Chapter 18 "Run."

John woke feeling well rested. Ready to absorb the new experience the days adventure was sure to bring, it didn’t last long. By five forty he was dressed, armed, ready. He entered the now empty Bathhouse to find Billy at the bar also up and going through papers he kept from John.

“You’re keen.” Billy wore light canvas trousers, covered in pockets, work boots, and dark blue, pressed wool coat. “Crew ain’t ready yet, shouldn’t be long.” He shouted through to the back. “Roxy, that coffee ready?”

John didn’t notice the woman who’d worn red the night before. Lost in the mirror behind the bar. The morning light and clear surface left him barely recognisable even to himself. Anew man.

Roxy stood in front of him, holding a metal pot out, annoyed at his lack of response. He pawed and pulled at the duffle bag to get the blue cylinder from the outer pocket.

He smiled as she filled it, wondering where he could get one the soft looking white robes with the embodied ‘G’ on the front pocket. She closed the cylinder up, too fast for John to see how, and placed it in front of him. He reached out to take it, just about to thank the woman, when she grabbed it herself.

“Caps.” John failed to blend in at the first opportunity. Stupid, he thought. He reached into the small front pocket filled with just fifty caps in.

“How many?” He had to ask, no sense making things worse.

“Ten.” He fumbled through the front pocket. Gloves too tight, hands sore form nervously tying all those knots the night before. Caps spilt and clattered onto the floor, the bar. Annoying the woman further, only making John more uncomfortable. He managed to count out ten of the unfamiliar shapes and meekly slid them towards the woman.

“Plus tip.” Billy cleared his throat, and held three fingers against his arm. Partly helping John, partly stopping Roxy from taking advantage.

“Get him a cup on me Rox.” The woman poured another mug, took her caps, and left without waiting for a thank you.

“Don’t mind her, she’s not a morning person.” John sat on the high stool and tried not to look defeated.

The journey to The City took the better part of the morning. The closer they got, the taller the twisted, broken, resentful, structures loomed.

Life faded from view quickly. No trees with gnarled branches. Less and less of the sickly looking brown grass, just blacktop, long broken cars and rubble in empty space.

John spent most of the trip, as he did the day before, at the back of a cart. With one clanking Protectron pulling two carts it became a near constant chore to keep moving. Keep from twisting, keep from catching on loose rocks and broken ground. He felt like pulling the damn things himself, if only to be closer to the conversation.

He’d been introduced to the five strong crew. They seemed pleasant enough, but they simply weren’t interested in John.

Billy and his right hand man Hawkins took the lead. Mitch, a tall, thin, man trailed them and JoJo were just ahead of him. The moniker for the two woman sniper spotter team, Joanne and Jolene. Inseparable and very much in love.

Such a relationship would have never been expressed this openly in the Vault. It made John sad, knowing how hard it’d been for him and Rosie to find stolen moments. Even with the acceptance they took for granted.

Their confidence, and the assorted seven point six two rifles they carried, gave John a sense of calm. It all seemed entirely routine, moving through the drab, almost monochrome environment. Save for the glorious endless blue.

On the edge of The City they came to a halt. Nothing left standing came close to the height of The Tower. The ruins had collapsed, collided, contorted into each other. Even in daylight it still looked dark. A square grid of buildings, partially destroyed, casting permanent shadows.

“John, you see there?” Billy pointed to a concrete box. A single steel door hanging open, and topped with the remnants of a narrow metal lattice. “That’s it. JoJo will keep an eye out, we’ll be nearby. Any trouble you let a shot off, clear?” John nodded. Trying not to think about the wood bodied, box magazine rifles that would be aimed at him by a pair of complete strangers.

He left the crew, glad to be rid of the cart, and approached the concrete box on the corner with his pistol drawn. It drew laughs from JoJo but he didn’t care, too busy trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling in his guts that wasn’t just the result of nerves.

The unearned knowledge whispering from the back of his mind. He switched from the compensator to the suppressor attachment. John poked the knurled tube on the barrel round the swinging steel door and opened it, slowly. Finding an empty room, racks of old radio equipment, that looked like the sketch Mr Goodnight gave him.

In the corner of the room something caught John's eye. A foot long piece of wood, out of place in this concrete environment,. As he stepped in, to his shock the wood moved. It jumped on spindly legs, turning towards him, a tiny head hissed at him. He effortlessly shot it dead centre, immediately regretting it.

