Vault Dweller
Chapter 28: Ch. 27 Wilson Atomatoys HQ
Previous Chapter Next ChapterCh. 27 Wilson Atomatoys HQ
A large glass showcase window with the words “Wilson Atomatoys Corporate HQ" was emblazoned in cherry red lettering across the side of the building. Although faded from exposure and covered in built-up moss, the words were still plainly visible. A winding staircase leading to the backside of the building to the main parking lot from the front entrance was decorated with shopping carts filled with bloody human guts and bones.
The front entrance to the building was physically blocked off with rubble and iron girders and rebar sticking out of the ground.
Nate tensed, everywhere he looked, there were more signs of death. In the parking lot, bodies were chopped up and strung from lamp posts with rusted metal chain, skulls decorating pikes, and several rotten bodies were impaled with meat hooks, dangling against the side of the building. Bodies swinging in the soft wind, the gagging stench of death filled the air. The pavement was slick with built up blood and gore that was never washed away properly, making it sticky and attract even more scavengers.
\111/
Seven super mutants wandered the perimeter, and Meathead guided Nate and Piper to reach a fifth-story window of a skyscraper next to the building to act as a sniper's nest.
"I'll have you watch the perimeter as we clear the inside. Do not shoot anything that doesn't look like a super mutant. We are going to the roof of the factory, we'll signal you from there."
Dragging a desk to the blown-out window, there was still three feet from the window sill, giving them enough room to hide the muzzle flash.
"First one, Rooftop. Two of them. One and Two o clock." Nate directed Piper to set up the twenty-two-inch barrel of the Mossberg .308 rifle with the head of the first super mutant. He was holding a pipe pistol in his hands, while two of the super mutants on the veranda below connecting the blocked front door entrance, to the parking lot in the rear, carried wooden planks ripped off from buildings with nails sticking out of them.
"First target is on the upper terrace of the rooftop." Nate spotted as Piper lined up her initial shot.
"I see him."
Aiming for the head, she inhaled and exhaled on the pull of the trigger. The butt of the rifle kicked into her shoulder and she winced.
"Hit. But not dead. He's searching, turning this way. Readjust, right five degrees, down two. He's moving. Towards the edge of the building."
The super mutant with half of his skull intact, missing most of his lower jaw and bleeding out his eyes sputtered with each breath. The second super mutant on the roof spun in circles with his pipe rifle against his shoulder, combing the windows for the shooter.
Pulling back on the bolt, she loaded another round in, ejecting the spent cartridge and listening to it clatter onto the office floor.
"Wait for the second mutant on the roof to turn around again...now." The hammer slammed into the blasting cap and fired a second bullet forty meters across the road and struck the first mutant again, blowing his skull completely open, and his massive body slumped over onto the ground as the splatter rained down on his partner.
"Confirmed, target one down. Bottom targets aren't aware. Top hasn't raised alarm."
"Second Target? On the roof?" Piper asked. Pulling back on the bolt with a clack, the bullet casing flew out and she replaced it.
"The mutant on the ground level, chains around his torso, underneath the lamp post. Do you see him?" Nate asked, pointing down to the ground. "Peek-a-boo, He's carrying a mini-nuke."
"You want me to shoot him?" Piper asked,
"Try not to hit the nuke."
Firing the next shot. It was like a clap of thunder happened in the perch overlooking Wilson Atomatoys HQ, the shot bore through the super mutant's chest, piercing the heart. The super mutant clutching the mini-nuke dropped it, grabbed its chest like it was suffering bad heartburn, then fell over dead mid-stride.
"Like I was going to say, Blue. I'm a pretty good shot." Piper said, raising up the rifle away from the nest.
\111/
The mutant hounds howled and went straight for the police power armor flashing red and blue lights. They growled and jumped for Nate's arms, biting down onto the casing. Nate gripped one dog's neck and slammed the dog down onto the ground, bringing it up and down, breaking its shoulder bones and thrashing its neck bones.
Nate jumped, falling down and slamming all his weight down onto the mutant dog's head and neck.
Meathead attacked the second hound as Piper fired at the super mutants on the top. Kicking the mutant hounds in the head, Nate stomped on them until they were both dead.
Going through the back door, through the employee entrance, they were inside the building. The concrete loading bay was covered with rubble, and the ceiling was caving in from upper floors that collapsed. Nate charged the first Super Mutant he saw. His surroundings of a power room in the basement blurred past as he threw up his left arm to connect with the mutant’s throat, as his right arm thrust a piece of rebar up through the mutants skull. The mutant was dead, falling backward with an enraged expression stuck on his face.
Breathing heavily, Nate listened for any signs of contact. His arms were tense, but after a few seconds of silence, he could hear footsteps moving around, nothing frantic or panicked. Meaning they likely hadn’t heard the stomping around downstairs. Exhaling, Nate saw a light over a humming generator.
“Oh, a fusion core,” Nate said, knowing that without this, the whole building would be plunged into darkness. It would put everything on high alert, but it would create a big distraction.
“Mine.” He said, tapping the eject button on the console and yanking the fusion core out. The working lights in the building blinked out, and there were suddenly a few high pitched, distinctly female screams.
“QUIET ROBOT PONIES! I WILL FIX LIGHT! NOW BE QUIET!” Meathead and Nate looked at each other, mouthing the word ‘robot pony?’ as a question. But Meathead couldn't see through the helmet. Footsteps were moving downstairs and Nate realized he wouldn’t have much time.
Laying down two land mines, he stepped back into a hiding corner and held his breath.
Like a lumbering giant, the footsteps could be heard thumping down the hallway, plodding along down the steps in the dark. There were fires happening out of oil barrels and metal trashcans, giving a bit of cast light to the room, but Nate was waiting on bated breath. The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs and continued down a second hallway, he could hear them moving on the other side of the wall, pausing to open a door, and follow that hallway around to the first-“
BOOM. The room shook and dozens of footsteps pounded their way down the same hallway and staircase. Nate readied his rifle, BOOM.
Caught twice in the same trap, “REAHEAAAAAA!” The pained shrieks were coming from the room ahead of him. Firing three round bursts, Nate moved forward as bullets raced back towards him, smacking into the walls, desks, and support beams around him. Nate fired at the muzzle flash, more yells and cries of pain came back.
“WHY STUPID HUMAN NOT DIE!?” The super mutant yelled, after hearing them less than a handful of times, Nate wondered about their intelligence and tactics.
“We’re harder to kill than cockroaches,” Nate said to himself. “we endure.” Changing magazines, he moved forward, throwing a grenade into the room, he counted to three and waited for the explosion. Firing off ten rounds, running in immediately after. Four super mutants were lying dead in the hallway, with one facing him directly.
Firing off more rounds, Nate moved forward and aimed for the head and arms of the Super Mutant. His metal plate armor made from scrap didn’t need to look cosmetically appealing or it to work. Bullets tore into it but managed to stop a few before boring through to the flesh.
