The main reason I'm joining is to show you people the on-going Fallout fanfiction I've been working on for a couple of months now, called "Post-Apocalyptic Homesick Blues". It's been available in Fanfiction.net for some time now, but you can't really expect people to notice your story amongst millions of others, so I decided to personally display it and discuss it here, with other Fallout fans. Just like in Hitman Forum, a forum where I'm a regular of and where the story's first appearence was made, I'm open for suggestions, critiques, questions, complaints and general discussion.
"Post-Apocalyptic Homesick Blues: The Strange and Gruesome Odyssey of Smiling Jenny Across The Chaos and The Wilderness of The Mischievous South Wasteland" is generally a black comedy action tale taking place in the post-War American south, borrowing elements from old Western movies and the 70s Exploitation flicks. It tells the tale of a slightly fucked-in-the-head (but potentially likeable) young woman known as Smiling Jenny, who lives off her lack of morals and combat training as a hired gun. Eventually, Jenny ends up messing with as many wrong people as possible, and we watch as the world around her becomes as bizarre battlefield.
Anyway, today I'll be posting the story's first chapter. Depending on the reception, I'll post the other two, and then come by to post the following whenever they are done. Meanwhile, hope you have a good read.
---
War. War never changes. World leaders with too many warheads and too few brain cells wiped out each other's countries, thinking that would save their own. The Super Mutants up in that Mariposa shithole wanted to turn the entire Wasteland into a republic of deformed green rednecks. The Enclave, on the other hand, followed the old-fashioned method of killing everyone they didn't want around, in order to get the Wasteland all for themselves. But in the end this entire gallery of clusterfucks is nothing but something we can all look back at, just to have a glimpse of the sort of fuck-up we have in store for ourselves for both near and distant futures. Because war never changes.
Unluckily enough, we survived. Even though the nukes they used with the sole purpose of permanently fucking humanity's shit up did the trick as properly as they could, some of us locked themselves in underground shelters. Apparently, even after all what happened, the human race was about to ask for seconds. After a century or so, the inhabitants of the Vaults came out to refill the empty space left by war. The idea was to preserve the human species so it'd show up back again after earth's radiation levels dropped a bit, and then start civilization anew. It didn't really work out as I guess they planned; Granted our society is steady enough to have a currency, methods of honest living and sometimes even laws, but I'd never use the world "civilized" to describe what we came up with.
Life in the Wasteland is more about killing than living. If you don't have the guts to handle a gun or simply don't want to, allow me to inform you your death warrant is already signed. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're promoting peace by not fighting back. The only thing you'll be doing is fueling some frenzied raider's delusion that he can enter an unarmed man's property and shoot him full of holes to loot his valuable stuff and get away with enough nerve and bullets to be already prepared for the next round. You're given the choice to fight back or not, but choosing the latter isn't as comforting as it sounds. Not fighting back means locking yourself in a small shack in a distant and properly hidden settlement and never even considering opening the front door. If that's the case, rest assured you have a fifty-fifty chance of survival. That excluding the fact you'll eventually need food and water.
Ah, but what do I know. I'm the kind of woman that would make the cheapest and dirtiest whore you've ever met wonder in which point of history women had to sink so low for something that could be called a living. But no, boss, I'm not in the same business as her. It isn't hard to guess what someone like me does of life. All I've been doing the last two or so decades is killing and pillaging. Back in the day I was a smalltime raider, but that's past. Today I'm a professional, the average Soldier of Fortune. Bounties, contract killing, "In Gold We Trust", all that jazz. Killing and looting who I'm told by the bounty offices and outlaw organizations is what makes me sure the next meal is on it's way and I'll be able to afford a place to sleep at night. I'm almost a thirty-year-old, but I still see myself as that little girl with that overwhelming pain between her blood-soaked legs, a rusty razor on the right hand, Deagle on the left, and that bone-chilling yet heart-warming grin on her face. That night I became what I am today. That night I was born. Smiling.
