#geiger in efforts to get what you want will not work because his time traveling Terminator robots will reprogram you

[siribear]

old man stockton’s moniker fits more than skinny malone’s did, as she finds the old man sitting behind a counter scattered with paperwork. other caravaners have filed into the area, stocking their own counters with wares in contrast. deacon stands back again, blending in with the other caravan guards as she approaches their contact.

stockton nods his head. ‘tell me, friend, do you have a geiger counter?’

whisper shrugs. ‘mine is in the shop.’

he squints, looks her over. ‘you’re with our mutual friends, yes?’ he speaks slowly, low and careful. ‘then you know that i have a... package that’s been in my possession too long.’

they talk shop, their conversation entirely covert. she does get their pick up location out of him eventually: a church last seen occupied by raiders. returning to deacon, she relays the location. and that they’ll have to wait until nightfall to make their delivery.

‘we can do each other’s hair while we wait,’ he says as she leads the way. he gives her ponytail a playful tug, like they’re children back in kindergarten. at her look, ‘it suits you. you look more like a spy, now.’

she shakes her head, lets her hair smack his arm. ‘glad you approve.’

the outskirts of the city are quiet as they make their way to the church. the sun rises high over head, but a cool wind chills the air. it should be colder this time of year, she thinks. much colder. as it is, beginning of november, she can barely see her breath.

they take cover in a building next to the church. voices drift through the quiet, too low to be made out but just loud enough to be heard. two - three voices. deacon pulls out his rifle and counts the figures in the church. ‘i see five. maybe six. hard to see from this angle.’

‘the roof?’ she suggests, pointing up to a hole to the second floor.

‘because of course the stairs are broken,’ he sighs. he kneels so she can step into his cupped hands then lifts, heaving her toward the edge of the hole. ‘thank goodness you’re not that heavy. i don’t know if these old bones could handle it.’

whisper hauls herself up with some effort. when deacon jumps, she grabs a fistful of jacket and yanks - ‘those old bones are heavy,’ she says with exaggerated panting.

deacon pouts. ‘all muscle,’ he says, defensively.

to get to the roof, or the half of the roof that’s still standing, they climb out the upstairs window, deacon first. at the top, deacon pulls out his rifle again, counting the raiders through the blown open roof of the church. ‘only five. we could pick them off from here.’

further up the street, something catches her eye. ‘just past the church. look.’

he does. ‘pack of ferals. gr-eat. the sound will draw them over.’ whisper hums, then makes to drop back to the second floor. ‘where are you going?’

‘i have a dumb idea. cover me?’

sunlight glints off his sunglasses as he grins back at her. ‘of course.’

back on the ground floor, she quickly makes her way up the street, avoiding the church’s line of sight. she only looks back once to see deacon down on one knee, following her through his scope. it’s... comforting. in a way she’s never needed to be comforted, on the other end of a scope.

how her life has changed.

the pack of ferals hasn’t moved since she spotted them. they’re gathered around the hollowed out shell of a car, climbing over and under, looking for food. one silenced shot from deliverer takes off the arm of one and draws their attention.

two of them take off after her first. the others have to drag themselves out of the car first before they sprint toward her. and they’re faster than she thought. shit. she turns and runs back down the road. on the roof, she notices deacon raise his rifle to fire, but she waves him off.

‘what the fuck - ?’ is all she hears from the first raider before she all but barrels into him.

‘help, please,’ whisper gasps, out of breath. ‘they’re coming - they killed everyone - ’ before the raider can grab her, she pulls away. ‘oh god, they’re here,’ she yells and sprints back toward the house.

‘she brought fucking ferals!’ she hears another raider yell behind her, and ducks away when one of them takes a shot at her. the bullet skims her arm, cutting through the thin fabric of her flannel shirt. it stings, but it’s not enough to stop her from jumping through the open window of the house.

the raiders scream. gunshots are fired. the ferals howl in pain and fury. eventually, the noise dies down, and all she hears after are the muted shots from deacon up above, cleaning up whatever’s left. he joins her on the bottom floor with a low whistle.

‘two birds, one stone. and i didn’t even have to break a sweat. nice job.’

‘who won?’ she asks with an effected lightness.

‘ferals. and they left quite a mess.’

they did. the front of the church is painted with blood, and whisper tries not to think about the symbolism behind it. ‘that’s that. and now we wait?’

deacon looks to the front window of the church and the small, unlit lantern sitting on the ledge. ‘and now we wait.’

-

sitting still. she is not good at sitting still.

‘we could clear the way?’ she asks. 

deacon shakes his head, leans back against the pew they’ve come to share - the only one not broken in half or covered in blood. ‘i have an idea of where we’re taking this one, but we can’t risk being seen.’

the sun creeps across the sky. an affront to her, personally. she gets up to wander the church. deacon watches, still sprawled out on the pew. behind the pulpit at the head of the church is a burned book whose pages crumble to ash when she attempts to pick it up. toward the back, she climbs the winding staircase to a second floor, finding a small loft with sleeping bags laid out in a row. whisper pockets the handful of stimpaks and ammo she finds in a bag lying near one of the sleeping bags.

another door leads to the balcony overlooking the ground floor of the church, so she follows the staircase up to the steeple. at the very top, she only finds a single chair surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol and the bell missing its clapper.

