Fallout - Chapter 138: The Fate of Nuka-World (Patreon)

Nuka-World. The Overboss's private room.

Jace's words fell into the room like a stone sinking beneath still water.

Then the four faces before him each gave their answer.

Mason, Alpha of the Pack, had a sudden spark in his eyes. It was as if someone had shoved a fuse soaked in liquor deep into them and struck a match.

He was thinking that if he could kill the new Overboss right here, the Pack would become the true rulers of Nuka-World.

Nisha's reaction was quieter, but no less deadly.

Her pupils widened slightly, and her breathing gradually deepened. Her expression never changed, but beneath the table, her fingernails had already dug deep into her palms, leaving four pale crescents on the verge of drawing blood.

Ever since she'd first seen the man in black armor from the stands of the Cola-Cars Arena, she'd wanted to test him.

She wanted to know what lay beneath that face, so calm it bordered on indifference, and what exactly gave him that confidence.

Gage's reaction was the simplest.

He didn't look at Jace.

Instead, he watched the door out of the corner of his eye.

Mags reacted the slowest.

She sat with both hands folded neatly on the table, fingers interlaced, her posture as precise as if she were presiding over a pre-War business meeting.

Her expression didn't move at all. She didn't even blink any more than usual.

But her mind was already working at full speed, thoughts racing silently through her head.

She glanced at Gage beside her and made her decision.

Then Mason and Nisha attacked at the same time.

Metal table legs shrieked across the floor.

The heavy wooden table was violently overturned. Bottles and glasses spun through the air, scattering amber liquor in a wide arc.

Chairs toppled backward, metal legs slamming into the walls and throwing off sparks.

Mason ripped a power fist from beneath the table, where it had been secured with duct tape.

The muscles beneath his leather armor bunched into thick cords. He looked like some mutant hound breaking free of its cage as he drove his right fist toward Jace's face with a roar of displaced air.

There were two models of this kind of melee weapon, designed to amplify the force of a punch.

The first was standard military equipment.

It had been developed for U.S. Army infantry by the pre-War military contractor BeatCo. Powered by servo motors and supplied by miniature energy cells, it was issued to assault infantry and power armor units for breaching, close-quarters combat, and clearing buildings.

It had been designed to fit the hand closely, essentially functioning as a metal glove.

It was a proper military melee weapon, distributed almost exclusively through military channels and rarely seen in civilian hands. Only a small number of elite West Coast Brotherhood of Steel soldiers were equipped with them.

The second model was intended for engineering demolition teams.

This pneumatic power fist had originally been designed as a tool for demolition crews and combat engineers to smash through concrete walls. Instead of servo motors, it relied on pneumatic pistons.

It was an engineering tool, not a frontline combat weapon.

Compared with the first model, it had numerous flaws.

It couldn't be used with power armor.

It needed time to build pressure again after every strike.

It was too heavy for infantry without power armor.

Its maximum output was far below that of the servo-powered version.

Used incorrectly, it could easily dislocate the wearer's arm.

And so on.

However, because this model was easier to manufacture, combined with the fact that Commissioner Smith in charge of procurement had accepted a considerable amount in kickbacks, it eventually beat out BeatCo's electric power fist in the bidding process.

The military purchased it in large quantities, and it became the new standard issue.

After the war, Raiders converted these engineering gloves into fighting weapons, making them common melee equipment throughout the wasteland.

That was the model Mason was using now.

Nisha was even faster.

She swept in from the left, moving low to the ground like a ghost and forming a deadly pincer attack with Mason.

At some point, a bloodletting dagger unique to the Disciples had appeared in her hand. The short blade flashed beneath the light like the fang of a snake.

Gage moved too.

The door was about four meters behind him.

Four meters.

For a Raider who had spent twenty years running for his life across the wasteland, it was barely a sprint.

Get through the door.

Disappear into the maze of alleys and shadows outside.

Vanish into the amusement park forever bathed in orange artificial light.

He wasn't going to test whether he could beat Jace.

Jace had wrestled barehanded with Colter in power armor. With no armor of his own, Gage would be throwing his life away.

And he wasn't going to negotiate.

Jace had said "kill yourselves."

That wasn't a negotiation.

It was a verdict.

His only chance was to keep running.

Gage lowered himself, shifted his weight forward as far as he could, then exploded into motion like a compressed spring.

Four meters.

Three.

Two.

Then he collapsed.

