aaaaaaaagh_sky

The western sun's rays slanting across the Wasteland cast long shadows, reminding Ellen that as much as she wants to reach DC and find out what the situation is at the Lincoln Memorial, she's going to need to get some rest first. It's a long way from the Temple of the Union to the ruins. She's tired, Dogmeat's tired, and the temperature's dropping fast as it gets darker. Plus, her armor's starting to hum the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which Ellen figures is never what you'd call a good sign. Luckily there's a shack up ahead, one with a door she can open and close. "What do you think, Dogmeat?" she asks. "Does it smell okay to you?"

Dogmeat raises no objections, so she tries the door. It's solid enough. There's a table with a radio on it to one side; the radio's got enough juice left in its fission battery that it picks up the GNR signal when she turns it on. Unfortunately, when she moves to survey the rest of the place, her Geiger counter starts going off as she approaches the far corner of the room.

"Blast. It's not worth the Rad-X we'd both need," Ellen says to Dogmeat. "We'd better find somewhere else."

As they head out of the shack she pulls the door closed behind her, hard. It's not really built for that, so when it hits the doorframe it bounces open again. Pity she didn't turn around at the sound, because she'd've caught sight of the light of Milliways leaking through the inch or so that the door bounces open.

And anyone in Milliways who happens to be looking at the right spot at the right time will notice the door that suddenly opened an inch or so, letting in the cool evening air.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

thanksrainman

Gus is just finishing off his breakfast at the Bar when he hears a strange noise behind him. Its...

He turns round to see the DOOR is OPEN. It's just open a few inches, but the fact that it's there at all is quite startling. Looking across the bar, it's clear that no one else notices, so he quickly finishes off his steak and eggs and fetching up his hooded jumper from the seat next to him and slowly, carefully making his way to the door.

Cautiously, he pushes it open and before he gets a very good look at where the door is opening up to, he steps through.

"Hello?" he says, almost timidly as he looks out upon the dusk-washed expanse.

On second thought, it's probably safer in the bar, He turns back round to open the door, finding a small shack where Milliways had been just a few moments before.

"What the fuck?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

It's a quiet place, really. There's none of the sounds of the Bar, none of the sounds of a city; there's some insect noises, sure, but they're hardly anything at all. Maybe some splashing from the pond a little distance away, off downhill. Hard to say. There's a trickle of music coming from the radio in the shack, though just as Gus might start identifying the song it gives way to a man's voice:

"This is Three Dog, coming to you loud and proud from my fortified bunker in the middle of the DC hellhole! Today's forecast: excessively violent, with a chance of dismemberment!"

From:

thanksrainman

He's starting to get it, but Gus is very good at denial. For a moment, he ducks into the shack, but talk of roving bands of raiders makes him feel like a sitting duck.

He zips up his jumper and leaves the shack and looks across the charred scenery.

In the not-so-distant distance, he can see a faint blue light. Sighing, he takes a chance and quickly makes his way in that direction.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Probably just as well, given that the fellow on the radio's moved on a bit and moved into a public service announcement while he was looking around:

"...Three Dog is cool with all of that. Lord knows I've had my share of costly late night extracurriculars, but remember, kiddies, always wear protection. There are some diseases out there that would make you wish you were suffering from simple radiation poisoning. The fission is NOT something you want to be living with for the rest of your days..."

Oh, and there's definite splashy noises coming from the direction of the water, too. But that's somewhere behind Gus, so he can probably ignore that, right?

From:

thanksrainman

He ignores the splashy noise by all but running toward the bouncing blue light. At least it's getting closer.

As he draws closer to the light, he can hear what sounds like a dog, and he's not entirely sure that he wants to deal with that, either.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Incoming at six o'clock, ma'am!" announces a synthetic sounding voice. Ellen freezes in her tracks and spins around, a silvery rifle raised. Then she sees who's coming and blinks- quite a bit, actually. She's too surprised to lower the gun as she says, "Gus? What the... is that you?"

