Chapter 10: We Kandewit

Holodisk log. Febuary 5th, 2285, Resident 53-10385.

The day after I recovered my consciousness Reggie was tasked with getting wells running in Brahmin Wood, but the existing pump stations around town had their diesel fuel run dry eons ago. On top of that, there were no other types of generators around the area with decent enough watt hours to power the pumps.

Me and Cheryl were taking care of Moreno who had since broken out in infection from the battle at Gaelic Outpost. After getting back from one station I can hear Reggie swearing up and down the hallways and the storeroom of the old bar. Cheryl just went down to talk to him, but it sounds like he's getting even more pissed.

I'm worried about Moreno. So's Cheryl and Reggie. Stimpaks do jack shit against this kind of infection and what little water we have is for drinking. If we had some clean water in enough volume… I gotta see if I can help, or Moreno's gonna die. Rep Signing out.

Rep walked down stairs and walked through the opening in the wall that linked the building next to the bar to it. Rep found himself in the dry storage area of the downstairs bar hearing Reggie screaming and cursing, "Fucking goddamn fucking shitty generators, fucking stupid dumbass cocksucking idiots in Washington!" There was a loud crash, "Ow, my fucking foot!" It was obvious the ghoul kicked something in the room in anger.

He walked to the service door and looked through the window and saw Reggie hobbling on one foot toward a stool with the help of Cheryl. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass and filled it up for the ghoul, asking as she did, "You mean they deliberately used diesel generators too…"

"To make sure everyone here died, yeah." Reggie had cut her off and took the full bottle of whiskey out of her hand. After taking a prolonged swig, he slammed the bottle on the bartop, "Governor of the Midwest Commonwealth sent e-mails to the mayor's of the towns within 50 miles of nuke plants to use, 'Finite-use energy sources,' for backup systems. Found that the local telephone CO had the same setup. The fucks!"

"But Washington?" Cheryl asked.

"Back before the war, the Governors, Senators, and even the fucking President declared Martial Law and mandated all actions be federal in nature. Because the Governors had no balls, those cocksmokers forced all the towns around here to be ill-prepared and have no way of surviving war."

"So, no fusion core-based generators? No solar arrays… Nothing?"

"Unless I can find 600 tonnes of pristine diesel fuel by week's end, Moreno ain't gonna make it." It was out. Rep stepped away from the service door and paced back and forth. He started thinking of what Moreno told him back at the Gaelic Outpost; an extremely powerful reactor the size of a Nuka bottle. It was in the Kandewit facility on the southwest edge of town.

"Hey Rep!" Reggie called to the Vault Engineer, "Don't think so loud on the other side of the door. We can use as much gray matter we can get."

Rep walked out the door, "How'd you know I was back there?"

"You're a fat guy pacing back and forth on a creaky 350 year old floor," the ghoul turned to look at the jumpsuited man while placing a cigarette in his mouth, "That, or the radiation finally gave me telepathy," after lighting the cigarette and taking a drag, he asked his smoke-soaked question, "Got any Vault-Tec related ideas in that goofy head of yours?"

"Well," Rep started looking a bit uneasy, "not exactly Vault-Tec, but it might be Moreno's only chance."

A light on a nightstand powered by a fission battery was the only light source in the room. Moreno - stripped of his combat armor and fur pelts - laid in bed sweating immensely. His legs were bandaged heavily; the bandages were soaked in blood. His legs and feet were red and swollen; presence of heavy infection.

Empty syringes and used Stimpaks laid about the floor along with tins of turpentine and used bandages. Something in the scent of death permeated the room, the sounds of heavy breathing echoed off the walls. From the dark periphery of the room was the door in, and standing in the door was Cheryl holding a bottle of vodka.

The Wastelander walked in and talked softly, "Moreno?" She approached the bed closer, "Moreno?" The cart driver awoke with a slight start. He looked over to see her standing there. "Did I pass out again?" the man asked in a rattling voice.

Cheryl sat down in one of the two chairs beside the bed, "It's alright," she said softly, "It's time to change the bandages again." She peeled back the bandages revealing the inflamed flesh of his wounds. Cheryl gagged on the smell as she put her arm to her mouth and nose.

"Is that for me?" Moreno asked, pointing to the bottle. Cheryl picked up the bottle and uncapped it. She handed it to the cart driver and he took a swig. Taking the bottle back, she poured the contents onto his wound. He groaned as she rubbed the liquid into the wounds with a cloth trying her best to clean the infection out. "Yep," Moreno said grinding his teeth, "feels like a Pre-Chernobyl Ukraine. They were always shit at distilling." "Sorry, Reno," Cheryl said as she poured more vodka onto the rag, "It's all we have left outside of our purified water stash."