And here I am heading south. The west is the place to go if you want to settle down or make a relatively honest living. The north is a no man's land, a freezing white desert with more radioactivity than any other site I've seen in the Californian wastes. And the east... Well, I'm not really sure about the entire area they call "Capital Wasteland", but the DC area turned into an unending shootout since the rest of the Enclave moved there a couple of years ago. But South Wasteland is a land of opportunities. For outlaws and gunrunners, that is. Gentlemen around here use the best pieces around; Energy weapons and Power Armors can be owned by anyone with enough cash to afford them, not only by the Brotherhood's wonder boys. It's pretty satisfying to be able to buy the ammo or the guns you need with the closest merchant in the neighborhood, instead of having to pay a visit to the black market's nearest branch. Not to mention the price, of course. Any pissant with a hundred coins in his pocket can buy a .44 fully loaded with FMJ rounds. Thing is, that might be safe enough to survive for a week in the wastes back west, but by the south even the children are packing heavier stuff. Sometimes they can even shoot straight, and maybe even straight enough to make you regret trying your luck in here.
But make no mistake, boss. I've seen it all. And here in the South Wasteland, I'm home.
---
Chapter 1: Woke Up This Morning
Smiling Jenny waited long enough. By the time the sun disappeared amongst the dunes, she was already remembering how bad she was in the art of being patient. She always considered herself a bit too reckless, but not too much for her own good. As far as she knew, her recklessness was one of the main reasons she would always draw first. Still, she was practiced enough to know the element of surprise is never useless, especially when combined with a bit of the good old scouting. Jenny woke up about 10 AM that day. Reached the site by midnight the day before, and spent nine entire hours scouting. At first she planned to spend only five hours, but got impressed with how heavily guarded Steiner's hideout was. That is, heavily guarded enough to make her come up with a plan.
The place was an abandoned gas station in the middle of the desert. The highway it was located in was long buried by the constant sand storms, hiding the only track someone could have to the place. Steiner wasn't a particularly experienced raider, from what Jenny could tell. His record said he killed a bunch of dozens, ten or so women, a kid or two. Savaged some small settlements, never had the guts to raid a town. Steiner's main feature was having enough people around to save him from apparently any dangers the Wasteland could offer. The place consisted in a former convenience store annexed to a café on the right, a garage on the left and two small shacks in the back. The large windows of the café and the shop were all shattered, but they were shut tight with several heavy planks and some plates of scrap metal stitched together poorly.
After she woke up, she spent the first two hours studying the place. She laid down on the sand, her back to the sun, and observed the place from about mile away with her binoculars. After the first hour, she came closer. Sticking to the nearby bushes was the wise thing to do; dressing in black wouldn't work out for her advantage on a sandy landscape. She didn't spot any hidden entrances or escape routes, and soon concluded they didn't really care about escaping in case they were attacked. That most likely meant they weren't really planning on ever running away, and imagining them trying to convince themselves of that made Jenny chuckle. She took a half an hour break to drink some water and rest her eyes, and another half to check her equipment one last time again. The following while she dedicated to study every soldier's gear and position, and the movements of the ones patrolling. That took a three-hour while, because there were ten men only in the outside. Two snipers planted on the edges of the roof and one patrolling it. Four men on mounted 'sixties, two on each side of the front door, one by the right of the café and the fourth one by the left of the garage. The last three were armed with assault rifles, patrolling around the block randomly.
The next two hours were a mere overtime. She got a bit relieved when Steiner stepped out of the front door, apparently drunk, and started shouting how he needed people inside, because he didn't feel safe on his own. One of the snipers and the soldiers handling the two front M60s dragged their boss inside and didn't come back. That way Jenny concluded there weren't any other men inside before, making it a total of eleven men including Steiner. After the two hours passed, she realized the amount of time she spent there, and how itchy her trigger fingers were.
