With a yawn, Drew stepped
through the front door and dropped his backpack at his feet. He felt
beyond exhausted, and it was thanks to the fact that he hadn’t
slept in almost forty hours. Even then, thanks to a nightmare, he’d
been functioning on only three hours of sleep.
Honestly,
now that he was finally back
home
in Colville, he
felt like he could sleep for days.
“Drew
is that you!?”
Amy called out
as she rushed
into the room.
“Where have you been? We’ve
been worried!”
She
didn’t sound happy. In fact, she sounded the exact opposite of
that.
He couldn’t blame her.
after all, he hadn’t told
either of them that he would be gone for so long. Then
again, he hadn’t
intended on
being gone for so long,
either. His plan had been to
go up there, spend the
afternoon then come back.
“At
the Robco plant,” he said as he made his way over to the old
tattered armchair and sat down heavily
with a groan. “I got the
turrets working. Some of
them at least. Had to
rebuild a lot of code and it’s still not fully repaired. The
tracking is still off, but I’ll get to that later. Once
that’s done, I have to check how many of the turrets actually
still work. So
I guess I didn’t get them working. Just the code. Still
need to check the turrets themselves. But later. Tired now.”
“You’re
rambling,” Amy said.
“Am I? Sorry. Feeling a little tired.”
Jack strode down the stairs. “Hey, D. When are we making the move?”
he asked as he reached the bottom.
“To the Robco plant?” Drew asked for clarification.
“Yeah,” Jack said with a nod as he leaned against the wall by the
stairs.
“Not sure,” Drew answered honestly. “Eventually.”
“Can
it be soon?” Amy asked.
There was something about her tone of voice that told him that
something was wrong.
“Why do you want it to be soon?” he asked.
“Because
Kalvin
is a creep.”
Drew pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He was far too
tired to deal with this. “What did he do now?”
“He keeps making passes at me and he’s started doing it in front
of customers. Some of them think it’s okay to join in, and when I
tell them to stop they tell me that they’re just complimenting me.”
“Do
you want me to talk to him?”
“No point. I quit yesterday. He doesn’t know yet, though. He will
when I don’t show up.”
“While I would tell you that you shouldn’t just quit without even
telling the boss, fuck him. Let him be short-staffed.”
“My thought exactly,” Amy said.
Jack
piped up. “And I’m thinking of quitting, too. Those guys that
work at the purifier are all assholes. Well,
most of them are, anyway.
They constantly talk down to
me just because I’m not an old piece of shit like
they are.
Nothing I do is good enough for them, even though they get me to do
most of the work.”
Drew
had known this was coming for a while. Amy
often complained about Kalvin, and Drew had even confronted him about
his behavior. Things had seemed to be going better, but
it had been
only a
matter of time before
Kalvin’s true self began
to peek out once more
from behind the cover.
As
for Jack; the guys that ran the purifier could learn a thing or two
about respect. They treated
him like trash because he was young and thus in their eyes meant he
was worth less. It didn’t help that Jack wasn’t the kind of guy
to stand up for himself. He tended to be more laid back and reserved.
“I
would say we need the caps,
but we’re good for a little while.”
Jack looked hopeful. “So that means we’ll be moving soon?”
“Within
the next week if you want. I can have some Gutsies
help us move our stuff.”
Amy frowned. “If you bring Gutsies here, won’t the town want them
for themselves?”
“Like Izzy?”
“Yeah, like Izzy,” Amy said with a nod.
“That’s only if we’re still living here,” he pointed out.
“Izzy was an exchange. We gave them Izzy and in turn, we could live
here.”
“It was a shit exchange,” Amy muttered.
“Yeah, it was,” Drew agreed, not wanting to think about how their
robotic friend had been blown to pieces.
“Anyway,” Drew said quickly, getting back on the subject, “we
can also move a lot of stuff with the help of Leanne.”
“You mean rent her,” Jack said.
Amy rolled her eyes. “Don’t say it like that, Jack. You make her
sound like a prostitute.”
He shrugged. “But that’s what we’re doing?”
“If
you mean that we’ll
be renting her as
a
driver for
one of her trucks,
then
yeah,”
Drew confirmed. “It’ll
be pricey but we can move a lot in that old thing.”
Jack nodded. “I was also thinking that if we’re fixing up the old
place we might want some medical supplies. Injuries can happen, I
should know, they happen a lot at the water plant and a lot of them
happen to me.”
“We
could buy them,” Drew said. “Though I
could grab them from the
hospital in that town north
of the border. I want to
head there anyway. Hospitals have a lot of good tech and materials we
could use. As
far as I know, it’s remained relatively untouched since the bombs.”
“You
mean the town
that was hit by a nuke?” Jack asked. “Are
you sure that’s a good
idea?”
“It
wasn’t hit, it was almost
hit,” Drew clarified.
“The town itself was missed by
a good five miles.”
“That’s
still close enough to turn the place into a wasteland,” Jack
pointed out.
“You’re
right. Even so, I’ve
been wanting to check the place out for
a while, but it’s too far.
At least from here. The Robco plant is about halfway between. All
I
have to do is follow the
main highway.”
