Chapter Text
Long before Nora wakes from her cryogenic slumber, Deacon spends time in Vault 111.
Not often, and only when the weight of The Railroad's inevitable fuck-ups press so heavily on his soul that he needs the comforting closeness of life underground. He craves it in a way that isn’t healthy or even sane, but he’s unable to deny it all the same. He’s read enough tragedies, seen enough first hand, to know that the old adage of ‘you can never go home’ is old for a reason. He still tries, though. Always has. If Amata were still alive, she’d attest to it.
Politely, of course.
Ironic that Vault-Tec’s slogan of ‘We’ll be there!’ is actually true in his case. Despite the weakness he feels for needing the particular brand of safety found in underground vaults, he counts the fact that he finds their silence comforting a personal victory. He knows that Vault-Tec never really intended for their vaults to provide safety or comfort for anyone.
The first time he sees the number 111, Deacon does a double take.
He’s in the ruins of the C.I.T., checking on Courser sightings. He has only just become a full-fledged agent, and he knows The Railroad doesn’t trust him. Can’t trust him because of the pathological way he lies, but that’s the way he wants it. Better that way. The Lone Wanderer would have had them all wrapped around his finger, would have been their leader by now with plans to take the fight directly to The Institute, but he doesn’t want to be that person anymore. It’s why he changed his face and took Deacon as his code name—though he’ll admit, it was almost 'Daring' in honour of Dashwood.
He still jokes, though, because he can’t give that up. Still Vault 101’s class clown inside and out, even if the outlook’s different these days. And he’s still a charmer because that’s useful and powerful. The lying is new, though, and surprisingly easy. His dad would be appalled.
There aren’t any Coursers to be seen at C.I.T.; there never are. They prefer to materialize out of the night, slaughter a couple dozen people, and disappear just as fast. Lots of Gen 1s though, so he has to be careful. They fall to bullets, or in his case plasma shots, easily enough, but Deacon prefers stealthy close-quarters fighting. Unfortunately, androids—synths, he reminds himself sharply, don’t fall to a stab to their artificial kidneys or a slit throat.
So that the mission isn’t a complete waste of his time, Deacon hacks all the terminals he can find, looking for any information or even an interesting journal entry. Most people overlook the knowledge terminals hide. There is a deplorable dearth of people who are even literate in the Wastes. To this day it shocks him—he still remembers the way he made fun of Moira for all her crudely drawn pictures in that very first edition of the ‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’ and the way that she cheerfully informed him (she was always cheerful, and he hopes she still is) their target audience was largely illiterate.
The terminals at C.I.T. are mostly wiped clean, but there is one, tucked away in a laboratory, that lists the vault numbers and locations in the Commonwealth. Obviously, it’s not important enough to The Institute for them to bother wiping, or maybe they just consider it irrelevant. The vaults are likely all empty, anyways; experiments have long since claimed the population. He stares at the number for a long time. A wave of grief and pain sweep over him with a strength he hasn’t felt since he gave up the face of ‘That Kid from Vault 101.’
Deacon travels to Vault 111 the next day. He’s supposed to check in at Ticonderoga. He’s supposed to give a report and get a new assignment from High Rise, but that vault is a siren’s call he can’t ignore. He arrives in a small village, named Sanctuary Hills, late at night, because he refused to make camp and delay his arrival.
The need to be underground and away from the openness of the Wasteland constantly itches under his skin (you can take the kid out of the vault, but you can’t take the vault out of the kid) and since joining The Railroad a few scant months ago, it’s increased tenfold. Makes him rub his arms and clench his fists in a desperate attempt to hold it in. He knows their paranoia is justified (Deacon’s already walked through the remains of two safehouses to get a visit from The Institute), but their paranoia on top of his own is near making him crazy. No one in The Railroad pries too deeply into anyone’s past, but he’s still afraid someone will figure out who he is and ask him to shoulder the responsibilities of the whole Commonwealth.
He can’t be responsible for an entire wasteland again. He just can’t.
Deacon finds a Mr. Handy unit patrolling the ghost town of Sanctuary Hills, and he avoids the robot with ease. He feels a little sorry for the thing, still hanging out in the last place its owner was before the bombs fell; waiting. He’s a little surprised some raider or scaver hasn’t found the robot and made it their own. Maybe it has a personality problem. Maybe, he thinks with a shudder, it used that circular saw to play ‘doctor’ on the last scaver unlucky enough to find it.
It takes him a moment to figure out how to get the blast door open because he’s never seen a vault this blatantly out in the open before. Then he’s scrambling across the ground to get onto the platform before it’s too far down. The further the elevator descends, the more tension eases from his shoulders. At the main door, he curses himself. Deacon sold his Pipboy when he left the Capital Wasteland for a healthy stack of caps. It was too visible, too easily identified him as a Vaultie—as the most famous Vaultie D.C. ever had. It was difficult, adjusting to navigating without it, but he made do. Now, he knows he missed a lot of the world when his nose was glued to that tiny screen.
Deacon pulls out his trusty screwdriver and kneels under the door panel. He manages to shock himself a couple of times before he finds the right combination of crossed wires that opens the door, but soon the massive, metal gear is being scrapped back. There is the hissing of pressure being released, and a grated walkway comes out to greet him.
Whenever he breaks down and visits Vault 111, Deacon spends a moment to just stand in the entryway. After the door closes and the vault re-pressurizes itself, there is silence. Then, slowly, as his ears adjust to the quiet, he can hear the hum of the air recyclers and feel the low vibrations of the reactor through the soles of his shoes. For a moment, he swears he will hear Amata’s voice in his ear, and he’ll turn just enough for lips to brush his cheek as her hand threads with his.
Then Deacon will open his eyes, sigh, and make his way to the scientist living quarters to spend one night -one night is all he’ll allow himself to wallow in this particular fantasy as he spins the small, modified holotape that was the reason for her death.
- - - - -
High Rise likes him.
And hey, what’s not to like? Deacon prides himself on being that one person you know you shouldn’t like, but do.
High Rise even seems to enjoy Deacon’s constant lies. His exaggerations. Deacon likes that High Rise enjoys his tall-tales, even though he knows that HR believes precisely zero of them. Deacon practices his craft on High Rise, seeing how far he can take a tale before the man calls him out on his bullshit. It’s too bad that Ticon is a skyscraper; the place would perfect if it weren’t, but he just can’t get comfortable that high above the ground. Great view, though.
High Rise notices his unease, probably because Deacon refuses to go near the windows. He’s pretty good at making it seem natural, but no one stays alive long in the Railroad if they lack observation skills. HR is polite enough not say anything, or maybe he doesn’t care, or doesn’t want to get mixed up in someone else’s hang up. Deacon’s cool with that, he prefers it when he’s an enigmatic mystery.
Glory, on the other hand, has no problems with poking soft spots.
Whenever they bring a new synth through Ticon with Glory as their heavy, she sticks around and talks with the synth. She tries to recruit them into The Railroad; to get them to help free other synths like The Railroad helped free them. Glory has a huge spiel about synths standing up for themselves and not letting humans take risks for them when they are not willing to take those same risks themselves. Deacon wants to stand in the background and chant ‘ra, ra, ra!’ to better facilitate the pep rally feel of the whole thing. Probably would too, if not for the certainty that Glory would shoot him without missing a beat.
For the most part, she’s wasting her breath. The Institute has instilled such a massive fear in every synth’s being that very few want to face the monster they so narrowly escaped. While he’s a member of the Ticonderoga safehouse, she only manages to convince one. Glory is never deterred though, and Deacon admires her bullheaded persistence.
“You afraid of heights?” she asks, nay, demands, early one morning after a successful package transfer.
Glory is sitting on a window sill, leaning carelessly against the ancient glass. Deacon is whistling (‘The Washington Post’ is the only song he ever whistles when the radio isn’t on because he likes the cheerfulness of Sousa. High Rise, however, does not.) and watching the sunrise from the relative safety of the couch farthest from the windows.
