Chapter Twenty-Two
When the sun finally came up the next morning, Patrick and Colonel Granger were huddled over the small screen of the Pip-Boy on Patrick's arm, looking at the map provided.
"So, if we are here, I'm guessing we are about… eighty kilometers from Bismarck," Colonel Granger said, tapping the screen with his metal covered hand. "So, that's a good three days of walking, wouldn't you say?"
"Yeah, makes sense," Patrick said. "So long as we don't run into anything dangerous." He sighed. "This is where I wish I had Demon to ride."
"Ahh, walking will do you some good!" Colonel Granger said, standing up.
"What about your power armor?" Patrick asked.
"Well, a couple movement servos were damaged, but I think I managed to jury rig them to work. I'm not an engineer, but I know how to fix my own power armor."
"Then we should get going," Patrick said, turning off the map and shouldering his backpack. "Basically just got to go south."
It took a while, but eventually in their generally south direction, they found a road, ND Road 200, that lead straight south. It was just like most of the old paved roads in Assiniboia; old, broken pavement, overgrown for long stretches by dead grass and nearly impassable in places where cars ended their journeys or bridges had collapsed. However, it still served as a fairly accurate trail to determine where to go, so the two men followed it.
Around lunch time, having traveled 15 kilometers and dealt with a few wild animals as they came across them, they both stopped for a quick bite to eat. Colonel Granger, a bit twitchy and stifling groans of pain for the past kilometer, took a chance to inject himself with another Med-X.
"Do you have enough of those?" Patrick asked.
"I don't know. I hope so," Colonel Granger said, carefully capping and placing the used needle back into a case on his power armor. "It hurts like hell if I don't have it." Patrick didn't say anything, but hoped the Colonel was right.
They got back on the road, and continued southwards. By mid-afternoon, they reached the ruins of the small town of Washburn. The town had been abandoned for a while, mostly due to radiation, and no attempts had been made to resettle it since October 2077. To the northeast was "Radiation Alley," a huge section of prairie that has impossibly irradiated, all because of Harvey Ballistic Defense Station. A pre-war US military installation, the Defense Station was the headquarters for hundreds upon hundreds of nuclear missile silos. While there had been many silos built throughout the US in the 1960s, most of those were later abandoned during the Resource Wars, due to the cost of maintaining 100 year old silos, the long distances between them, and the possibility of Chinese sabotage and anti-war protesters possibly being able to overwhelm and take over the silos made the risk of them all being destroyed at once in a first strike not as big as a concern. But that meant that the enemies of the US knew where the silos were, and so hundreds of nuclear weapons were detonated in the area, leaving the area too irradiated for anyone to survive. If there was resources and treasure in the old military installations, perhaps only ghouls will ever know, but even they tell of horrors and abominations deep in the center of the place, so very few of them would even go there.
The deadly winds from Radiation Alley could shift at any moment, sending dangerous fallout in any direction. Right as Patrick and Colonel Granger were reaching Washburn, the wind came from the North, and the Geiger counter on the Pip-Boy began to tick for the first time.
"Ohh, this won't be good," Patrick said. He knew the stories of Radiation Alley, mostly as ghost stories that he and his friends told, or the tales that travelers in the caravans that used to come from the south to Melita would tell, all of people traveling south, only for the radiation storms to suddenly come up, flay their skin from their flesh, and turn them into walking dead men, monsters or ghouls that lost all ability to reason and hatred of everything, if they didn't die immediately from the lethal doses of rads.
"So, if the wind is blowing that way, we won't be able to take the 83 Highway straight to Minot," Patrick said looking at his Pip-Boy map as Colonel Granger helped himself to another Med-X. "We'll have to cross the river and head south from there."
"Fair enough," Colonel Granger said. "Should be easy."
The river they crossed was the mighty Missouri River, according to the rusted sign leading up to the bridge. It was only a fraction of it's old width, if the old river banks and where the ruined bridge supports were located was any indication. It was fairly simple to get across it though, and after squelching through the mud and slow flowing water, Patrick and Colonel Granger were on their way again, heading further south.