In the concrete box the suppressed shot still cracked loud enough to cause an echoing shudder. The brown, wood like shell had contained faintly radioactive, disgusting smelling, yellow slime. Now splattered all over the tiny, increasingly warm box. And he’d wasted a bullet. He scanned the ground for the spent casing, determined not to waste that as well. Then had the good sense to sweep the surrounding area.

The box had been hastily thrown up from modular concrete panels on the corner of a now crumbled block. Leaving a narrow debris filled alley and barely standing brick buildings. Most burned out husks.

John did his best to clean up the disgusting creature. The hard shell hinged open as he picked it up, revealing papery wings that made his skin crawl. The foul stench of the toxic innards lingered.

John sat on the stool that felt like it wasn’t comfortable when it was new, unfolded the sketch and set to work.

After three hours of tedious, intricate work, interspersed with mild electric shocks, John felt like shit. More accurately he felt like he had to shit, constantly. Despite doing so repeatedly, almost as soon as he sat down.

After a close call with multiple layers of clothing John striped back down to the vault-suit. Leaving that half open just in case. A system raised on what he realised wasn’t actually food had started to reject every juicy bite of steak. Every swig of fizzing beer, every crisp vegetable. All being expelled violently with little to no warning.

There were two bright spots. The first being the smell of shitting into an old bucket in the corner covered the stench of toxic innards. The second that the radio equipment held up reasonably well after being abandoned for a century.

The radio equipment shared a modular design. Everything he needed contained in a removable metal housing. Three foot long, dotted with the sliding mixers, dials, and needle gauges. All shown in the hand drawn diagram, and most importantly a four pin socket.

Despite Mr Goodnight’s technical babble, it turned out to be pretty simple. The screen told him the modulator worked but little else. Nearly every wire inside the housing had been long overloaded and frayed.

He knew enough from his Mr Fix It training to understand that if he could strip enough good wire from the bad, he could test each switch in turn. Maybe find just enough to get a mapping pulse out, before lugging it back to Shadowtown. Back to the bath he promised himself that got more appealing the hotter the box got and the sharper the shocks became.

“John, John, you in there man? JoJo ain’t seen you in a while, and Robco’s gonna give me hell if you’re dead.” Billy’s light banter stopped as the man in a shiny blue suit rushed past him to shit violently in an alley.

“Damn kid, musta been something you ate.” John heard Billy correct himself, talking awkwardly to cover the sounds, “Not at the Bathhouse though, we run a clean place, literally.”

John silently thanked Louisa, yet again, as he rubbed gel on his hands and made a mental note to pick more leaves. Taking a moment before the questions waiting for him.

Billy unfolded two chairs and sat, smoking, inviting John to sit. He did, seeing the man that seemed indifferent to him had brought enough thick, brown stew for them both. “Don’t worry, I’ll eat yours. You should try and eat something though, and drink water.” John retrieved a can and sat back down, noticing Billy smirking.

“Just ask your questions.” John tried to sound light hearted but thought he misjudged it slightly.

“I only have one actually. If you were living underground safe and warm, what the hell is your ass doing out here?” Billy laughed, John sought to keep the mood light, not looking to spill his sad tale for the third time in as many days,

“There’s this girl.” Billy laughed again. Seeing little point in not taking advantage of the accident, John brought up the air recirc specs, “I need to find this. Do you know anything about Vaults?” Billy’s eyes widened in a way that almost made John regret showing him.

“I mean you hear stories, some fool with a rumour, but nothing like this. What is this thing?”

“It’s like a terminal, it’s called a pipboy.” It still felt strange to explain to someone. Billy looked him dead in the eye,

“You know the wrong person might...”

“Cut my arm off, yeah, so I’m told.”

John returned to the hotter, stench filled box. His frustrating work more than half done, answering questions from Billy sat outside. He managed to ask a few questions of his own, if only to break the monotony.

“You know I’m ok if you need to get back to the others.” John welcomed the company. Yet the pitiful silences and muttered curses following answers about his life up until three days ago had begun to chaff his already raw mood.

“Nah, they’re ‘bout done I reckon. Anyhow I’m working too.”

“Yeah? How’s that?” John’s tone came across harsher than he meant, following another short shock.

“I’m providing moral support.” John looked up from his work to see Billy smiling, joking. Yet he couldn’t deny he felt better with him around. More so as he looked at the assault rifle with the curved magazine slung over the back of the chair.

“So you own the Bathhouse?” John wanted to change the subject.

“Best steak in the Shadow, bet you didn’t have nothing like that down there did ya!” Billy sounded rightly proud of his home.

