"[censored] it, you just can't have them."

The stars, the night sky. Crackling. Fire.

The house burns.


"[censored] you, you peice of [censored] !"

Its teeth gnashed and ripped through the wood over the front window, sending shards of glass and splinters careening all over. A plume of feathers rushed through the hole in the wood, above two red, catlike eyes. With a tremendous snap, it locked its jaws tightly, stopping to get a better look at the man emitting protest. Cocking its head to the side, the creature snorted, sending hot ash stirring into the air.

"LEAVE !"

Folds of tight, scaly skin split. A jagged peice of wood bit deep into the creature's neck. Convulsing, it screamed. A deep, throaty screeching that started in its gullet and ended out supersonically. The foundation of the structure shook, and the man fell backwards, the other end of the wood fumbling out of his grip. Cutting its song short, the creature wriggled its way out of the hole, smashing its head into the edges of the gap several times, blood and spittle flying in gobs. Off it went back into the darkness. The man sat, shaking his head and wringing his jaw. His ears bled.

Stumbling to his knees, and then his feet, he rose gently, and shuffled, almost falling, out of the living room. Stopping at a foyer, he rested against a wall, coughing. Smoke hung thick throughout the home. Spitting violently, he struggled to clear his throat. He hung in the archway, bewildered. All around him, fire. Licking at his heels, coating the walls. The cool night air rushed in through cracks in windows and doors and now through the hole in the structure, feeding the flames. Rising higher every second. A support beam from behind him fell down, sending embers floating, and destroying an armchair. He did not bother to look. He could not hear the resulting clatter.

Smoke billowed in from behind him. The man could not see and could not hear. Still, he felt his way along the walls, grasping for purchase. His ankles hit some kind of ledge, making him wince in pain. Stairs, going up. Lifting his tired feet, he began to climb, wiping blood and soot from his face with one arm. Looking up, he saw the outline of a doorway. Gaining new motivation, he stumbled more quickly, nearly loosing his footing several times. Falling some feet from the top, he clenched at the last step, pulling himself up with all he could muster. Finally hitting floor again, rolling over and with his chest heaving, he called out, with each syllable his lips cracking, the taste of iron coating his tongue.

"Alice..." He spoke softly at first, his voice crackling and popping. "Alice..." and again.

"ALICE !! ALICE WHERE YA GONE ?!?" His screaming echoed through the top floor. He waited, panting heavily, his eyes wild.

----------------------------------------------------

yes, this does have to do with fallout. I'm nowhere near done yet, but anyone want to tell me what they think so far ? Or, what the text limit for each response is ?

I don't know what the text-limit is, but for you I'd go much longer. You seem to be able to handle yourself quite in the realm of writing. I like what you have so far, but I'm more interested in reading something longer, you know? To really see how you organize your thoughts.

I.





"[censored] it, you just can't have them."

The stars, the night sky. Crackling. Fire.

The house burns.


"[censored] you, you peice of [censored] !"

Its teeth gnashed and ripped through the wood over the front window, sending shards of glass and splinters careening all over. A plume of feathers rushed through the hole in the wood, above two red, catlike eyes. With a tremendous snap, it locked its jaws tightly, stopping to get a better look at the man emitting protest. Cocking its head to the side, the creature snorted, sending hot ash stirring into the air.

"LEAVE !"

Folds of tight, scaly skin split. A jagged peice of wood bit deep into the creature's neck. Convulsing, it screamed. A deep, throaty screeching that started in its gullet and ended out supersonically. The foundation of the structure shook, and the man fell backwards, the other end of the wood fumbling out of his grip. Cutting its song short, the creature wriggled its way out of the hole, smashing its head into the edges of the gap several times, blood and spittle flying in gobs. Off it went back into the darkness. The man sat, shaking his head and wringing his jaw. His ears bled.

Stumbling to his knees, and then his feet, he rose gently, and shuffled, almost falling, out of the living room. Stopping at a foyer, he rested against a wall, coughing. Smoke hung thick throughout the home. Spitting violently, he struggled to clear his throat. He hung in the archway, bewildered. All around him, fire. Licking at his heels, coating the walls. The cool night air rushed in through cracks in windows and doors and now through the hole in the structure, feeding the flames. Rising higher every second. A support beam from behind him fell down, sending embers floating, and destroying an armchair. He did not bother to look. He could not hear the resulting clatter.

Smoke billowed in from behind him. The man could not see and could not hear. Still, he felt his way along the walls, grasping for purchase. His ankles hit some kind of ledge, making him wince in pain. Stairs, going up. Lifting his tired feet, he began to climb, wiping blood and soot from his face with one arm. Looking up, he saw the outline of a doorway. Gaining new motivation, he stumbled more quickly, nearly loosing his footing several times. Falling some feet from the top, he clenched at the last step, pulling himself up with all he could muster. Finally hitting floor again, rolling over and with his chest heaving, he called out, with each syllable his lips cracking, the taste of iron coating his tongue.

"Alice..." He spoke softly at first, his voice crackling and popping. "Alice..." and again.

"ALICE !! ALICE WHERE YA GONE ?!?" His screaming echoed through the top floor. He waited, panting heavily, his eyes wild. Squinting, he concentrated on hearing, moving his jaw from side to side, thumbing at his throat, trying to get some measure of sound out of his surroundings.

Just muffled silence. Dead calm in his mind. Angry, twisting and turning onto his stomach, he propped himself up with his hands, kneejoints popping with aching pain. That things' scream shook him down to his bones. He was wrong to challenge it. Looking over at the top floor hallway, smoke obscuring his view, he observed the door at the end of the hall, open. A shape came scrambling out, a faint glow at first, turning the smoke into haze, obscuring this new source of illumination. Seeing finer points of it as it progressed down the hall, struggling to focus, to keep from passing out. The glowing shape became more defined. He could watch flailing limbs, flame flickering at the center. A mass of fire and smoke, twisting mid-step, and then falling with lazy defeat just ten feet from where he lay. The shape looked at him, and he could see eyes and teeth and hair. Beautiful, autumn hair. Her fur garments burned with a smell so sickly-sweet, her skin bubbling and ripping open. She convulsed and lay still, and he lay stunned.

Two more burning shapes flew out of the doorway after that one, bouncing around the hallway, limbs melting off and fire likewise swirling round and round. They struggled for a bit too, after coming to rest, seizing in twisted masses of fingers and limbs, bones and sinew.

Alice and the children. He could make out their faces, just.

The man winced. His mouth lay agape, his face instantly pale. He froze with terror. Movement, or how to, escaped him. He let his legs slowly go limp, as he beat his fists to the ground. He still could not hear a thing, could not hear his own screaming. And then, a ringing. His ears were ringing. Softly. He mouthed small words, pleas for god, or anyone else listening. Slowly, ahead of him in the room beyond the door, the mire stirred. Heavy, grey smoke lifted, and a large, red lump clambered out of the low visibility of the hall. Plodding on all fours, hunched and swinging it's long neck to and fro. Slowly, bending the floor it walked on, trailing flame, it entered into view. It's elongated jaw and snout snapped as if in approval, as it swallowed its hanging, drooling toungue back into its mouth. Streams of drool poured out of the gaps in its teeth, and its feathers ruffled on their own, straightening out and becoming sharp as knives. The distinct red tint of its skin blended with the fire, and it seemed to command the element in each direction it moved. The fire seemed to propagate away from it, as if it was scared. Soon, the hall around it lay extinguished, including the bodies laying limp before it. Looking down with its snout and eyes, it inhaled deeply, and cocked its neck back. Arching its back and raising one powerful, muscular arm, it drove its talons deep into the floor. Whole boards collapsed, sheetrock shattered. The walls shook, and the entire ceiling lowered. The corpses dissapeared into the lower floor. Wiggling its claw, it cleared debris from in between its quad limbs. It opened its mouth, inhaled again, and opened its jaws. Heat waves eminated from its mouth, and the man's ears rang again, this time, more shrill than before. His hearing had not begun to return, it was simply screaming again.

----------------------------------------------------

Quick note for medical nerd people, when your hearing is blocked by a certain frequency, you tend to only hear that frequency until hearing is restored. This is why he can hear the creature's roar and nothing else....or at least i think so..little rusty on my med knowledge.


Sorry, couldn't find a way to explain that in story.

As you can see, i've updated it. I'll keep doing so nearly every day. Maybe i'll even get a sticky if it's good...for some reason, whenever i try to edit a post, it tells me i'm using a feature wrong.

Don't update it, just post new chapters whenever you have them finished. It will get annoying if you keep updating the same thing.

The man lay sobbing, uncontrollably. The creature stirred. planting two razor sharp talons into the floor, it began to rise. It stretched, shuddering and snorting. Its feet bent the floor below it, the boards creaking with stress. Taking its forelegs to either wall, it gained locomotion in the cramped space.

The vicious thing thronged at its wound, exclaimed a low growl. All at once, its eyes locked at the other end of the hall, and its jaws snapped shut so hard, a jagged, curved tooth ricocheted away from its maw. One of hundreds. Slicking its feathers back, it looked straight at the man.

