Chapter 6: Blood
I ordered some noodles in a bowl and some 'Nuka Cola', which Joe told me was 'soda', or sweetened water with my money. The vault never had soda, and I wondered why. I read the label on the soda and frowned at the irony in the name and took a sip. It tasted delicious! I kept drinking it until I noticed I already drank half the bottle. I started eating the bowl of noodles after my discovery. Out in the Wasteland, the noodles are different. They're soaked in broth, and spicier than the ones in the vault. The ones there were bland, while these actually tasted better, and were spiced. I finished my food quickly and met Joe and Victoria upstairs. I walked into Joe's room and saw them both loading up weapons. Joe's room was much like Victoria's, and had relatively cleaner sheets. Joe was adding extra rounds for his rifle into his satchel and Victoria was reloading a backup pistol and pumping her Power Fist. They turned to me as they cocked their weapons.
"You have extra rounds for your pistol?" Joe asked me.
"Yep." I said. I took out my pack and put the bullets into my pocket. I forgot to reload my pistol after my first fight. After some quick lessons from Joe's Guide to Wasteland Knowledge, I've figured out how to reload my pistol. I cocked back the barrel of the pistol, took out the clip, placed bullets into it, and put it the clip back inside the gun, pushing he barrel pack into the normal position. I holstered my weapon.
"You're learning, kid. One day, we can actually call you a Wastelander. But for now, I guess… regular kid with a butt chin works." Joe said with a smile.
"So how'd you find out what the raiders were planning?" I asked.
"The bodies outside your vault were dragged to a nearby camp. Turns out, those guys were close to Chain, and know he wants revenge. The camp had about twenty or so raiders, after we overheard their conversation, we ran back to town." Victoria explained.
"Yep, it seems your more trouble than you're worth." Joe patted my back.
"We'll see tonight, won't we?" I said, adjusting my holster belt.
"Wow. Haven't even killed a person yet and you're cocky?" Victoria smiled.
Joe sighed and exchanged a look with Victoria. They then both turned to me. "I have a question for you Jace. I've been meaning to ask it." Joe looked into my eyes.
"Yeah, what is it?" I asked.
"When we first saw you at the vault and the raiders talked to you, you said that you knew who Chain. How?" Joe asked. His face was serious, which I've never seen before. Victoria looked at me for the answer as well.
"Well, other than being a total douche-nut, he-" I was interrupted by a gunshot, echoing loudly in the town, making al conversations downstairs end abruptly. We turned towards the exit and heard several more.
"Well that was coincidentally timed." Joe looked at me.
We all sprinted towards the main gates. People ran by us, some of them pushing us out of the way to run from the gunshots. A select few were screaming for their lives. I sighed in annoyance at their yells.
"The sun's still out, why are they attacking?" Joe asked as we clamored down the stairs.
"I don't know, but get your weapons ready!" Victoria said as she got up quickly and held her pistol in her free hand.
I took out my pistol and we all ran to the main gate. It was already opened. Outside, the horizon was a sea of raiders, brimming from left to right. The security force, along with Larry were shooting back and taking cover. The three of us separated and ran for cover. Joe turned to me.
"Get in cover, you idiot!"
I sat behind some rocks and shot at the seemingly endless wave of raiders. "Geez, did you forget how guns work?" Joe teased me. "Now's not the time to annoy each other, Joe!" Victoria screamed over the gunfire. "Uh, nag, that'll get me to fight harder, Vee." Joe sighed in verbal irony as he popped from his cover and shot. The wall of raiders charged all at once, and overwhelmed most of the security force. Bodies dropped, bullets ricocheted off the walls, and then came the worst part. I shot every raider I saw as they rushed towards the gates, shooting their rifles at everything they saw. One raider roared as he ran at me, shooting the rock that I was hiding behind. As soon as the bullets stopped, I popped up from cover and shot at him. Blood splattered on the rocks and on my clothes. I closed my eyes and wiped my face from the blood, sighing and turning my nervous face into a courageous expression. My eyes opened to see a horrific sight, making my courage wither away in the dry wind.
