Gunshots.

They ring out in the night. Sharp and distinct, shattering the inky calmness that's settled over the Capital Wasteland, the reports carry over empty gullies and through the shattered remains of buildings. Some screaming begins to accompany the gunfire, the high-pitched scream of a woman, but just as quickly as it begins, the screams are abruptly cut off by another volley of shots.

I sit up against the wall of the ruined bank that's serving as my temporary shelter for the night. Tugging my tattered blanket closer to me, I reach over and pick up my weapon which is nearly as battered and worn as I am. Covering my Norinco assault rifle with a corner of the blanket, I slip off the safety with a muffled click and rest the Chinese-built rifle across my lap. My eyes casually scan the building's interior, taking in the rubble that has settled down across what was once a lavish and probably expensively attired structure. Now it's fallen to pieces, much like the civilization that it used to be a part of.

Out in the distance, through the hole that has been blasted in the side of the building, I can see a number of muzzle flashes flaring in the distance. They wink back and forth at each other and if I didn't know what was happening, I might call the sight surreal, maybe even beautiful. But when you've lived as long as I have and seen the things I've seen, there's nothing about gunfire and death that makes you think of anything that resembles beauty. No sir, not one bit.

Though it's pitch-black outside, my eyes can see well in the darkness. It's a side effect of the radiation, coupled with the fact that I spend a decent amount of time underground, which means I've got nearly excellent night vision. If you think that's amazing, you should see my cousins' eyesight. Well maybe not if you're human.

I've got a name, but I've only heard it used on a few rare occasions. Most of the time I usually get hostile stares, if anyone says anything to me it's usually something along the lines of, "What's your business here, creep?" or my personal favorite, "Who let the damn zombie in here?" Oh you get used to it after the first few times, but it really doesn't help your business as a trader, especially not when your clientele is a little sensitive to the exposed muscle, bone, and torn irradiated tissue that used to be your skin. But I guess I shouldn't complain, there are ghouls who have it worse than I do.

That's right. I'm one of them. Not a feral, but to the humans who can't see past their own prejudices, I might as well be one. Never mind that underneath this ripped up exterior, I'm exactly like them. Same heart and lungs, same brain, same feelings and emotions. It might be a little more irradiated than they're used to, but hey, it's what's on the inside that counts, right? Wishful thinking.

I didn't always used to be a ghoul though. I was once a young man, pretty handsome too, if you can believe what my girlfriend and the other women back in that small town I grew up in would say. I was born before the Great War, before those scheming bastards in power went and scorched the world. Before the world became a desert, I was a man. Just like any of those prejudiced sonofabitch humans in the towns.

I remember times when you didn't have to slog it on foot for miles, when the roads were still ribbons of asphalt, overflowing with cars and buses by the ton. I remember the warm heat of a summer day, the songs of birds chirping in the trees, the sound a neighbor's lawnmower would make as they pushed it across the grass. I remember the taste of milk from one-headed cows, being able to simply stroll into a supermarket and walk out with as much food as you could carry (without having to kill anyone for it), and the sound of fireworks on the Fourth of July. Now I'm lucky to come across a bottle of water that doesn't taste like it was filtered through the rectum of a dead Brahmin, food consists of whatever you can steal or scavenge, and there's more gunfire than fireworks these days.

I said I had a name. Actually I have two, depending on who you're talking to. Folks in the human settlements know me as Trip, but amongst my own kind, they refer to me by my given name: Tim Ripton. I run a small trading and repair business which is what most of the non-settler types do around these parts. I spend a lot of time in the ruins sifting through the remnants of a more prosperous and peaceful time, looking for shit I can scavenge and sell. It's still a profitable business despite the fact that the margins are pretty high and the competition stiff.

Danger's everywhere out here. There's always the risk of getting killed by Super Mutants or wild animals. And it's not like the humans are any better; besides the slavers and the raiders and mercenaries, there are those trigger-happy Brotherhood of Steel assholes, and those "kill all the irradiated," genocidal bastards from the Enclave. Not to mention the other scavengers and bushwhackers who will gladly put a .556 round into your head or a knife blade between your ribs for a few more pieces of scrap metal or a vial of Jet or a few measly caps.

I used to work alone. I didn't relish the idea of having to work my ass off, just to split the spoils with someone else. That all changed after I decided to try and work the old Capitol Building, despite knowing full well that it was infested with Super Mutants; the lure of unspoiled virgin territory was too much to pass up. And I paid for it; getting ambushed by a bunch of Super Mutant Masters and having to abandon a perfectly good haul while fleeing under a hail of rifle and minigun fire tends to change your opinions real fast. Now I no longer work alone.

My partner's a woman named Linna and while she might look like a real cutie, she doesn't take shit from anyone. She used to be a Regulator back in the day, one real tough bitch, who would just as soon cut the heart out of a raider or slaver before hearing their case. She joined me after I found her unconscious, naked, and near death out in the Wasteland, courtesy of a few raiders who had ambushed her, beaten her to within an inch of her life, stripped and raped her, then left her to die. I managed to get her back to Underworld after negotiating transport with a trade caravan headed for a colony of freed slaves in the Lincoln Memorial. Doc Barrows saved her life and since I was the one who'd brought her to Underworld, she decided that she would repay me by serving as protection for my business. She's become my partner and close friend, but there's nothing between us romantically or sexually. Not only is it bad for business, but I'm not exactly as good-looking as I used to be, if you catch my drift.

