I'd love to see what your conception of what a mutated cicada is. Those are what the Sirens are in my Fallout: Florida story.




Well, it's only fair. I'm trying to view as many of other people's works as I can. My own life developments have gotten in the way of that and writing my own stuff. Whenever I have the time, I'll try to write as much of Fallout: Florida as I can. But I'm glad that Lopov's career is doing well.




Yecch. Centaurs. One of the most disgusting enemies in all of Fallout. (The Master himself from Fallout 1 probably beats Centaurs out for first place. He created some of them himself, IIRC.) Although Super Mutants have been overused, I wish Bethesda didn't cut Centaurs from appearing in Fallout 4. I've seen some concept art and some screenshots of mods that implement them, and it is one of the most revolting and disturbing designs for anything in the Fallout franchise yet, IMO.

Looks like Officer Barlow is bringing some law and order to Germantown!

I laughed at Starsky and Hutch of course. I remember that show!

Rosa: I feel honored to make you laugh! Particularly where it says Starsky N. Hutch, I was trying to make it obvious. If we could put Vicious's tale on TV, it would probably be some sort of B movie which got sandwiched between Tales of the Crypt and the SCTV late at night. There is some humor, for sure.

Acadian: Cool, glad you picked up on Starsky and the things he says. He is pretty arrogant, right? Just so you know, this entire area of the Wasteland is dotted with places to go, and places to avoid. Vicious can go wherever raiders reside, but there's an area nearby called Big Town, in which maybe she'd be okay, but her followers would go ballistic on the town's inhabitants. And I (and Vicious) do not want to see that happen, because there'd be innocent casualties. There's also a village nearby called Minefield. As its name suggests, we really need to watch where we step!

By the way Lopov, Starsky and Hutch was an action show from back in the 1970s, in case you didn't get that reference. Edit: looks like you do get it, since you know they are two separate guys.

Yes, they did stay in that small camp just northeast of Big Town, overnight.


Rader: I imagine radcicadas are maybe a little bigger than modern ones, but unlike sirens and radtoads in your story, radcics are rather harmless. They still live underground for X number of years, come aboveground to mate, live for about 6 weeks, and then they perish. But they are nowhere near as dangerous as, let's say, that giant turtle creature which showed up during that last battle scene.

I agree that centaurs are really disgusting. I never really looked at one up close until putting that Imgur pic up last week. Yicch.




I was torn about making that aspect of her life (prayer / religion) more obvious in the story, in fact I had a couple paragraphs planned last week in which she explains her past to Bratty. But now is not the time for that. Maybe in the future I'll do a chapter on her past. Plus, I know we're all busy. I kinda want to focus more on the action-y parts, for now.

Friday, August 31st, 2277, 5:54 pm



"You're out of ammo?!! What do you mean, you're out of ammo?! How're we supposed to go in there and find out what happened if your gun is now a slab of useless steel?"

Miss Vicious, losing her temper, really on the verge of almost screaming at her friend. Things had been going relatively well throughout the day so far. Her posse hadn't encountered too many enemies, nobody or nothing especially life-threatening, at least. They had planned their trip well. Still had plenty of food, plenty of meds, and Vicious had successfully used her Pip-Girl to locate the former police station she'd been tasked to find. But now, this. Bratty had somehow run out of bullets for her rifle. It was the first real hurdle of their journey, so far as being prepared and ready.

"I....no.. hey, I'm sorry!" Bratty said earnestly. "Honest-like! I know I should have been watchin' my rounds!" She looked to the ground. "Guess I'm not the big, bad merc you thought I was, huh?"

She was pouting, just like a schoolgirl from Vicious's childhood. But Vicious stood her ground, unfazed. Though she felt a little sorry she had yelled at her friend, now was not the time for pampering. "Shouldn't have been shooting 'em all up at *ferking* molerats," she chided. "Wastin' rounds. Because now, you are no longer useful to this mission," she began pacing, shaking her head. "You really gotta learn from this, brat. Because what if we was getting surrounded by Enclave or deathclaws right now, or something? Hmm? What then?"

"Geez, I said I'm sorry!"

Miss Vicious put her hand up, in an 'enough' sort of way. She began thinking, pacing in a tight circle, kicking up small tufts of dust. Trying to come up with some sort of alternative. Meanwhile, the sun was sinking low. The day's heat was cooling off (a small blessing), but it would also be over soon. Difficult to see. Which was not good, of course. Not good at all.

"Well, now you know why I prefer to carry my crappy knife around," Starsky N. Hutch interrupted her thoughts. "I've had this knife since I was a little boy. It's quiet, it's effective at close range, and best of all, and pay attention now ... Hey! .... it never runs out of bullets!"

"Oh shut up," Vicious said quietly, lost in thought.

"Just saying..."

After pondering a moment or two more, Vicious glanced seriously at her two followers. She'd made her mind up. "Okay. New plan," she said decisively. "I'm going in, by myself. I'm good at sneaking around and stuff, anyways. Much better than y'all, at least. No offense. Been pretty sneaky all my life, really. And I expect whatever's going on inside the station, it'll require some recon. Not going in there, blasting away, making all sort of noise, and junk."

"Okay," said Starsky, smacking his head. "Good plan! Only.... what the *ferk* are we supposed to do while you're gone, sarge?"

"Just stay here, and wait 'til I come back," she said, ignoring his histrionics. "For one thing, it's is a police station. Which means it's gonna have all the stuff she needs in there. Maybe you too, Starsky. Maybe I can fetch you a sword instead of a knife." She began pacing again. "Betcha I go in there, right? And find some five-and-a-halfs for Bratty's gun. Heck, maybe I even might find some whole other gun for both of y'all to use. And rounds."

"Then what?"

"Then, I come back. Give Bratty what she needs. By then, I should have some idea what the hell went wrong in there. Maybe they all got mad at each other one day. Shot each other up, who the hell knows, right?"

Starsky N. Hutch gestured like he was about to say something, but then he stopped himself. Seemed to think on his own for a moment. "Hmm, you know, that might work," he finally said. "You are right. I should stay here. I'm the man, after all. I can protect the brat while you're gone."

"Pfft, whatever! You ain't protectin' nobody randy-dandy-candy, 'specially me! Check yourself, fool. I been on my own for--"

"Enough, Bratty," Vicious said, raising her voice, pushing her friend in the chest until her boots slipped in the sand a bit. "That's enough. Not what we need right now, for you two to start goin' at it again. Got it?"

Bratty fell silent. Back into naughty schoolgirl mode. "Sorry."

"So really, Starsky. You's cool with stayin' here with her, while I go inside?"

"I am, sarge," he smiled. "And Bratty," he turned to her now. "I genuinely apologize for anything I've said which has offended you. Didn't really mean any of it, okay? It's just ... adrenaline and nerves, I guess. Can you blame me?"

Bratty rolled her eyes, but otherwise said nothing.

"Okay you two, this is good. I'm goin' in now. And I'll be back soon. Promise me you'll behave."

Vicious did not wait to hear an answer. Instead she readied her shotgun, lit her final cigarette. And then she was gone.



6:22 pm
As she neared Germantown Police Station, Vicious crouched down. Focused. Found a small bush she could hide behind, and waited, looking for any sort of movement. Listening for any sort of sound. Cursing her Pip-Girl 2500 personal device, which did not have a 'show enemies' option like the arm-devices from vaults often had.

The place seemed deserted. Certainly not any sort of raider establisment, that's for sure. For one thing, nobody was partying. No sounds of a ruckus going on. No whooping. No beer bottles smashing into walls. None of that. Vicious waited, then crept right up to the place. The station was surrounded by a creative mixture of tall metal fences topped with barbed wire, sandbags, and plywood. She waited, then crept right behind a pile of bags. What would I do if I were Talon Company? she asked herself, then stifled a laugh. Talon Company were some of the worst examples for reconnaisance, she realized. Talon Company's worse than Bratty and Starsky thought she. All they do is go running around, shouting for all the world to--

There was something on her right, beyond the station's modified mall. Something large, and yellow, standing about fifty feet away. It was looking dumbly toward something on the ground.



A-ha! Were a bunch of giant mutants responsible for causing all those raiders to flee... or worse?

Vicious did not wait for an answer. She readied her Blamhammer. Crept around the station's outer wall-fortification, and then snuck up behind the monster. Maybe it was a good thing night was about to fall, for the monster mutant did not notice her, as she snuck and shuffled from behind, found a gap where one of the tall metal fences had fallen, crept through this gap. Somebody had erected several canvas tents outside of the station for whatever reason, and Vicious used these tents to hide behind as she neared the beast. She checked carefully inside of each tent she passed, seeing if any other mutants were sleeping, or whatever.

Finally she was just behind the guy. Standing nine feet tall and weighing over 800 pounds, the mutant made an easy target for her.

BLAM! went her gun. She had aimed for the mutant's head, but managed to pluck more of its shoulder.

"Arrraaaghaaaa!!!" the mutant battle-cried, readying his giant sledgehammer. The mutant moved quickly, surprisingly fast for such a large oaf of meat. Vicious skipped and hopped around a large pile of rubble as the mutant closed in. It swung its gigantic weapon, but only caught air as the raider lady danced around.

"You want summa this?" she asked, as if she were offering candy to the giant freak of a lab-mutation before her. "Huh? Want some? Here ya go, fool."

She fired again, shattering the thing's knee. Now the monster was stuck, pretty much unable to move as fast as she could. Instead, it hobbled around. From somewhere nearby, a gun began to fire ... *bkksh!* ... a second mutant was shooting a rifle. Vicious kept an eye for this second beast, as she continued to blast at the one with the sledgehammer. Finally, the first mutant fell. And pretty soon, so did the second.

The place was hers now, or at least, its exterior portions were. There were no more supermutants around; she made sure of this. She began to loot the bodies, removing the rifle from the second giant's greasy hands.

Miss Vicious hollered for her friends, who were just up the hill, and pretty soon they were all safe for the night. She gave the rifle and seven rounds to Bratty.

Today's first mission, accomplished.

-------------------------------------

Ghoul policeman in action

Germantown HQ

Blam! goes the Blamhammer

No surprise Bratty is not good at conserving ammo. I don't imagine Raiders do anything with much discipline at all. I suppose that does make a good way of comparing them to mercs, who one imagines are professional enough to not waste ammo or other resources pointlessly.

Miss VD is sneaking in alone!

A big oaf of meat is right!

Now I have a rifle, ho, ho, ho!

Wonderfully fun dialogue among Miss VD and her crew.

"Okay you two, this is good. I'm goin' in now. And I'll be back soon. Promise me you'll behave."
- - Haha, party members of opposing allignment.

Nice job taking down those two big meat loafs. Even a few bullets for Bratty.

Yes, Rosa. I think I gave Bratty 500 rounds or so in the GECK when I created her, unfortunately most of that gets wasted as NPCs fire blindly into grass and non-living items. But in a way, from my perspective, I am actually glad she ran out of bullets early. It actually fits the story quite well, as we'll see. *evil grin*

In Cho's game I use scripts to make sure his followers (his C-team) never runs out of ammo. Basically, any time he goes to sleep, and his followers are in Sandbox mode, ammo gets added into their inventories via scripts. I figure they go off on their own, and then manage to find/buy their own gear since they are supposed to be disciplined military personnel. With Bratty & other raiders though, this wouldn't really make sense.



More like children of opposing temperaments!

I should have more Vicious up this week, although my daughter just graduated high school (woo hoo!) and so that's been eating up a lot of family time. Either way, stay tuned. Things are about to get ... interesting.

Chapter 21 -- Germantown HQ, part II

Saturday, September 1st, 2277

Minimum Temperature: 68
Maximum Temperature: 92

Though nobody in more modern times had ever been entirely sure of any specific date, Germantown was founded some time near the year 1830. In its early days, several German immigrants located themselves in the town's main business district, and for this reason the place became known as German Town. The village got this name despite the fact that most residents of the area were English or Scottish. Eventually, the words 'German' and 'Town' were merged.

Germantown was located in Montgomery County, in the central part of Maryland, roughly 25 miles northwest of D.C. Its main claim to fame was a gigantic cider barrel which survived for over 150 years, and provided a variety of local apple drinks to locals and tourists. In 1958, the U.S. Atomic Energy commission relocated its headquarters from D.C. to Germantown, mostly because they determined the town was far enough away from Wasthington, far enough away from any potential nuclear blasts, that is.

Or so they thought at the time...

