Tales From The Wasteland 1
Jet, Not Even Once
"Are you sure that's a good idea Boss? You do know what that stuff is made out of, right?" Raul asked me as I raised a small red inhaler to my mouth, one of many that I had lined up on the table between us.
"No, but when has that ever stopped me from doing anything? I've heard that Jet is brahmin shit, but I at least want to see if it is really bad as everyone says it is." I said, blissfully unaware of how right I was at the time.
After my most recent 'good idea' went horribly wrong and nearly cost me my life, I decided it was high time I figured out what all the chems I've been carrying around with me did in case I ever needed to use them. Of course, and I really should have thought this through after taking some Mentats instead of before, I figured that the best way to do that would be to take a fuckton of each chem I had on me at once to see exactly how much use I could squeeze out of them.
I was already familiar with Psycho, Med-X, and Hydra thanks to all the times they saved my ass from ending up in another shallow grave after just a couple of months since I woke up in Goodsprings after my own execution. I decided to not try Slasher since I trusted my Pipboy's appraisal of it as just a mix of Psycho and Med-X although that proved to be another 'good idea' of mine, but that's a story for another time. I was also familiar with Mentats ever since Doc Mitchel, rest his soul, gave them to me to help compensate for the problems I had after he removed a small chunk of my brain and the bullets inside it to save my life. The chems helped me focus and remember stuff, but for everything I remembered after downing a whole tin at once there were hundreds I realized I would never be able to remember. At least, up until the Mentats wore off and forgot what I was feeling sad about.
As for the chems I had tried so far tonight… they were hit and miss, but definitely not worth selling for spare change. Buffout just made me nearly rip off the door to Raul's shack when I tried to let myself out for a piss break thanks to making all my muscles feel tingly and Party Time Mentats just made me feel more depressed than usual while also making me smarter like regular Mentats did. The only plus about the special Mentats, since there was no way Raul was telling the truth when he said I was actually more likeable when I was moping around like that, is that taking Party Time Mentats and regular Mentats made me even smarter than just taking them separately. Don't know how since they were practically the same thing, but since I didn't have either running through my system when I finally bothered asking that question I was in no position to be thinking of an answer. It just works and that was good enough for me.
Cat's Eye was kinda useful until I realized I could get the same effect by calibrating my eye implants for the same effect. I usually just relied on my Pipboy's flashlight these days after an unfortunate adventure involving a flashbang, plenty of liquor, and a night getting Arcade to sew up my ass again but it was nice to know that I could have one of my companions take some and not keep on bumping into me the next time we explore some caves. Steady and Rebound were about as useful too, since the implants I had already kept my aim inhumanly steady and I was just a natural born badass and had enough adrenaline running through me as is. They would definitely be useful if shit ever hit the fan though, so I wouldn't be crashing Freeside's chem market with what I had stocked up anytime soon.
The only things I found to be as useful as my usual go to chems were some juiced coyote tobacco leaves and Turbo. Raul told me that he used to mix himself some 'coffee' with about two handfuls of tobacco and some honey mesquite pods for taste to keep himself awake at night, so I hadn't been expecting much when I tried it. Even though I nearly threw it up after the first sip, I felt like a whole different person after taking it. It was like…well, I can't really say what it felt like. All I could say is that I felt like I was a new person once it started wearing off on me and a little depressed too, for some reason. Sure, they also made me feel like puking my guts out but that was probably because I wasn't used to the taste yet like Raul was.
Turbo was the real winner between the two though. It wasn't just useful, it turned me into a fucking GOD in the short time that it was in my system. In the course of about five seconds, I managed to sprint out the door and make it a few hundred feet and scared Raul shitless in the process. To me, it felt like a couple of minutes but somehow that chem managed to make me move at super speed compared to the rest of the world. At least, that is what Raul said it looked like because to me it was like the world slowed down for a while instead. Either way, since I would be able to move faster than anyone alive after taking that shit you had better believe I had high hopes for Jet since Turbo was one half of that and the other half spray paint or some shit.
I was feeling really confident about trying that Jet and seeing how long it would last compared to Turbo. Raul... wasn't.
"Boss, I know that you've got some real big cojones on you, but are you sure that taking that much Jet is a good idea?" The old ghoul said as he looked at the row of inhalers I had lined up with genuine concern for once.
The way I saw it, the more Jet I took, the longer it would last. Turbo only gave me super speed for a couple of seconds, so I figured I had better take a fuckton of Jet in case it also gave me super speed and make it last as long as it could. I probably should have taken the hint from Raul actually trying to stop me from doing something for once, but I was kinda high from all the other chems I had taken earlier that night and probably wasn't thinking straight either.
"I'll be fine, what's the worst that can happen?" I asked as I carefully untied the bandana covering the lower half of my face and got ready to take my first puff of Jet.
"Boss…" Raul started to say something, but whatever warning he had vanished alongside with whatever concern he had for me as he instead gave me a devilish grin instead. "You know what? That's a great idea. Do it."
Now that made me pause for a moment. Usually whenever I was going to do something that turned out to be incredibly stupid, suicidal, or both, Raul at least sounded somewhat genuine while sarcastically chewing me out. The old ghoul always had something to say about the places went to and the people we usually ended up killing, so when all he did was encourage me without a hint of his usual backsass you better believe I thought long and hard about what could possibly go wrong.
Unfortunately… all I could think about was moving at the speed of sound after taking more Jet than anyone alive, running past that Securitron guarding The Strip, skinning Benny alive, and returning to Raul while wearing Benny's skin as a cape so I could brag to the old ghoul all night long.
I blame Mentat withdrawal and the dozen bottles of tequila we split for not thinking about how things could go wrong instead of right after having dealt with the consequences of that night.
