The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Capital Wasteland
The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Evading and/or Annihilating any and all Dangers Hiding in the DC Hellhole
The following dedication appears in the book:
for Harith and Roe
and the trade caravans
for services rendered
Chapter Two
The Capital Wasteland is big. Like… really big. And if you're reading this, you almost certainly don't understand how vastly, maddeningly, stupidly big this little slice of heaven actually is. Like, you might think it's one hell of a walk from your house in Springvale to Doc Church's in Megaton, but that's peanuts to the whole Wasteland.
From time to time, you might have met some of the terribly few that often, and often to their personal peril, leave the confines of their relatively safe homes and venture out into the wastes. For now, I speak of none other than the Canterbury Commons Trade Caravan Company. The CCTCC has been one of the longest lasting, and certainly one of the most powerful, organizations in the Capital for more than ten years mostly from three distinct aspects of their ability and luck.
First, these brave traders are willing to run circles around the Capital and shoot down any freelance Socialists (read: raiders and/or slavers) they meet on the way just to bring people the finest in anything your little hearts can handle. Ever see Crow's men shoot down a Super Mutant? No? That's because they cleaned out their route in the first year of the CCTCC's operation. What about the other caravans, you might ask. Between the Brotherhood of Steel and the few Enclave Remnants that agreed to integrate, the routes stay clear. Remember, the Hellfire armor isn't meant to be feared anymore, but still very respected.
Second, the caravans used to be the only way to communicate in the wastes in both directions. Say it took Doc Hoff's people two weeks to make their way around their route. Old Hoff could pick up news or mail from Canterbury Commons, get word of this or that from Paradise Falls, deliver and gather mail from Arefu and back down south-east to Megaton and Rivet City. By the time he makes it all around up to Canterbury, the latest news, besides any emergency broadcasts from Three-Dog or Miss. Agatha, has been delivered and a new cycle is rolling out.
These days, now that almost every major settlement has some sort of two-way communications setup, this aspect of the CCTCC is almost totally obsolete. But the caravans still like their gossip and are still a source of news and mail delivery that would be unheard of if they just up and gave in the towel.
The third, and perhaps the most important, aspect of the caravan's importance and power is money. Nothing says the Capital needs a united caravan service like cold, hard Caps. That's where the story stops.
There is little to say about the CCTCC's mysterious benefactor other than the nameless, sexless oddity is wealthier than Allistair Tenpenny, may his soul rot in the hell be wrought for himself. One day following one of the Mechanist/AntAgonizer "battles" in Canterbury, this stranger made a deal with Roe, the, then, unofficial leader of the caravans. A massive pile of Caps was invested in each caravan and they each started moving five Brahman per trip and hired on the reformed Talon Company as a permanent security force.
Now the CCTCC, consisting of the, now, CEO Roe and the Talon Security Company, patrols the wastes bringing food, weapons and armor, and sweet, fresh Aqua Pura to all for trade and barter.
And that's just the history of the company – cross this article with that on custom weapons and farming technology and you'll see why the Wasteland is doing so well.
The Kid left that morning from Megaton. A quick stop to see Moria Brown and get the first wave of his assignments and a stop in the center of town to toss a few Caps to the Lantern and the Kid was on his merry way out into the Wastes.
With no one to talk to for the long walk, he settled for scanning the horizon for trouble. Raiders patrolled the collapsed overpass lanes and Super Mutants stumbled around the outermost skeletal buildings of DC proper, so he avoided both by sticking to outcroppings of rock and the corpses of trees.
He nodded over some of the notes Moira gave him for his extended research trip and decided on one of the easier portions. She wanted the Kid to explore pre-War supermarkets and convenience stores for viability as shelters as well for supplies. After all, what could go wrong?
The closest establishment Moira knew of was a Super-Duper Mart, one of hundreds of old chain grocery stores that littered the DC/Baltimore metropolitan area. He approached from behind the building, but noted it at a single floor plus machinery and the like on the roof. Maybe one hundred and thirty feet to a side and probably had a parking lot around the front if the broken down passenger bus off to the side was any indication.
Around the front of the building, the Kid could see a couple men in barely protective, spiked armor carrying commercial hunting rifles. Not a weapon in any military sense, but the ammunition was common and the rifles were cheap to maintain. There were bags of human remains just hanging around and several corpses of both men and women hung from various spots in the large, open space. These people didn't seem to care, leading the Kid to believe this was likely what happened to their prisoners.
Neither man had noticed him yet, which was perfect. The bus made for fantastic cover given basic human psychology.
