"Through me the way to the suffering city; through me the everlasting pain; through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things and I endure eternally. Abandon all hope – You Who Enter Here."
–Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Fallout: Salvation of the Pitt
Lord Ismael Ashur sat in his spacious office at an oaken desk, scanning over the latest reports on the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion, mulling over them for some time. After a long while, he simply gave up. As it stood, there was still no cure for the disease plaguing his people. He ran a black gloved hand down across his face, past the distinctive red scar gracing his right cheek, the result of nearly being buried alive by the collapsing rubble from a ruinous steel mill. Scavengers had pulled him out despite the heavy suit of grey power armor that he still wore today, which was now dented, scratched, and rusted. He recalled noticing, upon catching a glimpse of himself in a large piece of glass leaning against a wall, that his curly brown hair and bloodied face were covered in so much dust that they appeared chalk white.
Looking back up from the reports strewn carelessly about his cluttered desk, he caught a glimpse of the man who stood before him, who appeared strong and was clearly devoid of the skin lesions blighting most of those residing in the Pitt. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my city?" Ashur asked harshly, now looking straight up at the man who towered over him like a statue. He was clad in worn-out leather armor, an unlit cigarette hanging down from his mouth precariously, a holster attached to his side in clear want of the pistol no doubt taken away from him by Ashur's guards. Even as he spoke, the Lord of the Pitt swiftly realized just who the man standing tall near his desk was. "Ah," he said aloud, "you must be the champion of the Arena."
"Yeah. Got a lighter?" the revered victor of the Arena said, taking Ashur off guard for a moment. Taking stock of the triumphant fighter's words, Ashur wordlessly handed him a lighter taken from his desk drawer, which the man used to light the cigarette. "Thanks." He took a long drag on his cigarette, foul-smelling smoke wafting into the stale air. "Thanks," he said again, stepping forwards and closer to where Ashur sat.
"Please," Ashur said in a friendly manner, smiling thinly, "please do sit down." He spoke calmly, with a hint of jovialness present in his voice. The warrior, blowing smoke, plopped down onto one of the two hard wooden chairs opposite Ashur.
"I'm going to get right to the point." The tall, bearded man said, looking Ashur squarely in the eyes, which intimidated the Pitt ruler a bit despite all of the unpredictable people that he had to deal with over the years. "Name's Richard Carson, by the way."
"What sort of business has brought you over to the Haven, Richard?" Ashur said in quick reply.
"Stopping Wernher." Richard said, his voice serious and firm. "He's hell bent on ending lives."
"How exactly do you know Wernher?" Ashur asked.
"He was trying to use me as a conduit to realize his grand plan of supposedly saving this city. I went with him against my better judgement, learning not to trust the man after he made me cross the bridge, under the pain of death, disguised as a humble worker."
"So you never were a worker to begin with?"
"Never. Bastard had me fight and nearly die in the Arena, the Hole, all in the interest of meeting with you."
"For what purpose, exactly?"
"To steal the cure to the Troglodyte disease."
"Are you," Ashur began, now frowning, "aware of just what this 'cure' is?"
"No," Richard said, grinding the cigarette down into the astray that Ashur had pushed over to his side of the desk, "not at all."
"This 'cure' you were told about is in actuality my baby daughter, my absolutely sweet Marie." After he had spoken, Richard appeared visibly shaken, breathing heavily for a few moments.
"Wernher wanted me to kidnap your daughter?"
"Yes."
"That lousy sonofabitch. His plan has to be nipped in the bud, as they say." Richard's words were laced with pure anger, accentuated by his stark blue eyes that seemed to stare Ashur down as he spoke.
"Wernher used to be one of my most trusted lieutenants. Having long since betrayed me, he probably came back to usurp power. Marie, the very cure to the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion that has kept my people from producing healthy children, is the noble means by which I plan to make the Pitt entirely self-reliant. If, or rather when the secret behind my daughter's miraculous immunity to the disease is found through the tireless efforts of my beloved wife Sandra Kundanika, all of the Pitt's workers will be free to leave my city far behind if they so desire. In fact, I'd like you to meet my wife and see our beautiful child. Come, I'll bring you over to the laboratory."
