She was floating, laughing and levitating over the hole in the concrete as I slowly approached, my eyes fixated on her feet. I was only a foot away from her when she finally stopped laughing long enough to explain "Geez Cole, for a super hero you seem really easy to freak out. Didn't I say Zeke's notes were in an old Brotherhood of Steel base?" I stared blankly at her, and she finally got the message that I wasn't getting hers "The Brotherhood of Steel is a group of scientists that try to preserve the technology of the old world while discovering technology to bring the new world back there. They discovered all sorts of crazy stuff, from power armor, to artificial sandstorms, to this, deverberating glass. The particles of this glass barely vibrate at all, making it insanely strong, give off no glare, and it gives no sound when you step on it." She said, jumping up and down to prove her point. Indeed, the only sounds made were the stretching of leather and the giggling of an annoying girl.
"Before I knock your lights out, how did you know that was even there? How were you certain that you wouldn't just drop fifty feet into radioactive sludge?" I countered, stepping up to her and onto the glass (and to my mild amusement making no noise).
"Hey, you broke my gun and scared the living hell out of me when you launched me over that fence; I think I earned a little payback. Regardless, I was born into the brotherhood. I used to cross this bridge all the time when I was little. They had outposts scattered further into the city, and wanted a way to move men and supplies from island to island without being followed, so they made this bridge look like a rickety death trap, when in actuality it is one of the sturdiest structures in the whole city." She said, looking slightly more solemn than before. I was going to ask why she was no longer part of this fancy club, but decided against it. It was probably a touchy subject, and one that would have to be re-explained about a dozen times before I finally got the gist of it through all the sci-fi jargon.
Instead we traversed the bridge in silence, stepping across the deceptive holes and the surprisingly sturdy feeling concrete. I almost felt bad stepping back onto the cracking asphalt on the other side... almost. The base was immediately to our right, built out of an old library, though a few things had changed since I last saw it. Moss and vines had overtaken much of the superstructure, burrowing into the rotting wood without issue. The yard around the library was ripped up and patchy, the yellow grass parting frequently, replaced by ditches partially filled with ashes and debris. Last, but certainly not least were the bodies.
Dozens of them littered the lawn, mangled and twisted beyond form, lying in heaps across the perimeter of the building. Blood that had browned caked the yellow grass and shapeless heaps of flesh. I turned calmly to the Clarisse "Would you care to explain this?"
She shrugged "Mostly landmines, though cannibals and varmints occasionally venture in to pick at some of the fresher additions. And before you try to suck them all dry you should probably know that half the mines are mechanical, half are electronic."
I chuckled at her nonchalance and responded "That doesn't really change my plan." I move her back a ways before positioning myself so I'm facing the river, perpendicular to the building. Finally, I throw an alpha blast. Bodies are thrown into the lake, the electrical landmines short out, and the mechanical ones go as they are shaken violently underground, causing a mass explosion I would dare to call hellacious. The whole front yard is essentially a two foot moat now save for the front steps, which seems a small price to pay all in all.
I hop into the ditch, offering my hand to Clarisse who is looking slightly wobbly (thinking about that a little harder, I probably should have told her to cover her ears or something). She accepts it and we make our way over to the front door, hoisting ourselves up and onto the porch. The door is made of some kind of reinforced steel alloy with no doorknob, there was however a fifties looking computer monitor mounted on the wall, with a keypad attached under it. "Well, do you know the password for this thing?" I ask Clarisse sheepishly.
She frowns "No... But we could try hacking it. I was never any good at it, though I could still teach you; maybe you'll have a little more luck than I do. So, when you try to open up the main screen you'll be greeted by several rows of coding. Within this coding, you'll notice words. These words will all be of the same length, and many will share some of the same le-!" She is started out of her lecture by a burst of sparks, emanating from the computer as I slammed my fist through the monitor, power surging into the inner electronics.
"What the hell is your problem Cole?! How are we supposed to get in now if-" She was cut off again as the door slowly creaked open, a smug smile creeping over my face as I stepped in. "And how did YOU know THAT would work?" She snorted, folding her arms as she followed me.
