Chapter 13: Jungle Royale
The wind up on the Fizztop balcony still carried the faint, copper tang of the Disciples’ tunnels, but the view was what kept me anchored.
If I squinted, the glowing green blueprint lines of the Local Leader perk were still there, faintly burned into my retinas. They didn't feel like a foreign computer program anymore; they felt like common sense.
I looked at the rusted monorail track stretching toward the horizon and my brain automatically calculated the weight limits for a Brahmin caravan. I looked at the gap between the market stalls below and knew exactly where to drop a heavy machine gun turret to lock down the crossfire.
It was a weird, comforting kind of clarity. I had a map of the future floating in my head, but the present was still a total mess. Three separate gangs of psychopathic killers were sitting right beneath my boots, waiting for the new guy to slip up.
“We need to move fast.” I said, leaning my hands on the rusted iron railing. I didn't take off my aviators, not even to look them in the eyes. The extra confidence they pumped into my veins was the only thing keeping my voice from shaking. “The sharks downstairs are already getting restless. If we don't give them a fresh chunk of meat to chew on soon, they’re going to start looking at us.”
“So what's the play, Overboss?” Gage asked, casually leaning against a nearby concrete pillar while he tossed a rusted bolt up and down in his palm. His one good eye was fixed on me, sharp and calculating. “You gonna go throw yourself at the robots in the Galactic Zone, or let the bugs in the bottling plant dissolve that shiny suit of yours?”
“Neither. We split up.” I turned around to face the rest of my bizarre little inner circle, crossing my arms over my chest. “We’ll take Safari Adventure and Kiddie Kingdom at the same time. Divide and conquer… literally.”
“Are you out of your mind, vault boy?” Gage grunted, the bolt catching in his palm with a sharp smack. “You don't have the numbers to cover one front, let alone two. You divide your people out there, and the wasteland’s just gonna swallow you in smaller bites.”
“I don’t know, Kenny. Going in there without backup sounds stupid.” Maximus muttered from inside his T-60 Power Armor, his external speakers giving off a low, static-laced click. He was sitting on a reinforced crate, his massive metal fingers carefully polishing a rusted piece of scrap he’d picked up earlier. “What if we get pinned down? I’m not carrying Thaddeus if he gets his legs bit off.”
“That can happen?!” Thaddeus asked, mortified.
“No.” I lied.
“Oh, good. Thank you, Overwizard.” And this is why I don’t even feel guilty about lying. “Maximus might have a point about backup, though. Doesn’t really make sense to split up.”
Now I’m definitely going to make sure something bites your legs off.
“Actually, it makes a lot of sense!” Lucy chirped, stepping forward with a bright, blindingly positive smile that completely defied the grim reality of our situation. She adjusted her crooked orange paper Cappy Glasses, her eyes sparkling with absolute certainty. “If we divide up, we can help twice as many people in half the time. It’s like doing neighborhood chores in the residential blocks. Many hands make light work!”
“And King Cola’s Court is right inside Kiddie Kingdom!” Sierra squealed, practically vibrating with excitement as she clutched her glossy park map to her chest. Her own paper glasses were secured to her face with a ridiculous amount of gray duct tape. “The brochures say that’s where all the big holiday parades used to start! I can look for the hidden Cappy clues while we explore the castle grounds!”
“I don’t know.” Thaddeus muttered, sitting on the floor nearby with his boots off, gingerly rubbing his bare, swollen feet. He looked up, his entirely eyebrow-less face pinched into a scowl that looked incredibly silly beneath his giant orange paper frames. “It still sounds dumb. Besides, some of those Pack raiders were laughing at the way I was holding my gun earlier. And my feet still hurt, and I need to clean my rifle.”
“You're coming with me and Max to the jungle, Thaddeus.” I said, pointing a finger at him to cut off the complaining before it started. “We need the muscle, and you're our vanguard. You wanted to prove you're a hardened surface warrior to the guys downstairs? Safari Adventure is crawling with giant mutant reptiles. Here’s your chance.”
“Hear that, Max? Vanguard.” Thaddeus puffed out his chest, instantly forgetting about his sore feet as he reached for his boots. He glared through his cartoon circles, trying to look like a lethal assassin. “The Overwizard knows talent when he sees it. Those raiders won't be laughing when I’m leading the charge.”
“I can kill plenty of 'em,” Maximus said, his massive armor groaning as he stood up from the crate, the floorboards vibrating under his immense weight. He lifted his improvised bumper-car chassis shield, checking the grip. “Nothing’s getting through this. I’ll bash their teeth out.”
Yikes. Brutal imagery. I love it!
“Good. Lucy, you and Sierra take Kiddie Kingdom.” I turned my gaze over to her, the dry, authoritative tone of my new perk faltering just a fraction as I looked into her wide, trusting eyes. “Keep it peaceful if you can, but don't take any chances. The air over there is thick with radiation, and the local ghouls aren't exactly known for their hospitality.”
“We’ll be perfectly fine, Kenny.” Lucy said, stepping closer until her shoulder gently brushed against mine. She looked up at me from over the rims of her oversized paper glasses, her voice dropping into a softer, much more personal register that made the rest of the balcony disappear. “You just focus on your side of the park. We can totally take care of things over at the castle.”
The bravado I’d been projecting for the last ten minutes suddenly felt incredibly flimsy. The Local Leader lines in my brain could calculate supply chains and defensive barriers all day long, but they didn't say a damn thing about how to stop your chest from tightening up when the girl you cared about was about to walk into a literal cloud of radioactive poison.
We hadn't been out of each other's sight since I dragged her out of that Viper camp. The wasteland was an absolute meat grinder, and while I knew I had a literal safety net waiting for me every time I went to sleep, she didn't. If something went wrong in that kingdom, I couldn't just hit a pause button and reload her.
