Diamond City
"When we finally returned to the surface, the world above was no longer the blasted necropolis it had been when first I met Piper. It was still a ruined city, where no one anymore lived in those towers and spires of stone and steel, but there was life! People! It was as if we had gone from one world to another. Of course, for all its fame, Diamond City itself was... somewhat different than I had expected."
Sunlight, especially sunlight without the toxic tint of the radstorm, came almost as a shock.
Martin found himself realizing this as the guard led him and Piper up the last flight of stairs, and pried open metal doors. Outside, the air bore none of the promises of death and pain that had sent them fleeing below ground in the first place. Instead, he recognized the cawing of crows, and saw a blue, healthy sky casting its gaze down upon them.
The guard took them through the broad, paved streets of the abandoned city, yet very quickly it became apparent that it was not at all abandoned. They emerged into what looked like a plaza, but bore none of the decorations such would have warranted at home. The guard cast a look about him, then led them across a manmade ravine, a deep and wide cut carved into the earth itself. It was what he would have called a moat, yet far too deep and far too wide. Had it been filled with water, rather than the rusten husks of metal carriages, he'd have called it a river.
"A defensive moat?" he still asked, feeling almost foolish when the guard laughed.
"It's the Massachusetts Turnpike," Piper explained, shooting the guard a look; "Before the war, used to be one of the real lifelines of the city. Traffic like you wouldn't believe."
"There are more wrecks down there than I can count," he noted, though they kept up the pace with their escort; "I think I can believe it."
"Lotta folks got dusted when the bombs dropped," the guard muttered; "We don't go down there, usually. Bad mojo, with all those bodies still sitting behind the wheel."
More of the supernatural? He hoped not. The ghosts of this world seemed far keener on vengeance than those of Nirn, and for some reason the others couldn't see them. At least, Piper couldn't. It was a good thing then that he'd no intentions of scavenging such a place, or scavenging at all, really. Ideally, at least. Up ahead, another sight stole his attention. A low, ramshackle barrier of iron and wood opened before them like a gate, its watchmen silently observing their passing. And beyond, demanding all attention, was a massive, hulking barrier of red, sun-weathered brick.
"First time seeing' the Great Wall, huh?" the guard chuckled. Piper hummed something, and Martin realized his surprise was likely painted plainly on his face; "Guess you don't see something this big where you're from."
Martin refrained from a snort. True, this was an impressive construction, especially for a supposedly ruined world. But it paled next to the walls of the Imperial City, and even most of the buildings of the inner quarters. What did impress him, not that he would say it, was that this thing was even still standing. Where he had met Piper, the streets were ripped and broken, and the houses were ruins. Yet here, you could barely tell apocalypse had struck their culture down. All around him, people lined the street, bartering and yelling, hauling strange, two-headed cattle or argued with the guards. There was life, and the familiar smells of spit-roasted meat and beer.
"This is Diamond City?" he looked around, appreciating human life for what it was. There was civilization here, even if it was rugged. There was commerce and arts, even if the commerce was barter and the art was scrap.
"In there, yeah," the guard nodded, gesturing at the wall; "I'mma head back downstairs. Mind your business inside the wall, and all that."
"You know I live here, right?" Piper sighed; "Thanks for the escort, Bill."
Martin did not have the time to ponder before Piper grabbed his attention again, poking him on the shoulder as she gestured ahead. There was a sense of relief in her expression, he noticed, that had not been there before. It struck him as almost strange, that they seemed to finally be in something akin to safety. People around them seemed to not care for their appearance at all, not even the way they no-doubt reeked.
"So...all these people?"
"Traders from around the Wasteland," Piper explained, steering them through the throngs of people. The closer they came to the gates, the more people simply stood still, waiting in line. Piper picked a que marked "residents" and shoved her way past some vagrants arguing over what looked like a diseased chicken, still very much alive; "The DC market's one of the most lucrative in the Commonwealth, meaning everyone wants a piece of it. Security tries filtering people to avoid a stampede. or something like that. Residents pay taxes to live here, but outsiders pay a toll for entry. Gates are shut when the guards feel like we've reached capacity."
"I have no money," it was not a welcome realization, but he felt that even had he had Septims on him, this place would not accept them. They used metal caps for currency, after all. The line of residents waiting to get in was magnitudes shorter than the ones for outsiders.
"You're my guest," she said, shrugging; "All else fails, we'll go the doctor route. DC's only got one real doctor, the guards won't turn down another."
"Sensible," he muttered, though he did take comfort in her hospitality. He was still taken aback by the contrast, between the deathly tunnels and now this lively, chaotic throng of people. It was as if he'd once again crossed between worlds, and now found himself in one much more akin to his own. Still, her words did make him pause; "I've no papers to my name, no proof of my profession."
"Pretty sure Doctor Sun doesn't either," Piper hummed, then turned to face the guards as they'd reached the checkpoint; "Piper Wright."
"Address?" where the guards below had been friendly, personable even, here Martin got more of an impression of a man thoroughly bored with his post. It was strange, wouldn't those who didn't have to defend underground be much more jovial about it? Especially as he was afforded the luxury of a chair and desk.
"Publick Occurrences Offices."
There was a strange sense of nostalgia in the way the guard slowly picked through the papers stacked on his desk, fingering through folder after folder. The scene would have looked at home in the administration of the College, rather than in the middle of a street, bustling with people.
"Any family or kin inside the Wall who could verify your identity?"
"Natalie Wright, my sister," Piper groaned, rubbing her forehead; "'bout this tall, brown hair, lives on her newsstand."
"Mmmm..." Again, papers were fingered, and the guard's expression changed only by degrees from bored to resigned, then back once more to a state of disinterest; "Him?"
"Martin Smith, he's a friend. My guest," Smith? He blinked at the name. Far as he knew, there'd never in the entirety of his bloodline been anyone who even approached metalworking. Piper was making this up, of course, but telling him beforehand might have let him pick one himself. Not that, really, there was anything wrong or even undignified about the name, far from it. But it felt...strange, for lack of better; "I'm allowed to bring a guest in."
