Snyder finished of the last of the mutants. A screamer, that had lost enough of his limbs and lower body so that he could do little more than crawl a couple of feet. And scream of course.
Snyder cut him off with his Disintegrator while he walked over to the other mutant-carcasses. The bodies were still radiating an unusual amount of heat, but Snyder merely registered this on the side. He quickly searched the bodies, a skill that had developed itself quickly since he had left the vault several months ago. The handfuls of various ballistic ammunition that the mutants had carried with them quickly went into Snyder's backpack. With a couple of practiced moves, he unloaded the mutants' weapons. The actual weapons, he left. They were mostly too heavy and/or cumbersome to be carried over longer distances.
By the way the mutants had been moving when Snyder had fallen upon them he guessed they were moving towards a room further inside the building. Maybe a base or a hidden cache, Snyder mused. Anyway, it was probably worth risking a quick look.
Curiously, he walked around the corner and peered through the doorframe that lead into the hall towards which the mutants had been moving. The first thing he registered was the small, automatic machine pistol that was aimed at his direction. His first instinct was to aim at the person holding the gun, but he hesitated. Nobody had shot anyone yet so there was still the a way to resolve the situation without wasting precious blood or ammo. Snyder raised his hands, one open with the fingers spread out, the other one still holding his rifle at the barrel.
The person holding the gun was a woman, about the same age as himself (around twenty) with black hair. She was wearing a grey combat armor and wasn't sporting any other obvious weaponry except her SMG.
Snyder noted that the hands that were holding the gun were slightly shaking. He also noted the number of frag mines and mutant-carcasses lying in the room. Despite her rather flimsy arsenal, the girl packed quite a lot of ordnance and obviously knew how to hold her own.
"I'm not going to attack, I promise.", Snyder said. His voice sounded slightly muffled and mechanical through the microphone in the helmet of his power-armor.
The woman lowered her gun a bit.
"Look, the way I see it, there are more mutants than what you and me already took care off on the way here. We help each other out and then we go back to pointing firearms at each other.",
After a moment of hesitation, the woman lowered her gun and winked him over. Snyder ran over to her and knelt down beside her, propping his rifle on the overturned pillar the woman had been using as cover. The woman just looked at him with a mix of confusion and curiosity and then proceeded to turn her eyes on the doorway.
When the mutants came, they behaved as expected. Some made for their cover in a straight line, swinging their rag-tag arsenal, while most darted left or right immediately after they had passed through the doorframe in order to avoid fire. Those that went straight got shot down, either by Snyder and the woman or by their fellow brethren who did not care to stop firing if one of their comrades ran into their line of fire.
Those who were smart enough to run right or left walked over the mines.
It probably took about thirty seconds for the first wave to charge and die, but adrenaline and psycho (which Snyder had administered to himself just as they heard the mutants converging on them) made it hard to tell exactly. The rest of the mutants recognized that frontal assault wouldn't present great chances of success and took position in the room in front of the hall were Snyder and the woman were holed up. A few shots were exchanged until Snyder grabbed his pack and pulled a plasma grenade from it.
The woman, currently kneeling next to him, in the process of reloading her weapon, glanced at it, then smiled in an almost sadistic way. She slammed the magazine back into her weapon, went back up again and sprayed some more bullets towards the door.
"Coverfire", Snyder thought. It seemed like this person wasn't just the regular hot-shit-'cause-gun-merc like most of those Talon-fellows he had run into. He ended his musings with a shrug and pulled the pin.
If not meddled with, the usual plasma grenade took exactly eight seconds until the magnetic field that sealed the plasma inside the casing, degenerated enough that the condensed plasma would burst out of it. Snyder waited for four and then quickly stood up from behind his cover and lobbed the grenade towards the door. He didn't wait for the explosion but instead got back behind cover, pulling the women with him and under him as he went. His armor would shield her from any flying plasma or debris.
The sound of the blast was thundering, enhanced by the barrel-formed hall they were in. The woman pushed him off her with a swear. Snyder stood up. He look over to the entrance, towards the smoldering mutant-bodies. The mutants that had survived the initial blast started charging towards them in order to escape the burning-hot plasma that was still floating in the air. Snyder pulled his rifle towards his cheek and fired.
The blast of his weapon fanned out once it entered the plasma-cloud. A blinding blue-white flash filled the room. Heat rolled over Snyder and the woman like a wave. Once his eyes stopped stinging and he got the dancing spots in his vision under control, Snyder could make out what his last attack had done.
