Chapter 15 Shadowtown

John felt his stress ease as once again he became one among many. His donated clothes camouflaging him. He looked like everyone else ambling through the narrow gate into Shadowtown. The gate had once been a three storey, red brick, building. The ground floor hollowed out entirely and both floors above stripped back to a series of walkways. Patrolled by guards with assault rifles.

As the crowd ahead split into two, a fully functional, fully armoured, fully armed, sentry bot scanned them with its menacing red eye. It put Rusty to shame. Articulated, tripod legs, wheels protected behind metal plate. Equipped with dual triple barrel Gatling’s and shoulder mounted forty millimetre launchers. It made the unearned knowledge scream inside John’s head. Alerting him to the level of sheer devastation the old world weapon could unleash. The walkways, the guards, the massive bot, it all sent a direct and simple message, do not fuck with us.

Beyond the overtly intimidating security Shadowtown couldn’t have been more different than the Vault. This place erupted with life. Every square inch occupied with simple stalls, tall brick buildings with tables and chairs outside. Repurposed steel, glass, bits of cars. All creating walls, walkways. Not one repeated pattern in the homes, shops, or even the people, before him. John felt instantly overloaded with sights, smells, bright colours. And Lady Luck’s smooth voice coming from everywhere all at once.

“John, John.” Robco shouted him back to the task at hand. “In here.” The older man pointed to the building on their right. Red brick, clean windows, white steps leading to a big blue door. Surrounded by wrought iron fence, with painted men wearing defeated expressions handcuffed to it.

“What about the cart?” Robco sold the two construction bots almost immediately, but that still left two more bots. Plus the contents of the cart itself.

“If they want to steal right in front of the Sheriff’s office they’re welcome to try.” John saw the sign above the door, and the box Robco carried. Stuffed with the recovered clothing from the gruesome alley outside the coffee shop.

Inside metal benches took up most of the large room. More painted, defeated, men cuffed to them. Their insolence or non-cooperation earning them punches, kicks and slaps, from the leather armour clad sheriffs. They made Vault Sec look like kids playing at the real thing.

The back wall had a fenced in counter, manned by a burly deputy. Barking orders and relaying instructions over the din. Robco spoke with him a moment and handed him the box. The burly deputy took it with a sad look, and directed Robco to a locked door on his left. John joined him quickly, and a different deputy opened the door from the inside, ushering them both into a small room.

“John, this is Sheriff Bob. Any trouble, you come see him, he’s a good man.” Sheriff Bob stood about the same height as Robco, similar age, and sporting a thick beard.

“Good to meet you, any friend of Robco’s.” He didn’t seem rude, simply too busy for small talk. “You found this stuff where exactly?”

“Just of the Eight, old coffee shop in Enfield.” Robco ripped the page from his notebook containing the basic words that didn’t nearly begin to describe the eight lives lost. Bob looked it over with equal parts disgust and relief.

“Animals…You got ‘em right?”

“Not me.” Bob looked at the young man he'd barely paid attention to in a new light.

“Damn kid. You get tired of hauling scrap, you come on by. You get a name?”

“Ripsaw, I think.” John didn’t think. He felt strangely sure and just blurted it out, again. Letting things slip because he felt like the people around him needed to know. The whole incident felt hazy if he tried to think about it, but reflexively had answers when asked.

“Now the good karma is reward enough.” The older man looked at John and smiled. “But if there’s a bounty, and you can throw in something useful for the kid.”

“I’ll run it.” Bob smiled through his bushy beard and turned to leave. Robco stopped him awkwardly.

“Bob…any word from down south?” John picked up on the mixed expression on Robco’s face, knowing the cause. The same cause that led them to their gruesome discovery in the first place, his son. The Sheriff hung his head, well practised at giving no answers to those who needed them most.

“South’s a mess right now Robco, I haven’t heard much of anything worth a damn in weeks.” He left, leaving unasked questions in the air like the smell of stale blood and smoke in the windowless room.

Bob returned a minute or so later laying John’s useful reward on the table. Heavy, dark steel, cylindrical, a sawn off twelve gauge, pump action, pistol grips front and back. “Scumbag had a price, put a waitress through a window over a bill. Can’t spare the shells and it needs a clean, other than that it’s solid.” John picked up the sawn off, instinctively pumped it to check the chamber. He folded up the front grip and slid it into a deep pocket in his long leather coat. He told himself the weight would serve as a reminder. Not of useless, corrosive guilt, but strong resolve. And the ability to do what was necessary.