For over a century, Germantown's population hovered somewhere above 90,000. It was the sort of place which rarely generated newspaper headlines. Unless you lived there, you'd rarely know of anything going on (good or bad) in Germantown. Even its annual Oktoberfest was only modestly noticed outside of Montgomery, and this was despite the fact that the place actually had the word German in its name.

On the other hand, the place was considered generally safe from hoards of diisorder, safe from hoards of crime. Germantown's police department dealt mostly with the same sort of crime any middle American populace might encounter. Vandalisms, bar fights, and occasional car thefts were called in most often. The town was mostly middle class, so house burglaries were also occasional. Homicides were rare; this isn't D.C. or Baltimore we're talking about.

The cops of Germantown provided a steady, standard operation, keeping the citizens of Montgomery County safe right until the year 2077. Of course, nobody during the 21st century could have ever envisioned their solidly-reputed police headquarters would ever become a lair for marauding raiders, or (even worse) actual monsters. As Miss Vicious searched the station's outside area during the day's waning hours, she knew nothing of its past. The few details she knew about Germantown itself came from the history books she'd read as a child.

After a pre-packaged dinner of Salisbury Steak, Vicious scouted the entire area surrounding Germantown HQ, looking for raiders, dead or alive. But there were none to be found. Not even a set of raider armor, cast aside and bloody.

Bratty, Starsky, and Vicious spent the night sleeping in a variety of tents which had been erected outside the station. At times, one of these three raiders would stand guard. But there was nothing to report. If the place was indeed inhabited by super mutants, they kept inside the building.

"Okay, listen y'all. I'm goin' in," Vicious declared at 0848 hours. The sun (and the day's heat) were starting to rise. "Don't get mad, but I want you two to stay here again, okay? Both y'all got guns, but they's rifles, built for long-range. Not close combat. And we don't got enough rounds for the both of y'all yet."

Plus, Vicious thought, but did not say. I don't need you two rushing off deep into the place, getting yourselves killed before I have a chance to take 'em down with my Blamhammer.

"Aw, why do you get to have all the fun?" Bratty complained. "Come on, now. Can't I come along witcha! I'll hold back, I promise!"

"Let's talk sensible now, brat. I just counted over sixty rounds for my shotgun. If there's more of those things inside, mutants, that is, I can take each of 'em out with maybe five shots, max. You only got a total of seven rounds for that rifle I gave you last night. I know, because I counted. And that ain't enough. Especially at close range, which I assume any monsters in there will be."

"But..."

Vicious took her friend aside now, leading her by the hand somewhat away from Starsky. "I promise," she said, locking eyes with the brat. "If I find some more, better weapons, plus some rounds, that I'll return and invite you inside, okay? Chin up, sister."

She turned to the man of their party now. "Starsky? What do you think?"

"Hey, I'm fine with this plan," Starsky N. Hutch answered after a quick moment of thought. "And I'm a bit claustrophobic anyway. Grew up in one of those vaults. Ugh. I hate to admit this, but I've always been afraid of the dark. And a dark full of potential monsters--?" He shuddered.

"No kidding. So which vault did you come from?" Vicious asked. "Was it 101? There was a bunch of dwellers who just was forced out of 101. Some kind of mutiny went on in there. I even met one dude who left the place, who's now livin' in Megaton. Dude 101 got into one hell of a fight inside Moriarty's, killed a man right in front of me with a baseball bat. Smack! Whap! Smack! Just like that."

"No, not 101," Starsky answered. "Uh, Vault 106 is where I was from. Wretched place. I hope I never go back"

"Dag. Always wanted to know what one of those places was like," Vicious mused.

"Well, I don't know about any other vaults, but 106 always had problems with their fusion generators, lights would go out all the time, that sort of thing. I can't tell you how glad I was after I escaped last year. Saw daylight for the first time ever."

"Sissy."

"Bratty..." Vicious warned.

"Well, he is a prissy sissy! I'm sorry, but what kind of supposed man, who's all grown up with his big knife which he carries around for slicin' and dicin', still gets afraid of the dark? So you IS a sissy, miss missy!"

"BRATTY! Enough! Seriously, I need to be able to trust you. Both of you, while I head inside."

"But..."

"No buts, unless you are a butt. And you are not a butt, you are a brat. Am I right?"

Bratty could not help but blush and smile at this comment. "Well yeah, I am a brat. I can be. Always could be. Sorry Starsky and Vicious, that I am such a brat. Always will be."

"Uh, that's better," Miss Vicious looked to the sky, which was a hazy mess of late summer sunshine overhead. She absentmindedly reached for her pocket, which (for the fourth time this morning) did not contain any cigarettes. Dammit.

"I'm goin' in," she said finally. "And I have one request. Which is, will you two say a prayer with me before I go?"

The two raiders before her exchanged glances. Bratty shrugged. "Sure," said Starsky.

"Just repeat after me..."

While Miss Vicious recited the Lord's Prayer from memory, Bratty and Starsky tried to keep up, badly following the Christian bible's most famous incantation a sentence behind their leader. It was perhaps the worst rendition of the Lord's Prayer ever spoken. But it was effective. Miss Vicious felt pleased, and a little energized, that she had given her attention to whatever higher power was out there. If only for a minute.

"Give me a hour or so," Vicious said, before stalking off.





8:55 am

"We need ... to get MORE!"

"I know!... But where can we find... 'em?"

Super mutants, growling to each other in some nearby room! Vicious froze, listening as the two giants were deep in conversation with each other. They apparently did not know they now had a visitor. Miss Vicious hunkered down. As each giant spoke to the other, there were frequent pauses in their diatribe. As if it was taking all their mental capacity and brainpower to construct each next thought.

"The female ... is locked up!" one said to the other. "We'll take her home... with us."

"The tiny male ... is downstairs! ... He won't be coming with us. Gwaaa haaa haa haa haa haa haa!"

"Oh my guhd," Vicious whispered. Time for the Blamhammer. She made sure it was ready to go, before sneaking down the hall, toward the two voices.

"....find more, go somewhere else! ... Gwaaa haa haa haa haa haa haa haa ha!!!"

"Yeah! Those humans .... are every where! We'll get them all ... and take them home... with us!"

"Oh, I don't think so," Vicious muttered, rounding the corner silently. She emerged into a small room, used long ago for booking various perps for drug possession and other misdemeanors.

"We need! .... More prisoners! ... Before we can go home! ... We need..."

BLAM went the Blamhermmer, straight into one of the mutant's heads. The giant she shot fell straight onto the floor, just like that. For a split second, Vicious stood surprised. One shot, that's all it took. She almost wasted a second round then. But the monster was down!

So she got moving.

"GAME's OVER!" shouted the second mutant, "Baaaa haa haa haa haa!" This second guy fired a rifle, but by the time he did so his stalker had already backed out of the room. His round hit nothing but sheetrock, spraying asbestos into the air.

Vicious rushed up the hallway, crouched the entire time, for ultimate stealth. She then stayed still for a minute. Listened. Waited for the second mutant to give up its chase. In fact, the second mutant had not initiated any sort of chase... he was still in the same room.

"Awww, waste of my time!" said mutant #2. Vicious heard him shoulder his gun, as he apparently went back to standing around. Seeming not to care at all about the fate of his mate. Seeming not to wonder why somebody would just come in the place, shoot his buddy, and leave.

A minute or two later, he was dead, with just one more blast of the hammer.

She reached into her pack, and grabbed her flashlight. Turned it on, its light yellowish and warbling. Time to do some recon.

Vicious's initial theory that the place would be packed with guns and ammo came true. As she searched the police station's upper floor, she found more shotgun rounds, some microfusion cells, four live frag mines on the floor, plenty of 10 mil handgun rounds, dozens of 32 caliber bullets, and so on. She found two more rifles: one a semi-automatic, the other a single-shooter. She also found plenty of chems. Amphetamines, prescription medical pills, downers, and uppers of all kinds. Hallucinagenics. Some of these had once belonged in evidence lockers, perhaps.

One thing she did not find were raiders. Had they even had been here, staying in the station, like Slick Rick had told her? It was hard to tell. Vicious found some bones here and there, as well as a few portions of skeletons in one hallway. But these could have come from anybody human, not necessarily raiders.


12:37 pm
She went through a door, which led to a downflight of stairs. She was now on the second floor. Something large was clomping around down there. Vicious crept forward. Came to a short hallway, which led to an intersection. The giant walked right by where she was hiding. *BLAM* went the Blamhammer. The gigantic oaf fell. She had estimated it would take a maximum of five shots for each mutant she encountered. But so far, she had loosed a total of four shots, on three mutants, two of which were instant kills.

She listened closely for the sounds of raiders. But all she heard were more super mutants. And the mutants she heard kept complaining of hunger. "I'm hungry!" one of them literally said, just before she blasted its face off.

She crept some more, than heard a voice, somewhere far away. A human voice! Vicious was sure of it. She wondered if the voice she had heard could be one of those raiders, the 'rookie idiots who went up north', which everyone down in Springvale kept talking about.

---------------------------------------------------------

Germantown Police Department, circa 2010

Germantown Cider Barrel

Yum Yum Deviled Egg breakfast

Flashlight (mod)

Were these the rookie idiots who went up north?

Sneaky looking sorts

BLAM! goes the Blamhammer



Nits: I've been spelling super mutants as one word (supermutants) and that's wrong!

Taneesha's story continues to be interesting. I like both stories - this one and the previous, which in my eyes serves as the introduction to the second one.

We even got a history lesson about Germantown!

With such companions Taneesha is better off alone sneaking around and fighting Super Mutants!

Blamhammer sounds like a powerful weapon. If she had this shotgun at her disposal back in Fairfax, she might play hide'n'shoot with raiders that came after her.

Looks like that we find out in the next story what happened with those that went up north...

Agree with Lopov - nice history lesson on Germantown.

Managing those two companions is a challenge! Fortunately, she did score lotsa weaponry and ammo inside.

I wonder if Starsky and Bratty will kill each other by the time Miss VD returns...

I don't envy being a raider boss. Having to spend every day dealing with the people incapable of even pretending to fit in with the rest of society would age one prematurely.

It's Hammer Time! Miss V is really good with the headshots.

Man from Slovenia -- Yes, I figured I'd throw in what little I know about Germatown, and also see what comes up with wikipedia. We went to that giant cider barrel when I was a kid.

The Blamhammer is a modified shotgun. It does something like 10% extra damage, and was also given to Taneesha with full health, rather than about-to-fall-apart (as so many weapons out in the wasteland are). The thing about shotguns are, they don't have very much range. So the original idea was for Bratty to cover longer distances with her assault rifle. Starsky, on the other hand, was rolled with Leveled List Melee Weapons, so I had no idea what he's show up with.

Hope your vacation is going well.

Man from Vegas -- Yes, she has found a lot of ammo, but maybe only four guns so far: one assault rifle (semi-automatic), and three hunting rifles (single shooters). She hasn't found any ammo for the assault rifle yet though.

Germantown HQ includes a Bethesda-written quest which I think Vicious is going to smash into this morning, but I also wrote my own content.

Lady from Michigan -- Yeah, I know, right? In fact I knew Bratty's personality already when they met. But didn't know Starsky would play such a role, or that he'd even be named Starsky (his name in the game is the generic Raider). My original intention was that he'd be a guy who sort of played a background role, providing support to the team, and didn't have much to say. But just the fact that he showed up on this mission carrying such a miniscule weapon. Vicious couldn't ignore that. And as they've traveled together and I start 'hearing' each NPC's voice.... ahem.

Hammer Time it is!

..,

Chapter 22 -- Germantown HQ, part III

Saturday, September 1st, 2277


"This is bull *crap*. It's been over an hour, and she said she was only gonna be away for one hour, then she'd come back. I don't know about you, but I'm goin' in too."

"Hmm, well I don't know, Brat," Starsky replied.

"Oh, that's right," the brat taunted, "afraid of the dark, is what you said. What a load you are, ya know? Serious-like, why even come along with us if you was gonna pussy out wike a wittle wuss? Shoulda stayed back in Springvale."

Starsky stood still a moment, taking the insult quietly. Thinking and pondering. Weighing his options.

Up above, the sun was high and hot. Though Starsky and Bratty had no official way of telling what time it was, it had gone past noon for sure. To avoid the day's heat, the pair of raiders had taken cover under one of the tents outside of the police station. But both were getting restless.

"Look, if you go in there, so am I," Starsky finally said.

"Ha! I knew it! I knew you was lying! Afraid of the dark, my ass!"

"Because here's what I'm thinking," he said, ignoring. "What if something bad has happened to her? I am afraid of the dark, that part is true. Nyctophobia, it is called. But I signed up for this mission because I wanted to gain some experience. And maybe I just need to get over it. Get over my fear of the dark, that is."

