Fallen Paradise

"Hey, buddy, you got a light?"

"Wha-?"

His fist caught the man hard in the face, breaking his nose and spinning him round. He dropped to the floor, unconscious before he hit. Ferris spared a quick glance around to make sure the coast was clear, and dragged the man off the road and down the embankment. He grunted as he lifted him onto his shoulders, and made his way up a narrow path to a shack, hidden in the lee of an outcrop.

Ferris dropped the body onto the bed in the front room, and placed two fingers to his throat. His pulse was thready, but strong. Out, but he'll live, Ferris decided, which was more than he deserved. He didn't recognise him, but Ferris knew the type. Slaver

Checking the man's clothes, he found little but a pass to Paradise falls in one back pocket, and a half-full hip flask in another. A pair of slave collars were clipped to his belt. The only other item the man was carrying was a rusty sawed-off shotgun. Ferris chucked that; the weapon was next to useless, more than likely to misfire than work.

Satisfied that he carried nothing else of worth, Ferris stripped the unconscious man, then tied him to the bed frame. He picked up the bundle of clothes, and moved into the back room and grimaced. They smelled disgusting.

Still, He thought, they were better than nothing. And the man had been the first lone individual on the road to Paradise Falls in the past few days. Ferris sighed.
They were better than nothing, and there was no way he could get into the place dressed like a Regulator. They slavers would shoot him on sight. Best get it over with.

He dropped his weapons on the bed and removed his normal clothes, stuffing them into the bottom drawer of the wardrobe in the back room. Then he pulled on the slaver's clothes; worn leather trousers tucked into a pair of heavy boots, and a black leather jacket over a much-patched red sweater. The grimace came back. The clothes felt disgusting.

Ferris bent to pick up his weapons and paused. They wouldn't be recognised that's for certain, but the slavers would most likely be confiscating any weapons at the entrance. Retrieving them would be difficult. Crouching down, he pulled up a section of the floorboards, laid his rifle and pistol down, and placed the boards back over them. He strapped his combat knife back on and went back into the front room.

The slaver was awake. He glared at Ferris.

"Fucking let me go, you freak!"

"Now that's not a nice thing to say," Ferris said, picking up the shotgun from where he'd thrown it. He snorted in disgust. The weapon really was next to useless. "What sort of slaver are you, carrying around a weapon in this condition? You trying to get yourself killed?" He shoved the shotgun into his thigh holster.

"Ain't got the caps to fix it." The salver replied defensively. "You gonna kill me, or just insult me?"

Ferris shrugged. "By rights, I should kill you. Washington would be a better place without filth like you. But, you're in luck. I don't like killing in cold blood. So, when I'm done, I'm going to let you go. You might want to spend that time rethinking your choice of career."

"Hey, how long you gonna be gone. Hey! You can't just leave me here!"

Ferris shut the door to the shack behind him, muffling the shouts.

Returning to the road, he started walking in the direction of Paradise Falls. The sun was creeping up over the horizon, bringing a chilly dawn to the wasteland. Long shadows striped the unregulated browns and greys with darker shades, tinged a burnished gold.

It could almost be beautiful, Ferris decided, despite the starkness. Except for the constant threat of death, and the burnt out car wrecks, and the radioactive pools, he added ruefully.

Then he remembered why he was there, and the momentary appreciation was gone, his eyes scanning for danger. The last thing he wanted was to bump into another Deathclaw. Especially not with just a rusty old shotgun for defence. Ferris shuddered and kept walking.


Paradise Falls.

The slaver compound had been a blight on the Wasteland for as long as Ferris could remember, but it was far too well defended for the Regulators to take it out. Instead, they'd hit the slaver caravans whenever they could, taking them out and setting the captives free. Then the slavers would beef up their guards, making it harder and harder for the Regulators to hit them successfully. There just weren't enough Regulators, so inevitably most got through.

One day though, they would wipe their kind out, and the small homesteads and undefended towns would no longer have the threat of slavery hanging over them, Ferris vowed.

He joined the queue forming outside the entrance to Paradise Falls, a long line of people waiting to be admitted into the compound. All of them buyers. Ferris cursed. He hadn't expected a big event. Slave trades were usually a low key affair, a few buyers coming in to pick over the selection of slaves, never a massive event with hundreds of people. This was the sort of thing the Regulators were supposed to watch out for. But no one had many any such report. At least, Ferris supposed, not that he'd heard of. But then, the past week had been quite eventful, after all. Maybe someone had made a report, but no one had got a chance to read it.

