NOVEL WEB Chapter 27
"Good to go, Isabel?"
Isabel rummaged through one of the bags attached to one of the tank bots before zipping it up and ensuring the straps were tightened down as much as possible.
"Yup. I got all my stuff sorted and gave the bots one last check-up. Ready when you are."
Hearing that, I looked over the newest addition to our team, Tanya.
"How about you, Tanya? Are you feeling alright? We can stay for another day. I don't want you pushing yourself if your body isn't ready."
Tanya could barely lift her arm when she first woke up, but after over a week of nursing, she could walk independently again. Tanya even helped Isabel with light labor in her free time while I was scavenging for supplies. I watched in wonder as someone who looked like they were about to keel over and die transformed into a healthy, beautiful woman in only a week.
"I'm feeling better than ever. Ready to see this amazing factory you and Isabel are so excited about."
Her sickly pale complexion gave way to a healthy tan that was complemented by her platinum blonde hair. Her body had put the food we gave her to good use, and her body filled out nicely, no longer looking like a twig that might snap in the wind. Tanya's eyes were also no longer sunken in, which helped bring out her striking blue eyes, beautifully framed by thick dark brows. If it weren't for the fact that I witnessed the transformation myself, I wouldn't have believed that the Tanya here was the same person I found in the ant nest.
"Ok. But if you start feeling funny, let us know."
"You got it, boss."
Tanya nodded obediently, calming me somewhat when she agreed to at least let me know if she was having difficulties. She looked in great shape, or at least no worse than other people surviving in the wasteland. But how fast she recovered was worrying in its own way. Maybe it had something to do with her supernatural powers?
After Tanya had recovered and we felt like it was time to move on, I brought up the issue of what to do with her to Isabel. Isabel had no way of knowing it, but Tanya was someone who could control ants to do her bidding. Someone like that could significantly increase our combat and building capabilities.
Isabel was an altruist and readily agreed with my suggestion that I should offer Tanya to come with us if she didn't have anywhere to go. That only left me the job of convincing Tanya. I told her everything. My goal to get to the underground factory, to help the wastelanders thrive, to rebuild the world into a better place. I was worried Tanya would think I was a crazy person and overzealous, but luckily, she threw herself at the opportunity to join us. A little too eagerly, perhaps, but I won't stare a gift horse in the mouth.
"Alright, girls. Let's hit the road."
Isabel pulled out a large tablet she had made by cannibalizing the terminal in the robotics junkyard and pressed a few buttons. Four of the seven flying Outrider robots immediately zoomed into the sky and zipped ahead while the other two hovered above us. The rest of the robots also started moving, with the four Scrapbots moving to form a loose line 100 yards in front of us while the two Tankbots served as immediate guards and pack mules.
Isabel, Tanya, and I walked past the rusty old fence of the junkyard we called home for the last week and a half and orientated ourselves southeast toward the Boston airport. The secret underground factory was roughly twenty miles from the robotics disposal ground on the same island where the Prydwen would land. We were hoping to be able to make the journey in three days, two if we were lucky.
Luckily, the scavenging trips after Satellite Station Olivia were much more successful. The week's first highlight was Starlight Drive-In, where I found a fusion core in the storage area behind the wall where the giant screen would have been for the theater. The other standout was Super Duper Mart, where I found another fusion core and a whole boatload of supplies. So despite finally draining one, combining the two cores I looted last week and the one in the abandoned T51, I still had 3 fusion cores in my inventory.
The other supplies I found were also nothing to scoff at. After several days of breaking into old abandoned buildings and flipping through drawers, I've managed to completely pack two duffel bags worth of food and drinks. What I found would be enough for almost a week if we rationed our food. We'll be eating bland, chemical-packed, preserved junk, but food is food, and starving to death sucks more than eating crud.
Besides food, I also found four more stimpaks, three radaways, and a bunch of junk I scrapped for parts. Never know when those might be helpful, especially if you're traveling with a pack of robots and an engineer prone to tinkering. I had to hide the weirder things I couldn't explain, like raw metal ingots and nuclear material in my inventory, but I packed everything else into the storage containers on the robots.
Eventually, I'll have to come clean about my powers to anyone close to me. I won't be able to hide it forever, and people as smart as Isabel can tell something is off. Better for the truth to come out in a controlled and honest manner than for a companion to catch me red-handed. I didn't know how I would do it, but I decided to light the metaphorical fire under my ass by saying that I'll at least tell Isabel within one week of arriving at what would have become her lair. Fingers crossed, she won't freak out.
Aaaaaaaaaanyways...
When we finally decided to leave yesterday, I used my Pip-Boy and plotted a route to the robot factory hidden below a RobCo sales and service center. Isabel then uploaded the map to her Outriders, who will fly ahead and do some early scouting. If the Outriders spot anything, they'll relay the information back to us, and the Scrapbots will be the first line of contact. Four Scrapbots should be enough for most situations, so the Tankbots will primarily serve as our dedicated escorts.
