Vault Dweller
Chapter 8: Ch. 8 Corvega
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June 19th, 2047.
"Ice COLD LEMONADE! One dollar!"
They were eight years old when they were crying this out loud, both partially protected by a large sun umbrella as they walked up and down Nordhagen Beach pier, trying to interest all the locals or tourists walking around with a refreshing beverage.
Nate and Josh smiled idyllically, writing out everything they would need to make the sweetened juice from scratch.
Lemons, honey, water, ice, a big pitcher, a bunch of paper cups, table, and a sign.
They both licked their lips, trying not to dip into their sweet juice too much, and instead drank from their own water bottles. It was a hot June day for the normally temperate state. Sweat was accumulating, but with it, so did money. The sun beating down onto them and the throng of people coming to relax by the beach. Everything felt sticky, like the tar oils in the black pavement were starting to ooze from their pores, and cling to the sandals and flip-flops of any beach goer.
It was plenty busy, at least thirty people would walk by in ten minutes, and most of them didn't mind shelling out a dollar, even when there were stores all around selling the same thing. It was fresh, local, and the two kids made a great sales team.
Every once and a long while, the two friends would look behind them to the palm palapa on the beach.
The top of Nate's mother and father's heads were visible, otherwise blocked by the padded lounge chairs. They were both stretched out, enjoying the warm air, napping, or reading. Nate's mother was definitely reading, every minute or so, she would move her right arm across her body, turning the page to her book.
Next to her was Nate's father, and between them was the sandals they've taken off, a bottle of sunblock, and a metal pail full of six beer bottles and ice, all but two of them were empty.
Nate remembered the sound of ice churning, moving as either his mother or father reached down into the ice pail and grabbed themselves an Atlantico beer.
\111/
October 24th, 2287.
"Hello, Mama," Jared said. White stripes of paint were painted across his black face from right to left. His leather jacket and bandoleer was empty, all the contents set off to the side. On the top of his head was a black tight, shortcut mohawk.
Mama Murphy sneered, holding her face features steady. "Not much changed."
"We both know that isn't true. You don't even realize what type of opportunities you passed up disowning me."
"There was no one to take care of you, and I certainly didn't want your ball of hatred
"I will break you old woman." He responded immediately.
"I already need a chair, you're gonna need a lot more to break me more than my arthritis already has." Full of spite, she wasn't giving any edge to the twenty-year grudge match.
"Why do you hate me, woman?"
Mama Murphy wouldn't budge, holding an unblinking gaze for more than a minute.
"Fucking Twenty Years, Woman! I've had one truth denied to me in Twenty Years! Tell me, why did you Hate me?"
Mama Murphy inhaled and exhaled, humming, looking up, she held her arms out to the side.
Jared drew closer to the old woman, and without opening her eyes she spat a loogey of spit into Jared's face, "Haters gonna hate."
Jared balled his fist up and slammed it into the side of her forehead, knocking her and the chair over onto the ground.
Queezy, her head was shaking, "Hhah. Ghha ha hia ha ha ha...Your buddy is back from his little raid...heh. Thought he was dead..." She coughed, easing herself onto her elbows, she looked up. "...Here you go wanting to predict the future, hows that coming along? Got any chems around here? I'm getting the chills."
Jared looked down at her, nose flaring, and eyes squinting, focusing solely on her. Stomping out of the overseer's office of the Corvega assembly plant, he threw the doors open with both hands and shouted, "GO Check the Front!" The thirty raiders within shouting distance all head his demand and three of them immediately moved for the entrance to the plant, passing others and forming an armed squad as they moved to the showcase room at the front door.
"As for you, Yes...yes I do...One little kick and you're never coming down." Jared turned his back to her and went to a desk covered with the dirtiest, blackest, foulest looking glass equipment and butane burners.
Turning them up high, he yanked open a drawer and pulled out syringes filled with psycho and squirted their entire contents into a flask. Crossing the office, he went to another drawer and grabbed three syringes of Med-X, then returned to the flask and squirted everything in.
Mentants, crushed into a fine powder and scraped in.
Jet containers; emptied and broken into the drugged soup. Turned onto high heat, it was brought to a simmer and reduced down to a sickly brackish brown liquid and sucked up into a spent hypodermic needle syringe all the way to the top.
Holding it out in front of Mama Murphey, she didn't even blink.
"Last chance old woman."
"You only wish you didn't turn into a monster."
Jared forced her back into a chair and slammed the needle down into her left leg. Pushing half the liquid into her and then pulling it out, Her leg kicked out and then she groaned.
Licking her lips once, "Now that's some good shit. I'm gonna enjoy this, and there's nothing you can do about it."
\111/
Out onto the street, seven more raiders all with hunting rifles, and automatic pipe rifles were aiming down the street, when the message came back through the line.
"Gristle made it."
"He made it."
"Gristle's back."
"He's not dead."
"Gristle made it back."
"Where is he?"
"There, he's down the block."
"What's that behind him?"
"Oh shit! He better run! GRISTLE! RUN! Run your skinny ass! Run!"
The whole team of raiders was all shouting for him to run, and he picked up his limping pace into a staggering run.
Gristle was limping up the main road right to the Corvega plant, hips back, duck walking by swinging his left leg far out and bringing it down in front of him. A hobbling fast pace, swinging his arms wide, the pain on his face was excruciating. He was panting, chest heaving, head up he saw the line of raiders in front of him with their guns out and a few kneeling down to get a more stable firing position to gun down the ten ghouls behind him.
These feral ghouls were humans at one point in their long lives, their clothes were more colorful and identifiable to their gender, their faces and cheeks more pronounced, and their muscles were more toned and defined. Now all that remained of these humans turned feral ghouls through excessive amounts of radiation was atrophied limbs and the tatters of brown clothes stained heavily by dirt and grime.
Their snarling mouths and festering faces were worn down with rot and exposure.
