Fallout - Chapter 129: A Clean Sweep (Patreon)

Safari Adventure.

One of Nuka-World's six major parks, an "African Wildlife Park" that the pre-War Nuka-Cola Corporation had spent seven years building. Its main attraction was advertised as "up-close encounters with rare wildlife."

A promotional poster from two hundred years ago had read:

Here, you're only one fence away from nature.

Now every one of those fences had collapsed.

Josie stood on the platform of Cappy's Treehouse.

Below her stretched a dense, suffocating green hell. The ground was buried beneath thick layers of fallen leaves and rotting humus, while swamps and waterways crisscrossed the area. Murky green water gleamed with an oily sheen beneath the sunlight.

The concrete paths poured two hundred years ago had long since been split apart by tree roots and swallowed by moss. Ruined buildings lay half-buried beneath the vegetation, with rusted iron fences and collapsed walls everywhere.

Not one of the old animal enclosures remained intact.

The air was hot and humid, thick with the smells of rotting earth, pollen, and wild animals. Breathing felt like work.

Josie lowered her binoculars and looked at the map in her hands.

Several red dots had been marked on it. Each one represented a confirmed Gatorclaw sighting.

Fourteen had been confirmed so far, but the field scribes believed the actual number was higher. The jungle was simply too dense, with countless blind spots that couldn't be thoroughly scouted.

She looked down from the treehouse.

Cappy's Treehouse was the highest vantage point in all of Safari Adventure.

Before the War, visitors who wanted to reach it had to make their way through the hedge maze surrounding its base, part of the park's deliberately designed adventure experience.

Most of the maze walls had since collapsed, but the tall, dense hedges continued to grow stubbornly, forming a natural barrier.

The clearing below the treehouse had been deliberately cleared.

Three field scribes in Brotherhood of Steel uniforms were crouched beside a Gatorclaw, hard at work.

It had been captured alive the previous day.

The scribes wanted to perform a vivisection while it was still alive and record every physiological characteristic they could.

The mutated creature was chained tightly to a makeshift dissection table built from wooden planks, all four limbs spread apart and immobilized.

An iron bar held its jaws open, exposing two dense rows of conical teeth.

A long incision had been cut down its abdomen, exposing dark-red muscle and yellowish fat that glistened wetly beneath the sunlight.

One scribe, wearing rubber gloves, had both hands deep inside its abdominal cavity, his expression so focused it bordered on fascination.

Another stood beside him with a portable terminal, recording every observation and piece of data from the dissection in real time.

Josie looked away and turned toward the figure beside her.

Cito sat on the treehouse railing.

He looked completely relaxed, with one leg dangling over the edge and the other drawn up in front of him.

His upper body was bare, revealing muscles as solid as cast iron. His skin was covered in scars. Knife wounds, claw marks, and crescent-shaped bite marks left by large animals.

He wore nothing but a loincloth stitched together from animal hide and scraps of cloth.

His messy black hair had been casually tied behind his head with a leather cord, giving him an almost purely feral appearance.

At the moment, this wasteland "Tarzan" was holding an old comic book with intense concentration.

Grognak the Barbarian.

A pre-War comic about the adventures of the barbarian warrior Grognak.

The old comic had long since yellowed and grown brittle. Its cover depicted a massively muscled barbarian wearing nothing but a loincloth and wielding an enormous axe.

He looked remarkably similar to Cito.

A small ghoulrilla crouched on his shoulder, head tilted as it stared at the comic with him.

Watching the man and ape together, Josie felt an odd sense of unreality.

Three days earlier, while riding a "Little Electric Donkey" into Safari Adventure on a reconnaissance mission, she had encountered Cito near the edge of a swamp.

At the time, Cito had been fighting a Gatorclaw with a massive sledgehammer.

That Gatorclaw was larger than any of the others she'd seen since, at least two sizes bigger.

Its jaws were wide open, exposing two dense rows of conical teeth. Its limbs gouged deep claw marks into the ground, and every lunge carried enough force to flatten a grown adult into pulp.

Yet Cito, bare-chested and armed with nothing but a hammer, had fought it head-on without giving an inch.

There was no formal combat technique in the way he moved.

He relied entirely on primitive, instinctive, animal-like evasions and his extraordinary physical strength to fight the Gatorclaw directly.

Josie had been standing on a hillside more than a hundred meters away when she saw it.

Her first thought was:

There are actually people this tough?

Her second thought was:

I should probably help.

So Josie charged down the slope on her Little Electric Donkey, drew her plasma pistol, aimed at the creature's softer flank, and fired four times.

All four plasma bolts struck their target.

They burned through the creature's tough keratinous scales and blasted four charred holes into its body.

The Gatorclaw roared in pain and whipped its head toward Josie.

Cito seized the opening.

He raised the sledgehammer high overhead and brought it straight down onto the center of the Gatorclaw's skull.

The blow carried every bit of strength possessed by a man nearly 1.9 meters tall and weighing more than a hundred kilograms.

The Gatorclaw's legs immediately buckled.

Its enormous body crashed sideways into the mud.

Its limbs twitched for several seconds.

