"Fucking finally," I sighed, looking at the rickety sign, hanging above a door in a similar condition.

Dead End

A bouncer stood before it, strengthing my faith in the fact that it was still inhabited.

"What d'you want?" The man grunted.

"There space inside?"

"Don't cause trouble," With one of his big meaty hands, he opened the door for me.

The interior was just as I had expected. Quiet, with everyone sleeping in a drunken stupor, or well beyond the point of being able to answer my questions.

Well, except for one young man, who was sullenly sipping on some sort of local brew, staring blankly into thin air.

Striding over, I sat down in the chair opposite him.

"Yes?" He asked, his hand moving towards his hip.

"Don't worry, I want no trouble. Do you mind answering a few of my questions about the Commonwealth?"

His shoulders drooped a bit, and he shook his nerves away, "Just your luck, buddy. That's where I came from."

"Really? Why are you here then? Quite a distance to be from the place."

"Let my business remain known only to me." His eyes narrowed, "Ask away."

"What condition is it in?"

"Why?"

I blinked, not expecting to be questioned back, "What do you mean why? I want to go there, end of story. Let my business remain known only to me." I smirked.

He shrugged, "Fair enough, just saying that there are a million better places to go than there. Capital wasteland, heard of it? Fresh, drinkable water flows from every tap and fountain."

"Sounds like a vast improvement over what was there the last time I visited the ruins, but unfortunately I'm not exactly on speaking terms with the Enclave."

"Enclave?" He stared at his beer in confusion, "Oh you mean those guys... They're no longer around that place or any place for that matter. Raven Rock was destroyed by the Brotherhood a decade ago."

That word... Brotherhood, now that was unexpected, and the man noticed my expression.

"The Brotherhood of Steel?"

"The one and only."

I swore inwardly. They weren't exactly a good replacement. After the news of the destruction of the Enclave's oil rig had reached my ears, I knew they had been dealt a serious blow, but not a killing one. They had bunkers all over the continent that could work independently if push came to shove.

The fact that the Brotherhood had first and foremost managed to get to the east coast, and had now amassed a big enough force to defeat the east coast's Enclave forces... How long until they arrived in the Commonwealth to spread their hypocrisy-filled anti-technology worldview?

My arm alone would give them enough reason to execute me where I stood.

"Back to the Commonwealth." I changed the subject, "What factions are there? Troubles? Important settlements?"

"Well, if you're adamant about going there, give Nuka-World a wide berth, and I do mean as wide as you can make it. The raider gangs there don’t like tourists, and they sure as hell won't like a guy like you strolling through their territory. Factions, well there are quite a few raider gangs, as is common everywhere, then you have the Gunners..." He paused for a moment before continuing, "A group of mercs that have good equipment to work with and enough numbers to be called an army. You have the Minutemen, but they're way past their golden age..." He started thinking, taking a sip of his beer, "While you're at it, you also have the classical bogeyman case going by the Institute, who sends out their synths to do their dirty work. Some of them look exactly like humans, whom the Railroad, a bunch of nutjobs might I add, try to aid in escaping the Commonwealth. Umm... You've got your average wasteland creatures and super mutants to deal with as well, but I guess at this point every place has super mutants of their own. The most important settlement is Diamond city, The Jewel of the Commonwealth-" He said sarcastically, taking a swig from his bottle again, "Where synth paranoia is what defines everyday life. If you don't like that, you also have Goodneighbour to appeal to your more anarchic tastes or Quincy."

"What about Concord, Sanctuary Hills? Those places?"

"Have heard about them, but have never been there personally. They're right on the edges of the Lexington raider gang's territory, but there's nothing there so they simply ignore it. There was some talk about Sanctuary Hills I think, a legend really, about how a crazed robot lived there, that attacked anyone who wasn't meant to be there. I'm not quite sure how sober the man explaining it had been at the time, so do take it with a grain of salt."

So, it wasn't as lifeless as Judy had said after all, "Thanks for your help." I placed a bag full of caps in front of him, "Three hundred, for your troubles."