“Die Motherfucker, Die,” Nate said to himself, pulling on the trigger then releasing it.
“Die Mothefucker, die.” It was a counting mechanism to help their controlled bursts of gunfire needed to be. Any longer, and the recoil was taking you too much off target, any shorter, and you weren’t firing enough. It takes little longer than a second to say, but the main purpose is to keep soldiers from hosing down enemies with endless fire.
It was an effective tool to remember, and it was always proving to be useful. Some people he knew could say it three times a second. Nate used VATS to look for the golden moment of opportunity, lining up his sights to shoot straight at the yellows of the Super Mutant’s eyes, he pulled the trigger.
“Die, Motherfucker, die.”
A two by four plank of wood crashed down onto Nate’s back, snapping the board as Nate fell to the floor, offset by the shift in weight. A Super Mutant dove onto him, and Meathead jumped onto the mutant’s back and clamped down his jaws on the back of the neck. Ripping and snarling, Meathead jumped off to avoid blows, which allowed Nate more time to throw off the Mutant and pin him down with the weight of the power armor frame.
Nate reached for his handgun taped to his side and fired six rounds into the Super Mutant’s skull. Standing up, he exhaled.
Progressing down the hallways the mutants came from, Nate and Meathead entered a storage room, and for a moment went through a time warp. Twelve Giddyup Buttercups in a storage room, all in various states of wear and tear, some broken down to the metal frame and disassembled. “Oh…well this is fun,” Nate said, looking to his left, on this side of the room was a caved-in ceiling, with the floor and ceiling making a ramp up to the second floor.
“YOU NOT GONNA MAKE IT THROUGH THIS HUMAN! YOU GONNA DIE!”
“YOU GONNA LEARN SOME PROPER ENGRISH?” Nate mockingly shouted a roar came back in response. Nate waved Meathead forward, “COVERING FIRE!” Unleashing a torrent of high placed bullets aimed at the sides of doors, splinters rained down the hall as Meathead moved up and took cover behind an exit to the hallway.
Two seconds later, a rapid thumping ran down the hall, past Meathead, and towards Nate. Meathead jumped, diving at the super mutant’s right leg and biting into the thick muscle. Nate pushed the metal tab on the underside of his rifle, dropping a clip of ammo down onto the floor, while he reloaded a new one, Nate pulled back on the bolt and continued firing.
The largely armored mutant wearing plates of metal strung together with wire kicked Meathead away and fired back. Every bullet colliding or veering off the power armor plates shook the entire suit. Two dents buckled along the biceps, bullet impact holes. Stepping back for a moment, Nate saw Meathead jump for the super mutant's arm. Snarling, ripping off its hand. The mutant kicked Meathead harder and aimed its gun hand at Meathead, about to fire when Nate turned on the lights and let loose the entire clip on full automatic.
"DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKER, DIE!" Charging, bringing himself closer with every step. The bullets impacted and scraped away flesh and muscle from bone and bone from the body. Mutant's head was bored by six bullets, and his neck by two, and his legs and knees were shattered.
Nate tried wiping the sweat away from the inside of his suit, but all the armor made it impossible "Meathead! Meathead! Are you okay?"
The dog limped up to him, "<He got me in the ribs.>" In a flash of green fire circling upwards, the changeling with blue eyes looked up to Nate. Blinking twice, he cast his head up. "There's...seven more of them...one of them is bleeding out on the roof...make that two. No...No the second source bleeding out on the roof is our pegasus."
"How can you tell that?"
"<One of them has the emotions of a lead brick and doesn't realize its nearly dead, the other is in an unconscious state, giving off emotions of fear, isolation, loneliness...she'll make it...She's hurt but she'll make it.>"
"Huh?" His head tilted to the right, and Nate reloaded his rifle.
"<That's not the fear of death up there, it's pain. She's in a lot of pain, but I can feel her life force...it took a ding from the attack, but it's not growing dimmer.>"
"What did you feel from Nora?"
"<From Nora?> His eyes rolled up to recall the memory. "<Hope. A shred of hope. A minuscule, tiny, little raindrop of hope in a desert. She was shot...>
"Is that how you see the world?"
"<That's how it would make sense to you. Human's don't have the organ to sense for it. It's like telling a blind person how a computer works and what it does. Fat load if it's not set up for a blind person to use, and even then they don't get the full experience.>"
"Starting to sound like me."
"<Nah, I don't have your unnaturally creepy positive outlook on life. It's the way you say' oh, yeah, I can fix it' that...just give me the tools, quit your yappin', and I'll get it done right attitude.>"
Meathead and Nate kept moving forward, through a bathroom with a hole knocked through a wall into the opposite gender bathroom, into a small foyer with a caved-in floor and four meat bags hanging from chains.
Each bag was filled with body parts from many different humans and animals, wrapped in chain link fence nets, and left to drip blood and sway in a nonexistent breeze. The stink made Meathead's stomach acid rise, and he tried to remember a little motto.
"<I am a scavenger, I am a scavenger.>"
Shuddering, Nate saw one door ahead of him slam shut as it slid into place. "<Just be lucky you can't smell that...because I can sense the stuff growing in that and it smells nasty. Think of a rotten onion...and so moldy and rotten it evolved a heart...then it exploded...that is what that smells like.>" His front leg twitched.
"I can smell that, it smells disgusting, but I chose to ignore it."
Taking post on the right side of the door, Nate flicked the door latch with the barrel of his rifle and jumped back as a barrage of bullets tore through the opening.
“Die, motherfucker, die.” He said to himself, priming a grenade and rolling it into the room.
It exploded and one mutant shouted, “AH! HE’S WOUNDED! YOU’LL DIE HUMAN!”
"Not quite," Nate let loose half of a clip of ammo into the talking mutant, not at all affected by the grenade. Blind to the first few bullets that tore apart his flesh, the mutants jaw was gone, along with most of its hand as it tried to make sense of its’ death before slumping to the floor, defeated.
Moving through the offices, he found the main hallway leading to different sections of the building, only the elevators and the shafts were ripped open, the gaping hole in the floor meant he had to skirt around the edge of the room, standing on a ledge barely able to support the weight of him and the suit of police power armor.
“They’re coming!” a woman’s voice cried out, Nate tried to see who it was, but a large overgrown shadow filled the doorway as a super mutant wearing a scowl and moving slowly peered around the corner.
Nate let the Vault Assisted Targeting System to help his senses line up the perfect shot, one right down the mutant’s own gun barrel, and the other right in the kisser.
Two shots, one blowing the super mutant’s rifle right out of his hands, making him shout in surprise, as the second bullet raced right between the mutant’s teeth, right into the soft bottom of the skull. There were two more screams and the sound of hooves clopping along the floor, Meathead heard the noise too.
“Robot ponies,” Nate said, his voice sounding distorted through the helmet’s air filter. “I think we’re a flea trying to see how big the dog is on this one.”
Meathead scrunched up his face, “<“Do you remember right before the bombs fell, there was all those ads on TV for these things?>"
"Yes."
