Hello everyone, hope you are doing well and that quarantine is not driving you crazy. In today's chapter, we'll see how Damian and his companions will make the kid escape from Paradise Falls
Berry, Hood and Damian had returned to Star Paladin Cross. When she saw them return without the children, she guessed that their mission did not go as planned.
"What happened?"
"We tried to negotiate the price for the children, but we didn't have enough," lamented Berry.
"So, what do we do?" Cross asked. "If we leave them here, who knows what will happen to them and we lose our access to Little Lamplight."
"Tonight. We get them out tonight."
Everyone turned to Damian. He, Berry and Hood had already agreed to infiltrate the slave base under cover of night. As they left the market, Damian had spotted an armory near the door. He stopped there and was able to buy a silencer for his assault rifle and some magazines.
"It's just as risky," Cross replied. "But I don't think we have a choice. You and Berry will go. Hood and I will wait for you as close as we can and if anything goes wrong, we'll intervene."
Damian nodded. He knew that if their operation to get the children out of Paradise Falls failed, they would either join the slaves in the pens or be executed.
Damian and Berry had snuck up to the wall. The light from the campfires projected an orange aura into the ink-black sky, turning Paradise Falls into a lighthouse in the night. The two men checked their weapons one last time. Damian had installed the silencer on his assault rifle. Cross had also provided them with two small radios with earpieces. This way they could communicate with her and each other once inside.
Berry stood at the foot of the wall of one of the buildings in the complex and turned towards Damian. He motioned for him to come closer. Damian stepped on the Knights thigh which propelled him up. Damian glanced around and signaled to the Knight that the way was clear. He stepped over the small ledge of the roof and helped Berry up.
"I'm going to stay on the roof," said Berry. "From there I should be able to monitor the area for you and provide fire support, in case shit hits the fan. You'll have to go through the main entrance to get out. I'll notify the Star Paladin and Alice and tell them to stand by the entrance and provide the fire support necessary for your escape."
"Here," said Damian.
He handed him his assault rifle. If the Knight were to cover him, a weapon with a silencer would be more effective than his laser rifle. Berry shook his head and designated his laser rifle with a smile.
"I more of an energy weapons type of guy. But you, use this instead."
He pointed to Damian's trench knife.
"A silencer is good, but nothing beats a classic sharp blade."
Killing someone with a gun was an easy thing to do. Pulling the trigger, hearing the shot, and the person would die instantly. A knife was a different story. To feel at the end of your arm, the life of the person you stabbed leave your body, looking this person in the eyes and seeing up close, the mask of terror and incomprehension on their face. Damian had lost count of the things he had killed since he had left the Vault. He had shot and killed many people, but he had never had to do it with a knife. He took a deep breath and turned towards the slave camp.
"We stay in contact," Berry said, pointing to the earpiece on his radio. "Good luck and if things get out of hand you get out of here asap."
Damian nodded. He watched the Knight climb onto the roof of the building next to them.
They were next to the pens. The small square where the sale had been held, in front of the cinema, was lit by a campfire and a slaver was sitting facing the blaze, turning his back on them. Damian approached the fence of the children's enclosure. He looked over his shoulder. The slaver seemed bored stiffly and stared at the flames yawning.
"This guy looks like he's having the time of his life," Berry's voice joked in Damian's ear.
Damian picked up a small pebble and threw it into the pen. After a few second, he did it again. The young boy he'd been talking to came out of a building that was to be their barrack.
"I can't believe you're back," the boy whispered, smiling.
"You said your friend had a plan," Damian answered.
The boy motioned for him to wait. He walked away to the barracks and went inside. A few seconds later, he returned with the other boy.
"Sammy says I have to tell you about the plan, mungo, so listen carefully. We need to disable those collars if we're gonna get out. I found an old computer in the building that I was able to turn back on. The mungos use a terminal to manage the collars, so if you can link the two terminals, I can disable the collars without anyone noticing."
"Okay," said Damian. "Where's that computer?"
"It's their boss who takes care of it," answered Squirrel.
He pointed the finger at the cinema.
