A Great Fourth of July Indeed
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- from "Ozymandias" by Shelley
Time had not been kind on the old man, nor had it been kind on the small town that he had happened upon.
Traveling hundreds of miles from his home, Orion Moreno finally sat on a rock outcropping that had apparently had been the focus of a large park. He would have liked to sit on an actual chair, but the power armor he had taken with him would have pulverized any bench he could sit on.
His Gatling Laser lay right next to him as Moreno lounged peacefully for once after the mess back at the Mojave Wasteland. Seriously. His unit had tried to get him to fight with the NCR. The New California "Republic", Moreno scoffed. Sure it was new and it was located in California, but the Republic had long died out. The United States of America, the original republic, had been gone for far too long.
Sensors in Moreno's suit picked up a radioactive dust storm coming in. Break time was over, even though his joints were not the ones he had the last time he wore this armor. However, a notification gave him pause: the heads up display of his power armor alerted him to a new date. Not without irony, Moreno realized it was July 4th.
President Richardson would read the Declaration of Independence and everyone would have a nice party with drinking and dancing. Moreno would be able to get presents from his parents. But such was the state of affairs now. And he now had to gift himself with a stimpack. Even though it was the Fourth of July.
Richardson had always been the friend that he would have loved to see in person. A fine senator and even more likeable as the President, he had been cut so cruelly down by the NCR. Conceding the North American to the threat of super mutants and FEV abomination was not only a disaster, but heresy! The land that Lincoln and Roosevelt had walked on was now overrun with the loathsome failures of America's past. And is that the legacy of the land he had longed to see restored? Heh. "Look upon my works ye mighty and despair". When the Mississippi River is no more than radioactive slop and Cheyenne Mountain was a crater, anything would be an improvement. But the NCR? Truly despair now at what the NCR had done. Former President Tandi? Nothing more than a despot. Yet it is still the Fourth of July.
Despite being fully rested, Moreno could not see much of the horizon thanks to the storm now enveloping the remains of the town. Where to go from here? A nagging feeling drew him to a place he had only heard of in stories. Washington D.C. and its surroundings. Perhaps a trip there could finally get him away from the idiotic Brotherhood of Steel and NCR. Traitors, the lot of them. There would be so much to see: the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery, and the White House. Oh. It would be a great Fourth of July indeed.
Author's Note: Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, along with its characters and universe are trademarks and the intellectual property of Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Game Studios, a ZeniMax Company. This is a work of fanfiction, which is not being done for profit. The author sequestration13 does not hold the copyright to any of these works.