Chapter 1 - Strangers
It was a mild evening in the settlement of Musgrave, a small establishment in the northwestern most part of what was once a great city on the East Coast.
The worst of the summer heat was over and the residents lounged around the built-up alley between the two blocks of row homes that made up the entirety of the residential and business section of the village. The guards posted at the entrance watched bleary-eyed as the monotony of the Philadelphia Wasteland continued unchanging before them. Russell, a twenty-year resident of Musgrave, knocked back a shot of whiskey before setting the bottle and glass down on a makeshift table next to him. He then wiped the sweat from underneath the mop of dark hair covering his forehead and paused as a familiar group of rough-looking men and women appeared in the distance. Raiders.
"Joseph!" He whispered harshly to the other man on duty. "Stand watch while I go and get the sheriff." The other man nodded his consent and tried to look nonchalant as the older man moved quickly into the settlement, and the raiders came ever closer.
"Well, well, well! Who do we have babysitting the gates to 'paradise' today?" One of the men standing before Joseph mocked the lone guard and he flinched when the larger man flicked his nose. The others behind the man laughed. "What? Too much inbreeding make you stupid?" The laughter suddenly stopped as the raider grabbed Joseph by the chin and pulled him forward until their eyes were only inches apart. "Answer the damn question!"
"That will be enough, Reaper." An older grizzled man wearing ancient fatigues, a buttoned shirt and a long coat strode confidently toward the scene and spoke with an air of authority. He had a sawed-off shotgun in a holster to his left side and rested his hand on top of a large pistol on his right.
"Whatever, old man. You know why we're here! Give us our due and then enough WILL be enough." Reaper spat the words out as he violently released the smaller man and sauntered toward the sheriff of Musgrave. "We'll be waiting in that shithole you call a bar. Sheriff." At this, the group of raiders moved toward one of the many row homes to the right of the entrance, the one with a makeshift sign indicating to all interested parties that it was 'Joe's Cantina.'
The sheriff watched as the group entered the bar and shook his head, mumbling to himself. "They get worse every time."
The atmosphere in Joe's Cantina went to shit at the appearance of the extortionists from the nearby raider encampment. As they filed in, the locals did their best to blend into the background and be as unobtrusive as possible. Reaper and two others sat down at a tall table and called for service with a whistle and a gesture. One of the others stationed themselves by the entrance and the final raider moved into the bar to harass the inhabitants.
"Will you look at this? Actual poker chips, Reaper! These boys actually have real poker chips!" The raider exclaimed excitedly as he moved to grab the chips. He stood over a rough-looking middle-aged man with dark hair that wore traditional leather armor and another individual with their head obscured by a helmet that matched the dark armor they wore. A dark-gloved hand shot out just as the young raider grabbed a handful of chips and connected just below his ribs. "Ahh! What the fuck? Who the fuck do you think you are?" The raider pulled out a large serrated knife and was moving to threaten the insolent merc when the man moved and, in an instant, the young raider was on the floor cradling his now broken wrist.
A raspy masculine voice came from behind the dark-mesh of the helmet. "It isn't polite to touch what isn't yours. That will serve as your one warning." The lightly armored figure smoothly moved into position at the side of the bar, covering his flank from potential attacks by the other raiders. "Are there any objections to the lesson I have just given this whelp?"
At this, Reaper simply motioned for the two raiders sitting with him to pick up the younger raider. As they moved him, albeit roughly, to a table in the front of the bar, Reaper calmly approached the covered man and stood no more than five feet in front of him wearing a considering expression. The man before him was shorter than average, but carried himself with a confidence that was seen in a lot of the mercenaries he had come across in the past. He was covered from head to toe in a suit of dark-gray armor that almost seemed to absorb the light around him. He also observed that he carried no visible weapons on his person.
After sizing him up, Reaper arrogantly addressed the merc before him. "What you did there was impressive, waster. Dumb. But impressive. How would you like to join us for a drink? The first round would be on you, of course."
The mercenary stood facing Reaper for a pensive moment and then waved a hand in front of him. "I was in the middle of something and would like to get back to it. Maybe some other time." Though he declined the invitation, he remained in place...waiting for the inevitable.
"That wasn't truly a request, friend. Get your ass over there and buy us a round before this becomes a problem." Reaper now had a sneer on his face and was moving to place his hand on a wicked-looking machete strapped to his belt.
Still seated at the now empty table, no one noticed the slow movement of the defiant merc's companion while everyone's attention was on the display toward the back of the bar. He steadily unholstered a 10mm pistol that rested at his hip and pointed it toward the other raiders at the front of the bar, keeping it hidden underneath the table.
