Radiance Ch. 02

"Into a subroom, a basement I think the humans call it, it appears that a tunnel of some kind leads from it away from here, not sure where it leads but travelling underground is a lot safer than on the surface for us, so I think we should rest in the basement and when the day breaks head into the tunnel and see where it leads," he said.

Visa scratched her chin thoughtfully, why would the humans have an underground tunnel under their home and not use it when the weapons fell? Did they not have time?

Well, whatever the answer this intended salvation for the humans would now be their instead, as long as it was not blocked that was, so the pair of them descended the stairs together into the darkness and Ven closed the door behind them.

The basement was filled with shelves with what appeared to be old junk as well as a few previsions possibly for their planned trip into the tunnel, a trip they never made, Ven pointed it out as they reached the bottom and to be fair it was rather obvious, a large heavy metal door stood open like an old rusty mouth waiting to be filled at the far end of the room, he pushed it closed for the time being to add some security to their day nest, its hinges protested but Ven's strength won and it closed with a dull clang of metal.

Before they settled down they decided to investigate the shelves some more and that's when Visa found something useful, she found a couple of boxes of white metal cans that she'd seen aboard the skyship, she knew they contained purified water for the humans that was safe to drink, she lifted one up and turned it over in her large hands, her claws were too fiddly to pop the top on the thing so she chose option B which was stab it with a single claw before upending it into her mouth.

The cool liquid was like nectar to her as she let it slide down her throat but far from quenching her thirst it simply inflamed it and reminded her that it was there, so in quick succession, another four of the cans went the same way as that one and her brother joined in when he realised what she'd found, moments later ten of the cans lay littered around and the pair were quenched.

"Got to give them this, the humans do have some good ideas sometimes, portable freshwater that remains fresh forever is genius" Ven said with a soft belch and Visa nodded in agreement.

"Agreed, they might be arrogant psychopaths obsessed with killing everything they see or don't understand but they occasionally have a bright idea," she said laying herself down on the hard stone floor and coiling her tail around herself, it was no less comfortable than the floor of her cell had been back on the skyship, their captors really hadn't gone for the creature comforts route in housing them, half the time they were lucky if the giant bottles of water that fed their cells were filled.

Sleep wasted no time in creeping up and clubbing Visa as she lay her head down on her long tail and what felt like mere seconds later she was jolted awake by a sharp tap on the head from her brother, she was about to protest when she saw him place a long-clawed finger to his scaly lips to shush her before pointing upwards, the rest of Visa's senses joined her sight in reactivating and suddenly she picked up the two things that had her brothers attention, the sound of propellers and the heavy clumping of armoured boots, the humans had found them.

"We have to go! Now!" Ven hissed as they both listened to muffled shouts drifting down from above and Visa nodded and pointed to the tunnel entrance, he nodded and swiftly moved over to it, as she followed him Visa spotted something, it appeared to be a bag of some kind with straps that allowed it to be worn on the persons back, quick as a flash she grabbed it emptied the junk inside out and stuffed it full of the water cans, as many as it would hold before using the fiddly clasp on the front to seal it, if she couldn't open it again later she'd simply shred it.

Shrugging the comically sized pack onto her back over her dorsal spines she hurried into the tunnel before her brother followed her and pulled the door shut behind them, then the pair turned and because of the narrow confines dropped to all fours before beginning a flat out sprint into the darkness beyond.

They ran for what felt like hours thanking their creators silently for being blessed with monumental stamina for this kind of thing, the tunnel they ran down was beginning to seem endless as it weaved and turned and twisted along, there were no side tunnels so if anyone found the entrance it would be a straight shot to finding them, but eventually, they came to another of those heavy doors, this one was shut and it required the strength of both of them to unstick the large circular handle in the centre of it before it creaked open noisily allowing them on.

It dropped them out into another far larger tunnel with large metal rails running along the floor, "Where are we do you think?" Ven asked looking around the dark tunnel, the pair of them were both equally glad of their species powerful night vision otherwise in a place like this they'd have been fucked with its zero light.

"Don't know don't care as long as its nowhere near those tin fuckers" Visa breathed sitting down on her haunches to rest for a moment and no sooner had her scaly backside touched the ground than she jumped back to her feet as in the distance the repeated sound of an energy weapon cut through the air like a hot knife.

"Fuck! Have they found us already?" ven exclaimed turning on the spot trying to pin down the sound of the weapon reports.

"I don't think so, those shots weren't fired at us, they were further on ahead probably something like that," she said spotting something on the floor.

Ven followed her point and spotted a body laid sprawled across the rails a few meters from where they were, the pair approached slowly and even before their night vision was able to bring it into sharp focus the smell gave away what it was, it was one of those heavily irradiated humans that had all its skin constantly falling off and rotting away before somehow regrowing it all, Ghouls she believed they called them.