Silence from him, ears closed off to the world, the man began to move with new purpose. Swinging his legs around, back toward the stairs, putting his feet onto the top step, he forced himself up, gradually, by clawing at the walls. Now upright, his equilibrium [censored], his head pounding, he spun down the stairs. The creature shot towards the doorway. Hot air rushed all around it, its lizardlike tail ensuring balance, its many raptor limbs scrabbling, digging deep grooves into the sheetrock and wood. The man continued to haul down the steps, stopping midway to gain balance again. Creeping its snout, then one eye slowly into the doorway, the creature dug deep, turning its long neck down the stairs now, and began to tense itself. Its mouth opened wide, and a deep glow eminated from somewhere inside it. Belching flame, its head feathers alight with embers, it exhaled loudly.

Grabbing the banister at the bottom, the man swung himself around on his wrist, and jumped the last few steps, straight back into the living room. Large, cone-shaped ducts in the creature's mouth, sphincter muscles pulsating with white heat, opened up, and great jets of blue and white flame followed suit. the creatures eyes teared up, and a massive gob of spit lodged in its mouth popped and crackled like a roman candle, sparks flowing like water. Abruptly snapping its jaws shut and bleeding from its nostrils, the creature shook its head in dissaproval and anger, screaming when it could, that deafening noise, flapping its feathers, trying to cool the blaze within it. Inside the stairwell, every inch of wall and ceiling was turned to black, sparkling embers. The house groaned, and the stairs slowly melted away, hot slag spewing from air pockets in the wood. The man felt the heat on his back, felt his hair singe and crackle. He had made it down the stairs in the nick of time. Back in the living room with the night air feeding the flames inside.

Sobbing still, the man dragged himself across the floor. His exit, the hole in the window that the creature had made prior, lay moments before him. His hand on the edge on the windowsill, his ears rang again. Shrill this time, deafening even to a man losing his hearing. He let his hand go slack, and propped himself up on the edge of the sill. Turning around to face it once more, he lay there once again, with dread anticipation.

The creature hung there, in the doorway of the stairway, eying the man with intent. It was quiet, now. The man whimpered, thoughts racing, eyes taking in what he could see, the large reptillian frame creeping towards him. it shuffled its heavy talons, dragged itself the length of the room. Its tail whipped around from behind it, and underswept an armchair so hard it went flying into the wall and shattered into a hunk of steel and cloth. The man flattened himself up against the wall, and balled his left fist tightly, his nails digging into his palm hard. His legs and feet propping himself up, looking for a way to stand. it had him cornered. He could gain no traction. It was then that the beast reached out with one tentative claw, and snatched the man by his throat. The wind instantly left him, and his trachea began to close. At first he thought of only reluctant defeat, then his mind gained rebellion. He thought of Alice. Starting all the way behind his back, as he hung suspended by the things' grip, he swung around with a hard left hook. Connecting with the creature's top lip, he shut his eyes, tears streaming down either temple. He felt a crack, and was met with more pain. His eyes glazed over, he opened one lid. The creature stood unphased, its grip only tightening. His fist lay in tatters, hand surely broken. It was like punching concrete. The man let both hands fall at his sides, let his body go limp. Involuntary urination streamed down his legs, stained his pants dark. Then, miraculously, he felt the creature's grip loosen. Just a tiny bit of air entered his lungs, just enough to keep himself from passing out. The creature shook its head a little and opened its massive jaws. its tongue widthdrew into its throat, and its flame ducts split open. The man could see several glands move and pulsate, and he could feel unnerving heat. Waves of it exited the ducts, some sort of natural gas. It smelled of strong methane, and the man winced. The hundreds of teeth sparkled in the flickering light. the smell became stronger, the heat more intense. The skin on his face began to feel badly warm. The next second hot, and the next peeling. His skin bubbled and cracked and split, the hot gas coiling around him. His hair simply fell off in clumps, and his scalp caught a tiny fire. His cheeks bubbled and burst, and his gums and tongue swelled. His teeth throbbed, and he bit down hard trying to brave the pain. He screamed aloud after his lips expanded and popped. His eyes remained intact, although swelling and eyelashes all inside them. And just then, as quickly as the pain had started, it receeded. He began to bleed from every burn, every scratch, and puss flowed from his tongue. The creature had snapped its jaws shut once more. Its grip loosened on the mans throat, and he felt himself slipping, dropped to the floor. He looked up at the thing's gullet. It gnawed at its own lips, scratched at its throat. It opened and closed its mouth several times, belching flame and red-white ichor. Its eyes darting all across its field of view, it appeared confused.

It could make flame no longer, it seemed. Taking one last look at the heap of a man, it turned its attention to the boarded up window where it had tried to come in through. Gaining momentum as it ran, sharp claws ripping up tile and fabric, running over chairs and knocking over a bench, it smashed its way through the wood, brushing off peices of the home like dust, its tail whipping behind it and putting a large gash in the hard floor, the monster left into the night, kicking up dust and screaming.


The man lay in pain, attempting to keep from falling into the blackness of sleep. His impulses overtook him, and before he could raise his legs in protest, he passed out.




The crimson-colored Deathclaw slinked away into the darkness of the noctournal wastes.



A few more things to cover and i'll end chapter I.

Any sort of CONSTRUCTIVE INPUT is appreiciated, guys. No "this sux" replies. Doesn't help me on why it svcks.

Morning.

"Easy there pup...easy."

The rotweiler looked up at Jacinto with puppy-eyes. It licked its chops. The animal was hungry. Stomping its front paws and getting low to the ground, it looked at what lay before them, and crept up to the wreckage.

"Daisy, no. Sit."

The dog stopped and looked back up at Jacinto. This time, when he rebuked with a nasty look, the dog whimpered and snarled.

"We're a long way from Rivet" Said Jacinto. "If you want to eat, girl, you'll [censored] stow it." His cockney accent showed through. The dog sat and looked at the sky with discontent. Jacinto motioned toward the wreckage, putting one hand on a jutting peice of wood. He observed it, studied it, His eyes focusing and panning up and down. He widthdrew his hand and slowly moved it underneath the rear of his trenchcoat. Working at his holster, he produced a Mauser C96. "Wood's still warm" he said to himself. "Maybe raiders. [censored] caravans."

Turning around slowly and keeping the weapon at waist-level, he scanned the horizon in all directions. Stopping again at the wreckage, he re-holstered his pistol.

"Clear...I'd see them rambling toward me already...if this was a trap..sniper would have shot me." He spoke as he looked down towards his dog.

"I think this was a natural fire, Daisy." The dog looked at him quizzically. "Hold."

Climbing up the pile of ash and wood, siding and shingles that lay before him, he slipped down the edges, kicking away embers. It had definitely been a dwelling of some sort, a home, if anyone lived there. The town itself was near-desolate, with only a few houses standing. Roads ran through it, erroded at their ends, going off into nowhere. Husks of cars lay strewn about, some on fire. Skeletons littered the streets. In the sunlight of the wasteland, the post-town baked. Brush fires cropped up wherever foliage stood, and new trees grew twisted. The other half of the town, downhill, lay covered in settling dust, the wind blowing up large portions of it lodged loose, falling like snow.

The fire itself that had destroyed the house spread through the night. It was the smoke that attracted Jacinto. Where there's smoke, there's fire. Fire means people, people mean supplies.

Jacinto sifted through the ash, grabbing piles of wood and hefting them aside. He found few things; A few rifle rounds, as luck would have it, not 30.06 like he needed, but pocketed them anyway. A stock for some sort of pre-war rifle, which he ripped the metal fasteners out of, pocketed those, and chucked the wood aside. Most valuable of all was a U.S. Mint box of at least two-hundred bottle caps, put away under a pile of smouldering brick. He took them all and fixed the box to his back, any metal fetched a price with the traders. His work done, he brushed himself off and rung out his sleeves. He fiddled with the buttons on them, took out his mauser and checked the breach. Doing another once-over of the wreckage, he decided he had all he needed. Turning around, he went to gather Daisy and check the other buildings. Looking at where he had left daisy, he saw her sniffing and licking at something, whining. Walking towards her with a hand raised, ready to scold her for not staying put, he stopped dead in his tracks. There, lazily touching daisy's snout, was a few human fingers, attatched to a hand half-buried under debris.

Its great. I especially liked the style of writing in the first two posts. Great work! I hope you continue it.

"Daisy ! Get clear !" He screamed at the dog. "[censored] [censored] !"

Running toward her with his mauser out, he slid onto the ground, stirring up piles of ash, and smacking the dog out of the way. The dog yelped and barked, sitting down and intently looking at Jacinto, growling and staring. Jacinto reached deep into the ashes away from the hand, feeling for the outline of a person. When he had the figure's throat, he anchored himself as best he could into the wreckage with his boots, and pulled upward, mouser in his free hand. Out of the ash came a coughing, snarling shape, covered in dust and blood. The person screamed, wheezing and spitting on Jacintos face. He knocked the man against the ash below him, rocking him back and forth by his neck, waving the mauser in front of his face. The man only coughed ash, tears pouring out of him. Observing the man's face, Jacinto recoiled in horror. The man's eyes were run with blood, red with orange pupils. He had no hair on his head, only patches of split skin. his lips curled back to reveal yellow teeth and bleeding gums. His brow was lowered, giving him a permanent snarl. His face had flaps of loose skin congealing yellow, his neck blotched with patches of grey. Necrotic flesh stained him. At the sight of sunlight, he screamed. Jacinto hefted his pistol directly at the man's head. A feral ghoul ? A mutant ?

