em>Radiance Chapter 2: Running With the Wolves.
“Come on! Now’s our chance!!” she yelled above the din of the shooting as she threw one of the tin men screaming headfirst into another sending them skittering across the metal floor.
Her brother turned and nodded kicking another of them that tried to hit him with one of those accursed shock sticks of thiers, the man flew backwards and crashed into the wall trying to right himself.
The containment bay was an absolute scrum, with creatures of all shapes and sizes running amok trying to extract whatever ounce of meaningless vengeance they could for their incarceration and subsequent torture before they were either killed or beaten back into submission, well that wasn’t going to happen to her, or to her brother, they were getting out of this place.
She turned and ran right towards the door as the far end of the bay which like all the others were currently unlocked, so as they hit the panels she’d seen the humans use to open them they did just that and flew open with a whoosh, revelling a rather surprised looking scientist behind them.
Her brother didn’t even hesitate he simply grabbed the startled man before he could run and pitched him right into the middle of the melee like he was playing one of those puerile sports the guards were forever watching on those little devices with the flickering images on the night shift, the man screamed as he spun through the air like one of those football things before being snagged out of the air by one of the super mutants who instantly slammed him headfirst into the deck plates before doing a little dance with his arms in the air, it seems the humans weren’t the only ones who liked to watch those sports.
She grabbed her brother’s arm and dragged him into the narrow metal corridor, “This way! I remember one of those humans talking about this when they transported me, they thought I was asleep” she said as they ran on all fours in single file down the narrow corridor.
“About what?” he growled in his deep gruff voice, even after all these years it still struck her as odd that the pair of them had adopted human speech so easily, granted most of their kind didn’t speak and simply communicated in a series of grunts, growls and gestures, but those among them that were deemed ‘Sentient’ had adopted the human language they called English.
They reached the end of the corridor and hit a T junction, she instantly turned her head to the right and pointed to a set of doors with markings on, “There!” she yelled in triumph and they charged towards them.
“Visa where are we going!?” her brother all but demanded from behind them.
“Trust me Ven” she yelled as she punched the panel to make the doors open, as they did they were greeted by a room filled with large steel tubes each with a glass panel in the front, but the first thing that caught her attention was the dead human laid sprawled on the floor with a large hole punched through his torso, it appeared someone else had had the same idea she had.
“The humans call these things escape pods, I overheard one of them telling some new people they brought here about them, they said if there was ever an emergency and the order to abandon ship was given they were to report here, get into one of these and they could use them to escape this place,” she said running her large hand over one of the metal tubes as she tried to figure out how to open it.
Ven did not look convinced, “These things were built with humans in mind, not us, there’s no way either of us is going to fit into one of these things!” he exclaimed gruffly as he tapped one of his long sharp claws against the glass of a tube making ungodly screech.
“It’s our only hope Ven! I can’t take another second in this place! I’d rather die out there free than spend another second as a fucking science experiment for these vile people!” Visa yelled so loudly it made her normally stoic brother wince.
“Alright so how do we do this?” he asked a little subdued, for all his strength Visa had always been the more aggressive and dominant of the pair, she was smaller than him but not by much the pair both standing about seven and a half feet tall on their long powerful legs.
She nodded and turned to the tube again, she instantly noticed a kind of red handle attached to the side of it, she reached out and pushed it down with a solid clunk noise, as she did the glass retracted and the tube opened, “Like that, now quick get in and see if you can find the release” she said.
Her brother seriously had to compress himself to coil up inside the tube, they were built for humans not for their kind, in the tangle of limbs and scales she saw his horned head pop up and began looking around inside the pod, “I think this may be it here” he said pressing something with one of his long fingers, before either of them could say another word the glass shot back up and sealed the pod and with a loud whoosh like someone flushing a toilet he was just gone along with the pod.
“VEN!!” Visa yelled in alarm banging her large hands against the glass in panic, it took a second to realise that he brother had ejected himself, which was technically the plan, “Fuck! better get moving Visa!” she yelled to herself running to the next tube over and rapidly cranking the handle on the side.
