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I'd rather not get shot today -- red's not my color -- but I'm ten steps ahead of my brain and ten feet away from his office.
"Sir, he's very busy --"
I shove her twenty-five centimeters further than I normally could. I wish it was out of anger, I wish my anger burnt high enough for that. Higher than the rest of me. Never does.
Her heels skitter to a nearby stop, she stays standing.
The guard, maybe hired for me, raises his rifle. He's right, I've been bad, the black sheep. Well, we know what they do over a difference in skin, don't we? Fire. Don't fire.
He doesn't.
I walk in.
The sunset bats over the far stands, over every gleaming tower in his upper city, into the panes of his intact windows. Stacks of files, each vote and voice leading us to here, to him and his back to me, triumphant against the sun.
His muscles are tense, like they've been spun onto a statue. His elbows right angle, and his hands on his hips.
Third crack-and-splat of gunfire tonight: by the Dugout.
He twists like a cork, mechanically motivated from his vantage point against the glass. I can see his smile, his teeth. Mouthwashed and flossed.
"I did it, John. It's finally mine."
I get half his mouth and neither of his eyes.
I've always wanted to toss someone out a window -- Valentine had a real term for it, 'defenestration' -- but not here, not now, not in a city descending on any dissenters.
I keep my fists at my sides, in line behind him. Standing in his shadow, maybe I'll match his silhouette today.
"Some of them had been here two centuries," I pitch the sentence at him. Catch it or fumble, brother.
He deflects -- pivots forty-five degrees, returning to his starting position at the window. "Two hundred years cooped in a stadium can't have been good for their mental health. Think of it as... opening the asylum gates."
"The worst any did was a huff of Jet."
"In most books, that's a rather immoral thing. This isn't Goodneighbor," he takes a Nuka Cherry in his hand, uncaps it with a hiss, pockets the cap, and drains the bottle. Lake of cola in his belly, iron dam of skin and 'civic-mindedness' around it. I could never defenestrate the guy, he's too damn heavy. "You're a troubled man, John. I can forgive your vices, but I can't forgive you mistaking them for virtue."
"Janey is face-first in the Kowalski's pond. The O'Briens dropped half their bags running. They're your people --"
"They're not people."
His bottle arcs through the air and into the bin. The fins of the rocket break on impact, and for a few seconds following, the glass creaks along a dozen hairline fractures.
I keep my fists at my sides.
"They're not. We took a vote. Fifty six per cent said they're not," he raises his right arm to point out security, dragging a skinless woman underneath us and through the gate. "I tried to make the process easy. 'Ninety minutes to get out' -- that's plenty of time to pack a toothbrush, or whatever they use."
"You can't take a vote on that kind of thing."
"Where were you when we were handing out flyers? When we were in a bidding war over the airwaves? When I climbed every staircase, knocked on every door in town?" he watches the woman slide from view -- hard to say whether she's breathing -- and settles his hand on the pane. Sunlight swamps around it. "If you have such strong opinions on my campaign, you should have run against it. But I doubt you had them when it was relevant."
It's like my suit is shrinking around me -- I've got a box of Mentats, four caps. Keys to the back-alleys and halls between here and Goodneighbor. An unfilled ballot card. Then the soft cotton lining, the crispy outside, buttons attached, laundered. My ponytail tufting over the collar.
"You have a lot of luxuries, John, including the luxury of not caring. The move to Diamond City was a shock you never got over. As your older brother, I'm happy to help you in your... moments of weakness," he shifts his fingers, letting the light play into and out of my eyes. "But to do that, I need job security. To have job security, I need a platform. I saw what they wanted and I offered it to them. The will of the people had its instrument, we had the upper stands."
Finally his shoulders turn from the window, he offers his whole face, his arms open in a mixed gesture -- to me, to the spectrum of lives in the city below.
"I have nothing against the ghouls, but they're not family."
There's a grin, ear to bulbous ear, lips peeled from the gumline for sincerity's sake. Facing away from the window, it's the brightest part of him. Two big bars of white enamel.
Two glossy eyes watching me from the shade.
XXX
He lopes ahead through the alley. "We're close, aren't we?"
Can never tell whether it's appropriate to call a ghoul 'teenage' -- by the lank and the voice the guy's south of seventeen, but his parents have mentioned a family trip to the edge of the Glowing Sea thirty years ago. Doesn't stop 'em babying him.
"You're sure Goodneighbor will be safe for Martin and Louise?" Papa Yelverton's got my shoulder again. I'd have words with most people by the third or fourth time, but he has those big black puppy eyes some ghouls get, and he's had a stressful week.