Not everyone was from the DC area, Ferris could see from the attire some waiting to go in were wearing. A few were from the Pitt, probably here to get some replacements for their workforce. One person, a few down from Ferris, was dressed in an old business suit that strained over his bulk. He carried a cane in one hand, and a fur cape was draped over his shoulders. He was balding on top, his thinning black hair arranged in an attempt to cover his baldness. And failed miserably. He wasn't someone Ferris recognised, but from the look of him, either he was some sort of major player, or wannabe.

From out of town? He wondered.

"Name?"

Ferris turned his head. The entrance guard was looking at him with a bored expression. There was a table before him, already laden with several rifles, shotguns and pistols. Behind him another of the slavers stood there with his hand resting on the grip of his SMG.

"Naylor Jones," Ferris replied, handing over the pass. The guard took it without a word.

"No weapons allowed." The guard added as Ferris started to move away from the entrance.

"Yeah? And what am I supposed to do if someone gets cute with me? Use harsh language?" He put the shotgun on the table.

"You can keep the knife. We always like a good knife fight. Solves a lot of disputes."

"Thanks," Ferris growled, and walked away.

He headed deeper into the compound, following the path past stacked arrays of sandbags, and cunningly placed wooden screens. They were another layer of defence, arranged to bottle any attempted invasion. You'd have no choice but to follow the path the slavers dictated, and most likely get cut down before you were halfway to the inner part of the compound by the defenders. Ferris walked past the scrutinising gaze of two slavers, both carrying assault rifles, and through the main gates into the main slave compound proper.

In a perverse sense of irony, the slavers had chosen the ruins of an old shopping centre for their compound. It was laid out with a roughly circular perimeter, the remaining buildings that had once housed shops pre war, converted into facilities for the slavers, from an armoury to med-centre and even a bar. A lookout tower had been built to one side, near the old cinema. Another slaver stood watch as the potential buyers filtered over to the slave market at the other end, cradling a mini gun.

Ferris looked up. Above, a gigantic, ruined statue of a boy loomed over the central compound, holding an ice cream cone in one hand. The other arm had fallen off long ago, and now birds flocked around it. The sign for an old, pre war ice cream parlour, he wondered. Then there was cheering from ahead, bringing his focus back down to earth. Ferris pushed his way through the crowd towards the front.

Two people in the crowd were fighting, attacking each other with short blade and baton. A circle of onlookers had formed around them, encouraging the two combatants, and exchanging bets. Suddenly the knifeman darted in. His knife aimed for a disembowelling cut. His opponent blocked the strike, but not fast enough. He cried out as the knife scored a line across his side. He lashed out with a savage backhand, hitting the knifeman on the temple. There was a wet crack as the baton struck, and Ferris winced. The knifeman was dead before he hit the floor. Around the circle, people groaned and handed over caps. Two slavers elbowed their way through and dragged off the body of the loser.

Beyond the edge of the crowd, beside the circular stand where the slaves would be presented for auction, a woman stood up on a small podium, raising her above the level of the crowd. She was middle-aged, her scraggy hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Dressed in tight black leathers, a pair of 10mm pistols were holstered on both hips. The Black Widow, Penelope Chase, Ferris thought. If he had a high powered rifle, he could take down the leader of the slavers here and now. And then some how fight his way out of a crowd of a hundred people, all baying for his blood while the slaver with the mini gun slaughtered them.

Another time.

"Are you finished with your fun, gentlemen?" Penelope asked. "Good. I've some nice new blood for you today. Ripe pickings from Little Lamp Light, and Big Town, and some extra special extras. Bring out the first."

A young woman, barely out of her teens was dragged out of the slave pens. She had been shoved into an old summer dress, a slave collar was firmly clamped around her neck. She flinched as she saw the crowd before her, and made to cover herself with her skinny arms. She looked utterly terrified.

The bidding didn't last long. Half a dozen buyers fought over her, until an old man won, outbidding the others at twelve hundred caps. The girl was pushed off the stand and taken down to her new owner.

After the girl came a parade of other slaves; captured wastelanders still in their survival clothes, sans gear, standing proudly, more likely to run at the first opportunity than accept their new existence; bewildered girls like the first, some young, suited to nothing more than household slaves, others older, stripped to their underclothes – they would be sold to out of town brothels, or to the rich customers for their own personal use. There were even a few ghouls, but the bidding dropped each time one was dragged out, selling for a few hundred caps.

Ferris felt his stomach tighten each time a girl was brought out, expecting her to be Sonora, and each time it relaxed only a little. He wanted to lash out, to stop all of it. Each slave sold was another person's loved one lost, and it sickened him. But there was nothing he could do, not surrounded by the buyers, and the heavily armed slavers.

One day, He promised, Paradise Falls would be brought down.

