8
8-Ball
Guest
[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Nov-16-00 AT 06:08AM (GMT)[p]
Thanks to all 3 people who posted suggestions for the original. Just in case you are wondering what the fuck the Enclave is doing in the story---they're still there. The rig was only their main operations base. The other rigs made their scheduled radio contact 300 years after the war and build a new capitol, making an attempt to take over the world with more than just The Project. The Chosen One simply delayed the inevitable.
(By the way, Requiem is a pretty common name for Fan Fic stories, I hugely apologize to anyone who might take this as infringement.)
REQUIEM
I heard him shout it out as he went down. Tim. He told me through his blasted headpiece to tell her. I didn't know who me meant. He did say her name, but his voice wasn't strong enough to carry it. Someone back at the base, too, I supposed. Tim was only 19. And they did it. The Enclave did it. If I didn’t get back, there would be no customary Eurasian Coalition Requiem. No one would know what he had just said to me, and Tim would at least want that to be included at his own speech during the post-battle mass.
My powered armor's interior computer reminded me that this was a danger zone and then warned me that two troopers were following about half a mile behind. Enough time, I thought. I blasted tim's glove half-off, shoved in my own finger, and pressed the "posture" button. his lifeless body moved with the armor as it stood up and stuck its chest forward. I jumped to the side and loaded my Bozar, waiting silently for the pair of troopers. They were telling a joke to one another. "How many holy women does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Nun." I lightly chuckled at its humor in simplicity. The job was getting hard, but they killed Tim.
Both troopers noticed Tim's erect suit. One kneeled down and aimed the chaingun at Tim's body from about 75 meters away. I proceeded to climb behind them and steady my aim with the Bozar. Engaging radio sequence, I murmured the joke's punchline into their sets. "Nun." Both turned around, drawing their guns.
"DIE, PIGS!" I called out as my Bozar let loose an entire clip on the two of Enclave troopers. The first went down with a tattered headpiece, the second with a spray of bullets to the torso. Their shots managed to pelt my armor.
I jumped on a ledge and climbed to the top. Glancing down at the deserted valley, I engaged my powered armor's zoom sequence. There I spotted another pair of troopers, one with a suit emblazened with the US flag. He went first. The other looked around, straight up into the bullet which smacked a hole in his headpiece and sent down the gallant trooper. I jumped and turned to spot an incoming jeep, host to a trio of troopers, firing guns at me.
Letting loose a spray of bullets, I knocked one trooper off, gradually stepping back... until I fell right off.
Falling. Straight. Down.
I didn’t really care about dying myself. At least I would go down swinging. But it was Tim I cared about. He wasn’t going to get a funeral. No requiem for the dead. Then came my two cents. How in hell did I end up here?
* * * *
Glancing at his watch, Enclave Sergeant Brimstone called out to the group.
"Prepare for drop! Vertibird reaching zone in 10! Newbies, time for you to get a taste of the action!"
Looking down at my new set of powered armor from the headpiece, I was somewhat scared. This resistance group, called "The Avengers of Liberty," was responsible for the death of two Enclave squads. However, this was accomplished not without huge losses on their part. We were attacking their last, measly stronghold. I pray to god that he will forgive me for what I did next.
The squad jumped from the 'bird and engaged parachutes quickly enough. One of my 8 squaddies, Rapidfire, went down pretty fast to AA fire. I could hear him over the radio.
"My Reactor's hit. Could you please help me out of this thing? It can't move, meaning I can't move, meaning my ventilation systems are about to go off, meaning I'm about to suffocate! Yo, some help over here, hombres?" went Rapid's enthusiastic chatter.
I rushed to help him, but sarge stopped me. Threatened me with endangering the squad if I stopped to slow them down. Regretfully turning from my dying friend, I marched on.
The 7 of us took up strategic positions at the ground. Sarge mounted a rocked launcher and let loose a rocket at the AA cannon that brought down RF. Boy was that a pretty sight. He then got down and joined us in sniping off the remaining members of the resistance. Some were wearing half-cannibalised powered armor, most wearing nothing but thin leather.
We were trained to kill. Desensitization out the ass. I hesitated to shoot until Sarge, ever my aggressor, ordered me to kill at least one or be turned over for sympathy for enemy cause. So I did. Shot the most wounded one they had. He would have lived, too, if they had won the battle, but at this point I didn't really care. They were the enemy. They would die.
