Raiders of the Lost Ruins [M]

    Pop. The insect was crushed nosily beneath John Morgan's boot. Lifting his right leg slowly, the ghoul dragged the sole of his boot across the lip of the subway tunnel, leaving a messy pile of radroach legs and guts behind. Some survivalists would have taken the "meat" from the creatures abdomen. John would leave the filthy critter in favor of a can of Pork & Beans he found earlier. The legs of the insect twitched several times behind him as John made his way down the tracks, turned a corner and ascended the debris-covered stairs. Moving across the platform, the ghoul found the exit quickly. His footsteps echoed back down the concrete tunnel, and then as it had been for more than two centuries, Dawson Station was silent.
    The wind had been kicking up radioactive dust randomly all week, though John didn't care. His gear would keep most of it out. Allowing the rusty metal gate to swing closed behind him, Coyote began walking into the cloud spotted sunlight. Pulling the UV goggles from his neck, John put them on and surveyed the familiar desolation of the Capital Wasteland. He had been in this place for nearly a century now, and the bleak mood of the place still got to him. He was able to vaguely recall the Pre-War Washington D.C. from television and a high school field trip. Knowing it's former glory, he had never been able to truly accept it's current skeletal form. It reminded him of his own hideous transformation, and the kinship often made him bitter. So he continued moving, unwilling to let the dark thoughts grow any further this day.

    He was about three hours from the suburbs of D.C., and Coyote guessed he had nearly three hours before the sun went down. John had made good time. The scavenging of Dawson Station hadn't yielded much loot, but he was able to find a bottle of whiskey and a box of 12 gauge shotgun slugs. The slugs would at least pay for a few decent meals, or a trade for either of the ammunition he actually had use for. Between his current gear and the stash up North of D.C., he wasn't doing too bad financially.

    The heavy object strapped to his back, wrapped in a weathered blanket and leather belts, had not been opened in eight months. As John trekked through the dust and across the badlands, his mind began to wander. His 10mm Pistol had been reliable since it's most recent repair, and the weapon on his back had slumbered. He missed the exhilaration of using it, and the memories came back...

...When it sounded as if the attackers were reloading, John popped up with the machine gun. He opened it up, mowing down the cannibalistic gunmen. Scanning Meserti's battleground with the gun sights, John gasped as the Brotherhood Paladin erupted in flames from Wade's cocktail. The cannibals laughed as the power armor went up like a bonfire, casting light in all directions. Gunfire echoed across the subway. He moved his aiming bead to Miriam, unloading a stream of armor piercing rounds into the crazies near the woman, tearing them down and giving her plenty of breathing room to take care of Willow and get armed. John awaited Sherman and Craig to respond or agree on a plan as he continued giving Cohen heavy cover fire, as she was pretty much in the dead center of this insanity.


    He allowed the thoughts of the cannibals to fade away as he walked. The mission had been a bust, more or less. They had succeeded in killing most of the cannibals and collapsing Meserti on top of the survivors, but they had walked away with only injures and damaged gear. There had been no physical reward that following morning, but Coyote had not complained. They had survived the ordeal, and saved Big Town from a fate no one deserved. John spotted a human corpse as he walked across the dry soil, stopping briefly to examine it from a distance. Bullet wounds. No backpack or gear. Raiders. After finding and lighting a cigarette, Coyote continued in the direction of Megaton. The cigarette hung from his lower lip as he walked, bobbing lazily up and down. 

    Following the Big Town event, the group had quickly parted ways. Coyote had heard rumors that Miriam Cohen had traveled North, heading back to the land of her birth: New York. The ghoul assumed Miriam had taken Willow with her, and his suspicion was verified when rumors of the couple began again. Kenna, the young doctor of Asian descent, had also disappeared following the salvation of Big Town. A trader had informed Coyote that Craig Durret was last seen traveling North-West, and nothing more was ever learned. Agent Straton had seemingly vanished from existence, which was about as much as John had expected from the mysterious and odd woman. He had heard nothing of Oscar, assuming him dead, and nothing of Paladin Masterson, whom he assumed was deployed somewhere on official Brotherhood business. The group had all gone their separate ways, leaving John wandering the Capital Wastelands again as if it had been nothing more than a two day long dream. If dreams left scars.

    And now, nearly a year later, he was finally admitting to himself that he wished he would have tagged along to New York. He had like the brash, outspoken, middle-aged human for some reason. And their combined firepower was truly something to behold. He had told no one of her secret, content to keep her privacy from those who wouldn't have understood the situation. He had met the woman once, sixteen years before they had met in Big Town. And she had been pregnant with Willow. The cannibal princess had been Miriam's lost daughter. If the rumors were true, Miriam and Willow Cohen were back in the Capital Wasteland. If rumors were true. John's mind began to sink into the past... Working alone had been his thing for most of John's life, but as he walked away from the setting sun, John attempted to clear all of this from his mind. The man had never been much of a deep thinker in his human life anyway, and tried to avoid it altogether  when possible in his present existence.





