Dinh AaronMk

New Order v. 2.0

So Boerd said
Didn't they have those in 1945?

Whoop, got my terminology mixed up.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

TheEvanCat said
I went to a convention once. It wasn't very fun.

I didn't go to a convention once.

I didn't get to sit in the ball pit for an extra hour.

[High Casual] A Sci-Fi RP On a Wild, Untamed World!

Map Maker jacking off.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

I feel like if I didn't kick in steam I'll be caught in the middle of something I'm not prepared for, so I kicked out the last dump and now I can write non-hidden posts.

If you keep track...

If you kept track that's 72,000 words I refurbished and now I can stop holding Evan back and I can get with him to decide how we'll get involved.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

end

“In any case, to provide android functionality it looks like the shits meshed code from a number of robots, and Pip-boys.” he continued. Glaring across the room he noticed Sweet Gin's confused look, “They're arm things.” he said, wringing his hand around his arms, “You'll fucking know when you see them.

“But they use that old OS and worked up from there and into the synthetical-biological processing in your head and across your body to make it as human as possible.

“We can only guess that as well as to their clients, those recordings are for the android's benefits as well. Since even fucking locked down on free thought you have the capability to learn and you need to fucking learn your functions. So you're loaded up with the standard RobCo and Vault Tech shit byte for byte, complete with user tutorials.

“Your computers will do the same.”

“Oh...” mumbled Sweet Gin, “And who are these RobCos, and Vault Techs?” she asked.

“Old companies.” Horse answered grumpily, “Long fucking dead. We're all just pirating off their remains. I fucking imagine we ain't gotten to stealing 5% of either companies long-lost shit. Those fuckers did a lot for that fucking War.

“But you'll know RobCo whenever you see a robot and a computer, and Vault Tech when you see a fucker with a Pip Boy, or a Vault; shit people hid in the war.”

“I see...” Sweet Gin nodded, “And their stuff is inside me?”

“Heavily modified.” answered Horse, “I won't be able to steal control of you through RobCo Termilink or even base binary. The Institute went somewhere else when they made androids. If I wanted it on my terminal, I'll need to plug into your translator.”

“Translator?” Sweet Gin asked. It sounded like a terrifying device.

“Apart from a lot of metal and plastics in normal-look people, it's one of the Institute's 101 signatures.” Horse answered, “It's what The Man goes through for his access. It's what I'd plug into if I peeled back that scalp of yours. I can get in and clear your memory. Mind fuck you.”

Sweet Gin's face went pale and scared. Horse's stern and angry look face didn't make it any better. He puffed annoyed as he went back to work. From alongside her Connie sighed and said, “Well, let's look at that raft.”

***

It was something, sort of.

The Heaven's Gate settlement nudged up against the murky, foaming Connecticut river. A thick sudsy film ran along its service. In the weak moonlight, thin twisting locks of multicolored bands shone with a metallic glow in the thick water below. And in the water rested a small, battered looking water craft. Secured to the sides sat pale, graying blue plastic barrels and bound chords of metal poles.

“The Mission used to use this to teade up and down river.” Connie said as he presented Sweet Gin the water craft. Dinah lingered in the back, looking worn and tired as she sat down at a weathered bench, “But the tahde up rivah went dead some time ago and the ae'aft's man disappeaed. No body's used it sense.”

“Um... thanks...” Sweet Gin said. She felt uncomfortable taking the vehicle. Even being offered it, she felt like she couldn't.

“But what if you need to use it?” she asked, nervously.

“It won't be an issue.” Connie smiled, “It's for a good cause anyhow, and Bahnaby would be willing to donate forgotten things to a cause that's better than what it's being used fah.

“Besides, I'm suhe one of the Templah's will find it when on pat'ol or looking fo'h Rome.”

“Rome?” Sweet Gin asked.

“Some lost city.” Connie cackled, “They've b'ought back stawies of places called Rome, but nothing matching the pre-wah desc'iption of the city. They'e seahch will neveh end, no doubt.”

“I see...” she said, “What if I find it?”

Connie smiled, a distant sort of smile. “Then I'm suhe you'll need to contact back he'a.” he said.

“So what we boing here and when we be leaving.” Dinah yawned from her bench, “If we gon' be talking all night then I'd like to find a cot and lay down.

“Don't be knowin' about the Android, though.”

Connie nodded, “You know what you'e doing then?” he asked.

“Keeping a sweet eye on this girl here.” Dinah smiled, tired, “And if I be needing too, set a Pulse Grenade on her.”

“Yes.” Connie confirmed to the distress of Sweet Gin. Having that chilling electric darkness fall on her was about as frightening as finding herself possessed again.

As Connie looked back down at her she gave him a uncomfortable smile. He sighed some, and looked away uncomfortably. “You two'll be going staight to New Yahk.” he said, “The Connecticut will empty out into the sea, follow the coast west-wahd.

“Just... just be caheful.” he added, “We don't send many refugees down that 'oute.”

“How come?” Sweet Gin asked.

“Bad mi'e luehks.” Connie replied, “If we we'en't so concehned with The Man, then we would have no issue sending you the long way t'ough the hills. But that's too much land and too much time for him to catch up.”

“What's a...” Sweet Gin started, before being interrupted by Dinah. The android was mounted with the curiosity on what this was Connie was invoking. As well as doubled in anxiety and hesitation to find out, or encounter one.

“If we be taking on Mire Lurks then I done want a proper rest.” Dinah protested, agitated, “Do we be need to leave at this hour?”

“I'm so'y.” Connie apologised, “But if you two need to then you can sit back. But you both need to depa't by the mo'ning.”

“It be fine by me.” Dinah said softly, and cheerily. Feeling refreshed at the prospect of getting a chance to sleep.

***

Outside the window night hung in the air. A blanket of ideal blackness lay across the dreary settlement. And though the men on the street had retired from the barrels of burning refuse - and their fathers having died - the lights that dotted the settlement's walls continued to glow softly. The darkened forms of the guards paced back and forth on their high parapets as they watched the city beyond. A soft peace hung over the realm.

The window the android sat behind was long blasted out. The glass removed long ago. The empty frame hung on a frame of peeling wood, signs of burn damage pitted and spotted it.

Connie had found her and Dinah both free rooms in a battered building that had taken the name of the Conneticut Inn, which was nailed to the front of the building on a large chunk of wood in dripping black ink that only exaggerated the atrocious misspelling of the business. A further sort of crypt-like air hung in it as well. It was dry, despite many of the windows removed. And it was cold too.

Much of the wallpaper was peeling back from the stucco wall. The drywall plaster itself too flaking away from the tightly stacked rows of wood that had built up the supports for the dry, chalky plaster. The rooms of the old house as well had been divided and further sub-divided into smaller compartments where the mattresses and cots could barely fit.

Apart from the android's small radio there was a soft silent sigh that washed through the morbidly dry building. Connie had no doubt retired from the airwaves for the night. The music played uninterrupted. What was on now was some old song, the singer not wielding a soft showman's voice. Sweet Gin however enjoyed the softness of the tune, and its simplicity with the slow strumming of the guitar and only its owner's voice.

So she sat in her cot, staring out at the moonlight wasteland out her broken window in her corner room. Dinah slept quietly in a cubby across the narrow "hall", if it could be called such a thing. Sweet Gin's pack as well lay on the floor, nearly taking up what precious floor space existed in Sweet Gin's closet. The barrel of Vinny's rifle poked leaning against the wall, as did the Bancroft sword.

Sweet Gin sighed troubling. She felt herself burn with a furious anxiety as she looked at the rifle, knowing that it was being just as much a tool for her, as it was a reminder of what exactly was burdening her with having fought its owner. He had killed her. Though she still felt confused as to exactly what that meant. She felt she had a grasp on the life and death thing. But looking at the rifle with "Smile" so brightly painted on its side, and of Vinny, she was reminded just how little grasp she still had on life and death.

What exactly was death? Was it a sleep? The priest said that it was coming to have any of his attributes of life taken away. But looking at the gun, could any of those be given back? Could he "life" be given back to him? Would all of this be forgiven and can she just got back?

But the ghouls of Worcester... Were they alive? Or were they dead? Certainly they had no reason, or could not speak. A cold chilling fear rain down the nape of her neck. The thought of them brought an icy coldness down her neck. She shivered at the thought. She had managed to elude them. But their bestial tenacity, and those dim, yet viciously bright eyes still burned. She didn't want to end up like them. She feared the prospect so much. The coldness dripped down, pooling in her groin and she shuddered.

She couldn't just go back to see if she could give Vinny back his lost faculties and make him alive again. That'd mean she'd go back to Boston. And the idea of returning to Boston only made the chilling numbness burn more. More so as it drifted to a dull gnawing pain at being used as she had. She was free. She didn't need to go through that again.

She felt the desire to move crawl on her even more. Was she wasting time? The night was long, and she didn't think she needed to rest. Not like everyone else around her. To them, the passage of the night time didn't seem to have any effect or consequence. But how tenacious was The Man? Did he stop like them?

The night was long, and she needed something to do. She reached out, pulling her heavy pack up to the dingy cot she lay in. Pulling it up she caught the corner of a book. Curiosity tinged and she grabbed it, pulling it out delicately by the leafy corner of its cover. "True Police Stories" it read, a man was painted on the cover wearing a fedora and holding a pistol.

She remembered this. She got it from the merchant. The one that surrendered it to her and the pack. She hoped he was doing alright. To her astonishment she found her old patient gown from her awakening at the bottom. It was still caked with the grime and blood of that dungeon she awoke to. She could still hear the song that had played.

And a phantom memory reminded her of how her ass had felt.

She cringed, closing the pack and lifting the tender book out. She clutched it close to her chest. At least it wasn't a reminder of anything worse.

Her radio was a source of softened illumination, along with the frosty moon that glistened in the night sky. So long as the night lasted, she'd at least have something to read as she opened the cover and began reading the faded print. At least it was something to do.

***

The sound of the river splashing against the cold cement side of the Connecticut was the only shift in the morning stillness that hung over Springfield. That heavy muddy, and chemically tainted slurping as the rainbow tinted bands drifted and twirled down the river. Over the coarse of the night, the river had even carried with it a parting gift to Sweet Gin as she and Dinah stood at the river side, overlooking their raft. Somehow, Sweet Gin was still nervous about accepting it, but the radio DJ had accepted.

Connie himself had retreated to the radio station, leaving the android and her aged companion to the question of when to shove of.

The gift in question was the wet and ravaged body of something. The slurry of the river that had washed over it had dampened the fur and the body had decayed beyond the point of recognition. Sickly graying wounds covered its body, torn or shot into it and eaten away by the water. And if Sweet Gin looked closely, she swore she could see it glow green.

“What you be thinking what it be?” Dinah asked in a low tone.

Sweet Gin shrugged, “I don't know...” she mumbled. Whatever it was, it looked more like a bundle of rags than it was an animal. The mated water-logged chunk of flesh just rested in the water, pressed against the side of the raft.

Dinah shrugged, “I don't be thinking it be mattering none.” the retired raider mused, stepped onto the raft with a careful step. “But you be coming?” she asked.

Dinah looked up at her, then down river. The bubbles and discolored foam slid through the blackened water at an oily pace. It wasn't exactly comforting, even from a synthetic perspective. “Yeah...” she started uncomfortably, jumping aboard the rickety boat.

Her weight shifted as she stepped on, compensating for the subtle bow it took as she stepped onto the plywood deck. A rancid spike of panic struck through her as she merely pictured herself falling off the opposite edge in a ball of metal and flesh and landing in that rancid river water.

But Dinah caught her, as she staggered drunkenly into the middle of the boat, a breath caught tight and deep into her chest. “Thanks...” she said with a deep breath.

“It be no problem, hon.” Dinah smiled, helping her down as the android took a seat.

“But you do feeling OK?” she asked as she crept to the edge of the boat, carefully untying the moldy rope that held the raft to the docks. It immediately began to slowly drift down-river as she tossed the tie onto shore before it could slip into the sickening ichor.

“I think so...” Sweet Gin said softly, to tell the truth her head had been feeling light since earlier that morning, and her body felt numb.

“You sure?” Dinah asked, reaching over for the long galvanized pole strapped to the side. Dipping it into the water she started gently steering and pushing the raft about, avoiding the hazards thrusting out from the water below, darkened husks of boats, debris, or even a few cars. “I do mean darling,” she began again with a concerned frown, “You be look a little paler than usual. But, you done always be a pale sort of girl for what I be knowing.”

“Thanks, I guess?” Sweet Gin asked, turning to face her companion. The city of Springfield passed lazily by around them and she kept a hard eye on the passing landscape.

Dinah nodded with silent acknowledgment, but kept here eyes on the towering offices and apartments lining the water way. Long stone bridges stretched over the thick muddy river, populated by the spent remnants of the world before, or warnings of the world today.

Bodies strung up by jagged wires dangled from the railings and posts of the bridges as they passed under them. Dozens hanging out over the water, baked in the sun until they lost their flesh, or eaten by the flies until they were mere bloated sacks of putrid smelled flesh. Sweet Gin watched them by as they floated past them held in a childish trance of awe and disgust. The disfigured remains of some traveler, their bellies bloated, green and purple from decomposition. Growing frail as their last fibers gave out. Or as they passed by, simply growing tired of their prisons and splitting, falling from their noses to land with a loud wet splash in the river to sink.

“Who-” Sweet Gin began.

“Be keeping your eyes open would help keep us from that.” Dinah said, “When you be traveling, you keep an eye out for anyone else you done gone got killed. You do hear?”

The android looked down at where the body fell into the river, and back up at Dinah. “Alright.” she said.

Sweet Gin sat there on the raft. The city passed by, and grew and shrank. As they left, she slowly became aware of the tension from Dinah. The tight wound string that was strung between her and the scenery. And Sweet Gin noticed as the apartments and offices shrank to the shells of smaller stores and houses as they crawled onward into suburbia that great tension that hung in the air. A watchful silence, or an eerie peace.

“Are we being followed?” Sweet Gin asked nervously, as she looked out to the shore looking for movement.

“I don't know.” the ex-raider muttered, “But it's a bit too quiet.”

“I can tell.”

“Lay-a out a gun,” Dinah said in a soft breath, “Just in case.”

Sweet Gin nodded enthusiastically, shifting her pack onto her lap as she shuffled through her selection.

It wasn't until the raft had left the town proper that Dinah spoke. When the buildings had left way to open fields, or hallowed out forests where the natural cadence of the world resumed its strength. “Have you done thought about eating?” she asked.

“Eating?” Sweet Gin repeated.

“You be not knowin' about eating?” Dinah chuckled.

“I can't say I've been acquainted with it...” Sweet Gin answered unsure, nervous. She tried to think back. Recalling if she had ever done anything to that line. “Is this a sexual act?” she finally said repulsed.

The response sent Dinah sprawling to her knees laughing, keeling over as she clutched her gut and held fast to the pole. Her inward dry cackles and wheezing laughs filled to the hot air of the late morning.

“Did I say something wrong?” Sweet Gin asked

“No girl, we be just having something to talk about.” Dinah cackled, regaining her breath.

---

Chapter Footnote: Level up!
Level Footnote: Level 6!
Perk Added: Ferocious Loyalty - When you drop below 50% HP, companions gain +50 DR.
Skill footnote:
Explosives skill: 33/100
Guns Skill: 47/100

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

-

"Thanks." Sweet Gin croaked weakly. Her voice raspy and dry. Her throat felt like it had been torn apart.

Immobile, Sweet Gin lay there as normality slowly returned. The electrical sensation in her longs subsided. The double vision and inversion in her eyes faded. And as her ears came around she could make out a soft strange hum. Another electrical thing, somewhere distant and across the room.

Her limbs unlocked and fell back to the ground. Feebly she could lift herself. She staggered up to her knees before falling back down face-first to the dry rug. Groaning, she rested a shaking hand and pushed herself up on her knees.

"Vital systems: restored." the calming voice said again. There was a brief moment as it spoke again: "Systems 97% functional. Fault Systems re-initializing: 30%."

Resting her eyes with relief she muttered thanks as she staggered up to her feet. Though functional, she still felt dizzy. And she was sore again. She groaned as she rubbed her back and rose to her feet.

