After a few dozen meters, Paladin Miller slows her now relaxed gait to a halt.
Her eyes slowly narrow to two slits that soon become one with the furrows in her skin, stiffened by years of fatigue, sun and roughness.
She fixes her gaze on the deserted road in front of her, at the point where it disappears in a sharp turn.
Her eyes flicker nervously as she tries to focus on something.
“Hey, why did we stop?” asks Initiate Focker.
“Shut up.”
“Wha-“
“SHUT UP!” the hoarse voice thunders an answer against which the Initiate does not venture to counter.
Within seconds, a distant mirage begins to take shape.
Miller’s field of vision begins to populate.
One after another, bizarre figures, very different from each other, emerge from the road.
A humongous supermutant appears, his stiff body adorned with rattling junk. His legs carry him with heavy leaps, while his arms are holding tightly to something, as if carrying a precious treasure.
A dusty metal figure swings like a pendulum thanks to a rocket propulsion that pulls it off the ground; the torso to which three limbs are hooked rotates under a shining sphere, and three eyeballs glowing with red light stare madly in every direction.
A humanoid with a…cloak? Dead on his feet, it throws its arms forward to give itself an improbable momentum with a huge axe wielded by its bony hand, while its legs seem to beg for mercy due to the effort.
Caught off guard by that vision, unlikely even by the standards of the contaminated zone, Sarah Miller raises her eyebrows again while keeping her lips tight in a grimace: the face of someone who has no fucking idea what to think.
The Paladin and the Initiate stare at the figures, utterly bewildered, untouched by the impulse to react to potential danger.
The shouts wake them from their stupor.
“–run! Run!”
Miller’s gaze becomes serious again.
Her eyes widen for a moment.
Slinging the laser rifle with an automatic gesture, tilting her head behind the precision sight, she begins to focus first on one target then another, uncertain of what to do.
After a few moments of uncertainty, she fires a shot that passes within an arm’s length of Fred “Red Fly” Zinjan and ends up sharply piercing a demonic quill-equipped creature, fluttering two dozen meters behind the fleeing group.
“Move your ass, Focker…RUN!”
And scuffing her boots in the dust, she starts running in the direction from which they had come.
“That was a close call…” blurts out Bittercaps, shortly after his encounter with the Brotherhood of Steel “…if the eyebot were to focus on Sloth, it would have been a disaster!”
The supermutant grapples his markers and worn-out sheets of paper on which humanoid silhouettes and a grayish sphere in midair gradually begin to appear.
Sanderclive meanwhile has his back turned towards his two companions and does not utter a word.
He looks through the window, in the direction the other half of the group had headed and toward which the two soldiers had also gone, with an expression of vague concern.
Soon after, he hears the sound of a laser blast.
Instinctively he pulls out his plasma pistol and points it in the direction which the shot came from, only to see the Brotherhood reconnaissance team appear soon after.
“Whatthe–“
“Get ready to fire and let us in! Strange guys and a swarm coming in!” yelled Miller nailing down a few feet from the post office to wait for clearance.
“Wha—weird guys? There are three of them, right?”
“Well, yes, if you count the robot! Hurry up before they get here!”
“They’re with us,” Leo retorts.
“What? It’s…a trap! Damn!”
“Nn-no! I didn’t mean that! They are with us, come inside and don’t ask questions.”
Meanwhile, Initiate Focker, despite shortness of breath, continues his run without stopping at the post office. He runs off without giving a glance to his commander and the others at the windows, then quickly reaches the other end of the street and disappears from view.
“Focker! Where are you running to, you coward!”
Leo and Bittercaps watch the scene puzzled, then turn back to look at Miller.
“Come inside, it’s not a trap,” Leo Sanderclive repeats.
“Wait…did she say ‘swarm’?” says Bittercaps doubtfully.Within minutes, what was once a daily hell of bureaucracy, endless queues and ranting citizens had become a hell of blades, gunfire and feral screams.
As automatic turrets spewed lead before exploding under the obscene, sharp proboscises of huge, post-atomic-era mosquitoes, inside the building the defenders tried to survive to the best of their ability from assailants in constant, frenzied motion.
Marshall Lee, having placed the wounded dog safely under a desk, rushes to the second floor where he finds an exhausted Fred, waving his axe in the air attempting to cut in half the flies and mosquitoes circling around him.
Bittercaps swings his ripper with the same intent, while Sloth is struggling to hit one.
The combatants barely manage to exchange a shifty glance as they dodge spines capable of piercing metal.
Increasingly unnerved, Lee rips open a mosquito in two with a stroke of his sword-guitar and, filling his lungs with air, explodes into a shriek: “Suuupeeer Slooooth!!!”
All the hallway presences seem to stop for a moment: fellow humans look first at one, then at the other supermutant.
Sloth stands motionless, wide-eyed.
A mosquito meanwhile sucks blood from his shoulder.
Slowly, large veins begin to form on his musculature as his muscles swell with pure fury, “SUUUPEEER SLOOOOTH!!!” he retorts.
Grabbing and crushing the mosquito with his other arm, making it explode into a mush that smears the nearby wall, the supermutant’s huge body turns into a whirlwind of elbows and fists, a whirlwind of uncontrolled violence.
On the ground floor, Band3r looks doubtfully at the Brotherhood soldier glimpsed along the street, intent on being turned into swiss cheese from mosquito attacks.
He then focuses on the former Enclave soldier as he fires his plasma pistol from all parts of the room, without much success.
A few meters away, the eyebot instantly pulverizes a fly.
The Mr. Handy then casts a smug wink at the robot companion with one of his three eyes, though the flying sphere neither catches nor reciprocates.