"Profession?" Now, suddenly, the questions turned to him, not Piper. He thought he saw her give him something like a thumbs up, but the bureaucrat behind the desk watched him with a dull, irritated look, demanding attention; "Place of origin?"
"I'm a doctor from European."
"Europe?" A spark of interest lit behind the man's eyes, as Martin cringed at getting the name wrong. He blinked, as if the word was foreign; "You're from Europe?"
"Yes," Martin nodded, thanking...Julianos, probably for now, that the guard hadn't caught his lie.
The guard smacked his lips; "Europe. Far from here."
"It is," Martin hurridly agreed. Interest was not lost, but instead now seemed laced with suspicion. So, maybe Julianos hadn't helped him out after all; "I only arrived recently."
"Any family or kin inside the Wall who could verify your identity?"
Again, he blinked at the guard's words. Did something about 'far away' not register? Had he misunderstood how interconnected these people were, if even distant lands would still retain communications within the city? Or was it simply bureaucracy, asking the same question no matter who or why?
"I just did that." Piper groaned, pressing a palm to her face; "Look, Martin just saved Danny Sulivan from bleeding out in the subways. You're seriously gonna keep this up?"
To his credit, at least the guard did not ignore her.
Though his frown spoke of hesitation, as did his hands, a wooden stamp found its way to a slip of paper, pressing a black, diamond-shaped mark against it. He handed it to Martin, accompanied by a heavy smell of oil from the paper, itself brown with age. It looked recycled.
"Your permit of residence." he explained; "It's temporary, keep a hold of it. A guard might want to see your papers. If you can't produce them, you'll be evicted."
"Understood," The idea was sound, even if it was foreign to him. Imperial citizens did not require permits to stay within the walls of the capital, or any other city. But, here, if the Wall was the only truly safe place in the ruined city, then he could understand the need for a modicum of control. Piper snorted, though he couldn't tell of what; "Thank you."
"Next."
The entrance to Diamond City, the true entrance, was a massive, metal-wrought gate that hung suspended in the air. To him it bore resemblance to a portcullis, but it seemed far less intended for actual defense. At least, it seemed almost fragile. As fragile as a metal gate could be, that was. Guards walked the sides of a plaza before the gate, its center dominated by a statue of some long-lost warrior, holding his mace in preparation for a strike. Though... the clothes were odd.
"Sorry about that," Piper stole his thoughts, calling attention to her own frustrations; "Security's been tightened lately."
"It's impressive," he nodded; "I can understand vetting. Would anyone actually attack this place? It is fortress."
"You'd be surprised..." she shrugged. A que stretched out from the entrance, of men and beast both, clamoring for entrance. Some even started fights, and were brought low when the guards interfered. Martin flinched from the brutality when a man trying to argue for his cattle's entrance was struck in the head with the butt of the guard's weapon, then dragged out of line; "This is the wealthiest settlement in the Commonwealth. And the most populated. So Raiders want to loot it, and the Supers thing of it like the world's biggest buffet. That's why we have all the guns."
"And the vetting?" he asked; "I can't imagine either waiting around in a que."
"Ah, no, that's..." her voice lowered, almost to a whisper; "It's because of the synths. Few months ago, we had the first real attack from the Institute in decades. They'd snuck a synth in, and then suddenly it went haywire and started killing people. Couldn't tell it wasn't real until someone managed to blow its brains out with a shotgun. Lots of plastic in there, high-tech stuff too. Looks human, but wasn't."
"A daedric... no, an artificial human"? he caught himself in the word, knowing it would hold no meaning to her. Still, the idea was beyond what he'd ever thought; "I didn't think you could do that without magic?"
"Well, the Institute sure as heck seems to have figured it out," she muttered; "I'll tell you more. Later. When we're at my place..." this queue, at least, passed faster, and she had to turn and keep pace when it moved. The guard at the gate itself was livelier than the one at the perimeter, at least; "Piper Wright."
Martin showed his paper, the oil still gleaming in the sun.
"Alright, head on inside."
The gate itself reminded him very little of how most gates he'd seen were designed. It bore no resemblance to a defensive measure, aside from the massive sheet of metal itself. Inside it bore greater resemblance to the entrance to the Arena in the Imperial City, than of any gatehouse. There were booths inside too, flanking the central corridor with faded texts and posters encouraging those who went by to try out their ware. Only, no wares remained, and instead of shopkeepers inside there were guards, armed and armored as the rest of them.
Beyond this, a stairway led to the final barrier, and through it, to Diamond City. As its streets sprawled out before him, hemmed in on all sides by the protective Wall, Martin saw the life washing between its houses of wood and steel, brown and yellow and red and all colors he'd ever seen.
It looked like a slum, though he didn't say it.
"That's my place, down there." Piper said, pointing to one of the houses nearest to the base of the stairs. It nested where the street turned 'round a corner, tall and wide. He could already now start a comparison, if vaguely, with the other houses in sight. Piper's was big, definitely. He noticed something of a crowd around its entrance. Piper, it seemed, had too; "Oh boy...Nat's taking the burn for my last piece, looks like."
"Your sister?" eyes pressed, he could make out a figure in the center of the crowd, standing on a box to be raised above them. She looked small, especially against the crowd; "What piece?"
"Did a piece on the water-plant." she said, though it almost sounded like a confession; "Sheng, the kid who runs it, sent a vagrant down to clean up the filters. Turns out the vagrant's still down there."
"Working to clean the filters?"
"Underwater."
"For how long?" the way she'd said it was starting to make him uneasy.
"A week or so, now," Piper sighed. Martin swallowed; "People don't want to be told they've been drinking vagrant soup. Sheng's probably really pissed... Let's wait up here, no use riling them up by showing myself yet."
The idea of clean, public drinking water was not a foreign one, really. The Imperial City's fountains supplied its citizens. Here, it seemed the concept was much the same, only... less trustworthy. The Imperial City relied on expansive systems of aqueducts and underground piping to bring the clean water in from the northern mountains, but here... filters? He wasn't entirely sure what kind of filters on their own could purify dirty water. Maybe it was another word for massive boilers, separating water and filth by steam? But he could see no chimneys releasing smoke from the fires needed for such a project, no matter how far and wide he looked over the rust-colored rooftops.
