Chapter 103: The Price

Chapter 103: The Price

"So, how many does that make?" I asked Sasha, spinning down the minigun and surveying the carnage. The ground all around me was stained red with blood, and littered with bodies in various states of dismemberment and perforation. The brain beneath the red-hot (and still smoking) barrels barked.

"I do not know. I have lost track of killings count." There was a sniffing sound. "Wait, I thought you were keeping score?"

I sighed, shifting my grip on the enormous gun. I hadn't been keeping track of the specific number of kills, but this had been the fourth such group that had come at us since the robots ambushed us after I found Christine's Circle of Steel rifle. I tried to shrug it off. This was a dangerous place, filled with lobotomized idiots, cyberdogs, nightstalkers, cazadores, wannabe Ghost People, and insane robots. I was bound to run into a few maniacs itching for violence.

Still... four attacks in less than an hour. That seems a bit excessive.

The sky thundered. I looked up at the swirling clouds in the greenish-blue sky, and saw dancing, flickering lights within the roiling mass directly overhead. Storm clouds like that were never a good sign. And with how nuts everything else was around here, it would probably turn out to be acid rain or something equally horrifying. I was going to have to get to Elijah's next camp and get back to The Sink before the storm broke.

I started moving back in the direction of the shack I'd seen after the ambush. It was a long shot, but the place had been visible from Elijah's watchtower outside Little Yangtze; admittedly, it was just barely visible. It was easily a mile and a half away from the concentration camp. However, it had an array of transmitters sticking out of the roof that dwarfed the shack itself. That was probably my best bet for where the old bastard had gone after Christine moved in.

"Hey, Sasha?" I asked while I walked, trying to think of something to pass the time.

"?"

"Kinda curious. How many bullets do you hold in that big-ass ammo drum of yours?" The brain sniffed, and the ears started wiggling.

"I believe drum holds 800 boo-lets." It grunted out. "I am unsure how many have been fired since last reload. I do not have way to check inside of drum."

"Holy shit!" I let out a chuckle, a bit impressed. "800 rounds?! Dude! Most miniguns I've come across only hold, like, 240 before they run dry."

"Yes, but other weapons do not fire $200 custom tooled cartridges at 10,000 rounds per minute." It paused; the brain started panting heavily, and the ears twitched again. "It costs $400,000 to fire me for twelve seconds."

My eye twitched. Maybe I should be a bit more sparing with Sasha's ammo? Where the hell was I going to find ammunition like that once I ran out?

The minigun in my hands just started laughing.

That Other Courier had been here. I was sure of it.

This place - the Signal Hills Transmitter, according to the sign on the front door - had several telltale signs that Elijah had used it as a camp at some point. The wiring at the base of the antenna array looked relatively new, and generally more haphazard than any of the electrics it surrounded. There was obvious discoloration on the doorframe and doorknob, clearly made from someone's filthy hands. And there were the scorch marks and dried blood on the ground surrounding the building, clearly caused by exploded mines. All that was well and good, but the biggest clue didn't point to that old bastard at all.

Painted on the wall to the left of the front door in faded blue paint was another flag symbol.

I looked around cautiously. The last time I'd seen one of these out in the open, I'd been ambushed by nightstalkers. But then again... that one had been red. And there didn't seem to be any one or anything around... But that idea was... that was preposterous. Wasn't it? Was there some deeper meaning in the different colors?

"Are we going to capture point?" Sasha asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

"Yeah..." I shook my head; it was a useless gesture, shaking it to clear my mind if it's not even there. "Yeah, lets see if there's anything worthwhile to find in here."

Cautiously, I turned the doorknob and gave the door a shove, stepping back quickly in case the door was booby-trapped... but nothing. Silence. Either he'd been in more of a hurry to get away from here than Little Yangtze, or he hadn't bothered to set any traps on the door in the first place.

Like his camp in the watchtower, this place was a mix of the barest essentials and clutter. An entire wall was devoted purely to electronics - mostly transceivers, spectrum analyzers and other radio equipment, obviously connected to the radio tower on the roof. A sunken bedroll was shoved into one corner, with a few ammo cans, a metal box, and some kind of energy rifle scattered on the floor next to it.

