A wide yawn left Drew’s mouth
as he stepped into the cafeteria for the second time that morning.
The first time it had been dark, but now there was light streaming
through the grimy windows that sat high up on the walls.
That was when a pungent odor
struck his nose.
“What the fuck is that
stink?” he asked before he noticed two dead radstags had been
dropped near the counter which separated the cafeteria from the
kitchen.
“We brought you some food,”
he heard Neka say.
He looked behind him to see her
and Gemma ssitting in the corner leaning up against the same wall as
the doors. It was why he hadn’t noticed them when he had entered.
“Uh,
thanks,” he said, feeling like he might have accidentally insulted
them. “Do you want them cooking or…?”
Gemma waved her clawed hand
dismissively. “We’ve already eaten, thanks.”
He heard the doors squeak open
and he looked back over his shoulder to see Amy enter. She held her
nose as a look of disgust washed over her face.
“What is that smell?”
He pointed at the offending
corpses. “Our guests brought us something to eat.”
Amy looked at the dead
radstags. “Where are they now?”
“Who?”
“Gemma and Neka.”
He pointed. “Sat over there
in the corner.”
Amy’s entire body stiffened
as she looked over at them.
“Resting after a morning
hunt,” Neka said.
Amy looked nervous. “Oh,
hello. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Of course not,” Gemma said
with a smile.
Drew was glad that things were
progressing so well. Even so, he decided that today they were all
gonna sit in the cafeteria and talk, especially Jack and Sarah. By
the end of the week he wanted them to not necessarily be comfortable
with them, but at the very least not be scared.
“Amy, can you go and fetch
the others,” he said. “I think we need to have a good long chat.”
Amy nodded. “Sure,” she
said as she quickly turned and left.
Drew
turned back to the two dead
radstags.
It would
take a good few hours, but he was
sure that
with
the help of the others they should be able to get a good amount of
meat off of them. In
fact, Drew believed that dicing up the stags was the perfect
distraction for getting everyone more comfortable with Gemma
and Neka.
At
the very least it
would give them something to do while they talked.
At
some point, he wanted to get a pot so he could make some strew and
keep it on the boil. He hadn’t had the chance back at Colville,
mainly because
the power to the house hadn’t
been
particularly
reliable.
“So,”
Gemma began as she stood up. “How are you this morning?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “How
are you?”
“Slept a little rough. This
place has unfamiliar sounds and smells.”
“I
slept fine, thanks for
asking,”
Neka
added.
The
doors opened and Amy stepped in with a nervous expression. Behind
her was
a worried-looking Jack and a rather
terrified
Sarah.
“Morning,”
Drew greeted.
“Uh, yeah,” Jack said,
looking at Gemma, then down at Neka who was still sitting in the
corner on the floor.
“I-uh…”
Sarah began, her voice trembling. “I wanna try and um… Get to,
you know. Get
to know
our-uh… guests.”
Drew appreciated her trying
despite her clear terror.
He gestured to the radstags.
“Neka, Gemma, do you mind taking those into the kitchen? We’ll
all be through shortly.
“Of course,” Gemma said,
making her way over immediately.
Neka, on the other hand,
complained. “I just got comfortable.”
“I know,” Drew said. “But
I want everyone in the kitchen so we can all talk and work at the
same time.”
Neka groaned. “Work? We went
hunting this morning. We’ve done our work.”
“You don’t have to do
anything. Just take the other radstag into the kitchen and then you
can sit in a corner.”
Gemma picked up both of them.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”
She ducked down and squeezed
herself through the double doors into the kitchen while Drew folded
his arms and slowly shook his head at Neka.
“What?” Neka asked.
“Nothing.”
Neka let out a groan. “Fine,
I’ll go help,” she said as she pushed herself up off the floor
onto her feet. “As long as I don’t have to move for the rest of
the day.”
“I won’t ask anything more
of you,” Drew assured her.
“Good.”
She stomped across the floor
and ducked through the doors into the kitchen.
“Was that a good idea?”
Sarah whispered. “Talking to it like that? What if it got violent?”
“She won’t,” Drew said
assuredly, though he quickly remembered how Neka had wanted to rip
him apart when they had first met. She had since claimed she hadn’t
but he had his doubts. “Their looks are deceiving.”
“If you say so,” Sarah
said, sounding timid.
“Come on,” Drew said waving
them onward. “Let’s get into the kitchen and prepare those
radstags.”
He led the way, with the others
following him close behind. He pushed the doors open and stepped
inside finding Neka sitting in the far corner and Gemma standing in
the middle of the room.
“I placed them down on that
table,” she said, gesturing.
