Bad Thoughts
"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"
- John Lennon
Three months...
The amount of time I had was only three months.
Granted, should I even survive this hell.
What was I thinking? Oh yeah, I thought "Why the fuck not"
I was signing my death warrant. I'm not cut out for this as I thought I did, what if I fail?
No.. I will fail.
Did I really believe I was brave enoughfor a mission like this? I'm scared shitless! I was brave only for the moment... I can't be brave for a world like this. People like Vance can...
Just after three days, and I'm already pretty injured. Imagine spending 3 months out here. I'm not used to this fucking world like Nage and Jas are.
How do I even know if they're really helping me? If those invaders wanted to get in our vault... who knows if there are other people who do?!
I'm not going to live these three months...and when the work around system fails, the whole Vault will panic.
Everyone WILL DIE of thirst, or even worse... Sooner or later the Overseer may send people out again, and when they do, what if those invaders return?!
What a horrible image... Those invaders coming back, just slaughtering everyone in the vault..
The remaining security force won't stand a chance, and what am I doing to prevent it? Absolutely nothing!
With a gasp, my head rose up with quick speed. The piercing pain of the gunshot wound has returned to my side and ass. The pain wasn't as bad as how I felt before I took the drug that really eased all of it, I was able to bear with the pain and tried to stand up. As I stumbled out the tent, I quickly lost balance and started to fall. Before I hit the ground though, Nage grabbed me by my shoulder and placed my arm around his neck.
"Woah there tough guy! Forgot you got shot in the leg? Take it easy."
Nage walked me over to the now smouldering campfire. He placed me on a log and patted my back.
"Let me get you something so you can walk easier."
Huh, that was awfully nice of him. I rolled up my pants to see the exit wound I had on my leg. The bullet must have teared through a muscle tendon, which may explain why I couldn't walk.
Nage came back with two wooden objects which looked very similar to a crutch only instead of plastic and metal like in the Vault, it's made of wood.
"Put your arms on these, get some weight off of that leg." said Nage.
I did as he said, getting the weight off of my leg helped alot. These wooden crutches became my new leg until my old one has healed.
"We're gonna be moving out soon, go meet up with Jas down at the road. I'll pack up your tent." he then walked to my tent and began packing it together.
The crutch really did help, instead of stumbling around the place, I can walk more properly and without chance of falling. As I walked down the hill I saw the rest of the group getting ready to leave, I saw Jas walk up to... wait, what exactly is that?
"Oh hey, kid. Your leg treating you fine?" Jas asked, as I walked closer to him and this.. thing.
"Wh-Wha-What is that thing!" I exclaimed, whatever it was it had four legs and two heads! It suddenly gave out a loud Mooing sound, I jumped and nearly fell out of my crutches
"You never seen one of these before?" He asked me, I nodded no while still staring at the creature.
Jas began to chuckle and explained to me. "Well, this here is a mutated animal from before the war, they survived somehow and grew a second head. Dunno what they were called back then, some guy with a book decades ago suggested that they were called 'Bovine', so thats what we call 'em."
"They make great haulers for bringing goods in caravans and traders, also good for food too." I was shocked at what he said at the end there.
"Y-You eat them!?" I yelled. "Oh yeah, they're a lot better than two hundred year old canned tomatoes if you ask me"
I just stood there staring at the animal, one of the heads was eating something while the other was giving me a glare that reached into my soul.
"Alright!" Yelled out Nage coming from the dead forest, followed by other armed men.
"Let's get a move on, we'll reach Tersha in two hours tops!" Everyone then began to walk up the highway heading northwards according to the PipBoy. I took a look at my PipBoy, I found that that we are actually much farther up the 122 route. Farther away from my intended destination.
"Hey, weren't we much farther down the highway?" I asked to Jas, but before he could answer, Nage stepped up next to me and began to explain.
"You see Kim, when we picked you up, you were heading south. Which is the complete opposite of where we were trying to go, we couldn't just leave you there, so we took you with us farther north."
"It's Ken." I corrected him. "Oh, sorry. Well, you didn't want to go south anyways." he said. I didn't want to go? "Why not?" I asked
"Look around you, wonder why we got so many guards? We went to Paxton, a town near Worcester. There and all around is nothing but war zone, but that usually calls for a demand in war needs right? we're the only caravan that gets to the outskirts of Paxton and sell our goods there, dangerous work, but the rewards is really high."