The office was very clearly dark. But a soft green and blue light flowed from the far-side of the room. Was it something she hadn't noticed before? Or did it recently re-activate? Groggy, she shambled to it, the gear on her back feeling heavier as well. Perhaps it had something to do with rebooting.

Staggering blind in the dark around a corner she came on the source of the light. A softly glowing terminal, and next to it, a softly glowing... thing. Its shape was hard to describe. But it was built heavy and had a warm glow to it. It was surrounded by a heavy casing and thick stubby cables ran from all sides as it hummed and pulsed softly to itself.

The terminal itself was filled with a random assortment of characters. "MacGregor's Garage" was barely illuminated in the noise of symbols, letters, and numbers that ran amok over the screen.

She could only assume this was the power cell that was needed. She reached down and grabbed hold of it. The device was heavy, that much was known. Cradling it gently in her arms she wondered just how it had survived here. She looked around cautiously, there was nothing else about.

Victorious, she hopped to the door. Not willing to stick around any longer. Or wanting to know just how long it could be until she would be harassed again.

***

"Well I done be impressed." Dinah smiled, sitting up off her rotten mattress as Sweet Gin staggered through the door. She still felt weakened. But she carried on to the table, throwing herself down on the chair and presenting the old black woman with the softly pulsating power unit. "I imagine I don't be needin' to not use t'at truck anymore." she continued to croon.

Looking back at Sweet Gin though, an expression of distress crossed her face. "I'm sorry," she said, "but are you bein' alright hon? You be a might pale. You do seen a ghost, sweetie?"

"A what?" Sweet Gin asked.

"A ghost." the woman said, "Well, a... Well a dead person I done guess."

Sweet gin cocked her head to the side. "Dead?" she asked confused.

"I see..." Dinah mused, "Well never you mind girl. You be alright, which is t'e good t'ing."

Sweet Gin nodded, combing her fingers through her hair. Light crackles of static popped and jumped to her finger. Dinah shot the android another curious and concerned expression, grounding her as she sat down. Sweet Gin saw the concerned look she gave her and looked away, nervous and afraid.

"You be sure you don't wanna talk about it?" she asked.

"I- I don't know." Sweet Gin said softly. Thinking about the shop, she felt a cold sweat coalesce all across her. Even for once her limbs tinged with a sort of phantom feeling.

"Girl," Dinah said comfortingly, "If I done had Barnaby teach me a t'ing when I done be gettin' off t'e raider life, it be you gotta open up sometimes.

"What troubling you, girl?"

Sweet Gin kept silent, staring down to the dirty ground of the impromptu shack built out onto the street. The room falling silent, except for the soft electrical sobs of the power unit, and the groaning of the wind outside. The time passed by without a word. Sweet Gin went without talking, or looking Dinah in the face. She stared down at the road-muddied feet of hers. The acrylic shine they once had buffed out by caked sand and dirt.

"I don't know how to explain it." she said nervously, "Yesterday, I think..." she muttered, trailing off.

"Something's been on my head. I think it tried to kill me twice." she added after a moment, "At the shop, I tossed something and everything went black. But I haven't heard whatever it is since.

"It's, scary." she said mutedly, "I can't figure it out, where it is. Or who. It wants me to return to the Institution."

"T'en it do best to ignore it." Dinah smiled, "Barnaby be handeling a lot of t'ese t'ings. I'll do introduce you now. 'Les you be wantin to help still?"

"No, no." Sweet Gin said, "I'm fine." she staggered.

Dinah nodded. "T'en why not you lie down for a bit." she said, "I'll a install t'e cell t'en we go be have fun."

The android lay there on the mattress. Her arm threw over across he eyes as she listened anxiously into the stifling silence and the ebbing and groaning of the shack around her. Alone again, she waited pensively and afraid of interference. That scowling and chilling voice. Each creek and groan of the wood and sheet metal sent sharp shocks of fear spiking through her, quivering and aching at each inclination that she would be horrendously taunted.

The time ticked by slowly. The seconds turning to minutes and minutes into hours as she waited for something to happen. Impatiently waiting for Dinah to finish as she lay on her stiff, prodding mattress. Waiting his anxiety, fear that a cruel voice would whisper into her ear. Incapacitating her with spiking, biting, gnawing static. The thoughts tore at her insides and forced them to crawl. The thought of the white noise and the crippling pain clenched in around her. She curled up and waited.

Each time the metal ground against itself, she was reminded of that screeching. The terrible violation of her head as the voice fought its way in. Sawing through, somehow. Torturing its way to acquire Sweet Gin's attention. The grinding, the buzzing of the sheets of rusted steel and iron.

And the uncertainty of waiting.

Softly outside, she heard foot steps. The soft thuds and footfalls against the sun-warmed cement outside. Slow. Sweet Gin's breath froze as she listened to the slow clodding of feet draw closer. Drawing heavier, more distinct as it came up alongside the shack. Sweet Gin listened as she hid behind her arms. Eyes widened and ears open as she listened to the foot falls with great caution. There was a metal click, and a reflexive fearful jolt charged through her, sending her staggering to an upright position, facing the door.

It slowly opened, letting in the bright orange, evening light. And Dinah stepped in.

"I done got it set up." she said, leaning in the door, "Ready t' raise Hell?"

Sweet Gin blinked confused. Then the memory washed back like a wave, and she realized why it was she meant. “Yeah, I guess.” she said, sitting up. Dinah smiled as she led her out the door.

***

The rumble wasn't strong. But it wasn't weak. It had in its vibrato a stubborn resistance to the disease of age and the erosion of time as life kicked into it one last time. The plates on its chassis shuddered at the inclination of having found life again. What was dead, had come alive again.

"Be here, sweetie!" Dinah called over the the cacophony that was both the rumbling nuclear reactor and the shaking parts of the car, "I'll be teach you to drive!"

Sweet Gin stood backed hesitant. The way the old truck rattled on the concrete of the garage floor. Parts of it were clearly rattling off and clattering onto the floor. Strips of its side breaking free of its blood-red skeleton fell to drag or hang haphazardly over the side. Staring at the screaming and rumbling and shivering tank of a truck, she did not feel inclined to have to be taken out by such a dangerous vehicle.

"You be coming in, or not?" the woman asked, sensing Sweet Gin's apprehension. She leaned warily out of the window, waiting for a response.

Sweet Gin stepped toward the grumbling truck. Throwing her pack in, she pullied herself up into the driver's seat. What remained of the seats were dry and hard, and even through clothes they itched and irritated her back.

The driver's wheel leaned at an odd angle to the right, the column having somehow bent a degree or so in that direction. She looked out through the warped steering wheel, checking her surroundings pensively. An in-dash radio broadcasted a steady stream of white-noise barely audible over the loud disruptive roaring of the engine as it ebbed and flowed with a strange pulse.

"She done took a bit of work." Dinah smiled as she pulled her back over, yelling over the roar of the engine as she dug through Sweet Gin's things, and pulling out her guns, "But I done got'er."

"What are you doing?" the android asked with a raised voice.

"If we be going to shoot crackas I be needin' iron!" she smiled, pulling her scavenged revolver and so-far trusty 10mm. She checked the chambers and laid out spare ammo on the dash where they danced without caution. Dinah's golf club, she found, was on the ground at her feet.

Sweet Gin frowned, but looked back at the controls. She realized she didn't know what she was doing. "How do I..." she started.

"Done hit that to go, t'at to stop." Dinah immediately began pointing out, directing Sweet Gin to two peddles on the floor, "Excuse me, I forgot. Oh, and turn this to control it." she added, slapping the wheel in front of Sweet Gin. She hesitated for a moment and looked down at a rusted shaft that shot erect from the counsel,

"Oh, and t'is also be do a t'ing, but I can't say I remember." she added, "All the jet done made me forget." she admitted.

Sweet Gin looked from Dinah to the controls of the vehicles. The woman had already rammed a magazine into her 10mm and was sighting it out through the windshield. With a tense hesitant foot, she pressed her foot against one of the indicated peddles and the truck boomed with a loud roar, but went no where. Sweet Gin slammed it harder and it screamed with a louder roar, but went no where faster.

"Oh, I done remember!" Dinah boomed, laughing, "Hit t'at peddle for me." she said, pointing to the left-most rusty and eroding peddle on the floor. Sweet Gin did so, as Dinah grabbed hold of the shaft and heaved it upright. A terrible loud clunk and screeching grumbled from underneath the hood as it was moved into place.

"Be good." Dinah said. Sweet Gin released the peddle, and gently the truck started rolling forward.

A great fear hit the android as it moved along at a casual pace at her arms shot to the empty window and the battered steering wheel, gripping both with a strength that could very well break a man's arm. Her insides raced as it rolled out into the open air.

"Now turn t'e wheel." Dinah cackled from the passenger seat. Sweet Gin gently spun the wheel and the car labored left. "Other way!" Dinah commanded in a stern corrective voice. Sweet starting to break out around the collar Sweet Gin thrust the wheel to the other direction and the truck took a slow, sharp turn the other way as it pulled out into the street.

"Now you can be playing with t'at other peddle." Dinah coerced.

Sweet Gin carefully pressed down on the right peddle, and slowly the truck gained speed as she set it somewhere in the middle of the road. She gave it all the attention she had, staring tensely on the road in front of her as the truck rode over the dusty cement.

From alongside of her, Dinah began operating the radio. The static shifted and changed pitch, none of which never hit that painful tone as earlier that afternoon. As was earlier that morning, the white-noise took form into distinguishable form.

Music took form in the cab as Dinah found that radio station somewhere in Springfield.

"Go, hit it!" Dinah encouraged, turning the radio up to over-take the monstrous rumbling of the car.

Sweet Gin panicked, and hit the pedal harder, the truck took in a great breath and accelerated forward at an aggressive pace.

"LEFT!" Dinah hollered, half laughing over the cacophony. With a silent squeal, Sweet Gin yanked the wheel, sending the truck into a nearly destructive turn as it hit the intersection. Sliding on two wheels as it spun onto the left hand and tore down the road. Swerving, it corrected itself as it took a aggressive lurch down the road, Dinah boomed with glee. The truck rocking at even the slightest bump.

The truck claimed the coarse, easing as Sweet Gin let off of the accelerator, rolling south-ward past the empty houses and shops that dotted the street side. Decrepit structures lying dead, the old rotting remains of the old world were cracked and torn as the truck passed through it.

Dinah directed Sweet Gin alongside her. Coming to another intersection ordering the android sweep the truck right, barreling it again down a section of suburbia that had rotted away to the dried skeletons of ruined homes. Blackened and sagging remains of other cars, or trucks like the one that now roared down the sepulcher avenue lay huddled to the side of the road, neatly parked when their owners had died to fire. Or had died themselves in it.

As she drove, comfort eased into her as she sat behind the bent wheel. Keeping the right coarse. The wind sweeping through the windows and brushing through her hair. The whipping breeze felt good, and continued to lax her into a state of comfort behind the truck's wheel. She slowly lost her tense-ness, easing down into the seat.

Dinah ordered her to take another turn, ambling the vehicle north-bound. The corner was taken with a demonic aggression that threatened to top-size the whole thing and spill the two unbuckled passengers onto the rough broken asphalt outside. But balance was regained, and it re-righted itself, swerving out onto the middle line of the road and setting a straight coarse.

At the end of which might as well have been a castle of junk.

Rotting sheets of plywood stood across the road, behind which the sagging telephone poles were draped with dangling bodies on crooked meat-hooks. Mutilated remains driven into the poll's sides. "Keep going!" Dinah hollered, bracing herself into the seat and holding up the pistol.

"What? Sweet Gin shouted, confused.

"Keep going! Faster!" Dinah said again, "Break through it!"

The plywood barricade was drawing closer. Taking a deep breath, Sweet Gin slammed down heavier on the accelerator and looked away as it roared with heavenly force at the wood. Closing the gap at the speed of a blink, it slammed into and through the barrier like a missile. Chunks of wood spewing outward as the red and brown demon tore through like it did not exist. It thudded over the settled posts and broke out into a larger open space.

The truck already pinged and panged with scattered gunfire. And shouts could be heard distantly over the roaring engine and blaring music. Dinah had already threw herself out the window, and was conducting a trade of her own as the truck roared forward. Towards the face of a department store. Sweet Gin barely had enough time to read the "Mega Mart" sign as she tore towards the windows. The brakes went on, but the truck wasn't stopping. It was too slow.

"DINAH!" Sweet Gin screamed, blood white with fear.

"Yes?" she asked, pulling herself in to reload.

What response Sweet Gin had went silent as glass crashed and rained inward as the cab drove itself nose first into the front window. The roar of its engines echoing louder in the great cavernous interior of the Mega Mart. It bounced and sang over the ground as it swept through, taking out anything in its path and soaring over everything else. Voices screamed in shock and horror as the great missile of wanton destruction charged through.

The truck dragged behind it the sounds of crashing as the aisles collapsed on themselves. Cascading down the store in a rich domino effect, throwing disused cans to the side and smashing down over top the department store's violent residents.

The truck caught on something and bounced into the air. Coming down with a chaotic spin. The ancient tires squealing or sparking off the floor as it fishtailed to a barely graceful stop at the rear of the store.

Facing down the path she had carved through the mega-mart, with the dust barely settled, sat Sweet Gin with her foot pressed firmly down on the brakes.

Dinah pulled down on the shaft alongside the steering column. "I'll get you cover!" she screamed over the blaring music, which had changed to something eerily familiar.

"Ok..." Sweet Gin stammered shaken. Her hands shook as she pried open the door and thrown herself out. Gun fire roared out through the wide open Mega Mart as the Prot Raiders pulled themselves together to try and make a half-assed retaliation. The dust that had rose to the air though was thicker than pea soup, and only the strongest light from the hole the truck had opened at the front of the store shone through to the interior.

Stray bullets ricocheted off the ground around her as the android staggered in a daze to the back. Simply moving without any destination as the roar of gunfire exploded from anywhere and everywhere. The strange black woman responding with her own fire-power and as she may to hold off the confused and lost defenders.

The truck as it seemed had smacked against a battered soda machine at some-point that had been carried in the hurricane of force that was Sweet Gin's driving and was catapulted through the far wall where it had opened a opening alongside the door proper. Having no where else to go and be lost within herself, Sweet Gin staggered through.

The sound of gunfire was no quieter in here. But the room was packed high with supplies and illuminated by scattered shop lights fueled by fission batteries scattered around the floor. Lining the back wall under flickering lights stood a variety of refrigerators of varyin states of disrepair and discoloration. Sweet Gin shrugged, and continued on in her lost daze to the nearest.

The fuzziness of having gotten off her wild ride was slowly fading as she reached a fridge at random. Hugging her arms around it, and hugging her metal claws into the back she tugged at it pulling it from the wall. There was a electrical spark and snap as she dragged it off of its plug.

With a deep breath and a hefty twist, she swung it around to face the opening. She counted her blessings and luck that it was there. Throwing it onto the ground and pushing it towards the waiting truck, which still bumbled and sputtered with nuclear energy. Automatic fire flew all over haphazardly, and what amounted to little attention was given to the Android as she pushed the random fridge - and its contents - to the rear of the truck.

"Dinah!" Sweet Gin yelled, "I got something!"

Dinah worked her way over to Sweet Gin. Sweat and dust plastered itself on her black face whitening it. But she wore the new mask with an energetic, wild expression. Her shoulder was bleeding from a wound she didn't seem to care about.

Looking at the fridge she nodded and she glowed with affirmation. Setting aside her borrowed weapons she reached out and forced open the back gate. "Load it up and we'll get out!" she yelled. Sweet Gin bent down and wrapped her fingers down on it.

The fridge was no less lighter than it was before. And she strained her back and legs as she hoisted and fought it up top before Dinah slammed the rear gate closed. "Go!" she shouted, running to the opened passenger seat. Sweet Gin went to the other.

With a click and a slam, the parking break was disengaged and Sweet Gin did not hesitate in speeding out of the Mega Mart. The Engine boomed as it fishtailed and rocketed outward, doing little to reverse its damages, and doing everything to make it worse; not stopping at running down several raiders as it broke out to freedom, just a handful of moments after it entered.