Deacon gives her a wide smile. “Why would anyone be afraid of heights in this dilapidated Old World high-rise that is one bad radiation storm from collapsing in a rusted heap of twisted metal and bodies?”
“Don’t talk about my baby like that,” High Rise says as he hands out Nuka Colas.
Glory snorts in amusement. “So, yes.”
Deacon shrugs his shoulders in an ‘ah, ya got me’ way.
“Maybe you’d like the Switchboard better, then. Or are you some sort of Tribal savage?”
Deacon laughs. That's Glory for you, all the subtly of a momma deathclaw.
She’s trying to suss out how he works; how and why he acts the way he does. He thinks it’s because she’s a synth and she wants everyone to be categorized properly. And since she mentioned the Switchboard by name, there’s probably a promotion in the wind if she believes him reliable.
High Rise says nothing and smiles into his Nuka-Cola. He’s waiting for Deacon to come up with some spectacular bullshit.
“Ouch,” Deacon begins, “I’m pretty sure my vocabulary is way above your average tribal, plus I’m literate if you hadn’t noticed. ‘A quartz-clear dawn / Inch by bright inch / Gilds all our Avenue, / And out of the blue drench / Of Angel’s Bay / Rises the round red watermelon sun.’,” he recites, gesturing to the beautiful sunrise taking place behind Glory. “Not exactly Angel’s Bay out there, but I hear the South is hell this time of the year.”
“Vault dweller then,” Glory says without missing a beat, barely sparing the sunrise a glance.
He doesn’t flinch when she says it. Deacon has learned that Vault 81 actually holds real, live Vault dwellers. He has even seen them from time to time wandering the Commonwealth and looking wholly out of place. He helps them when he can; he remembers what that was like.
“Actually, I came from an underground community of strictly kids. No adults allowed and we kicked kids out when they grew up. We even had a mayor! It was like Never Never Land, except, in the end, we all grew up. Actually, now that I think about it, it was kinda of like The Railroad,” Deacon begins warming to his fiction, and that always gives them extra credibility. “We all gave ourselves names, did a lot of sneaking around to avoid the Mungo’s (that’s adults, by the way), and never gave up the location of our super-secret cave when one of us was captured by Slavers. Must be why I feel so at home here.”
Glory’s eyes are slits of disbelief, but she hesitates to call him out on the lie. She’s not a 100% sure it is. That little bit of doubt is all he ever needs to fool someone.
“What did you call yourself?” she asks after a moment.
Glory has him. Real names are a no-no in this covert business they participate in, and if he refuses to answer, he’s giving real credence to the fiction. If he tells her, she’ll know it’s a lie.
Screw it, Deacon thinks. He’s a liar. Everyone knows he’s a liar. Play into it.
“Sue,” he deadpans.
High Rise’s shoulders start shaking then. He’s trying so hard not to laugh aloud.
Glory raises one perfect eyebrow.
“Honest! I was a boy named ‘Sue.’”
That cracks HR and he’s laughing out loud now. Deacon keeps talking, acting like he can’t hear.
“It was quite the joke, and out in the Wastes it got a lotta laughs from a lot of folks.”
Deacon should stop. Really, he should, but it feels good to make someone laugh. Even if Glory looks like she’s going to kill him for making her almost believe his lie.
“Sometimes girls laughed, and I’d get red, but a guy? Well, I had to bust his head; I couldn’t let some Waster asshole get away with that.” He lifts one shoulder in an easy shrug. “Life ain’t easy for a boy named ‘Sue.’”
That line really gets HR, and he’s dying with laughter now. Deacon scoops the Nuka-Cola from his hand and sets it on the table while High Rise remembers how to breathe. Glory huffs in exasperation and crosses her arms. Once again, he’s an enigmatic mystery.
When Glory has gone back to the Switchboard, Deacon and High Rise belt out an incredibly off-key version of that Cash favourite after too many whiskey shots. Undoubtedly making their latest synth rescue question their capability as agents.
Deacon gets transferred to the Switchboard a week later.
- - - - -
The last thing Deacon did before he left the Capital Wasteland was have Pinkerton change his face.
By then, he had sold or given away all his non-essential possessions. He kept three things, though. The first, was the original edition of ‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’ autographed by Moira and him —after she insisted: ‘Think of how much it will be worth in a few decades!’ (he taped the only picture he has of him and his dad in the front cover the day he brought it home); the second was the holotape he found in the Jefferson Memorial that captured a happy moment between his dad and mom; the last was the modified holotape that has been the death of so many.
The last is the only one of those three things he keeps on his person at all times because he can’t let it fall into the wrong hands. It’s worn a small, rectangular patch in the front pocket of all his trousers and jeans. Deacon obsesses over the thing, he knows. Freaks out if it’s out of his sight just a second longer than it takes to switch outfits; spins it in his hand when he’s thinking long and hard about something.
Deacon gave the rest of his dad’s holotape recordings to Doctor Li. He figured she’d appreciate them. Or throw them into the Potomac, depending on her mood—he wouldn’t blame her if she did. His house in Megaton was still standing after what Three Dog had taken to calling ‘The Outcast Incident,’ and Deacon gave the keys, and Wadsworth, to Bryan Wilks—left it with Vera Weatherly as a birthday present. Sure, it’d be a few years before the kid was old enough to venture that way, but by then Megaton would be all fixed up after what happened with the Outcasts and in need of some new blood.
After that, Deacon didn’t have much of value left. Well, aside from loads of weapons and armour -which he sold for a small fortune. He left the modified vault suit Moira had given him and his collection of bobbleheads at the house. A surprise for Brian when he finally arrived to check it out.
No one knew he was leaving.
Deacon wanted the Lone Wanderer to fade into the annals of history quietly and without any fuss. However, he's pretty sure Li had him pegged after he gave her the holotapes. That look she gave him as he left. ‘You’re just like your father,’ it said.
Yep, he thought as Pinkerton injected him with anaesthetic, running and hiding from my issues; I’m exactly like my old man.
- - - - -
He’d like to say The Switchboard is a well-oiled machine, but it’s really not. Deacon gives them bonus points for trying, though.
The place is swimming in technology, but no one, save for Tinker Tom, Doc Carrington, and he really has any idea what an amazing stroke of luck it is. Glory accused him of being a Tribal, but the real tribals are the rest of them. The sheer amount banging and grunting that goes on when people are faced with The Switchboard terminals makes him believe it's B.C. instead of A.D.
However, Switchboard heavies are so busy that most of them don’t spend a lot of time there. It’s good on the one hand because he’ll probably smack the next person he sees beating on their terminal, but bad because he enjoys the close walls and low ceilings of the place. It’s huge improvement on Ticonderoga, though he does miss High Rise. Desdemona, Glory and the Doc just don’t appreciate his prevarication, even though they have absolutely no problem letting him lie for ‘the Cause.’ It’s just the part where he won’t stop that’s got them all annoyed.
Tommy Whispers has a better tolerance for it though. Being Glory’s former student, Deacon imagines he’s got a tolerance for a lot of things. Their illustrious leader, Sly Nicolas, understands his need for deception; hell, it’s in his very name. And Tinker Tom? Well, he’s batshit and believes all the crazy things Deacon says. It’s so easy that it takes the fun out of it, so Tinker is probably the only person Deacon doesn’t outright lie to.
To be honest, Deacon didn’t think he’d make it this far with this rag-tag band. He figured he’d get bored of the covert bullshit and wander off looking for excitement elsewhere. Thing is, The Railroad, as messed up as it is, is a family. They watch each other’s backs, help each other when they’re down, and even when they don’t agree with or like one another, there's a common cause pulling them in the same direction. It’s even better than all the nostalgic memories he has of the vault because even as a kid, Deacon knew there was a divide between all the adults.
He joined for the adventure; stayed for the family atmosphere. Doesn’t that just seem like a soundbite from some pre-war ad?
