped her, she'd screamed that she'd personally inject the psycho for them if they let her live. They found that downright hilarious. When she asked if she could join them, they agreed.
Even now, she'd never understood why she'd been spared. Something about the chems had excited them. That wasn't new with raiders of course; chems and killers went hand in glove. It was only after they'd gotten her acquainted with the crew stationed at Corvega Assembly that she'd realized their leader, a truly touched man named Jared, had been loading up most of his new recruits with an obscene amount of chems upon their arrival.
That first week had been heaven. Barbara- now called "Nurse Babs" (much to her dismay) by the rest of Jared's crew as a jest on her willingness to apply others injections- spent six days in a stupor. Jet, amped up with psycho, washed down with booze and Daddy-O. Sometimes Mentats when she had jobs to complete. Jared watched her like a hawk through that six-day high- studied her, even. She'd grown close to him- Or, she'd thought she had. The entire time, she'd thought the way he'd looked at her was in wanting. She, a lowly bushwacker, having caught the attention of a local warlord? That was the kind of shit you'd read about in a trashy romance dime novel- not that Barbara could read such a novel, of course- or any novel for that matter.
When it was determined that she didn't have something Jared had called "the sight"- a concept still lost on Barbara, even now- she'd been cast aside. Jared barely paid her any mind after that. She wanted to kill him for the offense of being discarded, even had a vague plan on how she might pull it off, before the rest of the gang had taken her in. Her being dubbed "Nurse Babs" had been a drag, but the otherwise fiendish comradery felt like something she'd been missing in her life until now. She felt like she belonged here.
Then there was that business in Concord. Apparently, the old bat they'd brought back had what Jared was looking for, had "the sight"- whatever the fuck that was. Jared had been elated. Ever since they brought her back two weeks ago, he'd done nothing but hole up in his foreman's suite with the old woman and at least a quarter of the gang's drug stash, talking with her and feeding her chems. Gristle had mostly taken over the day-to-day. The other raiders had grown weary of Jared and his obsessions. There was even talk of deposing him. When he got his hands on that old bitch, though, everything seemed to change.
With absolutely no intel what-so-ever, as far as Barbara could tell, Jared had informed them that there'd be a caravan passing by on its way to Diamond City. Two brahmin full of general goods. Normally that kind of caravan might have a decent guard to it, but Jared had informed them that the guards were sick and wouldn't be in the mood to fight. They'd surrender if confronted, he'd told them, as if such a guess was stone-cold fact. Barbara had been there during the ambush on the caravan and, sure enough, all six guards threw their hands up and gave up the goods. They hadn't even put up the illusion of a fight, just as Jared had predicted.
The guards had looked terrible, Barbara remembered that much at least. Radiation sickness, maybe, but no one wanted to risk touching them. They'd gunned the guards down and steered the brahmin back to Lexington, reveling in their spoils. That had been two days ago. Things had been pretty euphoric since then. All talk of deposing Jared had vanished in an instant. Now, this old bitch and her "sight" seemed a lot less crazy. Jared, himself, seemed a lot less crazy too.
There was no denying it; Barbara felt lucky as lucky could be. Besides her shitty nickname, she'd landed herself in a sizable gang. Prophetic leadership. More chems than she could shake a stick at. A bright future. Barbara had been fantasizing about what it might look like if the rumors that Jared intended to hit Diamond City were true. She imagined herself sporting polished metal plating, the Corvega V ironed into the front. She imagined herself, cigarette between her teeth, as she laid waste to bat-bearing security guards. She imagined herself kicking her feet up in the highest stands, bathed in stadium lights.
She'd been lost in that daze all the way up until she'd brought Gristle's pet Minuteman his dinner. For whatever reason, Gristle had felt unusually friendly and had ordered her to take the bruised up man a cut of seared brahmin, freshly cut from the two they'd gotten from the caravan. Barbara didn't understand why in the world they were feeding this bastard steak. Why give him anything better than scraps? Barbara supposed she didn't really care.
