Cait “Cage” McKlaughton does a lot of drugs and gets her ass kicked.

The November Chill that comes with living on by the coast, or any large body of water, is why your house is so cold in the morning.

It was the reason men and women grabbed the extra blanket, rolled over and went back to sleep in the morning. That morning chill that makes people less inclined to wake up and more active when the air itself is more active. Living in Boston, there was a wet bank of air pooling through the streets, moving along like a big invisible gaseous blob, filling every nook and crevice with cold air that fogged your breath up.

Cait McKlaughton was used to not being called by her name. She was often called bitch, slut, whore, motherfucker, piece-of-shit, useless, good-for-nothing, worthless, trash, and slave. Those were just a few of her names, and she always knew if someone was talking about her. Sometimes she was “Here, now” as in, get here, now. “Move.” was another.

The name she absolutely hated with a burning intensity was “Snap, snap.”

(Neat trick, get arthritis while you’re at it).

The snapping of fingers, trying to get her attention. Snap to it. It was like a crack of a whip, a door slammed in your face, the sound of indignation when someone tries to cut you off from speaking and talk over you. Of all the sounds that make up names in the world, someone snapping at fingers at her to get her to snap to it, was an amazing way for that person to break a finger.

Breaking her master’s fingers and hand was a good way for her to be beaten and starved for two weeks. She was so hungry during those two weeks, the taste of dirt will always hold a special place in the forefront of her mind anytime her stomach ever groans for food, because eating dirt helped her stomach from screaming out for sustenance.

Slave, the last name on that list always felt like someone was taking an ice cold knife and carving out her stomach. It was a cheap shot, a bucket of ice water dumped into her bed.

“Get in the fucking cage, now!”

In times of sickness and soreness, a person’s bed is one of their solemn companions. For Cait, when she wasn't fighting any real enemies, just the ones in her head. She had a few ways of dealing with those negative voices, always trying to bring her down or make her angrier than she just was. It's not her fault the voice in her head sounds like the one that comes out of her mouth, how it's always running off on a fucker who deserves it. It's the voices that aren't hers, the ones shouting at her, screaming at her, yelling, grabbing her ankles in the middle of the night and dragging her over the concrete rubble ground with nothing on.

To deal with the haze constantly hanging in front of her vision, keeping her from ever seeing a better horizon, Cait reaches for Psycho.

Instant Ego. She knew the word, and she knew that when she took Psycho, something in her brain would make her feel this way. She knew all the side effects and horror stories from other people who took Psycho and were plenty addicted, unable to handle their high and overdosing with bloodshot eyes and swollen blue lips, gagging slightly as they realize they've metaphorically bitten off more than they can chew.

But...she and her supplier of Pyscho both argued, in a world where you can't ever remember a time whenever you were happy, why not?

Why, and why not were two powerful convincing arguments for the uneducated and misinformed. When someone says, you might like something, prepare yourself for a lifetime of liking that one thing in particular, in a very peculiar way, creating a perfect condition. If that condition isn't met, the high doesn't feel as high.

The ash-hits taste a little more rank, the vomit in the back of your throat is harder to swallow back down, and worst of all, Cait will sit there, needle in her arm, face full of drugs, and say the words. "I'm not feeling a Damn thing." Her heart's always beating too fast, why is her heart beating too fast? Because, she took some Buffout before the fight to get her pumped up right before going in and it was a long way from wearing off. And then before that it was two or three cigarettes to calm her down after finally getting food she took off another competitor, now dead.

She cracked his skull open, and then to make it look like the fight was still going on while he flailed and fumbled in pain, she patted his pockets down, reaching for lumps in the pockets. A stimpak and a dried piece of meat was in his back pocket. Cait snatched both of them, injecting the stimpak into herself as fast as she could to feel the benefits, and then devouring the dried jerky in one bite, swallowing it and choking it down as two pit raiders came in and dragged off the body.

That was why Cait couldn't feel anything, she was taking Psycho to pump her up, Cigarettes to focus, Jet to pass the time, Mentats for when she felt like being more talkitive, and Buffout to keep her strong. Alcohol to keep her from being thirsty, and then some home made projects she's cooked herself, but not when the Combat Zone was open.

For the last three years, the Combat Zone was her home and her enslavement contract belonged to the man delivering color commentary of the fight.

