Chapter 14: Space Rangers
The entrance to the Galactic Zone looked like someone had taken a pre-war comic book about the year 2000 and set it on fire. Huge, sweeping arches of tarnished chrome bent over the main plaza, and beneath them, everything was glowing with an eerie, buzzing blue neon. It would have been impressive—if the entire place weren’t crawling with security.
Up on the high walkways, a pair of silver Novatrons rolled past, their internal parts making a low, rhythmic clicking sound as their red lenses scanned the shadows. Overhead, a swarm of rusty Eyebots drifted through the artificial fog, blasting a tinny, distorted marching tune from their speakers. Every minute or so, a bright red laser beam would snap out from a distant balcony, sizzling against the concrete whenever a stray radroach scurried across the pavement.
I kept my back pressed hard against a cracked stone planter, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Between the narrow choke points near the souvenir stands and the massive, nuclear-powered displays waiting to blow, this plaza was a total meat grinder.
It could be worse. At least I had Lucy back by my side—after a whole day of dealing with Maximus’s thick-headed chivalry and Thaddeus’s constant, sweaty panic, her face was easily the most reassuring balm I could have asked for.
But present company aside from her could have been a lot quieter.
“Oh! Lucy, look at the vintage carbonation seals on that vending machine!” Sierra loudly whispered, her voice bouncing off the concrete with the subtlety of a flashbang. She was practically hanging off Lucy’s shoulder, her nose buried in a faded park map while her cappy glasses kept sliding down the bridge of her nose. “The 2076 models used an experimental pressurized valve that actually caused three minor explosions during the testing phase! Isn't that just wonderful?”
“Sierra, please,” Lucy hissed, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the strap of her syringe rifle—not that it’d help much against robots. Her usual bright, unstoppably positive expression was entirely gone, replaced by a tense, twitching smile.
Which I have never seen before, by the way.
She had been trying to copy my movements and keep a lookout, but Sierra had spent the last ten minutes physically pulling on her jumpsuit to point out soda trivia. It might be getting to her. “We are trying to be very quiet right now. Like little mice.”
Yeah, I think it’s getting to her.
“But the history is so rich!” Sierra insisted, completely oblivious to the active automated defense grid twenty feet away. “The engineers even wrote a whole manual about how the syrup lines—”
“Sierra!” Lucy snapped, her voice dropping into a sharp, fierce whisper that was entirely un-Vault-like. She turned around, her eyes wide with a mix of exhaustion and genuine panic. “If you do not shut your mouth about Nuka-Cola right this second, I am going to let Kenny leave you in a dumpster. Do you understand me? A literal dumpster.”
I blinked, raising my eyebrows under my aviators. I hadn't realized Lucy even had that kind of venom in her, but honestly, it was beautiful to watch.
Unfortunately, the damage was already done.
A heavy, metallic clunk echoed from the other side of the planter. The sharp, bitter smell of oil and overheated wiring hit my nose a second before a massive shadow stretched across the dirt by our boots. A rogue Protectron stepped out from the ruins of a nearby ice cream parlor. Its glass dome was badly cracked, and some kind of thick, bubbling fluid was leaking down its silver chest plate, but its laser arms were fully extended and humming with a terrifying, high-pitched whine.
The red optical lens behind its visor clicked loudly, swiveling until it locked directly onto the bright blue fabric of Lucy’s jumpsuit.
“Warning,” the robot’s vocal box droned, the speaker crackling with heavy static. “Unauthorized visitors detected in restricted zone. Present valid park passes or face immediate removal.”
My hand moved on instinct, my thumb flicking the safety off my 10mm pistol, but my brain quickly calculated the math. If I started shooting, the noise would bring every Novatron and Eyebot in a three-block radius straight down on our heads. We couldn't blast our way out of this choke point.
I looked down at my Pip-Boy, my thumb hovering over the glowing green screen. I still had that one unspent perk point sitting in my interface from my last level-up. My intelligence was a nine—I could read a RobCo wiring diagram in my sleep—but I had been holding off on investing the point until I absolutely needed it.
Well, a killer robot blocking our only exit felt like a pretty solid emergency. I cleared my mind, focused on the digital matrix, and dumped the point straight into Robotics Expert.
Instantly, a flood of schematic data and override commands flashed behind my retinas. I knew exactly where the manual override panel was on a standard Protectron chassis, and I knew how to force its fusion core to undergo a catastrophic thermal overload. There was just one massive problem: I was about as graceful as a refrigerator falling down a flight of stairs. To hack this thing, I had to get close enough to plug my Pip-Boy directly into its service port without getting my face melted off first.
“Lucy,” I whispered, keeping my back to the planter as the Protectron took a heavy, grinding step forward. “I need you to buy me some time. Walk out there and keep its eyes on you. Don't let it turn around.”
Lucy looked at me, her chest rising and falling as she took a deep breath. She didn't ask questions, and she didn't panic. She just gave me a firm, resolute nod, unslung her rifle, and stepped right out into the open plaza.
“Oh! Hello there, mister!” Lucy called out, her voice forcing its way back into that polite, neighborly tone she used back in the vault. She held her hands out with her palms flat, standing directly in front of the machine's red lens. “We’re terribly sorry for the confusion! We seem to have lost our tickets on the way in. Could you perhaps tell us where the office is?”
The Protectron’s head tilted, its internal gears whirring loudly as it struggled to process the sudden shift in her behavior. “Error. Invalid ticket format. Please step away from the gate.”
“We’re just trying to find our way around!” Lucy continued, taking a slow, deliberate step to the left to force the robot to pivot away from my hiding spot. Her smile looked completely natural, but I could see her fingers twitching against her trousers. “It’s such a big park, and everything is so beautifully maintained out here! You must be very proud of your work.”
While she kept it distracted, I moved.
I slipped out from behind the stone planter, trying to be as quiet as possible, which mostly just meant I looked like a clumsy toddler trying to creep across a kitchen floor. My boots scuffed loudly against a loose piece of gravel, and my shoulder heavily clipped the edge of a rusted trash can, making a dull clink that made my soul temporarily leave my body.
“Is there someone we could speak to?” Lucy asked quickly, raising her voice and taking another step to keep the robot's attention locked forward. “A manager? Anyone who could help us get this sorted out?”
“Violation confirmed,” the Protectron droned, its visor flashing a deadly, bright red as the laser barrels began to glow a furious crimson. “Commencing standard removal protocol.”
I lunged forward, abandoning any attempt at stealth. I practically threw my entire body weight into the space behind the machine, my boots skidding through the dust as I reached out and slammed my hand against the small metal latch on the back of its silver torso.
