Pipe Gun Dreams
A Fallout 4 shortfic
You can contact me at
tsommer
My works are stored at
and a03
As usual I do not own the right to Fallout 4.
Writer's Note: Been a while since I used a first-person narrative. It's also been a while since I played the game so I might get a map detail wrong. But I think I remember it pretty solidly
Now let's begin.
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The time of the Raiders is at an end.
I used to be terrified of them, the way nearly everyone is. When Raiders pop up, best to give them what they want and they probably won't kill you. Maybe won't kill you. It depends on the gang. Some only want your stuff. Others want your stuff and your life. Hell, some of them want to wear your skin. Raiders are everywhere. All directions. Gang here. Gang there. Gangs way out where you'll never travel to. Can hardly go anywhere without tripping over them. They aren't organized enough to run the show, but they sort of de facto do.
No longer.
I heard from a number of people some woman's going around cleaning them out. Zeller's Army. Used to harass traders running out of Bunker Hill: gone. That Tom guy who hangs out in Beantown Brewery with his boys: wiped out. Even heard from the Warwick's who heard from the Abernathy's that she took care of some Raider base with a character named 'Ackity-Ack' or something.
And she did it all with just a dog.
And so the truth comes out: Raiders ain't special after all. You don't have a bunch of different gangs get wiped out singlehandedly then say they're tough guys. They aren't. It's all a bunch of bluff and bluster. And I fell for it.
Well not anymore. I'm getting into the game as well. Got a place all picked out. Red Tourette has a bunch of food stored at her base a good ways north of here. I'm laying claim to it before that lady does. All I got to do is clear out the place. Piece of cake. Maybe there's even cake there since they have a bunch of food. Once I get my hands on it, I'll probably strike a deal with some of the Bunker Hill traders to ship the stuff toward Diamond City or something. Who can't use food? I mean besides a synth. I'll be buried in caps, instead of never having more than a few in a pocket. Like now. Maybe a dozen at best. Well, poverty is about to become history.
So I make ready to set out for the place. I got a pretty good idea of where it is. West of that weird building people keep trying to loot but keep disappearing instead. North of where I am. It won't take too long if I travel the roads. Which I'm going to do most of the way.
I grab my pipe rifle and all my ammo. Get the pieces of leather armor I scrounged off dead people and fixed up. It doesn't cover my left leg or right arm, but I shoot left anyhow. No big deal. It'll be enough. Too much slows you down anyway. I grab some food too, since you can't always find good stuff on the road. You trip over wild tatos when you don't need them, can never find them when you're hungry.
So I close the door on the ruins of the pre-war building I call home. Don't need a lock since I have nothing valuable left to steal. Not even food since I'm taking all but the rotted stuff with me. Visions of eating well for the rest of my life run through my head. I'll definitely keep a healthy portion of the food for myself.
I start up slogging my way north, following the road along the river. I avoid the boathouse place where the crazy lady lives. Don't feel like getting shot at by her. At least she usually gives you a warning rather than opening fire when she sees you. I figure I'll cross the river just south of the destroyed bridge next to that radio tower that has those folks in it.
As I head north I keep an eye out, because only the dead don't pay attention to their surroundings. About an hour out I see a guy with a pack animal heading south. Maybe trading with the crazy lady. I get a little closer and see he's a ghoul, so I increase my distance from him. Can't trust ghouls. Don't know how anyone does. Every single one of them is a ticking time bomb. I mean no kidding. All of them eventually go feral, and there's no telling when it'll happen. One moment you can be talking to them, then crunch, they go nuts and rip out your throat. I heard that happened to a guy once in that town in the city run by ghouls. Everyone's heard about it.
And ferals are dangerous. I know that firsthand. Clint came by a while ago and had me back him up in Jamaica Plains. The place is crawling with ghouls. Would never go near it, but he lives nearby and always keeps an ear open for suckers who hear about the 'Treasure of Jamaica Plain' and go there thinking they're going to scavenge a fortune. Only thing they find is what it's like to become feral food. He heard some dumb ass Raiders bragging about having some kind of 'map' that would lead them to the treasure there and then set off. Certain death, just like all the others.
