Ellen Park, the Lone Wanderer

The Blood Prince isn’t a man who sleeps much. He’s got an ice gang to train with and a city to run. Nobody gets shit done while they’re sleeping. Nap here, nap there, get up and get moving- but never waste a whole night sleeping in one solid block. And never do it anywhere predictable or someone’ll take advantage of you when you’re down.

Nevertheless there is a note waiting for him when he wakes up an hour before sunrise, and his defenseman can’t account for how it got there.

Prince-

I warned you when my people first arrived in the Philadelphia area that there were enemies coming. I know you don’t think a whole lot of a bunch of armed outsiders on your doorstep, and you probably don’t draw much distinction between the ones in plain armor versus the ones in red and black. History tends to lump outside powers together when it comes to stories of technologically advanced people who want things that locals have protected for a long time, after all. I think I can tell you a few things that may change your mind, at least a little bit.

His defenseman looks up at the sound of the Prince’s snort.

First of all- I’m willing to play by your rules. The Outcasts won’t. They’re here for the factory and they have nothing to lose. They’d be happy to sweep through Philly and put a plasma bolt through the head of anyone they see in Flyers colors, then wait for the other gangs to fight each other into exhaustion. I have no intention of doing that. I held them off from your city by stampeding those river monster things you have through their encampment, at least until my reinforcements could arrive. My people are keeping them off balance now, so they can’t join up with your rivals here in the city.

You can check on that if you want. The Royals would probably be only too happy to slip the Outcasts past your guards if they thought it would break your streak. I don’t think they’d understand that it would just get them a reputation as traitors once the gunfire started.

At any rate, the point is that the Outcasts and my people are temporarily at an impasse while they try to figure out how to fight their way into your city and take what they want by force. The Brotherhood of Steel has no desire to take over Philadelphia. We’re just interested in the suicide zone. I am prepared to do this the Philly way if I have to- I believe the standard procedure is to form a team and enter that annual tournament, yes? That's a few months from now, which neither you nor I have, but if you accept out of season challengers, then you’ve got one. Please see the last page of this letter for our roster and team pictures, plus our availability dates for a proper throw-down in the Arena.

Flip. Flip. “Fuckin’ hell. Chumpy, she’s got sponsors lined up.”

“She who?” says the bewildered defenseman.

The Prince rolls his eyes and flips back to where he’d left off.

Second- I’m prepared to make some offers in addition to the Arena throwdown that I think you may be interested in. I get the impression that you’re a man with one eye on the Hall of Fame, or whatever you have around here for gangers who fight well enough to merit a legacy. I’ve attached a list of those to the end of this letter as well.

And finally, considering what I’ve seen of you and your people and your interaction with the Pitt, I think you may appreciate the attached accounting of the Brotherhood’s dealings with Lord Ashur over the past several years. We have that much in common, if nothing else.

I await your reply on the matter of the out-of-season challenge. Painless Parker, our team physician, should be around in an hour or so to bring any messages you might want to send.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Paladin 101
Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel
Team Captain, DC Caps

“Fuckin’ hell. Well, this is gonna be interesting.”

The Blood Prince isn't the only power in the city of Philadelphia, according to Painless. Dr. D was kind enough to confirm the dentist's statement. There are other ice gangs and they all have their own leaders, and any one of them could probably take control of the city in the next year's tournament if they had a little assistance. The Royals are supposed to have the strongest membership and the best chance; they cost the Flyers an awful lot of good blood last year. Bring in some better equipment, maybe an outside team member or two-

Ellen put up a hand and stopped the discussion right there.

Philly's a city, and one that's working, at least as far as she can see. Its system of government isn't the most stable, but... it's working. It's a mess, but it's a more unified mess than the Capital, which is more of a super-loose confederation that more or less views the Brotherhood as a de facto government of sorts. It's got a food supply, and a water supply, and it's largely kept the raiders out. And while there's a hell of a lot of internecine violence in the areas where ice gangs demand tribute and payment from the residents, it's not nearly as bad as the Pitt. Not to mention that she's yet to see any slaves captured or bought or sold, which is a big thing. It's a mess- but it's a mess that works. They've been in the city less than a month. Everything they know about the place, they know from either Painless or Dr. D. Intervening now, on anyone's behalf, would be the equivalent of chucking a grenade down a fire ant tunnel. Mission or no mission, Outcasts coming or no, they don't interfere with anything until they have a better picture of the situation.

The next few days are going to be busy. Tomorrow they're going to make contact with the Friends, and find out how people with a reputation for never engaging in combat can walk the streets of a city like this without being slaughtered out of existence. There's supposed to be a Vault in the area, too, and a trade delegation from another Vault somewhere nearby; they're part of why the city can eat, apparently, so it's probably wise to meet with them and find out how they've managed all this time. There's a meatface- apparently that's what the locals call ghouls- who's supposed to have his finger on the city's pulse better than anyone else, but he doesn't much like outsiders, so it's going to be tricky getting to talk to him. There's an exhibition match coming up on the Arena's ice- not that Ellen particularly wants to spend Brotherhood time and resources watching grown men and women beat each others' heads in for sport, but Painless swears it's a good way to meet everyday Philly dwellers en masse, and Dr. D reluctantly agreed with him. Plus, well, it seldom hurts to get a look at potential enemies' or potential allies' fighting styles. There's a lot to do.

And the Outcasts are coming, somewhere in all of that, looking to blow past the Blood Prince and grab General Atomics for themselves before she can make her move.