When she saw Gristle's pet lying in a heap of his own slobber, face down on the floor of his shitty little cell, Barbara froze. "Oh, shit- Hey. You dead?" She stretched her foot through the bars, kicking him in the side. "Helloooo? Wake up asshole! If you're dead, Gristle's gonna be in a pissy mood and I'm not fuckin' down to get landed with ghoul duty just because you decided now was a good time to finally check out of the Corvega motel."
Her jeering and barking yielded no result. Shit, she thought. The fuckin' delusional bastard really bit it. Fuck.
Barbara wasn't sure why she felt like opening his cell was a good idea. Something about him made him a non-threat to her, and curiosity had demanded she make sure the bruised bastard really had kicked the bucket. She set the slab of meat down on the table and fished the key Gristle had given her out of her pocket. She'd turned the lock and opened it, taking a tentative step into the cell.
Another swift kick to his ribs. Nothing, barely a flinch. She leaned down. "Well, I'm definitely gonna eat your dinner before I let Gristle know. No reason to let good steak go to-"
Barbara Greene- "Nurse Babs" to her comrades in slaughter- saw far too late that something was keenly off about the corpse under her. His right hand was coiled, his fingers gripping the tuft of something. When the body jumped up and swung that something at her, she made brief eye contact with the rotting sockets of the dead skull of the man they'd tortured to death when the Concord crew came back, Jake or Jung or Jun or-
The last thing Barbara Greene ever saw was death's head, speeding toward her. She heard a crack, experienced her vision failing her, and felt another pinch as the back of her head hit the bars of the cage. After that, everything was numb, dull, black. She tried to call out for help, but found she'd lost the ability to speak. No… That wasn't quite it. Not the ability, but the desire. The form above straddled her, that vague human shape looming. Barbara thought of-
Preston brought the rotting head of Jun Long down on the chemfiend's head four more times before he was sure she was at least unconscious- if not dead outright. When it was done, he tossed the head aside with a primal hiss. He wanted to scream, to roar in horrible triumph, but he was smart enough not to let himself be given away so soon. "I'm sorry-" He managed to whisper at the head of the man that had once been his charge to protect; a man who had seen Preston as his doomed guardian.
Preston reached down and held the chemfiends head in his hands, giving it a sharp pull to the side. He twisted until he felt something pop in her neck. Satisfied that she was dead, he worked quickly to pick her apart for gear. His brain pounded in his skull; manic, dehydrated, hungry, scared, and furious. He pulled the laser pistol off her hip and gave it a look over in the dim light. It was ill-maintained, held together in some places by duct tape. When he flicked it on, it gave a low electric whine to indicate it was being fed energy.
He fished an empty rusting can of potato crisps off her hip and gave it a small shake. Sounds like caps inside Preston thought. He opened the noisy thing, dumped the caps out into his hand- no more than thirty or so, he wagered- and stuffed them into his back pocket. Ransacking her corpse further, he came up with a spare microfusion battery for the gun and a canister of jet. Without thinking, he tucked the jet away.
He rose, flicking the laser pistol back on, and turned his attention to the exit of Gristle's little industrial pod that had been Preston's home these last few weeks. Corvega Assembly had been overflowing as long as Preston had been here. As far as he was concerned, this was going to be a death run. The dog, Preston thought. Need to find that dog. Need to find Mama Murphy. It was insanity of course, risking his life just to save a wasteland mutt in a time like this, but Mama Murphy's odd prophetic proclamation in Concord had stuck with him.
Her "sight" had been right before, according to Sturges. He'd told Preston that most folk dismissed the old woman's words for lunacy, but she'd foreseen the battle of Quincy. She'd foreseen its fall and had raved words of doom to any who would listen. Of course, no one believed her; almost no one. Sturges, he'd told Preston later on, hadn't wanted to believe her. Something in his gut defied that want. Thus, Sturges had been the one to reach out to the Minutemen to request protection for an incoming raid.
But what's the point of prophecy when it's just gonna lead you to the same dead-end? Preston wondered as he crept near the door to the pod, looking up at the catwalks above the assembly line. He watched. He listened. No footsteps, no voices. It was unusually quiet; normally he'd at least hear a guard or two. Just past the pod, just over the assembly line, was the doors to the lobby. Beyond the lobby, the front doors. Beyond those, Lexington. Beyond Lexington… Preston hadn't thought that far ahead. He wanted to run, to abandon his post.
