A Rose Among Thorns

2 | When Freedom Calls

Briar Rose and Codsworth headed south to Concord; she kept her attention glued to the landscape around her and ears listening for any noise. She became even more paranoid after they passed by a dead man beside a horribly mutated dog—Codsworth called them Mongrels.

To try to ease her nerves, he filled her in on the history she had missed while she slept: after the bombs fell, the U.S. renamed themselves as the Enclave. They had planned many nefarious schemes to use nuclear fallout to their advantage, but the Brotherhood of Steel stopped them. There was also a battle for control over the Hoover Dam, but Codsworth wasn't sure who won. He told her that because there were so many Nuka-cola bottles, the bottle caps had become the currency over paper money.

She smiled in familiarity when the red rocket became bigger in the sky as they neared the Red Rocket Truck Stop. They stopped to admire it when it came into view: the building was all rusted and some of the letters of Red Rocket on the roof were missing. Obviously, no one had been living there, but at least the station survived.

A dark blot caught her attention coming out of the open garage. Codsworth immediately equipped his flamethrower and saw, and she pulled out her pistol as it ran toward her. It slowed as it neared, and she relaxed at seeing it as a normal-looking tan and black German Shepherd. The dog looked at her curiously when it stopped before her.

"Hey, boy, where's your owner?"

He huffed, looked back at the station, back at her, then sat on its haunches. He seemed to understand her question and answered it; she chuckled.

"He seems like an intelligent one. We shouldn't leave him alone out here; perhaps he can come with us?" Codsworth suggested.

She looked at the dog, waiting for her to talk. "How about it? Want to come with us?"

He barked happily, then turned in a circle.

"I think that's a yes, mum."

A deep rumbling sounded suddenly; Briar Rose looked around in bewilderment and the dog's fur bristled as it growled. Squat and furless things burrowed up out of the ground and launched themselves at them with long front teeth. It didn't take much effort to kill the frail creatures; the dog helped by biting into one and holding it down for Briar Rose to shoot.

Once the danger was gone, she looked to Codsworth for an explanation. "Mole Rats."

With the dog in tow, the trio hurriedly departed the abandoned gas station. On their trek to Concord, they came across more creatures: two huge mosquitoes feasting on a dead and disgusting double-headed cow—Bloodbugs and a Brahmin.

Evening neared when Briar Rose recognized the outskirts of Concord; the homes were either boarded up or sagging with age and destruction. She had thought that the bomb would've wiped everything out; perhaps closer to ground-zero, it was.

The pop of gunfire threw her to a stop; the rapid fire of an automatic gun and a buzzing joined it. The sounds echoed out of Concord.

"Sounds like trouble, mum," Codsworth said.

"Nothing's going to be simple, is it?" she retorted as she pulled out her 10 mm.

"The world's not simple anymore."

They cautiously entered Concord and snuck closer to the flashes of light from gunfire; as they drew nearer to the combat zone, a beam of red light would shoot down at the sources of quick light. On the road, figures darted from one corner of a building to duck behind sand bags and fired up at a balcony. Some dead bodies littered the road. At the end of that red beam on the balcony was a black man in a Revolutionary-era pinned-up hat. If she remembered right, that building was the Museum of Freedom.