Rivet City Storage

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I have to hand it to you, kid," said Seagrave Holmes as Ellen handed over his last jerrycan of water. "You sure do know how to bring in the goods. Where'd you get all this water, anyway?"

"People will trade a lot for a suit of armor in good repair," said Ellen. Milliways would've taken too long to explain, and would've made her sound crazier than anyone from Canterbury Commons. "I had a lot in storage that I needed to get rid of."

Seagrave shook his head. "I don't think I'm going to ask where you got all of that in the first place," he said. "Not my business."

Ellen just smiled. "Speaking of which," she said, "how is your business?"

"Oh, pretty good, pretty good. Enough to keep body and soul together, not enough to impress the girl of my dreams- you know how it goes."

She did, even if it was knowledge gathered almost entirely from old vids, so she nodded. "Vera Weatherly still won't talk to you?"

"Not any more than she would anyone else," said Seagrave. "One day, though. One day."

Ellen was about to offer at least some sort of encouragement, but a voice interrupted them both. "Ellen?"

"Dr. Park?" said Seagrave, straightening up; "Dad?" said Ellen, turning around.

James had taken to wearing one of the Rivet City science crew's lab coats over his Vault jumpsuits, a decision which disappointed Bannon, the clothing merchant, greatly. Ellen personally thought it suited him better than any of the outfits in Bannon's inventory. His coat pockets clinked with the motion of tool against tool as he said, "I got your note. I'm sorry I've been so busy, sweetie-"

"It's all right, Dad," said Ellen, and nodded to the shelf behind Seagrave, loaded down with water cans. "I've been busy too."

"So I see." James eyed the containers a moment; she could see the mental math going on. "Where, exactly-"

"Fort Bannister," said Ellen, cutting off the rest of the question. James' face paled. "I told you I've been busy."

"Ye-e-es...." James shook his head. "Perhaps we should talk about this a bit somewhere else- Seagrave, do you mind?"

"Not at all, Dr. Park. Ellen, always a pleasure doing business with you."

Chief Harkness wasn't the only one who knew how to get into the storage areas in the belly of Rivet City. The door across from Ellen's rented storage space came open in a matter of moments, and closed behind them just as easily. "Ellen," said James the instant the door was secured. "Fort Bannister? You raided Talon Company? Are you out of your mind?"

"Not raided, Dad," said Ellen. She was aware that he probably meant it as a rebuke, and that she probably ought to have been angry in return, but all she felt was a hint of amusement- you're not the only one who can do things in secret. "Destroyed."

"What?"

Okay, that was more than a hint. It was everything she could do not to laugh. "I got some people together that I know and who wanted to help," she said, "and I went after them. And we won."

"That was an entire mercenary company!" James exclaimed. "How did- that must have been scores of men-"

"And robots," Ellen added. It wasn't the most helpful thing to say, but she felt it needed mentioning. "And their automated defenses, and their animals."

"And you defeated them all." James crossed his arms over his chest, staring at his daughter.

"Yes."

"You're certain of this."

"Pretty certain," said Ellen. "Considering that I killed their commander and their second-in-command surrendered and the ones who were still alive left with only the clothes on their backs and the guns in their hands, and we took every single thing they had in storage and loaded it onto their own pack animals and walked out of there with it all."

"Good God..." James shook his head. "Why did you even go there in the first place?"

Ellen let out a long sigh. Leaning back against the comforting cold metal wall, she said, "Remember how I disarmed that bomb in Megaton?" James nodded. "Well, that got someone angry. Alistair Tenpenny had somebody in Megaton who was trying to find a stranger willing to set off Megaton's bomb."

James' eyes narrowed at that; he nodded. "Go on."

"He apparently hired Talon Company to find me and kill me for revenge. There was a thousand-cap reward out for my head."

"And that was why you went up against a fortified headquarters of armed mercenaries."

"No," said Ellen, "that was just a start. They've been hunting me ever since I left the Vault. To find you," she added, just in case he'd forgotten. "I couldn't even turn around sometimes without finding them there."

James gnawed on one thumbnail, shaking his head as he listened.

"There was one who told me they weren't doing it for the money so much any more, after a while. They wanted revenge for all the ones they'd sent out after me who never came back. And that was when I realized I had to do something, because if I didn't, they'd come after you, just trying to find me."

"Well, I can certainly understand your line of reasoning," said James. He dropped his hand back to his chest. "But the effects... those are a little amazing."

"I had help," Ellen felt obliged to protest.

"How much?"

"... three people," Ellen had to admit. "But John-117 had power armor."

Up went James' eyebrows. "You got the Brotherhood involved?"

"Nooooo," Ellen said slowly. "John's not Brotherhood. He's from somewhere else."

"Mm." James shook his head. "Even so. I wouldn't've thought that sort of thing possible. You've got a real talent for combat, Ellen. I wouldn't've thought it possible."

"You always said I had to stand up to bullies, Dad," Ellen pointed out. "I just wanted to stop them where they lived. And to make sure I could hire Reilly's Rangers."

"The Rangers?" James blinked. "Whatever for?"

"The Jeferson Memorial's still in mutant territory," Ellen said. "It was crawling with mutants and tongue monsters-"

"Centaurs. They're called centaurs."

"-centaurs, then- the last time I was there it was full of them," Ellen said. "If you really want it back, we're going to have to get rid of them all. Can you get the Brotherhood to do that?"

James frowned a moment, then shook his head. "I doubt it," he said. "Not after all this time."

"That's what I thought," Elle said. "And you probably won't be able to get them to stand guard after it's all cleared out, either. Not until you get the purifier to work properly. Somebody's going to have to do the job instead, at least until then."

"And so you intend to hire the Rangers," James finished for her. "You have thought this through, haven't you?"

Somebody had to, Ellen thought but did not say. Instead she only nodded.

"In that case," James said, "we should discuss the situation at the purifier. You, and me, and Dr. Li and the others. We've reached a point where I think we can make Project Purity work again, properly this time. All that's left is to implement the GECK-tech we've been experimenting with, and then to test it. How soon do you think you can be ready for that?"

"I'm good pretty much whenever you are," Ellen said.

"Wonderful. Let's go, then."