End of the Line
Life in the subways seemed to have gone on the same way for longer than any of those who live there can actually remember. It is like a separate world to the one above, complete with its own towns and laws... and those that are outside of those laws. Even here, on the Green Line, life was not free of the concerns of the surface, and the idea of what might lie deeper, kept coming back to me.
Park Street Station had a small area set aside for travelers and those that just did not stay at the station. Old tables were set up there, weathered and worn with little left of their original paint, and centered around a brazier, the only one Martin had seen so far in this place.
A man played his guitar in the corner, a hat at his feet already bearing a few bottle caps as rewards for a tune that was at once both sorrowful and uplifting. The area was walled in, much as one would a cell, with plywood walls that screened them from the rest of the station. The brazier in the center gave off enough heat that most people threw off their jackets. Martin had already taken off his jacket, and started unclasping the heavy metal plate, when Piper brought out a can of cram. The forks, he'd not seen her bring, nor procure. They had simply appeared, as if conjured out of the aether. Možebi taa e volšebnik...
Piper had removed her own coat and cap too, the red leather haphazardly folded on the bench next to her. It somehow made the scene more homely, more like back in Diamond City. A strange, vague ache in his chest distracted him, though he could not tell its cause. Though he was anything but blind to her forms, that was not the cause of the ache. Piper interrupted him before he could figure it out.
"Bon appetit," she cheered, handing him a fork. It struck him still that she had brought out only a single can, rather than two, and yet had procured two forks. The realization that she meant to share the same meal was one that still had his insides in curious, yet not unpleasant roils; "That means, good appetite, I think."
"It is not English, then?" hesitantly, he prodded at the cram. Now that the can was opened, the pictures on the outside seemed a little misleading. Rather than some delicious piece of roast, instead it was ham, stacked and pickled with some garlic-smelling liquid; "This never looks like it does on can."
"Nope," and he couldn't tell if the reply was for his first or second question. Piper speared the first layer of ham, dragging it out like it was a fish from the river. When she seemed in no particular hurry to say more, but instead ate with apparent... delight would be the wrong word, but distaste was not it either. Indifference, perhaps, to the taste? Martin mirrored her, plucking out a piece of the canned meat. The scent of garlic was stronger now than before, and he could tell by the edges that at least the meat actually was roasted, it had just been sliced and pickled so long that any trace of the heat itself had long since gone away. It was spiced, he realized, when he ate the first bite. A herb he did not recognize; "What's with the face? Not thát bad, right?"
"The spices, what are they?"
"Thyme, I think," she ventured, speaking through her food. some of it stained her cheek already; "Or sage. I can never tell them apart, honestly."
It wasn't sage. He knew sage, and the taste well enough to tell. Thyme, then. He knew of thyme, but had never actually tasted it. The herb was not cheap at all, and beyond his own means back home. Here, it seemed instead it was grown - or had been grown - in great enough numbers to be spent on food such as this.
Park Street's uproar and chaotic lifestyle seemed entirely confined to its main streets. As soon as one went past the central track, and into the sides of the station, everything calmed down considerably, and the shacks by the streets that touched the ceiling, helped to ward off the noise of the market stands. Back here, people lived. The merchants, the tradesmen and those who made their living crafting or repairing. Imports, exports, produce and repair shops took up much of the space, and those with the means would set their shacks in two stories, living atop their workshops. It seemed strange at first that, if you had the means, why not live on the surface? Even with the mutants and radiation storms, to not see the skies when you walked the streets was for Martin, an entirely incomprehensible and unacceptable way of life. And the people here bore clear signs of rarely visiting the surface. It was easy for him to tell locals apart from the travelers, for those who lived beneath the ground were pale, far paler than even the city-dwelling students he had known at the College of Whispers.
The reason, of course, was that though most of the buildings on the surface still stood, centuries of neglect and weather had left them decidedly less than safe, and for most the choice was made at that, when not even the very home you would make for yourself above was likely to stand. At least down here, there was only what you made yourself, and you knew who to blame if something collapsed. GoodNeighbour further had the issue that much of its border was secured by little more than a stockade, apparently, and on all sides were raiders, mutants and the aforementioned radiation. The settlements of downtown Boston had grown to the import that they had, exactly because very few other places were safe. People did not settle in GoodNeighbour because it was pleasant, but because they had very few other places to go, aside from the tunnels and the subterranean stations. In that manner, for all that people here in Park Street seemed prosperous, it still was a slum. A shantytown without the poverty, but forced into its role by lack of space. Apparently people also lived in the tunnels between Park Street and Government Center, but only because those tunnels were wide enough that the occasional trolley could pass through without running people over, and it was as if the stations themselves had somewhat flowed out into the tunnels. An excretion of peoples into the open spaces.
There was still a lot he did not understand about the other stations, of course, and even Park Street was still not entirely clear to him. All the industry, as Piper called it, was below them, but if there were rails below them as well, just how deep did the subways run? What if there were even deeper subways, and even deeper tunnels? Every time he went into a new tunnel from the stations, even with all these people and it being a regular event as it was, he felt as if there was somehow a transitioning between worlds. That civilization, such as it was, somehow ended at the cordons, and the tunnels themselves represented portals between. He did not mention this to Piper, much as he wanted her opinion on it. The idea itself felt silly and dumb every time he even started seriously contemplating it, and then it did not return again until the next time he entered a tunnel. She had told him of the importance of the subways, and he had seen the dead, and heard them. Was it really so fantastical then, to imagine the subways themselves being more than when they had been made? For, made by man they were, there was no doubt there. Much as he still could not fathom exactly how such perfect and permanent tunnels had been bored through the earth, he knew them to be manmade. And how many of the stations were filled with ghouls, or occupied by raiders?
The fact that some tunnels and passages were not on his map likely did no good for his understanding either. Piper had said it was just the side-passage between Arlington and Boylston, but what if there were more? The tracks from Boylston, the ones to the storage? They had not been on the map, nor had they even been remotely hinted at. What if there were more storages, but deeper? Storages on no maps? What if Piper's Institute was in one such place, deep below and away from prying eyes?
