Meeting the Minutemen

October 23, 2287

We made our way further into Concord. The gunshot becoming louder and more frequent as I came nearer and nearer to the source. Finding a small army laying siege to a building I recognized all too well from before the bombs dropped: the old Museum of Freedom.

"Hey!" I shouted to get their attention.

One faced me with a hateful grimace and proceeded to take aim with a crudely fashioned rifle for my and the dog's general direction only for an energy blast to strike him. It did not kill the bloodthirsty man, but it distracted him long enough for me to take aim with my own pistol and landed a shot to the chest.

With the first one dead, I and the dog advanced forward. Dispatching those outside the museum whilst those inside maintained a steady rate of fire from above with their laser rifle. I fired upon my enemies until none remained standing—just as I had in my service across the ocean—be they on the ground or roofs opposite of the museum.

The outside cleared, I approached the derelict building holstering my pistol. Examinging a cadre of corpses before the entrance. They were dressed in attire which deviated from the marauders who I had just put to route. One of whom had a rifle resting alongside him. He died fighting to his last breath…I could respect that. Reluctantly I took his weapon. Seizing it, I found it was a home-made laser rifle with a makeshift capacitor in it and a hand crank. I pondered on the weapon, spinning the aforementioned crank and a red glow emanated from it.

As I tinkered with the rifle, I suddenly heard a voice.

"Hey, up here!"

As I glanced above me to an open window I saw a dark skinned man in a weird uniform holding a laser rifle similar to the one in my hand—only more heavily modified—peering out waving his hand pleadingly. "Help! There's more raiders inside! We're barely holding 'em off."

I didn't give it much thought. I didn't need to, now that I think about it in hindsight. Compared to their enemies these strangers were preferable. So I rushed to the entrance and kicked it open. Firing upon another of the shooters who was on the upper level. Reducing him to smoking ash.

Finding some of the paths blocked, I elected to weave my way around the blockage, shooting anyone who came between me and joining up with the strangers by the window. Showing no mercy to my new enemies. Hearing only bullets and obscenities directed toward me as I and the dog saw them driven before us.

We showed no mercy.

Shooting some, bashing others with the short stock of the rifle as we went room to room. Before long I found the man in the strange uniform, and he wasn't alone. The room was housing a small cadre of survivors. Only they were not dressed like the dark skinned man holding the laser rifle or the dead defenders whom I found by the entrance.

It was a couple, one only lady, and some gear-head.

The man in the aforementioned uniform approached me. "Man I don't know who you are, but your timing is impeccable." He was more happy to see me than I was to see another human that wasn't shooting at me. Proceeding to introduce himself. "Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

"Minutemen?" I couldn't help but chuckle a little at that. "So now I'm traveling backward in time." For the record, I always was a bit of an ass hole, so that was normal for me. How Nora could stand it was beyond me. But it was a surprise to hear of minutemen in the modernity, seeing as how they went out of business after we kicked out the brits in 1776.

I got the rundown of what they were about pretty quickly. "Protect people at a minute's notice," as Garvey worded it.

My attention was then directed toward the others in the room. They weren't fighters. I could tell just from lookin' at them they weren't built for that sort of craft. Not completely anyway. They were civilians. My curiosity peaked, so I inquired about their identities "Who are these people?" with a head jerk to the direction of the ones to my left and then to the one tinkering with a computer.

"Just folks lookin' for a new home. A fresh start." Garvey explained, resting the stock of his rifle on the floor. "I've been with 'em since Quincy. Lexington looked good for a while, but the Ghouls drove us outta there. A month ago there were twenty of us. Yesterday there were eight. Now we're five. Now it's just me, the Longs, mama Murphy," then said as he pointed to the man at the computer with his thumb "And this, here is Sturges."

I hesitated to ask, but I needed all the information I could get in this twisted new world. So I forced myself to. "Ghouls?"

"How do you not—" he seemed genuinely surprised. Having to stop himself in the moment. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised—you being in a vault suit, and all." Giving me the impression I was the first one to escape from a vault. "Ghouls are…irradiated people. Most are just like you and me. They just live a long time. They look pretty messed up, and live a long time, but they're still just… people. The ones I'm talking about are different. The radiation's rotted their brains. Made them feral. They'll rip you apart, just as soon as look at you. Anyway, we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle. Those Raiders proved us wrong. But... well, we do have one idea."