The man shut his eyes quickly and shot into the fetal position. He began weeping and wheezing, mouthing words.

"A-a-a-alice. Oh gawd." He moaned loudly, painfully.

Jacinto lowered his pistol. The man was clearly a man. Daisy was looking at him, panting. Jacinto knelt down beside the man, who was now growing quiet and weeping, his voice slowly trailing off. Taking a small box from his belt and sliding it along his waistline, he flipped several toggles on it, adjusted some dials. Flipping a tab open on the side of the box and sliding it out, he drew the tab away, exposing cable. The length of cable grew as Jacinto drew the tab away from the box, until it was up to his eye. Flipping a switch on the tab, a lens popped out. Putting it to his eye and straining to look through it, he saw a digital readout with a crosshair in the center. A small laser protruded from the tab, touching the man with a flourescent glow. Inside the lens, Jacinto could see scratched, faded numbers flicker into view.

12.5 RDS, it said. and on the bottom, NORMAL - PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

The man had almost no radiation on him. Jacinto flipped the lens closed, and let the tab retreat into the box, sliding it back across his belt. The man lay quite still now, rocking back and forth and humming softly.

"[censored]" spoke Jacinto, quietly. "What are we going to do with you ?"


Daisy stopped panting for a second and swallowed, whining.

"Daisy, please, make yourself useful. I don't like when you stand around like that" scolded Jacinto.

The dog put its tail between its legs and turned away from both of them, staring at the horizon of the wasteland. They were some distance away from the town now, on a hill overlooking the small burg. Hawks flew overhead, and rotting, irradiated vultures stood in pairs on the ground, watching with milky eyes. Jacinto had the man's arm around his shoulder, and was practically dragging him to their destination. The man did nothing but whimper and lay limp, struggling against walking. "I don't understand what made you so damn upset, mate" Said Jacinto. "But we're going to have a nice long" -He paused to lift the man up- "talk about what happened here, If you were attacked for something valuable, I want to know who took it" -lifting him up again- "and how much you're going to pay me for getting it back." Jacinto spoke with conviction. He inched foward a little more, and suddenly shifted his weight, dropping the man on a large steel rack, slanted and strewn with hooks and chains. The man cried out, straining to see his surroundings. Putting his hands on his hips, Jacinto waited for a response. When he didn't get one, he turned his attentions to the mans limbs. Grabbing his left and right hands, he put them together, and when the man struggled, he elbowed him in the ribs, which solicited a scream. grabbing again, he tied each limb to a different chain, a different shackle, and reached behind the steel. Producing a small winch, he clicked it into place. Tiny clockwork mechanisms inside the winch hummed to life, whirring and spinning, a dozen tiny gears. The links on each chain began to strain, and the shackles began to pull. When the man was completely tied down and unable to move an inch, Jacinto stopped the winch with a flick of the wrist. The gears ground to a halt, and the man lay struggling. Attatched to the steel plate was a pulley, on that pulley a crane, and to the crane a hull, windows, chassis, gears, engines, shafts, pistons, doors and a little shaking hula girl on the dashboard. The old tow truck ran on fuel cells, a technology barely explored before the war. It had modified wheels, though, now tank treads and blades. The suspension ran high. Jacinto dropped his clockwork system, and it retreated, pulled by a cable on a retractable line. Jacinto then kicked two hooks on the bottom of the plate, and the steel retreated violently into the bed of the truck. The man shook and screamed again. Jacinto began to speak before the man died down.

"Do you know what I do ?" He asked. He did not bother to wait for an answer. "I'm a slave trader, guy. I sell people for money...for caps. The pay is good. It gets me what I need. Let me tell you something about the capital wasteland."

"For all of its technology, bullets, men, money, especially guns are hard to come by, hard to manage. For all its advanced civilization, this place is [censored] dead." He spat at that last word. "Because of this, people do not go out and raid, pillage, hunt, without a damn good reason. They are far more content to sit in places like Rivet and Ton and let all the caravans do the work. Now that i've found you, so badly off as you are, i'm thinking that fire was set for a reason. A reason to waste precious resources. Thus, something pretty important. You know what men around here waste bullets for ?"

The man groaned. Jacinto seperated his trenchcoat and flipped a few dials on the box at his waist. He took out the lens again, and looked at the man.

RDS 12.5 - NORMAL PROCEED WITH CAU-

He let go and everything snapped back into place.

"People waste resources for more resources. So tell me, freind, what did you have that was so valuable, that the homestead over there was burned to the ground for. That these fine, possibly upstanding people-"

He gestured toward the badly burned corpses, one a tall woman, the other two children, which he dug out of the ash after finding the man.

"got snuffed for ?"

Jacinto waited. The man was quiet for a second, but then began struggling and yelping. The dog still stood at the horizon, but inched its ears toward the direction of the racket. "I wouldn't bother struggling" said Jacinto, angrily. "That array I have set up there is far more capable than it looks. I have snapped a man in Power Armor in two with that old thing. Think of it as my own personal torture device."

The man continued his protest. Jacinto opened his trenchcoat once again, this time producing his C96. Aiming it at the crane, gaining a sight picture of one of the many lengths of cable, he pulled the trigger. The bullet went true, striking the cable and snapping it, flowing sparks, sending one spare end slowly flying at Jacintos' feet, resting inches from him. The other end whipped hard against the roof of the truck, and retreated into the array. The chains retreated a little more into their receptacles, and the mans' limbs were stretched.

A scream came from the man so shrill, it echoed across the wasteland. spit filled the mans throat, and he began foaming at the mouth, yelling broken curses. The dog turned, now, looking at Jacinto.

He lined up another sight picture with an adjacent cable.

"We can do this all day, freind. I am one that has plenty of bullets."
===================================================================

As you can see, Jacinto favors clockwork, a throwback to Steampunk subgenre. I've got some good ideas on how he could use that to fight....it does make sense in the wasteland, I think, as it's a power source that is in most cases purely kinetic.

Jacinto's finger lay on the trigger, smoothing it over. The man grew quiet, and began to stir a little, struggling against something internally. Jacinto stopped and looked at him.

"Dragon" The man screeched, his voice as gravel. Jacinto quickly whipped the pistol back into it's holster and strode over to him, hopping up on the steel and loudly pacing over to where he could hear him, and crouched down, hands on his knees. "What did you say ?" Asked Jacinto. "Speak."

"Wata" Said the man. "Wata foist."

Jacinto's expression grew from curiousity to pure hatred in an instant. Standing up quickly, he moved one heavy steel boot back and connected with the man's ribs. Almost at once, screams of pain, reverbing and echoing all around the empty land before them. Daisy began barking loudly.

"YOU, bargain with ME !?!" Screamed Jacinto. "NO, SOD off you [censored] ! YOU CAN [censored] ROT !"

The dog nearly jumped at Jacinto.

"DAISY, CLAM !"

Daisy shut up and whined.

The wasteland surrounding them was bleak. Scrub bush and small, burned trees were the only foliage around, and it was now beginning to be sunset. The sky took on a yellowing tint, and what little stars were already appearing, or at least ones they could see, flickered into sight. Great clouds of dust still obscured the sun, for the most part, even though it had been 200 years since the war began. The dirt lay dangerously radioactive just ten feet below them, and was mostly cracked, scorched earth at sea level.

Jacinto stared at the setting sun for a few moments while the man recomposed himself. Jacinto knelt down this time, coming real close to the man, his lips almost on his ears. "Now," spoke Jacinto. "You're going to tell me what this dragon of yours is. Is it a weapon, some kind of cap stash ? A special kind of bullet ?"

"Or is it a mutant ? A ghoul ? A person that does not want to be found ? What ? Christ, a nuke ? Like they have at Ton ?"

The man shook his head. Jacinto extended one arm and grabbed the man by the jaw, turning him forcefully toward his gaze.

"You're going to tell me."

"No" said the man, voice a little less coarse than before. "I gotta know ya not gouna stiff me. You tell about how goods are important ? Give me water. Save me and i'll tell."

Jacinto stood up, grabbing his chin scruff and mulling it over. He looked at the man with a sour expression. "Tell me" he said. "What is your name, rabble. Do you have one ?" He unbuttoned his trenchcoat. spread his boots apart a little. The man looked at him nervously, furrowing his bloody brow. He blinked with tears in his eyes.

"Truuuth, it's Truman. My last name upon water." He coughed, leaned his head away from Jacinto, and spat. He looked up again to see a C96 aimed at his right arm. Jacintos trenchcoat swayed with recent movement.

A loud popping, hot brass in the air, fire and smoke out of the barrel, and a large chunk of skin was sheared away from Trumans arm, exposing muscle underneath, bleeding out of a gaping hole. Truman instantly seized up, biting down so hard he chipped his teeth. He spat and screamed loudly, and beat his head against the steel until he was dizzy. He pulled and pulled, and his shackles dug deep grooves in his flesh. Jacinto, weapon already disengaged and put away, sat down again next to Truman, this time just staring off at the sun, now below the horizon. Off in the distance, hundreds of cries, screams, and the pattering of feet. It sounded like a far-off stampede. The sounds slowly surrounded them, growing louder by the second.

After a few minutes had passed, dark shapes could be seen on the edge of the horizon. An entire flank of them, jumping off the ground, stumbling over each other, running, all running towards the food they smelled.

