Chapter 10: Killing the Cook
July 6th, 2283 8:00 AM
Crescent Canyon
A light wind swept across the Mojave kicking up small clouds of loose sand and debris. Lia quite enjoyed the small gusts, though then inevitably meant she'd be dumping what seemed like half the wasteland out of her boots soon enough; such was life in the Mojave she supposed.
She'd made slow progress, hampered greatly a limp owing to an old injury. That damn Gecko was to blame for re-aggravating it. Well that and that and her insistence on hunting with a shotgun. The hitch in her gait was further extenuated by the rocky terrain she was forced to transverse by walking along the edge of the canyon. Still she persisted, determined to find a place where crossing the gap was safe rather than walk further north on smooth ground.
Her luck had held up remarkably well in that she'd not seen a single gecko in the days following her first encounter with the scaly canyon dwellers.
Two hours of arduous hiking latter Lia began to notice that ground was evening out. About damn time, she thought to herself. A quick glance down into the canyon filled her with hope as she saw the bottom was much closer than it had been only hours before. Finally, the end of this nonsense was close. Further ahead in the distance Lia could just make out the end of the canyon, where the ground began to slope down into the gorge. To say the sight was welcome to the travel weary explorer would be an understatement.
It was just over an hour before she reached the end of Crescent Canyon; here the southern mountains were walled off by a sustainably lower wall of rock than back at her campsite-yet another welcome surprise. Lia sized up the wall and guessed it to be twenty or so feet in height, which was easily scalable by a climber of her skill. She again silently thanked her former mentor, Red, for the exploration training she'd been given that had kept her alive and moving forward on this journey.
The noon sun was bright overhead so Lia decided to take a break for lunch and made her way to the foothills of the great mountains. She sat contently in the shade of a large boulder, situated between the rock and southern rock barrier. In her lap a radio played a lazy banjo tune as she ate a lunch of Brahmin steak and half a bottle of clean purified water. It's so peaceful out here away from Westside and its problems, she thought to herself quite enjoying the calm afternoon, why do I ever go back?
From behind the boulder a hissing sound broke Lia from her pensive state. Quickly she silenced the jaunty tune and stowed her radio back into her backpack. Again she heard the hissing, closer now, coming from the left of her position. Lia cursed herself for being so careless; this is why she lived in civilization-no giant lizards running amok. Well that, and running water was a definite plus.
Thinking quickly Lia picked up a chunk of loose rock from the ground beside her and tossed it to her left. The stone hit a pile of gravel ten yards away causing a miniature avalanche of pebbles and dust. The clattering served well as the decoy Lia'd hoped it would be, and no sooner did she hear the noise of rocks tumbling than a too familiar golden-green blur zipped past her towards the sound.
The clever explorer shot out of the niche as fast as her legs would carry her. She hurtled over piles of rock and across the jagged ground towards the north; she didn't know where she was headed, just that it would be far away from that damn gecko. Angry hissing came from behind her, too close. Surely the golden monster couldn't have figured out her ruse that quickly?
Lia snuck in a look over her shoulder and the sight gave her a new speed. Chasing her was an entire pack of no less than fifteen of the Gecko's. Every single one of them was as large as the one she'd killed and most were larger than that. So preoccupied was her mind that she didn't even notice the set of railroad track in front of her until she struck a foot against one of the metal rails. She stumbled momentarily before regaining her footing, luckily avoiding a fall that would have surely meant her death at the hands of the reptilian horde.
Her panicked sprint took her over the tracks and down several rolling hills before she realized that she was no longer being pursued. Sand struck her face, carried by a strong gust of wind. The barrage of grit blinded Lia momentarily, and it was with great hesitation that she opened her eyes again.
When she did open them and took a look around she saw that the hills she'd charged down surrounded the ground where she stood. It's a basin, she thought. Lia was correct, she was standing at the bottom of a dried up lake turned desert.
She turned quickly, alarmed by an angry clicking sound, just in time to see the tail of a Rad-Scorpion headed straight at her face!
July 6th, 2283 7:00AM
Big MT
Neu couldn't help but question the decisions that had brought him to his current situation. Just part of his nature, he supposed. On the directions of someone he only knew as 'U' he'd started out into hostile territory towards a destination he'd never before seen; not that he was charging out totally blind however.
His excitement at finding the carvings had been short lived when he'd realized that he still had no idea who'd written them or what the area was like. Fortunately further inspection of the commander's desk had yielded the answer to one of those questions at least; tapped to the top of the main drawer Neu'd found a single holotape.
It was nothing out of the ordinary, just a common prewar data storage device that Neu may have disregarded had it not been hidden as it was. One the back of the white plastic casing was a symbol that Neu knew all too well. Forgotten by much of the wasteland after over two centuries of death was the insignia of his ancient enemies—the flag of America.
The sigil was painted in black paint, clearly done not with the precision of a stamp press, but instead imprinted by hand. What surprised Neu most was that the paint wasn't faded or chipping; no, this was freshly done by whoever had put it in the desk. In the corner of the tape, underneath the flag, was the same 'U' as was carved into the wood in front of Neu.
Intrigued he inserted the disk into the data upload slot on his, incredibly versatile, armor. Instantly the suit read and copied the information contained on the tape and it began to stream into the HUD of his helmet. When the data finished uploading a map appeared before Neu. It was a map of a circular complex labeled 'Big MT', which he assumed was the name of the mountain crater he found himself awoken inside of.
Several locations were labeled in different colors. Among them was a circular complex named 'The Think Tank'; it was colored a brilliant red hue—the international sign for danger. Directly to the north of the Think Tank, and North-East of the prison complex, was another circular building, this time labeled in white, denoted simply as 'safety'.
And it was by following that map that he would himself in his current situation, which was running along a raised railroad track in flight from the most hideous creature he'd even laid his eyes upon. He ducked behind the broken remains of a railroad car and drew the 9mm pistol from its holster on his hip. Neu turned back and saw the monster charging along the rails towards him, like some sort of hellish demon.
