Chapter Three: Shady Sands

As the three neared the gates, they noticed two people standing by the entrance – the first signs of human life they had seen since leaving Vault-13. They couldn't make out the details of the two people in the dark but it became apparent that at least one of them, the man, was armed with a hunting rifle of some sort. A single guard tower was the only building they could see that rose up from behind the wall. A lone figure, standing in the crow's nest of the tower, spotted them and gave a small but sharp whistle to the man below at the entrance who unslung his rifle and got up from his seat. He made a gesture with his hand to someone out of sight behind the wall and he was soon joined with two other men carrying what looked to be handcrafted spears.

'Greetings, strangers,' the first man called to them. 'Rather late to be wandering around the wastelands, isn't it?'

'We were actually pushing ourselves on in the hopes of finding shelter for the night,' said Albert.

'Well… you're not dressed or equipped like raiders, but we've been wrong before.'

'Wait, Seth,' said the woman, her eyes wide with surprise. 'Look at their clothes. They're… they're from a vault!'

'Is that true?' said the man called Seth, his voice losing some of its edge.

'We are,' Albert replied.

'Quite a number of us come from a Vault to the east,' said the woman. 'I'm Katrina. And this is Seth.'

The vault dwellers took turns introducing themselves.

'You said you come from a vault to the east,' said Albert, his voice betraying his clear interest. 'You're not talking about Vault-15, are you?'

'You know of us?' Katrina gasped.

'We're headed in that direction,' Albert revealed. 'Our vault needs a new water purification chip and we were hoping Vault-15 would have a spare.'

'Oh,' Katrina said. Her face fell. 'You'd… better come in,' she said. 'There are a few things you should know about Vault-15.'

'Why, what's wrong?' Albert asked as the three were permitted entry into the town. The woman led the way up the runway. The one called Seth indicated to his two companions to follow them as a precautionary measure.

'Vault-15… isn't the place it used to be,' Katrina replied. 'At least, so I hear. One of the merchants who comes to our town every once in awhile said he had tried to go to the Vault with his caravan to have a look around a couple of months ago, but the lights were all out, the elevator was broken, and the stairwells were blocked by rubble.'

'What happened?'

'I couldn't say, exactly. Almost twenty years ago, when I was still a girl, the Vault got attacked by raiders. I got injured and blacked out. By the time I woke, we were already out in the wilderness, wandering aimlessly and looking for a place to settle down.'

Albert sighed heavily. 'Do you suppose the Vault had any spare water purification chips in its store?'

'I'm not sure. But our leader, Aradesh, might know. He was with us from the beginning.'

'Can we meet with him?'

'That's where I'm taking you,' said Katrina. 'Aradesh likes to meet all newcomers to Shady Sands.'

'That's the name of this town?'

'It is,' said Katrina as they passed by a pillar that stood in the center of the runway at what seemed to be the place in the town with the most concentrated congregation of adobe huts. The three vault dwellers looked up at the showpiece of Shady Sands. Its four sides and pedestal were covered in words and pictures. They were passing by too quickly to read the words but the images clearly showed the historical intent and content of the showpiece. The pictures went in chronological order from the base to the top. At the bottom were mushroom shaped clouds symbolizing the fall of civilization in 2077. Interspersed with the images of nuclear explosions were paintings of hundreds of people entering subterranean vaults. At the very top of the pillar were pictures of people laying bricks and farming together. It was, if anything, a depiction of hope and peace. But whether the topmost images were of a period now past or of an anticipated future was left unknown to the vault dwellers.

They finally arrived at the town hall – the only pre-war building in the town. Before the War it had been part of the small airstrip. Now it functioned as the community center, dining hall, and kitchen for the entire Shady Sands community. The main room was large and filled with handmade tables and chairs. The building must have once consisted of just one big room but the townspeople had created partitions and additional rooms using what appeared to be tanned animal skins attached to vertical wooden frames. The makeshift walls had no doors but curtains made of pieces of cloth sewn together functioned as substitutes. Katrina left the three vault dwellers in the main room and disappeared behind one of the curtains. A short while later, she returned accompanied by a tall middle-aged man with close-cropped black hair and a long, lanky face. His large eyes stared down at them over his hawkish nose with undisguised suspicion. He glanced at their attire and his features softened, but only for a moment.

'Greetings,' he said in a strange accent that sounded almost south Asian. 'Your business in Shady Sands might be?' None of the vault dwellers could place his origins with any certainty. If they had to place him by his looks and voice, they might have attributed to him a mixture of south Asian and Native American lineage.

It was clear that this man was the authority figure of the village – Aradesh, Katrina had called him. It was also clear that he was not very trusting of outsiders.