There was no way of telling how old these ghouls were, some might be from two hundred years ago, others one hundred years ago, maybe even decades, but now their faces were lacking noses, their eyes were black or milky white. No conception of who they were or what they look like, only by the stringiness of the few strands of hair still clinging to their heads was any indication of either male or female. Radiation melted their faces, some skin bubbled out like blisters or so fallen away from the bone it was loose flaps of skin that was dried as hard leather.
"SHOOT!" Gristle yelled, veering to the right side of the road. Taking cover for only a second in a brick alcove entryway as the snarls and howls of ghouls were cut off by the chatter of gunfire. Gristle saw two with legs blown off as he vaulted himself onto the hood of a car.
Trash and blocks of building debris were piled up around the base of the car when one ghoul tried to swing at him.
Meathead ducked backward, only to realize that the ghoul didn't have any arms, only bleeding stumps at the shoulder blades. Meathead kicked the ghoul in the chest and sent it sprawling onto the street, and he was unable to get back up.
While he was busy dealing with the one, four more were groaning and snarling, making noise and attracting other still ghouls roaming the buildings of Lexington to take notice and be drawn to the noise.
Two growled, jumping at him with their arms outstretched, diving at him, and trying to tackle him to the ground. He rolled over the hood to the other side and put both feet underneath him and hastened his pace as more bullets raced overhead when suddenly a whistling noise filled the air.
Three raiders were waving their arms wildly and Meathead felt the alarm of fear hit him like a brick. He dove onto his belly, knocking the wind out of himself when,
In a hail of white light and hot flames and the stinging burn of radiation to everyone looking at the mini-nuke explosion.
A massive crater was all that was left of the street, taking out three cars, concrete on the sidewalk, and knocking over a lamp post along with some old telephone wires, but the ghouls were gone. Incinerated into ash.
"Fuck!" Gristle yelled, holding his hands to his ears, the ringing was loud and high pitched.
He made it to the front entrance with thirteen raiders all looking his beaten form over as he wobbled into the light of spotlights and trash can fires. He stumbled into one and pushed himself away.
Swaying upright, barely standing still on his own two feet, he shook his head and looked at the people talking to him. "I gan ear you." He pointed to his ears and shook his head.
Opening and closing his jaw, all the raiders turned their heads toward the double doors while a few clapped him on the back.
"Where've you been?"
Gristle turned his head quickly to the raider who spoke and his ears perked up,
"What?!" Meathead shouted, pressing one finger in his ear.
"How did you make it back?"
"What took so long?"
He moved forward, trying to wave people off and went straight for a first air kit bolted onto the wall. Flipping open the latch, the case swung down and he grabbed a stimpak out and pressed it to his neck.
"Gahhhhhh...ahhh...Mama. Ma. Ma." He shuddered, swinging back around to the group. "Do re mi fa so. Fa So. Okay...okay...I made it..." He exhaled heavily.
Digging one finger into his ear, trying to release the pressure and let go of the pain, his hearing came back slowly as the Stimpak worked throughout his body.
"So what the hell happened to you?" a woman asked.
"I got shot! Four times! twice in the chest, two in the leg. I went down like a brick and couldn't fucking breathe."
"We thought you were dead."
"I believe you. I was bleeding out, that's what I was fucking doing! When I came to, everyone was either dead or gone, and I was fucking sore! I dragged myself into the little hotel right there at the end of the block... found a stimpak laying under the front desk and pumped that into me real quick. Fucking felt cold as hell with all the blood I lost. I need to know, what the hell happened after I was out?"
"Few others and I stormed into the Museum to push the Minuteman and the other people in their group out onto the roof. They ran, but we got the fortune teller and their last guy. He's down below, while she's up with Jared. The other two got away. The guy in power armor was taken out by two Deathclaws."
"It took two Deathclaws to kill that guy!? What the fuck was that guy made of?" Gristle put the question out, sounding incredulous that the man who killed him, took so much effort to kill in return.
"All right." He said, shaking his head back and forth. "Where's the boss?" Pressing his hands into his eyes. " And, which guy did we grab? Which guy?"
"The Tinkerer."
\111/
Soliciting his way past the raiders around the exterior, people on the inside saw Gristle as he walked past like a ghost come back to life. Whether the Corvega plant raiders wanted to look at him or not, they cast side glances and peeked up from what they were doing to awe at or say unfavorable things about, the survivor.
Meathead was aware of everyone in the plant. He could feel the energies of people and living beings over long distances, and all of them were mirroring each other. This gave Meathead an average of what the overall mood of the Corvega plant raiders was, and how to act and walk, how to respond with
The interior of the plant entrance was furnished with a semi-circle desk, a low barricade, with all the people in here right now, one of them surely must be on guard. On the wall was the Corvega brand, in blue letters. Off to the right, at a passing glance were bathrooms. To the left was a rectangular desk, and along the back wall was a set of double doors.
Disguised as the dead raider, he spread his arms out, giving his fingers a wave to the outside, and a few raiders stepped back to clear a path for him. Taking in as many details as he could, almost all the raiders, both female and male wore small welding tanks strapped to their back, just above the waist. Less than a third of them carried coils of hose wrapped around their shoulder with a torch clipped onto the end.
Through the doors and passing old blue offices, the main hallway was blocked with a pile of cabinets, desks, and doors ripped from their hinges and all thrown down to keep potential enemies from punching their way straight through.
Being partially led, it was difficult to show that Meathead was still one of them, without admitting he didn't know his way around the car factory, so he walked slow. The layout was a tad confusing too, after going through a literal hole in the wall, flanked with broken boards and drywall peeling off in flakes, the slowly dispersing group of raiders moved into a grey concrete hallway, moving down steps into an employee's locker room. Most of the doors to lockers were ripped off, save a few that were beaten and smashed and warped to prevent them from closing properly.
The only way he could lead, without knowing the way was to gauge the emotional responses every second like a compass, if some dipped into confusion, he would change direction, keeping the thoughts in the back of his mind that the group behind him was mostly content and extremely high based off their relaxed shoulders, chin up, and squinted eyes.
