“Where the absolute fuck have
you been!?” Amy demanded to know.
Her hands were on her hips and
she had a fierce glare on her face. She wasn’t usually an
intimidating person, being around a foot shorter than him and built
like a pole, but at that moment, Drew found himself feeling a little
intimidated, which was strange considering he’d spent the last day
with a bunch of Greenclaws.
“Where were you, Drew? We
were worried.”
It wasn’t how he had wanted
the conversation to start. He honestly wasn’t sure how he wanted it
to go. Less hostile, that was for sure.
Drew raised his hands
disarmingly. “I met up with some old friends and lost track of
time,” he said. “Now, listen, I need you to gather everyone and
get them to the cafeteria in ten minutes.”
She folded her arms with a
pout. “Why?”
“There’s something I need
to tell everyone. Something very important.”
Amy frowned. “And that is?”
“We’re going to be having
some house guests.”
“Okay,” she said, giving
him a cautious look. “You gonna tell me who they are?”
Drew had anticipated problems,
but that had been after he
had introduced their new half-mammal/half-reptilian guests.
“I
know you’re pissed about me not coming home yesterday, but believe
me, when I introduce them
you’ll understand why.”
Her
harsh gaze softened. “You look nervous. What’s wrong?”
“You’ll
find out soon. Just gather everyone, it’s very important.”
“Is
everything okay? Who are they?”
“Again, you’ll find out
soon. Just get everyone gathered, please. You’ll understand once I
tell you.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll
go do that.”
“Thank
you. I need to check on something in the main office, first.”
“Will
we need weapons?”
His eyes widened. Did she know
something? “Why would you need weapons?” he asked quickly.
“Well, by ‘old friends’
and ‘guests’ and the fact that you look like you’re about ready
to shit yourself, I’m guessing they’re not welcome.”
“Amy, no one will need
weapons, I promise. It’s just that these are people I never thought
I’d see again.” He rubbed his eyes. “Now can you please gather
everyone.”
She
eyed him suspiciously before she finally shrugged. “Okay,
sure. I’ll
go tell everyone to head to the cafeteria.”
“No
weapons.”
“Sure, no weapons.”
“I mean it Ame. No weapons.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll go get
Jack and Sarah.”
With them both going their
separate ways, Drew rushed up to the main office and sat himself down
behind the terminal. The old computer was networked, meaning he was
able to shut down the turrets from there. With that dealt with, he
stood back up only to notice the intercom system attached to the
phone sat on the desk. He realized that he could have probably just
told everyone to gather in the cafeteria using it.
“Too late for that now,” he
muttered as he made his way downstairs. “Time to check up on Amy
and the others.”
As he approached the cafeteria,
he realized that he should probably find the patrolling Gutsies and
shut them down for the time being. The last thing he needed was for
them to start blasting at Ayma and Neka.
Thankfully, their patrols were
set so they weren’t hard to find. He shut them down before he
continued on his way to the cafeteria, finding everyone gathered,
including the Miss Nanny, Suzy.
Jack looked confused. “What’s
going on, Drew? Amy mentioned you bumped into some old friends. Are
they other survivors from Paulson?”
“I’m
going to be honest,” Drew said with a long sigh, feeling his
tension reach breaking point. “Things are about to get really
fucking weird. I’ll
explain in a minute. Please wait
here for
me to get back.”
He left the cafeteria and
jogged down the long hallway to the foyer. As he opened the thick
front doors, his hands began to tremble.
“This
is fucked,” he muttered as he stepped outside and
jogged across the parking lot towards the security office by
the gates where
the two Greenclaws were waiting patiently.
“Turrets are down,” he
shouted. “So are the Gutsies. Should be safe to approach.”
Both Ayma and Neka began to
walk forward and he slowed to a stop until they reached him. He then
turned around and walked with them towards the main building.
“I
have everyone gathered in the cafeteria,” he told them. “I’m
going to go in alone and ready them up before asking you two to
enter. I am expecting this to go very, very
badly.”
“We’ll
try not to scare them too much,” Neka said.
Ayma grunted. “Let’s try
not to scare them at all.”
Drew appreciated the sentiment
but knew that scaring the shit out of them was an inevitability. They
were deathclaws in every way except their eyes and their chests.
“We’ll
have to find a way to ease them into it,” Drew said. “No matter
what happens, when they see you they’re gonna be scared shitless.”
Drew
pushed the doors open and stepped inside with Neka and Ayma
practically having to get on all fours to get through.
