CHAPTER 30: THE UNDERWORLD OF PARADISE.
"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell." -Karl Popper.
For a time the only noise came from the buzzing florescent lights and their footsteps on the metal grated floor. Nelson stood front and center as their lead, he never slowed down which showed there was no traps waiting for them. But in truth the Itinerary Man wasn't completely sure and that made him nervous to be in front.
Louis observed the structure of the walls and floor around them. Everything about it didn't match up with the design of the factories above. If anything it was all heavily reinforced and built to take a lot damage, like from nuclear attacks.
"I get the feeling you people didn't build this tunnel." Louis spoke to end the silence. "Nor is it naturally apart of the factories."
"How very observant of you." Nelson grinned mockingly. "You're right, this tunnel isn't part of the factory designs. It was built in complete secret."
"Let me guess, it was a secret government thing, right?..." Joe asked with a scoff.
"Oh, both guesses right on the caps!" Nelson chuckled. "I guess age does come with benefits, even if you've lived for way too long."
"I don't care who or what built it!" Doug cut in. "When are we getting out? What's the exit like?"
"Patience, patience. We'll get their in time." Nelson lowered his arms a little. "Besides, I figured the Vault dweller would be at home in a place like this. Doesn't this remind you of home?"
"Don't compare this place to my Vault." Louis glared at him from behind. "For starters, we don't make kids into slaves and kill babies just because someone paid you guys."
"Wow. Radcliffe really knows how to spill the beans. And he doesn't even look drunk."
"Oh, believe me, I'm gonna get loaded in celebration of escaping this place!" Radcliffe boasted, which earned the groans of the group.
"Try not to pass out in a whore house again!" Nelson snapped at him.
"Hey! We got kids here!" Inez spoke up. The baby in her arms started to stir and fuss from her loud voice.
Before Radcliffe could go over to beat Nelson within an inch of his life, a new opening came up. An entryway with no form of door from what they could see. The other side was dark and foreboding, a perfect place for a hidden trap. Louis slowly walked over while leaving Nelson guarded by the others. He reached his hand out to the right side and felt around on the wall until feeling a large switch. With effort, he pulled the heavy switch down, a burst of sparks showered from where the switch connected to the breaker.
High above, hanging lights flickered on slowly, flooding the new room with a hum. The wanderers moved in and took a few moments to adjust to the blinding lights before observing the room. They stood on an open floor that looked down to another level below. It looked like another factory floor, but any form of equipment or machinery had been stripped away. Leaving only dust, holes in the concrete floor where the machinery once was, discolored spaces against the walls with a layer of dust to go with it. Everything else was just scraps of rusted metal and random pieces of garbage.
Joe squinted to get a better look at the floor. "What the hell is this? Another factory underground?"
"This screams government shadiness." Chloe commented, trying to figure out what the place could have been.
"Quite possibly." Nelson nodded in agreement. "From what I've read in the records, this place was filled with supplies and materials. Or at least it was being stocked before the bombs dropped. It was less then half full before all the supplies stopped coming. I guess this place was once just another supply depot for the ever dwindling resources."
"So I'm guessing the founders of Paradise's Raid used the materials to get it started." Doug looked back down to the floor.
"Pretty much. The town had next to nothing with useable materials to begin with." Nelson turned right on the level. "Hmm, I've given you all another brief history lesson on Paradise's Raid. This is turning out to be a very interesting week for me."
"Considering you guys spend most of your time directing drunks around, I'd imagine it gets very boring here." Joe scoffed.
Cavall spent the time sniffing the floor, following a strange scent in the air. The hybrid suddenly picked up an unpleasant smell, one that his instincts knew well. He suddenly barked once and dashed forward to the next opening far across from them.
"Look, Cavall's after something!" Wayland alerted them, pointing to the big dog.
"After him before he gets lost." Louis said as they all went after him.
Wayland grabbed Nelson by the arm and pulled him along. The Itinerary Man suddenly went pale as they headed in the direction of the dog. If any of them were paying attention to him, they would see he didn't want to go there. But fighting against the Super Mutant's pull was pointless, all he could do was wait for them to discover what secret they kept below.
()()()()()()()()()
A hard push almost broke the door to Seymour's office off its hinges. The headmaster stormed in and went towards his desk and grabbed a glass ashtray and threw it against the wall. Followed by a half empty bottle of rum, a few pens, on old record, a stack of papers, a stapler that broke in half upon impact, a tape dispenser, another half empty bottle, a letter opener to which the tip stuck into the wall, and several more random objects until Seymour tired himself and stood panting in the middle of his office. He ran his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to rip out handfuls.
"This is by far the worst goddamn day of my life!" he seethed and looked at the damage to his office. "Those idiots can't do anything right!"
A knock on the door made Seymour spin around. Christina leaned against the threshold with a blank look on her face. "Redecorating?..."
"Not in the mood, Christina! Just get the hell out already and deal with the gambling district..." Seymour turned away from her.
"I have my people taking care of it." she walked into the room slowly. "But we've learned some interesting new development. One of our alarms went off more than ten minutes ago."
