"If one understands eternity as timelessness, and not as an unending timespan, then whoever lives in the present lives for all time."
Tuesday, October 10, 2277
Smith Casey's Garage - Break Room
16:32
"..and then Veronica did some sort of hacker thing and we all got out," Julia finished. "Then we all sat down and had Nuka-Colas."
"I remember that part," James said dryly, before sighing. "You know, until now I'd held onto a fantasy that you would actually stay put in that Vault and take over instead of charging out after me."
"Wait, you knew about th-" Julia spluttered. "-theeeee plans to redecorate the cigar lounge? On my own? Without any conspiracies?"
"You had some good plans near the end there, Jules," he said, chuckling. "But you started laying them when you were fourteen. I'm half the reason the Overseer never found out about 'Bayes' or 'his' conspiracy."
"So this is what it's like to die of embarrassment," she said, melting in her seat. "Maybe I'm still in the simulation and this is a new layer of torture."
"Hey, I raised you with the finest egalitarian and democratic virtues our country ever had," James countered. "It's only natural you'd chafe a bit under an autocrat. But you should really give Alphonse more credit, he has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders even before he has time to be a single father."
"I keep forgetting the Overseer has a name," she mused. "It was always either 'the Overseer' or 'Mr. Amata's Dad' with him."
"If you'd gotten much further, I'd have pulled you aside for a talk about Chesterton's fence," James chided, though still smiling. "Though I can't imagine our Vault politics are particularly relevant anymore."
"Yeah, speaking of," Julia said, sitting up attentively. "I have one or two questions myself, starting with 'where am I actually from', dovetailing neatly with 'what did you used to do out here', ending with 'and what happened to my mother, anyway', seasoned liberally with 'what the actual hell'?"
"That's quite the question souffle," James said, raising an eyebrow.
"I am a woman of discerning taste and intellect," she said primly. "Now spill it."
"I will explain it all to you, I promise," he said, yawning. "You have an absolute right to those answers. But I just spent the day as a monkey, and I think my capacity for revelations is just about expended."
"Wait, you're Jangles?" Julia asked in horror. "You saw that whole thing?"
"I am not a God damned space monkey." he refuted vehemently. "But.. yes."
"It was a weird time for all of us," Veronica put in. "Look, we can have more impenetrable Vault talk tomorrow while we walk back home. Syd's just about done with her patrols, when she gets back we can have some dinner."
"What did you manage to forage, anyway?" Mr. Mateus asked. "Not much but mole rat out here."
"Dude," Veronica grinned.
"You dowannano!" she and Julia finished in unison, cackling.
-0-
Wednesday, October 11, 2277
Preparations to leave had gone swiftly, and soon our heroes were back out in the Wastes, the sun beating down on the ruined garage behind them. Knight Forman had begged off to report into the Citadel, leaving Veronica, Julia, and her father to roam freely.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Julia asked. "I've been to a lot of places, but mostly ones between here and the studio."
"We should head back to Rivet City," her dad replied, as they shifted to walk back east. "I checked in with Madison before traveling out here. She's probably worried sick, really."
"I definitely know what those proper nouns are," Julia lied blandly. "But please explain them to my friend Veronica here, who doesn't get out enough."
"Sorry about that," he chuckled as Veronica swatted at her alleged friend. "It's just been so easy to get back into the swing of things now that I'm out here."
He adopted a lecturing tone familiar to any of his patients or children as they walked. "Doctor Madison Li, brilliant scientist and expert in what she called 'self-sustaining systems'. She had this knack for just… envisioning the entirety of a process and figuring out how to get it to work in the real world. Fusion power, hydroponics, aquaponics, even social dynamics. She's brilliant- ah, one moment."
He stepped off the path briefly to shoot a pair of giant scorpions lurking nearby, before continuing on.
Note to self. Julia thought somewhat dizzily. Dad's actually kind of good at this.
"Where was I?"
"Doctor Li," Veronica supplied.
"Ah, yes!" he said before grimacing. "I"m afraid she probably... hates my guts right now."
"Ran off with another woman?" Veronica teased.