Bratty rolled her eyes at him, probably for the seventh time that morning.

"Look, she may be in trouble. That's what I'm getting at. She may have gotten herself into a jam, and needs our help. So if you're going in, I'm coming along with you. And that is that."

"*Shoot*, you know, maybe you is right," Bratty said, suddenly wide-eyed. She blinked a half-dozen times at once. "Maybe she got caught up in there by who knows what?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"We gotta go in there!" Bratty said, ecstatically. "Screw this waiting around crap, we should see if she's alright!"

"Well let's go then. Come on. We can't waste any more time."




12:56 pm
By now, Miss vicious had cleared the entire top floor of mutants, and was halfway through the station's middle section. She'd been spending most of her time listening hard for the sound of the voice she'd heard before. Definitely human, and definitely female. She was sure about this.

At some point, she realized she had lost track of time. 'An hour' is what she told Bratty outside. She'd be back to get Bratty in an hour. But the truth was, she still hadn't found a weapon suitable for the brat. And she knew she would not forgive herself if, should Bratty start to lose focus and rush deep into the place, Bratty would then be crippled by one of these monsters. Crippled, or worse...

"Arrgh, no green stuff here," said one of the giants, from somewhere nearby.

Vicious was in a room full of desks and computers. She determined this room was once used as a 911 call center. Whatever that could be, she did not know. One of the computer monitors in this room still worked, though. And it had all sorts of info on 911 calls, whatever those were. It seemed these calls had been made by citizens long ago to the police station, and what Vicious was reading were the typed versions of these calls.

Whatever.

It was in this room she found a rather peculiar weapon, in an ordinary wooden desk. She immediately realized she had never seen anything like it before. It was dark gray in color, but had a yellowish-green bulb (for lack of a better word) where its barrel should be. She realized it was some sort of energy weapon. It had been stored away at some point with several energy cells, and also contained a port where cells could be loaded. Vicious was no fan of energy weapons; she preferred her shotguns. Still, the weapon might fetch a nice price back in society. Or maybe Bratty might want it.

"Come out come out, wherever you are!"

Vicious heard the sound of gunfire, a machine gun for sure. She also heard a small "yelp" coming from somewhere. Again, this yelp sounded human. So right away, she sprinted into action. Left the 911 call center, and ran into the next room, where a super mutant brute was standing. No longer sneaking around, she blasted the thing's chest. *BKKSH!!!*

"There you are! A-ha ha ha ha ha!!!!"

The mutant returned fire with his weapon, an assault rifle. Vicious ducked out of the room, and waited for the brute (a larger, stronger version of mutant) to fall into her trap. As the giant rounded the corner, too large and too unwieldy with its gun to aim properly, Vicious blasted its arm, causing him to falter, and drop his weapon. "ARRG!" The fight lasted another ten seconds or so, when finally the mutant fell.

"Hello?" she called out. "Anybody in here?"

There was no answer. So she turned on her flashlight, and looted the mutant's body. Found a Chinese assault rifle (useless) a few rounds of 5.5mm ammo for Bratty's gun, and a severed, half-eaten leg in the thing's gigantic satchel. Yicch. But ... she also found a key, which she collected. Maybe this key might be useful in the hours to come.

She then resumed her search. Outside, she could hear the sound of rainfall and thunder, which caused her to remember her posse. She checked her Pip-Girl device for time. 14:23 it said. Way past the hour she had promised Bratty. Maybe she should go back outside, then. From what she could hear, there were no other mutants stomping around. Only a few radroaches, here and there.

But before the raider could leave ...

"How'd you get in here?"

It was the human voice she had heard before. "Hey," Vicious said. "Don't be alarmed. I've come to rescue you."

"Quick!" said the lady before her. "Unlock the door! You've got to get this door unlocked so I can get out of here!" This lady was wearing red coveralls, and had a red bandanna tied around her head.

"Um, what door?"

"You're rescuing me?" lady in red asked. "Thanks, I thought we were goners for sure! I think the others are dead. Or worse. ... My name's Red by the way," she said, extending her hand.

"Hey, it's okay, Red. We know all about you and the others. All of us back in Springvale knew you came up here, tryin' to start a new branch for us, and now I can see what went wrong. But it ain't no worry. You are safe now."

"Don't I know it," said Red. "Now the trick is getting out of here."

"That shouldn't be a problem. This entire floor plus the floor upstairs have been cleared of mutants, yep, I got 'em all. There's a few roaches wandering around, still. I hate killing those things, gettin' all their guts splashed everywhere. You can just avoid those. Upstairs I left a couple rifles by the entrance. Feel free to grab one of those, and also the ammo I left up there."

Red said nothing, but she nodded, her glasses glinting in the station's dim light.

"So what happened to the others?" Miss Vicious asked. "Are there any others? Nice suit, by the way. I love the red."

"Everyone else is dead, or taken away to who knows where," said the red-suited lady. "Well, except maybe for Shorty. They dragged him off downstairs to the kitchen awhile ago. But ... no one comes back from the kitchen."

"Alright sis, I can go see if Shorty is down there. Maybe you should stay here, though. Looks like you don't have a weapon. And I ain't risking any casualties."

Vicious realized she could also lead the lady in red back to one of the rifles she had found, and then have her come along to find this Shorty. But Red would still be ill-prepared. Red wasn't wearing any armor, for instance.

"I'm not waiting around for any super mutant to lock me up again. There's a back door around here some place. If you're not back soon, I'm leaving without you. Meet me at Big Town."

"Big Town?" Vicious replied. "Hey, you don't have to go that far. Yeah, there is a door in the next room which leads outside, Matter of fact, if you go out there, just walk around the perimeter. I came with a couple others, Dogmaster's orders, in fact. The others should be still out there. You can just go there, and wait with them, while I get Shorty. You can tell them I'm okay."

By Red's facial expression, Vicious could see Red was puzzled. The lady in red immediately slunk down cautiously, obviously hiding herself as best she could, which was a good start. But she did not move.

"Okay, then. Just stay here, I guess. I'll be back soon."

Vicious turned off her flashlight, and began to continue her search.

"By the way," she called back to Red, "you might want to consider not wearing all that red if you happen to find some proper armor. Stands out too much once you're on the wasteland. You know? I'll see if I can find something else for you to wear. Hopefully some armor. I mean, once you is back with the others in Springvale you can dress however you like. Springvale and Super Duper Mart are downright safe and solid."

No wonder these guys and gals were being called "rookie idiots" by the raiders down south.




4:47 pm
Vicious found a stairwell which led to a door, and this door led to the police station's cellar. Down here, she found plenty of bones and guts in one room. She also found what had obviously been a raider female, now dead, and hanging from a meat hook. But no Shorty, nor any others. Obviously, the super mutants had been busy eating most of their meals down here. And most of their meals were (apparently) human. Other than a few more radroaches, the place seemed deserted.

Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. Something was not right. Something about the conversation she'd had, hours before.

Specifically, Starsky N. Hutch. Something Starsky had said was suddenly bothering her. Something at the back of her mind. Vicious paused, and tried to remember what this could be. But before she could do so, she heard a voice. Another human voice. This time, a male. She forgot all about Starsky, and whatever it was he'd said.

The male was arguing with yet another mutant, but the conversation was too far away. Though Vicious could not hear specifically what was being said, obviously it was not good. She readied her Blamhammer. Checked a room which had once been the place's mess hall. Tables and chairs and dishes. But nobody in there. So she moved into another room, which was crammed with lockers. The voices were closer now, but nobody in here, either.

A gun fired! And fired again! A rifle, Vicious determined. The man screamed. The rifle fired again, and finally, she had located the mutant. It was at the end of a hallway, roughly 20 feet away. The mutant fired again.

"Put that down, you biscuit and cheese-headed fool!"

*BKKSH!* went her Blamhammer. But the mutant had already been alerted to her presence, and was able to sidestep his massive girth to avoid the brunt of the shotgun's pellets. So it took a few more shots, a few more back-and-forths between her gun and the mutant's. During the melee she realized she'd been hit, and had to rush off into the next room to heal herself with a Stimpak. She also decided to rummage into her pack. She grabbed one of the frag mines she'd found earlier, placing it onto the floor. She activated it, as the mutant stomped near. Vicious then ran into an adjacent room. She shielded herself from the upcoming blast behind a partition.

"Come out, come out, wherever you..." *BOOM* went the frag mine, throwing the 800 pound doofus onto his side. The battle was over. Immediately, a radroach seemed to appear from nowhere. It began nibbling on the mutant's leg just then, probably savoring a rare (still warm) meal.

Vicious ran past these two, and into the room where the mutant had been firing his gun. "Are you alright?!?" she called. "HEY!"

She rushed into the next room. But the guy, presumably Shorty, had already been killed.

"God-DAMMIT!" she swore loudly,realizing that she'd just broken one of the Ten Commandments, the one which said something about not taking the Lord's name in vain. But screw it. There were moments in life when making errors like this seemed more okay than usual. She hunkered down, then felt for a pulse. Found none. Though she did not know for sure who this was, she could see that the man had been rather short in height. Hence, this was probably Shorty.

Miss Vicious searched the rest of the basement. She found more ammo and finally a few packs of cigarettes. But no other raiders.

Time to go. She continued back upstairs, wondering how Starsky and Bratty were doing outside. She checked her device. 19:46 it said. Not good. In fact, by now multiple hours had passed since she'd last seen them. But maybe Red had gone out there by now, joining up with the others.

With the station silent, and the action all over, Miss Vicious spent the next few minutes thinking about Starsky, trying to remember exactly what he'd said to her hours ago.


-------------------------------------------

Peculiar energy weapon

Vicious meets Red

Quest update

Mutilated raider (by coincidence, this poor gal was wearing raider armor)

Mutant executing Shorty

Muzzle Flash!

"Gaaa ha ha ha ha!!!"

Blammo!


Notes: The part when Red says "quick, unlock the door" happened due to some sort of glitch. Red is supposed to be locked up in one of the police station's cells when we find her. But she somehow got out! So I had Vicious walk around to the correct cell door, unlock it, and this caused Red to forcegreet like she normally does!

It probably won't be too long when Taneesha will realize that Red wasn't among raiders. I wonder if she'll decide to meet her in Big Town nonetheless.

Maybe those raiders ended up hanged on hooks like the one which Taneesha found.

If she killed all muties, then Starsky and Bratty should be safe...or not? Is there someone else lurking in the GHQ or maybe Starsky won't be able to cope with darkness?

Good story, it opened up quite some questions.

Lots of action here, and suspenceully written. I'm not surprised that Bratty and Starsky decided to go inside given that Bratty was chomping at the bit and Miss VD was overdue.

So now the Brat and the Starsk are on their way inside to save Capt. Doby.

Awesome! Miss V thinks that Red is a Raider, not someone from Big Town. I love how Red is puzzled over who Dogmaster is, and MVs talk of Springvale and the Super Duper Mart being safe zones.

Aww, Shorty didn't make it.

That is a weird looking energy weapon. I am guessing you added it with a mod?

And now of course, what happened to Starsky and Bratty?

I appreciate you three sticking with this tale week after week. Especially for you, Acadian. Since Fallout games are not your true love. It is fun, but also work! I must motivate myself at times. I guess it's the same way for every major story.

I anticipate Vicious will go through the rest of the summer, and partially into fall. I also still game with Cho Zen Wan quite a lot here and there. Maybe by the time this summer's over I'll be sick of Fallout 3, and finally ready to try New Vegas again. Or Fallout 4.


Lopov: You are right, pretty soon she'll realize Red is not of one them. The raider hanging from the meat hook is just coincidence. :yucky: Beth added that Otherwise, there would be no signs of raiders being in that area. Well... not by Beth, anyway.

I wanted Lopov to realize a few things.. a few inconsistencies, since he knows a lot of FO lore. And it looks like he did notice them, he heee. We message'd each other this week.


Acadian: Quite a lot of the rest of this story will have some sort of action. Whether it's actual fighting or Vicious ... figuring stuff out, and so on. Bratty and Starsky shall play stronger roles in this next coming chapter. But it would only make sense that they'd go after her, being bored, and also with the heat rising to summer temps. It's cooler in that station, I imagine.

Just so you know, the whole part with Red and Shorty is Bethesda-written content, whereas today's chapter shall be Renee-written content.


SubRosa -- Yes, the whole mistaken identity thing was fun to write! Especially because we know the difference. Shorty never makes it in my games so far. Cho also botched that part up earlier this spring when we did Trouble in Big Town for the fist time.