Drew smiled at her. “Thanks,
Gem. You can sit with Neka, we’ve got it from here.”
Gemma walked over to Neka and
sat down next to her while Drew got to work. He grabbed a large knife
from the drawer and plunged it into the stomach only for Amy to stop
him before he went any further.
“Hold on, before you do
that…” She walked over to a cupboard and opened it. “There are
some aprons I found the other day. Should help keep the blood off our
clothes.”
“Good thinking,” Drew said,
taking one from her. “Everyone go get an apron.”
Jack and Sarah both grabbed an
apron and put them on while Drew made his way back to the radstags.
With the knife back in his hands, he cut it open.
“Disgusting,” Sarah
muttered as she turned away.
“Any other knives?” Amy
asked.
“None that will do the job of
skinning,” Drew told her. “You can help me with the skin,
though.”
Amy stepped over and helped him
peel the skin off the animal before they did the same with the other.
With the skins off, Jack collected them and rolled them up before
placing them in the corner.
“Jack,” Amy began, “Those
skins look to be in good condition.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I was
thinking of making something out of them later. Maybe some new
leather armor or something.”
Sarah glanced at the Greenclaws
before quickly looking away. “How about making them something to
wear?”
“Who?” Jack asked.
Sarah nervously ran her hand
through her hair. “Uh, Gemma and uh, the other one. So they aren’t…
You know… swinging all over the place.”
“Neka
is my name,” Neka said. “And yeah, if you wanna make us something
to wear then I’m up for it. Can get cold in the mornings.”
“I’ll do that,” Jack
said. “But later.”
Drew agreed. “Yes, it will
have to be later.” He looked at Sarah. “Have you done this
before? Skin an animal I mean.”
“No,” she said, looking a
little sick.
“I can tell. Jack, you and
Amy take this one and I’ll prepare the other one with Sarah.”
“Sure thing,” Jack said.
Drew
could already tell that he was going to do most of it by himself. He
had hoped that by being a doctor that she was a little less
squeamish. Though
he supposed the sight of a skinned animal was perhaps a little too
much for her. It had been for him when he was younger, but with the
life he lived, he’d gotten used to it. They all had.
As they made cuts of the meat,
Neka couldn’t help but comment. “Glad we don’t have to do that
anymore. Seems like a hassle.”
“It’s worth it,” Drew
said. “Mainly for the lack of vomiting that can come from uncooked
meat.”
“Weak stomachs like
everything else.”
Drew
held up a hand and
wiggled his fingers.
“At least my
hands are still dexterous enough to work a computer keyboard.”
“See if you can once I bite
them off!”
Sarah
gasped and moved around to the far side of the table while Gemma
slapped Neka
hard around the head, the sound echoing loudly through the room.
“Owww!”
Neka said, rubbing the back of her head. “I was only joking.”
Gemma
gestured towards Sarah. “You’re
scaring them.”
“So?
Can’t blame me if they can’t take a joke.”
Amy
stopped what she was doing and stared.
Neka stared back. “What? Have
I got something on my face?”
“No,” Amy said.
“Then what?”
“You’re
Veronica,” Amy
said. “The
same sense of humor and way of talking. You’re
definitely her.”
“I
wish I could say you were as
familiar
to
me as I clearly am to you,”
Neka said. “The name sounds familiar, though. Veronica. I like it.”
Gemma
agreed. “You want to be called Veronica from now on?”
“Call me whatever you want.”
Drew
smirked as
some less-than-kind
names popped into his head. He
decided
wisely
not
to verbalize them.
Veronica
had been Angela and Amy’s friend. He hadn’t spent all that much
time with her other than when he had needed her help. She had been
very good with computers and while he wasn’t a
slouch, he was more of a mechanics kinda guy.
Jack
cleared his throat loudly, causing everyone to look at him. “Uh, is
there a Grace living with you? At you’re um… place you live?”
Gemma answered. “I am not
going to say she is, but it’s possible. Most of us survived. The
females at least.”
Amy
opened her mouth to say something but closed it again as she focused
back
on
what she was doing. Drew
knew she was going to ask about Angela,
but at this point, it was probably best
not to. Not until they had got back more of their memories. If
they got more
of them back
that
was.
“It will come back to you,”
Drew said out loud, deciding to remain hopeful. “We just have to
help you remember.”
“Appreciated,” Neka said,
before adding, “You know I’m only teasing you, right?”
“I know,” Drew said. “If
Amy’s right, then you liked to tease your friends before as well.”
“Did I?”
Amy nodded. “Yeah, you did.
You used to tease me and Angela all the time. You were a good
friend.”
