Part 12: City of Tight Asses

Update 12: City of Tight Asses

Alright folks, first update with our new avatar. Thanks go to Tlarn for the suggestion.



On the short walk to Vault City we saw something that, if we'd understood it then, probably would have saved us a lot of confusion. An armor clad giant and a couple of thugs massacred a family of farmers right in front of us, then just walked away. We buried them, but couldn't really think of much else to do at the time.



A few days later we arrived in Vault City around sunset.



It was kind of impressive, in a heavily armed prison camp kind of way. The turrets were pointed outside, but the looked like they could swivel a full 180 degrees so I couldn't exactly say it wasn't.



"What do you mean by "the best?"

"Umm… uh… you weren't supposed to ask that. There's no answer for that in the brochure."

"Do you know anything, or is it all in that brochure?"



He probably should have just sent anybody who came in the door over to Melinda. I don't think the boy was likely to find anyone dumb enough that they wouldn't ask a question that wasn't in his brochure. Then again, I have some faith in human nature even after everything I've seen.



Melinda was barely more helpful, but she at least seemed to know what she was doing. Vault City in those days was a divided city with non-citizens relegated to the outer courtyard while Citizens lived inside the walls along with the Vault. The key to getting inside was a Customs Official named Wallace.



It was a bit late to hit the customs office, so we were left to wander and talk to the people who were likewise stuck outside. I had no idea what a Mr. Nixon doll looked like, but I figured I'd keep an eye out.



Inside a nearby tent a woman who I correctly presumed to be the kid's mother was crying about the Citizens having someone. I didn't think she was talking about Mr. Nixon.



"Wait, arrested? Do they even have a jail in this place?"

"Inside the city, in the Servant Allocation Center… they said he could work off his prison sentence as a Servant, but that'll take years!"

"Dey keep saying Servant, but I keep hearin' Slave."



"Okay, okay, I'll see what I can do. Maybe I can talk to someone. Hopefully this time doesn't cost me $1000."

"I'm really sorry about that Boss. I'm going to try to make it up to you."



They weren't even the worst off. One poor bastard was just lying in a tent dying of radiation poisoning while everybody else tried to pretend they couldn't hear him.



I had about four or five packs of RadAway on me, so I slipped him one. He couldn't pay me, but I didn't really care at that point.



I found the Mr. Nixon Doll about thirty or forty feet away from the kid. If the little bugger had actually looked around for five minutes he could have found it himself, but a deal was a deal.



I could have been a pretty monstrous dick about the whole thing, but I just handed him back over. The kid had enough problems with his dad being locked up in the city.



It paid off pretty quickly, since he started talking to his friend about how mad Joshua would be when he got back and found out that the wrench he thought he'd lost was actually under a pile of rocks. I solved the entire problem by taking the wrench for myself.



The next stop was the bar, which would have been our first stop if we hadn't gotten distracted just inside the gate. You'll never know how thirsty you can be until you've tramped through the wastes on foot for a couple of weeks.



"What can you tell me about the Vault they've got here?"

"Vault? Only Vault I know of is the one side the city. Big friggin' hole… you can't miss it, trust me."

"Dammit. Yeah, I think I need a drink. What do you have on tap here?"



"Holy crap, that's rich. What's going on that it's so expensive here?"

"The guards do raids whenever they get bored. Last one was last week… they came in, busted up my stock, and busted up a few of my customers. Even tossed one of 'em in the clink."

"What happened then?"



"Whoa. No kidding."

"It gets better. Now I'm in debt to the guards for the fine, an' I had to buy a new case of alcohol from a merchant at triple my standard rate. I'm expecting the guards to come knocking again soon, just to bust my chops."

"What's it like most of the time?"

"I think you missed the point. What I just told you is most of the time."

"Why are you here if you hate it so much?"

"I have a bad heart. Need cardio booster shots to keep it beating. This city's the only place to get real medical care, so I thought I'd settle here, try and make a living."

"There's got to be another place that's not as much of a shithole as this one."