And the reinforcements are coming from the Citadel, looking to her for orders.

This isn't RobCo. RobCo was easy, by comparison. RobCo was just- well, it was her idea to begin with, and then her pet project, and by the time it was her responsibility she'd already laid the foundations and then some. There was no sense of everyone breathing down her neck and every eye being on her. If she'd failed to get the RobCo plant working again- well, it would've been a waste of time and resources, but that would've been it. Nobody would've died for it. Nothing would change except her reputation.

If the Outcasts take General Atomics somehow, it'll restart the Brotherhood civil war in the Capital. If they fail, but she doesn't succeed in securing it, they'll just keep trying. Casdin might order them not to, but given that this bunch slipped out of Fort Independence without his okay, she doubts orders from him will slow anyone else down. They won't be likely to bother if General Atomics ends up in Citadel Brotherhood hands. Reclaiming the place is, after all, reclaiming pre-War tech, and not even the most reactionary Outcast could fault Elder Lyons for doing exactly what the Brotherhood was supposed to do.

Theoretically- theoretically- they could remove General Atomics from the equation. The area's a suicide zone; no one in the city would be particularly stricken if the plant were to be somehow wiped off the face of the Earth, either by orbital death ray or by some more conventional means. Given what Ellen's seen of the robobrain population in there, that would be a mass mercy kill- but it would also be sacrilege of the highest order. Lyons and Casdin might have different priorities, but they both hold to the same core Brotherhood belief that the technology of the ancients is both vital and necessary to the rebuilding of the human race. Destroying General Atomics to keep it out of Outcast hands might spare the Citadel Brotherhood the mess of a new civil war, but only because it would bring both the Citadel Brotherhood and the Outcasts together in arms against her. She's dead sure of that.

The other alternative- which the Outcasts may be considering, or not, she doesn't really know- is the polar opposite: remove the city from the equation. Take out the leadership and gut the power structure of all the major ice gangs and force the surrender of the survivors, then install a puppet leadership scheme in their place. The Blood Prince isn't the only one who knows history; Ellen's history texts talked about America's long-ago acquisition of Hawaii, and about power struggles in half a dozen South American nations. If the existing power structure isn't congenial to your liking, overwrite it all and cut down anyone who stands in your way until there's no choice left but to accept the outsiders- it's happened before, and it could probably be done again. The thing is that Ellen has a conscience, and while she's called down fire from heaven on her enemies to cleanse the world before, plain old slaughter and the breaking of backs doesn't sit well with her. She's all too aware of how close she stands to the Red Rider of the Apocalypse. She's not about to throw in her lot with the White.

So.

Convince the Blood Prince to give them permission to access the place on an ongoing basis, or come up with an alternative based on what works for the locals. And do it fast.

( "We believe in technology, in the triumph of the creations of the ancients over the horrors and evils of the Wasteland. We believe in trust. Trust in technology. Trust in our fellow Brothers. Trust in our elders. Ah, and we believe in victory. Our forces have dwindled, but still we fight on. Super mutant, Enclave, it matters not. Surrender is not an option." )

And believe, with all her heart, that it can be done. If nothing else, Elder Lyons believes she can do it. So... she'd better live up to his faith in her.

Ellen closed the Milliways door behind her and stepped out of the ostensible 'ladies' room'. They'd fixed it up better than anywhere she'd seen in the Capital other than the Citadel, but they'd also repainted it, and they'd done their best to match the same décor and aesthetic style as the Franklin Girls' Dresses. It was a positive relief to return to Doctor D's office; while the colors were on the ridiculously vibrant side, there were no faked draperies or mythological figures trailing slogan-strewn ribbons. "Sorry about that," she said to the dark-haired man as she took her seat. "Necessity."

He nodded. "Whatever you say, Paladin," he said. "You've been extremely civil this whole time. I can forgive a momentary disruption."

Ellen considered the man a moment. Compared to the ladies who populated his establishment, his clothing was almost subtle. He wore a dark grey vest laced tightly over a deep red shirt with weirdly puffed sleeves, fastened at the cuffs with carved buttons made of a material she couldn't place. His magenta trousers stopped about halfway down his calves, from what she could see of them under the desk, and gave the impression of being attached to socks- at least, they also had buttons on the sides, and she couldn't figure out a reason for that otherwise. She had a feeling he didn't leave the House of Franklin often. His shoes weren't nearly worn enough to have treaded the Philly streets.

"Would it be pressing my luck to ask you why you dress like that?" she said. "I mean, obviously the ladies are wearing those- I don't even know- for advertising, but.... well, it all seems just a bit-"

"Ludicrous?" he suggested.

"I didn't want to come out and say it."

"No, no, Paladin, rest assured I've been thinking that every day since my merry little band was forced to set up operations here," said D. "Would you believe it was a survival decision?"

Ellen just looked at him.

"No, seriously," said D. "I would say it was complicated, but what it ultimately boils down to is that my colleague Shields and I found ourselves so far off course in our attempt to reach Chicago that we ran out of supplies, and then ran out of financial reserves."

"I'm surprised it wasn't the other way around, considering you were coming from California," murmured Ellen. "Who would accept paper money along the way?"

D held up a finger. "Ah, true, very true," he said. "Which is why we'd converted our dollars into bottlecaps long before. Any water merchant worth his or her salt recognizes a cap almost anywhere on the continent. Unfortunately, as we proceeded on our course we discovered to our horror that we'd been moving in a primarily eastward direction rather than a northeasterly one; we were so far off course that we'd never be able to turn back and make it to Chicago with what remained to us. Especially not given the presence of a den of iniquity and violence notorious among traders and fugitives to the west of here-"

"You avoided the Pitt?" said Ellen. "How?"

