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Do No Harm

Morning comes, but it could have fooled you. The windows are black with frost and the wind's whipped up into a howl. You about lost your dick going out for a piss. Must'a slept sometime though, because you stumble back in to the smell of hotcakes.

It's Jack at the fire this time. He's clad in a ragged tee and the lower half of his inner-layer road leathers. He's standing taller, but his scales shine dull when they catch the firelight.

“Top 'a the Mornin', Doc."

It's a chipper voice that greets you. The fold in his ear suggests he's putting a little of it on.

"What time is it?"

He shrugs.

"Beats me. Shan and Charlie went out scoutin' the bridge. Shan wouldn't let me come."

"So you're making hotcakes? I'd be out cold if I were you."

The ear wilts suddenly, and his whiskers with it. His gaze slides past you to the door.

"It ain't your mate out there in the storm. Shan and I 'been watching each other's backs since Goodsprings. I should be there."

"She just lookin' out for 'ya."

"I know. And hell, maybe she's right. Either way, no use to laze around and worry, so I'm keeping busy. Pancake? They're for the scouting party, but I'm sure I could sneak you one."

He looks back to his skillet and then to you, muzzle softening. You'd have rather he bitched you out, but it's been a month since you've had something that didn't come out of a can or get cut from a molerat. The smell is so sweet it burns. You give him a nod.

"I'm sure Charlie has her back."

"I'm sure he does. And she can take care of herself, but so can I, you know?"

He winces.

"I'm sorry about last night, by the way. She had no right to treat you like that."

You flash him a practiced smile.

"It's not her fault she's crazy about you."

"Trust me, Doc. You have no idea."

He slides you a cake.

Sugar shakes the sleep out of you by the third bite or so. The wind's gone nowhere, but there might be a hint of skyglow behind the frost. It's enough to get you in gear.

“Need anything after last night?"

You pack light as traveling doctors go; most of the chucklefucks are little more than dealers. But you know better than to be empty handed. For now you've got places to be, and the weather isn't looking friendly.

“...stimulants? Buffout?"

“I'm fine," he yawns.

You roll the kit back up in your sleeping bag.

“Your call. Could be a long day."

“Hold your horses, Doc. Good chance we're laid up yet."

It wasn't a surprise to hear; still, you feel yourself grimacing. The merchant back in Ohio hadn't told you what you'd be up against when he passed the word, but it was awful far and an awful lot of money. Whatever it was, it wasn't casual. And it was you they wanted. Not just a doctor, but you.

“It ain't just cargo we're moving, Jack. The wealthy aren't patient, and neither are the dying."

He shrugs.

“I hear 'ya; we'll see what Charlie thinks. No doubt Shan would lay up given the chance; love 'er to death, but if we let her have her way we'd probably still be camped out with the NCR waiting for the heat to back off."

There's something frustrating about the even keel of his voice.

“What Charlie thinks? These people didn't hire me to come be the new village quack at my leisure. We should have been there a week ago."

Jack's brow furrows, humor fading.

“You didn't hire us for our itinerary. If you wanted that you should'a called Crimson. 'Course, Crimson would'a turned around for sure when they heard the bridge was out. More likely they'd be gone 'soon as they worked out they were too far east for the NCR to wipe their asses for 'em. Nothing out here is fast, and none of it is regular. Still, there's a case for moving. We're plowing headlong into winter. Things may well get worse before they get better, and we've neither the food nor the time to winter here. And even I don't have the patience."

The door slams open and Shan staggers in, looking like she rolled in a bowl of sugar. Bits of frost glint at the corners of her eyes and her breath spills white and heavy across the floor.

“It's fucked," she barks.

“Huh?"

“The bridge. It's fucked. It's not just out, it's washed out. River's damn near breached the bank."

Jack Shudders.

“Jesus. No shit?"

“None. I don't know what the hell we're going to do."

“What about the inland bridge?"

“95? Worse. 125 or 495 maybe, but that's days out of our way. Longer in this weather, and there ain't much shelter out that way."

You look up at her.

“So what do 'ya figure then?"

