An Average Joe

It was around 5pm when things around San Fran were about to explode. Captain Wesley ordered me to pass along "Shoot to kill" orders for anyone approaching our positions along designated roads when the whole city echoed with a massive noise of grinding steel and tumbling objects. The odd noise made Captain Wesley and the other unit commanders think we were getting attacked, and the Captain ordered the sharpshooters to the rooftops immediately.

Just then, one of my teams came over my radio saying, "Lieutenant Combs? You should come up here to see this…"

I confirmed, and Captain Wesley ordered me to find out what's going on. Storming up the stairs of the northwest sector sniping position, I busted open the doors to find out what was going on. However, there was no need to explain. The vagrant's tanker ship, the PMV Valdez, was sailing west into the setting sun. Nobody ever would have believed that old ship was seaworthy, but there it was… Sailing straight into the sunset.

It wasn't long before Captain Wesley came on up to see what was happening and was just as dumbfounded as everyone else. However, immediately after the wave of confusing silence, then came the screams of what happened when the ship departed.

The ship was always connected to the docks by a series of pipes, scaffolding, and cranes to anchor it in place. When the vessel left, nobody disconnected it from the posts, and so the enormous beams and cranes that kept the several thousand-ton ship from drifting away collapsed onto the squatter city below.

The tanker ship disappeared into the sunset and Captain Wesley immediately relayed what was going on to the Northern Division's command. No more than an hour later, the sky was dark, and the division command managed to make peace with the Shi given what just happened. So, I was one of the commanders given orders to lead a humanitarian effort for the victims of the tanker departure. Me and over a hundred other NCR soldiers headed towards the screaming on the docks with all the medical equipment the division had.

The scene was a mess. Dozens were killed in the collapse of dock equipment and many more were injured. I dispersed my soldiers to triage the victims, but I didn't have as much medical experience; so, I decided to see what happened and offer any other assistance I could.

Wouldn't you know it? Every vagrant on the docks talked about some lunatic calling themselves, "The Chosen One" running around Chinatown and the surrounding Bay Area trying to get the tanker ship operational for some reason. The guy evidently succeeded, and took off into the sea. I also guess that was where the Shi's missing fuel went, but they still wanted to find out who was responsible for hacking their computer systems to take it.

Regardless, the humanitarian effort went well into the night as NCR troops, Shi members, and local doctors helped the victims of that psychopath's antics. I helped where I could, but mostly created records of the incident. Everyone spoke of that Chosen One, but nobody knew why he took off into the sea. Everyone on the docks knew and felt the impact, but not why the cretin I kept crossing paths with would take a ship out into nowhere.

I was in between helping a team of medics patch up a poor soul's container dismembered leg and took a breather. I stumbled into the railing to look out at the sea and gather myself. The full moon seemed to somehow clear up the murky Pacific Ocean. The moonlight glimmered off the water, and the millions of stars twinkled in the open sky above the endless expanse of ocean.

Suddenly, a foreign wave of emotions and stress hit me with the familiar wave of confusion.

Honestly...

I was pretty tired of not knowing anything about these huge issues I was involved in... My part in starting a war was still largely unknown to me, and my encounters with that Chosen One weirdo were unexplainable. Alongside that, I was in an army that had no real mission, and was serving without actually knowing what I was serving. One full year of running and stumbling into situations I couldn't explain had finally caught up and hit me all at once. In that moment, I almost mentally gave up on everything. The crazy year I had, and that moment on the San Fran Docks made me realize that I was a slave in a mine exactly one year prior. I didn't know how to take all the craziness and began to physically express the mental break down in my head when I heard a familiar voice behind;

"Never seen a Bishop boy lose it before?"

I knew right there who it was. Without looking back at the guy, I said, "I aint no Bishop boy, Detective Paul… I aint nothing… and I'm pretty sick of being lost in all this nonsense…"

Detective Paul entered the corner of my eye, leaned up against the railing beside me, and stared out into the ocean with me. There, he said, "You're right. You know what you actually are?"

I gave a shrug and let the man speak, "You're a God Damned NCR Officer!..." he said humorously but assuring.

I interrupted the man solemnly by being honest, "I don't even know what that means."

With that, he asked a question, one I'd been thinking about at every point my life took a turn for the better or worse, "You know what you were a year ago?..."

