Art by Vladimir Manyuhina

“What’s a knish?”

That is how my contribution to the Fallout: New York City communal writing project started. Since sharing my opening post in my Something Old, Something New blog, several people have expressed interest in reading more of that story. Unfortunately, the project fell apart after several months due to outside demands on the most active group members, but I still have the posts that I wrote from the beginning up until the point where my writing intersected that of the other authors. My posts after that were first written on a communal document that is now lost, as is the Fallout3Underground website.

Still, the amount that I do still have is enough that posting all of it would create a blog too long for most to read. Instead, I will only post the first third of it now, and wait to see if people want more. Keep in mind that this is pure Fallout writing, and thus the story lacks the themes, virtues and ultimately positive perspective on the nature of people that makes Fallout: Equestria something uniquely pony.

As part of this project, I did a fair bit of research into 1950’s New York City and the surrounding area, and extrapolated what I hoped was an appropriately 1950’s-inspired Fallout retro-future for my parts of our post-apocalyptic playground. I also tried to do something interesting with perspective. I personally find writing in third-person to be far less challenging than first person (or, heaven forbid, second person). But as long as the perspective is third-person limited rather than third-person omniscient, there are some fun things you can do with it.

So, by request, here are the first few pages of my contribution to Fallout: New York City. Please enjoy!

Coney Boardwalk, Brooklyn. Day One. 8:42 pm "What's a knish?" The downpour wrapped Coney in a blanket of sound -- rain falling on the wooden planks of the boardwalk, showering on the ocean, tapdancing on the sheet metal and racing madcap through gutters. Alexander could barely hear his sister's voice, and turned towards her in the hopes she would repeat it. She was speaking aloud, not using their private channel, and softly so as not to attract attention. It was unwise to attract attention on the Coney Boardwalk at night. This was Joker territory. The rain had soaked through Kitrina's armored suit in a way that Alex feared the Jokers would find far too appealing. The hunting rifle slung over her back would probably be an insufficient deterrent, should they be spotted. Alex followed her gaze and the directional spotlight of her Pip-Boy to the edifice of the pre-war storefront across from them. Faded and eroded by weather, the words "Jerry's Knishes" were barely legible above the boarded-up windows. The fact that the store had been boarded up told Alex that sometime in the two intervening centuries, someone had fortified and used the building. From the rotting state of the boards, probably not anyone who had breathed recently. Chances were, there was nothing salvageable in the place, much less any of Jerry's nomenclature-worthy knishes. But nobody every scavenged anything by not checking, and it was an excuse to duck out of the storm. Alex strode up the the door, pulling out one of his combat knives and started to work on it, using the screen light from his Pip-Boy to illuminate his work. Kitrina had already turned her lights off, unslung her rifle and was pulling her goggles down over her eyes. The night vision optics for the left eye had been damaged during an incident while passing through Middlesex, leaving her blind in that eye whenever she used them. Alex hadn't yet been able to find the parts to fix it. Maybe, if they were both absurdly lucky, Jerry's Knishes would offer what had eluded them in the Brunswicks. (It would make a fine birthday present -- their seventeenth was just a few weeks away.) But he'd settle for a leftover box of Salisbury Steak. Alex suppressed a chuckle as the first board tore loose with the squeal of reluctant nails. As if boarding up a door from the outside ever stopped anyone determined to get in. "Hey Alex..." Kitrina's voice this time spoke directly into his ear, carried there by the dedicated channel between the sibling's specially-rigged Pip-Boys. Alex turned to see his sister staring out over the churning water. The storm sent waves crashing against the boardwalk. "...there's a ferry out there."

