PART 2: DURANDAL'S CRADDLE O' DEATH
Chapter 08: Durandal
The Surface of the Nuka-Cola Factory
Gog and Magog, the twins had grown increasing impatient. Why? Simple, a certain subject has now wandered too far and had to be dealt with. Essex had given firm instructions that the girl, Charlyn Vidal, couldn't be allowed to enter Durandal.
Gog looked to his brother, "She and the Captain have entered the cradle. Do we proceed?" The last comment didn't seem like a question, though it had been phrased as such.
Magog looked at the main entrance, his dark shades reflecting his brother's solemn demeanor. They could hide their emotions well, mask them behind a face of stone. But truth be told, Magog and Gog weren't human, or not entirely. Of course, their collective father Walther Essex knew far more about their origins then they knew or cared to know.
"Yes, we proceed. Lethal force if necessary." Magog said mildly like a man just stating some known fact. He withdrew a Desert Eagle .357 magnum from a shoulder holster beneath his suit. Their suits stood out in this winter wastelands, yet the cold didn't trouble them nor even cause color to rise in their cheeks. No, they didn't feel it on the level the average human being did.
Both men drew weapons and walked towards the door. They would find Charlyn or Edden or whomever the mad child called herself and teach her a lesson she'd never forget. Orders had to bring her back alive or mostly and to deal with any loose ends. What was down there was not for prying eyes.
Some things are best left unknown.
THE POSSE OF SIX
Six Regulators had been dispatched. Six hard cases with blood on the brain and perhaps a rape or too, present female company accepted. Bobby Depape looked uneasily at Cross-Eyes. She was dangerous when she said little, and ever worst if anyone made fun of her voice; that person would be likely to be at the receiving end of an ass whoopin'. Tony of the Oasis had learnt that the hard way. Mia wasn't a woman to be trifled with. Apart from swelling the other side of his face, she caved in his cheek and took the hot coffee from the thermos and dosed him like a dog.
The silence wasn't heavy, but around Mia Reynolds, it was deafening. "Mia… are we goin' to the Nuka-Cola nest… I not scared an' all, b-but… I hear it haunted by demon spooks." His voice had a slight treble to it and Mia turned her hateful gaze at Bobby. Bobby Depape, the brother Mathias Depape. She wondered how the two could have been brothers at all. Yet, his fear was well placed. Mia's gaze didn't hold long, she let it go.
The Nuka Cola factory was haunted, that was sure. It has been haunted since the day of her grand father and father were Regulators. Both dead now, Grand pa died of the red plague and pa was done in by some outlaws. But Mia knew the war of the wastes would be a hard one and all murdering bastards would be dealt with and yes, the muties would have their day in the lake too. Mia has twenty five kills and eighty arrests on her marker and she was determined to bring in the Red Violin and her Captain friend too. Yes, they'd all be brought back in chains or heads in a duffel bag, didn't matter either way for her.
Straw, Tanner, Bobby Depape, Jay Burns and Razor made up her small posse. Gill, the High Regulator decided not to spare all fifteen of his men, as things were pressing enough in this backwater outpost in the middle of dead Idaho. He doubted that ten more would be necessary for the capture of two bandits. Mia would argue her case, but she knew as well as Gill knew that things were pressing in this region of the wastes. The Republic hadn't yet expanded this far East as they had promised. More in fighting and well… politics. But The Regulators on this side of the outlands had one comforting thought: Their families were being taken care of. Mia's children were all being schooled and she was being paid fairly for her labors. They all were. And of course, they basically controlled Old Moscow.
Straw was the one to speak, "Da plant isn't haunted. Don't be such a pussy, 'Pape. Yer bro'tha Mathias would kick 'yer ass hard."
Bobby turned to face Straw and shot the heavy set negro a fierce gaze. Bobby may have been four inches shorter than the tower Straw who basically looked like some black skinned giant from some fairy tale. He was bald, adorned in heavy metal armor and wielding a heavy sledge hammer he named Bettsy in his arms. "Shut ya mouth, Straw. Maybe I might have to kick it in for ye-" Depape didn't get to finish his sentence when Mia seized his ear and pulled him violently towards him.
"Mind your pie hole, cully. We have work to do. Be the Nuka-Cola hole be haunted or not ain't da issue. I don't believe in spooks, but if there are any, The Violin and that hard case ain't afraid, neitha should we be. Now get and mind your mouths. I got a bullet for each of you." She let Depape go, his ear reddened between her dry and callow finger tips.