Yes, that energy weapon was added by a mod. All of that shall make sense in a moment....

What happened to Bratty and Starsky? Let's find out!

Chapter 23: Conclusions and Collusions

Saturday, September 1st, 2277, 6:50 pm

The police station was quieter, and the reason why raiders were not able to colonize Germantown's police station was now known. Because of this, Vicious was able to take her time, and search more thoroughly.

As she moved from room to room, she spared no gunfire. By now, she had somewhere over a hundred shells; her hunch that the place would have a lot of ammo definitely came true. So she blasted every remaining, living radroach with the Blamhammer.

There was nothing new to find in the basement, so she backtracked, and was now back in the station's ground floor. She was able to use her flashlight more thoroughly now, as she searched. Because of this, she eventually found a third prisoner.



"Whoa, whoa, who the *duck!* are you?"

The guy had ratty brown hair, and was wearing the armor of a raider, Vicious could see. "Oh ... damn," she said, "I musta missed you earlier. Sorry bout that. Good news, though. I got all the mutants. All of them is dead," she said with some pride.

"Well get me out of here!" he began dancing a little. He looked as though he was fighting off tears. "You got any lock picks? Please say yes."

Vicious looked into her bag. Found the key she had taken earlier from one of the mutants. But the key did not fit this cell's door.

"Dammit. Well yeah, I do have some picks. Hold on."

Being a black girl (whose hair required all kinds of daily upkeep), she always had plenty of lock picks. She had grown up wearing them, in fact!

"Watch this."

She reached toward her head with her left hand, and removed a couple bobby pins from her hair. "One thing convenient about being a girl," she smirked. "Always got lock-picking tools on my head."

"Easy there..." said the convict, his voice shaking.

She bent one of the pins a particular way, then inserted both pins into the lock in slow motion. First one, then the other. Concentration. Picking locks was one of her hobbies as a young teenager, back in the Jehovah's Witness temple she'd grown up in. So it took just two tries for her to feel the lock's tumblers, and roll them just right with a tiny snick, and a tiny click.

"Got it."

"Sweet!" The cell's door rolled open with a series of squeaks. "Pretty sure I was going to be somebody's next dinner..."

"Listen," Vicious grabbed him by the shoulder. "Slow down, and listen to me. You need to focus now. Stay alert. I got others with me. They's still outside. I came in alone, without them. So we's about to meet us some others, okay? All of us came up from Springvale, Dogmaster's orders. Because see? We take care about our own. But you gotta stay focused. Maybe stay back a bit as we walk."

The prisoner nodded.

"Let's go find you a gun," she added.

"Okay, you lead the way," he said eagerly. "I hope we get back to Springvale soon."

Vicious reached into her bag, and grabbed a few items. "You take this ammo, okay? I got us a couple guns upstairs, too. And here, have some food," she said, handing him a box of Junk Food. "And ta-dah, I got cigarettes." She gave him a couple packs, leaving her with five.

"Goddam, this is good. I can't thank you enough."

One thing she did not have was a Stimpak she could give him. In fact, she was out of these disposable healing kits, she had used every last one during her raid. He would just have to bear with this.

"So what's the deal with Red?" Vicious asked. She glanced across the room, where Red was still crouched.

"Oh that chick?" he asked. "The one who's wearing all red? Hey I don't know that chick." He scratched his face. "All I know is, she ain't one of us."

"Hmm."

"Not to confuse the issue, but we gots to get outta here!"

Vicious agreed. But first, she made sure to tell the raider prisoner to wait where he was standing first, while she moved Red into a different room.




8:42 pm
Miss Vicious and the former prisoner left the station. Outside, the rain she'd heard before had stopped at some point. Night had fallen, but a quarter moon was in the sky, so visibility was good. The day's heat was over.

"Come round this way," she told the man as she walked forward. "What is your name, anyway?"

"Just call me Sal," he answered.

"Okay, Sal. You can call me Vicious."

She extinguished her flashlight. Together they walked down a fight of stairs, and across some ground strewn with rubble. Their boots crunched over tons of concrete and plaster. The air out here was pleasant. No more heat, at least for another twelve hours or so. She checked her device. 20:54 it said.

She began to think back to earlier that day. Trying to remember. Starsky N. Hutch had said some things, which eventually caused a few red flags to go up in her head. What were the things he'd said?



Vicious stopped walking. Cocked her head from one side to the other. Afraid of the dark, he had said....



"Uh, huh?" she asked aloud. "And which vault was this you grew up in?" She put her hands on her hips. "Was it Vault 101?"

... Vault 106 is where I was from. Wretched place. I hope I never go back....

Vicious clucked her tongue within her mouth, smiled. Shook her head. "Oh really? Vault 106, you say?"

"What?" asked former prisoner Sal. "Who're you talkin to?"

Miss Vicious thought back to her school days. 9 or 10 years old. The adults and children, locked into eternal worship. Eternal predictions, of when the world was going to end next. Always, there'd be some date for this. ...This 'end' of the world.

"Hey, why've we stopped?" Sal asked, sounding worried.

A young Taneesha Jones, asking questions. ... A young Taneesha Jones, seeking her own answers. ... She had been taken into the temple at a very young age. She'd been an orphan, raised by Jehovah's Witnesses, located in a town once called Ellicott City. Being an orphan, she'd enjoyed a few liberties not shared by the other kids. No immediate parents, which meant she could go unsupervised more often. As long as she was sneaky enough, this was true.

"Vault 106..." she mused.

Because of this, she had gone through a phase, in which she tried to learn everything she could about the outside world. The Ellicott City temple was just as insular as any vault, you see. Nobody was allowed to just leave. But the temple's elders also kept plenty of documents, books, and other such media, pertaining to the rest of America's past. Kept them in one of their special, 'Elders Only' rooms. But rules were made to be broken, in young Taneesha's mind. As long as she was sneaky enough, she pored through as much hidden material as she could, mostly while hiding in a crawlspace.

Now an adult, she tried to remember the pamphlet she had found. The one about vaults. It listed every vault in America, this pamphlet did. Young Taneesha had read and studied them all for awhile, staving off typical childhood boredom. Vault 106, eh?

"There was no way he could of come from Vault 106," Vicious said aloud, gesturing with her hands as if she were talking to somebody. "No way in hell. That's the one where they gave all those dwellers some kind of special drugs. Caused them to lose their minds. Place is uninhabitable. Dag-nabbit!"

"Who? What are you talking about?"

Vicious looked at him, shaking her head slowly. "All I know is something ain't right about the guy I traveled here with. Said he's from Vault 106, and now I know this cannot be. So. There's gonna be some questions to question, and answers to answer."

As the pair walked toward the front of Germantown HQ, Vicious cocked the safety of her gun from ON to OFF.

--------------------------

Raider Convict

Vault 106 wiki page



Notes: Yet another Wastelander ran through the station as I started gaming today! It must be some sort of deliberately-written, unseen quest Bethesda wrote. I was too slow with the console to get a picture of the guy. Vicious did not attack him.

Interesting and tense. Yeah, I remembered later that in Vault 106 one can encounter insane survivors but those are way too insane, not as intelligent and talkative as Starsky. So I didn't know whether Starsky actually somehow survived what happened in that vault and remained more or less sane or did he...lie. But why did he lie? Maybe he plans to do something dark. Maybe Bratty is in danger! Run, Taneesha, run!

All that ammo and bobby pins too! Fully prepared, she is. So she actually found a legitimate Raider to rescue it seems. Red is a question and now more questions arise about Starsky. . . .

she spared no gunfire

I loved this line.

A nice explanation for the use of bobby pins rather than lockpicks in this game!

There is an actual Raider in the place! Uh oh, now Red has been outed. My guess is that means she's going to be dragged back to Springvale to be tortured and murdered. Maybe they will keep her alive because she has some skill though.

I remembered Vault 106 as the crazy hallucination place too. I just figured Starsky stayed there for a while, and got himself some phobias for his trouble. But he made his Sanity Rolls, so he's not fully crazy.

I have never seen Wasterlanders running through the police station. That sounds like some weird bug.

Lopov: As you have gleaned, there's something fishy about vault 106. I was hoping you would pick up on this, you being more of a Fallout Lore Geek® than the rest of us.



Taneesha... RUN?


Acadian -- the whole bobby pins thing came to me literally as I was writing last week. I haven't worn pins in a long time, but a lot of the ladies I've known and worked with over the years, especially African-Americans, sometimes do. Especially if their hair is straightened; pins help keep their coif safe from flyaway.

In Fallout games, a bobby pin gets shown (along with a small screwdriver) whenever we pick locks, and so it hit me. She has a bunch of pins in her inventory; some of them were given to her by Slick Rick along with her specialized gun, but I like to imagine some of them are in her hair.


SubRosa -- OH no, no, no... Red is safe. Vicious is not some bloodthirsty type like most raiders. She has a background of decent morals, overall. But I also thought it would be a good idea to move Red into a different room. Because the raider convict guy is part of the RaiderFaction. And I wasn't sure if he would attack poor Red if he saw her. In fact, whenever the party comes near civilization (such as Big Town, or a Brahmin merchant) Vicious gets protective about any innocents nearby.

Ha ha I like what you just said: maybe he made his Sanity Rolls.

It is 9:32 am now. 4th of July. I need to get this done today probably in the next 6 hours, because we're going to my sister's later on for the BIG holiday party.

Chapter 24: Starsky N. Hutch

Saturday, September 1st, 2277, 9:07 pm





Just before walking that final corner, Vicious turned to Sal, the convict she had rescued not long before.

"W-we stopped again," he said. "I-I-I don't understand what's going on?"

As instructed by his rescuer, Sal had been following Vicious at a distance, for reasons of safety. So Vicious now turned to him. Walked a little closer.

"You might want to wait here," she said.

"Why?"

"I got a funny feeling, that's why. Let's call it Women's Intuition. If I'm wrong, I'll be right back, okay?"

"O-okay... well don't be long! I don't wanna become another monster's diet, if ya know what I mean."

"I do. Just wait here. Hide behind something, if you want. I'll be back."

Sal looked as if he were going to say something. He reached out his hand, pointing a finger, as though he were about to pontificate some obvious, upcoming statement. But by then she was leaving.

Vicious turned the corner, walked past the knocked-down section of fence, and made her way back to the area with all the tents. As she walked, first thing she noticed: she saw nobody. Nobody was around, not Bratty, not Starsky. Not anyone. But this was okay. Maybe her posse was in one of the tents, playing cards. Then again, she knew this could not be true. Her intuition had kicked in, after all.

"Anybody here?" she called. Her voice echoed. Nobody answered.

That's when she saw Starsky N. Hutch. Starsky was walking toward her. By himself. Calmly strolling along.. Shoulders broad, with a very slight smile. His demeanor was different, somehow. Seemed as if he were being ... what?

"Where's Bratty?"

"Bratty's a little tied up at the moment," he answered. His smile went away.

"What. Do. You. Mean? What did you do to her?" she glowered.

His armor was different, Vicious noticed.

"Hey look," he started. "Sorry I had to lie to you about Vault 106. Sometimes it's okay to lie, though. I know you are religious, and I respect that. But some lies are necessary. Let me explain."

His tone of voice was completely smooth and mild, which infuriated her. "Where the *luck* is Bratty?" She kept her temper in check.

"Listen, I know she's your beau," he said. "But let's face facts. She's childish. She's unprofessional. She's abusive and manipulative. Trust me, you don't need her in your life any more, Miss Vicious."

He was relaxed, she noticed. As if he thought he had all of this under control.

"While you were in there, we waited and waited, and finally thought we should at least go after you. Maybe you had gotten hurt, or something."

Vicious glared. Not time for the Blamhammer; not just yet. Let's hear what he has to say...

"We were somewhere on the second level when she just snapped. Grabbed my blade, then came after me with it. Ironic, right?" he flinched. "Anyway, I had no choice but to put her down. Didn't kill her. Just put a sedative into her arm."

"Bull *ship*, she came after you with your knife. I do not believe that for one instant."

"She's still in there," he informed. "In one of those cells. Had to wait until you were done with the basement before I could move her, and lock her in. You walked right by me, in fact!" he said with a small chuckle.

Finally it dawned on her. His armor. His armor had an insignia with the shape of a talon upon its breast. "Talon Company?" she asked, an incredulous sound to her voice. "You're with the Talon Company?"

"And so now, you have a choice," Starsky ignored. "Either you come along with me, or you go in there with the brat."