His first big assignment from the Switchboard is to keep an eye on Bunker Hill. It’s important to The Railroad because nearly every package goes through it, but the only reliable eyes they’ve ever had in the place are Old Man Stockton’s. No outside tourist or agent has ever successfully gained the town’s trust. Caravaners are a tight-knit group, and Bunker Hill doubly so. Probably because they trade with raiders –which is just insane to Deacon. Seriously, did they want bodies on pikes?
Caravaners have their needs, though. Like, decent guards. Deacon figures he’ll start there and try to get on as a caravan guard outside Bunker Hill. If a trusted caravaner vouches for him, he should be in like Flynn. He just needs to look the part, and that starts with raiding the Switchboard’s armour stockpile.
Deacon has an excellent set of re-enforced leather armour that he, sort of, customized. Problem is, it's way out of the budgetary range of your average freelance merc, and you got to dress for the job you want. So, Deacon takes a mismatched collection of metal and combat armour and proceeds to beat the shit out of them with a ball-peen hammer. After they are sufficiently dented, much to their quarter master’s, Mr. Mathers, dismay, Deacon drags them along the concrete walls of the Switchboard. When they are scuffed and dented to a satisfactory degree, he finds some patched road leathers. Worn together, he looks just this side of a raider.
Now, all he needs is a badass haircut.
Dez finds him in the men’s bathroom, shaving the side of his head with a pair of clippers Tinker Tom pulled out of his junk pile and whistling his cheery band number. It’s been a while since Deacon had a moment to go see John down in Diamond City for a haircut and his red hair had become quite wild in the interim. He’s trying for a punked out pompadour. In his head, he chants ‘Tunnel Snakes rule!’ in Butch’s voice, and it makes him smile.
“You’re really going all-out on this,” she says as she leans against the hand sink next to his.
Deacon dodges the prompt. “You packin’ a little something extra in those jeans, Dez? No judgement here if you are, just warn a guy if you’re going to stand next to him at the urinals, yeah? I mean, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but we all look.”
She rolls her eyes and tries again. “Why are you going all-out on this?”
“I just always really wanted to be a caravan guard. The life seems so romantic, ya know? Never stayin’ in one place for long, wide open road always ahead of you, and a broken heart always behind. King of the road!”
Deacon checks the evenness of his buzzed sides against one another. Not bad. Not great, either, but at least it doesn’t scream raider. (It’s probably going to put a few points in his favour actually, if he tries to do this with perfectly coiffed hair, he’ll get spotted a mile away as a fake.) Desdemona’s irritation is almost palpable, and he wonders if he should chance a saucy wink. He decides against it and turns so that the back of his head is reflected in the mirror. He holds up a smaller hand mirror to reflect the first mirror and starts the clippers up again. He finds the process really taxes his brain power, like whoa.
“Carrington doesn’t think you’ll pull this off,” Dez says after watching him struggle for a few moments. “So I bet him 50 caps you would.” A pause. “I could really use 50 caps.”
Deacon smirks. “Your wish is my command.”
- - - - -
When Deacon returns to The Switchboard after three months (a swath of Bunker Hill reports behind him, offers from half a dozen caravans, and two permanent agents placed there by his hand), Doc Carrington treats his lingering radiation with a frosty continence as he grumbles about Deacon walking around with roughly 300 rads.
“How are you not vomiting everywhere?” the Doc asks. He doesn’t really want an answer, so Deacon just shrugs and grins.
Sly Nick gives him a hearty clap on his shoulder and starts talking about infiltrating Diamond City next.
Desdemona buys Deacon a drink at the Drumlin Diner with the 50 caps she smugly took from Carrington.
- - - - -
Deacon’s been with Railroad for just over a year when he meets his first Courser. (Well, technically his third, since he met two while in the Capital Wasteland.) The other heavies laud his good luck. Glory in particular because she’s convinced Deacon could never handle one on his own; most heavies can’t. Only the couple synth heavies they have could honestly take a Courser in a one on one fight.
However, Deacon’s pretty sure that if he could take on five power armoured Outcast soldiers in a haze of grief and rage (with help, of course), he could probably handle one Courser in a fight to the death. Not that he wants to, mind you, just that he could.
Of course, he figured that the first Courser he met as a Railroad agent would be some faceless Gen 3 baddie and not him. It’s the first time his actions in the Capital Wasteland come back to haunt him and threaten to destroy the life he’s carved out in the Commonwealth. Threatens to peg him as The Lone Wanderer for everyone to see and it rattles Deacon right down to his core.
Deacon should have known the whole operation was going to go pear-shaped the moment Mr. Timms of Randolph house fame –a.k.a. Custom House Tower- insisted that three synth rescues be transported to Randolph for memory reassignment and eventual departure from the Commonwealth instead of the usual one. Sometimes, when there was increased pressure from the Institute the Railroad would risk moving two packages, but three? That was just asking for a Courser to swoop down on and get his murder-on on your happy little group.
Which is exactly what happened.
But Mr. Timms insisted. He said the safety of these synths was in imminent danger and their transportation could not wait. Not even a day. Randolph house is one of the Railroad’s largest and most important safe-houses behind the Switchboard itself. It's where numerous synths have left the Commonwealth via steamer. That importance buys Randolph, and Mr. Timms, a lot of sway in the Railroad hierarchy. So against all common sense, they agreed.
Deacon and High Rise were assigned to help two Randolph heavies, Twitch and Missy, to move the three synths. Glory argued to be assigned instead of Deacon, but Sly Nicolas refused. When Deacon was assigned to Ticon, he and High Rise had the highest package transfer success rate of any safehouse. Though Glory could destroy a Courser should one appear, the point of having Deacon and High Rise was to fly under the Institute’s radar and avoid a fight altogether. ‘Avoid a fight’ just wasn’t a phrase that Glory understood.
“This is the stupidest fucking plan I have ever heard,” Glory growls as Deacon readies to leave for Ticon. “I have never like that Randolph fuckhead; he thinks he’s hot shit.”
“If Timms actually thought he was hot shit, wouldn’t he have, like, a really low opinion of himself? Who wants to be compared to hot shit?”
“Shut the fuck up, Deacon. Don’t you get that Nicolas just signed yours and High Rise’s death warrants?”
Deacon stops shoving his scarce supplies into a beat up rucksack and lets a hand flutter dramatically at his heart. “Aw, Glory, I didn’t know you cared.”
She punches his arm in reply.
“Ow! Is that any way to send off a soldier?”
Glory sighs, looking defeated. Deacon squeezes her arm.
“Don’t fucking die; I hate making new friends.”
“Anything for you, beautiful. You know that synthetic smile of yours gets my heart all a flutter. I couldn’t bear to be the one who snuffs it out.”
Glory rolls her eyes. “On second thought: die.”
High Rise and Deacon meet up with the synths and their runner at the Tucker Memorial Bridge outside of Bunker Hill. Old Man Stockton is smart enough to have nothing to do with the assignment, so it’s a tourist that meets them. They then head to the courtyard outside of the creepily well-preserved Cabot House to join up with Twitch and Missy.
Twitch defies his namesake and is a steady, hulking piece of man-meat that hauls a flamer with the ease of a pistol. Missy is just as prissy as she sounds, but the rifle she carries puts holes in raiders from 250 yards, and that makes her okay in Deacon’s book.
All the way there, Deacon’s skill crawls. He can feel a gaze on the back of his neck and it’s making the skin there flush under the constant scrutiny. He checks and rechecks their surroundings, scouts ahead to help them avoid raiders and muties, but never catches sight of whoever or whatever is watching them. Deacon wants to believe that the mission hype has him jumpy and he’s just imagining things, but he knows in his gut that things are going to go south.
It’s just a matter of when.
Deacon wants to relax once they reach the outskirts of Goodneighbour –almost there!- since there are plenty of eyes watching the area around the town that has no problem killing a few synths or raiders, but somehow, he tenses even more. If his shoulders get any tighter, he is going to end up looking like Quasimodo.
