Chapter Fifteen
Patrick looked up from his briefing notes at the sound of a loud snore in front of him. One of the passengers on the train with him had his head back and in a deep sleep, his body rocking back and forth on one of the few UAR trains allowed to go straight to Brandon. The man had a half empty bottle in his hand, and the smell of whisky invaded Patrick's space, but there wasn't much could do. The train had stopped at PorLaPra, one of the first towns to join Winnipeg into the Dominion of Assiniboia, and several other smaller stops along the way, but was now racing further west as fast as the coal burning locomotive could go.
Patrick just shook his head and looked back at the papers he had been given before he left Winnipeg with background information on the history of Assiniboia and Brandon, and instructions of what to do. When he was informed of his job, he asked Commissioner Raymond why he was being sent.
"Because you are the Auxiliary that everyone has been talking about. And the bastards that run the place, as much as I hate to say this, admire strength and courage. You've shown both in spades," the Commissioner explained. "We could have sent a diplomat like usual, but they would most likely not be taken as seriously as you would be."
So here was Patrick, taking the train to Brandon, to meet with thugs that have bowed Assiniboia. Maybe the Dominion was more desperate than he thought. At least he had a Dragoon, Colonel Mortimer Januet, to travel with him, though it was clear that it wasn't something he relished. After all, a big war is coming, and here he was accompanying a random civilian, who may have just gotten lucky taking on some raiders before, to Brandon, a place that the Colonel clearly didn't like at all.
Brandon, or more accurately the gangsters that called themselves The Syndicate that ran the city-state, was even more of a problem than Patrick had ever thought. Melita, while just over 100 kilometers away from Brandon, had always seen the city and it's gangsters as a problem for those towns further north of his home, but not a major threat in any way. But if what half of the stuff he read was an indication, Brandon was a cancer for the entire country. Constant harassment and the occasional death of travelers and traders, aggressive posturing and rhetoric, and two humiliating wars that forced Prime Ministers from office and political parties to crumble, gave Brandon a boogeyman feeling to the authorities of the Dominion. The general feeling in the halls of the Legislative Building was don't provoke Brandon unless you are absolutely sure you can take them on, and more often than not, the politicians believed that just quietly giving into Brandon's demands were for the best. Patrick was sure his job, which was to give a sealed letter to The Boss, was basically going to be Assiniboia trying to buy off Brandon from attacking the Dominion while the Brotherhood was acting aggressively further south.
There was rumors of a Pro-Assiniboian movement within the city, the reports said, but the difficulty of communication in and out of Brandon meant that the RAMP was unable to do much to assist them, as much as they would want to. The attempts in the past were only temporarily successful, and later Prime Ministers and RAMP Commissioner's forbade any efforts to supply a resistance movement due to the cost in materials and lives it brought up.
Among the briefing notes of the politics was the evidence that some of the kids taken earlier, including his brother, that some were in Brandon. Some were pictured being sold in the slave market, being sold to the unscrupulous gangsters that controlled the town to do dangerous and menial labour, while others were seen being lead into the North End, where all the gangsters lived in apparent luxury. Some few ended up at the casinos, brothels and other less savory places in the town, all to feed the gambling, chems and sex that was the source of The Syndicate's wealth, power and influence.
The pictures were too grainy to see if Zach was among the kids, but hopefully he would be among them, and then he could get him back, and end this nightmare forever. He didn't care how he had to do it, he would.
Patrick spent more time reading the papers, even as he felt his eyes grow heavy and his heading bobbing forward before jerking upright. He had no idea when he actually did fall asleep, but all he knew was that when he woke up, the train had stopped, and the drunk that had been seated in front of him was gone, along with the couple of passengers. He looked at his Pip-Boy, and the clock told him it was a bit after 10 AM, so he guessed he was in Brandon now.
But when he looked out the window, he realized the small town of huts, pre-war houses and stores, and a sorry wooden train station wasn't Brandon. The old, peeling painted sign on the station said Carberry, which meant that he wasn't in Brandon yet, but easily a day's journey by sleipnir from here.
Patrick stood up, and walked to the end of the car, and climbed down onto the train platform, where the Dragoon assigned to him, Colonel Mortimer Jaunet, was talking with another RAMP officer, along with a tall, beautiful local woman in a skirt and jacket that did little to hide what she possessed, and the fat train engineer in his grimy gear, all talking at once in loud voices verging on violence.
"What's going on?" Patrick asked the crowd, making all four arguing men and women turn around to face him.
"Who are you?" the woman said, turning around and putting her arms on her hips, doing her best to flaunt the figure genetics had been nice to give her.
"I'm Pat-err, the Auxiliary," Patrick said, realizing that maybe the nom d' guerre could be useful in dealing with people that didn't know him. And it had a nice ring to it.
"The Auxiliary? The guy the radio has been talking about?" the lady asked.
Patrick gave a smile. "Yeah, that's me."
