Part 28: Khan't Touch This

Update 28: Khan't Touch This



"…this place is a dump. Is the NCR sure they want it?"

"My tribe has better tents, even after slavers came."

"Yep, another shining example of why the Master was right."

"Hey, I didn't show up in your towns and start ripping on them did I?"

"Well, you did in my case but you were right and I agreed with you."

"I'll never apologize for trashing Vault City. Let's see what we can find out about these people."



"Er…sure? Where can we go for privacy around here?"

"My tent is right over there."

"Is this one of those things where I should tell the other guys to wait outside? Because I'm not saying no."



"help or hinderance. Now, they are suddenly claiming this area as their ancestral home, and they want it back."

"Yeah, about that…"

"They keep sending people here to try and talk us out of our home, but they don't understand that we have nowhere else to go. We don't have the skills necessary to survive on our own if we leave here."

"Do you know what it is they want here?"

"Well, there is a vault here; I think it's number 15. They want to loot it for any of the old technology that may still be there."

"So who's in charge, then? No offense, but you don't seem the type."



"So far he has the food and water systems up, but that's about it. Which is kind of funny they managed to get something that complex fixed, but not the lights. The damn place is lit by torches. Anyway, Darion doesn't want anyone to know what's going on with the vault. He's afraid that someone will take it all away from us if they find out. So, we're told to drive off anyone who shows up here - especially the NCR."

"Wow… that's a lot to take in. Okay, what's your problem?"



"herself to be a very responsible young lady."

"And now she be gone? Any men from the Squat here gone too?"

"No, and Zeke… he's kind of the mayor here… said it was too dangerous to look. He sent some of his men and they said that she must have been caught by slavers."



"I need someone to help me find my daughter. Will you help me, please?"

"Well, I'm actually one of the people who's been sent here from NCR to get into the Vault but that kind of thing has never stopped me before. Sure!"



"have heard everything!"

"Heh, if they're that panicked about it then they're probably going to lead me right to your daughter. This'll save us a lot of time."



Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as that. There was a young female roadblock on the only path through the nearby trees.



"You can help us by telling us if you saw somebody go by in a hurry."

"And then moving out of the damn way."

"I see people go by here every day. I really don't pay much attention to them."

"Listen, there's a young girl's life at stake here and I don't have time to talk about this all day. Her mother is right over there, worrying about her."

"And I don't give a radar's ass… I'm sorry. I'm just a gun who was hired to stand here and guard this trail. Other than that, I don't know what's going on around here. I had a daughter once, though, and… yeah, some guy went by here. I let him go because he gave me the right sign, just like the one you gave me just now. Get it?"

Sometimes, people aren't so bad. And sometimes they are, as we found at the other end of the path.



"How?"

"How what?"

"How could you shoot me dead? You're not carrying a gun that I can see."

"It's sarcastic questions like that one that get people shot, you know. What do you want?"

"I'm looking for a missing girl. Seen her?"



"Yeah, I'm just going to kill you now and save us some arguing here."

You can in fact talk him into giving Chrissy up, but there's no fun in that.



"Er… not really? The fuck's a bow tie?"



"I wasn't even inclined to touch you. Now you couldn't pay me enough."

"You're acting like you'd ever be on the side of that transaction that was getting paid."

"I hate it when you're right about these cruel things you say."



Chrissy's explanation was a bit long, but it broke down to the whole thing about Darion and his goons getting the vault working being a complete sham. They were using The Squat as a cover for their raids, and giving food and water to the people from the caravans they were robbing. Anybody who didn't know better would assume that The Squat couldn't possibly be holding a group strong enough to indulge in armed robbery.



"If only to protect the balls of any man you encounter in the 200 or so feet from here to your tent, I'll take you home."

"That the spirit man! Grampy bone say you gotta protect the boys!"



"Why did I rescue her again?"

"I'm not sure if it was an attempt to get on her mom's good side, or just because you've got an irresistible compunction to chase anyone who runs away from you."



As much crap as Cassidy gave me, rescuing Chrissy was actually our in with the leadership of The Squat, Zeke. He wasn't exactly fond of being made a fool of.



Zeke still felt pretty helpless against the raiders and didn't see that their lives would be much improved without them, but I managed to convince him that I could work a deal with NCR to get them supplies and training.



Unfortunately, I was still going to have to do something about Darion's raiders and they were holed up in the fortress of the Vault. Luckily we'd recently gotten very good at clearing out buildings full of lowlifes.