"Sheer dumb luck," said D. "In that we encountered a young woman stricken with the most repulsively suppurating form of skin cancer I've seen outside Bakersfield, and scars of a nature I won't speak of here. We did our best to treat her, although by that point we didn't have the capacity to do more than basic symptomatic care, and in return she advised us on how best to avoid the roving raiders and slavers of the region. She left us not long after; I've wondered since then how much longer she survived, poor thing."

"Okay," said Ellen. "So you made it around the Pitt and got across Pennsylvania somehow. I take it you were out of medical supplies by the time you reached Philly?"

"Unfortunately so," said D. "Although we still had some of our equipment, which, frankly, was more difficult to replace than components and chemicals. Shields and I sat down for a real heart-to-heart and decided that the Chicago aspect of our mission was just going to have to be scrapped. Philadelphia had as much need as the city of the Broad Shoulders, so we'd put down roots and start our work over again here."

"I can understand that part, " said Ellen. "How did you get from a medical mission to this?"

"Medicine, my good Paladin, costs money," said D. "And requires moderately secure facilities in which to function. Shields and I found that the old schools and other buildings that might have offered us a haven in which to function had already been claimed by the worst sorts of organized ruffian, and that the city's ruler had no particular interest in driving them out. Our hired guards had long since left us for lack of pay. The only secure place either of us could find to spend the night was, frankly, a local brothel; the master of the house, an older fellow who called himself Uriah, had paid off one of the ice gangs to leave his business alone through the end of the month."

He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers on his stomach. "Uriah, as it happened, had not invested much money in the health of his ladies. I don't know how much you know about venereal diseases-"

"My father was a physician, and the major radio broadcaster in the Wasteland regularly puts out public service announcements on the subject."

"Ah, good. Then you're aware that the fission is the kind of thing you don't want to live with for the rest of your days," said D. "The first stage can be concealed with the right clothing; the later stages... not so much, although they can be treated and the disease's progress at least arrested if not cured entirely. When we mentioned this to Uriah, he offered to let us stay on his grounds in exchange for whatever medical care we would provide. Even in a hole as wretched as this, given the givens, people will generally opt for a healthy whore over a visibly diseased one. We set up camp in an available room and set about scavenging the supplies and components necessary to synthesize some basic antimicrobial chems."

Ellen thought of Ashur, and of what he'd said of his own path to power. "There are worse ways to survive," she said.

"I'm glad you agree," said D. "As it happened, we were successful beyond our best expectations of the time; the disease organisms here haven't seen treatment chems in generations. Uriah was profoundly grateful, as were the ladies. Uriah's ladies became the companions of choice for a not insignificant portion of Philly's patronizers of prostitutes. Unfortunately, cutthroat capitalism is disturbingly literal in this town, and one of his competitors took matters into her own hands."

Ellen winced.

"Indeed. The ladies of the house, while enterprising to a fault, had few resources beyond the basics they'd managed to scrape together, and none of them were prepared to strike out on their own, particularly not with Uriah's murderer operating with impunity not far off. Unfortunately, the subsequent vote on how best to proceed ended in my being elected Uriah's successor and inheritor of his worldly goods, which I agreed to on the sole condition that we find a way to begin offering other services than merely venereal." He grimaced. "And while the existing clientele was willing to accept a few basic medical procedures on the premises, it was all but impossible to persuade them we were capable of anything better, at least the way things used to be run. When the woman who murdered Uriah started sending out feelers to determine just how much harder she'd have to work to put us out of business, I took what profits we'd accumulated and paid the Flyers enough to find us somewhere else to set up shop, preferably out of her reach. The Blood Prince used to use this place as a hunting ground- you wouldn't know it now, but it used to be infested with the kind of low-life scum who couldn't play well enough with others to make it in an ice gang. Once the Flyers rampaged through the place and wiped them all out, we were free to move in. I took the opportunity to match our image to the man it originally honored and to put the word out on the streets that we now offered a great deal more than merely- forgive the phrase- poontang."

Ellen whistled softly. "That's... kind of impressive, actually," she said. "And it's been working for you?"

"Surprisingly well," said D. "We're not at the point where we can phase out the prostitution angle just yet, alas, but it paid the protection and supply bills well enough to expand our medical and educational offerings- not to mention that Shields uncovered the secret of producing one of Philadelphia's legendary ancestral flavor sensations, a type of condiment called 'cheez'. If she can work out how to expand her cheez production facility enough to meet the city's demand for it this may not have to be a bordello much longer, especially since we've been able to educate our employees to the point where the majority of them could probably pass an NCR medical qualification exam."

"Congratulations, then," said Ellen. "I hope business picks up for you."

"Thank you, Paladin," said D. "Having said that, I hope you won't mind if I ask you a few questions myself. I'd like to think I'm entitled at this point. Assuming that prying into Brotherhood affairs doesn't get me denounced or worse, of course."

"Sir, you're more than entitled," Ellen said. "I think it's safe to say that you and your colleague aren't the only ones who've changed since leaving California...."

