Chapter 14 Meta Human

NOTE: Crushed thin mints and Klondike bars in French Vanilla ice cream is like Jesus in a bowl. –Jonathan Arnold [Sarah Lott as witness to quote]

We left the metro behind, trekking for a whole day, barely talking until we reached a building that was still standing. I could hear gunfire echoing in the distance. “The old Museum of History.” Carol said. “A perfect place to go, the walls were meant to stand this disaster.” She grabbed my pistol, and opened the door. No one was in the building. We explored, and found a room with a mammoth and a fallen t-rex skeleton. “Perfect.” She whispered and opened the door. A robot with three arms and a spherical head was crumpled in the corner to our right.

After exploring, and finding the building empty except some giant cockroaches, which we quickly destroyed. I found Carol tinkering with the robot after awhile. She looked concentrated, so I left her to it. I went upstairs, and found most of a bar. I grabbed some whiskey, and sipped at it. It felt warmer than normal whiskey, so I stopped, not wanting to become even more irradiated. A buzzing and clicking came from downstairs, so I went back to Carol, and the robot was running. “Scanning for hostiles! Those commie bastards are goin’ down! Cerberus will eat the Damn commies!” the robot yelled proudly, it’s voice speaker rattling in it’s shell.

“Cerberus fits perfectly: guardian of the Underworld. We should be safe, so long as we barricade the outer doors, since these have a deadbolt.” Carol looked proud of the robot, and she started hacking the stair rail with a small hand axe she found. I went to work on the other one, hacking at it until I dulled two of my throwing knifes into short bars of metal. We used the rails to make a choke point at the outer door, and we used the bars my knives had turned into, to replace the old, somewhat rusted deadbolts on both inner and outer doors.

“So, where’re you from, I know the Enclave brought you here.” Carol said.

“Detroit, Michigan. Yeah, they dragged me here to ‘help the wasteland get better’”

“Cool, well you’ve made one person able to survive.” Carol smiled at me.

“Well, if we can find trustworthy-ish people, we can have multiple people safe from the outside world.”

“Sure, I’d like to have a little company after awhile. But not right now, I kinda want to be alone. I’m changing into a ghoul; I don’t want to hurt anyone if I go insane”

“That’s all good, but really since you’re not going quickly, you’ll be fine. I’m ghoulificating. But I’m going slowly, and a doctor told me I may never go feral, but I might entirely disintegrate, which kinda svcks. You’ll be fine, trust me.” I patted her shoulder.

“Yeah, but I’d rather not take any chances.”

“And I’d rather not want to die of a bullet wound. Your skills are useful.”

“But eventually my hands will go, and I won’t be able to help with that.”

“So use your skill to help as many as possible before it’s gone.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right…”

“Yeah, let’s get some sleep” I said as I slid the deadbolts in place.

“Mmkay.” She went to one of the rooms with a bed, and I went into the one next to it, laying my AR at the foot of the bed, and put my pistol under my pillow. I finally felt somewhat safe.


I awoke with Carol snuggled up to me, under her own blanket. There was a dull knocking at the outer doors. I slowly got out form under her, and got up, snatching my AR form the foot of the bed. I set my bag, minus a frag, where my AR was. I went to the outer door, heard a short roar, and a thump. The knocking stopped. I cautiously slid the deadbolt back, and opened the door slightly. A huge green hulking thing was at the door. I opened it a bit more. A person’s crushed body was at the door, blood spattered everywhere. “Umm…hi?” The thing responded with a grunt. He turned, and left. I closed the door again, and heard the faint sound of gunfire. I went back to bed.

I awoke to Carol setting a tray on me. It was cereal and some synthetic infi-fruit from a ration block. I looked up and smirked. As I ate, she went outside with my pistol. I finished my breakfast, and got up; looking around for ways the roaches were getting in. I found a few holes, and blocked them off with loose bricks I found in the walls. I also found that the museum has its own well, and the water fountains still worked. The water didn’t have the tell-tale warmth of radiation. Carol came back in. “The mutants don’t attack us for some reason, but they kill everything else. They have a small base near the entrance to the museum, we walked right past it.” She snickered. “We’re protected from the ignorant by monsters. They have a small artillery cannon they don’t know how to use.”

“That sounds useful. Do they speak English? The one that visited last night couldn’t.” I grabbed a small metal chair and sat near where she was leaning against a rail.

“Some of them do, the others have gone quite mad, but they see us as cursed like them, but weaker and smarter.” She whistled, and two mutants came in; one with a flamethrower, the other with two miniguns, one in each hand. He sat one down, and sat on it, the metal bar giving slightly under his weight.

“My name… is Leo. Uncle Leo. I am the most peaceful clan leader of these Meta Humans. I want to learn, trade and… survive.” He said, standing up, and pulling a pack off of the other mutant, who grunted in response. “I have both ammunition and low-level radiation foods that your kind can survive off of. You have maneuverability and knowledge-gathering abilities. If we go out trying to learn, the humans shoot us. Our more monster-mentality brethren have given us a bad name, the deal is: You get knowledge for us, you get food and protection. Do… we have a deal?” He offered his huge hand to me. I took it, and he almost broke my entire hand. I’m just glad I don’t have to fight these guys.

“You have a deal” I said, and Leo nodded.

Carol spoke up; “Also, I would like to help you. I will provide medical expertise to any you bring here for as long as I am able.”

“Thank you. Both of you. We are grateful. Have a good day.” Leo left, also leaving the minigun and pack behind, the other mutant followed behind, grunt-humming a familiar tune.

“Well that went surprisingly well; let’s see what they left us.” Carol started pulling military crates out of the large bag. We had six crates, five full of ammo, all kinds, the sixth had a mini nuke in it, and a few types of grenades, two plasmas. I started to organize the ammo types, similar kinds in similar boxes. I also organized the grenades, and pulled out one of three weird-looking grenades out, it felt warm to the touch, and was labeled ‘T-49 V~600 R*3m’ I pocketed it, to test it out later. There were two landmines in the bottom, which I set out, on top of the box after I stood the boxes in a row next to the left staircase.

Carol pulled out all the food, and walked away with it. “I found a refrigerator that works, It’s upstairs. I’ll be right back.” She yelled after a moment or so. I put some of the ammo and grenades in my bag, and made sure my other pistol and my AR were loaded. They were. It was getting dark, so I set out to find a generator to power the lights, since they all looked intact. I searched until I couldn’t see, and then decided to go to sleep, not finding much else to do.

I awoke to music. It was morning, and Carol was next to me again. A radio she must’ve found was on a table nearby, a small light flaring on and off inside of it, to show the station. The same song the mutant had been humming was playing over it. It was a patriotic song, I couldn’t remember the title. Suddenly President Eden’s voice came over it. “It’s me, your president: John Henry Eden” and then it went static. I got up, not waking Carol, and turned the radio off. I got my stuff and went outside, and saw a few mutants shooting at some guys in power armor.

I readied my AR, and saw a car explode. It was like a small nuclear explosion, and the air filled with heat for several minutes. I took a few shots are the guys in power armor, who looked at me in confusion. Then a mutant ripped one of their’ heads off. The body slumped, the hydraulics not allowing him to tip over. The other guy turned, but not fast enough. Another mutant wielding a hammer-like weapon smashed him in half, the armor shearing as if made of aluminum. The mutants closest picked up the hunks of blood covered power armor, and the next ones to reach them picked up the holotags, guns, and other things. They all headed back to the bunker they had. I followed. The guard that could talk spoke up as I got near “We have a trade, but you can’t come to our home” He boasted a missile launcher that didn’t look nearly as intimidating as the steel rod strapped to his waist, wrapped in concertina wire.

I turned around, and started walking to the Washington monument, the tallest thing in sight that wasn’t a pile of rubble. I saw some guys in black leather-looking armor. They looked like people you would hire to go do the things you don’t want to. “Talon Company!” One yelled, and all three of them ran at me, for some reason all wielding melee weapons. One had a hammer, the other a hand-saw, the third a machete`. I raised my AR, and the one with the hammer slipped on some rocks, all three looking surprised. The machete` wielding one stopped running, dropped the weapon, and went for a 10mm submachine gun in a holster on his side. I shot at him first. The guy with the hammer fell onto a randomly-set bear trap, killing him. I hit the guy going for his gun in the chest twice, and he fell forward, spitting blood a good foot in front of him. The guy with the hand-saw ran all the way into me, without revving the saw, or even really attempting to kill me. I butted him with my rifle, which made an unusual ‘ding’ noise. He fell, and said “Error.” I looked closely at him, and he was an android, that had malfunctioned. His head twitched a few times, before the unit powered down. I reached behind its head, and pulled out the memory core, because it could be useful, or traded.

I grabbed the hand-saw and then went to the guy bleeding out from the bullet wounds. He groaned, and lifted his submachine gun at me, and I kicked it out of his hand. He sputtered blood out of his mouth and said “You svck.”

“Well I’m not dead!” I said and curb stomped his head into bits.

Chapter 15 between steel and rock

I found a note folded in the mercenaries’ ammo, and it said “‘Boys and Girls, we’ve got another holier-than-thou white knight needs putting down. Here are the details: -Name: Leroy -Race: Caucasian [turning Ghoul] -six: Male The bounty is 500 caps this time around. And, for a change of pace, they want the head this time. Good hunting! –P.S. it should be easy, the guy is usually unarmed.’” [(Fallout 3 Bethesda Softworks, Talon Company Note)] --I slid the SMG into my bag. I grabbed his coat and tied the sleeves around my bag, it was getting bulky. I also reloaded my AR. And then I set off toward The Washington monument again.

Halfway there, I saw some guys in power armor, and when they looked toward me, I waved. They shot at me, so I ducked behind a nearby crumpled dumpster. As they stopped shooting, they walked closer, and I hastily ripped the holotag from around my neck, and, holding on to one end of the chain, tossed it over the top of the dumpster. I heard one yell “Cease fire!” then footsteps came closer and closer. “He’s Enclave, not one of ours!” The same voice forced its way into my head.

