(The protagonist didn’t search Sanctuary Hills in the previous chapter because he had only just met Codsworth.
Codsworth had lived there for 200 years, so after just meeting it and accepting its help, he could hardly turn around and loot its home.)
Jace took one last look at Sanctuary Hills, then turned and followed the silver robot east.
The river beneath the bridge was clear.
Jace glanced down.
There were no fish, and the silt was not deep enough to support Mirelurks.
There was only water, flowing slowly over gravel and rusted iron pipes.
Once they crossed the bridge, the road opened up.
By the standards of the Fallout universe, this place was pretty good.
A relatively clean water source, close to a Vault, flat terrain, and some of the houses still had their main structures mostly intact.
With a little reinforcement and a few holes patched up, they could last through the winter.
He marked the place in his mind.
“Jace,” Codsworth said from beside him.
Jace looked up.
“Up ahead is the Red Rocket truck stop.” Codsworth pointed with one mechanical arm.
“Before the war, it was a gas station.
It was abandoned afterward.
I come by now and then to take a look.
Some of the tools inside are still usable.”
Jace followed the direction it was pointing.
A red-and-white building squatted by the roadside not far ahead.
A rocket was painted on the sign, though the red paint had peeled away in patches, exposing the rusted sheet metal beneath.
Several gas pumps stood crookedly out front.
Their hoses were long gone, leaving only rusted metal columns behind.
Two hundred meters.
Jace estimated the distance in his head.
Codsworth was right.
It really was close.
Sanctuary Hills truly lived up to being a wealthy American neighborhood.
A small community of just over a dozen households actually had its own nuclear-powered vehicle repair station that also served as a gas station.
After leaving Sanctuary Hills, crossing the bridge, and walking for less than ten minutes, they were here.
In the game, this was the first place where players could encounter Dogmeat.
That loyal German Shepherd would wait here, wagging his tail as he ran over, becoming the player’s first companion in the Wasteland.
Jace instinctively glanced toward the entrance of the repair station.
There was an old tire on the ground by the entrance, a few wooden planks, and some trash that had been blown together by the wind.
But there was no dog, no doghouse, and no trace that any dog had been here.
Sure enough, Dogmeat was not here.
In the game, Dogmeat should have been here.
He would run out from some corner, circle around you, and then you could take him along.
He was the most iconic companion in the entire Fallout series, the most loyal friend countless players had in the Wasteland.
“Jace?” Codsworth stopped and looked back at him.
“Is something the matter?”
Jace paused, then withdrew his gaze.
“Nothing.
It’s just…
that repair station looks kind of interesting.”
He could not say it out loud.
He could not say he was looking for a dog.
“It is rather interesting,” Codsworth said, a touch of nostalgia in its voice.
“Before the war, the residents would occasionally drive over to refuel.
Drivers would get out, buy a bottle of Nuka-Cola, and chat with the clerk for a bit.
When I passed by, I sometimes heard them talking about baseball, the weather, or which gas station had the cheaper prices.”
It paused.
“Now…
there is only the wind.”
Jace said nothing.
They continued forward.
When they were still about a hundred meters from the repair station, Jace heard something.
It was not Codsworth’s voice, and it was not the wind.
It was something else.
A sharp, fragmented squealing sound coming from the direction of the repair station.
“What’s that sound?” He stopped.
Codsworth stopped as well.
All three of its “eyes” turned toward the repair station at the same time.
Then its tone became a little more serious.
“Mole Rats.”
“What?”
“Mutated Mole Rats.
Common little creatures in the Wasteland.
A bit bigger than Radroaches, much smaller than Super Mutants.
They dig tunnels underground, then suddenly pop out and bite your feet.”
Before it could finish, the pile of rubble by the repair station entrance suddenly burst open.
A grayish-brown thing shot out of the ground.
It was bigger than a cat, smaller than a dog, with four short legs, a pointed snout, and two front teeth jutting from its mouth, still caked with dirt.
It stood at the mouth of the hole, its beady eyes fixed on Jace, and let out a shrill hiss.
Then it charged.
A second hole opened, then a third.
Three mutated Mole Rats burrowed out from different directions and lunged at him at the same time.
Jace’s hands moved faster than his thoughts.
The gun was already drawn.
He gripped it with both hands and aimed at the nearest one, but it was too fast, much faster than a Radroach.
It kept low to the ground, swerving left and right, impossible to line up properly.
“Jace!” Codsworth’s voice came from beside him as it started up its circular saw.
Then.
The Pip-Boy on his wrist suddenly let out a short beep.
Time did not slow down, but Jace’s perception changed.
The movements of the three Mole Rats became unusually clear in his vision.
The one on the left was leaping down from the rubble and would pause for a brief instant when it landed.
The one in the middle was the fastest, but with each step, its right leg stayed braced against the ground for an extra tenth of a second.
The one on the right was the smallest, and its path was the straightest.
It was charging right at him without changing direction at all.
Numbers.