Jumping up, we continued inward, taking up more sniping positions. My powered armor located a few guys inside the building with infrared scanning. They were praying. Praying. Down they went, one by one. All on the hothead BangBang's watch. We called him BB, even though BangBang was his official nickname.
Continuing in, we were only about a mile from the base when only the most squeamish guy in the squad got hit. Bobby Valdez. He was fine, too. His headpiece had just gotten blown off by sniper fire, leaving Bobby unhurt. But he wasn't pure anymore. Sarge pulled out his sidearm. Rushing up to stop him, sarge turned and blasted my front armor panel, seriously denting the armor. I was knocked back as he again turned and ended Valdez's life.
Sarge would have killed me, too, if I hadn't gotten hit by fire. I stayed low, acted dead. Didn't want sarge shooting poor little incompetent me. He didn't even pay attention. The rest of the gang kept on moving, losing a couple more members until they were out of radio range. Except they actually died, unlike me. I was bleeding badly and blacking out.
I didn't see any light at the end of any damn tunnel. I
woke up without my armor on, being studied by a group of tribals. I reached for my weapon out of shock, but could not locate it. I then tried remaining calm. Then I realized that there was nothing wrong with me. I wasn't hurting. Looking at my body, I saw that they had actually fixed me up.
I got to know the elder. Lived among them. Healed completely. I found out that these people managed to live on nothing but the land. That they didn't need to kill for survival. I realized that the radiation wasn't really effecting anything out there. I didn't want these people to die. They didn't deserve it. I left one morning---to go hunting for the tribe. We couldn't get food any other way. When I returned for the feast that night, I found most of the tribals dead, including my best friends. Damn whoever did it.
Most of those who had survived were obviously taken away. The "evil spirits” were responsible, said the last remaining tribal there. I tried to cure him, but to no avail. He died in my own hands. I put together my powered armor, again, but not before painting it.
The breastplate and back? A Magic 8-Ball. Fists? "Absolutely NOT." Under-hanging ammo pack of Bozar? "ASK AGAIN LATER!" Groove above eyes? A big 8. There were assorted designs on most of the remaining armor. The rest was jagged and cut up by rifle fire, among other things.
* * * * * *
Powered armor is really a marvel of engineering. You have about half an inch of clearance between your skin and the padded interior. You can enlarge this to one and half inches or shrink it to direct contact, letting the soft padding absorb shock. The whole thing is run by a fission reactor in the back that can run the suit and its air conditioning functions for 50 years. Comes with two replacements.
Space protected by the reactor's heavily armored core has an airproof chamber of chips and such, delicately wired to be the brain of the armor. After being wired, an asbestos-like substance was sprayed in to keep wires from smashing about.
The headpiece has plenty of functions. the eyes can zoom in, perform infrared scanning. The computer can talk, and you can even play pong on the damn thing. Military presentation is handled by the "posture" command which causes your suit to step into correct posture immediately. The radio can alternate through a variety of frequencies. The suit can raise an antenna about 5 inches above the whole shabang and connect to the old GPS satallites, but that function will be useless in about 300 years when their orbits degrade and they come crashing down.
There are also 10 gigabytes of memory in the damn thing for storage. Mine is one of the few models to be lucky enough to have this. Actually, I was friends with the tech guy there and for running a few favors, he gave me his surplus stash---9.9 extra gigabytes, plenty of optical bonuses---if Sarge found out I had infrared scanning on the thing he would have had my hide---some old prewar RPG called fault or something for when I get tired of pong, and the cat's paw computerized collection, "for when you get tired of being bored."
* * * * * *
So I set out. To go find a resistance group. I knew that the one I attacked when I was the enclave's bitch had since been destroyed, but I was ready to fight. I wanted to take back what was the world's and not let it go to a bunch of old rich folks smoking big cigars and killing innocents for power and prestige.
I had overheard some old folks talking about resistance back at my previous army base. The only real threat to The Enclave. The Eurasian Coalition. Apparently, the postwar European Commonwealth was no longer just a bunch of bickering city states. Most everything east of the Ural mountains and some west of it belonged to the Coalition.
I was going to need a vertibird.
* * * * * *
I used some of the techie's augmentations to my suit to spike a GPS satellite, nail the next trooper that used it, bombard his eyepieces with the word "FUCK" and then download his access codes. A Colonel he was. Nice.