To his left was an elevator, with a blinking yellow light and a Nuka-Cola vending machine, a large standing red box with the glass reach-in door busted in and devoid of all drinks. On the walls were Halloween decorations, and considering the date, it was October 24th, 2287, and the bombs fell October 23, 2077. Two hundred and ten years to the date and old Halloween decorations were still there. Only now, they were more plastered onto the wall and likely wouldn't come off.
That bummed him out, Meathead chewed on the inside of his cheek.
No Halloween this year.
That sent a chill down his hole spin, he stood up straighter and walked taller as the same realizations Nate experienced after walking through the door to his own home in Sanctuary Hills.
There was going to be no Halloween. Ever again. There would be no Thanksgiving. Ever. There would be no more Christmas or Hanukkah (Meihiam!), or even Ramadan for that matter.
There wouldn't be a New Years or even a passing mention of anything special happening on January 15th. No more valentines day, and there won't even be a Super Bowl! No Chinese New Year, and all of March, from Lent to Easter was now just a memory in the two survivor's brains. Goodbye St. Patrick's Day, Grateful Dead Day in April, Or Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May). And heck, they wouldn't ever go on another camping trip during Memorial Day weekend, or invite over all the family for a barbeque on Veterans Day. It silenced him. It made him think about all the good times he had, and then the memory of the year Nate and Nora missed Christmas came to mind.
The missed Christmas was something that only happened once, but Nate and Nora were both traveling, working, and had a little time off to celebrate, but their working lives demanded that they forego spending time at home, or their church meetup, or out with their families, and instead spend it working. Even though the firm Nora worked with wasn't technically open, there was a massive backlog of paperwork that she couldn't scan and fax back to the office, so she took everything home, do it there, and then drop it back off in the afternoon. Nora was working all of November and December, from November 21st, days before Thanksgiving, all the way to January 13th, with no days off.
Not a single day off, and the best she could do was take the morning of December 25th off but needed to work by 11:30.
That was four years ago, a terribly conservative Christmas where Nate sat on the couch, drinking a fifth of whiskey, face souring after every sip, from a British made China-teapot. He would put the teapot in the freezer, pull it out, fill up the teapot, and pour from it into a rocks glass with a big ball of ice. He sat there, watching Christmas TV specials, and then muted it. Leaning over the edge of the couch, from where he was sitting, Nate turned on the holotape player and looked at Meathead the rest of the night.
Meathead remembered the way Nate felt that night. Brooding. He was unsatisfied, and in retrospect, that was the closest Nate ever came to stumbling across this line of thinking.
'The dog knows.' the inebriated thought came to him. Nate took the realization like a sledgehammer to the chest. It took his own mind a few moments to roll the idea around in his head, but the way his dog looked at him and acted, it's like the dog always knew when they were happy, sad, angry, alone, overworked, stressed, or in need of some company.
Whenever Nate or Nora was alone and feeling stressed, Meathead would do the most dogged thing he could think of, and stand right next to them.
If they were sitting down, Meathead would brush up against their legs, and get them to realize that they weren't alone.
The touch of another being is the most sacred of things in different religions and cultures, that is why the handshake isn't a wildly accepted form of introduction, except in predominantly Caucasian countries.
Meathead would brush up against them, wag his tail, sit down on his read and look his eyes up while pointing his snout down, giving him the illusion of having much larger eyes.
Then, he waited, it was a moment of sheer joy and happiness when whatever project Nate and Nora were hunched over, consumed with, eventually, they would notice. The synapses would fire after the nerve endings sent back the message that the furry companion was touching their leg.
Meathead would lean into them, he used to get away with being held for a while disguised as an infantile puppy, but the German Shepard Nate ordered was two months old in the description, so when Meathead was deployed to the United States, he took the form of a small dog.
Meathead was used to looking forward to holidays, as a changeling disguised as a dog, these were the moments that would make everyone in the entire city happier. For a brief week, people weren't starving for what they really wanted or needed.
What did the people of 2287 have to celebrate? Everything was set in place and left as it was from centuries ago, and they were locked in the week before Halloween.
How many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of old decorations are still up?
In the time it took to take two steps, Meathead sighed, realizing how much the bombs dropping on October 23rd meant for the rest of civilization.
Whenever humans or any sentient race finds ruins of the pre-existing civilization, they look over everything. The ruins, the carvings, the things that were in place, and then the discoveries are absorbed into the present day society.
Meathead's mind lingered on the thought of how the humans of today wouldn't realize that the Halloween decorations were meant to come down. That there was supposed to be an ushering of winter months and traditions, and they wouldn't know.
Maybe some did, maybe some old Christmas stories or legends were passed down, maybe some symbols of a holiday both Nate and Meathead looked forward to still existed.
Up another set of stairs, the group of now five raiders were in the assembly area of the plant. Directly to the front, and left of him were catwalks, ramps, and stairs leading higher up into the plant, while on the ground floor was heaps of machinery. A few females wore welding masks and were tearing the old metal apart with small welders, cutting out square plates.
Surrounding them were large metal shelves with moldy boxes filled with car parts and tools. Headlights, gauges, tires, seats, and shoved against the walls were seven yellow car diagnostic tool stations. Stripped for parts and anything useful, he saw most tools were carried on belts by the raiders, their rusted and chiseled tips were flaking, but the ends were shaped into fine points for stabbing, or in the case of wrenches, tacked on metal gears to make it heavier.
Everywhere Meathead went disguised as Gristle, he felt barely contained hostile emotions. Everyone was on the verge of going ballistic, it was only through a very slim, mutual distrust of others that the raiders inside the Corvega plant found common ground.
Better to be the one making demands, than on the receiving end of a raid.
"Gristle! LONNIE! GET THE FUCK UP HERE NOW!" Jared's voice roared throughout the Corvega plant.
Meathead picked up his pace and eyed a few signs pointing up the catwalks that read 'Administration <---'
"So what the fuck happened to you?" A woman bumped into him, keeping pace as they walked upwards to the main office where the supposed Jared was. Slowing down a fraction of a degree, the woman took the lead while Meathead followed.