Well, Clint immediately came to me and said he'd figure out where the bodies are and he'd split 60/40 with me. Ferals don't want goods so they always leave them on the corpses. You can get some good stuff off them, like my armor. Most of it came from a Jamaica Plain run. You always need someone with an extra set of eyes there since the place is crawling with ghouls. They can be tricky to spot since they don't talk and only make noise when they move. You think everything's fine since it's so quiet, then two of them come around a corner, see you before you see them, and the next thing you know you're in their digestive tract.
It didn't take him long to find the bodies. People tend to enter through the northern entrance on account of the street being so large. Three of the saps just lying there. Not one ghoul body. They were so inept they couldn't even take down a single ghoul. Raiders dangerous my ass. Of course Clint only finished up with one of the bodies when I earned my pay and saw a feral from my vantage point ambling toward him. We shot out of there like a couple of bats out of hell before the ghoul got too close. We could've handled a loner, but one shot tends to attract a pack of them when you're in Jamaica Plains. And once they get a whiff of you, you'd better run fast. I've seen packs chase people and they are persistent. One gal they chased for a mile before they brought her down. They don't get tired the way we do.
Raiders ain't dangerous, but ghouls are. Never mess with them.
I go across the river. I hate swimming. Your head's bobbing there, all out in the open, and you can't defend yourself. I have this fear of nearly making it to the opposite shore, then some guy with a gun pops out of a bush, lines up a shot, and boom, head explodes. But not this time. I make it across without incident. Not even going to catch a cold since it's a hot day and I'll dry out fast.
I go past that radio station that I hear is still running. I don't know since I don't have a radio that works. Had one three years ago, but it just stopped one day, and what do I know about fixing radios? Maybe Red has one. I'll have to look for it once I take them down.
I think more about the woman that's been wiping out the gangs. Hero of the Commonwealth if you ask me. I think I heard she hangs out with Minutemen sometimes. Those guys are losers. I heard from a survivor from Quincy that when the Gunners showed up, they steamrolled those Minutemen bums. They didn't put up a fight worth a damn and the next thing you know, everyone's running for their lives. And only the fastest got to keep them.
But to give credit where it's due: Gunners are *dangerous*. Everyone knows that. They're so dangerous you can't call them Raiders. They got their own name for themselves. I heard they took over some big building to the east of the radio station. They chase people off by shooting at them with a Fat Man. What sort of idiot would take on a group that outfits their guys with mini nuke launchers, I ask you? Straight up suicide. I do kind of wonder how that gal would fare against them.
So yeah, Gunners are tough enough to take down a town. Raiders? Nah. They can barely hold into a building.
So north, north, and more north I go. Further than I've ever been before. At least in this direction. It seems a lot drier than I'm used to, but this isn't near the ocean, so no surprise. Since I'll be taking over the Raiders' turf I'll need to get used to it. I hope the buildings are in good shape. I'm tired of having to patch broken ceilings all the time. During the worst rains, when you're asleep, that's when the roof gives and you end up more tired and more miserable than usual from having a river pour on you. Having a decent roof over your head is something people take for granted.
I pass by some weird collection of buildings that kind of look partially sunk in the river on my right. As I do so, I see a Super Mutant walking around. I head in the opposite direction. You do not mess with Super Mutants. They're way more dangerous than Gunners. Hell, they're more dangerous than anything. Bigger, stronger, faster, and with bad attitudes. They think they're superior to humans, and when it comes to physical stuff, I'm hard pressed to argue. I hear some of them are so tough they'll walk up to someone with a mini nuke and set it off by hand. Blows my mind. Luckily they're dumb as bricks. If it wasn't for that they'd probably be running everything, and we'd all be dinner in a meat bag. I've seen those at Super Mutant camps… when there aren't any around and from a far-off distance. Makes me want to puke just looking at them. No one in their right mind picks fights with Super Mutants, you just try to survive them when the big boys come calling. I even heard they run some town to the west. Near the Glowing Sea. Fight Deathclaws and Radscorpions all the time. I've never seen either of those, but from what I understand, most people that see them don't survive the experience, which is why folks don't talk about them firsthand much.
Super Mutants. Creatures from the Glowing Sea. Stuff of nightmares. All tough. Raiders don't even register next to those bad boys.
Finally I get close, at least according to the rough map I got. I decide to go off road since I don't want to be seen coming. Sure, vision's limited and you can't see far in the woods, but you can't be spotted either. Animals hang out here. Dogs and sometimes Bloatflys can be a pain. Bloodbugs, too. They tend to dart around a lot, but still killable. And all of them make for good eating. But I'm not hunting for food, I'm hunting far more valuable game.
