“There’s some settlers at Oberland station asking for help, General,” said Preston Garvey one night after making love to Nora. Between Preston, Sturgis, Conrad and her girls, she was getting all the sex she could handle, and she was ready to hit the road and try out her new body in combat.

 

Nora had spent the last two weeks working on herself, or going into Lexington and stripping the place of anything useful. One day she had gone back to Corvega and Med-Tek labs, stripping out every bit of circuitry and materials she could get, or at least what her Handies could get. She took five of the machines with her to Lexington, setting them to their tasks, leaving them in place for several days then coming back for the riches gathered. All to go into the QESS at Starlight. They had taken apart every car in the city, gathering nuclear material, wiring, aluminum and steel, as well as quite a bit of plastic. They had stripped out packing material and fabric from couches in apartments she had cleared. And Wilson had hauled back tons of commodities like Nuka Cola and Abraxo Cleaner.

 

The Super-Duper Mart had taken a morning, and she had packed up out all kinds of canned goods, some maybe still good. Bottles of meds, drugs, ancient bills, even some good technical manuals and a couple of holo-tapes. There had been an awfully lot of ghouls, and she had practiced taking them down with her nanoblade, healing up any injuries within minutes. And finding the bodies of several Minutemen, along with their last words on holo-tape, who had taken refuge in the store and paid the price.

 

The factory building at Starlight was complete now, with automated farms on the roof and actual small factories on the ground floor, as well as a large recycling unit turning scrap into components and sending it to the workbench. There were water vaporators installed with filters, turning out purified water, while two brand new large fusion generators gave the settlement all the power it needed, at least for now. She could see a time when even that power was insufficient.

 

The settler home was complete, furnished and powered, with full bathrooms and showers, recruitment beacon on the roof. Even a pool table. Also on the roof, accessible by stairs, were a half dozen automated planters, giving the settlement fuel without taking workers away from the factory operations. A medical station was installed, with terminals for doctor education, and soon she would have her first real medical staff.

 

And finally, she had put eight actual laser turrets on the roofs of the two buildings. Three settlers had come in to call the place home, and Nora was hoping it would fill up quickly. The Minuteman alliance, with four growing settlements, was becoming a force to be reckoned with in their little corner of the Commonwealth.

 

“And what do they want, my little Minuteman,” said Nora, running a hand down the man’s hard body. That was what Nora liked about Preston. He might not always be the best conversationalist, or even the best lover, but he had a hard athletic body that was a joy to feel.

 

“I really don’t know. I do know that the place would be a great location for a settlement. Getting us closer to Diamond City.”

 

“Are we going to establish settlements in Boston?”

 

“Maybe. Though the only locations I know of for settlement are Diamond City and Goodneighbor, and I can’t see them inviting us in. Maybe some places to the south, but I’m leery about moving in too close to Quincy.”

 

Preston had told her about Quincy. How the Minutemen had fallen apart, units refusing to respond. Then traitors from within had toppled the whole structure and left them vulnerable to the Gunners, a force they would have had no trouble with before the Castle fell.

 

“I’ll make sure to avoid the place. But I might be gone for several weeks. I want to see what Diamond City is about. So I’ll be taking one of my suits of power armor with me.”

 

She now had six complete suits of X-01, fully modified into assault armor. She would have like to try some of the other variations, but she hadn’t found any of the holo-tape programs. As it was, the assault units had titanium armor that made them ultra-tough, as well as VATS and night vision, a rebreather on some, and mounts for jetpacks. She didn’t have any jetpacks for them, so far, and no schematics for building any. It was hoped that Diamond city might provide her with that. If not, she might have to check out Goodneighbor. With over thirty fusion cores, most full strength, she thought she had enough for a long road trip. Preston and Conrad had trained in the armor, so there would be coverage of Sanctuary when she was gone. Eventually she wanted a suit at every settlement, so any attack by Raiders would turn into their worst nightmare.

 

“Only the one?”

 

“Well, Heather and Barb like being out in the open, though I think I’ll be able to talk Heather into it someday. But they expect me to be the heavy firepower. Oh, and I would dearly love to get my hands on a rocket launcher.”