She was not allowed to leave, nor was she allowed to save any caps for herself, that meant not being able to buy her own food, nor save anything up for herself to buy her freedom. Everything she was paid in, she was paid as a stipulation, a living wage that would always be gone by the days' end. A shitty, terrible existence for the survival of a slave with no end in site. No release date, no date the shackles would come free and she'd use them to choke the life out of the people who did this to her.

Was it a small wonder that Cait had access to plenty of brain candy to keep her high as a kite and angry enough in a fight to rip a motherfucker's head off?

They threw a young adult deathclaw into the cage at her, fucking thing was creepy as hell and not tall enough to be a scary life threatening case of rage rampaging towards you. However, in a metal cage fight, with only the bright lights and the mind in a hazy, raiders throwing beer bottles or even flaming molotovs into the arena just for laughs; it's hard to fight a man sized deathclaw.

Their spines don't jut out like the massive pikes on the full grown adults. Their hands are much smaller, like seeing the beefiest man you've ever seen with hands that were bloated from oil based instant heat. While everyone is screaming 'Kill', she's on stage wrestling the hands away from her head as it tries to slash her face.

They're screaming for blood, her blood, the monsters blood, anyone's blood, anything. They just want to see the walls painted with red blood and spattered across the ceiling, coating everything. That's all it was to these psychos, sacrifice to some greater God of Blood, and let it pour into the Charles River until it runs red. Then the winds will come and pick up the blood water and make it rain, washing all this damn radiation and filth away until everywhere you look, you see red. Red. Red. Maybe they'll be spared.

Cait never heard the voice of God, but she swore if she did, he'd be shouting, "Blood! Blood! Blood!"

Cait's body shook, left elbow twitching against her side and the memory of the young deathclaw vanished, she thought it was a deathclaw, Tommy Lonegan said it was a guy with a deathclaw gauntlet.

She scowled thinking his name, looking over to her left, she could see through the bars where Tommy sat, taking bets and waging who would win or die in his fight club. The rotten ghoul was a man with no recourse. They both knew where Cait stood, she stood in the ring as his fighter, and he stood out there watching her get beat to near death on a daily basis. He collected his money, she'd get food and something to keep her quiet, then she'd cuss at him and tell him to fuck off.

It wasn't a way to live, but at least you could live, she reasoned.

On the small table right beside him, no larger than a stool was a little blue and white box from Medtek corporation, Addictol. God how she hated the thought of him holding that out there in plain site. Cait can't remember if she took Psycho just to spite him, or if he had it because he'd told her she was going to die if she kept doing it and he wouldn't be able to keep making money off her if she was dead.

Not that he cared about her, he was only concerned that if the current clientele cleared out, she'd finally have the time to rest and gain her strength, and clear her mind and then kill Tommy Lonegan.

All the men and women and even runts with a gun twice as big as they are wrapped tight in both arms like a teddy bear, while managing to tip a brown bottle of local rotgut distill alcohol down their pecker bird lips. Savages.

All whistling and cheering.

The lights on stage were coming on, the Orpheum Theater that once housed magnificent plays and musicals, movies, ballets, and dozens of dress rehearsals was now a live combat arena.

"Drop them! We've got three challenger of the R&R Gang, Lepewto, Juygin, and Vanke. Knock 'em down, win a prize." Lonegan said to her.

The lights flashed red then pink then yellow, organ music pumping in the air and the Combat Zone was a carnival.

The pipe organ was screeching, speeding up and slowing down like a wind up toy. The men she was fighting weren't even men, just giant clown dolls you could knock down a million times, but keep getting back up.

She pounced on the first one and smashed it's legs, deflating the sack of air with a wheeze and sputter. The other two clowns punched her with their giant overinflated boxing gloves, but it came at her so slowly, she thought it wouldn't hurt.

It hit her so softly, she didn't feel herself get knocked back into reality with a broken eye socket and a bashed in nose. Thrown against the wall of the cage, she collapsed and smacked her head against the steel bars with a loud clang.

Cait was laughing rolling on the floor, laughing, and the people out there were cheering laughing, applauding for more!
She'd never been to a carnival before, this was amazing! The pretty elephants jumping up onto one leg for a balancing act, a man and a women on a high swinging jump of faith over fifty feet up into the air without a net! The dancers were being pulled through the air on giant pulleys with thick extension cords, but the colored rags and cloths disguised the plain chord and made it look like a flag billowing in a gust of wind.