The panel popped open with a sharp click.
With shaking fingers, I yanked the hardwire cable from my Pip-Boy and jammed it directly into the robot’s glowing green service port. The interface on my wrist instantly went wild, lines of white-hot diagnostic code scrolling across the screen at lightning speed. My fingers flew across the keys, bypassing the secondary firewalls and tapping into the primary command loop.
Command: Override targeting parameters. Status: Approved.
Command: Initiate fusion core purge. Status: Critical.
“Lucy, run!” I screamed, grabbing the cable and tearing it out of the port as I threw myself backward into the dirt.
The Protectron suddenly stiffened. The bright red light in its visor snapped to a violent, blinking yellow, and its internal speakers let out a series of high-pitched, panicked electronic shrieks. A thick cloud of white, pressurized steam hissed out from its shoulder joints, and the hum of its fusion core rose into a deafening, metallic scream.
Lucy didn't hesitate. She turned on her heel and dove over the top of the stone planter, landing hard in the dirt right next to Sierra.
An instant later, the robot exploded.
The blast was a brilliant, flashing shockwave of blue nuclear fire that completely shattered the machine’s silver torso, sending hot shards of chrome and melted wiring raining down across the plaza like deadly confetti. The concussion wave slammed into the planter, showering the back of my jacket in gray dust and bits of scorched metal. The suffocating smell of burnt copper and liquefied plastic filled the air, thick enough to make me cough as the smoke began to clear.
I rolled over, my back hitting the metal base of the display with a heavy thud, my aviators knocked completely sideways across my face. I straightened my shades with a shaky hand and looked over the edge. Where the Protectron had been standing a second ago, there was nothing left but a smoking, blackened crater and two isolated metal legs still standing upright in the dirt.
The blast had completely cleared our path to the inner plaza, and more importantly, the sheer force of the explosion made it look like a standard mechanical failure rather than a gunshot, keeping the rest of the patrol grid completely quiet.
Lucy was lying in the dirt a few feet away, her hair a tangled mess and her jumpsuit covered in soot, staring at the smoking legs with wide, surprised eyes. Slowly, she looked over at me, her jaw slightly slack.
“How did you do that?” Lucy asked, her voice a mix of total awe and slight terror.
“A little technical know-how goes a long way,” I said, offering her a dry, tired smile as I pushed myself up to my feet and checked my 10mm pistol. “Let’s move before the rest of the park decides to start looking for us.”
Specially, Thaddeus and Maximus.
I did not want to deal with sixty percent of the three stooges right now… wait, I’m not the third one, as I? Follow up question, does anyone get the three stooges reference, or am I just completely out of my time?
Like, more so than I already am.
“Oh, my goodness!” Sierra squeaked, suddenly popping up from behind the stone planter like a jack-in-the-box. She wasn't checking herself for shrapnel or wiping the nuclear soot out of her hair; she was staring at the two isolated, smoking metal legs left in the crater with absolute, unbridled reverence. “Kenny, that was spectacular! The thermal signature on that blast—did you see the blue tint in the flash? That means the internal generator was using the late-model Quantum-infused coolant lines! The exact ones from the 2077 recall!”
Lucy slowly pulled herself up by the edge of the planter, her knuckles still smudged with black ash as she stared at Sierra, then at the smoking legs, and finally at me. Her eye gave a tiny, involuntary twitch. “Sierra. The machine tried to kill us.”
“Well, yes, because the targeting parameters were corrupted by two centuries of environmental decay,” Sierra said, waving her hand dismissively as if a high-powered laser grid was just a minor clerical error. She eagerly adjusted her Cappy glasses, which were completely crooked and covered in gray dust. “But did you hear the frequency of the safety siren right before it blew? It was a perfect C-sharp! John-Caleb Bradberton insisted the warning tracks sound musical so the guests wouldn't panic during an evacuation! He was such a visionary.”
I cleared my throat, using one finger to push my aviators back up the bridge of my nose. “He sounds like a real humanitarian, Sierra. Now let’s move before his visionary defense grid sings us a sequel.”
“Right behind you,” Lucy said, unslung rifle held tight across her chest. She gave Sierra a brief, incredibly pointed look that silently screamed dumpster, then turned her eyes forward, her jaw set with that stubborn determination of hers. “Remember what I said, Sierra. We are mice.”
“Then let’s hope the cats are away,” I muttered, keeping low as we moved past the smoking crater and slipped deeper into the neon-lit belly of the Galactic Zone.
…
The heat inside the T-60 Power Armor was suffocating, smelling of stale grease and hot hydraulics, but Maximus barely noticed it… okay, he noticed it. But he didn’t care. He was too busy staring down the dusty, sun-bleached stretch of Dry Rock Gulch’s Main Street. To his left, a collapsed wooden saloon leaned against a hitching post; to his right, a faded sign for a barber shop creaked as it swung in the dry desert wind.
This was exactly how the world was supposed to look.
Back at the Citadel, the scribes spent hours lecturing about duty, honor, and the rigid order of the Brotherhood, but none of those stuffy history books ever captured the raw, beautiful truth of the surface. This wasteland was a wild, lawless frontier. It needed men of metal and conviction to tame it.
It needed a sheriff.
Maximus shifted his weight, the massive servos in his legs letting out a deep, mechanical groan that echoed off the empty storefronts. He forced his heavy steel boots to drag slightly through the dirt, widening his stance into a slow, deliberate swagger. Through the amber tint of his helmet’s visor, he wasn't just a squire in a borrowed suit anymore. He was the lone lawman entering a town full of vipers.
“Maximus, please, can we just walk on the boardwalk?” Thaddeus whimpered, his voice coming through the radio crackly and thin with terror. He was practically vibrating inside his own armor, his eyes darting frantically toward every patch of loose sand. “I swear I saw the dirt move over by the trough. Kenny said there are worms out here. Giant, fleshy ones that tunnel under your feet and eat you from the bottom up. I don't want to get eaten from the bottom up, Maximus.”
“Lawmen don't hide on the boardwalk, Thaddeus,” Maximus declared, his voice booming through his external speakers with a deep, electronic echo. He kept his hands hovering right over his metal thighs, his massive robotic fingers twitching rhythmically. “We walk down the middle of the street. It shows them we aren't afraid.”
“Shows who?” Thaddeus hissed, frantically checking the street behind them. “There’s nobody here but us and the dust!”
A harsh, mechanical click cut through the whistling wind, proving him entirely wrong.