 

Her luck had run out there. She had found Fatmans, but she didn’t want one of those. She wanted a real rocket launcher, maybe an RPG, something with some range to it. Too heavy for her unaugmented body to haul around, but perfect for her new body. And no sweat for a suit of power armor.

 

She had lucked into schematics for 40mm grenades, and now had a load of pulse, plasma, and Molotov grenades to augment her fragmentation warheads. There was even a hint of nuclear grenades, and she thought she would give an ovary for some of those.

 

They moved to Starlight that evening, then woke with the sun. Or it might be more accurate to say with the rain, since a downpour was occurring outside. Heavy rain could actually be good for cover, their vision equipment allowing them to see enemies while using the total concealment of the downpour. One problem with the tech was that it didn’t tell them if the red images were friend or foe. The system in the suit tried, and often succeeded, in determining who was out there, but she still worried that she might accidentally kill friendlies.

 

They walked to the west of Lexington along the road, Barb and the dogs scouting ahead, Nora coming up in the power armor, Heather slightly behind. She had three Handies with her, roaming out to scrap cars, the four cargo bots moving in stealth just behind them, Wilson farther back. She often wondered if someone might someday spot them and take them down, but her own equipment never caught a trace of the floating stealth robots, so she doubted the tech of an enemy would find them.

 

Barb had advocated going down the railroad tracks to the west, but Nora wanted to check out the houses along the way, and those were predominantly along the roadways. She searched one house about a half mile down from the SD Mart, finding phones and scrap that went into Wilson. Another house on the opposite side of the road had ghouls in it, quickly taken down by the powerful suit swinging the ultrasharp sword, chopping them to pieces.

 

More ghouls up ahead, Barb falling back and shooting, Nora stomping forward and chopping their lives away.

 

“Let’s check this place out,” said Nora, pointing to the junk yard to the right, up a hill. She started picking up rads on her Pip-Boy at the entrance and waved her people back. “Wait out here.”

 

She doubted the rads would trouble her since she was in the armor. Any she did take would be flushed quickly. The junk yard had mole rats, which attacked her with suicidal ferocity while she played whack-a-mole, talking out loud to let her people know she was okay. One of the shacks had a high rad count, and some dead people in rags. And, in one room, an altar built around a mini-nuke. She looked over some of the writings in the room, telling her about some crazy religious movement called the Children of Atom, who actually worshipped rads and nuclear explosions. She Snagged the mini-nuke, as well as all the nuclear material she could gather, and loaded it into Wilson’s shielded compartment.

 

“Well, not much of interest there. Except for some shit about the Children of Atom.”

 

“Those nuts,” said Heather. “What a bunch of morons. The actually seek out radiation.”

 

“And somehow they survive it,” said Barb. “They may be nuts, but they seem to have something there.”

 

“As long as they don’t fuck with me and mine, they can do whatever they want,” said Nora. “More ghouls ahead. Let me take them down.”

 

“You’re stealing our fun,” said Barb with a short laugh.

 

It was spoiling their fun, some. But it was also saving ammo that might become precious further down the road. Nora cursed softly under her breath as she stomped at a walk toward the ghouls, attracting their attention and cutting them down. Barb looted the bodies, picking up lighters, duct tape and other generally valuable small items.

 

“What’s that over there?” asked Nora, seeing a ragged greenhouse up the hill to the right.

 

“That’s Graygarden,” said Barb, looking where Nora was pointing. “Some kind of prewar automated farm. They had a bunch of Mr. Handies doing the farming.”

 

Nora thought she had heard of the place, and her curiosity was piqued. “Let’s go check it out.”

 

The greenhouse had definitely seen better days. There were no whole panels, every piece of glass had some parts broken out. The inside contained a number of tables, most with planters holding various vegetables. Corn, tatoes, carrots, tended by Mr. Handies.

 

“Could you please leave the power armor outside, darling,” said one of the robots with a singular feminine accent.

