Today was the day. He had spent the previous day practically jumping out of his skin, ready to find the answers to the questions he had since the moment he had awoken in the vault.
He had his armor, he had medical supplies, he had sighted his weapons at the range for a small fee of 10 caps, he had eaten breakfast for 35, and he had his route planned. There was nothing left to do but head out.
He walked out of Midway and took a deep breath. Today was the day. He was sure of that above all else.
"Nice armor. Ready kid?" Salvatore asked as he saw Adam walk up, a determined and eager look in his eye. Clearly he had noticed Adam's new armor but he had not even bother to ask about it. A single sentence was all Adam got. A bit disappointing but it was the last thing on his mind.
"More than ever." Adam responded with a grin. "Lets fucking do this."
"Alright, well slow your horses." Salvatore let off a single chuckle and then looked at the wall, in the direction of the path they will take. "We will need to be careful, we will be moving deep into the North East, into the area that both War and Pestilence claim, even if it's clearly in War's control. Not to mention I heard it's crawling with Super mutants. So it's not going to be an easy trip, we will likely also need to stay out for the night…. You brought those MREs right?" Adam nodded.
"Yeah, as much as I love vacuum sealed freeze-dried turkey, it's better than eating rats." Salvatore smirked..
"Alright, then let's get a move on."
The initial walk was quiet, Salvatore could tell Adam was on edge but didn't ask about it though it showed on his face. Adam, for his sake, had a feeling in his gut, it filled him with dread as well as anticipation. It was taking all his strength not to outright run to Second Life, every step that he took towards the building only seemed to make the feeling grow stronger. It was maddening. However Adam was pulled from his complicated emotional struggle as they encountered an obstacle on their path. Super mutants.
"Kid, over here." Salvatore said as he gestured for Adam to follow him over to the cover of a building. Adam followed and they ducked behind some debris as they watched the situation.
Outside, on the street were 2 super mutants, one mutant dog, a hairless dog-like creature that was roughly the size of a human, equally as yellowish green as the super mutants. And then one… horror made flesh.
The thing had a human flesh and skin tone but that was all that it had in common with a human. This… thing with strong emphasis on that descriptor, was a human torso, sort of, standing upright with its human head on top. However, out of the human mouth were three incredibly long red tentacle tongues. It also had an elongated body like a slug, bones sticking out its back like spikes going down its fleshy tail, and it walked around on four hands. Where arms should be on its torso instead were nothing but nubs with bone sticking out from the nubs. Even the torso had some protruding bone. It truly looked like a horror movie creature made flesh. There were no words to describe the creature he was seeing; it looked like a creature from the depths of hell, or a madman's fantasy.
"What… the fuck…" Adam began, as he stared at the monster. "Is that…" He finished, in complete and utter shock and disbelief.
"That…" Salvatore said as he unclipped his rifle from its strap and got it ready. "Is a centaur." He continued within a calm and collected tone.
"That… monstrosity?" Adam asked again. He was so taken aback by the horrifying creature he didn't even have words to describe how he was feeling. At least the pit in his stomach from worrying about Second Life was gone. Small blessings.
"Yeah." Salvatore responded, chuckling silently to himself at Adam's reaction. "Its a freakshow alright, heard its another FEV experiment, but truthfully I dont fucking know, they just often appear around Super Mutants. I think they keep them as pets."
"Pets!?" Adam said incredulously and quite a bit louder than he was expecting. Salvatore shot a look at the super mutants, checking to see if they heard Adam, luckily they didn't.
"Yes, pets. Now keep your cool." He said sternly. Adam took a deep breath and calmed his nerves.
"Sorry." He apologized more level headed now.
"They look scary but they aren't that tough. It's the dog and super mutants I'm worried about." he began as he started to look through his rifle scope and check out the situation and then slowly grinned.
"Hey kid, check out what that super mutant is holding under his arm on the left."
"Hm?" Adam hummed in confusion before grabbing his binoculars and looking at the mutant indicated. At first he saw nothing of note, just a super mutant talking to the other while he pet the giant mutant dog. Then he saw it, something he never expected to randomly see out in the wild. A mini nuke.
In the war one of the key weapons the US military had made in an effort to transition the US forces from Tank based combat to one that heavily utilized Power Armor instead was the fatman. Effectively a catapult launching system meant to throw miniature nuclear bombs over vast distances. The catapult system was bulky but not entirely unwieldy. It was meant to be used by troops in power armor, but a sufficiently large and muscular unpowered human could wield it without too much difficulty. Though the size might make it block much of the user's vision. It was an incredibly powerful weapon, probably the most powerful one man platform weapon the US Army ever made. There were only two problems with it.
The first issue was simple and perhaps the biggest complaint. There were no sights. Well technically there was but it was very ill equipped to aid the soldier using the weapon. The way the fatman was designed it was an open top catapult which left no room for a sighting system. Iron sights did exist on the back end, near the soldier's face, but how do you use an iron sight on a weapon that has such a heavy drop angle? It was truly a useless design feature. Not to say a sight couldn't be designed, a slider would have worked, or perhaps an electrical sight, but no, it was just a strip of metal. The other problem was one that made this situation interesting. Mini Nukes were rare.
Even during the war the US Army did not produce many mini nukes for battle. Certainly there were more than enough for the weapon to be fielded but even back in the army the fatman's use had to be limited to high casualty engagements due the value of each round. The likely reason for the limited number of mini nukes is probably because the US was instead building actual nukes with its weapons grade nuclear material instead. So if the US Army couldn't even produce many during the war how many could have survived into the future 200 years later? The answer? At least one. And he was looking at it.
"How the hell did a super mutant get its hands on a mini nuke?" Adam asked dumbfounded.
"Don't know, don't care. What I do care about is that it offers an opportunity we would never get otherwise." Salvatore looked down at his rifle and then at Adam's.
"Normally I'd never ask for another man's gun, 'specially since yours will be sighted differently but…" Adam stared at him for a moment before going wide eyed.
"Exactly." Salvatore grinned. Adam looked at the super mutants again and then swiftly took off his rifle and handed it over to Salvatore.
"Don't worry kid." He said as he balanced the rifle on the rubble and began to line up his shot. "I'm an old hand at this~" He said with an almost playful tone before the shot rang out.
The explosion was beautiful.