AN: New chapter! I suck at combat! Woo!

| Chapter 25 - An Apology |

Despite the surprisingly successful shelter of the boulder hiding them from the eyes of the mutants on the catwalks, the scuffle turned out to be pretty fucking annoying. Right now, of course, the both of them had managed to migrate to the western side of the monument and were organizing the small amount of provisions they had taken from the corpses, but how badly it had been for them to get there almost made him forget that she was still a newbie to firefights, despite her earlier experience.

Now, of course, the mutants lay riddled with bullet holes on the rusted walkways behind them, and he was ready to launch into a lecture to her like a subordinate, wanting to yell at her poor firearm skills and also mention his frustration and anxiety to awaken once again to her missing earlier that day. But he corrected himself before breaking her spirits and making a fool out of himself. Though the mutants had shaken her, she wasn't stirred. He had a feeling that would all change when they would enter the memorial. This whole endeavor didn't sit well with him at all, but he didn't want to make her break down before she eventually would. Would make it harder to get where they needed to be, of course.

The memorial was a sight that had caught her full attention once the fight had settled. The island was covered with boulders and shriveled black tree trunks, and the structure itself was surrounded with rusted girders, piping, catwalks and scaffolding. She had commented on the state of the structure itself, saying something about lintels and pediments and marble veneers. Architectural terms, he knew that. Why she knew them though, he didn't understand. She had mentioned something about the entrance blockaded with concrete slabs and the bombs of 2077, and had marveled at the sewer pipes that extended from the concrete and the staircases. He didn't understand what was so great about such an ugly thing, but perhaps part of her admiration had to do with her father's stigma on the site.

"So, shoot for the kneecaps?" She looked up at him with the intensity of a soldier in training. They were moments away from going inside.

"Knees, shoulders, any limb that's controlling movement or weapons. Heads are harder to shoot, but easier under the shock of limb loss." He kept his hand on the handle of the door, wanting to make sure he was the one controlling their entry. "You aim for limbs and I'll do the finishing kills. Stay in the shadows, if you can."

As he expected she made headway for the door, an excited smile on her face, but he held up his hand to stop her. "And most of all, do not make a sound. If we want to survive this, we must stay silent."

"Yes yes, I know. Now please, let's get in there. I need to know dad is ok."

He opened the door a sliver and motioned for her to enter first. She squeezed in and he came behind her, shutting the door softly. The hall they had entered would have been as black as tar if it hadn't been for the small, white emergency light above their heads. Before them were piles of trash and scattered papers, too destroyed to bother trying to read. The blue-black marble flooring sloped to the center of a hallway crossroad, with a recently-lit oil lamp in the middle next to an overturned desk. His smoothskin smiled at him with growing excitement, yet he lifted a finger to his cracked lips before her opened mouth made a noise. With a gesture, he directed her to the shadows, and with him leading, they went closer and closer to the lit piece of hall that loomed before them. For being infested with mutants, he had yet to see telltale signs of the beasts' residency. No bloody, rotting limbs wrapped up in netting. No hastily-rigged tripwires in the halls or glints of metal barrels from rigged shotguns. Not even the-

Oh fuck.

The stench.

The smell was so strong he could almost taste it. Not as bad as decayed corpses, but still bad enough to leave an impact and lace the air with toxicity.

"Ick, what the he-" His hand shot to cover her mouth on instinct. And in good time, too. Just as she was silenced, a massive shadow stepped out from a corner only a couple feet away from them. The mutant was fiddling with a grime-encrusted, heavily worn assault rifle, snarling in simple words about the intelligence of the inanimate object.

"Stupid gun! Jammed up and won't fire! I'll twist you into scrap metal!" He stopped right before them, his hands working in a fury at the gun. Charon felt her lips through his glove snap shut, and he took it away from her mouth slowly. Good; she stayed silent.

With a soft, inaudible breath, he brought his hand to his back and pulled the shotgun from behind him as slow as he could, since if he moved any faster, the mutant would catch sight of him out of the corners of his lemon yellow eyes. Raising the shotgun up to his shoulder, he aimed it at the meaty green calf before him. He could even see beads of sick-smelling sweat roll down the back of the mutant's leg.

Was the hallway hot? He couldn't tell. But his trigger finger sure was itching to pack some heat in the brute.

