Chapter 2: Chapter 2

When she woke up the next morning, Piper found the kitchen set up for breakfast. The smell was amazing, the dining table had plates of cooked strips of unfamiliar meat and slices of exotic, brightly colored fruits, not a box of Cram or Dandy Boy or Fancy Lads from the pantry in sight. Nat wasn’t restrained in her reaction, squeeing happily as she rushed to the table.

She was glad to see Sev still around, for some reason having a niggling fear that he’d be gone after her waterworks display yesterday. He was sitting in one of the chairs, giving them a smile and gesturing to the food on the table. “Food’s ready, dig in.”

“So much food...” Nat mumbled in awe before giving Sev an inquisitive look. “Where’dya get them?”

Piper noticed the uncertain pause and the twitch before he replied. “Just stuff I found before coming here.” Nat seemed satisfied with that answer, and Piper decided she would keep her curiosity in check for now. They joined him at the table and enjoyed the meal. It was delicious, and the sisters cleaned their plates with gusto.

They spent the rest of the day aiding in the town’s reconstruction, or rather Sev did a lot of the work while Piper kept Nat and the other remaining children from getting in the way. Now able to clearly look at the damaged structures and uncleaned bloodstains, her guilt returned with a vengeance, and it took a lot of effort to keep up a smile when interacting with her sister or the other kids.

It didn’t help that she could feel the looks from some of the adults. Heavy stares that held silent accusations made her want to flee to her room and bawl her eyes out, but the gazes filled with pity felt far worse. Those looks reminded her of how helpless, how useless she was, and brought back images of a sneering Mayburn with Nat in his hands.

Piper realized it would be difficult trying to survive in this town now. She and Nat were orphans, and getting along with them after all this would be problematic. How would they survive? There weren't many prospects for a sheltered thirteen-year-old out in the Commonwealth wasteland, nothing that could guarantee her and Nat’s safety anyway. Nevermind the raiders, there were super mutants and feral ghouls who’d gladly make a snack from a couple of girls.

Looking down at herself for a second, she felt lost. There was no vengeful inventiveness that had gotten Mayburn kicked out, no optimism that pops would be proud of her. The fact remained that despite her actions, or because of it, her neighbours died and the town was briefly conquered.

She cast a look at Sev, who was sorting out the raiders’ weapons. He’d saved the town, saved her and Nat. He took care of the raiders like they were nothing. Maybe Sev could look after the two of them?

Piper frowned at the thought and the glaring problem it presented: she had nothing to pay him with. Even if Sev took them in out of sheer kindness for now, who’s to say he wouldn’t get tired with them tagging along and leave her and Nat later?

No answers sprung to mind, nothing except a brutally simple one that Piper had choice but to consider. She kept her eyes on him as she wracked her brain, but still nothing. Nothing but that.

As the day wore on to evening, everyone called it a day and returned to home. Sev joined the Wright sisters for dinner, this time pulling out something that tasted like brahmin, but didn’t contain any of the lumpiness or mild tanginess of those two-headed bovines.

“It’s steak,” he’d explained.

Both girls gave a questioning look. “A steak from what?” Piper asked, unable to help herself.

Sev hesitated. “Um… Let’s just say I...found a co- a brahmin that was particularly delicious.”

Another weird answer, but Piper let it pass again. She needed to get on his good side.

*****

So remember that stupid question “You wake up in the last game you played, how fucked are you?”?

Waking up in post-apocalyptic atompunk Boston? Pretty fucked.

Oh sure, I got the weapons and armor mods ported over with me, but the thing keeping me alive up until now was the fact that I could access what I’m guessing is the console.

Except it wasn’t at all like the in-game console, showing off strings of nonsense that hurt my head whenever I gave it a look. The exception to that were the ported weapons and armor, which provided coherent and easy-to-understand information when looking at them.

Could I modify their values? Yes, and it was the first thing I did. The resistances on the armor and the damage dealt by the beam gun brought up to six 9s, the maximum I could manage.

I found and toggled infinite ammo for the beam gun too, because the gun came without any reloads or starting ammo, ammo which was supposed to be crafted from fusion cells.

Because I realised that too late, for my first combat encounter I had to club a rabid, malformed dog to death.

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I also figured out how to create items practically out of thin air, though only for things I’ve handled before and up to the size of about 1 cubic meter. So no dying of starvation or thirst any time soon.

Am I a disgusting cheater? Sure, call me that. But say that to my face when you’re here with me staring down bloatflies and rotting ghouls and drugged-up raiders. I’m not one of those people with delusions of being capable of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

Then as I started my travels I met a town under attack. Being the protag (I hoped) and a decent human being (again, I hoped), I quickly helped clear out the raiders and met a much younger Piper and Natalie Wright.

Waking up way earlier than the game’s actual starting date with things already not going according to the game’s story? Even more fucked.

I heard the fucker’s words to Piper before I decapitated him with a thin beam, so the realisation of just what a shit place Boston post-nukes was was made very clear to me. It felt damned good seeing the girls ok though, and I decided to stay for a bit to help repair the town a bit to hopefully bribe off the guilt of not coming in sooner to stop the attacks before it started.

Nat didn’t seem too badly traumatised from the ordeal, and went off to sleep right after that. Piper though? When she broke down I almost joined her. Bad enough I didn’t know what to say or do to console a crying girl, but she looked up to me, which made me feel even worse for not being able to prevent the shit they went through.

The town itself would probably survive, though it suffered a significant hit in population. They were making the place more defensible, which made sense. I helped them with clearing out the debris and salvaging from the dead. It gave me a chance to add more items to my catalogue.

“So many people lost. We should’ve hanged Mayburn.”

“Yeah, would’ve been our first hanging, but better that than...this.”

“We know better now, gotta make sure it gets in once the next mayor’s decided.”

“Should make sure we handle things properly too next time. If that Wright girl didn’t make such a scene...”

It wasn’t hard to pick up the mumblings from some of the men and women. They mostly blamed the deceased mayor for exiling Mayburn instead of executing him, but the way some conversations veered, it sounded dangerously like some people were putting some blame on Piper.

Humans being humans. Maybe I’ll ask the girls if they wanted me to drop them off at Diamond City or some other safe place. Would need directions, but it shouldn't be too bad if I hitched along with a caravan.

My second evening in the Wright’s household was far less emotional than the first, and I took up guard position in the short hallway outside the girls’ room as they slept. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel attached to them, they were the only people I was familiar with at the moment.

Not being able to sleep again, I was surprised when Piper popped out of her room, glancing back inside nervously before gingerly walking over to me.

“Sev? Can I...talk to you?” The girl’s voice was brittle, I could hear the fragile quiver in it.

I smiled, not sure what else I could do at the moment. “Yeah Piper, need something?”

She nodded once. “Um, not here.” Piper gave the air of a skittish deer as she walked into what was once her parent’s bedroom. Curious, I followed her in while trying to figure out what she wanted to talk about. Did she feel uncomfortable or unsafe with me being around? Or maybe she needed some caps and other stuff?

She kept the room unlit, closing the door behind her once I joined her inside. I watched Piper’s silhouette take a deep breath to steel herself.

“Can you take us with you?”

Oh cool, saved me the effort of broaching that topic. I was about to answer her but she continued on.

“You can do whatever you want with me. I-I promise I’ll be good. Just...just promise to keep Nat safe?”

… And what’s going on now?

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