-August 20, 2277-

Korin and Carter passed a few days in Megaton, exploring the town and meeting a few of its other residents. They took their meals at the Brass Lantern, mostly to avoid Moriarty's unpleasant presence. And the prices seemed to be cheaper, too. Not by much.

Korin found her way to the town's water processing plant, where she met the caretaker, a crotchety man with questionable hearing named Walter. She promised to help him fix the water pressure, and took multiple days to find a total of three water leaks. He'd been grateful for the help, even paid her a few caps, but was still pessimistic about the future of the machinery. Korin promised to bring back any future scrap metal she could get her hands on.

Carter spoke with the Sheriff, and met his son, Harden. The boy couldn't be much older than ten, and was very wary of strangers. The little girl with him had no such qualms, despite saying she was told to avoid strangers. She was the younger of the pair. Carter didn't have much experience with children, besides when he was a child himself. Their father had delivered a few babies during his time as the vault's doctor, but the young kids had class later in the day than he and Korin. Once they passed their GOATs, they didn't have time to play with kids anyways, with how busy they were with their respective jobs.

Korin put her hand over her eyes to block out the sun. It was a hot day, and the sun was making good headway in its trip across the sky. She glanced at Carter. He had their BB gun in his hands, and was giving the gun a last minute once-over. The ten millimeter pistol Amata had given her when they left the vault was on her hip. She patted her knife to make sure it was still in its holster on the opposite side.

"Okay." Carter put the strap over his shoulder. "I'm ready when you are." He lifted his PipBoy to look at the map.

"I don't think I'll ever be, but we can't waste much more time. Dad's way ahead of us, somewhere out here." She frowned, and tried not to think about how vast the wasteland actually was.

They took their first steps forward from Megaton's gate.

"Moira said that Minefield is about half a day's walk from here." Carter spoke. Korin looked at her PipBoy, at the coordinates that he'd updated for her, too. The ghost town was northeast across the river, and Moira had instructed them to go due north first, and to avoid Springvale school. The local caravans had issues with raiders from there time to time. The twins had no issues with that plan, and Moira had sent them off with a couple of stimpaks, just in case they ran into any trouble.

After a short time walking, they reached Springfield. It was a dilapidated town, with no houses left standing that weren't in ruin. Far to the east, a building barely stood a few blocks away. The sign out front read Springfield Elementary School.

"That's the place we're avoiding." Korin whispered. The twins took a wide berth, putting multiple homes between them. Korin kept her eyes peeled for any sentries.

Before they left that morning, she didn't even know what a 'raider' was. Context clues would have led her to believe they were thieves, breaking into towns and stealing before scurrying off back home. Moira let them know that they were much, much worse. They were thieves, yes, but they could be murderers, rapists, even cannibals. They couldn't be bargained or reasoned with, and almost all lacked any shred of empathy. Moira was very serious when she explained this; If they were approached by anyone in Springfield, they should shoot first, and ask questions later.

Korin had never used her knife on anything other than an old pillow their father had converted into a practice dummy. Carter, well… Carter shot Wally's older brother when they escaped the vault. He was going to hurt them, but she could tell it still bothered him immensely. He wasn't sleeping well, and multiple times a day she caught him staring into space, unfocused and anxious.

If it came down to a fight, she worried he'd freeze.

They walked quietly through the ruins, and Korin was relieved when they made it through without so much as a peep. The twins continued traveling on in silence. Carter kept his head on a swivel as they walked.

The wasteland around them was a bleak tan, with barely any greenery and so many blackened trees. Everywhere there were signs of prewar civilization: crumbling roads, broken overpasses and collapsed houses. One overpass had once spanned over the river. Now, collapsed, it barely reached half way across, and was impossible to reach, let alone cross. While the river seemed shallow, the opposite shore was still forty feet across. Korin didn't feel comfortable with the idea of crossing. As they came close to the shore, their PipBoys began to tick. Korin held hers closer to the water, and the sound spiked.

"I guess we're not swimming." Carter joked dryly. She glowered at him.

"Let's keep following it. There has to be a place to cross, or Moira wouldn't have sent us in this direction."

Carter nodded. They continued on, and Korin was relieved to see she was right; The river dried up as they followed it a bit further north. She opened her mouth to tease her brother, but a hissing noise stopped her.

"What the fuck is that?!" Carter grabbed his BB gun with shaky hands. A large pink wrinkled mass sprinted towards them. He had his sights on it before Korin could figure out which weapon to use. He fired a few BBs at it but it kept coming. It was making a beeline for her.

"Look out!" Carter shouted. It was less than ten feet from her. The BBs had wounded it, but not slowed it down. She panicked. Grabbed her knife.

She could see it much clearer now. It was a wrinkled pink rodent, and it had four, horrible, sharp teeth, which it clacked and ground as it advanced. Carter hit it again. She held her knife tight. The rodent lunged, and she was knocked to the ground. She screamed. It was heavy, and she struggled to hold it away from her. It snapped its teeth in her face, barely missing her nose. Its claws dug into her suit, tearing through the leather. Carter fired again. She drove the knife into its side.

