Mindblown: A Fallout Tale

Part 5: Signal

The team couldn't reach whatever nearby town there was before it became too dark to see.
They settled for waiting behind a slight overhang until the sun rose again.
Cywren passed a Nuka-Cola to Timebomb and they clinked the glass bottles together.

"Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

Cywren began to guzzle down the bottle as though she hadn't drank anything in days. She finished the bottle in at least a few seconds.
Timebomb took more time drinking the soda.

"You gonna finish that?"

"Uh... You can have what's left if you want."

"Nah, if you're gonna finish it, I'll just take another full one."

She reached into her bag(?) and pulled out another full bottle and started guzzling that down.
Cywren would've probably offered Quasar a bottle if he had hands to hold a bottle with. The dog didn't seem to want any part of the soda-drinking, though.
Timebomb was very impressed, even though this was nothing compared to the time when Cywren drank every single Nuka-Cola bottle in her Nuka-Cola storage room back at the capital a couple years ago. Including the weird, pinkish-purple glowing ones.
Even when she did the strangest of things, they were really impressive strange things.
Once she finished the second bottle, she proceeded to sit up against the overhang a bit more.

"That whole thing from before really tuckered me out, haha. I can't wait to find something to sleep on."

"Well, if there's really a town nearby, there should hopefully be beds there."

"Hopefully. Imagine there being a whole town and not being a single bed."

"That would be strange, to say the least."

"Yeah, it would be."

"That would mean a possible mystery of some kind, though. It's been a while since we got to be part of solving a mystery. Or maybe they'd just be sleeping on the floor, I dunno."

"... Yeah..."

Cywren looked up at the sky to marvel at the beauty it had to offer. Timebomb noticed and started to look as well.
He could understand why she liked to look at the night sky so much, it was beautiful, but it wasn't something she always did. It was one of the more recent traits she'd developped.

"You know, since I know first-hand that there is someone out there... I wonder if Vent's somewhere out there too. Or if he's even still around here."

Timebomb was never sure how to respond when Cywren brought up the friend she used to have in her head. She definitely knew him better than he did. He remembered the day when her friend left, though. That was a weird day.
Though it was kind of something that being built up to, in a sense.
It was a hard thing to even comprehensively think about.

"..."

"Sorry."

"Hey, it's okay, I'm just not really sure how to... Talk about him as well as you do, you definitely knew him better."

"I mean, he was in my head. It's not like I had much of a choice but to know who he was. Honestly, I'm still really relieved but surprised that you believe I had a friend in my head and that I wasn't just crazy."

"I trust you. And you're not exactly a crazy person in my experience."

"Really? I dragged you and Veronica to raid the entire main base of an army of people who believed themselves to be the new Roman legion, nearly got ourselves killed hundreds of times over and you still think I don't have at least half a screw loose?"