Waking Up
When he came to, Charlie found himself on the cold metal floor of the radio outpost. He reached a hand up to his aching head, flinching at the sting of his open wound.
"Stupid..." he muttered.
The gash was still slightly damp and left blood behind on his fingers; he hadn't been out for too long. He attempted getting up, but as he moved his left leg it felt as if it were on fire. He gritted his teeth and forced himself up to a sitting position to examine it. There was a large hole eaten away in his pants on the upper left thigh, revealing a deep red plasma burn the size of his fist. He scooted himself up against the wall and yelped as he accidentally jostled his leg. For a few minutes he just sat gasping as waves of pain shot in and out of him, waiting for the haze to clear from his eyes.
Once the pain subsided enough for him to think straight, he surveyed the room. About ten feet away from him in the center of the room lay the now-broken Mr. Gutsy, originally set up by pre-war personnel to guard the outpost. Amid the tangle of the robot's three serpentine arms and its smashed chassis lay Charlie's apparently-not-so-trusty sledgehammer, partially covered with its owner's blood. In the far corner of the room lay the bodies of two unlucky raiders who couldn't get past the crazed machine - from the look of it, they must have been dead for several months. To the right of the corpses was a rusty metal door with what looked like a faded title or warning on it. Charlie carefully scooted over to get a better look, and made out "EQUIPMENT". He immediately perked up seeing this, and slowly inched his way to the door. When he finally got there, he reached up and tried to open the door - but no luck.
"Shit," he cursed under his breath.
He quickly searched for a solution to the locked door. He could get his bobby pins and screwdriver and try to pick the lock, but he left them in his pack by the front door. Then he looked to the dead raiders and noticed that they each still wore a small pack. Trying not to breathe through his nose as he carefully removed them from their backs, a flash of gold on the ground caught his eye. A key! He pocketed it immediately, then set about searching through the raiders' packs. The first pack contained an unopened can of instamash, 30 bottle caps, and a boxy pistol with no chamber and wires running from the trigger to the "barrel" with some square battery-looking cartridges that must have been ammo. It seemed to him that it was one of those laser pistols that Bill told him about. He took aim at one of the smashed Mr. Gutsy's protruding eye-lenses and pulled the trigger. A bright red jet of light shot from the gun and struck the eye, blackening it and frying its circuits.
"I'll hold onto this," he said to himself.
The second pack was a true godsend, containing an entire medical kit. He looked through the contents of the kit: clean drinking water, a small roll of sterilized gauze, two stimpaks, and a needle full of Med-X. He held up the Med-X, looking at the clear liquid inside. The needle even smelled clean, despite having been on the back of a dead man for however long. Charlie prepped his arm, finding a clear vein, and injected himself with the painkiller. Within ten seconds the pain in his leg was virtually gone. Relieved, he took one of the stimpaks, swirling around the mix of medicines inside the syringe, and inserting it next to his plasma burn. He wrapped the wound in gauze to protect the tissue as it regenerated. The blow he accidentally gave himself when frantically smashing the Mr. Gutsy with his hammer wasn't as serious and had mostly clotted by now, so Charlie deemed it best to save the rest of the gauze and the second stimpak for another emergency. He stood up, retrieved the key from his pocket, and unlocked the door to the equipment room. Inside, he found shelf upon shelf of old parts, batteries, two-way radios, and other devices. In the center of the room was a desk with a large microphone hooked up to the short radio tower outside. The young man sat in the ancient chair, and took out a small piece of paper with a message on it, accompanied by a single frequency. He tuned the radio to broadcast to the frequency Dan gave him, and spoke into the microphone.
"September 7, 2187 - To the Shady Sands' New California Republic: this is Charlie Wallace from the settlement of Lafayette. Our town is currently being overrun by the Shi from across the bay and urgently request your assistance. If you receive this message and can spare forces, please, meet me at Vollmer Peak - I am stationed at the radio outpost there. This message repeats."
He flicked a small switch and heard the tower hum to life. Re-entering the main room, he recovered his sledgehammer from the robot and removed the plasma gun on its arm; it could come in handy in reclaiming the town. He strapped his new laser pistol to his hip and fastened his hammer to the makeshift harness on his back. He picked up his pack by the door, slung it over the hammer, and left.
Outside, he sat on a rotting wooden bench, originally set up for pre-war hikers who wanted to rest and admire the view. Before him was the expanse of the Great Bay - the fallen cities of Berkeley and San Francisco. The bay had been mostly dried up, and paled in comparison to its glory before atomic fire rained down. Charlie looked to the great Golden Gate, an old world symbol of freedom and achievement now broken and cracked down the middle.
"And now we wait."