Super Duper Mart
Feb. 14th, 2009 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_skyHaving discovered that crispy iguana bits were actually a decent sort of thing to have for breakfast, Ellen headed along the by-now familiar walkway to Craterside Supply. The sun was only a little way up the sky yet, but there was light under the door, and when she tried the handle she found it unlocked. Inside, the man with the assault rifle lounged against his familiar spot on the wall. "Good morning," she said.
The man grunted, as he was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. "Morning," he said as he got off an inhale.
Ellen was fascinated; she'd seen smoking in old news footage, and there were plenty of references to tobacco in history texts that mentioned certain states' and commonwealths' economies, but there had never been a cigarette inside Vault 101 so far as she knew. It was probably rude to ask about the process, though. "Is the shop open?" she asked instead.
"Yep. Moira's doing inventory," was the laconic reply. "MOIRA! Lab rat!"
Ellen resented the designation, but wasn't about to say anything to someone more heavily armed than she. And anyway, Moira came out immediately as soon as he said it. "Welcome back!" she said brightly. "Ready to head out again, or did you need to take a break after that last one?"
"No, I think I'm fine," Ellen said. "I think you mentioned food scavenging last time?"
Moira nodded. "I've got to see how safe it is to scavenge food and medicine from the ruins of some of those huge stores out there. Not everybody's up for hunting down their own supper, after all. And unless you're lucky enough to find a wandering doctor, or be one, you're probably not going to be able to make your own medications! So people need to know about good places to find them. There's an old Super-Duper Mart not far from here. I'll mark the general area on your Pip-Boy. I need to know if a place like that still has any of the old food or medicine supply left in it."
"Even if it does," said Ellen, "would it be safe to eat?"
"Oh, sure. They used to put all kinds of chems into food in the old days to keep it from spoiling. Not to mention that irradiation's one of the most certain ways I know of to keep food from spoiling or going rotten. So between the two, it's bound to be safe to eat." Moira smiled. "And if there's nothing left to find after all this time, then just come back in one piece, okay?"
The outlines of ruined buildings loomed in the distance; Ellen let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The Super-Duper Mart was well out of sight of Megaton's walls, and she'd been hunching her shoulders ever since she'd realized it was gone. Even if this wasn't anywhere she'd ever been before, it was still someplace that had structure, and that was at least something she could rely on.
... then again, the Springvale School had had structure, too.
Warily, she slackened her pace. No trouble spontaneously sprung up to face her, though. In the distance a dog barked, but there was no sign of it coming any closer. She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them again and went on.
As she clambered awkwardly over the remains of a fence strung with rusty, spiked wire, she caught sight of a huge metallic scaffold rearing up from the landscape not far away. It was surrounded by some sort of fence a good foot taller than Ellen, and that fence was topped with several rows of the rusting, spiked wire. The scaffold itself was at least sixty or seventy feet high, very nearly the tallest thing Ellen had ever yet seen in the Wasteland, but it gave no clue as to its function. There was another one ahead, closer to the cluster of buildings, and if she squinted into the southeastern distance she could make out one more.
Maybe they were navigational markers. They did lead out of the wasteland and into a settled area. Who knew?
From there the ground sloped downward towards the cluster of buildings. Chunks of concrete and stone indicated that a raised road had run through the area once, at least as big as the one she and Annabelle had passed on the way to Minefield. A few lonely brown or black spikes thrust upward from the greying soil where Ellen assumed trees had once stood. Most of the buildings were half-collapsed or more, now that she was close enough to see them properly, but one looked more or less whole: a long, low, concrete box of a place, separated from the others by a narrow skirt of largely unbroken concrete. As Ellen jogged up to it she caught sight of a gigantic sign suspended from two rusting, rotten metal posts, proclaiming this to be the Super-Duper Mart. Well, that was a stroke of luck...
... and then came the pzang! of gunfire from the far side of the building. Ellen flung herself to the ground, scrabbling for her pistol, before she realized it wasn't directed at her. As she propped herself up on her elbows she heard a man's voice screaming "Why won't it die??"; she left the pistol where it was and carefully reached back for her rifle instead. Whatever was up ahead, she didn't want to get too close, and the rifle was really her best option for defense at a distance.
