FALLING STARS CHAPTER 9- PERPETUAL JOURNEY
Once upon a time the mystical deity, Tastychainsaws, had an issue with his word processor and managed to butcher this chapter. He tried long and hard to fix this error and only just now realized what he did to cause it. It is too late to salvage it, so he must go and rewrite all of it.
I didn't change any content that was originally here. I just expanded it, descriptions and thoughts are now a lot longer than before.
ONLY ONE MORE STEP RIGHT?
Konata had so much on her mind that she was nearly twitching with anxiety. If Hiyori was correct, which Konata assumed she was, then she would be reunited with her father within the next couple hours. That was a very reassuring thought, especially since she had quite enough of the wasteland and it's wonders. Her desire for adventure was quickly fleeting now that they were routinely fighting things that shot back at them.
Her thoughts were interrupted as a helicopter with two propellers on either wing flew over them. It was heading north, which was the opposite direction that they were going. Konata thought that was probably a good thing, more so when she considered that the aerial vehicle probably belonged to the same group of guys whose soldier Kagami had wasted earlier that day.
"How do you like the beach?" Kagami asked her sister. They were heading south along the shore, but still avoiding the poisonous water that splashed up against the rocky sand. The sky, which was always an ashy gray or dull yellow, reflected into the water and gave it a sinister look. Kagami thought it was fitting since there were plenty of things in the water that would gladly feast upon them. Mirelurks weren't just the only aquatic menaces apparently, there were also Slaughter Fish that could strip someone down to a skeleton in seconds. There were also the Drough, which were mutated octopus human hybrids, whose agendas were not unlike those of Super Mutants.
"It's kind of sad actually." Tsukasa sighed. The broken rocky shore and dull gray water certainly wasn't nice to look at. She glanced up at the sky and saw the sun poking through the ever present clouds of ash, permanent nuclear winter certainly made nature lose most of its beauty.
"I know what you mean." Kagami replied, "Sorry I said anything."
In the distance, the Jefferson Memorial was looming and closer. It had originally been build above the tidal zone but now was now halfway submerged in water. From the outside it was hard to tell if it was watertight or not, the three of them each hoped that the interior wouldn't be flooded.
"Wow, they really working on something there." Kagami remarked when she saw the massive pipes and machinery weaving its way in and out of the building on the north side. She had originally thought that Project Purity was just some experiments with no real merit, but even two decades later you could still see the labor from several years worth of effort.
A massive metal catwalk was built along the west side, it made crossing the rocky shoreline easy. Konata looked west towards the DC ruins and saw a makeshift fortress of scrap metal and massive steel beams. Super Mutant build by the look of it, that metal catwalk had saved them the trouble of having to maneuver around that.
"Onee-chan look!" Tsukasa yelped and pointed at the bodies of two Super Mutants that were laying next each other on the stairs leading back down to the shore on the far side of the catwalk.
Kagami kneeled down and inspected the bodies. "Energy weapons by the look of it, these bodies can't be more than an hour old." She drew her newly obtained laser rifle, "Konata grab your shotgun, I doubt we're alone."
They had been alone though, the slayers of those Mutants were long gone.
THE SLAYER BEING…
Kuroi stepped out of her Vertibird onto the landing platform of the Enclave base- Raven Rock. Their search of the Jefferson Memorial had turned up absolutely nothing, the project had been completely abandoned. All she had found were some rambling notes from the old researcher, Sojiro Izumi, which she promptly crushed under her foot after hearing how useless they were.
The only useful recordings they had found had been from a woman named Kanata Izumi. Among her stupid raving about how excited she was to be a mother, she had mentioned something about where all her real data was. It had been hidden away on a computer terminal which was password protected and so outdated that it couldn't be hacked using the normal conventional method.
Overall the only thing they accomplished was killing off a couple dozen Super Mutants. Those things made Kuroi laugh in the face of the Brotherhood of Steel. Those are what you are so worked up about? They're a minor convenience at best, those SATCOM raiders from that campaign six years ago were a much bigger threat. We have never had any trouble with Super Mutants, not once. In fact the those raiders almost won that battle at that farmhouse, I had to torch a few dozen citizens but we still won.