 

“No problem,” said Nora, opening up the armor and climbing out, removing her power core. “Quite a place you have here.”

 

“Thank you, Darling. It was the brainchild of Dr. Gray. A genius in robotics who set it up as an automation test bed. If you’ll notice, most of the robots are simple drones, much like those Handies you have with you I believe. Myself, Supervisor White, as well as Supervisors Green and Brown, are independent operators, making sure the drones do their jobs.”

 

“I remember seeing this place on the news, before the war.”

 

“I think you must be confused, Darling. You mention before the war, but you are much too young to have been alive back then.”

 

Nora didn’t feel like arguing with a robot. In fact, she was thinking of just leaving and moving on. Until she caught sight of the magic red workstation at the end of the greenhouse. She realized this was a place that could become a settlement, something her alliance needed.

 

“I have a question for you, Darling. What do you think of the water?”

 

Nora sniffed, smelling the horrible sulfur odor of bad water. “It’s awful.”

 

“Isn’t it though. So I have a favor to ask you. Our water comes from the old Weston plant down the river. Why don’t you be a dear and run down there and clean it up.”

 

“And what do I get out of this?”

 

“We’ll be more than happy to give you a discount on our produce. And I’m sure Brown and Green will have some incentives for you.”

 

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

 

“Nora. Don’t we have a mission?”

 

“We do,” she said, nodding at Heather. “But on the chance that this place may join our alliance, I think we should help them. Nothing says that robots can’t be Minutemen.”

 

Nora got back in her armor and walked around the side of the building, to the back, where robots were tending to Mutfruit. The robot called Green engaged her in some banter in old gameshow language, and Nora was laughing on the way out. Sometimes this new world hit you across the face with the absurd, and you couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

 

The party moved down the road, fighting some robots at one point, some wild dogs at another, until they stopped a couple hundred yards from the Weston Plant. Nora had seen this place in her time as well, though that one didn’t have the shacks and meat bags of supermutants around it.

 

“I’m going to barrage them with grenades,” she told her people. “You two look out for those suiciders.” She thought power armor might actually protect her from one of those mini-nukes. She wasn’t sure if her people would survive, or if she could weather more than one, so best to take them out at a distance.

 

Nora fired the grenade launcher, her VATS system giving her the perfect angle to drop the shell in on the largest gaggle of the mutants, up on the walkway over the flooded interior. The grenade went off and four Supermutants went down. Their dogs let out their foghorn howls, and the beeping sound of suiciders came from within the plant area. She spotted two of the mutants, running at her from different angles, the flashing lights of the bombs meshed with the beeping sound as they ran like football running backs toward the party. Some other Supermutants came out, keeping their distance from the Kamikazes and opening up with Mini-guns.

 

“Get under cover, you two,” she told her people as five millimeter rounds bounced harmlessly from her armor. She aimed in on the nearest Kamikaze and fired, her round blowing up to his front and throwing him off his feet. Unfortunately the mutant was back on his feet in an instant.

 

Nora dropped the grenade launcher, letting the straps catch it, as she brought her rifle to her shoulder and aimed in on the suicider. A burst hit him in the arm and the bomb detonated, sending pieces of mutant into the air as the fireball took out one of the mini-gunners. She switched her focus to the other suicider, just as Heather’s laser hit the bomb and sent that mutant to whatever afterlife they believed in.

 

The suiciders taken care of, she dropped the rifle onto its straps, feeling the gun pulled back over the shoulder of her suit, and pulled the grenade launcher out, jacking another round into the chamber. She fired, reloaded, fired, reloaded, fired again, and the incoming fire dropped to nothing.

 

“I think you got them,” said Barb, searching for a target.

 

Nora signaled for the dogs to go in, following close behind with her sensors powered up. There was no movement, but she was still careful. The Supermutants weren’t known for their tactical genius, and ambushes weren’t their strong suit. Nora moved through the small cabins, prefabs and cobbled together, taking high value loot and leaving the worthless things behind. Tin cans were valuable, very valuable, about the only source of that metal used in so many things, and there were dozens of can alarms around the site. And booby traps on many areas. Nora had to wonder if the Supermutants took out many of their own with their own traps.

