NOVEL WEB Chapter 25
"Basil! What the hell happened to you?!"
The first thing Isabel did after noticing me was rush over from the entrance to the robotics disposal ground. I hadn't had the time or luxury to see what state my armor or body was in, but judging by how Isabel reacted, I looked like shit. But I felt fine, and the priority is to take care of the woman I found.
"Don't worry about me. Take care of her first."
Isabel looked skeptical, wanting to stay with me to ensure I wasn't just acting tough. She then noticed the woman being carried in a makeshift stretcher I built out of planks and an old mattress between a tank bots arms. Isabel looked unsure whether to stay with me or do what I asked. Eventually, she decided I knew what I was doing and could take care of myself.
"Is that her?"
"Yeah."
"Damn, you weren't lying. She doesn't look too good. I got a bed set up and some food on the stove. I'll get her settled in, so you can go and get yourself cleaned up. T2, command. Follow me."
The tank bot beside me confirmed it received the order and followed Isabel, who quickly sprinted back into the junkyard. Taking up her offer, I followed the chain link fence to the small stream nearby to clean myself up. Isabel seemed to have things under control, so I decided to leave the woman in her capable hands.
Once I was next to the water, I exited my power armor and finally got a good look at my own body and the state of the power armor. Besides the visor, the entire suit of T45 was covered in soot and scorched a pitch black. Some of the panels had sustained so much heat that there was some warping of the outer layers. I could see why Isabel thought I might have been acting tough.
Besides the power armor, my left leg, which was unprotected after the ant queen broke it, was also covered in soot. The parts of my jeans exposed to the mini-nuke had been completely burned off, leaving just my bare leg. Swiping my finger over my exposed body took some ash off and showed that the skin underneath was no worse for wear. Thank goodness for this game-like body because I don't know what I would have done if a quarter of my body looked like a ghoul's.
I spent the next 20 minutes washing myself off and wiping all the dirt, sweat, and grime off with a wetted piece of clothing. On the way back, I was so jumpy and focused on the woman's condition that I didn't realize how gross I was after fighting the ant nest. It was nice feeling clean again. And being able to take a bath, regardless of how makeshift it is, let my mind rest and finally realize that it's no longer in immediate danger.
When I was done washing my weary body, I put on a new set of clothes and inspected the suit of T45. The power armor was truly fucked and essentially just hanging on by a thread. The HUD showed that all the panels were highlighted in red, alerting that all the pieces were close to breaking. The extreme heat and the acid spit from the queen had probably rendered the pieces of the T45 structurally questionable at best.
The silver lining of the whole situation was that the power armor frame and the fusion core weren't damaged. The charge reader showed that the battery was down to 65%. Not great, but at least enough to travel another ten or so miles. After wiping everything down the best I could, I hopped back inside and returned to our camp.
Hopefully, Isabel can work her magic and repair it or use the spare T51 pieces to restore its integrity. If not, I'll have to make do with subpar protection until I find another suit or get to a power armor workstation to repair it. I'll manage. Then I remembered the other headache, the woman I rescued.
One of the first things I did was find out who the woman was. Her leather jacket and jeans had been ripped apart by the ants, and didn't have anything to identify her with. Luckily, using VATS, I could see the name Tanya Christoff above a half-empty health bar.
The name sounded familiar, and I constantly mulled over it while returning to the camp. I was halfway back when I finally figured out where I remembered that name from. Tanya Christoff, AKA the AntAgonizer, was one of the side characters the Lone Wanderer could meet in Fallout 3, terrorizing a small town.
In Fallout 3, one of the settlements you run into had a strange problem of two people dressing up as superhumans from comic books and fighting in their streets. On one side was a man named Beans dressed up as the Mechanist. No relation to Isabel, at least, I think anyways. His real name wasn't Beans; that was just his nickname, but I forgot the man's full name, so let's just keep calling him Beans.
Beans' family had sold him to a traveling caravan at a young age, believing that being an indentured servant with traders would give him a better life than being stuck in a remote settlement. His name came from the fact that his parents sold him for beans. After buying his freedom, Beans settles in a small town and locks himself inside an electronics store, using the place to teach himself how to build robots. When the AntAgonizer started attacking his town, he became the Mechanist to stop her.