"Perfect," Damian sighed. "Are you sure there's no other way?"
"No," the boy replied shaking his head. "It's this or nothing."
"So, let's say I link the terminals together, what's next?"
"The other day we spotted a small tunnel in the toilet over there."
The boy pointed to a building on the right.
"It'll be big enough for us but not for the mungo so we can get out quietly."
Damian activated his radio to talk.
"Did you hear that Berry?"
"Yeah," sizzled the Chevalier's voice. "I don't like it."
"I have to try," says Damian.
Damian did not listen to Berry's answer and headed for the cinema.
"You're a real stubborn fool. Don't move, I'm here to help you."
"No," Damian objected. "Stay where you are and watch the area. If we both get trapped in this theater, it's the end."
He heard Berry sigh. Damian approached the guard by the campfire. He recognized Forty, with his little crest and his khaki combat armor. The slaver mumbled to himself and fanned the fire in front of him. Damian approached silently.
"Franklin."
Damian was startled. Berry's voice had just echoed through his earpiece.
"The bridge with the thorny ball. A guard by the .50 cal MG."
Damian looked in the direction indicated by Berry. Right next to the strange sea urchin-shaped sign, another slaver was sitting next to a heavy machinegun. Mounted on a tripod, the gun was pointed at the entrance, but it was a good bet that it could be pointed at Damian in no time.
"The knife," Berry's voice said in the earpiece.
Damian lowered his eyes to the holster on his leg. He grabbed the handle and slowly slid the blade out of the case.
He was only inches away from the slaver who continued to mumble and stare at the flames. Damian was already imagining the guard struggling with the blade stuck in his body and him struggling to kill him quickly.
Forty raised his arms yawning and stretched out. Damian jumped down on him in a split second. He put his hand over the mouth of the slaver and at the same time pushed the serrated blade into his neck. Damian felt the spasm that went through the slaver spread into his arms and his whole body. He could literally feel the life leaving the body of Forty. Damian turned the blade and heard the skin and flesh tearing. A thick stream of black blood flowed from the wound and permeated Damian's hand and the slaver's clothes.
It was over in less than five seconds. Damian felt the body of Forty collapse. He accompanied him in his fall, so that the heavy combat armor he was wearing would not make a sound when it hit the ground.
Damian gently pulled the body out of the fireplace. He looked up at the second guard. His silhouette stood out slightly in the night sky. He hadn't heard his companion die and hadn't yet noticed Damian's presence.
Damian approached the cinema door. He didn't know what he would find inside and prepared his assault rifle.
"I'm going in," he said as he turned the knob on the door.
"Good luck," answered the Knight in the radio.
He entered a large entrance hall. Sculpted columns supported a balcony that ran around the hall. Opposite the door, the old cinema counter, framed by two openings to access the projection room, now served as a bar. In one corner of the room, cages piled up, probably waiting for their next unfortunate tenant. On the floor, fluorescent green mushrooms were growing and spreading a small glow. The marble walls were strewn with movie posters, pre-war propaganda or advertisements for stores in the mall or the region.
Damian could hear shouts coming from the next room. He walked into the entrance on the right. The projection room was a large room measuring maybe twelve by ten meters. Two rows of three marble columns supported the ceiling. A black and white tile floor, slightly damaged, gave the room a rather luxurious appearance. The slavers had installed two construction site projectors to light the room. An old video projector, on a table, casted a pale beam of white light against the wall. The back wall was decorated with a human skeleton hanging by its feet. The red leather benches had been removed or pushed to the side to make way for a large heart-shaped bed with white sheets and a flamboyant red blanket.
Around the bed, empty alcohol bottles, cigarette butts and empty syringes laid on the floor. A small table surrounded by chairs, next to a motorcycle in perfect condition, was covered with alcohol bottles and glasses.
Tied to the bed with ropes and gagged, Damian recognized Eulogy's two bodyguards, dressed only in their explosive collars. The chief of the slavers, also naked as a worm, was lying on top of one of the two women and swiftly moved back and forth with his pelvis.
