Chapter 11: Strange Cola
The two people ahead of Finn finished up quickly, purging the nuclear radiation from the expired lard and the wind-up alarm clock. These were probably things they’d scavenged from the ruins.
Milton glanced at the three corpses on the ground and let out a heavy sigh. Then he started removing the radiation from everything inside Jimmy’s backpack.
Jimmy had once stared down a nuclear blast while carrying that pack. The radiation dust had caked the whole thing, pushing the dosage way past lethal levels. Only the potent medicine from the Nine Revolutions Resurrection Pill had kept him alive.
Finn watched Milton’s technique with keen interest. The items this red-robed elder carried didn’t look like any tech forged in the wasteland.
According to the Radiant Path, these were holy artifacts granted by the gods themselves. Only true believers in Holy Radiance could master and wield them.
Finn couldn’t care less about the so-called Holy Radiance. He had always had one burning ambition: to slaughter a god.
If he could add a true, lofty deity to his kill list, he’d feel like a legend.
Milton lifted the long crystal rod in his hand and pointed it at the objects on the table. He squeezed his eyes shut, brows twisted tight. Heavy beads of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, and fine droplets even glistened on the bridge of his nose. It looked like he was straining every ounce of his will, fighting to control something vast.
At the same time, one end of the crystal began to radiate a pure, brilliant light. The glow flowed over the radiation-soaked items like gentle water.
The light slowly faded. Milton put away the translucent rectangular crystal, exhaled deeply, and wiped the sweat from his brow. He gave Finn a nod, signaling that the job was done.
“How much?” Finn asked.
“Three bullets.”
Finn was surprised. He hadn’t expected it to be so cheap. Watching Milton purge every last bit of radiation from the backpack, the old man had clearly been pushing himself hard. Finn had figured he’d charge extra.
He was about to pull some bullets from his storage space when he realized the caliber might not match. Instead, he walked over to the three thugs lying on the ground, yanked the magazines from their assault rifles, took out three rounds, and handed them to Milton.
Milton gave a small nod. He parted his cracked, dry lips and spoke in a hoarse voice:
“Outsider, the three men you just killed belong to the local big gang, the Demon Gang. They’ll almost certainly come looking for revenge. You may have god-given power, but you still need to watch your back.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, but my power wasn’t given by any god.” Finn actually had a decent impression of the old man. Earlier, when those three Demon Gang thugs tried to cut in line, only this elder had spoken up to warn them.
Still, Olivia had mentioned before that the Radiant Path was expanding aggressively right now and even wanted to claim Black Mountain for itself. Guess every organization had its good eggs and its rotten ones.
Milton didn’t waste any time resting. He went straight back to purging nuclear radiation for the rest of the people still waiting in line. Finn turned his attention to the three dead thugs he’d just shot.
“Time to loot the bodies,” Finn called to Jimmy, rubbing his hands together with clear excitement.
“Way to make it sound like we’re opening treasure chests,” Jimmy thought with a mental eye-roll.
The two of them went through the corpses and came away with a pile of metal coins, two assault rifles, a compact silver-plated handgun, a bunch of rifle rounds, and three full magazines.
Add in the handgun Finn had taken at the start, and today they were heading home with a serious haul.
Finn and Jimmy turned the corner and slipped into a quiet, empty alley. They quickly stashed all the guns and ammo into their storage space. Finn pulled out a radiation detector from his storage space, swept it over Jimmy’s backpack, and saw that the readings were back to normal.
“It actually works,” Finn muttered, a little confused. Just what the hell was that translucent thing Milton had been holding?
He took out the pile of coins from his storage space and picked one up for a closer look. This was the wasteland’s basic currency: “dollars.”
The 1-dollar coin had a chrome-plated surface with the portrait of a middle-aged man in a suit. Fancy cursive letters circled the image: “Columbian Imperium.” It was probably the money from before the Cataclysm.
Finn had asked the innkeeper Michael about it once. The Cataclysm had been a global nuclear war, followed by nuclear winter. After the bombs stopped falling, the survivors fought over water and food with conventional weapons.
