Noncommittal morning light fell across Ian as he trounced through a patchwork sea of brush corpse. The fingers of Ian's right hand had stayed locked around his gun so long through the night and cold that they seemed stuck fast there. His eyes stung against the air, but Ian ignored that for the looming sight ahead. His dull headache, the invisible sounds reverberating through this spider webs in his mind, did nothing to the mechanical monolith due west.
This was Project Purity, surely that. It could be nothing else. Technology seemed to encircle an old white building like biomechanical vines. As if the metal were alive, it had wrapped all around the original building and buried it beneath rigid pipes and long, dull catwalks.
And somewhere inside that was Ian's father, or some trace of his passing. It occurred with each insistent step that the man might not even be there, but the thought also existed that he just might. In that case, Ian wondered what he could say at the sight. Nothing leapt to mind, nothing at all. Ian imagined his father before him, but that image was mute and Ian identically so.
Upon finally finding his father, what could Ian possibly say?
Whether that could be answered, Ian remained hopeful of his father's presence.
The crossing of old and new techs stood high and nearer than ever. Ian reached the crest of a hill and paused to observe the building. It sprawled in a distance near clarity. How far could that be? Less than a mile, that certainly. At this distance, Ian could look upon the catwalks and would be able to pick out a figure walking across. Much less than a mile, certainly.
Then, Ian did catch sight of some movement across the catwalks. That sudden knowledge sent tremors though Ian, motionless and electric tremors. On automatic, Ian pulled one hand to his aching head as if to press it all away, and flung the other out. He waved and beckoned. Ian was about to shout when the figure caught sight of him, clearly so.
A second figure appeared, and one more after that.
There was stillness. Ian's hands fell down as dread flew through. There was no clarity in those panicked, muddled thoughts, only impulse to retract this, to extend that. Ian's body dropped flat, coiling and loosening until everything was dropping across the side of that hill. Dirt thrashed across his face.
A distant, distinct crack tore through the air. The hill exploded somewhere, throwing up dust and dirt and shattered bits of gravel. Ian rolled down and down and some of that disturbed sediment filtered into his eyes and ears and half-open mouth. Everything became coarse and clogged in one ragged, tumbling moment.
Ian's body crumbled like a ragdoll, tumbling like nothing toward a different nothing below. Some sunlight found its way through the painful blindness. Ian's body slid and collided heavily into some sudden pause, but rolled once more upright and struck to a stop. The world swam about, flecked and stinging by chunks of dirt against Ian's lens.
Somebody was down beside Ian, lying still as him. They hid perfectly, akin to the motionless dirt below.
Ian wiped some of that dirt from his eyes and reappraised the person. This proved them shot long ago, only remaining as something grey and dryly dead. Ian tried to smell but there was nothing, just dust.
He stayed flat on the ground, prostrate beside the corpse and staring will dull eyes. The dead person's eyes were open, but they had turned black and shrunken. Ian stared into them and just breathed out.
"Too bad," he muttered, and imagined that the body had spoken to him. Instead, Ian just figured that everything did die, and then he rose. That brought him into an uncertain, tumbling half-crouch. Ian staggered across the dirt and pulled both legs into half collapse.
He didn't leave though. No, greed caught his eye first, drawing it over to the belt covered with blood and dust. Tucked in there was a grey pistol.
Ian felt stabs of everything awful as he reached down, but that all quickly slid off with the cool, gritty metal against his palm. He looked it over, glancing across the large, revolving chambers and long barrel. He gingerly pulled the hammer back and watched the cylinder turn one click. There was another switch, and that let the whole inner workings fall sideways an inch, allowing Ian a vision of those six bullets. The flat, brass bodies read .44.
He closed the gun, disarmed it, and tucked it away. There was something else, five black eggs tangled in the same belt. Careful, so very, very careful, he removed the grenades one by one, set them into a pile aside until every last explosive was taken, then pocketed those as well.