"Safer than Diamond City," is my best answer.
His fingertips stay lodged beside my collarbone. He focuses on my face, gushing heavy breaths in and out the vacant lot where his nose was.
"Geoffrey," his wife says, a few steps behind and smoothing her hand along the brickwork. "We can't be picky."
From his sweater vest to her swing dress, I wish they could be.
"Whoa," Martin is stopped at the alley exit. "It's across there, right?"
It is indeed. With how difficult slipping out of Diamond City is, I'd sing my praises for Goodneighbor's lack of guards -- can't in front of these three, though.
The three wild dogs in front of us, I mean. Tearing up a former feral. Blood, pus, and radioactive matter splashes across the alpha's jowls, giving him an unattractive beard -- intimidating to tourists, and probably unpleasant for any lady-dogs he's macking on.
And the feral -- who can actually say it's dead? Its limbs shake in the dogs’ mouths, its head lolls back on a broken neck, mouth falling open.
Last ghoul I escorted town-to-town, Shelley, told me she played a game. 'Who were they?'. She tries to get an age and an occupation for any feral she makes it close to.
It's bundled up in a bulletproof vest, probably a soldier, gender's harder to figure. Got a wedding ring full of rocks and the remains of its hair dangle to its chest -- which pre-war comics would tell me are ladylike traits -- but I hate to be that guy and make a call either way. You do you, feral.
Or don't, I guess.
Geoffrey grabs my shoulder for the eighth time. "How do we get in?"
Louise brushes herself off and stands center of the alley. "If you knew how to be quiet, we could sneak around."
"Mom's right," Martin shuffles back from the edge. "We need to keep our mouths shut and walk behind them."
Geoffrey doesn't have eyebrows, and it's hard to read the muscle where they were -- I get the gist of his expression, though: 'we know what they like to eat'.
"I'll go first," I roll my arms and crack my neck, retrieving my switchblade from its home with the Mentats and the ballot paper in my pocket. "I've got the most meat on my bones."
It's a joke, y'see, 'cause while I have more layers than they do, I treat mine worse. My skin oughtta commit mutiny.
Without pausing for agreement, I tiptoe in an arc around the dogs. Keep my eyes on the neon. Home. If they'll accept it. If it'll accept them.
A prick of the ears, the alpha turns --
Tackles one of its companions, a skinny mutt with a thigh in its mouth. The best bit on a humanoid. Oozing.
I flail my arm toward Goodneighbor's neon sign, 'this is our chance', speeding forward. The door is here.
I make it through.
Then Louise, then Martin, then -- five steps behind -- Geoffrey.
He slams the door.
A howl reaches over it as the dogs realise what they missed.
"Welcome to Goodneighbor," I pant. "Shelley Madison found an alright floor in one of the warehouses. Let's get you there."
"I was hoping to visit the store first," Geoffrey says, banging the door twice -- as if that'll shut the dogs up. "I need a toothbrush."
And I need to file a complaint against my brother.
"I forgot my watch," Louise says.
Christ, what have I done?
The sun goes faster here than Diamond City. These big buildings, huddled together. Hard for light to make it down, late afternoon onward. It's the last bit of our sunset.
"You can get clocks, brushes, whatever, tomorrow," I walk across the courtyard. Follow, come on, follow. Daisy's is too close to trust they will.
"Why not tonight?" Geoffrey asks, scuffing behind me. Two sets of feet join him.
"Nighttime isn't nice to drifters."
They make it past the shops, around The Third Rail. Main street -- people are waving to me from the shadow of the Rexford.
"Will you be okay?" Louise must have married Geoffrey over a shared love of grabbing arms uninvited.
"I have been so far," I give her a smile, and I keep it small. I don't want to look any more like our former mayor. I wiggle my elbow from her grip. "You will be too -- if you stay inside after dark."
We reach the warehouse in question. I open the front and wait alongside it. Call me Concierge Mcdonough.
"If we need help --"
"Shout my name. Small town. I'll hear."
Louise leads, followed by husband and son.
I walk away.
XXX
Daisy's ceiling swims above me. Holes in the styrene like needlemarks, dirt slashed across -- somehow. Does she want to plant an upside-down garden? Gardens need more than skid marks to grow on. Daisy, Daisy. Our pre-war optimist, all about flowers.
"You knew they'd leave. You told me, I told you," she sits on a chair across the room, but her voice comes from somewhere else. "I also told you not to mix your chems. Leave that to a professional."