He could well understand the anger people might feel, if they suddenly were told their supposedly clean water was in truth infected with corpse-rot. Still, ought not such anger be turned on those responsible, rather than the one who broke the silence?
"You'll let your sister face a mob?"
"Nat's... more of a people-person than me," Piper muttered, leaning against one of the massive, iron-wrought beams that seemed to support the structure. It hid her from view, and allowed those who were still entering the city to pass them by. Martin rested against the railing, eyes wandering between the scene below and her; "She's done this before."
"People usually form mobs when you inform them of trouble?" he asked, a brow raised. Piper snorted.
"Not always, no, but..." she paused, turning away from the stream of humanity as if there might be some within who recognized her; "Folks don't wanna read bad news. I write about the truth, and out here, in the Commonwealth? News' rarely good."
"Why they aren't mad at Sheng, if he's responsible for bad water?"
"Probably because he's the one responsible for the water, in general." she sighed; "System's rotten, go figure, when a kid like that ends up with a monopoly for an entire settlement's water supply. Makes him more of a valued citizen, too. Probably already removed the corpse, just in case people actually went to check. Then it's my word against his, the brat..."
"That's hardly fair system," Of course it wasn't, and he knew she knew it. He only said it to let her know she wasn't the only one who thought so. Hopefully; "There's never any good news?"
Piper frowned.
"Well, there's you?" she shrugged; "I mean, city could use another doctor, for however long you're sticking around anyway. Sun's always overworked, he'd probably kiss you... or kill you, who knows?"
"Sounds like charming man."
"Oh definitely," she scoffed; "Real life of the party. Of course, can't blame him, with all that work."
"Why is he only doctor in the city?"
"Used to be a few more. Pre-war doctors and nurses." He did not know what a nurse was, though in the context he suspected it was a caretaker of some sort. Though, pre-war? "Ghouls, see? Mayor of ours, visionary that he is, decided to evict them all. Threw them out on the street in a mess of a riot."
"Ghouls?" he frowned. His last encounter with those had not been the kind that made him think of them as particularly caring; "Ghouls? As doctors?"
"Hey, remember. Most ghouls are pretty much like you and me, right? They're just irradiated to the point of not really aging," she jabbed a finger in his shoulder, as if he'd caused some offense. Maybe he had; "Most of them are from when the bomb dropped on Boston, meaning they're all sorts of troves of history, if you can find one that bothered remembering that stuff. We had some old hospital workers here, doctors and stuff. They disappeared once the riots started, to GoodNeighbour probably. A lot of them died. No one cares."
"You do."
"I care about the truth, Martin," she sighed; "And people. And those were people, thrown out by their own neighbours because of lies and smears... Nothing I hate more, no matter what folks say about me, or my paper. I don't lie."
"People call you liar?" Irritation. He felt irritation, and couldn't entirely pin down why. Or, rationally he couldn't. Irrationally... emotionally, it was different. He trusted Piper, maybe because she was the only person he really knew here. But she'd been true to her word, from the very first moment. He couldn't identify that with the idea of Piper as a liar.
"Sometimes," she shrugged; "Mostly it's people I call out in my work, like a trader cartell I exposed last year. Or Sheng, now. But, at least Sheng's not gonna poison me... anymore than he has, I figure, with that water. Or, maybe? I wonder if he's gonna try and sue me... speaking of which, crowd's dispersing."
It was a moment of confused blinking before he remembered why they were even here, rather than at her place. Looking down, he saw the guards breaking up the crowd. Only the girl on the box remained, dangling her arms in idle boredom. Piper was already on her way down the stairs, leaving him to tag along.
"Hey Nat!"
The girl jerked, as if woken from sleep, and turned a pair of squinting, suspicious eyes upwards. Up close, he could definitely see the family resemblance, even if she stood a solid two heads shorter than her sister. Brown, messy hair, sharp eyes and broken lips, she looked more the kind of urchins he'd seen in the alleyways. Back home.
For all its alieness, there was much alike too. A shame then, that it seemed only to share the worse traits between their worlds.
"Piper, people wanna know if we're full of shit," Martin did his best to hide his cough of shock in his fist, eyes wide at the girl. She couldn't be more than...what, at most twelve years old? Could such profanity really come from a child? "Sheng's threatening to cut our water off entirely if you don't retract the article...Also the printer's starting to cough."
"Ah, he says that but people'll realize he's full of shit if he does." Ah, so that was how the girl had learned the words. Honestly, in hindsight, he could not claim to be surprised; "Just tell him we'll do an edit once he's got the filters cleaned out. He's gotta be a man about this."
"Speaking of men..." once more, those dark eyes narrowed, yet now they turned on him. Martin did not shirk at her gaze, because she literally only went to his chest... but there was still something in there that made him uneasy; "There's one behind you. He here for the couch?"
"Hello?"
"That's Martin, Nat." Piper rubbed at her forehead, waving her sister off; "Nat, Martin. Martin, my sister Nat."
"Why do the both of you look like a Behemoth scraped you off its shoe?" Nat frowned, scrunching up her face as she sniffed the air; "Smell like it too, man..."
"I'll tell you later. First..." she gestured for him to come closer, which Nat seemed to think was a bad idea, clamping a pair of fingers over her nose; "Get Martin situated. He's crashing with us for a while. I'm headed for the showers, send him over when you've found somewhere he can sleep."
"Dumping your man on me, huh?"
"Nat. Be nice," Piper warned; "Martin's a friend."
"Looks like a bum," Nat muttered, turning an eye on him; "Are you, mister? Or, maybe a synth?"
"Doctor," he was starting to get the sense that Piper might indeed be the rare case, if both the city's guards and her own sister suspected synths 'round every corner; "Hello?"
