Fallout 3 - Beautiful Stranger

Chapter 20 Part 2

Patience rubbed the bridge of her nose. The conversation was slow, halting, prone to veer away to subjects that had little to do with the problem at hand and her arm was becoming tired. She rested her hand on the walkway rail and the signal began cracking and distorting again. After trial and error, they had found that there was a small window, within the mainframe room, where the interference from all the high-powered equipment dwindled enough to hold a conversation.

"Ooh! Almost lost you there for a second. Have you tried holding your hand above your head?" Moira, her voice a continuous, effervescent happy tone, called across the two-way connection. "Over."

"Yeah. We tried that." Valrie gave Patience an apologetic look and helped Patience hold her hand back up into the zone of less interference. "So, you were saying about the connections needing to be made in the right order? Um, over."

"Yes! Oh, yes! From what you've described, there are safety connections, colour coded to specific levels of danger. Don't connect the red cables until you've connected the green ones and then the orange ones. Red cables always last. Always!" Moira sounded as if she had walked away from her microphone and then remembered, darting back to say one last word. "Over."

"That's great, Moira. Thanks. Over." Valrie looked over at the main terminal, now with the casing removed.

"Oh! And Patience," Before Patience could turn off the two-way radio, Moira continued talking. "I've been looking at your blood work and there are some irregularities. I'm going to need to take another sample, though. I kinda accidentally irradiated the last one. Over."

"Wait. You took blood from me? How? When did you take blood from me?" That woke Patience up. "Over."

"Don't worry! It was just a little sample and you were asleep. Anyway. Gotta go! Bye. Bye. Bye. Over." The connection clicked off leaving Patience staring, open-mouthed, at the Pip-Boy on her forearm.

"You better check you still have all your organs." Vincent had lost interest long before, as soon as the conversation turned technical. Now, he stood up. "Can we leave these two to fixing the terminal while we disarm the explosives?"

"Sure you can!" Gia poked her head up from looking at the innards of the main terminal, giving a thumbs up. "With Valrie's help, I'll get this thing working in no time."

Valrie grabbed Gia's arm and pulled her away from the visible wires, cables and circuit boards.

"Go. I've got this. Unless Mistress fucking Disaster here gets in my way." Valrie turned away and stared at the main terminal, scratching her temple with a screwdriver.

Patience and Vincent left them to it and navigated their way back through the twists and turns of the corridors, down the short flight of stairs and through more corridors, until they reached the bottom level of the mainframe room.

Vincent stepped towards the first computer bank, slow and careful. Without touching it, he moved around several times to get a look at the explosive device attached to the cabinet. He reached up and, with great care, pushed a couple of wires aside to better see their connections. Patience, a little further back, watched him with intense concentration. Each move studied and stored within her mind.

She knew that all she needed was to see him disarm one of the devices and she would be able to copy him, almost down to exact movements. She didn't know how she knew this, but she knew.

"There doesn't seem to be any anti-tampering mechanism. Looks like it was done quick." Again, he moved a wire aside and then traced it to another part of the cabinet. He looked up towards Valrie on the walkway above. "Hey! Scav! Don't connect all the wires til we've cleared these devices. They're set to go off as soon as the computer banks start doing their thing. Okay?"

Valrie didn't even look around, only her hand, giving a thumbs up showed any sign that she heard him. Vincent shook his head and returned to the device. After another few seconds, he came to a conclusion, slowly removing first one wire from the device and then a second one. He breathed out then pulled the device from the cabinet. He tossed it to Patience, giving her a wink.

"And they're all the same?" Patience turned the explosive over in her hands and then placed it against the wall, out of the way.

"Should be. If you see anything different, anything at all, no matter how minor, shout." He rubbed his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. "Right. One down. You take that side."

It took them more than a few minutes, but it became faster as Patience became used to the new skill. It amazed her how quick her mind memorised the process. In some ways, her mind appeared to be brilliant, in others, like with her memory and the technicalities of using computers, it was almost useless. Anything to do with fighting, weaponry, strategy, her mind was a wonder. Anything not of a military application was almost an afterthought. It didn't disturb her as much as it should.

By the time they finished, they had a pile of eight explosive devices lined up against the outer wall of the mainframe room and Patience could hear heated bickering from the walkway above. Leaving the explosives, she ran back up to the second level, Vincent following close behind.

"What the hell is going on?" Patience reached the walkway to find Valrie and Gia squared up to each other, each pointing a finger at the other.

"For some unknown fucking reason, Daisy Dumbass wants to use the fold-out keyboard from the turret terminal." Valrie turned to Patience, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I told her it doesn't fucking matter, but she insists."

"Because it is cool! Patience deserves the best work." It was almost adorable how Gia's forehead and bridge of her nose wrinkled in anger. "And I'm not a dumbass! But I like Daisy! That's a nice name!"

Vincent covered his mouth to hide a snigger. Gia had even shouted those last two sentences, even though she didn't need to. Patience sighed. It was like having two children. One, an older cursing teenager and the other one just about to hit their teens and not quite understanding their own personality yet.

"Will it take much longer, or be more difficult, to use the fold-out keyboard?" Without looking, she punched Vincent's arm as he struggled to contain his laughter. This was not the time for him to discover his sense of humour.

"Well, no. Not really." Valrie pushed her football helmet back off her forehead.

"Then it won't really hurt, will it?" Patience stepped aside to allow Valrie and then Gia to pass as they moved to get the keyboard.

Less than half an hour later. The keyboard attached, all the wires connected, in the right order, and they were ready to switch on the main terminal. They all held their breath as Patience switched the mainframe on and waited for the screen to flash to life.