It was all too surreal. The world was hot and brown and scorched all over and the air smelled. Like what Nathan didn't know but it wasn't pleasant. A far cry from the cool sterile atmosphere inside the vault.
There were plants to be seen, though they were as brown and likely as dead as everything else seemed to be. Nathan kept walking and looked to his right and saw an old water tower out beyond the shriveled remains of blackened trees and gigantic rocks. He ran his fingers along the rusty guardrails that still stood beside the road and glanced at the many old newspapers and forgotten articles that were strewn every which way across the asphalt.
As he passed the broken wreak of an old automobile he began to wonder exactly what sort of place he had been thrust into. He had seen photos of the world above ground but the ruin was like nothing he could have imagined. Soon the road led right into the town of Springvale. All at once Nathan knew that things were as bad as the Overseer always said.
It was a sea of skeletons. Scarcely a building had a roof and a lot of the old wood was brittle and crumbled beneath Nathan's touch. Though there were other structures that stood strong and felt as sturdy as stone. Rubble and tattered papers and chunks of metal littered the broken streets and automobile carcasses of all kinds could be seen. In the distance, there was more of the same accompanied by broken power poles and towers which Nathan assumed had lost their power ages ago.
As dismal as everything felt, Nathan was filled with curiosity. He came across one of a few metal boxes that still stood outside of one of the many derelict homes. It took a few moments before he recognized the structure as an old mailbox. He opened the box and found a letter, surprisingly still legible, addressed to a family from Vault-Tec. The news must have been devastating. The family wasn't chosen for entrance into Vault 101 and thus the company had damned them to brave the apocalypse alone.
'Shit. I wouldn't sweat it. You guys didn't miss a goddamn thing,' thought Nathan.
Though it came from increasing bitterness, he had to admit that even life with the Overseer, infuriating as it was, couldn't compare to the hellish landscape that lay around him. He shuddered to think of what fate befell the lost recipients of the letter. He hoped that at the very least their world ended in a flash of blinding light. Painless and seamless. Completely unlike what was likely waiting for him out in the wastes.
That too was beginning to occur to him. What chance did he have, his wounded condition aside, of finding his father in this great expanse of foreign soil? What would he do about food or water? All was quiet and he couldn't even be sure that this wasteland city he was going to was even still there. If Megaton was anything like Springvale he'd be finished before another day had come and gone. Worse still, if Megaton was still alive and well, as the Overseer's files suggested, how could he be sure that whatever people he found were amicable.
The more he thought about it the worse he felt. The odds of finding his father, alive no less were even lower than himself surviving another day.
It was all so unfair.
He had done nothing to deserve this. He was tired, his head was throbbing from both the heat and the fall he took, and there was still the matter of the bullet in his side. If nothing else, Wally's father was a good shot, though not an excellent one seeing as how Nathan was still alive for the moment and Mack was likely suffering from a severe concussion courtesy of his old baseball bat.
Nathan hated Mack, and most of the Vault security force barring a few and the feelings were requited. Still, he never saw it coming to this. Flawed as the vault had been, everyone was still a family, albeit a dysfunctional one, but a family none the less.
And then, his dad had opened the door and everyone had lost their minds. That prick, Officer Gomez, had been nice enough until the rest of the security team had shown up. Then he may as well have been a stranger. It made Nathan seethe with rage all over again and suddenly he was glad that Gomez too would be nursing a concussion alongside Officer Mack.
As bad as things were, Nathan couldn't help but feel worse for Amata. She was daddy's little angel, the golden child of Vault 101, everyone knew that but in the wake of madness she'd been nothing but another pebble in the chaos. The Overseer, her very own father, had not only allowed her torture but was watching it happen. All because she had helped him escape. Aiding the son of the enemy. It was certainly punishable under any circumstance but even more so because it was him.
There was a long history of bad blood between the Almodovars and the Frosts. James was the only resident of the vault that didn't fear the Overseer or his security. James made it a point to call him by his given name, Alphonse, rather than his position, something anyone else would have suffered for. Still, given his status as the sole vault physician, there was no doubt that James had immunity. A perk Nathan also enjoyed to some extent. If it were possible, Alphonse Almodovar hated Nathan even more than James, maybe more than anyone else in the vault. No doubt due to the affection his daughter always held for Nathan.
Perhaps Alphonse had always accused him of stealing Amata's innocence. Truthfully, it had been the other way around. Were he in better shape, Nathan could have laughed at the things that her father didn't know, would never know, now that the vault was compromised.
Amata had saved his life last night and for what, to face certain death in a world he knew nothing about in search of his Father who, Nathan apparently didn't know nearly as well as he thought he did. He had to stop the tears that badly wanted to spill. His own situation was looking to be hopeless and he had no idea what was happening back at home. For all he knew, Amata could still be at the mercy of her father or a few of his men.
He wiped at his eyes and wanted to say a prayer for her and everyone else caught in this new nightmare. Another wandering glance at the ruined town around him made him realize that God was far from the wretched place called Earth.
A whirring sound in the air alerted Nathan from his worries instilling a new sense of dread. He scurried into one of the ruined homes and took cover behind a blackened wall. He removed his 10mm pistol from his hip and readied it for whatever was making the noise that startled him. He waited for a moment, afraid to take a look, and began to hear a voice or a recording of a voice since there seemed to be some sort of interference interwoven in the speech.
The whirring sound and the voice grew closer and Nathan tried to imagine the thing responsible before he could see it. To his surprise and his relief, the source revealed itself to be a small metallic machine of some sort that was hovering above the streets. It looked weathered, thought not nearly as much as the surrounding ruins and to him it looked a lot like an eye.
