PipLog 6 - You can't trust ANYONE
Transcription Begins 08-18-2277 14:05
God DAMN that Moriarty!
I decided to follow up on Sheriff Simms's advice and see if anyone at the bar had seen Dad. I ran into its owner, that bastard Moriarty, just outside.
He immediately seemed to know who I was talking about, and claimed to know where Dad had gone, and offered to sell me the information for 100 caps. Caps, I guess, are what the people out here use for money.
We didn't have money down in the vault. You were given your share of the vault's resources, nothing more than what you needed, in exchange for doing what work you could do. But they taught us what money was, how capitalism worked, you know, as part of our cultural heritage.
But of course I didn't have any Caps. He told me I could get some by handling some situation with a junkie who'd ripped him off, but by then I'd stopped paying attention. I should have been more focused, maybe I'd have been more careful, but I was waiting for the conversation to end so I could hit up the supply store and sell some of the stuff I'd found on those bodies outside the vault.
That's where I went next. Craterside supply.
Someone had scratched the shop's name into the side with a nail, I guess. Inside it was a bit cozier. What caught my eye, though, was the vault suit behind the counter. It'd been... modified. Reinforced.
The clerk - Moira - was happy to take the drugs I'd found on those bodies in exchange for caps... which, it turns out, are bottle caps. She was a pretty chatty lady. Writing a book on wasteland survival, and offered to pay me to help her with her research. My priority was Dad, though, so I thanked her, took my caps, and went back to that rat fink Moriarty.
I didn't see him out front, so I went into the bar and that's where I saw my first ghoul.
This is Gob. I... freaked out a bit when I first saw him, and I feel kinda bad about that because he's really a nice guy who gets shit from a lot of people, especially his asshole boss. He was... patient with my reaction. Ghouls are, apparently, people who were mutated by the wasteland's radiation. They look like rotting meat, but are pretty strong and apparently don't age.
Anyway, he directed me to the Boss, and I told Moriarty that I was ready to pay for info on Dad's whereabouts.
Bastard raised the price. Now it was 300 caps.
I lost my shit a bit, but he was calm, collected, and utterly merciless. I didn't know what to do. Simms had offered me a hundred caps to disarm the nuke, but I'll be honest - I deal with wiring and pipes, not explosives. I did not have faith that I could safely handle that bomb.
My only other lead was helping Moira, so I went back... and she told me that she wanted to measure the effects of radiation and test some experimental cures. One thing I do know - both from physics class and helping Dad in the clinic - is rads. I know how much a person can take before they start oozing blood... and Moira was asking for a lot. But I needed the money, and I knew where I could soak up some of those rads.
God, I can even see how the rads are distorting the image. But what choice did I have? I hung out next to that bomb, even drank the water at its base. I barely made it back up the ramp to Craterside, where Moira did... something... with Brahmin milk and magnets. And a bunch of RadAway.
In return, she gave me some chems. I can sell them back to her for caps, but it won't get me near enough what Moriarty wants. Moira has another offer for me... I head out to a nearby grocery store and scout it for food and drugs left over from before the war.
I'm hesitant about going out into the wasteland again, but I'm not sure what else I can do. I have to follow Dad, and the longer it takes, the colder the trail gets.
Oh, and because I'm helping her with her book, Moira gave me the armored vault suit - said she made it for someone else from 101 who left a few years ago and never came back. I feel safer wearing it.
Transcription Ends 08-18-2277 14:22