The raiders started to use grenades.
"JOE! MOVE!" Victoria screamed at him as one landed next to him. "I know how grenades, work, Vee!" Joe retorted in a scream as he ran away from it and slid behind an old car. Explosions went off in every direction and shattered my ear drums. I shouted to Joe and Victoria to focus fire on the grenadiers and pointed to them. Victoria turned from her cover to shout something, but a grenade went off and she was caught in the explosion. She flew from her cover, flying through the air, and smacked onto the floor. Her body was out in the open, yet away from the attackers. I sat and stared at her lifeless body in with my mouth open.
It caught us by surprise, what was once an everyday sight for Joe turned into a nightmare as the reality of his situation became apparent. Joe sobered up instantly, and his face changed as he saw her on the ground. He got up to help her but a bullet sparked off his car, keeping him pinned. He screamed something inaudible to my ears as I stared at her. I got up to ran from her, but Larry pulled on my shoulder and shook his head and said something, but I couldn't hear over the firefight and my ringing ears. I pushed him off of me harshly and got up. I left my cover and sprinted to her, bullets whizzing past me. She was face down on the floor and wasn't moving. I flipped her over and Joe ran towards us. Her head was bleeding and was dripping down towards her face. Dirt and ash covered her body. The explosion was close to her, but all her limbs were intact. She started to hemorrhage and spit blood and I scrambled to get my pack off. Bullets popped from the dirt around me.
"Joe! I need you!" I shouted at him. He instantaneously popped out of cover despite the fire keeping him pinned at managed to get a few shots out from his rifle as the raiders turned their attention to him.
I took out my medical kit and poured the hydrogen peroxide on her wounds, while ripping cloth off my shirt to stop the bleeding. I had to get her out of there. I lifted her up and told Joe and Larry to fall back into the city. I started to walk towards the gates, sparks flying off the walls and explosives going off in every direction as the rest of the force was crippled from the massive firefight. I tried to talk to her and get her to listen to my voice, but she didn't respond. Her head bobbed up and down, blood now dripping from her onto my arms. Her skin was cold, her eyes glazed and stuck on mine. I lumbered faster and faster to the gates. I heard a loud noise and looked at my legs. Blood splattered from my left kneecap and left abdomen. I fell to the ground, dropping Victoria to my side. Never in my life would I ever want to feel that pain ever again. The first time I had been shot was so crippling, I shudder to this day when I remember it. I turned and exhaled in panic to see a group of raiders, finishing off the rest of the security force. Larry turned his head to yell, but he was executed on the spot. Joe turned around to me, and stopped running and I looked towards him. I shook my head at him, and pointed to Victoria. Joe's face was confused, but he knew what I wanted to say. I grabbed my wound and groaned in pain as the blood oozed endlessly from me. I turned to the raiders and saw one in the middle that looked cleaner than the rest. I tried to crawl away, dragging blood on the ground. He wore a metal chest piece with an old road sign attached to it and directed his troops into the town. I knew instantly who he was.
The battlefield was dead silent now, with only Joe and I still conscious to understand what was happening. My back on the ground and facing the leader, I turned around. "Get inside." I said quietly through my pain. He looked up at Chain, and then down at me and dragged Victoria into the gates. The townspeople slammed the makeshift gates shut behind them. I scrambled for my pistol and took it out, aiming for his head. He took out a pole wrapped with bicycle chains with an exercise dumbbell attached to the end and swung it at my arm, disarming me and sending my gun flying to the left. I struggled to move onto my stomach and started crawling with my hands and right foot. My blood stained the dirt around me and I tried to hold onto to being awake. I heard laughter from behind me as I lifted up a knee and brought myself up; straining my stomach wound and sending me back down into the ground with a strenuous screech. Sweat was running down my face, my shirt was drenched at the collar.
