To the Ends of the Earth
Fallout 2, shard one
Rating: M (Violence / Language)
Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;
Their foot shall slip in due time;
For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things to come hasten upon them.
- Deuteronomy 32:35, New King James Version
Notes:
1. This (past) summer I started playing Fallout 2 after a hiatus of more than 10 years (if not more), only this time it was the "Restoration Project" version. In case you don't know about it: it adds quite a bit of content and features, restores some cut locations and quests, and fixes lots of errors and bugs. In particular, it enables the "good" ending for Vault 13 which was unavailable due to a bug, but the whole premise of the story was born due to me not realizing how to trigger it and botching it (along with a few other things) during my rather shoddy playthrough - clearly I haven't remembered, or even learned, everything about the best way to beat the game . The emotional backlash of seeing the Vault 13 massacre play out all over again was enough for me to envision the entire first chapter (give or take a few embellishments) in a matter of minutes on Aug. 15th, and it all just rolled from there.
2. Gem is the name of another female character from Heroes of Might and Magic II, similar to how my Diablo character Jacqueline (the Amazon heroine of a recent story posted here) got her name. I describe her as blonde since the Restoration Project allows playable characters to have heads other than the default styles (which, for female Chosen Ones, was the black "bucket head" hair). Females can have red or blonde hair, or a punky green mohawk.
3. In her oath, The Chosen One quotes the Allies' declaration of Tehran '43 almost verbatim. That was an accidental thing at first but I latched upon it.
4. All the chapter epigraphs are lines from various songs by Iron Maiden, including The Edge of Darkness (by Steve Harris / Blaze Bayley / Janick Gers), Afraid to Shoot Strangers (by Steve Harris), Brighter than a Thousand Suns (by Adrian Smith / Steve Harris / Bruce Dickinson), The Legacy (by Janick Gers / Steve Harris), If Eternity Should Fail (by Bruce Dickinson), Lost in a Lost World (by Steve Harris), Mother of Mercy (by Adrian Smith / Steve Harris). I experimented with using chapter epigraphs selected from music before, and even with a story (unreleased) where all epigraphs were from one band - in that case, it was Candlemass. So I wanted to try it all over again. Iron Maiden is a band with so many songs and the lyrics are usually so profound - mostly concerning religion and war (including nuclear one, very fitting for the Fallout universe) - that it was a walk in the park this time.
I.
I've looked into the heart of darkness
Where the blood-red journey ends
When you face the heart of darkness
Even your soul begins to bend
For a week I have been waiting
Still I am only in Saigon
The walls move in a little closer
I feel the jungle call me on
Every minute I get weaker
While in the jungle they grow strong
What I wanted was a mission
And for my sins… they gave me one
- "Edge of Darkness"
03:35 Pacific Time, July 27th, 2242.
Vault 13.
CHOSEN ONE
The Chosen One doesn't cry. Does she?
Nobody in the great wide California really has the answer. Though the Chosen One is, by definition, the one who is selected to bear the weight of the world, all of its injustice and pain, yet she is still human beneath this ghostly mantle – so who can blame her for sometimes buckling, if not snapping, under this ponderous burden?
Philosophical meanderings aside, the only live onlookers to witness her tears were her trusted companions – and they had seen her in far worse physical shape. Bleeding, covered head to toe in mud, puking from Rad-Away's side effects, naked, sedated out of her wits after surgeries – but hardly ever in a more dire emotional condition, because... the rest of the people around her were dead. The entire Vault became a hecatomb, as humans and deathclaws alike were massacred down to the last, and resting in a final camaraderie among the sterile white walls.
Gem was weeping like a thundercloud sheds rain, curled up in a ball on the floor down the Thirteenth's deepest level – insofar as a power armored person can hope to assume fetal position. Her precious Gauss Rifle was tossed aside without care like a discarded toy as veritable rivers of tears streamed down the young woman's handsome face, now swollen and lined with trails of mourning, her breath labored and ragged. If she had been capable of conscious analysis, she would have questioned the reasons for feeling so downcast, for she had not felt the same level of devastation even when she learned of the razing of her home village just weeks prior. But there, though she knew that Hakunin – and an unspecified number of her kin – gave their lives trying to protect their homes against the Enclave troopers (a futile endeavor, she knew, especially since she was now enjoying the same level of protection as her enemy) – she was clinging on to hope of finding the rest of them sometime. Ironically, the fact that they had been spirited away by her adversary only steeled her resolve to seek and rescue them, bringing their captors to justice in the process.
Here, though, the devastation and carnage were plainly evident, and no amount of wishful thinking could have willed that away or even hoped to let her forget it one day. The death was manifest, final – and, above all, grotesquely senseless, and it was what hurt her most. From there on out, justice, even the peculiar Wasteland breed thereof, would not suffice – only vengeance.
