Crawl Out Through The Fallout (Fo4 Fanfic)

Tourist

      "Kay, now what am I supposed to do with this?" Fiona fidgeted with the Courser chip. "No fucking clue. But I have an idea where to go to figure this out." Erin replied. He grabbed her arm, pulling up the map on her pipboy. "We're heading east towards an old church." He tagged the destination.
     Fiona still in a haze from the previous events followed Erin blindly through the city. She wanted to take a nap, and a shower, but that will sadly have to wait. She wondered if Erin ever bathes, he always seems to have dried blood or dirt in his hands. She smiled to herself thinking about funky tan he must have from his gloves. She was pretty ripe herself, not having access to clean water in what seems like forever. She was used to being dirty, covered in oil from cars, but apocalypse dirty was a different story.
      According to Erin the walk would only be about 20 minutes or so. Over the normal stray gunfire from the city she could hear him humming along with the radio. "In a good mood are we?" She teased with a playful grin. "it's a good song." He kept his eyes forward. Just as the chorus began she had the best idea. She grabbed his hands and swung him around in a circle. "Don't they know It's the end of the world?" Fiona sang, sloppily dancing along with him. Or more walking around
in circles holding his hands. She laughed at the weird look on his face as he stood there stiff as a board. "Awe, you suck! Ill teach you how to dance one day." She smiled, letting go of his hands.
        Fiona nearly tripped over the steps of the run down church. "Watch your step, we're here." Erin stated. Fiona was sceptical, it definitely didn't look like much. "I hope you're not just taking me to a rundown church to sacrifice me to whatever God gave you super human abilities." She joked walking through the rubble. "Yeah that's exactly what's happening." He scoffed, shooting a ghoul before it jumped out at them. "Wonderful." She giggled.
          Erin lead her down into some kind of tunnel. It was humid and dark, it smelled foul. Now she was really sceptical. "Ok this is starting to creep me out. Where are we going?" She asked. She held onto his arm with her right hand and used the pipboy flashlight with her left. "The Railroad." He stated as they approached the end of the tunnel. Fiona watched him put in some kind of code on a dial that spelled out Railroad. She'd overheard some people in Diamond city or Goodneighbor talking about the Railroad, or following the freedom trail. At first she didn't think anything of it, and she certainly didn't think that Erin was apart of this organization. "I didn't know you were apart of the Railroad?" "I'm not. I just do odd jobs for em here and there. Think they call it a Tourist or something"
     The two walked through the hidden passage into what seemed like a pitch black pit. "What-" Fiona paused as spot lights blasted into her eyes. She flinched, squinting from the sudden light. Erin scowled also squinting. "Stop right there." An older woman stood between two others, one a woman that carried a rather large Minigun, the other a man with a pistol. "You went through a lot of effort to arrange this meeting. But before we go any further, answer my questions. Who the hell are you?" The woman asked. She seemed on edge as well ast the rest. "I'm not your enemy. My friend lead me here, looking for the Railroad." Fiona called out, gesturing to Erin. "Desdemona." Erin glared at the woman. "Graves? I didn't recognise you. You look... Different. But if that's true, you have nothing to fear. Why are you here?" Desdemona questioned. "I have a Courser chip. Can your people decode it?" Fiona answered. "You have what? This is not a joking matter." She didn't believe the girl.
        A man stepped up from the back. " I didn't know we're having a party. What gives with my invitation?" He asked. He had sunglasses and black hair that definitely looked fake. "Oh, I see you invited the Courser killer and her boyfriend. Nice." He smiled at Fiona. Something about the man's tone and presence relaxed her, she just knew he had to be fun. "Deacon, you're late. You're saying this intruder actually killed a Courser? Single handedly? That'd give even Glory a run for her money." Desdemona trailed off. "News flash, boss, this girl is kind of a big deal. If you're done interrogating her, you might want to show this Courser murdering machine a little courtesy. Just a thought." With that Desdemona turned back to the two. "I owe you an apology. Anyone who kills a Courser is good in my book. I'm Desdemona and I'm the leader of the Railroad." She finished. "It's good to meet you but, the um... Chip?" Fiona awkwardly circled back. "Dez we need to let her in. She's got an intact Courser chip, for God's sake." "That violates our security protocols." "To hell with that. She killed a Courser. Theres no way she's working with the institute." Desdemona sighed, looking back at the young girl. " We're letting you into our headquarters. You're the first outsider ever to be given this privileged. We'll discuss the details of your chip inside. " She stated before turning.
       "Look at you. You special little snowflake." Erin elbowed his partners side. "Not gonna lie, I'm a little confused. At least they're helping us." Fiona shrugged. They followed Desdemona into the headquarters.
        "Tom our visitor here has a Courser chip." She called to a tall skinny man with some funky hat. "Woah? For real? Oh man, it's been ages. " Fiona found it cute how excited he was. "Right. Some ground rules. Tom can get you the code, but once he's done we get the Courser chip" Desdemona commanded. "Fine it's yours." Fiona handed the chip to the man named Tom. "Alright Tom. Make it happen."
          Fiona had drowned out Tom as he spoke aloud to himself. She looked around the underground headquarters. It was pretty incredible to her, there was a good bit of technology down there. Her eyes wandered over to Erin who was standing, crossed arms, Infront of a chalk board. It had a few names written, two crossed out. Glory, Tommy W, Charmer, Deacon, Woody. Tommy W and Woody were striked out. Fiona could barely overhear Erin and Deacon's conversation. "You heard from Vanessa lately?" Erin asked him. "Yeah. She's good. With some guy out west." Deacon answered. "I only asked if you'd heard from her." "Right..." Fiona was really curious who this Vanessa was. She looked over her shoulder, Tom was still messing with the chip. Fiona decided to walk over to Erin and Deacon. "What's with the names?" She asked. "Agents. Cross em off when they bite it." Erin answered, lighting a cigarette. "So Tommy W, and Woody. They're dead? Who were they?" She asked sympathetically. "Whispers was a heavy. Woody was-" "doesn't matter." Erin cut Deacon off. He glared at him before walking back to Tom's desk. Deacon turned to Fiona. "Woody was-" "And we got it! We got the code!" Tom yelled. Fiona rushed back to the desk. "Let me load it onto a holotape for ya." Tom finished up and handed her the tape. Fiona smiled and thanked the man, he was certainly entertaining.
       After a short conversation with Desdemona, and some goodbyes, the two headed out. Their course set back to the Glowing Sea to speak to Virgil.
      "This is awesome! We're so close." Fiona cheered, clutching the holotape. Erin simply grunted, keeping his eyes forward. "What? Are you alright? You're upset." Fiona noticed. "I got... History, with them. It's rubbing me the wrong way these days." He answered. "Tell me about it someday?" "Maybe. Someday."
    She smiled pointing forward. "To Virgil!" She declared obnoxiously. "To Virgil."