It opened just like the first and she clambered inside coiling herself uptight just like her brother did, she popped her head up out of her own tangle of limbs and scales, “Button, Button, button, where is that fucking…ahh here this must be it!” she exclaimed seeing a large red button with human text above it that read ‘EJECT’ in bold red letters, she pushed it and the glass shot up into place and before she could even catch her breath her stomach seemed to be bouncing around inside her skull.
Her whole world was spinning and she felt utterly weightless, she was suddenly very glad of her large size filling the pod otherwise she’d have been floating and bouncing around in here like a pinball, after what felt like an age there was a tremendous roar from underneath her as well as a series of smaller ones from all around her, it alarmed her for a moment till she realised it was the engine system the pod used to fly correcting her fall and turning her the right way up before shooting her off away from any potential blast zone of the human sky ship should it be falling from the sky, which is what the pod was intended for.
It flew for a little while before the engines ceased and a sharp jolt which caused her horned head to smack into the ceiling of the pod making her curse stopped her fall, looking up through the glass she saw a large white sheet of some kind had opened above the pod and seemed to be slowing its fall to earth.
Finally, the pod hit the ground with a loud metallic bang that made her skull shake in her head, the pod promptly fell over on its side and rolled a bit before settling with the glass facing the black night sky, for a moment Visa just stared up at the trillions of little stars above her, her breath caught in her chest at the beauty of it, it was a sight she had feared that she would never in her life see again, that’s when an equally wonderful sight appeared in the glass and her brother’s large horned head popped into view looking down at her.
“You made it!” he said happily his voice sounding a little muted by the glass, then he pointed to something, “There’s a leaver right here, pull it and it’ll release the glass,” he said.
Visa craned her head to look where he was indicating and there right next to her long tail was a black lever, she had to use her tail to crank it as her limbs were pinned but no sooner had she moved it than the glass shot up and a rush of cool fresh air hit her and she greedily sucked in a lungful of it as she unwound herself and climbed out of the pod.
“We’re free! I can’t fucking believe it! One of your crazy tail plans actually worked!” Ven said hugging her after he helped her out.
She huffed indignantly as she returned the hug, “There was never any doubt, you should listen to your sister more often, I’m always right you know?” she said with a smug grin pulling her jaw up and exposing her fangs.
Ven just laughed, “You mean like the time you were convinced that pond was just so fresh and cool and clear that there was no possible way there could be Mirelurks hiding in there?” he said shooting her a smug grin of his own.
She made a humph noise and flicked her tail, “Well even a perfect being can be wrong every once in a while, besides I don’t know what you’re complaining about, we are well that night didn’t we?” she said and he chuckled softly which sounded like a low gravelly rumble in his broad chest.
“We did dear sister, we did indeed, certainly better than we ever did in that flying shitbox,” he said and she huffed in agreement.
“We’d better move quickly, it won’t take the humans long to figure out what has happened and when they find the pods missing they will start hunting us again,” she said and Ven nodded.
“Yeah we all know how much they hate losing their toys,” he said darkly.
The pair of them looked around themselves, they appeared to be in a desert of some kind, there was sand and rocks as far as the eye could see, well apart from in one where there seemed to be a distinct and rather obvious glow of artificial light.
“That’s a human city if I ever saw one” Ven said pointing a clawed finger at it and Visa nodded.
“Yeah, I think it would be wise to give that place a miss,” she said.
Ven nodded, “Yeah it seemed the other escapees thought so too,” he said and Visa looked at him curiously.
“Other escapees?” she asked and Ven pointed a little ways off, when she tracked the direction he was pointing she saw yet another pod laid on its side up against a rocky outcrop, before she knew what she was doing she walked over to it with Ven following her.
“Looks like someone else indeed had the same idea as you sister, two someones infact, look here two sets of tracks and they are leading away from the pod and the city, they’re heading that way towards the mountains,” Ven said.
Visa scratched her scaly chin with her claws, “Hmmmm human by the look of those prints, but obviously not with the people up there otherwise why would two of them be in the same pod?” she said pointing to the two sets of tracks
“Hmmm you may be right sister, one of those humans dressed all in blue I kept seeing the marching about, or wheeling about strapped to those odd devices, either way, they are heading the way we should go, the mountains are rocky and it will make us much harder to track not to mention there will be caves for us to hide in,” Ven said looking off into the distance towards the rocky protrusions from the sandy earth.
Visa didn’t like the thought of running into these two humans but what choice did they have?