Would I be willing to literally kill myself to save her?
I’d rather not have a reason to find out.
“I mean it, Lucy, be careful.” I said, my voice dropping lower as I stepped away from the others, guiding her toward the edge of the railing. “It’s a lot of ground to cover without backup. If things look bad, you pull back immediately. Don't try to be a hero.”
“I know.” she whispered, her bright smile softening into something real, something honest and devoid of the usual Vault-Tec cheer. She reached out, her fingers lightly tapping the blue fabric of my sleeve, her touch surprisingly warm against the cool wind. “But we’re a team, remember? You trusted me to find you when you left the vault, and I found you. Trust me to handle this.”
I was actually hoping she’d stay at the Vault, but point taken.
“Yeah. A team.” I managed a small, wry grin, adjusting my aviators to hide the sudden, stupid sting behind my eyes. “Just don't let Sierra talk you into eating any pre-war cotton candy while you're out there. I don't want to have to use all our RadAway on your first day as a department head.”
“Deal.” Lucy let out a soft, musical laugh, her fingers lingering on my arm for just a second longer before she stepped back, turning toward the elevator where Sierra was already frantically waving her map. “We’ll see you at the central intersection when we’re done!”
I watched the rusted iron cage of the elevator clatter into motion, swallowing her bright blue jumpsuit and those ridiculous orange glasses into the shadow of the mountain. The balcony felt a whole lot colder the second she was gone, and for the first time since I woke up on my tenth birthday, I had a feeling that this ‘game’ of mine was starting to have real consequences.
…
The midday sun beat down on the cracked concrete path as we approached the rusted, vine-choked entrance gates of Safari Adventure. The air down here was thick, humid, and smelled heavily of rotting mulch and wet dog.
I kept my hand resting lightly on the grip of my 10mm pistol, my eyes scanning the high canopy where the artificial jungle growth had completely swallowed the old steel support beams. My Local Leader perk was pulsing in the back of my skull again, highlighting the structural integrity of a collapsed gorilla statue and tracking a potential bottleneck by the ticket booths, but my real focus was on the tree line.
Just past the turnstiles, three raiders from the Pack were lounging on top of a overturned Nuka-Cola vending machine. They wore mismatched leather armor smeared with bright neon paint, sporting wolf masks and bear skull helmets. They weren't attacking, but their painted eyes followed us with lazy, predatory amusement. They were waiting to see if the new Overboss was going to get ripped to shreds by whatever was breeding inside.
Me too.
Let’s find out.
“Look at 'em,” Thaddeus whispered, his voice hushed but dripping with an incredibly forced bravado. He adjusted his giant, orange paper Cappy glasses with a jerky flick of his wrist, his entirely eyebrow-less face scrunching into what he clearly thought was a menacing scowl. “They think they’re the top dogs around here. But they don't know who they’re dealing with. On the surface, you gotta show these types that you're the alpha. You gotta mark your territory.”
“Please don’t pee on anything, Thaddeus,” I said, not even turning to look at him.
“I’m not gonna pee on anything, Kenny! I’m talking about presence.” Thaddeus puffed his chest out so far his pipe rifle nearly slipped out from under his arm. He marched right past me, his boots clattering loudly against the cracked pavement as he forced his way through a tangle of weeping vines. “Just watch. I’ll show these raider freaks how a real warrior charges in.”
Maximus’s heavy T-60 armor gave a low, metallic groan as he slowed his pace, his giant mechanical visor tilting slightly down toward me. He was still clutching his improvised bumper-car chassis shield like a security blanket. “Is he going to get us killed?”
“Probably,” I muttered, letting my hand drop from my holster. “But let’s see where he’s going with this first.”
We rounded a massive stone fountain shaped like a stylized elephant, and the jungle opened up into a wide, ruined plaza. Sitting right in the center, tearing the bark off a mutated log, was a massive, silver-furred Ghoulrilla. Its skin was mottled and hairless in patches, glowing with a faint, low-level radiation, but its raw muscle mass was terrifying. Standing right next to it was a tall, heavily muscled man wearing nothing but a primitive loincloth made of leopard-print faux fur, holding a heavy wooden club studded with rusty nails.
“A wild man,” Maximus said, his external speakers clicking as his voice dropped. “And a really big rad-monkey.”
Before I could even open my mouth to use my Charisma stats, Thaddeus took three aggressive steps forward into the clearing. He stopped right in front of the massive primate, planting his feet wide and slapping his hands against his own chest with a loud, hollow smack.
“Hoo! Hoo! Ah! Ah!” Thaddeus bellowed, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the nearby gift shop. He began to aggressively bob his head up and down, his orange paper glasses sliding crookedly across his nose as he bared his teeth at the radioactive beast. “Who’s the boss here, huh? Yeah! That’s right! Look at this stance! Look at this form! I’m a beast!”
The wild man in the loincloth slowly lowered his club, tilting his head in absolute, profound confusion.
The Ghoulrilla didn't even stop chewing its bark. It just stared at Thaddeus through heavy, bored, yellowed eyes. Slowly, the massive silverback rose to its hind legs, towering over Thaddeus by a good three feet. It didn't roar. It didn't thump its chest. It simply reached out one massive, leathery gray hand, grabbed Thaddeus by the back of his jacket, and smoothly transitioned him into a flawless, textbook-perfect wrestling headlock.
Clunk.
Thaddeus’s empty pipe rifle clattered to the dirt. His legs kicked out wildly beneath him as the Ghoulrilla tucked his head firmly under its massive armpit, casually leaning its weight down until Thaddeus’s face was pressed directly into its radioactive silver fur.