“I said I don't know! Back to Diamond, I guess, but to with so much snow we might not make it. I told you we should'a stayed there; this is bad."

“Where's Charlie?"

“Still at the riverbank. Dumbass found a boat and got it in his head it might get us across the delta. Sent me back ahead to check on the animals."

Jack pipes back up.

“He's alone out there?"

“He's got the flare gun. And ain't nobody raiding in this weather; reckon those asshats have frozen to extinction in these parts by now. Either way, we wait for gunfire. One shot for a green light, two or more for distress. Those pancakes?"

“All yours, sweety."

She chuffs, rolls one up, and forces it down her gullet.

“Aces."

Twenty minutes comes and goes with the pancake batter, and a single shot pops off somewhere behind the far wall. Shan pulls Jack into the fold of her jacket.

“On your feet, Doc."

But you're already at the door.

It's not so bad now that you aren't fresh from the bedroll. The snow's knee deep under the eves and worse on the road, but it's settled so light and fine it's hardly tougher than wading a stream. 'Course Shan's on point taking the brunt of it, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Step carefully, watch out for ruts that could gather water and freeze, and don't let the wind get ahead of you. Water Street passes like a scene from a postcard, rotting wood buried in snow and shattered windows frozen shut. Captain Peachfuzz lumbers beside you, hooves muffled. You've been riding him long enough to know the wheezing sound he's making means something's got 'em nervous. You tighten up on the halter.

The block ends with the wrought iron fence of an empty park, and the wind rushes back from the ocean to greet you. It's relaxed some since last night, but it's certainly stiff enough to lean on, and then stiffer as Shan turns north to press for the riverbank. The windward side is different. The snow is shallow here, but the ice is thicker and much more random. Shingle rooves, laid bare by the wind, ruffle like gulls' feathers, and the ocean's artillery thunder echos dull and loud across the delta.

Shan wasn't kidding about the river. The water's high enough that the floating docks in the harbor have nearly capsized into their moorings, and the surge has the current churned up in chaotic swells tall enough to curl and break. She leans up against the quay and pulls Jack close.

“This is insane. Jesus, Charlie, you've had some ideas, but this?"

Jack rolls a shoulder and slides his arm around her back beneath the jacket.

“We'll be alright. He'll have a plan."

She clenches her eyes shut, rubs them, and then pries them open again.

“I just wish I had a different one."

Most of the harbor is a forest of rusting masts, and all but two of the surviving hulls are swamped or capsized. The honeyed glow of Charlie's lamp is clear in windows of the outermost survivor. Shan turns for the dock ramp and swallows audibly. It's maybe an eighth mile up, and you can already hear it ringing as it bucks in its moorings. Some harbormaster a few centuries ago hadn't thought to add railings, and twisting waves break in torrents across the foot of the thing. It would be treacherous even without the animals, and if the Atlantic was anything like Great Erie, the water would have you frozen as soon as drowned. Shan gives Jack a squeeze and turns him loose. Her proud ears wilt a little without him. She steps up to the gate, and then falters. He shakes his head.

“It's alright. I'll go first."

He pipes up a little.

“Then you, then the Doc, okay?"

“Yeah," she breathes.

He turns back to you and takes Captain Peachfuzz's halter, lowering his voice just over the wind.

“She can't swim, Doc. Keep an eye on her."

You don't need him to tell you not to breathe a word of it.

And then he's on the ramp, steps falling slow and careful. Aesop shudders and then stumbles on with a tug. Peachfuzz bays mournfully and fights the straps. Jack slips. Suddenly your heart is in your throat, but he's still standing. He sets a paw on the animal's nose and whispers something. Another tug. This time they ease their way down.

Shan steps back up, perhaps being careful to hide her face from you. Like the brahmin before her she shudders as the planks buck up beneath her paws, but she presses on. You follow closely.

It's about as slick as you feared. The surface is scalloped with grip pads, but water's gathered and frozen between them. The saving grace is the sea spray. The ice it's left is mostly course rime, which grips well enough as long as you're careful. With Shan ahead of you, you couldn't have been reckless if you wanted.