Jenny got up and shook the sand off her clothes. She was dressing her everyday black duster, over her old and loose grey tracksuit. The duster was shut until its last button, which was right below her throat. The lower half of her face and shoulders were wrapped by a black silk blanket, with her biker glasses hanging from her neck. These pieces of apparel served to protect her lips and eyes from the sand storms, respectively. After getting up on her feet, she opened her coat, leaving the .44 to be freely reached during battle. While walking slowly towards Steiner's hideout, Jenny drew the combat shotgun that hanged from her back besides her old Chinese assault rifle. Leaving the shotgun on the left hand, she drew the revolver with her right.
Twelve steps, pointing the handgun to the left sniper's head. She fearlessly pulled the trigger, and the desert's silence was promptly drowned in the echo of the gunshot. The bullet hit the man right across his right eye, exiting his head while turning it into a messy explosion of skull shards and brain chunks. The other two men on the roof jumped with the noise, and their surprise was good enough for her. She shot the one in the middle somewhere in his face, and his head ended up the same way as his late partner's.
She looked left, and saw two of the patrolling soldiers running towards her. Closely enough she could see they were fairly younger than her, and most importantly: scared. Couldn't handle those rifles, that she could tell. They were in extremely close range and not even risking to shoot, almost as if they were trying to attack her with bayonets. That left them two shotgun shells, the first in one's chest and the second in the other's face. The recoil of two shots in a row summed up with the weapon's weight on her off hand hurt her arm's joints, but she had no time to worry about that.
Looking back to the roof, the third sniper loaded his gun and got her in his sights. Skillfully enough she shot him in the right shoulder, even though she was aiming for his head. Another shot just to be sure, this time hitting the bull's eye. His head now in pieces, Jenny looked around to try to spot the other men. This time on the right, she heard automatic gunshots. The bullets hit the sand besides her feet, raising a bit of dust and making her step back quickly. She saw the third patroller cursing while smacking his jammed rifle. She could see he was older than the other two boys, and was seemingly more apt with the gun considering the range he was shooting from. Once again for her luck, it jammed, and she gave him the Magnum's last two rounds.
Jenny's attention was once again caught by a noise. Now she heard the two remaining men loading the M60 by the left of the door, more scared than anyone else back there and rushing to load the gun. She holstered the empty .44 back and hung the shotgun back on her left shoulder, while reaching for the Chinese rifle and letting out a brief and loud laughter even though it was barely audible due to the rag covering her mouth. All the time she thought the machine guns were already loaded, but apparently the men responsible for them were too amateurish to even bother to do that. She came just a little closer, keeping the rifle steady and the trigger pulled. A second and a half and they were already bleeding on the ground, the 'sixtie still unloaded. "Amateurs", she whispered for herself while reloading, to give her ego a little boost.
Upon reaching the front door, she realized the others didn't come out for her yet. She guessed the gunshots could be clearly heard from the inside, and by that time the remaining three men and Steiner should already be outside fighting too. Considering she was already having a lot of fun realizing that they were pushovers, she decided to have a little more fun. Got a flashbang out of one of the duster's internal pockets and held it with her left hand, the Chinese rifle still on the right.
"Steiner", she shouted near the door. Made a two seconds break before continuing, and just like predicted she heard the clicks of guns being loaded. "You've got to have hired the best collection of lame excuses for bodyguards I've ever seen since the day I first stepped on the South Wasteland's sands. Seriously, where do you get men like these? I'm need of some, it's getting hard to find living targets that are fun to shoot these days."
The men stayed in silence. Taunted, but expecting her to slip.
"Who the fuck are you?" Steiner shouted back. His voice implied he drunk considerably more since the last time she saw him that day. Not to mention he sounded pretty badly scared.
"Smiling Jenny." she answered, hearing some whispers inside. She was flattered.
"What the fuck do you want? You want money? The old man?"
"I'm here for the bounty." she replied. Didn't know who that old man was, probably a slave or a hostage of some sort. "You have a face pretty enough to be worth 500 coins."
