We took the side door leading to a couple of rooms of exhibits that didn't really have anything of note besides the moldy decrepit remains of what once filled the exhibits.
And as we entered the room I could hear even with the chunks of cloth stuffed into my ears to protect my ears the sounds of a couple of people loudly talking.
"Telling you John, the boss is fucking nuts. Making us hunt down a bunch of Minutemen has killed dozens of us just so he could get his pet crazy who can supposedly tell the future!"
I crept around the side of the hallway leading into the room and after taking a breath I who was in front with the shotgun stepped forward with my finger pulling the trigger of the shotgun with a loud booming noise ringing out as dozens of metal pellets slammed home into one of the two men.
And without a moment of hesitation even as the other guy froze up, I racked the slide forward with my finger still pulling the trigger so when I slammed the slide back with the shotgun shooting another round due to the shotgun being a slam fire type.
Nora who was behind me came up and from around my side I heard her 10mm pistol bark as she shot another two rounds into the heads of the men before we fully entered the room where we inspected their forms and we just grabbed their ammo.
As one of them was wielding just a pipe as a weapon and the other had what I could only assume was a pipe pistol that was more likely to explode in my hands or give me splinters than actually kill a target.
"These guys are collecting Caps Nora, I think it's honestly some kind of currency or something," I spoke with Nora's face pinched as I picked out a couple of small bags the guys were carrying with each bag being stuffed with some bottle caps.
She shrugged and said. "If you wanna carry them, do what you want. Now take point, I got your sides and back."
I nodded putting a couple more rounds into the shotgun to replace the rounds I already shot before I took a deep breath and kept moving with Buttercup happily following behind us seemingly completely unphased by all the gunfire.
We moved up through the hallway leading up to a staircase leading to the back end of the museum where I could see the entrance to the basement where the power core was supposed to be. But I literally had zero experience hacking so I had no idea how we were going to hack that open if Nora didn't know how.
But I was more focused on the Minutemen survivors who were returning fire to the bandits still inside the museum as I could see an easy dozen of them with the sounds of gunfire being deafening as a half dozen people were shooting all at once.
I felt Nora pat my side and then I saw her hand point outwards to the side room on the hallway we going to travel through and I realized what she wanted. She wanted us in the side rooms so we weren't exposed to the gunfire happening all the way on the third floor of the museum where the bandits were trying to push into where the Minutement were held up.
We made our way towards the side room our forms tight against the wall and we weren't even shot at surprisingly with how quickly we moved.
But as we entered the side room, I saw someone... A bandit who stroking himself off with an American flag off all things, screamed as he saw us and then he charged at us with his lower half naked.
My shotgun quickly put him down and even as he fell, I could see the double small pump-looking fallout drug called Pyscho strapped to his arm where it was pumping its poison into his veins.
'Well, that's lovely.' I thought as Nora idly crushed his throat with her boot to make sure he was dead before we moved deeper into the building.
But as we left the side room area, we entered the middle of the museum where we would be open to everyone's view and already I could see the half dozen gunmen shooting at the third-floor windows where the survivors and minutemen were hiding.
Nora realizing that as well came up hot on me and hissed into my ear. "Get into a good position to pick a couple of targets on the left side off. I will take the right side using our rifles, they actually have metal sheet-looking armor."
I nodded in understanding. As a shotgun was great for dealing with unarmored targets... But I had no idea if these shotgun shells even had like half their recommended gunpowder loads with how all industries had died here in the Fallout universe.
So I wasn't going to trust some buckshot to go through any amount of armor and actually deal with a target when I could use the hunting rifle I picked up.
I moved a bit away from Nora with her slinking in the corner of the left-hand side and with our rifles at the ready, I saw in the corner of my eye Nora doing some kind of hang signal but I had no idea what it meant before she shot after like five seconds with her shot nailing someone as they fell from the third floor down to the bottom ground level.
Myself? I was aiming for a guy who was hiding behind a large upturned cabinet and I missed the upper body shot I was aiming for, hitting 'Her' actually in the gut with the way the woman screamed as she fell into cover from the gut wound.
I paused for a moment at hearing the woman scream before I mentally clicked back into place and I racked the bolt back and forth to bring another round at the ready and once a bandit leaned over the balcony to look for Nora and me. I shot him directly in the face with his head exploding in a red mist.
"We will keep them suppressed! Move up if you can!" I heard one of the survivors yelling as there were only a couple of gunmen left.
But I remained still as I looked at Nora who franticly shook her head as she pulled out her pistol.