"<Okay. Now watch.>"
Meathead took a few steps away from Nate, the circle of green fire appeared around Meathead, rising up and enveloping him in a quick flash. Standing in his place was a yellow Giddyup Buttercup, only it was completely pony in appearance. The big eyes, wide blue iris, and pupils that took up most of the eye. The sclera white part of the eye was only a thin strip around the edge. A brown mane, and yellow fur, the pony stood up to Nate's ribcage, the same height as Meathead as a changeling.
"<See the similarities?>" as Giddyup Buttercup, his voice changed dramatically from male to female.
"Yes. But I've never seen a pony with that large of eyes before." Nate replied, looking over Meathead's new form.
"<That's because they're not earth ponies, the designers based the look on Equestrian ponies. Their eyes were evolved to appear less hostile and convey emotions.>"
"Or. They had a good imagination."
"<Ponies were in America before the bombs fell. Their leader was trying to broach the subject of how to introduce her species to the people. These Giddyup Buttercups were trying to get people used to the idea of seeing ponies around.>"
"What makes you say this?"
"<Changelings were sent to earth to spy on ponies in America, and try to keep them from spreading information about us. There was an information war happening above American's heads, and it was a race to kiss-and-tell information about each other's cultures to the people who could use it the most and the most properly.>"
"What leader?" Nate asked.
"<Princess Celestia and the then-king* of the Changelings couldn't talk shit about changelings that came to earth. Our governments didn't realize the difference between your references to scale at first, they didn't know it was fifty states the size of countries banded together to form an even more massive country, not fifty states the size of one country. A state is Manhatten Island, about that land mass, is a state of land in Equestria. Once Changeling's got to America, we convinced our new friends not to hand us back over without first letting us spy on the rest of the world for them.>"
"Do you know when the ponies were here?"
"<They arrived on earth about five months after ourselves, but that was in the year 2046, I wasn't born for another 15 years.>"
"Changlings and Ponies were on Earth for 30 years? You're sixteen?"
"<That's right.>"
"What the hell happened during all that time?" Nate asked.
"<We saw how the big war was inevitable, but now there was more factions to deal with, ponies on earth, changelings on earth, ponies on Equestria, Changeling's on Equestria, the Chinese, the Americans, and of every group, there were those who wanted to keep fighting, and those who were on the side of 'Allowing the meek to inherit the earth'. I mean, when Queen Chrysalis and Genevae broke away and came to Earth, that only added fuel to the fire, our refusal to go back...to living under them. But, that's only because we couldn't stand the King, you would've been surprised how many people were won over when we said 'we couldn't stand the King'.>"
"Revolutions hardly ever work, when they do, now you're trying to accomplish the same things the previous government did, with fewer people and less differing opinions."
"<Exactly, the ponies hedged their bets, trying to play both sides and tried facilitating peace talks with both governments. They sold the idea of themselves as being the great peacekeepers.>"
"Peace sells, but who's buying?" Nate asked, "Megadeth. They wrote a song about it in 1986."
"<Pretty much. We made war way too expensive, and old King George was rolling in his grave.>"
Ducking his head into an empty office room, there were four desks lined up in the small room, with two offices with doors to them. The label on the door read “Director of Operations” with the computer monitor still glowing. There was a protectron painted light sky blue and red, with the Atomatoys logo, and Nate went to turn the security robot on.
"I'm gonna see if we can get those to turn on."
Nate read the script prompts and gained access to it quickly by navigating the commands.
"It looks like they were planning a product drop before the holidays."
“Wilson Atomatoys CorpNet
Nathaniel Hawke, Director of Operations
SCYTHE Status report 10/15
The first phase of the SCYTHE project is a week ahead of schedule. Two of the five assembly lines have been converted over to SCYTHE production; the third should be converted by Wednesday.
An Operations staff meeting has been scheduled for 10/18. All line workers will be trained on their new tasks as we conduct tests of the new equipment over the next two weeks. Barring unforeseen difficulties, production should begin on 11/1.
Pegasus Production updated design temporarily put on hold on 10/22 with the removal of Arlen Glass.
Unicorn Production moved to Quincy location for limited production.
Premium software design built, in transit,
-update arrived in Quincy
Premium Frame hardware, Polymer epoxy strengthened.
-Update received email from Cambridge Polymer Labs, sent Shipping to retrieve 10/23 9:00 A.M.
“<Why have a working title of something like SCYTHE in the first place?>”
“It’s a code name for companies to use when they’re referring to a new project, but don’t want corporate espionage to find out what they’re up to. But, since that doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore...”
Nate tapped the keys to activate the two Atomatoys Protectrons, the first one popped out of its charging pods, while as the second took one step them fell over, all signs of power blinking out.
\111/
Finally finding the stairway leading to the second floor, Nate and Meathead were taken back by the colonial style chariot in the front entrance foyer with four Giddyup Buttercups hitched up to the front. The large wooden wheels supported by metal trim frames, painted the same bright red as the Wilson Atomatoy's logo, and yellowed-white from decades of gathering dust and mellowed with the sun. Nate could hear the footsteps of more super mutants upstairs, but he could hear breathing as well. Panting, frantic, nervous breathing. Swinging his head around the foyer, he waited for any signs of movement, before running upstairs.
\111/
The office was locked, but Nate was ready with a bobby pin and a screwdriver to jimmy the lock open. Inside was the cleanest office Nate had seen in the Commonwealth, ever. This room was untouched by time and had toys lining three wall to wall shelves on the right side when you walked in. A desk lamp was still on, illuminating a glowing monitor, on the opposite side of the room was a wall with a large glass window, showing more Giddyup Buttercup’s in a workshop that were broken down methodically, carefully deconstructed with tiny drawers and cabinets pressed against the walls, with incomprehensibly tiny tools and a large curved magnifying glass.
Nate locked the door and set Meathead to listen for mutants coming as he ran to the computer, double tapping the enter key to get the computer to boot up.
Arlen Glass-Head of Product Development
|__\
/ Product Brainstorming
Collectible Variants: Body/hair color variants. Identifying Marks (?) E/N “*Cute.”
-Mythic Product line: Pegasus Conf. Unicorn. Conf.
Alternative Markets:
-Boys: Cowboys and Indian’s (Insensitive?)
-Boys: Ride’em Bucking Bronco
-Boys: Buffalo (as opposed to Indian?)
-Premium: **Princess line with features of both Pegasus and Unicorn. Crystal, white body, gold trim, tri-coloration for hair Sunburst Cutie Mark).
Promotional tie ins
-Hurbis Comics: Mechanist metal horse?
-Nuka Cola: Limited Edition Red Horse?
-Vault Tec: *Blue and *Yellow with Vault number(s) on flank.
*Request from Hawke, New Years Eve Night (Darker color tone theme blue, black, white. Crescent Moon Cutie Mark) of princess model.
