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The cold that had permeated the air when they had left the Robco plant that morning had not only persisted, but it had gotten even colder as the wind picked up. The two Gutsies, and the Miss Nanny, Suzy, were mostly unaffected other than the occasional gust which caused them to rock and sway.

Drew had been worried about Jack noticing the damage to his leather armor, but he hadn’t commented on it. Drew was certainly glad since it had been damaged by the smaller of the two Greenclaws back at the Mega Stop. He honestly didn’t have an excuse prepared and had no idea what he’d say if Jack did ask. He’d probably have to make something up on the spot.

Eventually, he knew that he would have to tell them, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Secrets never stayed secrets forever and he would rather tell them before they found out.

He just hoped they took it well.

They had been on the road for three hours when the town north of the border came into view. It seemed quiet, but Drew knew that it was anything but. Roving ferals and predators had been mainstays of the town for as long as people could remember, though thankfully, the hospital was on the outskirts and not in the more dangerous center.

As they approached the hospital, Drew noticed something imprinted in the dirt that was covering the road. It was a footprint and it clearly belonged to a large lizard.

“Hold up,” Drew said as he walked over and squatted down, running his fingers across it.

“One of those green deathclaws?” Jack asked.

“Maybe. It’s either that, a regular deathclaw or some other giant reptile.”

“How long has it been there do you think?”

Drew sighed as he stood up and dusted off his hands on his pants. “Within the last few hours.”

“Shit.”

“Shit is right,” Drew said glumly. “We should probably get inside the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Yeah.”

Moving quickly, they made their way to the front doors only for Jack to reach out, placing his hand on Drew’s chest, stopping him.

“What is it?” Drew asked before seeing them himself.

“Claw marks,” Jack said.

Drew stepped over to the gouges in the wall near the doors. He couldn’t remember them being there when they had last been there which meant that like the footprint it was fresh. It was likely that the Greenclaws had either gone past the hospital or they were inside. As to why they had clawed the wall Drew didn’t know. The only explanation that made sense was that it was a warning to any would-be scavengers or anyone else.

“Not good,” Jack said.

“Yeah, not good,” Drew agreed.

For a moment, he considered calling the whole thing off but decided not to. It was a three-hour walk back making a total of six hours and he didn’t want it to have been a wasted effort.

“We do what we came here to do and leave,” Drew said. “If we find supplies, we grab them, but I don’t think it’s wise to go out of our way.”

“Right,” Jack said, looking at Suzy. “Once we’re in, you’ll take us straight to the server room, right?”

“Oui. Zhat is right.”

Drew pushed the front doors open. “Everyone inside,” he said as he held the one on the left.

Quickly, Jack held open the one on the right and the two Gutsies and Suzy quickly moved past them into the building.

“Listen for any signs of deathclaws,” Drew said as he let go of the door, letting it swing shut, Jack, doing the same. “This includes claw marks, footprints, and deep or heavy thumps or growls. Could be a sign of an unwelcome visitor.”

“Right,” Jack said, a small quiver in his voice. “But, uh… Why would they be in the hospital in the first place?”

“I don’t know if they are, but we still have to be…”

Drew stopped talking as he saw a footprint in the dust. It was large and reptilian and it wasn’t the only one. There were several prints from a single creature leading away from the entrance.

They were in the hospital, or at least one was.

“Shit,” he hissed, clutching his laser rifle tightly.

“What the fuck do we do?” Jack asked, having also seen the clawed footprints.

“We should probably go, but I don’t want to leave empty-handed. We go to the server room as quietly as we can, get the data, and get out.”

He wouldn’t tell Jack, but deep down, Drew almost felt excited. It wasn’t that he wanted to come face to face with a Greenclaw again, more that he wanted to come face to face with a specific Greenclaw; the larger, browner green-tone claw that had let him go to be exact. There had been something about her that felt familiar, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

Drew focused back on the here and now. He couldn’t risk Jack, not for his own curiosity. They were here for data, and perhaps a few supplies, nothing more.

Drew looked at Suzy. “Which way is the server room?”

She raised a pincer arm and thankfully pointed in the opposite direction to where the footprints went.

“Zhis way.”

She took the lead and everyone else followed. Before long, after descending down a flight of stairs, they found themselves among the hum and blinking lights of a very old, very worn, and dirty set of servers.

After closing the door behind them, Drew and Jack took the memory cores out of the storage units on the Gutsies and plugged the first two in. With the help of his Pipboy, he began the transfer, though it would be far from quick. The estimate was thirty minutes per core which meant they would be here for the rest of the day.

With little else to do, Drew and Jack sat down on some old creaky chairs and began the long wait. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Finally, after fifteen minutes of them sitting in silence, Drew decided to strike up conversation.

