Author's Note: The Sierra Madre Entries are one massive vision and apart from this initial portion from Hancock in reaction there will be no return to his perspective until this part of the journal entries are complete at which point there will be a break during which at least one and quite possibly more chapters will be devoted to his reaction and following actions.
Hancock didn't know what to make of that last vision or whatever it was. He was lying on a couch in his rooms in the Old State House in Goodneighbor. In his right hand was the journal, the right a half used canister of jet. A box of mentats was lying on the table next to him along with half a dozen other chems in easy arms reach. Outside of arms reach a LOT more chems and bottles of booze filled his room. The mayor of Goodneighbor was much the same as always and one of his favorite activities out of every day was getting high.
But what was with this journal? He'd never had this sort of thing happen to him before and he'd been a chem user for decades now. And a heavy user too. So what was this stuff? Normally he wasn't one to be looking to kill a buzz but there was something off about all this. He viewed these visions or whatever they were from a third point of view. But at the same time he was aware of the girl's emotions or thoughts. It wasn't something he understood. And there was something that did send a tingle down his spine. The Sierra Madre.
Like all good treasure stories this one had been around for centuries just like the girl knew. The girl was from out west so that made sense. Stories about it were mostly just tall tales here on the east coast. Right along with there being a story about how a man discovered a vault inhabited with only Nine-Hundred and Ninety-nine women and only one man. A tall tale for sure. But this next entry... Suppressing a shiver as he scanned the words once with his eyes he popped a mentat and took a hit of jet once more and let the... whatever it was, overtake him.
August, 2265: Day 1 Followed the radio signals, was tricky having to find working radios and judging the strength to know if I was going in the right direction. This place is like nothing else in the wasteland that I've yet seen. This strange cloud fills the skies. I can barely tell if its even night or day its so thick. But I can breath it. Kind of. I don't dare stay in it for long if I can help it. I have nothing but the clothes on my back except for a knife I've found. I've been searching for any sign of treasure but found nothing but these casino chips around. I've experimented and found they fit into these curious vending machines. It's just as well these machines are scattered around given I haven't found all that much in the way of plants I can eat. No animals either, not so much as a cockroach, I have found whatever it is that inhabits this place. They wear these strange outfits and the one I first met attacked me. I stabbed my knife into its head and thought it dead but it was up and moving again within two minutes. I don't know how but the one blessing I've found is that it doesn't seem to be able to see very well out of that mask whatever it is. I was pretty quiet when it got back up and it just walked right by me. I'm going to have to be careful around these things from now on if they don't stay dead. The last two things of note are that I've found evidence of plenty of others. Corpses and messages. The messages are carved and painted on the walls, some scratched in using their own fingernails I'm pretty sure. I can only hope none of them got the treasure and got out or I'm going to be risking my life hear for nothing. Still I'm not entirely alone. There is this strange thing in the Villa courtyard below the Casino. A woman in the air. I don't know her name but the local that attacked me stayed far away from her, not sure why. Fear? Something else? No idea but she'll protect me in this place. I just wish I knew her name. The treasure will be mine.
The vision returned on time and Hancock was confronted with the sight of the girl zipping up some kind of dirty overalls of a pale white kind. They looked kind of like some sort of engineering outfit or construction outfit from the prewar. The strange thing thing though was that the girl didn't have ANY of her gear with her. That was odd. Why didn't she have it? What could possibly be the purpose of leaving it behind? All she seemed to have was the jumpsuit she was wearing, heck she hadn't even brought her own clothes! And a rusty cooking knife lying near her feet. She pulled the zipper all the way up and affixed the knife in her belt being unreasonably careful not to cut herself given how rusty the knife looked. Then she began walking forward.
All around her was what had to be the Sierra Madre. Up on a hill loomed an enormous building lit up by spot lights while all around her were pre-war buildings that had long since seen better days. There was no sounds to be heard but for the occasional clatter of a loose shutter that was slightly ajar on one building that would open slightly with a squeak of a rusty hinge before closing with a quiet clatter of wood on masonry only to repeat an irregular number of seconds of later whenever the next breath of a breeze would come through. That clattering was the first sound the girl heard and on instinct the knife came into her hand and her eyes found it. The girl's gaze homed in on the errant shutter even at that distance but this was the same girl that had hit a man's eye on her first shot three or four months before as well. It was unlikely her keen senses would abandon her in so short a time given her prime age.
The girl took a cautious step and then another into the courtyard her eyes taking it all in at first before fixating on a strange vision in the center of the courtyard. From the top of the fountain there was a... projection? It featured a beautiful woman that the washed out colors of the projection could not hide fully. The girl took a step to her left and then another watching as she viewed the side of the projection and realized it was not a simple two dimensional projection but completely three dimensional. On her fifth step to the left she heard something under foot. Lifting her foot carefully she looked down and found the gleaming gold roundness of... a poker chip? It was very strange. But then the whole place was strange. The chip was gold to the eye, and heavy to the touch. In beautiful writing the words 'Sierra Madre' were inscribed on the front.