"I can give you three times that, Smiling Jenny!" the drunken voice shouted back. "Just spare me and I'll... Eh, I'll spare you back. And pay you. Come in so we can talk."
"Ah, now that's what I'm talking about." she said, still amused by Steiner's stupidity. "But I'll only come in if you come here and open the door for me. And you better be unarmed, just like me."
"Really?" the voice asked. "I mean, sure, what the hell. Let me just get the keys."
She heard some whispers, followed by the sound of a couple of steps. She bit the flashbang's pin with her left front teeth, and heard some keys tingling. When the doorknob was turning, she kicked down the door with all her strength. Hit the man on the other side like a truck, and even though she wasn't sure if it was Steiner or one of the three, she pulled the pin and hurled the thing inside. About the time it hit the ground she already covered her eyes and ears with her left arm, and then it exploded, filling the room with it's hellish noise. She uncovered her face and saw the people inside: two men by her right armed with sawn-offs, one lying on the floor in front of her and Steiner sitting on an old armchair in the back of the joint. Jenny quickly disposed of the two men, and unloaded the rest of the clip on the man on the floor. Steiner dressed an old pre-war-styled velvet robe over his bare torso and his armored legs and feet. He was now up on his feet, and started shooting the ceiling randomly with his Desert Eagle, still stunned. She smacked his flaccid stomach with the butt of her rifle, making him fall on his knees, dropping his handgun and covering his belly with his hands while screaming in pain. She then hit him just as hard behind his neck, making him hit the ground on his face and staying there, seemingly unconscious.
Jenny grabbed his Desert Eagle and pointed to the back of his bald head, firing a single shot and dropping it besides him. She took a brief walk around the place, hoping to find either something of value, remaining bodyguards or that old man he mentioned. The place was a complete dump, and they didn't keep anything worth carrying back to town to change for whatever amount of coins it could be worth. Fortunately, the old man was a sort of reward she'd never guess she'd get. He was inside the shop's employee's restroom, sitting on the closed toilet seat. He dressed a sweaty sleeveless shirt and brahmin-skin trousers. He had a black cloth bag over his head, while his hands were tied to his back and his bare feet tied around the toilet's bowl by the ankles. Jenny slowly approached him and took the bag off his head. She saw his head hanging down, the mildly long blondish white hair wet in sweat. He raised his head, and his eyes met her's. She looked at him in shock, and he shared her surprise. Behind that wrinkled face and that rough beard, she recognized him.
"I'll be fucking damned..." she whispered, half to herself. She smiled. "Lee Roosevelt."
"Smiling Jenny..." he replied with his deep and scruffy voice. He coughed, since it was apparently the first time he talked to someone else in a long time. "I forgot this kind of place attracts your kind."
"My kind, huh? That's probably why you ended up here." said Jenny, reaching for her hunting knife.
"I didn't come here collecting some cheap bounty. I got abducted."
"No shit? You getting slow in the old age, Lee?" she said, leaning over his left shoulder and cutting the ropes tying his hands.
"I wouldn't say that." replied Lee, massaging his wrists while Jenny was on her knees, slicing the ropes around his ankles. "I think just I messed with the wrong people."
"I know how that feels", said Jenny while getting back up and exiting the bathroom. "Let's talk about your exploits outside, boss. I'll fix us something to eat."
Lee rose from the toilet seat. His knees and elbows felt horribly sore. All his joints were in pain, for the matter. He stepped out of the toilet and saw Jenny once again on her knees, but this time besides Steiner's body, holding his left hand and hacking off his index finger with her hunting knife.
"Are the bounty offices demanding proofs now?" asked Lee.
"Yeah. Appatently a lot of con-artists ended up getting away with the bounties without even having to face the targets, these last few years." She drew a small cigarette case out of her pocket and placed the finger in there. "They are now demanding proofs. Say that fingers are the best choice." She started searching the fridge next to Steiner's armchair. "You know, since they can get digitals and shit out of them. You hungry, boss?"
Lee didn't answer.