"Wh- What... Why thank you!" He smiled, his mood instantly a million times better, "Pleasure doing business with you." He shook my hand with both of his, "If you ever hear the name MacCready again, be sure to find me. While I don't plan on going back to the Commonwealth again, I hope we do meet in the future."

"Will do." I smiled, before walking back outside. Four weeks of constant hiking, of constant high alertness... It was starting to get to me. "I'm nearly there..." I muttered, getting a weird glance from the bouncer as I passed him.

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

The fucking bastard had forgotten one tiny little detail, and that was the nuclear wasteland that was between me and my destination.

It wasn't exactly a small detail to miss either, it was a massive area reaching as far as I could see, with no living plants to speak of and a green fog hanging in the air. Specks walked around the desolate land, a roar suddenly piercing the air. I knew that noise, hell it had haunted me in my dreams many times before.

Deathclaws.

Marching through that unforgiving desert was akin to committing suicide.

Already my Geiger counter was showing an increase in my surroundings' radiation levels, and I wasn't standing inside the green fog yet. I'd be going feral after the first dozen steps.

Well, this was at least as good a place as any to rest and think of what my next move was going to be.

Sitting down on the edge of the cliff face, I rubbed my arms anxiously. Deathclaws were one of the many apex predators of the waste, and it wasn't good if they sensed you setting foot in their hunting territory, because that normally meant you were a dead man.

Thankfully, I had two hundred years of experience to speak of. Deathclaw females used a cocktail of pheromones to warn all other members of their species that they were guarding eggs. Almost all creatures knew that if they sensed that special blend of chemicals, they should keep away because they probably wouldn't come out of that encounter alive.

So, I made sure to participate in as many deathclaw hunts as I could until we met one of these females. A gatling laser to the head, and it was dead. The pheromones had been enough to last me for years, and even a tiny amount rubbed onto my arm would keep me safe for hours, or even days.

Taking out some jerky from my bag, along with one of my last few bottles of water, I focused on one deathclaw in particular, watching as it walked around.

All of a sudden, something burst out of the ground and a pained yelp bounced around the plains, shortly followed by the crash of thunder.

It was a radscorpion, definitely not the biggest of its species, but that didn't make it any less dangerous. While its pincers were probably not strong enough to cut through steel plates like paper mâché, its poison was still perfectly capable of downing large beasts relatively quickly. That was what I was going to witness in a second, the insectoid's stinger deeply embedded into the deathclaw's thigh.

In its last seconds of life, the reptilian beast swung its claws wildly at the overgrown insect's body, sending chitin plates flying and revealing the insides of the creature.

A minute in, and it was all over, the deathclaw's lifeless body still thrashing about as its nerve endings fired away, and the radscorpion lying beside it, leaking out blue blood to be soaked into the charred ground.

And such was the way of life in the wasteland.

Watching that spectacle had helped speed up my train of thought and, shouldering my bag, I stood back up. It'd take a few days longer, but I'd be going around.

No way in hell would I enter that shithole.

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

Providence was a mess.

My brother had lived here, before the war, but like so many others, he was dead... Or missing, as the US Government I’d later be calling the Enclave had called it. It had been a pretty city before the war, but now the constant radstorms blowing in from the nuclear wasteland in the distance were eating away at one end of the city. Yet, as the sun started setting, I saw the first lights blink on, opposite the radioactive storm clouds.

Survivors still lived here.

Be that a good or bad thing, I wouldn't be stopping now, I had to continue onwards while there was still some light left. Cities were the worst to pass through, because whether it was partially inhabited or not, you were bound to find irradiated humans everywhere, the radiation having rotted their brains out long ago. Ferals.

Taking out my stealth boy and strapping it to my belt, I twisted a suppressor onto my pistol, ready for anything. The stealth boy probably had just enough charge in it for three, maybe four more quick escapes before I could throw it in the bin. When it came to mindless ghouls, they almost always relied on every other sense more than their eyes anyway. Thankfully, I was protected in those departments too, but there were times when it hadn’t worked.

