Emile hopped out of the back of their SUV and pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with a lighter he had found. He inhaled the chemicals and released the grey cloud of smoke from his mouth as the chilled winds of autumn carried the smoke away to the west. He, with the help of Joseph, had just finished installing the two new seats in the back of the SUV, complete with their own seatbelts. Joseph jumped out from the back of the vehicle as well and swatted away the remaining smoke that was in front of his face.

"I never knew you smoked?" He said.

"Only on occasion." Emile replied before going back to his smoke.

"That shit's bad for you, you know."

"So is life." He said coldly. "Especially when you live out in the wasteland."

"Hey Emile! Put down the cancer stick and help me with this stuff!" called Mathew from over by the door to the house. He was carrying a box full of food that he had packed the day before. Emile put out his cigarette and walked over to the armor-clad man, grabbing the box and then walking toward the SUV again. He placed it in the back of the vehicle (what space they had left in the back.)

"It's like Arroyo in here there's so much food." He said.

Joseph looked at him weird.

"It's a city far down south, don't ask."

"Are we ready to get going yet?" asked Martin as he walked over to the two boys from out behind the house; what he was doing there was anyone's guess.

"We're gonna hit the road soon'ough." Emile answered as he picked his cigarette off of the ground and examined it. Finding it to be of no further use he threw it back on the road.

"Joe, did you say you checked for a gun shop?" Martin asked.

"Yeah. I searched the whole map, but there's nothing like a gun store in this town." He answered as he began to fiddle with his Pip-boy.

Martin sighed and shrugged his right shoulder to adjust the strap of his sniper rifle.

"Whatever; we have enough ammo for now." He said as he sat down in the passenger seat of the SUV and put his rifle beside him. Jaden came out of the house with her weapons and grabbed Mathew's laser-rifle that was leaning against the side of the house.

"Do you want me to put this in the car for you?" she asked as he was bringing a box to the vehicle.

"Yes; thank you!" he called as he huffed before lifting the heavy box and placing it in the back of the SUV, "Car parts, just in case." He answered before anyone could ask. The box barely fit with the rest of the boxes and equipment. Jaden walked over to the car and put the laser weapon on the driver's side right beside his seat, where it fit quite snuggly. She threw her own weapon in the back, but kept her pistol on her side, in its holster.

Joseph was complaining to himself about the cold when the first snowflake he had ever seen landed daintily on his hand, melting instantly from his warmth. He looked up to the clouds overhead and saw that this would not be the last snowflake he would be seeing. He already hated the cold of it all, and now he would have to deal with frozen water in the air?

"Ain't that a kick in the head…?" he said to himself.

"Don't like it, do ya'?" Emile asked with a smirk.

"Not gonna be a big fan I don't think." He answered as he held out his tongue and caught one in his mouth. He spit it out instantly after he noticed how it tasted of gas and waste.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you; nuclear fallout in the precipitation, ya' see." Emile replied as he laughed.

"Shut up…"

Mathew readied himself in the driver's seat of the car and closed the door to his side. He rapped his metal clad hand on the door through the window to get Emile and Joseph's attentions.

"Let's get a move on." He said before rolling up the window. Emile opened up the door to the vehicle and pushed one of the seats down so he could crawl into the back where his new seats were. They didn't match the other seats in the car at all, but they weren't looking for style points when cruising down a decrepit old highway scattered with corpses and garbage.

Emile put the seat back up in front of him as he strapped himself in and let Jaden and Joseph take the middle row to themselves. Joseph placed his rifles on the floor, as well as his chest holstered revolver. Everyone looked ready to go, but before Joseph could strap his belt in, he noticed that Jaden was shivering quite a lot in her leather outfit. She was trying to hide it, but that didn't work. Joseph took off his fleecy and thick jacket, instead draping it over Jaden's shoulders. She turned and looked at him in his vault suit which she thought fit him quite nicely with its quaint, blue pop-up collar.

"Thanks…" she said before leaning in toward him and snuggling close to his body. Her breath against his neck was warm and soft.

It was all he needed to keep warm.

Hours of traveling through the maze of wrecked cars upon the now snow coated highways was what it would take to get to Swift Current, a settlement in what used to be western Saskatchewan. Settlers from around the area that had survived the bombs and had not died decided to settle around the town and eventually it became a common stop for caravans from all over. It was a testament to how much could be accomplished if people simply worked together. In the wasteland however, working with people you didn't know was enough to get you a bullet in the back of your head.

They arrived without much trouble in between the town they stayed in and Swift Current. They didn't even stop through the towns they had to go through on the way to their destination; no one there anyways. Their ammunition stocks were in fair condition and they had lots of rounds to go around for their journey so there was no need to stop anywhere. It had been five hours since they had set out from their temporary shelter back in the other town, and the sun had not yet begun to set.

The ruins of the city seemed to be larger than that of the previous town, but only a small strip along the main road actually sheltered people. Shacks and buildings that had been hastily repaired lined the street. Traders stood behind their stands with their wares on display and motioned towards travelers and locals to come and see what they had to offer. The paved highway that cut through the town was just as cracked and rugged as any other portion of road they had seen. Grey clouds covered the sky as they usually did this time of the year, but the settlement had not yet been hit with snow. They still had time to prepare for the coming early winter, but it was still chilly out in the air.

