Part 14: It Puts the Lotion On Its Skin

Update 14: It Puts the Lotion On Its Skin



Looking at the map, Vault City and Gecko were closer than any two towns I'd seen since Klamath and The Den. The country looked open and flat too, so I couldn't see what was keeping Vault City and Lynette from just sending a few people over… but I was glad they weren't, since I imagine her orders would have been much more direct in that case.



Not that there would have been that much to destroy, since the place was kind of a dump. All the walls were made of sheet metal and the occasional cinderblock, with the same material acting as roofing.



The locals all looked like my idiot cousin Feargus did after he fell asleep outside in the summer, only I very much doubted they'd be getting over it after a few weeks of crying. On the plus side, the place also had a bar.



"Tragic? What the hell is Tragic?"

"Are you dumb? Tragic the Garnering is the most habit-forming thing since Jet."

"Grampy bone say we and I gonna regret asking about that."

"Well, Tragic the Garnering isn't just a game -- it's an obsession. Not a cologne, either. Some think that the way it changes a person's life is tragic, but they don't understand."

"…kid, you've never seen a naked woman have you?"



"Umm… thanks. New card smell. Love it."

"Yeah, while you're here I've got this great story. It's really funny. There's this head, right?"

"A head?"

"Yeah, it's a head. But it's not attached to a body. You see, it's been severed."

"A severed head. I see. And this becomes entertaining when?"

"Just hold on a minute. This severed head, you see, it's in Hell. Ha ha… and it flies around there, you know, in Hell. And it runs into all kinds of famous people there…"

"This story might be a better incentive to avoid hell than anything a church could come up with. What does this head do?"



"You kind of obsess about this, don't you? Hmm. Were you and your mother close? Did you ever have a problem with bed-wetting?"

"No, you just don't understand. It's all about a severed head. Get it? Heh, heh, heh. It's funny! How can you think about a severed head, in Hell of all places, and not laugh?"

"Wooz, I don't know you very well and I'm pretty sure I don't want to. However, I think I can say, without fear of exaggeration, that you need help. Immediate, competent help."

For the curious, the plot of this story comes from a game concept that was tossed around in BlackIsle Studios.



And just in case you somehow missed it, this is to drive home the fact that Tragic the Garnering is a spoof of Magic the Gathering.



I had to say, though, that even if their beer glowed in the dark they were a lot nicer than the people from Vault City. They knew it, too. Since we agreed on that, they pointed me toward the guy in charge.



"Smoothskin? You'd better not be getting any funny ideas…"



"…yeah, ideas like that. Good call."

"You have to use Vic for that anyway. None of the rest of us have enough skin to cover you."

"Boss, Sulik and the ghoul are plotting to take my skin off of me!"

"Well you don't have anything to worry about…can't find my knife."

"Let's just talk about anything else. Like.. uh.. like that tree you've got there."



"O…kay… so what do you and Bob do around here?"

"Wha-whatever it takes to keep this place together. Better job on it than me."

"This place is coming apart?"

"Well, sorta. Our atomic reactor's a mite… sensitive. The people I got running it mean well, but… well, they are not the sharpest tools in the shed. If you know what I mean."

"Believe us, we know. We met Wooz."

"And I'm sorry about that."



"What the hell is a Hydra-magna-whateveraltor?"

"Well.. technically, it's a thingie. Cause ours is broken, we're leaking radiation into the groundwater."

"How bad are we talking here?"

"Anybody who drinks that water ain't gonna need a night light to take a midnight piss. And the folks in Vault City ain't gonna like that, so if we don't fix it soon they're going to come up with a permanent solution."

"A more permanent solution? What are you guys going to do if they come up here?"



"Okay, so where do we get one? You guys are alright, I don't want to see you taking dirt naps."



"And of course those assholes wouldn't give you the part, even if it meant their groundwater wouldn't be polluted anymore."

"It'd be one thing if we could convince them it was in their best interest, but there's a little problem…"

"Oh?"

"They shoot ghouls on sight."

"Oh."

Yeah, Vault City was a city of assholes. I definitely wasn't going to help them screw the ghouls over.



That didn't stop me from swapping a few things from Harold's desk in case they might be handy. One of them looked like a coolant report and the other one was a part requisition form.



Before heading back to Vault City to see if we couldn't pry that part loose we decided to explore the rest of Gecko. They had a small store tucked away near a junkyard full of old cars.



The ghoul running it was more interested in talking about Tragic and his narcoleptic friend Woody, who'd somehow wandered over to The Den. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen a ghoul over there, but with all the people on drugs I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd missed one.



