Brotherly Love
I huddled by the heater in our room in the inn. Well, actually it was a bathroom in an abandoned Wallgreens but here, you take whatever you can get, whenever you can get it. Over by the urinel sat my big brother, Mark. He's five years older, and I owe him my life dozens of times over. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have lived for a week out of the Vault. I probably wouldn't have lived long in the Vault either. Vault 21.
You see, in when they moved us into Vault 21, they made a mistake. Instead of 1000 people, they put 1000 kids in and our parents ended up in a different Vault. I don't know which one. Hell, I don't even know if they ever made it into a Vault. I guess I just keep telling my self that they did, because if I even think of the possibility that they didn't make it into one, I'll have to acknowledge that they're dead. I can't do that. I don't think Mark could either.
Right now, he's tinkering with a computer. That's how we make our living. Mark's pretty good with electronics and I can fix anything you care to point at. Bikes, cars, guns, hell, since we left the Vault, I've worked on a tank and a helicopter. With people trying to rebuild society, guys like us are pretty valuable. We help out as much as we can, fixing machines, setting up security systems, and just about anything else we can do to get a meal and someplace to stay, and maybe scrounge up a bit of money.
We're lucky I guess. We've done pretty well for ourselves compared to some people. My friend Rico, he got sold into slavery. Okay, actually he's working to get enough food and pure water just to keep his little sister Diane alive. She was only a month old when she got sealed into the vault, away from her mother and father. She only survived because one of the older girls that got stuck in with us just had a baby and agreed to help raise Diane. Diane is 15 now, and she's working to. Full time, almost no pay.
I was only three when the doors closed, so I don't remember much before the vault. Just a little bit with the drive to the assignment grounds. While were driving, I remember seeing on atomic bomb go off behind us. The explosion blew our car clear off the road. I think I lost conciousness, because the next thing I remember is laying next to my brother. I asked him what we were doing and he said we were waiting for our parents. We sat there for six hours. After the doors had shut. We didn't know what was going on, just that we were supposed to wait in one place for Mom and Dad if we got seperated. Now, I think Mark knew once the doors closed that we would never see them again. He never shed a tear. He just stood and pulled me along by the hand, getting me whatever I needed. Food, water, a bed. Once, in the beginning, he beat the crap out of a kid that tried to take the blanket I was using. He's always put me first. Even now, I'm the one who gets first choice at meals, he gives me the larger half of the money, and makes sure I always have what I need to finish upgrades on my little projects. I remember reading in books that brothers were more competetive, that they fought about everything. I wondered why we weren't like that.
The best thing about the Vault was the books. We had a huge library down there, and that's were I learned about building and fixing stuff. Mark made sure I read a little each day, as if he knew we would need those skills someday. And when I was seven, and started trying to build the stuff, he would do whatever it took to get every knut, bolt and screw I needed.
"Lucas?" Mark calls across the room "I finished the sighting system here. Want to try it out?" I nod. For the past few weeks, Mark's been building a sighting computer for a pistol I upgraded not to long ago. I took an old M9 and lengthened the barrel a bit, widening the chamber to fit bigger ammunition, and fashioning some custom bullets. I've been trying to get them to the perfect softness so that they bounce when they strike a hard object. It hasn't been easy, but I finally did it about, oh, two weeks ago. Since then, Mark's been working on building a system that will calculate the bullets projectile and path after it ricochets. We've had a few disasterous failures but he's confident he's getting there. I trust him on that.
We leave the bathroom and pick our way through the crowded aisles. Long expired bags of chips and sodas lie on the ground next to fallen over display cases. The entire western wall is decimated, exposing the poor piles of flesh lieing on the floor to the elements. The ghoul that runs the place stands behind the checkout counter, talking with several other travelers. They give us a terse nod as we pass. I upgraded one of their rifles the other day, so we avoid trouble.
Outside, I clipped the minicomputer under the gun's barrel. "Sync it to your PipBoy with that button." Mark pointed to a green button on the side. I pressed it and after a second, a digital rendering of the environment shows up on the screen. As I pointed the gun different ways, the dotted line on the screen moves to show where it will reflect. As a test, I decided to try and hit a rusted out car, a good ninety-degrees to my left. I lined the projectile line up on a wall a little to my right and fire.