"I'm heading out that way again. Why don't you come along?"

"All right, count me in. I figure I'll fit right in as weird as the couple guys following you already look."

"Let's hit it."



Cassidy is a steady NPC who comes with a pretty good small guns skill. He has a preference for shotguns, but since the game doesn't differentiate between types of small guns he's just as capable with rifles. He also comes with a decent set of armor and his own sawed off shotgun.



Since Cassidy was coming with us, I went ahead and helped myself to his porn and gun magazine collection. Share and share alike, I always said.



Vic damn near started jumping up and down with excitement as we crossed the street. Evidently the place where he'd bought my flask was right there by the brahmin.



"My friend Vic here says he bought a water flask from you. Do you remember where you got it from?"

"Eh… not exactly? I had 'em for a while and I picked them up on one of my Brahmin drives around the Big Circle. Broken Hills, New Reno, Redding, the Den, Modoc, and back here in Vault City."

"You're going to have to help me out here. I only know where about half of those places are."



"That still doesn't tell me where you got it, but it's a start. I'm trying to find the Vault that the flask came from."

"Well hell, if it's a Vault you're looking for there's one right inside the city. I don't know that it's Vault 13, but I figure one of their fancy computers knows where Vault 13 is."

"That's actually not a bad idea… you know, you might be more useful than Vic. Are you sure you don't want to switch places with him?"



Ed declined, so we continued working our way down the street. The next stop was the local clinic, which was one of the biggest buildings in the courtyard. The fact that they were using queen sized beds for patients probably accounted for some of that.



"Wait, ain't you the Ol' Doctor?"

"No man, it's like me and Grampy Bone. Ol' Doctor spirit is here in guiding old doctor person."

"The Ol' Doctor is the Auto-Doctor in the back room. I'd offer to use it on you two, but I don't think it could fix what's wrong with you. Besides, damn thing's acting up lately."



That didn't sound so good, so I took Vic back there to take a look at it.



"This ain't so bad, Boss. We just need to blow on the circuit board and clean off some of the dust, and maybe replace a couple of these corroded cables."

"That's… actually pretty good there, Vic. This'll probably be a good thing for us and for the people who live here."



"Yeah, we replaced the cables and cleaned it out. Shouldn't give you any more trouble, but d'you think we could get a discount or something?"

"Hell no. I didn't ask you to fix it, so you don't get jack. I wouldn't push your luck either as long as the guards are in earshot."

"See, this is the kind of shit that makes me want to leave this place."

"Just keep in mind that the guards aren't always going to be in earshot."



After leaving the Doc with a warning about being such a shithead we found a family of farmers living out back right behind the clinic. The poor bastards were trying to till their field without a plow, if you can believe that. I still remember that their name was Smith, which was probably part of the reason I felt an urge to help them.



The only other building we hadn't visited was Happy Marty's Beer and Firearms store. I could see why Marty was so happy.



I tried to talk him down from $800 to $600 for a plow, but he wasn't buying it. I had the cash, so I had him drop it off with the Smiths.

Not sure what check this actually uses. This might be the only check in the game to actually look at your barter skill, for all I know.



They gave me a Desert Eagle .44 as thanks for the plow, which was actually worth a bit more than I spent. Then again, I guess at the time they needed the plow a lot more than they needed a pistol. If I could have gotten the plow at a discount I'd have made a tidy profit on the deal.



The experience reward for our good deed sends us to level 8, where our skill points can go to a boost to Doctor and Lockpick. I'm only going to put about 5 more skill points into Doctor and get anything else from later boosts. After this, it's time for some Small Guns and Lockpick.



Happy Marty had some really exotic things in stock other than the plow, but I was more interested in recouping my money and dumping some of the heavy crap I'd been carrying around. I ended up with some more .44 ammo and all of the cash he had on hand and counted myself satisfied.



After that we headed to the gate to the Inner Courtyard, only to find out it was closed for the day. We ended up having to camp out in Cassidy's bar for the night until the Customs Office opened up.