Chapter Two
The ghost of Christmas past.
Malloy sat outside of the quiet house on Washinton Avenue, biding his time with a quick glance of his photo album. The slides were not in the best shape to be sure, but he had kept his cherished memories as safe as possible, taking them with him on all of his journeys. Childhood moments, captured on holofilm, immortalized for his viewing at any time.
Most of all, Malloy missed his Mother. She had raised her four children with the best care she could have mustered, that anyone could have possessed in the wasteland. Living in their large community within the safety of the secure vault that had been reclaimed by the Enclave had given his family a real chance at survival. The other Enclave families in the vault were likewise well off, in comparison to the poor dwellers of the wasteland outside.
Malloy pulled up a picture of him and his Mother, he was sat upon her lap when he was just two year of age, with a rather skimpy looking birthday cake in front of them. He smiled and put his album down for a brief second to check the time. Another hour had passed since the soldiers under Commander Dennis had disappeared into the vault, along with Hotchkiss and the rest of the science team. Malloy had been all alone for three hours, and there had been no radio communication since then. That in itself was not too unusual, vaults often interfered with radio broadcasts and transmissions of data. What was odd about the situation was the stillness of everything. Hours ago, the scientists were animated with uncontrollable excitement, ready to bring their new discovery up to the surface for further examinations- and yet there were no signs of scrambling scientists with their new toys. There were no soldiers busily carrying old world tech out into the street.
"Hotchkiss? Anyone read?" Asked Malloy, for the fifth time that hour. He pressed the button on his radio and shook the device for extra good measure. The radio brought back a crackle and then it's normal amount of static. He sighed out and leaned back in his chair that had been set up in the street. There were the usual walls set up around their little camp, with an automated turret system to boot, so Malloy felt little in the ways of vulnerable or worried. He closed his eyes and yawned loudly, taking his hat off to reveal his buzzed blonde hair atop his head, and fanned himself with the brim of the cap.
He opened his eyes wide at the sudden sound of multiple footsteps that came from the house. Malloy sat up at attention and replaced his hat, trying very hard to look attentive. His expectation of seeing a scientist and maybe a few soldiers was shattered, in it's place came the reality of three very tall faceless, white, stick figure-like robots. They calmly walked past him as he grabbed for his plasma pistol. One of the tall robots seemed to turn it's 'face' toward him briefly, before continuing on with it's commrades.
"Stop!" Ordered Malloy, as he backed up towards the turret system. "Halt!" He demanded. The robots ignored him and then descended upon the vertibird. They all stood in a line in front of it, and then each placed their hands gently on the hull of the airship. Malloy stared at them, his hand on his pistol the entire time. They had stopped. He hit the button on his radio and turned towards the house again.
"Hello." Said a girl in a rather strange looking outfit. Malloy dropped his radio in surprise and stumbled over opening his holster. He tried to pull out his firearm, but in his fright and panic he had instead unbuckled his belt, and his trousers fell down around his ankles. The girl tilted her head to the side and watched as Malloy struggled to bring them back up to his waist. "My name is Victoria, it's nice to meet you." She said, smiling just a little as Malloy finally got his trousers back in working order. He stood up straight, his face red with embarrassment. Malloy cleared his throat and tried to act as if nothing had just happened.
"I'm third science officer Connor Malloy of the three hundred and..." He began. Damn it all, he had forgotten his regiment number. Malloy was a fresh recruit into the Enclave, and he was still 'wet behind the ears' as Hotchkiss had put it. The girl, Victoria stood patiently, with a large backpack strapped to her back, silently and slowly swaying left and right as she waited for Malloy's response. "I'm with the Enclave." Said Malloy at last. Victoria smiled.
"If you're with the Enclave, then why are you out here all alone?" She asked him, stepping forward. The gun turret activated and started following Victoria's movement. Malloy quickly turned around and disabled the turret behind him. The small girl, standing at less than five foot tall, stood at the table in the ruined street and she had begun investigating his photo album.
"I'm sorry- are these things with you?" Asked Malloy, pointing to the statue like robots by the vertibird. Victoria looked up at him with a strangely discomforting smile, and then returned to her investigation of his slides. Malloy continued. "Are you from the vault, from inside that house?" He asked.
"I used to live there." Said Victoria, as she flipped through his album. She had stopped on one photo in particular. She stood staring down at the photo of his family on Christmas morning, some ten years prior. "Christmas..." She said. Malloy cautiously stepped forward and pressed a button on his tablet, magnifying the photo for the girl.
"You know about Christmas?" He asked her. She nodded silently and inspected the photo, seemingly intranced by the lights and the little plastic tree that had been set up in the vault's atrium. "Did you used to have Christmas day, in that house? In that Vault?" Asked Malloy. Victoria snapped out of her thoughts, and then lost all interest in the photo album. She instead turned towards the house in question.