"You already said that," the girl did not like him, that much was glaringly obvious, even to him. He'd never handled children before, he'd no idea how to gain the trust or at least tolerance of a suspicious child; "...Hi, I guess. Come inside and all that."
He did not argue, or bother asking. She didn't trust him, or maybe children here were simply suspicious by nature. In a world beset by ghouls and super mutants, it at least was not a naive mind that seemed prevalent. Natalie, and he found it hard to refer to her as something so familiar as 'Nat', led him inside the house. Machinery clogged with oil and rust decorated what could have been a veranda, had it not been wrought from metal and brown with rust and filth. Everything he'd ever learned about communal sanitation screeched and wailed against the sights that assailed him.
But he did not argue, or call attention to it. It'd have been damnably rude.
Inside, at least, there was less filth, if any at all. Rust was everywhere, in the walls of metal older than perhaps the city itself, brown and corroded... But those were clean walls, and the floor was well swept, the furniture dusted and trash nowhere to be seen. For all that the vaunted Diamond City reminded him mostly of a metal slum, at least it was tidy. That went further than most could imagine when it came to preventing epidemics and outbreaks. I should comment on it. Maybe that could ease the tension.
"Nice place." he tried, but it came out awkwardly and forced, though he meant it; "I mean, it's cleaner than I'd thought it would be."
The girl just leveled a stare at him, as if he'd accidentally stepped on her foot... Or, alternatively, choked on his own. The silence was enough to make the latter more probable. He tried again.
"No, it's just cleaner than the outside, I mean," No, wait. That was like saying the outside was filthy; "Not that your porch is filthy."
Again, she simply stared at him, as if trying to discern if he was some sort of madman. Maybe he was, for talking about cleanliness in a place little better than a shantytown. But, he at least tried? He was even trying to talk more like Piper. Not that it seemed to work.
"You're weird, did Piper find you under a bridge or something? Maybe one of those vaults?" she scrounged her face up, eyes narrowed at him, hard; "You sure don't look like some Wastelander."
"Why do I not look like a Wastelander?" He felt like the answer might be something unpleasant.
"You're not covered in shit." she shrugged, and the likeness to Piper was suddenly even clearer. He was about to point to his state of uncleanliness when she continued; "Wastelanders never bathe. The teacher told us. You look like you've only been through it once. And you don't have a beard. How old are you?"
"...twenty-six?"
"Should have a beard then," she stated, pulling what he dimly recognized to be a mattress, brown and dusty, from a closet; "Most guys that age have a beard. Sure you're not a girl? Or maybe a synth that can't grow a beard?"
Martin frowned.
"I shave," he said, rubbing a hand on his chin. He'd never been able to grow a proper beard, and it wouldn't have gone well with the protective gas-mask anyway. He'd heard of back when greater beards were in fashion, and people had died when gas had seeped in where hair blocked the mask from sealing tight; "People don't shave here?"
"Sure, but not smooth like that," Nat shrugged, throwing the mattress at him. It was a floppy thing, certainly older than he was. He wondered why they even had it, if it was only them here. Or maybe there were others, or had been; "...why're you looking at it like that? It's not infected."
"You have an extra mattress?"
"Evidently."
"But...is it only the two of you here?" he asked, uncertain of how to frame it. It was probably insensitive to be any more direct than that as it was. They were sisters, so where was the father, or the mother? Was this a common thing in Boston, or were they unique? Maybe orphans, or runaways.
"Well, obviously," she frowned; "Look, ask Piper that stuff. I just work here."
"Don't you live here too?"
"That's what I said."
"...you seem a great deal more suspicious towards me than Piper was." It probably was not the smartest thing to say, but talking to Natalie felt like breaking his skull against a wall, over and over. Or beating a pillow.
The girl fixed him with a stare, as if watching him for sudden moves.
"Dunno what you did to make Piper bring you home," she finally said, her words slow and measured; "But you're weird. Weird's bad, means trouble. Piper doesn't usually bring people home either, anymore. At all. People only come here to give us work or trouble, and you don't look like you've got something for the printer."
"...I'm weird?" he shook the insult off, provided it was one. At the same time, he didn't know yet how much it would be safe to tell the girl. Children were horrible at keeping secrets; "I didn't do anything to make her bring me home. She just decided it... more or less."
"Where'd she even find you anyway?" Nat threw him what looked like a pillow, made from an old burlap sack and stuffed with...he couldn't quite tell, but it wasn't wool or down.
"Out west...I think." Martin watched the pillow for a moment, then discarded it when Nat, now visibly more curious, threw him a blanket and slammed the closet shut; "We went through the underground to get here."
Suspicious eyes now widened, almost as if in shock. Disbelief, for certain, was there.
"You went through the subways?" Nat hacked; "Is that why you both looked like something chewed on you? Piper hasn't come back this dirty in forever...tracking all kinds of stuff over the porch. There's monsters and... and ghosts and stuff down there!"
"The Dead Station, they call it?" he nodded, as Nat's eyes widened more; "We passed through. It was a bad place..."
"Did..." the girl caught herself in what appeared to now be wholehearted excitement and disbelief; "...did you see them? The ghosts? People say there's ghosts down there, from when the rats ate everyone. Piper says it's bull, but Abbot says sometimes people stay behind, because they're not ready to pass on. Did you see them?"
"We saw nothing." It was the truth too. They'd seen nothing. And Piper had heard nothing. There had only been the sounds... the voices... And only he had heard them; "Only rats, and scattered bones. There was nothing else alive there."
"Damn..." she sighed, dangling her arms; "Don't tell the Binsen kid that. I'd owe him five caps if he finds out there's nothing down there."
"Caps..." it was a moment before he recalled their strange currency; "You wagered money on something none of you could determine?"
"Mmm." she nodded; "Speaking of caps. Did Piper bring home any good scoops this time? Rent's coming up, and the printer's not looking good. Maybe a story about going through the subways?"
"Something like that..." Though, now that she mentioned the machine again, he looked to it. It was a strange contraption, but the mere name brought his thoughts to the block-printer at the College. The Institute had its own, and printed its own books, expensive though it was; "Your printer, it writes out letters?"
