"Got a second, Charley?"

 

I'd awakened just before dawn, and with Heather and Piper flanking me in bed I quickly started to feel uncomfortably warm. After a quick shower, I left the Paisleys' house and started walking around the perimeter of the settlement. Red's people had done a good job building up the defenses, but other aspects of the project seemed to be lagging a bit behind. Of course, the one we noticed most acutely was that the main house hadn't been repaired. So I had a bit of a guess what Amos Paisley wanted to talk about that morning.

 

"Sure, Amos," I said. "What's on your mind?"

 

Despite his hair having long gone fully white, the life of a wasteland farmer had kept Amos' body in good shape, and he seemed to have adapted well to the heels on the vault suit, which gave a pleasant view of his strong chest. Still, his expression told me that this wasn't entirely a social call.

 

 

"Listen, I don't want to beat around the bush. Your entourage made quite a mess last night."

 

"I'm sorry about that," I admitted. "I'll use the Workshop to fabricate a replacement for the chair before we leave."

 

I paused for a moment, then I added, "and I'll have a talk with them about being a little more cosiderate for the property in the future." And really, that was a conversation we needed to have. The transition from relatively clean pee play centered around the power suit into messy watersports that I'd seen the night before wasn't a problem in and of itself... I mean, if my wives had fun, then great. Not like anyone got hurt. But leaving behind property damage for other people to clean up wasn't a way to make friends.

 

"I appreciate that," Amos told me, "but the bigger issue is the state of the house in general. When you visited us before, I thought we had an understanding that you'd help us rebuild and fix up the house. We're still waiting."

 

"That's fair," I said. A thought crossed my mind. "I'll talk to Winter about doing some work on it today. I don't know how much she can accomplish right away, but at least we can get started, maybe patch up the roof."

 

"I think we also need to agree to a timetable for the whole project," Amos pushed. "I know Trish hasn't said anything, but I think that's what she wants as well. She's just too polite to say so. We appreciate the security and the trade, but you owe us a better place to live."

 

I reiterated that I'd speak with Winter immediately, then asked him to give me some time to work out the details. Placated for the moment, Amos let me go and I curtailed my rambling. It didn't take me too long to find her down near the water pump.

 

"Good morning," I said. "Got some time to talk about this place?"

 

 

"Sure," she said. "I was just thinking about what we could do to fix up this old pump system. I'm sure we could mechanize it without too much trouble."

 

"You're probably right," I agreed, "but I think the first thing we need to do is fix up the main house. I promised them we'd do that for them when they aligned with Concord. Is that something you can start on today? Maybe fix up the roof?"

 

Winter considered that for a moment, then said. "Maybe. But I'm concerned with all the structural damage and decay, changing the roof might be too much for the load-bearing parts of the house. I think the smarter move would be to tear it down and build up fresh from the Sanctuary architectural data."

 

"What do you think the timeframe on that would be?" I asked.

 

She shrugged. "Not just one afternoon, for sure. Probably a week or two, at least. And I'd need to supervise it - none of the folks here have the experience to do it safely."

 

I frowned a little at that. I'd really been hoping for something a little smaller in scope we could start with. Nevertheless... "this is really important to Amos and Trish," I said. "I know you want to come with me on this trip, and you're right that without a mechanic we could be in trouble if the power suit breaks down, but..."

 

Winter finished the sentence for me, "...but I need to stay behind and fix up the settlement? Yeah, I don't like it, but you're right. I guess we're switching outfits again?"

 

"Thank you, Winter," I said, "this is really important."

 

And that was that. We switched our suits, then Winter paused for a generous smooching session before she helped me get the helmet on. 

 

 

"Thank you for bringing me this far," she said. "I'll give the Paisleys a home that they'll never forget and never stop being grateful for. Come back and see. You'll love it too."

 

"You're the best, Winter," I said, "you're the only one who can do this, and I believe in you."

 

Winter was already getting rolling with the job when we left - corralling the Rangers to help her start pulling junk out of the house to feed into the Workshop while she started taking measurements and asking Trish and Amos about their preferences. I wish I could have taken her with me, but I could tell already I'd made the right decision. She was going to do something amazing for the Paisleys.

