"Where are these planes?" Boone asked seriously.
"Washington D.C. The place called Rivet city. It was a prewar aircraft carrier that had beached after the place had been nuked. The locals found it, cleaned it up mostly and now use it as one of the main settlements in that part of the wasteland since it was almost impossible to raid." I said with a shrug.
"Why did you mention it then!?" Jess hissed is annoyance.
"It was related to what we were talking about." I said with a grin that if she could see it would tell her how much of a lie that was.
Well not exactly a lie since it IS related to the topic we were discussing. But I didn't mention it because of that, no that was me just fucking with them.
"It works, barely. The decay rate is greatly accelerated after being reinfused with energy." Chris said interrupting the conversation as he returned.
"That was fast. What did Jason just scoop up the goo and blast it with his radiation?" I commented.
He deadpanned at me.
"Holy shit he fucking did!?" I practically did a spit take dry at the revelation.
"If you are done we still need to talk about the thrust control modules." he said gruffly.
"Right, yeah sorry about that. Just surprising is all." I said sheepishly.
"Whatever. I don't have an exact lock on the location of the thrust control modules but I know there is a scrapyard not far from Novac that I've seen invoices saying some slightly faulty ones were sent there before the war." he said flatly.
"I know the place. Gibson scrapyard. it's run by an elderly woman who shares a name." Boone said calmly.
"Good, then it means you won't have any trouble finding the place. Go get me those modules." he said before rudely walking off again.
"Asshole. I'm going to enjoy watching him break down once he finds out he's been used and a tossed aside like a dirty sock. Just a little at least." I said spitefully.
"That's kinda cruel isn't it?" Jess asked with a frown.
"Look we have been nothing if not helpful and have received only rudeness and scorn from him. That's a personality that doesn't make friends but enemies." I said flatly.
"What about you? You haven't weighed in on it yet." Jess asked Boone.
"He's not doing himself any favors." the stoic man said calmly.
That may as well have been as close to outright agreement you could get from him on a matter of opinion. At least when it didn't involve the Legion. His opinions on THAT topic burned hot and obvious.
"It doesn't matter anyways for now. Either way we still have to get those modules. Boone, take point since we don't know where we are going." I said cutting the matter to an end for now.
Leaving the tunnels didn't actually require us to backtrack thankfully. There was a ladder to the surface a bit from the maintenance room that had been hidden behind rocks when we first approached the facility.-
On the way back towards Novac I took the lead but once we got there Boone did. The scrapyard wasn't terribly far from the town. Only a good hour walk roughly. The place certainly lived up to it's name as a scrap yard though as it was a fenced in area filled with all sorts of mechanical scrap just packed into piles haphazardly. The main office building of the place was pretty intact surprisingly, still rundown like everything else but no glaring structural problems could be seen. -
Sitting on a metal framed plastic lawn chair was an old thin Caucasian woman surrounded by several wandering dogs of the same wasteland breed as Sunny's Cheyanne.
"Hi there. I'm old lady Gibson, or so they tell me. I've got odds and ends for sale. I'm pretty good at fixing things too. You might have noticed the very large building just north of here. That's Helios one. The NCR runs the place, so it's off limits to prospectors." she said in a friendly way as we walked up.
"Thanks for the tip. We are here to inquire if you have any thrust control modules from the Repcon site a ways back?" I asked matching her friendly tone.
She smiled widely "As it happens I DO have some of those. But they're expensive, five hundred caps worth of expensive." she said like that was perfectly reasonable.
"Awful high price for something with no demand other than us isn't it?" I asked getting ready to haggle like back in the day with the fences.
"Well I suppose that's true. Fine, two fifty but only because I like you." she said with a laugh.
"You're an angel. Do you accept trade?" I ask brightly.
"Of course, trades the lifeblood of the wasteland." she said beaming from the compliment.
"Marvelous! Now I have a magic trick for you, watch closely." I said as I pulled out a playing card.
I toss the card high up and while all eyes were on it I pulled out our spare plasma rifles and the few super sledges the dead Nightkin had from my inventory. I snatched the card out of the air as it fell and made it vanish as I clapped my hands and spread them out to show off the loot. Her eyes widen as she tries to figure out the trick before clapping with a huge smile as she can't.-
"That's pretty good! A shame you can't eat entertainment or I might have given you the modules just for the show. Given me a moment to dig them out from inside." she said as she got up and headed into the building.
I raised my hand to stop Jess from asking what the trick was again.
"Magic, same as last time." I said chuckling as she frowned and stomped her foot in annoyance.
Boone on the other hand looked like he might actually think I was telling the truth and he wasn't sure how he felt about it.
"Stick with me and you'll get used to it." I said giving him a thumbs up.
Soon Old lady Gibson returned with the modules that were a bit dinged up but looked good enough to use. She took the loot and we took the modules, everyone walked away happy-ish. We weren't actually happy since we had to use our loot for an endeavor that we were pretty sure wasn't going to pay us back but being almost done with this nonsense was always nice.