Neka smiled her strange
Greenclaw smile. “Maybe we can be friends again. I’d love to give
you a piggyback ride sometime.”
Amy smiled at that. “Yeah,
sounds like fun.”
Neka
looked at Drew with a sparkle in her eye. He
already knew what was coming.
“Drew
seemed to enjoy it when
Ayma gave him a ride.
If
you ask me, he liked it a
little too much.”
Drew felt himself blush, though
he quickly hid it as he got back to work. Unfortunately, Neka seemed
to pick up on it.
“I think I embarrassed him.”
He knew he could either try and
deny it, ignore it, or roll with it. He decided on the latter.
“It wasn’t the first time
I’ve ridden her.”
There wasn’t a response, at
least at first, and Drew decided to keep himself busy as he could
feel everyone’s eyes on him.
“Gemma’s
blushing now,
too,”
Neka said a few moments later.
He
glanced over and his eyes met with Gemma’s. She quickly looked
away, her cheeks crimson. He
felt his heart flutter as
he focused his attention back on
the radstag’s insides.
Amy
then spoke up. “How much do we need?”
“Need of what?” Drew asked
looking over at her.
“We’ve
cut enough meat between us to last two
weeks. Any
more and it will go bad before we can eat it.”
He
agreed.
“You’re right. Clean up the meat in the sink and then I guess
we’ll let Gemma and Neka dispose of the rest.”
Neka stood up. “We can take
them downstairs for an evening snack.”
“Later,” he said. “We’ll
clean up the meat, put it in the freezer, then go back into the
cafeteria.”
“Fine
by me,” Neka said as she sat back down.
It
didn’t take long for them to wash most of the blood off the cuts of
meat and place them in the freezer. With their aprons off and
their hands washed,
they all headed back into the cafeteria where they sat themselves
down, with Gemma and Neka perching themselves on the cold
hard floor.
Drew felt bad about it. “We’re
gonna have to make you two something to sit on.”
“We’re fine,” Gemma said.
“Doubt anything you made would be strong enough. We’re very
heavy.”
“Speak for yourself,” Neka
said.
“Umm…”
Sarah began nervously. “We should also give you both a-uh… a-um
medical exam at some point. Your changes might have unseen
complications.
We
should catch them early to avoid problems later on.”
Neka
agreed. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“It does,” Gemma also
agreed. “However, let’s leave it a little bit. Don’t want to
put Sarah through any unnecessary stress.”
Sarah
visibly sighed a breath of relief which
of course Neka picked up on.
“If you’re still feeling
uncomfortable with us, you could always come and sit on my lap. I’ll
hug it out of you.”
Gemma groaned though it came
out as more of a growl. “Leave her alone.”
Sarah began to nervously rub
her hands. “Anyway, speaking of checkups and things, I want to grab
more equipment from the hospital. Not right now, but eventually.”
Neka offered her assistance
immediately. “We can help with that. It’s one of the places our
sisters have been grabbing supplies from. If you go it would be best
if we went with you to avoid any unwanted interactions.”
Amy frowned. “What do you
mean by ‘unwanted interactions’?”
“We’ve been scaring anyone
off that gets too close to us or are near any supplies we want. If
they refuse or get violent, then… well…”
Sarah stared at them wide-eyed.
“Have you killed people?”
Neka didn’t pull any punches.
“Yes, we have. People that probably didn’t deserve it, too.
People who were just trying to survive.”
Gemma looked down at the floor,
a look of shame on her face.
“It’s
not like we wanted to,” Neka continued. “And
some of them definitely deserved
it. Just
a month ago some raiders shot at us near a rest stop further east. We
tried to scare them away and one got Axa good in the butt. So we
killed them. Tasty, too.”
Sarah gasped and covered her
mouth while Amy stared in shock. Jack, on the other hand, went pale.
“It was a joke,” Neka said.
Gemma quickly tried to repair
the damage her friend’s comment might have caused. “Neither of us
has eaten any humans. I promise.”
Sarah let out a nervous laugh,
but in all honesty, it sounded more like a sob. Meanwhile, Jack and
Amy continued to stare at them, eyes wide.
Gemma glared at Neka. “Nice
going, idiot!”
“Not my fault if they can’t
take a joke.”
“We’re
trying to prove
to them we’re not monsters. That’s a little difficult if you go
making dangerous
jokes like that.”
“Dangerous?”
Neka asked incredulously. “It
was a joke. How
is that dangerous.”
Gemma
looked back
at the group.
“I assure you, we have never eaten human flesh. Only the matriarch
has done that.”
