FALLOUT: WHITE DAWN
CHAPTER 1: SEED AWAKENING
The alarm buzzed loudly in his ear. His hand shout out from underneath the cocoon he made out of his bed sheets to slap it. Connor Duffy got up slowly, careful not to hit his head in his bunk style bed. Groggily, he reached out over the end of his bed and fell out onto the floor, flat on his face. "Damn it," he grumbled into the hardwood floor of his room. He picked himself up and slouched out of the darkened room, navigating his way to the coffee pot by smell alone. He was a rather large young man, six foot four, about two hundred pounds even, all muscle with a head of black hair buzzed close to his scalp. He scratched his thin goatee out of habit. Connor poured himself a cupful, one of surely many this morning. He looked around the small kitchen, noticing the absence of his parents and even his mom's shih tzus. That's when he heard a commotion outside. Making his way to the veranda, where the small dogs were currently at, he saw in the street what looked like the whole neighborhood.
"What the fuck is going on?" He had never seen the entire street together like this since the old couple that used to host the block parties passed away.
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," spoke a familiar voice. "Oh wait, yes you would, especially after what happened up north."
"I so enjoy your scathing tone this early, Erich." His friend from four doors down was seated in a chair on his veranda. Erich Vogl stood at a modest five foot nine and was a packing a bit of a beer gut. His blonde hair was always in a ponytail behind him that touched his belt, paired with a goatee about three inches long. He may not have been built like his friend, but his heavy metal image and bad attitude gave him a reputation during their school years as the guy to not piss off. On the other hand, Connor was the one who tried to mediate everything with everyone, playing all sides of the fence if you will.
"The hell are you talking bout anyway?" Connor asked, sipping his got coffee.
"Everyone nuked each other, that's what."
"What?"
"Mutually assured destruction finally happened. Welcome to post-apocalyptica."
Connor looked up the street one way and then down the other before inspecting the sky. "Then how come we're not dead."
"This." Erich pulled out a couple of papers that had been paper clipped together. "Everyone found these on their doors." He slid them across the glass table. Connor picked it up and started reading. The heading read "Geneva Subterranean Dwellings Inc."
"The fuck?"
"Just read it."
Greetings! If you are reading this then the world as you knew is over due to massive nuclear bombardment. Since you're reading this, that means you've chosen to utilize the services of Geneva Subterranean Dwellings Incorporated. In association with CERN Laboratories, we have made a subterranean system capable of sustaining the masses for several centuries, a system more advanced than our competitor, Vault Tec.
Governor Quinn used the state of Illinois's treasury to pay for life systems in parts of DuPage and Cook counties as well as Springfield. Our patented systems were installed underneath whole city blocks, and lowered your very properties several hundred feet below the earth, protected by special blast doors. Your dwellings were lowered in the still of the night after we released an airborne cocktail of tranquilizers and other chemicals to protect your bodies against the cryo freezing process that has preserved you and your fellow neighbors. While in suspended animation (which us here in Switzerland were subjected to as well), robots ranging from the General Atomics Mr. Handy line and our own customized ones have been maintaining your sleep and biometrics as well as the subterranean systems.
Connor finished reading the first page and couldn't believe it. "How… long have we been asleep?"
"We fell asleep October 22, 2077. Today is October 24, 2300."
The bodybuilder started laughing. "Hahaha, oh fantastic. Well this explains the crick in my neck." He flipped thru the rest of the papers and looked at his friend. "Uh, too long; didn't read."
Erich rolled his eyes. "Basically the rest of it goes to say that over the last 223 years, they've been using aeroponics to grow fruits and veggies and food extruders based off the organ ink-jet printer thingies to make us meat. They had the robots put it all into flash freezing to preserve it. With help from the eggheads at CERN, they were able to backup as many movies, television programs and parts of the internet as possible for entertainment purposes. Since the majority of Chicagoland survived, a lot of us can resume our regular jobs and lives."
"And since when did you have either of those?"
"Go fuck yourself."
