Jackrum moved slowly amongst the group of conscripts, squinting to keep out the bright sun. They had stretched themselves out across the pedestal of the anchorage memorial, licking their wounds. The memorial itself was a ridiculous thing. A giant bronze quartet of heroic soldiers, standing guard over the liberated city of anchorage. Exemplary examples of heroism, courage, justice, and the American way. Back when things like that actually mattered. Jackrum had seen heroes. They tended to die horribly and painfully.
His route took him past Hakeswill, who was nursing one of the conscripts. The pale man was propped up against the statue, crying quietly for his mother. His hands were clasped over his belly, and a red stain was slowly spreading from underneath his palms. Jackrum crouched and pulled the patient's hands away. He used his combat knife to cut away some of the material, revealing a small bullet hole an inch and a half above the belly button. The wound was already beginning to stink.
"Help me, Sarge!" the kid begged.
Jackrum shrugged off his assault rifle and backed up a few feet to make sure he stayed clear of the spray. Hakeswill saw what he was doing and slithered away before the kid could get a decent hold of the man and pull him back.
"Not that!" were the recruit's last words.
Jackrum waited until the sounds had died away and the blood had stopped spurting. He looked around at the seven surviving conscripts. Them aside, only Spadge, Hakeswill, and the mysterious Fletcher had survived the attack. It could have been plenty worse, however. The entire group of survivors had gone quiet, and were watching him. All except mister Fletcher, who was patrolling the perimeter of the Anchorage memorial, watching for more supermutants. He hadn't been given any orders to, Jackrum noted, but at that moment the Sergeant was glad to have the kid around.
Jackrum looked around at the worried, sometimes hate-filled faces; he had killed one of their number. He slung the smoking gun back over his shoulder and sighed, "That's what's called a mercy killing."
"You didn't show much of that Sarge." One conscript said angrily.
"And what the fuck do you know, huh?" Jackrum unearthed his cigarette package and lit another one, "It would've taken four hours for him to bleed out. Not a happy ending." He watched their thoughtful faces for a moment, then moved to join Fletcher on the edge of the camp. The young man was staring into the ruins.
"You killed the kid." The boy intoned.
"I've watched my friends take shots to the gut." Jackrum replied, "Like a shot to the head, there's no hope. But it takes the bastards hours to die. And that's more than enough time for them to think everything through. I've watched Mercs lie in the sun and bake. By the end they don't even have the strength left to stop the crows from plucking their eyes out. But they're aware of it the entire fucking time." Jackrum began to pace through the camp, "I keep a special 'emergency' kit. It's got one of each kind of round in it, plus a fragmentation grenade. And none of those things are for the enemy. Take my advice, if you get shot in the gut, eat a bullet. It's faster."
The kid said nothing, but slowly flicked the safety on his assault rifle, his eyes staring deep into the ruins.
"What do you see?" Jackrum asked.
"There's a group of supermutants there, but they aren't attacking us." The boy replied quietly, "They know we're here, but they aren't attacking."
"Three round bursts." Jackrum murmured, staring into the ruins. The boy gave him a blank look which could have been interpreted in a hundred different ways, none of them correct.
"The Lone Wanderer fires in three round bursts." Jackrum told him, "I've seen his massacres. Three round bursts, all of them headshots. All of them kill shots."
The boy shrugged, "Good for him. Trigger discipline is a useful thing to know."
"Cut the crap. You're him. You're the Lone Wanderer and Jason Howlett is your real name. The only question is why you'd sign up as a recruit in the Talon Company…" his brow wrinkled, "We did it, didn't we? We're the ones who destroyed the purifier."
"If I was the Lone Wanderer, playing your hand would be a stupid move. You should wait until I'm surrounded and outgunned, like in the middle of fort bannister, then set a trap and kill me."
"If you are the Lone Wanderer," Jackrum replied, "Then trying something like that would be the stupid move. The smart move would be telling you that I know, and assuring you that I'm not going to get in the way. Taking myself off the list of things you have to worry about is the smart move. All I want to do is live to fight another day."
The kid gave him an appraising look, "Where are you from, Jackrum?"
"Rivet City. Born and raised." The veteran shrugged, "I saw my dad die too, by the way."
"What happened?"
"He got caught at the wrong end of Rivet City's drawbridge during a supermutant attack." The Merc sucked his teeth, "I was at the right end. Way of the wasteland, eh?" He frowned, talking to himself more than Fletcher, "That woulda bin about thirty years back. We were one of the first families to settle down there."
"Was he holding them off?"
Jackrum laughed, "That old drunk? Nah, he was running like a pussy. He got shot in the ass, and then couldn't make the jump."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be." Jackrum shrugged, "I wasn't. he gave me too many black eyes."
