"Of course sir. It would be my pleasure."
"Our commander, the last high-ranking officer of our forces, decided that we have already lost everything we hold dear and because of that we all left our old base, in hopes that we might find a better home east. How wrong we were. Four hundred and eighty-seven people left our old bunker and by the time, we reached the Mojave Desert, only half of that number survived."
"Sorry for interrupting you sir, but what attacked you on the road?"
"Everything you can imagine. From tribes of savages to raiders and bandits, and finally to creatures and abominations. Strangely enough, the NCR and their rangers left us alone even when they spotted us. With our numbers dwindling by the day, our commander made his second fatal mistake, he took us through mountain passes infested with mutants and bloodthirsty killing machines. What you see here were the last of my people. A woman who called herself an ex-member of the Enclave, one that managed to escape years ago when we fought the NCR, but as you can see … we were foolish, no we were desperate enough to believe her without even thinking that this might be a trap, fooled us. As you… can see, we got ambushed here by them. Those bloody abominations were the reason we lost the war and now the last of us are lying dead in the middle of nowhere. Alas, we managed to wipe out all of them with our last resort…"
The man start coughing badly, and just as I was about to rush towards him and try to help him to the best of my abilities, he stopped me, by grabbing me.
"Don't! I'm already a dead man, don't even bother trying to help me. The radiations and my injuries are beyond anything a young boy as you could deal with, besides there's no point for me to live now after my people and my family died. Thank you for listening to my story, lad."
I felt so helpless, not being able to do anything for him, thought I could at least end his suffering if he so desire.
"I know that this might not be the end you might have dreamed of, but would you let me end your suffering? I don't want someone like you to die a painful and slow death while watching their loved ones bodies burning…"
"I haven't asked your name kid, would you mind telling this old man your name?"
"Dante Castillo."
"Very well, Dante, I want you to carry forth our legacy. You don't have to become one of us if you don't want, but at least promise me that you will try to make this hell we call earth into a better place."
"I promise you, sir."
"That's…that's good. See that box over there? The small metallic one?"
The major pointed towards a box that was thrown to the edge of the crater, almost as if someone was trying to protect the box from being destroyed in the explosion. As soon as prying the box opened, I gasped in shock, looking in disbelief at what was inside of it.
"It's…"
"A pip-boy 3000, the only one we have left that's in working condition. While it might not look like much, it's actually more useful than one can think of. Take it yours now, Dante. After I die, please do use the pip-boy to take away all of our armor and weapons, so that none of those would end in the hands of the NCR or in the hands of savages.
As soon as I picked it up, my ability fire up, throwing me the familiar panel right in the face.
[Pip-Boy 3000 – Ready to be used, suggest attaching the device to your arm.
Once the device has been attached to a user, it would grant him/her the ability to see its status(skills and perks) as well as a virtual inventory that can be used to transport/store items in it(note that the said inventory is not infinite, some restrictions are in place)]
"It might not look like …much … but believe me, Dante, that little thing is the best thing we managed to create using some rather secret technologies."
"Thank you, sir. I promise you that I would keep everything I saw and heard here to myself."
Not even a second later, I put the pip-boy over my right forearm and locked it in place, before I start to look at the device, trying to find the power-on button. Once I found it and flip it on, the device came out to life, giving out just enough light to see, but not enough to be seen from afar. Taking a closer look at the screen, I could only see the black background as well as some of the tabs that were amber in color and what seems to be a cartoonish man wearing similar clothes to me.
[Permission required for the device to examine the user: Y/N]
Without hesitating, I accepted as the pip-boy froze for a second or two as it scanned my entire body before it gave me the result. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't in peak health thanks to my life as a test subject did put some strains on my body, not to mention the many, many injuries I suffered over the years. Thought it felt strange seeing that my health was capped at 60/100 for some reason. It felt strange considering that I wasn't feeling any pain or discomfort and yet here it was showing the truth.
This thing genuinely impressed me and because of that, I forget about the dying man as I flipped through the menus until I found the map. As soon as I press it, a top-down scan of the area appeared on the screen showing me everything one might need to know about the area he was in.
"I'm glad that you like it, young man, but please don't forget to check the store setting that allows you to put things in the device's storage space. Try… try it on one of the laser rifles."
I quickly made my way towards the nearest rifle before putting my right hand on the rifle before pressing the store button on the pip-boy. Instantly the rifle disappeared before it appeared inside of the pip-boy with the "x1" after its name, most likely to indicate the number of rifles that were stored inside.
"Who would have thought that the only working prototype would actually work as intended… Come here, Dante, it's time."
< Just change "3" with "e" Patr3on Link : https://patr3on.com/meatbunkun>