Ellen had been in the presence of huge marble statues before- in the Temple of the Union, and in the belly of the old Congress building. She hadn't expected one to be staring them down as Madame Keturah led them into the building. It was a colossal, seated figure of- well, the face was a little cracked and dingy with time, but-

"That's why they call you the Franklin Girls?" she asked Theodosia. The red-haired woman wore a Dress like the others, one patched together from a dozen different kinds of fabric with more-or-less matching colors, but with skirts of narrow enough dimensions to let her stand next to Conklin's immobilization board without getting in the way. "Because of him?"

"This whole place was dedicated to him once," said Theodosia, nodding reverently towards the statue. "He was a great scholar and diplomat, and an especially great lover of the ladies."

"…. And they put that in a museum?" said Ellen, who somehow couldn't picture people of the pre-War United States she'd learned about in history class being willing to admit such matters existed.

"Honors done to a man without admitting of his faults are meaningless," said Keturah. "It's said he lived by thirteen virtues, one in any given week, and left the others to ordinary chance until it was their turn."

"Chastity being one of those virtues," said Thedosia. "If even a man so great that his memorial lasted through the War could only embrace it four weeks out of a year, one can hardly expect anyone else to do much better."

"So why not make sure that a superior option is available to the good people of Philly in their own weeks of less stellar self-control?" came a man's voice from behind the statue. Ellen held up one fist; the rest of the party stopped at once. "Welcome, newfound friends, to the House of Franklin. I'm Doctor D, and my lovely and talented employees are at your-"

The dark-haired man was perhaps six feet tall and dressed in the most outrageously colored pre-War clothing Ellen had ever seen. He bore no weapon, except for what looked like a walking stick crusted at one end in sparkling chips of glass. His skin had the pallor of someone who made a point of not going outside, but that might have been his emotional state; certainly his genial expression gave way rapidly to shock at the sight of Knight Kang's armored form. "-service," he finally managed, and swallowed before looking back up. "We're not going to have any trouble, are we?"

Ellen could feel the others fidgeting. "I don't plan on there being any trouble," she said. "So as long as nobody here starts anything, we won't either."

"Good," said Doctor D, "good. I must say, I wasn't expecting to encounter anyone from the Brotherhood of Steel here, of all places."

"You know us?" said Kang. Ellen wasn't sure, but thought she saw Doctor D holding back a flinch. "All the way up here?"

"What can I say, my good man? I have contacts and a long history behind me," said Doctor D. "But all of that can wait. What brings you to my doorstep today? Specifically, I mean. Obviously it's a medical issue of some import."

Ellen glanced at Keturah, who made a slight 'go ahead' gesture with one half-concealed hand. "It's a head injury, Doctor," she said. "Knight Conklin here was caught off his feet by a sentrybot's RPG round and thrown into a wall, where his head bounced off the inside of his helmet. He hasn't regained full consciousness since leaving the General Atomics grounds, but he's responded to pain and still has pupillary responses. I'm not equipped to treat a head injury like this myself, so our guide-" She nodded to Painless Parker. "-recommended we bring him to you."

"I see, I see." Doctor D came forward, his sparkling stick tapping against the floor with each step. "Well, you're in luck. I am a fully trained and accredited medical practitioner in my native state of Redding. And thanks to the proclivities of the ruling factions of this fair city I've had more than my fair share of experience with concussions and skull injuries. The helmets favored by nine tenths of the ice-gangs in this city only protect against a genuinely endangering impact once, but they will insist on wearing the things until they've all but fallen off… I can almost certainly treat your man- pending further examination to ensure no unseen injuries complicate the situation, of course- but like everything else in this city, I'll require compensation for it."

"That's all right. Madame Keturah warned us of that already," said Ellen. "Can you give me an idea of what kind of price is involved?"

Doctor D turned to Keturah, who murmured rapidly to him in a tone too low to follow. D nodded, and turned to examine the prone Knight more carefully. "The initial payment will be in bottlecaps," he said, "since regardless of the outcome we're going to be expending money on chems to reduce intracranial swelling and inflammatory response. This being the House of Franklin, the remainder of your price will be a contribution to the House's archives." He swept his glittering stick in a trail of sparkling fire towards the statue. "We strive to emulate the old master's example in whatever ways we can. Bring us a previously unfamiliar work of science, invention, education, governance, music, or philosophy, something we can take apart and keep, and that will fulfil whatever medical obligation your man here may incur. Two, if you're feeling generous."

The Franklin Girls were watching her; Ellen resisted the urge to drag both hands over her face. "All right," she said. "All right. We can do that. May I leave one of my people here to keep an eye on him in the meanwhile?"

"I had a feeling you would say that," said D. "If you insist."

"You'd better believe I insist," said Ellen. "Kang?"

"At your command, Paladin."

"Thank you, Knight," said Ellen. "All right, people. Let's get Knight Conklin to wherever the good Doctor intends to treat him. The sooner we can start our search, the better."

One thing Ellen had to give the robots of General Atomics: they followed their programming to the letter. Their security programming, specifically. The instant the last intruder's foot crossed the invisible line extending fifty yards out from the General Atomics front gate, it went quiet- all the lasers, all the plasma bolts, everything.

"AND KEEP YOUR WORTHLESS COMMIE ASSES OUT!"

... well, nearly silent. Nothing could shut up a Mister Gutsy short of total destruction.

It didn't matter. They weren't being shot at any more- that was what mattered. Especially since from what she could see of D0G's supine passenger, Knight Conklin was still unconscious and unmoving.

---

Waiting for people to return from a combat zone is never easy. Sometimes you have to put your brain somewhere else or you fret yourself to death while it happens. Card games are good for that, especially when they're card games you've never played before. Learning new rules is something to concentrate on. Scribe Cancio was pretty sure the so-called dentist was lying through his teeth about some of them, but hey, it was something to concentrate on.

