The Atomic Humvee sped across the wasteland, and after being far enough away from the reservation, probably because of the improvement of the environment, the original yellow desert gradually turned into a sparse grassland overgrown with some kind of green desert vegetation, and many undulating mountains appeared in the distance.

As shown on the Pip-Boy's map, they have come to the vicinity of the junction of the new mS and Colorara.

Measles is still there tinkering with his strange things, and Andy is chatting with Gillian next to him in boredom.

"Where did you learn your skills, and you really just learned them by picking up books?"

Gillian looked out the window with a complicated look in her eyes.

"Not all.... I did read a lot of diaspora pre-war books, but those books were mostly incomplete and varied, and it was extremely difficult to learn the craft by relying on them. I was taught as a child. ”

"Education? Are you from a large settlement? I don't sound like you're a New Californian. ”

Andy looked ahead and said this, NcR people generally have some subtle accents, especially those herders and farmers living in remote areas, and some people will call this accent the smell of two-headed cattle in a mocking tone, because those who operate this strong accent are basically cattle herders.

But the woman's speech is very "standard", and this "standard" does not mean that her pronunciation has fewer accents, but that she speaks almost like the pronunciation left by people in some holographic cassette recordings left over from before the war, which can be regarded as pure SA pronunciation.

In fact, the ghouls of the reservation also speak in this way, after all, there are many of them who have been in pre-war or have been in contact with pre-war survivors for a long time, but the ghouls' rough and hoarse voices have developed their own accents.

Hearing Andy mention her accent, Gillian opens her mouth and finally tells the truth.

"Actually.... I am a Vault dweller. ”

Andy turned to look at her in surprise, it was the first time he had seen a living Vault dweller.

In the NcR, the term "Vault Dweller" has a special symbolic meaning, and the image of a giant sculpture that still stands in a square in the capital of the NcR in Shayin State is the image of a hero of a bygone era known as the Vault Dweller, who is said to have saved the young President Tandi at the hands of a group of vicious marauders and provided many key aids in the initial stages of the NcR, the statue of a sturdy man wearing a strange straitjacket, Make a posture of striding forward with your head held high.

As the name suggests, the meaning of the shelter dwellers refers to the people who were born and raised in an underground shelter built by SA defense contractor Vault Technologies before the war, and they survived the aftermath of the nuclear bombing that swept all directions during the Great War, and their genes were not mutated by radiation, so they generally grew white and clean, not like the wasteland people.

On the other hand, they are all well-educated, and although Vault technology is always included in pre-set educational textbooks, it is true that those pre-war knowledge systems have been passed down from generation to generation in the Vault, and every adult Vault resident with a complete Vault education is more knowledgeable and noble than the Wastelanders who are generally illiterate and self-tulden, and it can be said that they are almost all very young in terms of their ability to cope with the Wasteland's human environment.

Occasionally, there will be rumors in the wasteland that the Vault residents with extremely obvious characteristics are out and about, a person with fair facial features, wearing a blue Vault tights with yellow stripes, armed with a 10mm pistol or a metal batons, and even looking at the flowers and plants around him is full of curiosity.

Some of the Pip-Boy in different states will circulate in the hands of the merchants in the wasteland, some are bluffing rags, and some can still keep running and functional, it stands to reason that due to the particularity of the high-tech equipment of the Pip-Boy, the act of skipping the process and forcibly picking it directly under the premise of its owner's involuntary will cause great trauma to the holder's arm, of course, this matter is not necessarily cared about.

It is said that some slave traders would pay exorbitant prices for the inhabitants of the Vault, because a person whose genes have not been contaminated with radiation is a precious commodity, in every sense...

"Are you a Vault dweller, no wonder, so your mechanical skills were learned in the Vault, which Vault are you from?"

Hearing Andy ask, Gillian shook her head and refused to answer.

"I can't say. Andy, I can't tell him any of these things, just assume that the vault has been destroyed. ”

Andy understands Gillian's resistance, as I said before, the shelter dwellers will always be targeted, because since there are shelter dwellers, it means that there must be an undiscovered shelter underground somewhere, everything in the shelter is a sky-high treasure, sturdy modular metal building materials, a large number of still working electronic equipment, industrial appliances, medical equipment, nuclear reactors that can still provide energy, normal working household robots, all kinds of food and drink materials that can be stored for a long time, and various life support devices, such as fresh water recycling devices, etc....

and, most importantly, more shelter dwellers.

Therefore, a smart Vault resident should know that under no circumstances should he reveal the location of the Vault he or she left from, otherwise something will happen that he or she will regret for the rest of his life.