No one talks; Deacon doesn’t even whistle. If this were a normal package transfer, he would be driving High Rise crazy with his recital of ‘The Washington Post’ while they picked off raiders.
In the distance, Deacon can see the glow of the 'OPEN' sign for Joe’s Spuckies up in Postal Square. They will go right at the neon sign and pass under the GNN ad that marks the final leg to the Customs House Tower.
They never make it to the sign.
Just like all the boogie-man tales’ heavies tell about Coursers, it strikes without warning; quick, silent and deadly. Missy is down before they even know what is happening. Twitch turns as she hits the ground, blasting a radius of fire as he does so. High Rise takes cover behind a chunk of concrete and Deacon dives behind a burnt out car, shouting for the synths to get down. They scatter into the night like so much dust, and frankly, it pisses him off. Down, not run. Damn it. There is probably another Courser or two waiting in alleys around them with recall codes at the ready.
However, right now, the only thing that Deacon cares about is living long enough to put a bullet between the eyes of Mr. Timms. It is blatantly fucking obvious that Randolph house has been compromised. This was a set-up from the get-go and Deacon is kicking himself for not speaking up. In the back of his mind, the part of himself that Deacon refers to as ‘The Lone Wanderer,’ reminds him that if Deacon had listened to him, this wouldn’t have happened.
Twitch is lighting the area on fire, and the Courser can’t seem to get a bead on him because of it. Deacon can’t see the synthetic sonuvabitch, or anything really because the heat of the fire is making the air waver. Deacon catches High Rise’s eye from where he is crouched down and HR shakes his head. He hasn’t seen the Courser either. Deacon gestures between the two of them and then points out to where Twitch is. High Rise nods. Deacon holds three fingers up and when the countdown reaches zero they both pop out of their cover and fire into the area around Twitch. After a moment they stop.
“Anything?” Deacon asks still pointing his plasma pistol out into the alley, looking for any signs of movement.
“No.”
Suddenly, there is blue laser fire from Deacon’s left. They both duck, but not before Deacon’s ruck sac takes a couple of shots. The extra plasma cartridges Deacon had stashed there are leaking all over the contents of the bag. He swears and rips the thing off, but plasma is already starting to corrode the leather armour on his thigh. Their extra stims are in there too. Shit.
How stupidly they gave away their location. Deacon should know better, but it’s been awhile since he’s been in a real firefight –raiders hardly count, all chem-addled and sloppy, it’s appallingly easy to take them out- and he’s forgotten some things.
Deacon is carefully looking around the bumper of the car, trying to lure the Courser, when Twitch’s neck is sharply yanked to the side by a pair of invisible hands. Real fear settles in Deacon’s gut then -the Courser has a stealth boy! Both High Rise and Deacon fire into the area around Twitch, hoping to clip the Courser. They don’t. Blue laser fire comes at them, this time from the right and catches Deacon in the arm. He goes down with a curse.
At least laser fire self-cauterizes, but now his aim is shot. Ha! Shot!
High Rise fires in the direction the laser fire came from, but the Courser is already gone. Deacon’s blood is pumping so loudly in his ears that he can’t hear the sound of debris that is surely crunching under the Courser’s boots. A few blue laser shoots singe the rubble that High Rise is hiding behind. Deacon holds his modified plasma pistol steady in his good hand (stolen from the corpse of Colonel Autumn –it still has Enclave engraved on the side and A.A. on the butt because he can’t bring himself to scratch that victory off) waiting for a better indication of the Courser’s location.
Suddenly, something grabs High Rise by the neck and tosses him against the building Deacon is crouched near. HR slides down, limp as a rag doll, and hopelessness chokes Deacon. Then, the Courser grabs Deacon and lifts him by his throat until Deacon’s legs are dangling uselessly a foot above the ground. It rips his plasma gun from his hand and tosses it. The Courser’s stealth boy fades then, and Deacon is face to face with A3-21.
“Hark-ness?” Deacon gasps in surprise and air constriction. Jesus. This is really it isn’t it? Killed by the Courser he sent back to The Institute; the irony is worthy of a Bard play.
The Courser seems to recognize his old name because he pauses. Then, he jams a finger in the laser wound Deacon took. Deacon would have yelped in pain had he the air. A3-21 licks the blood he collected off his finger, carefully tasting it like Deacon is an aged wine instead of a human being.
“Sir,” A3-21 says into the darkness, “I have captured Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha.”
“Really?” a man says from behind A3-21
Deacon knows that voice.
“Genetic sample confirms.”
Doctor Zimmer steps up to A3-21’s shoulder, and just behind him, Deacon can see the escaped synths following Zimmer like good little robots.
“You’ve changed your face,” Zimmer says. “Smart boy.”
Deacon makes a weak, but crude gesture with his hand and Zimmer laughs.
“Oh, let him down, A3. Can’t you see you’re choking him?”
Like a pair of vice-grip pliers letting go of a bolt, A3-21’s hand drops Deacon to the ground. He collapses to his knees, hand clamping down on his wounded -now bleeding- arm, and coughs so violently he feels like he might heave up his guts.
When he finally stops, Zimmer speaks.
“You showed such intelligence last time we met. What happened? Why are you running with these Railroad fools?”
“What can I say?” Deacon starts in a raspy voice, “I guess The Brotherhood failed to completely crush my idealism. Or maybe, I’m just trying to make-up for a past mistake.” Deacon eyes A3-21 with sorrow.
“You did the right thing,” Zimmer scoffs “I know what The Brotherhood did to your vault, so if you’re looking to get revenge, we can help you. The Institute is always looking for capable surface agents.”
Now it’s Deacon’s turn to laugh. It quickly turns into a cough, and he has to swallow a couple of times before he can speak.
“Use one superiorly-arrogant organization to destroy another superiorly-arrogant organization? Pretty sure history has taught us that that doesn’t work. You do see the crumbling ruins around us, right?”
“Mistakes to be learned from, certainly.” Zimmer watches him for several silent moments. Deacon stares back stubbornly. He seems to come to a decision. “I’ll let you think on the offer, but don’t expect mercy next time. If you continue to run with the Railroad, the next Courser you meet will be your death.”
Zimmer motions to A3-21 and leaves Deacon kneeling in the rubble of the street. The synths they had been trying to free following placidly behind. When they are gone, Deacon scrambles to High Rise’s side. He sighs in relief when he finds a pulse. Then, he starts searching for his discarded rucksack, hoping to find one or two stims still intact. Deacon finds the bag next to the burnt out car and dumps the contents on the ground.
Everything is covered in plasma, but Deacon manages to find two intact stims and a can of purified water. His fingers are burning where he holds the can, and as quickly as he can, Deacon pops the top. He pours the water on the stims to wash off the plasma then picks them up, making sure the tips are good and clean before pouring the rest of the water on his hands to prevent severe plasma burns. There’s a little left in the can, and he tosses it on the corroded section of his armour, but it’s a lost cause. Before he heads back to High Rise, Deacon grabs his plasma pistol from the ground.
The first stimpak, Deacon injects into High Rise’s thigh, the second he injects into his own wounded arm. After a moment, Deacon doesn’t feel like he has to breathe past the gravel in his throat and the ache in his arm slowly dulls. High Rise groans and opens his eyes. He stiffens momentarily, probably thinking the Courser is still around, but when his eyes land on Deacon, he relaxes.
“Is it gone?”
“Yeah. Got the packages, though.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
High Rise chucks a piece of rubble at the far building. “Sonvabitch!” he growls. “That back-stabbing asshole, Timms, sent us out here to get caught. Fucker even sacrificed two of his own agents to do it! Help me up; I’m gonna kill him.”
Deacon gives HR his hand. He felt the same just a few short minutes ago. “Timms is probably long gone.”
“Maybe not. Maybe he figured the Courser would get us all.”
