“God damn it, Martha, you backstabbing bitch. ‘Trust me’ you said. ‘I can send you anywhere’ you said. If you wanted me gone you could’ve just said so.”
When I finished spouting profanities the sound of my raspy voice still lingered. I still can’t stand my voice. Two-hundred years since those damned bombs dropped and I still hate my voice.
I remember before the war, when people called me Charles. I had a new dame every night and a fat wad of cash added to my account every day. I remember when I was Charles Morrison, the manager of RobCo manufacturing in D.C., but look at me now, I’m a fucking corpse. Martha was the only one who called me Charlie. I was just “Chunk” to the rest of those smooth skinned pricks.
It was supposed to be an easy job; go to Vault 112, strip it bare, and sell all that computer shit for a mountain of caps and a nice place in Rivet City, or maybe Tenpenny tower, seeing how some Vault kid cleared it out and gave it to us ghouls. That was how it was supposed to go, but no, Martha had to go on and on about how she could reprogram the VR Sims to anywhere she wanted. I was putty in her fucking hands after she said that. I had a chance to go back to before this whole mess, who the hell would pass that up? I trusted her, told her to send me back to before the war; I should have known she was full of shit.
Oh Chunk, so eager to get back to the past. I’m afraid we need to go our separate ways. Or rather, I need to go my own way. I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere for a long time. Simulation F1m, an incomplete sim set for an endless loop. Left unfinished due to the effect it had on test subjects. I’m sure you’ll be fine Chunk. Have fun, will you. Oh, before I forget, the safety is off, so if you die in there, you’ll die out here.
After a while of plotting ways to kill Martha; Deathclaws, ferals, RadScorpions, even a complicated plan involving that nuke in megaton and a Yao guai, I looked up. The sky was clear and blue, so it meant that the bombs have dropped yet, but I know these sim things enough, this is probably some war zone or something. To make matters worse she said that the safeties were off so if I die here, I die out there too. D.C. is a hellhole, but it’s better than death.
Looking around more I got a better feel of my surroundings. Wherever I was it was green, real green, and colorful too. It definitely wasn’t Alaska, so that was good news.
I reached over my shoulder, hoping I was already equipped with a weapon, but had no such luck. Looking down, however, I saw that being unarmed was the least of my worries.
“Oh fantastic, now not only am I going to die, I’m going to die naked.”
Being a ghoul probably didn't raise my survival rate either. I think the Reds and the US would agree that a naked zombie wandering through the battlefield should be shot instead of talked to.
There wasn’t any gunfire, or sim bots running up to greet me, so I figured Martha sent me a few miles from the warzone. Of course, she said this sim wasn’t finished, so there might not be any sim bots. That’s just lovely; I was alone in a forest for the rest of my life with nothing but ferns to talk to.
There might not be any bots, but they had to have built in at least one town before scrapping this simulation, and it had to be equipped with at least one terminal. I had nothing but time on my hands, so I might have been able to learn to work a computer and get out. It wasn’t a promise, but it was better than sitting here waiting for the petunias to start asking me about my day.
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After walking for about an hour I stopped. I had the strangest feeling something was watching me. I was unfortunately proven right after I heard something big breathing right on the back of my neck.
Turning around I was greeted by the ugliest looking thing I had seen since the last time I looked in a mirror. It looked like someone had managed to get a lion and a RadScorpion together alone in a room for a while. Whatever it was, it was pissed. I guess I went into its territory or something, but after smelling me it turned tail and ran. I guess being a lump of rotten meat finally paid off. I did take two things from my encounter with that RadLion thing; first: there were living things here, second: this probably wasn’t a warzone simulation.
I needed to find a weapon. That thing wasn’t up for dead meat, but who’s to say the next thing I run into isn’t? The only things around me were rocks and sticks though, so I guess I’d have to fashion something out of that, unless there’s a gun store within walking distance.
Finally with a few new cuts and a hell of a back ache I managed to make a crude club. It wasn’t much, but it was better than going in with nothing but my fists.
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Still more walking was in my future, I figured that if I didn’t find a settlement by sundown I would wait until morning and look for some grub. I wonder what RadLion tastes like.
Hours passed by and still no town, so I found myself a nice tree to lie under. Martha may have trapped me here, but I had to admit, it wasn’t that bad. It was clean, it was calm, and if I found some bots I might have been able to get out, if I wanted to get out.
“Looks like your little plan backfired, eh bitch?”
I dozed off after that, and when I woke up I was greeted by the strangest pair of eyes I’d ever seen.