"Unless you tell me, i'll feed you to the [censored] ghouls. You know how it gets around here at night. Oh, and next time I shoot you, it'll be your throat."

Daisy moved into the bed of the truck, panting, and getting as close to Jacinto as he would allow.

If you do want to edit, edit your post and post the new version instead.

Daisy moved ever closer to Jacinto, curling up beside his boot. He sat next to Truman, quietly biding his time, looking out over the horizon. The rambling mass of ghouls grew closer. They were coming over the town, now, entering buildings and homes, ripping down barricades, smashing through windows, all while more of them simply went around the dwellings, sending only a few in at a time. Some of them gathered around the cars, kicking in doors, the stronger ones tipping the smaller vehicles over, sending them end-over-end into the dust. The ones still smart enough to use weapons shot at doorways with rusted automatic weapons, sending tracers attached to hot metal flying through the growing darkness.

One ghoul, with glowing green eyes and a mouth endlessly dripping blood in between dark yellow teeth, clambered his way up an abandoned shop effortlessly, using his momentum to swing up to the top of several awnings, until his fingertips gripped the edge of the roof. By merely flexing his arm, he was on top of the roof in seconds, flying through the air, sending bits of concrete spanning outward. Spinning around in many directions, he beat the roof with his fists, mouth now dripping hot saliva. He was much larger than the rest, and all the other ghouls stayed away from the building he stood claim to. Becoming idle for a moment, with a confused expression on his face, obviously thinking, he strained to dig an arm into his only article of clothing, a torn backpack with a faded Vault-Tec logo on the back of it. Digging his meaty hand through the pack, he threw out several pieces of junk, until he rested on one item, wiggling his wrist to produce it. He hefted the object in his hand, and brought one other finger up to it, pulling at it. He then walked over to one of the building's ventilation outputs, and brought one club like hand back, pivoting and stomping foward, smashing his fist through the lattice, shards of metal denting inwards, and soot billowing from within. The ghoul opened his hand and widthdrew it from the vent, turning quickly and throwing the object from his backpack behind him, straight into the shaft, and he began to run.

Just as the ghoul leapt off of the rooftop, the inside of the building was illuminated with a flash of light, and the stone, granite and brick seemed to shake, clouds of dust falling off of them. A loud report was heard, muffled from the walls surrounding it, and the flash of light grew brighter still. Then, all the windows still intact exploded outwards, and a large shockwave expanded from inside, shearing several ghouls around the building into bloody chunks. The strong ghoul seemed unphased, even as the building crumbled behind him, wood splintering and a tiny mushroom cloud of dust flowing outwards into the streets. The ghouls around the building still pillaged for their quarry, looking up only for a brief moment. The big ghoul stomped off into an alleyway, throwing up trash around it and growling with a sickening noise.

Jacinto flinched. "Light bombs. I've seen them before. Nasty bit of improvisation. See, you take a grenade and a bit of fusion..."

Truman looked at Jacinto, mumbling something. Jacinto looked at him, and then ignored him, turning his attention back to the small township.

"Anyways." Said Jacinto, calm as can be. Producing his lens from his waist again, he looked at the growing crowd of ghouls. Some had started to ebb out of the township and were making their way into the field where Jacinto had parked his truck. There still lay quite a bit of distance between the mob and them, but still, Jacinto grew worried, although he did not show it.

The display read clearly- 19000 RDS

EVAC RECOMMENDED

Jacinto shuddered and let his contraption draw back into its holster.

"That's a lot of radiation on those things. Combined ? I'd say enough to register as another nuke going off. Think, now. Carefully about what you're doing. One scratch, one bite from those bastards and we're infected with a nasty case of radiation poisoning. Could take years to cure. I don't know about you, but i quite fancy my face."

Jacinto licked his lips and spoke again.

"It always gets this bad in the southern towns at night, doesn't it ? How did you survive this long out here ?"

Truman parted his cracking lips, where he was met with the taste of iron again.

"We did manage." His words were carefully chosen and shakily said. His gravel voice was hard to understand at first.

"We moved around quite a bit to avoid them, My wife and kids and I. Those bodies you dragged up were my family. That "army" of ghouls seems to expand further north every day. I have nothing of value to tell you, only about what killed them." Truman stopped crying and grew serious, more composed.

"VIRGIN MOTHER ! HE [censored] TALKS !" Jacinto yelled. A few ghouls picking garbage from the field looked up and over at the truck. "GO ON, DAMNIT !"

Truman grew nervous. The ghouls in the field screamed loudly, began to run towards the truck. Jacinto drew his C96, checking the loading mechanism.

"My house was burned because of a dragon." Truman's voice was gravelly and nasal, and he drew breath between each sentence, wheezing. "It was unprovoked. A giant lizard or something of that nature. Just came by and killed."

Jacinto grew angry once again. "This wasteland has many dirty [censored] secrets, but not once have i heard of a sodding dragon, a fire breathing lizard. The truth. Why were you attacked, man ?"

Lining up a sight picture of one ghoul's head, he let the trigger hang pressed. Three bullets rapidly exited the barrel, trailing smoke and fire. The ghoul's face caved inward, and it fell to the ground sharply, tripping up several of it's brethren. Jacinto swept his arm across his line of sight, holding down the trigger. More bullets zipped downrange, taking off limbs and shattering ribs, sending ghoul after ghoul plummeting downwards. The ones that could still walk crawled across the ground toward the truck, determined to eat the occupants alive. This only slowed them, as ghouls from the town turned their attention to the shots.

Truman yelled for Jacinto. He knelt down beside him. "Yes ? Ready to talk ?" Jacinto tapped his foot impatiently.

"Please, sir. That is all I know. I swear, I swear I swear I swear I swear." Truman shook in his shackling and tears formed in his eyes.

Jacinto sat puzzled. This man stood defiant, he thought. For the first time in his life, Jacinto felt a tiny bit of mercy. At this, he reeled back with one tightly balled fist and drove it straight into Truman's gut. Truman screamed painfully, and Jacinto grabbed him by his neck and drew his face close to his own, gritting his teeth, wide-eyed, spittle coming out of his mouth as he spoke.

"You [censored], you [censored], you [censored] [censored] pile of puke." I'm going to take you back to where I live on these lands, and on my own terms, you're going to absolve these [censored] [censored] lies and tell me the TRUTH. You have not seen pain, you disfigured ass."

He let Truman go. What more could he do ?

"DAISY !" He grabbed the dog by the snout, commanding her attention. "WE ARE LEAVING !"

Daisy barked, and jumped out of the bed. Reaching his hand into a small space in between the bed and the frame of the cab, Jacinto flipped a few unseen switches, and a few steel rods began to snap out of place, lined up against the rear of the bed. A canopy stretched over them, unfurling from the back, and the rods pulled it over the bed. Gears stopped suddenly, and the improvised canopy hung above them, like a convertible. Jacinto checked a crying Truman's shackles, and darted out of the back of the canopy, bending it over his head, into the night. He swung around the driver's side of the truck, met with the faces of starving ghouls about twenty feet away. Reaching into his back pocket, he produced a small, metallic disk, rattling with something loose inside it. Flipping open a latch on the side of the disk and drawing a wire, he pulled tightly. The wire ended quickly, after only a few inches, and as he discarded it, he could hear gears come to life inside the disk, clicking away, ticking, torque driving some kind of mechanism. Bending his elbow and then his wrist, he threw the disk like a shotput, pivoting on one leg. The disk flew true toward its targets, and in the middle of a crowd of ghouls, clicked loudly, and detonated in midair. Nails, screws, shards of metal and even a few bottlecaps flew into the air, cutting and slicing limbs off of the few ghouls not incinerated in the initial blast. Jacinto was hit with a blast of hot air, and tiny metals pounded the ground a few feet wayward from him. As burning ghouls rolled on the ground, screaming, and others fell with great gouts of blood pouring from their wounds, Jacinto smiled and opened the driver's side door, climbing into the truck, the cab filled with clutter, file folders containing endless maps and pre-war documents, photos, and containers with bullets, knives, guns, and even one miniature atom bomb as some would call it, held securely into the dash by a mesh cage. Jacinto slammed his door shut and leaned over to open the passengers'. Pushing it open as best he could, he saw a snout, and the clumsy pattering of dog's feet come into the truck. He reached over again and pulled the door closed once daisy was safely inside. Moving his hand onto the ignition, he turned the key. The great engine stuttered for a bit, and then hummed into life. The fuel cell buzzed with white noise, and a faint glow came from the dash.

Jacinto slammed on the gas. Outside, ghouls smacked into the side of the truck, their legs ground into mush by the large treads. The front wheels kicked in a moment later, and truck began to gain movement. Within seconds clipping along at nearly sixty miles per hour, the few ghouls still running after it slowly breaking off in groups, returning to the town. Jacinto and daisy shook violently inside the cab as they broke through fences and backyards, tore up dirt and sped north. Truman felt himself drifting off, reluctantly, passing out again. From pain or exhaustion, he could not tell.


The town would be nothing but rubble in a few hours.
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578 views on something that's NOT a RP ? Cool.

If you like it, respond ! Show your support. After all, positive feedback only makes me want to continue on more.

^_^ I'll keep going no matter what, though. I really like these characters. I have a whole world of torture and malevolence dreamt up for them.