The dock at the bottom is slick, too, but the footprint's wider, and the pitching not quite so severe. Shan grabs Jack's hand and squeezes it. He squeezes back, but pulls free and trades you the halters.

“Be careful," she barks.

“I'll be fine. Peabody doesn't spook."

“Still. We might not be able to warm you up if you go in."

“I won't go in."

And then he's back up the ramp and wrangling the last brahmin. Son of a bitch really does make it look easy; a word or a scritch here and there, and it's like the rest of the world just doesn't exist for them. Calm right down and do as he says like they had a nice chat about it.

Another couple of careful steps has him down again. Shan's ears prick back up. She reaches for his hand, but stops herself and makes like she was only rubbing the heat back into her own.

“That everything? Are we good?"

“Fine," she yips, sounding better.

“Doc?"

“We're good."

Together you make for the boat, dancing as the waves churn the platforms beneath you. Charlie's sat patiently in the wheelhouse, wearing his heaviest jacket and an easy grin.

"She's a beaut, ain't she?"

The boat is some kind of fishing trawler. Single-level deckhouse, in-boards, and a name that starts with a 'J' and has at least one 'n' in it. She wouldn't have looked like much if it wasn't so hard to find one still floating, but right about now it feels like you won the lottery.

It's quiet inside. The wind's playing the rigging like a harmonica, but from here it's muted enough to hear each other breathing. Somewhere below, the hull moans as it rubs a dock piling. It's a sick sort of sound. Shan licks her chops and swallows.

"You really sure about this, Charlie?" You seen it out there?"

"I ain't blind, Shan."

"Not stupid either. That's the part that's got me confused."

His smile fades.

"It's bad. I know. I get it. But we've got a job to do, and even if we wanted to turn tail, we're a lot closer to Port-Castle now than we are Diamond.

"Bad? It's fucked!"

"If we were 'fucked' you'd know it. We'd be dead. For now we're not dead, and that means we're not fucked. We'll get through this."

"In this bucket?"

"Sure. We're under storm surge. Long as we don't waste too much time the current'll be driving us in more than out."

"So? What are we 'gonna do, row?"

His smile returns

"I told you this SOB was good luck."

He reaches into his backpack and produces a steel cylinder. You aren't too sure what you're looking at, but Shan's jaw drops.

"You kept that? How?"

"A bait-and-switch. Your average raider doesn't know a fusion core from an energy cell. So I gave him an energy cell, and they were on their way.

"And if they had? They'd have shot you where you stood!"

"But they didn't," he smirks, strutting to the aft of the deckhouse and slotting the thing in somewhere.

"Your life wasn't worth that thing, Charlie!"

He throws a switch. Electric lights flicker on around you, and the deck shudders into a low rumble.

"Evidently it was. Unless you had a better idea."

She sighs.

"You ever run a boat before, Charlie?"

"Read about it in a magazine."

She stammers half a reply and chokes on it. He sets a hand on her shoulder.

"I said I hear 'ya, Shan, and I know you've been right more than your share, but sometimes you've got to have a little faith."

She glances to the water and so do you. It's inky black and cut with standing waves and a whole lot of maelstrom, but it's like he says: the bulk is flowing upstream.

“Just a quick jaunt to the other side, huh?"

He gives her a bit of a squeeze.

“God willing."

Presently Jack stumbles in from the deck, having tied the last brahmin.

“We're all aboard, Skipper."

Charlie flashes the smile again and cracks his knuckles.

“Right. Jack, you're with me. Don't need you getting wet out there if we can avoid it, so keep an eye on the engine and anything in the water I might miss. Shan, you're going to have to mind the animals, because I want the Doc on the spotlight, alright?"

The spotlight is mounted at the bow, where even now waves gush through the scuppers. That yote is going to owe you one.

“Right," she says. You nod your understanding.

“Alright. If things get hairy, holler good and loud. Don't wait until you're in deep shit. Got it?"

More nods. The floor shudders again, and you feel the thud of the props as they engage beneath you.

"Cut the moorings, take your stations, and cross your fingers."

