The Wasteland Survival Guide
A Fallout 3 fanfic
By Biohazrd23
I stared at the slaver from behind two large rocks. Behind him walked two freshly-caught slaves, ready to be transported to Paradise Falls. I recognised one of the slaves, she was a travelling merchant I had spoken with in Canterbury Commons. She had dark red hair and was wearing dirty pre-war clothes with turquoise reading glasses.
The other slave must have been from Little Lamplight. He had to have been no older than 7 years of age. Not even children were safe in the hands of a slaver.
I slowly equipped my hunting rifle. There were no other slavers in sight, if I could pull off I clean headshot on him, I would be able to remove the slave collars from the red-head and the boy.
Staring down the sights of my rifle, I waited for the slaver get in a good range.
Suddenly, a radscorpion burst out from behind a rock in front of the slaver. Now was my chance, I could let the scorpion kill the slaver and save me the bullets, but then it might also kill the defenceless slaves. I could kill the scorpion and maybe get into the slavers good books, and then when his back is turned I could blow a hole in the back of his head and free the slaves. Either way, I had to do something.
I squared the slavers head in my sights. Hoping the radscorpion would do a hefty amount of damage to him so it's easier for me to pick him off.
The scorpion lunged forward and impaled the slaver with its huge stinger. I quickly spun and aimed at the radscorpion. Any second now and the scorpion would turn on the slaves. I acted fast, jumping out of cover and sinking a bullet into the scorpion's body, sprinting towards it and yelling at the slaves to run. When it turned to me and scurried towards me I stopped, pulled the rifles scope up to my eye and pulled the trigger, the bullet tore through the air and plummeted into the radscorpions head.
I moved back, and shot it in the head again. The scorpion hesitated only slightly before dashing towards me again. I stopped and stood my ground. One more shot should've done it.
I braced myself, and then squeezed the trigger. The huge black scorpion fell flat and limp. Small chunks of its head blew apart and splattered the dry, empty ground.
"It's OK, come out!" I called out, hoping the slaves weren't too far away to hear.
I listened for movement.
"I'm not one of them! I'm trying to help you!"
The merchant woman slowly emerged from behind another huge rock, brandishing the dead slavers assault rifle.
"Drop the gun and put your hands behind your head!" She demanded.
Not wanting to scare her further, I gradually bent down and placed my rifle on the ground, then stood up straight and put my hands behind my head.
She walked towards me cautiously, aiming the barrel of the assault rifle at my chest.
"Who are you?" she ordered.
"I'm the one who just saved your life, now do you mind not aiming that gun at me?"
She stood a few feet away from me. Not taking her eyes off me, she called out to the young slave and soon, he too emerged slowly and cautiously from behind the huge rock.
"Are you one of them? Are you a slaver too?"
"No, look, I just wanna help you. I can take you someplace safe." I responded.
"It's too late, that bastard already put one of those collars on us, if we go anywhere else then Paradise Falls – well, I'm sure you know what'll happen."
"I-I can get it off if you want."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. But first you're gonna have to put down that gun." I nodded at the firearm in her hands.
She hesitantly aimed it downwards and eventually put it down on the ground, still not taking her eyes off me. She then walked closer to me.
"Hold still." I asked.
The collar was heavy and made from thick metal, a small flashing red light on the side. I pried open a small panel on the back with a screwdriver. Several different coloured wires were scrambled around inside it. I'd seen this before, and Moira had given me some notes on how to disarm these things.
"That should just about do it." I said, tearing out the last wire.
"I – I think it worked."
I carefully unhooked the collar and removed it from her neck.
"Thank you. My names Rose by the way." She said.
"I'm Noah. Pleased to meet you."
The little boy hid behind Rose.
"This is Brad." She said, nodding to the young boy.
"Hello Brad, would you like me to take that collar off for you?"
"Ye-yes please." He responded.
"Ok then." I leant down and examined the smaller collar on his dirty and bruised neck.
"Try and hold still for me, ok?" I asked.
I forced open the little panel on the back of the collar and cautiously removed the right wires. The collar immediately un-hatched and fell away from Brad's neck.
"Thank you." Brad said.
I stood back up and faced Rose.
"You don't mind if I take these do you?" I nodded at the large metal collars on the ground.
"No, sure take 'em." Rose smiled.
"So where are you gonna go now?" I asked.
"To Paradise Falls, teach those motherfucking slavers a lesson."
"No, don't. Trust me, it's too dangerous. I've been there. "
"So you are a slaver!" She hurriedly picked up the assault rifle.
"No! Look, let me explain!"
"The only thing you need to explain right now is why I shouldn't blow your fucking head off!"
"I had to go to Paradise Falls, it's part of my job! Look, do you really think that if I was a slaver, I would disarm your collars and save your life? I'm one of the good guys Rose, please believe me!"
