6 Chapter 5: Little Nuclear Problem
The sky slowly darkened as Jayson walked across the dusty ground towards the centre of Megaton. Arriving, there's a small pond of radioactive green water and in the middle is a big nuke; the namesake of Megaton. Standing beside the pond is the Sheriff of Megaton, Lucas Simms. Both of them shook hands as Jayson greeted him.
"Hey Sheriff." He then looked at the nuke standing up in the middle of the shallow pond. "This the bomb, right?."
Lucas nodded. "Yup, this is it. The mascot of the town; yet also its greatest threat."
Jayson looked at the bomb and scratched his chin. "I'll go take a look and see if I can disarm it or not. How much are you willing to pay for me to diffuse it if I can?"
Looking at the bomb for a bit, Lucas scratched the side of his head and then replied. "How about 100 caps?"
Jayson shook his head. "Come on, 100 caps is barely worth my time. I'm sorry, but you'll have to offer more."
Jayson could see Lucas bit the side of his cheek and, after awhile, gave in. "Fine. How's 500 caps sound?"
Jayson smiled as he extended his hand and shook on it. "Sounds good. Let me go and solve your little nuclear problem."
Lucas chuckled as Jayson went ahead and walked into the green water surrounding the nuke. When he walked in, he heard the ticking from the Geiger counter on his pip-boy. Looking at it, he confirmed the small amount of rads he's gaining from being in the water. In the world of Fallout, radiation works a bit differently then his old world.
In this world, radiation pools and collects in the body, with a small amount of rads being basically harmless. All the residents of the wasteland have harmless amounts of radiation lingering in them all the time. When it becomes too much though, then the radiation starts making them sickly and weaker. Eventually, if you consume too much rads, the high amount will kill you or turn you into a ghoul. Because radiation in this world stays in the body, the residents from the world use rad-away every so often to reduce the amount of rads inside them; they usually do it when they start to feel sick and weak.
Continuing on, Jayson reached the nuke and opened up a panel on the side and looked inside. At first, the bomb really did look inert but he soon finds that it's still quite, and very, dangerous. The bomb is actually very safe but if someone wanted to, they could rig it to explode; which could cause a massive explosion capable of destroying the entirety of the massive town of Megaton. This thought reminded him of the other option he could have chosen by talking with Mister Burke in Moriarty's Saloon.
With careful and still hands, Jayson was able to get into the mechanics of the nuke and successfully fully disarmed it for good; making it permanently inert. The five extra points in his explosives skill actually helped, since it gave him enough knowledge and ability to be able to disarm it with a level headed and calm mind.
A soft electronic whirring and click sounded out in the silence of the night. Lucas tensed up a bit but then relaxed as nothing else happened, with Jayson walking back up to him.
"I'll be damned! You really did it, didn't you? You actually disarmed that thing!"
Jayson chuckled slightly at his reaction. "Yeah, Sheriff. It's disarmed for good now."
"Hahaha! Thanks so much Jayson." Lucas shook Jaysons hand again with a big smile. "Follow me; I gotta go get ya payment."
Jayson followed Lucas as they walked for awhile up near Megatons gate. Turning left and near the walls and edge of the town, the sheriff brought Jayson up to his house; the Simms' household.
With Jayson waiting outside, Lucas soon came out with a a small bag, a rolled up piece of paper, and a small key. Lucas Simms handed him the small bag of 500 caps.
"Here's your payment. And also.." Lucas them handed over the rolled up paper and key. "This is a key and deed to an empty house over there."
Lucas pointed to a metal house, just like the others, that was on a raised metal platform nearby the gate. If someone entered into Megaton, the two nearest residential buildings would be the Simms' house on the right and the one Lucas is pointing to on the left.
"Why don't you move in? Everybody in Megaton could really use someone like you."
Jayson smiled and took the key and deed. "Thanks Lucas, I'll definitely move in. Oh, and In the future, let me know if there's anything I can do to help out."
Lucas smiled and they shook hands once more as Jayson headed off to his new house in Megaton. He was honestly very excited about this, and also very relieved he was able to get a base of operations this soon (He also always preferred the Megaton home over the one in Tenpenny Towers). Having a home will also be very useful to store his things, junk and all the stuff he'll definitely be collecting. It'll also be a great place to tinker, build, repair, and also skin the animal corpses from his pip-boy for meat, fur and another useful materials.
With the sun fully set and night showing itself, Jayson walked up some metal steps and comes up to the door of his new home. Using the key, he opens it and headed inside.
Inside of his new home, he was greeted by Wadsworth, the Mr. Handy robot that came with the house.
After a short little introduction with him, Jayson toured around his new home. The metal house is just like from the game with two floors and a few things here and there. The bottom is a wide open area with bookshelves, seats, lockers, and the Bobblehead Collectors Stand. There's also a metal shelf, fridge and sink in a small nook behind the stairs. Going up, the top part has a small overlook over the first floor and it has tables, chairs and two rooms; one is a small empty room while the other has a desk, a filing cabinet and a bed.
