original

Fallout: Welcome to Mojave

作者: Blare_

章節 1: Prologue

I was good at many things, but finding a girlfriend wasn't one of them. Sitting down on the couch of the living room, I scrolled through the G-Mail. My friend sent me an invitation to come to his wedding. Then I remembered what he said several months ago in his chat.

Enzo: "Hey, how're you doing, mate?"

Adler: "Good, have you heard that Marie and I are engaged."

Enzo: "That's great to hear, when will you get married, though?"

Adler: "Next month, we're preparing for honeymoon and all of the newly wed stuff first, when are you going to get married, though?"

Enzo: "Who should I marry? My pillow?"

Adler: "Man, I'm being serious here, you can't always focus on your carrier all the time. Sometimes, you got to let your live carries where it takes you."

Enzo: "We've talked about this too many times, Adler. I'm not going to be married, yet."

Adler: "You're 30-ish, bro. You'll turn bald sooner or later."

Enzo: "Haha, fuck you. Good luck with your wedding."

That was the chat history from Adler before she went ahead and got married to Marie. Not to say that I wasn't jealous, but getting a woman's charm wasn't my expertise, especially since I hadn't gotten any girlfriends ever since high school.

I would have sworn that I did my entire life was either studying, playing games, or working. I rarely spared my time for a romantic affair, mainly because dealing with women had been too much of a hassle in the past, and it was still more or less the same now.

When was the last time I play games, though? I didn't remember opening away my console or my PC ever since I worked in the clinic, must have messed up my work and life balance, I bet.

"Hey Google, when was the last time I opened my PC?" I asked.

With the usual robotic female voice, Google answered, "Your last PC usage was six months ago."

Exactly. I had been working in the clinic since six months ago, no wonder I felt something was off. I never saw my PC either, where did I put it? The warehouse? The attic? The back of the car?

My memory wasn't as sharp as it used to be, could it be the sign of aging or the sign of cramming too many things on my brain? Well, it was just me feeling jealous of him. At one point, I wished him the best. On the other, Alder would be leaving the bros zone.

Well, that was that I guess? I didn't have the right to complain about whatever he was going to do with Marie, even though Marie used to be one of my friends that I helped to do her assignments with my help.

■You Have 69 Unread Messages■

Damn, that was a lot of messages. No wonder, though. Our clinic got a stock of patients, thank 4th of July. At least, there were six severed hands from today alone—these people, why couldn't they play with something less dangerous? Like gaming, for example?

"Hey Google, set me a reminder for tomorrow, 11:00 A.M."

She then replied with the usual robotic voice, "Schedule is set for tomorrow at 11:00 A.M."

Alright, I got three days off from the clinic. What should I do, though? Should I go outside and get drunk? Probably not. Should I go to the attic and open my ancient PC, though? I hadn't replaced it ever since I entered college back in 2021.

Yeah, I was that ancient, if I had my saying in that. Anyway, if there was an excellent time to start, tonight would be a good time. I moved my lazy arse from the couch where I was sitting.

I picked up the cola from the fridge and headed upstairs. I wondered what kind of thing I would find in the attic, I blindly put everything into this new house of mine ever since I moved out from my parent's house. I didn't like they keep asking me when I would get married. The answer was simple, I simply didn't know.

I headed upstairs and pulled a lever located right on the edge of the hallway on the top floor. By pulling down the lever, a stair came down and it would take me straight to the attic.

The previous owner left the attic empty. I had a plan to turn either the attic or the basement into a man's cave, but currently, I didn't have the budget. Of course, there weren't that many belongings in the attic.

However, I found my computer close to the stair. It was covered in a clear plastic tarp. I wanted to protect the formerly expensive components inside from the dust and shit. Ever since I entered med school, I simply studied too much, even to the point where I regretted buying the RTX 3080 above MSRP.

Well, regret was a regret, and with RTX 6000 series would come sooner or later, the RTX 3080 was practically a relic of my past. I brought both the PC and the monitor downstairs and put them on my working desk.

It was filled with papers and medical journals that I hadn't reviewed. They could wait, I wanted to remember what it was like to play games like I used to do when I was back in the early years of college.

Well, time to prepare for the gaming session. I grabbed a can of monster energy drink from my fridge and headed back to my desk. As I turned on the computer, the first screen that appeared was quite annoying.

▌Do you want to upgrade to Windows 20?▐

"Hell no."

I pressed NO and I was redirected back to the home screen. On the home screen, a bunch of games from the 2020s showed up on my screen, ranging from Fallout New Vegas to the heavy-ass Cyberpunk 2077 that required the full resource of my computer.

I gulped the drink for myself and began playing the games on my computer. Little did I know, I'd regret my decision of gulping the whole can of energy drink to alleviate my exhaustion.