17 “It ain’t all whiskey and roast pork…”

Chapter 12 "It ain't all whiskey and roast pork…"

The adults sat by the fire enjoying a drink. Robco taking a break from grinding and hammering at his bench. John practising sitting then standing while wearing the heavy, long leather coat that ended half way past his knees. Much to Louisa's amusement.

Sat by the fire, the gentle dog lay next to her, almost as if it knew the comfort it brought. The woman seemed lighter. She'd already brought out another pair of trousers and two more dark, soft t shirts. Too big to have belonged to anyone but Wallace senior. And she'd sent a call out over the radio for donations. John clicked on the radio from his pipboy, hearing a deep male voice instead of Lady Luck.

"Mr Goodnight here, I'm with you all night, every night, from The Tower with power. Stay warm out there, but don't set the world on fire, it was bad enough last time, I don't want that and neither do The Inkspots."

John thought Louisa looked impressed with the device on his arm. Until she went into the workshop and turned on a much bigger, much louder radio. Soft melodic music filled the air, putting the pipboy to shame, John had never heard anything like it. He tilted his head back and shut his eyes. The music washing over him, quieting his mind, until it abruptly dropped in volume.

"What?" Louisa asked her son.

"I said I need to take Betsy offline for an hour, maybe two." Wallace had a stern look. Notes in hand, reasoning prepared.

"Betsy's on patrol, which means it's a security decision, you'd have to ask whoever has the watch tonight." Robco didn't dismiss the idea, but his tone left no doubt that the boy would be responsible. Without hesitation he took the radio from the bench and pressed the button to talk.

"Wallace to Anne, come in, over." With a squelch a voice replied, in a far more casual manner.

"Hey Wallace, what's up?" The woman sounded bored, welcoming the chance to talk.

"You're on watch right, can I, I mean, I need…" The boy shut his eyes tight, showing his young age as he finally blurted out his request. "I need to shut Betsy down for an hour, maybe two." Silence came from the radio. The voice responded playfully, just not quite playfully enough for the boy to catch.

"Gee, I don't know, two whole hours. What's it for?"

"A secret project." The boy said with confidence, another deliberately long pause followed.

"I'll tell you what, we got two big boxes of books while you were out, you help sort them and I'll send her over."

"Deal! Thanks Anne." Wallace put the radio down. "I would have done that anyway, Anne always lets me have first pick on books!" The boy looked pleased with his bartering, thinking he got a good result. Still too young to grasp the woman on watch wouldn't have refused him. And from the warmth in her voice was looking forward to spending time together.

Besides, John thought to himself, with only three active Assaultrons and half a Sentry bot on watch they were still capable off fending of a small battalion. Whatever that meant.

"We're still waiting for an explanation Junior." Robco told the boy, his flat, even tone returned.

"I started thinking about what we're doing, equipping John to be out there alone." Wallace lowered his voice towards the end, trying to spare John the thought of being alone again. "Just like Betsy, Invader class, frontline right." The boy began pacing again, his mother and grandfather listening. John tried but couldn't shake the word alone from his mind.

"Now we have admin access, I started digging through the functionality. I found something." From the darkness behind him John heard the faux feminine form striding towards the workshop. The red eye in the centre of its head scanning the environment for its intended goal.

"Good evening Wallace." The deadly machine said in a pleasant way as it stepped from soft earth to hard concrete. "Anne told me you req—"

"Initiate map display." Wallace had little patience for the bot's verbal interface. It lent forward at the waist in a way no human would. Its armoured panels that passed for a face slid open in unison. The complex lensing assembly whirred and shifted. Projecting an almost invisible beam of red light.

Robco shut off the main light as they gathered round the oddly positioned machine. The red light increased in intensity and frequency. Zipping along the hard floor in geometric shapes that coalesced into a digital map of Robco's Rest. Identical to the pipboy map in every way bar the colour.

"I found the field manual now we have access." Wallace said.

"Very impressive." The boy held up his hand interrupting his mother in a way that may have earned him an early night. But not while he had an idea in midstream.

"That isn't what I wanted to show you. Betsy, when you entered the workshop there was code running on one of the screens, did you see it?" Whatever the boy's idea, it hinged on this answer, that much was obvious from his posture.