'We come from a vault to the west,' said Albert on behalf of the group. 'We are on our way to Vault-15 in the hopes of finding a water purifier chip to replace ours. Our arrival here was purely fortuitous. In fact, your town holds the first signs of human life we've encountered since leaving our vault.'

The tall man's face betrayed a look of puzzlement, contemplation, and, still, a hint of mistrust. He rubbed his cleft chin thoughtfully.

'Your attire matches your story,' he said, 'but raiders have infiltrated our peaceful community before under similar pretences.' He gave each of them a hard look before eventually coming to a decision. 'I shall believe you… for now,' he said. 'You will be permitted to stay in Shady Sands for tonight, but be warned that your every move will be watched.'

'We thank you for your hospitality,' Albert said with a slight nod.

'It's late, but I will have some food set for you. Katrina will tell you what you need to know and show you to your accommodations for the night. We will speak more tomorrow morning.'

With that, the town leader turned and left through the curtain to the room from whence he had first come.

'Well, that… could have gone worse,' Natalia commented.

Katrina, who had been standing by the side while Aradesh had grilled them, now returned to them and bade them sit at one of the tables. Then she departed through the other curtained entryway.

'We didn't get the information we were looking for,' said Natalia as they waited.

'In time,' said Albert. 'With any luck, we'll be able to gradually earn the trust of these people, but the one thing we can't do is lose what little credibility we have right now. We'll take things slow. We're seeing Aradesh again tomorrow, anyway. Perhaps we can ask him then.'

Katrina returned with three sets of clean clothes. They were clothes the vault dwellers had only ever seen in movies and documentaries of pre-war times. All they had ever known were variations of the multipurpose blue jumpsuits of the vault.

'Let me take you to our guesthouse,' she said, and led the way out of the town hall. They walked back down the runway until they came to an adobe hut near the entrance to town where Seth still stood guard. The hut stood almost immediately opposite a larger adobe building that, Katrina told them, was the guardhouse.

The guesthouse was square-shaped and had, for windows, a mix of semicircular openings and horizontal slats. The former were to provide the occupants with a view of the outside, the latter were too high up on the walls to look out of and were probably for ventilation purposes. The main section of the house triple functioned as a living room, dining room, and kitchen. The kitchen area was extremely rudimentary. A clay pot, a wooden bowl, and a pestle for crushing and separating grains sat on the floor just next to a simple wood-burning stove, which itself was situated next to one of the semicircular windows. In the center of the room stood a single handmade table with two wooden chairs. At the other end was a bookcase full of tattered novels. A simple woven rug sat before it, a clear substitute for what might otherwise have been a sofa or lounge chair.

A partition of animal hide set in wooden frames, just like they had seen in the town hall, created the walls for a second room. Passing through the curtain, they found themselves in a bedroom comprised of nothing but a queen-sized bed.

Katrina informed them of the existence of a small outhouse not too far from the guesthouse. It was a smaller adobe construct with two toilets separated from each other by the same animal-hide walls and curtain-doors. There was no flushing system; only a large pile of leaves next to each toilet to be dropped down the hole to help manage the odor of the large compost heap dug below it.

With the short tour, Katrina handed the dry clothes over to them and told them to meet her back at the dining room in the town hall once they had changed. The three vault dwellers were grateful to be out of their soggy jumpsuits but even more grateful for the sandals. For the past few hours, it had been their waterlogged boots that had been the main source of discomfort. Thanking Katrina, they proceeded to get changed in anticipation of a freshly cooked meal.


'So what can I tell you more about while we wait for the food to be prepared?' Katrina asked, half-an-hour later when they had each taken a seat around one of the tables in the town hall. Besides Katrina, only their two guards, who had been assigned with making sure they did not outstay their welcome in any way, were present. The guards stood by the door, their spears held casually but very visibly by their sides.

'Where to begin?' said Albert. 'How does a place like Shady Sands even survive out here?'

'It's not always easy, believe me,' Katrina replied. 'But we have our own irrigation system so we can grow our own food. And whatever we don't have, whether its equipment or produce, we trade.'

'Trade? With whom?' asked Natalia.

'Mostly with merchants from other towns.'

'There are other places like this?' Natalia asked wide-eyed.

'Oh, not like this,' Katrina corrected her. 'Now, I haven't actually travelled much, but from what I hear, some of the other towns are huge compared to Shady Sands.'

'Where are these places?' asked Albert.

'Somewhere to the south. I couldn't say exactly. Ian would know more. He's far more widely travelled than I.'

'Where is he?' Albert said, continuing the flow of questions.

'Over in the guardhouse – the one right by the entrance. He used to be a merchant guard but he's been recovering here in Shady Sands since he got injured in a raider attack.'

'You mentioned raiders before,' said Albert. 'You said they attacked your vault.'

'Well, they…are not just one group. There are at least three gangs around this area. You'd have to ask Ian or Seth more about that, though.'

