Wasteland Warrior
Prologue:
Leaving 101
Anastasia stood next to the battered weather worn signpost that read 'Scenic Overlook'. She looked down into the nuclear wrecked landscape below, taking in the wide picture that met her gaze. She could see for miles around and all looked ominously the same, a picture of devastation and undoubtedly desperation for those unfortunate enough to still live in the hellscape that she now found herself calling home. She thought on how lucky she had been to spend the first nineteen years of her life in the safety of Vault 101.
Vault life was far from being perfect but she almost wished she could walk back up the slope, open the door and walk back into the vault. She silently cursed her father for bringing this upon her head. If he hadn't left, Jonas would still be alive and she wouldn't have been forced to fight for her life against the very people she had lived amongst and called friends for as long as she could remember. But now her father had ruined everything, she still loved him, he was her only living relative but what was she to do now.
Already she missed Amata's smiling face and cheeky humour, she even missed Butch's antics, Butch she could deal with well enough. Indeed he had proved to be a snivelling coward when his own mother had needed him and Anastasia had come to his rescue. How could she possibly survive the wasteland, what would happen to her, she thought almost dizzyingly as terrible situations ran through her mind and she found herself forcing them from her mind, pushing them to one side in order to keep some semblance of reality, at least the only reality she could imagine for herself now that this terrible situation was beginning to play out.
She looked far into the distance, she could make out the blasted shells of buildings, and from where she stood they looked almost as they once had before they had been destroyed during the war. But she knew that as she approached the capitol city, the true horror of a nuclear strike would reveal itself in the twisted ruins of the Capitol Wasteland. She wondered how anything could have lived out here for the past two hundred years, how had civilization survived such a devastating war that left little standing and had blasted the earth with radiation.
She wondered on the effects that would have occurred on the survivors. She had to wonder if they were still human, would she be the only one left unchanged by prolonged exposure to the radiation, how long would it be before she too felt the effects of the radioactive wasteland. She tried to imagine that humanity had indeed survived and that the other vaults would at least ensure that civilization would continue to exist albeit in a few small enclaves of civilized humanity. But then again what if they too were plagued by an overseer such as the one who had controlled Vault 101. What if they were now all gone and 101 was the only survivor. The thoughts continued to race through her mind as she fought to keep some hope that what she saw before her wasn't all there was to see, the thought of forever being alone did not sit well with her.
Again she cursed her father for what he had done to her. She would not forgive him for this. Whatever his reasons they must have been good ones, why else would he leave his daughter to this terrible fate. Did he even realize what would happen once the overseer had discovered that he had gone. And poor Jonas, he had been Anastasia's close friend. He always had time for her and listened when her father was too busy. She almost wished she had killed the overseer for what he had done, but he was Amata's father and she could not bring herself to have Amata hate her for murdering her father. Why had Amata stayed, she could have come with her, friends forever. But it wasn't to be, her path lay in a different direction. She doubted she would ever see Amata again, they would never allow her back into the vault now.
She looked down below her to the bottom of the cliffs. A blasted and broken road wound into the distance. The rusting shells of what were once automobiles lay scattered along the highway in ever silent death. They would have been there since the war, their corpses rotting in the boiling and relentless heat of the wasteland sun. None of them would ever move again, indeed most had been stripped by wasteland scavengers of anything that was useful or salvageable. The chilling realization that some would contain the rotting husks of those who had died in the initial nuclear strikes, tossed about and baked inside the metal shells as the bombs fell all around them.
Another thought struck her, she would be forced to scavenge, perhaps take from the dead if she were unlucky enough to come across those who had perished in the wastelands. The thought seemed almost ghoulish, picking over the bones of the dead, her next thought shocked her to her very core, when food was scarce what did people eat, would they have reverted to their animalistic instincts and resorted to cannibalism. She shook uncontrollably, the more she thought of all the possibilities the more she thought it would be a good idea to walk back into the cave leading to the vault and simply wait there in relative safety from the outside world and all its many horrors. She dismissed the idea, it could easily attract predators. She had to find a glimmer of civilization in the wasteland and soon or what else could she expect other than to be swallowed in the wastes.