It then returns to fix its gaze on one of its three mechanical arms: the arm equipped with the flamethrower.
Finally, the three eyes return again to observe the two humanoid-forms currently recorded under the “ally” status. In its brain, their status changes to “potential collateral damage”.
A wave of disturbance crosses his field of vision and thus, the robot realizes the presence of a mosquito intent on piercing his armor.
Leo Sanderclive recently began to see everything greenish, as if his reality had been thrown inside a terminal or a pip-boy.
The disgusting saliva bomb of a radioactive fly caught him right in the face while he was firing on other creatures and he now suspected severe radiation poisoning.
Suddenly, his vision turns yellow and then gradually clearer.
He feels some heat near his calf.
As his vision returns to normal, he sees the charred creatures on the floor near him and realizes he has a slightly burned calf.
Then he starts puking all over the place.
The long fight is over, just like the ghastly buzzing of nightmarish insects, and most of the survivors are intent on catching their breath or rummaging through carcasses or mush.
One last mosquito is slowly approaching a wounded dog discovered under a desk, foretasting a scrumptious dinner.
Wings snap and the insect throws its slender body at the trembling creature, but the rush is cut short as a huge green foot smashes the insect against the ground, while a large hand snatches its head away as if it were a dry twig.
Marshall Lee leans over the dog, “It’s okay, puppy.”While reaching the ground floor Bittercaps finds a Leo Sanderclive sitting against the wall, panting. With a nod, the former Enclave member brings attention to the Brotherhood soldier lying on the floor.
Miller is unconscious, and Bittercaps’ first instinct, already tested by a battle with hell bugs, is to deprive her of the laser rifle and sling it over his shoulder.
Years of dealing with wounded, maimed, or poisoned marauders were useful; he often resolved the situation as best he could, and the best he could do was to give them something so strong that they would forget both the pain and how they got it.
In this case he was looking at clear radiation poisoning…and also at the typical symptoms of a blunt object forcefully thrust in a place where it doesn’t belong.
“Oook, the good ol’ Bittercaps remedy is needed here!”
A few seconds later he returns, placing a pot of water on a table and rummaging through his travel pouches; suddenly he turns his head and we catch a glimpse of his eyes behind the gas mask clearly aiming at Band3r’s flamethrower.
“…Are you kidding!? I’m not a stove!”
Leo Sanderclive coughs out the word “Stiiiim..paaaack” before passing out.
Band3r looks at the body on the floor, then to the humans and finally points a mechanical arm to Miller: “So, is she a friend of yours?”
Once getting a bruised Leo Sanderclive back to his feet thanks to Dr. Bittercaps’ suspiciously effective remedies, the group is discussing what to do with the remaining wounded.
Band3r focuses on recording a map of the surrounding areas from a still-active terminal, after an unsuccessful approach with the eyebot.
Bittercaps also takes the opportunity to improvise some veterinary medicine on the wounded dog and by rummaging around he’s able to retrieve a stimpak for the now dying Brotherhood Paladin: the miraculous substance quickly begins its regenerative effect and the bleeding ceases entirely as the tissues recompose themselves.
The suffering face becomes more relaxed and slowly one eye opens.
In her years of service, she had not infrequently encountered bizarre situations, but this one was definitely over the top “Wha- Nnrrgh- Damn it. Where am I?!”
Her gaze slides over the figures of an eccentrically dressed “ghoulized” humanoid, a huge supermutant, and a soldier in a worn-out Enclave uniform.
“Uuuhh…right.”
“It’s over, you can rest easy,” Leo says with a sore voice.
Miller does not reply.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bittercaps arrives “Hoooooow is my beautiful patient?” and tries to put his hands on Miller’s armor. A hand blocks him.
“Don’t put your hands on me.”
“Calm down lady, don’t make any effort. We don’t mean any harm, and Dr. Bittercaps is here to take care of you! After all, just think we could have simply let you die.”
Miller’s fatigue gets the best of her and she lets the garment-covered individual check her out, but the slits in her eyes remain on the big green guy “And this… what is that…?!”
Marshall Lee begins to gurgle with anger “One who helped save your ass!”
Miller is surprised “Wait…but, why… aren’t you an idiot!?”
“And you’re a genius I see!” retorts Marshall Lee.
Bittercaps gets in the way “Easy, easy, it’s been a stressful day for everyone. And you big guy, I want to take a look at that hole behind your shoulder. I want you to look good. No, seriously. I always want you this fit.”The afternoon revolves idly around insulting pleasantries to the detriment of other shocking gang members, dredging old hostilities between Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel, identifying potential critical issues of leaving a robot with superior intelligence — and a certain level of snootiness — totally free.
Each member of the group indulges in refreshments, exploration of the abandoned buildings nearby, and recovery of energy.
The next day, the fledgling, diverse group of survivors of the wasteland is faced with a prospect that until then had not been contemplated by any of its members.
“Working for the Brotherhood of Steel?!” they exclaim in unison.
“We are short of men and there is so much to do. You seem to move well and my safe ass says I can trust you,” Miller replies impassively, “maybe you could even become professionals like me, with some valuable experience, mind you.”
Sharp, uncertain, indecipherable glances fly among those present.
The dog sits in a corner watching the scene.
“Just promise me that if you find Initiate Elvise Focker, you’ll bring him back alive for some old-school re-education.”
“I have a question,” exclaims a robotic voice, “how much alcohol do you have?”
The next morning, the group is headed to a recent Brotherhood outpost in the Northwest, the settlement of Duncan City.
Personaggi e creature principali