Robco’s mood brightened almost immediately after Sheriff Bob ushered them back on to the bustling streets. Everyone seemed to know him, and he in turn knew them, waving, shouting back and forth over the crowds.

The stalls sold just about everything. Clothing in different styles, tools, machines John couldn’t figure out the purpose of. Handguns, rifles, shotguns, knives, heavy edged weapons that looked to be straight out of a comic book. Robco dismissed it all as garbage, poorly made garbage at that.

Every third or fourth stall cooked and sold hot food. Strange things on sticks, in bowls, the enticing smells changing as they walked. The only constant through it all, Lady Luck, her voice coming out of every speaker.

“Lady Luck is with you children, live from The Tower with power every hour.” She had a lyrical cadence to her smooth voice. “The good people at the north side Chop House just sent up a fine meal for this Lady’s lunch. Be sure and stop by for freshest cuts this side of the river, up next more news, but first Roy Brown and his kind of chops.” Upbeat, rhyming, music played over the market, John tried to listen but all he could hear were words he didn’t know.

Instead he watched Robco work. Watched him barter with people behind stalls and in buildings. The older man did it well, greeting people by name. Getting them to up their offers, or throw in this or that. Mostly he took caps, pouches of varying sizes, most weighed to calculate the amount within.

To John’s surprise Robco didn’t really sell his branded whiskey. He used it to aid his bartering. Throwing in a bottle or two at just the right moment to get the outcome closest to what he wanted. It worked well. John, introduced as ‘my assistant’ to most, must have handed over ten bottles and they weren’t even half way round the roughly square town. Enclosed behind robot built walls.

John stood at the back of the cart, trying and failing to look mean, as Robco bartered over spare parts with an unusually unfriendly stall owner.

“You Sir, you, the big fellow in the fine coat, yes you.” John turned to see a thin man in a black suit and formal hat shouting loud enough to draw attention from more than John. “You look like a weary wanderer of the wastes.” He didn’t wait for John’s response. “Imagine this, you’re outside, night has fallen, and rad rain begins to pour.” The thin man waved his arms in an overly dramatic manner. His white gloved hands held a black cane and a brightly coloured circle that looked like fabric, stretched over wire. “Why you’ll be half ghoul before sunrise.” He pulled a twisted face to the amusement of the gathered crowd. “But fear not, I have the answer to your woes.” With a flourish the thin man threw the fabric circle into the air.

It sprang open to reveal a semi-circular structure many times bigger than the original, deceptive circle. “Percy’s Patented Pop Up Palaces ladies and gentlemen! This wonder of the wastes will keep you warm and dry on even the coldest, wettest nights!” John inspected the pop up structure, it looked thin, flimsy, but he couldn’t deny the cleverness of its design. “The palace is perfect for lone wanders, pairs if your partner is, amenable.” The gathered crowd laughed at the over the top, lewd gestures of the thin man. “And what pray tell will this wonder cost you? What price could you put on dry clothes on a wet day? Two hundred caps, no. One hundred and fifty, neigh. Despite the complaints of my poor wife and hungry children, I’m all but giving these away for a scant one hundred caps! Today only!” The theatrics paid off as the crowd shuffled forward. Forking over fistfuls of clattering caps to the plainly dressed woman handing out fabric circles from a simple stall.

“John, come on, never mind that flim-flam artist, we’ve got to go.” Robco seemed visibly annoyed. Perhaps John’s easily distracted attention had begun to grate. Or perhaps he hadn’t got the better end of a deal, either way John didn’t feel like a very good assistant.

Robco sold the carrier bot and the last of the cart’s contents. Save for a few bottles he put inside the walking fridge bot, plus a handful of bits he put in a newly acquired satchel.

They stopped at the west gate, queuing loosely to drop off the empty cart. Pretty girls in low cut tops walked the lines, selling treats from wicker trays. Each one promoting the same establishment. A wooden, two storey building with a rooftop balcony. Judging from the overly friendly demeanour of the girls, they sold a different kind of treats inside.

John tried to regain his professional mean face as Robco called over one of the girls and bought two hard, salty, twisted bread snacks. It tasted good, crunchy, fresh, sharp, but made him thirsty.

