Three Dog

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door closed behind Ellen; she squared her shoulders. She'd made it inside. She'd made it past the two Knights in the lobby. She'd made it up the stairs and into some room she'd never seen before. She was not going to break down and have the bahoogies about the giant green monster battle now.

She had a radio broadcaster to meet, and she was pretty sure that Three Dog wasn't going to be impressed by a lump of the wibbles, so there was nothing for it but to take a breath, push the memory of the mutants and the Behemoth away, and head for the last flight of stairs upward.

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[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

The last few fading notes of a song drifted down the dingy staircase, replaced with heavy noiselessness of dead air. Only for a brief second. There came the sound of distant movement, and then a different type of silence: the low static of a needle finding its groove in a record.

The brass came in.

The snare picked up.

A few bars and a man's voice joined, a confident baritone, sharp and clear with just a hint of humour:

"The roads are the dustiest, the winds are the gustiest,
the gates are the rustiest, the pies are the crustiest,
the songs the lustiest, the friends the trustiest,
way back home."

Where the typical soundtrack to Wasteland life was gunfire, growls, screams, and of course endless hours of painfully empty silence, this melody was like a revolution. It wasn't a battle cry, it was a peace cry; it said, Remember what we used to be? It asked, Remember when we used to make music?

Ellen's footsteps tapped a beat on the worn stairs and a man's face appeared above, curious. He examined Ellen, eyes disguised behind smoke-coloured glass.

And he grinned.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen paused, tilting her head to one side. The song was familiar, at least; she'd heard it played a few times in Megaton. The man- well, she'd never seen him before, but she hadn't come here looking for anyone she'd already met, had she?

(Dad didn't count.)

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

The man was charm and swagger and cool,, the kind of guy who could wear leather and have it look like he was doing it for the old reasons (fashion) versus the new ones (protection from wasteland unfriendlies). Confidence rolled off of him in waves.

"The look on your face says it all. You're wondering who the heck this guy is and why you should care."

And he spoke like he was very used to hearing his own voice.

"Well, prepare to be enlightened. I am Three Dog, jockey of discs and teller of truths. Lord and master over the finest radio station to grace the Wastes -- Galaxy News Radio.

"And you --" He nodded to Ellen. "Well, I know who you are. Heard about you leaving that Vault, traveling the unknown. Just like dear old dad, hm? Met him already."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

She knew that voice, she knew that voice-

"Holy- you're that guy from the radio!" Ellen squeaked. And then promptly turned an interesting shade of red; given where they were, it was quite possibly the single most blatantly obvious thing she could have said. Way to make a first impression.

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"Yup! Guilty as charged."

He chuckled as he rounded the banister, taking a place at the top of the stairs. Off to the left sat the station he'd just been working at, an elaborate setup of barely-functioning computers, microphones and turntables, with wires trailing everywhere. Magic in the making.

"I don't usually have exposure to the public like this," Three Dog rumbled. "It's nice to know someone's listening. Makes carrying on the Good Fight that much easier."

The capital letters snap neatly into place.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The-" Ellen tilts her head curiously. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that is. Good Fight?"

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

His eyes narrowed behind the fogged glass, as though looking at something Ellen couldn't see.

"Imagine a picture, okay? A picture of the Capitol Wasteland. All that brick and rock. A whole lot of nothing, right? There's people out there trying to just barely make it by from day to day. Fighting to stay alive and make something of what they've got. But then you've got all kinds of shit --" He spat the word, disgust evident. " -- Slavers, supermutants, raiders... They all want a slice of the pie too, and aim to take it by force."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It reminded her, a little, of some of the things Reverend Avellone had said when she'd asked him how a chaplain's work qualified him for food and water credits. Keeping people going, he'd said, was a work of far more than just labor. Even the best-fed man would turn his face to the wall and waste away if he thought there was no hope of anything better waiting, either in this life or the next.

"So," she said slowly, "you fight your part of the Good Fight with your voice on Galaxy News Radio."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"Wellll, ho-lee shit. Aren't you a chip off the old block?" He looked her over again, impressed. "You are as smart as your dad."

Back to business: "Since you know all about the cause, no need to explain the effect. Let's get you on your way."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I try," Ellen said modestly. Then she frowned a little, and held up a finger. "Question, though. Why do you trust me so easily? I've never met you before..."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

He shrugged. "The fact that the Brotherhood let you get up here tells me you're all right with them. That, and your dad seemed a decent enough guy. Besides..."

He nodded at her, a young girl -- a woman only just. She was dressed in armor, weighted down with weapons and tools and -- he knew -- loss, yet still walking, still surviving. He looked at her like a king might have looked at a knight.