High Rise looks to the east, toward Randolph house and Deacon wants to scream. He was to get out of this place and regroup. ‘Hide, hide, hide!’ the kid in his head chants. He needs the safety and security of the vault. He needs to vanish. High Rise doesn’t appear to have heard the conversation with Zimmer, but maybe someone else did. He can’t be outed. He won’t be the saviour of the Commonwealth -he can’t!, but he won’t leave while High Rise still needs aid.
“Don’t go rushing off to play hero. You probably still have a concussion, and the rest of my stims are busted,” Deacon says, trying for the right level of humour and caution in his voice. It’s hard to tell if he’s achieved it; he can’t hear much past the voice in his head chanting that he needs to get out of this place. “Let’s go to Goodneighbour. We can send a message and see Amari.”
After what seems like forever, High Rise nods.
“Yeah. Okay. Reinforcements are probably a good idea.”
Deacon stays in Goodneighbour long enough to get High Rise to Doctor Amari at her clinic. He’d like to just drop him and leave (HR would understand, he’s sure), but Amari snares Deacon with demands about what happened. He wants to blow her off with some snarky comment, but The Lone Wanderer rears his ugly head and makes Deacon give her an account of the fuck-up that was the last hour—scratch that, the entire mission. She seems truly grieved to hear that two agents were lost on top of the reclaimed synths; Deacon will give her that.
“It was foolish to transport so many. What possessed you to try it?”
Deacon shrugs, losing patience with the whole thing. “I don’t make the decisions, doc. I just follow ‘em.”
“I will have a long conversation with Nicholas next time he is through.” Amari scowls, no doubt imagining that conversation, and it’s a frightening thing. “What about you?”
“I’m going underground for a while.”
She nods. “Probably best. I’ll see that High Rise makes it home safe. After a reasonable hiding period, of course.”
“Thanks.”
Deacon swipes a couple cans of purified water and a sweet roll from Amari’s stash, as well as some of the caps he keeps in a cache at the clinic (the bulk of the caps he had been carrying were now slag in that alleyway, melted by the leaking plasma). Even though it is the middle of the night and his eyes are burning, his arm is still sore, and the inside of his mouth tastes like a rusted tin can –an unfortunate side effect of stimpaks, Deacon leaves Goodneighbour. Not his best decision, but hey, not the worst either.
He arrives at Vault 111 the next evening.
- - - - -
Deacon wants to spend longer than two days in the vault. Actually, he’d like to spend the rest of his existence there -to be removed from the possibility of making decisions that will hurt others. Even this far north, his choices are hurting people. However, he only purchased enough supplies from Trashcan Carla for two days, knowing himself and the likelihood of disappearing for good.
He knows that the longer he spends in the Commonwealth, the louder The Lone Wanderer will get. After the grief in the Capital Wasteland, it was easy for that scared kid to yell louder than The Lone Wanderer, doubly so after what happened in Megaton. One day, when The Lone Wanderer gets loud enough to force Deacon to get more involved in the Commonwealth’s problems beyond a Railroad lackey, he’ll leave. He’ll go somewhere else and start over because the newness of that place will force The Lone Wanderer to quiet while he reassesses the situation.
Despite the moniker the people of the Capital Wasteland gave him, the part of Deacon that is The Lone Wanderer hates wandering. He wants to settle somewhere; build a home and help the people. However, the part of Deacon that is that scared kid (the one that can’t let go of the fact that his father opened the un-openable vault door and abandoned him to the rage of Overseer Almodovar), tells Deacon in a voice that can’t be denied that people leave; people die. You’re always alone, so it's better to leave first. That way you won’t get hurt.
The Lone Wanderer scoffs at Deacon’s weakness every time he gives into the kid.
It’s the kid that votes for indefinite life inside the vault. The Lone Wanderer tells Deacon to get back to the Switchboard—right now! and inform the Railroad about this Courser development. Deacon compromises between the two. Sometimes, it feels like that’s all he does.
He spends his time in Vault 111 wallowing in self-hate for the moment of anger that led to him giving Harkness to Zimmer. How could he have been so stupid? Selfish?
Moira said the holotape about the synthetic man that was looking for a computer whiz and a facial surgeon was an elaborate hoax. Deacon was so busy when he first the heard the holotape that he took Moira at her word and tossed it in a locker in his Megaton home. He promptly forgot all about it.
Sometime later, Deacon led a raid against the Slavers at Paradise Falls. They were a small group. Farmers and scavers mostly. A few pieces of repaired armour between them and rusty weapons. Not much. Certainly not much against a group of armed slavers, but the people were angry. They had lost loved ones to the slave trade; some gone without a trace, others sent to the Pitt, a few unfortunate ones killed for sport. It made Deacon sick. Still did.
They didn’t fear the slavers, though. Not with the famous vault dweller leading them into battle. A lot of them died clearing out Paradise Falls, but the slavers lost more and Deacon managed to kill many of them before they had time to react to the angry mob storming the gates. In the end, they were victorious and freed the few slaves still in camp. Deacon disarmed their bomb collars –goddamned Old-World and its horrific devices- with deft fingers.
Then, he saw the children in the cramped cages and lost it. His world turned into a haze of red rage. There were a few slavers that had surrendered upon the sight of their defeat and Deacon killed them. Unarmed men and women and he slaughtered them like animals. How could they be considered anything else? They didn’t deserve the privilege of the same species. His civilian army watched in shocked silence, but the kids were less surprised. They thanked him. Apparently, he was a trustworthy ‘mungo,’ whatever that meant. Later, when Deacon met Mayor MacCready, he understood why they were so nonplussed.
Deacon ended up escorting a few of the sickest individuals and their family members to Rivet City for medical aid. That was when he met Doctor Zimmer. When Zimmer asked for his help, Deacon brushed him off. Even with the prospect of caps. However, when Zimmer mentioned that his missing android had probably changed his face and wiped his memory, Deacon became interested again. The message on that holotape immediately coming to mind.
After the trip to Paradise Falls, he needed a little levity. A mystery would be a good distraction and if he could get rewarded for it, so much the better. It was fun at first. Acting like some pre-war private eye. In his mind, Deacon was Bogey from 'The Maltese Falcon.’
Then, he met Victoria Watts. Or rather, he was accosted by Victoria Watts.
She plainly told him that she disliked his “investigation” and sarcastically asked him if he was a detective for hire. She then accused him of having a grudge against some android he hadn’t even met, and Deacon bristled because until that moment he was enjoying the mystery of it all. He hadn’t even decided what to do if he managed to find the missing android. She even had the gall to try and sell him on the plight of androids, up north in the Commonwealth, after all that.
There, androids were slaves. The Railroad –as they called themselves- helped these androids escape the clutches of The Institute. Deacon wasn’t really sold on the whole thing due to her unfriendly welcome and churlish attitude, so he asked what they did for human slaves, figuring if they helped any slave, he would contribute to their cause. But they did nothing for human slaves. They lacked the resources for that, and she claimed there were other groups in the Capital Wasteland that helped human slaves. Deacon had never seen any (he had yet to met Hannibal Hamlin), and he had to personally Paradise Falls to slow the slave trade in the Capital -people were still being taken to the Pitt.
The horrors he’d witnessed at Paradise Falls were playing on a constant loop in his head since he returned to Rivet City, and worse was how long it went on for because people feared going up against the slavers. The Railroad was a group that had the resources to ship androids through five states, and they ignored the actual slaves that were being sold in the Capital Wasteland every day. He was supposed to care about an advanced Mr. Handy robot over a human because it had a face?
Watts just kept pressing her case, even though every fiber of Deacon’s being was radiating anger. However, despite the internal tirade that was taking place in Deacon’s head, some manner of civilized vault teaching made him keep quiet instead of exploding in her face. Ultimately, he threw the piece of android tech Watts had given him in the Potomac. He wasn’t going to help her with a robot 'slave' when there were humans still being subjugated to real slavery.