"Alarms are going off all over the place!" Seymour turned back to her. "I really hate it when you try to be suspenseful!"
"Wow, you really are dense. I'm talking about the special alarm..." she annunciated to him. Seymour finally understood what she meant. "Took you long enough. One of the silent alarms has been triggered, number eight to be exact. Somehow those people have found one of our emergency escape tunnels."
A cruel smile came across Seymour's face. "We have them! After everything we finally have them!" he started heading towards the door. "Gather everyone! And get around twenty High Lookers too, we're ending this today!"
Christina crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Can't you ask more nicely?..."
"Don't test me, Christina. These people need to be made an example of! So nobody else will ever think to do this again!" he marched down the halls as if on the warpath, even taking a passing guard's handgun to settle the matter with his own hands. "We'll show them! We'll show everyone not to mess with us! This is our paradise, and all vermin must be weeded out!"
()()()()()()()()()()()
Cavall barked a few more times while entering another dark section, the group was forced to stop and wait every time while searching for a switch to turn the lights on. Inez, Asimov, and Joe tailed behind with the children, they had enough of being carried around. The hybrid started slowing down as they came up to another darkened section, allowing Louis to dive in and wrap his arm around Cavall's neck to stop him.
"That's far enough! Slow down, boy!" the Vault dweller said, resting on his knees as Cavall tried to wriggle out of his hold. Louis moved his hand to Cavall's scruff. "You can't run off like that. There's no telling what traps are here."
Cavall whimpered again while looking off into the dark. Doug reached out to the side and found the large switch and flipped it. Like all the others, it shot sparks once the breaker connected to the switch and lit the new section up.
"What the hell is Cavall even looking for?" Doug asked while taking a few steps in.
Cavall barked again, more urgently and finally slipped out of Louis' hold, leaving him with a handful of dull white and brown strands of hair. With several more barks, Cavall reached the rails looking down to the floor below, he climbed to the top with his front paws and barked more for them to come over.
"Calm down, Cavall." Louis said as the two came up to him. "What are you trying-" the sight below made his voice freeze upon seeing what laid below.
Doug also lost his words and felt like hurling at the site they saw. "I can't believe they'd go this far..."
The rest of the group started approaching them, the looks on their face brought worry to everyone. "What's with you two? You're both practically pale in the face." Chloe said while getting closer.
Doug shot his hand out for them to stop. "Keep the kids away! They don't need to see this!"
Inez and Asimov stopped the children from getting closer as everyone else came over, unable to stop their curiosity that compelled them to take a look at what laid below. And just like the other two, their faces loss a shade of color to them.
()()()()()()()()()()
Seymour opened a set of double doors to an off limits room, a location where only a handful of people were allowed in. Already waiting for him was the rest of the headmasters and about fourteen armed High Lookers with assault rifles and SMGs in hand.
"Is this all the guards you could gather?!" Seymour asked disapprovingly.
"Next time you do it then!" Christina retorted, leaning against the wall with crossed arms. "Do we all have to go down there into that dirty hole? Paradise's Raid is still in chaos. That's why I could only get this many guards."
"She has a point..." Leroy held his hand up. "I need to check on the Red Light District."
"I got enough shit to fix up too." Stacy huffed with crossed arms. "You got a real hard on to kill Radcliffe. He's just one asshole Raider. We deal with them all the time."
Seymour grumbled and ran a hand through his hair. "It's not about that! This is about showing people not to fuck with us!" he pointed off behind himself with the gun in hand. "If we let one of them get away with this then all of them might get the same idea! If all those Raiders ban together, we're screwed! Everything that we and the people before us have built will be lost and Paradise's Raid will become just another cesspool in the Wasteland! Either another burnt out building or a hive for these bastards to piss away their meaningless lives!"
"Isn't that what they kinda do already?..." Karl pointed out.
"Yes." Seymour answered with a light shrug. "But at least we control it. Now come on, we're wasting time!"
Horton cleared his flabby throat. "I for one want to see this end. It's not often we get this kind of amusement anyway."
"Then have fun." Stacy walked off with more important things on mind. "Someone has to keep this place running and not chase personal vendettas."
"Same here. I need to check the brothels." Leroy said with a click of his tongue. "Don't need people sneaking out on their payments. Gotta check on my honeys after all this nonsense." he walked off, following Stacy close behind.
Seymour waited until they left the room before looking back to the others. "Well? Anyone else want to stay behind?..."
Christina thought for a moment before speaking. "Am I gonna hear the end of it if I don't?"
Seymour curled his lower lip. "Hmm, probably not."
"Then I guess I'm going."
With that, Seymour headed to the far end of the room. He placed his hand against a square section of the wall that compressed in a few inches. The panel slid up as a heavy thud echoed in the room, the middle section of the wall compressed in several inches before splitting open down the middle and revealed a large elevator lift. The High Lookers went in first, followed by Seymour, Christina, Karl, and Horton standing in front. The elevator doors slid shut and began going down with a light hum, including elevator music, much to Seymour's dismay.