"How many tunnels and stations are not on the map, you think?" he asked. Piper, for a moment, seemed as if he had spoken Nibenese instead; "The one by Boylston was not, no?"
"How'd we get from spices to... never mind," she huffed, confusion dissipating; "Map just shows the transit lines. There's probably maps showing all the tunnels and tracks, why?"
"What if there are secret storages, or stations, deep below ground?" Piper snorted, but he continued before she could dispel what was almost certainly worthy of ridicule; "The Institute, what if they are somewhere down there, in tunnels not on any of the maps? You said yourself, no one can find them, but they take people from all over Commonwealth, yes?"
The expression of amusement slowly faded from her face. Martin watched it go through several more, most of them ranging between dismissal and serious contemplation. He felt a small, almost shameful sense of pride in having... what, out-conspiracied her?
"Well, there's a disturbing thought," she finally muttered, a frown now marring her soft features; "It's...not impossible. There's probably all kinds of passages and depots not on that map of yours, and the only other place you'd be likely to find one is the Public Library. Conveniently occupied by Super Mutants."
"Conveniently," Martin snorted, something in the way he spoke breaking Piper's frown into a thin smile; "Maybe Super Mutants work for the Institute? I am sure pay is good in, what? Caps?"
"People, more like," Piper shook her head and fell across the table, arms outstretched until she was cheek-down on its surface, brown eyes staring up at him like some sort of half-way curious cat; "Maybe they feed them in synths? Doubt taste is any different."
"That's dark."
"Mmm." she hummed, eyes lazily looking up at him. The idea still stuck with him, and brought back a memory that seemed entirely inappropriate, yet was at the same time perfect for the moment. Piper seemed to notice his change of mood; "What?"
"Two Bosmer just killed a jester. One-" for a moment he needed a pause, else he would laugh and the rest would be gibberish; "-one of them looks at the other as they eat, and asks, 'does this taste funny to you'?"
Someone in the crowd snorted, though whether it was from the jest or something entirely else was impossible to say. The guitarist had stopped playing, and was packing up his possessions. Piper, however, watched him with open confusion. Martin felt his self-esteem withering as the best jest he knew was sent crashing, burning like a crumbled wagon of straw.
"Is... is that like the one with the two cannibals and the clown?"
"It's...probably better when my father tells it..." then it struck him, like a physical slap to the face, and he stared at Piper, hard and intensively, to see if she was making a jest of her own at him. When there was naught but genuine surprise, and some disbelief. It mirrored his own; "You... you have that here, too? The jest of... how?"
"Two cannibals are eating a clown, one then asks the other if it tastes funny to him," she mused, disbelief now seemingly giving way to amusement; "Yeah, it's an old one. Older than the Great War, probably."
"Huh."
"Dark humor's pretty universal, Martin, don't put too much into it," had she read his mind, or was it simply a guess on her part that he had once again started delving into the idea of something greater connecting their worlds? "Wording's almost the same though, that's the only strange part."
A whistle blew somewhere in the depths of the station then. An hour had passed them by, and for all that there actually was a mechanical clock secured in the ceiling, it had seemed like no time at all. Martin strapped the plate back on and threw on his jacket, more for ease of carrying than need of its warmth, and waited for Piper to do the same. The can of cram, now empty and with little use, found its new home in a large waste bin near the entrance to the small area. He had noticed already that someone from the station had dragged off with similar bags of used cans, quietly wondering if perhaps the caravan's mere presence produced raw materials for the station's industries below.
Piper jolted him from his contemplations with a pat on the arm and a smile, the latter alone enough that all thoughts of the station and its industries were scoured from his mind;
"Back on the road," she gestured for the small alley that lead from their enclosure and back out into the main streets of Park Street. Already out there, people had gathered once more, the caravan regrowing its numbers with new travelers taking up where old ones had left for the station itself, or perhaps needed to take a different path. The guards had taken up their places again, and some of the Brahmin looked much lighter than they had before, while others had merely acquired new packs. There was an extra guard now than before, he noticed, though the man did not seemed of the same caliber as the others, wearing a coat and a cap, rather than the leather and metal armor of the guards Torques had employed from Diamond City. He looked decidedly more the mercenary than them.
"Alright, everyone ready?" Torques called, receiving a scattering of nods and affirmations. There was little in the tone of his question to imply they would wait for anyone who wasn't ready now. Passage with the caravan itself was free, so it had no actual obligations to wait for anyone; "Then we move out. We should be at the Science Park Station in less than an hour, if everyone keeps pace."
Martin had his map out again as they resumed the walk, trying to keep track of where they were, and how many stations were still ahead of him. Though the notion remained silly to him, the fact that Piper had not entirely dismissed the idea of secret stations and tunnels far under ground kept his eyes glued to the old piece of paper. That was when he noticed, Science Park wasn't actually the closest station to Bunker Hill. North Station was, and after North Station, the tracks curved westwards, away from their destination.
"Used to be the route there, yeah," Piper nodded when he brought her attention to it; "Three bridges used to cross there, and it was a shorter trip. Something brought them down last year, all three of them at once. Caravans have used the Charles River dam since."
"Is that much of a detour, then?"
"I... am an idiot," her self-deprecating laugh caused some eyes to turn, though most did not seem to care; "We can't take the Chelsea Street route, there's a series of canals running inland on the other side of the river. I think there's an intersection there, and then we move northeast towards Bunker Hill on one of the old intercity highways. It's a bit of a longer trip, yeah, sorry, I guess it slipped my mind."
