Walking all the way to the east side of the north shore of the Grand Canyon, Andy saw from a distance that some tents and shacks were scrawled up, maintaining a look that they might collapse at any time but did not collapse, Enzo had told him that there were scavengers to settle here, before Andy thought that this was commonplace, nothing more than a group of desperate people attracted by bottle caps, and now when he really arrived, he only felt that he dared to settle here and beg for a living.

The Grand Canyon to the south is slightly gentle, and the distance between the two sides seems to be relatively close, but it is still not narrow, and when it is close enough, Andy can tell that there must be some traces of human activity here before the scavengers established a stronghold, and some of the houses are obviously quite old, and their shape is obviously before the war.

More eye-catching are several "iron cables" across the Grand Canyon.

Andy looked at the rusty but unbroken things, and couldn't imagine how they were made to withstand two hundred years of wind and rain without breaking, and he didn't understand how the people of the time set it up on the north and south banks of the Grand Canyon, but why? I don't see what it's used for.

A strong wind howled, blowing Andy couldn't open his eyes, the natural environment of the Grand Canyon area was very strange, before approaching the Grand Canyon, Andy only felt unprecedentedly cool, this was a feeling he had never experienced in Yarisansan before, although he didn't understand the principle, but it was very comfortable.

After arriving at the Grand Canyon area, the temperature here becomes hot and cold, and it is obvious that you can feel the heat wave rising from the bottom of the Grand Canyon.....

Another gust of wind blew, and Andy looked up at the sky, surprised to see that the sky that had been clear just now was now covered with dark clouds, followed by dazzling thunder and roaring thunder.

"Boom ————!!!!"

The deafening thunder echoed in the Grand Canyon, the terrain like a natural megaphone made the already loud sound almost unbearable, Andy only felt that the eardrums were sending out a sharp pain, and the huge raindrops had begun to fall on the ground, he ran to the small camp in front of him in embarrassment, and vaguely saw that there was also a group of buildings on the opposite bank of the camp in the north of the Grand Canyon, and the scale was much larger than the north.

This seems to mean that the people who settled in the Grand Canyon will be longer than Andy imagined.

Another strong wind blew, Andy ran to the edge of the camp, and found that the wind and rain here were much lighter, it seems that this part of the mountain effectively sheltered some of the wind and rain, no wonder people settled here.

"Hell!"

Andy wiped a handful of water on his face, wishing that two wipers would grow on his face, Arisansan is short of water, and it is supposed to be a good thing that there will be heavy rain here, but after the rain fell on Andy, Hull and the beep-beep boy immediately sounded the alarm, and the rain seemed to contain a large amount of radioactive materials, and the radiation value was very high.

Fortunately, Xiao Hei was left in the car, otherwise it would have been a bit of trouble.

"Boom ————!!"

A few lightning bolts split the faint green clouds overhead, Andy changed into a radiation suit and ran wildly for a while, then casually found a room and pushed the door in, panting like a chicken in the soup, his face and palms that had been exposed outside for a short time tingled, and some areas had begun to redden, it can be expected that if he hadn't gone to the reservation to get radiation protection suits, he would not have been blown out of radiation sickness by this torrential rain today.

"You look a little embarrassed, boy."

An old voice sounded in the ticking sound of water leaking, and Andy looked up to see an old man sitting in the room under a dim electric light, dressed in a patchwork of dirty clothes, and surrounded by all sorts of miscellaneous objects hanging on the walls and tables, some like special tools, others like pure garbage, all in short, all gray.

At this time, Andy looked left and right, and found that the building was not a random dilapidated shack, but a reconstructed from the remains of a two-story pre-war building.

Some of the ornaments and elaborate stoves exude understated luxury...

"Stranger, few outsiders visit me these days, welcome to... North House. ”

The old man stood up, his white hair hanging down to his shoulders and his disheveled white beard concealing his wrinkled black skin, his skin was rough and almost leather, his hands were covered with dirt that could not be washed at first glance, and scars of large and small were scattered all over the place, and his nails were generally deformed, and a few of them were completely lost.

This is a person with a story, or it can be said that people who can survive to old age in the wasteland are rarely not burdened with a basket of stories.

"Hello... My name is Andy, uh... I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to break into a house to escape the rain. ”

The old man just nodded and smiled.

"Of course, even if you don't say it, I can see that you don't know much about the situation here and are defenseless, and looking at you reminds me of what happened to me when I first came here, when it was a mess and full of unfriendly people, and I'm glad that the same thing didn't happen to my successors."

