Begin Recording
Concord
Recording by Emily Mason
This is Emily Mason recording for Scribe Ellison. Where were we? Concord? My 'first adventure.'
The first thing I saw when I ventured over the bridge was death. A dog and a raider had killed each other quite recently. It was not an inspiring sight, though I would later strip the raider for his clothing and weapons.
Just outside of town is the Red Rocket—it's the caravan camp now but it looked just like everything else: rusty and abandoned. And that's where I met this guy! Don't know where he came from but he wagged his tail and pointed me at a first aid box first thing. Since then Dogmeat's saved my life more times than I can count, he saved Maya's life in that synth attack… I could sing this dog's praises forever but you want to hear what happened.
The terminal in the building was also interesting; it talked about the fabrication tools that we've been using ever since. It's all because of old Mrs. Rosa and her car—she's why the Red Rocket got the machine shop and it's her tools that let Sturges create everything he's made here.
Then monsters came out of the ground outside. I heard something, then Dogmeat barked and next thing I know we're under attack by these hideous wrinkly things. I thought they were dogs until we'd killed them all and I got a look at the teeth.
Mole rats were real, did you know that? Before the war. They were small like ordinary rats and didn't live here. I think they lived in Africa or maybe South America, and how they got here from there we'll likely never know.
After that I was very cautious. I was creeping along the road to Concord, so I got the drop on my first bloodbugs. I've done enough skeet shooting that they weren't too much of a problem. I guess I was used to giant bugs by then because I was more freaked out by the extra head on the cow they were eating.
In Concord I heard the first sign of human life. Gunshots, of course. Saw some dead raiders and walls of sandbags too. Someone had been fighting here long enough to build fortifications? I ducked down behind one when I got a look at the ongoing fight.
Raiders, at least a dozen, were shooting up at the Museum of Freedom where someone was shooting back. I didn't know what raiders are at this point, remember, so I wanted to observe and make sure of which side I should be supporting.
Then a raider found me and that became clear real quick.
And that would've been the end of my adventure right there if it hadn't been for Dogmeat, and for Preston in the museum giving me covering fire. But we took down those raiders.
That was the first time I killed a human being, and I don't remember it. It was like the bloatflies in Sanctuary, things were coming at me and I reacted and shot back and then people were dead. I didn't feel bad about it, which surprised me later on. But they could've run. They kept attacking me and I killed them and never felt bad about that. Plenty of other things, but not that.
I didn't have much time to think, since Preston was yelling down to me from the museum balcony. His little band of settlers was pinned on the top floor by another dozen raiders inside the museum and Preston was ready to call any stranger for help. And I was ready to help a person who talked instead of shot at me. He pointed me at a laser musket left by a fallen minuteman and I grabbed it and opened the doors.
I'll spare you a blow by blow of the museum. I shot a lot more people. I was so buzzed on sheer terror that my memory is fragments—the red blasts from the laser musket, the creepy mannequins still in their costumes, Dogmeat grabbing raiders, blood and slaughter.
At last I got up to the room where the settlers were trapped. A black man in a long coat and hat holding a laser rifle, a man in overalls banging frantically at a terminal, a young man sitting crumpled with his head in his hands, a woman pacing and radiating anger, and an old woman sitting serenely on a sofa.
Preston greeted me with, "Man, I don't know who you are but you really saved our butts."
"Glad to help." I said cautiously.
"Good, 'cause we could use some more." Preston explained they'd left Quincy with twenty settlers but only these five remained. they'd survived a feral ghoul attack and made it here and now they were trapped.
Sturges turned away from the terminal to explain they'd found a crashed vertibird with a suit of power armor in it on the museum roof. If we could get the armor and the minigun off the vertibird we could take out the rest of the raiders. And there were a lot of raiders, more coming. But we needed the fusion core that was running the building to power the armor so someone had to get into the basement to get it. Sturges was trying to unlock the door but the terminal wasn't cooperating.
The plan sounded… well, crazy, but I had no better one and I was now trapped with the five of them without enough ammo to shoot my way out. So we'd try it.
The three other survivors looked… it frightened me, how they looked. I asked their names and the young man just started crying, apologizing endlessly. The woman pacing like a caged animal paused to tell me how I was going to get them all killed.
You've met Jun and Marci—they run the caravan camp now, arranging schedules and locations so we know who's coming and where they are, and making sure there's security to protect the caravans from attack and theft while they're here. Finding a calling helped them get back on their feet, and having Maya helped a whole lot more.
Dogmeat had plopped himself down by the feet of the old woman with a scarf on her head. She looked up at me with pale strange eyes.
"He's your dog?" I hoped she'd say no, honestly. I'd really gotten attached to the guy in the few hours since I'd met him.
"Dogmeat? Oh no. He's a free spirit, what you call his own man. He chooses his friends and he chose you. He'll stick by you now. I saw it." Her voice was faded, like her eyes.
"Saw it?"
