“The gift shop is in the dinosaur? That's cool.”

Franklin had gotten the only room they had available and was now looking at Dinky the T-Rex. He didn’t waste any more time and climbed the stairs to the store. The smell was… fine. Franklin had gotten used to the smells of the wasteland and had turned down his sensitivity long ago. Inside were a bunch of random knickknacks, broken electronics, and other junk.

“Welcome, come on in. Welcome to the Dino Bite Gift Shop. I am Cliff Briscoe. You are just in time. We still have dinosaur figurines.”

Franklin looked a little perturbed, “Sure, why not? I'll take one. How much?”

“You will?! Of course, you will. That will be twenty caps,” Cliff said.

Caps or bottlecaps are the currency of this world. Well, other than the currencies of the NCR and Legion. Caps on their own didn’t seem that bad of a currency. They were made of metal, and you could find them everywhere. They were also hard to produce in large quantities, so people couldn’t inflate the market by producing them in mass.

Well, people that weren’t Franklin, at least. Anytime he had to pay for something, he just made some out of nanites for free. Inflation issues won't be a problem once he creates a post scarcity society.

The rest of Cliff's inventory consisted of guns, ammo, armor, and other random junk he found around. His back room was also leaking radiation, so Franklin decided to investigate a little. He found it was filled with Dinky Dinosaur figures and rocket toys with a glowing green liquid. In truth, they were filled with actual rocket fuel!

Okay, that is going on the list. I can make my own, but getting some already available is nice.

“Those stairs lead to Dinky’s head?” Franklin asked.

“Yes, sir. One of our town guards is up there right now, but you can head up there. Careful though, Boone is a bit of an ornery sort right.”

Oh boy.

Franklin decided to see what was in store for him and silently walked the stairs. They led to the T-Rex’s mouth. Opening and closing the door quietly, Franklin stood on this platform surrounded by old flaking dinosaur teeth. The guard was wielding a sniper rifle and wore an NCR beret.

Boone quickly turned around and cursed. “Goddamn it! Don’t sneak up on me like that. What do you want.”

“I wanted to stand the mouth of a T-Rex. It's not the real thing, but it's the best I will probably find,” Franklin said with glee.

This man named Boone seemed to have aged a great deal lately. At first, he seemed like he was in his mid-forties, but upon closer inspection, he was probably no older than twenty-six or so.

“I think you should leave,” Boone said.

Shit, Cliff wasn’t kidding about ornery. Couldn't a metal bug swarm enjoy the view from the mouth of a dinosaur tourist attraction in peace?

“I just got here. Don’t you have any whimsy in your heart?”

“No,” Boone said. Was he making his voice that gravelly on purpose? Damn, this dude seemed to be the perfect example of, ‘Don’t talk to me. I have a sad and tragic backstory.’

“Wait, you said you were new in town? Don’t leave just yet,” Boone said.

“Why,” Franklin asked.

“You’re a stranger. I need someone I can trust, and I can’t trust anyone in town.”

The fuck kinda logic was that? Can’t trust your neighbors, so some random stranger will do?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Alright, what am I doing?” Franklin didn’t know what this guy's deal was, but if Mr. Dark and Serious was going to open up a little, he wanted to know what about.

“I need someone to find something out for me. My wife was taken by Legion slavers. They snuck into town and only took her. No one saw them, and they only took her. She was set up. I want to know who and why.”

Oh shit. Franklin was joking about the tragic background, but that is some fucked up stuff. He had heard word of what the Legion did to its slaves from random radio broadcasts and his night at the Mojave Outpost. There was also the display at Nipton. Boone's wife was probably going through hell right now.

“Shouldn’t we be going after your wife instead? The Legion isn’t exactly nice about how they treat their slaves. Especially not women.”

“No need. My wife is dead.” And like that, the backstory got even more tragic. Franklin now believed he had met the saddest man in the wasteland. This poor man needed more than he could find out here. A good therapist to start with and a place he could relax. He didn’t need to be up here alone in the dark with a gun.

“Alright. What do we do when I find the person that did this? Novac isn’t an NCR town, is it? Would they accept a criminal from out here?” Franklin asked.

“No, and no. I need to do this myself. When you find out who did this, bring them out to the highway bridge. Put on my beret and just wait. I will take care of it.”