'Do these raiders ever attack Shady Sands?' asked Natalia.

'Periodically,' Katrina replied, nodding. 'We grow our own food and raise our own livestock. The raiders don't have the ability or skills to do either, so they try to take them from us. Sometimes they succeed.'

'Wait a minute. Livestock?' Albert was incredulous.

Katrina nodded and her smile grew. 'You haven't seen the brahma yet,' she said as a matter of fact.

'Brahma?' Natalia choked back a laugh.

Katrina nodded again. 'That's what we call them. I think they're named after the American Brahman.'

'Cows?!' Albert spluttered.

'Not just any cows,' said Katrina, clearly enjoying herself. 'You'll have to see it to believe it. Speaking of which…'

The smell of some kind of savory, meaty broth began wafting out of the kitchen to their nostrils, making their mouths water. Dinner finally arrived shortly after. Each of them got a bowl heaped with beef stew and an earthen cup of water to wash it down. A separate platter was set in the middle of the table with sliced pieces of a strange green fruit. To satisfy their curiosity, Katrina showed them one of the fruits before it had been cut. It was a large, roughly spherical (if rather warty) melon of some sort with two stalks protruding from the top. Katrina assured them it was edible.

As they ate, Katrina told them all she knew about her vault. She said she had been raised there for many years but the place had been overcrowded and the standard of living low. Eventually the vault had experienced a schism and many people had left, taking with them the best equipment. Some, including herself, had tried to stay in the vault despite the setbacks but all that had come to an end with the raider attacks.

After dinner they were escorted back to their house where the two guards took up their positions by the doorway. Natalia got the bed despite her protests, while the two men opened up their bedrolls on the floor.

The next morning they made their way to the dining hall for breakfast, realizing, as they did so, that every eye in the village, especially those of the children, were focused on them. Breakfast comprised of more of the strange fruits that might have, before their mutation, been some sort of guava. Katrina had returned to her post at the town entrance but the vault dwellers were soon joined by Aradesh.

'Katrina tells me you are looking for a water chip,' he said as they ate. 'Vault-15 did indeed have replacement chips, though there is no telling what the raiders took from the place when they attacked us.'

'I doubt they'd have much use for electronic equipment only usable by vault computers,' said Albert.

'For your sake, I hope you are right. But all this brings me to my next point. As you have no doubt heard, our last news coming from the Vault was that the lights had failed, the emergency stairwells were blocked, and the elevators were not working. In addition, we were told that the main entrance was similarly blocked off by rubble. This means that, in order to get where you need to, you will need to find the secondary entrance, have the equipment to descend almost a hundred feet down the elevator shafts to the vault storage room, and have enough flares to make sure you don't get stuck down there in pitch darkness. Further, you will probably also need to replenish your supplies to get there from Shady Sands. And you will probably also want to know the quickest way to get there since there are no main roads between Shady Sands the Vault. 'All these things we can provide you, if you do something for us, in turn.'

'If you believe that we come from a vault whose water chip has broken down, then you know that if we don't get a replacement, our people will die of thirst…' said Albert.

'My belief in your story is not complete,' Aradesh replied simply. 'You may be telling the truth or you may be lying. It matters not to me. What I am offering you is a simple exchange that will benefit both our parties: supplies and information for your services in a problem our town is facing. What you do with those supplies and information is entirely up to you.

The vault dwellers traded quick but hesitant glances with one another. Aradesh gave them a moment before continuing.

'You may have already learnt that our town has occasional run-ins with raiders. Well, they are not our only problems. In your journeys… have you come across any of the post-nuclear wildlife?'

'Giant rats,' said Natalia. 'On our first day, too.'

'Good. You are familiar with the effects of mutation, then. The problem we have had is with what we call radscorpions.'

'Giant… scorpions?' Natalia said weakly.

'The radscorpions have been after our brahma ever since we moved here. The attacks used to be isolated – just some lone radscorpion that happened to find its way to the brahma pens. In the past we managed to chase them off, but lately they have been coming in packs and have even started attacking my people. Not a week goes by now that someone doesn't get poisoned trying to keep them out of the pens.'

'What do you want us to do, exactly?' asked Albert skeptically.

'Our doctor, Razlo, has been trying to find a cure for their poison. If you can help him make a breakthrough with his search, I will make sure you have everything you need to fulfill your own mission.'

'Help him… find a cure,' said Natalia. 'What exactly does that entail? We're no doctors.'

'Razlo will have more information, and if you agree to help, you should speak to him.'

'May we speak to him first before deciding?' asked Albert.

'You may,' said Aradesh. 'I will be here for most of the day. If you cannot find me, ask Katrina. I give you free reign of the town, only know that if you refuse to help us, I will have to ask you to leave Shady Sands tonight. You must understand that we are in desperate need of help, and as the town elder, it is my responsibility to do everything in my power to try to attain that help.'