 

“Let’s look inside,” she told her people. “I’ll decide on power armor use once we get the lay of the land.” The armor would give her almost absolute protection, but it might make it difficult to get around.

 

She kept the door open for some moments to let her robots in, then exited the armor so she could use the terminals behind the front desk. Taking a short time to read the entries, she wondered again why there were so many corrupt companies from her time. And why she hadn’t realized it at the time. And she still had no idea what they would be facing down here.

 

Not knowing what was ahead decided her and she got back into her armor. Then led the way in. And not able to find the way to go deeper, until she found the working elevator. There wasn’t room for everyone, so she and Heather went down first with Dogmeat, and Barb followed with Dewey and the cargo bots. Nora meantime started looking over the terminals, finding more evidence of wrongdoing and just plain incompetence.

 

All gathered together, they started to work their way down, running into the first turret almost immediately. Nora challenged it, using the invulnerability of the armor as she blasted the laser turret to ruin. The Handies gathered the useful components of turrets and electronic, but Nora sent them orders to get her permission before taking anything apart. Her mission her was to get this plant working, and wrecking the controls would be counter to that goal.

 

“Just what was this place?” asked Heather, looking around with interest. “And here’s a magazine for you.”

 

Heather handed over a Picket Fence magazine, and Nora quickly glanced through it, picking up some new ideas for the settlements. “This place was a water treatment plant. It was supposed to take sewage and clean out the filth, releasing completely pure water for people to drink.”

 

“From your tone I’m guessing they didn’t succeed,” said Barb, herself bagging items as she came to them.

 

“Not so much. There was the cholera outbreak that was never linked to this place, but which aroused a lot of suspicions. And sometimes the water tasted foul, no matter its clarity. Just more greed and incompetence, like always.”

 

“And we always heard how perfect your world was,” said Heather, frowning.

 

“Not even,” said Nora, shaking her armored head. “Oh, it was clean, and things were much nicer, but we still had out problems. For me it wasn’t something that threatened my life every day, though for some that wasn’t true. And the resource shortages that many of us ignored led to our eventual destruction.”

 

“Well, you didn’t cause it.”

 

“Didn’t I, Heather? I lived in a Republic. I had a vote. I could have run for office. Maybe my voice wouldn’t have counted for much, but I could have tried.”

 

“And would your voice have mattered to the Chinese?” asked Barb.

 

“Nope. You got a point there. And it happened over two hundred years ago, so I guess I should stop beating myself up over it.”

 

“Okay,” said Heather, getting up from the terminal she had been using. “I think I have it figured out. This place is flooded. The red buttons open the doors, but only if the area beyond is not flooded. Otherwise, we need to find the pump switches to evacuate the water.”

 

“Easy peasy,” said Nora, feeling that it was going to be anything but.

 

The button opened the double doors, letting into a series of walkways, many descending into the nasty water. There was the sound of scuttling, and a large Mirelurk came at Nora. The Sole Survivor set her feet and swung her nanosword into the creature, killing it instantly. Another immediately appeared, and she ran at it, hitting it with the power armor in motion and bowling it over. Before it stopped rolling backward she smashed it with the sword.

 

“So we got Mirelurks,” said Barb in a tone of disgust. “Wonderful.”

 

“I think we’ve got crab for dinner,” said Nora, eliciting a laugh from her companions.

 

“Unless crab has us for dinner,” said Heather, looking over the creatures that one of the Handies was already starting to butcher.

 

Finding a door that would open they walked to a pumping station, a window showing the floodwaters of the room beyond. Nora flipped the switch and the rumbling of pumps working came through the floor. The water receded, and the button on the door glowed red.

 

“Ware the turrets,” shouted Heather, squatting down behind Nora’s armor as lasers struck out. Nora blasted two of them, while Barb turned and shot up the one that had been placed overhead. Mirelurks were scuttling about, a couple stopping on the walkway separated by a gap from theirs. Barb and Heather took care of the two mutated crabs, while Nora studied the lay of the land. There were more walkways, and she could see the rounded turrets of weapons just beneath the water in a couple of places.