The other men laughed at Depape and Depape showed them the finger and motioned for them to stick it side ways. Eventually they all moved and headed towards their fates.
Death was waiting.
The chamber to Durandal was wide and glarie, not sterile like the upper levels, but this one didn't just reek of ruin, it smelt of stale death. Ron had felt something crunch beneath his insulated combat boots. Crunch or snap, Ron wasn't sure, but he held Charlyn back. "Look, seems we weren't the only visitors." He pointed to the row of bones and skeletons along the wall and floor. The room had been dark, but now as they entered, the fluorescent tubes overhead came to life with that electrical pulse.
Charlyn looked at the hand that was precariously close to her left breast and gave Ron the signal. "Don't look now Ron but I think you're a bit close to the northern boarder." Red giggled and Ron withdrew his hand swiftly, feeling like a boy who made a foolish grope for his sweethearts titts. Red could see his struggle and turned it to the dead men against the walls, "I see you're right, we weren't the only ones to come here."
Maggie sniffed the bones and barked, "You said it girl. I hope we don't wind up like the wise men over here." He checked his rainbow knife and looked towards the end of the chamber, which was open and a single red diode, one the size of a pumpkin glowed in the distance that looked like a burning eye and Charlyn paused as if remembering something. It was so familiar, so terrible that she could swear it was piercing her soul like a hot knife.
Charlyn remembers a place with snow covered fields and remembers a facility of iron and steel, filled with dead things that weren't dead anymore and insane mutants crying of a fallen god. Her hand had went to the Colt 10mm in her waist band and her fingers halted, the cloth of her right hand hid the scars and old wounds she once had, one she endured after she left that facility and watched it go up in smoke.
Her eyes had was glazed and Ron was shaking her by the shoulders, trying to get her up. Charlyn came around getting up and seeing the stubbled and troubled features of Ron Spears. Those clear blue eyes looking into her indigo eyes.
"I'm fine, don't fret… just got lost. Let's go. Durandal is waiting for us and we can't be late." She said, breaking out of Ron's hold and getting on towards the direction of that burned red eye. Ron had been wanting to say more, to ask more, but he got his glimpse of his own nightmares and felt his own hand's tremble. The same vision of a ghoul sawing apart his PFC or seeing his beast friend impaled upon the fist of a super mutant. And he saw his own, painful death. Hooks and a room filled with the tormented crew of the Nightmare Company. The shiver came and went, much like a junky fighting the kiss of Rocket. Spears followed and Maggie trotted along, apparently the only one not afflicted by some mental trauma.
Inside the Network Systems room, computers buzzed and diodes blinked and even some of the magnetic tape reels turned and some clicks, though they didn't sound as healthy they did maybe fifty years ago, they worked, but out of the two thousand reels in the room, five hundred had tore under the stress of fault gears and the last fifteen hundred were breaking down, slowly. Dust, time and lack of maintenance had done that… mainly the fear of Durandal. In the center of the room, a massive super computer stood. It looked more like a monstrosity of a super turbine engine, with a console screen and huge glowing red diode that looked like a blinking eye. Other monitors flickered on and off according to the machines mood swings.
Two centuries ago, Durandal had been a sane and meticulous machine. It calculated, it did the break down of formula and molecules, theorems, mathematical equations… it even played chess with the staff. Then someone had the bright idea of installing the Portals X-10 Beta Ware – a powerful software that would not only allow Durandal to evolve and learn, it would make it able to upgrade itself till the twenty third century. But there was a problem, a hick-up. Because this revolutionary software had so many gaps in the logic coding, it turned a pseudo AI machine into a homicidal psychotic. Durandal, a machine that had taken pleasure (programmed pleasure) in playing scrabble, chess, tick-tack-toe and other games with the scientific staff was now insane. When the bombs hit Durandal had made sure to seal up the base and protect the staff from radiation that was spreading across Idaho. It had done so, but because of the super computers exponential calculating and processing abilities, by the end of the week, Durandal had over ten million errors in the logic syntax, which eventually fried the neuro net and Durandal gave the order to cull the humans within the facility. Save for Wescot, Crane and some other personnel, the rest were slain, the machines under his command had taken the bodies and laid them across the hall of Durandal's chamber like mummies in a catacomb. Searching the remnants of the Department of Defense's network DARPA-Net and the expansive Internet, Durandal took a perverse liking to death. The ghouls it kept around as a necessity to get other humans to feed the insatiable appetite of the machine.