"Ah, bite me," can ghoul bites transfer anything? She gave me a book once about a living corpse from long ago, far away, who could bite people and make them un-dead too. Corpse people who couldn't be seen in a mirror, who could turn into other things. Bite me, sister, let's give it a go.
"Johnathon Mcdonough." Who resurrected my mother? "You pulled seven people from that ruin of a city. You did your part."
"Commonwealth's no place for a nice ghoul," except for you, you story-loving, shop-owning...
"True. But you're just one man. A man who needs to eat more, at that," who put the lights out? Is that a towel on my face? Why.
Ow. Clunk. Bottle on my chest. Glass.
"Clean your arms off and drink something hydrating. Don't leave that mattress. You're handling deliveries in the morning."
XXX
Sleeping on Daisy's floor every night is no way for a grown man to live. Especially after slipping from my 'sister' quips and calling her 'mom'. Enough to have a lady act maternal over me, too far validating her.
Sometimes, I gotta go to Irma's instead. Flirt with a woman ten years my senior, everything’s an experience. She's got class and feathers, I won't sweat the age gap. She calls me --
"Johnny."
-- which is a romance novel more affection than anyone else shows.
"Johnny, are you listening?"
I turn from her shelf, setting down my bourbon.
"Just admiring the decor," I say, returning to her side, looming over her chaise. "What's eating you?"
"The fact you're admiring my walls rather than finding your own. You're a charmer, but charm doesn't pay for my bedroom floor," currently mushy with drool and stinking of smoke. "I didn't want to do this, but Amari and Kent earn their keep. It's unfair giving you a space for free."
Crunches, screams, and gunshots echo through the walls -- in this town, hard to say whether they're hallucinated or not. I recede deeper into my suit, patched at the elbows.
"There's a floor of the Old State House saved for solo drifters. Vic mostly leaves them alone."
Mostly. But not all the gunshots come from the ground.
"Or you could go back to Daisy, stay on as her errand boy," I could die in a ditch, that'd be less humiliating.
"Sure you don't have work for a strapping young blonde?" I wave a set of finger-guns her way, winking. "I'm even game for costumes."
"I may decorate the place like a bordello, but you know that's far from my trade," she straightens her back and swings her legs onto the floor. "Daisy's or the State House, Johnny. You're welcome to visit in the day, and you're welcome full-time if you find work."
XXX
We huddle behind the attic partition. Seven of them, seven of us; but six knives to seven guns. We wouldn't stand a chance.
"What'd you say, kid?"
I'm bumped from view. Someone's a bigger voyeur than I am.
"I-I said --"
I take an elbow to the side of my face. Put 'be taller' on my laundry list of desired cosmetic changes. I hate elbows. My ears stop ringing in time for the footfalls.
"Can’t shake any caps out. Guess they’re stuck. Might need to break it," Vic carries the guy by his collar, taking things two steps at a time. His boys trudge after them.
When they're two corners off, we follow with breath held tight and a sweaty cloud around us. Creaking, creeping, down the stairs. We lean into the office.
Through the exterior door, Vic lifts the guy like a proud parent. Hands under his armpits, letting him kick his little feetsies. Even coos a bit. "Ding ding, ding ding. Last chance to pay.”
Vic moves another meter forward, holding the guy in tableau against the ruddy glow of a Goodneighbor evening. They hang in the moment together.
They hang long enough that -- I have to step in, my foot trembles forward but another drifter kicks it out of sight. I move again, hands are on every limb, dragging me to safety.
I don't want safety. I want to save people.
There's a crunch and a scream.
"Boys. You know the nice thing to do when a dog breaks its legs."
And gunshots.
XXX
My first trip to Goodneighbor, Daisy saw me staring at the Old State House and said, 'kid, you a tourist?'.
I said, 'guess I am'. Barely twenty, mouth dropping every ten steps through the city -- Faneuil Hall, Trinity Church, the Boston Library -- miracle my muscles kept reeling it in. Yes, a kid. Yes, a tourist.
'If gawking like that's a habit, it's a miracle you haven't been mauled,' another miracle and I'd deserve to be sainted.
We walked to her shop, she took me upstairs. She dusted off a stack of books and piled them in my hands.
Allan, Beard, Brown, Dickerson, Morse -- 'Massachusetts', 'Federalist', 'Patriot'.
'Hancock'.
I gave her a look with a lot of eyebrow, a lot of teeth. The name for it, I would learn, was 'incredulous'.
