FO4 | Book 0: The Diaries of Anarchy ✔️

July 19, 2282

We kept our voices low as we talked over the plan. The people I recruited gathered together in the alley across from the Old State House. We took turns coming up with ideas for our plan of action. We finally settled on something, then went out of the alley one by one to get a gun from Kleo's shop. We didn't want to draw attention in case one of Vic's guys was still roamin' the streets.

Kleo's and Daisy's shops closed down for the night once we were all armed. It would soon be half past ten. By this time, the folks that didn't wanna take part in our little revolution knew to hide in their homes or alleys in case this went sideways. The streets were so empty, you'd think it was abandoned — so quiet, you could hear a Super Mutant break wind in the ruins.

We crept out of our hiding spot in the alley and formed a single-file line toward the Old State House. We could hear Vic's guys makin' merry inside, takin' the night off. Vic had to be in his office — he hardly ever left it.

Abigail — or Fahrenheit — and I split up. She and a larger group barged in through the doors of the first floor, surroundin' the Old State House from all sides, while a smaller group and I climbed in the side ladder through the windows of the second floor.

No one suspected a thing. Once we were inside, we didn't even have to fire a shot. The sheer numbers we had on our side said it all. They put their hands up with dumbfounded expressions on their faces, eyes wide with fear.

"... Waste 'em."

No one hesitated to pull the trigger after I gave the order. It was a bloodbath. Everyone was massacred. Downstairs, I could faintly hear Fahrenheit's gunfire over our own. Vic's office doors swung open after the noise started to die down.

"What the fuck is going on?!" He didn't look so tough anymore. He had no one backin' him up. Fahrenheit and her group came up the spiral stairs.

"Hold your fire," I told everyone.

Vic ran into his room. I heard him lock the doors and start draggin' furniture across the room to barricade the doors.

"Heh. Spineless son of a bitch. Fahrenheit, you and your group spread out, check all the rooms, every single floor. We're not lettin' any of 'em get away..." I waved to the rest of my group to help me bust through Vic's doors.

"Don't! I'll shoot!" he screamed with little to no masculinity. Once we got the doors open, they revealed a scared-shitless Vic standin' by his desk with a revolver in his shaky hands pointed in our direction.

"So will they," I said, holsterin' my weapon of choice — a shotgun — and motioning to the blood-thirsty crowd I had amassed. "Drop your fucking gun."

He cursed under his breath and dropped the gun to the floor. He held his hands up over his head.

"Tie him up," I told two men to my right.

We had brought just enough rope for ol' Vic. I searched through his cabinets and his desk.

"Who the fuck are you, anyway?" he growled.

"You know who I am. After all, your name's carved into my back."

"McDonough? Holy hell... Thought you crawled your way to a gutter to die after my boys beat the shit out of you."

I absently answered him while checking his files. "Yeah, you wish..."

While he was busy spouting nonsense and obscenities, the citizens had finished tying his hands behind his back and his feet together. I was gettin' really tired of hearing his voice. I pinched my sinuses.

Fahrenheit walked into the office. "Place is clean."

"Good." I looked at the entirety of our volunteers. "Everyone, take whatever you want." At that, people started scramblin' to fill their pockets with whatever they could find. Silver dinnerware, gold watches, loose cups, cigarettes, cigars, chems, — you name it, Vic had it.

I came across the file that had all his "laws" in it. Two in particular that I was lookin' for was the tax law and — as Vic liked to call it — the "untouchable law." This law meant that if anyone attacked his men for whatever purpose, even for self-defense, it was punishable by death.

I wadded both of them up and shoved them into Vic's runnin' mouth. "Shut the fuck up already."

I searched the room for his safe. I didn't feel like lookin' for the damn keys, so I blew the lock off with my shotgun. Yeah, it left a few holes in the floor, but whatever. After what we did to this place already, I wasn't expectin' it to look pretty. Inside the safe was roughly 80,000 caps.

Fahrenheit and I exchanged a look.

"Take some of this and give every citizen two-hundred caps each. Not every family; each individual citizen."

She nodded and filled her pockets.

Vic was grumblin' and groanin' in protest, red-faced and tryin' to speak past the paper wads.

"What's next?" asked Fahrenheit.

I took what was left of the rope and tied it around Vic's neck. Vic was in a panic now. I dragged him out of the seat by his neck and he coughed under the rope's pressure.

Fahrenheit smiled a devious smile and helped me drag him through the Old State House, past the spiral stairs, into the room adjacent to the office. We shoved the doors open and hoisted him over the railing and threw him over the balcony without so much as one utterance.

As Vic's wigglin' body finally stop movin', I knew that this little revolution was finally over.

I shot off my shotgun into the air and whooped loudly, Fahrenheit joinin' me with both her middle fingers raised in the air.

"Damn, you did good, sister!"

Below, people were assemblin' in the street. They were lookin' up at me. At me. I never thought of myself as a leader, but I sure was gonna try my damnedest for these people. I didn't know what to say — nothin' came to me. But with everyone lookin' at me with bright, hopeful eyes, the words finally came.

I holstered my shotgun and raised my fist high in the air. "Of the People, For the People!"

The crowd ate it up.