 

It was around 9 AM when we got back on the highway heading north, quickly making our way to The Slog. After a quick check-in with Wiseman, we crossed the Saugus River and headed for Route 107. Notwithstanding the occasional Minutemen patrol designed to deter new raiders from moving into the Dunwich Borers quarry, we were now outside of Concord's reach. I might have owned that land in theory, but I had no reason to believe that would count for anything with the inhabitants.

 

It didn't take me long to calibrate my expectations. As we pushed up the highway, I heard screaming and sobbing carrying on the wind, and as we reached the top of a rise I could see that someone had erected a wooden cross on the road-side. Upon it, and the source of the cries, was a women who had been fixed to the cross with thick bolts driven through her wrists and ankles.

 

 

"Please help!" she wailed as she struggled, barely able to move against the unmoving steel bolts.

 

"We'll help you," I said, "just hang on."

 

The only way to get her down was to pull the bolts out of the cross. I could do it using the strength of the power suit, but it was a messy, bloody affair, and when we finally got her down I could see her joints were completely ruined from the crucifixion process.

 

"Piper," I said, "check my pack and see if we still have that dose of Hydra."

 

While I worked on staunching the woman's bleeding, my wife found that fortunately we were still hauling around the medicine. She eagerly gulped it down soon I could hear the bones grinding as her injuries began to regenerate. 

 

After waiting for her to fully recover, I asked, "What's your name? How did you end up here?"

 

"I'm Zara," she said. "My family sided with the priesthood, and when I spoke out in favor of Quartercut, they put me here as a warning to others. In fact, they're overdue for their visit. They come each day to offer to take me down."

 

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I pressed, "why don't you let them?"

 

She laughed, "I figured you for an outsider, but now I know for certain. They'd take me down by giving me the sacred cuts - and then live as a temple servant. I'd rather die."

 

"Good thing we showed up when we did, then," said Heather.

 

"More to the point," Piper said, "who or what is Quartercut."

 

"Of course, you know nothing about Salem, do you? Anna VI Quartercut, the rightful queen of Salem. She rejected the priesthood and she's been fighting them for control of Salem ever since."

 

"I'm sorry," Heather said, "Queen of Salem? Priesthood? I've never heard of any of this before. Though... I've never been up to Salem, either. I heard it was wiped out by Mirelurks."

 

Zara nodded, "Mirelurks are still a big problem, but Anna's mother organized a successful defense. Unfortunately, not before they overran her hall and killed everyone inside. That's when Quartercut inherited Salem... and when our new troubles started."

 

"That sounds... complicated." I said. "I'm Charley Ellison, by the way. Call me Charley. We're headed up to Beverly... are we going to have trouble when we get to Salem?"

 

 

She turned to face me, with what looked almost like laughter in her eyes. "Yes. You are definitely going to have trouble when you get to Salem. If you keep your head down and plow through it shouldn't be too bad, but it won't take much to get you pulled into the fighting. Like," she said more quietly, "if you show up with me in tow."

 

"Yeah, I kind of figured you were going in that direction. Do you know anything about who I am?"

 

She shook her head, "no, never heard of you."

 

"I'm the leader of a settlement in Concord, a ways west of here. We're working to make the area safer for settlers and also to build trade links to other areas. I had hoped that Salem would be one of those links, but everyone back where I come from says everyone's dead, wiped out. Obviously they're wrong."

 

"We don't trade with anywhere south or west of here. That's been the law for decades," Zara said.

 

"So if I get involved with your civil war, think that might change?"

 

She snorted, "Quartercut's changed plenty of other laws. But it's not for me to say. That said... maybe I can get you a meeting with her? If you're willing to help?"

 

Piper groaned, "honey, this is exactly the last thing we should do."

 

I cocked my head at that... it wasn't what I'd expect from Piper. "Don't you want to find out about 'mysterious Salem,' miss star reporter?"

 

"I just want to find Nick and get out of there. Like, I'm curious. I want to know more. But we're a long way from home and I thought our plan was to be careful."

 

"Piper," Heather snorted, "have you ever known Charley to be particularly cautious?"