"What now, Jacinto ? Didn't we tell you not to come through here anymore ? The pass is blocked. Go 'way."

The large bunker door stayed shut. Jacinto stood in front of it with his arms crossed, trenchcoat off and hanging on his driver's side mirror. The caution paint on the door was faded and chipped, its portholes caked with dust. The loudspeaker embedded inside the door popped and crackled with a young woman's voice, with a distinct african accent. The door stood almost ten feet high, three times as wide as Jacintos truck. The door was on the side of a nearly sheer hill, with scrub grass and long, tough, and jagged rocks jutting out from the dirt. A ways up the hill, Jacinto kept his eyes trained on two concrete slits five feet apart from each other. He could see long, metal tubes with compensators attatched to them just barely poking out of each slit. Shell casings, large ones, about the size of Jacinto's foot, lay strewn around the entrance. He stood on a series of metal plates somewhat obscured by dirt, leading up to the door. A lens, most likely connected to CCTV, opened and closed randomly, it too embedded in the door, next to the speaker. The door itself was covered in circuitry and flashing lights, with a faded flag -Jacinto could not tell what country- superimposed over nearly half of it. A freshly stenciled sign in yellow spraypaint said KEEP OUT. The wasteland behind Jacinto was endless, flat plains. They had come at least ten miles since the town.

Jacinto took a deep breath inwards and leaned up against the door, putting one eye close to the camera while he talked into the speaker. "Come now, Denora." He said gently. "Is that anyway to treat me ? After what I showed you ?" He blinked slowly into the camera, his eyes growing seductive. "Don't leave me [censored] up like this. I wouldn't be bothering you if i didn't think this was worth your time."

"Jacinto, [censored] off. You killed Rat." The woman's voice was stern, but it seemed as though she was welling up with tears. A stubborn sadness.

Jacinto protested. "Rat was a [censored] traitor. He was going to bring the whole place down for those damn feral."

The speaker crackled and stressed from the feedback of loud noise. "WE HAD NO [censored] PROOF OF THAT, SLAVER !"

Silence. The speaker whined, and there was white noise.

She stammered, beginning again. "You went on hearsay. You used that [censored] box of yours without my permission, and he died painfully. [censored] off." The speaker clicked, and the lens shut.

Jacinto began screaming, his vocal chords wheezing with stress. He jumped backwards and looked right at the two concrete slits on the hill, swinging his fist in the air. "I STILL REMEMBER HOW YOU TASTE, YOU [censored] !" YOUR [censored] TASTED LIKE [censored] GHOUL SPIT, YOU KNOW THAT ! SMELLED OF ROTTING FLESH !" he continued on.

"DOESN'T MAKE [censored] SENSE, [censored] ! I [censored] YOU, RIGHT ?" Jacinto was at the top of his lungs. The valley behind him, the mountains in front echoed with his voice. "SHOULD MEAN I CAN COME AND GO AS I PLEASE, JUST LIKE RAT [censored] WENT TO THOSE GHOULS BEHIND ALL OUR [censored] BACKS !"

Kicking the door and punching it, he violently drew his mouser from it's holster, waving it in the air. He held it awkwardly. "HE WAS GOING TO TURN US ALL INTO CHOW, AND YOU LET IT GO BECAUSE HE HAD HIS END IN YOU !" Jacinto waved the mouser around a bit more, and then let his hands fall to his sides. He began to droop down, hopeless.

The concrete slit on the left was illuminated with light, and a hot, glowing fire exited the tube's compensator for a brief second. A large shell casing fell lazily out of the slit, ejected from somewhere deep within the gun's housing. As the shell casing rolled down the hill, bouncing and gaining speed, the grass around the slit caught embers, hot, translucent gas exiting the barrel. The large .75 bullet careened through the air, hanging past Jacintos head and banking left with the wind, striking the broadsize of a boulder some distance behind him. The boulder slid across the ground a few inches, and a basketball-sized chunk was taken out of it, crumbled into powder. Jacintos left ear stung and bled a bit, ringing. He patted at it, cringing and kneeling down. The speaker on the door clicked back into life.

"These guns are perfectly calibrated. That was a warning shot. The next one's coming at your head." The woman was emotionless. The humming of some sort of diesel engine was heard a distance away from her. "YOU ! LOAD ANOTHER SHE-" The speaker clicked off again. Jacinto stumbled, bent over, holding his ear, tripping over his own feet, to the back of his truck, behind the canopy and bumper. He threw his C96 at the ground next to him, and sat down hard, fingering his ear, clearing out wax and blood.
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I like introducing new characters. ^_^

Jacinto drooped down to the ground, leaning all of his weight up against his truck. He lazily raised a hand and opened the flap on the canopy. "Well," He said. "It looks like we're stuck here."

Wind blew across the wastes in front of him. The scrub shook, and muffled yells were heard from inside the bunker. Jacinto let his eyes drift off into the distance, focusing on a great plume of smoke rising over a dead treeline, miles off into the horizon. "That town fell pretty quick. They'll be moving north again tonight."

Coughing eminated from within the bed of the truck. The sun was coming over the eastern plains. Shadows of dawn danced all across the wasteland. Jacinto stared intently at a Radscorpion in the distance, considering having it to eat. The scorpion was stabbing something at it's eye level, kicking up dust and snapping at the air with its claws. Truman, still chained to the bed of the truck by the apparatus, spoke with a voice emaciated.

"We won't be getting in. I hope you die out here." His chains rattled. Jacinto slammed a fist into the metal on the edge, prompting a loud, echoing bang. He did it again and again, and Truman stifled himself.

"I'm going to get dinner. Stay put, huh ?" Jacinto sounded distant, but sarcastic. He kept his eyes locked on the scorpion, even as he got up and affixed the box on his belt to the front of his waist. Flipping a few toggles, he drew the lens up to his eye. Gazing into it, he strained his vision to focus. The lens zoomed in and out, the lens whirring and clicking, until it locked on the only moving object in the distance, the scorpion. The crosshair in the center lit up, and soon numbers flipped onto the holographic glass. Jacinto read the information present. The scorpion was stabbing a small rodent, perforating it, dragging its entrails across the dirt. It gripped the rodent finally in its bulbous pincers, and tore it in half, feeding the remaining ends into its mandibles. it snapped and chewed with tenacity, turning its legs to gain leverage as it dug at the ground for the remaining morsels.

"What is that thing ?" Truman said.

Jacinto whipped around, the lens retracting as he dropped it from his side. He saw Truman staring up at him, straining his neck to look past the flap at Jacinto. Jacinto could feel anger stirring up in him, but he swallowed it back. Truman turned his eyes to the box on Jacintos waistline.

Jacinto gestured toward the box, and put his hand onto the bed of the truck. "It's a optical radiation dectector." they stood in silence for a moment. Truman furrowed his brow, and Jacinto sighed.

"Basically, it uses a very low-intesity laser to hit an object, the object that the viewfinder deems necessary for calibration. Once that's accomplished, it detects the precise amount of radiation particles around and possibly on the object, and sends that calculation back to this box." He tapped the box with his other hand. "The box makes sense of that calculation, and through the cable, sends a low-band singnal back to the lens. I can see how much radiation is on an object, person, or animal with this process. Radiation is...hard to see. The light from the laser makes it easier to detect, at least for computation." Jacinto said all of this matter-of-factly.

"At least that's how it was [censored] explained to me by the member of the brotherhood i killed to get it."

Jacinto turned away from the bed of the truck. Looking out over the horizon, he scanned the area with his eyes. The radscorpion was gone. Jacinto kicked the dirt. Turning around again, he wiped his brow with his arm as he inquired to Truman. "Your arm is getting infected" he said, impatiently.

"And your ear is bleeding" replied Truman. Jacinto wiped his blood-matted hair back with a few fingers.

"Your arm will be good bait for a few wolves. It smells." Jacinto sniffed.

Truman gained a disgusted look. "Let me go. I promise you, we'll go our seperate ways." He pleaded with Jacinto, Frowning.

Jacinto backed away a little, and started off towards the wasteland. "I think i'll wait to see what comes for you. In the bunker, they won't care what happens. They turn a blind eye to the world while they work on digging" said Jacinto. "Or at least what's left of their operations." Jacinto stopped for a moment, to feel for his mauser, making sure it was with him. Touching it, he quickly turned back around to Truman. "Unless" He said, "You want to tell me what happened to you. The fact that you're keeping it a secret further intrigues me, and it's clear that you're tracking those ghouls. Whose agent are you ? Brotherhood ? Enclave ?"

Truman shook his head quickly through Jacintos inquiries, and snapped back at him. "I told you, my family was slaughtered by some sort of mutant. It was a fire breathing lizard. I tracked the zombies because they were ripping through all the towns northward. We had to keep running from them...I.." Tears welled up in his eyes. "I didn't want them to go, i didn't want them, didn't want..."

"Shut up." Growled Jacinto. Truman continued to cry, raising his voice. "We thought we were safe for just one night ! It came and killed us and burned MEEEEE-"

"SHUT THE [censored] UP !" Screamed jacinto, cutting off a hysterical rant. "I'M NOT LETTING YOU GO !"

