Or just about to begin, in some cases. Ellie rolls over to see the clock tick to 9:02, and contemplates getting out of bed. She doesn't especially want to get out of bed because she knows she's out of coffee, so she'd have to run down to the store which is also likely to be out of coffee but not certain to be so according to the precepts of her caffeine addiction she has an obligation to at least check.

Bluh.

By quarter past, she's made it to the kitchen table, casually dressed with her hair pulled up in a lazy bun, scrolling through the morning news feed without really paying attention in a bid to put off the time of having to see a real-life person just a little bit long.

She's in the middle of that scrolling, still, when her Pip-Boy's screen shifts suddenly to an emergency alert - and sirens outside start to blare - 

And radios and feeds across the East Coast declare that residents have twenty minutes to get to shelter. 

Oh fuck.

It's not until she's well more than halfway to Vault 111 that Ellie's brain generates the thought that adrenaline is cheaper than coffee and easier to produce at home. She's saving all her breath for running, but maybe she'll chuckle later. If she lives.

She seems to have a better developed panic sense than many of her neighbors. 

She also, fortunately, has papers proving she has a space reserved in the vault. Everyone less lucky that her is being fended off by armed guards - fortunately, Ellie also arrives before that particular situation can turn into a riot, given most of the people living nearest the vault do have spaces reserved.

She's shepherded inside, and ordered to go into the decontamination room and follow the health personnels' commands - there's pods set up for people to use.

Pods are a bit weird, but sure. Don't want any of the nastier covid strains sheltering with them.

Ellie enters her assigned pod.

There's a hiss, and her vision goes a bit blurry - 

And she feels a bit lightheaded - 

And then her vision goes dark. 

It is briefly very, very cold.

The next thing she knows is that it is getting warmer, and there is a hiss of escaping steam and moving mechanical parts.

She seems to be in a new area. 

There's only dim light - the moody red of emergency lighting, and at a level that suggests most of the lights have already burned out. The front cover of the pod hisses and moves away from her, revealing a long hallway with identical pods packed tightly along either side. The lights in the hallway are completely dark - the only illumination is coming from a door on the far end from Ellie.

What in the actual fuck.

No way in hell that was a decontamination pod, obvious in hindsight even if it wasn't with the prospect of nuclear annihilation bearing down upon her. Add this new setup plus the cold and get... cryo-suspension? She thought that tech wasn't ready. Apparently the reservation fee wasn't enough, Vault-Tec needed test subjects. That pisses her off, but on the other hand she's alive to be pissed off, so. Call it a wash because who knows if the legal structures to exact compensation even still exist.

Speaking off, she needs to find out how long it's been. She stretches out some of the frozen stiffness in her body as she walks over to door.

(Some of the other pods have hissed open, though some only partway. There's slowly thawing frozen bodies - dead - in a few, and dessicated corpses in the rest. Ellie seems to have gotten lucky indeed.)

The door is half open, and there's a control terminal just beyond it. 

What the shit.

Does the terminal have a comprehensible user interface?

Yes! It seems to be the exact same one in common use when she went into the Vault, at least. She's seen this layout at her work. 

It's pretty barebones, overall, but at least the terminal boots up when she hits the power button, and even if it's in emergency mode (with sparse green text on a black background), even if a good number of the pixels are dead - it functions.

This appears to be the monitoring terminal, and it gives the date as October 23 - of 2287. The exact time isn't shown - the place it should be is a mess of dead pixels.

The screen otherwise reads:

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink
Thank you for choosing Vault-Tec!

> Cryogenic Array

> Life Support

> Pod Occupant Status

Two hundred and ten years. That is. Fucking super. Just. Really great. Yep.

At least she's not late to show up to work on Monday.

'Cryogenic Array' confirms her guess... Probably she should check if there are any others left. She selects 'Pod Occupant Status'.

...Yeah they seem to all be dead, though her status at least is marked as 'unknown.'

Not unexpected, still shitty.

Anything of interest in the other two options?

Both report their status as:

Offline. Premature termination resulting in system failure. Isolated manual and remote overrides detected. Controls disabled.