"Hello there," I said, kneeling down to eye the rifle. "Now what are you?" At first I'd thought it was a laser rifle, but on closer inspection I realized that it had elements of several other energy weapons. The stock looked like a laser rifle, sure, but the barrel and the emitter on the end sort of resembled the pulse gun (which itself resembled a hair dryer). There were six vacuum tubes - three on each side of the barrel - and an ammo slot in front of the trigger that was just the right size for a microfusion cell. Etched into the barrel, just above the trigger were the words: LAER (Laser Assisted Electrical Rifle) Prototype. If found, return to X-40 Laser Research.

"Why are you messing around with tiny baby gun?" Sasha asked gruffly as I picked up the rifle and started inspecting it "I am most gun you will ever need!" As if to punctuate the point, Sasha barked loudly several times.

"Maybe..." I slung the LAER over my shoulder with the other two rifles. I'd decided to hold onto it, remembering something that Zero had said when I asked him about the attack earlier:

"We were sending robots to stop him and he was slicing and cutting through their shells with some suped-up laser gun like they were cheese... paper."

Sure, carrying so many weapons was gonna be a bit heavy, and might slow me down, but... well. I guess I just wanted to keep my options open. Especially if this LAER thing was as useful as Zero had described. In the meantime, I kept rummaging through everything here. I found some microfusion cells, a couple shotgun shells... and a page that looked like it had been torn out of a journal inside the metal box.

Set up camp here after Yangtze attack. Too exposed here. Transmitter's vulnerable. Hacked it, set up remote link so can access it any time. Need to find spot closer to north train tunnel with clear broadcast LOS to here. Canyons are too dangerous. Can't go back to Yangtze. There is that weather station NW that drew that Courier here, but going there sounds like trouble. For now, going to scout Waste Disposal site, the around the perimeter of that Securitron Plant, see if I can find more defensible position.

"C'mon Sasha," I said folding the piece of paper into one of my pockets. "We're going." I got up from my kneel- Uhnf. Okay, yeah, this was starting to get a bit heavy. Shrug it off, chucklenuts, there's work to be done.

"Where are we going?" The gun asked, the braincase under the barrels alternating between panting and barking.

"Northwest."

I should've been heading back to The Sink. The sky was getting darker, and the thunder in the clouds was getting a lot more frequent. I needed to find shelter before the storm broke, just in case, and the best shelter in this nuthouse was The Sink by far. I should've been trying to offload some of this weight, figuring out how much ammo I had left for Sasha, and any number of other things that didn't involve heading directly to a place Elijah had described as 'trouble.'

But I wasn't doing any of that... because I was just too damn curious. I was too curious about that Other Courier. Who was he? How did he know about me? Why did a weather station draw him to this place?

At least one of those answers became clear the closer I got to the place. When I'd read the word, my first thought that it was some kind of weather monitoring station. The NCR had set up a few of those back in California, and I only knew about that because I had a job at one for about two months when I was short on cash a couple years ago. It's a long story. Don't ask.

The deeper and deeper I ventured into the canyons to the northwest of the Signal Hills Transmitter, I realized that the large warehouse-looking building wedged into the far end was... something else entirely. Some kind of enormous tower, topped with a giant glowing sphere, was sticking out of the roof of the building. Four smaller towers, complete with their own smaller glowing spheres were also sticking out of the roof, and bolts of electricity were arcing between all five of the orbs. The clouds directly over the building were swirling, churning, almost bubbling with turbulence. It didn't take a genius - and I'm the first to admit that I'm not one - to figure out that this was a weather control station. I shouldn't have been surprised. This place is, after all, run by mad scientists.

On the plus side, at least I now had a better reason for heading this way. If it truly was the cause of the storm, as I was starting to suspect, then there might be a way to turn it off in there. I just had to... find it.

"I am getting bad feeling about this..." Sasha said in my hands as I moved closer and closer to the front door. At least, I hoped it was the front door.

"What's the matter?" I asked; the mechanical ears were drooping slightly. "Do you smell more bad guys?"

"No," it said simply. "That is what worries me." The brain made a soft sniffing sound, and the voice box on top of the gun grunted. "I do not even smell metal men. Where did they go?" I had to chuckle to myself; it was a gun, of course it thought nobody to fight was a bad thing.

"Base of operation!" The gun clarified. "Place with ammo and medkit, inaccessible by enemy team! Do you have this?" I chuckled grimly, trying to ignore the sounds behind me and the rain that was starting to feel more like hail now. It was probably still water, but it was so huge and striking me so hard, over and over again...