I'm not a Minuteman anymore, he told himself. There are no Minutemen anymore. Yet, all the same, Preston found himself going right instead of left, creeping into the network of hallways that snaked the building. On his way, he didn't spot a soul; not a single guard. This awarded him no relief. In fact, Preston found himself growing anxious.
His mind conjured some elaborate scheme in which he'd find Mama Murphy alone, tied to a chair. He'd approach her, promising her that it would be alright, when every one of Jared's raiders would come pouring out of the steelwork with rusty knives. They'd take turns on him. Jared, his face covered in those horrible tattoos, would be smiling down at him as he's torn apart. Gristle would tip Preston's hat to him; one final fuck-you-farewell.
Stop it, Preston chided. Get it together. They're on a raid. What other reason could there be for them to leave a skeleton crew like this behind? That made sense enough to snap Preston back into the present. It wasn't until he'd reached an elevator adjacent to another stretch of hallway and a set of stairs that he saw his first raider.
A single grease-stained man in a yellowed wife-beater, covered head to toe in crude patchwork leather armor, stood smoking a cigarette as he stared at a metal plate with a cartoon depiction of a worker wearing their hard hat, reminding all of the dangers of lacking proper headgear while on the job. The raider blew smoke into the sign, shaking his head slowly. "Fat good a helmet'll do ya against a nuke."
A hardhat may not have saved the raider- or the workers it had been designed for- from a nuclear blast. It would have saved the raider from Preston, however, as he burst from the shadows with a steel bucket in his hand. The raider was stunned from the blow, struck in the only part of his body he wasn't sporting armor. Dazed, pulled his double barrel from the holster he had strapped to his thigh. He'd only started to raise it before something blunt struck hot lightning across his wrist, forcing him to drop it.
It's shattered, the raider thought. He tried to turn, to look at who was ambushing him, when the bucket came around a second time. He saw only the vague outline of a man before the bucket eclipsed his vision, sending stars and tears into his eyes. He stumbled into the pillar, throwing a haymaker with his unshattered left hand. Catching nothing but air and left off balance, the raider felt a third and final crunch of the bucket on the back of his head. The world had faded to black as the floor rushed up to greet him.
Preston dropped the dented, bloody bucket beside the unconscious raider. The man wheezed and jerked in a way that disturbed Preston even now. No time for pity, however. Preston took the armor off the man, risking the minutes it would take to outfit himself. The gamble, ultimately, paid off; no one had come looking for the lone smoker before Preston Garvey found himself both armed and armored. A double barrel with a few extra shells didn't hurt, plus the switchblade the raider had kept in his boot.
Preston considered snapping the raiders neck in the same fashion he had the chemfiend who'd unwittingly freed him, but found his fury was waning. He had trained and fought all his life until this point like a soldier. He'd fought at range, fighting in formation, fighting with a kind of dignity often forgotten from this world. Now, he fought like an animal. Now, he fought like the foe he'd spent his life uprooting from the commonwealth.
I'm not like them, Preston justified. If all I have are sticks and stones, then all I have are sticks and stones. They chose the battlefield. I can save honor for a better day. In the end, Preston left the twitching raider to his fate. Question was, where the hell were they keeping the dog? Mama Murphy he figured would be somewhere higher up; he knew Jared was posted somewhere at the assembly's end. The dog, though, Preston had no idea.
Can't search this place room for room; up it is. Preston had turned to the stairs, prepared to ascend, when he stopped to stare at a figure looking back at him. The silhouette of another raider, frozen, brain still trying to process what it was looking at. "Bill?" The silhouette asked, its voice feminine and marred with a decade or more of Jet use.
She was too far from Preston for a lunge. Still, he didn't hesitate. He lifted the laser pistol and squeezed the trigger. Though Preston was positive his shot was aligned perfectly with the center of her chest, the laser gun made a strange warped coughing noise and jutted the laser out at a slightly bent angle. It caught her in the leg, instead, forcing out a cry of pain and surprise.
