These Wasteland stories were written back when I was just a young man, back in- well, let's just say it was in another millennium! Obviously they're rough, and not the best writing, but now, looking back as a published novelist, they ain't half bad! I've tried to reconcile some of the references to fit with the Fallout universe, but you may have to just grin and bear it if anything doesn't ring true. I'll be moving on to some fresh New Vegas fiction once I'm done uploading these chapters, and who knows, maybe the story will continue...

CADAVER CHASE

I carved my way through the stand of trees with the Proton Axe. It hummed on the strokes, with a weird buzzing in your ear like ground hornets. It made me glad of my strong will. I think lesser men would break under the strain of wielding the proton axe in a noncombat setting. It's one thing to whip out a strange humming weapon to cleave someone's head open in a life or death battle; it's another thing entirely to use it like your trusty machete.

This was a place that had been known as Smith River, California. It had originally been a small stop right near the northern border to Oregon. Just a place where truckers would take a load off after being hassled by customs agents. It had been located smack dab in the middle of the land. Now it was a coastal town, or rather, the coastal ruins of a town. I had made it here in the two days my granpa had specified, even without the hovertank.

When I managed, with a burst of amazing adrenaline, to grab the proton axe, I was able to cut my way free of the rubble, and out of the power armor, which was frakked, from some electrical short. I cut my way to the surface in the rubber undersuit, and once there had taken it off.

My mind at that point had become so addled that I didn't even care I was naked, running through Las Vegas with a Proton Axe. Any challengers were either put off by my nudity or my fist through their skull. You just can't be bothered at times like that.

When I returned to the desert where I had placed my hovertank, I discovered that someone had removed all the circuit boards and actuation devices. I don't know many people in the greater Las Vegas area with that kind of expertise, so I figured my granpa was just being difficult. I took my canteen, miscellaneous survival gear, and what little clothing and armor I had. Out into the desert I went, and some hunch made me take a detour towards a place called the Guardian Citadel. It was the stronghold of a bunch of religious nuts. They had a lot of prewar technology that was for the taking if you could take a few of them down. I discovered that someone had already done that. At first I suspected granpa, but then I noticed that there were blast craters and demolished walls everywhere, and the ground was littered with shell casings and discarded LAW rockets, along with hundreds of cigarette butts. Desert Rangers. And when I discovered that there was nothing left of worth in the building but a single power pack, I got the idea that maybe I would pay the Rangers a visit at their 'Ranger Center,' which was just an old jail down south.

Granpa's voice came back to me then, and I had to check my vengefulness for later. I was on a tight time schedule. But that's how it goes. I left the Guardian Citadel without any real satisfaction. It took me almost exactly two days to reach the appointed spot, and I arrived with not a small amount of trepidation. I wondered what the family business was, exactly. SourceGroup had been the only life I knew, which was a fair sight better than most lives people lived nowadays. What could he have to offer me?

I had cleared the stand of trees when the answer came to me. The only true commodity he had to offer someone in this world was immortality... a constant string of cloning and memory transfers. But was it worth it?

The town had almost been reclaimed by the wilderness. That was why I had to cut through just to get in. I figured that if there was any place near the coast that my granpa wanted to meet, it would be this poetically desolate hellhole. Seeing the ruins of the town, I crossed a wide drywash, which had been the river the town was named after. I started exploring.

It looked like it had once been thriving, but it was completely dead now, apart from some radioactive vermin that had grown to huge size and made a rat warren out of the town. A few buildings still stood, though. I headed towards the nearest large one that was in good condition.

The building yawned empty and deserted, and the smaller variety of irradiated gopher scattered in all directions. This building must have been a store or something similar. It was like a warehouse, but it was decorated in a customer-friendly manner. All manner of miscellaneous garbage lay everywhere, and I skirted it as I made a quick exam of the inside. There was nothing that was in any shape to be used, and all the food that had been there was long gone. I was coming back to the entrance when I heard it. Humming.

I dropped to a crouching stance, leaving the proton axe off for the moment. I didn't want the noise to give me away. From my perch underneath a large stack of pallets, I saw faint movement coming from a far corner of the warehouse. It solidified to a short man in some sort of bulky clothing or armor. In the gloom of the store I noticed he was bald, with a bulldog face. As he came closer I could see that he wore a large pack over what looked like an armored coverall. Something about his head looked funny, and then I saw his ugly crumpled face was twisted in a smile.