A rough hand, also clad in a heavy armor glove, came to embrace her shoulders gently and carefully. Gem twitched involuntarily and raised her tear-streaked face to look upon the pale, gaunt visage of John Cassidy, one of her trusted and cherished companions. Even the seasoned adventurer looked completely distraught, and looking at the other two of her friends standing behind him, the Chosen One noticed that Sulik also appeared shaken, while Vic was patently green as grass.
"No survivors", Cassidy shook his head, confirming that which she already knew deep inside.
"They appeared to take no prisoners, either", Vic croaked. "Most everyone we knew from before... except Gruthar... they... are here. Women, children..."
His voice snapped and petered out altogether as he covered his face with his armor gauntlet, apparently unwilling to show that he was in tears like the "Boss".
Cassidy drew a deep breath, shaking his head again as if to banish the horrid memory. It was a while before he spoke again.
"I... just don't understand. They're... worse than any raiders I've ever seen. Raiders can be reasoned – or bargained – with... not all of them, mind you, but these... people... are just something different altogether. They slaughtered everyone like cattle, without having any second thought. As if we're all nothing but..."he stumbled, gulping and blinking. "...cattle to them!"
Despite her distress, Gem trembled at these words, sensing a bit of prophetic truth behind them. While life in the Wasteland was harsh – and she had known this firsthand, having seen more horrors during the paltry twelve months of her journey than in all twenty years of her prior life – it was, first and foremost, utilitarian, hence the proliferation of slavers, scavengers, raiders and other profiteering types all across the land. Humans were a resource to them, a resource to be exploited, not destroyed without a clear goal or necessity in mind, unless there was a very compelling reason to do so. A real or an imaginary one, and she was not sure which was worse.
She was glad to find anything to think about, to take her mind away – if only a little bit – from the reign of death around her. From the desecrated halls of the 13th – still brightly lit, as if mocking the dead – the Chosen One skipped to an outwardly similar place she had seen very recently, during her infiltration run to Navarro. What she had observed there really had hinted at a deeply ingrained sentiment of superiority that she could not understand, but could very well connect to the other similar occurrences. Vault City and its treatment of outsiders? Maybe close but still nowhere as concentrated... and certainly devoid of this inexorable lethal intent. The Enclave, however, was taking everything she saw there to eleven... thousand.
By then, Gem had reviewed the security footage, while sending the rest of her companions to look for survivors. It was plain cowardice and escapism on her part, she knew, but she found that she could not bring herself to see the dead faces of the Vault's hapless inhabitants. In her short life, she had killed scores and seen death aplenty... and yet. All the deathclaws were slaughtered – and Gruthar's body was nowhere to be found, as the Enclave appeared to take it with them. And so were the humans... Jimmy, Joseph the herbalist, Dalia, whom she had basically sent to find her doom here, Ariel and... oh God, that little girl Sandy, cheerfully playing a cat without knowing of the shadow of death already stretching out its hand to grab her. At this thought of her, Gem's vision suddenly became blotted out with a crimson haze. She clenched her armored fists painfully and threw back her head as a feral howl – one not of mourning anymore, but of berserker rage and a lethal threat – broke out from her throat, painfully as if it was itself a clot of brambles and razor wire, and resonated against the metal walls. Somehow it was gaining in volume and ominous gravity as it traveled across the halls and became warped by reflections until it was no longer identifiable as a sound made by a human being, let alone a young woman.
Her mind was ablaze with white-hot fury, boiling with blackest hatred, pervaded with blood-red desire to kill, all at once. Nothing in the world could bring them back, she knew, but at least the Chosen One could – and would – give them closure by eradicating every last remnant of the Enclave, destroying their lair and scattering the accursed organization across the eight winds. In a flash, she realized that nothing less would suffice.
In one swift, practiced motion the girl sprang up on her feet to face Goris, now returning from giving the last honors to his mother the Pack's matriarch, as well as Vic, Sulik and Cassidy, all standing before her in a row. They were fidgeting uneasily at seeing her outbursts – first of grief, then of wrath. She instantly realized what she had to do as she hastily shed one of the gauntlets. Then her hand skipped to the belt-mounted sheath where her combat knife rested, and undid the button.
"You are my witnesses. I will hunt these creeps to the utmost ends of the Earth, and beyond if I have to. I will not rest until I make them pay for everything. I will do unto them the same they did to me and those I counted among my friends. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and then tenfold!" she yelled, finding her voice breaking and her words becoming raving, as her comrades were looking on in apparent awe.
With that, Gem slashed her hand with the blade, letting thick red drops fall to the floor already generously stained by the same substance. The blood oath was pronounced, and the trio of male adventurers – and the grieving reptile – froze still, understanding the gravity of what had just transpired. After a second John Cassidy clenched his fist and struck his own power armored chest where his heart was. A fleeting moment later, Goris the Deathclaw, Trader Vic and Sulik all followed suit. The bond was formed, and the path set.