A deep breath and I took my first step forward into the destroyed city.

Three more steps, and suddenly something pricked into my neck, right between two plates of combat armour.

"Fuck!" I muttered, reaching down to rub the spot, only to bump into a syringe.

Shit.

I looked around for a source but saw nothing... Fucking hell, I should've known better.

Was it poison they had shot me with?

Tranquillizer?

Already my head and limbs were feeling heavy, and my vision was becoming more and more blurred with every passing second.

A figure stood up from behind some rubble, and I tried lifting my pistol towards him, to at least kill my enemy in my final moments, but my arm was beyond the point of listening to me.

My legs buckled underneath me as the figure approached, and the world went dark.

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

A gentle kick in the ribs awoke me and instantly, I reached for my hip. No longer was my stealth boy there, nor the holsters for my guns.

As I came to my sense, I realised my backpack was also gone, as was my combat armour, and I was laying on the ground, inside a metal cage that itself, was in some sort of wooden box.

"Shit... Sorry." The voice of a man whispered, and I glared at the source of the voice to see a young adult, barely in his thirties, maybe even younger than that... The Wasteland had a way of ageing everyone up.

"Where am I?" Whatever tranquillizer they had shot me with was still causing me to slur my words. Thank fuck it had only been that.

"Welcome to Warwick mate, or well, soon you'll be there. Slavers caught both of us."

"You look awfully calm for someone that's just been caught by slavers," I muttered.

"Could say the same about you, friend. Mitch Finnigan, ex-resident of Brook." He offered me his hand, which I grasped, "Got nothing and no one back home, so this is almost a positive experience, getting taken away by the Warwick slavers and all that shit. I get to see the world a bit before I die, might even luck out and get sent to some pleasure palace as a sex slave... What about you? Most people that get shot with this tranq garbage get knocked out cold for at least a day. They shoved you onto this cart two hours ago, so you can say that you have my interest piqued."

"Call me Ghost. Not necessarily scared, because I know I can escape."

The man snorted, "Good fucking luck, they checked all of your pockets beforehand. If you do get out, you'll have to sneak through the dozen slavers guarding our wagon."

I just smirked, gently pushing my hand through the cage bars, and grabbing the lock with my hand. Squeezing with all my might, the lock broke into tiny pieces, the door nearly swinging open would I not have held it in place. Mitch's expression melted off his face as he looked on in awe, while I flexed my prosthetic arm.

"One chance. That's all I'm giving you. You coming with me, maybe starting a better life in the process, or do you want to die a slow death in some mine or wherever they take you?"

He hesitated for only a second, then crawled behind me as I slowly opened the cage, squeezing myself through since the closed doors of the cart didn't allow me to fully open the cage door. Closing it behind the two of us, I shoved a part of the broken lock through the ring to keep it in place.

"See anything through the door?" I asked.

"Two guards marching behind us." He muttered, looking through a crack

"What weapons and gear?"

"Can't see too much, but they normally use lighter gear and melee weapons. Loud guns alert the ferals."

"Good... Where should I look for my stuff?"

"Cart rolling behind us. The cart driver is the third person that can see us, though they are slaves themselves, so they won't report us escaping."

"You sure?"

"Hundred percent. Most of them are also from Brook."

"Right, then on my mark, we burst through. Leave the fighting to me, I just need you to help me break open this door."

He nodded, and I readied myself. The cart passed over a rut and using that as a distraction, I gave the order to slam against the door, my prosthetic arm smashing through where I guessed the locking mechanism was.

The doors swung open, revealing two surprised faces.

I was punching my fist into the first one's head before either of them could even react, the servos in my arm working overtime as his skull cracked under the strike. Ripping the machete from his hand, I spun around and chucked it into the second man's neck.

Not waiting for the rest of the slavers to react to the noise I had made, I ran past the second cart, the white-haired slave's face showing signs of both wonder and fear, the latter of which dissipated as I passed him without hurting him.

This cart wasn't locked, and as I pulled it open, I immediately found myself staring at four more slavers.