Jerry's Knishes, Coney Island. Day One. 8:59 pm Kitrina shifted her weight as she watched her twin brother read the corpse. The body lay collapsed behind the cash register counter. The kid (who couldn't be more than a year older than she was) wore the colors of the Immortal Homocides, but the boardwalk was the domain of the Jokers. Undoubtedly, this was the cause of his deadness. That, and the bullet hole in his lower torso. Kit's observations on the body ended there. "Well first," Alex remarked, "I clearly just spent a lot of effort getting us in through the front door when there is obviously a back entrance." Kit had re-shouldered her hunting rifle once they had secured the door. Now, the thought of someone sneaking in on them through another path made her rethink that decision. She listened intently in the pause that followed, but the only sounds were the drumming of the rain on the roof above, mirrored by the dripping water from their own bodies, and the wind outside which blustered then faltered then roared again like an asthmatic vacuum cleaner. On a good gust, Jerry's Knishes would shudder and creak with the moans of pre-war wood. "Possibly a door; probably a window." Alex continued, "With that wound, I don't think he was up for anything more acrobatic. My guess, he came in here to hide from the person who shot him." Kit watched as Alex seemed keenly interested in a trail of blood on the floor. To here, all trails of blood in tended to look the same. Assuming her brother was right, Jerry's Knishes had been a good choice of hiding spots. If anyone had found the kid before them, the corpse would have been better looted. Alex had moved away, following the blood, and was now looking down a back hallway. "He's been dead for several days, based on the smell." So that meant no one was likely to poke their head in looking for the boy. Good. While she stood guard, Alex could focus on scavenging. Kit took one last look at the corpse before following after her brother. There was a side satchel on the body -- fair chance of drugs and maybe some caps. No visible weapon, but maybe a switchblade in a pocket. Alex would probably want to tear up the clothing for patches. Could be worse. "And here's our window." Alex was looking through the furthest doorway in the hall. Kitrina didn't need him to tell her that. From where she stood, Kit could hear the unmuffled rain, and a flash of lightning outside brightened the doorway, silhouetting her twin. She was more surprised by his next words, "And paydirt!" By the time Kitrina had rushed into the barren back storage room, Alex was already kneeling beside the corner wall safe, his lockpicks in hand. Kit took position, covering the high windows with her rifle, one of which had been pushed open. The handprint of dried blood had not entirely washed away.

O'Connely's Sports Emporium, Coney Island. Day Two. 1:34 pm BLAM! Alex crouched behind the counter, counting the shots. One left, but he needed the Joker to get a bit closer before taking it. Fortunately, like all too many street gangs and raiders, Jokers had a bad habit of making sneering taunts that kept their prey appraised of their location. Between this one's rather filthy combat commentary and the IFF on his Pip-Boy, Alex was having no trouble marking the distance to the Joker. Twenty-five feet. Still too far. Again, he took the flag he had created out of the clothing from the ganger body yesterday and waved it above the counter. BLAM! Predictably, the Joker shot at anything that moved. One more bullet left, by Alex's count. And about twenty feet. Just a little closer... O'Connely's Sports Emporium had been home to a wealth of civilian-level weaponry before the war. So when society collapsed, it was only natural that some folks barricaded it as a final stand against their neighbors. By now, the weapons were all long gone, the store looted down to a few bowling balls, but the fortifications remained. The Jokers had made it one of their bases along the boardwalk. Muffled shots from outside let Alex know that Kitrina was still engaging any Joker outside, fleeing and reinforcements alike. Unfortunately for the Jokers, the very fortifications that had made this place seem ideal ensured that they had no other way in or out. The corpse had be a member of... the other major Coney Island gang. (He refused to think of them any other way. To Alex, "Immortal Homocides" was both absurd and a mouthful, and any attempt to shorten the name ended badly. Like the other gangs of Coney Island, the "Immortal Homocides" had chose a name steeped in history, probably as a way of trying to give themselves as sense of connection or importance. Unfortunately, not all pre-war gang names were equal.) The satchel on the corpse had contained some bottlecaps, a bit of personal rubbish... and a note. And that note had lead Alex and his sister here. Depending on how old that note was, the hostages might still be alive. Assuming this Joker asshole and his buddies didn't off them the moment the stealth approach blew apart. BLAM! Okay, that was less than fifteen feet. And that was what Alex was waiting for. Fifteen feet. From practice, that was how much ground he could cover and still sink his blades into a target before the target could reload. Starting from a crouch. Alex charged, blades raised, baring down on the Joker who looked up from reloading his combat shotgun, his face wearing the expression of a child realizing he'd marked the wrong answer moments after the teacher had collected his test...

