Nuclear Winter

"I ain't telling you shit!"

*crack*

"Arrrgh!" The man cried out as the woman interrogating him broke another finger.

Outside of the room on the other side of some thick glass, a woman with silky brown hair stood looking down at a sheet of paper.

"We sure about this?" Carrie Boyd looked over at her commander.

"Yes Boyd, as you've been told, this comes directly from General Oliver, he's a spy who's been selling us out, caused the deaths of at least 45 soldiers and the kidnapping of another 60 female soldiers and NCR citizens." Hsu looked over at her and then back to the interrogation with disgust evident in his eyes.

Carrie was drawn out of her stupor as the man screamed once more, the torture of the red head quite…effective.

In the room, Cass moved back over towards her arrangement of tools and picked up a bowie knife, placing the blade end on a hot plate before cranking the heat to max.

"Gonna ask this again, where's the tunnel rat?" She looked back to see the man glaring at her, a smirk on his face as he leaned forward and spit his blood out on the floor.

"I won't betray Caesar whore, so do what you must."

Those words brought a small smile to Cassidy's face as she picked up the now red hot bowie knife, the smell of burnt carbon hanging in the air as she walked towards the tied up naked man.

"I was hoping you'd say that, wanted to try something Asia told me she learned from Alex." Cass spoke more to herself then the man as she reached between his legs and pulled his pecker up.

"Gonna give me a suck you bit— AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Placing the flat burning end of the knife on the tip of the man's penis, the smell of sizzling flesh and shit filled her nostrils as the man screeched in agony as Cass burned his pecker head.

Unbeknownst to her, James Hsu grabbed his own little guy while looking away as Carrie bent over and threw up in a garbage bin beside her.

"Jesus." James looked at the spastic man as Cass quickly grabbed a syringe filled with a mix of stimpak liquid and psycho, sticking the three inch needle into the man's exposed thigh.

"I can't watch this anymore." Carrie turned and walked away, reaching the escalators she took a moment to breathe.

She couldn't believe the amount of pain that bastard was willing to accept In loyalty to that mad man across the Colorado. But hey, thankfully they managed to rout him out before he could do anymore damage.

Walking down the escalator, she went towards the front doors as multiple troopers stood at attention and gave her a salute, she returned the favor as she walked past and out the doors into the crisp Mojave night time.

She was happy that at least a few of the troopers she knew and helped train would have justice, a few of the faces of men and women that bastard sold out played in her memory as she made her way through the camps tents.

Stopping when she noticed a few troopers were all looking in a single direction.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

"What the fuck was that!" For a split second the night sky was lit up as a massive explosion went off in the fiends territory.

"Is that a mushroom cloud!" Some soldier shouted as the light subsided revealing a four hundred foot mushroom cloud, one that size had to be from a Fatman launcher Carried would guess….

"You think those fucking fiends blew themselves up?" One trooper called out while another spoke up a second later. "Sure as fuck hope so, a few less of the chem raddled shits too deal with is a good thing."

The remark gained a few shouts of agreement as Carrie looked on in wonderment. The shockwave of the blast knocking down a few of the less stable buildings.

"Violets territory." Jumping and nearly falling on her ass, Carrie looked over to notice Betsy looking at her with a sultry smile.

"Did I scare ya lieutenant?" Carrie blushed at her friends teasing as she collected herself.

"Funny Betsy, shouldn't you and the rest be getting ready to go down towards Searchlight?" Carrie looked over at the blue eyed beauty with a shaved head, seriously missing the woman's once long golden locks of hair.

"Mnn, heading out in the afternoon towards the 188, making a stop at Forlorn for a few days and then to Searchlight." Betsy moved closer to Carrie and smiled, "want to buy this girl a drink before then? Have a repeat of last Tuesday?"

Carrie rolled her eyes and palmed Betsy's face, pushing her away. "Down girl."

"Tch, no fun. But in all honesty.. what do you think is happening over there?" Betsy looked at the cloud like it was the most beautiful thing in the world, an undeniable pang in her chest, a piece of her hoping that bastard was gone and another part hopeful he wasn't so she could get her pound of flesh.

"No clue." Carrie looked over at the face of her friend, a worried look in her eyes. She'd have a word with Dahtri about getting her some therapy… the gentle sobs of Thursday's night ringing in her ears as Betsy slept.

'I hope that fucker burns in hell.' Carrie grabbed her friends hand and pulled her along. "Let's go get a drink, I'm sure the scouts will tell us whatevers going on over there when they go take a look." Betsy just nodded and followed her friend into the maze of tents.

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"I'll talk… please just stop." The choked up and broken words fell out of the man's swollen mouth, his broken body hurting and bleeding.

Cass let out a chuckle "bout time you broke, so first question. Where's the entrance to the tunnel?" She looked at the man who was swaying in and out of consciousness.

Looking up at her eyes he spoke through the pain. "In a warehouse just east of the Aerotech offices, inside a booby trapped storage area for large shipments you'll see a few large cargo containers from Vault-Tec." The man took a shaky breath. "In the red container you'll find a hidden hatch leading to an old sewer system that they separated from the rest of the network before the bombs fell. Follow it until you come across the back entrance of the vault, it's usually lightly guarded."

Cass left the room and stopped in front of Hsu. "Send a few squads to make sure that the vaults escape route is secure or to see if he was lying." After giving his orders to his rangers he turned towards Cass.

"Stay close by, if he's bullshitting us you'll need to get him to talk again, military code and all that stopping us, you understand?" Cass nodded.

"If he's telling the truth?" See looked at the man.

"Put him out of his misery for us, don't want any of my boys wasting their time or bullets on that trash." Commander Hsu left before Cass could say anything else.

Sighing to herself she felt the blood on her hands and over her clothes and decided to head towards the showers on base, now that the fiends couldn't escape she would just sit back and relax while the others finished cleaning up the filth.

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"You ready?" Alex looked over at Clive who held a large green duffelbag. The Nightkin simply nodded as Alex walked over to the control panel that stood to the side of a large steel door with a large yellow 3 on its face.

Putting out his hand and placing it on the panel, a small click rang out and a red light on the panel started to flash green.

At this exact moment inside the vault, the leader of the fiends began to panic as he slammed his fists on the console, not understanding how the man on the screen managed to unlock the front vault door.

As his panic grew he turned to the man in the corner. "Head through the tunnel, report that the enemy has infiltrated the vault." The man nodded and left the room as Maxius once again turned on the PA systems.

"Our enemies have breached our defenses and are here to kill us all and take our chems! Fight with all you got ladies and gents, try and run and I'll kill you myself!" After his heart warming speech, Maxius sat on his throne as a feeling of foreboding washed over him.

Dozens of fiends rushed into the main door's chamber and got behind makeshift barricades as an alarm began to blare and orange hazard lights flashed followed by a horrible screeching of metal on metal.

The large vault door opened letting in rays of morning light and a whoosh of air.

No gunshots or shouts were heard from the opening as all the fiends sat behind their barricades in tense fear when suddenly…

*Thunk*