"So... what do you think? Do you want me to find out if the Minutemen will set up an outpost here? Even if they say no, I bet I can get the Rangers to send some volunteers."

 

Wiseman seemed to mentally chew on my question for a while. I'd been bringing him up to date on everything we'd been doing out west - things he's only heard scattered rumors about with the roads mostly shut down. He was excited to hear that the Minutemen were rebuilding, but he didn't seem so enthusiastic about the idea of Concord's rising power, and even less so about the arrival of the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

"No offense, Charley, but what you're telling me is a little scary. We set up this place because we got screwed, hard, by folks who had more power than us. And now you're telling us that there's two big new powers in the Commonwealth? I don't see how that can be good for us. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but the idea of having Concord Rangers up here to 'protect us' sounds a lot like you taking over my farm."

 

 

"I know it probably doesn't help, but that's not what I want to do here. Take you over, that is. Don't get me wrong - if you wanted to join us, I'd welcome you in. Abernathy farm out west threw in with us and we've been able to get them lots of resources for improving their farm. Same with Tenpines Bluff. And it would help the Minutemen a lot to have a safe outpost up here, might even help them get the roads open eventually."

 

"Hold up," Wiseman said. "I think we need to draw a clear line here. The Minutemen, 'long as they're independent like you told me, they're welcome here. It's your folks - your Concord Rangers - that I'm not so hot on. Like I said, no offense meant, but that's what I'm feeling right now."

 

"OK, that's fair. So, you want me to see if I can get a radio signal through to General Garvey?"

 

"You can try," he said, "but our reception up here is crap. We really have trouble pushing signal past Saugus and Malden - lots of interference out that way."

 

"Still worth a try," I said. "Concord's far enough north that it might get through."

 

"Well then, be my guest," said Wiseman.

 

As luck would have it, I was successful in connecting - not because the signal could get to Concord; it barely reached it and the reception was terrible - but because Preston Garvey was at Bedford Station, having assaulted the rail yard and kicked out the ghouls in my absence, and a runner from Tenpines as able to get him up to use the radio there. After I finished congratulating Preston on securing Bedford, we discussed the situation at the Slog. As it turned out, he'd been planning on establishing an outpost near Medford to address the exact problem Wiseman was encountering - the lack of safe roads in the area. Preston had been planning to set up at a different farm, a little closer to Medford, but he was happy to adjust the plan, and he agreed to send an advanced team as soon as possible.

 

Now, all throughout the morning I'd been sorely tempted to contact the Brotherhood and get a vertibird flight back to Diamond City to kick the shit out of Faraday and then find out where Piper had actually disappeared to. However, I was very concerned about how the Brotherhood would react to encountering a farm full of ghouls - and since I'd already come this far, I wanted to track down this Doctor Wolfe. Even if Faraday was otherwise just trying to trick us, I didn't want to close the door on the possibility that this woman might be able to help us. If we set out immediately, we'd arrive at Breakheart Banks around lunchtime, and so we packed up our stuff and headed west.

 

Unfortunately, it seemed that our trip wasn't meant to be easy. Just before we crested the last hill before the farm, I heard a guttural voice bellow, "let's play, little human!" and just like that, super mutants were boiling over the rise.

 

There were half a dozen of them in all - apparently they'd taken over the farm and were in the process of butchering the inhabitants for food. Fortunately, we found three survivors after we'd finished the mutants, but they made it pretty clear to me that the farm was done.

 

 

The super mutants had rolled in two days ago, they explained, and overpowered the settlement in a matter of minutes. They'd killed the settlers who resisted first, and the three women who were still alive didn't have any fighting skills to speak of. After some discussion about their options, they agreed to accompany me back to the Slog and ask Wiseman if they could join him there, even though they weren't ghouls.

 

The other thing they couldn't help me with was Suzan Wolfe. She'd been there, that much I could confirm; Wolfe had shown up and offered medical checkups and care in exchange for detailed interviews with everyone at the farm. She'd had a lot of questions about Breeders, but the folks a Breakheart had never heard about the IHFM gene, and it sounded like she left disappointed. According to them, she was going to stop by the farm at County Crossing, south of Saugus, before returning to points south. It wasn't really what I wanted to hear, but at least I had another clue to work with.