I pulled the tag back, and set my bag down to search through it. I immediately found what I was looking for, the T-49. I passed my thumb over the pin-scanner and tossed it around the edge of the dumpster, toward the voice. “Oh what the fu-” I peeked around the corner as the small device scorched the air around it with electricity, the bolts arcing from suit to suit. All but one of the guys slumped over, either dead or unconscious. The last guy had his hands as high as he could get ‘em. He looked both young and scared. He kicked his laser rifle toward me. I stood, smiled, and checked the pulse of one of the guys. He was gone.

“I am Brotherhood of Steel Initiate Roy Phillips Serial number 1125946, and I don’t want to die.” The kid was shaking in his boots, literally. Not that he had much room to shake in, but there it is. I picked up his laser rifle and put it against his chest.

“Just don’t shoot at me.” I said, and he grabbed the gun, looking thankful.\

“Can do sir, now if you would just allow me to get the holotags off of my fallen brothers, I’ll be on my way.” He started to collect tags from the dead.

“How about I just follow you back to base.” I said, my rifle aimed at the few chinks in his armor.

“Since you’re with the Enclave, which have little sense of morality, I would have to fight you on that, sir.” He said, turning his rifle at me.

“I’m not with them; I just tried to use that as a white flag.”

“Well you’re also a ghoul, we are trying to eliminate ferals, and that is a low intelligence feral tactic, to get us close. Also that tag is Enclave, which we obviously have fatal disagreements with.” He lowered his rifle. “If you are to come with me, I’d have to take you as a prisoner, not as an ally.”

“You don’t have much choice in the matter, boy. I’ll even tell you my name’s Leroy Johnson if it’ll help you trust me not to shoot you in the back.” He nodded and headed east.

“We have to go through the metro, if ya don’t mind.” He pointed towards a metro entrance, the flag marker poking up through the sky over the hills and rocks; the one Carol and I had left from. I nodded for confirmation, and we set off. On the way there, we saw a great hulking bear-like creature. “Stay low” the initiate whispered, and we creeped past it slowly and carefully, darting behind rocks; rock to rock.

“What was that?” I said when we were clear.

“The scribes have labeled it a Yao Guai. It’s related to the black bears from around here, but they have been irradiated. They are a real [censored] to fight.” He readied his laser rifle and slid behind a nearby sheet of metal. “Deathclaw. One O’ clock. Don’t try to fight it. I’ve seen one of them jump up and yank a Vertibird right out of the air.” He said, as I aimed my AR at its head. “Please don’t. I know you’re a badass and everyth-” His words were left behind as it screeched.

“We’re downwind of it, moron.” I said, hitting him with my shoulder. “I got this one, you just watch.” I probably have seen too many shows or something, but the plan worked. I set my AR down, grabbed a frag and one of my knives. I ran at it, yelling to get its attention, as if I didn’t already have it. It looked at me intelligently, cocking its head over to one side. I slowly walked towards it, sheathing my knife. It leaned its head towards me. It looked friendly. I pat its head a few times. I reared back as if insulted, roared, and gnashed its teeth at me.

I panicked, ripping my belt almost in half trying to get my knife out. I ducked between its legs, and grabbed its tail. It roared again, spinning. It threw me up into the air, and I plunged my knife into the side of its neck as I started to come down. It screamed again, but hoarsely. I had my knife in its windpipe. Air whistled past my knife, which I yanked out, gripping the beasts’ horn so I didn’t fall. I shoved the frag in the hole, as far as I could get it, and let myself fall, tossing the knife to not hurt myself. The Deathclaw coughed, trying to hack up the grenade. It exploded.

“YEAH! That was freaking awesome!” The initiate came over and helped me up, and I grabbed my knife. I also went to the Deathclaw, and took one of its monumental claws as a trophy.

“Proof that should shut some stupid people up when they try to start a fight.” I said, and got my pack, checked my AR, blew down the barrel to get some dust out, and we went back on our way, the initiate finally at a loss for words. We got to the metro, and there were a couple of B.o.Steel guys, who looked bored. They stopped kicking rocks and readied their’ laser rifles as we got near.

“Hail brothers, we have losses and an ally. This is Leroy.” He pointed at me, and then retrieved the holotags of the guys I massacred from his belt. Then I noticed Roy the initiate’s hand was greening. He seemed to not have noticed. I’ll tell him later. “We’re on our way to the Citadel, start her up.” The guys at the gate went down, and they had a train head running, with two or three passenger carts, two were full of munitions. The guys got in the head, and pointed us to the third car. We got on. I napped the twenty minute ride.

We came out of the metro; the escorts got off, and went to wait at the gate again. We went past them. Roy patted one of the guys shoulder and said “I’ll see if I can’t get you guys somewhere fun.”

“That’d be great, man” One of them said.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Roy said and we left toward a big area that looked like four buildings had collapsed together into a functioning structure. At the entrance there were two B.o.Steel soldiers and two Sentry Bots with miniguns and rocket launchers. They scanned us, and when it scanned the Enclave tag, both Sentry Bots trained their’ miniguns to my head. I set my stuff down, and slowly pulled out the tag, handing it to the guy next to me.

He nodded, and said “Just don’t do anything stupid, you’ll get killed, and we’ll have less ammo.”

“Not stupid. O.K. done.” I went in, the sentry bots looking ahead now. A live firing range to my left scared me, the guy at the door wasn’t kidding about being shot. The guys at the range looked tough and smart. Nine out of ten perfect headshot kind of guys. I squared my shoulders, feeling small compared to all the guys in power armor.

An elderly guy in a long robe with a small computer on his wrist greeted me. “I am Elder Hammonds. And you are?”

“Leroy Johnson, Wastelander Extraordinaire.” Elder Hammonds chuckled.

“Yes, I’ve heard. Roy radioed in about you.” He signaled us to follow him. “This is the Citadel, welcome. I would like to talk to you, Leroy, about the Enclave.”

“O.K. Shoot.”

“As you are aware, we are at a disagreement with the Enclave, but what you probably don’t know is; we were once Enclave, but I had different Ideals than them. I have concern for the people here, the Enclave only wants technology. I want to know why the Enclave sent you here.”

“They told me to ‘Help make the wasteland a better place’”

“You have a different definition of ‘Make better’ than the Enclave, and they assumed you had the same ideal. They meant for you to spy on us and the Wastelanders, for them to get a better tyrannical hold on the area.”

“Well it looks like they have sent in a spy without orders, oath, or allegiance.”

“Exactly, so I would like to make you an offer: when they come to retrieve you, don’t fight, but go with them, and tell them as much false information as you possibly can. Otherwise, you can help us by helping the people. You will be rewarded for anything we hear of that is good and of your doing.” He walked to a computer, punched in a password, and a door opened next to it. We walked in.

The small room has several shelves each filled with organized, defined, highly advanced weapons. There were T-49’s, a weapon called the Tesla Cannon, which looked ridiculous. “We can lend you weapons, one at a time, to help you fight for us.” The Elder said, holding up a gun that looked especially wicked. “This is by far the most fun. It is the spiked M88 grenade cannon. It launches seven grenades at a time, in a figure eight, which MIRV on impact, spreading a payload of spikes in all directions for ten feet.”

“I bet its fun.” I said as I picked up a sniper rifle with a silencer on it, with a fusion battery on the stock, and two wires at the end of the barrel. “This looks freaking awesome.”

“Ah yes, the Lightning Rifle. It’s a sniper rifle which has an electrical charge hit the bullet as it exits the chamber, creating a lightning bolt from the barrel to the target. It’s very powerful. You can have it.”

“Really? I can just have the Lightning Rifle? Why don’t you have these on every outfit of troops out there?”

“I like to put power in the hands of single units, it makes for a challenge. A fight that brings no losses on the winning side is no fight. It’s a massacre. You, however, need something like this, because unlike most of my soldiers, you don’t have power armor, and you’ll run into things like slavers and Deathclaws and Yao Guai. Along with bigger threats. I don’t send my soldiers into certain death. I send expendables.”

“Expendables with big guns.” I pointed out.

“Yep. My colleagues think I’m insane, but it’s all really just a sociological experiment that I’m having a lot of fun with.” The Elder laughed. “Well I have more things to do. I’ll let you go. Your holotag has been reprogrammed; you have access to the metro trains.” He then pointed me to the door. I went to the nearby metro, and took the train back to the monument area. There were two different escorts this time…

Chapter 16 Cannon Fodder
I went to the museum without any contact. I saw some people with ARs push some other people without shirts, wearing thick neck braces. One of them turned on the guys, and was shot down. They continued on their’ way. I went into the front doors, and saw Carol in a corner, looking glum. She looked up. “Leroy! You’ve been gone all day, where were you?” She ran to me, and wrapped her arms around me tightly.

“I’ve been making acquaintances with the Brotherhood of Steel guys. I’m now considered ‘one of them’ and we can use their’ trains for transport.” I softly pushed her, letting her know that her embrace wasn’t fully wanted. She nodded, and suddenly a huge explosion rocked the building, most of the blackened paintings bent and fell of the walls. “That’s new.” I said, and set down my bag, and then pulled out a frag, knife, and my AR with a few extra clips. I went out the door, Carol followed behind me with my other pistol.

I looked at the mutant base, and there was an enormous amount of smoke billowing out of the top, and there were a few misplaced concrete slabs here and there among the trenches the mutants dug the night before. A slab was stuck into the museum wall to the left of us, where the ‘Halls of today’ were. It was totally blocked off now. We walked to the base, the guards were gone, and the air was thick with something that burned my eyes. As we stepped over the threshold, we heard a gruff cheering. The mutants were standing around a fifteen foot tall rod tilted to one side, presumably the barrel of a cannon.

There was a large crater nearby. They had shot something into the air, which landed near them. I got closer, the guards shrugged at each other in a ‘screw it we have a cannon’ kind of way when they noticed me. I pushed to the cannon, and Leo was beneath it, in a hole dug between the cars mounted to a rail, which was mounted to the cannon, which turned out to be a whole fire hydrant tube pulled entirely out of the ground somehow. Leo was trying to tilt it more, and I yelled “How about you start by making it able to turn, as well as pivot. Wheels should help greatly.” He looked up, and then entered a long train of thought.

“You may be right, ghoul-man” He said after about three minutes of complete silence except for the occasional whispered ‘Shh!’ or “Shut up, Uncle’s thinking!” He climbed out of the hole, and looked at me thoughtfully. “If you help us create a mount for the cannon, we will provide assistance at any wishes of any inhabitant of your Underworld.”