It wouldn't hurt to look if I ever found myself back there, so I agreed to check with the promise of a "heck of a lot of radiation medicine" as an incentive.



For some reason they had a set of lock picks tucked neatly away in a locker. I hadn't even known that I wanted a lock pick set, but as soon as I saw it I knew that I had to have it.



"Yeah, about that… sure seems like there's a lot of old cars out there. Got any batteries I could use to fix a car?"

"Nope. But that probably ain't your problem anyway. Most cars used replaceable batteries or fuel cells. The part that breaks is the Fuel Cell Controller, but most folks just assume it's the batteries. But you know what they say about assuming things right?"

"Well enough that I'm not going to bite on that. So do you mean that you have a fuel cell controller?"



"I know where one is, but it's a long ways out. What's it going to cost me to get that Fuel Cell Controller?"

"Tell ya what.. get me a Snap-It Super Tool Kit and we'll call it a fair trade."

I'd barely come up with a pair of pliers and a wrench the other day, and he wanted a Super Tool Kit. This didn't look good.



I tried to talk to his neighbor, but found myself slowly backing out the door. I still liked the ghouls pretty well, but some of them were a bit strange.



"Hello, Gordon. I'm Luke. What do you do here?"

"I look for opportunities."

"Opportunities? LIke what?"

"I look for ways of maximizing my potential worth."

"Hmm, sounds like greed to me."



"…a better word, is good."

"I'll take your word for that, Gordon. But what does greed have to do with Gecko?"

"So far, not much. But in greed lies Gecko's salvation. I have important information about the survival of Gecko, but I can't get anyone to listen to me."

"If it's about the hydrathingie we know about that."



"That sounds like a good thing to me."

"Vault City, you see, has enough power for their current needs -- as long as they're careful. But the Vault power plant that they use was never designed for the increased load their city is putting on it. It's at peak capacity right now."

"I'm with Sulik. I don't see how this helps you, and it makes it more likely that Vault City's just going to waltz in here and take the place."



"You don't know how tightly they hold on to that kinda stuff, do you? They'd rather keep it for themselves if they can see an alternative."

"They're going to burn out their generator in 15 years if they don't do something, and if we don't get medical care we're going to be gone within 20. Besides, think they want to risk their nice smooth skins working inside a power plant?"

"That sounds great and all, but if greed is good then what do you personally get out of this?"

"I've got my end covered. I'd be the natural choice to administer this project. Greed is my driving force, but thousands of lives are saved by it. Greed is good. At least it would be, if I could get anyone in Vault City to listen to me."

"Hmm… you've got a point I'll see if I can't show your data to someone in Vault City."



Most of the rest of the west side of town was taken up by a half-built nuclear reactor, which didn't seem like a great place to go exploring...



Although even then I believed that nothing boring could come of climbing down a ladder into an underground network of tunnels.



I was proved right when I found a tribe of spear-wielding ghouls living underneath the half-built power plant talking about Renewing. Never dare the universe to surprise you, because what it comes up with will be stranger than anything you would have imagined.



Somehow I thought that talking to someone who called himself Zomak the Destroyer would be best served by trying to agree with him as much as possible.

"I wish to Renew."

"Then you must see him."

"Him? Where is him, I mean he?"

"He is the granter of enlightenment. It is he that promises Renewal to all who follow him."

"Well, I'm just about due for Renewal. Where is he?"

"Right in the next room. Duh. Don't keep him waiting."



I'm not going to try to build this one up. Their spiritual leader was a giant rat, just like the one whose brain case I smashed open under Klamath.



The difference was, there was no doubt that this one could talk. I made a point of not mentioning the rat under Klamath, since it seemed there was some kind of connection.



"Uh… I guess I could spare some Cheezy Poofs."

"Mmmm, I love Cheezy Poofs, they're so, well, uh, Cheesy. For that, you get to be a member of my special cult, and you can help me take over the world."

"Thanks, I guess?"



"What do you mean by Renewal?"

"Well, as part of my plan to rule the world, I intend to reward my ghoul followers by finding a way to restore their humanity."

"How are you going to do that?"



"Well, I guess that sounds kind of harmless."

"Now you're one of us. Soon, I will take over the world and all of you will be Renewed."

"Uh… yeah. Whatever you say."

I had a feeling that rat was going to be in the tunnels for a long time… but since his plan for taking over the city appeared to rely on Cheezy Poofs they weren't in much danger. It was time for a long walk to Vault City to see if I could get Lynette to turn over a plant so we could fix the plant.