Premature termination. Uh huh. Guess the experiment didn't go to plan. Wonder what those overrides are about... the Vault was sealed well enough to survive the bombs, but not well enough to keep intruders out, seems like.

Wonder what the state of the world is.

Unfortunately, this terminal doesn't have that information.

The monitoring room has another door, though, which is also ajar.

Maybe if she keeps going through doors, she'll get to the main entrance.

Ellie powers down the terminal and heads for the exit.

The vault isn't very big inside, at least - and she can't find any food or clean water, but she does find an old stimpack and a gun with ammo (near a skeleton wearing the uniform of the vault's security personnel, surrounded by darker stains than most of the rest of the vault's floor. It's not the only skeleton she finds). (She also finds cockroaches the size of small dogs. Fortunately, they run when she gets too close.)

The vault door is sealed once she finds it - but the manual release is in clear sight.

That is creepy as fuck and Ellie really fucking hates bugs that are way too fucking big.

She has only cursory knowledge of how to use a gun, but picks it and the stimpack up on the principle of hey might as well, despite how little good they seem to have done their previous owner.

Hopefully the manual release isn't broken, when she tries it. And the weather outside is fit to breathe.

- It opens! Slowly and with a groan and a squeal of unoiled gears. The outside air smells marginally fresher - though perhaps more bitter - than the vault air, and she doesn't immediately start feeling sick, and there's sunlight falling onto the elevator pad.

..Which also works, revealing a dead world. The clouds are an angry, rusty brown, and the trees are burnt sticks, and the suburb is - destroyed. There's some ruins, still, especially the rusted metal, though she can't see many details from the distance.

The skyline of Concord and Boston proper beyond it - what little should be visible from this location - look different, too. Patchy, a dull broken smudge on the horizon.

Fuckin... yeah. She was slightly more than half expecting a glassy patch, so. Not as bad as it could have been?

Still not great.

But even broken buildings can be shelter and shelter means people and people means food, so she starts walking.

Nothing stirs except the faint shift of wind over debris and dead leaves as she approaches.

The town is... Very destroyed. There's traces of freeze dried and vacuum-sealed food, actually, and a rare bottle of Nuka-Cola in a few of the houses - some of it probably even still technically edible. There's no people, but... The neighborhood is still surrounded by its little stream - since widened into an angry, murky river - and the bridge over it is intact. It'd be defensible, in theory.

In theory. If there's anything still alive out here beyond the dog-sized cockroaches.

...Possibly some of these plants aren't entirely dead? And that looks like a cluster of mushrooms, over there. Very suspicious mushrooms, though.

But, yes, the world's looking pretty bleak.

The only way out is across the bridge - from there, she can follow the road (still mostly intact) or cut into the wilderness. (Or she can hunker down and not leave yet, of course.)

...She wants to take a look at her building, first. Where her building used to be, anyway.

"Mistress? Is that you?" a familiar voice calls out as she approaches.

What in the- Ellie jerks her gun hand up at the sudden noise and lowers it again as the content of the sound registers.

"...Jade?" she calls back.

"Yes - it's me - it's been so long - "

The robot maid - who had been in the shop for repairs when the world ended - rushes into view. She's worn down - metal scuffed and dulled, paint entirely gone, dents all over her perfect body. No clothes, too, even the more durable clothing considered suitable for personal robotic servants. (Well, no clothes except several harnesses full of weapons. She has plenty of those.)

Ellie would like a hug, weapon bandoliers and all.

Jade seems to agree!!!

She very hugs her Mistress.

"I went to the Vault when the alert went out and they put us in cryosuspension without saying anything," she mumbles. "You're not allowed to take any more weeks off for maintenance, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I have not ceased defending your home in two hundred and ten years. I do not intend to take time off again."

"Is it- habitable?"

"I have repaired and maintained it to the best of my ability, Mistress - but there is no electricity grid, nor clean water supply nor significant food."

"Do you know where we can find food and water?"

"There were water purification tablets in one of the houses, which might still work, and there is some preserved food scattered through the community, and some of the wildlife may be edible."

"However, the best place for now is likely a human settlement. You may be able to get seeds there, as well, and I could grow food for you here, Mistress."

