Fallout 3: Pittfall

Chapter 1.

Author's Note:

- For readers new or returning, please read:

I have to admit, this is pretty much a quest-retelling of the events of the THE PITT dlc for Fallout 3. Now, after reading the first sentence of this note, most readers are probably thinking "Oh joy, another attempt at a story we already know...and hit the Back Button". Frankly, I can't blame you. Why read what you've already played? However, in my completely and utterly biased opinion, I would encourage you dear readers to give Pittfall a chance. While this IS technically a quest-retelling, I have inserted enough original content between in-game events - and made the ending more to my liking - to keep it interesting. Much of this tale is based off of the content that happens off camera or that the game simply cannot capture, like the trip to the Pitt that magically takes all of (checks watch) two in-game seconds. I have done my best to stay true to the spirit of the game, though not necessarily to the broken physics of the game - i.e. sadly our heroine will not be able to carry 100 bulky steel ingots while manning an assault rifle, boxes of ammo and clad in nothing more than, well let's face it...conveniently placed leather straps. In short, the general storyline is the same, but beyond that, my goal is to take an already great plot, flesh it out where needed and tell you my version of events.

This is my first expedition into the wilds of fiction...er, FAN-fiction writing, so I apologize in advance if I'm not exactly up to speed with this whole process. Any feedback I can get would be greatly appreciated, good or bad, I'll take it all. I would like to thank you for taking the time to wade through the zoo that is my brain, and I hope you enjoy its latest product.

One last thing: Updates will not occur like clockwork sorry to say. While I have written several chapters ahead (currently on 19) they will not get posted until I and my two wonderful and very picky editors get through with them and make sure every line of every page is correct. This includes making sure that earlier chapters do not need to be modified to make text in later chapters fit better. In English: if it's on the site, it's the final product plain and simple. Oh, and I have a job too, so that takes time as well. (For those of you who pay attention, my author's notes are now attached to my chapters. The whole notes-on-profile thing, yeah...even I got tired of it. So now they're in the story...and horrendously outdated. Life is good.) And...on to the disclaimer!

I do not own Fallout 3 or any of the content taken from Fallout 3 that may be mentioned directly or alluded to in the course of this story. I have made an effort to use as little of the actual in-game dialogue as possible so as to avoid copyright infringement, but there may be a few instances where the original line is the best fit for the text.

- T. Fett

Introduction

For those readers unfamiliar with the landscape of the Fallout Universe, here are some useful nuggets of information to help steer your minds the way they should go:

The year is 2278 (after the events of Fallout 3). The civilized world is gone and has been for just over 200 years, erased in a mere two hours by a nuclear holocaust more commonly known as The Great War. It is not known who fired the first shots of the War, only that the three global superpowers – the United States, China, and the Soviet Union – all ceased to exist by its conclusion. Along with the rest of the planet. However the apocalypse was not, as many had been led to believe, the end of days. Instead, the destructive nature of man was allowed to continue unabated in a dark age of radiation and ruin. In the War's aftermath, the descendants of those who survived the bombs find themselves wanting for everything. Political ideals, oil, and other precious natural resources are no longer worth fighting for; clean water, food supplies, and the simple lust for power are the current catalysts for the outbreak of modern conflict.

The story is set in and around the ruins of Washington D.C., more commonly known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the city is policed by the Brotherhood of Steel, there is no one faction that can claim total supremacy over the ruins. Between the super mutants, raiders, and other problems, the Brotherhood has plenty of competition.

Characters, Places, Definitions and Notable Factions:

Audrey Epson (The Lone Wanderer): The resident heroine of the game Fallout 3 and of Pittfall. Her heroic and humanitarian actions across the Capital Wasteland have earned her fame and fortune. Her name is one that is praised by the good and feared by the malevolent.

James Epson (deceased): Father of Audrey Epson and the inventor of Project Purity. Through his compassion and ultimate sacrifice, the Capital Wasteland now has clean drinking water for the first time since the War.