"I've had to deal with electronic locks a lot in my time, and if I've learned anything from that, it's that if I can't solve it by pumping more electricity in or taking some out, I can't solve it, period. Besides, it works a good two thirds of the time." I responded with some snark. It was only after I had turned back that I got a real good look at the inside of what was the library. The whole building had likely been gutted and refilled, with the outside acting as some sort of camouflage to its true nature. We were in a long metal hallway, with doors every ten feet on either side. Most of the doors were currently closed, but some were half open, with vines and strange patulous mounds of what looked like some sort of egg pouring into the hallway.
I became aware of a large set of crunching clicks as we made our way down the hall, the sound growing as we drew closer to the door at the end of the hall. We were about ten feet from the door at the end of the hall, the sound nearly deafening, when Clarisse tugged on my arm and pointed at one of the open doors "Rad Roaches!" She screamed over the clicking, backing up slightly as the door was forced open further. I had no time to ask what a rad roach was, but I was definitely shown one.
A cockroach, literally the length of my foot came scurrying out, approaching me in an erratic zigzag pattern. With a grimace I slammed my foot down on the bloated bug, its guts spewing out with a sickening crack. "Jesus that thing was big, was that the queen or something?" I asked, trying to scrape my foot off to the best of my ability.
"No... That was a baby." She said panicked, motioning towards the door. With a loud set of cracks another roach forced itself out of the door. This one went up to my waist and was longer than I was. I stepped back slowly and fired a stream of lightning into it, the roach surging blue and vibrating like mad. With a disgusting, slurping pop the roach blew apart before deflating, its white meat showering in all directions as the shell sank in on the remaining carcass. More roaches began to pour from the room, their exoskeletons scraping and scratching across the floor as they neared us, teeth clicking with the anticipation of fresh meat. I fired a barrage of tri-shots, roaches popping left and right, but there were too many. For every roach that feel, another one just popped out of the door. As the bigger ones neared my feet, I swung my arms back "Here we go." I said with confidence, ready to end this.
I turned and gathered energy, the air dropping in temperature as Icicles shot from the metal floors, impaling the overgrown parasites and thrusting them into the ceiling. The clicks grew faint as the whole hallway filled with ice, the creature's pasty white blood slowly dribbling across the floor in a viscous puddle. I panted with adrenaline as I marveled at the sight before me; a hundred bugs as big as a man were plastered all over the walls by pillars of ice, like something out of a cheesy gross out horror. I turned back to Clarisse, who was breathing just as deep. "You know, you could've stepped in any time there." I said coyly, wiping my hands off on my jeans.
"Hey, I'm not the one who blew up my gun and forced me to run out of Harland without any supplies. I'm not exactly the fist fighting type." She responded defensively, her cheeks reddening ever so slightly due to my jab. "This, by the way reminds me: you totally owe me a new gun!"
"Relax; I was just messing with you. Plus, with how advance these people were you can probably find all sorts of crazy guns. There's probably an Ion cannon behind one of these doors or something." I responded with a dismissive hand wave.
"An ion cannon? What the hell do I look like, a super mutant? Though, I do remember seeing a lot of cool laser rifles. If we could find the armory..." She replied nonchalantly, her tone making it impossible for me to tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
With a loud electric hiss I drew the energy from the door panel at the end of the hall before prying the door itself open. We walked down the long metal staircase and found ourselves in some sort of commons, a square twenty by twenty room with an elevator in the middle and a door on each wall. Clarisse approached the elevator, pressing the down arrow and taking a step back. A light, computerized voice came to life soon afterwards, coming from an unseen speaker "Unauthorized use of terminal. Please state Pip-boy serial number, or face retaliation. You have twenty seconds to comply."
Clarisse frowned, looking at her bare wrist as if it contained the answers "Pip-boy not received, user name CLARISSE WERNSTROM." She said to the disembodied voice, her muscles tensing as silence settled over the room.
The machine spoke again "I'm sorry, the Pip-boy number you have given is incorrect. Retaliation commencing."
I took a step backwards, toward the stairwell "What sort of retaliation are we talking about here, terminators, cyborgs, or just some automated turrets." I asked, eyes darting between the doors as another ominous set of clicks was heard (albeit this one far more metallic in tone).
"No, Mr. Gusty." She responded, taking a step back with me. The door to my right swishes open, my aim immediately fixing on the doorway. A metal bulb on some sort of hovering disk with mounted guns, saws, and pincers slowly sputtered out, barely able to keep altitude as the lights on it flickered dimly. With a pop and a clang the thing fell to the ground, arms waving ineffectually as the device coughed to a halt. I laughed as Clarisse slowly approached the downed drone without caution. "Huh, that was a lot more impressive five years ago; it's probably out of gas." She commented, tapping on the bulbous head of the device with curiosity.