"Are there any left nearby?"

"I believe so. I deal with the occasional attempted raider, of course, but I have also observed other movement in the distance."

"Well. Show me where they are, I guess."

"They're a good distance from here - likely Concord has the nearest settlement, but I have not observed any settlements directly."

"But I can accompany and protect you, Mistress, while we search."

"I'd appreciate that, Jade."

Bright grin! "I'm very glad to have you back, Mistress."

"I'm glad to be back."

Hug!

Hug.

"Missed you a lot. I ran out of coffee this- that morning. I was going to go to the store."

Hug. "I'm glad you were close to the Vault, Mistress."

"I think the coffee is probably very stale, by now..."

"Seems likely."

Smile. "I will search for an acceptable substitute, Mistress."

"Reliable as ever, my Jade."

Grin!!!

"I had - no one to serve. It's been lonely, Mistress."

"It's a new paradigm, starting today."

"Let's go find some people."

"Yes, ma'am."

Does her Mistress wish to bring significant supplies with them?

If there's anything worth taking? Jade seems to pretty much have the weapons covered...

It's possible some of the supplies would be worth trading... Even just old comic books - some of the collector's editions have survived the years. 

Good point. They can gather those up.

"Happy to help, Mistress."

"Still a good girl, Jade."

"Your good girl."

"My loyal girl."

"Always."

Ellie really feels much better with her robot servant around.

They can gather up what might have value and then... off.

She leads the way down the road, alert for threats...

And then her attention focuses on a dilapidated Red Rocket, and she pulls out one of her guns, gesturing for Ellie to move behind her.

She does.

"You see something?"

"Movement..."

And a furry black head pokes out from behind one of the pumps.

"That looks like a cat."

"...Mm." She doesn't relax very much. 

"Mrow?"

"Are... cats dangerous now?"

"Some," she says, voice tight.

The cat steps out more, tilting her head, and then meows more loudly. 

"This one doesn't look it."

"I would recommend caution still, Mistress."

"Noted."

But Ellie wants to pet the kitty. She steps out from behind Jade and begins to approach.

Mrow!

This kitty wants to be petted! 

It has been slightly more than two hundred and ten years since Ellie has pet a cat! She has a lot of time to make up for.

Yes good, right under the chin...

Scritchy scritchy!

The cat headbutts her and then flops for more snuggles and pats.

Ellie made a friend!

...Sigh.

"I suppose we're keeping her, Mistress?"

"It seems cruel to leave her," Ellie agrees.

Headbutt purr.

"She doesn't appear to be in poor health... But it is exceptionally dangerous to be out alone."

"Do you wanna come with us, kitty?"

Affirmative meow!

"Can I pick you up, kitty?"

"Meow!"

That's probably an approving noise? She's still purring, too.

Scoop?

Purrrrrrrr!

Awwww happy kitty. (Happy Ellie.)

She looks to Jade. "Let's keep going."

Nod.

The road is pretty significantly torn up beneath their feet - power lines long down, some across the road - but they're passing signs of life. Scraggly bushes with orange foilage, and a few enormous dead rats shortly off the road - surrounded by a cloud of insects - 

And two human corpses on the side of the road, as they come into sight of Concord proper.

Fresh?

Not very - they haven't decayed much, though. They're just stiff, and covered in bugs. (Including three extremely oversized Evil Mosquitoes that start buzzing threateningly - that is, until Jade shoots them dead.)

"...We used to just use bug spray."

"The radiation has had... Interesting effects on organics."

"Horrifying effects."

"I am not bothered by insects fortunately, Mistress."

"One of the very many reasons I can trust my life to you."

"It is my pleasure to protect you, Mistress."

She smiles at Jade before looking back at the bodies. Are there any... identifying clues or unusual marks or things of that nature?

They seem to be wearing pretty rough clothes - and what looks like armor, some mix of possibly-leather and cloth padding under crude hard plates. There's gashes in it - whatever attacked them was using a bladed weapon - and they both seem to have been carrying guns and knives. They also each have a painted patch on their shoulder, what's probably a highly stylized F in rusty red paint.

Gangs. That's cool.

