Anneliese squinted as she attempted to get the damned binoculars to focus in on the distant group of figures, but no matter how much she turned the dial the cracked lenses refused to bring things clearly into focus. With an irritated sigh she lowered the useless things and resisted the urge to toss them down the haphazard pile of rusty containers that she had scrabbled up to get a better view of Doc Hadley and the others. 

“See anything?” shouted up Carrie, the older woman watching Anneliese with a concerned expression. She was a computer expert and a friend of her mothers, so naturally she seemed to always be watching Anneliese carefully to make sure she didn't get into any trouble. Anneliese thought about it for a moment, she saw plenty from on top of the vantage point without the binoculars. Distantly she could see the others stood around with a caravan, several guards loitering whilst they bartered amongst the countless goods the pack Brahmin was undoubtedly carrying.  She could see countless abandoned buildings and roads littered with decaying husks of cars and the occasional blackened skeleton. The sky was a dirty shade of brown and the terrain as far as she could see looked dead and decaying. She wondered again how anything at all could live out here, let alone such a huge volume of people and creatures.  

In a few swift movements Annelise bounded down the pile of containers in a few leaps, stumbling only a little as she landed on the loose gravel that seemed to surround the abandoned factory. 

[color=DA70D6]“Nope”[/color] she replied casually tossing the binoculars back to Selby [color=DA70D6]“those things are terrible. Best I could tell everything is going fine”[/color].

Selby frowned and took a few paces out towards the road before he turned and paced back. The middle-aged man tended to worry a lot, Annelise had noticed – his face was wrinkled beyond his years from repeated frowning and his hair was greying prematurely. He was the head of security and had seemed like one of the most qualified to come. 

[color=DA70D6]“They’ll be fine, take a chill pill man”[/color] jested Annelise, borrowing the phrase from the vault’s video on reducing stress in the workplace that they’d all seen countless times. She didn’t mind having to stay with Selby and Carrie whilst the others dealt with wastelanders for supplies, but the pair of them together didn’t half work themselves up into a worried state every time something was happening. 

As she waited Annelise eyed up the empty factory building beside them, half of the wall missing and the dated pre-war furniture was spilling out into the pile of rubble like some forgotten goodie bag. She made her way over and began to pick through the wreckage idly as the other two began to discuss scenarios where the others were attacked by wastelanders and what their course of action would be. After several minutes just after Annelise pulled a calculator, pencil and a tatty magazine with pictures of pre-war aircraft on it from a bent desk draw she interrupted them [color=DA70D6]“Surely [i]if[/i] the Wasters attacked then they’d be able to handle themselves? Drive em off or blow em away!” [/color]

As she spoke she made a little gun with her left hand and pointed it at Selby with a smirk as she made shooting gestures. 

“You know they have guns too right?” Asked Carrie with a slightly exacerbated expression aimed at her “You know there are things worse than just people out here too right?”

Annelise continued to smirk as she aimed her finger gun at Carrie next and ‘fired’ several imaginary rounds at her. [color=DA70D6]“Then we’ll fry those too right?”[/color] she half asked half stated [color=DA70D6]“Just relax okay guys, nothing is going to happen.”[/color] As they continued to wait Annelise thought back over everything that had happened since they’d left the vault. They’d run into mostly wildlife, but nothing they hadn’t been able to handle, a few bloatflys here, a couple of molerats there. They’d been attacked by what Doc Hadley had called a Raider, a man so covered in filth and grime that Annelise hadn’t thought he was a man to begin with. He’d bellowed like nothing she’d ever heard, sprinting towards the group despite the several slugs that had been fired into his torso and a laser beam to the knee he’d seemed more like some invincible creature incapable of being stopped. That was until he’d made it within an arm’s reach of Doc Hadley and he’d blow the man’s head into chunks with his shotgun. That was the first time Annelise had vomited in the wasteland, after she’d seen his brain (or rather bits of his brain) smeared all over and discovered a piece that had landed in her hair. It never occurred to her that there would be more like him as she tried to forget the incident altogether. 

She shivered at the memory and shook her head, these ‘chems’ sounded absolutely awful if they could turn a man into such a mindless [i]thing[/i]. Addictive, poisonous and pretty pointless as far as she was concerned – that was unless you considered their resale value. The group was confident that the stash that freak’d stuffed down his pants would pay for their next several meals and leave them with a sufficient quantity of caps. 