"Sure thing." Richard said, getting up out of his chair, he and Lord Ashur walking over to the opposite end of the office before entering a medium sized room filled with test tubes, beakers, old computers humming away glowing a faint red, and, of course, Marie's crib.
"Sandra, my dear" Ashur began, "I would like to introduce you to Richard Carson."
"Nice to meet you, Richard," she said, stretching out her hand, which Richard promptly shook. All three then moved silently over to the metal crib as to not awake the sleeping baby, Richard frowning while Ashur and Sandra both smiled.
"She sure is a pretty little thing, isn't she?" Richard said, trying his best to fake a genuine smile of his own. He reached forwards as if to forcibly grab the sleeping Marie from her crib, which Ashur clearly noticed, shooting him a disapproving glance.
"You're thinking about taking my daughter to that scumbag Wernher, aren't you?"
"My gut feeling just now is that he would kill me if I failed to deliver your daughter to him."
"You could simply take our child and kill me with your own hands and overpower my wife only to kill her all the same in cold blood, but in doing so you'd jeopardize the fate of this long-suffering city. I don't think, though, that you have it in you to commit murder. You won't take away two innocent lives in order to wrongfully seize a girl not even one year old yet, giving her over to a manipulative sociopath eager to obtain the key to the city, doing God knows what to her in the process of seizing power."
"I …" Richard said meekly, "can't do it."
"Good." Ashur said before clamming up, a creeping quietness falling over the room, broken only by the low hum of the computers which labored endlessly to take in and process their endless streams of data. Crucial data needed to unlock the mystery that was his daughter, to save them all from the horrors that lay beyond the relative safety of both Uptown and Downtown. The only thing keeping the Trogs out were the floodlights, which cast a permanent, bright glare that bathed the habitable parts of his city with light. If the main generator ever failed …
Ashur stood there beside the crib silently, staring down at his sleeping child, glancing back up at Richard. "It's the right thing to do …" Ashur didn't finish his sentence. He looked once more at Marie, stroking her gently on the head, running his hand over thin shoots of blond hair. He felt calmness wash over him, mixed with a hint of utter relief; he had absolute faith in his lifelong mission.
Richard Carson left the Haven purged of all doubts, a sole thought on his mind: Saving the Pitt from the sinister machinations of Wernher. The impressive building stood tall behind him as he moved further away from it and past the thick, brown wicker monument shaped to resemble a man weighed down by heavy chains. The awesome structure itself housing Ashur and his family had been a university before the war, long since made into an impregnable fortress, hence the name; rusty sheets of reddish scrap metal covered the lowermost windows, reaching up several stories. Large crumbling, gray statues of heads adorned the walkway leading back down onto the cracked and faded plaza built around Ashur's stronghold, giving off an eerie vibe.
He rested a thin hand onto the grip of his holstered pistol, hoping that he would never have to use it, even in self-defense. As Ashur had said, he didn't have it in him to end the life of another human being unless he was in immediate danger. He'd killed raiders aplenty down south, but then again it was he who was being attacked. Killing Wernher would be murder, unless the sociopath threw the first punch. Still …
He walked past a bevy of Ashur's men, who were armed with ancient R91 assault rifles hailing from the Great War, which had seen massive spheres of nuclear fire rip through the city once known as Pittsburgh now simply called the Pitt by the locals. Those guns were plentiful not only in D.C., from which he had journeyed, but also in the Pitt due to the presence of the prewar National Guard, which had tried in vain to restore order in the two hours after the last atomic bombs had hit solid ground during the Great War.
His own firearm was an aging but wholly reliable N99 pistol, the perfect weapon for someone used to spending time trekking across the wastes.
Passing the gun-toting men, Richard looked up at the orange-colored sky, blackened by soot emanating from the Pitt's only working steel mill. He'd seen the skyline briefly, upon traveling to Uptown via the steel catwalks attached to crumbling apartments, jagged skeletons that appeared blacker still.
