"Can you tell me more about what happened in Burnham Springs? I've heard some of the other people's versions, but I'm sure none of them are as good as you, a local. ”

Sitting in a dimly lit cabin, Andy and Phil sat opposite each other and chatted.

"Are you interested in this? Well..."

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a cloudy breath.

"So, from... Let's start with that. A long, long time ago, probably a few years before 2238, when President Tibbett of the NcR launched the Eastward Expansion Movement, the land was in a state of desolation, so some pioneers discovered it during their travels. At that time they were here for the water and some arable land, and now you may think that this place has nothing to do with water, but that's not right, the name of this place is not messy, and the reason why Burnham Spring is called Burnham Spring is because there is a spring here. It doesn't matter what it contains or how much radiation it contains, it's water. ”

Andy learned part of the explanation for the name of this strange town.

"So, I understand the part of the spring, who is Burnham?"

Phil rummaged through the clutter pile and pulled out a small card that appeared to be some cut leaflets.

Trent Burnham, who was also the No. 1 man in the NcR more than a decade ago, was one of the first wealthy domestic businessmen to respond to President Tibbet's Eastward Movement. In 2238, the ancient pre-war name was still used for the name of this uninhabited town, Eagle Rock, and when Joseph Dodge heard that it was found to produce a variety of minerals, he conspired with Trent Burnham to take it under their control, and after a letter of paper, the terra nullius became the territory of the NcR. As for the first mayor, of course, the rich merchant named Burnham was the one who changed the name of the town due to the privilege given to him by Joseph Dodge, and Eagle Rock Town became Burnham Spring at that time, which means very simple, Burnham's spring. ”

Andy looked down for a moment at the compliments on the small card, mostly praising how the wealthy businessman had succeeded.

"And after that? How's it going? ”

Phil reached out and took the small card.

"Very nice, just amazing. Trent Burnham was a mining company in the NcR country, and there were many miners under him, and after promising them many benefits and boasting about the future of Burnham Springs, groups of men and women migrated from NcR to Burnham Springs, and these miners became the first residents. They exchanged their hard work and sweat for their first pot of gold, and the underground mines of Burnham Springs produced ore in abundance and quality. Especially in the coal mines, the NcR railway network needed a lot of coal to drive the trains, and everything was thriving at that time, and every day was getting better, and I was attracted to settle here at that time. ”

"This kind of good life is probably over... Less than six years. ”

Phil's expression darkened.

Andy took over.

"I know why, I heard that in order to suppress the civil riots that broke out due to the ineffective fight against the steel plague, the NcR transferred a lot of soldiers from the Eastern Territories, which caused the Eastern Territories to weaken its control over various places."

Phil shook his head.

"It's not just that... The weakening of the forces to maintain order was not the key, the point was that life in Burnham Springs began to become difficult, and the efficiency of the NcR in building the railway network slowed significantly, and by 2245 it was completely stalled. Burnham Springs has only the water to be drunk except for those ores, and when the NcR train doesn't come anymore, and we can't sell the ore no matter how much we dig up, maybe we can slowly establish new trade contacts with the surrounding settlements and those wandering merchants, but... You understand, right? People are used to the good old days. Too many people gathered at Burnham Springs, there were really too many, and there were not many miners here in the past, so at that time no one refused to come. ”

He sat down on the shabby couch, and thinking about the past seemed to make him tired.

"Who can we blame? The hooligans and ex-convicts who couldn't get along in New California, the naturalized natives who were always ostracized, and the many radicals who were accustomed to a life of affluence and couldn't accept change gradually gathered in Burnham Springs in the past few years, and when NcR patted his ass and left, and even Burnham claimed that everyone should follow him out of here and return to New California, these people began to get out of control; They don't want to leave Burnham Springs, they don't want to change their way of life, and a lot of people have sold all their assets in New California before they come here, or New California is a place for them to escape, so these people stubbornly stay here, and I'm one of them. ”

Andy listened quietly to Phil's story, the rest of the story he had heard before, the Dynamite Gang finally rose up in Burnham Springs, this town abandoned by the NcR once became the base camp of the marauders, and became a major problem and a stubborn disease that the NcR East Special Region could not solve.

"Where did those marauders come from?"

Phil sat up and pulled out a face towel from a drawer with the shape of a detonator painted in paint.

"At that time, the NcR hired railway workers to repair the pre-war railroads for them in the Eastern Special Administrative Region, and you may not know that the land was not leveled enough to lay the railroad anywhere, not to mention the presence of hills. In order for the railroad to be built, the NcR side had to supply a large amount of explosives to the various railway engineering teams, which was an absolute necessity, this thing could open up mountains and rubble, and it could be a dangerous weapon, but they had no other way. ”

"As a result, in 2245, after they couldn't pay for the project for various reasons, many of the railroad workers who couldn't get paid chose to simply leave the grass, if they went back to New California empty-handed, they would face a life that would be worse than death, so they simply chose to fight against the NcR to get out of this predicament and take revenge on the NcR for deceiving them, and the Dynamite Gang was formed..."