Three silver Protectrons marched out from behind the dilapidated livery stable, their heavy metal boots thudding in unison against the hard-packed earth. They weren't like the sleek, terrifying security models in the capital ruins. These ones were wearing oversized, dented tin cowboy hats welded directly onto their glass domes, and heavy iron badges were bolted clumsily to their chest plates.
The robot in the center stepped forward, its glass head tilting with a loud, grinding whir as its red optical sensor locked onto the two massive knights.
“Hold it right there, strangers,” a pre-recorded voice droned from the central robot’s rusted speaker, the audio heavily distorted and layered with artificial cowboy twang. “This here town belongs to the Giddyup Kid and his gang. If you want to keep breathing this desert air, you better hand over your caps and get out of the Gulch before sundown.”
Maximus felt a sudden, electric jolt of excitement rush straight to his chest. His heart pounded against his ribs, not out of fear, but from the sheer, unadulterated perfection of the moment. It was a real showdown.
“Maximus, look at their arms,” Thaddeus whispered, his armor’s servos whining as he instinctively took a step back. “Those are laser barrels. They’re spinning up. Just draw the laser rifle and melt them!”
“No,” Maximus ordered sharply, his giant metal hand slamming against Thaddeus’s chest plate to hold him back. “We do this by the code of the West.”
He took three heavy, earth-shaking steps forward, separating himself from Thaddeus and stopping dead in the absolute center of Main Street. The wind kicked up a small cloud of grit between him and the three robotic bandits. Maximus slowly lowered his center of gravity, bending his knees slightly just like the heroic figures in the old, torn posters he’d found beneath the barracks. He let his right arm hang loose, his enormous steel fingers hovering inches away from his hip holster, twitching in perfect, dramatic anticipation.
“This town isn't big enough for the three of you,” Maximus boomed through his speakers, his voice deadpan, completely devoid of irony.
The Protectron’s internal programming didn't register the challenge, its basic combat protocols simply waiting for its pre-recorded audio track to finish. “You talk mighty big for a man without a badge, stranger. Draw!”
The three robots raised their laser arms in perfect, synchronized unison.
Maximus reacted on pure instinct, throwing his arm forward in a lightning-fast motion that was severely hindered by the multi-ton weight of his titanium gauntlet. His massive hand clawed at the air, mimicking the shape of a pistol, his index finger extending straight out toward the lead machine.
“Bang!” Maximus shouted through his external mic.
A split second later, the Giddyup Kid fired.
A brilliant flash of red energy erupted from the Protectron’s right arm, the laser beam striking Maximus square in the center of his chest plate. The thermal blast sizzled violently against the thick armor plating, leaving a smoking, blackened smudge across the painted steel but failing to pierce the heavy T-60 alloy. The sheer force of the impact rattled Maximus’s teeth, sending a dull shudder through his skeletal frame.
“Ah! They’re shooting! They’re actually shooting!” Thaddeus screamed, completely losing his mind as he scrambled backward, his heavy boots tripping over a rotting hitching post. He hit the dirt with a massive, metallic crash, his arms and legs flailing wildly like an upturned beetle while he tried to drag his bulk under the safety of a wooden porch. “Maximus, you don't have a gun! You’re using your finger!”
Maximus ignored the panic, completely locked into the zone. The first shot had hit him, which meant the outlaws had drawn first, making his retaliation entirely justified under the law.
With a deafening mechanical roar, he lunged forward, abandoning the imaginary pistol. He closed the distance in three massive, thundering strides, the dirt exploding beneath his boots as he swung his giant, armored fist in a massive arc. The steel gauntlet connected directly with the Giddyup Kid’s glass dome, shattering the reinforced screen into a thousand glittering shards and violently ripping the tin cowboy hat clean off its mountings.
The robot stumbled backward, sparks showering from its exposed wiring as its targeting system went completely haywire, firing random bursts of red laser light into the sky.
The remaining two bandit Protectrons swung their weapons toward Maximus, but he didn't give them the chance to fire. He grabbed the staggering leader by its silver shoulders, lifting the multi-hundred-pound machine completely off its feet with the raw hydraulic power of his suit, and hurled it directly into its partners. All three machines went down in a tangled, clattering heap of chrome, tin hats, and short-circuiting logic boards.
Maximus stood over the groaning pile of metal, his chest plate still smoking from the laser burn. He slowly lowered his arms, letting the high-pitched whine of his suit’s servos finally quiet down into a steady, rhythmic hum.
From beneath the safety of the porch, Thaddeus slowly poked his helmeted head out, his visor covered in loose sand. “Is… is it over? Did you kill the cowboy robots?”
Maximus didn't answer right away. He reached down, picked up the battered tin cowboy hat from the dirt, and carefully placed it on top of his own massive, triangular T-60 helmet. It sat completely crooked, looking entirely ridiculous resting against the brutal, industrial visor of the Power Armor, but to Maximus, it felt exactly right.
“The law always wins, Thaddeus,” Maximus said, turning his head to look down the rest of the empty street. “Come on. There’s still more territory to clear.”
And more vermin to rustle.
Yee-haw!
…
The crumpled piece of parchment on the table was worth more than the entire outpost combined. Silas stared at the crude ink drawings, his dirty thumb tracing the crisp, printed words at the bottom. Moldaver’s couriers didn’t play around. The payout promised at the bottom of the sheet—stacks of pre-war gold, boxes of clean, un-irradiated water, and enough caps to buy an entire town—made his stomach turn with a sick kind of greed.
The only problem was the description.
“Male, white, wearing a blue jumpsuit from Vault 33,” Silas muttered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He looked up at his small crew, who were huddled around the flickering light of a burning oil barrel. “That’s it. That’s all the woman gave us.”
“And a name.” Mara shrugged. “MacLean. What do you think that is? Irish?”
“It’s a joke,” Jesse said, spitting a dark glob of tobacco juice onto the floorboards. He leaned against his rusted pipe rifle, his eyes fixed on the flyer. “The Commonwealth is full of vault-dwelling tourists who think they can walk into a ruin and play hero. Half of them end up in a raider pot before they even find the highway. How are we supposed to find one specific set of blue pajamas in a territory this big?”
“If he’s even wearing them.” Mara pointed out. “Clothes are easy enough to change. Name are, too.”
They were right. It was a needle in a radioactive haystack.
Some fresh-faced kid from underground, probably completely clueless about how the surface actually worked, was wandering around with a king’s ransom on his head. But Silas didn’t have the reach to hunt a ghost. His crew was small, desperate, and barely surviving on the scraps they pulled from the nearby ruins.
