I thought about Sarah Lyons my whole journey to the Regulator headquarters. That was until I met Sonora Cruz; she was a looker herself. I expected her jaw to drop when I laid out one hundred fingers for her on the floor to her shack. She showed she was impressed with a sly smile and a bigger job. “You seem to like taking fingers.” “I heard someone was paying for them.” “Do you know how much I pay for them?” “Not at all.” “One thousand caps.” “That sounds fair, considering the effort.” “You’re a cocky thing. When you’re in good standing, we have some contracts that earn more caps, but these nameless bastards.” “You guys have any contracts for me?” “Plenty but seeing as how you’re so cocky. How would you like it, if I told you about a place with all the fingers you can carry?” “Fingers still worth ten caps a piece?” “They are, but there are a few fingers worth one hundred, and a few worth five hundred, and one worth two-thousand.” “This sounds like too good an opportunity for you to offer a newcomer. What’s the catch?” “A newcomer who just walked in with one-hundred fingers and didn’t scoff at my asking price.” “The catch?” “Have you ever heard of the Pitt?” “No, I have not.” “It’s a blight on society, just to the north of here. Think of a place with no Regulators, no Enclave, no Brotherhood of Steel, no order. There are only Raiders, Slavers and Slaves. Recently a someone from within their ranks has come forward with information that should bring that system down. You do what he tells you to, and you’ll have a fortune in fingers.” “I don’t mean any offense, but judging from the state of this shack, it doesn’t seem like you have the caps to front.” “Don’t you worry about how I get my caps. Sure, my shack is modest. Some folks like fancy armor and shiny guns, but I’m a girl of simpler tastes. If you don’t trust me to have the caps, you could always say no. However, in the Regulating business opportunities like this don’t come by too often. I won’t wait for an answer. The caps are burning a hole in my pocket.” I asked Sonora to send the one-eyed man named Wernher to Megaton. Before he arrived, I stored all of my valuables with Moira; I didn’t trust him with knowing I was the Mist of the Wasteland. She had a secure safe and always kept it quiet when I needed to store things there. I was nervous that her mercenary might sell me out, but he always respected the privacy of Moira’s business. I met Wernher in Moriarity’s. He sounded like a raider, in fact I didn’t like anything about the vibe he put out. Sonora told me that he used to be one of the leaders of this slaver society. The way I saw it, I should be taking his finger as well, but apparently, I needed him to infiltrate the Pitt. He told me to travel light and only bring items that can be hidden under a loincloth. That meant I wasn’t going to have my stealth armor, my sword, or my Gauss rifle. I began to wonder if I was cut out for this kind of work. Perhaps I relied too much on my advanced technology. But for the sake of Sarah Lyons and Sonora Cruz, I had to prove that I was more than a pre-war stealth suit and a wrist canon. Since owning the pip-boy, I have improved physically and mentally. Perhaps this was exactly the kind of thing I needed to push myself and test myself. I grabbed a few stealth-boys and some whiskey, chems and a small array of grenades for the road, and I journeyed with Wernher far north, until we got to a trainyard. Already the sight felt like a punch in the gut. This was the Capital Wasetland, and yet there were people in cages almost naked. A few raiders were harassing female prisoners while another group of raiders were using an unarmed old man for target practice. They laughed as they gunned him down “he wouldn’t have made it to the Pitt anyway.” I’m not sure if all the Regulator talk was getting through, but I was pissed. I was tempted to blast them all to hell with a plasma grenade, but they were too close to the slaves. To my surprise Wernher started in on them with a scoped point forty-four Magnum. He popped one of the harassers’ head like a mutfruit. The others stopped terrorizing the slaves to return fire. He kept caught another one in the neck and for some reason, they grouped up away from the slaves, I used a frag grenade and a VATS throw. It was all over. Wernher commented “I hope the rest will be just as easy for you.” I scoffed at him as I went over to the human pens and opened it up to release the slaves. They were mostly grateful, but complained that they had no idea where to go. I told them to pick up what they could from their captors and pointed them in the direction of Cantebury commons. There were some bugs and bears in that direction, but I knew it would keep them away from slavers and super mutants. Wernher made some comments about me being a “do gooder.” I’m sure he meant it as an insult, but to me, taking people out of chains is just common courtesy. I changed into a loincloth which made me look like the slaves I jut released. I used a belt strap to string my pip-boy, my stealth-boys, my grenades and my chem pouch. I chugged my two bottles of whiskey and looked to Wernher. “What now?” I asked. “Now, I tell you the plan. But first you need to understand where we’re going.” Wernher added a lot more information, I’m not even sure Sonora knew all these details when she gave me the job, but this place sounded like a nightmare. Apparently, the longer you’re there the sicker you become. Once you become too sick, you become a hideous monster. It sounded like a round about way to explain ghoulification. But Wernher assured me, it wasn’t the same, it was known as Troglitic Degeneration Contagion . Slaves and Slavers alike succumb to this disease, only to add to the numbers of the Trog horde. They are more limber and animalistic than a feral ghoul. Lord Ashur, the head of the slave empire, has manufactured a cure for the disease which he will only use to bolster his hold over the already oppressed slave population. The plan is to secure the cure for the slave population by any means necessary. “The catch is that Ashur has trust issues, he wouldn’t let anyone get close to him that wasn’t one of his own. But there’s an event coming up, where Ashur slips up. Every year he holds a gladiator tournament, where he has slaves compete for the chance to become one of his enforcers. If you win the tournament, then he will allow you into his compound. Once you’re one of his own, you will have a better chance at getting your hands on the cure. But, to put it in terms you’d understand once you’re one of his own, you’ll know where all of his lieutenants sleeps. Ashur himself is worth a small fortune. I only care about the cure, you’ll have to figure out how to get those fingers yourself.” We traveled by rail to the Pitt. It’s a good thing I have a light step, because the entrance to the shithole was a literal minefield. The mines were meant to keep slaves in and here I am walking past them to pretty much give myself to slavers. I was paranoid that my small stash of supplies strapped under my loincloth were visible. I was second guessing all of this. I kept thinking that if I had my stealth suit, I could just stalk them until I found out where the cure was. But it was too late for me. Some Raiders spotted me on the bridge and immediately charged at me, I almost VATS’d a grenade out of habit. But I just put my hands up and was treated the beating of my life. I wake up to a Raider pissing on my face in what must have been an old steelyard. He tossed a pool cue at me and said “Don’t even think about knocking on this door unless you have fifteen steel ingots.” He walked through and slammed a heavy steel door while mumbling “teach your bitch ass to try and run away.” I wiped the piss out of my eyes and looked around. I realized pretty quickly that the door he slammed was the only way back to the Pitt. I didn’t have time to process anything before I heard multiple whispering voices in the distance. I prayed to Atom and reached up my loincloth. It was all there. I slipped and locked my pip-boy on and prepared a grenade and held the pool cue in my free hand. It was still too dark to see, but the whispering voices were getting closer. I turned on my pip-boy light. At this point I must admit, that I still doubted Wernher when he said Trogs were different from feral ghouls. This was the worst way to find out I was wrong.