I downloaded just about everything I could get on the Enclave. Lots of stuff about the coalition, but only 17 reports of crashed vertibirds, 16 of which had been recovered. Except the one in Redding. That's where I went next.
GPS 'lites told me that I was three miles north of the border. Heh. Took me a hell of a long time to get to Redding.
I stopped at a couple of New Mexican towns while in N.M. Met up with a nice guy, too. Juanito. He was the only one that didn’t fidget when he saw my powered armor, even after I had proven that I was human and not El Chupacabras. Juanito was a hispanic guy in his forties who talked with a strong accent but always had a lighthearted attitude.and Apparently his great-great-grandfather's car wasn't working all too well. I jumpstarted the thing with a fission reactor and a converter cable I had. The energy core of the electric car started right up.
I then proceeded north for some time until I realized that there was no source of food anywhere about. I had to turn back. My chest hurt like hell. I ended up collapsing on the way back. I then noticed a group of pills sitting in my armor. Suicide pills, apparently. Better than suffocating, I thought. I expanded the armor and pulled my arms back into the torso. I swallowed three of them---and woke up next morning. Vitamin pills, apparently.
After getting back, Juanito told me that the mobsters around town had killed his family after his protectorate “Tin Man” and that he wanted to get out. I laughed at first, but then realized that he wasn't joking. I was going to leave with him, but first wanted to teach these bastards a lesson.
* * * * * *
I stepped into the large, old-western looking building that was their headquarters. The Sheriff was playig poker with the mob boss in the back room. I could hear yelling, shouts of “cheater” and the like. The bookie jumped to the side and bowed politely, gesturing me into the room.
“So, Mr. Sheriff, I understand it will be some time before this deal need be broken. May our power be divided until it need be contested who is the ruler of this town.” Spoke the obese boss.
“Yes, Senor Rodriguez. Infact, I pro-what the FUCK?” shouted the sheriff at my entrance.
“Fucking liar! Eat shit!” The boss pulled out a mauser and blasted the sheriff’s head straight through. His hand dropped and revealed what he was holding. Dead man’s hand. Funny. Would have won, too.
The boss aimed the gun at me as he ordered his goons to fire at ‘el chupacabras.’ I steadied my bozar and proceded to fill the room with a veritable smorgasbord of dead bodies. The shots his goons fired dented my right chestplate, placed a scar in my left shoulderpiece, and bounced off the articulated headpiece, almost getting me in the eye.
I picked up the chips and cashed them in with the bookie. Stored the shit inside my armor.
* * * * * *
Juanito still needed to get out of the town, having nothing left. The people would live without a couple of corrupt mobsters ruling everything. I hoped.
We drove across the next few states, raiding gas stations and living on a diet of 300-year-old doritos. Delectable. I called him Juan from then on, and he me with “Chalupa.” Kind of like chupacabras. But not. Heh.
When I finally did get to Redding with Juan, we were rather content with ourselves to spend the next few days there before investigating the vertibird. We teamed up with a 24-year-old, hotheaded guy whose ancestors were tourists from Mozambique stuck in the US during the war. Called himself Kokoweef, seeing as he was the mine's favorite miner. He still wanted to leave, though. We called him Coco.
I stepped through the passage to the crashed ‘bird site. The thing was a charred wreck---so much for our hopes of repairing the thing. A suit of powered armor lay in front of it. As I approached the heap, my geiger counter started clicking fast as hell. I told the other two to wait while I closed in. Stepping next to the suit, I opened its headpiece. A skull, preserved for at least 50 years. Then I heard the screech.
“SCREEEECH! Yes, sir, a Mr. Handy bot, sir!---replaying footage----SCWAAAAACK! ‘Eh, Chosen Ja, you no be closin’ in on that evil spirit. I and I be certainly in trouble when it approaches, Ja. You best be watchin’.’ ‘it’s okay, Sulik, I’ll be-shit, my suit! Die, handy!’” Uttered the bot as I looked up into its pneumatic drill.
I rolled to the side, cusioning my fall with a sound slap to the ground. Jumping up, I aimed at one of the legs with the Bozar and blasted it off.