She's dressed a little more impressively than Gus may remember seeing her dressed in the Bar.

From:

thanksrainman

Gus is too busy cowering with his hands in the air to recognise the face behind the gun.

"What?" he pants.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Oh, good Lord." Ellen shakes her head and holsters the rifle. "Gus? It's me, Ellen. How did you even get here?"

From:

thanksrainman

He finally looks up. "Huh?"

After a few moments, he points in the direction from where he came. "I dunno, I was in the bar a minute ago!"

He's only ever gone to the bar; in two years, he's never experienced the shock of coming and going.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Oh, that's just prime." Ellen runs both her hands over her face for a moment. "Well, okay. It's not like I haven't had other people here before. We'll just have to get to someplace where we can get you back to-"

"TIME TO KICK SOME ASS!" Ellen's armor suddenly roars. Ellen's eyes widen; she draws a different gun, the one Gus's seen her with in Bar, and starts firing at something over his shoulder.

From:

thanksrainman

Gus hits the dirt before she's even got her gun drawn completely. Face down, he's covering his head with both hands as she blasts away.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen wasn't kidding about only grabbing a few hours of sleep in the open. Their little dip in the hills isn't particularly sheltered by the standards of someone who's had to keen an eye out for yao guai and raiders her whole time in the Wasteland. She slept, she woke, she did some guard time while Dogmeat slept, and then she slept again- and whenever Gus might've needed to nap, she stayed awake to let him.

But dawn's come, and the daylight is pouring in from the east, and Gus needs to get back home. That means walking. So even though it's only dawn, Ellen sits up and scrubs at her face with both hands. "We'd better get moving," she says. "You want anything to eat first?"

From:

thanksrainman

Gus looks round the area. He's not sure if he wants to trust anything from around here, but it's been a while since breakfast.

"Yeah, sure," he says, heaving a light sigh. "You're sure it's safe?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"As safe as it gets," Ellen says. "Your choice- something I shot, or something that's been hermetically sealed and freeze-dried since before the War. The sealed stuff'll reconstitute with a little water and comes with its own heating pack."

From:

thanksrainman

Neither sounds very great, actually.

"Er," he starts awkwardly. "Whatever you're having, I guess."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen thinks for a bit, then extracts the Blamco Mac and Cheese rations from her pack, along with the ~~Twinkies~~Fancy Lads Snack Cakes from last night. There's a bottle of water- "Atmospherically distilled, completely pure, no rads whatsoever," Ellen notes- which gets partly added to the mac and cheese rations, and then offered as a drink.

"I know it isn't much, but hopefully that won't be a problem for long. Besides, this is one of the better ready-meals I've found in the ruins. And you'd swear the snack cakes were just made yesterday."

From:

thanksrainman

Gus takes the meal and takes a cautious first bite.

"It's like the stuff they serve in prison," he observes. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

"Where'd you get it?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"From an old store called Super-Duper Mart," Ellen says. "Down by the Potomac. It's huge. There used to be lots of them all over the country, from what I hear. There were some raiders using it as a base of operations once, but they're gone now."

She saw to that personally, but sees no reason to mention that part.

"Most of my other supplies are stuff I bought from local traders. My robot provided the water before I left Megaton."

From:

thanksrainman

"What, like a Wal-Mart?" he asks simply.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Never heard the name," Ellen says, "but if Wal-Mart sold everything from food to medicine to lawnmowers to children's toys, then yeah, I guess so."

From:

thanksrainman

He nods. "Something like that."

"So, how long till we get to this place, then?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Well," says Ellen, "once we put the fire out and tidy up, it should be an hour's walk. That's assuming no surprises and nobody gets hurt, and nobody runs after any mole rats." That last is said as Ellen glares at Dogmeat. "Think you can manage that?"

Edited Date: 2009-12-10 08:38 pm (UTC)

From:

thanksrainman

"You shouldn't say things like that," Gus says. "I been around long enough to know that you should NOT say things like that."