At least until Painless spotted something out the Red Rocket station's window and stood up so quickly he overturned the card table.

---

Painless glanced up from the unmoving Knight and did his best to stifle the knot in his stomach. "He's responding to pain, which is a good sign, but I don't like the quality of the responses," he said. "Just how hard did he hit his head, anyway?"

"Not sure. There was an explosion right before he hit the wall. My audio compensators were filtering out most of the sound," said- Kang, that was it, the man's name was Kang. "It was pretty bad, though."

"Crap." Painless started to rub at his own face, then dropped his hands. "Yeah, that's- I'll be honest, that's extraordinarily bad. I'm just a dentist, not a doctor. I've had to treat traumatic unconsciousness before a couple of times, but that was ice gangers getting knocked off their feet in a fight. This is a little outside what I've got the skills to handle."

The Knight, and the- mole people? Was that what they'd called themselves?- turned to look at Paladin 101. 101 didn't seem to notice; her eyes were on the unconscious man's pale, clammy face. "If he'd just gotten stabbed or shot or something I could deal with that," she said to no one in particular. "Voodoo, we may have to get a-"

She paused. She looked up at Painless.

"Wait. You mentioned people who did medical treatment in this city, didn't you?"

Painless hesitated. "Well, yeah, but-"

"Is there any chance at all that they'd be able to help with something like this?"

"Doctor D might," said Painless. "The Franklin Girls are good with a lot of trauma. I'm not sure about this, though."

"It's better than anything either of us can do," said 101. "D0G, once we've immobilized Knight Conklin properly, we're going to take him and follow Painless to wherever these Franklin Girls are. Unit 83, you take point and make sure nobody gets in our way."

"Order accepted."

"Voodoo, your people and Kang will be guarding the sides and the rear. You and I will be looking for every possible entrance to the country of the mole people between here and the Franklin Girls." She grimaced. "I'll deal with the repercussions if we happen to find one."

Painless raised an eyebrow, but since nobody seemed inclined to explain any of it to him, left it at that.

Philly is, as post-apocalyptic metropoli go, a well-maintained and well-patrolled city. This is not a difficult standard to reach, however, and it tends to fall art in the face of overwhelming wildlife.

Hippos are pretty damn overwhelming. And they've apparently been sighted all over the southern roads out of the city heading towards DC.

One of the older market folks, a gray-haired woman with a face like badly preserved leather, has indicated that the easiest way to avoid the hippos is to head north into the city a ways and make for the northeast part of town. There's apparently a southbound road that swings around the worst of the hippo area and doesn't cost too much travel time by comparison.

The horrified murmur died down; the Prince shook his head. "Paladin," he said, "I gotta say- you've come a real long way just to commit suicide."

The National Guard Armory, Ellen remembered, had been so full of robots and automated defense systems that no one had successfully penetrated it and come out alive in two hundred years. And that was just an armory. General Atomics was a source for robots. American manufacturers had been paranoid about espionage and sabotage before the War; no doubt the robots had been put into defense mode, and were probably still carrying out their last commands…

She kept it off her face, though, and managed an expression of polite puzzlement. "Bad part of town?" she said.

"Naw, the neighborhood's fine, it's the plant we don't fuck with," said the Prince. "Every couple months some wizwit can't hack it on the ice, so he tries to crack GA instead. Figures he'll come out with enough old world tech to compensate. Story is, the robots report to a central brain or something, and if you can get all the way in you can get them to obey. It's bullshit if you ask me. All's I know is, they go over the wall, they get past a robot or two, and they go down. The lucky ones get ashed on the spot."

"And the unlucky ones?"

The Prince shrugged. "I can't prove anything, but seems like the day after these guys go in, if you look over the wall, there's damn near always a new robot rolling around with one of those glowing brain domes on top."

Ellen shuddered.

"Yeah. Now, I'm not saying these guys have your kind of gear." He gestured towards Kang and Conklin, who were as heavily armored as Ellen, and armed with plasma weapons. "Most of them scrape together about what you'd need to last a season on the ice, maybe get themselves a couple of good guns. I dunno, maybe you three would last longer. But I'll tell you what, even if you had a full top line to go with your defense team, you'd still be outnumbered by every single failure who ever went over those walls plus all the old robots besides. You can't last forever, not against that kind of numbers. You want to die? Take my advice. Turn around and go the way you came. I'll give you a map to Charm City. Just walk into the EZ and wait. It'll hurt less."

He seemed, Ellen thought, to mean well. She'd heard plenty of disparaging and hostile voices in her life. There'd been enough threats from the Talons, enough condescension from a dozen other quarters- this didn't sound like that. Maybe it really was as dangerous as he said.

Too bad.

She drew herself up as straight and tall as anyone five feet two inches tall could manage in the face of a room full of armored heavyweight warriors. "Sir," she said evenly, "I appreciate the warning. Unfortunately, I've still got orders."

"Orders don't mean a whole lot when the man giving 'em doesn't know what he's sending you into," the Prince pointed out.

( you don't fucking crucify yourself to save a goddamn VIP, Ellen )

"No, that's true, but it's a little different when he knows what he's sending," Ellen said. "I'm not planning on fighting those robots. Not yet. Elder Lyons sent me as a scout who knows how not to be seen. My mission is to find out what's in there, and get out alive with the information. Not to fight those things, or- or take anything with me. Those young men who go in there are trying to prove something and make a name for themselves. I'm not. I know better than to make that mistake."

