Chapter 2

The First Month

The first few days in exile was rough considering the limited amount of clean food and water. Damn, how I wished there were settlements closer to the vault, but, from the map my pipboy pulled up on the surrounding area, it seemed as though there was a small town 10 klicks south east of my position. Somehow, the thing had even been able to give me the name and state, Elko, Nevada.

It took me the good part of a day to walk there, when I got within sight, I ran a threat analysis to find that the town is of moderate but no immediate threat. I was able to spot a few decently armed guards on the wall around the place, 3 of 'em held AK-112 assault rifles, 2 held DKS-501 sniper rifles, and 2 on mounted M60s with ammo crates sitting nearby. "Moderate threat, my ass. This place is nearly a fuckin' fortress."

As I made my way to the front gate one of the snipers held a hand up signaling me to stop. "State your business here, stranger." he commanded with an authoritative voice . "Just a traveler," I answered, "I'm just looking to resupply after a long journey."

"Just a traveler? Well, if that's the case, might I ask what someone like yourself is doing with a rifle so rare that the only known to still exist are in the hands of very few high ranking soldiers in the NCR?"

I glanced at my Barrett before answering. "This came from my vault. I customized it myself."

"You expect me to believe you're from a vault? Ok, where's your blue jumpsuit with the number of your vault on it?"

"My vault wasn't typical, it was literally one of a kind, vault 50's jumpsuits are black with the numbers in red." I turned around to show him the red 50 on my back. "Oh, and they have heavy armor plating sewn into them, capable of stopping a point blank blast from one of your AK-112s."

"Is that so? Well, you are certainly going to draw quite a bit of attention." He looked to someone on the other side of the wall, "Open the gate, we've got a new guy in town." He looked back at me, "Try not to start any fights with the drunks if you go to Jack's Bar, I'd hate to see what would happen to the guards if you got pissed off."

I put a small smile on, "You don't have to worry, I don't get drunk easily and I always respect laws, but someone might have to drag them out if they decide to try and start something." He just shook his head not trying to hid a smile. "What's your name, traveler?"

"Deadshot. You."

"Nathan Graham. We'll have to talk more another time."

I'd decided that I would resupply the next day, and that I would just relax and have a drink at Jack's. It was around an hour and three bottles of good whisky before Graham walked in.

"You drunk yet?" he asked, but was taken back by the way I looked at him and answered with a slight chuckle, "It takes far more than just three bottles of whisky to do me in."

"Yeah, I can see that. Anyways, let's get to the questions I wanted to ask. Deadshot isn't your real name, so what is it?"

"Well, Deadshot was a title given to me by my father and pretty much everybody else from the vault, as to what my name is, it's Alexandros...it's Ancient Greek and translates to 'Defender of Mankind' if you were wondering."

"Well, that answers my question, I guess. So, why did you leave the vault?"

"Let's just say that it was a...personal vendetta and leave it at that. Oh, and I'm not really from the vault, I was born in the village that was budding up around the entrance to the vault."

"Sounds like Vault City in California, they started by using a G.E.C.K. I heard what they were like and I agree that they were some stuck up bastards, if you had the least bit of radiation poisoning, you weren't welcome there. I'm glad somebody went in and tainted their water supply and disabled their water chip."

"Sounds like they got what they deserved."

"Yeah. Hey, you wouldn't mind helping out with a small raider problem, would you?"

"If it involves raiders, yeah, I'm in, tell me the general direction and I can pick 'em off from here."

"What's the range on that thing?" He said, motioning to the rifle.

"Well, it has a max effective range of just over a mile and a half, but if I can get a headshot on a bloatfly over a mile away from the wall of my town, I think I can hit something like a bandit from farther. Does that give you an idea on why I was called Deadshot?"

"I've got to see this." He said and other people around the room agreed.

"Alright, if someone could set up targets at varying distances, I'll give you all a show!" I announced, to be answered with a resounding cheer.

"You plan on making yourself known, aren't you?" Both Jack and Nathan asked, I could only shrug. "Well, it's better than doing nothing with my life, isn't it? Besides, I kinda wanna leave my mark wherever I go from now on, be it on the people I interact with or the creatures I wipe out to make a route safer for travel."

Day 4

With a loud crack, my rifle went off, and one of the bottles placed at 2500 meters exploded a second later. Those that wanted to try to out snipe me were watching through their scopes, most stood silent, some couldn't believe what happened, Nathan was the only one to say anything. "Well, looks like we have our winner in this little contest!" he announced. There was a resounding cheer that went on for about 15 minutes and quickly died away.

"Well, Deadshot," Nathan said, "looks like you found something this town could use to attract more people, thanks. It might not look it but this town was getting close to becoming another ghost town."

"Really now, well you're welcome. Hey, what was it you said about a raider problem last night?"

"Oh, yeah, you see, there's a rather large group of raiders, at least 30 strong, about 2 miles to the south..."

"I'll take care of it." I cut him off. "I'll leave in an hour. Get a bottle of whisky ready for my return would you?"

He chuckled at that. "You and your whisky, 4 days away from home and you're addicted to the stuff."