 

Wiseman was pretty dismayed when we got back. "I guess you were the right person for the job," he said. "Thanks, friend, and I'm sorry you didn't find the doc."

 

"Will you take in the settlers from Breakheart Banks?" I asked. "I don't think they have a lot of other options."

 

"Yeah," he said. "So much for my homeland just for ghouls, huh? There's a part of me who wants to tell them to go take a nice long swim in the river and come back when they've turned... but I don't really have the heart for it. So they can stay, smoothskins or not."

 

"They'll be happy to hear that," I said. "Maybe I can help you out a bit in exchange. Ever heard of an ASAM sensor?"

 

He shook his head. "No, what do they do?"

 

"Follow me," I said, "I'll show you." 

 

We did a quick walkaround of the farm until I found a good spot, and then I set down a sensor and programmed it for a municipal plot. After scanning the area, the sensor returned a few options - including a brick warehouse, just right for using as a caravan stop. I showed him the display on the sensor.

 

"Sound like something you could use?"

 

"Sure," he said, "as long as you can keep the roads clear. But what does this do?"

 

I pressed the 'commit' button and instructions started to scroll. The survivors from Breakheart Banks, along with some of Wiseman's farmers, followed the instructions step by step, and by late afternoon the warehouse was starting to take shape.

 

 

"OK," said Wiseman, "this is pretty damn impressive. You got some more of those I can use?"

 

"I've got a few," I admitted. "If you decide you want to throw in with us later, I can send more. For now, what's your number one priority in terms of things you need?"

 

"Water," he said right away. "The pool gets a lot of rainwater, but if we could purify some of the river water we'd be much better off. That, and defense. But the Minutemen are going to help us with that, right?"

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon helping Wiseman put together some rainwater collection barrels, along with a basic treatment setup and some storage space for excess water. It wasn't much, but the ASAM was able to find all the materials we needed and it was an immediate improvement for their situation. And, of course, the Minutemen would help with the defense situation once they made it out here. 

 

By that point, we were getting a little tired out and we decided to spend the night before heading for County Crossing. I also wanted to stop in at the farm Preston had originally planned to visit, to see if they'd also throw in with us. The way I saw it, this was one of those "the more, the merrier" situations where it would be a lot easier to hold onto our toehold out here if we had more than one settlement cooperating with us. The Sloggers were happy to let us stay - it had been raining on and off all afternoon, and the water barrels were already starting to fill up, proving once again the value of the ASAM sensors.

 

 

Me, Heather, and Winter chatted amongst ourselves for a while, mostly me and Winter telling Heather about our adventures up to this point. It was good to bring her up to speed on our goals and our experiences, and she listened with interest. After we'd caught up to the present, I let out a yawn and then stopped, noticing something. 

 

"Is that Guns and Bullets?" I asked, looking at the table in front of me. The magazine was buried under a cigarette pack and a drinking glass, but the distinctive masthead was still partly visible. Moving the junk out of the way, I laughed.

 

 

"Are you prepared for the Chinese zombie virus?" I read, "10 things you can do today to be ready." Then I showed Heather the cover, with a very ghoul-looking zombie chasing a young woman.

 

"Is it just me," she asked, "or is that like the last thing you'd expect to find in a ghoul's house?"

 

"Maybe they just have a weird sense of humor. I know I laughed at this magazine a lot. I mean, it was that, or I'd have to cry."

 

Heather looked puzzled at my comment, but Winter was the one who asked me to explain.

 

I let out a long sigh before telling them. "Back before the war... OK, so you know how the Brotherhood was? All the talk about 'degenerate' this and 'abomination' that? There were folks before the war who were like that. If you asked them, they'd tell you they just loved America so much and they wanted to protect it from anyone who'd hurt it. But really, they were there to make people afraid of anyone who was a challenge to the system. So like... back then, well, let me rewind a bit. Do you two know about the New Plague?"

 

Winter shook her head. Heather seemed a little more hesitant. "The name sounds... kind of familiar? But I can't put my finger on it."

 

"The New Plague was a disease that kept having outbreaks in America before the war. We spent a lot of time and money trying to cure it, but nothing seemed to work. Lots of people died, especially in the early waves, and by the time I was a teenager the government was tearing down a lot of old towns because no one was living there anymore. It got really hard to travel, because no one wanted someone to accidentally spread the disease, and the government was really pushing people to have as many kids as they could, to help us bounce back from all the deaths."