I proceeded to fix the thing and order it to get the suit working and attempt to salvage any other armor within the ship. Well, it turned out the reactor core for the first suit had been left running with a tear in it, thus killing the life of it about 60 years ago. My spares wouldn’t do a thing for it. Once the ‘bot got inside with a fixed leg, though, it accidentally tripped the distress beacon. Now the Enclave knew that there was life at what was once the city of redding.
Next thing I did was get Mr. Handy to reconfigure the beacon and target it at Paris, France. I knew that most of Europe was left unscathed for the duration of the 16 minutes that ended the world, and none of France’s major cities were hit. I crammed a message in, too. ‘Please help. Want to join EC, have lots info on Enclave. Come to coordinates.’
The Enclave was still coming. I told Juan and Coco to go back, but to no avail. I handed them my suit’s two sidearms and we all took cover in the trees surrounding the ‘bird. I grabbed the semi-sentient conscience of the Handy and shoved it in another section of my suit, then rigged its body to explode on my command via radio signal. Placing his body in the wreckage of the ‘bird, I ran into the trenches with Juan and Coco.
After about three hours, we finally heard it. The thing sprayed a couple rockets at the ground to clear some trees for a landing spot. Lucky they didn’t hit us. Using my InfraScan, I zoomed in on the troopers. A six-man squad. Apparently, rebel lingo for that was six-pack joe.
They slowly walked towards the ‘bird, but they weren’t close enough. In about five minutes, one of them jumped forward and engaged his widespread InfraScan. All three of us ducked low and were undetected. The squad disengaged their military stances and casually examined the ‘bird. I engaged my radio.
A decapitated headpiece flew past me and smashed into the ground. Two troopers survived, one with a detached hand and the other a blasted breastplate. They identified the source of the radio signal and started firing. Coco jumped out and started shooting. He blew off the handless one’s arm and sent him smashing into the ground, shortly before being taken down by bozar fire.
I aimed at the last one’s head. He was bending forward with laughter. Using enclave transfer codes, I whispered into his headpiece. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
He ducked and launched a grenade from his hybrid weapon at our location. It charred my left leggings, but didn’t hurt Juan on my right. Coco was gone. I countered this with knocking the weapon out of his hand through the use of my bozar. It hit the grenade chamber and blew off his arm, shortly before he was pelted by fire at his breasplate, his headpiece knocked out, blood seeping out of the suit. I got up and walked over to him. The guy was still alive.
“Who…. Are you?” he rasped. I didn’t respond, instead started stripping him of armor to get a look at his wounds. I used some leaves and medicinal techniques learned from the tribals to cover up his stump and got Juan to help pull the bullets out of the front of his skin. They weren’t wedged in very deeply. He would live, and to fight if the Euros had cybernetic limbs at their technological disposal. I told him about the evils of the enclave, and forgave him for killing Coco. I only hoped the parents of the soldier I killed during my first battle in the service of the Enclave could be so forgiving.
It didn’t seem as long, but I was later informed that the EC ‘bird arrived 15 hours later. We had to kneel down without headpieces with our hands up right before they came so that they wouldn’t pick us off thinking it was a trap or shoot us thinking that we were emptysuit dummies. The smaller size of their ‘bird allowed them to land without blowing up any trees. An 8-Man squad still fit into the thing. As they approached, we got up and lifted our guns. We explained our stances. The dead guys were troopers, the hurt guy with little in the way of clothing was a defector, I was a 6-year defector, and Juan was a Mexican guy from a small town in NM.
“Now, look. It’s always great to have you, even with the two gigs of info you have on the Enclave, but you are one sloppy son of a bitch. Look at this!” his british accent was very strong, and I barely resisted laughing at the feel of it and his horrendous lisp. He continued, “The Eurasian Coalition is in bad enough shape as it is. These suits could have outfitted a new squad. We have about 23 on our list. Let’s see… defector? You can’t join SpecOps without 5 confirmed kills. Juanito? Well, we have an opening for tech back at our base, you can---”
Juanito interrupted. “I’d love to, but that would mean losing my car. I don’t think it will fit in your vertibird. I also need to tell Coco’s parents. Besides, this is a great place. I’ll be fine. I can use the old radio from the station they ran here to possibly contact you some time later, from Paris or somewheres. Here, I’ll use this headpiece. It works, so does that one---contact me on ranges 10479Y to 10473Y, standard Enclave channel. I’ll rig them to work. Goodbye, Chalupa. Hope we meet again.”
