Chapter Text
“That’s the place?” Six asked as he pointed out at a veritable sea of cars. Lined up in a massive lot that neither the NCR nor the Legion would’ve passed up as a base or camp, people shuffled in, out and between the vehicles-turned stalls as others unloaded their products.
Clearly, this lot was a damn good marketplace.
“Yep,” Three confirmed, looking back at him. Her eyes widened as she realized where exactly it was he was looking. “Oh no not the lot,” she told him. Grabbing his hand, she tilted it off to the side until he was pointing towards a giant hangar. “That’s where we’re going,” she corrected.
“That?” Six asked, pointing again at the hangar. “That’s your marketplace?”
Six’s question was, in his opinion, a valid one. The marketplace must’ve been as large as one of the Strip’s Casinos! Hell the lot outside was as large as the courtyards of both Gomorrah and the Tops combined!
“Yeah,” Three confirmed, voice as if she was telling him it was sunny. “It’s a MakoMart.” Her brow raised as she looked back at him. “What, did you not have those?”
Six gave her a deadpan stare, as if to say ‘hello, wastelander here!’.
She sighed. “Of course you didn’t, why would you?” She shook her head. “Nevermind. Let’s just get going.”
She pulled him along, past the rows and rows of cars, past the people loading said cars with colorful boxes (must be a really big marketplace, Six thought) and all the way up to a set of giant glass doors.
Six stared up at the giant walls, with their metal frames and colorful banners. “How the hell are we gonna get in there?” he asked, turning to face Three.
She gave him a confused look. “Is it…automatic?”
Six’s brow furrowed. “Like a weapon cycle?”
Now, Three’s brow furrowed. “What?” she asked. She sighed. “Just… let me show you.” With that she turned and began to walk towards a set of glass panes.
“Wait, Three you’re gonna run into—” Six began to warn. And then the walls slid off to the side, letting Three walk right on through. Six slumped forward. “—the wall.”
Three turned back to Six, and a small laugh left her lips as she saw him slump. She waved him towards her. “Come on!” She moved forward and the walls slid closed once again.
Six’s eyes narrowed as he approached the wall. His feet lightly pressed against the concrete below as he slinked closer. When he was a foot away, the walls slid apart.
“Gah!” He exclaimed, jumping away from them.
They closed.
Six tilted his head. “What the hell…?” Moving closer, the wall parted again and once again, he jumped away from it.
“Jesus!” he shouted. He snarled. Clearly, this thing was infected with Tartar or some similar computer. Let’s hope that old trick Raul taught me works.
He made a cross with his fingers. “El poder de cristo te obliga!” he shouted.
The wall did nothing.
Six slumped in relief. “Phew,” he sighed. “That could’a been bad.”
Holding his head high, proud of his accomplishment, he walked towards the wall.
It parted again.
“MADRE DE DIOS!”
♥♧♠♢
“Had enough of playing with the door?” Three snarked as Six finally entered the store.
Six snapped his head away from the bright banners to look at Three. “That was the door?”
“What the shell did you think it was?!” she shouted. “A jellyfish?!”
“I don’t know!” Six exclaimed. “Something like Tartar?” he guessed. “A demon?” Three gave him a look. ”Shit I don’t know!”
Three shook her head with a sigh. “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s just go get what we need.”
Six nodded. “Right,” he agreed and looked out across the market.
Looking up, he saw rows and rows of bright, utility lights. The same kind he’d see in old factories or the Metro. In front of him, he could see that a few stands were sat right at the front of the store. Must be the premium merchants, he surmised. That or the caravan traders.
He could barely hear his thoughts over the incessant noise the market contained. Shrill, rapid beeps mixed with the sound of paper being printed. A loud, less obnoxious song similar to the one from the bar he got his money in echoed up above, the rumble it grating against his ears.
He grit his teeth. He already didn’t like this place.
Three said something to him, and he nodded idly, his ears still under assault by the horrendous music.
Eventually, the music began to die down as the song came to an end. Six let out a small sigh of relief and looked around.
Three was gone.
Six quietly cursed. How the hell did she vanish!? He internally panicked, head swiveling in an attempt to find her. We ain’t been here five minutes!
Scanning the market, he couldn’t see much aside from the stalls at the front, their orange banners proudly proclaiming…something. Six didn’t know what they said, he couldn’t read!
