The Out of Towner
After that little adventure to The Stables, things went back to normal, but I happened to notice a lot of little events. I did my usual job of standing watch with the entrance crew or running tasks throughout town. It was only after the trip to The Stables that I started taking notice of the word on the street. It was still early August and I found myself catching words and conversations in the crowds rather than the rambling of a hundred different voices. People started to talk about The Stables as a mythical place where the boy genius named, "Myron" created new strains of the wasteland's favorite drug, Jet.
Tourists talked about seeing trains of slaves headed north of town led by Mordinos and asked about the influx of slaves in New Reno. We had slaves of our own, but Bishops slaves were usually drunks who'd caused damage to casino property and had to work it off if they didn't want to be killed. Tourists and New Reno residents spread rumors about The Stables and linked some of the regions slaver activity to that place. How that related, I still didn't really know. Despite the place itself, most of the rumors and stories were about the teenage creator of Jet, and some claimed to have even seen the guy. Upon hearing some of the stranger stories about the kid, I recalled the rant from the guard out there and asked Sophia about the gossip. The kid apparently did get an endless stream of prostitutes headed up there, and I asked my wife if she'd ever "met" the creator of Jet. She said that she hadn't, but some of her friends back at The Cat's Paw often came back from a "Mordino Family VIP Party" detailing orgies in an underground lab somewhere in the wastes. I was as confused as you the reader, but Sophia's prostitute friends complained often about having to satisfy a perverted dork in an underground chem lab. As word about The Stables got out, I started noticing a few other odd things.
Atop the usual crowd chatter about the different families, the Salvatores' "Light Bringers", and the recent passing of one of the Wright Family's sons, I started seeing stranger faces in the usual crowds. The crowds of New Reno were usually the same; some junk scaver looking to lose his cash at the tables, a bunch of drunks wanting to crash a comedy show, caravan hands trying to relax at the casinos after a long trail, etc. However, the usual sea of wasteland trash and junkies around New Reno was occasionally dotted with the sight of a few people in similar attire. Every now and then, I'd see a crew of three or four people in black or grey jumpsuit looking things acting like morons in the crowd. I never had any real encounters with the strangers, but they always seemed like they were new to New Reno in a way unlike the typical waster seeing it for the first time. It's hard to explain, but the strangers appeared sort of like me in the sense that they'd never really experienced wasteland society. Conversations were difficult to overhear, but people's attitudes and gestures told a lot about them even if in little ways. Regardless, I always ended my people watching with the new entry crew coming to take over and soon went about my usual routine.
At the end of the workday or night, I went home to the lovely Sophia and usually saved my cash for nights out or various things we might need. I often headed over to The Jungle Gym if I got off in the afternoon to keep myself fit. The occasional shakedown was a good workout on its own, but I liked to regularly keep in shape. The Jungle Gym was that large facility owned by the Bishops going south towards the Reno Archway. The place was exactly as described; a gym. I'd seen magazines from pre-war times about fitness and those places in the articles looked just like it. There were lots of punching bags on one end and weights on the other. There weren't any machines, but in the center of the facility was a giant boxing ring. The gym part closed when the lights of town came on in order to host fights. Tourists from all over the city or even wasteland flocked to the gym in order to watch a fight in the center ring. It was 10 bucks admission and even though it was cheap, there were usually close to 300 people every night.
The Jungle Gym was an interesting place because anyone could sign up to fight. Everyone was invited, including the other families. Armed guards under Bishops employ monitored the crowds to make sure the other families or drunks didn't start anything that could be settled in the ring. Food merchants had free access at nights, but had to pay a percentage of what they made to the Bishops in the end. Independent bookies took bets off to the side, listing names and swiping cash from everyone they could. I considered signing up for a fight at one point, but then I saw some of the boxers that came in. To this day, I still don't know what it was about New Reno that seemed to spawn giant thugs like the Bishops and Mordinos guys. The Jungle Gym in particular was a place of congregation for the massive who usually worked all day trying to get better at punching people in the evenings.
Hulking boxers slugging it out wasn't always the show though. Sometimes, crowds would take great pleasure in watching two malnourished junkies get thrown in the ring to beat the crap out of each other over a hit of something. Other times, there would be "Cat Fights" or "Ladies Nights" where two drugged out prostitutes from west end settled disputes usually over clients. There was also the occasional mercenary fight where men from competing mercenary companies would put down their guns to settle things with their fists over roaring crowds.
