Post by BoneScripts on Oct 17, 2017 3:08:27 GMT
*A small table with a journal can be seen next to the town board.*
*On the journal is a small note reading.* "Be on the lookout for anybody in an armoured vault suit"
( If you can i recommend you read this on google docs where is is properly formatted and more legible)
( docs.google.com/document/d/1tKgK9Vp3S_C7u7VmYc-NlCjSW81dtv6XXxcWn6Y5PKU/edit?usp=sharing )
The Wastes
The day is September 23rd, 2277.
"Hurry up and eat your food, dear," my mother said.
"It's not like I'm going to be late, the classroom is just two halls down and to the right." I rolled my eyes as I scraped the scraps off of my plate and into the garbage, before putting it onto the counter to be cleaned later. I started my way to the door when suddenly, out of nowhere, I got knocked to the floor by the force of about three hard cover text books hitting me in in the back of the head. Still slightly dazed from the hit, I forced myself to a kneel and turned my head to the direction of the hit. It was my sister, Cindy.
"We couldn't have you forgetting your books now, could we?" Cindy reminded, with a toothy grin on her face. She thought she was so funny, didn’t she?
"Thanks." I snapped. I stood up, grabbing the bag of books that just gave me some form of mental trauma. Right as I'm about to stand, Cindy ran by pushing me off balance, to my hands and knees once again. As I stood up uninterrupted, my mother walked in from the bedroom.
"What are you still doing here, David?" she exclaimed "You're going to be late for school!"
I got to school just before the bell with little time to spare; I headed to my desk, pulled out the chair and sat down. Next to me was my long-time friend, Jessica. We have been friends since we were about five years old.
"How was your morning?" I asked Jessica.
"It was fine, just a normal morning. You?" she responded
"Nothing new apart from getting hit in the back of the head by about twenty pounds." I joked.
"Cindy?" she asked.
"Cindy." I sighed.
The teacher finally walked in, settling the screaming that once consumed the classroom. Class was same old same old, math this, history that. What I was really excited for was my security cadet training I had after class today. While I was daydreaming, a voice blared over the vault's intercom
"All security and security cadets to the vault entrance. All security and security cadets to the vault entrance, please." it was the Overseer.
On the way to the entrance, I quickly grabbed my baton and uniform. I stared at my 10mm pistol for a while, debating whether or not I should bring it. I decided not to, since either way, it was probably just a security drill. When I arrived at the gate, the whole security team was there, all armed, and armed with pistols. In fact, I was the only one present without a gun—I was beginning to regret my decision. The Overseer stood up from his seat with two security guards following close behind him.
"We are being invaded by a group of about eight people, one is heavily armored in power armor." explained the Overseer.
All the security members start talking amongst each other trying to figure out what it could be. Could it be the U.S. Army? Could it be a private military company? No one knew for sure. While everybody else was discussing who it could be, I was thinking about the power armor. I had only ever heard stories about them and seen them in comic books—it was a giant mechanical metal suit, supposedly turning you into a walking tank that could survive anything, therefore making you stronger than any man alive. My thoughts were interrupted by the loud creaking sound of the vault door opening. Everybody trained their pistols onto the door while I unsheathed my baton...accomplishing, essentially, nothing. As I was doing so, I saw the Overseer run and hide behind one of the security guards, peering over his shoulder to see what was happening. When the vault door finally opened, it opened to reveal eight men all armed with an assortment of different guns and dressed in ruined tattered clothes. However, most noticeably there truly was a ten-foot-tall man in, if my memory served me correctly, T-45b Power Armor.
"All of you, put you guns down!" shouted the man in power armor.
"Shoot them, you fools!" snapped the Overseer.
Everybody, without hesitation, dropped their weapons, ignoring the overseer completely.
"Good. Now, who's the leader here?" questioned the armored man.
Still hiding behind the security member, the Overseer raised his hand, shaking.
"Th-th-that would be me." He stuttered.
The man in the power armor walked up to the security who was housing the overseer and motioned for him to move. Hesitantly, he did.
"You are going to give me exactly what I want, or I'm burning this place to the ground!" He exclaimed.
"...But we're already in the ground," joked one of the security members.
