I was up and moving about on Wednesday, which was probably a bad idea. I really only did it so I could trade some of the stuff I scavenged to Moira so I could afford the doctor, but still. It was early evening by the time I got out; there was a partial solar eclipse as the sun was dropping in the sky. By Moira's estimate, it should have been a total about 1,000 miles off of the Baja coast. I was never very interested in geography, or astronomy for that matter.
Doc said I should be okay, so long as I took a few days to stop walking around. My butler bot was very helpful in this capacity, fetching me cans of food and sucking moisture out of the air to make clean water for me. By this morning, I was feeling a bit antsy, so I took stock of my supplies for another raid on the Super Duper Mart. I had (at the time) a Chinese assault rifle, the silenced pistol that Burke had used to kill Simms (someone from the bar dropped it off, said Gob figured I should have it), a couple spare mags of ammo for each, a half-dozen Stimpaks, my scavenged (and thanks to Moira's expertise, recently repaired) Talon Company armor and my trusty baseball bat. All in all, I was feeling pretty good about my odds.
Boy, that was dumb.
I was wrong when I thought that the Talon Mercs killing a couple of Raider sentries would put a significant dent in their defenses. There were still two guys standing guard when I snuck up around the back of the store and hopped the fence. Fortunately, I had the silenced pistol and decent aim. It took one bullet to drop the first guy and two to drop the next before he had a chance to shout. Everything had gone so smoothly that I honestly thought I was practically done already.
I'm really an idiot sometimes, did I mention that?
There was a pair of Raiders as soon as I walked in the door, at one of the cash registers, getting... well, intimate. It was easy enough to shoot the guy before he could finish, but she saw me and screamed before I could kill her, too. So I took her out as quick as I could, pulled out my rifle, and got the hell behind some cover. Good thing, too, since apparently Raiders are twitchy little fuckers.
The counter I was hiding behind exploded with bullets sprayed mindlessly in my direction. I heard shouting, catcalls, cackling and a few sexual propositions over the sound of the gunfire. At first, I'd felt a bit bad about shooting the Raiders I had. As I heard them screaming at me, animalistic displays of pure psycopathy, I could feel my empathy for these beasts draining away. So as soon as the shooting stopped and I heard a couple of mags pop out of their guns, I popped up and started shooting back.
Before they could shoot, I took down two guys who were standing on top of aisles and were clearly not reloading. I took a bit more time in shooting t nearest Raider, who was staring at me agape as he reloaded his shitty little 10mm pistol. About then, the others caught the hint and ducked behind cover. I fired off the rest of the mag in their general directions, for good measure, and started to reload myself.
Just as I ejected the empty, one of them came running around the corner, screaming bloody murder and thrashing around with a two-by-four with a long nail jammed through it. I admit, it shocked me enough that my first reaction was to drop my gun and try to run. I put a bit of distance between us before I realized what I was doing and that I would likely be shot doing it. So I kept running, seeking new cover from the fresh bullet hell that began chasing me as I came in plainer view of the aisles I hadn't cleared. As I ran, I reached back and pulled my bat from the little sling I had fashioned for it. Once I had it in hand, I planted and spun on the Raider, turning as much momentum as I could into speed for that bat. He was clearly as surprised about this as I was about his initial appearance; he pulled up short of his board's range and took the bat full in the head. All resistance left his muscles abruptly and he collapsed in a boneless heap.
With the immediate threat taken care of, I jumped over and then ducked behind a nearby counter, cursing my stupidity. How the hell could I have dropped my rifle? I put the bat back and pulled out the pistol, grumbling at myself. I took a moment to survey my hidey-hole and was surprised to find spare ammo and grenades just sitting on a nearby counter. I thought I was dumb; these guys were just plain nuts. I decided to take their idiocy as a sign of my good fortune and hooked the grenades on the appropriate spots on my armor.
With the utmost caution, I poked my head up to try and get a feel for how many were left and where they were hiding. I'm glad I did, because I found myself staring at one crazy bitch, half-dressed in spiky armor, sneaking up with a switchblade. As soon as we had both figured out what was happening, I jumped back from the counter and pointed my gun up, firing wildly at her. She responded by leaping straight into my bullets and trying to stab me.
Gotta love lunatics.
She was dead before she landed on me, but it turns out those armor spikes aren't just for show. I got poked in a nasty way; not enough to really get to me, but enough that I started wondering whether or not the Doc had tetanus shots available. I shoved her off of me and got to my feet, gun ready. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid. I really should have kept my head down.