()()()()()()()()()()()
Dead bodies. A floor filled with dead bodies scattered out in a layer, reaching all the way to each corner. And they couldn't even see a single space of floor anywhere. Each body laid in a certain level of decay, some looking years old while others freshly thrown down near where they stood. From what they could see, some bodies showed signs of being beaten or strangled to death while others had bullet holes in the head or chest. And from the looks of their clothes, they were either Raiders or just normal travelers and traders. The air had a stale rotting smell to it, which they began to notice after so long.
"What the hell is all this?!" Joe exclaimed with wide eyes. "There's hundreds of them! I've seen some messed up shit before, but this at least makes it into the top ten!"
"Hundreds. Maybe even thousands." Doug said, grimacing at the site. "There's more than one layer. I can tell."
"Why..." Victoria chocked on her words for a moment. "Why are they not all rotted away?"
"It's this place." Louis observed the room for a moment. "There's not too much fresh oxygen coming in, no elements of any kind. Decomposition is very slow, compared to being out in the Wasteland."
"I can't believe they would go this far just to keep this place running." Chloe stepped back, having seen enough. "This place should burn to the ground!"
Radcliffe's teeth clenched, and before Wayland even noticed it, Nelson was surprisingly pulled from his grip. The Raider dragged the man over to the rails and slammed his lower back against it. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw your ass over this rail!"
Nelson turned his head to the bodies below. "Nothing that comes to mind..."
"What is this even all about?!" Inez demanded fiercely. "Why would anyone have an open mass grave like this?!"
"Because they were troublemakers!" Nelson answered spitefully. "Deadbeats, cutthroats, and just no good idiots that had it coming to them!"
"And just like that, you guys dispose of them like trash?!" Wayland loomed over him, making the man feel incredibly small.
"What do you care, freak?" Nelson responded, unable to hide the fear in his voice. "Don't look at me like this was all my idea! They've been doing this for decades!"
Radcliffe looked down to see if he could identify any of the people at the bottom, which surprisingly didn't take long. "I know some of these groups. A lot of these Raiders were a bunch of small timers that I haven't seen in awhile." he began pointing to the people below. "There's the Green Dices. And the Scar Bears. The Jackslips. There's a whole bunch of these people that disappeared suddenly. They never left Paradise's Raid!"
"And it's not just Raiders." Louis spoke, looking at the bodies before shooting a glare at Nelson. "If I had to guess, the other people are more then just those who couldn't pay their debts. Radcliffe told us you people were hired to get rid of the baby. So why not the competition? Why not certain traders and caravans? If the price is right, you're leaders will get rid of anyone if it benefits them. I'm right, aren't I?"
Nelson's face seemed to sag a little from the Vault dweller's observation. "My, you're very smart. Perhaps a bit too smart."
"So I've been told..."
"Forgive me if I seem heartless. Pun not intended." Asimov said as he walked up. "But this mass grave has nothing to do with us. These people are already dead and nothing will change that. We must keep moving."
"You're right, Asimov." Inez nodded to him. "But we'll make sure others know about this."
A sudden hum echoed in the room, coming from another section straight across from where they stood. Their attention went towards the source of the noise as the lights in that section flicked on by themselves while Nelson smiled in anticipation.
"I'll check it out." Louis said while drawing his colt. Quickly, he went through the opening and towards the hum. It was then that he realized at the end of the room looked like the doors of an elevator. And soon a sudden thud and a ding confirmed what he thought as the doors slid open and revealed the people inside.
"About time..." Seymour said through his teeth before noticing Louis standing from far across. "Well, well, small world after all..."
The Vault dweller didn't bother saying a word and spun around to run, almost tripping over himself while calling to his friends. "Guys! We got a big problem! They found us!" he shouted out while coming to a stop in front of them.
Nelson couldn't hold back his laugh anymore once he heard what the Vault dweller said, earning everyone's piercing eyes. "What? I said congratulations on getting this far. I didn't say anything about actually escaping..."
The Itinerary Man burst with laughter, mocking them all as if they had just lost the battle. Radcliffe quickly socked him straight in the gut to silence his laughter. Nelson fell to his knees moaning while clutching his aching stomach. Once again the children were picked up and held tightly, they could see the guards getting closer with each passing second.
"Which way do we go?" Victoria asked, her bow in one hand and the other reaching for an arrow.
"For one thing," Radcliffe picked up Nelson from the floor. "We don't need his ass anymore! He'll do whatever he can to slow us down!"
Radcliffe grabbed Nelson by the front of his suit and hoisted him up a few inches. With a heavy heave, Nelson went flying over the rails and straight down on the pile of bodies below. He landed hard, breaking a number of bones from the decaying bodies. The wanderers ran after that, leaving Nelson behind as he began to scream his head off from being surrounded in an ocean of the dead.
The High Lookers came out from the threshold, marching in a straight line like soldiers with two staying behind to guard Seymour and the others, and Horton having to take his time. The lights came on by themselves as they entered another open section with a lower floor to the left like the previous room. They figured the headmasters turned on all the systems so they don't stumble around in the dark.
Passing through the opening, they soon realized that the floor below was just like the last room. A layer of dead bodies littered the floor below, thrown unceremoniously like trash. Which made the group wonder just how many dead bodies were hidden away in the rooms of the underground level.