 

"Ahhh," she shook her head, "fair point."

 

I thought about the predicament a little before I told Zara, "I'm not going to avoid Salem. If there's still people there, I want to establish a relationship with them. But I won't commit to supporting your, ah, queen, out of hand. I want to talk to both sides in this dispute before I decide who to support, if anyone."

 

"Let's go then," Zara said, "I'm pretty confident you won't want anything to do with the priesthood."

 

We pushed up 107 until we entered the outskirts of Salem, where we sheltered in a mostly-intact building to get out of the rain. Even with the tension of the cross relieved, Zara's body was still tight and looked great wet with the rain. I have to admit, I considered trying to have some fun with her before we got dragged into the town's troubles.

 

 

"Are you going to come with us into town," I said, "or do you want to part ways so you can find your friends?"

 

"I need to find Quartercut," she said, "and the priests will just attack you on sight if I'm with you. I'll see you again when the priesthood turns on you. It's pretty much guaranteed."

 

"Alright," I said, "then we'll see you again soon. Stay safe."

 

Piper and Heather had been checking the room while I talked to Zara, and I heard Heather let out a little "oooh" of interest.

 

"Hey Charley, look at this," she said, pointing me to a magazine lying on the store counter. 

 

 

"I think I found something for us to read," she added.

 

"That's a pretty rare find... but I was planning to save the other one I had for next time we see Red. Maybe we should do that for this one, too."

 

"Nuh uh," Heather said, "I want to see what all the excitement's about." 

 

"Me too," Piper added.

 

"Alright, you two, if that's the way we're going to play it I expect something special from both of you in return. You might also have to make it up to Red later for making her miss the premier reading."

 

Piper snickered. "Can I just make Heather pay up for the both of us?"

 

"No, you're overdue for being on the receiving end, Piper. Especially after that stunt you pulled at Greentop."

 

Piper seemed about ready to shoot back another smartass remark when she stopped. Her affect markedly changed from playfulness to concern, and she said, "you know, I just had a terrible thought."

 

"Oh?" I asked.

 

"What if Nick got caught up in the trouble in Salem too?"

 

I hadn't said it before, but the thought had crossed my mind during our walk to Salem. It was a big part of why I didn't make more of an effort to stay disconnected from the mess there. I decided to confront the problem head on and seek out the so-called priesthood. Before she left, Zara had told me they operated out of the old Museum of Witchcraft, a place I'd visited several times before the war. While we walked there, I noticed that the streets were completely empty. If there were people here, they were staying out of sight.

 

"I feel like we're being watched," Piper commented, followed quickly by a nod of agreement from Heather.

 

"Yeah, this is weird. I get the ordinary people hiding out, but where's the welcoming committee from these priests? I didn't expect them to have much patience for visitors."

 

The question went unanswered, and soon enough I was looking at the Museum. It seemed to have survived the war in reasonably good shape, but it also loomed entirely silent and without signs of life.

 

 

"I guess we'll just let ourselves in," I said, before walking up to the door with Piper and Heather in tow. A storm lantern was burning next to the door, apparently lit not that long ago, and beside it I could see a tipped-over chair. I wondered if someone had left here in a hurry.

 

My plans of entering the front door, however, were stymied - at first I thought the door was just locked, but from the sounds I could hear when I tried to force it open, I realized it was chained up on the inside. The other exterior doors were also locked, but after a search of the building perimeter we found a bulkhead that wasn't secured. Near the bottom of the basement stairs, my flashlight played over something red and wet, a pool of blood settled around a severed human arm. That was the point when we got out our weapons, because something had clearly gone extremely wrong here.

 

The outside of the building may have been intact, but the basement at least was trashed. Several waves of looters must have gone through it over the years, and very little was left of the furnishings other than the walls. 

 

"Charley," Piper said, "something's not right here." She was examining a writing desk that contained a corpse - one with its head twisted off and lying nearby on the ground.

 

"Yeah, I think we might have some trouble meeting up with these priests. I wonder if this is why they didn't come in to check on Zara today."

 

More bodies, these ones dressed in military fatigues, littered the floor of the next room. I stepped past them carefully, heading for the staircase at the far side of the room.

