Chapter 4: Dresden Heights
Holodisk Log. Resident 53-10385. January 25th, 2285.
Cheryl has been out for a good long while. From what I could tell, she took a hard hit to the back of the head when the door in the kitchen exploded from a rocket. I pulled a small piece of wood from the back of her head; it looked like a piece of the door jamb. For the time being I piled some snow together and made a wall around us so I could build a fire. It's not the Ritz... Whatever the hell that means... but at least we got a wind breaking wall around us.
We seem to be by a river. I passed this same river over on an old bridge when I came into Cheryl's company. It has low radioactivity, so I assume we can boil the water to drink if need be.
From reading a book Cheryl had in her Gunny Sack, I found that Wade... thing... was something called a, "Ghoul." They used to be people before they had been exposed to extremely high doses of radiation, but instead of just dying, they mutate. [sigh] Explains what happened to him. Sometimes they're very reasonable, mostly though... Well, I also read they'll just attack for no reason. Worse yet, the reasonable ones could eventually become, "feral," as they call it.
I just have to remember to stay clear of high radiation areas; not like I need any more exposure than I've already taken in. Daybreak is upon us here. Rep signing off.
The sun rose above the treeline from behind the gray haze in the sky. As the little bits of sunlight that could penetrate the haze broke through and shined onto the river that flowed through the center of, "Joliet." Rep was stoking the dying fire in hopes of getting just enough heat going to heat some CRAM in its tin. Laying in the snow all night was going to slow the process of heating the pressed ham-like food, so he tried to make the fire as hot as he could.
Seeing he still had an unconscious woman to tend to, he also didn't want Cheryl to be either cold or hungry when she finally woke up. He did wish he had hit the medical center to get more Stimpaks, Med-X, or something before getting run out of the Vault. Then again, he wasn't planning on being shot at by Vault Security so a bee-line for the door was the only sane option at the moment.
At least with the Med-X, he thought, she won't have the overwhelming urge to tear my balls off.
"Ugh," a familiar voice moaned, "my fucking head."
On second thought, maybe if I had the Med-X, he amended his previous thought, at least I wouldn't feel anything when she unleashes her wrath on me.
Cheryl found herself sitting up from her laying position almost falling over from her injury. She quickly propped herself up on one arm and grabbed the side of her head with her free hand. "Careful there, kid," the blue suited man said, "you took a nasty blow to the head. You've been out nearly twenty hours." He kept poking the fire around the CRAM can to expose new embers. "Man," the wastelander said heavily, "I feel like I've been drinking vodka mixed with turpentine again."
Rep looked up from the fire, "Again?"
"Okay," she started in a defensive manner, "so, we do some stupid shit for entertainment sometimes." She propped herself against the packed snow wall around her, resting her head against the wall. The wall soothed the throbbing on the back of her head. She noticed she was laying on a tarp covered by a few blankets. There was a setup similar to hers on the other side of the fire, "Hey, where'd you get the blankets?"
Rep was actually surprised Cheryl hasn't gone off the deep end yet, but it's possible she has yet to come to her senses. So long as she's not going to bite him, he decided to answer, "There was a warehouse not more than a few yards from here. The building was blown out and unsafe, so all I could do was take some of these shipping blankets and this tarp and use it to keep our asses from getting cold and wet."
"Why not just make a tent?"
"There was only one tarp. Hey, I ain't exactly MacGyver here."
"Who's 'MacGyver'?"
Rep sighed, "Never mind."
"Exactly what the hell happened? All I remember is the Ghoul Kids blowing up my goddamn house," she now had a cold look on her face; she was mad as hell. Her brown eyes pierced like daggers as she spoke her words. It was clear she blamed him for the attack on them.
Chances were because she was knocked out throughout most of the escape she was pissed because she thought all the ghouls were alive, "Don't worry about them, most of them are gone now."
"What?" she asked leaning forward as she did, "What do you mean, 'gone'?"
"As in, 'They're nothing more than a giant greasy splat on your back lawn'?"
Cheryl blinked a few times as her cold look of loathing turned into a simultaneous look of confusion and surprise, "You? Did what? To those assholes?" She shook her head in disbelief, "They kill every normie through here including Brotherhood Paladins without so much as an issue. How..." she trailed off in her confusion, holding the side of her throbbing head.