Mathew parked the SUV beside a vacant house and undid his seatbelt. He put his intimidating helmet on and turned to face the others in the back of the SUV.

"I'll stay here while you go do your business. No one will fuck with a member of the BOS." He stated matter-of-factly. Joseph nodded and so did Emile. Before departing the vehicle Jaden gave Joseph his thick coat back.

"I'll bring another back for you." He said; she had decided to stay in the car. "Matt, where are the caps?"

"In a pouch in the back with the rest of the equipment."

Joseph sifted through the bags of junk in the back until he heard the familiar jingling of bottle caps all bunched together. He reached in and grabbed a bag that made that same sound. He lifted it up and estimated.

"About a thousand worth in caps here." He said. Mathew waved his hand.

"Just take 'em all."

"Okay, thanks."

Emile, Joseph and Martin exited their vehicle and felt the cold winds against their warm bodies. Martin shivered violently for a moment before throwing his rifle back into the vehicle and grabbing his 12.7mm SMG instead. Both Emile and Joseph decided it would be best to take their rifles with them, in case things went south, no matter how unlikely it may have been.

They received some glances from the locals, but the settlers seemed generally unsurprised.

"I'm gonna go fetch mah lady-friend, you two can go shoppin' er whatever." Emile said as he walked off behind some buildings by himself.

"Can we be sure he's safe?" Martin asked.

"He'll be fine; he can take care of himself." Joseph reassured him with a pat on his shoulder.

The two men walked off down the old road and happened upon a merchant's stand with a middle aged man standing lazily behind it. He had a warm smile spread across his rosy cheeks, but he was not shivering or complaining about the cold. Joseph approached the stand and noticed equipment of all kinds on display for the customers to see.

"Welcome!" he said cheerfully, "We don't see many folks with working vehicles around anymore." He motioned over towards their SUV, "And even less often do we see a Brotherhood of Steel feller."

"We came from the west, from a vault there." Joseph answered his implied question.

"Well I'll be…" he said, "I grew up in a vault myself! Down south in the states." He scratched his stubbly shin and then leaned forward on his stand. "It was opened a long time ago, but some people stayed in the vault because it was safer."

"So life in the American vaults was good then?" Martin asked from behind Joseph.

"For the most part, but a lot of the vaults ended up failing. Don't know why though…" he said before perking up and putting the smile back on his face. "Do you want to see what I have for sale?"

"Well… Whaddya carry?" Joseph asked with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I can't help but notice you've got an H&K rifle on your chest there." He pointed.

Joseph held it up, "Yeah, why?"

"Well, Heckler & Koch put out this beauty just before the Great War and I think you'll enjoy it." The man reached under his stand and brought up a black box; military grade it looked like. He slammed the box onto the counter in front of him and turned it around to face his customers. "Open it."

Joseph undid the clips on the box and flipped the lid backwards to reveal what looked to be a part for a gun. The grooves on the top of the part matched exactly with the rail system under the barrel of his G36.

"What is it?" Joseph asked dumbfounded by the simplicity of the device, whatever it was.

"It's an under-barrel shotgun attachment for your gun there. Ya see, this here's where you reload it, and here's the trigger and safety." He pointed to his rifle. "Tell ya' what… I'll give you a discount for this here exquisite piece of engineering if you help us with a problem."

Joseph narrowed his tired eyes at the man, "What kinda problem is that?"

"There's some fellas across town that have been harrasin' the townsfolk and we need some help with them." He answered.

"Harassing them how?" Martin asked.

The man leaned forward and nudged the box, "They be raiders…" he said uneasily.

"We'll do it for the right… incentive…" Martin prodded.

The man pushed the box forward again and then took the shotgun attachment out of its case, handing it to Joseph. "Take this with you, but I'll need something of yours for insurance." Joseph put the attachment on the bottom of his rifle and slid it securely into place.

Joseph sighed as he reached to the back of his neck underneath his collar, removing the cross necklace from his chest and placing it on the counter. "It has significant personal value." Joseph said, "And how much will that discount be anyways?" he asked.

"I'll give it to you for a hundred dollars' worth in caps. Usually it would be worth near a thousand!"

"How many raiders will we be going up against?" Martin asked.

"There's a good eight of them at least, but we're simple folk, we can't go into downtown and rough up a bunch of raiders all willy-nilly." He said, "Tell ya' another thing: I'll throw in some extra things if you pay me a hundred fifty; we're desperate people."

"Like what?" Joseph asked with an impatient look on his face.

The man again reached under his stand and produced another weapon, this time a grenade launcher with a single barrel and a wooden stock that looked to be previously used as told by the scratches along it.