“You’ve got a deal” I said, and Carol squeed, which frightened a lot of nearby mutants. He offered his hand, and remembering last time, I grabbed it in an awkward fashion so as not to get hurt. It worked. WE shook, and the mutants dispersed. Gunfire pop popped our minds back to reality. I looked at the cannon barrel. They fed mini-nukes into the hydrant, and use an air compressor to launch them a decent distance. As I went to work with a tire iron I found in a nearby almost intact car, taking tires off of nearby cars, I thought about how exactly we could get the thing to pivot AND turn, and how accurate an air pressure gun could lob mini-nukes…

Two weeks later, I had the hydrant tube mounted on an axle and connected to two wheels run through two ‘tracks’, the wheels with fence posts through the wheels as handles, that we found after a fight with a huge group of raiders. I used a hand-crank tied to the barrel of it, on a small hand-train, run through even more tracks, to make it pivot. Carol had search parties of mutants collect ghouls within a mile or so of Underworld, and she found us three or four ghouls that agreed to come with her, the others refused to, accepting their’ fate to become ferals eventually.

The next day I awoke, and Carol wasn’t there. I got up, and went outside. I looked at the mutant base, and barely over the tip, I could see the barrel of the Mini Cannon. I got to name it. It had an American flag burning on the tip, and I looked where it was aimed. A tank that had flame spewing out of the bottom, and a Gatling laser or two firing at the mutants in the trenches, was crawling toward the base. A long black streak was behind it. I sprinted through the gate of the base, lasers hitting the wall next to me until I got in.

The mutants were everywhere, rushed, panicked movement. I went to the cannon, and I heard one of the mutants yell “Where Leo?!?!” It seemed that Leo had left, not wanting to be part of the combat. Everyone was panicking without a leader. I breathed deeply, and yelled as loud as I could “Aim the cannon at the [censored] tank already!” Three mutants heard me, and went to their’ stations. I saw Carol beneath it struggling to load a mini nuke into it, taking a bit too long. I jumped down into the hole with her and helped her slide it into place and shut the hydrant. I used the tire iron to lever the rough clasp they’d made closed.

The mutants turned it a bit, and one yelled “Aimed and ready.” Another went to a horn and yelled “Move from the tank, soldiers!” into it, and I saw a few mutants near the tank run, which the tank’s lasers shot at. Carol pulled the firing lever, and we heard a very loud ‘Shh-thump’ of the mini nuke spinning out of the barrel. The explosion shook the cannon out of place, but the tank was now a huge puddle crushed into a crater. The mutants cheered, until we saw another tank rolling a thousand or so feet behind it.

“Pressure at maximum, fire when ready!” Leo yelled form behind us at the compressor that fed to the cannon. Three or four mutants lifted half the cannon by the wheel and put it back into the track it jumped out of, and another mutant started pivoting it to orders from one of the ghouls we had with us. The others were in the trenches fighting the ground troops. The Enclave was rolling in a huge force. We could see vertibirds landing in the distance to drop off troops. The tank in the distance had a missile turret on it instead of Gatling lasers. They hit the concrete slab in front of the cannon. It shook everyone nearby.

We got the cannon aimed and loaded again, and shot at the tank. Right before it could hit, a small dart-like thing shot out of a small thing on the front of the tank. The mini nuke exploded, shaking us, but since the tank was so far away, this time it didn’t shake the cannon out of place. “Let’s shoot two at a time, it’s not tested, but worth a shot” Leo yelled. One of the mutants slid down, and loaded two, we were being slow compared to their’ speed because of strength. Leo gave me the sign that pressure was up again, and another signaled it was aimed. I yanked the lever, and both nukes shot out, making a whistling noise this time.

One mini nuke went left, one right at the tank. This time the dart hit the one closest, which was the one to the left of it, which luckily destroyed about six sentry bots. The other nuke hit the shell of the tank, but was a dud. The mutants cheered as one of the mutants ran at the tank, grabbed the nuke, and banged on the tank until it went off. The Enclave force started to withdraw, not knowing if we had more mini nukes. Quite a few of them were tackled down and made prisoners of the mutants. The rest disappeared over the horizon.

The mutants cheered for hours. The sentry bots that weren’t completely destroyed were salvaged, and reprogrammed by Carol to fight for the mutants. They looted the bodies that were intact, and got a Gatling laser from the first tank. They brought twelve ammo boxes for us, which we stashed in a room that had a deadbolt lock we made a useable key for. There were a few experimental weapons made by the mutants, which only they could use. This is when I remembered the Lightning Rifle. I put my AR in my pack, and grabbed the Lightning Rifle, which there was a lot of .308 ammo for it in the new boxes.

I went in one of the back rooms to test it out. I drew a rough person-shape on the wall with some burned wood. I shot at it, and there was a lot more kick to it than I thought there would be. I looked at the rifle with amazement. Then my eyes went to the target, which was on fire. I went to put it out using a small rug to choke the flame. I looked through the hole it had made, and saw a ghoul, none of which I’d asked their’ names, looking frightened and alarmed. He had a grenade in his hand. “Sorry. And hi, my name’s Leroy.”

“What…was that?” He stammered.

“Oh, nothing, just me forgetting which wall to put the target on. Won’t happen again”

“I hope not…” He frowned at the hole and hammered a nail above it, and then hung a picture on it, covering the hole. I started to draw another target, but decided against it for now, I had already shot the Lightning Rifle, what more did I need? I went to check on Carol, who was already asleep, and snoring. She started to talk in her sleep, something about before the bombs; I left her alone for now. I explored for a while and found the refrigerator. I hadn’t eaten in forever, it felt like as my stomach burned and growled. I looked in the fridge, and grabbed some Salisbury steak, which looked good form the box, but when I opened it, it was rotten, with things growing in it. The stuff hadn’t been infi-salted. After grabbing my bag from the room Carol was in, I went to sleep in a random room.

Damnit listen don;t you have homework or something that you could do, these chapters are coming in too quickly. Cant handle it. Nice to see your effort though. Speaking of effort, I see you're sleeping less on those transitions. He's actually been from one place to another without being knocked unconscious like once. Good job. Really work on ACTUALLY MOVING FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER.

Also, your comments, and even your views mean alot to me. I've posted on the stories of 90-95% of the people here, and what do I get in return. Nothing. All I ask is that you return the gratitude you were please comment on my story, as I try to do yours. At this point, I can only say that its good and keep it up, as I still have catching up to do.

ALL of my work is at home. I'm homeschooled. Also he'll move soon. Well I'm really not used to commenting, I'm really here to write.but I'll slow down.

If the pace suits you, then go ahead and type away. Just know that it will be harder to comment on such lengthy entries, I still have some catching up to do, but I hope your following my previous advice.

This is my last installment of the week unless my busy schedule permits, or I wake up at 2AM again and HAVE TO WRITE because I has another dream as Leroy.....not kidding.
*
Chapter 17 The Rock Comes…

I awoke, and this time Carol wasn’t next to me. I sat up, and tried to look around, but it was dark, and there was a muffled rumbling sound. A bit of pain itched its way from my neck and hands, my hands couldn’t move and were behind me. I stuck my tongue out, and felt and tasted cloth. I tried to get up, and the small rope in the bag around my head choked me. I was trapped. “Who’s that?” A voice spoke out, scared and nervous. “I can’t see anything!” Another voice: “Shut up! You’re safe for now. It’s just business as usual.” The first voice: “What does that even mean?!” I recognized the voice as to belong to one of the ghouls I was with.

The second voice: “[censored] it, I’ll tell you, just so you’ll shut up. You’re now property of Angel’s heir, Deadalus. You are on a troop transport we used to acquire you, and if you ask me you were totally not worth extracting from The Mall. But what Deadalus wants, he gets.”

“What’s going to happen to me?….us?” The ghoul said.

“That depends on which one of you poor blokes killed Angel. You both look like the right guy. The other gets the boot, blindfolded as per usual.” I heard him spit, and then I finally recognized the humming of the engine and tracks beneath us, a military-style crawler. I tried to remember the inside of one of these, but to no avail. All I could remember was being in one at some point. I remember mounted machine guns…

I scooted myself around until I was sitting with my hands down, head high. I leaned to the left, right and back, feeling the different surfaces until I found how I was tied. There was a hoop and clip behind me, the rope tied elsewhere. I inched my hands up, my shoulders as far back as I could get them while doing so, in an attempt to block sight, aiming my torso toward where the voice came from. I got the clip off, and my rope was instantly slack.

I heard a lot of shifting, and a foot hit my thigh. Then another.

“What’cha doin’?” The guard said.

“Trying to get comfortable, if ya don’t mind.” The ghoul said.

“I do. Very much so, soo…” He said softly, and then yelled at him somewhat like a military instructor: “Sit up and quit being a pansy!”

“Yes sir” He said sarcastically, as the guard spat again. I pulled the rope tight as I could to my hands, and untied myself. I quickly took off my head covering and let my eyes adjust to the sudden light. In my blurred vision I yanked the guard’s silenced pistol out of the back of his pants, pulling the trigger three times as the barrel pulled up his shirt. Blood spattered all over the ghoul, and the bullets hit sound-proofing padding on the interior wall on the other side.

“What happened?” The ghoul said with new fear in his voice. But also relief, his rope had been tied to mine, so if I pulled, his pulled.

I whispered “Hush, it’s Leroy; I’m getting us out of here.”

“Great, but do we have any of our stuff.” He said as I looked around, and my bag and an ammo crate with a picture and engraved name on it were in the corner, near the door.

“Yeah. We’ve got my stuff and a box with Zack on it.” I whispered as he took his head cover off, and I untied his hands.

“I’m Nick, but yeah it’s mine” He nodded, got up, and, fighting the inertia of the moving vehicle we were in, we both collected our stuff, checked it, and loaded our separate weapons. I got out my silenced 10mm pistol, and reloaded the dead guard’s silenced pistol. I also loaded the Lightning Rifle and strapped it over my back with an old Gibson guitar strap I found replacing a belt around the guard’s pants. Nick had a double barrel sawed-off shotgun and a .32 pistol in a small half-holster that was in the crate.