A deep, throaty shout of horror forced itself from the creature's mouth as his body twisted and floundered. A gaping hole now sat were most of the calf muscle had been, the flesh ripped to shreds and sinewy, bloody muscle tendrils flailing as he fell forward in shock and pain. Charon had felt Alma tense at the sudden blast from the shotgun, but was grateful she hadn't screamed or done anything stupid as he stepped out from the shadows and single-handedly shot off the back of the mutant's downed skull. She seemed to crawl out from behind him as she approached the giant green body, her eyes calculating. Maybe, he guessed, trying to figure out how to do what he just did. Silly little thing, his smoothskin. Such... ambition.

Just then, a ripple of bullet fire cut through the crossroad and the two of them dove for cover as the bullets carved holes in the floor, across the hall, and up the cracked wall; unfortunately, he found himself across the hall with her still behind. She breathed heavily, her chest noticeably rising and falling with a hand over her heart. The fire went on for a couple seconds before stopping, making him wonder what the mutant shooting at them was doing. But he couldn't sit there for long, or both of them would be in some deep shit.

In any case, their cover was blown, so talking was the only way to control the situation now. "Miss," he called, and her head quickly turned to his voice. "Stay where you are. Don't go in the hall no matter what I do next." She simply nodded, and turned her gaze back to the wall before her, her expression still filled with surprise and fright. Probably the closest she had gotten to being shot. He kind of wished it would just happen already, so she wouldn't get so jumpy whenever a bullet even remotely flew in her direction.

He needed to get over to her. Calm her down. It would be the only way to get a firm handle of the situation, if they could work together. He held his breath as he leaned his head forward slightly, looking down the dangerous hall. Aside from a sandbag barricade in the adjacent room, he couldn't see any trace of a mutant. Maybe it was crouching, or somewhere in the shadows... No. Wait. Something on the ceiling glinted. And started to move the longer he kept his head out of cover. His eyes shot to the surrounding walls of the hall and set on a console affixed to the wall before the room. It was a security turret. He wrenched his head back as another assault flew down the hall, watching as the corner of the wall chipped and smoked with the gunfire, inches from his face. It was dangerous as fuck to get close to the thing, he knew that. Though he suspected its targeting parameters were poor. It took the machine a while to get a reading on him, long enough for him to notice a way to work around the threat. The doors to the room had been swung open in their direction, and were intact with clouded glass panes. His plan could buy them time to try to disable the gun, or at least get closer to cap it should the first attempt fail.

"Alma."

"Yeah, Charon?"

"It isn't a super mutant, it's a turret. There's a computer terminal right next to us that controls it."

An out-of-place twisted smirk arose on her lips, "and you want me to try to use that to disable it?"

A familiar feeling of frustration began to surface. Now was not the time for her to play her little games. "Yes, beca-"

"Because I'm from a Vault and should know all about that kind of stuff, huh?"

"Yes," he grunted in annoyance, "now all we have to do is run into that hall and close the doors so the sensors don't see us. Do you think you'll be quick enough?"

A look of surprise shone on her face. Caught. "Oh, um, I'm not too sure..."

The gunfire settled once again, "now's our chance. Go!" In her surprise, she had faltered behind him as he lunged down the hall, but with a dive she slammed her side of the door shut as he closed the other one. He grabbed her by the arm and forced her to duck down below the glass; the sensors could probably trace shadows.

"Charon, that was not what I had in mind, that was-"

He pointed to the terminal on the wall behind them, his face grim. "Not now; try to hack that thing so we may move on." With an annoyed look, she turned and crawled on her hands and knees to the terminal before getting up and clacking away at the keyboard. He moved close to her so he could swipe her feet out from under her if the turret could still see them behind the glass. Sure, she would complain about bruises and whatever the hell else she wanted if he did it, but she wouldn't be dead.

Even so, he felt his pulse quicken as time started to drag by. The clacks became faster and more hasty, and he looked up to see her grumbling and sighing at the terminal, a look of anger on her face, "what's taking so long?"

"I'm trying but... I, I can't hack it. I only know the basics about computers, dad never taught me..."