Unless she could force Tamura and her team into restarting it then they were stuck. Water and its properties were not the Enclave's specialty. They were great at dealing mutated creatures and manufacturing new technology, but life sciences like that were not part of the package. So, unless Project Purity was miraculously restarted within the next week, Raven Rock would lose all funding.
That was not okay by Nanako, she worked hard, struggled, and bled for this place and was just now seeing real rewards. She would stop at literally nothing to make this work, there weren't any boundaries for her. Kuroi let go of any sense of remorse or empathy to others, that would only hinder her.
THE JEFFERSON MEMORIAL
Since the original front doors to the Jefferson Memorial were submerged in water and blocked by pipes, the three girls were forced to take a side door on the south side. They entered into a long hallway with a four way intersection in the center portion of it. On the right wall, just before the hallway intersected right, there was a computer terminal that looked extremely out of place.
"Where to now?" Tsukasa asked and peered down the hall. There were three more Mutant corpses sprawled out across the dim hall.
"We have to find my dad silly!" Konata reminded her and skipped merrily down to the intersection.
"Konata don't run ahead!" Kagami yelled, Konata turned around and smiled back while walking backwards.
"Kagamin, you're the one behaving like ghosts exist now." She giggled then walked backwards into the intersection with her hands behind her head.
Sadly Kagami's fears were instantly realized when she heard the sound of automatic weapon fire. She and Tsukasa screamed as bullets tore through Konata's tiny frame, the force of the rounds sent Konata spinning backwards. Bullets puffed against the ground and sent little clouds of dust and debris in all directions. Konata stumbled out of the line of fire then fell forward with all the grace of a bird who tried to fly with clipped wings.
Tsukasa and Kagami rushed to Konata's side, blood was forming in a thick pool around her. Kagami turned her over, her body was riddled with bullet holes from the unseen shooter, she was worse off than Kagami had been when she was shot in Minefield.
"You were right…" Konata muttered, "…getting shot sucks."
Tsukasa went to work quickly on their wounded friend. She retrieved her first aid kit, some stimpaks, and a combat knife.
"What's the knife for?" Kagami nervously asked.
Tsukasa gave her a worried glance. "The bullets didn't go through the other side. I…I have to take them out with this."
It was Konata's turn to panic. "Are you sure you can't just leave them in? No offense Tsukasa but I really, really don't want you to perform surgery on me."
"It'll be fine." Tsukasa assured her. "Now close your eyes and think happy thoughts while I take your jumpsuit off." Konata obliged and managed to let Tsukasa strip her down to her underwear, the process was exceedingly painful. Kagami paced around randomly, she didn't know what to do.
"Let me deal with the shooter." She told them then grabbed her laser rifle. Kagami made her way to the corner of the intersection and peered around the corner slowly. All that was in the next room was a circular desk in what looked to be a lobby.
She reluctantly stepped out into the open. On the ceiling she saw a bit of machinery turn to her and then there was a muzzle flash. Kagami leapt out of the way and tried to control her racing heart. "Shit, automated turret. That sure makes things interesting."
"Ahh, I'm dieing! I can see all my guts!" Konata screamed from back down the hallway. Kagami was about to have a full blown panic attack until she heard…
"Kona-chan I haven't even started yet!" Tsukasa reminded her.
"Oh yeah, was just practicing is all."
Kagami sighed, only Konata could continue to be silly with six bullet wounds. Now it was time to deal with that pesky turret, but how…The answer came to her in an instant, that was what the terminal right next her was for. Her guess proved correct, this terminal was indeed designed to work the turret. It was stupid trap since more experienced looters would have picked up on that instantly, not them however.
It was password protected, Kagami remotely linked her Pip-Boy to it and uploaded the last 1000 words typed into the terminal. One of those words was the password, she could also tell that it was twenty-one letter word, and luckily there were only 32 words ever typed into this thing. In other words the password was easy to find.