Gage fell beside the doorframe, one hand still reaching for the door.

His fingertips stopped less than a hand's width from the handle.

Jace hadn't done it.

Jace hadn't even looked at him.

A smoking bullet hole had appeared in the back of Gage's head.

Dark red blood spread slowly along the seams in the wooden floor, blooming outward like a dark flower.

Mags lowered her still-smoking revolver.

Then she and her younger brother raised both hands over their heads in surrender.

...

Mason's fist had already arrived.

His right arm carried the momentum of his entire body and all of his fury, the power fist roaring toward Jace's face like a hammer fresh from a forge.

Jace didn't even get out of his chair.

He simply raised his left hand, almost as casually as if he were catching a baseball.

Then he caught Mason's fist.

Jace's fingers closed around the power fist and locked it in place like a hydraulic clamp.

Mason's expression changed instantly.

He tried to wrench his right arm free.

It didn't move at all.

He gritted his teeth and started raising his left fist.

Before he could throw it, Jace's right hand closed around his throat.

The next second, Jace's arm tensed.

A heavily muscled man weighing nearly two hundred pounds was lifted off the floor like an empty sack.

Mason's legs kicked uselessly in the air.

His eyes bulged from their sockets. His face turned red, then purple, then began taking on a bluish tint.

Jace looked at him.

There was no emotion in his eyes.

It was the look someone might give a minor enemy not worth remembering.

"Too slow."

Then Jace looked to his left.

Nisha had reached him.

The cold gleam of her pre-War tactical dagger traced a lethal arc through the orange light, aimed straight at Jace's exposed neck.

He had removed his helmet before entering the room.

Jace still didn't release Mason.

He raised his left hand and struck.

Both of Nisha's hands, along with the knife between them, broke under the impact.

Then his fingers opened and closed around her throat.

Exactly the same as before.

"Your speed is decent, but you're too weak."

Only two sounds remained in the room.

The thin hiss of air being forced through crushed throats, and the occasional dull thud of boots striking overturned furniture.

Jace remained seated among the overturned table, broken glasses, and spilled liquor, holding one person in each hand.

Both bodies struggled in the air.

Then gradually weakened.

Slowed.

Jace glanced at Nisha in his left hand.

Her face had turned deep purple, and her lips were beginning to blue from lack of oxygen.

But her eyes...

Something twisted and almost ecstatic burned inside them.

She was enjoying it.

Being killed by someone stronger.

Being crushed.

Overpowered.

Finished.

Jace tightened his fingers slightly.

Crack.

Crack.

The two sharp snapping sounds came almost simultaneously, like two completely dried branches being broken at the same time.

Mason and Nisha went limp.

Both heads tilted to the side at unnatural angles, the broken vertebrae leaving strange depressions beneath the skin of their necks.

Jace released them.

The two bodies hit the floor one after another with dull thuds, like bags of trash casually thrown aside.

The room fell completely silent.

Jace looked up at Mags and her younger brother, William.

She still had both hands raised above her head, her body angled slightly to avoid the blood spreading from Gage's corpse.

"General."

"We... would like a fair and public trial."

Jace considered it.

A public trial would indeed make it easier for the Minutemen to take control of Nuka-World.

"Fine."

"I'll let you live... a few more days."

...

The next day. Fizztop Mountain.

The artificial mountain stood beside the pond in the center of Nuka-Town USA.

Entering through the east gate led directly into the reinforced concrete and steel framework inside the mountain itself.

It had once housed maintenance corridors, equipment rooms, and staff rest areas.

The Disciples had transformed it into layers of prison cells and execution chambers.

Jace arrived with Preston and a squad of Minutemen advance troops following close behind.

The moment they stepped through the east gate, the air changed.

Thick.

Heavy.

A smell of rust and rotting flesh seemed to seep out from the deepest part of the mountain like something alive, creeping along the walls and floor before forcing its way into everyone's nose.

Several soldiers instinctively covered their mouths and noses.

It made no difference.

The stench seemed woven into the air itself. Even with their noses covered, it slipped through their fingers and coated the inside of their mouths and throats like a greasy film.

The deeper they went, the stronger it became.

Then they saw the first body.

The lower half of an adult man had been fixed to a crude metal frame.

Only the body from the waist down remained.

Each leg had been tied separately to supports on either side.

The flesh around the knees had been torn apart, exposing pale sections of broken bone beneath.