Several more minutes passed before the others returned, the four of them carrying a new pack between them that seemed to be filled to the brim with goodies. 

“How was it?” asked Selby as they all gathered around. Between them Doc Hadley and Head Technician Stevens quickly explained what they’d been able to trade for, both goods and information. They’d managed to get plenty more food, more ammo and more importantly a potential lead on another vault.

“Vault city” explained Stevens “a vault that opened its doors years ago, apparently there is a whole settlement there now. Only problem is its part of that New California Republic we keep hearing about. Aside from that there is a place called New Reno not too far from here where we might learn more. It might be an idea to head to one of those places rather than follow the coordinates we have”.  

Carrie continued to frown, after all it’d been her that had managed to pull the coordinates from what was left of the vault mainframe. Apparently after the bombs had gone off the original overseer had wiped all of the data, but Carrie had managed to isolate a file  that somehow indicated that there had been deliverys of certain high tech parts that [i]might[/i], just [i]might[/i] mean that there is some kind of facility that would have the parts they need. Assuming of course the place hadn’t been destroyed and of course the parts they needed were still there. 

From there the conversation degenerated into more of an argument about the NCR and how liable they’d be to help without trying to influence the vault to become one of their territories – something they apparently had a habit of doing and if the group should head there or elsewhere.  It seem fairly balanced until Doc Hadley pointed out that heading to a hub of civilization was the best option and started to list the reasons why. 

Unbeknownst to the group of vault dwellers they were being watched from a distance. 

Skabber licked his dry cracked lips as he stared at each of the dwellers in turn through the dirty pair of binoculars, three men and two women, all from one of those Vaults. Some of them were wearing other clothes over the top, but he could see the others had those stupid blue suits on. Skabber grunted what he saw to the others who eagerly joined him in their excitement and anticipation as they all began to retrieve various chems and weapons from within what passed as clothing as they quickly plotted how they would strike and what they would do to their soon to be victims.  

“Ey boys, one of them vault ladies… well you should see er…” Skabber gawked as he pressed the binoculars up to his good eye again. Moments later Gritta slapped him aside and snatched up the binoculars as he too gazed at the group. 

“She looks pretty old to me…” barked Gritta in his unnaturally high pitched tone. 

“No you turd” shot back Skabber “tah ovver one!” 

Moments later Gritta let out a long ‘Aah’ as he stared at the younger red-headed vault dweller eagerly, several more of the raiders scrabbling forwards to get a look too. 

“Right boys!” Shouted Skabber as he snatched up his .308 scoped rifle “the others be fair game! But the redhead belongs to me, an once I’m done wiv er she iz a gift for iz majesty Krezzman – so no touchin an definitely no eatin! If they fight back too much kill the rest of em’. There were a few glares from some of the other men, but no-one challenged the rather unhinged looking raider as they all started to spread out and pick a spot to ambush the group that were now wandering directly towards them.  

“So we are agreed?” asked doc Hadley finally. There were several nods and words of agreement from the others. After much discussion the group had decided to head closer to whatever it was that passed as civilization these days to gather as much information about the NCR and specifically Vault City, but as well to ask about any other facilities that might have a reverse osmosis machine they could cannibalize for parts. None of them seemed too eager to deal with something as large, powerful and corrupt as the NCR allegedly was. 

The group hadn’t been traveling long when suddenly things got very hostile. The first sign that something was wrong was fairly obvious, Dalton the groups next most experienced fighter had been walking at the rear when a gunshot rang out and clipped his shoulder, sending him tumbling onto the cracked asphalt of the road. There were cries of panic as the group scrabbled about trying to locate the source of the shot – they didn’t have to wait long. Moments later the sounds of whooping and the shouts of the Raiders become more than obvious as they charged from behind several buildings, burnt out cars and other obstacles that they had used for cover as they had approached. 