He groaned and pulled her arm so she'd get back on the floor. With a harsh gaze, he signaled to her to stay put as he squat and reached over to her and pointed to her rifle. With a confused look, she handed it to him and he sat still for a moment, not wanting to prolong the wait but still slightly unsure of his next method of attack. With a breath, he took the butt of the rifle and smashed it into the window pane, the fragile glass exploding into the room, a few shards falling on his side of the door. In a quick motion, he aimed the rifle at the turret, which had immediately looked at him yet kept itself from shooting. He was right, thankfully, that the parameters were shot. And the gun itself shot, as the bullet flew into the heart of the machine, blue and white sparks erupting from the hole and the barrel of the sentry gun slumping to aim at the floor. He stood, his employer behind him, and they entered the room, no sign of mutants in sight. He handed her gun back to her and listened to her reload it as he scoped out the room behind the sandbag barricade.

It was filled with computer equipment, towering blocks of plastic and lights and switches, consoles and screens. Even more papers were strewn about, accompanied with broken pencils, clipboards, and even piles of wiring and chips from the computers themselves. He almost shouted at her as she ran ahead, beginning to root through the debris and junk. But as he stopped her, he realized that they were truly safe in the room. If there had been more mutants, they would have attacked by now. No matter how stupid the brutes were, they would have come rushing had they heard any gunfire. "Charon, just look at this! It's full of out-dated equipment, yes, but this room is a great makeshift lab," she began to toy with everything she set her hands on, too goddamn excited to get a grip and actually search for evidence of her father's whereabouts. "Here are a few retorts and alembics... oh! Some of them still have solutions in them. I wonder what they are?" Her hands flew over the glassware that littered the tables in the room as he decided to wander only slightly to get a read of how they could keep going. "Oh, if only I could read these notes, they're too damaged..." He determined there were three doors out of the room. Two led to the rotunda, a fancy word for the domed room, and one led to the basement. He had seen a manhole too, but he had a feeling not even someone as crazy as her or her father would go in the sewers.

As he concluded his examination of the room, his employer came up to him, a look of slight concern on her face, "no sign yet, I assume?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure there's something. What are our options?"

"The rotunda and the basement, Miss."

She bit her lip slightly, but nodded, "rotunda first, then the basement, since we can only go down from this level." Charon turned to one of the doors and they practiced the same maneuver, opening it slightly and squeezing in. Yet, as they entered the room, it was apparent there were no mutants in the room. Yet, god, was it something else. The two of them almost gaped at the huge column of machinery in the center of the dimly lit room, surrounded with water and catwalks. An operations room sat in the middle, with tubing and piping and wiring all around it. His employer was dumbstruck; she climbed the stairs up to the room slowly, her hand not leaving the railing or the wall until her eyes caught on a collection of little white squares sitting on top of a console. Holotapes. Immediately she snatched them up, a look of curiosity and excitement on her face. "Dad left these behind up here, I'm sure of it. But... Charon, is there any way out of here?"

He turned to look through the windows of the room which faces all sides of the rotunda. Except for the two doors leading to the lab, there wasn't any other way out, not even a manhole. "No, seems like the only other place to look is the basement." He looked back to catch his smoothskin staring at the giant tube of water in the center, trying to peer past the murk to a shadow that sat motionless in the center.

"... Then let's get down there."

Alma felt more and more depressed the further they went into the basement. Around every corner was a mutant or a centaur, up to six of the beasts total, and evidence of their hostility abounded. The more mutants, the smaller the chance of finding her father alive, she figured. She wouldn't know where else he would go besides Rivet City, so when the sweep of the basement was complete, she was incredibly worried. The only thing that could help was listening to the holotapes she and Charon had found in some of the rooms, and the three that Li gave to her when first speaking about her parents. Indeed, seeing her father's dream in such disrepair and evidence of the people who had once worked there, from abandoned clipboards to handguns to foodstuffs, was quite upsetting. She didn't want to think that her birth had single-handedly stopped all work on the purifier, but all she could do was listen to the journals she had amassed and see how it all played out.

They had found the most recently disturbed room in the basement, complete with a bed frame and thin mattress, and a good amount of tapes on the desk inside. A glass of some sort of alcohol sat half empty and all of the surfaces in the room had been dusted clean. "Dad was in here... He's gone now, but he was here." She quietly moved aside his things, various notes and such, as she collected the last few tapes. Charon sat on the bed behind her, now back to his silence that the threat of danger was eliminated. He was acting rather agreeable despite what had happened that morning. Perhaps she had been right about him changing his mind. But as she sat down, she decided her father was much more important than Charon's various ticks. Her fingers fiddled with the various tapes she splayed out on the desktop, a frown of concern on her lips. Which one to use first... the ones Li had given her. Those first. Picking up the tape labeled "1", she gave Charon a furtive glance before popping it in the player integrated into her Pip-Boy.

