A/N: Some quoted game dialogue will be reduced in length. The monologues in the game work in an RPG, where no real conversation is going on and the purpose is to establish character and convey information. If I were to simply write them directly, however, they'd come off like incredibly long one-sided speeches rather than any kind of conversation.

9

The segment of tunnel outside was darker than what she thought of as the "home" segment. Xen dusted herself off as best she could at the base of the incline. Then she pulled her goggles down around her neck and opened her inner eyelids.

The tunnel ahead showed her no heat signature, no glimmer of movement, no hot spot of increased gamma radiation where a feral Ghoul might be lurking. It was just another stretch of broken concrete with an old track in the middle, familiar as breathing.

"Camel," said Xen. "Run silent, but don't engage your stealth field. Tell me if you detect anything outside the parameters I gave you."

"Acknowledged," said Camel. Filters lowered over the packbot's exhaust outputs. The soft hum dimmed almost to silence.

"Follow me," said Xen, and padded quietly down the route to Underworld.

The first five miles were quick and relatively easy. She had walked this part of the route before, after it was examined by the Roaches and cleared by the sentry bots. Here there was nothing to fear.

She knew when they crossed over the five mile mark because Camel slowed down suddenly beside her. Xen slowed as well, staring around. A damaged light arced up ahead, bathing the tunnel intermittently in a flickering blue glow. Xen squinted, trying to avoid being blinded by overstimulation, and edged over to the other side of the tunnel as she crept forward. She had to divert around a gaping hole in the wall, and though she could see nothing alive inside it, it still bothered her.

Something rattled softly in the shadows up ahead, and with the movement she was able to pick out the heat signature. It was cooler than a mole rat, and too small. Just a radroach. Not enough to set off Camel's alarms. It scuttled away into the dark as they approached.

At the ten mile mark, she stopped in a generator bay that marked an intersection with a parallel train track. She had a drink of water and a small meal. Xen knew the chain link fence and gate across the bay was no real protection, but she felt better with it there. Someone had left an old magazine called Guns and Bullets lying on the bay's small table. Xen sat in the dusty old chair and read it as she ate. The pages crackled as she turned them, but it was still legible. She stuffed it into Camel's net before they went on.

By fifteen miles her calves and thighs ached, her feet were starting to hurt, and her eyes were beginning to water from the strain of staring into dark corners and squinting at stuttering lights. She'd had to put her goggles back on so that she could keep her inside lids open as the ambient light level increased. "Not long now," she whispered, partly to the packbot but mostly to herself. But it seemed like forever. She scrambled over increasingly numerous piles of rubble, trying to avoid cutting or scratching herself on jagged bits of wire.

At last she felt the draft of cool air on her face that meant Museum Station was up ahead, and in the distance she saw the tunnel open out into a wider space. She stood for a second with a hand on top of Camel's chassis, resting as she listened. It would be ridiculous to walk so far and then be killed because she was too tired to pay attention.

Water was dripping somewhere. That was all she heard.

"I don't see anything unusual," she said to Camel. "Run an active scan for heat signatures."

"Running active scan," said Camel. "Scan negative. Negative for power signatures of sufficient size to be robotic also."

Xen raised her scanty eyebrows at the packbot. "Did you just use initiative?"

"I anticipated your response based on previous command patterns," said Camel. "This is within the parameters of my artificial intelligence."

"Interesting," said Xen. "All right. Let's go."

There wasn't much color to be seen in Museum Station. The gray concrete was covered with brownish-gray debris and brown or gray scraps of litter. Even the plastic on the defunct escalator in front of her was faded from black to gray. Her thermal vision showed the bulky masses of concrete as all the same temperature, an enormous cool mass against which any living thing would light up like a rocket. The ambient radiation was merely normal background; there were no Feral Ghouls up ahead.

Dust motes swirled in the diffuse light. Xen looked around the big space, alert for sudden movements, but everything was still. A great platform stood on pillars above the sets of train tracks, reached by escalators on each side. Dead trains hulked in a couple of the tunnels, blank-eyed with their dark windows. Any way to the surface must be up the stairs. Xen turned toward the escalator and start up, stifling a groan at the effect this had on her sore thighs. She didn't want to touch the dirty railing.

At the top she paused gratefully, panting, then turned to the left toward the darker entryway. She passed the empty ticket kiosk and rows of stone benches. Her feet kicked up dust among the discarded slips of paper and litter, and she tried and failed to stifle a sneeze. Xen froze, scanning all around her with trembling attention. Nothing happened.

"Scans still show negative," reported Camel. Her vocal range did not allow for tonal changes, but Xen blushed anyway. She moved forward quickly, looking for the exit. It was through a set of steel ticket gates and around a corner. There she had to close her inner eyelids against the glare from the chain-link fence and gate that separated the inside of the Station from the stairwell that led up to the Mall.

"One heat signature overhead," said Camel as they approached the gate. "Size consistent with a human or Ghoul female."