Andy nodded, his curiosity growing about the dying gang.

"May I ask? Who is the founder of the Dynamite Gang? Do they still have survivors? ”

Phil smiled, as if sensing that Andy didn't understand something.

"There is no promoter... It's completely spontaneous, as natural as an animal adapting to its environment. First there was the Dynamite Gang, and then there was the name Dynamite Gang, and even this name was given to them during the NcR's crackdown on the bandits, because they always used the explosives that were originally used during the construction of the railroad to fight back against the regular army sent by the NcR and the mercenaries they hired to fight. Do you understand? The Dynamite Gang is not simply a gang, but a culture of rebellion against the establishment, and those who are coaxed or forced by the NcR to leave New California to help them build the railroad in the East will inevitably come into contact with the Explosives and resent what the NcR has done, so... They're going to become the Dynamite Gang. This kind of person has existed in the past, and in the future... There will still be. ”

"As for the survivors, the one I can be sure of is that one of the three settlers in Burnham Springs is one of the standard dynamite gangs in the past, until he was almost killed in the Eagle Rock mine that day... Now I'm the one who picks up scraps for a living, just like me. ”

Andy looked at the face towel in his hand and imagined a group of thugs wearing such things wielding explosives in their hands piling up in Burnham Springs, the birth of which was a byproduct of NcR's sloppy and hasty expansion.

"What about you, Phil, were you one of them?"

Phil shook his head with a smile, took out a small badge and shook it in front of Andy's eyes, Andy looked at the familiar object and immediately knew what industry Phil had chosen to re-employ after the end of his railroad career before the destruction of Burnham Springs.

"This is a certificate issued to bounty hunters by the Bounty Hunters Guild, it turns out that you were a bounty hunter."

"Yes."

He put away the little object preciously.

"I watched more and more people being incited by the Dynamite Gangs to join them, or at least cover for the NcR's troops when they came to track them, and I couldn't stand that, because I saw the innocent passers-by who were killed by them, who had become a gang of pure marauders, blowing up an entire caravan with explosives and taking everything away, and that was their way of survival."

"I was working with NcR to get information about the Explosives Gang's movements, and of course... It's secret, and I'm taking a big risk, if they knew about it, they would definitely stick explosives in my asshole and set it on fire, that's how they deal with 'traitors'. ”

As he spoke, the smile on Phil's face vanished.

"You can hear that, right, I had high hopes for the NcR, hoping that they would solve the problem here once and for all, but what am I waiting for? In 2247, a dignitary sent to negotiate was killed by the Dynamite Gang on the way, causing everything to take a turn for the worse. I thought it was strange that this was happening, why would a group of idle marauders know the path of this dignitary, set up explosives and detonate them exactly when he lacked the protection of the army? Soon after that incident, Colonel Frontier was stationed at Burnham Springs with the Fifth Engineering Company, and I discussed the strangeness of the matter with him, and he felt that something was wrong with it. ”

Andy frowned.

"Eh, can you explain why Colonel Frontier has this strange name?"

Phil waved his hand to show the same expression as before, like the "this is the part of you don't understand" that an older person would have when he told an old-fashioned story and heard a young man make a statement that only people who didn't understand the background of the time at all.

"At that time, it was a well-known name, and 'Colonel Frontier' was actually a nickname, and everyone used to call him that. Because the 5th Engineering Company under his command always built a border for the NcR at the very edge of the NcR territory, he was selected by President Tibbette to be the focus of the Eastward Movement to spread propaganda to the whole country, and his area was the frontier of the NcR, and he became a living frontier. ”

Andy says he understands the origin of the strange name, but he is now more interested in what Phil mentioned earlier.

"You said you talked to the Frontier Colonel about something wrong, did you finally find out what the problem was?"

Phil sneered sarcastically.

"I later found out that there were some people who had been hiding behind the scenes to provide information to those dynamite gangs, and it was with this information that they were able to resist the power of NcR, and finally even blew up the dignitary and detonated the conflict. These people know all about what NcR is going to do, and you get the idea, right? The commanders behind them are not only NcR, but even high-level. ”

Andy didn't ask why, there is still a logic behind this kind of abnormal thing happening, the position of Dodge Mayor is not always unpopular, sometimes, some people may want to use this method to achieve some goals, and another point, the previous survivor of the 5th Engineering Company claimed that the NCT may have done something shady, what did they play?

"Did you continue to investigate after that?"

Phil shook his head.