The beast, from a distance, first appeared to be a coyote, but closer inspection revealed the true horror of the beast. Its head was serpentine and scales continued from its fanged maw down the top of its back down to a tail which featured the rattle of a rattle snake. The creature's body was that of a very large coyote, and the hungry eyes that focused on its prey shone with a green gleam that screamed danger.
Neu had no idea if the rattlesnake/coyote hybrid shared the venom of its scaly parent, and had no interest in finding out. He aimed quickly down the barrel and discharged a tight pattern of bullets. Three of his five rounds found their target, and the chimera was thrown backwards by the force of the blows, dead.
The soldier sighed in relief; the thing looked like they'd come straight from a horror movie, but at least they died easily. He carefully scanned the area for more of the monsters before he dared leave the relative safety of his covered position. Satisfied that it was hunting alone Neu took off yet again along the tracks, his hand hovering around the holster on his hip.
So concerned was he about the reappearance of the monsters that he didn't hear the warning beeps coming from underneath his feet until he was standing almost directly over a landmine. His training and quick reflexes saved his life. Neu threw himself over the railing just as a blast of fire and a mixture of wooden and metal shrapnel exploded up through the tracks. He managed to grab the bottom lip of the metal wall that encased the tracks, saving himself a headfirst plunge to the rock solid ground below.
From above splintered off wood rained down onto the unfortunate man. A particularly large piece struck him in the back of the skull and he lost his grip as the consciousness was knocked from his body.
June 27th, 2283 11:00 AM
South Vegas
Jim awoke with a start and panicked for a moment before the memories of the previous night's events came rushing back to him in a flood. He was in the former safe hold of the notorious fiend lord Driver Nephi. The dead body of his commanding officer, lieutenant Gorobets, laid in the field to the south, joined by fellow soldier Sergeant Sterling. Across that field at the Samson rock crushing plant was the rest of the former sniper outfit, dead as well. Jim was alone as the only survivor of NCR's 1st Recon division.
Across the floor of the ruined building was the body of the infamous Nephi, propped against the wall. His unseeing eye stared at Jim, still seeming to mock the private from beyond the grave. A rage consumed Jim as he stared back at the corpse of a foe he'd never been given a change to fight. That was the worst bit; his unit had not died with dignity fighting the fiends but by the hands of a traitorous band of robots.
Regardless Jim lashed out in anger by burying the blade of his combat knife into the neck of the dead fiend. Its razor sharp blade easily sliced through the soft flesh and thin layers of muscles and tendons. He felt the blade strike bone and retracted the weapon. With a savage kick he shattered the cervical vertebrae of Nephi's neck, and the fiends head rolled away from his body. It came to rest facedown next to the golf club with which many NCR troopers had met their ends.
His rage not yet satiated Jim grabbed the weapon and smashed the head against the brick over and over. Shards of cement flew from the impact point and jolts of pain rattled through Jim's arm from the force of the blows, but he did not stop. Eventually the club could take no more abuse and the driver's head came flying off leaving behind a sharp, pointed tip.
Jim flashed a wicked smile grabbed the actual head of Nephi. All squeamishness long since abandoned he shoved the pointed end of the golf club up through the neck and impaled the late fiend's head upon it. It was a brutal act, but would make an excellent trophy for Camp McCarran when he returned, if he returned, he thought gloomily.
Above him the sun was sitting at its apex, a time of day when any sort of journey would end in dehydration. So Jim relocated himself under the only remaining bit of roof on the other side of the ruins, leaving his prize back with the rest of its body. There he leaned against the wall and took stock of his supplies and ammunition.
From what he could tell this was a semi-permanent post for the fiends, and it was well stocked with food. Shelves of clean water and fresh fruit, vegetables and salted meat lined the wall in the shade. Jim took as much of the water as he thought was practical for a journey, around a dozen ears of corn, and a few sirloins of salted Brahmin steak. Beside the food was a very large chest made of some sort of heavy-duty plastic composite. It had a lock, but Jim made short work of it; it was a skill he'd learned back west in the boneyard.
Inside was the impressive, if not surprising, sight of hundreds of chems of all varieties. Jim was hesitant to touch any of them, but reminded himself that he was alone in very hostile territory. It was entirely possible that he'd not live to see tomorrow, so worrying about something like a chem addiction just seemed naïve. Still, he told himself, there was no need to overdo things. With that in mind he left behind the bulky Psycho needles and slick Jet inhalers and opted for a dozen syringes of Med-X. He wrapped up the anesthetic in a cloth strip and packed it away in the outer pocket of his backpack.
The temperature was substantially cooler when Jim emerged from the ruins again. With great care to avoid looking at their bodies he removed the dog tags from Gorobets and Sterling's necks. He could not afford the time to bury the soldiers as he would like to, but he could at least return some part of them to their families and fellow servicemen. He did the same for the other three members of 1st Recon, though seeing their bodies pained him greatly.
The worst was 10 of Spades. The cocky private was the only friend Jim had made in the Mojave, and seeing his broken body was almost too much for him. Near the tower where Jim had first seen the betrayal was a single box of .308 ammunition, armor piercing as luck would have it. The rest of his supplies were nowhere to be found, either scattered far away or incinerated by the missile strikes from the previous night.
The sun was nearly gone when Jim returned to the fiend stronghold, and the last rays shone through the mountains soaking the Mojave in a warm fading glow. Jim walked freely along the ruined streets, his revolver in one hand and the impaled head of Nephi in the other, ready for whatever he might face, and consequences be damned.
A quick dive to her right saved Lia from being impaled upon the purple barb and from the bull rush that followed immediately after. She gathered herself together and got to her feet as the rad scorpion turned back around towards her.
