I look at the glass and realise that it is empty. Not half empty for which there is an optimistic interpretation but fully empty for which there most emphatically is not. An empty glass, a truly scary sight. The world, I have always considered, to be out of focus at some fundamental level. But it seems to look much less distorted through the bottom of a glass or a bottle. Not today, however.
My head rests on the top of Gob's bar. Some would say I am falling down drunk. I would disagree, I am sitting down drunk, but even if I were standing up I would not be falling down. At least not for some considerable time. I can be falling down drunk and remain upstanding for quite a while.
My glass is refilled with the almost clear yet slightly brownish liquid. I still have no idea what it is; Gob makes it to some old ghoul recipe. All I know is that it is cheap, it gets you drunk very quickly and can be used as antifreeze or to start a fire should the need ever arise.
My heart is lifted somewhat at the sight of the refilled glass. There is a burning sensation down my throat and the glass returns to my field of vision. The glass is empty again. A hand is placed on my slumped shoulder, not unkindly, and there is a smell of aftershave. Gob, like many ghouls, has taken to using aftershave. He has discovered that people like him a bit more if he smells of something rather than just plain smells.
'C'mon Iron, time to stagger home.' He says in his sandpaper on rocks voice. I hate being called Iron. It's short for Iron Rod and given how much of my body the Brotherhood had to rebuild it's more of a description than a name.
'No. I'm fine where I am thank you very much.' I say, although my ears tell me it turns into 'Na, 'm fin wur 'um thn'ya va' mush' somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
I awoke, reluctantly, to the sight of the sun playing on the opposite wall. My hangover was not as bad as it should have been. Whether by practice or a side effect of my technological resurrection I could not honestly say but my body has become very adept at removing toxins.
I don't remember much of the night before but I feel I have not missed much. When I drink I just want to stop thinking and fall into the deep pit of unconsciousness in as little time as possible. But no matter how drunk I end up my erratic staggering always leads home. Maybe I have some sort of homing instinct.
I like my home, such as it is, made of old scrap metal so like myself. I visited some of the other vaults some time ago and dragged the detritus to my home to make it feel more like the home I had left behind me. It had been a harrowing experience to wander those empty halls now haunted by ghosts both living and dead. But I had plundered and pilfered and dragged it across the Capital Waste. It was a mixed success. Now it looks like a metal box with government sponsored crap piled in it. But if you down a few bottles and then a few more you could just about believe that you were in a Vault. And for a few moments before the alcohol obliterates my last synapse into delightful unconsciousness I feel happy.
I blunder blearily into the light of a new dawn. It sickens me. Out towards the west it looks like a storm is brewing. The clouds stand atop one another like a mountain held aloft by an uncaring God. It often looks like it is going to rain, but it seldom does. Is it a result of the hellish weapons used during the Last War or a result of still too much dust held aloft in the atmosphere? Does it matter anymore? All we know is that the sun can be all but blocked out for days at a time and yet the rain seldom touches the parched ground.
I remember once organising a scavenging party to steal the big metal signs from the old highways. With a bit of persuasion, the people and the metal both, every roof in Megaton was equipped with a fresh covering and a system of gutters that lead to the Water Purifier. What little rain there is is fresher than the result of any technological trickery, what little rain there is is precious and we will not waste it.
That was more than a year ago, back in the days when I still had hope and a wishful belief that a difference could be made in the long run.
But now I know better. No real difference can be made. Year by year people die in their droves, victims of the wasteland, victims of the abominations that dwell therein, victims of the remnants of the viral weapons that spring up from time to time and victims of the creatures who are worse than the abominations; People. Humanity as a species is staring down the throat of extinction, the number of stillborn is an epidemic, the deformities are hideous and thankfully for their sake have life spans of less than a week and childhood infections and malnourishment take away much of the rest. And even here on the utter edge of oblivion we cut each other's throats, the insane Killgangs, Raiders and Slavers predate upon the few that make it to adulthood. Things worse than abominations, they have a choice and they choose to be as they are. And here I stand, in the final days of humanity.