"You mean the pumps…?"

"Ran out of diesel fuel." Moreno laid back on his pillow, sighing in defeat. He covered his sweat-drenched forehead with his arm and looked at the ceiling, "You might as well shoot me, Cheryl. Unless that nuke gets running I'm as good as dead anyway."

"Well, we might have a way to get water running until summer, but there is a condition…"

Downstairs, Reggie and Rep were looking over a set of plans for a device when a really loud bellow echoed throughout the building…

"WHAT?!"

Reggie and Rep looked toward the service door with eyebrows raised. They looked at one another with Rep holding a smug look on his face, "Told ya." Reggie looked away after rolling his eyes only to have the Vault Dweller smack him in the arm, "Hey!" Reggie looked to the man in the blue who had his hand out. The ghoul reached into his pocket and pulled out a single bottle cap, "Here. Choke on it."

Rep took the soot covered cap, "Spoil sport."

It was the next morning. The sun came up over the frost-covered plains as Reggie, Cheryl, Rep and Clements headed south and then west to their destination. Reggie was loaded up with Moreno's combat armor and a really old Anti-Material rifle with the pre-war Marine Corps symbol carved into the stock. Rep and Cheryl were dressed as they were when they went to the outpost; Rep with the tool pouch and bag, Cheryl with her blanket. The only addition was Moreno's Combat shotgun along with her now repaired 10mm pistol. Clements lumbered along carrying his plasma rifle and several microfusion cells on one bandoleer. On another bandoleer he had several types of high-tech grenades; plasma, pulse, cryo - he had them all.

Rep was leading the group. Pip-Boy close to his face as he looked over the map. "It looks like… three and a half miles. If we follow the old Rock Island line, we can cut the distance by a fifth of a mile." Cheryl grunted as she looked back to Clements, her sunglasses reflecting sunlight back to his helmet, "Exactly why can't we use a humvee?"

"Three reasons," the Brotherhood Initiate began, "One: One is not available, two: Limited fuel, and three: Initiates aren't allowed to drive."

"You forgot reason four," the ghoul beside the armor clad man scuffed, "'Technology for us only,' 'me me me, my my my.'"

"Okay, so Elder Olsthoorn is a bit gung-ho," Clements said in his defense, "not all of us are like that."

"Oh, no. No no, not all of you," Reggie said sarcastically, "Just most of you. When I was in the Marine Corps you Army fucks thought you were so badass in that fucking armor of yours, but who still killed more Reds in Anchorage?"

"Children!" Rep called back, "Quit your fighting this instant or I'll turn this expedition around!"

There was silence.

A breif one.

Clements pointed to Reggie, "He started it!"

"I told you not to feed the kids Nuka Cola and Sugar Bombs for breakfast," Cheryl quipped to Rep.

Rep said with a smile, "I think it was the Nuka in the Sugar Bombs that did it, dear." The two of them looked at each other and started to snickered.

Reggie was absolutely disgusted, "I'm 241 years old. I deserve more respect than this."

They walked for several miles along the railroad tracks. Every so often Clements and Reggie stopped and fired their respective weapons to take out the mutated and enraged wildlife rushing toward them. "Okay," Rep had his wrist-mounted computer to his face, "Next major crossing in the tracks we hang a left." He backed out of his local map to the main map to find the rail line they were walking on took them all the way to Joliet, "Why didn't we take the rail line here instead of Dresden Heights? This runs all the way to Joliet."

"Just beyond the 45 Annex is an area called, 'The Locks,'" Clements spoke up, "an area that runs from old Lockport to New Lenox, and then east to Route 45, what we call the 45 Annex. Place is loaded with Raiders, Chem Addicts, and mutated animals from Argonne Fields."

That didn't sound too welcoming to Rep, "Argonne Fields?"

"Where Argonne National Laboratory is located. Half of the lab was destroyed after the war. Some of the lab's Non-Nuclear energy tech got released causing really weird mutations. Don't know the whole story, exactly; something about the chemicals becoming irradiated and bonding to the cells of the wildlife."

Rep shook his head, "This place just keeps getting interesting." They came upon a train station, the sign reading, "Tinley Park-80th Ave." "Alright, kids," the Vault Engineer signaled, "we hang a Lucy here."

The team continued their walk when a building ten floors high peeked its way over the tops of warehouses in the distance. The building became more visible the closer they approached the interstate overpass and cleared the commercial buildings. The building was once made of all glass; the glass either shattered and gone, or still covered in soot from fires and dirt from dust storms.

The Brahmin Wood expedition stopped at the crest of an embankment overlooking the interstate to get a good look at the building. "KANDEWIT" was cut into a large stone at the edge of the building's land along the highway so all who passed knew who owned such a large and once glorious facility.