The idea of Piper forgetting something as simultaneously mundane and important as the change of their route, at once it was both irritating but also much of an unexpected relief. It was often hard to find her flaws, and he could feel at times as if she was so far above him. A reminder that she too, made mistakes. The longer route also meant more time spent together in the relative aloneness of a crowd of strangers, though he did not know how to act on it. He could not imagine actually acting on any of his feelings resulting in anything but a loss of something he did not dare put into jeopardy. Park Street was behind them already, its lights and life now a mere echo in the tunnel, as concrete arms once again embraced the caravan.
"Tunnels like these, I'm reminded of a date I was on once," Piper luckily chose to speak up before his mind began another round of digging into his own insecurities. Though, the subject was not much better, and a knot of quiet dread formed in his stomach; "The guy called it 'The tunnel of Love', hah...There was not a second."
"A second tunnel?"
"Date," she snorted,shaking her head. The knot inside loosened; "Let's just say he wasn't really my type. I was pretty new in Diamond City and... right, sorry, probably not the kind of stuff you're interested in."
She genuinely looked ashamed to have brought it up.
"Why was there not a second date?" he knew he should not ask. It was unlikely that anything would come from it, and the thought of another man with Piper, even just touching her... actually made him a little nauseous. Was it jealousy? Piper seemed as surprised as himself that he asked, though she did not answer immediately.
After a few minutes, she did answer him, though in a softer tone than before.
"Didn't feel right," she finally said. There was a more somber tone to it as well, something that seemed like it spoke of unwanted memories. He got the feeling she hadn't told others of this; "I think stuff like that's supposed to feel right, you know? I know some people just go with the flow or just go through the motions for the sake of it, and... I tried that, tried doing that, but I couldn't. I couldn't do the kind of stuff others my age were doing, putting Nat aside for some guy."
Martin did not know how to react to any of that. Would it be untowards if he put a hand on her now, with all of that in context? What could he say, that would not come out wrong, or be misunderstood? Natalie had grown on him too, to the point that he was not sure he would not take a bullet for the girl as eagerly as he would for Piper. The reasons were different, at least he was fairly sure they were, but the same protective desire still came through.
"What about you?" he was not sure what Piper meant when she suddenly asked the question, leaning in a little closer as they walked, that familiar look of curiosity now overtaking the somber mood, almost like it had never been there; "What's the worst date you've ever been one, or you know, the weirdest one? There's got to have been at least few, right?"
Martin was perplexed, unsure of what exactly she was asking. Did she mean how many women he had known, in that way? Dates were... not a concept he had known until coming to this land. He wasn't even sure he had been on any that qualified for the term.
"You mean, how... many walks?"
At least his response seemed to confuse her, so now they were equal. He had known women, like that, certainly, briefly at harvest festivals. It had been the norm for youths to vanish from the dances when enough alcohol had disappeared from the tables. Several of the smaller hamlets would come together and hold festivities once the harvests were in, be they from orchards, vineyards or wheat-fields. Bruma hosted festivals too, no less wild in their abandon once the wine and ale and homemade moonshine was brought out. He did not recall them well, though.
"I mean, there's gotta have been at least a few village girls, right?" she ventured, bordering on prying;. Something in her tone seemed... off, but he could not put a finger on what exactly it was "Or at that college of yours. I bet uniforms were cute, right?"
"No cute uniforms," he scoffed, though the idea of Mari in something like what Piper no doubt imagined, it did make him chuckle; "And I do not remember the girls from other villages. We... did not have dates, as you do here. It is rare that a child's parents met under such... romantic conditions. Mine came from different villages, to avoid inbreeding. Children fool around, though, yes. Harvestmere and Dibella's Day, there were... events."
"Events?"
"Mmm," it felt embarrassing, speaking of such things amongst other people. Not because the events themselves were embarrassing, for most every youth had gone through the same things. It was that the utter foreignness of it to these people might cause others to pay closer attention than he would like; "After harvest, the youth often... disappear from the dances. There are games too, where only the adults and those who have crossed from childhood can partake. There is... a lot of drinking. People come from the nearby villages."
"Sounds like fun," Piper laughed; "I'm guessing it's not the kind of game where you'd pin the tail on the brahmin or play spin the bottle?"
"I don't know what those are," Martin chuckled, Piper's infectious mood somehow overcoming his own embarrassment at the subject; "We had games where a man was made head priest and had to wear a special hat, with live candles. If he could hold balance until they burned down, he went into shack with a pretty girl. I think they were games to give us last chances at youth before proper adulthood, you know?"
"Were you ever 'head priest'?"
"A few times," he mused, though the memories of those times were at once funny to recall, and... somewhat awkward, in present company.
"Any good at balancing the candles?" Piper's tone was becoming downright teasing now, the implications of her question stirring him. He decided the best counter was to be as straightforward as he could be, consequences be damned.
"I was good, yes." he could not help the grin when her expression suddenly grew a little flush in the lamplight; "Youth was a nice time, I think."
"What happened to that sweet, innocent guy I picked up in the Wasteland?" Piper sighed, shaking her head, though the tone of her voice was clearly one of resigned amusement. He'd beaten her, and she knew it, and he could take some pride in that. Though, Martin still was not entirely sure of what exactly he had beaten her in. The nature of their game was still a mystery to him, its rules and boundaries vague and like mist, hard to grasp; "They grow up so fast, I swear..."
The tunnel from Park Street Station stretched on for longer than it had from Boylston to Park Street, and lacked any kind of turns or curves in the path. It was wider too, allowing for two trains to pass each other by a good distance, with at least twenty meters from one wall to the other. The tracks were even and in good condition, though the wear of time was easy to see on the walls and supports along them. Masonry had cracked and crumbled onto the floor, and the concrete that made up the ground away from the tracks and their gravel was overgrown with some sort of lichen, and tiny, glowing mushrooms, barely the size of a little finger. The ceiling was cracked, flakes of paint and underlying concrete falling off into small piles on the floor, in places clearly swept away to keep the iron tracks clear. Even this far from Park Street Station, or maybe Government Center Station, people went in to make sure the tracks were clear and safe for the trolley. Celata ovaa rabota, za edna količka?
