Poet looked up at the sky, shades of green clouds swirled around as the sun glared back at him; the weight of the heated globe even bearing down upon the new upworlder.
It's fucking bright out here. He thought, along with so many other things.
The thought of so much space excited him and yet amped his fear, especially when he looked down at the earth.
It was scorched, just as they heard for so many years; the trees were now just standing corpses upon the rocky terrain, their skinny fingers reaching for the sickly atmosphere. The land below the hill he stood upon held the scattered remains of a town.
He was surprised the world wasn't just rocks floating in space.
He walked down the hill and took plenty more glances about the neighborhood ruins. Saw mailboxes and that sort, doors fallen to the ground, and a safe!
He pulled out some hair pins and his screw driver, using a trick he learned from Paul, who learned it from Butch or someone smarter. He didn't know, or even really care. Just wanted what was in the safe.
When the lock clicked, he pulled the safe open, only to find some items that barely looked of value. Mostly trash, like a few bottle caps. He sighed and shut it close, standing up from the dirt and walking forward once more.
He walked up to a red rocket, looking around for something, a sign of where to go. He saw a house that seemed untouched by the old world's devastation. As he walked closer to it, the sounds of his shoes moving the dust and scattered rock in the cracked asphalt, he saw the place was relatively Dusty looking, it's windows borded.
He placed his hand on the door knob, figuring it might be locked. To his surprise, it opened with barely a creek.
Inside the old house was the sound of music, something he wasn't expecting either. The room seemed clean enough, a bed sat made and bits of things sat around. Above the bed was a small shelf, sturdy wood work nailed to the wall. Poet saw the contents that sat upon it was a few chems called Psycho, which made him wonder if there was a soldier here once... Yet when he looked closer at them-
"What the hell are you doing here?!" He heard someone yell behind him. He turned quickly enough, would of been better if he unholstered his pistol like some western hero. But instead his eyes were the only thing he had aimed at person who crept on him; she was older than him, by the tone of her voice and the look on her eyes that were circled with some dark material.
Her hair was a pale silver, which he would wonder about later but at the moment he wondered how this would go, because in her hand was a kitchen knife. "Did that bastard Moriarty send you?"
"I don't even know anyone around here..." Poet said, frozen by the bed.
She looked behind him and then her strained eyes darted to him once more, her hand not loosening the clasp on her knife. "So what then? You some asshole here to rob me, huh?" She growled, looking at the gun at his side.
"Jesus, no!" He exclaimed. "I just wanted some shelter from outside."
"Get away from my shit." Her eyes narrowed at him, almost darker then the make-up she wore. Poet was confused, but he looked back at the assortment of chems behind him and she yelled "Did you not hear me, dipshit? Get. Away. From. My. SHIT."
Poet walked away from the bed and the items she was yelling about. When he did, she sheathed her blade in the belt of her ragged pants. Yet her fingers didn't leave the handle. "Alright kid. I'm seeing the blue suit. You're one of those people from the vault, huh?" Poet nodded, his mouth didn't move to respond. In fact it seemed to be shut tighter after the confrontation.
"Man you should of stayed there. Whatever they told you down in that hole is bull shit; the worlds nothing but trash."
Poet was leaned against the wall, frozen and staring at the floor. He internally scoffed I got that by all the dead trees. He couldn't really move, however. He felt frozen on the wall he sat on.
"Aw come on kid," he heard the woman call. "You ain't gotta act shaken up. I'm the least of your worries around here."
That's what's starting to scare me. He thought, finally standing up. "I'm sorry for coming into your home. I should be leaving-"The
"Wait kid," she sighed. She went to the other room and brought two glasses of nuka-cola. She slowly, hesitantly, handed him the warm glass bottle. "I guess your first day doesn't have to be all that bad. The rest of your life from here is gonna be shit though."
The warmth of the drink had made Poet feel rather dissatisfied with the drink, but he continued on. She sat on the couch and patted the other cushion, nodding to him. Poet slowly made his way over and sat by her, his gaze sitting on the uncleaned carpet.
"I'm Silver, by the way. That guy I thought sent you, he was, uh, my old boss. Asshole didn't want to let me go, thought sleeping with him would seal the deal but..." She chuckled grimly, shaking her head. "The basterd had this smile on his face and told me I'm still bound to work there. Fuck that, I thought, so I stole away most of his money and ran here."
Poet sat there listening to her, mostly just to be still for a moment as the events that took place were all settling into his head. He thought he should share something with his host, even if she was content with doing most of the sharing. "My names Poet... My dad left me in the vault. I don't know why he left, but the entire place went crazy and, well, I couldn't stay there anymore."
"Shit." Silver responded. The two were staring at the carpet together, thoughts swirling around. "That's pretty bad. Your dad sounds like an asshole, mines an asshole, he left when I was just a little girl. Mom sold her crotch out, I figured it was easy money."
"My dad didn't ever seem like one..." Poet quietly replied.
The woman only scoffed. "Kid, my dad didn't either. He'd only beat me and mom when he was drunk on whiskey, and high on that psycho shit. When he wasn't high, he was trying to get high. On whatever he could get. Med-x made him nicer, though. Use to hug mom and give me kisses and say he was sorry for how he'd been. He'd always brought food to the table." She paused.
Poet finally looked at her, saw she was staring into her home thinking about what she said. "Then he didn't. And me and mama were on our own."
"That sucks." Poet could only muster.
"Sucks all over. Can't trust nobody, they all want something from you, and they'll take it however they can get it. At gun point, even. Hell, I've heard about this ol' man who got his legs -" She stopped herself, Poet didn't want to hear the rest of that story anyway. It was beginning to darken his already grim mood.