After acquiring fresh neural tissue, Durandal is more or less sane, though the sanity checks had failed about a hundred years earlier. Now Durandal had guests as one intrepid stranger had promised and Durandal would deliver as the stranger requested. An odd gentleman with pale flesh had offered Durandal respite if he did this one favor and Durandal, more then anything had wished to die, to be terminated of it's existence.
So Durandal had allowed Mr. Smith to awake and greet the guest, Durandal has set the machines to patrol instead of search and destroy. Only the Sentry Bot that was outside of Durandal's influence had disobeyed, but it seemed the guests had been wily and had destroyed the machine.
Durandal brooded and when it finally saw the trio, a man, a woman and a dog Durandal, if he could would have smiled. "GREETINGS… SALUTATIONS. WELCOME. PLEASANT JOURNEY THERE PILGRIMS. I HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU FOR SOMETIME..." The voice was artificial, female, but so synthetic it made Red Violin's ear's ring.
"Durandal… I have come far… and wide---" Charlyn began her hands splayed in the pleading gesture.
The machine began, replying in an impatient tone. "YES, YES, WE I KNOW 'WHO YOU ARE' AND WHAT YOU AND YOU'RE BEDRAGGELED TRIO HAVE BEEN UP TO. YOU HAVE COME TO SPEAK OF MANY THINGS… AND I WISH YOU DO ME A SERVICE BEFORE YOU LEAVE WITH WHATEVER IT IS YOU CAME FOR. BUT BEFORE WE SPEAK OF SHELLS, SHOES AND MYSTERIOUS OMENS, CAN I HAVE YOUR NAMES?"
"I thought you knew all and saw all." Ron asked, scratching his scruffy face. "I mean you-"
"SILENCE MEAT PUPPET… SILENCE AND QUIET. LISTEN WELL, FOR IF YOU INTERRUPT ME OR CUT THE WISE WITH ME MEAT PUPPET, I PROMISE YOU WILL LIVE TO SEE THE WORLD A THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW, WISHING YOU HAD DIED IN THIS VERY SPOT." Durandal 2.0 had stated so matter of factly that Red and Ron were impressed on how politely it expressed it's displeasure. The machine sounded like a finely tuned psycho, the kind who could go to work everyday, talk with the co-workers, bring home the bacon to the wife and at the night spend time stalking other human beings and taking their bodies into his cellar where he did unspeakable horrors. Yes, Ron felt afraid and would now leave the talking to Red.
"Edden Vidal. Charlyn Vidal. They call me the Red Violin. This here is my partner Ron Spears of the Nightmare Company. And last but not least, Maggie the mutt. Pleased to meet you."
Durandal laughed and giggled, that same lifeless laugh, artificial, synthetic. "'PLEASED TO MEET YOU?' OH, HOW YOU LIE CHILD OF THE BROKEN LAND. YOU LIE TO YOURSELF IN ORDER TO HIDE THE PAIN AS THE CAPTAIN THERE LIES TO SAVE HIMSELF FROM GUILT OF BEING THE LAST. BOTH CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH. MEAT PUPPETS ARE ALL THE SAME… FLESH IN AND FLESH OUT. I HAVE WATCHED THE WORLD FOR NEARLY THREE HUNDRED YEARS CHILD, I KNOW THINGS THAT YOU COULDN'T IMAGINE. I CAN SENSE YOUR LIES, I CAN SENSE YOUR HEART RATE… MY PERCEPTORS CAN EVEN SMELL THAT ACRID STINK THAT YOU MEAT PUPPETS PRODUCE IN ABUNDANCE. IF I HAD A TONGUE, I COULD TASTE THAT TANG OF YOUR SWEET OR THE DAMP FER OF THE CANINE. OF COURSE, I CAN SENSE YOU'RE CONFLICT CHARLYN, FOR THAT IS YOUR TRUE NAME… EDDEN WAS NOTHING BUT A GUISE YOU WORE WHEN YOU WERE BUT A CHILD… IT WAS THE NAME OF YOUR HOME BEFORE THE RAIDERS OF THE HAVEN SACKED AND DESTROYED IT. THE SCAR YOU WEAR ON YOUR CHEEK LIKE A BADGE OF HONOR CAME FROM THE CAPTAIN CALLED ALIGHERI. HOW AND WHY I KNOW THIS IS OF NO CONCERN. YOU WANTED TO KNOW THE FACTS AND I WILL GIVE THEM.