I opened the small door to the driver’s pit, and heard an old tune over the radio. “…I just want to start, a flame in your-” Nick shot the radio out with his sawed-off and the driver jumped up, put his hands over his head, his head in the wheel as he said “Don’t kill me please!” Nick shot him with the other shell, as I sat in the other seat, which conveniently had another wheel, not that we were careening off the rock mountain path we were on, due to the tracks. I righted us, and Nick opened the door, and shoved the corpse out into some briar bushes next to our vehicle.

As we got higher, to our left the mountain dropped away, and we were on a ramp that led off in a curve down the side of the mountain, into a huge walled-in area with fifty, maybe fifty five foot tall walls made of concrete blocks, sheet metal, and plane parts. Nick went to the back, and I heard some rough, loud clanking. This was followed by heavy machine gun fire dropping down into it from over my head. Nick was in the gunner seat of the APC we were in.

Lights appeared all over the center of the complex. Some of them were red and flashing. Soon more, subtle flashes were popping there way into the Plexiglas in front of me. I ducked down right before a missile hit the shield, shattering it. I shoved a tire iron in the seat next to me through the steering wheel to keep it steady. As another missile hit the left treads, we came over some rubble on the side of the mountain we were going down, and a landslide began.

Rocks flew past us and dirt piled up beneath us, eventually sliding halfway down the mountain onto a rock big enough to stop us. I saw Nick fly into the rubble beneath me, his blood spurting from his gut. He was crushed by rubble. I fell onto the steering wheel, and it hurt, but I was fine. The APC started to tip over sideways, off of the rock. I had to move fast, I thought, but my legs and arms were way ahead of me. I yanked my backpack out of the back as I jumped out of the back onto the rock.

It took awhile for the dust to settle, and for me to collect my thoughts. I spun the Lightning Rifle around, and looked down the sight of it to see what was going on. There were hundreds of people. Six guard towers, each with snipers in power armor and radio sets. A small broadcasting/receiving tower was in the middle. All of the buildings were on stilts, and a yellowish fluid was flowing slowly beneath them. The APC was a ball of steel at the bottom, and it looked to have dropped into the fluid and knocked over several buildings. The liquid must be dense or something, the guys in it couldn’t move, and some of them drowned.

I shot twice, knocking the radio tower over into two guard towers and several buildings. A ridiculous barrage of bullets hit the rock I was on, and soon it too began to slide down. I set the Lightning Rifle on the edge, and shot two legs of a guard tower, tipping it into another building. The rock slowed down when it hit the liquid. The rock beneath me began to roll, so I hopped off onto the walkway between two buildings that had been cut off by the now rolling rock. I was surrounded by guys with guns, and one of them looked at me and opened his mouth wide, “He-” perfect as I put a silent 10mm bullet into it, so he wouldn’t yell. The rest ignored me in the chaos.

His corpse made a sickening ‘splurt’ noise as it hit the liquid which made a svcking sound as he sank into it. I tossed the rifle onto my back, and took out both silenced 10mm pistols and put two frags from my bag into my pockets. I stepped around the corner of the building to my left, and saw the rock had hit the opposite wall. It was coming back. I ran to my right, and saw a guard tower. I climbed the ladder and shot the sniper in the head, and since he was wearing a power helmet, he just turned and looked at me for a second, until I put the pistol into his neck where the armor wasn’t, and pulled the trigger. He collapsed, and fell through the rotten wood beneath us. I took a mental note not to step backward, as he too hit the goo.

I holstered my pistols and whipped out my LR, and shot the legs off of another sniper tower. As I did so, the last sniper noticed me. A bullet whizzed by my head, and I stepped back by surprise, falling through the hole, onto the rolling rock, which stopped, depositing me onto another walkway. It hurt like hell as my back hit the stairs I landed on. I leaned up, and another bullet whizzed past me again. I got up, and hid behind a building as the rock rolled the other way.

I leaned out, and saw the sniper. He saw me too, and a bullet hit the wall I was behind, almost coming through into me. I peeked again, and backed further around the corner. A guy ran past me, and was nailed through the gut with a blast that spattered blood all over me. He groaned and was silent. I creeped around the building, and slow as I could poked the barrel of the LR out from around the wall. A bullet ricocheted off the ground near it into the building behind me.

I peeked one last time, and ran from this building to one slightly closer, and tossed one of my frags around the corner. The blast took out three of its legs, and it screeched as it tipped slowly through the walkway between the two buildings. I was near. The sniper, however, was on the roof of my building; I could hear his loud footsteps clang closer and closer….

Chapter 18 Rock-rolled
The walkway under me bucked up and started to crack, so I ran around the building behind me, looking behind me halfway to see the rock rolling through the building the sniper was now falling off of into the goo. I walked calmly for awhile, through some running guys, until I came to a building slightly grander than the rest of them. Deadalus’ house-thing. A teenage-looking guy in metal armor and pieces of power armor stepped out onto a balcony about twelve feet above me. Two guys in similar gear with miniguns with barbed wire wrapped around the barrels stepped into sight at his sides.

Deadalus pointed at me and said “Kill this bastard, before I have to waste my time” The bullets shredded the walls I ran behind, so I continued running until I could only hear the shells. I waited for a break. I counted out fifteen seconds of straight fire. While they were reloading, I ran as close as I could get, which was the wall of the building. They didn’t notice, but Deadalus did through a window. More bullets started ripping through the wall as he yelled inaudible orders to his guards.

As he reloaded I heard his guards conking down the stairs. I yanked a few tin pieces of wall that didn’t have many holes, folded them together so that they would block shells for a short while, and grabbed my last frag from my pocket. I kicked in the door, pulled the pin, and crouched with my makeshift shield in front of me. I heard the revving of the miniguns again, and tossed the frag around the corner. The miniguns hit the floor with an overly loud ‘CLANG!!’ I also heard three somewhat separate thumps right before the explosion.

I shoved the shield forward, and it fell through the hole the frag made. Crap. I yanked out my pistols and fired into the guy standing that I could see through the dust. He screamed and fell, and a bullet hit me in the side. I turned to where the flash came from and emptied my left hand pistol into the general area. A muffled groan was all I heard before a plasma grenade exploded outside, blasting a hole through the wall and knocking me to the ground unconscious.

*

I awoke strapped to a chair with belts, smoke in the air, and a table of wicked tools next to me. Deadalus was in front of me, asleep in a chair of his own. I could see my stuff on the other side of the room, near the door. A girl in way too revealing clothing woke up Deadalus and whispered in his ear. “Ah. You’re awake, and in perfect condition. You owe me.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea to drive an APC down a mountain, cause a rockslide, and destroy most of this place. And your father attacked me!” I said, exasperated.

“Well. Then whose fault is it?” He said, standing over the tools, smiling.

“Nick. The guy you kidnapped with me. I’m Leroy by the way.” I could hear the sound of vertibirds off in the distance.

“He’s the one who’s floating near the exit, right?” I nodded. “Well he’s dead. I need someone to blame, and you’re perfect.”

“Well that’s just unreasonable. You kidnapped me, and Nick took the turret, handed me the wheel and we were falling down a mountainside. I had nowhere else to go. Then a bazillion bullets hit the rock I was on, so I felt it right to shoot back.” The vertibirds were closer, and distant gunfire started.

“Sounds to me like you were paid. You’ve got a rescue coming.” He picked up a scalpel that was rigged to a microfusion cell. I had to do something quick.

“That’s not a rescue. That’s an extermination squad. They’re here to kill me if I’m still here, and otherwise mop up. I’m supposed to have taken out the snipers and cleared an LZ, then been gone. I wasn’t even getting paid except with freedom if I survived. I wanna fight back as much as you.” He looked at me quizzically. I didn’t really expect him to trust me.

“You better stay within my walls, ‘cause you’ll be shot for desertion since my mercs don’t know who you are, or even their’ coworkers. I want to talk to you after.” He said while he unstrapped me, and I grabbed my stuff. I looked at him with fake gratitude as I strapped on the LR, holstered both pistols, shoved a frag in each front pocket, and loaded my AR. I grabbed an extra frag in my off-hand, pulled the pin, stepped outside the door and counted “One...Two...” I rolled the frag between my legs into the room behind me. He screamed, and went silent after the explosion.

I looked up the mountain at the vertibirds firing mounted .50cal Gatling cannons down into the mercs who were now barricaded against them. I was perfectly behind the mercs. I got about eighty feet from them until sniper fire hit the ground next to me. I ducked behind a row of car bumpers made into a wall. I ran to an airplane wing, and shot across the row of the mercs, killing about ten. A sniper bullet whizzed past me. A few of them turned, and started to take cover from me, but were mowed down by the .50cals. I ran back to the bumpers shooting the rest of my clip into the mercs. No sniper bullets this time. I think they got the message.

I reloaded, and walked between cover, shooting into their’ ranks. As I reached the other side, my AR went ‘Bttzert’ I looked down at it, and it had jammed. I threw it as hard as I could against the ground and picked it up again, and checked the jam. The bullet was manufactured wrong or something, ‘cause it had arced upward into the wall of the barrel. The gun was destroyed. I yanked out the clip, tossed the AR onto the ground with a clank, and tore my pistols out of their’ holsters. I ran around the corner, and shot half my right clip out before another vertibird landed, and another sniper shot at me.

I suddenly flew backwards. I tried to sit up, but my right leg wasn’t responding. I leaned up with my left leg and arm. My right hip was spewing blood. I looked up, and was immediately slammed to the ground again. This time I could see the blood spurt from my shoulder and my arm go limp as I fell back. Then the pain hit, and I went unconscious.

*

I awoke on a vertibird, no pain, and a guy in a medic outfit holding me down. Another was stitching my shoulder. The one holding me said “Don’t panic, don’t move. You’re safe.”

I looked around, and there were six guys in power armor sitting in two rows on the built-in benches. The guy closest to me on my right, a .50cal Barrett Sniper rifle across his legs looked at me sadly and said “Sorry I shot you, man. Nobody told me we had a friendly in the ranks of the mercenaries.”

The medic stitching me said “He shouldn’t talk, it promotes bleeding. You can talk to him once we get back to the Citadel, he should be fine by then.” The one holding me said “It could have been anyone, the other squad sniper didn’t tell anyone, after shooting at him himself. Don’t take it…” His words faded like my vision did while I went unconscious.

