The Survivor’s Guide to the Wasteland

The intel room was packed with goodies, and it took me almost half an hour before I was done skimming through the entire place. The intel room was a jackpot of loot. Other than the stacks of almost pristine paper, the far right corner was a large green trunk packed full of ammunition with a military star. Looting it gave me a few dozen .308 and .45 rounds alongside a fragmentation mine. 

In the other corner near the door was a large novice-level locked safe with a snubnosed revolver, a few boxes of .38 and 10mm ammunition, a stack of pre-war money, and a few pieces of fancy silverware. The safe was probably some higher-ranking officer's personal safe.

Moving on from the safe, two benches took up the middle of the room. Atop one of them was a mini-nuke. The miniature-nuclear bomb was the big prize and the main reason I wanted to check out the station. What was I going to do with a handheld WMD? Who knows, but better to have and not need it than need it and not have it. Push comes to shove, I can pull a mini-nuke out, and most people would probably run the other way as fast as possible. 

Thinking about mini-nukes brought up memories of one of my least favorite enemies, the super mutant suicider, and I shuddered at the thought of meeting them. The suicide variant of the violent mutants somehow got their hands on a mini-nuke and would tuck it under their arms and charge at enemies with them armed. The constant beeping of the bomb gets louder and louder until you finally see a seven-foot-tall green giant turning the corner, and sprinting at you is scary to see in-game. I can't imagine what it would be like in real life.

The last thing of interest in the intel room was a U.S. Covert Operation Manual at the end of one of the benches. The cover was no-nonsense and only had the title 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' on it with the seal of the Department of the Army right below. Picking it up, I was greeted with green text hovering over the manual telling me that I had collected an issue of the U.S. Covert operations manual and that I was now permanently more difficult to detect while sneaking.

Like the 'You're Special' comic in Sanctuary that gave me a boost in any of my SPECIAL stats, there are other various comics and manuals that gave different types of permanent stat boosts. Covert Ops Manuals made you stealthier, Grognak the Barbarian comics increased melee critical damage, Guns and Bullets increased ballistic damage, etc. 

I'm considering finding more of these magazines now that I confirmed the 'You're Special' comic isn't an outlier in increasing my stats. I don't remember all the types of magazines you can find, but I know the cumulative advantage it brings is borderline game-breaking. Once I settle down, I'll have to devise a plan to find as many as possible.

When I was sure I got everything I wanted from the intel room in my inventory, I exited the room and looked for a way to get deeper into the compound. Looking to my right, I could see a concrete pillar in the middle of the room. The wall farthest from me had three windows looking further into the station. On either side of the room was a corridor. I walked over to the rightmost window and peeked at what was on the other side.

What I saw was a large room with a fusion generator in the middle. Around the room was a overwalk that had a connecting ramp on the right side of the room. Besides the gentle whirring noise from the generator, the area was barren, giving me creeps. It seemed like the corridors on both sides led to the generator, so I just went down the right side since it was closer.

The corridor turned right and turned into another set of stairs leading down. Once I made my way to the bottom, I was greeted with two doorways, one on the left and one on the opposite end. The one on the left and closer to me led to the generator room, so I decided to go through that one first since I could loot a fusion core from the generator.

The generator room was much larger than looking through a small window made it feel like. Besides the generator, there are a few metal storage crates and control panels. I walked up to the generator and pulled the fusion core out from it. The lights blinked a couple of times before they stayed on. I guess there's a charged battery somewhere that's running the place when the fusion core is removed. I'd better finish looting the place before that battery runs out.

I spent a few minutes looting the generator room, and with the fanciest thing I found was some circuit boards. Other than that, I only found some simple hand tools. There was also a terminal in the middle controlling the satellite dish. It showed all the systems were offline, and playing with the options showed no way to turn any of them back on. When I was done, I backtracked and went through the other doorway. 

The next room had a collection of lockers on each wall and a single cabinet in the middle. I opened the door to all the lockers and found more cigarettes, a few uniforms, and a pair of boots still sealed in their packaging. It wasn't my size, but I bet brand-new military boots would fetch an excellent price on the market.