 

 

Up the stairs, I learned what had happened. A huge albino Deathclaw had just torn the interior apart. There were dismembered bodies everywhere, with the huge carcass of the 'claw sitting square in the middle.

 

Yes, you heard me right. I know the store they tell in Salem is that I picked up a rocket launcher from a fallen guard and shot a missile down its throat, but that didn't actually happen. The slaughter was all over well before I arrived. From what I've been able to piece together, the priests had, unknown to everyone, got their hands on a Deathclaw egg years ago and hand-raised it in the basement of the museum. They were probably planning to unleash it as a final 'fuck you' to Quartercut's people if they looked like they were going to win. But something went wrong and instead the monster got loose inside their base. Someone had the foresight to chain the doors from the inside before it could get out, and against all odds they killed it, but nobody made it out alive. Whoever fired the killing shot must have already been mortally wounded, and joined the other corpses shortly after. 

 

 

OK, maybe I had spoken a little too soon when I said everyone was dead. As we were finding our way to the exit, I heard something from underneath me. Then I heard a voice. "Please, don't leave me!"

 

We backtracked into the basement and had to spend some time clearing debris to access a small bathroom. Inside, surrounded by Deathclaw eggs, I found a handcuffed woman.

 

 

"Are you alright?" I asked, "how did you get in here?"

 

She explained that she was a refugee from the fighting in New Hampshire. She'd come to Salem looking for a safe place to settle, but almost immediately the priests arrested her and brought her to the museum. Her story put together the last missing piece of the puzzle. About a month ago, the Deathclaw had laid a clutch of eggs. The priests separated it from its nest, and then sent their prisoners instead to warm the eggs with their body heat. Apparently they wanted the newly hatched Deathclaws to imprint on humans.

 

Over the weeks she performed this duty, she could tell the albino was getting more and more agitated. When it finally snapped, she had only survived because almost immediately the ceiling in the hall had caved in and trapped her with the eggs. The priests had hauled and torn at the debris pile to try and retrieve the eggs and placate their erstwhile pet, but not in time, and she heard their screams as they were torn apart.

 

The woman - I'm sorry to say I don't remember her name - had been reconciled that she was going to starve to death, but she'd been staving off the inevitable by breaking open the eggs and eating their contents raw. She told me it was the worst tasting thing she'd ever eaten, but it kept her alive.

 

With some help from Heather, we got her out of the handcuffs and I offered to take her to Quartercut's headquarters across town. She considered it briefly, but declined. 

 

"I'm going back to New Hampshire," she said. "Things are bad there, but not this bad."

 

When we removed the chains from the front door and stepped outside, we found that the weather had cleared. I was also somewhat surprised to find Zara waiting outside.

 

 

"Quartercut wants to see you," she said. If Zara had been guarded but friendly before, now she was all business. 

 

"Does she already know what happened to the priests?" I asked.

 

Zara nodded. "No one's been inside yet, but from they figured it out from the noise. It all happened last night. I'm guessing from the way you're all relaxed, whatever was in there is dead?"

 

I nodded. "It was a huge Deathclaw. But it's dead. I think maybe your civil war ended while you were hanging on that cross."

 

"That's what I found out when I went home," she agreed. "Well, not completely ended, but the war's as good as won. Quartercut's kicked the priests out of town and the survivors are holed up on a compound to the south. Salem's finally free of them."

 

The city might have been liberated, but it was also in ruins. Many of the buildings were badly damaged, and the damage looked recent... but beyond those signs of trauma, I could discern deeper signs of decay. The marketplace in the center of town was overgrown with weeds, and here and there I could see mirelurk shells, the soft inner parts long picked over by scavengers, sitting like giant melons. Glancing up, I saw gun turrets here and there, silent and motionless.

 

Zara saw me looking up at the guns. "Don't worry about those," she said. "One of our people was able to sabotage the control computer a few days ago. They were supposed to be there to protect against mirelurks, but the priests would program them to target anyone they wanted out of the way. You'd be walking down the sidewalk and bang, no warning, you're dead. But that's over."