The rodent went limp. Blood spilled onto her vault suit. She rolled the corpse off of her, but didn't get up.

"Korin!" He was by her side in an instant. She was hyperventilating. "Oh, god. Are you okay?" He knelt to examine her wounds.

The scratches hurt like hell, but none seemed to be life threatening. She was bleeding, but the cuts were shallow, and she was lucky they missed any vital areas.

"I'm fine," she groaned, "I'll be better after one of those stimpaks Moira gave us." Carter took off his pack and produced one, then injected it into her thigh. She winced at the pain. It burned and stung as the wounds started to heal, not entirely but enough to staunch the bleeding. Her eyes watered.

Carter offered her his hand, and she took it. He hauled her to her feet.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She nodded.

"Come on. We're losing daylight."

They followed their PipBoys until a small cluster of houses came into view.

"This must be it." Carter looked up from the screen, eyes squinting in the mid-afternoon sun. Korin agreed. "You should stay here. There's no reason for both of us to be in there."

"Okay. Just - be careful, please."

Carter walked the road in between the buildings, each step as careful as the next, as he did visual sweeps for the live landmines.

Korin stood, sliding her weight to each foot as she waited for Carter to work his magic. From the mouth of the road leading into the ghost town, she could see most of the buildings, and a lot of the surrounding wasteland. She didn't dare watch her brother, both for fear of missing an ambush from another rodent, or worse, and watching her brother blow himself up. Her heart was racing at the thought of him taking one wrong step and losing half a leg, or worse. She bit her lip.

Carter stooped down, and after a quick set of beeping threatened to make her panic, he stood up, and held his prize aloft.

"Got one." He beamed. She shook her head and repeatedly ran her fingers over the textured handle of her knife. Her back hurt, and the scratches were still zinging with pain. She wasn't a fan of the feeling stimpaks left as they worked. It felt like static across her skin.

Suddenly, she noticed a flash of light, coming from a ruined building further into town. Not a second later, a loud 'ping' sounded. She whipped around, looking for the source.

Gunfire, not aimed at her brother, she realized. Another ping, hitting the car closest to him.

"Carter." She tried to get his attention without shouting. He didn't stop, didn't seem to notice the noise.

Another shot hit. Hit something important, something that hadn't decayed with the rest of the car. Fire caught.

"Carter!" She shouted now. He heard her, and looked her way. She pointed to the car.

He saw.

She expected him to run back the way he came. The way they both knew was safe.

He ran forward instead. Her heart leapt to her throat.

"What are you DOING?!" She fought the urge to run after him, and took several steps back.

He zig-zagged up the road. The fire was growing, and starting to give off a whiter glow. Hot. Too hot for normal accelerant.

A low whine filled the air, and then the car exploded.

Korin covered her ears. The flash from the explosion nearly blinded her, and the sound was so loud. She blinked away the bright spots in her vision.

The car left a miniature mushroom cloud in its wake.

Her ears rang.

"Carter?" She tried to look for him. At first, she couldn't see him, couldn't find him. But when her eyes scanned the playground Moira had requested he reach, she saw him. He was crouched down, with something in his hand. "Get your ass out of there! There's a goddamn sniper!"

Carter didn't look at her. She stomped a foot in frustration.

Another shot hit, this time another car further up the road, between him and the ruins she assumed the sniper was hidden in. Carter got the hint this time, and booked it back the way he came. As he approached, she could see several more frag mines in his arms. Shots hit the dirt behind his feet as he ran, keeping her from wondering if it was safe to sprint like that with explosives.

He reached her, and she joined him in running back towards the river. The scratches burned from the movement.

"You stupid asshole!" She grunted in frustration. Carter laughed, and she briefly considered murder. "I can't believe you did that!"

Carter couldn't help but laugh. Adrenaline was coursing through him. He'd just survived an explosion, and grabbed quite a few mines. Moira said the mines were lucrative, so he tried to grab as many as he could carry, and he was almost positive they would have enough caps to pay Moriarty now... maybe even have some left over.

Satisfied with the distance between them and the sniper, they slowed their run to a walk.

Korin smacked his arm, hard. He yelped in surprise and pain.

"What the hell?"

"You could have died, you stupid, stupid dumbass!" Korin glared at him. Her face was red, and her hands were balled in fists at her sides.

"I did what I had to do to get the caps we need." He raised his voice. "Just like you did, at the crater. This is it for us, now! If we want to find Dad, to even live long enough to see him again, we have to take risks." He set the mines down gently on the ground and started to store them in his pack.

"There's taking risks, and then there's being stupid. That car would have killed you, or you could have stepped wrong." Korin crossed her arms. "And then it would've just been me. What the fuck would I say to Dad, then? Hell, I don't know if I would have made it back to town on my own. Then where would we be?"

Carter sighed. She had a point. He rubbed his face.

"I'm sorry, Korin. Really." She crossed her arms. "But I don't regret doing that. I got what we came here to get, fulfilled Moira's requirements, and got us something we can trade with. It was stupid, but we should be able to pay Moriarty after we sell these." He finished packing and put the bag back on his back. "That alone was worth the risk for me."