Linna's sitting upright next to me now, the .44 S&W revolver she wears at her side now out of its holster, as she listens to the gunfire in the distance. Her primary weapon, a battle-worn R91 assault rifle is leaning next to the wall within easy reach. The moonlight traces in through the hole in the wall and bathed in it, she looks ethereal. Long dark hair swirling to just below her shoulders, her features all sharply-drawn lines and angles, with just enough curve to soften the harshness. Had she been born in the pre-war years, I could easily imagine her on the cover of one of those glossy women's fashion magazines. But since she was unfortunate enough to be born in the time of Dog Eat Dog, she gets by however she needs to. Which in most cases means violence.

"Sounds like someone decided to travel at night," she says in a low voice. She rests her finger on the hammer of her revolver, toying with it like she's about to cock it back. "Pretty stupid idea, especially given that the trade caravans have been warning travelers about raider activity in this area for the last couple months."

"Bad intel," I reply, my eyes fixed on the muzzle flashes in the distance. "We're lucky that Winthrop heard about this from those traders when they stopped by Underworld last month. Otherwise that might be us out there."

Linna snorts in derision. "If that was us out there, this firefight wouldn't still be going on. All those raiders would be dog meat by now." In the distance, the gunfire has stopped, replaced by a few agonized screams and the triumphant whoops of raider war cries. "Looks like the raiders got their prey."

I grimace to myself. "I've got two more hours left on my watch," I say, taking a quick look at my ancient wristwatch, one of the few I've acquired that hasn't been stopped by EMP from the nuclear blasts. "I'll wake you up then and let you take the second shift until dawn."

Linna yawns, nods, then climbs underneath her blanket. "Wake me up when it's time," she says, right before she's lost to the land of sleep. Though she's out immediately, she's a real light sleeper, woe to any intruder who thinks a sleeping Linna is an easy Linna. There's quite a few men in the towns with shattered bones, broken noses, and other les s wholesome injuries to attest to Linna's combat skills.

I curl up in my blanket, my rifle across my chest as I watch the wasteland, making sure no harm comes to either of us. Soon I'll be able to crawl underneath this blanket, get some sleep, and hopefully wake up alive to face a new day in the Capital Wasteland. Which in this world is something not guaranteed. Not at all.

*******

Sunrise. Dawn. Another day in the hell of the Capital Wasteland.

I yawn heavily and stretch out, feeling my stiff muscles and joints crack in a pleasureable manner. Quickly rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I pick up my rifle and sling it over my shoulder, before folding my blanket up and packing it into the worn rucksack sitting nearby. Taking a plastic bottle of dirty water from the rucksack's side pocket, I take a couple quick swigs, grimacing at the foul taste of the liquid. As a ghoul, the radiation has no effect on me and I can drink from pretty much any water source without having to load up on Rad-X, but that doesn't make the shit taste any better.

"Good morning sunshine," quips Linna in a cheerful openly sarcastic voice. She's sitting on a pile of packing crates in the corner, munching away on some Brahmin jerky and reading a battered and worn book from her rucksack. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

I guess some things never change. Wars are fought and worlds end, but women will be reading Jane Austen until the end of time.

"Kiss my ass," I shoot back as I give her a quick grin. "How was your watch?"

"Boring and uneventful," she replies around a mouthful of dried beef. "Our raider friends moved on about an hour ago."

"Good." I toss my rucksack over my shouders and reach down to adjust my Chinese Army utility belt. A trench knife, a holstered 10mm pistol, four thirty-round magazines for the assault rifle, a few compartments that hold various personal items, and five grenades (three fragmentation and two pulse) hang from it. The rest of my outfit is simple and worn with numerous pockets. I wear a lightweight flak jacket over my worn trader's gear, just in case. It's always better to be prepared. "Hopefully they're back at their camp by now, doing Jet and inventing new variants on rape, torture, and murder. We should be able to slip on by."

"Well shit, where's the fun in that? I was hoping to get another couple sets of raider armor. I've got a guy in Grayditch who pays big money for this stuff, well the female armor anyways. Who knows what he does with it."

"You trade with some weird bastards, you know that?"

"Hey now. The creepers pay the best. You know that."

"Yeah. Only because they enjoy mentally undressing you with their eyes."

"Tim Ripton, I will gouge those eyeballs out of that rotten zombie face of yours."

"Yeah yeah yeah. Woulda coulda shoulda, baby."

"Asshole."

Ten minutes later and we're suited up and ready to go. We carefully move out of the ruins of the bank, rifles at the ready in case someone's decided to get cute and set up an ambush outside the bank's only entrance. But today we luck out. The entrance is clear.

A half-mile from the bank we find the grisly evidence of last night's raider attack. Two dead Brahmin lie next to each other, their pack saddles tossed in a heap, empty. Four naked bodies, three men and a woman lie near the remains of a fire, all of them bearing ample signs of brutal death and mutilation. After stopping to see if anyone is alive (to no avail) we move on to the north. Our destination is the town of Megaton where Linna and I keep a small place, though we're rarely there. While we do a lot of business in places like Rivet City and Underworld, Megaton is still one of the major hubs for transport and supply. Since nearly all the caravans stop here, we do a brisk business selling equipment and salvage to them for trade elsewhere. We also keep Moira Brown, the propietress of the town's general store, in the loop, selling her a number of goods acquired on our travels.

As of now we've been gone from Megaton for roughly two weeks due to our travel across the Capital Wasteland. It's time to head home, resupply, and get some rest.

I can't wait.