So I said my goodbyes and boarded the transport. I was now a trooper of the Eurasian Coalition.
Thanks to all 3 people who posted suggestions for the original. Just in case you are wondering what the fuck the Enclave is doing in the story---they're still there. The rig was only their main operations base. The other rigs made their scheduled radio contact 300 years after the war and build a new capitol, making an attempt to take over the world with more than just The Project. The Chosen One simply delayed the inevitable.
(By the way, Requiem is a pretty common name for Fan Fic stories, I hugely apologize to anyone who might take this as infringement.)
REQUIEM
I heard him shout it out as he went down. Tim. He told me through his blasted headpiece to tell her. I didn't know who me meant. He did say her name, but his voice wasn't strong enough to carry it. Someone back at the base, too, I supposed. Tim was only 19. And they did it. The Enclave did it. If I didn’t get back, there would be no customary Eurasian Coalition Requiem. No one would know what he had just said to me, and Tim would at least want that to be included at his own speech during the post-battle mass.
My powered armor's interior computer reminded me that this was a danger zone and then warned me that two troopers were following about half a mile behind. Enough time, I thought. I blasted tim's glove half-off, shoved in my own finger, and pressed the "posture" button. his lifeless body moved with the armor as it stood up and stuck its chest forward. I jumped to the side and loaded my Bozar, waiting silently for the pair of troopers. They were telling a joke to one another. "How many holy women does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Nun." I lightly chuckled at its humor in simplicity. The job was getting hard, but they killed Tim.
Both troopers noticed Tim's erect suit. One kneeled down and aimed the chaingun at Tim's body from about 75 meters away. I proceeded to climb behind them and steady my aim with the Bozar. Engaging radio sequence, I murmured the joke's punchline into their sets. "Nun." Both turned around, drawing their guns.
"DIE, PIGS!" I called out as my Bozar let loose an entire clip on the two of Enclave troopers. The first went down with a tattered headpiece, the second with a spray of bullets to the torso. Their shots managed to pelt my armor.
I jumped on a ledge and climbed to the top. Glancing down at the deserted valley, I engaged my powered armor's zoom sequence. There I spotted another pair of troopers, one with a suit emblazened with the US flag. He went first. The other looked around, straight up into the bullet which smacked a hole in his headpiece and sent down the gallant trooper. I jumped and turned to spot an incoming jeep, host to a trio of troopers, firing guns at me.
Letting loose a spray of bullets, I knocked one trooper off, gradually stepping back... until I fell right off.
Falling. Straight. Down.
I didn’t really care about dying myself. At least I would go down swinging. But it was Tim I cared about. He wasn’t going to get a funeral. No requiem for the dead. Then came my two cents. How in hell did I end up here?
* * * *
Glancing at his watch, Enclave Sergeant Brimstone called out to the group.
"Prepare for drop! Vertibird reaching zone in 10! Newbies, time for you to get a taste of the action!"
Looking down at my new set of powered armor from the headpiece, I was somewhat scared. This resistance group, called "The Avengers of Liberty," was responsible for the death of two Enclave squads. However, this was accomplished not without huge losses on their part. We were attacking their last, measly stronghold. I pray to god that he will forgive me for what I did next.
The squad jumped from the 'bird and engaged parachutes quickly enough. One of my 8 squaddies, Rapidfire, went down pretty fast to AA fire. I could hear him over the radio.
"My Reactor's hit. Could you please help me out of this thing? It can't move, meaning I can't move, meaning my ventilation systems are about to go off, meaning I'm about to suffocate! Yo, some help over here, hombres?" went Rapid's enthusiastic chatter.
I rushed to help him, but sarge stopped me. Threatened me with endangering the squad if I stopped to slow them down. Regretfully turning from my dying friend, I marched on.
The 7 of us took up strategic positions at the ground. Sarge mounted a rocked launcher and let loose a rocket at the AA cannon that brought down RF. Boy was that a pretty sight. He then got down and joined us in sniping off the remaining members of the resistance. Some were wearing half-cannibalised powered armor, most wearing nothing but thin leather.
We were trained to kill. Desensitization out the ass. I hesitated to shoot until Sarge, ever my aggressor, ordered me to kill at least one or be turned over for sympathy for enemy cause. So I did. Shot the most wounded one they had. He would have lived, too, if they had won the battle, but at this point I didn't really care. They were the enemy. They would die.
