5
"Back to the concrete! Now!" Patience flipped back up and fired two shots towards the sniper, hoping that Valrie had listened to her order. Three Super Mutants started lumbering towards her and a fourth began raising its missile launcher.
She ducked back down and took a couple of quick, deep breaths. Valrie had already skittered away, disappearing behind the concrete slab they had first hidden behind and Patience jumped up to follow. She sprinted, head down, and threw herself behind the concrete as the tell-tale whistle and whine of a missile approached.
The explosion shook and vibrated the air, making her ears ring and throb in pain. Debris clattered against the broken concrete and started falling around them. She had little time to worry about that. Valrie huddled behind the slab, arms over her head, gripping her football helmet, her eyes closed tight.
"God damn it! Your jump suit ain't worth this!" The older woman yelled.
Patience ignored Valrie's protests. Bringing herself back to her feet, she aimed the rifle through the broken gap in the concrete. Two more shots rang out, aimed at the first Super Mutant she saw. The first bullet pinged away, deflected by an old, large radiator it wore as body armour. The second bullet thudded into its chest, burying deep and causing a gout of thick, green blood to spout outwards. It didn't even flinch.
Before ducking down again, she saw four other Super Mutants joining the fray. One, even bigger than the others. Over eight feet tall, its skin a thick, dark green. It carried what looked like a giant make-shift sword, held with one hand, casual and without any effort.
There wasn't any other cover. At least, none that they could reach before getting cut down by gunfire, or finding another missile launched at them. She felt desperate, breathing heavy. She doubted that suppressing fire would work with these creatures, they didn't seem to care if they got shot.
She flipped the RoF switch to 'auto'. If she was going to die here, she would go down fighting. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the cool face of the concrete slab, trying to control her breathing. She could feel Valrie almost trying to dig her way further into hiding. With one last breath, she prepared to come out shooting.
"Humans!" A deep, rumbling voice battered and bludgeoned its way through the air. "Come out. Now. You will not be killed."
"Not killed. King say. King tell truth." Another voice, not as deep as the first.
"I don't need an echo!" The sound of something getting punched.
"Yes, King. Me am sorry, King." The second voice became higher and contrite.
Patience felt confused. She looked towards Valrie who had a similar look of confusion upon her face.
"That don't sound like no Super Mutant I ever heard." Valrie started to lift her head to look through the hole in the concrete before Patience shoved her head back down.
"If you don't come out now, you will certainly die." The Super Mutant 'King' continued. Patience chanced a look and saw the King, its giant sword tip resting on the ground, its hands folded on the grip. "The worst that could happen if you surrender is that you become like us."
Patience could feel her eyes move fast, from side to side, as she ran through her options. The Super Mutants outnumbered them. She had no idea what could kill these Super Mutants, or if she could kill them. It was possible that enough bullets could bring them down, but she had little amounts of ammunition as it was. It was also possible that a shot or two right into their brains could drop them, but she wouldn't have the luxury of aiming before the others riddled her with bullets or blew her apart with a missile.
She considered surrendering and attempting escape later, but she had no idea where they Super Mutants would take them, whether they would find themselves tied up. If so, what with? There were too many unknown variables and the variables she did know made the situation as bleak as it could get. All she knew was that as long as she was alive, there was a chance. However slim.
She didn't want to become like these brutish creatures and she didn't want to die, that was for certain. Limited options. Limited possibilities. She took one last look at Valrie. The old woman shook her head. To say 'no'? To say she didn't know what to do? Patience couldn't tell. She had to make a decision.
She removed the strap of her rifle and laid the weapon on the ground, then did the same with her sidearm. She raised her arms, stood up and stepped out from behind the concrete.
"And the other one." The Super Mutant King crooked a finger, seeing Valrie's face through the gap in the concrete. She shuffled out, hands raised high. "Now, isn't this more civilised?"
A dirty wind whipped up from nowhere, lifting the sterile dust of the ground, dancing with the drifting smoke from the missile explosion. It whistled between Patience and Valrie, turning and twisting the air, blowing towards the Super-Mutant King. As the wind reached him, the King sniffed. The great, bony ridge of his brow creased and he sniffed again. He stepped back.