Jace saw numbers.
They were not written in the air, nor projected onto his retina.
They appeared directly in his mind.
The one on the left, head 84%.
The one in the middle, head 72%.
The one on the right, head 91%.
He did not know where those numbers came from, but he knew what he had to do.
Bang!
The first shot.
The one on the left had only just landed when the bullet drilled into its head.
The Mole Rat’s head burst open, and its body flew sideways, rolled twice across the ground, and stopped moving.
Bang!
The second shot.
The one in the middle had just planted its right leg when the bullet punched into its mouth.
It died instantly and rolled forward twice.
The third was still charging.
Straight line, no change in direction.
Bang!
The third shot.
Right in the head.
The Mole Rat’s body collapsed to the ground as if its bones had been pulled out.
Three gunshots, less than two seconds from start to finish.
Jace held his shooting stance, gasping for breath.
His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might leap out of his throat.
He looked down at his hands.
They were still gripping the gun, still shaking.
His stamina had been drained hard.
Three Mole Rats.
Three shots.
All hits.
In the game, that was nothing special.
But here, he had not even had time to aim.
He had only looked at them, locked onto the target areas, fired, and hit.
He looked down at his left wrist.
The Pip-Boy’s screen was lit, and a line of text was slowly fading away.
VATS protocol triggered.
Targets locked: 3/3.
Hit rate: 84%, 72%, 91%.
Jace stared at the line, his mind struggling to catch up.
Was this how VATS worked in reality?
“Jace.” Codsworth’s voice came from beside him, carrying something he had never heard from it before.
It was not surprise, and it was not confusion.
It sounded more like…
confirmation.
Jace looked up.
Codsworth hovered three meters away, all three of its “eyes” fixed on him.
“What?”
Codsworth’s “eyes” shifted.
“Just now…” Its tone was slower than usual.
“How did you do that?”
Jace froze for a moment.
He looked down at his wrist.
The screen was still lit.
It was not the usual standby display, but a pop-up he had never seen before.
Several lines of text floated over the amber background.
Experimental combat assistance system ready
First combat trigger detected
Calibrating neural link…
Calibration complete
Activate real-time combat interface?
[Yes/No]
Jace stared at the lines for a moment.
He hesitated for one second.
Then he used the buttons on the Pip-Boy and selected “Yes.”
The screen flickered, then returned to normal.
But before Jace could take a closer look, something changed in front of his eyes.
A crosshair.
It was not drawn on any surface.
It floated directly in the center of his field of vision.
Faint, translucent, but it did not move with his gaze.
He turned and stared at a distant rock.
His vision was empty.
The crosshair only appeared when he raised the gun.
Jace blinked instinctively.
He raised his right hand, gripping the pistol, and aimed the muzzle at the wall of the Red Rocket truck stop.
The crosshair moved with the muzzle.
He tried again, shifting the muzzle toward a tree farther away.
The crosshair moved onto the tree.
Jace fired, and the bullet struck exactly where the crosshair had been.
“Jace?” Codsworth called from beside him.
“What are you doing?”
Jace turned to look at Codsworth.
“Nothing.
It’s just…
this thing activated.”
“What thing?”
Jace pointed at his own eyes.
Codsworth’s “eyes” turned, staring at his eyes for several seconds.
“Your eyes are glowing.
Green light.
Is that my imagination?”
Jace froze.
His eyes were glowing?
“It’s not your imagination.
It should be a…
side effect of this thing?”
Jace looked down at his hands.
The crosshair was still in his vision, moving with his gaze.
He tried silently thinking, Turn off.
The crosshair vanished.
His vision returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
Then he thought, Turn on.
The crosshair reappeared.
“I can turn it off.”
Codsworth’s “eyes” curved slightly, the expression it used when it was satisfied.
“Very good.
That means you can control it.
In the Wasteland, a tool you can control yourself is far safer than one that only triggers on its own.”
Jace nodded and turned the crosshair off again.
He looked at the Pip-Boy on his wrist.
He knew now that this device was far more complicated than he had imagined.
His gaze drifted to the three Mole Rat corpses.
“Let’s clean these up first.
They may be small, but their hides can be stripped for armor.
The meat, if you’re hungry enough, can be eaten too.
I don’t recommend it, though.
Raw Mole Rat meat tastes fishy, gamey, and strongly earthy.
Even cooked, most of the fishiness goes away, but the gaminess stays.
The texture is like tough lean pork, with a faint liver taste.”
Jace walked over, crouched down, and looked at the first Mole Rat.
Its gray fur was smeared with blood and mud, and its entire head was gone.
He took a deep breath and got to work.
He skinned it and packed the hide away.
As for the meat, he hesitated for a moment, but still cut off a few pieces, wrapped them in the hide, and stuffed them into his backpack.
Something was better than nothing.
By the time he finished with all three, his hands were covered in blood and grease.
He grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground, wiped them off, stood up, and stretched his legs, numb from crouching.