Xen tugged at the chain gate until it popped open, then hauled back until there was an opening big enough to admit the packbot. She slid in behind, and then they were in the stairwell.

"Hello?" she said loudly.

Footsteps approached, booted feet on the sidewalk above. A shape appeared at the top of the stairs, silhouetted against the blinding sky.

"Hi there, Tourist," said a voice. It was about the right range for a woman, but rough and scratchy, as if there were dust in the modulator.

This is an organic person, Xen reminded herself. It's from vocal cord damage. She must be a Ghoul.

"Tourist?" she said.

"Sure," said the woman. "You're here on the Mall to see the sights, right? We don't get many smoothskins through here."

"I guess I am," said Xen, filing the term smoothskin. "Which way to Underworld?"

The woman gestured. "Through the main doors and look for the big skull. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," said Xen.

"See you around, Sightseer," she said, and vanished from view. Xen dragged herself up the stairs and stood looking around. She was just in time to see the woman's back vanishing around the corner of a building. She stood in a little courtyard bordered on three sides by walls. The fourth side, beyond the stairwell down to the Station, opened out into an enormous open space. The bare dirt was dug up into trenches, some of them lined with barbed wire or with boards laid across the top. And walking about among them she saw...

"Super mutants," Xen whispered. She knew by rights she should be terrified, but she had never seen one outside of pictures before. Ten feet tall, bald, and sour-apple green wherever skin showed on their bulging muscle-bound bodies, they were impossible to misidentify. Most wore crude armor made from old tires or scavenged from car bodies. The nearest was hundreds of yards away and evidently didn't see her. Xen turned slowly and carefully to look at the building behind her. Tattered banners many times her height swung from the stone front of the Museum of History. It must have been white when it was built. The dust of ages had rendered it a dirty gray. She went to push open one of the heavy main doors.

The first part of the lobby was a square chamber with a low ceiling. A double hemisphere of counters stood in the middle, with broken computers set at intervals around the surface. There were restrooms off to the left. She had to step around fallen marble pillars to move into the larger space beyond.

The inner lobby was wide, high, and empty of life. Here the light was dim enough that she could open up behind her glasses again, as long as she didn't look directly at the fires burning in their small biers to either side of the door. Bones that she recognized as belonging to an extinct prehistoric predator lay fallen and scattered off to her right. A full-sized replica of an elephantine mammal loomed on a platform to the left, a hairy thing with enormous tusks. Xen pressed on across the scuffed marble floor toward the other end of the great room. A high fresco of molded gray material covered most of the far wall. It formed an enormous skull in the center. The other portions were more abstract. An arch with the words Underworld Journey hung under the fresco and over the double doors.

Behind the doors themselves, heat bloomed bright and frequently. Those must be the Ghouls. There was one signature with a little more of a chemical aura to it, flickering here and there with exhaust. A robot. From the shape, I think I know what kind.

"Do you see it, Camel?" she asked. "Is it a Mister Handy?"

"The model is a combat-modified version called a Mister Gutsy," said Camel.

"Oh. Yes, I've seen pictures." And he can probably see us through the doors, too, so it's no surprise he's coming this way.

She hauled the big door open slowly and stepped inside. The inner space was torchlit, requiring some adjustment before her eyes could truly focus. Black marble pillars lined the walls, holding up the long balcony that nearly circled the room. There were benches on the floors, and black-and-yellow banners that said Underworld on them. An enormous sculpture, black and forbidding, squatted at the other end of the long room. And all around were Ghouls, dressed in ordinary clothing and walking around and talking. Some of them turned to stare at the small greenish-white invader.

I must look very strange to them. After all, I've seen pictures of Ghouls. They've never seen pictures of a Human/Xenoorganic Hybrid. She stifled an exhausted laugh at this thought. It was warm here, and there was a faint whiff of corruption in the air. It was overwhelming to see so many people in one place, beyond anything she had imagined.

"Atten-shun! Civilian on deck!" snapped the robot. Its voice was male. Xen forced herself to concentrate on the hovering green chassis. It reminded her a lot of Tori, except that it was painted green with a white star over the original metal.

"Hello," she said. "I'm Xen."

"I am Cerberus! It is my solemn duty to guard the citizens of Underworld against any and all threats, both foreign and domestic!"

"And this is Underworld?" Xen said. She was aware that it was a stupid question, but now more Ghouls were staring at her, and she was starting to feel nervous.

"This is a town of peace-loving Ghouls, so check your bigotry at the door," said the robot. "They deserve the same love and respect as any human, and don't you forget it!"

"All right," said Xen, a little puzzled as to why he was calling her a bigot. Had she violated some unspoken local rule?

"At least, that's what they programmed me to say," Cerberus went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Personally, I think they're a bunch of rotting zombie maggot farms, and I'd send them all back to Hell if I could. Damn, this combat inhibitor!"

This was somewhat more familiar territory. "It seems to conflict with one of your base imperatives," said Xen. "Who installed it?"

"Winthrop," said the robot. "He's the one in the jumpsuit over there. Don't let him send you looking for scrap metal. Damn zombies."