With the revolver and grenades, Ian headed off snaking through the twisting mess of hills. He stayed at the base of each, not daring to cross any crest or rise dangerously above the horizon. He knelt and crawled when necessary, but always kept himself hidden behind that earthen cover.
The hills slipped away downward before too long, shrinking by the meter. Ian left them, crawling nearly flat on hands and knees. He never reached quite hear prostrate, for fear he might come across something and be too slow in standing.
Project Purity appeared once more in the distance, though this distance was greatly diminished by the creeping through hills. Ian observed it always, keeping close eye on every speck of movement across those high catwalks. Eventually he came to a place near the facility, and also hidden so that he could watch and plan. Those movements became dull yellow, deadly mutants. They lumbered about every metal surface as Ian took careful note of each present. He knew where they were, remembered each place clearly, but they could not see him.
Ian watched for nearly ten minutes, still in that hidden spot, and made sure they were all upon the catwalk, and would all stay there. Once certain, he began to move forward. Every inch of that motion was hellish, for with the first step Ian was certain of their eyes on him. Those mutants all moved and milled above but it would be no grand occurrence for any to look down. That might happen at any moment. Ian moved quickly, as quickly as he dared, toward the buildings.
Finally, Ian pressed flat against the cool, vertical concrete and exhaled. That flew out as a great wind of relief, and for a strange moment he didn't care who heard the noise of it.
The quick caution flew back, though, and soon Ian was sneaking along the base of the building. He set each foot ahead like porcelain pieces, so delicate as not to even bend the dead grass.
The mutants all occupied places along the catwalk, all existed some fifteen feet above on a wide grate. From here, from below, Ian was able to see the exact gauge of that grate.
Noting this, Ian raised his gun, his rifle, toward the unsuspecting mutants. They milled and growled and fumbled with unidentifiable objects. They were dangerous and filthy, and then they were dead. Ian pumped bullets through the soles of their feet and up into higher, horizontal areas. They were all in that place so high above, and they were all dying. They did not see him fire, and did not see where the death came from. Ian held his place and fired, watching the confused yellow things react without a goal and then die.
The whole event occurred without any climax or drama. It just happened. Ian took his place beneath catwalk and fired upward. The mutants died.
Ian watched them die. One roared and tumbled over the side of the railing. Its body dropped and crunched. Ian watched and felt nothing at this bloodbath.
Finally they had all fallen down and Ian proceeded in search of a way up. There were no stairs in this place, only ladders, and he finally found one welded to the side of a catwalk. This one was free of yellow corpses, holding instead the now airborne scent of that act.
Ian took hold of the first rung and began his ascent. The metal wore at his hands and stretched endlessly upward. Ian took one rung, then the next, and so on so on until he was halfway up. The growling came then, the roaring voice.
He stopped still and looked past the nearest stretch of support. There, a mutant ran along the catwalk. It carried a wooden rifle in its arms, and seemed to have just noticed Ian. It raised the weapon and, in slow motion, brought the barrel around to point at him. Its bared teeth became a hateful sneer as it prepared to kill.
Ian, who had trapped himself halfway up a ladder, did all he could. As the mutant approached, a hand flew and wrestled through the mangled order inside his backpack. Debris and scattered, unseen items all flared around his fingers until finally they clenched onto one rough egg. Ian tore it out, nearly lost his balance in doing so, and threw it high over to the mutant. The pin dropped away, forgotten in conscious preceding silence. There was a whistling in the air. Ian dropped away and a clink sounded somewhere, he didn't think or imagine, just leapt off and out into the opposite void, to someplace anyplace other than that crackling egg.
The air was hot and still. There weren't thoughts in his head but somehow the air knew what was coming. Ian fell through mourning oxygen which well knew soon it would burn. He dropped onto and across the rough waste floor and crumbled onto knees and jabbed at hands. Ian scrumbled off heaving and clambering across uneven earth.
Dying air screamed and pummeled stones screamed and twisting metal and gaping flesh and pound/flooding blood screamed along every course.
Fire.
Silence.
