EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR AFTER THE FALL OF THE HIGH FERRULE IN DETROIT
Sue reached out and applied a tiny bit of paint to the chest piece of the power armor before her. She stared at it, dropped the brush into turpentine, and put her elbow on the table. She leaned back and looked at the design.
It looked good, without a stencil. She'd painted "ARC" in the bright blue paint that Amos had scrounged up, on all three sets of armor. Amos and Avery Royce's names were already drying on the other two; this one said "Jesse Sellers" on it.
Sue was proud of that name. She had to be, though, didn't she? Hadn't she married the poor fool?
She glanced out the window, a metal sheet propped open with a bar. Footsteps on the gravel walk caught her ear, and the low grunt of the Delaines as they grazed floated through the air.
"Hey, Peanut!" Jesse called. He pushed the door to the shack open. "You've been cooped up in here all day."
"They're finished―" she said, and swatted his hand away. "But not dry!"
Jesse grinned. "Looks good, Sue."
"It had better!" she mock-huffed.
He swooped her into a bouncing hug and gave her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. "You're good at everything you do."
Sue flushed and pushed him away. "Not everything," she muttered.
Jesse eyed the suits. "Amos signed off on that little flower thing?"
"It's not a flower, and no, but he won't mind." She pointed at it and traced the loops in the air. "A triskelion. It's got three prongs, for the three members of ARC."
He shrugged, and then chased her out of the shack with a whoop and a holler. It was a very sunny day in Gladstone, but not hot. Sue moved much slower than Jesse did, but then she had to, with the weight in her stomach growing heavier each day. she shot a mean look at Jesse, who looked back at her and patted her stomach on his next run-by.
She hoped the kid would be strong, but mostly she hope it wouldn't be as foolishly goofy as he was. She could still see the laser graze on his face, where hair wouldn't grow. His beard was a quarter as big as Amos' was, now, and she wished he would trim it up better.
It had been a whole year, after everything in Detroit. So much had happened.
Her paced slowed. Everyone had scattered to the wastes once the Temple exploded. Sue had been certain that no one could have survived, but Jesse eventually made his way out to Flint and had Abramov track her down. Amos and Sue had fled out to 75; Calhoun had gone to Abramov and started organizing an effort to locate the Vault Dwellers, to return them home to Stockton.
On the return trip to Gladstone, ARC had escorted Calhoun and the few people he'd found back to their home. Calhoun intended to return to Detroit and find more of them. Jesse told them what had happened, in the Concourse. Sue cried. Calhoun had sighed and looked off to the distance, sadly.
Jesse and Sue had gotten married the moment it was apparent that she was expecting. Ma Royce was severe on the young man, but Amos slapped him on the back and they had a good long laugh about life.
"Sue," Jesse said. She'd stopped walking, deep in thought.
"Sorry. I was thinking about Detroit."
"That?" he frowned. "Best to let it go."
"I miss Lionel," she said, and walked with him again, trying to mask her crying.
"Aww, are you crying, again!" he asked, picking on her.
"Leave me alone, you jerk," she sniffled.
Jesse pulled her to him, pressed his forehead into hers and looked her straight in the eyes. "If I had known that Landis was gonna blow the roof like that, I would have just shot the High Ferrule right after he tossed Celia to the ground." He kissed her gently.
"I'm not blaming you," she said. "You said yourself that there was no way you could shoot him, not with Lionel in the way."
"Wish I knew why Bradley waited so long to shoot," Jesse muttered. "I hope they're both alive."
"If she hasn't killed herself," Sue added. "She must be living the most wretched life, to know he came all that way to save her and died before the happy ending."
"Aw, Sue," Jesse stroked her cheek. "He's better off, now." A silly grin came across his face.
"I know," she said, "you told me about her trouble."
"That girl was nothing but trouble," Jesse said.
"I still miss Lionel," Sue said.
"Me too, chick," Jesse said, and jumped into a tree, whooping.
Calhoun went back to Detroit and found more people with Abramov's help. Within a week, he'd found every one of them, dead or alive.
Pesaro and Jason Knowles died in Stockton. Benjamin, Ida, Darla, and Susan had died on the trip to Detroit. Jim Stockton, having lost his whole family, had opted for a quick death by the sentry bot, at the gates of Detroit.
Mike Rind had died in an accident at the Chryslus plant, but Sally had given birth and had a son. Her father Joel had been put to work at the old Chryslus plant with Mike. The survivors had gone home.
Thomas Knowles, the Hollises, Tom Perkins and Jacob Ievvi had been executed for various reasons, mainly that they hadn't taken to the conditioning.
Patricia Easton and her daughter Sharon returned home along with Dot Woods and her husband Gus.
Ed and Ann had suffered, when Virginia was taken from them upon their arrival in Detroit. Calhoun found Virginia had been in the Temple at the time of the explosion, and was found wandering outside after the dust settled. She was banged up, but safely returned to her parents, and home.
Eleven people survived out of the original twenty-nine.
Calhoun ran into Bradley, helping to restore Detroit to its former state. Without his power armor, he was just another old man in the wastes. He smiled at Calhoun, and the action looked foreign on his face. "We're better for this," he said. "Paramount is in the hands of better people, of competent leadership. The soldiers are no longer beating people, no one is being forced to work, and the silence is deafening."