Project Purity: Created by James Epson and activated by Audrey Epson. It is an enormous fresh water purifier constructed in the former Jefferson Memorial. Since its activation, it has purged the entire D.C. Tidal Basin of radiation.

Fawkes: Friendly super mutant and close friend to Audrey Epson. Unlike the vast majority of his counterparts, Fawkes possesses an intellect that rivals that of most humans. He is caring, principled, and fiercely loyal. He was rescued by Audrey and Dogmeat from a life of imprisonment in Vault 87.

Super Mutants: A failed military experiment began before the War and continued post-apocalypse by order of the Department of Defense through defense contractor, West Tek. Tall humanoids with a green skin tone, they have the brains of a small child (Fawkes being one of two exceptions), and the strength and primal rage of a silverback gorilla. All super mutants are former humans, exposed to FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) with the original intent being to make them into supersoldiers. In the case of the Capital Wasteland's mutants, their original FEV labs of Vault 87 were overrun by their test subjects and now the underground shelter serves as a crude "breeding" facility where the mutants transform captured humans to refill their ranks. The super mutants have a heavy presence in the D.C. ruins, causing no end of grief for other local inhabitants.

Dogmeat: An Australian Cattle Dog and pet of Audrey Epson. Dogmeat has been Audrey's shadow since she first entered the Wasteland. Aside from Fawkes, there is no one she trusts more with her life than her faithful hound.

The Enclave: The descendants of the former United States Government. Served as the main antagonists for Fallout 3. They desire to reclaim the continental United States for the last untainted strain of humanity (i.e. the Enclave).

The Brotherhood of Steel: A techno-religious faction, who serves as the resident police/armed forces of the Capital Wasteland. Drawing their origin from the former United States Army, the Brotherhood's primary mission is to collect and safeguard pre-war technology. The Capital Wasteland detachment has broken off from this, however, citing the clear need to provide protection for the oppressed people of the region. This disregard for orders has fractured the group's relationship with the primary chapters back West, leading to a lack of communication or reinforcements. Thus, the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood must rely heavily on recruits from the local populous to replenish its ranks.

Ghouls: Former humans who have survived despite being exposed to a staggering amount of radiation. Their lives have been prolonged, and though their outer bodily tissue decays around them, some ghouls can live for well over 200 years. Despite looking like zombies, they retain their mental faculties and are not to be confused with their feral brethren in the depths of the Wasteland.

Vaults: Designed and constructed by the Vault-Tec Corporation in the years leading up to the War, these enormous underground fallout shelters were promoted as sanctuaries for American citizens to survive in in the event of a nuclear disaster. In truth, these facilities had a more sinister purpose, being commissioned for various social or military experiments with their naïve inhabitants being the test subjects. The Lone Wanderer's former home of Vault 101 was designated as a control Vault, its purpose being to test the effectiveness of the facility's original promotional intent: the safeguarding of its residents. With the nefarious truth about the Vaults being largely known now, most wastelanders avoid exploring an open Vault for fear of the horrors they might find inside.

Caps: The currency of post-war America. With the almighty dollar being valued at little more than toilet paper after the War, wastelanders needed a form of currency once the concepts of trade and commerce had been reestablished in the inhabitable regions of the country. They found this in the form of Nuka Cola bottle caps. With the pre-war soft drink being more prevalent than water in some parts of United States, bottle caps were readily available in vast quantities. The currency itself is somewhat more stable than its U.S. Dollar predecessor in that it is extremely difficult to counterfeit (the technology to produce and paint the caps having been lost) and the finite number of caps provides a buffer against inflation.