"Why exactly is it a war zone?" I asked. Nage paused for a moment, he opened his mouth to answer but then Jas, retaliating his interruption earlier, then began to answer my question for him.
"There are a lot of reasons, but the main one is because of the Order. Lately, they've been sending more troops there, trying to claim the area. "
"The Order?" I asked
"Oh right, you haven't heard of them. They're some kind of faction that's risen way down south. As far as Washington from what I hear. They're called the Revos Order, they have patrols keeping this highway safe from deadly critters and bandits. Now doing such things ain't for charity, In exchange for protection and helping out towns, The Order demands the towns they aid to be annexed by their growing 'society' of theirs." said Jas.
"They're a bunch of egotistical assholes is what they are, thinking they're a superior people or something." protested Nage.
"If it wasn't for the Order, towns like Tersha would be chewed up by raiders and bandits." said Jas.
I wasn't exactly following everything Jas and Nage were saying, we continued to walk up the highway.
As we continued, we discussed more about what things I should know about this world. 'Caps' are infact the bottle caps from drinks like Nuka Cola, apparently they're used as a currency in this region because of how the technology to manufacture them and paint their surfaces had been mostly lost, which limited any counterfeiting efforts. It is also backed by the value of water.
'Tersha' is a town farther up in the route, according to my Pipboy, the town up the road is actually called Petersham. I edited the name to Tersha since now I'm assuming that town will be called by that name instead of Petersham.
"Tersha is actually where our caravan is posted, we're an outfit for a caravan company called 'Jow's water 'n trade.' While we made the transactions, they given us some security, extra security for places like Paxton." said Jas.
We walked along the road up to Tersha where, Instead of more houses, a long wall of rusty metal, cars and tanks were lined up to create a perimeter. These people must have access to some welding tools, the metal has been fused together to keep the wall stable and strong.
A notable feature of the town is the massive pole riddled with metal. It looks as though it was meant to be a hoist, moving a boxcar from the ground to a makeshift tower (also made of rusty metal). "Impressive piece of shit ain't it?" said Nage.
"Now, people are gonna look at you funny because of that there Vault Jumpsuit. So uhh, don't look at them straight in the eye." said Jas. I nodded and I continued to follow them into the town.
The entrance was just an open gateway, the tower overseeing everything and two armed guards at the front of the gate. "Wait here." said Nage. "I'll get us in". He then walked to the guards, after a short conversation he pulled out a piece of paper. After they read it, they returned it to him and signaled us to pass.
While we were walking through, one of the guards looked at me and yelled out to Nage. "Wait a minute, who is this one? He isn't part of your charter." I froze still, Nage walked back and explained. "We found him hurt out there, we were just gonna take him to see the Doc is all." the guard then took another look at me, "Stay out of trouble." I was still pretty frozen, Nage came and motioned me to walk away.
Immediately I can already see the activity of the town, the main 'street' of the town was bustling with human life. I could hear many merchants and buyers arguing and advertising over goods, it was nothing like I ever seen before."Only 60 caps for!-" "You're nothing out there without a gun! ger cheap guns at-" "Hungry? Get the finest bovine steak in the Wasteland!" . It's gotten me quite excited, then I realized that caps where the currency, and that I had absolute zero.
"We'll need to stop by the caravan post first. After we collect our payment, we'll take ya to see the Doc." said Nage
Most of the buildings in the town were built off of the buildings that were once standing. However modifications were obviously made to the buildings, large vehicles and train box cars were added on top of such foundations. One of these buildings was a tall building reinforced with linked fence, and had pens around it holding more of these "Bovine" creatures.
The building had a large piece of plywood that had painted words that say "Jow's Water 'n Trade". Nage, Jas and I walked into the building, while the rest of the group went behind the building to unload the Bovine. Immediately we saw a counter as we walked in, there a man with glasses was reading several pages of paper. I could hear clicking of a typewriter in the room in the back somewhere, in the vault's history book of technology, they were used to type documents back in the day. The Vault however, uses terminals to type documents and then print them out after it was finished.