Ilovegirlswithglasses was what Kagami typed in, as luck would have it, the turret powered down. A grim and bitter realization came to her as the turret went limp and turned useless. Sojiro set this turret up, and it just riddled his daughter with holes. He almost killed his daughter…
"The turrets taken care of." Kagami told the other two and sat down next to them. Konata's chest was bandaged and the stimpaks were slowly doing their job, next to her were six reddened bulleted next to a bloodstained knife. That image made Kagami grimace, but at least Tsukasa was a decent surgeon.
"What should we do now?" Tsukasa asked, "Kona-chan isn't in any condition to walk and I want to stay near her incase anything goes wrong with the injury."
Kagami was expecting Konata to leap up and defy all odds, but instead the tiny blunette was fast asleep. Asleep isn't right, she probably fainted at the sight of Tsukasa digging bullets out of her with a knife. Judging by the blood everywhere, she was probably correct.
"Here's what we're going to do." Kagami began. "Leave her there and go into the restroom that's left at the intersection. All restrooms have a first aid kit, take the blood pack and give her a transfusion. It looks like she lost a lot of blood."
"Right." Tsukasa replied with a determined look on her face. "I know how to do transfusions. I'm a Vault-Tec certified doctor!" To prove her point she took out her wallet and pulled out a plastic card that stated that Tsukasa was an eligible to perform first aid. The stickers all over it took away from its seriousness.
"I know you are, now I'm going to go scout the place out." Kagami told her and stood up. "If I'm not back in an hour, come looking for me."
Tsukasa nodded and went to go find that first aid kit.
Kagami explored the Memorial as thoroughly as she could. There was no sign of life though, all she found were more Super Mutant corpses. Whoever had done them in had done it with almost mechanical precision, all of them were killed by energy weapons to the head. This was indicated by their charred skulls, which were usually no longer attached to their heads.
She found one room that looked extremely out of place, it was a bedroom; and a nice one at that. It was on the level below the ground one, the room it was in seemed like it was chosen arbitrarily. The queen sized bed had its elaborate red sheets tossed aside onto the ground, all the drawers of the armoire had been pulled out and their contents dumped on the ground. The entire place had been ransacked apparently, and not very well done either. At Kagami's feet were several audiotapes which had been crushed into small fragments.
Kagami looked around to try and find any sort of clue as to what her predecessor had been hunting for. She found a foot locker under the bed and searched it, there were more of those audiotapes, except these ones had been saved from the same fate as their crushed brethren. They were labeled Project Purity Journal 1, 3, 5, 7, 8. Kagami looked at the crushed ones and found they were labeled under the same name just with the missing numbers, and a few labeled Personal Journal which had also been relentlessly smashed. She could also see the remains of one named Better Days. Judging by the destruction at her feet, she assumed it was Super Mutant that had done it.
She gathered the intact ones and made her way back up to the ground level where Konata and her sister were. Sojiro wasn't here but these tapes could have the answer to where he was now.
"Onee-chan!" Tsukasa cried as Kagami regrouped with them. Konata was awake now and waved at her.
"No sign of your dad." Kagami said and sat down next to them. "Found these though." She displayed all of the audiotapes.
"Hey, I found some of those too!" Tsukasa said and showed Kagami seven that's she had found. When she had left to the bathroom, she went the wrong way and ended up in a large circular room that was almost made entirely out of glass. She found these on some machinery and decided to bring them back.
"What are we waiting for?" Konata asked and took the one labeled Project Purity Journal 1 and scanned it on her Pip-Boy, when she was done listening to it she moved onto the next. Then the next, and the next, and the next one after that…
Each one was a recording from her father.
PROJECT PURITY JOURNAL 1
"We're back at work after a full week of delays. The Brotherhood Soldiers were able to repair the sentry guns, much to my relief. I know Hiyori isn't comfortable having them here, but there's no denying that we'd be lost without them. We're still waiting on the full analysis of the last three small-scale purification tests."
"Kanata hasn't been feeling well, and it's slowing down our research. I don't mind, but I can tell it's bothering some of the others."
PROJECT PURITY JOURNAL 3
"Well, there's no more mystery behind Kanata's health problems. The news of her pregnancy has lifted the spirits of everyone here, and given us a renewed interest in making the purifier work. We now have a future generation to provide for."
"The latest tests show that our methods are horribly inefficient, but I think we're on the right track."
