Aim to Please

4 | Nothing but Chance

She shook her head. "They usually go better. No; I'm hoping to avoid more situations like that. We'll just go around wiping out camps and maybe we'll get lucky."

MacCready didn't like that situation either; he could tell where it was headed at the lust in the bartender's eyes. The hard-headed woman across from him probably started to feel the effects of the whiskey not to notice. He knew better than to let her go with the bartender alone—he should've stepped in earlier. At least he got there before it was too late, but this just added to his growing list of regrets.

"Just point and I'll shoot; that was the deal, right? Oh, by the way, you have a tab you need to pay," he told her as he took a drink.

Aurora looked confused at first, but after figuring it out, glared at him.

***

In their trek from place to place, Aurora picked up some jobs in her drive to better the Commonwealth and to get more caps, like killing an infestation of Feral Ghouls or going into some place to get an item somebody wanted. Moe in Diamond City wanted a signed baseball glove, ball, and card she had to kill a bunch of mirelurks for—huge mutated crabs that liked flooded residences. MacCready didn't seem to like helping others—saying they just wasted their time—but his displeasure slowly lessened when Aurora split the reward with him.

After retrieving a stolen picture, they returned to Diamond City and went up to the Colonial Taphouse patio to return it to Eustace. Sitting on the patio were four people: a bald black man in a sharp black tuxedo sitting by himself, a blonde woman, Eustace, and a drunk. The Mr. Handy, serving the patrons, had derogatory remarks about her. The only ones who didn't look down on her as she passed were Eustace and the sleeping drunk.

She was thrilled to get the picture back, paid Aurora for a job well-done, then launched into telling her about the picture, as old people tend to do about personal items. Aurora listened politely, but could see MacCready getting impatient. She thought about asking Eustace to tell her more, just to further irritate him, but she didn't want to stay in this pompous air anymore.

As she said goodbye to Eustace, the blonde woman sitting at the table over sighed loudly. "You must be another one of the poor and stupid of Diamond City come begging for table scraps."

Aurora looked over; too much facial reconstruction surgery left her face terribly scarred and plastic-looking. If she went to the surgeon hoping to maintain beauty, he had butchered her. She wore makeup, but that improved nothing.

"Poor and stupid?" she repeated.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know! There are two types of people in this town: the ones living in the Stands, and everyone beneath us. I know everyone in the Stands and that doesn't include you. Now why don't you make yourself scarce?"

Her haughty attitude pissed her off. "And just who are you?"

"Ann Codman, of the Codman family? Of the Upper Stands? If you haven't heard of us, that just shows how unimportant you are. Now, were you leaving or not?"

"Bitch."

Ann Codman looked up at her in shock. "What did you say?"

"Oh, you didn't hear me call you a 'bitch'? Is your hearing as bad as your face?" MacCready tried to hide a grin behind a hand.

"How dare you! I'm... I'll..." She started to get up but took another look at her—specifically eyeing her armor and guns—and sat back down. She finally took notice of the dangerous and angry aura around Aurora. "Guards! There's a miscreant here that needs removal!"