THE BOOK KEEPER:
THE STORY OF THE LIBRARIAN AT ARLINGTON ESTATES
A/N: Set in 3 with elements from 4. Hope you enjoy.
CHAPTER ONE
The town of Arlington Estates was a massive pile of rubble when I got there. A few people, probably decedents of whoever owned these homes in the first place, got some things together after the bombs hit. A few foundations were cleared and a small make-shift town was built. A gardening area was sectioned off with old white picket fences, and there seemed to be plenty of land in this area to feed a fair amount of people.
But there was no one here when I arrived. Just a stand of homes on the horizon, I came into town looking for some things for another settlement when I came across this one. It had potential, and all I had to do was clear out a few raiders.
The one thing surviving in the Wastes has taught me is that raiders will settle just about anywhere. In a swamp? Sure, it's only a little water and methane to brighten things up. In an almost completely destroyed building? Hey, that's what tarps are for! They'll set up shop just about anywhere, and to my surprise, I found these guys outside the town in this little...thing, no structure, built up from the debris from those first buildings.
What I'm trying to say is that this battle came first. I hadn't stepped foot in Arlington Estates really, because these raiders were in the way, not that they were any trouble. I snuck up on the first one and put a 10mm round through his head. I felt bad about the way his face blew off and his eyeball rolled against my foot, but when his psycho buddy started firing on me from this little watchtower they'd built out of the blocks, I didn't feel as awful for these guys. This psycho had gotten hold of a fairly good automatic weapon and crippled my left arm before I had time to decide how to deal with his ugly ass.
In the end, I returned the favor. I'd picked up an automatic pipe rifle off a trader back at the last settlement, so I fired off some rounds using my VATS to aim. Fucker took a round in the leg and went down like a sack of potatoes. It scared the crap out of him too because he was trying to run at that point.
"Nope, you're not going anywhere," I said to him with a grin, putting my trusty 10mm pistol under his chin. With one shot this raider psycho was gone, leaving me with a shiny red workbench to look in.
I was surprised at how big the place was, and this is when I found the area that had already been cleared. Not much was left to it other than the bare foundation and some wooden walls. One bed had somehow made it through, not that I'd want to sleep on it. Some broken coffee cups and Nuka Cola bottles were all I found here outside of a good weapons workbench, but I knew to keep walking around the town.
At the other end of the property, I found a person. I really wasn't expecting this after dealing with those raiders on the front end of things, and I could tell by the man's surprise that he hadn't seen a friendly face in a while either.
"Are you one of them raiders? Here, take all I have!" he cried, shoving a duffel bag in my direction.
I shook my head, "No, I'm not a raider. In fact, I just took care of those guys out front. They shouldn't be bothering you anymore."
"Good," the man nodded, though I could tell he was still skeptical. He confirmed this with his next question, "Are you sure you're not one of them? I mean, not many of them are as smooth-talking as you seem to be, but I've been wrong before."
"Look, I'm not a raider, okay? I found my way here while exploring, killed the raiders out front, then I poked around the place a little. That's how I get supplies out here in the Wastes, and I only kill who deserves it, and I only take what I need," I explained.
"So, do I deserve to be killed?" he asked meekly.
"No! In fact, I want to do something here. It's in a prime location between some other settlements, and I think I can really make this place something. The people before already started some work. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty with rubble or farming, you can help me with that work. What do you say?" I inquired, not knowing if this guy was going to trust me or not.
The guy shifted his weight, "Who did what before? I mean, I believe you because I ain't left this thing in years now, but what did they do?"
"Did you come in here with your eyes closed? Come take a look at this," I said, grabbing the man's arm and pulling him back the way I'd come. He didn't flinch as much as I thought he would, but I could tell he was curious to know what I was talking about, so I led him over to the area.
The guy was stunned, "Look, I don't know who did this, but it wasn't me. It must've been one of the raiders or something. I haven't heard anything though, so maybe one of them super mutant things just threw everything out of here."
I gave this guy a confused look, "You think a super mutant could do something like this? It looks to me like someone methodically took away the rubble piece by piece. I think that's what the raiders were staying in when I left, the area where they put the good stuff for later."
The guy shook his head, "I don't know, but...I trust you. Even if I didn't, you took away those raiders so I can go outside again. My name is John Hammer, but everyone just calls me John. Whatever you need, I'll do it, starting with getting more buildings to look like this. There's nothing else here thanks to the bombs from the Great War and all this other stuff going on. We might as well make it into something else."