The next room they entered was cut off from the open section, it was now a long and wide hall with doors on both sides. A turn to the right came up and they took it, still far ahead of the guards. But they knew the headmasters most likely knew the place better then them. And as if to prove that point, a dead end stopped them in their tracks. A locked door blocked their path and the corridor didn't have any other doors to go through.
Inez ran up to the door and saw the keypad next to the door. "I can override it!" she said while handing the baby over to Asimov. "Buy me time!"
Louis already had his AN-94 in hands. "We're on it!"
The Vault dweller, Doug, and Wayland poked out from the turn and fired at the incoming guards. Bullets struck all around as the guards quickly took cover in the alined recesses with doors and waited until the three stopped shooting. Radcliffe stepped in next with his LMG and Chloe with her plasma rifle, the five stood ready and waiting for the guards to pop out. But standing in the open left them as easy targets to hit.
"If you guys know what's good for you, you'll stay hidden until we're gone!" Louis warned them.
"Lou, when has that ever worked?" Doug asked as he reloaded his Browning.
"There's always a possibility..." he replied with a whisper.
"I'm perfectly okay with you guys charging forward to get shot!" Radcliffe called to them daringly. "It's been too long since my gun's had a huge swatch of targets to shoot!"
"It's swath, Radcliffe..." Chloe corrected him.
"Radcliffe! You son of a whore!" Seymour yelled from the back. "Don't think any of you are getting out of here alive!"
Louis looked back to Inez, she had just broke open the panel and started pulling wires out. They needed to give her more time. "So from the amount of screaming you're doing, I guess you're one of the people in charge of this place! We actually saw you when we first arrived. Throwing caps around at the crowd."
"That's right, and you'll all learn it when everyone sees your bodies hanging from the entrances!" Seymour poked his head out while shouting. His quickly pulled him back into the recess.
"Wow, this guy's a powder keg about to blow..." Wayland said to them.
"Hit the nail on that head, Wayland." Chloe replied with a nod.
After cutting a few wires, Inez started striking the ends, creating sparks to get the system to override. "Not much longer..." she said to herself.
"So tell me, is this why you were so desperate to capture these kids?" Louis started talking again. "I was wondering why you guys seemed so obsessed to catch a bunch of orphans. But now we see why, you were afraid they might have found this place! Radcliffe told us they hid in the vents! I'm guessing the vents from above eventually lead down here!"
"Quite the detective skills you got there..." Seymour seemed to praise for a moment before his tone changed. "I really hate people that are too smart for their own good."
"Or just people smarter then you..." Christina said to herself.
"Enough of all this talking." Karl growled while drawing his magnum revolver. "Men, fire back!"
A burst of gunfire and plasma reminded the guards of their positions before they could even make a single move. The hall fell silent again as the tense stand off continued.
"Again, we got you guys pinned. So stay there!" Louis warned once more.
Inez held two tips of wires together with one hand, sparks dancing between the ends as she brought another end to the two. Sparks burst from the wires and the door panel overrode with a few beeps as the door slid open but got stuck on the last few inches. She turned around and waved to everyone while taking the baby back into her arm.
"We're clear." Victoria whispered loudly.
Louis nodded in confirmation as Victoria, Joe, Asimov, Cavall, and Inez went through the door with the kids. "Time to go!" he said as they started backing up.
The hall echoed with another barrage of bullets and plasma to keep the guards in place until Radcliffe stood as the last to go into the turn with everyone else. Once the gunfire stopped, the guards lunged out from the recesses and chased after the group with Karl in the lead.
Not long after everyone passed through the doorway, Horton finally reached the location that was once a standoff only moments ago. The overweight man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from all over his face. "Why...why are we still doing...this?" he wheezed breathlessly, looking at the bullet holes and burning plasma. "Should have brought some Golden Creams with me..." he put his handkerchief away and continued while muttering all the way.
The endless corridors stretched on before them with scattered shots flying their way. They could hear Karl barking orders and shooting blindly with his revolver. They came to a stop every few meters and fired back, forcing them to hide in the hall recesses and give the wanderers some more space. The opposing groups continued the firefight for a long time, empty casings and shells littering the floor at their feet. Another turn in the hall came up, giving another opportunity to get further ahead. The ones with automatic guns fired away until their magazines ran out and started running again before the guards came around. A new opening rested at the end of the hall, and from what they could see, it seemed to be an actual room or station.
Once everyone went in, Louis and Doug slid the thick door shut just as several bullets hit it. Louis then quickly flipped the lock shut, glad that it had a secondary manual lock that couldn't be accessed on the outside.
"Okay, I think we're safe..." Louis said before heavy banging struck against the outside of the door. "For now..."
The group took the time to catch their breaths and look around. From what they could tell, the room looked like a control center. Dusty terminals and walls lined with large computer processors stood quiet, which made them wonder why they didn't clear the room out a long time ago.
"Why have they not stopped banging?" Victoria asked, a headache started coming on.
"Persistent, I'll give them that..." Joe scoffed.