She hmm'ed as she looked over Patrick. "I always thought you would be taller."
"Anyway, what is going on here?" Patrick asked, ignoring the comment.
"The bridge over the Assiniboine River to Brandon has been destroyed," the woman said.
"We cannot continue due to UAR regulations," the engineer confirmed. "We can't risk valuable machinery, especially going to Brandon."
"As if!" Colonel Jaunet barked. "If it was, I would have gotten word about it already. The RAMP has sources in Brandon, and none of them have told Winnipeg anything."
"It just happened Colonel," the woman replied. "We got the news only half an hour before you came. Even the vaunted RAMP has delays in getting what they want."
Before Colonel Jaunet or the woman could argue more, the other RAMP officer stepped in. "Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but why don't we try to get confirmation about what has happened. It could just be a rumor or something."
Patrick chewed on his lips. "And if it's out, what do we do?"
The woman shrugged. "Most likely have to hoof it. You got sleipnirs, right?"
"Yeah, who doesn't?" Patrick said.
"Well if you follow the old Trans Canada Highway, it will take you straight to Brandon. Still don't know why you want to get there, especially in that get up," she said, looking at the resplendently dressed Colonel Januet. He wore the Red Serge, complete with the brown Stetson and black pants with the yellow stripe, and a Sam Browne belt that held his holster with his revolver, along with a fierce looking sniper rifle slung over his back. While most RAMP officers would wear the red painted combat armor as their "dress" uniform, as well as their everyday uniform, the Dragoons, along with the upper administration, were given the pre-War of 2077 uniforms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a status symbol if there ever was one. Patrick could remember the controversy several years ago by the government to give all of the RAMP the Red Serge, which turned into a huge storm by those that wanted to keep the Dragoon's separate from the rest of the force, and those that wanted to make the Members equal to the Dragoons. Eventually the proposal was quietly shelved, and the Dragoon's kept their privileged position.
"Bah, those Syndie bastards will know better than to mess with a Dragoon," Colonel Januet exclaimed, puffing out his chest. Patrick had never seen Januet in action, but you didn't become a Dragoon by being average.
The woman rolled her eyes. "You Dragoons are so gung-ho… But fine. If you want to go to Brandon, get on your Sleipnirs and go west. Just be careful, because there are a lot things out there, and not all of them are human."
"What do you mean?" Patrick asked.
"There are stories near the old military base that people just randomly disappear, some claiming the base is haunted." The woman scoffed. "But there is no such thing as ghosts. That base is so dead that not even a radgopher would go there."
A cool breeze picked up, chilling Patrick to the bone. He had a jacket that he slipped on, but the wind was vicious. A lazy wind as his grandpa called it once. It wouldn't go around you, but go straight through. The weather wouldn't hurt the crops back home, but it wasn't fun to be in either.
Patrick grimaced, remembering planting the fields back home with his grandfather. He sighed, looking down Demon's mane, but not focusing on it.
It had been over three weeks since he left home to find Zach, and he was nowhere close to finding him than he had been back then. Was it worth looking anymore? For all he knew, Zach could have been halfway to the Rocky Mountains to work in the mines, or dead in a ditch somewhere in Saskatchewan. While the small towns out there said they respected law and order, slavery wasn't just a random occurance, but a fact of life. Kids? Old men? Pregnant women? As long as they could work, then it was perfectly fine for the mine owners.
"No," he muttered quietly. "Got to keep going. Got to."
"What was that?" Colonel Januet shouted back, looking over his shoulder. His sleipnir, a mare trained and raised for the RAMP service, purposefully strode forward, single mindedly devoted to marching wherever her owner told her to go.
"Nothing," Patrick replied, sitting up straight. Colonel Januet shrugged, and looked around. "So are we even on the highway anymore?"
"I don't know," Patrick said, pulling up the Pip-Boy map and following it. "The map says we should be on the highway, or right next to it."
"Weird," Januet said. "You'd think there would be more broken pavement or signs or something."
Patrick looked up and around. He didn't see anything either. While signs had metal, which was always a valuable commodity in Assiniboia, going along the highways to find them would be a time consuming and not even lucrative business, as most of the signs would be so rusted and decrepit to make them useless for much. He heard of towns in the Saskatchewan Territory that traded for signs as collector's items, but that never really caught on in old Manitoba.
"Could the Pip-Boy's coordinates be wrong? The locator device inside it?" Colonel Januet asked.
"I don't know. I'm not an engineer," Patrick said. "Well if we just keep heading west, we should eventually hit Brandon. If not, we may hit another highway…"
"Hey, wait… what's that?" Colonel Januet asked, pointing ahead.
Patrick strained his eyes to make out what it was. It looked like a tree trunk that had been growing out of the ground at a 45 degree angle. But as they got closer, Patrick realized it was a cannon, half buried in the ground, rusty, but still mostly intact.
"Huh, that's new," Januet said. "We must be near the old military base, Camp Shilo I think."
"Wasn't it nuked during the war?" Patrick asked.
