#mayormentats

THE OCEAN ABOVE IS BLACK, dressing the towering man with a coat made of night. footsteps traverse along the rotted ground, his shadow following behind like an obedient ghost. the silence is familiar; an old friend listening to the solemn rhythm of vincent’s heart beating inside his chest, unchanging in the air of loneliness some 200 years later. however, this particular loneliness fairs differently. self-inflicted, rather than forced. 

he tightens his grip against hancock’s freshly washed clothes, folded neatly & cradled by the weight of his forearm. blood still painted the fabric, splotches sized like pin-pricks; an effort made in vain, as no matter how much fluid could be scrubbed away, the reminder remained within the squint of an eye. 

mass pike tunnel e looms ahead, skyscrapers stretching high against the rubble, watching over the graveyard of cars — the phantom beeping of horns, panicking for evacuation, mimicks the echo of a piano player's notes from miles away. the past entertains the darkness as vincent continues forth, allowing the parade of memories to float on by like an unpleasant odor. mushroom clouds. radiated sulfur. sweat. 

the warehouse manifests out of thin air, a projection of reality outside vincent’s tunnel vision. he stops, standing beside a once bright yellow, now decrepit truck. hancock’s warning lingers in the back of his mind. don’t fuck with the lock. fine — but, part of him thinks he could break in no problem. most locks had a master system, & this one probably wasn’t any different – what a sight to see. vincent settled as hancock enters the space, finding his warehouse infiltrated, an all knowing, shit-eating grin greeting him from across the room. maybe even right inside the door.

No.

hancock’s tone turned serious at the mention of waiting. vincent’s wrist burned, remembering the pressure of hancock’s grab & the impression he’d left as he slapped that note into vincent’s palm,.the immortal man's breathing hitched in just that split second, caught off guard & distracted by the smell of cigarette smoke — which damn, why did he forget his smokes?

he flicks his head to the left, then the right, spotting a train car; its backside just inches off the track. he retrieves his knife as he paces forward, opening the side door with anticipation for an enemy, but it’s empty, save for a lone chair & a patch of stained wood. he holsters his blade. takes the seat. lays the clothes against the floor. leans forward, meeting his elbows to his knees. no way anyone would follow him out here, still, he wasn’t exactly on marowski’s goodside, especially after insulting his shitty handywork which nearly got vincent killed by the mayor of goodneighbor – or so vincent spun, leaving out many, many details -- details that held a power over him he could only relay as, haunting.

minutes pass & still he’s left to his own company, hiding inside a traincar. it’s expected, isn’t it? why would hancock give him any more than necessary of his deserved time? what gave vincent that right? bringing the clothes felt ridiculous now. this whole thing — god, he should have packed up & left when he had the chance, & there were plenty of them, still he stayed. couldn’t be hancock’s sake. perhaps for his own revenge? freedom from marowski? some deeply misunderstood alliance between himself & a betrayed friend? 

none of these harbored enough life; the reason was always selfish. 

Yun stood outside the 'mayor' of Goodneighbor's office door, knocking loudly since her first round didn't get a response. She crossed her arms and sighed, hoping the man wasn't nearly as high as he was last time she saw him.

The portrait of him that she had done was under her arm, covered in the cleanest bedsheet she could manage to find in order to protect it from damage as she made the short journey over to Goodneighbor. She had to admit - she was rather proud of it. She tried her best to capture the man's personality while giving it a dignified air to it and she was pretty sure she nailed it.

If she hadn't - well. She's probably have to ask for more caps for any revisions - she used the last of her red paint on this.

Goodneighbor was on the upswing, that was true enough. But every cultural shift had its growing pains; the Old Neighborhood had its fingers in the very cobblestones beneath Valentine's feet, if not the Statehouse looming above.

Growing pains were evidenced to the synthetic detective by a beer hurled at him from somebody's window. The bottle had missed, but the resulting explosion had him splattered in good ol' Gwinnett Lager.

But Nick could find two things he was thankful for: it was starting to drizzle and rain was as good a free shower as he was gonna get, and he knew damn well that thrown bottle wasn't because he was a synth.

He made enemies in Goodneighbor honestly. That was the nature of this town now, under the new Mayor's credence-- new to an old dog like Nick, at least.

That was where he was heading, still smelling vaguely like the carpet of an old world bowling alley, dripping with both rain and macro piss. The knock to Hancock's office was polite, despite the leering gaze of the Neighborhood Watch.

Cait couldn't believe she was setting away with this.