Deacon had decided he wasn’t even going to continue investigating the case at all (despite that being exactly what Watts wanted and if Zimmer found his missing android, he wasn’t going to lift a finger to stop him from reclaiming it) since it had lost its former amusement value. However, while he was down in the Muddy Rudder having an angry drink, Belle Bony asked him if he was still investigating ‘the machine man.’
“Why?” he snapped.
“Because your bad attitude is driving away my customers-”
“My bad attitude?”
“Shut the hell up for a moment, yeah? You want to know where I’d go for a face swap if I thought it was worth wasting the fucking caps?”
“Where?” he asked, not the least bit interested.
“Pinkerton.”
Deacon laughed. “He’s gone.”
“The fuck he is. He’s too petty for that. Check the broken bow, but don’t blame me if you drown during the effort. Now get the hell outta my bar while I still got some business left.”
Deacon downed the last of his drink. “Yeah, yeah.”
He should have taken Bony’s warning to heart because he had damned near drowned trying to get into Pinkerton’s lair. He sputtered to the surface past the third door, coughing up water and swearing at himself for continuing to pursue that idiotic mystery after he told himself he was done with it. His curses alerted several mirelurks, and then Deacon was really ticked. The traps did not improve his mood any either.
By the time Deacon reached Pinkerton’s lab, he was wet, bleeding, and madder than a yao guai.
Pinkerton seemed to find his anger amusing and took a liking to Deacon’s foul mood. Maybe because it matched his own. He smugly told Deacon everything he knew about A3-21 (a.k.a. Chief Harkness), Rivet City, its counsel, and Dr. Li. Deacon took the information about the android to Zimmer in a final ‘fuck you’ to Ms. Watts.
Now, he greatly regrets that moment of anger and the actions it spawned; he’d condemned a man to servitude. If he could take it back, he would. There’s a lot of things he’d change if he could go back; people he’d save if he had the chance. But you can’t go back, you can’t go home, and Deacon’s pretty sure that you never find peace.
When his two days are up, Deacon leaves for Goodneighbour, but not before rummaging in the crumbling houses of Sanctuary for a new pair of sunglasses. Like the bottlecaps, his are a melted pile of plastic and metal in the alley outside Postal Square.
- - - - -
Deacon thinks Goodneighbour’s motto should be: ‘Mind your own fuckin’ business.’
The Railroad doesn’t have much of a presence in the town beyond Amari because of the extortion racket that Vic and his goons run; The Railroad isn’t exactly swimming in caps. Amari is safe from the racket for the most part because she offers ‘discounted’ medical services to Vic and his men, but Deacon is sure that one of these days those idiots will be so jacked up on Jet and Psycho that they’ll storm the place for more chems and kill her in the process. He thinks she should relocate to a safehouse, but Sly Nick wants her exactly where she is to deal with Irma and Amari apparently has no problem with the sword that hangs over her head.
The good doctor is out when Deacon returns for more of his caps and that suits him perfectly. He’s heard of a ghoul out in Quincy who will do facial surgeries for the right price, and he’s itching for a new face. He doesn’t want to run into A3-21 again without the protection of a new jawline. Back out in the streets, Deacon notes that Goodneighbour is quieter than usual. There seems to be a heavy air to the place, tense even like the whole town is collectively bracing for something.
In the tight alleyways of Goodneighbour, née Colonial Boston, Deacon bumps into a ghoul in a garish red trench coat and a tricorner hat. He mutters an apology and wonders where on earth that getup was salvaged. Suddenly, the ghoul grasps his arm.
“Hey,” the man rasps. “You’re friends with Dr. Amari, right?” The stress on the word ‘friends’ seems to imply ‘Railroad agent.’
Ghouls aren’t exactly the most welcome people anywhere in the wastes, so the odds of him being a spy for The Institute, or even the resident raider assholes, are low. Deacon decides to play along.
“Bestest buds. Two peas in a pod, you might say.”
The ghoul smirks and Deacon believes he knows this man. He’s seen him around Goodneighbour while he was skulking around, gathering intel. “John, right? McDonough?”
“Go by Hancock, now.”
Deacon grins; that explains the outfit. “Ah, Massachusetts’ beloved governor and smuggler king. Great choice.”
Hancock laughs. “Thanks. Say, you gotta moment? Like to run something by ya.”
Deacon hesitates. He’s supposed to be on his way to Quincy.
“Just a moment, brother.”
“Yeah. Why not? Lay it on me.”
Hancock motions to a nook deeper in the alleyway and Deacon follows him around a dark corner. He feels a flash of annoyance at himself; he just let this ghoul lead him into what could be a trap where a couple other drifters stab him and take his caps. They’re in for a surprise if they think Deacon will go down easy; he’s far more than just a pretty face. Deacon fingers his combat knife.
Hancock turns and checks the way they came before speaking. His gravelly voice is low. “I’ve got a group of drifters armed to the teeth, ready to take out that asshole Vic and his men. Now, we could probably take 'em on our own, but I’d feel better about it if we had someone with some real combat experience backing us. Goodneighbour would benefit if someone dethroned that sonuvabitch, and so would your, ah –friends.”
Wow. This is so not the conversation Deacon thought he would be having down this alleyway. Oh my God, he thinks, Hancock wants to start a revolution. He can’t help the laugh that slips out. The ghoul takes it the wrong way and starts to brush past Deacon, with a ‘whatever man’ on his lips.
It’s Deacon’s turn to grab Hancock’s arm. “Whoa, hey now, don’t go away mad. I didn’t mean to laugh at what you’re trying to do here. It’s a good idea. The best, in fact. Aces, even. Vic is a raider asshole in a fancy hat, and it's about time someone knocked his block off. But, you have to admit it’s a bit funny that another guy named Hancock wants to start a revolution in Boston.”
Hancock turns back, mollified. “Yeah, I’ll give you that. So you in?”
Shit. Deacon didn’t mean to imply that he wants to get involved. He tries to avoid getting involved in the Commonwealth’s disputes since he won’t be a very good spy if he’s a well-known face. Plus, this is the kind of thing The Lone Wanderer loves and Deacon doesn’t want to encourage him. However, Hancock is right; this could help The Railroad, and at the very least, Deacon will be able to stop worrying about Amari’s safety.
“Alright. Count me. After all, it’s the Right of the People to abolish a destructive government.”
“You bet, brother.” Hancock holds out his hand and Deacon shakes it. “You gotta a name, red?”
“They call me Deacon.”
“Well then, welcome to the revolution, Deacon.”
Hancock shows him where his little band of drifters is holed up outside of Goodneighbour. Deacon manages to hold in a long-suffering sigh, but only just. They are such a meager little group, the very dregs of Goodneighbour’s society; now with weapons. Why does he keep joining underdog groups? Oh, that’s right, because the top-dog groups are always a bunch of oppressive jerks. Just once, Deacon would like an awesome top-dog group to try and recruit him: ‘Hey we noticed you like being awesome. So do we! Wanna be awesome together?’
In his head, The Lone Wanderer is already calculating odds of survival, picking out the best marksmen, and deciding on plans of attack.
Hancock gathers his drifter militia together and introduces Deacon. Again, Hancock names him as a friend of Doctor Amari and there is collective murmuring of approval. Clearly, The Railroad is not as clandestine as they believe when it comes to Goodneighbour. He’ll have to mention that to Sly Nick when he gets back to the Switchboard. After the introduction, Deacon starts with the basics: anyone ever fired a gun? For the majority of them, this is the first time. As he feared. Then, he asks the group to point out the one person they think is the best marksman because it helps him determine their level of perception and general cohesion. They all point to Hancock.
Well, that makes things easier.
Deacon lets Hancock know that he can’t spend more than a week with his militia. Less would be better as he has other responsibilities he needs to get back to. Hancock has no problem with this; he’s got a feel for the goons in Goodneighbour, and any day now they’ll go on their usual chem-fueled tear through town. Daisy will send a runner when she sees them head down to the Third Rail.