As she was talking, Rep pulled out the hastily drawn schematic from his bag and threw it in front of her. "I found some stuff in your kitchen that allowed me to make a kind of improvised explosive." She picked up the paper pad that was covered with calculations and Vault-Tec watermarks. She noticed one of the items, "You used my fusion cell stash?! You asshole, I was going to sell those in Brahmin Wood!" she threw the paper pad back into the Vault citizen's face as she bellowed, "A week's worth of prospecting, choked to shit! Thanks a load, you prick!"
"Hey, it was either your cells, or your life," Rep lied slightly, "If I didn't use those, we would have been as dead as doo-doos."
"What the fuck is a doo-doo?" Cheryl yelled in irritation. That proved to be a bad idea for her as she gripped her head in pain shortly after. Rep rolled his eyes and shook his head, "My point is I had the element of surprise building this and sneaking it into the other bag I had," he held up the pad, "It helped that your deteriorated friends were dumber than a broken lamp post so convincing them to turn on each other was easy as all hell. Made for a nice distraction."
Rep took a wet piece of packing blanket and used it to fish the can of CRAM out of the fire. Taking out his knife again, he cut the almost-meat in half and pulled out his half of the meat. He handed the tin to Cheryl who proceeded to do the same as the man before her. Before taking a bite, he asked the already eating wastelander, "Oh, I'm looking for a place around here called, 'Lemont.' it's supposed to be around here somewhere. Know of it?"
With her mouth full, "Never heard of it." Rep looked at his CRAM, then to her. He decided to just hand the other half to her, "Here. You haven't eaten since the day before last. You have it." Cheryl was surprised at the offer given to her. She figured it was because of the sweat that kept rolling from his pale forehead.
Behind the glasses was a man who meant well. He had a very innocent and childlike demeanor about him. It was a feeling she had about him the moment she opened the back door and found him struggling up the steps; a feeling she hadn't felt since she herself was a child. Sure, she has been irritated with Rep so far, but there was something comforting about him; safe about him.
When she was a child living in Tama, Iowa on the old Indian Reservation, she remembered her grandfather – being he was the man who raised her – had the same kindness and well-meaning demeanor. No matter how little food they had, her grandfather would give her his own; no matter how cold, he gave her his coyote-pelt coat off his back; no matter how humiliating he would sacrifice himself…
"Hey," Rep said, making her return to reality with a start, "you alright?" "Y-yeah," the brown haired woman said in what could be described as a stupor, "thank you." The Vault Engineer found her change in personality quite… sudden; like a memory had just flashed before her mind's eye. She became saddened by memory, much like children of the Vault whose parents died while working on the dangerous malfunctions of his home. That same face – a look of loss; a look of pain; a look of eternal death.
The two had locked eyes for some time before they broke eye contact. Cheryl went to eating her CRAM as Rep shuffled his bed linen a bit before getting up. He cleared his throat as he stood, "I think I need to go. I get the feeling this 'Brahmin Wood' place I keep hearing about is the place to be."
"The place to be for what?" Cheryl asked with her mouth full.
"Well…" Rep picked up one of the blankets and started cutting a hole in the center of it, "It's a good place to set up shop." He slipped his head into the hole in the blanket then dropped it over his body like a poncho. He took off his Vault suit's belt and repositioned it over the poncho to hold it in place, "From what Jerky-Face had said – and you – it sounds like a trader town."
"Yeah?"
"Well," he said, putting the messenger bag on his shoulder, "might be a good place as any to start my search, maybe set up shop."
Cheryl stood up and got ready herself, finishing off her CRAM, "Okay, let's go." Rep was grabbing some of his other personal effects when he stopped and looked at her, "What? No, you don't have to come with me," He protested, "just point me in the right direction and I'll be fine."
"Hey, I got nowhere else to go because of you, Vault Boy," she grabbed one of the packing blankets and tied it around her shoulders like a shoal, "Besides, how do you plan on getting there? The direct route?"
"What ya mean?"
"Directly east of here is a hellhole filled with coyotes and Raider camps. Your ass wouldn't survive five minutes out there."