She gave the ghoul house special, an enigmatic smile. I love those. The corners of her mouth stretching apart, without lips to give away the meaning. Could try to cut you, could try to cuddle you. I'm no mystery. I look at my reflection, I see everything I ought to fix.
'First person I've found who cares for the city after the fact,' I don't, though. I care for the things it might've been. The inscriptions about people fighting injustice. Bleeding-heart soldiers. Politicians of the people, for the people. 'Sneaking here from Diamond City, I don't imagine you're getting into anything good. Give these a read. Come back for something better than chems.'
I did half what she asked.
XXX
Once upon a time, the Old State House was a museum. The mannequins and shelving still litter the above-ground floors, but someone -- wonder who? -- moved the real exhibits to the basement. Radroaches lived in most unoccupied Goodneighbor basements, history was worthless. No-one would go looking.
Except strung-out, off-the-walls, fifty-chems Johnathon Mcdonough. He was into basements. He checked out, left me down here to clean.
John, Johnny. Head stinging and ears ringing. Throat and arms on fire. Gut bubbling, ready to wet the blaze. The only bit of my body that hasn't betrayed me is my skin. I don't deserve it. Get a better beau, epidermis.
I pry myself off the floor, rubbing three colours of fluid from my chin, and look at the exhibit in front of me.
One of the mannequins got separated from his family: big guy, sheet-white with separation anxiety. He's keeping a stoic face but ooh, that complexion. Can't hide his nerves.
Hey, those clothes, though. This isn't your regular anxious patriarch -- this is a Founding Father. The best Founding Father, if I say so myself. Almost didn't recognise him, given the red of that coat and the fact he's not flipping off the British.
From one John to another -- just as well you're in the basement. The view out your window isn't the best anymore. Inequality, taxation without representation, and an old-fashioned tyrant. Not sure how you’d communicate shock like this -- can’t get much whiter. Crumble into dust if you’d call things unjust?
... I'm projecting. If you’re unhappy, you’ll fight all over again.
From one John to another -- maybe you can help me. Me, I'm irresponsible at best, but in the hands of a ghost, I could be responsible for anything. A revolution. A town.
Let's get you re-elected.
Hancock.
XXX
"You're claiming you're clean... and that the clothes of a long-dead politician spoke to you and convinced you to lead a revolution," Irma takes another swig from her glass. "I can believe one or the other."
"I mean, when you put it that way," I hitch my pants.
"Don't misconstrue -- I agree Vic needs to go," she surveys the empty memory chairs, setting her same-old same-old bourbon on the side table. "But are you the person to organise it? And is this the reason to?"
I open my mouth to tell her about the drifter, and my tongue lolls out instead. My stomach rolls. The crunch, the scream, the gunshots. "Yes."
"If you're sure. I suppose that makes politics a family tradition, doesn't it?"
Does it?
"Why?"
"Mayor Mcdonough --"
I snort at her, curling in on myself. My pants slip, I hitch them. Shouldn't have taken the belt out, but one over the waistcoast and one under the waistcoat felt like overkill. I made the cosmetic choice. "He's the last person I'd get fraternal with, sister. He's no relation whatsoever."
"Johnny."
"No. It's John Hancock now," tip of my tricorn hat, my semi-democratic crown. "Civil servant."
Irma rests her chin in her hand, elbow digging into her chaise. "Hancock, then. I'll admit, it's charming -- appropriate enough."
She must see me beaming.
"But Hancock, before you start crusading, I'd recommend finding better pants. Try Hubris Comics," not my fault the museum only found half his digs historically significant. "Pinstripe slacks are the worst possible pair for that coat. Though it is a dashing coat."
“Dunno if I suit it. Washes my skin out,” I spin for her.
“Aspirational clothing, perhaps? It’ll look right eventually, I’m sure,” she says. “I bought this dress long before I bought The Memory Den. I was a brunette then.”
“I need more than hair dye.”
“Commonwealth’s full of chemicals. You’ll find something.”
XXX
The safeties click in canon across a dozen pistols, concluding in the snap of a rifle magazine exiting its slot.
"Tomorrow, ten, the gates. Tell everyone else to get inside. Kleo'll meet us there. Remember, anything happens to me, you listen to Fahrenheit and Daisy," I nod to the former.
She sets her rifle at her feet and folds her arms.
"Any questions?" every face is wide-eyed and nauseous. We've each got a drifter-out-the-window story, we know where this gets us if we fail. But Vic's got six boys, and we've got seven -- not to mention seven women. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. "Head home, then."