The upper half of the body was nowhere to be seen.

A long drag mark began beneath the frame.

Dark red.

It extended deeper into the mountain like a silent trail.

They continued forward.

More "bodies" appeared.

Some could barely be called bodies anymore.

They looked more like dismantled human parts scattered around the cavern.

Some hung from steel beams, rusty hooks driven through their shoulder blades.

Others had been piled along the edge of concrete platforms, their limbs folded into impossible positions.

Still others had been stuffed into recesses along the maintenance corridors like objects displayed on shelves.

Dark red stains covered the floor.

In the dim light, they formed patterns without names, almost like sacrificial diagrams belonging to some ancient religion.

Jace quietly remarked, "This place is bigger than the other two combined."

The Pack's Bradberton Amphitheater looked spacious, but it was little more than a single tier of seating and a stage, with almost nowhere to hide.

The Operators' Parlor was a small indoor building with limited space and room for relatively few people.

But this place...

Layer upon layer.

Like the hollowed-out skeleton of some enormous beast.

Then Jace stopped.

About five meters ahead, livestock feeding troughs of the kind commonly found on farms had been neatly arranged along the ground.

But there was no feed inside them.

There was blood.

Fresh, dark red blood that had yet to clot.

The surface was clear, free of debris, and reflected the light with an almost mirrorlike sheen.

Most of the troughs had been placed beside the remains of people who had been tortured to death, like ritual vessels belonging to some obscene ceremony.

"What the fuck..." one of the soldiers muttered behind him, his voice shaking.

Jace turned toward a captured member of the Disciples.

"What is this?"

The prisoner looked toward the troughs.

"Drinking troughs."

Jace frowned.

"What did you say?"

"I said that's our drinking wa..."

A gunshot rang out.

The prisoner fell backward.

His head was gone.

Jace lowered his gun.

He stood there, looking over the row of blood-filled troughs, then at the marks deliberately carved into the cavern walls, things that could almost be called decorations.

A thought crossed his mind.

Maybe he should find a priest to hold a requiem for the innocent people who had died here.

That Ghoul priest named Gabe would do.

He was an old-school Catholic priest, too.

The sins accumulated in this place were probably too deep for any brief prayer to wash away.

The cleanup that followed proved exceptionally difficult.

The problem wasn't eliminating the remaining enemies.

There were none left.

The problem was that the people doing the cleanup started breaking down first.

Even veterans who had seen Super Mutant slaughterhouses struggled to endure it.

The Commonwealth's Super Mutants killed people because they wanted to eat them.

The Disciples were different.

Every corpse.

Every wound.

Every twisted limb and tear in the flesh.

There was something deliberate about all of it.

Almost meticulous.

As if someone had devoted serious time and attention to studying the craft of making a person die as slowly, completely, and painfully as possible.

Some soldiers vomited while they worked.

Some leaned against the walls and dry-heaved, bile dripping between their fingers.

Others crouched in corners with both hands over their heads, shoulders shaking silently.

Two soldiers had to support a young recruit as they led him outside.

His eyes had completely lost focus, and his lips moved soundlessly.

Jace watched everything, his expression growing steadily darker.

The Pack was a barbaric tribe.

They worshiped strength and enjoyed blood sports.

But at least their rules could be understood.

The strong survived.

The weak died.

Brutal, but logically consistent.

The Operators were criminals.

They pursued profit and used disgusting methods, but their motives were obvious.

The drug trade.

Slave markets.

Filthy, but understandable.

The Disciples, though...

They were simply a cult.

No rules.

No profit motive.

No real objective.

They simply liked killing people.

How had Nisha managed to bind so many violent lunatics together?

"General."

Preston stepped forward.

His face looked almost as bad as everyone else's. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and the muscles in his jaw were hard as stone.

"The veterans can still manage, but the recruits can't. Three of them have already completely broken down."

He paused.

"I want permission to pull everyone out. Let them recover before we come back in."

"All right. Get everyone out now. Don't send anyone else inside."

Jace looked back toward the depths of Fizztop Mountain.

"We'll leave the rest until our engineering robots arrive."

They exited through the east gate.

Under the lights, the pond outside had a cloudy sheen, like a pot of soup that had been sitting out far too long.

Jace drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with the "fresh air," even though it carried Nuka-World's usual sweet, synthetic plastic smell.

Anything was better than what had been inside.