"Hnnf." The Prince crossed his arms over his chest. "Still think you're gonna die."

"Maybe, sir, but I've been to a lot of places where I was supposed to die and made it out alive anyway. I'd like permission to take that chance."

"Permission?" That got a look of disbelief. "Shit, you don't need my permission to go out there and die. You come out of GA alive, now, we're gonna talk about permission. I'm not gonna waste my time thinking about shit that I know's not gonna happen." He jerked his chin at Painless. "You. You're the guide? You go ahead and take these four up to GA. If they don't live long enough to pay you, I will. I don't want one of my people losing out because of a bunch of clueless outsiders."

He turned to one of the orange-daubed gangers nearby, muttering something; the audience was over. Ellen let out a sigh and looked to Painless, who shrugged.

Well, it could have gone worse.

"Just… don't go up against him in a match if you want to go home with teeth."

". . . I'll remember that," said Ellen, her stomach knotting. Lord Ashur had been a fairly rational individual, once you got past his delusion that anyone believed his claims about 'workers' not being slaves. She could deal with rational. Psychotically aggressive, and experienced at surviving despite being psychotically aggressive, was something else again. "What else should I know?"

Painless tapped one finger against his lips, the necklace of molars clinking softly as he hopped over a downed lamp-post. "About him, or the city in general?" he said. "I'm not what you'd call in with the ice gangs."

"I'll settle for the city in general."

"In that case-" Painless pointed towards a nearby alley. "There's a lot of places in this city where people think they can take shortcuts. That's not a great idea. The hippos come out of the river at night to look for food, and they'll go a good five miles from the water to find it. They don't usually go out of their way to hunt people, but you hear about rogue bulls sometimes. And even the ones who aren't out for blood'll bite you in two if you insist on presenting them with a meal on the hoof. That armor might be enough to keep them from breaking anything. Never seen a suit like that before except on old pictures, though."

"Good to know," said Jerald dryly. "What do you recommend I do?"

"Climb," was the immediate answer. "Do not try to outrun a river hippo. You won't. Your only chance is getting up the side of a building or something like that. They get tired of waiting for you to come down eventually."

"Are they armored in any way?" asked Knight Conklin. "Do they have weak spots?"

"You mean like bone plates? No, not especially," said Painless. "Their hide's as tough as double-thickness boiled leather, though, and their bones are supremely dense. If you're planning on trying to kill one, you probably need to hit it several times in the head. From a secure perch. They don't really slow down if you shoot them, they just get mad."

"Does anything eat creatures like those?" said Kang.

"Humans, if they can kill one," said Painless. "The meat's decent. Otherwise it's all the things that live in the river. Which I don't advise trying to swim in, by the by. The water won't kill you straightaway, but the jellies just might, if only by sheer numbers."

"Well, that puts it a step up from-" Ellen waved a hand vaguely southwestward, not wanting to mention the Pitt. "You don't survive that river."

Painless nodded. "The Prince uses the river for executions when he's feeling merciful," he said. "The prisoners get taken out on the Half-Bridge and tossed into the water. If they can make it to the other side alive, they're left to their own devices. 'Course, the other side's no picnic either."

"Why, what's over there?"

"Killer plants," said Painless. "Viney things with big red berries. The berries are good to eat, if you can get them without the vines creeping up on you and strangling you or tearing you apart."

"See, I'd say you were trying to fool a credulous outsider, but I've met a tree that managed to assimilate a human being into its structure," said Ellen. "And I've heard from a friend who's been out West. I might just believe you on that one."

"It's all the same to me whether you do or don't," said Painless. "As long as you don't try a swim before I get paid, anyway."

"Fair enough," said Ellen. "What about the people here? What should we know?"

"Hmm-" Painless cocked his head for a moment, thinking. "Well, you already saw the list of recognized ice gangs on the sign. Be careful of insulting anybody who says they're part of one, because there's a good chance you'll get called into a challege match over it, and nobody gets out of this city without responding to a challenge once there's been one issued. Especially don't honk off the Royals. They were in charge before the Blood Prince and they still resent him taking the cup. Other people you don't want to insult would be the Friends. They're not going to fight you, they're just not going to interact with you. And considering they've got the only reliable good water in the city, that's not a good thing."

"You'd think that kind of advantage would put them on top," said Jerald mildly.

"Yeah, you'd think that, but the Friends're some kind of cult or something," said Painless. "They won't fight. They won't even raise a hand in self-defense. They'll live behind walls, sure, and they've got guard animals even the hippos don't mess with, but they're just. . . non-violent. Weird, huh?"

"I don't think I've ever heard of someone trying to live like that," said Jerald. "I mean. Not since the War. Before, yeah, but not since."

Painless shrugged. "Seems kind of like a losing proposition to me even then," he said, "but it doesn't really matter. I'll point some out to you if we see any. They're pretty good at medicine, but they don't like patching up ice gangers or soldiers. Your best bet if you need that kind of treatment is Doctor D and his Franklin Girls."

"Franklin Girls," Ellen repeated. "What, ah…"

"Hookers," said Painless. "Prostitutes, ladies for hire- well, mostly ladies. In all fairness I believe they've got some men on the staff too."

"And… they're your idea of medical-"

"They're not my idea of anything," Painless interrupted. "They are medically trained. Doctor D's from somewhere out in California, although how he got here I'll never know. He's been teaching all the ladies who work for him about first aid, emergency medicine, preventing disease- you name it. When they're not earning their caps the other way, of course."

