#01: Welcome to the Jungle

NOVEMBER 24, 2287

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"You know, you're really good at this," Deacon remarked once they had left the scene under the cover of darkness, keeping his voice low as not to attract any unwanted attention. "A little too good, for a civilian who just crawled out of a vault."

He deliberately made it sound as though he had only just made that observation, even though he'd been tailing her for some time now. The woman who referred to herself simply as 'Sloan' had piqued his interest a while back—much further back than he was willing to admit to her, of course—and so far, he hadn't been disappointed. Tracking her activities in Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill and finally Diamond City, the spy had learned Sloan wasn't simply an ordinary woman on a mission. There was something else, something different. It wasn't the fact that she had come from Vault 111, nor that she was born over 200 years ago. He'd met several pre-war ghouls in his time, and none of them were quite like her.

Deacon had his theories, of course. But there was only so much one could learn about a person simply by watching from a distance, and the job at Slocum's Joe had been the perfect opportunity to evaluate her skills firsthand. To begin with, he'd been fairly confident that the op would end successfully. Otherwise, no way in hell would he have brought her along. But seeing her in action, watching her demonstrate exactly why he'd been so eager to vouch for her, had confirmed his suspicions.

He mentally thanked Carrington for having thrown such a hissy fit about recovering the damned prototype, whatever it actually was, in the first place.

Sloan looked up, quirking an eyebrow in question. "Think so?" Though despite the query, she didn't sound surprised, and he wondered if she'd been waiting for him to bring it up all along. It was certainly possible. She was perceptive; probably moreso than he had initially given her credit for.

Not only that, but this had obviously not been her first rodeo, so to speak. They had slunk through the shadows in the facility beneath Slocum's Joe, nearly undetected the entire time save for a tiny incident toward the end involving a turret and a land mine—luckily a synth strider had taken the fall for that and neither he nor Sloan had been injured.

But on the whole, the complications had been minimal. Far less than what he'd been prepared for, even when running an op with someone he'd deemed experienced. Deacon had watched the way Sloan hugged the walls of every room on high alert, gun held at the ready before her, only moving on when she was sure that all was clear. He noticed how she'd kept a wary eye out for traps all around them, all her movements deliberate and cautious. And he definitely hadn't missed the manner in which she sidled up against a wall before opening doors with one hand, letting it slowly swing open, peering around the corner and then stealing inside gun-first.

She was a natural, he already knew that going into this. But it was more than that. He saw a sort of discipline in her movements, a method that could only have come from extensive training and field experience.

"You've done this before," Deacon replied without even a hint of uncertainty, glancing sidelong at her through tinted sunglasses and waiting for a reaction. "You don't strike me as the military type, but I'd definitely put caps on you having some kind of covert ops experience."

Sloan had been walking alongside him in mostly silence, admiring the sleek black pistol she'd acquired. It had once belonged to Tommy Whispers, but upon finding the deceased agent in the vault, Deacon had passed it on to her. Hell of a weapon, really, and in her hands it was sure to carry out its true potential. And the look on her face when he'd given it to her? Priceless. He had caught her off guard and she'd failed to school her bewilderment in time, her gaze shifting rapidly from his face to the gun. Perfect. He could practically see the gears turning in her head, no doubt trying to discern his true motivation for giving her such a special weapon; was he testing her? Manipulating her? Demonstrating a sign of good faith?

"I can't take this, I…" She'd shaken her head, staring at the offered weapon with hesitance despite her obvious interest.

How long had it been since he'd last encountered someone with a sense of honor like that?

Deacon had tossed it at her right then and there, leaving her no choice but to reach out and catch it. "Too late, it's yours!"

Oh, yes. He could tell he was going to enjoy working with this one.

She nodded in the darkness, turning her head towards him. "You'd be close. I was…" She pursed her lips, clearly hesitant to divulge the information, and he was trying to figure out if that was because she wasn't entirely sure that she could trust him, because she didn't think he would understand, or because talking about her pre-war life was still too painful for her. "I was an FBI agent," she finally replied, her voice dropping an octave, and Deacon decided that the answer to his wonder was 'd.) all of the above.'

"Ah, now that would explain it," he said with an intentional air of recognition. "I thought it had to be something like that. So you were with the feds? Unfortunately, you'll find the criminal justice system is a tad defunct these days."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I might have noticed that when the ghoul I showed my badge to tried to eat my face. Talk about resisting arrest."

Deacon chuckled, pleased that she'd responded well to his lighthearted joke. "And a sense of humor. This could be more fun than I thought!"

Sloan snorted good-naturedly. "Hey, don't get too excited. To be honest, it's been a while since I've worked in the field, and that's not counting the two hundred years I spent as a popsicle."

Deacon's eyes turned back to the road ahead, noting the hint of melancholy in her tone. It took him a moment before he understood what she meant by that, but he didn't offer any sort of comment to indicate as much. Now was probably not the best time to pry or let slip that he knew much more about her personal journey than he was supposed to. She hadn't told him that it was her infant son the Institute had stolen from her, nor that she'd lost her husband to their vicious pet mercenary, Kellogg. All of that was information Deacon had picked up while he'd been keeping tabs on her throughout the Commonwealth.

"Well," he said, breaking the solemn silence that had settled over them, "if it's any consolation, you don't seem to have lost your touch."

Sloan huffed softly, tucking the Deliverer into the waistband of her faded jeans. "Thanks."

Deacon nodded toward an alley between two large buildings and motioned for her to follow him. "We can take that path back to HQ. Come on."

He led the way back using a shortcut he was familiar with; a left here and a right there, up those stairs and across that balcony, down the escape ladder and through this walkway. All the while he could feel her eyes on his back, watching and wary, still unsure what to think of him. This told him that she was sharp, and didn't trust easily. That was good. The Railroad needed more people like her.