After leaving the town hall, the three decided that, while they would eventually have to make a decision, there was no immediate rush. Albert took it upon himself to have a chat with Razlo. Natalia would speak to Ian. Stone's task was simply to get a better feel for the town and how its people lived their lives in a post-nuclear world. It was information the residents of Vault-13 would have to know eventually if they wanted to follow suit.

With some directions from the people of Shady Sands, Albert located the doctor's house. It was about the same size as their guesthouse and with the same kind of furniture. Razlo was in the bedroom when Albert arrived and his wife showed Albert to a seat to wait.

Through the curtains, Albert saw the doctor treating a pale, wiry young man lying on a makeshift mattress on the floor. The man was sweating profusely and every now and then a groan would escape his lips. Razlo's wife went about her own business, pounding away at some herbs in a bowl and doing a good job at ignoring Albert's presence.

When the doctor finally emerged, he gave Albert a quick lookover before joining Albert at the table. He was dressed like any other townsperson and, if not for the fact that he had just spent at least fifteen minutes on his groaning patient, Albert would never have guessed he had any kind of medical expertise.

'You're one of the newcomers,' Razlo said matter-of-factly. Albert nodded. 'Can I help you with anything?'

'Aradesh has informed us of the radscorpion problem you're having and offered to help us in our own journey east if we agreed to assist you.'

'How much do you know about radscorpions?' the doctor asked.

'Not a thing. How much do you know?'

'Not too much myself. I can tell you that they seem to be extremely large versions of the North American Emperor scorpion, though.'

'How large are we talking here?'

'Seven, eight feet. And that's excluding the stinger.'

Albert gulped inwardly and tried not to go bug-eyed. 'But if they're that big, that should mean they're poison would be virtually non-existent, doesn't it?'

Razlo shook his head. 'You'd think that. But contrary to my and apparently your medical knowledge, their poison has grown more potent, not diluted, as I would expect. Until recently, Seth and his brother were trying to hunt some of them down to help some of my tests.'

'What happened?'

Razlo made a gesture with his head at his patient in the other room.

'That man over there whom you probably heard is Jarvis, Seth's younger brother. He got injured a couple of days ago. The radscorpion venom's in his system now and he's not taking it well. Probably an allergic reaction.'

'When we left our vault, we encountered some rats that were also far larger than any normal rats should be. Are all these really… products of radiation?'

Razlo shrugged. 'It sure as hell isn't natural evolution,' he offered, 'but how such a thing can be possible even through radiation induced mutation is beyond me.'

Albert sighed. 'What is it that you need from these radscorpions for your tests?'

'If I could get a sample of their poison, especially the venom production sacs located in their tails, I believe I could create an anti-venom. Without the lethality of their stings, we wouldn't have to be so wary of them.'

'So basically… we're being asked to risk our lives so that no one else in the town has to.'

'No one has died from their stings, but a few have come quite close. The poison more or less disables you for at least a couple of days. And even after that, you'll need weeks to fully recover your strength. Only Seth and Jarvis were willing to try their luck after the first few victims. And if Jarvis doesn't make it… Seth may not ever want to go back and we would lose all our volunteers.'

'So let's say we were to agree to help you. How would we even start?'

'Seth will probably know the best places to look. But I can tell you this. The radscorpions seem to be sensitive to light. That means that they're nocturnal.'

'So we could simply wait until they attack the pens?'

'We've tried that, unfortunately. Radscorpions are fast, which means that if they find themselves threatened beyond what they can manage, they'll flee, probably faster than you can follow. And good luck trying to chase after a black object in the middle of the night.'

'So we would have to go after them during the day.'

'And there's the catch. During the day, they're not going to be wandering around looking for trouble. That will, in fact, be your job.'


While Albert was busy talking to the doctor, Natalia found her way over to the guardhouse where Ian was staying. The building was about twice as large as the guesthouse but, in terms of configuration, it was the same. One partition functioned as a kitchen, dining room, and living room. The other was a large bedroom with four beds for the guards. There were only two guards in the living room when she entered. They gave her brief looks but did not stop her. With the description Katrina had given her just before her walk here, Natalia pushed apart the curtain to the bedroom and walked in, hoping the find the man called Ian. The place was empty except for a single man sitting on one of the wooden chairs, his legs raised, boots resting on the foot of the nearest bed. He fit Katrina's description perfectly: short and stocky with long brown hair (longer than Natalia's); unkempt beard and moustache; well-built. Besides his boots, he was dressed in blue jeans and a faded and worn out wife beater. To Natalia, he seemed to have the confident, relaxed demeanor of someone who knew the dangers of the world and yet remained unperturbed by it.