"Well, back home we didn't have as big a supply of it, plus it would've been a bad image if the townspeople saw me drinking a lot."

"How high of a ranking officer were you?"

"I wasn't an officer, it would've been more of a problem with 'family honor'."

"Hmm, well, judging from what you've told me about Vault 50, that makes sense."

"Yeah...well, I think I should go get my pack ready to take care of the raider problem."

After that I made my way to my rented room in Jack's to get my shit together, though I did take out my loading equipment and made a few special rounds for the raiders, and gave my AK and Barrett a good cleaning.

I looked at my pipboy for the time, it read 2:43 p.m. I should be back before 6, I thought. I made my way downstairs, told Jack where I'm going and bought a round of drinks for everyone.

"You know you're gonna make yourself go broke by doing this, right?"

"Nah, I'll be fine, especially after I come back from taking care of these raiders."

"You are an odd one." I barely heard him as I walked toward the door. "See ya, I'll be back before nightfall." and left. I made one last stop at Casey's General Goods for some 5.45 rounds for my AK and a few snacks for the long walk.

I'm sitting crouched atop a hill observing the raider encampment, at least 17 tents situated around a larger one. "This looks more like a small army encampment. Oh well, shouldn't be that much of a problem...time to attach the silencer." It was on in seconds and I laid prone and focused on a guard at the farthest end.

After the first raider went down, an alarm raised and everyone went to that side of camp...perfect. One by one they fell, and before they even thought about where the bullets were coming from, more than half of them were dead so I decided to finish the rest off in person.

I concealed my bag and rifle next to the shriveled husk tree under some dead bushes, it's times like that that I'm glad that both of which were mottled with varying shades of brown for easy camouflage in these parts of the wastes.

I picked up my AK and silently made my way behind most of 'em, "Hey, bitches! Lookin' for me?" I shouted from 5 feet away, opened fire, dropping 5 before the rest could react, and jumped behind a large log for cover as they fired back. "Holy shit, you guys suck. I'm only one man and damn near all of you are already dead because of me." I taunted and laughed. "Fuck you, asshole!" one of 'em shouted back

Ok, at least 12 left. I reloaded my mag and waited to hear them do the same, then opened fire again, with more precision this time, dropping another 8. 4 left. "One of you idiots go around the other side..." I heard one say. "Oh, I wouldn't try that, especially if your leader says it loud enough for me to hear."

"You're dead!" another shouted back. "Alright...hey, here's a present!" I shouted and picked up a grenade sized rock and chucked it back. I heard 'em shout in terror before realizing it was a trick and looked back to me only to see the bullets flying already and tearing into them.

I searched them to find out what caused them to amass this close to Elko. I found a bounty poster among the leaders belongings, it depicted Nathan for 10000 caps, alive. "Well Nathan, it looks like we have something to talk about."

It was just getting dark when I made it back to town, I still couldn't believe that fight only lasted 5 minutes, oh well, it was fun though. I stopped by Casey's to sell the pieced together weapons and armor I took from the raiders and got a handsome amount of caps from it, no need for a reward I guess, 1379 caps is definitely enough for provisions I'll be needing when I decide to leave.

I saw Nathan exit the bar, my guess was that he was looking for me, I was right. "Deadshot, you're back, so I take it they're gone?"

"Yeah, but I want to talk to you about something I found on 'em."

By the worried look on his face, I knew it was something he didn't want to hear.

"Ok, let's take this inside, someplace private."

I agreed and we both went back to Jack's and up to my room.

"Ok, so, what did you find?"

Pulling out the bounty poster, I said, "This, why are you wanted for 10000 caps? Who the hell did you piss off that badly?" I asked chuckling.

He noticeably loosened up at that. "Well, I use to set slaves free. One night I got caught, but when they put the bomb collar on me I easily got out when they turned their backs, so the second I got the chance, I stole a combat knife out of a slavers pocket and stabbed him in the heart. I made my way to 'Big Man Sal', the head of that particular group of slavers, and stabbed him in the spine while he slept, crippling him, and left."

"So, they'll keep coming after you until either you die, turn yourself in, or he dies?"

"Yeah, why, you wanna go kill him?"

"I'm thinking about it now."

He shook his head at me. "You're asking for a death sentence, but after you came back from killing 30 of his men, you can pretty much handle yourself."

"Of course I can handle myself, I was a little disappointed in them though."

"Why's that?"

"Let's go downstairs, I'm sure everyone would get a kick out of this short story."

I had decided to stay in Elko for at least a month before moving on, Nathan decided that the best thing to do to get rid of the bounty was to kill Sal so he decided to join me in my travels. I had also helped create a trade route between Elko and Vault 50, the council agreed to the arrangement when they heard it was me that wanted to set it up. I had offered to get Nathan some armor like mine but he rejected the offer, saying that it would slow him down. At least I was able to get him to get a new gun. He got an M4A1 with detachable silencer, ACOG scope, and foregrip. When we were finally ready, we said our goodbyes, Kyra and Farrell even came out with one of the supply wagons to see how I was doing, I could see it in their eye that they wanted to knock me out and drag me back with them but decided not to...it would've been sad if I had known that this was the last time I'd ever see them.