An auditorium. Filled with people, all dressed in business attire. They were all chatting, talking about the nuances and details of their work. Official things. Having a great time, a party while waiting for something. Above them was a fish tank, a massive ceiling of glass and water holding hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and their almost extinct inhabitants. The auditorium was located about 6 kilometers below ground, because this was the year 2252 and above them was an irradiated wastleland. The party-goers did not care for the world above them though. Not for their suffering, not for their harsh conditions. They only cared for purging it completely and remaking it to their own wishes.
In this, Vault-Tec and the Enclave were partners. But Vault-Tec held only one goal, and that was to satisfy the wishes of a higher power: the Vault Tec Supreme Facility.
Somewhere in the world, deep beneath the surface of the Earth lay the central cog of the surviving company. Today, they were to witness another demonstration of something to further their leaders goals.
Today, supposedly, was the day they could look to a future aboveground.
Suddenly, a tall man strolled from behind the curtain on the stage. He quickly stepped up to the very front of the stage and nervously faced the auditorium full of people expecting him to say something great, something wonderful. People were taking notice of his appearance, although the majority continued to to talk and laugh and in some cases sing. It was a real party.
The tall man looked upon the crowd, seemed to mentally shake himself, and he put on a grand smile. He turned on the microphone and made sure there were no technical difficulties. God forbid something failed him today, he would have to be absolutely perfect. He glanced nervously at a far corner of the auditorium and saw a group of older men, in their fifties or sixties. All wore business suits, all wore no-nonsense grimaces. The board of directors.
He pasted his smile back on, it was time for the show.
"Ladies and Gentleman of Vault-Tec. Good evening to you all, and welcome to the show!" he said with excitement and raised hands.
All attention was turned to him, but everyone was clapping and cheering. Drinks were raised, toasts were made.
"We have all been waiting for so long to return to the world above. The hostile environment Earth has become has prevented us from sharing in the stories our parents and grandparents told us."
The auditorium grew deathly quiet. Melancholy almost.
He went on in a soothing tone. "Of green trees packed together in lush forests, of open seas and cool winds. Of high mountains capped with snow!"
His last words captured the audience profoundly. Every one of them had a childlike fascination, a curiousity of snow.
He bathed in it. He had them eating out of his hands.
"My name is James Mcarthy," he announced, "and I am proud to say that today, were are only two steps away from making our dreams come true!"
The audience erupted into a catastrophic explosion of sound. Such a small number was keeping them from the hopes and dreams their parents had given them, such a small number.
"And it is all thanks to you of course!" James laughed, starting to clap, "with your help and support, your research and your hard work, we are ready to reap the rewards."
The crowd applauded some more.
"Now I am happy, ecstatic, elated to show you the first building block of our future." he made a gesture to the curtain behind him.
In the back of the stage the red curtain was rolled up, revealing a large shadowed object, covered in massive cords and coils and machinery, all connecting, all powering something.
"I reveal to you the tool we will send out into the wasteland and retrieve the fabled G.E.C.K, which we know as a fact to be real. I reveal to you your hard work and your perseverance in its final form."
The crowd hushed down, anxiously waiting for him to get on with it.
"I reveal to you," he said with much granduer, "the H.I.T.S Project!"
The lights in the back turned on revealing a monstrosity.
Present Day
Hits spit on Elyttas corpse and glared at the remaining gang of slavers. He then raised his bloody hand and clenched it threateningly.
"Anyone want to be next?" he growled. The slavers continued to stare in shock at the still-warm body in front of them. None of them dared to move too quickly as they switched their gaze to the man in front of them and shook their heads in the negative.
Hits was still mad. "I don't want to kill anyone else if I don't have to. So, please tell me that you weren't apart of her world."
The slavers just eyed his bloody fist and Elyttas body.
"I know a little something about slaver organization. How the collectors have nothing to do with treatment of slaves. I'm giving you a chance to live."
They couldn´t understand him very well, the slavers were still disoriented from the speed and brutality of Elyttas death.
Hits got bored waiting.
Faster than anyone can think, Hits had jumped in front of Jimmy and grabbed his collar, lifting him into the air and slamming him against a rotten wall!
"TELL ME NOW!" Hits screamed into his face.
"FINE!" Jimmy yelled right back, Hits' sudden action surprising him into sensibility again, "If you hadn't pulled your gory bullshit right there, I would've popped her myself." he managed to say clearly despite being choked.
Hits glared at him, a little surprised at his answer.
"I swear I would've killed her. She's been a shit-stain on our asses for too long. And I didn't even know about the shit she was talking about."
Jimmy decided to glare right back at the dangerous man, daring Hits to kill him. It got tense, the other slavers fearfully watching them stare each other down.
Hits looked into Jimmys eyes. He growled, and dropped the man. Jimmy stared up from the ground at Hits as he turned away.