In a lightning flash of movement I had rolled over to him, and when I sprang up in front of him I had my now-humming proton axe a mere centimeter from his neck. I was stunned shortly by his truly rough face and bald head. His scalp was covered in scars and knots, like he used it as a weapon against a tank. But it was his smiling brown eyes and enormous rugged grin that bothered me; he looked entirely unsurprised.

I felt a warm gun barrel against my neck. He must have drawn it and put it there while I was doing the same thing with the proton axe. The bastard was fast.

"Hey there, Paul Bunyan. No need for hostilities." His voice was gravelly, like he had lung cancer.

"I suppose not. Just being cautious." He shrugged, still smiling.

"You got the right idea, chum." He grinned even harder, and stuck his free hand out. "My handle's The Kaiser. You must be Sonny."

"Frak. Latimer sent you to meet me?"

"Nope, I saw your picture on the cover of the Rollin' Stone." He laughed, and it sounded like sheet metal tearing.

"Well, Kaiser, how about we drop the weapons. Nice and slow."

"Sure enough, boy-o. Nice and slow." He pronounced it nice and slow.

We pulled our weapons down simultaneously, nice and slow. The Kaiser was patting his belly over the armored coverall. "Now where'd you get that museum piece, buddy? Looks like somebody kept it oiled!"

"I found it."

"Ha! Frak, that's a good one. I suppose you're wondering why I'm here instead of Latimer. Well..." He made an expansive gesture. "He's a little busy. We'll be meeting him somewhere, but we've got a little bit of an errand to run. If you're not doing anything for a while."

I found myself liking The Kaiser. He had a crusty manner about him that was endearing to me. I suspected he'd be a good man to work with, and a good man to have at your back. He reminded me of a kindly uncle. Hell, with my bizarre family he just might be my uncle.

"C'mon, boy-o. This place is too stale for me. Just had to come in here to find you."

"How would you even know I'd come in here?" Something was funnier than a desert dweller's grin.

"Just a hunch, kid. Don't sweat it." He reached down into some rubble where he had dropped a backpack when we had our standoff and slung it up over his shoulder. "Are you comin'?"

"Yeah."

I followed him back out into the Smith River sunlight. It was always a brighter, more washed-out sun along the coast, for whatever reason. The sunlight in Vegas and the Midwest is thicker somehow, the sky a deep indigo with tinges of aquamarine.

The Kaiser stretched, his bulldog frame popping and snapping.

"Good grief, boy-o, when you're as old as I am, you'll sound like that too. We got a train to catch. Come on."

"Whoa there, Kaiser. Train?"

"Figure of speech, Sonny." He started walking and I followed for lack of better action. "Just a little errand up north. We're gonna be pallbearers."

We had filled our canteens at an old artesian well that still had water, and started trekking north into the desert. Smith Village was behind us about 6 miles, and I couldn't stand being quiet anymore.

The Kaiser had been humming his weird tune the whole time. He'd hum the introduction part, hit a wrong note, then start to kick into the chorus. He never seemed to make it, though, instead repeating the intro. I was very close to sticking the proton axe in one of our skulls at that point, but instead I marshaled all of the discipline I had gained from a lifetime of strife in the Wasteland. Words forced themselves out of my lips.

"What song is that anyway?"

The Kaiser looked surprised at the question, and faltered in mid-hum. "Whazzat, boy-o?" He shook his lumpy head and grinned. "Of course you wouldn't have heard that song ever. It's the best song ever written in the history of mankind. It's called "War Pigs" by a group called Black Sabbath."

"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell."

"Well, I got that part stuck in my head when the song came out, and I've had it in there ever since. Keeps my mind off my troubles." He let loose his painful laugh and resumed humming "War Pig" or whatever. I wondered what it must have sounded like originally.

We had another punishing hour in the desert with the humming. The Kaiser's hum was almost as maddening as the Proton Ax's weird noise. Finally I couldn't stand it.

Quicker than wind I jumped onto the Kaiser's back and began pummeling him on his neck- it wasn't much of a target, but it was softer than his impenetrable skull.

"YOU FRAKKING LUNATIC, QUIT WITH THE HUMMING!"

Not missing a beat, the Kaiser snapped his head back and slammed it into the bridge of my nose. Pain exploded and my vision went for a split second. In that split second I ended up on my ass a few feet away from the angry Kaiser, who had drawn his gun backwards. He was holding like he was prepared to pistol whip someone, and scowled.

