Chapter 12 - 12

There was a building not far from the gate, just across the road. An old Movie theater. In truth he doubted it would have anything of value, both as a movie theater and as a building so close to town but it was a test run anyway. If it went well he would go further. He just had to shake his nerves first. He approached the building slowly, his eyes checking everywhere as he walked, now that he had finally understood how dangerous the world had become he wouldn't be as careless as he was before. Still, he didn't expect trouble. He paused as he approached the front door, frames where movie posters once sat still hung up on the wall but long since removed with the force of time. But the giant sign above the overhand was still there, the neon sign was off, of course, but the sign itself still remained. But truthfully he was just stalling one last time. So, carefully, he entered inside. Upon getting inside he noted that there was a lot of natural light inside. He had assumed it would be quite dark, but as he walked further in he noted that the roof seemed to have collapsed in a few places letting in the light of the sun unabated. He once more paused as he turned to look at the same frames he saw outside, but now on the inside walls of the movie theater. These ones were remarkably more well preserved, a few still had visible movie posters in them. All were advertising movies that were either coming out soon or had recently come out and were in theaters One read: Agent America 6, The Bombshell Beauty and the Horcrux of Time. Ah, Agent America, good movie series. 6 was a bit of a let down. The bombshell was a communist spy. Sorry, spoilers. He broke away from his thoughts and slowly approached the concession stand. Ruined. What did he expect? The popcorn machine was all trashed, the glass completely shattered and it all looked weather worn and ruined. The glass cases where candy bars would be displayed were smashed too, someone clearly had a lot of fun ruining this place. There really wasn't much to find here, it was all very much looted. But he noticed a small green thing on the floor on the worker side of the concession stand. Bending down to look he found a single wrapper of GumDrops. Hardly even considered food, but not worth leaving behind, surely this must be worth something? 2 caps? He hoped so anyway. After throwing it into his backpack he turned around to the popcorn machines and examined them. Truthfully if they worked they would probably still be worth quite a bit of money, popcorn was good regardless of the century. But he wasn't going to cry over spilt milk. Instead, with a little "creative destruction" of his own he broke the metal rod that held the popcorn popper up and then pulled it out, he then followed that by removing the bottom of the inside of the machine to show the internals. This much was a bit of a struggle, the actual bottom was not meant to be removed, but more brute force worked fine, it was just a popcorn machine after all. For all his efforts he found what he was looking for. The motor that powered the Popcorn Machine. Truthfully he didn't know if it still worked but no looter would go through the effort of taking or specifically destroying the motor, this was likely left untouched all this time. Surely this was worth something. So, with his prize found, he threw it into his backpack and then turned to leave before stopping again. Right next to where the motor was, was, predictably, a ton of wiring. He had no need for it, and didn't want to stuff his backpack full of wire, but the Jukebox needed it and taking enough to fix it wouldn't hurt his chances so he grabbed it too. Finally on the move again he crept through the halls searching each theater one at a time. He was not alone. Luckily all he found were radroaches. He was less scared this time as he took them out by stomping on them as hard as he could. He didn't want to waste the bullets, bullets were more valuable than the lives of these bugs. By the time he had cleared the whole movie theater he had killed 12 of them. Including one that seemed to be glowing. That one certainly freaked him out a bit, but it didn't slow him down at all. Predictably the movie theater was bereft of anything interesting to loot. But there was a part of him that felt a bit giddy. There was a small part of him that was enjoying the hunt. Like a scavenger hunt he would do as a child, and the prizes were goods he could sell later. Add in the danger of giant bugs and the darkness he had to occasionally contend with using only his Pip-Boy light and he found himself, far from scared, but excited, he was enjoying himself. Strange as it was. He could get addicted to this feeling. Still the movie theater was mostly a bust. He had not searched thoroughly around every corner and in every stall or under every chair with a fine tooth comb but he had done a single sweep through. The sum total of 4 items of note. A fancy gold watch, a Grognak the Barbarian comic book in moderate condition, a single roll of still usable toilet paper, and a bottle of Nuka Cola still sealed. The temptation to drink the Nuka cola was strong but he decided it would be far more worth it to sell. Of course he found a few other random odds and ends, like small box of Abraxo Cleaner but his bag was still very light. Instead of leaving immediately, however, he took the time to head into each projector room, also empty of anything valuable, and take the key components from