He stood up, and at this time Andy saw that he was carrying a shotgun on his back, with a knife and a pistol stuck in his waist, and although he was old, he was still tall, and he must have been a brave man in his youth.

"Thank you for taking me in, uncle... The weather here is really weird, it's still sunny just now..."

Andy found a stool and sat down, finding some anti-radiation pills to eat.

"Just call me Santiago."

After seeing Andy take out the radiation medicine himself, the old man calmly closed the half-opened cabinet door.

"At least you know how to carry radioactive pills, which is better than I did."

He picked up some coals and threw them into the furnace, and the flames burned even more vigorously.

"I've been to places where there's a lot more radiation than here, or to put it bluntly, somewhere that has been bombed by a lot of nuclear bombs, and it's at least not bad when it's not raining."

Andy took advantage of Santiago's coal to add coal, changed out of the radiation suit, and used the heat of the stove to roast the wet parts of his body.

"I've been to places like you're talking about, but trust me, they're not as dangerous as the Grand Canyon, and they don't look bad up there, and there's nothing dangerous except for the occasional radiant rain, but it's definitely an illusion. The Grand Canyon is... Alive, it is brewing countless evils, and most of those who rush to explore the treasure will never have a chance to come back. ”

San Diego sat in a chair and muttered, sounding familiar to the Grand Canyon.

"I'm here for the first time, can you tell me about this side of the Grand Canyon San Diego?"

Andy handed over dozens of bottle caps, and Santiago took them without hesitation.

"No problem, for the sake of the sacred bottle cap, I know everything about you, I don't have any secrets to keep over my life, if I can help you with a few words, then I will be happy."

So the two began to talk over the fire.

"Santiago, how long have you been here?"

"For a long, long time... About thirty years or so, when I was young, I came here from Mojave as a treasure hunter to make a fortune, and I was fascinated by this Grand Canyon and became the old and sick scavenger you see today, well... Now, I feel like I've become a part of it, the Grand Canyon is tied to my soul, and I can't go. ”

"Then you can almost call it a local, Santiago, can you tell me what dangers are here? Except for radiant rain. ”

"Dangerous... The last thing that is lacking here is this, the natives, many natives live in this area, and they seem to see this place as a miracle and a holy place. A long, long time ago, there were many more natives here than there are now, but there was a great war, and somewhere in the Grand Canyon became a battlefield, and many small tribes besieged a large tribe, and we thought that the big tribe must be destroyed, but it turned out to be the other way around. Since the war, the number of natives has dwindled dramatically, but there are still a small number of people living in the vicinity. ”

Andy only felt that Santiago's description was very familiar, and he hesitated for a moment before making a guess.

"Santiago, the big tribe you're talking about isn't called Blackfoot, right?"

"Oh? You know a lot, yes, the besieged tribe is called Blackfoot, and a lot of things happened that we don't understand, but it did help us live better here, and some of the natives were friendly and could trade, and more of them just wanted to expel or kill us. ”

Santiago pulls out a decorated skeleton from a drawer.

"Don't underestimate those natives, even if they only have funny spears and bows and arrows in their hands."

Andy looked at the skeleton a little wordlessly, thinking to himself if the first place he had arrived in the first place was not the abandoned fortress, but the Grand Canyon, San Diego, if it would have been better.

"I know this, I've dealt with a lot of tribesmen in the east, and I don't underestimate them."

Santiago nodded in satisfaction and put away the skull, and instead took out a strange piece of skin.

"Except for the natives, you have to be careful of beasts and terrifying radiation, the closer you get to the bottom, the greater the threat to you, remember, don't wear those heavy armor, especially metal armor, even if you think it will help you defend against the monsters, you have to give them up."

Andy subconsciously wanted to ask why, but remembering what happened to him at the reservation before, he suddenly woke up.

"Santiago, you mean it's too hot down there?"

Santiago raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You're smart, young man, if only I had been like you, you know? Once you're close to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the metal armor on your body will even start to melt away, so if you want to go down and wear it, your only option is leather armor, which can still provide a certain level of protection underneath without burning your skin, as I've learned from experience. ”

Andy sighed slightly, and began to retreat from the choice of going to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, what the hell is this place, even the metal armor will melt? Can that man stand it?

"You talked about beasts before, what's down there?"

Santiago spread the leather in his hand on the table.

“..... Beast is just a generic term, if you have the chance to go down, you will see oversized wasteland monsters that you have never seen before, huge bugs, scorpions, and once I saw a huge snake with two heads, I don't know how it did it, it almost flew in those radiant vapors..."