"Yes, I believe it was," Wallace interrupted the machine again, eager to find his answer.

"Display it, please." Whirring started again inside the mechanical head as the map of light disappeared. Replaced with patterned light displaying a screen of code the machine captured in a brief moment while walking. It lacked definition, symbols and characters merged into blobs. Yet it appeared enough of a result for the boy to celebrate. Punching the air, high fiving his proud mother, his impressed grandfather, and an entirely confused John.

"It records everything she sees, overwriting it every day." Wallace tried to explain to his new friend, who still didn't understand. "Let's say you're a soldier." John knew that word, and for once he'd earned that information the hard way. After the law breaking, slowed time and nauseating invisibility outside The Grand.

"What's a soldier?" The dam John built in his mind had taken too much strain, it had to come down. Maybe it would help to ask about things, John thought, maybe it wouldn't be the overwhelming flood he'd feared.

"You know, people in the old world that fought The Great War, the military." The boy's explanation only raised more questions in John's near overloaded mind. The image of the cartoon mascot calling him a soldier, congratulating him. He wished he didn't ask, but Robco gave him a nod, seeing the churn behind his eyes and trying to reassure him.

"John." Wallace pulled him back to the matter at hand. "So you're a soldier and you find one of your shiny new robots blown to bits. You can access something in its head called a black box and you can see what happened." The boy looked at John waiting for him to see the value in his discovery, he didn't. "It means that it can record things and play them back!"

"Oh, that's pretty neat" John still didn't get it.

"So I can show it the remote override code on your pipboy and extract it without even touching it!" John saw the genius in the boy's idea, he'd assumed Wallace had given up, he should have known better.

"But." Louisa prompted her son to finish his thought process.

"We'd need to manually adjust the lensing assembly." The boy looked at his mother with hopeful eyes. No matter how good the idea, she wouldn't risk the safety of her home to indulge it. After an agonisingly long time for the excited boy to wait he had his answer.

"Ok, but we'll do it inside, cleaner in there." Louisa began to gather tools. Screwdrivers with ends John had never seen before. Long thin clamps that looked more medical than mechanical, and a large roll of white fabric. "Betsy engage shutdown protocol." Wallace interrupted his mother again. This time by gently whispering in her ear and grinning at his grandfather. Knowing he would be impressed shortly. "Betsy, engage cranium maintenance protocol."

"Warning, this will take main laser offline, reducing asset combat efficiency by seventy per cent. Are you sure you wish to continue?"

"Yes." The faux feminine robot stepped back, raised its claw like, triple pronged hands to either side of its head. With a melody of whirs and clunks it gently removed its own head and handed it to Louisa. The red eye lifeless, the armour plates fixed.

"That would have taken an hour to remove, good work boy." Robco clapped his grandson on the back. Wallace looked thrilled. Both at that praise of those around him and the thought of another secret project to work on. John couldn't take his eyes off the headless feminine form. Still walking around confidently and still, somewhat chillingly, thirty percent combat effective.

John and Robco had been alone in the workshop for a few minutes while Louisa and Wallace worked on the detached robotic head inside. Its body still stood in a corner, whirring occasionally.

John hung his borrowed, fine leather coat from the ceiling. At Louisa's instruction, he began rubbing it down with grease from the deep tray used to cook their delicious dinner. She'd given him two instructions. Slather on as much of the slick, light brown, liquid as he could. Especially around the elbows, shoulders and fresh alterations. And keep the tin away from the dog. The first was easy, the latter near impossible, but highly amusing.

The wolf like dog, that John still had a healthy amount of fear around, would lick the coat, lick the floor, even lick his hands. He would have admonished the gentle creature but he'd been picking off small bits of near burnt meat from the tray and eating them, so it didn't seem fair.

At one point, while feeding the fire, he threw a stick for the dog to chase. Not only did she show zero interest, the smaller, stockier, giddier dog returned it. Leaving him outnumbered two to one and Robco laughing so hard he had to stop working.

John didn't think the dogs were working together, but he couldn't be sure. One seemed to draw his attention while the other went for the tray. Or the grease soaked rags, or the dripped puddles on the floor. All to the older man's amusement. Robco whistled sharply.