Her brother was right, the mountains were their best bet at making a clean escape from the human skyship, “Alright we’ll follow their route but just be on the lookout for them, I’d rather not get into a conflict with them if it can be avoided, if they are escapees just like us then fighting among ourselves will just make it easier for the humans up there to find us all again, so I say we leave them to it” she said and Ven chuckled to himself.
“What’s this? The mighty Visa turning down the chance to start a fight with someone? If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’d been replaced with one of those mechanical people we saw back in the Commonwealth that all the humans were so afraid of” he said with a chuckle.
Visa punched him in the shoulder and smacked him upside the back of the head with her tail which just made him laugh even harder, “There’s the sister I know and love” he chuckled and she just snarled at him.
“Come on before I show you what starting a fight really means” she grumped before setting off across the sands while he chuckled along behind her.
Other than the occasional redscopion out hunting for its dinner the wastes of the desert were a whole lot of empty, most creatures even the predators of the night knew to give their kind a wide birth, their species had a well-earned reputation even among the lesser creatures of the world and their scent on the breeze alone was more than enough to send most things running for cover.
Ven stopped suddenly in his tracks and sniffed the air, Visa went on alert instantly, “What have you got?’ she asked sniffing her self but catching nothing, Ven didn’t answer instead he walked in an odd circle looking at the ground, suddenly he tapped his large clawed foot on the ground and like a bolt of lightning plunged his clawed hand into the sand.
With a hard yank he wrenched something small free of the sand and threw it to her, “Catch!” he yelled just before it left his hand.
Instinctually Visa caught the object and looked down at it in confusion, it was a now very dead mole rat with two large puncture wounds in through its eye sockets where Ven’s large claws had run through its head, “Dinner is served” he said stabbing his hand into the sand again and pulling another of the creatures from its hidden underground burrow.
Visa looked at the repulsive creature in her hands, it certainly wasn’t the worst thing she’d been forced to eat in her lifetime, insects had claimed that unholy spot in her memories, but it certainly wasn’t a choice cut of venison or a nice juicy cut of brahmein either, but as her stomach growled angrily at her for potentially turning her nose up at the meal she relented and giving in to her nature somewhat began to devour the repulsive little creature.
“We need to find shelter for the day, we should move only at night when its cooler, the desert will be treacherous in the day time,” Ven said and Visa agreed, they were still nowhere near the mountains yet but by the way, they kept growing on the horizon of the clear desert night with every step they took they were getting closer, every fibre of her being wanted to run all night and all day in order to put as much distance between them and their captors as possible, but her brother was right, being out in the desert in the middle of the day would make them tremendously easy to spot.
The pair began casting around for a suitable hiding spot for them to spend the day, they’d lost the human’s tracks ages ago as the breeze that had been running across the open desert had long since buried their footprints, scent wise they’d picked up nothing ever since they’d been following the tracks but that didn’t mean anything out here, eventually, they found something towards what appeared to be a ruined road of some kind, the surface cracked and chewed into chunks but the relentless onslaught of the desert.
“Human buildings? Have you gone crazy tail again?” Ven said as he saw what his sister was pointing out.
She cuffed the back of his horned head and he growled, “One I am not and have never been a crazy tail and two that is the last place those fuckers will ever think to look for us” she said.
He grumbled and growled again, “What if there are humans there? I doubt they’d be appreciative of us breaking into their homes in the middle of the night, or any time of day for that matter” he grumbled.
He had a point, but to be fair these didn’t look like the botched up ruins that humans had renovated for themselves to live in that they’d come to know, they looked relatively untouched and she certainly couldn’t see any indication of life down there, “Its worth a look at the very least, if there are humans we’ll move on, if not then we find one to hide in for the day, deal?” she said looking at her brother.
He growled and grumbled to himself for a minute then just shrugged his large shoulders, “Fine, let’s do this before I change my mind, still not convinced of your non-crazy tail status though” he said avoiding the second cuff aimed at his head by inches.
The pair of them moved cautiously and slowly down to the small cluster of human buildings, all was silent as they approached and neither of them smelled the telltale signs of human habitation like fire or fresh blood from a hunting kill, “Seems deserted but you know as well as I you should never underestimate them” Ven hissed softly, Visa nodded.