Lia swiftly drew her shotgun and chambered a round, waiting for it to charge again. The oversized arachnid complied with great vigor, its pincer clamping and opening with blinding speed and its tail dripping venom. She released two blasts towards it; the recoil making her should go numb. Only one of her slugs hit its target, while the other sent an eruption of sand into the air from the soft desert floor.
The landing blow impacted just in front of the radscorpion's tale. The solid lead slug failed to penetrate its thick, armored hide, but left a sizeable dent and stopped the charge of the thing momentarily. This pause lasted only a few seconds and, before Lia could even reload, the scorpion resumed its charge and landed a direct hit with an unopened pincer on Lia's right arm. The force of the strike knocked the shotgun from her grasp and sent her sprawling across the sandy ground. The scorpion reared up in front of her and Lia braced herself for a strike that wasn't forthcoming. Instead her eight-legged opponent retreated back across the sands away from her.
Lia was confused. It was just sitting there across from her, blocking her path to the shotgun, occasionally clicking its pincers but making no movements to attack. What the fuck is it doing, she wondered, it can't be…waiting? It was then that Lia noticed that the scorpion's tail was no longer flexing or making any movements at all. It was just laying limp and curled up on the scorpion's back. Was it waiting for her to just kill it? No, that couldn't be it, Radscorpions were notorious for being extremely aggressive, even attacking each other at times, and one would never back down like this.
She snuck a glance back over her shoulder and got her answer. Across the desert pack of radscorpions were advancing towards her. Lia knew she needed to end this fight and quickly. From the side pocket of her camping pack she procured a rather elegant tool of death.
It was a six-shooter—possibly the nicest ever to be aimed at a giant, mutated scorpion. Black metal made up the barrel and frame of the gun, overlaid with ornate gold engravings. Written in some fancy pre-war calligraphy on the ejection tube was the word 'Lucky'. Clenched in her fist was a handle fashioned of bright white ivory, adorned with a black clubs symbol on one side and an ace on the other, both now covered by Lia's fingers.
She cocked back the hammer and with one arm fired off all six .357 shells towards the rad scorpion. Predictably the first three went wide, Lia never was a very good shot, but the final three rounds all hit the beast's head. The first and second bullets shattered the face plate of the scorpion, while the third shot straight through the shattered remains and buried itself in the brain. The radscorpion flailed about for a very short time before it became still and lifeless.
It was the luckiest kill Lia had ever seen, much less made. Her good fortunate would continue as she looked back to check on the advancing herd of scorpions. In the center of the lake she could see a full scale war in progress between the horde of Radscorpions and a large group of similarly gigantic ants. The Rad scorpions were much bigger, but were outnumbered at least three to one. Compounding their difficulties was the unique abilities of these ants; they were dousing the scorpions in waves of fire.
Lia wasn't eager to stick around long enough to be the dinner to whichever faction won the battle and gathered up the shotgun from where it had fallen. In the distance to the north-east she saw the roof of a building. Any shelter in a storm, she thought, and headed away from the dusty battlefield and back towards civilization.
Neu woke with a splitting headache. He was lying on his back on the stony ground below the train track. Sunlight filtered down through the gaping hole that the landmine had carved out and struck his facemask. Strangely no light reflected from the glass surface, seemingly swallowed into the gold foil beneath.
He groaned as he struggled, painfully, to his feet. A robotic female voice from the helmet alerted him that his Med-X reserves had been depleted; just as well, Neu thought, no need to have his armor pumping him full of drugs after every little fall.
Shaking off his grogginess Neu drew up the map and checked his position. According to his calculations, based on the distance he'd already traveled, he was still three to five kilometers from the dome shaped building labeled 'safety'. The internal clock of his suit read 2 o'clock in the afternoon, meaning he still had at least five or six hours until the sun set and he was made into an easy target for whatever nocturnal predators this strange land held. The thought of encountering an entire pack of the strange beast he'd killed earlier was more than enough to spur him back to his journey.
The path that Neu followed was winding and indirect, snaking around mountains of rock that obscured his view. The tunnel vision made the cautious man very uneasy, so he proceeded with his assault carbine drawn. After an hour and a half of hiking through the pass he turned yet another corner, the muzzle of his weapon leading the way, and found himself face to face with something somehow more horrifying than the hellhound from the railroad tracks.
Clad in an assortment of medical scrubs and jumpsuits was a group of the most pathetic looking humans he'd ever seen. They ambled around a pile of trash, broken mugs, and toasters occasionally pick one of the items up and playing with it for a moment before dropping it back into the pile. The group was entirely male, and all had major scarring on their heads. Some individuals of the group were even bleeding from wounds where the stitching jobs had failed to hold up.
As he watched, crouched behind the corner roughly thirty meters away, Neu saw two of the larger members start a confrontation. The object of their disagreement appeared to be the broken remains of a toaster that they were engaged in a battle of tug-of-war over. The larger of the two was screaming something in a language, if it was indeed that at all, that Neu could not comprehend or even recognize despite being fluent in ten different languages from all over the globe. The series of grunts either meant something to the other man, or he was simply angered by the loss of the toaster; either way the result was the same, and he lashed out with his other hand.
Attached to the man's fist was a heavy metal glove that looked almost identical to the power gloves fists that were commonly used by United States Infantrymen in the years before the bombs fell. Before now Neu had only ever seen the pneumatic weapons used against armored opponents and was not quite prepared for the bloody spectacle of one, much faster and more forceful to boot, being used against the unarmored flesh of the larger man's head. The man's head was decapitated, or disintegrated, immediately and his opponents grabbed his spoils and celebrated with more exaltation in the same grunt-like language as before.
The sight sickened Neu. As a soldier he wasn't new to death, gruesome or otherwise, and had killed before. What was so revolting to him was the brutality and randomness of it all. The toaster was already discarded back into the pile and forgotten about, yet it was that piece of rubbish that the man wielding the weapon on his hand had been willing to kill for. What kind of hell was this Big MT?
