He heard the noise again.
The first time Mike ignored the noise. It could have been anything. A molerat running around, one of his crew being their usual clumsy selves or simply the wind knocking a piece of rubble down from the roof. But now he was on edge. He darted to the empty window, poked his head out, aiming his Chinese assault rifle at the ground below and scanned the surroundings. He spent some time looking down, every muscle tense, watching for any movement. Everything was just the same as before, a row of crumbling carcasses of the old buildings all around, no sound except for the whistling of the wind. He run to the other side of the building, took cover and scanned the other side of the street. There was nothing, but it did little to set him at ease. 'What if it's the uglies?', a panicked thought run through his mind. 'Great Eagle, please don't let it be the uglies.'
It can't be the uglies, he thought. 'Stealthy' was near the bottom of the list of words that could be used to describe the fucking things, right next to 'friendly' and 'beautiful'. If it was them he'd already be hearing "I can smell you, human!", snarling of their 'dog' things and of course them shooting at every passing radroach. Where were they getting all the ammo? Still, even if it wasn't the uglies, it definitely didn't mean he could relax. This was the DC ruins, getting careless or complacent meant you'd be dead real soon.
A gust of biting cold wind came through the windows and Mike shivered. The molerat skin cloak he was wearing wasn't doing the job, he needed something warmer. Something pre-war maybe. Fucking DC ruins. He hated the place. He wouldn't go within miles of the ruins, except right now he had no real choice. The Outcasts were getting really picky about the tech they were willing to trade, they wanted only the most rare and advanced stuff, and the only place you could get such things was here. The Outcasts were the only ones you could trade with now, no caravans passed through Mike's settlement any more. Because of the uglies, of course. Everything's gone to shit in the last couple of months and it was all because of the uglies.
Food was getting really scarce and with the winter coming it would only get worse. People were getting desperate enough that some were trying to hunt the guais. One-Eyed Neil and his crew even went out to hunt a deathclaw. They came back empty-handed, but at least they didn't end up a dealthclaw meal themselves. Neil was always crazy though.
Those bastards in Megaton must be sitting on a mountain of food, he thought. All the farms, the molerats, the river nearby. People were talking about organizing a raid. For that to happen, there would have to be a truce between the settlements, something that hasn't happened in many years and didn't look very likely now. Besides, there were rumours going around that Megaton had something now. Some said it was a robot, others insisted it was some kind of mutant, but all said that this thing killed people like it was nothing. Probably just another campfire tale. In the end, if things got bad enough, it wouldn't matter. In the whole of Wasteland, there was no creature nor a robot quite as terrifying as hunger.
Mike nervously fiddled with the metal Mark of the Great Eagle in his pocket. He run his thumb over the shape of the Great Eagle in the middle, then around the letters on the outside. He didn't know what 'cent' or most of the other words meant, but the important word was 'twenty'. This was how many times the Great Eagle would protect the owner of the mark from all danger. Twenty was a lot of times, Mike thought. But still. With the life he was leading recently, with all the previous expeditions into the DC ruins, how many of those has he used up? How many times did he have left? Mike thought of the old man whose body he took the mark from. The mark didn't protect him. Perhaps the old man run out of times. Or perhaps the Great Eagle did not protect those who didn't believe in it.
He decided to check on Alan and Meg downstairs. Were these two watching the east windows or were they making out again? It didn't sound like they were, but that could just mean that they learned to be quieter. That was at least something. He carefully stepped down the broken stairs, hopping over the point where they've collapsed. The two were watching the road outside, but when he called them and they turned around, Alan's still-flushed face and Meg's blazer with one button in the wrong hole and a couple of others open told him everything. The fucking idiots thought they were on a picnic. A whole horde of uglies could march in here and dance the pre-war Charleston dance right in front of them and they wouldn't have noticed. Mike just sighed. There was no point talking to them and they couldn't be replaced - Meg was a great scout and there was nobody better than Alan at picking locks. At least they had four more people downstairs and they would pay more attention than these two. All he could do it tell them sternly to keep their eyes open and go back upstairs.
Mike was just about to take a swig from the half-empty bottle of moonshine when he heard gunshots downstairs. He put the bottle down and run downstairs, jumping over the broken part. Maybe the crew just got bored and started shooting at radroaches, a hopeful thought flashed in his mind and got extinguished just as quickly when he saw the bodies of Meg and Alan lying next to each other. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a curious sight - a small female figure dressed in blue aiming a gun at him. That was the last thing Mike saw in his life - about a second later he was lying on the ruined floor, a 10 mm bullet hole in his temple.
