"Your wiring's all mucked up. The fuck were you doing last time I sent you out?"

"My duty as a soldier of this army!"

"Be a bit more specific. How'd this shit get inside you?"

"Well, my mission was to retrieve any and all sorts of ammu-"

"I know the mission; I was the one who sent you out on the damn thing."

"Acknowledged. Anyways, as any good soldier knows, stealth is as viable an option to making your enemies eat lead! I came along a band of those mutated commies along my way back! Engaging them would be a death sentence, so I did the next best thing!"

"Which was?"

"Stealth!"

"How the fuck does a Mr. Gutsy utilize stealth?"

"Easily, sir! I deactivate my thruster module, and crawl my way through the filth!"

"And that's why you've got enough sand inside you to fill a playground."

"Precisely!"

I stared the Gutsy down, giving it a sneer after a moment of silence. "Oh, of course! And guess who's the bastard that has to clean your ass out?"

The Gutsy practically chirped its response. "You, sir! You are my commander af-"

Before it could finish its remark I had deactivated the unit remotely via my terminal. Had to refrain punching a hole through the screen of it, reminding myself I'd just have to fix that too.

"Piece of shit hunk of metal. Don't know why I still work on you." I stood from my seat, continuing to remove the robot's plating. Dust, dirt and grime flowed from its inner workings, a waterfall of Wasteland. Deciding this wasn't worth messing with right then and there, I set the plating down next to where the robot "slept," and leaned against the railing of my shitty little shack, popping a Mentat.

Yeah, sure. Bein' a raider is a goddamned joyride. Pillaging, raping, you're basically a goddamned Viking with guns.
 "Bullshit," I groaned aloud, recollecting the first time that dipshit friend of mine talked me into this lifestyle. Same guy got wasted when he thought it'd be a good idea to torment a big guy in power armor for their caps. Tried hitting him over the head with a pool cue. I wanted to double-check with him that he knows that power armor, like most protective wear these days, is made of metal, but it's a little hard to keep interesting conversation with a pile of ash. Serves him right, Wasteland just kills anyone it likes, especially the idiots. Hell, I don't think I could really call myself much of a "raider" at all. I'd just stick back and watch home base, fixing anything the guys thought was worth the effort, and tinkering on Buzzo. That's what I would call the Gutsy. At the time, I thought the bot was a slag pile, but it kept me otherwise occupied. Aside from feeding my Mentats addiction whenever I could, of course. You may be thinking: "Mentats? Of all the garbage to get hooked on, Mentats?"

Yeah, Mentats. Think I could safely blame my interest in robots for that. Made tinkering easier and if you take enough, you feel like a goddamned genius.

I chewed on the pill for a while, staring out at the broken walls of wood and steel that could be loosely defined as defenses. Was still no sign of the others since they had left the day prior to ambush a caravan on-route to Megaton. I was pretty sure they died, at least most of them. Those caravan guards are always armed to the teeth. Shotguns, assault rifles, grenades, you name it. If you look even remotely suspicious, they'll already have a laser rifle past your small intestine before you even realize it.

You're better than this, Gubbs. Hell, half these idiots can't even read, let alone live long enough to survive three outings in the Wastes.

I popped another pill, feeling like I could punch rocket science in the face and make it my bitch.

Receding from the railing, I felt the need to do something with my hands, the Mentats making me antsy to use my "newfound knowledge". So, I started draining the sand out of Buzzo again. In my enhanced state of focus, I didn't notice the shotgun barrel pressed to the back of my head. Not until I heard the distinctive noise of "Chik-chuk!"

I almost shat myself. Actually, I think I did. Though, you can't quite focus on bodily functions when a master key is about to unlock the way through your fucking skull.

"Listen up, because I'm only saying this once," said my assailant's raspy voice from behind. "Where are your pilot lights?"

Normally I'd give this guy a shit-eating grin and say something along the lines of "Down in aisle five, sir. Next to kitchen appliances!" But my wit ran dry, on account of the fear of death.

"Pilot… Lights?" I stuttered, the feeling of genius leaving my body at light speed.

"Those little light bulb-looking things ovens have!"

Seemingly a million questions ran through my mind. Why does he need a pilot light so badly? Why is he threatening me over a pilot light? Where the Hell are the dipshits I live with? Am I about to die over a fucking piece of cooking equipment?

In my confused and terrified stupor, the most I could do was point in the general direction of where we kept our ovens. One of my "co-workers" liked to keep the bloody gibs of his victims inside the damn things. Fucking loon.

"Thanks."

And with that, he proceeded towards our ovens, ripping out their only way of functioning, and continuing on his way out to the Wasteland. All I could do was just watch him work, my jaw hanging agape. At one point he smiled back at me and waved his hand, like we had been life-long friends or some shit.

Thank God for our gore-hoarding psychopath and his ovens.

(Author's Note: And there's the first chapter of what I'm hoping will be a relatively long-running story. Comments and reviews are appreciated, have a nice day.)