Roof of the Lino Building, Coney Island. Day Two. 3:00 pm The rain had paused -- not really stopping, the air felt damp like a fine mist. The wind had stilled. Kitrina had taken off her armored jumpsuit and was wringing soda-bottles worth of water out of it as she turned slowly, checking her Pip-Boy's IFF one final time for any red marks. But there were no hostile signatures to be found. She smiled as she turned towards the blue blimp that must be her brother -- out of sight in the ally below, stripping valuables off of the bodies and piling them into dumpsters. A dozen Jokers dead, she and her brother left standing. Some of that was tech, more was skill... and a fair bit was that the Jokers were just that pathetic. Alexander had never had the kind of training she had... not that she had much. A few months. Short but intense. From the moment her G.O.A.T. scores got her assigned to the S.R.B. to the moment father finally gave in to mother's wishes to leave their gilded cage, Kitrina had been learning to take down far more cunning and dangerous game than raider-wanna-be types like the Jokers. Still wasn't enough to save the hostage though. She wondered if another month of training would have changed that. Then dismissed the thought. If it had taken them an extra month to get out here, the women in the back room of O'Connely's would be just as dead. A trio of blue markers to her left caught Kitrina's attention. She crouched down, skirting to the roof's edge, her rifle at the ready. Seagulls. Her Pip-Boy was picking up seagulls. Kitrina watched as the trio soared up into the air. She sat down, wet panties meeting and equally wet rooftop, and leaned her back against one face of the giant Nuka-Cola display that dominated the Lino Building's rooftop. The Lino Building boasts a huge three-directional display, two sides being Nuka-Cola billboards that had once boasted full neon lighting, with the middle panel sporting a huge, round Nuka-Cola clock. The clock had died midway between 12:34 and 12:35. Opposite her, the seagulls parted ways, one of them swooping to land on one of the crossbeams of the towering ruins of the boardwalk's iconic parachute jump. "One day," Kitrina promised to herself, indulging in a rare flight of fancy, "I will be good enough to climb up there and take out a target from the top." Such daydreams had little real value, but they helped take her mind off the cold and the wet and the dead women they couldn't save. The bang of a dumpster lid below cut her reverie short. Slipping her only-slightly-less-drenched jumpsuit back on, Kitrina walked to the edge and jumped down into the space between the Lino and the building next door, catching the protruding bars of a fire escape to control her fall. Alex was at the bottom, looking like he had stepped out of an abbatior. He was holding a poster in blood-crusted hands, reading it with a look of amused disbelief. In a nearby pile, the salvage-worthy take. Turning towards her, Kitrina's brother held out the sheet. "Check this out."

Room Six, The Grand Elephant, Coney Island. Day Two. 5:44 pm "oooooh, harder!..."