It seemed almost absurd that so much work would be done to ensure the passing of a single trolley. But maybe there were more of them then, and Stockton's was just the only one with an engine? It was true he hadn't seen others, but what when stations needed to move goods between each other? Brahmin required food, but a push-cart only required that the locals moved it along themselves.
"Do no other stations or people than Stockton use railcars?"
"Hmm?" Piper seemed caught off-guard at the question, though they already had walked several minutes in silence after her last comment, and he wasn't sure if it was the change in subject or that he suddenly asked her of something so out of the blue; "Railcars? Sure, I guess, but his are the only ones with engines."
"Because of the fuel prices?" he ventured.
"Petrol's expensive, sure, but you can always make more. It's more the maintenance, I think," Piper hummed; "There's probably enough plastic lying around from before the war to fill up Diamond City's interior with oil. Only problem is, actually turning plastic into oil is... apparently pretty expensive too. So only a few places have a reliable supply of the stuff."
That made sense. It struck him as a bit like the availability of lamp oil, though he knew the kind of oil used in the lamps in the Imperial City usually came from plants. The idea that it could be made from plastic, the hard stuff he had seen lying around everywhere like trash, seemed like it would make oil less costly, rather than more. Piper didn't seem to know how to actually turn plastic into oil, though. Maybe the rate of refinement was so low that one needed massive amounts of the stuff to make a lamp's worth of oil? And petrol, then? Was that made from oil?
Ahead of them, the tunnel lights spread out and were joined again by others. Though, where Park Street had been as if he had entered a town proper, its lights ablaze and bright, here they were scant few, and only few again of these were as bright as had been at the earlier station. Most of these instead were a dull red, emergency lights that had likely been on for far, far longer than what they had once been meant to do. There was another set of tracks, coming across the station like a regular intersection. They came out of an opening in the wall on the right hand side, and disappeared into another on the left. A small sign that still clung to its place on a metal beam spelled out 'Blue Line, Bowdoin' with a small, black arrow on a white background pointing to the left, and beneath it, 'Blue Line, State Street Station' with a similar arrow, only here it pointed to the right. Lights lit up the tunnel going towards State Street Station, but there were only a few he could see in the direction of Bowdoin.
Government Center was devoid of any kind of permanent structures, though there were several tents and shacks, huddled around metal barrels wherein fires had been lit. The tents that were around them seemed like they had never been meant for camping, but were instead made of some leathery material that gave off flat reflections of the light, and crumbled more like an old jacket than fabric in places. Those that inhabited the station did not seem like the same kind that had lived in Park Street Station either, none of them bearing the characteristic pale faces of their neighbors. They clearly were wont to the surface, but much like the caravan, had opted for the subways. Martin could see no signs of industry here, nor any kind of workshops or market stands. Nothing here that told of how those who might settle down, however briefly, made a living.
He did, however, notice that all as one, they were heavily armed.
"Mercenaries," Piper said quietly, filling in when she perhaps had noticed his own, questioning glance. It did fit well enough what he had thought of them, as soon as he saw the firearms. Mamy bore tattoos as well, wild and different between each face, and few of those were kind to behold. He was not blind to her fingers dancing over the trigger guard of her shotgun; "Don't make eye-contact."
He tried not to, but found it all but impossible to keep his eyes from the huddled, scarred figures seated amongst the white-flaked, wrought-iron pillars. As the caravan passed them by, more than one pair of eyes sought the still heavily laden brahmin. Martin remembered well enough from history books how conflicts where sellswords had seen employ, often ended with those very same sellswords, now unemployed, turning to banditry and life as highwaymen. If the same was true here, it was no wonder Piper was on edge.
Above them, he could see where the ceiling opened up for the escalators, though it was doubtful they had seen any actual movement since the day of the bombs. Sheet metal and plywood covered up the stairs in their entirety, leaving only a single, metal door as entrance and exit. It looked like it had been torn from a basement somewhere, brown with rust around the edges. The floor had once been a clean white, he recognized, likely a sort of local marble that had been prestigious at the time, yet now radiation, filth and wear had rendered it a dirty gray. The station as a whole had clearly been a space for impressions, as the walls were plastered not with concrete or cement, but rather white tiles. Once, perhaps, these had been beautiful too, a stark contrast to the dark gravel of the rails, but now they were cracked and darkened with the soot of decades of fires. A sign with faded letters pointed their way, spelling out in weak white 'Haymarket'.
He was not unhappy to leave it behind, all but embracing the arms of the dark tunnels once more with a quiet sigh of relief. Not a few others seemed to bear a similar view, a general sense of tension easing once they had passed through the stonework rings. His mind still returned to the mercenaries, even as they had long-since passed out of sight of the platform. Only a small, circular cut into the tunnel was now visible as he glanced back. Why was one of the four hub stations little more than a mercenary camp? Why were they even there, and not in Park Street? If it was true that one could purchase just about anything in the underground market, why not guns for hire too? When he relayed the questions to Piper, she didn't at first seem like she wanted to answer. Something about the subject leaving her with an expression of distaste.
"There's not a lot of good people willing to be mercenaries," she finally spoke, as the tunnel made a turn left, and for good left behind the uncomfortable stares of the once-glamorous station; "Wanting to rent out your gun, killing for caps? Those that stick around in that business are usually either permanent hires, or scum. And the permanent hires aren't sitting around in some half-abandoned station."
So, it was essentially a mercenary camp. Of course, he was more than familiar with the concept. Cyrodiil had them too, usually near the larger roads, but out of sight for those who did not know they were there. He had seen one camp, once, as a child, as a sprawling mass of tents outside the walls of Bruma. He'd not understood why, at the time, and had never thought to ask his father when he later understood what they were. In hindsight it was likely that Countess Narina, the Lady of Bruma, had some dealings with them. Though they did not live in sight of the walls, he had still been raised with the understanding firmly settled that they were the subjects of her Ladyship, before anything or anyone else. In practice, at least, for in spirit and heart they all were beholden to a single man alone.