The gunfire continued as she crept forward, her back to the wall of the Super-Duper Mart. A wire fence like the one around the scaffold blocked her way, but that was all right; she'd just caught sight of what was going on beyond it, and it was horrific. A monstrous thing bellowed its rage at a trio of terrified people on the other side of the fence as they scrambled to fire on it from some form of safe distance. What the beast was she didn't even know, only that it was a good twelve feet tall- maybe more!- and horned, with wicked-looking spikes protruding from its back. And that it was the fastest thing she had ever seen. When the human nearest it broke and ran, it closed the yards between them with a leap so swift it took her breath away. One massively clawed hand reared back as he screamed in terror, striking too quickly for the eye to follow. A spray of gore heralded his collapsing limply to the ground.
The thing pivoted on one foot, snarling with its head low. Its mad gaze was locked onto the two surviving people on its side of the fence, but Ellen was suddenly far too aware of just how flimsy two-hundred-year-old fencing was likely to be. If it wasn't felled quickly, it would come after her once it had finished the fight in front of it. She raised the rifle's scope to her eye and took aim through the fence, not even daring to breathe.
Crack! went the rifle. The monster's head jerked forward in a sudden fog of red. Ellen scrambled to reload, but the sound of cheering caught her attention; the thing was sprawled on the ground, its form quite still...
"Hey! Hey, you, over there, with the rifle!" called one of the two people still standing. She waved one bloodied hand, beckoning to Ellen. "Nice shooting!"
"Thanks," said Ellen cautiously, as the leather-clad woman came up to the fence. Her companion hug back, his pistol still in hand.
"Listen," the woman said, "that thing would've killed all three of us in another second. Allen and me were out of ammo. We owe you."
Ellen's eyes flickered to the dead man on the pavement. The woman noticed her look and said, "Dov always said something out here was going to kill him one day... Listen. You may as well take this map we were following. That's where we were headed, but that Deathclaw cured me of my itch for Wasteland adventure. We're going back to Fairfax."
"Um," said Ellen as she looked down at the map; it was to somewhere called Rock Creek Caverns, and had a notation indicating the 'Mirelurk King's Treasure Chamber!'. "Thanks, I think."
"Good luck out there, kid. You're going to need it."
The man grunted, as he was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. "Morning," he said as he got off an inhale.
Ellen was fascinated; she'd seen smoking in old news footage, and there were plenty of references to tobacco in history texts that mentioned certain states' and commonwealths' economies, but there had never been a cigarette inside Vault 101 so far as she knew. It was probably rude to ask about the process, though. "Is the shop open?" she asked instead.
"Yep. Moira's doing inventory," was the laconic reply. "MOIRA! Lab rat!"
Ellen resented the designation, but wasn't about to say anything to someone more heavily armed than she. And anyway, Moira came out immediately as soon as he said it. "Welcome back!" she said brightly. "Ready to head out again, or did you need to take a break after that last one?"
"No, I think I'm fine," Ellen said. "I think you mentioned food scavenging last time?"
Moira nodded. "I've got to see how safe it is to scavenge food and medicine from the ruins of some of those huge stores out there. Not everybody's up for hunting down their own supper, after all. And unless you're lucky enough to find a wandering doctor, or be one, you're probably not going to be able to make your own medications! So people need to know about good places to find them. There's an old Super-Duper Mart not far from here. I'll mark the general area on your Pip-Boy. I need to know if a place like that still has any of the old food or medicine supply left in it."
"Even if it does," said Ellen, "would it be safe to eat?"
"Oh, sure. They used to put all kinds of chems into food in the old days to keep it from spoiling. Not to mention that irradiation's one of the most certain ways I know of to keep food from spoiling or going rotten. So between the two, it's bound to be safe to eat." Moira smiled. "And if there's nothing left to find after all this time, then just come back in one piece, okay?"
The outlines of ruined buildings loomed in the distance; Ellen let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The Super-Duper Mart was well out of sight of Megaton's walls, and she'd been hunching her shoulders ever since she'd realized it was gone. Even if this wasn't anywhere she'd ever been before, it was still someplace that had structure, and that was at least something she could rely on.
