I've gotten tired of the Capitol Wasteland and it's endless problems. The soil here is soaked with my blood because of too many battles I've fought, and my tears because of all the friends and comrades that died along side me when things got close and mean, just trying to do the right thing.
I've taken a break from it all in my house in Big Town, I taught the kids here how to defend the place from the Super Mutants, then I went into the place the big green monsters called home and killed them all with dirty tricks and sneaky traps because that's what I'm good at. Killing the evil before it can kill the innocent. That's what I tell myself anyway, I kill to protect the innocent, you should see what I did at Paradise Falls. Straight up savage barbarism and suddenly there are a lot less slavers. Fighting evil with it's own tools is dangerous business, gaze into that abyss too long and you might lose yourself. Jericho knows it, he's been there done it and has the scars because of it, but that's his story to tell.
I've been flying around this wasteland helping the helpless on too little rest and too much stim for too long. I'm almost done detoxing in my bunk, but Red says to give it a few days, he's too good at what he does for being so young. But I'm thankful for him because without him I'd be worse off for it. Spending ten days hopped up on jet and psycho is no way to live, but things needed doing and there was no time for rest.
I woke up today and told Red I'm done. Done with it all, and that I was leaving to someplace north. Someplace that promised to be a safe haven for survivors and scavengers. A growing community protected by old war tech and walled off against all the bad that surrounded it in the wasteland. A town called Liberty's Respite.
A new radio signal caught my attention that morning, before I spoke with Red, while I was turning on GNR and it was faint but I caught the message.
"Hello to all the survivors in the wasteland, my name is Echo. I'm reaching out to anyone who can hear this signal, wherever you are in the ruins of ancient Philadelphia or beyond. There is a sanctuary, a beacon of hope, rising in the heart of the ruin called Liberty's Respite, a testament to freedom and rebuilding. The citizens of Liberty's Respite are hardworking and determined to forge a new beginning for ourselves and our children and together we can reclaim these ruins and build something greater. If you're out there seeking refuge, follow the signal. Head toward the heart of Philadelphia, where Liberty's Respite awaits. This broadcast will repeat."
This "Echo" guy has balls, announcing the location of his settlement on an open radio channel, which meant a few things. He had fortified the location and wasn't concerned with raiders or wasteland warlords. He had the community hidden and could dodge danger if it came to his doorstep. Or he was an idealistic idiot that was going to get himself and his buddies killed by a warlord that needed a good fort to base operations out of.
The most likely option was he was an idiot. However broadcasting from Philadelphia to the Capitol meant that he had Three Dog beat in the hardware department, which wasn't unreasonable to find that level of equipment in a major population center. The more I thought about it though, if he had the equipment and time, it was likely that he'd banned together with some buddies and fortified a location in the ruin of the old city, probably hidden somewhere in a vault or bunker of some sort.
However it was that this Echo had broadcast all the way to what was once DC, covering some major distance and over the ruin of another old city in between him and I, it was enough of a mystery to peek my interest. He got my attention and I would be on the trail like a blood hound. Whatever a blood hound was.
So I began packing my things for a long distance recon of the area. I'll be traveling with Dogmeat so I don't have to sleep with one eye open, I'll also have an easier time with finding food, work smarter and not harder. He's a good dog that's seen almost as much mayhem as I have. He wasn't there for my ballistic episode of extreme violence at Raven Rock. I'm glad for that.
The Enclave leader thought it a good idea to let me into his super top secret base. The short version is that I was let out of my cell and killed everyone I found with their own guns. The long version is a bit more…messy.
I was taken prisoner by Colonel "ShitHead" Autumn, and brought to the third level of the base. There are only three levels, but they fit enough of their shit into such a confined space I was a little impressed. Later when I had time to reflect, for a moment I was impressed, and then I got angry again which prompted a hunting spree of the left over scouts that were outside the base. That was after I escaped and broke all their toys.
The president, who was actually an AI, released me from my cell and I payed thanks with the mass murder of his army and the destruction of his home. When the force field went down I fought the first gray uniform I saw and got ahold of his side arm. I found my gear in a storage locker, got dressed and went to work on the enclave like a boxer on a heavy bag. Lieutenant Williams stopped me in the hallway. I was mad and he was available, I kicked him so hard in the balls he left the ground, then broke his nose with a knee before he could collapse. When he fell backwards and into the fetal position was when I snatched the plasma pistol from his holster and ruined his head with one shot. Then because I was in a fit of rage, I shot him a bunch more.
I took his side arm, like I said, and went to work. The science team wasn't expecting me and after I turned them all to piles of ash and after I snooped around I saw what they were doing to the creatures of the wasteland. I stopped to quickly download all the information off their computers which weren't secured against simple hacking, and I took the stairs up to level two.
That's when I ran into a group so unprepared that three were dead before the others had weapons drawn. With laser beams and plasma bolts bouncing off my armor I killed with ruthless efficiency. Eventually I had to reload which meant taking cover, but not before tossing a few grenades over my shoulder to preemptively stop any flanking by the enemy. That actually killed the rest of the dinner party, so I had a full charge in the plasma rifle and I was full of bad intentions. I booby trapped the bodies with explosives and other dirty tricks, and proceeded to kill my way through another science lab.
The cryo lab was a little more creepy with all the specimens in pods and it looked like some high tech research was being done. I shot the terminals a bunch and broke the cryo pods open but the creatures were dead. That's when I finally found Colonel Autumn's room which had nothing but a terminal and a footlocker. I cracked the code on the Colonel's computer and stole his stuff, and he found that he kept the self destruct code in his foot locker right beside his spare pair of boots and freshly pressed dress uniform. Idiot.