“Well we didn’t have baths, or meat, so no.” John regretted giving the answer when he heard another pitying silence.

“Shit kid, I’d have thrown one in on the house if I’d known that. Tonight you get the first bath, maybe I’ll even send Roxy in to scrub your back.” The offer of a bath sounded fantastic, Roxy’s attention, less so.

Billy continued, his voice driving back the ever present deafening silence. “Used to be a laundry, the Bathhouse, that burnt down, so we each bought a piece of the plot and built it up. More trade I bring in, more that piece is worth. That’s why we’re out here, pulling private tubs for the rooms. Some piping, maybe a heating element or two, if we get lucky.”

“Robco said it might be dangerous out here.” Aside from the disgusting six legged creature John hadn’t seen any sign of life.

“He’s right, it is. We’re on the outskirts so it’s quiet but the big danger is you can’t see things coming. And if shit goes sideways you better have a clear escape route. Thankfully we got JoJo watching out for us.” Billy waved, as if he knew the sniper team had an eye on him. “You listen to Robco kid, he’s a good guy.” John knew that already.

“Have you known him long? Robco, I mean.”

“Oh shit, ten, fifteen, years or more now. Me and Lou grew up together in town. She met Wallace, and we crewed up together for a few years, till they moved out to the Rest.” Whatever animosity Robco had for Billy, it wasn’t mutual.

“What was Wallace like?” John had a few details about the man whose coat he wore. He hadn’t asked his long grieving widow, or his still haunted father.

“Good guy, loyal, tough, smart…” Billy fell silent for a moment. “He had his demons, he’d get an idea in his head and the volume on everything else got kinda turned down, you know.” John did, all too well. “I thought living up at the Rest with a family and Grandpa Ed might help him, maybe it would have if…fucking raiders.” Billy stood in the door, demanding the newcomer to the old world pay attention. The smell of exhaled smoke covering the heated stench of shit and slime. “You know about raiders right?” John nodded, hoping not to have to answer in more detail. “Animals, you see ‘em, you kill ‘em. It saves”

“Saves two lives, I remember. Robco taught me.” They both shared a moment of respect for the older, wiser, man that taught them both so much.

Another hour of mild shocks and gentle conversation with Billy passed. John made good progress and Billy seemed happy to share anecdotes of the old days with someone who hadn’t heard them. Billy explained his detailed plans for the Bathhouse. John chipped in with his knowledge of Vault plumbing which seemed to impress Billy, and before too long his task was completed.

Every switch and dial worked. Testing them independently turned out to be a pain. Billy disappeared, returning moments later with a fistful of wires from the inside of something he called a television. Giving him just enough to try a broadcast.

He scrolled through the options on the unit’s built in terminal screen till he found the one he wanted, and with baited breath John hit broadcast.

The cursor flashed yet there was no other sign. Hoping his hours in the stinking, hot, concrete box hadn’t been wasted, he stepped outside. Feeling an immediate pipboy notification.

*New FM signal found: listen y/n?* He slammed the yes button, hearing only garbled static. A good sign, yet he didn’t let himself celebrate. Breath now completely held he scrolled to the pipboy map screen and sent a pulse.

Even the twisted remnants of the ruined antennae boosted the signal. Not by much, but combined with the tall, flat, surfaces that still stood it returned a good chunk of mapping data. Rendering it on the device an instant later. It worked, it would work again, back at The Tower.

The old radio equipment would bring him one step closer to finding the parts. One step closer to freeing Rosie. Relief washed over him, while he imagined sitting in a well earned bath, filled with steaming hot water.

John’s serene thoughts were interrupted when he noticed how close Billy had been standing to him. Close enough to see the mapping screen. “Did it work then?” Billy seemed interested, but not so much in the result, more the device itself.

“It did, it should.” John tried not to appear rude as he entered the stinking box one last time. He collected his tools, thanking Robco in his head yet again, and neatly packed everything back into the duffle bag. He heaved the modular radio equipment outside, and tried to get dressed again. The bending hurt his already irritated bowels too much so he stuffed the clothes into the bag and dropped it outside.

Even the fine leather coat felt too heavy for him in his weakened state so he respectfully folded it and gently placed it with the bag. Wondering if Billy recognised his old friend’s coat. He forced the belt back on. He felt the weight of the multi-tool, the combat knife, the rose carved pistol. Even the chain links, woven cord, and the leather that made up the belt, seemed heavier around his waist. He felt drained, figuratively and literally, but enjoyed the whiskey Billy poured him as they sat quietly in the long abandoned street.