To track down a target with nothing but a jumpsuit number, you didn't need a map. You needed a monster. You needed someone who had been hunting across the wastes since the bombs dropped, someone who could smell blood through a radiation storm.
Silas reached into his heavy canvas jacket, his fingers wrapping around the small, leather pouch hidden near his ribs. He pulled it out and set it on the table with a soft clink.
Three glass vials, filled with a thick, glowing yellow fluid, rolled across the wood.
Jesse’s jaw went slack, his hands instantly dropping from his rifle. “Silas, no. Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“The bounty is enough to get us out of the mud forever, Jesse,” Silas said, his voice flat, completely empty of hesitation. He tapped the glass of the middle vial with a grime-covered fingernail. “We aren't smart enough to find this vault kid. But he can.”
“He’s the devil, Silas!” Mara shouted from the corner, her hands shaking as she tightened the straps on her leather armor. She had a jagged scar running from her ear to her collarbone, a permanent reminder of the last time they had crossed paths with the lawless parts of the wastes. “The Triggermen didn't just kill him when they caught him out by the old cemetery. They boxed him up, chained the wood, and buried him six feet deep so he’d rot until the end of time. They did the whole world a favor!”
Silas didn't blink. He knew the stories. Everyone in the Wasteland of California knew about the ruthless, undead tracker who used to collect heads for the highest bidder before a rival gang finally got lucky and put him in the dirt. Leaving a ghoul down there without any chemicals meant he’d be starved, dried up, and right on the edge of turning completely feral. It was a terrifying gamble. If they opened that box and he had already lost his mind, he’d tear their throats out before they could even say the word caps.
But three vials of RadAway were a powerful bargaining chip to a creature that needed a fix to keep the rot from consuming his brain.
“Grab the shovels,” Silas ordered, scooping the vials back into his pouch and pulling his machete from its sheath to check the edge. “We’re taking a trip to the old cemetery. If we’re going to catch a ghost, we’re going to have to dig up the devil to do it.”
…
The Starport Nuka courtyard was breathtaking, like something out of a glossy picture-book about the future, if the future had been built entirely out of sugar, glass, and chrome. A massive tower rose up like a giant metal needle into the dark sky, surrounded by blinking white lights and enormous, spinning rings that must have looked beautiful when the world was alive.
Even now, under the eerie blue glow of the Galactic Zone's neon, it possessed a strange, majestic charm that made Lucy’s chest swell with a familiar, unstoppable hope. The pre-war world had been so full of wonder. If they could just fix the machines, surely they could bring that wonder back.
“Look at how high that tower goes!” Lucy whispered, her eyes wide as she traced the sweeping curves of the upper observation decks. “The view from up there must be absolutely spectacular. You can probably see all the way to the mountains!”
“Keep your eyes down, Lucy,” Kenny muttered, his hand lightly catching her elbow to pull her lower behind a curved metal bench. His aviators caught the neon light, hiding his eyes, but the tight line of his jaw told her everything she needed to know. He was completely on edge. “We aren't here for the sightseeing. We need the rest of those Star Cores from the central tower if we’re going to shut this whole defense grid down for good.”
“Oh, that's the Starport Mainframe!” Sierra squeaked from the other side of the bench, her nose still practically glued to her faded park map. “It houses the primary central processing unit for every single automated attraction in the park! Did you know it takes exactly three dozen Star Cores to bypass the master override? John-Caleb Bradberton designed the security lock himself so that—”
“Sierra, shh,” Kenny hissed, his eyes scanning the wide, open plaza ahead of them. “I will find a dumpster.”
“I’ll help him.” Lucy whispered her own warning.
“Shutting up…”
The courtyard was entirely too quiet, a vast expanse of polished concrete broken only by decorative planters and empty souvenir carts. It felt like a trap waiting to spring, but Lucy kept her bright, neighborly smile firmly in place. There was always a way to resolve things peacefully if you just used the right tone. People—and machines—usually responded well to a polite demeanor and a clear explanation of the facts… most of the time.
A deep, mechanical rumble shuddered through the pavement, vibrating right through the soles of Lucy’s boots.
Across the plaza, a pair of massive, reinforced blast doors painted in bright Nuka-Cola red slowly began to split apart. A thick, pressurized cloud of white steam hissed out into the cool air, smelling heavily of scorched oil, ozone, and old syrup. From the depths of the darkened bay, a colossal shape rolled forward on three massive, heavy-duty wheels.
It was twice the size of a standard Protectron, a terrifying, heavily armored sphere of crimson steel with two massive, multi-barreled miniguns mounted where its arms should be. Atop its heavy shoulders, a pair of missile pods clicked into place, their payload tracking the open courtyard.
“Warning,” a harsh, heavily distorted military frequency crackled from the machine’s central speaker, completely devoid of any cheerful park programming. It was the cold, flat tone of an automated executioner. “Lethal countermeasures activated. All unauthorized personnel in the Starport perimeter will be neutralized.”
“Wait! Don’t shoot! We’re not hostile!” Lucy called out, instinctively starting to lean up from behind the bench. She raised her hands, palms flat, trying to project her voice over the sudden, terrifying hum of the machine. “We’ll go! Just let us—”
“Lucy, get down!” Kenny screamed, his hand catching the back of her blue jumpsuit and violently yanking her back into the dirt just as the world erupted into absolute chaos.
The Sentry Bot didn't wait for a negotiation. The twin miniguns let loose a deafening, continuous roar that sounded like the sky itself was tearing apart. A relentless hail of high-caliber bullets slammed into the metal bench, punching through the thick chrome like it was wet paper. Shards of pulverized concrete and jagged metal exploded into the air, showering over Lucy’s head as she curled into a tight ball, her hands clamps tightly over her ears. The noise was suffocating, a brutal, unending wall of sound that shattered any hope of a polite conversation.
“That's a modified military-grade sentry model!” Sierra wailed, covering her face as a stray bullet obliterated a nearby trash can into a cloud of confetti. “The park bought them directly from the army to handle the perimeter security! They aren't programmed to listen to us!”
The heavy wheels of the machine screeched against the pavement as it began to roll forward, closing the distance with terrifying speed, its miniguns chewing through the courtyard line by line.
A bright red targeting laser suddenly painted across the concrete, dancing across Lucy’s boots before snapping directly onto her chest.
The Sentry Bot stopped rolling, its upper chassis tilting back as the missile pods on its shoulders let out a loud, rhythmic clicking sound. It was locking on. It was going to blow them to pieces, and there was absolutely nowhere left to run.