He ducked back behind the rock formation and gathered himself again, clearing his mind of emotion so as to not be swayed by his anger into making a decision that might cause him more trouble down the road. Logical processes lead him to the same conclusion; these humans were savages that had no regard for human life and would likely attack him at their first chance. As much as he would like to consider himself above their ways he knew that on the battlefield survival sometimes meant kill or be killed. Still, he thought he would give them one opportunity to show themselves not to be completely feral.
Slowly Neu walked towards the group, his hands held above his head in the universal sign of peace, ready however to draw the carbine on his back at the first signs of hostility. He wouldn't have long to wait; by the time he was within fifteen meters of the group gunfire sounded and the rocks in front of Neu exploded into a shower of dust and stone debris.
Neu was disappointed by their reaction though not surprised. He disappeared into the air, cloaked by the stealth field of a stealth boy that the technology in his suit amplified. The primal humans before him were shocked by his vanishing act and began to fire their weapons, an assortment of pistols and short barreled shotguns in shoddy states or repair, randomly around. There were originally ten of them, but after the brutal beat down and casualties of friendly fire only six remained. They bunched up in a tight group, clearly with no formal training the art of combat. It was almost too easy Neu thought to himself from his perch on the side of one of the rock walls, as he tossed a grenade into the mass of huddled men. The expertly timed blast tore the group to pieces leaving no survivors, and the blast echoed through the narrow paths of the pass.
Eager to evacuate the area before any other enemies could make their way towards the area, alerted by the sounds of the confrontation Neu ran forward out of the clearing and further into the path. Again he led with the barrel of the battle riffle and kept decided to keep the stealth field active until he was sure he was not going to be attacked.
His clock read 4:45 PM before he disengaged the stealthboy, now depleted by a fourth of the power bar, and slowed his pace to a steady walk. Before him the walls were starting to widen, and he felt the claustrophobia he'd started to develop from his time in the narrow pass begin to lift.
Around one final corner was the end of the pass. Now before him was a deep canyon that stretched for many kilometers in many directions. And protruding from the uneven ground surrounding the gorge as well as its walls were gigantic diamonds.
South Vegas was quiet as dusk turned into night, the last of the sunlight extinguished. To the east the bright lights of the strip shone with promises of splendor. Far removed from such decadence was Jim Trotter. He walked the streets brazenly wielding his revolver, as if daring any one to challenge his progress.
Unseen by the soldier of the republic were eyes that followed his progress, always hidden in the ruins. They would wait for their opportunity, no need to hurry things, and it would come.
Jim didn't like the calm, something was wrong. He knew that there was no way that he should be able to stroll the streets in fiend territory so openly and remain unbothered. In the hours that he'd been walking he hadn't so much as seen a single fiend; something wasn't right.
The walls of the main fiend hub loomed tall ahead of him, dwarfing the rest of the crumbling ruins. Fires burned in metal drums on either side of the large metal doors that were the portal to the largest hive of drug abuse and degeneracy in the Mojave. Jim briefly considered charging through them, a sure suicide mission, but held himself back. After all, he had a mission.
It was a simple mission, but one that he was determined to see through. He was going to kill Cook-cook. Again and again he ran the words, written on the scrap of paper he'd found clutched in Corporal Betsy's dead hand, through his head.
The cook was obvious enough, Cook-cook. Jim was however stumped by the rest of the message. The line 'at the bottom of a bottle surrounded by thousands more' sounded to him like a bar, but surely no bar in the Mojave would harbor a criminal with the reputation of the fiend lord. He was so lost in the thoughts of hunting the fiend that he didn't even notice the trap he'd wandered into.
From a building to his right, only fifteen feet away, a hail of red laser burst forth towards Jim. The shooter was either the worst shot in the wasteland or far too high on any number of various chems to operate his weapon effectively and the entire barrage sailed far wide and disappeared into the night. The shots did break Jim from his thoughts and he was thrust back into reality by another, single beamed, blast of red light.
This one came from in front of him, some fifty feet away. The bolt caught him in the right shoulder, singing his armor and turning him towards the building from which the first shots had been fired. He aimed quickly and fired a bullet at the RCW Laser wielding chem addict. His aim was true and the fiend dropped down, sans head.
From the same direction as the second laser came a bright green glob of plasma that struck the ground just short of Jim. Superheated matter sprayed up from its impact point and showered his shin protectors. The plasma burned through the leather and seared his skin. Adrenaline quickly masked the pain, and Jim was filled with bloodlust once again.
Hatred for his enemy coursed through his veins and he saw red, running forward at the group of a dozen or so fiends. His survival instincts were long gone now and he didn't so much as take a second glance for cover. Jim raised the head of Nephi over his head like a battle flag and fired off the remaining five bullets in the gun towards the group.
Inside the ruined buildings, where they'd staged their ambush, whispers were exchanged between the fiends. Looks of terror overtook the drugged up fighters and they pointed at the mounted head of Nephi in disbelief. The whole group, with the exception of the few whom Jim had struck with his random potshots, fled into the night. So quick was their flight that they didn't even bother to holster their weapons, favoring to drop them and run.
Confused by their rapid change of heart, and dissatisfied that he would not get the fight he so badly wanted in his present state, Jim pursued the group holstering the revolver and drawing his knife. They ran to the north along a railroad track that had once carried rock from the quarry up to Utah. Jim fell behind the group, weighed down by the injuries to his legs as well as his riffle and much heavier armor. He lost the group when they disappeared behind a long metal wall.
He burst through the gap in the wall moments later, but his prey was nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the barrier was an abandoned Poseidon fueling station, littered with the metal husks of pre-war cars.
Behind the long dormant pumps was a brick wall, with many chunks missing, which stretched around another large facility. Towering above that wall was the largest Sunset Sasparilla bottle Jim had ever seen. This was the answer to his question. Feeling the bloodlust fade away Jim sheathed the knife and reloaded his revolver. It was time to pay his respects to the cook.