"...You're giving off a pretty sweet vibe right now. Maybe we can help each other out. But enough yakking. Tell me why we're talking."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen resisted the urge to rub at her face with both hands. "I wish I knew," she admitted. "It looks to me like you have everything you need here- don't you?"

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"I have the name and the talent," he said, not immodestly, "But what I don't have are people to run out and do the stuff I need. Sure, the Brotherhood watches over the place, yeah. But that's all they can spare. Galaxy News Radio needs a doer. Someone who can go out there into that wild, woolly world and get shit done."

He crossed the distance back to his recording area, and adjusted a few dials as the backing chorus picked up harmonies in the song. Then he glanced back over his shoulder to Ellen.

"So. You game?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Do I have a choice? Ellen wanted to say. What she said instead was, "It's for my Dad, isn't it?"

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

He was sharp, no-nonsense. "You wanna find him, and his location is known to yours truly. I'm good with that. You wanna know more, you're gonna have to contribute to the Good Fight."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Okay," said Ellen hesitantly, "but I don't have a lot of bottlecaps left, I'm afraid. You're welcome to what I've got..."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

He held up his hands, shaking his head. "No, no, not like that. Galaxy News Radio is my baby. I love it, I feed it, I keep it changed. But there's one problem -- no one outside of D.C. can hear her cry."

He shot a glance towards the wires that led into the ceiling, then back to Ellen.

"You see, some brainless supermutant thought it would be funny to shoot at the shiny round thing on the Washington Monument."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

She'd heard Nova talking to Gob in Moriarty's way back in the beginning- when she was cleaning up Mr. Burke's body. Something about it not being the radio, but Galaxy News' signal having gone to pot lately...

"I think I can see where this is going."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"Yup, the shiny round thing was our broadcast relay. Now it's swiss cheese. Without it, our broadcast range is... quite limited. Of course, the factory that made the relay dishes is long gone. Leveled. As in: we're never gonna scavenge another part like that again."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There was just barely the possibility of getting something like that at Milliways, as far as Ellen knew. It was worth a shot, anyway; so she nodded. "Okay," she said. "I'm still listening."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"It's risky. I would never lie to you. But there's something behind those eyes of yours that screams, I'm the one who can get shit done!"

He took a pause then, recrossing his arms as he leaned back against the workbench. The song picked up in the background:

"Don’t know why I left the homestead,
I really must confess...
I’m a weary exile
Singing my song of loneliness."

"Your dad had that same look in his eyes, too. That's why Three Dog's helping you."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

That, at least, was promising. Maybe Dad had pulled himself together despite his lousy judgment call on the Vault front after all...

"That sounds like you have something particular in mind," Ellen says. "Lay it on me."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

"One of the Brotherhood guys that passes through here mentioned seeing a dish in one of D.C.'s old museums," he told her. "It's the dish off the old Virgo II Lunar Lander in the Museum of Technology. I want you to get it and bring it to the Washington Monument to replace the bad one.

"That's it."

The task in itself made a good summation of the world in general: national treasures, now useless and unappreciates in their original purpose, recycled to serve what remained of civilization.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There was a stunned, blinking sort of silence for a moment- but it was mostly because what Ellen wanted to say was you're kidding, that still exists?. Surely that would've been taken apart long ago... but apparently it hadn't.

And Mr. Mills had taken her to all sorts of museums up and down the Mall in his world. The Air and Space Museum had been stocked to the brim with the kinds of things you'd see in a Museum of Technology, and it hadn't been all that hard to find. She could do this, surely.

"All right," Ellen said. "You have yourself a deal."

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

Three Dog cackled, a wild, manic, hyena sound.

"I sure know how to pick 'em! You're gonna be the best thing to happen to Galaxy News Radio in a long time."

The song was winding down. He ran his hand along the workbench as he moved behind it, touching it as though reassuring it. He took an overlarge set of headphones into his hands and glanced across at Ellen.

"If you need any more info, I'll be here waiting for you."

As if he ever left.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I sure hope so, sir," said Ellen. "And- thank you, in advance."

She waved, turned, and headed for the stairs and the door again. If Paladin Vargas and poor Reddin had really cleared out the school, she'd be able to hide there and have her fit of the jibblies for a while, and then she could be on her way.

[voxapocalyptica.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, the DJ watched her depart. The song was ending and he was on soon, slipping the headphones over his head.

The door at the bottom of the stairs clicked shut and he grinned, baring his teeth.

Now this was news.