“Lucy!” Kenny shouted.
Before she could even register the movement, a blur of blue fabric and brown leather launched through the open crossfire. Kenny threw his entire body weight over the top of the bench, lunging across the gap and tackling her straight into the dirt behind the thickest section of the concrete planter. He slammed down on top of her, his arms wrapping tightly around her shoulders as he forced her head down into the soil, completely shielding her body with his own.
An instant later, the missiles fired.
The world went white. A deafening explosion rocked the courtyard, the concussion wave slamming into Lucy’s chest like a physical fist, knocking the breath entirely out of her lungs. The heat was instantaneous, a fierce, blistering wave that singed the loose strands of her hair. The thick concrete planter cracked down the middle under the force of the blast, raining heavy chunks of stone and hot shrapnel down across their backs.
Above her, Kenny let out a sharp, agonized hiss, his fingers digging violently into the fabric of her jumpsuit as his body went completely rigid.
The ringing in Lucy’s ears was absolute, a high-pitched scream that made her dizzy, but the sudden weight of Kenny’s limp posture flared a cold, sharp panic in her chest. She scrambled beneath him, pushing herself up through the settling dust until she could see his face. His aviators were gone, lost somewhere in the debris, and his forehead was smudged with black soot. But worse, much worse, a jagged piece of hot metal shrapnel was embedded deeply into his left side, the blue fabric of his vault suit rapidly blooming with a thick, dark crimson stain.
“Kenny! You're bleeding, let me see!” Lucy cried, her voice cracking with a genuine, terrifying panic she had never felt before in her entire life. Her hands immediately flew to his waist, her fingers slick with his blood as she tried to find the wound. “Oh, no, no, no. Hold still, I have bandages, I can fix this!”
“I'm fine, just a scratch,” Kenny grunted, his teeth bared in a fierce, painful grimace as he pushed her hands away with surprising strength. He didn't even look at his side. His eyes, sharp and intensely focused, locked directly onto hers. “Look at me, Lucy. Are you hurt?”
“That is not a scratch, Kenneth!” Lucy snapped, tears burning the corners of her eyes as she tried to bypass his grip. “You took the whole blast! Why would you do that? You could have been killed!”
“Take this,” Kenny ordered, completely ignoring her protest. He reached down to his utility belt with his right hand, pulling a glowing glass-and-metal syringe from his pouch. Before she could even blink, he jammed the needle of the Stimpak directly into her upper arm, slamming the plunger down with a sharp click.
A sudden, intense rush of warmth flooded through Lucy’s veins, instantly dulling the ache in her bruised ribs and clearing the ringing from her ears. She stared at him, completely stunned by the sheer absurdity of what he had just done. He was the one bleeding into the dirt, the one with a piece of metal sticking out of his ribs, and he had wasted one of their most precious medical supplies on a few minor scrapes.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Lucy asked, her chest tightening with a strange, aching weight that had nothing to do with the explosions. “You need that, not me! Let me patch you up!”
“I'm going to get those Star Cores. Stay here, keep Sierra down,” Kenny said, his voice dropping into a low, steady calm that frightened her more than the gunfire. He reached back down to his belt, his fingers wrapping around a small, metallic grey box covered in blinking blue nodes.
“Kenny, no, don't leave me!” Lucy pleaded, reaching out to grab his collar, her heart hammering against her ribs. The thought of him running back out into that meat grinder alone made her stomach twist into a sick, tight knot. “We can fight it together! We can find another way!”
“I'll be right back. Trust me,” Kenny said, offering her a tiny, dry smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
He flipped the heavy toggle switch on the side of the grey box.
A sharp, high-pitched electronic hum filled the air, and a sudden wave of shimmering blue light washed over his entire body. Right before her eyes, Kenny’s form began to warp and bend, turning into a translucent, watery distortion that blended perfectly with the smoke and ruins. An instant later, he was gone. The empty space behind the planter was completely vacant, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of copper and a trail of dark red drops in the dirt.
“Kenny!” Lucy yelled into the empty air, her hand clutching at nothing.
Across the courtyard, the Sentry Bot let out another deafening roar from its speakers, its heavy tires squealing as its massive shadow began to search the perimeter for its missing targets. But Lucy barely heard it. She remained crouched in the dirt, her fingers pressed hard against her chest where Kenny’s blood was already drying on her jumpsuit, staring at the empty space with a profound, aching realization that shook her to her very core.
He had calculated the danger, seen the missiles locking onto her, and hadn't hesitated for a single second. He had thrown himself into the fire just to keep her safe, completely discarding his own life as if it were a secondary thought. It was a level of devotion that went far beyond mere chivalry or vault-born kindness. It was terrifying, beautiful, and it left her feeling utterly hollowed out with fear for what would happen if he didn't come back down from that tower.
…
Running up a multi-story steel gantry with a chunk of hot shrapnel buried in your flank is bad. Doing it with an Agility stat of exactly one is a special kind of hell.
Every time my boot hit a metal grating, it sounded like a blacksmith dropping an anvil. The Stealth Boy was the only thing keeping me alive, wrapping my body in a shimmering, watery pocket of bent light, but it didn't do a damn thing about the noise. I was moving like a drunk tractor.
My breath hitched, hot and ragged against my teeth, and a fresh wave of sticky warmth leaked down into my waistband. I’d have to fix the leak later. Right now, the little digital battery indicator on my Pip-Boy was blinking a frantic, dying red. The cloaking field was going to drop in less than thirty seconds, and I was still two flights away from the primary mainframe.
I scrambled up the last ladder, my hands slipping slightly on the cold iron rungs, and hauled myself onto the narrow upper catwalk of Star Control. The main terminal was right there, glowing with a beautiful, pristine green interface.
Then the wall exploded.
It wasn't a bomb; it was a spring-loaded hospitality alcove shattering outward. A sleek, fiberglass figure painted in glaring red, white, and blue rocketed directly into my path. It was a pristine Nuka-Girl animatronic, her plastic teeth frozen in a terrifying, unblinking marketing smile. Her mock jetpack let out a violent, sputtering burst of real spark-fire, and she swung a heavy, chrome prop-laser rifle directly at my head like a baseball bat.
“To the stars, rangers!” a cheerful, high-pitched vocal track chimed from her chest plate.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I grunted, throwing my weight backward.