*

I awoke, and I could hear gunfire. I sat up, and neither my shoulder nor hip hurt at all. I stood, did two jumping jacks, and fell over. I got back up, and got my stuff, holstered the pistols, strapped on the LR, shoved my last two frags into my pockets, loaded my AR and headed out the door. As I walked down a curved hall with doors on either side, I saw a Nuka Cola machine. ‘Hey, might as well’ I thought as I punched in my credit number and selected “Nuka-Root Cola” The fad with Nukes-named root beer. I heard the belts running inside it, and then the familiar rumble of the bottle tumbling down the shoot. As I reached down to grab it…

I sipped at the Nuka-Root Cola as I looked over at Sarah, the nurse-to-be stuck in Western International High. She looked over and smiled at me. She’s known I’ve had a crush on her since fifth grade, but refuses to say a word to me. I was always too shy, no matter what my bastard of a foster-father told me to do, or made advances toward her under my name. I always denied them. I looked at my Nuka-Root Cola bottle, which was now empty, and got up to go throw it in the Waste-O-Tron. It met me half way, and ate the bottle and followed with the robot equivalent of a whisper: depositing a small strip of paper that said “Go and get her, soldier!” It returned to its normal position.

Sarah stared at me as I walked back, so halfway I took a detour through the desks as I tried to work up the courage to talk to her. I accidently cracked one of my teeth very loudly while hazing myself about it. The jock of the class that was also trying to get her attention said “Nope, the coward’s not going to talk to her. You know why?” The other students were already snickering. “Because He knows if he goes after my girl, I’m gonna-” The instructor came in, killing his sentence. As I went by him, he went to trip me, and I jammed the screw I had hidden in the side of my shoe into his leg as hard as I could. He yelped, and I sheepishly said “Hey” To Sarah, who giggled.

“Hey!” A gruff voice came out of the girl sitting in my desk’s mouth. “Hey! Leroy, are you O.K?”

“Wha?” I was lying next to the Nuka Cola machine with a Nuka-Root Cola under me.

“Hey. You don’t look so hot; you wanna go to the infirmary? Oh, and I’m sergeant Harper. I was actually on my way to see if you were awake to apologize for shooting you.” He leaned down, and picked me up like I was nothing. This guy was big to be a sniper.

“Thanks, man. I just passed out, and got some of my memory back. I’ve had some amnesia since the Bombs…” I ducked out form under his arm, and went back to grab my Nuka-Root. I wanted it now.

“Are you sure you should be drinking? I don’t think you’re even supposed to be up.”

“Isn’t there a fight going on?” I said, looking at him.

“Um… not that I know of, right now. I think you’re hearing the Live Fire range.”

“Well Damn. I got up, and came all the way here armed to the pockets for nothing.”

“Well at least you got something.”

“Yeah. To drink, the memory doesn’t seem…Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have let her go…”

Well..yeah. I think I can go to sleep now. Looks like I have to write to sleep now. Look what ya've gone and done. I'm addicted to writing about Leroy. (Not you guys, Galen. His fanfic inspired me to write one) Well, there ya go...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I've just realized there's no Chapter 7....Wow. I guess the whole two days unconcious...I'll make a Chapter 7 from Sarah's point of view. or maybe surprise you....muahahahaha.....ha

Do you even want me to write about this, or just read. I don't think I can ever catch up as long as your at this pace. I would like to know how it is you have so much time and inspiration on your hands. And what "grade" are you in. I always thought homeschooling was cool.

first of all, WOOT 4 pages. You can just read. Comment when you want to, or have the ability to. I'm in 10th, kinda halfway through now, about to be 11th. By Feburary next year I should be graduated from high school, if my program doesn't slow me down anymore. I write a paragraph a day at least, because I'm always thinking, and right now, if it's not my girlfriend, it's Leroy. I've got all sorts of ideas. I'm about halfway to Vault 101 in ideas on paper at home. Lots of references to put in, I just have way too much free time. The last post was because I couldn't sleep, and wanted to try making myself go to sleep. Didn't work. Been going on for three days now... drinking way too much tea. And there I go ranting on the internet again...And Chapter 7 should be up soon. This weekend I shouldn't have as much time to write if I can get to sleep...

Short, but worth it. This may be why I haven't been able to sleep...

*

Chapter 7 Stitching Memories
From Sarah’s point of view: the two days between the normal Chapters 6 and 8.

I woke up, and George the ghoul that had earlier ran from us was shaking me awake. “Leroy’s alive, but bleeding profusely; and you’re not hurt, so help me get him to a safe spot where we can help him.”

“Wha? O.k.…” I got up, and blearily I got Leroy’s shoulders, and heaved him up, George looked like he didn’t have much strength, but nonetheless he grabbed Leroy’s legs and hauled him, George pointing which way to go with head gestures. We walked through the darkness, occasionally stepping over feral bodies and skeletons of the already long dead. We got to a dark room with a table, and a vent overhead provided some light, but outside the sun was going down. I had to work fast with the light I was provided.

“Do your stuff, I see your medical bag.” George said, shaking me more awake. I think I’ve a concussion… but I have to save Leroy. I have to make it up to him, even if he doesn’t remember me. I injected him with a stimpack, so he wouldn’t wake as I strapped him to the table over the chest with my belt, George got Leroy’s feet with his belt. I got out my stitching kit, and ripped off his shirt. I thought to myself “God I made the wrong choice.” I tore his shirt into foot long shreds, and set them onto bleeding areas. I made mental marks in my mind to where the shrapnel was, and the wounds themselves.

I started stitching, pulling the needle in and out. I should have gotten more training, I was queasy. I told George “Get me a bucket or something!” He nodded, and muttered “There’s that much blood?” He ran off, and came back almost as soon as I heard the ‘Whoomph’ of the bucket being pulled off of a wooden shelf. I heard a growl in the distance, and George grabbed his Laser Rifle and stood at the door. I continued stitching as he blasted feral ghouls…

Three hours later all the wounds were stitched up, but he had broken bones, so to make sure he would be asleep so he’d heal faster, I put him on the IV of sedative I had in my medical bag. He was starting to wake, so I went hastily, practically shoving the needle into his arm. He stirred, but didn’t wake. I turned to the bucket George had set next to me, and promptly threw up into it. I sat in a chair that was next to the table as George whispered “There goes my sketches…”

I waited for the IV to go down, all thirteen hours, and watched the sunrise through the vent. George closed the door and dead bolted it, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ve killed any of them, they just keep coming. Maybe locking them out like a dog in the rain will convince them to go home, no matter what they smell past the door.” I just leaned back, and he laid down on a small cot. “You should get some sleep as well” He said, and gestured to another cot across the room, behind me. I just shook my head. He turned back over and within five minutes he was snoring.

I sat there until noon, when Leroy said “Sarah”, almost pitifully, if he wasn’t so gruff and woozy.
“Yeah?” I responded, thinking of the old school days, stuck in Western International; when he would rarely talk to me other than asking for some tips with his weird experiments.
George said “You barely survived, lost a lot of blood, don’t try to stand, or sit up.”
My mind wandered as he looked at me…

Cool stuff man, I like the ambition. Keep it up.

I ran out of tea and my water is dead simultaneously! I might die.... :sadvaultboy:

I had no idea water could die.

Water can die, it's called Stagnation. And when disassembled via. particle separation into hydrogen and oxygen. Or...yeah back to topic.

Chapter 19 Scouting out for a Lease…
I looked at Harper through tears as I remembered Sarah leaving me for the jock, I remember a look of recognition from Sarah, but I was a different person after the bombs. I looked at my hand as Harper said “Are you o.k.?” I nodded, which was a lie. I had left my high school crush to the Enclave. Now I had a reason to fight them. My hand was greenish now. My pinkie looked almost brown, as if rotting like a banana. I walked out to the center of the Citadel. Elder Hammonds walked straight to me from a room behind the firing range, looking angry.

“Do you know what you’ve done?!” He yelled at me.

“Umm…destroyed a group of rather nasty raider-like people?” I was confused…

“You’ve just destroyed the only stable community in the wasteland! We’ve had trade agreements for years, and now you’ve almost single-handedly killed them all!” He was shaking mad...

“He kidnapped me. I had no choice but to destroy the parasite attached to the wasteland. They were slavers, raiders, and the rock they loosened down into the place killed most of it. And the goo at the bott-”

“That ‘GOO’ is a new liquid formed out of irradiated battery acid, that we’ve been trading for weapons and stuff. It is an amazing power source that-”

“You now have access to, for free.” He looked at me in astonishment.

“Well. Umm…sorry I’ve yelled at you, you’ve just kind of saved us a lot of supplies and…Damn, what can I do to compensate you?”

“What does the goo do?”

“The goo has approximately ten thousand times the electrical output of battery acid, without a conductor. It’s called Plasma 2.0, also known as P20”

“Make me something that shoots that. Preferably I would like P20 explosive shells.” I laughed at the thought of someone getting hit by a P20 explosive sniper round.

“Well, that’s reasonable…” he turned around, and before he walked back to where he came from, said “I’ll have it for you by tomorrow. You should report to Sergeant Harper, he has something for you.”

I turned around, and Harper was looking at me. He signaled for me to follow him. I followed him into a room with an orange holo-map of the D.C. area. He had paper copies of it on a desk nearby. Vault locations were marked on it, along with green-marked ‘super mutant designated’ areas. Other miscellaneous locations were marked. Harper dropped his heavy gloved hand onto my shoulder and said “We are going to use you as a scout, if you’re willing.”

“Sure, whatever.” I shrugged. “Just as long as it helps stop the Enclave.”

“So you actually care, or you got something personal against ‘em?”

“Personal”

“You gonna share?”

“No, just tell me what I have to do.”

“We want to see if you can get any of these vaults open, because you can move much faster then us. Then we need you to scout the SMD’s. But you can do it whenever you want, man. The sooner the better, nonetheless.”

“I’ll check the vaults, but I won’t help you kill the mutants. The stupid ones give the smart ones a bad rep. The ones in D.C…just try to avoid them if you can. Also, they don’t attack ghouls; try to recruit some non-ferals if ya can.”

“Thanks for the advice. We’ll send you through the metros toward Vault 101.”

He pointed towards the door, and I went through it. A guy in power armor signaled for me to follow him, and I followed him out of the Citadel, onto the metro train car. The guy didn’t say anything, so I fell asleep.