The girl remained crouched for a time. Was this the treasure? One coin hardly seemed enough to warrant a treasure legend. Her eyes drifted up to the building on the hill. Was the treasure there? Or somewhere down here? Ahead were gates that led to a long roadway leading up to the building. The gates wouldn't open but the girl was slim enough to force her way through. She made her way up the path and all the while she got the peculiar feeling of being watched. She reached the hotel but neither door nor window would open to her. Defeated for the moment she returned to the villa below the casino. She may have been thwarted but she had not been stopped. She would have her treasure.
In the following three hours the girl carefully made her way through the city cautiously and quietly. True the girl was not as quiet as some but she was hardly a suit of power armor clomping through the streets either. Her movements were to the point and true she made excess noise here and there but at least she didn't go around walking as if the world was her candy store. Clearly she understood that there was danger in this place. Danger was made apparent in that time too. For while she didn't encounter anything living. She did encounter inanimate things that could harm her. Such as a bear trap in the shadows of a ruined dwelling. She also found the remains of others that came before her in this place, their skeletons rotting along with the possessions they had had. From the bodies she took their items for her own taking food and weapons alike as well as a construction worker's helmet.
By the time she did encounter the first living local as they could be described she had acquired a small supply of knives. Along with a pack loaded with a few items of precious water and food and ammo. So far she had yet to find a gun but she was patient. Still the strange green eyed human(?) caught her gaze the moment it was in her peripheral vision. The person was scuffling around down the street even as Serenity tried to draw a knife from her belt as quietly as she could. But clearly not quiet enough. The suited person froze then its head swiveled on her, its green lenses of its hood focused on her and then it was running at her. Caught off guard Serenity took a quick step back as she pulled the knife fully out and a curse escaped her lips.
"Shit!"
In that brief moment in time before the person reached her she toyed with throwing her knife at it but didn't. Even if she did hit, which was a big if she didn't know if that would be enough assuming she even hit, and she didn't have time to draw another knife before it reached her. It lunged straight at her and all she could think to do was bring her knife down in an overhand swing that drove straight into the person's skull. Rusted or not those knives were clearly very sharp. The green light faded but physics wouldn't stop and Serenity was knocked backwards to the ground by the creature. It didn't move though as she pulled herself out from underneath panting lightly at the shock.
"What the hell is this thing."
She couldn't resist muttering as she moved around to examine the creature having pulled her knife from its head. There strangely wasn't any blood on the rusted blade but the thing had to be dead. She didn't find anything in its pockets. She was just standing up and walking away when she heard a quiet 'click' behind her. Her body froze on instinct as her head slowly turned to look over her shoulders as she saw the thing's fingers twitching. Even survival instinct froze on her for a few perilous seconds as the thing started moving its fingers and then its arm. And then the head rotated and looked at her green lenses shining once more.
Serenity couldn't resist letting a terrified shriek and started running frantically through the streets. Not taking any turns she didn't know she headed for that building just off the square that had the still armed bear trap. It was only as she crossed through the square and burst into the build, narrowingly missing stepping on the same bear trap herself and huddled hidden in the darkness that she realized she couldn't hear the creature anymore. Creeping back to the still open doorway she carefully looked out and saw in the far distance that the thing was still visible agile as sin given how it was hopping back and forth its eyes... on the woman above the statue? She realized it wasn't coming closer either. It seemed to want to follow though as minutes past its frenzy subsided and it seemed to be looking for her but clearly couldn't see her at such distance, plus she was taking more care to remain unseen than she had before. When the creature finally disappeared she crept back out into the square and moved back over to where the thing had been. Silently she traced a line across the cobblestone that the creature had refused to cross. She glanced back at the woman above the statue curiously before glancing to her right and a strange machine.
She'd seen another farther into the villa while exploring but this was the first time she'd done a close inspection. Or rather to say that she did a thorough inspection. She noticed a slot that she hadn't seen on the other and a thought hit her prompting her to pull out the casino chip from before. Sliding it into the slot along with another she saw its count increase to two of the chips. She entered another and another and then another that she had scavenged before she blinked as the machine created a projection with a display above it showing names of items. Manipulating the controls on the surface of the machine she looked through each before finally selecting one that displayed the words.
She scrolled through each reading them all before finally selecting one that read 'Canned Goods' selecting it there was a vibration followed by a clunk from the machine's dispenser. Looking down she found a pre-war can waiting for her. Lifting it up she read a label that described the contents as being a mixture of meat and beans. She glanced quickly from machine to can and back before smiling slightly. This place had no animals or plants living in it except for those things and given what she had seen she was certain she didn't want to try eating them. But this. This could keep her alive. As long as she could continue to find chips.
She retreated back to the house with the bear trap, closing the door she carefully moved the beartrap to just inside the door where anyone coming in would step on it before taking another look around. She found another chip that she had missed on her first sweep but little else new. Making her way to a couch up on the second story she pulled all the shutters closed before opening her can and eating it with her fingers. There was no need to stand on ceremony and she didn't have a spoon or knife, using those rusty but very sharp knives was out of the questions so her fingers it was. When it was finished she positioned her pack where it would be a pillow of sorts on the couch and slid one knife under the cushion seat before settling in to sleep. She let out a single cough before drifting off to sleep.