Chapter 88: All Fired Up

Chapter 88: All Fired Up

Tik-ik. Tik.

"Oh. So, it's gonna be one of those days, is it?"

We hadn't even gotten in sight of Vault 34's entrance, and already the Geiger counter was clicking away. I took off my helmet and looked behind me; everyone was kitted out and looked ready to fight. Boone was wearing the helmet to go along with his Desert Ranger armor, but that was no surprise. What was surprising was that even Cass was wearing the helmet that went with her armor. Both Arcade and Veronica were wearing air filters and goggles.

As I reached into my duster for some Rad-X, Raul came down from the ridge. He was dressed in the Vaquero outfit - since he didn't need anything else to protect him from the rads - but had left his sombrero back on the motorcycle. Apparently, it had been a bit much, trying to maneuver the huge hat in the narrow hallways of Vault 11, and he didn't want to bother with it in any more tight corridors.

"Bueno, malo tiempo de noticias. Good news, bad news, Boss." I popped the pills in my mouth, and tossed the bottle behind me to Boone. I sighed, and put my helmet back on.

"Alright, lets hear it," I said, as soon as I locked the helmet in place. "Good news first."

"Well, I think I've found the entrance." Raul said proudly. Behind me, I could hear Cass mutter something like "Damnit, I just got comfortable in this fucking helmet..." It was obviously her turn to take the Rad-X.

"And the bad news?" I heard Veronica ask from behind me.

"Well..." Raul grimaced, and the unpleasant look was only exaggerated by his lack of skin. "We may have a little trouble getting there..." He motioned for us follow as he headed back up to the top of the ridge.

"Damn," Cass let out a whistle. "That's a lot of ghouls..."

She wasn't kidding. It was like a convention down there, they were so thick. It almost reminded me of the mass of Ghost People I saw after setting off the fireworks in the Sierra Madre. Most of them were wearing scraps of clothes, and even from this distance I could make out the blue and gold of torn Vault jumpsuits hanging loosely off their emaciated and skinless frames.

"So, how're we gonna handle this, Boss?" Raul asked, already loading one of his shotguns. He obviously had suspicions as to how I was going to handle it.

"We could always try sneaking past them?" Arcade offered up. That might work: I thought back to the Sierra Madre, about how Christine and I had gotten past some Ghost People when I'd thrown a grenade in the other direction as a distraction.

I glanced to my right, at Veronica and Cass. Even with both of their faces obscured by respirators and combat helmets, I could tell... both of them were itching to fight. Cass especially: she was holding her AA-12 like she wanted to club somebody with it, rather than shoot them. And who could blame them? All that pent up stress... Hell, I know I was feeling a mite tense after the last few days.

"You know what? Fuck it," I pulled back the charging handle on the G36, and took aim at the mass of ferals below us. "Sneaking is gonna be too complicated. Let's just start here, and kill every motherfucker between us and the door."

"Hell yeah!" Cass said, charging her AA-12. "Now you're speakin' my language!"

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. After all the madness of the last few days with giant mutant plants, zombie fungus ambushes, a Vault with a history that made me want to vomit, and the mountains of drama and headache that came from dealing with Cass and Veronica, it was nice to finally let off some steam.

Of course, "letting off steam" in this case involved a lot of gunfire, blood, explosions, and a pile of dead ghouls. I wonder what that says about me?

"We all good?" I asked as soon as the last feral went down. Wait, no - what was that military phrase that Boone said I should say in this kind of situation? I tried to think... "Sound off, people!"

"Clear," Boone practically whispered, speaking through the radio in my helmet; he was still up at his perch on the top of the ridge.

"No contacts," Arcade lowered his plasma rifle.

"We're good," Cass chimed in with a thumbs up.

"... uhhn, yeah. Good to go over here," Veronica eventually grunted, after pulling Oh, Baby! out of the ground. Apparently, she'd hit the last feral so hard, the super-sledge had buried itself several inches into the rock beneath her feet.

I looked around, trying to find Raul. He was the only one left, and the only sound filling the uncomfortable silence was the steady tik-tik-ik-tik of my Pip Boy's Geiger Counter.

"Well Boss - ugh - you were right," Raul eventually spoke up, shoving a few dead feral corpses off him. "These ghouls don't seem to like me very much." I rushed over to try and help him up, and it took me a few seconds to register that the entire left side of his face had been slashed to hell. It almost looked like he'd head-butted a belt sander.

"Oh, shit! That - are you okay, man?" I finally spluttered out, helping Raul back on his feet. "Do you need any stimpacks, or... uh..." I trailed off; Raul just waved and shook his head.

"No te preocupes, Boss," Raul flexed his jaw, and rolled his eyes around in his head a couple of times. "Ghouls are healed by radiation, remember? I should be alright in a few minutes..." Sure enough, it looked like a few of a the shallower gashes on his face were starting to mend... at least, as far as wounds on someone without skin can mend, at any rate.