the projector, notably the motor, just like he did with the popcorn machine. The motors were all small but they did help put a tiny bit more heft into his backpack. It wasn't nothing. Truthfully, the best thing he found in the entire theater was a toolbelt in a maintenance closet. Much like the one he used to wear at Second life. Even better still it still had a number of tools on hand. Which made his efforts to remove the parts from the Projectors much easier than having to break open the casing with his hands. Certainly the best find the entire run. All in all, the trip was not a waste, but it was tiring, the movie theater was not large, but between ensuring he was safe from ambushes from those tiny monsters and checking every room with a moderately thorough scan took far more time than he would have expected. By the time he was done, he was sitting in the manager's office, in the cushy office chair, feet up on the desk reading the comic book he found. This was how he spent his break. Honestly having the freedom to set his own time table, the freedom to explore at his own pace, and the ability to simply stop what he was doing to read a comic book was liberating. Far better than the constricting clock-ins he had to do at his old job. Once more he was finding that this agreed with him far more than he expected. But he was also aware this was nothing more than a test run, this building had bugs, nothing else. But in the future he wouldn't be so lucky. He would come across far greater odds. But by now he was no longer dreading it, he was almost excited at the prospect. Finally done reading the comic book, something he hadn't done since he was a kid, he stepped back outside to see that about half the day had gone by. But it's not as if he had nothing to show for it. However, despite the wall still being in sight, he decided to push a bit further and explore more. He still had time after all. He looked around, seeing what other buildings were still standing enough to explore. In the distance he saw a tall thin office building for a company he didn't recognize, probably a law firm or something. It didn't matter much. What did matter, however, was that the building was still in moderately good shape, unlike a lot of the rubble that surrounded it. Props to the engineer. He entered the buildings slowly, carefully, just like before. His pistol was drawn and he checked every corner as he slowly swept through the building on his way up. The first floor was clear. Though it was also clear of anything interesting. The furniture was all there but it was all empty. The drawers, shelves, cabinets, all of it had nothing. Though he did find a pair of reading glasses sitting on one of the desks, He was going to pass on it but decided he was out here to make money, even if it was junk maybe he could get a cap for it? At this point he still didn't know what was valuable. He would need to keep a list of the value of items so he could compare when selling later. Hopefully Chuck could help him with that. He could open a new note tab on his Pip-Boy to catalog all the data. Damn, the Pip-boy was really coming in clutch, where would he be without it? The second floor was much the same, though he did find a key to a locked door on the first floor he couldn't open. He had decided that breaking down the door wasn't worth the effort so left it alone. But it was labeled "Basement" so he was reasonably certain it would work. However the third and final floor was different. As soon as he got up there he began to hear noises. At first he thought it was more bugs but then he saw the shadow of something running from one room to another. It was far too big to be a bug. Slowly, he approached, keeping quiet as he did, ready to ambush whatever sort of thing he found. Finally, as he approached the open door to the room he saw the figure slink into he whipped around the corner, pistol out ready to shoot only to find a gangly looking woman, thin as bones, hair all swept to one side, wearing what could only be described as cloth rags huddling over a pile of random junk mumbling to herself. She was actually pretty pitiable. Before he could act she turned around and looked at him. She was definitely not a ghoul, just some kind of Hobo. Adam sighed. He probably just walked into someone's home… or what amounts to one. "Im um… sorry…" He said as he slowly lowered his gun, now pointing it at the ground but it still remained in his hands. "I didn't mean to intrude…" He sighed. The woman just stared at him intensely, not moving but she seemed to be twitching, she was fidgeting a ton, and her eyes, now that he was looking, were bloodshot. She was likely on some sort of chems. "I'll just uh… leave you to… whatever you are doing…" Adam said as he backed up slowly a few steps and then holstered his gun and turned around to leave. He felt bad for her. He didn't know what this woman had been through, but it's possible he could end up just like her if he didn't succeed in finding things to sell. He might end up surviving outside the comfort of the walls, slowly starving to death. He sighed heavily as he headed towards the stairs, deciding the entire affair was a waste, he still had daylight, it was far better to just move on than to dawdle here uselessly. However as he began to walk away he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him from behind, he was about to turn around and look when all of a sudden he felt something hit the back of his head. Hard.