He was entirely surprised that the water from the sterile Monongahela River wasn't deadly and was even drinkable. The Potomac was wholly fatal to those who sipped from it prior to its purification some two odd years ago. He only felt slightly sick to his stomach after he had drunk from a bottle filled with the still heavily-irradiated, polluted mess, but nonetheless did not grow weak and inevitably perish.
He honestly felt parched while standing in the plaza, not the least bit opposed to accepting water to slake his thirst from one of Ashur's boys. As he moved over to one of them, seeing that the man was holding an opened bottle of water, he heard a gunshot, way too close for comfort.
"What the hell–" Someone shouted, their words nearly drowned out by the ear-piercing noise of yet another shot fired in the dark of the night.
Out of the faint light coming forth from warming-barrels fueled by rotted away books, hordes of workers were running towards them, armed with what looked like large knives that gave off a noisy whirring sound. Closer now, he discovered to his horror that the workers, clearly identifiable from their plain, worn-out clothing or lack thereof, were running at them armed with makeshift chainsaws. Some carried guns, too, letting off thankfully-random, poorly-aimed shots that failed hopelessly to hit home.
The workers were attempting to seize Uptown through force of arms. Shit, he thought, just as Ashur's men returned fire with their assault rifles in response.
The insurgent workers were hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, cut down by hails of powerful bullets, some of the deadly projectiles coming one at a time with the rest streaming out at once by those who had set their assault rifles to full auto. He'd handled an R91 assault rifle himself; he knew, as a true gun nut, that the regrettably weak 5.56 mm rounds chambered into the otherwise efficient weapon worked best when one used up the whole clip in one go, as the gun's stopping power from such a distance made single bullets fired all by their lonesome far from fatal. One had to be a gun nut to survive in this world.
He brushed away his technical thoughts in favor of surviving here, now.
He pulled his pistol from its holster, taking cover behind a barrel. A few bullets clanged off of the barrel, but only a few. The workers armed with those rotary blades cobbled together from cold, hard scrap metal found themselves cut down long before they could even hope to reach the position occupied by Ashur's men.
The intense gunfire gradually slackened and finally came to a shuddering halt. It was over. He didn't even have to fire his weapon of choice. The plaza was quiet except for the chilling wind. Richard shivered as he stood up from the barrel, watching silently as assault rifles were used to execute without exception wounded workers lying down on the ground or many more who had surrendered expecting to be captured. He shivered all the more, trying his best to ignore what was going on around him. It made him think back to D.C., prior to the activation of Project Purity, which had purged the Potomac River of all impurities be it in the form of pollution or radiation. Raiders had initially ruled the outskirts of the city. Roving bands of slavers would also periodically come out from Paradise Falls, selling random people away simply for passing them by on the same stretch of highway.
Now the Brotherhood of Steel protected the people. The super-mutants had been all but annihilated, and Vault 87 picked clean of the beasts, which was where they would take their victims to be turned into more super-mutants. Most of the raiders met the same fate. With the genocidal Enclave nearly wiped out to a man, and the slavery business at Paradise Falls finally shut down, the former capital of the prewar United States had become a bastion of civilization.
There was even talk of recreating the old form of government and rebuilding anew from the ashes of nuclear Armageddon.
"Richard," Everett said aloud, walking over to him and shaking him from his deep thoughts, "Ashur just messaged me: I'm to take you past Downtown, through the abandoned Steelyard to put an end to all the madness that good-for-nothing fuck Wernher let out the door."
Everett was an ex-raider who had found a new purpose as an overseer at the steel mill, spending his days doing monotonous paperwork and occasionally sending out an unlucky worker or two into the Steelyard to seek out ingots needed for the ammunition presses, with the wished-for promise of redemption. Richard was not truly fond of the man for this very reason, but Everett was his best bet at finding Wernher's hideout, for the raider turned bureaucrat knew the Steelyard backwards and forwards. Scraggly, silver hair running straight down to Everett's shoulders and rough, tanned skin covered in black lesions made him appear fearsome.
Richard holstered his pistol. "Let's get to it, then." He, Everett, and two others sent by Ashur to accompany them walked past the carnage caused by the gun-battle before ascending onto the catwalks, heading in the direction of Downtown. Everett knew what he was doing. Richard likewise knew what he was doing. All that mattered now was stopping the madman Wernher before it was too late.