 

“Hold up,” she said, turning and walking back into the other room. “I think I’m going to need my jetpack in there. Anyone want to pilot the power armor.”

 

“Be my guest,” said Barb to Heather. “I’m still not sure how to maneuver it.”

 

“Cool. I’m on it.”

 

Nora got out of the armor and let Heather get in. She didn’t expect Heather to expertly maneuver the armor. All she cared about was the blocking function of the suit, and she was sure Heather could do that as well as she could.

 

It took a couple of tries to get to the next pump, but soon they had another section cleared. And so it went, section after section, until they got to the final pump. Nora had filled Wilson up, but needed to wait until she egressed the facility before sending him on his way. Meantime she filled her other cargo bots with the wealth of materials all around her.

 

She threw the final switch and the facility was flood free. It was still filthy, with moss and the detritus of walls that had been underwater for centuries. But it would produce higher quality water, good enough for farming at least.

 

Nora sent Wilson on his way as soon as she was outside, then waited for Heather to come up so she could get her armor back. It was about two in the afternoon, and after an hour’s walk back to the farm, she reported in to Supervisor White.

 

“Thank you, Darling. And as promised, Brown has some produce for you.”

 

“I would like to ask you to join our alliance, ma’am. It would come with some benefits, including defense. All we ask is that you allow us to build on your land.”

 

Nora thought that it really didn’t sound like such a great deal. Let us have your land and we’ll build things that benefit us.

 

“You have it, Darling.”

Nora immediately set one of her own Handies to work building an QESS station, then set it to building a Constructron. By that time Wilson was back, and she let a Handy transfer junk from her cargo bots to the transfer robot, sending him on his way. It was dark by the time the Constructron had built them a small shack on the old foundations to the side of the property. Soon they had their sleeping bags laid out, and Barb had finished making some Mirelurk stew with the meat of the crabs and some of the vegetables they had been given.

 

“One thing I have to admit, Nora,” said a smiling Heather. “Traveling with you has meant some good eating. I’ll have to watch that I don’t get fat.”

 

Nora laughed. She couldn’t imagine any of them getting fat. Not with all the walking and fighting they had been doing. After an hour of stress relief, using the dildos to bring each other to orgasm, the trio were fast asleep in their bags, the dogs on watch.

 

*     *     *

 

Oberland station consisted of one old railroad tower and a sorry looking field of tatoes and corn. There was the river a quarter mile down a slope, a long way to haul water, and one hand pump. Nora could already see possibilities for this place, but first she needed to get their invitation.

 

“Who the hell are you people?” asked a middle-age woman who looked like she had done too much work for much too long.

 

“We’re with the Minutemen,” said Nora, nodding her head. “I heard that you were have problems.”

 

“Thank God you’re here,” said the woman, her face softening, then tears coming to her eyes. “They took Alyson,” groaned the woman with tear filled eyes. “My partner on this miserable little farm.”

 

“And you are?”

 

"Tanja Martin And this is my Empire.”

 

At least she had a good sense of humor, though it must be hard on her with what’s probably her lover in the hands of Raiders. “I’m Nora, and these others are Barb and Heather. Preston Garvey sent us to help you. So, who else lives here?”

 

“Natalia Garcia helps me in the fields, but without Alyson we’re likely to lose part of our crop.”

 

“Who took her, and where?”

 

“Raiders. Who the fuck you think took her? They’re holed up at Backstreet Apparel on the Charles. They gave me two weeks to come up with the ransom, and there’s only a couple of days left.”

 

“We’ll go get her back. Don’t you worry.”

 

“Only the three of you? Women? And a couple of dogs, one a robot? I don’t feel too confident in you.”

 

Well fuck you too, thought Nora, huffing. “We’ll be back in three or four days with your partner.”

 

“But, she only has two.”

 

“I’m going right for her, then swinging by Diamond City to conduct some Minuteman business. So expect us in three or four days.”