"Guys, we can't keep running around in circles." Doug looked back to the door. "Sooner or later they will find a way in."
"Well, they're still knocking, so that must mean it's a long way around to the other side of this room." Wayland said to them.
Louis wiped the dust off the screen of a terminal with his gloved hand. After that he ran around flipping switches and pressing buttons to turn everything back on. Soon the screens scrolled data and the reels began to spin and process information. "Doug's right. We can't keep running in circles. I'm gonna check the terminal data to see if there's a map on this place."
"Sure you can hack this stuff?" Joe asked as the Vault dweller pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the nearest screen. "It all seems very old and top secret military junk."
"Well, the military and Vault-Tec were pretty much the best of buds from what I've learned." Louis replied as he began typing away. "So...coin toss? I guess. I'll just have to do my best."
"Save the optimism for later..." Joe huffed at him.
"Guys..." Asimov suddenly spoke urgently. "The banging has stopped."
As the Assaultron said, the banging stopped moments ago, making the room eerily quiet. Louis quickened his pace as Doug dashed over to the other door and locked it. After a few quiet minutes, a new noise came to the door, a loud screech of something scraping on the metal floor. Then a few faint clicks came next, followed by a sharp hissing. At the bottom right corner of the door, a glowing red dot began to form, followed by the smell of smoke.
"They got a welding torch!" Inez shouted, backing away from the door as sparks began to spray through.
A heavy knock echoed against the door. "It's only a matter of time now!" Seymour shouted over the cutting torch. "Run if you guys want! Eventually you'll hit dead ends no matter where you go! You're all trapped!"
"Not unless I have anything to say about it." Louis replied as if he was talking to him. He brought up the system data, searching for information on the layout of the underground base. "We'll see who's trapped in here..."
The burn cut began to move slowly upward while the group spread out and pointed their guns at the door. Despite standing ready for the coming attack, they knew it still left them open and nothing in the room provided much protection. And being outnumbered didn't help if the guards poured in, resulting in massive casualties on both sides. Inez guided the kids behind a lone terminal section with Cavall to keep them safe in case the room turned into a showdown.
Louis realized finding any information was going to be harder than he anticipated. "It figures. If you don't take care of your electronics for over two hundred years...everything starts to break down and corrupt!" the screen data flickered and went static again as he typed in a new command. He huffed to himself before an idea came to mind and unreeled the cable from his Pip-Boy and plugged it into a nearby port for an added boost of processing power.
The welding cut reached near the top of the door and started moving to the left. Several more minutes passed as the cut reached about halfway down the other end of the door. Louis finally brought up the system layout thanks to the processing boost. He couldn't help but smile despite the impending danger as the guards on the other side began to bang on the door in hopes of breaking it down. At last the map came on the screen and he started scrolling around for a few moments to learn about the quickest route out from where they were now. He finally found the exit after mapping out the many twists and turns of the halls and rooms, a long escape tunnel highlighted showing that it was indeed the exit.
"Hey, Radcliffe, can you come over here for a second?" Louis called to him.
He frowned in confusion and lowered his LMG and walked over after hearing his call. "Uh, what's up? Please tell me you found a way out."
"Well, the good news is I have. But that left me thinking about the asshole in charge." he looked up from the screen. "How far do you think he'll go to pursue us? He seems insanely obsessed with getting anyone who looks at him the wrong way."
"Oh-ho, you have no idea." Radcliffe chuckled deeply. "Why do you ask?"
"I've been thinking we need some leverage against them. Even if we kept that Nelson guy as a hostage, I doubt they would care if he was a casualty."
For once Radcliffe seemed to be following what he was planning. "So...if you're saying what I think you're saying...we need a better hostage until we get away."
Louis smiled proudly. "Now you get it. And I might have another plan that could help us too..."
He set his Pip-Boy to download the map and display it on screen. He gave the all clear for them to go and picked the children up and carried them once more for hopefully the last time as the door was moments away from giving out. The guards on the other side hammered the door with the butts of their rifles to bend it inward. But the wanderers already fled the control room with Louis in the lead just as the huge slab of reinforced metal fell in and hit the floor.
Louis kept checking his Pip-Boy every few seconds, the marker on the map moved thanks to its tracking software to keep them on the right path. Despite the twists and turns of the repetitive halls laid before them again, it only took fifteen minutes to reach the end of the map. The final hurtle came before them as they funneled out into the last open room with scattered metal crates and a big double sliding door on the other side. Louis and Radcliffe stepped aside from the group and messed around in the Vault dweller's backpack for a few minutes looking for something.
Once the children were placed back down, Inez ran over to the control panel and went to work on it. Asimov and Wayland quickly moved and stacked a line of crates to give them a small wall of protection. In moments, Seymour and his guards filed out into the room and faced a row of guns pointing their way.
"Sorry, but we made it to the finish line first!" Doug shouted with his Winchester pointing straight ahead.
Seymour scoffed deeply and stood behind his guards. "More like tripped at the finish line! If you even try to open that door, we'll mow you all down!"