“Listen, we’re gonna go see my old pal Virgil.” Robco mixed them both an ice cold Nuka Cola and whiskey as he talked. Drinking a little cola then topping the bottles off with whiskey and swirling them gently. The cool liquid, cut with the smoky warmth, seemed to provide a clam bubble around them as they queued. “I mentioned him right?” John shook his head, he couldn’t remember. “He’s a ghoul.” John’s mind flashed the image of the angry, meat wrapped skeleton, rotted skin peeling away as it clawed at him.

“Like the one…”

“No, nothing like that.” Robco tried to reassure him, but fell short. “Not yet, anyways.”

Robco paid the woman running the cart rental stand. He received a numbered disc, explaining further as they walked on. The walking fridge bedside them. “See, when the bombs fell folks that didn’t have a Vault to shelter in took cover where they could. Underground car parks like my father’s father, or homemade bomb shelters. Anywhere they could.” John tried to pay attention through the bustling crowd. “Now over time the rads crept into everything, including people, most died quickly but some, well, didn’t. No one’s sure why but a few people here and there adapted, mutated, and survived…” He trailed off, searching for the right words. “Sort of.”

They stopped outside a large square building. Blacked out windows, five sets of double doors at the top of broad steps. Four of which were boarded up and the last one flanked by armour clad deputies. “Wait, they survived the war?” John expected he’d misunderstood, misheard in the oddly familiar, yet completely new crowds.

“Yeah, most of ‘em are hundred, hundred fifty years old.” The casualness in Robco’s voice threw John, that was three times longer than everyone he ever knew. “Same shit killing ‘em keeps ‘em alive.” John saw pity in the older man’s face, not for him this time.

“Do you think.” John raised his left arm, tapping the jet black pipboy, almost excitedly. Robco nodded. “They go where we can’t, rads don’t affect them like you and me, not no more. Means they always get good gear, and remember things from back then.” The admiration for fellow scavengers turned back to pity in an instant. “The ‘old world blues’ they call it.” Robco gestured to the vibrant marketplace, filled with colour, sound, life. “They can’t see what we have, only what they lost.”

“Take this, it’s rad-x.” They both took the pre-emptive anti rad medication. “Don’t stare, but don’t not look at them either.” Robco’s flat, even tone re-emerged as they walked the steps into the old building.

“Welcome to the Ghoulhouse.” The armed, masked, deputy spoke in a rasping tone as he opened the door for them.

John stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the unexpected darkness inside. Windows covered, the only illumination inside from dozens of pre-war lamps. Too many to be efficient. And candles, soft, low, flickering light that from a distance made the people look like everyone else. However up close, it did the very opposite.

As John followed Robco down the dark corridor the people working the stalls stood. The low, soft, light falling on what little skin they showed. Revealing it to be burnt, rotting, decaying from the inside. The sadistic nature of the radiation killing them agonisingly slowly, while keeping them alive long enough to feel it.

John tried not to stare as a shambling figure brushed past him in the corridor. Close enough that the hidden pipboy detected a rad spike and it’s built in Geiger counter spat out audible clicks. “Shut that off!” Robco stepped to John quickly. More concerned with causing offence than revealing the device on his arm. The figure that brushed John stopped and turned. Getting deliberately, uncomfortably, close. John tried to cover the sound of clicks with his hand.

“Watch it Smoothskin.” The figure spoke in a rasping tone from a mouth missing lips. A face missing ears, a nose. Fleshy cheeks replaced with thin greying skin, stretched taught over the near visible skull and jaw bone.

“Sorry friend, he don’t mean nothing by it.” Robco stood in front of John, blocking and defusing the increasingly tense ghoul. John slowly tightened his grip on his heavy, bladed, multi-tool.

After staring a moment longer at John with deep, entirely black eyes, the ghoul turned and went into a room off the corridor. Strange music escaped as the door swung open and closed. John relaxed his grip and drank to calm himself.

“Bastard.” John thought Robco meant him for a moment. “Some of ‘em will do that, get in your face, making you look at them.” The older man slapped John on the back. “You did good though, kept your cool, didn’t let him rile you up.” John felt scared, even now. He told himself that these were people on the inside. Tried to see past the rad ravaged faces, but he couldn’t. Anytime one of them moved, or spoke, he thought of the far more decayed and dangerous creature that attacked him on the road.

They walked another corridor marketplace. John busied himself by inspecting the stalls and keeping an eye on the clanking fridge bot, trailing them through the sparse crowds.