 

Winter was paying close attention to what I said. "Wow, I never heard about any of this before. But it makes sense that they'd want people to have kinds. So how does this connect with Guns and Bullets?"

 

"OK, so some folks don't normally have kids on their own right. If two guys or two women get together, they won't have any kids."

 

"I mean, wouldn't they just adopt orphans? There must have been lots of kids who lost their parents," Heather suggested.

 

"Sure, that would make sense, right? But people like the ones who wrote this," I waved the magazine for emphasis, "had been crapping on those folks - we called them LGBT before the war - for more than a century. They hated them. So instead of doing something smart like what you suggested, they used the plague to convince people to take away their rights. They said that if you punished the LGBT folks enough, they'd choose to get married the opposite sex and have kids, just to get all the punishment to stop."

 

"That's fucking stupid," Heather opined.

 

"What does LGBT stand for?" Winter asked.

 

"Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans."

 

"OK. I know what Lesbian and Gay mean. I can guess what Bisexual means. Trans?"

 

"That's like Preston," I said. "Born with a girl's body, but feel like they should be a guy."

 

"Gotcha," she said. "So yeah, I'm with Heather, that's fuckin' stupid."

 

"Not to the people in power," I explained. "Because as long as they could convince people that their neighbors were the problem, folks wouldn't notice that it was actually the people on charge who were screwing them. Like how McDonough uses the ghouls as a scapegoat, even kicked them out of Diamond City, but his policies are the ones that are going to get people killed - like the way he's constantly slow walking maintenance on the city gates."

 

"Alright, good history lesson," Heath said, nodding with what appeared to be sincere interest, "but what does that have to do with this book?"

 

"Guns and Bullets was one of the main ways these messages got spread. It was a pretty popular magazine, and a lot of people read it even if they didn't agree with it. It was so over the top that if you didn't like it, you could still get a good laugh at it. And at first, if you were young and horny, this was one of the magazines that had more sexy pictures in it - though towards the end G&B was almost tame compared to some of the magazines out there."

 

Heather looked like she was on the cusp of asking another question, but I held up a finger to pause her and then flipped to a random page.

 

"Listen to this," I said, starting to read from a page, "Number seven: Stay away from the gay. China will probably use the AIDS virus as the basis for their zombie virus. Because AIDS spreads very easily in the gay community, and because gays are naturally promiscuous, you should avoid anyone you even suspect of being gay, so they can't transmit the virus to you. People will tell you that it can only spread through contact with blood or bodily fluids, but promiscuous people are naturally unsanitary and they will probably have traces of feces or semen on their hands and mouths. Because of this, even a handshake could expose you to the deadly new virus."

 

"Is that true?" Heather asked.

 

"No," I said. "First off, there's no such thing as the 'AIDS Virus.' AIDS is a disease you could get before the war from different virus called HIV. We made a cure for HIV in the 2040s and no one had AIDS anymore when I was alive except for a few crazy anti-vaxxers. There also wasn't a 'Chinese Zombie Virus' - the person who wrote this just made that up. And then everything else is just them smearing LGBT folks to make them sound bad. So the real purpose of the article isn't to help you be safe against this made-up virus, its to expose you to the idea that LGBT people are somehow dirty or bad, and to try and convince people to avoid them. And if a thousand people read this and even one of them changes their behavior to be that way, the people behind this count it as a win - because their strategy was designed to run on a scale of decades and G&B was just one small part of the plan. Messages like this were all over TV, all over the newspapers - even the ones that wouldn't publish 'real' stories like this had an opinion column that was full of this shit - all over the internet. You couldn't get away from it."

 

"You're kind of ruining my vision of what life was like before the war," Winter said. 

 

"Don't let it bother you too much," I said. "Most people were still good, decent people who treated everyone fairly. This stuff," I waved the magazine again, "was a huge problem, but it wasn't the single defining thing about America. It's just... if you read one of these? Just remember it's mostly made up. Read it like a fantasy story, not like real life. And definitely don't use it as a guide for how to behave."