A couple hours later they stopped as the sun began to set, and made a small camp, using the hulk of a half collapsed barn as a shelter. After a small meal, Patrick took guard duty while the tired and shaky Colonel Granger was the first to go to sleep, but once again only after he had a Med-X.
The next morning the Colonel was in very rough shape. The spasms were more frequent, and his pupils were contracted. It was clear that he was rapidly turning into a wreck.
"I hope everything is fine back at home," Granger mumbled to himself as they started walking again. "Been too long since I've been there…"
"What was that?" Patrick asked.
"Nothing," Granger quickly replied. "Nothing at all."
But soon it wasn't nothing. By the time they stopped for lunch, being forced to go more and more to the south west to avoid the radiation coming from Radiation Alley, Granger was turning paranoid, nervous, and completely disoriented. Trying to eat the Salsbury Steak he Patrick gave him, the Colonel clutched at his mouth and turned around to vomit. After that, he barely ate anything.
They stopped early that night in the ruins of a town called Center, just another of the many hundreds or thousands of small towns that dotted the Wasteland. The Colonel was now in constant pain. They stopped at a house that was missing its entire southern side, with the Colonel taking the bed with the mattress, most likely last used by the skeleton that was in the living room with a 10mm pistol lying beside it. Patrick picked up the pistol, and threw it into his bag to look at later.
"Do you have any more Med-X?" Patrick asked, really concerned. After all, he couldn't carry a man in forty some pounds of steel and machine.
"N-no," Granger replied. "I used the last of it last night."
"Damnit," Patrick sighed. "Well maybe there is something here."
After an hour of searching, it was clear that the house was mostly empty, except for rusty tin cans, old broken electronics, an empty medical kit, and the skeleton in the living room. Most likely the previous owner survived the war, only to go through his survival materials, and realizing nothing was left, ended up killing himself.
Patrick didn't waste any time on sympathy for the man that had been dead for over a century, and instead decided to take his chance going through the town to find something else that could help him.
Using his Pip-Boy as a light, Patrick began to scour the ruins, looking for something that could help. A feral dog digging through the ruins wasn't enough to detour Patrick, and after dealing with the vicious, possibly rabid canine after a short chase and hunt, Patrick continued his search, going through every house that he could safely enter. Eventually, after a fruitless search down the street, Patrick came to the main street, and the different stores that lined it.
The first store was electronics, and the next was a gas station, with the pumps long gone, possibly removed before the Great War due to the lack of fuel. A clothing shop, a furniture store, a grocery long since emptied.
Finally, in the last store on the street, he found it. It looked like any of the other brick faced stores he had seen so far, but on the street in front of the door was a fallen, broken sign that at one point would have been lit up with some neon saying "Pharma-Mart," the brand name of a chain of drug stores in the old US and north of the border as well.
Patrick tried the door, but it was locked. With a sigh, Patrick took a deep breath, and crashed into the door. The rotten wood and the rusted hinges separated. The door fell inward, collapsing in on itself, allowing Patrick to get into the store.
"Hey!" A female shouted, making Patrick lookup. Three people, two women and a man, stood next to a complicated contraption on the store's counter. They were wearing hastily patched together armor, with pieces of metal and leather and cloth holding it all together. However, they all had one thing in common: they all had a black symbol of the Brotherhood of Steel painted on.
"Oh shit!" the man shouted, pulling out his gun, and fired it at Patrick. Patrick dashed into the corner of the store, siding among the rubble, broken bottles and boxes until he was sure he was protected from the oncoming hail of fire. Among the familiar sound of metal and brass and the click of a trigger being pulled repeatedly, there was also the shorter, sharper zaps of a laser weapon, making Patrick groan. He really didn't want to have to face that right now!