"Well, well! We have a hurt little puppy, who wants to finish him off?" Chain announced to his men.
"I know you… you're Chain." I said, out of breath.
"In the flesh!" He said with a wolfish grin.
"I—I'm gonna—gonna kill you." I huffed as my face turned pale. I looked at my gun off to the side. "Uh-huh. And how are you going to do that? There's only one of you, and all of us." Chain said, looking around at his men.
"I don't care- long as you're dead… I'm happy." I blacked out for a second and reopened my eyes.
"Why all the hatred, boy? By the looks of it, I'm doing you a favor." He smiled as he pressed his foot on my knee, making me shout out to the skies above. Twenty feet away behind the safety of the walls, the townspeople waited quietly with whatever guns they could find, listening.
"You kill people. You… don't… care who." I choked out. I pointed to him, my arm shaking. I moaned and pulled my arm to my wound.
"Wait a minute; I sense a little personal vendetta here! Let me explain something to you kid…"
"I bet you came out here, ready to kill me, right? Obviously that failed and made you look like a major pussy. That's how this life is lived, hermano; people have dreams and they soon figure out the opposite is going to happen. It hurts, in this case it might kill ya'."
He and his men laughed with him. The adrenaline used to keep me conscious was starting to run out, and my anger was the only thing keeping me awake. I heard the gates open behind me, letting out citizens of the city, armed with weapons. They all ran towards the raiders, shooting them. Chain looked and me and pulled out a pistol. I saw a glint of light flash and then blood splatter from my body. I fell over, coughing up all the blood I had in my body. A puddle of blood surrounded me as I watched Chain run away, unscathed as his men were fighting ruthlessly. Another lowly raider went in to finish the job, but Walter ran to him raider and shot him with a shotgun. The townspeople including Moira and Jab were fighting the remaining raiders with the only weaponry available in the town. My eyes closed and I was choking to death on my own blood. My ears started to fail on me and the sounds of battle turned to booming and echoing sounds, drifting slowly away as my eyes closed, looking up at the sun. That was it for me.
I heard someone run over to me and say that I was going to be okay, but to me, it sounded as if they were intentionally trying to be quiet. I heard him muffle a word to the town doctor and he rushed over. It felt like he checked my pulse. My last sound was someone screaming and cursing at the doctor to help me.
I opened my eyes to a bright and blinding light. I used my hand to cover the light source, as I did when I left the vault. Eventually the light calmed down and I could see again. I studied my surroundings and saw that I was in a room. It was big and spacious and had soft flooring. I looked over and saw a woman standing with her back facing me. I ran over to her and she turned around. She had dark hair that was long and wavy with green eyes. I studied her and then the room and turned back to her.
"Where am I?" I asked her.
"Don't worry, Jace. You're Here. And we need to talk." She said with a soft and elegant voice.
"And where's that?" I asked, confused by her answer.
"It's not your time yet, Jace. They still need your blood." She looked at me, her smile turning to a frown.
"Who are you?" I asked, still confused by her.
"Don't be angry at him." She said.
"Who? Chain?" I asked.
"You're not ready for a lot of things. A victory. A family. A legacy. A bloodline. An end of all things." She said as my confusion grew.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"You may need more than you let on. Keep safe." She said.
"Are you my mother?" I asked, looking into her eyes.
"You need to do it for them. Keep them close, keep him away. All relative, even if out of order." She said.
"But he killed my mother, and he doesn't deserve to win." I said to her.
"Strength, Jace. You're made for a lot of things, but not everything. That's why we have blood." The stoic told me.
I felt a breeze at my back, and turned to see the giant room falling to pieces, being sucked into a vortex. The walls and the flooring ripping to shreds and disappearing into the giant vortex. The breeze grew into a ravaging wind, almost knocking me over with its power.
"You have to go now, Jace. I'll see you sooner than you want to. Happy testing." She said in amidst the giant storm.