"Then..." Rep swallowed hard. He didn't like where this was going, "How?"
"We have to go through Dresden Heights," she had an ominous tone in her voice.
"Dresden… Heights?"
After crossing another bridge and walking under an Interstate overpass, Rep and Cheryl came to the open plaines just south of the tree line. There were huge snow drifts crossing a large four-lane road that hasn't seen a plow truck in over 200 years. On the right side of the road was a green sign that originally read, "Preston Heights," but, "Preston," was covered over with a new word in yellow spray paint, "Dresden."
"I don't get it," Rep said, scratching his head under his hat, "What's so scary about this place?" Cheryl grabbed him by his Pip-Boy-clad arm and dragged him forward. As she did, Rep protested loudly asking what was wrong with her. They stopped, she held his arm up, and put her other hand over his mouth to shut him up. That was when he heard it.
His Pip Boy's Geiger Counter was ticking wildly. She dropped his arm and reached into her gunny sack to pull out a bottle of Rad-X and a respirator, "I hope you have something to protect yourself with," she said, popping a red and yellow capsule in her mouth, "because this is all I have."
Rep moved his poncho and jacket to the side and opened the inside flap of his jumpsuit, "I'm good." Under the suit's flap, instead of the bright blue was a dull orange-yellow fabric, "I layered old radiation suits inside my suit. I might need a Rad-X, though," before putting her mask on she shot the Vault Dweller a look. He compromised, "I'll trade the bottle of Buffout I have for one. Deal?" She opened the bottle and handed him one pill as he retrieved the larger brown bottle of chems. When the transaction was complete, she put on her mask, he popped his chem and covered himself again, and they walked into the blowing radioactive snow.
Several miles away at an old race track, a pair of binoculars are seen on the top of the old announcers booth. Steam rose through the fold of the lenses as leather-gloved hands shifted back and forth from the cold and possibly, irritation. Slowly, swears became more and more audible as the user watched a man in a red baseball cap and glasses and a woman in leather and a breathing mask approach; they were making their way to the road intersecting the race tracks entrance.
"Fuckers," the man finally muttered loud enough, "fuckers gonna fuck me, huh, ya fuckers?"
"Exactly why was it renamed 'Dresden Heights'?" Rep had a spare handkerchief that was now over his mouth. It wasn't going to keep the hot particles out of his lungs entirely, but it was better than nothing.
"About twenty miles west of here there were two nuclear power plants," Cheryl was a little hard to hear because she was yelling over the wind through her mask, "One was Braidwood, the other was Dresden. When the war broke out, they were the primary targets. Because of the prevailing wind pattern for this area, not only did we get the fallout from the bombs, we got the added bonus of all the shit from the reactors, too."
"That's great and everything," Rep quipped. "but if it's that hot, why walk through here?"
"It's one of the few places Raiders and slavers won't go. There also isn't any radroaches, mole rats, or Deathclaws."
"Do I wanna know what a 'Death Claw' is?" he asked out of concern.
"To survive out here – Yes," her words oozed with dread, "to be able to sleep at night – No."
"Great, I feel better."
"Relax, Vault Boy," she playfully slapped the Engineer in the chest with the back of her hand, "the only thing that can live in radioactive areas like this are ghouls and with you killing all the Ghoul Kids we don't have to worry about them showing up."
Rep stopped walking as a new sense of dread came over him, "I never said I killed all of them."
She turned around with eyes that could melt steel. She pointed a finger at him, "We need to work on your communication skills."
BOOM! A rocket flew into a snowbank on the corner of the road striking the signal light at its base causing it to fall toward Rep and Cheryl. They both dove out of the light's way and behind a guardrail leading into a ditch.
On top of the announcer's booth, Wade was reloading the blood and scorch marked rocket launcher he got from one of his now dead gang members. He cursed louder as he loaded the rocket in a jarring fashion making him pull it out and try loading again.
Rep peered over the snowbank to see where the source of the explosion originated. He vaguely saw a smoke trail hanging in the air originating from the race track's building rooftops. Cheryl soon joined him over the top of the snow only to drag him back to the ditch, "Jesus, do you have a death wish?"