I sit in the rubble as the neighborhood watch filter out. Earlier in the day, this spot would see no sun. Three stories of concrete built up to the east, but a busted wall to the west, allowing a feature-length sunset from mid-noon to flat on the horizon. Raiders snapped the seats from the chairs, so it's not a comfy pass-time, but it's pretty enough to make up for it.
"See you tomorrow, boss," Fahrenheit saunters past, swinging her rifle over her back. She gives Daisy's poker face a run for its money -- ugh, Fahrenheit and money, not a link to be drawing yet. Figure if I die, she'll crack my ribs open and sell my organs on the black market to make back her rates. She has to have a plan in there somewhere. She wouldn't have agreed otherwise.
"See ya," I wave, but I don't look. Focus on the street, with clovers between the pavestones. With puddles glowing orange. With the beauty of a world coming back from the brink.
I take my hat off and bury my nose in it. Was this what you saw when they handed you Jefferson's document to sign? Or is that melodramatic. I just figure that if I keep rooted in your experience, I can forget that I'm still --
"John!" Daisy calls, picking her way through the cracked street, a piece of paper in hand. She staggers to a stop in front of me.
"Hancock," I insist, flipping my hat onto my head.
"Whatever you say. We need to discuss something," she shakes the paper in front of me. I can just make out the word 'invoice' atop the page. "Before tomorrow."
"Your gun broken?" I raise a hand to my collar and adjust the frills. Hard to get used to frills. "I can't see anything else that'd have a tomorrow deadline."
She slows the page enough for me to read. A list of chems -- their prices climbing alongside their mystery. Cheap Jet inhalers by the dozen, Buffout jars en masse, on to blends, on to... "Our informant tossed me their accounting records. Vic has some one-of-a-kind goods."
"I thought you hated my habit," I say. "Giving me a shopping list seems backwards."
"I'm discussing this now to help you kick them properly," the page goes into her pocket. She eases onto the ground beside me, a knee by her chest and an arm around it. "There is a strong chance that if you win, you'll find these -- or they'll be offered to you, or the like. Don't take them."
She stares at me with those black eyes. She has the kind of conscience that stocks cut-cost Addictol next to inflated Med-X. Poor life choices make you poorer -- though the choice is there. Most discussions, her exact words are ‘you're free to be an idiot. It’d be better if you weren't'. This is... 'listen, or else.'
Come on Daisy, I really didn't want you taking the surrogate mom thing too far.
"If they do something nasty, there's only one of each, yeah?" I lie back, resting my head on a cinderblock. I tilt my hat over my face. Joke's on you, Daisy, you'll never see how I'm feeling now.
"Most of them, true enough," there's a crinkle of folded paper, the flutter of the sheet being waved in my direction. "Have you ever been past HalluciGen? Pre-War, they made chemicals for urban warfare. Radiation cures, relaxant gas, the works -- for a given value of ‘work’. This invoice says Vic purchased a set of 'unique, inhaler-based HalluciGen products'. I assume they were prototyping personal versions of their broken aerosol line."
"Then this is a repeat of you telling me not to shoot up on elephant tranquilizers. If I ever found them. If I ever figured out what an elephant was," she showed me an illustration and I still didn't get it. What was with their noses? Pre-war animals, man.
"No. This is me telling you HalluciGen is dangerous. The radiation cure is likelier to turn someone ghoul than reduce clicks on a geiger," she lifts my hat with her free hand and holds it out of reach. "Do not kill yourself for a high."
Mmhmm. I raise my arm, gesturing for my tricorn with my fingers. Kill myself for a high, what does she know? I'd be killing myself for a low. The long low of seeing John Mcdonough in the mirror every year for twenty-eight years, watching him get worse at everything. When he was eight, his brother's arm was broken by a mirelurk, and he cried instead of splinting the wound. When he was sixteen, his mother got sick, and he found her flowers instead of finding her medicine. When he was twenty, his brother paid every cap on hand for a shack in the lower stands, and he ran out of town instead of appreciating the roof.
Six months ago, he watched a massacre. He had the chance to punish the guy who started it, but he didn't.
Two months ago, he let a drifter get thrown off a balcony. He tried to move, but given he has the worst body alive, he couldn’t.
Death is a great equaliser for bodies; radiation is a great equaliser for facial features.
John Mcdonough could quit the world... or I could quit being John Mcdonough.
She hooks the hat over my fingertips.
I stand from the heap of rubble, adjusting my hairtie and restoring my headwear.
"Promise you'll be careful," I can read this expression -- she's concerned.
"Careful as a revolutionary can be," I hop from the heap, landing two-boots on the sidewalk. My pants stay. My hat barely shifts. The get-up fits.