“Kenny! Max! Help!” Thaddeus choked out, his voice completely muffled by primate muscle. His giant orange paper frames bent entirely in half against the beast's ribs. “It’s got me! It’s crushing my windpipe! My stance didn't work!”
Over by the turnstiles, the three Pack raiders let out a synchronous, booming howl of laughter, one of them literally slapping his knees.
Maximus stood entirely frozen beside me, his giant metal fingers twitching against his bumper shield. “Should I… should I shoot the monkey, Kenny? It looks really strong.”
I slowly raised a hand, rubbing the bridge of my nose right underneath my aviators. I had a nine in Intelligence, but nothing in the pre-war coding of my brain had prepared me for the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of this squad.
“Don't shoot the monkey, Max,” I sighed, taking a deep breath as I stepped forward to address the guy in the leopard loincloth. “Let’s just try using our words. Okay? First time for everything.”
There’s a last time for everything, too.
For example, this is the last time I ditch my best friend to work with either of these meatheads.
…
The fluorescent lights of the Vault 33 cafeteria didn't buzz, but they always felt like they were vibrating right behind Norm MacLean’s eyes.
He stared down at his tray. The mashed potatoes were lukewarm, pooling with a watery film that didn't quite mix with the gray synthetic gravy. Usually, Chet would be sitting across from him, loudly complaining about his knee or making some remarkably dumb joke about the hydroponic tomatoes, but Chet was currently stationed at the Sector 4 corridor junction. He had a clipboard, a plastic security badge pinned to his chest, and a very uncomfortable expression.
Steph’s new rules were everywhere. They were taped to the vending machines, stenciled onto the clean white walls, and slipped under residential doorways every Tuesday morning. Efficiency breeds excellence, the posters said. But mostly, it just bred a lot of standing in line.
“Chit, please, Norm.” Davey said, holding out a small plastic tray as Norm approached the dish return. Davey looked exhausted. His standard-issue blue jumpsuit was missing a button at the collar, and he had a smear of grease across his chin.
“It’s just a fork, Davey.” Norm said, keeping his voice flat, his fingers loosening their grip on the molded plastic tray. He didn't want to make a scene, but the constant friction was getting ridiculous. You couldn't even drop off a dirty bowl without showing a laminated piece of plastic that proved you had permission to eat during the second shift block.
“I know it’s just a fork, but Steph’s got the cameras on the scullery line logged directly to her terminal.” Davey whispered, his eyes darting toward the small black dome mounted in the corner of the ceiling. He practically snatched the blue plastic chit from Norm’s hand, dropping it into a metal lockbox with a heavy, hollow clang. “She docked Woody three credits yesterday because he let someone from maintenance pass through without checking their clearance level. Three credits. That’s a whole week of extra gelatin desserts gone.”
Norm didn't say anything to that. He just nodded, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and turned down the secondary corridor toward his quarters. The Vault had always been quiet—the kind of quiet where you could hear the air scrubbers humming three levels down—but now the silence felt different. It was heavy. Sullen.
People didn't look each other in the eye anymore when they passed in the halls. They looked at the floor, or they looked at the little plastic badges clipped to their waistbands. When the evening curfew siren sounded at exactly eight o'clock, the slamming of the heavy residential doors didn't sound like a community turning in for a safe night’s sleep. It sounded like a row of cell doors locking in unison.
“Norm! Hey, Norm, wait up.”
Norm paused near the water filtration station, turning his head slightly as Elena Conroy stepped out from a maintenance alcove. Kenny’s mom looked smaller without her eldest son around to lean on, but she still carried that steady, practical weight that all the old-timers had. She had a heavy iron wrench tucked into her work belt, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing forearms smeared with dark graphite lubricant.
“Hey, Mrs. Conroy.” Norm said. He liked Elena. She didn't treat him like a kid, and she never tried to sell him on the usual Vault-Tec nonsense with that fake, glossy smile the council members used.
“You heading back before the third bell?” Elena asked, wiping her palms on a gray shop rag. She leaned against the yellow conduit pipe running along the wall, her eyes scanning the empty hallway before settling back on his face. Her voice was quiet, dropping beneath the steady rush of the water pipes. “Marcus says they’re putting new electronic deadbolts on the engineering sector tomorrow. He had to sign out four separate authorization slips just to get a box of copper rivets from the main cage.”
“Steph’s just making sure everything stays orderly.” Norm said, testing the waters. He wanted to see how far the grease was slipping under the wheels.
“Orderly is one thing, Norm.” Elena let out a dry, humorless chuckle, tucking a stray strand of brown hair back behind her ear. “This feels like we’re being punished because your father and Kenny went over the wall. We didn't do anything wrong. We’re just the ones left holding the brooms.”
That was the word. Left. Kenny had vanished into thin air after finding out whatever horrific secrets were buried in the lower levels, and Lucy had gone charging out into the radioactive wilderness right after him like a hero in an old comic book. Norm was still here. He was always just here, observing the gears turn while everyone else made the big moves. But as he looked at the tight, frustrated lines around Elena’s mouth, he realized the gears were starting to grind against each other.
“People are talking,” Norm said softly, his back against the cool white paneling. “In the kitchens. Even Chet looked like he wanted to throw his clipboard into the waste chute today.”
“They’re doing more than talking, sweetie.” Elena stepped a fraction closer, the sharp scent of machine oil coming with her. She didn't look angry; she looked determined in that quiet, stubborn way Kenny always did when he was about to do something reckless. “Your father’s already had three different block captains come to him asking if there’s a way to override the sector locks from the manual bypass panels. We’re Vault dwellers, Norm. We know how the plumbing works. You can only block a pipe so much before the whole system bursts.”