"It's that asshole Wade. Has to be," the Vault Dweller said as he flipped back over putting his back to the snow.
Cheryl took her mask off for she couldn't breathe that well. The excitement made using it difficult, "Wade? Of all those psychos to keep alive, you picked the most bloodthirsty of the lot?! Were you born this stupid, or did you work at it?" An explosion ruptured in the road behind them. Chunks of asphalt rained down atop of them, the larger pieces missing them, luckily.
On the building's roof Wade started losing his temper as he threw the launcher into the ground causing it to bounce and fall over the edge off the roof. He jumped around and threw his arms around in a fit of anger like that of a five year old being told he can't have Dandy Boy Apples. He unholstered his Laser Pistol and started firing on Rep and Cheryl's location.
The laser bolts struck the guardrail and the snow bank in front of them, "He must of run out of rockets," Cheryl commented. "How ya know?" Rep asked.
"Because I sold them the rockets. I sold them six last week."
"So, that's what he meant by you were their lifeline," he said, now himself irritated, "You barter with those jerkoffs?"
"Not like I had a choice!" she stated in an equally irritated tone of voice, "They bought me as a pack mule."
Rep's eyes went wide, "Bought you? You mean..."
"That's why I know slavers won't come to Dresden Heights or Joliet; the radiation ruins their stock, and Joliet's just too dangerous."
Rep gave her a sympathetic look, "Sorry, I didn't know." She looked at him surprised again; she saw the same warm, but now saddened look in his eyes. "It's okay," she said, "you couldn't have anyway."
Another laser bolt flew by, but this time right in between their heads striking the ground ahead of them. It startled the both of them to the point Rep threw a fist into the snow in annoyance, "That does it!" he yelled, "The Incredible Melting Man is pissin' me off now!" He stood up with vigor pushing his way up the side of the ditch the best his sneakers could grip.
Cheryl grabbed his arm, "Don't go up there, he'll kill you!"
"At this distance?" Rep said skeptically, "Those bolts start diffusing at 500 yards. He's 750 yards away. He's got as much chance hitting me as he does the moon." He climbed over the guardrail and walked into the center of the crater left by the rocket.
Wade kept firing in a blind rage until the pistol needed to be reloaded. He threw another tantrum, throwing his pistol to the ground at his feet. That was when he looked up he found a figure standing in the road. He quickly took out his binoculars again and focused on the figure. It was the heavyset Vault Dweller looking in his general direction. Through the spyglasses he saw the stocky man throw open his improvised poncho exposing the plasma pistol on his side. "What ya gonna do, fatass," the remaining Ghoul Kid scoffed, "You think you're Gary Cooper or some shit?"
He knew the ghoul's eyes were on him. Without looking away Rep raised his Pip Boy up and pressed a button on it then allowed his arms to drop to his sides.
"You can't hit me from here," the ghoul chuckled, "No one's that good a shot!"
It was as though Rep could hear him, "Let me introduce you to my buddy, V.A.T.S." Rep's eyes suddenly opened wide as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System took control of his nervous system. The minicomputer overlaid a zoomed image of Wade in his sight, then overlaid green filters with multiple percentages over Wade's body. The binoculars in the ghoul's hands lit up as a target at 77%. The computer calculated on the shot and initiated the target execution.
The world suddenly slowed down as Rep quickly grabbed his pistol and fired a plasma bolt. The bolt penetrated the lenses of the binoculars Wade had to his face. The bolt then concentrated into a compact and powerful bolt of energy that caused Wade's head to explode in a brilliant corona of light that could be seen from a mile away. Rep had to raise his Pip-Boy-clad arm to shield his eyes from the blinding pulse he created, "Whoa!"
Cheryl climbed out of the ditch and over the guardrail squinting as she looked at the light emanating from the race track, "My God, what the hell is that?"
"Wade," he holstered his pistol and placed the poncho back down, "He saw the light." He started walking down the road in their original direction, Cheryl following shortly after. As they walked, she couldn't help but comment, "You know, you're really ballsy."
"Yeah," Rep agreed, "like Clint Eastwood, eh?"
There was a pause, "Who's 'Clint Eastwood'?"
Rep sighed, "Never mind."