"Kneel for King!" One of the other Super-Mutants growled. It stepped forwards.
"No! Don't touch them!" The King reached out to his subordinate, but it was too late. The Super-Mutant dropped a huge hand upon Patience's shoulder, shoving her to her knees.
Within the blink of an eye, the King's sword lifted, swept out and tore through the neck of the Super Mutant that had touched Patience. The head fell from the body, dropping at Valrie's feet. A fountain of blood spurted from the remains of the creature's neck, spattering over Valrie and Patience and the body crumpled to the floor.
"What the fuck!" Valrie began retching, at the smell, at the blood, at the decapitated head at her feet.
The Super Mutant King began backing away, staring at Patience and Valrie. A tense, unwavering stare. He ushered the other Super Mutants backwards and they obeyed, however confused they were with the order.
"You two," The King pointed towards Valrie and Patience. "You stay away from Super Mutants. You come near my people, I'll hit you with every missile I've got."
With a few more backward steps, the King turned away and, with the other Super Mutants following, regardless of how confused they appeared, he started striding away, back to the Fairfax Ruins.
"What the fuck just happened?" Valrie shook her arms to toss away some of the Super Mutant blood and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. "I mean, what, the actual fuck, just happened?
"I have no fucking idea." Patience mumbled to herself.
The wind played and teased with their clothing and hair. Changing direction and tossing the dry dust around like tiny little toys.
They moved in a wide circle around Fairfax Ruins. If the state of Valrie was anything to go by, Patience thought she must look like a mess. The Super Mutant blood, that covered them, now drying in the heat of the hazy sunlight.
No other Super Mutants came anywhere near them, though they could see them. Their hulking bodies moving within the desolate ruins of Fairfax. Once or twice, one of the creatures seemed to catch sight of them, but backed away, keeping their beady lifeless eyes upon them as they retreated behind walls.
"That's not how those ass lickers work!" Valrie mumbled to herself once again. She had said the same thing several times now. "They kill you. They beat the living shit out of you. They don't talk and they certainly don't walk away!"
Patience couldn't agree or disagree. This was, as far as she knew, the first time she'd ever encountered the giant creatures. From what she'd seen of them, however, she felt inclined to think that violence appeared to be their main attributes. Their leader, the King, did seem to be a fair bit different to the others.
"It's done. We're alive and they seem to be leaving us alone." Patience caught sight of another Super Mutant, trying, and failing, to watch them from cover. Its huge frame making it difficult to show any kind of stealth. "Let's just get to Megaton."
"You don't get it, vault girl!" Valrie stopped, turning on Patience. "They didn't just talk! That King fella talked well. Like a human! And they're organised. I'm no strategy person, not like you, but didn't that seem tactical to you?"
Patience hadn't thought about it, but there did seem to be a crude form of tactics to the creatures. Herding those raiders out into the open, using a sniper to take them out. The missile launcher held back and only firing when people used cover. The King accepting surrender.
"Terrible tactics, yes." She took another look to where the Super Mutant had tried to hide and watch them. "Is this the best place to talk about it? We should move fast before they change their minds."
Valrie threw up her hands and turned to continue walking. They soon left Fairfax behind, forging northwards and reconnecting with the freeway. The road, no longer elevated, gave better purchase at this point. It still had places where the structure had buckled and broken, large cracks and uplifted sections making minor obstacles, but much more flat than the previous sections.
At one point they found a large section packed with the rusted, buckled remains of vehicles, sitting bumper to bumper as if caught in an apocalyptic traffic jam. Skeletons were in most of the cars, as if waiting for the traffic to move. Remnants of shirts and ties, once colourful dresses and hats and bonnets adorned them, giving an eerie sense of stasis. A grim fragment of time. A snapshot of unforeseen disaster.
Valrie moved between the cars and the trucks, eyes scanning for anything worth taking. Packs of cigarettes, rings, watches and other jewellery found their way into her pockets. She tossed one pack of cigarettes to Patience and leaned against one of the cars, lighting one of her new finds. Patience joined her, lighting a cigarette of her own while keeping a constant eye on their surroundings.