“Don't let Steph hear you say that.” Norm warned, his eyes instinctively flicking toward the security camera down the hall. The little red light was blinking, panning slowly from left to right. “She’s looking for excuses to make examples out of people.”
“Let her look.” Elena said, her jaw tightening as she tapped the heavy iron wrench against her thigh. “She can’t put the whole Vault in the brig. Who’d clean the filters?”
She gave his shoulder a quick, maternal squeeze before turning back into the dark maintenance tunnel, her boots making a soft, rhythmic clicking against the metal grating until the shadows swallowed her up.
Norm stood alone in the bright corridor for a long moment. His pocket felt heavy where his own security chit was resting against his hip. He took it out, flipping the cheap piece of blue plastic over in his fingers, staring at the stamped Vault-Tec logo.
Everyone was waiting for something to happen. They were waiting for an spark, or a leader, or just someone to tell them that they didn't have to ask for permission to walk twenty feet down the hall to use the restroom. They didn't have Kenny’s clever, arrogant plans anymore, and they didn't have Lucy’s bright, unshakeable faith to guide them.
Norm slid the chit back into his pocket and started walking toward the residential blocks again, his face a smooth, unreadable mask. He didn't know how to build a resistance, and he certainly didn't know how to fight a war against the interim-Overseer’s security team. But as he listened to the distant, muffled sound of a neighbor arguing with a hallway monitor about the curfew gate, he realized he didn't have to build anything at all.
The fire was already catching. He just had to figure out how to guide the smoke.
…
The pink fog didn't just smell like sulfur; it tasted sweet, like old sugar left out in the rain to rot.
Lucy adjusted her syringe rifle, the strap cutting uncomfortably into her blue Vault-Tec jumpsuit as she stepped over a rusted stroller. Every time she breathed, the mist left a sticky coating on her tongue. Her Pip-Boy was giving off a rhythmic, lazy click that she was trying very hard to ignore. It wasn't the fast, panicked clicking that meant your skin was about to peel off, but it was steady enough to keep her teeth on edge.
“Oh, look at the Ferris wheel!” Sierra gasped, her voice practically cutting through the heavy, glowing haze like a knife. She was marching ahead, completely unbothered by the fact that the entire amusement park looked like a graveyard dipped in cotton candy. She held her glossy park map right up to her face, her gray duct-taped Cappy frames slipping down her nose. “The Nuka-Copter rides were originally sponsored by the caps division in 2074! Did you know they used to drop limited-edition cherry-scented confetti right over this exact plaza every Saturday? It says so right here in the fun-facts column!”
“That’s… that’s really neat, Sierra.” Lucy said, trying to force her usual bright smile into her voice. It didn't quite work. The corners of her mouth felt heavy, dropping back down the second she stopped focusing on them.
Usually, if someone was spouting historical trivia about a radioactive death trap, Kenny would be standing right next to her with his arms crossed. He would have made some dry, cynical comment about the cost of pre-war dry cleaning, or he would have pushed those cool aviators up his nose and told her exactly which corner a sniper was going to jump out from. It was a weird thing to miss. His cynicism used to make her roll her eyes back in the vault, but out here, in the middle of a glowing pink cloud, that quiet, grunting pragmatism was the only thing that kept the sky from falling. Without him, the giant, rotting castle at the end of the midway didn't look like a fun community project anymore. It looked terrifying.
A shadow shifted behind a nearby popcorn cart. It was long, thin, and moved with a jerky, unnatural twitch. Lucy froze, her fingers instantly locking around the grip of her rifle, her eyes straining against the pink glare.
“Step right up, little vault mice!” a voice boomed, echoing through the park’s PA speakers with a crackle of static. It was loud, theatrical, and dripping with a cruel, mocking amusement. “Welcome to King Cola’s Court! For my first trick, I shall make two foolish little girls disappear into the bellies of my painted friends!”
A figure stepped out from the fog, standing atop a ruined cotton candy stand. He was a ghoul, his face entirely stripped of skin and raw like sunburned leather, but he was dressed in a pristine, bright red magician’s tuxedo. A silk top hat sat crookedly on his hairless head, and he held a long, silver-tipped cane that he twirled between his rotting fingers with practiced ease.
“Oswald the Outrageous!” Sierra squealed, clutching her map to her chest like a prized pillow. “The premier thaumaturgist of the greater Boston area! Oh my gosh, the brochures didn't do the costume justice!”
“You’re… you’re the one running the intercom?” Lucy called out, taking a small step forward while keeping her rifle lowered. She wanted to be neighborly. She wanted to use the Golden Rule, but the way his yellowed teeth bared into a grin didn't look very welcoming. “We don't want any trouble, mister! We’re just here to claim the territory for our community! If we can just talk about a peaceful sharing arrangement—”
“Arrangement?” Oswald laughed, a harsh, rattling sound that turned into a wet cough. He swept his top hat off his head, bowing deeply from his perch on the stand. “The only arrangement you’ll find in Kiddie Kingdom is an arrangement of bones! You think you can just stroll into my kingdom with your shiny blue suits and clean skin? You’re a pair of uninvited pests! A couple of boring, ugly… flat-faced raider scumbags!”
Lucy blinked. The insult hit her like a wet towel. She felt her face flush hot beneath her orange paper glasses, her chest tightening with an unfamiliar, bubbling frustration. She wasn't an ugly pest. Was she? No, no, she was pretty! Everyone said so!
She was beautiful, gosh darn it!
“Well… well, you’re not very polite!” Lucy shouted back, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to put some venom into it. She held her chin high, trying to remember what the Vipers looked like when they were being mean. “And your top hat has a very large tear in the seam! It looks… it looks incredibly unprofessional! And your voice is very scratchy, like a broken radio!”