Amy walked among the dead bodies, carefully searching them for anything she could use. She tried to not look at their faces - it was just better that way.
- "Nothing but junk. Just a bit of ammo." she frowned "At least they won't be ambushing any caravans any time soon."
- "These people were probably scavengers. They are not known for attacking caravans." Shroud spoke up.
Amy stopped and expelled the air out of her nostrils, her jaw clenched and anger in her eyes. "What they were, is rapists and murderers. And what they are now is dead."
- "Oh, this is most certainly true. Those were in all likelihood villainous scum who got their just deserts, and the Wasteland is better off for it. It was just some petty pedantry on my part."
A small metal box on the far side of the ruined building caught Amy's attention. She approached, then cautiously lifted the lid.
- "Yes! 5.56 mm ammo, nearly full box. Just what I needed, too." she carefully emptied the box into one of the pockets of her enormous backpack. "Don't think there's anything else I can use here." she mused. "Oh, except maybe this" she walked over to Mike's body, turned it over with some effort and took the molerat skin cloak from his shoulders, then put it on her own. "It's a bit warmer, anyhow." She sighed "Well, time to go back down."
Amy crept out of the ruined building, casting darting looks all around her. This was the DC ruins, perhaps the most dangerous place in the whole of Capital Wasteland, that she knew of, anyway, you had to keep your wits about you at all times. It seemed to be overrun with creatures that others called 'supermutants'.
She crept down to the shore and filled her two big water cans from the river. Her backpack instantly grew much heavier and Amy felt like she was going to keel over. It couldn't be helped - she needed both cans full - she wasn't planning on going back to the surface for a while. She then headed for the nearest metro station.
Approaching the station she cast a long look across the surrounding streets. The crumbling buildings were still, just as lifeless as before. Amy for some reason remembered the first time she was in DC ruins, how she stared at those buildings with such wonder, imagining the mind-boggling number of people who must have lived there, how the street must have looked like before the war with cars driving up and down the street and people strolling along the sidewalks. She remembered how she almost let a mirelurk sneak up on her, only reacting at the last moment. She got a nasty gash on her right forearm for her troubles. It has long since healed of course - everything seemed to heal really quickly on her - but there was a clearly visible scar left to remind her. Now, she reflected, she only saw the buildings as a source of danger - they limited her field of view and concealed potential threats.
Amy's thoughts were interrupted by movement on the edge of her vision. She looked over to the left. At first it seemed like she was just seeing things, but then she was definite movement in between the two buildings. Amy focused her hearing in that direction. She heard grunts, low pitched voices, rubble cracking under heavy feet. Damn. She had to hurry.
Amy headed towards the metro station, almost at a running pace yet trying to move as quietly as possible. Once inside, she leaned against the concrete wall, catching her breath. Then she hesitantly took a frag mine out of her backpack, armed it and buried it inside a pile of rubble next to the entrance. It seemed like a waste, but she needed advance warning in case the supermutants decided to go down into the station. Of course it was also possible it would just blow up a passing molerat, but these days Amy preferred to be on the safe side. She then headed into the now very familiar darkness of the station.
Amy has now been charting the old metro for - she wasn't exactly sure how long. Months? She no longer measured time in days and weeks and months but in metro stations explored and passages found. At first she wanted to find a route that people could safely follow, through the old metro and other underground passages from Megaton to Canterbury Commons. She decided to start with something less ambitious instead - a route from Megaton to Rivet City.
She very soon realized just how monumental a task the 'less ambitious' plan was. The old metro network used to run under the whole of Capital Wasteland. There were also the sewers and the various maintenance and utility tunnels. The problem was that many of the tunnels have since collapsed, or got completely flooded. Others were overrun with mirelurks, molerats or the ferals. Oh god, the ferals. They were the bane of Amy's existence.
Amy learned about the strange 'ghoul' disease when she met Gob. Down in the metro tunnels, she learned about another variant of this disease - one that attacked not only the body but the mind.