Damian grimaced and scanned the room. In the right corner he noticed a table against a wall and next to it a computer, connected to the wall.
Eulogy straightened up and stood up. He walked over to the small table and poured himself a large glass of whisky. Damian entered the room. He noticed a door on his right leading to a staircase that probably led to the balcony of the hall and the terrace of the cinema. Damian glanced around and saw no one. He walked towards Eulogy. Eulogy turned around and opened his mouth when he saw Damian.
The young man threw the butt of his rifle into his stomach. Eulogy fell to his knees and massaged his stomach.
"I recognize you, you're the bodyguard of this guy and his wife. What the hell are you doing here? the slaver said after a moment.
"Shut up," Damian spat. "I'm here for the kids."
"You like those little monsters, don't you?" laughed Eulogy.
Damian kicked him in the jaw. The slaver fell on his side. Damian pulled the breech of his gun and put the silencer on Eulogy's head.
"If you're not dead yet it's because I need you to deactivate the children's explosives collars."
"Fuck you..."
Damian punched Eulogy and grabbed him by the neck before dragging him to the terminal.
"Connect this computer to the one in the slave barracks."
"What terminal?"
Eulogy didn't move. Damian pressed the barrel of his gun to his head.
"Obey., unless you want me to spray your brain on that wall."
The slaver growled and lit the terminal. He unlocked it and started working on it.
Damian was sweating profusely. He glanced nervously at the door leading to the terrace stairs and the entrance. He surprised himself. When he came out of the Vault, he couldn't imagine what he would have to do to find James. Today, he was holding a man at gunpoint to save children from a gang of slavers. He felt he was becoming as ruthless as the world around him.
"It's done," Eulogy spat.
Damian pressed his little radio and started talking.
"How does it look out there, Berry?"
"Don't see any changes… Uh… Wait, the kids just removed their collars, but they're still in the pen.
"Where are the keys?"
Damian pushed the barrel of his gun a little more against his head until he pointed to his red suit jacket hanging from a chair.
"You're not getting out of here, you..."
Damian wouldn't let him finish his sentence. Eulogy had slid his hand over a bottle of booze to hit Damian. The sound of the gun with the silencer was heard and the bullet entered Eulogy's skull from behind and his face exploded, drawing black patterns on the wall and table. The body of the slaver collapsed at Damian's feet.
Damian searched the slaver's suit and pulled out a small bunch of keys, which he put in the pocket of his fatigues. He approached the bed. Still tied up, the two women seemed to be in a state of disarray. He looked one last time at Eulogy's corpse. The contempt and hatred he felt for him and his men grew even greater.
He put his assault rifle on his shoulder and began to loosen the bonds of one of Eulogy's slaves. He turned to the second slave's bonds when he received a blow to the head. Damian swung to the side. He raised his head. Clover had jumped on her feet and was running at him. She slapped Damian and left a big scratch on his cheek. The woman waved her arms as if she wanted to scratch his face and pierce his eyes off. He grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the ground.
"Stop! I'm here to save you!"
Clover alternated his gaze between the corpse of Eulogy and Damian. His eyes shone with fury and hatred. Damian had completely forgotten that when they first met, Eulogy had bragged about brainwashing the two young women.
Crimson was struggling like a possessed woman to free herself from her bonds and was making hysterical squeals. Clover sent a knee bump into Damian's flanks, forcing him to roll on his side. His rifle fell from his shoulder. Clover threw herself on the gun and pointed it at him.
Damian plunged behind one of the columns. The bullets were flying in his direction. The whistle of the silencer sounded incredibly loud to him. He could feel the pieces of marble flying around him.
The gun magazine was empty. Clover kept frantically pulling the trigger, hoping to magically fire another round. Damian left his cover and grabbed a bottle of liquor from a table and hit the woman on the head. She collapsed on the bed, pieces of glass embedded in her temple and blood slowly spilled on the sheets. Crimson had just released one of her hands. She was about to remove her gag and scream for help. Damian draw his silenced pistol and fired. The woman barely had time to hiccup before the bullet ripped her throat.