The building that Lia had seen in the distance was much further away than she'd realized. Long ago she left behind the soft, sandy desert floor of the dried up lake and taken the road north. Her progress was hampered by the cracked surface of the path and large pits, as if the route was the victim of a bombardment of explosives, and it was nearly sunset when she reached the outskirts of the town.
She checked the map of her pip-boy, a useful electronic data storage device given to her by a thankful hotel owner on the strip as a reward for vault jumpsuits that she wore on her wrist. It was as she had suspected; this town was missing from her map, and it was only a month old since she'd updated the device. This far south there should be nothing for miles, she mused.
Bewildered she set forth down the street leading towards the heart of the town. Like many wasteland towns much of the settlement lay in ruins, but even so this one seemed especially rundown. She didn't encounter a single person and was beginning to grow uneasy from the quiet as she turned a corner onto the main street. One glance was all she needed to identify exactly where she was.
Lined on either side of the street, standing up to seven feet in the air, were staves. On top of the staves were human skulls, bleached a stark white by the sun. Lying around the bases of some of the stakes were the remains of fallen skulls, many broken to pieces by animals that saw them as a free meal.
Lia pressed forward, her need for shelter far outweighing the urge to flee from the revolting sight.
Further down the staves were replaced by crucifixes. Frayed ropes hung off of their thick wooden beams and skeletons, whole this time, lay scattered around their bases. The dried corpses of bark scorpions startled her until she realized that they too were dead.
She hurried past the remains towards the large building whose roof she had spotted hours earlier from the desert. As she ran past the skeletons old stories flashed through her mind. This was Nipton, the town of the dead. Years before the whole town was slaughtered by the forces of Caesar's Legion before David Young and his army of Securitrons had driven the warlord away. Now it was nothing but a monument to the horrors of Caesar's rule and was not even listed on many maps, hers included.
Still rumors persisted about the town being haunted by the spirits of its former inhabitants. Normally Lia scoffed at the tales of Powder Ganger ghosts terrorizing visitors; the only ghosts of that group were fighting a losing battle with fire geckos in Vault 19. However, there was enough eeriness about the place to make her doubt her certainty just a bit.
She pushed open the doors and stepped into the large town hall, leaving behind the street and its horrors. A foul stench assaulted her nostrils as she closed the doors behind her. It was a mix of rotting meat and shit. Lying on a reception desk to her left was yet another skeleton; around the bottom of the desk was a large stain of dried blood. More bodies were strewn about the floor along with the remains of a half dozen large dogs.
Lia fought the urge to run out the doors and instead quickly made her way across the dark room to a set of stairs. Taking the steps two at a time she emerged onto the second floor. Here the stench was bearable and she could see no bodies. Light filtered in through windows which were bare of boarding, unlike those downstairs. This floor was neater than the first and looked as if someone had lived there fairly recently.
A jolt of pain shot through her wounded arm. The bones didn't appear to be broken, but a nasty bruise had appeared and was slightly disturbing. Lia searched the offices around for supplies, but came up empty handed.
Outside darkness had fallen, and Lia could hear coyotes howling the distance. Thankful for her shelter, ghost stories and all, she kept up her search. Before long Lia found a single stairwell leading up to a locked door. The lock, a standard five tumbler dead-bolt, proved to be little challenge for the explorer and she quickly gained entrance to the room beyond.
Lia walked into a small, vacant room. The only furnishings were two small chairs situated next to a coffee table at the far end of the space. She continued into the room and opened another door at the left end of the room.
This room was much larger than the first, with a wall of widows that looked out over the southern portion of Nipton. Lia couldn't make out much through the portal however, as the glass was made opaque by years of sandstorms that had left a thick layer of sand behind.
In front of a bookcase, which was leaned against the far wall, was a very large desk with a single computer terminal. Ignoring yet another door at the end of the room, Lia made her way to the desk and sat down in the ancient office chair. A cloud of dust rose from its cushion causing Lia to have a violent coughing fit.
When her sinuses recovered she began to search through the desk for anything that might help the pain that was evolving rapidly from a dull ache to a searing agony in her elbow. She was in luck and found a single syringe of Med-X at the back of the main drawer. Without hesitation Lia injected the pain killer, sighing in relief as the drug went to work. Lia generally did not approve of the wanton use of opiates such as Med-X or any of the other chems that were so rampantly abused in Westside and in the fiend territories beyond, but this was a legitimate use.
With her mind cleared of the pain she turned her attention to the door she'd ignored moments earlier. The door lead to a storage room, with a single flickering light, stocked with enough supplies to last a single traveler at least a month. Bottles of clean water lined the wall in the back of the room, and there were hundreds of boxes of pre-war food on the myriad of metal shelves. After exploring the room further Lia nearly tripped over a mattress in the far corner.
Lia went back to the office and stashed her bag behind the large wooden desk before returning to the makeshift bed and lying down. In minutes she was asleep, oblivious to the raging sand storm outside and the visitor it concealed.
Lia was awoken by the sound of a creaking door, and the pounding of heavy footsteps upon the wooden flooring outside the closet. She listened closely, but the footsteps were gone and the building lay silent. She checked the digital watch on her wrist; its dim green face read 4:00 AM.
The old ghost stories, heard around bars and campfires, asserted themselves to the front of her mind. Wind howled outside as a sandstorm raged, shaking the windows in the other room. Lia rose from the mattress slowly and walked to the door, careful to be as quiet as possible. Her efforts were ill rewarded, and she stumbled over the leg of a shelf and toppled into the office.
Seated in the swivel chair, next to her backpack of supplies and weapons, was a large figure. It made no reaction to her ungracious entrance and continued to stare out the windows, back turned to Lia. She picked herself up from the floor and cleared her throat. Though she was bordering on terrified of who, or what, ever was in the chair she was determined to face the adversary.