Ian opened his eyes to experience burning. He looked around but didn't really understand those surroundings for several long moments. There were long shards of metal all across the ground, but Ian didn't know their origin, not yet.
He knew pitiful growlings though, and crawled up out toward those. The backpack weighed him down but Ian eventually defeated its gravity and stood up among the small field of wrecked metal. The old ladder and the hold high trails and the old rust had all come toppling with just that one fiery nudge, coming to lie all around in heaps and scrambled section. Portions jutted unbroken out from piles and piles of portions otherwise.
Somewhere out among that crumbled, dry desert, Ian ground a raw, bleeding body which continued to writhe and curse at him. Ian stood over it as eyes jammed out angry and dying. He started to raise his rifle, but thought better before firing. There were not so many bullets left. Ian watched it and touched at the revolver.
His hand pulled it up and cocked the gun. It made a heavy snapping noise and the whole cylinder twisted once. For something so small, it was very heavy. Ian pointed the gun at the body's bleeding head and pulled the trigger. There was another heavy snapping noise as the weapon refused. Ian looked at the silver thing in his hand and shrugged, and stowed it back away.
Ian left the living, wretched body and walked out off the field of broken pieces. The building still stood, high and desolate in old strength. The concrete, steel, and marble held their forms, minimally crumbled by war and time. Ian figured he was alone when no mutants emerged after the racket. Knowing this, he took leisure to walk along the place's perimeter. Ian followed the wall along until it led him to a door. That was a little lower than the rest of the building, and so would probably open into some basement or other.
He twisted the handle and knew it would open. However, before Ian headed inside, he paused there with the knob already twisted and wondered on something. The mutants here seemed to signal his father's absence, but what could that mean? Was he dead, or just moved on? Maybe the man was holed up somewhere here. It occurred, as Ian imagined stumbling upon that hidden place within, that he had no idea what to do or say when he did finally catch his father.
The image flashed of Ian standing before his father, dumb but meaning to say something unreachable.
He shivered and flatly hoped his father was okay and blockaded somewhere inside this building. That let him go on, and Ian pulled the door open to slip in.
The hall was dark, but certainly not black. Some unknown light filtered from an elsewhere and brought grey in. Ian crept forward with his rifle ready, listening carefully for any movement anywhere. He lay his fingers on the near wall and followed its smooth surface to a corner. The grey air was more lit and yellowed by a distant bulb. Several halls led off away from that central one but only it seemed to lead toward light. A single bulb burned along its length, tossing off electric color but only covering a certain few splotchy areas. The rest were all dark, were all left in shade and murky air.
Ian moved forward along this hall, always pointing his rifle straight ahead, always glancing left and right and back again to be constantly certain of those different halls. Each was empty, and Ian finally ducked into the last. The next room held the light and also a dozen mutants milling about apparently deaf to all outside.
He crouched out of sight and thought carefully how to solve this. With so many of them, no frontal assault was possible. Several of them carried rifles as opposed to the traditional improvised bludgeon. Such an improvement rendered his regular, scrambling strategies useless. So he stayed still and low and finally decided. Ian searched out a trio of eggs and momentarily plotted trajectories. Another glance around the corner confirmed his thoughts and then it was all ready. Ian slowly, deliberately checked the contents of his clip and then slipped it back with only the slightest click.
The three grenades sat in a little pile by Ian's boot. He took a breath and released it, took another and let that go away. With the third breath he retrieved an explosive and pulled the pin out with his thumb. As that happened, Ian did not wait, could no longer. He leaned around and threw that detonation out. Working quickly, panic rising, Ian grabbed at another egg and hurriedly released it out into the crowd. Finally at the last, Ian glanced out. There was nothing yet, only confusion at the clattering below. A mutant or two glanced dumbly down.
Ian threw the last grenade and ducked back behind the wall.
Seconds, seconds…
That familiar, deafening destruction came tearing through the air. Ian did not wait for it to subside or pass, just twisted and darted into the bloody fray with gun raised and ears still ringing. Mutants were all about, toppled or standing broken or even dead in pieces. Some fumbled with weapons and glanced about confused.