Shan takes a turn at cracking her knuckles.

“Yes, sir."

A quick shoulder to the door and you're back in the thick of it. The wind shrieks like a flock of barn owls and the wires sing loud and shrill. You'd forgotten how cold it really was. Between the water and the gusts it cuts straight to the bone and hollows you out from the inside. Even Shan shrinks into her jacket as she fights to fish her knife from the folds.

"Ready, Doc?"

Your gloves are thick and fingers numb. You swear and bite at the lug of your blade. It snaps open, taking a fleck of tooth with it.

"Ready."

"Then cut!"

She pounces on her docking cleat and you throw your weight into yours. The mooring is thick but ancient; it shreds under your blade like rotten cork.

"Nearly loose here!"

"Finish it!" She barks.

You roll your weight onto the spine of the blade and the tether snaps. The stern bucks in the waves and starts to kick around.

"Shit!"

Shan cocks her arm to swipe again. The bow swings in toward the dock and starts to dig. There's a thud below, and then a screech of metal. The props throb and churn shimmering foam in the darkness.

"Work with me, you piece of shit!"

Another swipe, then a crack. Her cable sings in the air and falls away. The bow slides out again, and the deck heels beneath you. The brahmin bay and scramble. Shan clasps at the gunwale and lunges for their tie-offs. You clamber forward for the light.

The grip-tape around the deckhouse long since wore through to the fiberglass, and what little purchase there is to find in it is drowned in a slurry of ice and brackish water. You leap and swing and scuttle, but with the mooring free and engines churning you might as well be saddling a radstag. Your feet slip beneath you, and your hands along the railing. Your toe stubs. Your thumb jams. Your knee slams the deck and splits open. The first wave breaks wide and tall over the bow. The foam looms like gothic steeples, and crashes down like buckshot.

God you're cold. You thought it was cold before, but it was nothing. The water stings like molten nickel and spreads roots through your ribs to bind your heart. You gain a foot. You loose the bulk of it. The deck pitches, and you slide forward another three on your shins. Behind you the deckhouse glows like a microwave oven. Warmth. Safety. You'd agreed to this why, exactly? So the snekdog wouldn't freeze to death? So the 'Yote wouldn't drown? Good reasons. Charlie always had such goddamn good reasons. Must be why you pay him the big bucks.

You grab hold of the light and swing it down to the whitecaps. The milky beam spills out across a forest of crooked swells and mounds of folding water, but with the light so low it's tough to pick out much definition. Foam flashes on along the crests and the troughs drag long shadows. They look a lot bigger than they had from the quay, and in the light you can see the water's stained a thick, turbid tan. But you're clear of the dock and the worst of the eddies. The bucking tapers off and you settle into a slow, awkward tumble. It's across the keel at first, but the props surge and the rudder kicks out beneath you. The deck heels, and then you're rolling across the beam.

It's easy for a moment. Just a couple of degrees and a spout of stinging whitewater. Your right foot slips, but your left hand is frozen to the railing. Then it feels like you'll roll back, but you don't. The sea swells slowly beneath you, and bit by bit you begin to heel again. Ten degrees, then fifteen, and maybe twenty. Another wave breaks and vomits through the scuppers. This time your legs give out. The spotlight slews across the water and your knuckles slam between it and the railing. Good thing your hands are numb. And then there's what Charlie said. Are you in trouble? You scramble to your feet and swing the light back 'round. Not yet. And if you were, who would save you? Shannon? The heel grows until you brace a boot on the gunwale, but you hold the light steady. Charlie must see something, too, because the heel breaks all of a sudden and the bow plummets down the windward side. Water again. Cold as hell, but softer. You plant your feet as the deck rises beneath you.

The clouds part some and there's a hint of moonlight. For a moment, at the crest, the delta spreads wide before you: The far bank is a mess of tidewater. The tributaries are breached, and the structures along them kneel from their foundations into the sea. There might be land, but you can't make it out for the floodwater; you sweep your light over it to make sure Charlie sees. And then ahead: Plum island, the mouth of the Merrimack, and the ocean. The beam catches the cab of the Plum Island Light. The glass is shattered, but the mirror glares back from within.

