FFF - Get to know the Free Gurls

Time to put your social skills to the test. It’s not as simple as just introducing yourself as a new friend of their crew. They’re all suspicious of spies. You have to play your cards right.

The girl who brought you to Cherry is Watchdog. You don’t get to meet her, but you see her with Queen Tess in the halls. Not all of the Free Gurls are as mean to Queen Tess as Cherry is. Maybe none of them. Watchdog comes off as being OK and reasonably intelligent. The way that she handles her weapon marks her as competent, but you think that you could take her. She’s confident and comfortable in this setting. If there’s drama among the Free Gurls, it doesn’t involve her.

Striker isn’t officially one of these women, but they clearly work together and are friendly. Striker’s got a piece of rebar strapped across her back that you don’t like the look of. She also has that 14mm pistol that you returned to her. Now that you know more about combat, you realize that you badly misjudged her when you took such a bold approach a few days ago at that old gas station. You are no match for Striker with or without a gun. As you pass by her, following Cherry, she spares a glance for you. She’s leaning against the wall, speaking in low tones to her partner, who the Free Gurls call Shrimp. You didn’t see Shrimp with her clothes on much at the gas station. Dressed, she has a sawed-off shotgun like the one you were carrying before. Does she know how to use it? You can’t tell from a glance, but you suspect that she does.

“I want to go in there,” you say to Cherry once you’re past them, pointing at the gym. You can tell from the smell that’s where the **** lab is.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because if I’m going to buy chems from you, I have to know that they’re quality,” you say.

Cherry’s not about to turn away a potential customer, especially one that she’s starting to like. Grudgingly, she lets you into the gym. Several women are here. The large space is uncluttered and divided into two workspaces. Between them is an open bit of floor where a slim woman is practicing with a sword. It whistles through the air, and she moves very gracefully. Her skin is deeply tanned and her hair is pulled back in a businesslike way. Her clothes are black and form-fitting. She’s missing a finger and wears an eyepatch.

“That’s Perl,” Cherry murmurs to you, forgetting herself for a moment. She’s not here to show you around and make introductions, but you just fucked her brains out. She’s in a friendly state of mind, not a properly analytical one.

You don’t like your odds against Perl or Striker, let alone both of them unless you have a serious tactical advantage.

In the **** lab, which is a mess of connected jugs and equipment, which is being safely vented out of a window high on the wall, a tall, skinny woman in overly large goggles peers at you curiously.

At the other end of the gym is a workbench not unlike Eric’s back in New Gurlberg. The woman there is slim but not bony, and her head is shaved. Her nipples poke through the skimpy rag that she wears as a shirt. Scars cover her stomach.

That is the Free Gurls armory and she must be the quartermaster. She has a pistol in a holster at her hip, but more interesting is the rack behind her. The weaponry on display makes Eric and Sadie’s shop look like a landfill. These are antique weapons from before the world became a wasteland. The Free Gurls have plenty of high-quality gear.

They’re hiding it. That’s why the sentry outside wasn’t holding one of these really good guns. You thought that their security was loose, but it’s possible that you missed something. It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t try anything by ****.

There’s one more thing on the rack behind that woman with the shaved head that catches your eye: it’s a tactical rig, which is a harness that you can wear on your chest to carry things like extra magazines or grenades and have them within easy reach. Those were in the manual that you read to get better at weapon handling. Having one of those would give your combat ability a meaningful boost.

“Who’s she?” the quartermaster asks gruffly.

“Just a customer, Fury,” Cherry says.

The quartermaster’s name is Fury, and she saw you eying the gear. She’s suspicious.

“That’s all you get,” Cherry says, stopping you several steps away from the lab. “Labrat knows what she’s doing. Our product is quality. Labrat.”

“Yes, Boss?” the woman in the goggles replies.

“Bring me a hit.”

Labrat trots out and hands an inhaler to Cherry, who offers it to you.

This is a problem. You know about some things, but chems aren’t one of them. You can tell that they expect you to know what this is. Cherry has conveniently forgotten that you are a Vault Girl, but that’s your fault. You used your silver tongue to imply that you were a customer. Asking what’s in the inhaler is out of the question. You can probably gracefully turn it down… or you can solidify your cover by taking it and learn something about chems. You have plenty of time to kill before staging your fake breakout of Shiv and Shank.

Try the ****?

Or turn it down?

[ Open ]