She stumbled back behind the cover of the stairwell's corner, fumbling for the pipegun slung over her shoulder. Preston had fired three more times, trying to catch her before she'd been completely obscured. One shot went high, the second caught the stairs, and the third finally had gone where he had intended. By then, however, she'd already found her cover. Where did they find this piece of junk? Preston slapped at the pistol as he dove for his own cover.
He'd reached the descending corner of the stairwell just in time to avoid two bursts of gunfire from above. "You shot me in the fucking leg!" The raider screamed down at Preston, firing her gun blindly at the silhouette that assailed her
Preston tried to think of something witty, but banter hadn't exactly been his forte. He drew the combat knife in his free hand and prayed that the microfusion cell in the pistol had enough juice left to at least make it up the stairs. When her burst of fire completed, Preston turned and jetted up the stairs, squeezing off his pistol as fast as he could. Red flooded the stairwell, taking chips of paint and decaying concrete off the corner where she hid. Now the damn thing shoots where I want it to, not that there's anything to shoot at.
Regardless of the gun's lack of desire to be wielded, it served its purpose. The hail of fire kept the raider from popping out again, keeping her pinned in her cover. Be it adrenaline, be it a lack of training, be it a million different factors, she didn't realize that the laser pistol was getting louder and louder- its spread tighter and tighter- with every shot. Even when it was too late, she failed to realize Preston's gambit.
The last Minuteman turned the corner, nearly falling right on top of her. He pointed the laser pistol practically against her forehead. She screamed, double-handing her pipe rifle as she swung it in a wide arc, smacking the pistol out of Preston's hand. Wrong weapon, he thought, diving at her with the knife raised. With her arms and rifle to the side, she had no defense. The knife made its plunge into her shoulder, Preston's weight sending them both into the corner of the stairwell.
"Wait, wait-" She screamed, pushing against him with all her failing might.
Preston barely heard her. He brought his knee to her ribs in an attempt to knock the wind out of her and keep her quiet. It worked. When he pulled the knife out of her shoulder, she didn't have enough air to make more than a wheezing croak.
"Where's the dog!?" Preston hissed.
The raider looked up at him, pained and bewildered. "D-Dog? What- Agggh-" She began to scream as Preston drove the knife back into her shoulder, twisting it. He threw his free hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that followed.
Torture. So it's come down to torture. This isn't how the Minutemen do things. Preston thought. He hated this. He hated himself. All for a dog, and why? Because Mama Murphy told him it was important… And he believed her, against all sense of reason. "The dog you brought in, where is it? Is it dead already, did you eat it?"
"No, n-no- Please stop, please-" She mumbled through his hand. He braved a moment to unmuffle her, barring it across the top of her chest to keep her pinned to the stairwell's corner.
"Where?"
"We- Jared wanted it alive-" She spoke quickly, speaking between gasps of air as she tried to fill her lungs. Preston wondered if he'd hit her too hard. "-He said it was important for some reason. He's got it changed up with the old woman, they're in-..." She trailed off, realizing what she might say would betray her leader.
Preston didn't begrudge her the hesitation. If he served a warlord, he'd hesitate too. "I won't ask again; the next time this knife comes out of you, it's coming back in through your goddamn eye."
The maimed raider lit up with fear. She gestured a shaking hand to the stairs ascending behind her. "The end of the assembly- Just up the stairs- Please don't hurt me-"
"Where in the assembly?"
"Jared's office- He-..." The raider shuddered, a twitch of Preston's hand causing a world of pain from her aching wound. "H-He keeps them in his office, it's… To the left, there's two turrets a-and a search light… Two guards up there… Jared's not here, he-he left on a raid with some others, first time he's been out in over a week- Please, I'm telling the truth, please-"
"I believe you." Preston said in an even tone. He arm barred her back into the wall, yanking out the knife. She let out half a shriek before he knuckled the side of her head. She slumped, conscious but dazed, slumping into him. A good push sent her sprawling down the stairs, her arms lazily cartwheeling outward to try and snatch a railing. She found none and fell hard, bouncing and rolling on every step downward. When she hit the bottom, he thought he heard her groan, or at least saw her back rise and fall with a breath. Either way, it wasn't his business anymore.