"Kanata refuses to rest; she insists on spending all day in the lab. I've never seen her more driven. She's determined to resolve the power problems before the baby is born. I've tried to reason with her, but it's no use."
PROJECT PURITY JOURNAL 5
"The team has made plans to scale back our work once the baby is born. We're also trying to compensate for the increase in mutant attacks; no one is really talking about the implications of it."
"There are more of them than before. We know it, and the Brotherhood soldiers know it. Our relationship with the Brotherhood is straining."
"They're concerned by the lack of concrete results from the project, especially in light of the mutant attacks. They haven't come out and said it, but we all know what's going on. They're questioning whether their involvement in the project is worth the trouble it's causing them. They lost two good men this week, with three more injured."
PROJECT PURITY JOURNAL 7
"I am at a loss. My beloved wife is gone. In her place is my daughter, small and helpless." "As much as this place means to me... As much as it meant to Kanata, this is no place for an infant. Especially an infant without her mother."
PROJECT PURITY JOURNAL 8
"It's time to go. The project was in trouble before, both internally and externally. Progress has come to a halt, both because our re-calculations have gotten us nowhere, and because the mutant attacks occur several times a day."
"I regret it has come to this. I know that if I leave, our work may come to an end. Hiyori has never been on the best of terms with the Brotherhood; aside from Scribe Rothchild, she'll tolerate none of them. If she's the one dealing with them, who knows what will happen."
"It breaks my heart to go, but I must put the needs of my child before my own."
GUILT
The emotions triggered by those tapes was not the one that Konata expected. It was earth shattering guilt, the feeling that it was her fault that Project Purity had fallen apart.
Kagami, sensing this, tried to make her feel better. "It's not your fault that it didn't work out. You heard what your dad said, the Mutant attacks and the strained relationship with Brotherhood of Steel would have destroyed anyways."
"I know, but it still makes me feel sick listening to it." Konata replied, "Let's play the rest of the tapes. These ones are from recent I think…"
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL
"Well, here we are again. Project Purity and me. It's been close to twenty years since my last entry, as I left all of this behind to make a life for my daughter. We spent that time in Vault 101, tucked away from the rest of the world. It wasn't perfect, but it was safe, and that's all I could have hoped for. Now, my daughter is a grown woman. Beautiful, intelligent, confident. Just like her mother. And as hard as it was to admit it, she doesn't need her daddy anymore."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 1
"So here I am, back where it all began. Project Purity. God, we wanted to change the world. We really thought the waters of life could be a reality. And that's why this is a momentous occasion. Because even after nineteen years, I still believe it. Project purity can and will be operational. This is just the beginning."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 2
"This is day 2 of my attempt to resurrect this project. I've got one of the portable fusion generators up and running, but its just enough to power the emergency lighting and a couple of other systems. It will serve for now, but I need help powering up the mainframe. Time to visit Hiyori in Rivet City."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 3
"I spoke with Doctor Tamura, Hiyori, at Rivet City. It went about as well as I expected. That is to say she thinks I'm completely mad. How can I blame her? She's got her own life, her own team, and is making real tangible scientific progress. Here I come again, the very paragon of failure and false promises. But the reality is, I need Hiyori and whatever scientific team she may have assembled. I can't do this myself. Project Purity is bigger than me, it always was. And without Kanata... God, I can't let this die. Not again, not like this."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 5
"Even in Vault 101, my work on Project Purity never really stopped. Soon after we arrived, my nightly routine included sneaking into the restricted areas. Searching for, I don't know, whatever I could find. It was a Vault-Tec facility after all. The place was built with some of the most advanced technology this country had ever developed. Those excursions never turned up anything particularly useful. So one night, after half a bottle of scotch, I broke into the Overseer's office. It was easy enough to hack her console, gain access to the restricted files. Most of it was garbage: propaganda, spy reports, just plain rambling bullshit, really. But there was one thing, one name that stood out amongst all the others... Dr. Stanislaus Braun. I knew of Braun's work, of course. He was a celebrity in his day. Vault-Tec's sorcerer-scientist, leaving his peers in awe of his technological wizardry. But it was in Vault 101 that night in the Overseer's office, that I first learned of Braun's involvement in Vault-Tec's social preservation program, and his work on something called GECK, Garden of Eden Creation Kit. I can only imagine what Kanata's reaction to that would have been."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 8
"To be honest, the GECK sounded like pure fantasy, even for someone of Braun's capabilities. It was nothing short of a miracle. A terra-forming module, capable of producing life from complete lifelessness. But not only was this thing a reality, it was actually distributed to several vaults to be used after an atomic war. Vault 101 was, sadly, not on that list. I did some digging and discovered Braun's name on the reservation list for a vault 112. I'm no slouch, but this man, he could have easily succeeded where I failed. Does his collected knowledge remain within the halls of vault 112? Journals, holotapes, computer records, maybe even experiments? If I could gain access to just a fraction of Braun's genius, Project Purity would become a reality."