Eventually, the last slave was taken from the stand. Penelope Chase smiled down at the crowd indulgently. She'd made a killing with this crop of slaves. "One last item for you, gentlemen. We thought you might like the irony this slave, so I decided to save the best for last." She waved, and two slavers dragged one more slave out of the pen.

She was dressed in plain coveralls, dirty and sweat-stained, and hung limply between the two big, burly men carrying her.

Ferris felt his heart skip.

"She might look young, but this girl's one of the Regulators. The bane of our lives. Presented to us by one of our benefactors, I'll open bidding at two thousand caps."

The crowd erupted into a roar of furious bidding. Ferris didn't notice. His eyes were fixed on the girl's limp form. She was still wearing the clothes he'd last seen her in, her now filthy hair tied back in a rough knot, with strands hanging down, and obscuring her features, but he still recognised her.

Look up, Ferris silently implored Sonora.

After a few moments, as if she'd heard him, Sonora lifted her head to stare at the crowd before her. Ferris was shocked at the blank look she gave them. Her eyes were glassy and dazed, as if she was staring, but not seeing. A bruise marred one cheek. She'd been treated rough, that was for certain.

Ferris let out a little growl of anger. He ignored the funny look the man next to him gave.

Sonora had been like a little sister to him, the only family he'd ever really had. He swore terrible vengeance on the people who'd done this to her.

Without thinking, he took an involuntary step forwards.

"I don't think so," a voice behind him said. Ferris felt the barrel of a gun jab into his back. "Let's not make a scene, yeah?"

Ferris stilled his hand from his knife. He relaxed and suppressed a smile.

"Very good," the man behind him said, just loud enough to be heard over the crowd. "Now let's go, this way." He prodded Ferris in the direction he wanted to go with the gun. Ferris started walking.

They moved slowly through the crowd, until they reached its perimeter. Ahead, two slavers with combat shotguns were standing either side of a door into one of the periphery buildings. One of them nodded to the man behind Ferris, and opened the door.

"Inside."

Ferris did as he was told, and walked through the open door. The ceiling had collapsed a long time ago, leaving a high-ceilinged main room, ragged around the perimeter of the wall where the first floor had once been. Shafts of light pierced the gloom, illuminating a floor that was more moss and lichen.

The grin he'd been suppressing finally split his face, and Ferris turned to face his escort. "Glad to see you're okay."

Leroy holstered his revolver. "Yeah, I thought you were dead."

"Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated."

How'd you get away from that Deathclaw?"

Ferris shook his head. "I nearly didn't. Fucking kept coming for me, like it was possessed, or something. Hit the bastard thing with a mini nuke."

"Where the hell you get one of those?" Leroy asked, his eyebrow's shooting up.

His grin widened. "One of Morgan's caches."

"Ah. Real shame, that."

"What about you? How'd you get away?"

"I got lucky."

"How so?"

"Well, after that fucking thing killed Gale, it went for the Raiders. Tore through the poor fuckers like wet paper. It was unreal. Ran for it before it even smelled me. Heard it roar, but it was real distant. Must've been after you by then."

Ferris nodded. "And you went back to the farmhouse? I take it you've been trying to hunt down the people who hit us?"

"Funny story, that." Leroy grinned, then glanced down at his boots. He took several steps closer to him.

Ferris frowned. He'd seen Leroy look down like that before. He always did it when he was avoiding a subject, or lying. "What's so funny about that?"

"See, I ain't been hunting down the folks who hit the farmhouse."

"Wha-"

The blow caught him completely off guard. It struck his chin harder than it should, and snapped back his head. Ferris flew backwards and slammed into the wall behind him. He smacked his head. Dazed, he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. His vision hazed red. He could barely make out any details, except Leroy. He stayed sharp.

Leroy stood over Ferris, a sneer curling his mouth. He worked a pair of brass knuckledusters off his hand and slipped them into a pocket. "You always were a stupid, uptight shithead, Ferris. Get in here," he called out.

The door opened again, and the two slavers who'd stood guard sauntered in. They aimed their rifles at Ferris' limp form.

"We got another Regulator Penelope can sell off as a slave."

"This one's too old," one of the guards said. "Ain't much of a market. Boss lady says she wants him sent to the Pitt."

"You hear that, Ferris? You're no use except to mine shit for the rest of your days." He crouched down next to him. "You want to know something else. I hit the farm. And oh yeah, I had me a piece of that precious little girl, Sonora. She was a sweet little fuck."

His vision was almost completely black now. He could barely make out Leroy. "Bastard," he mumbled.

The last thing he heard before oblivion claimed him, was laughter.


A/N: And now things are going to get interesting. Review please!