"Letters, pictures..." Nat shrugged. Martin found himself impressed. The only printer he knew of from home capable of duplicating images were the Guild printers, and very few of those existed; "People usually employ us to make posters or stuff like that. Piper says it pays the rent, but it doesn't pay to fix the printer. Once she breaks down, I dunno what'll be. Do you even know what a printer is anyway? You're not from here, you don't even sound like someone from here. What's that accent? Sounds like Uncle Vadim, just not as thick. You from out west, mister? People say there's all kinds of stuff going on in the NCR."
"I don't know what those places are," he started, ponderously. Again there was the question, just how much Piper would want her sister to know. And they had an uncle, apparently? The name was strange, but then again, so was Piper or Nat. Danny too, was a name he'd never encountered before, so maybe Damir was just the same; "But I am a Doctor, and we had a block printer at the Institute."
He wasn't entirely sure why, but something he'd said nearly had Nat falling over backwards. Then she leapt up, backwards and grabbed a broomstick and started swinging it at him, alarm and fright shining from her eyes.
"I KNEW IT!" she yelled, the sound loud and sudden enough that it sent him leaping. It was only the fact that she remained a child, and he a well nourished adult, that saw him stop the stick with his hand when she swung it at him. Immediately Nat tore and yanked to free her weapon from his grasp, but he held on, unsure of what was going on; "Let go! Piper! PIPER!"
"What?! What's going on?!"
He hadn't even seen or heard her return, but now that he did turn to look, Piper had indeed returned, wet hair only serving to frame an expression of confusion and shock. The surprise was enough that he slacked his grip on the broomstick, and Nat ripped it back, preparing another strike.
"I made him slip up, Piper!" she declared, pointing an accusing finger at him; "He just admitted to being from the Institute!"
The Institute? What...Oh.
Martin wanted to beat his head against the wall, if not for the fear he might actually dent the metal. Piper had told him about the Institute, not even an hour past, and now he'd admitted to being from the Institute, if not the one people here seemed to fear. Instead of damaging the wall, he just palmed his face, trying to bury the embarrassment.
It didn't quite work.
"Wha- Nat!" Piper barked, causing the girl to snap up with surprise; "Stop. beating. Martin, with the broom. He's not from the Institute. Damn it, I can't even take a shower before you start this crap, again?"
"I did admit to it, Piper."
"That's what I..." she paused, looking at him strangely; "...what?"
"The College is split between institutions. Mine was Restoration," he still eyed the broomstick in Nat's hands, wary of its wielder; "I told your sister the Institute, my institute, had a block printer."
For a moment, though it was a long moment indeed, Piper said nothing. She did stare though, and that stare said a lot of things. It was resignation, irritation, amusement and weariness, and a great deal of other things he couldn't read. Nat, on the other hand, still clung to the broomstick, but seemed less keen on striking him now. Maybe it was because her sister was wagging a finger at her, brows furrowed, before switching back to her gaze of resignation at him.
"Nat," strangely she didn't break eye contact with him, even while addressing her sister.
"Piper."
"Martin is not from the Commonwealth." she said, each word measured and slow, as if aimed to break down mental walls in her sister's mind; "He's from Europe. They have Institutes there too, but they're good ones. He's not a synth. Make some tea. Martin, showers?"
"I still don't know what that is." he muttered, though that she had wet hair gave him an idea. Did they have some system that poured water from above? That at least would be more sanitary than if all these people shared public baths; "Or where."
"...right." Now, at least, it was her turn to seem embarrassed. Not that he'd sought it, but it did make him feel like less of a fool; "Out the door and left, then just follow the signs to the Dugout. Showers are just next to it. Here."
He was surprised to find her pressing several bottle caps into his palm. Old, the color had mostly faded and the edges were brown with rust, smoothed by thousands of hands over hundreds of years.
"Cost's five caps for ten minutes." she explained; "Give them to the guy at the desk, then head on in. There's towels there too."
Showers, as it turned out, were exactly what the name said. They showered you with water, hot enough to be almost scalding, and somehow tore the stress and strain from the mind and muscles, almost as well as a long, hot soak in the Capital Bathhouse would. He would admit to some disappointment when the flow of water ended, and he'd longingly stared at the bulbous container above him, as if he could beg for another minute.
The shower itself was simple, so simple indeed that it must have been a thing of incompetence that no one in the Empire had yet constructed such a thing. A system of pumps sent warm waters from a central boiler to the individual shower compartments, dousing the occupants with almost boiling water. It left the skin red and prickly, but the mind relaxed in a way he could not fully explain.
Outside the shower, there was a small, relatively clean and dry room where the customers would change and disrobe. It held a mirror in the end of its hallway-like interior, with benches and washers along the wall. This was also where one left their clothes, and little regard was given, it seemed, for the customer's gender. At least, he recognized women's underwear at the far end of one of the benches. Maybe the ruination of their world had stripped these people of some of the customs of civilisation? Nords though, they do it too, I've heard.
Cleaned, it seemed almost wrong to don his ruined clothes again. At least his pants had suffered only minor scrapes and tears, but the rest was little more than rags now, drenched in the mud and filth of the underground. There was a sense of loss there, now, in what remained of his once pristine clothes. They were a reminder of home, and seeing them so sullied was as if this world itself was telling him he could no longer return, that he was entrapped in this visage of rust and mutated terrors.
"You are new here, yes?" a pudgy, older and balding man suddenly asked him, appearing as if out of thin air on his left. Had he left a shower and not made a sound? The accent was so different from the other people he'd run into here, at first he didn't register it as spoken words. Though a total stranger, there was a laugh to his voice; "Is good, is good, no worries. I see your wide eyes at the shower, I think to myself, he's never seen a shower before, yes?"
"...yes." he wasn't quite sure how to respond, both to the question and the cheer it was delivered with. He caught himself before he asked if they'd met before; "We...don't have those."