"So, the best plan is just a mad dash to The Sink, and hope they can't get in, huh?" I gulped, and that sinking feeling in my stomach got worse. "Well, better than nothing!" I kept running forward, nearing a large ridge; it was too wide to try and go around. I was sure that I'd be able to see the Think Tank dome once I got to the top, so I just scrambled up the muddy slope as quick as I could.

"Oh, this is bad!" Sasha said suddenly as I neared the top of the ridge; I didn't have time to stop and ask, I just kept moving. "They are here."

I crested the hill and was met with a bowel-loosening sight.

"Oh, FUCK ME!"

The land beyond the ridge was so thick with enemies I could barely see the ground. Dozens and dozens of lobotomites were all charging up the hill, complete with cyberdogs keeping pace and running alongside the lobotomy victims. Robots of various kinds - Mr. Gutsys, protectrons, robobrains, even a few sentry bots - were at the edges of the charging horde, guarding the flanks. In the back of the horde were a few of those trauma harnesses. I couldn't be sure, but the way they were pointing and gesturing, it almost looked like they were directing the others...

"There is nowhere to run." Sasha said grimly as the horde closed in. I glanced over my shoulder; the first of the chasing horde behind me was visible, but still a ways off... not nearly as close as the bad guys to my front. I flipped the switch on top of the joystick, and the barrels started to spin up with a whine. Thunder boomed almost directly overhead.

"Fuck this! They ain't gonna take me without a fight!" I yelled, planting my feet as firmly as the muddy ground under me would allow, and taking aim with the minigun. I'm not entirely sure how necessary it was. Aiming, that is. I could just point Sasha in their general direction, and I was bound to hit something, there were so damn many of them...

"EEEEYAAAAAAAGH!" Sasha yelled, the sound swiftly being drowned out by the roar of minigun fire. Flashes of tracer fire streaked through the air, ripping into the lobotomites and cyberdogs closest to me. Showers of blood exploded with every bullet impact, and were just as swiftly washed away by the heavy downpour of rain. The attackers in front were dropping like bloatflies, sure, but there were just... there were so many of them.

And then, what I'd been dreading happened at that moment.

"!" Sasha yelled as the roar of the minigun ceased abruptly; my finger was still on the trigger, and the barrels were still spinning. "I am out of boo-lets!" As if to punctuate the urgency of the situation, a tracer round fired from one of the advancing lobotomites whizzed through the air perilously close to me.

"FUCK!" I ducked instinctively, desperately pulling the strap connected to Sasha over and around my head, dropping the minigun to the ground. It struck the mud with a softer thud than I expected, and started to slide against the slippery, muddy ground away from me. I shrugged my shoulder, trying as fast as I could to get one of the rifles slung across my back into my hands. Despite the slippery metal made all the more slick by the rain, the LAER found its way into my hands. Christine's rifle and the G36, sadly, fell off my arm, and I was a bit too busy to try and pick them up again.

"To the left!" Sasha yelled, despite being still stuck in the mud several feet away from me. I wasn't entirely certain how helpful that was - as far as I could see, they were coming at me from the left, from the right, from the middle, and from behind. Either way, I took aim at the closest of the lobotomites charging up the hill, and fired.

A bright blue beam of light sliced through the air out of the LAER's emitter dish, leaving a trail of floating blue, swiftly dissolving particles in its wake. It sounded completely unremarkable - almost exactly like a normal laser rifle. But the effect was entirely different. The beam struck the chest of the lobotomite I was aiming for... and then just kept going. The beam cut through half a dozen of the attackers coming at me; it finally came to a stop when the beam struck a sentry bot and caused it to explode immediately.

I didn't have time to gawk. I just kept firing. The blue lasers kept slicing through the air, each shot taking out easily six or seven of the attackers at once - I was aiming more for the robots and the trauma harnesses at the back than the lobotomites and cyberdogs at the front - but it was still hardly doing anything to thin their numbers.

And then, just like Sasha, the LAER ran out of ammo as well. I had spare microfusion cells, sure, but it would take too long to try and swap them out with so many of them coming at me so quickly. I dropped the energy rifle, and pulled out the MP5 from its sling under my arm. I only managed to pop off a few shots from the submachine gun before Sasha barked at me again. I barely heard the minigun shout at me over the gunfire and the thunderclaps.