"The scariest thing is the man-eating ghosts, we gave them that nickname."

As he spoke, he took out a skeleton from another cupboard, which was pitch black, similar in shape to a human and different from a human.

"You see, these are the bones of man-eaters, they resemble a kind of dwarf, black humanoid monsters, running and moving on all fours, fingers and toes are sharp, and the skin is a black crust... These monsters are only instinctive desires, and they will follow the people of the Grand Canyon in droves, kill them, eat them, and if you are unfortunate enough to be down there for some reason and not become their meal... You may be one of them. ”

Andy listened with a frown.

"This sounds like a mad ghoul..."

Santiago shook his head.

"No... We've all seen ghouls, haven't we? Those shriveled and emaciated walking dead wandering the wastelands, cannibals aren't that kind of thing, you know? They're degenerate, but they're not the walking dead, and those guys hunt in packs, and they're going to multiply. ”

"The ghouls who formed a disaster outside have become endangered animals at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and they are all hunted and eaten by man-eaters."

Andy was about to ask again, but Santiago suddenly sighed thoughtfully.

"Of course, the ghouls are not all that kind of monsters, and some of them still have reason in their heads, they are better off here than we are, those radiation rains are free bath water for them, and the high radiation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon has no effect on them, and there are two such noseless people here recently, which is really interesting."

When Andy heard this, he hurriedly asked.

"Santiago, you said there were two ghouls coming recently, is there one named measles?"

Santiago pondered for a moment and hesitated to reply.

"I'm not sure, those two guys don't fit in very well, one has been here and has been thinking about the tattered robot in the east all day, and the other is probably at the bottom, who knows what they are called..."

Andy thought in his heart that Measles had agreed with himself to meet at the Grand Canyon and would definitely not go to the bottom of the valley without permission, so most of the people in Santiago's mouth were pondering the robot in the east, since he had already arrived, there was no need to rush to find him, and when the rain stopped, he didn't have the physique of a ghoul to avoid radiation.

"Santiago, in fact, I am here on behalf of three settlements and a caravan, I hope to negotiate a big deal with the person in charge here, it is related to the north-south passage here, if it can be established, I guarantee that you and your partner can sit here and harvest a steady stream of bottle caps."

Santiago's eyes changed, he bent down and pulled out a bottle of whiskey in good condition, he took out a rag and wiped the bottle, and took out two more glasses.

"Welcome to the tavern in San Diego, my alcohol consumption is not bad, what you said I am very interested in, I will say it directly, now the people of the Grand Canyon are divided into two factions, these two groups of people have not given their groups any names, if you must say, I am in charge of this group of people in the north, and I am in charge of the group in the south, so you can be regarded as finding the right person by chance."

Andy took the glass and watched the orange wine flow into it.

"That's great, Santiago... I saw some iron lines connecting the north and south banks, does this mean that before the war, there was something here that allowed people to go directly to the Grand Canyon without having to take a detour? ”

Santiago drank the contents of the glass, leaned back in his chair and spoke slowly.

"Huh... There was once another way here, and we know from the natives that many years ago, a great fireball fell from the sky and destroyed it. This fireball is torn apart in the air and scattered all over the valley floor of the Grand Canyon, so if you're looking for a way to connect the north and south, the flying box is really your only option. ”

Andy repeated the strange word in Santiago's mouth.

"Flybox? What is that? ”

Santiago held out his hand and gestured.

"It's the 'iron wire' you mentioned, there were not only a few things there a long, long time ago, and now what is left behind can't be dismantled and removed, you know, what the scavenger profession has to do is to take away all the valuable items that come into sight and take them for yourself, when you see the box that can fly above the Grand Canyon, people can't hold their hands, it is dismantled."

Andy listened to Santiago's description and suddenly remembered what he had seen in the mountains behind Blackfoot Village.

"This 'flying box' you are talking about... Is it the cable car? ”

Santiago scratched at his hair.

"The cable car... Is it? It's an old word, most of us haven't had a chance to learn it, so you're an NcR, right? In the past few years, many NcR people have come to the Grand Canyon, they are reckless and impulsive, like a young man who is in a hurry to go into a brothel to find a prodigal woman to vent, and in the end, most of these people have lost their lives. ”

Andy taps his fingers, a cable car... Even if the railroad can't be connected again, it's good to have a cable car, but it's much better than a detour.

"I have one more thing to ask you, Santiago, do you have a truck here? What I want is the kind that can still be driven, and there are big bosses who want to buy one... And, do you have a way to get that cable car back up? ”

A smile appeared on Santiago's face.

"Let's talk about the price?"