 

"So on that happy note," Winter said, "we've still got a few hours of daylight left. Any ideas for how to kill the time?"

 

I smirked. "You don't want to cuddle up with me on the couch and read this fine magazine?"

 

"No," they both said. 

 

"Well," I said with a wink, "I have a few ideas, but the whole 'no sexually harassing the guide' think definitely limits my options."

 

Heather narrowed her eyes, "you realize that saying things like that is sexual harassment, right?"

 

"Fair, fair," I said. "Do you think we can make it to Greentop Nursery before dark?" Greentop was the farm that Preston had planned to negotiate with to set up a Minutemen base.

 

Heather thought on that, before pronouncing, "now that we're familiar with the way to Breakheart, as long as Main Street is clear we should be able to get there by dusk... as long as we don't get sidetracked with anything."
 

"What do you think, Winter? Up for a late afternoon stroll?"

 

"Sure," she said, shrugging, "why not?"

 

After one last check-in with Wiseman to make sure he'd be ready to help the Minutemen settle in once they arrived, the three of us started to head for the nursery. 

 

 

Main Street was indeed clear, and other than the remains of an old Commonwealth Army checkpoint, which we decided to bypass rather than investigate, the trip went smoothly. The nursery was in pretty rough shape. Graygarden, for all its wear and tear, was still mostly intact. By contrast, Greentop was pretty thoroughly smashed up. However, on the bright side, it appeared to have prefabricated house very similar to the ones we had at Sanctuary Hills. It was in really bad shape, but using the Workshop we could probably repair it almost to new condition. Glancing into the greenhouse as we approached the house, I could see that the people here had made the same decision as the Graygarden robots and opted to grow mutfruit. I couldn't blame them - it was a versatile and nutritious crop, and it only needed minimal processing to get any trace radioactives out of it.  I also noticed a bright red Workshop outside the main house - with a good firmware update, this place could become an important source of building materials for the whole region - and of course, it would be that much easier to rebuild the house.

 

"Hello?" I asked as I crossed the threshold. Further within, I heard some commotion and soon I was face to face with a woman.

 

"Hi, did the... ah... Minutemen send you?"

 

"I'm with Concord," I said. "General Garvey told me you might need some help."

 

She initially seemed disappointed when I started my answer, but as soon as I mentioned Preston she cheered back up. "We've been trying to talk with them on the radio, but there's so much jamming in Medford it's hard to talk for long. Do you know if he's going to send people here?"

 

Now I felt a little shitty that I'd got him to redirect his people to the Slog. It sounded like these folks needed some help too. "The Minutemen are going to set up a base northeast of here, at the Slog. I'm sure they'll send patrols through here regularly once they're set up. In the meanwhile, can I help you? Either my friends and I right away, or longer term I could ask the Rangers to send some people?"

 

"There's a group of raiders who won't leave us alone," she explained. "They keep stealing our food, and my husband and I... we can't stop them, so they just take whatever they want. And now they're threatening us, telling us we need to move out so they can set up a camp at the farm. We know where they're coming from... but we can't stand up to them ourselves."

 

 

I glanced over the Winter and Heather. "Feel like exterminating some more raiders?"

 

"Do you have ask?" Heather shot back.

 

"Don't worry," I told the woman, "we'll take care of the raiders. And I'll have the Concord Rangers send a squad down here to make sure no one bothers you again. Can you make sure they have food and water, and a roof over their head?"

 

"Oh, thank God," she said. "Of course we'll put your people up. And honestly, if you've got anyone out of work who wants to be a farm hand, we'd give them free room and board too. But for now you have to take care of those raiders, please."

 

"Where are they holed up at?" I asked.

 

"They come from the north - I think they're taking a boat down the river and then following Main Street. But I heard them talking... their base is at the old quarry north of Swampscott."

 

"Aw, fuck," Heather muttered.

 

After we'd left the house, I asked her, "what was that about?"

 

"She's sending us to Dunwich Borers. Folks say its haunted. And its crawling with raiders, too. Hope you're ready for some excitement."

 

Winter chimed in, "oh, I've heard of that place. Yeah, that's bad news. Definitely do not go there after dark."

 

"I guess it's back to the Slog for now then," I said. "We can crash there and head to Swampscott in the morning. Heather? You think we can get back before dark?"