They were just as surprised to see me, yet I was the faster one, my reflexes no longer blunted by the drugs I was injected with. Pulling one of them by the leg towards me, I elbowed him in the neck, crushing his windpipe, while grabbing the lead pipe from his waist.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

As the man slid off the cart, slowly suffocating, I cracked the second closest man's shin and knee, and only then did the others stand up to face me.

Stepping back, I let them come closer, which, of course, they did, jumping off the cart and shouting for help.

A pipe smashed against the head of the shouting man, causing him to collapse instantly, before I turned to the other, who flashed me his mutilated tongue, making me grimace. He blocked my first strike and counterattacked with a slash at my stomach, which I dodged with ease, throwing my bloodied pipe at his chest in return and hearing the crack of breaking bones as it connected.

As he struggled to breathe, his guard down, I kicked him in the chest, and the man collapsed, coughing up blood.

Running up into the cart and past the slaver clutching his leg in pain, I instantly spotted my bag, all my weapons piled on top of it. Quickly twisting off the silencer from my pistol, I heard a commotion behind me, followed by the strangled yelp of who I guessed was Mitch.

I spun around pistol at the ready.

"Stop or I kill him!" The man holding Mitch in a chokehold ordered. Others joined his side, weapons at the ready.

"So kill him-" Mitch's eyes widened, but he said nothing, the hold on him too strong, "I shoot this thing, and all of us are dead."

"You think we can't fight off some ghouls?"

"Bluff one more time and I'll happily watch you get devoured by them. I know just how many ghouls would flock here at the sound of this gunshot. Do you want to fuck with me, or do you not?" I kept my voice as emotionless as possible, and it worked as I saw the slavers look at one another, "Now let him go, and throw in the two wagon drivers while you're at it."

They did just that, the boss sending two of his henchmen away to fulfil my request, both of whom soon returned carrying the slaves, the older man I had seen before and a ghoul.

"Now I assume you want us to let you go."

"Yeah, so back up, drop your weapons and lay down on the ground."

The leader of the bunch grumbled, but all I had to do was point my pistol at him to stop him from muttering anything else under his breath. Barking an order for his men to follow his lead, they were all soon laying on the ground side by side, their various makeshift weapons collected into a pile.

In the cart was a large pile of chains and handcuffs, so I told the freed slaves to handcuff all but one of the slavers. They did what I said without question, more than happy to go against their ex-masters, while I took inventory of what I still had. Some of my food and water had been used up by the slavers, slightly problematic, but hopefully, I'd find a trader to fill my supplies back up.

Shouldering my backpack and grabbing some of the tranquillizer darts for later use, I looked at the pile of weapons, gesturing for the slaves to take what they need. I tied a machete around my waist, the extra reach of the weapon much better than the combat knife I had.

"Stand up," I said, kicking dirt into the face of the man left uncuffed. He did so as fast as he could, and I looked him in the eyes, "I give you a decision, courtesy of The Ghost." I bowed my head slightly. His eyes widened, fearing the worst... He had good reason to fear.

Lifting my gun into the air, I pulled the trigger, the sound carrying far and wide. Everyone jumped back from me in shock, sheer terror washing over the slaver's face, "You have probably a few minutes to get away before the ghoul horde descends onto all of you." I threw the key a short distance away, just enough that you had to jog a few seconds to reach it, "Try and save your friends, or run away and save yourself. The choice is yours."

And with that, I strode away as fast as I could, the freed slaves following me with a look of awe on their faces. The tied-up slavers cursed and swore, yet I could hear the one free slaver's feet slapping against the road becoming more and more distant.

When faced with saving yourself or your friends, it always came down to your survival being more important, at least that was true for most wastelanders.

Nobody could break out of this rule... Never for too long and always with some sort of serious repercussion if they did so.

As the swearing faded away thanks to the distance put between us, I heard the first scream pierce the air as the ghouls found their meal for today.

