Megaton's Bomb

For reasons no one seems to remember, Megaton was built around a perfectly functioning nuke. Fresh out of the vault, I stopped short and stared when I first spied the bomb, its bulbous girth head first in a crater filled to the brim with brown, murky water. Talking with Lucas Simms, Megaton’s sheriff of sorts, I pointed out the insanity and danger of living so close to a live, unpredictable weapon.

Lucas agreed but said in all the years he lived in Megaton, no one had come along with the expertise to defuse the thing. His eyes narrowed when he offered me the task of neutralizing it. At first I demurred, but when I met the Children of the Atom, a cult dedicated to worshiping fission energy and the bombs that harnessed it, I changed my mind. Given time, I envisioned a scientist type stumbling upon Megaton and the cratered bomb, someone possibly gullible enough to heed the Children’s message that a universe exists within every atom and that a nuclear blast splits atoms into millions more. Worlds created in the blink of eye, at least according to the Children. They were insane. I would defuse that bomb.

I had decided this well before I stepped into Moriarty’s bar, trying to track down information about my wayward father. Stepping into the shithole, the door barely banged shut behind me before a man in a striped suit motioned me over to him. Against my better judgment, I walked over to him. He introduced himself as Mr. Burke and quickly got down to business. Through veiled innuendo, he offered me a job. Mr. Burke’s employer was looking to hire someone to denote Megaton’s nuke. Megaton had become a cesspool of alcoholism, gambling, and whoring and someone wanted it purged by radioactive fire.

I couldn’t get any information out of Burke, like who backed him, but I refused his offer. He told me to come back if I changed my mind. I left Moriarty’s and made my way deliberately to Lucas Simms. I told him of Burke and his plan to wipe Megaton off the face of the earth. Simms’ face hardened at the news. Slinging off his assault rifle, he told me to follow him to witness some frontier justice.

The two of us burst into Moriarty’s. I was surprised to see Burke still there. Balls of steel, this guy. Either that or he estimated me incapable of reporting him to the sheriff. Simms leveled his gun at Burke and ordered him into custody. At first Burke refused, but quickly acquiesced. Satisfied, Simms turned to leave. Burke quickly reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out a pistol. He fired multiple rounds into Simms, who fell to the ground dead. Burke turned to me, telling me I had made a terrible mistake. Before I could pull out a weapon, Burke calmly walked out of the bar and into wasteland night.

With the entire bar’s eyes on me, I put Simms’ duster hat on my head, his gunslinger trench coat over my shoulders, and his assault rifle in my hands. Megaton had a new sheriff in town.