Chinese "Hei Gui (Black Ghost)" Stealth Armor: Employed by the Chinese military during the Sino-American War (2066 - 2077). Designed for Chinese Special Forces for deep infiltration and shadow warfare on the conventional battlefield, the final version of this armor was first issued to China's Crimson Dragoons during the Chinese invasion of Anchorage, Alaska. The suit owned by Audrey Epson was captured by the United States after its forces had reclaimed Anchorage. The armor was then transported back to Washington D.C. for further study with the hope of reverse engineering the technology. The suit cloaks the wearer in a field of active camouflage, rendering them nearly invisible. (Note: There are additional qualities attributed to the armor that appear later on in the story. Said attributes not specifically coinciding with the description above are creative liberties taken by the author.)

Power Armor: The pinnacle of American armored infantry technology. Based on the concept of a human tank, the suit completely encases the wearer in a shell of hardened steel plates or poly-laminate composites in later models. Servos on the inside of the armor react to the wearer's motions through a link with a special body suit. This, combined with the armor's hydraulic systems gives each soldier equipped with power armor an improved range of motion and strength. Each model of power armor can withstand a phenomenal amount of punishment before failing, making the suits a must have for factions such as the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave.

The sound of a bullet smacking into the ground next to her made Audrey jump in surprise. They had been made. Stealth being now out of the question, she stood up and started running, hearing more gunfire intermingled with guttural curses from Fawkes and growls from Dogmeat. Their routine scouting expedition to an abandoned Satellite Communications station in Maryland had just become even more routine, as they once again had someone trying to kill them. Her eyes darted quickly, seeking out any form of shelter. She found it in the form of a rusted hulk of a semi-truck. It wasn't solid rock, but given the circumstances, it would have to do.

"Go! Get behind that overturned truck!" she yelled as she passed the vehicle's open trailer door and slid around behind the undercarriage. A moment later, she heard a dull thud against the trailer and felt it shift slightly as Fawkes launched himself over the top to land in a heap beside her. A wet nose smearing the outside of her combat visor let her know that Dogmeat had made it too. On the opposite side of the trailer, the metallic pinging and ricocheting of bullets against steel meant that their unseen sniping assailant still had a clear fix on their position. Upon further examination of their hiding place, Audrey had to admit she could have picked a better defensive position, in this case, one that provided an escape route. Their spot behind the truck did not offer anything of the sort as they now had a relatively small patch of ground between them and the edge of a sheer cliff that ended with jagged rocks far below. Great, she mused. You've got everyone stuck between a truck and a hard place. Another bit of tactical genius on your part, Audrey.

"Is it going to be the running theme wherever you go, we get shot at?" Fawkes grumbled, glaring over at Audrey. "If so, you could have let me know this before you and the dog freed me from Vault 87. I would have been happier staying with the Centaurs!"

Even in the midst of this chaotic situation, Audrey found that she could still laugh at Fawkes' grousing. Maybe she had been in one-too-many firefights. "I think the Centaurs miss you as well, Fawkes," she yelled over the sound of a .308 round punching through the trailer's roof and smacking into the steel floor. Her words were still somewhat muffled as she was speaking through her Chinese stealth armor's internal head set. "At least when you were there, they didn't feel like the ugliest creatures in the place."

Fawkes cackled, "Touché, my dear. Though perhaps we should turn our attention to the matter at hand?" He jerked his head in the direction of their assailant.

"Agreed. Did you happen to catch a glimpse of our mystery sniper?"

"Indeed I did. He is positioned on the upper ringed catwalk of the tower just below the dish. He is also wearing the armor of those black-clad mercenaries of whom you are so fond."

"Shit," Audrey hissed, instinctively reaching for her Reservist sniper rifle as another bullet whizzed overhead. "Talon Company." Even Dogmeat let out a snarl at the mention of the name.