He gave a small smile on noticing her entry and got up. He was around the same height as her.

'Hello, stranger,' he said. 'You look like you're new here.'

'I'm Natalia,' she said, shaking his hand.

'Good to meet you. I'm Ian.'

'Katrina says you're the person to talk to if I wanted to learn more about the outside world.'

'She wasn't mistaken. I'm the only one here who's ever really left town. Blame that more on the raiders and radscorpions that keep the townspeople close to home more than anything else, though.'

'Could you tell me more about them? Aradesh has tried to recruit us to help out with the radscorpion problem. Knowing the dangers they pose would certainly help us make a decision.'

'You haven't heard of radscorpions or raiders? Where have you been all your life?'

'In a cave.'

'Ah, one of those vault people then. Have you seen the rest of Shady Sands?' Natalia shook her head. 'Give me a moment to change my bandages. Then I'll show you the town and explain everything you need to know.'

As Natalia waited, Ian proceeded to change his dressings. Either entirely unconscious or conscious and deliberate about it, Ian pulled of his vest, revealing not only some stained white bandages taped around the left side of his midsection, but also the rippling muscles of his upper body. Natalia instinctively looked away, trying not to show her embarrassment at his disregard for what she considered standard norms of modesty.

'Haven't you ever seen a half-naked man before?' she heard him saying. She looked up to find that he had noticed her averted gaze. He began disinfecting a half-healed wound on his torso with a clean cloth and a bottle of alcohol.

'I…' she found she didn't know how to answer.

'Never had sex either, then.'

Natalia was silent, realizing that her face was growing redder by the second.

'That's okay. I'm not judging you for it,' he said as he taped a fresh bandage over his wound. 'Stick around in the wasteland long enough and you'll get plenty of both, I guarantee it. All the pre-war notions you vault dwellers still hold so dear will fly out the window in a second.'

'How did you get injured?' she asked, desperate to change the question.

'Well, I used to be a guard for the merchants of the Hub,' he said as if she had heard of the place countless times before. 'But I was shot during a raid by bandits a couple of weeks ago.'

'Sorry to hear that,' Natalia said.

'Thanks. It's been healing up well, thanks to Razlo.' He finished with his first aid administrations and got dressed again, pulling on a black leather jacket over his white vest. 'Shall we?' He led the way out of the guardhouse.

'I can't tell you too much about the radscorpions,' he said as they walked out of the main entrance to town and headed southwest along the runway to where she could see small plots of farmland being tended by some of the townspeople. 'They don't appear so much in the south, so the only encounters I've had with them have mostly been while I was recuperating here. All I can say is they're huge, have poisonous stingers in their tails, and are very quick. And their carapaces are extremely tough. If you're going to try your hand at hunting them, make sure you have some APs.'

'APs. What are those?'

'Do you have a gun?'

'I left it in the guesthouse.'

Ian shook his head disapprovingly.

'Never ever leave your house unarmed,' he said. 'As long as you're in the wasteland, you always need to be able to defend yourself. The wasteland is an unpredictable place. Scorpions and raiders aren't the only hostile beings you're likely to meet. What kind of a gun is it?'

Natalia's mind zipped back to her one reading of the Guns and Bullets magazine she and Albert had looked at just after exiting Vault-13.

'It's a Colt 6520 10mm,' she said almost automatically. 'Like yours,' she added, indicating the firearm he had holstered at his side. Ian nodded.

'Good,' he said. 'Always know your weapons. Know what ammo goes with what gun. Know how to maintain each weapon. Know how to troubleshoot weapon jams and other technical problems.' He fished into one of his jacket pockets and pulled out a clip of 10mm bullets. 'The ones you have in your Colt are probably standard JHP – jacketed hollow-points. Those are designed to expand to as large a size as possible to translate the most energy to the target. Unfortunately that makes them almost useless against anyone, or anything, with some kind of armor. Most of the energy would just splatter against the armor plates with little effect on the target. What I have in this clip are AP, armor-piercing, rounds. These ones won't expand at all, but they have excellent penetration. If you're going up against the scorpions, you'll want these in your chamber.'

Ian handed her the magazine which she pocketed gratefully. 'Anything else about radscorpions you'll have to learn from Razlo.'

They arrived at the agricultural fields – what Ian called 'The Gardens' – and they stopped for Natalia to take a closer look at the work being done there. It appeared that two kinds of vegetables dominated the fields. The first were some kind of mutated, pale-green cabbages, the second were yellow-green cornstalks. Judging by the look, both seemed to be thriving in the warm weather.

'They seem to have all their fields planted,' Natalia observed.

'What of it?' Ian asked.

'They could probably do better with crop rotation.'

'What's that?'