"Is there somewhere here I can sleep for the night?" Xen asked.

"Carol's Place," said Cerberus. "Upstairs. People sleep at the 9th Circle, too. Well, if you count passing out on the floor as sleeping. Was that all?"

"Yes," said Xen reluctantly. "Thank you."

"Closing dialogue system," said Cerberus, and drifted off, muttering to himself. Xen watched him go. Robots were familiar. Now she would have to deal with organic people, without Tori to protect and interpret for her. Tomorrow. She turned toward the stairway. She was too tired to stare at everyone the way they were staring at her. She would have to look for information later.

"He seemed a little odd," she said to Camel once they were on the balcony.

"The standard Robco Mister Gutsy model was prone to certain idiosyncrasies," said Camel. "Cerberus is likely a very old individual."

"How do you know?" said Xen.

"I have detailed files on the history of robotics along with the other information you uploaded," said Camel. Xen made her way slowly along the balcony, trying not to look bigoted.

"Oh."

"Your memory is not functioning optimally due to fatigue," said Camel. "We should find a place for you to rest."

"I don't remember that in your set of responses," said Xen. "Tori and Bunni added some things to you, didn't they."

"I have been instructed not to disclose the extent of modifications."

"I'm not surprised," said Xen dryly. "I can change that, you know."

"Affirmative," said Camel. "Given the proper equipment. Unfortunately, you did not equip me with a sophisticated enough artificial intelligence to interpret verbal overwrites of my base programming."

"Why am I only hearing about this now?" She could see a doorway at the end of the balcony, leading to another upstairs area. Nearer at hand was a set of double doors with a crudely lettered sign that said The 9th Circle.

"I was instructed not to inform you unless asked."

"Hm." Xen glanced at the door, read the few heat signatures behind it, and kept going. She hadn't really understood Cerberus's reference to passing out on the floor, but it didn't sound very safe.

The open area had another set of doors to the 9th Circle. Opposite it was an identical pair labeled Carol's Place. A Ghoul in a pair of pink pajamas lounged against the wall outside, smoking. Unlike the others she'd seen, he had a full head of white hair slicked into a ducktail. He stared at Xen as she went past and into Carol's Place.

A counter stretched across the alcove in front of her. Xen was not quite tall enough to set her elbows on it. A Ghoul in a prewar dress with rolled-up sleeves and a neat little collar sat at a computer behind it. She didn't seem to notice Xen.

"Hello," said Xen.

"Yeah, what is it," she started to say, and then she actually looked up. She jumped up, heat blooming across her face in sudden embarrassment. "Oh. Someone new! I'm sorry, you must think me terribly rude. Welcome. I'm Carol."

"I'm Xen."

"Greta will get you any food you want, and I handle the rooms," said Carol. She brushed a straggly wisp of blond hair back from her face. It grew in a few thin clumps on her scalp. Xen tried not to stare at the exposed muscle and the dark veins on her neck and cheeks where the skin had dried up and flaked away. What skin she had looked like parchment, stiff and dry. Xen could actually identify the edges of the nasal bones around the hole where her nose had once been. She wanted to ask if it hurt, but apparently people were very sensitive to anything that might be taken as an insult here.

"How much is a room?" asked Xen.

"Huh? Oh... 120 caps, I guess," said Carol, blinking her red eyes, and Xen realized she had been staring in turn. "But are... are you sure you want to stay? You're looking a little green. Some smoothskins don't handle the smell very well."

Xen smiled up at the other woman. "I always look like this," she said. "I'm just not very healthy."

"Is that why you're wearing sunglasses inside?" asked Carol.

"My eyes are sensitive," said Xen. She could have done without the goggles in this warm, dim place, but then she would have to keep her inner lids closed. Either way, it seemed a bad idea to let strangers see her so-obviously-inhuman eyes. She turned to Camel to dig out the 120 caps. Tori had divided their store into bags containing 500 cap increments scattered throughout the luggage, so that it wouldn't be obvious how much she was carrying. She counted out the bottle caps as quickly as she could and deposited them carefully on the counter.

"Poor thing," said Carol. She scooped the money and deposited it in an ancient cash register. "It's right over there. The middle room."

"Thank you," said Xen. She turned to the left and went around the corner into a larger space. There was a small, round table with an ash tray sitting on it and a single chair. It reeked of something chemical and strange as she passed. She tried not to breathe it in. To call the areas for rent rooms was an exaggeration. The beds were separated only by translucent plastic screens set up between them. A bench lined the only free wall space. Currently a Ghoul in a suit sat there. He held a cylinder of white paper in two of his fingers. It gave off a wisp of gray smoke. A cigarette, Xen realized. People still smoke tobacco out here. Xen, who had spent most of her life alone with two robots, didn't want to change her clothes in front of the stranger. Instead, she lay down fully clothed on top of the covers. Camel hovered at the end of the bed.

"Wake me up if anyone tries to bother us," said Xen.

"Acknowledged," said Camel.