There were similar things in the Ghoulhouse as there were outside it. Tools, weapons, spare parts. But the differences in what they bought and sold helped John understand just how human the ghouls really were.

Clothing seemed to be more important to them. Less functional, more fashionable. Bright colours, patterned shirts, t shirts with strange pictures and slogans. Long dresses made of shiny material, feminine shoes that looked painful to wear. All displayed on the stalls, modelled by some of the human workers for the amusement of the customers.

The other stalls that drew the biggest crowds were the ones selling junk, not useful junk, old world junk. Models of people made of ceramics. Painted pictures in ornate frames. Plastic children’s toys. Boxes of unmarked holotapes. Impossibly clean, finely cut, drinking glasses. Remains of their world saved, hoarded, protected from people who wouldn’t look twice at them. Or if they did would more than likely use them as firewood.

Robco traded the injectors and the small metal canisters they took from the raiders for a few tools. Some synthetic cord, and a cleaning kit.

The female ghoul, only identifiable as such due to a blonde wig, packaged his purchases in a thin plastic bag and came from behind the stall to hand it to John. As she did her bony fingers brushed his hand, he forced himself no to react, to look the woman in her black eyes and smile. “Here you go Sweetie.” Her voice had the same rasping tone, but her manner had a lightness that few of the others shared. John suspected, from his sideways glances, the older man was testing him. Without outwardly manifesting his deep unease, he introduced himself to the female ghoul.

“Hi, I’m John.” He stretched out his hand, open and inviting, willing it not to tremble in fear.

“Suzie, owner and proprietor of Suzie’s Salvage.” She waved her bare arm outwards showing her three stalls. All John could see was the burnt skin, decaying muscle, and rot. He felt determined not to react. Not to embarrass the good natured woman, afflicted with a terrible burden yet refusing to let it define her.

“Impressive, bet it keeps you busy.” Just make small talk he told himself. Desperate for the encounter to be over, but refusing to break away first. She smiled a lipless, yellow toothed, smile.

“It certainly does, we’re here six days a week, you got stuff to trade, come on by, any friend of Robco’s is a friend of mine.” A potential customer showed interest in some of her wares and the good natured ghoul politely excused herself to make another sale. John breathed a sigh of relief, then felt ashamed at the fear he’d felt while simply talking with a pleasant trader.

“Suzie’s one of the good ones.” Robco had been watching him, and seemed pleased with his performance of normal behaviour.

“She seems nice.” John didn’t lie, but he didn’t say what he thought.

“Come on.” Robco said as he tapped an old, wall mounted sign that said ‘Auditorium’. “Let’s go see Virgil.”

John had adjusted to the low light and thick odour of burning incense in the corridor. Everything changed again when they entered the auditorium.

Open, bright, sunlight flooding in from a series of clean, wide, windows along both side walls and ceiling. The room sloped downwards to a simple, raised stage. Rows of what had once been seating had been replaced with waist high tables. Laden with tools, tin cans, clothes, packs, bottles, blankets, medical equipment, spare parts, machinery. And a hundred other things John didn’t recognise.

He looked behind the figure working at old desk at the edge of stage. The unearned knowledge in his head started feeding him information. Calibres, muzzle velocity, cyclic rates. All unwanted, unneeded, unwelcome, but coming rapidly, prompted by the arsenal at the back of room.

Light machine guns, submachine guns, scoped rifles. Pistols, shotguns, grenades, explosives. Even rocket launchers, all to a far higher standard than anything else he’d seen, they looked almost new. John pretended to be interested in a box of plastic toys, turned his back and shut his eyes, tight. Like he did when he feared a wolf had escaped his boyhood nightmares and hidden in the locker in his room.

“Virgil!” Robco said in a loud, clear voice. From the desk on the stage, the ghoul looked up from his work. Eyes black, skin decayed, nose and ears missing. Dressed in a clean white vest, making no effort to cover his skin as the others did. The same rasping tone came from his lipless mouth as he spoke.

“Robco, you filthy junk rat, what’s it going to cost me to get rid of you?” John couldn’t tell if the ghoul was pleased to see Robco or not.

“A decent pair of gloves, a sharp knife, and some of that old world knowledge of yours.” Robco bounded down the gentle slope and stood a few feet from the desk. Keeping them at eye level for a solid bartering position. The ghoul rifled through boxes at his side and dumped gloves and a knife in front of him.

