Lois Lane leered at Lyon with her liquid, laughing eyes. (Say that 5 times fast!) "Everything poses a threat to the future of the world, my darling," she said. "We here in the Conglomerate are just trying to protect it. As for me, I have one more trick up my sleeve, you nasty little mother--" A decisive whack silenced Lois for good as she pulled out a .45 caliber pistol.
What had rendered her thusly unconscious? One trembling Tally Dvanova.
"Lyon!" she cried. "I knew something was amiss about this smelly, run-down meth lab, besides the obvious fact that it's a smelly, run-down meth lab." She smiled cordially. "Oh, man," she mumbled, looking at the abrasions on his wrists. "Good thing I brought a couple of Stimpaks along with me." She used one of them, gently injecting the fluid into the injured area. "Sorry. It stings, don't it?" She looked around at the bodies: four dead, one knocked out cold.
"Let's get out of here," she said. "You won't believe what they want me to do."
Lyon simply smiled at Tally and nodded his head "Thank you" he said to her as he walked closer to Lois and looked down upon her. He took the pistol he recently acquired and pointed it down at the unconscious woman. Lois was a loose end and one thing Lyon hated most was loose ends. He pulled the trigger twice,lodging two bullets into her skull devoting her of any life.
Lyon turned to Tally his face showing no sign of remorse or regret for his actions. Slowly he walked towards her, stopping in front of her. He looked down into her eyes, noticing that she was slightly frightened.
"She wasted her life. Her life was no longer hers to control. You'll learn things as you travel through the Capital Wasteland, you'll experience pain more then anything else. You'll lose things you never thought possible. But if you can look past the pain, and anguish you'll see that light and that light you have to keep reaching for. Don't lose yourself in this journey. People will die, people will suffer, know that you can't save anyone. Now what did they want you to do?" he said to her, trying to teach her something if possible.
Bowden Shoales gazed at Schmidt. "Wait," he said. "Mercs in this town are a dime a dozen, but I have a feeling you're something special. Skolnik can wait. I have something else in mind for you, something that will demonstrate to us how willing you are to make sure that this paradise of ours stays trouble-free. Free of criminals and undesirables, yes, but also free of..the deformed."
He leaned forward. "We may have no more mutants in this land of the free and the home of the brave, but we still have those with mental retardation, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy. Blights on the population. Several of these disabilities are acquired at birth, and so I want you to go to the Infants' and Toddlers' wing of District of Columbia Memorial Hospital. They have a sleeping room there, and the children are helped to sleep with the aid of one of our competitors' products, the vapor-based GoodNite. GoodNite has no negative side effects, no habit-forming potential--utterly unprofitable!
"Once you are outside the sleeping room of these 'defective little darlings', I want you to program the GoodNite lullaby and vapor-delivery machine to administer a lethal dose. Suffer not the little children--or, suffer not us!" Shoales laughed. "If you accomplish this, bringing back the I.D. bracelets of all the 'sleeping' little babes, you will be paid 10,000 caps and become my personal bodyguard and TSS. You'd be foolish to waste this opportunity..."
***********************************
Once outside the Sleeping Room of the Infants' and Toddlers' wing, or more specifically, the Failure-to-Thrive Infants' and Toddlers' Sleeping Room, Schmidt gazed at the mechanism to deliver a sweet lullaby and sweeter GoodNite vapor. He heard wailing from the room inside from several cranky children, but one of them, a little girl of three or so, toddled up to the window. She smiled and pounded a tiny fist on it, waving "hi" to Schmidt. She had a noticeable limp, but she and the other children seemed okay to him.
Schmidt stood before the console, wondering what to do.
The little girl kept throwing her teddy bear against the window, laughing and looking frustrated all at the same time. What was she trying to do?
It hit Schmidt with all the force of a nuclear bomb: this "defective little darling," as Shoales had called her, was trying to give him her teddy bear.
