Dear Pip-Boy,
I've clearly lost all sense of time. I had no idea it was so late in the day until I opened the door and had the setting sun shining right in my face
. The first person I meet, after leaving the Doc's place is a robot. He says he's the one who dug me out of my grave, I thanked him. I've never seen a working robot before so I don't know if they care about politeness or not but I figure it can't hurt. He seems to act an awful lot like a person so it's probably best to assume he is one and treat him accordingly.
The first human I see is an old guy who seems to have a pet tumbleweed. I hope all his dogs are barking. He calls himself Easy Pete. He turns out to be free from any obvious signs of crazy. Just a retired prospector who seems to know a fair bit about what's going on. Kinda reminds me of Dad, or at least what Dad probably would have turned out like if he'd got a chance to live to be that age. He gave me a few clues as to what's going on around here. Apparently some people don't like the robot that dug me up, think it's suspicious.
On a wider scale, it seems my delivery job has taken me right into a battlefield. Maybe not now, but it soon will be, by the sound of it. The NCR I know. Back when the family business was still running, some of the best customers used to be NCR. Didn't matter whether it was scientists, engineers or soldiers. They often had more money than independents and expensive tastes. The Legion I have also...had dealings with. I don't really want to think about it much. Easy Pete is rather emphatic about the need to keep my gun about me. The thought makes me tremble a little, I remember that I really need to find Sunny Smiles.
She's a really tough looking lady. Confident, composed, has an economy with words and speaks in a hurry. She looks like she'd spit in that guy's eye rather than pointlessly beg him for mercy, like I did. I take her invitation to meet me out the back of the saloon and she just gives me a rifle. I just walk up to her, total stranger and she just gives me a rifle, just like that. I can't tell if that's unusually nice, naive or just plain bad ass.
I do know how to shoot a gun. I've been through the "Shoot bottles off the fence" drill with Dad plenty of times. It's just...not the same when something (or someone's) trying to kill you. But Sunny knows that, because she's cool! She invites me to join her in Gecko hunting. Normally, I'd be terrified of getting mauled to death by lizards, but with someone like Sunny watching my back, it doesn't feel so bad. She says I should try to sneak up on them, I can totally do that. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's keeping a low profile. That and fixing stuff.
I try to get some cover and a good sniping angle by one of the water tanks, and bring one down with a single shot. It feels so cool! The other one races towards me, I do my best not to panic and keep shooting. I take it down just before it closes. That seems to be all of them. I strip them for meat and hide before going back to Sunny, who says there's some caps in it for me if I help her out some more.
Sunny goes in, all guns blazing and distracts the Geckos, while I stay in the shadows and take them out. They don't know what hit 'em. Then she just runs off somewhere and I don't know where she went. I strip the geckos for meat and hide, then I swear I hear someone scream. I'm in such a rush right now I don't even think twice, I just run to go check it out. I see a lady trying to fend off 3 Geckos with nothing more than a meat cleaver. Before I even know what's happening I pull out my old 9mm. I'm more used to it than I am to Sunny's rifle so I can shoot more quickly.
I have this weird moment of clarity and start pulling out headshots out of nowhere, with no idea how I'm doing it. When I talk to the doc about it later, he says that's the Pip-Boy. He tells me it has some sort of computer assisted aiming thing called VATS that activates when it detects heightened levels of adrenaline. I'd heard talk of such a thing, but I thought it was just rumors of pre-war Army technologies. It's definitely not something I want to go telling anyone about. I don't even want to think about the number of people who'd gleefully murder me to obtain such an ability.
By the time I catch my breath, I realise that I'd managed to save someone's life and murder the shit out of a bunch of Geckos singlehandedly before Sunny managed to show up. Even Sunny thinks it was totally badass. If I can convince a town that I eat lead and shit bullets, that's totally a step up from everyone thinking I'm useless. Might as well roll with it and hope nobody expects any more outrageous displays of heroism before I get moving again.
Sunny says she can help me with cooking from things I find. I always wanted to learn how to cook. Ma always said I was a lousy cook but she never really bothered to teach me, just yelled at me to fetch things for her when she was cooking and stop flirting with the customers like a harlot. Although at the moment, I guess I am just fetching stuff. Sunny says there's Xander Root at the schoolhouse and Broc Flower over at the cemetary. Even though Easy Pete said to bring a gun when I go to the schoolhouse I think I'd rather go there first. The cemetary looks all creepy up there, by the water tower, at the top of that hill. At least if something goes wrong at the schoolhouse, the Doc is nearby.
There seems to be giant bugs by the schoolhouse. I guess that's what Pete was talking about. They seem pretty loathe to actually leave their territory, so taking them out from a safe distance wasn't too bad at all. I pick the Xander Roots and get going to the cemetary. I guess really it's just me being silly and superstitious. After all, Easy Pete said not to go near the Schoolhouse without a gun and I handled that just fine, and Sunny said nothing about the cemetary, so there's probably nothing there to worry about. Apart from. You know, my grave. Yeah, that won't be fun.
Giant scorpions. Kind of a thing you'd think would be worth mentioning, if they're in the area. Really glad I was sneaking up here slowly and carefully like an idiot. Because now I get the drop on it and take it out with one shot. Holy crap! When I reach the cemetary I find it overrunning with bloatflies. I'm not going to be able to get anything done until I get rid of them. I get lucky, hit one of the bloatflies somewhere weird and it goes into a frenzy and kills all the others.
So, there it is. My grave. Not many people get to see that. My reverie of self pity is interrupted when I notice a pile of cigarette butts near the grave. I remember the guy who shot me smoked. I go to take a closer look and notice that they have a distinctive marking on them I've never seen before. This might help me to find the slimy bastard, so I gather them all up for evidence. I notice another pile of cigarette butts over by the Broc Flower that Sunny mentioned, as well as something else. There's some sort of weird structure off in the distance. I have to climb the fence to get a clear view of it. I wonder what it is. I'm curious to check it out, but who knows what's out there. Still, I figured it was better not keep Sunny waiting.
Just as I go to strip the last blowfly for meat, I notice something odd. It's a snowglobe. I don't know why but I take it. It's stupid because it's probably a kid's toy that some greiving parent left there as a memorial. I feel kinda bad, but I've never seen anything like it before. Dad always said that a good prospector was like a Magpie. He never did say what a Magpie was, but made it sound like some kind of sneaky monster which liked to steal shiny things. I guess that sounds kinda like me. Great, now I miss Dad again. Like, more than usual.
So, true to her word, Sunny shows me how to cook. Says she thinks I'm tough enough to make it out here, but that I should talk to a lady named Trudy back at the saloon. Not a bad idea. I still have no idea how to go about sorting out this mess I'm in, and if she's really a "town Mom" like Sunny says perhaps she can help. I know enough to know most mothers aren't like mine. For starters, if they were, I'm pretty sure the human race wouldn't exist.