"While we were attacking the Museum, a band of haywire robots rolls through town, a sentry bot at the head of the pack, with some protectrons and eyebots following." Gristle scratches the top of his head and recalls the memory. "The sentry bot spits bullets and rockets up and down the streets, so we take cover. That's when some guy in a blue vault suit walks right into town. He comes down, and a few of our men shoot at him, but he makes it past us, putting himself between the sentry bot, and us. The Minuteman is using the sentry bot as fire cover, he's shooting down at us from the balcony. The vault dweller blows up the sentry bot and runs in. We move closer, regroup, and are about to push into the Museum when at that point, one of their guys gets a suit of power armor working and a minigun. It's all downhill from there.
I get shot four times. It hurt and it sucked. I found a stimpak to keep me from bleeding out, and some drugs to get me on my feet, but I said fuck everything else, and came back here."
"Hrmph" She hummed through her nose. "You missed the big welcome back party for the others,"
"Oh? A party, lad dee dah, that almost makes me wish I wasn't shot by some asshole toting a minigun and wearing power armor." Gristle complained.
"Who was the guy wearing the power armor?" She asked, turning her head over her shoulder to look at Gristle's eyes.
"I heard it was the vault dweller."
"What makes you say that?" Lonnie asked, the catwalks took them to the second floor, forty feet above the main floor, where the assembly line with cars in different states of completion sat. Yellow mechanical arms were locked into place, still trying to complete their task.
"Because someone just told me a Deathclaw carried off a guy after it ripped him out of the power armor."
"Hrm...Interesting." She hummed again. "Well, you made it. Are you going out again soon?"
"After I catch my breath and see what Jared's yelling about, I'm taking off as soon as I am able. I...I..." Meathead grunted, clearing his throat. "I need some time to think about some things after a day like that, it was intense."
"He keeps pushing buffout and psycho onto me..." She said, flexing her wrist and rolling them.
Meathead kept silent, her emotions shifted to a sense of longing and unfulfilled needs. She looked up to her right, and then down at him.
"Know anyone else who would want to go on a little outdoor trip with you?" She shook her head, right arm trembling. Meathead wasn't given a chance to respond. "It makes me so fucking angry that everyone here is so fucking hooked on Jared's stash! He keeps making chems and everyone is getting so fucking lazy! GOD DAMNIT!" She lashed out, punching a steel girder. Her fist thunked against the steel and it rang for a few seconds.
"MOTHER!!! MOTHER, I HEAR YOU!!! MOTHER!"
Lonnie and Gristle looked up to the highest office with bars over the windows, and missing glass, to where the old woman's wails were originating from and then they picked up their pace.
"MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, OHM MA NI!"
\111/
The old woman was locked on the ground with her hands over her ears, prostrated against the ground, bending backward and thrashing against the ground. Her mouth was open and agape, her eyes staring up at the ceiling, while Jared stood over her and watched.
"So Mama, what else do you have to say for me?"
Breathing through her teeth and sputtering spit through her lips, she gasped and hyperventilated. Her turban was untangled, letting down her short messy grey and white hair. She would slam her fist on the ground, trying to stay in this reality as the drug cocktail ran its course.
"!" Her eyes tried focusing on Jared, but her mouth gaped like a fish out of water, trying to remember how to breathe.
Her body went rigid and she dug her fingernails into the ground, lifting her back off the ground, while her shoulders were still pinned down to the ground by her own will.
" TARTARUS!" She panted, breathing heavily, in and out, in and out. Her chest rising and falling, heart hammering
"ICE....Y" Her left arm went over her chest and she shivered.
"FANGS!" Mama Murphy snarled. "!" Rolling her ankles, and rocking over to her side she exhaled through her mouth and nose, burning up. "MaaacnamaraAAA! MA! The killer!" She yelled, flinging a hand and pointed a gnarled finger towards the door at the door where Gristle and Lonnie stood, watching with trepidation on their faces.
"Who is the killer?" Jared tilted his head up and to the ceiling, trying to ascertain the meaning of the words coming from her mouth.
"What did you do to her?" Lonnie asked, moving forward as Mama Murphey continued to yell and shout incoherently.
"A little prick, just enough to get her premonition services going. But, she's no longer a problem, what I need to know, is who, who is the killer?" Jared asked them, Meathead disguised as Gristle stood at the door frame with locked knees.
"What killer?"
The air in the room was foul, not hot, nor cold, nor reeking of burnt chems, which it was, but tainted. The type of air that leads you to believe a murder happened in this room, such foul air tinged with emotions of hate that stained the walls and imprinted on others who entered this room.
Meathead treads lightly as he took a few steps in, eyes on Jared, Lonnie, and the prone form of Mama Murphy.
"MA KILLER!" Head twitching and shaking like an overused muscle, she drew in a long raspy breath and wheezed. She put her hand against her right eye, and traced a line with her pointer finger down the outside of her eye, to the lips.
"MA IN THE SQUARE.... IN SQUARE." She moaned, hammering the word 'In'. She rose her hand and dropped it when she specifically said that word.
"Jared, you got something for us, or do I need to keep listening to this old lady scream and bitch and moan?" Gristle asked, arms folded across his chest.
Jared walked across the room, eyes locked with him, tapping Lonnie on the shoulder, as he stepped out onto the catwalk and shut the door behind them. The noise wasn't hampered with the shot out windows.
"How did you get back? I spoke with three people who said they saw you die."
"I was shot! Of course, they thought I was dead!" Gristle said, pulling up his shirt.
"One here, two here, and one more here!" He said, pointing to his chest and leg. "I went out like a bitch! Wham! Woke up hours later, crawled half a block to a rinky-dink hotel and found some stims, thank FUCK! And that's it! Everything else was me getting back here!"
"What took you so long?"