Renewed
shock rocked through Jack, Amy, and Sarah, while
Neka literally face-palmed, a sight that Drew found rather peculiar
on a deathclaw.
“Why
did you have to bring that up?” Neka asked in
despair.
“I’m
sorry,
it was a slip of the tongue,” Gemma defended.
If it was possible for a deathclaw to look like they were going to
cry, Gemma looked it at that moment.
“Now who’s saying dangerous
stuff.”
“I’m sorry.”
Neka focused back on the group.
“No one is going to be eaten, I promise.”
Things
had been going so well, and now Drew could see the trust was
starting
to erode away.
Amy
looked at Drew. “Did you know about this?” Her
tone sounded accusatory.
He
had lied so much recently
and knew further lies could
only do harm. He had to tell the truth.
“Yes,” he said. “Their
matriarch was intent on eating me until we managed to convince her
otherwise.”
There
was silence. It was the most uncomfortable silence Drew had felt in a
long time. All
eyes were on him, both human and Greenclaw.
“I
don’t blame any of you,” he said. “Not Gemma, Neka, Axa, or
Kiki, or anyone else. Charlotte was out of line, though, you all know
it.”
“We know,” Gemma said.
“She can’t just eat people
just because she can.”
Sarah held her mouth. “I’m
gonna be sick.”
Drew
continued. “I think it’s important to say that Neka
and
Gemma were among those that defended me.” He
decided
not to mention how Gemma had initially relented to Charlotte. “If
it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead. I owe them both my life. I
trust them implicitly.”
“Thank
you,” Gemma said.
“We’re safe with them
here,” Drew assured the others. “Safer than if they weren’t.”
Once again there was silence.
Things had been going so well before Neka had made that stupid joke
about eating some raiders and then Gemma’s slip of the tongue. Now
he could feel a thick layer of tension permeating the air.
“As I recall,” Drew said
after several moments, “Sarah said she needed some equipment from
the hospital.”
“I don’t need it,” Sarah
said, her voice shaking. “But it would be nice to have.”
“Then we should take a day
trip out there. It will be good to take a walk, get some fresh air,
and with Gemma and Neka with us, we should easily be able to carry
whatever you need back here.”
“That will take hours,” Amy
pointed out.
“Yes, it will. Three or
four.”
Neka cautiously raised a clawed
hand. “If we carried you like Gemma did with Drew, we could get
there in a third or a quarter of the time.”
“Riding deathclaws?” Jack
asked nervously. “That sounds terrifying.”
Sarah shook her head. “Forget
I ever said anything. I can make do with what I’ve got.”
“Don’t worry,” Neka said.
“I’ll protect you.”
Gemma glanced at her. “I
think it’s us she’s afraid of.”
Drew held up his hands
disarmingly. “Okay, so this is starting to take a bad turn. Maybe
we should all start again. Get a fresh slate Let’s introduce
ourselves to each other. I’m Drew.”
There was silence except for
Gemma. “My name’s Gemma.”
“Anyone else?”
“I’m Neka.”
He looked at Amy, Jack, and
Sarah who all averted their eyes.
“Are we gonna start again or
are we gonna let this bad aura hang over us?” he asked. “My name
is Drew,” he repeated.
Amy cleared her throat. “My
name is Amy.”
“Gemma.”
“Uh… Jack.”
Neka looked at Sarah before she
spoke. “My name is Veronica.”
Drew smiled at her using her
former name before he looked at Sarah, who swallowed hard.
“My name is Sarah,” she
said. “Uh… Nice to meet you.”
Drew was pleased. “Now that’s
out of the way, let’s tell each other a little about ourselves.
I’ll start.”
He cleared his throat before he
began. “My dad was a vault dweller and my mom was a wastelander.
They fell in love and eventually my mom had me.”
Gemma’s eyes grew wide,
something that didn’t escape Drew’s notice. “Your mom was
killed by super mutants,” she said. “And your dad died to
mirelurks.”
Drew nodded slowly. “You
remembered what I told you?”
She smiled. “I do.”
He continued his story. “After
both my parents died I wandered, slowly making my way west. I spent a
good few years alone until I found a disabled Assaultron and fixed it
up and called her Izzy. We were together for a while before we met
three people. They became my close friends and I fell in love with
one of them.”
Drew stared at Gemma and she
stared back.
“Eventually,
we found our way to a place called Paulson. It wasn’t the plan
originally to
settle down there,
but life
has a strange way of taking you down paths you don’t want to.”
Drew decided not to tell them
how that had ended. They all knew. Well, apart from Sarah. The super
mutants had come and wiped the place off the map.