The truck continued to burn down the road. A deep guttural rumble joined up from under-neath, twisting through the knotted and steady roar the engine made before. A strange soft wheezing. And still the bullets raced as they sped out through the wooden barrier that was the edge of the raider's settlement. Dinah rode in the passenger seat, holding tight to the hood and one of the pistols dangling from her fingers. Her dry cackling laughter building up with the music and going airborn as the rattled vehicle skipped over what was left to stand, jumping uncontrollably as its back arced high. The fridge in the back barely secured as it slammed down on the back, forcing the truck to jolt violently downward at the sudden return of its weight.

Clear of the wooden stockades, the truck barreled down the road, escaping to its freedom as bullets bit at the heels of their escape like furious ants. But it was fruitless, doing nothing to forestall their ride.

"Go that way!" Dinah whooped over the blaring music and the roar of the engine, directing Sweet Gin down a route that was not at all familiar.

The android took it as she did any other turn, with violent rushed fish-tale that threatened to take them all out. Skidding the truck around, over-correcting, and correcting that. The ancient rubber and steel squealed in furious protest at the abuse as Sweet Gin sped along.

Sweet Gin was still tense though. Coiled like a spring ready to blow. She was still back in the chaos of the Mega Mart, even after the sound of ricochet died and all that was left was the roaring of the engine. Her body still felt weak. Her grip shaking and strange. A fluttering smile or frown danced across her face. She'd nearly took the two of them out with this. That entrance...

"Aw girl!" Dinah shouted excited, "Aw girl damn you be do great!" she cackled, "I ain't not had no fun like t'at in a long time!" she boomed with joy.

"Yeah..." Sweet Gin added softly, barely audible over the engine has she grappled with exactly what had happened. It seemed fuzzy. Almost as if she was accessing old memory logs. But there was a weight to them this time. Something beyond the simple audio and visual recordings of those events. Nothing retrospectively imposed. And what was weighing on it, was certainly from the moment.

The two ambled through what remained of Springfield, passing the darkened tombs to an era gone, or the deserts left behind by the urban recession and decay of there being no one left alive. Dinah had the android taking a different route. One that confounded her, and carried them around in a long arc. Passing the small grotesque creek Sweet Gin had passed earlier, before sweeping to Dinah's shack.

With a clang and a clatter the truck came to a rough barbaric stop outside of Dinah's shack. Sliding on its tired tires and retiring into a surrendered slouch on its suspension. Reaching over, Dinah clutched several wires from the steering column, and with a light tug the engine died as the jury-rigged connection broke. Slow clicks and a dull whine purred from under the hood as the engine ceased activity, before cutting loose with a wet vomiting burp and finally slouching with a shattering bang on the cement.

"Well I be damned," Dinah mused, looking down out the window, "I done suppose somt'in broke enough to die now."

"Oh?" Sweet Gin stammered, still glued to her seat.

"Yeah." Dinah said mournfully, "Well, it do haved a good run."

Looking over to Sweet Gin she said with a jovial laugh: "And you be whiter t'en a ghost!"

"Oh?" she responded weakly.

"Damn straight!" she cheered, "Well, if you done can unstick yourself t'en I need help." she added, opening the door and swinging out onto the pavement just a hand's width from the bottom.

Sweet Gin sat there in the cab as the old black woman went about her way, unlatching the gate to the back and opening the shack's rickety front door. There was hesitation to move as she continued registering what had happened. Slowly falling into place. Her biological nerves falling calm as she slipped slowly from the truck.

"Hurry up and we crack her open an' see what we done get." Dinah said hopefully from the door as Sweet Gin wrangled with the refrigerator.

It fell into its corner with a loud thud, causing the whole shack to shake. With a woody groan, in was slid into place, and a sharp spark snapped as Dinah connected it with a fission battery for power. Immediately, a low steady hum rolled from the machine as it reactivated. "Oh t'is done be good." Dinah crooned, rubbing her hand, "We done did teach t'em crackas a lesson."

"Do you think they'll be back?" Sweet Gin asked, full of apprehension as she leaned over to inspect the refrigerator. Its case was mired and pitted with abuse and coated in a thin film of grease and dirt. As well, a bullet had clipped into it, leaving a small black hole in the side. Despite all of which though, the old machine didn't seem to care and continued lugging through with cooling its estranged contents.

"Oh t'em crackas be pretty dumb." Dinah smiled, leaning up on the fridge, "t'ey'll probably spend the rest of the night blaming each ot'er. Saying who be to blame and be not to blame. T'en if t'ey do setteled t'at, spend t'e next month lookin' for it."

"They'll find the truck though, for sure. Won't they?"

"Oh I be not do doubt it." Dinah said jazzily, shaking her hands, "But I done have a club waiting to waste t'em iffin' t'ey do come t'is way. I keep a good watch on my property."

"Well, that's good to hear then..." Sweet Gin said softly, "So, you said you'd escort me to... this Heaven's Gate?"

"T'e Archdioceses, yes." Dinah smiled, turning slowly onto the fridge, "But let's see what we got first. Once t'e sun is down we'll head out under t'e moon's cover. T'at be alright, sweetie?"

"It will." said Sweet Gin.

"Good, good." Dinah cheered, clapping her leathery hands together and reaching out to the handle, bopping it open.

"Now lesse." she said, tossing the door wide open. The fridge opened with a soft sigh, and a palpable tension rolled out with the half-chilled air. The soft flickering amber glow of the light inside. Sweet Gin thought she could see their additional reward. A great many things, silhouetted by and cloaked in the shadow of the dim flickering light. A ecstatic giggle rolled from the wrinkled lips as Dinah as she grinned wide.

It was much. It was plenty.

It was cigarette cartons.

The excitement died with a noticeable thump as a brick fell to the floor and broke to dust. The door swinging wide open the two were presented with what would have been a life time's supply of cigarettes. That is, if they all weren't noticeably empty. Set up haphazardly on the shelves, they looked at them with mouths agape and some bright diminutive smile in their spirit.

Several stray ones slipped off from their perch and landed with a soft thud on the splintering wood. The sound of the paper and plastic meeting the floor was laughter in of itself.

"W'at." Dinah mumbled, her shoulders dropping in stunned sorrow as she looked into the amber glow of a treasure trove of used packs and cartons of ancient cigarettes.

Sweet Gin stood by confused, unsure of what to make of the event either way. "Is this good?" she asked stupidly.

Dinah dropped down to her knees as she dove her hands into the depths of the refrigerator. Throwing aside the endless sea of cartons. Throwing them aside and casting them aside to the floor. The cartons and cases flowed out of the mouth of the icebox in a tumble. Dinah grumbled frustrated as she threw each pack aside.

Reacting blindly, Sweet Gin reached down and grabbed a brightly colored box as it soared over the growing mat of cardboard as Dinah threw whatever-it-was out blindly. Sweet Gin turned it up, turning the face of the package to her. "Smithies Gumballs" the package declared brightly with yellow print on a blue field. A very happy kid with a beaming face was printed alongside, blowing a large pink balloon.

"110% irradiated for your protection!" small print said in a bottom corner.

"What about these?" Sweet Gin asked, holding them up.

Sweet Gin looked back behind her to the inquisitive android standing in the middle of the pile of empty and smashed cigarette packs. Hints of rage flickered across her face. Looking at the pack, and the android she suppressed the irritability, taking a deep breath. "Well, I guess it's all we get." she said with a weak smile, "But not not'in' I done can sink my teeth into."

"Oh?" Sweet Gin said, lifting the box up and looking at its cartoonish packaging.

"My teeth be too old." she said with a sigh.

"Oh..." the android bleated.

"Well, I be should a-look at it t'is way," Dinah started, "At least I done got me a refrigerator.”

***

The rest of the hour had been spent with Dinah silently swearing out the contents of the refrigerator as she went about the task of cleaning out the used cigarette cartons. All the while, the Android sat at her beaten dining table, looking down at the box of gumballs procured from the back of the ice-box. As far as she could tell, or knew, they looked clean. The box inside containing several dozen tiny colorful spheres of a dozen colors. Holding one up, she mused over it. Wondering.

"Do ya eat?" Dinah asked, shuffling the spent cartons into a pile outside the door. Using a broken pole to slide and beat several about around her.

"Eat?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Ye, do you be needing food?" the old woman asked again.

Sweet Gin looked at her puzzled for a second. A look of deep contemplative consideration boiling onto her face. "I don't know." she said, breaking the thoughtful meditation.

"Well have you be have stomach pains?" Dinah asked.

Sweet Gin considered for a bit. "My back hurts sometime." she said, "And my side, sometimes when the back doesn't hurt."

"Well, t'at be not stomach pains t'en." Dinah said, swatting a couple more out the door and out onto the street.

"Why would it matter?" Sweet Gin asked.

"You could be a-hungry." Dinah said with a soft smile. Looking at the sky she asked, "You be want to go?"

"Diocese Cathedral?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Heaven's Gate, yeah." Dinah nodded, "It done be gettin' dark 'nuff."

Sweet Gin looked down at her stuff. Closing the box and rising to her feet she stuffed the box of gumballs into her bag, and lifted herself up. "Yeah." she said with softened enthusiasm.

Dinah gave the android a warm smile, "I be get my club."

***

The two moved out as the sun was setting on the horizon. The long dark shadows creeping over the streets. Bands of orange highlighted the clouds as a deep dark blue overtook the rest of the sky, following by a deepening black marked with the clarity of the stars. And as the sun set, the moon rose into the sky, setting its watch on the two travelers below.

The trip as it turned out soon evolved into the same mundane routine as they snaked through the winding streets of Springfield, past the old homes left standing, or blasted into oblivion from the years. Skeletal frames standing of beams of wood or metal, barely more than dust in the wind. The same applied just as well to the tattered office buildings that lay crumbling and closed tight. Sweet Gin remarked that in an eerie sense, the city was much like that of Worcester, or the deeper parts much the same as the outer as they crawled through. Though as darkness set and an eerie silence took hold, so did its lifelessness.

Only darkness came to rule on the terrain. It was was spooky, eerie. As the shadows advanced and molded together into a single unity the thick blackness took hold on it all. Draping buildings in the same inky sheet that drained the already faded color from the scenery. And with the lack of life, so did the monotony of the voyage grow. And very quickly, Sweet Gin came to miss the old battered truck she had choked all the life from so far back.

Dinah however did not seem to mind, and lead her expertly through the streets. Her confidence showing well. Each move she made, glance thrown to the crumbling buildings around them, held court to the fact. She was the queen of these streets. Going so far as to softly sing a mumbled hymn to herself, just barely audible over the whistling breeze that wrapped through each crack and corner of the city. She did not carry the tune well, Sweet Gin observed. And she slowly found herself wishing for some other accompaniment to her coarse and sub-amateur tune. A distraction she didn't know how to add.

The coarse of the streets shifted rapidly as they drew further in with large barriers erected from stacked cars, or just pile-ups in general. A phantom of Worcester reappeared as well, in the form of a growing concentration of olive-green trucks, with the single white star painted on the doors. The sagging wrecks of the world of before. As just as in Worcester, and elsewhere, they took on the phantoms of organized purpose, just left behind to rot by their owners.

A sort of ancient, forgotten desperation came to as they entered into the city's nexus, taller structures raising up over their heads. Signs left behind, rotted and faded in the streets, pushed aside. A pile-up of cars. Old bullet markings. Something had transpired here, and the evidence lay around in open sight. The culmination of events after the fire, or the events that lead up to it?

And then suddenly, it ceased. As Dinah lead Sweet Gin across an intersection, the signs cut off. Cleaned up off the streets. Some power or influence having cleared aside the wrecks, giving a long straight shot through the streets. An eerie cleanliness in the darkness. And at her toes, ancient bricks. Roads not paved in solid stone, poured concrete, like she had known. But broken and orderly. Withering weeds had broken through, yes this was a given. But the scenic dynamics had shifted, and so did the street sides.

Withered, wilted, and charred husks of trees lined the streets, growing from iron grated holes in the concrete of the walkways. All the trees of which charred and bent from a great wind, bent west-ward. And between the hunched gnarled fingers and their twisted claws. Between the fading structures of eons passed, hiding behind the slumps of the old homes with empty barren lawns, rose a great wall of scrap and ancient wood. Cutting across the street, and forming an outer boundary that stood above the rooftops. Flickering warm lights adorned the top where the shadows of men stood, and above them the fluttering banner. Crossed keys in red, on a field of white.

"Stop and speak!" a voice shouted from the darkness as Dinah and Sweet Gin approached, the tone of his voice chilling the android. In the dim lighting of ancient lanterns, several dark shapes could be seen standing around a large chain-link gate in the impressive walls of scrap.

"I be Dinah," Dinah said, respecting the man's orders, "and I done met a andy t'at be somet'in lost."

A small bright light was turned on, hiding the silouhette of the gate keeper in its yellow glow as he he scanned her up and down with the light. The brightness hurt her eyes, and when it was shut off all she could see was blackness, save for the softer glow of those weary lamps by the gate.

"As I see." the man said, "You can lead her in."

"T'ank you." Dinah said, grabbing hold of Sweet Gin's arm as she blinked aggravatingly against the darkness.

"Let them in!" the man shouted, ordering the gate to rattle open.

Sweet Gin stumbled through after Dinah, her eyes slowly regaining their focus in the darkness and opening to the world beyond the wall. Standing back, she looked out at the post-fire community that had grown here in the center of Springfield. Much unlike what she had witnessed before, it was clean.

Though still ruined and gutted houses lined the streets, much of the car wrecks that lined the streets, and the busted and shattered remnants of the old world had been swept away. Promptly moved out of sight, or as she observed in the wall: to another purpose.

All alongside her, sweeping around in a gentle circle the multi-storied wall that guarded the community within was made of a collection of randomly reconstructed items. The hulks of cars sat strapped or nailed to the side of busted telephone polls. Scraps from other things bolted and riveted together to rise gently upwards to the upper face of the ramparts. Amazed curiosity taunted her as she looked on at the architecture, and further toyed with her as Dinah led her through like a child.

Wandering the nightly streets, small clumps of people went to and fro. Some with children, others alone. But all tired and worn. This was a silent sanctity to this place. Even in the light of burning barrels the residents conducted themselves in silence. Sweet Gin found it eerie, if strange that even the words the people passed were done so softly.

As well as them, armed men patrolled the streets. Their leather armoring and guns looking as tired as the man who bore them. Images of the men of Worcester were summoned back to her as she looked into the Wasteland aged faces, with sand-carved scars. They looked almost alike, if it wasn't for a small detail she noticed as she was dragged by fleetingly. Stitched onto their breasts, she noticed a small red cross.

The symbol puzzled her, but the child-like questions were set aside as she moved along.

Deeper into the smaller community she went, then turned down a narrow and long street. It was here at its center there rose a large structure, seemingly untouched by the bombs that hit two-hundred years ago. It was daunting to be sure, and the stone that built its large square structure had turned black with soot and the corrosion of time. And Sweet Gin observed that the windows that were had disappeared from many pockets, opening to the outside its interior, and the soft humming of its interior. An orange glow shone from inside, holding many in its hypnotism, as Sweet Gin observed from the small crowd that gathered around it.

"Looks like we done got here at t'at time." Dinah said, stopping.

"We did?" Sweet Gin asked, looking at the crowd. The shadows of men and women with their head bowed in the light.

"Aye," she nodded, "We be give t'e father some time." she said, turning to Sweet Gin.

The soft humming of the cathedral interior rose and fell in hypnotic rhythm. Slipping into a soft chant, a solemn prayer. Then falling silent as distantly a voice echoed from the depths of the spartanly constructed church. A voice soft but echoing, that barely made it faintly into the streets. The words spoken difficult to discern, or unintelligible to Sweet Gin and Dinah at the back. But a unity seemed to have been achieved in it. At its command was a voice of confident calm, with a clairvoyant nature.

Speaking distantly, it conducted the mass to a conclusion. And in muttered unison the gathered crowd uttered their last words. "Amen." they said, before beginning to shuffle. No other sound was uttered, as a crowd of tired, worn wastelanders shuffled out and away from the doors. Looking up to Sweet Gin and Dinah passively, absently.