“So,” Drew began, looking at Suzy, “it must be a little strange to see the world in such a terrible state.”

“I did not see much of ze outside world,” the Miss Nanny answered. “Only through ze windows and most of zhem became so dirty I could no longer see through zhem.”

One of the Gutsy’s spoke up. “This place is filthy! Slacking in maintenance like a Commie would!”

Jack laughed while Drew smirked. That was probably a little of that base ‘Handy’ programming coming through. Though it also showed that the robot didn’t really comprehend what had happened. Given enough time and world experience, Drew was certain that the newly activated Gutsies would start to grasp the basics. Though he still wasn’t certain of their actual intelligence.

There was a sudden deep thump from upstairs which caused dust to fall from the ceiling. Jack gasped as he clutched Amy’s shotgun which she had let him borrow.

“Stay quiet,” Drew said.

“You think it’s a deathclaw?” Jack asked in a low voice.

“Could be something falling,” Drew whispered.

“How long till we’re done?”

Drew checked his Pipboy. “First cores should have finished the transfer in another fifteen minutes.”

Jack didn’t look happy.

“If it was something walking about, it would have been more than one loud thump,” Drew reassured him, but still kept his voice low just in case.

Regardless, he was still on edge, they both were. Giant reptilian footprints inside the hospital were far from a good sign, and from what he had seen at the Mega Stop, it was likely they were here for the medical supplies.

Jack leaned towards Drew. “I don’t hear anything else. I think you’re right, it was something falling over or collapsing or something.”

“Yeah, but we should still stay quiet, just in case.”

Jack nodded but didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes of silence, Suzy spoke up. “By ze way. Before you leave with ze data, I shall need to see your requisition forms.”

Both Drew and Jack stared at her.

Then came a strangely cute chuckle. “Only joking.”

Neither of them knew what to make of that. The last time a robot had made actual jokes that weren’t pre-programmed was Izzy, their Assaultron companion. Thinking back, he wished he had never agreed to hand her over to Colville in exchange for being able to live there. Not only had they neglected her maintenance, but they had also thrown her at the raiders with little concern. Her death still haunted him, like so many others, though it didn’t haunt him nearly as much as Gemma’s death did. The worst part was that he didn’t even know how she had died. He hoped it had been quick, but he doubted the super mutants were that merciful.

There was a loud thump outside the door which made both Drew and Jack jump. For several minutes, they both pointed their weapons towards the door, waiting for anyone or anything to burst through.

Five minutes passed without further sound, other than the odd creak, though they had been hearing those since they had first arrived.

“Jeez,” Jack muttered. “This place is putting me on edge.”

Drew stood up. “The first cores must almost be at capacity by now.”

He plugged in his Pipboy. “Yep, another two minutes and we’ll be swapping them.”

“How many cores do we need to fill?”

“About seven,” Drew told him.

“So five left,” Jack groaned.

“It’s an entire database,” Drew pointed out. “There’ll be a lot that Sarah and Suzy will have to sift through and organize.”

Suzy sounded excited by the prospect. “It will be fun, no?”

“Whatever gets your jets firing,” Drew said as he prepared to pause the transfer and swap data devices.

There was a deep muffled rumbling roar that had Drew instantly raise his rifle. It sounded like it had come from outside the hospital, probably from out on the street.

Jack’s eyes were wide with fear. “Did you hear that!?”

“Yeah, I did,” Drew said as he lowered his weapon and paused the transfer to the cores.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Jack said.

“Just a few more hours. I doubt they’ll come in here, there’s no reason to.”

“And what if they do?” Jack asked.

Drew didn’t want to think about that. He just hoped that he could talk to them like he had back at the Mega Stop.

Drew cleared his throat. “We have two Gutsies ready and willing to fight.”

“You think they’ll be able to stand up to a deathclaw?” Jack asked incredulously.

Drew didn’t answer as he unplugged the memory cores and placed them into Suzy’s storage before plugging in the next two. He re-engaged the transfer before sitting down next to Jack.

“I hate this.”

Drew understood what he meant, but he also felt that they couldn’t leave before getting all the data. It would feel like a wasted effort.

“We came here for a reason,” Drew said. “Once we have what we need, we leave.”

“Fuck the data, Drew. I don’t want to be ripped apart by some deathclaw.”

“Neither do I.” He rubbed his eyes. “If you want to go, then take the two Gutsies with you. I’m staying here, though.”

Jack glowered at him. “I’m not gonna leave you here on your own.”

“Then be quiet. The more noise we make, the more likely it is something will hear us.”

Jack fell silent as he focused on the door. Drew had to admit, he was on edge too. Every creak or settling of the building seemed amplified and he honestly expected something to burst through the door at any moment.