 

I waved a hand towards the closest ruin. "It sounds like you had a pretty successful town here... but now all I see is rubble."

 

Zara closed her eyes for a second. "We never managed to rebuild after the mirelurk invasion, and things have just slowly been getting worse ever since. But most of this happened after I got caught. I don't even want to think about how bad things must have got... reducing the city to this in just a few days. Unimaginable."

 

It turned out that Quartercut was waiting for us in the old Tabernacle Congregational Church near where the North River narrows. I remembered this place from before the war and it had been in and out of the news, usually not portrayed in a flattering light. This church had always been outspoken in favor of progressive causes, and they'd made a big show of opposing the government's rolling-back of LGBT rights in the years after the New Plague first appeared. The response was a coordinated and ugly smear campaign in the media: accusing the leadership of being child molesters, claiming they were trafficking illegal immigrants for sex work, even stories suggesting that the pastor was running a drug-dealing operation. Somehow, they managed to work the system and keep the Civil Defense Administration from shutting them down, but if the bombs hadn't dropped when they did, I think it would have happened eventually.

 

The inside of the church looked like it had recently been cleaned up, but it was impossible to miss the gross damage to the structure. There was a large hole torn in the roof, and one of the upper galleries had partially collapsed. A few people will milling around, preparing food at a makeshift kitchen set up in the corner, but Zara lead me past that area and forward to the raised dais where the pastor's lectern would have once stood. Instead of that, now there was an elaborate throne of animal bones, flanked by a series of portraits of women. Left to right, I saw the first of them had intensely pink hair... and most of them seemed to be missing their arms.

 

 

"Zara," I asked, "who are these women?"

 

"They're the queens of Salem," Zara answered. Pointing to the first, pink-haired one, she said, "that is Anna I Vaultsent. She founded Salem and retired here after The Collapse. She was weary of the world, and counseled her people to live a quiet and peaceful life."

 

Zara pointed to the next portrait. "That is Anna II Longwalker. Before her mother's passing, she made a pilgrimage to the west, where she received the Holy Vestment. As queen, she formed the priesthood and taught them the sacred knowledge she had learned."

 

"So Quartercut's, um, great-great-grandmother actually founded the priesthood?"

 

Zara seemed to be doing a little bit of mental math in her head before correcting me, "great aunt. Anna III was Longwalker's sister. Anna III Faithful, properly. When her sister passed without a child, the priesthood taught her the sacred knowledge and gave her the sacred cuts."

 

"You've mentioned the sacred cuts before," I said, "and I see her arms are missing in the portrait. Is that what you meant?"

 

"Vaultsent did not have arms or legs, instead she had robot limbs. When Longwalker returned from her pilgrimage, she revealed that Vaultsent's mother had taken her arms and legs as a right of passage. She secretly taught the priests that every queen who followed her would be cut in the same way Vaultsent was. She also taught them that Vaultsent, who had never worn clothing, was ritually pure and all future queens would be naked."

 

"But Longwalker wore the, um, Holy Vestments and kept her arms and legs?"

 

Zara nodded, "the priesthood were never willing to elaborate on that point. Faithful accepted her burden, however, and she taught that like her, future queens should sacrifice their limbs so that would rule by reason and persuasion alone, never violence. When her daughter followed her as Anna IV Steelclad, she eagerly accepted the sacred cuts, and on each anniversary of her ascension, she mortified her flesh with steel to renew her commitment to the priesthood."

 

"Then the last picture is Quartercut's mother?" I asked.

 

"Yes. Anna V Unpenitent was Steelclad's sister. When Steelclad died from a sudden illness, Unpenitent took the sacred cuts but refused to expose her body. That was the start of the conflict with the priesthood that gradually got worse over time until the mirelurk invasion. I think I told you that Unpenitent died in the final battle, and when that happened, her daughter Quartercut not only refused to give up her clothing, but also refused the cuts. The priesthood, in turn, refused to bless her rule, and... well, as you saw, it tore Salem apart."

 

"Do you think Quartercut should have obeyed the priests?" I asked, "to save Salem from all of this?"