On the other side was Tanya Christoff, dressed up as the Mechanist's nemesis, the AntAgonizer. While the Mechanist had robot creations, the AntAgonizer had an army of giant ants, which were mostly harmless except for the ant guards. She would use this army to engage in combat with the Mechanist or attack the town occasionally.
Tanya's backstory was a bit more tragic. Her family, who worked as a part of a caravan, died when giant ants attacked. Probably due to a mental breakdown and her mind's coping mechanism, Tanya was inspired to don the outfit and persona of the AntAgonizer to rule over the ants. She then convinced herself that the small town where Beans lived was a blemish on the wasteland and started attacking it.
After some significant collateral damage was done, the towns folk were fed up with the peace being disturbed and petitioned the Lone Wanderer to solve their little conundrum. There were four ways you could choose to solve the town's problem: Kill the Mechanist, kill the AntAgonizer, convince the Mechanist to give up and leave, or convince the AntAgonizer to give up and leave. I usually decided to convince Tanya to give up being the AntAgonizer and have her leave.
The Mechanist was ultimately still a good guy and could help bolster the town's defenses, so killing or making him leave was clearly the 'evil' option. And while Tanya was the one antagonizing (no pun intended) the town, given her circumstances, I think it's only fair to offer her a second chance at life. Both had mental issues, but Tanya's were much more apparent and, I think, more deserving of leniency.
With the backstory in mind, the real question was how in the world did Tanya get from the Capital wasteland to the Boston area? I guess this might be someone coincidentally named Tanya Christoff, but considering that I found her with a bunch of ants, I seriously doubted that. I mean, the chances of this being a person who happened to have the same name and connection to giant irradiated ants had to be effectively zero, right?
The fact that she was alive must have meant that in this world, the Lone Wanderer convinced Tanya to stop being the Antagonizer and spared her. Technically, the Lone Wanderer could have convinced Beans to stop being the Mechanist or killed him. But in that scenario, it would make more sense for Tanya to have stayed in the Capital wasteland.
The events of Fallout 3 occurred ten years before the start of Fallout 4, and since I woke up in Vault 111 six years before the game, Fallout 3 would have happened four years ago. Four years is plenty of time for someone to travel from the Capital wasteland to the commonwealth. Maybe after Tanya gave up her evil-doer days, she immigrated to Boston to try to start a new life.
But then the question becomes, why was she in the ants' nest? The pessimist in me is jumping to conclusions that she's up to no good again, but the condition I found her in was far from one of power and control over the ants. I guess the only way to find out is to wait for the woman to wake up and tell us herself.
Once I got out of Satellite Station Olivia, I had used my Pip-Boy to tune into the frequency Isabel gave me for emergencies and got in contact with her. I explained what had happened and that I needed a robot to carry Tanya the rest of the way back. Maybe I would have thrown Tanya over a shoulder, but that would have been an uncomfortable and very vulnerable ride. Having a robot do the carrying seemed like the safer option.
Isabel immediately sent an outrider and tank bot to track me down. Once the Outrider found me, it broadcasted my location to the tank bot and guided the giant robot to its destination. From there, the Outrider scouted the area ahead while the tank bot and I escorted Tanya back to our base. I didn't expect the first operational outing of the robots to be this, but they performed very well.
While thinking about today's events, I weaved through the maze of abandoned vehicles and robotics parts, eventually finding myself next to the concrete building serving as our temporary home. The area around the building had been significantly cleared out, so it had room to house the robots Isabel was working. In the middle of the clearing was a stove on an open flame. Looking inside showed that Isabel had cooked some beans.
I exited my power armor and walked into the building, finding Isabel kneeling beside one of the sleeping bags. On top of the sleeping bag was Tanya, and Isabel had her fingers on her neck, probably taking her pulse. I dropped the duffel bag I took to hide my inventory and sat in one of the chairs. I hadn't told Isabel any more information about the woman since there was no way for me to know yet.
After another minute of taking the woman's pulse, Isabel sighed before getting up and taking one of the bottles of purified water I left her. She walked over to Tanya and lifted her back up so she was slightly upright before opening her mouth and trickling little bits of water into Tanya's mouth. The body's instincts took over, and the unconscious woman swallowed down small gulps until the bottle was empty.