"Well, yes, actually," James chuckled. "But that wasn't the main issue. She and I were part of a team working on what we called 'Project Purity'."
"Wait, I've actually heard of that!" Veronica said excitedly. "Sorry to interrupt
Dad Time, but I've actually seen the records. The Brotherhood was heavily involved in a Project Purity around 20 years ago before they were forced to stop.. It was a big deal back then."
"Closer to nineteen years, actually." he said, with a meaningful glance back to his daughter. "But yes - we were working on a.. a system, I suppose you could call it. A system to provide fresh, clean water to everyone. Part industrial grade water purifier, part transmitter, based out of the old Jefferson Memorial building."
"Wait, a transmitter?" Julia asked, increasingly lost. "What does that have to do with water?"
"You may have noticed it doesn't rain in the Capital Wasteland," James explained. "You probably also know that that's not how rain works."
"I may have made observations to that effect," she said dryly.
"There is.. I suppose the best way to describe it is that there's a 'scattering field' being projected over Washington DC and most of the Commonwealth of Columbia." he continued. "It's an exotic energy field that interferes with the formation of rain droplets within clouds. No rain droplets, no rain, and a severely interrupted water cycle."
"I realize that we're starting with 'rain doesn't work that way' as our opening premise," Julia said, alarmed. "But that's actually even less plausible than 'aliens are stealing our weather for nefarious depopulation purposes' as an explanation!"
"I realize how it sounds," said her father amusedly. "But you yourself have seen some key evidence supporting my explanation."
"I've wh-?" she began before her mind supplied the answer. "The behemoth fight in Chevy Chase?"
"Whatever you did managed to punch a hole in the scattering field as well as through that super mutant," he said with some satisfaction. "I wish I'd been there to see it - it's more than we've managed through the entire project. Also, we've of course verified the presence of the field several other ways. I promise I'm not just spouting nonsense at you."
"The Brotherhood's reports are referring to it as 'super-lightning'," Veronica chirped helpfully.
"Swell." Julia griped. If I end up canonized over this, I'm moving to Argentina. "Do we have any idea where this field is coming from? That doesn't sound like a natural phenomenon."
"There've been a number of guesses over the years.. I suppose you could call them timeless theories," James mused, making Julia's ears perk up. "Nobody's ever been able to present definitive evidence one way or another. We have managed to cause localized weakening in the bubble, which the fully developed device would have been able to amplify enough to cause it to dissipate entirely."
"I note, however, that none of that happened," Veronica asked. "Sorry, interrupting again, something something the good of all humanity. What went wrong?"
"Don't worry, young lady," he said warmly. "You saved my life too, and it's not as if you're uninvolved."
He took a moment to gather himself before continuing.
"The signal disruptor was just about the only part of the project that was working properly. Our attempts to scale up water purification just weren't working, it was maddening. There was just too much ambient radiation - or, or something. We never quite did figure it out. And to make matters worse, if we just turned rain back on without a way to purify large amounts of water, the Wasteland would be swiftly drowned in a flood of radioactive silt and debris, contaminating whatever sources we still have beyond salvation."
"Gonna agree that's a bad idea," Julia noted.
"Additionally, that was right around when super mutants started making their most recent big push into the wasteland," he continued. "Their numbers have always waxed and waned oddly, but the increased difficulty in defense combined with a lack of results made it hard to justify continuing the project. Then, of course, came the final nail in the coffin."
"...it was me, wasn't it?" Julia asked in a very small voice.
"Basically.. yes," her father admitted with a wince. "The project was disintegrating, your mother had died giving birth to you - that part was always true, dear - and here was a newborn child. Our lab was no place for a baby, and neither was anywhere we knew. So I cut and I ran and I hid in a hole for the next twenty years."
"And lacking its key scientist and project leader, the Brotherhood withdrew its protection as well," Veronica added. "They were disappointed it didn't work, but mostly relieved to have one less outpost to defend. And Doctor Li went to Rivet City with her staff to work on other, smaller projects."
"And that's why 'Madison' hates your guts." Julia summed up. "Why are we going to go see her, again?"
"Because she's still the best hope for Project Purity to get off the ground," he said, a fire entering his voice. "And because I learned what I needed to finish the project from Dr. Braun."