Vicious said nothing. Waited. Make him guess what I'm about to do...

"Yep, Talon Company," he finally answered. "Didn't you ever notice how I never really fit in with the raiders? You're a very perceptive lady, so I know you did."

Vicious said nothing, so he continued.

"It was pretty easy to infiltrate your stupid comrades," he explained patiently. "Really, it was no sweat." His arms were crossed. "Now look. I need to explain a few things to you. Pay attention. The reason we, ... uh... we being Talon Company that is, decided to infiltrate the raiders is because of you. Because we heard about you causing that mess back in Fairfax, taking care of those raiders. Heard about it on the radio, matter of fact. We decided, we wanted to recruit you. Now, think about that for a moment..."

"Yeah, me join the Talon Company," Her face twisted. "You need to *duck* off, with that jack *skit*." Her right hand was on the butt of her gun. "That's what you need to do..."

"You also have something which we want," Starsky continued. "And I think you know what I'm talking about. A certain gun. High technology. Looks like an energy weapon, perhaps."

Vicious said nothing at first. Just stood there sadly. Yet also determined, about something. She touched her bag. Felt along its canvassing. Finally, she spoke.

"What, you want that cheap-ass energy weapon I found?"

"Ah, looks like you DID find it!" Starsky snapped his fingers. "We KNEW these things existed!"

Vicious reached into her bag, and pulled the weapon she'd found earlier out of it.

"That's not just an energy weapon," he explained, "it's a stun gun."

He waited a moment, for this bit of information to sink in. When it seemed it hadn't, he continued.

"Back in the 21st century they used stun guns all the time, mostly to apprehend uncooperative crimnals. Stun guns were non-lethal ways to take someone down," he gestured, acting like he was about to fall over. "We sent a team out here to Germantown a while back, but were unable to find one. Like I said though, we knew there had to be at least one out here. We were hoping. And looks like you found it. See, if we have a stun gun, we can figure out how it works. Maybe we can start using them, to incapacitate our opponents before they even know what's going on."

Vicious made no reply.

"Now, you have a choice, Vicious. Join us."

She shook her head, looked to the ground.

"Rules and regulations, to structure your life. Chem-free programs, to keep you clean. An army of mercenaries, men, women, and bots. We could use you. You know how to work against the odds; our staff psychologist thinks so, anyways. We're very impressed with you back at Fort Bannister. By the way, I was able to radio back to Bannister while you were gone. 'Bring her back safely, Starsky,' those are direct orders from Commander Jabsco himself, our very top leader."

"Yeah, whatever," she spoke softly. The gun was in her hand more firmly, now. "First thing you're gonna do is show me where Bratty is. Or you'll get to SEE why they been known to call me Vicious."

"Easy there. Give me the gun, Taneesha," he said. "Yep, we know your real name. One of our techs, Bea Faroni, did great research on you."

Her gastrocnemius muscle tensed. Her eyebrow twitched. From somewhere far away, an animal called out into the night.

"Or you can join the brat deep in that cell. Your choice. We'll just leave you in there," he said, pointing up the street. "Won't kill you. Because we do have respect. So we won't kill you right away. Instead, maybe we'll hunt you."

"We?"

"Oh yeah, I do have others with me. Place is surrounded, in fact. Talon Company everywhere. Because we're serious about this."

He smiled, arms crossed.

Vicious looked down at the gun. Checked its safety (which was nothing more than a power switch). She turned the gun on. A little light blinked on the gun's stock which said Powering.

"Hey whoa. Whoa, whoa ... WHOA!" he said, backing up a foot or so. "That thing's not a toy. Uh. You'll need highly specialized ... uh ... gloves to handle it, without zapping yourself."

Vicious looked down. Powering now changed to Ready.

"Uh, you didn't find those gloves, did you? Because you'll--"

30,000 volts of electricity zapped into Starsky N. Hutch just then, causing his limbs to lock up. "N--!" He screamed, while Vicious stood surprised. Surprised, that the thing would even work! ... But Starsky was frozen. He was not moving. So she switched to her other gun.

"You've just made a date with this here Blamhammer, fool."

She shot him in the chest, causing him to stumble aside, then fall onto a sandbag. She shot him again, knocking him backwards into miscellaneous stuff! His leg was broken, she could see.

Just then, the stun gun's effect wore off. Starsky got up off the ground, and grabbed a pistol he had found at some point. "Give it up!" he cried. "You're surrounded! WHERE ARE MY BOYS?" he shouted, panicking.

"Shut up. Ain't no boys. Why ain't you using your blade, fool?"

She grabbed the stun gun, left-handed. Zapped him again with its volts. Had a quick look around, to see if others were approaching. Didn't see anybody, nor hear them. "Surrounded, eh?" *BKKSSHHH!* went the Blamhammer.

"Oharrgh!!!!"

Two more shots, causing him to roll, and shriek. Next thing she knew, Starsky N. Hutch (apparently named after some famous action TV stars from the 20th century) was done for.

She checked his belongings. Found a few caps, a few rounds of 10mm ammo, but no Stimpaks! No way to heal herself. Dammit. Though she did not see or hear anybody else, she decided to play it cautiously, sneaking back toward the police station. Flashlight off. Past all the tents, and over the section of fallen-over fence. Around the corner where she'd left Sal the prisoner.

Finally, she saw somebody. Standing maybe 50 feet away. At that moment her foot snagged on something, and whoever it was heard the noise. A man, but not Sal. This man was bigger. He turned to her. Readied something large with both hands. "Talon Company!" he yelled, blasting Vicous with a spray of fire. A flamethrower!

Her arms and back burned, but fortunately she was able to also aim and hit the man from a distance with her new electric toy. The Talon Company merc fell straight to the ground! So she blasted him with her shot gun until he was done for.

Good thing was, this man had a Stimulation Recovery Pack, or Stimpak, for short. Vicious immediately jammed it into her arm, her body her returning nearly to full health. A few minutes later, she found a second merc, but this one was already dead. She searched around a little more, flashlight still off, and cautious. But there were no others to be found. Apparently, Starsky had been bluffing. Either that, or all these other mercs who'd 'surrounded' the place had decided to go off on some huge, extended cigarette break.

She began to run. Back inside the station she found Sal, hiding safely inside. Good man, she thought.

At 10:14 pm she found Bratty. Locked in a cell, but also freed from her restraints. Bratty was dousing herself with water from the jail cell's sink. She had somehow been able to get out of the ropes Starsky had tied her with.

"I knew you'd be coming! Just knew it!" Bratty said. But her enthusiasm did not last long. While Vicious pulled another set of 'lock picks' from her hair, and began working on the cell's door, Bratty began shaking. Her face fell into a jumble of sobs. Click the lock was open.

Vicious rushed into the cell. Grabbed the brat, and hugged her for a very long time. As she did so, Vicious noticed that Starsky's knife was in Bratty's possession.

-----------------------------------

"It's not just an energy weapon...."

Bzzt!

Bang!!!!

Bksssh!

Splat! (gore warning)

The demise of Starsky N. Hutch

Vicious Delicious

-------

Notes: finished and done for at 2:59 pm!

That twist was far better than anything I expected, nicely done! I had some ideas in the back of my mind, what could happen, but none of them included the Talon Company or the reason why Starsky (if that was his name) was in fact after MVD!

Well at least Starsky felt the effect of the wanted gun personally.

Nice that Bratty's still alive.

Deliciously lopov-ed.

Wow! So Starsky was a bad guy / plant all along. Well, the warnings were there.

"Don't taese me, bro!"

"How about a taese and a blam then!"

Vicious lived up to her name here and can't say I blame her. Good that Trouble Bratty is okay.

I am such a ditz, and forgot to write the very last line of this story earlier. The one about Starsky's knife. Just added it in. Phew.

Starsky was a Talon company spy! I expected that he would be trouble. But not that sort of trouble. That is a really interesting turn of events.

Somehow I don't think he is going to duck off.

Ok, from that side pic I can see the gun is more like a regular taser now.

Yes Lopov, Starsky is his real name. Um.. was his real name. I guess it would be like if somebody in our times named his/her son Abraham. Nobody uses that name Abraham in America anymore, but if they did, it would be an obvious reference to one of our most famous presidents from the past.

That entire last set of episodes was not going to be like that at all, by the way. Originally it was going to be Vicious, Q Tip, Bratty, and some random raider (whose name is actually Raider, not Starsky) going up to Germantown all so Vicious can retrieve this cool mod I'd found. We couldn't bring Q Tip though; his AI package wasn't working right. And by the time everyone got to the raider campsite by that irradiated pond, I had all these new ideas for what IS actually going to happen.

Yes Acadian, there were definite warnings along the way. Subtle moments when Starsky would "think" and "ponder", especially when Vicious announced she'd be leaving them for a few hours. From my perspective, I knew he we plotting to get Vicious all his own.

In fact, his original plan was to somehow pluck her straight from Springvale. But then once he found out she'd be heading up to the police station, he decided to hitchhike along with Vicious & Bratty, hoping they'd find the stun gun, or any other such law-enforcement weapons which Talon Company was unable to locate.

The stun gun is added by a mod, SubRosa, and the mod-author used some other gun mod for its textures and sound. I've done some random gaming with Vicious these past couple weeks, and I can confirm, the darn thing works! In fact it kind of breaks the game, since it works on huge targets such as super mutants.

But that's the idea. I wanted Vicious to become untouchable. Nobody can mess with her. Only if multiple targets show up do problems arise. Because between each taze, she must reload. Otherwise, look out Capitol Wasteland...

Chapter 25: Anticlimactic Arrival

Saturday, September 1st, 2277

Minimum Temperature: 70.9 °F

Maximum Temperature: 95.0 °F


Now that it was firmly September, everyone was looking forward to some relief from summer. But today was not the day for some cooler weather.

Vicious and Bratty spent most of September First getting lost, traveling in one very large circle. They located a street full of raiders who were even more barbaric than the ones near the Potomac. These villains had a house with an entire room devoted to torture! Though they accepted the traveling ladies with open, blood-spattered arms, Vicious and Bratty did not feel comfortable staying more than an hour with them.

Vicious did know how to use shadows, to tell which direction she was going. For instance, if it was morning and their shadows were falling to their left, they were walking north. If it was morning and their shadows fell to their right, they were walking south. Still, it was a good thing Vicious possessed her nifty handheld device (with its real-time map and GPS capabilities). It might have taken days to return home without it.
After walking and walking, and then realizing it was late afternoon, and they had merely arrived back at the police station, they decided to just spend the rest of the day camped where they'd started.

Vicious's device also had the ability to dial in radio stations. As they walked, they listened occasionally to the wasteland's latest news and music. Here's some of what they learned.

-- While Vicious, Bratty, and Starsky were busy in Germantown, the deviant monster being called the Card Killer had claimed another victim, right inside of Tenpenny Tower this time. Millicent Wellington was her name. No witnesses had drawn any conclusions, and no suspect had been developed or captured. A tarot card depicting Death had been placed aside of poor Millicent's body.

-- Somebody near the Megaton area had been seen eating the flesh of other humans. Not Rattler, said the news announcer. This cannibal was being described as a woman, wearing some sort highly-sophisticated head gear. A similar woman, a former scientist known as Loviatar, was also known to eat flesh, far to the west in the New Vegas area. Coincidence?

--From Galaxy News Radio, Vicious and Bratty also heard about 'the kid from Vault 101', and not for the first time. This 'kid's' fame seemed to be rising. He had recently been doing a bunch of missions for somebody inside Megaton. These missions included hunting mole rats, of all things! But it was also known that this 'kid', if he indeed was a kid, was also eager to hunt raiders. It was reported that the raiders who'd been camped at Friendship Metro Station had all fallen due to him.

"Shut that happy crappy off!" Bratty exclaimed when she heard that bit of info.

"How about I just change the station?"

Miss Vicious wondered if Three Dog, Galaxy News Radio's main announcer, had been talking about the same 'kid' she'd seen when she was in Megaton. The kid who'd killed that gangster-looking dude, right inside of Moriarty's.



Sunday, September 2nd
The next day, Vicious had better luck with their travel. She managed to head straight south this time. Found the chapel where they'd encountered super mutants days before. Avoided Big Town. And found the raider campsite again, the one which was next to that irradiated pond.

By late morning, they were home.

If Miss Vicious expected some sort of haloed welcome as some sort of heroine (and rightly, she did) she was disappointed. Here she was, carrying her big, threatening shotgun, and now had the ability to easily take down any enemy she encountered with one well-aimed zap from her genuine police-issued stun gun. As Bratty and she walked across the Wasteland, she began to feel downright omnipotent whenever they encountered an enemy of any kind. With her new energy cell-powered toy, she was unstoppable.