Alexander looked up towards the cracked ceiling of their room, trying to envision the most appealing possible version of what was happening in the room above. And failing. There was just something about the woman's voice that did not lend itself to a enjoyable picture. "Good job, 'Lex. You got us right beneath a screamer." Kitrina rarely used that name, usually to goad him. Alex shot her a weary look. It was the best he could get with the bricks of pre-war money he'd found stashed in the safe of Jerry's Knishes. Kitrina hadn't looked up from the little portable campfire, but he was sure she was smirking. It was really quite fortunate, Alex thought, given recent events, that they could afford a room here. The wallpaper was warped and faded, the toilet was not connected to functional plumbing, and Alex shuddered at the thought of laying his body down on the history of the bed. But the armed guards and security bot outside more than made up for all that, not to mention the proximity to patrons paying for the Grant Elephant's "additional services". There was a time, long ago, when The Elephant Hotel was one of New York's greatest landmarks. The large, elephant-shaped hotel was the first thing to greet immigrants, before the Statue of Liberty took over that role. The Grand Elephant had been built on the same spot over a century later by developers with grandiose goals of recapturing the past and making it even more ostentatious. And while the original hotel had been destroyed in one of the early Coney Island fires, The Grand Elephant had been built out of strong enough stuff to withstand the rain of nuclear fire that devastated so much of the east coast. The building remained intact, mostly-functional and iconic enough to draw the attention of more than just gangers and thugs. And some time ago had become the property of some gnarled branch in the tree of the Family. There was also a time when "going to see the elephant" was Victorian slang for what was happening in the room right above them. After the war, the Family had succeeded in turning The Grand Elephant into exactly what The Elephant had once become infamous for. Alexander wondered if the irony was lost on them. Turning his attention from the increasingly guttural moans, Alex took note of the smell that was beginning to overpower the strange and fetid musk of the room itself. Kitrina was managing something from a collection of local nuts, fruits, Spam and Fancy Lads Snack Cakes that made his hunger awaken and growl. From the aroma, Alexander was willing to bet it would give the mysterious "knish" a run for it's money. Well, at least a two-hundred year old one. The heavy creaking above sent a shower of dust down on him. He pulled the rolled up paper from one of his armored suit's inner pockets and looked at it again. "You're not taking that seriously, are you?" Kitrina asked, this time sparing him a glance. "It's rubbish. No one pays a million credits. For anything. Much less a girl. Hell, Zimmer wouldn't offer a reward like that." Alex nodded. True. A million credits was a beyond-ridiculous sum. An offer of a thousand dollars will tell everyone that the job is important, and probably dangerous. Most people will take it seriously, and many will sign up, including a lot of people completely unskilled and unprepared and just hoping to win the lottery. Offer ten thousand, and you might as well put return when the job is completed to be stabbed in the back on the bottom of your offer. The stupid will sign up, but anyone with experience or brains will walk away, chuckling and shaking their heads. Nobody pays that. But a million? Even the desperate and destitute would be given pause at that. It would take a mental abnormality to not suspect something fishy. However... "Whoever had these put up printed them. Using pre-war paper and ink." The paper, while wet, hadn't fallen apart. The ink had not run. The picture was still clear. "Possibly stuff similar to what they used to make their money out of." Alex had always been amazed at how durable pre-war money was. He'd found bricks of it footlockers that had been submerged in radioactive water for centuries. And the stuff was almost miraculously light. That's the only reason the stuff still had any value, beyond the nostalgia of a few collectors: if you had enough of it, you could waterproof your roof with it. And this help wanted poster, while probably not at that caliber, clearly noted a level of wealth. Or, at least, access to pre-war finery. Now it was Kitrina's turn to give him a look. And he didn't blame her. Curiosity about the make of the poster was hardly cause to act on its contents. Alex shrugged. "Doesn't matter, really. It would just be an excuse. We just killed a lot of Jokers. We can't afford another night here, and we dare not sleep anyplace less secure." He rolled up the poster and shoved it back into the pocket he had taken it from. "We need to leave Coney Island."