"Peaches, go home. Dexy lie down." Commands issued from an authority both dogs actually listened to, the smaller dog trotted off into the relative darkness. While Dexy jumped onto the furniture round the fire and curled up looking comfortable, warm, content.

"Alright John, let's finish up shall we." John gave the coat one last generous once over with the slick grease then left the tray underneath. "Bring that stool, and your cup." John did. Robco poured them both a drink.

He cleared his bench of the leather holsters, already improved upon since he saw them last, and laid out the forty five calibre pistol in the centre. "You remember this right?" John did, and he felt sure the older man did too, but answered anyway trusting in the older man's method.

"It's the gun I took from that man before I killed him." Saying it out loud for the first time made it real.

"You didn't kill no men today son. You killed animals." Robco retrieved his palm sized, leather bound notebook and started reading, quietly, not wanting to be overheard. "Woman, thirties, fair, blue nail polish. Man, forties, bald, left arm scarred." He took a deep breath, determined to make the newcomer to the dangerous old world understand. "Boy, teenager…I got five more just like it."

Robco took a quiet moment, and a large sip of whiskey. John did the same.

"Between this and the clothing hopefully the Sheriff can id some of 'em, nothing worse than not knowing." He sounded like he spoke from experience. "Besides, I guarantee that animal took from someone else. It's too fine a weapon for them, too clean, too well kept." The older man looked John in the eye. "Every time you kill a raider you—"

"Save two lives, yours and the next person they were going to kill. I remember." John felt eager to show he'd been paying attention. Robco smiled but only with his mouth and raised his cup, John copied.

"You're damn right." They clinked tin cups and threw back their drinks, toasting the demise of animals that looked like men. "That wasn't the right answer though." Robco said as he poured more drink, John mixing water with his instead of the sugary sweet cola. "This is the gun you used to save my life." He turned away from John and busied himself. Wrapping the same synthetic cord around something made of black metal.

"Thank you John, truly, thank you, and I'm sorry I put you in that position. I just needed to know, to try and find out. My son, when he…" Robco couldn't finish the sentence. John didn't know if it was because of the sensitive topic. Or if the wiser, seasoned man couldn't find a way to explain to someone who knew next to nothing about the world. Either way it didn't matter to John.

"You don't have to explain Robco, or apologise, you've all done so much. Plus you saved me first, from that awful thing." John shivered just thinking about it.

"Ghoul. A feral ghoul to be exact, and you weren't really in a lot of danger. One solid right hook and you'd have torn its head clean off. I'm guessing if you were in real danger your thing would've kicked in." Robco tapped the pipboy with his knuckle. John suspected the older man had been working on theory, and one that wasn't far off.

"Louisa knows something happened out there that you're, we're, not telling her about." John wanted to change the subject, for now at least.

"I know, she's a smart girl, always was. Sometimes smart people think they want to know something, when all it'll do is cause pain. To them, and folks around them. I know you get that." John did, better than most. The older man let out a deep sigh. Part relief, part resignation. Whatever the raider in the bathroom told him before slipping his binds and holding the older man's own gun on him, it hadn't been what Robco wanted to hear. "Come on, let's do something useful."

Robco turned on the radio and put John in front of the pistol on the bench. "Ok, listen to the music, concentrate on that." John did. "Now strip that pistol."

"I don't know how to do that." John wanted to do as his teacher asked, but he didn't know where to begin.

"Sure you do, listen to the music, focus on that and just strip it." John shut his eyes, listening to a woman singing a slow, sad, song about her world ending when someone left her. Letting his mind clear. He opened his eyes and to his surprise began taking the pistol apart. In seconds the pistol had been reduced to its parts. Slide, spring, barrel, all separated without any conscious thought.

"Good, real good. Now clean it and put it back together." Robco sat back and watched as the man who hadn't even seen a gun until two days ago cleaned and reassembled the pre-war pistol. John felt uneasy, the unearned knowledge guiding his motions.

"Look after your gun and it'll look after you." The older man said, changing the subject rather than pushing John further. He took the pistol and examined it. "Full working order." He said, John knew that already. "It's a fine pistol, but if you're gonna wander the wastes, you've got to have a custom sidearm. Move over."