The clowns were piling out of their car and she could smell popcorn, and hear the criers march up and down the rows offering cotton candy, ice cold Nuka Cola, and chips. If you were over twenty one, a different crier with a big blue ice chest filled with cold beers would come along every so often. Nothing like enjoying a family get together out, watching a performance with a nice little depressant to make the memory bittersweet.

Cait was thirsty. Her head was waving back and forth like a tall tree blown in strong wind. Now she was rooted down to the earth, one thought in mind. She was going to get something to drink, right here and now, and all she needed to do was get past the two clowns.

Her eyes were hot from the swelling and blood rushing to her face, she felt water running down her cheeks, but she didn't feel any pain, so she must be happy, so she must be having a good time.

Swinging a punch, she clocked the first clown right in the jaw, knocking his chin up and backwards, and exposing his throat. The clown cried big jets of tears, but couldn't make any noise so he held up a big sign that said 'WAHHHH!!!" She jabbed her elbow into his windpipe and shoved him back as the third clown kicked her in the side of the knee.

The third clown had a large sledgehammer that said "Pow!" In red and yellow. He swung it like a golf club, letting the weight drop down, teeing off her head to score a whole in one. But it was all an act, and she was still laughing as the sledgehammer clanged against the ground first, skidding, and then hit her skull. All the momentum was lost a fraction of an inch away from her head, that only left her ears ringing.

She twisted off the right and crawled up to her hands and knees, then stood up. The third clown swung again and the hammer clanged against the side of the cage like a gong. His hands shook as the vibrations went up his arm. She threw her left elbow into the mans ribcage and punched out with her right fist into the clown's funny bone making him drop the hammer and leap and yowl with pain.

"Eeek! Ohh! Ahh! Owie!" Running away, he left the center ring and the ringleader announced from "AND NOW, if you'll direct your attention to the far end of the circus tent entering the center ring, you'll see our lovely new addition to our circus, from the wilds of Africa, to the plains of the Serengeti, King of the Jungle, and the ferocious alpha of the pack, the LION!"

Cait had never been to a circus, but she always imagined it something like this. After the clowns went away...next came the ponies pulling a cart with a lion's cage on the back. Parading down in front of the audience, making a full circuit loop in front of all the spectators so everyone could get a good look. For many, this would be as close to a zoo, or as close to a wild, exotic animal as they would get for a very long time.

The lion tamer cracked its whip and the lion roared, scaring the raiders in the audience, and then the circus lights didn't seem so bright, and Cait saw Tommy Lonegan sitting in the stands. "What do you expect me to do? Fight a lion?"

He just shook his head, "Nope, I expect you to survive three minutes! Taking all bets! Who here thinks Cait the champion can survive three whole minutes against this terrifying beast!?"

Oh Gods, she was sweating, she was feeling cold and she was sweating. This thing wasn't a monster of two animal halves put together by radiation and twisted nightmares, it was a lion and an eagle, it was being pulled in by ponies painted blue and orange, and she was at the circus.

All the more reason to laugh and be merry.

A ferris wheel and a merry go round, she could hear the pipe organ music now, even from inside the tent. The ponies galloping around and around forever, up and down on giant poles while little kids rode on their backs with parents by their side, making sure they wouldn't fall off.

But...this wasn't your regular circus.

This wasn't one you took your kids to, this was the circus you've only heard about coming to town, maybe, dreadfully.

The only reason this run down circus came to your town was because of an old un-shakeable contract that lets this shabby group come through once a year. One time, it may have been a credible and respectable show, now it was pitting its zoo animals against combatants and calling the winners gladiator champions.

They'd seen the dancers and the jugglers and balancing acts before from the same crew last year, and the year before that, and it never gets any better. It's the same thing year after year, with less and less of the same practiced finesse, and more of people going through the motions.

The carnival workers themselves became bored with the job, but they don't want to move on. This carnival should've shut itself down long ago, and its employees moved onto bigger and better things, but Tommy Lonegan was too comfy not putting in the effort.

He didn't need to hire jugglers, or dancers, or tightrope walkers when the spectators wanted blood, so blood he gave them.

He didn't need to train the lions, when he could just dump them in a pit and let whoever else was in there make it out on their own.

The ponies backed the eagle lion's cage against the fighting ring, with Tommy hustling up to the side of the cart to open the gate.

"And the three minutes start...NOW!"

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Next Chapter: Ch. 47 Pip-Boy Ping Nov. 2nd Estimated time remaining: 21 Hours, 27 Minutes