Fuck this man damaged. Out here alone in the world. He had lost his wife. Didn’t know who did it and couldn’t trust any of his friends and neighbors to help him find out how because one of them was the one that did it. The only hope for justice he could find was to trust some random stranger to do what he couldn’t.

“Why can’t you just talk to the town? I am sure they would hate to find out they have Legion sympathizers in their ranks?”

“No. They don’t know I know what happened. Want to keep it that way. And besides, if the Legion finds out, I will be hunted by them. Best to solve this quietly.”

Boone wasn't making this easy on Franklin. He wanted to help the man. To say the sniper had probably seen hell was an understatement. Life seemed to have decided to make him its punching bag.

“Alright, I'll help.”

Boone sighed with relief. This was probably the first good news he had heard in a while. “Thanks. Here is my beret. Remember, bring them out here when I am on shift. We should also not be seen speaking till this is done too.”

Franklin left the dinosaur’s mouth and went back to the van. Cass and ED-E were still hanging around.

“Making sure no one comes to steal the treads?” Franklin joked.

Sarcastic beeps.

“I am trying to learn how to understand ED-E. I am sure the little ball is making fun of me, but don’t know how yet. How was the gift shop?” She said like a hypocrite.

“They have a full room full of toy rockets filled with actual rocket fuel.”

“No shit? One spark and that place will go up higher than a moonshiner that spent too much time sampling his own product.”

Cautious beeps.

“Don’t worry ED-E, I am gonna collect it myself soon enough.”

“You want the rocket fuel?! Why?” Cass asked.

“For a rocket, obviously,” Franklin said. What else would you do with rocket fuel? It would be a waste to do anything else with it.

“I have signed up with a mad scientist. Next thing you know, he is gonna be building a death ray.” Cass mumbled, but Franklin still heard her.

“Alright, enough about my science projects. I also just met the saddest man in the wasteland,” Franklin told them about Boone and what he wanted. ED-E expressed remorse about Boone’s wife, and Cass swore to kill any ‘Legion fuckers’ she saw.

“What are we gonna do then?” Cass asked.

“We?” Franklin responeded. He didn’t think Cass would want to help. They hadn’t spoken much about much other than the history of various groups and locations. Franklin hadn’t gotten a sense of who the cowgirl was, so this surprised him. Nice to see she had a sense of morality.

Affirmative beeps.

ED-E was a robot of few words and was a team player. Franklin had only known the ball for a few days, but he respected his dedication. It went beyond his simple personality programming; he was probably a burgeoning AI.

“Of course, we will help. Gotta look out for one another out here, especially when dealing with a bunch of raiders playing dress-up,” Cass said.

Franklin chuckled to himself. “You don’t know much about me Cass, and we are already investigating a murder together. We can start in the morning when everyone is awake. You can have the room; I will search around town for a bit before resting in the van.”

___________

DO IT!!!!!

“Head voices go away!”

BLOOOD

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

“Stay in control.”

Loook at us.

“Not real, don’t do it.”

Go. Shed the blood and butcher the meat!

“No!”

___________

The doctor’s drones flew over the small town of Novac. The population seemed to consist of Brahmin ranchers, farmers, and scavengers. The scavengers probably searched local ruins like the solar farm in the north, the rocket lab in the west, and a few other small places around as well.

What was it that made these people tough it out in this small town? Really the fact that humanity even continued on after the nuclear apocalypse at all was impressive. To look upon a world transformed to be hostile to most life and survive was nothing short of a miracle. It was a testament to the hardiness of the human spirit. It brought a synthesized tear to Franklin's eye.

BRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Well, so much for peace and quiet.

On the west edge of town, a drone detected a lot of gunfire. Sonar readings showed all the gunfire was coming from a single source, and the amount of bullets being fired ranged in the hundreds per minute.

Is that a fucking minigun? Who has the resources to maintain and use one of those?

He sent drones that quickly flew over the area and found a cattle ranch. One of the Brahmin had been ripped to shreds with dozens of bullet holes in its hide. There were also no visual signs of who did this. No one else was being attacked, and for some reason, the owners of this farm had failed to notice the loud gunfire outside their backdoor. Were they deaf?

Hmmm. Franklin was intrigued by the crime scene. A murder committed in the middle of the night with heavy weaponry. An unclear motive against such a docile and harmless creature. And lastly, no witnesses to be seen. A truly tantalizing mystery. One that demanded exploration.

Novac was turning out to be a fantastic little stop, and Franklin was excited to uncover its secrets.