"Yeah, I think so."
Patrick pulled up his Pip-Boy map again. "We are about… 10 kilometers north of the base, I think."
The Dragoon maneuvered his dragoon around the artillery, looking at it from all sides. "It looks like it wasn't buried, but plowed into the ground." The dragoon looked again. "Geez, if a nuke dropped on the base threw this cannon, that must have been a hell of a blast. Most likely nothing left of the town or any buildings, I bet."
"Want to go check? We should maybe make camp for the night anyway."
The dragoon thought for a minute, then shrugged. "I guess. I'd rather not have to stay in Brandon overnight, so sleeping out here would be a better idea."
They continued south for a bit, until they found a sign proclaiming that the area was an installation of the US Armed Forces, and all civilians must report to a checkpoint. They were at least going in the right direction now.
The followed the directions on the sign until they got to an old wooden building, with a rusty robot sitting in it.
"Attention!" the robot, a combat version of the hoovering Mister Handy short all but one of it's three eyes, barked. "This base is under lockdown! Civilians and Canadian residents are not allowed into Camp Shilo under any circumstances!"
Patrick turned to Januet, then back to the robot. "Uh, the War has been over for 140 years."
"No authorization to lift the lockdown has been given," The robot said. "So this is your final warning! I am authorized to use dead-"
BAM! The robot spasmed for a moment, then collapsed to the ground. Patrick spun around to see Colonel Januet holstering his revolver.
"Authorization granted," he smirked, making Patrick chuckle.
They continued along the road, through some trees and a small residential area of uniform houses, until they came to a huge, wide clearing. The hooves of their sleipnir's crunched on the ground like broken glass. Not a thing grew anywhere for hundreds of meters in any direction. Only a few concrete chunks and brick walls still stood here and there, but otherwise there was nothing.
"Well, this looks like where the bomb went off," Patrick said. "The entire base is gone."
The geiger counter on Patrick's Pip-Boy didn't tick much, so the fallout must have died away to a safe minimum, leaving the area empty and desolate. The cool breeze felt even colder now.
Colonel Januet's mare suddenly snorted, it's hooves sinking into the ground as if it was a swamp, which was weird, considering they were nowhere near any source of water.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Colonel Januet shouted, yanking on his mare's reins, but the sleipnir kept sinking, squealing and whinnying in panic, before the equine and rider suddenly vanished right ahead of Patrick, followed by a painful and panic filled scream of human and animal echoed out of the hole.
"Colonel?" Patrick shouted, pulling Demon to a stop and dismounting, running forward to the hole where the Dragoon vanished. "Colonel Januet?"
"Patrick!" a voice called up. "Can you get down here? I can't see a thing."
Patrick looked around, turned on his Pip-Boy light and flashed it down the hole, which Patrick judged was about fifteen or twenty feet from the surface.
The Dragoon and his ride where laying on their side, though it wasn't a pretty sight. The sleipnir was panting heavily, a couple of its eight legs thrashing about. A couple jutted out at weird angles, making Patrick cringe at the sight. Unlike the four-legged creatures that sleipnirs were descended from, a broken leg wasn't necessarily a death sentence due to the double number of legs. A trained veterinarian might have been able to set the leg and help the creature, but that wasn't a great possibility right now.
Colonel Januet was not in much better shape. He was still straddling his mare, so one leg was pinned under the three-quarter ton sleipnir, while a trickle of blood traced it's way down his hatless head.
Patrick carefully slid his way down the hole, dirt crumbling all around him. "I'm coming, just relax, and don't move."
Patrick's feet landed on the ground, and carefully looked around. Down one way, to the south, a darkened tunnel snaked away, angling downwards. But he couldn't explore the tunnel yet, not until the immediate crisis was solved.
Patrick reached into his bag and pulled out a syringe of Med-X and jabbed it through the Red Serge uniform and pushed the plunger, pushing the pain reliever into Colonel Januet's system.
Colonel Januet's eyes, filled with fear and pain, suddenly went soft, glazed over in relaxing. That Med-X was powerful stuff, Patrick knew. He went over to the sleipnir, and investigated the beast. While it's nostrils flared and it tried to neigh weakly, it was otherwise quiet and still.
But the early prognosis was held up as Patrick looked over the mare. "This doesn't look good Colonel. I don't know if we can save her."
The Dragoon weakly nodded. "I was afraid of that. Betsy here was a good girl."
Patrick pulled out his pistol. The Sleipnir looked up at Patrick, not fully understanding what was happening. Patrick rested the barrel of the 10 mm on the Sleipnirs head, squeezed his eyes shut, and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession.
The sleipnir spasmed a few times, then one more time, and went completely limp. Patrick took a deep breath, and looked over to Colonel Januet. "Okay, if I try to lift her, can you pull your leg out?"