---
"So?" asked Lee. Jenny looked back at him and ended chewing up the chunk of brahmin steak she bit. She swallowed it with a mouthful of beer.
"So what?" she asked, even though she knew what Lee meant. They were back in the desert, a couple of miles away from Steiner's place, sitting on a dune next to a campfire she came up with. She was once again wrapped in her rags for the cold night. Save for the blanket that protected her face, which was removed while she was eating. Lee was dressing a leather jacket he stole from one of Jenny's recent victims back in the hideout, along with a large dusty brahmin skin blanket over his shoulders. She cooked two slices of brahmin steak for them, but he didn't want his. All he wanted that moment was whiskey and to keep himself warm.
"Well, you look a lot different from how I left you." he said, taking a sip from his whiskey. "What have you been doing, kiddo?"
"Odd jobs. I'm basically paid to do things that involve killing people."
"You're gonna have to give me more than that." said Lee. "You still raid?"
"Not at all." she said. Had some more beer. "I'm a professional merc now. I'm being hired by a couple of mates in Fort Travis, every week they come up someone to kill or something to steal from someone they want dead. I collect bounties when work doesn't show up."
"But no raids."
"Nah. That was teenager stuff." she said, laughing low when she noticed he smiled.
"And these tatoos?" he said, referring to the unusual tribal designs on her left cheek and below her eyes.
"Ah, these?" she said, gently scratching her cheek with her right hand. "Ceremonial gift. From some friends I made a couple of years ago, back west. Tribals, but surprisingly very smart. And fun, too. We smoked, drank, exchanged stories..." She chuckled. "You made a lot of fans amongst them, boss. They didn't believe half of the stories I told about Paladin Lee Roosevelt and his band of bastards, but I can tell they loved them all."
"Yeah" said Lee, looking down and smiling. "I guess that's the good side of doing what we and the boys did. So you can tell a bunch of tribals and they can laugh convinced it's all a big joke" he said, as his smile vanished. He took another sip of the whiskey. "Since it all sounds as pathetic and grisly as some pre-war exploitation movie."
"Don't put things this way, boss." said Jenny, ignoring the old man's guilt. "We have reasons when we quit, after all. Wasn't that yours?"
"I guess. All I know is that my karma is catching up with me." said Lee, taking a large mouthful of the whisky and hissing a bit after swallowing it.
"I hope this has something to do with why you were tied and blindfolded inside Steiner's bathroom."
"Yes, kiddo, it does. It's actually pretty much the main reason."
"Good, because you still owe me that explanation."
---
Lee Roosevelt was Jenny's best friend and mentor during her late childhood. She never considered him a father, since she never really understood the idea of being someone's daughter. Before finding her, Lee was cast out of the Brotherhood of Steel for selling classified material and technology for people all across the Wasteland, including Enclave personnel and Super Mutant rogues. He then became a raider, starting a group with his friend O'Brien and other raiders he got to know as time went by. Although he lost more men than he could remember during his raider years, his group consisted basically in particularly well-trained men such as himself. After a couple of years attacking only travelers, small caravans and a settlement or two every once in a while, Lee's group started raiding other bandits. It was after crippling an organization of slavers that Lee would come to meet Jenny, still a little girl at the time. Lee took a rare liking on her, and after a series of shocking unexpected events, he was convinced she had potential.
He had been around the South Wasteland for two years. Lived in a rented shack in the Metroplex's residential area, and worked as the chief and sub-manager of a small company of bodyguards for hire, being hired mainly by caravans of water traders who needed to head back to Headstone in safety. It all started when a couple of weeks back, while off duty, Lee by chance met Kowalski, an old partner of his and Jenny from the old days. At first they were really glad to see each other after such a long time, but soon enough Lee realized his old friend wasn't particularly happy. Kowalski seemed restless, and the crowd of the bar they were in seemed to make him more nervous every second that passed. He told Lee how he was doing, that he was now selling Jet in the Metroplex from some big time gangsters in some other town, and even joked about being jealous of Lee's ability to live an honest life even after all they did. After a while talking, Lee had the nerve to ask if there was something wrong. Kowalski was relieved that Lee had finally noticed, because he was in fact in a tight spot.