She collapsed next to her companion, trying to breath and call for help. Damian sighed long and lowered his gun. He ran his hand over his sweat-soaked face.
"Franklin? Are you in there? What the hell are you doing?"
Berry's voice crackled on his radio.
"Yes, I'm here. I'm coming out," Damian said.
"Stop loitering. Hood found the access to the escape tunnel the kids are going through. She'll pick them up and meet us and Cross when it's over. »
"Roger that."
Damian wiped his face again and headed for the exit. When Berry saw him come out, he waved his hand. The guard was still beside the machine gun and, to Damian's relief, didn't seem to have heard the confrontation with Eulogy's two slaves. Damian returned to the pen and unlocked the door.
The children were immersed in a discussion. The two boys seemed to be arguing up on the little girl, who nodded her head to indicate her disagreement on a specific subject.
"What's going on?" Damian asked, turning the key in the lock. "The way is clear, we have to go."
"It's Penny," sighed one of the boys. "She's being dumb."
"What's going on?" said Berry impatiently on the radio.
"Penny, we've got to go," whispered the Squirrel.
"No, I don't want to go without Rory."
The little girl had her arms folded and was pouting. Damian sighed. He was starting to lose patience and to hate the three child who where going to get them killed.
"Where's Rory?" he asked in a slightly annoyed tone.
"In the Box. The mungos locked him in because he was giving them shit."
"If Rory can't leave, then I'm staying," the little girl sulked.
"I'll go get him," sighed Damian. "You go ahead."
The two boys took Penny to the tunnel. The little girl kept staring at Damian as he walked towards the Pulowski shelter. The slavers had modified the lock and installed an old rusty padlock to keep the shelter sealed. Damian tried not to think about how a child might feel, locked in that place for hours.
He tried several keys until he found the good one an turned it into the padlock before removing it. He slid the door open, praying the squeaky metal wouldn't attract the guard's attention. Damian was hit on the chin and stumbled.
A man in his thirties stood in front of him, wearing a black hooded sweater and a lattice with boots. With graying hair and a goatee that needed trimming, he looked around him, his fists clenched, ready to strike at anything that came within his reach.
"Slaver bastard," cried the man.
"Rory."
Damian turned his head. Penny had just run towards them. She hugged the man, obviously very embarrassed by the physical contact.
"We're escaping," the little girl said. "Hurry up, come on."
"But… What about the explosives collars?" Rory asked.
"Off," Damian grunted, massaging his chin. "Now we have to get out of here and pray that you didn't attract the attention of whole Paradise Falls."
Rory looked sorry.
"You should get out of here, kid," said Rory, gently pulling Penny away from him and smiling.
"Be careful," said the little girl.
She ran to join the two boys and they disappeared into the toilet.
"Hum… I'm sorry about..."
"Yeah, yeah," Damian grumbled.
He motioned for Rory to follow him quietly. They walked past the movie theater. When they got to the footbridge and the guard, Damian motioned for Rory to stop.
"Wait till I take care of him," Damian whispered. "Then you go to the door and I'll meet you there. I have friends on the other side waiting for us."
Rory nodded. Damian took a deep breath. A quick glance at Berry told him that he was still there and would cover him if needed.
Damian approached silently. The slaver turned his back and seemed to be admiring the stars. He wasn't wearing any armor. Damian drew his knife. He climbed the stairs. Only a few centimeters more. The slaver turned around. Damian pushed the blade into his body. The man hiccupped with surprise and pain. He looked into Damian's eyes.
Damian felt absolutely nothing. No satisfaction, no sadness. Just, emptiness. The slaver's face took on an expression of incomprehension. For a moment, Damian thought about the fact that the world he had been putted into after his father's escape had finally perverted and defiled him. He had killed so many people and mutant creatures since his escape from the Vault, that the guilt, sadness and self-loathing he had experienced in killing Officer Kendall had evaporated. Killing had become like an everyday routine, a mean to survive in the Wasteland.
He began to doubt that killing Autumn and Eden would make him feel better or would just add two more names to a list that seemed to grow longer day by day.
