A little walk to the north, my ass.
We left Bunker Hill at daybreak and, five hours of walking later, got to the Sanitarium around 10:30a this morning. A hardcore merc named Maria was in charge of the detachment there and seemed to have things pretty well buttoned down. When I asked why her people could not retrieve the lost package, she explained that they were working in 12 hour shifts and had to cover the entire grounds as well as have stationary guard points on each shift. There was also the factor that her crew had signed on for the express purpose of guarding the Sanitarium and that search and recovery required a different skill set. It made perfect sense to hear her explain it. She let us know that they were almost positive that the raiders they suspected of hitting the courier were held up in the old Parson's Creamery about 2 miles up the road.
At least that was a short walk.
It took about 30 minutes to get there moving in a somewhat tactical and cautious way. Upon arrival, it became evident that another reason the mercs may have not bothered to go after this place is that they were out numbered. After 30 minutes, or so, of observation I counted 15 raiders. One to five odds in broad daylight, and we were on the offensive. There were five on watch and 10 just chilling out inside the building. Perfect.
I opened my pack and pulled out the helmet, face mask, and about 6 stimpacks. I had a feeling I was going to need all of them for this. The plan was simple. Heather and I would move forward while Xao covered us with his rifle. If he heard gunfire, he was to start acquiring and retiring targets. I was hoping to get three or four of the guards before they knew we were there. He took a position that gave him the best line of fire into the warehouse. It was mainly through window openings, but we were able to see them moving around. If there was still gunfire one minute after it began, he was to move forward for close quarters combat.
Heather and I made our way down through a gully to the southwest corner of the facility where there was a raider on "guard". Of course this jackoff's version of guard duty seemed to be sleeping while sitting in a chair.
Quick aim with the RSh and - "Thhhip." Sweet dreams fucker. His head exploded quietly and he fell backwards in the chair. One down. We started to move to the north and found the second guard standing on a platform looking far out on the horizon to the west. "Thhhip." A pretty pink spray jetted from the back of his head as he crumpled. Two down.
Moving to the east, we came upon the third guard sitting in a chair, facing the building. He looked like he was sleeping as well. Right before I pulled the trigger I was thinking that we might be able to take out all five of these idiots without alerting anyone inside. Literally, as soon as I pulled the trigger, the guy he was apparently talking to in the building walked out and saw his head blow up. That is what I get for being optimistic.
This guy also knew how to yell and shoot at the same time. He raised his gun up as I was taking aim and started spraying bullets in our direction and screamed for back-up. Organized raiders - fantastic. I ducked to avoid the initial spray of rounds. As they impacted on the dirt above my head, I heard the report of a rifle and someone scream "Sniper!" inside the building. Knowing Xao, he dropped the first guy... He would not have taken the shot otherwise.
More automatic weapons started to join in. At the rate they were going, it seemed like they were going to dig through the dirt to get at us in no time. I motioned to Heather to move right as I moved left along the base of our cover. When we had moved to about 10 feet apart, she looked over at me. Using a five finger count down, we both popped up and returned fire at the same time, dropping one raider each and forcing the other ones back into the building. Five down, ten to go.
I heard the pop of a spoon on a grenade being released. I watched the sky and saw the vicious little think arcing towards Heather. I went into a full sprint and in doing so exposed part of my upper torso to the assholes inside the warehouse. I felt 3 or four rounds hit me in my left shoulder, staggering, but not stopping me. I dove into Heather, knocking her to the ground with me on top of her. I felt the blast but nothing hit us.
"These motherfuckers... grenades? That shit needs to stop.."
"At least it wasn't a Malotov.." Heather chuckled.
"Yeah.. lucky us..." I heard another spoon pop. "Down!" I literally shoved her face into the dirt. The explosion was a little further back and missed us completely.
"Cain... your starting to piss me off..." She growled.
"I am not the one throwing the fucking grenades.." I growled back.
The sound of another spoon caught my attention. I started to force Heather down again.
"Don't." Her voice sounded like Satan. Ok. Fine.
"Fuck this." I reloaded. "Cover me."
"Cover you?" She peeked over the side and ducked down. "There are nine left and that thing has five rounds.."
"Well the bullets are too big for it to ha..."
"Shut up... I know... Nine minus five equals four left..."
"I know.." I replied. "Are you telling me I have to kill all of them? You lazy bi..." I wanted her riled up, and I knew how to do it.
"I will fucking shoot you..." She eyeballed me and smiled a wicked grin. "Go, asshole."
"Don't worry... I am fucking bullet proof... remember?"
She popped above the ridge and started to fire as fast as she could. I did the "big balls and no brains" thing, climbed onto the ridge top, and started to slowly walk towards the building. Why slowly? Two reasons - 1) It causes the person that is firing at you to pause and wonder what the hell you are doing walking slow, and 2) a person who had balls that big or was that fucking crazy was intimidating as hell.
"What the fuck!?" I heard one of them yell. Unhurried, and seemingly unworried, I walked towards the building and aimed, dressed head to toe in badass black fucking armor. I discovered that the HUD in the helmet also had thermal capabilities, allowing me to see the raider's heat signatures.
Neat.
"Shoot that fucker!" were the last words that asshole ever said. Seven down and keep walkin' baby... In the adrenaline rush, I heard all of the rounds leave the barrels before they hit me. There had to be 20 or 30 of them, but I was so pumped from the rush that I didn't even stagger. Between the Kevlar, ballistic plates, and added mirelurk plating, I felt only two of the rounds penetrate, one in each leg. Oh yeah, baby, let the endorphins kick in. I was close enough to hip fire now. In quick succession, I shot 4 more raiders in the head using instinctive shooting alone. Five rounds, five bodies.