The voice on the tape was her father's. It sounded younger, more optimistic. Less tired than how he sounded the last time she spoke with him. He talked about very trivial things, such as Brotherhood of Steel members repairing sentry guns and Madison Li's dislike of them. And then he mentioned her mother feeling sick, being noted as a slight burden to the other scientists. Nothing to gather current information from, unfortunately. Nice to listen to, but not helpful. The second journal, listed as number three, revealed her mother's pregnancy and minor setbacks on the project, but a huge motivation to keep working for the benefit of the incoming generation. Namely, herself. The third journal was set sometime later and she frowned at his noting of super mutant attacks and Brotherhood members being cut down. As she listened, she could tell this was when the project's productivity and hopes began to turn down; her father sounded much more pessimistic. A notable increase of worry.

But what bothered her the most were the next two tapes. When her mother died, when her father lost all hope for the project. His predictions of failure, his depression of her mother's death. And his resolve to leave with her instead of continuing work, despite how much her mother would have wanted it. The beginning of the nineteen-year standstill.

Madison had been right. Her birth stopped Project Purity.

It left a sour taste in her mouth. She understood why it had to happen, but didn't know what to think of Li herself. Though her father clearly had doubts of it continuing, it still could have kept going. But she supposed the lack of his leadership and tolerance had been the kicker. Alma smiled a small bit to herself; she didn't like the woman anyways, and found it a bit funny that she failed her father and lived up to his expectations.

The rest of the tapes, recently made and labeled, documented her father's new-found ambition for the project, and his regret of leaving her behind. It made her eyes wet, listening to his challenges. Madison's rejection of his pleas and the fact the project never left his mind for all of those years, and the lack of technology needed to get it up and running. On the last tape was her only clue to her father's whereabouts, that, despite the sense of hopelessness of finding him, gave her confidence.

Vault 112. Home to someone named Stanislaus Braun, a man her father seemed to most definitely look up to. Somewhere west of Evergreen Mills, which happened to be the same place her friend Elizabeth mentioned going to. Perhaps, perhaps she could stop by there and ask Elizabeth for help finding the garage her father mentioned. She twirled around to face Charon, who had seemed to lapse into some sort of trance during the playback of the holotapes.

"Charon, do you know where that place is? Evergreen Mills?"

"Huh..? Oh, yes, I do. But Miss, don't you think it's a bad idea to-"

"We're going there. Elizabeth said she'll be there. Remember her?" Her bodyguard looked at her, but she couldn't get a read on his face. The lights were too dim. "She might be able to help us."

"Miss, you don't seem to understand, Evergreen..."

"No, Charon. We are going there. I'm sure you have no idea where the garage is either, so Elizabeth is our only hope." She stood up so quick, the chair tilted and fell back, knocking against another desk. She immediately turned to set it right when her eyes caught on an old holotape on the floor. Maybe the chair had knocked it into sight?

"Miss, Evergreen Mills is incredibly dangerous-"

The holotape she had found was already in her Pip-Boy. She held up a finger to silence him, despite his growing anger even she could feel. The voice on this one was different, a woman's.

-... Madison and I are convinced it's a problem with the second filtration system. We're going to recalibrate the equipment and try again tomorrow so that... James, please, I'm trying to work. Now's not the time! ...So that's the next step. Assuming we get the results we need, we'll move on to.. James!...-

It was her mother. Her laughs were loud and full of life as her father annoyed and interrupted her over and over. Alma felt her heart suddenly cave in. She had never known her mother, but listening to her speak... it was like she had known her her whole life. Her voice sounded almost like her own, a slight bit lower, but like her own. She felt her throat dry, and suddenly felt ridiculous for the wetness that resurfaced in her eyes again. She hadn't even known her, but she was on the verge of tears?... Alma understood why her father left now, why he decided to try and start the purifier again. He wanted to make a life for his family, but a life had already been taken away. This purifier was a way to apologize to she and her mother both for leaving them, ruining what could have been a good life for them. For making false promises, for abandoning hope for them.

It was decided. Despite Charon's protests, they would find Elizabeth. They would get help. She didn't want her father to suffer any more, and God help those that got in her way.