"Same goes for everyone here, man. All we did, ever, was collect and return. We had no idea what happened afterward."
Hits sighed and glanced at the fresh corpse.
"And her?"
"She was assigned to our gang a couple months ago. Team leader. Happened when the call went out for Red, she got real excited. Wanted to be assigned a team for herself, and we were the lucky ones." Jimmy groaned as he stood up from the dirt, and dusted himself off.
"I swear he´s telling the truth" Rachel hesitantly offered. She stepped forward and offered her gun to Hits. "If you don´t want to believe us take my gun and kill me now" she said confidently now, with conviction. Hits watched as the slave collectors stepped forward and dropped their weapons, all afraid, all confident.
Hits sighed again and gave them all a sideways glance. They were certainly unlike the greedy scum he had come across in the wastes. They seemed more like...vaguely...good people?
"I'm not going to kill any of you." Hits stated fiercely. He had a better idea. "You!" he pointed at the man he had thrown up against a wall, "what's you name and why are you a slaver?"
Jimmy gave a small smile and stood straight proudly. "My name is Jemmerick Wiles. Friends call me Jimmy. My mother was sick at Rivet City and I didn't have enough caps to pay for her hospital bill. It disgusted me, but I had to go into the slaving business. For her." Hits nodded in respect and glared at the girl who had spoken up. She too smiled and declared with a cheeky grin, "Rachel Yahnday, Mr. Hits sir! I was a freshly captured slave myself before I managed to kill a slaver recruit and take her place. Of course, after that I had to keep up the ruse or else those assholes would probably figure out where their escaped slave got to. Didn't even recognize me when I put on my fancy new leather clothes!" she finished with a wink.
Hits smiled and repeated his mini-interrogation with the rest of the gang. There was the other Jimmy, who was kicked out of home when he was twelve because he was interested more in pre-war computers instead of the families business in trying to sell mole-rat meat. "Got an uncle, Ryan Briggs," Jimmy commented, "asshole literally would drag me to his mole-rat sites to help him with his crazy experiments." Jimmy had nowhere else to go, and ended up making caps slaving.
There was Ralph Moyers who was wounded out on the wastes by a deathclaw and nursed back to health by a gang of collectors. "They were impressed I survived the attack, and told me to join their troupe, or become a slave myself. So I played the part and punched the man square in the face and told him they could try and make me NOT join their gang and I'd kill them all. These idiots are all impressed by a show of force."
Next was the man with the broken nose, Andy Detler, who made a bet with a bunch of friends that he could make himself look like enough of a badass that the slavers would let him join. "I was drunk, and poor. But convincing. The only problem was you couldn't change your mind and back out. They're like a freaking cult."
Hits just rubbed the bridge of his nose in disappointment of humanity and told Andy he was a dumbass.
"Shit, I know!" Andy relented, "But I'm a dumbass who finished off that deathclaw, am I right guys?" he shouted and fished around for a high five. Nobody gave him one and he pouted for a bit.
"Wow, well all of you sound like you had some pretty crazy stories in which you're all the victims" Hits said with doubt. "How the hell did you find yourself in the same group?"
Rachel spoke up again. "Well, we all met at Paradise Falls when we pretty much saw through each others disguises. It was the little things normal people would do that the slavers wouldn't you know? Like, glasses Jim pulled my chair out for me when I went to sit down, and Ralph picked up the tab for Andy when he was a few caps short at the bar. We all noticed and we got to talking."
Hits didn't like trusting people too much. The screwed up crap he'd seen in the wasteland thus far was evidence enough that good morals were dead or dying. But the events of the day got to him. As he stood there with his arms folded and a frown creasing his face, he decided he was going to take a shot at his little idea.
"Okay lady and gents, I'm still not convinced that I should let you all go. But I have been somewhat...persuaded." he said with a hint of mystery. He walked past them and pointed off vaguely to the west. "About half a mile from here you'll find a cluster of boulders that form a kind of triangle shape. All your weapons are stashed there. You may go collect them." he said as he nodded at them to pick up their dropped weapons. The slavers breathed sighs of relief and pocketed their small arms from the dirt.
"But I want you to wait there for me. I have some business to take care of here, then I'm coming back. If you're still there, hey, I'll trust you a bit more and we get to have another chat. If you truly want to get out of the slaving business like you say, you will wait for me."
He nodded at them to leave. They all nodded back, an understanding between the six of them. The collector team set off over the gravel hill, into the sunset to collect their weapons.
Hits watched as the last collectors silhouette fell behind the rise, then turned around and walked past Elyttas body. He passed the fallen telephone pole where the slavers took cover, and he stooped by the ancient road to collect his other bag of tricks where it fell next to the body of the behemoth he mutilated. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he cursed as he almost slipped in a puddle of blood. He strolled over to where the Big Towners were, grinding his left boot heel into the dirt with each step trying to get the blood off of it.
