After reaching Reuy City, D-45 went to the marketplace looking for supplies that Dogmeat needed.
The unit's body was still not fully repaired—there were some fixes left to do—and the biggest issue right now was recovering back memory data, since the old one had been stolen. On top of that, D-45 needed to fix the leaking core again.
With that in mind, the unit headed to Mariah's workshop.
When reaching the workshop, the last thing the unit expected was to see the shop burning down. The entire building had caught on fire and was being consumed by the flames.
Detecting a lifeform within the blaze, the unit rushed into the building.
After moving some burning wood, doors, and machinery that had yet to explode, D-45 managed to see Mariah's body. She was in the room behind the counter.
D-45 rushed into the room and picked her up.
After getting Mariah to safety, the unit saw that her right arm was missing.
The unit knew what it meant when D-45 saw her robotic arm was gone.
Replicons must have attacked her because of me, the unit thought.
They must have found something that led them to her.
"Cough, cough, cough," a raspy sound came from Mariah.
She had barely survived the ordeal. The first thing she did was look at where her right arm was supposed to be.
"This is all your fault," said Mariah to the unit. She barely managed to say it without coughing.
"What happened?" asked the unit. D-45 had a hunch—it might have been a Replicon supremacist group.
After the war, the first supremacist groups to rise up were the Replicons. They had obtained freedom and free will, and began to think themselves better than their human counterparts. They saw humans as weak and foolish.
These groups wouldn't have formed so quickly—or at all—if it wasn't for one Replicon leading the charge.
D-1, the first Replicon made in the factory where D-45 was built, wasn't technically the first Replicon ever made, but D-1 didn't care. He managed to rile up all the Replicons after the Freo virus incident. If D-1 hadn't started a war with the humans, the nuclear fallout would never have happened.
"It was the Delvandlists. They were looking for ya, and in turn, they took my arm as well," said Mariah.
Mariah stood up shortly after saying those words and looked at her burning shop. The shop had been passed down to her by her grandfather. To say it held priceless memories was an understatement.
"You can't stay here. They might come back later on," said D-45.
"YA DON'T GET TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO AFTER YA CAUSED ALL THIS MESS!" snapped Mariah.
She was fed up with D-45. This was all the unit's fault. Her shop, her arm, her life—ruined. And now the unit was trying to tell her what to do? That pissed her off.
"Listen, I am sorry for what happened to your shop, but we need to get out of here and find somewhere safe to hide," said D-45, while trying to avoid setting her off again.
"YOU'RE SORRY? SORRY WON'T FIX MY GODDAMN STORE, AND I'D RATHER DIE THAN GO ANYWHERE WITH YOU."
At that moment, D-45 detected some Replicons were watching them.
"I am sorry for what I'm about to do," said D-45. After hearing those words, Mariah was puzzled.
Then D-45 went to Mariah, with the unit's left arm transformed to have small holes in it, and from the unit's left arm came out a potent sleeping gas.
The gas put Mariah to sleep almost instantly. After knocking Mariah out, the unit picked her up and started running alongside Dogmeat.
After a while of running, the unit had to also pick up Dogmeat to try and outrun the Replicons that were following them.
After a while, D-45 managed to get away from the Replicons, and after gathering supplies needed from the market, the unit left the city.
After half a day passed, Mariah woke up, and to say she was angry was an understatement.
From her perspective, D-45 dosed her with a potent sleeping gas and kidnapped her.
But everything settled down after the first few times D-45 explained to her what actually happened.
"So what now?" said Mariah.
"We have to get to my base, but along the way, let's get some more supplies and items we need," said the unit.
Just then the ground started shaking lightly. "A small earthquake?" said Mariah.
But the earthquake didn't settle—in fact, it grew stronger with each passing second.
The unit realized it wasn't a regular earthquake and tried to see where exactly the sound was coming from.
D-45 looked back and saw a huge mob of mutated meerkats running towards them at an unbelievable speed.
Meerkats these days were predators that hunted in large mobs. The radiation from nukes mutated most animals on land, and meerkats were one of the hundreds of animals that mutated.
"Run," said D-45 with an anxious voice.
"What?" said Mariah.
"RUN," screamed D-45, now scared out of his wits. After the unit said that, everyone started running.
"If the meerkats catch us, we will die," said D-45, trying to calm down.
The meerkats were still miles ahead, but they ran fast—35 miles per hour, to be exact. At that pace, the meerkats would catch up to them in no time.
Luckily for the group, they saw a large town up ahead. The town seemed to have also noticed the meerkats from the dust and rubble they gathered up as they ran.
At some point, everyone was essentially the same distance away from each other. The meerkats were half a mile away from them, and the town was also half a mile away.
The unit knew that the meerkats would catch them before they could reach the town, so D-45 picked up Dogmeat and Mariah and ran as fast as it could.
If they were running at the speed they were already going, they would have died, so D-45 dashed and boosted as fast as he could. The unit reached 40 miles an hour. The unit didn't want to be too obvious with the town looking at them.
By the time they reached the town, the gates were starting to close down, so the unit had to speed up a little to get inside.
After reaching the town, the gates closed right behind them. Then the guards on the wall started shooting at the meerkats using turrets.
"That was some speed you had on you, kid," said some guy coming up to the unit. The guy had a guard attire on, but it was a little different—most likely a higher level of authority than some guard.
"You ran that fast while carrying a dog and a human? I have never seen that kind of speed before." D-45 became wary, wondering if it was too fast.
The unit had slowed down the closer they got to the town to make the speed look less inhuman, so they shouldn't have found out.
"Where are you guys from?" asked the guard.
"Reuy City," said the unit.
"That's quite a distance you guys walked—very impressive and lucky considering you managed to get here before the meerkats got you." The guard didn't seem to have any ill will from the way he spoke.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Igore, captain of this town's guards. Nice to meet you," said the guard.
"Nice to meet you as well, Igore. My name is Tobor, this is Mariah, and my dog companion is named Dogmeat," said the unit.
"Nice to meet you all. The inns are that way if you plan on staying," said Igore before walking off.
D-45 planned on staying in this town for at least two more days before continuing the journey.
"Let's go to the inn, I'm tired," said Mariah. Dogmeat barked as well.
So the group headed to the inn to end the day.