"I'll try," Colonel Januet said, his voice soft and distant. Patrick got as close as he could, tried to find a place to grab hold of the sleipnir's body. He took a deep breath, and heaved it up as high as he could. Colonel Januet grunted and pulled himself back, but he cried out in pain, which even the chems injected into his system couldn't block out. Patrick tried to keep the sleipnir up as high as possible, and with a loud grunt, Colonel Januet pulled himself out.
Patrick let go of the sleipnir's body, and helped turn the injured RAMP Dragoon around, and leaned him up on the wall.
"Thanks Patrick," the Colonel said, the Med-X kicking into his system again. "But I don't know what to do with this leg," he said, pointing to the one that had been crushed under the beast. Patrick was sure broken bones were only the start to the agony Colonel Januet was going through right there.
What the hell does he do now? Should he maybe go down the tunnel, see what was down there? Or should he race back to Carberry to see what he could do there.
The Carberry trip would take the rest of the day, and traveling out in the evening wasn't usually a good idea. And if he looked down the tunnel first, maybe there would be something there that he could use to help. And if not, well at least he tried there first.
"Okay, I'll go look down this tunnel and see if there is anything," Patrick said to the Colonel, who looked down the darkened tunnel.
"Can you get my gun from my… oh, wait," Colonel Janeut started. "My gun was in the saddle bag under Betsy."
Patrick pulled out the .44 Magnum out of his holster and handed it to the Colonel, along with a box of ammo from his backpack. "I don't know what's down there, but this should make sure you're safe."
Patrick also pulled out a few more syringes of Med-X. "If you start feeling the pain again, inject these." Colonel Januet took them, nodding.
Patrick took a deep breath. "If there is nothing here, I will have to go back to Carberry. So hopefully I find something."
The Colonel only nodded, and watched as Patrick, his service rifle at the ready and the Pip-Boy light providing a bright green beacon, walked away.
The walls were simply dirt, and Patrick could still tell where shovel and pickaxe marks were made, but it wasn't fresh. As he went along the path, deeper and deeper underground, rotten wood, bent shovelheads and empty, rusty tin cans increasingly piled up. Piles of dirt and stone littered the ground, and Patrick tripped over a couple every so often.
A low growl echoed through the tunnels, making Patrick freeze. He bent down, chambering a round into his bolt-action rifle, and holding it at the ready, and slowly crept forward. The tunnel didn't deviate from its straight course, which intrigued Patrick. Who made this tunnel, and how did they make it so straight?
Patrick couldn't worry about that right now. He could hear the growls, and they were closer than before. He almost wanted to turn off the Pip-Boy light, but the black tunnel would be impossible to walk through otherwise.
Then he saw it. Two glowing eyes, unblinking in the darkness. Then two more, and then even more.
Patrick quickly raised his rifle, and fired several shots at the eyes, working the bolt action each time until the 10 bullet clip was done. The gunshots were deafening in the small space, and Patrick winced as he felt his ears ring. A loud squeal of pain, followed by more howls and growls of animals could barely be heard. Patrick held up his arm, and he could see a half dozen radgophers in the tunnel, though one lay sprawled on the ground, dead.
The rest scampered away in the bright light that hurt their sensitive eyes, squealing in agony. Patrick took put his 10mm pistol, and fired a couple more shots, and hoped that would be enough to make most of them run away.
He took a moment to catch his breath. There were a lot of radgophers there, which surprised Patrick. They usually didn't have big packs like that, due to the scarcity of food in most farming areas, and there were few farms this side of Brandon, as far as Patrick could remember. They were also a lot larger than usual, almost double the size of a normal radgopher. Had he stumbled on a new mutation? Or where these giant radgophers just better hunters?
Patrick walked up to one of the bodies, and investigated. Their teeth were longer that what he usually, and it looked like their canines and ripping teeth were larger, than usual. They must have had a mostly meat filled diet, which was also concerning and weird to Patrick. He knew radgophers may kill humans when desperate, but they were mostly herbivores.
By instinct, Patrick cut the tails off the dead radgophers, and began to explore deeper down the tunnel.
Giant radgophers kept coming up the tunnel, but they weren't exactly seeking to hurt or kill Patrick. If anything, the giant radgophers, though suspicious of the human, just stayed clear. A few loud gunshots and the bright Pip-Boy light helped a lot to make sure it stayed that way.
The ground, which had been on a gentle slope for a while, suddenly straightened again, but continued straight for a few more feet. Patrick cautiously walked forward a bit more, and nearly tripped and fell at a sudden drop into what looked like a room of some kind.
Patrick looked around, blinking. This didn't seem right. The walls looked like something that he saw in Vault H, though they weren't metal but simple concrete. The floors were not in as good of shape, the large linoleum tiles breaking and crumbling under foot. Lights hung from the roof, but it didn't look like anyone had turned them on in years. Was this a Vault? Why had he never heard about this Vault before?