Jumping up, we continued inward, taking up more sniping positions. My powered armor located a few guys inside the building with infrared scanning. They were praying. Praying. Down they went, one by one. All on the hothead BangBang's watch. We called him BB, even though BangBang was his official nickname.
Continuing in, we were only about a mile from the base when only the most squeamish guy in the squad got hit. Bobby Valdez. He was fine, too. His headpiece had just gotten blown off by sniper fire, leaving Bobby unhurt. But he wasn't pure anymore. Sarge pulled out his sidearm. Rushing up to stop him, sarge turned and blasted my front armor panel, seriously denting the armor. I was knocked back as he again turned and ended Valdez's life.
Sarge would have killed me, too, if I hadn't gotten hit by fire. I stayed low, acted dead. Didn't want sarge shooting poor little incompetent me. He didn't even pay attention. The rest of the gang kept on moving, losing a couple more members until they were out of radio range. Except they actually died, unlike me. I was bleeding badly and blacking out.
I didn't see any light at the end of any damn tunnel. I
woke up without my armor on, being studied by a group of tribals. I reached for my weapon out of shock, but could not locate it. I then tried remaining calm. Then I realized that there was nothing wrong with me. I wasn't hurting. Looking at my body, I saw that they had actually fixed me up.
I got to know the elder. Lived among them. Healed completely. I found out that these people managed to live on nothing but the land. That they didn't need to kill for survival. I realized that the radiation wasn't really effecting anything out there. I didn't want these people to die. They didn't deserve it. I left one morning---to go hunting for the tribe. We couldn't get food any other way. When I returned for the feast that night, I found most of the tribals dead, including my best friends. Damn whoever did it.
Most of those who had survived were obviously taken away. The "evil spirits” were responsible, said the last remaining tribal there. I tried to cure him, but to no avail. He died in my own hands. I put together my powered armor, again, but not before painting it.
The breastplate and back? A Magic 8-Ball. Fists? "Absolutely NOT." Under-hanging ammo pack of Bozar? "ASK AGAIN LATER!" Groove above eyes? A big 8. There were assorted designs on most of the remaining armor. The rest was jagged and cut up by rifle fire, among other things.
* * * * * *
Powered armor is really a marvel of engineering. You have about half an inch of clearance between your skin and the padded interior. You can enlarge this to one and half inches or shrink it to direct contact, letting the soft padding absorb shock. The whole thing is run by a fission reactor in the back that can run the suit and its air conditioning functions for 50 years. Comes with two replacements.
Space protected by the reactor's heavily armored core has an airproof chamber of chips and such, delicately wired to be the brain of the armor. After being wired, an asbestos-like substance was sprayed in to keep wires from smashing about.
The headpiece has plenty of functions. the eyes can zoom in, perform infrared scanning. The computer can talk, and you can even play pong on the damn thing. Military presentation is handled by the "posture" command which causes your suit to step into correct posture immediately. The radio can alternate through a variety of frequencies. The suit can raise an antenna about 5 inches above the whole shabang and connect to the old GPS satallites, but that function will be useless in about 300 years when their orbits degrade and they come crashing down.
There are also 10 gigabytes of memory in the damn thing for storage. Mine is one of the few models to be lucky enough to have this. Actually, I was friends with the tech guy there and for running a few favors, he gave me his surplus stash---9.9 extra gigabytes, plenty of optical bonuses---if Sarge found out I had infrared scanning on the thing he would have had my hide---some old prewar RPG called fault or something for when I get tired of pong, and the cat's paw computerized collection, "for when you get tired of being bored."
* * * * * *
So I set out. To go find a resistance group. I knew that the one I attacked when I was the enclave's bitch had since been destroyed, but I was ready to fight. I wanted to take back what was the world's and not let it go to a bunch of old rich folks smoking big cigars and killing innocents for power and prestige.
I had overheard some old folks talking about resistance back at my previous army base. The only real threat to The Enclave. The Eurasian Coalition. Apparently, the postwar European Commonwealth was no longer just a bunch of bickering city states. Most everything east of the Ural mountains and some west of it belonged to the Coalition.
I was going to need a vertibird.
* * * * * *
I used some of the techie's augmentations to my suit to spike a GPS satellite, nail the next trooper that used it, bombard his eyepieces with the word "FUCK" and then download his access codes. A Colonel he was. Nice.