"Relax. Megaton keeps this area mostly clear. 'Cept for damned Mole Rats. Can't seem to kill them quick enough." She flicked ash from the burning end of the cigarette and drew in more smoke. "Megaton's just over that rise. The folks there are pretty good people. Not too wary of strangers. But you need to keep your mouth shut about what happened in Fairfax."
"You don't think they should know about the danger, almost on their doorstep?" Patience tried to see if she could catch sight of Megaton, but she couldn't see any buildings. Only the tip of what looked like a derelict scrapyard. "They should prepare, just in case those things come this way."
"If we go in there, spouting about Super Mutants organising down the road a-ways, it'll just start a panic." The older woman took one last, long drag from the cigarette, her eyes rolling in satisfaction as the heated smoke trickled into her lungs, before flicking the butt away. "When we get in there, I'm going to try and contact the Brotherhood, they don't like Super Mutants much, and let Three Dog know. He'll know better than you or me what people should and shouldn't know. He's pretty smart, that radio guy."
"The Brotherhood?" The name didn't sound familiar to Patience.
"Of Steel. Armoured ass-holes from out west. They're about the only ones who can go toe-to-toe with those big yellow bastards." Valrie chanced a look into the car she leaned against. Spotting something in the back, she leaned in, pushing aside the skeleton of a child and emerged holding a tin toy horse with articulated legs. It disappeared into her pockets. "Though, after their battles with the Enclave, I'm not sure how well they're doing themselves, right now."
Satisfied that Patience knew what, and what not, to say on entering Megaton, Valrie clapped her hands and shoved herself from the body of the car, turning to head towards the scrapyard off to the side of the freeway and just over the rise.
It was only after cresting the rise that Patience realised that what she thought had been the peak of a scrapyard was nothing of the sort.
Like an erratic bubble, the structure rose from the dirt. Made from such eclectic objects as the tail end of a cargo plane, huge, metallic billboards, their advertising scrubbed away, metal grill fencing, chain-link fencing, metal doors, corrugated iron, steel and plastic. Cars and trucks, somehow, sawn in half and stacked atop each other, a large children's play park carrousel welded upright. Almost anything that could be of use to fortify the gentle curving wall, was.
Patience found herself led around the perimeter. Every so often, a tiny gap would appear in the superstructure of the dome and she caught the barest glimpse of light and life inside. It was quite big. Making a quick calculation, she guessed that it had a rough area of around three large city blocks. The dome rose up high above and made a gentle curve out of sight.
They soon found themselves at the entrance, a large protectron robot standing impassive at the side.
"Evening, Deputy. Just visiting Moira with my friend here." Valrie stood before the protectron.
"Very well. You will find Moira Brown at Craterside Supplies. Second level, to the right." The lights of the protectron's face plate flashed as it spoke in a deep, faintly angry voice with a military cadence. "Welcome to Megaton."
A rumbling began as engines powered up. Two doors, made from the wings of a cargo plane began sliding upwards revealing a large entranceway to a pair of doors. Patience shook her head at the ingenuity as Valrie walked past the protectron robot to enter the city.
"The people in the Republic of Dave have had it hard. What with the recent, shocking, election results and Dave, himself, missing, presumed dead.
So, what's happening in the all-new, all-different Republic of Shawna?
Well, it seems they have had an influx of new residents. Refugees from the now destroyed outpost of the Enclave have increased the population significantly.
The new Grand Army of the Republic successfully fought off a Deathclaw attack, not without casualties, I might add, and now the Republic have designs on expanding their influence with Old Olney square in their sights.
Now, I'm not one to give advice, but turning aside a couple of Deathclaws doesn't mean they have a chance of clearing out the Deathclaw capital of the Wasteland.
Good luck with that, Shawna, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hear of the Grand Army returning to the safety of the Republic, humbled, cut to ribbons and several soldiers fewer than when they started.
Take old Three Dog's advice, young Republic, don't piss off the sword fingered murder machines!"
Multi-coloured string lights began to glow as the day came to its inevitable turn to darkness. The town (city?) of Megaton still had the hustle and bustle of activity as Patience and Valrie took the gentle sloping path down towards the centre of the town.
