"That armor is unfair." Boone said as he stared at the singular hole in the now visible Nightkin's forehead.
"Oh I know. I'm a little annoyed that it took so many bullets to put down this fucker." I said kicking the corpse.
"There's a reason supermutants are such a problem. Ballistics below a forty five can't dig in past their bones without more than one bullet." He said and I nodded.
"Unusual creatures. Highly evolved for endurance and strength but the brain functions have been all but crippled, at least in this one and the previous one." Adam said startling Boone.
"What is that?" the man demanded warily.
"I am Adam. Partner of Alex." Adam said calmly.
"The armor talks. Just full of surprises aren't you?" Boone said with a sigh.
"You have no idea. Moving on! See the ghoul? I'd wager that plasma rifle next to it is what killed our Nightkin down below." I said pointing at the brown robed ghoul past where the other Nightkin was waiting to ambush us.
It was a gruesome sight really. The corpse had it's head smashed in and it wasn't hard to figure out how. We all glanced at the bloody chunk of concrete clinging to a few rebar rods in the dead Nightkin's hand.-
I didn't care for propriety and got to looting the dead ghoul calmly.
"One slightly dinged up plasma rifle, ten microfusion cells, an inhaler of Jet and thirty caps. Not too bad." I said with a grin.
The other two didn't say anything as this was the wasteland and the living needed the stuff more than the dead. I was thrilled at getting the energy weapon as while I would love nothing more than to use only my pistol I didn't have even close to enough ammo for it. The plasma rifle though was an entirely different matter as I had the cells Adam made in the vault. -
I fiddled with the microfusion cell slot of the gun and extracted the mostly spent cell. With the casual ease of a magician revealing cards from nowhere I took out one of Adam's cells and popped it in. Immediately the gun hummed in my hands and I eyed it in confusion. Once it became clear that thing wasn't about to explode I strapped it to my back.-
We walked past the corpse and found a small area that had been clearly set up as a watch station. There was a bed and a table with a chair. There was a few busted up but functional metal shelves with supplies on them and even a few ammo cans that had a few more cells and even some five five six ammo oddly. Not that I was complaining as even if it was only another box of twenty it was still what I needed for my pistol.-
"It was a take over. The ghoul was guarding the road and the Nightkin showed up and took him out. He took one with him." Boone said putting the pieces together.
"Anyone want to bet there's more up ahead?" I asked and they both shook their heads as it was a fool's bet.
"Maybe the Nightkin did our job for us?" Jess offered optimistically.
"I doubt it. I can't say for sure that they all are like this one with plasma weapons but if whatever group of ghouls is there has a decent amount of firepower they could push the Nightkin back. We might be the tipping force in this matter." I said seriously.
"Keep on our toes, got it." Boone said firmly.
We looted the guard station that was obviously empty now with it's occupant dead and headed further up the road. We ran into some more feral ghouls and I learned why the plasma rifle was humming when a white glob of energy crashed into a ghoul and vaporized it.
"Adam, buddy, pal. Is there any chance that using one of your cells could overclock a plasma rifle?" I asked trying not to yell at the shock that scene caused.
"The possibility does exist." The A.I said sheepishly.
"And you didn't fucking tell me!?" I exclaimed in outrage.
"To be fair you never asked." Adam said and I groaned.
"Any OTHER things that might give me a heart attack that you may have neglected to mention?" I asked and dead panned as the digital asshole went quiet for an awkward length of time.
"The other things may also have similar effects. Additionally I might be able to take control of the suit at any time." Adam eventually said.
"Why the dick did you hesitate on that of all things? I already knew that was something you did." I said rolling my eyes.
"You did?" Adam asked surprised.
"Please don't tell me you think i'm so stupid that I wouldn't think you'd put a back door in your stuff? That's just good design philosophy. Keeps people honest." I said mildly offended.
"The wasteland has not given me high hopes for intelligence." Adam said bluntly.
"That's fair. Still from now on don't hold back any of this stuff." I said seriously.
"Understood, and thank you for trusting me." the A.I said before going quiet again.
"You two done hashing out whatever the fuck that was?" Jess asked as I rejoined her and Boone after my little chat with Adam.
"Yeah, all good now." I said and started leading the way again.
There was actually a practical reason for this beyond me just liking to call the shots. It was because I was a brick shithouse. Thanks to my frankly unfair armor I could soak up the attention of basically everything perfectly safe like. Soon enough though we reached the threshold to the Repcon test site. This place was huge honestly. At least four stories tall and made of dense strong cement and steel. There was a massive metal sculpture of the Repcon rockets out front and the building had clearly been fenced off AFTER the war as it had that same scrap flavor the wasteland usually had.-
To the far left there was a huge dome that I knew was the place the actual rockets were housed.
"This place looks like a warzone." Jess said as we gazed at the dead robed ghouls and Nightkin.
"I don't know about war but there was definitely a battle here. From the sand bag fortification I'd guess the ghouls were the defenders and got pushed back inside. " I said seriously.