Preparations

When Ellen stopped to take stock of her situation, it all looked pretty good:

- The last of the Talon armor had been sold off for water via Milliways
- The Rivet City merchants had bought most of the Milliways water
- Doc Hoff had bought the rest of it to take with him and sell on his rounds of the Wasteland
- The trip to Reilly's headquarters in Seward Square had mostly been without incident, except for one centaur attack that had been dealt with handily
- There was more than enough money from the armor and water sales to hire the Rangers for several months at the very least
- And the Rangers were going to head for the Memorial as soon as Donovan finished overhauling Brick's minigun to upgrade Eugene's rate of fire.

All in all, it was possibly the best set of circumstances Ellen could hope for. So when Dr. Li's assistant Daniel asked whether they'd be going to the Memorial sometime before they all died of rust inhalation, Ellen offered to get things cleared out by morning. Sure, it was still completely crawling with mutants, and sure, Reilly and her people hadn't arrived yet, but so what? It wasn't much of a walk to the Memorial even with Dogmeat, and Milliways would only be one opening of the door away. Given what'd happened at Fort Bannister and the Nuka-Cola Factory, by the time the Rangers arrived they'd mostly be needed to help haul mutant corpses away. It was all good.

Except for the part where her last Stealth Boy ran out on her approach to the Memorial.

And except for the part where her armor started bellowing at her about incoming Commies in a voice loud enough for every mutant around to hear.

And except for the part where the one door she could reach before the mutants opened fire on her position opened, not onto Milliways, but only onto the dark and foul-smelling depths of the mutant-infested Memorial itself...

Oh yeah. Except for all of that? Everything was TOTALLY FINE.