Then it stopped moving.

Cito stood beside the corpse, breathing heavily.

Dark-red blood and fragments of keratin covered the head of his hammer.

He raised his head and looked at Josie, who stood thirty meters away with her pistol still in hand.

They stared at each other in silence for several seconds.

Then Cito spoke.

His voice was deep and hoarse.

"Iron man help Cito."

"Cito help you."

Josie froze.

The sentences were incredibly short. The vocabulary was simple.

Even in the wasteland, where education was hardly universal, it was rare to meet an adult who spoke at that level. He sounded almost like a child who had only just learned to speak, piecing together sentences from the most basic words.

But there was such determination and sincerity in his voice that there was nothing funny about it.

Cito was almost painfully straightforward.

So straightforward that he was strangely easy to trust.

They had been friends ever since.

Later, Josie learned the full story of the Gatorclaws from a holotape Cito treasured.

The recording contained a man's final message.

Darren McDermot.

A pre-War biologist who had become a ghoul after the Great War.

After the War, Darren had used the machine beneath the Safari Adventure Welcome Center, the Nuka-Gen Replicator, to splice genetic material and create Gatorclaws to protect himself and the underground laboratory.

The Nuka-Gen Replicator had been one of the core pieces of technology the Nuka-Cola Corporation used before the War to produce the park's "rare wildlife."

Given a genetic sample, it could replicate an entire living organism.

Eventually, the experiment went completely out of control.

The control backdoor built into the Gatorclaws' genes failed.

The biological weapons broke free of all restraints, becoming violent and bloodthirsty.

Darren was badly wounded by the creatures he had created.

He barely escaped the laboratory before leaving behind his final message.

After listening to the recording, the oldest of the Brotherhood field scribes pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and shook his head wearily.

"Just as I expected."

"These pre-War biologists never understood the meaning of caution. FEV, Deathclaws, it's always the same."

He sighed.

"They never seem to understand that life finds a way."

"But we can't just leave it alone," another scribe said with a frown.

"The replicator's production rate is extremely high. It can produce another one every two or three days. If we leave it running, the entire Nuka-World area will be overrun within a year."

"By then, Nuka-World won't be the only place affected. The entire wasteland will suffer."

They immediately searched through the Welcome Center's terminal records and found two crucial pieces of information.

The good news was that there was still a way to open the entrance to the underground laboratory.

Darren wasn't the only person with access.

Dr. Hein had it as well.

According to the terminal records, Hein had been a senior researcher at the Welcome Center and possessed full access to the laboratory.

The bad news was that Dr. Hein had been a pre-War employee.

He had died long ago in the nuclear war.

For now, all they could do was search for Dr. Hein's passcode while continuing to eliminate the monsters being produced by the Nuka-Gen Replicator.

Meanwhile, the hunt for the remaining Gatorclaws was nearing its end.

The last tranquilizer dart struck its target.

The raging cold-blooded creature finally began to give out.

Its movements became slower and slower.

The strength with which its claws tore at the ground faded.

Its wide-open jaws gradually closed.

Its heavy eyelids drooped.

Then its enormous body toppled heavily into the mud, no longer capable of resisting.

Josie lowered her binoculars and let out a long breath before leaning against the treehouse railing.

The hunt was over.

She wouldn't have to keep calling out locations anymore.

She could finally rest for a while.

Then the communicator at her waist suddenly activated.

Preston's voice came through.

"Josie, you've got another mission."

The corner of Josie's mouth twitched.

She still remembered what had happened a few days earlier.

Four scouts had cornered her outside the control room and forced her to hand over Arsie's key.

Preston had clearly been standing right behind the door.

Not only had he refused to help, he had actually held the door shut from the inside and watched while Josie was driven into a corner.

Then she had been forced to ride one of those Little Electric Donkeys.

Slow as an old woman out for a stroll.

No stealth system.

And the moment the terrain became uneven, the whole thing bounced up and down like it was trying to throw its rider off.

Riding it on a mission felt like being kicked out of a sports car and handed a tricycle.

She couldn't stop thinking about Arsie.

Who knew what those bastards were doing to her?

Just imagining it was enough to bring tears to Josie's eyes.

And now Preston was giving her another assignment.

Josie spoke into the communicator.

"I'm swamped over here. I really can't get away."

There was silence for two seconds.

Then Preston's voice came through again, his tone unchanged.

"Can't get away?"

Josie's back stiffened slightly.

She forced herself to continue.

"I really can't."

Another second of silence.

"All right."

Preston sounded perfectly calm.

"The General is about to arrive at Nuka-World in person. Since you're busy, forget it."

Josie's entire body tensed.

She immediately straightened.

The General?

The General was coming to Nuka-World?

"Wait!"

Josie immediately changed her answer, her voice jumping half an octave.

"I'm free. I'll be there right away."

"Good."

Preston's tone remained completely flat.

"Take the reconnaissance squad and infiltrate the Cola-Cars Arena in Nuka-Town USA immediately."

Josie frowned.

"Isn't that the execution ground where Colter puts on shows of him slaughtering people?"