The chair turned and reached out to the wall, flipping a switch. Light flooded the room from a chandelier on the ceiling. The figure was revealed to be a man, albeit a very large man. He wore a heavy duster over torn and frayed legion armor. His hair was twisted into dreadlocks that fell down over his dark skin.
In between his legs was a long wooden staff, it looked like a small flagpole to Lia, with a golden eagle ornament at its end. The eagle rested against one of his broad shoulders. In his right hand he was holding a pistol, her pistol. He did not point the weapon at her and instead spun it a few times before placing it on the desk. He motioned for Lia to sit opposite him, and though he'd not spoken a word she knew that he was not a man to be trifled with. Lia sat down across from him and began to speak.
"So, who is this hand—"She began, attempting to charm the mysterious man. One large hand rose up to silence her. All the time his face remained emotionless, eyes cold and calculating.
"Why do you carry the weapon of a king?" He asked her, indicating the gun before him. "Speak truly or you may join the decorations along the street." Lia was both confused and terrified. The brief moment of relief she'd felt that the noise was not caused by the supernatural was fading fast at the presence of a member of a fearsome army that was thought to be eradicated from the Mojave.
"I don't…a king?" She sputtered out, hoping to disarm the man with a pathetic act. His gaze was unmoving and his tone, grave and spoken with a low gravelly voice, remained the same when he responded.
"This weapon, it belongs to the self-proclaimed king of Vegas—David Young. He brought it into the divide, and the men there still fear the sight of it. How is it that you have come to possess such a thing?"
Lia saw that her ploy had failed and choose to take a different tact.
"Oh, is it king now? Yes I was given the gun by Young, as a gift for services rendered." She answered the legionnaire. It was a bluff of course, while he had indeed given her the gun it was out of charity and not gratitude.
"Hmm, not like him. People change." He responded, buying her story. Lia relaxed a bit, but was still ready to flee at the first opportunity.
"Who are you, to be asking questions of such a man?" She demanded, keeping up her bluff of importance to David Young.
"A ghost of many tribes. Prophet of the Old World. Survivor of the Divide. Ulysses. Real question is who you are. Why are you in Young's hide away wielding his weapon?"
"Important business. What is it to you?" She responded, her confidence growing. Ulysses' eyes narrowed at the brass manner she put forward and his fists clenched.
"Stop your games now or die." He said with venomous anger in his voice. He picked up the pistol and cocked back the hammer to accentuate his point. "Where is Young?"
Lia stared down the barrel and knew that her act was done.
"I, I, I don't know." She stuttered, eyes fixated on the hollow black tube in front of her. "I haven't seen him in three years; I came here to get out of a storm." Tears streamed down her face, and they were only partially faked. Ulysses either bought the act or was satisfied with her answer and lowered the gun, though he kept his hand clenched tightly around the handle.
"Very well. You may until the sun rises. I will return at noon, and if I find you here you will have a cross of your own." With those final words he slammed the revolver down on the desk, out of Lia's reach, and stood quickly.
Lia watched in awe as he left the room, both happy to still be alive and petrified of what would happen if she were to meet the man again. The back of his duster, which bore the same sigil as the holotape Neu was guided by, was the last thing she saw of him.
She slept little for the rest of the night and was packed and standing outside the double doors of Nipton Town Hall by eight o'clock that morning. The streets were calm and the air still, a stark contrast to the storm of only hours before.
Lia headed south from the ghost town and back towards the southern mountains. It was not long before the road ended next to the ruins of a small building. Beyond the crumbling walls was a large field, dotted with dented trashcans and the scorched remains of cars. At the southern end of the field was a billboard, amazingly still intact.
Beyond the decrepit sign and metal fence beyond it were rolling hills—a very welcome replacement for the sheer cliff wall that Lia had attempted to climb earlier. Just as she was making her way around a car in the middle of the field Lia heard the sound of gunfire, closely followed by the sound of a bullet whizzing by close to her head.
Acting on instinct she threw herself behind the automobile. A quick peak revealed a pack of, around five or six, raiders emerging from hiding places around the field. Lia took a few shots at the closest of the bandits, but was quickly forced to duck back down by a hail of submachine fire.
Things looked grim for her, alone and outgunned. She again turned towards the attackers; she wouldn't go down by herself. A flash of blue bright green light flashed into being in front of her crouched position, blinding her. Great, she thought, just when it couldn't get any worse…
Neu found himself in a very precarious position. He was at least 200 yards above the canyon floor, straddling a large green pipe, and he was under fire. Upon his emergence from the mountain pass he'd found himself staring across a deep gorge. Many of the same green pipes that he was currently stranded on crossed the gap, spaced out with no apparent pattern. He'd made the decision to follow the piping which seemed to snake off towards his goal.
However, as luck would have it, his plan had not gone without a hitch. That hitch came in the form of the most gigantic plants Neu'd ever seen. Forty yards below and in front of him, growing on a ledge in the canyon wall, was a patch of Venus Fly Traps. This variety was far from the standard bug catcher Neu remembered however. They were the size of a man and moved very quickly. Worst of all they could spit some sort of, no doubt toxic or caustic, goo. So far their aim was off, but Neu had no intention of being on the receiving end of one of their green slimy projectiles.
He locked his legs tightly around the metal and reached into his travel bag. From a small pocket on the side he procured a grenade, the second one of the four he'd started with, and tossed it in the direction of the plants. The explosion rocked the pipe, but it accomplished the goal he'd intended. One of the plants took the full brunt of the blast and was thrown into another. The force of the impact knocked the second plant from its perch and they both fell to the ground, far below.
The remaining plants either caught fire or were shredded to pieces by the shrapnel from the grenade. Neu quickly finished his crossing and checked his map. He was still about a half mile from his goal.
The sun was about to set when Neu reached the outside of the dome. The building was built into the rock face, and no entrance was visible from his position. Writing on the side of a wall directed him around to the opposite building face. There he could see a wooden post sticking out of the ground near the cliff's edge.
