Chapter II: All This in a Freezer (Part I)
The sun rose at precisely six eighteen. Wadsworth, who never slept a day in his life, knocked on Jericho's door with one of his appendages. Looking around as if it were a crime to be doing what it was he was doing, Wadsworth hummed somewhat innocently to himself as Jericho slowly opened the door.
"You better have a damn good reason for waking up at six-thirty in the morning." Jericho said groggily. His eyes were baggy, as if he hadn't had sleep in three weeks. His faded blue t-shirt had a large coffee stain on it, and his hair was unkempt, but hair tends to be that way when you first get up in the morning.
"Actually, it is roughly six twenty, give or take two or three minutes." Wadsworth replied. "Anyway, it's Mister Herschel, I'm worried about him."
"You're talking as if it's my problem." Jericho said, looking at the robot with disdain, "He's your responsibility."
"I am aware of my responsibilities Mister Jericho, but it appears as though our mutual friend is somewhat delusional."
Jericho rolled his eyes, the kind of eye roll you get when you really don't care about anything but getting back to the previous activity that you were enjoying and still very much care about. In Jericho's case, that previous activity was sleep and he understood by Wadsworth's comment about Herschel being a 'mutual friend' that he wasn't going to get back to that previous activity any time soon.
"Alright," Jericho said, "what specifically are you talking about?"
Wadsworth looked at the ground, trying to find some sort of distraction to keep himself occupied from answering the question that he knew he couldn't necessarily answer.
What isn't there to talk about? The robot thought.
The man is literally a walking loon. He was up all night tossing and turning, making a ruckus with his mouth, I believe it is called snoring, and when he rose this morning promptly at three a.m., he was trying to communicate a message to the wall. There was no communication device, he was literally talking to the wall. He told me he was practicing for a future conversation but to be honest, I doubt that is the case, for why would you ever have a conversation about a meat market. Literally, Mister Herschel's dialogue syntax consisted of an entire butcher shop. In order:
"Ham and salami are sold in bunches, sirloin and turkey are under the hutches. The slabs are kept in the hutches themselves, all this in a freezer, which resides in hell."
He then repeated the same riddle or rhyme, I honestly cannot be sure what it was, in German. I know it was German because of well, he told me, but also because of the way he was speaking. It was almost as if he knew the language first before coming to know American English. His eyes, whenever he spoke German, were so passionate and vigorous that I almost thought he was in love with the language. A strange relationship it must be I suppose, to be in love with words and phrases, to make poetry an art and grammar a muse. Then again, it must be beautiful to believe- that a man could love language more than anything. Now that is something to be considered a rarity these days. I'm sorry for my digression. Anyway, Mister Herschel is peculiar, but peculiar in a way that consists also of waking up at three in the morning and-
The door to the house opened. Turning around, Wadsworth saw Herschel, standing in his clothes and gas mask and looking towards him as if he committed a sin.
The robot reverted to his usual optimism:
"Good morning sir, are you feeling well?"
Herschel slowly moved his left hand up towards the side of his gas mask, more towards his ear, and adjusted a frequency of some sort. He breathed slowly, as if recovering from an asthma attack.
"Are you alright, sir?" Wadsworth said, moving a bit closer.
Herschel nodded as he sulked his way down the ramp, slowly straightening himself out as he inched closer to the bottom. It was almost as if a physical deformity or awkward placement of the spine caused him to natural do this every morning.
The wind blew the bottom of his trench coat, giving just the right impression of a man who had business that needed conducting with a certain individual who had residence in a city he secretly hated.
Mister Burke, whose first name was something horrible, was somewhere in his second REM stage. His dream was Freudian in nature and in truth, would make Freud denounce all of his theories.
Burke's room was nothing spectacular, save for the fusion pulse charge that the man creepily kept underneath his bed sitting securely on a separate pillow. A prostitute who called herself Jean, slept across the room on the floor. Her body was convoluted in a way that spoke of unmentionable deeds of malice. A fly circled around her eyes. A rat, who came in from the night's colder temperatures, slowly cuddled up against Jean's body as if she were a child who loved him.
Hershel knocked on the door once, but unlike before where it was loud and boisterous, this knock was quiet, sinister, and almost had a death knoll sound to it. Upon receiving no answer Herschel knocked again in the same manner, only this time, did so twice. Burke stirred a bit and ruffled his covers desperately trying to hold on to whatever perverted dream he was having. Upon receiving no answer again, Herschel slowly reached his hand for the doorknob and gently turned it. Not surprisingly, the door was locked.
So Herschel waited.
Five minutes….
Ten minutes….
Twenty minutes….
Thirty minutes….
An hour….
At seven-thirty, Burke, as well as the other members of the community, rose from bed. Burke looked over at his nightly visitor and laughed. "You should have pleased me better."
He proceeded to dress himself and when that was done, he reached down below his bed and grabbed the fusion pulse charge. Cradling it like a baby, Mister Burke smiled and gently kissed it. "Oh my little darling, you are going to fulfill your destiny very soon."
Herschel knocked on the door again.
Burke laughed inwardly and thought as he crossed the floor to the door, "Sooner than you think." He placed the fusion pulse charge in a shadow of the wall. He opened the door and gave Herschel a smile, the same type of smile you give when you see an old friend.
"Somehow I knew you'd come to see me."
Herschel said nothing, instead he held out his hand, palm facing the sky, and beckoned Burke to follow him out. Smiling all the way, Burke did so and noticed that Herschel continued the beckoning motion- the four fingers bending towards the individual doing the action- rather slowly. Almost as if Herschel was patiently waiting for whatever it was that he wanted. Burke's smile widened and by the time they reached the atomic bomb in the middle of the square, the businessman was giving the Cheshire Cat a run for his money.
Herschel stopped walking. With the same hand that he was doing the beckoning motion with, he pointed to the ground beside him. Burke took a large step and stood in the assigned position.
"What is this about, David?" Burke asked.
Herschel said nothing. He just stared at Burke disdainfully, as he slowly grabbed Burke's throat, secretly enjoying the feel of the pulse, the rushing of blood to the heart via the jugular vein and the thought process of a crazed psychopathic loon who wanted to see if Oppenheimer's brainchild still worked.
"Oh that's right, I forget, that's not your name anymore, my apologizes." Burke said, hinting at sarcasm. Burke laughed and took a breath before continuing:
"What exactly are you going to do?"
Herschel cocked his head to the side much like a bird would do and laughed as if he were the devil. He squeezed Burke's throat and punched the man in the torso, sending Burke to his knees. Herschel let the man go and walked back towards the ramp. When he reached the top, Wadsworth was back inside the house and Jericho back inside of his. Herschel turned around and saw Burke stand up and look towards him. Herschel flipped him off and after this, entered his house.
Author's Note #3:
This story takes place two weeks before James leaves Vault 101.