"If you have to take anything from him, make it that engraved belt of his," she eyes me over. "I feel embarrassed any time I look at that flag."
"Where's your patriotic spirit?"
"You never even saw America, you've got nothing to be a patriot for."
"Daisy, shh, neither did they."
We bicker the whole way home.
XXX
As soon as his wrists are tied, I grab him. One hand around his collar, pinky tangled in his bolero tie. His ten-gallon hat slopes to the side. I give him my brother's grin.
"Vicky, Vicky. If only you'd been an equal-opportunity employer. Might've had enough help."
One of his boys moans, dragging his broken spine toward an alley a hand at a time.
Fahrenheit stomps on the small of his back, amplifying his pain. She takes another shot, straight through his skull.
My innards groan in remorse -- but there are the memories, 'you know the nice thing to do when a dog breaks its legs'. The lackey knew. Tit for tat.
"The fuck're you doin', man?" it was supposed to be another Friday night outside the State House, stomping on drifters to see their insides. This time you stomped on a hornet's nest, Vic. "Leonard, Reeve!"
He looks to the left, at a pile of man in a plaid shirt. Then to the right, at a grey-suited figure blending into the pavement.
"Someone --"
"If you were a little nicer, you'd get a response. Unfortunately, you were a bad, bad boy," we take steps toward the State House, kick through the doors.
I'm not tall enough to keep him off the ground -- his heels hit every stair from the ground to the second floor. He twists his neck to see where we're going.
"You don't have the authority," his lip gains a nervous twitch as we make his recently-claimed rec room.
Fahrenheit passes me a noose.
I pass through to the balcony.
"Given the lack of an election, I figure authority's a 'you break it, you bought it' thing," I set him on his feet, and I slip the noose on.
He tries to headbutt me -- no chance, I sidestep.
Fahrenheit takes him by the shoulders.
I wrap the other end of the rope through the railing, figure eight between two bars, double-knot. Wiping my brow, I turn to face inside. "Vic stands accused of every crime I can name, and a half-dozen outside my vocabulary. Jury, your verdict?"
"Guilty!" the guys and dolls of the neighborhood watch yell in unison.
I look to Fahrenheit. "Judge, the sentence?"
"Hang from the neck until dead," she says with a smirk.
"Then by the power vested in me by a tenth of the Goodneighbor population," more than he ever spoke to, "I'll handle the execution."
It's not the most legal of jargon, but it's better than this town's heard to date.
I gesture Fahrenheit aside, take Vic by the waist, and --
drop --
the --
asshole --
over.
Crack, yelp.
"He's still breathing, boss," Fahrenheit draws a silenced pistol.
Gun-pop.
Vic's body pendulums side-to-side eleven times. His hat falls on the sixth. His blood trickles from his scalp, around his neck, finding paths in the sore muscles and bent vertebrae. His hair doesn't need the extra moisture -- always thought the grease was enough. What a mess. As they say: can't make a deathclaw omelette without risking your life and breaking a few eggs.
People -- drifters mostly, then Rail patrons, then shop staff and sundry -- collect below. Streets're loud with something sweet; curiosity, maybe a touch of hope. Lovers clutch together, friends lean close, loners find one another to talk.
Whatever they do, whatever they say, every soul is looking the same direction -- at the costumed vigilante on the balcony, standing stupid with a shotgun in hand.
Fuck.
That's me.
Give it longer, they'll lose attention -- or maybe not, only half the folks around here've seen my snappy digs and my silly hat. I'm a good spectacle -- this whole scene's a good spectacle. Can I be more?
A man stands over a town ready to receive a new leader. No voters here, no ballot paper. Doing their will all the same.
"Of the people --" what am I saying? "-- for the people!"
That's me.
Mayor Hancock of Goodneighbor.
XXX
I don't look like Mayor Hancock of Goodneighbor. I look like a franchise in the Mcdonough mayoral empire. Mcdonough 2.0: hotter, sexier, better hair.
Three days pass with no sign of the HalluciGen stash. I stay clean. I drink Nuka Cherry outside Daisy's shop. I organise patrol routes with the watch, and look over tax guides with Kleo. Everyone's mouths make it around the name: 'Hancock'. No slips into Johnny or Mcdonough -- but I can see it in the eyes of the traders and the ex-Diamonds. The Den keeps our memories vivid.
Day four, Irma helps me buzz off my hair. Doesn't work, my brother was balding.
Magnolia lends me make-up; fills my cheeks, highlights my nose, and defines my brows, in her terms.