Rep raised an eyebrow, "Naw, they're not egotistical." "Nope," Reggie responded back, "Where would someone get that idea?" The Vault Dweller and the ghoul looked at each other both rolling their eyes at what they were obviously referring to. Pressing forward they all made their way down the embankment of the overpass to the highway crossing the 8-lane road on their way to the building.

BEEP! went Rep's Pip-Boy, "The hell?" He raised his arm to see a message on the bulky wrist-mounted device's screen. "What?" the ghoul beside him asked. "I got a message on here," Rep sounded very confused. After a few clicks, the message said nothing but the word, "ABORT!" in the text field, repeated over and over again. At this time he noticed that his Pip-Boy also found a new broadcast frequency. Switching to the radio, a noise that sounded like a datacom modem piped into the tiny speaker of the device.

Cheryl walked up next to Rep and looked slowly to the Vault Dweller, "What in the hell is that?" "Some kind of computer output," Clements chimed in, "Sounds like a UOS Basic analog signal."

"Okay," Rep's voice switched from confusion to uncertainty, "this is getting creepy. Let's get this power module and get the fuck outta here." He turned the radio off, and started toward the building again, everyone else following behind, Reggie pulled out his rifle and cocked it, splitting off from the group. "I'm gonna set up a nest from the west," the ghoul spoke up, "If I see anything, I'll send a signal to your Pip-Boy on its location. Stay together."

"You gonna see everything from there?" asked Cheryl.

"With the sunlight shining through the windows from the east, I can see everything shy of the latrines. Just get done before eleven-hundred hours or I'll lose light."

"What happens if we don't?"

"I won't be able to spot ya until the sun swings to the west side of the building," the rotting man said bluntly, "That happens: You're on your own." With that Reggie disappeared over the ridge across the street.

Continuing south toward the building's entrance the party found several burnt and destroyed cars in the facility's parking lot. Some were even detonated from their nuclear-reactor based engines being damaged in the war and just years of random skirmishes and neglect. One such vehicle was blown into the front doors. Cheryl sighed in frustration, "Now what?"

"Stand clear," Rep and Cheryl heard from behind. Clements stretched his fingers and cracked his metal-clad knuckles as he walked forward. Grabbing the roof the Initiate pulled back on the car, the sound of scraping metal on the ground from the sheet metal and the steel treads of the T-45d Power Armor's boots digging in. Servos strained as the armor obeyed its wearer's commands to drag the old Corvega to the side.

But there was something. Something odd about the car and the door of the building. For on the bottom of the car Rep and Cheryl saw a rusty old chain attached to the main doors. As Clements moved the car, the chain also moved. "Just a little bit more!" the man clad in armor stated as he gave the car a very hard tug. The chain pulled taught. "Uh…" Rep was watching the chain start springing up and down as it ran out of slack, "Clements?"

The Vault Engineer was cut off when the chain suddenly went slack again as a yellow and black canister pulled out of the car's bottom and bounced on the ground. A second later the canister hissed and started to smoke. Realizing what was before them, the Vault Dweller and the Wastelander looked at each other with the same look…

Terror.

Rep and Cheryl turned tail and ran for cover behind an old commuter shuttle that was flipped on its side when the canister exploded. A fireball flew into the sky as the Corvega and the Brotherhood Initiate pulling it were suddenly launched sideways away from the building. Clements bounced on the ground a few times, his armor sending off sparks each time he made contact with the asphalt. Him and the car eventually came to a stop some distance away.

The explosion blew out several windows on the south wing of the building, sending glass everywhere. Rep and Cheryl picked themselves up and brushed the glass off them while looking around the back of the bus. Cheryl looked around and found Clements laying on the ground. "Oh my God! Clements!" She ran toward him as Rep stumbled to the back of the bus with a finger in his ear, his hearing affected by the explosion, "What?" was what he asked before he noticed the brown hair of his female compatriot running toward the metal suited man. Realizing himself he wasn't moving, "Oh, shit!" he took off behind her.

Cheryl knelt down beside Clements and took his helmet off revealing him to be a lanky dark-haired man in his mid-twenties. From under his Snoopy Cap headset ran a single stream of blood. He was unconscious. Cheryl grabbed him by the head, took off his headset, and started checking his head. Rep finally caught up with the Wastelander, breathing heavily as he asked, "Is he okay?" "He's out cold," she responded, still checking him over, "We need a StimPak."