Deno's Wonder Wheel Park, Coney Island. Day Three. 7:06 am The wind had turned forbiddingly cold. Blustering gusts made the metal skeleton of the rusted Wonder Wheel squeal in pain. Down cracked alleys and between strange engines, litter cartwheeled in it's rush towards the ocean. Kitrina looked to her brother with pity. The weather bit into her face, making the tips of her ears ache. But her suit was was designed for both armor and insulation, boasting advanced polymers and energy dissipating nano-webbing crafted for protection against plasma weaponry. Sure, it was still damp, making it cling to her skin like freezing seaweed (there was only so much wringing out the material would allow possible, and they had not spent a warm enough or long enough night in the Grand Elephant to let the more inflexible areas dry) but at least it held her own body heat in admirably. Alexander had no such luck. His was a low-level lab suit worn by primarily by interns and lab maintenance. What armoring it carried had been tacked on, mostly by Brad Ross, a caravaner who had considered himself a "specialist" in makeshift armor. The work, while having likely saved her brother's skin more than once, also produced small holes in the suit, exposing that same skin to harsher weather. Alexander didn't complain; she knew he was keeping a stubbornly brave face for her, albeit probably more in competition than an attempt to keep her spirits), but she could see him shivering when he thought she wasn't looking. "Let's cut through here," she offered, spotting the darkened opening to one of the dilapidated amusement buildings that littered Coney Island. A strange pre-war sign (EMP YE S O LY), its meaning lost in time, remained above the dark rectangle. The pre-war door (made of that treated pseudo-wood that allowed so many apparently wooden structures to survive apocalypse and age) lay face-down on the walkway, it's dime-store pre-war hinges having rusted into oblivion. Alex nodded assent. Inside, the wind was cut to an occasional cough. Inside was a crude and arcane maze of pseudo-wood and metal framework, populated by bizarre and ghoulish mannequins. The respite from the wind was welcoming, but the building itself was less so. Tracked groves snaked through the floor, more than once causing Alex to trip. Only cracks in the worn walls allowed outside light to slash at the darkness -- too much light for Kitrina to use her night vision goggles, too little to see by properly. Kitrina was considering turning on the screen light from her PipBoy when "Boo!" Alex's face was lit up from beneath by his own, making him seem startlingly demonic. She would have jumped out of her skin had her suit not held her in place. Alex laughed while Kitrina considered bludgeoning him with the butt of her rifle. She decided against it, although she waved it at him threateningly. It did not help that the scene her brother's light illuminated was one of severed heads and spooks and running blood in various faded shades of red. Not far ahead, a pretzel car (which to her looked like the mutant offspring of a chair and a barrel) lay toppled from its track, the colorfully ghastly paint flaking and peeling. "Hey, you're the one that lead us into Spook-A-Rama." Kitrina hissed. "Shut up." She lifter her own Pip-Boy turn on the light. That's when she saw the red marks. "Shhhh!" she hissed, this time seriously. Alex took but a moment to realize what she was looking at and stop chuckling. He checked his Pip-Boy. He needn't have bothered too. The first Joker announced himself with a violent bang of his lead pipe against the metal framework. "Well, look what we have here, boys!" Kitrina whirled, the voice having come from behind her. They were surrounded. She gripped her rifle in both hands, but knew that it was the wrong weapon for such tight quarters. Fear colder than the wind ran down her back. There were at least five of them. This was not like yesterday, shooting at targets from a safe distance and the benefit of cover, on a rooftop her opponents couldn't reach without jumping between fire escapes. She felt Alex back against her as he drew his knives. "Now, you might think we're about to teach you not to mess with the Jokers. But that just ain't the case..." The one she pegged as the leader (at least of this little group) sneered as he hefted a fireaxe over his shoulder. Around him, Jokers laughed. "No, you see, we're going teach that to everyone else! Using you. Or... at least, what will be left of you." Kitrina used the reflex trigger to switch on her special Pip-Boy's Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, figuring it was the only way she might get more than one shot off before they closed in enough to just knock her barrel away. The last thing she heard before her combat system ripped her out of normal time was a voice from one of the boys behind her... "Kill him, sure, but can we keep her breathing for just a little longer?..."

