The construction elevator ride felt like torture last time. John kept expecting to fall right through the floor. This time he felt almost bored. Not even the Tower sniper team firing from the open eighty seventh floor bothered him. He even stopped to get a look at the high end rifle, wondering if a scoped rifle that well made would make him a better shot.

“No one sees the Lady armed.” A gruff man with a combat shotgun greeted them in a narrow entrance to the music filled room at the top of the world. John handed over the rifle and weapon belt, keeping the folding holdout pistol and cutthroat razor in his boot.

The floor to ceiling windows and the last of the afternoon sun drew John in. He had to force himself to look last time. Now he stared across ruins and red forest, cut through by winding water and connected by straight roads. She could be anywhere, John thought.

John didn’t notice the song till a hand took his. “Mighty Man!” Lady Luck smiled wide, her smooth voice even better in person, and guessing right a big reaction wouldn’t help him. “Good to see you. Sit down child, I’ll queue up some music, but I’m waiting on confirmation on a scoop too.” John saw how excited it made her to keep people informed.

John had given his old fried Dutch a task, not just to occupy him, because he knew he’d get it done. “My people,” It sounded strange to John. “When the door is open they can hear you.” John felt like he kept at least part of his sworn oath as Lady Luck started writing, ready to bring a little light to the darkness.

“Good afternoon my children, Lady Lucky is with you. No matter where you are, be it the top of the Tower with me or the deepest, darkest hole in the ground. It don’t matter if you’ve known me twenty seconds or twenty years, you are all my children” Someone rapped on the glass and pressed a note to it. Lady Luck thrust her arms up and span in her chair.

“Now, my children bring me news from all over so I can bring it to you. And I have got news for you. Everyone knows that ghouls are just like the rest of us, good and bad, only today there’s a few less bad ones. It seems some brave souls have cut off the Red Hand and put their heads on fucking spikes!”

An uncommon moment of silence followed Lady Luck’s excited outburst. “Apologies my children, I’ll put a cap in the jar. Hell, I’ll put in two and say fine fucking work brave souls, stay safe out there. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and together my children, we’ll all stay free.” Voices sang the same words in a joyous refrain as John wondered how that would go down in Vault.

“Heads on spikes might have been a bit much.” John thought about how he’d explain that.

“I don’t make the news, I just bring it to my children, blood, guts and all. Besides, those people have heard enough lies.” Lady Luck got that right. “What about when the door closes?” She asked, concern on her tanned face.

“I have a friend who’ll record it and play it back, both shifts will hear it.” John knew Dutch could handle that.

“That’ll do for now, but I don’t want tapes getting mixed up. Yesterday’s news is like a broken record.” Lady Luck changed the subject. “About Rosie.”

“We’ll talk about that, but first I need your help.” John saw pride in the woman’s eyes as he put others first.

John told her about his plan to free people slowly, easing them into the world with purpose built halfway houses. Robco stayed quiet, John took the lead in explaining how everything hinged on keeping people moving. Lady Luck led him through a room with six or so people working radios, taking notes and pinning them up on the inner wall.

The more notes that said the same thing, the more space the clusters took up. She had contacts far and wide. Her voice reached into every home with a radio. Extended further still by the equipment John recovered. People could reach back with little more than a cb radio hooked up to something tall and metal.

As they turned a corner John saw a face he half remembered leaning over terminals, sliding switches and dials. All of which connected to the equipment rack he’d recovered and then to the dark metal core of the building that served as the transmitter.

“Good to see you big man.” John didn’t fully remember the bald man in a robe, but knew his voice. Mr Goodnight, Lady Luck’s nighttime counterpart and partner. “You did a hell of a job getting us this John, were covering a lot more ground.”

“Yeah.” John saw the old radio equipment restored and repaired fully, even painted to match the building's spine. “Can I?” John asked, tapping the pipboy, knowing the technically minded Mr Goodnight would understand. He laughed warmly.

“Funny, you’re girl didn’t ask, she just dove right in. Even helped me fine tune it.” The smile faded from the older man’s face as he put a comforting hand on John’s shoulder. “She’s a smart one, I’m sure she’s fine.”