But back at school, it was as if nothing had changed. Nobody mentioned anything about 'those rookie idiots up north', and how it was she who had succeeded in learning the outcome which befell them. Nobody greeted her as any sort of champion. Nobody even tried to bum one of her cigarettes. As she ambled around the school, looking for Slick Rick so she could get paid, she still received their vague threats, insults, and cat-calls.

On the other hand, there was a certain...deference amongst the others. Nothing she could put her finger on for sure. But it seemed the raiders of Springvale were all just a little more ... cautious with their comments? As if they knew it was her who'd done some amazing things, but were keeping their mouths shut due to ignorance, or jealousy?

When she finally found Slick in one of Springvale's darkened hallways, the man had nothing but good things to say. Dogmaster and other upper-handers were all grateful that she'd succeeded with her assignment. Germantown Police Station was now up for grabs, said Slick. Hopefully, raiders would be able to repopulate the place before others did.

"Here you go, swell!"

Slick gave Vicious a total of 500 caps for her success. What a surprise. She had never held so much money in her life, and now all of it was hers. There were so many caps in the bag he'd given her, she had to carry it with both hands. Extra caps had been given, Slick explained, due to the prisoner she'd safely transported from Germantown to Springvale. This prisoner quickly disappeared now that he was safe. Probably, he'd holed up in some nook or cranny where he could explore all his remaining fears, without fear. The guy had been a nervous wreck all the way back, so Vicious did not blame him.

"You got, you gots, you also gots your own room now," Slick Rick explained, obviously high on something. "Your.. your favorite room! The one that's back by the back, you know which one I'm talkinabout. It's yours now, Vicious."

Vicious did know which room he was talkinabout. It was one of the classrooms, probably once used for art class, Vicious concluded. It had the usual jumble of chairs and tables, strewn and toppled this way and that. Its chalkboard was somehow still intact though, and still hung from its original wall. This classroom also had a desk, once used by some long-ago teacher. Vicious had gotten into the habit of storing some of her things in the desk. And oddly, none of the other raiders ever seemed to wander in. None of them stole her stuff. They mostly preferred to stay in the school's frontal areas. Or upstairs. With a bagful of caps, and nowhere to put it, Vicious decided to head back to the room she'd been promised. Her room.

"Hey, wanna make even more caps?" Bratty asked as she followed her friend to Vicious's room. "Me and a few other *witches* are headed off to Dukov's place. You know, across tha river! We gonna make some extra good cappy-caps!"

"Doing what?"

"The usual. Dancing," she swayed her hips as she said this. "You know. Getting together, havin' fun..."

"Whoring?" Vicious snapped. Both gals stopped walking. Vicious rolled her eyes as she looked at her friend. Dukov was well-known in the Capitol Wasteland for his hookers and whores, after all. "Don't do that, brat. Why you gonna go over there and turn some tricks for caps?"

Bratty's olive skin turned red as she went once again into bad schoolgirl mode. Busted. "Hey lady, check yourself. I ain't like that! I am NOT some *ferking* whore! I ain't gonna sell my body nor nothing, girl! We is just goin over there and dancing. Havin' some fun. Makin' some caps, while the men gets fit to ogle and stare. That's it. No *kitty* play. No sucky luck. That's all I got to say, and that's all I got to say!"

"Well." The girls began walking again. "Count me out. I want no part of that. Doncha see this-here bag of caps I just done got?" Vicious jiggled, the bag jingled. "This bag is not just my bag, it is ours. We can live off this for a good, long while." She smiled. "That's right. You and me. We are a team, if you want us to be a team. And you ain't gotta do nothin' for this. No dancing or..whatever you got planned over there. In fact, I don't wanna know."

But Bratty was determined. For whatever reason, she would not relent on her decision. "Geez! I ain't stayin' all year over there," she said. "A bunch of us ladies are goin', a couple of dudes, too. It ain't like I'm goin' over there by my lonesome self."

"Whatever. Have fun. I will be here, Brat. I won't go anywhere without you first, okay?"

So Miss Vicious bid her friend farewell, cursing under her breath as she did so. Stupid girl. But what can ya do?

Since there was a lull in activity, nothing new for her from Slick or Dogmaster, she now had some time to kill. She immediately decided her new room was an unholy mess. After selling a few unneeded items to Springvale's indoor dealer, Vicious began straightening her room. That's right. The numerous scraps of paper and rubble on the floor were placed in a bucket, then tossed outside. Tables were uprighted, and chairs were placed in such a way that they now looked forward. As if class were about to be in session.

The others thought her behavior downright odd, as she scrapped and attempted to clean. Miss Delicious, now a topic of conversation for all.

Over the next couple of days, she also spent some time wandering outside of Springvale, looking for enemies to kill, and conquer. She headed downhill, and wound up in the metro station across from Super Duper Mart, where she zapped, then shot, dozens of underground ghouls. All of this adventuring was new to her. In the past there was never a time when she had just decided 'oh, let's go off and find something to kill!' No. Guns and other weapons had always been tools of defense for Vicious.

But now she felt different about herself. Maybe Starsky was right. Maybe she really was Talon Company material. Not that she was going to go off and join them. But maybe she was good enough.

"Yo Vicious," said Slick a few days later, as he caught her walking inside from a late-summer rain storm. "Got something for you."

Miss Vicious Delicious, drenched from the rain, could not wait to hear what it was.

----------------------------------

Vicious and Bratty

Vicious's room (Before Pic)

Vicious's room (After Pic... eh, she's getting there!)

Getting paid

Card Killer victim Millicent Wellington

Strange flesh-eating lady

Loviatar action pic

Cool to hear the news and get an update on all our old friends and enemies!

Not the best reception back home in Springvale. Maybe Miss V ought to branch out on her own?

A Raider cleaning house? Inconceivable!

It is pretty neat how you have done this Raider faction.

Nice, how you include your own and our characters in Taneesha's story. *clap clap*

I wonder if we'll ever see or hear of Bratty again. I hope that she leaves Dukov's place before Rattler arrives there and cleans up the place.

Taneesha's got her very own classroom!

Clever to use the radio for an 'around the wasteland' update. And as SubRosa and Lopov said, neat to feature some cameo mentions of their characters.

Stungun + Blamhammer + Vicious = Unstoppable.

Looks like these raiders pay well - Vicious gets her own room and 500 caps that she didn't even have to 'dance' for.

There was a member here at Chorrol who was named vicious111. Whoever this is, he or she joined way back in 2006, and today is vicious111's birthday. What an appropriate day to post the next chapter.

Acadian: I love mentioning other gamers' characters. I try not to overdo it, of course. In Fallout games, we also have radio stations, and (in case you don't know) there is one station which constantly updates what the Lone Wanderer (similar to the Champion of Cyrodiil, or the Dovakhiin...) is up to. But Three Dog mostly just talks about our character as we do various quests with him or her. I like to imagine other news has to be mentioned as well.

SubRosa: Ah ha ha .... I've been holding on to that Loviatar mention for awhile now! Just had to wait for the right moment. I also did some reading on Lovi and a couple others (such as Hecate) from a few years ago, which was fun.

Vicious branching on her own is an interesting concept. I haven't written much about that part, but she has considered this, here and there. What always stops her is the fact that she grew up belonging to a "family" (the Jehovah's Witnesses) and so she has that mentality that she feels she must belong to some family or organization. Raiders, of course, can be quite despicable. So why is she with them at all? Especially being supposedly God-fearing?

I don't want to give too much away. You'll eventually see what happens....


Lopov: It's a Rattler pic Noooo!!!! But hmm. Now that you mention Rattler visits the place... hmm.

Bratty is a ditz. I don't think we've heard the last from her, though.

Chapter 26: The Bearer Bonds

Wednesday, September 5th, 2277

Location: Springvale Elementary School

Minimum Temperature: 66.9 °F

Maximum Temperature: 88.0 °F

"Yo Vicious," said Slick a few days later, as he caught her walking into the school from a late-summer rain storm. "Got something for you."

Miss Vicious Delicious, drenched from the rain, could not wait to hear what it was. Where would she be sent to next? Her heart rate increased just then.

"So." Slick began. "I been conferring with my associates, y'know? And we got us your first ... uh... task."

"Uh huh. Well technically, this is now my second task. But please continue."

Over the past few days, Miss Vicious had mostly been on her own. She walked to the Metro station across from Super Duper Mart, spent a day or so walking its underground tubes, clearing them of feral ghouls. She eventually ended at Friendship Station, an outdoor area where subway riders had once congregated as they traveled to or from work. Tourists also packed the station centuries ago, as they headed down to the Mall and museums. Vicious was pretty sure Friendship was the place where the 'kid from Vault 101' had killed all those raiders; this was what Three Dog had said over the radio. Fortunately, this information seemed to be wrong. A half-dozen were there, none of whom had gotten attacked in the last three days.

"So what have you got for me?" she asked Slick. Despite increased blood flow, she kept her face neutral.

Slick lit a cigarette. "So think of Megaton, a'ight?" he started. "Big place full of peoples of all types and kinds."

"Uh-huh. Megaton. What about it?" She noticed Slick seemed more lucid today. That is, he did not seem high on anything.

"So like, hundreds of years before the war, there was all kinds of things they used to do, ways to move moneys around. Y'know, like they had banks, and computers, and trading stations. Stocks and bonds. It weren't all about physical cash, right? They had, like, documents and transfers and liens and all kind of stuff."

Vicious frowned.

"There was these things called bearer bonds, y'see."

"Okay..."

"Bearer bonds were like these legal pieces of paper, a'ight? And they gave the owners of these legal pieces of papers total ownership, of like...all kinds of junk. Like, say, if the gov'ment waned to issue ownership to some corporation, of, let's say, some sort of property or transfer or whatever." He puffed his smoke, blowing out the side of his mouth. "As the market fell up and down, the stock market, that is, as moneys went up and down, you know, the market was always goin' up, or goin' down, people who had stock held within the market would either lose their money or they was gaining some. You could be poor one day, and rich the next. Or vice versa, see?"

Vicious crossed her arms. "Rick, where is this ... lecture going?"

"I'm gettin' to that!" He waved his arm impatiently. "See, these bearer bonds was like... securities, they was called. They was worth money. But as the market went up and down, the bond would make sure your money STAYED where it was at. Some dudes who owned stock would be rich one day, and poor the next. But not with bearer bonds."

"Okay..."

"Bearer bonds was always worth money," he finally stated.

Vicious said nothing. What the hell is this? thought she. I'm back in school, with a lunatic raider for my teacher, educating me on Economics?

"Well now they ain't worth *ship*. Them bonds. They ain't worth nothing. All of that got blown up with da war," he smirked. "No gover'ment, bonds ain't worth *ship*."

"So, what is this, this little sermon of yours? I thought I am here to discuss my latest assignment."

"But y'see," he ignored, "we gots words from Q Tip that a lots of peoples in Megaton still OWN some of these bonds. Got them all locked up. Stored away in their properties, y'see? When the tip was living in Megaton, he did some snooping around, right? He found they still got bonds there!"

Vicious said nothing.

The male raider smiled. "That's where you come in," Slick Rick began making his funny gestures again. "You go into town, you go on a lookout, goin' into peoples' homes and stuff, and you find as many of these bonds as you can." He was openly grinning now. Proud of himself, or something. "Probably they 'll look like they's all torn up scraps of paper, by now. You know, these bonds is old."

Vicious said nothing, so Rick continued.

"Don't know what Dogmaster wants with them, but this order comes down from him. You bring thems to me, and I bring thems to him."

"Ah, so this is Dogmaster's idea," Vicious replied. "I was gonna say. What the hell does he want with a bunch of old documents? ... even if they were worth money. Sounds to me like they were authorized by the government back then. Back then, that is. So what good are they now?"

"Hey, I don't know what the dog wants them for," Slick answered. "Don't really care, to be honestly. But that's what he wants, so that's what you got now."

"Hmm." Vicious looked to the ground, shaking her head. "I mean, it's like you guys just assume I'm going to be up for this. Like I want to go sneaking into peoples' homes to basically steal a bunch of worthless old documents. In Megaton. The town where I just got caught, and thrown into their new jail."

Now it was Slick Rick who was momentarily speechless.

"Do you know how embarrassing that was? Getting caught while stealing Psycho, and then hauled off to jail by Megaton's new officer? And you just assume I'm ready to go back in there..."