Behind him came the relieved retching and ragged breathing of the recruits.

Some simply collapsed onto the steps outside and started gulping water from their canteens.

Preston followed and stopped two steps behind him.

"General."

"What is it?"

"What are we doing with the prisoners?"

"Public executions. Hang all of them in Nuka-Town Square."

Jace's voice was flat.

"Make sure everyone watches."

Preston was silent for a second before nodding.

"And... the Operators?"

Jace rubbed his temples.

That morning, the Minutemen had already cleared the slave market in Nuka-Town USA.

They had intended to search for evidence of the Operators' crimes in preparation for the upcoming public trial.

But there was a problem.

The brother and sister had cleaned up after themselves far too thoroughly.

Most of the physical evidence had already been destroyed.

What remained either couldn't be traced back to its source or had been cleverly tied to Gage.

And Gage was dead.

Mags had killed him herself.

Dead men couldn't defend themselves.

Then there were the witnesses.

Every rescued slave remained silent when asked to identify those responsible.

Not a single one pointed to any member of the Operators.

Even worse were the statements from the prisoners.

Every captured Operator, from senior leaders down to the lowest thug, gave testimony that sounded as though it had been copied from the same script.

"We only worked for Gage, the second-in-command."

"We didn't know the full scope of the business."

"We were just following orders."

"We had no choice."

Mags Black.

Her name circled through Jace's thoughts again and again.

Replacing the signs.

Destroying the ledgers.

Getting everyone's story straight.

Placating the witnesses.

At every step, she had stayed half a move ahead of him.

Now the real question was sitting directly in front of him.

As General of the Minutemen and the de facto ruler of half the Commonwealth, what was he supposed to uphold?

Procedural justice?

Or substantive justice?

Procedural justice meant strictly following the legal framework.

Evidence had to be gathered properly.

Witnesses had to be questioned in court.

Every part of the process had to stand up to scrutiny.

Even if insufficient evidence ultimately allowed a guilty person to walk free, illegal methods still couldn't be used to force a confession.

The advantage was that it preserved the dignity of the system and protected justice in the long term.

The disadvantage was that sometimes, very rarely, truly evil people escaped punishment.

Substantive justice meant caring only about whether good was rewarded and evil punished.

Methods mattered less.

Procedure could be flexible.

As long as the guilty were ultimately punished, the path used to get there could be adjusted.

The advantage was obvious.

People got the justice they wanted to see.

The problem was that once such reasoning became an accepted part of government, anyone with power could arrest people at will and convict them however they pleased.

The law would become worthless.

Ordinary people would have no protection left.

Preston stood behind him in silence for a long time before finally speaking.

"General, I've thought about it for a long time..."

He hesitated.

"We don't have enough evidence against those two. If we hold a public trial, they might survive."

Jace didn't turn around.

"I know."

"Are we still going through the proper process?"

"You think we shouldn't?"

Preston swallowed.

"I think... sometimes watching evil people slip through the system feels even more hopeless than watching the system itself get smashed apart."

Jace finally turned toward him.

"Preston, tell me something."

"If I break the rules today because of Mags, and tomorrow someone breaks them to catch a thief who stole some water, and the day after that someone breaks them to eliminate 'suspicious elements'..."

He held Preston's gaze.

"At what point do we start saying no?"

Preston pressed his lips together.

"Procedure..."

Jace rubbed his temples again, harder this time.

"...isn't there to protect bad people."

"It's there to protect us from becoming bad people."

"People who take shortcuts always convince themselves they can find their way back next time."

He paused.

"But the truth is, every shortcut takes you farther off course."

Jace went quiet for a moment.

"That said..."

"Standing there and watching that woman walk free is something I can't stomach either."

"So what do we do?"

Jace didn't answer directly.

He turned back toward the pond.

"We can always find someone else to wear the gloves."

Just then, his communicator sounded.

The signal came from the Brotherhood's airport.

It was Zoe, who had been transferred there ahead of time from the Commonwealth base.

"General, the fish took the bait. Our tanks are already on the move."

Jace's eyebrow twitched.

He glanced down at the communicator's indicator light.

Steady green.

It seemed the Brotherhood had been behaving itself.

Once he returned, he could probably have that nuclear bomb beneath the airport, the one modified with a Beryllium Agitator, dismantled.

"Good. What about the Enclave?"

"We made contact with Sergeant Dornan. He's ready on his end too."

"Good."