The kid nodded.
Jackrum rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "Look, I wasn't told anything about the Project Purity job. That means that whatever you're looking for is way above my paygrade, which also means that I don't care about it. But my bosses do. Now your disguise might fool the average merc, but it didn't fool me, and it won't fool my bosses."
"What did you have in mind?"
The Veteran grabbed Fletcher's arm and pulled out his knife, "You better trust me kid."
With that, he cut a long, harsh wound starting at the inside of the kid's elbow, spiraling around to the outside of the kid's unnaturally pale forearm and ending on the back of his hand. Fletcher barely winced, but was watching the old sergeant with a cautious expression.
Jackrum stood back and looked at his handiwork. The cut wasn't deep, but it looked serious. Those who weren't doctors wouldn't know the difference. Jackrum winced, "That's a hell of a wound, Mister Fletcher. You get that fighting the muties?"
"Yes Sarge." The boy replied grimly.
"Better cover that up." Jackrum told him, digging a bandage out of his pack, "Otherwise it'll get infected. It's a shame you're covering that arm up though. You had one hell of a dark tan there. It'll be gone when the thing's unwrapped, right?"
"Yes Sarge." The boy affirmed.
"Cryin' shame." Jackrum shook his head.
He turned to walk away, but the recruit stopped him, "You're taking my side?"
Jackrum turned back, "I'm taking mine, Mister Fletcher. If the time comes, I won't shoot you, and you don't shoot me, right?"
"Right." The kid said.
The drop didn't give Sarah time to do anything except register that the floor was gone. She landed heavily and painfully on a staircase below. The impact knocked the breath out of her body and left her coughing and choking, staring up at the spiraling stairs leading up the inside of the lighthouse. It looked surreal, as if someone had painted the spiraling staircase onto the inner walls of the lighthouse. A skeleton, still sporting a shock of wiry white hair, grinned down at her from an upper bannister as if laughing at her misfortune. The view was blocked by Artemis, who pulled her into a sitting position.
"I'm alright." Sarah gave her head a shake and examined the staircase. It lead down a full flight to a large, imposing metal door. Small amounts of rust were just beginning to show around the edges. At the center was an odd hexagonal window, hatched with wire to strengthen it.
"This looks promising." Rothchild said enthusiastically. He stepped daintily past her and tried the handle it opened easily, but it's squeaking hinges made the expedition cringe. Gallows was standing watch at the door to the lighthouse. He became visibly uneasy at the noise, gripping his sniper rifle slightly tighter.
Rothchild grinned back at the entourage, "It's here!" he hissed, "I can feel it!"
It started as a low hum. An ambient, ever-present background noise. Sarah wasn't even sure when she first became aware of it, but as she lead the team further into the facility, it became more and more prevalent. It was a quiet humming which sat at the back of the consciousness like a cobra, poised to strike.
The walls of the facility were tiled and clinical, yet their age had shown through in the form of cracks and mold. Many tiles were missing completely, exposing the metal and wires beneath. As she followed them, and listened to the hum grow, Sarah couldn't help but feel she was being lead down the path. That something aside from the G.E.C.K. awaited her at the other end. The entire facility was lit by white neon tubes placed near the floor, indented into the wall. On the low ceiling above their heads, pipes groaned and creaked.
Every hallway was rife with doorways, side rooms, and antechambers filled with medical equipment, lockers, ammo boxes, first aid kits, and safes.
Sarah moved into one of them and reached for an ammo box. Gallows caught her hand, "Don't touch anything. It doesn't know we're here yet."
"What doesn't?" Pek asked, eyes wide.
"Stay quiet." Gallows ordered. The scout took the lead, with Sarah following close behind him. They came upon a Robobrain, lying on its side. The brain itself had been blasted off. Dried blood was spattered on the walls and the floor beyond the deactivated machine. Gallows bent down and examined it. He reached into the biggest pile of gray matter and pulled out three lead rounds.
"The Lone Wanderer."
His hands traveled down the body of the robot until they came to a large bullet hole in its side, "He was traveling with someone else."
"How do you know?" Sarah asked.
"This is a .308 sniper round." The scout explained, "who would use a sniper rifle in such a confined space?"
"Let's keep moving." Sarah ordered grimly.
The path opened out into a rectangular room, and Sarah spotted a large wooden desk off to one side. Several small personal computers were sitting atop it, along with coffee mugs and a cappuccino machine in the corner. Behind the desk was an enormous bank of computers. Rothchild rushed forward eagerly and began a close examination of them.
"Step away!" Gallows ordered. The scribe waved him off and pressed a button at random.