Oswald stared at her for three seconds. Slowly, he placed the top hat back on his head, tilting his cane toward her with a look of profound pity.
“Truly, a devastating critique,” Oswald muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I am cut to the quick by the vault girl’s fierce wit. Why don't you try telling my assistants how unprofessional they look?”
He clicked his fingers. The sound echoed sharply through the plaza, and from the pink mist behind the popcorn carts, five glowing, feral ghouls scrambled out on all fours. Their skin was cracked and leaking a sickly yellow fluid, their jaws snapping as they caught the scent of clean flesh.
“Oh dear,” Sierra said, finally lowering her map.
Lucy raised her rifle, her heart hammering against her ribs as she aimed at the first rushing monster. The pink fog felt thicker now, pressing in on her from all sides, and the weight of the entire world seemed to rest entirely on her own shoulders. She let off a shot, the dart hissing through the air as she desperately hoped Kenny’s jungle expedition was going a whole lot smoother than hers.
…
Honestly, I couldn't believe how smoothly it went after Thaddeus almost got his windpipe crushed by a radioactive primate.
It took a solid ten minutes of back-and-forth, but a Charisma score of six—boosted by my trusty aviators—really did some heavy lifting. For the most part.
Cito didn't understand most of my vocabulary, living out that whole Tarzan fantasy in a leopard-print loincloth, but he understood the basics. Big scaly monsters bad. Family good. We agreed to hunt them together. But as we marched deeper into the dense, overgrown brush toward the brutalist concrete facade of the cloning facility, the silence got a little too heavy.
There were no birds. No rustling leaves. Dead silence.
Emphasis on dead.
“Where are they?” I muttered, squinting through my shades at a pile of shredded bones near a shattered stone fountain.
The answer came in the form of a low, vibrating roar that shook the dirt right beneath our boots.
The bushes exploded. Three, four, five massive, bipedal reptiles tore through the foliage, their mottled scales covered in pond scum and their yellow teeth dripping with thick saliva. Gatorclaws. They were fast, weaving through the stone pillars with a terrifying, heavy momentum that completely cut off our path back to the welcome center. One of them lunged forward, its claws scraping hard against the concrete courtyard.
“Oh no! No, no, no!” Thaddeus shrieked, instantly abandoning any hope of being an alpha male as he scrambled backward, tripping over a tree root and dropping his empty pipe rifle into the weeds.
“Back!” Cito roared, swinging his nail-studded club wildly to keep a massive beast from snapping its jaws around his shoulder. The silverback Ghoulrilla let out a deafening chest-thump, charging the flank of another reptile, but the pure volume of scales was overwhelming us.
Then I heard a loud, metallic clatter.
Maximus had completely ditched his improvised bumper-car chassis shield, letting it slam into the dirt like a piece of worthless junk. He wasn't looking at the monsters. His eyes were locked on a rusted, camouflage-painted pre-war safari jeep sitting dead in the middle of the courtyard, its tires entirely flat but its heavy, pintle-mounted minigun still looking remarkably intact. The ammunition feed chute was rusted, but a thick canvas belt of 5mm rounds was still dangling from a steel crate bolted to the truck bed.
“Kenny, look!” Maximus shouted, his mechanical joints giving a frantic, high-pitched whine as he sprinted across the plaza. He leaped into the back of the jeep, his massive T-60 boots denting the flatbed with a loud, ringing boom.
He grabbed the dual spades of the minigun. There was no Brotherhood manual for this. No stoic, calculated knightly protocols. He slammed his armored thumb down on the starter switch, and the electric motor gave a high-pitched, screaming whine as the six barrels began to spin.
Vrrr—BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
A solid wall of white-hot muzzle flash lit up the dark jungle canopy.
“Yeah! Take that, you stupid lizards!” Maximus screamed, his external speakers entirely maxed out and crackling with unhinged, heavy-metal joy. He swung the barrels in a wide, frantic arc, his entire body vibrating from the recoil as a relentless stream of heavy lead chewed through the concrete fountains and shredded the lead Gatorclaw into a flying explosion of green meat and bone fragments. “Who’s scrubbing the latrines now, huh?! Nobody! I’m the one shooting the big gun! Die! Just die!”
Wow. He has issues.
And it was the most beautiful, unhinged thing I’d ever seen. This was a guy who had spent his entire life getting his ribs kicked in by older initiates, polishing someone else’s boots, and carrying heavy bags through the mud. Every ounce of that repressed squire frustration was coming out through the spinning barrels. He wasn't defending the Wasteland; he was just living out the ultimate action-movie fantasy, laughing like a maniac while a mountain of smoking brass casings rained down around his metal ankles.
By the time the barrels spun down to a smoking, clicking halt, the courtyard was dead silent again, completely coated in a thick, foul-smelling layer of reptile mist.
“Wow,” Thaddeus whispered from the dirt, his paper glasses hanging off one ear as he stared up at the jeep in absolute awe. “Maximus is… he’s kind of scary.”
“Cito like the loud metal man,” Cito said, lowering his club with a wide, feral grin.
Me too, Cito.
Me too…
…
Before the smoke could even clear, a loud rustling came from the main path. Mason stepped out from the brush, backed by half a dozen Pack enforcers wearing painted deer skulls and holding spiked baseball bats. The raider leader looked at the absolute carnage in the courtyard, then looked up at Maximus, who was still aggressively panting behind the handles of the minigun.
“Well, damn, Overboss,” Mason said, letting out a low, appreciative whistle as he propped his bat over his shoulder. “We heard the racket all the way from the monorail. Looks like you cleared the nest out right for us.”