I downloaded just about everything I could get on the Enclave. Lots of stuff about the coalition, but only 17 reports of crashed vertibirds, 16 of which had been recovered. Except the one in Redding. That's where I went next.
GPS 'lites told me that I was three miles north of the border. Heh. Took me a hell of a long time to get to Redding.
I stopped at a couple of New Mexican towns while in N.M. Met up with a nice guy, too. Juanito. He was the only one that didn’t fidget when he saw my powered armor, even after I had proven that I was human and not El Chupacabras. Juanito was a hispanic guy in his forties who talked with a strong accent but always had a lighthearted attitude.and Apparently his great-great-grandfather's car wasn't working all too well. I jumpstarted the thing with a fission reactor and a converter cable I had. The energy core of the electric car started right up.
I then proceeded north for some time until I realized that there was no source of food anywhere about. I had to turn back. My chest hurt like hell. I ended up collapsing on the way back. I then noticed a group of pills sitting in my armor. Suicide pills, apparently. Better than suffocating, I thought. I expanded the armor and pulled my arms back into the torso. I swallowed three of them---and woke up next morning. Vitamin pills, apparently.
After getting back, Juanito told me that the mobsters around town had killed his family after his protectorate “Tin Man” and that he wanted to get out. I laughed at first, but then realized that he wasn't joking. I was going to leave with him, but first wanted to teach these bastards a lesson.
* * * * * *
I stepped into the large, old-western looking building that was their headquarters. The Sheriff was playig poker with the mob boss in the back room. I could hear yelling, shouts of “cheater” and the like. The bookie jumped to the side and bowed politely, gesturing me into the room.
“So, Mr. Sheriff, I understand it will be some time before this deal need be broken. May our power be divided until it need be contested who is the ruler of this town.” Spoke the obese boss.
“Yes, Senor Rodriguez. Infact, I pro-what the FUCK?” shouted the sheriff at my entrance.
“Fucking liar! Eat shit!” The boss pulled out a mauser and blasted the sheriff’s head straight through. His hand dropped and revealed what he was holding. Dead man’s hand. Funny. Would have won, too.
The boss aimed the gun at me as he ordered his goons to fire at ‘el chupacabras.’ I steadied my bozar and proceded to fill the room with a veritable smorgasbord of dead bodies. The shots his goons fired dented my right chestplate, placed a scar in my left shoulderpiece, and bounced off the articulated headpiece, almost getting me in the eye.
I picked up the chips and cashed them in with the bookie. Stored the shit inside my armor.
* * * * * *
Juanito still needed to get out of the town, having nothing left. The people would live without a couple of corrupt mobsters ruling everything. I hoped.
We drove across the next few states, raiding gas stations and living on a diet of 300-year-old doritos. Delectable. I called him Juan from then on, and he me with “Chalupa.” Kind of like chupacabras. But not. Heh.
When I finally did get to Redding with Juan, we were rather content with ourselves to spend the next few days there before investigating the vertibird. We teamed up with a 24-year-old, hotheaded guy whose ancestors were tourists from Mozambique stuck in the US during the war. Called himself Kokoweef, seeing as he was the mine's favorite miner. He still wanted to leave, though. We called him Coco.
I stepped through the passage to the crashed ‘bird site. The thing was a charred wreck---so much for our hopes of repairing the thing. A suit of powered armor lay in front of it. As I approached the heap, my geiger counter started clicking fast as hell. I told the other two to wait while I closed in. Stepping next to the suit, I opened its headpiece. A skull, preserved for at least 50 years. Then I heard the screech.
“SCREEEECH! Yes, sir, a Mr. Handy bot, sir!---replaying footage----SCWAAAAACK! ‘Eh, Chosen Ja, you no be closin’ in on that evil spirit. I and I be certainly in trouble when it approaches, Ja. You best be watchin’.’ ‘it’s okay, Sulik, I’ll be-shit, my suit! Die, handy!’” Uttered the bot as I looked up into its pneumatic drill.
I rolled to the side, cusioning my fall with a sound slap to the ground. Jumping up, I aimed at one of the legs with the Bozar and blasted it off.
I proceeded to fix the thing and order it to get the suit working and attempt to salvage any other armor within the ship. Well, it turned out the reactor core for the first suit had been left running with a tear in it, thus killing the life of it about 60 years ago. My spares wouldn’t do a thing for it. Once the ‘bot got inside with a fixed leg, though, it accidentally tripped the distress beacon. Now the Enclave knew that there was life at what was once the city of redding.