*

I awoke, being pushed out of the train car. Something big was in front of us, blocking the way. We were going too fast, the train crashed into the fleshy wall, the front light no longer visible, the world going dark. “[censored]!” someone said in the blackness that was closing in on me. I could hear growling, and a soft continuous moan. Someone was rummaging around, and I heard the familiar sound of a clip sliding into an AR. I was lying on a cold steel rail. I got up, rubbed my hurting side, checked for broken bones and such.

A click followed by a long beam of yellow light filled the tunnel, shadows dancing away. The guy in power armor was holding an AR with a weird light on it. It was as powerful as the headlight on the train, but tiny. He shined it on the fleshy mass blocking the train. It was brownish, pulsing, and had lots of small horny pikes surrounded by hair on it. “[censored] Mole Rat Queen. It got stuck in the metros again.” He pulled a radio off his side, and turned it on, then waited until static came over it. “Come in, Citadel. This is Carl. The MRQ is stuck again.”

A voice came over it “Copy, poor thing. Just reroute.”

“I can’t, the train’s in the damn thing.”

“Aww, it’s got feelings just like you. Well, try to haul it backwards.” The train was squealing as it slowly started moving into the Mole Rat Queen.

“The Queen is eating it” Carl said, his mouth unhinging a bit.

“Well maybe it’s hungry…” The voice came over as Carl shot the upper end of the swelling mass, where there were two small holes. Twelve rounds later, the mass receded; leaving the train slimy and the steel had weird discolorations on it. We waited until the noise of it slowly moving away stopped. We got on the train, Carl said nothing; we proceeded to move through the metro slowly, checking for ferals and mole rats. I wanted to see a small version, if that’s the queen.

“Watch out.” Carl said, as I heard growling, snarling, and scratching. Tell-tale signs of something wild, most likely ferals by the human-like voice of them. We turned a tight corner, and there were about fifteen or so ferals. Carl said “They shouldn’t attack, you’re basically one of them, and I think they can’t smell me.”

“Don’t worry, if the boogey man tries to get you, I’ll save you. By the way Carl, I’m Leroy.” I said, to try and boost his spirits, he tightened up.

“You’re insane, but then again all the high ranking officers are too. Man, I’m just an initiate, I haven’t even earned my stripes, and they sent me as an escort to freaking Jury Street Metro, the closest metro exit to Vault 101.”

“You’re ranting, kid.” He quit talking, and took aim at the nearest ghouls as we creaked past them.

We got past, and around the next bend, when Carl looked at me and said “This is your stop.” He went to the controls, pulled the furthest left knob down slowly as we got near the fenced gate, and we decelerated to a stop just before the light could hit the front of the train. Hit flipped a switch, and the tunnel went dark. I could still hear the ferals growls echo through the tunnel. We walked out into the light, and Carl said “Just follow this here road, it’ll take you to Vault 101, go up a hill past Springvale, and through the wooden door. Come back her, and I’ll be waiting.”

I set off along the road, LR in hands, the AR strapped to my back. My pistols in their’ holsters, and two frags in my pockets. I whistled random tunes as I looked through the scope…

Chapter 20 And the Horse You Rode in on…
Three guys armed with rifles were on a hill to my right, a thousand feet or so off, a protectron to my right was fighting what looked like a giant scorpion even farther than the armed guys, and a caravan of two headed cows with items all over them were going slowly along a river to the north. I held the LR in my arms as I took the first few steps toward Vault 101-ish area. Follow the road, up a hill. Great, I’m already lost. I walked toward the armed guys, rifle ready.

As I closed in on them, they pointed their’ rifles at me. I slowed, and hip-aimed toward the center one. If I needed to, I would hit him and kill all three. “What’re you doin’ here, all alone, lookin’ like that? You contagious?” The center guy said to me. The guy on the right: “He looks like a Leper. Don’t get too close.” Guy to the left: “He looks like your mum, Leo!” He said, laughing and shoulder-bumping the guy in the center.

Leo hit him with the butt of his rifle, and said “Now he knows my name, dumb [censored]!”

I lowered my LR a bit, these guys were just a group of friends. “I’m Leroy, and you guys are?”

The leader guy spoke. “AS you know I’m Leo, this is James,” he motioned to the guy to my right. “And this is Bubba.” He pushed the guy to my left over. “Now…” He started, but couldn’t seem to find anything to say.

“I’m not contagious, I’m a ghoul.”

“He’s not like ‘dem zombies we encountered out in them train tunnels.” Bubba said, his southern accent started to sound funny.

“Yeah. But as you can tell I’m not a zombie. What are y’all doing?”

Leo said loudly as the sound of protectron lasers stopped: “We asked you first, but since you introduced yourself; we are the Lynch brothers, and we are here today to do business with you.” He pointed his Chinese Assault Rifle at my chest “All your stuff for your life.”

“Well can’t we talk this out?” My LR rose slightly, aimed at his hip bone.

“Not really, seeing as we here are the only ones who are any- ”

Bubba interrupted “Why are you carrying a sniper rifle?”

James “Yeah, that looks peculiar…”

I yelled “You know too much!” And shot Leo in the crotch with a lightning bolt, arcing through his rifle into his brothers, killing them. I saw this in slow motion; the lightning arced off of his rifle, wrote an R into the air, and then came into contact with my LR. I dropped it, but too late, as I was launched backwards onto the dirt. I coughed some blood, but I was till conscious, which confused me. I guessed that being a ghoul, your nerves are kind of shot anyway, electricity can’t hurt much. I looked at my arm, and I could see a spot rotting through. “Crap.” I said to myself.

I got up, dusted myself off, and looted the bodies, grabbing a hat I now noticed Leo was wearing. None of them even had ammo. Bubba had an arrow and three darts, while James had a medium, dulled machete`. I figured the darts, arrow, and machete` could be of use, and then I noticed something glowing in Bubba’s pocket. I kicked his pocket so that anything in it would come out the top into view, and a plasma grenade was going off, the pin having been set off as a death-switch. The other two also had glowing pockets…

I dropped the arrow in panic, and ran the opposite direction, toward the protectron. I was hoping that it would have pre-war programming, and be able to tell me where Vault 101 is. I fell forward, some rubble sliding beneath my shoes, and forcing me to tip forward onto the ground, and as I did, something whizzed past my head, and I heard metal hit metal as I hit the dirt with a thump, my hat flying.

I heard a sad whining noise, rotors spinning out of place, and a horrible clank followed by “Critical Error. Self destru~ing in three, two, wuh-” I figured it would explode, but the protectron didn’t. I got up and walked towards it, a small holo ejected out of the top, about a foot in the air, and fell on its sensors. I stashed it in my pack, and broke off the arm with the laser pistol built into it using my LR’s stock. I rolled the protectron over, and the back was labeled ‘Made in China’ I looked at the aluminum gears, pried the top one back, and pulled out four Microfusion Cells, also stashing them away.

I rolled the protectron back over, and slid my hat off of the arrow protruding out of the protectron’s throat-area. The hat had a hole, but could still block sunlight, so I twirled it on top of my head, and went westward on my way to find a hill…

Twenty minutes later I saw a sign that said ‘Springvale.’ I kicked it, making a dent. “I’ve just effected the world. Ha.” I whispered to myself. I small post, with a larger post on a bulletin board half consumed by whatever force that destroyed the house next to it said ‘Let us in, bigots!’ while the smaller sign above it said: “Vault 101 is now locked, no one is getting in, no matter how many false-prized raffles you hold.” A picture of the hill off of the turn to my right beneath the words gave me all the directions I needed.

I walked to the hill, and walked carefully up the somewhat winding hill, to a slightly destroyed, rotting wooden door. I pushed on it, and the small lock broke the plank of wood it was attached to, allowing me to see into the dimly lit tunnel. I few bodies lying next to signs with ‘let us in’ written on them were scattered along the tunnel. I walked down, and heard a siren, followed by a voice over intercom speakers, one on my left of which had been smashed. “This is the Overseer, Lewis DeLoria. You will not be allowed access. If you do not leave immediately, you shall meet dire consequences.”

“I’m just here to check in on you. How are you doing?”

“We are better than the outside world, now leave please.”

“Done, have a good day.” I said, turning around, and setting off back to the metro. I closed the rotting wooden door behind me, and got to the train without any opposition, right before dusk. Carl was asleep, so I pulled on a knob, and twisted the key in the ignition. We creaked through the feral ghouls, and on our way through the metros to the Citadel. I let Carl sleep, and left him on the train and as I walked to the Citadel, I saw a metallic object in the water, reflecting the red sunlight in the distance.

I found Harper, and he looked expectantly at me. “Vault 101 is fine without us.”

“We’re supposed to let them know it’s survivable out here.”

“They don’t care. So when did that thing in the Atlantic get here?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s and old aircraft carrier, It came back from being in the ocean during the fallout. It’s cut in half, except for the keel, which is intact. It’s run into the rocks and stopped. There’s some people living on it. We’ll go check it out tomorrow, you should get some rest.”

“Not until he gets paid, of course!” said Hammonds, who just walked in. He snapped, and two people in robes holding ammo boxes, marked P20E. They handed them to me. I happily lugged one to my bunk, which I was led to by one of the robed guys, who said “You’re welcome, I’m Scribe Corey.” and left. I set the other down, and opened it. The P20E shells were already in clips, so I pulled out the clip already in my sniper rifle, and loaded in a P20E clip.

I jogged happily to the live firing range, and lined my sights up to one of the target’s chests. The guys near me backed up, seeing my LR’s microfusion cell rig. I fired, and there wasn’t a target left. Nothing but a small, flaming stick. I laughed maniacally, and the guys around me cheered. I went back to my bunk, took all my normal .308 shells out of my pack, and replaced them with the P20E shells. I locked my door, and fell asleep with my loaded LR next to me, leaning against the wall.

The next morning, I found a note saying that Harper can’t go check out the boat with me, and left instructions to go to Vault 112, hidden inside Smith Casey’s garage, and talk to Dr. Braun, who is heading a virtual reality for the occupants of the vault. It’s due west of Vault 101, and a bit south. I shook my head, said to myself, “I was just there!” and headed out to the metros again…

late post -comparatively- due to wireless internet modem suicide-dive off of a shelf...