“Not for you, Mason. With you.” I said, stepping forward and using every ounce of my Local Leader presence to command the room. I pointed a finger toward Cito and his silverback family. “Here’s the deal. The Pack gets the territory. You get the rides, the shops, and the glory. But Cito and his family are off-limits. They live here. You don't touch them, you don't hunt them, and if anyone in your crew tries to wear a Ghoulrilla hide as a coat, I’ll let Max use the gun on them next. Understand?”
Mason narrowed his eyes, looking at Cito, then back to the smoking minigun. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Fair enough, Boss. We like a guy who sets boundaries. Besides, the wild man knows where the good hunting spots are.”
“Good.” I said, leaning in slightly closer to Mason so the others couldn't hear. “And one more thing. Cito’s going to help me corral a few of those smaller jungle beasts later on. I need some guard dogs for my trade routes outside the park, and his family’s going to facilitate the supply line. Keep your boys out of their way when we do.”
“You’ve got a mind for business, Overboss,” Mason chuckled, turning back to wave his crew into the courtyard to start painting their logos on the walls. “I like that.”
The territory was ours, the raiders were happy, and the loop was perfectly closed. But as I watched the Pack start setting up their neon-painted markers, the adrenaline faded, leaving a cold, heavy pit in the bottom of my stomach. My brain was still tracking logistics, but it felt entirely empty without Lucy’s voice to bounce ideas off of.
I checked my Pip-Boy.
It’s been hours, now.
Is she safe? Is she alright? Why the fuck did I only send Sierra with her as backup? Why did she even agree to this?! Oh, right. Because she trusts me, and wants to know that I can trust her. Which is dumb. Of course, I trust her.
If anything, I’m the untrustworthy one!
How many secrets have I been keeping from her? Not just about me, but about her home? Her father? If something happened to her, I swear, I—well. To butcher a quote from a very wise woman, ‘If anything happens to her, I’m killing everyone in this park, and then myself.’
I mean, more likely than not I’ll die in the attempt, but, fine by me.
Whatever it takes.
“Max, pack it up,” I said, turning away from the cloning lab without a single shred of victory in my voice. “We’re moving. We need to get to the central intersection right now.”
…
The winding stone stairs of the castle were slippery with damp moss, but the top of the tower opened up to a view that almost made Lucy forget the burning in her lungs.
The pink mist was thinner up here, swirling around the crenellations like glowing smoke. Neon signs shaped like giant bottle caps hummed along the battlements, casting a harsh, artificial glare over the concrete floor. At the edge of the roof, looking out over the darkened expanse of the amusement park, stood Oswald. His red magician’s coat was frayed at the hem, catching the radioactive wind, and his silver-tipped cane was planted firmly between his boots. He looked small against the vast wasteland, but the raw, desperate fury radiating off him made him look twice as large.
“So, the stubborn little mice finally made it to the top of the mountain,” Oswald said, turning slowly to face them. He didn't have his top hat on anymore, revealing the scarred, hairless crown of his skull, and his yellow eyes were locked onto Lucy with absolute finality. He drew a long, serrated sword from beneath his coat, the metal catching the green neon light. “You’ve cut through my people, you’ve ruined my illusions, and now you stand in my court. But the show isn't over yet. A true performer always dies on stage.”
“We don't want to kill you, Oswald!” Lucy shouted, holding her hands open and taking a slow, deliberate step forward. Her syringe rifle was slung tightly across her back, completely out of reach. She could feel her heart thumping against her ribs, but she kept her face firm, channeling every ounce of the Golden Rule her father had ever taught her. “We didn't hurt your friends downstairs, either! We just used sleep darts! They’re all just resting in the theater seats!”
Oswald paused, his sword lowering by a fraction of an inch, his rotting brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “You… you didn't purge them?”
“Of course not! They’re your family!” Lucy said, her voice rich with an unshakeable, aggressive empathy that seemed to catch the old ghoul completely off guard. She stepped closer, ignoring the way the radioactive wind stung her eyes. “We know you’re just trying to look after them. We know you’ve been waiting here for a very long time for everyone to get better. But staying here, fighting to the death against a bunch of raiders… it’s not going to fix them, Oswald. It’s just going to leave them with nobody to protect them.”
“You know nothing about us,” Oswald spat, though the anger in his voice sounded hollow now, cracking like dry leather. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, his shoulders trembling beneath the velvet coat. “We were the employees. We were the dancers, the magicians, the mechanics. When the bombs fell, we stayed to keep the magic alive. Rachel and I… we promised them we’d find a cure. I swore I wouldn't leave this castle until she came back with the medicine.”
“But she’s not coming back, Oswald.” Sierra said softly, stepping out from behind Lucy’s shoulder. For the first time all day, she wasn't looking at her park map. She looked incredibly sad, her giant duct-taped Cappy glasses sitting crookedly on her nose as she pulled a small, water-damaged holotape from her pocket. “We found this in the old maintenance tunnels by the park entrance. It’s Rachel’s log. She… she went all the way to the Boston ruins looking for a doctor, but the sickness took her before she could make it back. Her last recording was just her saying how much she loved you, and how she wanted you to stop waiting in the dark.”
Oswald froze. The serrated sword gave a faint, metallic vibration as his hands began to shake violently. He dropped the weapon, the blade clattering against the concrete floor with a loud, ringing sound that seemed to echo across the entire kingdom. He fell to his knees, his face burying into his rotting palms as a low, choked sob broke through his chest.
Lucy didn't hesitate. She walked right past the dropped sword and knelt beside him on the damp stone, placing a gentle, steady hand on his frayed red shoulder. It was a completely reckless thing to do with an immortal, irradiated mutant, but she couldn't just stand there and watch someone’s world fall apart.