"It wasn't easy getting back, alone. I took the long way around avoiding anything and everything, because walking back alone is a lot harder without a big group. With all the noise we were making the other day, ghouls were coming out of everywhere. I came across packs of two and three ghouls, after the third one I said fuck that and went through the fields. Then, when I was coming back in, there's even more of those fuckers by the Supermart. Even after I got past them, ten more showed up right outside the front door to this place!" Meathead came off strong.
"And what are your plans now?"
"My plans now? Get some food! Get some chems, take a shit, and then figure out where the all the caravans are running off
to!"
"Tell me about the attack on Concord. What really happened?"
Meathead inhaled, expecting this from the top-dog boss."We were moving on the Museum of Freedom, and a group of roaming robots is moving through town, fighting and blasting everything in sight. We lose five or so men trying to kill the sentry bot."
"That was the shitter."
"It's got the minigun going, it's got the missiles launching off, and it's just blasting holes in everything. Can't poke your head up for more than a second before the giant thing just comes bulldozing down the road, coming straight for you. To top it off, the black guy is taking shots from a laser musket off a balcony on the top floor." Meathead took it slow, thinking about the words he spoke, and making sure that the details were factual but broad.
"Not only did they have the high ground, but they also had the low ground, and the robots weren't interested in going inside."
"We unload into the sentry bot and it's turning white scalding hot. Everywhere we moved, the Minuteman is just waiting for us to step out into the open."
Meathead shook his head at Jared and looked down at the ground for a moment. "Then... Some guy and his dog show up and starts taking shots at us too! No fucking clue where the hell he came from, but he gets past us and blows up the sentry bot with a grenade." Meathead gestured with both hands up towards the ceiling.
Still shaking his head, trying to express his disbelief at how quickly Nate arrived on the scene, "He runs in, and we're running in after him. That was where things got even tenser because we don't know where the heck this guy was hiding inside! Less than ten minutes later, boom, there he is in Power Armor with a minigun."
"The Fucking fuck was armed with a mini-gun and things were just FUCKED." He said, crossing his arms and waving them outwards.
Gristle exhaled loudly, "It turns from a shit storm to a full-blown hurricane of shit in every direction when a deathclaw pops out of the sewers. Damn Deathclaws."
"FuuUUCK!" Meathead's voice rose in pitch while saying the word, his entire body shivered. Meathead was focusing all his attention on reading Jared's emotions, becoming the actor who wants to show the director what it was like to take the role of a second in command raider, who was shot dead and lost most of his men. Jared was finally feeling convinced, he even saw it too as his shoulder's relaxed almost an inch.
The guy in power armor shoots me, and," turning his right hand up and spreading his fingers out, "then...I don't know. Pain. Lot's of intense pain."
Jared's jaw went back and forth against his teeth, grinding them and chewing on the story Meathead told.
"I heard he was wearing a blue vault suit," Jared said.
Gristle nodded. "The only Vault I know of is the one to the south of here where they still wear those things."
Jared and Lonnie nodded, "Vault 81." Lonnie said, "They stick inside, and I ain't hear of any of them ever going out."
"Doesn't matter if you heard of a Vault-boy leaving the vault if they are sending people out, it means they need scrap or ammo...or meds. Whatever doesn't matter. Should we go be real neighborly and see if we can find out if it was one of them?"
"No, we'll deal with them soon enough. That vault is fortress compared to this concrete box if we want it, we'll need more numbers again."
"How many people are we down to?" Gristle asked.
"Forty. With another thirty out roaming around Lexington and over towards Malden." Jared turned around and opened the doors, Mama Murphey was still on the floor, eyes rolled back into her head, and chest rising and falling very quickly. Jaw moving, she shouted herself unconscious.
Jared went to his desk, and Meathead saw a Grognak the Barbarian comic on the desk too, Jared yanked open a drawer with only an old plastic pen rolling around with some lint and dust balls and then slammed it shut. Crossing the room, he went to an ammo box and reached in, grabbing a whole handful of Mentats and Jet and then putting it into Gristle's hands.
"Go. Find more men, offer them drugs, send them back here. Mama Murphy isn't broken yet. Lonnie, stay for a minute if you would." The veins on Lonnie's arms shifted, and Meathead could feel the fear radiating off her.
"I'm gonna need her for a recruiting drive-" Meathead tried to get the other raider out of what would amount to be a free-ride, with some hefty after effects.
"I'll have her find you when we're done." Jared's eyes went from Gristle to the door. Gristle turned around and passed Lonnie looking at him with the muscles in her neck tensing.
She was angry that Jared was keeping her here, she was scared and fearful for what going to happen, disgruntled that Gristle couldn't do more to get her out of it, and bitter that she chose to stay here.
Meathead could feel every emotion, Jared's dark pleasure, the scattered emotions of Mama Murphy, and the fear from Lonnie. It made him sick.
It made Meathead so sick, from trying to mentally phase out the sea of negative emotions Corvega was in. It was like entering a room with extensive mold. He could breathe, shallowly. He could stand the stench of hot spores, but his head was swimming in a growing migraine. Wishing for a buffer, Meathead stood still and leaned one hand out against an iron girder stretching far up into the ceiling, with plenty of catwalks and structures all connected to this one support.
He needed a gas mask, a buffer, something to keep him from sucking in all the things that tried to eat and fester inside the changeling. Meathead thought, he needed Nate.
\111/
Meathead found Sturges, the two raiders loosely guarding him exhibited an air of superiority over him, while the man himself didn't exude any emotions whatsoever. This soured Meathead's expression, the man sitting in a makeshift cell of an office was emotionally dead as cold metal, but the expression on his face was resentment.
"Beat it, I need to grill him for info." He commanded, the two raiders looked up and across at him, and rolled their eyes, standing up and moving off.
Swinging a folding chair around, and pulling it up to the half broken door, he peered over the chipped and broken edge to the man inside.
"Sturges."
He sat against the wall, stripped of his top shirt with his head in between his hands.
"Do you know how an interrogation works?"
Sturges didn't move.