 

Nora figured it might ease the woman’s mind if they came right back, but she did want to see Diamond city and see if she could start up a recruitment station there. Her time was valuable as well, and she was sure she would be able to quickly take down a group of Raiders holed up in a clothing store.

 

“I think if we start off now we can get to the shop by just after dark,” she told her people, waiting for any dispute.

 

“That sounds just about right,” said Barb.

 

“And I can’t way to try out this night vision gear at night,” said Heather. “You know, when it’s supposed to work.”

 

They reached the next terminal in an hour, killing ghouls and wild dogs along the way. Going down the stairs they ran into a Mr. Gutsy who was establishing a one robot blockade.

 

“This area is under curfew,” roared the robot, its weapons armed and pointed at them.

 

Nora raised her rifle, the power armor whining as its servos powered the arms. She had found that strong as the suit made her, it didn’t move as fast as her body did without the armor. The Gutsy opened fire, sending a stream of rounds into the suit and doing considerable damage. Her rounds did more damage, blasting through the robot’s armor and sending its shredded form to the ground.

 

“You okay?” asked Heather after Nora cursed.

 

“Fine. But the damned bot took out a layer of armor. Not enough to stop me, but I really don’t want to wait for some armored panels to collapse. Let’s get moving.”

 

They walked into Boston, passing rows of houses and bunches of ruined cars. Barb wanted to loot, but Nora wasn’t willing to waste the time. Maybe on the way back. They passed a trader stand on the way, and Nora waved at the woman manning it. “In a hurry right now. I’ll stop by on the way out.”

 

“I’ll be here,” called back the trader.

 

I hope you are, thought Nora. There were no guarantees that someone wouldn’t come along and try to rape or kill the woman. She wanted the people of the Commonwealth to feel secure in their persons and property, but until all of the marauders were taken care of that wasn’t happening. Another mile of houses, streets reaching in to the city, buildings along the sides, some actually in serviceable condition. A bridge over the Charles loomed ahead, the road passing under it. That was their landmark, and Backstreet Apparel was about a quarter mile past the bridge.

 

“Tactical from here,” she told her people, crouching in the power armor. The PA also wasn’t all that good for stealth, unless she engaged her stealth boy, and it was a one use device as it was configured. Sturgis had mentioned something about setting it up in the suit where it didn’t run out, though its time was still limited before it needed a cool down.

 

Nora could see some reddish outlines ahead in the deepening dusk. A couple of people around a truck, and the bubble outline of a turret. “I’m going to take out the turret,” she told her people. “You get ready to take down those Raiders.”

 

Barb and Heather acknowledged, and Nora sighted in on the turret. A quick burst and it went up, and a second turret up higher activated, while three Raiders fired in their direction. From the inaccuracy of the fire she was sure the scumbags hadn’t a clue as to where they were. Nora took out the second turret, and a laser from Heather turned the Raider on the truck to hot ash. While Barb took the one higher up in front of the shop with a couple of single shots. A couple of more Raiders fired down from the top of the building, their heat signatures indicating exactly where they were. Nora took them down quickly with VATS, and the party stood still and waited.

 

“Looks like no one else out here,” said Barb.

 

“Okay. I’m going to leave the power armor out here, locked down. We’ll go in with stealth. Kill anything armed, but looked out for Alyson.”

 

The front door wasn’t even locked. Why should it be, when they had a squad outside watching the approaches. Nora pushed the door open slowly, smiling as she found these hinges to be well oiled. It was really nice of the Raiders to take care of the hardware, but they would have been better served to have let the hinges rust.

 

Nora crouched and looked over the interior of the store, catching sight of the red images of three Raiders. One was telling a story about a Raider who was afraid of fire in a loud, carrying voice. Nora spotted a few tripwires glowing in her vision system, and pointed them out to the others, while pointing the dogs to the floor to hold tight. She aimed in on the Raiders behind the counter across the store with the grenade launcher, then let fly a forty millimeter.

 

“What the fuck,” called out a voice from the side, while those in the blast radius were silent in death. Barb disarmed one tripwire while Heather handled the other and Nora covered them with her rifle. A red figure stepped out and Nora sent a round through its head, dropping it immediately.