I heard skittering noises behind me as I finished looting the last locker. I quickly turned around, seeing nothing in the room behind me. The noise came from the next room, where I saw a hole in the concrete wall that had dirt coming out. Deciding not just to leave the mystery noise alone, I walked deeper into the hole to investigate.

What seemed like a hole quickly became an extensive tunnel system. Tunnels split into multiple paths, some small and others just barely big enough for me to fit through in my power armor. There weren't any light sources, so I had to turn my helmet light to be able to see where I was going. The skittering noise returned for another few seconds, this time coming from the large main tunnel, so I kept going down that route.

At this point, I had equipped one of my trusty combat shotguns from my inventory. In this confined space, shotguns were king, and if the noise turned out to be something big, I wouldn't have to worry about 10mm or .45 acp not doing enough damage. Guns were never the solution if it can't be stopped by 12 gauge buckshot.

The strange sound got louder and more frequent until it became constant after the tunnel opened into a small chamber. The chamber floor was covered in small bunches of white cylinders roughly twice the size of a football. The chamber looked like something straight out of the Alien franchise. Besides the cylinders, there wasn't anything in the chamber that was moving, and it took me a moment before I realized that the sound was coming from above me. 

A shiver was sent up my spine as I looked up and was shocked to find the source of the noise. A group of ants were crawling around on the dirt ceiling above me. And these weren't any ol' regular ants since they were about three feet long and roughly the footprint of medium-sized dogs. Some of them also had strange colors. 

Most were black, constantly weaving in and out of smaller tunnels with bits of food between their jaws. But two were red and weren't moving an inch from their spots, staring at me with their beady black compound eyes. The way they would lick their legs and then clean their antennas while staring at me was freaking me out. Fuck it, I already got the fusion core and the mini-nuke. I'm fucking out of here. Turning around to leave, I was greeted by two giant glowing ants blocking my path.

While staring down at the two ants in my path, suddenly, I felt something hit my helmet from above. The thing then quickly clambered around to my visor, and I could see it was one of the black ants with a furry piece of meat still dripping blood within its jaws. Instinctively, I swatted the thing off my face and onto the ground.

The ant landed on its back and made an angry chittering noise after dropping the bit of meat in its jaw. Its six legs flung around wildly until it managed to tip itself back over. The ant then charged at me, and I stomped on it out of reflex. Instantly, I knew that was the wrong thing to do.

The room became deafly silent, and all the ants froze and looked at me. The tension built up until it was so thick that I could drink it with a spoon. The ants were the ones that made the first move. One of the glowing ants threw its head into the air, and a shrill screech immediately filled the tunnels, ringing my ears.

I didn't wait to see what they would do next and charged at the two glowing ants blocking the way out of the tunnel while blasting away with my shotgun. I don't think that screech was a pleasant one. Spent shotgun shells flew out of the chamber of my gun while pellets sprayed out from the muzzle and penetrated the two ants in front of me. 

One glowing ant was blown in half, while the other lost all its limbs on the left side. I quickly finished the job by goomba stomping the ant missing legs. A disgusting crunch sounded beneath me, and ant meat and luminescent liquid splattered out. I could hear the ants running after me now, and going by how much noise they were making, there wasn't just the couple of dozens I saw in the chamber.

Doing my best to multitask, I dropped the mag in my combat shotgun and pulled a fresh one out of my inventory to replace it. I was briefly relieved when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, only to turn around to see what was behind me and have that relief replaced by a rush of fear. The tunnel was utterly covered in overgrown ants on all sides, and they were swarming toward me with violent intent. And they were gaining.

Fuck.

I thought I might have been able to make it out of the station and shut the place down before getting some distance, but at this rate, they'll catch up to me long before I can put a door between us. My power armor might save me for a while, but if I get overrun and covered by ants, they'll be able to bite their way through eventually. I'm going to have to fight. The question is, how?

Ideally, I would limit the fight to where the ants only have one way of getting at me. Anyone that played an RPG long enough knows that the best way to deal with swarming enemies is to abuse a choke point. Bonus points if you could collapse the choke point. My best option here is probably going to be the entrance of the tunnel.

After another left turn, I was greeted by the exit. Turning around, I immediately activated VATS and slowed down time. There were already ten ants in my targeting area, but I only had the action points to shoot five of them. Now I wish I invested in Agility when I had the chance.

