It had not been the best day ever.
In fact right from the get-go, the whole last week had been one for the books. Never mind the stray mutated bear coming out of no where, and the various rogue robots mowing down dried up grasses with their energy beams. Vaultie could deal with those, despite being loaded down by pounds and pounds of scrap metal, tin cans, burnt up books, and among the heavy load hardly any ammo to speak of.
She knew her reputation, like her, was weighed down by useless, unseemly baggage. It had not quite been a fortnight since she had stood upon Allistar Tenpenny's terrace in the cool evening air and watched Megaton evaporate in a breath-taking ball of debris and light, Burke's commentary most encouraging. Despite this act which described only the strength of her loyalty to the residents of the tower, they still whispered behind her back. It was her hair, the dust on her face, her sun-burned skin and her clothes, something Anthony Ling chided her about right to her face. Aside from the arrogant proprietor, Vaultie believed the residents of Tenpenny Tower were simply too frightened to be so forward in her presence. She had destroyed Megaton, killed every threatening Ghoul which had plagued their waking thoughts, and as a result of all this she was deemed a monster. By the likes of the man named Three Dog, because of all the lives she d ended, and by the residents of Tenpenny Tower because she ventured to be so bold where they would not.
Vaultie stared up at the face of her inner demons physically manifested into the form of a hulking mountain of muscle and pants-pissing fear. The mutant behemoth howled down at her, having watched with what was closest to envy as the girl destroyed the encampment of his captors, the raiders of Evergreen Mills.
She trembled with fear on one side of the barrier, and he shook with rage on the other. If she'd been smart, she would have used such vicious fury to her advantage. From the many vantage points in the cliffs surrounding the raiders' base, Vaultie could easily have snipered the generator which was creating the electric barrier keeping the behemoth at bay. One bullet to the pulsing generator and that rage would have been free to give way to his engrossing chaotic nature, bellowing as he pummeled through the raiders' ranks.
A voice deep down, however, had told her no. The act of unleashing such a powerful force of destruction was akin in her mind to those men who had detonated the bombs before the war. And Vaultie knew she couldn t stop a bomb. Instead she stumbled amongst the shacks and old train parts, amongst the madness that ensued, the bullet holes and the unintelligible taunts of her foes to somehow come out alive in the end, to look up into the beady eyes of the giant mutant which betrayed no trace of thought.
"Hi," she said, gripping the rifle like a lover, her voice a mere quiver. "I'm Audrey."
The behemoth slammed his car-sized fists into the barrier, his biological nature urging him on with the need to pick up the little girl and pull her arms off the stump of her body with a satisfying slurp. Apparently not everyone could make peace with their demons. Audrey busied herself with reloading her gun as the behemoth bawled on.
What would her father say if he proved to be alive and somehow knew of her actions against Megaton and its populace? Attempting to make a name for herself, Vaultie had forgotten him. Or rather, she d found herself too busy with life at the present to worry about the past. What was he up to? Where was her dad?
Vaultie felt her breathing becoming ragged; the air had become thick, unable to make it passed the knot in her throat. Before her she saw the rise of a mushroom cloud, she felt the cool wind of the evening scorch her face like fire, and heard Tenpenny's request for his drink. Bending over Vaultie let loose the contents of her stomach before the behemoth, who seemed satisfied with it somehow. Falling to her knees and into her own filth, the girl began to cry, still clutching her weapon.
As she wiped her nose and the corners of her mouth on the back of her hand, she heard a gurgling from above. Aside from the sound escaping his throat, he was still, looking down upon her. They weren't one of the same, but Audrey saw herself in the behemoth. She might not have been able to stop a bomb, but it hadn't been harder then the flick of a switch to detonate one. So then didn't she have this chaos in her, too? Had the behemoth not once been a man? The Vaultie had always surmised the super mutants she met had once been humans. Perhaps it was only a very black heart that urged a super mutant to the further mutation of behemoth status.
Audrey stood up shakily and left the cage, to hear the rages of the behemoth begin once more behind her. She was leaving to find the man who had placed all these self-doubts upon her, a weight heavier than the load of junk on her shoulders. God help him when she found him.
Exiting the valley, she mused over how the only thing she'd ever seen be treated as a holy object was a bomb in place called Megaton.