Part 36: A Betting Man

Update 36: A Betting Man



"I think this means we got a secret base now."

"You're not kidding… this place is bigger than my bar. Huh, an underground bar. Why hasn't anybody done that?"

"Probably because bars usually end up as dank, smokey holes even if they're above ground?"

"Guys, you're forgetting the most important thing here. We're allowed free access to anything in here, which means it's time to get looting."



The first locker had a suit of high grade Brotherhood combat armor and yet another suit of power armor. Now I had more of the stuff than I knew what to do with, and I was starting to understand how those stores felt.



The other locker had some of the most advanced energy weapons I'd ever seen, as well as plenty of charges for them. I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to use any of it, but it wasn't going anywhere either.

The pulse weaponry is amazing, some of the highest damage single-shot energy equipment in the game, but I've always had a bias against it since in the earliest versions it would make my game crash every time I fired. In this version the pistol is a great weapon for Vic, enabling him to do about 60 damage per turn on a consistent basis.



The real prize was a medical computer that had a full repair function as well as the ability to perform enhancement surgery if you installed the proper circuit board. Traveling through the wasteland I'd acquired most of them, so I strapped in and told it to give me the works. I don't know how long I was out, and I don't know what Sulik, Cassidy, and Marcus did while I was under, but considering that the city wasn't on fire and nobody was in jail I didn't ask too many questions.



Our stats after all of the enhancement modules, minus the one for strength. I realized at this point that it was in Vault City in one of the doors that requires 9 or 10 strength to open, and I didn't feel like going back since 9 strength is more than enough. Keeping in mind the bonus from advanced power armor, that means you can raise your strength by +5 in the course of the game. There are modules for everything but endurance, agility, and luck, and you can raise luck with the Hubologists. One downside is that these take literally weeks of game time, but at this point there is no time limit as for when you can go rescue your villagers.



Once I came out from under the anesthesia, it was time to head for the tanker and finally get this show on the road. Between my weapons, armor, and all of the enhancements there wasn't much else I could do to improve my changes in taking on the enclave.



The first person I talked to in the tanker didn't exactly inspire confidence. He'd… he'd somehow lost his spleen in a card game and they'd actually taken it out of him. I mean, he'd been drunk, but I've never been so drunk that I bet an internal organ. Anyway, since you kind of need that to live, he wasn't doing so hot. San Francisco was and still is a crazy town.



I followed the trail back to Flying Dragon 8, where the person who had won the spleen had already resold it to another doctor. I was going to have to hurry to make sure it didn't get dissected or something. Incidentally, the shopkeep said that Chip had been obsessed with his spleen the entire night before he finally bet it.



Finding the good Doctor Wong and his spleen was a bit more difficult, since he evidently worked in the Shi equivalent to city hall. The guards weren't above giving us dirty looks as we went to go and find this doctor, but we eventually found him in a sophisticated looking lab relatively near the entrance.



"Great, just who I was looking for. Listen, you have somebody else's spleen."



"You do know that you're supposed to serve liver with that wine instead of spleen, right?"

"Ha ha! Yes, I saw that old movie. Wait… what are you saying? Are you saying that…?"

"Yeah, that's a human spleen. Guy named Chip, lives in the Tanker."

"It's a human spleen? Lao Chou didn't tell me that! Tell your friend to come by for it within the next day, and I will gladly return it to him. I just hope you can find a way to replace it in his body in time."

"I'm not even going to ask what you're going to do with it if he waits more than a day to come get it."



Of course, Doctor Wong wasn't the kind of doctor who put spleens into people so I had to find a surgeon. Luckily the doctor near the fighting ring had plenty of practice with internal issues, and since I knew Doc Holliday he even offered to do it for free.



"What, you think I'm some kind of amateur who's never helped someone replace an organ before?"

"First time I ever saw."

"Yeah, what the hell were you doing in that tribal village of yours?"

"Wait, are we counting the robot and the brain or not?"



Chip was going to be out for a day because of his operation, so I killed time walking around the main floor of the tanker. Right behind Chip I met a reformed band member who claimed to be an "information retrieval specialist," a fact I filed away for later use.



Once Chip was back he pointed me toward a couple of people who could help me run the boat, and I instantly acquired a reputation as a heroic spleen finder. The tanker vagrants were… unique.



The first of the two, Marc, had nothing to say about the boat except that I should go and talk to the Captain. It was everything else I couldn't get him to shut up about.



Their ancestors had evidently come from a tribe known as the "hippies" and had been driven out of the city before the war as they had been unwilling to participate. They'd come to San Francisco for artistic and personal freedom, except for Marc who was here to "spawn" as he put it. I only hoped his quest would be unsuccessful.



He did give us some valuable information by warning us about the Hubologists in town, although we would have plenty of experience with them before too much longer.



Marc seemed to like the Shi, and I couldn't blame him. Other than a taste for organ meats, they were far from the worst people I'd dealt with out in the wasteland.



And as for the Captain… well, The Captain was everything I expected.

"Hey, Captain, I hear you're the guy who can tell me everything about this ship. Nobody else seems to know shit."

"This ship's a Poseidon tanker. It's equipped with tech that lasted through the war. It's got a FOB that allows access to the navigation computer room, and it's got an IFF transponder that protects it from Poseidon guns."

"Except that I have those things… wait, how do you know all this?"

"I used to serve with the Enclave. Then I realized it wasn't the USA I was fighting for; it was for the rich old bastards who didn't want to give up their power. I deserted and now I live here with more honest people."

"Eh, that's one way to describe them."



"That's great and all, but how do you make this thing… y'know, go."



"out to the oil rig, and they won't fire at you because you've got the IFF transponder. Just make sure you've got what you need to access everything; FOB, working computer, and fuel. Easy enough, huh?"

"Except for that last part, sure. How the hell do I get enough fuel to move a boat?"

"Talk to Badger. If anybody knows, it's him."



The price for Badger's services was pretty simple… his girlfriend had gotten lost in the tanker, and he just wanted me to find her.



I should have known that he was leaving something out.

"Oh, bullshit. After this he'd better give us a lot more than some fuel."

"We coulda found him a new girlfriend for a lot less trouble."

"At least there's not a crazy miner with a laser rifle. Or deathclaws. That's a huge step up right there."



Luckily it seemed like I was getting most of the attention for some reason. The muffled sonic booms and high pitched whining noise my new pistol made every time I fired it might have had something to do with it.



Marcus got a bit too close to comfort with a few of his shots, and the splatters of blood and gore painted my new armor as Cassidy went down and I had to start taking shots to rescue him. The wanamingos and other critters down here in the hold were pretty dangerous, and the only thing keeping the people on the upper floors safe was that they couldn't climb a ladder.



This is another huge XP windfall, being worth about 14,000. It's enough to kick us up a level, and with the way that the Guass Pistol is performing I put my points into Small Guns and into Speech for a difficult check we've got coming up.



Eventually we cleared the place out and found Badger's girlfriend hiding in a corner screaming. Once we started moving and she realized there wasn't anything between her and the exit she was off like a shot to the ladder and right up it… if she'd moved that fast earlier, she probably could have gotten away without anybody's help. Now I just had to keep her and Badger's reunion from holding up my fuel.