Butch
Bullet had recognised one of the Raiders straight away. He was some punk kid, never bothered with his name, all he knew was that he'd put enough bullet's after that boys back that he should've been long dead "That one there, I know him... But this isn't right, can't you got further back?"
"Sorry the footage is damaged... I got another camera though, check this..."
She pressed a few more buttons and another image came up, it was the front camera, above the gate. "Huh, they knew it was me straight off, they still made me wait 10 minutes to open those damn gates." There were a load of Raiders running in, about 50 all told "That's a lot of raiders, what the hell's happening here." The camera shook and then cut out. "Wait roll it back," It replayed with the Raiders running through the gates again "Freeze it" the camera had just started shaking and was currently aiming slightly left to it's normal angle. This normally would have made a worse view, showing only the eastern wall and less wasteland... but this time, the wall was half collapsed. Instead of a wall, blocking the view was 8 feet of yellowing muscle and sinew, only a centimetre or so on the camera, but enough. Bullet put his finger over it on the screen "That's a Behemoth." She saw her look of confusion "You get 4 basic types of Super Mutants. You got your grunts, not too bad, only just been made, dead thick, basically sledgehammer on legs with an anger problem. Then you get your brutes. Still not the brightest bunch, can probably work out the ins and outs of a gun. That is bullets go in one bit and out the other. Next you get you masters, starting to get a bit clever. Any decent size group of super mutants will have a master in there somewhere. They get bigger as they get older too see, so a brute would be a lil bit smaller than me, a master, you're looking at about 7 feet." he stopped again "Now understand this isn't like a hierarchy as such. It's basically as they get older they get bigger and smarter. Humans put the classifications on them. And only a couple of people have seen anything bigger'n a master. But they do get bigger, if they live long enough. They call em Behemoths, cause that's what they are. Anything up to 20 or 30 feet tall and built as well. It answers some questions, but starts a whole lot more" Now the last time I saw a Super Mutant with anything to do with humans it was Fawkes, we go way back, and he's alright. More man than mutant. But I've never seen any others. This is something funny. Mutants and Raiders working together? With a Behemoth no less?"
Rachel looked up at him, he was still transfixed on the screen "Couldn't it be a captive?"
"Nah they're too big, I mean, find a chains that can hold that? It'd be easier to just kill it and buy 500 slaves in stead. What you gotta understand is that a Behemoth is as strong as it is big. Think of it as a basic natural force on legs. Even a sapling can uproot a highway." He stopped and thought "Have you got any more cameras?"
"Sorry Bullet, only those two"
"Load the first one, which button's pause?" She showed him "Right press play" He watched it, pausing every now and again, eventually he was happy "We're headed to Megaton" He pointed to the nearest Raider on screen, there was a marking on his jacket "Get that picture onto a holotape, we're going to see an old friend see if we can't work out where we're headed"
"Who in Megaton's gonna know all that?"
"Moriaty"
"You're fucking kidding me"
It took a couple of days but before long the pair were making their way through the thrown together caravan park that was Megaton, and waltzing through the front door of Moriaty's Saloon. "AAAAGGGHHH!!!" Rachel screamed which caused Bullet to look inside away from his conversation with Jericho. "How are you babe?" Bullet followed her inside.
Rachel had run in and was hugging the man behind the bar "Alright Gob" He looked up at Bullet "How do you know Rachel?" Gob passed him a beer "Cheers"
The Ghouls voice came out like a nicotine addict on a cheese grater "She used to work here" He caught Bullet's glance "Not with Nova, behind the bar with me. Any friend of Rachel's a friend of mine. Anything you need smooth-skin"
"Information, where's your dick of a boss Moriaty? I need to get some info on some Raiders"
"We don't need Moriaty!" Rachel stuck out a hip, rested her hand on it, and help up the holotape with the other "Where do you think I learnt to hack computers? I know all of Moriaty's codes"
"That's great doll just work it out" he pushed Nova away, vaguely aware she'd been bugging him since he walked in "I told you Nova, I wouldn't get back with you if you offered me every STI left on this barren rock" She stuck him the finger and walked round the corner to find another prospective customer. No sooner had he watched her ass go up the stairs than Rachel's voice called through.
"We're going to some canyon"
"What canyon?" he drained his bottle, and threw a handful of caps on the desk "another please pal"
"What the fuck? You even talk to this wrinkled up sack of shit? Call him your pal? Man I didn't know anybody was that low." He had barely finished a sentence when two pistols, an assault rifle and a combat shotgun were placed under his neck. These belonged, respectfully to Rachel, Bullet, and the shotgun was his own. Bullet had grabbed it and used it to maximum effectiveness.
Bullets growl came through "You ever been shot by 4 bullets at once? Cause if you say yes you're a fucking shit liar. Now sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, or get the fuck out" He paused, Butch started to say something "you choose different you find out what 4 bullets really feels like" There was a scraping of a chair as he sat down. Bullet relaxed but Rachel's pistols remained trained even as she moved away.
She stood next to Bullet and whispered in his ear "Isn't that the kid from the footage, the one you said you recognised?" Bullet raised his head long enough to look at him
In an instant he had the kid against the wall "RAIDER SCUM!" he was vaguely aware of a warning from Moriaty as he came in the back way but just pointed his pistol at him "HOW DID YOUR TYPE GET INTO MEGATON?!"
The youth struggled to speak, holding him up by the throat was a man twice his size and weight who nevertheless gave the impression he could squeeze a whole lot harder if he wanted to "Gave... Simms... some caps... please... I'll explain"
"Later, first, what were you doing in the Citadel?"
"Citadel?" He tried to look as confused as possible while struggling for breath
He was thrown to the floor and the aim of the pistol moved from the landlord to the newcomer "You play dumb I repaint the walls" The kid stammered again "Hey Gob red's really in this season what do you think?"
"Okay! Okay! I was there, it was this slaver, calls himself Midas. He said he'd give us 1000 caps a head for everyone we pulled out of the brotherhood base, said it wasn't crazy, he could get us in!" he tried to slither away "That's it I swear"
"And the mutants? The damn mutants? The fucking Behemoth?"
"I swear we didn't know til we got there, we were told to wait for walls to drop, that we'd be able to just rush in and take everyone hostage, no deaths, he didn't want deaths, loads of slaves he said he wanted."
"Okay, say I buy that, where did you take em?"
"The canyon-"
"I'm hearing a lot about this canyon, what and where the fuck is it?"
"It's like a Raider City", he was starting to get his voice back, his smile returning as he sat up again. His arrogant nature starting to reappear. "I can take you there, for a price" The barrel of Bullets pistol pushed him back to the floor and his smile faded.
"How's this, I don't kill you on 3 conditions. 1, you don't kill me or Rachel. 2, you apologise to Gob and buy him a beer. 3, you take me to this canyon."