Also, conveniently enough, Zeke was holding on to a key to the vault elevator door. The fact that he'd been able to check Darion's claims and hadn't bothered to check on the vault spoke volumes about his initiative.



They'd been clever enough to trap the door for anybody trying to get in without the keycard, and even posted a guard right in front of the elevator. I was clearly dealing with a disciplined and dangerous foe.



Or maybe not.



"So… 'Pat'… about the potential of humanity…"

"Stop me if you've heard this one. A Super Mutant, a bartender, and two tribals walk into a cave…"

"We and I think we heard this one before."

"Okay, okay. Yeah, I think these guys have firmly come down on the 'too dumb to live' side of the line."



So we killed them. Since they had us surrounded, it meant that they couldn't get away. Not that they wanted to, and not that we gave them a chance.



The only person who didn't try to attack us was the doctor, and I was starting to think they were just standard vault equipment. He patched us up, and had some interesting information to share.



"ransom. Her father didn't take kindly to that, and hired some merc to get her back. Darion was the only one to come out alive."

"What? That was… holy crap, he's got to be ancient! That happened 80 years ago!"

"Hey, 80 years ago wasn't THAT long ago."

"Now he's paranoid. He believes that Tandi is out to get him. He's obsessed with revenge, and he wants Tandi dead. He's riddled with guilt 'cause he hid and lived, rather than dying with his gang… and the list goes on and on."

"Charming."



We skipped over the second floor and went straight down to the third, where we were most likely to find both Darion and the parts we were looking for. They hadn't bothered to to post guards to watch the elevator on the bottom floor, although we could hear people talking in the rooms on either side of the corridor.



A solitary storage locker held the computer parts we were looking for, which I took on the off chance that Tandi would be more interested in those than in the people at The Squat. It'd be nice to help everybody, but we'd been specifically sent after the parts.



After that we disposed of the guards and hoped Darion hadn't heard the noise of the fighting. Or, if he had, that he was cowering in a corner hoping that Tandi hadn't come to get him.



The guards on this floor has better equipment, including Ripper chainsaw knives, assault rifles, and a very odd little submachine gun that I picked up for curiosity's sake if nothing else.

I've always had a soft spot for this little gun. It requires 5 AP for a burst (compared to the normal 6), fires 12 rounds at a time, and while this guy had 9mm ammo it actually will quite happily use the 10mm ammo you've got lying around. Damage per shot is 12-16, so you can tear up enemies quite easily with it.



Chrissy hadn't been quite right… Darion and his goons had gotten at least one computer working, and it still had the location of Vault 13 in the memory. We copied down the coordinates, and I could hardly wait to finish up business. We were within a couple days of having a GECK in hand.



But before that, we had to deal with Darion and his personal guards. The jerks had been just down the hall from the guards we slaughtered and hadn't lifted a finger to help. Darion started gibbering at us, but I didn't have any patience with it so I just went ahead and shot him in the face. The crazy bastard was toting around a flamethrower for fuck's sake.



He'd saved the best equipment for his guards, including a power fist and some state of the art healing items. Whatever Tandi was going to pay us for this, we were making out like bandits.



You get a load of bonus experience for killing Darion, enough to put us up to level 18. That gets us a new perk, so we'll finally go ahead and get the Tag! perk,



We picked Energy Weapons, just to illustrate what happens when you have a decent amount of points in a skill and then go ahead and Tag it. The rest go into Small Guns and Science.



Darion's personal computer had journal entries that mentioned a spy in the NCR. They'd probably known we were coming, which had to suck considering that we'd spent several weeks screwing around in New Reno before coming here. I can only imagine Darion and his guards had been pretty damn bored by the time we showed up.



While it would have hilarious to leave the guards on the second floor alone and let them find out what had happened later, but instead we decided to deal with them right away. Being a bit more alert than their compatriots they mobbed us… which wasn't a good plan, with Marcus having a shiny new Bozar.



While we were down there I went ahead and fixed the generator, which had the effect of both turning on the lights and turning on a forcefield on the top floor. It would have been pretty awkward if we'd done that before the fighting started.



On the way out we stopped by to talk to Zeke. He was happy enough and promised to go through with the deal we'd worked out. He was probably going to make out pretty well when this was all said and done, even if he wasn't that great of a leader.



Vault 13 was just a bit west of the NCR. We'd been hours away from from it for days and never known it. We were going to have to stop in and let Tandi know her job was done, but after that it was straight on to Vault 13.