If anything, the inside of Megaton was more eclectic than the surrounding walls. Everything from old busses and trucks, right through to cargo containers stacks of large, wheeled trash bins all utilised in the creation of homes, shops and other habitations. And, in the very centre of the crater, where Megaton had started, the huge nuclear bomb sat, listing to the side, like an old lion. Tired, past its prime, yet still able to wreak havoc at any time.
Valrie had told Patience that the last vault dweller to visit Megaton had rendered the bomb inert, but Patience didn't trust that the bomb wouldn't deteriorate further and explode anyway.
"Before we disturb Moira, you have to try Jenny's Mole Rat burgers at the Brass Lantern." Valrie pushed through the crowd, holding her elbows wide from her body to encourage wide-births. "God damn! This place has got overcrowded recently. Out of the god damned way, you dumb fucking ass lickers!"
Patience found herself slipping between the teeming crowd with some ease. It was possible that the raider clothes, covered in dried blood, she now wore and the assault rifle, resting diagonally across her chest, her finger never far from the trigger guard, had something to do with her not getting jostled as much. She received many an odd, furtive glance that never stayed upon her for long before they found the floor more interesting, all of a sudden.
Valrie led the way through the crowd, past hawkers and beggars, past people milking brahmin outside buildings, past several people dressed alike with faraway, fervent looks in their eyes and the image of an atom drawn upon their foreheads, singing the praises of The Atom and blessing people as they passed.
The Brass Lantern teetered right on the edge of the dirty puddle that marked the absolute bottom of the crater, the huge bomb, sitting at a cock-eyed angle, only feet away. A counter, with several high, back-less seats arrayed before it was where Valrie plonked herself down, climbing onto a seat and slapping the counter-top.
"Jenny, you food whore! Get me two Mole Rat burgers with all the fixings." Valrie smiled and winked at the woman behind the counter.
"Leo! Two Fat Rats. Make 'em good. They're for the old hag." The woman, Jenny, called through a hatch in the wall of the shack. She was a pretty woman, or had been. Age seemed to catch up with people fast in the Wasteland. She flicked her blonde hair behind her ear. "Who's your friend? You know you're both covered in dry blood, right?"
"We know. This is Patience." Valrie patted the seat next to her, inviting Patience to sit. "She's a vault dweller. Turned up in the middle of the Wasteland. No memory. No caps. Nothing."
"Hello." Patience offered her hand to Jenny, who giggled, biting her lip before taking the outstretched hand.
"Charmed, I'm sure." Jenny dipped her head, looking up at Patience. Her hair fell from behind her ear and she returned it, with dainty fingers. "What brings you to Megaton?"
"Business. As in, none of yours." Valrie leaned forward over the counter. "Now, are we going to get offered coffee, or do I have to fucking beg?"
"Coffee's out. We got something looks like coffee and don't taste too much like shit." Jenny turned to pick up a coffee pot and two mugs, flicking a glance towards Patience. "I expect you like your drinks strong?"
"Jebus Christ!" Valrie groaned. "Leave the girl alone, you horny bitch. She just wants to eat and drink in peace. Like me."
Jenny, shocked her flirtations had appeared so overt, brushed down the front of her overalls and adjusted her hair again, flustered. A 'ding' from a bell signalled the arrival of the food and she made a dramatic turn, head held high, to retrieve it from the hatch, placing the two burgers before Valrie and Patience.
Patience turned the plate the burger sat on, examining all sides of the food. It looked normal enough. The bun almost looked like real bread and the patty inside looked like a normal patty. Only a little darker brown than real burger meat. On the side of the plate, she found several cooked insects and some kind of sauce, that she couldn't identify, in a little tub.
Taking the top half of the bun, she put a few insects on top of the patty and poured the sauce over the lot before replacing the bun. Picking it up with both hands, she took another look, let out a couple of deep sighs and bit down.
She groaned as she chewed, rolling her eyes.
"Knew you'd like it." Valrie ripped into her burger, taking almost half into her mouth and chewed like she hadn't eaten in days.
Like it? Patience loved it! It was pure, meaty ecstasy in a bun. Who knew those ugly creatures could taste so good? Patience began to think the Wasteland wasn't all bad, after all.