Chapter twenty one

I quickly went through the metro, neither Carl nor I talked, and then I crossed the part of the wasteland I knew to Vault 101, where I could see a Yao Guai at the door, seemingly trying to get in. I ignored it, and continued west, walking into the rising sun. After about twenty or thirty minutes of walking past shells of buildings, I saw a protectron that was entirely alone, standing next to a sign that said “RobCo” It triggered something in my mind, but I didn’t know what. I definitely recognized it…

I walked towards the protectron, LR with P20 shells making me feel like I’ve already won, at the ready. It looked at me and said “Welcome to RobCo Studio Four, how may I help you?”

“I’d like directions to Smith Casey’s Garage please.”

“Direct route or feasible road only?”

“Direct route please.”

“Go through the door behind you, west and around the building until you reach Tyson’s Corner. Go west past it until you reach the road, follow it, and it will lead you to Smith Casey’s Garage.”

“Thanks very much”

“I hope you have a good walk!” Its voice shook out and then it powered down. I walked past it, over the only bit of building that used to be RobCo Studio Four, and kept walking until I saw a two headed cow lying on a strip of road. I looked down at it, and I heard someone behind me yell “Don’t hurt her please!” I turned to see a guy with a hat and goggles, a hunting rifle strapped over his shoulder, and a pack looked to be full.

“Wasn’t planning on it...” I said, LR held tightly.

“Finally a guy not wanting to steal all my stuff and make graffiti using my blood!” He offered a handshake. “I’m Crow, trader of armor and clothing. And you, my faithful customer, have earned a discount due to your not wanting to kill me!”

I ignored his handshake “Finally something…Oh. I’m Leroy” I looked at him expectantly.

“Oh…right. I guess you want to see the wares?”

“I have clothes…and being hot doesn’t help the starving and dehydration thing…”

“Then you might want something light…” He rummaged through a pack on his lying cow, which looked up. “Oh, Carly, get up.” He said affectionately. The cow got up, and looked at me hungrily. I petted her nose, and she looked happy, wagging her tail as much as a two headed cow can. Crow sang lightly as he pulled out a leather jacket with weird electronic pieces riveted to it. He offered it to me, and pronounced: “This is a leather jacket fitted with force emitters, which will block most small fire, and has a high chance to throw grenades back to the throwers. Only three hundred caps.”

“It sounds like deal, but I only have a hundred fifty caps, so…twenty five bucks.” I shrugged.

“Well that’s the beauty of the title ‘trader’. We get to trade. Boy you are slow.”

I thought about it for a while, making a mental list of all my stuff with worth that was tradable. My AR wasn’t getting any use, three frags, two pistols, two pulse grenades, two knives, a lighter, and about twenty bobby pins. “How useful are bobby pins to you?”

“That’s a peculiar question, but right now I guess I could use some. I think maybe four caps per pin will do. And since you’re dishing out useful stuff, I will lower the price to three hundred fifty-”

“It was at three hundred.”

“Two fifty, sorry for the miscalculation!” His face reddened, he was trying to con me.

“How much for a frag and a pulse grenade?”

He looked at me, obviously not expecting me to be heavily armed. “Umm…the pulse will be useful, since I have a frag myself…The pulse, ten pins, and your hundred fifty for the jacket.” He handed it to me, and I handed him the stuff he asked for. I put on the jacket, and it was a little big on me, but I wasn’t complaining. I nodded to him “Thanks, Crow.”

“Hope you survive out there, Leroy.”

“Oh I will.” I hefted the LR, and then Crow walked north with his cow, and I saw a guy in the same armor as me with a laser rifle crouched near a building, watching Crow and his cow, then when Crow went out of sight, he followed him. I turned back west, and continued on my way.

I saw a few buildings come over the horizon, as my hands started to burn, I looked down, and they were reddish from sunburn. I really should have bought gloves. I lifted my scope to my eye, and looked at the buildings. There was a sign that was mostly gone, that said “Ty” and “orner” on it, barely legible. I noticed some people in the buildings, patrolling. They all had weapons, and weird hair. Some of them had tattoos, most of them gang signs. I decided to skirt around Tyson’s Corner.

I reached the road, and continued south. On my right a small shack was built, and I went to it, and it had a holey blanket covering a makeshift doorway. Inside was a makeshift bed with a person in it, under a small blanket. I stepped further in, heard a clang, and screamed as something latched itself around my ankle. I fell in shock, and looked at my leg. A bear trap was clamped tightly around my leg, and the teeth were sharpened to cut.

Cold steel pressed against my neck, making me stiffen up. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my shack?!” A familiar voice whispered in my ear, letting me know I need to be quiet. My LR had fallen somewhere behind me in the excitement. I clenched my teeth as blood ran down into my socks. “I’m Leroy. Trying to get my leg out of a bear trap.”

“Leroy…Oh my god, let me help you.” The guy set his Desert Eagle onto the bed, and quickly wrenched the bear trap off of my leg, and let it clamp shut as he tossed it toward the opposite wall. He pulled a long zip tie out of his pocket, and strapped one beneath and above the wound, to where the pant leg would slow the bleeding, which was already starting to clot up. “How have you been?”

“You know me?”

“It’s Rob. You’re Leroy Johnson, right?” I nodded. “I haven’t seen you since you killed Nathan at the card ga-”

*
I looked over at Robert, who was looking intently at his hand. He frowned and said “I’m out.” He annied in, and then the guy to his left said “Me too” as he too tossed in the lowest valued chip. Nathan looked at me, smirked and said “Hit me.” The dealer set down a six card on his seven and upside down card. “Hit me again.” A two was laid on his pile this time. “One more time, good man.” A five set down. “I do believe I’ve won this one too, Leroy. What did I say? I will always be better than you at everything.”

I fidgeted. I had an Ace in the hole, and a ten showing. I decided to take my chances. “Hit me.” A two. “Again” Another two! “Again!” the last two appeared in my pile, giving me seventeen, total. “Again, please.” The dealer looked at me as if to ask ‘Are you sure?’ I nodded to him, and he set down a three. “One last time.” An ace. Among my twos, three, and ten; I laid my aces down…***…The bullet tore through the air, and I felt satisfied having finally exacted my revenge for all the torment Nathan had caused me. Everyone got up and left, except Robert, who looked at me, smiling…

*
Robert was shaking me as I awoke. I remembered him now, and I painfully remembered Sarah, and me losing her. The pain in my leg started waning, and I could stand at this point. I stood up and said “I think I’m fine. Been in and out of consciousness since the bombs… ”

“I was here in D.C., in my grandparents’ wine cellar. I just started going south, and stopped here to make a place to sleep. I decided to stay here since governmental radios have declared that the nuclear winter won’t be here for three years. I’ll move then. But for now, you’re the third person to step into that trap. The other two weren’t nearly as lucky as you. So…what are ya doing?”

“I’m supposed to scout Vault 112 for the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“But?” He looked at me sincerely.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just not there yet. That’s what they expect me to do, but it’s been rough trying to find it.”

“Hey, do you know if any of the Vaults are open to new people?”

“Not yet. 101 is closed, and that’s all I really know.”

“Well, crap. I guess this is bye. Don’t die out there, mmk?”

“Sure. Not planning on it, you got any other traps out there I need to know about?”

“There are quite a few, actually. Just keep your eyes peeled in the shade.” He handed me five long zip ties to compensate for first aid. I pocketed them, and limped out, following the road south, I saw a sign “Smith Casey’s Garage: left.” To the right of a building that was of grey metal, its door looked rusty. I kicked it in, LR ready. Two giant roaches looked up at me, and I dropped the LR to my hips, yanked out a silenced pistol, and they both burst into flames as a Robobrain torched them, startling me.

“Welcome, the entrance to Vault 112 is down the stairs.” It pointed me to a hatch that was open. I went down, and another Robobrain blocked my way, with a Vault 112 jumpsuit draqed over its’ arms. “Welcome to Vault 112, you are four years, six months and twenty one days late for entry.” It lifted the jumpsuit toward me. “Please, use this jumpsuit, and go to one of the unoccupied chambers.” I grabbed the suit, the Robobrain moved, and I set the suit into a trash bin as I climbed into a sensory chamber marked ‘guest’ in a back room that one of the servants led me to. The sensors charged up, and I got warm as I began to transition worlds…

Chapter 22 Violent Tranquility

I opened a door to a black and white, with shades of grey, world. I could barely tell, but the world ended before sight did. There was no sky, just illusion. I saw a young girl in the center of town, next to a playground. Around the playground were several houses, all seemingly perfect, each standing, nothing to prepare for when these people were supposed to be released out into the real world. A lemonade stand was erected in front of one house, slightly irregular. A boy was selling lemonade at it. I walked to the play ground, and the girl looked up at me, and jumped, surprised.

“Oh! Hi, my name’s Betty. Would you like to play a game with me?” She said, but something about her wasn’t right.

“Umm, not real-”

“Play the game, Leroy” A man’s voice came out of Betty.

“How do-” As I got closer I noticed I was the same height as her…

“Make Timmy cry for me, why don’t you?”

“Sounds…easy. Who’s Timmy?”

“He’s the Neusbaum’s brat. But you wouldn’t know, would you, new kid? He’s the boy selling horrible lemonade.” Betty, she, he, it smirked. I nodded, and walked over to Timmy’s lemonade stand, and saw quickly that it was structurally fail. I knocked it over as Timmy was about to talk.

“Wh-What are you doing? Why would you do that to me? Who?” He chocked, crying too much to speak at this point.

I walked over to Betty, who was sprawled on the ground laughing. “Good job! You really showed him!”

“What is the meaning of this simulation?”

“What simulation? This is Tranquility Lane; my world of Betty-having-fun.” She laughed, and I backed away a bit. “NO. You cannot leave. I’m not DONE with you yet!”

“Who are you? And why are you getting me to do this?”

“Be quiet, the subjects don’t need to panic…yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is MY world, mine I say. My experiment” The male voice came out this time. “I will not let you RUIN my FUN!” I felt a spike of pain come through my everywhere. I fell to my knees, gasping. In a scary sweet voice Betty said loudly: “Oh my god, are you O.K?” ,getting the attention of a view passerby.

“O.K, what do you want me to do?” Betty smirked maliciously.