"First thing first, Richard." Everett said as they walked casually through the steel mill long since cleared of any rebellious workers, who'd briefly taken over what was the very lifeblood of the city, "all that these Trogs like to do is sleep and occasionally fuck each other mindlessly when they aren't chomping on you. As for the 'wild men' …"
"Go on." Richard replied playfully.
"Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Those lawless, crazed fuckers got less sense in them than a goddamned male Brahmin that hasn't had its balls cut off yet. They're armed, dangerous, and like the Trogs won't hesitate to eat the whole lot of us." Everett laughed as he finished speaking. "But," he continued, "You've already been there and done that. This is mainly for the benefit of these two unlucky bastards tagging along with us for the ride." He laughed once more, running a meaty hand over the worn mahogany grip of his assault rifle as he walked forwards down the factory floor past one of the steel mill's many presses, now manned once more by workers in the wake of the failed rebellion. Assault rifles were trained on them by guards as the workers either shoveled coal or handled hulking cauldrons of molten metal. Everett simply ignored them.
The men following behind him and Richard didn't answer. The two youths, Everett thought, were without a doubt scared out of their minds. Go figure. After all, who could blame them? Only workers, not including himself, had ever ventured past the gate leading out into the vast, nightmarish Steelyard. They both appeared no older than nineteen or twenty, one of whom wore a crucifix around his neck, just above the leather padding on his broad shoulders and chest. The other youth was lanky yet strong, sweat pouring down his thin face and equally thin, muscular arms from the intense heat produced by the steel mill.
Everett led them down a narrow corridor before passing through a side room and then finally to his quaint office. "Just past this door," He said, pointing to the battered door on the opposite end of his office, "is Hell's gate." He laughed, walking up to the door and opening it widely.
Everett went beyond it, the rest following close behind him. One of the pale white creatures scurried high above them across some fencing, pushing itself forwards on its long muscular legs, its clawed hands gripping at the chain link fence for balance. The fencing was designed to keep the ravenous monsters out from the general area around which the gate had been built.
"So that's a Troglodyte?" the broad shouldered youth asked, shaking noticeably as he spoke, gripping ever tighter at his assault rifle.
"Yeah." Everett said aloud, chuckling again. Everett saw that the youth was clutching fiercely at his crucifix, fear in his eyes.
"I'm not afraid to die." He said, still clutching at his crucifix which he rubbed close together between his thumb and forefinger protectively, almost a toddler doing the same with a blanket.
"Thomas," The other youth said, "I'm not afraid to die, either. The only thing that scares me is getting eaten alive and whatnot." He laughed to himself nervously after having spoken.
"It scares me too, all the same, Kyle" Thomas also laughed, almost heartily.
Thomas and Kyle, whom he figured no doubt to be close friends, quit talking upon reaching the gate.
Everett, Richard, and the others now stood before the only thing keeping Hell itself at bay, a towering gate of steel. Inscribed on it in stark white paint were the words "Abandon all hope – You Who Enter Here." Everett laughed once more upon reading the inscription, which he thought delightfully fitting when one considered what lay beyond it.
"It's from Dante's Inferno." Richard said as he too read the blatant writing.
"Dante who?" Everett asked.
"I came from a vault. Vault 101. School for us was no different from what was taught in prewar schools across the country before atomic fire swept learning aside in favor of survival. We had to read his Divine Comedy for a high school English course. Let me tell you, Mr. Brotch could teach." Now it was Richard's turn to chuckle noisily.
"I didn't come here to be lectured, Richard. Prewar shit like that doesn't matter at this moment. Once I open this gate, there's no turning back."
"Do it." Thomas said bravely, loudly, as if he was fully ready to meet his maker.
Everett did, swinging it wide open, the old gate groaning on squeaking hinges never properly oiled if at all since the Pitt was first founded many decades ago when he was still a premature little babe. It was a miracle, despite the fact that he didn't buy into the miracles as depicted in the Bible, he had survived to his present age of thirty-four. Sometimes, though, he prayed quietly to himself in the hopes of easing his often troubled mind, even if he didn't think that his prayers would be answered by a supreme being anytime soon.