'You only plant some of the fields, allowing the others to get back some of the nutrients that the plants used up. You let the other fields become fertile again by just tilling up whatever grows there.'

'Huh,' said Ian, impressed. 'Were you a farmer in a previous life?'

'Just one of the few things I actually learnt while I was in the Vault,' Natalia replied.

'Well, it makes sense to me. You should let Aradesh know.'

As Ian was speaking, Natalia chose that moment to abruptly walk off through the fields. Taken by surprise, Ian broke into a small jog to catch up with her. Then he saw what had caught her attention. Located in the middle of the fields was the town well, operated by a rudimentary but functional bucket and pulley system. Natalia peered down into its depths.

'Is this where all the water for the town comes from?' she asked.

'It's enough to provide the town's needs,' said Ian. 'Why do you ask?'

'The reason my friends and I are out here in the wasteland is that our Vault's water purification computer chip has malfunctioned. We were sent out to look for another one in Vault-15, though I hear that that search won't be as straightforward as we were originally led to believe.'

'You're looking for alternative water supplies.'

'I was. But what you have here is too little to supply an entire vault.'

'Not to mention you'd have to organize and coordinate frequent water caravans between your vault and Shady Sands.'

'That was part of the purpose. Our Overseer… he's not particularly keen on interacting with the world outside our vault. If we could get the vault involved in necessary and regular trading with other communities out here, it might help him see that there's some good to the outside world after all… but all this is moot, I guess.'

'Well, we may not have enough water to do that. But there are a bunch of merchants down south in the Hub who deal almost exclusively in water. If you don't find what you seek in Vault-15, that might be a second option, if only to give your vault more time.'

'You mentioned this "Hub" earlier. Is it another town like Shady Sands?'

'Much larger. The Hub is basically a big trading center far south of here. It's run by several caravan groups of merchants: the Water Merchants, the Crimson Caravan, and the Far Go Traders. But it's a long walk from here. If you stick to the main roads, which is usually advisable if you want to avoid facing off with the hostile wildlife, it could take you almost eleven days from here. Most people break the journey into two parts by stopping over at Junktown which is on the way. Junktown's smaller, but still a good place to drop in for a drink. It's overseen by a fellow by the name of Killian Darkwater, the local shopkeeper, sheriff, and mayor.'

Natalia pulled up her map of the West Coast on her PIPBoy and had Ian point out the locations of the other two towns.

'Y'know,' she said, storing the information on the mini-computer, 'with all these dangers we may be facing, it could help to have someone like you with us. Your experience would be invaluable.' She cast him a sideways glance. His look said it all but she let him speak his peace.

'That sounds like quite an offer,' he said, 'but I do owe the people here something since they helped me recover. My knowledge of the outside world and my experience make me useful here just as much as it does out in the wasteland. Besides, they keep me well fed. Before this, I had to risk my life in order to earn enough to put bread on the table, so to speak.'

'You know what that sounds like to me?' she asked rhetorically. 'It sounds like you've gone soft.' Ian registered surprise on his face for the first time. He looked up at her to find her smirking. He smiled back.

'You're very perceptive,' he said. 'Too perceptive, even.'

'You just don't seem like the kind of person who would be happy guarding a small and remote town far away from the hustle and bustle of the main trade routes for the rest of your life. Let me put it this way. I don't know what the future holds in store for us vault dwellers. If we find the chip at Vault-15, we'll go home to our own vault, at least for a time and that will be the end of that. If so, you can just as easily return here. But at least you'll have new stories to add to your collection. I mean, how many people have you met who can say they climbed down into the depths of the dark remnants of an aged vault? We could really use your experience and guidance, Ian.'


Stone had been drawn to the pens north of town, most particularly by a rather intense smell that wasn't entirely unpleasant but was, at first, rather overpowering. The villagers tending to the animals within stared at him, clearly daunted by his size, but they did not stop him or talk to him.

He had observed the animals within the pens for almost an hour now. They were the strangest creatures he had ever seen. For the most part, they resembled gangly brown cows, in all respects except for the rather alarming fact that they each had two pairs of heads. And yet not one of the townspeople – working at the pens, milking the animals', cleaning up dung, or shepherding herds of the beasts to areas where they could feed on dry desert scrub – seemed the slightest bit perturbed.

The two-headed cows were the only thing to have caught his interest so far. Everything else in the town just seemed so… boring. These cows, on the other hand… Even when the novelty of the sight had dissipated, it was still interesting to see them mate. A few of the pens were being used specifically for breeding purposes and were the primary source of the strong smell that had drawn him there in the first place. Watching four heads engaged in primal animal sex was something he had never seen before, not in documentaries in the vault, and not in the old pornographic video clips that some of his friends in the vault had illicitly stashed away in their possessions... Well, that wasn't entirely correct. There were videos involving more than two sexual partners, just never more than two heads on two bodies.