I nodded again, but let the guy continue, "One year ago, you were a fucking slave so high on Jet you couldn't tell what dimension you were in… Before that, you ripped off a bunch of slavers and fled to the one town you thought you'd be safe in… After Redding; you took the long road to New Reno where you became a Made Man with one of the most powerful families there; this was immediately after you got your head slammed into the asphalt repeatedly and lost a bunch of friends… Next, you helped a young detective uncover a plot between a powerful crime family and a shadowy organization involved in northern affairs… Finally, you made the dangerous trek to the capital of a new nation, investigated a long abandoned military base with ties to wasteland legends, and helped the good guys do what is needed to confront an enemy to everyone in the wastes… You still don't know what all this means? You still don't know what it means to be part of the New California Republic?"

I took in all his words and tried to consider everything I went through in the eyes of someone else. I searched my mind for answers to the questions, but had to shrug and say, "You know I need everything explained to me, Paul."

I still wasn't looking at the guy, but knew that answer made him grin. Paul said, "You are 'The North', Sean…"

I glanced at him wondering what he was talking about, but he went on, "You were nothing. You were absolute trash and on the run from the world long before I ever met you in that mine. You had everything thrown at you from fists to bullets, all in that giant mess people call 'The North.' You crawled through that dirt, debris, chaos, crime, and death, only to rise on the other side with a name worth standing for, a wife worth loving, and friends who believe you're worth helping… You made it, Sean... I know you think everything you went through was dumb luck… But sometimes, it is, and that's all there is to it… But that doesn't mean everything is pointless considering all you've accomplished: where you were and where you are matters when asking 'Who is Sean Combs'..."

I actually did have to wipe away a lone tear after that. He was right. Despite the craziness of the past year, getting caught in the wake of the Chosen One's messes, and the tornadoes of absolute shit from daily survival, slavery, crime family drama, etc; I was a new person. The days I spent scavenging for rat meat and my next crash pad were gone. I had a great life, a great wife, a few great friends, a role in something bigger than myself, a noble job, and most importantly; a future.

Still though, the bizarre happenings and experiences across my travels had to be leading somewhere. I wondered why Detective Paul was on the docks, and somehow more pressing, where the Chosen One took that tanker ship. For some reason, I felt that Paul would be able to answer those questions. So, I asked after the silence;

"You wouldn't happen to know where the Chosen One took that tanker ship, would you?..."

Paul remained silently staring out into the dark ocean. In that moment, he pointed towards a tiny black speck on the edge of the moonlit waters. The figure was way too far to make out, but appeared to be getting ever so closer through the silent seconds.

Suddenly, a bright flash appeared on the horizon like someone unexpectedly turned on fluorescent lights in a pitch-black room. I looked away from the flash reflexively until I saw the light slowly fade back into the dark of night over the course of several seconds. Looking back at the waters, I caught a glimpse of the dark cloud growing out of the horizon before hearing a tremendous *BOOM*. The explosion sound echoed throughout the ruins and hills of San Fran, only amplified by the hollow structures that arched the sound wave back into the sea and air. After a few minutes of panic on the docks, the ringing in my ears lessened, and the winds moved west, back towards the black mushroom cloud rising from the Pacific.

I shouted at Paul from the numbness in my eardrums, "What the FUCK was that!?"

The two of us composed ourselves against the railing as troopers and vagrants from the docks piled up next to us to look out at the cloud. Through the loud chattering of everyone around us, Paul shouted, "Never seen or heard one before! But that definitely looked like a Nuke going off!..."

Then he nudged me, I looked at the guy, and he asked, "You wanted to know something about that Chosen One guy!?"

I nodded my head and shouted over the bewildered crowd at my buddy who stood less than a foot from me, "Sure!? You know something about that explosion!?"

He shook his head and replied, "No!" but added, "I'll tell you this, though! Heroes and Legends get the stories!... But the world doesn't stop for them! What happens afterward and the 'Average Joes' who make it happen are what's actually important!"

I thought about his words as I stared out at the edge of the world amidst the chattering crowd and a slowly returning ability to hear properly. The shadowy figure was much closer now, with the dark cloud still dominating the night sky behind it. The figure was clearly the tanker ship on its way back to the San Fran docks. As I studied the moon becoming shrouded in nuclear debris, I saw a dozen or more dots in the sky moving northeast from the blast.

I gave Detective Paul a nudge and shouted, "Look! Vertibirds!" only to notice the man I nudged was a nameless vagrant.

I apologized, looked back at the approaching tanker, the Vertibirds moving north, the giant black cloud, and tried to consider the words Paul left me with;

"The Hero's gonna get the story… But the world doesn't stop for them... What happens afterward and the 'Average Joes' who make it happen are what's actually important."

Sean Combs (An Average Joe)

END… For Now