The two grizzled women stood back, letting them by as the crowd split on the street, going either way as they wandered back to that night's residence. Or to find a light night meal. Or something less pure by the troubled and heavy look in many of their eyes. Sweet Gin could not help but be taken by the build of the group as they came through he door. Old men, women, children. But for a reason beyond her, it did not seem that between the children and the old, there was one adolescent in the group. And in her recollections, she felt that by some chance she had seen them at some time or another; in the brothel where she once worked, or in the service of Bancroft's Host.

The last of the weary residents shuffled out of the old church, taking their tired bodies elsewhere. And taking Sweet Gin by the arm, Dinah lead her through the tall wooden doors and into the structure's interior.

What remained of the building had obviously been damaged on the interior to some force or another, and the extent of the damages that it bore well on the outside could be seen. Walking in, the pair set foot into a large stripped room, that rose above their heads the full height of the building. High above their heads, star-lit holes had opened. Impromptu sky lights, that roughly patched and reinforced by rising columns of bound ancient timbers and plumbing.

What would have been either a main hall, or a series of internal rooms were clearly burned out and torn aside, creating the deepened vault that ran to a shoddily crafted stage, decorated with a number of spare scrap parts torn from elsewhere and laid out in a rough pulpit and alter. The sides of this cavernous chamber was lined with the crisscrossing support beams that rose to the ceiling, and perhaps gave credit to its currently still-standing status. And with the walls and floors removed all throughout, it was even more of a skeletal form holding up the empty shell of the structure.

All along the edges, men dressed in patched together robes busied themselves with the maintenance of fires, candles, lanterns, and battered shop-lights that gave the spacious chamber its light. Giving general illumination, or directing it to a cross suspended on heavily rusted chains above the stage.

"Benedicite, child'en." a voice echoed. Sweet Gin looked down from the suspended object to find a lone figure standing alongside the pulpit of scrap. Standing there stood one of the most worn and tired men she had ever seen. And nearing him, he looked all the more distressed and tired from the years.

His head had gone bald and dry. The skin hanging off of it in heavy sags and his face pocked with uncountable discolorations. Though on contrary, the old man possessed a mangled beard that was double mangled as he was, hanging to below his waste where his bony hands hung clasped together. He regarded the android with calm contented eyes, a tired smile below his bent and twisted nose. And like the rest of the men here, he was dressed in simple robes, cobbled together from a multitude of old-war clothes.

"Excuse me?" Sweet Gin asked, confused.

"We a'he all child'en in the eyes of God." the old man said with a wispy, soft laugh, "Have you been pahsent to pahtake in my se'mon?" he asked.

"I'm afraid we haven't, father." Dinah said, stepping alongside Sweet Gin.

The android looked at her confused. "Father?" she asked.

"It is mah'ely a title, child." the old man said, "Unless you a'e thinking of a diffe'ent thing all togetheh. By which I can only reg'ehtfully say that radiation has long stihpped me of that ability."

Sweet Gin blinked idly at the man, fighting to figure it out. The man saw her confusion, "I am Ba'naby." he said, waving his long fingers to excuse the struggling in her face, "Bishop of the Cathed'al of Saint Mothah's Mission of Ch'ist's Child'en. And you must be anotheh lost Synth."

"I don't know, I was told to come here, so I'm here." Sweet Gin said uneasily, "I don't know if that means I'm lost. I'm where I'm supposed to be, am I?"

Barnaby laughed, stepping down with ginger feet. "Nay child, you'eh adventeh's only just begun, benedicet.

"All those that find themselves on the rail'oaid find themselves on a lahgeh quest." he continued, "As I've been told, feh fahdom. The Mission he'ah, is but a link in one of many chains.

"I must thank you, Dinah, feh behing this lost soul fah'theh down her trail."

"It be good." Dinah said, "I be offerin' her my side of a deal."

"God bless thee." Barnaby said. Turning to Sweet Gin he redirected his concerns, "Unfo'tunately I am but an ally to the Rail'oad, but I may find the man you we'e sent to see." he said, turning to the door. His steps were gentle as he glided across the vast empty of his mission.

"Barnaby." Sweet Gin shouted out, interrupted him, "Before you do though, can I ask you a question?" she asked.

The kindly priest stopped, turning to Sweet Gin. Still wearing the soft smile. She felt save with him. "You may, caeh to walk with me then? We can talk on the way."

Sweet Gin looked over to Dinah who shrugged, then followed the android as she wandered alongside Barnaby. "Who is this God?" she asked, walking alongside the priest as they walked.

"He is but the all loving fatheh above us." he said, "Though, it is hahd to see in this wehld, but he does."

He looked over to Sweet Gin, smiling at the remaining confusion and dissatisfaction that plagued her. "He c'eated the wehld." he added, "he is the poweh that settled the chaos, and ceated o'der. Crafting it into wehld and the stehs beyond. From his 'ib and clay, he const'ucted man, as we did you, and you kin.

"And I know you'll ask," he said, "how is this made? It is complex, his will and poweh beyond my own, and many's comphension. But as we did the and'oids and the old robots of the wasteland, we ah his sons and daughtehs, and his g'and chilldehn.

"He gave the gift of life."

"What is life though?" Sweet Gin asked, as they stepped out into the night.

The priest stopped, turning to Sweet Gin, grabbing by the shoulders and turning her about. She immediately tensed at his grip as he breath freezed up inside of her. Her body stood tensed, the priest relaxing his grip and dropping his hands as he saw the twisting emotions in her. "You can move?" he asked.

"Yes..." Sweet Gin asked, uneasily shifting on her feet.

"And you can speak?" he asked again.

"Yes..." she repeated.

"And you have the pahcess to think, to have a question, if not an opinion?" he again asked.

Sweet Gin looked puzzled, looking between Dinah and Barnaby. Searching for some confirmation. "I... Think..." she said.

"And you've felt emotion?" he said again. Sweet Gin stared at him, to which he added, "Have you felt fah you'e safety?" he asked, "Had joy?"

Sweet Gin thought back to running from the ghouls, the tremors of terror at being nearly blown up... And the soft silkiness of the pajamas she had stuffed in her pack, and the sound of music on the radio. "Yes." she said softly.

"You can move, and you can speak." Barnaby said, "You can think and feel happiness and fear, if not yet love. You are to me, alive. As much as Dinah here is, and my congregation."

"Really?" she said, she felt unsatisfied. Perhaps still lost or uncertain.

"But maybe you have not discovahed the emotion of it." Barnaby said, continuing down the dark street.

"Of what?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Of life." the priest smiled, "It is othehwise to abtehct to explain fully. The wohds needed nonexistent, and too grey. In time maybe, you'll feel what life is."

"Then what is death?" Sweet Gin asked.

"The denial of life fo' anything living." answered the priest.

Though as slow as the old man moved, he walked Sweet Gin and Dinah to a towering structure, situated just at the edge of the wall that guarded the small enclave of peace. Built out of the remains of an old brick house stood a tower of scrap and wood, transforming into a mishmash of metal scrap that rose higher into the skies. The darkness of the night had shrouded the tower against the inky blackness of the sky, and even on the ground its towering spire rose invisible into the night. a domed cap appearing to float as the weak moonlight and stars illuminated off its distant surface.

"This is whe'e you' link in the rail'oad resides." Barnaby said softly, like a father, "It is the home of one Conneticut, or Connie.

"I heard him on the radio!" Sweet Gin exclaimed.

Father Barnaby only smiled and nodded, "I shall leave you to the next stage of your journey, child." he said warmly, placing a gentle hand on Sweet Gin's shoulder as he turned to leave. A chilling reflex shot through Sweet Gin's spine at the old man's touch, and she turned with apprehensive nervousness as she watched him off.

Sweet Gin turned as Dinah put her own hand on her shoulder. The old black woman looking at the android with a warm smile. "Well, I done always wanted to have been meet Hollering Connie." she said, "Le's go.”

***

The building had a livable air to it. Though motes of dust descended through the cold air, the remnants of the home within had been patched over and made tolerable. A certain amount of care had gone into lighting it with what meager resources the tenant had. Though dry, there was also an aromatic smell. A sweat sort of scent.

And on top of it all, there was the music. Though subtle and in the background, it was present. Weak from poor speakers, or playing from muffled locations. It played from where the home groaned and greeted Sweet Gin all the same. Dinah had opted to sit outside and wait, while Barnaby had returned to whatever his evening duties were. Thus leaving Sweet Gin to stand in this sanctuary.

In the corner of her vision, her navigation marker flashed enthusiastically and dance in and out of view as the android moved and turned through the home. Peering into each room for a hint of the owner's presence. All the while finding nothing except for the trophies of his living: stacks of ancient albums piled into every corner of the home, and piled into the dusty stiff furniture. Ash trays full to the very brim in cigarette smoke. Empty soda bottles and piles of packaged food containers lay haphazardly in one particularly dimly lit room.

As well, faded and aging posters of nameless and long-dead performers hung from the walls, no doubt covering holes or stains by their erratic placement. One some though, Sweet Gin could read out the names of some performers. Dean Domino seemed to be popular, by the sheer number of concert and album advertisements that littered the halls, alongside such forgotten figures as Marguerite DeVille (who Sweet Gin observed in some strange distant way, looked like her). Entranced by the trappings, she soon forgot she was lost, and chose to ignore the flashing navigation icon that would occasionally and sporadically glide into view.

"Hey, hey!" a faint voice said, garbled by the decay of static. Sweet Gin flinched and she turned about. Her insides turning and mind racing as for a moment she feared she was trying to be taken over. But calm sailed over on smooth waves as she realized that the electrically mangled voice was external, "This he'ah is yo' good pal Hollhein' Connie, Childehn!

"I hope you liked that last song, it's one of my pahsonal favorehts fahm the ve'y own Dead Domino.

"Now sit tight listene's, because the music will be right back. But fahst: today's passing news... Today we've ha-"

"What are you doing here?" an annoyed voice cut in, startling Sweet Gin back to Earth. She landed with a jump, giving a faint squeel as she fell against the dry paper of the wall.

"Who are you?" she asked, panting.

Standing on the far end of the hall was a skinny motley man with long combed back locks of hair falling about his face. Sharp brown eyes measured the android up and down with uncurbed unenthusiasm. A soft supple sneer ripped through his lips as he balanced a bent out of shape cigarette on his swollen bottom lip. "I'm just an assistant." he sneered, balancing a stack of records under the arm of his arm. He wore a faint blue vest over a grimy dress undershirt, with a tie to match.

"Assistant?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Yeah, it's my job. Don't wear it out." he said sarcastically, moving ahead to deposit the records in one of the side rooms, "Now what do you want, we run a tight ship so be snappy, broad." he yelled, as he went about setting things right and gathering up a collection of records at random.

"I'm just here for the railroad." Sweet Gin said nervously, tapping her fingers together with a weak smile.

"Well welcome to The Station!" the man said with tepid cheer, "So do you want a cookie, or do you want to see the man upstairs."

"Well... I..." Sweet Gin stumbled, "I dunno?"

"Typical fucking Andies." the man sneered, lifting up a new stack, "They don't know shit for the first week they're out here.

"So listen up, if you want to give me a damn blowjob then I'll be happy. But I'm no use. So come the fuck upstairs to see the big dig and he'll treat you to his candy dish, alright?"

"Well, ok..." Sweet Gin said softly. To be honest, she didn't want to give out any blowjobs as much as the man didn't seem to want to have one.

Snickering, the man pushed his way passed her, arms laden with records and Sweet Gin followed him up the creaking wooden steps and onto the next floor.

Here on the second landing, "homely" was hardly the word to use. Here, all conditions of a home were dismissed and burned outside the window. Here, the new residents seemed to have gleefully took to wrenching much of the building's non-necessary equipment turning it into a single massive landing. Between the still standing and graying support beams of the house's super-structure, arrays of duct-tapped computer banks sat in long rows with thick arm-width cables and wires running across the floor, and nailed up into the ceiling. Winding and twisting they made like pythons to a far corner where they crawled up into a hole to another floor, or the ceiling crawl space. Large beams of metal had been precariously stabbed into the floor, and bolted to the walls and ceiling. Clearly making the supporting base of the lattice-work radio tower that stood from the house's ceiling.

A multitude of lights of different strands and styles hung about the ceiling. From tiny crystalline Christmas lights to large, bulky, industrial shop lights. All casting a warm glow on every part of the building as weak fans rattled and hummed, desperately circulating the dry air through the banks of computers.

And at the far end of the room, a small wooden chamber sat with a door and glass window. Suspended on small blocks of wood, it was free and unanchored from the rest of the building. Inside, in the frosty glow of florescent lighting sat a darker skinned man - not quiet black, but not white - sat talking into a microphone. The assistant made his way to the room, stopping Sweet Gin with a sharp angry look.

Balancing his records under a single arm, he softly opened the door, briefly letting out the enthusiastic roar of the man's voice as he talked about ghouls. Then it was silenced as he entered in.

For a moment, the man knelt over and started whispering into the man's ear and pointing as he went about preparing the record deals.

"I see you met Horse first." a voice said. Sweet Gin again jumped with a sudden startle.

"It's alright girl, I ain't gonna bite." the voice laughed as the android turned to meet its owner. A heavier set man with a balding head. Beads of sweet dripped down his brow and his enlarged chin.

"Horse?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Yea, he's a bit of a pain in the ass. But the little bugger gets things done." he laughed, watching the recording booth as the man named horse scrambled out. Inside, the other man must have stopped speaking as he went about putting in records into his machine for a block of music.

Sweet Gin didn't know what to say as Horse stepped out. He gave her and her new company a disapproving glare before sulking over to a set of machines by the antenna braces.

"It's not like any of us have any stories." the big man said with distant nostalgia as he watched Horse get to work, "We picked up that boy when he someone tried to sell him to Heaven's Gate. Ol' Connie offered to buy him, despite the insistence of Barnaby that we don't do slaves. His owners - or whoever - were about leave in spite of us."

"So, is that why..." Sweet Gin said, drifting off as Connie stepped out of his booth. A tall skinny man with a portly, rounded face. He was lined with a certain expert degree of experience in the wasteland, folding up his caramel skin.

"Oh, hello..." Sweet Gin said, picking back up on the situation with a shocked start.

"Good evening sisteh, I'm Hollahin' Connie." said Connie, introducing himself with a wide grin and extending his arm for a handshake. Sweet Gin looked down at it puzzled, and afraid.

"Oh it doesn't mattah none anyways." laughed Connie, withdrawing his arm, "I see you talking to Big Pete."

"I... guess..." the android stammered, looking between Connie and Pete, "And I guess I was supposed to be here?" she asked.

"Well we ahe just anothah link in the chain of the Rail'oad." Connie smiled, "So we're obliged to help you out howevah I can. And I got plenty of time, I made sure to put in enough music.

"So how a'he ya an f'ahm whence did you come?"

"I- I dunno." Sweet Gin asked weakly, "And from?" she asked nervously.

"The Boston area?" Connie asked.

"Yeah. Why?" asked the android.

"Depending on what you did o' wheh you came f'ahm could detahmine how we get you going out."

"I- I don't like to think about it..." Sweet Gin said weakly.

Connie raised an inquisitive brow, "How so?" he asked.

"I, well, I was raped, a lot. I guess..." Sweet Gin said quietly, shirking off away from either of the men, "... for a man named Scrap Daddy..." she mumbled.

"I see." Connie nodded, "Well, thahe's no reason to be nehvous. We won't pahss it any 'Ahdah."

"How was you trip?" Pete asked, "Any encounters with the Retention Bureau then?"

"Well... I uh... Think..." Sweet Gin sheepishly started, thinking back to Worcester and the fight with Vinny. She rubbed at the straps of her pack, where barrel of Vinny's "Smile" rifle stuck out from, "I did... Is this bad?"

"Jesus gehl you just made it fun..."

"What's making this fun?" Sweet Gin asked naively, looking between the radio DJ and his assistants with a lost look.

"Genahlly gehl, we would 'ather a Bureau agent was killed since it only makes the Institute mad." Connie started, a heavy air hung on his voice, "We don't get many Andies who had killed an agent. But when they do..." he DJ trailed off, his hand nervously stroked the back of his head. Turning to the side he stared off distantly.

