Lieutenant Hayes

Gasping for air, I jolted awake in my canvas tent and cursed, I'd had another nightmare. This time I dreamt about being ripped apart by a pack of angry Gecko. It wasn't quite as terrifying as the zombie dream but, was still a horrible way to wake up.

I was starting to wish I could automatically skip to morning like you could in game but, for whatever reason my system didn't give me that ability.

Taking a moment to calm down I noticed I was drenched in a cold sweat and decided to get dressed since I hated being sticky like this. But, before I rolled out of my sleeping bag I noticed a small movement out of the corner of my eye and froze.

There was a small scorpion the size of a fist crawling across the floor of the tent towards my face.

I wasn't sure if it was going to attack me and froze trying my best not to startle it. My eyes moved to the shotgun to my side, and I wondered if I could grab it before the scorpion struck. Slowly and carefully, I started reaching out for the weapon wanting to use it as a club to smash the bug. But, the scorpion seemed to sense my movement. It stopped in place and a drop of sickly yellow venom dribbled out from its stinger.

We were both absolutely still for a moment before erupting into action!

The scorpion leapt at my face it's stinger already poised to strike while I instinctively moved to swat it away. I knew it was definitely going to tag me with its venom since as tough as my skin was, I didn't think it was tough enough to stop a razor-sharp stinger!

But, just as my hand was about to make contact with the arachnid something strange happened. A heavy weight materialized in my hand the instant I struck smashing the scorpion to pieces and knocking it across the tent where it fell lifelessly to the ground.

See that the bug was dead I let out a sigh of relief and turned a confused look at the object in my hand.

It was the Weathered 10mm Pistol that I had been keeping in my inventory since it ran out of ammo yesterday. Glancing to my side I saw my Pipboy laying just next to the shotgun I tried to reach for earlier. I'd started taking the thing off before I went to bed because wearing it all day was actually a bit uncomfortable since it was too big and cumbersome, especially since I normally slept on my side.

So, if I wasn't wearing my Pipboy how the hell did I summon the gun?

Brushing the scorpions remains aside I rolled over and strapped the Pipboy back on and scrolled over to the weapons section of my Inventory to see that...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Weapons

9mm Pistol

Mercenary's Grenade Rifle

Varmint Rifle

*Weathered 10mm Pistol

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yep, somehow I'd equipped the gun subconsciously without the help of the Pipboy.

I crossed my arms and frowned in thought, this was weird. Because I'd already tried and failed to take out items from my inventory just by willing it so how did I do it?

Putting the pistol back in the Inventory I focused my mind and tried to summon the Grenade Rifle and after a few moments of trying I gave up since nothing happened. Next an idea struck me and I tried the same thing but, this time with the pistol. And almost as soon as I had the thought the 10mm magically appeared in my hand!

"What the hell" I whispered not understanding what was going on.

Opening up my Pipboy again I looked for anything that might explain this mystery and smacked myself in the face at how obvious the answer was!

'I was a fucking idiot! It was the Quick Inventory Menu!'

While playing any of the Fallout games you could equip certain weapons, armor, and support items by marking them as 'Favorites' in the Pipboy! Once you did that you could use any of them without actually opening the Pipboy!

Now that I actually knew what I was dealing with I focused for a moment and a new menu appeared in front of me. It was made up of 12 green squares arranged in the shape of a + with three squares on each side. And on the very first of the upper squares was a small icon resembling a pistol.

I sighed again and closed the menu. I'd forgotten about this feature because I never actually used it since just pulling up your Pipboy in game completely stopped time making it mostly useless. But, that was in the game. Here in the real world it was a godly ability that would let we swap weapons and armor on the fly and use my healing items instantly without ever looking away from a fight.

I shook my head. One of these days I really needed to take a moment to sit down and remember everything you could do in the game because this was just embarrassing. Whatever, at least I discovered this early before I did anything crazy like storming a town filled with hardened criminals for instance.

Taking a moment, I added all my weapons to the 'Favorites Menu' as well as my aid items like the Stimpak, Super Stimpak, and Doctors Bag.

After that I wasted a couple minutes getting used to the feeling of summoning the different weapons and items to my hand before getting ready for the day.

Exiting the tent, I saw that Yoruichi's tent was already packed up and that she was missing. I wasn't worried though since I assumed she just got impatient and went to talk to Lieutenant Hayes without me. I was a little irritated she didn't bother to wake me up but, whatever.

I shifted focus to packing away my tent.

I was pretty sure I could just disappear it into my Inventory with a touch but, there were NCR soldiers everywhere, so it seemed like a bad idea. And I was forced to take the next ten minutes or so to slowly disassemble it the hard way.