Spook-A-Rama, Coney Island. Day Three. 7:18 am There's no such thing as a knife fight. The words of Master Kanthro rumbled in Alexanders mind as, a combat knife clutched in each hand, he tried to track each of his opponents, his eyes moving rapidly from one Joker to another. This was bad. The quarters were too tight to dodge in; and even if he did, he'd only risk exposing his sister to attack. From behind. Alex knew he had to take these three, or die trying, just as he knew he had to trust Kitrina with the two she faced. Three of them... the one who first announced their presence with his lead pipe had been joined by a frighteningly tall brute with a chain (Alexander couldn't tell in the bad lighting if it was from an old bicycle or off of a large chainsaw) and a kid probably younger than he was holding bat across his shoulders. The Jokers had let him draw his knives -- they stood around and talked (about raping his sister) instead of closing in before he could unsheath his blades -- so that meant they were profoundly stupid. And that meant there was at least a chance he could win. He also had one other advantage. And as the three moved in, Lead Pipe at the head of the pack, Alexander reflex-triggered the advantage, slipping into V.A.T.S. Lead Pipe was fast, bringing his weapon down in an arc aimed at Alexander's head. Alex tried to sidestep, moving towards his attackers. The thick metal cudgel struck home instead against his upper right arm. Lightning bolts of pain ripped up and down his arm, with numbness following. Shocks of pain tortured his fingertips and up the side of his neck. More luck than skill kept his right hand from dropping the blade. Behind him, the sound of his sister's rifle exploded in the tight maze. Alexander's step carried him towards the youngest of the three. Baseball Bat was still pulling his bat from behind his neck when Alexander's left-hand blade sunk deep into the other boy's stomach. The Jokers had made a stupid mistake; Alex was not beholden to do the same. The chain lashed hot across Alexander's back. His armor blocked the worst of it, but a sticky warmth told him that he was bleeding inside his suit. Alexander hitched the knife upwards in Baseball Bat's stomach before hauling it out, the blade bringing a rush of blood, fluids and intestines with it. A coil of the boy's innards remained caught on the blade's serrated edge as the Joker's eyes went wide and a disbelieving whimper fell from his lips. He wasn't dead -- that would take a while -- but he was out of the fight. Alex could see in the other boy's eyes the moment when the revelation struck him... the one that Master Kanthro had drilled into Alexander long ago. You don't bring weapons to a fight. If somebody draws a weapon, it's no longer a "fight". It's combat. It's survival. If someone comes at you with a weapon, don't think about "fighting" because "fighting" has jumped a paddleboat for China. You run. Or you take them down as hard and as fast as you can. Even as the gutted Joker fell to his knees, Alexander turned to face Chain. Wrong move. Chain was too tall, and the area to tight, for him to move around as freely as combat demanded, much less swing his chain effectively. Lead Pipe had no such trouble. Alexander let out a grunt of pain as agony exploded across his shoulder blades. His suit's single armored shoulder-piece caught part of the impact, turning what could have been a devastating blow to the back of his neck into something that merely sent him sprawling against the wall. The moment his right arm made contact with the pseudowood, another blast of agony ripped through it, wringing a scream from Alexander's throat. This time, he did drop the blade. Another explosion from Kitrina's rifle nearly drowned it out. Alex ducked, expecting either Lead Pipe or Chain to be swinging at his head. He cast his eyes downward, hoping to spy his knife, but his vision was blurred with tears and his right arm dangled uselessly at his side. He thought he heard something impacting the wall above him, but he couldn't tell. He could feel the thugs closing on him, and swung his blade in a wide arc... just trying to clear the space around him. Someone jumped back, close enough for him to pinpoint, not close enough to snag with the blade. Where was the other...? Kitrina screamed. A scream of hurt and fear. Alexander's head exploded in rage, driving out the hurt. He launched himself at the figure in front of him. He barely felt Chain's chain striking across his cheek and partially wrapping about his neck. He did feel his body connect hard with that of the tallest Joker, and heard the older boy's grunt from the impact, the surprised note in the sound as Alexander drove them both against the opposite wall... and the wall collapsed with a splintering crack and the squeal of abused bolts surrendering after over two hundred years of service. The chain ripped from his neck as they fell, leaving gouges that ran with blood. Alexander landed on Chain's torso with his hurt arm. His vision went black. His ears were suddenly ringing, making all other sound seem strange and distant. There was an odd clacking somewhere. A metallic scraping and chunking -- closer, he thought -- was followed by something slick and feathery brushing his forehead. He feared he lost consciousness. Chain stirred beneath him. Blinking tears free, Alexander saw the tall Joker still sprawled beneath him. The fall had apparently knocked the wind from him. Without a moment hesitation, Alex raised the blade still clutched in his left hand and brought it down. The laser-sharpened blade slid effortlessly into the thug's neck, a crimson pool blossoming around it. Alexander stood, shakily... not so much pulling the blade from the Joker's neck as as lifting it out as a casual side effect of the lifting of his own body. He gasped, nauseous from the ringing in his ears, and disoriented as he found himself entangled in some strange mesh of plastic and wretchedly old cloth. He slashed at the entanglement, crying out in alarm, until his good arm hit something solid enough to send the offending strangeness swinging away on its rusty swivel with a metallic wail of protest and a low, inhuman cackle. Blinking, Alexander found he was facing a haunting grim reaper -- a spook-house spectre that his crash through the wall must have released from it's centuries-long slumber. He was still staring at it a second later when he felt his dropped blade push traitorously through the back of his suit, between his ribs, and into his left lung.

