Chapter 4, Are You Real?

With the realization of who this is finally setting in, I quickly rushed to the woman and tried to help her up. She was wearing the same outfit in the painting, but they were extremely rugged and torn with part of her left sleeve being ripped open to her dress being torn in multiple areas. One of her cuffs on her left arm was gone and most of her panty hose stocking was ripped. Not only that, there were bloodstains all around the outfit. Given that context, it tells me that however she died, it was not pretty. As I reached to help her up, she immediately pushed me aside and gave me a cold look with her blue eyes as she stood herself up.

"Who are you? And where is Atlas," She demanded.

"Who is Atlas," I asked.

"The guy who is running the shots here, your boss."

"Last I checked, I don't work with anyone named Atlas and there is nobody here besides us."

"Wait, what's going on here? Who are you,... am I still in Rapture, ... and how am I here? Are you… even real, " she questioned as she standed up, removing her cold tone and giving a more calmer, sweet demeanor as she reached toward my face with her right hand.

"My name is Evan, yes this is still Rapture or what's left of it, and yeah I am real, " I replied as she touched my face.

"What do you mean?" She asks, pulling her hand back as she looks around.

"Well Rapture has not been alive with people in a very long time. Last people that were here was four years ago, but they had to leave in a hurry after finishing their research."

"I don't understand what's going on and how I'm back in the land of the living," she questioned.

"I brought you back with that Vita Chamber with your brain, hair, and whatever was left of your clothes, " I stated, pointing to the machine.

She turned around and took a look at the Vita Chamber as well as took a look at the chalkboard with all the information on how it worked. Her movement indicated her curiosity as she muttered to herself,reading the words on the chalkboard.

"I'm so confused. How is this possible? I remember dying to Atlas with him beating me to death with a wrench and then …," She paused, with her finger on her lip.

Can't say I really blame her memory for being so foggy after coming back from the dead, especially from being killed by being beaten to death with a wrench to the head.

"I remember," She perked, " Sally! Do you know where she is," She turned around, coming toward me.

"No, I don't know any Sally's, sorry," I replied

She stopped and started fidgeting with her hands and looked down at the ground. I can tell by her body language, she felt distraught, possibly thinking of ideas of what happened to Sally. I don't know what Sally meant to her fully, but I can tell it was something big. As to whoever Atlas was, not sure but he sounds like an asshole already. And if he was calling the shots here, he might have had a hand in Rapture's fall.

"Hey." I spoke, trying to snap her out of her trance. She shook her head in response "I didn't catch your name."

"Elizabeth," she replied

Now that makes sense what the E on the vial of hair stood for. Her full name was Elizabeth Comstock.

"I don't know all the details of what happened, but I promise we can check the files I downloaded to see what might have happened to Sally." I told her

She smiled, "Thank you Evan. That means a lot to me."

The way she smiled at me made me feel a hint of something I hadn't felt since I was in the vault. I have a feeling I know what it is, but I feel my guard going down slightly. She had a level of innocence I could feel just by her posture or her tone in her voice. It gave me the idea of trusting her since she had not lived the horrors that everyone in the Mojave and world had. Brushing it off for a moment, I smiled back at her.

"Wait." She requested, "Is this still or around 1959?"

I froze. How do I even tell her that she is 300 years old and not to mention that we are living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Only way I can think of is just starting slow by telling her it's just 300 years in the future.

"Well, you are about 300 years in the future. It's 2281 right now," I told her.

She got a huge look of shock on her face. At first she paused, unable for words. I couldn't tell if she was upset she was 300 years in the future or felt something else. But then she immediately smiled and joy sparkled in her eyes.

"Wow there has to be so many advances in so many areas of life. You have to tell me more," she responded with such an excited, giddy tone, it was like a little girl excited for her birthday present.

Before I could even think of a response, the alarm went off and lights started to flash.

"Do you know what's going on," she asked.