In order to prevent this from happening when Diana ran Vault 29, she controlled the Vault residents who wanted to leave, and then used coEd technology to force a mental seal in her mind to restrain them, preventing them from telling others the location of Vault 29 or trying to lead the way for others.

"Can you tell me about your friends? They're not Vault dwellers like you, are they? ”

Andy reverted, as he felt that since Gillian claimed that those who were presumably in Bloomfield at the moment were friends and not family, they wouldn't be the same Vault dwellers as she was, and whether they were or not, they weren't in the Vault Gillian came out of, and she shouldn't be afraid to ask about that.

Sure enough, this time Gillian didn't resist answering the question.

"They are not.... They are... It's a gang. ”

"Gangs?"

Andy, who was driving the car, glanced at Gillian.

"Do you mean your friends are a gang of marauders?"

This change in attitude was of course noticed by Gillian, who continued with some embarrassment.

"It's... That's it... It's just that they also like to tinker with all kinds of technological equipment and mechanical components, which they use to make weapons, armor, or recycle and disassemble scrap products to sell for money, or find those pre-war relics that have not yet been touched and enter them in search of treasure, and when I was left alone in the wasteland, they met me and took a fancy to my skills, and I became one of them ever since. ”

Andy nodded, now that he had a new understanding of Gillian's background.

"So, those friends of yours are not very easy to talk to, do you have any other ways to make a living besides selling garbage? If I'm not mistaken, the southern part of the Hoover Dam is also a place where trade routes meet, and there are quite a few caravans passing by..."

The look of embarrassment on Gillian's face was even worse.

"This... This one.... That's true, but I haven't been involved in those things, you know, the leader of an organization has a key influence on the way the whole organization acts, although the bottle caps that are made by tinkering with the rags are enough to make us live, but Kyle is always restless, he used to be a member of a big gang in Phoenix, that's the way he is used to living, he is rough and brutal and has a strong desire to control, and no one can persuade him or disobey him. ”

Andy just felt the name a little familiar.

"You said your gang's boss's name is Kyle, right? Why does this name sound familiar? ”

Gillian blinked, looking even more distracted.

"Maybe it's because I mentioned his name when I first met you... Now that I think about it, with his kind of character, it is absolutely impossible for the vase cap to hire someone to save me, it is completely too much of me..."

Andy shook his head, he knew that Gillian had mentioned some of Kyle's and other people's names when he first met, but that wasn't the reason why Andy thought he was familiar with Kyle's name, he had noticed Kyle somewhere earlier... Where is it?

Seeing that the road ahead was flat, Andy held up the Pip-Boy and looked at the records, eventually finding his target at the Hoover Dam bounty list.

This was one of the targets of the bounty list he had received from Bob in the first place, and Gillian's mention of her joining the gang seemed to fit the description of the bounty list.

"That Kyle you're talking about can't be the guy nicknamed Rusty Hook Kyle, right?"

Gillian was so embarrassed that her eyes rolled from side to side.

"Ahh This one.... Hmm..."

The answer is evident at a glance.

Andy looked at Gillian beside him with a scowl in embarrassment.

"You're a great gang, you know? You've made a lot of noise, and you've been named in the Bounty Hunters Guild at Hoover Dam, especially your boss, that Rusty Hook Kyle, whose head is now worth a lot of bottle caps, and it's said that you've been attacking passing caravans south of Hoover Dam, I'm right. ”

Gillian didn't know how to answer, and it took a long time for her to spit out a sentence.

"Although he is a big bastard, there are actually a lot of really good people in the gang, not all of them are heinous guys, everyone has their own last resort to join the gang, at least please believe me."

Andy whistled.

"I believe in you, but I just believe in you, take it one step at a time, I'm not afraid of your friends."

While the two were chatting, Measles, who was sitting in the back seat, suddenly raised his head and looked at the window.

"Andy... I recommend that you park your car first. ”

Andy, who was sitting in the front, glanced in the rearview mirror suspiciously.

"How?"

Measles was still watching itself at the sky to the north.

"There's something in the sky, I think it's been following us for a while, about an hour ago, as we were passing through the mountains before, I saw that thing in the far sky, and now... It reappeared, closer than before. ”

As soon as Andy heard this, he hurriedly looked north, there were some clouds floating in the sky, but after a while, Andy also saw the mysterious object that the measles claimed was suspected of tracking them in the sky, it was a silver-gray metal saucer-shaped object, at this moment the car was moving forward quickly, but the unknown flying object was getting closer and closer to them in the same direction, which means that the direction of this thing was the same as that of the atomic Humvee, and the speed was many times faster than the atomic Humvee.