The man in the power armor turned slowly to meet the guard while removing his helmet. His face was grizzly, he had short brown hair, so dark it was almost black, with a beard that covered half his face to match it. His left eye was white as snow with a scar across it—it looked to be from a large mutated animal of some sort. The rest of his face was covered in a combination of what looked to be a dark black soot, blood and ash, making him ten times more intimidating then he already was. Not to mention the huge black duffle bag on his back...who knows what kind of weapon could be in there?
"So, we have a jokester here, do we?" he asked, staring the security member straight in the eyes. The guard looked shaken, though resolutely stared back.
The man in the power armor turned his head to one of the people with him and gave a slight nod. I knew what was about to happen. I wanted to say something but couldn’t, I was frozen out of fear of the man in the armor. One of the attackers took aim at the jokester and before he could even react, his knee had been shattered by a .45. The guard fell to the ground screaming in what seemed to be immeasurable pain.
"What do you want?" the Overseer spoke, clearly trying to look brave though his voice was noticeably wavering.
The man, still screaming in pain, was now being pulled away on a stretcher by other security members. The loud screaming slowly silenced as he got farther down the hall away from the situation—I wish I was that lucky.
"I need only one man to help me with a job," the man explained. "Then...I suppose you lot can live."
"Okay, I understand." claimed the Overseer, seemingly not at all concerned about whether we would return or not. "If anyone would like to volunteer, please step forward!"
While he scanned the crowd for volunteers, nobody stepped up to fill the role. The Overseer's solution to this, being the child he is, involved us standing in a circle around him as he extended his arm and span around pointing to select who would go with them. Sure enough, it landed on me. Once the finger aligned, all eyes settled on me, expectantly.
"What!?" I shouted. "I'm the youngest one here, you can't be serious!" I looked around, waiting for an adult to step up in my place as I was a child. None of them did, seeing as they were all too afraid of what was above ground that they would rather let a 17-year-old child go up there instead of them.
"Fine, you cowards. I, the child, will go." As I said this, all of the security stared at the ground ashamed, though still not stepping up for me.
"C'mon kid, let's go." insisted the man in the armor.
I walked out the vault door, hearing its loud creaking behind me. We didn’t speak at all during the trip out of the cave, mostly because there wasn't much to talk about. Surprisingly, conversation is difficult with the person who just threatened to kill you. As we were nearing the end of the trip, I saw something I had never seen before...sunlight.
"Is this what sunlight is like?" I turned to the group, asking.
"Welcome to the wasteland, kid." the leader in the armor said with a smile.
I looked around, examining the sun scorched desolate wasteland that is now America. Wrecked houses, sand and mutated animals and humans as far as the eye can see. It's kind of hard to believe that this once used to be a lush green landscape.
"Let's get moving." ordered the boss. As the rest of the gang members pushed by me to get ahead, I'm stopped by the boss. "What's your name, kid?" he asked.
"...David," I said, after a slight moment's hesitation.
"Well, David, you can call me Jack," he said. "let's get moving, we have a lot of work to do."
About three days after we'd left the vault, we arrived at a town. The sign read;
"Scrapper Town, Population: one thousand" in a very messy handwriting.
There were two sentries at the gate, and they both greeted us as we all walked in. The town itself was made from an assortment of different materials, most of which were sheet metal. Once we got into the city, we walked into a nearby alleyway and stopped. Jack explained that we were going to be raiding the supply depot in this city, before handing me a standard issue American military assault rifle and five clips of ammunition.
"You know how to use this?" he asked.
"Yes," I claimed, confidently. "Aim with the iron sights, pull trigger to shoot, adjust for recoil."
"Good enough. C'mon," said Jack
We began making our way to a large building, simply labeled "Bank". When we were about half way there, we were stopped by a random town guard. Little did he know he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life.
"Hey you guys can't be waving your guns around like that, you're scaring people. Also, you need to leave your fancy armo-" he was cut off mid-sentence by the sound of a gunshot. Oh, and his head exploding, that too. What fun.
With the sound of the gunshot ringing through the stale air, civilians fled in every which way. Sadly, they didn’t flee fast enough. The rest of the gang began sweeping the plaza with gunfire, and they showed no mercy at all. After the chaos had subsided, the once populated plaza was now empty, with the only things remaining being empty bullet casings and bodies.