It
was evident as they made their way down the hallway towards the
cafeteria that while the
others
couldn’t see their
reptilian
guests, they would undoubtedly hear them due to their heavy thumping
feet.
He glanced back. “Can you try
to walk a little lighter,” he asked. “We don’t want to scare
them before they even see you.”
The
two slowed down and much to Drew’s surprise, their footsteps became
a lot lighter. He could still hear them, but they weren’t nearly as
imposing. It
sounded more like someone was slapping meat on the ground rather than
a giant predator coming in for the kill.
“Okay,”
Drew said as they reached the doors
to the cafeteria. “I’ll head inside and try to prepare them for
what the hell is about
to happen.”
The two of them moved out of
sight as he stepped inside. Everyone was looking at him and they all
looked worried.
Jack was the first to speak.
“Who the hell have you invited in? I heard thumping.”
Drew could feel himself
starting to sweat.
Amy picked up on it
immediately. “What’s wrong?”
Drew
raised his hands up in a disarming manner. “All
I’m asking is for you not to freak out.”
“Freak out?” Jack asked.
“Why? Did you bring the Brotherhood of Steel in here or something?”
Sarah raised her hand. “Uh,
what’s going on exactly? Amy said you’d brought guests. Who are
the Brotherhood of Steel and why did those footsteps sound like
really big animals?”
“Okay,
so this is gonna sound like I’ve gone nuts, but the reason they
sound like big animals is because they are big.”
Amy didn’t look happy. “You
brought wild animals into the factory!?”
“They’re
not wild,” he tried to explain. “It’s really complicated.”
“What is?” Jack asked
sounding increasingly worried. “What’s going on?”
This was already going poorly,
but how was he supposed to explain that the green deathclaws were in
fact their old pals and loved ones from the place they used to live.
That they had been altered by some kind of super secret goo, which
also had been responsible for making the super mutants.
As Drew ran his hand through
his hair in exasperation, wondering how the hell he was going to
explain everything, he remembered something. He had saved the
recordings of the scientist responsible on his Pipboy. Those
recordings were the best and pretty much the only way of conveying
what was happening quickly and easily. Though he also knew that it
was only the start. He anticipated a lot of terror when Ayma and Neka
finally stepped through the doors. Even if they were friendly,
outwardly they were still horrifying killing machines with big teeth
and claws. Well, they also had big tits but that was definitely
secondary to everything else.
“Listen,”
he said as he walked over to the table they were sitting
at and pulled up a chair. “I
am going to play you some audio logs.”
“What does this have to do
with anything?” Amy asked.
“Everything,”
he said, resting his Pipboy arm on the table.
“It
better,” Jack said. “Because so far you’re coming across as a
crazy person.”
“Listen
carefully,” he said. “Because this will explain everything.”
He
scrolled down through the stored recordings
to the first one before he pressed play. Everyone sat there and
listened as
the unnamed man’s voice came through the small speakers. He
spoke about being a prisoner to the Greenskins
and the
FEV.
The moment it finished, Amy
frowned. “What is FEV?”
“Don’t worry about it,”
Drew said as he selected the second recording. “This will explain.”
Pressing play, it explained
almost immediately. It told of how it was a mutagen and how
deathclaws were made by the US before the war.
With
the end of the second tape, no one asked any questions so he started
the third. They all listened intently to
what the man said. About the Greenskins
catching a wastelander and how he considered altering the FEV so it
killed him quickly and didn’t turn him into another super mutant.
The third recording ended and
Drew played the next few tapes
Jack spoke up when the batch of
recordings came to an end. “This is fucked up.”
Amy was glaring at him. “You
didn’t bring super mutants here did you?”
“Wait,” Jack said his eyes
growing wide. “Are you trying to tell us that people from Paulson
were turned into super mutants?”
Drew shook his head. “No, not
super mutants.”
“Then what?”
He hit play on the next batch
of tapes and they listened to the man talk about a small town across
the border in Canada and how he had sent the Greenskins there. He
also told of how he had integrated deathclaw DNA into the FEV. Sarah
gasped at this, covering her mouth as the rest of the recording
played out.
“Oh,
no,” Sarah uttered once
it had finished.
“Those Greenclaws.
They were
people.”
Drew
nodded as he played the rest
of the
recordings.
They
all listened intently, a mixture of negative emotions etched on their
faces.
It
was a tough sell, he knew that, but the man laid it out in a better
way than Drew ever could. Mainly because he had been the one
responsible.
“That’s all there is,”
Drew said as the final recording came to an end.
“I don’t understand,”
Jack said in confusion and shock. “Those Greenclaws used to be
people? Is that what that man is trying to say?”
