A skinny, pathetic looking being dragged himself down the hallway, his hands gripped loosely onto an AK-112 5mm Assault Rifle. His face – a horrid blend of dilapidated flesh, and flabby skin that stretched across his face like plastic – had been lowered, his bloodshot eyes staring directly at the darkened floor. A nail had been hammered into the side of his head, making him looked like a failed version of Frankenstein's monster. His name was Tipper.
Tipper was currently on guard duty at the Gecko nuclear power plant. He was here due to his undeniable depression – since he had become a ghoul, he constantly moaned and groaned about how hope was so mind-bogglingly depressing and how life was simply a practical joke played upon the masses by the "Big Men in the Sky". This wasn't something to worry about though (unless you lived in the oh-so-mighty Vault City, that is) when you lived in Gecko. There were many ghouls living in this dump that whined and complained about life at every single moment, since they simply had nothing else to do with it. It was either that, or playing Tragic the Garnering with Wooz the bartender – but that was no fun at all. I mean, come on, a card game?
It was generally accepted amongst the populace of Gecko that they weren't going to last very long. With the cultists living by the junkyard desperate to locate a means to renew their former human selves (which was also mind-bogglingly depressing), and the reactor leaking poisons into the Vault City water supply (even more mind-bogglingly depressing), life in Gecko would slowly grind to a halt unless something happened soon to change it around.
Tipper didn't want that to happen. He felt perfectly fine and depressed in these unsatisfactory conditions; he felt perfectly fine chatting away about the mind-bogglingly depressing situations to the other friendly ghouls that wandered the derelict corridors. In his mind, if Gecko died, he wouldn't mind at all. He'd – along with some others – just find someplace else to wander about. He heard rumors of a place named Broken Hills that was equally depressing – the perfect place for him.
The lights flickered, and Tipper sighed. He desperately wanted a drink. He always felt thirsty as a ghoul. He felt so thirsty that he was seeing smoothskins walking down the corridor towards him.
Tipper blinked. That wasn't right. There were three of them; a tall one wearing a leather jacket who looked decisively calm. Behind him followed by a plump man who sweated profusely, and a pretty woman with dirty blonde hair who could not keep her eyes off the jacket-man.
"Oi, smoothskins!" He shouted, aiming the rifle. "What the hell brings you here?"
The man in front stopped, and lifted his arms in a peaceful gesture. "Don't shoot! They let us in! I've – I've got a card!"
Tipper cocked his head to one side. "What's your name then, eh? I don't goddamn like strangers – 'specially when they've still got skin and -" He glanced towards the man behind him. "- and flab."
"My name's Joachim – I've -" He inclined his head in thought. "I'm only helping. That's Vic, my companion; and that's Miria, my wife."
Vic dabbed at his forehead with a dirty cloth, and smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, boss is right. We're just helping."
The rifle was lowered. "Really, now? Do you take me for a fuckin' idiot? The other guards may be a bit dull in the head, but I ain't. Vault City sent you, didn't they?"
Joachim shook his head. "No."
Tipper grunted, propping the rifle against his shoulder. "You stupid tits." He signalled for them to follow.
I Ain't Got No Tragic Cards...
He was a soldier, and the ENCLAVE were good to him. Clean lodgings, isolated from the mutated shoreline and with picture perfect scenery of the salted sea, under the glistening sun of now and yesteryear. He served his country proudly, and he'd be damned if anybody tried to take that right to do so from him. The mutated bastards that crawled all over America haunted him in his sleep, and also when he was awake. Men and women plagued with boils, fleshless arms, rotted teeth, butchering his country's fragile beauty with their pus-filled inadequacies.
However, today was not a nice day. Today the ENCLAVE refused to treat him well. They had assigned him to communications, and he was now trapped in a sweaty room alone, assaulted by a horde of blinking lights: red, blue, green, fucking yellow. Video feeds fuzzed and buzzed, shivering with white screens of death. The occasional screen popped to life, feeding the soldier with useless information of ENCLAVE personnel's whereabouts over and around the East Coast. The fact that he was forced to wear power armour outside of guard duty infuriated him to no end, and it did not make the musty compartment any better for work.
He swivelled around on the metallic chair, three times. By the third it had already lost its appeal, he was back to drumming against the desk. Tap, tap, tappity-tap – in chorus with the black-white running lines across the static screen ahead; alluring it was, yet pointedly insignificant.
He thought of Sherry Darter, a medic working for the ENCLAVE. Nice ass, nice lips, nice personality – she was his, and he her's. They had managed to sneak in a good deal of fun in a nearby closet a couple days back, and this man wanted to do it again. It would have quelled the boredom, that's for sure.
Boredom. What a strong word. A word that rapidly disappeared with that same static screen of table-beating. There was a beep. A beep of pure delight. If he was younger, he would have gone and squealed till he was blue in the cheeks. Someone was finally trying to contact him.
"Took your fucking time." Jeremy Point exclaimed, picking it up.
Strangely enough, the video feed wasn't working. He sighed. "ENCLAVE here. Why isn't your video feed working?"