I had the axe out, and it was the only one humming now. I had recovered from the head butt and advanced in a low leaning stance that was perfect for axe combat. The Kaiser lashed out with his gun in an attempt to subdue me, and I barely dodged. The quick move left me on the defensive again, and then things got heavy.

There's no way I can describe a fight like that to someone who hasn't seen it. A Source Group operative at his fighting peak and a pre-nuke veteran with a lifetime of training can make combat into a full-fledged military engagement. Suffice it to say that the melee was blindingly quick and deadly. We fought for a long time, saying nothing, when finally the Kaiser put an end to it. He had been fighting with the butt of his gun, and attempting to grapple with me. Impatience won out, however, and he did something totally unexpected. He kicked me.

I don't think there was ever a kick like that in the history of mankind. His foot launched straight out and connected with my chest, sending me flying backwards into a tall scrub tree. The tree exploded into flinders without checking my flight at all, and skidding across the ground I somehow managed to roll. That roll saved my life, keeping my head from slamming into a large boulder in the way. The rest of my body was not so lucky.

The Kaiser was at my side, and yanked me up. "Jeezum crow, Sonny... you coulda killed somebody with that thing," he said, pointing to the proton axe which lay a few yards away. He laughed louder than ever, and patted my back vigorously, sending up a great puff of dust. I coughed.

"No more humming, Kaiser. I mean it. You have to sleep sometime."

"True enough. Well boy-o, guess we won't have a soundtrack for this trip. Your loss, I think."

"Fewmets!" Cursing seemed to help. "You have to level with me now. I'm not going to tramp off into the desert on some godforsaken wild rad-rat chase, not for you or my Granpa or Ace Maloney or anyone."

For an amazing moment the Kaiser's eyes widened, and he looked surprised. His mien quickly returned to its normal surly cheer.

"Funny you should say that. That's the man we have to get a hold of."

"What? Ace Maloney?"

"That's him."

"Ace Maloney is dead, Kaiser! SourceGroup sent me to kill him, but he was already dead, in a shootout at Spade's Casino!"

"Hmm. Well, we have to get a hold of his body, then. He had something with him that we need."

"Frak. I never hear the end of this bastard. To tell you the truth, I was looking forward to killing him."

"Too bad. We're just pickin' up the body."

And that was that. We kept traveling, this time with no humming and no violence. The trip was over soon enough; we stood beneath a stand of trees where the Kaiser had stopped me all of a sudden. In the clearing before us was a simple log cabin. The door was closed and guarded by a man in jeans and a leather jacket. Both items had been painted a grayish-green camouflage pattern, as had his lank hair. He held an Uzi and was not particularly concealed in front of the peeling red door.

"That's it right there. That's where Maloney is."

"What the hell is he doing in some hick gang's hideout? Why would they bring a corpse all the way from Vegas to wherever we are?"

"Hmm. I told you, there's something Maloney had with him that we need to get back."

"Well, you're the boss. I suppose you want me to bust in there and flush people out?"

He nodded. "You got it. If you don't mind."

"Don't worry about it."

I stepped out of the trees and sprinted along the treeline. I came up behind the cabin diagonally to avoid anyone looking out of a window. Stepping as quietly as I could, I rounded the corner. The camo guy hadn't noticed me yet. Now.

It seemed like the proton axe wanted to launch out to strike. I used a two-handed grip and aimed it at his right arm, hoping for a quick disarm. I was unpleasantly surprised.

The axe hummed and met flesh, causing the man to become a fine red mist. Sparks flew as it bisected the Uzi. The gore was indescribable, splashing the ground, the cabin, and my entire front. The cabin's window was a dripping sheet of red, and I dimly saw a face peer through it.

A quick jump brought me to the far side of the cabin's front door, just as another camouflaged goon stepped out. The axe connected with his gun, which exploded and sent shrapnel everywhere. I had struck again on the backsweep of the axe before he had time to bleed from the metal shards. A similar explosion of blood and innards inundated everything. The still-humming axe, which had been covered with red, was now sparkling clean.

It was no time to ponder the wonders of technology. I burst in through the door, the axe leading to fight further people, but there was no one there. The cabin was empty.

Empty, that is, except for the coffin.

It was a normal coffin, though far finer than any I'd seen in the Wasteland. It was shiny and smooth, well-ornamented. Laying my hand on it to feel the wood, I discovered it wasn't wood at all, but some kind of plastic, and it was freezing cold.

"A refrigerated coffin." The Kaiser spoke from behind me. "Need to keep him fresh."