"I think we'll try to avoid the need for their services," Ellen said slowly. "No offense."

"None taken," said Painless with a shrug. "Thought I should mention it, that's all. Let's see. . . oh, yes, you might run into the chicken folks. They say they're from a Vault around here somewhere and they don't recognize any authority that doesn't have feathers."

"What."

"You heard me," said Painless. "Feathers. Don't know why. I don't talk to them. The Prince puts up with them because they sell delicious, delicious chickens, but they're never here long."

"Could be worse," Ellen said to Jerald, who had developed a Look of Great Disbelief. "At least they're not the Treeminders."

"The only other folks I think you're going to have to be careful about are mostly in West Philly, and we've already gotten out of that part of town," said Painless. "They're pretty clannish, but they're not an ice gang. If you hear a whole lot of fingers snapping all at once, you've attracted their attention. Do not let them start dancing at you. You might be armed and armored, but I guarantee you, these guys outnumber you, and they won't stop until it's gone from a dance-off into a full-on brawl."

Ellen reached up to rub at her temples, but armored fingers clinked against her helmet. With a sigh, she dropped her hands. "All right," she said. "All right. I can- all right. How much further until we get to the Blood Prince's place?"

"Not much further," said Painless. "The Eastern Pen's coming up in a couple of streets."

"So," said Painless cheerfully as the group turned eastward. "What exactly brings you to Philly, if you don't mind my asking? The Capital's an awfully long walk from here."

Ellen grimaced a little; while it wasn't as much of a haul as the trip to the Pitt, the journey north had been a long one, and avoiding Baltimore hadn't helped. "No one in the Capital's had contact with your city in years," she said. "Or if they have, word hasn't gotten around about it."

"Right, I can understand that," says Painless. "The Blood Prince hasn't exactly put in a whole lot of effort to open up communication with points south of here. Doesn't like his relatives, or something."

"Yeah, about that-" Jerald raised a finger. "Blood Prince."

Painless raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"

"I don't know about here? But where we come from, that kind of name means one of two things."

"Is one of them is an overblown, ludicrous joke?"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's not that one." Painless shook his head. "Believe me, our Prince's gone out of his way to earn that title."

"Oh, great. Barbarian warlords. Just what we need," muttered one of the Knights. Ellen couldn't be sure, but she thought it was Kang.

"I don't know that I'd call him barbarian," said Painless. "At least not to his face. How much do you know about our city, anyway?"

"You've got a sizable population, a moderate to strong labor base, a wild animal problem, and a surprisingly high literacy rate," Jerald answered promptly. "Your ruins are more navigable than the DC ruins, and you've got at least one major ethnic division or rivalry going on. Can't tell whether that's within the city or whether you've got neighbors you despise. More than that I don't know just yet."

"Well, that's not too bad for a start," said Painless after a moment's surprised look. "Yeah, there's a lot of people living in Philly. It's safer this side of the river, for starters, and that's even with the hippos. Which, by the way, are about twelve feet long. They might look like a big bloated joke on tubby little legs, but trust me, those things are fast, and they don't waste time playing with their food. If they catch you, they start eating right off the bat."

"Warning understood," said Jerald. "I'm guessing no Deathclaws up here, huh?"

"Can't say I recognize the word."

"Bipedal predatory reptiles," said Ellen. "Most of them are fifteen feet long nose to tail, or a little less. The breeding ones are bigger. Fast, quiet, and able to rip through most armor before you know they're on top of you."

Painless shuddered. "Nope. None of those," he said. "If we did have 'em, they'd be in the Arena. They sound like real crowd pleasers."

Ellen and Jerald exchanged glances, at least as well as any two people ever could when one of them had a full-face helmet on. "Arena," she said slowly. "Like what they've got in the Pitt?"

"No! Franklin's balls, no," Painless exclaimed. "Don't ever let anyone catch you making that comparison. There's nowhere on Earth that this city's people loathe more than they loathe the Pitt."

"And why's that?" said Jerald. "I mean. Not that the Capital considers the Pitt sunshine and Fancy Lads either, but."

"It's an old, old story, and from what I hear tell, it goes back to before the War," said Painless. "Since we're getting closer to hippo territory, I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, there was a time when the Pitt used to send their ice gangs our way on a regular basis. This was back when both cities had ice, you understand. Any other two cities in this hell-hole of a continent would've spent their time and effort trying to kill each other on the field of battle. We, on the other hand, put the fighting in the hands of champions, and we fought each other on the ice at our Arena, or theirs, in front of screaming crowds of more spectators than you could count. Had to, just to make sure everyone knew who came out on top."

"I've been to the Pitt. There's no ice there," said Ellen. "The only arena's the Hole, and you couldn't fit thousands of people around that thing if you tried."

"That's what we've heard," said Painless. "Something happened, years ago- before I was born, in fact. The lights went out in the Pitt, and they went out hard. We didn't hear from them for years. And when we finally did, they weren't interested in bashing each others' champions faces in like civilized human beings. All they wanted was whatever they could carry off. Including people; there were a whole lot of Philly folk who went to the Pitt and never came back. We didn't find out just how bad it was there for a long, long time."

Ellen shuddered.

"Yeah, I know," said Painless. "Anyway- these days, the Blood Prince has a real sharp-eyed patrol team out to look for anyone coming from the Pitt and take care of them before they get within sight of the city walls. Any Yinzers manage to make it past the patrols, he personally has them hurled into the river."