She looked back over her shoulder, squinting as the baking midday sunlight shone down on her pale skin. The sky overhead was blissfully peaceful and clear of clouds. It would have been a welcome sight if everything else didn't seem so bleak. She stared at the old wooden door leading back into Vault 101. She thought momentarily on all that she had left behind. She thought of all she had ever known in her nineteen years of life. She thought on everyone she had ever known, all her friends back in the vault, but mostly of Amata, she couldn't get her best friend out of her mind. But she knew there was no way back now. Only the wasteland welcomed her now. The Capitol Wasteland beckoned to her, daring her to take the first steps on her journey.
She looked back out over the wasteland, she was drawn to what could be a village or settlement, it was hard to tell from this distance. It was piled high with metal, wood and rubbish, rising into the air perhaps walls for protection against predators she thought. From her vantage point she could make out little else, she would have to investigate further if she was to find anyone in this god forsaken place. Perhaps it would also offer some shelter from the wasteland heat.
Where once there had been green fields and trees, now nothing grew. The life seemed to have been drained out of the very earth itself. Anastasia couldn't help but feel sad. She had seen pictures in the vault of how Washington D.C had once been, before the war had destroyed everything. She had often hoped that one day she would get the chance to visit the outside. But nothing could have prepared her for the harsh reality of what man had done to destroy himself.
She sat down next to the signpost and began checking through her travellers backpack. She looked through everything she had managed to take or steal from the guards she had been forced to defend herself against. There was also everything she had salvaged from the vault in the hurry to get out of there. She could only hope that she hadn't killed anyone during her escape, she felt no malice towards them, only pity that they felt the need to kill Jonas and try to kill her. She had known them all, but the overseer had made certain that there was no chance of resolving the situation peacefully. She could only hope that Amata would be safe from her father's wrath.
She had three 10mm pistols, one was in very good condition, it was the one Amata had stolen from her father and brought to her when she had warned her to leave. She ensured it had its full complement of bullets and placed it in the holster at her waist. The other two she had taken from two of the security guards when they had opened fire on some of the vault dwellers, what could have possessed them to do such a thing, whatever the reason she knew the vault would be a very different place from now on and wondered just how long the overseer could last given the anger that would erupt from the murder of innocents. But the thought that she could be blamed to cover it up angered her, only Amata would know the truth. She placed the other two in one of the side pockets of the backpack, making certain both were fully loaded. She hoped and prayed that no one had died due to her escape, she had battered the guards hard with her baseball bat and left them in a bloody and battered state, but surely that was better than death. Of course she had robbed them of everything they were carrying, which was bulky enough to cause her some concern over how far she would have to travel before reaching somewhere she could trade.
She had her beloved BB Gun. It was her tenth birthday present which she cherished dearly as she did everything her father had given her. She took an old rag from her pocket and wiped it down the baseball bat that had bought her her freedom in blood. She winced slightly as she wiped away blood, gore and even teeth embedded in the bat. She shook as a chilling shiver ran down her spine at the thought of what she had just done. She had seven police batons which she had taken from the fallen guards. They would make useful trade items she hoped. It seemed somewhat ridiculous now thinking that she had stopped time and again during her escape to recover what were relatively useless items, even going so far as to strip guards of their security uniforms. But if she was honest she had known at the back of her mind that everything she had taken would possibly be tradable in the outside world even though at the time she was trying to keep the guards from killing her.
She counted her ammunition for the guns she now carried. She had 231 rounds for the 10mm pistols and 50 rounds for the BB Gun. She guessed that it probably wouldn't last long with the horrors that undoubtedly plagued the wastelands but it would have to last until she could either find or trade for some more. She placed the ammunition in one of the pockets on the side of the backpack. She took out her medical kit and began searching through it counting the items she had placed inside. There were seventeen stimpack syringes, two boxes of mentats, one syringe of med-x and one bottle of rad-x pills. She closed the medical kit and thanked her good fortune that she had at least some means of healing herself if she were to become hurt in the wasteland or wounded in a fight. She placed the medical kit carefully inside her backpack and looked at the full bottle of vodka she had taken as payment from Butch's mother for saving her from the radroach attack. She told herself it was for medicinal purposes, but actually longed for a drink, what would indeed be her first drink of alcohol. She placed it beside the backpack and told herself she would have a drink before she set of, perhaps it would give her a little false courage to take her first steps into the wilderness.