I wander down to the Brass Lantern and take my usual seat. I like to eat occasionally. Although there are calories aplenty in alcohol there is little else of nutritious benefit. After the fall of the Church of Atom in Megaton it was decided that the bomb, long since disarmed, should be dismantled. It took a week to find an adequate amount of lead to remove the reaction matter. In the end Jericho and myself ended up stripping the roof of one of the old buildings down in the city ruins. Of course I was the one who had to stick his heavily mitted hands in there and pull out its radioactive heart. It felt warm. We gave it to the Brotherhood in exchange for a bumper crop of dried noodle packets.
I get them at a discount now, a good exchange for the fingernails and a fair amount of skin falling off my left hand. That worried me a lot at the time. Now I wonder if I should be more worried that it grew back.
Jenny Stahl places a bowl of boiled noodles in front of me, and then goes back to 'talking' with Billy Creel. Despite all the rumours that fly around about Mr Creel I can not help but like him. He is cheerful, happy and always seems happy to see me. Sometimes, though, I have seen him when he believes himself unobserved. He just sits there, sometimes for hours, and stares the thousand-yard stare of someone who has seen too much and can never look away again. But this is the wonderful world of 'Post-Apocalyptia', as it is said on the radio, and such a worlds generates thousand-yard stares like uranium generates rads.
The sickly sweet display of affection has quite put me off my food. I place my forehead upon the cool metal for what little it soothes.
'Hey, you!' I looked around to see the ever-happy face of Moria Brown, a true genius in a slightly corkscrew fashion. I have often wondered at her mental state. The joy she finds in tinkering with all things mechanical is infectious and like an infection is often dangerous to those around. I still bear the scars from 'The Wasteland Survival Guide'. One of those scars is in the shape of a smiley face.
She also orders a packet of noodles. She tries to strike up a conversation. The cheerfulness in her voice is like a band saw down the middle of the brain, although that might be the hangover. I need a drink to get rid of it. Most of the things that she is talking about are just the more peculiar technical aspects of her latest inventions. More things made form the things unmade in the worlds unmaking. I honestly believe that she could talk for a day and a night without repeating herself. She just goes on and on and on and always in the same excited exuberance. Vivacity is a lovely trait but it can be taken far too far at times.
Something catches my inundated ears.
'Umh?' Not the deepest of questions I will admit but it was still early in the morning.
'Ouh, did someone have a late night last night?' She said tussling my hair in that God awfully happy voice of hers. 'I said I'm thinking of hiring someone to help me copy out the library you gave me. It was a very sweet present.' She tussled my unruly mop of brown hair again. I vaguely recalled what she was talking about. Part of the research into that best seller of the Wasteland involved downloading the contents of a pre-war library into the hard-drive of my pip-boy, an entire planets worth of data. And she was trying to copy by out by hand. Points for determination if nothing else. I had given a copy to the Brotherhood as a sign of good will, Elder Lyons had been quite delighted by the gift.
And then the tirade resumed its assault on my brain. Description of machines and the mechanisms of devices and the intricacies thereof that I had neither the ability nor the real inclination to understand the inner workings of. Eventually she finished off her breakfast as mine was still left untouched. I offered her mine as well, she gratefully accepted.
She was eating for two now, the presence of her pregnancy quite evident to all but the completely blind. I had first realised her condition when we were having a drink, that is I was having a drink and she was having a glass of purified water, in Gob's bar back before Colin Moriarty had a little accident on the balcony. No one else needed to know that his neck was broken before he went over the edge. I had asked her who the father was and she had coyly refused to answer. Her eyes had flickered, ever so momentarily, to the Mercenary that guards her shop. It had been a very brief flicker of attention. A mere involuntary, almost imperceptible, wandering of the eyes. But I have a knack for noticing such things. I wish them all the happiness in the world, although looking around that's not saying much.