Stepping outside, Roger was struggling to catch his breath. His eyes were having a hard time adjusting to the sun's harmful rays, and when they finally did, he wished he was blind just so he wouldn't have to see what the world had become.
What had once been beautiful land filled with trees, animal life, and an abundance of human activity was gone. What replaced it was a desolate atmosphere, filled with nothing but craters and run down roads. Not a single living tree was in sight, instead replaced by dead abominations, a mockery of a past, almost fictional time.
There was no jetpacks, emotional robots, and he doubted there were any colonies in space. The remains of this once great and powerful nation were nowhere to be seen. All that replaced it was this… this wasteland.
His worst thoughts when he woke from his long, deep sleep was true. A nuclear holocaust did happen. And he had survived it, with nothing to prepare him for what was to come.
Roger was having a hard time taking it all in. The shock overwhelming the rest of his emotions, not even able to feel the sadness he knows he should be feeling.
Starting up the road, still no sign of life anywhere. Stumbling upon what might have been an old military camp, he went walking up to a tent and peered inside, seeing if anybody, anything, was still there. It was empty, nothing but a bed, table, and an unstable chair, rusted to the roots.
Back outside, seeing what appears to be a military truck, he started walking up to it to see any signs of life. There were none.
He sat on the edge of the truck's bed, too astounded to be able to think. Suddenly, tears started flowing, his emotions flooding back. He didn't even know what he was crying for; he could hardly remember anyone or anything of the land before. But he knew it had to be better than this. "There's nothing," Roger thought, his mind racing a million miles an hour. "No people, no animals. I probably killed the only other living thing earth."
"Hey, wastelander!"
Wiping the tears from his eyes, he turned, surprised to hear another voice. A hulk of a man was jogging towards him, wearing strange armor. As the man got closer, he could see it was old military grade power armor, t-45d variant, but it was painted red and black. He remembered the bullet holes that were in the other mole rat creature. Someone else is alive too!
"Hey! Are you military?" Roger asked, hoping the answer was yes.
The strange soldier ran up right next to him, ignoring the question. He was flanked by another soldier and a Mister Gutsy military robot, also painted red and black. It was pretty clear to Roger that life was still around in this wasteland, albeit changed.
The soldier reached out and grabbed his left arm, inspecting his Pip-Boy.
"Where did you get this?" The soldier asked.
"You didn't answer my question," replied Roger, a hint of frustration and fear in his voice. "Are you United States Military?"
The soldier, still ignoring the question, turned to speak his partner. "He's got what we need, do we take it off here?"
"No," the other soldier replied. She sounded like a young women, but her voice was full of grit. "Our orders were to take the owner of the Pip-Boy back to the Outcast VSS Facility in DC."
"Well then wastelander, it sounds like you're coming with us." said the lead soldier. letting go of Roger's arm, he urged him to move. Roger obeyed, not wanting to anger the heavily armed patrol that seems to have taken him prisoner.
They walked for a few hours in silence, staring out into the wastes for any signs of movement. Roger broke the silence. "You guys sure don't seem like military, so let's just start with names. I'm Roger Rockwell."
"Well then, Roger," The female soldier said, "Can you tell us how you came across that thing on your arm?"
"If you tell me your name first." He replied.
"You can call me Defender Mcnamera, and him Defender Garcia. We're Brotherhood Outcasts, protecting technology from people like you." replied the female soldier. She turned her head towards him. He could feel her eyes critically inspecting him from behind her helmet. "Did you come from a vault? Your jumpsuit and your smooth skin say yes."
"Yea," replied Roger, feeling rather embarrassed he didn't know much about himself. "I awoke in a place called Vault 112. I don't remember much beyond that. All of this wasteland stuff is still new to me, I guess that's what I get for sleeping 203 years."
"You've been asleep for 203 years?" asked Defender Garcia, a hint of amazement and disbelief in his voice. "How are you not a pile of dust? In fact you look like a young man!"
"I was in this thing a Robobrain called a Tranquility Lounger, apparently it kept me from aging." The whole thing sounded extremely unlikely, but it was all he knew.
"Well then, old man, welcome back to the real world. You'll find that everything isn't all fine and dandy." Said Defender Mcnamera, no emotion expressed in her voice. "People die every day out here, from famine, dehydration, disease, or a bullet to the face."
Roger stopped for a second, thinking about how life was like out here. He couldn't imagine living in an environment like this. And yet here he was, wandering it with 2 armored strangers and a robot.
Suddenly there was a load bang, and the Mister Gutsy fell to the ground. Defender Garcia jumped to the side, grabbing Roger in the process and pulling them both behind cover. The ground where they used to be danced to the sound of assault rifle fire. Over the dust he could see Defender Mcnamera running forward to take cover behind a car.
"Wait here!" the Defender shouted, jumping over the barricade to deal with this threat.
Roger, peaking over the barricade, could just make out the black combat armor of the sniper on the roof of a house, a white symbol on his breastplate shining bright in the sun. There was a slight noise behind him. He turned to find an assault rifle pressed against his chest.
"Well now, if it isn't the little saint from the vault. We've been looking for you. Someone's put quite a price on your head."
Phew! Well that was fun! sorry for the slow start, I wanted to try and capture the emotions of what it would be like stepping into a completely different world that was strangely similar. I don't know of any humans (I do know of some ghouls) that were still alive at this time that would have any experiences before the Great War, so I tried to think of what that would feel like. It's hard, but is totally fun to write about. As for the Outcast plot, no I'm not going to take him to the Operation: Anchorage Virtual Reality, but I thought it would be fun to get them involved. The action should start picking up within the next couple chapters (Talon Company's on the hunt!), so stay tuned! And as always, feel free to share your comments, questions, and recommendations!