Torques halted the caravan as they made to round a bend in the tunnel, where it both rose and made another slight turn. It was like a spiral, or part of one here.
Haymarket came into sight soon after.
It struck Martin almost immediately that the station was large, and had been an impressive sight in its day. Marble and granite covered the floors and walls, once polished only to have now turned thick with dust and wear. The entrance from the tunnels into the station proper announced itself with white-washed concrete ceilings, and a stark, black wall that rounded off until it flattened out into the floor, and disappeared beneath the cross tires and gravel. Like before, here as well the tracks themselves were well looked after and maintained, and it was evident where wooden boards had replaced the original rail supports. A yellow line was not so much painted onto the edge of the platform itself as it was pressed into the stone, marking where the station itself truly began. Those who did not cross did not truly enter, and it felt as much inviting as it did a threat, a warning that those who overstepped might not have the chance to regret it.
Though, notably, the warning seemed meant for those who had once waited to board the train, not as a ward against caravans or travelers, he still felt a sense of dread walking past the empty platform. The station itself did not seem like it had suffered much in the way of damages, nor could he even see anywhere for the surface to leak in. And yet, for all that, there was not even a tent here. Not a tent, not a single campfire, not a soul. There were no lights either, only what the caravan brought to the place.
"Pretty big, right?" Piper, it seemed, was taking to her role as guide quite well at this point. He'd not even had the chance to ask 'ere she spoke again; "Haymarket, it was once one of the largest of the subway stations. The orange line intersects the green line here, that's the opening in the wall and the new tracks over there," she gestured at a gap he had not seen, on the right hand where a single track veered off from the main tunnel, and vanished somewhere into the darkness; "There's all sorts of underground passages too. Back before we could go back on the surface, people snuck upstairs in suits to recover seeds and stuff from the mall up there. Not a lot of stuff can grow down here, but someone found mushrooms, and they grew. Like, a lot. Even after the air stopped baking your lungs, people still lived here, cultivated mushrooms and swapped them for all sorts of stuff with the other stations first, then the new settlements on the surface."
"An all-mushroom diet," he all but shivered at the thought; "I can imagine it was rather monotonous meals, after some time?"
"You'd be surprised how many ways you can cook mushrooms," there was a knowing smirk to her voice, as if there was some underlying jest there he simply did not grasp. He decided to speak again, before she had a chance at making him feel like the stranger to this land that he in all truths still was. And the dreadful sensation was still there, at the back of his skull like a finger in his brain, prodding and squeezing.
"Then why is no one here?"
The smirk disappeared as if he had torn it away.
"'Ghouls," a single word, and yet alone it was enough to explain why the station was desolate, yet seemed all but untarnished. No holes of bullets riddled the walls, no craters or cracks in the ground that betrayed explosives, and no barricades or the like that spoke of a longer siege; "This station doesn't have a gate, because they built the new entrance into the floor of the mall. Nothing to stop the ghouls flooding down, you know?"
It was a grim fate that befell this station, and suddenly the place no longer felt like a station, but more akin to a tomb. The guards seemed on edge as well, especially those that had been near enough to have heard Piper's retelling of the tragedy.
A chill crept up his spine, and the fine marble and old, venerable granite now felt oppressive and cold, and he understood well why no one had moved back in. People had perished here in a manner not dissimilar to the Dead Station, with just as much violence and just as much horror. The hairs on his skin stood, and it had naught to do with the tale of the station's demise. It made it all the easier to understand why the sensation was so familiar too. Now when he looked to the corners, to the places where the lights of the caravan did not reach, the darkness immediately grew far more oppressive, far more intrusive as if merely glancing was enough to provoke the station itself to rouse its dead.
"Why have they not secured it, and retaken the station?" he asked, still confused. The tracks were well maintained, so obviously people did come here. But there were none now, nor remnants of fire pits or tents; "Why not fortify the entrance? This place is larger than Park Street, is it not?"
"Who would pay for it?" Piper shrugged; "It's outside of Hancock's turf, definitely outside Diamond City's turf and Bunker Hill doesn't care about anything but Bunker Hill. You don't just retake a station. You need all sorts of supplies, weapons, tools, not to mention people willing to take up living in a tomb."
"...I suppose we should be happy that the raiders have not taken over."
"That too," she nodded; "For some reason it seems like even raiders recognize when a place got bad energies. Which, you know, is weird, considering what they do to people. Maybe the Jet gets them all superstitious, who knows?"
Another threat, of course, was that where ghouls had flooded in once, they could do so again. But he saw no footprints in the thick dust, nor anything that even remotely resembled a human form in the shadows, or diseased, yellow eyes that peered from the darkness. There was no sound either, not even an echo of the caravan. He'd not noticed it at first, taken aback by the scale of the station, but now it seemed like an oppressive wall, like they were inside a tunnel of cloth that none could see. He felt ill. Something in the air was wrong, just as it had been at the Dead Station. Were there shadows on the walls here as well, the dead that would not find rest? Would he start hearing children running on the untouched stone floors any moment now?
He felt no respite until they had left the station behind, and passed on through the northern bound tunnel. Once more these underground catacombs seemed a sanctuary compared to the stations they connected, though he knew, rationally, that nothing stopped any creature of flesh and bone from simply awaiting them in the tunnels, or following them in. Ghouls, especially, seemed to like the tighter confines of the tunnels, and were likely the reason the guards of the caravan were so eagerly fanning flashlights across every meter of overgrown, damp tunnel wall as they walked. The crunching gravel and mass of humanity, even as the banter amongst the people had died down, as if directly pressed into silence by the station, still presented an overwhelming barrier of noise that made it all but impossible to detect or hear anything or anyone lurking in the darkness ahead or around them.