Patrick pulled out his .44, making sure it was fully loaded, before peeking around the corner. He saw the side of one of the Brotherhood women from the waist down, and fired a couple shots. One bullet hit her in the thigh, making her cry out and fall down. Patrick was sure he didn't kill her, but just incapacitating her was all he needed right now.
The other two looked at her, and the other woman, who had the laser pistol, noticed Patrick and began to fire at him, the red streaks of energy scorching the shelving and walls around where Patrick had been, leaving black char marks and whiffs of smoke where they struck.
Patrick had ducked back around and went to the other side of the shelving, and took three shots at the man, but none of them hit. He ducked behind the counter.
Patrick quickly moved to another shelving unit, getting a better sight of the woman with the laser pistol, who was reloading her gun. Patrick shot up, and fired at her. The bullet missed, but she dropped the laser pistol and energy cells she was loading, leaving her momentarily defenseless. Patrick tried to fire again, but the click of an empty chamber reminded him that he used all six bullets. With a groan, Patrick reached for the 10mm on his other holster, and pulled it out, and managed to get a shot off there before the two standing Brotherhood soldiers managed to start firing again.
"Jesus Christ," one of the Brotherhood soldiers shouted. "I bet this is that fucking Auxiliary!"
"Oh shut up," the other guy shouted.
Patrick ducked down again, before peering around the corner. Before he could figure out where they were, he was forced back from the combination of lasers and bullets. Shaking his head with a groan, Patrick reached for the assault rifle he had been lugging around for a while. Patrick took a deep breath, and stood up again.
This time Patrick didn't bother aiming, just pulled the trigger in the general direction of the two Brotherhood soldiers firing at him. He moved the gun back and forth like one of the mechanical swathers he used on the farm, just a lot louder, especially in the confined space of the store. Patrick closed his eyes from the flash and wished he could close his ears. But the 24 bullets in the magazine ran out quickly, and soon there was only a click click click of the trigger hitting empty air.
The room was deadly quiet after Patrick let go of the trigger. It took a moment for Patrick to even remember to breath. He exhaled, before looking back over at the where the two soldiers had been standing around the counter.
Red smeared the walls behind the counter, and the man and the woman he had been firing at were lying on the ground motionless. Looking closer, Patrick saw that they weren't that old. Maybe 18 or 20, but not much older. And he just killed them...
A muffled groan caught Patrick's attention. He quickly switched his empty magazine for a new one, then carefully walked to the counter, keeping his gun up in case something happened.
The first girl, the one Patrick shot in the leg, was pinned under the body of the dead man, making it impossible for her to get out.
"Who… who are you?" She asked Patrick, her voice weak.
"I… I'm the Auxiliary," he replied.
The woman's eyes went wide. "The Auxiliary from Assiniboia?"
"Yes."
She continued to stare at him, her mouth agape, fear in her eyes. "I… I thought you were just a story that the other Initiates were telling."
"Oh? Really now?" This was news to Patrick.
"They say that he's a powerful warrior, the strongest in Assiniboia. He's wiped out raiders and bandits single handedly, uncovered Brotherhood secret missions, killed a thousand people before they even know it in the dead of the night." The Brotherhood soldiers voice grew more distant and cold. "A cold hearted man, driven to his goal of destruction and chaos. Someone that can never be stopped."
Patrick blinked. Did they really think about that about him? Had he become the monster?
"I'm just looking for my brother," Patrick said, trying to explain. "I just want to find my brother."
But it was too late. The woman's eyes had closed, her limbs had gone limp and her chest no longer went up and down with each breath.
Patrick took a step away, the words that the Brotherhood soldier told him. Was he really becoming a monster, a vicious killer? He was just looking for his brother! Right? Like, sure the Brotherhood couldn't be trusted, but the three soldiers he had gunned down were kids, not one of them older than he was. They were most likely born into the Brotherhood, or captured as infants from tribals and raised to be part of the Brotherhood. And they shot first. Everyone he dealt with shot first. Right? Was he just trying to justify it now?
