Okay! First chapter up. This is my first serious (more or less) project. Got a couple of others going on and I'll probably keep updating on those that get the most traffic. Anyway, enjoy my little story. I know it's somewhat short, but the next chapter (in a couple of days) will be nice and long.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fallout 3. Other people do.

Damn.

Sydney cursed between her teeth.

And the day had started so well. She had gotten into the museum without any problems. Setting up the perimeter had been a breeze as well. Connecting her portable terminal to the museum's mainframe had been easy for once, and she did not have to fight with tons of cables and plugs like last time. It had gone all so well that she had let her guard down and now, after a small slip-up which had caused a giant fucking mess, she was trapped.

And it had only been such a small mistake she had done, that had escalated the situation. When she had been staking out the surrounding rooms, she had been surprised by a mole rat. In the ensuing mess she had missed her shot and the rat had fled out of the building through a hole in the wall, and onto the mutant-infested mall, all the while screeching like a bitch giving birth to hedgehogs.

Even though mutants were not considered to be generally smart beings, those that had found the screaming rat had been smart enough to see that the rat's wounds had been caused by bullets. These mutants had called a dozen of their other green-yellow friends and followed the bloodtrail to the museum. The rest of the story had involved lots of shooting, shouting and fragmine-stomping on the mutants' part and hasty scrambling for cover on Sydney's.

This had been almost two hours ago. Sydney had been forced to retreat into an exhibition room behind the atrium. Her last mines were scattered on the floor in front of her, while she was kneeling behind a fallen support-pillar, next to her terminal.

She checked her machine-gun for the hundredth time and briefly considered abandoning her other, more cumbersome, gear and make a run for it but she quickly dropped the thought. Even if she made it outside, through the mall and to one of the brotherhood-encampments, she still had to get back to Rivet City, which would be very hard with only her gun and some bullets. Even if she got lucky and managed to avoid all mutants, raiders, Talon-mercs and other scum on her way back to Rivet City, she had botched up the mission, which meant not getting paid. Without money, the only other options she had were whoring and mercing. The latter appealed to her a lot more than the former, but most people who hire a desperate merc are either desperate themselves, crazy or merely looking for cannon-fodder. Sydney knew from experience that neither of the above were great working-conditions in any situation.

So she just had to toughen it out.

Sydney gritted her teeth. The waiting for the next wave of mutants was the most unnerving about the whole mess she was in.
Suddenly she could hear heavy boots coming closer. Sydney almost grinned. Finally. Time to get cracking once more.

She peeped around her cover. Before she could see any mutants, she heard a sound that was vaguely similar to a steelcable suddenly tearing under high pressure. She saw a couple of blue flashes from around the corner and more sound, that mixed with the screaming of the mutants. There were two heavy, thumbing noises and the mixed voices of the mutants died down to a single one, that kept on shouting in a strange way. Sydney strained to see something.

It's a wail, she suddenly realized. The last mutant was wailing.

There was the sound of lighter boots and the tiles. Whatever had caused the blue flashes was wearing steel-tipped boots or something similar. The steps stopped and the wailing of the mutant died down. There was a murmuring sound and the screaming started again until it was cut short by another flash.

Sydney held her breath. She gripped her SMG tighter.

Through the double doorframe to the hall, stepped a monster.