The prop rifle whistled an inch past my nose, clipping the railing with a sharp clang. I tried to pivot, to slip under her guard and draw my 10mm, but my stubborn, clumsy legs completely refused to coordinate. My left boot caught the edge of a structural bolt, and I went down hard on the metal grating, the shrapnel in my side screaming in protest. Nuka-Girl didn't hesitate. She stepped over me, her heavy mechanical boots coming down right next to my thigh, her chrome rifle raising up for a crushing vertical strike.
With a desperate, ugly yell, I kicked out with both feet, catching her square in her fiberglass knee joint.
The plastic casing shattered, and her internal metal strut buckled with a horrific grinding screech. She tilted sideways, her prop rifle smashing harmlessly into the floorboards as she fell across my legs. Her jetpack was still spitting angry white sparks against my jumpsuit, scorching the fabric. I scrambled backward out from under her bulk like a panicked crab, my hands smacking against the cold base of the main terminal just as the high-pitched hum of the Stealth Boy gave a final, dying pop.
The cloaking field vanished. I was completely out in the open, bleeding, and entirely out of breath.
“Error,” Nuka-Girl’s vocal box crackled, her frozen smile twitching as she tried to crawl toward me on one functional leg. “Foreign entities… are not permitted… in the cockpit.”
“Yeah, well, I‘ve never been in one I haven’t stolen, anyways,” I panted, forcing myself up to a knee. “I don’t really need an invitation. I’m not a vampire.”
But I was almost immortal.
Almost.
My brain was already moving faster than my broken body. A nine in Intelligence means the world slows down when things get digital. I didn't need a manual; I could see the layout of the RobCo logic gates just by looking at the physical structure of the mainframe housing. I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the emergency manual release lever on the side of the central console, and yanked it downward with everything I had left.
The heavy metal casing popped open, exposing rows of empty, glowing circuit slots.
With trembling, blood-slicked fingers, I dug into my pack, pulling out the handful of heavy, glowing Star Cores we’ve been tearing out of the park displays all day. I slammed them into the empty bays one by one, the machine letting out a satisfying, electronic beep with every successful connection.
One. Two. Three. Four.
The main monitor flared to life, a cascading wall of green system code reflecting across my face. The master override was still flashing a red lock icon, trying to protect the park's network, but I bypassed the secondary firewall in three keystrokes. My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, punching in the universal diagnostic purge code I’d memorized back in Vault 33.
System Command: Initiate Sector Purge.
Status: Executing.
I slammed my palm down on the return key.
A massive, echoing hum rolled out from the central tower, a physical vibration that rattled through the gantry and spread across the entire courtyard below. Through the gaps in the metal floorboards, I watched the massive, crimson shape of the Sentry Bot suddenly freeze mid-stride.
Its spinning miniguns ground to a sudden, silent halt. Its glowing red targeting laser blinked twice, turned a dull, inert green, and snapped off completely. Down in the shadows, every single rogue security unit in the sector dropped its weapons, its internal gears whining down into a peaceful, low-power standby mode.
The silence that followed was absolute. Beautiful, quiet silence.
I let my head fall back against the terminal, a wet, breathless laugh bubbling out of my chest as I gripped my bleeding side. The territory was ours. The Galactic Zone was officially locked down.
“Well. That was slightly more theatrical than I usually prefer,” a cool, dry voice called out from the darkness.
I blinked, looking up toward the edge of the upper terrace. Mags Black stepped out from the shadows of the observation deck, her sleek, custom sniper rifle slung casually over her shoulder. Her brother William was right behind her, his arms crossed over his chest, but it was Lizzie Wyath who leaned over the railing, her sharp, calculating eyes scanning the smoking ruins of the courtyard before settling on me. Both of the Operators looked entirely unbothered by the automated slaughterhouse we’d just dismantled.
Mags walked to the edge of the catwalk, looking down at the deactivated Sentry Bot, then turned her gaze back to me, offering a single, slow, professional nod of appreciation.
“The automated defenses were the only thing stopping our supply lines from reaching the western sector,” Mags said, her voice smooth, businesslike, and completely devoid of the usual raider mania. “You actually pulled it off, Overboss. The trade routes are clear.”
“Which means the caps will start flowing by morning,” Lizzie added, a thin, sharp smile touching her lips as she tapped her fingers against the grip of her pistol. “Consider our financial backing fully secured for your little network, bods. We pay our debts when someone actually delivers on a contract.”
“Good,” I grunted, tying a temporary rag around my waist to stop the bleeding before I passed out in front of my new business partners. “Just make sure… the checks clear.”
“… what’s a check?”
Yeah.
I’m completely out of my time…
…
The dark was absolute, heavy and thick with the suffocating stink of dry rot, rusted iron, and old canvas. It was the kind of pitch-black that would make a normal man lose his mind in an hour, but Cooper Howard just lay there, completely still, listening to the quiet thump of his own dead pulse. He had been down here for a while. Years, maybe decades. Time got a little slippery when you were nailed into a pine box six feet beneath the irradiated dirt without a watch.
The worst part wasn't the tight fit. It was the boredom.
A faint, rhythmic scraping sound echoed through the wood above his head. It was distant at first, a tiny metallic scratch that disrupted the peaceful silence of the graveyard, but it grew louder, sharper, and more deliberate with every passing minute. Shovels. Heavy, clumsy strokes biting into the hard-packed wasteland dirt.
Cooper didn't move a muscle. He didn't blink his milky, nose-less eyes. He just let out a slow, raspy breath through his teeth, a sound like dry leaves scraping across concrete. Someone was going to a lot of trouble to dig him up, and out here, nobody ever handed you a shovel unless they wanted something from you.
A heavy iron shovel blade struck the center of the wooden lid with a dull, echoing thunk.
“We hit it!” a muffled voice yelled from above, the sound carrying down through the cracks in the loose soil. “Get the chains off! Hurry up before a patrol hears us!”
The sound of straining metal and rattling links scraped across the top of the box. Cooper casually flexed his fingers inside his stiff leather gloves, feeling the reassuring weight of his custom iron knuckles. His muscles were tight, dried out from a lack of chemicals, but the lethal, instinctive muscle memory of two hundred years was still right there, humming beneath his scarred, leathery skin.
With a loud, splintering groan, a crowbar bit into the edge of the lid. The wood split, and a blinding, agonizing shaft of grey wasteland daylight cut through the darkness, hitting Cooper square in the face.
He didn't squint. He just stared up into the gray sky, his face a completely blank mask of ancient, cynical indifference.
Silas stood at the rim of the grave, his face slick with sweat and covered in dirt, looking down into the hole with a mixture of profound relief and pure, unadulterated terror. He held a rusted crowbar in one hand, while his other hand hovered nervously near the grip of his holstered pipe pistol. His two crew members, the big guy with the rifle and the scarred woman, stood right behind him, their weapons drawn and trembling.