The tunnel here was different than before, perhaps because they were nearing the opening onto the surface? The walls were not a solid mass, as before, but now instead doorways opened up on both sides, into which light was thrown with great caution from the guards. When Martin looked into one of them, as he passed it by, he saw little but a cramped quarter, piled with trash, and another door behind it. Another room with its door unbarred and wide open, there was a staircase leading down, though he could not quite tell just how far. It seemed like a descent into the kind of hidden stations where the Institute could lay in wait, or maybe an entrance to the kingdom of the rats, from where they would one day swarm and consume those so unfortunate as to be venturing close. Something down there cast a dim, yellowish glow on the lower walls, and he was more than content at moving no closer to it. Thick, black cables ran along the walls here, feeding into the dark concrete in places where metallic boxes protruded out. In places they were replaced with iron piping, old and brown with rust and decay, and in places torn by what looked like the claws of large animals. If he understood this world and its electricity well enough now, it probably meant they were close to North Station.
"We are nearing the exit onto the surface," he noted. Piper hummed, seemingly impressed that he could tell. Or, maybe she was just glad with every step they took away from Haymarket; "Is North Station safe?"
"Safe enough," she shrugged; "No one lives there, at least no people, but traders use the route often enough that there shouldn't be anything actually dangerous there. Most of the tracks at the station go across the ruined bridges, but the Green Line goes a bit away and around that. Like, a separate tunnel. It's not far, we should be there pretty soon."
The tunnel suddenly widened, as another joined in, merging on the right hand side. It was only when he looked back, that Martin realized it was not another tunnel, but rather the parallel tracks from the other side of Haymarket station, the ones that might have once carried cargo and people the opposite direction. The conjunction only lasted for a few dozen meters, and even then the two remained separated by a series of narrow, concrete pillars that seemed as if they should not be able to bear the load above them. Broken glass lay among them, showered once from the shattered lamps in the ceiling. There were holes in the wall, he noted, small and multiple, the clear signs of firefights. Though, there were no bones, no did he see any brass shells lying about. Then the parallel track disappeared once more, vanishing behind a new, thickening concrete barrier. The tunnel began a slight descent almost as if beckoned by the newfound isolation, and the pace of the caravan adhered almost as fast, making good haste further away from Haymarket.
They were getting closer to the river, Martin realized. Memories flew back to him of the broken tunnels in the Washington line, and he wondered if they were going to see something similar here. Could brahmin swim? Or maybe they were still far enough away from the water that it wasn't a problem here. It seemed already that the subway, for all that it was the safer path, had enough threats of its own for those who walked its tunnels, or dared the stations. Piper had once told him that much of the Green Line was inhabited, but had she actually meant that they were simply safe to enter, or had she been wrong? Quincy could have made people seek towards safer places, and abandon the smaller stations.
The walls of the tunnel started taking on a more yellowish hue, and the previously curved ceiling now fell in, cutting a sharp angle against them. It felt now more like a corridor than anything meant for the large subterranean train wagons he had seen on the older stations, and still they were descending.
Now, however, he could see where the flashlights cast greedy beams against the walls ahead, and where concrete ended and instead the ceiling once again curved, a stark white visible through the filth on the left side, while on the right the wall disappeared entirely. North Station was before them now, and as they drew closer in, flashlights illuminated a platform with thick concrete columns on a dirty, white granite floor, and a low, almost cave-like ceiling beyond the tracks themselves. Dead lamps sat in the walls above, not a one of them displaying even the faintest of flickering lights. Something about the platform here felt different than the others, like it wasn't just a pair of standing areas separated by tracks. Instead the platform seemed to go on and on, disappearing into the darkness beyond what the flashlights could illuminate. It was more akin to the portal to some ancient, underground city, and only the graffitied walls and discarded metal cans on the floor helped dissuade him of the awe.
Suddenly, from the darkness, three new lights appeared. Flashlights, by the way they were moving, and coming closer with a speed that only a running man could achieve. The steps were loud enough that their echo could be heard clearly even over the throng of people, and the caravan came to a grinding halt. The guards, he noticed, did seem alert but not overly alarmed, as if it had been expected. Piper unslung her shotgun, but seemed unsure of what to do when none of the guards had their weapons raised.
Three people emerged, and it was immediately clear they were not the ambushing thugs he had at first feared. They were dressed largely in the same manner as the caravan guards, though the weapons seemed different. Heavy overalls and dark-green coats, blackened with dirt and filth, and metallic plates that protected legs, arms and chest, and solid helmets with metal visors that looked like they could be closed down, like the Diamond City guards at Kenmore Station. The frontman, visor closed down so that only a small strip of glass exposed his eyes, approached the caravan, waving his flashlight around in three small circles, as if it was some sort of signal.
"Look at the armbands," Piper whispered. He did, and noticed a small patch of blue fabric wrapped or stitched into each man's shoulder. A lightning-bolt, and some sort of firearm, crossed before a trio of stars. He'd seen it before, somewhere, but could not recall where. Now that they were only a few meters away, the whispers of the crowd seemed to echo only one word, though it was not until Piper whispered that he recognized it; "Minutemen. I wonder what they're doing here."
Minutemen.
Garvey had given off the impression that he and his people were the only ones left. That only they had escaped Quincy. Even in the pit of despair the man had sunken into, Martin had found him an actually imposing figure. Strong, and capable, yet broken. But Garvey's frame paled now in comparison to the people that had halted the caravan. Where the first had worn but a coat, these men seemed as if they had stepped out of some merge between his own world and this one, clad more akin to knights, and wielding firearms of a design he only recognized because Garvey had carried their likeness. The leader stopped before Angus Torques, shouldering the odd-looking laser weapon. It was shorter than what Garvey had used, and seemed far sturdier with a faint, red light pulsating about inside.
"Angus," the approaching Minuteman greeted. Martin blinked in surprise when the figure slid open the iron mask, revealing that underneath was no man, but a woman. Even though she seemed... not unhappy, to see the caravaneer, her voice was like a bag of gravel hitting the floor; "Took you long enough."