Korin scowled, but didn't press him further. They continued retracing their path back to Megaton, with Korin giving him the cold shoulder.

They made it back to Springfield without trouble, even passing the area where they'd been attacked before. The area was marked with blood, but the corpse was already gone.

"Something out here was big enough to drag that weird rat thing away to eat it." Carter spoke. He didn't think too hard about what might be big enough to do that. Korin didn't break her silence, but she stayed closer to him as they continued on.

The sun was just starting to set when they made it back to Megaton. Carter checked the time on his PipBoy. It was 7:36.

"We need to hurry, she closes shop at eight."

They made their way up the rusted old ramps, Carter able to make his way much easier now that they'd been in the town for a few days.

The twins entered Moira's shop.

"Hey, don't mind the smoke!" Moira's voice called out. She emerged from a side room with goggles perched on her forehead. Soot covered her face, except for a perfect goggle-shaped outline around her eyes. "It's perfectly safe to breathe. Really!"

"We're back from Minefield." Carter coughed and waved away some of the smoke.

"Oh! How were those hot little potatoes?" She wrung her hands eagerly. "Because, you know, they're on the ground, like potatoes. And hot, because they… um… explode..." She trailed off.

"That was the easy part. Here, I brought you one." Carter shrugged off his pack carefully and produced a mine. He handed it to Moira, who nearly squealed.

"Oh, a landmine of my very own! Just what I've always wanted. Well, since I sent you guys out to get one." She glanced up from the mine to cock an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean by 'easy part'?"

"There was a fucking sniper." Korin snapped. Her tone was sharp. "Who tried to kill him by blowing up old prewar cars." Moira glanced at Korin, and he could tell she was taking in the ruined vault suit. "And we got attacked by a giant pink rat."

"Oh. Hmm…" That seemed to stall her, but only for a moment. "I guess it's not as much of a ghost town as they say then, is it? Good work. You obviously stayed calm and collected under pressure," Carter unloaded a few more mines from his pack with the intention to sell them. "That's a great example for the book. Excellent work, you two. It's not easy facing a sniper and your first molerat in the same day."

"That's what that was?" Carter grimaced. The teeth freaked him out, especially with how close they came to Korin's face. That, and the BBs had barely hurt it. He needed an upgrade, and he didn't feel comfortable taking the pistol from Korin if it meant the knife was all she had.

"Yep. Nasty teeth and claws." She eyed Korin. "Looks like he got you with those razor sharp nails, huh?"

"It practically tackled me." Korin rubbed her face. "We got the bleeding under control with one of the stimpaks you provided, but it still feels all zingy." Moira had her undo the suit at the top, and she pulled her arms through the sleeves. There was a scratch across her side in addition to the ones on her thighs, but Carter could barely tell where they'd marked her skin. "That's weird…"

"Go ahead and take the whole suit off." Moira turned and pulled something out of a glass display case. Carter noticed it was another vault suit, modified with leather patches. "Since it's ruined, you need something else. Maybe this will help you not become something else's dinner while you're out there." Carter turned away as his sister changed.

"Moira, what was in that stimpak? Those scratches should still be pretty scabbed and red. I can barely see the scarring…"

"Nothing... I'm pretty sure I gave you a normal one, not one of the experim- Oh dear." Moira stopped. Carter turned around. Korin was giving Moira a horrified look. Moira looked anxious again. "I think I know what happened. There may have been, a, uh… minor, teeny-tiny mutation… from the radiation. Or from me treating it." She squeaked. "But it seems to be benign, at least."

"What." Korin blinked. She glanced down at her legs, which now sported a few scars that looked months old.

"Here. Take these radiation chems. My little way of saying, 'I'm sorry I twisted your DNA like a kitten with a ball of yarn.'" Moira reached behind her counter and produced some IV bags of RadAway and a bottle of Rad-X. Korin took them with shaky hands, but didn't speak. Carter made a mental note to talk to her later, but couldn't wait any longer. He pointed to the mines he'd placed on the counter.

"How much for the rest of the mines? Please tell me it's enough to pay Moriarty."

Moira counted the mines. Carter was pleased that he'd been able to disarm three mines - not counting the one Moira specifically requested - before he'd had to flee the minefield. He almost wished he could've grabbed more.

"For this many, I'd give you… seventy-five caps." Carter beamed. He turned to Korin, who seemed to have shaken off her shock for the moment, but still looked angry as ever.

"See. Told you it was worth it." He traded Moira the mines and pocketed the caps. "How many caps did you have left from Walter?"

"Forty-two." Korin didn't smile at the news. "It'll be just enough."

"Let's not waste any time, then." He turned to Moira. "Thank you."

They exited the shop. Carter turned to his sister.

"Are you okay?" She looked drained. Carter felt a little remorse for causing her so much stress. The sooner they had dinner and went to sleep, the better.

"No." She rubbed her face again, this time a bit aggressively. "I'll deal with it later. Let's get this over with."