Amy rose a hand. “I guess I’m
next,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re next if you
want to be,” Drew said.
“My story, Jack’s and
Gemma’s is mostly the same. Our town was attacked and wiped out by
this group called the Caesar’s Legion. Most were captured but we
managed to escape. Before then, me and Jack didn’t really know
Gemma, but the two of us, me and Jack, had been friends since we were
little kids. We drifted for years, never settling in one place. Then
we met Drew. At first, Gemma told us to be cautious of him as she
didn’t really trust him.”
“I remember that,” Gemma
said. “I thought he wanted to use us. Like that guy, Troy did.”
“Troy,” Jack repeated. “I’d
forgotten about him.”
“Same,” Amy said. “Wow,
your memory really is coming back.”
“Yeah, it is,” Gemma said.
“I’ve also been having dreams about when we were locked up by the
super mutants.”
“That
must have been awful,” Amy said.
“In the dreams, we were
terrified.”
What about the men?” Amy
asked. “There were also men taken with you, remember? Are they
still alive?”
“No,” Neka said. “Well,
mostly. None of those that are still alive are with our group.”
“What happened?”
“They were very dangerous,”
Gemma said. “Most came out of the tanks feral. We were forced to
kill most of them. Even then there were more of us, which I might
have told you, but half the group left.”
“Yeah,” Veronica said,
“Because they didn’t want to follow Lotte.”
“I
think it was because they were from a different settlement,” Gemma
said. “I
think the ones
that
stayed were
mostly
from Paulson. I
think we stuck together because deep down we knew we were
friends.”
Sarah looked unsettled. “So
that means there are other Greenclaws out there wandering?”
“Yes,” Gemma confirmed.
“That’s exactly what it means. Mostly female with a few males.”
Sarah slumped while Jack asked
the obvious following question. “How many were there?”
“Maybe ten or eleven went
their own way,” Gemma said.
“I thought it was more,”
Veronica said.
“Our memories from back then
are a little hazy.”
Amy
leaned forward in her chair. “Do
you know how long you were in those cages? Before they… You know…
Changed you?”
“I feel it was a long time,”
Gemma said. “I don’t know how long we’ve been changed, but I
feel like it must be months.”
“Months in captivity?” Drew
asked
“No, months since we were
changed. Like maybe eight or nine months.”
That didn’t add up. “Paulson
was attacked almost two years ago.”
Both
Greenclaws
stared at him. It
was clear from their expressions that they hadn’t realized so much
time had passed.
“It’s true,” Amy said.
“We’ve been living in Colville for something like eighteen
months.”
“Nineteen,”
Jack corrected. “Or
maybe twenty now that I think about it.”
“I can’t believe it,”
Veronica uttered. “Two years? Has it really been that long?”
“Close to it,” Drew said.
“Two long years.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “It’s
been really tough.”
“They’ve had it worse,”
Drew said, gesturing at Gemma and Veronica. “I can’t imagine it.
Becoming what you’ve become. It must be really difficult.”
“It is sometimes,” Gemma
said. “But we’ve learned to live with it.”
Drew heard a sniffle. He looked
to see Sarah wiping her eyes. Life had been tough for all of them,
but for those that had been turned into the Greenclaws, life had
definitely been tougher. He almost felt guilty for thinking what he’d
gone through was even remotely the same. At least he was still human.
He could go to Colville or Riverside if he wanted to. Neither Gemma
nor Veronica could do that. They’d be shot on sight, killed, and
might even have their heads mounted on a wall.
He slouched in his chair. “I
think we should call that a day. I wasn’t expecting the
conversation to get so heavy.”
Despite
having only woken up less
than two hours
ago, he felt exhausted.
Sarah
stood up. “It
has been fun,” she said a little too eagerly. “Suzy
and I are
busy finishing indexing that data we got from the hospital and
I’d like to try and finish it today.”
Drew
checked the time on his Pipboy. “Sure,”
he said as he saw that it was only ten-fourteen in
the morning.
“We’ll
cook some of that stag for lunch which I guess should be ready around
one-ish.”
“Okay,”
she
said. “Hopefully we’ll be done by then.”
“Still
up for heading north to that hospital tomorrow?” Veronica
asked.
Sarah
looked at her nervously. “Uh, sure,” she said before she hurried
out of
the room.
Drew
also stood up. “I think I should head to the factory floor, I’ve
been slacking on bringing this place back online.”
“Need help?” Gemma asked.
“I do, actually,” he said,
before looking at Veronica. “You up for it?”
“Sure,” she said, standing
up.
Amy
also stood up and so did Jack, and
together,
they all headed out of the cafeteria.