Rock Springs town hall was an old world government building with a hodgepodge of stone, wood, and scrap metal, added on to make the building much bigger and well fortified. Four men with the massive rifles people here wielded, stood on the roof, watching me and scanning the entire town. I followed the elder inside and he led me to a long hall of office rooms. "Deversorium Tredecim is your room. Feel free to move about as you like. The cenatorium is hosting a small celebration and most of the tribe will be there cursor. I ask that you attend as your good news is why we celebrate."
I nodded in acceptance and spoke. "Thank you senex. I would ask that you have some of those beasts tied to my vehicle and pull it to the front of this building. I will want to get some things out of it before I hand it over to you for your own use."
He smiled and returned "I will have it brought here within the hour. If you need something ask for Longinus or my daughter Longina." The old man smirked as I translated the names and one of my eyebrows rose. The old man's name literally meant long, same for his daughter. "I was the first person of our tribe to be renamed, by the Caesar himself, and was named 'long' as we wielded our distinctive long rods and I was the leader/champion at the time. I'd also suggest that you refer to my daughter by Gina rather than her full name, as she doesn't particularly like the name."
I nodded at the old man and turned to my room. I set down the stuff I'd brought with me and sat down. This place was weird and contradictory. It seemed that the men had gone to war for Cesar and the women had stayed behind to do the work and jobs the men would normally do. Something like a spartan state. They had decently modern weapons and equipment but also used higher tech in the form of the pilons keeping the fog at bay. All of this in a legion tribe was even stranger, but that could be answered by them being mostly disconnected from the main body of the legion by the fog.
As I sat in my room I looked around, finding not much else than the bed I was sitting on, a chair at a small table, a low hanging ceiling light, and a small shelf of books beside the bed. The only book in the shelf that caught my eye when I looked through it was about a company I didn't recognize.
Sargent Pop Co. was one of the minor competitors of nuka cola but was bought out by the company near the end of the war. The book stated that it had started out as a chemical manufacturing company but its founders son made a cola most of the Midwest loved. Its main strength was how much cheaper it was compared to nuka cola. Before the war nuka cola didn't really have much competition but when it started prices shot up. Sargent Pop Co. had access to the massive sugar beet market of the Midwest and could ever sugar for relatively cheap compared to nuka cola.
With their product being cheaper it had dominated the Midwest till the nuka cola buyout and had survived by its fans till the end of the war. Near the end of the small book was additions made by later peoples. Sargent Pop Co. had apparently kept its chemical industry running in secret via the U.S. governments last Chinese prisoners.
This companies chemicals had done massive damage to the environment of the surrounding areas, notably the fog of the Yellowstone park. The parts telling me this seemed to have been partially destroyed by fire but I could still read parts. Some kind of chemical reaction based on the old factory near Mt Washburn was causing the fog based on the partially automated facility.
Old expeditions by this tribe and other survivors even claimed that the areas near Yellowstone had ghouls of unnatural variations. The most notable was a detailed description of a bright yellow glowing one. As I closed the book and put it in its place I thanked Todd that I hadn't gotten lost up there and run into something like that. My weapons and other tools were powerful but I didn't know how effective any of it would be against most things.
Still, I wielded a heavy laser blaster, which could carve through deathclaws, so I wasn't horribly worried. After a few more minutes a person knocked on my door. I opened it to find the person who led me into this place. They had taken off their mask to reveal a woman around twenty five or twenty six with thick, dark pockmarking freckles and lots of scaring like the old man.
"Ave Cursor. You can call me Gina. Your vehicle has been brought to the front of the hall. My father has instructed me on helping you to familiarize yourself with this area and what we have after you do what you need with the old world tech."
I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrunk back a bit. "Quite independent for a woman of the legion aren't you?" She seemed to shrink in on herself even more so I diverted. "You said that last part like I had more than my vehicle to go through. Does the senex have something for me to look at for some reason?"
She somehow shrunk even more and answered "My father hoped you might be able to identify and give value to some of the things that we cannot. He said you could take some of the items and such as payment if you wished."
"What gave him the idea that I could do that?" I asked, slightly curious at the old mans thinking.
"You came here in an old world vehicle with old world automatons. You carry old world weapons and tech with you and seem to understand them. We use old world technology as well but only out of necessity. Without it our way of life would crumble and we would be forced to go to the legion in full or to another tribe." She answered, her posture becoming slightly defensive for some reason.
I smiled at her, causing her to tense, and I walked past. She relaxed a bit at that and followed. When I got outside I found the horse things being untied from my car and an old shopping cart being pushed over by some kids in red and brown clothing. They ran off after using some legion insults on my car and I began taking what I needed. Medical supplies and weapons came first. I packed my weaponry light so it was mostly meds. Next was survival supplies, things like water filters, a battery stove, lighters, a small tent, sleeping bag, flashlights, a small radio, multiple tools, hygiene items, and lots of maps. Next was food and water. Most of my food was long term storage stuff in cans and plastic packaging. My water was multiple gallons so I simply left most of it for the people here. Last was the bots I had with me. I activated them all and sent Gina to get her father.
When the old man got to me a few minutes later I linked all but one eyebot to him and wrote down a list of commands he could give them. I eventually pulled out anything else useful and had them tow it away to take what they want from it. I pushed the cart to my room then left with Gina to see this strange little tribe.
A few hours later I found myself at their shooting range. When the legion took over their hunters and warriors had become elite heavy infantry who wielded their distinct long rifles. The guns functioned as incredibly long range weapons to take easy advantage of the rolling hills and flats areas of the tribes surroundings. They had dominated nearby tribes and shown a ruthless efficiency in killing. Cesar had liked that and kept the tribe as a breeding grounds for these elite warriors.
