Poor Judgment

a short story by Torpedo Reno

Who knew it could be so hard?

To make choices, I mean. Not... other less important things. I mean about decisions. In the stupid-ass flicks they shown in the Vault about common sense and judgment, we saw the lame stereotypes of the every day, perfect Pre-War family: working father, who always knew best, the supportive and wise, grocery-hunting mother, the prissy daughter being fawned over by everyone at school, and the jumpy, excitable boy you'd find playing "Hunt the Commie" in the nearby trash dump.

Those films attempted to tell us what to do when you're faced with choices, how to analyze them, stupid common sense shit like that. Shame that while Mr. Brotch sat in his chair, half asleep, we were doing everything but watching them.

Now I'm starting to wish I've paid attention.

It was only five minutes ago, actually, that I've started thinking about these things. See, I run a mercenary company of three. Me, a Ghoul enforcer named Charon (after the boat driver of the River Styx, of the Greek myths), and some swear-spewing, chain-smoking ex-Raider who calls himself Jericho. We've done alot of high-profile and low-profile, classified and high-intensity shit across the Wasteland in the past three months, it was no wonder I was approached by a well-dressed man in that dingy old saloon up in Megaton.

He sat there, in his greasy business suit, waving a pedicured hand at me. Jericho sat at the counter, smoking and hitting on the bar whore, while Charon walked up to the man at my flank, his drum-barrel shotty dangling loosely from his fingers.

I looked closely at the man. Tortoise-shell glasses, a dusty fedora rested atop his scalp. He seemed to both exhibit power and nervousness. He was keeping it well under wraps, though.

"Finally..." he began. "Someone who isn't tied to this... putrescent cess-pool. You have no affiliation with this trash heap, do you?"

I looked over at him through my dust-smudged goggles. I didn't say a word.

"The quiet one, hm?" he scratched at a quickly growing stubble on his jawline. Apparently, he hasn't gone this far without shaving. Lightweights.

"I'm Mister Burke-"

"Speak up," I said loudly enough for Jericho to hear. He coughed a muffled "Fuck you" through the neck of his whiskey bottle, set it on the table, and came up to my flank.

The man looked at me again. "I'm looking for a free-agent. I represent certain interests who view this town as a... smudge of shame on this quickly growing landscape."

This man was stupid, I could already tell. The Wasteland clearly wasn't going to be going anywhere for at least another hundred years. But I let him continue.

"Would you be interested in helping us... clear this particular smudge?" His deep, charismatic tone lowered to a barely audible whisper. His nervousness was showing.

I looked over him again. I was clueless. "What do you mean? Speak up." Jericho turned around from his flirting. "Not you," I said. He mumbled again and went back to his hobby. I nodded toward to the shifty man.

"In my possession I hold a Fusion Pulse Charge." He withdrew a small, bright-orange object from behind his manila coat lapel. "Attach this to the bomb in the town center, and... well, you know the rest."

I stopped my tough-guy routine. Honestly, I'm no tough-guy. Hell, all I can do is pull off a good shot and people fawn all over my guys like we just took down a Deathclaw armed with rubber chickens. It just helps in getting some more caps for my routines.

"You mean you're going to destroy the town?" Now my own doubt was showing, and that's something an up and coming merc should never let happen.

"No, no," he attempted to assure me. "I'm merely a recruiter. You get to have the fun."

I looked at the object in his lapel. "Simms wants me to disarm the bomb."

At this, his disposition turned icy. "Simms is an idiot," he ranted. "He prides himself as mayor and sheriff of this.. trash heap. Trust me..." he trailed off, staring at the single bullet-hole in my helmet. "You will be doing all of us a favor."

I waved him off. "You're a sick man, Mister Burke." I turned around and opened the door to the saloon. "This conversation is over."

I left the dingy saloon with my two companions at my flanks. I waved them off and they shrugged and hung around the sides of the door of the saloon, looking at each other with disagreeable scowls.

I leaned over the sun-bleached railing. Moriarty, the annoying bar-owner he was, looked at me and said, "Shouldn't you be looking for your daddy, kiddie?" I looked over at him, my eyes burning, ready for a fight. "Piss off, Ireland," I scowled, and looked back down at the undetonated bomb.

Yet.