I was inside where there was complete chaos and mayhem. Oh yeah... I know that music.
"Fucking hell! Someone kill that fucker!" The other three were moving too fast to get the hell out of the building to comply. I heard the rifle and watched one more drop.
"12." I stood stark still as their leader emptied his pistol into me. "Three left." I let him reload. "Really?" I reloaded as he emptied another magazine. I could feel the rounds impacting on the armor.
"What the hell are you?" He screamed at me.
I pointed my pistol at his head and simply said, "The end." In this case I think the roar of an un-suppressed gun would have been more dramatic than the little "Thhhip", but I can deal with the disappointment. His brain painted the wall just as red.
I heard three more shots ring out. 13, 14 and 15. Nice.
Heather came barreling into the warehouse, laser ready to go.
"Did you kill anyone?" I said in forced sarcasm.
"Oh bite my ass, Mr. 'I'm Bullet-proof.' I dropped that guy outside.'" She holstered her weapon and looked at me, eyes getting wide. "Um, big guy, you are bleeding like a bitch... You might want to take care of that."
I looked down and both of my legs were covered in blood. That was about the time that I started to come down from the rush.
"Ouch.." I sat on a crate and stimpacked each leg... "Yeah.. that's better." The pain started to recede as the miracle of whatever they put in stimpacks started to do its job.
"Ouch? A bullet in each leg, and all you say is 'Ouch'? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Does shouting make it feel better?" I couldn't help myself. It wasn't my fault pain affected me different.
"I got five!" Xao said when he nonchalantly walked into the warehouse. "How many did you guys get?"
"Oh, fuck you!" Heather shot back as she walked out of the warehouse to go search the guards.
"What I say?" Poor Xao.
"You got five.. I got nine."
"Ooooh..." He understood immediately.
"Well, let's ransack the place and see if we cant find this package." We started to move towards the bodies when Heather called for us to come outside. We both sprinted over to where she was.
"What..." She held out her hand, "the fuck is this?" There in her palm was a syringe with some kind of glowing green liquid in it. It was not just glowing, it was shimmering... "I mean, you've seen some weird military grade shit... right?"
"Nothing like that..." It almost looked like it was alive. "I have no clue what the hell that is."
"Well, if we find these on the rest of them, then I think we know what the shipment was."
We found a total of 19 syringes. Each raider had one, and the leader had five. I am guessing he used one at some point, just to check it out. Whatever it was, it didn't kill him and he felt motivated to pass it out to his crew.
I grabbed a syringe, jammed it into my leg and hit the auto-injector before either of them could stop me. I am not sure if I am crazy or just too damn curious, but the effect was immediate. It was like getting hit with mega-doses of every drug I had ever heard of. Buffout, Mentats, Psycho, you name it. To top it off, I felt something happening to the wounds in my legs. I peeled back the material and almost lost my shit when I saw my body, literally, spit the two bullets out and heal itself completely.
I looked up and both Heather and Xao were staring, mouths dropped open.
"Um... If anyone has any questions... We found three vials of this shit... and that is all we are giving them." I watched them as they nodded in agreement. "Good deal."
It took us about 10 minutes after that to find a leather case stamped with the name "Cabot" with spaces for 20 syringes. I placed three inside and snapped it closed.
"We never opened it... right?" Both agreed. "Let me do the bullshitting on this one." I took a few minutes to clean the blood off of my legs. I thought it might be a little too obvious if I was covered in blood with no wounds to show for it.
We made it back to the Sanitarium in half the time it took us to get to the creamery. I felt bad for Heather and Xao, they were having a hard time keeping up with my pace... I was after all, speeding my balls off.
Maria looked at the box, told us that we had the shipment and that Jack wanted us to get it to him as fast as possible. Fantastic... so much for our nice leisurely walk to Covenant today. By the time we made it back to the Cabot house, it was getting dark and the rush had died out. All total, I think it lasted for about four hours. When we arrived, I turned the box over to Edward. He popped it open.
"Three vials... damn.. Just enough for one dose for each of the Cabots. Those bastards must have used the rest... Did you find any syringes with an odd looking green liquid in them?" He bought it, so far.
"No... Just weapons, ammo, some stimpacks, jet... you know, the usual shit those boneheads have. We do get to keep that stuff, right?" I fed him so much bullshit, my eyes were turning brown.
"Yeah... You can keep that stuff. Here." He handed us each a good sized bag of caps. "There is 300 each in there... you can count it if you like."
"So, what is in the syringes that makes them worth 300 caps each?" He left that door open, and I figured I would take it.
"Nothing that concerns you right now." I expected a blow off. "Can you come back around next Sunday or Monday? Jack's mother is getting worried about his sister and I may need your help again."
"Could we make it Tuesday or Wednesday? Our social calendar is kind of full for the next week." I was thinking if everything went fine in Covenant and Concord, next Monday wouldn't be an issue, but so far, when has anything gone fine?
"That'll work... just try not to make it any later than that, would you?"
I assured him it wouldn't be a problem and we headed out to rest here in Bunker Hill again. Heather and Xao are crashed out in the rooms on either side of me, and I am nowhere near tired, but I need to try. Whatever the fuck that stuff is, apparently insomnia is a side effect. Awesome. I am going to lay down and stare at the ceiling til I either fall asleep or the sun comes up. Yay.