"I'll let you take this as well, and then when you get back I'll tell the townsfolk what happened and I'm sure they'd throw in with me to get you all the ammo you need for anything you need." His hands seemed to be shaking, like he didn't really want to give up these treasures he had found, but it wasn't as if he had much of a choice. Joseph reached into his sack and threw a handful of caps onto the table as the man began to count. Joseph took the grenade launcher and put it on his belt with the clip he found on the side of the stock.

"Here's a few rounds for your launcher… just come back safe ya hear?" he handed Joseph three 40mm rounds for his grenade launcher and he deposited them safely in his pack.

"We will."

As they walked back to the SUV Emile appeared around a corner and waved to them with one hand while his other hand was in the hand of a woman with dark hair that fell to her shoulders. She was dressed in winter clothes and gave Joseph a regarding smile. Emile shooed her over to the vehicle and pointed to the back to show her where to sit. He approached the two other men and looked down at Joseph's new weapons.

"Whoa! Where'd you get those?" he asked.

"No time to talk; Martin grab your rifle while me and Meel' go ask for a map."

"There they are…" Martin breathed through his respirator as he looked on through his scope at the skeleton of an old collapsed building from long before. He could see four raiders, only one of them had a firearm and the rest were carrying knives and other melee weapons.

"We'll move in and wait for you to take one of 'em." Joseph told them, "Are you ready Emile?" he asked. Martin was shivering in his leather jacket, but Joseph knew he could still make the shot from a mile away.

"I'm ready, let's go." Emile answered.

The two men snuck their way down from Martin's vantage point and made their way toward where the raiders had made their camp. The constant piles of rubble and broken walls along the way made for sufficient cover from being seen by the marauders that were sheltering near. Joseph and Emile were careful not to disturb the scorched earth beneath their heels as they slunk closer and closer to the camp like two Mirelurks stalking their quarry. Only these Mirelurks had much more deadly pincers.

After a few minutes of making slow advances, Joseph could actually hear the raiders speaking amongst themselves. Something about psycho; typical. They were a mere few feet away from the camp now, and Joseph motioned toward both of his comrades to wait. Martin pulled his head away from his scope and gave him a thumb up, and Emile nodded. Joseph slowly reached down and picked up a medium sized stone. He turned and threw it at the top of the building, on the opposite side of where they were.

The rock made a loud noise on impact with the back wall of the building, and all of the fiends turned. Looking at his compass, he could now see eight heat signatures, like the man had said.

"Hey… what was tha-!" the sound of a suppressed .308 round was heard followed by the splatter of blood.

"Son of a bitch!" one of the raiders screamed.

Joseph popped out from behind his cover with the grenade launcher in his hands. He loaded a round into it just as the raiders turned to see what it was that would be killing them. Joseph pulled the trigger and the 40mm grenade flew forward, exploding on impact and killing three of the raiders as their signatures blipped off of his radar. Joseph put the launcher on his hip just as another bandit came around the corner with a cleaver in his hand.

Emile appeared from behind his cover and pumped the man full of lead from his AK-47, leaving the man's chest looking like bloody Swiss cheese. He fell to the ground and stopped moving, with a pool of blood gathered around him. Another raider popped his head out from the window of the building with a rifle in his hands. His head was blown off by Martin before the man could even aim down the sights.

"That's six, but what about-!" Joseph was interrupted when he was thrown to the ground by a woman who had jumped on top of him with a knife in her dirty hands; she had hardly any clothes on. How was she not freezing? Joseph forced the woman back and then he grabbed his rifle. He pulled the trigger on his shotgun attachment and ripped a hole through the woman who then slumped against the broken wall behind her and slid down, leaving a trail of blood leaking down the grey bricks.

The last blip on his compass was coming closer and closer and he readied his rifle for whatever was to come through the entranceway on the other side of the dilapidated building. Suddenly, a lone radroach scurried through the opening, looked around, and then retreated back the way it had come. Joseph released a much stressed sigh of relief that he had pent up.

"Well where is the last one?" Joseph asked himself. A shot rang out near him and he looked over to see Emile clutching at his now bloody arm. There was now a ninth blip on the radar. Joseph ran over to Emile and tackled him to the ground, behind his cover so the enemy could not see them. Martin fired two times and then the dust around them began to settle. Joseph slowly got to his feet as Emile continued to grope at his own arm and groan in pain. Joseph peered over their cover and saw that the raider was a few metres from them in another window that was out of the range of his radar because of where he was facing. Typical luck.

"Sit up." He told Emile as Martin began to climb down from his own building. Emile groaned and grunted as he raised himself up and sat with his back against the broken wall.

Joseph looked into his pack. Seven Stimpacks and three med-xs were left. He took the stimpack and stabbed it into his friends arm. The wound began to close up, and the bullet popped out with it, leaving behind a temporary scar on the surface of his skin that was still raw. He reached into his pack again and took out some disinfectant, rubbing the clear liquid on the still bloodied wound. Emile cringed as the stinging pain of the disinfectant set in.

Joseph looked down at his own injured arm and was relieved with how quickly it had healed.

"Thanks a million Joe…" Emile said as he breathed normally again.

Martin appeared beside them and crouched down. Joseph looked over at him and smiled.

"Let's go search the bodies and then get outta here." He said.