[b][u]The Atomic Oven[/u][/b]

Paul Ray Gifford was grateful for the way things worked out. He served his last day in the Cheyenne prison just a week ago and had managed to build himself up quite the traveler's pack. Granted, he stole most of it, but to him, it didn't matter. He was not getting caught for the same thing twice, not a master thief like himself.

He walked along the unearthed water line that had been maintained by the Solarian government. The water supposedly came from an underground spring the size of a massive lake down south where some plants still thrived. He didn't care where it came from though, and his mind was solely focused on his newly granted freedom. 

He saw a small party of people ahead, at about the one-third mile mark from the last tap. As he got closer, they all were armed to the teeth. Mercenary outfits, no doubt, working for the ranchers in this "semi-feudalist" area of the nation where law still failed to gain a foothold. When he reached them, a big man, roughly 6'8" and built stopped him. "You must pay a toll to travel beyond this point." The intimidating man said.

Paul eyed the LMG he held and replied in confusion and exasperation. "What in God's name is a toll?"

"Don't play stupid. Pay up, or turn around."

Paul raised a single eyebrow. "Ah, I see. A government tax. Where's your permit?" he smirked, thinking his intelligent observation would win him a free pass.

One of the men on the side, who hadn't looked at him since the ordeal started, got up out of his chair and walked over to Paul. He smiled with mock kindness. "In case you haven noticed, we ain't government. Now pay up 'fore we take it off your person.

Paul still refused to believe that they would do anything to harm him, considering their role. "Over my dead body."

The man sighed and looked over at the hulking giant in disappointment. He shook his head as he quickly raised his pistol and shot Paul right between the eyes. "Have it yer way, brother." He said to Paul's dead body. Then he looked over to the third man who had been holding the lead pipe the whole time, silent but blatantly eager. "Search him, take everything. The boss's gon' be glad wit what we got 'im today." He remarked, sitting back in his chair and waiting for another traveler to stop by.

[b][u]Green River, Utah[/u][/b]

Demetrius Edarius stopped at the sight before him, absolutely astounded. A river? An honest to Sol river? The Solarian brass needed to hear about this. The only problem was, his missionary group had been accompied by a batallion of soldiers in blaze-red combat armor, and that batallion lost the radio when the party was forced to flee from a group of deathclaws the they had carelessly stumbled upon.

But that was weeks ago. Demetrius had much more to think about than that. Yes, he'd admit that their missionary work had brought no souls into the Sun's righteous light, he felt that he would make progress if the party managed to find something non-hostile for once.

Demetrius found himself rushing towards the river in excitement and glee along with his two brother Heirs and the twelve remaining soldiers that had accompanied them. In their excitement, however, they failed to notice a group of mirelurks lurking in the water of the river. It had been much too long since they'd seen a body of water, and in their excitement they forgot about the dangers of the Wasteland.

They all ran in and dropped their gear on the bank as they went in to cool themselves off and wet their throats. Who cared if the water was irradiated? A short dip wouldn't hurt anything.

Demetrius noticed that one of the Recruits swimming several meters frim him had suddenly vanished. He looked around and noticed, a few yards to the right of where he once was, a massive amount of bubbles were surfacing- as if something were struggling to breathe.

"Get out of the water!" Demetrius yelled as he scrambled for the shore. A mirelurk followed suit and managed to close in on him rather quickly. Luckily, he managed to find one of the soldiers' Assault Rifles and picked it up. He turned as quickly as he could and shot at the creature seven times- a bit overkill considering his second shot landed in the crab's weak spot. He looked over and saw another looming over the batallion's Seargeant, and he quickly fired in its direction. With his extreme lack of combat training, Demetrius closed his eyes and sprayed at the creature until his clip was empty.

His eyes were still closed when an unknown hand lowered the weapon and another was placed on his shoulder. He slowly but hesitantly opened his eyes and saw Seargeant Tibbs looking at him with grateful surprise. He took the gun from Demetrius and nodded. "You done good kid. But next time, try to keep your eyes open. I don't want you to accindentally kill everyone here when your trying to save one person." He smiled, turned, and walked off.

Demetrius looked around and saw two dead bodies being carried away by the river. He immediately got down on his knees and began to pray for the lost men, as did his two missionary companions.

__________________________________________________

Seargeant Tibbs was deeply concerned for the sake of the mission. He knew it was important to both the generic Heir and those in power to find whatever this "Helios" was, but no one in their party had a clue where it was, aside from the generic answer he recieved of "the Mojave". If the Heirs didn't use so much of their "share" of the military to scout out Pre War Solar technology, then maybe the country wouldn't have a semi-feudalist state at the moment.