But the thing that really caught Patrick's attention was the chaos all around him. Tables and desks on their sides with bullet holes as if they were a last desperate line of defense; cartridge cases around old firearms that hadn't been touched in possibly a century after they had been dropped; bones that had been gnawed on; scraps of clothing thrown about everywhere; a sickly dark brown on the walls and floor that could only be dried blood,
"What the hell did I just walk into?" Patrick said, his voice unable to hide the nervousness of what he had just come into. This could have been an approximation of hell, or a hell that could only be made by humans without nukes.
Patrick shuddered, but not because of the cold air, though it felt even cooler down here than it did outside. He found a sliding door similar to what you would see in a Vault, rusted to the point that nothing was legible on the steel if there had been anything, only that it had been busted inwards, and Patrick could see into the hallway. It was just as straight as the tunnel, with more doors, some open, some closed, all like the one he was looking through. More bones, guns and blood lay everywhere, as if the inhabitants of this vault decided to just kill everyone else one day.
Patrick began to walk down the hallway, glancing into different rooms. They were exactly the same: two bunks on either wall, most still perfectly made, with a few personal artifacts here and there that had gathered dust over time: clothing, jewelry, models, books, comic books, magazines. He saw a few giant radgophers, though they didn't seem to want to bother him. It didn't prevent Patrick from shooting some in a panic, startled at the quiet suddenly being broken by securing feet and the screeching radgophers. But they never attacked him. In fact, they seemed fairly docile. Fat and happy.
In one room, Patrick was surprised to see the familiar green screen of a computer terminal.
"I'll have to check that later," Patrick mumbled to himself, before walking down the hall to the end. "Maybe it will tell me what the hell happened here."
At the end of the hallway, Patrick entered a large atrium, though it was more a walkway around a large opening that went up and down for who knew how many floors. This was clearly bigger than Vault H, which felt so tiny, almost claustrophobic. You could have saved so many more people in a place like this than Vault H, but this place looked a lot more expensive, even if the accommodations seemed more barebones. And like before, blood, bones and guns littered the floor.
There were stairs on either side, with more straight hallways leading away, everything arranged perfectly symmetrically. And better yet, a sign and a map on one wall that seemed to provide some directions.
"THIRD FLOOR: BARRACKS" the sign exclaimed in large stenciled letters. Along the side, there was a short directory. Apparently there were five floors all together: the first was mostly administration with an armory, floor two was personal services like food and medical three and four were all barracks, and the fifth was maintenance and equipment.
"I guess go see about the generators?" Patrick thought, but he shook his head. "No, I need to help the Colonel." So up to the second floor he went.
The Second floor was a lot smaller, but had a map in the same spot as it did a floor down. Tracing his finger, Patrick was able to find the Medic station, and walked around the walkway to where the medic station was.
Along the way, he could hear loud snarls and ravenous eating. He peaked into a door and noticed a huge pile of giant radgophers, apparently standing around a massive machine that filled most of the room, and was oozing out some weird pink-red goo from a pipe, which the creatures were nosily eating, though they weren't exactly fighting each other much. The machine rumbled quietly, which was also surprising to Patrick. How was this thing still working? Was in an emergency generator? Some nuclear battery that hadn't yet run out?
"Is that why they are so big?" Patrick asked himself, flashing his Pip-Boy into the room. The giant creatures squealed in pain and agony at the bright light, scampering away to hide in the darkness, running away from their meals.
Patrick carefully walked up to it, the smell of raw, uncooked meat hitting his nostrils in a huge wave, nearly making him throw up. He got to the machine, and noticed a metal plaque on the side with "Auto Food Processor." Patrick looked around the machine, making the giant radgophers scamper away from him to avoid the blinding light. He noticed a few switches to the side, and some instructions. Patrick couldn't read it all, but apparently this machine grew plants and such inside it, mulched it down, and turned it into whatever meal was required. Patrick saw it was apparently switched into a Meat mode, which explained why the rodents were massive, but also not that violent to him.
"Still don't want to have to deal with you guys later," Patrick thought, and flipped the On/Off switch. The machine sighed to a stop, finally finished it's long job.
As Patrick left, purposefully shutting the door behind him, the giant radgophers scurried back to the food, but when they ate the last of the processed food, but no more came out, the docile animals began to whimper and whine, before soon they began fighting with each other. Patrick cringed at the pain filled squeals and agonizing cries, but the farmer in him knew he had done the right thing.
Turning around the corner and through another open door, he noticed a lot of medicine and equipment lying around, all pre-War of 2077 vintage, including a very old Auto-Doc though it looked it was mostly likely non-functional. The most surprising thing Patrick saw as a robot booth, a metal tube that held a robot in suspension above the ground.
Patrick carefully walked over, and looked at it. It was one of those Mister Handy robots, much like the one that Colonel Januet had shot earlier, the ones with multiple arms that were sold to the public as a personal servant and butler, but this one appeared to have been modified. This robot had the saw, flamethrower and the plasma gun of the regular Mister Handy (which confused Patrick: why would a civilian robot need so much firepower?) but it also had several arms that appeared to have been designed to be very delicate and special.