"How is it that a man can express emotion, but for the life of me, I can't feel or sense a single thing coming off of you? You look beaten as hell, but where's the hot face? Where's the anger in your eyes? Where's the methodical planning happening just below the surface? You said you were a mechanic, but I want to know...what in this cold world makes a man look like a man, talk like a man, walk like a man, think like a man, make friends like a man, but is not a man?"
Gristle leaned back, waiting and watching as Sturges leaned in. "I ain't-a synth."
He tisked, the man sitting in front of him was emotionally dead as the metal he was made from. "Never said that you were, heck, you said it yourself. Your actions speak louder than words, you stayed with the old lady. So what do you think happened to your friend, Preston?"
"Like I would even know. They all jumped from the Museum to the church and took off running. That was the last I saw of them."
"And they didn't shout where they were going? No, 'If we get separated, let's meet here?'"
Meathead cringed internally. He felt like he was talking to a literal brick wall. He couldn't 'see' Sturges the same way he saw humans. Sturges wasn't taking any emotions in, nor releasing them, so Meathead couldn't tell what type of emotions he was displaying.
It made for a surreal experience, a pounding realization in his skull that this is what it must be like to be truly human. He relied on his thousand pupils to take in every small detail of Sturges' face and neck. Hoping the man would give away any sort of tell, a sign he was lying.
It was the old-fashioned way, Meathead tittered to himself. Sturges' throat seized up, and Meathead noticed.
"Let's see, you came from Quincey...that must mean you're headed North..." All eyes were on Sturges as he silently sat there, telling Meathead everything he needed to know from a small twitch of the cheek.
"Camped out in the Super Duper Mart, I just came from there, not the smartest idea. And Then you go to Concord...my oh my...I may not be the sharpest knife on the rack, but I sure know how to cut through all the bullshit and see a pattern happening." Meathead boasted.
"North and West." Stuges squinted at him.
"Anywhere but here. Keep running until we look behind us and don't see any of you for a dozen miles." Sturges leaned back, crossing his arms.
"Now come on now, that sounds like you had a nice spot all picked out, a little sanctuary, a little slice of heaven all lined up."
Sturges' lips curled, and Gristle nodded.
"Sanctuary." He repeated, watching Sturges' right eyelash flick. "That's all I need to know. Don't worry about your friends, we'll get you out of here, sooner or later, and see about this whole synth thing."
Meathead stood up and scooted away from the cell, turning around and walked off. Meathead expected that Sturges would think he's just blowing smoke at him, saying things just to get a reaction, which he was.
\111/
Doing a mental count of the people at the Corvega plant, the number given to him was fairly accurate, twenty-eight people wandering around inside the factory, with half a dozen outside in the shipping yard, and a dozen in ramparts above the factory. Meathead walked up the ramparts to the highest point in the factory and looked out over Lexington and Concord, looking southeast towards Cambridge and then the skyline of Boston, how the giant red Massachusetts Energy skyscraper was still visible from such a long distance.
Exterior lights light up the other smokestacks, with a giant red neon sign reading CORVEGA on the side that would blink in succession of the letters being spelled out, then the whole word would blink twice before staying on for a few seconds.
C
O
R
V
E
G
A
CORVEGA, the sign lit up and blinked twice before going dark out, and Meathead stood at the top, looking down and watching the other humans patrol the car factory.
"<Fucking Ads.>" He said to himself, trying to pin all the unexplained emotions and thoughts running through his head onto one single reason.
Cold droplets of water touched his arm, and he shook, the unexpected drop in temperature made him look up to the skies briefly before looking back down at the ground, and then after the wind picked up, he noticed movement so small, it was like the twitch of a finger. On the flat railing, knocking its head forward and backward was a small bobblehead, different than the one Nate picked up, and he remembered the sense of clarity that came to him after reading the inscription and likewise did the same.
"Why go down with the ship when you can fix it?"
"<Why go down with the ship when you can try to fix it?>"
Meathead looked around at the gantry, furrowing his brow upwards and then back down to the factory beneath him.
"<Because I'm scared of the ship going down before it can be fixed...>," He said, rolling his eyes back and stretching his arms out wide. Basking in the rain for a moment, he shoved the bobblehead into his pocket and stood on the second landing leading back down into the factory, ears tensing with the patter of every raindrop falling onto his coat.
"<BUM bhum Bum bum ba bhum bah...BUHM BUM BUHHH Ohhhoh Love Hurts...Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain. Love Hurts...oooh hoo Love Hurts.>" He sung to his lonesome self, it was loud enough outside from the blowing wind, and the patter of rain that made him difficult to hear.
\111/
Moving back down inside, he sniffed the air and relished the breeze being brought in behind him. He grabbed the closest thing he could use for a bag and found a burlap potato bag, with a few small worn holes in it, and the thread coming undone, it was a temporary necessity for what Meathead planned to do next.
The skeletons, Meathead realized, trying to mentally block them out wherever he saw them. He didn't grow up in an environment where skeletons were part of a changeling's daily life.
Corpses, occasionally, from the average Changeling from simply dying, or wasting away from starvation, but those were always removed to be recycled. Their bodies would undergo a complete atomic structure breakdown after death. Their bodies would dry out, essentially, and the organs and the limbs would rot and fester away until the chitin skeleton was soft enough to really deteriorate.
Deep below the ground, attempts at changeling farming were very practical, and the dead bodies of other changelings Meathead saw were either buried, and turned over later like compost, or burned and their ashes scattered among the fungal forest.
The idea was that when changelings are born, they are given a little bit of energy and in the end, they must give it all back.
Seeing the bodies rot in here, with only the metal pipes beneath them for their bodies to dissolve into, made a sour note in Meathead's mind.
\111/
All the raiders in the Corvega factory were gearing down or lighting up. The emotions that rolled through the building were cooled or being shouted at him at from a group that was too drugged up and high. The emotions coming from the raiders after they were high were like sound waves, some at a higher frequency, some at a lower frequency, some baritone, and other's a belch of all emotions at once. The latter was what it was like to someone who could physically sense emotional energy, and feel it from a man or woman who was high.