She vividly remembered the first time she run into ferals. She opened a utility door and saw two of them, sitting on their haunches eating something. Happy and excited to see another human being, Amy greeted them, started asking questions. Both ghouls turned around, and that's when Amy saw that there was something very wrong. One of them not wearing any clothes and another one dressed in scraps that were falling apart was a bad sign, but it was the look on their faces that really scared her. Alarmed, she took a step back and that was what probably saved her life when the two ghouls lunged at her. That earned her two scars - one on the left side of her jaw and another - crescent shaped - on her left forearm, where one of the ghouls bit her.
Since then Amy run into dozens, possibly hundreds of them. Sometimes she would only find a few of them wondering aimlessly down the dark tunnels. She would then shoot them all. A couple of times, however, she found stations completely overrun with these things. She had to abandon those passages and look for another way.
She felt bad when she had to kill the ferals. It felt like she was shooting sick people. But, they were very dangerous - the scar on her arm was the proof, and they were a constant spanner in the works. The worst thought was that perhaps this wasn't another variant of the ghoul disease but a different phase of it. Could this mean that Gob could turn into one of these things?
A lot of the time she would have to clear passages and tunnels of rubble. It was hard and frustratingly, painfully slow. It got better once she found a folding shovel inside a utility closet - since then she also found a large hammer and a pickaxe. Even then, digging through rubble took so long. Clearing rubble blocking a passage could easily take days. Still, little by little she was adding new tunnels and paths to her pipboy map. The line showing the route was twisting and snaking in all different directions but it kept creeping closer and closer to where Rivet City was supposed to be.
She should have been really close now. Rivet City would be right across the Potomac. But, every route she followed seemed to lead to a dead end. Most passages were flooded, some overrun with ghouls or collapsed. Amy had high hopes for this metro station, however. It seemed, for some reason to be more intact than most others she's been in. She even came across stretches that still - somehow, incredibly - had power.
Amy sat down on the floor for a couple of minutes' rest - she felt tired but the supermutants could be nearby - then got up and started walking. Once again thoughts of her Dad came and as usual she shut them down immediately. She had no time for this, he was doing something important here, she told herself.
Several hours later, Amy picked a door to a large utility closet, found a large trunk there that could be used as a bench and sat down, or rather collapsed on top of it. This station looked promising at first, but all the tunnels she checked were flooded or collapsed. This was another dead end. She would have to backtrack all the way back to Metro Central.
- "Dammit, shit, shit" Amy picked up a metal coffee pot off the shelf next to her and hurled it at the opposite wall. It bounced off a box and fell to the floor with a loud noise. She got up - rather jumped up, in spite of her tiredness - and kicked the metal box she was sitting on, as hard as she could. Pain flared up in her toes, making Amy yelp and hop on one leg, before sitting back down on the box. She sat there for some moments, then spoke, her voice shaking.
- "Shroud, ... " she drew a long breath "can you tell me that what I'm doing makes sense? Can you tell me I'm not mad?"
- "The project you're pursuing is absolutely ambitious but could be incredibly important. It certainly makes sense."
- "Thanks Shroud" Amy paused, then smirked unhappily. "So now I'm asking a disembodied voice in my head to tell me I'm not mad. That's just great"
- "I believe asking the gentleman over by the door" - Amy glanced at the skeleton lying next to the door, pieces of clothing still clinging to the bones - "or the local radroaches to reassure you of your sanity would be even less helpful."
- "Yeah." Amy nodded. "Got to work with what what I have." She looked at the map of Metro Central on her pipboy, staring intently at an outline of a south-eastward facing tunnel. "Please don't be another dead end."
The tunnel turned out to not be a dead end. There was another station, the wrong side of the river, but at least she was still making progress.
Amy stepped into the station lobby, listening for any noises. There were none, the lobby was completely silent. A long time ago Amy would have found the silence oppressive, unnerving. Now it was pleasant and comforting, a sign that she could relax a little bit. She knew better than letting her guard down completely, however - threats could be lurking in the tunnels below, behind every utility door and large crack in the wall. Moving quietly, Amy started with the preliminary exploration of the station.
Some time later, she returned to the top platform. She found no collapsed or collapsing walls, no signs of water leakage, no signs of anything living so far. All of the four tunnels branching out of the main platform were completely intact, at least not as far as she could see. She would later explore the tunnels further.