The entire wall around the doorframe had been scorched and the old pre-war wallpaper was cracking on both side-walls. The old wood of the doorframe was completely annihilated. The mutants that had been charging them lay around the entrance as half-disintegrated husks. Black burn-streaks were painting half the room and only stopped about two meters in front of their cover.
"What the FUCK was that?"
Snyder turned around towards the woman. She was rubbing her right eye and staring at the smoldering bodies with a dumbfounded expression on her face. Snyder sighed slightly, which was muffled by his helmet. He considered explaining that plasma was basically ionized gas and thus had conductive capabilities, which could transmit the electricity-like energy of his weapon, but he decided against it. Most people in the Wasteland did not share his enthusiasm for physics and Snyder lacked the patience to explain to an audience that would stop listening once he got past 'It's kinda complicated'. Instead he took of his helmet.
"Science", he answered.
The girl kept staring at him, her flabbergasted expression refusing to leave her face.
There was a moment of silence.
"Snyder.", Snyder finally said, raising his hand as a greeting. Shaking it would have been foolish. She might just wait for him to expose himself. Anyway, his introduction seemed to trigger something in the woman. The woman stopped rubbing her eye and her expression turned slightly towards confusion.
"Sydney. Nice to meet you.", She answered. She put her gun into a holster at her hip. "So, I'm guessing you are here because Washington send you.",
Snyder furrowed his brow slightly. How did she know? "Might be.", Experience had taught him to always play his cards close to his chest. Revealing as little as possible about his small but lucrative quest seemed to be the best. Despite saving her, she might still try to rip him off.
The girl smiled slightly, one eyebrow arched.
"Relax, I'm not gonna fuck ya over just after your save back there. Abraham sent me out here as well. For the Declaration of Independence.",
"Yeah... Me too.",
Snyder made a mental note to squeeze Abraham for that later. If Sydney had been more unscrupulous things could have turned into a blood-run for the document. Sydney kept talking.
"Well then, Snyder is it? Why don't we help each other out, hm? We seem to be good at that. I mean, just ask these poor suckers over there."
Sydney pointed at the charred mutant corpses in the doorway. Snyder looked at her, slightly suspicious of her words.
"What do you propose?", he asked.
Sydney put on a serious expression. "I managed to do some scouting while I was laying out perimeter. The mutants got the drop me before I got it done. Anywho, I think there are two possible ways to get to the Declaration. One through the basement, the other by using the old service elevator."
Snyder raised an eyebrow. "And how does that involve us teaming up?"
Sydney looked at him, slightly annoyed for having been interrupted. " Shut up, I'll get to that in a minute. Now, the basement is filled with mutants and other shit. Robots 'n turrets, I think. Not sure, but it smells like a bad idea anyway you look at it. Bad as in fuckin' crazy sucicidal. Anyhow, the elevator gets us directly down to where they stuffed that thing back then. No mutants, no robots or other scary shit. Best of all, no fussing around. Well, almost no fussing.",
"Almost no fussing?", Snyder asked.
"Yeeaah...", Sydney pulled out the word."A couple of small things, really, that we have to take care of first. First, we gotta agree on how we split the reward once we get back to Rivet City. Now, I'm not an asshole. Not like those fuckin' shitters from the Talon Company. I'll agree to fifty-fifty. That sittin' okay with you?"
Snyder thought for a moment. If he thought about it, he was mostly doing this particular job because he had been in Rivet City to resupply before another mission which had been close to the National Archives and it had looked like an easy number. There was nothing that really depended on this. Also, he was curious. The Declaration was an important piece of pre-war history.
He nodded. Sydney grinned winningly. "Okay, we have an agreement. What else?", Snyder asked.
Sydney pointed towards a portable terminal that was connected to a chaos of cables which disappeared in the wall. Maybe he had to re-evaluate his opinion about this girl. Not the blunt-mercenary-type at all.
Sydney walked over to the terminal.
"I managed to access some of the old systems. Lights, mostly. Some security in the far east wing where we won't be going. I found out which systems can get the elevator working. Only problem, the fucking system won't let me access it from here. It kicks me out whenever I try to access it."
Sydney gave the terminal a kick.
Snyder nodded. He knelt down in front of the terminal. Sydney continued."Well, the program I had prepared was supposed to get the system to think, I had all the authorization I needed. Just can't get through on this one.",
Snyder nodded again. He pushed a couple of keys on the keyboard.
"The firewall doesn't look too sophisticated. Can't you hack it manually?", He asked. Sydney shook her head.
"Nah. The program isn't mine. I got it from one of the eggheads in Rivet City. I'm not that great with software, really. I mean, I know how to install a terminal. But programming and hacking and crap? Not my thing."