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

Lexington. The dead husks of the houses were overshadowed by the massive building that was the Corvega Assembly Plant, along with the broken remains of the interstate's overpass. Hopefully, the three slaves, Mitch, Gregg and Clay, had safely arrived in Quincy, unwilling to cross the marsh with me to reach Sanctuary Hills. Probably right they didn't too, I stunk like a bucket of shit left out in the sun for a month, and had fought off every mutated bug there was in the Commonwealth or had hidden from them under the muck.

If that wasn't enough, I had also seen what I could guess the mercenary in Kingston had called the Gunners... MacCready hadn't been kidding when he'd told me they were well equipped, the glow of plasma weapons visible even from afar.

Going by the number of ghouls we had encountered whilst marching through the abandoned streets of Providence, Lexington wasn't going to be much different. Neither city had been included in the Enclave's missions for restoration. I remember taking part in those, firing on the frenzied feral humans driven into madness by radiation, using the Vertiberd's high-calibre minigun to shred them.

That was before they had declared a vendetta against non-humans... When they still stood for the good of America, rather than purity. When cleaning cities wasn't done because of ideology, but as a necessity.

Thankfully, I wasn't taking that route. I had no business in Boston, not yet anyway. The settlements the mercenary had mentioned were all probably in the middle of the city, and with most of my weapons with Judy, I was in no shape to start the arduous trek into downtown Boston.

Turning to face Concord, I continued my journey, so close to the end now... The memories were coming back with every step, every sight. My brain imagined green trees and lights, the signs of a thriving civilization instead of the hellhole that was today's reality.

Then my mind turned to other problems, actually important ones. With the detour, the loss from my encounter with the slavers, and having to account for three more mouths for an extra day, I was dangerously low on supplies. We hadn't travelled along any sort of road that would've allowed us to meet with traders, and only thanks to us managing to catch a radstag did we alleviate the food problem temporarily.

Seeing how Sanctuary Hills probably wasn't ready to serve me a fresh selection of food and drink, I had to find a trader, hopefully soon.

My foot met the rugged road that had once seen hundreds of vehicles travel on it every day, and I let out a sigh of relief, the hard surface much more comfortable to walk across than the marsh's terrain or the muddy earth I had to cross thus far.

"This can go two ways, Trudy!" The rough voice instantly made me go on high alert, crouching down low.

"I'm not giving you chem-pushing assholes anything! Do you know what you did to my boy?!"

"We had a deal! I'll give you two minutes to change your mind, and if you don't... Well, you can only blame yourself for what happens after."

Drug peddlers, shaking down those indebted to them. All too common nowadays.

I caught a glimpse of the standoff from behind a bush, noticing the trading post where it was all happening. A woman, possibly the owner, was pointing a shotgun towards two raiders standing in front of her, whom themselves were crouched behind the rusted guard rail, military-grade assault rifles ready to rip apart the trader's makeshift home set up in a run-down Drumlin Diner. The woman didn't stand a chance.

However much I was thankful that there was a trader right here, when I needed it the most, diffusing the situation would be hard. I had long ago passed the point of negotiating with chem dealers but killing both without them firing back... The first shot would give away my location, and the other raider could spray my general area with bullets. One hit and I'd be out of the game. The woman would do little damage from that far with a shotgun, so I wouldn't be able to lean on her for support if push came to shove.

Whatever... I needed those supplies, or I was as good as dead.

Grabbing my trusty rifle off my back, I laid down on the damp ground and aimed at the head of the nearest raider, the woman who had been silent thus far. Hopefully, if they were so willing to fire off a shot, there was nothing dangerous nearby that would be attracted by the gunfire. Rabid dogs or bloatflies were the least of my worries if I had to compare them to awakening a nest of molerats or, God forbid, radscorpions.

"Come on Trudy. Don't make this a blood-"

I pulled the trigger, and a second later my target collapsed sideways onto the man, blood splattering her companion. Sliding the next bullet into the chamber, I called out while he was still shocked by the sudden death of his partner.

"Put the gun down now, or you'll end up like your friend!" I shouted towards him.

"Who the hell are you?!"

"Put. The gun. Down." I called again.