He shook out those philosophical thoughts, stepping past the gate ahead of the rest of his entourage, scanning his immediate surroundings, on the lookout for any Troglodytes or murderous, insane "wild men." He was shortly thereafter joined by Richard, Kyle, and Thomas; no threat seemed to be in the vicinity.
"The Trogs," Everett said, "are blind as bats and can't smell a stinking pile of horse shit right in front of them, but their hearing is razor sharp. We can avoid them and reach Wernher's hideout easily if we simply stay quiet. That means no panicky shooting from anyone. No running, shouting, or even talking loudly. Are we clear?" He spoke low, but loud enough for them to know what he had instructed them not to do.
"Yes," Richard said, speaking for Thomas and Kyle as much as for himself, "we understand." He too spoke softly in kind.
"The 'wild men,'" Everett began, "unfortunately can see and smell just fine like you and me. If we steer clear of the inoperative steel mill, which I believe is one of the main places that they consider their territory, we should be fine. You can't miss it, what with its massive falling apart exterior and crumbling smokestacks. We'd use the danged thing to make more gun parts, bullets, and whatnot, assuming that we can reactivate it, but I feel that it will be awhile before Ashur can muster the manpower to fully pacify the Steelyard."
Having warned them of the dangers lurking in the Steelyard, Everett and the three other men walked at a leisurely pace, hoping to find the ramp leading up towards a makeshift network of catwalks not too dissimilar to the ones connecting Uptown to Downtown.
That was, he knew, where Wernher was without a doubt hiding. There were a bunch of still-standing yet flimsy shacks built alongside the loose web of catwalks, constructed by Pitt denizens years ago, most of whom would be killed off by the damned Brotherhood of Steel's so-called "Scourge," the survivors ignorant of the fact that soon the Steelyard would make them inhuman or bonkers through a deadly combination of radiation, pollution, and disease.
Everett stopped just ahead of them, holding up his right hand, asking for quiet. Sudden screeching filled the otherwise silent air as a handful of Trogs came at them seemingly out of nowhere, jumping down to the ground from tall ruinous structures and swinging forth from rails high above the pair of men.
He and the two friends accompanying Richard slung their assault rifles back over their shoulders with haste, unsheathing machetes that they had taken with them at his behest. Richard did the same, holding his machete out in front of him ready to defend himself.
Thomas was the first to be approached, the strong, broad shouldered man swiping his machete at the Troglodyte that had ventured over to him at an impossibly fast pace from the far left. The blade slashed downwards across the Trog's lowermost side, a far from fatal wound. The Trog lashed out at his face with its long claws, leaving bright red claw marks behind. Still, Thomas stood firm and swung at the beast several more times, finally delivering the killing blow: He had rammed his machete through its chest, piercing right through the Trog's heart, felling it instantly.
That left two more Trogs, which sauntered quickly over to Everett and Richard, one uttering the simple word "kill." Everett knew full well that even after being turned into mindless animals the unfortunate Pitt locals could still occasionally speak a few choice words. Mostly, though, they just screeched. The other one followed by the Trog that had just spoken in front of them did exactly that as he and Richard came at these spawn of Hell brandishing their machetes, ready to slash and stab at their inhuman foes.
Kyle swung fully around as to face the two monsters, wielding his machete, ready to fight. They fought back relentlessly against the remaining Trogs, the three of them put together managing to send the animals downwards onto the dusty, rock-hard earth beneath their feet without getting any injuries or consequently infection.
As for Thomas … he would soon mutate into the very Troglodyte that he just slain.
Realizing this unsettling truth, Thomas said "end my life, Kyle." His friend Kyle went over beside him, putting his hand over Thomas's shoulder.
"We've been through thick and thin together." Blood ran down from Thomas's face as Kyle spoke.
"You saved me from those older boys, those hoodlums, cutting up the meanest, biggest one pretty bad. Scared them all away. I remember, upon convincing me and the rest to hightail it out of Ronto, that you said 'those rat bastards can have their stinking cesspool of a city!' Now the Pitt is the true envy of the land; Ronto is even more of a cesspool than when we first left it behind all those years ago."