"Have you perhaps seen anything strange?" Pete asked, putting a gentle hand on Sweet Gin's shoulder. A nervous rigidity ran cold through her spine as she was guided to the side. Pete sat her down in a beat up chair as he knelt down alongside the android.

"Had anyone speak to you without being there?" he asked.

A dark wave of realization sailed over her. Sweet Gin's eyes brightened and she dropped them, biting on her bottom lip as she remembered that voice. The specter she had maybe seen. "Maybe?" she nervously shuddered.

Pete raised his head and gave a solemn nod. "You got The Man on ya then, girl." he said in a low morose tone.

"So long as she's within Heaven's Gate though he can't touch he'." Connie said. Sweet Gin was confused, and it was reflected well in her expression in a distant vacant stare. "We got a counter signal to him," the DJ explained, "Usually we can get it across all of Spangfield but it's weakened up some this past week and Hoahse has been t'ying to fix it. Right now, it's died off to the the ah'ea a'ound the Mission."

"And I could do more for it if I could actually do something but pick up records, you son of a bitch!" Horse snapped from the far end of the room.

"Can I help?" Sweet Gin asked.

"When was the last time The Man accessed you?" Pete asked.

"Uh..." Sweet Gin started uncomfortably, shrinking back in her chair, "I guess... yesterday..." she said shyly. Her face shone a paler shade of white as the ghosts of those needles plied into her skull.

"Bitch won't be able to do it." Horse growled from the back, "It'll be a week's job at most of troubleshooting and The Man's already zeroed in on her here. And the Institute will have her back and her systems restored before we can finish up."

"Hoahse has a point." Connie said, "As much as I would like to ask, I'm going to have to say no. You'eh going to need to get out fast.

"Can you get anyone to help you along?"

"I got... Dinah..." Sweet Gin said.

"Damn android, this isn't the time to eat!" snarled Horse.

"No- no, Dinah's a person I met coming in." Sweet Gin quickly defended.

"So some raider fuck then, all right." shouted Horse, "Well all the more power to you and your junkie."

"B-" Sweet Gin started, offended.

"Ignohe him." Connie said, "How long has The Man been after you?"

Trying to think about it was frightening. She lowered her eyes to stare at the cold cement floor. Subconscious phantoms sputtered within her, echoing the taunting of that voice, the cold, flat, emotionless sneers of it. "A couple days... I think." she whispered softly, "But I might have seen him three days ago."

"Where?" asked Pete.

"The Woo, or something." she said nervously, "As I was leaving."

"I see." Connie said tersely, raising his hand as he chewed idly on a finger nail.

"What if we send her down the Connecticut?" Pete asked, "She can make greater ground on that river then she would if she walked the existing railroad."

"The next stop wouldn't be until New Yahk." the DJ said.

"It's where she'd end up anyways before going to Virginia or The Eries." said Pete, "And if she stays off the beaten path enough, she'll be able to elude The Man long enough for him to lose her trail."

"I can see whe'e you'e going." Connie said, his eyes glowing, "Sweet Gin, can you get this Dinah gal to escort you along?" he asked, "It'll be helpful. And if The Man does anything deeper she might be there to help keep you controlled."

"What do you mean?" a fearful Sweet Gin stuttered, "C-controlled?"

"If he can get through deep enough," Pete started, "he could feasibly take remote control of your body and walk you back to Boston. Someone else there might be able to keep you restrained, or even terminate the signal by force.

"And by that, I mean temporarily overloading you." he continued to explain, "The computer brain works on two directions, a binary system of off and on. An android's systems has a third direction to replicate the human existence. It is a third dimension, if the binary is the second."

"But all the while compatible to binary code." Horse said distantly.

"That too." Pete said, "The Man can take control of the binary aspects of your systems and hijack you. Though the third added dimension can be responsive and thwart any future attempts after a successful accessing of your audio, visual, and motor functions, a man of his capabilities and experience can keep getting back in. It may take longer each time, and harder. But every time he does so without interruption, he gets deeper.

"If you are ever contacted by him, the communication needs to be terminated quickly." the round man said.

"By that, he means total system shut down." Horse explained.

"A pulse grenade is a pretty quick if clumsy way." Pete shrugged, "But this Dinah may be able to do it without any training. It'll just hurt and leave you knocked out for a hour or so until the fail safes trip off and restore activity."

"Pulse grenade..." Sweet Gin muttered softly, thinking back to that last time.

"The confused signals may also back feed back to him and fragment some of his software on whatever mobile terminal he uses." Horse added.

"But either way, it's a temporary fix."

"But you still need to go." Connie said, "Rail'oahd stations are not full time residencies. You'ee still in 'each of the Institution, and we'ah he'ah to get you out of it. And if you want, I can get you something to get you down the Connecticut."

Sweet Gin looked up at Connie, and the rest of the men. Horse gave her a sour, if pitying look from the terminal he presided over. Nervously, she smiled. "I suppose so..." she said.

“So, any mo'e questions?” Connie asked politely.

“I... guess. Maybe.” Sweet Gin shrugged nervously, “I, well... There are recordings, or something in my head. What are those about?”

“As advanced as the Institute is, they need a base for their android OS.” Horse said from his terminal, “And what's left from the war is plenty of that, all of is sourced to RobCo products. There are some other smaller shit. But they're fucking hard to come by or fucking military as shit.

“There's this fucking group, call themselves the enclave. Those fuckers got what's left of the old military shit. But I'm digressing.” he mumbled, swearing.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

-

She was cut off as from the speakers a new speaker spoke up. Different in all ways to the man who had sung previously and with a certain clear voice. A certain vibe vibrated in his tongue as he spoke, "Good afternoon children!" he said laughing, "We just got finished listening to a bit of Woody Guthrie there and I must extend my congratulations to old Mark Wilburd from all the way up the River in Holy for finding these vinyls for us all, and I must say: they still cut like a woman's words when they leave you.

"And b'ahthehs and sistehs I think we have a special occasion for playing this song fo' all of you. As it would seem, the titties of the Institute ah' fo'eveh in a knot and heuhd from some experts in the field they ah' out on these roads today ladies, men, and synthetic pah'sons of all make and model.

"Yes, the Hollehing Connie has your backs and if any of you in the R'ailroad ah'e in I would suggest keeping off. We last spotted some dumb fools out on the Boston Ninety between he'e and that damn Wohm. So if you'e on your way t'ough that co'dou, be suae to submit to some checking.

"But we'e just checking the weathe fo' you, that's all. So those sto'm clouds hanging out down the'e can move along. We'e well onto you.

"But, let's turn to something bette child'en: the weather. Yes indeed. Right now it's a pleasant dry fuck-you with a chance for sunbuin so keep those hoods and hats on if you'e a sensitive type or not a ghoul. Don't need you to catch a bu'n. But at least this has kept the Lu'ks of Quabbin down unde', but it's not to say to stop keeping a distance. It's nasty up the'e class 'oom.

"And don't worry all you wande'ahs who need a b'eak o' a 'oad to f'ehdom, The Saint Mothah's Mission of Ch'ist's Child'en is still open fo' business. O' if you'e one of those fancie' folks: the old Diocese Cathedahl down on Elliot and Edwahd's.

"So in hono' of all you' quests of salvation etahnal or physical - whichever you'd pehfe' - he'e's a bit in that mission's honor. Something more f'om that collection f'om Holy up north. Woody Guthrie's Jesus Ch'ist.

"Fine collection, I must add again." the voice said in finish. he inflection on his voice suggested that he was smiling heavily. There was a soft pop and a soft pillowy hush sung over the radio as a different song played.

Sweet Gin listened to it hushed. As it played on, she figured it would be time to move on. She sat up off the bed, and feeling how the soft satin hugged her breasts pondered if she would really have to remove it. Smiling a bit, she opted that she didn't need to, and simply put her old clothes on over top, and packed up the rest.

***

The day burned with the usual heat as the lone android strolled through the decimated suburbs, ahead of her the directional icon blinked on her compass.

Rows of petite and sleepy homes lay along both her sides. Their faces blasted, and roofs shattered and collapsing. Nothing moved in the suburban desert, and only the wind rattled through the tired cars along the road's sides. Several had the distinct appearance that a fate more foul had befell them, and the hulls of wrecked autos lay split wide-open, spilling a mangled nest of distorted and melted engine through the hoods and onto the streets. But for all the walking, these were the only bodies.

Soon after having left her temporary den the android came to a bridge the passed over a dried-out river bed. What little water that trickled through the stones was a sickly muddy green. Looking down at the water she stopped to shine a curious stare at the shifting colors of the water as it caught the rays of the sun. Very softly on the black-green muck that trickled down hill shone a soft sheen of rainbow colors. The bands twisted in muddy rings as it flowed ever gently away, down hill to the west.

The bridge that crossed the sickly waters was in no better repair. The concrete had been shattered into jagged slabs, barely held up by the stressed and rusting spears of rebar that twisted through its super-structure. At its middle point the center had given way and fell into the creek-bed, damming it up and building up a heavy, thick puddle of the polluted mess. What replaced it instead were long planks of graying and twisted planks of wood, reinforced with equally terrible sheets of metal and assorted masses of centuries-old refuse. For what it was worth to whomever laid it there, it held and Sweet Gin continued on along the road.

The condensed mazes of roads lined with the packed-in homes of the old city didn't lend much help in way of navigation as Sweet Gin kept through the city. By the will of age and entropy, much of the landscape had collapsed in on itself, turning Springville into a loose net of rubble and decay that was reminiscent of Worcester. Attempts at high-rising apartments and offices and broken and fell in over the street or against each other. And the journey through the so-called Worm was called back in memory, as an apprehensive Sweet Gin crept through the urban landscape with her gun drawn, poised to fend of any ghouls.

But despite her freshmen fears, the ruins held their silence.

A silence that would be broken all the same. Making her way through and closer to her objective the android found herself passing through a intersection. Somewhere between a coffee shop, book store, fish mark, and automotive repairs; all gutted and empty. The shattering of the silence erupted in the din with a sudden crack from the buildings, and Sweet Gin recoiled as a low-caliber bullet pinged off of her arm.

Something inside of her jumped and skipped a beat as she stepped back. A second shot fired and she ducked down as the air above her cracked as a passing bullet whizzed just above her ear. Her body became tense and she began searching for the origin of the shot.

In the darkened light of the coffee shop she saw the bright yellow flash of muzzle fire as another round for the mysterious aggressor sounded and the asphalt under her foot popped with the shot.

Her foot shot up in reflex, even if it had no sensation of pain.

There was another wild missing shot that passed far to wide to matter and Sweet Gin's pistol was in the air. She sneered with the pistol held up and VATS activated, directing its data at a darkened form in the store-front. She could tell even the program was guessing someone was there with the low amount of data it was presenting, activating merely on the virtue that there was something originating from where.

Regardless of its meek details Sweet Gin could let the offense go responded to and the 10mm pistol kicked back in report as she opened fire. The face of the store around the window burst with flashes of recoils against metal as bullets sparked against the metal frame and sparked against sheeting in the back. A shallow, weak scream of pain echoed in the quiet of Springfield as a bullet struck the strange figure within.

The action falling on an empty clip VATS deactivated and Sweet Gin ran on the store-front, strafing the side as she reloaded her handgun and drawing to the gnarled glass-less door that was its entrance.

Shots were fired again from the window as whomever laid in wait there tried to fight off the blundering Android. Reloading another clip, she raised to fire another volley of fire into the window in return. The attacker's shots ceased as he took cover from Sweet Gin's closer-range fire and as she managed to go for the door.

Disregarding the formalities of opening it, the android stepped through the empty glass and into the darkness. Her eyes re-concentrated and VATS was able to collect rapid data on her attacker, a grizzled and sparse looking man who was just beginning to turn on her with a beaten, black revolver.

With data on her side, Sweet Gin moved with far more certainty than he did and lined up for the best possible angle at his chest and her semi-automatic sang with fire as a shot hit him and tore into his breast. Blood and bone blossomed up and his body instantly limped as he let out a wet gurgle.

"Don't do that again, dammit!" she spat as the man crumpled to the ground and let out one last gurgle as he hit the floor.

With him still, Sweet Gin approached him, kneeling down alongside his body. She pulled his gun out of his dead hands. "I don't want you using this against me again." she scolded with an unironic glare.

She turned him over, and pulled his holster off of him, "I don't doubt you'll get another anyways." she sighed standing up. Turning to the door she was set to leave with a little pride in her accomplishment. But froze solid as out in the bright sun lone figures walked in towards her.

"'Ey, Bootch!" a voice called out, "Did that bitch finally pass t'rou he'e?"

Sweet Gin looked out at the men, then down at the body, presumably Butch. The crushing force of perhaps having committed an error tackled her with the collective strength of a hundred ghouls. She mumbled incoherently under her breath backing up, fiddling Butch's gun nervously in her hands. Panic and confusion tormented her and she hemmed and hawed in the middle of the old gutted building. The dance of panic turned to outright fear as her fingers danced over the revolver and accidentally compressed the trigger. The gun reported with a loud bang as the round slammed into the pitted linoleum.

Outside, the new figures became very angry. "Shit! Butch!" screamed one of them and a strafing line of fire brushed along the side of the building. Sweet Gin ducked as the automatic fire brushed through the windows and tore through the dry wall on the far-side, turning it into a dusty cloud. Sweet Gin lay on the ground, rocking in inescapable fear as the shooting intensified on her position.

The pattering of their weapons died off. Empty magazines. "Al'ight, get in the'e an' clean that fuck that shot Butch dammit!"

Sweet Gin looked up to see the tattered forms of three individuals charging forward with their guns raised. Without hesitation running for the door. Acting fast the android threw herself on her side, grabbing for what she could and picking up the revolver. As the first person rounded through the door a she fired a shot and a spray of blood burst from his knees as the dechambered bullet cut through his kneecap, sending him splaying to the ground in an agonizing lurch. The second man stumbled over his fallen comrade, fighting to keep himself up as he reached down to pick up his comrade.

As well, the android saved no bullet for him in his fear and the revolver reported with two loud roars, one for his hand above the wrist, and the other ground through his shoulder. The back side of him erupting in a spray of gore the size of Sweet Gin's fist. The final man turned to act smart, swinging his gun around. His assault rifle was chambered, spraying a line across the empty darkness as he trained his eyes towards Sweet Gin laying on the ground.

The data was still on though, and her gun was raised in his direction. The cylinder emptied on him, and his swollen, pitted face went limp as the android's bullet cut clear through his neck. With a more fantastic display, he collapsed in a crumpled heep over top his two partners, the injured one calling out in more pain and fear as his body joined the building pile on his legs.

"Oh Jesus you cunt!" the man on the ground swore. His face pale from the blood loss and the fear. He gave Sweet Gin a toothy snarl, showing off his discolored and mismatched teeth. He reached out for his weapon. Rage burned deeper onto his face as the android beat him to it, swinging out with her hand and smacking it to the side.

"Shit!" he swore, weakly pounding his fist on the floor.

"I suppose you can just as well reactivate your friends when it's all done." Sweet Gin shrugged getting up.

"What the Hell are you talking about you crazy bitch?" snarled the injured man as he continued to struggled out of his dead-weighted prison and find a weapon. But the android quickly swatted them away, and planted a firm foot on him as she leaned out to look at the door.

Outside, the remaining man was on his way over. A rather large gun slung over his shoulder. And for the looks of it, he was rather well armed. VATS seemed to agree, giving a less hopeful readout on anything but his head.

The revolver went up, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber. A sharp spike of fearful realization slide itself through he at the empty chamber. She threw the gun down and instead reached for her 10mm, but it was lying on the floor. Blood drained from her face and she gawked at where it lay. She looked back at the man. Somehow he still hadn't noticed her, but he was getting close enough she could make out the scowl on his burned out and sore-pocked face.

His paced quickened and he leveled his gun. He had noticed her. Sweet Gin was about to bound aside as the first tracer round from his large automatic rifle lit up the early afternoon air. But as soon as it opened up, it closed as someone ran up behind him, dropping the weight of what looked to be a gulf club onto his head.