Preston stuffed the laser pistol into a holster that barely fit the gun, stitched onto the chest of his crude, stolen leather cuirass. He collected the raiders pipe gun, pulling out the magazine. Half a clip, maybe fifteen rounds left. He considered going back down the stairs to collect any ammo off of her, but decided that he was better off moving quickly with the amount of noise she'd made. He holstered his knife.
As Preston bounded up the stairs, his decision to move immediately paid off well. A raider rounded the corner, almost barreling into him. Judging by the surprise on the raiders face, he'd expected Preston to have been waiting at least a flight below. The raider didn't get a word out before a quick burst from Preston's pipe gun cut the raider down. As the first raider fell, Preston could hear the footsteps of a second skidding on a step before making their way farther back up, turning tail and fleeing back into the main assembly.
Preston picked up speed, rounding the corner. He stared up the final flight of stairs that led to the main assembly, seeing the second raider scrambling toward the door at the top. Preston shouldered the pipe gun and unleashed another burst of gunfire. The raiders left thigh split in a tight spray of red mist. She screamed and fell chin first into the steps, dropping the baseball bat she'd been holding. Her hands scrambled for the steps as she tried, in vain, to make it to the door. Another burst from Preston's pipe gun- followed by a click- caused her back to erupt in red splashes. She slid down three steps before going still, a river of crimson beginning to trail its way down the stairs, pooling around and beyond Preston's feet.
Preston ejected the spent magazine and crouched over the first raider he'd killed, feeling fortunate enough to find three more rusty boxes to replace the first he'd expended. "Plenty of ammo-" He sighed. He slapped one of the magazines into his rifle and pocketed the spare two, racked a fresh round (with some difficulty, the springs on the improvised machine gun proving difficult), then bounded up the stairs.
Preston emerged, at last, at the top floor of the Corvega Assembly plant. He was greeted by towering machines to his right and an elevated industrial pod to his left. He squinted into the darkness, training his rifle at the pod, searching for movement. Two faint green lights faintly bounced in the darkness above the pod; two sentry turrets, neither having spotted him yet. Preston intended to keep it that way.
Sneaking around was never Preston's speciality, but today was proving to show a plethora of skills Preston hadn't known he possessed. He dropped low and crept along the wall, sticking to the assembly room's many shadows. While he was imprisoned, the lack of windows in the entirely-concrete building had added to his misery. Now, he couldn't be more thankful for the dreary design choice of whatever old war engineers built this place. The turrets didn't see him creep, didn't see him climb up the stairs, didn't even see him press the button that extended a small footbridge to the core of the pods.
Undetected, Preston found himself inside of a doorless square industrial pod full of useless old filing cabinets, their contents having long since been used for kindling. Chained to a support beam in one corner was the dog that Preston had seen escorted inside. In the other pod, Mama Murphy, slumped in an overstuffed lounging chair. She almost looked comfortable, Preston thought. That was, of course, until he saw her black veins, her distant bloodshot eyes, and the sleeve that had been cut off to reveal the bare, milky flesh of her arm. What wasn't pale white was covered in red track marks from countless needles.
They've drugged her, Preston thought. But that wasn't quite right. With how many marks he was seeing, Jared had done a hell of a lot more than just drug her. Preston couldn't imagine that Mama Murphy had spent a single sober moment inside this assembly plant beyond perhaps her first day- maybe just her first thirty minutes.
The dog rose from its chains. Preston, instinctually, moved a few feet from it, expecting the beast to leap for him in fearful rage. It didn't, however. The dog- a German Shepard, if Preston was recalling his breeds correctly- stared at Preston. Its dark brown eyes were knowing in a way that both banished Preston's loneliness and instilled a mystical kind of dread he'd never experienced before. "Good dog…" Preston said awkwardly. The dog tilted its head to the side, as if trying to understand him.
Mama Murphy stirred in her chair. "Preston…?" She moaned.
"Mama Murphy!" Preston couldn't help but sound both relieved to see her, and horrified to see what she had become. He forgot about the dog and the inquisitive tilt of its head, rushing instead to the old husk of a woman's side. He looked for restraints around her wrists or ankles but found none. For all intent purposes, she could stand up and walk out of here, though Preston doubted she was anywhere near strong enough for that. "Mama Murphy, are you hurt?"