“I
think Jarik was up there recently,” Amy said. “He told me that
there were some crazy orderly
Handy robots hanging around and
a lot of feral ghouls. We
might need to hire some security to come with us.”
“Security
shouldn’t be a problem since I
fixed up some Gutsies,”
Drew told them.
“They should be enough to deal with them then
I
can scavenge them for parts.”
“Sounds like we’ll need multiple visits,” Jack said.
Drew
shook his head. “Nah. The Gutsies
have storage of their own and I can add to that. It’ll slow them
down a little but they were equipped with laser pistols for
defense, and the fix I made
should give them a little more oomph. And
besides, there is no ‘we’. I’ll be headed there alone with the
Gutsies.”
Amy frowned. “Why? We could help.”
“No,” Drew said with another shake of his head.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too dangerous. You could get hurt. Or worse.”
Jack sided with Amy. “We can handle ourselves. We used to go
scavenging with you, remember?”
“I can use my shotgun,” Amy said. “It still works and I can
still shoot.”
Drew folded his arms. “And what will Jack use? He sold off his
rifle, remember?”
“I still have that pistol,” he said with a shrug.
“It’s too dangerous,” Drew said, standing firm.
Amy wasn’t backing down. “If it’s so dangerous, then why are
you going?”
“One person is safer than a whole group.”
“Not if you plan on scavenging it’s not,” Amy said. “You need
extra hands to help carry the loot.”
“What if you get hurt?”
“And what if you get hurt?” Amy asked right back.
“There’ll be no one to help you.”
“Amy…” Drew began, but she cut him off.
“You
think we’re
weak!,” Amy yelled.
“We’re not weak. We can
help you!”
“It’s not that at all!” he shouted back. “The more of us
there are the more likely something will go wrong. I don’t want
anyone hurt because of me. You’re safe here and later you’ll be
safe at the Robco plant once all the defenses have been set up. But
for now, here is where you should stay.”
“We were never hurt before when we used to go scavenging,” she
argued. “Why are you so afraid now? You haven’t let us go
anywhere since Paulson!”
Drew slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair. “Because I’m
afraid to lose you two!”
Amy’s expression softened. “This is about Gemma and the others
isn’t it?”
He was silent.
“That
won’t happen,” Amy said.
“Not
if we’re together. We
know what it’s like to lose loved ones, Drew. I lost Angela, Jack
lost Grace and
Jarik lost Marianne.
Those
Super Mutants destroyed a lot of lives. We
can’t let them keep destroying ours. We
have to move on, live our lives.”
“I
know,” Drew said as he slumped in his chair. “I
still think about her. About all of them. They
were taken and we don’t know where or why.”
“And
we spent a long time trying to trace where they went,” Jack said.
“And the trail was cold,”
Drew said rubbing his eyes.
Amy slowly nodded. “They’re
gone. It’s been hard to accept that.”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “Harder
to know they were still alive. Who knows what they did to them. How
they tortured them.”
“We have to stick together,”
Amy continued. “It’s a long hike to that town up north, and to
make it worthwhile, you need to be able to carry as much as possible.
For that, you need us.”
Slowly, Drew began to nod in
agreement. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“We used to make a good team.
I miss those days.”
Jack agreed. “Yeah, same.”
“Okay,”
Drew said as he slowly stood up. “You’ve
made your point.”
“So you’ll let us come
along?” Amy asked.
“Yeah.”
“When are we heading off?”
“In a few days,” he told
them. “I need to get some rest. A lot of rest, actually.”
“So, what do we do in the
meantime?” Jack asked.
“You keep working the
purifier.”
“Speaking
of that, they keep getting on at me about you fetching those
spare parts.”
“Did you tell them I haven’t
found what they need yet?”
“Yeah, but they say you’re
being lazy.”
“It’s not like I can order
the parts out of one of those pre-war catalogs,” Drew mused. “And
besides, I have my own stuff going on.”
“I know, but it’s getting
kinda annoying.”
“Well, what they need might
be at the hospital, so tell them to hang on for a few more days.”
“I’ll let them know but
they won’t be happy.”
“Too bad,” Drew said as he
looked at the time on his Pipboy.
Jack made his way over to the
old refrigerator and pulled it open. “Have you had something to eat
today?”
“Nothing much,” Drew said
as he lowered his arm back onto the armrest.
“What do you want?”
“What do we have?” Drew
asked as he stood up and stepped over to Jack.
“Not much. No one’s been
food shopping.”
Drew looked at the bits of meat
and bowl of tatos with a grumble. He was sick of tatos and there was
too little meat to do anything with.
“You
know what,” Drew began as he turned
for the stairs. “I’m going to bed before
I fall down.”
“See
you tomorrow,” Jack called after him.
“Yeah, goodnight,” Amy
added.
“Night,”
Drew called
down
as he reached the top of the stairs and stepped
into his room. He took off his outerwear
and climbed onto the old bed which creaked and groaned under him.
Not ten minutes later, he was
fast asleep.
* * *
The
following day he got up late. He still felt tired from the extended
time awake over the previous two days, but he knew that it would take
time
to catch up on
the missed sleep.