John stayed quiet as he pulled the mail sleeve up onto his bicep. He connected to the radio equipment, and sent a mapping pulse through the Tower with power and out across the wastes. As he had planned to do three months ago, as he and Rosie had planned to for years.

“It’s rendering.” John held out the screen, showing a blank screen that didn't seem to surprise Mr Goodnight.

“You can leave it right?” He asked. John unplugged the wireless four pin and the screen didn’t change. “Good.” He showed John through the room used to restore the old black circles, now with a row of terminals for assessing holotapes. John waited with Robco, sitting on the leather furniture that he recognised as Robco’s handiwork. A fond remnant of the history Robco and Lady Luck shared.

Lady Luck entered from the glass booth as the music changed to the radio plays. “We found a load of these plays on holo, the children love them.” She laughed at the melodramatic voices pretending to be The Silver Shroud, or The Starlet Sniper, or a beeping eyebot and his young companion.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

John had listened to a few but Sara only ever let him listen to a few minutes. Ordering it off because she never managed to be up to date and refused to listen to episode four if she hadn’t heard three.

“So.” Lady Luck stared from the seat opposite John. He nodded and she flipped back through a yellow pad. “Two months ago, she arrived and told me that she’d escaped. She’d had trouble on the road and told me that this man saved her.” Lady Luck broke her gaze and stared out across the setting sun, guilt and worry in her eyes.

“This would be the ex-knight?” John thought of something but didn’t say it, then Lady Luck did.

“No such thing as an ex-knight.” She made it sound like a stain that wouldn’t wash out. John always found it a point of pride. “Said his name was Black.” John smirked at the standard Recon cover name. Still better than Mr Rivers and Mr Lake, he thought, remembering his friends. “I told Rosie she could stay and we’d get her to the Rest, but, I’m sorry John, truly I am.”

“Don’t be sorry. Rosie, she’s stubborn as…” A wastrel with something worth three caps, John thought, thinking of the Brotherhood saying without speaking.

“A brahmin with a headache.” Robco joked, thinking John has stumbled over the words.

“She stayed for a few hours and rested, then she met Robco in the market, then nothing since.” Lady Luck seemed worried, and for once, John said something to comfort her.

“The man she’s with, I think I know who it is. He trained the person that trained me, Rosie's in good company.” John also knew he wouldn’t find them. He could be ten feet from Recon scout and not know it.

“This him?” The woman turned the pad and showed him a drawing of an older man he didn’t know.

“I never met him.” John felt he could recognise the face from the drawing, if he saw it again.

As Lady Luck flipped to the next page it occurred to him what it might be. It still took his breath away. Lady Luck had captured Rosie’s image in a drawing she’d worked hard on. Green eyes, high cheekbones and full lips.

“You can have it.” She tore both pages free and held them out for John. He touched the paper just as he realised why he couldn’t take it.

“I’m sorry I can’t take them. Showing them around won’t help, and it could hurt. I’ve got a lead to follow first. Thank you.” John tried not to look at the drawing that captured Rosie’s eyes.

“I’ll keep it here.” Lady Luck understood, and held a look of fear from her face.

John felt better as soon as he reached the ground. He made his way through the night market. Past the mercenaries celebrating and partying, along the stalls that sold weapons and armour. Robco had John pick up some weapons, touching his nose if the price were too high and folding the collar of his coat up if he'd reached a good deal.

He picked out an smg that looked more like a grease gun, a break action sawn off, and a long pump action shotgun. All which were far below both men’s standards. Still, John got to practice at dealing with the gruff traders, and Robco didn’t have to hand caps to people who dealt chems almost under the table.

John remembered the Bathhouse well. Wooden walls and floors, mirror backed bar, leather booths and steel tables. And Roxy. Wearing a different, yet equally short red dress, curved blades strapped to bare thighs, and long dark hair.

The first time John had arrived, on his third day above ground, the stunning hostess paid him little attention, if any. Not this time.

“Welcome to the Bathhouse.” She slid next to John and hung herself on his arm, walking him in. “Anything you like?” She cast a slender arm around her domain as vivacious waitresses brought food or led men upstairs above the bar. John wondered for a moment what had changed, then just tried to enjoy the feeling that something had changed.