Neu approached the post and found it to be connected to a long rope that stretched to the bottom of the canyon. He tightened his backpack and resigned himself to a very long climb.
When his feet finally touched ground Neu was exhausted and the sun was completely set. The bottom of the gorge was dark and barren. A railroad track ran along the bottom of the ravine and disappeared around a corner. Neu followed the metal rails for a time, but quickly abandoned the track when he saw the entrance he was looking for.
In the side of the rock was a tunnel, he stepped inside the concrete opening only to find that it was an alcove, not a long passage. One door adorned the small opening; Neu saw no way to open the heavy metal portal, but was pleasantly surprised when it slid open as he approached.
He stepped inside, motion activated lights flipping on as he did so. At the end of a short hall was a very large open room. Lining the walls, about twenty feet above the floor, were catwalks that lead to a couple of observation rooms at the far end of the room.
Scuttling from his right alerted Neu. It was a strange sound, metal clicking, which confused him. More lights flickered to life and releaved the source of the noise—five gigantic yellow scorpions. They were each as large as a horse and headed straight for him! Before he could even move to raise his weapon green beams shot from the tail of the scorpion closest to him and struck him directly in the chest. The blast knocked him to the ground, where he lay still and unmoving.
The head of Nephi stood propped against the eastern wall of the Sunset Sasparilla Bottling Plant like a warning to the fiend population to keep out. Inside the facility Jim stood in the lobby, weapon drawn, surveying the surroundings. Directly across the room was a set of double door, and two other single doors flanked them on either adjacent wall. A trail of blood led from the doors Jim had entered towards the single one on the right wall.
Jim followed the trail and found the door unlocked. Ahead was a hallway that quickly turned around a corner; the blood continued around the turn so Jim followed. Around the turn was a dimly lit corridor, with fluorescent tubes flickering off and on in a desperate attempt to stay alit. Strewn about the ground were the remains of more robots, albeit not the formidable Securitrons, with their chassis scorched and the circuitry inside melted into a useless mass of wiring and plastic parts.
Doors lined the walls of the hall, leading into offices and storage rooms, but the one Jim was interested in was at the end of the hall. Standing slightly ajar were a set of double doors. Next to them was a table with the severed head of a Brahmin resting upon it. Blood dripped from the table to the floor where it formed a pool. The blood trail however continued, though thinner, into the next room.
Jim cautiously walked down the hall and paused next to the open door. In the room beyond he could make out the sobbing and raving of a man. They echoed around what must be a large room. Jim peaked through the doors and saw that he was looking into a warehouse. Drawing his rifle he made sure the magazine was loaded and the safety was clicked off before quietly slipping through the crack between the doors and entered the room.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of large Sunset Sasparilla crates were stacked against every wall and nearly reached the ceiling. Suspended from the roof by metal beams was a catwalk that made a U-Shape around the room. The only side that it did not encompass was the north wall.
The uncovered wall featured two large metal doors connected to some sort of chain and pulley opening system that disappeared into the dark shadows around the ceiling. Opposite of the door squeezed himself through was a staircase leading up to the walkway above. The stairs seemed to be the only way up to the catwalk, so Jim started to make his way over to them.
Now that he was in the room he could make out some of the mutterings, which were coming from above the door where he'd entered, that had echoed around the hallway.
"Took her…My Queenie…Kill Them All…" The words were spoken in a voice that was almost as pathetic as it was insane. Cook-cook seemed to have gone completely off the edge. Distracted by the musing Jim accidentally ran into a crate. Though he regained his balance before falling, bottles that were stacked on top of the box fell to the floor with the seemingly deafening crash of broken glass. The voice above changed its tune immediately. It was louder now, and the sadness was replaced with rage. "Murderer! I'll kill you!"
From above Jim heard the sound of metal clanking and locking into place. The metallic sounds were swiftly followed by a volley of fire balls that rained down on the center of the warehouse floor. Crates, dried after years in the dry Mojave air, erupted into flame. Crazed cackling came from the fiend as he watched the boxes burn.
Disregarding stealth, Jim ran towards the stair case in a full out sprint. He reached the base of the stairs and took them two at a time, rifle held out in front of him ready to fire. Behind him crates burst into flame as Cook-cook missed him with another round of fire. When Jim reached the top of the stairs he immediately aimed his rifle and let loose two shots at the chest of the fiend.
Though he was no more than ten yards from the fiend leader his shots failed to penetrate the heavy metal armor he was wearing. Cook-cook let out another bout of maniacal laughter and dropped the Incinerator he was wielding. With the speed of an expert combatant he slipped on a gas tank harness and grabbed a smaller and much more disturbing weapon.
It was a standard Flamer, but it featured one very unique detail. Attached just behind the nose of the barrel was the severed head of a Brahmin. The mutated cow's mouth was opened wide around the barrel. Cook-cook pointed the weapon at Jim and unleashed a wave of flame. The flames fell far short of the soldier, but the sight of a torrent of fire coming from Queenie's mouth was truly alarming.
Wasting no time Cook-cook ran around the edge of the walkway towards Jim, getting into position. With the fiend lord rushing towards him Jim's attention was so focused on the immediate threat he was almost struck by flying wooden debris when several crates exploded behind him. At the last moment he threw himself to the floor of the catwalk. The metal grating was hot to the touch, but not yet red hot.
Glass shards erupted out among the wooden debris. Both struck Cook-cook, but like Jim's bullets they failed to harm the man. From his position on the floor Jim could see his opponent set his stance, and this time he was well in range.
The next few seconds went by in a blur, and Jim relied on reflex and his training. He brought he rifle up to firing position and let out the remaining three rounds in a pattern that required as much luck as skill to be successful.