He shot randomly, letting off a five-bullet burst, and I felt hot air near my face as a shot whistled past my helmet. Pulling the trigger again, the man joined his partner in the afterlife.

Slamming a new bullet into the bolt-action chamber, I stood up before the ring of the final shot was fully gone from my ears. While the trader was giving me a thumbs up, I had learned long ago to only trust someone if they gave me a good reason to.

I walked up to her warily, the woman smiling.

"You have no reason to be afraid of me, stranger! The way you killed Wolfgang and Simone, I can make a good guess that you know how to fight. This thing?" She threw the shotgun onto the counter, "It's mainly to scare off potential robbers and annoying customers. I wouldn't stand a chance against you, hell I wouldn't have stood a chance against them either." She shoved a finger towards the corpses, "So either way, you have my thanks."

I smiled, assessing the situation similarly and unchambered the round I had loaded, slinging the rifle onto my back. At one of the many tables of this repurposed diner sat a gaunt-faced man, probably Trudy's boy. He was a jet addict, I could see it in his eyes and various tics. There were way too many people out in the world who suffered from similar afflictions.

As for this Drumlin Diner, I could vaguely remember it... Having visited this place a few times with...

No, I couldn't let my mind wander back to them. Last thing I needed was a flashback to paralyse me.

"You're welcome," I said.

"So, what'll you be having dear?"

"Food and water."

"Radstag good?"

"Yeah."

She grabbed a box from underneath the counter and took a fistful of Radstag jerky from it.

After that, she took two bottles of purified water from the shelf behind her and placed everything in front of me.

"That'll be a hundred and twenty caps."

That came as a surprise. From where I came from, these supplies went for much higher.

"Is that a discounted price?" I asked.

"One of the bottles is free.” She winked, “There's a crapton of radstag around here, all free to be hunted... Might I guess that you're not from around these parts?"

"There you go," I said, dropping the cash onto the counter, "Let's just say I've been away for quite some time."

"Pretty mysterious... Anything else?" The woman asked.

I thought for a moment, "Actually, yes, there would be something else. How much would it cost you to send supplies to Sanctuary Hills?"

"That place? It's an abandoned pile of shit, but if you plan on living there, then we can agree on some price that's good for both of us. Carla sometimes walks this way, I'm sure she'd also be in it for the extra caps."

"Good, then I'll be back later to discuss what I'd like to order."

She smiled.

I returned the gesture and then turned around to walk out the door.

"Oh, I forgot to ask... How impolite of me. What's your name?" She called after me.

"Call me Ghost,"

"Trudy!"

"Well met." I nodded, walking outside to continue my journey. I took one look at the guns that the raiders had used, the thought of taking them with me passing my mind. They were military rifles, so really good quality, but their ammo wasn't all that common to come across, and they weren't exactly cheap to maintain either. All around not a cheap weapon to upkeep if you didn't make a living by stealing the supplies of others. Still, I had quite a bit of ammo for them with Judy, so they could still be useful later.

"Another thing!" I called back inside.

"Yeah?"

"These two guns here, can you put them away for me? I'll come back for them later."

"Sure thing!"

I nodded to myself and fixed my eyes on the small town of Concord.

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

It didn't take long before the tattered flag flying under the balcony of the Museum of Freedom came into view.

Then came the sound of gunshots.

"What the fuck is up with this place?" I muttered, dropping onto the ground once more.

Taking my binoculars out of my backpack, I zoomed in on the location the sharp cracks were coming from.

The old memorial building's walls were sparking and splintering as ballistic rounds ricocheted off of them, taking medium-sized chips of stone each time. I would've been angry at them for damaging such a well-preserved pre-war building until I noticed the crashed vertiberd that had not-so-majestically landed on the roof.

Suddenly, a laser beam cut through the air, originating from the balcony.

"These guys aren't messing around," I muttered to myself.

Lasers could only be afforded by the richest traders and mercenaries, but they were worth the cost. Plasma was another question, being something only the very elite could buy, though the few times I ever had the chance of using such weapons, I had always asked for lasers instead, wherever possible. There was a reason why they were considered a prototype back before The Great War, and technology sure as hell hadn't evolved much since then, save for the Enclave's attempts.