She looked at the bulging heap of clothes she had taken from the vault. She certainly wouldn't run short of clothes at least. She sorted through them, her Vault 101 jumpsuit that she had changed for one of the heavy security uniforms. It would offer a little more protection on her journey. She had replaced her baseball cap with one of the security helmets. There were six other sets of security armour and helmets, two utility jumpsuits and a vault lab uniform. She tucked her baseball cap into her belt, figuring that the security helmet would at least offer a little more protection if she was attacked, although it would be hot under the baking sun.
She took out her Grognak the Barbarian comic from her backpack and its plastic cover and sat, her legs dangling over the edge of the cliff. She began to read thinking of her dear friend Amata who had given her the comic all those years ago for her tenth birthday. Half an hour later she placed the comic safely back inside its plastic cover and carefully inside her backpack, smiling as she did so. There she was reading a comic with little care in the world and yet her entire life was collapsing around her. She began giggling uncontrollably at the crazy situation she now found herself in. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she couldn't decide whether they were tears of joy at being free or real tears that expressed how she really felt at this terrible situation.
She looked through the rest of her junk hoping it was at least tradable for something a little more useful. She had a baseball and baseball glove, also birthday presents that she didn't really want to part with. She had a medicine Bobblehead which would undoubtedly come in useful, increasing her knowledge of medicine. She had two conductors, some pre-war money, some bits of scrap metal a tube of wonderglue and her keyring. From the canteen she had taken a plate, a bowl, a cup and knife and fork as well as a spoon and tin opener. She had taken both a lighter and some matches for lighting a fire if she found herself out in the wastes at night. She had taken enough tinned food to last her up to two weeks. She had taken two one-litre bottles and two one gallon containers all full of clean vault water. She wondered how long it would last and how long before she was forced to drink the irradiated water that she would find in the wastes. She had a plastic pipe for transferring water from the containers to her water bottles. She knew she wouldn't be able to travel long distances with so much to carry and hoped that the settlement she had seen was both occupied and friendly, if indeed it was a settlement at all, there was no way of knowing from this distance.
She crossed her legs, swinging them over the side of the cliff, she felt a little like singing, but couldn't think what to sing. She was in truth completely out of her depth, just putting off the inevitable first steps into the wastes for as long as she could, wanting to feel the familiarity of being so close to the vault for just a while longer. She turned and picked up the bottle of vodka. She stared at it for a long moment and finally unscrewed the cap. She slowly lifted the bottle to her lips and let the liquid spill into her mouth. She took a long mouthful and swigged it down before putting the cap back on the bottle and placing it inside her backpack. She coughed at the strong taste of the alcohol. But she found herself enjoying the taste and wondering what the other alcoholic drinks she had seen mentioned on the vault computers tasted like. She promised herself she would try them if she got the chance.
She placed the voice recording disc in the Pipboy 3000. It was the one she had taken from Jonas's body, the one from her father. She listened to it over and over again trying to glean some kind of information that would be useful in finding her father, but if she was truly honest with herself that task may have to wait. She wanted to set out on her own as daunting as the prospect seemed, she knew in her heart that she could do it and that was what she really wanted. The freedom to make her own choices and not be guided by anyone. And besides which she still felt a great deal of anger and resentment at her father for leaving in the first place. She had to decide now what it was she would do. Searching for her father could take a long time, especially if he didn't wish to be found. The more she thought about it the more emotional she got, until her eyes welled up and warm tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Pull yourself together Ana." She mumbled under her breath and through all the tears.