Jacinto bolted towards the back of the truck, slamming one foot onto the back bumper and propping himself up with his hands, pulling on the canopy, straining it, almost launching himself on top of truman. He yelled and pulled out his mauser, smacking it onto the bed, dragging his feet up until his knees were on Truman's stomach. Truman rattled his chains, screaming and crying, tears flying out of his eyes. Jacinto quickly pinned him, ending his strife shortly. Grabbing Trumans throat, he stabilized his head and locked into his gaze. With eyes full of tears, Truman reluctantly paid attention. "This is the last time i'm going to say it, the absolute last time. Keep a hold of yourself. I want to beleive you, I do, but you're [censored]in' untrustable. This is the wasteland, and i am not like anyone you've met before. I do not trust any man, woman or child living, and i only trust the dead to stay dead." Truman tried raising his head, but was met with a slam into the bed of the truck, which made him dizzy. "So lay here, shut the [censored] up, and calm the [censored] down. I'm not going to feed you to anything. I'm trying to get information from you, but you keep insisting on your story. This is not how I am, these are interrogation techniques. You are not my freind, you are a person caught in an unusual circumstance, and i see fit to extract why."

Letting go of Truman, and getting up, taking the mauser and putting it back in its holster, he turned to go. Truman only lay there shaking his head, tears bubbling out of him. Jumping down off the truck, truman turned around again and strided toward the driver's side door cautiously. Staring at the large bunker door and then the two bunker guns, he looked into the lens, not bothering to notice if it was open or not, and spoke slowly and loudly. "I'm just getting my jacket" He chided. "I'm going to move slow." The compensators in the slits turned their attention to him, tracking his every movement. He stopped next to his jacket on the truck's mirror and slowly raised his right arm out to collect it. Hefting it off the mirror, and holding it palm out, he slowly walked backward all the way behind the truck again. Regaining his composure near the bumper, he turned his trenchcoat around and put it on, turning his arms back to get into the sleeves. Picking up the collar and adjusting it, he tied it loosely shut and rummaged through the pockets. Feeling some objects, he pulled them out and laid them on the bed of he truck before him. A few scraps of paper, a map of the greater DC area, and three 30.06 shells. Also were a few gears and lengths of spare wire, and a counterweight for rigging clockwork. Scooping the items back up, he put them back into his pockets, seeming satisfied. He thought for a second, and when he was certain, turned his attention to Truman. He was still whining and tearing up.

Jacinto spoke proudly. "I have a plan" he said. Peering back over the canopy, he looked at the bunker. It was embedded in almost a sheer cliff, with jagged hills behind it.

"Those guns are perfect, she is right about that. However, because they are perfect, they load slow. All operation except targeting has to be done manually. If they miss each of their first shots, there's a chance i can get past them."

He stared at the guns. They lay still, in the same position, pointed toward the truck.

"I bet they didn't count on keeping someone out who has already been in."
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Remember all constructive crit is good. I'm not sure if the silence means it's good or bad...maybe you're all so captivated you can't breathe (type) ?

^_^

Im impressed mate. Keep up the good work.

Only thing i can think of is less swearing? not because i dislike it, far from it. Its just having [censored] pop up all the time can break the pull of the story somewhat.


That aside tho, awsome.

I really like and am waiting for more chapters.

Jacinto looked over at truman again. He lay still. Jacinto spoke up to him, raising one eyebrow and gesturing in his direction.

"Look, I need you to stay quiet, okay ? No matter what you hear. I'm going to tool the parts I have here now, see what kind of way I can devise to get inside. We're going to wait, it'll take me a long time to rig this anyways." Said Jacinto.

"Rig what ? What do you have ? Those guns are going to cut you down" Spoke Truman. "I don't think you're going to be able to get past them."

Looking down, Jacinto seperated his trenchcoat with one hand, grasping the box hooked to his belt. He moved it up and down, fiddled with it, wiggling and undoing the clamp. It came off with an audible snap, and he began to undo several hand screws on the back. Small lettering stamped onto the back of the unit said "ACCESS PANEL". Once all the screws were out, he pocketed them and turned the box upside down. Shaking it, the panel came off and dropped to the ground.

Inside was a smaller metal box surrounded by wiring. A coil of line lay wound up on one corner, and the lens could be seen folded up. Grabbing the metal box, he twisted it, turned it until the jumpers attatched to the box snapped and tore off. Jacinto threw the shell of the unit to the side, and raised the small metal box to his eye. He inspected it closely, rotating it and then stuffing it into his pockets.

"Why did you tear your instrument apart ? What was that ?" Truman stared at Jacinto with a confused face.

"I need an explosive. That radiation detector, the optics on it need a reference. The core in this chip contains a small isotope." Jacinto waited for a question. After a few seconds, he took the initiative. "Certain isotopes are radioactive. The potency of the isotope determines how radioactive an object is." Jacinto felt his pocket for the box.

"I'd use some of my supplies from the truck, but this is all i've got now. They can't see me getting a weapon. They'll shoot me. I'm going to make a bomb, improvisation. After that, we'll get in, alright ? And then you're mine."

Truman let his head rest on the metal of the truck. He looked blankly at the canopy. "Why can't we just go somewhere el-"

"No" Interrupted Jacinto, shaking his head. "That [censored] is just being a stupid [censored]. I won't have her ruin what i've done for those people so far over her dead ghoul boyfreind. Besides, the rest of my supplies are in there. Now, shut up. Let me concentrate." Jacinto dug back into his pockets and produced the box. Turning around, he looked at the wasteland before him. The sun had arched across the sky, getting lower by the minute. He needed to bide his time, he decided, but work quickly on the bomb. Sitting down carefully, he took the box and began pulling at the wires, tearing copper terminals and coils from their housing. Bending the tin back and cursing as he cut himself on the jagged edges, and was careful not to puncture the thin layer of glass on the inside. Deadly radioactivity swirled in it's housing just millimeters away from where he worked. Moving his fingers and making the hole wider and wider, he was satisfied when the bore was wide enough to stick two fingers through. He looked around at his feet, behind him, somewhere to set his work down. Eyeing a smooth, flat rock embedded in the soil, he set it there very gently, cradling the box in his hands. After it was down, he searched through his pockets again, picking out lint and dust, until finally he gripped what he wanted. Pulling it out of his pocket gently, and bringing his hand before him, he opened his clenched fist to see the rifle cartridge from before. Then, setting the cartridge down on the same rock, he picked up the box again, bending awkwardly to pick up the cartridge with his other hand. Holding both objects in front of him, he let his eyes focus on the bullet. His vision blocked out all after it, and his peripherals went dull. Everything around him seemed to slow. Taking the bullet between his left thumb and pointer, and holding the box dead tight with his right hand, he slowly inched the bullet end of the cartridge toward the hole in the box. coming closer and closer, he began to sweat, and ceased to blink. When he could no longer see the bullet, he worked it upwards, slowly, more slowly, until he was moving increments of millimeters at a time. He felt the glass within the box shift, weight pressing down on his hand. He could hear slight scraping. Eventually, the glass came somewhat loose, and the bullet slid in, becoming wedged between the top of the glass and the ceiling on the box. Prodding it with one finger, Jacinto could see it was held fast. He sighed, relaxing. The charge and catalyst was affixed. Now, it was time for method of detonation.

Jacinto put the little improvised explosive on the bed of the truck, near Truman's feet. Truman stirred, and moved his wrist shackles.

"Relax mate, i'm not going to blow you up." Said Jacinto. "I'm going to run some wire to the contact on that bullet, it's going to fire, and that isotope is going to decompress. We're going to get a fusion reaction. Small amounts of atom will split-" Jacinto took a length of wire out of his coat, and began unraveling it, coil by coil, twisting a sort of noose on the end of it, pulling it tighter and tighter as he spoke. "And boom. Instant distraction. I disable the guns, we get inside. Our ace card." Jacinto put the wire down next to the box, and grasping the bumper on the truck, bent at the knees, curiously looking at the undercarrage. His knee joints hurt. He needed sleep. Underneath the truck, he was greeted by a panting daisy. "Are you doing alright, love ?" He cooed. The dog stared at him, and swallowed, whining. "I know, I know." He chided. "Hey, cover your ears."

Before he could finish his last sentence, he was back up, grabbing the wire and tightening that last bit. Daisy stared stupidly off into the distance, panting and drooling.

Jacinto took the tiny noose at the end of the wire, and picking up the box, carefully wound it between the contact ridge and the shell. Snaking more wire inbetween the bullet and brass, he drove into it several inches of coil. Putting his creation down, he inspected it with keen eyes. Finding a few grease stains on the wire, he spat and rubbed them off as best he could. Grabbing the rest of the roll, he picked up the box. Setting it at his feet, he knelt down again, this time, holding the roll, gesturing it at a confused daisy. "Come on now, girl. I need you to bite into this. Daisy...Daaaisy." The dog looked at him with it's brow up, its eyes wide, head cocked at an angle, sniffing the roll. It opened its mouth a little bit, licked its chops. "Sweetie, baby pie, hooney." Jacinto whispered, gently. Daisy sniffed a little more, shuffling her paws and backing away. Jacinto lowered the wire in dissapointment, motioning to get up. He retracted his stance a bit, and then, much to daisy's surprise, stamped foward hard, kicking up dust. The dog's ears flinched, it arched its back and jumped foward, barking. She would only get a few protests in before the wire was firmly in her jaws, Jacinto shoving it in mid-bark. Daisy stood stupid. The noise was minimal at best, but in the wasteland, like a star in the night sky. Jacinto peered out a little from behind the truck. The guns were stirring, panning left, to where he was. They would not open fire, the gunners were stingy with their ammo unless they had a direct target, or something that made noise that they could see. Inside the battlements, shadowy figures moved back and forth, and mechanisms clicked and hummed into being. Cogs turned, and the breaches opened. The figures were loading the weapon. A tireless gun crew of security, isolated. Jacinto looked back at the wasteland a distance before the bunker door. He could see, sticking out of the dirt, bones, spent shell casings, and the rusted remains of assault rifles and ammo containers, shot to [censored] by the large bore weapons. Several trees lay cracked and splintered in the arc of enfilade rights, and downrange still, several skeletons. Jacinto remembered when they, that particular group, had tried to get through. They only wanted food. This however, was the wasteland. Asking for anything usually took place with an exchange of flashing the bigger automatic weapons. Jacinto turned his attention back to daisy.