So, Deacon spends the next couple of days trying to improve the marksmanship of the drifters. It’s an impossible task from the start. Most are suffering withdrawal shakes, the rest are high on chems, and neither makes for very steady hands. How can you tell someone to kneel down, line up a shot, hold their breath, and then squeeze the trigger when they can barely master the stillness or attention required to load the weapon in the first place? He’s regretting agreeing to this because he’s sure one of these drifters will put a bullet in his back. Not on purpose, of course, but that hardly excuses them.
Hancock knows he’s frustrated; it’s probably obvious to them all as his jokes have taken a cutting, sarcastic edge. Deacon just doesn’t want to see these people get gunned down in the streets because they were idiotic enough to do this in their condition.
“You’re not training Railroad agents,” Hancock tells him the second night, voice low and amused. The firelight is reflecting off his black eyes and making them glow. This is the first time Hancock's talked about Deacon’s organization out loud. “They ain't going up against synths. Vic’s men'll be strung out when we act; easy targets.”
“Then what do you need me for? Don’t tell me you brought me here just for my good looks. I have a brain too, you know.”
Hancock chuckles. “And it just whirls away, a hundred miles an hour, don’t it? You play the laid-back cat, but I can see you’re far from it. You need to relax, brother, because you’re my backup plan in case things go wrong.”
Deacon’s a little uncomfortable to be so easily seen through. He wonders if in another situation, one where The Lone Wanderer wasn’t so close to the surface, Hancock would have had him pegged so quickly. He deflects with a joke.
“So, no pressure.”
“Then, I guess it’s a good thing you seem to know all about that.” Hancock points to Deacon’s neck. There’s still nasty bruise there where A3-21 nearly crushed his throat. He could inject another stimpak and rid himself of it, but he needs the reminder.
“What? Oh, this? Just a shaving accident. You’re lucky don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Hancock gives a low, throaty laugh and the conversation moves on.
The next evening, Daisy’s runner arrives: Vic’s men have retreated, en masse, to the Third Rail. Hancock gathers his drifter militia and with him in the lead, Deacon right behind, they start out for Goodneighbour. It’s a ghost town when they arrive sometime after midnight. The citizens with houses have long since locked their doors and the drifters not a part of Hancock’s group have crawled into whatever crack or crevasse they could find. The whole thing is reminiscent of the battening down for a coming radiation storm.
Deacon’s pretty sure these people would welcome a radiation storm in place of the hell that visits them in the form of Vic and his men.
Daisy meets them in an alley next to the Old State House and informs them that some of Vic’s men have returned to their quarters in the State House, while the rest are still partying in The Third Rail. She hands Hancock a coiled length of rope with a noose at one end. Oh. Deacon hadn’t realized the man was serious about lynching Vic. He’s not sure the ancient rails of the Old State House’s balcony will hold up under that kind of strain.
Hancock wants to split their merry band of men into two groups, but Deacon vetoes that decision.
“Do you want to get all your people killed? Cause that’s how you’ll do it. You do not have nearly enough experienced people to pull that off.”
“What do you suggest then, red?”
“That you stop staring at my glorious hair because you’re making me blush and imagine naughty things and that we go for the guys in The Third Rail first. They’re the larger group, so we should attack them while we’re still fresh. Then, we storm the State House, and you can throw Vic off the balcony.”
Hancock chooses to not acknowledge Deacon’s initial comment with anything other than a snort of laughter and says, “Third Rail it is.”
Ambushing a bunch of drunk, high raiders turns out to be more difficult than Hancock thought and easier than Deacon had expected. The door guard is appropriately alarmed when Hancock, in all his red-coated glory, steps through the door of The Third Rail wielding a sawed-off shotgun. He is even more alarmed when Deacon and the rest of Hancock’s militia follow. Hancock bashes the man’s face in with the broad side of the gun in an attempt to keep their presence unknown for the moment, and the raider goes down in a crumpled heap.
“You got off easy,” Hancock growls and tosses the rope on the man’s chair to be collected later. Then, he motions for the militia to follow him.
Through some feat of luck, they manage to get down the stairs into the Rail proper without incident. In fact, they probably could have gotten the complete drop on the raiders if Whitechapel Charlie hadn’t indignantly shouted at them from across the bar.
“Oi! Small arms only, you twats. And they gotta be holstered if you wanna drink.”
A dozen or so raiders look around at the commotion, some already going for their guns, and Deacon decides, once and for all, he really doesn’t like Mr. Handy robots.
“We ain’t here for drinks, Chuck. We’re here for blood. Get ‘em!” Hancock bellows those last two words, and the whole bar erupts in gunfire. Deacon can’t hear Charlie’s response over the din, but he thinks it's probably something along the lines of, “Fuckin’ drifters.”
Hancock takes out the two closest raiders with his shotgun, their faces disappearing in a splattering of blood and brains. They didn’t even get a chance to get off the couch. He falls back slightly to reload, and a couple of his militia take his place. They spray the room with their submachine guns indiscriminately and manage to hit the raiders only because of the target rich environment. Deacon, for his part, is trying to pick off any of the raiders that look like they've got more of their shit together than the others (ie: they’re less high, less drunk, or have a better tolerance for the stuff), before they get a chance to kill any of Hancock’s militia. He can’t help it if they friendly fire themselves into oblivion, but he can try and prevent the raiders from helping.
A couple of the smartest raiders have dived behind the bar and are using it as cover to pick off members of the militia. Deacon kicks over a couple of tables and the ones that aren’t in cover behind the support pillars next to the stairs take cover with him. Unfortunately, the tables are flimsy pieces of pre-war shit, and he doesn’t expect them to last long. Hancock and few others have hunkered down behind a Nuka-Cola vending machine that’s close to the makeshift stripper stage the bar hosts in an attempt to take out the raiders behind the bar.
Thanks to the slow reaction of the majority of the raiders, most of them are dead or bleeding out on the bar floor. Deacon is starting to think they might actually get Hancock’s militia out of this mostly intact when the door to the V.I.P. room is thrown open and half a dozen more raiders join the fray. He hears the door slam against the wall and the cry of the woman at his side as she goes down with a bullet lodged in her thigh before he has a chance to react.
Deacon swings his plasma pistol around and takes out one of the last raiders running out of the room with a shot to his exposed neck. The plasma eats a hole through his flesh, and the raider collapses to his knees as he scrabbles at his neck in an attempt to prevent from himself bleeding out. Deacon wishes he thought to grab a stealth boy from his cache at Amari’s clinic; he could probably take out most of these clowns with his knife before they caught on.
The newest raiders kick over the loungers and couches that litter the room, taking cover and spraying Deacon’s tables with gunfire. They’re starting to splinter really bad, and Deacon needs to make a decision, now, about what to do. The bullets let up for a moment and Deacon chances a look up. It seems as if an argument is going on between the raiders behind the bar and those in cover behind the couches. Maybe one of them got hit with a little friendly fire. This is his opportunity, and he hopes Hancock is paying attention because he’s about to do something really stupid.
Deacon jumps out from behind the table and dashes across the bar. He leaps over one of the overturned couches and takes out the two raiders hiding there in the surprise with a few precise shots. Then he plasters himself, in a crouch, against the bar, knowing that if the raiders hiding there want to kill him, they’ll have to chance getting shot by the militia to do so. Frankly, he’s surprised he made it one piece. Then again, he’s always had an ungodly amount of luck when it comes to combat, which is balanced by is rather atrocious luck when it comes to family. Can’t have everything, he supposes.
The last two raiders that came from the V.I.P. room are in cover behind a lounger, kitty-corner to Deacon. They're already turning to take him out, when a couple of Hancock’s militia jump over their cover -apparently emboldened by Deacon’s similar action- and land on the raiders, punching and kicking. Well, that just leaves the pair that is still behind the bar. Deacon is trying to figure out a plan on how to get at the raiders without getting killed when he spots another two creeping down the stairs. Shit. They must have been upstairs in the bathroom, and he’s too far away to do anything about it.