The little glimmer of life in the slaver's eyes had vanished. His body fell to the bridge. Damian made sure the body didn't make too much noise when it fell and put away his knife. He got up and turned towards Rory. Rory was crouching behind the pool table in front of the movie theater. Damian motioned for him to come over.
Rory got up and walked towards the entrance. Damian saw the movie theater door open. Clover jumped out of the door, still naked, a thin trickle of blood dripping from her temple, holding a 44 Magnum revolver with a scope in her hands. She looked around, her face distorted by rage and pain, and probably by drugs and alcohol, and saw Rory running. She clumsily raised the gun and fired.
"Damn it! Where she hell does she comes from? ", sizzled Berry's voice over the radio.
Damian grabbed his rifle and aimed. Clover fired a second shot. The bullet went right through Rory in the middle of his back. He stumbled and laid on the dusty ground.
Berry was faster than Damian. The laser beam from his rifle hit the woman in the chest. She collapsed, a gaping hole in place of her heart.
Outside, Damian could hear laser discharges and a few shots. Cross and Hood were engaging the guards at the entrance to facilitate their escape.
Damian could hear Paradise Falls waking up. Berry's voice was screaming in his ear to run away. He saw the doors to one of the buildings open. Slavers were running outside, armed with hunting rifles, pistols or assault rifles, half-dressed or in their underwear, and were looking around at who was crazy enough to attack them.
Damian grabbed the heavy machine gun and turned it toward the slavers. One of the slavers saw him and screamed, while aiming his rifle at Damian. Damian pulled the trigger.
The roar of the .50 caliber silenced all other noises. Damian's hands and arms vibrated as the gun fired and a new round was fired. He didn't even have to aim. All he had to do was point the gun in the desired direction and fire.
The slavers who had come out of their bunkhouses were caught in the hail of lead and steel that rained on them. Between the flashes of the cannon, Damian could see the cartridges, the size of his hand, snap into place one after the other, and spun, sometimes in the form of a small red projectile, towards the slavers. The power of the weapon was such that the bodies of the slavers were sprayed in a thick red mist, half of their skull blown away or their arms and legs torn off.
The bullets pierced through the bodies, the concrete, the metal, the wood, chopping the slavers as they tried to hide behind their dead comrades or inside the building. Blood mingled with the shards of bone and concrete that flew as the bullets hit the entrance to the barracks.
Damian only released the trigger when the machinegun was out of ammo. He could still feel the muscles in his hands and arms vibrating and his ears buzzing. A shapeless pile of blood and human pieces littered the entrance to the dormitory. Mild groans of pain escaped from it, quickly choked by the scraping concrete of the crumbling walls.
"Franklin!"
Damian startled and looked over his shoulder. Berry was still standing on the roof.
"The entrance is secured."
"I… I'll meet you there."
Damian looked at the pile of bodies and stepped off the bridge and headed for the entrance. On his way, he stopped to examine Rory. The man was dead. Damian sighed and closed the eyes of Rory before exiting the slaver's fortress.
The two guards he'd argued with earlier were dead. Hood was standing with the three kids and waiting for him. Cross stood slightly to one side, scanning the Wastes with the night vision of her helmet.
Penny turned to Damian and smiled broadly. Her smile faded as she realized that Rory was not there and that he would not come. The little girl looked sad, but, to Damian's surprise, didn't cry.
"What happened inside?" Hood asked.
Berry, who was already there, took a brief look at Damian before answering.
"One of Eulogy's slave-bodyguards killed a slave we tried to save, which awakened the rest of the slavers. Franklin used one of their .50 cal against them," he said. "The bastards didn't see it coming."
Hood cast a preoccupied glance at Damian who was crouched in front of Penny.
"I'm sorry, Penny, but... Rory is..."
The little girl nodded sadly.
"Hey, mungos!
Damian and the others turned to the boys.
"We'd like to go home now."
There is no .50 cal MG in vanilla game nor in Paradise Falls, but there is one on the concept art for Fallout 3 so I decided to put it and make Damian use it.
Hope you enjoyed and until next time.