"Please explain this to me. Or better yet, just get what he had and we can take off."

"It's not so easy as all that. What he had with him, well, it's inside him. And hidden so you can't just cut him open and get it."

"In his body? How were these jerks going to get it out?"

"Well, they weren't. You'd need a doctor to get it out, really. And they were waiting for the Doctor."

I sat down on the only piece of furniture in the cabin, a plastic picnic table.

"So do we have to wait for a doctor, too?"

"Of course not. We're just going to take the whole thing. We can build ourselves a little carrier out of logs, and take it with us and meet Latimer." He had an amazing expression on his face, like he was a Boy Scout of the olden days who's getting his merit badge in Cadaver Chase.

"You are insane, Kaiser! You know that?" I got up and headed for the door. I had put my hand on the doorknob when something caught my attention from through the red-tinted window. About sixty feet away was someone with the unmistakable silhouette of a man firing an RPG-7.

"GO!" I yelled as I slashed at the side wall of the cabin with the proton axe. I burst through the ragged hole, the Kaiser close behind. We had just thrown ourselves into the trees when the cabin erupted in flame. The concussion wave snapped branches and flattened us to the ground.

But the problem with RPGs is that you can reload. I got up, ignoring my newly formed bruises, and ran full speed towards the shooter, who was busily trying to screw on another grenade. Ten feet away I stopped cold. It was Ace.

Surprise doesn't keep you alive in the Wasteland. Anger does. A well-placed crescent kick knocked the launcher and grenade from his hands, and my following axe blow smashed Maloney into ground round. He didn't have time to do anything.

The Kaiser was suddenly at my side, and I turned the axe off. I didn't want the humming to interfere with my train of thought.

I pointed at the corpse.

"It's not very recognizable, but I know what I saw. Who was that?"

"Ace Maloney."

"Then who the hell was in the coffin?"

"Maloney as well."

The axe was humming again and this time I was faster on the draw. Even the Kaiser was nervous now that he had a proton axe in his face.

"Will you please tell me what's going on?"

"Okay, boy-o. I suppose it's time. You know about cloning, right?"

"Somewhat."

"Well, both Maloneys were clones. We had a genetic sample and memory program from the real Ace Maloney, and we were using the clones to perform errands. Problem is, these clones keep going nuts and thinking they are the real Maloney. We don't know why. This last one even stole the clone program and gene material from the Sleeper Base. Hid it in some sort of internal pouch, and then got killed. The Maloney clones can be real dumb sometimes. Latimer wanted the clone program to figure out what went wrong, so we can get some use out of ol' Ace."

"So the Ace clone with the RPG destroyed the body of the other Ace clone, and in the process destroyed the original genetic sample?"

"You got it. Not that big of a deal, we just have to get some samples from the real Maloney. I don't suppose you..."

"Oh no. This is just plain foolish. I realize you geezers have been around since forever and know more than I ever will, but I just don't think you get it." I pulled the axe back, ready to strike.

"Sonny! Don't! You wouldn't!"

"Say hello to Latimer when you finally see him."

I struck, turning off the axe as I did so. A proton axe is pretty dull without its energized component, and the blunt tip slammed into the Kaiser's knotty forehead with great force He still bore his rare, frightened expression as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

I found a suitable place to get rid of the sleeping Kaiser. A deep ravine in the woods. Once awake, it would take him hours to climb out of, but not forever, so I slid him down the slope. He came to rest at the bottom, still out like a light. I retreated to the edge of the woods, and waited.

It wasn't very long before I spotted someone coming through the same break in the trees the Kaiser and I had used. Several someones.

The first four were in uniform khaki outfits, and were heavily armed. Desert Rangers. The last was clad in a red robe trimmed in blue. His face was half obscured beneath the cowl, but I think I recognized him nonetheless. It was Dr. Mike Scott, a Servant of the Mushroom Cloud. He was a wacky cultist from east Vegas, but also probably the best doctor in the Wasteland. I knew him from a long time ago, and he was just the sort of guy to wander off with Desert Rangers in search of adventure. I don't know what connected him with the dead goons and Maloney and Granpa, but I figured I'd find out soon enough.

They spotted the carnage where the cabin had once been, and looked puzzled. Stepping out of the trees, I decided to help them figure it out. Sure the Rangers were bastards, but aren't we all? I raised my hands wide, to show they were empty, and called out.

"Hey, Scott! Room for one more?"