Kowalski's trouble started after a trip to the desert. He was heading to Headstone that day, but heard of rumors of raiders cruising the main route lately that month. A fellow merchant told him about an alternative way, which consisted basically in heading for Fort Travis and getting it's main route to Headstone. After some hours away from Fort Travis, Kowalski ended up lost. Eventually, he stumbled upon this small crater, and after following a series of paths that he didn't really describe in a clear enough way, he ended up inside a Vault. He didn't remember the number marked on the door, but it had two numbers and one of them was a six or an eight. The door was left opened, and he was curious enough to at least inspect the place briefly.
He'd never been to a Vault before, but he heard a couple of stories from merchants and scavengers who had. The place wasn't different from any decently designed military bunker, and even though the array of hallways and galleries was vast, he didn't get lost. The place was clearly abandoned long ago by the residents, considering the rust and dirt on the walls. The doors only opened manually, since there wasn't any spare energy to make them open automatically.
Things started getting weird when Kowalski found the first storage room. The room didn't look as old as the rest of the Vault's interiors: The walls weren't rusty or stained by the humidity, the lights worked properly and the shelves were all perfectly lined and, most importantly, filled. He couldn't believe the kind of hardware he saw there: plasma handguns, models of rifles he never saw before, explosives of all kinds and even anti-tank guns. The back wall of the room was covered with lockers, which were filled with sets of high-tech armors and helmets that made the Brotherhood's look like ragged Brahmin skin outfits. The remaining storage rooms were identical, save for a couple of random weapons. It was a total of seventeen rooms. What he saw there, as he described to Lee, was enough to turn each and every man in South Wasteland into a walking arsenal. But the main event was on the seventeenth room, the one in the end of the kilometer-long hallway: a lead container, with the size of truck, completely sealed. A hydrogen bomb.
---
"Wait, what the fuck?"said Jenny, looking at Lee horribly confused.
"At least that's what he said." said Lee.
"A fucking hydrogen bomb... You mean, like the ones they used in the war?"
"No. Those were nuclear missiles. H-bombs are thermonuclear bombs, and that's almost a thousand times more powerful than a regular nuclear warhead."
Jenny chocked in her whiskey when she heard the word "thousand".
"Jesus fucking Christ, how's that even possible? I mean, a thing like that could turn the entire Wasteland into a goddamn mushroom cloud."
"Hahah, no, not at all. You see, kiddo, a single H-bomb wouldn't be enough to destroy the whole American territory, even excluding the Canadian ground. But well..." He took a break and thought a bit about the scenario, realizing how dangerous that thing could be. "I guess it would be enough to vaporize a nice deal of South Wasteland, and enough radioactivity to leave the survivals something to worry about."
"Bad enough for me." said Jenny, taking another shot. "But anyway, boss, how does Kowalski's little discovery jeopardizes you hide?"
"See, I'm not finished yet."
---
Kowalski couldn't carry any of the stuff he found, but he knew a couple of men in Headstone who could lend him a hand. He left the Vault promptly, and headed back to the surface. By the end of the day he found his way back to Headstone. The first thing he did was contacting an old friend who happened to be his number one buyer of Jet, and knew a couple of guys who had a pack of hardware-carrying brahmin. Kowalski talked to the men, and said that each one of them could have a slice of the loot if they helped him carry the stuff out of the Vault and back to Headstone. They didn't believe him at first, but eventually decided to give it a shot. The next morning, Kowalski, his friend, the other five merchants and their four brahmin headed back to the desert, following the man's steps.
They reached the crater he found the day before, but something wasn't quite right. They spotted two Vertibird aircrafts landed next to the edge, guarded by a patrol of about ten armored and heavily armed men. They heard voices coming from the bottom of the crater, as if someone was shouting. That was when they were spotted, and what followed was fast and brutal.