"Hits? That you man?" called Flash from behind a old door.
"Yeah, it's me. Hey I have to talk to you guys, can you all come out here?" he called back as he dropped his pack and sat on the ground with a grunt. Felt nice to be off his legs.
The Big Towners filed cautiously out of the building, leering around and making sure there weren't any more threats before letting down their guard. Flash, Dusty, Kimba, Red, Shorty, the recovered Timebomb, Pappy and Bittercup (called back from the house she was hiding in) lined up and looked inquisitively at Hits.
He sighed. "Red, remember the conversation I struck up when we were being shot at?"
Red nodded. "Yeah, I was wondering why you were trying to talk at such a bad time.."
"Well," Hits interrupted, "I told you everything I went through today because it was all untrue. I haven't been honest with you guys."
He paused and watched their reactions. They looked a little surprised, but that was it.
He continued, "To tell you the truth, today I met a bunch of slavers looking for you, Red. When they told me how many caps you were worth I decided to help them out."
Now shock and rage crossed all of their faces. Dusty looked like he was about to shout but Hits raised his hand to signal for him to wait.
"I busted you out of the super mutant stronghold and then took on a behemoth. I felt I had really earned the money. But when it got to a point where I could have kidnapped you and handed you over, I realized what I was doing. That shits not me. Alright? I had a moment of weakness, and then I grew out of it."
He snapped his fingers, a sound that echoed through the dark empty streets.
"Like that."
He paused again, but this time they waited for him to continue on their own, looking significantly less peeved.
"So I walked out to meet with my 'partners' and I told them they could fuck off. The leader didn't like that."
He raised his fist with drying blood all over it and showed it to them.
"I took care of that problem. You guys have nothing more to worry about. And you, Red, will soon have absolutely nothing more to worry about. I'm working up a bit of an idea for the slavers at Paradise Falls." he finished with an evil smile. The others smiled in return, remembering their hate for the monsters at the old car dealership.
"All I want to say now is that I'm sorry. You can hate me if you want, I won't blame you." he said sheepishly, and hung his head in surrender.
It was quiet for a moment, and Hits hoped they forgave him.
Then, "Are you KIDDING?!"
Hits looked up and saw Shorty step forward.
"You took out a fucking behemoth! You blew up the Germantown headquarters, AND you said fuck you to a bunch of slavers and lived."
Shorty held his hand out and smiled. "Dude, you're a crazyass bastard I want on MY side. Get the fuck up of the ground, it doesn't deserve to have your ass on it."
"Of course I forgive you. Shit, I all but love you after what you've done for us." Red said with a wink as Hits took Shortys hand and was hoisted back onto his feet.
"You're the man, man. I only hope you'll stick around for a bit," Flash shot in.
Bittercup hopped up close to Hits and looked up at him with big adoring eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have a girlfriend or anything would you?"
Hits winked at her as Pappy chimed in, "Have to say I doubted you at first. Doesn't matter what you started out doing, what matters is what ended up happening. You're alright by me." Hits looked over to Dusty and he gave Hits a smile and a thumbs up. Hits took a moment to realize just how much this moment of acceptance, of forgiveness hit him. When was the last time he felt this happy? When was the last time he was surrounded by this many people who actually liked him. He was speechless for a bit as everyone recounted the events of the day with much exaggeration and funny explosion sounds.
Then he realized something. "Where is Serah?" he asked suddenly.
Everyone stopped talking and spun to face him.
Flash was the first to say something, "actually, I haven't seen her since after you killed the behemoth."
"In all the action I figured she had found a vantage point and was shooting at the slavers like the rest of us."
Hits got frustrated with how much they didn't know. "Where was she the last time you saw her?!"
Red told him to follow her to the back of the building and pointed up to the roof. "She was up there with us in the corner. She was at the edge, she stayed put after we helped her up."
Hits looked around and inspected the area. He examined the earth and almost threw up.
He stooped low and picked something up.
"What's that?" Red asked. "A nailboard," said Hits hollowly, "ancient cedar."
Red froze. Then relaxed. "Don't worry, it's just from the side of the building. These houses are crumbling, there's always debris-"
"NO!" screamed Hits and he shot up and clenched the nailboard tightly, splintering it where his fingers dug in. "Look, the wood on the board is lighter than the house. This came from somewhere else." Hits choked on his words and crushed the nailboard completely under his grip. Red gasped and watched as the man slowly stood up, quivering with rage. He faced her and she almost fainted.
His eyes were tinged with a glowing bright green.
"I'll be back," he snarled, his voice dripping with malice. Then he sprinted off into the growing darkness.
He hoped he wouldn't find a nightmare.