Gears N' Gals: Paradise City

1

Viv sat atop the roof of the Red Rocket, counting her caps. Seven. That was all she had to her name. Her singed gloves, scraped leather and rubble-saturated hair were oppressive, much like the rad storm that had blown through the streets of Lexington. It had been about a week since she'd crash landed a few yards from the Corvega plant. That big industrial monolith had drawn her in like a moth to a flame but the noticeable hum of an unmanned turret had been enough of a warning that she'd regretfully had to sneak by under the cover of dusk. Even though she was rather small by American standards, at five foot six inches, she still tread carefully. Especially when she spotted the tell-tell blinking of a well-placed land mine.

Her body ached all over, and her trusty EC-issued cruiser was significantly banged up, so much so that she feared trying to activate its engine would just draw attention. Strapped to her back, feeling oddly cool against the few patches of her exposed skin, she'd carefully skirted the shadows until she came across the familiar gas station.

In her time out West, she'd encountered a handful of these and everytime she'd found it a good starting point. Tools, living space, some even had roofs that were still intact. Like this one - and perplexingly, she'd felt compelled to use it as a perch rather than shelter. Her heart ached, tightening as she stared up at the vast, twinkling stars amidst the inky blackness. She felt so much smaller. Suffocated by the city around her, ensnaring. Not unlike her earliest memories - her time in Mank Town.

Her fingers curled around her, hugging her close. She could feel her left hand trembling involuntarily. She sighed, grabbing the flask of bourbon at her feet, tipping it back swiftly as she felt tears swell. I miss them already. She grabbed her left hand firmly, then twisted and yanked hard, disconnecting the limb from its socket. Her metal appendage came away from its bracket, where her left elbow was, she'd mounted a leather-bound device which allowed her to detach her augment whenever she pleased. Admittedly, the sticking socket could do with some TLC but that was pretty low on her priority list - not to mention if she had a bit of cloth to spare it would be going on the various scrapes all over her body before being used to wipe that down.

Much like field striping a variety of pistols, her nimble fingers found the problem - a minor fault in the circuitry of her mechanical left arm. Likely damaged when she bailed out of the vertibird. Not to mention busting the front of her cruiser when she hit that bus stop - the trim was all screwed and the entire body of her board would need bashing back into place. The worst of it was the plasma canon build into her metal limb - the crash had unfortunately damaged the welding, so there was no way to change the Fusion Core. That means limited uses....Shit. She gnawed on her chapped lips, angry, frustrated, and terrified. It hadn't been the first time that she'd travelled far in search of a better life, hell it hadn't even been the first bust she'd ever experienced. However, this was the first time in a very long time where the weight of the world and her small place in it had hit her. No family. Her friends perished. Viv was overcome with an odd sensation of isolation and yet she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something big and awful out there waiting to swallow this little speck of algae.

Resolved to find something, anything to give her a sense of purpose, Viv snapped her arm back into place, pulled her gloves back on, and curled up hiding in the thick layers of her mechanic suit. The zipper had long since broken, but the plush wool of her sweater underneath gave a lovely layer of warmth. She fell asleep to the faint pop and crackle of distant gun fire, her eyes misted with tears as she watched the glimmering stars fade until she finally slipped into unconsciousness.

***

Nick may have not been capable of sleep, but his exhaustion was palpable. On one hand, he was happy that missing person incidents were lower than he'd been expecting, but the competitiveness of Diamond City's traders was more super-charged than a super-sledge. A few weeks from now and the autumn harvest would be in full swing. Nick couldn't fault the General of the Minutemen for much, but this nostalgic call to pre-war capitalism had often unsettled the old synth. It hadn't been the first public holiday that Nate had dusted off whenever morale took a turn. All the barren concrete bunkers throughout the Commonwealth couldn't take the stench off certain swellings of nepotism throughout the settlements.