"Ah, damn shame that is," the accent, again, was almost disorienting. How old was he, anyway? Martin had never been quite good with guessing ages, but he looked nearer to his thirties than he himself was. Maybe over; "Showers here, you see, they are part of the Dugout Inn. My bar. Well, and Yefim's, but he not so much a people person as me, yes?"
"...yes?" Was he supposed to know this man? If he owned an inn, it was likely everyone did, even if they didn't live in the city. Town. Did it count as a city if it was not much larger than the Arena in the Imperial City? A fortified hub, certainly. Maybe a Burgh, like the "city" of Whiterun in Skyrim? "Forgive me, I do not know you. I should?"
"Vadim," for a man of his pudgy build, he had a handshake that could crush. The name, too, registered; "You come to bar sometime, yes? It's a good place, good moonshine. Best ever, I swear to you. You came in with Piper, I saw from door. She's good kid, strong stomach. Stronger character, I say."
"Yes..." Was this Uncle Vadim, that Natalie had spoken of? There was definitely an accent thick enough to do it, and it still seemed a strange name. Stranger still was his friendliness, unless the guards were just dour by trade. Then again, he was an innkeep, it seemed. Those were usually wont to such open friendliness, if nothing else then because it helped bring in returning customers. The bars and inns closest to the Institute had not the friendliest of hosts, but they knew students rarely ventured further away from their dorms and apartments when it came to alcohol; "Can I ask..." he swallowed; "Their parents?"
"Ah, that. Yes." Vadim nodded, adjusting his towel; "Sad business. Sad story, it is, I think so. Dad was militia, somewhere out there, I do not know exactly where, or what with their mother. Then something happened, with him, and Piper and little Nat moved here..." a frown appeared, as if regretting he'd shared such information; "You ask why?"
It was something deeply personal to Piper, he understood that now. And he had no real business asking, and yet now he knew more than perhaps he should. He hadn't known her long enough to pry into those things, and now he, and likely Vadim more so, felt like something had been trespassed upon.
"Natalie, she told me about her uncle Vadim..." it wasn't why he had asked, but it was the best explanation he could give that was not just curiosity and undue concern, and how would he even justify the latter anyway? "I thought..."
"No, no..." the older man brushed him off, some levity returning to his voice; "I'm not uncle, really. But, I do care for them, both. Yefim does too. Сильные девочки, we would call it, I think. Don't know. You're from where? Not Commonwealth, your accent gives it."
"Europe," The lie was becoming easier, at least. Though, he knew little enough of the mythic place that anyone asking would catch him out. He had to try and prevent any deeper questions; "It is not fond memory. I don't like talking about it..."
"...understand, I do, I do." The man nodded, disappointment clear in voice and expression both; "Yefim and me, our family's come from Russia, long ago. Heh. It's, ah... not there anymore, either, I think, no."
Destroyed, then. By the Great War, or something else and equally terrible? Would Vadim be someone he could ask, and not seem conspicuous, or was Piper his best bet when it came to what this "Europe" really was? Even then, would he dare ask? It wasn't like he couldn't find other sources, people he'd never have to interact with again, or who simply wouldn't care. Piper had said there had once been doctors here old enough to have lived before the war. Ghouls, but the kind that weren't voracious beasts, but still retained their minds. Even the most uneducated of such people could have wealths of knowledge and information, if he could ever find one.
He wondered, had any of these people turned to their God for help? Piper certainly seemed convinced there was one, even if she hadn't entirely explained what or who it was. If a calamity like the end of all civilisation and cultures had struck the Empire... the gods alone would help them then, this he knew. Placated and venerated, there would surely be help to find from the Divines. So, what had happened here, that had turned their god away from them? Why had there been to help, and they still lingered in this state of rust and despair?
Whatever it was, it had ground to dust a civilization greater than the Empire, and left behind a shambly, shuffling band of drifters that clung to past memories in heaps of rusten scrap and stone. And more than anything, it was this loss of greatness and possibility that depressed him.
"...this truly is a gods-forsaken land then."
"It's not nice place, I agree," Vadim nodded, almost as if he dispensed sagely advice; "But it's ours, and not godforsaken either. Clements, he's pastor, he helps people like you, I think."
"...pastor?"
"A..." for a moment it seemed as if the barkeep was lost in thought; "Priest, I think old word is. He has All-Faiths Chapel, near entrance to city. Nice guy, yes? But, ah, he doesn't drink. You drink?"
"...sometimes." Martin nodded, taken a little aback. Vadim smiled and said something, but the words went unheard, and perhaps sensing it, the man disappeared into the shower cabin.
So, there was some faith left in this place after all? Piper had been the only indication it even existed here, though their gods were foreign to him, God. Monotheism seemed prevalent here, and the Imperial Pantheon likely unknown. Somehow that only made him all the more homesick. He'd never thought he would so desperately long for the scents and sounds of the Temple of the One, hearing the sermons of Akatosh's priests...
But now, by Magnus and Kynareth, he longed for it.
He longed for the creaking, wooden benches of the Temple. He longed to sit and let the troubles of the world fade away as his skin would crawl with faint delight at the bond between Mundus and Aetherius, that for all the sins of the world, its people was still beloved and watched over. He longed for that certainty, that safety in reassurance that the Divines would entreat fairly if well respected, and sought himself to ensure he did so. He longed for the smell of incense and old wood, of raw granite and limestone floors, and the warm glow of candlelight - the real, wax candles - as darkness would settle upon the outside world.
He longed for that comfort, that familiarity with the world. A familiarity and sense that something greater steered their vessel through the waters of fate. Here, he had found only destruction and monstrosities, ruined dreams and broken hope. A world where humans had to sneak the streets of their own cities, for fear of greater beings.
He didn't at first understand where to find the chapel, as Vadim had called it. Nothing in the city struck him as worthy of a house of the gods, or any god or deity really. It was all rust and concrete and wood. There was no fine masonry, no artistically carved reliefs or ornate windows of multicolored glass.