Patrick sighed. He couldn't dwell on this. He had to keep going, try to find his brother, bring him home.
But one step at a time. He had to get help for Colonel Granger right now.
He looked over at the contraption on the counter. It looked like a rather large gun, with multiple barrels arranged in a circular pattern, with a large metal box at the back. Patrick saw a similar kind of gun when the Melita Militia had a training day, and a battalion of regular soldiers came to participate. They pulled one of those along, mounted on a sleipnir drawn carriage. The gun, which one of the soldiers proudly called a Gatling gun, could fire several hundred shots a second, mowing down anything in its path. But this looked a bit smaller, and it had handles. Could someone really carry it? The size and weight of the sleipnir drawn gun, and the fact that it could fire enough bullets to make the wheeled carriage actually move backwards seemed to prove that it couldn't. But, who knew?
This gun looked like it was mostly in pieces, maybe so that it could be fixed. Some tools around the gun leant some support to that thought.
But it didn't concern Patrick too much. It wasn't like he was going to be able to carry the fifty pounds of steel on his back with the other guns, food and supplies he had, much less be able to use it in a situation, or even repair it without any knowledge.
Instead Patrick focused on looking for some supplies in the store, something to help Colonel Granger. The shelves were mostly empty, but there was a backroom behind a counter where medicine would have been dispensed from. The door was a simple wooden door with a lock. Patrick sighed, regretting not learning how to lockpick a door (a skill offered by a rather shady trader to him one time, but one he declined due to the possible implications).
After a brief look for a key turned up nothing, Patrick sighed and took his 10mm pistol and fired at the lock. With a loud bang, metal crashing on metal, and then a deathly silence, Patrick tried at the door and it swung open, the rusty lock having shattered after being shot at. He entered the room after turning on his PipBoy light, and saw several metal boxes stacked one on top of the other. Patrick went to the first one and pried off the top, to find a box full of Stimpaks. He grabbed all of them, dumping them into his bag, just to be on the safe side. The next box was empty, and the one after that was as well. There was some Rad-Away and Rad-X in a couple other boxes, much to his annoyance. Apparently there was no Med-X in this store.
But tucked into a corner under some broken plaster and wood was another box, seemingly ignored even before the War of 2077. Patrick brushed the ruble away and opened the box, to see several tin containers with "Fixer" engraved onto the lid. Patrick picked one up, and it sounded like small marbles rattling around in a tin can. He opened one of them and a small piece of paper nearly fell out. Patrick managed to grab it, not letting any of the pills inside of the container fall out. Looking at the paper, Patrick read the instructions, and a smile crossed his lips as he realized he just stumbled on what he needed.
Colonel Granger groaned softly as Patrick returned with several tins of the Fixer drug, and knelt down beside the pain wracked Enclave Colonel. "Is that you, William?"
"William?" Patrick asked. "Who's William?" Maybe he was hallucinating now...
"Oh, Auxiliary!" Granger exclaimed. "Did you find something?"
"Yeah. I think I found something to help you," Patrick said. "Can you sit up to take some of these?"
It took a few minutes to get Colonel Granger up, and the helmet off. Colonel Granger was still in pain, but was starting to handle the pain better, if just because his body was somewhat adapted to the agony after dealing with it for hours.
"Okay, take these," Patrick said, dropping four pills into the Enclave soldier's hand. He also produced a bottle of pure water to give Colonel Granger to wash down the medicine.
"Hopefully they still work. They are 140 years old."
"Thanks," Colonel Granger croaked, but he soon laid down again and fell back asleep.
Patrick rummaged through the ruins of the town for a while, but every time he saw the store on the street corner, the words of that Brotherhood soldier came back up in his mind.
A monster. The strongest warrior in Assiniboia. Cold hearted.
"No. That's not me," he growled under his breath. "I've killed bandits. Drug dealers. Slavers. Bastards that try to make life miserable for others!"
You just killed three kids, his conscience reminded him.