“No way!” Amy said. “You
can’t turn people into deathclaws. It’s not possible.”
“They’re monsters,” Jack
said.
“They chased me and tried to
kill me,” Sarah added.
“They’re not monsters,”
Drew said, knowing that he could quickly lose control of the
conversation.
“Then what are they?” Amy
asked. “They’re certainly not people.”
“They
are
people. Just changed.”
Amy’s eyes went wide. “And
you fucking brought them here, didn’t you!? You fucking idiot!”
“Fuck no!” Jack said. “I’m
not staying here with fucking deathclaws you crazy bastard!”
“Jack,
Amy, they’re
from Paulson,” Drew said quickly,
trying
desperately to diffuse the situation
before things got out of hand.
“The small town up north he mentioned was Paulson. Those people
they took were our friends. Our
loved
ones.”
“No!”
Amy yelled. “Angela
is not some abomination. They took them and ate them. She’s dead.
They’re all dead!”
Jack
looked at her, uncertainty
etched
on his face.
“But
what
if it’s true?”
“No!” she yelled again.
“But
what if it is?” Jack said, tears in his eyes. “What if Grace is
still alive? What if…”
“What if she is!?” Amy
demanded to know. “You gonna fuck a monster!?” She looked at
Drew. “No, this has to be a joke, right?”
Jack stared at Drew’s Pipboy.
“You heard those logs.”
Amy shook her head. “He
didn’t come back last night, which meant he had more than enough
time to make them.” She glared at Drew. “Did Jarik put you up to
this? Is this some stupid prank?”
“No, Amy, he didn’t. The
reason I wasn’t here was because I was with the Greenclaws. They’re
not inhuman monsters. Well, not all of them anyway.”
“Prove it!” Amy spat.
“Prove that this isn’t some fucking joke!”
He glanced back towards the
doors. Feeling that it was still to early to ask them to come in, he
decided on a different tactic, at least at first.
“Ayma, Neka, you can speak
now if you want.”
It was Neka that answered first
with her deep yet still feminine voice. “What do you want us to
say?”
Drew watched as their eyes all
grew wide as they stared at the doors.
“Anything,”
he
shouted back.
He heard Ayma speak. “You
heard what the man said in the recordings. We don’t remember much.
Our memories are fractured.”
Amy looked at Drew. “How many
are there!?”
“Two,” he told her. “Well,
there’s two here. There’s twelve back at the place they’re
staying and more elsewhere.”
Sarah gulped. “How big are
they?”
“The two here? Big. One is
around ten feet tall and the other is maybe eight-and-a-half.”
Jack gripped the side of the
table so hard the ends of his fingers turned white. “Can we-uh. Can
we see them?”
Amy added. “To make sure this
ain’t some sick joke.”
Drew looked back at the doors.
“You heard them. Time to show yourselves. Make it nice and easy.”
He took in a deep breath and
gulped hard. This was the moment he had been dreading.
Before they’d even entered,
he got a reaction just from the sound of a first footstep. They all
stared, wide-eyed towards the doors. With a squeak, he heard the
doors open and somehow their eyes grew even wider as they entered.
“Oh, fuck!” Amy uttered.
“Shit,” Jack breathed.
Sarah’s reaction was quite
different. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she
slumped forward onto the table.
Suzy, who had remained quiet,
focused all her eyes on Sarah’s unconscious form. “Oh, dear,”
she said. “She ’as fainted.”
Honestly,
it was a better reaction than he had been expecting. Far better.
Still, Jack was holding
on to
the side of the table so hard it looked like he was about to snap his
fingers off,
and
Amy looked like she was ready to leap from her chair and flee.
Drew looked behind, seeing the
two Greenclaws standing inside the cafeteria by the doors. They
looked massive in front of the door frame and more than terrifying.
He’d had the benefit of getting used to them over the last day or
so, but to the others this was their first actual meeting.
He wasn’t expecting the
following few minutes to be pleasant.
Then something unexpected
happened.
“I
know you two,” Ayma said, staring. “I
know you.”
Jack shook his head, his mouth
falling open.
Amy
also shook her head, but she also pushed herself backward, her chair
squeaking across the floor. “No!” she yelled. “No, this cannot
be real. It’s impossible. They’re talking!”
“It’s
real,” Neka said. “And
you also just heard us talking outside.”
“This is fucked!”
Drew had to agree. “It is,
but it’s also real.”
He wondered if he should tell
them that he believed Ayma was Gemma but decided against it. At least
for the time being.
“This
is going well,” Neka snarked.