I grab a quick bite, which is most of my remaining food, then continue. Eventually I come to a clearing and see one of the most bizarre sights in my life. It's several standing columns of wrecked cars piled on top of one another. High stacks. I have no idea why. It doesn't make sense. They can't be used for a shelter and stacking them that high took a lot of effort. They are easier ways to sell off the junk. Raiders sure as hell didn't do it. I have no idea what could.
I am kind of tempted to check them out, but it's starting to get pretty late and I got business to take care of. A little farther north, and I see it. Several buildings, some recently hand-made wooden ones, and some really sturdy prewar ones. Yeah, the big one is in great shape. Can't wait to make it my home. There's a tractor trailer in front of the camp, and I think I see an animal walking around there. Guard dog maybe? Best to give it a wide berth for now. I move through cover as far as I can, then dart across the road to get to the northern side of the encampment. No one sees me. Now I start scouting the area. I keep low and spot several guards. They look relaxed. Good. That'll make things easier.
I use a hill for cover to sneak in close to one of the recently crafted wooden buildings, since I saw some movement in it. I have a knife, so maybe I'll use that to take out this guy quietly. Be sneaky and cut down the odds, but hey, if some woman can single handedly take down entire gangs of Raiders, I can do the same.
I have my pipe rifle in one hand and drawn knife in the other. Guy's upright but with his back to me. Looks like patchwork armor, metal chest plate. Fifteen feet away maybe. I guess I'll drop the gun and stab him with the knife when I get close. Never slashed a throat before, but how hard can it be?
Two steps in my foot creaks on a slat of wood. Guy hears it and turns, sees me. I've still got surprise and my gun's in my hand. I drop the knife and take aim center mass just as he goes for a side arm. He gets it halfway up when I put a round in his chest. He goes backward and falls to the wooden floor. Yeah, just like I thought, it's easy. I aim out a window at some guy across the way. Line up my sights. It's a long shot and the sights aren't the best with a pipe gun, but I can make the sho-.
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Five bullets ripped through his chest, two exited out the back, decorating the wall behind him with blood. His body went straight to the floor.
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Red Tourette came out from the underground bunker where most of the Reserve's stockpile was stored. She had a modified combat rifle in hand and was decked out in full armor to meet whoever had been stupid enough to attack her base. It couldn't be Tom: he was dead at the hands of some newcomer to the Commonwealth. She'd sent a couple of the boys to see if Lilly was there, but they'd turned up nothing, including no body. So maybe she'd escaped and was waiting for things to calm down before returning. Red prayed she was.
Vazquez met her at the door. He was alert, but not tensed up like he was expecting gunfire. "What's the situation?"
"Looks like some scav moron decided to take us on. Alone. I sent Ron and Tierney to do a perimeter search, and the power armor is still on the rig, but it's looking like he was the only one."
"Casualties?"
"Morty took a round to the chest, but it was low caliber and didn't penetrate his chest plate. He's sore so we sent him to the infirmary. He's begging for drugs, but it's Morty so…."
"He can suffer." Morty had just cleaned up a bad jet addiction. He didn't need another one to replace it. "That's all?"
"Looks that way. We'll keep double guards posted just in case he was a scout, but from the looks of things, I'd swear he's some lone wolf that tried to take us on."
"An idiot of the highest order then." It was a miracle he hadn't slathered himself in bacon grease and went to shake hands with a Yao Guai. There were less painful and humiliating ways to commit suicide other than taking her gang on solo. Even Tom hadn't been that moronic. "Loot him. Dump the body far enough away I can't smell decomp." What a pointless hassle. It hadn't even been worth getting out of bed for this.
Some scav thinking he could take on Raiders? Her gang had done him a favor in offing him. Mess with Raiders and you ended up dead, dead, and more dead. Because if they weren't the toughest, she'd never have become one.
Another corpse, another day in the commonwealth. What was that saying about hell being repetition? What she needed was something interesting to happen for a change.
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[End fic.]
Just a little thing that occurred to me in that our characters exploits might inspire others to follow out course, but it doesn't mean they'll be successful at it. And an insight to how the more common folk of the Commonwealth deal with life. I think you can figure out the locations by my descriptions if you played the game enough.