The Talon Company mercenaries had been the bane of Audrey's existence ever since she and Dogmeat had first bumped into them in the ruins of Georgetown. Their hit squads had a nasty little habit of showing up out of nowhere and gunning for her and her companions. Granted, whoever had hired them had placed a thousand cap bounty on her head in response to her humanitarian actions around the Capital Wasteland, so she could somewhat understand why they wanted her so badly. To the average wastelander, a thousand caps could buy quite a fortune; to Audrey, it represented the minimum amount she spent on ammo alone these days. She had a feeling though that the Talon Company attacks within the last few months had not been motivated by greed. The mercs most likely wanted revenge on her for singlehandedly bringing down their home base of Fort Banister. She was particularly proud of that one. Not only had her psycho-bitch-violently-kill-and-disfigure-anyone-wearing-Talon-combat-armor mentality during that raid stopped the hit squads for a few months, it also allowed her to bag a rare black spray painted combat helmet from their now-dispatched leader. She saw that helmet as a nice compliment to her matte black stealth armor.

"Audrey," Fawkes whispered. "I think we might have a chance to take out the sniper. His shots have moved away from us towards the front of the truck."

Audrey listened and found that the sounds of where the bullets were hitting had moved away and grown fainter. She started to inch her way around to the trailer's rear bumper when a small explosion made the ancient big rig tremble. She smelled the smoke before she turned and saw it. It was billowing out from under the truck's cab. She turned to Fawkes and Dogmeat, the looks on their faces making it clear that they were all thinking the same thing.

Fawkes rubbed his forehead. "You had to pick the one live truck out here didn't you?" he groaned. "We've got a cliff on one side, and at least one Talon Company crack shot and who knows how many more of his friends waiting to gun us down on the other. Oh, and on top of that, we're sitting next to a ticking time bomb. Exactly how do you plan to get out of this?"

Audrey looked squarely at Fawkes. She knew another stare down with death awaited them, just as another day at the office awaited a pre-war working stiff. "We really need to get into that com tower, understand?" Her friend's next two words told her all she needed to know.

"Cover me."

Fawkes let out a loud war cry as he charged from around the rear of the truck and began sprinting towards the com tower's entrance hatch. A split second later, Dogmeat was on right on his heals with Audrey bringing up the rear, leveling her Reservist rifle and pumping lead in the direction of the tower as she ran. Her shots had the desired effect as the sniper above them was forced to retreat around a corner to avoid being hit. His moment of hesitancy gave the trio all the time they needed. Behind them, the fire in the truck's engine was beginning to burn more intensely as the miniature nuclear reactor under the cab grew increasingly unstable. They had just seconds left and they were still inside the lethal blast radius.

"Move!" Audrey screamed, willing her legs and those of her friends to go faster.

Up ahead, she saw Fawkes lower his shoulder and pick up speed. He hit the steel door with such force that it immediately buckled and caved into the entryway with the sound of rending metal. Audrey watched as Fawkes and the door disappeared inside the dim confines of the building and saw Dogmeat bounding in after them. When only a few feet remained between her and the doorway, she sprang into the air and dove across the threshold. She landed awkwardly and felt her head strike something hard. In a daze but with enough adrenaline still pumping through her, she rolled over and called to her friends.

"Get dow–"

Her words were drowned out as a concussive blast rocked the earth and a blinding white light scrambled her vision. She felt a wash of heat from outside and was vaguely aware of a large form stepping over her. Then, almost instantly, the explosion outside was muffled by a metallic bang from inside the entryway and her blurry world was plunged into darkness.

A few moments later, once her vision had adjusted to the low light and her ears had stopped ringing, Audrey saw that Fawkes had stepped over her and crudely jammed the broken door back into its frame to serve as a makeshift shield from the semi-truck's explosion. They were in an antechamber with an exit to the outside and another door on the opposite end of the room that led deeper into the building. The whine of an old klaxon alarm was sounding throughout the facility so there was little doubt their entrance hadn't gone undetected. As she used a steam pipe protruding from the wall to pull herself up, Audrey noticed a black scuffed dent on the pipe's surface. This must have been what she had cracked her head on when she had hit the floor. She now appreciated her dad for instilling in her the value of wearing a helmet whenever she had ridden her Red Racer around the corridors of Vault 101 as a little girl. How the Overseer had hated her for using the hall outside his office as a drag strip.

She felt a something bump against her and looked down to see Dogmeat nuzzling her leg.