But there was a sign, at least, painted in broad strokes on the slanted roof of the building, not much taller than Piper's house. It was, in fact, just across the street from it. It spoke to its mundane appearance that he'd not even given it a second glance when they arrived. He cast one at Piper's home, wondering. Would she tell her sister everything? Or would she make something up, for the truth was simply too outlandish? A tower rose from its roof, squat and low, just barely giving space for a bell of weathered iron, brown with rust like everything else.
"You look like you're lost." a friendly voice addressed him. Martin turned, finding a sight more surprising than any yet within the walls of Diamond City. He'd studied and worked with Redguards before, even an Orsimer once. Yet none of them had approached or even neared how dark of skin this man was. If his surprise was visible, the man let it go unmentioned; "New in our little corner?"
"I was told..." no, that wasn't the way to say it; "Yes. I just came in today. This is the city's shrine or... temple? Your chapel?"
"All-Faiths Chapel." the dark-skinned man nodded, smiling still. It was a strange, unguarded and warm smile, somehow entirely out of place in this place of rust and ruin. He reminded Martin of the priests of the Temple of the One; "I am Pastor Clements, its caretaker."
"You are the priest?" he certainly did not dress like any priest Martin had ever seen. Though, then again he also did not dress like anything else he'd ever seen. A worn west was draped over greyish vestments of some leathery make, and if nothing else he stood out. But it was the way he carried himself that answered the question, even before the man himself could. There was an air of collected calm about him, the very same self-assured knowledge of a greater plan, that Martin had so often noticed about the priests in the Temple of the One; "Greetings. I am Martin. I...was told this was place for gods, though I do not think yours is the same as mine."
"Your gods, our God..." Clements smiled; "It doesn't really matter, I think. Faith makes us human, though many may have forgotten. It can be a tie to our homes, and I suspect you are quite far from yours indeed. Would you like to come inside? There is less noise within, and room for contemplation."
For a moment, he wasn't sure what he wanted. Of course, he wanted most of all to go home, to leave behind like a bad dream this landscape of rust and decay and barbarism. Of course, there was no way he could tell, in sight at least, that would make something like that possible. He could think of no spell, no ritual or incantation - not to say he would know how to do them even if he could - that could send him back to Cyrodiil. Instead, he was trapped here, in this ruined pit.
"Thank you," he said instead, and let the priest guide him inside.
There really wasn't much else he could say, for what else was he to do, tell the man of his past? Was Cyrodiil truly already his past? It seemed a distant dream, but he knew, instinctively, that it was home. That it was real, even if in this place, this world or reality or plane of Oblivion or whatever it was, that here his home was nothing but a figment, a thing of thoughts. Here, the only real world was this one, and the only real city was the necropolis surrounding this ancient arena.
The chapel was bigger inside than he had expected, but it seemed due to the building having carved itself into the side of the arena like a bear digging out its den. Rather than the rusten metal of the outside, the interior was covered in wooden planks, with richly ornate and decorated imagery on every surface, in all the colors of the rainbow. Spirals, circles, straight and wavy lines and boxes and triangles, it felt almost like stepping inside the dream of some long-dead Dwemeri artificer. A single light dangled from the ceiling, though at first he couldn't tell what it was. It seemed a bottle, though the liquid in it glowed a dull, cold color, almost like a magelight. Wax candles flickered and danced along the wall, and a single podium was raised at the end of the hall. He imagined this might be how Nord chantries to Mara could appear.
It was...strangely nostalgic.
"Here we hold silent vigils." Clements explained, his voice softer and lower now, though no one else was within. Somehow, it seemed right, almost as if the chapel itself urged soft tones and gentle speaking. A place of quietude and solace, of contemplation; "We do not differentiate between what gods we worship, or how many or how. As long as you worship peacefully, or simply want a quiet place to think, away from the noise of the city, you are welcome here."
"You do not differentiate between gods?" Even within the Empire, tolerant as it was, the Imperial Pantheon held supremacy. It was simply the dominant faith; "...what is yours?"
The priest offered him a smile that was, at once mysterious and yet warm. There was something almost fatherly in his mannerisms. It was appreciated.
"All of them. None of them." he said; "I hold to faith itself, and the equality of Man with his fellow. You could say that I believe in the Holy Spirit, within all this world's creations."
"...you have never heard of Akatosh, have you. Or of Arkay, or Mara?" it was a question he knew would have no satisfying answer, and yet, with a man of faith, he felt the need to ask.
"I don't know those gods, I'm afraid." Clements shook his head; "But you are free to worship them here."
Martin nodded, disappointed all the same. There had been the hope, even if it was only a fool's hope, that the gods were truly omnipresent, and would be known even here. He bowed his head.
"Thank you."
It was not the Temple of the One. It did not have the high-vaulted ceilings or the incense, and it only had a few benches. There was no stained glass, for there were no windows either, and the light mostly came from the bottle in the ceiling. But, for all that it was not, it was still a place of worship, and somehow the spirit of that was unchanged from the Temple of the One, to here. It was as if Faith did not care overly much for the settings, as much as it did for the people.
One by one, with mighty Akatosh and then Talos at the start, he offered prayers to the Nine. He had no amulet to fondle, no altar or shrine to venerate. But in his mind he imagined the podium was the shrine of each Divine, shifting as needed. He kept a silent prayer, mindful of Clements' words. Eyes closed, he was not even sure if the priest was still there, for there was no sound in the chapel but that of his own breathing, and low, half-remembered hymns to each deity, each god preferring his or her own entreatment.
In the end, his veneration lasted only minutes, that he knew of. But felt like hours. When he opened his eyes again, the light of the ceiling was almost blinding in its contrast. The priest was still there, watching him with curious eyes. Martin stood, his knees aching from the strain, though he dusted them off with little care. There would always be another day of kneeling, another day of placating the gods in hope for aid in turn. Even if that aid was not forthcoming today, or even tomorrow. It was better to be sure.
"Most who come here do not have such an extensive, well-remembered list of deities." Clements noted.
"Piper told me you have one, at least."