... then again, the Springvale School had had structure, too.
Warily, she slackened her pace. No trouble spontaneously sprung up to face her, though. In the distance a dog barked, but there was no sign of it coming any closer. She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them again and went on.
As she clambered awkwardly over the remains of a fence strung with rusty, spiked wire, she caught sight of a huge metallic scaffold rearing up from the landscape not far away. It was surrounded by some sort of fence a good foot taller than Ellen, and that fence was topped with several rows of the rusting, spiked wire. The scaffold itself was at least sixty or seventy feet high, very nearly the tallest thing Ellen had ever yet seen in the Wasteland, but it gave no clue as to its function. There was another one ahead, closer to the cluster of buildings, and if she squinted into the southeastern distance she could make out one more.
Maybe they were navigational markers. They did lead out of the wasteland and into a settled area. Who knew?
From there the ground sloped downward towards the cluster of buildings. Chunks of concrete and stone indicated that a raised road had run through the area once, at least as big as the one she and Annabelle had passed on the way to Minefield. A few lonely brown or black spikes thrust upward from the greying soil where Ellen assumed trees had once stood. Most of the buildings were half-collapsed or more, now that she was close enough to see them properly, but one looked more or less whole: a long, low, concrete box of a place, separated from the others by a narrow skirt of largely unbroken concrete. As Ellen jogged up to it she caught sight of a gigantic sign suspended from two rusting, rotten metal posts, proclaiming this to be the Super-Duper Mart. Well, that was a stroke of luck...
... and then came the pzang! of gunfire from the far side of the building. Ellen flung herself to the ground, scrabbling for her pistol, before she realized it wasn't directed at her. As she propped herself up on her elbows she heard a man's voice screaming "Why won't it die??"; she left the pistol where it was and carefully reached back for her rifle instead. Whatever was up ahead, she didn't want to get too close, and the rifle was really her best option for defense at a distance.
The gunfire continued as she crept forward, her back to the wall of the Super-Duper Mart. A wire fence like the one around the scaffold blocked her way, but that was all right; she'd just caught sight of what was going on beyond it, and it was horrific. A monstrous thing bellowed its rage at a trio of terrified people on the other side of the fence as they scrambled to fire on it from some form of safe distance. What the beast was she didn't even know, only that it was a good twelve feet tall- maybe more!- and horned, with wicked-looking spikes protruding from its back. And that it was the fastest thing she had ever seen. When the human nearest it broke and ran, it closed the yards between them with a leap so swift it took her breath away. One massively clawed hand reared back as he screamed in terror, striking too quickly for the eye to follow. A spray of gore heralded his collapsing limply to the ground.
The thing pivoted on one foot, snarling with its head low. Its mad gaze was locked onto the two surviving people on its side of the fence, but Ellen was suddenly far too aware of just how flimsy two-hundred-year-old fencing was likely to be. If it wasn't felled quickly, it would come after her once it had finished the fight in front of it. She raised the rifle's scope to her eye and took aim through the fence, not even daring to breathe.
Crack! went the rifle. The monster's head jerked forward in a sudden fog of red. Ellen scrambled to reload, but the sound of cheering caught her attention; the thing was sprawled on the ground, its form quite still...
"Hey! Hey, you, over there, with the rifle!" called one of the two people still standing. She waved one bloodied hand, beckoning to Ellen. "Nice shooting!"
"Thanks," said Ellen cautiously, as the leather-clad woman came up to the fence. Her companion hug back, his pistol still in hand.
"Listen," the woman said, "that thing would've killed all three of us in another second. Allen and me were out of ammo. We owe you."
Ellen's eyes flickered to the dead man on the pavement. The woman noticed her look and said, "Dov always said something out here was going to kill him one day... Listen. You may as well take this map we were following. That's where we were headed, but that Deathclaw cured me of my itch for Wasteland adventure. We're going back to Fairfax."
"Um," said Ellen as she looked down at the map; it was to somewhere called Rock Creek Caverns, and had a notation indicating the 'Mirelurk King's Treasure Chamber!'. "Thanks, I think."
"Good luck out there, kid. You're going to need it."