It moves silently, without any smoke or sound, and occasionally disappears for a moment when it passes through the clouds, only to reappear after a few moments.

"Oh my God... What is this? ”

Andy had never seen anything like this before, and the wasteland of the day often had nothing in the sky except for clouds, dust, and a few mutated eagles, and if there were, it was just some kind of garbage that had been blown up into the sky by a strong wind; But it wasn't some natural phenomenon, its silvery-gray shell even shimmered in the sunlight, and it was moving at high speed against the wind, with a tendency to get closer and closer.

Gillian followed the two of them and finally noticed the strange flying object.

"It's... It can't be an airplane or an airship, it flew without leaving a trace, and it was so fast..."

Measles echoed Gillian's judgment.

"That's right, and now it's impossible for even those planes and airships in the old world to take to the skies, there are still some junks piled up in the hangar on the reservation, and those scrap metal will never be repaired to the point where they can fly back into the sky, if it is a homemade plane made by some mechanics in the wasteland who recycle parts by themselves, its performance and appearance will not be able to achieve the effect of that thing, that is, this thing is not man-made, and it will not be a person who controls it..."

Andy listened to the exchange between Measles and Gillian and felt his scalp tingle.

"What do you mean? What do you mean by not being human? What else can it be if it's not a person? ”

Measles patted him on the shoulder in the back.

"Rather than caring about that I think it's better for you to stop quickly, what we really need to confirm now is whether this thing is targeting us or not, although I noticed it an hour or so ago, it's most likely been flying in the sky for hours, if it doesn't happen to be on the way, it means it's trying to do something to us, we need to make sure if that's the case."

Andy quickly stepped on the brakes, and the Atomic Hummer pulled out two trails of dust and slowly stopped.

Three pairs of eyes looked nervously at the sky, and in the blink of an eye, the flying machine disappeared into a drifting cloud.

After opening the car door, the three of them got out of the car and continued to look at the sky, the strong sunlight forced them to cover a light shield with their hands, Andy thought about it, took out a pair of anti-breakage sunglasses that he bought a long time ago, put on and looked at the sky, sure that the thing was gone.

"Damn, what the hell is it?"

Andy took off his sunglasses and had been looking around the sky for a while, but he really couldn't see anything.

Measles lost interest in the sky at the moment, and he looked at a huge mountain not far behind the people, this mountain stood out in the brown desert, after all, it was the tallest landmark in the area, the mountain was made of a dark rock, which was not surprising, but what made him care was some remnants of pre-war man-made objects, such as the road built around the mountain and...

A concrete-poured, tunnel-like entrance was built into the mountain, and the road connected to the entrance, as if it could be walked directly into the mountain, and there was a similar entrance in the distance, which was also connected by the road.

Measles took off his gas mask and wiped his eyes in disbelief, and after a moment of thought, he took out a tattered old map from his backpack on his back, and the white five-pointed star symbol on it meant that it was an old-world military item.

"Is this it? ...”

On the other side, Andy and Gillian are discussing whether to spend the night here after their search for the sun is about to set.

"How do you think we'll rest here tonight?"

Andy saw some withered dead wood not far away, so he had all the fuel and chairs, and only needed to build a rudimentary stone campfire to cook and rest.

Gillian hugged her arms as if she was a little cold, and she seemed a little uneasy.

"Are you sure? Don't you think it's scary to be empty? It's flat everywhere, and you can't see the end at a glance...."

Andy glanced at the sunset on the horizon and the mountain behind it.

"Okay, if you know how to drive, you can take over for me at night, but the danger increases at night, and those monsters and beasts like to go out day and night, and the noise will definitely attract them if the car drives by... Besides, there's a mountain here, and it's not too flat, but I don't think it's a problem, if we start preparing it now, we can have a hot barbecue when it gets dark. ”

Gillian asked, confused.

"Barbecue?"

Before she could understand, Andy suddenly pulled out his pistol and opened fire, killing a mutant lizard hiding in the dead grass with a headshot.

Andy casually put away his pistol under Gillian's surprised gaze and prepared to harvest his prey, only to see measles staring at the mountain, which aroused his alarm, and following Measles' gaze, he also saw the huge concrete entrance that seemed to enter the mountain and the man-made buildings nearby, which was extraordinary.

"Kirtland...."

Measles muttered under his breath.