"It's the chems, kid. They give old Mama Murphy the sight. I can see what was… what will be… even a bit of what is, right now. And I see something is coming. It hears the shots, the shouting, and it's… angry. But I can't see what it is. Just—it ain't no raider." Her eyes were wide and she nodded sagely. I tried to ask what it could be, but she just reminded me that I had a job to do.
I didn't know what to make of Mama Murphy and her 'sight.' Honestly, Scribe, I still don't. She sometimes seems to know things—but she takes a lot more chems than I'd like. She says she's an old woman and can make her own choices and I can't really argue with that.
So I went down to the basement and found the fusion core and then it was time to find this power armor. Preston pointed me to the roof access and there it was. Just standing there, upright, like some kind of mummy or monster in a movie. It was old, rusty brown. I'd only ever seen power armor new and shiny marching in the Veteran's day parade. Never worn any, of course. Even Nate didn't wear power armor during his time as a soldier.
I passed it and climbed into the vertibird wreck. There was the minigun, looking a lot better preserved than the armor. And there were the raiders gathering down below. A lot of raiders. They started yelling and shooting the moment they saw me looking down from the roof.
I scrambled back and looked at the power armor, quite possibly me only hope at that point. I knew how to get in, from TV. The fusion core goes in the obvious port, then the back opens and step in. I did, and the armor locked closed around me. It smelled like rust and age, and was weirdly heavy with a slight lag as it moved with me. I climbed back through the crashed vertibird and wrenched the minigun off its mount. I tested the weapon by aiming down and turning a raider into red mist. My stomach lurched at the sight, even from that distance. I wanted the rest of them to run away. Badly wanted the rest of them to run. But they didn't, even after seeing what I'd just done to their comrade.
That feeling, it's been with me ever since, every time I face a band of raiders. I hate killing people. I've killed more than I can count and I always wish they'd just talk to me, or at least run away, something so I wouldn't have to kill them. But raiders almost never run, usually they're so hopped up on psycho I don't think it occurs to them.
So I had no choice but to wipe out these people, it was that or they'd kill us all. So I blasted as many of them as I could from the roof and then jumped down to hit the rest.
Jumping off the roof of a three story building managed to also be terrifying along with everything else that was terrifying me. I know Brotherhood knights jump out of vertibirds in their armor all the time, I've done it, but I hadn't done it then. I'd seen people on TV do it, soldiers doing stunts to show off the capabilities of the armor, but that's not much when you're looking down off a building.
I jumped anyway. Landed between two raiders who immediately opened up on me and adrenaline kicked in and the world narrowed to my targets.
The street shuddered under my armored feet.
I hardly noticed over the minigun roaring in my hands but suddenly the street tore open and this… thing climbed out. It was twice my height, hunched over, huge horns and claws. I saw it pick up a raider and toss him against a building. Then it came for me.
I remember every detail. It picked me up and slammed me into the ground, bit the leg of the armor, then turned to go after another raider, giving me just enough time to get up and aim the minigun at it. I poured bullets into the thing as it ran towards me. It finally fell, just before it would have fallen on me. I stumbled back, opened the blood-spattered power armor and fell out of it, and threw up bile in the street. The monster was still twitching but there wasn't enough left of it to get up again.
There were no more raiders. Between me and the monster the street was empty. I staggered back to the museum, slowly getting myself together. I did feel a weird sense of triumph on top of everything else. I had saved Preston and his friends, whatever else had just happened.
They were waiting in the museum lobby. Dogmeat ran up to me wagging his tail. Preston greeted me with, "That was a pretty impressive display. You saved our lives, Em."
"What are you all going to do now?" I asked, petting the dog and feeling instantly a little better. I ached from the weight of the armor, and I was hungry and thirsty.
"Mama Murphy's had visions of a place called sanctuary, an old neighborhood that we could make new! Why don't you come with us?"
Mama Murphy broke in, "You can help us! You need to stay strong—there's more to your destiny, I've seen it!"
"My destiny?"
"You are a woman out of time, out of hope. But I can feel your son's energy. He's alive!"
I didn't know whether I believed in Mama Murphy, but her words made the hair on my arms stand on end. "Shaun's alive? Where is he?'
"I wish I knew, kid. But I can't see him, just feel his life force, his energy. But I don't need the sight to know where you should start looking: the great green jewel of the Commonwealth, Diamond City! Maybe later you'll bring me some chems and I'll be able to see clearer."
Preston said, "Mama Murphy, we've talked about this, that junk's gonna kill you."
"Everybody's gotta die sometime. And we're going to need the sight, you and our new friend. Now let's go! Sanctuary awaits!"
It took a little longer to move out; Jun Long had collapsed again and Marci snapped at Mama Murphy about why they should believe visions somebody had while stoned out of her mind and Sturges had to calm her down.
"Sanctuary is real." I said, "Sanctuary Hills. It was my home."
Marci gaped at me, which was more satisfying than it should have been.
Preston said, "Well then, lead the way?"