**Valentine’s day princess model? (Pink Yellow Red. Food for thought if the plant can finish work on Unicorns. Could carry us through to St. Paddy’s and so on. Holiday cycle.)
*find out their specific blue and yellow serial #, call Regional Office. Send over two models for them to ‘play’ with.
“Meathead,” Nate said, calling over the dog. “What were the rulers of the ponies like?”
“Princesses yeah. There was Princess Celestia, ruler of the sun. Princess Luna, ruler of the moon, Princess Cadence, ruler of love. And then Princess Twilight, ruler of friendship.”
“Well, they described three for four of your princesses here in this file right here. White coat, gold trim? The sun ruler, Celestia. Right here, New Years Eve Variant. After that, it talks about a Valentine’s Day model. You said ponies had cutie marks too? They mention that in the first line. You're right, they ran out of time and the bombs fell.”
“<That is pretty hefty.>”
“There’s a pony right above us who could make it all the more plausible.”
"<Or may not have any knowledge of Equestria whatsoever.>"
"Don't be a buzzkill on your own rescue mission, Meathead. You pulled the trigger on this one. -urp- 'Scuse me. The Hero doesn't get to turn back after this far."
"<It was just a bad realization I had a few seconds ago.>"
"Oh. Well. If...Consider this. If we save her, and she doesn't know anything about Equestria, then what is the good?"
Meathead raised his hoof and rotated the ankle to the left and right, wavering it. "<She's not dead and we get to make a friend?>"
Nate chuckled and returned the gesture. "Eh...keep thinking positive. What else?"
\111/
Moving through the workshop, Nate sat down and looked at each one labeled in Arlen Glass’s shorthand ‘S 1, S 15/16, S 7/8, S 13/16, S ¾, S 11/16, S 5/8, S 9/16…tiny screws and bolts, and nuts, all labeled and organized that went down to 1/64th, and 1/128th. Holding one in his hand, it was thick as two strands of hair. On the workshop, the desk was a soldering iron, while on the wall was blueprints to Pegasus wings. Four pairs were hanging around the workshop, two on the wall, while the others sat in their holders. Snatching the blueprints, the notes, and the wings off the wall. Nate stopped at the safe, reaching down he gripped the wheel and yanked off the front door, not wanting to spend any more time wasting it on picking a lock. Inside the safe was the most peculiar glass jar specimen. A white bone that spiraled into a tip, Nate’s legs seized up together.
“<That’s a unicorn horn.>” Meathead said, putting one paw on the jaw. “<It’s true. That’s what they were working on. I can…it’s got a pale shade of magic, but it’s definitely a Unicorn’s horn.>"
“Do we take it?”
"WE SHOULD MOVE SOUTH! GO HUNTING FOR FOOD. OR SPORT." A voice yelled from outside the door, both Nate and Meathead froze, dropping their voices down low.
Nate jerked his head back, not sure if he heard them right.
"Or Both?" Came a second voice.
"Haha. Yes, brother. Both."
“<It’s proof.>” Meathead whispered.
“We take it.” Nate said.
Nate held up the Unicorn Horn and watched as his hands felt weightless and the jar disappeared into Meathead's pocket dimension along with the pairs of Pegasus wings.
Moving outside the office, Nate glanced down at the carriage on the main floor, two of the Giddyup Buttercups were missing and the sounds of the super mutants taunts weren’t getting any quieter.
Forcing their way through to the president's office, Nick decided a little bullet hosing was necessary when the super mutant stood in a combat pose, shrugging off bullets as bolts of laser fire came back. “You’re going to die a painful death, human!”
“He’s intelligent! Kill him!” Nate said without a second thought. Not hearing his own words as the gunfire suddenly stopped when the super mutant sagged to the ground.
He paused for two seconds at the Presidents terminal, scanning the files in half the time it took in between blinks. There was a holotape tossed into an empty trash bin, Nate saw the name Arlen and stuffed it into his breast pocket for later.
Drawers were chocked full of empty Mentat containers, but he grinned as he pulled two full containers from the pile with their shrink wrap still on.
There were dozens of empty Mentats containers all over the place, he'd been crushing empty pill boxes beneath his feet or kicking them out of the way as if they were toys left out ever since reaching the first floor.
“Colonel Nelson. I know that name, I heard about him before...Colonel Nelson. Wilson Toys put up a bid…landmines…at their Quincy factory as part of a covert operation to arm and prepare the U.S. as part of a program called SCYTHE…and they were finished by March?”
Meathead chuckled, the joke fell flat on Nate when he looked away from Meathead and saw the disincorporated dead bodies butchered like animals and hung to bleed out by the Super Mutants.
“GOOD ROBOT PONY! CARRY MEAT FOR CHUNKY! HERE CHUNKY! HERE BOY! GOOD DOG! GOOD CHUNKY”
The super mutant butcher was chopping large limbs of a creature without skin on it, reaching down into a shopping cart without any sort of care or worry to exactly what type of meat it was, and then slamming a large butcher knife through the tendon joints. Two large green mutant hounds were waggling their tails and panting heavily, eyes fixated on the bloody chops their master was preparing for them. On the side of each Giddyup Buttercup was a repurposed metal basket cage rusted and coated with gobs of sticky red, brown and black pieces of flesh.
“Will you keep us safe?” The woman’s voice asked Nate and Meathead both saw the source. Two panicking, yellow ponies with wide blue pupils and equally large black iris for eyes, long brown hair, and tails that were tucked under their rears like a scared dog.
“MUTANTS KEEP ROBOTS SAFE! PONY NOT WEAK LIKE HUMAN! PONY NOT DIE WHEN SHOT ITS SKULL AND HEAD DOESN’T GO BLAM IN MILLION LITTLE TINY PIECES! HAHA!” The mutant bellowed, laughing a deep bass laugh. Slapping his hand on their yellow painted shells, making thunking noises as they shook from the force and remained standing.
“Oh, I think I might feel bad about this for a few seconds.” Nate talked to his gun, bringing up a sniper rifle scope to his eye. Going for his own dead-eye shot, lining up the reticle, and exhaling on the pull of the trigger to increase his odds of hitting the butcher’s eye.
Firing six times, the first two missed, the third, fourth, fifth, all struck the mutant’s skull, causing it to fracture and explode before the hounds and pony’s eyes. As the sixth bullet was aimed lower at one of the mutant hounds, it struck the green dog in the shoulder, embedding it deep in the muscle to the pained howl.
Both robot ponies screamed, looking down the hallway where the bullets came from, they turned and bolted through side doors as the mutant hounds tore down the hallway towards Meathead and Nate.
Nate grabbed his readied sledgehammer and swung it at the first dog, immediately discarding it as the dog was flung to the side with a sickening head jarring crunch.
Meathead ran in and jumped on the second mutant hound, biting down on the injured leg and thrashing with all his strength. The hound wailed as Meathead tore the tendons and muscle, forcing a scream from the mutant hound dog before it died when the limb came free in his jaws. Spitting the clump out, Meathead licked his lips and coughed.