"Ronnie," the man greeted in turn, as dry in tone as she had been; "What's it look like out there?"
"Calm, for the most part," the name 'Ronnie' meant nothing to him, but seemed to cause a stir in Piper. He could see her already fishing for her noteblock; "Had to clear the bridge of some ghouls that'd crept up on the side of it. Jim's up on the first floor, keeps us posted through the radio. You brought it?"
"I had no idea there were Minutemen here," Piper whispered in clear agitation; "And not just... that's Ronnie Shaw, the leader there! I thought she died when they lost the castle!"
"Didn't Garvey say his group was the last?"
"Probably didn't know," she muttered, scratching away at her noteblock almost as fast as the two leaders spoke. True, Garvey had only said his was the last group of survivors from Quincy, but the way he had spoken had implied that the rest of the Minutemen had simply given up and abandoned their task. Torques hefted a crate from the saddle of the frontmost brahmin and placed it in front of Shaw's iron-clad boots. When she took a look inside, whatever she did see seemed to please her. The woman stood back up and nodded; "Must be a supply drop in exchange for keeping the station safe."
"We'll take you across. Bunker Hill guards should be waiting for you on the other side, but just in case. Lake, get that stashed away, Jesse and me will take them across," the men aside her perked up as she spoke, with clear deference to every syllable. One of them, Lake, shouldered his own gun, a piece similar to what his leader wielded, and carried the crate of supplies off into the darkness, to gods knew where. The other, Jesse, remained, inspecting the ammo-drum for what looked like the same sort of weapon currently slung in a strap around Piper's shoulder, yet it was far sleeker in design, and did not at all seem to be a shotgun. Maybe it was a Stockton weapon, and they all bore the same design? "How many's in your group?"
Torques gave the group a quick glance. It was much too quick for him to be counting, and Martin suspected the man was fully aware of how many he had set out from Diamond City with, and now only wanted to see how many had left or joined them in Park Street; "Around forty, we took some new faces on in Park Street."
Shaw lit a cigarette, and did not speak again until the end gave off a dim, red glow. She seemed to be surveying the caravan as well, though her eyes did not seem as concerned with the numbers as Torques' had been.
"Any Gunners there?"
"There are mercenaries held up in Government, but none of them came with us here," Torques shrugged; "Took on an extra guard in Park Street, no tattoo."
Martin noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the man he'd seen join at the market station. Cap and coat, and a rifle that seemed too long for the tunnels, he would stand out easily if compared to the rest of the guards, and seemed to stiffen at the realization. He did not understand the part about tattoos, though it seemed common enough knowledge that Shaw took it for good word, whatever it meant. Maybe it was something like certain tribes of bandits in the mountains between Skyrim and Cyridool were known to have face-painting. He would ask Piper, later, when the air was again filled with incomprehensible banter and none would listen in. If he spoke up here, in this almost deafening silence, all would hear.
"Well, alright then," Shaw nodded, and tossed her cigarette away, the dying ember describing a slow arc into the darkness before it disappeared. She pulled the iron visor back down, the stern, haggard face disappearing behind metal and glass. The man at her side, Jesse, did the same, vanishing into the anonymity so apparently favored among gunslingers. It struck Martin, that one of the reasons the new-hired guard stood out, was because his face was bared to the world, and he seemed young, younger even than himself; "Come on, people. Sun's getting high up there and we're burning daylight. I don't wanna be out in the open when the sun goes down and the crazies come out."
"Oh, that's a good one," Piper chuckled. Martin realized with a start that her pen had never stopped dancing over the noteblock. She even wrote as she walked, something he'd never managed to do himself.
"So, who is Ronnie Shaw then?" as the quiet was dispelled, and people started talking again, once more they found themselves in the strange privacy of the crowd; "You speak as if she is famous? Garvey did not mention her at Quincy, so she did not come?"
"She's probably the oldest Minuteman still alive in the Commonwealth," Piper paused her notes to gesture at the armored woman, wading ahead with the confidence probably born equally of experience and of being heavily armed; "I thought she died at the Castle, back in twenty-two-forty. Everyone did, far as I know."
"Everyone thought she died, you mean?"
"No, I mean, well yes, but I mean everyone at the Castle died," she huffed, chewing down on the end of her pen; "Damn I wish I could get a shot with her in that armor... Some sort of monster attacked the Castle, killed everyone there, that's about the long and short of it. I don't got a clue why she wasn't at Quincy though, seems like the sort of cause that'd fit her character."
It was difficult to tell if the woman had been in the wrong, in not going to Quincy. From what Garvey had told, it was a doomed stand from the start with the fracturing of the Minutemen and the betrayal from one of their own. Would he have gone, in her shoes? To fight for a group that had all but fallen apart anyway? How many men did she have here, four? How many Gunners had attacked Quincy? Even if she had gone, would that have made a difference? Martin had little personal stake in the matter, though he felt he should care at least from the perspective of one opposed to the wholesale slaughter of civilians. But even for those native to this land, to the Commonwealth, the shock and horror of the attack seemed to have passed in mere days, if even that, and a sort of apathy to the plight of others was the norm again. Had it even been so much out of empathy for the fates of their countrymen, or had it solely been out of worry that the Gunners might strike Diamond City next? He'd barely even given the town a thought since the attack itself, was he so much better?
The tunnel veered upwards then, sharp enough that it felt like a genuine hill to climb. One of the brahmin shat itself from the exertion, creating a furrow in the crowd as people sought to avoid the fresh obstacle. Ahead, he could see a light, far sharper and brighter than any overhead ceiling lamp. Sunlight. They had reached the end of the tunnels.
As it turned out, spending hours underground in the darkness, lit only by old ceiling lamps and flashlights, did not prepare the eyes well for the sudden reintroduction of the high noon sun, flashing the caravan as people emerged from the opening. Martin shielded his eyes with a hand, trying to make out details of the land around them as they slowly came level with the surface. The iron tracks continued upwards and ahead for the last meters until no longer were the walls of concrete and old masonry, but now instead towered above them, high-rises and ancient apartment buildings of glass and brick.