"RON THERE IS A COWARD, A MAN WHO FEARS HIS DREAMS THE WAY A CHILD FEARS THE DARK. HE SWEATS AND HE FEARS AND ONLY KILLS TO BLANKET HIS CONSCIENCE. MUCH LIKE YOU CHARLYN, YOU KILLED AND LOVED WOMEN BECAUSE YOU FOUND NO COMFORT IN THE MALE OF YOUR SPECIES. YOU HIDE BEHIND A MASK OF VIOLENCE IN ORDER TO COVER YOUR OWN FEAR AND COWARDICE. YES, RON SPEARS AND CHARLYN VIDAL DO MAKE A FINE CUT PAIR." Durandal said, if she could smile, it would. And it left Ron silenced, his hand tightening around the handle of the blade handle and Charlyn gripped Ron's hand, a surprise gesture and Ron's own tightened. All that guilt he carrier for living, all that time.
Charlyn Stood mortified, angry, hurt, confused. She was Charlyn and Edden was a pseudonym she used to hide the broken girl who cowered as she watched her father gunned down and her mother be rapped while she was impaled on the bed. And a gaunt looking man, a bit mournful, but resolute had slapped the child across the face with a beer bottle, she had felt the glass shatter against her cheek and she fell side ways, crying, her brown skin, red hair and indigo eyes blazed with shame and fury. When she ran, no one stopped her. And that insensitive machine, that prick of a super computer with more bugs then a whores bed was speaking of it matter of factly, as if forcing her hand to do something she would forever regret.
Then something happened, Durandal began to laugh as if it found some fucking joke on the misery of two scarred and burnt out warriors. Charlyn's teeth began to grate against her lower lip, her teeth cutting into the flesh and blood began to trickle from her lip. "What's… SO….fuckin'… funny?" Charlyn asked, her voice shaking, and Durandal laughed on.
"OH POOR, POOR MEAT PUPPET. YOU CAME ALL THIS WAY FOR NOTHING. TO FIND A TRUTH YOU KNEW ALL ALONG. YOU CAME HOPING FOR A MIRACLE AND INSTEAD YOU GOT NOTHING. I WAITED TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR YEARS FOR A LAUGH, AND YOU --- MY POOR DELUDED CHILD ARE THE JOKE. AHH, I BELIEVE YOU MEAT PUPPETS WOULD SAY I BUSTED A GUT… OR MORE LIKE I FRIED A CIRCUIT IN MY CASE." Durandal laughed on simulating the sound of a hand slapping a knew and that is when Charlyn lost it. What she would remember was something like seeing her home in flames once again, except, Charlyn wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a woman and she had guns.
"YOU FUCKIN' PSYCHOTIC TOASTER OVEN, I AM GONNA BUST YOUR GUT! I'M GONNA TEAR YOU A NEW ASSHOLE YOU FUCKIN' CHIP…. YOU FUCKIN' COCK SUCKING COMP! YOU CYBERNETIC BITCH!" Charlyn had drawn both her sawed off and Colt 10mm and began to fire at the mainframe, shooting the reels, the monitors and the laughing still continued, still went on, rattling her teeth. The solid slug had smashed the dish of the reel and the sparks flew, her pistol unloaded into the neighboring monitors and she watched the glass shatter and scatter, she even felt a piece of screen hit her hand and felt the slight warmth on the palm, but ignored it.
Ron who had been paused had gotten into the act, going around and smashing mache V comps and taking his knife where he plunged it into the eye of Durandal. The blade cracking through the glass and destroying the sensitive network of wires that gave Durandal sight of the world. All the screens went dead and Red kept reloading the double barrel and fired in tandem with her left. Her last 10mm slug had zeroed on the console screen and she shattered the LCD upon impact.