A couple of bullets from a little submachine gun skipped off of the curves of my leather armor, but one found its way into a weak spot in my abdomen. I dove for cover, biting my tongue until I tasted blood, just so they wouldn't hear me scream. I tore a bandage from the satchel at my waist, stuffed it into the new hole and jammed a Stimpak into my thigh, grunting as I felt the chemicals begin surging through my veins.
I'd had no idea that Stims would feel so good. The plasma was just going to keep me alive, that much was obvious, but the artificial adrenaline they put in those things makes you feel like you're run by a micro-fusion battery. I took a few slow breaths to try and bring my heartbeat under control (to little avail) and popped up again, already moving to one side. Life moved in slow motion as I brought my gun to bear. One, two, three, four went the gun and one, three, four went the bullets into their target. I frowned a little as I ran. I was sure I'd fired four times.
I kept moving, toward the back of the store; I was looking for goods and pharmaceuticals. That's where I'd keep them, as far away from the entrance as possible. As I ran, I unhooked one of the grenades , pulled the pin and threw it blindly toward the center on the far side of the aisles. I heard a few cries of alarm before the explosion and nothing after.
As I came around the corner, gun up, I saw a couple of wounded Raiders retreating. They ran into what I assumed was the bathrooms, apparently to regroup and reevaluate. I took the opportunity to dash into the back, hoping to find something else I could use. Digging around among the boxes netted me a couple of magazines for weapons I didn't have. As I was scavenging around the back room, I heard one of the Raiders speak up over an intercom somehow, announcing my presence. Not long thereafter, the front doors opened, and I spotted a couple of Raiders strolling in. I was only getting deeper into the shit.
I grew frustrated and started thrashing around when I noticed a door, probably into an office or back room or something. It was locked, but not securely; I picked it quickly and dashed in, shutting it behind me as I heard several raiders emerging from their little hidey-hole.
I moved cautiously into the backroom, looking around. The shelves were largely bare. A computer terminal sat on a low counter against one wall. And near the computer stood a tank with a Protectron in it. I couldn't believe my luck. If I could get it working, I'd be that much nearer to alive. I dashed over to the terminal, set my gun down nearby and got to work. It wasn't very difficult, it was a basic system when it was designed, before the apocalypse. I got in within a couple of minutes and started the boot-up process for the Protectron, giving it the order to kill all non-employees.
A thought occurred to me suddenly, horrifically, as I hit "Enter." I'm not an employee. I started looking around frantically, throwing things off of shelves and counters as the Protectron emerged from its metal cocoon. Just as it began to turn on me, I saw an employee's ID on one of the higher shelves nearby the terminal. I snatched it up and pinned it to my armor hastily, then turned and flashed my best grin at the Protectron.
"Starting default office protocol. ERROR. Security breach detected," it announced in its best tin-can voice. I got behind some shelving as it warned me to clear the area. It waddled out into the store at large, ready to kick the ass of anyone not wearing an employee badge. A few minutes of lasers, bullets and screaming later, I heard the Protectron's head orb explode in a wonderful cacophony of shattering glass and pressurized gases releasing.
Well, that didn't last long, I moped silently. Taking up my trusty pistol, I walked carefully into--
--pure carnage, as it turned out. The entire store was wrecked (you know, more than it was before). Half-melted lights swung from their supports on the ceiling, bodies littered the ground, the Protectron hunched in a now-worthless scrap heap; the only living creature was a Raider, suffering from an obviously mortal laser burn to his chest. Not wanting to take chances (and feeling ever slightly so merciful) I put one last bullet in him to be certain.
I took a walk around the store, investigating every nook and cranny. I was able to find a fair amount of food and non-perishables, as well as a cabinet full of pharmaceuticals (of questionable pre-war legality) and a strange little book. I took it with me when I left and read it while the Doc patched me up and I recovered. It's called Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor. It was written, apparently, by an uneducated mole rat (if I am any judge of grammar and spelling), the plot is uninteresting and the twists are laughably predictable. Still, it taught me a fair amount about the barter system and how better to play a merchant. I wonder what other gems are out there in the Wasteland.
Moira was very happy to see that her theory was vindicated. She gave me some bits of roast iguana (apparently one of the last sanitary sources of food in this hellhole) for bringing back the food. For bringing back the meds, she forked over one of her inventions, apparently some kind of automatic food sanitizer. I think I'm going to get more mileage from this than from the iguana bits.
That's all for now. I think I'm going to stay down for at least a couple of days before I try to tackle Minefield. If the name is any indicator, I think that should be a real walk through the--
Ah, you know.
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