This Eyebot, as Nathan had taken to calling it, wasn't doing anything particularly menacing. In fact, the voice he heard from it was rather soothing, cathartic even. It proclaimed itself as being someone called President Eden. It was a name Nathan didn't recognize as the last president he had read about was long dead, and that was over 200 years ago. Certainly there was no government to be had anymore, not with the world being the way it was. The messages were likely a pre war recording but it still gave Nathan a bit of hope that perhaps the Eyebot was a sign of life, and technological ingenuity, beyond what he could see. Perhaps there was some promise to be found out in the wasteland yet.
With his nerves restored, Nathan eased from his cover and moved slowly to his feet so as not to alarm the Eyebot, which could still be deadly despite its claims of restoration. The machine circled around and resumed its patrol of Springvale. Nathan stood as still as he could and the thing passed him without harassment. Nathan had wanted a better look; the gear head within him wanting at once to know what made it tick and if it were the same technology that powered Andy and the rest of the robots back home.
Alas, time was something he didn't have much of. His wound wasn't going to get any better on its own and it could have been a longer trek to Megaton than he realized. God forbid if he got caught out here in the dead of night. Anyone or anything could be lurking beyond his sight and while his pistol and bat had served him well enough in the vault, they were far from comforting.
Nathan wished he had brought his medical supplies. Pain killers being the least of what he needed. He had never done any sort of surgery on himself, as his father always joked about the foolishness of it, but it would have been nice to know that the option were there should the situation prove dire enough.
He took a moment to unzip his jumpsuit and lifted his tank top, which had been white but was now quite red and sticky from his wound. It looked as bad as it felt and he knew that it wasn't good. Certainly life threatening. He was hurting all over now and it was getting hard to tell exactly where he had been shot.
'Jesus, I gotta get somewhere' thought Nathan with increasing panic. 'Please be there Megaton.'
Just then, a scream and sounds of a distant struggle pierced the air. Nathan immediately thought of the Eyebot but it wasn't far from where he was standing. It was much too close to have made the sounds he'd heard. Another Scream followed by gun shots and laughter resounded from the land and Nathan's gut told him to ignore it and move on. The fool in him though was stronger than his gut and he felt compelled to follow the commotion.
He had little to offer, but whoever was making the sounds might have needed his help. The thought of other people, out there as alone as he was, was irresistible. An ally or at the very least a kindred spirit was just what he needed to put him at ease and help him find his way.
He made his way north, cutting through an old playground and past a large fueling station with a gigantic Red Rocket. Next to it Nathan saw a large rusty sign which had been painted with the word 'Megaton' in large yellow letters. He took notice of the sign but his mind was now focused on the new situation at hand.
His foot caught the edge of an old tricycle and he nearly fell again. He caught himself and pressed forward past an old swing set and more wreaked vehicles and downed power poles. He ventured past a few more homes, including an old ranch, which were intact and seemed habitable. He began to approach them when more cries and now even laughter drew his attention away from them.
Nathan came to a Stop sign at the intersection beyond the homes and saw a building, far larger than the others and in much better shape. It was a school, an Elementary school once he was close enough to read the massive sign in front of it. As he drew closer to the school, so too did the din of voices. Soon the voices took shape and Nathan saw a group of men and women, dressed in strange leather garb, surrounding a trio of downed men.
Horror seeped into Nathan's face as the beatings began. He took cover behind a large tree and hoped that he hadn't been spotted. By his count there were at least six of them; two women, four men. The girls for their part, were content with watching the men assault the victims who where middle aged, if not elderly.
One of the older men let out a scream and swung wildly at the assailants. A lucky haymaker struck home, and one of the leather men was sent reeling, not a crippling blow, but solid enough that the silver haired man could make a break for it.
His escape was nearly thwarted by the leather clad people who began drawing their guns. The fleeing man's compatriots took up arms and began a deadly skirmish for control over the weapons. It wasn't successful and the pair were easily beaten back down into submission.
Their friend had been lucky enough to escape beyond the rocks but the brutes seemed to lose interest in him once the old men had gotten uppity.
Nathan heard one of the women snicker about how they were going to start cutting off limbs now. Her friend, the other woman in the group, began laughing about how best to prolong the men's torture. Nathan cringed once one of the men proclaimed in an amused voice how long it had been since he'd fucked an old man in his ass. The entire group burst out into a fit of laughter.
Nathan clutched tightly at his pistol from behind the tree shaking in fear from what he knew was a certain end for the old men across the way. He wanted badly to help them, to save them, but how could he? He didn't know anything.
He knew that the old men could have been guilty of some horrible unknown crime. They could have just as easily been innocent. Or not. He knew nothing, he was certain of that and of the fact that he could do nothing lest he risk joining the old men in the sand. And so Nathan sat, impotently, waiting for them to move on, taking the screaming men with them into the old school.
He heard the doors slam shut with an immense thud and the maniacal laughter and screams were abruptly shut off. Wiping the sweat from his brow and blinking away the sting of sweat that had fallen into his eyes, Nathan found the courage to stand up and peer around the corner at the school. His eyes scanned the ground where the struggle had been, and let them follow the trail of blood and discord that led into the big double doors. He rubbed at his face again, smearing new sweat across his soft features and thought to himself that there was nothing he could have done.
Nathan took another glance at the school, which he now saw as a cold wicked place; A place better left to braver souls than himself and made his way back into the main street of Springvale.