His companion seemed to notice this and moved into a ready position. "Take your people and get out of here before someone else gets hurt."
"You son of a..." Reaper pulled the machete from its holder and brought it down upon the foolish merc in one swift motion when the scene descended into chaos. Reaper never got to finish his exclamation as his intended target parried the attack, moved inside his attacker's threat range and landed a series of quick punches to Reaper's abdomen, followed by a strike to his throat. At the same time, several shots rang out and not all from his previously seated companion. It was over in an instant, with Reaper on his knees clutching his throat and three other raiders lying on the ground in various degrees of pain from the gunshot wounds they had received.
The young raider with a broken wrist still sat at a table but had become noticeably quiet and had a look of shock written across his features. He winced as he moved to put his hands above his head. "Don't shoot. Take what you want and I'll go."
A young attractive woman with tanned skin and reddish-brown hair motioned for him to go. She was the one that had shot BeeBee, he noted. He then slowly moved toward the door with his hands raised above his head and nudged the door open with his foot, never taking his eyes off of the woman in front of him. Once he was gone, the woman moved to the still choking raider at the back of the bar, as another patron wearing a blue jumpsuit checked on the remaining raiders.
"Are you going to finish it or let him suffer," she asked Reaper's assailant as he stood with his arms crossed above the choking raider. He noted that she wore what appeared to be well-used leathers and had two large daggers in sheaths on her right and left hips. She also wore a shoulder holster which now held what he guessed to be the .44 that was unmistakably heard during the chaos just moments ago.
He exchanged a look with his now standing companion and, with a shrug and another smooth motion, snapped the raider's neck to put him out of his misery.
"What about them?" The woman motioned with her head to the other raiders on the ground still writhing in agony.
The helmed figure again shrugged. "My grievance was with this one." He motioned to the now-dead Reaper. "The others are not my concern." At this, he moved to strip the raider of his belongings, including the machete that effectively began the fight. He stood a moment later, leaving only the makeshift armor on his felled opponent. To his chagrin, the woman hadn't moved and was still watching him.
"You realize that you were the cause of this situation and these people are now going to pay for your actions," she admonished the slightly smaller man in front of her. "If the guy wearing the jumpsuit over there and I hadn't stepped in, this situation would likely have gotten out of control and some of these people could have been hurt!"
The offending merc's companion, who had been quiet up until this point, came over to stand beside the seething woman. She noted that the man had weathered features and several old scars running across his neck and jaw line. He spoke with a slightly cultured voice and tried to be as soothing as possible. "My associate can be a little aggressive at times and I'm certain that he didn't intend for the situation to turn out the way it did. That said I believe the world will be better off without this lot."
The woman just huffed and walked back over to the bar. A light-haired man wearing a blue jumpsuit and a leather jacket with a clunky electronic device on his left arm had just finished examining the wounded raiders. He wore glasses and had a sophisticated air to him. As the woman passed, he stood and shook his head. "I don't think these three are in any condition to be moved. This one," he pointed to the female that was now gurgling pathetically, "has a pierced lung and likely won't last more than a few minutes."
The bartender, who had made himself scarce during the heated exchange, had reappeared and now directed one of the other locals to get the sheriff. The woman didn't have to go far, as the older man walked thru the door just as she reached it.
The sheriff nodded to the bartender as he stepped into the bar and surveyed the damage. It appeared as though there was limited damage to the actual property itself, but blood was now pooling around the bodies of the still living raiders. He then scrunched up his face and pinched his nose as he realized what this meant for Musgrave. "Jed," he directed the question to the middle-aged bartender, "who is responsible for this mess?"
Jed then made what was decidedly a good business decision and went with the diplomatic approach. "Reaper and his boys were causing trouble and harassed someone that they probably shouldn't have. The situation resolved itself, Sheriff." He then shrugged and moved to start cleaning a glass while trying to act as if there weren't four bodies lying on the floor of his bar.
The sheriff started to direct orders to the townsfolk to move the raiders outside as carefully as possible, before asking those involved in the firefight to follow him for a chat. He led the group of strangers a short distance from the bar and toward the opposite end of town where a large amount of debris acted as a natural barrier to the outside world. Once he was sure that none of the other locals were present, he turned to the group before him. "Listen. What you did in the bar...it may have seemed like a good thing, but those boys were part of a much larger outfit not far from here and they WILL NOT be happy with what happened."
The confrontational woman from earlier was again glaring at the merc that had caused the fight. She then turned to the sheriff and tried to sound convincing. "I'm sure there's something that can be done. Where are they based? Is it possible for these raiders to simply 'disappear' so that the rest of them assume that the wasteland got to them?"