"That's the end of my ability, Colonel Frontier is very concerned about this, he also happens to have the ability to investigate this matter, but unfortunately he soon received strict orders, not only Joseph Dodge's indiscriminate urging and abuse, but also the sudden sideways intervention of the NcR National Anti-Terrorism Bureau, in short... Then there was an earth-shattering explosion in the mine that ignited the entire Burnham Spring. ”

Andy took out the key and spun it between his fingers twice.

"So, did that frontier colonel have an office or something like that in Burnham Springs in the past? Someone gave me a key and he said he wanted me to let the truth come out. ”

Phil was a little silent when he heard this.

"So... He still can't forget Burnham Spring, just like us. I know where it is, and although the house has been blown down, there is a basement that is intact, and the door is hard to find, so I can point it to you. In other words, the person who gave you the key might be the Frontier Colonel. ”

Andy was a little surprised, although the man was a little strange that day, but it was certainly a living person.

"Wait, Mayor Dodge told me that the colonel who came to Burnham Springs with the 5th Engineering Company and commanded the soldiers to go down to the mines to suppress the bandits has committed suicide after the incident."

Phil was stunned at first, then smiled indifferently.

"Oh? Maybe Colonel Frontier did 'commit suicide', but Colonel Robert probably didn't commit suicide, I seem to have seen him sneak back here a few years ago, in my opinion, it was just a play played by Joseph Dodge and him to the NcR executives, if he, the person concerned, committed suicide in fear of crime, and the person responsible for it does not need to take responsibility for this matter, just need to find a random corpse that was full of charred corpses in Burnham Springs at that time... Or simply to say that the body has been found because of the chaos that followed, isn't it all simple? ”

Andy was startled and hurriedly asked Phil for the full name of the frontier colonel.

"Robert Briggs."

Phil said the name accurately.

"I can't forget him, but I don't have much of the heart to avenge him for Burnham Springs, he's just a pawn casually sacrificed by the filthy high-ups of the NcR."

Andy's heart was suddenly filled with a sudden feeling that the traitor NcR soldier Robert Briggs who went to the Grand Canyon with Pierce, Colonel Frontier in Phil's mouth, and Colonel Robert in the mouth of Dodge Mayor turned out to be one person.

"He told me that the order to attack was given by the NcR National Counterterrorism Agency, and the motive was to cover up the ugly things these people were doing in secret."

Phil shook his head indifferently.

"Is it any difference whether he gave the order out of recklessness or, as he said, the rest of the NcR gave the order for some other purpose? Our small town was completely blown up because of the bad decisions of the NcR, or worse, from their point of view, maybe they still think that their decisions were not wrong, and they just want us all to be blown up! ”

Andy was speechless, Phil, as a Burnham Springs native, didn't see any difference between the two, and NcR blew up Burnham Springs, which was the key.

"How many of you survived?"

Phil nodded, talking about the others.

"There were probably about two dozen people who survived the explosion, either because they happened to leave Burnham Spring, as I did, or, like some, were lucky enough not to be killed on the spot or crushed by a falling stone, and escaped from the mine with a single wound. At that time, I saw some of the NcR soldiers of the 5th Engineering Company leaving, and the Frontier Colonel had been in command from behind, of course, and of course he did not die, and the townspeople who remained outside were almost all killed by the sudden earthquake, explosion, poisonous smoke, flames, and cracks... The Dynamite Gang that hid in the deepest part of the mine is said to have survived, but of the twelve people who remained, only one of the former Dynamite Gang members survived. ”

"Sparky?"

Andy asks suspiciously, and Phil suddenly realizes that he hasn't mentioned the name to Andy yet.

"I'm sorry, I didn't have time to tell you, but the other two people who have lived here for a long time are named Sparky and Frank except for me, so I'll tell you a little bit about them. First up is Sparky, whom I mentioned earlier, I said he used to be a Dynamite Gang... He's actually a poor man, like me, he was a railroad worker, and he didn't join the Dynamite Gang until NcR couldn't get paid, and I heard that he was very popular in it, because he was mainly responsible for blasting when he was a railroad worker. ”

"That guy is very good at making explosives, or making some modified explosives and turning them into traps like mines. The Marauders used his crafts to kill and injure many people, and he was able to survive the battle with the NcR's army and mercenaries for a while, but he was also retributioned in the end. ”

Phil looked pity.

"He's almost completely deaf, he can't speak, and he's half-mentally ill now, he can only understand what I'm saying, and he can barely recognize Frank, and he can't understand what anyone else is saying, and he can't make any difference between the others, and making a little louder noise would make him go crazy and attack the source of the sound."

"So, if you see a pale, bald head in his thirties wearing goggles fiddling with explosives, remember not to talk to him, and don't go near him and make a loud noise."