Well, if nothing else, they might be able to use or sell some of this...

Guess so...

Jade can loot them quickly, if her Mistress is willing to pause.

Sure.

All of this is low quality... But it should be worth something to sell. She suspects weapons, even shitty ones, always are.

"The world's gotten a lot more violent, huh."

"Unfortunately so, Mistress."

(The cat makes a concerned noise and headbutts Ellie questioningly.)

Pet pet.

"You'll have to teach me how to shoot when we get somewhere safe."

Firm nod. "I will, Mistress."

"Got everything we want from here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Down the road again.

Concord is a run-down mess - but there's signs of life. Clear looting, of course, and evidence of this or that house having been patched at some point (and then fallen back into ruin), and layers of graffiti.

There's also a commotion audible as they approach the streets near the Museum of Freedom - gunshots, the odd sound of a laser rifle, shouts...

"Think we should try to avoid that?"

"Yes."

The kitty apparently disagrees! She starts yowling and wriggles out of Ellie's grip, hitting the ground running towards the commotion.

"Kitty wait-!"

Ellie moves after the cat, a bit more cautiously.

She's not waiting!

And Ellie comes very quickly into sight of the battle - several men dressed like the dead gang-members she saw, apparently trying to enter the Museum of Freedom and being one-by-one taken out by a single sniper up on a balcony - the one with the laser rifle -

Oh, hell. She ducks behind some rubble and tries to find where the cat went.

In the middle of the road, apparently, still barreling towards the unsuspecting raiders.

Ellie pulls the gun up, she has almost no idea what she's doing but point and shoot can't be that hard really, sights down the barrel-

Jade is beside her, lining up a shot with far more practiced skill -

And then the cat preempts them.

By, well.

An immensely bright line shines around her - and she shifts, transforming into a woman - the outline of one at first, clearly naked, but no features of her body filled in. And then the light crystallizes into red bursts around her, almost sparkling, and clothes form on her body - a tight, shiny black jacket, and a short, flared red skirt, and red gloves, and a black-and-red collar on her neck, and a band matching her collar around her left thigh, and black high-heeled boots -

She has black cat ears and a tail, still - the tail has a little red bow -

And a long black shaft in her hand, a red whip of light emerging from it -

She's on the raiders before anyone has time to react. (Not that they stand much of a chance, of course.)

What the fuck.

Ellie lets her gun drop, in shock.

Jade keeps hers trained ahead!

Though it's a little bit pointless, given how quickly the cat/woman kills the raiders.

Holy shit.

"Uh."

"What."

She laughs. "I still got it!" And her ?laser whip? turns back into just the weirdly decorative handle.

"...That was pretty hot."

Whoops, she didn't mean to say that out loud.

She strikes a sultry pose. "I am both pretty and hot," she purrs.

"Also not. Uh. Entirely a cat."

She laughs. "A little a cat, though! And you're a very sweet girl."

Hint of a blush. "Thanks."

Smirk. "I'd let you pick me up anytime."

"You seem a bit more... substantial now. I'd have to try harder."

"I promise I'll be a good kitty either way."

She giggles.

She laughs. "Though I think the nice gentleman with the rifle will appreciate if I empty his museum of raiders before we keep chatting."

"Don't let me keep you, by all means."

She laughs. "You don't want to come watch?"

"I'm not... sure how safe that would be."

"I could protect you. And the streets aren't always safe either."

Ellie chews her lip as she thinks.

"Okay," she decides. "We'll go with you."

"Excellent."

"I'll take the lead."

"Sure." Ellie stands and approaches closer to the cat/woman.

"Keep under cover when you can," she advises. "Their ammo's going to be the shittiest stuff in their arsenal - and most of 'em will be firing pretty slow. They've got nicer stuff than hunting guns mostly, but that just means they ain't shooting plain lead balls." She heads towards the doors, then - "They'll try to outflank us, use their numbers and positioning to an advantage, and their first instinct's gonna be making us waste bullets - I won't run out of ammo, but I can get tired."

"You'll probably last longer than me."

"Try and save your ammo, then, for when it really counts."

Nod.

Onward into the museum, then?