It was true that while humans were both small and weak by comparison to them, they more than made up for their stature with their cunning and technical know-how, the very fact that they’d managed to produce devices and weapons capable of destroying the very world upon they which they themselves lived was proof enough of that, proof of criminal arrogance and stupidity as well.
There were six rather run-down buildings clustered together in a tight formation, one had a large rocket on the top of it and although it was too dark to see colour Visa knew from memory that it was red, she’d seen these places littered all across the places they’d travelled back before their capture.
The other buildings seemed to be little support businesses hoping to capitalise on the fuel stop for the vehicles that humans had once travelled in before the war, the rusting wreckages of which still littered the forecourt of the rocket building, one was a garage of some kind obviously set up to repair the vehicles, another was some kind of food store by the shelves all set up to display those prepackaged products that humans used to consume before their weapons burnt the world.
The other three looked like small houses obviously for the owners of the businesses to live in, “That one looks the least damaged” Ven said pointing at one of the houses, the pair of them headed slowly towards it still keeping their caution in mind as they moved up to the windows of the place and peered inside.
Not even a rad roached moved in the building beyond the broken glass, a coating of dust and sand covered everything inside, Ven motioned for her to follow him and he headed up the small porch steps to the front door, it was a little fiddle for him to open given the size of his claws but he eventually managed it and slipped inside silently.
The old house was utterly deserted, not a single living thing other than themselves moved or stirred within its walls, the pair searched every single room top to bottom to ensure it, Visa felt rather odd-looking into this window into the human past, she tried to envision how different the humans of that time were to the humans of today, in the master bedroom of the house a pair of skeletons still dressed in the clothing that they’d died in clung to one another, one male and one female, a mated pair obviously.
She found herself wondering did their deaths occur when the weapons scorched the earth or shortly after when the radiation and other poisons kicked up by those blasts washed over the place, she found herself thinking that it would have been kinda to die in the fire than the slow death of the poison, she even found herself feeling a little jealous of the female skeleton, at least she’d had someone to hold her and love her at the very end of her life, she’d never had anyone to share those feelings with, oh yes granted she’d always had her brother but that wasn’t the same was it, he was her kin, her hatch mate, born of the same clutch of eggs and inseparable ever since, but there were things that she could not share with him nor he with her and she often wondered if he felt the same longing she did, for someone to run wild with, to just embrace life with and when the passion of the blood stirred, to lay down and just rut like wild beasts with.
She sighed heavily and made her way back out into the house to find her brother standing in the main room of the house, “There, that should be our hide for the day” he said pointing to a now open door she hadn’t noticed on their first sweep of the home.
“Where does it go?” she asked noticing a flight of what looked like stone steps leading down into the darkness.
“Into a subroom, a basement I think the humans call it, it appears that a tunnel of some kind leads from it away from here, not sure where it leads but travelling underground is a lot safer than on the surface for us, so I think we should rest in the basement and when the day breaks head into the tunnel and see where it leads,” he said.
Visa scratched her chin thoughtfully, why would the humans have an underground tunnel under their home and not use it when the weapons fell? Did they not have time?
Well, whatever the answer this intended salvation for the humans would now be their instead, as long as it was not blocked that was, so the pair of them descended the stairs together into the darkness and Ven closed the door behind them.
The basement was filled with shelves with what appeared to be old junk as well as a few previsions possibly for their planned trip into the tunnel, a trip they never made, Ven pointed it out as they reached the bottom and to be fair it was rather obvious, a large heavy metal door stood open like an old rusty mouth waiting to be filled at the far end of the room, he pushed it closed for the time being to add some security to their day nest, its hinges protested but Ven’s strength won and it closed with a dull clang of metal.
Before they settled down they decided to investigate the shelves some more and that’s when Visa found something useful, she found a couple of boxes of white metal cans that she’d seen aboard the skyship, she knew they contained purified water for the humans that was safe to drink, she lifted one up and turned it over in her large hands, her claws were too fiddly to pop the top on the thing so she chose option B which was stab it with a single claw before upending it into her mouth.
The cool liquid was like nectar to her as she let it slide down her throat but far from quenching her thirst it simply inflamed it and reminded her that it was there, so in quick succession, another four of the cans went the same way as that one and her brother joined in when he realised what she’d found, moments later ten of the cans lay littered around and the pair were quenched.