The first and second rounds hit Cook-cook in his left shoulder, and they spun the fiend's body around. A swath of flame cut through the air in an arc, catching more and more crates on fire as it went. Jim's last shot, the Hail Mary, hit its mark as well. The heavy metal round easily pierced the, now exposed, thin metal casing of the pressurized gas canister on Cook-cook's back.
Jim immediately rolled off of the platform, losing his rifle in the fall. He hadn't even struck the ground when an explosion, much greater than that of the superheated bottles, rocked the catwalk above him. The canister explosion threw the fiend from the walkway all the way to the north wall. He landed in a heap, his armor snagging one of the chains on the door. The metal sheet rolled up as his body weight dragged down the chain and a small opening appeared.
Meanwhile Jim landed hard on the ground. His leg struck the side of a Sunset Sasparilla crate and a very sharp jolt of pain shot through his body. He dragged himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his non-injured leg. Much like the journey he'd made the night before across the fields outside Nephi's encampment Jim would not remember how it was he crossed that warehouse floor, but somehow he reached the opening. After crawling through he looked back and saw the body of Cook-cook staring back at him. Without thinking he grabbed the shoulders of the fiend and dragged him under the door.
The chain holding the door open was freed and the gate came slamming down—directly onto the neck of the fiend. The bones shattered and Jim made quick work of the rest. Before long he was limping around the building, pain building as the adrenaline from the fight wore off; carrying the severed head of the man he'd promised Betsy he'd kill.
July 7th, 2283
South Vegas
One bridge was all that separated Jim from civilization now. He'd spent the last nine days dragging himself across the fiend territory, and now it was nearly over. Strangely not one fiend had attacked him on his journey. Though he'd been spotted from a distance it seemed that whenever they saw the golf club, now adorned with Cook-cook's head as well, on which he was leaning, they could not leave fast enough.
He looked out over the bridge and smiled. Setting down the club at the western edge he grabbed the railing and began to drag himself towards Camp McCarran—1st Recon was ready to make its final report.
July 7th, 2283 8:00AM
Forbidden Zone Dome
Blinking lights surrounded Neu. His movements were slow and his gait uneasy as he stumbled around in a haze. The lights grew brighter and high-pitched beeping joined them. He reached out to catch them, but came up with nothing.
It was with a thud that he rolled off of the mattress he was lying on. He hit a hard metal floor and was brought back to reality. He sat up and saw that he was indeed surrounded by the flickering screens, blinking lights, and chirping of computers. The machines lined the walls of his small room. Next to him was a mattress, and to his left was a metal door.
He rose to his feet and found he was still clad in the stealth suit. A quick around told him his weapons had been taken from him, as well as the traveling backpack with the rest of his supplies.
The door slid open when he approached, and he stepped out into a cavernous room. Against a long, tall wall opposite his room was a gigantic screen. Displayed on the monitor was the image of a single eye. The eye flitted about the screen, never stopping on any one thing for long. Framing the screen were two thick pillars that stretched from a lower level than Neu was on to the ceiling of what Neu assumed was the dome.
A whoosh from his left marked the entrance of the strangest robot he'd seen yet. It floated in the air like a Mr. handy, yet instead of the multi-tools this one had three monitors. The outer two displayed eyes, like the one on the large screen, or at least one of them did. Blackness consumed the leftmost monitor. The center screen instead of an eye showed the picture of a pair of unmoving lips.
The strangest part of the robot was not however the screen. It was that instead of a metal CPU casing there was a clear dome. Inside that dome, suspended in some sort of gel, was a brain connected to an assortment of wires. Sparks flitted through the gel in random patterns constantly. The robot stopped before him and turned its monitors on his frame.
"Oh, hello there." It spoke in an absent-minded voice. The brain housed inside of its dome lit up with each syllable that the thing spoke. "I see you've awoken. Good to see you weren't harmed; there was a nasty bit of a…well a programing error with the Robo-Scorpion's non-lethal weapon upgrades. Makes them more vicious than ever! Would you care for a Mentat?"
"No." Neu answered with a blank stare. He was still trying to process all the eccentric robot had just told him. "Who are you?"
"I do love Mentats, so delicious and smarty!" The robot continued, ignoring Neu's question. The gel inside its dome fizzled and sparked for a moment before it turned back towards Neu. "Oh, right, I am ! You must be our yellow friend from under the ground."
Neu's look of shock must have given him away.
"Oh yes we knew all about you the day after you were put down there. We have sensors and other such things here. You underestimated the power of SCIENCE!" Neu was again silent, lost for words.
"Very well then. I see you aren't much of one for conversation." Mobius said with a sigh. "Ulysses said you might come. He also said something about an old van and a lung, or was it an old man and a young? Oh, who can tell? At any rate you should go find him, I'm sure he's off in the Mojave chasing some flag about the ground."
Neu quickly made the connection, the U on the desk and the tape must be from this Ulysses. He needed to know more, but doubted he could get the information from the senile robot. He looked around the room for an exit and saw a set of stairs that disappeared into the wall below the large monitor. Neu started towards them but was cut off by the robot.
"Oh no, you don't want to go back out there. My scorpions are still testy and there are lobotomites everywhere. No you want to go to the Mojave!"
"How?"
"Over yonder on that table is a trunk and inside are guns and a teleport gunamgigy. Now go, I have much work to do." With those final words he scooted off across the floor, only to run into a wall seconds later.
Neu turned away from the sight and sought out the trunk. He found it on a table by his room door. It was a long silver chest with a single clasp. He flipped open the lid and saw his weapons lain out neatly inside. He quickly grabbed his armament as well as the backpack containing his supplies that was sitting next to the trunk.
In the bottom of the chest was another object. It had the handle of a standard 9mm berretta handgun, but the barrel was replaced by a glowing green tube. Its trigger was a bright red color and made of thick plastic. In all it looked more like a toy than a true weapon.
Neu shrugged and picked it up anyway. He squeezed the trigger experimentally and in an instant vanished with a bright green flash of light