"They would have killed me!" Patrick exclaimed, closing his eyes tight. "They… they…"
Patrick paused in the middle of the street. A small breeze from the north brought cold air, making Patrick shudder. Otherwise, it was quiet. A coyote howled in the distance. Dust was kicked up and swirled around him. No one would answer him. No one could answer him.
He eventually went back to the house where Colonel Granger was fast asleep. Patrick unslung his backpack beside another bed in that room, and slipped his .44 Magnum out of it's holster and placed it beside his head when he slept.
Then he just lay there, the words and acquisitions in his mind starting all over again, now that he wasn't doing anything. He tried to argue, tried to find a reason for this, but tiredness began to catch up, and suddenly he was asleep.
The sun rose to the east the next morning, stirring Patrick awake as the bright rays of the sun hit his face. He opened one eye, shielding the sun from glaring down on him. The lack of walls or a roof made it hard to block the sun.
Patrick sighed and rolled out of bed, stretching to work out the kinks in his body. The mattress he found in the rubble was weathered and beat up, springs poking out of the fabric if they weren't completely missing. It was better than nothing, and had he not stayed awake half the night wrestling with his mind, he would have had the best sleep in weeks.
Colonel Granger took a bit to get up, but when he finally did, the shaking was gone, as well as the nervousness and anxiety. He still had bags under his eyes, and looked famished.
"Man, that Fixer sure is amazing stuff, isn't it?" He said to Patrick as he scarfed down a third box of pre-war food Patrick had been carrying around.
"Yeah, you look pretty good," Patrick said with a smile. "By the way, who was this William?"
"What?" Colonel Granger's face became strict. "Where did you hear that?"
"You said it last night when I gave you the drug."
"Oh." Colonel Granger said, though he was clearly uncomfortable with this question. "Well… uhh… he's a… friend. Very close friend."
Patrick gave a small "hmmm," but left it at that.
"Anyway, should we continue on?" Colonel Granger asked, changing the subject.
Before they left, Patrick took Colonel Granger to the Pharma-Mart, to see the Minigun. Colonel Granger carefully looked over the weapon.
"It's not in that great of shape," Colonel Granger said with a shrug. "Most likely jammed in several places, the barrels are wore out, and there is so much rust all over it." He shook his head. "It's worth more as scrap metal than anything else now, it looks like."
So they left it, and carried on south. They walked an entire day, doing their best to avoid anything that may look like Brotherhood of Steel patrols, traders that might give away their location, farmsteads and ruined villages and towns. Radgophers and feral dogs were problems, but nothing the power armored soldier and the experienced Wasteland traveler couldn't handle. There was even a small group of Radstags wandering around, but they ran off before Patrick could line up a shot to take one of them down.
"Radstag meat is one of the best delicacies you can get," Patrick explained to Colonel Granger. "You don't see them too often this far south though." The Enclave soldier would just have to take his word for it.
The weather was slightly warmer here than up in Assiniboia. The Great Midwest Desert was still a hundred or more miles away, but it still made North Dakota warmer than old Manitoba, which had a big glacier to keep things cooler.
They stopped to make camp right out on the bald prairie, and took turns standing guard, watching the moon and stars slowly, ever so slowly, go from one side of the sky to another. Patrick turned on his Pip-Boy, trying to see if he could get the DBS, and maybe some news. But he was too far south (or the Brotherhood was blocking it too well), so he was stuck with some Brotherhood radio station.
The music wasn't bad, and was pretty much the same selections that DBS would have had: 1950s big band, early rock and roll, and country songs, the experimental electro-tunes of the early 21st century (which he despised for their awful, jarring sounds), then the revived bands from the decades before the War of 2077, which sounded, sang, and performed just like those from the 1950s. However the Brotherhood seemed to enjoy classical music as well, and many of the pieces they picked were rather heartfelt, sending shivers down Patrick's spine.
"You are listening to Steel Radio," a female voice said. "I'm Scribe Ingrid Vansted with a very important announcement for all civilians and members of the Brotherhood of Steel.