Three of the merchants were shot on sight with the soldiers' strange plasma beams. The other two tried to fight back, and were liquidated. Kowalski's friend surrendered, and wasn't shot. He, for one, ran away just like the brahmin, and all he could hear was his friends screams as he was beaten with the butts of the men's rifles and the loud noise of laser rifles being fired behind him. Kowalski was lucky enough to not be hit or followed, but he only looked back after a hundred miles running. Only stopped running when he found himself back in the Metroplex.
That wasn't the last he saw of those mysterious men. He told Lee he was being followed on the street. That he was always being watched by at least a person when he was in a crowd. He knew his friend was interrogated and most certainly spilled the beans, and now those men knew he had been sneaking inside their particular weapons cache. And most importantly, that he knew they had a bomb capable of destroying half of the Wasteland. Why they didn't dispose of him, he wasn't sure why.
Lee was pretty surprised after Kowalski was done. They spent the whole night in that bar, and Lee was so interested he didn't even notice how time went by. He told his old friend that he didn't need to worry, that he could arrange some of his company's bodyguards to keep him safe from whoever wanted to get him. Kowalski thanked Lee for the concern, but he'd only be involving more people in that entire mess. He was sure his captured associate was "up to his butt with plasma charges", and that he'd eventually end up just as bad. He knew the men who were after him weren't just "pissed off average Joes with half-assed weapons", but "some sorta major league of badasses packing some hardcore shit".
Lee asked if he was "sure you don't want me to stick around?", at least to "be sure the men following you are as dangerous as you keep telling me they are". But Kowalski didn't want "any single mate of mine having his head followed by some 'sychotic merc's sniper's crosshair as he step outta home". As far as he was concerned, as he told Lee, "you may as well be in a tight spot, just for knowing what I know".
---
"Wait, let me guess..." she said in a calm tone, slowly raising her opened hands as a sign for him to stop. "So now those freaks are after you, and Steiner happened to be with them."
"Indeed. At least that's what I guess, given the circumstances."
"Cool story, boss." continued Jenny, drinking the last bit of whiskey from the little bottle. "But why did you really take your time to tell me all of this?"
Lee shrugged.
"I don't have anything better to do right now, besides walking back home. Which I don't plan doing until morning."
"That wasn't my question, Lee. Come to think of it, if you were dragged into the eye of this shitstorm just by hearing a greasy old man's story, why did you tell me all of this? Wouldn't it leave me in danger as well?"
"You see, kiddo," he said, looking a bit embarrassed. "I just got careless. We were talking on a crowded bar, and it wasn't located in the kind of place only model citizens hang around. The Dallas Block is just the place for hired mercs in the Metroplex to spend their time and money, and it's damn well likely that one of those bastards heard Kowalski talking to me."
"Could've been one of Steiner's men?"
"Could have been Steiner himself." said Lee in matter-of-factly way. "Never even heard of him before they brought me here, so I wouldn't haven noticed if he showed up before."
"I get it. But about you involving me in this deal..."
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But unless there's someone spying on us right now--", but he was interrupted when she looked over both her shoulders, looking uneasily suspicious. She was always a bit of a paranoid, he thought to himself, and continued. "I mean, if nobody heard us talking right now, then nobody knows you know all that stuff. So I suppose you're not in danger."
"Yeah, I agree." she said, leaving her paranoia aside and now looking rather joyful. "But the thing is: Is that what I want?"
"What do you mean?" he asked. She chuckled and got up, shaking the sand off the lower back of her duster.
"I dunno, boss. I mean, an H-Bomb? All that high tech stuff? That's some serious shit we're talking about. The kind of shit that makes it worth a try."
"Jennifer..." said Lee, starting to have a clue about what she had in my mind. "What the fuck are you talking about? You can't possibly be con--"
"C'mon, why can't you see things my way? I'm a goddamn professional, I've gotta make some cash everyone once in a while. And it's not dumping opportunities like these that said cash is gonna be made..."