Louis fiddled with the settings on his Pip-Boy for a moment and got in position with the others behind the crates. "Hey! Since we might not get another chance, I must ask...what the fuck is your deal?!" his question put all the attention in the room on him. "Are guys that desperate to stop anyone that gets you a little upset? And the piles of bodies left to rot in the open? Holding people who are in debt as prisoners? Where does the madness end? You guys are fools to think you can keep this up without something going wrong!"
Karl smirked in disbelief and aimed his revolver towards his position. "What a fool. You don't know a thing! Not one damn thing about the things we've done, what we've had to do...to keep Paradise's Raid alive!"
Christina chimed in next. "Karl might not be the brightest, but he's right about one thing. Our paradise is a shining beacon for travelers to come far and wide. And no empire has been built without making sacrifices, and if we have to work with people like Raiders and such to help us, then so be it. Let their worthless bodies be the mortar of our foundation."
"Exactly, this place has survived for generations because we and the people before us have made the difficult choices." Seymour finally started to get his two cents in. "There's no other place that even compares to us! Thanks to our work, countless caravans have greatly expanded their routes and trade! We're a shining example of the old world, a place for people to look to for inspiration."
"And what about all the dead people?" Louis asked loud and clearly. "Where do they fit in to all of this so called, 'shining example of the old world'? Because it just looks like senseless murder to us!"
"You Vault dwellers really are more naive then from what we've heard." Seymour said, chuckling in his throat. "Most of those people were Raiders and nobodies. Worthless wastes of flesh that would have ended up dead sooner or later. No business has ever existed without crushing the competition. So what if we have to kill a few people? So what if we help ebb out the competitions for other caravans to draw in more trade for us. If they pay us to make some people disappear, then that's their business. Same thing for other Raider groups wanting to get rid of their rivals! It benefits both ways, a few less Raider clans trying to make it big, and we get even more caps in our coffers! If it makes you feel better it's nothing personal, it's just business." he crossed his arms and looked to the man he despised. "At least most of it isn't personal. Right, Radcliffe?..."
"It's that kind of shortsighted thinking that turned this world into what it is, you dumb assholes!" Joe pointed his combat shotgun towards Seymour. A few of his men pointed their assault rifles towards the Ghoul in response. "Sooner or later the truth of this place will come out!" he stayed unfazed by the line of guns.
"Even if it does, it won't be today!" Karl held the magnum revolver with two hands now. "Because you're all gonna join that pile of bodies! And no one will ever know you were here! Get ready, men!"
Chambers loading in the gun barrels echoed, fingers wrapped around the triggers and slowly beginning to pull. The children ducked low with hands covering their ears and quivered in fear.
Louis turned off a setting on Pip-Boy and looked over to Radcliffe, concern burning in his eyes as he spoke quietly. "It's now or never, I just wish there was a better way to do this without risking your life."
Radcliffe shrugged and started raising his arms up. "Don't be, it's the least I can do after all the shit I've gotten you guys in."
Before anyone could fire off the first shot, Radcliffe stood up and waved his arms out. All the attention now fell onto him, making the room deadly silent once more.
"Whoa, hold on a second! Everyone stop!" he shouted with his arms up, surprised no one took a shot at him. "Let's not have an unnecessary bloodbath here! I surrender!"
"What kind of half-ass thing are you trying to pull, Radcliffe?!" Seymour questioned, gritting his teeth. "After all this you expect me to believe you're giving up? Just like that?!"
Radcliffe shrugged his raised arms indifferently. "I just want this over already! Because for starters, I haven't been this sober for so long."
"So a few hours?..." Karl asked with as little emotion as possible.
Christina held a hand up near her mouth to suppress a laugh. "I know he likes to drink, but that's just sad..."
"Why would we accept your surrender anyway? You guys are in no position to make demands!" Seymour said, aiming his gun towards Radcliffe's head.
"Because I know you want to make me suffer more than anything." Radcliffe slowly rounded his way around the makeshift line of protection they made. "Come on, Seymour, you don't want these people. You want to make a big public spectacle out of me, I know you have a taste for the dramatic. So please, just forget these people and take me." he patted his hands against his padded chest to emphasize his point.
Seymour squinted his eyes and lowered the gun, mulling it over in his head. "You're right about one thing, Radcliffe, I'd much rather kill you with my own hands then filling you with lead. It just won't be as satisfying."
"That's all total bullshit, Radcliffe!" Chloe spoke out. "He'll just kill us once he has you!"
"And even if they do let us go, they'll send people after us." Wayland pointed out.
"That depends on how quick Radcliffe surrenders!" Seymour shouted back. "First, put all your weapons on the ground now, Raider!"
Radcliffe lowered his arms and started doing as told, first taking off his pack bag, then the Hardballer from its holster, followed by the hatchet, the Ripper, and finally his LMG. He handed all his gear off to Louis.
"This is crazy, Radcliffe." Victoria said, trying to stop him. "They'll just kill us no matter what!"
"I'm losing my patients here!..." Seymour warned them.
"Guys...it's okay, I got this." Radcliffe said before looking over to the kids. Their eyes pleading for him not to go, but he just returned a comforting smile. "Don't worry, everything's gonna be alright..." he gave them a wink before turning forward to Seymour and the others and began walking with his arms up.
