It took them two days to reach Mass Pike Interchange. MacCready still wasn't talkative, but Aurora could tell that he was eager to be free of Winlock and Barnes. Over their campfire the first night, he described the layout: the interchange was an elevated stretch of highway; to reach it, they had to take an elevator the Gunners had built. At least twenty Gunners, a few machine gun turrets, and an Assaultron made up the army she could expect. Barnes has a power armor suit, so if they could get in it, their chances of surviving increased substantially—especially against the deadly robot.
They waited hours after darkness fell before approaching Mass Pike Interchange; the giant frames held the elevated highway high above them. Below its underbelly were wooden shacks to house the Gunner Privates acting as sentries and guarding the elevator. Aurora used her night-vision scope to see how many were posted for the night; she only counted two—Winlock and Barnes were too cocky that no one would attack them in their fortress. If this wasn't for MacCready's peace of mind, she wouldn't be here because it had suicide written all over it.
Actually, Aurora wasn't sure why she was here at all. She wouldn't have so easily offered help for a sure-death mission to any of her past hired guns—their personalities weren't much better than the targets she hired them to kill. MacCready was different; even though he had been a trained killer, he seemed like he regretted being one. She guessed he reminded her that he still had humanity; that he was human like her and didn't need his soul burdened.
After pointing out the location of the two Gunners, she and MacCready changed their loud sniper rifles to their silenced pistols: he had a .45 revolver; she had a 10 mm with glow sights. They snuck into the beginning of the Gunner camp and killed the two guards without alerting the ones high above them.
They found the elevator platform connected to a shack; they pressed a button to lower it. It settled into its place with a metallic clang, and the doors opened with more noise. So much for hopes of a stealthy approach.
MacCready looked at her. "Luck."
She responded the same to him before they stepped in and pushed the button to go up. The elevator creaked and groaned as it lifted its load; the Gunners had to know somebody was coming up. Unless they were heavy sleepers—Aurora prayed for that to give them more of a chance than being shot down as soon as they reached the top.
On nearing the elevated highway, Aurora instinctively crouched down even lower in hopes of not being seen—she didn't like being out in the open and exposed. It looked like MacCready had the same thought, for he crouched low too.
The elevator stopped at the top and the doors opened to release its passengers; the double-stacked highway had rusted pre-war cars and buses still on the pavement. Holes allowed sight of the overpass above them and the ground far below them. The concrete barricades separating the ongoing and incoming traffic lanes were broken, rusted rebar sticking out dangerously. The Gunners had built wooden shacks and laid boards to cross over the holes. Surprisingly, no one stood on the landing to shoot them or raise an alarm.
Aurora scanned for any movement; in her frantic search, she caught sight of a metal man to her far right—the power armor suit. A machine gun turret guarded it and it stood in sight of a shack's open doorway.
She hurriedly pointed it out to MacCready; he nodded for her to go ahead. They began sneaking over to it. The machine gun turret continued its jerky panning back-and-forth, not seeing them yet.
"Who the hell is coming up at this hour?" a familiar but sleepy voice asked—Barnes. "If it's Harry with another false alarm, I'm going to blow his fucking head off."
A form appeared in the shack's doorway, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Before his eyes could focus to see the intruders, MacCready shot him; he fell back into the shack, dead.
"What the fuck?" Barnes yelled.
The machine gun turret noticed the movement and beeped in alarm as it jerked to attention; its scanner searched for intruders, but Aurora shot it before it could locate them. It exploded.
The camp awoke at the noise.
"Go! Go!" MacCready urged as he turned back to hide behind a bus.
Aurora took off for the power armor; she hoped it had a fusion core in its back so she wouldn't have to search for one to wake it up. Sporadic pops of gunfire answered by the quieted fire of MacCready's revolver sounded behind her. Just as she reached the suit, Barnes appeared around it, having come out of the shack without her noticing. His eyes widened in surprise.
"Remember me, you bastard?" She shot him between the eyes without waiting for a response. She felt so vindicated as he fell back.
A boom vibrated the road as a grenade went off and people cried out in pain. There was a fusion core already in the suit's back, so she twisted the wheel to open it up and jumped in; it closed around her.