 

Zara shook her head. "My father felt that way. But the conflict would have happened eventually, no matter what Quartercut did. Better that we face this with a strong leader then risk it happening when someone weak was in charge. But come on, you need to speak to Quartercut. She's upstairs."

 

The royal apartment wasn't palatial by any means. It housed a bed, a small living room, and an office desk - the only decoration was a large portrait of Unpenitent that seemed to be a copy of the one downstairs. At the top of the stairs, I was greeted by a short-haired woman wearing a bulletproof vest. I also noted that her right arm was missing. 

 

 

"You must be Queen Anna," I said. "I'm Charley Ellison."

 

She considered me for a moment. "Welcome to Salem. I wish you'd come here... a few days ago, a few months, a few years. From what Zara's told me, we could have used your help in any of those times. Is it true your companions all carry the sacred sign? Have you come from the Vault?"

 

"The sacred sign?" I started, but then I noticed the odd thong Quartercut was wearing, and the gold 111 emblazoned on it, and I amended, "of Vault 111, you mean. Yes, though it might be going too far to call it a sacred sign. There are other vaults, and they all show their numbers like that."

 

 

"Forgive me if I seem... quaint," Quartercut said. "The sacred sign, the Holy Vestments, the secret knowledge... we've gone our whole lives listening to the teachings of the priesthood. I know it's probably all lies, but we haven't known anything else."

 

"No need to apologize," I said, "if anything, I'm the one who owes you an apology for blundering into your affairs without knowing your peoples' history or beliefs. Under the circumstances, you've been a very gracious host."

 

Quartercut scoffed at that, "now you're just flattering me. But you are from Vault 111?"

 

"I am. The vault opened again last year, and since then I've been trying to rebuild Concord and the areas around it."

 

"And you want to... trade with us? Ally with us?"

 

"Honestly, all I was expecting today was to make contact and ask if you had seen a friend of ours. But I'd be happy to walk away with a trade agreement and an alliance. But Route 107 isn't really safe for caravans, so that might take some time to arrange. In the meanwhile, I'm curious - Zara said you refused the cuts, but you're conspicuously missing an arm. I understand why they call you Quartercut, but how did it happen?"

 

She shrugged, gesturing to the flush chairs in the sitting area. Sitting across from me, she gave me a very abbreviated version of her youth. As a teenager, she'd trained with the city guard and developed a reputation as a crack shot with a pistol. When she came of age, the priesthood demanded that she give up her right arm. They said that it was a new revelation they had received about the mark that the royal heir should bear, and that it would teach me to give up my gun and cultivate the ways of reason and persuasion. 

 

"The truth, of course, is that this was their petty revenge on my mother. She had refused their demand for her to bare herself, and so they created a new public way to force her to submit. The priests took my arm in public, sawing slowly through the muscle and bone while pumping me full of stimpaks to keep me alive and sensate. They didn't know it, but I forswore their faith that day. When my mother died, they came to me with their secrets - and it was all ritual acts of submission to weaken the queen and ensure the priesthood was the power beyond the throne. I sent them back to their museum and... well," she waved to the window, "you see the results. But now they're gone. Finally. And it's time for us to rebuild."

 

"We can help you with that," I said. "The warehouses of Bunker Hill are practically overflowing with building materials. You can repair the damage to Salem and build it back better than before."

 

"If we can open Route 107," she said, completing my thought.

 

"That's true. Or... maybe open a sea link? I saw the waterfront seemed largely intact. Do you have any boats? Maybe you could go by water to Constitution Wharf, and skip the highway entirely."

 

She thought on that, "not a bad idea, except the when the surviving priests fled, they took our last working boat with them. Perhaps we'll track them down one day, but until then we need to find a different solution."

 

Quartercut and I spoke for a long time, about the state of the Commonwealth, about my own goals and plans, and about a number of different scenarios where we might cooperate. I was impressed with her - she was an eloquent and intelligent woman, and it seemed like she'd managed to break out entirely from the priesthood's entrapment to take back her birthright. I might have no desire to be Queen Charley, but I found myself respecting Queen Quartercut quite a bit.

 

As the night settled in, we turned to more immediate matters. "I see we've missed our chance to get to Beverly before nightfall," I said. "Is there a safe place for us to rest here in Salem?"