Ian ran low and fired through the reverberating, artificial silence. Dust hung in the air, or rather air permeated that thrown up dust. Ian choked it down and scurried under the feet of off-guard giants, picking them away from within the midst. He moved quickly, so quickly. Ian stared at one mutant as it caught sight of him. He couldn't hear it and surely it couldn't hear him, but that gun was still slipping slowly toward him.
Ian fired first, and it died.
After that mutant, there were only a few more. They were unaware until the last, and even that creature could not put up much fight. When it lay down and bleeding, Ian stopped to breathe and wipe his eyes. They burned from the dust and gun smoke. He wondered if there wasn't a little blood in there too. There was a warmth somewhere, maybe there.
Ian shook his head, tried to force the confusion out. It was all light for a moment. The infinite ringing began to fade an Ian noticed a soda machine that had fallen on its side. He wondered if that was from the explosion or something before.
Primary, though, were the heavy approaching footsteps all scattered in careless chorus.
Ian wondered if they could find him here, and then shook his head again.
Idiot thought.
He dropped lower and scrambled over to the soda machine. There was rubble all around it and a mutant had fallen dead just over the edge. Ian ducked down behind this and gripped at his gun. There wasn't much he could do, nowhere to hide really and not much chance to fight. Ian's heart hammered but he hardly breathed there. The footsteps grew and the white noise ring disappeared. Ian stayed still, played dead. Mutants appeared.
They stamped and grumbled to each other, ran in one way and straight out the other. Just seconds there that Ian could hardly live through, but then it all passed with strange ease. But still, there were others…
Ian clambered up from his hiding place and slipped back the way they had come. It was just another room like before, open and empty. There were two doors, though, one left and another right. Ian did not think, just peeled one open and shut himself inside.
It was dark, deep and dark but for the faint greyness slipping beneath the door. He turned around toward the darkness and leaned against the door, catching his breath. He stopped still every few moments to stay and listen. The darkness seemed empty, for each random pausing hinted nothing but air and echoes.
Ian readjusted his fingers around the gun and took to inching downward. Each step produced a slight tap which dropped out into the void. He wished now more than ever that he had kept a flashlight for himself, but that was not. Ian cautiously slipped through increasingly pure blackness. As the filtered grey dispersed, his eyes began to adjust.
The way led downward and, though Ian's faint night vision caught hints of other turns and vague corridors, he kept to that singular sloped path. Ian explored the way below with his gun stuck ahead. There was never any disturbance, nor sound, but Ian would not let his breath easy. The silence seemed waiting for a harsh interruption of something bloody or bright. Every blank step, Ian expected to topple into a massive abyss, and was only narrowly relieved to find another step.
Some place leveled the way and Ian finally left the long staircase. He crept along that flat surface, peering about for any mark in the darkness. There suddenly existed a sliver of light, red and miniscule distant. Ian approached this with head cocked. There was still no sound and that made the sight slightly surreal, like a vision in space.
The red light revealed rounded silhouettes as Ian neared, and exuded a faint, low warmth. Ian crept into the room and surveyed its dusty, scattered stillness. The red light was equal gore and aged romance. There was a bed, wrinkled and flat. A table sat beside that, and a shelf against the wall. Ian looked it all over and inhaled the dust of it. Every inch of the room seemed old, museum old.
As he stood hunched in the doorway, a trifle caught Ian's attention. He bent nearer to the table and scooped up a tape. It was gritty from the dust but wholly cool in his hand, as if it had never touched life. He wiped at its face but there was no label. Seeing this, Ian retreated further into the room and fitted the tape into his Pip-Boy.
While it reeled back to the beginning, Ian dropped onto the bed. A cloud of dust burst up from its disturbed body and the springs released protesting yowls. The structure held, and soon the tape clicked.
Ian clanked out into the blackened doorway and set the tape to begin again.
First there was a slow noise of scraping metal, and then a familiar voice erupted from the machine.