Today was supposed to have been an easy day. He had expected a few Orderlies to come at them and maybe a feral or two, but between the five of them, any hostile should have been easily dispatched.

A deathclaw, green, or otherwise, made it anything but easy.

Then they heard it. It started off quiet, but the thumping of heavy footsteps above them grew louder and louder, dust falling from the ceiling. Eventually, it grew quiet as whatever it was moved on to a different part of the hospital.

“They’re here,” Jack hissed. “We should get out of here before they find us.”

He was right, but Drew wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.

One of the Gutsies decided to give their two cents. “Sounds to me that someone needs to lay off the pies.”

Drew smirked before he brought his finger to his lips. “We’re in hostile territory on a mission to gather needed information. Try to keep it down.”

“Understood!” the two Gutsies barked together.

It was irritating that they didn’t understand what keeping quiet meant. Though he couldn’t exactly blame them. They had been designed to be loud, derogatory, and aggressive in order to draw enemy attention and fire away from the allied soldiers. They weren’t for infiltration missions or anything that required subtlety. No, like all military robots they were there to suppress and drive the enemy back.

“Fuck,” Jack hissed as the thumping upstairs returned, causing more dust to fall.

“Sounds like the Commies brought their wives along,” one of the Gutsies uttered rather loudly.

The footsteps stopped and Drew held his breath, hoping desperately that the Gutsies didn’t say anything else. The last thing they needed was for anything to come investigate the sound.

Suzy spoke in barely a whisper, her three eyes focused on the offending Gutsy. “I do not zhink you should be speaking so loudly.”

She understood the situation, so why couldn’t they? He knew enough about their programming to know that they had the same base subroutines and their internal hardware was pretty much identical. He wondered if it had something to do with their personality? One was programmed to be brash and confident, and the other was programmed to be more reserved and caring.

In a lot of ways, the Gutsy robot was all the worst qualities of a macho man distilled into a metal box.

The thumping returned as the footsteps moved the other way, growing fainter before they once more disappeared.

Jack stood up. “It might be finding a set of stairs to come investigate.”

“It might,” Drew agreed. “Hopefully not.” He checked the time on his Pipboy. “We have another twenty minutes before the next memory cores are full.”

“Do we really need all of it?”

“Probably not,” Drew agreed. “But if you want to sift through all the data to find what’s useful and what isn’t, go right ahead. Might take a few weeks, though.”

Jack sat back down. “This is really stupid, Drew. Why the fuck are we here?”

“To gather data and some supplies,” Drew said even though he knew Jack was well aware.

“There’s one door. If it bursts in here then we don’t have an escape.”

“With at least one wandering about, it might be best to stay put,” Drew pointed out. “I’m not leaving until we’ve got what we came for.”

Jack didn’t look happy but said nothing else. Drew was grateful as he really couldn’t deal with him complaining. Sure, the situation wasn’t ideal, but apart from running away, there was little they could do about it. Besides, running might be the very thing that brought danger their way. If anything, it was best to stay put. It was how he had survived in the past when it came to deathclaws.

Then again, Drew knew that these weren’t regular deathclaws, so any previous experience was rendered moot.

The next hour and a half dragged on, though there were no more signs of movement. Which both of them were definitely thankful for.

With all the data transferred, Drew unplugged the final two drives and told a relieved Jack that it was time to go. After gathering a few supplies, they headed out where they found, much to their surprise, a few dead feral ghouls which hadn’t been there when they had arrived a few hours earlier.

While all of them had deep cuts and gouges in their flesh from claw marks, one appeared to have been completely eviscerated.

“That could have been us,” Jack muttered.

“Still can if we don’t get a move on,” Drew told him as he took the lead. “Come on, let’s get back to the plant.”

“Right behind you,” Jack said eagerly.

As they walked down the old pitted road, Drew glanced back and froze as he saw a Greenclaw peering out of one of the upstairs windows.

Their eyes locked for a moment before it moved out of sight.

“What is it?” Jack asked glancing back towards the hospital.

“I thought I saw something,” Drew said.

It was a lie. He didn’t think he saw something, he knew he saw something.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here before we have an unfortunate encounter.”

“Agreed.”

* * *

“There was a deathclaw in the hospital with us,” Jack told Amy and Sarah. “I thought we were gonna die! Especially because those two Gutsies wouldn’t shut the fuck up.”

After a grueling hurried two-hour and forty-minute stride, they had finally got back to the plant. After taking the memory cores to the nurse’s office and placing the two Gutsies on patrol, Drew, Jack and Suzy had headed for the cafeteria where they were now eating dinner.

Neither Amy nor Sarah could believe what Jack had told them. They looked at Drew, shock etched on their faces.

“A deathclaw?” Amy asked. “And you stayed?”