They were happy, sad, remorseful, humble, angry, and it threw Meathead through a loop as to what the predominant emotion was, all flowing out at him at the same time. The only raiders still awake at this time of the night, especially after the rains started, were the ones standing guard outside, Mama Murphy, she was channeling otherworldly emotions, from different planes of existence, and Meathead didn't want to feel any part of that. Along with six other raiders, he could practically pick them all out. The rest were asleep, and it was nearly impossible to get the jump on Meathead. Feeling emotions from other beings were like having eyes pointed in every direction, all he needed to do was focus.
Being able to sense with such efficiency, Meathead wandered the factory freely, stepping over the bodies of sleeping raiders, he grabbed everything he thought would be of some worth, and stuffed it inside the potato sack, and kept moving.
These were the same group of people who tried killing them yesterday, and Meathead felt no reserves about grabbing stacks of Mentats, or vials of Jet off tables, or Buffout tablets, or even cooked up syringes of Psycho.
Meathead licked his lips and shivered when he found an untouched needle that read 'Med-X. Morphine Substitute.' in black, blocky letters. 'Comm. by UNITED STATES GOVT. 1 DOSE. WARNING: MAY BE ADDICTIVE.' It was still wrapped in shrink-wrap plastic inside of a clear plastic case, Meathead put that one into his coat pocket and kept moving on.
Forming a mental map was difficult, with how the building was separated into two different parts, connected by a choke point on the third floor, only accessible from the catwalks. The assembly area, where most raiders were carrying around welding tanks, were now piled against two large tanks, ready to be refilled.
The parts manufacturing looked more untouched than the other portion of the building as if the raiders were going around looking for good locations to set up in, and they saw the Corvega plant as a model home for an entire suburb-furniture and furnishings, and said 'this is the one'.
But, untouched didn't mean that there weren't plenty of things there. There were random piles of junk, and it took Meathead a few moments to realize that none of it was from the actual factory.
All of it looked scavenged, or...ripped from someone's dead hands. The phrase 'over my dead body', came to mind, and it looked like the raiders were more than kindly enough to oblige people on that phrase, and loot their corpse.
Everything that looked important for construction was tossed into a yellow crate, from power tools to limbs of construction Securitrons.
The bundles of clothes were what tipped Meathead off to him realizing that this was the dumping ground for all their raids.
Stacks of worn shoes, bundles of clothes, even half a dozen vault suits all cinched down tight with two leather belts, crossing each other to form a plus sign and keep the old rags contained.
Meathead felt the clothes, rubbing them between his fingers, feeling the fabric and the blood and sweat that went into it by the people who wore it. There was the stench of a working man in these clothes, the smell of people who are busy and awake for three days straight, and the rest. There was a slight mildew, and sour smell, along with the negative energy about it. Meathead imagined the last thought anybody had while wearing these clothes were about how they were going to die.
Meathead left the clothes behind and wandered over to a bin full of shiny integrated circuit boards, motherboards, bundles of rusted wire, capacitors, diodes, and gold circuits. He felt that there was value to them, but didn't know what they were for. A few he recognized as Mr. Handy hardware chips, from when Nate and Nora first assembled Codsworth. From there, Meathead pawed through them, seeing if he could make out any of the labels that separated the Mr. Handy's from the Mr. Gutsy's, the Securitrons from the Assualtrons, and the eye bots from the sentry bots. The rest were all beyond him, and after two minutes, Meathead realized he still didn't know what he was really looking at and grabbed one of each.
The gold caught his eye, and it reflected the light in the darkness with a small glint of brightness.
Taking the sack full of goodies picked up from around the Corvega plant, he avoided completely or walked by less sentient raiders too busy inebriating themselves on Whisky to care.
Departing the parts assembly area, Meathead wandered into a deserted office space that didn't have any raiders sleeping on the available bedroll, laid out next to a working computer monitor.
Sitting down in the rolling office chair, it squeaked loudly as he leaned back and looked down at the small script in the top left corner of the computer screen.
"If you ain't Gristle. Don't go fucking touch my stuff." It read poetically.
Standing up, everything around him in this room once belonged to Gristle, and now he has free reign to take every can of beer, every bottle of liquor, and the entire storage closet set aside with a personal stash of ammo, handguns, and dried beans and legumes.
Putting one hand to his stomach, 'Soon'. He said, taking the dried food with him. The last thing Meathead noticed was the wall calendar from 2077, the Boston Red Sox spring and summer schedule was posted within, along with pictures of the All-Star players from the team line up, and great action shots. The calendar was still set to September 2077. Written in black felt pen on September 30th was "D.C. or Bust!" and the Boston Red Sox were playing against the Washington Nationals.
Then it went into postseason games.
Meathead reached out, flipping the calendar up, and sure enough, there were notes and annotations on the month of October.
October 18th, D. B-day.
October 21st. Dinner w/Mike and Vanessa.
October 24th World Series Game One.
October 25th World Series Game Two
October 26th World Series Game Three
October 27th World Series Game Four
October 28th World Series Game Five
October 29th World Series Game Six
October 30th World Series Final Game
October 31st, Halloween Party Boston Ravens Vs. Cincinnati Bengals
Meathead flipped it to the next page.
"November 24th, Thanksgiving."
and then the last page after that.
"December 21st. Family Dinner
December 24th, Christmas Eve Mass
December 25th, X-mas."
The bare mention of a holiday made Meathead smile at the small paper calendar.
\111/
Covering his face with his right hand for a moment, he took longer to wipe his face off and rub his eyes. Marching down the gallantry way, rounding the corners of the building, until he was standing at the yellow framed door with two blue double doors leading in.
Walking straight to Jared's office, the man in question wasn't there, and Mama Murphey was lying propped up against the wall, mumbling through her lips, and a dazed, drained, empty look in her face and body. Dragging her to a bed, and then covering her entirely with a tarp, he made sure she was covered for what he planned to do next.