Doug was about to stand up and stop him, only for Louis to grab the sleeve of his jacket to stop him. "Louis, you know they won't keep their end of the deal. This is suicide for all of us."
Louis stayed in the kneeling position like everyone else, his eyes glued to Radcliffe and a small lump under his vest near the waist. Doug frowned in confusion at it and looked back to Louis, finally realizing the two came up with a plan together. The others soon realized something was up as they saw the small lump as well, along with two thin lines hanging out with the ends fashioned into loops.
Radcliffe's forehead started to sweat, their escape counted on the plan to go off. And the most important part to it was for him to get close enough. Step by step he inched closer, several guns still trained on him in case he tried anything funny. Finally, after what felt like being walked to his execution, Radcliffe stood in front of Seymour. The headmaster smiled and lowered the gun in his hand.
"I must say, I'm impressed you went through with it." he said, almost approvingly of his noble gesture. But soon a snickering laugh escaped from his lips, followed by Christina and Karl. "And even more so, you actually believed we would let your friends go after you surrendered to us!" they all shared a round of laughter at how easily they tricked him.
Yet Radcliffe didn't react to their laughter, if anything, a surprising smile crept up on his face. "Actually...I was hoping you'd do that..."
Seymour and his fellow headmasters went silent upon his words. Radcliffe reached behind his waist and grabbed the two thin lines by the loops and pulled. Four pops were heard as Radcliffe held up the almost transparent wires with four rings tied to the ends as smoke suddenly sprayed out from behind him.
"Looks like I'm blowing smoke out my ass..."
Radcliffe's grin was the last thing they saw before the smoke enveloped them all. Soon coughing rang out at the other end of the room, the wanderers stood lost in the confusion as well, at least everyone but Louis, who now held Radcliffe's LMG up and flipped the safety off.
"I take it this was your idea, Louis?" Doug asked, his usual frown of disapproval. "You know I hate being out of the loop!"
"Sorry, there wasn't enough time to bring you all in." Louis said while standing up to aim at the smoke. "But the long and short of it is, Radcliffe and me decided a better hostage was needed to get out!"
"And the smoke?" Victoria asked, keeping her 12.7mm SMG pointed towards it.
"A distraction to give Radcliffe time to get Seymour." he answered, counting the seconds. "We need to wait until they go down. After that, we open fire. I just don't know when they will both be in the clear, gonna have to use my best guess."
Seymour's free hand covered his mouth and coughed, he couldn't see a single thing before remembering he stood in front of Radcliffe and open to an attack. His eyes were barely able to see him before he lunged forward and tackled, knocking the gun out of his hand as it clattered on the floor. The two then wrestled around, wedged between a few guards as they bumped against their legs. Thanks to Seymour's yelling, Radcliffe soon felt several hands reaching for him, including the sting from one of his long dreadlocks being pulled.
The smoke was starting to dissipate as some guards began to stagger out. Louis figured enough time had passed and aimed the LMG as everyone else followed suit.
"This is it! Give them everything!" he shouted as their trigger fingers pulled.
A wave of bullets, lasers, and plasma flew towards the thick cloud. Screams of pain soon followed as bodies plopped to the floor. Louis shouted for them to hold their shots at chest level to keep Radcliffe out of the line of fire. The Raider soon overpowered Seymour with ease and held onto him tight. With some struggle, Radcliffe rolled them both out of the smoke and towards the group. The shooting came to a stop after a long minute passed, the smoke finally cleared and revealed the result of their attack.
Almost half the guards laid dead on the floor, most of the bullets and energy burns hit them around in the chest areas as planned. Those who survived suffered injuries around their limbs and waists where the armor was weakest, bullets wedged into their vests and left painful bruises under them. Karl sat on his knees, his vest filled with bullets and clutching his right arm that received two bullets in his upper biceps. Christina laid on her side, hands over her head and a bullet graze on her upper left leg.
Radcliffe finally rolled on top of Seymour and grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up sharply to give him a loud cracking headbutt. The sudden pain made Seymour see everything in a winding blur and finally knocked the fight out of him. After that Radcliffe lifted him off the floor as Louis passed him his Hardballer. He pointed it to the side of Seymour's head and faced the recovering guards.
"Alright, I'm sure we don't need to explain this to anyone." Radcliffe began, panting heavily from the lack of fresh air and struggle. "We got one of your bosses as a hostage! Don't follow and he'll live! We'll drop his ass off somewhere close!"
"Radcliffe, you rat bastard!" Karl stood up, blood trickling down his arm and dripping off his finger tips. "Just because you're holding one of us hostage, doesn't mean we're going to stop!"
"Then take your best shot!" Radcliffe dared as he poked Seymour's head with his gun.
"No, hold your damn fire!" Christina said while standing up, covering the wound on her leg. "We need Seymour, all of us run this place together."
During that time, Inez finally got the doors to open after flicking some wires together like before. The doors slid open with a slight screech from untold years of not being used. Without a single word, everyone went into the open door, keeping their guns up in defense. Radcliffe and Louis were the last to go through with the Vault dweller carrying most of Radcliffe's stuff.