Raul dusted the last of the feral bits off his outfit, picked his shotgun and one of his revolvers up off the ground, and walked away, stepping over a pair of dead ferals in his path.

"Well?" He asked, turning to me with a cracked smirk. "Are we going down there, or what?"

This Vault was an absolute pisshole.

Since stepping through the broken, wide-open Vault door, I hadn't seen a single piece of metal down here that wasn't covered in rust or corroded and all full of holes. Half the time we tried going down corridors, they were blocked off by debris, or were collapsed entirely. Wires and metal were hanging out of the broken ceiling panels, the floors were covered in trash, half-eaten body parts, or radioactive goo that made my Geiger counter spike, and every pane of glass was shattered. Hell, only about half the lights were even working.

And you know what? None of that mattered. I was having a blast. The steady stream of feral ghouls coming at us as we pushed deeper and deeper into the Vault provided a constant hit of adrenaline to my system that wouldn't go away. Not even the sound of the screeching ghouls - echoing off every surface and melting together into a deep, dull roar - could ruin my mood. Fighting them was simple, it was straightforward, it was uncomplicated, and it wasamazing.

"How much further?" Arcade asked as we turned a corner; I heard a burst of plasma fire from behind me. "I'm running low on power cells..."

"You knew we were gonna be fighting today, compaero," Raul fired one of his revolvers down a hallway to the right. "You should've brought more."

"I'm with Arcade on this one," Cass asked, seconds before everything was drowned out by the boom from her AA-12. "How much further till we can turn around and get out've here?"

"I dunno," Veronica shrugged. "I keep seeing signs pointing to the armory, but they keep pointing at collapsed tunnels."

"Aw, fuck!" Cass shouted. "We're gonna be down here for HOURS!"

"How much Rad-X do we have?" Arcade asked, firing his plasma rifle down a nearby corridor. "If we're down here too much longer, we're definitely going to need more."

"Speak for yourself," Raul said with a grim chuckle. "I'm sure I'll be fine long after all of you succumb to radiation sickness."

"Seriously man," I kept pace a few feet behind him. "Are you sure you're going to be okay? I mean... glowing isn't healthy. At least, I don't think it's healthy. Arcade, back me up on this. Glowing isn't healthy, right?"

"It's fascinating, is what it is!" Arcade said with enthusiasm - but still behind me. "I had no idea the bio-luminescence of glowing ones was communicable! Has this ever happened before? If you're still glowing when we get back to the Lucky 38, can I run some tests on your-" Mercifully, Arcade was cut off before he could get too far.

"Seriously. Locos. I'm fine. Just absorbed a few too many rads all at once, it'll wear off soon." Raul shook his head and sighed. "Deja de preocuparte."

"I'm with Raul on this one," Cass chimed in. "He doesn't look any worse for wear than Jason Bright. Remember him?"

"I remember he wanted to go into space," and constantly spouted off illogical religious nonsense like the inside of his brain was rotten, I decided not to say.

"Forget that," Boone spoke up suddenly. "Is anyone else concerned that we haven't run into any more ghouls?" I had to admit, Boone had a point. We'd been walking down this twisting corridor for maybe 15 minutes, and we hadn't seen a single ghoul since the glowing ones.

"Maybe we killed them all?" Veronica offered up hopefully.

"Could be they learned to steer clear of the heavily armed intruders. They might be feral, but I doubt they're all suicidal..." Raul mused aloud, coming to a stop at a door next to a pile of rubble and refuse. "Or maybe it's just dumb luck. Either way, Boss, I think we're here." Sure enough, the illuminated sign above the door said "ARMORY" in big block letters. The door was rusted, and looked like it hadn't been touched in several decades.

"Alrighty then..." Raul moved out of the way as I stepped forward, trying the control panel next to the door. There was a clunk, and it squawked at me. "Yep. Locked. Thought it might be." I cast a glance behind me, over my shoulder. "Boone, you've got the charges, right?" Boone's only reply was a curt nod before reaching into his duster.

"Wait, charges?!" Arcade asked, a bit of worry creeping into his voice. "Like, explosives? Those kind of charges?" I nodded.

"Figured the armory door might've been locked, so rather than spend half our lives on a wild goose chase for a terminal or keycard to open it that might not even exist anymore, I thought we'd just... cut out the middle man. With a block of C4." By the time I finished explaining, Boone had finished placing the explosives on the door, and handed me the detonator.

"You might want to step back," Boone said before calmly walking around the nearby corner. The rest of us swiftly followed, and when everyone was behind the corner, I flipped open the safety on the detonator.

"Fire in the hole?" I squeezed the trigger, and immediately the hallway was filled with fire. At first, I thought that there hadn't been any noise at all - but then, when all I could hear was ringing, I realized the explosion was just so loud that I'd been rendered temporarily deaf. On the plus side, the door had seemingly evaporated (once all the smoke cleared), and all that was left was a smoldering, smoking hole in the wall.