The Red Rocket truck stop was right ahead.
He glanced at the red-and-white building.
He had woken up too early.
The timing was wrong, and too many things did not line up.
“Shall we go in and take a look?” Codsworth floated over and asked.
Jace nodded.
“Let’s go.”
The door to the Red Rocket truck stop was half-open.
Jace pushed it, and the hinges gave a harsh creak as the door slid back.
Inside, it was much darker than outside.
Only a few beams of light came through the broken windows, falling across the dust-covered floor.
He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, letting his eyes adjust.
A smell drifted over.
Mold, along with some kind of animal droppings, though it was not too strong.
It seemed Mole Rats did not like staying inside buildings.
“Mind your step.” Codsworth floated in past him, a small light turning on at the end of one mechanical arm.
“Some parts of the tile floor have rotted through.”
Jace followed it inside, stepping onto the tiled floor in front of the counter and shelves.
Every now and then, something cracked underfoot.
Just inside the entrance was a small front room.
On the left was a counter, the kind that had once sold snacks and drinks.
The shelves behind it were empty, with only a few yellowed magazines scattered across the floor.
The women on the covers were still smiling, but the paper had become so brittle it looked ready to crumble at a touch.
On the right were several ruined sofas, springs poking out through the torn fabric, with rats nesting inside.
As Jace walked past, a small gray thing darted down from the armrest of one sofa and disappeared into a hole in the corner.
Behind the counter was a door with shattered glass.
Jace pushed it open and stepped into the workshop in the back.
It was much larger than the front room, with a high ceiling and a concrete floor.
Because of the Mole Rats, all kinds of tools still hung on the walls.
Wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers.
Most of them were still there and had not been taken.
In the middle of the room stood a large frame.
A yellow-and-black iron frame, a little over waist-high, with a lifting support on top.
Several mechanical arms extended from the side, their finger-like clamps hanging from the ends.
A Power Armor station.
Strictly speaking, it was a heavy machinery repair station, originally meant for vehicles.
Jace walked around it once.
In the game, this was where players modified Power Armor.
Swapping parts, applying paint, repairing damage, all of it relied on this.
But now, it was only an empty frame with nothing on it.
“Before the war, National Guard troops would bring armored vehicles here for maintenance.” Codsworth floated over and lightly tapped the edge of the station with a mechanical arm.
“Sometimes, on weekends, people would even bring their privately modified cars here and chat with the technicians about engine specs over coffee.”
Jace looked at it.
“And now?”
“Now?” Codsworth’s “eyes” turned.
“Now it’s a rusty iron frame.
Same as everything else here.”
“There’s a chemistry station outside,” Codsworth said as it floated out.
“I’ll go take a look.”
Against the wall stood a weapons workbench and a workshop, piled with parts, tools, rags, and half-finished pieces.
Wooden boards were nailed to the wall, with wrenches and pliers of different sizes hanging from them.
Several metal barrels sat in the corner, filled with rusted bolts and nuts.
Jace walked up to the workbench and started rummaging.
A box of bolts.
Rusted, useless.
Half a roll of duct tape.
Still sticky, usable.
A wrench.
The jaw was a little worn, but it could still turn a nut.
In one drawer, he found something more valuable: a small box of bullets.
The brass casings still shone, and the primers were intact.
He counted them.
Twelve rounds.
10mm, a perfect match for his pistol.
“Lucky find.
Enough to shoot four more Mole Rats the way I just did.”
Jace put the bullets in his pocket and kept searching.
In another drawer, he found a different box of ammunition.
A size smaller, with round, blunt bullets, but they were seated neatly and the primers were set tight.
One look told him they had been reloaded by someone experienced, far better than the crooked cheap stuff.
.38 caliber, meant for those homemade pipe pistols.
“I’ll take these too.
The quality isn’t great, but if I run out of 10mm rounds later, they’re still better than nothing.”
He searched the box under the workbench as well and found a few usable things: a length of electrical wire, a small bottle of motor oil, and a screwdriver.
The tip was not broken, so it could still be used.
There was a metal cabinet in the corner, its door hanging open, but it was empty inside.
Jace stood up and stretched his numb legs.
The haul was not much, but it was not nothing either.
Twelve 10mm rounds, twenty .38 rounds, plus those tools and the duct tape.
At least the trip had not been wasted.
He gave the room one last look, then turned and headed out.
Back in the small front room, Jace glanced again at the empty Power Armor station.
The haul was not much, but it was not nothing.
Twelve 10mm rounds, twenty .38 rounds, and a few usable tools.
Far less than in the game.
But that made sense.
The things in the game were designed for the player to use.
Here, every single bullet had been used by someone, hidden by someone, or left behind by someone who died before they could take it away.
Scarcity was normal.
He shook his head, his gaze falling on the hole behind the Red Rocket truck stop.
There were still good things in that hole.
Especially that fusion core.
“Jace.” Codsworth floated over.
“Did you find anything?”