An hour and 37 minutes later, Ghost closed his book and placed it on the table beside him. He gets up and grabs his bag off the floor. He opens it and grabs out a box. Upon opening it, he gazes at the contents. The box held an experimental chem called Jet Plus. It was one of the most powerful chems in the world and was described as making people feel like they were in a heaven that no other chem could match; unfortunately, it would turn the user into a ghoul with the amount of rads it held.
Suddenly, someone knocked on his door. He quickly put it back in the bag. Ghost opened the door and waved. It was Antonio who said, "I came here for the plate and to let you know to be ready in twenty minutes and go to the car where you met the squad." Ghost nodded and handed him the plate. Antonio walked away, and Ghost closed the door.
Ghost looks over his gear. He didn't have much in the way of gear other than the stuff he already had. He had an old .44 Magnum Revolver that he called the matchbox; it could hold 6 .44 bullets. It had an old, worn brown grip with an old rifle attached to the top. Beside it was an anti-material rifle that could hold up to 8 .50 MG rounds. It was a military-grade sniper rifle that pierced power armor with ease. It was a very large rifle, as it could take up the entire bed. Near that is a long knife made during the war 240 ago for trench warfare to help deal with China's assault on Alaska. It had a long blade that was the same length as Ghost's forearm. It had a handle that doubled as Knuckle's duster. Beside it was the new energy rifle gift he got from Lisa.
He grabbed the knife and placed it in the sheath at the back of the belt. He reached, grabbed his revolver, and placed it in the holster at his hip. He grabbed his energy rifle and tied it to his bag, which held many goodies. He placed the bag's strap on his shoulder. He grabbed his helmet and placed it on his head. He stepped out of his little room. He walked through the cars to the back of the train, where the others were standing, ready for the mission.
The back of the train car started to open, revealing a heavily modified bus. It had armor welded on all the windows, with holes drilled through except for the front one, which had a fence instead. It was rusted red on the exterior, which looked like it used to be painted blue, but it had faded years ago. The tires looked like heavy armor plates reinforced them with spikes pointed outward.
Ghost walks up to the bus. He is not familiar with vehicles, as they are not common in the Mojave, but he remembers seeing them in Texas, but nothing like this. The bus door opened, and Vincent Yell told the group, "Get on the rust bucket!" They get on the bus, and Ghost follows behind them. The inside of the bus was surprisingly well furnished and looked freshly cleaned. The rest of the group was getting comfortable. Vincent was in the driver's seat, getting the rust bucket started. Dave is sitting at a side table with a bottle and a glass of amber liquid. The bottle was old and fancy, with a beautiful design. There is a label that says Dixon's whiskey that is too faded to see anything else on it.
Brenton is working on a terminal while drinking a Vim Pop. The terminal is an old one from Boston. It was more advanced than any he had seen in the Mojave or anywhere else and had a sticker that said "Welcome to Boston." Carrie was cleaning her tools with old clothes as she hummed a tune that Ghost hears on old eyebots, songs of the old world. Donna was sitting by the door, sharpening her knife with a whetstone and an old logo long gone from time and use. Lisa was sitting near the back, writing in a notebook with a faded.
Ghost walked to the back of the bus and laid his stuff on the couch. Vincent yells to the group, "This is going to be a long trip, so get comfy." Ghost lies on the couch and closes his eyes under his helmet as he feels the bus start to move. He was familiar with the feel of a vehicle moving, the sound of an engine, and the rubble of the road, but unfortunately, just as much as it comforted him, it brought back just as many poor memories of Texas after his vault was destroyed.
He started to doze off and remember the past.
There was nothing much different about his past other than him being a vault dweller, which shows how cruel the world had become, but he didn't care. He fell deeper into sleep and started to dream about the past.
He woke up in the back of a moving truck with his wrist tied in a tight knot; it felt like his blood was being cut off from his hands. He felt a strong pain in his chest area, particularly when he breathed in. His vision was blurry, and his head hurt. He tries to remember what happened for him to be put in this spot, but it was all foggy. He looked up to see a familiar face. It was a face that used to be annoying to see every day, but this time he was glad. Glad because he was not alone. It was his sister, Jade.
