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aaaaaaaagh_skyEllen rubbed at her face and stared at a room full of all the guns and body armor that multiple Brahmins could carry.
The guns, Ellen knew, they would need for purifier duty. Reilly and her Rangers had pretty good supplies, but it never hurt to be able to offer more weapons, more spare parts, and more ammo to people who would be doing guard duty for you. So those, she definitely needed to keep. The armor, though... that was a different story. The Rangers had their own armor already, all of them. They kept it in tip-top repair, too. There wasn't a Ranger in Reilly's merc band who didn't do that. There also wasn't a Ranger among Reilly's mercs who would be willing to wear something with the Talon emblem on it. That... well, it wasn't an insurmountable problem, but having to rework it all to suit them would take a long time and cost good caps for paint and turpentine. And Ellen needed the turpentine too much for other things, like nuka-grenades. Honestly, the stuff was rarer than clean water.
At least she'd been able to sell two of the suits to Crow in exchange for enough caps to rent a storage room in Rivet City. Chief Harkness' eyebrows had gone right up into his hairline at the sight, but he'd accepted her explanation. Too bad the security force at Rivet City wasn't in the market for more suits. They didn't get shot at enough to need replacement plates or polymer weave bases very often, an advantage of being able to just pull in the bridge and wait for the mutants on shore to get bored. Rivet City didn't even have an armor dealer in the marketplace, that was how rarely they needed new suits.
She was going to have to find something to do with it all. The room would get expensive fast. Crow could only buy so many suits before he no longer had someone to sell them to. Potomac Attire, in the marketplace, was even less of a possible way to unload the armor. The Brotherhood of Steel probably had no use for the stuff. Maybe if she could get up to the Regulator headquarters, Sonora would accept the suits as proof of kills and- no, not likely, not this many. There weren't this many Regulators in the Wasteland, so Sonora would just wind up having to resell them herself, and Ellen didn't want to shift the sales burden off onto someone else.
Maybe Milliways? Not that the Bar's security force used armor from what little Ellen knew of them, but maybe some of the patrons... well, then she hit the problem of how few of them actually had bottlecaps lying around. A lot of them didn't even come from worlds where metal bottlecaps were in use any more for bottles, let alone money. She'd have to wait for people to scrounge up several hundred caps for each suit. Even if she halved the price that someone like Crow or Moira would charge, it would still be hundreds of caps, and that not only took people time to come up with but meant that she'd be charged for her room there while she waited, which meant the death of any real profit. Paper money was popular in the Wasteland for one thing only, and wouldn't do at all as a trade medium. The profit would just be too small to be worth the bother.
She grimaced, shook her head, and turned to close the door. Maybe Dad would have some better ideas. She hadn't spoken to him since her return to Rivet City, so she needed to talk to him anyway-
Wait. Dad. Who was building a water purifier. Because water was rare. Because water was expensive. Because people would pay thirty bottlecaps for a pint of clean water. Which was a commodity that people in Milliways thought absolutely nothing about, because they had so dang much of it, which meant that-
She'd go see Dad in a bit. Right now she had to pack up a bunch of suits and load them back onto one of her Brahmin. The Bar might just come in handy after all.
The guns, Ellen knew, they would need for purifier duty. Reilly and her Rangers had pretty good supplies, but it never hurt to be able to offer more weapons, more spare parts, and more ammo to people who would be doing guard duty for you. So those, she definitely needed to keep. The armor, though... that was a different story. The Rangers had their own armor already, all of them. They kept it in tip-top repair, too. There wasn't a Ranger in Reilly's merc band who didn't do that. There also wasn't a Ranger among Reilly's mercs who would be willing to wear something with the Talon emblem on it. That... well, it wasn't an insurmountable problem, but having to rework it all to suit them would take a long time and cost good caps for paint and turpentine. And Ellen needed the turpentine too much for other things, like nuka-grenades. Honestly, the stuff was rarer than clean water.
At least she'd been able to sell two of the suits to Crow in exchange for enough caps to rent a storage room in Rivet City. Chief Harkness' eyebrows had gone right up into his hairline at the sight, but he'd accepted her explanation. Too bad the security force at Rivet City wasn't in the market for more suits. They didn't get shot at enough to need replacement plates or polymer weave bases very often, an advantage of being able to just pull in the bridge and wait for the mutants on shore to get bored. Rivet City didn't even have an armor dealer in the marketplace, that was how rarely they needed new suits.
She was going to have to find something to do with it all. The room would get expensive fast. Crow could only buy so many suits before he no longer had someone to sell them to. Potomac Attire, in the marketplace, was even less of a possible way to unload the armor. The Brotherhood of Steel probably had no use for the stuff. Maybe if she could get up to the Regulator headquarters, Sonora would accept the suits as proof of kills and- no, not likely, not this many. There weren't this many Regulators in the Wasteland, so Sonora would just wind up having to resell them herself, and Ellen didn't want to shift the sales burden off onto someone else.
Maybe Milliways? Not that the Bar's security force used armor from what little Ellen knew of them, but maybe some of the patrons... well, then she hit the problem of how few of them actually had bottlecaps lying around. A lot of them didn't even come from worlds where metal bottlecaps were in use any more for bottles, let alone money. She'd have to wait for people to scrounge up several hundred caps for each suit. Even if she halved the price that someone like Crow or Moira would charge, it would still be hundreds of caps, and that not only took people time to come up with but meant that she'd be charged for her room there while she waited, which meant the death of any real profit. Paper money was popular in the Wasteland for one thing only, and wouldn't do at all as a trade medium. The profit would just be too small to be worth the bother.
She grimaced, shook her head, and turned to close the door. Maybe Dad would have some better ideas. She hadn't spoken to him since her return to Rivet City, so she needed to talk to him anyway-
Wait. Dad. Who was building a water purifier. Because water was rare. Because water was expensive. Because people would pay thirty bottlecaps for a pint of clean water. Which was a commodity that people in Milliways thought absolutely nothing about, because they had so dang much of it, which meant that-
She'd go see Dad in a bit. Right now she had to pack up a bunch of suits and load them back onto one of her Brahmin. The Bar might just come in handy after all.