I Walk In The Shadows

Author’s Foreword

(Here we are, me sitting bored on a Saturday Afternoon, raining outside, all the ranges are closed today, so what am I doing? Writing, this is a huge work in progress, characters will come and go as I please or if someone recommends that one should kick the bucket, they might. Note, the weapons I use in this, the armor, is not the generics you would find in the Fallout Universe, they have names, shall be used, modified to my liking to express the tactical advantages they give in many situations, some are pulled from my head, great marvels of Fiction that could not exist in the World we know either from simply being too outlandish or just as simply impossible to produce from Science as we know it. That is the simple beauty of Science Fiction and all the Avenues it represents, FREEDOM, no bounds, no restrictions, so without further a due I will begin to let the gears grind and let the story unfold, best wishes, cheers, and all that proper bullshit, kick the fucking pig….)

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
(Yes, quite cliché, I know)

The figure clad in Powered Armor looked impressive, the mesh weave looked flawless, the armor polished to perfection, the laser rifle in its hands the epitome of the Brotherhood’s technology, which was all funny to the Warrior looking at this show of power. Sure, what was before him had been the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements in the field of battle before the bombs fell, but it was not so true in the Vault he had come from. The scope on the rifle made the figure standing at one and a quarter miles seem less than ten feet away, and the allies of this ‘Sign of Power’ wouldn’t know their friend was done until a while after the fact. The rifle was old, but has been upgraded over the years since the war, it was once made by a company known as Barrett, the finest ‘Heavies’ the world had ever known, particularly the behemoth he gripped in his hands. The 25mm rifle was capable of penetrating the toughest of armors before the War, this beast made that claim look pathetic by the examples it produced, many that they were.

The Warrior relaxed, he had all the time in the World, all his training told him so, his life had been nothing but knowledge up until a few months ago, trained in multiple forms of armed and un-armed combat, to sneak into the highest of securities, to kill silently, to outsmart, to torture when necessary, to get information by any means. The armor he wore was several generations past what this ‘Brotherhood’ thought to be the best, it’s fibers, plating, shock gels, exoskeleton, the power and speed it offered, was nothing that anyone in this new World could even fathom. He lay in the prone, his armors’ thermoptics making him appear as a rock to most any passerby, his weapon braced firmly in his right shoulder, the left hand coming back and up to brace even more on the butt, although it was designed to compensate for the recoil, and the armor making it capable to fire standing, old training died hard. The sun dipped behind him, the wire from the kit in the rifle to his helmet told him so, taking all reading of what the enemy could possibly see in the reflection of its’ armor, they would hear the shot, albeit a good deal after the shot, but no one would ever see its’ source. The Warrior felt the recoil, the slight twitch in the trigger through his finger, he watched the round travel, as fast as the sabot did, it screamed forth at almost a mile per second, his latent cybernetics giving him a grasp at how feeble his enemies really were, the round went right to where it should, coring the image of the gear on the breast of the armor, the Rhenium Diboride doing exactly as it should, the velocity twisting the human form on the inside, the round leaving the rear of the armor, a slow motion blood trail following it.

The Armor and its’ occupant felt nothing, as did the killer, this was how it simply was, painless, emotionless, cold… the technology would be stripped on the spot where it fell, to be covered and erased with thermite, the cross hairs were already on the next, a light armored sniper in its tower, ever so slowly turning to face the dead below, the next step in technology going to work for an easier kill, He only knew it as the “Feed” something that could infinitely produce ammo out of.. well.. anything as far as He knew, and with a thought it produced the next sabot, this one of Graphite with a light Aluminum sheen, and away it went to do its job. The round hit the pelvic area of the sniper, her, as far as He could tell from the chest, the round did what it was designed to, why would He doubt it, it entered and shattered, fragmenting throughout her, turning the insides and out into shreds, bits flying out the chest, tearing at the neck, speckling the surroundings and equipment with high speed shrapnel, all that was left was splintered remains of bone and flesh in a casing of light armor. He moved to the next Steel form, the one that had hit the alarm on the small outpost, this one and two others to go, the next round was a favorite, He had played with it when He was young, said to be inhumane, but what really was in the wastes? The Tungsten casing holding in a prize of Mercury, He only needed to strip one suit and would destroy the rest anyway, why not hurry that up a bit? The round was already on its way, it hit, cored and turned into Plasma, vaporizing the target and scorching the surroundings, a chunk of molten steel hitting an out of dress soldier as he fled from his tent and melting off his left leg from the knee down, the next graphite already heading for where his body would land. The last did not show itself, stayed hidden and wised up to the situation. He spoke to himself while he stood up “Well, it looks like fun, doesn’t it old boy…” He slung his rifle across his back, locking into place in the armor’s hold, the P90 and its Assault Sling sliding into position in his right arm, the silencer, scope, IR targeting systems mating with the circuitry in his gauntlet, feeding him targeting information and noise vibration statistics if fired. He jumped from the cliff, landing fifty feet below and breaking into a swift yet silent run, peeking just below fifty miles an hour, his mapping informing him the target area was less than a minute away now. He sighed “Technology, that is you, you alone Ravenous, in this broken world…”


(So, there it is, a rough start, enough to get going, but not nearly enough to understand the path it will follow, I hope for reviews, if you like, tell your friends, if not convinced, give me some time to elaborate. Clocked at 0055 hours in creation, quick, and nothing too hard)