 

“What the hell are you hiding for?” called out a voice from the hall leading into the store front.

 

Thanks for giving yourself away, asshole. She thought the voice was coming from a room to the side of that hallway. She motioned for her people to search the changing rooms and storage while she snuck toward the hallway, ears alert.

 

“I’ll make it nice and quick,” said the voice, letting Nora pinpoint the location. Nora doubted her promise, and wasn’t about to put herself in the hands of these scumbags.

 

As soon as Barb tapped her on the shoulder, letting Nora know she was there, the Sole Survivor crept forward and into the entrance to the sewing room.

 

The red figure of a Raider was ahead, waiting, probably thinking she was unseen in the darkness. Nora took a couple of steps forward without a sound, then sent a short burst of suppressed rounds into the woman.

 

“We’re going to kill you slow,” called out a voice from upstairs, letting Nora know where her next target was.

 

She cat footed it up the stairs, looking quickly around the corner and almost catching a shotgun blast. A quick move back using her speed caused a miss.

 

“What in the hell are you?”

 

Nora came back around the corner with rifle blazing, and the woman fell dead, the shells she was still trying to slide into the shotgun falling from her grasp.

 

“Help,” called out a voice from a side room. “Oh, dear God, help me.”

 

“We’re here to rescue you,” said Nora as she got close to the door. It was locked, but a quick pick while her partners covered her had it open. “Alyson.”

 

“Yes. You’re here to rescue me?”

 

“Yep. Tanja sent us. We’re from the Minutemen. Now, I need to get you out of here as fast as we can. Any more Raiders in here?”

 

“A couple of more upstairs, I think. And Big Al. You need to kill that son-of-a-bitch before he kills more children.”

 

“Children?” asked Nora, her blood running cold.

 

“The bastard makes snuff holos with children. I’ve heard them screaming their heads off up there.”

 

“Heather. Get Alyson down to the store. I’m going to put paid to Big Al. Come on Barb.”

 

The next Raider up would have had her number if she had had a powerful weapon, or Nora poor quality armor. As it was she took several rounds on her breastplate before punching some bullets through the Raider in return. Another came running out of the room at the top of the steps, to fall to Barb’s rifle. Nora crouched into the room, rifle at the ready, to stop in her tracks as she saw the naked bodies of children lying in tubs and barrels.  A man in a bathrobe sat on a couch, some depleted drug dispensers on the table.

 

“Big Al, I presume,” said Nora in a voice shaking with fury, dropping her rifle onto its straps, then drawing her pistol.

 

“You’ve heard of me. So, are you shopping for holo-tapes?”

 

“No, you bastard. It’s time to pay for your crimes.”

 

“Crimes? I provide a service for discriminating people, while giving these poor children a better future.”

 

Nora smacked him in the face with her pistol. Blood spurted from his nose and he cried out. “I hope you rot in hell,” she hissed at the man, pointing her pistol at his head and sending a .45 slug into his brain.”

 

She found a stack of fliers and a box of holo-tapes. She slid one into her Pip-Boy watching about ten seconds of screen before she cried out, sick to her stomach. She tossed the tape back into the box.

 

“Start looting. I’m going to bring Heather and her laser up here." At a motion Heather followed her up the stairs. "I want those holo-tapes destroyed. All of them," she told her redheaded friend, pointing to the box.

 

“What’s on them?” asked a wide-eyed Heather, her eyes constantly looking over the small bodies of the dead children.

 

“You don’t want to know. Just destroy them.”

 

Heather nodded and sent some blasts into the box, reducing the tapes to molten plastic. She then started to reduce the bodies of the children to ash, giving them the only burial they could ask.

 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

 

She went up to Alyson as soon as she was on the ground floor. “As soon as we strip this place we’re heading for Diamond City for a couple of days. You can go back to Oberland on your own, but I recommend that you avail yourself of our hospitality until we can escort you back.

 

“No way I’m walking back by myself,” said the pretty blond. “So I’ll take you up on your hospitality.”