Taking two aluminium soda cans, and a bottle of antifreeze from off the floor, he went to the chemistry station, a pile of glass beakers bearing shows of heavy use and abuse, gnarled black and chunky from previous residues, Meathead blanched and held back vomit in his throat from the smell of things, and mashed some of the flowers he'd picked off of dead raiders into a bowl with the anti-freeze and some dirty water before putting it into the can.
The next part, Meathead had to constrict his neck and wait as a lump traveled up his throat, from his stomach, and into his mouth. Gagging a bit, he regurgitated what appeared to be a large blood-red egg yolk, and spit it into the can.
Sealing it with glue adhesive, and then shaking it as his life depended on it. The sides of the can express and bulged. Setting the can next to the door, he pulled out his handgun and went to one knee, laying the barrel of his gun on his arm, and bringing the glow sights in line with the bulging can, he waited.
\111/
Two hours passed and Meathead never took his eye off the door for even a second, head tucked real low, he did close his eyes and wait for the thumping of stairs on the metal catwalks when his eyes opened, and he needed to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't imagining the noise. His pistol was already ready, just one more moment, and Jared walked in with two other raiders behind him when he fired.
Two hours spent with your eyes locked onto a target, and the barrel aiming straight down the sights, Meathead didn't miss.
The gas-filled half of the room and spilled out into the hallway, dousing the three men in a fine red mist. Jared searched for the gunshot and other raiders from the production line floor also heard the noise and were coming to investigate. Rubbing his eyes, he bent over and yelled. Then the other two raiders arms shook as if they were carrying something immensely heavy, heavy enough to make their arms give out and knees collapse.
One raider collapsed to the floor, the other leaned against the door frame and heaved, panting to try and clear the thick mucus build up. Jared planted both feet wide and inhaled and exhaled, each breath growing faster and faster as his back straightened out and hands balled into fists.
Shaking, Jared's eyes opened wide as the pupils expanded, then shrunk down into small pricks, gasping for air, he pivoted on his left foot and charged the closest raider, still leaning against the door. Howling, Jared attacked him with fists and kicks, when the others arrived to investigate the noise, and the man on the ground leaped up and charged them.
Jared pulled out a knife and stabbed the blindsided man in the throat, chest, stomach, and then chest again as the others shouted, trying to get anyone's attention to come to save him. Dealing with the third man by giving him a hard shove, sending him tripping over his own heels and tumbling down onto the ground, only for him to get up, gnash his teeth, shout and charge again.
Jared slashed the man's neck, and gripped his body with both arms and raised the raider above his head, then heaved him through the already broken window.
The remains of the glass shards broke free from the lower part of the frame, but by now, the noise had awoken enough raiders for them to come and witness their boss losing it.
Lonnie unclipped her pistol, the black box raising up to the frenzied man's chest and fired as he swung his fists wide, thrashing and only wanting to inflict pain on others.
The catwalk was cramped as Jared turned towards the knife, pulling out the bloody knife from the second man's chest, and then turned to the group of seven that came to investigate. More people were looking up from the ground floor, also wondering what was happening. Then Jared leaned his weight onto his heels and charge the seven with a knife pointed straight at them.
Several pops of gunfire erupted from the group, and the blood splattered outwards behind him, blasting the catwalk and walls with droplets of blood.
Jared shrieked and swiped once at the closest person when the entire group fired again, the second volley of gunfire ripping the former gang leader apart. A few kept firing even after Jared was dead on the ground. He didn't even have time to contemplate why he felt so much unholy fury and rage, right before dying, like he was cheated.
\111/
Huffing and panting, Meathead teleported in a flash of green fire, arriving in a small cramped corridor with a hole in the wall, leading to an alternate route out of the plant. Teleporting exhausted him as much as running the same distance almost instantaneously.
This whole in the wall leads to a room filled with pipes larger than he was tall, and one of them was broken in and shattered. A machine gun turret was pivoting back and forth, and with some effort, he picked it up, heaving at its weight and carried it in front of him as two ghouls trudged through the pipe and snarled. The machine gun turret picked up their movements and fired, cutting them down in short controlled bursts, and after sensing no more life in the area, he abandoned the turret, facing away from him, back down the pipe, and fled the Corvega plant.
The path was lined with feral ghouls, lost in the pipes that were awakened by the noise and clatter. They tried lunging for Meathead as he ran by, coming within centimeters of the changeling fleeing in the absolute darkness. He flew and stopped when the pipe chase came to a cross-section, and a two dead Deathclaws were laying on their sides, and worse, they were crawling with maggots.
Meathead was repulsed at the sight more than the smell, it didn't bother him, but the maggots were the size of baseballs and reminded him of an equally terrifying fear.
That they looked like tiny Changeling grubs mutated by war and radiation. The idea made Meathead shout out in disgust.
Panting, he looked at the growing infestation and willed energy into his obsidian-colored horn. The air in the sewer tunnels grew brighter, and their dead skin grew warmer. Smoking, Meathead shouted as both Deathclaws caught fire. The flames spread slowly across their entire body. Hovering through use of his wings, Meathead flew away from the burning Deathclaws.
Meathead followed the main line out of the plant. His sense of direction told him he was somewhere under the streets by now, and then the obvious hole where the Deathclaws first came was like a skylight. He paused before poking his head up, focusing, feeling out who was around him, and only felt the echoes of emotions trapped inside ghouls, blocks away and of no threat to him. Into the streets where he continued running, it was nearly five in the morning, and after making it two blocks, he flew above the tops of houses and saw the world from a perspective only so few creatures get to experience. The world was chaotic, twisted, mashed up, bleeding out, and being sucked dry.
'How the hell can you fix all this?' Meathead thought. 'This ship has sunk.'
Chatters of gunfire filled the air from the Corvega plant behind him, as the raiders pinned the blame on others for what happened, and the quickly escalating fight to become Corvega's new leader.
Next Chapter: Ch. 9 Starlight Drive In Estimated time remaining: 35 Hours, 16 Minutes Return to Story Description