Next thing I did was get Mr. Handy to reconfigure the beacon and target it at Paris, France. I knew that most of Europe was left unscathed for the duration of the 16 minutes that ended the world, and none of France’s major cities were hit. I crammed a message in, too. ‘Please help. Want to join EC, have lots info on Enclave. Come to coordinates.’
The Enclave was still coming. I told Juan and Coco to go back, but to no avail. I handed them my suit’s two sidearms and we all took cover in the trees surrounding the ‘bird. I grabbed the semi-sentient conscience of the Handy and shoved it in another section of my suit, then rigged its body to explode on my command via radio signal. Placing his body in the wreckage of the ‘bird, I ran into the trenches with Juan and Coco.
After about three hours, we finally heard it. The thing sprayed a couple rockets at the ground to clear some trees for a landing spot. Lucky they didn’t hit us. Using my InfraScan, I zoomed in on the troopers. A six-man squad. Apparently, rebel lingo for that was six-pack joe.
They slowly walked towards the ‘bird, but they weren’t close enough. In about five minutes, one of them jumped forward and engaged his widespread InfraScan. All three of us ducked low and were undetected. The squad disengaged their military stances and casually examined the ‘bird. I engaged my radio.
A decapitated headpiece flew past me and smashed into the ground. Two troopers survived, one with a detached hand and the other a blasted breastplate. They identified the source of the radio signal and started firing. Coco jumped out and started shooting. He blew off the handless one’s arm and sent him smashing into the ground, shortly before being taken down by bozar fire.
I aimed at the last one’s head. He was bending forward with laughter. Using enclave transfer codes, I whispered into his headpiece. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
He ducked and launched a grenade from his hybrid weapon at our location. It charred my left leggings, but didn’t hurt Juan on my right. Coco was gone. I countered this with knocking the weapon out of his hand through the use of my bozar. It hit the grenade chamber and blew off his arm, shortly before he was pelted by fire at his breasplate, his headpiece knocked out, blood seeping out of the suit. I got up and walked over to him. The guy was still alive.
“Who…. Are you?” he rasped. I didn’t respond, instead started stripping him of armor to get a look at his wounds. I used some leaves and medicinal techniques learned from the tribals to cover up his stump and got Juan to help pull the bullets out of the front of his skin. They weren’t wedged in very deeply. He would live, and to fight if the Euros had cybernetic limbs at their technological disposal. I told him about the evils of the enclave, and forgave him for killing Coco. I only hoped the parents of the soldier I killed during my first battle in the service of the Enclave could be so forgiving.
It didn’t seem as long, but I was later informed that the EC ‘bird arrived 15 hours later. We had to kneel down without headpieces with our hands up right before they came so that they wouldn’t pick us off thinking it was a trap or shoot us thinking that we were emptysuit dummies. The smaller size of their ‘bird allowed them to land without blowing up any trees. An 8-Man squad still fit into the thing. As they approached, we got up and lifted our guns. We explained our stances. The dead guys were troopers, the hurt guy with little in the way of clothing was a defector, I was a 6-year defector, and Juan was a Mexican guy from a small town in NM.
“Now, look. It’s always great to have you, even with the two gigs of info you have on the Enclave, but you are one sloppy son of a bitch. Look at this!” his british accent was very strong, and I barely resisted laughing at the feel of it and his horrendous lisp. He continued, “The Eurasian Coalition is in bad enough shape as it is. These suits could have outfitted a new squad. We have about 23 on our list. Let’s see… defector? You can’t join SpecOps without 5 confirmed kills. Juanito? Well, we have an opening for tech back at our base, you can---”
Juanito interrupted. “I’d love to, but that would mean losing my car. I don’t think it will fit in your vertibird. I also need to tell Coco’s parents. Besides, this is a great place. I’ll be fine. I can use the old radio from the station they ran here to possibly contact you some time later, from Paris or somewheres. Here, I’ll use this headpiece. It works, so does that one---contact me on ranges 10479Y to 10473Y, standard Enclave channel. I’ll rig them to work. Goodbye, Chalupa. Hope we meet again.”
So I said my goodbyes and boarded the transport. I was now a trooper of the Eurasian Coalition.