The sheriff looked as if he was pondering for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. "Right. Take the bodies to a nearby radscorpion den and leave them for the critters to deal with. I know you're all just travelers, but this is one old man that doesn't want to see his home turned into a warzone." He scratched his head and looked down, seemingly scrutinizing nothing at all. "If you could somehow take care of our raider problem, we could pay you..."
At this, four heads perked up clearly indicating that he now had their undivided attention. So they ARE mercenaries. Interesting.
The sophisticated one in a blue jumpsuit that looked like he was from a vault spoke up first. "I trust you aren't implying that we should remove the entire raider encampment." He chuckled bemusedly. "That would suggest that we have a desire to throw our lives away needlessly." He stopped laughing as the sheriff nodded. "What, pray tell, can you," he gestured widely obviously indicating the settlement as a whole, "pay us that is worth pitting ourselves against an obviously much larger force of deranged psychopaths such as the men and women back there?" He adjusted his glasses as he waited for a response.
The sheriff expected this question and smiled wryly to himself, despite the situation. "Now I'd have to get this approved, but I think we could scrape together 250 caps apiece in addition to scavenging rights to whatever you find at their location." He paused to gauge the mercs' reactions. "It isn't going to be an easy time, but you'll get enough out of that place to set you up pretty good for at least the time being. I don't think it needs to be said that you'd be doing this town a service if you did it." He then assumed a neutral expression and waited for what was hopefully an affirmative.
The four mercenaries before him looked warily at each other as if sizing up potential opponents. The rough-looking one then broke the tense moment by coughing and trying to make light of the situation. "That sounds doable. Hey, it isn't like we'll be raped and tortured if we happen to fail and live thru it." No one else seemed to be amused by his sarcasm.
The young woman seemed to relax a little, though her response was laced with sarcasm as well. "I'm in, because SOMEONE needs to be accountable for their actions." She then resumed glaring at the helmed man to her left.
He took a step away from the woman, beginning to get a little unnerved by this seemingly unjustified hostility, and nodded his agreement. "I'll need specialized supplies that I can't find here." He looked toward the openly thankful sheriff. "How long until they think something's up?"
"I can only guess if Reaper and his boys came directly from the old school they use as an encampment, or if they were off waylaying wastelanders elsewhere." He scratched his chin, apparently in thought. "I imagine two days would be an outside guess as to when they'll come sniffing."
The covered man again nodded his approval. "That should be sufficient. I'll need to make a stopover in Lawnton to grab a few things before we engage the enemy." When the woman's glare turned into more of a curious look, he shrugged and continued. "I like to make sure that when I'm done, there's nothing else to be accountable for."
The vault dweller then spoke up, looking as if he had tasted something bitter. "You three look capable. I'm something of an expert in the medical field and try not to get too close to the fighting. You three watch my back and I'll patch yours up." He then folded his arms and surveyed his new companions with hopeful eyes.
The sheriff then smiled showing yellow teeth thru his thick mustache. "Excellent. Now that we have that settled, what are your names?"
It had taken them roughly half a day to make the trek north by north-west thru the Philadelphia ruins to get to the town of Lawnton. The trip was largely uneventful as the small group had made it a point to avoid the potentially problematic direct route in favor of a longer, less troublesome one.
The ruins in this part of the city were in bad shape and most had not stood the test of time. So when they approached what Spider, as the dark-armored man had revealed his name to be, called the settlement of Lawnton, it was nothing short of a miracle that this grouping of buildings had avoided the same fate as the majority surrounding them.
"It's highly questionable whether the dwellings in this area are structurally sound." Clain, the vault dweller, commented skeptically on the landscape before them. "What sort of specialized equipment can you hope to acquire in a location such as this?"
"The explosive kind." Spider answered simply, setting the pace for the three that followed. It had been several months since his last visit and hoped that Chaz was in a good mood today. He supposed that he should pay the moody weapons specialist for storing his non-essentials while he was away.
"It's that building. There." Spider pointed to a standalone building made of brick with ancient iron gratings over the windows and a heavy security door blocking passage into their intended location. Upon approach, Spider indicated for the others to stay back. He left them in the middle of what remained of the cracked and broken road and strode up to the heavy door. He pressed what appeared to be an ancient doorbell and waited for Chaz to answer.
After a few minutes, a small grating in the top portion of the door opened and closed for a brief moment and the door cracked open a bit. "What do you want, arachnid?" A wheezy and raspy voice came from the slight opening and seemed annoyed by the interruption. "You think you can just leave for months on end and just show up willy-nilly. What if I assumed the worst and 'oops!' happened to sell your gear to the highest bidder?" This last bit was said with a touch of humor mixed with annoyance.