Yep.

Ellie is just here for moral support, really. Cat and Jade will have to do most of the heavy lifting. Ellie can point a gun and watch the corners.

Jade is possibly also along as moral support, given how Cat leaps up several stories once they're within the auditorium - drawing bursts of gunfire and a lot of curses - cuts through a metal gate with her whip - and then starts drawing surrenders.

Well. Whatever works.

As long as they all drop their guns and don't make any sudden moves.

"I'll keep an eye on them," she says, "If you want to talk to the group we rescued."

"Seems like a fair distribution of labor."

She'll go knock on the door the raiders' victims are holed up behind.

"Who's there?"

"Uh, the people who just kicked those raiders' asses?"

"Who are you aligned with?" There's some faint sounds of motion beyond.

"No one. We were just passing by."

There's some muffled sounds like conversation - and then the door opens, revealing a tiny handful of people with padded armor (more professional, less ragtag than what some of the raiders have) and guns, and a less tiny handful of people in assortedly worn out street clothes, all of them also gripping guns, even the older children - except for the smallest two children, and one weathered-looking woman who might be blind. 

They don't all look very human. The old woman has an oddly flat face, and feathers instead of hair, and one of the armed people is a hard-faced woman whose large yellow eyes glow like lamps in her head, and one of the unarmored-but-armed teenagers has loose pinkish-gray skin and small red eyes with no apparent pupil, and there's tiny signs of strangeness around more of them. (Which... Were possibly echoed in the raiders as well, though Ellie didn't get a good look.) Their leader looks the most put together - the most undoubtedly human - and steps forward to greet Ellie.

"We apologize for the suspicious welcome," he says, his laser rifle still in his hands and ready, a knife firmly affixed to the end of it. "Thank you for helping us out."

"It's... fine. I can understand why you'd be suspicious of strangers."

"There's not a lot of people interested in helping each other out, normally. At least not strangers."

"I guess I'm a little out of touch with how things go around here."

"Grew up in a vault?"

"...Not exactly. When I woke up this morning it was October twenty-third. Twenty-seventy-seven."

Low whistle. "That's the day the War started."

"The day nukes started getting tossed around, anyway."

"You're - missing a lot, then."

"Yeah."

"Maybe we can repay you, then - help you get oriented, once we're out of this mess."

"I'd appreciate that."

Smile, and he shifts his weapon a bit to the side. "I'm Preston Garvey. Leader of the Minutemen - or what's left of us."

"Ellie Sullivan. What's a Minuteman do?"

"We were an alliance of settlements throughout the Commonwealth - mutual defense, mostly, and then disaster handling. A network ready at a minute's notice to respond to emergencies. Raids, feral packs, floods, fires... Anything that'd leave a whole settlement in need of rescue."

"Nice idea. What happened?"

Sigh. "It fell apart - it's been crumbling, but - a storm messed up a lot of this year's harvests, and we've had enough bad years that no one had stores to spare. We're supposed to share food, too, but - some of the worst-hit didn't feel like that was happening, not enough. One of those had been one of the stronger, more populated members - and they'd lost just about everything. So, they quit. Raided another member, Quincy - my settlement came to help, but... No one else did, and even with us coming to try and break the siege - it wasn't enough."

"Quincy was slaughtered, and so were we, and we fell back from Quincy with everyone and everything we could save - but the traitors followed us. We made them pay in the end, but... I'm the last full soldier left between the two settlements - and this group are the only survivors we know about."

"Oh."

"Sorry."

Tight nod.

"There's still some things we need to settle here - there's raiders outside, still, and some things we were trying to get ahold of here..."

"Anything we can help with? My friend has got some of the raiders that were in here tied up. Do they do, like, hostages?"

"Your friend might be able to intimidate the rest, and we can do security on prisoners - but, you any good at getting past electronic security?"

"Yeah. I am- I was- an AI programmer." Hacked her own Jade to be better, too. Those mods seem like they held up over the time.

"There's power armor on the roof we were trying to get, but it's out of juice - and the spare fusion core's in a locked room."

"I can get that. Where is it?"

"In the basement." He gives directions. 

