Go to Part Two.
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| Sunrise from the east tower, looking out over the peninsula (what once was known as Nahant, Boston). |
Dear Lucy,
Last week, for the first time since arriving here at the Manor, I ventured outside the walls. Late one night Marius came by the settlement as he does, checking the turrets, wandering about the house, checking the crops. Again he climbed the stairs to the top floor of the house and just stared out to the southeast, looking over the peninsula as if searching for something. Oh, big sister, I can’t help myself. There is something about this man that fascinates me.
He spent the night in the settlement, which is unusual. I was on day shift so I headed out to my post just before sunrise and to my amazement he emerged into the compound and came straight over to my post. He asked if the rifle he had given me was sufficient for my needs. I told him it was just fine, but that a scope might help. Sometimes when the storms blow in, visibility drops to almost zero. Supplies are scarce out here, so I expected him to give me the old ‘make do with what I give you’ speech, but he cocked his head to the side and smiled.
‘Night vision?’ he asked me.
I smiled back, trying to channel a little of Miranda’s audacity. ‘Well, I do stand out here all night sometimes.’
He laughed. First time I’ve heard someone laugh since I held your little Jacob in my arms, Luce. It’s been years. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘I have to go out on the peninsula to check on something. I want you to come with me.’
I nodded a little too eagerly and told him, sure.
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| A random photo taken on the peninsula. The house on the right is most likely the 'scavver house' Daphne refers to below. |
It was a little after sunrise as we headed out. He took the lead with Dogmeat, and told me to stay behind him and keep up, which I did. We hit the southeast road and headed out onto the peninsula. He moved with an authority I’ve only seen in the Brotherhood of Steel, clunking around in their armoured suits. His boots traversed the uneven ground with a strange kind of grace, and unlike most people I’ve seen he did not need to look down to ensure even footing. He carries a few guns with him, but the rifle he had at the ready was unlike any I've seen. It looked vaguely like the sniper rifles I’ve seen before but it had a recon scope. A recon scope! Big sis, you don’t want to know what I would have done for a recon scope when I was out here wandering the wasteland. I asked him about it, and he said it was a gift from an old guy Marius had helped rid a settlement of Mirelurks.
‘The ancestors sure made wide roads,’ I said as we negotiated the cracked black slabs with their funny white and yellow paint.
‘They weren’t for walking,’ Marius said. ‘These things,’ he pointed to one of the rusted hulks beside the road, ‘used to carry people to and from settlements and cities.’
I had figured they must have been some kind of transport, with the seats and wheels, but I remarked that the only thing I had learned about them during my time in the wasteland was to stay the hell away from them. At this, Marius laughed.
‘Yeah, when they blow, you don’t want to be anywhere near them,’ he said. ‘One of the legacies of powering transport with fusion energy is it goes out with a hell of a bang.’
I stared at one of the hulks. I said that it must have been good to not have to walk everywhere, but the Wanderer said it made people lazy and isolated, and fat, because there was too much food. I wondered how he knew all this. What a world that used to exist here, sis. I cannot even imagine it.
‘How’s things at the settlement?’ he asked. He kept his eyes locked forward, but periodically scanned our surroundings. I tried to emulate his movements as I struggled to keep up.‘It’s fine,’ I told him. ‘Food, shelter, water. There’s not a lot else a girl can ask for out here.’
‘The house is still a little broken in places,’ he said. ‘I fixed up the defences first. I’ll concentrate on aesthetics later. I’m sorry if it’s a little drafty at night. I’ll try to repair those walls before the season turns.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said again. ‘It beats sleeping in a ditch.’
‘I want it to feel like a home,’ he said, and his voice became distant. ‘I had a home once.’
‘It’s the first place I’ve thought of as home in a while,’ I said.
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| "Dogmeat out on the peninsula, during a rare moment of calm" |
This was the first time I’d seen Marius out here with Dogmeat. The dog is different out here, he’s not as carefree. He doesn’t scamper about, he sticks close to his master and trots along with his nose angled to the ground but his eyes forward. It’s as if he knows that outside the walls means business. I suspect he knows it better even than I. The two of them operate in a strange sort of unison. When Marius stops, Dogmeat stops. He doesn’t start forward again until Marius takes a step.