Anyone but the most well trained soldier might have begun to edit the bus out of his mind if he was patrolling in the hot, Wasteland sun all day. Two rifles, a revolver and a combat knife were sifting through the Kid's mind, deciding which to use first. He'd have to make the first shot count because he'd be under fire on the second.
The appropriately named Railway Rifle wasn't the most accurate or the most powerful item in his limited arsenal, but it certainly made one hesitate at the sight or sound of it. Ten meters stood between him and one of the raiders who had just up and stopped, sitting at one of the metal benches of the parking lot. What more could the Kid ask for?
He lined up the improvised sights, an iron bar and the steam chamber's gauge, adjusted his aim for how far off he knew the weapon was from the sighting, and fired once.
A single railroad spike left the improvised firearm, made the ten meter distance quickly, and took less than the time it took to blink in taking the raider's entire head off at the neck in a wrenching, guttural tear.
It took long enough for the other guard to realize what had happened that the Kid was already making a dead run at him with the combat knife. The raider opened fire with his bolt-action rifle and managed to get two shots off, neither of which hit their mark – embedding themselves in the bus behind the Kid.
In the moment before he swung the blade, the Kid leapt forward, trying to put as much pressure into the action as possible. The raider screamed and used his rifle as a shield as well as he could. The knife cut into the raider's arm, but missed the Kid's intended target: his chest.
The raider turned, using his rifle as a club and knocking the Kid over the head. The hit made its mark, but only served to relieve the older, grizzled man long enough to miss the Kid pulling his revolver from its holster and firing right through his upper chest.
It was over and the Kid was heaving, throwing up next to the second corpse, his knife forgotten in the dirt and his sidearm between his body and the ground.
It took many minutes for the Kid to control his panic and to loot his dead enemies. Each bore proof of their ways – human remains kept as trophies to point out one of the least grotesque examples. He found a total of seventeen .32 caliber rounds and snuck around the side of the building to hide the hunting rifles. Maybe if they were still there when he got back, he could do something with them.
One of them had a Nuka Cola. The Kid liked the taste of the pre-War soft drink, but the radiation intake from drinking one almost made it pointless. He tucked it into one of the two hundred year old Nuka machines outside the market before sneaking inside.
And oh, he wished he hadn't.
From one side of the building, he could watch from relative safety the occupying raiders walking from fortification to fortification. The place was locked down tightly, but had several glaring holes in the defenses.
The Kid darted for the bathrooms the moment he saw the last raider turn a blind corner. No escape from that direction, but it was a possible kill zone with little to no chance for alert. God, when did the Kid start thinking in terms of kill zones and death? Oh, right. It was when some southern-sounding jackass charged into Project Purity and killed his last remaining family.
No… not sour about that at all.
Over the next two hours, he dispatched four men and two women who wandered into the dark hallway. Not a single one knew what was happening until the Kid's blade was halfway through their throats. Ammunition for his revolver and more hunting rifles and ammo. No stims or radaway, but each had some chems on them. Jet or Buffout mostly. One had Psycho. Fuck alone knows what good their guns were all strung out on drugs.
Of the group of ten raiders that called the grocery their hideout, eight were dead and the others didn't seem to have noticed. The Kid slowly crept around the corner and over the pharmacy counter. One raider walking around back there hadn't seen him and the Kid ducked into the back room.
Shelves of trash and, few useful, medication and supplies. He collected the useful chems and carefully shattered cylinders of Psycho, letting the contents spill out over the counters. Glory be, two syringes of Mex-X! Of the valued chems in the Wastes, Mex-X made dealing with bullet wounds much easier on the part of the patient. Could be addictive, but if used properly, there wasn't much worry of that. Much.
A mini-nuke sat on the back wall, adorning the pharmacy with the possibility of swift, radioactive death. The Kid clipped it to his belt, uncaring if it could end him faster than any raider with a grudge.
He released the grocery store's Protectron from its case, instructing it to hunt the men wielding guns in the store. On its way, the Kid leapt back over the counter and made quick work of the second to last raider in the deli while his robotic friend dealt a final, fiery blow to the last enemy.
What more, but to grab the freeze-dried supplies and take off?
That morning, Moria found a package and a few torn pages from a notebook on the doorstep of Craterside Supply, the most extensive store that side of DC and her pride and joy. She frowned at not getting to hear about the adventure firsthand, but quickly forgot her disappointment in lieu of science and advancement. Grinning to herself, Moira Brown started in on copying the information to her personal terminal.