"Hey look, don't be .. uh.. talkin' like that, okay?" Rick said. "Like you's all disappointed and junk."

"Is it that obvious? I mean but seriously. How am I supposed to go back in there and actually DO this?"

"Hey, I dunno. Maybe wear a disguise!"

"A disguise?" she chuckled. "The *cluck* am I now? Bonnie and Clyde or some *ship*?"

"What'd you think, you was going to be sent off to kill some Enclave or something?" he asked. "I apologize, but this is your next job. This. Right here, is what you should of could of be doin' now, instead of arguing with me."

Vicious rolled her eyes.

"Tell you what. Pay is going to be even better on this one," he crushed his cigarette on a nearby wall. "I can guarantee this. That's one thing about the dog. When he wants something, you always get paid if you do right by him. And I know he's talking about more caps for this job. For whatever reason."

Slick Rick informed her of this, then wandered off, to whatever else he had planned for the day. Which probably wasn't much.

Miss Vicious began walking back to her classroom, biting her cheek. She'd been hoping for something a little more exciting. But maybe making a return back to Megaton wouldn't be so bad. Certainly, she would not have to face any dangerous monsters, for one thing. For another, she could work solo. With Bratty out being slutty at Dukov's for whatever length of time, certainly having a look (at least) into this Megaton business might not be so bad.

"Hmph. Guess I won't be needing my Blamhammer for this one," she said to the nearest wall, half-disenchanted, half-not. She stopped walking, just then. "'Thou shalt not steal,' the Lord says," she added. "But it sounds like these items, these bonds or whatever, can't be worth anything. Except to Dogmaster, of course. I should at least have a look, I guess," she rationalized half-heartedly. "Not like anybody would miss any of these if I grabbed a few. Not like I'd be stealing caps, or food, or weapons."

"Que pasa?" asked a raider male, walking slyly down the hall.

"And really," she said to the man without answering his question, "what the hell do I owe towards Megaton, anyway? Pshaw. They kicked me out of town! Locked me up, too. I tell ya..."

She began walking again. Wondered what Bratty and the others were up to. And if she'd made a mistake not traveling down to Dukov's with them. But her final decision? She wanted to at least see if there was any merit to this bearer bond business. Maybe lifting a few of them would be relatively harmless.

What an odd mission. I'm curious to see what happens. I should think Vicious has the right of it - what value is there to bearer bonds when the institution/government that issued them is long vaporized? Well, we shall see.

I loved it when Slick Rick referred to Q-Tip as 'the tip'.

Or maybe not.

I mean, so far Taneesha doesn't seem to be involved in a lot of harmless stuff.

I quite enjoyed a history lesson of bearer bonds.

A bearer bond heist? I hope a New York City cop named John McClain is not there to foil the job!

I like how you had a brief reference to the Lone Wanderer here. Shows how there is a bunch of other stuff happening in the wasteland well outside this story.

Surprised that a raider knows what any sort of bond is, especially 200 years after the Great War. Curious to see what this Dogmaster wants them for.

It's already August and although I'm enjoying this story, there's a lot to come and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Plus it'll be autumn pretty soon, and I'm eager to plunge into Skyrim, and continue the story of Laprima Donaugh, in the actual Fan Fiction section. So probably what I'll do is finish this next part of Vicious' story (Megaton, searching for these bearer bonds), and then continue with the rest of her story later, probably in Spring of 2022.



It is odd, I agree. In fact, this entire next set of chapters; I'm going to be partially in the dark. I wrote the quest, but Lopov is the one who actually hid all the bonds! And he's hinted that he added some extra content along the way, which I have no clue what his could mean. Traps? Bombs? Rattler? Who the heck knows?

So, I knew what would happen (pretty much) during Germantown Police Station since I did all the GECK work, but Vicious did not. This won't be the case for her return to Megaton. Both of us are unsure what'll happen.



See, what the *ferk* is that supposed to mean? Anyway, thank you for helping me with this next portion of the Miss Vicious World.esp, spending some time in the GECK, and so on.

Lopov and I have discussed this several times. If he hadn't assisted me last summer, chances are he wouldn't have gotten inspired to create his own Enemies of the Wastes mod for Fallout 3.



I was actually thinking Beverly Hills Cop. There's a scene in which Axel Foley links cocaine to bearer bonds or something. For some reason, that notion has stuck in my head all these years... err ... decades.

Now you got me wondering who John McClain is though. I'll have to read up on him.



That's what I love the most about writing these sort of longer stories. I get to spend many months, maybe years in this case, thinking of all these extra angles. Different perspectives from different peoples already in the game.

We shall find out what the Dogmaster wants with those bonds in this next chapter. Sort of.

..,

Chapter 27: Return to Megaton



Vicious spent the rest of Wednesday September 5th pondering and preparing. How should she approach this latest mission, if it could even be called a mission?

She located Slick Rick after wandering the school's halls for an hour or so, and grilled him for more information. Such as, why was she even being given this task, especially since Q Tip is the one who supposedly found one of these bonds in the first place?

Turns out, Q Tip had been their local 'inside man' for covert operations into the Capitol Wasteland's more civilized locations. He 'cleaned up nicely' once he was out of his raider gear. He could be cute, especially with his unusual cue ball-colored hair. But he had also "done and *lucked* up" the last time he'd been in Megaton. Got into a bar fight after getting drunk at Moriarty's. Because of this, he too had gotten arrested by the town's new law force lady. He hadn't been jailed, though. At the time he had had enough caps in his pocket to simply pay for his crime. 50 caps was all it took. After this, he walked out of town a free man. But chances are, it would not be good for him to return so soon.

"Yes, but hello?" said Vicious, bulging her eyes. "You all seem to forget that I have also been arrested in Megaton recently, fool. Wasn't really that long ago. Everyone will know my face."

"Yeah, but you is, uh, you is a chick," Slick explained. "You is a lady, with plenty of ..uh... femininity to go 'round these parts. That is who you is."

"So?"

"Well, uh, see, I was thinkin' all about this. Like, you can put makeup on. Change your hair around and stuff, like you womens do. And and and.. no one will expect a lady prowlin' around their grounds, yuh? Snoopin' in their homes. Especially if you get all dolled up and pretty-like."

Before Vicious could protest further, Slick led her to a particular school locker, where one of the previous raider females had been keeping her clothes. The locker contained a lot of pre-war-styled clothing. Dresses and heels and skirts and blouses. Though Vicious rolled her eyes and pouted here and there, she did secretly admit to herself that going back into town with a totally new appearance would be rather... fun?

She grabbed a couple dress / shoe combinations, and also selected a hat she could wear. The hat was overkill. It had been made in the stormchaser style, meaning that it was designed for keeping one's face clean from dusty or rainy weather. It covered most of her face, in fact! Though this might seem odd; wearing garb like this was not totally out-of-place, here in 23rd century Capitol Wasteland.

Slick also explained to Vicious that Dogmaster wanted her to collect the bonds because of some sort of scam he was going to pull. Vicious hammered Rick with more questions, but he seemed just as clueless as she, beyond this superficial information.

Finally, Vicious needed to decide which weapons she'd bring into town, just in case. The two grenades she'd looted out of Germantown? No. Her Blamhammer shotgun? Nuh-uh. Too big, too loud, too messy. She'd likely not need any frag mines, either. Probably would not be such a good idea to lay some of those in some hidden locations, blowing to smithereens whoever was unlucky enough to walk over them.

So no guns, and no bombs. Instead she'd bring an old lead pipe, just in case she needed to get up-close and vicious with anybody. And definitely the stun gun.

Vicious smiled as she selected this second weapon. She lit a cig as she admired her new electronic piece. Such power it had; such potential. She'd done some research, reading an old armament textbook she had found in one of Springvale's classrooms. Apparently, stun guns had also been called Tasers back in the day. When she was zapping some enemy with her gun, 'tasing' was the official word for this.

Over the last few days, she'd been keeping the gun secret from the other raiders. "Bratty, please do not tell anybody in Springvale about my new gun," she had instructed as the pair of ladies walked home from Germantown. "Last thing I need is for every mother *ferker* back at school to be tryin' to play around with it."

So of course, the first thing the brat did was start bragging about their trip home from Germantown, and how Vicious now had this new, powerful toy. "She stuns it, I shoot it!" she gloated to the others. Because of this, Vicious was forced to mostly hide her stun gun. "What stun gun?" she lied several times. "Ain't no such thing as a stun gun. Bratty's high. She don't know what she the hell she be talking about."

She put her Taser on her teacher's desk, and cracked open a beer. Vicious spent the rest of the night getting plenty of rest. She got up early the next morning, ready and hopeful for the day to come.





Early morning, Thursday, September 6th, 2277

Minimum Temperature: 68.0 °F
Maximum Temperature: 91.9 °F

After breakfast (Blamco Mac & Cheese) and her early-morning cigarette, Miss Vicious felt as if she was as ready for this as she'd ever be. She looked into the anonymous teacher's desk in which she'd been storing most of her smaller things, making sure the 900 caps which she'd stored inside were still there. And they were.

"Heck, by the time I get paid for this next one, maybe I'll be able to afford my own place," she muttered. "Maybe move down to Rivet City, away from all these *arseholes*. Hmph. Maybe even take the brat with me, too. Make a decent woman out of her, if I can get into her head just right."

She closed the door to her room, carrying the bag which contained the nicer clothes Slick had given her. But for now, she still wore her raider armor. One thing she did not want was for one of the others to be high on something, and mistake her for a Wastelander who'd mistakenly wandered in from outside, all because she wasn't dressed like them.

"Hey," said a raider male as she walked by. "You know those rookie idiots who went up north?"

Vicious did not bother to reply. Instead, she rushed out of the school, and into a warm, but not-so-humid morning. Fall was coming soon. She made a left turn, and walked toward the bus located a quarter mile or so down the road. This was the same bus where Bratty and she had gotten sloshed that one day, and Bratty gave Vicious her current hairdo. Vicious walked into the bus. She changed out of her raider gear, and tried one on of the dresses. The dress was blue, made of some sort of woolen fabric. Not really her color, and it would be too hot for this weather. So she tried on the other dress, which was green and sleeveless, with a cute yellow sash around its waist.

Yeah, that's more like it. Miss Taneesha could play vicious at times, but she could also play delicious.

She selected a couple of low heels, which were yellow, and incidently matched the dress's yellow sash. Oh... snap! Ready to slay, ready to play, ready to go on the town today! Whoever it was who'd left these clothes behind sure had some sense of style.

Outside, it began to rain softly. She could hear drops begin to patter on the bus's roof. She looked into one of the bus's dirty windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of herself. But these windows hadn't been cleaned, inside or outside, for over two centuries.

"Dammit. Will they know who I am?"

Better to play it safe. As she walked toward Megaton, she decided to put on the stormchaser hat. Though she could not see herself, she knew she looked nothing but silly. Ridiculously silly. Some disguise this was. Maybe she'd even be attracting more attention to herself than necessary, by wearing practical on one hand, sassy and lady-like on the other. What a contrast! Good thing there was no such thing as Fashion Police in the Capitol Wasteland.

"*Duck* it. This will have to do, for now."

"Hello" said a caravan guard as she walked toward town.

"Fine pleasant day this is, oh, do be charmed!" she replied with some sort of fake accent she invented on the spot. A moment later, kicked herself mentally for doing so. Do be charmed? "Well hey," she said to herself as she began walking away. "Maybe I gotta get into the spirit of all this. Pretend to be someone else, at least for a few days, or however long this takes. Stupid mission. Stupid scam. I hope Dogmaster can't run whatever scam he's got going on in his head."

Miss Vicious Delicious rewarded herself with a cigarette as she walked the rest of the way to Megaton.

---------------------------------------

The Bus

Vicious looking good

En route to Megaton


Note: I had Vicious walk into Megaton, just to see what would happen. My crime mod idea is that if enough crimes are committed by the player-character, this causes the Megaton Officer lady to react, and try to arrest us. I was worried because during some of those times when Wastelanders would show up in raider hangouts, Vicious never killed one of these on her own, but she did assault a few. Would this cause her Major Crime Count to go up? :] Fortunately it did not. Probably because the only ones who witnessed these assaults were other raiders, who don't care about crime.

Prim'n'proper and off to Megaton! Taneesha will definitely gain some attention in Megaton due to her looks.





Looks like that news about Taneessha's mission up north didn't reach that raider yet.

Good luck with finding the BBs.

Taneesha is wise to try and prepare for this curious mission - and does so. Out of her vicious outfit and into her delicious outfit.