A couple weeks after the Stables operation went bye and it was September 2241. We hadn't done anything really exciting for a while, so I took Sophia for a night out at the Jungle Gym to see the Eight O'clock beatdown. The city was all lit up like every other night and we waited in the long line to get in. The ticket prices were bumped up because this was a fight between Mr. Bishop's very own, "Mike the Masticator" and some up and comer said to wear one of those beat up old Vault Suits. We paid the entry fee of 30 bucks each. This was a discount because we were with the Bishop Family and this fight was apparently a big deal. The crowd was excited and pumped up as the announcer called out his sponsors. Sophia and I managed to get a place fairly close to the ring and I thought about placing a bet on our boy Mike, but decided to just enjoy the spectacle with my wife.
Mike the Masticator leapt onto the stage with a roar from the crowd. I heard rumor that Mike the Masticator was kept in a cage below the Shark Club, but I never had a reason to go down there. When I saw the guy, I knew that he was kept in that cage for a good reason. The giant dark monster stood at seven feet, with tattoos and radiation burns all over his body. The announcer said he was weighing in at 300 pounds of solid muscle and from where we were standing, I believed it. The guy made Vincent look like a dwarf. Mike the Masticator stood there snarling when the spotlight shined on the dark side of the ring.
There was the competitor. The guy was around my height, and looking like he was of tribal descent. The announcer read his stats saying he was the new undefeated rookie weighing in at only 175lbs. The dirtied blue jumpsuit he wore seemed to glimmer in the light and he turned around to show a pristine yellow number "13" on the back. I forgot the name he went by in the boxing scene, but I overheard some chatter calling him, "The Chosen One" (What a tool). I felt like I should've placed a bet because when I saw the guy, I knew that Mike was going to mop the floor with Mr. Vault Suit. I'm very glad I didn't though, because the complete opposite happened.
Three rounds in and Mike the Masticator was bloodied and broken. Mike swung his giant arms only for the Vault Man to duck under and immediately counterattack. Despite that, in the 4th round, Mike the Masticator latched onto the man and Mr. Vault Suit screamed out in pain immediately followed by Mike screaming out in the same pain! The scene was too chaotic to catch detail, but it looked like the two bit chunks out of each others heads! By the 5th round, both had recovered, and the Vault man dodged one final slug from Mr. Bishop's beast and threw his fist upwards knocking him to the ground! The entire crowd was silent, and Sophia stood there in disbelief. Mike the Masticator laid there sprawled across the center ring and the announcer steadily approached the new guy.
The announcer didn't have a speech prepared, so he just held up the Vault man's arm and said into the microphone, "Give a round of applause for New Reno's Newest Champion!" The crowd went wild and the new "Prizefighter" disappeared off stage. Sophia and I went back to the Shark Club talking about the fight and the strange new boxing champion.
I couldn't sleep that night for whatever reason, so I sat there in bed just alone with my thoughts for a while. I kept thinking about that conversation I overheard regarding the "Chosen One" and wondered where I heard that name before. I reflected on the past few months of my life and all the people I met. I randomly thought about Sarah and recalled the blood soaked note she left for me. It was the first time I remembered it in months. I don't know what it was about the stranger in the vault suit, but the guy's presence made me think hard about the past. It hit me that Sarah's note was looted from my pockets on entry into town, and I hadn't thought about that guy "Willie" in a long time.
Alone in the dark, I wondered if Willie actually made it back to New Reno from Redding. I wondered if he ever found out what happened to Sarah and the rest of us. All that was history and irrelevant to my life in the present, but thinking about it made me relive my days with the caravan guards and how I stumbled upon them. I thought back to Detective Paul rescuing me, and what little I could remember about the mine. Then, I envisioned my trip from Klamath to Redding, the drugs I took, and the ghosts I saw. I remembered the feeling of running from the cannibals when it hit me.
That night in the forest, I was woken up by those hunters from Arroyo and they mentioned, "The Chosen One." They said they were on their way back to their village to witness "The Chosen One" run the "Temple of Trials?" I wondered if that was the same person who laid out Mr. Bishop's fighting champion as I floated off to sleep.
Date night with Sophia and the defeat of Mike the Masticator was the first time I'd seen the person who eventually became famous across northern California. He has his own story, but two days later my life was about to go a different direction, and the strangeness only intensified.