"Very funny, Chaz. I'm in somewhat of a hurry. So if you don't mind..." Spider tapped a non-existent watch on his left wrist.
The door opened fully and standing before him was a man in an advanced state of decay. His sunken eyes, open nasal cavity and scraggly patches of hair showed him to be a ghoul. Spider noted that he was still wearing the same ancient army uniform from before the war, the fatigues now extremely faded in their old age. "You're always in a hurry. What if I wasn't home due to obligations that took me elsewhere? What would you do then?" The ghoul crossed him arms smugly.
"Like you have obligations that take you anywhere besides here and the bar. How are you?" Spider put his hand out and the two men shook hands. "Do you mind if we step inside for a moment?"
It had been an hour or so since Spider had entered the house with the ghoul named Chaz and the three remaining mercenaries were getting uneasy. None of them had ventured to this settlement before and thus didn't realize upon entering that it was a purely ghoul establishment. So far they had received a mixed reaction to their presence from the residents, ranging from curiosity to open disgust.
"Why do the decaying ones look at us so?" Kloe, as the woman was named, inquired with true bafflement written across her features. "Have one of you done something to offend this village?" Her voice sounded heavy as she looked to the two men standing before her.
The two men shook their heads and Baldo, Spider's companion, seemed to almost expect the behavior. "They look at us that way because people that look like you and I have obviously been less than kind to them at some point. I wouldn't read too much into it." He adjusted the sunglasses that he had been wearing since their departure from Musgrave. "Just don't do anything that could be perceived as hostile and we should be fine."
To her credit Kloe continued to look confused, but remained silent. She also seemed to be giving their surroundings even more scrutiny than Baldo deemed necessary. She must be new to this, he thought with a grimace.
Quite the opposite was true, in fact, as Kloe possessed keener senses than the others and felt, more than anything else, that something was wrong. It was only a minute before it happened but she knew something was coming and moved to pull the other two behind cover. "Come on!"
Not realizing that anything was wrong, Clain looked offended at having been manhandled and Baldo simply looked surprised at the strength she showed, almost able to drag them to the side of a nearby building. "What was that ab-" Baldo began to question when a loud crack was heard around the corner, followed by several raspy-voiced curses.
Peeking around the corner, Clain did a double-take at what he saw. "There are ants the size of children coming from underneath the ground!" He then moved back to let Baldo take a look and to ready his pistol. His hands were shaking slightly as he fiddled with the pistol grip.
Baldo seemed to relax a little as he noted the danger. "Calm down. They're just run-of-the-mill wasteland ants. We just need to kill a few of them and the rest should scatter." It was after that reassurance was uttered that the first wave of swarming ants began to spew fire on the nearby buildings. Baldo's jaw dropped. "Check that! We're going to have to kill as many of them as we can and hope they don't barbeque us." With that he ran to the building next to them and began fiddling with a ladder that had been haphazardly thrown on the ground. "You two do what you can. I'm going up."
Clain was still looking shaken when Kloe grabbed him by both arms and pushed him up against the wall. "Stay out of the way and try not to get yourself killed." Kloe managed to get a weak nod from Clain before she rounded the corner and began to holler and wave her arms in the air in an attempt to draw the ants away from the town proper.
Roughly half of the twenty ants now in attendance took the bait and started to make their way toward the wildly flailing person in front of them. All but one passed by the alley that Clain had found himself in without noticing him. The lone exception made a bee-line for his location however and came to a halt only a short distance away, spewing fire into the alley. It was only a rusty dumpster that saved Clain from the ant's wrath, so when the first spray ended, he leapt up and fired several shots from his 10mm pistol in the direction of his attacker before dropping down again. I need a bigger weapon, he thought.
Clain waited for the sound of another wave of fire but only the sounds of distant gunfire and flame being spewed from further away greeted him. He ventured a look over the charred dumpster and relaxed, as he saw that his haphazard shooting had caught the ant in the eye and felled it. He made his way to the edge of the alley and looked for where he may be needed most. Burned flesh was serious business after all...
Spider had been telling Chaz about his most recent contract and those that had inadvertently joined him as a result when the sounds of flamethrowers being used en masse pulled him away from his musings. The two men looked out from the front window and cursed simultaneously.
Spider was outside in an instant with Chaz grabbing his own rifle, securing the door and heading to the roof for a better position. When he stepped onto the roof and surveyed the situation before him, Chaz immediately caught sight of Spider two houses down with the body of an ant crumpled next to him. He lay in his makeshift sniper perch that he had set up for just such an occasion and prepared his bolt-action rifle for action.