While I was doing that, I thought about the scorpion I killed. I wondered if it was actually a baby version of the giant Bark Scorpions I'd killed or if it was just a regular non-mutated scorpion?

Because one of the more interesting things I've noticed since coming here was that aside the normal mutants and abominations that were in the games. There were actually still plenty of regular non-mutated animals around too. Things like the chickens in Goodsprings or the occasional snake or mouse I saw while walking through the desert.

I was pretty sure I even saw a Roadrunner like from Willie. E Coyote.

And if there were that many regular animals out there it made wonder about what other kinds of mutants might exist out there too.

Because even though most of the famous monsters like Deathclaws, Giant Molerats, Cazadors, and Supermutants were all created artificially in labs. There were still all sorts of crazy things like Giant Gecko/Ants/Rats, Mirelurks, Brahmin, Yao Guai, and Ghouls that came into existence completely naturally, at least as natural as exposure to extreme doses of radiation can get.

So, who knows? Maybe there were giant two headed snakes out there in the Mojave? Or maybe a race of sentient glowing mushrooms? That definitely wouldn't be the strangest thing to exist in the Fallout Universe.

And that was just the United States! I couldn't help but, imagine what kinds of crazy creatures existed in other parts of the world like in China for instance. Were there Ghoul Pandas? Hyper Intelligent Monkeys? Or maybe even Tiger Deathclaws!? That thought alone was as terrifying as it was awesome. And I was kind of conflicted about whether or not I would actually wanted to meet anything like that.

I shivered, remembering the Gecko Matriarch.

"hmm" I was shaken from my musings by the sound of approaching footsteps and turned to see Yoruichi approaching with two steaming bowls of food.

"Morning" she greeted while handing me one of the bowls.

"Morning" I replied as the delicious smell filled my nose. "What is this" I asked swallowing some saliva?

"It's some vegetable soup I bought from the soldiers over there" Yoruichi pointed towards the camp. "I figured we've both had enough of Gecko meat after everything that's happened and could use a change."

I nodded in agreement since I'd already gotten tired of eating the same bland meat for every meal.

Thanking Yoruichi I promised to buy the next meal and the two of us sat down next to a highway divider and enjoyed our food in silence. And unfortunately, the soup didn't taste quite as good as it smelled since it was mostly just boiled carrots, potatoes, and corn without any extra seasoning. Which wasn't very surprising since I knew the NCR was extremely short on food supplies with everything going on.

Regardless I enjoyed the change of pace and the tiny bits of what I guessed were brahmin meat didn't taste too bad. They were a bit tough but, I let it pass since it came from two headed mutant cows and it was already good enough that it didn't taste like radioactive garbage.

Just as we finished our meals and were about to go see about meeting the Lieutenant a series of loud gunshots rang out!

We jumped to our feet with our weapons drawn and the nearby NCR soldiers jumped into action in case Powder Gangers in the town were about to try anything. But, as the minutes passed, and nothing happened everything slowly calmed back down.

"Another false alarm" I heard a nearby soldier snort before going about his business.

"I guess that happens a lot" Yoruichi frowned.

"We'll the town is filled with escaped criminals" I replied "So, the occasional gunshot isn't very surprising."

"Let's go meet that Hayes guy" she holstered her revolver and headed off snapping back into serious mode.

I just shook my head and followed after her, I guess that being so close to finding more clues about Benny had her on edge. And Primm being taken over by Powder Gangers probably wasn't helping either especially knowing how much she hated raiders and the like.

I was already 100% confident she'd want to free the town and was already thinking about the how the hell we were supposed to accomplish something like that.

The two of us approach the barricade blocking the entrance of the NCR camp and expressed our desire to meet Lieutenant Hayes so he could grant us access to the town. And after eyeing us warily for a moment one of the guards agreed to take us to meet him which kind of surprised me. Since as far as they knew we were just some random civilians who asked to see their commanding officer.

But, whatever I wasn't going to question it.

They led us to a large canvas tent that served as the camp's command center. The inside of the tent was nothing special with only a few mostly empty shelves scattered around and a small collapsible desk covered in paperwork.

The man sitting at the desk sorting through papers briefly glanced up at us and sighed before pushing his paperwork off to the side and looked at us wearily before cutting to the chase "I am Lieutenant Hayes of the New California Republic Army, 5th Battalion, 1st Company. State your business."

"We need to meet with the local branch of the Mojave Express Johnson Nash about an important package his company was hired to transport" Yoruichi stated.

Lieutenant Hayes raised an eyebrow "That's all well and good but, you do know that Primm is overrun with convicts, right?"

"Oh, we know alright" Yoruichi snorted before glaring at Hayes "Speaking of which. Why aren't you and your men doing anything to recapture YOUR prisoners and save the innocent people trapped in town!?"