“Got to give them this, the humans do have some good ideas sometimes, portable freshwater that remains fresh forever is genius” Ven said with a soft belch and Visa nodded in agreement.
“Agreed, they might be arrogant psychopaths obsessed with killing everything they see or don’t understand but they occasionally have a bright idea,” she said laying herself down on the hard stone floor and coiling her tail around herself, it was no less comfortable than the floor of her cell had been back on the skyship, their captors really hadn’t gone for the creature comforts route in housing them, half the time they were lucky if the giant bottles of water that fed their cells were filled.
Sleep wasted no time in creeping up and clubbing Visa as she lay her head down on her long tail and what felt like mere seconds later she was jolted awake by a sharp tap on the head from her brother, she was about to protest when she saw him place a long-clawed finger to his scaly lips to shush her before pointing upwards, the rest of Visa’s senses joined her sight in reactivating and suddenly she picked up the two things that had her brothers attention, the sound of propellers and the heavy clumping of armoured boots, the humans had found them.
“We have to go! Now!” Ven hissed as they both listened to muffled shouts drifting down from above and Visa nodded and pointed to the tunnel entrance, he nodded and swiftly moved over to it, as she followed him Visa spotted something, it appeared to be a bag of some kind with straps that allowed it to be worn on the persons back, quick as a flash she grabbed it emptied the junk inside out and stuffed it full of the water cans, as many as it would hold before using the fiddly clasp on the front to seal it, if she couldn’t open it again later she’d simply shred it.
Shrugging the comically sized pack onto her back over her dorsal spines she hurried into the tunnel before her brother followed her and pulled the door shut behind them, then the pair turned and because of the narrow confines dropped to all fours before beginning a flat out sprint into the darkness beyond.
They ran for what felt like hours thanking their creators silently for being blessed with monumental stamina for this kind of thing, the tunnel they ran down was beginning to seem endless as it weaved and turned and twisted along, there were no side tunnels so if anyone found the entrance it would be a straight shot to finding them, but eventually, they came to another of those heavy doors, this one was shut and it required the strength of both of them to unstick the large circular handle in the centre of it before it creaked open noisily allowing them on.
It dropped them out into another far larger tunnel with large metal rails running along the floor, “Where are we do you think?” Ven asked looking around the dark tunnel, the pair of them were both equally glad of their species powerful night vision otherwise in a place like this they’d have been fucked with its zero light.
“Don’t know don’t care as long as its nowhere near those tin fuckers” Visa breathed sitting down on her haunches to rest for a moment and no sooner had her scaly backside touched the ground than she jumped back to her feet as in the distance the repeated sound of an energy weapon cut through the air like a hot knife.
“Fuck! Have they found us already?” ven exclaimed turning on the spot trying to pin down the sound of the weapon reports.
“I don’t think so, those shots weren’t fired at us, they were further on ahead probably something like that,” she said spotting something on the floor.
Ven followed her point and spotted a body laid sprawled across the rails a few meters from where they were, the pair approached slowly and even before their night vision was able to bring it into sharp focus the smell gave away what it was, it was one of those heavily irradiated humans that had all its skin constantly falling off and rotting away before somehow regrowing it all, Ghouls she believed they called them.
The dead basically naked Ghoul had a series of holes burned through it showing that it had been repeatedly shot with an energy weapon, it was utterly repulsive-looking like it had bloated to three times its normal size it looked like a bag of rotten pus with a face and a fucking ugly face at that, like someone had filled a leather sack full of shit and repeatedly hit it with a very large stick.
“We should go this way away from them,” Ven said pointing down the tunnel in the opposite direction to the shooting but Visa had other ideas.
“It sounds like a single shooter, I can only hear the one weapon being discharged, there are two of us and we have the aid of the darkness, we should hit them head-on and take them by surprise, we can take them out and escape in the direction they are heading,” she said and Ven looked at her aghast.
“Remember what I said about you being a crazy tail?’ he asked and she growled at him menacingly.
“Listen and think! If we go back the way they came undoubtedly we’ll run into more of them following the same path, the one ahead is probably a scout clearing the way for the others, we take the scout out and hid their body making those following stop to look for their missing human, this buys us time to escape” she said and Ven growled deeply, but the deep sigh he gave at the end said that he understood her plan and finally he nodded.