Spook-A-Rama, Coney Island. Day Three. 7:18 am Kitrina's body gave in to a brief tremor of fear as she stood face-to-shadowed-face with two boys, each much bigger and stronger than she was. One of whom held a 9mm pistol in one hand, a pool cue in the other. The other boy brandished a fireaxe! Guns were dangerous. Even a lowly 9mm could murder. But the thought of what that fireaxe could do to her body, or her brother's, was horrifying to the girl. Then, as V.A.T.S. kicked in, the world seemed to come to a standstill. It was an illusion, of course, a trick of the mind. Fear faded into the background as Kitrina slipped into a sort of combat zen with possibly the most advanced personal tactical system in the Wasteland. In a fluid motion, she lifted her rifle to center a shot almost perfectly in the middle of Fireaxe's forehead and pulled the trigger. Blood blossomed from the Joker's forehead, then the back of his skull relocated itself across the wall behind him, overpainting spookshow gore with the real thing. She turned lithely, bringing the rifle towards the other... Two-Weapons was already swinging out with his pool cue, using the length to his advantage. The wooden pole caught the muzzle of Kitrina's rifle and knocked it out of the way even as she pulled the trigger. Her shot went into the opposite wall, blowing a large hole. With a rush like crashing from a high, Kitrina dropped out of the serenity of V.A.T.S. and the world sprang to violent life. She could hear her brother screaming. Two-Weapons took the opportunity, stepping up too close for her to bring the rifle back to bear, so close she could feel his breath. He pointed the 9mm inches from her stomach and pulled the trigger. Twice. She barely heard the sound. The soft phut! Phut! of the weapon was drowned out by the chaos around her. Two small bullets struck her at womb-level with all the velocity the pistol could muster. She cried out, doubling over. Her rifle clattered to the floor and slid away. Pain and shock fell over her mind like a heavy blanket. The Joker stepped over her, moving towards her brother. Fumbling, Kitrina reached into her side pouch, wrapping her arms around the comforting cold plastic of the inhaler and bringing it to her trembling lips. With aerosol whoosh, Jet rushed into her lungs. The blanket over her mind was flung away. The world slipped back into the oddly peaceful serenity of V.A.T.S. Her rifle had come to rest under the toppled pretzel car a few feet away. Ignoring the blast of black pain from her stomach, Kitrina kipped up, grabbed the car, and shoved it back on its tracks with a loud clack. Her firearm now accessable, Kit paused... for just a moment within a moment... her Jet-fuelled and V.A.T.S.-assisted mind making a snap decision. And with all the strength she could muster, she shoved the pretzel car down the track towards the two still standing Jokers. Two-Weapons had clearly heard the noise of car being righted, and was in the process of turning back towards her when she sent it clack-clack-clacking down the track towards him. He jumped back, clearing the car with his body, but not with his pool cue. The funhouse-painted wheeled chair snagged the edge of the wooden shaft, twisting it awkwardly in his hand and smacking him across the face with it. The other Joker was crouching, holding a Lead Pipe in one hand, staring at the floor of the Spook-A-Rama as if he had lost his glasses. Clack-clack-clack. The car didn't have enough momentum left to actually hurt him when it sent him sprawling. Kitrina picked up her rifle as once again the real world asserted itself over V.A.T.S. with a vengeance. Two-Weapons was now just Pistol, having dropped the pool cue to the floor. He was trying to wipe away the blood that was running into his right eye from the gash in his forehead as he aimed the gun at her shakily. Kitrina swollowed hard, trembing, her stomach sending bursts of hurt through her that threatened to knock her back to the ground. She was afraid to look down at the damage that had been done. "F-fuck this!" the boy suddenly spat out. Still half-blinded by the blood rushing from his forehead, he spun shakily and began to run. Kitrina gripped her rifle tightly, keeping an aim at the fleeing ganger's back. But the shaking of her body was playing havok with her aim. After no more than a second or two, she lowered the muzzle. And finally dared look down at the front of her suit. She could see the burns from the gun's close firing scorched across the otherwise undamaged midsection of her armored suit. If her suit hadn't been designed to stop bullets and distribute impact energy... If the Joker's pistol had been of a higher caliber or in significantly better repair... No, best not to think about those things. Instead, Kitrina pulled her gaze upward again. Lead Pipe had gotten to his feet. And now Kitrina saw what he had been looking for. He had slipped his pipe in to the belt of his jeans; in his hand he now held one of her brother's knives! He wasn't looking at her. He was looking... Kitrina followed Lead Pipe's gaze. Her brother, standing in a hole in the wall, facing the wrong way, illuminated by his own Pip-Boy as he fought off a what looked like a bundle of black rags. Once more, Kitrina's grip on her rifle tightened, her finger moving back over the trigger. Lead Pipe moved towards her brother, knife held for a thrust. Kitrina raised her rifle, bringing the sights to eye level as quickly as she could, the unformed thought in the back of her mind: please let me be faster!