Kyle laughed. "And I don't regret ever having convinced you, Alex, Peter, and everybody else in our humble little street gang to head down from that city, in the end out of Canada itself, searching for greener pastures. We found those greener pastures, here, in this place."
"Yeah, we sure did." Thomas said, trying to fight back tears, nonetheless laughing in kind. "Now end my life, Kyle." His voice was sedate. He was truly at peace with himself.
Kyle killed Thomas mercifully, slitting his throat open and watching as his friend fell down onto his knees and then face first into a patch of muddy water now colored red with blood. The tears, which he had tried so hard to hold back, inevitably came forth. Kyle stared at his friend whose body now lay peacefully in the bloodied water, an occasional tear falling onto the ground.
He knelt down and carefully removed the crucifix from his friend's neck, blood dripping down from it as he cradled it in his hands for a while before putting it into his pocket.
Everett spoke up after a long spell of unsettling quiet, saying "come, the ramp is close by. Let's end Wernher's reign of terror and then head on back home."
Everett looked over at Richard, who appeared way more crestfallen than Kyle did. "I have no home, no true connections with anyone. My mother passed away during childbirth. My father was killed several years ago. As for Amata, my closest companion, she wandered about aimlessly after leaving Vault 101 before settling somewhere far away, and I have never been able to find her since. Having long ago lost touch with her, I simply gave up and headed up here, to the Pitt, trying to find a purpose."
Everett frowned deeply, visible creases forming on his face. "Kid," he said to the former vault dweller who was far younger than he by ten-odd years, "Your new found purpose is saving this city, your city." Having spoken, Everett turned in the direction of the catwalks, beginning onwards towards the ramp. No one spoke as they trudged forwards. Richard, he thought, had to find purpose in stopping Wernher and thereby saving the Pitt. If he didn't, Everett knew, then the kid would simply lose the will to live.
At the sound of the door to his hideout opening Wernher looked up from the disassembled Shanxi Type 17 Chinese pistol that he had been laboriously cleaning. He set the delicate part aside onto the counter, looking over at the makeshift lab that he had been setting up with the aid of the worker Midea, who stood at a nearby table handling a test tube in a manner that hardly screamed "scientist." Though the cure, the damned baby, didn't matter one bit. All that mattered was power for him. He was to be the new Lord of the Pitt.
The workers would be freed, but he had merely planned on using them to form a makeshift army intent on turning the Pitt into a mighty empire expanding across the wastes. They were a simple means to a much greater end. He would as a divinity hold in his hands the lives of tens, soon to be hundreds, of thousands of submissive subjects from here all the way to the Erie Stretch and beyond. That last thought made him laugh heartily as he turned towards the door, seeing Richard step through it. He wasn't carrying the baby, he realized, and two men entered the shack with him.
"It's over, Wernher." Richard said as he strode over to the table at which he stood, the hatred that was already evident through his tone of voice only made clearer by gritted teeth and the vengeful look in the man's eyes. "Leave the Pitt, leave it and never come back." As he said so, he clutched fiercely at the pistol holstered to his side.
"And to think, you wanted to save the Pitt!" He said, laughing to himself out of fear.
"Oh, to think that you, Wernher, wanted to save the Pitt." Richard said, moving as if to take out his sidearm. The other two men flanking Richard clutched menacingly at their assault rifles, lowered towards the ground to be sure, but they would no doubt not hesitate to use them if the need arose.
Wernher stepped forwards, taking his hand off of his own holstered pistol, smiling. "Fine, you want me to leave? Then take your hand off of that gun of yours."
The two other men raised their assault rifles higher now, smartly cautious. Wernher could still go out in a blaze of glory, taking out one or two of them before going down, dead. Maybe he could even get Midea to take out her own gun and start blazing away. Regardless, he absolutely had to kill Richard, who had crushed his chance at lordship.