Maggie had hid in the corner, head ducked while Ron and Charlyn wrecked havoc smashing and breaking computer components, unknowingly doing exactly what Durandal had wanted – death. Durandal had begun to play random songs from the past. "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…. YAKITY YAK… DON'T YOU COME BACK. HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES…. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.…..WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND…. HEAR THE ANGELS SING….. BBTTTZZZZZ ALPHA - system error 709-Øώ… daisy, daisy…. Daisy…….GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER DOOOOOOOOOO…." When The mainframe had finally whirled down, the lights fading and dying, Charlyn had been pulling the terminal off the wall and began to pound on the exterior of the chassis, making small, meager dents. The reels all stopped and Durandal exhaled before it died and went to oblivion, free of the madness that once consumed to it's system.
When Durandal died Charlyn was on her knew, weeping, her bloody left hand over her eyes as she hid back the pain and tears and Ron, Ron Spears, sole survivor of the Nightmare Company, put his knife down and hugged her. Misery had found company. His powerful arms held her gentle and she turned to look at him and embraced him back. He had been expecting perhaps a passionate kiss, but since this was a step forward, he expected that it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one that would be tested from now to a year later when they would embrace for the last time and Ron would have had his wish and went to his men unashamed.
Maggie came over, sniffing the burning wires and barked at the tape dispenser which shot out a small four by four HD. Grabbing it between it's jaws, it delivered it to the weeping duo and wagged the stub of the tail. Maggie didn't know the prognoses from now on would be bad, bad.
Albert Wescot, the manager of Jane Nuka-Cola factory based in Idaho sat back in his chair and knew before the wide surge happened that Durandal had finally either shut down or died. Freedom seemed to be the word he was looking for. The magnetic locks on the window frames unhinged, some actually snapped; the bot halted, each falling backward or leaning forward. He was a prisoner no more.
Albert, just turned and looked outside, the vast dead tundra stretching as far as the eye could see. A white blight across the land. Durandal no longer held sway and Wescot could leave. Go where? He wasn't sure. Scratching his rotted chin, a piece of dried, green crusted flesh fell to the dusty carpet. He was sure he could wrest an armalite from the brain dome bot. A GE laser pistol he kept had longed died, the internal circuits had burned out years previous to the day and it wasn't like there was a local electrician that knew how to fix the magnetic coil and emission lenses, out there? What was the chances of that? Albert still kept it, never knew who would want a nice little light bringer.
Clearing out his desk, Albert figured by now he was fired, and if so, fuck it, he hadn't been paid since 2077, and man, was he overdue a vacation. Getting his heavy snow jacket, some books, a few bottles of hooch, and some eats, Albert would be out and on his way in a day or two, of course, when he had finished loot the place.
Having been locked up for so long had inspired a sudden urge for flight, and Albert was punching his ticket one way. His hands had found strength and he pulled the rusted hinge off, freeing his locker. A crispy snow jacket, still usable and trendy, it was a dark off gray thing made from the finest synthetic fibers that could keep a man extra toasty in the South pole. It had been all the rage since the end times. Hell, he had gotten it ten dollars from the army depot surplus. It hung limp, just waiting to be tried. At the bottom were a few flares (red and green) and flash light with two energy packs. The flares would work, as the rapping was still good. A radio… Albert didn't think there was an GNN, or CNN on, or even After Talk with Dan van Derberg… but it wouldn't hurt to listen to something. It had a small crank and it just had to be winded up and it would work for hours. The radio could run on cells or by hand powered hand crank turbine, it was guaranteed for life, and since Wescot wasn't dead yet, he supposed it should still live up to the promise.
He took a few American coins, not sure what the coin of the new realm was. The magazines now, that would be barter material, true he couldn't feel that part of him that had once been man, but maybe someone would trade him for a couple skin magazines of Danna Dark and Kate Jolie. Man, was that Blondie and the brunette with the blue eyes had been fine in the day. The bees knees.
Inside the locker was a canvas duffel bag. Time to take a tour. If Durandal had been rendered inoperable that means all the locks had been broken and the brain bots had been put to sleep. Albert would need weapons and perhaps food too. He wasn't sure if the smooth skins that came here earlier had survived the descent into hell, but if he saw them, he would give them a gift. Hell, a nice bottle of fire water would do them fine.
Now it was time to get moving. "Never liked the retirement plan anyway." He said to himself as he cleared the rusting locker.
NOTE: More to come... For those original read the Violin saga, I felt it was getting to big and too disorganized, so I decided to carve it up into chapters. Hope you all don't mind, and I hope you enjoy the Fallout references as well as somethings you may not have seen in the infamous post apocalyptic game.