Five shots rang out from my shotgun before time returned to normal speed. Four of the five shots connected and made quick work of their intended targets. However, I didn't have time to celebrate as their replacement quickly flowed from deeper into the tunnel. After three more shots, I heard a click from my shotgun and realized that my gun had run dry.

The combat shotgun might be an excellent tool for dealing with single targets, but eight rounds in the magazine made it a poor tool for my current situation. Good thing that my bullshit inventory power froze time because if I had to open a pack and search for something while getting chased down by an ant swarm, I would have shit myself. Opening my inventory, I stored my shotgun and brought out the big guns.

An immense weight fell into my arms, and my power armor strained to hoist up the massive hunk of steel that was the minigun I found in Concord. I pulled the trigger, and the motor started spinning the six barrels. Half a second later, bullets started raining down on the advancing stream of giant ants.

Parts of shells and insect limbs flew in all directions as I sent a tidal wave of lead down into the tunnels. The overwhelming firepower of the minigun stemmed the tide of the oncoming swarm, but ammo was quickly running out. Right as the barrel began to glow a soft orange from firing continuously for more than 10 seconds, I felt something pierce into my right knee.

"FUCK!"

Looking down, I saw that one of the red ants had somehow latched onto my leg and bitten through the plastic joints. Immediately following, the skin around the bite began to feel like someone had set fire to it, and a searing pain coursed through my entire leg. Imagine a fire ant bite, but the fire ant was the size of a golden retriever and had an equally significant amount of venom.

Some ants must have been outside the tunnel, taking this chance to ambush me. A few more black ants scurried out from various hiding places inside the station and crawled around my suit as I slaughtered their kin in the tunnels. Occasionally, I would hear soft clinking sounds as they bit in various places, searching for another weak point like the red one had. 

The minigun took both arms to operate, so I couldn't afford to swat away the little fuckers trying to sink its mandibles into me. I had been slowly backing away from the tunnel. The ant horde was thinning out, but they were now only about half a dozen feet from entering the station. I knew allowing them to spread out would spell my doom. Not long after the surprise attack from the ants outside the tunnel, my minigun ran out of ammo, and the barrel was glowing a bright yellow from the constant firing. 

As great a weapon as the minigun is, it only had 500 rounds, and it seems like I expended all of it. I needed to buy time to reload the thing, so I removed the landmine I found from the intel room and tossed it like a frisbee at the tunnel entrance. Surprisingly, the closest ant decided to bite into it, probably thinking it was a part of me and, therefore, the enemy. It activated the pressure switch on the mine, and a fireball exploded out from the mine.

Shrapnel tore through the air at supersonic speeds, shredding anything within a 10-foot radius and peppering my power armor. A whole group of ants was instantly vaporized, and a chorus of pained screeches came from behind the immediate blast radius after shrapnel tore through them. The explosion was so big that bits of dirt fell off the wall and ceiling. I held out hope that the tunnel would collapse, but no such luck.

Using the lull in combat, I quickly swapped the empty drum in my minigun for a fresh one. The vertibird in Concord only had two drums worth of magazine, so if this wasn't enough, I would be in some deep shit. The ant swarm soon resumed, but I noticed considerably fewer ants this time. Instead of an endless mob, it was now reduced to a manageable trickle.

Just when I thought I was finally in control again, a mix between a roar and a squeal echoed from the right of me. The noise thundered through the station, causing the place to shake slightly. A banging then came from the storage room doors. I watched in shock and horror as they flew off their hinges and the largest abomination of an ant I've ever seen crashed into my view.

*SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR*

It was at least as tall as me in my power armor and as long and wide as a minivan. The mandibles were two feet long and looked like scimitars growing from its head. Two giant antennas grew out from next to its disgusting compound eyes, waving around madly as if trying to desperately search for something.

Behind the head was the thorax, with six legs that end in spine-covered feet. And it needed those powerful looking six legs to drag around the giant undulating egg sac. And to top it all off, the monstrosity had wings. Two giant semi-translucent wings fluttered on its back so fast that it looked like a blur and generated a low bussing noise rattling my skull's base.