“Tac gloves and a Ka-bar. Eighty caps, buy ‘em and beat it.” If the ghoul had been pleased to see Robco, that changed with the mention of old world knowledge.

“Virgil, is that any way to treat an old friend?”

“An old friend, no, You? Ninety caps.” The ghoul didn’t even take his black eyes off the terminal he worked on.

“Come on Virgil, the kid needs a lead, where’s your sense of adventure?” Robco’s bartering hadn’t let him down all day, he wasn’t going to let it now.

“I left in twenty seventy seven, with my good looks.”

“There’s a jar of Private Reserve in it for you.” The well timed offer of strong booze did the trick. The ghoul shut down his terminal and produced a trio of fine cut glasses from a drawer.

“John, get a jar and a cold one.” Robco’s tone sounded hurried, like he convinced Virgil to help, but didn’t know how long that may last. He climbed the steps and sat on a plastic chair at the end of the desk. John retrieved an ice cold Nuka Cola and a jar of clear liquid from inside the walking fridge bot then joined them on the stage.

The first thing John noticed was the ghoul’s arm. Half way down the bicep decaying skin and rotted muscle was fused to robotic steel. John had seen prosthetics in the Vault, but those were crude hooks or less. This looked like an improvement to the real thing.

The robotic arm looked like it could have been attached to an Assualtron at some point. Ball and socket elbow, pistons in the forearm. Now improved significantly. Extra armour, more dextrous triple pronged fingers. And an interchangeable mounting system to remove parts, or the whole thing.

Virgil noticed John staring. As if to punish him the ghoul took a small white stick from a box on the desk, held it with his teeth, and brought his mechanical hand up to it. A tiny spark jumped between the dextrous claws, lighting the white stick.

A wisp of smoke climbed from the burning end as the ghoul drew the rest into his lungs with a deep breath. As he exhaled smoke escaped from the thin, rotting, hole filled skin along the ghoul’s neck and cheeks. Clouding his skull like head in grey fumes. “What’s a matter kid, never seen a ghoul before?” Just like the other one outside. Taking grim delight in making people uncomfortable John thought to himself. Something Louisa said rang in his ears, a new man, a man who didn’t have to take insults anymore.

“Actually I saw one yesterday, right before someone blew its rotten fucking brains out.”

“John!” Robco sounded disappointed, John felt disappointed in himself. “I’m sorry Virgil, he’s had a rough stretch of road.”

“No, it’s ok, don’t take no shit from nobody kid.” The ghoul gave John a slight nod of respect as he poured the strong Private Reserve from the jar. Carefully, slowly, with his once human hand. Making sure his fine glass had almost triple the clear, sweet smelling, liquid in it. He used his robotic claw like hand to pass out the glasses, showing off its light grip.

John and Robco took small sips of the strong alcohol, Virgil gulped it down in one go. Much to Robco’s amusement and John’s shock. “Alright.” The ghoul said as used his robotic hand to effortlessly flick the cap off the ice cold Nuka Cola. “What’re you looking for?”

With a nod from Robco, John rolled up the leather and mail sleeve to reveal the jet black pipboy. It felt strange to try and read a face with so much missing from it. Yet John saw recognition in the deep set, black eyes, along with something else he couldn’t place.

He looked at John for a long moment before speaking in the rasping voice, “So you’re a tunnel snake.” John didn’t know what that meant. He scrolled to the schematics for the parts he needed to find to save the Vault, to free Rosie, to free them both.

“I need to find these.” There didn’t seem to be any point in keeping much else from the well over a century old ghoul. “We thought the best place to look would be another Vault and, well,”

“And who knows more about the old world than the people who were there.” The ghoul took another deep breath of smoke, exhaling away from John this time. “I’m sorry kid, most of them Vaults were a scam.” John didn’t understand, Virgil tried to explain in his rasping, smoke filled, voice. “See, we never thought any of this would happen, no one did, too busy getting a nicer car and a bigger house. No one paid attention till it was too late.” The old world blues Robco described were written all over what had been a human face.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” John tried to prod the ghoul back to the matter at hand, as the true curse of the rad ravaged people took hold. It wasn’t their appearance, it wasn’t the physical pain. It was the world they built and let slip through their fingers, becoming a world of ruin. A harsh reckoning for a life of excess and ignorance.