A little ways further Marius stopped, and crouched, signaled for me to do the same. Dogmeat paused beside us, and for a moment, they both seemed to lift their noses, as if trying to catch a scent.
‘Trouble up ahead,’ Marius said, and at that moment I heard gunfire. Small arms.
‘What do you think, Raiders?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Sounds like pipe rifles. Maybe an auto or two. Move quietly, stay with me, keep low.’ He looked me up and down. ‘You ever been with a unit or anything? Brotherhood, Minutemen?’
I shook my head.
He held his hand up, palm flat as if waving to me. ‘If I do this, stop.’
I nodded.
We crept forward, and stopped about a hundred yards from the confrontation up ahead. Three Raiders gunning it out with some scavengers holed up in an old house. Marius took two of them out with that recon-scoped rifle. The third Raider did some duck and cover behind an old railing, out of sight. Marius turned to Dogmeat and gave him the go ahead, and Dogmeat took off towards the Raider.
‘Come on,’ Marius said, and I could hear the dog tussling with the Raider up ahead. We got closer and I saw just how fierce Dogmeat can be. He had the Raider by the gun arm, and was dragging him to the ground. Marius watched for a moment, and then unslung his shotgun and blew the guy’s head off.
I saw a different side to the Wanderer out here as well. I don’t know what I expected him to be like. I suppose I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. We approached the house cautiously, and one of the scavvers came out onto the porch. Marius had his gun lowered, but the scavver raised his. Before he got anywhere close to aiming, Marius dropped him with three quick blasts from the shotgun. We heard a panicked cry from inside and then one of the other scavvers burst out of the back door and started sprinting away towards the old church. In a manner I can only describe as ‘quiet’, Marius carefully aimed his scope at the guy’s back, and put him down. He then told me to stay put and headed inside the house. I heard two more shotgun blasts and a muffled scream. Marius emerged carrying two pipe rifles.
‘Here,’ he told me, handing them over. ‘Take these back to the manor.’ He then headed out across the parking lot and searched the other scavver. He came back with a funny brimmed hat.
‘Maybe give this to one of the twins,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘Might help telling them apart.’
As we were walking back to the settlement, Marius asked me if there was something on my mind. I asked him why he had shot that man in the back. He told me if he didn’t kill him now, there was a chance he’d just come back later. He seemed annoyed that I had questioned him, and I couldn’t help thinking I’d blown it, that next time he’d probably take Miranda with him. He stopped walking and stared me straight in the eye.
‘Nothing I do out here is accidental,’ he told me. ‘You start second-guessing yourself out here, you might as well just give up.’
I nodded.
‘When you’re up on that tower I need you to shoot at anything that moves, whether its back is turned or not. If you can’t do that you need to let me know right now. I won’t make you leave the settlement. But I need guards up on those towers who can handle themselves.’
I stood up straight and held his gaze. ‘I can handle myself.’
‘Good.’ He nodded and we kept walking.
I had noticed that as I straightened my back and stood up to the Wanderer, Dogmeat had stiffened and his hackles had raised slightly. He was just short of lowering his head and growling at me, I know it. I don’t know which part of that whole encounter made me feel smaller, sis – the fact that Marius had doubted me or that Dogmeat had, for even a split second, considered me a potential enemy.
Back inside the compound Marius walked me to my post. As I started up the stairs something came over me and I turned to face him.
‘You’ll never doubt me again,’ I said.
All he said was ‘Okay,’ and he turned to leave.
‘Why did you take me with you today?’
He stopped and looked at me. I told him he could have handled that patrol all by himself, why did he need me to accompany him?
He seemed to stare past me for a moment and then said, ‘You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.’
I was about to ask who, but he nodded to my tower and said, ‘Get up there and keep watch. I’ll see what I can do about getting you a scope. And I never doubted you.’
I couldn’t sleep that night, so I headed up to the top floor landing and sat by my favourite turret, listening to it rattling back and forth, wishing I could be as mindless a killer. The truth is I couldn’t shake that image from my mind - a helpless man, gunned down while running for his life. At that moment I remembered something. I took the folded, brimmed hat from my pocket and threw it out over the fence. Let the wasteland have it. Why not. It takes everything else.
Daph.
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