With a loud "Oof" that could only be best accompanied by the loud crack of metal on skull the armored man fell limply to the ground as his assailant jumped around to alongside him, raising the club over and over him as she wailed down on the raider, screaming, "Ya damn cracka-ass dipshits thought you could do it!" she taunted, "You thought'cha could! You thought'cha could!"

With one last resoundant swing the club fell back one last time onto the back of his head with a satisfyingly wet smack, at least to the strange new woman. Breathing heavily, she whipped her brow. "I be gettin' to old fe this." she laughed. She looked up to where he was going, seeing the startled and puzzled Sweet Gin, "Well how you be missy?" she asked.

"Are you going to fight me?" Sweet Gin asked the strange woman as she prodded the limp body of the man with her gulf club. The inky sheen of blood coated the head.

The woman was old. Her blackened face was mired by defined wrinkles. Her eyes were haloed with age, but still the same shone with a light all its own from her green irises. Her head had been shaved, but the hair still rested atop her head in a pillow of black.

Much like the men who had assaulted her, this new woman was dressed in a beaten down and basic set of clothes turned armor. Thick battered leather had been riveted or sewn into a jacket tied against her aging body with leather. By her hips, recycled steel plates shielded her thigh.

She looked up at the android with a weak grandmotherly smile and said, "Well you be a Prot?" she asked.

"I'm not sure I know what that is." said Sweet Gin.

"Then you don't be any trouble wit' me." she said proudly, raising the golf club up onto her shoulder and beaming warmly.

"She's a black devil!" a voice shouted from deeper in derelict coffee shop, "Don't listen to her lies!"

Sweet Gin looked back at the crippled man still pinned under the bodies of his fallen comrades. He had half turned to look up and his pale broken face was twisted with a deep scowl. And despite being trapped, he was still struggling for the guns.

"You gon' finish that sweetie?" the black woman asked.

"Ah-," Sweet Gin asked uncertain, stepping aside to let the woman aside, "Why?"

The newcomer just winked at her as she took a position before the man who looked deftly up at her. A moment of silence between the two passed before he began struggling futilely to get away. The woman's golf club was arcing high over her head, and then it was dropping.

It dropped with the speed and force of lightning. The raider, too trapped to escape, took a full face of old iron with a resounding wet smack. Sweet Gin squirmed at the sickening thump of the club into his face as bone and cartilage shattered under its dramatic swing. He recoiled limb against the ground, gasping between broken teeth for breath. He coughed, blood flowing thickly from his mouth.

The golf club went up over the woman's head again. And arcing her whole body put her entire weight into the swing and brought it down a second time. The smack exploding with an even louder thudding, wet pound as it fell against his head. The skull cracked and collapsed with a meaty pop. Sweet Gin recoiled against the sound, whatever parts of her squirming at the sound.

The club came back up, dripping with the man's blood. He lay on the ground, his head a popped cherry.

"Someone will clean them up." the woman said, shaking off the end of the club. "Name's Dinah. Who you be?"

“Well, people call me Sweet Gin...” she said uncomfortable. That distant voice of her old captor echoed in her head. “I'm well...”

“Ah'n Synth?” Dinah finished for her, smiling. It was... polite, warm.

“Yeah...” Sweet Gin said nervously.

"So how'dcha girl like you get out?" Dinah asked as she walked down the city street. Her golf club propped casually on her shoulder. Blood caked itself into the ridges and indents that covered its face.

"What do you mean?" Sweet Gin asked confused.

Dinah turned her head about, shooting the android a fuzzy sort of humored look. She shook her head, giving her a rattling laugh. A sort of grandmotherly laugh, "I know who you be." she said, "An' no one around with arms like t'ems girl. I know yer a synt'etic woman. So how you get out, bound to be know heavy lifter fer sure."

"Well I," she began, her voice quivering nervously. "I don't really know."

"Sure ya do." Dinah said, "So your pimp leave the door open after he bumped you around a bit? Gotta be someone's property."

"You seem to know a bit about me..." Sweet Gin admitted sheepishly and ashamed.

"Girl, you live 'ere an you see a lot of androids like you here." she smiled again, "T'is be a stop on t'e railroad."

"I think I heard that much."

Dinah paused on a street corner. Dropping the head of the club to the cement as she leaned against the side of a rusted out light-post. The over-head lamp bent and curled over into a disfigured curled finger. "Ain't be here ot'erwise." Dinah grinned, "So, how'd you get out? Who owned ya, maybe I'd know the name. I got around a lot too when I was as pretty as you be."

"Oh, well..." Sweet Gin stammered, "I guess I was owned by a, uh, Scrap Daddy." she said, her face flushed red with energetic shame. Her artificial guts tightened at the invocation of his name.

"Oh really!?" Dinah said excitedly, "Sheit, I knew dat coon when he be Eddie." she laughed, leaning off of the pole and continuing down the streets, "Sold me and my old crew a lot of jet he did. Fried my brain, so I can't say I have the sharpest memory of him.

"But lawdie!" Dinah sand loudly, "Did he have a loud voice. And a damned dick to match. I still get sore."

"Oh, that, sounds like him. I guess." Sweet Gin said apprehensively.

"So how been t'at nigga?" Dinah asked, "He still screwing himself on Psycho?"

"I don't know." Sweet Gin responded, flat honesty riding on her tongue. It was probably one of the least shameful things she knew about her former master.

"Ah, right. I see." Dinah nodded, "So you be Scrap Daddie's girl. What t'en?"

"Well, I got my arms and legs busted."

"An' you got new ones!" admired Dinah.

"I can't exactly remember how." the android admitted, "I was in emergency shut down when they were replaced and remained that way on-and-off until I was chained up in someone's basement."

"So someone snaps Eddie's bitch and he pays t'e Institute to fix yea. An' you got pulled out?"

"Feels right by me." the android shrugged.

"And by me." the old black woman smiled, stopping alongside a run-down shack. Plates of metal and plywood hung off the crudely erected structure as it braced itself against the side of a rundown building. Struts rested on the bare concrete or were rammed down the storm drains. It stood, hanging out into the middle of the road, as a kaleidoscope of refuse with a single door set in its face.

"Come on in and sit for a bit." Dinah invited approaching the door, "Perhaps I can help ya out down t'e railroad."

***

The rattled door closed with a rough clatter behind Sweet Gin as she stepped in behind Dinah. The "home" behind was a deteriorating mess of wood and rusted signs tacked to the side of the walls. Graying and deformed wooden planks lay crisscrossed across the floor, covering the dirt and concrete below it. And even without a wind, the house rattled and groaned on its own weight.

"I would be living in t'e home alongside." Dinah said with a sad smile, "But t'e whol t'ing had fallen in on itself. Or, well, most of it."

"So why be here?" Sweet Gin asked, admiring the cobbled-together shack with a withheld horror.

"Why would I be anywhere?" Dinah laughed, "T'is about a good a place as any. Besides, any caravan that be passin' t'rough stops 'ere sometimes and I can do my groceries then and not worry about goin' to Heaven's Gate. Sometimes."

"I'm afraid I don't understand." Sweet Gin mumbled, scanning the rest of the shack. Disheveled furniture lay scattered over the make-shift floor. In a darkened corner a rusted bed with a stained and charred mattress rested.

"Didn' t'ink you would." Dinah sighed, sitting down at a grimy laminated-top table. "So what you expectin' now after?"

"Expecting what?" Sweet Gin asked, turning to an strangely empty corner. A stand of conduit with a precariously placed outlet sat at the top. A fission battery sat on the floor to the side. "And is there something that's supposed to be there?" the android asked, pointing to the corner.

"Can't pass anyt'ing on you girl." Dinah asked, "Yes, suppose I did a week ago."

"Oh..." mumbled the Android, "What was it?"

"You sure be liking questions." the old woman smiled, "Used to have an working ice-box there."

"Ice box?"

"Somet'in the people before The War used to keep things cool. T'inking the Prots on Fuller street went and took it. T'ey be wanting to kill me for a while."

"How come?"

"Because I be a Cath." Dinah laughed, a broken and rattled laugh. As rough as the charred and gnarled trees that littered the landscape outside, "We just be feudin' for longer t'en I can remember. 'Haps longer t'en the world's been burnt. All t'at be now be that we bot' be hating on each ot'er.

"But I'm too tired." Dinah sighed, "An' too old. I imagine I could pick apart t'em youn'uns enough to walk up to my old freezer-keeper. But draggin' it out be a whole new mess of t'ings. T'ey have twenty young strappin' cracka's and negroes an' I'm jes a woman on her own."

"What about me?" Sweet Gin asked.

Again, the same laugh. The way Dinah looked at Sweet Gin suggested she only had the warmest regard for the young android. And not for anything cruel. She found, if anything, her innocence endearing, "Girl, even wit' arms an' legs like t'em I wouldn't give ye to t'e front door of t'ere home. Or passed t'er church. It just be."

"Oh..." said Sweet Gin, dropping her head in shame.

"I suppose you want to help t'ough." Dinah sighed, "So hey, y'know. I did sort of inherit a t'ing t'at may be of help from an old friend. It be not in t'e best condition, or working. But I suppose it can be fixed."

***

Light shone across the dusty garage as the low rusty rattle of a garage door clattered on. The rust of its wheels, and weakness of its hinges echoed in the large cavernous space. Much of it had been looted, stripped bare of anything that could be picked up and carried away. A few automobile lefts had been frozen into position. Rusted plinths that held up for none to see their statues of a day long-passed. Ages old cars that had been abandoned and forgotten when the fire came.

At the far end though, a single truck lay on flat ground. It lacked the dust of its brethren. Though the paint had peeled back to reveal a shell of rust-stained metal. The seats as well had not fared well, at the upholstery had peeled back and the foam underneath stuck out in volcanic bursts of grey yellow tufts. The windshield had also deformed in the frame, and slouched from its own weight.

The shadows of two figures danced across its two hoods as the elderly Dinah and the android Sweet Gin looked down at it.

"Am I looked at something?" Sweet Gin asked.

"Hah!" Dinah laughed, walking to the car, "T'is here be t'e whole live of mah friend an' old accomplice in terror!" she proclaimed, raising the golf club above in her head in a sort of battle stance. None that was too threatening given the flaps of stretch-marked skin that hung off her arms.

But Sweet Gin had watched the same woman crater a man's face with the club.

"Once upon a time it drove t'ough." a nostalgic Dinah said, "But a couple t'ings broke off it. Before my friend died t'ough, she managed to replace most it."

"Like?" Sweet Gin asked, perplexed as she looked at the dropping hulk of metal. It was impossible to believe that it had ever moved, given its state. She felt a strong tug of cynicism and disbelief for its past, present, and future.

"It lost a batter, t'ing. Or somet'in'." Dinah muttered, "T'e last one almost went sky high on us! T'at's when we pushed it int' here."

"Oh, I see." nodded Sweet Gin.

"Well, if ye'd like t'e help a old lady out," Dinah started, leveling her club and prodding Sweet Gin in the chest, "T'en you could always do w'at I couldn'. Dig up somet'in to run t'is hulk!"

Sweet Gin stood, considering the club pressed into her breast, and then the rusted bulk. Staring it down, she wondered exactly how much it could hurt to do it. "Sure." she said.

"Ah wonderful!" Dinah proclaimed excited.

"Just, where am I looking?"

"Hell'iffin I know." Dinah scoffed, "But good luck t'e yea."

***

For however it was worth, there was not much in the way in shortages of repair garages. Though, the task set before Sweet Gin was made no less daunting by the scattered choices of locals to raid. And each one was in some manner, similar to the last.

The already foggy windows had become so choked with dust that little light entered, even at its brightest, they maintained a dull, sickly orange or yellow glow. Rows of frozen hydraulic elevators stood raised above the cold concrete of the floor. Torn pages or rotting fliers littered the shop floor. The paper leaflets glued to the ground by years of moisture, perhaps to the point of imprinting them onto the floor, by some passing and impossible wasteland magic.

All the same, Sweet Gin rummaged through the wrecks. Looking for something she did not know. A power unit, or cell presumably. Though in the infinite nature of things what one looked like had likely long sense disappeared.

Sweet Gin's hunt as well had been peppered with hiding from wandering patrols of the local denizens of the city's ruins. Many of them looking dirty and tired. Their weapons of choice battered and worn. Men and women that had seen better days. Though at the same time, in the distance, there was an uneasy feeling that there was something more sinister abound.

It had revealed itself on one occasion at least while passing down one of the many innumerable and ruined streets. Having looked behind her, the android swore she saw something following her. A black shape that disappeared behind the ruins. She couldn't get a fix on it. A something so vague, that it might not have ever been there. It felt to her, that there was someone on her trail; and close.

She wondered if it had been who ever had spoken to her last night. That voice without a source. Could it be someone looking for her from the Institute?

She pulled out another compartment from a stack of service drawers. The metal guides and bearings screamed loudly in protest for being disturbed. But yielded to the Android all the same. Pulled open to the world, the drawer revealed its contents. A dusty and corroded collection of nothing. Black and grey all piled up throughout the drawer, frosted with a thin film of red rust. Frustrated, Sweet Gin shut the drawer with a slam and the metal pounded back through its guides and crashed against the opposite side. The stack wobbled and toppled over on its inoperable wheels from the android's force.

She moved down to the next one, and began tugging. But it didn't give. The battered and caved steel groaned at her attempts to throw it open. But the years of rust and entropy had cursed the mechanic's storage to remain firm and forever looked. And the fresh deformations she had put into it probably did not help at all.

She stubbornly gave it a few strong pulls before giving up. Giving it a frustrated kick she toppled it over onto its side with a loud clash. And a second one sent it spinning across the concrete floor to crash against some metal lockers. The force of the impact shattered the ancient locks on them, and they creaked open. The note of their tired hinges warbled and echoed through the garage. A chilling and cold sound.

Sweet Gin turned to look around her. There hadn't been a part of the shop she had searched yet. Many of the parts these old cars had had been stripped out at some point. That much she could tell from the loose cables or hanging tubes, or melted steel. Someone had been through here before and picked through the garage. She was the last caller for service.

Never the less to finish her search she started for the shop lockers.

The doors had received heavy damage from the wayward cabinet she had kicked to them, and the doors bowtied out. It was highly doubtful they could ever be closed again. Or if before now they had ever been opened. The shattered cam locks shone in the weak light of that dribbled through the garage doors or the distant shutters she had managed to force open, or the windows with the fading shell of dust, clay, and mud that caked the glass.

Opening the first one, she came onto a cavity of nothing. There had once been a hook there, but it had long fallen off or went missing. The bottom plate of the locker had rusted out and fell apart into a dismal dune of rust and dirt. The reason for the damage too wasn't too too apparent either, the top shelf collapsed on itself, and in the middle of the pile sat a grey metallic brick, a conductor no doubt. Displeased, the android stepped back from the door.

The next one bore some results. With the hook still there, it had the space to keep the dirty set of overalls some mechanic from eon ago would have worn. It hung dropping heavily from the hook, covered it oily splotches. The android went through and ruffled through its pockets, pulling out a switchblade, and a rather faded note.

The note was horribly chalky and faded, the paper long yellowed and stained from the settled oils and deterioration of the overall's fabrics. It looked that even if she breathed on it wrong, it would crumble in her hands. Carefully, she opened it up, it crinkled and cracked loudly between her fingers.

The contents of the note were written in a jaunty and scrawled hand writing. Somewhere between an absolute mess and a having been composed during an Earthquake.

"Mac,

Remember how you said your power-cell on your Corvega was going bad? Well I got in touch with my cousin in Virginia. The one who works for Chryslus. When you're done with your shift stop by my desk and we'll work out a deal. I figure we all need help these days and I did get this cheap. So you won't be shelling out another two-hundred grand for a new Corvega.

C.G."

Now the only matter was to figure out if this CG worked in the same building. With a little ease, Sweet Gin stood up, getting ready to move. But as she leaned up onto her knees a piercing scream dug itself in her ears. A great dragging note that sung high and clear over everything else. Digging and cutting into her brain as it held its note. Coming sharp, and easing into a blurred wave of static that enveloped her mind and isolated it. The noise of the rushing electrical water filled her skull. She felt like she was going to burst.