'Hi!' he heard someone call from behind him. It was a very pleasant sounding voice. He looked up from his seat on the dusty ground to see a pretty young woman with frazzled black hair looking down at him. In height and skin tone, she resembled the town leader, Aradesh. 'I heard there were travelers in town, but I was kinda skeptical until I saw you,' she said as he got up to greet her. 'My name's Tandi.'

'My name is Stone,' he said, offering his huge paw to her. Despite their difference in girth, she was almost the same height – an amazing feat considering that, until Aradesh, he had never met anyone who measured up to him vertically. She shook his hand.

'Well… how do you like our little town?' she asked with an almost apologetic tone to her voice. 'Bored yet?'

'Well…' he started, mimicking her opening. He paused, remembering his parents' advise to never be rude. But then he concluded that this wasn't being rude. This was being honest. 'There don't seem to be nothin' to do here but watch the brahma mate,' he finished tentatively. To his surprise, her smile turned into a huge grin.

'Finally!' she said as if her prayers had just been answered. 'Someone else who sees! Of course, you've probably been everywhere, so this must be hell for you.'

Stone remembered a second lesson his parents had taught him. Never lie. But they had never said anything about withholding the truth. So he decided not to correct her assumption.

'You don't like it here?' he asked instead.

'It's okay, I guess,' she said, giving a disinterested shrug. 'I mean, it is home and all. But it's so boring, y'know? I want to see the world.'

'If you're so bored, why don't you leave?' he said simply.

'Me, leave?' she said, then sighed. 'I wish… I don't know enough to leave alone and no one else wants to go. And worst of all, my father says he'd have a heart attack if something happened to me!'

'Tough situation,' said Stone in an attempt to sympathize with her plight.

'You're telling me,' she said.

'So iswatching brahma mating rituals the only thing to do around her?' he asked.

'Well…' she said again. Her face broke into a conspiratorial grin. 'We've got radscorpions!' She immediately corrected her enthusiasm right after the outburst. 'I mean, I know it's not a good thing, but no one's died from the stings. And it's the closest thing to excitement we've got here.'

'Your father… his name is Aradesh?' Stone asked. Tandi nodded. 'He's trying to get us to help your town out with the radscorpion problem.'

Tandi gasped and very nearly clapped her hands together in excitement. 'That's so awesome!' she squealed. 'Will you do it?'

'I dunno. It all depends on my other two friends. They make most of the decisions in the group.'

'Aw, what can a couple of radscorpions do to someone like you?' she said, giving his shoulder a friendly punch. Then her mouth turned into a half-frown. 'I hope my father's going to compensate you for your troubles, though.'

Stone nodded. 'He's offered to provide us with the supplies and information we need to get to Vault-15.'

Tandi's grew even more excited, if that were even possible. 'Tell me more!' she nearly shouted.


When the group gathered for lunch, they had a brief discussion about their findings. As usual, Albert and Natalia dominated the conversation. It was clear that the radscorpions were dangerous and that, contrary to what Aradesh presumed to think, they were way in over their heads. However, it also became clear that their existing supplies were limited and that if Vault-15 were truly in as much disrepair as the townspeople made it sound, they were not going to to be able to resupply their stock of food and water, enough to make it back to Vault-13. Their wilderness survival skills were minimal and mostly theoretical. They quickly realized that their options were, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

Albert shared with the group that, on Razlo's recommendation, he had spoken to Seth, the leader of the guards, who claimed to know where the radscorpions were coming from. He had said that if they were willing to help, he could take them to the caves from where he believed the scorpions were emerging, but that he himself would not be able to join them due to his guard duties. Albert guessed that was only partly true and that the man was actually scared of going back out there after what had happened to his brother. But then again, judging from the descriptions of the creatures, Albert didn't blame him.

Their decision made, the team informed Aradesh of their plans and that they would start looking for the scorpions the next day. Aradesh agreed to this and was more than willing to provide them with both board and lodging now that he had been assured of their decision to help.

They spent a part of the rest of the day discussing their plans. The intended course of action was to begin their search at first light, locate the first scorpion, put it out of commission with the help of Natalia's AP rounds, cut off its tail and stinger, and then get the hell out of there before any other scorpions arrived. That plan changed slightly, however, with the coming of the afternoon, when a merchant and his wagon, pulled by two brahma, arrived in town, escorted by four armed guards. Before then, Albert and Natalia had already gotten their first glimpse of the two-headed mutated cows but they still could do little to hide their bewilderment at how such a mutation could be possible.

As the merchant displayed his wares to the townspeople – little trinkets and toys for the children, agricultural and domestic equipment for the townspeople, and weapons for the guards – Albert walked up to one of the tables the townspeople had set up for the exchange of goods and pointed at one particular object. It was a stack of dynamite – four red sticks each comprised of a mixture of nitroglycerin and kiselguhr, wired to a timer.