Immediately, in the same way a cloud becomes a shape, or a pile of clothes becomes a monster in the darkness of a child's room, the constant hum was given words in the form of an eldritch, screeching, manic voice:
…and gentle people…
Who live in my home toooown
Because those dear hearts and gentle people
Will never ever let you dooooown
Gallows growled and pulled the old man away. Sarah turned and confronted the group. The soldiers were looking particularly nervous. She stepped forward and waved an arm to get their attention, "You're knights of the Brotherhood of Steel!" she reminded them over the constant off-key song. She noted, with some concern, that Taylor was happily singing along. "I want to see trigger discipline." She ordered, "Don't shoot unless you are absolutely sure you have a target."
The depraved singer raised his voice.
They read the good book from Fri' till Monday
That's how the weekend goes
I've got a dream house I'll build there one day
With picket fence and raaaaamblin' rose
Sarah turned to Gallows, "Let's move." They both loaded their weapons and stepped forward, ready to face whatever came. Then the voice addressed them directly, "I can feel you!" it rasped, "Like an itch beneath the skin! Scratch it till it bleeds!"
Sarah continued, letting it chatter away in the background. Her confidence was boosted by Gallows, who backed her up wordlessly.
"It knows you're here! Yes it does! The great worm!"
The expedition continued deeper into the bowels of the facility, trying desperately to ignore the voice.
"Ug-Qualtoth arises in the deep temple! It hates you!" The voice let loose a litany of curses and deadly promises which continued for some time. "You put the sun into a jar and broke it upon the world! A great crack shall open in the earth and swallow the non-believers! Swallow you whole!"
The nearer they got to the center, the louder the voice became. Strangely, this only made the group more confident. They felt that despite its boasts of horrific and painful deaths, if it could have done anything to stop them, it already would have. Their morale was further boosted by the dead shells of robots, and parts of turrets which had been scattered throughout the facility. Someone had cleared it of all physical threats.
The voice's boasts became more and more disjointed and nonsensical as they neared the hub, "The great worm arises in the deep temple, A great crack shall open in the earth and swallow you all! And you shall weep, weep, weep! Tears of salt and earth and dirt!"
The hallway ended in a final door. Sarah opened it and came upon a large round room. Two wrecked turrets lay on either side of a large set of pipes extending up through the center. At the far side was yet another door, and she knew that what they sought would be on the other side. She took her first step into the circular tiled space and was assaulted by a barrage of noise as the voice abandoned any language she'd ever heard. Her team was beset by an endless wall of eldritch, uncouth, guttural syllables, "Ug-Qualtoth bholo bo-me illisha-not mehailathail mot'chug ogog phao melzsa shotiq thudd yathosh tlamalarh ya-el."
Sarah faltered halfway across the room, overcome by the noise. Her vision blurred and room seemed to sway and churn beneath her feet. Every syllable was a hammer strike upon her consciousness and she fumbled desperately for the latch to her helmet. It finally clicked open and she tossed it away. She pressed her hands to her ears, trying to drown out the voice. Fresh red blood pooled between her knees, and she realized it was streaming from her own nose.
All at once, the noise stopped, and the room as bathed in a hard blue light. A hand grabbed her by the elbow and guided her to her feet. She stared into Gallows' tinted faceplate, trying to ignore her pounding headache.
"What the hell was that?" she heard Artemis demanding.
The expedition were scattered around the room. Knight Taylor was crowded against the wall, arms around his knees. He was rocking back and forth, staring wide-eyed into space and humming the foul song, apparently unaware of the blood trickling down his face. Colvin was crouched in utter silence, eyes shut, gripping small cross so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.
"Vallincourt!" she heard Rothchild cry out. The old man was bent over one of his scribes. Sarah wiped her nose and crouched by his side, staring at the woman. She was very obviously dead. Blood trickled from her nose and ears. Her mouth was lolling open, the tongue fallen uselessly against the back of her throat.
"What the hell happened?" Artemis asked again as the expedition gathered around the Scribe's body.
"Is everyone else okay?" Sarah demanded.
Feedback blasted through the facility's intercom, making the expedition wince. A voice crackled to life. It was clearly not the same speaker as whomever had uttered the fouler language, though this was not a comforting fact, as this particular voice appeared to be riding on the very cusp of sanity. It said, "Are you real?"
"Who are you?" Sarah demanded.
"I don't know anymore…" the voice withered, "Things were so simple while he was still alive… I never expected this…Can you help me?"
"Depends." Sarah called out, "Where are you?"
"I don't know. I might be nowhere. I might be everywhere." In a plaintive voice it said, "I can't see anything. I don't have any eyes. I remember having eyes." It paused again, "Do you have eyes?"