"Look out!" It yelled frantically. "BEHIND YOU!"

I didn't get a chance to turn around before my whole world erupted in pain. My right side felt like it had been set on fire for the few brief seconds before I lost all feeling completely. I vaguely remember screaming something incoherent. My right arm went completely dead by the time I looked...

The blade of a proton axe - still crackling with electricity - was embedded halfway through my right arm, just above my elbow.

I wheeled around, gritting my teeth and barely able to see through the pain flowing through my entire body. My right arm was completely useless. I buried my left fist as hard as I could into the face of the lobotomite; the goggles it was wearing cracked and snapped, blood gushing out of its face underneath my fist.

It fell backward, and I gripped the handle of the axe still embedded in my arm; fresh pain ripped through me like a freight train when it came loose, and I screamed again. I gripped the axe tightly and just started swinging wildly. All of them had finally surrounded me and gotten close enough that every single swing found a mark.

I could feel them ripping and tearing and pummeling me, trying to bring me down from all sides, but I refused to give in. I just kept swinging the axe, kicking them, elbowing them away, head-butting them... I was doing anything and everything to fight them, desperately trying to stay alive. Purple lightning trailed the blade as it cut through the air, followed by slashes of blood. The rain washed it away almost as soon as the blood erupted from my assailants.

My vocal cords were raw from all the yelling and screaming. My body was on fire from so many impacts and cuts on all sides. I could barely see, but I saw well enough to cut through my attackers. I had completely lost all feeling in my right arm. Thunder boomed overhead, immediately followed by a streak of lightning illuminating the carnage all around me.

Eventually, I swung the axe one final time, but didn't hit anything. All around me, I could see corpses, limply and lifelessly falling down the muddy hill... but no more attackers. Had I driven them all off?

My body was sore from who knows how many injuries inflicted in the bloody melee. My breathing was shallow, ragged, and uneven. I felt dizzy, and my vision was starting to blur. The staccato assault of rain was still pummeling my head, rivers of water running down my face and mixing with what I could only assume was blood...

But I was alive.

I dropped the axe to the ground, unable to keep hold of it. I looked around, trying to force my vision to clear... and I saw that I was not alone. A vaguely humanoid shape was advancing on me. It was carrying a rifle of some kind in its hands, and there was a clear dome over its skeletal head; a green flickering light glowed brightly on its neck.

"Don't t-tell the others, th-th-they'll only la-a-augh," I heard a choppy female voice emerge from the skeleton through the pounding rain. I willed my body to move as quickly as I could, grabbing the sawed off shotgun on my left thigh and aiming it at the walking skeleton. It felt like time slowed down as it took aim with the rifle; if I could draw first, I might just -

Click.

I'd forgotten to reload it.

I stumbled in place, dropping to the ground; my knees had finally given out. The trauma harness just looked at me curiously, and adjusted its aim. I couldn't do anything. I was too exhausted. My body was on fire - except for my right arm, which I simply couldn't feel. I grimaced, shutting my eyes tight, trying to brace myself...

"BARK!"

My eyes snapped open. The trauma harness turned at the sound, lowering its rifle. I looked up just in time to see a cyberdog - complete with a tiny deathclaw riding on its back - leaping through the air directly at the skeleton.

"D-d-don't tell th-th-the others," I heard it cry seconds before it was tackled to the ground. Roxie and Stripe proceeded to rip it to shreds.

I started laughing weakly, which rather swiftly succumbed to coughing. I doubled over, clutching at the ground with my left hand. It sunk into the mud, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't push off the ground to get back on my feet. I looked around, my vision clouding again...

There was an arm in front of me. There were plenty of severed body parts lying in the mud, but this one stood out, even to my slowly fading vision... because it was holding an MP5.

I looked down at my right arm - or, rather, where my right arm used to be. The sleeve of the duster was bloody and torn, and even I could tell (now that I was actually taking the time to look at it) that the arm had been severed completely, just above the elbow.

That was the breaking point. My left arm couldn't keep me up anymore, and I collapsed face first into the muddy ground. My vision started to go black. I coughed into the mud, splashing the wet ground back up into my face. Thunder boomed overhead. I felt something paw at my shoulder. I tried to move my head to look, but my body wasn't cooperating. The sound of the rain started to get softer. Something warm and wet pressed into the side of my face. Something whimpered.

Everything went dark.