"Well, let's go get some new toys to play with, Meathead."
\111/
Before exiting to the rooftop, Nate paused a foot away from the latch. “Do you have doors on Equestria?”
“<Yes, we have doors in Equestria! We just don’t have them in the hive.>”
"A society without doors-"
"<Don't care! I can feel the bruising through my exoskeleton!>" Meathead wheezed. Raising one hoof, he pushed on the emergency door to the roof.
"Oh! Right! Have a Stimpak." He said, reaching one out of his kit for Meathead.
"<Mr. Lead Brick, and the other mutant that was up here definitely bled out. So we're fine.>"
Pushing out, the rusty door hinges squeaked the entire time. Nate took one step through the door and saw the two mutants from before, still lying dead on the ground, blood pooled around their bodies.
Two sets of hoof marks leading onto pipes and ventilation shafts upwards to the second level of the roof told them where they needed to go. Exiting the suit of power armor, Nate and Meathead climbed the vents, hopping up to an area that wasn’t intended to be accessed, and then saw the three forms in the center of the roof.
“Stay away!” The first pony shouted, “Go Away!” Nate put up his palms to them, sinking down onto one knee.
Two Giddyup Buttercup ponies.
“Easy. I’m here to help the Pegasus on the ground.”
“No! Stay away from our Pega-sister!” The first Giddyup Buttercup shouted.
Nate turned his head away, "...And here are those two seconds where I feel bad because the way you said Pega-sister sounded really cute.”
“You killed… You killed our protectors!” Their wide stance and low to the ground position reared for a charge.
"<Nate!>"
Jerking his head to the right, tearing his attention away from Giddyup-Buttercups numbers one and two.
"<Call the mutants rustlers. Play along.>"
"Rustlers?" Nate said the word in his mouth. "Pony rustlers."
Holding both hands up above his head towards the Giddyups, he said, "Now hold on now, you see, those green men aren't your protectors, they're pony rustlers! They stole you away so long ago, you were...all just..."
<fillies-> Meathead tossed out the word for Nate to use.
"Fillies at the time."
"Why, you were all cute...little darlings and it..." Nate shook his head. "Broke my heart to know that you were taken, but now we're here for you! But first, we need to help the Pegasus, she's hurt real bad, and we would...be ever so grateful if you let us help heal her."
The Giddyup Buttercups looked at each other.
"I don't know, what do you think, Giddy? Should we trust him?"
The second Giddyup cast a glance down to the Pegasus and frowned. Eyes widening, she tore herself away from her back towards Nate and Meathead.
"All right, Fine! But if you hurt her, I will buck you back to Saratoga Springs, partner!
"I don’t know if there's a god or a devil but, if there are, and they have all the time in the world to do things, I say, NOT TODAY SATAN!" Nate sucked in a deep breath, bellowing out the word "LIIIIIIIIIIVE!" At the top of his lungs, Nate shouted, plunging four Stim-paks down into the pegasus’ body. Her neck jerked up like she was zapped with electricity.
High-Voltage.
Screaming, her limbs flailed around, punching Nate and Meathead as she writhed on the ground. Her useless wings flapped and jerked, but the duo was quick to pin her limbs down and wait for the Stim-paks to do their thing.
A second scream from the Pegasus’ throat, tapering off into a painful yell as her eyes became lidded.
Falling backward, She turned her head away.
The pegasus went silent, Nate was finally able to see the Pegasus with chains around her hooves and a red collar reading 'NUKA-WORLD'. Her tawny oak brown feathers were dusty and caked with dirt. Black sticky hair clung to her face. On top of everything was the damage done to her wings.
Splotches of blood stained her wing, and the stim-paks showed their usefulness as the Pegasus's wing relaxed and entire body settled. Slumping over and curling inwards like a newborn that wants warmth, Nate stood and turned on the two Buttercups.
"You two." Their legs locked up and shook as they tried to emulate nervousness, "Do you want to save her?"
They tilted their heads to get a look around Nate, the cold pegasus shivering and twitching in the night.
"Is that carriage in the lobby for show or does it move?" Nate asked the sisters.
"It's real all right, mister. But it takes four ponies to move! Us two won't be able to move it by ourselves!"
Nate bit and chewed his top lip. "I can't believe that's even a function. Nevermind. I am going to put the Pegasus in the carriage downstairs, and I'll need you two to pull it. Do you have any more sisters that the rustlers took?" Nate asked.
"Yes! We can't leave our sisters!" The first Giddyup Buttercup said. Nate looked up to his right and smiled, nodding his head.
"How many sisters do you have?"
"Sixty-five thousand, seven hundred and fifty!" They both said in unison. Nate was always curious to see what information two hundred-year-old robots could call upon like not a single day passed by.
"How many are here with you and are activated? Total?"
"Six!"
"Six and a half." The second one said, covering her mouth with her forehoof. Giddyup turned to stare at her sister, almost scowling.
"She can't remember things past fifty years." The first mock-whispered, raising a hoof to cover the right side of her mouth.
"<Talk about; talking about the disabled relative behind their back>." Meathead whispered to Nate.
"Psychological debate LATER, let's get her..." Nate said, turning towards the skyscraper where Piper was stationed in. Waving, and flashing the red and blue lights off and on, he saw the faint outline of a shadow moving through the office space.
"...Anyway...I'm going to put the Pegasus in the chariot, and I want to use you to pull the chariot with your new sisters."
"<Want me to change?>."
"Yes, but not in front of them."
"Buttercups, can I hire the seven of you to be my stagecoach team?"
"Uhm...okay? Why not take her to a veterinary clinic?" The Giddyup Buttercup asked.
"Everything was destroyed by nuclear bombs, all public, private, and civil services have been discontinued as of October 23, 2077. Any service provided is offered by a non-regulatory sole proprietorship."
Both ponies frowned. "Does that mean we can't go hiking?" Their wide open, hurt puppy dog look and trembling chins made them look as if they were about to cry.
"Hiking?" Nate asked, but unsure of why the Giddyup Buttercups would even mention hiking at a time like this. "The trails still exist, but I'm not heading towards any national park anytime soon."
"That's okay! We're going to go tell our sisters about our new sister and get ready! Please be careful with her." They broke away and went around Nate and Meathead, hopping and climbing down the vents.
"<Hiking?>"
"I don't know...I think they programmed the ponies to say that to get people and kids outside."
"<Where are we taking her?>"
"The Constitution."
"<Why not take her back to Fenway Park?>"
"First off. Mc Donough. Second. Piper. Three." Holding up his wrist to hear the low volume radio playing, "Diamond City Radio. Too many people talking, too many people wanting to know about what we have...and what we have is a Nuka-World dog collar around her neck and plenty of scars..."
"<I could feel your apprehension about it, I just wanted to be clear.>"
One arm cradling the neck and head, the other under the legs and wings, the two went back downstairs to the main foyer.
"Plus, we don't want to immediately barge into Fenway Park with a bleeding mythological animal...people will probably just wonder what she tastes like."