“I’m looking for Billy.” John said as Roxy’s demeanour dropped.

“Behind the bar.” She turned and greeted Robco in a far more genuine manner.

John peered through the crowd of deputies at the end of the bar and saw Billy holding court. Clean shaven, hair cropped short. He raced the triple armed robot to mix and serve drinks, only losing by a little.

John sat on a stool and waited. He looked in the mirror admiring his tanned face, almost clean shave, and hair just long enough to be called styled. A rattling of rails preceded the bartending bot’s arrival.

“Beer.” John asked the round eye on the articulated stalk. For a moment he thought the ball shaped bot looked almost bored by levering a pump with one nimble arm and holding a wooden mug with the other. The fizzing beer tasted better than he remembered.

“That’ll be ten,” Billy stopped as John brought the mug down. He looked like he hadn’t slept since John left him that night, dark under his eyes and a forced smile that soon became real. “Of course your money’s no good here.”

“Oh, why's that?” John asked with a smile.

“Because I don’t take money from folk who’ve got more guts than brains.” Billy laughed and poured another three beers while getting a waitress to take over behind the bar. John, Billy, and Robco sat out on the second floor balcony, closed to customers once the last one left.

“Robco says you have a lead?” John asked Billy after finishing his thick steak and steaming corn, washing it down with another beer.

“A friend of mine got a tip. An old building, like a school for the army.” John tried not to let the combination of Vaults and old world military get his hopes up. “Says it’s near enough intact and that in the basement is a dark, thick, round door.”

“How big?” John knew the size would be the most impressive thing.

“He didn’t say.” Billy seemed unconcerned. “Should be about four days, and you get a fifth of whatever we bring back.”

“And first pick.” John saw he had the advantage, but didn’t push it. “Of inside the Vault. If it's even a Vault that is.” John knew how rare Vaults were, rarer still with people inside. He knew that a water purifier or portable generators would help his halfway house. And he wouldn’t spend four days waiting on a courier.

“Now hang on, where is it?” Robco interjected. Billy sighed, but respected both men well enough not to lie.

“My friend got the tip from the Four Corners. We’d stop there first then head a day east.” John saw Robco's expression change as he walked over to the balcony rail. “Look, worst case you make a few caps off the salvage. Best case, who knows what we could find.” John knew what he could find beyond the vast Vault doors. Horror and misery, but also things that could free his people sooner.

John stood by Robco, watching the people weave through the night market below. “The only thing Sara told me about the Four Corners was that she wouldn’t roll in there with twenty knights.”

“Been going for decades now. Three gangs control the only roads left. East, south, and west. You want to travel their roads you pay or you don’t make it home. And at the middle of it is slave markets, chem dens, bloodsport.” Robco took a drink from his flask, beer not strong enough to cleanse the memories.

“I ain’t gonna tell you what to do son. I should have before, but it’s too late for that now.” Robco looked pensive, as if history were repeating. John thought that Robco blamed himself for getting him mixed up with the Brotherhood.

“Last time, I would have gone to the City either way, I made the decision. I made the decision to join the Brotherhood, and I don’t regret it.” John thought about everything he'd learned, the lives he’d saved, the friends he’d made. “I can live with the choices I’ve made.” John showed he’d followed the advice Robco had given him.

“The thing about living with choices son, is that you don’t know how they are gonna shake out.” Robco tried to give more advice, his expression mixed.

“Four days in the field looking for something is pretty much what I’ve been doing all this time.” John wanted the worried look to leave his friend's face.

“I can’t tell you what to do, but hear me on this John, I can’t help those people. I got folk in this world already that need me, can’t go taking in even a dozen more.” Robco looked haunted by what he’d seen, and the thought of all those people willingly staying down there.

“I’ll take a few days, make a few caps and get back. It’s probably another bank vault or something.” The more John thought about it, the more getting back out into the wastes appealed to him. Things were simple out there.

“Lou’s gonna give me hell, you know that right?” Robco smiled and shook his head. “Just be careful, ain’t nothing comes easy out here.”