Still,
he decided to pack more things ready
for the move before
he headed downstairs and grabbed something to eat. Unlike
last night, he found some mutfruit, purified water, and some brahmin
milk,
which meant either Amy or Jack had gone out that
morning to the store to get some supplies in.
He
grabbed
a mutfruit for himself and headed out, making his way to the old
truck depot where the few remaining functional vehicles were stored.
As he stepped through the front doors, he found just the person he
was looking for.
“Leanne,”
he greeted.
She turned her head and smiled
at him. “Hey, Drew. How’s it going?”
“It’s going okay,” he
said. “Listen, in a few days we might be needing one of your
trucks.”
“I figured as much. Moving
out, right?”
Drew’s eyebrows shot up in
surprise. “You know about that?”
“There’s been some talk,”
she said. “Sure, I’ll give you a ride. And since you’ve been
helping keep these things up and running, you get a discount.”
“Thanks,” Drew said, glad
to see that his help and hard work hadn’t gone unappreciated.
“We’ll be moving some things up to that Robco plant.”
“Sounds like you’ve already
got it all planned out.”
“I do,” he said. “I was
also thinking of hiring you to take us up there in a few days. Maybe
Friday. Then up to the town across the border.”
“Why the hell would you want
to go there?” she asked.
“Parts,” he answered. “You
don’t have to stay. Once you’ve dropped us off, you can head
back.”
“And how will you carry these
parts your salvaging back?” Leanne asked.
“I
have some Gutsies
fixed up. They’ll be able to carry some stuff and so will Amy and
Jack.”
“It’s
a long way to walk,” Leanne pointed out.
“We won’t be heading all
the way back to town. We’ll be stopping at the Robco plant.”
“It’s still a long way to
walk.”
“If
you want to wait for us, you’re free to do so. But if you want to
leave, you can. I
won’t hold it against you. The town isn’t exactly safe, not since
it’s near a radiation zone.”
“Well,
if I see any radiation clouds floating my way then I’ll leave.
Other than that, I don’t mind waiting for you.”
“There’s
not just storm clouds you have to worry about. There’s also feral
ghouls, radcats,
and mutant bears.”
“I
know,” she said with a shrug. “But as long as I stay out of sight
I’ll be fine. And
if things get hectic, there’s a Gatling laser in the back.”
“If you’re sure?” Drew
said.
“We’ll see,” she
answered. “What time will you be leaving?”
“Early. Around six. I want to
get to the hospital before it gets too late. It’s gonna be a long
day.”
Leanne slowly nodded. “Be
careful. I heard that place was full of crazed Handy robots.”
“Orderly robots, actually.”
“Handies
with a
different name is
still a Handy,” she
said.
Drew had to admit, she had him
there. “I’ll see you later, then, Leanne.”
“Sure,”
she said with a nod. “And
good luck on the move.”
“If
things go as planned, then Colville and other settlements should have
a lot more robotic
security.”
“That’s good. I heard that
there were some roving raider groups coming up from down south,
attacking the southern settlements.”
That was news to Drew. “There
is?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’m
exaggerating, but there were two attacks. One on Flattop farms and
another in Fairview. There’s also those deathclaws that people have
seen. The green ones.”
“I
know about those,” Drew mused. He
definitely
knew about them.
“Finding
where they are coming from and getting rid of them is high on my list
of priorities.”
Leanne approved. “Good. The
last thing we need is those things wandering about. Makes traveling a
lot more dangerous than it already is.”
“Considering a deathclaw
could tear through one of your trucks like paper, I’ll say.”
He decided not to mention that
he had already seen one of those Greenclaws out on the highway and
another at the factory. He knew it was a shitty thing to do, but he
needed her truck to make the move as easy and stress free as
possible. It was also unlikely that a deathclaw would outright attack
a truck. Animals, deathclaws included, tended to be cautious of
things they didn’t understand and working vehicles were such a
rarity that it was likely a deathclaw had never even seen one.
Leanne’s trucks could also go
pretty fast, the condition of the roads permitting. The highway was
still in fairly good condition, all things considered, so he was
confident they could outrun anything on the road.
There was also the
aforementioned Gatling laser in the back, so anything that decided to
try and chase them was seriously putting themselves at the risk of
death.
Leanne patted him on the arm.
“Is that everything?”
Drew nodded. “Yeah, that’s
everything. I’ll see you in a few days, yeah?”
“Bright and early. I’ll
even have the gun in the back charged and ready.”
“Good stuff,” Drew said as
he turned to leave. “See you in a few days.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
He
stepped out of the garage and made his way up along the street back
home. He
was going to take a good
few boxes with him, mostly his extensive set of tools, and drop them
off at the factory when he went to retrieve the two Gutsies.
From there it was onward to the old hospital where he would grab as
much as he and the others could carry. If
he was lucky, then he would also find the
components
for the purifier in town. He might be moving out, but that didn’t
mean he wasn’t still
going
to help the people of Colville.
After all, out of all the
places he had been on his travels, Colville and the surrounding
settlements had been hit the least and was the closest to actually
rebuilding a society he had ever seen. It was something that needed
to be protected and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to do
everything in his power to be that protector.