"It's like Joe said before," Louis eyed the two headmasters. "Sooner or later...the truth of this place will come out." he quickly pressed the button on the panel on the other side to close the doors. "And that might be sooner then you think..."
The doors closed with a clank, for some reason Louis' words made the two headmasters feel a chill, almost as if the wanderers had found a way to expose all their dark secrets. As the surviving guards checked over the fallen and tended to their wounds, Horton finally reached the long hall, his face covered with streams of sweat and panting for air.
"I...need to...get in shape..." he said to himself before looking at the defeated people before him. "Oh, damn! I missed everything, didn't I?..."
On the other side, everyone stood away from the door while Asimov charged his head laser at a low setting. He fired the laser beam at the top of the doors where the two joined and slowly tilted his head down until finishing at the bottom. The heat welded the doors together, which would require another welding tool to cut it back open.
"That will slow them down for awhile." Asimov spoke as his head laser began cooling. "Good thing my weapon has reactivated long ago."
Radcliffe looked back to the door while picking Seymour up by the arms. "I just can't believe after all these years I'm finally leaving this place." he sighed while hastily throwing Seymour over his shoulder. "I won't lie, I will miss it. The parties, the drinking, the pleasantries, just about anything you could want..."
Louis waited a few moments before clearing his throat. "Sorry to shorten your goodbye, but we need to get going before they start cutting through again."
"Right, screw this place..." the Raider nodded as they all turned and ran at a steady pace.
Like finally reaching the finish line after a long and insane marathon, the wanderers moved down the long hall with pride. The lights above turning on one after the other before reaching the end. A short flight of stairs leading up to a locked hatch that only needed to be turned to open.
()()()
Outside in the open field, more than a mile away from Paradise's Raid, a large rock on the ground suddenly shifted before lifting upwards. Louis pushed the hatch, grunting hard with effort before Wayland lent an arm to help flip the hatch open. One after the other everyone climbed out, thankful to breath in the stale air. Paradise's Raid stood in the distance right behind them, the racket of blaring music still going as the lights still shined bright against the cloudy sky.
"Well, despite all the people that tried to kill us...it was fun." Doug sighed to the place they just escaped. "Really wish we hit up that casino."
"There's always a place to gamble if you know where to look." Radcliffe said as he roughly threw Seymour onto the ground. "And now to take care of business."
Seymour coughed harshly and lifted himself up onto his hands and knees after being awoken from the harsh landing. "Radcliffe! This isn't over! You hea-"
Two rough hands cut off his words, Radcliffe started strangling Seymour, a personal touch to show just how weak he was without his goons watching his back.
"Hey, Seymour, can you do me a favor and die?" he asked with a big grin. "Just do that for me. Thanks."
"Radcliffe, wait a moment!" Louis reached his hand out to stop him. "Don't kill him, not like this!"
"Are you out of your mind?!" he turned his head sharply while still strangling Seymour. "After everything they've done? After how they tried to kill us and all those corpses we saw?! You really expect me to spare this pile of shit in a nice suit?!"
"I know he's an awful man. They all are!" he paused only briefly, knowing he needed to be quick. "But this way...this is straight up murder. And it's not right, killing in defense is one thing, but doing it this way will only make you no better than that man..." he pointed to Seymour, who began to weaken from the lack of air.
Radcliffe sighed quietly and loosened his grip a little, not sure what to do now after what Louis just said.
"If you won't spare him out of revenge, then do it for the kids. Set an example for them, show that violence doesn't have to be the solution for everything."
Those words made him look to the children, who stood close to Inez with all their eyes focused on him. Radcliffe finally realized they didn't need to see a cruel murder right in front of them after all the other horrible things they've been through. His hands finally released Seymour's neck, he quickly inhaled sharply before coughing as his vision started to come back.
Seymour took deep, wheezy breaths, his arms trembled and struggled to keep himself up. "S-so wh-at now? We'll ne-ver stop hunting you..." he slowly forced himself to say despite his aching throat.
Before anyone said anything to shut him up, Radcliffe threw his fist back and socked Seymour in the left eye and knocked him out cold. Seymour fell face first into the dirt, it may have not been the same as killing him, but Radcliffe felt satisfied enough as he grinned his best.
"Damn that felt good." the Raider chuckled and cracked his knuckle.
"If you've had your fun," Doug began to say.
"Always..."
"But we need to get moving. They'll be coming to this location soon."
Chloe took off her combat helmet and let her raven black hair fall out and sighed. "Right, let's get out of this place."
"Got that right. I don't ever want to see this awful place again." Victoria happily agreed.
The wanderers quickly secured their weapons and backpacks before heading out. The on goers of Paradise's Raid continued the search, completely unaware of what just went on below them. They all looked back once more to the booming location that lived up to its name, built upon secret murders and shady deals. Soon the lights faded in the distance like before when they first approach, but now with a few extra people in tow. And the first thing Radcliffe wanted to do after being in Paradise's Raid for the last few years was to find the children a place where they could live their lives freely.