"What?" Julia asked, as Veronica asked "How?"
"He forgot the first rule of show business," James smirked. "Never take your eyes off the dancing monkey."
-0-
"So it's an actual aircraft carrier."
Our intrepid heroes had made good time on their way to Rivet City, a swarm of disconcertingly large flies notwithstanding. Thus, they find themselves approaching the beached hulk of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, alleged site of one of the wasteland's premier trading hubs. The road wound along the shore, right up to the imposing steel wall that formed its hull. A metal platform anchored to land contained both a stairway and one end of a drawbridge granting access to its deck, which was currently open for business.
"U.S.S. Oriskany." Dad noted. "Commissioned 1950, first refit 1995, decommissioned 2022, second refit 2052, recommissioned 2062, abandoned 2077. Became a city in 2237, and we've been here ever since."
Noticing the others were staring at him, he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "... I used to live here and I like history. Look here, the name's almost been totally rubbed off-"
"How long is this going to last?" Veronica asked, sotto voce.
"You probably have time to get a head start on your shopping if you leave now." Julia replied in kind.
"Sweet. You want me to get you anything?"
"I could use some bullets - running a little low."
:"Ten millimeter right? Ok byyyeeee!" she sang, sneakily swanning off
"-and that's how the front of the ship fell off." James finished, turning back around. "Never did find all that gum.. "
He broke off as Julia grabbed him in a fierce hug. "I've missed this," she said feelingly.
"So have I, love," he returned the hug.
"Hey, where'd Veronica go?" he asked after a bit.
"She Oriskedaddled.". Julia noted. "By the way, did you always geek out at the drop of a hat, or did the Vault do that to you?"
"Lack of vitamin D, I suspect," he mused. "Do you think we've got time now?"
"Yeah, she really booked it." Jula snorted. "So, "timeless" theories? It's been ages."
"You got good enough at recognizing my bullshit that I didn't need a catch phrase." he smiled fondly. "By the way, did you know your friend Veronica is a member of the Brotherhood of Steel?"
"You're not going to distract me that easily." she chuckled.
"I'm being serious." he said, crossing his arms. "When you've worked with them as much as I have, you pick up on certain details."
"Well, it would explain a few things." Julia mused. "Do you think I should be concerned?"
"You've spent more time with her than I have," he hedged. "But I've never known a Brotherhood Knight to go undercover, and their scribes don't usually go anywhere alone. It goes against everything I know of their usual modus operandi to be doing undercover work."
"So either she's on some sort of spooky secret mission or she's one of the weirdest Brotherhood members out there." she thought aloud.
"Or maybe she just thinks you're cute." James said, grinning. "You are about the same age, after all…"
"Dad!"
"I'm just saying there's other interpretations," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "Brotherhood weirdness or no, she's good to have around. We don't really have anything the Brotherhood would be interested in, so if he is on a secret mission, it's more likely that hanging out with you is something she's doing in her downtime."
"She does seem a bit too cheerful to be an assassin." Julia cracked. "So let's table that for now. What's this about a scattering field messing with the weather?"
"Everything I told you about was true," he said gravely, "but what I left out is.. I helped put it there."
"Scuse me what?"
James took a deep sigh before explaining. "Before you were born, before I married your mother, I was part of a.. group. A very secret, very powerful group founded to control the entire nation, if not the world. They have vast resources to call upon, and their reach goes farther than anyone out here could suspect. They thought that by drying up the coast, they could drive down the local mutant population enough to simply waltz back in."
"Do mutants even drink water?" Julia asked dizzily.
"We're all mutants to them, love." James shook his head. "It's what they call anyone who can't trace every allele in their genome back two hundred years. I'll tell you the whole story once we're out of the open."
"Are we in any danger though?" she replied hastily, looking around. "Are they still around?"
"Oh, Julia." he said sadly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Why did you think I wanted you to stay in the Vault?"
-0-
A/N: new chapter whaaaaaat
(Things have stabilized in my life, so I'm going to see if I can ramp up the update schedule a bit. Suggest waiting to see when the next two chapters come out to gauge my followthrough on that though!)