“You kept your promise,” Lucy whispered, her voice soft and entirely devoid of the usual vault cheer. “You looked after them for over two hundred years. That’s a beautiful thing, Oswald. But Rachel didn't want you to die in a castle covered in poison. The world out there is huge, and there are people alive right now who need a good magician. You can go find her resting place. You can finally leave the park.”
Oswald slowly lifted his head, his yellow eyes clouded with tears as he looked at Lucy, then at the holotape in Sierra’s hand. He reached out with a trembling, skeletal finger, touching the plastic casing of the tape as if it were made of glass.
“Two hundred years,” he breathed, a ghost of a sad, theatrical smile touching his lips. “The longest run in the history of the theater. And the curtain finally falls.”
He stood up slowly, his joints popping, and picked up his top hat from the stone ledge. He brushed a layer of radioactive dust off the brim, placing it firmly back on his head with a faint, dignified tilt. He didn't look like a monster anymore; he just looked like an old performer who had finally finished his final act.
“Take the castle,” Oswald said, turning toward the stone stairs without looking back. “The keys to the maintenance terminal are in the theater box office. Just… make sure the raiders don't touch the costumes in the dressing room. Rachel always hated when people ruined the wardrobe.”
He vanished down the dark stairwell, his boots making a slow, echoing thud until the sound was completely swallowed by the howling wind.
Lucy let out a long, shuddering breath she felt like she’d been holding since they entered the gates. She looked down at her hands, still slightly sticky from the sweet, toxic mist, and felt a sudden, desperate urge to be back in a place that didn't smell like old candy and centuries of grief. She wanted to see a pair of aviators. She wanted to hear a dry, cynical comment that made the whole world feel smaller and simpler again.
“Come on, Sierra,” Lucy said, reaching down to pick up her rifle as she turned toward the elevator. “Let’s go find Kenny. I think we’re all out of magic, today.”
…
The smell of burning sage and unwashed wool always hung heavy inside the ruins of the observatory, but today it was choked out by the sharp, chemical stench of cheap grain alcohol.
Moldaver watched the thin man sitting tied to the wooden chair across from her desk. He was a pathetic specimen, wrapped in a filthy patchwork trench coat, his face a map of poorly stitched scars that looked like they had been sewn together by a blind man with a rusty needle.
“Doctor” Chicken Friedman, as the scavengers called him, didn't look like a man holding the key to the end of the world. He looked like an regular fraud who had survived the surface purely by being too slippery for the bugs to bother chewing on.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Chicken.” Moldaver said, her hands resting flat on the map spread across her desk. She didn't raise her voice. She had spent decades waiting for the right pieces to fall into place, and she had learned that patience was a far more effective tool than an iron pipe. “The traders from the hub say you were bragging about a Master Vault-Tec key card. Where is it?”
“Now, now, Madame Flame, let’s not use such aggressive vocabulary!” Chicken chirped, offering a completely nonchalant, yellow-toothed grin despite the rope cutting into his skinny wrists. He tilted his head, his greasy hair falling over a freshly scabbed ear. “Bragging is such a loud word. I prefer to call it marketing! But as for the item in question… well, the truth is a fluid thing. I did have it. A magnificent piece of pre-war plastics, truly a work of art! But it has recently migrated to a new owner.”
Moldaver’s jaw tightened. She leaned forward, the shadow of her heavy leather coat falling over his face. “Who took it?”
“I got it in a trade, you know! A perfectly fair, mutually beneficial transaction!” Chicken reminisced, his voice rising into the high, sing-song cadence of a carnival barker. “You see, a frantic young man came tumbling out of the hills a while back. Wearing one of those pristine blue pajamas from the local hole in the dirt. He was desperate. Absolutely frantic! A group of nasty little Vipers had snatched a girl from his neck of the woods, and he needed names, locations, firepower! I happen to be a repository of local knowledge, so I provided the coordinates. He provided the card. Not an ounce of extortion involved, I assure you!”
Moldaver kept her eyes locked on his face, parsing through the theater. “And where is this vault boy now?”
“Oh, who knows? Probably vulture food.” Chicken sighed, casually shifting his weight in the chair. “But the plot, you see, thickens! Not long after the boy trotted off to play hero, a much older gentleman from the exact same hole came knocking on my door. A very intense fellow. Terrible manners. He found out I’d acquired the master card from the boy, and he didn't care for my trade policies at all. Took the card right back by force! And then, just to be entirely thorough, he performed a few rather experimental surgical procedures on my person as a penalty for handling stolen vault property.”
He gestured vaguely with his chin toward the clumsy black stitches holding the side of his neck together.
“A bit barbaric, honestly,” Chicken muttered, rolling his eyes. “But I’m fairly certain there are no lasting side effects. I haven't even had to use my patented miracle elixirs on myself, which are perfectly safe and cure all manner of rot, mind you! I just… prefer to let nature heal the flesh. No need to waste inventory.”
“The older man,” Moldaver interrupted, her fingers digging slightly into the edges of her desk. “What was his name?”
“Didn't catch it. He wasn't the type for introductions.” Chicken said. “Just kept yelling about his daughter. Raving like a lunatic about finding her before the surface chewed her up.”
“And the boy? The one who gave you the card in the first place?”
“No idea. Blue pajamas all look the same to me, Madame.” Chicken said, shaking his head until his greasy locks rattled. “But the older guy did mention the girl’s name. He was looking for her, too. Quite a distinctive name, actually. Lucy MacLean.”
The name hit Moldaver like a physical blow.
MacLean.
The map on her desk suddenly faded into the background as the memories of a clean, corporate room from two centuries ago flashed through her mind. Hank MacLean. The golden boy of the executive suites. The loyal little manager who had helped turn the keys that burned the sky… and did so again, not all that long ago, as the NCR can testify.