    As he entered the gates of Megaton, John couldn't help but think of how much the town had grown over the last few decades. Small houses and huts surrounded the town's walls now, the population too large for all of them to dwell in safety. The radiation was still a lingering problem, but with a new doctor and several medics it was being controlled. John nodded to the sheriff as he walked down the sloping main street of town. Passing under a leaky pipe, John turned the corner of the building and found himself at the Brass Lantern. He assumed his usual spot in the corner, and when the new server Ellie arrived he ordered a beer and a brahmin steak.

    "The usual, huh?" she asked, giving him a tired smile. The ghoul leaned against the bar and took a swig of his beer.

    "Is there anything else worth buyin'?" John asked rhetorically, his voice raspy than usual. It had been a week since he had anyone to talk to. Ellie nodded and walked back towards the dirty kitchen, leaving him alone with his drink. The Latern wasn't exactly a hot spot like Moriarty's, but that was why John liked it. Quiet. Usually.

    When Ellie had placed the steaming brahmin steak before him, the tired girl sat a package wrapped in brown paper to John's left.

    "Whuts 'at?" John asked, nodding to it after shoving a chunk of steak in his mouth.

    "I don't know, didn't seem right to open it. A courier showed up a while ago, 'round six o' clock, asking about you, John. When I told him you stop in here often, he asked that I give it to you as soon as I saw yah."

    John eyed the package suspiciously, removing his goggles and allowing them to hang around his neck. He ate a few more bites, then finished his beer. Handing the empty bottle to the young server, John lit a cigarette and opened the package. In his hand was a diary of sorts, a hard back journal with no title. As he opened the book, Ellie brought him a second beer. The writing on the yellowed pages had to be Willow's, and as he read on it became clear he had been right. Ellie soon hovered over the ghoul's shoulder, hands on his steel shoulder pauldron, reading the book with him.

    "What's it say?" Ellie broke the relative silence.

    John turned to look at the young, sweaty girl. He quickly came to the conclusion she couldn't read, and felt bad for the former slave. "It from an old friend... but it doesn't make much sense... why would she write just to tell me how awesome that hole-in-the-wall is?"

    "Hole in the wall?" Ellie echoed.

    "Big Town." John said in his dry voice.

    "Oh. Yeah that place kinda sucks. No offense, I know you saved them and all."

    John sighed. "I guess this means Miriam and Willow are back in the Capital Wa-" he stopped speaking as a holotape fell out of the journal's rear pages, landing noisily on the bar beside his beer. John took a drag of his cigarette, exhaling his smoke away from the lingering girl. "What's this?"

    "It's a holo-"

    "I know whut it is, Ellie. It was a rhetor-" John siged. "Nevermind. Does your radio still play? I mean, it's tape player?"

    "Sometimes. You gotta unplug it and plug it back in. Sometimes." the girl answered absently, staring at the holotape held in the ghoul's gloved hand.
 
    "I'm gonna use it."

    "Sure, five caps."

    John grunted, rolling his eyes as he fished a handful of caps from his pocket. "You nickel n' dime all your friends like this?" he growled as she took the payment.

    "We charge for everything. We aren't exactly booming nowadays. And I need this job, John."

    "Yeah, yeah." The ghoul said as he rose from his seat at the bar. Finishing his beer, John left it on the bar and made his way to the jukebox. The machine refused the holotape at first, until John banged on it's right panel. The holotape disappeared inside the jukebox, and the noise of the blow had attracted the attention of the two other patrons. He turned the volume down a bit and leaned against the ancient machine, listening to the static. The other patrons soon lost interest.




    Ellie stood beside the mercenary, silent. She playd with her dark hair nervously. John ejected the tape and shoved it in his vest, turning to her with straight face.

    "What did it mean?" Ellie asked quietly, unable to make eye contact. The girl in the recording sounded very scared, and it made Ellie uneasy. It was the type of scared she used to get when the slavers were coming for her.

    "It means I'm going back to Big Town."

- - -

    Why had Willow sent him a holotape hidden in a journal? Where had Miriam been in the recording? It didn't make much sense. As John walked through the outer streets of Megaton, he stopped at a trader's stand. After offering the shotgun shells, Coyote was going to walk away with a pocket full of 10mm rounds and a Nuka-Cola. Not a bad trade. I wish Sherman were around. Thanking the balding man, Coyote put his boots to work again.

    The ghoul began his journey across the badlands to Big Town, wondering what form of trouble the town had found this time. Rumors of the Dead Man had reached John as well. And then there was the contract he had taken. What did it all mean? Soon, he would have his answers, whether he liked them or not.