"But the manufacturing plants―"
"Will function," Bradley said. "But, now that they no longer run day and night, the sky is starting to clear up. Detroit has actual sunlight, today."
Calhoun stared out over the city from a high spot, watching the activity. People were still cleaning the grime from the streets, a slow process. Buildings were spotty, washed with relatively clean rain that hadn't been coating them repeatedly in soot. Some of the debris along the roads was gone, but the pile of rubble that had been the Temple of Solomon was left alone. No one wanted to risk going near it, anymore. And no one could say what had actually happened to the dozens of ghouls that the High Ferrule had put into the Temple's higher levels. Perhaps they were never there.
After the music stopped, people had slowly come to their senses.
Those like Bradley, who had been the original stock that the High Ferrule trained into soldiers, were all at least fifty years old. Bradley told Calhoun that the older folks were invaluable; they kept the young people from turning the city into a mess, from blowing it up and destroying it completely. There was still a resistance that believed Detroit should not exist.
Calhoun stared at the city and a beam of sunlight broke the clouds, brilliantly shining down onto a street. The people in the distance cheered, and Calhoun felt awed by their spirit. Even for a little sunshine, they cheered like nothing else.
He could see the red barred sign on the entrance to Golgotha. He walked down to examine the door and wonder. Had the prisoners been released, or had it just been locked up tight and no one got out?
"It's sealed now," someone said, behind him. "Phaeton will never walk again."
Calhoun turned, nodding. "For the best," he said.
Celia walked down the steep hill and stood by his side. "How many?" she asked. Her eyes were tired, dead to emotion in that wide brown face. She looked more mature, stood more confidently. She wore leather armor and had a rifle across her back, and her hair was put up in a bun behind her head, with no loose curls. All business, he thought.
"Eleven survived," he said. "Including your brother and his family."
She nodded to herself. "Ed is tough. He'll be alright."
He watched the wind pick at her hair, blowing a few thin pieces out of the tight bun. She twirled them around a finger and pulled them from her head, letting them fly off with the wind. "How are you?" he asked.
She rocked her hand. "Living," she said, dismissively.
"Will you come home?"
Celia barked out a sharp laugh. "Where the hell am I welcome?" she said.
"With me," he answered, simply.
"I thought you gave up on that," she said, without feeling.
"Your sister-in-law humbled me," he said, and looked up to the sky.
"She oughtn't have," Celia said, and her voice grew thick with emotion. "None of this would have happened, if―"
"You would have loved him, anyway," Calhoun said, gently.
She scoffed, and turned away, her sigh catching on uncried tears. Her breathing was heavy, and she swallowed hard. He knew that pain.
"I'm not asking you to love me," Calhoun said. "Whether or not you believe it, you belong with us in Stockton."
"With you."
"Yes."
Celia turned to face the door of the prison, and stared it down with shining eyes. "I don't know if I can leave―"
"He's not here," Calhoun said. "You know that."
She was quiet for a long time. "Are you content, Jack?" she asked. "With things the way they are right now?"
"I forgive you, if that's what you're asking." He smiled a little. "It wasn't your fault that Sigma was Sigma, or that we didn't listen to your warning."
"And are you willing to put up with my trouble?"
He laughed. "You've always been trouble, Celia." He reached out, hesitating, and put an arm around her shoulder. She didn't move away. "Your trouble, at least, meets and beats the trouble that the wasteland has to offer."
She watched him out of the corner of her eyes. "Are you tough enough?"
"Nowhere near tough enough," he said, his eyes shining at her. "But I can learn."
"I hope so," she muttered to herself. She sniffled. "I think it might be time to let go," she said, tears in her voice again. "But I have to finish my work here, first."
"Work?" he asked.
She gestured, turning with him and walking up the hill to look out over Detroit. "Where Phaeton left off," she said. "I continue."
"How?" He looked up at the sky, saw a cloud break apart and more sunlight come bursting onto the city. A vibrant blue burned into his eyes, behind the clouds.
"There are still people who oppose Paramount," she said. "People who want to destroy the city. I work for the ones who want to keep Detroit safe."
"Safe," came a small voice at his side.
"Chloe," Celia said. "Adam's echo," she added.
Calhoun looked down on the girl, and smiled a toothy smile. She imitated it brilliantly. Her green eyes sparkled in the sunlight.
"Finding you is fortuitous," Celia told him. "She needs somewhere safe to go. I can't keep her and I don't trust anyone here who can watch her."
Chloe looked at Celia and moved around to her side, holding her hand tightly. Calhoun looked at the two, then out again over the city. "I could take her home," he said, looking back at Celia. "Virginia and Michael wouldn't mind another kid around."
She looked away and sighed. "No one wants me there, Jack. No one but you."
"You'd be surprised," Calhoun said. "You really would."
"I may not be able to return for a long time," she warned him.
"I've waited for five years already," he told her. "Since you were a school-skipping snot of a sophomore. I can wait five more."
Celia frowned at him and took Chloe's hand, standing and facing Detroit as the sun skipped through the clouds and played over the ruined buildings. Blackness and clean spots and enormous empty skyscrapers, burning barrels and puddles of black water, and a fresh breeze that blew off the water met their senses. Chloe pointed out Bradley's ancient form, his shock of clean white hair standing out in the bevy of people clearing the ground below them. He waved up at them and went back to work.
"After all," Calhoun said, "it's not forever."
END