The tribe was proud of their weapons and skills with them and wanted to show them off. The Lance fired a 13mm round with some kind of fin stabilizers. They wouldn't let me look at them much before making me use the rifles. The special part about the guns was the magnetic rails the guns internals had. Under the barrels wood cover was a magnetic projector that made the long barrel even longer via magnetism. I had no idea how the physics of it worked but it allowed the pressure to stay behind the bullets and keep the spin from the rifling.
The entire system also allowed for the long rifle to carry a large bayonet or massive silencer. And when I described it as a silencer I meant it was silenced. The powerful round left the gun and the only sound left was the bullet cutting through air. Not even the sonic boom could escape the silencing effect. The gun seemed only to exist to give me a headache. After firing it a few times I gave up on the weirdness of it and left to see the horse things.
The Ecus was a horse from the war that was meant to become some kind of mount for pre-apocalypse soldiers. They were heavily optimized and many problems that modern horses suffered from had been eliminated by some kind of genetic modification. I could easily guess that they were made with some kind of FEV or one of its strains. A third eye for better sight, goat like hooves instead of the crap domestic horses had, a thick coat that could combat any climate, they had a toe like bit on their leg that allowed them another form of protection against predators or people and acted 'grab' things incase they were slipping or such. They even had sharper teeth to be better omnivores, and supposedly better healing abilities to survive after being injured.
The only downside to the Ecus was that it was an incredibly difficult creature to tame. They were violent and incredibly hostile, proven by multiple of them coming up to the fencing and trying to bite me when I got to close. Gina had laughed at me when I nearly lost a finger to one of the beasts. The fencing had creaked when they pushed against it as even the nearly nine foot wall that was the fencing could barely hold them back. The pillars of the fence were full tree trunks and the 'walls' were that but cut in half down the middle.
Gina even mentioned that they'd tried electric fencing but they the Ecus had literally bitten through it. I now understood why the old man had asked how long I had for my fake mission. I was going to start learning how to ride and care for one of these horses in the morning and I'd begin taming one the week after. After Gina showed me around she took me to a storage building where I was led to a back room full of many different things.
When I first entered my eyes were immediately drawn to a computer connected to multiple different devices. The main connection was a larger than average holotape. The shell of the brick sized holotape read
Exp. MK 5 13 Terbyte
Proposed Name: Tyranabyte
My eyebrow raised as I read it and a click activated the computer. I sat down at the desk as Gina sat on a chair at the entrance of the room. After a bit of searching I found the tape and opened its files. I was immediately stopped as the four terabytes of information on the tape was completely encrypted. I was horrible at anything not in a Caesar cipher so I simply left the tapes files and unplugged it from the computer.
After the tape I found a combat helmet with way to much tech and a small video screen on the inside. This was obviously some kind of VR attempt and had likely failed or seen little success due to the other VR technologies. Next was a bricked fusion engine off a design I didn't recognize. I pulled it apart and found a fusion core inside it for some reason. I pulled it and kept it while tossing the engine. Most of the rest was junk but the back of the room held some nice or interesting stuff.
I pulled what seemed to be a scaled down fog pilon as this tribe called them and found that it was just that. The scaled down version was practically useless as the machines were to slow to carry around and be useful. I tossed it with the fusion core as I wanted to keep it for myself. Next was some kind of Fatman mininuke launcher. It very clearly was a failed attempt at a mininuke railgun.
I tossed it away as it was an actual death trap with its only value being for scrap. Last but never least was the holy grail of the junk back here. A slightly burnt Pipboy. It was very obviously modified as it was more of a power armor gauntlet rather than a wrist mounted computer.
I checked it over multiple times and cleaned it while doing so. I also removed the strange gauntlet part of it as it wasn't in the original design and I wanted proper use of the hand after putting it on. With the gauntlet removed I'd need to take that apart to remake the glove itself as it was part if the gauntlet.
This was a Pipboy 3000 MK 3 and it gave me pause as k went to put it on. This version was rare and barely had anything on it in what I knew. Brotherhood info on Pipboys stated it had a short life as a product as it was meant to be a much more invasive version than the other pipboy versions. Its status pre-war was infamous due to it being a near permanent addition to a person and the pain included in that.
Before putting it on I informed Gina that I'd be taking it along with the miniature fog pilon and the fusion core. I then pulled out one of the med-x's I kept on me and put it all in my arm. The second most sensations left I slipped the device onto my arm. I immediately grabbed my arm and grunted in pain as needles sank into my arm. After the needles was small blades. The blades sliced into my wrists and behind them small tubes and wires were inserted. The blades then collapsed and were spat out of the Pipboy body.
When that finally ended a small click sounded, followed by a small scream from me as a tube slid down into my arm. The tube opened and a small arm with a split ring on the end exited. The ring snapped through my flesh and connected to itself around one of my bones. I couldn't even remember which one it was as the pain shot through me.
I hadn't expected the pain to be this bad, mostly because Med-X was such a powerful drug. My head hit the desk as Gina began fussing over me. I started fumbling with my carry bag for a stimpack as the directions I could remember for this model needed one injected into an opening for you to heal and the pipboy to activate. This function was to make sure you were still awake to handle the activation process.
As I put the stimpack in I fully understood why this version of was the pipboy was so hated. If I was capable of hating such a powerful device I would but I had to much nostalgia and desperation to hold any hate for it. Eventually the pain dulled and I started my Pipboys activation process. As it turned on I shoved my stuff into my bag and stood. Gina quickly led me back to my room where I took some medicine, ate a quick meal, and passed out before my head even hit my pillow.