'For the vault?' Natalia asked, immediately picking up on Albert's purpose.

'If there's rubble in the stairwell, we may be able to clear a path with the dynamite. That would save us the rather dangerous alternative of climbing down an elevator shaft on a piece of rope.' He turned to the merchant. 'What do you want for this?'

'Fifty caps,' said the man, assuming Albert knew what he was talking about.

Albert paused to recollect himself. Then he told Stone to bring their packs from the guesthouse. 'I have an alternative,' he told the merchant, avoiding the whole issue with the "caps". He knew that in any barter, you had to present yourself as someone who knew what you were doing. Otherwise, the other party would take every opportunity to exploit your lack of familiarity with the process and/or goods involved.

'I have here,' said Albert, once Stone had returned, 'an issue of Guns and Bullets that actually covers the basics of handgun maintenance and operation.'

The merchant's eyes glinted and Albert knew he had him. He allowed the merchant to flip through the issue.

'This is a rare find,' the merchant admitted, dropping his trader façade. 'I tell you, most people out here don't know shit about firing a pistol. This will sell.' Then he looked back up at Albert, realizing he had let his guard down. 'But it's not enough for the dynamite. What else do you have?'

'That issue was hard to come by,' Albert retorted. 'If it was any other, I'd have readily supplemented it with something else. But you won't find one like this out here. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime find. If you don't take this now, you may never get another chance. I could probably ask for almost twice our current bargaining value if I took a short journey down over to Junktown or the Hub. I bet Killian would pay good money for this.'

'Okay, okay,' the merchant cut in. 'Deal.'

'And two bottles of that pre-War Jack Daniels you have over there.'

'Wh—' the merchant protested. But when he realized Albert was adamant, he reluctantly gave in.

When the trade was done, Albert walked over to Katrina who had been watching the exchange with some amusement.

'Okay, so what the hell are caps?' he asked, allowing her a laugh at his expense.

'Bottle caps,' she said as if it was a simple fact. At Albert's look of unconcealed surprise, she burst into a good-natured laugh. 'Bottle caps are the only common money found out here,' she explained, aggravating Albert's bewilderment.

'How did something like that happen?' he asked.

'Beats me,' she shrugged, 'but what matters is that they're backed by the merchants of the Hub, so you can basically trade them anywhere. Or at least, anywhere on the West Coast.'

Albert returned to the other two vault dwellers with yet another surprise of the wasteland to tell them.

'Now I wish we actually had some of those pre-War vending machines back in Vault-13,' he said. 'Who would've thought…'


The next morning, just before sunrise, the three vault dwellers gathered at the entrance to Shady Sands. Seth emerged from the guardhouse shortly, armed with his hunting rifle. As they prepared to leave, however, one more person emerged from the guardhouse.

'Ian?' said Natalia, surprised at his arrival.

'I've decided to take you up on your offer,' he said.

'But I meant… to Vault-15.'

'Someone's gotta pull your ass out when it lands in the fire. And if I know anything about this wasteland, that's bound to happen to anyone going into the den of a wild animal.'

Albert walked over and greeted the former caravan guard and welcomed him on board.

'I do have one condition though,' Ian added.

'What would that be?' asked Natalia.

'Whatever you get out of your travels, even if it's just to Vault-15 and back, I get one quarter of the spoils.'

'If there are any spoils, you'll be more than welcome to that share,' Albert affirmed. 'Our condition is that it can't be electronic parts specific to vault systems.'

'Agreed,' Ian replied. 'I'd have no use for them anyway.'

With that, the group of five headed northeast across open country to a looming mountain in the distance. The land was even and the progress quick, but as they neared, Seth began to move more warily. By the time they were amongst the hills and rocky crags, they were moving slow enough to hear a whisper. Finally, after a few more minutes, Seth stopped and lit a flare.

'Remember, they hate light, but that's not going to stop them sticking you with their stingers if they can help it,' said Seth. He pointed to a ravine between two rocky outcroppings at the base of the mountain. 'Follow that path and it'll take you to the cave. But be quick. There are more in there than the four of you can hope to handle on your own.'

With that, Seth took his leave.

The remaining four of them followed Seth's directions, Ian and Albert taking the front. The night was quiet, not even the sound of insects in the air, and their footfalls were uncomfortably loud even though they were practically tiptoeing.

They navigated the ravine for a few minutes, their eyes and ears peeled for the slightest movement up ahead. Finally, without any incident, the ravine opened abruptly into a small clearing. And at the end of the clearing, staring silently and ominously back at them, stood the entrance to the cave, its mouth beckoning them deeper into the lair of the radscorpions.