The dead basically naked Ghoul had a series of holes burned through it showing that it had been repeatedly shot with an energy weapon, it was utterly repulsive-looking like it had bloated to three times its normal size it looked like a bag of rotten pus with a face and a fucking ugly face at that, like someone had filled a leather sack full of shit and repeatedly hit it with a very large stick.

"We should go this way away from them," Ven said pointing down the tunnel in the opposite direction to the shooting but Visa had other ideas.

"It sounds like a single shooter, I can only hear the one weapon being discharged, there are two of us and we have the aid of the darkness, we should hit them head-on and take them by surprise, we can take them out and escape in the direction they are heading," she said and Ven looked at her aghast.

"Remember what I said about you being a crazy tail?' he asked and she growled at him menacingly.

"Listen and think! If we go back the way they came undoubtedly we'll run into more of them following the same path, the one ahead is probably a scout clearing the way for the others, we take the scout out and hid their body making those following stop to look for their missing human, this buys us time to escape" she said and Ven growled deeply, but the deep sigh he gave at the end said that he understood her plan and finally he nodded.

"Fine let's go, but you're still a crazy tail," she said and scampered off ahead out of cuffing range.

It didn't take them long to catch up with the scout and what they found surprised them both, they'd been expecting one of those tin soldiers dressed in that powered armour they wore that made them a hell of a lot harder to deal with, but instead, they found a single unarmored human and what appeared to be a robot of some kind walking along the rails, as they got closer they could hear the pair were deep in conversation so instead of attacking outright the pair decided to close in and eavesdrop on them a bit to see what they could learn.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" the male human asked glancing at the robot who seemed to have a large light source stuck in the middle of its face that it was using to illuminate the tunnel ahead.

"That's the third time this hour alone you've asked me that and for the third time yes! We are going the right way, not exactly easy to get lost in a fucking straight line seven, the maps I nicked and subsequently deleted from their databases quite clearly showed that this tunnel is an old secret emergency transit system that linked all the military installations in the area, if we keep following it should bring us up near Nellis air force base, from there its a straight shot into the mountains and those fuckers will still be too busy playing with pissed off Deathclaws and super mutants to figure out where we went, by the time someone finds that pod missing and that dead guard we'll be long gone" the robot said sounding oddly human.

The male blew out a heavy sigh, "I know I know and I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm doubting you Wisp, it's just this whole thing has me beyond freaked you know? And crawling around in a pitch-black tunnel filled with these what did you call them again?" the male said.

"Ghouls" the robot replied.

"Yeah Ghouls, is not really doing my nerves much good ya know? Plus I don't have a weapon or a torch or fuck all, all I got is this bag full of Nuka cola and fucking Sugar Bombs" he said patting the pack that looked oddly like the one Visa was wearing.

"It's the sugar rush pumping your nerves up, I told you not to eat a whole pack of these fucking things and wash it down with one of those fizzy fucking poisons" the robot scolded.

"Hey, I was hungry! And thirsty, some of still have biological needs you know?" the male protested and then instantly looked like he regretted saying it, "Oh hey listen I'm sorry Wisp I didn't mean it like that..." he began but the robot held up her hand to silence him.

"You think this is fun for me? Do you think I like being stuck in this body? I had to fucking give up my living breathing body for a shot at freedom so don't you ever poke me there again you hear me? Or I swear to whatever god is still laughing his almighty ass off at this fucking joke of a planet I will leave you to fend for your fucking self out here!!" she snapped angrily.

The male nodded, "I deserved that and for what it's worth I'm sorry Wisp, I didn't mean it, I'm just I dunno scared out of my fucking mind would be a good approximation, I guess I lash out when I'm scared and don't know what to do, I am grateful you busted me out of that fucking hell hole, honestly I don't know how much longer I could take what that fucking sadist was doing to me" the male said apologetically and the robot seemed to sag a bit.

"Yeah I saw some of it through the monitors when I was planning this whole thing and was picking a bust out buddy, she had a real fucking wide on for you didn't she?" the robot said in a subdued voice but the male actually laughed.

"A wide on? That's a new one" he said and the robot actually made a noise that could approximate a laugh.

"Well I can't say a hard-on now can I? Well unless she's got some rad mutated mega clit that neither us thankfully know about" the robot said and the male actually roared with laugher, when he was done he patted the robot on the arm.

"You know what? Thanks for that Wisp, I have no idea when the last time I laughed was, fuck or if I've even ever laughed" he said.

"My pleasure, they say laughter is the best medicine and it sure beat the hell out of whatever shite they were pumping into our veins up there anyway," the robot said.

"You can say that again," the male said and that's when it happened, from her left there was a loud clanging noise that echoed all around the tunnel, Visa snapped her head around to see her brother looking guilty as fuck, he'd only gone and booted a tin can down the metal bloody tracks.

Suddenly both of them were bathed in bright blinding light, "Holy fucking shit what the fuck are they!!?" the male human's voice yelled in both alarm and fear.

"You remember those Deathclaw things I mentioned but never quite got around to explaining to you, well Seven meet Deathclaws," the robot said in an equally alarmed and fearful voice.