“I want you to decide: either break up the Rockswell’s Marriage, or convince Ms. Dithers that my world is the one she wants to live in. See? She believes this world is a simulation, I want you to change that.”

“Whatever…” I shrugged and started to walk to the door I entered in, but chains and a lot of lasers wrapped around the door, leaving me no way to escape unless I go through with Betty’s game. I shrugged again, and walked around until I found a mailbox labeled “Rockswell” and walked up to the front door. Betty’s voice entered my head. “I will allow you any objects you can think of. Just think ‘Slash C’, and then the item name. Try to be specific.”

O.K, it can’t be too hard to break up a marriage. I thought, “Slash C letter from Mrs. Neusbaum to Mr. Rockswell” and a small parcel spawned in my open left hand. I flinched; the sudden cold feeling of the plastic was surprising. I opened it, to check what it was. It was correctly addressed, but the note was blank. “Slash C flamethrower” A military incinerator spawned into my right hand, pulling me to the ground. It was too heavy for me to lift, so I have to be really specific to spawn the correct items…

“Slash C lacy feminine underwear” A pair of ridiculously skimpy panties spawned in my hand, and I shrugged, I guess it’ll work. I hid them in my pocket as I knocked on the door. I heard some yelling before the door was yanked open by Mr. Rockswell.

“WHA- who are you?” He sputtered.

“Leroy, the new kid in town. I wanted to visit everyone in town to know who they are, but if you’re busy…”

“Oh no, we’re not BUSY at all. Please, come in.”

“Thank you, how are you doing today?”

“Fine, just fine. How are you?” Mrs. Rockswell said, shuffling nervously.

“I’m fine, so let’s get down to it. Who are you?”

“I’m Mr. Rockswell; this is Mrs. Rockswell, as you know.”

“You don’t have first names?”

“That’s what we were discussing. We don’t remember them.”

“Ahh, strange. Do you know why Betty might want me to break up your marriage?”

Mr. Rockswell: “Oh no, we would never expect that! Why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason, just…I need to know you guys better.”

Mr. Rockswell: “Well, when Mrs. Rockswell isn’t talking with her friends, she’s usually in the garden. That’s all I know.”

Mrs. Rockswell: “It’s as if we’ve been mind wiped, and been reduced to repeating the same thing. I don’t think anyone else knows. Us and Old Lady Dithers are the only ones who know, I think. Mr. Rockswell is either up here, wandering and talking and answering the door, talking to me, or in the basemant. Otherwise, we don’t know.”

“O.K. that’s all I need to know. This is a weird world…Can I have something to drink? Thanks.” Mrs. and Mr. Rockswell both went into the kitchen, and I went down into their’ basemant, and draqed the women’s underwear over the chair. That should do. I got back upstairs, and they came in just after, but they noticed me come out of the basemant.

“Why were you in the basemant?” Mr. Rockswell sounded nervous. He was probably guilty of something, anyway.

“Oh nothing, just exploring.” Mr. Rockwell went back to the kitchen, saying “Oh, I totally forgot your drink!”

Mrs. Rockswell whispered to me “I think he’s cheating on me.” I knew it already. “But I don’t have any proof, since you don’t know us, you have no bias. I think the town is out to get me. Could you help?”

“Look downstairs.” She left.

“Where’s Mrs…” His eyes trailed to the thumping of footsteps nailing the boards down as she came up the stairs. He dropped his glass, and I left, not wanting to be around to be blamed for the results. On my way back to Betty, I noticed one of the houses had no mailbox, and Its gnome was broken in the front yard. It looked abandoned; I made a mental note ‘Explore THAT.’

“Simple, but funny. That’s got to be a record or something! Now…”

“How much longer ‘til I can leave? I’m losing time.”

“It’s not important. Now what should you do next…?” Betty started to think.

I thought of a way to escape, and this seemed easiest. ‘Slash C portal to Vault 112’ A Vault door appeared in front of me, and Betty said, in the man’s voice: “You can never leave!” As I walked through the opened Vault door I heard an air pressure release, and after I stepped over the threshold I saw all the members of Tranquility Lane get out of the pods, and I could still see me in the pod. The Vault door closed behind me, and everyone started talking about ‘such a horrible situation they were in, and that Leroy kid saved them.’

“Hello?” I said, and no one responded. Was I a ghost? Or, was I still in some new trap Betty had planned out for this? A guy in a lab coat came out of the overseer’s office, looking gaunt. He sincerely apologized to the members, and about my death. They all left through the door, as I sat against the door. “Slash C knife” A knife spawned in my hand.

“Oh damn, you are smart. Most people I force into this situation don’t even think of that.”
Betty’s voice came into my head, following pain like a needle being pulled through my brain.

“Lucky me…” I coughed.

“Yes, Lucky you. I was considering letting you go, but that would be a waste. You will be lots and lots of fun…”

hey, followers. All five of you. yeah, you. You CAN comment, when you have time, on chapters you like, or things you notice wrong, but if you haven't caught up, jus tput the Chapter near each comment. I like comments as much as you guys, but I like writing more, so yeah, production of chapters will likely come out faster than you can read to comment on them.

Also-I get to be in a movie! [with Galen, actually] W00t! :foodndrink: :celebration: :ninja: :woot: :nuke: :frog:

sorry I haven't posted in a while. Chapter 23 hasbeen slow in the making, I'm bored with where he is at the moment, and I'm talking with Galen about lots of things. Also- I have been playing New Vegas [most of the side missions, too] Almost Level thirty. Accomplishments so far: killed all of the NCR and Legion [except at the fort, that's my next target] with the Abiliene Kid LE BB Gun. I have silently killed everyone, and no loss of Karma, which is kinda wierd. so, yeah. Chapter 23 coming out the week after Halloween: this week.

just read the new chapter and as one writer to another I commend thee! you have kept my interest so far...writing about inhuman characters can be challenging but you have convinced me...

thanks goris! the new chapter should come out soon...I've had the worst monday of my life recently, and I'm stilll recovering. And Goris- if you've only read the last chapter, tha's not the best one! [in my opinion, anyways]

Chapter 23 Stuck within the continuum
I walked through a door and into a black and white world, with grayish tones the only definition of the buildings. I had a severe feeling of Déjà Vu as I read a small sign next to me saying “Welcome to Tranquility Lane.” I saw a small girl playing in a small playground, and only one building with any difference; it looked abandoned. I felt that there was something I needed to know.

I walked up to the girl, and she said “Hi, my name’s Betty, do you want to play a game?”

“Do I know you?”

She giggled demonically “Well, duh Leroy! We’re best friends! What’s wrong with you?”

“You, I think.”

“Well that’s not very nice” A man’s voice came out of Betty’s mouth, which I thought to be a bit off. I frowned, and a searing pain went through my back, and I went to my knees. “Play the game, Leroy. Pleeeeease.” Her voice made me sick.

“What’s the game?” I regretted asking the next moment, because Betty smiled, and all her teeth were rotten.

“The game is…killing everyone.”

“Why? And how?”

“Brutally and in funny manners. That’s how.”

“O…k. What do I get out of it?”

“Your life… and a piece of the puzzle.”

I turned around, and went to the first house I saw, the abandoned one. I roughly kicked it until the door broke out of the way. I could feel Betty’s eyes on me the entire time. I walked in, and there was only a bunch of random items. I touched one, and it made a weird noise on contact. I touched a few others, and a door appeared. A lot of guns were behind it. I picked up a small automatic shotgun, and exited. Everyone looked at me, confused as I shot each in the gut, leaving them to bleed out.

As I put a shell into the last of the Neusbaums, Betty clapped at the center area, everyone had scattered throughout Tranquility Lane, their’ corpses starting to smell. “Entertaining, but not nearly as intelligent as I had thought it and you would be.”

“Maybe, your request wasn’t so smart. You didn’t know what you want! You said kill everyone; I was bored by the request itself. It’s just too easy”

“Hmm…true, but I also am mainly just trying to pass the time…”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want!”

“Yeah, that’s reasonable. Too bad you’ve already been here for generations.” The man’s voice came out. He laughed, and the simulation cracked. Betty had turned into a tall guy in a scientists’ outfit. “You lose track of time easily when you’re memory is… modified.”

“Well, then you’ve had quite the run, you should have had your fun over the years.”

“You would be surprised at how boring it gets. Even though the worlds may change, the people are still the same. Sending different wild animals, communists, and other disliked groups of humanoid at them, it gets quite boring since they usually act in the same way.”

“I must act differently, for you to have kept me. But if they’re so boring, why do you keep them?”

He walked towards me, and a jungle appeared around us, with desert waste at the edge of it. “Their’ minds in real life, including mine, have deteriorated. TO be loosed would kill us. I have upgraded the new simulation pod you are in, to keep you fresh. Ours have been running on low power, since the power is only revitalized through new members. It’s programmed to kill us over time.” He snapped, and I became me, in the simulation, instead of the boy form I was earlier. I had my LR and all my other possessions. “Since you have been so insistent on leaving, I’ll give you back your memories.” I felt a tingle in my neck, and passed out.

I woke, in the simulation pod, and I felt sore as I pushed against the shell. My ears popped as the pressure shot out of the pod, into the room. I got out, and stretched. I picked up my stuff, then walked over to an intercom. I pressed the ‘dial’ button, and his voice came over it “Well thanks for all the fun, no matter how repetitive it was. The name’s Braun, not that I care much to be remembered by my greatest accomplishment gone wrong. I know I have done wrong, but you’d do the same if you got as bored as I do.” His voice crackled, and went silent.

As I walked past the Robobrain at the entrance, three lasers fired past my head. I turned and the robobrains were pouring into the Vault entrance, with me at the giant gear shaped door. “You are not allowed to--” Its voice stopped, and it looked like it was processing something. I heard a soft buzz, and it sputtered “I am sorry for the intrusion, Mr. Johnson. WE have just obtained your file from Dr. Braun, giving you a V.I.P title. Thank you, come again!”

I looked at it, a bit confused. I shook my head, and turned to the door controls, and flipped the switch, making the buzzing noise of gears turning, and the giant door promptly spun (span?) out of my way. I walked out, and the door closed behind me. I walked through the now more rotten wood door. A skeleton was sitting next to the door, a few ribs missing, and the rock nearest was stained red. I looked around, and noticed a few things very different. This was not the wasteland I had left…