aaaaaaaagh_sky | Museum Station

Annabelle will no doubt recognize the cast of the sunlight and the thin dry feel of the air when she and Ellen emerge at last from the reeking Metro tunnels. They're on the opposite side of the Mall from last time, though, and the steps up on this side aren't anywhere near the same- they're rusted, corroded, two-hundred-year-old escalator steps, frozen in place with the weight of time and decay. "I don't hear too much from here," Ellen reports, "but I'm all out of Stealth Boys, so we'd better be careful. There might be mutants."

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From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

One of the two is fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of both Annabelle's and Ellen's shots at the same time. The other one does try to lunge at the moving human shapes up ahead, but Dogmeat got his teeth into its leg, and Annabelle fired an instant later. It is not a good day to be the not-very-bright kind of homicidal tunnel-dweller.

Ellen is making a mental note not to let the dog lick her hand any time soon.

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aeons_crackshot

One could argue that it is never a good day to be a not-very-bright kind of homicidal tunnel-dweller.

"Good shooting," Annabelle says with a smile. "Are you hurt?"

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen's panting a little, but shakes her head. "I'm fine," she says. "I'm fine. We should, um... we should lay them straight, before we go. For funerary... you know, the general idea. If you don't mind."

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aeons_crackshot

"I don't mind," Annabelle says quietly. She moves to straighten out the bodies of the ghouls into something approaching the appropriate position, at least.

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"If I had power cells to spare I'd ash them," Ellen says as she gets the other ones in line. "I used up an awful lot of them burning the root cellar in Andale, though."

She's gotten very good at keeping the funeral prayers short and quiet, since attracting attention while standing still is a great way to get dead. They'll be starting along their way again shortly.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"We'll do the best we can for them," she replies quietly. Admittedly, that's not very much at the moment.

Annabelle keeps watch while Ellen prays, just in case.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The only threat to rear its head is a couple of radroaches, and they don't last long. They might be the size of babies, but they can still be stomped pretty good.

(Ellen does a lot of cleaning up her clothes and equipment after these trips.)

"Okay," she says, looking up. "It's going to have to do. Let's get moving, all right?"

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aeons_crackshot

Annabelle is definitely going to need to clean up a bit once this trip is over.

"That sounds good to me," she replies with a nod. She'll be playing rearguard when they start moving again.

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and starts off again. There's a few repeat encounters with similarly maddened ghouls along the way, but nothing that can't be handled with reasonable ease. Eventually, though, the tunnel opens out into another high-ceilinged room full of rubble and God knows what. Ellen pauses, shining her flashlight into the shadows as best she can, and finally says, "I think this is Metro Central. How are you doing so far?"

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aeons_crackshot

"Well enough," Annabelle replies. "There's too much cover here for my liking, but there's nothing to be done about that."

Cover gives trouble more places to hide, after all.

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen sighs. "I know. I keep feeling like something's hanging around behind me, just out of my sight- not that I don't trust you to notice, armor."

"You take care of me and I'll take care of you," her suit responds.

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aeons_crackshot

"Your armor talks" Annabelle says, blinking in surprise.

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"I found it recently," Ellen says. "It's a pre-War prototype suit intended to serve as a field replacement for emergency medical services. The full model was supposed to be able to dispense stimpaks and other things, but this one only injects Med-X if I get hurt badly enough, and it has an early warning system in case something tries to sneak up behind me."

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aeons_crackshot

"That sounds very useful," Annabelle says with a grin. "Did you know that it could speak when you found it?"

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Not until I put it on," Ellen says. "The manual on holotape mentioned it had systems with decision-making capabilities, but..."

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aeons_crackshot

"It still took you by surprise," Annabelle finishes with a small smile.

"Where do we go from here?"

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Northward, to the Dupont Circle area," says Ellen, "so that'd be that tunnel over there. The one with the train off its tracks."

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aeons_crackshot

"A good place for an ambush," Annabelle says with a wry grin. "Not that we've got much choice about heading down that way..."

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Unfortunately," Ellen agrees. "If we're lucky we might find a side door with access to the maintenance tunnels the old workers used to use. They'd be small, but there'd be less hiding spaces..."

Alas, there is no such door as they head into the tunnel's darkness. Up ahead, however, there is a faint light in the distance, a faintly pulsating orange colour.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Well, I'm reasonably sure that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train," Annabelle quips.

"Do you know what would cause something like that?" she asks Ellen, her senses still searching for potential trouble in the darkness.

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

"There are a few emergency systems down here that have fission battery backup," Ellen says. "They might not have gone offline yet, or they might've only been triggered recently. I ran into things like that in the tunnels under Grayditch, with the ants."

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aeons_crackshot

"They're not necessarily a sign of people, then," Annabelle says with a nod. "And a bit of light will make things much easier for us."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Beats relying on my Pip-Boy," Ellen agrees, and picks up the pace- just a little, though, since while it's light it's just a tiny glimpse, and the rest of the tunnel is still dark.

As they draw closer, the light grows brighter. It's a flashing orange beacon in the wall next to a metal door; a faded, long-ago sign reads EMPLOYEES ONLY. Ellen glances at the light, then at the door. "What do you think?" she says. "Should we see if there's anything in there to warrant that?"

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aeons_crackshot

"It might be worth checking out," Annabelle allows. "It could be a shortcut of some kind."

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aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and tests the door handle; it's locked, but when she trains her Pip-Boy light on it, her eyebrows go up. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to get this thing open recently," she says. "The rest of the door's grungy but lock area's all clean. Are you any good at lockpicking, or should I get out my bobby pins?"