God it's dark out there, moon or no moon. You can make out the ghosts of bigger swells behind the breakwater, but the beam falls short. After that it's just the rush and thunder. The voice of the Witch of November, like the rhymes the merchants sang on Eerie.

But then the bow's down again, and you're back in the darkness.

Another kick on the rudder, but not so much this time. The waves break across the bow at maybe thirty degrees, rolling the deck just enough to keep you dancing. Scan the beam. Pause on the debris and the maelstrom. Ignore the cold as it squeezes the air from your lungs.

And it's slow going. The water rushes by beneath you a scant few knots slower than you claw your way ahead. The bank creeps glacially away, each wave and current threatening to drag you back or pull you under. Waves break. Spray stings. Ten minutes, maybe, but it feels like forever. Then there's the middle.

The waves straighten, and the engines surge ahead. The bow dips through a trench and then lunges to port. You're thrown free of the light and slip to the starboard gunwale, but the water's moving with you now. All you need is somewhere dry and sturdy enough, and you're home free. It'd be a day or two to Port-Castle on brahmin. Three if the weather stays bad. Tough, maybe, but survivable. And if you played your cards right you could get in before slipping into the second week.

Maybe Shan was right back in Diamond. Maybe it was foolhardy to push north. But you'd make it. Keep this train moving and maybe your employers won't even notice you're late. Weather be damned.

The far bank barrels toward you and the bow kicks out again. You sweep the beam back across the shore. It's worse up close. It wouldn't have mattered if the bridge had held together; the floodplain on the far side is gone. To the east you can make out the skeleton of a forest, but bank's breached there too. Three feet of water, maybe. Two, at least, and moving fast. And the buildings you saw? Swamped damn near to the balconies. Planks, shingles, and branches litter the water, beat the hull, and crunch like bones in the prop blades. The water roars; the brahmin bay and whinny.

There goes the rudder again. Starboard this time. The sunken forest's breaking the worst of the waves so the heel isn't so bad, but the engines cry as the current shears against them. At first there's no progress, and then maybe a little. The stern catches a tree truck with a sickly thud and jolts you half way back to port. The deck floods for a moment and the beam slews, but you catch something in the light.

A barn.

The half-rusted corrugation catches and scatters the spotlight in firework bursts. You hadn't seen it before, tucked as it is into the trees. It must be perched on a bit of a hill, though, because the foundation is just high enough to clear most of the whitecaps. Charlie pulls close and the props settle. The current takes over, then there's the thud of the keel across the ground. The deck lurches, but you've got the handrail.

“Doc!"

It's Shan shouting to you, her voice just loud enough to carry. She's braced on the gunwale just behind the deckhouse and beckoning. You leave the spotlight where it is and scuttle back. She grabs you by the shoulder.

“Get up there and check it out, alright? Might be we can make land out the back, and if nothing else it'll keep the brahmin from freezing. Charlie and I 'got the boat handled."

You glance down to the swirling water.

“Not planning to leave without me, are 'ya?"

“Promise," she barks, “Charlie's got it."

You swear under your breath.

Do you trust him?

Sure as hell not the way Shannon does.

You haul yourself onto the railing anyway.

“Can you make that, Doc?"

It's maybe fifteen feet to where the barn door's wedged open. The water's at least shin deep and hauling ass, but it looks workable if you're ready for it. And there's a tree about half way. As long as the branches hold, you ought to be able to steady yourself there.

“I've got it."

Your balance could be better, but you leap.

The cold is like stepping in magma, then you can't feel anything at all. Even with the waves broken the water tears at your shins until your soles slip, but then there's the tree. You grab a branch and dig the toe of your boot into the gravel. Just a little moss in the wrong place and you'll be finished, but there's no moss. You glance back to Shannon.

"Two shots for trouble!" She barks.

"Two shots."

You lunge for the barn. The water tugs again. This time you stumble, but there's the door. The rotting planks crunch like eggshells under your fingers, but they hold. You flop forward onto the concrete.