Patrick used the electronic panel on the robot bay, and pushed the green activate button. A loud whirring, followed by the start of a small nuclear generator signaled that the Mister Handy was waking up.
A series of beeps and garbled robotic words followed suit before there was a cheerful ding.
"Mister Handy serial code 4897-098-183, named 'Jenkins,' online and active. Last activation date was 45,937 days ago. Warning: 20 year warranty is expired!" The silvery robot had a stiff, proper British accent, similar to what Patrick had heard in old movies and radio plays for the "butler," or those people from Englishfordshire that had made a name for themselves with the DBS as prim and proper old Englishmen and women.
It suddenly spun around and faced Patrick. "Ah! How may I serve you master?"
"Master?" Patrick asked.
"But of course! My primary programming is to help and aid anyone that requires assistance in 2,387 different tasks that have been programmed into my memory banks." The robot whirred for a moment. "Conducting diagnostics. ERROR, ERROR: file corruption detected. Currently only 34 tasks can be performed by me. Please take me to the nearest General Atomics International retailer or service representative for maintenance."
"I… I don't know. I just found you. And I'm guessing you had been inactive for quite a while."
"That is no matter! General Atomics International is well known for building products that will stand the test of time." He suddenly shuddered and sparked, but remained hovering off the ground.
"Who was your last owner?"
"The last owner I had was the Canadian Army, and I'm modified to be used as a medical assistant. As such, it is my personal duty to save and protect the lives of those affiliated with the Canadian Army."
"Well, the Canadian Army no longer exists." Patrick said. "They were disbanded after being annexed by the United States."
"Oh dear, that is a shame. The Canadian Army, were nice people." Jenkins said, and seemed to be actually sincere. "But I should say, the people that used my services the most were a group that I heard was called the Canadian Liberation Front. They had a desperate need for medical attention when I was last activated, and someone must have reporgrammed me to help anyone, and not just my owners, so I fulfilled my duty."
"What happened to them?" Patrick asked, fearing he knew the answer already.
"I don't know. I was deactivated and put on standby on Thursday, August 14, 2092."
Patrick blinked. "That's a very long time ago."
"Yes, it would be. Anyway, considering that by all realistic expectations my last users would be long since dead, I am now at your service, Master. If you wish for a more personal experience, you can provide me with your name so I can address you properly."
"Patrick Morrison," he replied.
"Very well, Master Patrick Morrison. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I have a friend who injured himself. Can you help me?"
"I will see what I can do to assist you!" the robot cheerfully stated. "Lead the way Master!"
When Patrick and Jenkins came back up the path (after shooting some more giant radgophers), Colonel Januet had his gun pointed in that direction, but it was clear that his arm was wavering. The drugs must have really got to him.
"Colonel! It's me," Patrick called out. "This Mister Handy should be able to help you."
Jenkins buzzed ahead, and an electronic scanner x-ray thing went up and down Colonel Januet, who only stared at the robot in concern. "Hmmm. This is not good. Quick prognosis scans indicate four fractures on the femur, shattered knee and severing of nerves above the knee. I will most likely have to amputate above the knee to save you."
Colonel Januet blinked slowly. Patrick noticed that all five of those Med-X syringes had been used. That wasn't going to be good.
"Yeah, do whatever you need to," the colonel said quietly. "Just give me something to drink to numb the pain."
"I'm also reading that you have high levels of Med-X in your system. Inadvisable to provide alcohol at this point," Jenkins said. "However, I can provide anesthesia." The robot turned around. "Master Patrick, I would advise you look away, as this next procedure is not for the faint of heart."
Patrick readily nodded. "Good luck, and please don't kill him."
"Don't worry! I have preformed 386 operations with only 10 patients dying!"
Patrick hoped Colonel Januet wouldn't be the eleventh.
Patrick remembered the computer in that room he saw earlier, and decided to go see if it worked. Maybe there would be something to explain why it looked like this base turned into a hellhole.
Past the blood and bones and radgophers, Patrick finally found his way back to the room with the computer terminal. Unlike the other rooms he saw, this one had a single bed, quite possibly a commanding officer's room. There were doors that lead into an office and another for a private bathroom, though Patrick had no idea if the plumbing still worked here. After all, after 100 plus years of being abandoned, would the pipes still be working? Was the water even safe for use? Patrick had no inclination to find that out today.
When Patrick finally got to the computer, he stopped short. Human remains lay next to it, and a 10mm pistol on the floor where it must have landed. Patrick picked up the gun, and pulled out the magazine. There was only 11 bullets in the 12 bullet clip. Patrick looked down at the bones for a moment, before dropping the gun and giving a full body shudder. He looked away from the body and to the computer. He used his sleeve to brush away some of the dust and dirt on it, before pushing the power button. It beeped fairly loudly, making Patrick jump in surprise. It still worked?