John watched as the older man stripped the pistol again and set to work. Using one of the bench mounted robotic arms, fitted with a strong electromagnet to hold the pistol slide. And another to position a magnifying lens above it. With a well honed craftsman's skill he used hand tools to carve shallow, angled grooves into the slide at the front. Matching the ones at the back.

Next he used glue so strong it had to be stored in separate tubes, to attach an angled metal rectangle to the base of the grip. Holding it in a clamp to set while he continued. Robco quickly found a replacement barrel in the well organised containers. Slightly longer than the original. He used a die to carve a screw thread on the end and used a tap to put corresponding thread into either end of a long metal pipe. Checking the join to ensure an airtight fit.

The older man measured the threaded pipe and handed it to John. Instructing him to cut off both ends. One short, one long. Robco took the longer section and began to drill holes in it. Lots of holes, too many holes for John to understand the purpose of. Instead he focused on grinding the short, rough edged, threaded steel pipe smooth.

His simple task complete, and more importantly approved, John went back to watching the older man work. Trying to take in as much information, as much technique, as he could.

John had fabricated parts during the long hours in the repair shop, but nothing like this. Robco hand cut a wider length of pipe and methodically covered the drilled section in rubber gaskets, evenly spaced. With small holes in the top and bottom, slotting one inside the other, glueing washers to either end and clamping it to set.

The only thing left untouched on the striped pistol were the smooth grip plates. Robco put them next to each other, moved the magnifying lens over them and stopped. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind. Unsure of the next step for the first time since he started improving the pistol that saved his life.

"Ed, you still alive you old bastard?" Robco spoke with disguised affection into the radio, a moment later a voice responded.

"I ain't dead yet, just old." The voice had an equal tone of light hearted ribbing between friends.

"Listen, is it too late for a check out?" Robco asked while checking the time.

"No, never could sleep when Anne's on watch, what'd you need?"

"A magazine, Better Homes, botany something or other." The radio went silent for a moment.

"I know the one you mean, log says it's still here, come on over I'll find it." Robco looked at John and smiled.

"I'm gonna send my new assistant over, show him your collection, he'll get a kick out of it." Robco put the handheld radio back into its charger and went outside to the crates ready to be loaded in the morning. Returning with a tall bottle of clear liquid that definitely wasn't water.

"Here take this, it's the last house across the street. Got an 'A' and an 'E' carved either side of the door." Robco handed John the bottle and pointed him in the right direction. "Old Ed's a good guy, one of the best, but if he gets to flapping his gums too much I'll call you on the radio."

John set out across the dark street. Past the glowing red from inside Robco's house. Past the truck with its mechanical passenger. He found the house, looking for the carvings either side of the door. Their version of numbers he thought, realising they probably didn't need numbers and were likely decorative.

The light shone from inside as John knocked on the door. He didn't feel nervous, as he expected to. Meeting new people still felt strange to him. Maybe it was the borrowed blue check shirt making him look like everybody else. The oldest person he'd ever seen opened the wooden door and invited him in.

"Ed." The old man held out his hand Introducing himself. He had thinning grey hair, wrinkled skin, and a pair of thick glasses that distorted his brown eyes making them look bigger.

"John. It's nice to meet you. Robco said to give you this." John passed him the bottle as they shook hands. Ed might have been old, but he had a firm grip and moved around quick enough. He unscrewed the blue cap and sniffed the bottle.

"Vodka, the good stuff." Ed held the bottle out for John to smell.

"I can't really smell anything." John replied, trying to sound friendly.

"That's how you know it's the good stuff. Come on in, we'll share a drop." John followed Ed into his home. The same dimensions as Robco's house. The same wooden walls, the same red brick fireplace, fire roaring away. The same cushioned leather furniture.

Everywhere else had been taken up by neatly organised books. Sat on custom built, floor to ceiling, metal shelving. "Welcome to the Library, bet you never saw this many books in one place before." He sounded rightly proud of his collection.

"I never saw any books until a few hours ago." John wished he hadn't said that. It only made the owner of thousands of books sad, and brought a familiar look of pity to his face. The grey haired man looked on as John walked round the shelves trying to take it all in. Different heights, different colours, different subjects. No two the same. Everything organised alphabetically, and tracked on a small terminal by the door.