‘find anything good?’ deacon asks when she finally heads back down.

‘ammo and stimpaks,’ she says, and divides them between the two of them. a glimmer of silver on the floor catches her eye. she tears off the ruined part of her sleeve and uses the fabric to pick up the silver bracelet lying half in a pool of feral blood.

it’s oddly, impossibly familiar. she rubs the blood off the other half of the bracelet, to reveal a name. rosa. like the name printed on the mailbox across from her house -

she drops it. coincidence, she tells herself. even if the ghoul is wearing the same pink dress from two hundred years ago.

defeated, she sits back down next to deacon. ‘weren’t we going to do each other’s hair?’

he chuckles. ‘only if you want me to shave your hair off.’

‘hm.’ she pokes his wig. ‘i don’t know if i’d look as good.’

‘i think this face pulls it off better than my others,’ he says, rubbing his chin.

‘your... others?’

‘i go under the knife every couple months. give myself a new face. extra security, you know?’

she squints. ‘extra security? you already have code names, secret codes, railsigns - what more security do you need?’

he’s silent for a moment, before he sighs. ‘you don’t have any family here.’ whisper stiffens. he continues. ‘you’re lucky. everyone else in the railroad - they’ve got to be extra careful. if the institute finds out who they are, they put their families at risk, not just themselves.’

lucky. she frowns. ‘i’ve never thought of it that way,’ she says, dully. after a moment, ‘you said ‘they.’ what about you?’

‘that,’ his near-trademark grin slides back onto his face with a snap, ‘is a story for another day.’

‘no trading of tragic backstories just yet then?’ she fakes a pout. ‘okay.’

the smile he gives her looks almost genuine.

-

it’s hours until their contact arrives and night falls. hours they spend playing a game on her pipboy that she found in her boredom. a small vault boy avatar bounces over mini-nukes traveling horizontally across the screen, all while travelling to the top of the screen to rescue vault girl from the titular red menace. whisper has to cross over to deacon’s left when it’s his turn to play. if she bobs her arm at an opportune moment (’what? my arm got tired.’), then it’s purely coincidence that he falls just short of her high score.

besides, it’s fair play for when he poked her in the side and distracted her when she was about to beat his.

‘well, i see you two agents are hard at work,’ stockton says, stepping over feral and raider corpses to enter the church.

‘we could have sung show tunes, but that might have drawn more attention,’ says deacon, drawing a quiet laugh out of a young man standing behind stockton, until now unnoticed.

deacon nudges her in the side, so she stands and walks up to the man. short cropped, messy hair hides under a news cap, and he shrinks into his too-big patchwork jacket. ‘this, agents, is h2-22. say hello, h2.’ stockton sounds as if he’s talking to a child.

‘h-hello,’ h2 mumbles, barely audible.

whisper smiles. ‘nice to meet you.’ a small smile breaks across his face, which he smothers soon after, looking to stockton.

‘they’ll take care of you from now on. i’m going to light the signal.’ the small flickering light of the lantern on the windowsill barely casts any shadows. stockton spares them a moment’s glance before he leaves. ‘take care.’

h2 waves, but it goes unseen to stockton’s retreating form.

‘so, now how long do we wait?’ whisper asks.

deacon speaks up behind her. ‘not long. he’s coming down the road now, actually.’

just over h2′s shoulder she watches someone jog their way, and soon another man stands in the entrance of the church in an outfit mirroring deacon’s. ‘deacon,’ he calls, breathless, ‘good to see you. still with the same face? it’s been months, man.’

deacon sidles up next to her. ‘hey, high rise. things have been crazy, you know, not enough time to go back to the surgery center.’

whisper looks between the two. ‘you were serious about the face changing?’

‘should have seen him back when he was a woman.’

she laughs. ‘wh-what? i missed that? deacon - ’

‘he-y. maybe beatrice will come back some day.’

whisper shakes her head. ‘anyway.’ she turns her attention back to high rise. ‘do you have a geiger counter?’

high rise smiles and nods. ‘there we are. mine is in the shop.’ he and deacon share a look. ‘so, you’re whisper, then? walked the freedom trail and everything?’

‘how fast does news travel in the commonwealth?’ she sighs. ‘but, yeah, that’s me.’

‘we’re all a bunch of gossips,’ deacon pipes up at her side.

‘something like that. stick with deacon. he’ll take care of you.’ before whisper can respond, high rise turns to the quiet young man standing just outside the group of agents. ‘speaking of taking care - how are you, friend? doing all right?’

h2 clears his throat softly. ‘y-yeah. the man who brought me here... said i shouldn’t talk too much.’

high rise’s smile is sad. ‘good advice.’ he returns his attention to the other agents. ‘we’re bringing him back to my safehouse, ticonderoga. only thing is: there’s a group of raiders between us and there. not to mention some super mutants have set up in the neighborhood.’

‘not a problem,’ whisper tells him.

‘you should have seen her earlier.’ deacon gestures to the cooling bodies on the ground. ‘all her.’

high rise finally seems to notice the bodies around them. ‘all right then. stay between us, okay?’ he says to h2. and to her and deacon, ‘let’s do this.’

[internetdataandfilereadersreadup]

INTERNET DATA AND FILE READERS READ UP