"Alright, girl. You hold on to that tight."

The dog snarled.

"Please."

Jacinto was not sure. Turning around again, he held the box in his hand. He gave it a little tug, and daisy did not move, but the wire unravelled a little more. "Good, baby." He said. "Hold."
Staring out again at the wasteland, Jacinto scanned the field before him for any viable cover points. Ahead about 20 yards, he saw a large boulder. He kept his eyes trained to it, and let them lazily trace the path back to his position. anolyzing the situation, there was no way out. He had to run. Small scrub and many, many small mounds of dirt, increments of smooth shale seperated him and the boulder, but not enough to conceal him. "[censored]" he muttered under his breath, turning around to the guns again. Putting the box down and grabbing a baseball sized rock, he tensed his arm to throw it. "[censored]."

"What are you doing, kid ?" Truman said. His voice had become like a ghouls'. Jacinto heard his chains rattle. "Don't get me shot."

Jacinto looked around for something to hit. The bunker door, perhaps, or maybe the cliff face before him. Flattening up against the end of the truck, he bent his knees to run. To his right, some distance to the right of the guns and away from the door, he saw a small, flattened tin fence, the remains of a barricade. It was covered in scrub and dead wood. Taking the rock in three fingers, he threw it as hard as he could without revealing himself, and waited for sound.

Nothing.

Again, he did it. Nothing still. He picked up a rock again, and this time the guns began panning wildly. The sensors were picking up movement, but nothing to fire at. Then, as he was going to give in, his last rock hit the metal with a satisfying ping.

The right gun opened up first. Yelling could be heard from inside the battlement, and the figures moved about quickly. The gun shook with recoil, and another large casing dribbled out and rolled down the hill. Suddenly, the metal panel on the fence crumpled from force, and fragments of wood splintered everywhere, some catching embers. Dirt and dust kicked up around the area, and when the second gun flashed with the movement of the action, Jacinto scooped up the small box quickly and ran. He jumped over the smattering of plant life, punted rocks this way and that, darting in and out of posture, sweating, panting, moving with great agility. He remembered screaming, bodies torn up by the guns. He remembered laughing as the poor families were cut down one by one, guts and blood exploding from their bodies, going limp and expelling bile in the night air. He remembered most prominently, seeing his breath in the cold and then seeing it sizzle in midair as a laser bolt struck the concrete away from him, and his own hide taking cover after that, images of the slaughter fresh in his mind. And then, finally at the boulder, he slid with knees folded, cutting up his shins on the jagged rock, falling backwards and swinging around, almost slamming the box between the rock and dirt, unharmed. The guns, now silent, rested, smoking, the insides of their machinery white hot. Men inside the bunker yelled for cease fire, women replied cautiously. The shadowy figures working the rigging on the weapons went to their stations and grabbed hoses, spraying precious pure water on the compensators and gears, shafts and pulleys, steam sizzling, echoing, these sounds, out into the wasteland. Jacinto lay stunned. It had worked. He savored it, taking it all in. It'd be pointless to simply blow up the door, he was sure of that. He did not realize the crews would act so quickly. He would not have made it. Now, to go back to cover. Back and detonate the bomb, get them all stirred up again, and when he saw his chance, disable the guns. They were the one leverage that Denora had on the outside, disabling only one of them, even temporarily, would scare the [censored] out of her. He remembered how she loved power, control.

Scrambling to his feet, he got up, leaned against the boulder. Getting back was the hard part of things, this was the test. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the wire running around his feet, tracing it back, he looked at the truck, being careful not to move too quickly. With one eye out, he observed the truck. Daisy lay under it still, the roll of wire dropped, but in place. The dog looked scared, edging toward the rear bumper, eyes locked on Jacinto. Jacinto turned his attention to the guns again, and got into starting position. Grabbing another rock, he looked around. To the right of him, at an angle where the bullets would almost touch him should they decide to shoot, was the remains of a freezer with a glass window. A golden, decaying vault-tec logo stood on the front, the freezer half buried in the dirt. The door was slightly open, dirt caking the insides. He could hear the slight chirping of some kind of insect near by, maybe a cockroach. Roaches had not only surrived the nuclear holocaust, they thrived in it, gaining more and more sensory and size advantages in the two-hundred something years they had to evolve and mutate without being stamped out by mankind. Seeing the pattering of thin, spiny legs behind the freezer, and somewhere inside of it, antennae, Jacinto flung the rock at his intended target. It connected with a dull bang, and large, imposing limbs dangled slowly out of the freezer. Drooling, hissing roaches poured out from around the decrepit food storage, clicking their mandibles and squirming their leathery wings together. Jacinto felt his skin itch and crawl. The roaches swarmed around each other, ten, maybe fifteen of them, all wondering what had disturbed their nest. A female fat with egg sacs sewn with mucous to the bottom of her thorax, stepped out slowly and observed with two slimy, black eyes. And then, she exploded, and sparks flew around the refrigerator. The guns reported again, and the roaches took meager flight, flitting their wings and running after being covered with the blood of their mate. Another, and another roach exploded, and the guns stopped. Yelling again, from inside the bunker, and Jacinto ran.

Kicking and darting and zig-zagging and zipping around, remembering and sliding and panting and wheezing once again, Jacinto held fast to the bunker of his truck. This time, the guns sent several shells into the distance around him. The crews were still confused. Over the banging of weapons, Jacinto shared a look with Truman. He was looking around, quite confused, trying to cover his ears.

The bomb was set. He needed only a little spark to detonate it, and the [censored] would be without power.





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Winding down chapter 1, now. Any opinions, like always, feel free to share. If you like it, post. I want to get a cult going for this damn thing.

^_^

I like your writing style, and also the use of steampunk style tech, it makes sense using laws of physics for your personal enjoyment is cool, :gun: I am anticipating further posts!

Jacinto crouched behind the truck, the roll of wire in his hand, looking for some sort of solution. Checking all around his person for some sort of trigger device, he found it in the most obvious of places; the ground of the wasteland itself. Digging through the dirt with his nails, he found two small pebbles in his desperate search. Not only had the nuclear bombs changed the lanscape, its inhabitants, the very minerals were warped, distorted. The radiation, or at least the particular brand exhibited by the doomsday bombs, had some sort of property that uprooted valuable minerals, changed their properties. The bombs changed DC, that was sure, its infrastructure was warped, [censored], incomprehensibly twisted beyond all viable human use. Buildings had become like monoliths to a world gone; ruins of some lost civilization. The people of the day were spoken of as they used to speak of the ancient romans.

Jacinto, these thoughts running through his head, clutched two peices of solid flint. The scaly, jagged razor sharp rock cut his fingers. Wincing, he put one peice down, the wire, and then got ready to raise the other peice. Thinking a moment, he struck down hard, and as predicted, the wire, the fire steel, ignited. A quick spark, silver and blue and sunny, cut through the insulation like a sparkler. The bright spark carried its way all down the line, jumping and crackling and popping with heat, scorching the ground around it. The dead, husk wire behind it, mottled with burns and rips, crumpled into silver ash. Finally snaking its way around the boulder, into the makeshift bomb and more directly onto the blast cap of the bullet, the shell fired, cracking the glass with heat. The three thousand degree spark cut a hole right through the chamber.

Almost instantly, the flash of light displayed itself, and blue shock exited the ring of light, the bubble forming and getting bigger by the nanosecond. The explosion expanded, and Jacinto held fast onto his truck, the shockwave blowing him back. A second wave approached them, and this time hit the guns, and a third, in rapid following, hit the hillside, sending grass and rocks, dust and debris flying for tens of feet. The shockwaves then ceased, the blue electricity humming in the air, and then, tedious fire and explosion.