Having the robots do the fighting will also be a significant burden off my back, especially with the state of my power armor. Fighting, the ant queen busted the left leg and pushed the rest of the pieces to their breaking point. The close-range mini-nuke blast caused minor fractures, and the ant queen biting the helmet created large dents and some cracks in the visor's edges.
I was hoping that Isabel could fix the pieces somewhat, but she informed me they were all basically junk. Isabel said that the immense heat had weakened the heat treatment of the steel, and that she couldn't bring the armor back up to standard without an industrial-grade oven. Her suggestion was to use the T51 right leg, chest piece, and helmet I found at the crashed vertibird and replace the other components whenever I get the chance.
I gave the go-ahead, and Isabel swapped out the chest piece, helmet, and left arm. She couldn't do anything about the broken left leg so that part of my body was only covered by the power armor frame. I knew I could probably repair them as long as I got to a power armor station, so I stuffed the old pieces into one of the bags on the tank bot, saying that we could sell them for scrap later.
And that leaves us where we are now, walking the old abandoned roads of the northwestern greater Boston area. And despite the environment, I found myself in, I felt good. Secure. Strange how much my general attitude could change over a week and a half.
I wasn't in a great place after the mishap with the satellite station. Using a strategy that, in hindsight, was clearly suicidal and almost dying didn't do wonders for the psyche. Combine that with seeing the state Tanya was in and the stress of our dwindling food supply, and I was anxious, to say the least.
But every day I returned from a successful trip hunting for loot was a little confidence booster. Being able to eat each night without worrying about that being the last bit of food was a confirmation that things would be ok. Tanya got healthier by the day, more robots were added to the small army, and we had bountiful supplies. I could convince myself that everything was getting better and that once we made it to the underground robotics factory, we could start helping the wasteland.
Honestly, the only thing I was a bit annoyed about was that I couldn't develop my relationship further with Isabel. Tanya woke up right as things were about to get steamy between us. With me being out of the camp most of the day and Tanya sleeping in the same place, we didn't have the chance to see how our relationship would develop.
With our situation stabilizing, my libido returned with a fierce vengeance. It didn't help that the girls would work in tanktops, showing off their sizeable busts and fit bodies. And I swear Tanya is purposely teasing me. Her clothes would cling to her sweaty skin, and she would constantly tug at the neckline to fan herself and give me a perfect view at her cleavage. Other times she would stretch or bend over while working on something when I was nearby, giving me glimpses at her toned midriffs and shapely rump.
I glanced at Tanya and was surprised to see her looking back at me. She maintained eye contact for a few seconds before giving me a slight grin and returning to looking at the road ahead. What the hell was that? Why was she smiling? Did she know? To stop my imagination from running wild and turning the bulge in my pants from a semi to a full hard-on, I took my mind off things by focusing on my levels.
Defeating the ant queen and her nest had given me a whopping six levels, bumping me from level 23 to level 29. I gained another 2 levels from the various minor skirmishes while out looting. Thinking about the 28 days later like ghouls in the Super Duper Mart gave me shivers. At least the mental scaring rewarded me with xp points. That left me at level 31 and a spare 10 points to use to boost my SPECIAL stats or get perks.
First, I will focus on increasing the frequency and damage I could deal with VATS. While playing the various fallout games, I usually forgo raising the Agility stat because I didn't like using VATS in the FPS titles. I found that I was more accurate than the system most of the time, and the added chances of crits weren't worth investing in other perks. But that view changed when I fought the ant queen and her swarm.
Having the ability to slow time to a crawl and strategize how to best approach is an invaluable tool. And I was only more accurate because I knew I was playing a video game. With the stresses of the real world, letting the VATS system take over was a better option than me forgetting the fundamentals of shooting because I was being rushed by a pack of feral ghouls.
With that in mind, I used two points to raise my Agility from 3 to 5. This bumped the points up from 90 to 110. It also allowed me to spend two more points to unlock the second level of Action Boy. Level two of Action Boy increased my AP regeneration by 50%, significantly reducing the downtime between each VATS application.
I then used four points to increase my luck to 8 and put two more points into getting the second level of Grim Reaper's Sprint. Having Grim Reaper's Sprint at level two meant a 25% chance any kill in VATS would restore all my AP. This skill effectively made me more dangerous the more enemies I engaged in VATS.
With my last two points, I got the final level of Life Giver and the second level of Toughness. Life Giver level three gave me another 20 additional health, bumping it up to 403, and allowed me to slowly regenerate lost health. The rate seemed locked in at 0.5% every minute, meaning I could heal from nothing to total health in three hours and twenty minutes.
This wasn't enough to make a difference in combat, but it saved me from using stimpaks outside of it. Eventually, I'll combo Life Giver with max-leveled Solar Powered, which heals my injuries and radiation while under the sunlight. But that required being level 50, so it would be later in the future.
Toughness level 2 just gave another flat +20 in all damage resistances. It's boring, but I'll always take the chance to take less damage. If I learned anything so far, it was that getting hurt was inevitable in the wasteland. The trick is minimalizing the injury when it does happen.
Once done with my stats, I willed the system away and focused back on the road. We had a long way to go, and I wanted to ensure we made good time.