"So, how's she doing?"
Isabel sighed before storing the empty bottle and finding her own chair to sit in.
"Her pulses are on the weaker side, but her heart rate is within an acceptable range. It's a good sign that her body still has a gulping reflex since that means she is unconscious, not in a coma. She's obviously malnourished, so once she wakes up, we need to get some food into her immediately. I'm no medical expert, but with the basic knowledge my Pa taught me, and despite her appearance, I think she'll be fine."
I let out a long sigh I didn't even know I was holding in and let my shoulders stoop a bit. It was good knowing that Tanya's life wasn't in immediate danger. But I still couldn't help but worry about her and what she meant on our logistics.
I couldn't just abandon her if she wasn't a raving lunatic and was just another victim of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. How long would it take for her to recover enough to fend for herself again? Also, caring for her meant extra strain on our food stock, which meant more outings for me. And what if she was a crazy person trying to take over the world with ants? The thought of putting down what was essentially a mental patient didn't sit right with me, but I couldn't risk the implications of leaving her alone.
She might also lie about her intentions. In which case, Isabel and I would be nursing back to health, a literal supervillain. It's just my luck to have the second person I run into, not counting the raiders in Concord, be a potential nut case.
Isabel must have seen the stress on my face because she tried to change the topic and get my mind off Tanya.
"So, how did scavenging go at the satellite station."
The second Isabel asked me, she winced and realized that wasn't exactly the best subject to focus on if the goal was to get my mind off things. Going by what my power armor looked like and the literal unconscious woman I brought back, clearly, things did not go well. Still, I gave her a soft smile and appreciated the effort.
"Not ideal. I found another mini-nuke and a landmine but had to immediately use them, so zero-sum game there. I managed to find some military uniforms and a pair of boots still in their seal as well. I'm sure those are worth some caps when we find a trader. There was a good bit of ammo as well."
I sighed again, remembering our food situation. The original purpose of going to the satellite station was to get more things to eat. I didn't have the chance to scavenge the deeper parts of the cave properly, but I doubt the ants left anything edible behind. And if they did, I shuddered at the thought of what those things might be... or once were.
"Sadly, besides a few bottles of nuka-cola, I couldn't get my hands on any more food. Hopefully, tomorrow's luck will be better."
Isabel could see my anxiety. Her eyes clouded over for a second in hesitation, but then she bit her lips, stood up, and walked over to me. I watched in surprise as Isabel walked behind me before putting her arms on my shoulders and started gently massaging them. I froze briefly from the unexpected intimacy before moaning from Isabel's hand, expertly removing the tension from my muscles.
"I used to do this for my parents when they finished a hard day of work. Do you like it?"
I didn't trust myself not to moan again if I opened my mouth, so I just simply nodded my head. Isabel took that as a sign to continue, so she did. After a minute or so, she spoke up again.
"Everything will be fine, Basil. We still have some food left. And if push comes to shove, I tell my robots to guard her while she sleeps, and we both go out looking for food. Just... try to relax for the rest of the day, ok?"
I knew Isabel was downplaying how tight our food situation was, but having her reassure me was still nice. I raised one of my hands to give one of her hands massaging me a thankful squeeze.
"Thanks, Isabel. I feel better now, and I'll try to take it easy."
Isabel did the unexpected again by lowering her face and whispering into my ears.
"No, Basil. Thank you for everything you've done."
She then kissed me on the cheek. It took my brain a second to register what happened. When it did, I turned to face Isabel, only to see her warm gaze looking back at me. Sparks flew between us, and I felt what was just a kindling of desire quickly combust and grow into a small flame.
Instinctually, I raised my other hand to frame her pretty face before bringing my lips toward hers. A hunger now replaced the warmth in her green eyes, and I had no doubt mine communicated the same desire. When we were just millimeters away from sharing a kiss, a loud coughing sounded from behind us.
The noise shattered the moment, and we both jerked our heads toward the source. What greeted us was the sight of Tanya coughing up a storm into her fist while trying to sit up.
I've never been more relieved and annoyed at the same time.