Amy sat down on the large concrete bench by the ticket booth and took a swig of water. There was a skeleton sitting on the end of the bench - a very commonplace thing down here. Amy just moved to push it off the bench, so she could lie down, when she noticed a few more details. The skeleton was female - she could tell by the shape of the pelvis and overall bone structure. Nothing, unusual there, but the next thing she noticed was a little more strange. There was a second skeleton there, lying right in the woman's lap. It was small, about a size of a molarat. At first Amy assumed that's exactly what it was, but then she looked closer. The second skeleton had many bones missing, but the shape of the skull was unmistakably human. Just really small.
Amy jumped up from the seat, as though there was a deathclaw sitting next to her, took a quick step back. Then she paused, looking at the two skeletons thoughtfully. After a few seconds' pause Amy sat back down on the bench, then slowly, carefully scooted over to the left, eventually settling as close as she could to the remains of a woman and her baby without the risk of toppling them. She leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes.
The station was lit with a soft, warm light. A steady stream of people moved past Amy, some of them walking towards the escalators that would take them down to the platform, others heading the opposite way towards the exit.
- "The 17:45 Anacostia - Falls Church train is due in five minutes. Would passengers wishing to board the train please make their way to the eastbound platform." a pleasant male baritone announced over the loudspeaker.
Amy moved her head to take a closer look at the people. She saw a family of four walk past. The mother was in front, a tall, elegant blonde in high heels and a fur coat over a dress. The father, a tall, broad-shouldered man walked next to her, his arm on the woman's waist. The children, brother and sister walked behind them. The sister, a girl of about eight in pigtails and bright yellow dress was excitedly telling something to her brother, a slightly pudgy looking boy of about ten dressed in short-sleeved checkered shirt and shorts with suspenders. The boy listened to his sister's animated chatter with a happy, amused expression on his face. In behind the family was a serious looking man in a business suit. He was reading a newspaper as he walked, from time to time muttering something to himself. Behind the man with the newspaper was a young couple, perhaps about Amy's age. The girl, looking very pretty in knee-length parkstroller dress, and the boy, handsome in spite of being a little gawky, wearing shirt and slacks, could barely keep their hands off each other.
Amy kept on watching people walking past her when a noise to her left distracted her. She looked over and saw a girl a little older than herself gently rocking her baby back and forth. The girl was maybe in her early to mid twenties. She looked a lot like Amata, thought Amy, and a little like Moira. She had long, wavy hair of a reddish blonde shade that Amy always found really pretty.
- "What's his name?" Amy asked the girl.
- "Pete. After his grandfather. Pete, say hi to the nice lady."
The baby fixed a pair of curious blue eyes on Amy's face and cooed.
- "I think he likes you." the girl smiled. "Oh, did you hear the news?" she asked excitedly.
- "Of course." Amy nodded. "Both US and China announcing that they will not be using their nuclear weapons. DEFCON going three steps down. This is exciting."
- "There's more in today's papers. Here." the girl passed a rolled up newspaper to Amy. "US navy is rebasing back to Honolulu. China is withdrawing all nuclear submarines from US waters. Both sides are meeting in Tehran next week."
- "Oh wow" Amy looked at the girl hopefully - "Do you think that might mean ... ?"
- "That's what they're saying" the girl nodded. "Great War may be over soon."
- "Wow." Amy repeated. "That's good. Just in time, too. Imagine everything kept on going the way it has been recently."
- "Oh god." the girl grimaced. "I don't even want to think about it. " she turned towards Amy "It wouldn't even make any sense. Why would they blow up the world and everyone in it? It's terrible for everyone."
- "Yes, exactly." Amy nodded. "They had to see sense eventually."
- "Yes, that's what I kept telling Bob. My husband" the girl explained. "He was always telling me to prepare for the apocalypse, and I kept telling him, they're not crazy, they won't blow up the world. And here we are" she raised the rolled up newspaper with a huge smile on her face. "We're just meeting Bob here after work."
- "What does he do?"
- "Bob works for Vault-Tec. He got promoted to Chief Engineer for DC area recently." the girl said proudly. "He was building one of those underground Vaults, you know?"
- "Ah yes, this is where people would escape if the bombs fell." Amy nodded. "But, now that the nuclear war won't happen, is he out of a job?"
- "We thought so at first. But it turns out there is a lot of other things that need to be built. Roads, bridges, railways. Also factories, schools, hospitals. Vault-Tec is retooling for civilian construction." the girl enthused. "Bob will be busier than ever now. You know, he ..."