Someone asks when my performance at the Rail is due, will I be wearing a slinky cocktail dress, or something a little less formal?
"Lucky neither's happening -- one glance, my looks'd knock you dead."
I'm a happy singer and I'll try any outfit once, but make-up gives the wrong impression. I'm a gravel-voiced mayor-by-murder. 'Minnie the Moocher' is for close company only.
Day five, day six; paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Memos to Diamond City, mentioning we have security, and traders get protection from here. I grab a copy of the Declaration from downstairs and mimic my namesake's signature. Shaky penmanship, my brother might realise who really wrote it -- not that he'd care.
Kent unearths some broadcasting equipment, so I even get a chance to ping Diamond City verbally. The intern at DCR snags my signal, we chat in a roundabout way. Soon every tuned set in the Commonwealth'll hear: Goodneighbor's open for real business. Risk of shanking and skulduggery sits at a record low, a ten per cent chance.
The seventh day, a human and a ghoul enter my office, a steel briefcase between them.
XXX
It looks like an old-world equivalent to a Jet inhaler, save for the aluminium label: 'property of HalluciGen Inc, prototype #1789, radiation curative project'. Red, bit blockier than I've seen, semi-opaque. The off-brand elements are a comfort. If they've lied about the contents, I at least know I'm not huffing the wasteland's most unpredictable chem. No disrespect to the folks who enjoy it -- and not pretending I haven't tried it -- but I treat Jet like I treat fire. Use it carefully, have a friend present to dump a bucket of water on you. Never take it when you've got somewhere to be tomorrow, because that somewhere might become a doctor's clinic.
I put it to my lips. I pull it away.
The Old State House basement would be empty even if I didn't own it. Why does the quiet feel wrong?
I've had too many days being fussed over. A week as mayor, I'm almost ready to resign -- if 'Prototype #1789' forces me to, it's no loss. I didn't prepare well enough. I'm meeting constituents and waiting for one to garrote me. Will the feeling ever pass? Think I understand the Sword of Damocles now.
I have a chain of command. Daisy, Irma, and Fahrenheit won't let anyone undesirable claim their hard-won town. If I die in this basement, I die made good, among friends from the past -- surrounded by letters I could read and understand like no other man in the Commonwealth.
If I live, I live as myself. Which could start being an alright thing to be.
I put it to my lips.
I press down with my forefinger.
My vision goes wavy green, like a dip in our radioactive harbour.
XXX
Daisy's ceiling swims above me. This floor was an office before the war, a four-employee law firm. One of the secretaries, a friend of Daisy's, got bored and poked pens in the ceiling. When Daisy's real home had the foundations busted by raiders forty years ago, she moved here for old time's sake. She pulled the pens out one by one. She sold them in the shop. Now there are holes.
The splash of mud is Daisy's fault. She was mopping dirt from the downstairs floor when she heard a sound. Running up with the mop, she saw a baby radroach crawling the ceiling. She hit it, brought it down in one strike. By the time she'd disposed of the body and sprayed homebrew bug repellent around, the mark had dried.
"I told you," Daisy says, "I told you not to kill yourself for a high."
My skin aches too much for me to be high. The first fifteen minutes? My best ever. The second fifteen? Good as Mentats. At half an hour, it went bad. I can see, hear, think perfectly. The only sense that's off is touch. The only thing I feel is an itch, a throb, a combination of the two.
"You've said that five times," I scratch my face -- yeesh, made it worse. The spot feels raw as an open wound. Could even be what it is. Dunno how this works.
"You’re coherent," she shuffles her chair closer. I can see her face. Can't read it. Typical. "Should I tell another story about my ceiling? Or is it your turn, now you're lucid."
I side-eye her. "What do you want to know?"
"What you took," she says. She sticks out her hand.
I pull the inhaler from my pocket.
The label has three lines, but she skims over twelve. Is it that hard to grasp? She taught me almost every aspect of English after 'cat sat on mat'. Figured she could infer what I did, maybe even why.
"... Is it doing what I thought it would?"
I slide my palms hard over my face, checking for lost elasticity, gouges, peeling layers. None, yet. "That's the story I wanted from you."
"It took a year to happen to me with constant low-level exposure," she raises her forearm in front of her, showcasing the pockmarked musculature. "The faster and higher the dose, the more sudden the turn."
"What's the fastest?"
"Vault-Tec in the Rexford said a week. Ex-military visitor from the West Coast said he'd seen a brother-in-arms change in a single blast," she touches the hole in the center of her face. "Ingesting the catalyst ought to make it short."