Baldo only noted in passing that the ghoul, Chaz, had joined the fight on an adjacent roof as he took aim with his rifle and dropped another ant that was making its way out from the opening in the middle of the road. These buggers are persistent!
The locals were finding that the ants were more stubborn than the typical sort, as they seemed to require a lot more punishment to be put down. Spider was also having a difficult time, as his specialty was hand-to-hand combat and that was something of a hassle when facing opponents with built-in flamethrowers. He was being moderately successful by luring individual ants into alleyways and then ambushing them from behind piles of debris.
A female ghoul, Lucy, had taken to luring additional ants away whenever they bunched up to alleviate some of the pressure from the mysterious man darting in and out of the alleyways. She found it admirable that he didn't seem to need weapons to dispatch his opponents. It was after doing this several times, however, that tragedy struck and she hadn't noticed an ant coming from an alley beside her. She was completely doused in the newcomer's flames and didn't even notice when the man had run over and dispatched the two nearest her with a sharp iron pole.
"You're going to be okay." She heard a voice come from somewhere above her, though for some reason she couldn't see. "Quickly. Drink this." A foul-tasting liquid was poured down her throat and almost immediately she could feel the tingle of radiation spreading its' warmth thru her body, slightly lessening the damage to her irradiated skin tissue. She then felt herself being picked up and eventually set down upon a cool surface. It all happened so suddenly, she thought as darkness engulfed her.
Spider had just set Lucy down when he found that the remaining ants had migrated toward the other side of town and appeared to be getting dispatched by a whirlwind with a mane of reddish-brown hair. Kloe appeared to have suffered minor injury though it didn't appear to be affecting her combat prowess. She was moving faster than he thought possible and was quite literally leaping from opponent to opponent and tearing into them with what looked like a pair of rippers; the tiny blades on the daggers whirring as they ate into the exoskeletons of the ants.
After several moments of dumbstruck awe, Spider again found his wits and noticed Clain tending to several of the ghouls that had been targets of the ants' fiery wrath. Upon determining that there was no immediate threat to the vault dweller, he moved to assist Kloe. Or at least he intended to, as the remaining ants were put down by the time he got to her.
She appeared to be coming out of some sort of frenzy and almost turned on him when he came too close. After a moment she lowered her blades as she seemed to recognize friend from foe again and simply walked back toward the settlement proper without a word spoken between them. Spider just shook his head and turned to follow.
Walking back into the town center, the two mercenaries noticed that Baldo had again made himself known and was looking over the damage to the town. In all, three of the twelve buildings that made up the settlement had been set ablaze and were still burning. Several of the residents were standing in front of the buildings looking disheartened, while still more had found the courage to walk over to the gaping hole in the ground and look down.
Baldo walked over to stand next to Spider and nodded to the ants' means of egress. "Is there anyone in Lawnton that is equipped to handle that? We're running short on time." He turned away when the man next to him looked his way.
"There are several people here that are quite capable of dealing with traditional wasteland dangers as they present themselves. This is far from traditional, however." Spider then motioned for Kloe to come over and join them. "I've had some experience with this type of ant in the South, some time back. It took some special attention, but I believe we can handle it quickly and negotiate a decent payment for it."
Kloe did nothing more than nod in agreement. She still appeared to be anxious from the action. Baldo however was shaking his head. "We don't have time for this. Unless you plan on simply collapsing the tunnel, any time we take to do anything else has a chance of interfering with our CURRENT contract." He folded his arms and managed to look stern.
At this point, Clain had made his way over and was looking quite despondent. "I've lost two people so far and," he gestured to the building where Lucy was, "the female over there lying inside that building doesn't look well either."
Spider just shrugged. "We'll need to get her to the irradiated service station nearby to help speed up the healing process. Have the locals do it. We need to take care of this nest."
After a brief look of confusion, Clain wandered off to waylay several of the residents to carry out the odd request. Spider continued to look toward where Clain had stood, and seemed almost wistful when he turned to Baldo. "You wouldn't have a problem handling this situation if it were a group of unmutated people needing help." He slowly shook his head in disappointment. "Your previous affiliation still seems to color some of your decisions."
Baldo looked hurt by this accusation. "You know very well that part of the reason I had to leave was because of my unprejudiced beliefs." His face hardened a little after a moment. "These people can handle this situation themselves. I'm not so certain about Musgrave." He started to walk away toward the far side of town. Before getting too far, however, he called back, "If you want to risk it, then the consequences are on your head."
Proofread by Nutzoide.