Suddenly Amy felt a flash of pain in her left temple. It retreated quickly but left unpleasant throbbing behind - a telltale sign of a bad headache starting. Amy blinked a few times, and all the people, together with the girl and her baby were gone. In the darkness around her all she could see was cracked concrete and the remains of the ticket booth ahead. She slowly got up, feeling the left side of her head gingerly, and shivered in the cold air of the empty station. It's for the better really, Amy thought. It was way too dangerous to sit out in the open daydreaming like this - who knows what could have snuck up on her. Now she needed to find a good place to sleep.
- "Goddam stupid piece of shit! Huuuurggghhh"
Amy smacked the terminal she just finished hacking with the palm of her hand.
- "Over three hours I've spent hacking this terminal, rummaging through the memory, only to find that some pre-war moron set the password, to 'password'! Goddamit!" Amy gave the terminal another furious smack.
- "It's still better than the two terminals in Metro Central with the 'admin' password. I suppose." said Shroud uncertainly.
- "Oh god, don't remind me. Next time I hack a terminal I need to try all the stupid passwords first." Amy let out an angry snort. "I want to go back to Megaton, get Lesko to invent a time machine, go back in time before the War and shoot the moron who set the password to 'password' in the head!"
- "I suspect this wouldn't be effective. That person's brain, such as it was, may have been positioned elsewhere on their body. But, I feel your irritation is misplaced. You've hacked the terminal anyway."
- "It was just such a waste of time. But, yes, I guess." she sighed. "It's just ... we're moving sideways again. Maybe even away from Rivet City. And I know I wasn't planning to go back up to the surface for a while, but ... I just feel like I'm so sick of looking at these walls and tunnels and the darkness."
- "You're not considering abandoning the project? Surely not now, when it's so close to completion."
- "I don't really know how close it is. But no, no, of course not. I just want to see some sunlight. Breathe fresh air. Use my eyes' daylight vision damn it."
- "In that case it might be good to go topside. If we're to trust the signs in this station, Arlington Public Library should be nearby. It could be exciting to explore."
- "It's probably just ruins like everything else. But whatever, I just want to go to the surface."
Walking up the concrete steps Amy had to squint her eyes. In spite of the bracing wind the sun was shining through a gap in the clouds directly at her face, as if trying to compensate for the lack of warmth with extra brightness. As always, she peeked her head from behind the stairwell, aiming her 10 mm at any potential threats. There were none, just the empty decaying ruins.
Suddenly Amy felt something cold and wet on her face. She sprinted towards a ruined phone booth nearby, crouched and started turning in different directions, her gun still out. The plaza was just as empty as before but she could now see small white flecks falling down everywhere around her.
At first she thought there was something wrong with her vision, then that there was perhaps a large explosion nearby and soot was now raining down. Only after some time, a strange word from far recesses of her long-term memory surfaced in her mind.
- "This is ... snow?"
- "I believe so, yes"
Amy moved to exit the phone booth, then slid back in.
- "It's safe?"
- "It may carry a minutely minor amount of radiation but otherwise I believe it's no more dangerous than rain."
Amy put her gun away, then held out her arm and watched the snowflakes land on it and melt. It felt strange but, somehow, pleasant. When some time later the snow stopped falling, she started walking towards a cluster of buildings in front of her.
She saw the library almost immediately. It was an impressive building, towering above the ruins of lesser structures around. There was clear damage to the wall and the roof, but otherwise the impressive piece of pre-war architecture seemed mostly intact. It even looked like it had functioning doors. Cautiously but excitedly, Amy opened the massive doors.
As soon as she stepped inside, Amy heard voices. Her hand was already moving towards her 10 mm when she saw that the people inside were wearing power armor. Brotherhood? She wasn't expecting to find anyone here, let alone the Brotherhood of Steel. Amy quietly closed the door and started walking towards the people. She noticed a girl among the Brotherhood soldiers, dressed very oddly, in some kind of robe. The girl was talking to one of the power armored figures. Was she also a part of Brotherhood, Amy wondered. She took several more steps forward when the power-armored man talking to the girl saw Amy and said something to the girl, gesturing in Amy's direction. The girl turned around, saw Amy and immediately addressed her.
- "Wastelander! Would you like to help the Brotherhood of Steel with an important mission? I have , uh, bottlecaps and ammo I can give you for every undamaged book you find here."
