Jacob Burns and the Order of the Algorithm #Wattys2017

Chapter 1: End of the Line

I always knew it would end like this.

Out of caps, out of friends, and out of time. My debts were finally being called in.

The Third Rail was already empty by the time I took a seat at the bar, the former subway station was filled with the lingering stench of human sweat and irradiated booze, with just a touch of desperation only the Wasteland knew. I ordered a whiskey, tall and neat, and kept one hand on the hilt of my trusty forty-five. This was Goodneighbor after all, home to every kind of scumbag in the Commonwealth. Of course you had your run of the mill gangsters, scavvers and jet-lagged chem-heads, those were a dime a dozen in the Wasteland, but then there were the ghouls, the freaks, and what I suspected were synths intermingling with every other self-proclaimed badass crawling through these alleyways. I kept an eye on the stairwell leading to the entrance. This was my last chance for a real score, big enough to pay my way outta this mess.

Every black-listed job in the Greater Commonwealth area went through one man, the self-appointed mayor of this rogue's paradise, John Hancock. Whether you had hot merchandise to push or you were working a hit (or as the locals would say, a "clean up" job), you could bet that Hancock knew about it and was getting his cut. To make matters worse, his second-in-command was the meanest slab of a woman I'd ever laid eyes on. Cold and calculating, she'd only ever known a passion for two things in this world: John Hancock and fire. Specifically, lighting his enemies on fire. Find yourself on Hancock's short list and you might wake up waste deep in the Charles with a mini nuke strapped to your chest.

Not that it was anything I couldn't handle, dying was all in a day's work for a Wastelander like me. Nothing like a quick dirt nap to liven up the spirits, as I always say.

How things change... a couple of months can feel like a lifetime to the idealistic young Knight that finds himself on the run and at the mercy of the very monsters he once swore to wipe out. I was a different man back then, when The Prydwen first flew into Boston harbor. I felt unstoppable, full of fire and righteous conviction. I was a soldier; a guardian of the sacred technologies, a protector of the Wasteland, a paragon of truth, honor, and justice.

I was a jackass.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I sure wasn't faring any better since I'd left the Brotherhood (as if I'd had a choice in the matter). A man's name is all he really has in this world, and now, mine was as good as "traitor".

"Well, I'll be damned."

A graveled voice broke my reverie and the man I'd been waiting for walked in looking like the Night of the Living Dead in a revolutionary petticoat and tricorn hat. Hancock was a ghoul with a fondness for the past, like so many others in the post-apocalyptic world. Open wounds festered with necrosis and flesh hung from his face as if he'd just burst out of the graveyard looking for a buffet of brains, like something straight out of the late night double feature, but that was just the radiation for you. Guess the "future" the eggheads thought up came with all kinds of side effects they hadn't seen coming.

"If it ain't the fallen son of the Brotherhood himself, Jacob Burns. And here I thought you'd be halfway to the Mojave by now. Gotta say, I'm impressed. Hey Fahrenheit, looks like I owe you 20 caps," he nodded to the red-head leaning against a pillar near the entrance. The woman lit a cigarette and took a long drag, as if she were waiting for a train that was 210 years too late. You might believe it too, if not for the full combat armor, vicious scars and the Fatman strapped to her back. The rest of Hancock's goons crowded into the narrow tunnel after them, submachine guns locked and loaded. Hancock meant business, and he intended to show it.