Jayson stored some items away into one of the lockers from his pip-boy; feeling some slight weight being lifted off of him as he did so. Some stuff he stored away was the Tunnel Snake outfit from Benny, his Vault 101 Jumpsuit he wore when he first arrived in this world, a Vault 101 Utility Jumpsuit he got from his bedroom in the Vault, the BB gun, .32 Pistol and a bunch of other stuff such as different kinds of junk and miscellaneous items he picked up so far.
Feeling slightly lighter, Jayson walked up to the bedroom on the second floor and layed down after storing his rifle away in his Pip-boy. Looking up at the metal ceiling above him, he thought about everything that has happened so far. After awhile his eyes eventually closed and he slept through the first night in a new world.
With the rising sun above Megaton, Jayson ate some food from his Pip-boy that he 'borrowed' from the Vault when he left and walked around Megaton for a bit.
After checking his Pip-boy, he noticed that he's close to levelling up again; disarming the nuke most likely rewarded lots of XP. Thinking about it for a bit, he decided he'll do the quest from the game caller Leo's Drug Habit. Since it's a very short and simple quest he can do to push the XP over to the next level.
After deciding on what he was going to do, Jayson headed towards The Brass Lantern; a restaurant in Megaton and also where Leo Stahl can usually be found during the day.
When he arrived, he asked around about Leo Stahl and eventually found him inside the Brass Lantern. Leo seemed like a very upbeat and happy guy but Jayson knew better. Talking to him, Jayson revealed he knew about his drug habit, specifically Jet, and that knew he goes up to the Water Treatment Plant at night to secretly get high. Leo's facade slipped and instead of the happy mask he usually had on, now he was prickly and defensive. After slowly talking to him though, and buying both of them a nuka-cola, Jayson managed to convince him that he can't continue on with his habit anymore; with it slowly hurting his family from the shadows.
Bringing up his family really hit it home and Jayson was able to convince Leo to quit Jet and to tell his family about his problem. Leo also gave him the key to his secret Jet stash in the Water Treatment Plant and told him to get rid of it. He said that Jayson could do whatever he wanted with it since he convinced him, in his own words, "how much of an ass he was".
Accepting the key and reassuring Leo that he would get rid of everything, Jayson left the Brass Lantern.
As soon as he exited the building, everything around him froze yet again and a green screen appeared in front of him. Looks like convincing Leo to quite his drug habit was enough to push him to the next level. He is now Level 4.
Using 14 skill points, Jayson brought his Small Guns skill up to 90. He's not going to raise it any further since, when he gets it, the Small Guns Bobblehead will give 10 to his Small Guns skill. No point in wasting skill points when he's going to get the bobblehead in the future. The other 6 points went into Sneak since he's planning to use it a lot and it'll help increase his survival chances out in the wastes.
Next is picking a new perk, and since it is an even number, there's new perks available. The new perks are:
Child At Heart: The Child at Heart perk greatly improves your interactions with children, usually in the form of unique dialogue choices.
Comprehension: With the Comprehension perk, you gain one additional skill point whenever a skill book is read.
Educated: with the Educated perk, you gain three more skill points every time you advance in level. This perk is best taken early on, to maximize its effectiveness.
Iron Fist: With the Iron Fist perk, you do an additional 5 points of Unarmed damage per rank.
Scoundrel: Take the Scoundrel perk, and you can use your wily charms to influence people; each rank raises your Speech and Barter skills by 5 points.
The Scoundrel perk is just a perk that increases skill levels and we already know Jaysons feelings on that. The others are quite useful though. He won't be choosing Iron Fist because he's not planning on relying much on unarmed combat, but if he did, then it would be quite attractive. Child at Heart would make socializing with children easier and he's not very interested in that; would be very useful for Little Lamplight though. Comprehension is very simple, giving him more skill points from skill books. He is tempted by it, but doesn't know if it'll be useful in the long run. Really though, he already knows what he's going to choose, since it's pretty obvious; Educated. Getting 3 more skill points every level is amazing; there's no way he's not taking it.
Confirming his choices, time resumed. Advanced knowledge, techniques and lots of muscle memory went into him from his now 90 Small Guns skill. He also gained more information about Stealth too. Just like the Swift Learner perk, the Educated Perk also had some changes on himself. The two ranks in Swift Learner from before felt like it opened up his mind, while the Educated Perk feels like it solidified it. All the stuff he learned throughout school in his old world has been reinforced in his mind; even the stuff that he forgot or just didn't pay attention to. From the simple stuff to the slightly more complicated; it's now all basic knowledge to him.
After overcoming the feeling of new information being sent into him and his past knowledge being solidified, he headed towards the Water Treatment Plant. Entering and going to the back, he found Leo's secret stash and, using the key, opened it.
In the game it was a mixture of a bunch of different cems, but here, because Leo had a Jet addiction, the stash was all Jet and quite a bit too. Jayson stored all of it into his Pip-Boy and then headed back outside.
Now that he's done the more simple quests in Megaton and he is now Level 4, he thinks it's time to go to Craterside Supply. He needs to go there to sell a few things (like the Jet he just got) and to supply up on some important stuff for travelling out into the wastes. The biggest thing though, is that it's finally time to start one of the more well know quests in Fallout 3; the Wasteland Survival Guide.