“He’s awake,” Jesse whispered, taking a panicked step back from the edge. “Silas, look at his eyes. He’s right on the edge of turning. Look at him!”
“Shut up, Jesse,” Silas hissed, swallowing hard as he took a tentative half-step closer. He reached into his heavy canvas jacket and pulled out three yellow glass vials, holding them out over the pit like a shield. “We know who you are, friend. And we know you’re running low on the good stuff. We’ve got three clean vials of RadAway right here. They’re yours. All you have to do is help us track down a target.”
Cooper didn't answer. He just lay in the dirt, his missing nose making his face look like a grinning skull under the harsh light.
“It’s a simple job,” Silas continued, his voice getting a little more confident as he rattled the glass vials. “A vault kid. White, male, wearing a blue jumpsuit from Vault 33. He’s wandering around out there right now, and the bounty on him is enough to buy a whole settlement. We provide the chemicals, you provide the nose… metaphorically. Do we have a deal?”
Cooper’s awakening was instant, silent, and entirely devoid of hesitation.
Before Silas could even finish his sentence, Cooper’s hand blurred. He caught the front of Silas’s dirty collar with a grip like an iron vice, violently yanking the heavier man downward into the pit. Silas let out a choked scream as he lost his footing, his chest smashing hard against the edge of the broken coffin.
In the same fluid, terrifying motion, Cooper’s right hand whipped out from beneath his duster. The heavy, gold-plated barrel of his custom revolver caught the sunlight for a fraction of a second before it roared.
“No.”
A massive, high-caliber slug caught Jesse square in the throat. The big man didn't even have time to raise his pipe rifle before the force of the shot lifted him off his feet and hurled his body backward into the brambles, his weapon clattering uselessly against the stones.
“Shoot him! Shoot him!” Mara screamed, her face twisting in horror as she frantically tried to bring her shotgun to bear on the pit.
Cooper didn't give her the chance. He stepped on Silas’s pinned shoulder, using the man’s body as a springboard to vault himself completely out of the grave. He hit the dirt with a soft, practiced thud, his leather duster billowing around his legs like black wings. His revolver barked a second time. The round punched a neat, dark hole right between Mara’s eyes, cutting her scream off in an instant. She crumpled into a heavy, silent heap at the base of a rotting headstone.
Silas was still scrambling in the dirt at the bottom of the hole, his fingers clawing frantically for his dropped pistol, his face pale with horror. “Wait! Please! We were trying to help you! We brought the medicine!”
Cooper walked to the edge of the pit, looking down at the groveling raider with a cold, dead gaze. He extended his arm, pointing the smoking barrel of the revolver straight down between Silas’s eyes.
“I don't do partnerships, friend,” Cooper rasped, his voice a deep, gravelly purr that sounded like grinding stones. “And I don't negotiate with amateurs.”
He pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed loudly across the empty cemetery, followed by the dull, heavy silence of the wastes.
Cooper stood over the fresh corpses for a long moment, the wind catching the tattered edges of his long leather duster. He reached down, casually picking up the three glass vials of RadAway from the dirt where Silas had dropped them. He uncorked one with his teeth, downing the thick yellow fluid in a single, practiced gulp, letting out a long, shuddering sigh as the cold chemical rush stabilized the violent ache in his cells.
As he wiped his mouth with the back of his glove, his eyes caught a crumpled piece of parchment sticking out of Silas’s limp hand.
Cooper leaned down and yanked the flyer free, smoothing out the wrinkles against his leather thigh. His eyes scanned the crude ink drawings, drifting past the description of the gold, the caps, and the blue vault suit until they hit the specific identification number at the bottom.
Vault 33.
Cooper stopped. He stared at the two digits, a sudden, cold memory flashing behind his ancient eyes. A memory of a pristine underground facility, a smug executive in a tailored suit, and a name that had been burning a hole in his soul for over two centuries. MacLean.
A slow, wicked, and entirely terrifying smile spread across Cooper’s scarred, leathery face, exposing his stained teeth to the harsh desert wind. The world was a funny place sometimes. You stay in the dirt long enough, and eventually, the past just digs itself right back up to meet you.
He folded the bounty poster carefully, tucking it deep into the inner pocket of his duster. He knelt down, systematically stripping the ammunition and loose caps from the three warm bodies, stuffing the extra rounds into his bandolier with practiced efficiency. Once he was finished, he adjusted the brim of his faded cowboy hat, blocking out the glare of the eastern sky.
He turned his back on the open grave and began to walk, his heavy boots kicking up tiny puffs of grey dust as he set a direct path toward the coast.
…
The interior of the World of Refreshment was completely ridiculous, an aggressive, neon-blue assault on the senses that made my head throb almost as badly as my ribs. Outside, the Operators were already setting up their sleek, professional toll booths with a disturbing amount of corporate efficiency, but inside the Quantum exhibit, the only sound was the gentle, radioactive sloshing of an artificial river.
The water—if you could even call a glowing stream of liquid isotopes water—cast a brilliant, shimmering bioluminescence across the artificial cavern walls. It reflected perfectly off Lucy’s oversized, cardboard pre-war glasses, turning her entire face into a canvas of bright, unnatural blue.
I leaned heavily against a faux-stone rock formation, my left hand pressed firmly against the makeshift rag tied around my waist. The fabric was soaked through, tacky and warm against my palm.
“You’re doing it again,” Lucy said, her voice dropping the cheerful, tour-guide enthusiasm she’d been maintaining for Sierra’s sake. She stepped away from the edge of the glowing bank, her eyes locking onto my posture with an unnerving, laser-like focus. “You’re leaning to the left. And you haven't taken a full breath since we crossed the threshold.”
“Just admiring the view,” I said, offering a weak, dismissive shrug that immediately sent a sharp spike of white-hot agony shooting straight up my spine. I kept my face deadpan, forcing my breathing to stay shallow. “It’s a masterpiece of pre-war marketing. Really makes you want a soda.”
“Kenneth Conroy, you are a terrible liar,” Lucy said, closing the distance between us in three determined strides. The aggressive, sunshine-bright positivity she usually wore like armor completely melted away, replaced by a fierce, unyielding seriousness that actually made me want to back up. She didn't give me the chance. She reached out, her fingers wrapping firmly around my wrist, and forcefully pulled my hand away from my waist to inspect the damage herself.
The dark crimson stain on the blue vault suit was impossible to ignore.