The question made her laugh. It was a genuine laugh, but a weak one. "Oh- Ho, Preston… No kid, I'm not alright… Think this is it for me. Can't say I'm not a little eager to make that last leap-"
"No, Mama Murphy, we'll get you out of here. I… Doubt they've been feeding you much, you can't be too heavy. Do you think you'd be ok if I carried you? Do you feel nauseous?"
A dazed annoyance came over her as she waved her hand at him. "No, no- Preston, stop…"
"I could try and drag the chair, for a little while at least. They tried to feed me fresh brahmin- maybe there's a second brahmin around here I could put you up on."
"Preston…"
"Or I could fit a sled out of a car door, use some of the padded liner so it doesn't make a bunch of noises-"
"Preston."
"-If it came to it, I… Maybe we could use some jet, give you enough of a kick to-"
Her hand rested on Preston's cheek. It was cold, clammy. It disgusted Preston in a way that made him feel a deep, empathetic pain for Mama Murphy. Living things did not feel the way that she felt now. "Preston…" She whispered, looking at him with eyes that have seen too much. "I'm going to die here, Preston. Right here. In this chair. Right now."
"Mama Murphy-"
"Kid, just, shut up for a second ok?" She smiled. Preston obliged, sinking a little. He listened. "Good, I-" Mama Murphy paused to give a brief, sharp cough down into her coat. Spatterings of blood marked her faded green cardigan. "-Excuse me… I need to tell you something. I need… You need to know something, something important…" She gave a faint chuckle. "We're gonna need that jet in your pocket after all…"
"The jet in my pocket? What-" He remembered; the canister he'd pulled off the chemfiend he'd killed (though "killed" wasn't quite the right word, was it Preston? You didn't just kill her, you destroyed her, you beat her to death with the head of the man you failed to save-). He put his hand to the spot in his pocket, resting his fingers on the canister. "Mama Murphy, how did you-"
"Preston…" Mama Murphy sounded exhausted. "How many times do I gotta explain it before you believe me? The sight, kid, it's… It's real. I've got it." She licked her lips, blinking slowly, her eyes taking an eternity to focus on the canister as Preston produced it from his pocket. "I got one last good vision in me, kid. One last vision needs one last dose… Ain't no chems, ain't no sight."
"Mama Murphy, if I give this to you, you'll die." Preston didn't hear his voice starting to crack.
She shakes her head. "Prestron, I'm already dying-"
"I can't lose another!" Preston shrieked, his voice shattered, his eyes welling with tears. "Every man and woman I stood and fought with in Quincy, everyone I failed to lead to safety following the massacre, everyone who's put their trust in me- they're dead, all of them, they're all dead… You're the last one… I can't… I can't lose you, I can't lose them all. If you die, what the hell does that make me?"
Mama Murphy rested her other hand on Preston's cheeks, rubbing his tears away with her thumb. "It's not about who you are, Preston… It's about who- WHAT- you're gonna be. Now, listen damn it, because talkin' really hurts." Mama Murphy said, trying not to laugh- trying not to make that pain grow. "You're gonna give me that Jet, I'm gonna give you my last vision, and then I'm gonna go and have a chat to see if the big man upstairs really is dead in his throne, or what. Then you're gonna take that dog of yours and you're gonna get the hell out of here and do whatever it is you're gonna do."
Preston wanted to protest, to argue, to stand against such a rampant action that would leave his last sole charge dead in this longueur, dead before his very eyes. But all he did was sob, and croak out a meager "ok", and nod.
Preston Garvey reached out and pressed the canister of Jet into Mama Murphy's hand. When his fingertips left her own, Preston knew it would be the last time he'd touch Mama Murphy while she was still living.
Preston watched, helpless, as Mama Murphy brought the canister to her cracked, anemic lips. The plunger depressed and Murphy drew in. As the Jet settled in what remained of her mind, Mama Murphy was overjoyed to know that her final experience with The Sight would be an optimistic one.