"I spoke with Doctor Li, Madison, 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 Madison 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 Catherine... God, I can't let this die. Not again, not like this."
The words drifted off into the air, disappeared as the tape clicked over. There was, once more, a great wide silence. A dry cough slipped from Ian's throat and he muttered to himself.
"I guess he is here… or was…"
Something struck wrong in Ian's ears or the edge of his vision. The thought of his father was shoved off in favor of a shuffling silhouette near the doorway. For a moment, Ian did nothing, but then came the snap of a shifting cartridge.
Ian jerked aside and grabbed at the red lamp. It scrambled between his fingers and then stuck. He twisted, saw yellow flesh and a protruding wooden barrel, and launched the light over. All that motion filled the air at once, the dive the toss the collision, and mostly the gunshot. Ian could not ignore what scratched across the edge of his cheek, only force focus toward his actions.
A growl a grunt a readjusted barrel a further, slower snapping.
Ian fell to the floor, rolled across its rough gratin, and landed flat on his back below the mutant. He watched as it finished loading, and then his rifle was flying upward. Bullets and yellow fire burst from the vertical barrel and caught unclean flesh, pulverizing it to bloody pulp.
The mutant gurgled and bled and finally toppled, nearly across him, but Ian was able to scramble away. In all that, though, he could not lost the sound of his gun clicking empty. It echoed in his ears like pure dread.
Door slam. Foot pounds. All far above and coming, coming down.
Growls leapt through the darkness and straight to Ian's thumping heart.
He scrambled up and cursed his hollow weapon. The thought flew through his head that maybe there was time to reload, but the pounding movement rang past it. Instead, Ian stooped and took up the mutant's gun. It moaned at him while he wrestled the strap away. That came off in the end, and Ian stumbled back against the wall.
He needed to think. He needed to think, not lean uselessly on the damn wall. There were growling voices coming nearer. Ian jerked away from the wall and darted out into darkness. He stopped quickly, though, and pulled himself aside, into a corner. He pressed there tightly and did all he could to stop the movement of his lungs and heart.
Footsteps, footsteps.
Ian pressed stiller and then three mutants were rampaging past him. They disappeared into the little room and Ian listened to their painful, fractured speech. One hand held tight to the gun while the other snaked back and took hold of the last grenade. He drew it out and pulled the pin. Ian could hardly breathe as he leaned out into the doorway.
There were three mutants, and two looking directly at him.
Their mouths curled to snarl.
Ian released the grenade and slipped back around the corner, pressed against the wall, but still he heard the blast, still felt tremors through the structure.
At that he could waste no time. Ian flew out into the doorway, stumbled once and then stood over the sprawling mutants. Two were dead, obviously, torn far apart. The last, though, was fighting against the floor, struggling to stand once more despite the blood and wrecked flesh.
Ian raised the stolen rifle, jostling his free-hanging weapon as he did this, and shot the mutant dead. As he worked another bullet into the barrel, Ian noticed a pair of similar guns lying among the tattered remains. They were riddled with damage from the grenade, but Ian still supposed there would be bullets inside.
That thought sent him checking the clip of the gun he held.
One in the barrel and just one after.
And there were still more noises from behind.
Ian was momentarily caught between a corridor to his right and those guns. The mutant noises pushed him aside into the deeper, darker unknown, two bullets and a revolver. Ian scrambled down a steep set of stairs, always listening to the pursuing growls. They were close, apparently approaching even as he dealt with the first three.
He erupted from the stairway into a dark room. Some faint light fell from far above and flickered off the stagnant surface of a black pool. Large pipes stretched over, casting depthless areas onto darkness already near impenetrable.
Ian tossed his backpack at the wall and wrestled his empty rifle away after. Wooden stock in one hand and pistol grip in the other, Ian leapt down and gritted his teeth. The icy chill shot through him but he could not stop. Ian held the weapons high and darted beneath the pipes. Only then did he shiver and turn to the door.
It was cold and difficult to breathe there, but he stayed. The edge was little more than a yard off and the door just a yard beyond that. They were coming, Ian held the rifle level and retreated a step into blackness.