"Amazing how this Rob-Co stuff can last," Patrick said to himself. The computer buzzed to life after a few moments, the vacuum tubes and analog electronics whirring to life from its long dormancy. Fortunately it wasn't password protected, and there appeared to be a few messages on the computer, all after 2075, over 150 years before, all of them registered under the name Norman Smith, a former Captain of the Canadian Engineer Corps.
"I'll just check some of this out, might come back after I rescue the Colonel," Patrick thought to himself. He should still be fine. Patrick hoped so anyway. He glanced at his Pip-Boy. It had only been twenty minutes since he left Colonel Januet to the care of the Mister Handy. He selected the first journal entry.
"The Americans were so stupid. They never found out about Camp Shilo's secret. The one I helped build, all those years ago. Apparently they 'abandoned' the base, though they say it's still being used. But now Canadian Liberation Front, my army, is going to set up base here, and use it to eventually overthrow and free our nation! And they will regret not using Camp Shilo! And those bastards will pay for everything they did."
Patrick scratched his head. Assiniboia loved going on about all the resistance groups that fought against the US, but he never heard of the Canadian Liberation Front. Odd.
The next message was just a few days after the start and end of the War of 2077. "The bombs have dropped. I knew it would happen. Eventually, it would have. One apparently landed right on top of us, and now myself and 400 other freedom fighters are trapped. We should be fine: all the tests and algorithms we ran when we were building this said that even a direct strike on the base wouldn't case a bit of damage. We just have to wait out the fallout. If that takes several months or years, don't think that will be a problem. All the food and supplies we need are still here, including one of those Auto Food Processor's was installed in here. I didn't know that, must have been right before the annexation and before we could use it. But it's working now, and now we could stay here forever. Forever."
Patrick looked around, at the bones and blood and everything else. Clearly not, he sighed.
The next few messages felt almost like propaganda, like Captain Smith was doing his best to assure himself and everyone around him that things were fine. They were alive, and soon the radiation would go away and they could wipe out whatever Americans remained. Lots of mentions about a "Sergeant Williams," who appeared to be the right hand man of Smith, and absolutely loyal and supportive, even as more and more people seemed to grumble and complain.
July 2078: "The men and women here are getting a bit antsy, and seem to splitting into two groups. One solider, Sergeant Anders, wants to get out of here and fight those Americans. But the radiation outside is too high, and if we were to go out, we would be dead in days from all the fallout. But Anders won't listen, and it seems most of the civies that joined the CLF agree with him. Apparently they believe those stupid comics that radiation will give you superpowers."
December 2078: "That fucking Anders. He just tried to force a leadership vote. I managed to win, but barely. Even Sergeant William's help with tampering with the ballots for me just pushed me over. Now Anders is trying to overthrow me. He doesn't realize what it's like out there. Maybe I should just kick him out, let him die. But he's a good soldier, and a smart medic. I can't afford to loose someone like him."
March 2079: "A FUCKING COUP. Anders and his followers just barged in on me in my office and tried to kick me out of the leadership of MY organization. I brought them all here to fight the Americans, survived the apocalypse, and this is the thanks I get? So glad Williams rounded up enough people to force Anders to give up. I locked him and the ringleaders in the brig now. That was a smart design idea to have the brig. Maybe a few days there, and he will learn his lesson."
"Someone sabotaged the Auto Food Processor," the next message a month later said. "The mechanics said it was a breakdown, but they are just covering it up. Anders most likely arranged it. He wants to overthrow me, to destroy the Canadian Liberation Front in some bravado march out the front door. DOES HE NOT UNDERSTAND THE DANGER? No, he doesn't. He's an idiot. Going to keep him locked up a bit longer."
The next message was in September 2079. "Finally got rid of Anders and the ringleaders of that coup. Keeping them alive is too much of a risk. Firing squad is a bit messy, and letting the bodies fall through the atrium and land on the bottom floor was even more so, but it's a lesson. Maybe next time saboteurs will think before they try to break the water filtration system!"
"There's a mole," Captain Smith wrote in January 2080. "The Americans hid a mole in the CLF, and is trying to ruin us. The Auto Food Processor went down again, and there was an explosion in the armory, destroying a lot of the guns there, killed a couple people. I'm going to find that mole. Firing squad will be too good for them. Get a cage and hang them over the atrium. No food, let them starve to death."
"Williams conducted the Loyalty Checks today," the next entry a couple days later said. "We found several people stashing forbidden items: American books and stuff. All of those people were promptly thrown in the brig and the materials destroyed. I don't care if the books were Huckleberry Finn or The Great Gatsby. It's still American propaganda, and it must be destroyed."
"Everything is falling apart," Captain Smith wrote in February. "It's all sabotage now. Someone is trying to kill all of us. They are committing treason against the Dominion of Canada. They will die."