I snorted about twenty doses of Jet, all in one go, and was rewarded with Raul's dumbfounded look rewarding me for living a chem addict's wet dream.
After that, things became a little foggy. All I can remember was that I screamed, pissed myself, and blacked out for the rest of the night so I don't know a damn thing about what happened afterwards aside from the few things Raul was willing to share with me. Apparently I had a pretty eventful night.
I woke up the next day naked, covered in shit, and hanging from the shack's roof after somehow tying a rope up there after passing out after Raul lost track of me. According to the old ghoul, I apparently started running across the Mojave screaming like a madman about how the "Enclave were in space firing giant death rays at everyone", trying to fight off a "sexy Deathclaw that was giving me a 'fuck me' look" that thankfully didn't exist, and climbing on the old ghoul's back making car noises until he finally gave in and started running around like an idiot until I was happy.
I can neither confirm or deny that any of this happened, or if I still had my clothes on when I mounted the old ghoul. Raul alone knows what happened that night and he sure as hell looked pissed when he told me about what I did until he lost track of me the first time, so I probably did do at least some of the stuff he was accusing me of.
After giving Raul a very lengthy apology for torching some of his old clothes, asking a random lizard for a blowjob loud enough for his neighbors to hear, all the other shit he claimed I did, and promising to never take Jet again for as long as I lived, he told me where I could find my clothes and shoved me out the door. Alone. And naked. In the middle of the fucking day only a mile away from a nest of Deathclaws.
Yeah… something tells me he *might* have been a little pissed about what happened, even told him I was sorry for a couple of hours straight.
Anyways, rather than trying to get back inside and set things right I decided it would be best to get some pants on before I found out if there really was a "Sexy Deathclaw" somewhere nearby and Lake Mead with my tail flapping between my legs. I was praying to whatever sick being was watching me wouldn't let me stumble into a nest of Cazadors until I had some pants on the whole way there until I finally was up to my ankles in water wondering where my clothes were.
It was only after an hour or two of searching, a lot of that time keeping my eyes on a pack of coyotes to make sure they didn't try biting anything that we would both regret that I realized where my clothes were. They weren't by Lake Mead like Raul told me they were. NOOOOOO, that would have been too easy. Apparently this had happened during one of those times Raul lost track of me, unless he was feeling particularly spiteful for riding him like a pack Brahmin, because my clothes weren't by Lake Mead. They were in Lake Mead.
Wanna know what else was in Lake Mead that day? Five Lakelurks. Five HUNGRY Lakelurks.
So yeah, after fighting them off, naked, I was in about as happy of a mood as Raul was once I finally marched my way back to his shack. It was while I was tending to my wounds and Raul enjoyed a nice bit of raw Lakelurk that I decided that Jet just wasn't for me.
And then I learned what it was made of…
If Raul thought he could get some payback by giving me that little tidbit of information now instead of earlier, then the joke was on him when I threw up everything from last night and this morning onto his old vaquero outfit.
Author's Corner:
Fetishes, fetishes never change. Men do, through the mods they make and playthrough…
Jokes aside, I was going to try and play Fallout: The Frontier once I had a few days of free time to do so. When I finally had a moment to do so, the mod had been taken down so I looked up why that was and hot damn… the name of the mod was a lot more appropriate than it should have been with how it ended up: A cataclysmic fallout from bad press surrounding a frontier of fetishes that make Fisto look tame.
So instead of someday adding a few chapters making passing references to that area in the future like I hoped to do, I think it's best to imagine the whole thing was a bad chem trip and pretend that trainwreck never happened. Maybe one day it will change for the better, but I think we all know what they say about change...
As always, I hope you enjoyed and can see more of you all in the future!
And oh yeah, another here's another bonus because why not?
Random Extra:
"Chems are cool, but Jet isn't. Don't do Jet, kids, not even once. All the other chems are A-Okay!" - Courier Six, Courier Six
"No they're not! And why are you giving children chems again?! I told you to stop doing that!"- Arcade Gannon, Followers of The Apocalypse Doctor (Mojave Chapter)
"Hey, at least he didn't give them any Psycho or Slasher this time."- Cass, Owner of Cassidy Caravans
"Come on! There's a whole lot worse things for these kids than chems. The whole reason I'm handing that out is so that way they will be prepared for whatever those things are.."- Courier Six, Courier Six
"Sure Boss, keep telling yourself that. What's the worst that can happen?"- Raul, Adopted Grandpa and Part-Time Mechanic
"Six might actually be on to something. The Brotherhood has been researching the effects of Mentats on childhood development and learning retention for a while now...:"- Veronica, Brotherhood of Steel Scribe (Mojave Chapter)
"Give them the Psycho. It'll help them if the Legion attacks. Never know when a party of slavers might show up."- Craig Boone, NCR First Recon Sniper (Former)
"BOONE!"- Arcade Gannon, Followers of The Apocalypse Doctor (Mojave Chapter)
"NOW, NOW DEARY. JIMMY IS RIGHT. WE DON'T WANT ANYTHING ELSE TO HAPPEN TO THESE KIDS WHILE THEY ARE WAITING FOR THEIR PARENTS TO SHOW UP. THEY NEED TO STAY NICE AND STRONG WHILE THEY ARE WAIT IN BITTER SPRINGS. WE DON'T WANT ANYTHING BAD TO HAPPEN HERE." -Lily Bowen, Brahmin Farmer
"Too soon, Lily. Too soon."- Cass, Owner of Cassidy Caravans
"That's… 6 to 1, Ganon. We're doing this."- Courier Six, Courier Six
"I am going to lose my job if they ever hear about this back in Freeside…"- Arcade Gannon, Followers of The Apocalypse Doctor (Mojave Chapter) (Disciplinary Action Pending)
["Worst. PSA. Ever."]- ED-E, Enclave Eyebot (Former)