"It's time to see what the Capitol Wastelands has to offer." She continued as she wiped away the tears with her hand. She stood back up and walked over to her backpack, studying it for a moment and finally reaching for the pile of clothes on the floor. She folded them up the best she could and placed each one inside the backpack. She wondered why her father would have such a travellers backpack and why he would possibly need it. And perhaps also why he hadn't taken it, although she guessed that he was probably in more of a rush to escape than even she had been. It took ten minutes to pack everything away. It was a tight fit with everything she had crammed inside but everything except the helmets and her baseball bat went inside. She checked her holster to ensure she could get to her pistol if she needed to. The helmets she strung up to the outside of the backpack from dangling tassels. It would be a bit uncomfortable to carry but she was hoping to trade them as soon as possible. She placed what remained of the string in her pocket with the dirty blood soaked rag.
She checked her Pipboy 3000 to make certain that it was in good working order, she would be relying on it for a lot during her travels. While fiddling about with the controls she managed to tune in to something called the Enclave Radio, she wondered what and who the Enclave were, and smiled at the thought that their were indeed people out there and with enough technical know how to run a radio station. She was intrigued and let it play for awhile. A voice claiming to be President John Henry Eden spoke on the radio followed by what she thought was extremely annoying music. Within minutes she had turned it off, the music already beginning to grate on her nerves.
With everything packed away in its place she lifted the large heavy backpack onto her back, taking the two water containers, one in each hand and placing the baseball bat through a loop on the backpack. She was finally ready to go. She made her way down the slope, careful to keep her footing. She was only too aware of how valuable the water she carried would be to her over the coming days, and one wrong step could result in a punctured container. She reached the road her gaze drawn to the shopping trolley in the middle of the road. She wondered how it had got there and decided such trivial matters were the least of her worries.
As she set off on her journey towards the settlement she noticed her Pipboy had tuned into something called Galaxy News Radio, the man speaking called himself 'Three Dog'. The signal wasn't quite as clear as the Enclave Radio but she liked the music so left it on, besides she would need something to occupy her mind as she travelled. What she thought might be a settlement got gradually closer. She climbed over rocks and thick underbrush in the unforgiving terrain, making her way steadily to what she hoped would be at least a hint of civilization. The closer she got the more hopeful and convinced she became that she was right and indeed this was a settlement. Finally after twenty minutes of travelling she stood at the base of a large metal structure. The towering walls rose up over her. It was obvious to her that the place had been designed with defence in mind. She walked around the base trying to find some signs of an entrance.
Suddenly she got the feeling that she was being watched, a strange sensation like a sixth sense telling her danger was close by. She dropped the water containers lightly onto the ground and took the baseball bat from her pack. Within seconds she was being charged by two giant rodents. She swung the bat viciously, cracking the leading mole rat in the side of the head and stunning it momentarily. She fought a bitter and bloody battle with the two frenzied creatures until they both lay dead and bleeding at her feet. Just as she thought it was over a third charged through the underbrush, it was snapping at her legs, its teeth narrowly missing her shins as she again battered it until it lay dead on the ground.
She waited another five minutes, ready and alert for more of the vile creatures, but it seemed like that was the last of them. She placed the baseball bat on her pack and picked up the water containers and began walking. The radio caught her attention. There was mention of someone called James, which just happened to be her father's name. What were the chances of it being the same person, she thought to herself. Five minutes later she stood in front of the heavy metal gates that lead into the settlement.
A robot introduced itself as Deputy Weld. It stood guard in front of the gates. "Welcome to Megaton, enjoy your stay it's the friendliest town around." It said in its robotic voice.
Bodies of giant ants lay scattered around the entrance. Obviously the deputy was taking his duties seriously if the body count was anything to go by. The gates whirred into action and the robot spoke once more. "Please stand clear of the gate." It requested.
Anastasia waited a moment turned to look back at the wasteland and was glad her short journey was at least over for now, although what waited for her beyond the gates she could only guess at. She walked through the gates glad to see that at least somewhere had survived, perhaps if she liked it she would stay, but for now she would be happy to put her feet up and have a drink in the bar that the robot kept mentioning, Moriarty's she believed.