One of the raiders came into view and ran to take cover behind a building, cutting him off from the other assailants.

Not wasting a second, I crept through the bushes until I was right beside him.

"Wha-" I cut him off with a short stab to the neck, letting him drop to the ground as soon as I was sure he was dead, wiping my knife on his dirty rags.

Now to disperse the rest.

Grabbing a grenade from my pack, I crawled a few meters on the ground so I could see my opponents.

There were probably around twenty of them... An all-out assault against whomever the hell was inside the building. I wasn't sure if these raiders were friends with the chem dealers that had been harassing the trader for drug money, but it wasn't important right now.

One peaked a corner too soon, and the person with the laser rifle on the balcony took the shot. Superheated light burned through skin and muscle, charring the skull bones of the dead man. He collapsed with no further reaction.

One raider less.

"Give up that old woman Garvey! You can't win." Shouted a raider.

No reply came.

I pulled the pin on the grenade and chucked it into the middle of the street.

"What was that?" A raider asked, possibly hearing it rolling down the street.

A brownish-yellow smoke started seeping out of the grenade.

"The fuck?"

He looked at the grenade for a second longer, standing deep in the middle of the smoke, before laughing.

"You think a smoke grenade scares us, Minuteman?"

He grinned for a moment longer, getting ready to kick the grenade back towards what they assumed was the source of it, when I saw his skin start to change colour. The man's grin turned into a scream in the ugliest way possible, the acidic touch of the smoke finally revealing that this was no ordinary grenade. Skin turned to liquid in a matter of seconds, and the man was on the ground, dead before his scream could turn up in pitch, his windpipe and lungs shredded by the smoke.

"Stay back from that cloud!" A man, most probably the leader, yelled, looking at the guy who was liquifying before their very eyes.

"Don't have to say it twice, Gristle!"

As I stood up, a voice called down from the balcony, causing me to whip around and point a gun at him.

"Whoa! Easy there, I'm friendly! They're close to battering down our door in here, please help us, we've got settlers inside! Take the musket from Denzel if you want, he won't be needing it anymore."

It was then that I noticed the dead man laying on the steps leading to the entrance of the museum, blood trickling from a shot to the chest and wearing clothes that kind of reminded me of a cowboy. Dropped beside him was a makeshift laser rifle.

Picking it up, it weighed way more than a military-issue rifle, and there was a crank on its side.

Turning it once, a red light appeared inside the glass chamber of the weapon. What a strange weapon…

Laser weaponry was still laser weaponry, no matter the shape or size of the weapon.

Wrenching open the door, I rushed inside, yet before I could even close it, a bullet pierced through the wood, just barely missing me as I ducked down low. My eyes locked onto the woman who had shot at me, and without a second of hesitation, I returned fire, striking her in the sternum. She collapsed amidst a cloud of thick smoke and a hole burned into her chest. As the heads of other raiders turned my way, I darted into the nearest room.

Speakers came on, sending me back in time to a much easier life as the man spoke in a tinny voice. Oh, how many times I was here, both alone, with the military and with my family.

With part of the building collapsed thanks to two centuries worth of time passing, it made me feel depressed that what had once been such a nice exhibit was now a broken mess.

There was no time to reminisce. Jogging into a second room and standing beside the door leading to the atrium, someone must've spotted me moving, because more shots cracked into the wooden doorframe I stood behind. A laser boomed once more, and the number of shots hitting the frame diminished slightly. Taking a second grenade from my backpack, I threw it into the atrium, hoping that the standard-issue military smoke grenade would find the small nook I had spotted in that split second, I had had to look through the door.

The gunshots stopped, so peeking around the corner carefully, I was pleased to see a wall of smoke enveloping everything before me. By what I can only call sheer luck, it hadn't rolled into the basement, revealed by the collapsed floor.