One of the power armored figures (Amy tried to remember what they called themselves. Knight? Paladin? It was something like that) stepped forward.
- "Scribe Yearling, please consider that the building isn't secure yet. Armed wastelanders are still inside and some of their explosive traps are still active. This wastelander would likely get killed trying to retrieve books for you."
- "Oh no, don't go getting yourself killed. OK, like Knight Birkin said, you can wait here while we clear out the building." conceded Yearling.
- "Don't worry, I can look after myself." said Amy.
Knight Birkin looked at Yearling, shaking his head, then turned towards Amy. "Wastelander, I assure you, the people holed up in this building are numerous and well-armed. For your own safety, please stay here until the building is secured."
- "OK, OK, I'll wait here." Amy nodded. However, when the Brotherhood knights left the lobby, she immediately broke her promise. The big central room of the library had a number of doors on the side, Amy went into one of them. She found herself in a narrow corridor with crumbling walls.
While the library survived mostly intact on the outside, on the inside was a different story. There used to be a lot of concrete pillars in the middle of the floor and many wooden and plastic shelves, they were everywhere. Now many of the pillars collapsed, in some cases through the floor. Most of the shelves collapsed too, together with piles of books forming obstacles you had to climb over. The books fared even worse. Many were simply missing, taken over the years by scavengers hoping to find maps pointing to some lost pre-war treasure. Even more were probably simply burned for kindling. Such books that were still left were damaged beyond any use by fire, water and who knows what else. It was rather sad, thought Amy, this gigantic building filled with books and none of them could be read.
She remembered the knights' warnings about explosive traps, so she would sidestep any suspicious looking pile of books, or throw something heavy at it. Once she saw a pile of rubble and destroyed books that just looked like it was put together artificially. Amy threw a piece of rubble at it - it bounced off and fell next to it. She then picked up a bigger piece of rubble and threw it harder. She barely had time to duck behind a nearby concrete pillar when there was a loud bang and pieces of concrete flew past her.
Amy could hear distant gunfire - it sounded like it was coming from the floor above. The people holed up here must be desperate, she thought. They used mines and stayed behind to fight the Brotherhood - for what, some destroyed books? Did they think they would find maps to Old World treasure here? Didn't matter, thought Amy, feeling a wave of anger build up inside. They would all be killed here. Good.
She tried to find some books for Scribe Yearling but all books she found were damaged beyond any use. Only once did she find one that wasn't completely destroyed. She recognized the book immediately - the large font, the colorful rectangles around the letters, the picture of a happy baby in a pram below. 'You're SPECIAL'. The book was damaged a little - you couldn't see the author - but was otherwise in quite a good condition. This was the first book she had as a kid, Amy remembered. Amata had one too, of course, and they would both try to imitate Vault Boy's poses for each of the letters when they played together. And then Dad would ...
Amy shook her head and chased the memory away. Scribe Yearling promised she would pay for every book she found, but would she really pay for this one? Who knew. Seeing the mighty Brotherhood spend resources on searching for books here was strange to say the least, yet here they were. She was going to offer the book to the woman, if she wouldn't take it, no big loss.
When she returned to the entrance, Scribe Yearling was sitting behind the same large desk Amy first found her. She looked rather bored. Amy gave her the book.
- "'You're SPECIAL'! I remember I had it as a kid." exclaimed Scribe Yearling.
- "So did I"
- "You had books in the Wasteland?" Yearling raised her eyebrows.
- "I grew up in a Vault" Amy explained.
- "Really? How did you survive?" Yearling looked at Amy with surprise, then nodded "Ah, it must have been one of the good Vaults. Anyway" she continued "I promised to pay you for every book you found, hang on, let me just get the bottlecaps."
- "I would prefer to be paid in ammo. 10 mm, if that's OK" Amy said. Yearling nodded, then reached into a large box nearby and gave Amy a handful of bullets. Well, at least something good came of this.
- "I'm a little surprised that the Brotherhood would be here trying to find books."
- "It's a project that ..." Yearling paused. "Uhm, I'm not really supposed to be telling you this."
- "Oh, of course, I understand."
- "So, anyway, it's a project that mum, I mean Proctor Jameson, came up with. But it was approved by Elder Lyons!"
- "Proctor?"