Then to the basement. She'll stop to let the Cat and Jade know on the way.

"Do you want help, Mistress?"

"Are you good up here?" she asks the Cat.

"Yes, especially if our new friends can guard these guys while I round up everyone else."

"Should be within their capabilities, yeah. Okay. You up here slash outside, me downstairs, Jade with me in case there's any bugs that need killing in the basement."

"Works for me."

"Good luck."

"You too."

And down.

The museum is pretty thoroughly run down, and the basement has gotten the worst of it - it seems like if it ever drained well it stopped at some point, and there's long-rotten detritus and wet patches and a persistent smell vaguely reminiscent of a swamp, or perhaps a sewer. She can navigate around the muck, though, until she reaches a somewhat jerry-rigged bunker, doors long since torn off, and an intact metal grate separating the bunker from some machinery. There's a terminal next to it, which looks pretty dubious about its chances of powering on. 

Terminal's worth a shot anyway. She's never been much good at picking locks, and she doesn't really want to tell Jade to just shoot the lock off if there's a fusion core rattling around in here somewhere. Ricochets, and all.

It takes a little whack to the side - but the terminal boots up. It's in low-power secure mode, just green text on a black background, but it works and she can get into the lock program just fine. 

Fear her wizard powers, pathetic security system. With the power of physical access, there is nothing she cannot accomplish.

Time to find a fusion core.

The storeroom is still pretty well organized! 

And there's a fusion core in its socket, still nearly fully charged. 

Excellent. Then to pop the button and release the prize.

"There's power armor on the roof," she says to Jade. "Think it could be my size?"

"Most of them were pretty one size fits all, Mistress."

"Then I'll just have to hope it brings out my eyes."

"If it dares not be flattering, I'll repaint it."

"That's my good girl."

Upwards!

The power armor is on the roof, out of what used to be a fire door. It's clearly been powered down for a long time, with thick layers of grime and bird droppings coating the outside.

And, visible from beside it - a  destroyed vertibird on the roof with a machine gun that looks intact and usable, if someone could detach and carry it.

"Give me a hand cleaning this off, Jade. At least enough to open it up."

"Yes, ma'am."

Fortunately, cleaning is part of what she's designed for, and a significant fraction of what she's had to entertain herself with the last two hundred years.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of grime. Still, she can get the sensors and visor and seams all clean.

And enough to unearth the helpful directions on the back showing where the standard-design fusion core goes. Just turn the wheel and stick it in, then crank to open the armor. Practically idiot-proof.

"Probably a necessity, Mistress, if they were designed for soldiers..."

"Fair point."

"Well. Here goes." She enters the armor.

It's weird, hissing and clanking as it adjusts to her body - and the visor is equally odd to look through, restricting her field of vision a little, washing the colors out, but highlighting shadows and movement, information about her current location and height popping up in one corner, the armor's status, the amount of ambient radiation outside (...not a ton, but), and the targeting program immediately starts trying to identify unique actors, giving each a letter and a number at random until Ellie overrides with labels. She can see a few raiders and the cat woman, currently - the cat woman's higher up on a spire, and the raiders seem to have surrendered (mostly, there's one bonus dead body).

Right then. Ellie labels Jade and the Cat, tests her range of movement briefly, then goes to grab that minigun off the vertibird.

- Possibly just in time. Her HUD is alerting her to something strange and big moving underground, about to surface - several somethings -

"Jade! Company from below!"

She takes a position on the roof edge -

And several monsters burst from the ground, two tearing the raiders they surface by into bloody shreds - they all seem to be targeting people, but most of them ready don't die immediately -

The cat curses and dives into the fray, trying to drive back the monsters enough the humans can retreat inside. 

She's having a bit of trouble, though - she needs to dodge their claws, and they're fast, and she isn't nearly as effective against them as against normal humans -

Ellie clicks through the handshaking protocol between the armor and her new minigun as quick as she can, hurrying over the edge, then-

Her gloves tighten on the trigger mechanism and she sends a stream of blazing lead at the melee below.

It's more or less just point and shoot, really. The armor does autoaiming, all she has to do is designate targets. Idiot-proof.