"Well, thanks for coming around. Do you need anything?" I asked.
John nodded, "I could use some real supplies for once. I found this old shipment of Instamash, but if I eat one more bite of that stuff, I'll go crazy. Can you take me to one of those other settlements while you work here? I've got a little pistol to help you with any bad guys, but I'm not too good of a shot."
I laughed, "Neither am I sometimes, John. I'll take you over to Megaton. Now, I don't know if you've heard of this place, but I'll warn you there's a bomb in the middle of this place. I disarmed it and moved in a while ago, so I can tell you the place is safe. You'll meet others and have plenty of access to whatever else you want to eat. You can stay at my house while I'm away here if you'd like."
John raised an eyebrow, "You want me to go with you to a settlement where the town's centerpiece is an unexploded bomb?" he asked, starting to pinch himself, "Okay, I'm going crazy or I'm dreaming. First you show me this cleared foundation, which was a pharmacy building before you came here, and now you want to take me to some, what was it again, Megaton? You want me to go there?"
"There's plenty of food, good food at that, and I can get you whatever else you want at my house. I've even got some steak," I said, knowing I was sweetening the deal.
John shook his head, "I think I've finally lost it, but I can't turn down a good steak. Lead the way."
I led him back to Megaton and showed him around the place. He ate like a horse when we got there. As long as it wasn't Instamash, he'd eat it. I left him there with instructions to not eat too much, then I headed back to Arlington Estates.
I came into town after dark, but I knew something was up. I could hear movement coming from across the town, so I crouched down and used another destroyed building for cover. I peered over a particularly tall pile of rubble and nearly fell back on my ass.
A legendary Protectron was clearing the rubble, and he had friends. Five of them in total, all legendary, were clearing away the rubble. A sixth carried whatever good chunks they had over to the front of the town where I'd first arrived, and a seventh took away whatever wasn't good over to the workbench to remix the concrete later.
I sat and watched them work for a long time. I needed to make sure these were in fact robots instead of a man inside them using it for power armor. This was something beyond most factory Protectrons, but if the right person tinkered around with them, I could see this being possible, but only barely.
I needed to investigate this, but I didn't want to mess with those Protectrons. I snuck back out of town and headed back to Megaton as fast as I could.
I found John in the men's room heaving his guts out into a bucket. He barely looked up at me as I took a stool nearby and waited for this round to be over. He'd overeaten for sure, judging by what people said about the guy as I walked in. Now he needed to clear the system, and hopefully he hadn't burst something in the process.
After a few minutes, he looked up at me, "Well, here I am. Have you made any progress over at the Estates?"
"No, in fact I left as soon as I arrived. Have you ever seen a Protectron over there, like an altered one?" I asked.
He looked at me in surprise, "You didn't see any when you came in? Oh, right, you came in during the day. They only come out at night. After patrolling, they start working on something really loud...oh. I bet they're the ones that cleared out the pharmacy of rubble. I completely forgot about it, namely because I didn't know what they were doing. I guess I know now."
"So they knew you were there and didn't try to hurt you?" I asked.
"No, they never did," he replied, shaking his head. "I mean, they knew I was there. They found me the first night I was there, did some scan on me, and left. All of them just went back wherever they'd come from. Then the next night, they came back and handed me a written order. It told me to mind my manners or something, and I did what it said. Here's the note if you're interested. Maybe you can make more sense of it," he said, passing me a note from his back pocket before tapping the bucket again, "Leave me to this."
I complied and went back to my house to look over the note. I immediately saw why John was having issues reading it. It was done in calligraphy, fancy calligraphy, and it looked to be written from an old fashioned fountain pen to boot. It was hard to read until you studied it, but I found that John had gotten the most he could out of the letter:
Dear Settler,
We will not hurt you. As long as you stay in your place and stay out of our way, we will not harm you in any way.
There was no signature, but I knew there were only a few types of people that would be alright with writing this way. It was perfect, but it was also something practiced until it was perfect. Whoever wrote this letter was an intellectual, and I was willing to bet they were the same person who altered those Protectrons to be what they were in the first place. That was something that would take some degree of science skill, plus knowledge of robots that none of us had.
The pieces didn't seem to fit though. Why would someone interested in calligraphy also be interested in robots? The Wastes could be boring the longer you stayed alone, but part of me wondered if this was really a group of people living somewhere in Arlington Estates.
I had to go back. I gathered up some supplies for fighting robots just in case these Protectrons decided I was an enemy, then I started back to the Estates, hoping the entire way that this would go alright.