Lee raised fast. He walked hard through the sandy ground and grabbed Jenny by her coat's lapel. Her smile promptly died.
"Enough with the jokes, you cocky little bitch." he said in her face. Her right hand reached for the wrist of the arm holding her, but he ignored it. "This is not some of your smalltime odd jobs. These men are out of your league, out of my league, and most importantly, out of the league of any son of a bitch you and I ever killed. They are packing weapons you never even dreamed of, and that includes a warhead of the most dangerous kind of bomb ever crafted. They hired a man to kidnap me, and were just about to kill me, just like they probably already did with Kowalski. If you..."
But his speech suddenly lost it's grief. Her gloved fingers squeezed his forearm like a boa constrictor. Under the skin and the leather, he felt the bones of her hand as hard as rough diamonds, in a calm yet brutal struggle that would be enough to crush his forearm if she kept up for a few more seconds. Her eyes were mildly narrowed, her eyebrows low and her lips relaxed and lifeless. He slowly dropped her lapel, and she just as slowly let him go off.
Her grip was enough to make him realize. Things have changed since the last time he saw her. She was not only making a profession out of her marksman skills, but of all her aggressiveness. Probably knew how to handle herself in a fist fight, and under all those rags she carried muscles and bones hard enough to make a Super Mutant cry like an abused underage whore. I need to convince myself, he though at that moment, that this is not that little girl I first met anymore. Maybe it was the wilderness of the South Wasteland. Maybe it was the spit in the eye every mercenary receives after some time in the job. Maybe those tribals she met. Maybe simply time. Smiling Jenny became something else.
Lee stared at her for a second, massaging his forearm with his other hand. She stared back at him, like a dog smelling the fear of his victim. He stood there, making it clear he was expecting her to deliver the final word. A sort of way to admit defeat and keep his pride intact. She simply walked a couple of steps, kicked some sand into the campfire, and kneeled down to pick up her stuff.
"The Metroplex isn't too far from here." she said, hanging her shotgun on the back and picking up the rifle. "I strongly suggest you start walking right now, this place isn't exactly safe at night. I'd go with you, but I really gotta be back home soon."
Still crouched, she grabbed a small handgun out of a small holster strapped next to her right boot. She hanged the rifle over her left shoulder and handed the little gun to Lee.
"Philadelphia Derringer. Nice little guy, they don't make them anymore. Much like all the good pre-war guns." said Jenny, as Lee reluctantly picked it up, as if he was afraid of her. "Don't go all trigger happy in your trip back home, this is just for extreme situations. It only carries two caps, so shoot them wisely."
She finished gearing up, and before leaving turned back to him.
"Just so you know, you don't need to worry about me. I'll get back to my usual business, because I do agree enough people are in trouble already." She covered her eyes with the smoky biker glasses and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and neck, covering her mouth.
"Heh, an H-Bomb.", he could hear her say. "Hell if I'd know what to do with one. Take care, boss."
She walked slowly down the dune. Lee shoved the Derringer in his leather jacket's inner pocket, picked up his almost empty whiskey bottle and stood there. He stood there for a couple of minutes, just finishing drinking and watching over Smiling Jenny as she wandered away. For some reason, he was sure his nightmare wasn't even nearly over, and she was now a part of it. He wanted to run down that dune, reach her, tell her he was wrong about her. That of all the gunslingers and mercenaries he ever met, she was the most dangerous, the deadliest, the best that could be had to be offered. He wanted to see what she was made of, what the young woman he trained and raised was now able to do. He wanted to see her butcher all the men that stepped in her shadow, to prove him she could outsmart and kill even the most merciless and heavily armed men in the South Wasteland. That old, worn-out Brotherhood of Steel outcast didn't want much, in the end. All he wanted was something to be proud of.
He took a step towards her direction, but she was already gone. Already lost in the blurry horizon between the black sky and the sands of Texas.