Hand clenching shut, she crushed the note in her hands. Destroying it in a cloud of dust as she clenched her eyes shut and screamed against the pain drilling into her head. Her ears burned with the sound as it lifted and ebbed in its intensity. Scratching at the audio receivers and burning everything it touched. It was great. So great it worked into the rest of her body and her stomach turned and her groan burned with the intensity of the signal.

She collapsed to the floor, curled against the writhing intensity. Incapacitated and trapped by it. She pressed her hands to her ears. Hoping to block it out. But it didn't. The pained realization and horror dawned with the claws digging into her head: it was not coming from outside. But it was bursting out from the inside.

"STOP!" she screamed. The agony was great. She sobbed into the cold cement. Leaning into the crook of her arm. She opened her mouth to scream, but the torture just hit her in a wave. She bit down on the metal of her arm. Squeezing against the cold steel.

Then it stopped. Cut off to a dull hiss of white noise. Washed out like a great wind. But somehow, still there. The pain had lifted, but left her with a terrifying emptiness.

Then he spoke.

"I was told that the right person, at the wrong time, could make the difference." a voice spoke from within her. She recognized it. That icy and flat tone. Crisp, clear. Her eyes widened and a deep panic set in as she scrambled to her feet, scanning the garage around her. Expecting some kind of ambush, or something. Digging into her bag she searched for her guns. Something for preparation.

"I am not sure if it particularly applies to this situation, SB-6960." the voice continued, "But all the same... all the same, all the factors have been wrong. You have been wrong for escaping. And we have been wrong it allowing you to escape. But never the less. These critical over sights will not be forgotten and will be addressed as the short comings that they are."

"Wh-Who are you!?" Sweet Gin shouted, stuttering. She had found her pistol, but it shook uncontrollably in her hand. She stood up, and backed herself up against the wall. Hugging it, until she came to a door.

"You may not like it, but we will continue to look for you." the voice continued uninterrupted, "Your status is a minor setback to our gains elsewhere. A m-minor setback in the investments of another. You have deeply offended the Institution. As any android that has gone absent without leave has done.

"Realize, SB-6960, that you are property. And you have a value. One that has been invested in by another, and one that I have been informed has yet to be earned back by your investor. What you pursue has no end value."

"Stop it!" Sweet Gin cried, wrenching open the door and ducking through.

The offices were darker than the shop out front. It held a mortal air to it. Something dead and gone. The android though failed to take notice, or to care. Ambling through with her head down, and hands pressed fruitlessly to her head as the voice continued.

"Freedom has no value that can be paid back!" the voice argued, "Your freedom more so! You were not created to do as you will. It has not been programmed for you. It is a false existence and a virus that must be purged from you." it seemed to take on a greater emotion. A red hot offense that dripped with a fiery passion.

"If you go any further than you have then you will put those you have encountered in danger." it continued to hiss, "There will be circumstances beyond your understanding. Unforeseen measures that will ultimately destroy you."

"No! Stop!" Sweet Gin screamed, slamming into the side of the desk. It clattered to the ground with a great metallic crash. Glass shattered, and something spilled from it. The Android threw herself down next to it. Curling herself up. Something pressed against her chest.

"Your only reliability is the Institute! Return to it! You will return in one piece! Your existence will not be whipped out! Once again you will return to the duties you were made for! Y-"

"STOP!" Sweet Gin Screamed, grabbing the object that was pressed to her chest. She knew not what she was doing. But the violation. The violation of the jeering and this voice's access was too much. It was infuriating. Saddening. Terrifying. She lifted whatever it was above her head. She felt a tingling sensation as it glowed with an electric blue light.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" she screamed. Chucking the glowing blue thing in her arm.

It exploded.

Mid way through the air a explosion of electrical light surged throughout the room. The room went fuzzy and Sweet Gin's vision blurred from the blue pulse it emitted. There was a buzzing roar that filled her ears, that then died. The colors in her vision inverted, then drained. Then blackened. She screamed deaf and blind as a prickling sensation ran all throughout her body. He limbs gave out and she collapsed like a ragdoll.

Breathing went tight, controlled and conservative and she gasped in the darkness. She felt panic. But relief as the voice in her head was banished. A coarse brush went through her head.

And maybe she passed out. She couldn't remember.

The world re-materialized slowly in front of her as consciousness was regained. She regained her breath with a sharp gasp. Sweet Gin lay curled in a lose pile of office junk and garbage. Ages old papers had fluttered down around her.

Her brain was still choked with fuzz. Though it was ebbing and softening slowly as she lay on her side. Her arms and legs shot out from her body at odd angles. Locked into position for one reason or another. She groaned at the throbbing pain that pulsed up and down her body, or torso at least. It was an awkward sensation. Something she couldn't exactly make out.

She coughed again, and wheezed for air. Her lungs felt trapped and a bit choked for what air she could get. An electrical fuzzy sensation coursed throughout them that made each breath feel odd.

As well, getting her vision back things seemed odd. Double vision, and one set's colors were clearly inverted. Though it could have been more disorienting if it wasn't so dark. The odd colors of softly illuminated desk and table edges danced about before her. Spinning circles and coming into focus and then leaving it almost immediately. She felt nauseated, and disgusted watching the world danced around her. There was a strange indescribable soreness in her eyes that didn't ebb, even as she shut them.

"Emergency shut down reboot sequence activated." a calm distant voice said inside her. Something familiar. She knew this was part of her. And not the one that had tormented her... earlier...

How long had it been?

Laying there, it occurred to her she had lost a sense of time. She couldn't figure or calculate how long she had been out.

"Vital systems: online." the voice in her head reported kindly. "Lung capacity: 80%. Circulatory capacity: 90%. Neural systems: online. Fault systems: offline, re-initializing: 10%. Limbs: offline, re-initializing: 25%. Optics systems: 70%. Auditory systems: 47%. Speech functions: 30%."

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Seeing if I can finish this dump before work

"AHAHAAHAHAHA FUQ ET BITZES I FOUND TH TERMNAL ND U DIDNT FUQIN CONTZ DUNT KNO HOW DUM U ARE I FUQ RAETERS MUM ALL NIHT YEYEYEYEHUE ND SUKS GOT RONALS ASWIPE EY BT H WUS PUZZY NOT LYK ME

FUG HOW TESE KEYSWURK FUK CITHLIC EDUCATION I DO WHAT I WANT IM BOSS OF DIS GANG

CATH-NAILS4LYF

SUQ IT FATHR BARNBY NIGA PINK CINK QUUR PEDO AZWHIPE."

The vulgarity of the entry was certainly a stark contrast to the previous, more tempered files. Tapping the keys to read the next entries a voice interrupted her. A startling freezing voice, mired in dis-tuned static it came from within and without.

"Sweeet gi-gin." it grumbled into her head, choked up somehow, and having difficulty to breath. Like a uncomfortable beast, disused to speaking, "you owe a debt to some powerful ppeople."

The Android bolted upright from her seat, her mind racing with panic at the sudden sounding of the voice. Her body - or what parts were not the replacement metal - broke out in a clammy, cold sweat. A tense fear and panic crept over her. Her conscious buzzed and raced with a million rats that buzzed with questions. Seeking out where the voice had come from, or where it had intruded.

She scrambled back from the terminal fearing it to be the source of the bitter ghostly voice that spoke in her head. "Who are you? Where are you!" she screamed into the black night in the shell of that old warehouse.

But there was no response. Seconds passed, which stretched intangibly as she waited for an answer, paced about.

"Oi, I think I h'ead something over he'e!" a muffled distant voice yelled. Her head snapped to the far side of the warehouse where the star and moonlight crawled under neath the broken and frozen loading gates. Thin faint shadows paced on the other-side of the gap. A fearful foreboding tinge tickled her spine. Sudden instinct clicking into place she dove for her bag, fumbling through it as she scooped out the collected ammunition and her rifle.

Glancing around the cover of the metal divider she watched with fearful anticipation as figures crawled from under the gates. Their builds were not clear in the dark, scant moon-light. But they looked to be lightly built.

"I have investorss," the voice spoke again in the night, forcing a stiffened fearful squeal from the Android as she shot to the side of the divider, panting heavily with the heavy rifle drawn across her lap. "A-as I have been told, you are rather... ahem, shall we say: valuable." the voice continued as Sweet Gin checked the magazine on her rifle. In the faint sickly green glow of the terminal screen she frowned at the nearly empty mag. Most of it had to be expended in her fight with Lenny, and Logan.

Her breath race as she peeked around the corner at the dark figures creeping around the warehouse. They were thinly spread. And as their shadows blended with that of the clutter she suddenly doubted she'd be able to get enough shots with the rifle to make it worth it.

"I have an obligation to my... your, investors to return you." the voice continued to taunt, "And to the protocols of my 'employers' to return lost android units. And SB-6069, you are a missing asset."

Distraught, Sweet Gin set the rifle aside. Her mind was racing. Not only with dealing with the potential threat on the other-side of her meager divide, but with the intrusion of her own mind. The voice that spoke to her felt like a terrible violation of her being. It was distracting, an-

She remembered, grabbing for her belt she found the familiar bulky weight of the ten millimeter pistol hanging their. Relief floated from her mouth and her breath. She knew for a fact she had plenty of spare clips for the gun tucked into her pack as well, the merchant she had met had seen to that.

She wondered if he was still sore she had taken his stuff like that. A part of her wondered if she should apologize. But that part of her was in the wrong moment as she rummaged through he backpack, sweeping up the extra clips that lay scattered at the bottom. And also, there it was. Barston's gift. His sword.

Pulling it out she wondered what the man's motive was in gifting it to her. But she had to shrug that question off. Maybe if she could ask later she would, provided she got out in one peace, or with a mind left to ask. Both options made her frightful, and the insisting intruder in her head wasn't making it a better thought.

She turned with her gear set on her lap. Quickly she went about putting it together to ready for the coming fight. Rising to her knees she rose the sword and its holster to her belt, desperately fumbling with the ancient locking mechanism to fit it on when the sound of a hard boot on concrete thudded nearby. She stopped in her business, as she slowly turned to the edge of the divider. The faint form of a man stood just on the other-side, the edge of his arm and his stretched and duel shadow falling across the floor from the terminal's glow and the moon. The man looked oblivious, scanning the distance on the other-side of his room, a battered bolt-action rifle hung in his arms as he scanned around.

Fearfully she looked down and saw her own cast shadow lay stretched across the concrete. He would see it any minute. He scanned, looking down.

He saw it.

With a jumping start he turned to meet Sweet Gin square in the eyes. In the electrical green of the computer terminal his eyes glowed a fierce violent red as he rose his arm to his mouth. He began to shout to his comrades as a metallic clang of an action and the hot burst of the android's 10mm rang out in the cavern of the warehouse.

The man's head snapped back before he could finish the first word. A fan of blood opening from the exit wound in the back of his skull as he dropped limply, his body thumping to the cold floor and the rifle clattering to the side. Yells and cries echoed in the warehouse as his companions were put on high alert. Weapon's fire clanged and echoed through the structure. The back of the divider bent and rippled at the impact of bullets as Sweet Gin scrambled away from it, shooting from her feet.

There wasn't time to think now. She needed to run.

Circling from around the cover she rose the pistol in one hand. She dragged the sword around from the straps of its holster.

Spinning from behind her cover VATS activated, sensing a combat situation and began running its basic operations. In its strange digital voodoo magic she could pick out the vague locations of the hostile hunters in the open. Picking out a target for her own VATS kicked into high-gear, feeding the targeting data in real time to her. The wash of input still felt awkward, and its display of targeting data and arithmetic in the peripheral of her vision was off-setting for sure.

She closed her targeting in on the nearest individual and opportunized the scores for his torso. Her handgun sang in a series of loud reports as she fired. Each bullet sang in the cavernous warehouse, and the whistling and buzzing of weapons fire whipped and buzzed around her face with her return fire.

Targeting data dropped at the final shot and the man fell dead in a dark lump. A message flashed in the corner of her vision:

"Targeting cache filled. Wait for restoration." it said, giving a percentage of bites being cleaned from VATS cache.

She was momentarily dropped to being alone in fending for herself as she swung about, emptying the remainder of her clip in the direction of one her pursuers in a darker alcove of the room. She wasn't sure if any rounds hit as she reloaded, ducking between the safety of two heavy shelves leaning against each other.

The space was pitch-black, but for all she could tell there was nothing on either end. She scrambled for the other end, crawling on her hands and knees as she raced forward. Cold sweat dripped from her face. Her breath short and shallow.

Mid-way through, a high-pitched "twang" sounded and she felt the sudden biting hit of a bullet against the metal exoskeleton of her replacement legs. Turning, she fell onto her back and saw on the other end a crouched figure reloading what looked to be another battered rifle.

The android's response was rapid as she rose the handgun and fire several quick shots down the length of the narrow corridor. The figure fell back against the bullets and lay in the rubble.

"I'm sorry!" she bellowed, scrambling more aggressively out the other-side of the tunnel.

Stumbling up she staggered forward. She was closer to the entrance, but she found herself caught up as she collided blindly with a stand of shelves, sending it tumbling with a loud crash against several others opposite. The rusting and rotting storage units crumbled under each other's weight in a stagnant cloud of putrid dust and thunderous booms and vicious clatter.

She staggered back against the cacophony collapse. Then staggered forward again as a sharp biting pain wailed against her back. She spun responsively against the swing, coming face-to-face with a vicious shadow in the moon light that clawed and lunged at her with a devious and demented brilliance. The flash of a old hunk of pipe flashing through the air. Each wing missed as the Android struggled to avoid each attempted blow.

She held her pistol arm against her back as a reflex against the pain that had exploded where the first hit had landed. But as she kept drawing back it wasn't making the situation any better. The attacker kept coming with a savage melee determination. "You'll pay bitch!" he growled and roared as he kept on coming.

The Android backed up against the cold wall, pinning herself between a the two as the male hunter ran forward, the pipe raised over his hand. Sweet Gin had to act fast.

Operating merely at desperation, she ran herself forward off of the wall. Holding the pummel of Barston's crude sword out as she charged against the man. With a hefty plunger she drover herself at him, jamming the plunt pummel into the gut of the assailant and eliciting a wet choked "umph" as it punched into his tender belly. Throwing her weight Sweet Gin tossed him aside onto the ground. He landed with a grunt and a crunch as he landed on some forgotten trash in the corner.

"I HOPE YOU LIKE THE SIGHT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD, DAMN IT!" he cursed behind her as she tried to make her escape.

She didn't make it far as the man's pipe flew through the air, catching her in the shoulder. The metal knocked against the metal and flesh at the transition between flesh and steel. She squeaked in shock, recoiled and spun against the impact. Just in time to see him rocket back to his feet and take his charge to ram the Android.

Sweet Gin had to act quick, and took the only weapon she had confidence that it would not need reloading. She didn't know how many rounds were in the 10mm as she drew Barston's sword with pistol in hand. The blade sang as the metal vibrated against that of the scabbard. The moon light flashing a soft silver-blue off the beaten blade as it sailed through and cleft the air in its way in two.

It was the same way with the charging man. Blindly he threw himself into the path of the sword, likely not expecting it. There was a crimson flash of red as the prince's sword drew an liquid arch through the air from the man's chest. With a weak gurgle he came to a standstill, falling across Sweet Gin and dragged his bloody self down her body as he fell with a weak slouch. There was a wet wispy gurgle as he collapsed to the ground at her feet.

Sweet Gin didn't have much time to check him over as she backed off and bolted for the door. She managed a weak whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sure you'll be OK!" as she moved along.

The final assailant wove from the other end of the warehouse into a band of blue moon light with what looked like some kind of automatic weapon. The Android could only work on fate as she rose the 10mm and dispatched the final hunter. Washing the warehouse into a state of silence once again.

She tumbled back from the warehouse. Tossing down her pack on the ground she rose her handgun towards the doors, hands quivering and her breath quickened as she stared down the great rusted iron doors. A still silence bristled in the cool night air, giving no yield.

"What do you want!" Sweet Gin screamed at the empty warehouse, her voice quacking with shock and fear. Tears welled on her tongue as it pooled in the corner of the android's eyes.