 

Initially she offered her own bed, saying she was perfectly accustomed to sleeping on the couch. I politely declined - I didn't want to push her hospitality too far - but that got us chatting a little longer, and I learned about how while she might be a queen in name, her properties were just as meager as the rest of the population's and before her ascension she'd frequently slept on that very couch. For her, it brought back pleasant memories of a more innocent time in her life. Also, as I'm sure you guessed already, Anna I Vaultsent was Anna Gray. That explained why Alexia was interested in Salem, and I wondered if I should tell her about her sister's legacy.

 

When we finally finished our talk, Quartercut asked Zara to lay out some sleeping bags in the grand hall, and my companions and I settled in for the night. 

 

 

"I don't know what I was expecting to find up here," I said, "but this wasn't it."

 

"I was expecting mirelurks," Heather added unhelpfully.

 

"Yeah," Piper said, "this place is... something else. But it seems like they're moving in the right direction." Then she added, "sooooo, bedtime story?"

 

I laughed at that. "You two really have one track minds, you know that? I guess there's no harm in some light reading, but no funny business. I don't want to make our hosts uncomfortable. We can catch up on the bedroom play once we're back on the road."

 

They nodded in assent, and with a silent apology to Red Tourette, I fished out the copy of Club X. The story started out like a fairly run of the mill kinky romance - a woman goes to visit her sister and finds out she's involved in a master-slave BDSM relationship. She's curious, a little embarrassed, but bit by bit she experiments with the lifestyle and enjoys it. Then they go to Club X and everything goes off the rails.

 

 

"Later, at the table..." I read as Piper and Heather snuggled up close on each side of me. "Nancy, what happens to the girls whos numbers are picked? Oh... they have to help with the club pig roast... it's a monthly event. Gee, that doesn't sound like it's so bad! Robin! They eat roast pigs! Oh! You mean... oh! B...but that's... C...cannibalism!"

 

I paused for dramatic effect, before delivering in my best dumb blond voice, "right!"

 

"Once again I see the raiders haven't come up with anything new for their repertoire," Piper grumbled, "you sickos had already dreamed it all up before the war."

 

"Now, now," I said, teasing, "you know that this story is intended as a commentary about peer pressure, the corrosive power of the patriarchy, and the way misogynistic power structures turn women into involuntary accomplices."

 

Heather snorted, "I understand about half of that but I'm sure it's bullshit."

 

"Fine, ye of little faith. I'll have you know that when the government tried to ban this artist's work, Hubris Comics fought it all the way to the supreme court because they believed in its artistic value so much. Anyway, let's continue."

 

"Nancy! It's time to go downstairs. Robin, you can come along but you have to strip. Robin," I switch to my bimbo voice again, "maybe you should stay up here. Jim can put you in a holding cell."

 

"Nnno, I'll go with you," I said, back in my 'protagonist voice,' "I don't want to miss the drawing! Should I get undressed? Yes," I lowered my voice to imitate the boyfriend, Jim, "yes, and you both have to be bound to go down stairs, and there's one other thing before we go."

 

I turned the page and Piper laughed. "Yeah, deep social commentary, huh? What's the hidden message between showing someone get a hot poker shoved up their ass?"

 

 

I shrugged. "I think that one's just for good old fashioned shock value. Believe it or not, most people back then could still be shocked. by springing something extreme like this one them."

 

"Oh my God," Heather whispered, "they cut her tits off! What would that even feel like?"

 

"I mean, if you want to find out this is probably the place to do it. It seem they have a whole cottage industry of cutting up women. Or at least they did until their Deathclaw problem got out of hand."

 

She gritted her teeth at that a little. "No thanks, I like my chest just the way it is."

 

It was getting pretty late by now, and I was right about half way through the comic, so I closed it up and looked at each of my companions in turn. "I'll leave you to stew on that cliffhanger... we can finish this tomorrow and then maybe let off some steam. What do you think?"

 

"I think I want to fuck tonight," Piper mumbled. 

 

"To bad," I shot back, "we're going to be polite guests, unlike last night."

 

"Fiiiine," they both sighed.