Only when the bullets finally ran out and the blood stopped flowing did the people on this continent scrape together a fragile peace. They huddled inside the various Refuge Cities, clinging together for survival while fighting off nuclear radiation, mutated beasts, and blood-crazed bandits.
Since he was here in the wasteland anyway, Finn figured he might as well do some sightseeing and soak up the local culture. He wandered aimlessly through the West District, looking for any interesting local specialties worth picking up.
Gunshots popped sporadically throughout Refuge City. Without realizing it, Finn had walked all the way into West Sector 1. His eyes suddenly lit up when he spotted something interesting.
In a squat brick shop, rows of brass shelves displayed bottle after bottle of cola. From the rocket-shaped glass bottles, Finn could tell at a glance—they were Nuka-Cola!
Finn had played a wasteland-themed game called Fallout back in the day, and he remembered Nuka-Cola being one of its signature products.
There were Nuka-Cola Quantum, Nuka-Cola Quartz, Nuka-Cola Orange, Nuka-Grape, Nuka-Cola Victory, Nuka-Cola Cherry, Classic Nuka-Cola, and even Yellow Nuka-Cola.
The drink itself was radioactive, and it actually used radiation as a preservative. The Quantum version was mildly radioactive; after you drank it, your piss would glow in the dark.
“Is this Nuka-Cola?” Finn asked, stepping closer to the counter.
“No shit,” the shopkeeper replied. He stood behind the counter with a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lips, puffing out clouds of smoke.
Finn was genuinely surprised. Nuka-Cola actually existed here. Something straight out of a video game had shown up for real in this wasteland world.
The shopkeeper lifted his eyelids, clearly noticing the look on Finn’s face. “Quantum, Quartz, Orange, or Classic? Victory and Cherry are sold out.”
“I’ll take all of them,” Finn said calmly.
“Oh ho, big spender,” the shopkeeper drawled, taking another drag. “Pay up!”
Finn pulled out the coins he’d looted from the thugs earlier and spread them across the counter.
“Out-of-towner, you screwing with me? This chump change ain’t nearly enough. If you can’t afford it, get the hell out of here!” The shopkeeper’s eyes widened as he blew a lungful of smoke straight toward Finn’s face.
Finn reached into Jimmy’s backpack and lifted out a full barrel of water—the big 18.9-liter kind used for water coolers.
The shopkeeper froze in shock, mouth hanging wide open. The cigarette between his lips dropped straight to the floor.
“Holy shit, this water is pure as hell! Wait… how the hell did you pull that out of the backpack? The damn thing was flat as a pancake a second ago!”
“Where I got it from isn’t the point, alright?” Finn slammed the heavy barrel of water down on the counter so hard a pencil on the table bounced into the air.
“No, that is the damn point! How did you pull it out of the backpack?” The shopkeeper’s eyes were still bugging out, disbelief written all over his face.
“You talk too damn much. I’m just asking: you selling the Nuka-Cola or not?” Now it was Finn’s turn to sound impatient.
“Sell, sell, of course I’m selling!” the shopkeeper blurted out, scrambling to lift the barrel off the counter. “Let me check it first.”
A moment later, he popped back up from behind the counter with a huge grin plastered across his face. He dragged out two wooden crates packed to the brim with Nuka-Cola—every flavor and every variety imaginable. Finn did a quick mental count. At least sixty bottles.
“Who makes all this Nuka-Cola?” Finn asked, picking up a bottle. The glass was smooth and curved, pleasantly cool against his palm.
“All imported from Ironatom. Damn, you from Dustgrain Valley? Or did you come from Green Dragon? You’ve got serious style!” The shopkeeper stuck his thumb up high, laying on the flattery as thick as he could.
“Ironatom?” Finn muttered. He remembered Ironatom had a guy called the “Cool Prophet.”
“Hey? You two out-of-towners.” A cold, sinister voice came from behind them. “You’re the bastards who killed our three Demon brothers?”