That was when I remembered I was still in the midst of a battle. I had taken out a number of those raiders on my way in, for sure, but there were still a great deal of them outside. I looked out the window to see more of them converging onto the museum, looking meaner than those I took out already.

"Let's hear your idea, then. I'm game for tearing those ass holes a new one."

"There's a crashed verdibird up on the roof." Sturges explained as he parted ways with the computer for a spell. "Old school. Pre-war. You might have seen it."

I did briefly. It barely registered in my vision, but I did just barely when I was fighting my way to the museum.

"Well," he continued, "looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talkin' a full suit of cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military Issue."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep."

I never used one myself during my tour of duty but I had seen my buddies use them in action enough to know how they work; and that kind of tech could more than take care of the piss heads outside; and after the day I had just been through…I could do with a little venting. "I like the way you think, Sturges."

"I thought you might," Sturges chuckled. "Protection with an added bonus. Get the suit, you can rip the minigun right of the vertibird. Do that, and those Raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?"

"Minigun? Now we're talkin'." I told 'em, struggling to contain my excitement.

"I know, right? Only there's one hitch. The suit's out of juice."

Of course, I thought, That would be too easy.

"Probably been dry a hundred years. I can be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck…"

"What do ya need?"

That time Garvey was the one providing the elucidation. "What you'll need is an old pre-war F.C., a standardized Fusion Core. Your high-grade, long-term nuclear battery. Used by the military and some companies, way back when. And we know right where to find one…"

Which was good but for one snag, as Sturges pointed out. "But we can't get to the damn thing. It's down in the basement, locked behind a security gate."

"No problem." I told them. "Wait right here." then found my way back down the building. I knew exactly what they were speaking of, I passed it while I was fighting my way through to 'em.

It was a pain to get, cost me a fair amount of bobby pins but I got the damn door open eventually and returned with it, all to Garvey and Sturges relief. "Well all right. Maybe our luck's finally turning around. Once you jack the Core into the Power Armor and grab that minigun, those Raiders'll know they picked the wrong fight. Good luck."

I told them "On it." before I prepared to leave. I was stopped by the old woman. She warned me briefly that there was somethin' else out there, somethin' angry. Wish I had listened to her, it would have made me prepare more.

Making my way to the roof I found the power armor they mentioned. The armor around the framework was a mite rusty but still feasible. Jammed in the fusion core, entered the suit, then took the minigun off the Vertibird and jumped to the ground ready to make the raiders wish their friends had been nicer to me earlier.

Landing onto the gravel and unloading upon the raiders, practically hearing the Ride of the Valkyries in my mind as I dispatched the lot of them. Killing legion after legion of the marauders whose bullets didn't even put a dent into the armor I was wearing. I heard screams, curses—some directed toward myself and some toward their bad turn of fortune—until the only thing I could hear was the cheers of those knuckleheads near the window who had been watching me the whole time.

As I stood in the streets, feeling exalted—reveling in getting to vent my grief—there was a sudden disturbance. The streets stirred. It felt as some eldrich abomination in the ground was tearing its way to the surface; and that abomination quickly came into view. Emerging down the street I had approached the museum from. My heart skipped a beat as I looked at it. It was big, ebony colored, possessing two horns and a demonic looking big body. And with a thunderous roar it charged at me. I didn't dither—I took aim with the minigun and fired upon the monster but it still managed to reach me, grabbing and picking me up.

I and this monster gazed at each other briefly as I was suspended above the ground. Neither making a sound. I gazed into its eyes without an ounce of fear, only agitation. And then, as if it had had enough of our staring contest it roared into my face.

I clinched my fist and yelled "Yeah, fuck you, too!" before plunging the fist forward to punch the side of its jaw. It dropped me and I staggered back up to grab the minigun once again and unleashed a flurry of bullets until I heard a succession of clicks from my weapon and the oversized beheamoth dropped onto its belly seemingly dead.

I stood there for a moment in silence. Expecting it to jump onto its feet at any minute and resume its attack, but it didn't. I emerged the victor. All to my bafflement and to this day I still don't know how I got out of that moment alive.

Regardless, that was how I met the minutemen.