PROJECT PURITY PERSONAL JOURNAL 10
"I'm off to Vault 112 to search for anything of Braun's that might help me get this purifier up and running. All I know is that it's West of some place called "Evergreen Mills," and it's well hidden in some sort of garage. But I'll find it, I have to. It's so close, but that's the story of Project Purity, isn't it? An eternity of "almost there's". Let's see if Braun has the missing puzzle piece."
FOLLOWING IN HIS FOOTSTEPS.
Konata stood up when the last tape ended and began walking towards the door.
"Wait where are you going, come back!" Kagami shouted and went after her.
"I don't know Kagami, west of some place called Evergreen Mills in some sort of garage." She replied quickly and kept walking. Tsukasa joined them and followed Konata outside.
"Konata charging blindly into the unknown is what got you shot!" A frustrated Kagami yelled. Konata stopped in her tracks causing Kagami bump into her.
"You're right." Konata muttered staring at the ground and shrugged. "So what do you think do then?"
"Me?" Kagami blurted out, she didn't really know. She took a few minutes to think about it. "I say we go back to Megaton and rendezvous with Yui again and start from there, for all we know there's radio broadcast from Vault 101 saying we can all go home."
Konata silently considered all she had said. "Okay, let's go there and make plans to find Vault 112. I want to help my dad finish Project Purity."
OTHER FRUSTRATIONS
"I told you for the last time that's all the data we have." The young officer, Major Wilder, growled. He hated this shitty "promotion". After his old boss, Force Colonel Atkinson had his throat chewed out by some crazy woman he'd been shifted all over Raven Rock. After failing to become a Vertibird pilot he ended up as the underling of Colonel Nanako Kuroi.
Kuroi snorted. "You couldn't find anything besides a random cluster of audio tapes about some dude whining about all his failures and dead wife?" After her initial search turned up nothing, she had another team do a more thorough one.
"Yes!" He told her desperately. For some reason his new boss refused to listen. "I keep telling you they abandoned the project for a reason and unless we pick it up ourselves, which we don't have the knowledge to do, it's staying dead!"
"The journal entries labeled personal said specifically their old lead researcher is picking it up again and Dr. Tamura clarified it too." Kuroi argued. "All I'm asking are some stealth eyebots so we know when they pick it up again. It's either that or we try my idea of trying to interbreed humans and Deathclaws again."
The officer placed his head in his hands and groaned. He prayed the eyebots would record something of value before Kuroi managed to kill every last one of them with her Deathclaws experiments. Just what the fuck was her fascination with those things anyways?
YUI'S WORRIES
They arrived at Megaton just after midnight and after several seconds of intense debate decided to wake up Yui. However, she was already awake. She led the three in and before even bothering to greet them asked them to do something, this time it was more justifiable. "Since I hadn't heard anything from my sister Yutaka I had Jericho go and check up on her in Arefu and he said that the mayor there said that she had gone missing after some raider gang called the Family attacked them a couple weeks ago, they probably already sold her into slavery or ate her or something. I need you guys to save her!"
With that she burst into tears. Neither of them was sure how to react. "It's okay Narumi-san we'll go out and save her first thing tomorrow!" Konata assured her, Kagami groaned at how easily she would change priorities.
"Thanks, you're the best cousin ever." Yui said with a smile and hugged her
"C-cousin?" Konata stuttered in surprise. Even more about her family was revealed that day.