“Ambush!” yelled Selby as a moment later he too was hit, this time however the bullet hit the man directly in the skull. Annelise screamed as his body collapsed practically ontop of her and the feeling of warm blood rapidly spread across her torso. The sounds of gunfire filled the air as the Vault Dwellers returned fire from behind whatever cover they’d been able to find, the majority of them huddling behind a bus. Annelise pushed Selby’s body off of her and frantically tried to wipe the blood from her, but only succeeded in spreading it further and getting the deep crimson fluid all over her hands. 

“Shoot Annelise! Shoot!” came Doc Hadley’s panicked voice over the chaotic chorus of sounds that filled the air. Until this point she had forgotten about her rifle, the panic and fear she was feeling totally gripping her. The thought that Selby was dead, Dalton probably bleeding to death only five feet away filled her with an array of feelings – shock, despair, sadness – to name a few. She felt like just curling up and waiting for everything to be over, like everything should just be a bad dream and she’d wake up back in the safety of the vault. But it was real. It was happening. The hot blood on her hands was proof of that.

Annelise realised that she was hyperventilating and tried to calm her breathing as she grabbed at her laser rifle and fumbled with it, her fingers already sweating as she lifted her head enough to glance up towards their attackers. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw at least eight or nine raiders, most of them rushing in with an array of savage weapons and crazed expressions. She took aim at the closest raider but before she could squeeze the trigger he was hit by a spray of bullets from one of the other vault dwellers and crumpled to the ground. She wiped some sweat from her eyes as she took a shaky aim at the next raider and pulled the trigger. A red beam hit the raider squarely in the chest and he hardly had time to scream before he exploded into a pile of ashes and his belongings clattered to the ground. The small act was enough to boost her confidence enough as she quickly leveled her rifle at the next few targets and in what felt like only seconds she emptied the entire microfusion cell as four more raiders hit the ground. She fumbled with the catch as she pulled the empty cell from the gun and started to pull another from her pack. 

At that moment another gunshot rang out and missed her narrowly by a few inches, instead the round hitting the concrete barrier she was huddled beside. She dropped to the ground as she continued to try and reload, but her hands were still shaking and instead she dropped the cell and swore. Once she had recovered it and reloaded the rifle she sprang up again intent on finding whoever it was that was shooting at them. But as she did she was shocked to see how much ground the raiders had covered in such a short time. A pair of raiders were already ontop of the others location and another was a few moments away from her. She took aim and fired just as the raider used the concrete barrier to launch himself towards her, but the beam went wide missing him by less than an inch. Moments later the raider crashed into her and the pair of them went tumbling backwards violently. 

Annelise half cried out and half grunted as the weight of the man drove her into the ground hard. The wind was driven from her and for a moment her vision started to swim as the man had brought his knee up into her stomach and was now flailing at her. She gasped for breath as the man grabbed for her arms, his face contorted into a feral snarl as he pinned her to the ground with his weight. She tried frantically to push him off, to scramble out from under him, anything that would get her free as he tried to restrain her. He managed to grab her left arm with his right, her other hand she scrabbled around trying to find something, her fingers closing around the barrel of her laser rifle and instinct kicked in as she swung it at his head with as much strength as possible. The rifle hit him with a sickening crack as the emitter and crystal array shattered and the body of it bent considerably – right now the loss didn’t even register. The Raider hardly slowed and instead simply seemed to become even more enraged as he released her other hand and struck her in the face with all the force he could muster. 

“Fuckin bitch! Fuckin piece of….” he spat as he closed both of his hands around her neck and began to squeeze. 

The combination of the blow to the face and now lack of oxygen left Annelise struggling to stay conscious as she tried to break free. As the pair thrashed about she frantically grabbed at the now useless rifles emitter core, pain lancing through her hand as numerous crystalline shards stabbed into her. Ignoring the pain she again grabbed and swung the mess of shards and jagged circuitry into the side of his face with all her might. This time it had the desired effect, the man jolting unnaturally as the mess pierced his head and face before he went slack and she pushed his twitching form aside. 