"I think activating the Vita Chamber might have created an overload and triggered something. We need to get out of here and get to the Submarine"

"Lead the way," she replied, standing behind me.

We quickly rushed out of the room and already explosions were going off and I could hear the place collapsing in on itself.

"What's happening," Elizabeth shouted.

"The whole place is coming down. No idea why it took so long for it to notice the overload but we gotta keep going." I shouted back

As we got back to the reception desk, all I could see was fire initially, but when I got through, I could not believe my luck.

"Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me," I exclaimed.

The submarine was destroyed by rubble from the ceiling and water was starting to pour in from the ceiling raising the water levels only further.

"Just what we needed," Elizabeth responded..

"Well I am out of options.".

"Did you find anything else here that could help?"

I turned toward her "There was a log talking about some sort of portal device but they could never get it to work again."

"Well it can't be that easy. Never is. Show me where it is," she replied.

I throw up my hands and lead the way. Anything is on the table at this point, so if she knows anything on how to get it working, it's worth a shot.

As I brought her down the hall and up the stairs, I could hear the ceiling starting to crack and give way to either water pressure or something collapsed on it. And then a strong shake threw both of us on the ground with me slamming right into the wall.

"Are you alright," she asked, putting her hand around me to help me up.

"Yeah, let's get to the top before water starts coming out," I asked, taking her offer to help me up.

I brought her to the device and judging by her look, she knew what it was.

"A Lutece Device," she said.

"Is that what it's called?" I replied.

"Yeah, I can fix it. I've been fixing quantum field generators since kindergarten," she said with her arms crossed.

Immediately I have so many questions about how the old world was and what kids were up to. When I was a kid I was just playing around in the vault with all the other kids, not really doing stuff like fixing quantum field generators.

"Ok, do you have any information that you gathered here," she asked me while she was inspecting the machine.

"I have the expedition logs and it looks like it covers how to restore the device," I said, giving her the log files.

"Let's see…. Okay! We need only the CO2 scrubber and there should be one in one of the bathyspheres," She said.

"What's a bathysphere," I asked even more confused on more of this terminology

"It was that round sphere next to the submarine," she said as she ran ahead to get to the bathysphere.

I followed her to keep up as I continued to hear the sounds of the sirens and the place collapsing. Water started to leak everywhere even more now and it only just made me anxious that I hoped this would work otherwise, I am going to have quite the deep grave.

We arrived at the bathysphere and she took a quick look and grabbed a rock from the debris and hit open the part of the bathysphere and took a part out.

"Got it. Let's get back to the Lutece Device," she exclaimed, running ahead again.

"Hey, don't leave me behind," I shouted over the alarm and the place collapsed further.

"I won't. As long as you can keep up, " she shouted back.

We got back to the Lutece Device and she immediately put the part in its place and rewired it to work with the machine.

"Ok we should be good. Now we won't immediately die of CO2 poisoning the moment we turn the thing on," she states.

Can't figure what's worse at this point. Drawing at the bottom of the ocean or dying of CO2 Poisoning.

"Ok everything is fixed and we are ready to go," Elizabeth stated.

"Ok I'll start her up."

I made my way to the top of the stairs where the controls were and as I pressed in the coordinates for the Brotherhood of Steel base I said to myself " Please work, please work, for god's sake please work."I confirmed the coordinates and nothing blew up or made things worse.

"Hurry," Elizabeth shouted.

I ran down the stairs and saw a giant portal opened with what looked like a black and white version of the submarine base.

Elizabeth jumped in first since she seemed to know more about the thing but I felt incredibly hesitant. I looked behind and saw the stairs halfway collapse in itself with more of the place coming down and water starting to pour in immediately. After seeing that, I jumped right in. I immediately landed in the water and swam to the stairs leading out of the water. I looked behind me real quick and the portal closed itself immediately and the last glimpse I got was Rapture closing in itself. I walked up the stairs and met her at the top. We both were catching our breath after what we had witnessed.