"Well if Nicky didn't survive then yes, I guess I would have to now would I?" He looked back at the neighbors in heated discussion. "What are they going on about?"
"Really basic post apocalyptic stuff: look for survivors, check in on relatives. Or in my dad's case, head to the building downtown that he's always at and see if his tools are still in his hiding spot."
"I highly doubt that after 200 years."
"Who knows." Erich stood up and stretched. That's when Connor noticed the gun in his belt. It was a large revolver, namely a Smith & Wesson .460 XVR magnum. Affectionately dubbed the "anti-sonofabitch gun", it featured an eight and a half inch barrel with recoil compensator on the end in a polished stainless steel finish. When it came out, it was the second most powerful production revolver behind it's bigger brother, the Smith & Wesson .500 magnum. Despite being labeled as .460 caliber, it was actually a .45 with a longer cylinder, so it could shoot the next powerful round, the .454 Casull, and the more common .45 Long Colt cowboy round, giving versatility.
And Erich made it abundantly clear on the internet that he could hit bowling pins with it at a football field's distance.
"Uhh," Connor pointed at the hand cannon.
"I'm heading downtown with him. Don't know if there are mutants or psychos. Don't matter," he patted the revolver, "I got the elephant killer rounds loaded into this. And!"
"There's always an and."
"Since the world has ended, I can finally put those sears I made into the Tommy, AR15 and Ak47 to make them full auto."
Connor sighed in exasperation at his weapon crazed friend. Then the light bulb went on over his head. "Waitasec-"
"Can you help us? His tool buckets are a bit heavy and we can use the muscle. Please?"
"Fine, but I call the Ak47."
"Done. The AR15's more accurate anyway."
"Let me get dressed."
"My place man."
Connor waved him off as he left the veranda. Erich grabbed his dad and they set off for their house. Duffy shook his head and went inside to get dressed. As he was getting dressed, a knock came at his door.
"I'm decent!"
In walked his dad, James. An older man, evident by the gray in his beard and hair, he was the lead detective for the auto theft brigade for DuPage county. "You're heading into the city?"
"Yep."
"I don't have to tell you to be careful."
"Nope."
James reached into his back pocket. "Take this." It was his snub nosed Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Police were generally issued this smaller weapon as a backup.
"Thanks, dad." Connor tucked it into his belt, angling it to be pulled quickly. He pulled on his favorite steel-toed boots last, right as he heard the modified exhaust of his friend's truck.
"Be careful," his mom called from the couch, having finished having her say to the neighbors.
"I will."
Outside sat the idling, black 2078 Dodge Ram Sport. Erich had won it in a contest from the automaker in mid August when they had started to roll out the new 2078 models. He opted for the older petrol engine when they brought him to the factory, as the contest rules allowed him to customize it how he wanted as long as Mopar carried the parts. Sport, all terrain tires, check. Loud exhaust with muffler activation switch, check. Biggest engine the robots at the factory could cram in with room for a supercharger, check. They took the original 5.7 liter Hemi petrol engine out and put in the more powerful Hemi 392.
What did they do with the engine?
Erich took it with and one long week in August was spent installing the 380 horsepower engine into Connor's 2069 Cadillac Hearse. Connor had one hell of a time looking for one that had a gas engine, since the fusion engine cars need you to have a nuclear engineer's degree. He had installed a lift kit with large mud tires onto it to accommodate his height and because it just looked badass as well as heavy duty suspension for it all. In the back he kept a cheap casket that was his personal fridge.
Looking at it as he strapped on an ammo harness for the automatic rifle, he hoped to drive it up and down the landscape once again, tearing up hills and fields.
"Yo! Pay attention man!" Erich shouted.
"Huh, what?"
"Pay attention man," Erich shook his head. "Fire a few rounds into the dirt to make sure the parts I put in work."
"Deal." Connor hit the trigger and let off a burst. "It works." Erich and his father, Bob, did the same with the AR15 and Tommy gun respectively.
