Chapter 2

Brian stepped out into the Mojave sun and the grueling humidity of it's miles of desert landscape. He pondered how someone could possibly live out here in this kind of condition. He then noticed a rusted chain link fence separating the vault from the outside world. He walked up to the gate cautiously and noticed the door was no longer there. "Did the rest of the vault use the gate to get out?" Brian thought to himself as he stepped out to the other side of the gate. Brian looked at his wrist and turned the knob on the Pip-Boy to the Map section. He noticed that the only dot on the map was the vault since he has not "discovered" any other locations. "No sense in sticking around here if I'm going to find the others" Brian said to himself as he trailed on into the Mojave desert. About an hours walk he managed to spot a giant dinosaur in the clearing. He began heading toward it until he heard chatter coming from behind him.

"You better watch your mouth before I shut it for you" One voice said.

"I'd like to see you try it asshole" The second voice said.

Brian spotted a huge boulder close to him and he quickly ran behind it.

"Wait...did you hear that?" The first voice said.

"What the fuck you talking about?" The second said.

"There's someone nearby...and when there's someone...there's always something on them worth selling for caps" First voice said.

"I think your fucking delusional from the heat" The second voice said.

"Just fucking trust me on this" The first man said.

Brian could hear guns being loaded and cocked, ready to be fired. Brian pulled his 10mm out of the holster and pulled the top back to make sure it was ready to be fired. Brian's heart raced as the footsteps got closer, merely seconds from walking toward the rock.

"Check that side of the rock, I'll check this side" The first man said and their footsteps parted to both sides of Brian now.

"Fuck! If they were together I may have had a chance to take em both out" Brian thought as he shut his eyes and concentrated. One of the men appeared behind him and screamed "GOTCHA!" and raised his weapon. But the moment he did, a shot went off but it was not from either of the men.

Brian saw one guy go down next to him as the second guy looked out to where the shot was fired. Brian heard another shot and looked in front of him as the second man fell stomach first into the dirt. Brian wondered if he was going to be next to be shot so he held his pistol out toward the direction of the gun firing and screamed "If your going to kill me then do it now! I'm armed!"

"If that's your excuse I may as well shoot you now, now get up" The mysterious man said.

Brian slowly rose to his feet and noticed a man wearing a red beret come toward him. "Who are you?" Brian called out to him.

"Former 1st Recon Craig Boone, but most people call me Boone for short. What's yours vault stranger?" The man said.

"My name is Brian Hunter, I'm from Vault 23" Brian said Boone.

"What's a vault dweller doing roaming around Novac?" Boone asked him.

"I woke up this morning and the rest of the vault was missing, I wonder if they ended up leaving or...I just need to find them and make sure their OK" Brian said.

"Only person I seen with that vault jumpsuit wasn't from a vault, and that was about a year ago." Boone said.

"Wasn't one of mine, we've never left the vault...until just recently I guess" Brian claimed.

"Well seeing your jumpsuit I'm going to assume your not a bad guy. Now if your going to look for your friends I imagine you'd need to be prepared. That pistol won't do you much good again various creatures that roam the desert." Boone told him.

"Well I don't have any money so I couldn't just buy a weapon." Brian told him before Boone pointed at the two dead men on the floor.

"Loot the equipment they have on them. Their dead so I don't think they will mind you taking it." Boone said.

"It wouldn't be right if I took something off a corpse" Brian said.

"Look kid, out here it's survival of the fittest so unless you get better equipment, your not going to make it to the next town." Boone told him.

Brian sighed and turned to one of the men who had a 10mm Submachine Gun and about 30 extra 10mm bullets. He also discovered the man had a box of Blamco Mac and Cheese in his coat pocket. He walked over to the second man and found a Single Shotgun on his back with about 5 20g shells on him. He put the shotgun on his back and stored the ammo in the ammo compartment in his holster belt. He discovered about 20 bottle caps on him as well.

"Why would a killer be carrying around bottle caps?" Brian asked Boone.

"Bottle caps are the currency in most places nowadays. You aren't going to get any real gear unless you have bottle caps so take those with you and hold onto them. Most raiders, like those two there will kill for caps, guns, ammo, and anything they can use or sell." Boone said, almost depressingly.

"You don't seem to like raiders very much" Brian said as he scooped up the bottle caps and stored them in a little pocket of his Duffel bag.

"Well no one likes raiders but a particular group of raiders, the Caesars Legion, took my wife and sold her to be a slave...I was forced to kill her to prevent her from suffering any longer..." Boone said, almost defeated.

"I'm sorry to hear that" Brian said.

"Normally I'm not open to tell people this kind of thing, but this other kid...in a vault jumpsuit, convinced me that I had to stop living in my own shadow and move on. She said it wasn't my fault for her death but I know it is deep down." Boone said looking at Brian.

"You couldn't have known, I'm sure you would have done anything you could to prevent her from being taken." Brian said, trying to cheer him up.

"You know...that kid told me the same thing...In a way, your both pretty similar." Boone told him.

"I guess I'll consider that a compliment" Brian said grinning.

"Come on, before more raiders show up, we should probably head on to Novac where another sniper, Ramirez is watching over the town. I'm sure we can find you a place to stay for the night while you figure out where to head next to look for your missing friends" Boone said as he and Brian began moving down the road toward the giant dinosaur, to the town of Novac.

Well there's Chapter 2 folks! I hope everyone enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I will continue making chapters as long as you, the community, continues reading! Thanks again for reading!