"<Good point.>"
\111/
Nate picked up three mini-nukes around the Wilson Atomatoys building, two from dead super mutants carrying them around in their hands, while one was laying on a desk upstairs. When Piper came into the lobby, she was wearing a scarf tied over her face.
"Man, it stinks in here!" She said, looking at the impaled bodies swinging on makeshift hooks and chains suspended down from the ceiling. "What's with all the robot ponies?"
"They're Giddyup Buttercups, and they're going to be the team who drives this carriage."
"Sound a bit ambitious, how do you expect to get it out of here when the doors are blocked?"
Nate held up a mini-nuke, "With this. Help me push it back away from the wall." Nate braced himself against the carriage and Piper pulled on the wheel well, budging the Wilson Atomatoys carriage off the podium and to get it rolling to the back wall.
"Where's your friend you came here for? Is that why you want the carriage?" Piper flashed a cheesy big-grin, showing her teeth, and bringing her chin down. Raising her eyebrows, she tilted her head and nodded. "Where are they?"
Nate looked at the Giddyup Buttercups and then at Piper. "She's a pony. A dying pony. She is the exact same shape as the Giddyups, but she's been shot and badly hurt. Big eyes, very expressive face, I feel that she was treated very badly by the last humans to come in contact with her." The Giddyup Buttercups nodded.
"She looked really hurt." One Giddyup Buttercup said.
"She was bleeding." Said the second
"She still looked pretty!" The third complimented.
"And she's inside, wrapped in cloth right now." The fourth Giddyup Buttercup added.
"Can I see her?" Piper asked.
"Not yet, Piper. I don't know how she'll react to anyone, and she's not awake yet. I want to take her to a safe house, someplace where she can recover and heal without anyone disturbing her."
"Your Vault?"
"No, that's too far, and it's not in good state right now."
"What happened at your vault, Blue?"
"Piper, not right now. Ask me when we're not in a super mutant base."
"Right. Got it. Mutants from around the way always know when to spring up when they're not wanted." Piper responded. "It's been a while since I've seen a live pony though. Last one I saw was working for a caravan company, moving things East."
Meathead turned his head to look at Piper, and Nate caught Meathead's reaction. "When was that?"
"About a year ago. I'll never forget the words he said to me," Piper started.
Nate asked the follow-up question of "What did he say?"
"Get your fucking hands off me, you dirty stinking human!" Laughing it off, Piper's eyes were replaying the exact memory in front of her, before she blinked it away and looked back at Nate with half of a smile.
"That's the day I learned about Nuka-World."
Nate's mind raced with the logistics of blowing a hole in the Atomatoy's building, then getting the carriage and the ponies all the way to the U.S.S. Constitution.
" I'm going to let you wear the suit, I need to be more mobile for the next hour."
"So where is this old bird flying to?"
'We're going a few blocks past Goodneighbor, and I want you to stand on the back, so hold on."
Exiting the police power armor, Piper looked at it and then stepped in.
"Have you ever operated power armor before?"
"Twice actually. They're pretty fun, but they weren't in the best of conditions."
"Neither is this one, so hold tight."
"Why all the secrecy, Blue? What's going on?"
"Piper, I know that as a reporter, you're inquisitive and you believe people have the right to know the truth. But the truth is that there's a mythical creature in the back seat of the carriage and she's hurt. If you tell anyone about this, then I will have half the wasteland chasing me down, wondering if I've cooked and eaten her yet, the other will want her for themselves. Now, help me push cause we need to get moving."
\111/
They pushed the chariot far back away from the front windows as possible and hooked up the seven Giddyup Buttercups, plus Meathead disguised as the lead pony. Piper set the one mini-nuke down on the ground by the windows.
Standing on the second level of the lobby, Nate asked: "Clear?"
"Clear," Piper replied from below.
Nate fired, blowing out a massive hole in the side of the Wilson Atomatoys building. The Giddyup Buttercups were frightened into action, and Meathead guided their frantic energy into pulling the chariot forward, out from underneath the balcony.
Nate jumped down onto the roof of the carriage and took up the reins, pushing the team forward through the hole, and into the streets of Boston.
"Hei-ya!" Nate shouted, spurring them on. The pegasus was securely inside the carriage, while Nate sat on top, with most of his arsenal laying next to him in the driver's box on top. Piper was holding tightly onto a metal bar on the back, armed with her Sten gun and two clips of ammo.
Taking a right down Oak Street, the went east towards the theater district, squeezing past a pile of building rubble, a rusted car and truck with all the tires pulled off and stacked haphazardly into a pile.
Fifty feet before the intersection of Tremont Street and Oak, there were two four-story walls made of corrugated tin and lumber, spaced close enough together, Meathead needed to get far over to the right, and then turn hard to the left, then hard right again over another stack of tires, this one more orderly and used to funnel people down into a choke point. The carriage scraped against the sides of the choke point, but Nate didn't particularly care.
Nate looked over his shoulder at Piper, then to Meathead. She was busy looking backward back at Atomatoys HQ, with the massive hole blown out the front entrance, Nate nodded once to Meathead.
Meathead ripped a pile of tires out of his path with a jolt of telekinesis. It was at the intersection of Oak and Tremont street where a Boston School Bus was blocking the way south, and another forty-foot tin and lumber wall with tires funneling people into another chokepoint blocked the way east.
The road north through the Theater District ran all the way to the Boston Common, straight to Goodneighbor. A block before the Old State House was an overpass, an on off-ramp that leads straight to the Boston courthouse, right next to Faneuil Hall.
Taking a ninety degree turn with a eight-pony drawn carriage took some time and careful maneuvering, but the raiders from the D.B. Technical High school on the south side of the school bus could only watch with their fingers on their trigger, as Nate stood tall with the guns aimed right at them, and Piper wearing power armor holding her SMG at port arms. Nate shook his head and frowned, and the raiders observed the Giddyup Buttercups.
"OY!" Nate shouted at the first raider he saw, it was a black woman wearing a white tank top, brown pants, harness, carrying a short combat rifle and biker goggles.
"Oy!" She shouted back, leering at him.
Nate jerked his thumb towards Wilson Atomatoys Headquarters. "Toy factory," Nate said, offering up the building for them to scavenge.
The raiders felt at odds with letting Nate and Piper roll on bye, but they also saw the weapons they were carrying and the police power armor and held off.
The ponies made it around the corner and started trotting faster. Down the street, bumping over every brick, misshapen piece of cracked concrete, rock, and a dent in the ground. Nate held the reins in one hand, and rifle in the other.
Picking up speed, Nate spurned Meathead into moving as fast as he could. Warren theater passed by on his left, and then he was sure that the Orpheum Theatre was if it was still standing.
As they ran past the front entrance to the Orpheum theater, the largest group of people outside of Fenway Park were all gathered outside the doors, smoking, chatting, eating, drinking, talking, and they all saw the pony-drawn carriage with Nate driving by with Piper on the back.