Could be a night, could be seven.
"The -- elephant? -- in the room," I croak, "is the nose thing."
"The nose thing?"
"Does it just... drop off?"
She moves to her makeshift living room, fumbling out of sight for -- "aha."
Bandages hit my chest.
"Does it?"
"It's a surprise," screw you, Daisy. "Cover your face when it's happening so you don't upset your populace."
"Nah, I'm calling in sick for the week."
"No way," she sits on the floor, folding her legs to the side. She lifts my wrist, rubbing a finger across the back of my hand, determined to give it a friction burn. "Yup, still taut. I'm estimating four days, soonest. Tell 'em it was an accident, put some dropcloths on your sofas. You'll get by."
XXX
"He's busy --"
"Busy decomposing, and not much else. Let her in, she'll give me something nice to think about."
Fahrenheit exits for the other side of the floor.
Irma enters.
The railing digs into the remains of my elbows. There's a breeze here, wind sucked from the streets and into the State House. Feels good, would feel better with hair. Even so, glad I shaved before taking the dive. Easier to make an official decision that bald is best than to watch the strands abandon me.
Citizens pause under the balcony in case I'm making an address, and continue when they realize otherwise. They have a point, the bandages need explaining. Twelve days in office, mayor's already falling apart. Least I'm still a good spectacle.
She's right behind me.
"Hancock," here's another person who can grab my shoulder anytime. She tries to spin me, but I dig my heels. Not yet.
"Hope you didn't change your mind about having a cute assistant," I fold my hands. Hot pink ridges and marble white ditches are sculpted through them. "Don't cry for me, sister. We all lose our looks eventually."
"I'm sorry."
Daisy started the rumor for me, saying it was a cock up with my usual mixing. No HalluciGen Inc, no deals with Vic's pencil-pushers, no self-loathing. Might even help in the hypothetical polls. Heroic, tragic, husky tenor. People swoon for stranger things.
"Thinking of starting a radio station. Take advantage of the bit of me that gained appeal."
"You're a politician. You'll be talking enough as it is," she releases her grip.
"Point," I unfold my arms, draping my hands over the edge. "Do me a favor?"
"It depends," she shifts into the doorway.
"Gotta get these bandages off. Amari in your basement, Kent in your side-room, you oughta have a tolerance for messed-up bodies," going by my arms, a tolerance might not be enough.
"Amari's not that kind of doctor," Irma says. That really her only protest?
"Tell Frankenstein I'm sorry for the mix-up. Will you help?"
"Hard to --"
I turn forty five degrees to share the hollow silhouette of my face. Haven't checked the mirror yet, but I know by touch and Fahrenheit's commentary that it looks like someone went at my cheeks with a soup ladle. Just the first drop in the minestrone ocean of changes.
"-- it's the least I could do."
Exactly what I wanted to hear.
I gesture to my sofa, covered with a dropsheet as recommended.
Her heels click along the floor.
I rotate the rest of the semi-circle from the balcony, head inside, close the door. Place my hat on the table, on my stockpile of celebratory chems. Word is ghouls need more to feel them. Tricky to get addicted. When I'm scraped skinless, I'll have a little party and find out. Even got Jet on hand.
We sit beside each other, angled so our knees touch.
First chance I give her, Irma stares. She stares near forever, but I've got forever, I won't stop her. Who needs to be attractive when you can catch attention like this? I could leave the wrap on. Outdo Daisy in the mystery department. "Your eyes are... endearing."
"Add that to the improvements list," I say, then trip over my tongue doubling back. "Wait, why?"
"Black sclera. Like Valentine -- no, like Daisy. Daisy's a better comparison," I'm one lucky bastard.
"Shall we suss the rest?" I find the end of the bandage, right of my throat. I peel the first five inches, then pass the tail to Irma.
She straightens her back and coils the roll over my head, slowing as she hits the mushy bits. Pinching centimeter by centimeter, she makes it past my nose -- my nasal cavity -- onto my forehead, and speeds her pace again. She tosses the completed roll into my hat, probably smearing it with face-gunk.
My mouth splits into a lipless smile. I press my fingertips into the new valleys of my cheeks and forehead. I furrow my brow, whether the movement shows or not. I blink and adjust my jaw.
"How do I look?"
Irma lounges against the sofa arm, fishing inside her dress. She collects a circular case from a hidden pocket. Clicking it open, she passes it my way. "Your complexion goes well with your uniform."
I check the mirror.
"Hah. Yeah. Guess red's finally my color."