The Gem that fell from Heaven

Volume 1: Chapter 2

"Are we there yet?" Ruby groaned, dragging her feet through the wrecked highway.

"No." Six answered for the tenth time today.

"How much more walking do we have to do to get to this Vegas place?" Six could feel Ruby staring intently at her from behind.

Six shrugged "A couple days give or take."

"A COUPLE DAYS?!" Ruby shouted in disbelief. "I-It can't take That long right?"

Six sighed internally. Ruby had been the second biggest pain in the ass she's had to deal with this past week. An actual fucking alien/extradimensional/whatever that had landed at her feet. She knew nothing of the Wasteland, how to survive and most importantly, TO NOT FUCKING SHOUT IN THE MIDDLE OF HOSTILE TERRITORY!

Six repressed the urge to go off on Ruby. "Do you want to walk for a full day without rest?" She looked over her shoulder, looking at a now deflated and speechless Ruby.

"N-No..."

"Then we have to make stops to rest. And who knows, maybe do a job or two to get some caps." She shrugged once more.

"Caps? Like bottlecaps?" Ruby shot Six and inquisitive look to which she responded with an affirmative hum. "Why would you need to get bottlecaps of all things?"

"To buy things?" Six spoke like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Don't you have money on-what's it called again? Remanant?"

"Remnant. And yes we do have money. It just...isn't bottlecaps. Why do you even use bottlecaps as currency? It makes no sense." Six didn't look at Ruby (she was too busy looking ahead and staying ever vigilant for possible ambushes) but she could notice Ruby's curiosity.

It made sense she wanted to learn more about the world. And would need to eventually. Six had averted most explaining for the past several hours since, to be honest, she wasn't a teacher. The only things she knew were due to her experiences, reading and teachings from others. She reckoned the Followers were more capable of giving Hyper (what she began calling Ruby) there a semblance of education.

Still, Six reckoned it was better if she did learn some things now. "It makes more sense than you think. Okay, quick history lesson. I ain't gonna repeat m'self so listen close." Ruby fastened her pace to be right besides Six. "Getting clean water in the Wasteland is hard. Like, very hard. So it quickly became a valuable commodity in the early Wasteland economy. There's this city in California called the Hub, which used to be the biggest settlement in all of California 'bout 100 years or so back. In the Hub there were a buncha merchants that started selling said water."

Six heard a noise behind some rocks off to the side of the road. She quickly stopped her monologue and whipped out Maria to aim at the rocks. A few tense seconds went by before a snake slithered away from the rocks.

"Hmm." Six holstered Maria. "As I was saying. These Water Merchants started using the caps from the bottles they sold as currency."

"But why?" Ruby still looked confused.

"I'm getting there. There were 2 reasons why. One, you can't reproduce caps because most machinery to do so was lost. And even if, by some miracle, have the machinery, if you make new ones people will notice. Two, there's a limited amount of caps in the world, so that helps to regulate prices and stuff. Eventually, the use of bottlecaps spread all around the west coast because other towns would buy water from these merchants and adopt the system. Creating the Wasteland economy we know and love today." Six looked at Ruby who looked deep in thought. Probably processing all this newfound information.

"I...I think I get it." Ruby finally answered. "How do you know all that? Like the history behind it."

"Some of it is common knowledge. The rest's basic economics. If you travel the wastes as much as I do, you need to know how to barter and know the general prices of things." Ruby hummed, rubbing her chin.