"And that's how he got the name," Jerald finished. "… right?"

"Eh." Painless wiggled one hand in midair. "More like it was just how much of a beast he is on the ice- you don't get to rule Philly unless your gang makes it to the top of the rankings, and you don't beat out guys like the Royals or the Threshers unless you're a truly vicious son of a bitch. He's pretty civilized when he's on the throne, you understand. Especially compared to the guys who run the other ice gangs. Just… don't go up against him in a match if you want to go home with teeth."

The ruins beyond the gates looked a lot like Ellen's first memories of the ruins of DC. In a way, it was reassuring. She'd half been expecting- well, as the woman had pointed them through the gates with her stick, it'd occurred to Ellen that she did know of a walled city in the Wasteland other than Megaton. A former walled city, anyway. There wasn't anybody left in Paradise Falls now, so far as she knew- the traders who came to Lacuna still grumbled about losing the sales opportunities of the city of slavers.

But that was the Capital. This was Philadelphia- Philly, by the local dialect- and where she herself had personally seen to the destruction of Paradise Falls, Philly was very much alive. And while neither of the gate guards had mentioned anything about slaves, there'd been that comment about the Pitt…

Well. You never knew.

Kang was on point as they made their way down the battered mess that was City Street. Conklin had fallen back to guard the pack Brahmin. Neither one of them was within easy hearing range; Ellen glanced over at her husband. "So," she murmured, "what do you think?"

"Well, we didn't get swarmed. That's always nice," Jerald answered, equally quietly. "Killing your way into a new city? Not a good first impression. I was worried."

Ellen blew a sigh between her teeth, but nodded. "I wasn't looking forward to that," she admitted. "This place… I don't know. We've been here all of five minutes and I'm already wishing Elder Lyons'd sent someone else."

Jerald glanced sidelong at her, his expression dubious.

"Not instead of me. I'm not complaining about that," Ellen said quickly. Briefly she wished she felt secure enough to stop and take her helmet off. "I mean along with us. Somebody with more experience with new places."

"New places like the Pitt?"

"My first trip to the Pitt, I was there for maybe two days and I accidentally volunteered myself for gladiator fighting, and my second trip to the Pitt, I threatened the city into submission with an orbital death ray and a robot army," Ellen said. "Remember?"

"I remember," said Jerald. "So does Elder Lyons."

"Yes, well- what?"

Jerald shrugged. "I'm just a Scribe. I know. I'm not command material, I don't think like that. But try this on for a minute, okay? Say you're the Elder, all right? Thirty years ago, you got sent east. You didn't know what to expect. You didn't know what you were going to find. You had orders to find whatever tech you could and get it back. And you got most of the way across the country, and then you found the Pitt. What do you do?"

"Well, if I'm Elder Lyons," said Ellen slowly, "I'm still just a Paladin, but-"

She made a slashing gesture with one hand. Jerald nodded. "Right. Maybe there's tech in the Pitt you should reclaim, maybe not, I don't know. But you know? The place is a horror show. So, you take everyone you've got and you wipe out everything you can. You take what you can carry with you, and you leave. Only you didn't do enough and you left a man behind and it makes a hell of a mess thirty years later. Right?"

"Right…"

"Okay, so, now it's thirty years later and you've got your mess mostly under control-"

"It's not his mess-"

"Yes it is. He made it when he left part of the Pitt standing. Ashur? Didn't have a whole lot going for him. Not until he took the mills over. Lyons? He remembers this. So now here's Lyons, thirty years later. And here's this woman from the past telling him there might be super tech left in Philadelphia. And Lyons remembers how things were in the Pitt, and what happened after he left. So what does he do now?"

Ellen opened her mouth, realized she didn't know what to say, and closed it a moment later.

"I'll tell you. He picks the best weapon for the job," said Jerald.

"Hey!"

"I'm sorry, El, but it's true," said Jerald. "Remember back at the RobCo factory? When I helped you bury that raider?"

( "What's the best weapon?" "The one that ends the fight the fastest." )

". . . yes."

"If there's anything left of General Atomics, it's because there's something here that's kept it from being found all this time. And if that something isn't a bunch of psychotic killer robots? It's probably people. And if it's people? Then they're probably really dangerous. Either they need to be on our side, or they need to be destroyed. You? Don't do things halfway. You emptied Paradise Falls. You wiped out those aliens on that ship and blew up another one. You got sent to look for a couple of raiders who attacked a water caravan and when you came back Evergreen Mills was dead. Point blank, El, he knows that if there's a problem here you're either gonna get the people involved on our side, or you're gonna make sure there's nothing left standing in a ten mile radius. Not just grab what you can and leave the job three quarters finished."

( *TARGET ACQUIRED: Adams AFB Mobile Platform* )
( ** WARNING: This will commit ALL WARHEADS to target and lock this station! ** )

". . . El? You okay in there?"

( if you had not committed such great sins God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you )

"Sorry," said Ellen, shaking her head rapidly. "I just- just hope- I don't want it to be that. I really don't."

He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers between hers, a difficult feat given that his were bare and hers were armored. "I know," he said gently. "I know. Neither do I, I'm just saying. Now, do me a favor. Take a good, deep breath, then let it out, and try to hope, okay? Who knows. Maybe the guards are just for show. Maybe they've got bad neighbors, like the kind that eat people or something. Maybe they're sane here."

". . . you're way too good at making me laugh."