“So I take your money right, and I sell you a room underground, a room you don’t really think you’ll ever need.” John could barely grasp the concept of money, never mind the idea of buying something you didn’t want to use. “Who’s to say whether that room is even real. Maybe I just pocket the cash, maybe I sell that room ten times over. Then when doomsday rolls around there’s nobody left to complain.” He almost sounded impressed. Virgil extinguished his cigarette, and immediately lit another with the aid of his robotic arm. John felt defeated by the rational explanation, but didn’t entirely believe it, his Vault was all too real.

“There must be some out there though right? They can’t all have been scams.” John waited for an answer, hoping he wasn’t about to hear about his own Vault.

“Oh sure, but most didn’t last more than a decade or two. Either they collapsed from within, or people just left, came to places like this. People aren’t supposed to live underground.” The rasping voice had a certainty to it, a certainty John shared.

“You got that right.” John sipped too much of the Private Reserve in an attempt to quench his rising anger. He started coughing as his throat burned, amusing the other two men with a combined age of more than two hundred.

“Any idea’s where the kid could find those parts?” Robco pressed his very old friend. Virgil shrugged with only one arm. “Really? Nothing?” The older man seemed almost confused at the lack of information, or maybe he just wanted to help John.

“Sorry kid.” Virgil changed the subject, “You ever do any hacking with that thing?”

“A little.”

“I’ll tell you what, I got an old mag locked safe back there, you get it open and I’ll give you second pick.” Robco cleared his throat, deliberately, and the ghoul upped his offer. “And I’ll throw in a vest, can’t say fairer than that.” John looked to Robco, who gave him a subtle nod. John agreed and set to work attacking the still active magnetic lock of the thick, steel, box that hadn’t been opened in over a century.

Robco picked through the tables of looted goods. John brute forced the digital lock. Neither noticed Virgil power up his terminal, set a programme running. And just as covertly, put it back into sleep mode. Leaving the terminal dormant on the outside, but running something secretive on the inside.

Robco and Virgil haggled over the walking fridge bot. The entire deal nearly collapsing as Robco took a few too many bottles out. Still they reached a price both accepted over more Private Reserve that John declined.

His own, crude, brute force hack managed to defeat the mag lock. It gave him a list of words, transposed from numbers. By the time he punched in the fifth one on the nine digit keypad, the mag lock opened with a clunk.

The weight of the lock pulled the steel safe door open slightly. He wanted to open it fully, yet he didn’t, unsure if he may be overstepping. Instead he clipped the wireless four pin back in place, rolled down his mail sleeve, and called them over. “I got it.”

Virgil moved well for a man whose age was in triple figures. Crouching, he opened the old safe, and starting making a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I’m gonna pick nothing, how ‘bout you kid.” The safe door swung open to show an empty space.

“Deal’s a deal kid, here.” John reached out and took the scrunched up vest from the ghoul. Without looking like he was trying to avoid touching his rotten hand.

The fabric felt like thin canvas, but lighter, in colour and weight. With a pattern that suggested it had been woven on a machine. Little more than two squares of fabric held together with wide straps at the shoulder and the side. It didn’t look comfortable, or warm, or much use at all. However John’s father instilled manners in him. Given how polite Wallace had been, Robco had done the same. He wasn’t going to disappoint the generous older man twice in one day. “Thanks, this looks nice.” The older, and much older, man laughed.

“It’s bulletproof kid.” The lack of features on Virgil’s face made it tough to tell if he was serious or not. John held the vest out, looking at it in a different light.

“This can stop a bullet?”

“Happy to provide a demonstration.” Virgil’s robot arm pointed, in a very fluid manner, to the high end weaponry covering the back wall.

“Trust me John.” Robco unbuttoned his dark shirt to reveal he wore a near identical vest, “It’s bulletproof.” The older man sounded like he was about to start bartering again. “You know you never did tell me what you make these out of.”

“That’s right, I didn’t.” Virgil sounded as if he dodged that question before.

“Thank you Virgil.” John shook his rotting, bony hand. Looking the ghoul in his deep, full black eyes. Suppressing his unease to thank the man for his gift.

“Alright beat it junk rats, you’ve cost me plenty and spent not one lousy cap.” This time John knew he didn’t mean the harsh words.

As they got half way up the gentle slope, Virgil shouted out. “Hey kid.” With his flesh arm he threw something to, or rather at, John. Despite the heavy leather coat he plucked the tumbling object from the air, without thought. A pair of glasses with dark lenses and a chrome finish. He looked back at the ghoul, confused. “For the sun.”