"I think that got it," I said aloud, shaking my head to try and get my hearing back. By the time I stepped through the hole in the wall, I could hear well enough to catch this little gem from behind me: "I'm not sure you made it loud enough, Boss."

"Alright," I said to myself, waving away what was left of the smoke. "Let's see what we can..." I trailed off, finding myself at a loss for words.

There were almost as many guns down here as there were in the Gun Runner's armory. Maybe more, and that's saying a whole hell of a lot. Assault rifles, carbines, submachine guns, pistols, sniper rifles, body armor, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades, explosives, ammunition...

"Holy fuckin' glorious mother of shit!" Cass was obviously not lacking for something to say. "We've hit the mother lode!" Behind me, I heard several indistinct murmurs of agreement.

"Alright, start looking," I said, shouldering my rifle, and scanning the weapon racks and piles of guns. "The Pulse Gun is an energy weapon, so it should stand out like a sore thumb down here. Once we grab that, we can turn... around... and..." For the second time in as many minutes, I was rendered speechless. All around me, I could hear the boots of my compatriots coming to a stop behind me, obviously as captivated as I was...

"Damn." Boone was the only one who spoke up.

It was a Fat Man. A shoulder mounted, tactical nuclear catapult was just... sitting there. Out in the open. Along with three football sized mini nukes. Slowly, carefully, I took hold of the Fat Man, and set it on my shoulder, just to try it out. It was surprisingly light - I was expecting it to weigh a ton and a half, but it didn't seem any heavier than the anti-materiel rifle. Bit more cumbersome perhaps, but...

"It's definitely you," Cass said with a chuckle, nodding approvingly.

"Screw it," I said, refusing to set down the Fat Man. They couldn't see it beneath the helmet, but I literally could not stop smiling. "We take it all. Everything we can carry. No sense leaving it down here for the ferals, right?"

"Wait, all of it?" Arcade blurted out. "What, do you think we're all pack brahmin or something?"

"I'm pretty sure he thinks we all are," Raul chimed in from his spot near the exploded door.

A few hours later, after a quick dose of Rad-Away and a shower, Veronica and I were in the kitchen. Most of the haul was in the spare room (along with all the other weapons we'd collected over the past few weeks and had yet to sort through), but there was one thing sitting square in the middle of the table: the Pulse Gun.

It was a small tube with a pistol grip on the bottom, and a dish-emitter on the end instead of a barrel. It was made mostly out of unpainted, silvery metal, except for the copper tubes on the top surrounding the mounting point for the small energy cells it obviously used as ammo. Despite the fact that it was supposed to be a weapon that was the bane of powered armor everywhere... it seemed very unassuming.

"So..." I leaned against the table, looking at the pistol. "This is it, huh?" Veronica nodded, standing across from me with her arms folded across her chest. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing... just..." Veronica shrugged. "I dunno. I thought there'd be more dials and buttons on it and stuff."

"Who cares what it looks like?" I said. "It's the electronic equivalent of a disease from Gomorrah."

"Assuming it actually works," Veronica leaned against the back wall. "It's not like we have a spare set of power armor to test it."

"Well, there is that armor you wear under that robe of yours," I said with a smirk. Veronica's sullen expression did not change.

"I said a spare. I'm not giving up a one-of-a-kind piece of hand built tech just for a weapons demo."

"That's what I figured you were going to say," I grabbed the pulse gun off the table, and made my way past her. "Which is why I've provided an alternative arrangement." Veronica looked at me curiously as I walked to a panel next to the kitchen door. It was a new panel that had only been installed just the other day; I hit the 'talk' button with the side of my fist. "Yes Man, you reading me?"

"Oh! Hi there!" Yes Man's cheery voice sounded off from the speaker. "How are you doing today? Was your trip successful?"

"Good, the intercom works..." I muttered with a smile before clearing my throat. "Yes it was. Could you send a Securitron up to the Presidential suite, like we agreed on earlier? Oh, and one thing: make sure you're recording telemetry."

"Absolutely! One target practice dummy, coming right up! I think this is a great idea!" There was a click, a burst of static, and the intercom shut off. Less than a minute later, the elevator doors opened and a Securitron with Yes Man's face rolled out.

"Hi there! How can I -" Before he could finish, I fired the Pulse Gun point blank. There was a flash of blue electricity, and a weird inverted popping noise that was quickly drowned out by the sound of sparks. Lightning undulated and rippled all around the outside of the robot for the half second it remained upright - and then it fell backward with a crash, the face-screen exploding from the inside.

As the robot lay there on the ground, smoking away, Veronica walked up beside me. I twirled the Pulse Gun around in my hand, and offered it to her grip-first.

"Well, at least we know it works now," she said, taking the weapon. For the first time since we found it, Veronica almost cracked a smile.