Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Why My Pip-Boy Is Not Stolen?

Finally, we arrived at Nipton. Jansen tied down the brahmin on a nearby pole while I was escorting Bob alongside Jensen. Or was it Jansen? I didn't have any idea, they looked similar as I mentioned earlier, the only difference was their weapons, and their armor, of course. Our first stop was the Nipton general store.

"Good Afternoon, how may I–"

The shopkeeper looked surprised that it was me alongside Bob. Maybe because he expected Bob to come with his usual bodyguards instead of me. Bob approached the counter and handed down a piece of paper on the counter alongside a pencil.

"The usual, chems, junks, weapons, water, etc. You can find the list on the paper."

"Do you find the thing that I was looking for?" The shopkeeper asked.

Bob grabbed something out of his pocket. It wasn't small, but it was something inside of a package. I took a peek, only to find out that the thing was an analog watch that still worked flawlessly. Was it a treasure for Mojave, though?

"Ah, good find. The buyer would be very happy to know that I managed to retrieve a watch for him," the shopkeeper said.

I intervened, "an analog watch is a rare item?"

"Well, yeah, but if you want to sell your Pip-Boy for 3,000 caps, I'll buy it," the shopkeeper said.

"Don't listen to her, some traders are willing to pay for 50,000 caps for that whole thing," Bob intervened.

"Bob… why did you tell him that?"

That was surprising and unsurprising at the same time. Yeah, sure, the Pip-Boy could carry a lot of things at once, but would it be more profitable for people to pay even 50,000 caps for that? That was a lot of caps, and I doubted a regular trader would have an access to that.

The shopkeeper sighed, "Yeah, the market price for a single robco Pip-Boy at the moment is around 50,000 to 100,000 caps depending on how you looked at it. Since vaults in Mojave are looted, and the tech to reproduce it has been lost, the pip-boy became a collector's item."

"So, if that thing was that expensive, why don't many people try to steal it?" I asked for one single simple reason. The person that usually carried a Pip-Boy would usually be a Vault Dweller, and as far as I remembered, Vault Dweller was inexperienced in combat. Still, that was my judgment.

"Well, it makes sense, but traders and raiders believed that stealing a Pip-Boy from a Vault Dweller is a bad omen, at least in Mojave," Bob explained.

"How so?" I asked, curious about where that statement came from.

"Well, there was an accident when a trader killed an unknown Vault Dweller south of Searchlight at around six years ago or so," Bob started telling the story, then the shopkeeper of the general store continued it.

The shopkeeper continued, "The trader was part of one of the major caravans in the whole Mojave, and he killed a Vault Dweller south of Searchlight for a Pip-Boy. The leader of that caravan group showed the Pip-Boy that one of his employers looted to everyone in Nipton, Novac, and so on."

"Hmm?" This started to get interesting. Where was the bad omen part of the story? "What happened after that, then?"

Bob's facial expression turned very sour. As if he didn't want to say a word about it. "First, the trader which killed that Vault Dweller got ambushed the second time he approached Searchlight. As usual, he took Highway 95 to Bullhead City."

"What happened next?" I asked.

"The trader vanished into thin air as if God poured its wrath into this particular caravan. The only traces that he had ever been there were the remains of his Pip-Boy in the middle of a large black crater in the middle of the desert. Nothing left of his body, or his caravans, it all turned into ashes," the shopkeeper said.

Bob then added, "People from Novac reported that a loud thunder appeared during the night, alongside with white flash from an explosion. People thought it was just a random explosion from the NCR Mojave Campaign, but get this, the NCR didn't have the armament to deliver an explosion that big."

So, basically, a person stole a Pip-Boy and somehow got exploded by something that managed to vaporize the entire caravan. It sounded a lot like a nuke. I didn't remember the Brotherhood of Steel having a nuke on their armaments either. This was quite interesting.

"What happened to the caravan group, then?" I asked.

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"Well…" The shopkeeper was anxious about telling the story as cold sweat started to flow.

"Bunch of well-armed people came to Novac, Nipton, Boulder City, and the surrounding area. They were armed with guns and power armor," Bob explained.

"Power Armor? Are we talking about the Brotherhood of Steel?" I asked.

"We wish it was the Brotherhood of Steel. The thing is, they didn't resemble the Brotherhood at all," the shopkeeper said.

"Hmm?"

"They used power armor painted in black, alongside a bunch of unknown weapons that would make the Brotherhood salivate. They also employed vehicles far more advanced than what the NCR currently uses," The shopkeeper further explained.

"They aren't the Brotherhood?" I asked.

The shopkeeper shook her head. "They temporarily occupied the town, searching for every single bit of that caravan and either capturing who surrendered or killing anyone who showed a sign of resistance. The owner of the caravan got the worst of it. His head got blown off by a gauss rifle."

"All of that retribution for a single Pip-Boy?" I asked.

"Yes, that's why most of the caravans or traders don't steal Pip-Boy, it simply brought a bad omen in the form of black soldiers coming out of nowhere just for the sake of destroying your whole business," the shopkeeper said.

"How do you know all of this?" I asked.

"My father got captured by one of those soldiers. He was working with that particular caravan, I hadn't heard of him ever since. Anyway, the black soldiers are always heard when someone steals a Pip-Boy from a living body," the shopkeeper said.

"My condolence," I replied.

"That's alright. It's been a long time, I don't remember too much of it, anyway."

"Do you have other stories about Pip-Boy stealers?" I was wondering.

Bob then added, "Well, there's this caravan company from the south of New Reno. They had a stable business, and he stole a Pip-Boy from someone in Mojave. The owner flexed it, of course. Then, it happened."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Someone bombed their headquarters to the ground. The NCR said it was the Brotherhood's vertibird, but it was too much of a coincidence, don't you think?" Bob said.

"Yeah, I get the point now. Traders of the Mojave wouldn't try to steal a Pip-Boy from a living body, am I right?"

"Yup, you got that right, Enzo," Bob said.

"Anyway, enough of the sentimental session. You are here to deliver my goods, right? Here are the caps, don't spend it all in one place, you hear?" The shopkeeper put a plastic bag filled with bottlecaps and Bob retrieved it and carried it with his right hand.

"Thanks for your business, see you again, soon."

Bob and I left the general store. We agreed to meet at the bar at Nipton after going to the general store. Yeah, I was thirsty as well. Sarsaparilla would be very nice.

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