“Hancock!” Deacon shouts, “The stairs!”
Hancock, and the men he’s got with him, immediately grasp the problem and rush the stairs. Now, all Deacon has to worry about is not getting shot by a stray bullet. He’s feeling a bit stupid about his previous move, because now he’s stuck out here in the open, unable to move for fear of getting shot in the front or the back as the raiders behind the bar take pot shots at Hancock and his crew. Then, he hears the tell-tale sound of a saw blade going through flesh and the cry of one of the raiders behind the bar. Deacon cannot suppress the shudder that wracks his frame. Suddenly, visions of Andy as he cheerfully chopped Beatrice into pieces are swimming through his mind’s eye.
He’s not sure what prompted Whitechapel Charlie to throw in with Hancock; maybe’s he’s just sick of his bar getting shot up, but Deacon’s not about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. He takes the opportunity to jump the bar. One raider is still screeching after Charlie’s treatment, his chest and arms wet with blood, the other has managed to get a hold of the robot’s saw and flamer arms, keeping Charlie from finishing the job as they each struggle to get the upper hand. Deacon knees the bleeding raider in the face, and he goes down, silent.
Hancock catches sight of Deacon making his move behind the bar and shouts across the room: “Don’t let that asshole kill that robot!”
Deacon sighs. He was sort of hoping he could let the raider kill the Handy and then he could step in and finish the guy off. He aims his plasma pistol at the back of the raiders head and squeezes the trigger. As if in a final act of defiance, the raider explodes in a shower of green goo, painting both Deacon and Charlie in entrails. Deacon stands completely still, utterly disgusted and wanting to wipe his face off, but fearing touching it with his hands will only make the situation worse. At least he had his sunglasses on; that’s a plus.
There is one more shotgun blast, and the bar falls quiet. Then Hancock starts to laugh and slowly the rest of surviving militia join him. He must look quite the picture. Deacon gingerly takes off his sunglasses and takes the cloth that Whitechapel Charlie thoughtfully hands him with a “Ta, mate.”
“I’ve heard that plasma weapons could do that to a man, but I’ve never actually seen it happen,” Hancock says as he picks his way across the body-strewn room.
Deacon wipes the goo off his face. “If I had a Pipboy, I would program it to detect the genetic anomaly that makes people do that so I could avoid situations like this.”
“Not your first time, then.”
“Not by a long shot. Funnily enough, it never gets any less disgusting.”
“So, what ‘appens now?” Charlie asks, two of his three eyes focused on Hancock and Deacon.
“Now we finish off the last of Vic’s men, and then the man himself. You’ll stay down here and keep your mouth shut if ya know what’s good for you. Later, we can talk about cleaning this place up."
Charlie watches Hancock with what Deacon can only describe as narrowed eyes, despite not having the eyelids that make that expression possible, before he holds out his pincer arm for Hancock to shake. “Never liked those cunts, anyways,” he says.
Hancock grins and shakes the robot's hand. “Alright people, gather whatever ammo and chems you can find, we still got work to do.”
“Ah, the time-honoured tradition of looting. Hey, if any of you guys come across a pair of sunglasses, pass ‘em here, yeah? These ones are toast.” Deacon tosses his goo covered sunglasses to the ground. He’ll never get those streaks off.
After the bodies are sufficiently scavenged, and Deacon finds a new pair of sunglasses (they’re patrolmen’s, so they are a little more intimidating than Deacon likes, but hey, not covered in bodily fluids, so that’s a positive), they move back out onto the street. The concrete and subterranean nature of The Third Rail has prevented their fire-fight from attracting the attention of Vic’s remaining forces, and it’s here that Deacon suggests the group split up. Two doors into the Old State House, two groups; then they meet in the middle and go up.
Hancock takes six militia and Deacon gets the remaining five. Two of Deacon’s guys are the ones who jumped the couch and beat the two raiders to death for him. It makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside that they want to stick with him. The door to his side of the State House swings open easily when Deacon tries it, and he’s almost disappointed he didn’t have to break out a bobby pin and his trusty screwdriver. Inside, it’s quiet, and Deacon can hear Hancock’s group shuffle in the other door.
They sweep the rooms one by one, and from the few raiders Deacon comes across, it’s clear that the bulk of the men had been down in The Third Rail. Hancock wants to get the jump on Vic, so Deacon pulls out his hunting knife and shows his group the best way to dispatch a sleeping enemy. Education! Yay! His armour is already covered in unspeakable grossness, what’s a little more blood? Red and green look so good together, after all.
Deacon and his group meet up with Hancock and his at the bottom of the stairs. Hancock directs half their group to stay on the bottom floor and watch the exits, just in case there are some guys they missed still roaming the town. The rest of them head up the stairs and into Vic’s lair proper. Hancock kicks in the door to Vic’s rooms. The man in question is sitting on a couch, cigarette in one hand and other resting on top of some woman’s head as she sucks his cock. Deacon grimaces, because Jesus, Hancock is going to throw this man off his balcony with his dick swinging in the breeze. He hopes he never has occasion to be on this ghoul’s bad side.
Hancock points his shotgun at Vic’s head. “Evenin’ Vic.”
“What the fuck- Get off, get off!” Vic shoves the woman aside and she falls to the ground in a heap, her dark hair a curtain in front of her face.
“Now, that ain’t any way to treat a lady,” Hancock says as he motions for the militia member that picked up the coil of rope from outside the Third Rail.
Vic makes to tuck himself away and stand, but Hancock steps closers with his shotgun and tsking sound. Vic’s hands still.
“How do you feel about neckwear?” Hancock asks as the militia member, a kid that can’t be more than sixteen, drapes the noose around Vic’s neck.
“Get this fucking thing off of me. Who the fuck do you think you are? Boys-” Vic’s cry cuts off as the kid tightens the noose with a jerk. With a wave of his hand, five of Hancock’s men start dragging Vic across the room.
Then, the whole thing takes a nose dive into the surreal as Hancock starts reciting the Declaration of Independence. That ghoul has a real flair for the dramatic. It’s thespian really. The guy should have been on the stage.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—”
As Hancock leaves the room, Deacon offers his hand to the woman huddled on the ground. She looks up, past his hand, and her hair falls back from her face. She’s stunning, but there’s a wariness in her blue eyes. Fortunately, he’s managed to shake most of the goop off his armour, though he’s sure he still looks a mess. Deacon waits for her trust. After a moment, she allows him to help her up. Still holding her hand, Deacon follows in Hancock’s wake; his speech continues:
“—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government—”
As he talks, Hancock’s militia is dragging Vic, a squirming mess of flailing limbs, toward the doors and out past the circular railing that marks the center of the State House. Vic tries to grab hold of the bannister, but Hancock stomps on his arm, without losing his place in his speech, and the procession continues on. That was probably the man’s last-ditch effort. Vic’s already looking a little blue, and he isn’t even swinging. Deacon’s hand twitches at his side, he wants to touch his own neck where the Courser bruise is still an ugly mess, but he doesn’t.
“Hope you didn’t like that guy,” Deacon says as the militia sets about tying the loose end of the rope to the balcony’s railing. “because he’s about to become the Old State House’s newest accessory.”
“Good,” is all she says; voice smoky and low. Deacon can’t argue with that.
“—Laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness!” Hancock’s voice has risen to a crescendo as he stands on the balcony of the Old State House. Two of the militiamen are holding Vic’s struggling form on just this side of the railing. Then, Hancock gives a slight nod and they shove Vic off.
Huh. Deacon was sure that old railing wasn’t going to hold.
“Goodneighbour: Of the People, For the People!” Hancock cheers and met is with a chorus of echoing sentiment.
Daisy must have been busy while they were off killing raiders, bringing the whole town out for a little good old-fashioned Commonwealth justice. In the back of his mind, The Lone Wanderer hums his approval and Deacon heartily agrees.
Of the People, For the People. That’s a way better motto.