Aim to Please

5 | Long Road Ahead

It took them two days to reach Mass Pike Interchange. MacCready still wasn't talkative, but Aurora could tell that he was eager to be free of Winlock and Barnes. Over their campfire the first night, he described the layout: the interchange was an elevated stretch of highway; to reach it, they had to take an elevator the Gunners had built. At least twenty Gunners, a few machine gun turrets, and an Assaultron made up the army she could expect. Barnes has a power armor suit, so if they could get in it, their chances of surviving increased substantially—especially against the deadly robot.

They waited hours after darkness fell before approaching Mass Pike Interchange; the giant frames held the elevated highway high above them. Below its underbelly were wooden shacks to house the Gunner Privates acting as sentries and guarding the elevator. Aurora used her night-vision scope to see how many were posted for the night; she only counted two—Winlock and Barnes were too cocky that no one would attack them in their fortress. If this wasn't for MacCready's peace of mind, she wouldn't be here because it had suicide written all over it.

Actually, Aurora wasn't sure why she was here at all. She wouldn't have so easily offered help for a sure-death mission to any of her past hired guns—their personalities weren't much better than the targets she hired them to kill. MacCready was different; even though he had been a trained killer, he seemed like he regretted being one. She guessed he reminded her that he still had humanity; that he was human like her and didn't need his soul burdened.

After pointing out the location of the two Gunners, she and MacCready changed their loud sniper rifles to their silenced pistols: he had a .45 revolver; she had a 10 mm with glow sights. They snuck into the beginning of the Gunner camp and killed the two guards without alerting the ones high above them.

They found the elevator platform connected to a shack; they pressed a button to lower it. It settled into its place with a metallic clang, and the doors opened with more noise. So much for hopes of a stealthy approach.

MacCready looked at her. "Luck."

She responded the same to him before they stepped in and pushed the button to go up. The elevator creaked and groaned as it lifted its load; the Gunners had to know somebody was coming up. Unless they were heavy sleepers—Aurora prayed for that to give them more of a chance than being shot down as soon as they reached the top.

On nearing the elevated highway, Aurora instinctively crouched down even lower in hopes of not being seen—she didn't like being out in the open and exposed. It looked like MacCready had the same thought, for he crouched low too.

The elevator stopped at the top and the doors opened to release its passengers; the double-stacked highway had rusted pre-war cars and buses still on the pavement. Holes allowed sight of the overpass above them and the ground far below them. The concrete barricades separating the ongoing and incoming traffic lanes were broken, rusted rebar sticking out dangerously. The Gunners had built wooden shacks and laid boards to cross over the holes. Surprisingly, no one stood on the landing to shoot them or raise an alarm.

Aurora scanned for any movement; in her frantic search, she caught sight of a metal man to her far right—the power armor suit. A machine gun turret guarded it and it stood in sight of a shack's open doorway.

She hurriedly pointed it out to MacCready; he nodded for her to go ahead. They began sneaking over to it. The machine gun turret continued its jerky panning back-and-forth, not seeing them yet.

"Who the hell is coming up at this hour?" a familiar but sleepy voice asked—Barnes. "If it's Harry with another false alarm, I'm going to blow his fucking head off."

A form appeared in the shack's doorway, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Before his eyes could focus to see the intruders, MacCready shot him; he fell back into the shack, dead.