The workshop, as I called it, was about 7 metres by 10, which was plenty of room for anything I needed to do. It housed a bed, as well as a few basic kitchen appliances (all of which I had repaired myself), but none of that was particularly important. The main feature was the array of workbenches, computers and other apparatus that was scattered about the room. This was what made my home my workplace – I was a scavenger by day and an engineer by night, repairing things I found in my scrounging or putting scraps together to make something from scratch. This was my living – when I accrued a decent amount of marketable wares, I hauled it onto a wagon and dragged it to a settlement or tribe, and pawned off my items for caps (or just food and water, if times were desperate).

But none of that mattered at that moment, because there was a .44 calibre bullet about to introduce itself to my skull.

"Give us your caps and we'll let you go. Don't, and we'll fuck you up. Then take them anyway."

It wasn't the first time my wagon had been raided as I'd set out on my rounds, but it was the first time I'd been unable to kill them all before they got close. Three remained now, and at least one of them had a gun pressed to my head. Given the situation, it was difficult to keep track.

"I- don't have- any y-yet" I stammered pathetically. I was a good shot – actually, that's not fair, I was a brilliant shot, but my handling of life-or-death situations was somewhat lacking. Right now, fear had taken over my main functions. I was just trying to stay alive.

"With a cart piled this high? Don't shit me, brother. I want your goddamn caps – give them to me."

I slowly raised my hands over my head, brushing the gun as I did so. My suspicions were correct: it was my gun. My fucking gun. Bastards!

But of course... this was brilliant. I'd known this would happen.

"Pull that trigger." I said with utter confidence.

"What? I don't think you understa-"

"You heard me," I said, rising. I turned to face him. He held my gun, and followed my head with the end. "Pull the fucking trigger."

"Get back down man, I swear to God I will end you!" He barked. Confusion in his voice overruled the anger. I had him.

"You gonna shoot me then? Are you gonna gun me down, cowboy?" I yelled, mocking. I laughed. My assailant's companions had turned to watch. They only had a bat and an iron bar between them. What a joke!

There was a click. Surprise coloured the Raider's face as his finger clenched against the trigger. The hammer fell... but the bullet stayed put.

"Hmph. Let me try." I said, before suddenly jabbing his throat. It was a potent punch, and the Raider doubled over in shock. I seized the Magnum, and turned it on him.

Bang. Crack. Thud.

These were the sounds that followed my pulling the trigger. His skull was shattered, and he collapsed immediately. Blood quickly pooled around him, and I stepped back. The other Raiders looked on in horror.

"I'm an engineer, you know. A damn good one. So someone as talented as me knows you can DNA-code your guns to only respond to your touch. With the right mods, anyway. They weren't cheap, and they were a bitch to install, but..." I flourished the gun, spinning it on my finger and stopping it with a squeeze of the hand. "I'd say it was worth it."

The Raiders, recovering from their petrification, charged at me with their weapons. They didn't get close.

The bodies were easily disposed of. I kept the leader's hand as a trophy of sorts, celebrating the triumph of forethought and preparation over brutishness and arrogance. It had also helped that I was clinically paranoid and schizophrenic, but... hell, any advantage was a good advantage.

The hand was mounted on a small spike, fingers up, in a sort of lazy wave. From that day I greeted it with a wave back whenever I awoke, or came in from scavenging or selling. But it was also a reminder – that it was too dangerous to be in this business alone. I needed a partner, maybe even a protector. Someone I could travel with and live with, who could guarantee comfort and security in return for care and shelter.

Thankfully, that was when I met Bonnie Campbell.

She, like me, was obviously in need of a companion. I could tell: she was being savaged by a Deathclaw. The creature had pinned her down – literally, by the leg – and was clawing at her inert body. She was unconscious, but not dead. Not to toot my own horn, but she was lucky I showed up when I did. One round through the beast's head saved her life, but it took a lot of medical care on my part to bring her round. I wasn't an accomplished doctor, or even a basic practitioner of first aid, but I managed. I just thought of her as a machine, but with biological components. Then it became a lot simpler. Machines I understood.

When Bonnie eventually awoke, she thanked me with a long, sobbing hug. I did my best to return it, but I was no people-person. I'd never hugged anyone before. Bonnie pledged herself to my service, as a sort of life-debt. She felt like she owed me it, so I accepted. It suited my needs just as much as hers.

So I got my partner, and she got hers. She turned out to be a pretty terrible mechanic, but I was hardly expecting great things from the girl I'd found half-dead in the Wasteland. I took it upon myself to train her, and she was a capable student. She never seemed to make anything that worked, or lasted, but I'll be damned if she didn't try. However, she was a brilliant fighter. The ones I couldn't pick off with my guns, she could finish with her clubs; swords; even fists if there was nothing to hand. They all went down quickly enough, and I always polished them off with a round to the head. Bonnie was what I required, what I had always needed.

And that's how our adventures began.