The interface is a bit complicated sometimes, but, well - she successfully reprogrammed Jade through a probably actively user-hostile interface. 

She doesn't immediately slaughter all the monsters - they're tough - and smart, they figure out how to take cover decently quickly, though they're aggressive enough to charge anything on two legs moving fast enough to trigger their prey instincts -

One raider woman who got through the first attack with an intact body and an ax to grind starts oddly systemically baiting them back out of hiding, but - some of them are still leery of Ellie's gun.

Fuckin' right they should be.

She can jump down from here if she needs a better angle, right? The armor can handle that, she seems to remember reading some kind of article about capabilities...

It doesn't set off any warnings when she's looking over the edge - it does tell her the height.

Right. Let's go play with some monster lizards.

She jumps.

The raiders finish fleeing inside in the distraction created by her landing - a few helping move the wounded -

And the cat drops down beside her. "I'll lure them, you shoot?"

"Sounds good to me," Ellie says, feathering the trigger to start the gun barrels spinning up. "Just, y'know, don't stop suddenly."

"I won't." And she's off. 

Ellie stands ready to light the targets up.

And she leads them into Ellie's crosshairs.

Minigun go brrrrrrrt.

And monsters die, until her HUD finally displays no more threats. 

Just in time. She's almost out of ammo.

"Thanks for the save."

"It was my pleasure. Nice to be useful for a change."

"You don't strike me as someone who'd ever let herself be useless."

"I dunno how much you've picked up, but I wasn't exactly prepared to wake up two hundred years in a future post-apocalyptic hellscape."

"You can prepare now, though."

"Hence this robot cosplay, I guess."

"Proof you're quick on the uptake."

Heh. "Suppose so. Um. I never got your name, I'm Ellie."

"I'm Kathleen - or just Cat." Wink. "Ellie is a lovely name for a lovely girl."

"Thanks. What's, uh, up with the cat thing, if I can ask?"

" - That's a kinda long, complicated story. Let's get things settled here first, maybe?"

"Fair enough."

"What'd you talk about with the group we rescued?" she asks. 

"Not too much. They're the last of the Minutemen, or something. Been running since Quincy."

...Hum.

"They're looking for somewhere to hunker down, then?"

"That's the impression I got."

"Helping them with that would be worth a pretty big favor, on top of rescuing them..."

"Probably, yeah..."

"Something to keep in mind, maybe..." Inside? 

Inside. Hopefully that demonstration against the lizards will convince the raiders to keep playing nice. Otherwise Ellie will have to bring out the robot fist of justice.

It seems to have! Though the Minutemen are also apparently in somewhat tense negotiations about what to do with them - there isn't exactly a local government or law enforcement, and raiders are usually just executed anyways which Preston Garvey seems to disapprove of. 

Could they just.. let them go? Take all their bullets or whatever and shoo them out the door?

That's part of what's being argued about. (Though it's dangerous to leave someone without any weapons, they can leave them knives.) 

Maybe the experience will cause them to rethink their anti-social ways.

(One person is actually pointing out that the line between raiders and settlers is pretty thin, and often overlaps. They're going to need more people who can pick up a weapon, more strong arms - if they can get a defensible area with decent soil, then, well. Everyone's problems solved.)

...Ellie's old neighborhood Sanctuary Hills is, like, habitable. Some buildings still standing. There's a stream, and it's on a hill with decent sightlines. Only one road in.

- And it hasn't been claimed? 

It's... been protected.

...Might work, though they'll need to see it...

It's not that far. A bit north of here.

After some arguments, they decide to invite the (ex?) raiders along, though there's still some uncertainty about grudges over the ones Cat killed. (Still, the raiders started it; most of them apparently see the handful of deaths in that light.)

("Otherwise they're going to have even more of a grudge and know about where we've settled," Preston says quietly to Ellie, "Without any good reason to keep us alive.")

"Not many options, I guess."

"Enough, though, to make a difference."

Shrug. "Take what you can get."

"And build a better foundation for more."

"Yeah. I'm not sure about, like, soil quality and stuff, but you guys know how to deal with that, right?"

"More or less - sometimes there isn't much you can do, though."