Snyder nodded. She did seem more like the analog-type. Sydney continued.
"I could try and rewire the elevator to one of the other systems which I already hacked. But it'll take time and I need someone to watch my back. Don't want to get into another fuckaroo like back then."
Snyder shook his head.
"We don't need to.", He squinted at the terminal's screen, his fingers already flying over the keys."I can hack this. It's all fairly simple for pre-war standards.",
Snyder paused a moment and looked up."I'm guessing that during war, you deem the security of your countries records less important than general armament."
Sydney looked at him with a confused expression."What are you talking about?"
Snyder just shook his head. "Nothing important." His eyes went back to the screen."Alright, almost there. And ... done." He stood up, allowing him self a satisfied smile. Sydney looked first at him and then at the screen. A wide grin split her face. She hit Snyder on the shoulder, hard enough to make him take a step sideways.
"Way to go. Let's go, I can show you were the thing is."
Before Snyder could answer anything she half-ran ahead of him. His eyes fell on her holstered gun, still strapped to her hip. He had previously identified the gun correctly as a 10 mm SMG, but now he noticed that there were certain modifications to it. The barrel was slightly longer and thicker and overall, the gun seemed to be bigger and heavier. Sydney turned around, a slight frown on her face when she saw where he was looking.
"Eyes up, please. As tempting as it looks, but you should keep your eyes open for more muties instead of staring at my ass."
Snyder's brows furrowed slightly. Not only a cussing girl but cocky and saucy as well.
"Don't flatter yourself too much. I wasn't looking at you but at your weapon. It's not a normal SMG, is it? It's custom-built.",
"Upgraded.", Sydney corrected him. "Did it myself.",
She pulled the gun from her holster so that Snyder could look at it better.
"Impressive. Not many people I've met in the wastes have the skill to properly modify a weapon to such a degree.", Snyder could see that the weapon-modifications had been done skillfully. Furthermore the gun was meticulously well maintained. ,"Still, to go into Super Mutant territory with such a small sidearm seems... well,... very confident.",
Sydney smiled. "I get what you're saying and I agree. My partner, Emaline, couldn't make it. Got held up somewhere else. I usually do these kinds of things together with her, especially this close the mall. Talking about weapons, what about yours? Never seen this kind of thing before?"
Snyder thought for a moment. There was no sense in telling her the truth, that he had pried the gun from the hands of a dead extraterrestrial two months ago. She would not believe such a story and would probably only react negative, thinking he withheld information from her. But Snyder had a cover-story ready.
"I found it while raiding an old military bunker out west. Before the war they had been working on some experimental weaponry. I found a couple of spare parts, six boxes of ammo and this thing in a safe room at the very bottom.",
Sydney nodded, seeming satisfied with the story. "What does it do?", she asked. Snyder wrinkled his forehead. "I am not entirely sure. I think it shoots some sort of concentrated or compressed electrical charge."
Snyder knew what the gun was shooting. After extensive testing, he found out that the aliens had discovered a different type of electron which was much more energy-responsive than the hitherto known particles. They retained their kinetic energy longer as well. It was like electricity but a lot hotter. He continued. "
I am somewhat afraid to dismantle the weapon too much. It is quite complex and I am not sure I could reassemble it correctly. Furthermore it is unique and quite powerful, as you have seen. It would be a shame if it would be destroyed because of my inability to properly understand it."
In fact, Snyder had spent one month almost entirely awake, disassembling and reassembling several alien-rifles he had brought back. He had even drawn and memorized the schematics of the guns. Right now, he was merely trying to avoid further questions about the origin of his weapon.
Sydney nodded. "Electricity, huh? Well that would explain that big flash you did back there."
Snyder was nonplussed. Sydney laughed after seeing his expression. "Don't look so stumped. Just because I don't talk as fancy as you do doesn't mean I am a numbskull."
Snyder blinked.
"I'm sorry. It's just … Most people don't really know these kinds of things. They tend to be more, mhh, practical, let's say."
Sydney still grinned. "My dad taught me. He was a gunsmith, you know? Made his own stuff, ammo, repairs, everything, you know. Energy-weapons as well. Nothing as shiny as what you got there, but you needed to have more skills than just make a hammer hit the primer at the end of the cartridge." Suddenly her smile dropped and she turned away. "Anyway, he taught me stuff.", she waved her gun before holstering it, "Let's get back to business."
Her dad was obviously a sore spot. Snyder didn't probe for more. He had a story about a father himself.