"We used to have Christmas day in there." She repeated to Malloy. Her voice was strangely mechanical sounding. Monotone in her inflection, and a little to calculated for Malloy to ignore. Victoria turned her back to him and looked the house up and down. "I had a lot of Christmas days. With my Mother and my Father, with my sisters and my brother..." She trailed off, sounding almost sad, as sad as her inflection would permit.
"Oh?" Asked Malloy, as he grabbed his tablet and turned on it's recording device. "H-how long ago?" He asked, almost dreading the answer. His hands were shaking, and he felt his heart beating rapidly. There had been something not quite right about the child in front of him. Victoria moved just a little too weirdly, her eyes were distant looking, and her smile had been... it had been at best, the same kind of smile that formed upon a dead man's face after he had been left to the elements.
"It was a long time ago." Answered the girl at last. "My last Christmas day in that house was with my great-great niece and her family. My Nephew was too sick to come, too old." She said, as she looked down at the steps of the ruined house. Malloy snapped a picture of Victoria, and she spun around to face him.
"Are you saying that you're from before the w-war?" Asked Malloy. He had correctly guessed that this girl, as real as she looked, was not human at all. She was indeed one more of the machines that had walked out from the house. The thing in front of him was displayed to him on his tablet as unknown product, cybernetics. "You-are you?..." He began to ask. Victoria gently grabbed the tablet out of Malloy's hand, quickly enough that he couldn't react in time to stop her. She looked at his display and then looked back to him.
"Before the war." Said Victoria, rather simply. She placed the tablet back into Malloy's hand. "Before the war, I lived here. After the war, I lived down there." She said, pointing to the street beneath them. Malloy involuntarily shivered, and Victoria tilted her head again, inspecting the young scientist's body language.
"Then you met the rest of my team? Dr. Hotchkiss and Commander Dennis? Are they still down there?" He asked, putting his tablet back into his jacket. Victoria returned herself to a normal standing upright position, and smiled that awful smile again at him.
"They're still down there." She said simply. A chill ran through Malloy, and he knew instinctively, that those men were not going to be coming back up to the surface. Victoria shifted her focus down to Malloy's pistol, and then back up to his eyes. "Are you going to use that?" She asked. Malloy shook his head and backed away from her.
"I never use it." He claimed, in all honesty. The little girl in the overly clean red dress and white knee high socks stepped closer to him. "D-do you need it?" Asked Malloy, as he fumbled over his words. He opened his holster and grabbed the gun by it's handle, holding it out to her in a non-threatening way. Victoria took the pistol and examined it.
It was old and had been used many times. She zoomed in on some tiny fractures on the guns outer casing, and then scanned the fractures for resins and welds. The gun had been carefully maintained, whereas the guns of the men that she had terminated were new, well constructed and sturdy. This gun, was in some way loved by it's owner. Victoria returned her gaze to the young man in front of her. His body language read as frightened and desperate, and his heart rate was well over normal human conditions. Most of all, Victoria scanned Malloy's voice stress as he spoke. She stood with the pistol in her hand, looking up at Malloy.
"Tell me about your last Christmas day, Connor." Said Victoria. Malloy stuttered and then swallowed hard.
"It was in Chicago. The Brotherhood of Steel pushed out the Enclave, and we lost the Vault. It was Christmas eve, the night of the battle." He said, glancing quickly over at the three other robots. They had not shifted. "M-my father died that night. That's his pistol." Said Malloy, as he pointed to the gun in Victoria's hand.
"That was Christmas eve." Said Victoria. Malloy nodded.
"All of the families of the Enclave were on the run for Christmas morning. We had to escape Chicago. My family went north. A General gave me that gun weeks after that. I don't need it." He said, still stuttering. "I don't really celebrate it anymore." He added. Victoria nodded.
"Do you mean that you don't celebrate Christmas anymore, or that you don't celebrate this gun anymore?" She asked him. Malloy shrugged and gave out a nervous laugh.
"I guess neither." He said, his arms extended outward in defeat. Victoria looked at the pistol once more.
"You were born into the Enclave." She stated. Malloy nodded. "Would you have joined the Enclave, if you had been born elsewhere?" Asked Victoria. Malloy again shrugged.
"I don't know." He said. Victoria analyzed his voice stress patterns and smiled at him. Malloy backed up a little again.
"Merry Christmas, Connor." Said the small girl, as she handed his pistol back to him. Malloy took the gun with a shaky hand and put it back into his holster. She smiled at him once more and then turned on her heels towards the vertibird. The three robots that had been stationed there all dropped their arms, and the doors of the vertibird inexplicably opened. One by one the tall white robots stepped into the airship, with Victoria following them in. She turned to look at Malloy one more time and then disappeared into the cockpit area of the vertibird.
Malloy watched silently, still shaking, as the vertibird sprang to life. It's engines roared and it slowly lifted off of the ground. He nearly sank to his knees and began to sniffle as the airship took off, and left the area. It's roar faded away, and he was left alone, the last man standing in the ruins of what had once been called Cedar Rapids.