"It's okay, boy," she whispered, gently scratching behind his ears. "At least we're all in one piece."

She used her Pip-Boy to scan his vitals and was relieved to see that aside from a few scrapes and bruises, Dogmeat was otherwise unharmed. Fawkes was a different story. Having wedged the door so tightly into the mangled frame that it would no longer fall, Fawkes now turned to face Audrey. When he did, Audrey saw that he bore a bloody six-inch gash on his right shoulder, the same one he had used as a battering ram earlier.

"Jesus, Fawkes," she said eyeing his oozing wound. "How hard did you hit that door?"

Fawkes smiled as much as a super mutant could. "Let me put it to you this way, my dear; those freight trains the ancients used have nothing on me."

Audrey sighed. "Can you still fight? I won't make you explore the rest of the base with us if you aren't up to it. Dogmeat and I can handle ourselves."

"Tis but a flesh wound. You aren't going in there without me and you know it." Fawkes winced as he crossed his arms and glared at her.

"Alright, if you say so," Audrey conceded, inserting a fresh clip into her gun. "Now let's give these mercs a little well-earned payback."

They approached the opposite door, Audrey and Dogmeat on one side, Fawkes on the other. Audrey engaged her stealth armor's cloaking field then held up her fingers to do a silent count down. The slight shimmer effect of the cloak made the outline of her hand barely visible. Three…two…one. She activated the wall-mounted switch and the rusty door slid into the floor with a series of creaks and squeals. The next instant she darted through the opening, sweeping her sniper rifle back and forth as she went. Dogmeat followed her in and Fawkes lumbered after them, menacingly toting his Gatling laser.

They now found themselves in a large multi-level room with a central metal staircase that provided access to catwalks on the upper floors. Along most of the walls, banks of ancient computer systems and consoles sat mostly dormant; though a few emitted a series of hums and whirs as they performed various functions. In the back left corner across from where they now stood, a female ghoul wearing a lab coat looked up in alarm from a computer terminal she was sitting in front of.

"Breach!" she screamed as she stood up and started running for the stairs. "Breach, boys! They've made it ins–"

Her cries for help were cut short as a round from Audrey ripped into her chest. The ghoul crumpled to the floor and lay still. About that time, footsteps sounded overhead on the catwalks as three Talon Company mercs seemingly appeared out of nowhere, each armed to the teeth.

"It's that mutant freak and the mutt!" one of the mercs exclaimed upon seeing Fawkes and Dogmeat.

"Hendrix reported seeing three approaching, so the bitch must be here too," said another. "Light 'em up!"

The three mercenaries trained their assortment of weaponry down on the floor below, creating the perfect kill box. There was nowhere for Audrey and her companions to take cover. Fawkes however, was not going down without a fight. He took one step back to brace himself and unleashed a spray of red death from his Gatling laser. The onslaught of laser fire sent the mercs scattering. Dogmeat used the opportunity of confusion to dash up the stairs and flank his opponents. Moments later, he was up on the top catwalk and bounding toward the closest mercenary, his teeth bared and hackles raised. His target turned and barely had time to scream as Dogmeat pinned him to the ground and promptly tore out his throat. One of the two remaining mercs saw the demise of his friend and stood up from his hiding spot to take a shot at the dog. This lapse in judgment gave Fawkes time to send a flurry of laser fire into the man that vaporized him from the waist up. Audrey cringed as his ashes rained down upon her.

While her friends had been making short work of the other mercs, Audrey had been using this time to draw a bead on the final one. She now gazed up through her rifle's scope at where the doomed man was hiding behind a desk with a computer terminal sitting on it. Although she couldn't exactly see his head, she knew she had a shot. She pulled the trigger and the weapon barked a report. Above her, the terminal exploded in a shower of sparks and glass, with the resulting spray of red mist from behind it being accentuated by the sound of an armor-clad body slumping to the floor. Silence followed. The base of the tower was clear. Audrey stood up and deactivated her cloak.