“Fine let’s go, but you’re still a crazy tail,” she said and scampered off ahead out of cuffing range.
It didn’t take them long to catch up with the scout and what they found surprised them both, they’d been expecting one of those tin soldiers dressed in that powered armour they wore that made them a hell of a lot harder to deal with, but instead, they found a single unarmored human and what appeared to be a robot of some kind walking along the rails, as they got closer they could hear the pair were deep in conversation so instead of attacking outright the pair decided to close in and eavesdrop on them a bit to see what they could learn.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” the male human asked glancing at the robot who seemed to have a large light source stuck in the middle of its face that it was using to illuminate the tunnel ahead.
“That’s the third time this hour alone you’ve asked me that and for the third time yes! We are going the right way, not exactly easy to get lost in a fucking straight line seven, the maps I nicked and subsequently deleted from their databases quite clearly showed that this tunnel is an old secret emergency transit system that linked all the military installations in the area, if we keep following it should bring us up near Nellis air force base, from there its a straight shot into the mountains and those fuckers will still be too busy playing with pissed off Deathclaws and super mutants to figure out where we went, by the time someone finds that pod missing and that dead guard we’ll be long gone” the robot said sounding oddly human.
The male blew out a heavy sigh, “I know I know and I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m doubting you Wisp, it’s just this whole thing has me beyond freaked you know? And crawling around in a pitch-black tunnel filled with these what did you call them again?” the male said.
“Ghouls” the robot replied.
“Yeah Ghouls, is not really doing my nerves much good ya know? Plus I don’t have a weapon or a torch or fuck all, all I got is this bag full of Nuka cola and fucking Sugar Bombs” he said patting the pack that looked oddly like the one Visa was wearing.
“It’s the sugar rush pumping your nerves up, I told you not to eat a whole pack of these fucking things and wash it down with one of those fizzy fucking poisons” the robot scolded.
“Hey, I was hungry! And thirsty, some of still have biological needs you know?” the male protested and then instantly looked like he regretted saying it, “Oh hey listen I’m sorry Wisp I didn’t mean it like that…” he began but the robot held up her hand to silence him.
“You think this is fun for me? Do you think I like being stuck in this body? I had to fucking give up my living breathing body for a shot at freedom so don’t you ever poke me there again you hear me? Or I swear to whatever god is still laughing his almighty ass off at this fucking joke of a planet I will leave you to fend for your fucking self out here!!” she snapped angrily.
The male nodded, “I deserved that and for what it’s worth I’m sorry Wisp, I didn’t mean it, I’m just I dunno scared out of my fucking mind would be a good approximation, I guess I lash out when I’m scared and don’t know what to do, I am grateful you busted me out of that fucking hell hole, honestly I don’t know how much longer I could take what that fucking sadist was doing to me” the male said apologetically and the robot seemed to sag a bit.
“Yeah I saw some of it through the monitors when I was planning this whole thing and was picking a bust out buddy, she had a real fucking wide on for you didn’t she?” the robot said in a subdued voice but the male actually laughed.
“A wide on? That’s a new one” he said and the robot actually made a noise that could approximate a laugh.
“Well I can’t say a hard-on now can I? Well unless she’s got some rad mutated mega clit that neither us thankfully know about” the robot said and the male actually roared with laugher, when he was done he patted the robot on the arm.
“You know what? Thanks for that Wisp, I have no idea when the last time I laughed was, fuck or if I’ve even ever laughed” he said.
“My pleasure, they say laughter is the best medicine and it sure beat the hell out of whatever shite they were pumping into our veins up there anyway,” the robot said.
“You can say that again,” the male said and that’s when it happened, from her left there was a loud clanging noise that echoed all around the tunnel, Visa snapped her head around to see her brother looking guilty as fuck, he’d only gone and booted a tin can down the metal bloody tracks.
Suddenly both of them were bathed in bright blinding light, “Holy fucking shit what the fuck are they!!?” the male human’s voice yelled in both alarm and fear.
“You remember those Deathclaw things I mentioned but never quite got around to explaining to you, well Seven meet Deathclaws,” the robot said in an equally alarmed and fearful voice.