"Yes." Sarah said.
"Can I borrow them? I want your ears, too. Ears that can hear!"
"I kinda need them." Sarah replied cautiously, glancing at the rest of the expedition.
It took no notice, "I haven't heard anything other than the beeping. And the hum. It's always there, the hum, but I can't shut it off!" the voice rose to a scream, "I want it to stop but it just won't stop! All it ever talks about is that goddamned worm!"
"What's your name?"
"Before I was the transcendent one, people knew me as Professor Calvert."
"Alright, Calvert." Sarah managed, "Do you know where you are right now?"
"Where is your body?" Rothchild asked. He leaned towards Sarah, "I think his mind is gone altogether."
"I don't have a body anymore. I'm beginning to think this was all a mistake." Said the voice of Calvert.
"We are in a facility beneath a lighthouse in Point Lookout." The old Scribe told it, "Is that where you are right now?"
"I am absolutely… almost… sure… that's where I am. You'll have to come find me. I'm afraid I've no more arms or legs."
As one, the expedition looked towards the open door. Blue light poured out, fluctuating and pulsing as if being projected through a glass of water. Sarah had seen sunlight form similar patterns on the bottom of the Project Purity tidal basin.
She walked through the door and found herself in a rather cramped space. The room was circular. Cathedral-like arches presented an impressive view of the central space. It was several stories deep, with thick bundles of wires, tubes, and steel, sprouting from both above and below. They met in the middle at a large cylindrical tank, wide and tall enough to hold a man. Within it, suspended in sickly green fluid, was a human brain. Small wired and tendrils extended from it and were plugged into both the base and the top of the container.
Two small catwalks, at perpendicular angles, extended precariously out over the deadly drop. Sarah stepped carefully onto the thin grating as the rest of the expedition filed through. It creaked and strained under the weight of her power armour. She peered over the edge to see protectron parts scattered all over the floor far below.
"Casualty." Gallows reported from somewhere off to the side, "Ghoul, male. Three assault rifle rounds in the forehead. Armed with a sniper rifle. His body's been stripped of ammunition."
"The Lone Wanderer was here?" Colvin asked, "Did he ever say anything to you about it, Sarah?"
Sarah glanced backwards and saw the Knight-Captain watching her from beneath one of the arches. She shook her head.
"Fascinating!" Rothchild hurried across the other catwalk, his face aglow with wonder as he inspected the tank, "We'd suspected this kind of thing had been done, but I never thought I'd see it with my own eyes…"
"Have you found me yet?" The voice inquired.
"Are you the brain in the tank?" Rothchild asked.
"That…sounds about right." The voice hazarded, "I'm pretty sure I might have been…"
"Who was the ghoul?" Sarah demanded.
"Desmond!" the voice proclaimed triumphantly.
"Well that explains everything." Colvin cut in.
"I can't even remember why I hated him…" the voice mumbled thoughtfully. It rallied a little, "But I'm sure he deserved it! Otherwise what would the point be?"
"We're looking for something called a Garden of Eden Creation-"
"The G.E.C.K. yes I know what it is. And you're too late. The voice intoned, "They came for it and they left with it."
"Who did?"
"Charon!" the voice bellowed, "The ferryman. The gatekeeper between its world and ours! He was dead, tossed into the great deep! But it brought him back for a purpose."
"Where is he?" Rothchild asked, staring at the meaty organ floating within the tank.
"I will tell you!" the voice said, "But you must do something for me in return."
"Whatever you ask." Sarah promised.
There was a pause. Then, in the most pathetic voice she had ever heard, the brain said: "Please kill me."
I'm just getting started with Point Lookout. As I said before, I'm taking a few liberties with it. I'm hoping they pay off by making the place as creepy as hell.
On a side note: you cannot actually finish Point Lookout without killing Calvert, so what Jason did is technically impossible, but in the interests of the story, I'm tweaking that.
No, by Charon he does not mean the ghoul from underworld. Wiki the name.
I hate admitting this, but Modus Operandi burnt me out. As those of you who read it as it was being produced know, it was basically one long two-month non-stop writing party at roughly 1500 words a day, all the while I was putting 110% into making it the best fallout fanfic I possibly could. It burnt me out. The first ten chapters of Aqua Vitae were my second wind, but that ran out too. At this point, I'm running on fumes. The muse has taken a holiday. Jackrum is easy, but I have to get back into the right mindset for writing Point Lookout and that means torturing myself through Amnesia: The Dark Descent and a few other things.
Long story short, this book will take a lot longer than Modus Operandi did, but I'll be writing other stuff in between, and I WILL finish it. I get the feeling it's actually better written anyway, and that might be the extra time spent on it paying off.