"Is everyone alright?" she called out. Her query was met by an emphatic bark from Dogmeat and a grumble of disgust from Fawkes.

"Glad to see such enthusiasm, big guy," she joked.

Fawkes glanced at her. "The only enthusiasm I'm going to show is the kind that comes from a stitched-up shoulder and a hot bath."

"We'll get that need taken care of soon enough, my friend. In the meantime, you stay here and guard the entrance while Dogmeat and I check out the upper levels," Audrey said as she began ascending the central staircase.

"Preposterous!" Fawkes retorted. "I am perfectly capable of assisting you up there." A hand up from Audrey silenced any additional remarks he may have had.

"Fawkes," she said gently. "You are the most violent and lovable teddy bear of a mutant that I know and I'm sure you would go to Hell and back just so you could ram the pitchfork up the devil's ass if he ever laid a finger on me. Nevertheless, I need you to stay here so that someone can watch our backs. After all, there's no point in us throwing a victory party on the dish if a pack of deathclaws happens to break down your fine barricade in the entryway."

Fawkes groaned in resignation. "If you insist, but I reserve the right to be mad at you until you two have returned." He folded his arms across his chest and turned his back to her, clearly pouting.

Audrey smiled and shook her head as she began to climb the stairs. If there was anyone who personified loyalty to a fault, it was Fawkes. She knew he hated not accompanying her wherever she went partly because of so much time previously spent in solitary confinement and the simple fact that she was the only friend he had in the whole world.

Soon she reached the top catwalk where Dogmeat was waiting for her. She discovered that the exit from the tower's base to the outer walkway was in a side chamber with a ladder leading up to a hatch in the ceiling. This must have been where the three mercs they had just killed had come from as still-lit cigars, whiskey bottles, and ancient swimsuit magazines littered the floor.

"Well boy, looks like this has turned into a one-woman scouting job," Audrey said, her eyes following the tall ladder up to its apex. "Unless of course you've somehow figured out how to climb ladders." Dogmeat responded by letting out a confused woof and cocking his head to the side. Audrey knelt in front of him and looked into his heterochromic eyes. Eyes that were filled with worry. "Listen boy, I'm going to be okay. Besides, I can't be knocked off by a bunch of Talon Company goons; the Brotherhood of Steel would erase me from the Codex for not going out in an epic fashion."

Audrey chuckled at her own joke and began the long climb up the ladder. As she went up, she heard Dogmeat's whimpers of protest from below. Once she reached the hatch, she engaged her cloaking field once again so as not to give any remaining Talons the pleasure of having a visible target to shoot at. Slowly, and with great care not to make too much noise, she pushed open the rusty hatch and eased herself through the opening.

The bright sunlight of the outside world caused Audrey to wince from the glare. Even after nearly a year of roaming the Capital Wasteland, she still was not used to the intense illumination the sun provided. Growing up in Vault 101 for most of her life had made her somewhat sensitive to sunlight, and she tended to favor the shadows of the ruined buildings or rock formations when traversing the desolate landscape. Fortunately, her stealth armor's visor had light adjustment technology which allowed it to be automatically dimmed in accordance to the brighter environment.

She found herself on a circular walkway that undoubtedly ran the circumference of the tower. This was the same location the Talon's sharpshooter had used to snipe at her and her friends not long ago. Yet there was no sign of him. Audrey decided to investigate further.

She listened intently, but heard no other sounds than the occasional gust of wind howling past the facility. Her Pip-Boy's radar didn't even register any signs of movement. She carefully traversed the entire span of the walkway, eventually finding a set of stairs leading up to another metal door. That must be where the sniper had disappeared to, as she did not recall any of the dead Talons below having sniper rifles on their corpses. As she started up towards the door, the answer to her query came in an unexpected form.