And she makes it safely to Megaton. Without the blamhammer, she's going to have to rely on her other weaponry to stun and smack 'em down if needed.

Blamco Mac & Cheese for breakfast? That's what Sugar Bombs are for! Silly raiders. But I suppose they have to take what they can get.

Too bad Vicious doesn't have Stealth Boys handy. Then again, she'd have to work quick and it would be much more suspicious when the Stealth Boy suddenly runs out.

Do you work Fallout 3 perks into your story, Renee? I'm sure there's one that would come in handy for pilfering bearer bonds.

Am I blanking here? I'm not sure what Megaton Officer lady you are referring to. Isn't it Sheriff Simms, who is male?

@Lopov -- Yes, looks like news travels slow sometimes in the CW. Either this, or everyone is so consumed with discussing about the rookie idiots who went up north that they still talk about this.

@Acadian -- Ha ha that is true, she has become more Delicious, I suppose. I really need to have a better look at some clothing mods during this phase. Well, I already have a mod which adds some clothes; Janet wore some of these back when I was gaming with her. But this mod does not add specifically to Megaton's merchant, so maybe I can adjust this.

@Rader -- Who says we can't have mac & cheese breakfast, or Sugar Bombs for dinner? Vicious does have some Stealth Boys in fact. She was given a couple of these before the Germantown mission, but never used them. So yeah, maybe she will need to use those at some point.

Vicious does have some Fallout perks directed towards Stealth and Lockpicking. In her backstory as a child, she is supposed to have done a fair amount of sneaking around & picking locks.



I created my very own crime mod for Fallout, as detailed in this post. which works in a similar way to Elder Scrolls' crime. We can Pay the Fine, Resist Arrest, or Go to Jail. However, the main difference is there is only one officer (rather than swarms of psychic guards), and only in Megaton. And if the player commits too many crimes, he or she eventually gets banned from Megaton.

Pressure's on. Let's see what happens next.

Oh no, Q-Tip "Lucked" it all up by getting into a bar fight!

Miss V is going to get all dolled up and pretty-like!

I love the thought of everyone back at school wanting to play with her new gun!

Time to get all delicious

I think it is cool that you create these quests mods in order to play specific characters like this. You have way more patience than I do when it comes to that.

Rosa, me too. I loved imagining all the raiders were confused about Vicious's new gun. They see her carrying it around, but she pretends the thing is just a cheap energy weapon. Because yeah, just imagine if they knew what the thing could actually stun an enemy, rendering him, her, or it helpless. They'd all be fighting to get it!


Chapter 29: Return to Megaton, part II



"Thirsty? Pard'ner? Try ... Moriarty's. Coldest ... drinks ... in the Capital... Wasteland."

Vicious steeled herself before walking back into town. Her disguise seemed to be working, so far. On the other hand, she had only just been greeted by Deputy Weld. What would happen on the other side of Megaton's twin gates?

She walked to the gates, waited for them to open. *clank* *clank* *clank* they went as they rose. Once inside, first person she saw was Lucas Simms, Megaton's sheriff (sometimes mayor, when the need arose). "You lookin' for the mayor? Or the sheriff?" he asked.

Vicious did a little curtsey in front of him but did not reply. Just kept on walking. So nervous now. Summer day air, growing warmer by the minute. Memories from the near past, of being caught, arrested, and imprisoned. First thing she'd do when she had a moment to herself was jam one of the sedatives she had bought from Springvale's chem dealer into her arm, in an effort to calm her person.

But her nervousness didn't matter.

Lucas Simms stalked off.

Phew.

Vicious took a deep breath, before continuing down the hill. Megaton's water pipes clanked and groaned all around as she took each step. Would she be confronted? Would she be re-arrested for returning to town? She was not sure how the system worked now in Megaton.

But she needn't have worried. Nothing like that happened.
She walked down the hill, and passed the town's clinic. Here is where she had gotten caught a couple weeks ago, stealing Psycho. Maybe Megaton's doctor might see her walk by. Then he'd burst from his shop, pointing. "She's back! She's the one who stole from me!" He'd accuse her of witchcraft, he'd accuse her of all sorts of wickedness, such as not attending religious ceremonies.

But nothing like that happened.

"...people don't change, Jericho," whined Jenny Stahl, owner of The Brass Lantern. "You're bothering me. Now order something, or move on."

"Dammit Jenny!" Jericho exploded "Why do you have to embarass me like that?" Jericho was Megaton's resident Tough Guy. Rumor is, he was also a former raider. Which made sense. He had that Tough Guy Jersey accent, for one. He was also constantly pissed off about something. The one time Vicious had tried to speak to him, he told her to 'get the *cluck* out of my face!'

Vicious took a seat upon one of Brass Lantern's stools.

"So. What'll it be today?" asked Jenny. "We've got some noodles and the brahmin steak is pretty good, too."

First order of business was to get her stomach fed with proper food. Vicious had been living on pre-packaged Blamco Mac & Cheese, Junk Food, and Cram for days after her return to Springvale. Time for some real sustenance.

Second order of business? She would no longer refer to herself as Vicious. Not while she was back in Megaton, anyway. "I'll have some noodles," Taneesha said.

As she ate her second meal of the day, Taneesha silently planned. She removed the silly stormchaser hat she'd worn into town. The day was going from warm to hot, and she had determined by now that the hat would no longer be needed as a disguise.




3:07 PM

"Hey there. Glad you're back."

By mid afternoon Taneesha had gone into Moriarty's for a drink. Moriarty's, where the air-conditioning worked, and the booze worked better. She bought a bottle of wine for 12 caps. Funny how not long ago, when she had been stressed for money, 12 caps seemed like a lot.

Here she met Lucy West, the blonde Megaton resident who'd offered Taneesha a place to live a couple weeks ago. Today, Lucy informed Taneesha that her place, her home here in town, was still available. " ... It gets so lonely without my family, you see. I'm still worried about my brother back in Arefu. Having you around would definitely help."

"You know," Taneesha replied, "I am thinking of staying in town for awhile. So yeah. Think I'll take you up on your offer this time. So sorry to hear there's still trouble up in Arefu. And sorry I can't help out with your family."

"It's okay," Lucy replied. "I did find somebody who volunteered to head up to Arefu this week, so that's taken care of."

"Really?" Taneesha sipped her wine.

"Oh yes. That Asian fellow from Vault 101, Chosen something. He volunteered to go. Guy's a real knockout, let me tell ya," Lucy giggled. "He likes to pretend there's still an army here in America, and that he's a soldier in this army. Anyway, if I trust anybody to handle Arefu, I trust him."

Taneesha sipped more wine, thinking back. She had just passed by Arefu, twice. Once on her way to Germantown, and once on her way back. Not that she had time to get involved (especially with Bratty the brat taking so much maintenance), but she couldn't help but kick herself mentally, just a bit.

"I don't care about your past," Lucy continued. "What's done is done. You were lost and scared, and needed some help just like I do. But now, you seem to be taking better care of yourself. Your pallor has improved. Love your dress, by the way."

"Thank you, and sounds good, thank you." Taneesha raised her glass. "To us," she said.

"To us," Lucy West agreed.

Lucy handed Taneesha a key, making their verbal agreement official.






12:30 AM
It was late in the evening when Taneesha awoke, then started her search. What exactly was she supposed to be looking for? Bearer bonds, Slick had told her. Which looked like some sort of tattered old documents, that's what. But how would she know if she'd even found one of these documents?

She started with Lucy West's two-story shanty, because why not? Taneesha Jones had already stayed in Lucy's home for several hours, so far. And Lucy herself was still out. "I just won't take whatever I find," Taneesha promised nearby walls.

And she kept her promise. Lucy had plenty of food, plenty of goods, and a few caps stored here and there. Taneesha, raider-in-disguise, took none of this. But she also found no bearer bonds, or any sort of documents at all. So she moved on.

"Maybe it'd be good if I started with places I don't need to break into."

Next would be the Common House. Common House was one of two places where anybody could live, for free (Church of Atom was Megaton's second free home) as long as he or she followed a few unwritten rules. Conditions in Common House were cramped, with privacy just about nil. This is where Taneesha had stayed briefly, after returning to Megaton a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, Megaton's Common House contained no bonds, not that Taneesha was entirely surprised.

Next, she walked into Megaton's Water Processing Plant. The need for fresh water in the Capital Wasteland was always at a premium, and Walter of the WPP did his best to meet this need. Taneesha searched the plant's bookshelves, metal boxes, and cabinets. Nothing to find there, either.

"Hmm. Alright. Next place I pass next, guess I'll try going in."

By 'going in' she really meant 'breaking in'. And this next place happened to be Craterside Supply. She removed a bobby pin from her hair, and grabbed a small screwdriver from her purse. But Craterside had a lock which was too complicated for her budding lockpicking skills.

"Drats!"

Of course, she could try searching the place during daylight hours. Moira and a guard stayed mostly on the first floor of their goods store. Maybe Taneesha could sneak away from them, and explore the store's upper area tomorrow.

By now it was after 1 AM. The wasteland's summer air had cooled off. Taneesha strolled all over town, wondering where to go next. Nobody was outside this late except Lucas Simms, a couple of Church of Atom devotees standing transfixed in front of Megaton's unexploded bomb, and Megaton's enforcement officer. "Evening," the officer said, as she walked by.

Finally, Taneesha arrived at a door and read its placard. She had found Mister Burke's house, which was really just a a large half-tube of corrugated metal. A quonset hut, what the military might use to store supplies and ammo long ago. Taneesha remembered Mister Burke. This was the guy who'd gotten into that fight a couple weeks ago. The Asian fellow from Vault 101 had beaten the man to death with his baseball bat, right inside of Moriarty's Saloon.

"Too bad for him," Taneesha said, scooching down to hide. "But since he ain't living no more, guess he won't mind if I search his place."

She inserted her bobby pin, felt inside of the lock for a few moments, checking its tumblers, all the while keeping an eye across the plaza on Megaton's officer. Unlike the lock on Craterside Supply's door, this one on Mister Burke's former home did not feel so complicated.

She inserted her small screwdriver. Rotated. The lock did not open, but it did twist quite a bit. A second attempt, and she broke her pin after improperly locating the lock's tumbler.

"Drats!"

Despite the cool summer night, she was starting to sweat. Taneesha glanced over at the officer, who was still standing in front of Brass Lantern's concession area. "Doesn't that *twitch* ever go to sleep?" she swore quietly.

Finally she tried again. Removed another bobby pin from her hair, inserted it into the lock. Positioned it slightly to the left this time. Inserted her small pocket screwdriver...


---------------------------

Bowl o' Noodles

"Hey, I remember you!"

"Cho something..."

"A toast... to us!"


Notes: After Lucy West's dialog to Vicious concluded, she switches back to vanilla dialog as she does her goodbye. "Remember, my offer still stands" she says. Kinda neat when vanilla dialog compliments what I write in the GECK.

Cho-Sen Wan. That was your Lone Wanderer's name, right? Fun fact: Chosen One is the nickname of the protagonist from Fallout 2. He/she might have something to say about your LW's name. But oh well, that's the opposite coast of the U.S. and almost 40 years prior to Fallout 3's events, so what are they going to do?

I don't remember uncovering this on my own, but when I found out about the Jericho's past with Jenny on the Fallout wiki, I wanted to kill him so badly. But even when you do it silently and in his home, everyone in town suddenly knows and tries to kill you. Hell, I think I even used the 'kill' console command one time and it STILL turned people against me! I don't think I tried it with the Sandman perk, though, so I think I'll try it sometime with my current character, Emilia. He deserves to die.

I like when Jenny says, "Have a look. Most of it is edible. Some of it even tastes good!" Such an amusingly honest admission. And I suppose that's usually the best you are going to get in the wasteland.

Ha! Burke got what was coming to him, and for everyone to see. Noice. Hopefully Moriarty gets the same treatment soon...

Interesting how you modded Lucy West's dialogue like that.

So, are these bearer bonds actually in your game as part of a mod? Or is it totally made up for this story? Or is it something I somehow missed in the vanilla game?

Phew, she got past the Sheriff with just a curtsey.

I love that she is afraid of being accused of Witchcraft! "Unclean! Unclean!"

Cho is off to Arefu! Cool!

Taneesha needs to work on her lockpicking skills I see.

Nice how events from worlds of your other characters interfere with Taneesha's, like Cho helping Lucy West and that Burke is already dead. But it can happen that she finds Major A. Holl in Burke's house, right?

Whew, looks like only her friends recognize her here. Nice cameo mention of Cho!

Hey, are those noodles moving?