VACATION TO AREFU
They woke around noon and Yui was practically pushing them out the door to find her sister. Konata wanted to ask more about her family and past but with other pressing matters it seemed she wouldn't get any answers anytime soon. Arefu was located northwest of Megaton and relative easy to find since it was only two hours away. The three of them set out with renewed spirits, Kagami got to sleep in Yao Guai fur pajamas since Yui felt guilty about accidentally melting her jumpsuit in a chemical fire the day before. Konata who had found so much that previous day was excited to possibly meet her younger cousin.
Tsukasa borrowed a book called "The wasteland cookbook" and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't about cooking at all. Right now she was reading up on how to make white phosphorus out of every day household items.
The town itself was situated on a major overpass the loomed over a very shallow part of the Potomac River, considering the overpass was nearly two hundred feet above ground the river must have been much deeper when the bridge was built. The bridge had collapsed midway and at the edge of collapsed was a cluster of homes. As they approached the settlement they passed a fenced off pasture with several dead two-head Brahmin that apparently had been slaughtered in a very violent manner. When they ascended the bridge an old man behind sandbags holding an assault rifle motioned at them.
"Get your asses up here it's not safe down out in the open!" They obliged and hurried to his makeshift sandbag bunker.
"Thanks for the warm welcome." Kagami muttered already not liking this place.
"Sorry but I don't want you meeting the same fate as our Brahmin down there." He apologized. "Names Evan King by the way, I'm the mayor of this little hellhole."
"I'm Konata and this is Tsukasa and Kagami, we're here because we heard that Yutaka Kobayakawa went missing during a raid." Konata told him, like the other two girls she just wanted in and out of this place quickly to move on to finding Vault 112.
"Yeah that's right." King sighed, "We don't know for sure but we think the Family took her for their own sinister goals."
"Who exactly are the Family?" Kagami asked since this name had popped up several times.
"Just another bullshit raider gang who thinks they can torment us because they have more men and more guns." He spat. "It's their leader who scare me the most, she's some ex-Enclave woman who will just sit at the edge of town and stare. I took a shot at her once, next thing I knew she's right next to me. She takes the gun out of my hands and just tosses it over the edge. What's worse is I've seen that little Kobayakowa girl talking to her at night sometimes."
"Any idea we're they are?"
"I couldn't tell you, my guess is the Meresti train yard because that's where I've seen them hang out in the early morning." He informed her.
"How are her parents taking it?" Konata asked, she was anxious to meet her aunt and uncle as well.
"Don't know." He shrugged, "Haven't heard from them in weeks."
Kagami stared at him in disbelief, Arefu was a whole four buildings. Some mayor he was. "You can go ask them your selves, there house is over there." King told them and pointed at the Kobayakawa residence.
They said their good byes and went to interview the parents of Yutaka and get their take on it. Kagami knocked on the door and waited several seconds for a reply. Nothing, she knocked again a little harder. Nothing.
"Let's just walk in." Konata suggested. Kagami knew it was impolite but she was actually worried given the circumstances. She opened the unlocked door and all at once a horrible stench befouled her causing her to stumble back and vomit over the side of the bridge.
"Are you okay Onee-chan?" Tsukasa asked worriedly and ran to her sister. Konata ignored them and prepared herself for whatever made Kagami puke like that, she approached the door way and could smell it too. It smelled like carrion. She plugged her nose and breathed with her fingers and entered the dark home. It was small with only two beds and a table as major furniture, the place eerily dark and musty. It looked like it had been abandoned weeks ago.
The route of the smell became obvious and Konata couldn't contain the contents of her stomach either. A man with salmon colored hair was on the bed next to a woman with long lime green hair. Both their throats had been brutally torn out by some kind of animal. Their bodies had just been sitting there rotting for the last few weeks, now insects were happily going at them. Konata batted the clouds of flies and stepped back out into the clean air.
"Jesus, it looks like wolves did this!" Kagami said trying hard to dry heave. What was worse was the fact that someone had crudely tried to force them into an embrace.
Tsukasa, being the brave one, approached them and examined the two her face turned ghost white and she faced the other two. "These are human teeth marks."