She lay panting for a brief moment before she hazarded sitting up, gritting her teeth as she did so. Pain shot through her again, her body and face ached and felt bruised, her right hand worse of all was agony, blood seeping down her wrist as several crystalline shards protruded from her hand in numerous places. Suddenly her mind jumped back to the situation at hand and she looked over to where the others had been fighting for their lives moments ago.  There were no raiders there, but likewise she couldn’t see any of the others where they’d been sheltering just before. She wriggled over to Selby and trying not to look at his vacant expression she pulled his pistol from his holster and clutched it in her left hand as she nursed the right hand in the crook of her arm. Still trembling she slowly rose to her feet, glancing around and studying the surrounding area as she did. A few moments later she took several steps towards the bus expecting a Raider to leap out at her without a moment’s notice. As she edged around the bus she saw what she feared, the bodies of Technician Stevens and Carrie lay beside those of their attackers. Assailed by an all too familiar sensation Annelise forced away the urge to vomit again as she saw that Stevens had been practically disemboweled by his attacker, Carrie’s face smashed and mangled beyond recognition. A bloody trail lead a short way to behind yet another wrecked car and wiping her mouth Annelise slowly made her way towards it, the 10mm in her hand was shaking violently as her arm refused to stay steady. The sounds of panting reached her ears and as she emerged she was relieved to see Doctor Hadley knelt over the last man from their group frantically trying to stabilise him as blood was seeping from his mouth and the rather savage looking wound to his stomach. 

[color=DA70D6]“Tony!”[/color] she breathed out in a sigh of relief at the sight of him, the thought that he too would be amongst the dead was almost too much to bear thinking about. But the doctor didn’t look back at her, he continued to quietly speak words of reassurance to the man as he frantically tried to cover the wound. A few moments later he stopped and sighed before heran his fingers across his now still eyes, closing them for the last time.
As he stood and turned Annelise couldn’t hold in the torrent of feelings any longer and practically burst into tears as she rushed forwards to embrace him. 

“You’re alive” he said, more so to himself than to her as he hugged her in his arms. 

Through tears Annelise managed to gurgle [color=DA70D6]“Selby… Carrie… Stevens… they’re all gone”[/color]

He hugged her tighter and opened his mouth to reassure her once more when yet another gunshot rang out through the air. 

Everything seemed so unreal, so insane. Before she knew what was happening the weight of Doctor Antony Hadley pulled her to the ground. Initially she thought he’d done it to protect her, to pull them into cover, but it only took her a moment more to realise that something was very wrong. 

“Listen carefully…” he murmured, the usual strength in his voice gone “you need to take my bag, take Stevens bag and run… now.”

[color=DA70D6]“I’m not leaving you”[/color] she croaked back as she realised that he too had been shot, that as soon as they’d embraced the Raider’s sharpshooter had tried to kill them both with one shot. As it were the shot had penetrated the Doctor but hadn’t made it all the way through – if they’d been stood in each other’s places then quite likely they’d both be bleeding to death in each other’s arms right now.  Panic, shock and despair gripped her once more and she felt like everything she knew was gone, everything was being ripped away from her. 

Tony grabbed her hand and gasped “New Reno… th…”
[color=DA70D6]“Tony! Tony?”[/color] she shook him, but already his eyes were staring past her as he exhaled his last breath. 

Feelings once more threatened to overwhelm her, but this time it was different, this time she was furious too, everything mixed together in a catastrophic symphony of rage. She clenched her jaw so hard it too began to ache as she stared down at the body of the only man she’d ever loved, the body of the man taken from her so suddenly by this cursed wasteland when only minutes before they’d been talking and joking. She turned her head slightly as she heard the distant sound of footsteps, clearly the remaining Raider thought she was wounded or otherwise unable to move as he sauntered up to them with his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder and a gleeful expression plastered across his face, a switchblade and length of rope clutched in his hands.

“You kill good girly!” the man shouted once he was closer “You killed Gritta wiv your hands! Krezzman is gonna like you!”  
 
Before she could react the Raider lurched forwards brandishing the knife and she twisted on the spot to reveal the gun pointed squarely at his chest, his eyes widened and he lunged towards her closing the distance between them in less than a second. This time though she didn’t miss as she pulled the trigger as rapidly as she could, firing five shots into him before he crashed into her. As once more she tumbled backwards she continued to fire into him before they landed with a thud. She fired the last few rounds directly into him and then continued to pull the trigger as the raider gurgled and died a few moments later. She rolled him off of her and rose to her knees crawling forwards before she reached the nearest car and lay there panting, covered in blood, bruised and fighting back silent sobs.