"It's bad out there. Now, you wanna fuck?"
Poets head quickly turned to the woman staring at him, his eyes widened in bewilderment. There was a brief pause before she laughed. His face still didn't change.
"Jesus the look on your face," she continued laughing. "I ain't in the mood for that shit anyways. Did that my whole life, wanna do something different."
He sighed and shook his head. "I never heard of nothing like that, maybe in the wild West but-"
"It's worse than that cowboy shit." Silver added.
"Well... I still gotta find my dad, at least to see why he left home. Might of made his way to the town your talking about."
"Megaton. It's the closest town there is. That's where Moriartys saloon is, he's always watching." The woman shook her head.
"There's a sign near that big red rocket. If your going there, stay out of his bar. He's the worst of the fellas you'll meet out there. Getting robbed, murdered, even treated like your nothin but a hole is better than what he'll do."
Silver had a lot to say, Poet heard. He couldn't really respond much to it except scratch his head and hum some kind of answer. "Well, I'm glad I met you silver. You're a nice person."
She had her mouth in a grin and opened it to say something, but she stopped herself, and the grin disappeared. She only stood up with the boy, and then a smile formed on her face.
"Well hey, stop by anytime kid. You're... You're pretty nice too. You owe me a soda though." She chuckled a bit. As they stepped to the door, Silver watched the boy walk towards the rocket once more. "Hope you find your dad."
It was sort of a goodbye, she never really did tell anyone goodbye. Not her mom, definitely not her dad. She didn't like to anyway. Still, that Poet kid was alright. Once she didn't see him anymore, she went back inside and closed the door.
It was odd to feel wind against his skin, hadn't noticed it till he went back out into the world once more. His thoughts weren't absolutely on that, though a small while his thoughts pondered on it. He was mostly troubled by a lot of what silver said. Why would dad want to come out here? Was he that crazy to get away from everyone? There was barely a point thinking about the whys, just the actions that have to take place.
Just by the rocket was a tin sign, like scrap metal torn from the skin of some metal work; painted on it was the word Megaton, and an arrow pointing to a path.
Well, to call it a path would be rather kind. It was a little rocky crumbled hill covered in what was probably ages old debris and trash.
When Poet had reached the end of the path, he saw a mountainous heap of trash before him, guarded by what appeared to be a protectron... With a cowboy hat! It held much more significance to the new wastelander, anyway.
It was one of the first things outside the vault to put a smile on his face. Made him think of some cowboy adventure movie he saw on a holotape.
He walked towards the machine, it's head slowly made its way around to look at him. Probably scan him actually. "Hey there, cowboy!" Poet greeted with enthusiasm that he managed to pull out. There wasn't a response for awhile, but Poet stood in front of the cowboy machine, almost frozen like.
"Welcome!" It finally said. "To megaton-ton..."
Before Poet could return a response, or even really think, wings of steel scrapped away from each other to open a small gate to the town as an engine fired up, the stranger he hadn't noticed above the gate watched him wretch at the sound, covering his ears as he looked at where the sound came from. He calmed slightly, but didn't remove his hands from his ears till the sound stopped. When it had, Poet hesitantly began his walk inside.
The doorway in was also a scrap door but when he pushed it open, it didn't scream as the gate before. He sighed in relief, looking back at the robot who continued prancing around outside slowly. Poet suspected he had done so for years.
The town he had heard about was, to say at the least, spacious; this was a city made of scrap and trash, hanging atop each other in what might of once been a desperate attempt for shelter, now permanently homes.
And people walked around like it was a neighborhood, and sure it was. And the buildings stop had signs on them, two of them had to be stores.
But the center caught Poets attention the most.
Sitting at the center was a small little dent on the earth, but big enough to make a pool of murky water, surrounding an a-bomb that had hit the ground and never did it's purpose.
"She's a beauty, ain't she?" He heard. Poet took his eyes off the bomb and met with a cowboy, of all things. There's all kinds out here. "I'm sorry?"
The man chuckled a deep chuckle and sighed after words, scratching his brown beard. "Saw you starin' at our landmark, guess it distracted you. Because I came walking towards you and I didn't hear you say a thing."
"Ah I'm sorry," Poet wiped the sweat off his forehead, the sun seemed to be glaring at him a little fiercer. He looked back at the cowboy, who seemed to patiently watch him. "What's your name, sir?"
The cowboys lips shifted to a smirk at being called sir. "Friendly and well mannered! I like that. By the vault suit, I'm guessing your a new comer in more ways than one. You'll do just fine here though, as long as you keep them manners and that friendly attitude.Names Lucas Simms," he extended his hand to the boy, who took it in sudden stride.
"I'm Poet Henson!" Poet replied.
"Nice to meet you, Poet. I'm the mayor of Megaton. And sheriff, when the need arises."
"Well sheriff, I'm mostly here to see if anyone saw my dad around. He left actually yesterday, and now I'm just trying to find him."
"I might have," Lucas pulled out a cigarette and exude smile to the side, Poet watched with a small bit of interest since he had only heard of them but never really saw one, the vault did not allow cigarettes. "I see a lot of folks come by, though. Most of them go to Moriartys saloon and kid, that man is a snake."
"I heard about him, actually. I was kinda hoping to avoid his saloon if I could..."
The sheriff sighed and took another drag from his cigarette. "Sorry, Poet. But if your desperate to find your dad, then I'd go there. As much as I despise that man he gets around a lot of information."
Poet made his way down to the center of town, looking up at a grizly blonde man who was staring down at him, giving a brief wave but not waiting for one in return, just watching. Poet couldn't tell but the man was smiling, like a thief would as he gazed upon a new jewel to pawn off, or maybe keep in his box of treasures.