Christ.

If any part of you is dry, you can't find it. Your pants are drenched and tearing talons into the skin and muscle beneath them. Your feet dance below you like a marionette's. The jacket's better, but not much. A dull, heavy ache has already taken root under your collar and started creeping down your spine. Soon you won't feel it at all. That'll be trouble.

It's dark inside. The spotlight casts faded shafts through the ice on the windows, but there's little to see in them except dust and sunbeams. You can just make out the silhouette of a loft above you, and maybe a staircase. Another pair of windows glow faintly on the second level of the far wall. The rest is darkness.

And the sound. Sleet and hail beat the roof like the band of a snare, and the cracks and warrens all around you shriek and whistle. There's something else, too, but it's hard to place. Your imagination, maybe, but you swear it's stronger as you stumble toward the stairs. You set your hand on your ten millimeter, still not quite hearing it.

Two shots for trouble. You aren't much of a shot, but that you can do. God willing Shan or someone could even get to you.

The stairs groan under your weight, but they hold. The far windows flash with lighting, and then again as you get closer. But you stop short. Now you hear it properly: a faint, crackling humm, like a radio caught between stations. You draw your pistol and turn to the shadows.

Surely it's no one.

Surely it's nothing.

You rack the slide.

"Hello?"

The hum chugs on. You strain for a direction in the racket of the hail. Closer to the wall, maybe. Another bolt of lightning, and in the light of the flash a stack of boxes. The floorboards creak and you whirl. The hum surges and you go to whirl again, but suddenly there's light playing on the walls. Sharp, ruby light.

"Drop it, asshole."

Your blood ices. Your arms slack. Two shots. All you needed was two shots, but your finger falls limp on the trigger. Had you really come this far to get mugged? To die? Here?

So what could you do? Drop, maybe? Surprise her? All you needed was to get the shots off. Maybe you could--.

"Now, dipshit. I didn't skimp on this capacitor; it'll put a hole in you as big as your fist, so put the gun on the ground."

The voice is firm but breathless. Your hand's still on the gun. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere. You'll tell the others that was your winning courage, but isn't.

"Who are you, stranger?" Breathes the voice. It's softer still, and you swear there's pain in it. You've heard pain before, and it's got that sort of timbre.

"You sure as hell ain't Band, and you don't look like any minuteman I ever saw. That means we ain't friends, so drop the goddamn pistol."

Definitely pain, just barely repressed. You sniff the air and choke on rotting hemoglobin. Hurt bad.

"The gun. Don't test me."

Again, a little deeper. Mildew. Waste. She's been here a little while. You listen for breathing.

Labored.

You have a chance.

The ice in your blood shoots to your fingers and the lump in your throat slides down. You draw a long, shallow breath.

And you throw yourself to the floorboards.

The laser musket barks. The room flashes ruby and then dark again. You throw yourself at the shadow and wait for pain or death but neither comes. Just a thud, and something soft, and a quiet yip of pain.

You're staring her in the eyes.

Big, round eyes.

You've got the musket. She grabs for it back, but her grip's so weak you hardly notice. You've got an arm pinned, and then another.

The eyes shut.

"At least kill me first, you brotherhood son of a--"

The ice had turned to fury, but now it collapses in a heap on top of you. The thing below you yeilds so easy you might as well be wrestling a corpse. You release the pair of big, meaty paws and slide the musket away, feeling suddenly cruel.

"Brotherhood?"

"Don't play coy. I'm not your goddamn plaything and I'm not going back there."

There are still embers in her voice, but they're dim.

The lightning flashes.

Thick, matted, mocha fur.

Old, dried blood.

Streaks of dirt.

Tears, maybe.

You slide off of her; she doesn't move.

"Really, lady. You pulled a gun on me. I don't take that as a kindness. That's all."

You stand again and dust yourself, suddenly remembering the cold. She whimpers.

"Then who the hell are you?"

"Doctor Kildare."

She breathes.

"Doctor?"

You swallow again, this time feeling right for the first time in a month.

"Doctor."