Conversation was infrequent, though Deacon occasionally found reasons to point out a ruined landmark or make some sort of wisecrack on the décor. Aside from acknowledging his comments, Sloan remained quiet. He figured she was either deep in thought or simply not in the mood for small talk, so he fell silent himself after a while. Before long they were rounding a corner and approaching the church, following the familiar red line past the statue and toward the faint glow of the lantern sitting on the front step.

"You know," she finally spoke up once they had descended the stairs that led into the winding underground tunnels, "I'm a little worried about your security protocols."

He cocked his head back toward her. "What, is it the ferals? Because trust me, that was not my idea."

"No. I actually enjoyed the real life interpretation of Dawn of the Dead," Sloan replied dryly, and then shook her head. "But that's not it. Look, I came prepared for a fight. Dr. Amari told me it wouldn't be easy to find this place, and it wasn't. So imagine my underwhelming surprise when I finally get down here…and the password is 'railroad.' I mean, really?"

"Hey, these days being able to even spell 'railroad' is cause for celebration."

"I guess that's true," she admitted. "Very depressing, in fact. Still, that would be like if I had set my personal email password as 'Sloan.' Well…not that our software even allowed that. You needed to include three consecutive letters, numbers, symbols, at least one capital letter, a drop of your own blood and an ancient fucking glyph."

He sniggered. "If you want that kind of technology, you'll have to pay a visit to the Brotherhood. Hell, if you're lucky, they might even gift you with your very own superiority complex."

She grimaced. "I'm good."

"Aaanyway," he drawled as they continued on through the passageway, "you just saw the Switchboard for yourself—security there was about as good as it gets out here and the Institute still managed to crash our private party, passwords be damned."

They were stepping through the front entrance in short order, greeted by Drummer Boy and Glory on the other side. The both of them had likely been awaiting their return, curious about the newest recruit whom Deacon had been so eager to vouch for. Drummer Boy immediately retreated into headquarters to retrieve Desdemona, since newbies weren't allowed inside without the big boss's say-so. Security protocols, etcetera.

So the moment she appeared in the brightly lit room, Deacon gleefully proclaimed, "This one's officially a keeper, Dez!"

Desdemona gave him a scrutinizing look as he jogged up the steps toward her. "I take it everything went smoothly?"

"Smooth as a baby's behind, thanks to the new girl, here," he said, casually jerking a thumb in Sloan's direction.

Sloan responded with a slight roll of her eyes. "What he's trying to say is that we got the prototype."

Where was this girl's sense of adventure? Deacon was going for a story with a bit more flair, something to build her up, so he immediately waved a hand to dismiss her painfully boring statement. "Aw, she's being so modest! Seriously, you won't believe what just happened, Dez. It was incredible! So we came across this minefield out front, right? Must have been at least fifty of the suckers, plus a dozen Gen 1s on patrol. We were picking them off from a rooftop when all of a sudden a Deathclaw—"

"Two Deathclaws," Sloan interjected, quick to catch on.

"Two Deathclaws," Deacon repeated with emphasis, delighted that she'd picked up his beat, "came charging right into the fray! They were bowling over the synths left and right, until some friendly fire had them fighting each other instead. Sloan here got the bright idea to shoot one of the mines from, I kid you not, three hundred feet. Boom! Everything exploded. We made it down into the Switchboard and man, the place was just crawling with Institute baddies. From there it was just one hail of bullets after another. I took some fire, rolled off the balcony and busted up my leg. Fell right into a whole crowd of Gen 1s. Thought I was done for, but then this girl came charging in and wiped them all out with a single round! One shot actually took out four of them at once. Then she patched me up, put me on her shoulder and blasted her way through the rest of the complex. Synths everywhere! There had to have been at least a hundred of them."

"It was one hundred and seven, actually," Sloan corrected him, throwing Desdemona a matter-of-fact look and proving to him that she wasn't a bad actor herself when she put her mind to it.

Deacon shrugged. "Oh, my bad. It was kind of hard to see it all from over your shoulder."

Desdemona was glancing cautiously between the two of them, looking as if she were trying to decide if anything about that story was actually true. She was accustomed to taking everything Deacon said with a grain of salt, though it wasn't often that he found someone else to play along. "That many? I can't even imagine…"

"Yep! That's how it happened," he assured her, hands on his hips as she squinted back at him.

Desdemona turned her attention onto Sloan, studying her carefully. Deacon saw her eyes flicker down to the new girl's belt, where Tommy Whispers's Deliverer was currently holstered.

"I was expecting Deacon to grab a full team, including Glory, to secure that prototype," she said, obviously impressed with their results regardless of whether or not she believed anything Deacon had just said. "But instead, the two of you cleared out the entire Switchboard by yourselves."

Deacon gave her one last push, though at this point he knew it wasn't necessary. "You'd be insane not to sign her up, Dez."

The redhead's sharp eyes were still fixed on Sloan's. "Well, you've certainly made an impression on Deacon. He's never spoken about—or lied about—anyone so highly before." There was a short pause before she gave a subtle nod and said, "Welcome to the Railroad, agent."

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Notes: This is a story that began like any other—in the middle of the night as a drabble that wouldn't leave a hopeless nerd's headspace. I just have so many feels about my survivor, man. So many. And I wasn't happy about Bethesda making F!Sole a lawyer, so I came up with something cooler and much more plausible, in my mind.

Deacon not being romanceable bugged me at first, but now I'm over it, because it just means that I get to play around with my own version of how a relationship might develop between he and my survivor. This man is my kind of complicated, let me tell ya.