Adam had trouble sleeping that night. The excitement and anxiety of leaving and getting closer to finding answers and exploring a new town was getting to him, so he spent a few hours listening to the radio station he found before. This "Silver Ray Johnson" was quite the character, he was energetic and funny and even had a segment called "story time" where he told stories submitted by listeners about events they experienced. It was wild what some people had gone through, but then again, his story was no less exciting. Regardless, after a few hours Adam had relaxed enough to actually go to sleep.
The next morning came unceremoniously considering he was going to leave. He paid 11 caps for a meal and 50 for the last two nights in the room. He now had 805 caps, more than enough to rent a room when he got to Midway, assuming they had a place for him to rent.
Salvatore woke up early, as he said he would. He looked a bit groggy and ordered a coffee rather than a drink like he normally did. Adam gave him the time to wake up while he made his last preparations. He double checked his gear, checked the path on his pip-boy, and suited up. By the time he was ready, Salvatore was awake and geared up himself.
Salvatore had swapped his double barrel shotgun for a pump action shotgun. Adam wasn't able to tell at a glance but likely the pump action was a smaller gauge which was why he probably was using the double barrel until now. Regardless as Adam walked out of his room Salvatore nodded to him.
"Ready to go kid?" Salvatore asked, looking far calmer than Adam felt at the moment.
"Yeah, let's do this." The two of them then headed out of the inn, heading towards the North Gate.
Adam and Salvatore got a few waves from folks as he walked the short distance to the wall. It seemed as though the news spread enough that people knew he was leaving, he waved back, happy to feel appreciated but unsure what to do about the attention he was receiving.
As they got to the North gate Grant was standing there, arms crossed, clearly waiting for them.
"Heard you were setting off Adam, Salvatore."
"Yup." Salvatore said as he stopped in front of Grant, shouldering his rifle causally. "Kid bought me out, he wants to go to Midway so that's where we are going." Grant nodded and then looked at Adam for a moment before extending his hand.
"I just wanted to say thanks for all you have done here for our little town. We may not have much but you will always be welcome back here." Adam smiled and took his hand happily.
"Thanks Grant. This town has been good to me, and who knows? I may be back sooner than either of us might think, I just have some answers to find first."
"Well if you do make sure you stop by and say hello, even if you are just passing through, i'll always have time for you." Grant then looked to Salvatore. "And you make sure he doesn't die, you hear?"
"What? You fine with me dying?" Salvatore said with a sharp but joking tone.
"You won't die, I'm more worried about our resident vault dweller here." He returned. Salvatore grunted and waved him off.
"It would be a bad look if I let him die on the way to Midway."
"Good." Grant then smiled and patted Salvatore on the shoulder. Salvatore looked both surprised by the contact and uncomfortable with it but he didn't make a move to stop him.
"Well then, good luck to you too. Good luck in your endeavors, Naper will be here." He smiled and then walked off leaving the two of them alone.
"Great, now even Grant is getting mushy. Gross." Salvatore grumbled as he turned to walk towards the gate proper. "Hey! Gatekeeper, open it up will ya?" He shouted to the guard who was on duty. A moment later the door began to slowly open revealing the battlefield where not so long ago Adam had helped to mow down a number of raiders. The bodies were, of course, gone, the townsfolk who were not directly involved in the defense helped to clean up the bodies, throwing them into a giant pile a few blocks away and burning them. They had also swept and cleaned the area, the viscera and guts were all gone, but the evidence of battle was still here. Bullet holes covered the ground, there were even a few stray casings and tiny scraps of cloth caught in the cracks of the pavement. But it was the bloodstains that still caked the ground that was the most noticeable. The blood was mostly cleaned but it was not done perfectly so, bits of caked blood dotted the area where they had rained down death from above and it had not yet been washed away.
"Come on kid, let's get moving, we got a long trek ahead of us."
"Yeah…" Adam said, momentarily distracted by the former battlefield before he shook it off. "Lead the way."
The walk for the next few hours was mostly quiet, Salvatore wasn't much of a talker and Adam was lost in his thoughts, but eventually Adam spoke up, deciding to break up the silence with a question.
"How long have you been doing this, Salvatore?"
"Huh?" Salvatore responded, caught off guard by the sudden question after a while of silence. "Oh uh… a long ass time." He responded after he collected himself. Adam laughed.
"Well how long is that? Decades? Centuries"
"Long enough." Salvatore responded curtly, he then paused and sighed, realizing he was being unintentionally rude. "I don't know." He said as he turned back to look at Adam.
"It depends what you mean. Surviving? I've been doing that since the bombs fell…" He said, pausing for a moment to look at the top of a roof, probably checking for a possible ambush. When he was satisfied it was fine he kept talking. "If you mean 'proper' mercenary work? I don't know, I've been doing it for a very long time. Stopped for a while for a career change though."
"Career change?" Adam asked curiously.
"Yeah, I don't like to talk about it."
"How come?"
"Because it's a part of my life I like to forget, I've been through a ton of ups and downs, not all of it was pleasant." Adam nodded in understanding.
"I get that, it can't have been easy to survive after the bombs fell."
"Yeah… I saw a lot of people who couldn't take it and offed themselves. Others went crazy, few turned to cruelty that only a human can possess." he sighed. "There's more than one reason there are so few of us old ghouls left… most simply couldn't take the pressure." Adam let the conversation peter off into silence, not sure how to follow that up. After a moment he did speak up again though.
"Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you made it this far. It's nice knowing I'm not the only one who remembers the old world."
"Yeah… seeing you, a fresh faced smoothskin who talked about the world from before it was… weird…" Salvatore said, uncertain of himself. "I don't know whether it's a good thing or not, but I guess I can't just let you die. I mean you paid me after all." He grinned.
"Yeah, that's for certain." Adam laughed. "I paid you enough money to… well honestly I don't even know what I could buy for 2000 caps, but I'm sure it's a lot." Adam grinned.
"Yeah. Well don't worry, I will ensure you get your money's worth." He said as he looked at a broken street sign they passed, using it as a marker to ensure he was heading the right way. Adam looked too.
"You remember that detour we talked about before?" Adam said as he moved a bit quicker to catch up to Salvatore who was leading the way.
"Yeah? What about it? You see it?"
"No, not yet, or for a while anyway…" Adam pulled up his pip-boy and then zoomed in on the marker he created on his map for his convenience, showing Salvatore the map while he did.
"That's a decent bit out of the way, what's over there you gotta do?"
"This…" Adam said, gently touching the screen where the marker was. "Is my house."