The Cola-Cars Arena was one of Nuka-World's signature attractions.

Before the War, it had been a Nuka-Cola-themed bumper-car arena.

After the War, the raiders converted it into a gladiatorial arena.

Overboss Colter, the ruler of Nuka-World, held public executions there almost every week.

Colter had devised all kinds of theatrical ways to butcher his victims.

Those brutal spectacles were an important way for him to display his power while keeping the raiders throughout the park entertained.

"If you already know that, why aren't you moving?" Preston snapped. "If anything happens to the General, you might as well shoot yourself!"

Josie took a deep breath and suppressed her frustration.

She turned toward the treehouse stairs.

As she passed Cito, the wild man who had been quietly reading his comic looked up at her.

Josie stopped.

"Cito, I have to go somewhere. You'll be all right here by yourself?"

Cito looked down at Grognak the Barbarian in his hands, then glanced at the small ghoulrilla perched on his shoulder.

He raised his head and answered with complete seriousness in his simple, primitive way of speaking.

"Cito, okay."

He paused before adding solemnly:

"Monster come, Cito fight."

Josie patted him on the shoulder.

She said nothing else and hurried down the stairs to carry out her mission.

...

The Commonwealth. Nuka-World Transit Center.

This had once been the only official gateway to Nuka-World.

The massive exterior walls were covered with faded Nuka-Cola logos and cartoon artwork.

Before the War, countless visitors had bought tickets and waited here before boarding the Nuka-Express for the park.

Two hundred years of exposure had stripped away large sections of the colorful paint.

Every neon tube had shattered.

The once-bright and cheerful cartoon statues had been weathered beyond recognition.

But the building's main concrete structure remained solid.

It had survived the Great War and two centuries of decay without collapsing.

The enormous electronic sign hanging beneath the lobby dome had long since gone dark, but the slogan printed across it could still be read.

Welcome to Nuka-World: A Paradise of Family Fun!

Now more than a dozen Gunner corpses lay across the floor of the empty lobby.

The fight had been quick and clean.

The Minutemen had attacked simultaneously from three directions and eliminated every Gunner within three minutes without damaging any of the lobby's furnishings.

The surviving pre-War posters, sculptures, and ticket booths remained untouched.

It was almost as though no battle had taken place there at all.

Anthony stood in the center of the lobby with a document in hand, checking each item off the list for securing the transit center.

In one corner stood a VR simulation training pod that had been transported from the frontline training grounds.

Its oval metal shell was covered in sensors and data ports, giving it the appearance of a high-tech coffin.

Its indicator lights were flashing green, showing that the pod was operating at full capacity.

Anthony walked over and glanced at the stream of data moving across the control panel.

Then he stepped back, clasped his hands behind him, and waited.

A few seconds later, the pod released a quiet hiss of escaping pressure.

The hatch slowly opened.

Cold white vapor poured out, condensing into a thin mist in the air.

Jace slowly sat up inside.

His movements were calm and controlled as he gradually emerged from the high-intensity training session.

He braced both hands against the edge of the pod.

His knuckles were slightly white from the pressure.

His black hair was damp with sweat, several strands stuck to his forehead.

Jace raised his head and casually glanced at Anthony.

It was nothing more than a passing look.

It didn't linger.

It wasn't even particularly focused.

Yet Anthony's entire body immediately tensed.

There was an almost overwhelming pressure behind that gaze.

It was the natural edge left behind by countless life-and-death battles and relentless training, something so deeply ingrained that it could no longer be hidden.

Anthony forced himself to remain composed.

His throat shifted slightly as he began his report.

"General, all preliminary deployments for Nuka-World are in place."

Jace stood and stepped out of the training pod without making a sound.

He casually picked up a nearby towel and wiped the sweat from his face.

"What's the situation at the base?"

Anthony opened the file in his hands.

"All main forces have been deployed. Only the standard one-seventh garrison remains at the base."

"Good."

Jace walked to the window and looked through the shattered glass toward the gray wasteland mountains in the distance.

Anthony hesitated.

"General... are you sure you want to go alone?"

Jace didn't turn around.

His voice remained calm.

"If I bring too many people, the leaders of those three gangs might not show up."

He paused.

"Chances to take all of them out at once don't come around very often."

Anthony's fingers tightened slightly.

He was clearly worried, but he swallowed whatever he'd originally intended to say and asked something else instead.

"Then shouldn't Captain Nate accompany you as your bodyguard?"

Jace finally turned around.

There was complete confidence in his eyes.

"No."

"The base is going to have some 'guests' very soon."

Anthony froze.

"Guests?"

"Yes."

Jace's expression remained calm.

"Nate will be responsible for giving them a special welcome."

Anthony fell silent for two seconds.

Then he understood.

His expression subtly changed.

Jace raised his left wrist and glanced at his Pip-Boy.

The screen displayed his data.

All the skills associated with his four core attributes, Strength, Perception, Intelligence, and Agility, had been completely maxed out.

He lowered his wrist and looked back at Anthony.

"Don't worry."

His voice was light, almost as though he were mentioning something completely trivial.

"I don't lack anything anymore."