I ran as fast as I could, circling the smoke from the left only to see two raider heads turn towards me. The first one collapsed as I quickly lifted the rifle and struck her in the face, but the second had enough sense to stand behind cover and fire blindly at me. Without any other option, I dived down into the basement. There was a feeling of weightlessness as the fall was greater than I expected before I crashed against the slope created by the collapsed floor and rolled down it, coming to a stop at the foot of a security gate.

Fuck, that hadn't felt good.

Standing up, sensing that nothing was broken, my eyes settled on the fusion generator locked behind said security gate.

And in it... An FC. The generator was still lit up, meaning the thing still had charge in it, a real rarity. Missing out on it would be a sin.

Touching my pip-boy to the computer controlling the security door, it hacked into it in the blink of an eye, after which all I had to do was press enter and the door opened. Pocketing the fusion core while the generator switched to backup power, I was just in time, for the footsteps of my pursuers were loud and clear behind me.

As the first two raiders emerged from the smoke, searching for me left and right, I fired my musket into the nearest one’s chest, the man dropping the pipe pistol with a grunt. His buddy took his chance while I was reloading to come sprinting towards me, tire iron in hand. Smashing the butt of the rifle into the man's stomach, I unsheathed my knife and dragged it across his throat.

Two others emerged from the smoke, more carefully this time, but neither of them noticed me until it was too late. Two shots with my revolver, and they were gone.

Grabbing the corpse of the tire-iron-carrying raider, I lifted him above my head and slowly walked towards the hole's rim.

No shots pierced the body, meaning hopefully there wasn't anyone waiting for me to emerge. I dropped the body, letting it roll back down to the bottom of the slope, before reloading my revolver and shoving a new fusion cell into the musket's magazine slot. Taking a deep breath, I sprinted up the remainder of the ramp, through the diminishing smoke and up the first floor. No shots rang out as I did so, a good sign that the fight was coming to an end.

Opening one of the nearby doors, I found myself looking down a short corridor, with voices talking at the end. More raiders.

"When the fuck'll Grease get that door open? I'm getting bored."

Before the other could reply, I ran past the corner, throwing my knife into the back of his head and shooting the first speaker three times in the chest. Not stopping, I pushed the dying man forward, towards the stairs, not caring about the blood of the raider running down my arm or the surprised and breathless look he gave me as he took his final breaths.

Just as I expected, a third raider came running down the steps, having heard the gunshots. He fired at me once, hitting his friend in the back, before I returned fire with my pistol, two shots missing thanks to pure luck on the raider's part, but the third passed through his head. Throwing down the human shield, I wasted no time in continuing up the stairs, but not before taking back my knife.

There was at least one raider still left in fighting condition, that much I could hear. He was banging on a door on the far side of the flimsy wooden wall separating us. Switching my pistol to my revolver once again, I waited for him to shout again, pinpointing where he was on the far side.

"Come on Buck, let's-"

The man was dead before he could even finish his sentence, the round piercing the wall and exploding through the back of his skull. In response, bullets erupted from the other side, my combat armour saving me as the low-calibre rounds ricocheted off the strong polymer material.

"You dead yet, asswipe?" Came the question, and with those as his last words, I shot the rest of my shots into the wall. Hearing a heavy thump as his body collapsed on itself, it was followed by the breaking of wood and a much louder crash. Striding through a door and onto the other side, I saw the body of the first man and a broken wooden railing, an equally broken corpse laying two storeys underneath it, lacerated by the sharp rubble it had landed on.

The door had fared surprisingly well, though it was clear that the raiders had tried kicking it down and had also fired a fair share of bullets into it. Who knew how much stuff was piled against it?

"Hello?" I called.

"Who are you?" Replied a voice from inside.

"A friend, I hope," I answered, "The one who threw up that gas cloud outside."

Heavy objects were thrown to the side behind the door before it slowly creaked open, revealing the grim-looking features of another cowboy.

"Man, your timing's impeccable... Welcome to our last stand." The man smirked sadly.

"I hope it doesn't come down to that."

He reached out a hand to me, which I grasped with a smile.

"Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."