"I have a CamEye inserted in my right cornea," Tally explained as she and Lyon escaped the now-deserted meth lab and "house of ill repute". "I told Mei Wu that I wanted to test it, and soon that CEO guy--Shoales, I think his name was--gave me a mission to complete. I'm supposed to go to the Washington Monument and spy on a private meeting of several heads of state. Shoales is afraid that our new President Parson is going to cut corporate subsidies to the Conglomerate. I'm not supposed to do this, Lyon. Spying on our government is treason against the United States, which Shoales told me doesn't exist anymore. I'm going to turn myself in right away and expose the plot, no matter what the Conglomerate may do to me."
She turned to him. "Am I crazy, or is the Conglomerate seriously fracked up?"
Schmidt stared into the window of the Children's Ward. He was, for a first time, questioning whether doing this was the right thing. Sue, he was a merc, a killer-for-hire, but he still maintained principles, and morals.
He looked at the case that contained the GoodNite lullaby dosage machine. He shook his head. Shoales was right, he was indeed a special merc. Unlike others, he knew right from wrong, even though he bent the rules many times himself. Shoales was going too far.
He clenched his fists and sighed, his powered armor crunching in on itself.
He couldn't do this job.
He couldn't kill these children, and he doubted that he could live with himself any longer on killing for a price. The last few jobs had indeed sickened him to the core.
He walked over and took the teddy bear the child was offering. The child looked quite happy now that he had it.
He smiled and put it in his pack.
He then turned around, heading back for the Conglomerate. He could not take the job.
Lyon laughed slightly as he stuck his hands into this pockets and walked ahead of Tally. Giant companies have always been trouble, and probably always would be Lyon knew that. People gain power, and they abuse it. They claim they want to bring peace to everyone by eliminating things that don't seem to fit into they're plan. But eventually most everything starts to not fit into they're plan of perfection.
He then sighed stopped and turned towards Tally "I'll go with you. I don't trust politics. I'll make sure they don't pull something fast on you."
"Well, well, well!" grinned Shoales, his perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth stretching almost from jaw to jaw, not just ear to ear. "Back so soon? I suspect the job was pretty easy, then, especially for a man like you." He spread his hands out wide on the table, two giant palms that, Schmidt imagined, could easily crush someone's skull between them in a viselike grip. "Do we have the bracelets?" He paused. "Come on! Let's see them."
His huge grin turned into a huge scowl in the span of ten slow seconds.
"You don't have them, do you?" He seethed and tapped a few keys on his keyboard. "Look, sir," he said with the air of a practiced killer--or, more appropriately, a practiced hirer of killers. "I know all about you. Thorwald, Schmidt. Merc-for-hire on several occasions, tally of 100 total kills. You know what? If you were in the hands of the so-called 'law-abiding citizens' of the United States of America, you'd be getting the electric chair or the needle. You don't know what kind of protection I and the Conglomerate can offer you. All I wanted was for you to kill some feebs before they even turned five, and you can't do that? I have connections to Don Corgin, you idiot! Corgin!
"All right. Here's the deal. Either go back to that hospital and put those little cripples out of their misery, or I'm calling the CongloCops. They're on our payroll, and they won't hesitate to take you out in a second. Got me?"
"Hey," said Tally. "I've been hearing reports over GNR--Galaxy News Radio--that they're having radiation trouble over at the Monument. Want to go get some Safe-T Gear? That way, the Conglomerate will still think we're on their side, testing their products. Right?"
Schmidt smiled, "Go ahead, you've lost already."
He held up a recording device.
"As weak as our nation may be, I've decided that you should not evade proper justice any longer. What you just said has just helped that. Talk some more if you'd like. But I have the authorities to see."
He put the recording device down and activated the mini-gun. Just because Schmidt could not kill children did not mean he was above removing the filth like Shoales.
"It's up to you....I doubt many of your employees agree whole-heartedly with what Conglomerate does...the only reassurance you have is money....and that is why corporate monsters such as yourselves will always fall."