As we walked up to the counter, the clerk was still reading his documents, Nage then knocked on the counter to get his attention. The clerk jumped and looked at Nage. "Jesus Christ I was right to flinch, I'm looking at fucking ghosts" he said after giving out a loud sigh. "In the flesh. Made quite the profit today." said Nage, he then passed over a large sack that made metallic noises, I assumed it was full of caps.
" I still can't comprehend that you guys are still alive, 6th trip to Paxton and you're still breathing air. Alright let me get you your cut." said the clerk, he pushed up his glasses and began dividing up the caps. The clerk glanced up and saw me, he glared at me for a moment and went back to his caps. Nage leaned more into the counter in a intimidating motion and began to half-whisper to the clerk. "Uhm.. Listen, I'm going to need a loan off of you." is what he asked. "What?!" the clerk protested. "Nage, not again! I'm not trying to get my ass fired here!" he said.
"I payed back the last loan, and I don't even want a large one right now. Just enough." Nage said. "I lost quite a few men for this caravan, I think I deserve a little more reward." Nage continued. "Christ, Nage. I can't keep doing this." said the clerk. "You won't have to, This is the last time. I think I'm done in the caravan business." said Nage, This made Jas raised an eyebrow and the clerk to stutter. "W-What? You're done? Coming from you that's saying a lot." said the clerk, Nage simply nodded. "Fine, but this is coming from my pockets. You'll be owing me instead of this caravan. You said you wanted enough? 100 caps should do fine."
"That's perfect, thank you." Said Nage.
"Alright here is your cut, and your loan." He passed two sacks of caps to Nage and passed one to Jas. "I'll give the rest of the boys their cuts too. nice run Nage." We walked out of the building, waved goodbye to the rest of the caravan and went on to the main street again. "Nage were you serious about quitting the caravan?" asked Jas. "Yeah, I was. I'm pretty tired of walking the same route over and over again. I'm taking a break from the business."
"Where are we heading now?" I asked. "First, the clinic. Your wounds are already fixed, but they can heal even faster after a trip to the doc." we continued walking up the street, passing all the market stands. near the end of the street. (which lead to a wall built of cars and large pieces of metal)
"Welp, I only came with you guys so far for the trip. I'm heading back to the post." said Jas. Nage and I waved him off as we entered the clinic. There were several medical beds spread around the building, which is just one very large room. Medical equipment and medical curtains were next to beds, this is so far the cleanest room I've seen so far in the wasteland.
On the beds were several people laying down, either resting or unconscious. There were two people walking around wearing medical lab coats. One of them was tending to a patient, while the other was reading a clipboard from a medical bed. "Hey Doc!" Nage yelled, the man that was reading from the clipboard then turned his head in attention.
I was still looking at the medical equipment as Nage walked up to the doctor. One of the patients had a IV support injected to him, and another had a mask feeding him oxygen. I was pretty fascinated on how a world like this can have such sophisticated medical centers. "Hey Ken! come here!" Nage called. I walked over to them, "Alright, an inspection and quickie treatment of wounds will range to about 100 caps, Nage." said the doctor. "That's fine." said Nage, he then passed the same sack the clerk gave him back at the post to the doctor. The doctor takes a look in the sack and stores it in his strap bag.
"Alright. Ken was it? Please come with me." He said. I looked at Nage, "Go ahead, he's gonna help those wounds heal a lot more faster" Nage assured, I followed the doctor to one of the medical beds and laid down as he directed me to. He lifted my shirt and inspected the wound, and I was rather embarrassed when he actually told me to remove my pants so he can see the entry wound on my ass. He chuckled, "Heh, quite a shot you did Nage.". I could not hide the redness on my face.
He pulled out a bottle of some kind of labeled liquid, he pulled out a sterile syringe and extracts the liquid. "This will sting for a moment, and it's effects will knock you out for a few hours." I looked out the window, It was only Midday. Looks like I'm going to have a sleepless night in this town. I nodded and closed my eyes, he aimed the syringe to the entry wound and injected the liquid.
I get new experiences every day, like today, I take a needle in my ass.
The doctor was right, it really give me a horrible sting, but almost instantly I felt really sleepy. My whole body went limp, the last thing I saw was him getting ready to make another injection on my side, then I went out cold.