Ayma
took a step forward, her heavy feet pounding against the
floor.
Jack ducked down behind the
table. “Don’t come any closer!” he yelled.
Ayma raised her clawed hands,
palms outward. She was trying to appear non-threatening, though it
was proving difficult. “We don’t mean you any harm,” she said.
“I just wanted to get a better look at you.”
“Why?” Jack asked, his face
turning pale as he peeked over the edge.
“Because I know you. The same
as I knew Drew.”
Ayma
continued to stare at them, which was clearly not helping their fear.
She
then looked at Drew.
“I remember them,” she
said. “I knew them before I met you. You found us and we were
scared of you.”
Amy jumped up onto her feet,
tears streaming down her face. “No, don’t you dare!”
“Amy,”
Ayma said out loud. “Jack.”
Jack stared. “It knows our
fucking names!”
Amy
was shaking and it wasn’t out of fear. She
looked distraught.
“You can’t be Gemma,” Amy
wailed as she collapsed against the table. “This can’t be real.
You’re dead. Angela is dead. They’re all dead!”
“I’m
starting to remember,” Ayma said
with a sniffle. “I’ve
missed you.”
Amy
lowered her head into her hands as she began to weep
while
Jack slowly
pushed himself up onto his feet, his hands resting on the table.
“You’re really Gemma?” he asked.
“Yes,
I am.”
“No, you’re not,” he
said, shaking his head. “No, this is a trick. You’re both robots
or something. You have to be.” He looked at Drew. “You almost had
me going there. Really sick prank to play, though, you piece of
shit.”
“They’re not robots,”
Drew assured him. “And when it comes to Gemma, you know I would
never play a prank like this.”
“He’s right,” Ayma said.
“We’re flesh and blood.”
“Flesh
and Blood? This
is fucking crazy!” Jack
shouted. “What the fuck even is this!?”
“It’s messed up,” Drew
agreed. “But they’re real and they’re people.”
“Those
are not
people!” Jack yelled, pointing a finger at them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“It
wasn’t my idea to bring them, and I know it’s difficult to
understand or even accept. I’m still struggling with it myself.”
Jack
stared across the room at the two Greenclaws then back at Drew.
“It’s okay,” Drew said.
“They’re not gonna hurt you.”
“How can you say that!”
“Because I know them.”
Jack closed his eyes and took
in a deep breath.
“The big one is Gemma,”
Drew said. “It’s Gemma. She remembers me and now she’s starting
to remember you.”
Jack
looked back at her, hesitation
on his face. “I don’t understand how this can be real.”
“It’s real,” Neka
muttered, her voice coming across as more of a growl.
Jack
took in another deep breath. “Are
you really Gemma?”
“Yes, I am,” she said,
looking at Drew. “I am Gemma. That is my name.”
Drew
smiled
wistfully.
Out
of all the scenarios that had played out in his head, none of them
had gone nearly as well as it had in reality. It had positively gone
fantastic, far better than he could have dreamed. Though he knew they
had only taken the first step and
there were a lot more to go.
Jack
asked the pertinent question. “What happens now?”
Drew looked at Sarah who was
still slumped in her chair. “They’re staying for a week,” he
said.
“Good,” he heard Amy
sniffle quietly.
“A week!?” Jack
asked in disbelief, his eyes wide.
Amy rested her hand on top of
Jack’s. “If that really is Gemma, then she won’t harm us. She
has to stay.”
“Why?” Jack asked.
“Because It’s Gemma.”
Jack looked conflicted.
“And we have so much to catch
up on,” Amy continued.
“Yes, we do,” Ayma said as
she looked at Drew. “First thing’s first, I don’t think I want
to be called Ayma anymore.”
“You want to be called
Gemma?” Drew asked hopefully.
Gemma nodded. “It’s who I
am. Who I was. It feels right.”
“It is right,” Drew said
smiling. “We’re back together again after all these years.”
“Together,” Gemma repeated.
There was silence.
The initial encounter wasn’t
over yet, but so far things were going better than he had
anticipated. They were starting to accept them, though he knew one
wrong word or one wrong move and it could easily come undone like a
loose threat snagging on a tree branch.
“You’re
scary as fuck by the way,” Amy said with another
sniffle. “But
it’s
good to see you.”
“Thanks,” Gemma said
warmly.
Jack
sat back down at
the table.
“That
can’t be her. It can’t.” By the way he said it, it sounded like
he
was trying to convince himself,
but Drew knew that deep down Jack knew it was true.
“It
is,” Drew said. “And
you know it is.”
“I
don’t think I’m ever gonna get used to this.”