John had been listening to Billy verbally redesign the Bathhouse at least twice. The leaderless, four strong crew appeared at the end of the block. John didn’t want to repeat the same questions all the way back so, with an understanding nod from Billy, he hid from sight in the alley. Trying and failing to not feel humiliated. “We good?” Billy spoke to someone but John couldn’t see who.

“Yeah, no thanks to you.” Hawkins sounded displeased, but eager to leave. “We got four small tubs, a decent amount of pipe, a heating coil, and some plate glass, not bad.”

“Good, load the kid’s stuff.”

“Why are we loading his shit, he ain’t dead is he?” The casual way Hawkins asked made John nervous.

“No he isn’t dead, he’s taking a crap, just load his shit and get moving. We’ll catch up.” John enjoyed Billy’s company, despite the annoying questions and dubious work ethic. John thought maybe Robco had misjudged him. He did come to check on him, and brought hot food, then kept watch as he worked. Now Billy made excuses to spare his feelings.

From the debris filled alley John heard the bot pulled carts roll on, Mitch and JoJo bringing up the rear. He came back out to find Billy standing, the folding chairs taken away. Along with his coat, bag, and all important radio unit.

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch up.” Billy didn’t make the jokes John had to come to expect. “Listen, you mind taking a little detour, twenty minutes, tops. Then we’ll head home.” John didn’t feel he could refuse, and it would only be an extra twenty minutes, on top off the four hour walk, before his bath.

Billy led John through the collapsed, and still collapsing, City. Turning along once square corners, walking round huge metal faces that once adorned the now fallen structures. Now lay on the ground. Worn, sorrowful, expressions on formerly proud faces that previously towered above everything.

Billy pointed things out as they went. The residential building they were salvaging. An abandoned long car with lots of windows called a bus. And finally, the reason for the detour. A partially destroyed brick building with oversized red doors.

“Found it last week, it’s a fire station.” John gave Billy a blank look. Combined with the shiny blue suit and computer on his arm, it was enough to draw out more detail. “If something caught light they’d send out these big trucks and spray it with water.” John got an idea of why they hadn’t left with the others. “Doors are blocked, we were going to send Hawkins up the side and through the roof.” Billy looked at John, “On a rope, obviously.”

“Yeah I gathered that.” John tried to laugh it off, even though Billy wasn’t joking.

“But that thing of yours might give us another option, a quicker, safer option.” Billy emphasised safer, he clearly cared for his crew.

John felt, and smelt, like shit, but a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, not much anyway. He nodded and Billy produced a steel bar, notched at one end, folded into a grip at the other.

He walked to the middle of the street and stuck the bar in a hole in one of the metal circles that dotted the ground. The old metal circle resisted Billy’s efforts. John applied as much force as he dared without shitting himself, levering it open. Revealing access to the city wide sanitation system.

Billy ushered him back. Taking the steel bar and banging loudly against the simple ladder bars built into the concrete. After listening to the echoing sewer for a moment, Billy all but jumped into the hole with the confidence of someone who’d done this before.

“Alright it’s clear, come on down.” John climbed down, blocking memories of the last ladder he climbed to escape the Vault. Without being asked, and with Billy taking a keen interest, he sent out a mapping pulse.

The curved ceiling and square walkways reverberated the pulse almost as well as the steel walls in the Vault. In seconds he had a fairly comprehensive map of the bowels under this corner of The City. A network of tunnels that matched the roads above, and more importantly led under some of the buildings.

Billy took the lead, automatic rifle drawn. Navigating by the pipboy map and marking corners with chalk.

Everywhere looked the same, to John it felt familiar, but not in a good way. They made their way through, avoiding collapsed dead ends. Until they reached a steel door, marked with the same faded symbol as the oversized red doors above. Secured some time ago with a heavy bar and chain, held in place by a padlock. John readied the bladed hammerhead, unsure if he could find the strength to swing it. Billy stopped him, silently gesturing to go back.

“Man that was not fun.” Billy stretched after exiting the underground sewer back where they entered. John didn’t say anything hoping to avoid the questions mixed with pity. “We’ll come back tomorrow, Mitch will pick that lock. No sense banging around down there, might wake something up.” John nodded, he had the energy for little else and he still had a walk ahead. “I’m ready for a bath, how about you?” Billy didn’t wait for John to answer, he just started walking out of the foreboding cityscape, headed for home.