The officers in the war room were a little quicker on the draw and I had to fall back outside the door. The guy auditioning for main character number two didn't see the proximity mine that I dropped on the far side of the table when I fell back and became red mist cloud number two instead. A few grenades later and some mean words then out of the elevator I came.
The President AI turned genocidal maniac threatened not to let me leave unless I agreed to purge the Capitol Wasteland of just about everyone, so I shot him a bunch too and hooked into the door panel with a computer algo to open the stupid thing. Computers die the same as people, if you pack the inside with explosives and shoot out the hard drives enough eventually you'll hit some critical part and the machine shuts off. The explosives helped with that as an insurance clause in the contract of violence and mean promises. The explosion was impressive, I felt the overpressure through my sealed suit, I had used the last five fragmentary grenades for it but it was worth it, now the president it a pile of badly damaged computer parts.
When I gained access to level one, Colonel ShitHead escaped onto a vertibird before I could shoulder the missile launcher, and so I straight up ruined a squad of soldiers that were sent to put an end to my mayhem. But I wasn't done yet. The overpressure from the explosion from the missile, which had "Have a blast" written in magic marker on the side, liquified the people inside. HE for the win. It was a straight corridor to the outside and it was filled with at least a platoon of Enclave scrambling to their stations. More HE and dozens more bodies to walk over. I activated the base destruct sequence before I left and turned the evil cave into a tomb.
The Enclave stopped being a huge problem after that however they did cause a minor problem at an airforce base farther than I'd traveled before. That time I had help from the Brotherhood of Steel and their team of super friends. The super friends are the special forces of the Brotherhood and they love the nickname, just ask them.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm tired of the endless problems that the Capitol Wasteland throws at me on the daily. I need a break and this Echo has given me an excuse to travel to something that might be better. Something new and fresh with sweet words that if true would mean the end of the stress of being the go to guy for all the problems that need to be solved with violence.
I need a break, and Echo is saying all the right things, but the pessimist in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think of all the bad thats happened and all the friends I've lost as I look at Dogmeat. I still have him, and that'll have to be enough. I'm packed and ready to go. Goodbye Big Town and good luck.
I left a note for Red on my beside table, the guys here won't even know I've left until I pass by the collapsed ruin of a bunker that was Raven Rock. Would've been a cool place if not for the squatters inside that all died badly. In my defence they did kill my friends and father while I watched before asking me for help doing genocide.
My father was developing a water purification system out of the old Jefferson Monument and he almost had it up and running until I crashed the party by being born. Mom died and Dad was inconsolable so the project having lost it's lead big brain to get it done switched to a permanent pause 'until further notice'. The purification system specs are astoundingly simple but I'm not gonna rewrite a schematic in my journal so I'll just say with a little ingenuity and clever corner cutting, it could've been up and operating seventeen years before it went active. It was this system that the fake president AI wanted to genocide the wasteland with.
His plan was to use the system but insert a substance into it that would kill anything with DNA altered by radiation. That would mean damn near everyone in the wasteland and probably more because of the law of unintended consequences. All the mutant freaks that were immediately hostile and wanted to kill anything that didn't look like them, even I wouldn't do them that dirty. I'll wire up a couple of fragmentation mines and stuff them inside a pile of brahmin guts for a mirelurk to find but I won't poison every mirelurk for miles in every direction. I'm sure the DNA of the people that have been surviving out here have been affected by radiation. Genocidal maniac I am not, I've only been a homicidal maniac once for the guys that were cool with genociding an entire coastline of life because they didn't like that radiation had made them unclean. They could've left us all alone but Colonel Autumn was a petty tyrant and so he saw in his eyes an opportunity to stake out an empire for himself by sacrificing a chunk of the population to preserve his version of humanity one point oh.
He is now dead at the cost of the lives of many of my friends and close allies, and the big robot I helped get powered up before we all started having so much fun together. Don't mess with my friends bro, it'll be your last mistake.
I passed through the city of baltimore and my God the place has seen better days to say the least. Slavers and raiders, super mutants and feral ghouls, and hardly a settler or survivor in the bunch. I watched through my rifle scope rather than my binoculars because if needed to turn up the heat on a fool than I want to be a fingers breath away from execution.
I'm not using stealth armor because I'm carrying a big ruck on my back even after I slimmed down for the long recon trip to Baltimore. It's just old world riot armor and a duster which makes me look like a detective out of a bad sci-fi movie but it does the job and protects where I need protecting. I didn't personally run into too much trouble however from the elevated highways I watched the city ruin itself with much fighting and shooting and stabbing.
I passed through a security checkpoint just by mean mugging the guards at the front barrier. They seriously thought I was a detective from DC that was hunting a generically described "fugitive of the law" and that Dogmeat was tracking his scent. Then we slipped into the shadows and passed by a camp of people who call themselves Gunners who seem very well organized and have camps as far north as Boston.
After crossing two days and two nights of highway I see the ruined skyline of Philadelphia getting close enough to be reached in a few hours. The sun is setting behind me and now I need to make camp somewhere we won't be disturbed. An old bus crash on the underside of the overpass hidden from the new main roads of travel, then after I create a mine field as an early warning system I can roll out my bed roll and enjoy some sleep before my journey into the rubble of the old city of Philadelphia in search of Liberty's Respite.
Patting Dogmeat on the head my last thought is of her, the girl that I could have saved, the girl that got captured while I was saving everyone else, the one that got away. I thought of Amanda.