Deno's Wonder Wheel Arcade, Coney Island. Day Three. 8:22 am Alex collapsed next to the first aid box, drawing out his lockpicks and setting to work. After three tries, the old lock reluctantly clicked free, allowing the boy to access the treasures inside. Three more stimpacks, a bottle of Med-X... and a bottle of purified water. Now that was precious. Wasteland settlements that had functional water purifiers were few and far between. Alexander suspected that might change once inside New York proper. Turning towards his sister, he held up their bounty with a weak smile. Then caught himself as he began coughing. Flecks of red dotted his sleeve where he held it against his mouth. Stimpacks seemed neigh-miraculous to anyone who didn't understand them or know their limitations. Alexander did. The medical cocktail of nanites and stimulants in each syringe do swift work at regenerating damaged tissues, meat and bone. It had taken only one of them to repair his arm. Another to close the wounds on his neck, and mend the sliced skin and internal tissues from the stab wound in his back. But medical nanites only repaired damage; they didn't fix you. Crippling injuries required an entirely higher level of care, with the proper tools and the expertise to use them. If you broke a bone, a stimpack would mend it, yes. But if you didn't set it properly, the stimpack would mend it wrong. And you would need a proper doctor to re-break it and set it right. Only then, could you hope to regain full use of the limb. Just so, while the stimpack had healed his punctured lung, it did not drain the lung of blood. Alexander was having trouble breathing. He knew his coughing alarmed his sister, his weakness even more so. His mind buzzed with an instinctual panic: he was half-drowning. He looked up to find his sister staring at him, trying to keep from looking worried. Her rifle was in hand, but he knew she wasn't putting much attention towards guarding. Not since they'd made sure the rotting arcade was clear. "What did you find?" he asked, trying to distract her. Kitrina started, then moved to show off the odd, coffin-like booth. Inside, visible through plate glass, was the fearsome visage of an animatronic crone, the pain almost completely peeled from her face, her torso wrapped in rotted rags of faded pink and mock-pearls cracked with age. He could make out enough of the faded letters on the faux-wooden panel below to assemble the title "Grandma's Predictions" and "What does Grandma say?" "I tried a bottlecap, but it won't fit." Alex nodded. The rig clearly predated not only the war, but even fission power. The extremely narrow slot requested "25", but was clearly designed for neither bottlecaps nor pre-war money. Probably the old coin currency that hadn't been in use even before the war, and was now never seen, due both to scarcity and weight. Alexander expected that Grandma would never again tell a fortune. Alex didn't need Grandma to predict their next move. They had to leave Coney Island. But now a detour was called for. The Coney Island Hospital was a huge pre-war facility, and had almost certainly been picked clean by scavengers. But from experience, Alexander knew that wastelanders who had mastered even the most basic lock-picking were rare, and had been for twenty decades. The first aid kit beside him was proof of that. So a medical building that size, even a clean-picked on, would surely have an unraided storage room with the kind of proper medical supplies... Alexander coughed again, groaning, and balked at the thought of having to operate on himself to drain his own lung. His training was not up to that task. He saw no way that could end well. He was still hoping they would be lucky and find a competent wasteland doctor, or even better, a still-functioning medical bot in the building with programming that hadn't dangerously decayed.