Drew disagreed. “It’ll take
a while, but I think you will.”
The moment was ruined by a loud
scream.
All eyes snapped towards Sarah
who leaped out of her chair and staggered back, her eyes on the two
Greenclaws. She was clearly terrified and was reacting in a way that
Drew had honestly expected everyone to react.
Drew stood up and quickly made
his way over to her, putting his arms around her in an attempt to
comfort her. “Sarah, it’s okay. They’re not hostile.”
“Th-they
chased me,” she uttered. “They were gonna kill me!”
Neka
dismissed the claim. “No, we weren’t. We just wanted to scare you
away. There
was a lot
of good stuff there we wanted. Couldn’t have you take it.”
“It talks!” Sarah screamed.
Neka snorted. “You forget
already?”
Ayma,
no Gemma,
scowled at Neka. “Be nice, she has a right to be scared. We were
scared of each other at first.”
“Speak for yourself,” Neka
said.
“Fine,
I will.” Gemma
looked at Sarah. “We don’t blame you for being frightened of us.
I hope that with time you can overcome it.”
Sarah
pulled
herself free of Drew’s grip and
hid herself behind Suzy. “Are they leaving soon?” she asked.
“They’re staying the week,”
Drew answered, knowing that it wasn’t at all what she wanted to
hear.
“Oh,”
she said, her voice a squeak.
Jack
could
empathize.
“I feel the same way,” he muttered. “I’m just about ready to
shit myself.”
“Boo!”
Neka shouted loudly.
Jack jumped back in his chair
so hard that one of the legs broke and he found himself falling to
the floor. Sarah, on the other hand, whimpered and cried.
“Neka!” Gemma shouted.
“Stop that!”
“Why? It’s fun.”
“You’re being nasty for no
reason.”
Neka shrugged. “Fine, fine.”
She held out her arms wide. “I’m sorry. Can I hug you both
better?”
“No,”
Sarah said, gripping hold of Suzy tightly as she receded even further
behind the Nanny
robot.
Drew
waved
his hands over his head, getting everyone’s attention. “Okay,
okay. This is uncomfortable and scary, I know that. So what I think
we should do, is have Gemma and Neka sit on the far side of the room
to
keep a safe distance and
we talk to each other for a few hours. We
need to get
to know each other if
we want a chance in hell of this working.”
Gemma
had another idea. “Maybe we should all sit in silence and not force
conversation. Get
used to each other’s presence.”
“It’s up to you,” Drew
said.
Neka stomped over to the far
wall and sat down on the floor, while Gemma walked more lightly,
almost looking like she was tip-toeing so as to not seem as
threatening before she sat down beside her.
Drew
started back
for
the table before he decided he could make a statement by sitting
between Gemma and Neka on the floor. With
his legs crossed, he leaned back against the wall. Taking
his lead, Amy did the same and sat down on the floor next
to Gemma on the far side.
Jack
and Sarah stared at them from the table as if they couldn’t believe
what they were seeing. A
week ago, Drew doubted he’d have believed it either.
“It’s
only skin deep,” Drew said out loud, placing his left hand on his
heart. “It’s what’s in here that matters.”
He
heard a snort from his left. He looked to see Neka roll her eyes.
“What?”
he asked dumbfounded.
“It’s true.”
Neka
didn’t
say anything.
“You think what I said is
cheesy, don’t you?” he asked.
“A little,” she answered.
Gemma
showed her support for Drew. “I thought it was beautiful.”
Neka
shrugged her massive shoulders. “I
guess it is a nice sentiment.”
“And it’s true,” Gemma
said.
“Sure.”
Neka didn’t seem convinced.
“Um…”
Sarah started suddenly. “I think Suzy and I should head back to the
office and continue indexing all that data we recovered from the
hospital.”
She
didn’t wait for a response as she ran
out of the room, leaving
Suzy behind.
“I ’ad better go and ’elp,”
Suzy said as she calmly followed.
Neka couldn’t help but
comment on it. “I guess she’s had enough.”
Drew sighed. “No doubt.”
Neka yawned. It was a sight
that was absolutely terrifying to behold. “I’m feeling tired,
anyway. Is there anywhere we can sleep?”
Drew pushed himself up onto his
feet. “There are some rooms down in the basement area. We don’t
have anything for you to lay on, unfortunately.”
“That’s fine,” Neka said.
“We usually sleep on the floor anyway.”
“Come on,” Drew said.
“Let’s get your rooms set up. It’s getting late.”
So far, the day had gone rather
well. He just hoped the rest of the week went just as well.