There was a moment where none of the raiders outside knew what to do, or were unsure of what they were seeing.
But all of them intrinsically agreed, they wanted Nate and Piper's stuff.
"HEI-YA! YA! YA!" Nate mushed, the ponies and Meathead leading them took off even faster as the first bullets rung out to kill Nate.
Nate dropped down in front of the carriage, as he heard all the raiders run out and chase him through the Boston Common. Pulling his head up he blind fired backward to get the humans to stop chasing him. The bullets went high over their heads, and they continued to run, but plenty of them ducked their heads. Piper fired thirty rounds, the bullet casings clattering onto the street behind them as she gunned down the group of raiders chasing them.
Of the thirty bullets in the 9mm ammo clip, only ten bullets hit, and of those, only three were fatal. Reloading with one hand, she was the target of most gunfire and nearly dropped her second clip.
They were at the corner of Tremont and Boston Street when a missile whizzed right past Nate and kept on flying. One of the raiders had a missile launcher and if they were twenty feet back, the explosive would've hit the carriage.
The missile kept flying, over the Boston Common and into the Massachusetts State House. Meathead and Nate passed the start to the Freedom Trail walking tour when Super Mutants flooded out of the State House, pointing and screaming and shouting down the street towards them.
Nate reached into the locker on top of the carriage and grabbed both rifles. Firing at the group of Super Mutants, the sky was filled with bullets coming from every direction, and it made Nate worry that he was sitting at the highest point.
Using VATS to assist him with lining up the perfect shots, he unloaded seventy-two rounds into the five mutants, but only killed one and wounded another. The mutants fired at the driver on top, ignoring the Giddyup Buttercups and focusing all their rage on Nate.
Nate reached for landmines, heaving them like discus onto Park Street Station Road behind him. The old explosives didn't like being tossed so carelessly and exploded on impact, and Nate looked behind him where he saw twenty raiders with the courage to chase him, about to collide with the seven super mutants who wanted to kill everything non-mutant in sight.
Raiders shouted and hollered, like a band of Native Americans all decorated with war paint and scavenged armor.
The corner of Park Street and Tremont Street turned into an instant war zone that spread into the Boston Common. The two sides met and a third of the raiders broke off to keep chasing Nate, while two mutants kept running after him as well. They took to opposite sides of the street, running and gunning at each other, while also trying to keep up with the carriage.
Piper fired and fired, switching sides of the carriage and aiming at the super mutants next. As she leaned over beyond the edge of the carriage, she felt the bar she was holding onto suddenly give.
The weight of the power armor was too much for the decorative support beam on the frame and broke off. The weight threw her forward, and she landed on her stomach inside the power armor.
They all felt the drop in weight and Nate crawled up on top of the carriage and shouted back "GO TO GOODNEIGHBOR!"
Nate's heart pounded, the on-off ramp was a one-lane road blocked by three cars, and at the end of the ramp was the passage that leads right past Faneuil Hall, blocked by a downed billboard and a bus chopped in half by a concrete support pillar.
The ponies ground to a halt as they turned up the ramp, "Can you clear the cars!?" Nate shouted.
The changeling nodded, "<Give me a minute!>" The rusted heap of scrap metal budged slowly, grinding all the wheel wells against the concrete as the first raider turned the corner up the on-ramp. Nate laid down flat on top of the carriage, setting two more clips beside him.
Piper was on her feet, trying to make her way back to Nate as bullets pinged and dented the backside of the suit, which she knew was the more sensitive area.
Walking backward with the Sten gun hitting her side, and laser pistol out, there were plenty of targets for her to shoot at, but too many of them were aiming at her.
She retreated backward, and raiders were running up to her. They were on her in seconds, while Nate was already stopped at the first car up the ramp where the road leveled out.
Swinging her hatchet around, she was wild with the strikes but made it difficult for any raider to attack her with any sort of melee weapon. When they tried to take a shot at her with their own cobbled together weapons, she shot at them with her laser pistol. Driven backward, raiders were running past her, up the ramp and at Nate.
Firing five times, three bullets went wild, and two struck in the chest and hip. The one raider was replaced by three more coming around the bend. Firing seven more times, Nate saw the skull cap of one Raider shatter as the blood sprayed against his companions. He kept the barrage of bullets up as the second raider died and five more came running up the ramp. Nate didn't stop firing, the bang of the hammer clanging against his ears made them ring.
His throat was tight, and when he was reloading, they fired back.
A .38 bullet slammed into his shoulder, the most painful intense burning lancing agony coursed through his arm. From the angle he was at, laying flat, the bullet went from the top of his shoulder down. "AHHHG!" He screamed, clapping one hand over the wound. He fired his entire next clip and gunned down four more raiders.
The super mutants came in with sledgehammers and laser rifles, an odd but deadly combination. The raiders were now pinned between Nate and the Super Mutants and retreated up the ramp as the fighting spilled into the Boston Common and Park Street Station.
\111/
Ten feet below the street level, inside Park Street Station proper, there was a group of fifty-three men and women belonging to one of the most well-established gangs in the Commonwealth. At the moment, they were all looking up at the ceiling, wondering 'what in God's name is it this time?'
All that separated them from participating in an all-out turf war over the Boston Common was a pair of wooden doors leading up to the surface. The first raider that came running down the stairs into the Boston Metro station was hunted by two super mutants.
The super mutant reached out and throttled the raider by the neck, trying to snap the pathetic human's bones when the first Triggerman by the door strode up and put a .38 pistol to the mutant's temple and pulled the trigger four times.
Another Triggerman behind him aimed a hunting rifle at the mutant's chest, firing once and then pulling back on the bolt, he fired again.
The Triggermen wore black or brown slacks, leather shoes that needed to be polished and soles replaced every three months, button-up shirts, ties or bowties, and the optional fedora and suspenders. The Triggerman reached down and pulled the rider up off the ground. Flicking open the ammo chamber, he held his thumb over the two good bullets and dumped out the rest. The empty casings clattered to the concrete ground and he quickly shoved more bullets into the gun.
Pulling a second handgun from the back waistband, he shoved the gun into the raider's hands and nodded.
"I don't know who you are, but fuck those mutants."
\111/
The Triggermen marched out of Park Street Station in three tight rows of six. Carrying assault rifles, hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns were drawn. When they aimed at something, all barrels swung in one direction and fired. The resulting hail of bullets chewed up everything in their path, along with the rest of the area surrounding whatever they were shooting at.
The tight formation was an overwhelming force, and able to focus their might on a single enemy with deadly efficiency. The mutants were cut off from retreating back to the State House and were instead pushed towards Good Neighbor and the waiting Neighborhood Watch.
They'd been watching Nate come up the street for three minutes, a man on duty spotted him turning up Tremont Street, charging all the way down with the raiders in tow. They alerted Hancock immediately, and he was already out the front door of the Old State House by the time his guards finished the sentence.
Beckoning all the Neighborhood Watchmen he saw as he walked to the front gate of Goodneighbor, he saw the street war play out in front of him.