- "Yeah. It's a Scribe rank. Just below the Head Scribe." seeing Amy's questioning look, Yearling continued "In Brotherhood, Knights and Paladins fight, and Scribes do research and stuff. Mum is a Proctor, and Dad is a Senior Scribe. So I'm a Senior Scribe too."
- "Is that how it works in the Brotherhood?"
- "Yeah." Yearling shrugged.
- "I have another question, if you don't mind ..."
Scribe Yearling didn't mind. She proceeded to tell Amy a lot about the Brotherhood structure, the things Scribes worked on, some of the current projects. Most of it sounded like things she wasn't supposed to tell random Wastelanders. Amy felt a little guilty, she was worried Yearling could get in trouble for telling these things to her. But she had a powerful, almost overwhelming feeling that this was potentially useful information, so she had to know. And so she kept asking questions and Yearling was only too happy to answer.
They were interrupted when the knights finally returned. Power armor made it hard to tell them apart but Amy recognized the taller Knight Stearns in front carrying a stack of books. He glanced at Amy - she couldn't see his face behind the helmet but somehow his demeanor didn't feel friendly - and stood in front of Scribe Yearling.
- "Does the Wastelander need to be here?"
- "The Wastelander is helping the Brotherhood with our project." Yearling answered.
Knight Stearns stayed silent for a few seconds, then straightened up.
- "Knight Stearns reporting. All armed hostiles in the building have been neutralized. " there was a definite edge to his voice. "Initiate Fuller sustained minor injuries to his leg caused by an explosive trap. Knight Birkin's power armor sustained some damage in the chest area. We've repaired the armor as best we could here, more extensive repairs will be need at the Citadel. And - here are the books we have retrieved"
Knight Stearns started going through the books. He would hold each one up and clearly say the title and the author. Amy could hear irritation in his voice that he spent some effort to control and no effort to hide.
- "'Cindy's Kitchen - Tasty and Nutritious Recipes with Sweet Potato' by Cindy Van Nuys." On the cover there was a smiling blonde middle aged woman wearing an apron.
- "'Top Ten Haunted Houses in Pennsylvania' by Alan Stokely". The book was slightly thicker than the previous one. On the cover there was a house against a backdrop of a dark sky with flashing lightning. One of the windows in the house had a green glow - at least you had to assume this was what the illustrator was going for - and there was a classic 'holes in a sheet' ghost there.
- "'Captain Capucin and the Invaders From Saturn' by Sam Jones". The cover depicted a man with a head of a monkey wearing a space suit and holding what looked like some kind of futuristic raygun. Behind the man there was a frightened looking woman, her blouse torn in a way that exposed her ample cleavage. In front of the monkey-man were two aliens with sneering and leering expressions. In spite of their completely human faces they were clearly aliens because of their blue skin, oversized cranial cavities and sparkly robes with strangely high collars. 'They're after Earth women!' warned a line of text under the title, just in case this wasn't clear from the cover.
- "'In His Strong Arms' by Esmerelda Sklodovska-Barrymore". The cover showed a muscular man wearing jeans with suspenders and a cowboy hat but no shirt. The shirtless cowboy was holding a scantily-clad long-haired woman by her waist, the woman's head thrown back and eyes closed in an apparent swoon.
- "May these add to the Brotherhood's knowledge" Knight Stearns practically growled and near-slammed the stack of books on the table in front of Scribe Yearling.
- "Yeah," Scribe Yearling pressed the left side of her mouth in an unimpressed grimace. "You should try to find better books. Technical manuals, stuff like that."
Knight Stearns stood still for several seconds. Amy could hear heavy breathing from under his helmet. Then, without a word, he turned around and walked away.
Scribe Yearling leaned towards Amy and whispered in her ear. "They didn't send our best people for this operation." She was so loud, Amy was certain that in spite of her whispering, everyone nearby must have heard her. "I think some of them aren't taking this assignment seriously."
- "Hmmm" Amy answered noncommittally.
- "This project was approved by Elder Lyons himself! Do they think they know better than him?" Yearling complained, now totally forgetting to try to keep her voice down.
Remembering the argument between the two Paladins when she visited the Citadel, Amy asked "Does everyone in the Brotherhood respect Elder Lyons?"
- "Well, they should. He's the leader of the Brotherhood. At least, in this part of the continent."
- "In this part ... are you saying the Brotherhood is also in other parts of North America?"