"Well that was close," I chuckled

"Yeah," she said, faking a smile to me. "You just saved my life. Thank you Evan." She shocked me by giving me a hug.

"Well technically you saved both of our lives." I replied.

She let go. "No, I meant thank you for saving my life and bringing me back."

After she said that and let go, she stared at me for a few seconds as she tucked some of her hair behind her ear. She looked around and asked what this place was.

"Well this is an old naval base and I loaded the coordinates from the submarine," I replied.

"Alright, So where next," she asked.

"Well you can come with me to New Vegas if you would like. I have some work I have to do and you are more than welcome to tag along." I stated.

"Ok I am more than happy with that."

Elizabeth followed me out of the submarine base and I remember I had to report back to Paladin Kovalsky on what happened. As we approached his tent, I told Elizabeth to stay outside. I approached him and he looked at me with curiosity but immediately went back to his stern demeanor.

"So, where is my submarine," he demanded with that thick accent of his kicking in again.

"It's gone. As well as the underwater city. I was lucky to escape."

"Ok, Keep talking. What else happened," he asked..

"The ruins were unstable and it all collapsed when the generator overloaded everything in the base. Sorry about the submarine," I told him.

"Well that doesn't explain how you managed to escape and get back here," he said leaning on me a bit further, doubting my response.

"There was a teleportation device in the city I was able to get back working before it collapsed in."

"A teleportation device," he asked, taken a bit back. "Were you able to get anything at all?"

I thought for a minute and realized, I couldn't let the Brotherhood of Steel get this information. They might try to replicate it and who knows what they could do with it given their finatical nature here. If these were the ones in D.C, I might have given them the info. Instead I lied and said everything happened so fast I never had a chance to explore the ruins. Once I arrived, the whole place felt the submarine arrive and it made the place immediately become unstable.

"Well that is a shame. The possibilities of the technology that could have been rediscovered could have helped us, " he replied, shaking his head.

"Anway, clear out and see you later," he stated, turning around back to his work.

He was right, it was a shame I was unable to even get more information on that Vita Chamber. It could have helped humanity's future in so many different ways. Or I could have found maybe even some cool pre war weapons that could either have been valuable or helped me in my survival in the mojave. I left the tent and Elizabeth was looking around with curiosity at everything.

"I told him what happened. So what do you think of the place?"

"Well it's not much," she said with her arms crossed. "But it's only a small encampment area. The whole world can't look like this," she immediately said with some hope in her voice.

I really have no idea how I can even begin to explain the truth of the world. Here, Elizabeth is expecting a better world in the future after dying potentially an awful death and being brought back. Instead, she is going to be hit with an awful truth of how it's all mostly destroyed and life here is so much worse than what it was back then.

"I really want to know more about the future. You have to tell me more," she cheerfully said with one of the biggest smiles I have seen on someone.

"No wait," she said and paused, coming towards me "I want to see it for myself and you can explain what things are."

I collected myself really quick after hearing that as the initial anxious thought that had come over went away knowing I had to explain what happened to the world to Elizabeth. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the exit.

"Come on! I want to see everything I can," she giddly said, letting go of my hand and running ahead.

Not only was I surprised she was running so fast in heels but she was running ahead like nothing was going to stop her from seeing the future. I quickly shook myself back to reality and saw she was getting a huge head start. As I ran after her, I shouted towards her "Elizabeth, Wait! Slow down, you are not ready to see this!"

I ran after her as fast as I could and was able to catch up to her and grabbed her hand.

"Listen, you need to know something about the world now," I shouted to her

"What about the world," she asked, starting at me with a confused look

"I-" Before I could finish my sentence, a loud thunder was heard signaling a storm was coming.

"Tell me later, I want to see a bit of the new world before it starts to pour horribly!" She exclaimed, still with the giddy look on her face. As she turned the corner, I could tell looking behind her that all that hopefully, giddy happy nature she was feeling was sucked out immediately.