"Here." Ed handed him a tiny cup made from a cut down fifty calibre bullet casing, filled to the brim with clear liquid. "Normally you would stick to whiskey but this is a special occasion and one won't hurt. Cheers." Ed threw back the clear drink in a single gulp, as did John. Leading to a burning sensation that quickly faded into clean, crisp taste. "That'll keep the cold out, hey boy." Ed smiled.

John felt very much a boy next to the oldest man he'd ever seen. Most people on level six didn't get much older than Robco. Worked into an early one way trip to organic recyc for no reason, he now realised. Cracks in his mental dam formed as pangs of anger rose behind it. The grey haired man set about finding the magazine, "Better Homes, Better Homes…what was it again?"

"Botany something, must be about bots." The grey haired man laughed from behind a shelf hidden from John's sight, he didn't get the joke.

Less than a minute later the grey haired man appeared from behind a shelf. Holding something that looked like a larger, thicker comic. In a clear plastic sleeve in one hand and a book in the other.

"This is the magazine for your boss." Ed held up the magazine, "And this is for you." He handed John a book, bound in dark blue, with gold writing on the cover.

"Moby Dick?" John read the title aloud, keen to show he could in fact read.

"Yeah it's a good one, normally I wouldn't just give a book away, but." The look of pity flashed across his wrinkled face as he trailed off. "A good book is the next best thing to company, sometimes better, depending on the company." The grey haired man winked, amused with himself.

"Thank you." John said, looking the man in the eye, so he could see his gratitude. He didn't know what else to say, he hadn't gotten the hang of non Vault related small talk yet. "I should get back, wouldn't want to keep the boss waiting."

"Stop by anytime." Ed typed something on the terminal. Then sat back in his comfy looking chair by the fire. Enjoying his vodka and the hefty book he was about halfway through reading.

John stepped out into the cool night air of Robco's Rest. Lights out in most windows. The idyllic settlement of wooden houses filled with fallen night and the ever present, deafening silence. John couldn't see the magazine, but he could just about make out something on the cover. He tried to tilt it, to find enough light to see. When suddenly it looked like a light had been turned on just for him.

He looked to his left, to his right, half expecting to see someone shining a light, nothing there. In an unfamiliar motion he started to look up. Up beyond the wooden walls, up across the once endless blue. Up to where he'd only ever seen oppressively low ceilings, and up further still.

There above him hung the source of the light. Through the shifting grey black interlopers, a perfect circle of shimmering soft light, shining as if just for him. "The Moon." He said to the cold night air. The sight brought with it a memory, a memory he didn't know he had.

A memory of the mother he never knew. Holding him tight on her lap, him running his tiny hands through her soft blonde hair. Her reading a real children's story from a real book, "Goodnight Moon." He said aloud to make it real.

He stared at the silver circle feeling like it stared back at him, and him alone. Pockmarked, shades of grey, patterns that almost looked like a face, it took his breath away. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

He looked down at the magazine Robco had sent him for. The cover visible in the moonlight. A plant, unlike the blackened trees with gnarled branches, unlike the sickly looking reddish brown grass. A narrow green stem supporting deep red coloured leaves in a near perfect shape. He read the words accompanying the stunning image, "Rosie's Roses, how to get perfect petals every time."

The carefully constructed dam in his mind collapsed in an instant. Sending the heavy guilt, shame, and unanswerable questions tumbling over everything else. He couldn't catch his breath. He all but tore off the clothes that hid his vault-suit, that hid where he'd escaped from. Where he left the woman he loved, the woman named for her grandmother. Not knowing the true origins of her name.

Yet another thing I've taken from her, he thought. Collapsing to his knees, tears streaming down his face. Staring up at the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, wishing he could trade it for just a glimpse of Rosie.

Suddenly the warm, inviting, settlement felt cold and empty. As cold and empty as the Vault. He'd been here a few hours, been with his host less than two days. He didn't know them, he'd kept things from them. He hadn't even been honest with people that took him in, fed him, clothed him. John felt worthless and alone, undeserving of the freedom he'd taken from Rosie.