He winked at Midea, the signal that he had recently taught her indicating to the frail, homely woman to open fire in case things went south. Things, as it were, had gone south. She didn't take out her pistol. "I'm sorry, Wernher, but I can't side with you, not anymore. Everything, all that you've told me, has been a lie this whole time. I–" He just then pulled out his own pistol and shot her twice in the stomach before moving to fire upon Richard, whose gun was already aimed right at him. The vault dweller fired three shots in rapid succession, pushing Wernher over a chair and down flat onto his back against the hard metallic floor. The bullets had torn into him. Warm blood gushed out from the wounds beneath his black leather vest and dirty T-shirt. He placed a hand against his face, smearing blood across his prominent chin and brown mustache.
He was dying, but at least Midea would have to die with him. The other two men looked on in silence, now shouldering their assault rifles. "Richard," he said weakly before spitting out a brief stream of blood as the dumb shit kid walked over to him, "fuck you." The last sound he heard, for a mere nanosecond was that of one final, fatal gunshot going off. Blackness, death, followed with the painless passing of that very same nanosecond.
Ashur stared back up from his desk as Richard entered his office, dried blood clearly visible on his bearded face and hands. Tired, forlorn eyes sagging downwards from exhaustion and a deep frown spoke in place of words of intense emotional pain. He appeared to shamble forwards as he sat down at his desk, saying nothing at all, running a hand through his disheveled red hair.
This courageous man, who had selflessly saved the Pitt, was barely able to look up at him. His gaze was cast down towards his feet.
"Richard," Ashur said as soothingly as he could, "Everett told me the whole story. You're a hero. You've saved my people, your people."
"I really need a cigarette right about now." Richard said meekly, his very first words upon entering his office. Ashur gave him a cigarette and a lighter. Lighting it, he began to look more fully up at the Lord of the Pitt, as if he had partially recovered his spirits.
"With Wernher gone and the steel mill once again up and running, my wife and I can focus solely on the cure."
"'If anyone takes a human life, that person's life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image.'" Richard said, paraphrasing the Bible, which Ashur knew well as the deeply religious man he guessed Richard to be, also.
"Hogwash! You've saved thousands of lives yourself by foiling the plans of a man harboring delusions of grandeur, who would've stopped at nothing to achieve his horrid aims. Wernher was a murderer, a thief, and a liar. If there was anyone who deserved to be righteously struck down by another man, it would be him."
"Did Midea make it?" Richard asked suddenly, a little louder this time.
"No." Ashur said sadly, picking up a thin stack of papers up off of his desk. "These latest results though," he said as to focus on the positive, "show great promise. The cure can in all likelihood be found soon, even before the year is up according to my wife's exact calculations."
"Good. That being said, I sincerely hope that my dad would be proud of me," Richard said, his voice gradually beginning to gain in strength, "I really do. He always told me to do the right thing."
"Your father," Ashur began, "would sure enough be very proud of you. I'm proud of you. That's why I want to make you my chief lieutenant, for I know that a man with a good heart like yours can truly be trusted. Wernher's heart was dark, hard as stone, but …" He found his voice trailing off into nothingness.
"You couldn't see him for who he really was?"
"Not then, until he turned against me that is. He dreamed of conquest as opposed to peaceful coexistence, trying to get me over to his reckless way of thinking. He had no honor. You, on the other hand, are a man of integrity, the complete opposite of Wernher. All that I ask is that you accept my humble offer."
"I … gladly accept." Richard said, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray.
"Then it's settled."
"I won't let you down."
"I know that you will serve me faithfully, for as long as we walk together." Ashur said, smiling in the hopes of getting Richard to do the same. He didn't mirror his smile. Taking note of that, he happily said "Of that I am completely certain."
The room grew silent. It was getting late, the room darkening as evening gave way to night. Ashur's dim office was illuminated solely by the dying sunlight and his desk lamp. "For now," Richard said, harsh shadows obscuring his face somewhat as he spoke, "I think that I'll just get some rest."
"As will I, for a man can only sift through mounds of administrative paperwork for so long."
Tomorrow would be just another day for the Lord of the Pitt. Tomorrow would be just another day for his new, handpicked chief lieutenant, too. The poor boy could think things over anew in the morning. Ashur would do the same.