She didn't even intend for THIS to happen. Cait had been asleep, holed up in a rusty car, sleeping off a bad hangover not that far away from what used to be a gas station —preferring to stick to the car than to spend the night in what was left of the building because everyone checks buildings, barely anyone checks cars—, when she'd been woken up by the sound of children playing.

It had been so long since she had seen children– even among the circles she'd been forced into this past few years, it wasn't good business to keep kids around. Endangered children made people act all heroic and shit; endangered adults, not so much.

So she just sat on the hood of the car and watched them play, reminding herself that she was free. Finally, she was free.

Someone had approached the kids, scolded them for going so far away from the group without a grown-up to watch over them, and the kids had pointed to her and gone "But SHE is keeping an eye on us."

The woman, clearly in the early stages of ghoulification, had thanked her and asked if she minded watching over them until supper. Cait had told her it was no problem. Then, once it was time for supper, she had walked those kids back to their group, and there had been a plate of she-didn't-ask stew waiting for her. That had been three days ago.

Now, she traveled with the group. Not having asked where they were headed, either. It wasn't as if Cait cared. She had no family, no friends and no plans for the future. A road trip with complete strangers who had yet to realize she was a stranger fit nicely in her non-existent agenda.

That is, until she started feeling the 'Boss's eyes on her– and not in the way she'd grown used to feeling men's eyes on her.

@mayormentats said: ❛ you look good like this. ❜

her face burns pink all the way to the tips of her ears. she gives hancock a skeptical look before tugging her t-shirt over her head, covering the ragged sports bra that's been clinging to life far longer than it was designed to.

❝ i bet you say that to all your employees, ❞ she says wryly, her lips twisting into a grin. she combs through the still-damp ends of her hair with her fingers, struggles to meet his gaze, however admiring it might be.

Fred Allen had moseyed over to the statehouse asking for the mayor. Big claims about discovering some new "shit."

Just trust me man, ya gotta see this.

Is what he told Hancock. He was skeptical. Hancock knew about Fred's work at the Rexford. Occasionally the man would provide a somewhat coherent report on all his findings. It was largely unnecessary for him to do that but Hancock never put a stop to it. Truthfully it was fun to read about his little science experiments while three jet canisters deep. And Hancock was just halfway down his third when Fred requested he take a visit to his lab.

Things started to clear up when Hancock made it to the Rexford. Of course Fred Allen wasn't responsible for some chem breakthrough, it was this... drifter?

Hancock leaned on the railing of the stairs, looking down at the situation from the bottom step. Fred came rushing ahead of him, gesturing loosely over to the man at the chemistry station.

"Show em what ya showed me," Fred said.

"Relax brother, have some decorum," Hancock spoke wryly. The mayor tips his hat and steps down from the stairs. "Got word there were some developments in our chem department. Assumin' you're the one responsible?"

LITTLE MAKES SENSE IN THIS WORLD, but to the Wasteland's credit, neither did the one before, having been merely a concept clouded in philosophies & old books from lifetimes detailing how the world should be lived. How one lives their life, as if through a cookie cutter vision. Vault Tec seized his loyalty, informed him his discoveries would change the world -- the new world, if only his mind & time gave donation to the cause.

In the end, time was his biggest gift, accepted and cradled in the hands of clever betrayal. Spineless administration playing God with its own angels.

Science, with the wrong morals, dooms even its greatest admirer, but he could never part from that what once made him.

Rumors across the Commonwealth spread like radiation, telling of a place called Good-neighbor; quite skeptical by the name, in all honesty, yet he'd stumbled upon an intriguing settlement. An uneasy air swarmed his welcome, but he managed to blend in with the rest of the scavengers, survivors, addicts, ghouls --

Fred Allen mentioned the mayor a few times. Vincent acknowledged, but never pried. Too preoccupied with the limitless potential of unregulated chem creation; a victory which led him to the presence of Good-Neighbor's face.

❝ Yes,❞ his reply comes out matter-of-factly. No colleagues here to take credit for his work, & shit, was this something else entirely.

❝ Under a microscope, Mutfruit has this chemical compound similar to that of day tripper. Comparatively, it's an incredibly mild high, except --- ❞ he closes the gap between them, retrieving the newfound chem from his pocket ❝ When mixed with the powder from crushed mentats. ❞ He displays the vial of powder between his index finger and thumb, presenting it gloriously to the leader of the town under the guise of an intellectual scientist, because in all aspects, he is the very definition.

He's yet to test his own product, but Fred Allen put all worries aside. The last thing he needed was a reputation for attempting to poison ... kill ... is the mayor capable of dying? Or in some seeded grotesque understanding, were they the same?

He offers this unnamed chem, a prominent gleam in his eyes.

"Country ghouls make due, huh."