There he sat, silently sobbing in the dark. His confidence gone, his guilt overpowering, crippling. His self worth shattered. Questions about the pipboy swirled. What had it done to him, what had it put in his eyes, in his brain. Had it killed those people or did he. Did it save him or did it save itself, dragging the worthless muscle bound dunce with it. Why had he even got it in the first place.

It might have been ten minutes, it might have been an hour, John hadn't moved. Save for hugging his knees to his chest. He'd never felt more alone. And in that moment he felt something pushing against his side. The gentle dog, sensing his distress and doing the only thing she could do to help, letting him know he wasn't alone. He loved the good natured creature in that instant, and understood that she was far more intelligent than he realised.

Before too long Robco sat next to him. John hadn't seen him approach and tried to straighten up the borrowed clothes he'd thrown to the ground. Ashamed of how he'd treated them. "It's alright son, just let it out, we'll sit here all night if that's what you want." The older man had a calming effect on John, still overloaded with emotion and unable to speak. "Now me personally I like to cry in a comfy chair by the fire, but the cold hard ground works too." John laughed, it wasn't that funny but it broke the tension.

"Full Moon tonight, I see it all the time and it still takes my breath away, sure is pretty." John didn't think the shimmering circle of light had broken him. Not even the rediscovered memory of a mother who died before he could remember had done it. He held up the magazine and spoke in a quiet voice.

"Look at everything I took from her." He gestured to all the wondrous sights of free people living outside. Free to listen to music, to see the sun, to see the moon.

"Son, you got it all backwards. You didn't take anything from anyone, them bastards down there did. They're the liars, not you." The older, wiser man took a deep breath and looked at his watch, then looked John in the eye. "You say the word and we'll march right back to that damn Vault and get your girl, we'd make it in a day and a half, two tops." He turned from John, gazing at the round circle of light. "Maybe…maybe you sneak back in, chalk this up as a bad dream, I won't tell the boy."

"I'm never spending another day underground, ever." Part of John wanted to go back, but that part wasn't him. That was the part Oversight put in, to keep him in line. "I'm not going to put this on Rosie either, when I get her out she'll be free. She'll never have to go back." John got to his feet, finding strength he hadn't thought to find, building on solid foundations of truth instead of lies.

"Good man. Come on, I want you to see something."

Robco walked back towards the workshop as John neatly folded the borrowed clothes. Using them to cushion the antique book and magazine he'd carelessly dropped. The older man veered away from the path back to the workshop, instead heading to the half built house.

He took the things John carefully carried, and pointed at the half built house. "Put that flashlight of yours on." John switched on the directional beam of white light and illuminated the half built house. Little more than a basic frame. "Go on." Robco prompted John to go in. He walked to the outline of the doorframe and saw what the older man had directed him to. A freshly carved 'J' on one side, and an 'R' on the other.

"Now we gotta put it to a vote, but you got our support and once folks see you fixed up Rusty they'll support you too." John turned, dumbfounded at the boundless generosity. He didn't even turn off the light, blinding the man that had given him a home next his own.

"It ain't all whiskey and roast pork though, it's hard work, but something tells me you'll be ok." The older man walked over to John, still stood staring into the half built house, running his hand over the freshly carved 'R'. "You made this place safer, and you saved my life, if that don't earn you and your girl a spot here I don't know what does. So you interested?"

"I don't know what to say." John started to believe he could really live here, out here, up here.

"Say yes fool!" Robco's smile faded. "Stop thinking that you took something from her, start thinking about what you can give her. A home, a life, freedom. But you gotta stop carrying that guilt, it's useless, you carry that around…" Robco's expression became too conflicted to read as he trailed off. "You carry that around too long you end up on a bathroom floor with someone pointing your own gun at you." It hadn't even occurred to John that the seasoned scavenger might be struggling with the day's events as much as him.

"So what do you say?" Robco said, forcing a smile that quickly became genuine. John wanted to say yes. He wanted to start building their future right now, half drunk and in the dark. But he knew he had to be honest with the generous older man first. Then let him decide if he wanted a man with something deadly in his head and on his arm for a neighbour.

"I need to tell you something."