The messages were getting more and more deranged and insane as he read them. "Apparently some men were digging a tunnel. And they were doing it just down the hall from me? How the hell did they manage that? How the FUCK DID I NOT NOTICE?! I ordered all their tools broken, the steel melted down in the armory. I'm going to make their lives a living hell in the Brig. No one will leave. I'm keeping them alive. It will be just a wasteland out there: radiation and monsters and Americans as far as the eye can see. They will live here and be safe."
The next post was April 2080. "Sergeant Williams… how could you betray me like this? The 'Front de Liberation du Canada?' You are a fucking liar. You did all this, didn't you. For the power, for the fame to actually free this country from the Americans? I bet they are all dead from the nukes anyway. Well I will crush you, and make you sorry."
Patrick shuddered again as he kept reading. "We are fighting the traitors now, They may have more people, but all the former soldiers follow me. We can hold them off in our wing. We can destroy them. I will hang them all. Draw and quarter. Tar and feather. Throw them into the nuclear reactor. I don't care, but they will all die!"
The next day, another entry, the second to last one. "The traitors are killing us. I have no idea how. We are killing them, keeping them away from their tunnel, saving their lives. Why will they not listen to me? Just stop shooting. Just go away. I will fight to the death. You will never escape. You will be safe forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever."
Patrick trembled a bit as he selected the last entry, just a few hours later. "My name is Sergeant Jason Williams, Canadian Army. I served with the Engineer Corps in the construction of the Camp Shilo fallout shelter, and joined my former commanding officer Captain Norman Smith in the Canadian Liberation Front after the American annexation. We found ourselves trapped in the shelter after a nuclear exchange on October 23, 2077. I continued to support Captain Smith as we lived in this shelter for the next three years, but soon Captain Smith began to experience deep paranoia, anger and megalomania. I tried to restrain him as long as I could, but it became clear to me that he was going to destroy everyone in his search for enemies to himself and Canada, which doesn't exist anymore. We all know this, and maybe Captain Smith knew as well, but didn't want it to be true. But the facts are clear. Canada is dead. The world is dead.
"I supported a group that wished to dig their way out of the shelter to the north, which I was sure would be non-irradiated. However, after Captain Smith arrested the diggers, I couldn't stand it any longer. I mounted a mutiny against my commander, and declared the Front de Liberation du Canada into existence. Most of the base was willing to support me, and we managed to wipe out Captain Smith and his followers. However, he destroyed all the tools to continue digging out, and we do not have the material to make more, and most of my group died in the fire fight against the well entrenched followers of Captain Smith. I only have thirteen men left out of over 400 when we entered, and most of us are wounded. We are more or less trapped here now, and will die in this god-forsaken hole. I have no inclination to live the rest of my life here, having committed heinous crimes in the name of my commanding officer and then killing him in cold blood. This is my final testament and good-bye.
"When someone finds this in the future, use the lesson provided by my late commander in his descent into tyranny and madness as a warning against any possible future civilization that may arise: never let one man control everything. Never. Never blindly follow a man because he offers safety and security, for it's a lie. But be willing to stand up to authority if it only kills you. If you do not, there will be nobody left to save."
Patrick looked down at the skeleton, which he guessed was Sergeant Williams. Patrick closed his eyes and rested his head against the desk.
He could feel the darkness of this place, what happened in its halls, the echo of gunfire and screams of death and agony as former comrades killed each other. Patrick pushed himself away from the desk and stood up.
"I will remember Sergeant," Patrick whispered, before he quietly left the room.
Pip-Boy Infotracker Note #218
The Truth of the Resistance by Alan Dover, Private, Canadian Army
"So what was it like when the Annexation happened? Well, for one thing, I was out of a job. Been in the army for seven years at that point, and all that I got was a unceremonious "screw you" when the Yanks swept in. Didn't even give me a severance check. So, after a couple weeks of pissing away all the money I had drinking, I really had no other option but joining the resistance...
"All the talk by Assiniboia of the resistance being heros and helping free the nation is all a piece of shit. We all wanted to get rid of the Americans, sure, and we were able to gather all the guns, ammo, food and clothes we could find and make caches and stuff. But, whenever someone had the brilliant idea to try to attack an American convoy, or kill an American soldier, you were basically signing your death warrant. So many good resistance fighters were killed after some dumbass took a pot shot. The US Occupation wouldn't care if you spit at them or made posters and stuff, but so help you if you even shot at a soldier, or used poison in their food, or who knows what else. So many travesties, like Joliette, Halifax, Kamloops, Oak Lake, Heward, Innerkip and too many other towns to remember or were never mentioned broke the resistance, fracturing the fighters more and more as some wanted vengeance, some wanted to live...
"I survived only by sticking to groups that weren't led by idiots. But then someone, either someone that had a grudge or wanted revenge on the Americans, or was an infiltrator of one of the many American security or defense agencies trying to stamp out the resistance...
"The resistance only survived by not sticking our heads up. We only won because the Chinese nuked the US. It wasn't a victory like the Prime Minister and the DBS makes it out to be. It was just a fluke. We only won against the Americans because they all died."