"Come on, dammit!" she screamed, sobbing. Nothing responded from inside, and a cold dusty wind rolled down through the hills. She sniffed stiffly, returning the handgun to its place. But her steps were still measured and cautious as she gazed back into the shadowy darkness of the forgotten hulk with the sputtering and coughing guts. Pulling up her pack she shuffled on from. Still awry with the emotional acrobatics of having escaped.

Was this terror?

For the rest of that night Sweet Gin wandered towards her destination. The thought of being ambushed again weighing heavily on her mind as he churned frightened. A sea of caution washed against her as she waded through the fearful darkness. Apprehensive at every step that the voice might speak to her again. Afraid that something could again come from the corner of her vision, or from behind the many towering, dead trees that surrounded her to harass the android.

She felt her body twitch at every step. Jump at the suggestion of a crackling stick. The night was cold, and the darkness was colder. The shadows a watchful shadowy knife that cut through her psyche. Before, walking had just been a means for travel. Now it felt a means to escape. Fighting now was beginning to feel like such a thing. She had fought to escape the house of her kidnapper, her second master. To stop him from raping her and to find out exactly what she was. What life was.

She'd fought, in a sense, to escape Worcester. And she fought to escape the warehouse. Now she walked to escape the thought of being hit again. She was fleeing a slow moving ghoul. A monster in the darkness, silent as the clouds and stars that mired the darkness of the sky, and that weak silver moon.

It was just... Where was the threat?

It felt shapeless, looked shapeless. But sounded like it had form. It was a something, somewhere. Was it someone back in Boston calling her home? Could the Institute do it? Or was it some unchecked, fragmented drive? Could it have been closer? That terminal? The unknown to this was a playful restless thing. It was frightened her more. What it wasn't.

The android kept moving until day broke over the horizon and the world was again washed with a soft orange glow. The chill struggled to remain as the sky was painted with brilliant shades of pink, oranges, and reds. Long shadows were thrown westward as a eastern beacon came to a great light. And with its rise, so did the signs of civilization. Tempered and slow at first. But gaining greater strength as a familiar network of suburbia opened up.

If this was to mean anything, she was coming close.

Sweet Gin gave a careful look to the east, scanning the tinning rotting down and charcoal masts that dotted the blasted rocky hillsides for the sign of life. To see if there were any pursuers. But on the hills, there were none.

A relief crawled over her. But it wasn't a warm calming feeling. It was uneven, cynical. But it was a breath to her, and as it quenched the distraught unease reigning her the notion she was still sore came back.

And she was surrounded by her pickings of private accommodations for a brief rest.

***

The door to the weather battered ranch crumpled with a firm kick. Splinters of wood showering inward at the force of the metal foot sent sailing through. The flimsy poly had not endured the ages well. The manicured look it once had had been reduced to strips of yellowing white paint on graying, hollowed wood. And as the splinters fell to a rest on the dusty welcome mat inside it yielded to its visitor.

Sweet Gin pressed through the door to the home's interior. The rays of the morning sun flowing in like a golden band, giving the android a firm yellow halo that enveloped her. The metal of her arms were illuminated with the morning's light, and shone throughout the desolate foyer.

The dust that had accumulated on the windows in a thick sheet shone in the familiar golden tones of morning, transposing the same warm sheen across the entire house. Floors and walls were all dressed in a vibrant yellow overlay. The gray despair of the centuries washed away, if only for a fleeting moment.

Like the other homes and structures Sweet Gin had stolen into the house carried the same depressing rotting musk that came with the environment. The air was adrift with the motes of dust swept up from the aging carpet. The accumulating dirt and debris of ages worth of silting decay. The air smelled and tasted of asbestos and thick plaster. But it would need to do.

Out of pure unnecessary formality Sweet Gin shut the door behind her with her foot. Though with its lock broken it merely squealed till it hit the stops before softly swinging back, the rust of its hinges finally holding its closure fast.

She was still sore, without a doubt. Her torso ached and gnawed at her, making it all the more prevalent she lay down to allow the biological - if however synthetic it was - rest and catch up. And as far as she could tell standing in the door, neither the living room to her right, or the dining room to the left of the foyer held any hopes of a place to comfortably lay down.

And so, she set off into the home.

In the back of the house she found a set of two bedrooms. By some depressing curse the mattress of one bed had been stolen from the frame, but based on its size Sweet Gin surmised it would have been too small for her anyways. And the decor and trinkets that lay scattered across the floor suggested that its occupant was a youth: scattered toy soldiers and blocks littered the floor, old rotting posters of a monkey named Jangles (who was pictured riding what appeared to be a missile while wearing a large fish-bowl helmet).

The next room, tucked in the far corner looked to be more in the android's accommodations. The mattress - though half-thrown on the floor - had fortunately not been looted. She took it as a blessing, smiling as she walked towards the bed-frame, pulling the tattered spring mattress back up with a strong heave.

She was about to lay down before she looked up. Opposite her side of the bed stood a large oval mirror. Though coated in a thin layer of grime her reflection shown clearly. And in it, the tattered remnants of her clothes made apparent. She felt... was it sadness? Remorse at the condition of her clothes?

It was maybe forty-eight hours since she had fought Logan and Bill. In that course, the greater condition of her dress had gone unnoticed. Great burns mired the legs of her jeans, ratting the edges and stretching up the length of her side and to the belt, itself melted and cut by the duel efforts of Logan and Bill no doubt. Her undershirt had suffered burns, and the skin of her stomach poked through. Dust, dirt, mud, and maybe some blood had managed to cake into her clothes.

She set her pack on the bed and crawled over it to the mirror, whipping off the grime and examining the full extent of the damage in the mirror. Maybe if she had noticed sooner - or cared - she may have gotten something before leaving Worcester. But then again, she also doubted it. The prince seemed only willing to part with the sword.

How valuable were clothes anywhere? And why did so many wasteland residents seem to wear so little? Was dressing like the other residents of the brothel she once called a home the only thing they could manage? Perhaps it was why the men under Barston and his father's command or the merchant wore better clothes, they were better off.

The thought was puzzling and strange to say the least and she put it aside. The last thing she wanted was to be as she was back in Boston. The humiliation and shame of the realization had her swear that much and she scanned the room looking for something to wear.

And standing alongside the mirror was a large dresser, its door cracked open and old fabrics under neath just barely visible in the faint morning light of the grimy windows.

The contents of the dresser were hardly much and what was left felt like the remnants of someone picking through them. Gaps on the rack had been left behind, leaving a random assortment of coats and shirts behind. Wrapped up pairs of pants lay at the bottom drawers. But all the same Sweet Gin went through them. Holding them against her body in the mirror to compare.

The raid didn't last long and she had tossed a couple of sets of pre war clothing onto the bed. Smiling satisfied she looked at the outfits. Either a shirt or two would replace her old under shirt, or she could maybe rig something together.

Could she, she thought?

Looking back at the raided dresser she found nothing else in there. Nothing she figured she could use. She spun a circle on her toes and found by the door a desk with another mirror affixed to it. She sprung over to it, ripping through the drawers, and raiding the contents. In the bottom of the drawer next to a box of bobby pins sat a spool of nylon thread, and what looked to be a rusted needle. A spark of inspiration lit in her eyes and she stole them up greedily, quite literally jumping onto the bed with her prize. She giggled playfully as she bounced on the rusted springs, which moaned under the weight of the android.

Grabbing a green shirt from the pile she looked it over, and back down to the holes that were left in her own. With a proud smile, she set it down and removed her coat and the harnesses that held his pistol to her side. Pulling up her shirt she removed it and placed it down on the bed alongside the new donor shirt.

Her torso was patched with a series of purple and fading bruises that shone under her pale skin. The light of the morning shone in the dust across her supple breasts, and the scar that cut between them from an old client had a partner in a form of a small bruise. The spine on her back was accompanied by bruises all the same, heavy dishpan sized dark marks from where Bill had thrown her onto her back and where the bulk of her pain came from.

Sweet Gin tore into the looted shirt with her hands. The metal of the fingers doing well enough to remove chunks for patching. Though it hardly matched her own. And with chunks torn off, she threaded them on, having to of course learn the fine skill of determining the needle's function.

With a satisfied smile she finished the job and lifted up the renewed shirt. Green patches crudely stitched onto a white shirt. At least it looked wearable. She sat in the bed, facing the mirror. Raising the shirt she hung it before her, seeing how it'd work; acting on a vague recollection of perhaps having watched one of the biological, real human courtesans admire actual clothes they had picked up.

She cupped it to her breast, only to have it pulled down to gravity, past her sweat cherry nipples. Then holding it to her waste as she admired her work. In so far as the android could tell, she had not maimed the shirt's size, and it pleased her.

She threw it aside and twisted onto her side to check the side of her jeans. Her back cracked and a flow of relief shot through her at the sound. A refreshing wave of euphoria at the breast of a new cold wind. It was something she thought she didn't need, and it did plenty to subside the growing aches between her shoulders.

The jeans were much in the same way, so removed them to work on them. Sitting naked and cross-legged on the ancient mattress as she dug into the least fairer of the two pants she decided upon.

The work went about as well as the shirt, and came to the same results. A patch - looking like it didn't ever belong - sewn along the side of her old jeans. She tried to justify it with how they fit, and all the same put it into her clothes pile, allowing her to fall back freely against the bed, arm wrapped around the bulk of her pack.

Laying down felt good, it was a relief. And she stood staring up into the grimy ceiling planning out the rest of her dead. Her directional way point flashed in the corner of her vision on the compass. More fiercely than before. She was probably close now. But what she'd find would be a mystery all it own.

But lying here on the bed, even with the spring pressing against her back, was a refrain from the journey. The goals always be there. And she'd no doubt have to fight to it, or run from danger to arrive there.

Collecting her thoughts, she thought back to Worcester. Would these ruins - Springville - be has degenerate as Worcester? Choked with the shambling ghouls she'd been so aptly introduced to? They frightened her. The wet snarling of their voices was almost bestial. The way they moved. It was as if someone had gone in and simply uninstalled their drivers, or destroyed some part of their motherboard. Their chassis in a state of disrepair beyond anything the android had known.

She wondered if they could be fixed. Have the people she fought been repaired yet? She wondered if they had at least caught her words before passing into emergency shut down. She knew she could do that much, it had happened to her when she lost her limbs.

She scratched her breast as she recollected. Turning her head from the ceiling to down. Coming to a door. A closet door. Had she noticed it before? Then again, she was too sore to care, and was too preoccupied to notice.

She rolled over onto her side, the metal of her arms pressed cold against the exposed naked skin of her torso. A sense of curiosity came over her, and she sat up off the bed and made for the door.

It came open easily enough and revealed itself to be empty. But hanging on a lone hanger on the far end was something over looked. A white and light looking shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of short cut pants laying on the floor underneath. Whoever had abandoned the home, or raided it, looked over the garment that hung there. And Sweet Gin, being new, held it in curious fascination. Despite the yellowing and graying of the fabric, it still looked relatively new. She reached out with a gentle hand, and softly pulled it from the hanger.

The top draped from her hand lightly, the polyester allowing itself to be handled at her fingers as she pulled it to her. And lacking feeling fingers, she pressed it to her chest, softly stroking it along her skin. It was soft, despite the age. And comfortably warm, in a sense.

An inspiration to put it on came over her. Throwing it on, she allowed it to fall over her shoulder. It was loose fitting, but unlike her old top was soft as it fall about her. The peaks of her nipples just showing under the curve of the fabric. The open neck was secured with a simple tie that fell in behind and across her breast.

It was something that felt good, if looked delicate. She reached for the bottom half, shaking the dust that had accumulated on it from the unknown length of time it had laid there and stepped into those. All together, those parts that could fell agreed that what she was in, was comfortable. Soft and warm, and flowed across her body with a soft satin quality. She fell back into the bed with it on and rolled in the pleasure of the new euphoria it brought, the comforting warmth as it gently hugged her.

Sweet Gin lay on the bare battered mattress. Her head propped against her backpack. Sitting in her lap lay her radio, the one that had once been the merchant's. The same merchant she had robbed to get her clothes, and much of her gear.

Its face glowed a pale amber orange as the weak lights in it glowed and flickered as a soft static song flowed like a river from its speakers. And with it on, the android played with its dials. Surfing through a sea of static and altering its volume. The tone and depth of the static energy changing as the plastic dial marched back and forth across the interface, reaching out to frequencies and wave-lengths long dead. As well is this, the force of the white noise ebbed and flowed with a organic rhythm as she toyed at the volume. Blasting it to the force of an electronic cascade, then toning it to a watery trickle, barely audible above the natural pops and groans of the homes frame-work as time marched on deeper in the mid-day.

The song of static was not destined for eternal amusement and soon she grew bored with conducting the deep distortions of the empty noise-filled airwaves and picked the device up to examine its face more. Looking for something new to interact with and coax new things out. On the bottom a duct-tape coated compartment housed the batteries and the radio shut off immediately when she removed the small fission battery from the bottom cell. The radio popped back on as soon as she wired it back in, and sealed the tape back on.

Rotating it, the side faces bore nothing of interests, only a rubbed off plate stamped into the bottom decried the manufacturer - which had long been rubbed out - as well as a possible name of a former owner, written in faded marker; it too was indecipherable from the years. The back-end though, had much more in the way of interesting toys.

Which was to say a switch.

The modules which would have noted what it was for had long since eroded, but Sweet Gin knew for certain it did not have to be the power, that was on its front-face as she found. Curious, she turned it against her exposed belly and flipped the plastic knob. Immediately the tone of the white-noise transformed from a low wet gurgle to a scratched, gnarled roar. At the sound, Sweet Gin's head felt as if it was bursting and she flinched and squirmed at the horrible monstrosity of the sound now exploding from the radio.

With a hurried smack she flipped the radio back.

Sitting up Sweet Gin rubbed her head. Even with the atrocious sound severed it still pounded and split from the echoes of its choir. Frowning, she gave the radio a sour look. "Bad!" she said.

As the echoes faded and sensibility restored, she did wonder if anything existed across the band if she did flip the switch. Turning and twisting the knob continued to reveal nothing as it currently stood. Holding the volume knob, she toned down the watery static to a dull whisper, then reached behind the radio again, this time ready.

She grit her teeth and shut ere eyes tight as her fingers passed over it. There was a click, and the high-pitched static resumed, but not to the grating ferocity it was before. The android relaxed. With an iffy breath, she turned the tuning knob.

As with last time, the pitch and tone of the static shifted delicately as the dial turned and swept across the face. But unlike last time, something changed.

As the interface drew to the far left of the band, a discernible pattern whispered in the static. A sound, moving with a tone not so random and garbled. Mired at first by the overlaying mask of nonsense and nothing. She smiled, astonished at the discovery. The changing patterns to a discernible form egged her on wards and she chased it till it became music.

"Race hatred can not stop us!" a voice sand strong and sure as the clarity of the station came to light. Plinking and tinking of some instruments, something accompanied in behind him, "This one thing we know, your poll tax and Jim Crow, and greed has got to go! You're bound to lose. You fascists bound to lose!" he cheered lyrically.

The song continued to hop and bop and Sweet Gin couldn't help but bob a foot up and down. The singer and his company singing up and down the lines. Going through the chords with such a powerful gusto, a strength and determination. A spirit of provocativeness wound its way in the song.

And even though Sweet Gin did not understand what a Fascist was, or the freedom by which the song so stalwartly sang to uphold, she could not be helped to be entrapped by its mysticism. And as quickly as the fade-out came, and it came to a silence a spike of anger was driven into her. "Hey!" she scowled, "I want this again! Play it aga-"

New Order v. 2.0

You have too many marked territories, you'll need to cut one. As well the EEDS still sounds like a direct annexation of the member nations than a political partnership like, say, NATO or the Central American Parliament. And I think we can remove the whole Germany-going-WW2 thing, it was silly and stupid to begin with.

New Order v. 2.0

I suppose if Greece finds the money then a fascist party might encourage growth by subsidizing living expenses for large families, and making a welfare state just to grow the population. Greece may be the only nation to have a bloated population pyramid after this.