"Ah." he couldn't tell if the priest approved of that or not; "Piper and her sister, they come from a settlement far out in the Wasteland. Some settlements are almost two centuries old, others rather new. They all have slight variations of faiths, if they have faiths at all. I believe the Wright sisters grew up with a chapel of their own, much like ours, though more focused on God."
Speaking of Piper... How long had he been gone now? Hers had been a brief departure, but he had lingered there, and now he lingered here, in their chapel. What if she was growing worried he'd taken a wrong turn, and wandered into some crime-ridden alleyway? Would she worry? She barely knew him, but... No, they were friends. She'd said so herself, strange as the notion was of such fast friendship.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Pastor Clements." he offered the most genuinely polite farewell that he could, for he really did relish in the chance for peace and quiet in this noisy place. Being able to commune with the gods, one-sided though the conversation usually was, offered a sense of relief that could not be put into words; "I appreciate it."
"The door is always open." the priest smiled; "Twenty-four seven. Though, I might be asleep in the back during some of those hours, those who come to venerate are always welcome."
With a last bow - out of tradition if nothing else, for Clements seemed surprised by it - Martin left the chapel behind, and stepped back out into the open street. Immediately the noise assaulted him, almost like a physical gust of air which struck with unrelenting force. Was the chapel truly so well-insulated that it could keep all such noise out, or was there divine aid lended? Out here traders and visitors still trickled in from the outside, hauling wares on two-headed cattle or slung over their backs in bulgening packs.
It sounded almost like market days in the Imperial City, though you couldn't bring cattle to the stalls. The throng was more or less the same though, and hard to push through. Some assumed he was jumping some que, though he couldn't even tell if there was one in here, and pushed him away. What should have taken a minute at most instead took him five, and he arrived back at Piper's door winded and annoyed, his good mood spoiled by paranoid merchants and self-important travellers.
"Piper says to come in when you're done gawking at the other newcomers."
He jumped away when Natalie's voice suddenly appeared next to him, as if the girl had sprouted from the ground like a sylvan, and now meant to strike him down for some perceived slight against nature. The girl herself, however, posed no such threat, he noticed no broomstick in her grasp, and just looked at him like he was the strange one. Where had she even come from? "We have two doors."
"Oh., Had he wondered aloud? "Of course."
"Yeah," she nodded, still watching him; "So, done gawking, mister? Piper's upstairs in the office, I think she's working on a new article. I've still got my eyes on you, even if Sis says you not a synth."
"Noted."
There was a strange familiarity to coming back inside. Strange because he'd barely even been here once before being sent outside again. Piper's house was roomy, tidy and bigger than his own apartment had been, and even in two storeys. The second floor was accessed with a staircase that did not seem like it had ever been meant for use inside a home. The railing matched the kind at the entrance to the city. He took his shoes off before stepping onto the stairs, just in case.
"Martin, that you coming up?"
"Nat said you were up here." he came to a stop before the last step. There was a constant sound of metallic clicking, he couldn't make out what it was and thought at first the stairs were coming apart, though it sounded like it came from the same direction as her voice; "...your house is almost as big as chapel."
"Went to see Clements?" He took the last step and rounded a wall of planks and old metal, painted over with red. It seemed to be her color; "Explains why you didn't come back after a few minutes. How's the shower?"
"It...was very novel experience." he wasn't quite sure how else to put it; "Nice, certainly. Different from the baths. Much faster too, but..." He paused when he found the source of the metallic click-clicking-clicking. Piper worked away at some strange contraption, and he could safely say he had no idea what it was. Most things here, he could make out some vague connection with something from the Imperial City, but this? Here was something alien; "...what are you doing?"
"Working," she replied, though her eyes remained on something like a screen of black, opaque glass in front of her, which seemed to react when she pressed her fingers against metallic buttons on some sort of intricate box, barely larger than her head, but quite wider. It looked like some sort of Dwemeri artifact, with all its obviously complex mechanisms and workings that went beyond his understanding. Had this been home, he would have thought 'magick' and left it there, for some artificer to comprehend. But this place had no magic, no spells or enchantments; "New article. I'm doing a travelers' journal 'bout our little trip through the tunnels. Not sure if I wanna stick with 'Tunnel Terror' though. Feels like Sutherland gets too much attention that way, and we didn't really see anything."
"You didn't," he pointed out, though it seemed and felt moot; "Also what is that?"
"My typewriter." she caressed it like it was a cat, though not some Khajiit, but an actual, honest-to-the-gods housecat. Telling them apart could be damned difficult, which was why he was a dog-person, first and always; "She's even older than me, probably older than anything else's still working in this city. Pre-war, see? Took me a lot of grit and sweat to get her back in working order when I got my hands on her."
"And... does it write types? On that black screen?"
"I use it to write with, yeah. Paper's not cheap enough that I can afford a bin full of crumbled up rejects," Piper motioned at a tall, metal-wrought basket, currently only holding an empty bottle of Nuka-Cola and some dirty parchment; "All these little taps I can press, each is a letter, see? So I press one of these, and that letter appears on my screen. If I make a typo, I just backspace it and problem's gone, just like that. Old typewriters used a paper here, in this slot, then you couldn't backspace anything. Nick helped me wire it up to the screen instead, once I'd worked out the rust from the old girl. Now I just write the article here, and it it appears on the screen. When I'm happy with it, whole thing goes to the printer."
"Impressive." Martin nodded. Of course, he didn't really understand how it worked, at all. How could such a thing work, but not require magic? How was each letter communicated to the screen? How could the screen then send it onwards to the printer, which for all he had been able to tell was just a more advanced block-printer? He didn't say it, but... even in its ruins, the artifacts of this world would have had any researcher back home drooling. He suspected the people from the Cynod would have likely killed for such a contraption. Maybe they already had. The people over there were weird, everyone knew that; "I wish I'd had something like that when I wrote my thesis."
"Well you're a doctor right?" Piper nodded, as if needing no input from his side; "Doctors do a lot of writing, I've heard. Boring kind of writing, of course, but still. Just use this when I'm not working on her. You'll never want to use a... what'd you use back home, again?"
"Quill and ink."
He wasn't sure why she started laughing.