"What's your job then? Huh?"
"I'm Moira Browns research assistant, over in Megaton."
"What do you mean?"
"She's been writing this book, 'The Wasteland Survival Guide' and she pays me to go out and gather information and research."
"What research?"
I could see her starting to calm down.
"She's paid me to bring back some slave collars so she can examine then. I've been following the guy that captured you for days waiting for him to slip up. And I guess by the looks of him, he slipped up alright."
I glanced over at the slavers body; it had a huge gaping hole in his chest where the scorpion had pierced his body. His innards lay strewn around him in gory chunks and blood coated the ground and rocks.
"So what were you doing in Paradise Falls then?" Rose asked.
"I thought I could steal a collar from there, but I ended up pissing off the guard so he wouldn't let me in. So I hid out and a slaver just happened to walk by, so I followed him for a while and when I saw you two get captured, I couldn't just sit there and let you be taken to Paradise Falls, I had to do something. I've seen what happens to people who get taken to Paradise Falls, they get sold to some of the most sick and disgusting people out here, and nobody deserves the treatment that slaves get."
Rose paused and went silent.
"I'm sorry I almost tried to kill you." She said, with a slight smile on her face.
"That's alright. Hey, look, why don't you two come with me back to Megaton? I'm sure Moira would love to hear what it's like to be a slave from someone who's experienced it for themselves."
"I guess we got nowhere else to go now anyway. Sure, why not."
"Cool, you better take that rifle. Just in case."
"Ok."
"Look, I think we better re-supply on ammo and food. I've only got enough food and water for a day. Canterbury Commons is closest, let's go there and stay the night. We'll head to Megaton first thing tomorrow, shouldn't take more than a few hours to get there but it's almost nightfall and I'm sure you would know how dangerous the wasteland is at night."
"Yeah, good idea."
"Ok, let's get going before the sun starts to set."
I looked around at the vast open wasteland. It was enormous nothingness. Dust and dirt as far as the eye could see. Several shrivelled and blackened trees stood where there was once a beautiful and luscious forest. Dust covered most of the destroyed roads and enormous bridges were now demolished and barely standing over filthy irradiated water. They sky was beginning to turn a bright and orange, but not even the skies was the same since the bombs dropped. It had never rained since the day the Chinese army obliterated Washington D.C. over 60 years ago. It had never snowed. It had never hailed, it was as if Mother Nature herself had died that day.
My parents had retreated into one of the many secure Vault-Tec vaults about a week before the bombs fell. They wanted to stay in there forever, along with every other resident of Vault 78, and they would have, but after I was born they had started running out of food and supplies, and when I was 19, a team of super mutants raided the vault. They killed everyone. I had only managed to escape thanks to my dad distracting one of them while I ran for the door. It was cowardly and I've regretted it all my life.
Once I had escaped, I had thought that the bombs would have wiped everything out, and that nothing would have survived. But I was soon attacked by a group of raiders, they beat me almost to death but luckily for me a few Brotherhood of Steel outcasts witnessed my beating and came to help me. As I lay dying and helpless, one of them picked me up and took me to nearby Rivet City.
The doctors there patched me up and in a few weeks I was fully healed. The citizens of Rivet City taught me everything I needed to know about the Capital Wasteland, they even gave me an old Pip-boy they found in the D.C. ruins.
When I left the city to travel the wastes, I came across the town of Megaton, a small shanty town built around an un-detonated atomic bomb. The town church had refused to defuse the bomb as they had worshipped it and although the people of Megaton were always cautious about it, no-one had ever dared to defuse it.
While in Megaton, I met Moira Brown, a local merchant and owner of Craterside Supply. As I needed the caps, she enlisted my help in writing her book, 'The Wasteland Survival Guide'.
As we arrived in Canterbury Commons, it was dark and all the residents were in their houses asleep.
"They keep a few mattresses behind the diner for the homeless to sleep on. I guess we'll just have to sleep under the stars tonight." I told Rose.
"Alright, I guess I've slept in worse conditions." She responded.
Out here in the wastes, you had to get used to living like the homeless, and sometimes you would have to go without food for days and deal with serious injury until you could find a doctor, which would often feel like a lifetime of agony. Water, the basic tool to sustain life was a rarity. Any water in lakes or ponds was highly irradiated and filthy but it was the only choice for most people. The vaults had their own water purification system and could maintain life for decades, but by now, almost all the vaults were uninhabited and/or demolished. Except vault 101, no one has ever come out of that vault and nothing has ever gotten in. There have been many attempts at getting in, but all have failed. There's an urban legend that there's a whole society of people living in there, safe from the horrors of the wastes, but as with all urban legends, it's yet to be proven.
The next morning, I awoke on the filthy mattress behind the diner in Canterbury Commons. I looked around, Rose and Brad had gone.