At last the fireball showed itself, mushrooming upwards and crackling the air around it, smoke shoving its way through the thin oxygen, fire coating the wastes behind it, Jacinto, wowed still, began to gain his footing and run for the hill. Passing where daisy lay, the front of his truck, sprinting wildly, his feet dangling in the air as he jumped for it, coming closer and closer to the doors, hitting them through the dust, feeling his way around, and finally on the concrete border that splayed off into the hillside, edging his right boot onto the first outcropping of rock. The dust unfurled around them, the guns he could see just barely, the tips of them turning and swinging, yelling men and women inside all confused, scrambling against the tin floor, throwing shells into holding, and then into the breach of each waiting mechanism, passing them in a line. As Jacinto climbed up the jagged rock flanking the right gun, it fired, shaking him. The whistling of a shell swooped by his ears, and he turned his head wildly to follow its path, hanging onto the rock face with one hand and foot, dangling. Out over the wasteland, he saw his truck, and a smoking hole straight through the hood into the engine block. Fluid leaked out of the bottom. Daisy ran off into the distance, and this time the left gun fired. A shell streaked her way, falling inches before her. Daisy tripped over her own feet, jacknifing end over end, coming to rest in a sharp patch of scrub. She lay still. Jacinto swung around again, and fercociously climbed. His nails bit deep with pain, bent back by the jagged rock, his muscles giving out to tension. Almost on level with the guns, he grabbed the side lip of one of the concrete slits, pulling himself up and skittering with his feet to move onto the outcropping. The left gun fired again, this time angled downwards. Jacinto observed another shot go into his truck, this time the cab's windows exploding with force and another hole in the roof. He prayed they did not hit truman, or decide to finish off daisy. Jacinto now hung onto the concrete surrounding the right gun, and he could hear voices distinctly. "We're under attack !" One said. "Multiple contacts !" said another. Among that, questions. "Mini-Nukes ?" "Slavers ?" Questions followed with orders. "How come you only fired when he ran ? Put more lead onto him !" And a booming male voice, accented with gravel as a ghouls' saying something about enfilade. The guns continued to boom and load, shells painting the wastes with dust and shattering rock. The explosion just began to dissipate. "Search for life !" Said the booming voice. "Anything with a heat signature, blow it up !" Responses of negativity followed suit. The explosion had jammed their heat sensors. Shutting himself off to the people inside, Jacinto ignored even the pounding in his head from the gun's discharge. All around him grew silent to his mind. He was focused. Routing, it seemed, all the energy into his arms, he pulled up with force, his tendons screaming. Up and up, and then at last on top, he stood up, shakily. Behind him was no longer jagged rock, but a very steep hill populated by scrub and dirt, and below him, just inches away from the tip of his toes, stood the housing for the right gun. Jacinto leaned backwards, being careful not to let his ass slip when he sat, and pulled out his mauser as he slumped down. He checked his ammo, seeing a few bullets remaining, and twisted his back, laying down so he could, if he wanted to, grab the gun's barrel with his hand. he covered his ears when he heard the weapon loading, and even then, they rang with noise. Shells rained out over the land again. The smoke from the explosion was black and plentiful, creating a sheet of occulsion. The meager bush on the landscape caught fire, and Truman whimpered, near-silent, in the bed of the truck covered with canopy. Jacinto stopped and angled the mauser out over the lip of the concrete, and all at once, brought his feet out straight facing the top of the hill, prone, and hung his head down into the concrete slit. Men inside the housing took a second to register the threat, and reacted quickly. They scrambled for guns on the rack next to them, coming out swinging and pushing each other away, outstretching their hands for their rifles, only inches away from them now. The gun and its seats sat abandoned because of that, and through, past their chamber, and an open bulkhead door, Jacinto saw an operations center, men and women typing into terminals, the quick-witted noting the struggle in the right gun's chamber. Jacinto quickly turned his head back to the (he had confirmed now, squinting through the din of the bunker, there were only three) three men running for the guns, and forcing his mauser and arm through the slit, sent a volley of bullets into the three mens' backs, just as one of them had begun to turn, firing his assault rifle. That man, and his compatriots dropped. The firing rifle sounded a metallic bang as it fell onto the ground, and the men squirmed, all three writhing in pain, clutching at their backs, one man holding his ear. Noticing this, Jacinto held his trigger again and a few more bullets flew into the men, puncturing lungs, shattering ribs, and killing all three. The people in the operations center began to rise from their desks, running towards the door, but Jacinto was quick, and he pulled himself through the slit, dropping the mauser as he crawled, into the chamber, rolling over the dead bodies, using his momentum to stand up. Grabbing the latches on the door as he pushed, harder and harder, and when it slammed shut and the latches spun on their own, he took his hands off the door. Looking near the frame for the locking latch, he saw a black joystick with the word "SEAL" printed onto the ball. Grabbing the ball and pulling upwards, he heard a pneumatic hissing. The bulkhead locked from the inside, just as the countless droves of people with no doubt, all automatic weapons, ran into it, banging and trying to shoot it open. Jacinto looked again at the dead men lying at his feet, and kicked one of them in anger, collapsing, exhausted, on the floor. Finally, the left gun stopped firing, and jacinto let his mind rest.

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Written in just a bit of a hurry, but the only thing that should suffer then is capitalization.

As always, show your support. When i finish this, and pass it off to an editor freind i have down south, maybe i can approach bethesda (or whoever owns the IP rights to fallout, that is, fallout lore) and see about getting published. I'd expect it to go through about 3 or four iterations before that happens, though. Lotsa work ^_^

Jacinto shifted his weight on the floor, rolling partially to the side. Below the lip of the concrete opening, the slit where the gun's compensator and barrel poked out, still white-hot and smoking cordite, he lay. Looking up, he grabbed the edge, and pulled a little, until he was at his knees. Being very careful not to show too much of himself, he quickly rose his head into the opening. Beyond the slit he peered outward from, he saw the side of the second gun, and the side of the second concrete outcropping. There was nobody working the gun, and he could see noone inside the concrete chamber.

And then, a flash of light, red, its frequency sharp and bright, and a stream, a ribbon of red light, intense, unfurling like a whip from the second gun's chamber, came flying at jacinto, straight at his position. Quickly, he fell to his bottom, narrowly avoiding the stream, and a few short seconds later, the concrete where he had been melted quickly, turned into hot, white slag. A few more ribbons of white-red light followed suit, refracting through the air and colliding closer and closer to him. The concrete flew up around him in little pebbles, and little cuts scratched across his face from debris. He spat and cursed, moving erratically, scraping his limbs across the concrete floor to get as close as he could to the door. The laser beams continued to paint the bunker from some unseen assailant inside the other gun chamber, the firing cone precise and quick. He put his hands on his head, and looked around for some way out. He eyed the large gun in front of him, and something inside the gun's breach then caught his eye. Laser beams danced around the gun in front of him, peircing, snapping, and bouncing off the metal mechanism. There was a cone-shaped object in the breach, painted with white lettering. A shell, unfired. Jacinto looked around the chamber for more. Only one. Lowering his shoulders and stretching his legs out, laser beams an instance before him, he kicked the back of the gun to the side. Predictably, it swung around to the right. It's angle was just pointing at the tip of the other chamber, and Jacinto did a sit-up to reach a small metal chain on the side of the gun. He grabbed it, and gave it a harsh pull.

The gun's breach flew back, and then foward again, with a speed too quick to see. The barrel exploded with flash, and a loud whistling was heard. The breach locked into place, foward, not exposed to air, and the empty shell was raised to the top of the gun by some sort of lever, thrown outside by kinetic rebound. After that, the breach opened again, clicking with each inch of space it allowed.

The flying panging of exploding concrete and steel were heard from the other gun chamber, and after the noise settled, all was quiet. The gun's boom echoed through the wastes. The laser beams tapered off, the firing cone arching upwards. Out of Jacinto's field of view, the laser weapon discharged several more times, and then stopped. Jacinto looked side to side, frantically, for a few moments, and then, building tension in his muscles, shot upright and peered out over the concrete opening.

Smoke grew like two, spindly legs from the concrete where the assailant had roosted, and a large chunk was taken out of the chamber's tip, peices of rock and exposed rebar melting, falling aside. Fire streaked through the edges of the chamber, quickly less in intensity with each passing second. As the damage cooled, Jacinto saw the tip of the other gun in tatters, steel flowered out and peeling away. A man in leather, burning leather, clutched at his melting insides with one good arm, the other twisted beyond definition. He held a weapon, a rifle-looking thing, in the crippled hand, half cradling it against his torso. His hair came out in clumps, and in seconds, as he had appeared out of the smoke, he fell limp, burning with sweeping, almost blue fire, down off the side of the chamber wall, almost slid down it, and smacked his tattered form on the rocks below. He was quick to stifle, his vocal chords gurgling. The rifle-thing in his hand discharged randomly, a beam of red light tapering off into the sky, spreading off into small bolts when it reached a height Jacinto could not determine.

All kinds of people tapped, banged, prodded at, and charged Jacintos' chamber door. He heard countless voices yelling. He motioned toward the assault rifles on the rack beside him.


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I promise, the next entry will conclude chapter 1, if i deem it's length necessary. I have plans for Jacinto and Truman to move into this bunker place, and interact with the colorful people inside. ^_^

Jacinto has a past there, as indicated, which will be explored, and resolved, but how i will not say. Truman will resolve his issue with Jacinto, but how to that, i won't say again. I will say to expect plenty of character development for the next few chapters, now that we have mindless action established.

And hmmm...I have noticed a trend. How is it the RP threads get countless replies ? Is my story really that svck ?

I'm preeetty sure it's not...do people have a taste of interactivity here ?

I love this series. The stories are great.

RP's get much more posts because they are, as you stated, interactive. I post something, you post a response, and then another person posts a response. When you don't update every day (which you shouldn't if you are making the pieces good and long) they will get buried. It is just the way the world works I guess.