While she poked and prodded the machine, I went to work on the elevator, draining the control panel before pulling the door open. The elevator was on the floor below, at least a twelve foot drop from here to the roof of it. Clarisse looked over my shoulder "We can probably just use the cable to climb down there." She suggested, taking the cable between her hands and drawing herself into the elevator shaft.
"You do that; I'll make a hole for us to get in." I said, leaping past her and falling down the shaft. I drew a light amount of energy, as much static as I could manage from such a low drop off, but it was still enough. Sparks flew as I slammed through the top of the elevator, landing flawlessly on the steel floor. After a few moments, Clarisse stepped in behind me and helped open the door.
The room's flickering made the whole thing seem bigger, the shadows allowing the walls to expand just beyond our vision. The walls themselves were lined with filing cabinets, each labeled by year in proceeding order until the unseen end of the room. "Is the future always this creepy? I mean, apart from the arsonists, mutant bugs, and the literal mounds of rotting corpses." I inquired, stepping past the cabinets labeled 1740-1750.
"What, were you under the impression that nuclear apocalypse would be all unicorns and cupcakes?" She replied, continuing to scan cabinet after cabinet. We continued in silence for another minute before reaching the proper year, about halfway down the long hall. After ten minutes of flipping through all of the assorted days, weeks, and months, she finds one file in the far back, labeled "July 16th, 2026. Dunbar Zeke. Atomic destabilization theorem draft C." The file was fat and hefty, with dozens of papers and thousands of red pen marks between the pages.
I could barely understand a goddamned word of the whole thing. Zeke's sloppy handwriting was only made worse by the subject matter, he slightly washed out look of all the pages, and adding over a decade onto him, but the message was still clear. Though I couldn't comprehend the math, but the words hit hard. He droned on about the supercharging of atoms acting as a conduit for the displacement of matter, and how by bouncing all the conduits energy through me and blasting it out of the device somehow converted the cells in me into energy, only destabilizing into matter after the surge stopped travelling around the world (which apparently took almost three hundred years). At the very back of the notes was a still sealed envelope, addressed to me. My fingers trembling, I tore the envelope open and read in silence.
"Hey Cole, It's your buddy, Zeke.
I don't know if you've gotten the other messages I've left, I put them in the previous drafts of my thesis papers, but if you haven't, I'll recap. Cole, I'm glad we were able to make amends before you left. I know what I did was shitty, and I'm glad you and I put that behind us, but right now I think you have to look forward. Things are going to hell fast, and I don't know how much longer we can hold out. Just the other day I read about some Chinese thermonuclear arms pact with Kazakhstan or something, and we've just gone to war with Mexico over some BS political cover (truth is if we can't get gas down to fifteen bucks a gallon, we'll be driving in gold powered cars to save cash) Either society's gonna collapse, Mother Nature will kick the bucket, or some new strain of the plague will rise up... to be fair I'm pretty sure one will beget the other. Without knowing exactly how many watts you pumped into the RFI we (well, I say we. Most of the other researchers gave up years ago or got moved to army research labs, so I've mostly been flying solo) can't even begin to guess were you'll end up, but wherever (or whenever) you are, you've got to promise me something: Stick to your guns Cole, be the saint that the future needs, be the light leading the... people of mankind out... of the darkness or whatever (Sorry, I'm more a man of action than words as you'll probably remember). Just do what you used to do, help people. Whelp, I better wrap this up before the building is locked up. Best of luck to you and I hope you get your hands on any future letters I leave (also, if the Amp is still in the New Marais history museum, don't be surprised if I tweaked it a little).
Dr. (that's right baby, read em' and weep) Zeke J. Dunbar"
I stared blankly at the letter for a long time, time seeming to pause as I came to realize just how crazy things had gotten. I'm almost three hundred years into the godforsaken mess that is the future, and I've just been asked by long dead and only friend to do whatever I could to help. I slipped the note into my pocket and swiveled towards the door, my mind coming up with only two words.
Now what?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Longest chapter of this story so far and still one of the shortest chapter's I've written. Hope you all enjoyed, Read and review. Next chapter is at most 8 days away.