Her vision blinked on in a yellowish-hue; the picture before her was chaotic: the flash of gunfire appeared far before her, bodies littered the road, and MacCready stayed hunkered down behind a car, poked around at different angles to return fire, then ducked back down. He reached into a pouch around his waist for a grenade; he pulled the pin then lobbed it over at the Gunners. It exploded and more people yelled.
These suits were usually paired with a big gun; Aurora looked around her—she found a minigun sitting close by. Just as she grabbed it, she heard the whirring of something starting up and MacCready's yell; she looked up. MacCready dove to the ground just as half of the car he hid behind—right where he had been standing—split apart under a red laser beam; it fell open like two loaves of bread. Revealed through the smoke and steam stood a robot in human form with claws as hands and a single red light for an eye; its face had opened up to shoot out the beam and was now re-closing. The Assaultron.
She had never faced a robot before. With a breath of courage, Aurora advanced into the combat zone. Gunners cheered at seeing her approach, thinking she was Barnes. Their cheers became gasps when she opened fire on the Assaultron.
The robot even seemed surprised by the new onslaught; it turned, registered her as an enemy, and raced toward her. Aurora stood her ground, not flinching under the rain of bullets pelting her metal suit, and followed the Assaultron zigzagging to get to her. The rapid deluge of bullets on the machine affected it—a piece on its chest would fly off, followed by another piece on the arm or face, exposing vulnerable wires—but Aurora had heard robots get more dangerous with more damage.
It reached her and drove its claw-hands into the suit's joints as it nimbly danced around her. Because of its quick speed and her clunky armor, she couldn't keep it in sight before it moved behind. She pulled her finger off the trigger and just set to driving her elbow back or using her fists to hit it. A lot of her hits landed, but the Assaultron only increased its intensity.
She heard the whirring of it charging up its laser beam behind her; Aurora took a chance and swung the minigun around. It struck the Assaultron in its weakened neck and its head popped clean off. The head went flying off the elevated highway as its body limply dropped.
Aurora couldn't believe she had survived her first robot fight. Pops of gunfire still sounded behind—just not as many—and she went to go help kill the rest. MacCready had run out of sight; the few surviving Gunners she saw had their backs to her, so she easily mowed them down.
With a final quieted shot, it grew still. As she headed toward where the shot echoed from, a figure suddenly stepped out from around a shack wall. She quickly reacted by raising the minigun; MacCready threw up a hand to stop her.
"Whoa, it's me. I know you probably want to beat my skull in, but do it out of the suit—I might survive it then."
Yeah, she might actually do that. She placed the minigun on the ground, then exited out of the power armor. Her body ached with many bruises from being knocked around inside of the suit.
"It gets hot in there," she said.
"Wouldn't know; never been in one."
Aurora gestured at it. "Here's your chance. It even stinks like Barnes."
"No thank you, then." He considered the destruction. "I feel a hundred times better knowing those two aren't bearing over my shoulders anymore."
"We don't have to worry about Gunners retaliating?"
"The way these lunatics act, you'd think they would, but I know better. For the Gunners, it's always about the bottom line. They just lost this entire waystation and that'll cost them a bit. Besides, they have no idea I was involved. We'll be fine; trust me, Aurora."
She was astonished at how much she enjoyed hearing him say her name. To cover up being flustered and her delayed response, she rubbed her neck like it bothered her. "I don't know whether or not to trust you: you almost got me killed."
"But I didn't."
"Hence the word 'almost'."
He chuckled. "Anyway, I guess I owe you a favor now. After all, you hired me and I'm the one who dragged you out here."
"I would not let you have all this fun by yourself."
He laughed. "Glad you enjoyed it. Tell you what, I'm going to give you back the caps you paid me in Goodneighbor. I'll stick with you because that was part of the deal, but now we're even."
MacCready handed her the 200 caps she had paid him with in a small bag, then he looked around. "You know, they're not going to use this stuff anymore." He eyed the suit. "That power armor can carry more, right?"
She scoffed at his subtle prod at her carrying most of the loot; she walked back to the suit to get in it. "What do I look like to you, a pack mule?"
MacCready chuckled at some thought before moving off to look for spoils. After deliberating, Aurora figured the power armor wasn't enough for her prize—and in it, she could carry more. She went after him to join in the scavenging.