"Was that really necessary?" I grimaced, unable to stop my gaze from drifting to the lifeless bodies littering the ground.
"It was, and if you want your vault to live you better start helping." threatened Jack.
"They looked at me funny!" joked one of the unnamed gang members, gleefully laughing aloud.
At the time I had never shot a gun in the direction of anyone before, and now I have innocent blood of people who never even put up a fight on my hands. The question arose in my mind. Was this all worth it? Was it right killing innocents just to save the people I knew?
We were closing in on the bank, though by the time we arrived, three of us had been shot, and probably killed, leaving only six of us left—me, Jack and four others. For most of the battle, I was using jack as a form of mobile cover, as he was essentially a walking tank and it was surprising how durable the armor was. Once we arrived in the bank, I took cover behind a stationary object. Jack stood out in the open drawing fire from the rest of us. Within the next five minutes, Jack had tossed me what looked to be a C4 explosive.
"Go plant those on the metal door blocking the supplies!" He shouted while taking heavy amounts of fire.
"I'll get filled with holes!" I shouted back through gritted teeth, while at the same time unloading a clip of ammo into a couple of guards.
"We'll cover you!" He said, right as the person taking cover next to me got shot in the head. Reassuring.
I pulled an F1 Grenade off my belt and stared at it in my hand. I didn't want to do it, but it seemed I had to. I pulled the pin from the grenade and threw it into the horde of guards, waiting for what seemed like hours to me. When it finally went off I ran, gore and blood flying everywhere as I sprinted to the door, planted the charge, armed it, and ran back as fast as possible. I gave Jack a nod, and he pulled out the detonator and set it off, killing all the guards who were even remotely close to the blast and even damaging his own power armor significantly. The remaining five of us--me, Jack, and three others--charged the remaining guards, killing them all. During the charge, two other raiders died, leaving just me, Jack, and one other. Once inside the bank vault, Jack took off his duffle bag and opened it to reveal a minigun about as big as I was.
"Holy crap!" I shouted "Isn't that a little excessive? Just a little bit?"
"Just be quiet and start filling the bags with caps and bottled water!" He shouted.
"Caps?" I asked myself. I looked around to see nothing but bottle caps from pre-war soda bottles. No money, no gold, just steel bottle caps.
"We are risking our lives for bottle caps!?" I seethed, turning on him.
"It’s the currency up here, kid! Just get loading." shouted Jack.
As we fought our way out of the bank the only other gang member got shot, leaving only Jack and I. I exchanged fire with a couple guards while Jack did most of the work, mowing them down with his minigun. Eventually they just ended up surrendering. However, this didn't stop Jack from killing them, and apparently it hadn't stopped me either. I didn’t notice until the last second that I never stopped firing when they did. Jack was growing on me; this isn't good.
Once we got out of the town, we split ways. He offered to let me join his gang as a permanent member, seeing as he was obviously lacking in that department—however, I declined. That didn’t stop him from marking it on my map in case I ended up changing my mind, though. I headed to my home, the vault. When I arrived at the vault, I tried to open the door with my ID from the terminal outside in the cave, but for some reason I was denied entry. I tried again, denied. Eventually the terminal monitor activated to reveal a face. It was the Overseer.
"David!" he exclaimed, obviously not expecting to see me again.. "You are alive." he murmured.
"Overseer, I have returned. I saved the vault but the door seems to be having an error with my ID, could you open it up for me?" I asked
" The door isn't the problem David, you have been removed from the vaults permitted access list." notified the Overseer
"What? Why?" I asked.
"...I'm sorry David, but you have been in the wasteland for too long." He stammered
"...So you're just going to kick me out? After all I did? I saved the entire vault!" I shouted, clenching my fists and gritting my teeth. Who did he think he was?!
"The wasteland has changed you, David. You're a danger to this vault and everyone in it." claimed the Overseer.
"You are a fool old man. You will regret this." I cursed while smashing the monitor and walking away.
The day is October 1st 2277
Everyone in the vault is dead.
'The Overseer was a fool for not letting me in," I grinned. "But, I guess he was right about one thing. The wasteland did change me."