"WHOEVER THE FUCK IS MAKING ALL THE DAMN FUCKING NOISE, BETTER FUCK OFF WITH THE FUCKING GUNS!" Hancock shouted, looking from the raiders charging up the ramp, to the mutants who were turning the gunfight into a close brawl in the street.
Their limitless strength and endurance made them hard to take on in a fist fight. Shaking his head at the scene of chaos, he turned and shouted, "All right! Line up! Take firing positions!" The Triggermen trying to separate the raiders back away from the mutants without being drawn in so they could take their shots were hampered by Nate shooting everyone and anything that got remotely close to the on-ramp.
Hancock raised a revolutionary era sword, pulled out his own handgun and shouted, "Kill 'em all! FIRE!"
\111/
Meathead moved the second car out of the way, and Nate rolled off the top of the carriage, landing on his stomach and bleeding out of his shoulder. He groaned and saw the lights in the air whizz bye. Yellow and black spots that turned pink and grey filled his vision as he struggled to comprehend the pain and he jabbed himself with a needle full of psycho and another stim-pak.
Overhead, snow broke down on Boston for the first time that winter. The air temperature was dropping by the second and everyone felt the coldness of the chill in the air. Everyone was subtly more tense, wishing for a warm inside and a fire to stand around. Rising above the gunfire of the Neighborhood Watch, and the yells and shouts of the super mutants, and the bangs of noise from the Triggermen, or the relentless fight of Nate firing off round after round of .38 ammo from his automatic pipe rifle at the raiders storming up the ramp or caught in the middle of a turf war, there was a growing noise that took precedence over all of them.
Groaning. Growling. The ragged breath of nearly dead humans irradiated to high hell and barely conscious.
The thrall of ghouls descending on the Boston Common came from all directions.
It was a handful at first, crawling up from the sewers or bashing their way through the glass, cutting themselves, but completely oblivious to the act.
Then as the second volley of gunfire from the Neighborhood Watch drew the attention of dozens more.
They came in packs, all herded together and moving like flocks of birds drawn to noise.
"Jesus." Hancock was the first to see at the North end, thirty ghouls were shuffling along, only to break out into a run and charge down State House Ave. They came in behind the super mutants and swarmed through the park. The gunfire only picked up, as bullets were flying all over the place, which gathered the attention of even more ghouls. The cries of two hundred voices all strangled by rotting vocal cords.
Hancock threw a glance over his shoulder and shouted, "Men! Fall Back! Ghouls on the north side!" A swarm of ghouls stretching from one side of the road, from building to building, to the other was coming for them from the direction of the Mass Fusion tower. It would overwhelm them in seconds.
While not a hazard for the ghouls in the group, there was a mix of humans within the Neighborhood watch who would be torn apart by the limb and then eaten by the defunct feral ghouls
Beating a hasty retreat from the battlefield, the ghouls were like a tidal wave of locusts, crashing against everything they saw. Devouring everything they could get their hands on, others died, crushed beneath the feet of others as the torrent of ghouls moving through the streets broke in all directions, and the turf war was suddenly out to the side as all their attention was forced on the new enemy.
Ghouls followed raiders up the ramp, Nate shouted at the team of horses to stop moving and freeze. Meathead froze along with the rest of the Giddyup Buttercups. Crawling under the carriage, handfuls of raiders who were running up the ramp were pushed past and forced to keep moving. Some were tackled to the ground, and the ghouls tore into the raiders like rabid dogs.
Nate could only shudder and try to keep his blood inside of him. Putting the pressure on his shoulder, he could only wait and feel terrified at the sights of men and women being ripped apart limb from limb and partially devoured.
The feral ghouls didn't need to eat, they'd forget to swallow as they'd put the meat into their mouth, chew, but the ones without tongues couldn't push food back farther to the top of the throat, and it would fall back out of their mouth onto the ground.
"Christ," Nate said, laying on his back and staring up at the underside of the metal carriage.
He laid there in silence, afraid that a single noise except the sound of his breath would attract attention.
Ghouls ran past, bumping into the carriage, knocking over one of the ponies.
Nate inhaled and held his breath, then he exhaled.
Raiders and Triggermen huddled together, guns aimed at the door, fists banging from the other side.
Everyone huddled quietly in the dark, waiting for the ghouls to forget and wander off. In the back, a few men whispered the lyrics to 'Accent-u-ate the Positive' By Bing Cosby.
Snow melted on contact, and all Nate could think about in the silence were a few music lyrics to pass the time.
"I have a mansion but forget the price
Ain't never been there, they tell me it's nice
I live in hotels, tear out the walls
I have accountants, pay for it all.
Everybody says yeah I'm cool, he's cool.
They say I'm crazy but I have a have a good time
I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life's been good to me so far"
Nate let his head rest against the concrete road and closed his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he pressed one hand to his shoulder and winced. He could feel the bullet right in the shoulder blade. His hands came away red and he hissed through his teeth. He patted his pockets and tried to find something thin and small, only coming up with a plastic pen.
The feet of feral ghouls walked by, trudging along but steadily slowing down in the amount of volume.
Sighing, he licked the nib clean and put the pen tip to his shoulder wound and rooted around in his shoulder muscle to dig out the bullet.
\111/
Travis Lonely Miles held a cigarette that was burnt down past the filter, and burning his fingertips. He was determined in that moment to let his fingers snuff out the excess flames, but it grew too hot and he flicked it out the window instead as he listened to the song playing through the speakers.
"Ha heh ha ha!
It's all right, I've been hurt before
It's all right, you don't love me anymore
Maybe some day, I'll find a way without you. He heh ha ha!
Who am I kidding? It's Okay.
Baby, I can see, It's okay.
But will it make you happy?
Some Day, and it Wont Be Long,
You're gonna find yourself all alone."
"Oh Babe!" Travis hollered from inside his recording studio trailer at Diamond City. By far, this was the loudest his voice ever was all day, a few people could hear from outside, but the voice was muffled. Travis never realized he was shrieking the lyrics to the second verse horrifically off key, but caught up in the song, and seeing the faces of everyone in the recording studio that day as Mr. Joe Bravo sung the song much better than Travis' karaoke version, Travis felt the warm energy from the ghosts of the past fill that room and expand outwards. "Baby, I can see it's okay!"
"All right!"
"I've Been hurt before. It's all right!"
For a few notes, Travis and Joe Bravo's voice shared the same tone and pitch, to where it didn't sound like vultures squawking, and actual harmony.
Turning on the microphone and going live again, "I read a note the other day and it read, 'It's Time I Got Back to the Good Life,' and...it's like the man who wrote it...he understood..." Shaking his head, "He took the words right out of my mouth and put it to paper. Travis Lonely Miles, walking his own path for a few more miles. Here on Diamond City Radio."
Next Chapter: Ch. 28 Thunderstruck October 29th Estimated time remaining: 27 Hours, 44 Minutes Return to Story Description