Part 23: The \$5000 man

Update 23: The $5000 man



The inside of the base was a maze of steel corridors broken up by ruby-red forcefields. They would't stop a person, but they hurt like hell to walk through. The entire place was antiseptically clean, like a hospital.

If you leave the power on you have more lights, but the force fields are yellow and thus impermeable. It's actually a lot easier to get around.



"Crap… I'm really not that great at these things. Anybody good with computers?"

"Sorry, my fingers are too big to use a keyboard these days."

"Sulik, get away from that!"



"The spirits be telling us the right buttons to press."

"Let's not rely on that… sometimes the spirits have a weird sense of humor."

The password is actually in a desk in the entryway, but you can't use it or look at it other than by doing a right click look. Since I can't do that on my Mac, I had to get a bit creative.



As you might expect, the Sierra Army Depot is a treasure trove of goodies. The chip set here is definitely something to hold on to (although it'll be a while before we can actually use it) and the Doctor's Bag is an item that assists in your use of healing skills.



"Ugh! Who the hell puts a preserved eye in a locker?"

"And yet you still took it."

"Well, obviously. I might need it."

You can read the data disk in your Pip Boy, but I don't want to drop a text wall. They'll feature in an update later.



They'd also left mason jars of Bio Med Gel just laying around. I picked some up to keep the eye fresh.



They had a pretty nice gym set up as well, although it suffered a bit because none of the exercise machines worked under emergency power.

You can use both punching bags to get a 5% boost to your unarmed skill. This is another one of those boosts that is better taken later once points start to get more expensive, although I've also seen it only go up 4% when your skill is already pretty decent.



The rear portion of the first floor looked like living quarters, complete with the least private bathroom I'd ever seen. It was honestly creepy, since the beds were all neatly made and there were cleaning supplies still waiting to be used in the bathroom.



The storage lockers still had weapons and ammunition, including the 5mm ammunition for Marcus' minigun, but the real prize was a set of Combat Armor. I put it on a few minutes later and passed my leather jacket over to Sulik.



The only locked door on the floor had an electronic lock, which was still beyond my ability to pick. I really needed to get my hands on an electronic lockpick.



The central elevator was locked with a retinal scanning plate, which would have been a problem if some crazed maniac hadn't left a preserved eyeball in a locker. They must not have had time to remove him from the database before clearing out.



The second floor had a more open floor plan, with combat and maintenance robots in alcoves along the wall. They were quiet right now, but I had a feeling that a wrong move could get their attention pretty quickly. The elevator was sealed up by force fields, so I told everyone else to stay put while I explored.



There was another computer tucked away in a nearby office with what appeared to be security protocol access. I managed to somehow turn off the shock plates, whatever the hell those were, but the force fields were another matter. Instead, I started looking through the e-mail folder on the desk.



I was going to have to keep an eye out for more disks, although I had a feeling that if they'd taken anything with them when they left it was Debbie Does the Army.



They'd also been living pretty highbrow in the Depot if they'd actually managed to get ahold of a case of wine in exchange for a mechanical part.



Looking back at it, I probably shouldn't have opened that e-mail about how to make 1,000 credits per day working from home while enlarging your penis. Luckily for me it didn't seem as though destroying the security computer had done any significant damage.



Right next door I found the shock plates laid out in a corridor between a pair of force fields. I didn't have any rations to eat while crossing them, so I was lucky that they'd shut off. On the other side was a treasure trove of abandoned equipment. By the time the Wright family got here there wasn't going to be much left.



The standout was a still functioning pre-war plasma rifle with 100 rounds of ammunition, but there were also two rocket launchers and a ton of grenades and assault rifles. It made things just a bit awkward since I didn't know what Marcus would do if I let him carry anything but the assault rifles.



The other thing was two more sets of combat armor. I could have given them to Sulik and Cassidy, but I had plans for the plates. Loaded up to the gills we left the Sierra Army Depot, but we'd be back. In the meantime, there was somebody who needed a talking to now that I was a Ranger.



For some reason Metzger didn't find anything strange about our entire group tromping in and positioning ourselves around his room. I don't know if he'd just gotten complacent since I'd paid him off for Vic's freedom… but a .44 magnum bullet in the back of his head fixed that problem pretty quickly.



The fight was short and brutal, especially since Cassidy had an automatic shotgun and Marcus had ammunition for his minigun. Once all of the slavers were dead we let the terrified slaves know they were free… terrified because some of the rounds from Marcus and Cassidy's weapons had damn near hit them.




Becky was happy enough about it that she chipped in a pretty substantial cash reward. If she'd actually made it plain that she'd be willing to pay for Metzger's head I'd probably have made a point of delivering it to her a lot sooner.

In addition to a cool grand you also get 1500 experience for killing Metzger, all the experience points for killing him and his guards, and 1250 for freeing the slaves. This is a really tough fight early on in the game, but if you can pull it off the rewards are worth it.



I also stopped in to tell Karl that it was safe to go back home. I felt a bit bad, since they'd actually been willing to welcome him back for a couple of months at that point. Still, he was pretty happy and I don't think he'd done any more major harm to his liver.



After that it was time to head over to Vault City and talk to Doc Andrew. I had a plan, and the materials necessary to make it happen… I just had to trust Andrew to implant non-organic metal under my skin and along my bones.



Each type of implant has two levels, as you can see, with the first tier providing basic improvements with no real drawbacks and the second tier providing improved function at the cost of 1 point of Charisma. For most character types the second tier really isn't worth it, and even if you want to use them you have to come up with about 30K. We're going for low impact, which provides 3 points of absorption from physical attacks and 5% damage resistance.



I managed to talk Andrew down from $7000 to $5000 for the dermal implants… it wasn't terribly hard, since he didn't really seem to care as long as he made some money off of it. He was the worst kind of shyster that way, and probably one of the worst things that the people out in the Vault City courtyard had to put up with.



He actually didn't do a terrible job… I've still got the implants today, and they haven't really given me too much trouble over the years. Also help me tell when it's going to rain or when the weather's going to turn for the worse.



Somehow I didn't think I could talk him down to less than $2000 for the phoenix implants, but that was okay. I had what I needed, and it was time to head back to New Reno.