Six cursed. The hell’d she go? He looked around again, and didn’t spot any sign of Three. He sighed and dug his heels in. Guess I’m waiting here.
Finding an empty spot along the wall, Six leaned in to wait for Three to return. He watched as blue blobs wearing bright outfits that matched the wall’s color shuffled through the market. People shuffled in and out of the wall-door things, pushing carts and dragging children through.
Six watched it all, a growing curiosity swelling up in him. ‘Come on!’ He could hear his brain tell him. ‘Three can handle herself, and we can handle ourself too! Let’s go see what this place has!’
He shook his head. No, I should wait, he thought and began to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
A small glance at his Pip-boy showed that about five minutes had passed, and he sighed. Fuck it , he thought, pulling away from the wall. Let’s see what this place has to offer.
As he passed a shelf filled with small, pocket-sized things shaped like a CQ-80—mobile telephones, if he recalled Three's words correctly—he glanced at his Pip-boy, specifically at the scrape in the steel caused by the Legate. We fought off the Legion, he told himself. We can handle a bit of shopping.
Right?
♥♧♠♢
Six had seen a lot of things over the course of his life. From the dilapidated ruins of the Mojave’s Vaults, to things he would never want to see again, let alone wish on another.
The Mojave, Madre, and Zion? The Divide or Big MT? He’s lived through them. Their horrors and their beauties.
The wonder he felt when he first entered Vegas, with its gleaming lights and gilded casinos. The marred, residue and debris ridden Sierra Madre was horrible, but the joy that gala brought was seconded only by the joy he felt as he saw the sun as he escaped.
The beauty of Zion’s peace, even if it was shattered by cracks of gunfire. The zaniness and insanity of the Big MT, and the desolation of the Divide.
When Six ventured further into the market, he thought he was prepared. But, as he gazed at the shelves and containers and walls, he knew he wasn’t.
Boxes and boxes and boxes in every color beneath the sun lined shelves. Reds, blues, yellows, greens—no matter the color, there was a box with it. Colorful bags and packages filled any free space, the shelves overflowing with haphazardly crammed in foodstuffs.
On the lowest shelf, giant cans and bottles sat in palettes. Plastic barrels as wide as him were filled with water, and no one batted an eye!
Six knew how little food the Mojave had; how expensive it was, how hard it was to feed yourself, let alone a whole town . Hell, that old sharecropping field considered any harvest that brought in two pieces a damn success!
But he’d never seen so much. Back home, he was lucky to find any food—centuries old or not—that wasn’t from a very small set of options; there was nothing but sugar bombs, or fancy lads, or cram—just those and whatever lead-filled chunks of meat people could scavenge.
But here? There must have been hundreds , if not thousands of things, all laid out and sorted neatly; cans, bags, cartons, boxes—it didn’t matter, they were everywhere.
Six stumbled back, nearly slamming into someone as he did. A dull hum behind him—one he barely registered—prompted him to turn.
The wall was filled with packages of meat, each piece as red as if it was cut up not even an hour prior. Steaks, ribs and all sorts of cuts were haphazardly piled atop one another. Cartons and containers stacked taller than him were filled with enough eggs to last him a damn lifetime.
Down the way, rows and rows of vegetables and fruit. each glistening with moisture as a misting of water floated down onto them. Tatos as red as a laser and sunny corn sat beside gourds as large as his head. And in the freezers beside them, Six could see glistening bottles and cases of all sorts of drinks.
There was so much. So much food.
Six didn’t realize he was moving until he was already gone. Crouched down in a dull, dry space, he felt a tear flow down his face.
We… we did not expect that, he felt his brain say. And Six couldn’t even bring himself to snark back to it.
Not when there was that much. Not when there was so much.
He knew the future was going to be different. He knew that. He’d already seen it. The technology was better, the cities were cleaner, the sky was clearer.
But he didn’t think there’d be that much.
Just one—one—of these places could feed the entirety of Vegas—maybe even the entire Mojave. He’d run enough logistics and supply negotiations to understand that the glamorous city ran on a near constant deficit in every department.
Hoover Dam was the only thing that consistently brought in more than the city consumed, and even that was shaky at best.
“All this food…” He shuddered. And it’s just sitting here.
How? He asked, his eyes slamming shut. How the hell do we deal with that? What the hell do we do?
“What the hell do we do?” he whispered, choking on his breath. “Wh-what the hell do we do?”
♥♧♠♢