He was on the surface, he was actively hunting for his daughter, and he had the master clearance card in his pocket. It was the one piece she lacked to open the vault doors and take back what was stolen from her. Failing that, she could just take him.
She stood up so quickly the wooden chair scraped loudly against the concrete floor. She didn't look at Chicken anymore. He was irrelevant now. The entire board had just shifted, and the quarry was finally out in the open.
“Garrison!” Moldaver called out, her voice cutting through the damp air of the observatory like a cracked whip.
A tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in mismatched combat armor stepped out from the shadows of the arched doorway, his rifle slung low. “Yeah, Boss?”
“Get the radio operators on the long-range transmitter.” Moldaver said, her face hardening into a smooth, cold mask of absolute focus. She walked over to the high window, looking out over the ruined, blackened hills stretching into the distance. “We’re putting out a high-priority bounty. Every trade network from here to the eastern coast. Send out the couriers with paper flyers to every major settlement. I want every scrapper, raider, and merc looking for him.”
“What’s the description?” Garrison asked, pulling a small charcoal pencil from his vest.
“Male, white, wearing a blue jumpsuit from Vault 33.” Moldaver said, her fingers tightening into a fist against the cold stone of the windowsill. “Bring him to me alive. Tell them they can name their price in gold, caps, or clean water. Just find him.”
…
My boots practically sprinted across the cracked pavement of Nuka-Town’s central crossroads, my eyes darting through the rusted market stalls and empty neon displays. Behind me, Maximus’s heavy T-60 armor was clanging with a frantic, metallic rhythm, and Thaddeus was struggling to keep up, panting heavily with his pipe rifle slung awkwardly over his shoulder.
I didn't care about the territory lines anymore. I didn't care about Mason’s Pack or the underlying stress of keeping three raider gangs from slitting our throats. The logistics in my brain had narrowed down to one single, terrifying calculation: the distance between where I was standing and Kiddie Kingdom.
Just as we hit the center of the intersection, a loud, mechanical hum echoed from the park’s main terminal grid. Above us, the old rusted pipes built into the sides of the street lamps suddenly gave a wet, sputtering hiss.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
A massive, multi-colored cloud exploded directly over the plaza. It wasn't radiation, and it wasn't poison. It was thousands of tiny, faded pre-war paper squares, drifting lazily through the humid air like a localized blizzard. The automated systems of the castle had obviously cleared, and the ancient programming had triggered a celebratory confetti shower right over our heads.
Through the spinning vortex of faded pink, blue, and yellow paper, I saw her.
Lucy was walking toward the intersection from the western path, her blue Vault-Tec jumpsuit smudged with dark soot and her orange paper Cappy glasses hanging slightly crookedly off the bridge of her nose. Sierra was hovering just behind her, still clutching her glossy map, but the second Lucy’s eyes met mine, her entire face changed. The exhaustion vanished from her expression, replaced by a raw, transparent relief that mirrored the exact thing loosening the tight knot in my own chest.
“Kenny!” Lucy breathed, her voice cutting right through the soft rustle of the falling paper. She didn't slow down. She kept marching forward until she was standing directly in front of me, the faded confetti catching in her dark hair.
“You’re alive,” I said, the words slipping out before I could wrap them in my usual layers of dry, defensive irony. I reached out, my fingers catching her shoulder just to prove to my own brain that she was actually there, solid and safe, and not a hallucination born out of wasteland stress. “The ghouls over there didn't try to turn you into a prop?”
“We’re perfectly fine.” Lucy said, a soft, incredibly genuine smile spreading across her lips as she looked up at me. She reached up, her small hand gently resting over mine where it was still gripping her shoulder. Her touch was warm, completely grounding me against the insane backdrop of this theme park. “We met a magician. He was very sad, but we talked it out, and he left the castle to go look for his wife. I think… I think we actually helped him, Kenny.”
I looked down at her, seeing the faint glitter of the rad-soaked paper reflecting in her wide, trusting eyes. The bravado of the Local Leader perk, the calculated statistics of my high Intelligence, the whole ridiculous idea that I could just play this world like a video game—it all felt incredibly flimsy compared to the simple reality of her standing here.
I’d spent the last hour imagining every single scenario where a feral ghoul tore her to pieces, and every single one of those scenarios ended with me pulling a trigger on myself just to see a loading screen.
It was a very ghoulish line of thinking… pun not intended.
“Don't do that again,” I said softly, my voice dropping lower as I stepped a fraction closer, completely ignoring the fact that Maximus and Thaddeus were watching us from five feet away. I reached up with my free hand, gently adjusting the rim of her crooked orange glasses so they sat straight on her nose. “The splitting up thing. It’s a terrible strategy. The logistics are awful.”
“Is that a professional opinion, Overboss?” Lucy teased, though her voice had dropped into that quieter, personal register that always made the rest of the world completely fade into the background. Her fingers tightened slightly around mine.
“It’s an honest one,” I said, letting out a short, quiet laugh that felt entirely real. I didn't even bother pushing my aviators up to hide the expression on my face. “The wasteland is a meat grinder, Lucy. I can calculate supply lines and defensive turrets all day long, but none of it works if you're not around to tell me my plans are too cynical. We’re a team. No more separate fronts.”
“Deal,” Lucy whispered, her smile softening into something deep, steady, and unshakeable. She didn't let go of my hand, and as we stood there in the center of the ruined plaza with the faded paper rain falling all around our boots, I knew the split was never happening again.
Honestly, it’s probably for the best.
Who knows what I’d do if Lucy wasn’t around to keep me in check.