"I've never done any farming."

"Some of us have - we'll handle it."

Nod.

"I feel kind of useless here, honestly."

Wryly: "You were pretty useful with that power armor, and getting the core for it. Sturges is our best on hacking and he couldn't touch it. And you had a lead on a place to stay."

"What're your main skills?"

"Programming. AI, mostly."

"That's not something there's often a lot of call for, but that means it's pretty rare, and then people end up really in need.  Like, there's some old bots around, a lot of them malfunctioning now."

"So low volume, high price."

Little smile. "Might mean moving around a bit, if you want to keep yourself busy."

"Nothing's really tying me down at the moment. But moving around seems dangerous these days."

"Everything is. But - settlements are normally the safest alternative."

"Guess I could stick around for a while. Show you where the rose gardens were."

"It'd be helpful - and if you want to stretch your legs after, we can give you a jumping off point."

"Yeah. Dunno that I want to try to be busy with that right away. Be good to get my feet underneath me first."

"We'd be happy to help you with that."

"Appreciate it."

Smile. "No problem at all."

Then time to get people moving?

Yeah.

"You keeping the power armor and gun?"

"Seems the most expedient way to even the odds."

He laughs. "We'll set up a secure place to dock it when you're not in it, then."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

But for now, she'll stay in it to show the way back to Sanctuary Hills.

It'd be hard to move otherwise. 

Sanctuary Hills is much the same as she left it earlier, and the settlers make appreciative noises about it. 

Should have seen it back when it had running water.

Not too many places have that anymore! Diamond City does, a lot of places, but it's rare in other settlements. 

(Or. Well. Potable running water.)

Diamond City?

- Oh, it wasn't a thing back when? 

Not by that name, anyway.

It's the biggest, most powerful settlement around, down in the ruins of Boston. The center's this old baseball stadium - the Founders were a group that sheltered in it during the War, and it's seized control of a lot of the surrounding ruins since then. It don't control much outside of those ruins, doesn't quite manage to demand far flung settlements send it grain or anything, but it's got some homesteads that're closer to it under its rule. 

Ohhh. Fenway Park. Is it still that awful green color?

Awful? Pah. Traditional, is what it is. (So says one older man.)

Right, traditionally awful. As it's been since before Ellie was born.

An extra weight of tradition, that. 

Uh-huh.

She's clearly not an appreciator of good architecture, then. 

Not a big fan of baseball, either.

Pah.

Good to see some things haven't changed.

And they shouldn't. 

Ellie's not planning to instigate an architectural uprising. No need to fret.

Hmph.

All right, then.

Ellie goes to check on Cat.

She's out away from anyone else, down by the river where the little park and playground used to be. 

"Hey."

She glances up. (She seems pensive.)

"Hey."

"You doing okay?"

...Hum.

"Better than normal, anyways. Or at least different."

Ellie steps out of the power armor to sit down next to her.

"Wanna talk?"

"...If you - wanna listen."

"Happy to."

Little smile, and she pats the seat next to her. "Alright."

Ellie sits.

Lean?

Sure. Ellie can loop an arm around her shoulders.

Snugs!

"You're very good, you know."

"I try to be."

"I like you. A lot."

"Um." Little blush. "Thanks?"

"What are your plans?"

"Dunno, really. I only woke up this morning. Then I found Jade, and she said I should find people for food and stuff, and," she gestures back up the hill. "Found 'em. Haven't really had much of a chance to think beyond that."

"People don't tend to - like me."

"I like you. What I've seen so far."

"Do you want to keep traveling together?"

Smile.

"That sounds like fun."

Bright grin! "I'll make sure it is."

"And I can definitely keep you fed. Taken care of."

"What more could a girl ask for," she giggles.

"An awful lot."

"You'll have to teach me."

"About all the wonderful things a girl could desire?"

"If you're up to the task."

"Oh, I am," she purrs.

"Cool."

Squeeze!

Hee.

"Do you have travel plans, then?"

...Hum.

"More - trails I want to follow."

"Trails to what?"

"Where I came from."

"And who made me."

"...Sounds important."

"It is to me."

Bump.

"Then we'll do it."