Piper, next to him, grinned, breathing in with exaggerated effort. Already he was starting to feel the warmth spreading again, relishing what were probably the last warm days of Frostfall, before the colder winds would start. Apparently it was already rare that the days were this warm at this time of year, so he counted his blessings and did not look the gift horse in its teeth. That he could throw off the heavy jacket alone was a boon, though the plate stayed on, just as much for the sake that he just did not like being without it now, where danger could lurk and hide around every corner. The tunnels, at least, had the safety of being one way, enclosed, but here, the skies were open and the horizon wide.
Behind them, monstrously enormous buildings rose into the skies like the White-Gold Tower itself, yet for all the majesty of the former, it was dwarfed by these ancient monoliths in sheer scale. He could not even make out the top of these things, reaching high and away, lingering shards of broken glass still reflected the sunlight after all these years, and cast a dazzling display. South, if he had to judge from the sun, smaller but no less colossal complexes rose, weathered and broken from nature and neglect, they all the same presented an imposing facade of yellowish bricks and white-washed concrete, now faded to almost grayish obscurity. Not a window in any of them remained intact, and yet he could easily imagine them inhabited. The only question lingered, who the inhabitants would be. What sort of creatures might inhabit such lairs centuries after the deaths of the original tenants? Two of the large complexes were split apart in the middle by another road, smaller than the one they now walked, offering a gaze into the deeper parts of the city here. A small building of yellowish rock took center of what seemed a courtyard, flanked on all sides by buildings many, many times its size.
Time had worn down here as well, growing lichen and mold on every shaded surface, and rust that ate every car left behind in the parking lot. Vines grew from some of the windows, likely once their ancestors had been potted plants, or some creep-vine grown along a wall for decoration. Now they were thick as trees, in places forming almost a new facade. In other places, nearer the road, what had obviously once been planted there as decorative, small trees had grown into vast, twisted beings, with trunks thicker than four men could reach around. A shipbuilder's dream, had they been straight, but here instead they seemed deformed, old life from an old war, wrought with the mutations of radiation. Other trees, younger by far, were far more akin to what he knew from home, and adhered to what he had heard in Diamond City, that the radiation had been severe only for the first few decades. Enough to boil an egg on the dirt, and twist what trees had already existed. There was a strange, hideous sort of charm to it, in the way life had overcome even the end of civilization.
Piper smiled, the sort of warm, relieved smile that could put pause to his thoughts. She had already started unbuttoning her red coat, relishing the warmth of the sun much as he was. Neither of them were made for the underground, no matter the safety it provided. No light in the subterranean tunnels could match the sun.
"Feels good, doesn't it? That fresh, free air."
"It feels good," he nodded, though his eyes went to the tall buildings that flanked the tracks, looking for movement as much as an excuse to avert them; "We are near Science Park now? I don't see a station."
"Up there," Piper gestured ahead, where the tracks now started to ascend even more, rising into the air as the very ground elevated into a raised platform. He'd not seen such a thing before, that a road could escape the ground itself and remain suspended like that. It was more of a viaduct than that, he noted, supported on thick concrete columns. Ahead, atop the viaduct, the remnants of a shelter of metal and glass, with the latter long-since blown out and only the iron-frame remaining. He noticed, at the same time, that Shaw had made some sort of gesture, and the other Minuteman was pacing ahead, already on his way up the ramp, onto the viaduct proper. Scouting ahead? In the tunnels they had seemed well adapted and properly dressed, but out here it was as if they wore winter clothes in the sun; "It's not really a station, compared to the subways. The entire line from here on is above ground, most of it on viaducts like this. There's a bunch of branches further north, further than what we're going."
Torques and Shaw did not, however, lead the caravan onto the viaduct. Instead, a breach in the concrete barrier had been made, deliberately from the looks of it, and the rubble cleared away. They ventured out from the tracks, treading asphalt for the first time since they had set out from Diamond City. Martin was surprised to find he had almost missed the sensation, the friction and solidness from the black surface, over the uneven crunch of gravel and balancing act that was trying to walk on rails. Here, the caravan could spread out again, and the crowd could disperse, though they still walked together, aware that they had exchanged the confines of the tunnels with the dangers and prying eyes of the open air.
As if nature itself wished to affirm his thoughts, a large, black crow landed on the hood of a rusten car not close by to where the caravan was passing. Its impact against the metal roof was loud and sudden enough to catch his eye. Martin halted in his steps, curiosity now awoken, and found himself staring at the bird. It was the first he'd seen in this land beyond the deformed chickens, and he could not tear his eyes from it.
The bird stared back, unblinking. Even as close as he was to it, near enough that he might have been able to catch it if he jumped now, the bird showed absolutely no fear. Maybe it was a mutation, from how crows had been before the bombs, but here all the changes were on the inside, and crows might now be so intelligent that they could read the minds of people. Was that why it hadn't yet flown away, no matter the crowd?
"What'ya lookin at?" Piper came up closer, then she seemed to notice the bird as well; "Huh, that's... a crow."
"It is not at all afraid," rather, it seemed genuinely curious, as if the arrival of people was something at once novel, yet familiar enough that it warranted no real sense of alarm. It felt almost as if it was no bird at all, but rather the mind of a person behind those eyes. They were, as it turned out, the only real mutation he could see that made the bird distinct from the crows of Cyrodiil. At home, the eyes would be a complete black, while here, it turned out, crows had developed a more reddish hue. He'd seen it in other birds before, so it was not a great surprise really to see the same mutation here. Still, it was interesting.
"Crows are smart," she noted; "Probably can sense we're not a threat. They're all over the Commonwealth too, plenty of food when you're not exactly picky. Come on, caravan's not waiting."
Even as they left, Martin kept an eye on the bird. It simply remained there, unmoving, staring at them as they walked away.