 

"If we leave right now," she said. "Though maybe you should consider, like, letting this one ride? I'm not sure I want to roll the dice on Dunwich."

 

Wiseman was all smiles when we got back to the Slog.

 

"You just missed them," he said. "The advanced party from the Minutemen showed up a little bit after you left. They really are back, it's fuckin' amazing. Thank you for helping us... and for what you did for the girls from Breakheart."

 

 

"You're welcome," I said. "We had a good visit to Greentop Nursery, too. I think once we squash a little raider problem they have, we'll also be getting them to work with us."

 

Wiseman nodded, "lot of potential for serious farming up there. At least, if they can fix up that greenhouse."

 

"I agree. We've got resource that can help them, at least as soon as we reestablish a safe caravan route."

 

"Mind if we crash here tonight, by the way?" I asked. "I don't want to try crossing the river at night. Too many things that could go wrong."

 

"Yeah, no kidding. Sure, make yourself at home." And with his permission, that's exactly what I did. We got comfortable in the Slog's living room while we waited out the last hour or so of daylight.

 

"Hey Charley?" Heather asked.

 

"What's up?"

 

"Um... earlier you told us a lot about your own past, and I appreciated that a lot. I realize, you don't know much about me."

 

I shrugged, "I figured you'd tell me more when you wanted to. No pressure."

 

"Ah, that's kind of the problem. I have a hard time telling the story. But, funny thing, Piper did a pretty good job telling it. Want to read an old newspaper with me?"

 

Heather retrieved a folded copy of Publick Occurences out of her bag and offered it to me before she joined me on the couch. I could feel her snuggling up next to me while I read. 

 

 

The newspaper told a pretty horrifying story - once upon a time, there'd been a successful settlement at University Point, acting as a waystation between Diamond City and Quincy. Years before the Quincy Massacre, however, synths had wiped out the whole settlement - only one person had survived. 

 

I turned to Heather as we got to that point. "Is that you? The survivor?"

 

"Yeah," she said. "I lost everyone important to me then... and I've been alone ever since."

 

"That's awful," I said. "And I'm so sorry. I guess you know now from my story that I got left all alone too. But if there's one thing I learned, it's that you don't have to stay alone."

 

Heather scooched a little closer. I could feel her warmth against my army. 

 

 

"Say, Charley?" she said.

 

"What is it?"

 

"Do you want to, you know, maybe sexually harass me a little?"

 

"You know I'm always up for a little sexual harassment." I heard Winter snort a little in the distance, no doubt snooping on us. "How about you take that body armor off and get comfortable."

 

Once the heavy breastplate was on the floor, I guided her down onto her side and slid behind her, gently cuddling her and lightly nipping at her ears and lips. She was a little tense, maybe a little anxious at first, but as she relaxed I slid my hand up between her legs, eliciting a gasp from her.

 

 

At first I just ran my fingers through her pubic hair and gently brushed against her vulva, but I slowly added more pressure to my tough, finding and massaging around her clit. The sighs Heather produced confirmed I was working on the right spot, and I gradually tightened my orbits until I was directly rubbing her hood. I toyed with getting out the strap-on at that point - her pussy was getting pretty slick with her juices - but I decided to take it slow with Heather. After a lengthy and leisurely session of petting and massaging, her moans gained  an octave or so and her thighs clamped down tight on my hand as she found her climax. I reached around, slipping a finger into her mouth, then two, and on the other end I slip my middle finger into her vagina, feeling the last of her orgasmic contractions.

 

"Do you want some more?" I asked.

 

"Mmmm, hmmm," she mumbled around my fingers, before closing her mouth and gently sucking on them.

 

 

And so, I gave Heather more. When I was done, she lay limp and boneless on the couch, and I slipped out from behind her before leaning down to first take a long lick on her pussy and then slide my tongue between her lips. 

 

"Just so you know," I whispered, "we have a rule in my family. The one who gets fucked is the one who cleans up." 

 

I kissed her again, and I felt her tongue reach mine, languidly running along it. I held the kiss for a little longer before breaking from her. "Now, my dear guide, you need to get some sleep."

 

I cuddled with Winter then until I started to feel my eyelids drooping, and just before I fell asleep she whispered, "you really are a menace, you know that?"