The bullet ricochets off the wall and hits the car dead in the center of the door. Perfect. I look back at Mark and smile. He gives me a smug look as if to say, I knew it would work. Then he looks up past me and his face turns pale. I turn around slowly, dreading what I'll see. On the hill ahead of us stand a group of raiders by their old army van. And, of course, all my rifles are back in our room.
Behind me I heard Mark curse, as his footsteps started back towards the inn. I just stood there. It was getting dark and the sun was behind us. Maybe if I kept still they wouldn't see me. Well, that ideas out I thought as a bullet buried itself three inches from my foot. "Lucas, run damnit!". I lingered a second more and suddenly spun and bolted towards Mark's already receding back. Behind us the raiders whooped and hollered. The van roared as it started up, the wheels scraping the ground.
Gunfire started to ring out all around us. "Get down!" I yelled up to Mark as the bullets slammed into a barrel, denting it with so much force that it buckled in half. I dove behind a crumbling wall as Mark sprinted into the inn. There were enough guns in there to fight off the raiders. Now all I had to do was survive until they could save me.
Splintered concrete rained down on me as they turned the mini gun on the wall. This thing obviously wouldn't work. Then I got an idea. Turning on the guiding system, I aimed the Bouncer (yes, I named it at that exact moment. It's funny what springs to mind when you're scared for your life). Anyway, I aimed it at the inn's wall. I adjusted the angle slightly until my PipBoy shows that the bullet should hit the raider in the turret. Carefully, I aimed it at a slightly shallower angle to compensate for the movement, and fired. Behind I heard the raiders screaming, but the mini-gun kept firing. Suddenly, it swung out and began firing in the opposite direction.
I peeked my head around the corner, and saw what had happened. Clearly the guidance system had a few tweaks to work out, but I wasn't complaining. Instead of hitting the gunner, I had aimed to low and hit the driver. He wasn't dead, but it was obvious he was hurt bad. Course, I was just assuming that based on the fact that he was screaming his head off. And blood coated the half of the windshield that was left. I smiled to myself. Seems I had a bit of good luck after all.
My smile faded as I realized that I might have been wrong about that. The van swerved towards me. "Ah, shit." I muttered. I never cussed unless things were bad. This qualified. Just as the van was about to crash into me, it exploded. Pieces of flaming shrapnel fell around me as I ducked my head. Looking up I saw raiders stumbling from the wreckage. I quickly whipped up the Bouncer and shot down two of the raiders that were reaching for their guns. The others were shot cut down as rifle fire erupted behind me. In a particularly large hole in the wall stood Mark with the men that had been talking to the ghoul. Mark held the sniper rifle I had bought last week and the ghoul was reloading the RPG that had destroyed the van.
I ran back over to them. "Not bad kid" the ghoul growled, hoisting the RPG onto his shoulder with a grunt. He headed back into the inn as the others crowded around me, congratulating me on the shot. Obviously they thought I had intentionally killed the driver. I just smiled. I wasn't about to correct them.
"That's a nice gun." One of the men set his shotgun up against a wall and adjusted his cowboy hat. "Can I see it?" I nodded. I didn't like letting people touching my stuff, but the guy had saved my butt, what was I going to say, no? I handed him the pistol. He examined the grip, the welding job on the barrel, and the targeting system. He pulled the clip out and removed a bullet, examining my handiwork. Finally he reloaded it and handed it back. "That's fine handiwork. You make it?" I nodded. He turned to Mark "And you did the targeting right?" Mark smiled, "Yep." The man looked off into the distance and nodded thoughtfully. "I'll have to look you boys up sometime. I could use some customizations like that." I smiled over at Mark. Score one new customer.
The ghoul yelled from across the room. "Julius, you should come hear this." Julius turned from us and headed to where the ghoul sat next to a radio, listening on the headphones with concern in his eyes. "What is it Damien?" Julius looked at the ghoul quizzically as he sat next to him. He beckoned Mark and I over.
"Just listen to this." Damien handed the headphones to Julius. He put them on and frowned as he listened. Then he pulled the jack out and the communication could be heard all through the Wallgreens.
"Okay, we got some resistance, but there aren't many. Well take them by surprise in three hours." I groaned. Great, they weren't just raiders, they were organized raiders. That was all we needed. A raider siege in a fucking Wallgreens. I looked over at Julius and Mark, who's face had gone pale. "We're going to need more guns"