Another gust of wind ripped past her and Audrey jerked in surprise when a drop of an unknown red substance blew onto her armor's visor with a splat. Annoyed, she wiped it away leaving a crimson smear on the transparent nanoplastic. As she did, she looked in the direction from whence the drop came and the sight of its source nearly made her lose her grip on the railing and fall down the stairs. Hendrix, the Talon Company sniper, had not in fact retreated further into the tower. Instead, his lifeless body hung limply from the side of the tower above the catwalk on which Audrey now stood. Pinning him to the concrete edifice was a two foot long piece of shrapnel which protruded raggedly from his chest. The shrapnel had to have come from the exploding truck and its killing of Hendrix must have been instantaneous as his mouth hung open in a twisted half-scream and his sniper rifle was still clutched in his hand. As Audrey beheld this gruesome spectacle, she couldn't help recalling a Wasteland adage she had picked up in her travels. Be careful not to blow up the wrong thing at the wrong time.

She walked over to where the body was suspended and jumped up to grab the sniper rifle, her hand closing around the weapon's scarred barrel. Using her weight as leverage, Audrey let gravity do the work and she and the gun fell back onto the walkway. Granted, it would be more that she had to carry back to Megaton, but sniper rifles were great for extra ammo and parts to repair her superior Reservist rifle. Hefting the deceased Hendrix's weapon over her shoulder, she slinked up the stairs and pushed open the door.

The room beyond was much like the one she had left Dogmeat in, only this contained a wall-mounted computer terminal and two empty naval cots, each with a footlocker underneath. Not a soul remained to greet her here either. That left only one possible location where any remaining Talons could be holed up; the dish, with the only way up being the ladder and hatch now before her. Audrey quickly discounted this however, recalling seeing no movement on radar earlier. Even when living beings were sleeping or keeping very immobile, they still exhibited some minute movements that her Pip-dar was able to register. Since she had not seen any blips on the screen, the way above must be clear.

She allowed herself to relax and disengaged her cloak. She felt tired and her legs were killing her from all the running and jumping. She sat on one of the naval cots and set her and Hendrix's guns on the dusty canvas, also removing her helmet in the process. She then reached back behind her head and undid the seal that kept her stealth armor's face mask in place. There was a hiss as the recycled air from inside the mask rushed out. The mask's visor slid back over her head and the entire unit retracted to form an expanded collar around her neck.

Audrey was not normally in the habit of removing her facial protection in a dangerous environment such as this, but she desperately needed to feel some fresh air on her face. The armor's internal ventilation systems functioned quite well after two-hundred years, but they only could do so much. She undid her ponytail allowing her shoulder-length auburn hair to hang loosely around her face and wiped away the sweat on her brow with a gloved hand, the cool armored mesh doing little to bring her comfort.

She pulled out a bottle of Aqua Pura from her pack, courtesy of her heroics at Project Purity, and unscrewed the cap to take a long hard swig. The feeling of the lukewarm liquid coursing down her esophagus was even more pleasing to her than getting a chance to remove part of her hot armor. If there was one thing that the Wasteland had taught her very quickly, it was that hydration was a must. Without water, you would die; then again, given that most of the water around the Capital Wasteland contained trace amounts of radiation, you could still die by drinking it. Once she had had her fill, she poured the remaining water over her head allowing it to flow through her greasy hair and down her back in the gap between the armor and her skin. Out in the middle of nowhere, this was the closest a wastelander could come to a bath. She relished the thought of being able to freshen up in Megaton. At least there, she had a sink to wash in and could trade for what passed for soap these days from Moira Brown.

Figuring she should not keep Fawkes and Dogmeat waiting much longer, Audrey reluctantly hauled herself up, water droplets falling from her exposed skin as she did. She started to move towards the ladder, but paused and looked at her recently acquired sniper rifle that lay on the cot. If the dish was as high up as she thought it was, it had to have an incredible view. No point in having the best seat in the house if you couldn't see for miles. Picking up Hendrix's rifle, she detached its scope and returned the gun to the cot. There was no reason to lug the whole thing up there if the building was clear. She stuffed the scope into one of her armor's belt pouches and headed up.