"Hard to believe a small chunk of bent steel and a few springs worked," Bob said. Erich's father was just a bit taller than his son, with the same brown eyes. His beard and hair were heavily grayed, a bit more so than Connor's dad, despite being a few years younger. But when you're the one in charge of the most unique cooling system in the country for the most important building in downtown Chicago that's always breaking down, the stress gets to you.
"All right everyone in," Erich announced. As Connor came around the vehicle, he saw something attached to the front.
"Dude, seriously?" On the front of his pickup was not the grille guard he usually had, but plow, angled down the middle to be a veritable cowcatcher. "Why'd you put that thing on?" A few years ago, Bob had come home from work quite agitated from the traffic on the Eisenhower expressway. That Christmas, Erich had spent some time welding together a plow to put on his own pickup truck.
"Think about it," Erich started, "only the richer parts of DuPage and Cook County were put underground by CERN. So there's gonna be quite a few cars left on the road."
"Oh, gothca."
He turned over the ignition; the 850 horsepower engine roared to life before settling into an idling rumble. "You better turn on that exhaust silencer. We don't want to attract any unwanted attention," warned his dad.
"Yeah yeah." Erich flipped the switch and the exhaust quieted. The truck lumbered down the street. Soon they came to their first glimpse of what the nuclear war had wrought. At the end of the block was a park with open fields for football and a large lagoon with a gravel path snaking around it. That lagoon was a dried up pit. All the grass had been burned away, leaving naught but barren soil. The playground where kids used to frolic was bent and twisted in too many ways to be of any use to children now. A few skeletons littered the open field.
"I guess it really did happen," Connor commented. Driving thru Lombard revealed that the houses did survive, as per GSD Inc. and CERN promised. People milled about on the sidewalks and on their properties in a daze. Shops and fast food restaurants were mere skeletons of their former selves; some being reduced to naught but iron or concrete pillars. Speaking of skeletons, those of the night owls and graveyard shift workers were hanging out of their cars, they themselves rusted derelicts. Some of the townsfolk were gathered round cars they recognized as those of a family member who was out late, either dead silent or a few wailing at the long dead sibling, parent or child.
"Punch it," Bob told the driver.
"Don't have to tell me twice." Erich pressed down on the throttle a little more, slowing down only when he got to intersections so he wouldn't crash into any wrecks on the road while cornering. A few times he had to slow down and put the Ram into a lower gear to gain some torque and traction to push a few broken down cars out of the way with the plow.
The roads were cracked heavily providing for a bumpy ride. Once they made it onto the expressway heading east, they found the Eisenhower to be fucked up, as usual. Overpasses had shattered from the nuke that was dropped on Chicago, but luckily they were able to use the on and off ramps.
"Typical, takes a fucking hour to get into the city," Bob complained. "Eisenhower is as fucked as it's gonna get." They passed some long rusted out road construction equipment. "Big surprise, IDOT machines and no crews manning them."
From the highway, Chicago's infamous skyline was absent. Instead, from what they could see, were only the frames, like the hands of colossal steel skeletons reaching towards heaven. Sears Tower, once so proud and majestic as the highest building in the world, now half of what it used to be. A little more crumbled down from it with each passing season.
Soon, they came to passed thru the tunnel that ran underneath the old post office. Someone had been here thru the years, as the rubble that should have littered the cracked road had been pushed aside, some carted off and tossed into the river. Next was Lower Wacker Drive, a former hobo town. The old drums that the homeless used to use were still there, some even showing signs of recent use.
All around them, buildings were only remnants of their former selves: cracked concrete slabs and pillars, exposed iron skeletons, broken glass.
Erich pulled the Ram up to the maintenance entrance to the Thompson Center, the main administration building after city hall. He shut the truck off. All three hopped out and turned off the safeties of their weapons. Bob carefully wedged open a door, seeing only darkness ahead.
Author's Note: Just a setup, building the setting for my story. Used myself, family, friends and my neighborhood since I'm too lazy to make up characters and locations.