And that plan was right as another woman screamed. "Come out and die then you little shits!" And with a loud clinking noise I saw something fall down the hallway we were in... And seeing it I frantically grabbed Buttercup and threw myself through the doorway leading into the side room as a loud boom rang out with Nora having thrown herself literally through the thin rotting wooden walls separating the hallway with the door.
'Fucking frag grenade!' I inwardly snarled but then a loud whissing noise rang out and a feminine scream turned wet as choked as I realized that the minutemen shot the bitch who got out of position to throw the grenade with a laser rifle of some sort.
From there we moved up carefully in case of traps or another grenade but we didn't even see the other gunmen as they panicked hearing our footsteps coming closer and after showing part of their body the minutemen shot through the rotting walls to kill him.
With myself collecting all the bags of ammo, and caps off the corpses we ran into along with three hand grenades that Nora took for herself as I didn't trust myself with two hundred plus fucking years old grenades.
"Museum is cleared, come on up!" Someone called out and I shared a look with Nora who nodded and took point with her having her pistol up as we made our way to the door which was clearly blocked by what looked like a couple heavy desks that had been pushed there after the door got blasted to hell.
The desks were dragged out of the way and as we came inside I heard another explosion this time from outside that shook the building and then Preston Garvey the leader of the minutemen stumbled into the room from the balcony he was using to shoot at the much larger group of people outside.
"Can't thank you two enough for helping to clear the raiders on the roofs and inside. But there are a good dozen or so left outside so we are still in a rut." Preston spoke as I idly noticed the Vault Bobblehead was standing on a table. And was... Painfully pristine in comparison to everything else that was dirty or covered in dust and mold.
"I am no stranger to a gunfight... But I suggest we deal with the raiders outside before we get to pleasantries." Nora said bluntly with Preston looking over to another man who was wearing an outfit that made him look like a mechanic complete with goggles and everything.
"Sturges any news about getting that Powerarmor or the minigun that's stuck on the crashed vertibird on the roof?" He asked and the man shook his head firmly.
"Nope, the armor is preem, without any issues but the minigun is stuck on some broken metal. With the power armor missing its power core, it's a heavy-duty model."
'Is that the different? The older fallout's armor which didn't seem to use power cores and required the user to have a certain amount of fitness and knowledge didn't have power cores. But the larger hydraulic ones need them?' I thought before Nora spoke up.
"I saw a power generator in the basement of the building that had a powercore in it. Keep the raiders from getting inside and Jake and I will get it. I know how to use most models of power armor."
With that, the darker skinned leader of the minutemen nodded and went back to the balcony to make sure no raiders who got brave from Preston throwing grenades at them would try to rush into the building.
From there I followed Nora back into the lower levels of the museum where we quickly made our way to the basement with Nora chuckling as she came up to the terminal. "Oh joy... Good old Robco terminals. You know, if you pull up their BIOS and activate a certain code line. It will bring up the most commonly brought up prompts that are entered."
She did so and I watched as what looked liked scrambled code filled the screen with Nora speaking. "This is technically a government building... Along with a history museum, and I highly doubt anyone came into the basement to play Grognak the Barbarian here on this terminal. Sooo I wonder what Jefferson1776 is used for?" Nora mused to herself as she exited the line of code.
And then she entered the password Jefferson1776 with a soft ringing noise ringing out as the terminal opened itself up. "And how did you learn how to hack terminals Nora?" I asked dryly.
To which she threw a saucily smile over her shoulder as she reported shamelessly. "The army had us learn such tricks so we could use terminals for buildings that the Chinese took in Anchorage, to turn the defenses and other things to our advantage... I think we mostly used it to spoof our quartermaster stock list to get extra coffee and rations sent our way haha."
Hearing that, I idly asked as she clicked a couple of keys with the locked door audibly snapping unlocked. "Can you pick locks or crack open safes as well?"
The power system was a large square power center with a raise up plug-like thing being the power core which Nora happily pulled out of the power system with her pausing at my question and shrugging. "I mean... Yeah, that was more of my uncle being a career criminal though. Why ask Jake, we can't rob a bank or something." She teased slightly as she passed by me.
With myself following behind her and Buttercup following along as I chuckled and retorted. "After two hundred years. I think most banks would have been emptied by now."
Nora however hummed and said slowly. "That may not actually be the case... Without power tools, heavy machinery, and high explosives most bank vaults probably can't be opened. And even if they could be. Why bother breaking into them when gold has little value in an apocalypse."
Even as she said that though... I was thinking about the Sierra Madre back over in New Vegas. And could only think. 'Sorry Nora... People are still willing to do a lot of stupid stuff just to get some gold.'