'Oh, boy now she's done it' I face palmed!

Lieutenant Hayes passive scowl turned into an angry one as he studied Yoruichi.

"Listen here miss..." Hayes rose from his chair

"Yoruichi" she finished.

"Well, Miss Yoruichi" Lieutenant Hayes spat in an oddly cold tone! "I don't know who you think you to barge in here and start criticizing me and my men like that! But, if you must know the reason we haven't already taken Primm and recaptured all the convicts is because the bulk of NCR troops and supplies are currently being rerouted to the frontline in order to combat the Legion! We simple lack the people and firepower necessary to clear out the town without taking heavy casualties. And there is absolutely no way in hell! That I'm sacrificing my soldiers lives to save a tiny ghost town that isn't even officially part of NCR territory!"

"Alright let's all just calm down" I decided to interrupt in before things escalated anymore and turned to Lieutenant Hayes. "Please don't be too upset with Yoruichi, sir" I apologized "She's just been through something extremely traumatic and is really sensitive to stuff like this right now. Not to mention the fact that she's suffering from a serious case of amnesia and doesn't really understand much about the current state of the Mojave or the NCR."

"Amnesia" Hayes drawled "Really?"

"It's true" Yoruichi huffed shooting me a glare before making a shooting motion towards her head and growling out "I got shot in the head by a bastard in a checkered suit. We know he headed this way with a group of Great Khans and that Johnson Nash at the Mojave Express might have more information for us."

"Khan's, huh" Hayes sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin in thought. "One of my scouts did report a possible Khan sighting a couple days ago but, couldn't confirm it." Hayes leaned back in his chair glancing at the barely concealed rage behind Yoruichi's eyes and sighed "...Fine I'll grant you permission to enter town but, only because you avenger types are always a pain in the ass to deal with. And I've learned from experience that it's easier to just get out of your way and let you do your thing than try and stop you."

"Yes" Yoruichi fist pumped!

"Before we can you give us some basic information about what we can expect to see inside" I asked?

"Why not" he shook his head "At the very least it'll help you take out one or two more of those bastards, meaning there's one less convict that we have to deal with.

From what we've gathered there's a gang of between 30-40 convict in town. They've made their base in the old Bison Steve Hotel and are more organized and well-armed than you'd expect of a group of their kind. And usually have between two to five small two-man patrol teams wandering the town at any given moment. Thankfully they seem to be a splinter group broken off from the main branch of Powder Gangers up in at NCR Correction Facility, so they aren't getting anything in the way of support.

As for their leader. They call him Burn on account of the massive burns covering most of his face and body. He's tough as nails, crazy as shit and uses a flamer as his primary weapon."

"What about the town's people" Yoruichi questioned? "Where are they during all this?"

"The majority of the town's population have holed up in the Vicky and Vance Casino barricading themselves inside. They're a bunch of stubborn locals who'd rather die than back down and the convicts seem to know that. And are leaving the mostly alone only harassing them when they try and leave the casino, since taking them by force would be more trouble than it's worth. Though my guess is they're trying to starve them out.

Other than that, there really isn't much else I can tell you" Hayes shrugged "Besides letting you know to watch out for the mines when you enter town."

"Let's get going then" Yoruichi spun around to leave wanting to get started as soon as possible.

"Thanks for the help" I waved to Lieutenant Hayes before following Yoruichi out!

"Lieutenant" not long after we left the soldier who escorted us inside nervously addressed his commander?

"Yes, Corporal" Hayes responded without looking up from his paperwork.

"Why did you let those civilians enter the restricted area? They're just going to get killed by the convicts, aren't they?"

"Maybe" Hayes sighed and shook his head wistfully "But, the second I laid eyes on those two I noticed something weird about them. Especially that Yoruichi girl she had a certain air about her and couldn't help but recall something I heard once."

"What's that sir?"

"That there exist monsters in this world. People who despite being just as human as you and I are capable of overpowering every obstacle in their way. Whether that means fighting their way through a Supermutant army to kill their Master or single handedly wiping out an entire Enclave base and helping found a country."

"You can't seriously be comparing the two random people we just met to legends like the Vault Dweller and Chosen One" the soldier complained!

"Those two are definitely nowhere near that level" Hayes agreed. "But, I have a feeling that they're not quite normal either. Besides no matter what happens it has nothing to do with us, either they deal with our convict problem for us or end up dead and buried just like the thousands of others who thought they could take on the wastes."

"Wow, that's really cold Lieutenant."

"Don't you have a checkpoint to be guarding Corporal" Hayes raised his voice?

"YES SIR" the soldier paled and raced back to his checkpoint!