“You used the Stimpak on me,” Lucy whispered, her fingers trembling slightly as she touched the edge of the torn fabric, her eyes wide with a mixture of anger and genuine, deep-seated pain. “Back in the courtyard. You looked me right in the eye, told me you were fine, and then you jammed our last medical resource into my arm for a couple of bruises while you were walking around with a piece of an exploding missile in your side. Why would you do that?”
“It was a calculated tactical decision,” I muttered, looking away from her toward the glowing blue water. My chest felt tight, and for once, it wasn't because of the shrapnel. “You’re the athletic one, remember? If things went sideways, you needed to be at one hundred percent. I’m fine. It’s a flesh wound.”
“Stop doing that!” Lucy snapped, her hands coming up to grab the collar of my jumpsuit, physically pulling me down a few inches so I had no choice but to look at her. “Stop treating yourself like a piece of equipment that can just be repaired later! You could have died out there, Kenny. You could have died protecting me, and you’re acting like it doesn’t even matter! Like… like you don’t matter… why? Why would you do that?”
Cornered by her absolute sincerity, the massive wall of tactical logistics, game knowledge, and cynical self-preservation I’d spent years building up inside my head completely crumbled. My throat felt incredibly dry. I looked at the fierce, beautiful determination in her blue-lit eyes, and the final, stubborn filter between my brain and my mouth just snapped.
“Because I like you, Lucy,” I said, the words tumbling out of me in a sudden, ragged rush that sounded completely foreign to my own ears. “Alright? I like-like you. The real kind. The kind that makes absolutely no sense out here because this whole place is a giant, radioactive, aptly-named wasteland designed to chew up people exactly like you and spit them out in pieces. Feelings shouldn’t be relevant. But they are. It terrifies me. Every single day, I am running numbers, trying to stay three steps ahead of the factions, the gangs, and everything else because the alternative is watching something terrible happen to you.”
Lucy’s grip on my collar loosened slightly, her jaw softening as she stared at me, completely taken aback by the sudden, unprompted breakdown.
“And it’s complicated,” I continued, the words picking up speed as the panic took over, my nine-point Intelligence score completely backfiring on me as I started to ramble. “It’s so much more complicated than you think. There are times I want to be with you, to confide in you, to tell you everything. But…”
But what do I say?
Hi, I know you’ve known me our entire lives, but I’m actually an old soul, in a young body? Literally? Also, I know you love the Vaults, but most of them are evil, including ours? Oh, and your dad is awesome, except he might’ve helped end the world?
What do I say?!
“But… I can’t.” I admitted. “So… w-whatever this is growing between us, assuming you feel it too, it had to end. We have to stop it. We have to draw a line right here, right now, before someone gets—”
Lucy didn't let me finish the sentence.
She tightened her fingers on my collar, gave a sudden, firm yank downward, and stood up on her tiptoes to plant her lips directly against mine.
The kiss was soft, entirely unhurried, and completely devoid of the chaotic desperation of the wasteland outside. It was a warm, steady weight that instantly short-circuited the frantic, spinning gears in my head, silencing the constant stream of numbers, perks, and survival strategies until there was absolutely nothing left but the quiet sound of the glowing river.
When she finally pulled back, she didn't look flustered at all. She just kept her hands resting lightly against my chest, a small, unshakeable smile playing at the corners of her lips as she looked up at me through those ridiculous paper glasses.
I stood there completely dazed under the glowing blue light, my hands hanging uselessly at my sides. My brain tried to reboot, searching for the thread of the massive argument I had just been making, but the data was completely gone. I couldn't even remember the beginning of the sentence she had interrupted.
“You worry too much” Lucy said softly, her smile widening just a fraction.
“I was… I was in the middle of a point,” I breathed out, my voice coming out rough as I tried to pull my scattered thoughts back together. I looked at her, my heart hammering against my ribs a hell of a lot faster than it had when the Sentry Bot was aiming at us. “An important point. About why this is a really, really bad idea for both of us. I'm trying to protect you, Lucy.”
“You’re not protecting me, Kenny, you’re just being pigheaded,” she said, her voice dropping into that stubborn, steady tone that meant she wasn't backing down for anything. She didn't let go of my collar, but her hands relaxed, her thumbs resting flat against my chest. “You always do this. You build up this giant wall of reasons why everything has to be awful and lonely, just so you can carry the whole world on your own back. Did you really think I followed you out of that tunnel just to let you bleed to death by yourself because you think you're the only one allowed to be brave?”
“I don't think that, at all.” I mumbled, shifting my weight to try and ease the burning ache in my side. “I’m not brave. I just… you don't know what it’s like out here yet. There are bad things, Lucy. Things I have to look out for, things I know are coming, and if I drop the ball even once, the wasteland is going to take everything good about you and just ruin it. I can’t look at you and watch that happen.”
“Then stop treating me like I’m made of glass,” she said simply. She reached up, her fingers gently sliding those ridiculous cardboard glasses up into her hair so she could look right into my eyes, totally clear and totally certain. Her expression wasn't that bright, rehearsed vault smile anymore; it was something real, heavy, and completely unmovable. “You’re smart, Kenny. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever known. But you can't out-think every bad day out here. And you don't get to decide that pushing me away is the only way I stay safe.”
I opened my mouth to shoot back—to tell her about the Vipers, the raiders, the fact that her dad was possibly one of the biggest war criminals in human history—but staring at her under that weird blue light, the words just wouldn't come. My brain didn't have a single answer for a girl who just flat-out refused to let me run away.
“This is a terrible plan,” I whispered, my hand moving on its own, my fingers catching the edge of her belt to keep her close. “It really is.”
“Good thing nobody asked for a vote, then,” Lucy said, her smile finally breaking through, small and incredibly warm against the glowing dark of the cave. She gently guided me down until I sat back against the fake stone ledge, then knelt right in the dirt between my knees, popping the latches on her first-aid tin. “Now, are you going to keep telling me why we’re doomed, or are you going to let me fix this hole in your side?”
I let out a long, slow breath, my shoulders dropping as I finally gave up the fight. “Just… try not to waste the bandages. We're going to need them later.”
“Shut up, Kenny,” she murmured, her hands already gentle and certain against my torn suit.
Well…
I guess it could be worse.
“Oh, hey guys!” It’s worse. It’s Sierra. “I see you found the World of Refreshment! The most, premier—”
“Lucy.” I held her hand, as she carefully bandaged me back together. “I changed my mind. Let me die.”
“Don’t leave me alone with her.”