She was just beaten up as he was. Her vault suit was torn and stained with dry blood. She is gagged and still unconscious. He tries to talk to her but cannot do his gag, which he didn't notice. She had a collar with a padlock on it. He looked down, feeling the same collar on his neck, and then it hit him—it was a bomb collar. He remembers hearing about them from traders; they were used for slaves that slavers caught. "Did they attack his vault to get slaves? Why? What for? What are they going to do to us? And why do they need the G.E.C.K.?" He was in a panic.
He takes a deep breath. He tries not to let the panic keep hold of him. He starts to take in his surroundings. He looks around the trailer he is in. He sees others like him and his sister; some look like fellow vault dwellers, while others look unfamiliar to him. It looks like there are boxes, but they are hard to see because of being so dark. He moves his hands to the back of his head, where the knot of the cloth gag is. He tries to untie it, and it takes him a minute before he gets it.
He tries to whisper over to Jade, but she does not notice. He looked at his arms; they were burned and cut up. He looked at his wrist, where they tried. He noticed that it was a little loose around his left hand. He tried to slip his hand through the loose knot, but it didn't work. He rose to his feet and sneaked over to the boxes to see if there was anything sharp he cut the rope on. He was lucky and found a piece of glass.
He starts to cut at the rope using the piece of glass, slowly getting through it. He finishes cutting the rope, and it drops to the ground. He rubbed his rope-burned wrist, which was red and raw. He snuck over to his sister and looked at her collar. The collar had a padlock with a trigger sensor connected to it. He remembered talking to a trader about it; he was told that they had to part with the collar and the remote.
He looked around the room to find a lockpick and something to cut the signal. He noticed a man not moving in the corner. He dashes over to the man. The man was pale, with dry blood covering his entire head and chest, but beside him was an aluminum foil hat. The man suddenly reaches and grabs his leg. He almost screams, but he manages to stifle. He is scared about the people who caught them hearing them.
The man was mumbling something, but it was too quiet to tell what he was saying. Ghost got closer to hear what he was saying. The man said, "Each of us shall give birth to a billion stars formed from the mass of our wretched and filthy bodies. Each of us shall be mother and father to a trillion civilizations. Each of us shall know peace, shall know an end to pain, and shall know Atom in his glory." The man says the same thing repeatedly, like a prayer.
Ghost pulls his leg from the man's grip. He didn't understand the man's words, but he didn't have time to ponder them. He quickly moves around, whispering to those awake and asking them if they had bobby pins. Lucky man with an eye patch who had hid it underneath the patch. He wrapped the foil around the box with a red light on his collar. He used the bobby pin to unlock it. It took him a minute to get it, but using what he learned from other teens in his vault when he used to prank his sister, he got it.
Now free from the collar, he closes the collar and locks it around a nearby pipe. He does the same to Jade's collar and 12 others. Suddenly, while helping a man with his collar, the trunk stops. He falls, causing the bobby pin to break and the foil to tear. The vault dweller whose collar was being worked started to beep, getting faster every second, then a sudden boom. The dweller's collar, neck, and head were gone. All there was left was red and white, with scraps of blue hanging off the shoulders.
In a panic, he grabs one collar and runs behind some boxes. After a few minutes, a man opens the trailer door. He is a slaver. The slaver yells out in a rough voice, "HEY, DON'T MESS WITH THE COLLARS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!" The slaver pulls a pipe gun and points it at someone. The person was a person whom He had helped. The slaver pointed the gun at the person's head, then said, "A And if you don't want this to happen," he pulled the trigger and shot him in the head. "Then don't take off your collars."
The man walks around the trailer, looking for someone. Then the man sees Jade.
He sees the slaver start to walk toward her. He panicked, ran, and closed the collar on the slaver's arm. He pulls the padlock on the arm before being punched in the face and knocked down. The slaver points the gun at him. But then there was a beep, then another beep, and then one more before a boom. The slaver screams before collapsing on the floor. His arm was gone, with nothing left but a stub. The gun fell beside him.
He quickly grabs the slaver's gun. A pool of blood started to form from the slaver's stub. He was shaking, walks over, and searches the body. He finds a remote to all collars. He presses the green button on the remote, and all the collars go green and open, but another slaver shows up and yells, "YOU ARE ALL DEAD!" and opens fire with a piperife. The world slowed down like time frozen as bodies fell from the shot of the slaver. Before he can react, he points and shoots the slaver with the gun he had. After that, it felt like the world cracked because that was the first time he killed anyone.