Two mutants ran in, growling and panting and waving weapons. Ian's heart leapt as they headed right past and to the far door. They passed his sight and Ian listened as the heavy footsteps grew steadily more distant.
After a few moments had passed, Ian started to leave, but froze after only a step. A creak in the room alerted him and Ian sank back with heart pounding.
The mutant stepped into his path of vision and Ian watched as it approached his bag. The creature smelled it, and then turned slowly toward him. Ian reaffirmed his grip on the gun but would not shoot, not yet. He could not miss, because the other would be right after.
The revolver's bullets might all be dead, like that last one.
He might have only two bullets.
Ian wanted to back away but he could not risk the movement. The mutant stepped slowly nearer and nearer, sniffing all along the way. A club dangled from its hands, heavy, large, and enshadowed. Ian could almost feel it crushing down on him.
The mutant advanced and then kneeled up against the water's edge. It inhaled, and then looked directly at Ian.
He fired, finally, and watched as the body toppled in slow motion. It dropped and sent warm waves through the water.
Ian supposed that was blood, supposed this as he scrambled out and over the body. He reached the edge only a moment before the other mutant returned. There was a rifle in its arms, already aiming as it saw him. There would be no pause to reload, no grace, no waiting time.
Ian fired, and the mutant crumpled.
After that, Ian found a blackened, isolated corner and lingered there. Silent minutes passed before he dared move again. Ian needed to be certain he was alone, and only went one once convinced. He crept through the darkness and emptied the mutants' guns. That left him with ten bullets for the wooden rifle, five he fitte in and five he dropped in a pocket.
Suitable armed, Ian checked his backpack to reload the assault rifle. There was nothing, though. No bullets or spare clips for the gun. Ian breathed a sigh that he had taken the other weapon. Before heading upstairs, Ian clicked his revolver open and examined the six bullets within. Even after he poured them into his hand, Ian could tell no difference between them, neither appearance nor weight.
Ian shook his head, shrugged, and slipped them all back into place.
He headed back upstairs, holding the long rifle ready the whole time. However, even as he returned to the first floor, Ian did not find any mutants. It seemed that they were all gone, or dead. He headed through the other door and found himself in a large, circular room. In the center was a glass structure, with a stairway leading inside.
Ian climbed the stairs and entered the central room. It was full of computers and old papers scattered about. Before long, Ian found a tape attached to one of the computers. As he pulled it out, the machine came to life. On the screen was a series of text lines, apparently a conversation between his father and Doctor Li.
Seeing this, Ian grabbed one of the discarded chairs and pulled it closer. Down the lines, Ian's father asked repeatedly for assistance and, repeatedly, she refused. There wasn't much more than that.
Turning form the screen, Ian examined the tape. There was a number ten drawn on with black marker.
"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."
Ian sat back in the chair and breathed out. Just one more clue, one more trail. He set the tape down and shook his head.
Taking a deep breath, Ian set his fingers on the computer's keys and began to type.
"This is Ian."
He stared at the short line of text for a moment before continuing.
"Following my father. Alone. Tell Amata I won't be back."
This he appraised for a moment longer before finally pressing send. The words jumped up to join his father's and then it was all cemented. Ian wondered if this clue would lead to his father, or just another continuation. Whichever, he had to go. Ian tucked the tape away and stood.
A faint digital sound chirped from the computer. Ian looked down and saw there was a reply from Doctor Li.
Without reading, he shut the computer off.
Ian hoisted his backpack and guns, then walked out. Down the stairs, through dim rooms, and finally into harsh sunlight. He did not stop to look around or back. Ian adjusted the long, wooden rifle across his shoulder and checked the compass on his Pip-Boy.
West.
For a short time, steady footfalls were all he could hear, but then Ian set another tape into his Pip-Boy.
"Hey doc, I'm only sharing this with you because you seem like someone we can trust…"
XxXxX
The End of Part III
Be on the lookout for Part IV February-March 2015