Lyon turned his head to the left at looked at the Washington Monument. He remembered the last time he had to go there for Three Dog. He's a good Radio Announcer, entertaining to say the least. But Lyon was curious of what the Conglomerate wanted with Safe-T gear. He kind of smiled wondering as well of what kind of trouble three dog got himself into this time. Fight the good fight, that's what he was always doing up in his studio.
"Even if they know we aren't working for them, it would probably be best to get that gear before they did. So lets get going."
"Proper justice?" Shoales chuckled to himself. "And what justice would that be, my friend? Surely, as a merc, you would know by now that the only real justice is the kind that money can buy. Did you know that more than three quarters of the police force in this city is on the Conglomerate's payroll? That's right. Those who would come to arrest me would come to free me! The city doesn't pay enough for most men to feed their families, even in this glorious new paradise of ours, and so we've supplemented their salaries."
Shoales shrugged his shoulders and spread his arms wide. "Forget the little defectives, then. They're not really worth my time, or yours. After all, they're just defenseless children who will grow up to be defenseless adults! All I want is to try and hire you for one last bit of business, and then you can be off."
He opened a drawer and took out a folder labeled, innocuously, "Vault 119".
******************************
After Tally and Lyon went back to Conglomerate headquarters to pick up some Safe-T Gear to "test", they headed for the Washington Monument. It had been refurbished and reconstructed up to the finest standards of the finest architects, and hundreds upon hundreds of people were here for the meeting of the heads-of-state. Tally and Lyon had no trouble getting in.
"Are you here for today's meeting?" asked the security guards suspiciously.
"Actually," replied Tally humbly, "I'm here to surrender, to turn myself in."
The guards were both puzzled. "Surrender, ma'am? Whatever for?"
"It's a long story," she replied, "but it has to do with the Conglomerate, and what they want me to do as I test their 'Cam-Eye' product." She jerked her head toward a door marked PRIVATE. "I suggest going in there, if we may."
(Sorry, yesterday I couldn't post and it appears you got alot done in that time. Also, I don't get the name of the CEO...)
Sam sat down with the Doctor. " No, I was visiting my Cousin, Cathlina, poor thing has a tumor in her head. She said she needed some fresh air." Sam said as convincingly and innocently as possible.
The doctor looked at him, then to 'Cathlina'.
" Her names Aisha, not Cathlina. I don't know what your trying to pull, but it aint working." said Huxley.
Sam sighed, He had a feeling this might happen. He reached out and grabbed the spot where Huxely's neck and shoulder met. The doc fell over instantly. Sam picked up Huxley and laid him in the bushes.
" Hey, nice clothes!" Sam said appreciatively as he walked off, carrying Aisha over his shoulder, wearing the clothes Huxley did.
Schmidt didn't let things go very easily, but he needed the money.
"Fine....I'll just forget this happened okay....tell me about this next assignment. I'll think about it."
His hand relaxed away from the weapon he had holstered.
((Sorry about not posting a while. Seem's I just gotta wait for the right time to jump in I guess.))
( I finally got Fallout 3!!! Awesome. I just hate the part were my Assault Rifle broke, in the middle of a fight...)
Sam walked up to the Conglomerate headquarters. It seemed Aisha was still sleeping, but she was stirring every now and again. As he stepped into the elevator up to Shoales' office Aisha stirred again.
Well, I hope she stays this docile until I get her to the docs.
Then, Aisha suddenly started lashing out at him. Her uncut nails scratched Sam across his face. Sam brought his rifle but across her forehead, but it only seemed to get her more riled up. Sam shot, just once, into her leg. She faltered, for only a second, and then she was on him again. She snarled as she tried to bite him.
Holy crap! It only makes it worse!!
Sam pulled out his knife, slamming it through her hand, pinning it to her other hand. She seemed to stop. The door finally opened, and people seemed to notice the blood more than the man with a knife. Sam held her very tightly, taking her to the doctors room.
" Take her!" Sam said, slamming her head into the desk, knocking her out. He stepped out and went into Shoales office.
" I can tell you with all certainty that the Paci-Fi doesn't work. I still want my pay." Sam said to shoales as he entered.