- "Hmmm, I'm not supposed to be telling you this ..."
Amy sighed.
- "But yeah, the Brotherhood is originally from the West Coast. It used to be called California, I think."
- "Oh wow." Amy stared at Yearling. "So how did you get all the way here?"
- "Well, that was when we were in a war with the NCR. It was back in the late 60s I think. It was years ago, I was really young back then. So they sent an expedition to the East Coast."
- "The NCR?"
- "Yeah the're just a bunch of primitives that control a lot of territory in California."
- "So, like raiders?"
- "Uhm ..." Yearling's scrunched her nose in an uncertain expression. "They're a bit different. They have presidents and cities and roads and stuff like that."
Amy's eyes lit up. "Really? Are they rebuilding after the war? Could you ... could you tell me more about them?"
- "There's not much to tell, they're just savages." Seeing Amy's eyes burrowing into her, Yearling shrugged "I don't know that much about them really, just what they teach us. Don't know why you're so interested."
- "OK. So, if you were in a war, why did the Brotherhood send so many people away? Wouldn't you need them against the NCR?"
- "The NCR were never any threat to us, they have a lot of people but their technology level is much lower than ours." Yearling shrugged dismissively.
- "I see" Amy nodded.
- "And just in case, they wanted to make sure the Brotherhood and the Maxson bloodline survives somewhere the NCR can't reach them. We had Arthur Maxson with us." Ignoring Amy's raised eyebrows and unfazed by the contradiction Yearling continued. "So we went all across the continent . It was really dangerous and we got attacked by a bunch of tribal savages. But Elder Lyons guided us, so we were fine. And now we're here" Yearling smiled.
Yearling picked up a book from the pile, shuffled through the pages absentmindedly. "Just look at what they brought back. Useless. No blueprints or textbooks or manuals at all."
- "There's lots of books there but they're all really badly damaged. I could only find one undamaged book, and I'm really good at noticing things. I'm surprised they found that many."
- "OK" said Yearling uncertainly.
- "Also, I know the Brotherhood is mainly interested in technology. But I think these books could still be useful. I think ... " Amy mused "they can tell us about the things pre-war people were interested in. We can understand the way they used to think. Maybe we can understand how they let the world become what it was ... you know, just before the war."
- "Yeah." Yearling nodded. "I mean, this project has been approved by Elder Lyons himself. Of course it must be valuable."
They talked some more. Amy told Yearling about the Vault, Megaton - she felt it was only fair after she just learned so much about the Brotherhood. Yearling was interested in some things but not others. Eventually the knights returned, having not found any more books. Amy felt that it was time for her to leave, so she said her goodbyes to Yearling.
- "OK good luck to you, Wastelander. It was fun chatting with someone new. I should do some research now. Into, you know, the thinking of pre-war people"
Before she opened the door to the outside, Amy turned around, just in time to see Yearling take a book from the bottom of the pile. She could see it was the one with the shirtless cowboy and the long-haired woman on the cover.
Amy headed back down into the metro station. There was a promising tunnel that seemed to lead in the right direction, tomorrow she would explore it. At least it was good to see sunlight and talk to someone, Amy thought.
The next day she walked into another station lobby. The station wasn't as damaged as some of the others she visited, she could even see large letters on the wall that spelled the name of the station - 'Anacostia Crossing'. This was something. She headed outside.
As soon as she was on top of the stairs leading up to the surface, Amy got an odd feeling. It was the air, she realized, it smelt different, somehow. There was a stiff breeze blowing from the east and Amy drew the moleskin cloak tighter. She could see she was on the coast, could hear the waves crash against the shore.
Amy surveyed the surroundings. Behind her, she could see the now familiar city ruins. Oddly, closer to the coast she could see a number of what looked like small shacks, built with rubble from the ruined buildings. They looked abandoned. Ahead, there was water stretching further than the eye could see. The water in the distance had a dark grayish color, and under an overcast sky it was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began.
Further to the left, there was a huge metal shape dominating the skyline. It was as big as a building, except it was floating in the water. Amy stared at it, refusing to believe what she was seeing at first. She heard a strange sound, part moan, part roar, animal as much as human. It took her a second to realize that she was the one making that sound. Amy clasped a hand to her mouth, then took it away and whispered. "Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes yes ..."
She did it. She found a route to Rivet City.