"Assiniboia continues it's posturing in North Dakota, threatening to declare war on the Brotherhood at any moment if our brave Knights dare to get close to Fargo or try to aid the freedom fighters who seek to rid their nation of their oppressors. Elder-General Ezekiel gave a response for Steel Radio."
"This is a warning to the degenerate, corrupt, and lazy northerners of the so-called Dominion," a deep, gravel filled voice snarled through the radio, making a chill run down Patrick's spine. "The Brotherhood will not tolerate any slander or physical attack on the any member or land of the Brotherhood, and will take it as a declaration of war. And we will fight to liberate the people of North Dakota oppressed by Assiniboia!"
The female scribe came back on. "A mysterious flying craft was destroyed near Radiation Alley. Two men in strange, non-Assiniboian uniforms were found in the wreckage. There are reports two passengers escaped, and one was in a strange looking pair of power armor. They are considered very dangerous, and you must let Brotherhood soldiers deal with him. Despite our peace loving nature, the Brotherhood must remain vigilant and strong to fight any threat, as we have done against the Calculator and the robot menace. Report any suspicious activity to a Paladin, Knight, or Scribe, and it shall be investigated. Only you can prevent the fire's of anarchy and espionage."
The music returned, but Patrick shut off the radio. He was one of those suspicious activities, and he didn't want to think of what would happen if he was captured. Nothing good.
Then again, it did take his mind off the kids he shot earlier…
PipBoy InfoTracker Note #920
Radio: Lifeline of the Wasteland
Essay by Loretta Armstrong, 2189
As us survivors of the War of 2077 struggle to rebuild and find some semblance of safety and security in the Wasteland, there is one great pre-war technology that has not only survived, but thrived. It's united communities, provided information, warned them of dangers, and provided much needed amusement and relief.
I am, of course, talking about radios.
Radio stations were everywhere in the Old World. Old records indicate that there were thousands all over, ranging from big national networks like Galaxy News Radio and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to smaller, community focused stations. Many towns had two or three, often broadcasting different genres of music to listeners. Most were sponsored through advertisements, of which only a few recorded examples exist.
When the bombs dropped, many of the stations broadcasted emergency alerts to warn the people of approaching Armageddon. Few people heeded the call, thinking it was another test or a false alarm (the National Emergency System's false alarm of 2071 was still on many people's minds). Most were destroyed or abandoned after the bombs fells, silencing the few radios that survived, only to broadcast static or a station that had been operated solely by computers and independent power systems. Only those lucky enough to survive in areas distant from targets, or in the Vaults, were treated to music provided by their radios or PipBoys.
But almost as soon as the radiation began to drop and people emerged from their shelters, those enthusiasts of amatuer radio systems, "ham radios" as many call them, fixed their systems, and tried to make contact with others. While few answered the calls, some who had the same idea did. The radiation in the atmosphere made it difficult to have long conversations, but survivors were able to contact each other, and soon they were sharing info and helping each other. By the 2100s, a continent spanning ham radio system was running, relaying information back and forth of the status of loved ones, dangers and weather. This allowed people in Washington DC, with their reborn Galaxy News Radio, to communicate with people in Los Angeles, the infamous "Boneyard" and part of the New California Republic, and all points in between.
It wasn't until the establishment of new towns, and the rebuilding of cities like Winnipeg, that new radio systems were established. The Dominion Broadcasting Service in Assiniboia is a prime example, used to send news and weather, entertainment and music to all corners of the sprawling nation. Many small towns tried to emulate the DBS, or more likely joined them to extend their range further. On a good evening, and with full power, the DBS' powerful antenna, capable of 150,000 watts, could be heard in Ronto, the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and down the Mississippi River as far south as Kansas and Oklahoma. Normally the DBS operates closer to 50,000 watts, which still allows it to cover all of Assiniboia and reach past the Angle in the East, near the ruins of Regina in the west, and south of Fargo.