"I got a few," the Engineer pulled his RobCo bag out and started digging as Cheryl took off her blanket and rolled it up to place under the Initiate's head. Rep pulled a large needle-equipped device from the bag and handed it to Cheryl who placed it in the man's neck and pressed. The pressure gauge on the needle flowed from full to empty in a few seconds. A few seconds later Clements started moaning. His eyes opened and found himself on the ground looking at his search party, "Ugh, what in the hell hit me?"

Rep spoke frankly, "I'd say it was a Deluxe model 2075 Chryslus Corvega Coupe with the optional Atomic V8." "Is that all?" the Initiate asked. Cheryl looked over to the Vault Dweller with a look of baffled annoyance. Rep felt her eyes on him. He explained, "I ran outta books and holotapes to read in the Vault, so I read old Chryslus brochures." He shrugged to her as she shook her head and turned back to the man on the ground, "Someone rigged the car's fusion core to blow if you moved it."

"Great." Clements went to get up, stumbling a bit as he did. "Hey, careful!" Rep called out, "You fall over again, I ain't catchin' your tin-can ass."

"Well, we can assume whoever rigged that thing knows we're here," Clements spoke as he placed his helmet back on.

"Shit," Rep scoffed, "the next three villages over know that we're here." There was a burst of static on Rep's Pip-Boy as Reggie's voice piped through, "Nightstalker to Boyscout, observed a firecracker. SITREP - Is your party okay? Over."

"How the hell do I answer him?" Rep asked confused, "This thing is one way."

"Give him a hand signal, you idiot," Cheryl spat venomously, "he's watching us, remember?" "Oh, right." Rep turned around and held up a thumbs up hand gesture. "Report acknowledged. Over." "Yeah, that's not gonna get obnoxious before too long," the man in the blue jumpsuit turned to the junior Brotherhood member, "You gonna be alright, chief?"

Clements finally got his helmet in place with a click then responded, "I think so. StimPak sickness passed. Head kinda hurts, but I'll manage."

Cheryl chuckled a bit, "Yeah, headaches tend to happen around Vault Boy here." Both her and Clements walked toward the building's newly blown out front doors leaving Rep dumbstruck and offended at her comment, "I resent that!"

Once inside the building's entry hall they were greeted with marble walls and granite floors, all of it lined in wood trim and glass. Dark, dirty, and damaged of course, but very impressive nevertheless. "Geez," the female of the group exclaimed, "this place is massive! Where do we start?"

"From what Moreno told me almost all Kandewit sites are packed to the gills with security," the Initiate stated, "It won't be…" Clements trailed off as he looked around, "...Where's Rep?"

Down the hall at the main elevator bank, Rep stood at the building's main directory. As he took note of the sign, he heard Clements walking toward him with Cheryl in tow, her once again getting irritated while calling him out, "Goddamnit, man, Reggie said stay together! What are you doing?"

"Sorry," the absent minded Vault resident said sheepishly, "I was looking for a map or something." He pointed to the board before him, "According to this, the 'Executive Tech Testing and Review' office is on the top floor. It might be there."

Clements walked up to the elevator call button and pressed it, "Well then, let's go!" Inside the elevator shaft a small explosive was attached to the car cable. A small light on it lit up a brief moment before detonating, blowing the cable free from the car. The car fell the full ten stories before crashing at ground level, the steel box folding outward and bursting the doors open.

Everyone jumped as the dust blew out of the outward ripped doors. "Jesus Christ!" the engineer yelled, "Good thing we weren't on that thing when it failed!"

"It didn't fail," Clements said, watching smoke stream out of the top seam of the door, "I heard an explosion."

Cheryl could smell it, too, "Smells like… Semtex?"

"Fantastic," Rep took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "We got a building booby-trapped with military-grade explosives, weird messages, and cars exploding like AMC Pacers."

Cheryl cocked her head to the side, "What's an AMC Pacer?"

"Shut up, Cheryl!" the bi-speckled man yelled, causing her to jump with a start.

"Alright, alright!" Clements interrupted, "Let's not lose our composure. Someone set these things up, there must be a way around 'em."

Rep groaned, "We ain't got time for this!"

"Then we better get started, shouldn't we?" With that Clements headed toward the back half of the elevator bank and started searching for the staircase. Rep put his glasses back on and followed the steel-clad man. Cheryl was about to follow herself when she heard something move back at the main hall. She turned around and looked to find nothing. "Cheryl!" She heard Rep call to her, "Common, before Captain Vacuum-Seal grows testie."

"I'm an Initiate; not a Captain." "I was insulting you, dumbass. Get with the program." Cheryl looked back to the main hall again to have Rep call to her a second time. Still looking back she walked toward the rest of her party until finally turning toward her destination. As the woman disappeared around the corner, a dark figure rounded the opposite corner. A single light shined from off-center of the figure's head. It slipped back around the corner into the darkness.