Drew dismissed Jack’s exaggeration. “It was thumping around upstairs. When we arrived we saw some footprints outside and some inside. But we avoided it, so it turned out alright.”

Jack gestured at the door with his thumb. “Almost didn’t, though. Like I said, the Gutsies wouldn’t shut up and I think the deathclaw might have heard them.”

“Debatable,” Drew said. “It never came to investigate.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hear it,” Jack argued.

“No. But we got the data. That’s all that matters.”

“Next time,” Jack said as he scooped up some mashed tato with his fork, “you can go on your own. I ain’t gonna sit there waiting to be made a deathclaw’s dinner. Especially not with some robots that won’t stop making stupid comments.”

Drew smirked. “This is why I try and talk you out of going places with me. Because you always complain afterwards about how dangerous it was. No-shit. It’s dangerous everywhere.”

“It was only dangerous because we didn’t leave,” Jack pointed out. “The data wasn’t worth the stress.”

“I think it was,” Drew said before looking over at Sarah. “There’s a lot of data there. Tons of it.”

Sarah smiled. “That just means that me and Suzy will have a lot of work compiling and re-organizing it.”

“Sounds like fun,” Amy said sarcastically.

“In a strange sort of way, it will be,” Sarah said with a shrug. “Well, not ‘fun’ per se, but rewarding.”

Amy rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “You vault dwellers are weird.”

“Oh, I was weird, even in the vault,” Sarah joked.

Drew was glad that she had become a part of the group so quickly. At first, he had been weary, but now he was certain that she not only had no ill intent but that she was actually a benefit. The same could be said of Suzy. As for whether the Gutsies would evolve past mere automatons, he would have to wait and see.

Amy looked at Drew. “So, anywhere else you planning on going?”

“Not at the moment,” he said. “Might head out to check the Red Rocket Mega Stop.”

He decided not to tell them that he had already been there.

“Why would you want to check it out?” Amy asked.

Sarah shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

“I just want to make sure there’s no nest there.”

Amy shook her head vehemently. “And if there is, you’ll be killed.”

“I’ll scout the area out, Ame. I won’t head in, not unless I’m certain it’s clear.”

Drew had a feeling that Amy wasn’t going to let him go. He briefly considered telling them he had already been, but quickly realized that telling them that would make going back pointless. The truth was that he wanted to see a particular Greenclaw again, and while he’d potentially had the chance at the hospital, he hadn’t wanted to put Jack in harm’s way.

Jack clenched his jaw. “If he wants to go, he’ll go. Can’t change his mind once it’s made up.”

“I’m not saying that I’m going for certain,” Drew defended. “Just that I’m thinking about it. If I do, I’ll head into town and get Jarik to come with me.”

Amy looked relieved. “I’d feel better if you did.”

It was a lie, he had no intention of taking Jarik anywhere, and especially not to introduce him to the Greenclaws.

“I’d feel better if you didn’t go at all,” Jack said. “But I know what you’re like.”

“Just thinking out loud,” Drew said. “I’ll probably take it easy tomorrow. Put my feet up and relax.”

“We still have some turrets we need to bring online,” Jack said. “As well as the water filtration system.”

Drew nodded. “We’ll work on the water tomorrow. Get that finished. The water coolers having clean purified water is fine, but we wanna be able to take a shower or bath in clean water too.”

“Definitely,” Sarah agreed wholeheartedly. “I used to shower daily in the vault. Since leaving, I’m lucky if I get to wash myself once a week.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Drew confirmed.

Finished with their food, Drew stood up. “Feeling a little tired. Gonna go upstairs and go relax.”

“See you tomorrow,” Amy said.

Drew waved as he headed out of the room and made his way upstairs to the office. He sat down in the chair and stared out into the darkening wilderness.

His eyes fell on the old military tank. He would love to fix it up one day, but it was something that would be more of a hobby fix than anything else. It would also have to wait until after he had brought the plant back online.

One day, perhaps.

Movement by the security gate caught his eye. He stood up and made his way to the window and stared out. At first, he saw nothing, but from behind the security booth, he saw a Greenclaw emerge.

“What the…” he muttered as he leaned against the glass.

The Greenclaw paused and looked up at him, its gaze piercing.

Nervously, he raised his hand and offered a wave, and much to his surprise it returned it before it turned and left, stomping off onto the highway and out of sight.

Despite not being able to see her all that well, he had a feeling that it was the same Greenclaw that had released him. It seemed, even though it felt absolutely crazy, that he had made a friend. Then again, she could be scoping the place out in preparation for her friends to come and kill them. He didn’t believe that, though. No, there was something about them, something unusual.

He wanted to know more about them, but there was a very old saying, one that predated the great war about curiosity killing the cat.

He didn’t plan on being the cat.

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