"It is; down, I mean," Par said in response to Gabe's question. Dangit all, why should Gabe have such an aversion to bear-riding? Can't he see that Par was worried? Things would have been better if the blond wasn't wounded; then Par would be putting up a facade of jerkassiness to hide the fact that he did like the blond a lot. Nevertheless, it was a long walk back to Liberty Island, a long walk in which Par would look back to watch the flames, seeing them wane in time...
Liberty Island
Par, sleepy, finally got off George, who had been dosed with sleeping herbs, and disabled the explosive collars on the two former slaves. Then he went to his truck in order to finally rest; his strength and endurance had been taxed.
@shadowsaint007, @Madly33, @Marcus XVI
Back in a safe place, Gabriel could finally relax. He had been traveling all last morning, and then he joined the group in rescuing the captured slaves. He ached and needed to patch himself up. A couple of wounds just needed washing and sterilizing, though one injury caused by the dog biting his hand needed stitches. He winced as he finished it up, realizing that it was going to leave quite a scar once it healed up.
For now, though, he needed rest. A quick, easy to digest meal, and then some bedrest. Fortunately, a place to sleep wasn't too hard, especially with his good deed for the day. There was some apprehension about kicking up a hornet's nest and angering the slavers into retaliation, but that would have to wait for another time. For now, Gabriel needed some sleep.
Just for a couple of hours, he thought, before he drifted into blissful repose.
"Yeah, I can finally think." The control command had been too ingrained to remove it without shutting down the chip, but he had managed to change it to a null value, what was essentially 'be what you want to be'. "Thanks, how much do I owe you?" Honestly, he'd hand over five thousand credits if she ask it, but if she did he probably wouldn't lead her to the Vault. "So, let's prep for the vault. I can install a simple robot hack on your pipboy to make any robot you plug into your obedient property, but it won't work on some of them. And I'll need to deactivate V-17, the Overseer, before we bring the power online or he'll use everything at his disposal to capture or kill us."
Jennifer mulled this over.
"Sounds like we need a bit more firepower," she replied. "I think I might know a couple of guys.
"So let me be honest here," she said, pulling up her sleeve, showing the Brotherhood of Steel emblem tattooed into the skin. "As you might notice, I'm Brotherhood. I'm interested in what the Vault holds. We go in there, I help you retrieve stuff, and in return, I get a pick of the rare technology. If you want, we can share analyzing and studying stuff, but we want a share of the tech. I'll see what I can do to get the BoS to help you stock up your store with whatever's in that Vault; we might even get some extra muscle.
"If you can wait a couple days while I get in touch with command, we'll probably get a Paladin to help out. If not, the two of us can probably manage it, though I might get someone closer to help provide fire support."
